Fallout Equestria: Falling Shadows

by Drako Moon

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Fallout, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Princess Luna, Original Character, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 1470203

See the world of the Equestrian Wasteland through the eyes of Shadow Star, the small unicorn as she goes through the wasteland in seach of her long lost mother, and the secrets of the old War.

Fallout Equestria: Falling Shadows by Drako Moon and Stardust Night is told through the eyes of Shadow Star, a stable dweller turned package courier after escaping from Stable 28 and her deranged Overmare. While trying to uncover the confusing secrets from her and her mother's past, she finds new friends and foes alike, beware The Seven Sins of Equinity. With the help of her friends she'll fight with all she's got against The Enclave and their Sins, the mysterious Ministry, and the various gangs, cults, and raiders spread across what's left of Western and Midwestern Equestria. Just remember to always knock on wood for good luck.

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FallingFallout

If you'd like to support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/equestrianexpress

We Also want to give special thanks to Kkat and Somber both for giving us copyright permission to write this story, and special thanks to Plagen Shiki and Morning Star Productions for reading the audiobook on their YouTube channels.

Morning Star Productions: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwz4xAEfU2lo-cxlFJpfDUvJaKyTNfE6t

Plagen Shiki: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmiga3MtcuZPCFk8ubNwShCTE_9aD0nVq

Published 2016-10-19 23:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-09-13 05:29:39 UTC

Chapter 2: Take It On The Run

“You’ll have to try. Now quickly, what did you want to know?”

When the stable door closed I found myself in utter darkness. I expected to walk out into the light of day, like I’ve read in books, or at least something like that. Did the war destroy the sun, or with the Goddesses dead, did the sun just not rise anymore? I remember Auntie telling me about the Goddesses and how the two sisters would raise the sun and the moon every day and night. I started to shake at the thought of a world in darkness.

After a minute went by, I got my head on a little tighter and started thinking a little clearer. It couldn’t be, the world had to have something more than darkness. I’m more likely in a cave or something. I knew I had to start moving, I couldn’t stand next to the stable door forever. I broke the switch to get out, but I had no idea how long it would take to fix it. It could take days or months, but it could also take only a few minutes.

[DING]

Looking down at my Pip-Buck, I’d just got a notification, more than one I could see. It seems I’ve just discovered Stable 28… "Well good for me, I thought I'd never find it," I said sarcastically to no one in the dark because I was probably already losing my mind. There was something else about not activating something. So I clicked on it…Eyes Forward Sparkle and Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell have not been activated, would you like to do so?

[Yes]

[No]

This was something I did know about Pip-Bucks. Auntie and Balefire both told me about it a while ago. E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. I clicked on yes and watched it do the set-up.

Knowing what something is, I came to find out, is WAY different than experiencing it. Once the Pip-Buck finished the set-up, my vision went blurry then everything came into focus a second later, only now I could see a small compass on the bottom of my vision. “Whoa, that’s trippy,” I said to myself.

I looked back at my Pip-Buck and pressed a small switch with a flashlight on it. I had to look away as the screen got extremely bright, I pointed it forward. When my eyes finally adjusted to the light I saw that my prediction about being in a cave was correct. I looked around saw I was in a long cave that slowly made its way upward, turning slightly.

I can feel the fear of the unknown slowly growing in my gut, but I took a deep breath and started to walk forward. My Pip-Light helped keep me on the right path and washed my fear away as I moved. If I didn’t have this, I don’t think I could’ve kept going. I didn't walk for very long when I came to a wooden wall and a crappy door. I could see light coming through the spaces in the boards.

I approached the door, and then screamed when something crunched under my hooves. I jumped back flashing the light toward where I just stepped. Three pony skeletons looked back at me from the ground. I gasped and shrank back, it looked like a family died sitting by this old door. Two adults and a foal. It was the foal’s skull that I’d stepped on, crushing it into tiny pieces.

“This is horrible,” I said, moving closer, “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to crush your head,” then under my breath I whispered, "Please don't haunt me."

I sniffed and did my best not to cry, I couldn’t cry, not right now. I was still too close to the stable; even with this horrible sight, I knew I had to push on. Crying wouldn’t help me, it’d only get me caught.

Carefully I stepped around the bones of the family and pulled on the door. It rattled, but didn’t open. I wonder why they'd lock a crappy door like this. I looked down and saw the rusty chain wrapped around the handle and one of the boards. "They locked themselves in here?" I said aloud.

I looked back at them and saw a couple duffle bags next to them, one was open. Inside I could see a few things, so I decided to take a look to see if there was anything useful. It was mostly clothes and old food that spoiled a long time ago, but on the bottom of the bag I found a written note. I opened it up and read.

The stable is closed,

The alarm went off earlier today, right after, we heard the bombs go off. This far west we figured that we’d have time. Sugar just had to get a few more things, figured we’d need them for life in the stable.

We got here and saw the door was already sealed. We pounded on the door and begged them to let us in, but nopony responded. So we tried to go back home, but couldn’t. The megaspells destroyed everything, and the radiation is making other ponies crazy. We chained the door, so no one can get to us. The noises of other ponies kept our daughter from sleeping at all, she was so scared.

We aren’t going to make it…my daughter is only five years old. I wrote this note in case anypony ever finds us.

We tried….we really tried, but we didn’t make it. This will be our final resting place.

This is Fourleaf Clover, Sugar Cookie, and Dew Drop.

I couldn’t help crying now, when I looked down at those old bones. They tried to get into Stable 28 when the megaspells went off, but they didn’t’ make it in time. They knew they were going to die, and the last thing they did was leave a note, so somepony would know who they were. I can’t imagine having to face something like that.

I took the note, folded it in half, and slipped it in my saddle bag. My Pip-Buck dinged and looking down I saw in my inventory that now I had Clover’s Last words, under notes. I wondered how it knew what I just put in my saddle bags. Putting the thought aside for now, I looked back at the door and started to work on the old lock. A few seconds later I had it unlocked and pulled the chain off and opened the door.

I walked out into the open space. I read about the upper world before and I’ve even seen pictures, but I never expected this. What I saw was nothing like what I’ve seen in my books. They showed the world as so full of color, the sun high in the sky, and one or two puffy clouds here and there. This world was grey, brown, and dead. Clouds filled the sky only letting a small amount of light trickle down to the dead land around me.

The landscape was worse, dead trees were out in the distance with only knotted branches poking out of their trunks. I was on a small hill looking down into a valley, green mist floating close to the ground like the spooky fog in a horror novel. Under the mist were more bones, lots of bones. Coming up the hill were a few dozen more skeletons, they looked as if they all tried to get to the door to the tunnel that lead to the Stable. The door was chained and must’ve been stronger and in better shape back then, keeping them from getting through.

My Pip-Buck dinged again telling me I’ve just discovered Green Mist Valley. Well that made sense I guess, I wonder how many times it was going to do that. I kept moving, heading northeast like Auntie told me. As I walked through the silence, I wondered how anypony could live in a world like this. So many bodies, so much destruction, and not to mention the smell. It smelled like decay and poorly maintained bathrooms.

When I stepped into the mist my Pip-Buck started to click, slowly at first, but that grew faster as I went further. I looked down and saw the Rads meter moving up away from zero. Right now it was still in the green so I ignored it. There wasn’t any way I could get out of this area without going through here. I had no choice; I kept walking in the eerie green mist that seemed to cover the whole valley.

“So I go northeast she said, about a day or so travel. I wonder who I’ll find there and if they’ll be able to help me,” I said to myself as I walked.

When I reached the bottom of the hill I found a slightly intact road. It went east to west. Figuring it should hook back and go to the town I was looking for, I started to follow it. I still found it a little strange that I hadn’t run into anypony yet. From what I was told in the Stable, the upper world still had ponies living in it. I mean my mother and I came from up here. Now that I think about it, if we'd come to Stable 28 how did we get into the tunnel with the door chained like it was? I guess for now, I’ll just have to not think about it. For all I knew there was another way into the cave that my mother either found or knew about.

Maybe it was because the area I was in was just too irradiated to live in. Realizing the reality of my own thoughts I started to walk faster to get out of the radiation. With my luck, if I stayed in the mist for too long I'd grow another leg out of my stomach.

***

I’d been walking for a couple hours, leaving the mist far behind. Hunger and thirst started to linger in my mouth and stomach. I haven’t seen any roadside restaurants or small settlements at all. I saw an overpassing bridge in the distance and decided to rest there. The bridge was barely holding together, it looked like if the wind blew too hard it'd collapse. Being the only place I could use for shelter I went to go sit down under it. Suddenly from behind the bridge a pony jumped out screaming, “HELP!”

“AHHH!” I exclaimed flipping out the baton I’d stolen and hit the mare over the head, knocking her out. The first sign of civilization in hours and I knock her out with a stick. Holstered on her hip was a pistol, if she woke up she’d probably think I was trying to kill her or something, so I took it.

I started shaking her, saying, “Hey, wake up, I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“Wh-What? Oh Goddesses! Help me. Those raiders are gonna kill me,” the strange mare said terrified. She looked like she was half dead already. Her whole body was covered in dirt and grime, not to mention she smelled like rotting meat and sewage.

“There you are ya little bitch, c’mere, lemme show ya what it’s like to see your own spine,” another strange pony said from behind me. He was a stallion and it wasn’t just him, he had a friend with him. They were both wearing some kind of spiked armored barding and looked a little worse than the mare behind me.

I pulled out the mare’s pistol I’d taken when she was knocked out and pointed it at the stallions, saying, “Back off! Just walk away, I don’t wanna have to shoot you.”

Suddenly I was grabbed from behind. “You’re really stupid aren'tcha. Shrapnel help me hold her down. Splatter cut off her horn so she can’t use her magic,” the mare said as she held on to me. She didn’t sound so helpless now.

“Sure thing Rage Bone,” said the stallion she referred to as Splatter.

The stallion started walking toward me with what looked like a machete in his mouth. I started to squirm and tried to escape the mare's grasp. He was getting closer; I couldn’t imagine what they’d do to me after my horn was severed. He was right in front of me. In a panic I wrapped the machete in my magic and started to rip it out of his mouth. When I tried to rip it away it ended up spinning out of his mouth when he lost his grip, and keeping its momentum it dug into his neck.

In their shock I was able to wriggle one of my hooves free and hit the mare holding me, making her release her grip. The other stallion was holding down my back legs, but without the help of the mare I was able to free myself and buck him in the face. I picked up the pistol that I’d dropped on the ground when I was restrained and I shot him twice in the chest. The mare behind me recovered from the pain I inflicted on her and charged at me. I shot once aimlessly in her direction and she fell to the ground. “Take that bitch!” I yelled, but she couldn’t hear me. I’d shot her in the head, right in between the eyes; lucky shot.

I looked at her lifeless body, a little shaken, having nothing in my stomach to throw up, I started to dry heave. Still heaving I started to back away from her body and fell to my haunches. I just killed three ponies. How could I have done this? Without even thinking about it. I took the gun and threw it against the wall under the bridge and started to cry. As I sat there sobbing I heard a wet choking sound behind me. I quickly grabbed the gun once more and was ready to use it again, when I noticed it was Splatter, the pony who was ordered to cut off my horn. He was lying on the ground in a pool of blood coughing and choking, “Cough…cough. Cough…cough. End…it…” he struggled to utter out.

“Oh Goddesses, he’s still alive,” I said gruelingly to myself. He wanted me to shoot him and put him out of his misery. I aimed the gun at his head with my magic. I was about to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill another pony again, not like this. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it,” I said to him as he lay bleeding on the ground from the nasty gash in his neck.

“Cough…cough. You bitch. Cough…cough,” he choked out.

His words angered me somehow through my self-sorrow. Without even thinking I threw the gun in front of him, saying, “Do it yourself you son of a bitch.” I walked away and left him to his fate. I also left the gun with him which I realized was a stupid decision since he was going to die anyway, even without shooting himself. A part of me wished I’d shot him and kept the gun, but another part of me respected my decision to leave him to his fate, even if I left the gun behind. I didn’t get too far when I heard a loud bang. I just shook my head and kept going. “Cowardly bastard,” I said to myself.

***

A couple more hours went by as I continued to walk slowly down the destroyed road. My throat was on fire now, either because of the lack of water or because of that bitch choking me. A mare I killed, along with those two stallions. I know it was to protect myself, but I’ve never killed anypony before. On the first day out of the stable I ended up killing three.

The memory of Splatter, looking at me with that shock in his eyes, gasping for air and blood pooling around him. I couldn’t take it, and I ran to the edge of the road and dry heaved some more. A little bile came up, but nothing else. I got dizzy and ended up sitting down.

“What am I gonna do?” I said to myself as I looked around the dry radiation baked land. It was so hot out, even with the clouds covering the sun. All I wanted was to be back in my room, have a nice drink of water, and talk to my friends.

As I sat there, a gunshot echoed in the distance. I jumped to my hooves and looked around. When I did, I heard voices coming from the same direction.

“What the hell Blade, do you want somepony to hear us?” came a rough stallion voice.

“What? Whoever the pony that killed them is, they can’t take all of us,” came another stallion’s voice.

“We don’t know how many ponies killed them. Rage Bone, and Splatter were tough motherfuckers, and Shrapnel was pretty stupid, but he still knew how to fight. I don’t feel like dying today because you gave away our position,” the first stallion said.

“Sorry boss, couldn’t help myself,” said the second pony, called Blade.

The voices sounded like they were getting closer, and they said something about those three that I killed earlier. That was over two hours ago. How did they find me? I started to panic, wishing I hadn’t left that gun behind. All I had on me was a damned security baton.

“If you don’t want those raiders to find you, I’d suggest you follow me,” came a crackly metallic voice from behind me.

I jumped and almost screamed thinking the worst. I turned and looked up to see some kind of floating robotic bug hovering right over my head. “Did you just say that?” I asked in a squeak of a voice.

“Do you see anypony else here?” the voice came again, “I’m not going to hurt you, but those raiders down the road will. I know you’re the filly who killed their friends.”

“Are they going to kill me?” I asked with a whisper.

“If they find you, you’ll wish they had. Now are you coming or not?” the robot replied.

The robo-bug didn’t look dangerous, and I had no idea what I could do to hide from those ponies. So I looked up at him, saying, “If you can help me then I’ll go with you.”

“Good, now stay down low and follow me,” the metallic voice said as he started to float away.

I did what I was told, ducking my head down while I followed him away from the road. Over the small hill and just out of sight was an old cottage. The walls didn’t offer much protection, with its large holes and one wall almost completely missing.

“How can I stay safe in there?” I asked when we came up to the cottage.

“There’s a small bomb shelter under the bed right inside. Raiders aren’t that smart and won’t think to look there,” he replied.

“How do I know you’re not leading me into a trap?” I asked, still suspicious of the mysterious bug.

“You don’t, you’re just gonna have to trust me,” he said, bobbing up and down.

“Trust a robot? You could be programmed to do anything for all I know,” I responded distrustful of the strange robot.

“Listen I don’t have time for all this and neither do you, I’m not a robot, well not really. This is called a Sprite-bot, they’re all over the Equestrian Wasteland. I’m in another location far from here. I can hack into them from time to time to watch what’s going on in the wastes. Every now and then, I help ponies like you if I’m able,” he explained.

“So you’re watching me from some location far away? That’s really creepy,” I said tilting my head.

“Yes, and it’s not what you think,” he said looking back at me again, “I only have another minute or two before I’m kicked out of this bot. So I’ve gotta tell you a couple things so you can survive.”

I knew that I shouldn’t just trust this robot, but he did save me, at least so far. So I did my best to hold down my suspicions, saying, “Okay fine, but I want you to answer a question or two of mine.”

“I’ll try, but lemme tell you what I need to first,” he said, or at least I think it’s a he; it’s hard to tell with the metallic voice.

“Fine, go ahead,” I said, feeling a little impatient.

“Once you’re clear of those raiders, you should make your way to the closest settlement you can. Try to find yourself some kind of companion or make friends, the Equestrian Wasteland is a hard place to live in, and a filly fresh from a stable like yourself won’t make it in this world without friends. Another thing is, never leave a good gun behind like you did back there, that was really stupid. A gun can make the difference between living or dying, also it can get you some good caps if you sell them. Last thing, remember to watch out for things like raiders, slavers, other monsters that live in The Wasteland, and most of all radiation or taint,” the robot said.

“I had friends when I was in the stable, only two, but they were my whole world. I don’t think I can make more friends like them,” I said, wondering what he meant by ‘Caps’ and ‘Taint.’

“You’ll have to try. Now quickly, what did you want to know?”

I took a breath and said, “I gotta find a town called Cartwheel, there’s somepony there I’m supposed to meet up with. Also, you saw I was a stable mare. I was wondering, about eight years ago did you see another pony leaving Stable 28 like myself? If so, do you know where she might’ve gone.”

He bobbed up and down there for a moment, then said, “I have no idea where Stable 28 is, nopony around here does, I only knew you were from a stable because of your barding and the way you acted when those raiders attacked you. As for Cartwheel, I could help you find it. Just remember to stay off the road, raiders are always patrolling that road and will find you if you use it.”

“I can do that. Where’s Cartwheel?” I asked.

“Here, I’ll put a marker on your Pip…..pfssst,” he started to say, though his voice changed with a loud pop and fizzle noise.

“What was that? Are you okay?” I asked. All of a sudden a merry little tune floated out of the bot and it started to fly away. “Hey where are you going?” I asked but didn't get an answer. The little bot just flew away playing the delightful music.

“Shit. Now what do I do?” I said to myself as I sat on the front porch of the broken down cottage.

“I heard something from up there Boss,” came the voices of the raiders again, “I think I can see the roof of a house. Maybe he’s hiding up there.”

“Fuck,” I said as I moved inside the cottage to get out of sight. As the robot bug thing said, there was a small trap door under one of the beds. I lifted it up and moved down into the hole. When I closed the trap door I saw there was a lock on it. I locked it then slowly moved down into the small dark hole.

It wasn’t very deep, the ground was only a couple meters down the ladder. When I got to the bottom, I turned on my Pip-Light and looked around. There was a terminal on a desk in one corner, a bed in the other, and some cans of food and fresh looking water. I ran right over to the shelf and drank one of the bottles ignoring my Pip-Buck as it clicked slightly. At the moment I was so thirsty I didn’t care if it was irradiated or not.

There was a loud noise from above me, it sounded like the door of the shack just got kicked in. Voices soon followed, “Doesn’t look like he’s in here,” Blade said.

“Search it anyway, I want the pony that killed our comrades dead,” the one Blade called Boss said.

“Why do you care so much Boss?” Blade asked.

I heard a hoof hitting flesh. “Because, unlike you, most of my ponies are tough fighters. I want to know how three of them were killed so quickly. They were only a few minutes ahead of us when the shots went off. I don’t know how one pony could get away so fast.”

“Sorry Boss, but it looks like he's long gone. What if he left the road?” Blade asked.

“Nopony would just leave the road in this area, there are bloodwings and other monsters around here. Not many ponies can survive for too long,” the boss pony replied.

“What if it was The Steel Rangers?” Blade asked, sounding terrified.

“No, if it was them we’d know. This was a single pony, he got lucky was all and somehow got the jump on them. I have a feeling he can’t be too far, I’m gonna go rejoin the rest back at the road and continue on toward the camp. I want you to stay here in case he comes back this way. Keep an eye out, and stay off the buck while you do. I can’t have you passing out or going nuts while you’re here. You hear me?” the boss pony replied.

“By myself?” Blade asked.

“YES! I’ll come check on you tomorrow night. I have to make sure things with the slavers go okay tomorrow, I won’t get cheated like last time,” the boss pony explained with anger. I could hear his hoofsteps fading away as he left.

After a few minutes went by I heard Blade mutter, “Do this Blade, don’t take drugs Blade. Why do I always get the shitty jobs?”

Great. Now I’m stuck down here with a crazy raider over the only exit. I hoped they'd just leave when they saw I wasn’t in the shack, but this Boss pony seemed to know I could still be in the area. His ponies aren't too bright, but he seemed to be pretty intelligent himself. I gotta wait him out and hope for the best.

I could hear Blade walking around the shack still muttering to himself, while I waited I made my way over to the terminal on the desk. It seemed to be still in working order, but it was locked. “Well, I got nothing else to do, might as well see if I can crack it,” I said very quietly.

So I went to work. I popped my Pip-Buck’s cord into the terminal. That seemed to help bypass the need for a user name, but it popped up a few different possible passwords. I tried one, but it failed, saying zero of the characters matched. I tried again this time getting two of the five. I tried another and boom I was in.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said quietly again as a few messages came up on the screen. Curiosity peaked, I clicked on the first one.

Dear Diary,

Talked to Silver Hoof again today when I was in town. He’s such a handsome stallion and so dashing in his military uniform. He asked me if I’d be willing to go on a date with him, I’m so excited. I hope Mother and Father will be okay with it. They’re afraid of this war and Father spends all his time in this bunker thinking it’ll be safe if the zebra’s attack here.

He doesn’t trust ponies from the royal army, but he doesn’t know Silver Hoof like I do. I’ll have to talk to Mother first, I think, and tell her how I feel. She’ll understand I’m sure. Oh my gosh, this is so exciting, I can’t wait for this date. I’ll update this more when I can.

Pink Rose

[Entry Two[

Dear Diary,

I told Mother about Silver Hoof, she seemed to be happy for me, but she told Father right away. He yelled at me and said I’m forbidden to see him. I yelled at them both, then ran down here and locked the hatch. It’s not fair, they can’t tell me what to do, I’m almost an adult. I really like Silver Hoof and I want to go on that date with him. You know what? I’m gonna go anyway. I don’t care what Mother and Father say.

Pink Rose

[Entry Three]

Dear Diary,

Sorry I haven’t written anything in a couple weeks. I went on two dates with Silver Hoof, Mother and Father had no idea at first. He was such a gentlecolt when he took me out. He even told me about some of the things going on in the war. He seemed frightened, and I don’t blame him. His leave time is done soon and he’ll have to go to the frontlines again. We only have a month left together before I have to say goodbye.

I don’t want to say goodbye though. I think I’m falling in love with him...I wonder if I can go with him. I’m a tough filly and in a week I’ll be an adult and I can join the military too. I think I’m going to, if I don’t, I’ll be stuck in this place forever.

Pink Rose

[Entry Four]

Dear Diary,

This will be my last entry, Silver Hoof goes back tomorrow and I’m going with him. Mother and Father found out about Him and I, Father was so angry he screamed at me. I told them I’m grown up now and they can’t stop me from doing what I want. They’re both so angry with me right now. I don’t care though, I’m going to follow my heart, I love my parents very much, but I have to go. I just hope that one day they’ll understand. Goodbye.

Pink Rose

I read the entries and felt a sadness come over me. I felt kinda bad reading this young mare’s diary. She was in love with somepony so much that she left her home and parents behind to be with him. It was sad, and touching at the same time. As I finished up I saw there was an audio file on the terminal too. I downloaded it to my Pip-Buck, intending to listen to it later. I moved away from the terminal and laid down on the bed. I may be trapped down here, but at least for now, I was safe.

***

(Creek)

I woke from my slumber jumping off of the little cot, I looked around trying to find the sound I just heard. After a moment I realized it must’ve been from the bed over the hatch. Sure enough a few moments later I could hear soft snoring coming from above me.

“Now might be a good time to get out of here,” I said quietly to myself.

Slowly I moved back to the ladder and started to climb, I opened the hatch and peeked out. I could see a hoof hanging over the side of the bed I was under. The pony over me snoring even louder as the hatch popped open. I crawled out from under the bed, stood slowly, then looked back at the sleeping pony.

His body was covered in metal armor, blood coating a good part of it. His mane was dirty brown and he had a green coat, he had a cutie mark of a machete dripping with blood on his flank. He also looked a little sick, his eyes were sunken in, and his cheeks were too. I almost felt bad for him, then I remembered he was a raider. If he woke up he’d kill me first chance he got. Next to him was a long beaten up gun. Remembering what the metal bug told me, I slowly pulled it out from under his hooves. It wasn’t too heavy, and when I checked the mag, it was full.

I remembered a book I read on guns back in the Stable. My Pip-Buck dinged when I picked it up, I looked and saw it was a hunting rifle. I was about to leave with my prize in my magical grip when I heard the snoring stop behind me. I froze, and looked back. The pony was waking up, his eyes slowly opening. I wanted to run, but what if he yelled and the other’s where still nearby.

A plan hit me and slowly I set the rifle down on the other side of the door and started to put on a pouty face. It was a trick I’ve used before when I was younger. My size made it hard for most ponies to judge my age and therefore ponies didn’t put up their guard. Also they thought they were looking for a stallion, not a mare.

He opened his bloodshot eyes more and focused on me, he jumped to his hooves, but the blip on my E.F.S. stayed white. “Who the hell are you?” he asked in surprise.

“Please sir, I’m lost and scared,” I said in a pouty voice.

“Lost? How does a filly get out here all by herself? Listen kid, it’s dangerous around here,” he said, a smile coming to his face as he spoke, not a kind one.

“Can you help me get back home?” I asked.

“How about I show you a new place to call home,” he replied as he reached behind himself to grab his rifle. His face however went grey as he realized it wasn’t there.

As he turned around to look back at me he found a barrel in his muzzle. “Now then, how about you answer a few questions for me,” I said.

“Hey now. A little filly like yourself shouldn’t be playing with toys like that. Give it here,” he said, a hint of fear in his voice.

Using my magic I took my baton and cracked him in the face with it, knocking him to the floor. “I’m no filly. Are you gonna answer me or not?” I asked.

“Damn, you got some balls on you for a mare. Fine. I don’t feel like getting my head blown off today,” he said sitting up.

“How much farther is it to Cartwheel, and how can I get there safely?” I asked keeping the rifle trained on his head.

“That’s easy doll, it’s only a couple hours from here along the main road there. As for a safe way, sorry can’t help you there. The road is the only way into the town from this side,” he replied.

“And why isn’t that a safe way to go?” I asked.

“My friends control the road into town, you can try to sneak around them all, but I don’t think you can do it,” he said laughing.

“Why not?” I asked again.

“We guard everything around our camp. You can’t go anywhere near it without running into one of us, but if you don’t believe me just see for yourself,” he said waving his hoof.

“Fine, I’ll find a way around if I have to. Another question. What did your boss mean by slavers before he left?” I asked, trying to pry a little more info out of him.

His eyes got bigger as he said, “How the hell…doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead soon enough. We trade with some of the slavers that come through our area. We got a few ponies for them this time, they’ll be here in a day or two if they haven’t arrived already. Matter of fact, they’re looking for young unicorn mares like yourself,” he said before he kicked at me knocking the gun aside and dashing out the door saying, “If I were you doll, I’d run before we find ya.”

“Shit, I can’t let him get away,” I said pulling up the rifle and activating S.A.T.S. Time seemed to slow as the targeting spell activated, I aimed for his torso and pulled the trigger. The first bullet missed, the next two hit. He dropped like a stone with a loud cry of pain.

I ran over to him and looked down into his bloodshot eyes. He just laughed at me spraying my coat with frothy blood, managing to say, “You won’t make it you little bitch. Boss will take you as his little trophy before handing you over to the slavers.”

Anger pulsed through me and I put the barrel of the rifle into his muzzle, saying, “He’ll die just like the rest of you should.” His eyes grew wide and I pulled the trigger.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Black Widow: Come into any parlor...Stallions suffer +10% damage in combat, and are easier to persuade in dialogue.

Chapter 3: Stray

“I AM from Stable 28 you old fart.”

“This armor is so damn uncomfortable. I have no idea how raiders can wear this shit,” I said to myself as I worked my way down the road.

After killing Blade, I started to think about how I could get around the raider's encampment. If it was as big as he said it was, then I had no chance. So I came up with this little disguise, I took the spiked armor off of Blade’s body, found a helmet in his saddle bags, along with more ammo, and put it on. It didn’t all fit at first, but after some tinkering I made it work. My armored stable barding was tucked away nicely in my own saddle bag along with the ammo and a few other things.

I had to use some strips of cloth to hide my Pip-Buck. I used some of Blades blood to give me the insane pony look, messed up my mane, and did my best to hide my horn. Now I was walking down the road, finally going northeast, and I was gross, smelled like ass, and kept getting pinched by the armor.

I crested the last hill and saw it. Now I understood what Blade meant by, me not being able to sneak past. The camp was huge. From where I stood, I could already see over a dozen raider ponies walking around. They were armed to the teeth with, guns, knives, bats, and what looked like spiked horseshoes. I could see more ponies moving along small alleyways between makeshift buildings.

I’m really glad I decided to go with the disguise. There’s no way around this place without running into somepony. There were large cliffs running along the horizon with two large hills right behind the camp. The road headed east right through the camp and right between where the two hills met. There was a split between them making a natural tunnel and the camp blocked the only way in which also looked like the only way to get to the other side of the cliffs.

Having swallowed my pride when I put on the raider disguise, I washed it down with my fear as I started walking through the disgusting camp of psychos. I could smell all the dirty ponies that where cutting up bodies and hanging them by chains on strangely well put together towers. Others were sitting in some of the alleys either sticking something into their forelegs or huffing on odd looking inhalers. Now and then I passed by a pony or two just talking to nopony that I could see, muttering softly as if they were in their own little world. There were also well armed ponies standing guard along the main road that ran through the camp. Their eyes watching for anypony who didn’t look like one of them.

About half way through the camp I felt like I was gonna puke, the smell here was getting too much for me to take. It probably wouldn’t raise any red flags for how gross this place was, but I held it down as best I could. Come to think of it, I think my fear was starting to make its way back up. I was starting to panic a little. What if I get caught? What if they decide just kill the random pony walking through the middle of their camp? Then I ran into somepony, making me almost soil the armor I stole, “What the fuck!? Watch where you’re goin next time or I’ll turn you into paste,” the putrid raider pony shouted through his disgusting yellow teeth.

I wanted to say I was sorry, but I figured that would make him suspicious. Instead I answered in my best raider voice, “Yeah, fuck you too.”

“Bitch!” he replied as he walked away.

I moved toward a darker alleyway, and sat down, I took a moment to breath and collect myself. I was in the middle of a raider settlement, wearing their armor, and had no idea what to do next. I have to find where the exit that lead toward Cartwheel was and get the fuck out of here.

“Hey You! Why the fuck are you just sitting around?” said a familiar booming voice.

I looked up into the face of the scariest pony I’ve ever seen. He was taller than anypony I’d ever met, his coat was dark green, a white mane fell over part of his face, and on his face he had large scars going over both his eyes and down over his chin. He was wearing spiked armor with dried blood on the tips. His voice sounded like he had rusty nails in his throat. I knew I’ve heard his voice before, back when I was hiding in the shelter.

“Sorry Boss,” I said doing my best to keep my voice steady, “I wasn’t feeling well.”

He picked me up with one hoof and put his face right into mine, asking, “Do I know you?”

I started to shake as I answered, “I’m not sure Boss, I just got here not long ago.”

He dropped me and turned, saying, “Must be from that new group that came in last week. Fuck I still can’t tell you idiots apart. I’ve told your group a few times now not to get high in the alleys, only in the common rooms were I don’t have to see you.”

I put on a smirk hoping I could hide my fear under sarcasm, responding with, “Where’s the fun in that?”

He turned around and hit me across the face with those large things he tried to pass off as hooves, saying angrily, “Watch what you say to me. You young fucktards think you can get high and talk back to me, well you’re wrong. Hand over your stash before I decide to make an example out of you.” He pulled a large blade off his back and pressed the tip to my neck.

“I don’t have anything Boss,” I said shaking hard.

“Dump out your saddle bag and we’ll see,” he said around the grip of the blade.

I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even think straight. I tried to us my hooves to remove my bag. Before I could, another pony ran up to us, saying, “Boss, we have an emergency.”

“I’m a little busy if you can’t tell Nail,” The Boss said looking toward the other pony.

“It’s Blade sir. Blood Whip and I went to go get him like you ordered,” the raider mare Nail said.

“Let me guess. You found him passed out wasted on Buck again? That bastard can’t ever do what he’s told even for one fucking night,” The Boss interrupted pulling the blade away from my neck and placing it over his back again.

“No Boss, he’s dead. Found him with his head blown off near the road. His armor is missing, same for his weapon. I think he ran into the same pony or ponies, who killed the others,” she responded.

“Fuck, now this bastard has taken down four of my ponies?” The Boss said slamming his hoof into the wall next to me cracking it. It seemed as if he’d forgotten all about little old me, which was fine, “You said his armor was missing?”

“Yeah, Boss,” she replied.

“He might be in the camp then, I want everypony to be on the lookout. Lock down the back gate, I don’t want him making it into town,” he said looking back at me, “That means you Shrimp.”

“Yes Boss,” I said and started to run off.

“Hey Shrimp!” he bellowed.

I stopped and looked back, shaking in the bloody armor, asking, “Yeah Boss?”

“Grab a few of your friends and go toward town, keep an eye out for somepony heading that way in our armor. If you find him, try and keep him alive. I'm gonna to skin him myself,” he answered.

“Ye….yes Boss,” I said, then bolted as fast as I could without blowing my cover.

I didn’t get more than a few yards before two more raiders fell in beside me. One was the mare who told The Boss about Blade. At first I thought I’d been found out, but then she said, “We’ll go with you kid, most of your group is busy guarding the slaves right now.”

“Um…okay,” I said letting them lead the way.

Neither of them talked as we headed toward the back of the camp. As we passed through the gate the mare who spoke to me told one of the guards to close it up and lock it down. When that was done we started down the road. Now I was past the camp, but I wasn’t alone. I was lucky before when I took down the others. With Blade I had the element of surprise on my side, but now I had no idea how I could get away with my life.

“What’s your name kid?” the mare asked looking back at me.

“None of your business,” I replied looking away.

“Everything around here is my business, kid. I find it kinda odd that a new pony like yourself shows up at camp right after Blade and the others are killed,” she said, still leading the way, the other pony, a stallion, kept quiet as she talked.

“I’m with the new group, I don’t like giving my name to ponies I don’t know very well, or trust,” I said doing my best to keep a rough edge to my voice.

She laughed, saying, “Well at least you aren’t stupid. I’m just gonna call you Shrimp then, but I do still want to know where you came from.”

“Like I said, I’m with the new group. So why don’t you shut your fucking mouth?” I said trying to sound tough. I hoped they wouldn’t suspect me since it sounded like new raiders joined up recently.

She stopped at that and so did the stallion. He turned around, saying angrily, “You’ll show Nail some respect if you wanna make it back to camp in one piece you little bitch.”

“There's no need for that,” she said to the stallion, “She’s just a filly, no respect for anypony. She’ll learn.”

“I can help her learn some respect,” he said licking his lips, “Haven’t had a young thing like her in a long time, I could use a little fun before we get to town.”

“Shut up Razor, I don’t need your input,” she said and to my surprise he did as he was told. She looked back at me, “Now, how about you tell me the truth, if you do I’ll let you get out of here alive. I know you’re not one of us.”

I froze. She saw right through me, all I could do now is hope I’d get lucky one more time. “I’m not,” I said.

“I thought so. Are you also the one who killed the others?” her voice was calm, but her eyes spoke death. I couldn’t help shaking as I looked into those dark brown orbs.

“I…did, but it was only to protect myself. I didn’t know what else to do,” I answered nervously.

“She’s the one who killed the others? This little filly was able to take down some of our best, excluding Blade of course. I’ll kill this bitch!” Razor said aiming his gun toward me.

“There’s no need for that Razor,” she said pulling out a shotgun.

“Why’s that? She killed our friends…” he started to say. Before he could finish Nail turned, pulling the trigger, blowing his head into bloody chunks.

His body was pushed backward by the force, blood spraying over the ground, his body twitching a little. She turned toward me holstering her shotgun. She smiled down at me as I shook, laying on the ground in fear. “Please don’t kill me too. I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t,” I said frantically.

“Don’t worry kid, I’m not gonna kill you. You’re just lucky I’m the one who saw through your shitty disguise before The Boss did,” Nail said calmly.

I was so confused. “What do you mean?” I asked.

She reached over and pulled the cloth off of my foreleg that was hiding my Pip-Buck, saying, “That’s what I thought, you have the fish out of water look of a stable dweller. What stable are you from?”

“What? Why do you care?” I asked still shaking a little as I stood again.

“Listen kid, I’m not one of those raiders, I’m only working undercover on a mission that you don’t need to know about. As far as I know there aren’t any open or active stables on this side of the hills. Either you came from down south or you’re from a stable that my friends haven’t found yet,” she replied.

I looked again at the dead pony she just killed, then back at her. She had as far as I knew, just saved my life, so I answered her, “My name is Shadow Star, I just escaped from Stable 28. I was trying to get to Cartwheel to meet up with a pony called Box Tape.”

Her eyes widened when I mentioned my stable, and the smile left her face as she said, “Stable 28 you say, that stable’s location has been lost forever. Who told you to go find old Box Tape?”

“The pony who raised me, her name's Auntie,” I answered.

“Hmmm, yeah I'm about ninety percent sure that isn't her name but whatever, it's fine I guess. Well you’re really lucky because if The Boss would've found out you were from Stable 28, he would've beaten the location out of you. He’s been looking for that stable for a while now. He must know it’s near here, which would explain why he set up in this area,” she said, looking around a little, “Listen Shadow, I’m going to let you go. Get to town and find a building called Equestrian Express. You’ll find the old pony there, just make sure that you don’t tell anypony that I let you go. I have to keep my cover here,” she explained.

“What about The Boss, won’t he notice that I’m missing, and what about that stallion Razor?” I asked.

“He’s too busy to notice anything like that. I’ll tell him that Razor wondered off somewhere. They’ll find him sooner or later and think he was killed by this mysterious stallion like the others,” she replied nonchalantly with a wave of her hoof.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening, so I decided to just ask, “Why are you helping me?”

She smiled again, “Because that’s what I do. The band of raiders you ran into are bad ponies, but I’m not. I do however have to keep my cover with them for now. Just get to town and act normal, and don’t tell anypony about me okay.”

I nodded. “Okay, and thank you for helping me. It’s nice to see there are nice ponies out here.”

“Yeah, don’t expect it if we meet again. Try and stay away from the camp and you should be alright. Now get going Shrimp,” she said turning to walk back toward the camp.

I watched her go then turned and looked at the dead raider. I moved over to his body and started to look through his pack. I found more ammo for my rifle, three healing potions, and something called Rad-Away. I stowed them away in my pack, then started moving again taking one last look back at the retreating mare. I wonder if my luck can hold out just a little bit longer.

***

When I got a little ways away, I took off the uncomfortable raider barding as fast as I could. I tried to wipe off the blood that got on my coat from the armor with the cloth I used to cover my Pip-Buck, but all it did was make it worse. I cursed and threw the rag down.

Once I entered the dark pass between the two hills, I moved a little faster, trying to put as much distance between the camp and myself. A little while later I made it to the other side and that’s when I finally saw it. There was a small town at the end of the pass. If you could call it a town, it looked more like a bunch of shanties and a few pre-war buildings, put together behind a wooden wall. There was an open gate with a sign over it that read 'Cartwheel'. I smiled and ran toward the town.

“Stop right there raider, take another step and you’ll be eatin’ lead,” a pony in padded armor said blocking the entrance to town.

“I’m not a raider,” I said stopping in my tracks, maybe all the ponies in The Wasteland DID point guns at each other.

“Can’t be anythin’ but a raider, nopony could come through that pass unless they were. Now go back where you came from, we don’t want any trouble,” he said keeping his rifle aimed at me.

“I’m not a fucking raider, I just made it past their encampment,” I tried to explain.

“Likely story. Now get outta here!” he shouted in response.

“NO! I’m not leaving! I've been through hell and back trying to get here. I’m not going back to where other ponies want to kill me,” I yelled stomping my hoof on the ground.

He must've taken my movement as a sign that I was going to attack him. Next thing I knew there was a loud bang. It felt like something kicked me in the chest, I looked down and saw blood leaking out from a hole just under my left shoulder on my upper chest.

I couldn’t believe it, I looked up at him. “You, shot me? That really hurrr-uh...”

My vision started to go dark, next thing I knew my face was hitting the ground. I could taste blood in my mouth, and it was getting hard to breath. I could feel my heart racing, then the pain hit me. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. All I was able to do was gag a little as blood frothed up my throat and out my mouth.

“What the hell did you just do Switch?” came a mare’s voice.

“She’s a raider, she has to be. She just wandered out from the pass, she’s all bloody and stuff, just look at her,” he said, protesting.

“She’s only a filly, and look at what she’s wearing. That isn’t raider gear, she looks like a stable pony, and she has a Pip-Buck. Go tell Dr. Purple Heart what happened, and send another guard to help me get her inside,” the mare said standing over me. I felt my body being turned over and I found myself looking up into the cloudy sky. As the last of my vision faded away, I swear I saw a pony way up high flying over the hills. Then everything went black.

oooOOOooo

“Shadow sweetie, why are you still asleep?” Mom asked, shaking me slowly trying to wake me up.

“Sorry mommy, I didn’t sleep much last night,” I said pulling myself up and out from my blankets, the walls of the stable were grey and boring as ever.

“Were you having a bad dream again sweetie?” Mom asked, sitting on the floor next to my bed.

“Uh huh, it scared me. There was a big scary thing that wanted to eat me,” I said tearing up a little and putting my head on her shoulder.

“Shhh, it’s okay Shadow, you know I’m always here for you,” she said as her horn started to glow softly next to my head. Slowly I started to feel better. Mom always knew how to calm me down after a bad dream, “I have an idea, how about we go down to the dining hall and see if your little friend is down there.”

I perked up at that, saying excitedly, “Can I get something sweet to eat?”

She laughed, and replied, “Sure thing, just as long as you’re good for Auntie while mommy works today.”

“I promise,” I said.

oooOOOooo

I opened my eyes and moaned in pain, it felt as if I’d been kicked in my side. Looking around I saw I was in a small room with a blanket over me. I sat up a little more and tried to see where I was. A unicorn mare walked in the room, she had an apple red coat, a brown mane, green eyes, and a cutie mark of scissors cutting fabric. “Oh good you’re awake, I was starting to get worried you’d sleep forever,” she said.

My throat was dry and all I could get out was a whisper, “Who…are you?”

“I’m Silver Snip, I’m the local tailor and armorer. I’m the one who helped you when you got shot by our guard. He feels terrible about that by the way. I’m sorry that the first impression you got of Cartwheel was a bullet,” she said with a laugh.

I rubbed my eyes then looked back at her, saying, “Could I get some water or something please? My throat's really dry.”

“I’m not surprised, you've been out for few hours now. I’ll go grab the doctor for you,” Silver Snip said, walking out.

About a minute later a unicorn stallion with a purple coat and black mane walked in. He was wearing a lab coat that looked like it had a serious case of the dingies. “Hello there, I’m Dr. Purple Heart, I’m glad to see you’re up,” he said as he walked over to me, setting a glass of brownish water down by my bed.

I drank it ignoring the slightly sour taste, gagged a little, but felt a lot better afterward. “That was kinda nasty, but it helped,” I said.

“Well we don’t have much clean water around here, I tried to get the best I could find though. I have a few questions for you now that you’re awake if you don’t mind,” he said kindly.

“Um yeah, sure, go ahead,” I responded.

He sat down next to my bed and using his magic he pulled a clipboard close and a pen, asking, “Now first of all could I get your name?”

“Oh yeah, I’m Shadow Star,” I replied.

He jotted that down, saying, “Shadow Star, that’s a pretty name. Okay, when you arrived in town, I was told you came through the southeast pass. How did you get through there?”

“Does it really matter?” I asked.

He shrugged and gave me a look, explaining, “It does as a matter of fact, the raiders have kept that pass closed down for a few years now. They’re the only ones we’ve seen come through there. It’s one reason our guard was so frightened. They don’t normally bother us, but when they do they always leave in a wake of disaster.”

“I had no idea. When I left my stable, I wandered through some field for a while until I found the road, I followed that, and got jumped by three of those raiders. I was able to kill them and get away. Later more of them almost found me again,” I started to explain everything I could. How I met that metal bug, about the hideout, and sneaking through the camp. I did leave out how the one mare helped me though, only telling him that I was able to sneak past the gate.

When I finished he had a look of shock on his face, responding, “Well, that's quite the tale. You must be one lucky mare.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” I said simply.

“Hmmm, what field did you wander through?” he asked. I looked at my Pip-Buck’s map and showed him. “You went through Green Mist Valley?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“I think so, there was a lot of green mist. It was kinda spooky and the mist made my head hurt a little. I tried to get through it quickly, my Pip-Buck kept ticking at me,” I replied.

“That's because that area is full of radiation, it would also explain why I had to flush your system when they brought you in. You were very close to suffering from radiation poisoning,” he explained.

“Wait, I was poisoned?” I asked.

He smiled, saying, “Wow, you really are from a stable aren’t you? Well you’re going to need to learn more about The Wasteland. Why don’t you go with Silver, she should be able to help you out with that. She said you could stay with her while you get back on to your hooves. Plus a filly really shouldn’t be wandering around all by herself.”

I looked back at him, replying hastily, “I’m not a filly dammit, I’m just small.”

“Oh, my apologies Ms. Star. Well anyway, you're all patched up. I put a healing potion in an IV once I removed the bullet. You’ll be sore for a couple days, but you’re okay to go, oh and don’t worry about payment, Silver took care of it,” he said, ignoring my rude remark.

That took me by surprise. “Why would I need to pay for a doctor’s help? Isn’t it your job to fix up ponies who're hurt or sick?” I asked.

He laughed and said, “It is yes, but I also have to make a living and I can’t do that if I don’t get paid for my work. Now run along and do try and be careful.”

The concept of paying for medical care was so odd, in Stable 28 it was the doctor’s job to heal ponies, not to ask for money. I have to remember I’m not in my stable anymore. I looked around a little and asked, “Where are my things?”

“Your stuff is right outside the door with Silver, you can pick it up when you leave,” he replied.

I slid off the bed with a wince, and walked to the door with the doctor. Right outside waiting for me was Silver Snip. She had a smile on her face. “So, how about you come with me, I can show you where I live, and I have plenty of room for you to stay. Also I didn’t’ catch your name earlier,” she said.

“Shadow Star,” I replied, smiling back.

“That’s a nice name, I like it,” she said.

I picked up my saddle bags and rifle as she led me out of the doctor’s office and into the mucky streets. I took a moment to look around at the dilapidated buildings. As she led me down the road I looked up at her, saying, “I don’t know if I’ll need a place to stay, I’m here to find somepony.”

“Oh really, who are you looking for?” she asked.

“His name is Box Tape. I was told I could find him here in town at a place called Equestrian Express,” I said.

“Box Tape? It’s not often ponies come around here looking for him, unless they need a courier,” Silver Snip responded.

“I think he’s an old friend of the mare who raised me, she said I should go find him as soon as possible,” I said. At least that was all I could guess. I still had no idea how a pony who never left the stable knew anypony on the outside.

“Well his office is right next to my shop, so if you want we can stop by and see if he’s in, unless you’d prefer to rest first,” she said.

“No, I’ve done enough resting I think. I can’t waste any more time. It’s been almost a couple days now since I left the stable, I really don’t want to wait any longer,” I said.

“Okay, if you feel like you need to rest, just let me know. Also I've been meaning to ask you, do you know how to read?” she asked for some reason.

“Of course I do. Why?” I responded.

“Not everypony in The Wasteland can read, that’s why I asked. I have something for you at my shop that will help you out in The Wasteland. While you’re talking to Box Tape, I’ll go get it for you,” she explained.

“How is a book gonna help me out here?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “Just read it and you’ll understand, trust me.”

“I’m not sure if I can trust anypony right now. Ever since I left my home, everypony seems to want me dead,” I said looking down.

“You'll find a lot of that in the wastes, even in some towns. Equestria isn’t a peaceful place, it's every pony for themselves most of the time. Luckily for you though, you found a nice town, and I’ll be here to help you,” she said, trying to bring up my spirits a little.

I couldn’t help smiling as I said, “Thank you.”

“There we go, a smile is always a good sign,” she said as she turned down a side street then stopped next to a two story brick building, on the side it said ‘Equestrian Express. No matter what, we’ll get it there. “Here we are, I’ll go in with you and introduce you.”

I looked up at the letters a little amazed. So far everything Auntie told me was true. I still wanted to know how she knew so much when no pony has ever been out of the stable. We walked in and were greeted right away by an old pony. His coat was light brown, and he had a grey mane, his cutie mark was a box, “Hello Miss Snip, how're ya doin' today?” he asked with a slightly high voice. He had a kind look on his face, and was older than anypony I've ever seen before. He was practically ancient. The skin on his face sagged, almost covering his eyes.

“Howdy Box Tape, you’re looking well today,” Silver Snip said.

“Bah, every day I wake up with a new part of me feeling like it’s on fire. Seein' a sweet face like yours brightens my day. So what brings ya in, normally ya have the caravans handle your shipments,” he responded.

“That I do, I get a deal on trade that way. I’m not here for business, I have a guest who came a long way to find you,” Silver Snip said pushing me forward.

He looked over the counter at me, asking, “Who do we have here? Is that a Pip-Buck on your foreleg?” He sounded surprised.

“She’s a stable dweller, poor thing got shot coming through the gate. She said she was told to come to town and find you,” she explained.

His voice got shaky as he looked down at me, saying, “It can’t be, you can’t be from a stable out there. The only stable that way is 28 and they'd never let anypony leave, not after…” he stopped himself briefly then asked, “What’s your name, and who told you to find me?”

“I’m Shadow Star, and I AM from Stable 28 you old fart. If you have to know, Auntie sent me to find you, she said you could help me when I left,” I said arrogantly. I couldn’t help the attitude, my body hurt.

He cracked a smile and said, “Yep, that I believe, you talk just like her. Is she still going by that silly name?”

“Wait…what?” I responded. He got me with that one.

“Silver Snip, you can go for now, I have some stuff to talk about with this young mare," he said, looking at Silver Snip.

“Okay, I’ll stop by a little later,” she replied and with that she walked out leaving me with the old stallion.

“Come with me Shadow Star. I got a feeling we’ll be talkin' for a little while, and my old hooves can’t take standin’ for too long,” he said walking into a back room.

I followed him into the little room and sat down across from him in a chair that had a few questionable stains on it. He groaned a little as he sat, saying, “So you’re from Stable 28, I ain’t seen another pony from there in, oh about eight years I think. Tell me. Why is such a young mare like yourself out in The Wasteland alone?”

“I don’t know why, besides the fact that I was pretty much forced to leave,” I said choking a little. The water I drank earlier wasn’t agreeing with my stomach.

“Forced to leave? Did your Overmare kick ya out?” he asked sounding like he already knew the answer.

“No, she didn’t kick me out. She was actually the reason I left,” I told him the whole story of finding the Pip-Buck, The Overmare wanting to cut off my foreleg, and my daring escape.

“Holy damn girl! Now that’s some crazy story, like a squirrel kissin’ a rattlesnake!” he said surprised after hearing my story.

“Squirrel? Rattlesnake? What?” I said in confusion to his weird analogy.

“Oh don’t overthink it. It’s just a sayin’. So your overmare was willing to cut off your leg to get that Pip-Buck ya found. That sounds pretty grizzly, not as bad as what the monsters in The Wasteland'll do to ya. Like those raiders up the road, some of em would probably kill ya and mash ya like potatoes. Then they'd drink ya like a berry smoothie,” he said with a chuckle.

"Oh, Goddesses," I said with a gag. That was it, I was going to vomit. In a split second I looked for the sign above a door that said restroom and ran starting to heave. I was able to make it to a toilet in a stall and puke up the disgusting water, it tasted even worse coming out rather than going in.

“Ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I still got it he-he. Sorry ‘bout that, thought you had a stronger stomach. Hot damn, that’s funny,” he teased.

A little irritated I replied, “Yeah, real funny.”

“Here, I’ll make it up to ya. Have a Sparkle Cola it’ll ease your stomach,” he said.

“What’s Sparkle Cola?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, you’re from a stable. You probably don’t know what it is. Sparkle Cola is carrot flavored soda that used to be manufactured before the megaspells,” he replied.

“Okay sure I’ll have some. Thanks,” I said taking the bottle from his hoof. I opened the glass bottle and began to drink. Goddesses it was delicious, by far the best thing I’ve ingested since I arrived in The Wasteland. Actually the only other thing I’ve ingested in The Wasteland was that gross water and the bottle I found in the shelter. My dry mouth was relieved and it left a delightful carroty aftertaste in my mouth, but after finishing the Sparkle Cola my stomach started to growl and I remembered that I haven’t eaten since before I left the stable.

“Sounds like you’re runnin' on empty. Tell ya what, once we’re done talkin’ I’ll treat you to some dinner at the tavern in town,” he said, offering as if still wanting to make up for making me sick.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to do that, I’ll be fine,” I responded.

“Horse apples. You probably haven’t eaten in days and I ain’t about to let a mare like yourself go hungry,” he argued.

“Okay, if you insist. Just as long as I don't have to eat a deep fried bug or anything,” I said, conceding.

“Nah they only have that as a special on Tuesdays. How about this, lets go eat now and finish up later? You gotta’ get somethin' down your gullet before you pass out from starvation,” he said, getting up and walking over to me. As he walked over he picked up the bottle cap I'd just dropped on the floor and pocketed it. Okay that was a little odd, but maybe old ponies just were. So I followed him as he walked out.

***

He led me down the street and into a rundown looking building. He walked up to the bar and the pony running it looked over at him, “Hey there Box Tape. What brings you in here today?”

“What else? I’m hungry. Same for this little mare here, just give me two orders of the usual. Poor girl don’t have a very strong stomach,” Box Tape said.

“Sure thing, that’ll be twenty caps,” he said holding out a hoof.

“For two orders? One is normally six caps, learn to do your numbers,” Box Tape replied tapping his hoof on the table in front of him.

“Two orders will take me longer. Costs more for the extra time,” the bartender argued.

“Twice the time twice the caps. Here’s twelve,” Box tape said giving him a stern look, “Or if you want to charge me
more, I can do that next time you need somethin' sent out by courier.”

“Ah fine you old goat, twelve,” the bartender replied holding out a hoof.

“See, that wasn’t so hard. Was it?” he said as he gave him the twelve bottle caps.

I gave him a puzzled look as he walked back to me, and asked, “What was that? Why didn’t you pay him?”

“What're you talkin’ about? I did pay him,” he insisted looking confused for a split second, “Oh, I keep forgettin, stable pony. We don’t use bits in The Wasteland, we use bottle caps.”

“Oh, that’s…different,” I responded. Or a little crazy for that matter.

He waved a hoof and said, “You’ll get it all down. Come on, let's go sit down while we wait for our food.”

"Okay then," I said.

I followed and sat down at a table across from him. A few minutes later the bartender brought the food out dropping it in front of us. I couldn’t tell what I was eating at first, but it tasted amazing. We ate in silence for a while, I took the time to just relax and take in what's happened so far. So much happened and I hadn’t really had time to process everything.

“You look like you've got a lot on your mind,” he said.

“I kinda do, so much has happened. I still really don’t understand everything either,” I responded.

“How about ya tell me what’s on your mind then. Maybe it'll make ya feel a bit better,” Box Tape said.

“First of all, how in the Goddess' name do you know Auntie? Our stable's only been opened a couple times, once when my mother and I came to the stable, and when I left. Well I guess when she left too,” I asked.

“Hmmm,” he said leaning back, “Well, I can tell that your stable's changed some since I was last in contact with anypony from there.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Stable 28 normally keeps its door closed. However they did used to send ponies out to come here to trade supplies and such. That's how I know Auntie, she used to be one of those ponies. It was nine years ago that it all changed, one day the doors closed and never reopened. Well not for trading at least. Like I said, the last pony I saw from that stable was eight years ago,” he explained.

I hadn’t caught onto that before, but now with food in me, my brain was working a bit better. “Eight years ago?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yep, a cute young mare came through town on her way north. If I were younger I would've put the moves on her I tell ya what.”

“What did she look like?” I asked almost jumping out of my seat.

"Hmmm, a blue coat, greyish mane, can’t remember much else, but she did have a pip-buck and was from your stable,” he said leaning back.

I jumped up at that. “That’s my mother, it has to be. Did she tell you where she was going?” I asked.

“Ah so you’re the daughter she was talkin' about. She said something about leaving a little filly behind. I'm not sure where she was goin' for sure, but once she got her provisions she headed North toward Horseshoe,” he replied.

Was every town in The Wasteland named after an object? “How far away is that?”

“It’s pretty far, it’s also a dangerous road along the way, and you probably wont even find her there,” he replied.

I looked down at my hooves, saying, “I know, but I wanna try. She left me a long time ago, but I know there's got to be a reason why. If anything I want to find her and ask why she had to go and leave me behind like she did.”

“Has to be some anger in you somewhere, for her leavin',” he said calmly.

“A little, but I don’t know everything. I want to give her a chance to explain. I have nothing else to do since I can’t go home,” I said.

He cracked smile and said, “Well then, how 'bout ya work for me. My last courier hasn’t come back from his run, and I have a couple orders stackin' up.”

“A job working for you? What makes you think I’d be any good at it?” I asked.

“Hehehe, because you’re a lucky pony. I could tell from the moment I saw ya. I mean, you wanna find your ma’ and it's the best way to get to know The Wasteland,” he replied.

“He has a point,” a voice said from behind me, I jumped before looking up to see Silver Snip. She smiled at me and said, “Didn’t mean to scare you Shadow, I was looking for you two.”

“Why’s that?” I asked as she sat with us.

“I said I had a book for you, took me a little while to find it, but here you go,” she said, puttting a beaten up book down on the table in front of me, with the title 'Wasteland Survival guide, by Ditzy Doo'. “The author owns a store in New Appleoosa and she trades with us now and again, she gives this book out as often as she can for free.”

“How does she know so much about The Wasteland?” I asked as I picked up the book.

“She’s a ghoul and over two hundred years old, she’s seen and done a lot. Just read the book and you’ll understand,” Silver Snip replied.

I cocked my head. “Wait, what the hell is a ghoul, and how can she be over two hundred years old?”

Silver laughed a little before saying, “Ghoul’s are ponies who were exposed to too much radiation, but instead of dying they turned into ghouls. Radiation doesn’t affect them like it does normal ponies, and they don’t age like we do either. Most ghouls you see in The Wasteland however have lost their minds turning them feral, they can be quite dangerous. There are a few good ones though that you run into and Ditzy is one of them. The Book goes into more detail about them.”

“Okay then…I’ll give it a read,” I said. I wasn't sure I liked the sound of ghouls, no matter what Silver told me.

“You should also take Box Tape up on that job offer. Best way to find out more about what happened with your mother,” she said with a wink.

“Okay then, I’ll take the job,” I said looking back at Box Tape.

“Good to hear, now we should be headin’ out, it’s getting mighty late, and I have a lot to teach ya about the business,” Box Tape said.

“Where will I be staying?” I asked, forgetting about the offer from earlier.

“Well for now you have to crash on the couch. Not much room in my livin’ quarters,” Box Tape said.

“Or you can stay in my spare room if you want,” Silver chimed in, “I said before that I have room for you.”

“Thanks, I’d like that,” I replied, remembering earlier. Must've been all the distractions throughout the day that made me forget.

“Good. Well, when you two are finished up tonight just stop on by, I’m sure I’ll still be up working on something or another,” she said getting up and heading out of the tavern.

I watched her go not able to help myself as I eyed her flanks. I couldn’t help my small smile, it was nice to find such nice ponies out here in The Wasteland. When she was gone I looked back at Box Tape and saw a goofy grin on his face. “What…?” I asked.

“She does have a nice ass doesn’t she?” he asked with a laugh.

“I wasn’t….I mean…” I mumbled nervously.

“Oh who cares, so you like lookin’ at flanks, ain’t nothing wrong with it. Now come on lets be gettin' to it,” he said getting up.

I got up and followed him. He may be a strange old pony, but that only made him more interesting…

***

Throughout the next day, I was starting to get the hang of living outside of the stable. The book I’d gotten from Silver Snip did help a lot. There was a whole section on weapons, one on creatures to watch out for, foods to avoid, dangerous parts of Equestria to avoid, and much more. I learned more about what a ghoul was and the difference between a feral and non-feral were. Though it didn’t help when I first met a non-feral the next morning shopping with Silver Snip. Luckily the dead looking pony didn’t get mad at my screams, he only laughed in a rough voice that resembled a veteran smoker.

I also learned more about what I’d be doing as a courier for Box Tape. It looked like some ponies only trusted a courier, over a caravan. Some liked the prices, or couldn’t afford the guarded caravans. Box Tape had connections all over, I'd have to travel to those places with packages or whatever and deliver it. I'd also have to try to stay alive while doing so.

***

“Shadow wake up quick,” Silver Snip said shaking me out of my precious slumber. It was the next morning now, and I hadn’t gotten much sleep because Box Tape kept me up most of the night talking about his old days as a courier, and the adventures he used to have as a young buck.

“Huh, what time is it?” I asked getting up slowly.

“It’s early, but you have to get up now,” she sounded like she was in a panic.

“What? Why?” I asked groggily.

She looked over her shoulder then back at me, saying, “The raiders are in town, I don’t know what they want, but they could be looking for you. You have to hide.”

I jumped out of bed and put on my stable barding and said, “I’m not hiding, I'm done running away.”

“Shadow, this isn’t the time to be brave. Please, at least go next door to Box Tape’s and wait there in the upper room. They might only be here to steal supplies, I don’t want you to get mixed up in something that may not even be about you,” she said sternly.

“Fine, but if something happens I’m not staying put,” I said.

“Okay, just go, quick,” she said running out the door.

I walked out after her and moved next door to Box Tape’s office. He was at the door waiting, he opened up quickly, and said, “Upstairs, you can watch from the window.”

I didn’t have time to reply as he closed the door behind me and locked it from the outside. I cursed and moved upstairs to the window. The office had a good view of the main road leading in and out of town. What I saw was scary. A large mechanical pony walked in from the pass side entrance followed by eight other raider ponies, one of which was the mare who helped me get away.

“What the fuck is that?” I said to myself as I watched them walk into the middle of town.

The mechanical pony started to speak, and I heard the voice of The Boss masked a little by the helmet he was wearing, “Look at what we have here. A nice welcoming party.”

A pony walked forward, I recognized him now as the town’s mayor. “Why are you here? The deal we had says you’d let us be, as long as we didn’t stop you from blocking the road,” he asked.

“Yes, but part of that deal was that you wouldn’t let anypony come into town from our side of town unless it was one of us. You didn’t live up to that, five of my ponies are dead Mayor, and from what I found out, that pony came into town. I want this pony, I’ll only give you one chance to hand them over,” The Boss replied.

“No pony came through town sir, a guard of ours shot at somepony a couple days ago, but they ran off,” The Mayor said.

The boss moved his shoulder and a large gun moved from his back and pointed right at The Mayor, asking, “Wanna try that again? If a pony came through the pass, they'd have to go through town to get away, there isn’t any other way around.”

The Mayor started to shake, but before he could talk, Silver Snip walked forward, saying, “Sir, The Mayor is only scared. You’re right, a pony did come through town.”

He looked over at her. “And why were they allowed to pass through?” he asked.

“Allowed nothing, he was a large pony who was armed to the teeth. We had no choice but to let him go through,” she said. Damn she was a good liar. If I hadn’t known she was lying, I would've fallen for it.

“Hahaha, well now that's cute Silver Snip. You really do have a way with words you know that?” The Boss said.

“What do you mean?” she asked a little nervously.

In answer, his gun went off and blasted the head of The Mayor clean off. Ponies screamed and ran. However, Silver Snip stood her ground with tears falling from her eyes, but nothing else showing her fear. He got in her face, and said, “I know you’re lying, because the pony who killed my raiders was a small pony, and the pony was a mare.”

Her eyes went wide, asking, “How…would you know that?”

“First of all, a large stallion couldn’t have fit into Blades armor, he wasn’t a large pony, second I ran into a pony I didn’t know in the camp, and her armor was loose on her. At first I thought she was one of the new ponies I invited into my camp. Later I found out that she’d ran off right after I talked with her. One of my ponies who went after her was killed in the process. Now tell me where she is, or else,” The Boss said.

“A mare never came into town, I promise you that,” she said.

“Fine if that's the way you want to play it.” He looked around toward his raiders and said commandingly, “Grab a few of the foals and this mare here. The town has till tomorrow to hand over this mare who killed our companions. If not, their friends and children will be sold as slaves, and we’ll be back to kill everypony else in this fucking shit hole of a town.”

As he finished his raiders bolted, within a few minutes they were coming back with colts and fillies tied up and slung over there back’s. I ran to the door and banged on it, but it wouldn’t budge. I dug in my pack and pulled out my bobby pins and started to work on the lock. Unfortunately the lock was too strong. I broke all three bobby pins I had left.

I screamed and kicked at the door, I wasn’t going to let those raiders kill any more ponies because of me. The door wasn’t going to break, so I concentrated on my magic. I wasn’t good at teleportation, but if I concentrated hard enough I could go a few meters. That was all I needed to get to the other side of the door. I tried, but in my emotional state, getting a hold of my magic was hard.

I took a deep breath and did my best to calm down a bit. Finally I was able to hold my magic, and I cast the spell. In a flash I was outside, and I ran for the main road, but I was too late. They were all gone. When I reached the street, I only found crying mothers, the dead mayor, and a shocked looking Box Tape.

He looked over at me with sorrow. “They took her,” he said.

Anger flooded through me as I said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to go to the camp and get them back.”

“How're you gonna do that? Turn yourself in? It won’t work. They’ll kill you, and still enslave the others,” he asked.

“I’m not going to just let this happen, I’m going to help them or die trying,” I responded.

He looked over at me again, saying, “You ain’t gonna let this go are ya? Alright then, come with me.”

He got up and started to head back toward the office. I followed, asking, “What do you have in mind Box Tape?”

He looked back. “Just keep quiet, and come with me…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Pony in Timberwolf’s Clothing: You have learned the art of deceit, now you can wear your fallen enemy’s barding and blend in. But don’t get to close to anypony, they may see thorough your disguise.

Chapter 5: Skeletons

“Trust me, you don’t want to ever find out. You won’t live long enough to tell anypony else.”

I walked into the clinic early the next morning to check on Silver Snip, she was the worst out of all the prisoners we saved. She was laying down in the back room, and she looked like hell. Her normally long mane was cut short, her left eye was swollen shut, and there were cuts all over her face. Somehow though, she still looked pretty when she smiled. It was as if, her smile had a magic of its own, hiding the horrific marks left over from her short imprisonment.

“It’s good to see you Shadow, why the long face?” she asked as I moved to sit on the chair next to her bed.

“It’s all my fault you were taken. If I would’ve just given myself up, they wouldn’t have ever taken you or the foals,” I said, looking away from her smiling face, ashamed at what happened because of my incompetence.

I felt a hoof pull my head back around making me look up into her eyes. “What happened isn’t your fault, and I don’t ever want to hear you saying so again,” she said.

“But…” I started.

“No buts, Shadow. I was the one who made you hide, the blame is mine and mine alone. You, are the one who saved us, a small pony fresh from a stable no less. If anything, you should be proud of yourself,” she said firmly.

I couldn’t help smiling a little as I said, “I only did what anypony else would do. You’re my friend and I couldn’t let you die, or get sold into slavery.”

“That’s the thing Shadow, most ponies in The Wasteland wouldn’t have done what you did, even for a friend. Life is too short to risk it for another. What you did was amazing, and I want you to know that,” she said.

“Amazing or not, I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I responded.

“Well I am, maybe a few scratches and an ugly mane cut, but the doctor said I’ll be out of here soon enough though,” she said with a small smile.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I am Shadow. Why don’t you head back to Equestrian Express and get some rest, you look like you’ve been up all night,” she replied.

I sighed and laid my head down on her bed, saying, “I don’t wanna go back yet, and I have been up all night. I can’t sleep with that damned Pegasus talking and laughing with Box Tape.”

“Ah yes, I heard something about a pegasus being in town. We don’t see them much around here. What’s he like?” she asked, sounding less hostile toward Stardust than Sapphire immediately was.

“He’s an ass that doesn’t seem to have any manners, and he never shuts up,” I replied, recalling how he acted when we told Box Tape what happened.

“Is that the only reason you haven’t gotten any sleep?” she asked again.

I looked up at her sighing again as I reached into my saddle bag and pulled out the memory orb to show it to her. “Sapphire gave this to me before she left to finish off the raiders. I’ve been wanting to see what was in it, but I’m too scared to watch it,” I said.

She cocked her head and asked, “A memory orb? Do you have any idea what might be in it?”

“I think it has something to do with my mother. Sapphire thinks it might be a memory of another pony who left my stable,” I replied.

“Isn’t that a good thing? You’ve been wanting to know what happened to her ever since she left, haven’t you?” she asked again.

“I have, but knowing might not be a good thing. Right now, I still have good memories of her, I’m afraid that if I watch it, I’ll see her differently, and lose the good things I remember about her,” I felt tears falling slowly down my face. Goddesses I can’t believe I’m crying like this, over something that happened so long ago.

I felt her hoof on my head again making me look up at her, saying, “Shadow, you can’t live your life in fear of the unknown. It’s better to know the truth rather than to hide from it, and remember no matter what you find out, you’ll always have those good memories of her. If you want, you can view it here, I’ll keep an eye on you while you do.”

“Are you sure?” I asked through by tears.

“I'm sure, go on. I’ll be here when you’re done,” she said, her smile somehow calmed my nerves, I relaxed a little then looked down at the silvery orb.

I set the memory orb down on the bed next to Silver Snip. Using my magic I concentrated it on the orb. As soon as I connected with it, the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

My vision came back slowly and soon I found myself looking at the boring grey walls of Stable 28. I tried to move my head to look around, but I couldn’t. Oh no, what if I did something wrong!? I can’t move any part of my body. I started to panic for a moment until I realized I was taller than normal and I didn’t feel like myself.

My head moved and my body started to walk toward a door. I realized then that I wasn’t in my own body, but in somepony else’s. Now I know why they call it a memory orb, I’m reliving whoever’s memory this was. Of course, that’s how it worked, I thought that I would've been following the pony who recorded the memory like some kind of ghost.

The pony I was in, or riding, no that sounds dirty, I guess I’ll call them my host, moved toward the door and opened it. I could tell I was in a unicorn, a horn was hard to miss as magic ran through it. Also, she was a mare, thank goodness too, I don’t know if I wanted to know what a stallion felt like.

She walked through the door and into the living quarters. Standing there was a pony I knew well, it was Auntie. She had a looked worried for some reason, something I hadn’t seen on her much in the past. She looked younger, exactly how I remembered her when I was a filly. She looked up as my host walked in. “Oh, thank Celestia, I was worried you weren’t going to make it.”

“I had to make sure Shadow was sleeping before I could get out. Did you finish it?” said the voice of my mother, but it felt like I was speaking it. My host was none other than my own mother. So, I was right, the orb was her. It felt kinda weird being in my mother's body like this, especially because of the height difference. How the hell did The Boss get this?

“I did, it’s all set up and ready for a new user, the files you wanted are still there, but hidden away, nopony apart from yourself should be able to find them, though I wouldn’t put it past the new Overmare to try and find a way. She’s always been suspicious of you ever since you came to the stable,” Auntie said as the door shut behind me, my mother, or whatever.

My host flinched and sighed. I remember her always doing that when she was upset. “How much time do I have before she finds out?”

“About you, or your daughter?” Auntie asked.

“Either I guess,” Mom replied.

“Shadow’s fine, she hasn’t shown any new signs of getting worse in the past two years, as far as anypony knows she’s just a normal filly,” Auntie answered.

Mom sighed and said, “There’s nothing normal about her and you know it. It’s one reason we came here, that and the mission. I’m not too worried about her though, I’ve taken the right precautions; no pony should be able to find out the truth, at least not here. What about me though?”

“Ever since The Overmare’s mother retired, and she took over, she’s been doing her best to find out everything she can about you. I don’t know everything she’s found, but I do know that my identity is safe and should stay that way, as for you, she knows about the Pip-Buck you brought in with you, I also think she might know why you came here in the first place,” Auntie said looking around, as if somepony was about to jump out of nowhere and yell, boo!

“I figured as much. I received a transmission from The Rangers. They said The Red Talons have been contracted to find me. I’m not sure by who yet but they're still a threat if they figure out I’m here. The Elder doesn’t know if I’m to be brought in alive or dead,” Mom said.

Auntie made a small eep sound then whispered, “But you’re safe in here, there’s no way they could find the stable, let alone get into it.”

“The Red Talons have a lot of resources. Given time, I’m sure they’ll find this place and a way into it, just to get to me. The Rangers sent new orders. They want me to leave the stable tonight,” Mom said.

Auntie looked a little surprised, saying, “What about Shadow? She’s just starting to make friends. You can’t just take her away from that. It’s too dangerous for a filly like her in The Wasteland.”

“I know, and with her…condition. I can’t have her leave, not yet. I don’t know what'll happen to her. That is why I’ll have to leave her behind and under your care,” she said this as if it didn’t bother her one bit, but I could feel her chest tighten as she spoke.

“What, me? I don’t know the first thing about raising a filly,” Auntie protested.

“You’ll just have to learn like any mother would. I don’t like this any more than you do, but that’s how it’ll have to be,” Mom said sternly.

Auntie rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “What will I tell her? You know she’ll be heartbroken if she finds out you abandoned her. You’re the only family that she has,” she said.

Mom looked away and said, “I know she will, so make something up. If that doesn’t work, tell her I died in some kind of accident.”

“You aren’t coming back for her, are you?” Auntie asked putting a hoof on my host’s shoulder.

“I…I want to, but I don’t know what’ll happen once I’m gone. Anyway, it would be better if she never finds out the truth about me or who I really am, at least not until she’s older. Promise me that you’ll keep her safe and healthy,” she said turning around and pushing Auntie’s hoof away.

“Grim, I can’t let you do this. I don’t care what happens to this blasted stable or what your orders are, you can’t just leave her alone like this, I won’t let you,” Auntie said.

My mother’s head turned and I could see tears on Auntie’s face. “And I can’t let you stop me from doing this, the mission is much bigger than you or me, bigger than my happiness. I’m sorry for this and everything you’ll have to face once I leave,” Mom said. I could feel a spell building in my host’s horn and before Auntie could say anything else, my mother’s spell put her to sleep. My mother walked over and picked up the Pip-Buck I now wore off the side table in Auntie’s room and placed it in her saddle bags.

We turned and headed out the door quietly, after taking a quick look around and seeing nopony, she cast another spell. There was a flash of light and I found we were now in the lower parts of the stable. My mother was always good at teleportation, but going down ten levels was amazing. She wasn’t even tired, I could feel her heart beating a little faster, but that was about it. She moved quickly over to the area where I found my Pip-Buck, behind the old generator.

She pushed the door open and walked inside. She pulled the Pip-Buck out of her saddle bag along with the box I found it in. She placed it into the box, closed it, then cast some kind of cloaking spell on it along with what felt like a protection spell. After she finished she stood and said quietly, “I hope this'll keep you safe. I only hope I set everything up right, if The Overmare finds it, everything will be lost.”

Then she walked back out the door, she locked it and using a couple more spells she made roots grow over the door, made the shadows darker around the door, and put a spell on it to keep ponies away. I was amazed at what she was able to do. Auntie always told me that mother was a master of spells, but I never really knew how much until now. She was casting spells that I didn't even think were possible. It was almost like watching an incarnation of The Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle we read about in class. She was a master of magic too, hell, it was her special talent.

When she finished, I could tell the magic had taken its toll on her body. She felt weak and her vision blurred for a moment. She shook her head and cursed, but it didn’t take too long for it to pass. She made her way back to the elevators and headed back to the Atrium. At this time of night there weren't many security patrols around this area, she lifted her Stable 28 issued Pip-Buck and checked her inventory, then some of her notes, when she seemed satisfied she pulled out a magical energy pistol and headed toward the door that lead in and out of Stable 28.

“Halt! Who goes there?” a stallion said as she made her way toward the stable door.

My host stopped and looked over toward the control panel where a stallion was standing. I didn’t know him, but I could swear I’ve seen him before, a long time ago. Mother smiled and said, “Fireball, I didn’t think you’d be guarding the door tonight.”

“Yeah, so what Unicorn? You know you aren’t allowed near here,” the security pony said.

“Why not?” she asked sounding confused, but being stuck in her body or whatever, I could feel her readying the magical energy pistol, keeping it hidden behind herself as she spoke.

“New orders from The Overmare, nopony is to go near the stable door,” he replied.

“I have permission to use the door whenever I need. I’m part of the research team as you very well know,” Mom argued.

“No teams are going out into The Wasteland anymore. The Overmare’s worried that if anypony finds out about the research team going in and out freely, there’ll be a riot. So go back to your room,” he said, pulling out his nightstick.

“I’m sorry Fireball, but I can’t do that,” she said, pointing the pistol at him.

He laughed and said, “What? Do you think you’re going to shoot me you stupid bitch? If you do, you still won’t get out and all you’ll do is piss off The Overmare even more.”

“I’m sure she’ll get over it, and why do you think I can’t get out if you’re dead?” she asked.

“Because she changed the codes to the door, only she knows it now,” he said with a smug smile.

“Shame, well good thing I already got the codes from her office earlier today, I had a feeling she’d be trying something like this. Now back off before I have to do something I don’t want to do,” she said as her magic started pulling back a little on the trigger.

To my surprise, he smiled and said, “If you leave, I’ll make sure my sister finds out and she’ll make your life a living hell, or she’ll do the same to your daughter. Maybe I’ll do that myself, she’s not too young anymore and I do like fresh meat, they’re way more fun than older mares. So, either drop your gun and come with me back to security, or leave with the idea of what I’ll do to that filly of yours once you’re gone.”

I could feel my host’s eyes narrow as she said, “No one threatens my family, you sick fuck.” Anger laced every inch of her voice as she pulled the trigger. A blast of magical energy hit the stallion before he could do anything. His body glowed bright pink then he fell into a pile of ash. Hmm, I guess he really was a fireball.

Without a second glance Mom walked over to the panel, hooked her Pip-Buck up to it, entered the code, and hit the button. With a loud screech, the door opened. She ran out as soon as it started to roll away. Once she was on the other side she used the outer panel to shut the door.

She ran for it, the sound of the door started closing behind her echoing around though the tunnels. She smiled, then used her magic to teleport herself right up to the door that led out of the tunnels. Her heart was racing again, and I could tell she didn’t have much left in her. She breathed heavily looking at the door that lead out and sighed. She pushed the door open, then before she walked out she looked down. Laying on the ground was the old chain and lock near the dead family I found when I left.

“Maybe this’ll keep them from following me,” she said picking it up. She walked out then wrapped the chain around the door and locked it from the inside with her magic, making it look as if the family had done so. I wasn’t sure why she decided to do that.

She looked out into the vast open world and smiled again, saying, “I hope you make it out of there okay, my little Morning Star, I love you.” She finally let her emotions get the better of her and tears fell from her eyes, she let them fall as she slowly walked away from Stable 28…

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I came out of the memory, the memory orb still sitting next to my head. I looked around, still a little out of it. The experience I just had left tears in my eyes. I had a feeling the memory was of my mother, but what I’d seen, I could’ve never guessed. She left the stable just like I thought, and Auntie knew about it.

She left the stable, leaving me behind because of something to do with my condition. What condition was she talking about, and why couldn’t she take me with her? She’d also been the one who left the Pip-Buck Mk II. But why? Auntie said something about hidden files. I’ve looked through the Pip-Buck before, but never found anything on it.

I have no idea how to feel about what I saw. I’m not sure if I should feel more abandoned than I already do, or if I should feel relieved because she left me behind to keep me safe from whatever was out here in the wasteland. For now, I’d just have to let it be, my best bet was to try and find her and ask her myself. She’s the only one who’d be able to tell me the truth.

“Did you find what you were looking for in there Shadow?” Silver asked, looking up from her bed.

I laid my head back down and sighed into the blankets. “I’m not sure, it was only the memory of my mother escaping the stable. I really don’t know what was so important about it. All I could tell was that there’s something hidden in this Pip-Buck, but I have no idea how to find it or why it matters.”

“Well, I’m sure there was a reason for her to leave it behind. You won’t know though unless you find her and ask her yourself, though I’m not sure how you're going to find her," she said.

After a few moments went by, I finally spoke, “I have to at least try, she’s the only one who can explain everything.”

“How can you though? You don’t even know where to start looking. The Equestrian Wasteland is a large place. She could be anywhere from New Pegasus to Hoofington,” Silver said, pointing to different spots on the blankets as if it were a map.

“In the memory orb, she said something about The Rangers, I think she was working with them. I should start with them,” I said sitting back up.

I looked up at her, my red eyes meeting hers. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, it’s been years since that memory took place. You have no idea if she’s still with them or if they’ll tell you where she is, I’d be surprised if they even let you in. The Steel Rangers aren’t much for outsiders coming to knock on their door.”

I smiled and said, “I’m not worried about that, I think I have a way in.”

“Really, how?” she asked curiously.

“The pony who helped me in the raider camp is a Star Paladin, she’s expecting me to bring that memory orb to them. She’ll be my way in and maybe she can help me find out more about my mother,” I replied.

She gave me a worried look. “Okay, but I want you to be careful, those Steel Rangers are all about tech. Bringing that Pip-Buck to them could be dangerous. If you’re not careful you could find yourself at the wrong end of a magical energy rifle.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “I'll do my best.”

“You should go check on Box Tape and that pegasus. He might be able to help you find your way and get a plan set up,” she said

I wanted to say something, instead I looked away, getting to my hooves. “I…I’ll do that. Can you do something for me though?”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Get better and stay safe,” I replied with a smile.

I could see tears in her eyes as she looked away again. “I will, I promise I’ll be here when you come back.”

I smiled and turned to leave, as I made my way out the door I heard a soft sob come from her room. I wasn’t sure what just happened, but I knew she needed to be left alone. Sometimes it’s better to do nothing, that’s what Auntie used to tell me. So, I left the clinic and headed back to Equestrian Express.

***

I’d just made it in the door when I almost ran into Stardust. “Whoa, watch it small fry. Careful where you’re walkin’,” he said.

“I’m not small, you’re all just massively oversized,” I snapped, not in the mood for the weird pegasus or his witty remarks.

“Oversized? Na, you’re just short,” he retorted with a smirk.

“Ass,” I said, annoyed at his uncaring attitude.

“Whatever. So what’s the plan?” he asked completely ignoring my irritation.

“We’re going where Sapphire told me to go when I was done with the memory orb,” I replied.

“We?” he asked.

“I thought you were going with me or something, seeing as how you’ve stuck around since we rescued the prisoners from the camp,” I said, pointing out that if he was gonna leave, he probably would've done so already.

“The only reason I’ve stuck around is because I have nowhere else to go,” Stardust said.

“’Well ya got nothin’ better to do, so go with her! Maybe you could lend a hoof and make sure she don’t die or get enslaved, or even worse,” Box Tape said as he walked into the front room.

“But she’s just so…I mean she’s just…you know…hostile!” he exclaimed pointing a wing at me.

“Quit bein' a wussy, and just go. I’m sure she won’t bite…at least not too hard,” Box Tape said with a chuckle.

“Fine, I’ll go. Just let me get my things,” Stardust said, mumbling under his voice, “This is what I get for being a nice guy.”

I followed him, saying, “You think I’m hostile? You’re the one being an ass with your asinine sarcasm.”

He stopped looking back at me. “Listen, I’m not an ass I just call things as I see them.”

“Well maybe you should think before you talk then,” I snapped back.

He laughed again and said, “I don’t see any reason to. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, or anything. I just like to joke around.”

“Whatever, but can you at least try and think before you speak, please?” I asked finally giving in.

It took a moment for him to answer, “Well, I guess, since you were so polite about it,” he grinned at me picking up his saddle bags.

“What’s takin’ ya’ll so long?” Box Tape called from the other room.

“Sorry Box Tape,” I replied walking into the other room, Stardust close behind.

“Since ya’ll have to be headin’ off to The Steel Rangers I have somethin’ for you to deliver for me,” Box Tape said.

“Deliver? Why would I be doing that, I’m on a mission to find my mother,” I asked.

“Yer also a courier and ya have a job to do,” he replied.

I’d forgotten all about agreeing to help Box Tape out with the business. I blushed a little, saying, “I forgot about that, what do you want me to bring them?”

“Just a package, somepony brought it by a couple days ago. It’s to go to the elder and only her. The sender paid up front three hundred caps, your cut is one hundred,” he said walking over and giving me a small wrapped parcel and a small bag filled with bottle caps.

“I still think it’s stupid you all use caps as currency,” I said putting them both into my saddle bags.

“Hehehe. Not sure what else to use. Anyway, ya’ll should get goin’. It’s a long walk to the bunker,” Box tape said before pointing at my Pip-Buck, “That mare from before marked the location on your Pip-Buck if I remember right. The place is called Hidden Sands, their bunker is in the middle of it somewhere. But be careful when ya’ll go near it. They keep some old tech of theirs runnin’ that makes a massive sandstorm run through the valley to help hide the entrance to the stronghold. It also keeps their scouts and guards hidden. Don’t go wanderin’ around too long in there. Try and find a scout and tell ‘em you’re a courier.”

Looking at the map on my Pip-Buck I asked, “It looks like a long way to go; how long will it take?”

“Hard to say, if the weather stays nice and you don’t run into any trouble shouldn't be longer than one or two days,” Box Tape replied.

“Wouldn’t take too long to get there if we fly,” Stardust said looking over my shoulder at my map.

“Oh no, I’m a unicorn, not a bird. I don’t really wanna be flying only having you to trust not to drop me,” I said looking back at him.

“Fine suit yourself, but I’m telling you, it’s a lot faster by air,” Stardust insisted.

“That might be, but ya’ll risk gettin’ spotted by The Enclave. I don’t think ya wanna risk bein' a pegasus under the clouds getting spotted by em’," Box Tape said.

“Good point gramps. Guess we’ll hoof it. Though I never ran into any Enclave ponies before while flying around,” he said turning to leave.

“Hey Box Tape, are things gonna be okay here?” I asked feeling a little worried that something else might happen to the town.

He smiled. “Listen Shadow, ya can’t be worryin’ about everypony all the time. Cartwheel’s been around for a long time and we’ve all seen our fair share of trouble. Don’t be worryin’ about us or me, you go find out what ya can about yer mom. Also, stay safe, and keep an eye on that there Pegasus ya hear.”

“I’ll do that, but I don’t think he seems like much trouble, he’s just kind of a boob,” I said.

Box Tape gave me a serious look. “Listen here Shadow, I trusted him because he helped ya, but I talked with him, and most of his story don’t add up. Just, be careful is all I’m askin’,” Box Tape said quietly.

“Okay, I will. Stay safe Box Tape,” I responded.

“Oh, just get goin’,” he said, turning back into his living room.

I walked out of Equestrian Express, Stardust was waiting for me with his saddle bags packed and ready to go, a long rifle was slung over his back with a scope on it. “So Shadow, should we get going?” Stardust asked.

“Hey where did you get that rifle?” I asked.

He looked back at it, then at me again, “Oh, I flew back to the camp an hour or so ago while you were visiting Silver Snip, the camp’s empty and I found it still next to the body of that big pony who was trying to kill you.”

I sighed. “Why would you risk going back there just for a gun?”

He looked offended, “I made this rifle myself, I searched for a week to find all the parts for it when I first got out of my stable. I put a lot of work into it and it’s saved me a few times. I couldn’t just leave it behind in the mud or to get found by some wandering pony or raider. Can we get going?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, as long as you’re ready.”

“Sure am, we’ve been hanging around this town for too long as it is,” he said. I noticed as he spoke that his eyes were scanning the sky’s and his wings were fluttering ever so slightly. I wonder what’s got him so nervous.

He started walking out of town. I’m not sure what’ll happen next, but this was where I’d have to start. I like Cartwheel, I don’t want to leave it for the baron Equestrian Wasteland, but I have to. So, I took one last look at Cartwheel, then turned, and headed out following Stardust.

***

“It’s been three hours and you still haven’t said a word Shadow, what’s up?” Stardust asked as we slowly walked along the northern trail. It wasn’t the first time he tried to get me to talk either. I really didn’t know what to say to him, for the most part I found him annoying, but I also didn’t know how to talk with him. He was a pegasus from some unknown stable, and he’s a stallion. I wasn’t good at talking with stallions apart from Balefire, but he’d been my friend since we were foals.

Most stallions made me nervous, none have ever been kind to me at all in Stable 28. Box Tape was different he was an old pony and had a friendly way about him, but Stardust was just so…different. I knew I couldn’t put it off forever, so I just said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I’m just sorry,” I said again.

He laughed flapping his wings a little, saying, “Sorry don’t mean much if you don’t know what you’re sorry for. My Drill Sergeant always said not to apologize for things if you don’t mean it or don’t know what it’s for.”

I looked up at him. “I guess, I’m sorry for dragging you with me like this, you really didn’t have to tag along. It’s not like the old stallion can do much to make you.”

“Nah, I don’t mind at all. Truth be told, I’m kind of in the same boat as you. Also, I don’t have much to do down here apart from killing raiders, and saving a few folks when I can,” he said matter of factly.

“Why do you do that anyway?” I asked, not thinking about what I just asked.

He gave me a confused look. “What, save ponies? Because it’s the right thing to do is why, and I want to give folks a better image of pegasi. What little I know of The Enclave, I know they aren’t too kind to folks below the clouds. When I was a colt I thought I knew everything about The Enclave. They taught us that they'd be Equestria's saviors. Turns out it wasn't true though.”

“That’s kind of a noble thing to do I guess,” I said.

“Nothing noble about it, just the right thing to do is all,” he said, he didn’t smile though, he had more of a sad look to him.

I looked down at my hooves and we walked and said, “I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“If you’re from a stable like you say you are, why don’t you have a Pip-Buck like I do?” I asked. I noticed his lack of one before, but never had the chance to ask him about it.

He looked down at his foreleg. “What makes you think all stable ponies have Pip-Bucks?”

“In my stable anypony gets one when they come of age, and from what I read so far in The Wasteland Survival Guide, any stable pony that’s come out of a stable has one,” I replied.

He shrugged. “You aren’t wrong I guess, my stable was different from most. We didn’t have unicorns or earth ponies around to help keep them running right. We don’t have many Pip-Bucks and the ones we do have go to the high-ranking members of the stable. I wasn’t important enough to have one. Not that I mind though, I don’t need one.”

“I think it’s pretty useful, helps a lot with targeting and keeping things organized. I looked forward to getting one for a long time,” I said, looking down at my Pip-Buck.

He scoffed, “I don’t need that to help me shoot.”

“Really? How good are you?” I asked.

“Best shot around, didn’t you see my cutie mark?” he said pointing back at his flank.

I looked at the cross surrounded by a circle, small dots on the lines of the cross. “I thought that meant you were some kind of doctor or something. It reminds me of the symbol in medical back in 28.”

“You really don’t know anything about guns do you?” he asked.

“We didn’t use them in our stable, only higher level security had them and only in case the stable was ever invaded. What’s that have to do with your cutie mark?” I replied.

“It’s not a cross, well not exactly, it’s the crosshairs of a sniper scope. Got it when I was really young,” he explained.

“So that means your special talent is shooting ponies?” I asked.

“Kinda, more like it’s marksponyship or shooting things accurately. I just really understand guns, I know how they work, how to build them, and how to shoot them really well. Since I was little, I always understood how the rifle would fire, how the bullet would fall depending on the distance, or if other factors were involved," he replied.

I cocked my head, “That’s kind of an odd cutie mark.”

He shook his head. “Not in my stable, most ponies where I come from have some kind of cutie mark that revolves around that kind of thing.”

“What kind of stable did you live in?” I asked.

He got that dark look again and said in a more serious tone,, “It doesn’t matter. What about your cutie mark? I haven’t seen one like it before, what’s your special talent?”

“I really don’t know for sure. I got it after I broke into The Overmare’s office. I wanted to prove to a friend of mine that I could, but one of her guards came in while I was still in there. I hid under her desk and was really scared I’d get caught. So I don’t know how, but I concentrated really hard and teleported out of the office. I got it somewhere between getting into the office and teleporting out,” I replied.

He started to snicker, “So you ended up with a purple star with two keys on it. That’s kinda funny, at least I know what mine means.”

I furrowed my brow. “Hey, I like my cutie mark, I might not fully understand it, but it’s still mine, and it’s kind of cute.”

He nodded. “Well you got me there. It does kind of work on you and with your name.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “You know what? You’re really not that bad Stardust.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“Where I come from, I didn’t have much to do with the rest of the ponies. I only had a couple of friends. They were the only ponies my age who were nice to me. I never thought I’d ever find other ponies who were, well… good to me. I mean you aren’t really nice to me, but you aren’t mean either. So, thank you for that,” I replied.

“Can’t figure out why anypony wouldn’t like you, I mean you’re kind of a shrimp and have a bad temper, but that isn’t any reason to be mean. Why were they like that with you anyway?” he asked, seeming more sincere than he had before.

“I was a unicorn in an earth pony only stable. They didn’t take kindly to me,” he was quiet for a while after that, just looking out into the horizon. After some time went by I finally spoke up again, “How long have you been out here in The Wasteland?”

He looked back at me again. “About six months now, why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering, I’m amazed you survived this long on your own.”

“Being able to fly, and having military level training helps a little,” he said with a proud smirk. “You know what? I’m kinda bored walking around like this, think you can turn on the radio?”

“Do I look like I’m carrying around a radio?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, all Pip-Bucks have a radio in them, figured you’d know that,” he said.

I looked down at my Pip-Buck, ignoring his comment and flipped across a few tabs. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a radio. Great so the pegasus even knows more about my Pip-Buck than I do. “There are three stations showing up.” I said.

“The only one that matters is the first one there,” he said pointing a hoof at my Pip-Buck’s screen.

I reached down and clicked on it. Right away soft music started to play. It was a beautiful voice, she was singing a song that was sad and made you want to cry, but at the same time it was beautiful and made you want to keep listening. Stardust smiled as she sang and closed his eyes listening to the soft music as it played.

It only lasted a minute, then the song ended and a loud energetic stallions voice came on, “Hello Children of The Wasteland, this is your one and only DJ Pon3, that was the beautiful Sweetie Belle. You know what time it is now my faithful listeners, that’s right, it’s time for the news,” the voice was deep and smooth, and I kinda liked it, even if it did sound like he was shouting. “Now I know I don’t get to give you all much news from out in Western Equestria, but today I do. For the past few years now, a whole lot of raiders have been blocking the pass just outside of the trading town of Cartwheel. Keeping the caravans from passing through to the Northwest pass, making them take the longer and more dangerous route to the north. Well if you’re with the Caravans you won’t have to worry anymore about those nasty raiders. Yesterday a young mare, wearing a courier outfit from Equestrian Express went in there all by herself and somehow killed The Boss who ran the place and a few of his followers, saving some of the citizens of Cartwheel in the process. Now the entire encampment is gone and not a single raider is left to terrorize Cartwheel or any traders or caravans passing through. So, thank you Courier Mare, whoever you are, keep up the good work. Now here’s some Sapphire Shores for you…”

I turned down the radio and looked over at Stardust asking, “What the fuck was that? How did this, DJ Pon3, know about that? Also, he left out the fact that I had help.”

He waved a wing. “Oh, DJ knows most things that happen in The Wasteland and he’s the most honest pony out there. So what if he left out the fact that you had help, maybe he didn’t see everything that happened.”

This was starting to freak me out a little. “But how did he know about me doing what I did, and how couldn’t he have known I had help?”

He just shook his head and said, “No idea Shadow, nopony really knows how he knows what he does. I say just take the praise and don’t worry about it too much.”

I huffed. “Well I don’t like it. It’s pretty creepy, y'know.”

“It is what it is, and in The Wasteland, I’ll take DJ watching other ponies and keeping the repots going verses the other things that happen around here,” he said.

“From what I've seen apart from raiders, what else can be wrong, apart from the dead landscape and hard living?” I asked.

He smiled like I said something ignorant. “You gotta remember that you haven’t been out here for very long, you haven’t seen half of the dangers that you can run into. Hell, I’d take raiders over Hellhounds.”

“What the fuck are Hellhounds?” I asked as we rounded the corner of a tall cliff.

He waved his wing again. “Trust me, you don’t want to ever find out. You won’t live long enough to tell anypony else. If you really wanna know though, look in that book of yours.”

Okay, he's annoying sometimes, but I’ll take his word on that one. As we came around the corner, I saw something buzzing around just down the road, it was big and gross. “What's that?” I asked pulling out Ol’ Festus.

“Oh that? It’s nothing, just a bloat sprite. Nasty critters, but not too harmful by themselves,” he said pulling his rifle out and aiming down the scope, his muzzle holding onto the grip.

“Can you really hit it from this far away?” I asked as I watched him aim.

He just smiled and took a breath, and as he let it out slowly he fired. There was a loud boom, and a second later the nasty bug exploded into a few chunks, green ooze flying everywhere.

“Ewwww gross!” I shouted in disgust.

“See, nothing to it,” he mumbled with the grip in his mouth.

“I’ll admit, that was impressive. How does that crappy rifle work so well?” I asked as he returned it to his back.

“It just looks crappy. Like I said before, I built it myself when I left the stable. Used what I could find, but I’m good with weapons and made sure it was perfect for hitting things from far away. Good gun to have when you’re up in the air and need to kill something down here,” Stardust said, a proud smile on his face.

“Okay dead shot, no need to brag…” I started, but he put a hoof up to shush me.

“Shhh,” he said looking around, his ears perked up high.

I pushed his hoof away and said, “What? You know it’s not polite to interrupt somepony while they’re speaking, right? Especially a mare.”

“I said shhh,” he whispered, “Stay here for a sec and stay quiet,” without another word, he jumped into the air.

I watched him go high up looking around franticly. Then his eyes fell on something down the road and he dove for the ground. When he landed I whispered, “What in Celestia’s name is wrong with you?”

“Dammit, I think they saw me,” he said in a worried tone.

“Who saw you, Raiders?” I asked.

“No, worse,” he stared to say. I was going to ask him what it was, but right then a loud cry came echoing down the road. It sounded like some kind of tortured monsters were walking down the road ahead.

I started to feel the creeping crawl of fear go up my spine as I asked, “What was that?”

“Ghouls,” he replied, cocking the bolt on his rifle.

“What do you mean ghouls? I met a ghoul back in Cartwheel, he was creepy looking, but a decent pony,” I said.

“Feral ghouls to be more exact. Yeah, I’m sure the one you met in town was normal for the most part, but ferals are a different matter. They don’t have any intelligence left, their brains rotted away a long time ago, all they know how to do is chase you down and rip the flesh from your body. And they always seem to travel in herds,” he said backing up.

“Can’t we just kill them?” I asked like it was as simple as squashing a bug.

He sighed and said, “Normally yes, but there had to be at least fifty or more down that way, and I think they heard my gunshot. They might’ve seen me when I flew up there too. I can’t be sure; their eyesight isn’t the best.”

“What do we do now then?” I asked looking down the road, the sounds getting closer.

“We could get lucky and they might wander off,” but as Stardust said that, a few of them came over the top of a hill.

He hadn’t been lying, what stood up there looked like a dead pony walking. Its coat was mostly burnt away, its eyes were dead and black, a look of hunger on its face. The first one to crest the hill used to be a unicorn, its horn missing its tip, its mane just a couple chunks of fluff on its head. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice as more crested the hill.

They saw us and let out a bloody scream and charged, faster than I thought something like that could possibly move. Stardust grabbed onto me and pulled me into the air just as one jumped at me.

“We’ve gotta get out of here Shadow,” he said climbing higher into the air.

He didn’t get very high however, because in the air were more ghouls. They looked like they’d once been pegasi, their wings only bones with a few feathers still on them. I have no idea how they could fly like that, but somehow, they could. Stardust dove for the ground again, pulling up at the last-minute right over the other ghouls, zipping fast through the air going for a crack in the side of the cliff.

I felt like I was going to hurl, as he zigzagged around the diving Pegasi and jumping ghouls on the ground. He landed a moment later next to a metal disk in the ground. I looked at it, my head still spinning in sync with my stomach as I looked down at it. “What's that?” I asked, pointing at the disk.

“A pony-hole cover, use your magic to pull it open and get in. We can use it to get away from them,” he replied.

I did as he said, I focused my magic on the metal disk and pulled. It was heavy, but not too heavy that I couldn’t lift it. I heard Stardust firing behind me, keeping the them from getting too close. I did my best to ignore it and pulled harder, finally it lifted up and open on old rusty hinges. “Got it!” I yelled.

Stardust backed up and using his hind-legs’ he pushed me in. He jumped in after me yelling, “Pull it closed now!”

I grasped it once again with my magic and slammed it down hard. As it slammed shut, one of the ghoul’s heads got in the way, and the heavy pony-hole cover squished it’s rotting head like a ripe melon, spraying me with blackish red ichor, bone, and grey matter. As the lid closed I saw a latch on it and twisted it, hearing something click home. I hoped to Celestia that it was a lock.

The sound of roaring and screeching could be heard from outside the metal, but it didn’t seem like they could open it. Panting hard I leaned back against a wall and said, “That was scary.”

“I agree. I haven’t seen that many all at once before. We were lucky I saw this tunnel from the air,” Stardust said trying to catch his breath.

“Yeah, but what do we do now? It’s not like they’re gonna go away any time soon,” I asked.

“We’ll be fine, most tunnels like this always have another way out. We’ll just have to see where it leads, and hope it’s somewhere safer than out there,” he replied.

I looked past him at the slightly dark tunnel, then back at the hole we’d just come though. “I think you’re right, but it doesn’t look much safer down here than up there,” I said.

“Just keep your gun out and ready for action. Ghouls like dark damp tunnels like this. If we run into any, there shouldn’t be more than a few at a time, much easier to fight off,” he said with a smile.

I sighed and pulled my rifle out again. “Okay then, let’s get going.”

“Um, Shadow?” Stardust said.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t you want to get cleaned up a little bit first?” he asked.

I felt my face with my hoof, that blackish stuff was dripping down my once beautiful silver mane, down my face, and chest. I looked back at him and shook my head. “No point right now. I’ll just have to deal with it.”

Without another word, I stepped past the Pegasus and started to walk down the dark tunnel, not knowing what we’d find, but it couldn’t be as bad as what we just left…could it?

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Helping Hoof: Companions are always a good thing to have when wandering the Equestrian Wasteland. When your friends are near, you gain +15% chance to get a critical hit while using S.A.T.S.

Chapter 6: One Way Or Another

“So what do you do for a living? I guess wearing suits of armor is an interesting hobby. I like to shoot things. How about you?”

“Keep running!” Stardust yelled as we made our way down another long tunnel. We only got a few feet into the dark tunnel, when we were attacked by more of the feral ghouls. They were laying among the grime and garbage, of what Stardust called a Subway. At first, it’d only been a couple, but as we blasted them away more started coming out of cracks and from under old train cars.

I got off a few shots with Ol’ Festus, but soon I ran out of ammo. I should’ve stocked up on more ammo before we left Cartwheel. I still had the security baton and the rifle I took off the dead raiders, but I didn’t have any more bullets for it and there was only so much I could do with the baton. Stardust’s rifle worked better long range, so our only way out was to run for it.

“How many are there?” I yelled back, trying not to trip over the garbage that littered the ground.

“I’m not sure, maybe a dozen or so,” he replied.

“Can we take them?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Stardust yelled as he flew over me, watching for any more zombie ponies that might be down our path.

We rounded another corner and into a dead end. "Fuck."

“Great now what?” Stardust asked sounding a little panicked.

I looked around quickly and saw a door in the corner of the tunnel. I had no idea what was on the other side, but I knew what was on this one. I ran to it and tried to open it. The damn thing was locked, because of course it was locked. We're in the Wasteland where everything, including doors, try to kill you in some way or another. “Fuck! Stardust can you hold them off for a minute?”

“I’ll try,” he said pulling his rifle off his back and opening fire.

I pulled out my bobby pins and a screwdriver and started to work on the lock. The damn thing was jammed though, and I kept breaking my pins. “Shit, I don’t think I can get this thing open.” I said, starting to freak out more.

“Well figure something out, I can’t hold them back forever,” Stardust said.

I looked over and saw five of the ghouls jump at Stardust knocking him to the ground, his rifle flying away. I pulled out the security baton and ran over cracking two of them in the head in quick succession, their heads splitting open spraying blackish blood everywhere. More of them came running at me, feral cries on their lips. Keeping the baton steady in my magic I started to go wild. I struck another across the face slamming it into the side of the tunnel, I bucked another that was coming up behind me, flipping around, I hit another that was trying to get me from the side. A couple got through and knocked me back, but I refused to fall. They weren’t that strong physically, but their bites hurt like hell, and their combined force made up for what they lacked in strength.

My Pip-Buck started to click wildly telling me that I was taking in a lot of radiation as they attacked me. Pain racked my body, but I refused to go down, looking back I could see Stardust behind me trying to get up, but he looked dazed. I kept on fighting, ignoring the noise, the pain, and how much my body wanted to stop and give up. My magic was at its limit, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to die down in some dank tunnel.

My vison started to go black around the edges, and I could feel my knees go weak. My magic finally gave out, the baton falling to the ground. They came at me all at once, only four of them were left, but for how bad I felt, it would be enough. If I would’ve just held out a few more seconds, I could’ve done it. Now I was going to die, ripped to shreds by irradiated ponies. At least I went out fighting, at least that was something.

(Boom)

There was a loud crack from Stardust’s Rifle right behind me. The two closest ghoul’s heads exploded, their bodies flying back knocking the last two over. Stardust jumped over me picking up my baton and caved in the skulls of the remaining two. The tunnel was suddenly silent. He looked back at me, still looking dazed, but he had that goofy smile of his.

“You okay Shadow?” he asked kneeling down by me.

I tried to speak, but I had no energy left. My heart rate was slowing down, and I could hear the blood pumping in my ears. My vision was still fading, and I suddenly remembered my mother telling me that using too much magic could kill you. If I had any energy, I would’ve panicked, but really, I was more at peace.

“Shadow, are you okay? Shadow…answer me!” he said getting right in my face, his voice was slowly fading away, and a rushing sound started filling my ears like thousands of gallons of water running through pipes.

I only smiled and let my eyes close, if I died, then so be it. I was proud of myself, I wasn’t really sure why, I just was…

“Stay with me…” I heard the voice of Stardust saying, it sounded distant though. It felt like I was laying on something, I wasn’t sure what though, my hooves wrapped around what must have been his neck. They felt like they were tied together. I wanted to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. The sounds around me faded again and I…

***

“Wake up Shadow…please, we can’t stay here much longer,” Stardust’s voice came again.

I opened my eyes slowly, my head felt like I’d been hit repeatedly in the horn with my baton. Stardust was standing over me looking down, he had a worried look on his face and his wings were shaking.

“What happened? Why does everything taste purple?” I asked slowly. My mouth felt like sand paper and my voice came out scratchy and raw, not to mention the throbbing headache I had.

“You passed out back there, I had no Idea what happened to you. One minute you were fighting like a tiny badass, the next you were passing out. You’re lucky I was able to get a good shot off, or else you’d be dead,” he said sitting down next to me breathing heavily.

“Sorry about that, I think I used too much magic, I never had much stamina when it came to spell casting, even just using my telekinesis for too long could wear me out,” I said.

“You really scared me back there, I thought you were dead. That was really stupid you know, you could’ve gotten yourself killed,” he said, his voice unsteady as he spoke.

I looked around a little noticing we were no longer in the tunnels. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just saw you go down, and I couldn’t open that door, so I figured all I could do was fight. Where are we anyway?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure to be honest. I just tied you to my back and took off. I could hear more of them coming and with you passed out it was the only thing I could do. I flew down the other tunnel and found a way out and just kept on flying until I couldn’t anymore.”

“How long was I out?” I asked looking up at the dark cloud covered sky.

“A few hours. I found this hilltop and figured it was safe enough to land for a little while,” he replied.

No wonder his wings were shaking so badly. I was amazed he was able to go so far, for so long. I looked back at him again and smiled. “Thanks for getting me out of there, it was really brave.”

“Nothing brave about it, it was just the right thing to do, plus I said I’d keep you safe. I’m just glad you woke up,” he said closing his eyes, “We can’t stay here long though, I didn’t have time to scout the area and we’re exposed out here. We should try to find shelter.”

I looked at the map on my Pip-Buck, and noticed that we were still a ways away from Hidden Sands. I sighed and closed my eyes again, my head still pounding. Definitely over used my magic.

“We’re still a long way from Hidden Sands. Do you have any idea where we can find a place to stay around here?” I asked, looking at my Pip-Buck map.

“I got a good look at the landscape while I was still in the air. I think I’ve been around here before, if I’m right there should be a shack just to the north of us,” Stardust said.

“We should get going then. How far away do you think it is?” I asked opening my eyes a little.

“I could find out, wait here. I’ll be back before you can say 'where the fuck did he go'. Only because you’re all sick and delirious and stuff,” he said jumping into the air and flying off.

I tried to say something to him, but he was too fast and he was right about the delirious thing. For a second there I actually thought he looked like a gender swapped Rainbow Dash. So while I waited I pulled open my pack and pulled out a book I found in Box Tape’s collection. It was called the Big Book of Arcane Science and Technology. I figured it would help me with my magic use, but it was more about different technology that earth ponies and unicorns made together. Things like the Pip-Bucks were in it and terminals.

I was only able to read a page or two, when I saw him flying back. I put the book away, and watched as he came toward me. He wasn’t slowing down though, I put my saddle bag back on wondering what he was doing. All of a sudden he swooped down and grabbing me, he lifted me high into the air. My stomach tightened up and I had to do my best not to vomit.

After a moment of us climbing into the air I was able to get out, “What the hell?”

“Sorry, but we gotta go,” he said diving down and keeping low to the ground, moving fast.

“Why? What the hell's wrong with you?” I asked.

“I found the shack I was looking for right away, it’s not far. However, I saw a griffon flying around not far from here, I’m not sure if he saw us or not, but I’d like to get out of the open as soon as possible,” he said zipping around a blackened tree.

“A griffon? Why does that sound familiar?” I asked as we rounded another tree and started flying up the side of a cliff.

He landed on a cliffside where there was a small broken-down wooden shack hidden under an overhang. The thing looked like it would fall over if I sneezed on it or something. He pushed me forward and into the rickety door shutting it behind us. Only then did he start to talk, “You mean you don’t know what a griffon is?”

“I know I’ve read something about them, but no, I have no idea,” I said looking around the small room. Inside was a bed with a nasty looking mattress on it, a couple of hooflockers, and a desk.

Stardust sighed and sat down on the bed resting his head against a wall.“Griffons are usually mercenaries, they're half eagle, half large cat, they have big wings, and are extraordinary flyers. Normally larger than a pony, with very sharp senses, and made for fighting. They can see farther than a pony can too, you don’t want to mess with one if you can help it. Personally, I hate them myself, I mean they’re just so fucking arrogant.”

“What do you mean by mercenaries?” I asked.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what a mercenary is too,” he said looking over at me.

“I do, I read about them in The Wasteland Survival Guide, but I thought they only worked for caps, and don’t normally kill unless they’re paid to,” I said finding a spot on the floor that didn’t look as disgusting as the rest of this dump.

He nodded.“Yeah that’s about right, Griffons are just like that, they take a contract and that becomes law to them. If you pay them enough they’ll do just about anything and never cheat you, because they live by the contract. The kicker is getting them to agree to one, most of them have their own rules, or code, or something. There’s certain things they will or won’t do and they lay that down in the contract they make with you.”

“If they live by this contract or whatever, why are you worried about seeing one out there?” I asked pointing a hoof at the door. I didn’t like how he was acting, from what I could tell we shouldn’t have any reason to be worried about some random griffon. Unless he did.

“Because I have no idea why a lone griffon is flying around here, normally they work in wings, that’s three to five griffons. Also, you never see them around here, unless they’re hunting for somepony or on some other kind of job. One being by itself could mean the rest of its wing were killed, or it’s a scout. Both can be dangerous and I don’t wanna find out the hard way,” he said closing his eyes again.

“It sounds like you’ve tangled with them before,” I said.

He nodded again.“I have, took me a while to get the bounty off my head, but let’s just say I have a way with words, and uh I kinda payed them off.”

I wasn’t sure what to say next, so I pulled up my map and checked where we were. Doing my best to ignore my stomach as it tried to do flips along with the rest of my insides after the frantic flight. I saw that my Pip-Buck had labeled the shack as 'Rusty’s Shack'.”

“How did you know where this place was?” I asked as I looked over the map trying to see how far we were from Hidden Sands.

“I’ve stayed here a few times before as I wandered the Wastes. Now how about you put that toy of yours away and get some shut eye, I’m sure that griffon didn’t see us, so we should be safe up here. You still need rest from the look of you. You look like you’re gonna hurl fairy dust or something, I don’t know how magic sickness works, but barfing fairy dust sounds like something that could happen,” Stardust said moving his body down and laying on the dirty mattress with his back facing me.

His idiotic remarks about my condition pissed me off a little, and I would’ve said something about how rude it is to make a mare sleep on the floor while he took the only bed, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay myself down on that thing anyway. He was right though, I could tell that my body still hadn’t recovered from my magical outburst. My head was still pounding and even the thought of using magic made me feel ill. So, I curled up on the floor, tucked my legs in and did my best to fall asleep.

***

Half an hour later, I still couldn’t get to sleep, my body was tired, but sleep just wouldn’t come. Stardust was passed out snoring away, so I got up and walked to the door. I pulled it open slowly, and looked out. Nothing seemed to be out there, and it was getting dark. I stepped out and closed the door behind me.

The air outside wasn’t pleasant, it hadn’t been since I first wandered into the Wasteland, but there was a soft breeze and it was much better than being stuck in the stuffy shack. I leaned up against the cliff, and took in a deep breath. I’d only been away from my Stable for a few days, and so much has happened in such a short time. My mother was alive somewhere out there, I was traveling with a Pegasus I knew almost nothing about, and I’d killed ponies. Definitely wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing in my future, but I didn’t really mind. It was much better than getting a boring job in Stable 28 and living out my sad life there.

Those ponies I killed were monsters, they deserved what they got. I remembered when I was fighting them, they showed up as red lines on my E.F.S., which meant they were hostile and my enemies. I might not know much about Stardust, but he helped me when he didn’t have to, I owed my life to him, twice now. He might be a sarcastic jackass sometimes, but he cared somewhere in that weird head of his. As for my mother, well, I’ll have to deal with that when I can. For now, I’ll just see where the quest to find her will take me.

“Well, well, well, looks like luck's on my side today,” a voice said right next to me with a bit of a rasp.

My eyes snapped open and I looked to my left. Standing there was a creature that I’ve only seen in a book once, a long time ago. The creature, was a little taller than Stardust, with a sharp looking yellow beak, the front half of its body had black feathers, icy blue eyes, and white talons for its front feet. The tips of its feathers on its head were red, same for the claws on its talons. It had large wings folded close to its sides, the tips of the end feathers were also red like its head. The rest of its body looked like a large cat of some kind, black fur that matched its feathers, and a long cat like tail with a red tuft on the end.

It was a Griffon, and from the sound of its voice, it was female. She smiled at me with that thin beak holding up a long glowing spear with a sharp looking tip.“You wouldn’t happen to be that Courier Pony I’ve been hearing so much about, would you?” the griffon asked.

I wanted to jump up and yell for Stardust, but she had the end of that weird-looking spear close to my face, so I responded, “I could be, what’s it to you?”

“Good to know, I’ve been looking for you for a couple days now. There’s a bounty on your head with a high paying number of caps,” she said, her smile growing wider.

“Wait, what? How could that be, what did I do to get a bounty on me?” I said loudly trying to alert Stardust.

She pressed the tip of the spear to my throat, it pierced my skin a little, a trickle of blood flowing from a small cut.“I’d keep your voice down small fry. You’re coming with me, I figure we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“How about you tell me who put bounty out on me,” I said a little quieter, trying to show her no fear. Hopefully she couldn’t see my fetlocks shaking.

“How about we just do this…” she flipped the spear around and struck me over the head. "...the easy way."

***

I woke up feeling myself floating in the air. I thought my head hurt before, I was wrong. With the overtaxing of my magic and the smack to the head, it was way worse now. I looked up seeing I was being held in the Griffon’s talons floating not too far from the ground. I started to squirm and buck my hind legs in the air. “Hey, put me down dammit!” I yelled.

“Stop squirming, you don’t wanna fall, even from this height,” she said, her talons digging into my forelegs.

“Fuck you bird brain,” I said and stabbed my horn up at her chest. My horn was sharp, but I wasn’t strong enough to do much damage, but it still hurt. She screamed and dropped me.

She was right, it didn’t look like I was far from the ground, but when I landed and rolled, I found out how fast we were really going. My legs buckled as I hit and my body started rolling and flipping. I heard something snap and pain ran up through my body, even more so than the pain of hitting the ground.

When my body stopped, I tried to stand, but my left foreleg wouldn’t hold my weight. It didn’t feel broken, but I did hear something snap. I looked around for anything I could use to help me out, sadly the Wasteland wasn’t kind enough to give me a break. The griffon landed in front of me, anger etched on her face.

“That was really fucking stupid of you kid, you could’ve been killed, and I’d be out a lot of caps,” she pulled out her spear again.

“Fuck you and your bounty, I’d rather die than find out where you’re taking me!” I yelled.

“Damn pony, if the bounty didn’t call for you to be alive, I would’ve killed you already,” she said angrily.

“Well, I’m not letting you take me alive, so either let me go or kill me, either way, you lose,” I said with a cocky grin.

I could tell that she was thinking it over, finally she lowered the spear. “I can’t let you go.”

“Why not, I’m sure there are easier ways to get caps,” I said keeping an eye on her spear.

I could tell that something was wrong, for a bounty hunter, she didn’t really look like her heart was in it. She was more angry than anything. At what I’m not sure, but maybe I could find a way to help her out, my life did kinda depend on it.

“Not for a griffon there isn’t,” she finally said sitting down. “It’s not like I wanna do this, but it’s all I can do. A girl’s gotta eat.”

“I haven’t been in the Wasteland for very long, I find it hard to believe that somepony put a bounty on me,” I said moving into a sitting position.

She reached into her own bags and pulled out a slip of paper. “Small black pony, silver mane and tail, normally put into a braid, might be wearing Stable barding, possible location near Cartwheel. Apart from not having Stable Barding it sounds a lot like you kid, it also said to make sure and bring you back alive with anything you had on you.”

“Who in Celestia’s name knows so much about me?” I asked.

She sighed. “The transmission came from a stable, that’s the only thing I know, said you stole something from their Overmare.”

“That bitch, I remember now, she was sending transmissions to some griffons. I take it that must’ve been you,” she looked away from me almost like she was hiding something, “My Overmare sent that to you, right?”

“Well, not exactly, I stole this letter from griffons I used to know from The Red Talons. I was hoping they’d let me rejoin if I completed the contract,” she said, her voice a lot softer with melancholy.

“That has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. So, what? You go and hunt me down, use me as a bargaining chip to get into some group of griffons?” I asked.

She looked back at me furiously. “What would a pony know about the life and desires of griffons?”

“I know that no pony…no one, can survive in the wastes for long, on their own,” I said still trying to get her to stay calm.

She huffed and said, “Griffons have a code, we live for caps and the contract, and we work together in a group. There are a few different Talon companies out there, the Red Talons are the company that work this area. A griffon without a Talon company is useless and has no reason to live.”

“So they’re like family then?” I asked.

“Kinda, more like someone you can count on when you’re in trouble. I’m alone, and I need you to fix that,” she said raising the spear back up. “Now, if you aren’t going to come with me, then you can die. Your useless to me otherwise, unless you’d rather not die, then come with me quietly.”

“I think I’ll pass, thanks all the same,” I said with another cocky grin.

“Too bad, sorry kid.” She moved fast, her spear jabbing for my head.

(BANG)

The griffon moved so fast, I couldn’t believe it. Something hit the ground right where the Griffon’s head had been only a second ago. I looked up and saw Stardust high in the air, his rifle aimed down at where the griffon was now standing. He fired again, and she dodged. Using his hoof, he pulled back on the bolt of his rifle, expelling the spent shell, then pushing it forward again, reloading a fresh round.

“I don’t think so pegasus, she’s my bounty not yours,” she yelled up at him.

He laughed and said, “You can’t dodge all my shots griffon. You have my friend down there, and I’d really like it if you gave her back cause if you don’t then I’ll uh… okay I can’t think of anything right now, but it’ll be bad.”

“What does the Enclave want with her?" she aksed, "This pony’s bounty is with The Red Talon’s not you cloud kissers.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not Enclave, just a wandering pegasus. Now let her go, or my next shot won’t miss...hopefully,” he retorted.

She smiled up at him. “Go head and try it.” Without hesitation, he put his mouth to the trigger and fired. The griffon jumped into the air faster than I thought possible, her spear held tight in her talons. The bullet hit the ground missing her again. I could see how this was going to end.

“STOP, PLEASE!!!” I yelled up at them both, but it didn’t do any good.

Stardust flew down at her throwing his rifle onto his back. The energy at the end of her spear crackled as the griffon sped through the air. At the last second Stardust twisted out of the way, his hoof striking and hitting her beak. She lashed out at him as he struck, barely missing him, then she flipped mid-flight and kicked back into his side sending him falling toward me.

Stardust turned the fall into a dive, snapping his wings open before he hit the ground and using the dive to shoot him back up at her. She was ready for it though; her spear was out again and she stabbed toward him. He narrowly dodged it, the spear leaving a wicked slash in his side.

“Not bad, but I’m still kicking,” he said flapping higher and pulling out his rifle again.

The griffon cursed and shot toward him. He fired and she banked to one side, again avoiding Stardust’s attack, “Come on, my granny can shoot better than that,” she said, her spear slashing at him again, before the blade could strike him again Stardust flipped around her and bucked her in the side. She let out a blood curdling scream as a wing snapped and she started falling away from him, her spear falling to the ground.

“How do you like it bitch!?” Stardust then landed next to me. “Shadow are you okay? We gotta get out of here before she recovers.”

“No, I think I broke my foreleg, but I can’t tell,” I said lifting the sore appendage.

He felt it quickly ignoring my protests and said, “Doesn’t feel broken, but I’m sure it’s sprained. Here, drink this healing potion then hold on tight to me. I have to get you out of here.”

I took the bottle from him, drinking it quickly. Instantly I felt my leg start to feel better, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than before. I looked behind him seeing the griffon gasping on the ground. She didn’t look good, and for some reason I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. She didn’t seem bad, just lonely.

The next thing I did might've seemed stupid at the time, but I’m still glad I did it. I looked back at Stardust and asked, “Can you give me another one please?”

“We don’t have time for this, if there's one griffon here, there's bound to be others,” he protested.

“There isn’t, now hand it over,” I said in a harsh tone.

“Fine,” he said pulling one out. “But why do you need one? One dose should’ve been enough for you.”

I took it with my magic, it was still weak, but it could handle the small bottle. I limped over to the griffon and set the bottle down next to her. I saw that her side was caved in a little from Stardust’s kick and her wing looked like it was dislocated at the mid-joint. She looked up at me, her blood shot eyes had a look of wonder in them.

“I don’t care why you came after me, but you’re not bad, I can tell. Just remember next time you want to come after me, that I saved your ass,” I said.

She grabbed the bottle and downed it quickly. A moment later her chest looked a lot better and she started to breath normally. She looked at me again, not getting up and asked, “Why? After what I did, why would you save me?”

“I’d like to know that too. Those things aren’t cheap y'know,” Stardust said, pointing his rifle at her again.

I looked back at Stardust. “You don’t need to do that.” Then I looked back at her and said, “You’re lonely. I’ve been there before, luckily for me I was able to find a couple of friends out here, one of them saved my life when he didn’t have to, but he told me that it was the right thing to do. If you were evil like the ponies I ran into before, I would’ve let you die right there, but I don’t think you are.”

“You don’t even know me kid. Why bother, when I could just come after you again?” she asked.

“Like I said, it was the right thing to do. Also, my name isn’t kid or shorty like Stardust seems to think it is, it’s Shadow Star,” I said limping back to Stardust and holding onto him. “Let’s go Stardust.”

Stardust held onto me and jumped into the air, the griffon watched us get higher in the air, a moment later she yelled up at me, “Aura, my name’s Aura…”

It looked like she wanted to say more, but Stardust flapped his wings hard and we were away, leaving the griffon behind laying in the dust and grime.

“Why did you do that? She tried to kill you,” Stardust asked a few minutes later. His wings were still shaking and I could tell he was still tired, but he kept going. I was getting used to the flying now, it didn’t make my head spin as much and I didn’t feel like making it rain pukey chunks from the sky. I’d call that progress.

“She wasn’t red and she wasn’t trying to kill me, she was turning me in for a bounty The Red Talons have on me,” I replied.

“What do you mean she wasn’t red? Are you talking about your E.F.S.?” he asked looking confused.

“Yeah, she wasn’t red, so she wasn’t hostile. Right? She’s just lonely and really needs a friend I think. She didn’t deserve to die just because of that. Plus, I can’t go around killing everypony or griffon I meet, can I?” I responded.

“You can if they’re trying to turn you in to The Red Talons. They’re a nasty bunch. Why would they be after you anyway?” he asked again.

“I have no idea, but I’m sure it has something to do with my Pip-Buck and the Overmare of Stable 28,” I replied.

“I thought your stable was cut off from the outside,” he said.

“I did too, but before I left I read something about her talking with some griffons through some kind of communication. The Overmare of my stable knew more about the stable than the rest of the citizens, I’m sure she has a way of communicating with the outside,” I responded.

“Well, if The Red Talons are after you, then we’re gonna have to get to The Steel Rangers as quick as we can. How much further are we from Hidden Sands anyway?” he asked.

I turned my head toward my Pip-Buck, the marker was still in place. I looked around and found it on my E.F.S. “It’s that way a little more to the West, it’s still a bit of a long way to go, if you can handle it we should make it there within a few hours.”

He looked in the direction I pointed my hoof and adjusted his flight. “I got enough rest so I can handle it. The landscape over there looks a little dryer, I wonder if it’s hidden in the desert somewhere. If it is, I should be able to make it there in two hours or so. That’s if you’re okay with me carrying you all the way there.”

“It’s pretty far still, two hours doesn’t sound realistic. Also the flying doesn’t bother me as much as it did at first, but it’s a little uncomfortable hanging by my forelegs like this,” I said.

“I think you’re underestimating how fast we’re actually going. Plus there isn’t much I can do when it comes to you hanging on to me like this, it’s not like there are any working sky carriages just lying around,” he said.

I looked up at him, confused. “What’s a sky carriage?”

“Pfft, really? They didn’t teach you anything in your stable, did they?” he replied,

“Hey they taught me stuff, just because I don’t know what you’re talking about right now doesn’t mean anything,” I scoffed.

He gave a little laugh. “Back in the pre-war days, ponies used to take flyable carriages also called a sky carriage to get from place to place quickly. When the megaspells came, most of them were destroyed. The ones that weren’t, had their spark batteries either stolen or the magic was depleted over the years. We had a couple in my stable, but they didn’t do any good because we never left our stable.”

“How hard is it to find one that works?” I asked.

“Extremely hard, we’d have better luck finding edible food growing in the Wasteland. All the time I’ve been out here, I still haven’t found one,” he replied.

“So I guess I’ll have to just get used to being carried or holding on for dear life like this,” I said with a laugh.

“E’yup,” he said with a funny accent followed by a laugh.

I couldn’t help but laughing too. I realized just then that I really didn’t mind Stardust, he did have his quirks, but so did I. I smiled again then said, “Hey Stardust.”

“What’s up?” he responded.

“Are we friends?” I asked.

He laughed again. “I figured after I saved your ass again, that you wouldn’t have to ask. Well I think of you as a friend Shadow, I like you. I mean yeah you have a temper and don’t know when to shut the fuck up, not to mention you don’t make the smartest decisions sometimes, but you have a good heart.”

“Wow, I don’t think anypony’s ever said that about me before. Thank you Stardust, I’m happy to call you my friend,” I said happily.

“Come on now don’t be getting all girly on me. Froufrou flowers and tea parties aren’t my thing, I’d rather have you keep trying to be a badass,” he said with a smirk.

I just smiled and watched as we flew on, happy with where I was. My day might've started out kinda shitty, but it looked like it was getting better. Or so I thought…

***

A couple hours later, we were flying over a large dry landscape. It was starting to get light out as the morning wore on and the air was getting hot, really hot. I could hear Stardust panting hard from the flight and with every flap his wings shook harder. The map on my Pip-Buck showed we were getting closer to where the Steel Ranger’s hidden bunker should be. I hoped we’d get there soon, I didn’t like the sounds Stardust was making. Not to mention that my legs were getting tired and I was making Stardust more irritable every time I complained about it.

“You doing okay Stardust, you don’t sound so good?” I asked.

“I’m…fine. It’s just…really hot, and I’m…getting tired, but we’re almost there,” he responded as we went on.

“Move!” a voice said out of nowhere.

I looked around for the voice, “Move where?”

“What're you talking about Shadow?” he asked.

“You said move,” I replied.

“I didn’t say anything,” he retorted.

“MOVE NOW!” said the voice again.

“There it is again…” I started to say, when all of the sudden, there was a crack from a rifle.

Stardust screamed and we started to fall, blood splatter flying through the air. A bullet had gone through his left wing. Without the ability to flap, we started to dive toward the ground in a spiral. I felt that sick feeling again, like when I first experienced flying. I held it down and pulled Stardust close to me.

“Stardust, hold on to me, tight. This is probably gonna hurt…a lot,” I said loudly, clenching my legs around him as we fell.

His face was close to mine, twisted in pain. His left wing was limp and was being thrashed by the wind. I concentrated on my magic and watched as the ground came toward us. When we were about to hit the ground I teleported us.

It wasn’t far, and I was able to change our direction so that when we hit the ground, our momentum wasn’t going down, but forward. It still hurt when we hit the dry cracked surface of the ground, I rolled with Stardust until we came to a halt.

I stood up on shaking legs, glad nothing broke when we hit. I moved closer to Stardust again looking at his wing. The bullet went straight through the bone from what I could tell, and the wound was bleeding profusely.

“Stardust, are you okay?” I asked looking around for the shooter, but we landed in the middle of a sandstorm and I couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of me.

“Fuck that hurt, what the hell happened?” he said trying to stand, but his legs were shaking too much, either from the pain, or from how tired he was from flying for so long.

“You got shot,” I said and as I said this I realized that the way the hole looked on his wing. It looked like he’d been shot from above, not from somepony on the ground. “Oh shit.”

“What?” he asked reaching into his pack and pulling out some bandages.

“You were shot from above,” I said, looking up to the only area where the storm didn’t seem to impede my vision and saw the culprit. Three griffons were diving toward us from above. “We have to get out of here Stardust.”

He quickly wrapped his wing looking at me, then up. “Ah shit, more griffons.”

The griffons landed around us before we could even think about moving. Two looked like males, one a female, but not Aura. They all had red bands around their necks, the female also had one around her head with a strange symbol on it. The two males had rifles trained on both of us, the female held a long spear similar to the one Aura had, only lacking the glow.

“Looks like we finally caught you. You’ve been a bad stable dweller,” the female griffon said sarcastically.

“Yeah. So what if you caught us, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna go with you quietly,” Stardust said angrily.

“Quiet pegasus! I could just as easily kill you and not think twice about it. And I still can,” she replied pointing the spear at him.

“Captain wait. He still has his cutie mark, he’s Enclave. If we kill an Enclave soldier, we’re pretty much declaring war on them. The Talons don’t need that kind of attention, not to mention that The Talons alone won’t stand a chance against The Enclave,” one of the male griffons said.

“Yeah, that’s right. Kill me and be annihilated,” Stardust said casually nudging me with his good wing when they weren’t looking.

“What would you have me do then? We can’t kill him and we can’t take him hostage because knowing The Enclave, he’s probably got some sort of tracker jammed up his ass,” the female griffon said.

"Nu-uh!" Stardust blurted out immaturely.

“Eeww! I could’ve gone my whole life without hearing that and not cared,” I said disgusted.

“Enough of your immaturity. I was told to bring you back alive but, that doesn’t mean I can’t mame you in the process,” she said angrily.

I knew Stardust was planning something, my guess was that he was trying to stall them so he could figure out how to escape without either of us getting hurt even more than we already where.

“Tell ya what, if you just let us go I won’t send any transmissions to my comrades about your little group and you won’t be slaughtered like the hybrid freaks you are,” Stardust said maliciously.

When he spoke those words I suddenly felt cold, like his words where made of ice. His whole attitude changed and he went from helpful fugitive to heartless soldier. To tell the truth I was genuinely scared of him, I knew he wasn’t really an Enclave soldier but, it was still frightening to listen to him.

“I think we should let them go. I don’t feel like being killed anytime soon,” the other male griffon said with fear leaking out into his voice.

“Don’t be an idiot Pluck. That’s exactly what he wants us to do. As soon as we fly away he’s just going to call his pegasus friends and have them kill us anyway, so we’re going to take him prisoner no matter what he says,” the female griffon said.

“What about the tracker he might have on him?” Pluck said.

“We’ll just have to find it before we get to our destination!” she yelled.

“Yes ma’am, Captain Fletch,” he whimpered.

“You are to address me as SIR dammit! I may be female, but I’m not a girly little weakling like you! Show some respect to your superior!” she yelled again. Wow she was kind of a bitch.

“Y-yes sir, Captain Fletch,” he whimpered again.

“Will you ever learn? Whenever you open your mouth stupid comes out,” the other male griffon said.

He looked down. “Sorry Gouger, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Quit your lollygagging and get the damn restraints you idiots!” Fletch yelled.

“Yes sir,” they said in unison as they started digging through their bags that they carried with them.

I looked over at Stardust and he looked disappointed that his clever plan didn’t work.

The two male griffons Pluck and Gouger came over to us and started to tie us up. Stardust put up a fight, but I didn’t want to get maimed like the Captain said, so I just let them tie me up without a fight. Perhaps it was for the best, I probably wouldn’t last that much longer in the Wasteland anyway. It seemed like no matter what I did out here, danger always found me.

(BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG)

A storm of bullets hit the ground by where the griffons were standing.

“Halt! You are trespassing on the property of The Steel Rangers, leave now or be turned into pulp,” said a voice that sounded like it was coming through some kind of radio.

“I apologize. My group and I were just leaving. We’re just collecting a contract for our Talon Company,” the Captain said.

“The two ponies you’ve restrained are under the protection of The Steel Rangers, so I’m going to have to ask you to release them,” said a pony walking through the sandstorm, wearing power armor that was similar to The Boss’. The Steel Ranger also had this large gun that looked like it had six barrels on it mounted to one side of the armor.

“I can’t do that. I must complete my contract,” Captain Fletch said.

“This is your last warning. If you don’t release these two immediately, then we will gun you down where you stand,” The Steel Ranger threatened.

“We? Who’s we? I only see you, and you can’t take us as easily as you think on your own,” she scoffed arrogantly.

Right after she uttered those words, as if by magic, three more Steel Rangers became visible through the sand cloud. “We, is my fellow Rangers I’ve brought with me, so stand down,” he replied.

“Fine, have it your way! Just know that The Red Talons are not to be taken lightly,” Captain Fletch said.

The two other griffons untied us and handed us over to The Steel Rangers.

“Pluck, Fuck, let’s go! The sand here is getting stuck in my feathers!” Captain Fletch yelled.

“No offense sir, but my name is actually Gouger not F...” Gouger started to say.

“Your name is whatever the fuck I call you maggot! Now move your ass!” she interrupted.

I watched as the griffons took off and faded into the sand cloud like ice melting in hot water. That had to be the strangest encounter I’d ever seen. Now I could see why Stardust said we should keep away from The Red Talons. I wonder why Aura wants to join them, from what I could see, they were kinda dicks. Maybe it’s just the only way a lonely griffon can feel not so alone out here.

I looked over at the closest Steel Ranger who told the griffons to leave. “Thanks for that, I wasn’t sure what to do,” I said.

“You lack training child, you’re lucky my patrol happened to be headed back to the bunker when we were. We saw you and your friend falling to the ground followed by those bird brains,” he said, the large gun on his back folding up to his side as he walked closer.

“Why did you protect us? I didn’t know I was under any protection from The Steel Rangers,” I asked.

“You fit the description given to us by Star Paladin Sapphire, she said you were carrying something that belongs to us, a memory orb, which puts you under our Protection. At least for now,” he said, “I’m Knight Spikehoof. Courier please accompany me to see The Elder and Star Paladin Sapphire.”

As he spoke, two of the other Rangers came up behind Stardust, their large weapons pointed at him, I ran over to him and got between them. “Hey put those away, he’s with me,” I said.

“We can’t do that, he’s an unmarked pegasus, and we can’t trust him just yet,” Knight Spikehoof said.

“He’s also the pony who helped me get here safely and saved my life, and the life of one of your own. I trust him and you should too,” I said, doing my best to be as intimidating as I can.

“We know he’s done good things, but Enclave operatives have done so before to gain our trust, for right now he’ll have to be kept in captivity,” he argued.

“He’s done nothing wrong, and he’s hurt. What danger could he be to all of you?” I asked.

“We can’t take that risk right now, we’ll have the doctor look at him though. Now would you shut your yap and follow me,” he said, a hint of irritation in his voice.

I started to protest again when Stardust spoke up, “Shadow, it’s fine, I understand why they’re being careful. I could use the rest anyway, you go with them and don’t worry about me.” He gave me a wink and one of his goofy smiles and started to walk off with the two power armored ponies.

“Fine, where are we going then?” I asked looking back at Spikehoof.

He turned and stared walking deeper into the sandstorm. It looked like it was getting worse, so I ran after him, my small legs having to move quickly to keep up with the metal clad pony’s large stride. I could hear Stardust being himself in the distance. He was talking to the other ponies, “So what do you do for a living? I guess wearing suits of armor is an interesting hobby. I like to shoot things. How about you? Okay, I guess it’s the silent treatment then. I know you’re probably not listening but I gotta say, it’s seems like you’re compensating for something with those guns. Y’know I heard steroids give you funny balls.”

He’s going to talk himself into a shiny new bullet shaped eye if he keeps that up.

***

Knight Spikehoof and I made our way to the bunker and were greeted by a familiar face. “I see you held up your end of the deal and brought the orb here after all. To tell you the truth, I thought you would’ve just said 'fuck it' and went on your way instead of coming here,” Sapphire said.

“Why would I run off with the memory orb?” I asked.

“You would probably be surprised at what some ponies will do to get as far away from The Steel Rangers as possible,” she replied.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah well, you know, we’ve got really big guns and power armor so we’re pretty formidable. C’mon, The Elder would like to speak with us,” she replied.

I looked back at the sandstorm then back at Sapphire. “Fine, let’s get this over with,” I said then followed her.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Silver Tongue Rank One: You have a way with words. Given the right situation, you can talk you way out of certain circumnutates. +15 Speech with each level of this perk.

Chapter 7: Runnin' Down A Dream

“That doesn’t really explain why you didn’t just kill me and take it anyway.”

It’s interesting how one moment you can be in the middle of a whole lot of crazy shit, then the next, everything’s quiet. That thought went through my head as Spikehoof and Sapphire, took me through the sandstorm, then through a metal door that lead to a dimly lit stairway. It reminded me of the lower levels of Stable 28. I hesitated for a moment and walked down the stairs following close to the metal clad ponies.

Sapphire looked back at me. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just bad memories that's all,” I said as we reached the bottom. There was an open room with another steel door that was bigger and looked more secure than the last on the other end, there was a speaker next to it that looked like it actually might still work.

Sapphire walked up to it and pressed a button that was under the speaker, saying, “This is Star Paladin Sapphire Stone, with Knight Spikehoof, and one guest. Open up, we don’t have all day.”

“Yes Ma'am,” a voice said from the speaker and the door opened, followed by a hiss.

“Are you ready Shadow Star?” Sapphire asked looking back at me.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied, following them in.

We walked through the door, into another room. It was almost like walking back into my stable. Only instead of ponies in blue jumpsuits doing their jobs or hanging out with friends, the ponies here were carrying weapons, some wearing power armor, others in weird robes. It was like a large military camp, as if they were ready for somepony to run in and attack.

There were hallways leading to other parts of the bunker on each side of the room and one in front of us on the other side. As we walked in, I saw that the floor we were on now wasn’t solid metal, it was more like a grate than a floor and there were more hallways, with more ponies in robes, moving along below us. To be honest, looking down into the floor, made me a little queasy for some reason. I think it had to do with the way the pattern the holes made, screwed with my eyes. I thought this place was more like the stable, but it was nothing like it. To me it felt more alive than Stable 28 in the way that ponies seemed to look brighter, more pep in their step. I think it’s because they were doing what they did because they chose to, they weren’t assigned a task they didn’t want to do every day for the rest of their life.

Sapphire walked past me and headed down the hall on the right. “Keep up Shadow, we don’t have time for sightseeing.”

“Sorry, I just haven’t seen anything like this before,” I said, following close behind. The others who followed us went off in different directions, leaving me alone with Sapphire.

We continued down the hall into another room, it had a desk in the middle of it, a couple of filing cabinets, and a terminal on the wall behind the desk. Sitting at the desk was a middle-aged mare. She had a short cropped red mane, and a yellow coat. Her blue eyes looked up at us as we walked in. I touch of grey was showing at the roots of her mane, but it didn’t look bad.

“Sapphire, I see you’re back early from your patrol, and you’ve brought company,” the mare behind the desk said. Her tone sounded a bit weird, like she respected Sapphire, but carried with enough dominance to show that she was the one in charge.

“Elder, this is the pony I was telling you about,” Sapphire said bowing slightly while putting her right forehoof to her chest.

“Star Paladin, are you saying this filly is the pony who single hoofedly took down the raider’s camp outside Cartwheel?” she asked looking over at me.

In a flash, my inner stupidity came out and I got angry. “I’m not a filly, and I didn’t do that alone. Honestly I was scared out of my mind. I did do a lot, but I had a lot of help from Sapphire and my pegasus friend Stardust,” I said in an extremely annoyed tone while managing not to shout.

“HA! She’s a little spitfire, isn’t she?” The Elder snickered. I noticed she had a very faint accent when she talked. Similar to Box Tape's, but not as strong.

Sapphire facehoofed. “Sorry Elder Appleslice, she doesn’t understand much about us yet. She needs some lessons on etiquette I’m afraid.” She looked back at me and said, “Shadow Star, The Elder is the leader of our branch of The Steel Rangers, you should show her more respect.”

“Why? She called me a filly, I’m not a filly and I’ve proven as much. She should show me respect. I came all the way here to bring you this damn memory orb, risking my life I might add.” I couldn’t help myself, it’s been a long couple of days, I probably should be showing the Elder more respect, but I just didn’t have it in me.

I thought she’d get angry at me, but the Elder only laughed again. “Sapphire’s right, you should show a little more respect to me, but you’re right too. It’s amazing that a pony fresh from a Stable was able to do so much in such a short amount of time. I apologize for calling you a filly, your size doesn’t help considering you’re the size of a pre-mutated crawdad. No offense.”

I was amazed at how she was acting, but maybe she was right, my outburst really wasn’t warranted. I didn’t have the right to correct her about me being a filly, age-wise I’m an adult, but my outburst was foalish. I looked down at my hooves saying quietly, “I’m sorry for my outburst, it’s just been a while since I’ve gotten any sleep and Stardust and I almost died more than once trying to get here.”

“Apology accepted Shrimp. You have my gratitude for taking care of that trash, once and for all,” she said giving me a smile. “Now tell me Shadow Star, why’d you come all the way out here just to return the memory orb? It seems to me, like a dangerous quest just to return something so small. I mean sure, you promised Star Paladin Sapphire that you’d bring it here, but most of the time out here, ponies rarely keep their promises. Let alone travel this far to fulfill them.”

“Like you said, I promised Sapphire, and Box Tape wanted me to deliver something to you too,” I said pulling out the parcel and the memory orb from my saddle bags.

She reached over and took it from my magic. “Ol’ Box Tape’s still running that little courier service huh. So, you made your way here just for this? This better not be another exploding cake. I still find frosting when I clean my ears.”

“She’s looking for information on her mother too,” Sapphire said. “I didn’t know much about her however. The leader of the raiders said the memory orb had something on it about a mare that left a nearby Stable so I thought it would help her. That’s why I left it with her. Also, I didn’t perceive any indication that there’d been any baking going on at Box Tape’s residence ma’am.”

“I see, and what makes you think I can help you with finding her?” Elder Appleslice said looking back at me.

I couldn’t help blushing a little feeling a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t thought about that before I got there. Honestly, I didn’t know how she could help me. I was more hopeful, from what I'd seen in my mother’s memory. “From what I’ve found so far, it seems like my mother was working with the Steel Rangers, the memory orb showed her last couple hours in our Stable, and she had gotten a transmission from somepony and had to leave.”

The Elder’s eyes grew wide. “What stable are you from again?” she asked.

Sapphire spoke for me, “She’s from Stable 28 Elder.”

She looked at Sapphire again and said, “I thought you said the stable dweller who helped you was from a different stable.”

Sapphire shook her head. “No ma’am, I only said a Stable Dweller helped with the Raiders, along with a pegasus. I didn’t say what Stable she was from.”

The Elder looked back at me, looking a lot more interested than she had before. “Shadow Star, how long ago did your mother leave the stable?”

“Around eight years ago,” I answered.

The Elder rubbed her chin with a hoof and said, “My last report was that Stable 28 went dark, that nopony was able to leave it since…”

The Elder stopped talking her eyes drifting a little as if deep in thought, after a few seconds I spoke up, “Since what?”

She sighed and looked back at Sapphire. “Star Paladin could you please give us a few minutes alone, I’d like to talk to Shadow Star in private.”

Sapphire gave me a look. “Yes Elder, I’ll go check on the Pegasus who came in with Shadow Star. With any luck that mouth of his hasn’t gotten him shot.”

The elder looked back at me again and sighed. “Eight years ago, right after I’d taken on the role as Elder, I took on a lot of old missions left behind by my predecessor. We had an agent who joined us over ten years ago, she had a small filly that was sick. I remember her well because she was a friend of my father who was the former Elder. Ten years ago, she was sent to find out information on Stable 28, this pony had a contact who found the Stable a few years before. We’d been told there was something unusual going on there. She was sent in with her daughter eight years ago. I called her back since no information could be found that supported my father’s theory that abuses of technology were being created there.”

I interrupted, “I saw the memory orb. It was of my mother right after she got a transmission from what she called The Rangers.”

“I did send her a transmission, I told her she had to come back with her daughter and the Pip-Buck she had, the one I can clearly see that you now have. She did leave the Stable and started to make her way back here. A few weeks later, she finally returned, she was alone however, and only had a normal Pip-Buck. She said she had to leave hers behind, and her daughter,” she said grimly.

I nodded. “She did, she left me behind because she thought it wasn’t safe for me to leave.”

“Shadow Star, let me ask you something. Do you remember anything before your life in Stable 28?” Elder Appleslice asked.

I found the question odd. I mean I didn’t, but how would she know that? “I really don’t, my mother said I got hurt badly out in The Wasteland, and lost my memory.” I replied.

“Shadow Star, I don’t know how to tell you this, but if your mother is the same pony I’m talking about, then you can’t be her daughter,” The Elder said.

That took me by surprise. “Wait…what? How couldn’t I be her daughter, my mother’s name is Grimoire Spell, I know who my mother is.”

“You are talking about the same pony then, but Grimoire’s daughter didn’t look like you, and she was sick when I last saw her, she told me she wasn’t long for this world. When she came back here she told me she was still alive, but I had a feeling she did something. She wouldn’t have left her daughter in Stable 28 no matter what. She wouldn’t have cared how dangerous it was out here, she wouldn’t have left her daughter behind,” The Elder explained.

“What do you mean, I’m not her daughter, and how couldn’t I look like her daughter?” I asked.

She sighed. “Grimoire’s daughter was named Morning Star, and she was a little silver-white filly with a black mane, the only thing you have that’s the same is your eyes. They were red just like yours. Unless she did something to change how you look and changed your name, I don’t see how you could be her. Only other thing that makes sense to me is that she found you somewhere, after her own daughter died, and wiped your memories away, then telling you who you are now. She was a master of spell work and best at memory spells, it’s not past her abilities to do.”

I felt the anger again, but I held it back. “She’s my mother, don’t ask me how I know, it’s not from any memories or anything she might’ve given me or whatever you say could’ve happened. It’s just something I know deep down, maybe she did alter my appearance, or maybe something else happened. I did have some kind of accident when I was young, I was in the clinic for over a month when we first got to the Stable, also when I went into that memory orb there and saw her leave the stable, she said one thing when she was out, the only time she looked back. She said ‘I hope you make it out of there my little Morning Star, I love you.’ For me that’s enough proof.”

The elder took a moment looking down at the silvery orb in front of her, finally saying, “She was a master of spells, who knows what happened. For now, I’ll trust that you are her daughter, I’m not sure why you look different or why she changed your name, but I’ll believe it for now.”

“Why don’t you just ask her yourself?” I said still trying to hold back my anger.

She looked up again, asking, “What makes you think I can do that?”

“She came here when she left. I figured she’d still be working with the Steel Rangers,” I said trying not to think of why she wouldn’t know where my mother was. I was hoping she wouldn’t say she died or something.

“I haven’t seen Grimoire in close to five years Shadow. She left the Steel Rangers to continue some project of hers. It didn’t end well between us, but I did let her go in the end. The last I heard she was heading toward New Pegasus, I’m not sure why, because that town is no place for ponies like her,” she said.

So she wasn’t here either, another path to follow. When I arrived here I thought I’d find her, after eight long years, I’d finally get some answers, but now I’d have to travel even further. Now I had even more to find out, more questions. I wasn’t even sure how I would handle it, would I get angry, or cry. I just wasn’t sure.

I looked back at The Elder. “Where’s New Pegasus?”

“You don’t mean to go there, do you?” she asked giving me a quizzical look.

“I can’t go back to my stable, I really don’t have anywhere else to go, apart from Cartwheel. I need answers, and she’s the only one who can give them to me. So yes, I’ll go there next and hopefully find her and the answers I need,” I replied.

To my surprise, she smiled. “No doubts anymore, you are her daughter. Grimoire is just as hard headed as you are.” She looked away from me for a moment tapping her hoof on the table before looking back. “How about this, I’ll give you the information you’ll need, but you’ll have to do something for me first.”

“Like what? Why would I need to do anything for you? You already told me where to look. I’m sure you’re not the only pony who knows where New Pegasus is,” I said.

“I told you what town, but not who she was going to go see there. That information is important, you’ll need it if you want to be able to find her or where she went to from there. New Pegasus is a big place and dangerous if you don’t know your way around the outskirts. If you do what I need done, then I’ll tell you all you need to know,” she said, her smile never fading.

I sighed and gave in. “Fine, I’ll do what you need me to do, depending on what it is.” I wasn’t going to promise anything until I knew what I was getting myself into. I don’t want to end up having to be an executioner or something.

“That Pip-Buck you have on, what do you know about it?” she asked.

I looked down at my Pip-Buck, “It looks a little different from what the other ponies had in 28. Apart from that I don’t know anything else about it. It seems pretty ordinary to me.”

“That was a new version that was being tested out before the megaspells went off. From what we learned when your mother was here, it was designed by both the Ministry of Arcane Science and Stable-Tec. It’s faster and more intelligent than any previous model. Apart from that, we don’t know anything else about them. Grimoire promised to give us that Pip-Buck to study when she was finished with her mission in your stable. As you already know, that didn’t happen,” she explained.

“Well I can’t help you with that, I have no idea how to get it off. The Overmare tried to get it off too, not even a Pip-Buck key could remove it. The psycho bitch was gonna have the doctor maim me to get it off,” I said.

“Yeah, I know you can’t get it off, honestly Grimoire was the only one I knew who could remove it. I’m not asking you to hand it over. What I want is for you to get me another one so we can study it,” she said, smiling again.

“Where would I find one?” I asked.

“Lucky for you, we have a feeling there might be one or two in an old abandoned stable just north of us. I’d send a team in to get it, but I can’t risk sending any of my ponies out to get one trinket, and I don’t trust the mercenary groups we contract to get it either. Most Stables are set up similar to each other, so I want you to go in and find another Mk II, and bring it back to me. If you do that for me, then I’ll give you the information you need, and some ammo and weapons for your trip,” she replied.

Going to an old abandoned stable didn’t sound too hard, but if my short time in The Wasteland taught me anything, it was that nothing is what it seems. “I can do that, but I’m not going alone, I want my friend Stardust to be released. I’m not going without him.”

She looked a little confused. “You mean the pegasus who accompanied you here? I’m not sure I can do that Shadow Star.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She sighed and said, “Honestly, because you don’t see an unmarked pegasus below the clouds often around here, and when you do they’re always an Enclave solider. Unless your friend is from New Pegasus or a lucky pony who was able to escape The Enclave before he got branded, he can’t be trusted.”

“Then put some trust in me, he saved my life, and he hasn’t done anything untrustworthy. I trust him and that should be good enough,” I insisted.

“But it’s not, at least for me. I don’t know you well enough to put trust in your judgment alone,” she said with another sigh. “My Rangers have taken him to a holding cell, he’ll stay there until I can figure out what to do with him.”

The door opened behind me and Sapphire stepped back in. “Elder Appleslice, sorry to intrude, but I couldn’t help overhearing. If you can’t trust her judgment, then trust mine. I’ve talked with Stardust, I know he’s hiding something from Shadow Star, and from me, but he isn’t Enclave. As for what he’s hiding, I’m sure it has something to do with his time in his own Stable, something traumatic I’m sure, but I trust him, you have my word on that.”

“Star Paladin, what makes you think he isn’t Enclave?” The Elder inquired.

“Ma’am, I just know. I’ve run into plenty of Enclave soldiers over the years. He doesn’t have one thing I’ve seen in any Enclave solider before,” Sapphire replied.

“And what is that?” she asked.

Sapphire gave The Elder a strange look. “He lacks discipline, at least with how he acts. He definitely is disciplined on how to shoot and when it comes to fighting, but he’s different than normal Enclave. He has some sort of professional training, but no respect for hierarchy or rank. My gut tells me that the Stable he says he comes from was some kind of Stable that was preparing for an invasion or war. For some reason, he either left, or was kicked out.”

“How does that make you trust him enough to let him go?” The Elder asked.

She sighed a little. “Because, I know that with how good I know he is, he could’ve escaped when we found him on the surface, and if he was Enclave, he wouldn’t have come here and risked getting captured when he knew Shadow Star was looking for us. I think he can be trusted.”

The Elder sighed again. “Star Paladin Sapphire, you know I put a lot of trust in you. It’s one reason I put you on that mission with the raiders. If I put my trust in you again with this and it proves to be wrong, I don’t know what I’ll do or think afterward. You’re asking me to put this entire base in danger based on your gut.”

“I am ma’am, and if what I think proves to be wrong, then I’ll take any punishment that comes my way,” Sapphire said.

“Sapphire no, you can’t put this all on your shoulders,” I interrupted.

“Shadow be quiet, I know what I’m doing,” she said with her eyes locked on The Elder’s.

I did and looked back at the Elder as well. She took a moment looking down at her desk, her hoof tapping its surface slowly. Finally, she looked up. “Fine, this is all on you then Star Paladin. The Pegasus can go with Shadow, but he won’t get any of his weapons back until he can prove himself to me.”

“How the hell do you expect him to be any help without his rifle?” I protested.

“If he’s as capable as Sapphire says he is, then I’m sure you’ll both be fine. If it’s really a problem, then give him one of yours after you leave,” The Elder replied, finally losing her temper.

“But that isn’t fair…” I started to protest again, however Sapphire cut me off.

“Yes Elder Appleslice, I’ll see to it.” Then she looked over at me and said, “You need to be quiet Shadow, you don’t make demands here. Understood?”

I wanted to keep going, but the look in Sapphires eyes made me back down and reply, “Fine.”

“Good, you’re dismissed. Be sure to have a bed and room readied for Shadow Star and her friend. I want them to have the rest of the day and night to rest up. The trip tomorrow will be a hard one. Make sure you give her all the details she’ll need,” The Elder said dismissively.

I just shook my head and followed Sapphire out. She led me back to the main entry not saying a word as we passed other Steel Rangers. We went down to the lower levels. As we walked I couldn’t take the quiet anymore and finally spoke up, “What’s this whole mission about anyway?”

She hesitated before answering me, when she did her voice sounded tired, “Elder Appleslice is a good leader, but she has her own views on things that I don’t always agree with. That Pip-Buck is something special, you probably don’t even know how special it really is. Stable-Tec and The Ministry of Arcane Science only made a few before the megaspells went off. The Steel Rangers are protectors in a way of old tech, like your Pip-Buck, normally we’ll do anything to get our hooves on whatever tech we can, and I mean anything. One like yours, that’s incredibly rare, for example, is something that most rangers would kill to get.”

“Then why didn’t you take it when we first met? You could’ve easily killed me and gotten my Pip-Buck, no problem,” I asked.

She smiled and said, “I could’ve that’s true, and it did cross my mind briefly. I didn’t know you at all, and for all I knew you were just some stupid stable pony who wandered into the wrong Raider camp. There was something about you though that made me change my mind. When I first saw that Pip-Buck, my first thought was, kill her and take it, then I had to ask myself. How did this small mare get into this camp? Did she kill some raiders and not get hurt, and how did she get her hooves on that? So, I decided to give you a chance and prove yourself to me.”

“And did I?” I asked, giving her a small smile.

“In more ways than one, you don’t realize it yet, but you’re a strong little pony. At first, you come off as frightened and timid, but then you have this ferocity to protect not only yourself, but those you care about. That’s a trait you don’t see often in the Wasteland,” she said, still smiling.

“That doesn’t really explain why you didn’t just kill me and take it anyway,” I said.

“You have a point. Really if I didn’t find information on where to find another one of those, I might’ve just taken yours. Luckily for you, The Boss had information on where to locate more. He was looking for at least one like yours. I think that’s why he set up base where he did. He knew your mother and knew that she had one. He also knew she went off to Stable 28 and came back without it. He didn’t know the exact location of the stable, so he was looking for it, but he also kept an ear out for information on where he could get another. I found out that information in his ledger that you helped me obtain,” she explained.

I looked down at my Pip-Buck a little confused on what made it so special. To me it seemed to function just like any other, apart from being impossible to get off, as far as I knew. I looked back at her and asked, “Why would he want one so bad, they don’t seem all that special to me, maybe a bit flashy, but no more different than any other?”

“That I don’t know, I haven’t been able to go through the entire ledger yet, but as far as I could tell, he just wanted one. I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t find it yet,” she replied.

We came to a door at the end of the hall. She walked up to it and pressed a button to open it. In the next room, there were small cells for holding prisoners, and one large cell at the back of the room. Inside it I could see Stardust laying on a cot whistling a merry tune to himself.

She hesitated for a minute then looking back at me she whispered, “I’ll tell you what I can later, but for now, just let it be. Tomorrow you’ll be going out to get another one of those Pip-Bucks and hopefully that will be good enough for The Elder. For now, you and Stardust just rest and prepare for tomorrow.”

I wanted to ask her so much more, but instead I just nodded and walked in. As the door shut behind us, Stardust looked up from the cot with that goofy smile on his face.

“Bout time you showed up Shadow. Do you know how boring it is in here? No room to fly around, nothing to shoot at, and the service.” He waved his hoof in the air in a dismissive fashion. “Don’t get me started.” He took a breath for a moment and continued, “On top of that, they were so rude when I politely asked them to fuck off,” he said waving his forelegs dramatically.

“Sorry, I didn’t know my meeting with The Elder would take so long. How are you holding up?” I asked.

“Like I said before, I’m bored out of my mind, can we go yet? Those hunk of metal ponies aren’t any fun at all. I mean c’mon at least laugh at a dirty joke, even if the one telling it is somepony who you consider your enemy,” Stardust said.

Sapphire walked over to the cell door and using a key to unlock it. “The Elder says you’re free to leave the cell, you will be staying the rest of the day and night here at the bunker to rest up. You can only wander around the main hall, the shop, and the room I’ll be putting you two in. Apart from that, don’t wander off or do something you shouldn’t. You’re a Pegasus and most of the Rangers here will shoot you on sight if they’re given a reason to.”

He smiled. “Damn, well if that’s how we’re gonna be treated then why don’t we just leave now? Shadow, you delivered that package right, and got the information on your mother?”

“I got some info, but The Elder won’t give me anymore details until I do something for her first,” I said quietly.

“Leave it to Steel Rangers to want something in return. So, what’s the mission and why can’t we go now?” he asked.

“Because we need rest, and you got a hole shot through your wing,” I said giving him a look.

He shrugged. “I’m fine, the doctor here got me all patched up and my wing feels fine, a little sore, but ready to go.”

“You need rest and so do I, that’s final,” I said, hoping the bed I'd be sleeping in wouldn't be covered in mold and other mystery stains.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his hooves over his chest. “Fine, fine, have it your way cranky hooves. So what’s this mission anyway?”

Sapphire spoke up, “You’ll be going to Stable 9 just north of here to retrieve a Pip-Buck Mk. II, and bringing it back here for The Elder. The Rangers haven’t gone into this stable before so we can’t help you on what to expect inside. It’s most likely another failed Stable-Tec experiment like we see all too often.”

“What if there are ponies still living in it, if you haven’t been able to go in, then how do you know if it’s abandoned or not?” I asked worried about breaking into another stable and scaring the ponies inside.

Stardust frowned and asked, “Why would you be sending us to that area, do you know how dangerous it is?”

She looked over at him then back at me. “First of all, we know it’s abandoned because the last ponies to live in that Stable left twenty years ago, and started a town a called Trotston. They sealed it when they left though, we never found out why. We do know that they left just about everything in it for some reason,” she looked back over to Stardust, “And, yes I do know how dangerous the area is around Stable 9, that’s why I wanted you to go with her, if you fly in you should be fine.”

“Are you kidding me, I’ve been near it before and almost got shot out of the sky by those nutjob Fiends, it’s not safe even while flying. Shadow doesn’t know enough about the Wasteland yet to handle a place like that. Hell, I don’t think I could handle a mission like that,” he said angrily.

Concern and fear arose inside me while I listened to them talk. If Stardust was scared of going there, I knew I should be and he was fearless. I looked at him and asked, “What the hell are fiends?”

He closed his eyes and smirked. “You remember those raiders from Cartwheel?”

“Duh, how could I forget them?” I replied.

“Fiends are ten times worse, they work together better than your normal raider does, they’re also way crazier, and always strung out on some kind of chem. Around Stable 9 there’s a large settlement of Fiends, they’re all lead by one nut job pony called Gator. He’s tough, nuts, and too damn smart for a fiend if you ask me. You don’t want to go anywhere near that place,” Stardust finished sounding a bit angry.

Now I think I can see why The Elder really hadn’t sent any of her ponies there. If this place was as bad as Stardust said, it would be too risky to send her ponies out and risk losing them. How in Celestia, did she expect Stardust and I to go there and get this Pip-Buck and make it back alive? Maybe I was just more expendable than her own ponies, if I made it back, she’d get what she wanted and if I didn’t then she wasn’t losing anypony.

I looked back at Sapphire. “Is there any way we can get in and out safely?”

“Most ponies would say hell no, but if you do this right, you should be able to get in fine. Getting out however, that’ll have to be up to you,” she answered.

“And how do you expect us to get in?” Stardust asked.

“Simple really, the settlement is less active in the early morning, when it’s still a little dark out. All you’ll need to do Stardust, is fly yourself and Shadow in from really high up. If you’re quick enough you should be able to get down to where the Stable is without any problems. It also helps that the Stable is in a cave half way up a mountain, so you won’t have to go into the settlement at all,” she explained.

He gave her a blank stare for a long moment then finally said, “Are you nuts? That’s still very risky. I’m a good flyer, but I’m no Wonderbolt. I mean seriously, we’d have better luck trying to ask them politely if we could go inside.”

“It’s all we got Stardust, we have to try,” I said calmly. “I need to get this information and if this is the only way to do it, then I might as well try.”

He looked at me solemnly and sighed. “You’re crazy you know that? I guess I have no choice then. I promised the old geezer I’d keep you safe so might as well be just as crazy as you are.”

“Good, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight, I’d suggest getting some sleep now, you will be up in a few hours,” Sapphire said walking back out of the room.

“Yes ma'am,” Stardust said giving her a mocking salute, but he didn’t smile. That lack of his goofy smile worried me more than his description of the place we’d be headed come morning.

A few minutes later we were in a small room with two beds in it. Sapphire left us, saying she had something to go take care of. Stardust went to lie down, and was out in a matter of minutes. It was still early, only a little past noon, but the stress from the day had taken its toll on my body. Soon I found myself drifting off.

oooOOOooo

“Shadow….Shadow, Hello is anypony home?” a voice echoed around me.

I opened my eyes, but instead of the grey walls I’d seen when I fell asleep, I woke up to find myself somewhere I’d never seen before. I’m not even sure if it’s a room I’m in or, someplace else. Everything around me was grey, small pin pricks of light where all around me. It feels as if I’m floating, or something like it. I looked around for the voice I heard before.

“Do you like my place Shadow Star? It’s like my own little world,” the voice said again, but I still couldn’t place it.

“Who are you, and where are you?” I asked looking around more. “Where am I for that matter?”

“Shadow, now don’t tell me you don’t know who I am,” said the voice again, sounding as if it was right next to my ear.

I whipped around, but nopony was there. I started to panic a little. “Okay what the fuck is going on, where am I?”

“Hmmm, maybe you don’t know me, not yet at least, in time though Shadow. In time, you’ll know me much better, trust me on that. It seems that your mind is still blocked, your memories repressed. I thought getting you out of that damn stable would help you remember, seems that I was wrong, or maybe you need more time,” the voice said.

Okay either I’m going crazy, or this is one really fucked up dream. I closed my eyes and tried to wake up, but nothing happened. I could feel a tear running down my face. I wiped it away then I opened my eyes again and a flash of white erupted in front of me. My heart skipped a beat and I screamed as loud as I could, shocked by the sudden burst of light.

Maniacal laughter filled the air around me as I rubbed my eyes; they hurt from the intense light. The voice came again still laughing, “I will make you remember me Shadow Star, and make you wish you’d never been born.”

“I don’t know who you are, leave me alone!” I shouted in confusion.

“Never, Shadow. Never will I let you be,” the voice mocked, followed by a creepy giggling.

“What are you? What did I even do to you?” I asked desperately.

“You trapped me here, in this dark world, and I’ll make you pay,” the voice said laughing again.

“This is just a dream, you aren’t real. I’m just over stressed, and my mind is playing tricks on me,” I said to myself closing my eyes again. “I’m going to count to three and this will all be over and I’ll wake up. One…two…three.”

I opened my eyes, and right in front of me were a pair of red eyes much like my own, floating there. I tried to scream, but something was keeping my voice from working, or maybe it was just fear.

“This is no dream, but maybe I’m wrong, I guess we’ll find out. I’ll see you again real soon Shadow Star,” the voice said again as the red eyes faded away with an evil laugh.

My skin crawled and this time I was able to scream…

oooOOOooo

“Shadow, are you okay!? Stop screaming before you wake the whole bunker,” Sapphire said as my eyes snapped open.

I looked around breathing heavily. I was back in the compound. It must’ve been a dream then, a fucked-up dream, but still a dream. I took a moment to slow down my breathing before looking up at Sapphire. “Sorry about that, I guess I was having a nightmare. Why are you in my room is it time to leave already?”

She looked at me confused. “Shadow, you’re not in your room.”

I looked around again and saw I was in the hall that led out of the bunker. “How in Celestia’s name did I get here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. I was patrolling when I heard you screaming and I came running and found you here. That must have been one hell of a dream to make you walk all the way back here screaming your head off,” she said, looking worried. “Are you okay?”

I got back to my hooves a little scared that I’d walked here in my sleep. I shook my head. “I’m fine. Like I said, just a nightmare. Sorry I worried you Sapphire.”

“It’s fine, just glad you’re okay. So, do you need me to show you back to your room? It’s still a few more hours before it’s time to go,” she said.

“No, I’m not sure I can get back to sleep after that nightmare,” I said with a sigh, the image of those red eyes still fresh in my head. “Plus have you ever tried to get to sleep with Stardust snoring, it takes minor miracle,” I gave her a tiny smile.

She replied with a smirk, “In that case, would you like to come down to the training room with me? I could give you some pointers on how to use those weapons of yours.”

“What makes you think I need pointers?” I asked.

She smirked again, making me feel a bit irked. “I’ve seen you fight, remember? You’re not bad, but you’re far from good. There is so much you don’t know about shooting and other weapons. I mean do you even know how to use the targeting spell on your Pip-Buck?” she said pointing down at it.

“Um…well… I used it a couple times, but not much,” I said awkwardly.

“I figured as much, come with me, since you can’t sleep, that means you get to use the rest of the time you have to train,” she said.

“Oh…goody,” I said sarcastically.

“No wisecracks from you tonight. Follow me,” she said, and we headed off.

***

A few minutes later we were in the training room. A good part of it had small bays looking down a long alleyway with targets set up for practice. On the other end was a large empty area, with a few dirty mattresses on the floor.

“Go wait for me over there. I have to get ready,” Sapphire said pointing a hoof at the dirty mattresses. Then she walked off to a side room leaving me to wait for her. Dirty thoughts went through my mind after she said what she said and pointed at mattresses.

I looked around and wondered what I could learn in such a short time with this room. It wasn’t really that impressive, and from what I’ve seen from the Rangers so far, Impressive was kind of what I was expecting. Some time passed then I heard something coming up behind me. I turned saying, “About time…” My eyes however fell on a tall raider, her mane spiked, scars on her body, blood all over her face and chest.

She pulled a large spear off of her back and using the blunt end, she hit me across the face throwing me back onto the dirty mattresses. She started coming at me, the sharp end of the spear now pointed at my face, her crazed smile growing. I thought I was going to die, and then I noticed those eyes.

“Sapphire!? What the fuck!?” I yelled using my magic and taking hold of the spear right as she thrust it forward, it stopped inches from my eye. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She dropped the spear and smiled at me, this time it was less crazy and more smug. “Best way to learn to keep yourself safe and alive in The Wasteland, is when your life is in danger. I figured using my raider getup, I could get you to react like you would if this was real. Just then, when you thought you were going to die, you used your magic to stop me. If you really wanted to you could’ve taken that weapon away and used it against me.”

“Yeah, good thing I didn’t, or else you would’ve gotten seriously hurt or even killed. Lucky I noticed it was you in time,” I replied angrily.

“Don’t worry about me small fry, it’d take a lot more than that to kill me. Now pick up that spear, shut your yap and act like this is real,” Sapphire said in her raider voice.

I looked down at it, as I did the thought of that voice and those red eyes from my nightmare came back to me. I don’t know why I was making such a big deal about a nightmare, it’s not like it was real.

“What’s the matter, baby gonna cry? You look like someone just mutilated your best friend. C’mon quit being so soft,” Sapphire said in her great raider impression.

Using my magic, I lifted the spear and pointed it at her, a small smile coming to my lips. “Okay, let’s do this.”

She snickered. “There we go…now, ATTACK!”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Iron Will: Your time in the wasteland has shown you a lot and has hardened your will-power and your ability to fight back. +1 Endurance and you do 20% more Damage with Melee weapons when your health falls below 15%.

Chapter 8: Heathens

“Why are you just standing there watching me? It’s a little creepy.”

“What the fuck is that?” I asked as we reached the top of a hill overlooking a small valley.

After the last few hours spent in the bunker, Sapphire was able to help me out a lot. She’d shown me more about using melee weapons and helped me with ranged weapons too. She also explained to me how S.A.T.S. works so I’d have a better understanding on how to use the Pip-Buck’s targeting spell. Now Stardust and I were close to Stable 9. He wasn’t in a great mood, after he was told he couldn’t bring his rifle, he almost lost it on Sapphire.

The sky was dark, but pretty soon it would be dawn and the clouds would illuminate the land with its eerie light. The plan Sapphire set up for us seemed like it could work if done right. I looked down at the valley that lays at the bottom of a large mountain, the plan was starting to look more and more dangerous as I observed the area.

The Fiends set up what could only be described as a town at the base of the mountain. It stretched out half-way across the valley. I pulled out a pair of binoculars Sapphire gave me and looked down toward the base of the mountain. There were three large structures that looked pre-war, the Fiends built wooden towers around them, along with shanties around the base. From there a large makeshift arena was set up with stands all around it. Past that, cages were set up along with what looked like a guard shack, then more shanties. These ponies were really giving the raiders a run for their money.

Ponies dressed in makeshift armor walked around everywhere, each one carrying a rifle or pistol, and a bladed weapon. These ponies meant business, or slaughter, however each one looked like they were ready for a fight. Unlike the raider camp, they didn’t shun each other, they talked and joked with one another. I’d almost say they looked like they liked each other, but I doubted that.

“There has to be at least a hundred ponies down there,” I said as I gawked at the multitude of ponies.

“It’s probably more like fifty or so. The size of that place and the way they have the guards set up makes it look like there’s more than there actually is. It’s an intimidation tactic,” he explained.

Great so I couldn’t even count anymore. “Are you sure about that? It looks like a hell of a lot more.”

“I’m sure. First thing you learn as a sniper is to count your enemies and to know their tactics. Know your enemy, knowing is half the battle,” he said, taking the binoculars.

As he looked down at the camp I took a moment to check my Pip-Buck, its inventory sorting was amazing. I really didn’t have time to play around with it, but somehow it knew everything I had in my saddle bags, and if I clicked on one it would somehow make it easy to grab. Stable-Tec really didn’t mess around when it came to making things.

I checked through my inventory making sure I had enough ammo for my weapons. Before we left I traded in most of my inventory, except for Ol’ Festus, I left that with Sapphire for safe keeping. I used the trade credit to get a couple weapons that where a lot better than the ones I was using. Now I had a 10mm pistol, and a combat shotgun. Sapphire said I did best with those in training. She also gave me a machete just in case I ended up in a Close Quarters Combat situation.

“I don’t like the look of this Shadow, I wasn’t expecting so many of them to be awake at this hour. If we get caught I’ll have to fly us out of there fast. And without my rifle, I’m helpless,” Stardust said.

“They might not have given you your rifle back, but I’m sure you’ll be okay, plus they said I could give you one of mine,” I said as gave him the 10mm.

He frowned, “Seriously, a pistol? I’m a long-range shooter, I don’t use pistols. Why did you leave Ol’ Festus there anyway? That would’ve been better to use than this…thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “I left it behind because it’s special, and the Rangers didn’t have any ammo for it. So, it’s either this or the machete, cause I’m not giving you my shotgun.”

“Fine, but only until I can either get my rifle back, or until I find another one,” Stardust whined. “And why can’t I use the shotgun?”

“You just said you don’t like close range, and because I really like It,” I said with a wicked smile. “Should we get this over with?”

“I guess,” he said with a sigh, looking further up the mountain with the binoculars. “It looks like the entrance to the stable is half-way up the mountain. Like Sapphire said, there’s a cave entrance there. I’m gonna have to come at it from right above and move fast. There’s also a satellite array down there if you didn’t see it. It looks like they have lookouts placed on them.”

“If you go fast enough we should be okay. I’ve seen you fly, you can do it. So, what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Problem is, I’ll be carrying you, and I don’t know how far in the stable door is, or if there’s going to be anypony in there guarding the door. We’ll have to go in fast and land fast, you’ll need to be prepared for that. Be ready for a fight too,” he replied.

“I can do it, I got your back,” I said.

He put the 10mm into a makeshift holster on one side of the barding he’d gotten when we left. “Thanks Shadow. Again, before we do this, are you sure you wanna go in there? It could end up being a suicide mission.”

I nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright then,” he said as he flapped his wings and took hold of me. “Let’s do this.”

He brought his wings down hard and we blasted skyward. I’m so glad I’ve gotten used to flying, because the force alone would’ve been enough to make me pass out a couple days ago. He was moving so fast I had to squint my eyes as we headed toward the cloud covered sky. I looked up at him expecting him to be doing the same, but he wasn’t. His eyes were wide open, and they were darting everywhere as we came closer to the clouds. Pegasus eyes must be different from a unicorn’s I guess. Made sense though, since they were born to fly like this.

We reached the very edges of the clouds when Stardust suddenly stopped ascending, his wingtips just brushing the underside of one of the clouds. I looked down at the small dot of lights below us. “I thought we were gonna use the clouds for cover?”

“This mission is dangerous enough without us pissing off The Enclave, I’m already too high as it is,” he said looking down like I was, angling his wings some.

“Can you even see where we have to land from this high up?” I asked.

A long sigh escaped his lips. “Shadow, can you just trust me please, even a little bit?” I shut my muzzle and just nodded up at him. “Thank you, now try and keep your eyes open, this is gonna be fast, and scary. So, don’t scream, and If you barf on me I’ll drop you, I’m serious.”

Before I could utter a protest, he did a back flip in the air and folded his wings. I wanted to scream as we started falling toward the ground, but then I remembered what Stardust said and decided to scream on the inside. Stardust moved his wings and pumped them hard, sending us down faster, and faster. Okay, we’re going to die, and paint the ground red in a matter of seconds.

At the last moment, Stardust snapped his wings open, changing our fall into a fast moving dart toward the hole in the side of the mountain. We moved so fast I didn’t even see the opening before we were already in it. Thank Celestia, the door to Stable 9 wasn’t right in the mouth of the cave. Stardust flapped hard trying to slow down, slamming his hind legs into the ground to help.

We skidded along the ground a few feet before crash landing. I rolled a couple times, the rocks on the cave floor bruising my sides. Finally, I came to a stop next to Stardust, who was still on his hooves.

“Did you really have to drop me?” I complained as I got up.

“It was either that or risk both of us crashing,” he said with his stupid grin.

“Ha-ha, very funny. Did anypony see us?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t think so, nopony shot at me when I zoomed by the guard tower at least. I’d say we’re safe for now, but let’s not stick around here to find out.”

I agreed with him on that one. I brushed myself off and started working my way down the tunnel, Stardust close behind. The stable door wasn’t much further, and nopony was guarding it. I found it a little strange at first. Then again, why guard something that you can’t get into?

I looked up at the large gear shaped door with the number nine on it. “I’m glad it’s shut.”

“Why’s that?” Stardust asked.

“It means we won’t have to worry about running into any of those Fiends in there. If we’re lucky, this should be quick and easy,” I whispered.

He slumped. “Did you have to say that?”

“What?” I asked giving him an incredulous look.

“Never say things like that, now something’s gonna go horribly wrong,” he replied.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” I said walking up to the panel that opened the Stable.

“When somepony says things like, nothing shouldn’t go wrong, it always does. Knock on some wood before it’s too late,” he said in a panic, looking around the cave.

I pulled the connection wire out of my Pip-Buck and hooked it up to the door’s control panel. “You can be superstitious if you want, I don’t believe in that crap.”

He turned his head around to look at me saying, “Yeah, you say that now, until something does go wrong, then you’ll be sorry.”

Ignoring him I looked down at my Pip-Buck, it lit up and started doing something…

Connection complete…

New Stable found, Stable 9,

Status-sealed…

Last opened: twenty years, three months, two days…admin override in progress…

Admin Login not accepted…

Password required

Run Override?
Yes No

Okay that was new. I clicked on the yes and watched as a bunch of 1’s and 0’s ran across my screen. I waited for a good minute before my Pip-Buck dinged and brought up a whole lot of numbers, symbols, and words mixed in.

“What the fuck?” I asked looking down at my Pip-Buck in confusion. It was just like the locked terminal back at the bomb shelter. Only this time the words were way longer than before.

Stardust walked over and looked over my shoulder. “That’s hacking software, you’ve gotta find the right password in there, and normally you only get 4 tries before you’re locked out. If you can’t find it by the third try, you’ll have to back out and try again.”

I looked up at him and asked, “You know this how?”

He frowned. “I do read y’know?”

“Where did you read that?” I asked.

“Big Book of Arcane Science and Technology. It’s standard reading in school for any colt or filly,” he said giving me a funny look.

I laughed at him. “Yeah maybe in your stable.” I went back to my Pip-Buck and tried what he said. The first word I tried failed, so did the next. I cursed under my breath and took a moment to read through the remaining words. There were six left, but one caught my eye. If I tried it and it failed I’d have to back out and try again until I got it right. Time wasn’t on our side, we couldn’t sit here all morning until I figured it out.

“Celestia or Luna, if you’re up there and care even a small bit about me please let this work,” I prayed to the Goddesses. I went down to the word Everlasting.

My Pip-Buck dinged…

Password accepted.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, now was it?” I said with a smirk. Reaching out with my magic I pulled the lever to open Stable 9. There was a hiss and the door screeched as it started to pull away from the opening. Right then all hell broke loose, as the door rolled away, a loud alarm blared out from inside the stable.

“Fuck! Get inside now!” Stardust yelled running past me.

There was no chance that the guards didn’t hear that. Hell, I bet the whole camp could hear it for how loud it was blaring. I ran inside after Stardust. He moved up to the panel inside Stable 9 and pulled the lever. The door started to roll shut, but not before I heard ponies yelling from the mouth of the cave. I was happy once again that Stable 9 was further back, they wouldn’t be able to make it here before the door closed again.

I ran up next to Stardust and watched as the door slowly shut. Right before the large drill pushed it back into place I could swear I saw something shimmer past the rim of the door. Red and yellow lights were flashing all around us, so I figured it must’ve been my eyes playing tricks on me.

“Shadow, use your Pip-Buck to seal the door again, so they can’t follow us inside,” Stardust said.

“Right,” I said as I plugged it into the panel and disabled the panel outside. When I was finished, the alarm stopped. “I guess getting out of here is going to be a lot harder than I thought.”

“Maybe. We could get lucky though. With the stable sealed again, they might not even know anypony came in,” he said with a shrug.

“We can only hope,” I said, looking around the entrance. It looked just like Stable 28’s. “At least things look the same as my stable so far, that’s one good thing.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. Do you see anything showing up on your E.F.S.?” he asked.

I hadn’t even thought to look at it. On second thought, why did he think of it first? With all The Red bars I was seeing before we came in, I’d been ignoring my E.F.S. I looked around, but nothing showed up. “No, no signs of life. At least not within range that is.”

“Well, let’s get this over with, I spent enough time in a stable and I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible,” he said frowning some while we made our way toward what should be the atrium.

A white bar flashed by on my E.F.S., I stopped looking around, but the white bar was gone. “What the fuck was that?” I asked.

“What?” Stardust asked, looking back at me.

“I’m not sure. Something went by on my E.F.S.,” I replied.

“I thought this place was abandoned,” he said,.

“I did too.” Raising my voice, I yelled, “Hello, is anypony here?”

Nopony answered. Stardust pulled out the 10mm and chambered a round. “Maybe something in here is messing with the tracking spell? But let’s be safe, I’d say keep your shotgun out.”

I took out my shotgun and held it with my magic. We walked through the first couple sets of doors and into a long hallway. Okay this is definitely not right, there should be an atrium here. Not a hallway with windows and doors on each side. Walking up to one of them I looked into it. I saw a skeleton of something I didn’t recognize.

Stardust walked up to the one across the hall. “Shadow come look at this.”

I walked over and looked in, then backed away quickly feeling sick. Inside the room, the walls were splattered with dried blood. At least eight, maybe more ponies had been ripped to shreds; entrails were hanging all over, bones where crushed and broken on the floor, and dried up pieces of skin lay in tatters all over the place. In all the mess though, eight pony heads where lined up neatly in a row looking out toward the glass from the middle of the floor.

“What the fuck were they doing in this place?” I asked, horrified at the sight.

“I’m not sure, but did you notice that even after twenty years, those heads still look fresh,” he said, still looking in on the carnage. “I bet the room is sealed air tight, preserving the heads.”

“This is just sick, I’m not sure I wanna go any further. This place is probably haunted or something,” I said shaking a little. I’ve seen the way the raiders lived, that was hard enough as it was. They were crazy ponies though. This was disturbing. Who locks up ponies in a room and lets them get slaughtered like this?

Out of nowhere, a high-pitched screaming roar filled the air. It carried on for what felt like forever, chilling me to the bone. As the roar started to die down, my E.F.S. went crazy, red and blue bars flashing everywhere, then without warning, it shut off. I looked down at my Pip-Buck, it had a message on the screen.

Warning!!!

High levels of Electromagnetic Waves Detected…

Pip-Buck 3000 Mk II going into safe mode.

Then it just shut off. “What the fuck was that, and what the fuck is this?” I asked scared out of my mind looking down in horror at my useless Pip-Buck.

“I’m not sure, but I think maybe we should go. Fuck the Elder and what she wants, I’d rather risk my life with the Fiends,” he said turning to head back to the door. When he did the sliding door that lead to the exit slid shut and locked in front of him, trapping us.

Well we’re not getting out that way, I took a moment to take a deep breath and sighed, saying, “Okay, were trapped in a stable with some kind of monster, my Pip-Buck isn’t working, and we have no idea where to go next.”

“Now what? Whatever that fucking thing was, I really don’t wanna run into it. Can’t you do something, like teleport us out of here?” Stardust asked nervously.

“Nope. Whatever that thing did, it’s making my magic go nuts, and it’s taking most of my concentration just to keep my Telekinesis up and holding my shotgun. I don’t think I’ll be able to teleport us out of here any time soon,” I said starting to laugh uncontrollably. Yep for some reason I found this all kinda funny.

“Shadow, this isn’t anything to laugh at!” Stardust said angrily.

“You said something would go wrong and it has, in a really fucked up way too. So yeah, it’s kinda funny, I guess all we can do is stay here like scared little foals, or we can go on and try to find a way out of here,” I said, still giggling as I walked past him.

“You’re crazy. You know that right?” he said following close behind.

I took a breath to recover from my laughing fit. “Maybe, but at least I’m optimistic.”

He sighed. “You’re gonna get us killed. This wouldn’t have happened if you would’ve knocked on wood. Knocking on wood is sacred, like a coin flip.”

“It’s possible, but we aren’t gonna get out of here just sitting around. We have to find the Overmare’s office and see if we can override the door. While we do that, maybe we can find that Pip-Buck the Elder wants and hopefully not run into whatever made that noise,” I said trying my very best to stay positive.

“Fine, but if I get killed, I’m haunting you,” he said walking down the hallway.

“Go ahead, see if I care. I’ve already learned how to ignore you when you’re being annoying. How bad could a ghost YOU be?” I retorted.

“I just don’t wanna be lonely,” he said with a sarcastically sad face.

***

The next room was the atrium. It was set up similar to 28, but way scarier. Like I expected, the atrium looked like nopony’s lived here in a long time. The walls were dirty, rotting food was still on some of the tables, foal’s toys laying around. It looked like they left in a hurry, just like Sapphire told us. The scary part wasn’t that however, it was the pony skeletons. There were at least twenty laying around, most of them were ripped apart by something.

Two however, were sitting at one of the tables. They must’ve been the first to die by whatever did this. The two skeletons were sitting at the table, their heads laying on their plates, dried flakey blood pooled under their bodies.

“The longer I’m in this Stable the faster I want to leave,” I said walking slowly around the bodies.

“I couldn’t agree more, which way do ya think the Overmare’s office is?” Stardust said looking closer at one of the skeletons, making ridiculous faces at the skull.

“I thought you would know, you lived in a stable too,” I remarked, pointing out that he's technically in the same boat that I am.

“Yeah, but mine was WAY different than this,” he said nonchalantly.

“Mine too, but if we’re lucky, then the Overmare’s office should overlook the atrium.” I looked up and sure enough, there was a large round, dirty window. “See, right up there,” I said, pointing to the window.

Stardust flapped his wings, “Well then, let’s get this over with and get the fuck out of here.”

He went to lift me into the air when we heard something skittering from above us, “Did you hear that?” I squeaked out in fear.

“Uh, Shadow…look up,” Stardust said.

I did…and really wish I hadn’t. Hanging from the ceiling where dozens of large bat-like creatures. They had long fangs poking out of their mouths, very large ears, and blood red eyes. Worst of all, they were all looking down at us, one licking its maw.

“Fuck, we have to get out of here NOW!” Stardust yelled grabbing hold of me to pull me toward one of the open doors.

One of the creatures fell from the ceiling and landed on top of Stardust knocking him to the ground, and throwing me into one of the tables knocking the two dead ponies over, scattering their bones. I got back to my hooves, using my magic I picked up my shotgun, turning to see the bat thing trying to sink its large fangs into him. “Shoot the fucker!” he exclaimed.

I ran closer, raised my shotgun and fired. Its head burst like a rotten piece of fruit, bone, blood, and grey matter blasted all over me. The body fell on top of Stardust. At the sound of the shotgun going off the rest started to fall toward us, loud ear splitting screeching filling the air. The sound made my ears ring, but it wasn’t the same sound I heard before.

Stardust got to his hooves. “Run Shadow!” He pulled out the 10mm and started to fire. Moving back toward one of the side doors.

I followed, running up and opening it. Thank Celestia, it still worked. We both ran inside shutting it behind us. “Okay, I really don’t want to be here anymore,” I said breathing heavily.

“They looked like bloodwings, but smaller. Good thing you got that thing off me, a few seconds later and I would’ve been sucked dry,” he said.

Bloodwings, those sounded familiar, I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out my copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide. I turned to the chapter on beasts to be weary of in The Wasteland.

Bloodwings

Bloodwings are one creature in the Wasteland that you should always do your best to watch out for. Personally, I’m not sure where they originated from, I am sure that they’re a mutated vampire fruit bat. They started to show up a few years after the megaspells. They’re as big as your average pony, sometimes bigger, extremely fast flyers, and can suck the blood from your veins faster than you can scream.

If you happen to run into one be sure to kill it quickly, then run like hell. Bloodwings are rarely ever found alone. They’re also a lot smarter than you would think, they are known to travel in packs of three to six, sometimes more. One may use itself as bait to pull you into a false sense of security. Don’t ever fall for it, there are always more around, just waiting to fall on you and suck you dry. My word of advice, find cover if you can, or run like hell. Bloodwings are not to be taken lightly.

I looked back at Stardust. “They sound and look scary as hell. How the fuck did that many get in here? I thought the stable was sealed.”

“Nopony’s sure where they first came from, it’s possible this stable was it, but I doubt it. Bloodwings have been in The Wasteland longer than twenty years,” he said watching the door.

“But how could they still be alive with nopony to prey on in here?” I asked.

“No idea, maybe we aren’t the first ponies to find their way in here. If you unsealed it, it’s possible others found a way too. Right now, we don’t have time to figure it out, we need to find another way to get to the Overmare’s office. If we’re lucky, there’ll be a way out of here up there,” he said.

I was about to tell him that according to my Pip-Buck, the door hadn’t been opened for over twenty years, when suddenly there was a loud bang against the door behind us and someone yelling, “Help! Open the door, please!”

“Okay, can bloodwings talk?” I asked, watching the door.

“I don’t think so,” Stardust replied.

“Open the fucking door Shadow, I know you’re in there!” the voice said again, this time I recognized it.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said walking back to the door. On the other end, I could hear the scratching from the bloodwings and something heavy hitting the ground.

I reached up to open the door, Stardust yelled, “What the fuck are you doing? If you open that, those things will get in here.”

I sighed. “It’s a chance we’ll have to take. Get ready, I want to do this fast.”

“Fuck Shadow. Ugh…fine just do it,” he said readying his weapon.

I hit the control for the door, it slid open and as I expected, Aura was on the other side of the door. She had her back to me, and she was swinging her spear at the bloodthirsty monsters. Each thrust and swing hit its mark doing damage, but not enough to kill them. Three of them were lying dead next to her, throats slit. So, I guess she got a couple lucky swings in.

I pulled out my shotgun and fired as one came charging at her. My aim was true, and the creature’s head exploded, its body sliding to a halt right in front of her. I could hear Stardust firing rounds behind me, it was holding them back for now, but not doing much damage. Their bodies seemed to have thick hides, protecting them from smaller caliber ammunition. My shotgun seemed to do better, but only at close range.

“Aura get out of here, now!” I yelled firing at another as it came flying at us.

The griffon moved past me as the bloodwings swarmed us. I blasted a couple more shots, then the gun clicked. “Shit, I’m out of shells!” One of them attacked, throwing us through the door. The large bat screeched in my face its large fangs inches from my eyes. I pushed it back, but it was a lot stronger than me. I tried to use my magic to push it away or strangle it.

Pain shot down from my horn and into my head as my magic backfired on me. I screamed and recoiled, everything around me going red. The monster screeched making my head pound even more. It bit down on my shoulder and neck, and I screamed again at the pain of its long fangs digging deep into my flesh, along with the agonizing pain running through my head. It looked at me then started to suck. It felt as if I was being drained, my body was instantly weak, my vision fading.

A glowing lance shot over my face and pierced the blood sucking monster right through the eye, the tip protruding out the back of its head. It shook then fell on top of me, its fangs still stuck in my shoulder. Instantly Aura was next to me, looking me in the eyes, her head coming down and checking to see if I was still breathing.

When she was satisfied that I was still alive she looked back toward where Stardust was. “She’s alive, but her breathing is slow and shallow. Make sure that door stays shut, we’ve gotta keep those ugly motherfuckers out of here.”

“Who died and made you boss, griffon?” he asked.

Their voices sounded like I was listening to them from underwater. Aura looked back down at me, she actually looked worried. Huh, last time I saw her she wanted to capture me, or kill me, I wasn’t really clear on the details. Now she was looking at me as if she really cared what happened to me. I gave her a stupid smile, then moaned and felt like screaming again as my head pounded from the backfiring magic.

“She’s in a lot of pain, I’m sure she lost a pint or so of blood. We have to find her a safe place so she can get patched up,” Aura said getting back to her…talons, paws? I don’t know what you’d say when you had both.

“Are you even listening to me griffon, why should I do anything you say, and how did you even get in here? Shadow re-sealed the stable when we got here. There’s no way you could’ve gotten in without Shadow letting you in,” Stardust said.

“I used a stealth-buck to get in. I’ve been following you two since you came out of that valley with the sandstorm. You need to trust me, I have a little medical training and I’ve seen what Bloodwings can do to a pony. She’s lucky that thing didn’t kill her quicker. It must be young, it’s small for a bloodwing,” Aura said.

That explained the white bar I saw on my E.F.S. when we first entered the stable. It must’ve been Aura sneaking in as the door to the stable shut. Stardust walked into my sight getting right in the griffon’s face. “Why were you following us?”

“Does this really matter right now? Shadow need’s help and rest. She’s lost a lot of blood, and it looks like her magic backfired too. Not to mention, there are still a few blood suckers right through that door trying to kill us. We don’t have time to play this game,” she said, not backing down.

He cursed, stomping the ground with a hoof. “Fine, but I’m keeping my eye on you. Can we at least pull that thing off of her?”

“Y…Yeah, that’d be great,” I said weakly. It was starting to get heavy, and it wasn’t really a wonderful feeling having those fangs still lodged inside my shoulder.

“Not yet, I have a few medical bandages in my bag, and a couple healing potions, but once I pull the fangs out of her, she’ll bleed a lot. Let’s get her to a room where it’s a little safer before we risk her bleeding out,” Aura said.

“How the fuck do you expect us to do that? I can’t lift that thing and her at the same time, and keep the fangs in her,” Stardust protested.

Aura only smiled as she swung her spear’s blade around chopping off its head. Blood pooled all over my courier duster and barding. She kicked the body aside and smiled back at Stardust. “Problem solved. Any more complaints?”

“Any more complaints?” Stardust mocked, rolling his eyes and moving closer to me. “Hey Shadow, how you holding up?”

“I feel like shit,” I replied.

“Sorry about that, and this too,” he said lifting me up and tossing me onto his back. The head of the Bloodwing came with me still lodged deep into my neck and shoulder. I felt like screaming from the renewed pain, but my body was just too weak for that. I was however able to pass out.

***

I woke up on a smelly bed. I looked around sitting up, then fell back to the bed as pain shot up my leg and my head. I looked at my shoulder seeing a thick bloody bandage over the area where I was bitten. Aura came into the room, followed close behind by Stardust.

“How long was I out?” I asked watching as the two strolled in. The room I was in reminded me a lot of my own quarters in Stable 28. Only it was a lot darker, smelled like mildew, and it looked like nopony had cleaned in many years.

“A couple hours at least,” Stardust said walking up to me and sitting down. “Luckily, the griffon here was able to patch you up quickly, and she had a couple healing potions with her as well.”

“I DO have a name y'know,” she said pushing him aside and checking my bandages. “Does it still hurt?”

I looked up at the dark colored griffon and nodded. “A little, more sore though, not horrible pain like before.”

“Good to know, bloodwing bites don’t heal well normally, that is if you’re lucky enough to survive one. This will take a couple days to stop hurting, and it might cause problems with walking now and then. However, I think I was able to keep the muscles from tearing when I removed the fangs, so I think you’ll be okay,” she said.

“Not to sound ungrateful or anything, and I’m happy you were able to help me, but I have to ask. Why are you following us, and why did you come into this Stable? Last time I saw you, you wanted to turn me in for a bounty,” I asked sitting up a little.

She frowned and looked down at her talons. “Honestly, I owe you my life for saving me after your friend caved-in my side, no one’s ever done anything like that for me before, especially a pony I was hunting. Now I owe you again for opening that door when I got stuck in that giant room with those things. I was following you to see about paying back my debt.”

“If that was the reason then why didn’t you just reveal yourself before?” I asked.

“Good question,” Stardust muttered.

“I didn’t know how you’d react when you saw me again. I also didn’t feel like getting shot at again,” she looked over her shoulder glaring at Stardust who just ignored her. “I figured I’d follow you until I could work up the courage.”

I remembered her being a lot more cocky last time I saw her. Maybe this was a softer side she hadn’t shown before. Whatever it was, she’d saved my life now too by patching me up. “It’s no big deal, as long as you’re not out to kill me or bring me back to my stable. You saved my life today, so debt paid.”

“It doesn’t work like that Shorty, you were only in danger because I was too stupid to show myself before and got stuck. You saved me twice, and now I owe you for that. It’s a griffon’s job to pay back our debts, no matter what,” she said, standing up straight.

I groaned, that’s just what I needed right now, a dangerous griffon following me around. “So what do you want?” I asked.

“For now, I’m just here to pay back my debt. Apart from that, my business is my own,” she replied.

“Fine, if you can help us get out of this deathtrap, then you can stay with us,” I said.

“I’ll be keeping my eye on you,” Stardust said sulking in one corner.

“Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I’ll be doing the same with you cloud-breath,” Aura said glaring at him again.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his wings fluttering, and going straight up. I looked over at him remembering he’d been shot in one of his wings, how did it get better so fast?

“It means that I find it weird that a pegasus like yourself is down here with a stable pony. What does The Enclave want with her anyway?” Aura asked.

“I’m not with them!” he practically yelled.

“Yeah sure, I believe that one. You’re not a Dashite, so you have to be Enclave. Unless, you got lucky enough to escape them with your cutie mark intact,” she said.

I’ve had enough of this shit. We were in the middle of a fucked up stable, I was hurt, and these two idiots were fighting like a foal and whatever young griffons are called. I got to my hooves ignoring the pain. “Shut up both of you. We don’t have time for this, and all of your yelling isn’t really a great idea either. So please, for now can you both put your differences aside so we can get out of here?”

They both looked at me for a long moment, finally Stardust huffed and walked to the door. “Fine, I’ll let it go for now, but when we get out of here, were finishing this conversation,” he said, walking out of the room.

I looked over at Aura, she in turn looked away. “You shouldn’t be on your hooves yet, you’re still hurt.”

“Yeah, I noticed, but I don’t have time to be laying around. I’ll be okay for now, we really need to find our way up to the Overmare’s office. When we get out of here, then I’ll rest, I promise,” I said.

“Fine, do what you want, but if you end up with a torn muscle or any permanent damage, don’t blame me,” Aura said shrugging.

I smiled. “I won’t, and I’ll be careful. What should we do now?”

“I’m following you Shorty, I don’t know anything about stables. If you need something killed or need to be patched up then ask me, apart from that, I got nothin’,” she said still looking away.

I changed the subject as I started to pick up my stuff from the side of the bed. My barding and courier duster were soaked in blood, I still slipped it on ignoring the crunching and smell coming from my clothes. “What kind of weapon is that spear of yours? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She picked it up from where it rested against the wall, it wasn’t glowing like earlier. She showed it to me. “It’s a magical energy spear, it’s great for close quarters combat, and perfect for high speed flying.”

I made my way to the door, Aura walking in front of me with her spear on her back. “Where did you get something like that?” I asked as I peeked out the door.

“A…friend of mine, made it for me,” she said solemnly as if she didn't want to talk about it.

“Wow, how do I get my hooves on something like that. How much does this friend of yours charge?” I asked without thinking.

“Just…drop it okay,” she snapped.

Her body got tense when I spoke, and I could see her eyes watering a little. She was trying to hide it, but I could tell she was trying not to cry. I lowered my head. “I’m sorry, if it’s a touchy subject, I’ll let it be.”

A long sigh came from her and she looked back at me. “She’s gone, that’s all. She was a good friend of mine and I really don’t want to talk about her right now.”

I think I could understand. I know it would be hard for me if something ever happened to Balefire, or Milkshake. They were my only friends in the stable, and losing them would be horrible. Now that I think about it, they may not be gone, but I did lose them. There was no way I could ever go back to Stable 28. They may be alive, but I’d never see them again.

“I’m sorry for what happened to your friend,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it, it was a while ago,” Aura responded.

I wanted to ask her more, maybe get to know her better, but I had no idea where to start. She was really closed off, just like Stardust. Apart from them being here to help me, I didn’t know anything about them. I called Stardust my friend, but in reality, he was a mystery to me.

We rounded a corner and found Stardust sitting next to another door. We walked up and I looked down at him. “You okay?” I asked.

He looked sick, even his voice was shaky as he said, “Don’t look in the room.”

I looked over at the closed door and asked, “Why?”

“Trust me. Just don’t look…it’s really bad. Somepony here was sick, whoever the fucker was, they were seriously mental,” Stardust said.

I’m not sure why, but I had to see this for myself, so I walked toward the door. I’m not sure what it is, but I had to know. If I was going to make it in the Wasteland, I had to harden myself. I reached up and pressed the switch to open the door.

The first thing that hit me was the horrible odor, it smelled like rotting meat, and mold. What my eyes met, I don’t think I’ll ever forget. The door slid open slowly, making a sucking sound. The room looked as if it’d been the Stable’s clinic. Inside though was a sight from a horror story. The floor was littered with old dead corpses. Some were wearing doctor scrubs, others nurse’s uniforms, black dried blood covered every inch of the floor. On one side of the room I could see cribs for new born foals. Hanging over each one were the dead bodies of ten foals, spikes were driven through their heads attached to chains that were connected to the ceiling above.

Under them in the cribs were heads of ponies, each crib had a mare’s and a stallion’s. Whoever did this killed the foals and their parents, putting them on some kind of gruesome display. I looked over to the other side and next to the cabinets where medical supplies would be kept, somepony nailed severed hooves to the wall, using them to form a message.

Join me or Die

Turning my head quickly I threw up, walking back and away from the door. I looked away for a long moment breathing heavily. I spit on the ground trying to get the taste of bile out of my mouth, then wiped my lips with a hoof finally saying, “If I ever find out who did this, and he’s still alive, I’m going to make him pay.”

Aura only saw the room for a moment when I first opened the door, she looked away quicker than I did. She was also sitting on the floor shaking violently, as I spoke she said, “Same here. How could anyone do that to children?”

I walked back into the room, doing my best to keep my stomach contents down (what little was left at least). I ignored the crunching of the two-decade old blood as I walked up to the hanging foals. They’d almost mummified being stuck in the sealed room for so long. I tried to use my magic to pull them down from the chains, but I still couldn’t draw on it without my head starting to pound. I slumped to the floor and started to cry.

Stardust came in, he still looked ill, but he walked up to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. Then he flapped his wings and one by one he unchained the dead foals and slowly lowered each one down to the ground. When he was done he finally spoke, “If we find a way out of here, maybe we can find a way to give them a proper burial. If not, at least this is better than being stuck up there.”

“Thanks Stardust,” I said getting up. “Let’s get going.”

“You should go wait in the hall, I’m going to see if I can find a different way out of this. I really don’t want to go back into the atrium if I can help it,” he said patting my shoulder again before walking away.

I watched him go, then I looked back at the little bodies lying on the floor. I bowed my head and whispered a prayer to Celestia and Luna to watch over their souls. I got to my hooves again and started to make my way toward the hall when my eyes fell on the chem cabinet. I walked over to it and tried to open it. It was locked, luckily, I never went anywhere without my trusty screwdriver and a bobby pins. I pulled it out and got to work on the lock. I wasn’t sure why I did, I guess it was just something to distract me from the horror around me.

Aura walked in as I worked, watching me. “What are you doing?”

My magic was weak still, but at least I could still handle the tools to work the lock. It took most of my concentration to work it. I worked the tight lock slowly as I did my best to get the pins just right. It turned more, then…(snap)…the bobby pin broke.

“Dammit,” I said tossing the bobby pin away.

“Hello, griffon to shrimp, what’re you doing?” Aura asked.

I sighed pulling my last bobby pin from my bag and going back to it. “Picking the lock, there might be something useful in here.”

“Sounds stupid to me, what do you think you’ll find when this place looks like it does. I’m sure whoever did all this shit took everything worth taking,” she said.

I just rolled my eyes and ignored her. What did she know anyway? Even if there wasn’t anything in here, I’d rather sit here trying to pick this lock than think about the crap going on around me right now. Anything to keep my mind busy was good for me.

Finally, the lock gave a satisfying click, and I pulled the bobby pin out and smiled back at Aura. “Say what you want, but I win,” I said as I pulled the cabinet open, showing her what was inside.

I was surprised myself. Inside there were at least twenty healing potions, about the same amount of rad-away, and a few other chems I hadn’t seen before. I looked back at her again with a cocky smile. She cocked her head to one side. “Huh, well look at that. There’s stuff in there after all.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and winked pulling all of it into my saddle bags. When I could get my Pip-Buck back up, it could sort it all out. Doing my best not to look at the bodies surrounding me, I walked past Aura and back into the hall. She followed me keeping close while watching me.

I went back to the room I woke up in and sat on the bed and started fiddling with my Pip-Buck. Aura watched me for a bit as I worked. She kind of creeped me out, just standing there watching me. I looked up at her and said, “What?”

She gave me a look. “Huh?”

“Why are you just standing there watching me? It’s a little creepy,” I asked.

She looked away and responded, “Not like I have anything else to do while we wait around.”

I looked back at my Pip-Buck trying to get the thing to turn back on. “You could at least sit down, not just stand there staring. Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude?”

“Ha, no. She taught me things like, how to stay alive,” she replied.

“Well it’s rude, so please stop,” I said politely.

She rolled her eyes and turned her head. “Pfft, whatever, I’m gonna go see what the pegasus is up to, wait here till I get back. You really shouldn’t be moving around too much with those wounds. Also drink another healing potion, maybe it will help.”

I gave her a small nod still watching the screen of my Pip-Buck. She walked out of the room heading down one of the halls. As I worked I pulled a healing potion out and drank it, feeling it’s magic working slowly on my wounds. I really didn’t care right now, all I cared about was getting my Pip-Buck working. I’ve gotten used to the E.F.S. telling me if somepony was hostile or not, and if I was going to run into somepony around a corner. It’d also be nice to have S.A.T.S. back. For some reason, even though I hadn’t had a Pip-Buck very long, I felt naked without E.F.S. or S.A.T.S.

It seemed like the spell matrix wasn’t connecting right or something. Fuck. I wish I knew more about Pip-Bucks, what I really need is a Pip-Buck technician, but finding one in the Equestrian Wasteland was highly unlikely. I mean how many Pip-Buck technicians were just out there slaying monsters and trying not to be killed by raiders or bloodthirsty creatures. I groaned and rolled onto my back hitting my Pip-Buck to against the side of the bed. It made a loud beep. I lifted my foreleg and looked at the screen.

Pip-Buck 3000 Mk. II Safe mode active.

Do you wish to Exit Safe Mode?

Yes/No.

“Really!? I’ve been trying everything I could think of to get this thing back on, and all I had to do was hit it with something hard.” The Goddesses hated me, they had to, because this was just messed up. I clicked on the 'Yes' and watched as it reset. After a minute the screen was normal again. I activated my E.F.S. and saw it was working again.

What the fuck made this thing go nuts like it did in the first place, I thought that Pip-Bucks were impossible to break or mess up like this. Oh well, at least it was functioning again. I got to my hooves and walked into the bathroom that was adjacent to the bed. When I walked in I took a look in the mirror. It was dirty, so I wiped it off so I could get a better look. It’s the first time in the past few days I was able to get a good look at myself since I left stable 28.

I looked like hell, my once beautiful silver mane was dirty, dried blood turned the lower half of my braid brown. My tail wasn’t much better, the barding and duster was all soaked in drying blood. I had a sunken look to me, as if I hadn’t slept in days. I just shook my head and looked away. One thing I always prided myself on was my mane. It was the one thing I always found pretty about myself. My mother was the one who always told me how much she loved my mane, the way it almost sparkled in the light. Now it was a mess, I knew it was kind of a petty thought, but I really didn’t care. Not right now.

I looked up again and took one last look at myself. I had to let it go, but it was hard. I’m not a stable pony anymore, I can’t keep acting like one. I was in the Wasteland now, the dead land of Equestria. The Wasteland was a hard place to live in, and no place for a soft pony. I looked away and walked back out of the bathroom. I was done being soft, it was time to find that Pip-Buck, avoid or kill whatever made that noise earlier, and get the fuck out of this place.

I saw a white bar on my E.F.S. as I walked back into the bedroom, I wonder if Aura made her way back to check on me. I headed toward the door saying, “You weren’t gone long, did you find Stardust?” I rounded the corner, there was a flash, and I blacked out…

***

Slowly I opened my eyes and found myself in a dark room. Red bars filling my E.F.S. I jumped to my hooves and went for my shotgun. It’s gone, so are my barding and gear. The room was dark, I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. What the fuck’s going on here. Why do I keep waking up in strange places with no clothes?

“Welcome to Stable 9 child,” a stallion’s voice said from somewhere above me.

“Who are you, and what’s going on!?” I yelled looking around wildly. Everywhere I looked red bar’s filled my E.F.S. but I couldn’t see anypony.

“Pardon my poor manners, you can just call me Doctor Cell. I do hope you enjoyed your stay in my stable,” the so called Doctor Cell said.

“Oh yeah, it was so pleasant, I loved your little greeting party by the way,” I said in a snide voice slowly walking around the room, keeping my eyes out for anything. “I take it you were the one who was on the other side of the door that knocked me out. Since my head doesn’t hurt I guess you must’ve used some sort of knock out spell, so I take it you’re a unicorn.”

“Good deduction child, it’s a spell I came up with myself a few years ago. Useful spell for when you’re around some of the more monstrous things in here. I’m curious, how did you find your way into this place? The ponies who escaped so many years ago, sealed it.” His voice was echoing from above me. I wondered if I was back in the atrium and he was just on the upper walkway.

“Hacked it with my Pip-Buck, didn’t take too long really,” I answered.

“Really? I tried that for the first couple of years I was trapped in here with no success. I find it a little strange that a Wasteland pony with some random Pip-Buck was able to unseal the stable so easily,” he said.

So, he’d been trapped in here for twenty years, all by himself? Fuck I would’ve gone nuts a long time go if that was me. Oh yeah, he IS nuts. Then I remembered the dead foals hanging from the ceiling like some kind of sick ornaments. “Was that you who killed those foals in the clinic?” I asked doing my best to hold back my rage.

“You found the nursery I see, nice bit of art there, damn foals wouldn’t stop crying. I told their parents to keep them quiet, but they just wouldn’t listen. So, I made an example out of them,” he said in an amused tone.

I stopped trying to fight back the tears as they rolled down my cheeks. I looked up toward the ceiling and yelled, “I’m going to kill you for what you did you sick bastard. Who kills foals and put’s them up for decoration like that?”

“Oh, you misunderstand me child, I ordered them to be killed. I didn’t do the actual killing and decorating. I took over this stable you see, and whoever runs the stable makes the laws here. Their parents didn’t want to listen so they all died,” he said.

“Celestia damn it all. You just told other stable dwellers to kill them all? I find it hard to believe that other ponies would follow an order like that.” I really couldn’t be certain about that though, I knew ponies in my stable that would do whatever was asked by the Overmare. But I’m not sure if they’d go that far, at least I hope not.

A crazed laugh filled the air around me. “From that wound on your shoulder, I take it you ran into my pets. Am I correct?” he asked.

“And killed a few. They’re not so tough without their heads,” I replied.

“Yes, I saw that. You know it’s not nice to go around killing someone else’s pets, not after a pony put so much hard work into making them. Years spent researching reactions of magical radiation with vampire fruit bats, and you go and kill so many, so quickly,” he said, still laughing a little as he spoke. “Well I can say it made good data, showing me what I need to improve on them before they’re ready for the world outside.”

“What are you talking about? They’re bloodwings, they’re already in The Wasteland,” I said, remembering what I saw in The Wasteland Survival Guide.

“Really? I had no idea, I wonder though if they are as intelligent or as strong as my creations are? Oh well, they are only the product of my first and best experiment, flawed but a lot easier to create,” he said with a shrug.

Yeah definitely nuts, nothing he said made sense to me. If only I could find where he was, then maybe I could teleport up to him and take him out, my magic was starting to feel stronger now, but his voice never seemed to get any closer as I walked around the room. So, I did the only thing I could, I kept him talking.

“If you didn’t kill those foals yourself then who did?” I asked.

“Oh right, I almost forgot about that, the whole reason I brought you back here. Yes, I had help back then, my creation did go a little overboard with its orders, but it was a good test that day. Did everything I told it to and more. I was so proud. It was like watching your own foal do something for the first time,” he said delightfully.

My magic was still weak but I could feel that it was stronger than it was earlier. I reached out and used it to feel for a door, or my weapons, anything that could help me get out of this. He said he brought me back here, so I guessed I was in the atrium. Only the emergency lights have been shut off and somepony moved the tables and bones.

“Was this creature the thing that forced everypony to abandon this place?” I asked.

“Mostly yes, that and seeing their friends all dying around them when I took over. Not everypony made it out in time though, the former Overmare did something to seal the door before they all made it out,” he said laughing again. “Would you like to meet her?”

Wait what? Was he telling me that the creature who killed all the ponies in here was still alive? I felt around more with my magic trying to find anything I could to get out. One thing I knew for sure, I really didn’t want to meet whatever could’ve killed so many, so easily.

“No, I think I’m good,” I said, finally finding a door. I tried to push on the button with my magic, but it was no good, with no power, the door wouldn’t open.

“Sorry, but you can’t leave just yet. Tell you what though, if you get through my experiment alive, then I’ll consider letting you be my new creation. I haven’t been able to test my new ideas on a pony since everypony left or died,” he said.

“Yeah, I still think I’m gonna pass,” I said as I took a step back from the door.

“Don’t be silly, this’ll be fun. Oh Sharp, come on out, this young mare wants to meet you and play,” he called out.

Something heavy landed a few feet behind me. I heard the fluttering of wings, and heavy breathing. I turned around quickly and pressed my back to the locked door, doing my best to see through the darkness. A pair of glowing yellow eyes stared back at me out of the darkness. I felt like wetting myself right then and there, I had no weapons, couldn’t see, and no idea what the fuck I was about to fight.

“I suppose for this experiment to be a little more fair, I should turn on some lights,” he said, sounding a little let down.

There was a loud hum and bright stable lights came on, I winced at the sudden change in light. When I could see properly again, what I saw was like something out of a nightmare. It looked like it’d been a pony at one time. I had no idea what I’d call it now. The pony creature wasn't much bigger than I was. It used to be a pegasus from what I could tell, only instead of having soft feathered wings like Stardust, this thing had large bat like wings. Its yellow eyes had slits for pupils, its ears were twice the size of a normal pony’s, large tufts at the tips. Long fangs like the Bloodwings had poked out on each side of its muzzle. Its body had part of a pony’s dark grey coat mixed with what looked like scales running from its chest down under its belly, its long mane was maroon and shaggy. On the ends of its forelegs, two sharp looking bones jutted out to the ends of its hooves.

It opened its muzzle in a kind of smile, showing me rows of sharp teeth. Then it screeched at me, I could see something sparkling around its neck as it did. Right then my horn felt like it was going to explode. It felt like hot spikes were being driven through my horn blocking my magic. I crumpled to the ground screaming as tears filled my eyes from the pain.

The screech only lasted a couple seconds, unlike when we heard it before. I looked up at the monster pony that was slowly walking toward me, and I noticed something, it almost looked sad. Yep I had to be going crazy, I was seeing emotion in a monster.

“Sharp here was my first success, she’s was a young mare that had an accident when she fell onto one of the generators getting electrocuted. I was told by the Overmare to help her, so I did. When I showed the Overmare my work she got angry with me, told me I was supposed to cure her not make her into a monster. So, I killed her for saying such horrible things about my beautiful pet. She’s always been a good mare, well almost always, she was a little hard to control at first, but not anymore. Now she does whatever I tell her to,” he said joyfully.

I saw Sharp look up just to the left of me on the balcony and give a small snarl. She looked away and I saw she had something around her neck. It was like a necklace with a tiny ruby embedded into it.

The pain in my horn went away and I found I could use my magic again. Maybe that screech of hers wasn’t as powerful a second time. My Pip-Buck was still working, so maybe I was right, or maybe there was something else going on here. I drew on my magic and teleported myself onto the balcony above.

I ended up right behind a tall middle aged green unicorn stallion, wearing a white lab coat. He turned when I appeared and yelled, “No fair, that’s cheating!” He lifted what looked like my combat shotgun and pointed it right at my face.

I hit S.A.T.S. and aimed three kicks at his face. Time slowed as I activated the targeting spell, I reared around and landed two out of my three kicks. He went flying back as the spell finished, dropping my shotgun. I picked it up with my magic and pointed it at him.

He looked up at me with a crazy smile. “Now this just won’t do, Sharp kill her.”

I was about to pull the trigger when out of nowhere, the monster pony attacked me, one of her sharp bone things spearing right through my already messed up shoulder. I screamed, but managed to keep my magical hold on my shotgun. She pined me to the wall, her muzzle inches away from mine. I pointed the shotgun toward her and fired. The shot blasted her off of me and sent her a few feet to my right.

I turned the shotgun around to kill the unicorn, but he was gone. Fucker must’ve ran off when his monster attacked me. I turned to look back at the bat-pony-monster-thing, expecting to see her bloody innards sprawled all over the floor. Shockingly, she was getting back to her hooves. Fuck, I hit her at point blank range, right in her side. She should be dead, or at least dying. She didn’t even look hurt.

“You’re fucking bullet proof?” I said backing away slowly aiming the shotgun right at her head.

I got another surprise as she opened her mouth and said in a soft hissing like voice, “Mostly, but not truly. The master wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be killed to easily, so he spliced a little dragon DNA with mine mixing it with the bat's DNA.”

Well that explained the scales and eyes. Her head however was still pony-like and I bet it wasn’t as well armored as her torso. “Good to know,” I said and then fired my shotgun again.

She jumped into the air, dodging my shot with ease, she dove at me, but I teleported back to the ground level, keeping her in sight when I reappeared. Blood dripped from my shoulder and pain ran through my leg. I was breathing a little harder from teleporting twice now. I can’t keep this up, I had to find a way to take her down.

She jumped onto the railing, watching me,.“Your little magic tricks won’t keep you safe for long. How many more times can you do that before you’re out of magic? One maybe two more times.”

I rose the shotgun toward her, a grin pulling at my lips, “Try me bitch. I can do this all-day long.”

She yawned and grinned showing those sharp fangs. “You do realize that you’re going to die today, don’t you?”

My legs started shaking as she spoke those words. I looked up at her again smiling. “Oh, we’ll see monster, but tell me first, why do you want me dead?”

She cocked her head to one side. “I don’t, but it just has to be this way.”

“But why?” I asked.

“My master ordered me to kill you, I have to do what he tells me to, no ifs, ands, or buts about it,” she replied.

“That simple huh?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s the way it works.” Her grin grew wider and her wings opened. She dove at me and screeched. Once again that pain ran through my horn and head, blocking my magic like before.

I fell to my stomach. Unable to move, I looked up as death came rushing at me. My shotgun was sitting next to me where it’d fallen from my magic’s grip. She came at me mouth wide open, going for my neck just like the Bloodwing had done. When out of nowhere Stardust came rushing in, kicking her in the side. The kick sent her flying to the opposite side of the room. He landed next to me keeping his wings spread wide, the 10mm in his jaws.

The pain started to recede and I looked up at him, “About time you showed up.”

He grinned at me and said around the pistol in his muzzle, “Better late than never.”

Aura walked up to the other side of me. She had her energy spear held in one talon, “You okay Shorty?”

“Not doing too good, but I’m still alive thanks to you two,” I replied.

Sharp got back to her hooves glaring at us with her glowing yellow eyes, “Oh, look your friends have finally joined the party.”

“The fuck is that thing?” Stardust asked keeping her in his sights.

“Long story, I’ll tell you later, right now all that matters is, she’s trying to kill me and her master is getting away.” I turned toward Aura and said, “He ran off down one of the upper hallways. Think you can find him? He’s an older green unicorn.”

“No problem, will you and cloud breath here be able to take care of this one?” Aura asked.

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Stardust said, smiling at the monster pony.

She started to laugh watching us. “Oh, you still don’t understand how this game works do you? You see, if you want to get out of here, you have to kill me.”

“Yeah that’s kind of the point,” I said mocking her.

“No, you see, this is was a one on one fight if your friends would’ve stayed out of it, but since you brought your friends, I get to have mine,” she said pointing up with her hoof.

I realized just then, that I’d never looked anywhere else in the atrium since Sharp reveled herself. I see now that it was a big mistake, above us were at least a couple dozen bloodwings, they were all hanging from the ceiling watching the fight. They started to fall away, flying around the room.

“Oh fuck,” I said watching as they circled above us.

“Shadow Star?” Stardust asked.

“What?” I responded.

“I told you to knock on wood, see what happens when you don’t listen to me.” I looked over at him to see his cocky smile. He wasn’t angry, he looked animated, as if this was just another day for him. We were low on ammunition, facing way too many things that wanted us dead, and we’re still stuck in this steel death trap.

Fuck it, might as well have some fun before we bite it. I cocked my shotgun, looked over at Aura, who just nodded at me. I aimed up toward flying death and screamed, “Come get us you sick fucks.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Shotgun Surgeon: When using Shotguns, Regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target’s Damage threshold.

Chapter 9: Off To See The World

“You ARE a monster, my pet, you always will be, no matter what you do.”

My shotgun fired, as one of the bloodwings came flying down toward me, its head exploding into meaty chunks. Its body flew over me, hitting the far wall with a wet crunch. Seven shots left, and only forty or so left to kill. I ducked and rolled as two more flew over me, their screeching filling the air. I could see Stardust up on the upper balcony firing wildly as each one passed near him, concentration etched into his face as he lined up each shot. If he had his rifle I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for him. The 10mm I gave him earlier wasn’t doing enough damage to actually harm the flying beasts, most of his shots either missed or grazed tender areas.

Aura, was a monster in her own right. Unlike Stardust who was keeping to the ground, she was in the air meeting every one of them face to face. She looped around two who were coming at her. She flipped around in mid-air with her spear and beheaded one, then stabbed the other in the back. With a quick flap of her wings she flew higher, her weapon arching up, cutting another bloodwing from belly to neck. It screamed as it was eviscerated. Before it could even start to fall, she was already battling another one. The monsters weren’t stupid however, three went after her at once, each one dodging her spear and talons as the others kept her distracted.

I twisted and dodged two that were flying at me, using the butt of my shotgun to strike their wings as they passed by. I missed the first one, but the second went down with a satisfying crunch as the middle joint of its wing gave way. It skidded to the ground and started to get back up, hissing at me as it limped along. I ran up to it and bucked it in the face sending it flying into the wall. Before it could rise again, my hoof stomped down hard on its head, once, twice, three times, until the skull gave.

Ignoring the gore on my foreleg and hoof, I looked across the room at Sharp, she was watching us with a satisfied grin on her face. I grinned back at her and racked the shotgun pointing it toward her, “Thought you were ordered to kill me? Seems kind of lazy of you to leave it up to your little friends.”

Another bloodwing landed in front of me screeching and biting, I triggered S.A.T.S. and blasted two shells into its face. The body flew back in a red mist, five shots left. Two more landed in front of me, one in front of the other. I tried to hit the one in front with the butt of my shotgun, but it jumped back. I cursed and activated S.A.T.S. again as it lunged for me. Time slowed and I targeted its head like the others. I fired, and it missed, I jumped out of the way and activated S.A.T.S. again this time aiming for one of its wings. The shot connected, blowing the appendage off in a shower of blood. The other one jumped for me as its companion fell, I tried to use S.A.T.S. again, but it was recharging.

I ran toward it and slid on the ground as it lunged, aiming my shotgun up and firing as it passed over me. It screamed and fell to the ground as its torso burst apart, organs spilling over the floor. I got back to my hooves and looked over at Sharp again. She was still just sitting there smiling.

“Is this entertaining for you or something!?” I yelled. I only had three shots left, could I take her down with only three shots?

“No, it’s not,” is all she said, as she slowly stood.

“Then why don’t you just get it over with already?” I asked.

“I was giving you and your friends time,” she said as she took a step closer, those long spear like bones from her legs making tiny ticks with each step.

“Time for what?” I asked pointing my shotgun at her.

“Time for you to figure out a way to kill me,” she said, sounding sincere as she walked closer, her eyes looked sad.

“Is this some kind of twisted joke? Why would you want me to find a way to kill you?” I did want to keep her from hurting anypony again, but I still found it strange that she’d want to die.

She came within inches of my shotgun and said, “Because, I’m a monster, created by the doctor simply so he could take over this stable. I can’t kill myself to atone for my sins, so I’d need to have you do it. I won’t be able to just let you, I’ll fight back until I can’t anymore, I have no control over that, but I still want to die.”

The shotgun shook in my magic’s grip as she spoke. “That all sounds really complicated, but if that’s the only way to stop all this, then fine.” I pulled the trigger, and she dodged it faster than I thought was possible. She twisted around and bucked the shotgun aside. She screeched again and jabbed at me with those freaky bone things coming out of her legs. What kind of pony has mutant bone thingies anyway? Stupid question, she’s a monster.

I noticed as I dodged the strike that as she struck, she bent her hoof inward making the bone work like a small claw. She jumped into the air and dove at me with those damned claws coming down right at my head. Even though I knew it would hurt like hell, I tried to teleport away. My horn glowed red and in a flash I was about six feet to the left.

She landed a second later and her claws sunk into floor like it was made out of butter. She jerked and pulled, but she was stuck to the ground. She growled and looked over at me with her glowing yellow eyes. I kind of felt bad for her, I wasn’t sure why, but I just knew something wasn’t right. It was like she wasn’t in control of her own actions. She didn’t chose to be like this, she was just the product of a mad doctor. I lifted my shotgun toward her head and she jerked again.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say as I pulled the trigger. With her last jerk, she pulled up just enough to keep the shot from hitting her head. Instead it blew the claws off her legs as she blocked the shot. She screeched again as blood spurted from the fresh wounds. As she did, my horn felt like it was being stabbed again, I looked up at her noticing something different this time. That pinkish glow around her muzzle as she screeched. It wasn’t coming from her, but from the collar she wore.

That had to be the source of whatever was fucking up my horn. The screech kept going on as she thrashed in pain, I could see my Pip-Buck starting to act up again. I ignored it and the pain in my head as I fought to hold onto the shotgun. I lifted it and fired my last shell. There was a flash of pink light and everything went black.

I opened my eyes looking up at Aura and Stardust. They both looked relieved as I opened my eyes. I smiled deliriously and asked, “So, did we win?”

“I’m not sure, whatever you did scared off the bloodwings. No idea where they went,” Aura said, helping me back to my hooves.

I took a second to look around. “Where did Sharp go?”

Stardust pointed toward the stairway that lead back to the upper level of the Atrium. I saw her shaking on the ground next to it, blood dripping from her legs. The collar I shot was lying next to her sparking on the ground. “She stopped attacking as soon as you destroyed that collar on her neck. She hasn’t moved from that spot since then either, so I figured we’d leave her to you. I feel like I’d say something sarcastic and insensitive.”

I walked over to her cautiously. She might not look like she’s going to do anything, but I had to be ready just in case. “Sharp, what was that thing you had on your neck?”

She looked up at me with tear filled eyes, now I could see that her shaking wasn’t from whatever happened when I shot the collar. She’d been crying. She sniffed and said, “Doctor Cell was using that thing, to keep me under his control. As long as I had it on, I had to do whatever he said.” She shivered more her eyes getting wider as she said, “He ordered me to kill those fillies. He told me to make an example of them. He made me kill so many ponies before the rest got away.”

I sighed and looked back at my companions. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“I say kill the thing and let’s get out of here,” Aura said nonchalantly. I noticed she had dozens of cuts on her from the fight.

“She wasn’t in control of herself. I say give her a chance,” Stardust said.

Great, I was the tie breaker. Why couldn’t a better pony than me decide this? I’m not a judge or an Overmare. Why should I choose who lives or dies? I mean if she was still attacking me, I wouldn’t hesitate, but the bar on my E.F.S. was white. I groaned and sat on my haunches pressing my hooves to my eyes. “Why does this have to be so hard?” I looked back at Sharp and asked, “You said before that you wanted to die, right?”

She looked up at me and nodded. “It’s the only way to atone for my sins, and to keep me from doing any more harm.”

“Do you want to hurt my friends or me anymore, or any other pony?” I asked.

She gave me a quizzical look. “I don’t, but what does it matter?”

“Then I can’t kill you, from how I see it, you only did what you were forced to do.” I got up and turned away from her. “If you wanna do something good, don’t kill yourself, that won’t bring back the ponies who died. Only a coward would do such a thing.”

Without looking back at her I walked toward the stairway. Her voice floated to me quietly, “Thank you.”

“Let’s go,” I said to my companions as I started to walk up the steps.

“Are you sure about this Shorty?” Aura asked, walking up next to me.

“I’m not sure about anything anymore. All I know is that we need to get out of here, and I need to have a word with Doctor Cell. We can’t leave Stable 9 until he’s dealt with,” I replied.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea, you saw what she could do. Do you really want to let her live with that kind of power?” Aura asked.

“That’s not up to me, if she was still trying to kill us then yes I’d take care of her. I can’t go around and kill everypony I think could be dangerous. If I did, I wouldn’t have helped you,” I said looking over at her.

She blushed and looked away. “Fine, but if she ends up hurting someone down the road, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

I ignored her making my way over to one of the doors on the upper level. I saw my saddle bags sitting next to it, along with my duster. I reached down, picked up my stuff, and put my bloodstained duster back on. When I was done, I loaded my shotgun again and looked back at the two of them. “How did you find me?”

“When the griffon found me, I still couldn’t find another way out of that hallway. All the doors on that side were sealed off, I was still trying to find any way I could to open the doors when the lights went out. The two of us flew back to the room where you were, but you were gone. We ran back to the Atrium door, with no power, we couldn’t open it,” Stardust said.

“How’d you two get to me then?” I asked.

“We tried to find another way to get to the atrium, when the power came back on though we just flew back and tried the one that didn’t work before,” Aura said, simply.

We kept moving down the hall, weapons drawn. I wasn’t gonna risk running into more monsters without being ready for it. The hall rounded a corner and led us to two different doors, over one door there was a sign that said ‘Overmare’ the other said ‘Biology Lab’.

“If I was a crazy doctor scientist guy, where would I go if I was in a panic and trying to get away from somepony who wanted me dead?” I asked looking at both doors.

“Really? Is that even a real question?” Stardust asked, giving me a look.

“The lab it is then,” I said, making my way over to the door and opening it. Stardust just shook his head as Aura snickered.

The door opened into another short hallway that lead to another door. As I approached it Aura chimed in, “Why would you have two doors like this, I mean what’s the point of one door, then a short hallway, then another door to a lab? No wonder stable ponies are so weird, they come from fucked up places like this.”

Come to think of it, it was a little odd, Stable 28’s labs were set up the same way, same for the clinic. I wonder if there was some scientific reason for it, I however wasn’t the sciencey type. I just looked back at her and smiled wide. “No idea, but who gives a rip, it is what it is.”

The door opened and I walked through, the first impression I got was it looked a lot like I would expect a lab to look. Microscopes on tables, beakers, and terminals. I also saw something else I didn’t expect. A dead bloodwing on the far table, partially dissected, blood pooling on the floor next to it. Then the door behind me slammed shut, Stardust and Aura still on the other side of it. Why does this stupid shit keep happening to me? Oh yeah, I forgot to knock on wood, that’s right. Now this makes total sense. From now on I’m gonna knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder, say rabbit when I wake up, the whole shebang.

“Shadow!” Stardust yelled, on the other side of the door. “Don’t worry we’ll get you out of there.”

“I’ll be okay, go to the Overmare’s office and see if you can get this door open from there,” I said.

“Fine, just be careful,” Stardust responded.

“How nice of you to join me,” Doctor Cell said from the room on the other side of the lab.

“I figured you’d come running up here,” I said, checking my shotgun and slowly walking forward.

He smiled. “You surprise me. I never expected a filly like you to be able to fight off so many of my children, even more, I didn’t ever think you’d figure out how to get Sharp out of my control.”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out, when I saw her using that screech of hers, I saw the glow from the collar, figured shooting it would do something,” I said.

He chuckled a little as if this was amusing. “Ah, that was very smart of you. Well done, I take it you’re up here to kill me then?”

I could see the red bar on my E.F.S. and I slowly moved closer. “Yeah, you’ve done some nasty things Doc, it’s time for you to pay for your crimes.”

“Sadly, I can’t let you do that, I have so much more to do,” he said as he poked his head out from the doorway. “So how about you die instead.”

Using his magic, he tossed something toward me. I had no idea what it was, but after what he said I knew it couldn’t be good, I wrapped my magic around it, intending to throw it back at him. As my magic connected with what he threw, and I knew my mistake as soon as the connection was made, and the world around me melted away.

oooOOOooo

A memory orb, just fucking perfect. That was something I really wasn’t expecting. Now I was stuck in this thing, while the crazy doctor was doing, goddesses knew what, to me. I was in a stallion, yep that was defiantly something that didn’t belong on a mare. I felt something fluttering on my sides, with no horn and the extra appendages on my side, I figured I was in the body of a pegasus.

My host was making his way through an assortment of soldiers in some kind of field, a large tent looming in front of him. The body I was in felt like it was pressed into some kind of armor, but it fit nicely. He turned away from the large tent and walked into a smaller one.

Inside was a tall red earth pony stallion putting on the last of his combat armor. His head turned as my host walked through the tent flap, a smile on his face, “Big Mac, it’s good to see you old friend,” my host said, in a deep voice.

“Night Stalker, it’s been a while. I didn’t expect to see ya here today,” Big Mac said.

“Luna’s orders, she wants all hooves on deck for this. She’s afraid the stripes will try something,” my host said, walking up next to the tall stallion and looking into the mirror as well.

My host seemed normal looking to me, dark grey coat, black mane, and emerald green eyes. He was however almost as tall as the red stallion he called Big Mac and over his left eye was a wicked scar. It looked like a claw or talon had torn away a large chunk of skin over the eye leaving it a pink and red patch of skin. He was wearing similar looking armor to Big Mac, only it was black, with dark blue running along its edges. There was a crescent moon on the chest with a red ruby above it, slightly glowing. Hooked to one side of the combat armor, was a helmet with goggles and a rebreather connected to it. They goggles had a red tint to them and in the middle were three tinny gem stones. There were two swords strapped to his back. The swords glowed a little even in the dim light of the tent and looked sharp has hell. The handles had small bars poking out of them, like they were made to connect to something. On his sides under his wings was a battle saddle with two disintegration rifles attached to it. I remembered seeing something in The Wasteland Survival Guide about them.

“We’re here for Princess Celestia to talk over terms of peace with the Caesar’s representative. If they were up to no good, wouldn’t they try to go after the current ruler of Equestria, not the former?” Big Mac asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past them my friend, you’ve been in plenty of battles with the stripes. You should know better by now, you can’t trust them,” my host said, walking away from Big Mac and looking around the tent.

“Heh, e’yep, I sure have been. I’m hopin’ that today won’t be another. I still don’t understand why you’d be sent here? From what I heard, you’ve got your own squad of ponies to lead now. I thought they were supposed to be kept secret,” Big Mac said.

“Eh, you know I can’t just stay out of what could end up being a good fight. Luna wanted us here to back up you and the marauders. Heh, if something goes down, you couldn’t ask for better ponies to be here,” my host said getting a little more enthusiastic. “Tell me, how’d you hear about my new team? I only started recruiting them a few weeks ago, and as far as I know our missions have been kept top secret.”

Big Mac gave my host a look. “I have my ways of findin’ things out, and Celestia ain’t good at keepin’ secrets when it comes to some of her trusted ponies like mahself.”

“I’m sure that young stallion Echo had a little to do with that, more than the princess’ loose lips,” my host said.

“Maybe he did. I’m not sure why ya care. Do ya think my team or I, will go around telling ponies about the Princess’ secret group of assassins?” Big Mac asked.

“We’re not assassins, more like a special unit that can be sent in to take care of the things normal soldiers can’t,” my host replied.

“So, you’re more like a secret society that just happens to kill ponies,” Big Mac said, with a smile.

“Something like that, sure,” my host responded, seeming to let Big Mac win.

“You know I’m just yanking your chain Night Stalker. I’m proud to see ya makin’ your way up the ranks like ya are. How does it feel to be a Captain?” Big Mac said, smiling again.

Night Stalker rubbed the back of his head. “Honestly, it feels weird. I barely got used to giving orders as a Sergeant before Celestia recruited me to be part of Luna’s guard, then to take on this project as leader of a new secret special ops team. Now I’m bumped up way higher in the ranks than I ever thought I’d be.”

Big Mac nudged my host in the shoulder, saying, “You’ll do fine, I remember what it’s like to have ponies looking to ya for leadership. When the Marauders started, I was scared shitless that I’d mess somethin’ up. Ya’ll have a good head on yer shoulders.”

“Ha. You ended up being one hell of a leader, your team is highly respected and probably among the best fighters in Equestria,” Night Stalker said.

Big Mac nodded. “That might be true, but that could change soon.”

He had a funny look, my host must’ve noticed it too because he walked back over to the large stallion, “You okay?”

Big Mac smiled, “More than okay. I’m peachier than a peach cobbler.”

“You’re still a bad liar Big Mac. You’re leaving the Marauders, aren’t you?” Night Stalker asked.

A small smile came to his face, “I’m retirin’.”

My host was taken aback by that. “Why?”

“I have a special mare that I owe a better life, after today, I’ll be done with this war. I plan on movin’ back home to Sweet Apple Acres or maybe Ponyville. I’m gonna ask her to marry me,” he said, his smile growing.

I felt my host smile. “It’ll suck to see you go big guy, but if anypony deserves to leave this life behind and be happy with a mare, it’s you my friend. What’s her name?”

“I’ll introduce ya’ll after we get engaged, before that, I’m not telling anypony,” Big Mac said, waving his hoof.

“Fair enough,” Night Stalker responded.

“What about you Night Stalker, do ya have a special somepony yet?” Big Mac asked.

I could feel my host’s cheeks starting to burn a little as he blushed. “Not…really.”

“What kind of answer is that?” Big Mac asked.

“I have feelings for a mare, but she’s way out of my league. She knows how I feel…I think, but I couldn’t ever ask her to love a pony like me,” Night Stalker responded.

“What mare wouldn’t want a good-looking buck like you, I mean yeah that eye of yours is a little messed up, but most mares like a buck with scars,” Big Mac said with a wink.

“I’ll tell you when I meet your mare friend,” my host said, with a sly smile.

“Fair enough. Well I think it’s about time to get to our posts. I gotta check that my own team is in position, then I’ll be headin’ over to the main tent,” Big Mac said.

“I’ll see you there, Big Mac,” Night Stalker said.

The two bumped hooves and my host left the tent and headed toward the large one. He walked in and headed for the long table set up on one side of the tent. Sitting by it was a Goddess, Princess Celestia herself, looking regal and beautiful, just how she did in the many books I’d seen her in, only now she was here in front of me. Well at least when this memory took place. She smiled as my host trotted over to her, bowing low.

“Night Stalker, I’m glad you could make it,” she said.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else Princess,” he said as he once again rose.

She laughed lightly. “I’m sure you’d rather be anywhere else than here. No matter, I’m happy you are. I’ll admit I’m a little worried that something will go wrong, and I feel much safer with one of Luna’s Children of the Night along-side me.”

“Everything will be fine Princess, and you’ll have Big Mac and the Marauders here as well. You’re the one who set up this peace talk, and you’ll only be meeting with old zebras, not much can go wrong,” he said, giving her a smile.

“Still I’m glad you’ll be keeping watch. Where is the rest of your team?” she asked.

“They’re set up in different areas of the camp, watching the borders to make sure the zebras don’t get the drop on us, in case this was all a set up,” my host said, pulling his helmet off his hip and putting it on. When he did the eyes on the helmet brought up what looked like an E.F.S.

“Good,” she said as Big Mac walked in and stood on the other side of the Princess.

A few zebras started to walk in with some ponies, all of them coming up to the table. What happened next I really didn’t pay much attention to, it was all a bunch of bickering about crimes the ponies committed or the zebras and how they could overcome the damage that happened in the war. Half way though, a little radio in the helmet made a hissing sound then a mare’s voice echoed into my host’s ear, “Capitan I’m seeing movement in the trees to the north.”

Turning his head to the side a little my host whispered back, “Are they Stripes?”

“I think so sir, but I’m not getting a good view, it’s possible they’re wearing zebra stealth cloaks. Do you want us to intercept?” the voice asked.

“Use the thermal goggles and only engage if they move past the tree line. They may just be guards for the ambassador. Be sure to keep me updated,” he replied.

“Yes sir,” the voice said.

“You can’t expect me to agree to these terms ambassador, my sister is the ruler of Equestria now, and for the last time she is no longer Nightmare Moon,” Celestia was saying to an old looking zebra.

Another voice came over the radio, a stallion this time from the sound of it, “Sir we have movement on the other side of the camp. Zebra stealth cloaks for sure.”

“Engage now, make sure they don’t get near the tent,” Night Stalker said. He turned toward Big Mac and was about to say something when all hell broke loose. Zebra’s seemed to appear out of nowhere, blades in hoof as they charged toward Princess Celestia. Big Mac and my host jumped into action, the former pulling Celestia back, the latter firing his guns at the charging zebras. They started to explode into dust as he fired shot after shot.

He looked back at his friend, who was also firing at the charging zebras. Ponies were yelling and screaming from outside the tent as the advancing zebras fought their way toward the tent and Princess Celestia. My host bucked at a Zebra who got too close, sending him flying into three more, his face caving in from the force of my hosts kick.

“Big Mac, you have to get the Princess out of here,” he yelled.

“I’m tryin’, but I’m a little preoccupied at the moment,” Big Mac replied.

The other soldiers that were posted in the tent with them, fell as zebra assassins advanced, using a fighting style I’d never seen before. They seemed to dance around shots and dodge any melee attacks. Soon the only three left standing against the zebras were my host, Celestia, and Big Mac.

“You’ll be coming with us Princess,” one of the zebras said, a look of triumph on his face.

“I don’t think so,” my host said firing at the old zebra.

With surprising grace, he dodged the shot and attacked. My host tried to block the on slot of blows, but he wasn’t fast enough, and many got him in the ribs, legs, and face, bringing him to his knees. The old zebra smiled. “You ponies don’t stand a chance against us, and we are some of the best hoof to hoof fighters the Caesar has.”

A shot rang out and his head exploded in a burst of gore, bone, and brain tissue, blasting over my host. “You were saying?” my host said wiping the gore from his goggles then saying into the radio, “Thanks Comet Tail.”

“You got more coming sir, the others will be there soon, I’ll hold my position incase more try and make their way into the tent,” she responded.

Big Mac didn’t let off as he fired over and over, doing his best to kill anyone who got too close to Celestia. “Princess you need to evacuate, we can’t hold em’ off forever.”

“I won’t leave you two here to die, not like this,” she said. To me she looked too stunned or shocked to do anything.

“Dammit,” my host said, then he spoke into his radio once again, “We need all soldiers to the tent, they’re after the Princess.”

Big Mac backed up putting his body between Celestia and the oncoming zebras, as he moved back a distant boom filled the air and a hole appeared in the side of the tent, a bullet ripping through Big Mac’s Chest. Blood flew and time seemed to slow, as the large stallion fell. My host watched for a split second taking in what just happened, looking down at the lifeless eyes of his friend.

Then as if his training kicked in and kept him going he said into his radio, “Sniper, we have a sniper out there, Big Red’s down. Babs get to the tent, we need you here for defense.”

“I’m on it,” another mare’s voice said through the radio.

It seemed the zebras were shocked as well at the death of the large pony. They faltered for a moment, confusion written on all their faces. Then a deep bellow came from my host’s lips as he reached up and attached the silvery swords to his armor, each one pointing outward, sharp edges facing away from him. As he roared his pain and rage, his wings flapped and faster than even Stardust could move, he crossed the space between the zebras and himself. His right foreleg flew out and sliced cleanly through the neck of a zebra, his head coming free from his body, blood spraying in the air.

“You fucking bastards will pay for what you’ve done!” my host yelled, jumping at another zebra, his left blade stabbing him in the chest. Another tried to stab at the crazed pegasus, but my host ducked. With his other hoof out, the sword cut the zebras legs out from under him. Another fired a pistol, but it only dinged off the armor, the ruby glowing a little as it did. He died as my host’s swords cut him in two, his innards spraying across the ground.

The rest tried to flee, but Night Stalker wasn’t having it. He rushed in and his blades took down whoever was left in the tent with him. He screamed then looked back at the Princess as soldiers came running in creating a defensive circle around the princess and the fallen soldier. Seeing the princess was safe he flew out the tent flaps and went high in the sky. He reached up and pressed a button on the side of his helmet. Everything went blue and red, and he started looking around the area. Running red pony shaped marks were all over the place, some fighting, others chasing.

My host didn’t give them a second thought, he was looking for something else. He searched the rocky hills near the field and saw only a few dots of red on them. He deactivated the spell in his helmet and raced toward the cliffs. When he got there, he looked down to where he’d seen the red marks before. There were only ponies around, one was a sniper. She was looking through her scope firing at zebras as they fought the ponies.

Shaking his head, he cursed and said, “Where the fuck did that bullet come from?” When nopony answered, he sheathed his blades and flew back toward the field where the rest of the soldiers were chasing off the last of the zebras who’d attacked.

He landed next to the tent and walked inside. Celestia was crying, same for a few of the soldiers as they looked at the still form of Big Mac. Pulling his helmet off, my host walked over and kneeled next to his friend. With a shaking hoof, he closed those lifeless green eyes and let one tear fall. “Those motherfuckers will pay for this.”

A hoof rested on his shoulder and my host looked up into Celestia’s melancholy face. “I’m sorry, this is all my fault,” she said.

He stood and shook his head. “No Princess, you were trying to make peace. Those zebras are the ones at fault, they don’t understand peace. All they know how to do is kill.”

“Don’t blame the race for what a few of their kind do,” Princess Celestia said solemnly.

“They’re all monsters, every last one of them,” my host said, then he looked over at one of the soldiers. “Get her out of here, just in case they have backup coming.”

He saluted. “Yes sir.”

My host walked to the flap of the tent again, before he was out, Celestia yelled, “Night Stalker, please don’t walk out like this.”

“Sorry Princess, but I need a little time. Get back to Canterlot safe, I’ll be sure to give my report to your sister when I get back.” He walked out, then flew into the air.

He started making his way over toward the edge of the field then landed next to a white pegasus mare, with a black and yellow mixed mane. She had a zebra tied up next to her. She saluted when he landed, saying, “Sir, we were able to capture one of them.”

“Good work Comet Tail,” he said walking over to the zebra. “Why did you attack us, we were here to negotiate for peace?”

“There will be no peace while Nightmare Moon rules,” the zebra hissed.

“Enough with that bullshit, why did you try to kill Princess Celestia?” Night Stalker asked.

He looked confused, “We did no such thing, and we were only to capture the Princess to use her as a bargaining chip to force Nightmare Moon to step down and to help end this war.”

“Liar! One of your snipers killed a good friend of mine while he was protecting the Princess!” Night Stalker shouted.

“We had no snipers you fool, it must have been one of your own,” he said, glaring up at my host.

“More lies, nopony here would’ve ever taken a shot at our Princess or Big Mac. Tell the truth,” he said, angrily.

“I am you damned fool, and I won’t change my words for anything. Now how about you take me in as a prisoner of war. I look forward to the hospitality your government will have for me,” he said with a smile.

In a flash, my host drew one of his blades with his wing, sliced it through the zebra’s neck and sheathed it again. The head rolled off and blood sprayed everywhere. The mare backed away and looked at my host with horror. “Why did you do that Captain? He could’ve had information we could’ve used.”

My host looked back at her and said, “Because, he wouldn’t have stopped his lies, and we captured a few of his friends for the M.O.M. to have. He was useless and deserved no less. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to tell Luna what happened here, if she’s angry then I’ll bear all responsibility.”

“Yes sir, understood,” she responded.

As my host turned his back on the dead body of the zebra he smiled and started to slowly walk away, the pegasus mare, close behind…

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I came out of the memory, I tried to move my hooves, but they were tied down. I looked around, seeing I was still in the lab on a table. Doctor Cell was standing next to me, his horn glowing as he mixed different concoctions in beakers and flasks. He looked over at me. “I see you’re awake, good. How did you enjoy your nap?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, pulling at my restraints.

“Keeping you from trying to kill me again. I told you before, I needed another subject to try my experiments on. I think you’ll do nicely, but I do have a couple of questions before we begin,” he said smoothly setting down the potion he was working on.

“Oh yeah, like what?” I asked.

“How in Celestia did you get a hold of that Pip-Buck? It’s a very rare model, I’ve only ever seen THREE like it before,” he said, lifting his foreleg and showing me his own Pip-Buck. It looked a lot like mine only instead of having a shiny finish like my own, his was mat black with a purple accented lines.

I smiled as I saw it. “Funny I could ask you the same question, how did you get one?”

“There were three of them in Stable 9, one went to the Overmare, another to the head of security, and the last to the head of research. I got mine a couple years before the stable went to shit. Now, how did you get your hooves on the Overmare’s?” he asked.

I looked down at my Pip-Buck wondering that myself. I looked back to him with a smile. “Gift from my mother.”

He smiled and said, “When I killed the Overmare, she didn’t have her Pip-Buck on anymore. I wondered what she’d done with it. I guess one of the survivors had ran off with it. Oh well, it’s not really that big a deal, my other question is simple as well. Why did you open my stable?”

I was strapped to a table by a mad scientist who made monsters. What could it hurt telling him the truth, I was already royally fucked. “The Steel Rangers wanted a Pip-Buck like mine. Since they can’t get mine off, they figured they’d send me in here to find another.”

“Hmmm, Steel Rangers huh, the name alone is kind of misgiving. I’ll have to be sure to deal with them when I leave here,” he said, picking up his potion again.

“My friends are outside the door and they’ll kill you as soon as you open it, no matter what you do to me, you’re dead. What makes you think you can get out of here?” I asked.

He chuckled and pointed toward a few terminal screens. “You see them?” he asked. I looked over and to my horror, I saw thousands of bloodwings throughout all of the lower levels of the stable. He laughed again. “They’re my ticket out of here, and they all see me as one of them thanks to a gene I fixed when I created them. Both them and their offspring will never hurt me and will always do what I tell them to, no magic needed like with Sharp. They’ll take care of your friends and Sharp for me, then I’ll let them loose in Equestria. My own personal army.”

“Is that why the lower parts of the stable were sealed?” I asked, in horror at the sight of so many bloodsucking monsters.

He smiled again, “Yes, but only to you three. My creations, bloodwings is what you called them I think? They can get through any door in this stable even if I seal it, I set it up that way to keep the rest of the ponies from escaping. It only kept a few from getting away unfortunately.”

I thought of the eight pony heads Stardust and I saw when we first got into the stable. “You’re a monster.”

“I may be a monster, but don’t worry, soon you will be too,” he said, smiling wider as he pressed the potion to my lips. “Enough talk. It’s time to take your medicine.”

“Wait, one question before you do that,” I said, quickly before closing my mouth tight.

He sighed. “What?”

“Can you at least tell me how to get one of these Pip-Buck’s off?” I asked.

He pulled the bottle away from my lips looking at me curiously. “Well it’s not like it matters, but the Mark II only unlocks when a pony dies, at least that’s the way we got them off in here. The Overmare knew another way, but she never shared that information with the rest of us.”

That couldn’t be right, mother took hers off and left it for me. Either he was lying to me, or he really didn’t know. Oh well, it can’t be helped now, I had enough of this nut job. I could see something on one of his terminals, so using my magic, what little of it I had left, I flipped the switch next to the main terminal hoping it would do what I hoped it did.

The door to the lab clicked and in flew Sharp. I saw her on the terminal rushing up the hall and hoped she wasn’t coming to kill me. Sure, enough as the doctor looked up, she slammed into him throwing him through the glass window of an observation room. She flapped her wings to slow herself then landed next to me.

“Hey Sharp, nice timing, think you can help me out of this?” I said, giving her an, I’m a big idiot for falling for a stupid trap, smile.

She looked at me for a moment and pressed a button next to the table. There was a hiss and the straps holding me down clicked open letting me loose. I jumped to my hooves and picked up my shotgun. Doctor Cell was getting up on the other end of the glass, he looked at both of us, one with her wicked fangs, me with my shotgun held in my weak magic.

He only smiled and chuckled maniacally. “Knew I should’ve killed you years ago.”

“Yes, you should’ve,” she said, hissing at him.

“Don’t kill him yet,” I said stepping in front of her.

“And why not? He deserves it and more,” she asked.

I looked at the doctor and asked, “Is there a way to fix what happened to Sharp?”

The batpony looked at me in surprise, the doctor however only laughed hysterically. “Why would I make a cure when there is nothing wrong with her, she’s perfect as she is, even if she doesn’t listen very well. Stupid Sharp, you’ll regret turning your back on me.”

“My name is Wind Thrasher, Wind Thrasher! Do you hear me?” she screamed, grabbing him through the window with her fangs and throwing him into a wall, blood spraying across the ground.

I could see the pain on her face, the tears in her eyes, as Doctor Cell just kept laughing. She walked up to him again, but she stopped and started to shake. She looked back at me. “I’m not a monster, and I don’t want to be a monster. He made me into this, and still I can’t…I just can’t do it.”

I walked up to her and put a hoof on her shoulder. Right then my friends came rushing in. They looked at me, then at Wind Thrasher, and then at the doctor. Aura finally broke the silence. “For fuck sake, why is it every time we walk off, something interesting happens to you?”

I only grinned at them then turned back to look at Doctor Cell as he continued to laugh uncontrollably. Is he ever going to stop? He looked up at Wind Thrasher and yelled, “You ARE a monster, my pet, you always will be, no matter what you do. I named you Sharp because Wind Thrasher died years ago. Now, be a good little monster and fucking kill this damn unicorn and her friends like I told you to!”

I lifted my shotgun and said, “Her name is Wind Thrasher, and she’s no monster, you are.” I pulled the trigger and his brains splattered against the far wall, his body fell to the ground twitching as blood started to pool around what was left of his head. I had enough of this, it was time to leave Stable 9. I looked down at his still twitching body and flipped his left foreleg around. The latch to his Pip-Buck was there. I removed it and placed it in my saddle bags.

Sharp, or Wind Thrasher, looked at me in confusion, “You…killed him?”

“He was the real monster, it was time for him to be put down,” I said, walking past Stardust and Aura heading back toward the hall. I stopped for a moment saying to them, “Look at the terminals in there.”

I made my way back into the hall, then through the door that lead up to the Overmare’s office. I went into the empty office letting the door close behind me. Walking over to the desk I sat down and looked at the terminal. It looked like Stardust was able to log in. I saw dozens of files on the terminal, along with a few audio files, and a selection to unlock the Overmare’s safe. I plugged my Pip-Buck in and downloaded the files. After that I unlocked the safe and walked over to it.

I opened it only to find a few things, there was a recording, some gold pre-war bits, some old dusty files, and a memory orb. I reached into the safe and took the orb, recording, and bits, placing them in my saddle bags. I looked over and saw bones not far from the safe. It looked as if she’d been trying to reach it when she died, her hoof reaching out for it. I looked closer and saw another recording next to her hoof. I reached down and picked it up, I sat against the wall of her office and placed it into my Pip-Buck and hit play.

A week voice came out of my Pip-Buck breathing heavily, “This is Carrot Cake, Overmare of Stable 9…former Overmare now I guess,” a wet cough came from the recording, “All I wanted, was for my stable to be happy and healthy, we did so much good here. Now, the stable is dying, Doctor Cell, has killed me, killed so many of us. All I wanted for him to do was to save my daughter.”

She coughed again and I could hear her crying. “He didn’t help her at all, he made her into…something. She’s killed so many under his orders. I know it’s not her doing it, it can’t be.” She took a deep breath again and continued, “Wind Thrasher, if you ever find this…and you’re better…just remember….I love you…I’m sorry. This is Overmare Carrot Cake, and he didn’t get all of us.”

I looked down at my Pip-Buck ejecting the recording, tears fell from my eyes as I looked back at those bones laying on the ground, her hoof reaching for the safe. It looked like she was trying to put the recording into it, but she died before she could.

“She was a good mother,” Wind Thrasher said, from the door.

I looked up at her, she was looking down at the bones. I still found her a little scary when I looked at her, but the pony she’d been before showed through the monstrous exterior. I wiped my tears away and asked, “What happened?”

She sighed. “This stable was supposed to be a kind of safe haven for different animals of Equestria, a special request from Fluttershy, the mare who ran the Mistry of Peace. Over the years though, only a couple species survived. Cell was a bioengineer and had this crazy idea to see if he could use the Vampire Fruit Bats to make some kind of super creature, and eventually use their DNA to help us survive in the outside world. Nopony knew that though, we thought he was working on something else. I got hurt twenty years ago, while working with security. I got electrocuted, and I wasn’t doing well at all, so my mother, the Overmare, ordered him to help me in any way he could. He did this to me, put that collar around my neck and showed me to mother. Then when she freaked out, he stabbed her, and ordered me to start killing everypony.”

I could see tears falling from her eyes as she sat on her haunches. Stardust walked in and came over to me sitting down, Aura wasn’t far behind. To my surprise, she sat next to Wind Thrasher wrapping a wing around her. “Listen, sorry I called you a monster, and sorry I said Shadow Star should kill you. I read the reports on the crazy doc’s terminal. You were just a kid when this happened huh?”

She looked up at the griffon and nodded softly. “I’d just gotten my cutie mark, mom set me up to work with security when this all happened. He made me kill so many,” she said, starting to cry again.

Aura shook her head. “How many?”

“The stable had five hundred ponies in it, only a couple hundred made it out. He made me kill all the rest, then he kept their bodies in storage to use for a source of food for his monsters. When that ran out, he found another way to keep them alive along with us,” she replied.

I walked up to her and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Listen Wind Thrasher, we have to get out of this place, then we’ll have to seal it again to keep those things from getting out of here. I want you to come with us, we could use a pony like you out there in The Wasteland.”

She looked up at me and sighed. “That sounds nice, but I couldn’t, not yet.”

“Sure you can, The Wasteland isn’t a safe place for one pony on her own, we can help you,” I said.

“No, just look at me. When I leave the stable I’m going to go out on my own, see what The Wasteland has to offer something like me, and maybe even find the survivors and hopefully find forgiveness,” she said, with a sad smile looking over at the bones of her dead mother.

Stardust still sat there as he said, “If you ever feel like you need help out there, just find us. I remember what it was like when I first went out on my own, it was scary. Before I found Shadow, I was all alone, it’s not a nice feeling.”

She smiled at him. “One day, maybe I will,” she said as she stood and wiped her eyes.

“I have one more question before we get out of here, actually two,” I said.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“First, what happened to my magic and my Pip-Buck when we first entered the stable, and later when we were fighting? It wasn’t as strong then, but the first time I heard that screech of yours, it did something to my Pip-Buck,” I asked.

“That’s easy, the collar I had on wasn’t just something to keep me under Doctor Cell’s control, it disrupted magic and tech, the longer I did it the worse the effects. I was on the other side of the door when you first got here, Doctor Cell wanted to scare you two when you first arrived, he saw it as a kind of game,” she said, with a small laugh. “I have to admit, it WAS kinda funny.”

“So, with the collar gone, I won’t have to worry about that happening again?” I asked, looking down at my Pip-Buck’s screen.

“Nope, not unless you run into somepony who knows how to do that kind of thing that is. What was your other question?” she replied.

“I didn’t see any pegasus bodies around when I was searching different parts of the stable, so how did you get wings?” I asked.

She smiled and looked back at her mother again. “Because I was the first pegasus born in Stable 9, my mother said it was possible that it was in our bloodline somewhere. The doctor’s experiment didn’t give me wings, it only changed them.”

I was about to ask her more when an alarm started going off. Okay really, what else could this stupid place throw at us? I looked at Wind Thrasher and asked, “What’s that?”

Aura however pointed at the window overlooking the Atrium, “Shorty, you might wanna look out there.”

I looked over my shoulder and felt my legs go weak, and my shoulder throb. Bloodwings were swarming into the Atrium from everywhere. Their loud cries echoing inside the large space. One spotted us through the window and it rammed its body against the thick glass. Another ran into it right after, a small crack started to form on the window as more continued to run into the round window.

“I take it this is a good time to get the fuck out of here,” Stardust said.

“How are we supposed to do that? Those things are blocking the only way out,” Aura asked, pressing the button to shut the door to the Overmare’s office.

I ran to the terminal and searched for what I hoped would be there. Sure, enough toward the bottom I saw the words 'Emergency Escape hatch' and I clicked on it. The desk started to lift revealing the tunnel underneath. I saw one more thing written on the screen as well, I knew I didn’t have time to play around so I downloaded the file to my Pip-Buck, then ran down the tunnel.

“Hurry up, this’ll get us to the stable door!” I yelled.

None of them argued as they all ran past me and down the tunnel. I hit the button on the wall making the desk sink back down, right as I heard the window above shatter. I got a quick glimpse of a few Bloodwings flying into the room, before the desk sealed the tunnel again.

“Shorty, you comin’ or what?” Aura asked pulling on my barding. I turned and nodded, running after her.

***

It only took us a couple minutes to reach the secret door that lead right to the large stable entrance. Thank Celestia and Luna, the bloodwings hadn’t found their way in here yet. Wind Thrasher flew over to the switch and pulled it, nothing happened.

“I sealed it,” I said running up to her and plugging my Pip-Buck back in. I quickly unlocked the door then nodded at her. She pulled the lever and the drill arm came down and attached itself to the large gear shaped door, this time no alarm sounded. “Let’s hope there isn’t any nasty surprises on the other side.”

“I’d rather deal with fiends than those things,” Stardust said as the door pulled open and he ran through.

We all followed, I was the last through. When I got past the door, Stardust pulled the outer lever shutting it behind me. A moment later and the door was shut again. I walked up and sealed it, making sure that nopony could open it this time.

“Well I guess this is goodbye for now. Also, sorry about trying to kill you and everything,” Wind Thrasher said with a smile, her fangs showing again.

“I guess so, just be careful, and be sure to get away from here fast, there are some nasty ponies just outside this cave,” I said, advising her of the next immediate danger.

“Yeah you really don’t wanna have your first experience in The Wasteland to be running into fiends,” Aura said slyly.

Wind Thrasher only beamed at us her eyes glowing more. “Oh, trust me, I’m part bat, and we’re very good at being sneaky,” she said as she flapped her wings and rose into the air. I noticed then how quiet she was when she moved. She winked and in a flash, she was gone, flying quickly out of the tunnel.

“So, we snuck past dangerous fiends, made our way into a stable filled with monsters, a psycho doctor, and now have a griffon following us around. What do we have to show for that?” Stardust said, looking over at me.

“We got the Pip-Buck and saved a pony,” I said.

“C’mon, couldn’t we have at least gotten something, like a new rifle for me?” Stardust asked.

“You can go back in and look for one if you really want to?” Aura said, walking past him.

“Can you two keep it down, you do remember we still have to get past the fiends again, right?” I said, quietly, trying to stop their bickering.

Stardust looked around, “I’m kinda surprised there aren’t any guards out here after that alarm went off earlier.”

“Maybe they figured it was nothing,” I said, slowly walking down the tunnel with my shotgun at the ready.

We saw the mouth of the cave up ahead. It looked clear, so we worked our way slowly toward the light flowing in. As I drew closer I could hear ponies talking in the towers close by.

Stardust walked close to me whispering in my ear, “Let’s head out from here, if we take off quick enough we should be fine, even if they see us.”

“Yeah let’s do that,” I replied, in agreeance.

I started to put my Shotgun away, when a pony rounded the corner and looked right at us. He kind of reminded me of the raiders from Cartwheel, spiked armor, and dirty. His eyes though, were pin pricks, he saw us and yelled, “Die!” his rifle came up pointing right at me. His tongue started to pull on the trigger.

I hit S.A.T.S. targeting his head with two shots. I fired, the first shot grazed the side of his cheek, knocking his own shot to the side, my second shot hit him in the neck. He fell, blood flowing from his neck. He didn’t yell or anything, he just looked up at me and started to giggle. He pulled out a vile of Med-X, and injected it. He started to get up, his neck still bleeding.

“Bitch is gonna die,” he gurgled.

I froze, Stardust however didn’t. He walked up pressed his gun to the other pony’s head and fired. The pony’s body fell limp like a worn ragdoll. Stardust picked up the assault rifle opening his wings. “Fuck! We gotta go, now!”

“Agreed,” Aura said opening her wings.

Gunfire erupted outside, barely missing me as I jumped back into the cave taking cover. “Okay, now what?” I asked as bullets rattled off the rocks overhead.

“Fuck, I need a rifle with a scope. This bullet waster isn’t gonna be much help,” Stardust said, looking panicked and irritated at the same time.

“Just suck it up and use it! At least it’s better than that pistol!” Aura yelled angrily.

“Shut up! I don’t need to take orders from you!” he yelled back.

I'd had it. “Both of you idiots shut up! If you haven’t noticed, we’re being shot at by psychos who probably want to eat our corpses after we’ve been blown to bits! Stardust use the fucking gun and Aura, uh… quit fighting with Stardust I guess. There, everything’s fair now, so help me kill them before they kill us.”

They both looked at me in awe at my sudden assertiveness, then I heard a pinging sound getting closer. I looked toward the sound and saw a shiny metal apple bouncing toward us.

“GET DOWN!” Aura yelled, tackling Stardust and I.

A loud explosion thundered through the cave making my ears ring. I got up feeling light headed. Looking around, I saw Stardust next to me dazed. On top of him was Aura, there was smoke coming from the feathers on her back.

“Aura!? Are you okay!? Say something!” I said.

“Why is the cave spinning, and why does my back hurt?” she asked, reaching to feel her back with her talons.

“There was an exploding apple, you shielded Stardust and I. Take this,” I said, giving her a healing potion.

She drank it and the burns on her back started to heal, “Damn. You mean I shielded dumbass too?”

“You know, you should ask a stallion on a date or two before jumpin’ his bones like that,” Stardust said smirking.

“I think we got em’. Let’s go check it out,” I heard a fiend’s voice say from outside.

“We’ve gotta get out of here before they come up here guns blazing,” Stardust said.

I looked over towards the entrance and noticed that the dead fiend had been blown to smithereens in the explosion. I looked up, coming from the high ceilings above where large stalactites.

“I have an idea. One of you fly me up there and we’ll hang on to the stalactites and hide,” I said.

“That won’t work! I’m pretty sure they’re smart enough to look up,” Stardust said in disbelief.

“Just do it, quick! They’ll be here any second,” I said.

“Fine. I just hope this works,” he said as he picked me up and flew up to the stalactites, Aura following.

Not long after, about a half dozen fiends came in through the cave entrance. “Ha-ha! Looks like they got blown to chunks! This place is a mess, good work Springtrap,” the fiend who seemed to be the ring-leader said, sounding pleased.

“How did you know this would work?” Aura whispered.

“I saw that the fiend Stardust shot got blown to bits in the explosion. They don’t know that there’s three of us so they probably thought they got whoever was up here,” I whispered back.

“What about the one I shot? Don’t they realize that there was one of their own up here?” Stardust asked, quietly.

“They probably thought nothing of it. Fiends are like raiders, only a little smarter and more organized. Just let them think they got us and they’ll let their guard down enough so we can sneak out of here,” Aura whispered back to him.

The fiends left the cave after a few minutes of kicking around the chunks of meat like they were playing some sort of sick game.

“Alright, let’s get out of here while we can. We can go up the side of the mountain and take off from there to stay out of sight,” Aura said, releasing her grip on the stalactite and flapping her wings to hover.

“Yeah that’s a great idea. Let’s climb a mountain and take a chance of being seen by the tower guards. Your idea is gonna get us killed,” Stardust said, sarcastically.

“Oh yeah, then what’s your brilliant plan oh fearless leader?” Aura asked.

“I thought I was the leader?” I said, feeling left out.

“We’ll decide this later. Let’s just do what I said and get the fuck out of here,” Aura said, sounding annoyed.

“Fine. Death it is,” Stardust replied.

We descended back down to the cave floor and walked toward the entrance quietly, trying not to get the attention of the guards in the tower close by.

***

We snuck out the cave entrance and started to climb the mountain. I was the only one who physically had to climb, Stardust and Aura were using their wings to give them lift so they wouldn’t have to use more energy climbing. Personally, I thought it was cheating, but I guess if I had wings I’d probably do the same thing.

We were getting a good distance up the mountain, and I made the mistake of looking down. The sight of the ground so far below gave me tunnel vision, and I was starting to feel light headed. The feeling made me loose grip on the rock I was stepping on. I started to slide down the loose pebbles that covered the mountain, after a moment I was able to get hold of another rock and I stopped.

With my heart racing, I started to climb again. I put my hind hoof on a large rock to boost myself up, it broke off and I was left hanging by my fore-hooves as it tumbled down the mountain. It crashed into other rocks on its way down causing a small rockslide. The sound alerted the fiends in the camp down below, shots rang out, and bullets ricocheted off the mountainside where I was hanging.

Stardust glided down fast and grabbed me, “Dammit! I told her this was gonna get us killed!”

He dove down trying to avoid the gunfire and I proceeded to exclaim, “AAAHHH! What are you doing! You're heading TOWARD the danger!”

“Calm down, I got this,” Stardust said.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” Aura yelled, from behind us.

He opened his wings and caught wind, sending us gliding over the fiend infested town. I could feel bullets hit my barding as we flew over, luckily none punched through the armor plating sown into it. Aura was following close behind trying to avoid getting shot.

I could see the edge of the town coming fast, among the ponies shooting at us I could see a large stallion loading a strange looking object into a large contraption. “Oh shit! B.E.L.!” Stardust yelled flapping his wings increasing speed.

“What the fuck’s a B.E.L.?” I asked.

We’d just gotten past the edge of the town when I heard a strange whistling sound coming from behind us. (KA-BOOM) A huge explosion erupted behind us, the shockwave knocking Stardust and Aura out of control. We hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling. We came to a halt and I could barely move, pain covered every inch of my body. I managed to use my magic and get three healing potions, I downed mine and started to feel its effect immediately.

“Hey Shadow… you okay?” Stardust asked.

“I’m fine, I took a healing potion. What about Aura?” I said levitating him a potion.

“I think I sprained my leg, and a few ribs, but I’ll be fine. I’ve got supplies,” Aura said wincing at the pain in her ribs.

I was finally able to rise to my hooves and then…(CLICK-CLICK).

“I suggest ya’ll stop right there before we turn you into a bloody mess,” a stallion said, from about ten feet away, he had a rifle raised and pointed right at us.

“Great! Told ya her dumbass plan was gonna get us killed,” Stardust said annoyed.

“What are you gonna do, kill us? Torture us? Eat us?” I asked.

“What do you take me for, a raider? I ain’t gonna eat ya’ll, but on the other hoof, the other two sound pretty good right now. I’m Gator, the mayor of this fine town and the ponies in it. Now ya’ll are gonna come with me and these fellas, or if you’d like to run, I need the target practice considerin’ I didn’t hit ya’ll with ma Balefire Egg Launcher,” Gator said. B.E.L., I get it now.

“Why should we go with you? You’re just gonna kill us whether we run or not,” Stardust said, angrily.

“Now I never said I was gonna kill ya, I just said the idea sounded good. I will kill ya if ya try to run though. I just want to know how ya’ll got into that there stable up in the cave,” Gator said.

“How do you know it was us in the stable?” Aura asked.

“Ya’ll really do think I’m some sort of idiot dontcha? I know a staged death when I see one. Just cause I look like a dumb drugged up raider doesn’t mean I am one. I just prefer doin’ whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want, those things just happen to be killin’, drugs, and the occasional pillagin’,” he answered.

“What are you going to do if we tell you?” I asked.

“How about we discuss this elsewhere. Come with me and we’ll have a lil’ chat, maybe we can work somethin’ out,” Gator said.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Bloody Mess: You now have a 15% chance of making a target explode upon death dealing damage to anypony surrounding them. Note: If you are too close to the target you will also take damage.

Chapter 10: Bombs Away

“Are you nuts, or do you just love destruction?”

How should I explain Gator? Well he’s big, he’s an earth pony, and he’s a different brand of nuts than your normal raider. His teeth looked like they were sharpened to points almost like he wanted to match his own name. Actually, he’s a monster and I’m his prey trapped in a chair inside a rusty shanty he called his office. All three of us sat in front of him with guns pointed at us by his loyal followers, he was saying words, but I was so distracted with my own thoughts that all I heard was the muffled sound of his voice.

“HEY! Ain’t you listenin’? You’re lookin’ around the room like you’re funny in the head or somethin’,” Gator shouted.

“I apologize for her, she’s just a little shaken up is all. She only left her Stable a few days ago,” Stardust said defending me.

“That ain’t what I heard. See what I heard is that she killed Crackerjack the leader of that raider camp just out of Cartwheel,” Gator said.

“Heeey. That wasn’t her that was me! I blew his head clean off with my rifle. Why do ponies have to go out of their way to ruin another pony’s reputation? It just isn’t fair,” Stardust huffed.

“Don’t take credit where it ain’t deserved. I don’t see any rifle on you. I don’t like liars, I kill them for fun. Lie to me again and I’ll pop you’re head like a melon. You got me?” Gator said angrily.

Stardust sighed. “Yeah I gotcha. Shadow quit staring off into space, you’re gonna get us killed. Being dead doesn’t sound fun.”

He clapped his hooves together. “Alrighty then, let’s get back to business. Like I was sayin’ to these two while YOU were off in la la land, I want you to tell me how you opened that stable and then I need you to get somethin’ out of there for me. What I want outta there is chems, I know ya’ll Stable folk keep an ass load of chems in the clinic. When I stumbled across that Stable I thought I’d struck gold, but the goddesses damned door wouldn’t open, no matter how much I blew it up, and the fuckin’ switch thingy didn’t work neither.”

I finally focused on him and explained, “Trust me, there aren’t any more chems in there. They were probably all used for this crazy doctor pony’s experiments. He was making bloodwings out of vampire fruit bats. He probably used the whole cache of chems that was in the clinic. Plus, the whole Stable is crawling with those monsters, we almost died trying to get the same thing you’re after.”

He rubbed his chin. “Hmm… bloodwings huh? That’s even better, I’d have my own army of deadly critters. How bout this, I don’t care how ya’ll got in there anymore, just go back in there and leave the door open. Ya’ll are gonna get to the terminal that sets off the evacuation alarm or whatever makes a loud ruckus and scare all them things outta there.”

“Those things are monsters. They aren’t gonna listen to you. I’m not even sure how that fucking mad scientist got them to listen,” I said.

“I’M A MONSTER! They’ll recognize me as their alpha male as soon as they lay eyes on me,” he said arrogantly.

Aura started to laugh next me, we all looked over at her as she laughed harder. Using one of her talons she wiped away a tear. “You think you’re a monster huh. That’s rich.”

Gator looked over at her and grinned wide, showing his filed teeth. “I know I’m a monster, everypony fears my name, and my gang of fiends.”

“If you think you’re a monster and everypony fears your name, then you’re dumber than you look. I’ve seen things in The Wasteland that would make you look like a radroach in comparison. All I see here is band of drugged up nut jobs acting tough,” Stardust said.

In a flash, he pulled out a long-barreled revolver and pointed it at her. “Really now?”

To my amazement, she started to laugh again not even flinching at the gun pointed right at her. “You aren’t tough, you’re just a blow hard trying to look tough.”

Gator tongued the trigger and started to pull back, I spoke up before he could fire, “Fine, if you really wanna risk your life with those things be my guest. But I can’t open the stable just yet.”

For a long moment, he just stood there looking into Aura’s eyes. I knew she wasn’t gonna back down, and I couldn’t have her getting herself killed because of her attitude. He finally looked over at me and set the gun down. “Really? And why’s that?”

“Stable lockdowns take a few hours to end, they can’t be overridden before that,” I lied, he doesn’t seem to know much about how stables worked. I was hoping he’d buy it. Hell, the idiot tried to blow the door open.

“Hmmm, so if we wait a few hours you can open the door and let me in?” he asked walking over to me. I could see his tongue playing with his teeth as he considered the circumstances.

“Yeah, but like I said you’ll have a hell of a lot of bloodwings to deal with,” Stardust said looking over towards us.

“I ain’t scared of those things. Worse comes to worse I’ll blow em’ up,” he said with a large grin, showing off his vicious looking teeth. “Tell ya’ll what, I’ll let you live for now, even the griffon. If ya’ll let me into the stable, I’ll even let ya’ll go….maybe, depends on my mood.”

“It’s a deal, as long as you’ll let us go after. That’s the only way I’ll agree,” I said.

He took a moment scratching his chin slowly. “Fine, even if I ain’t in a good mood, I’ll honor that request, and Gator keeps his word.”

“Yeah right, I’m sure he’ll just kill us as soon as the door opens up,” Aura said in disbelief.

He rounded on her. “Keep quiet birdie,” he said, then looked back at his followers. “Split em’ all up, have the griffon brought to my chamber. I ain’t ever tried things with one of em’ before, and tonight could be a first of many.”

I stood quickly. “That wasn’t the deal, don’t you lay a hoof on her,” I yelled.

He rounded back on me and bucked me. My body hit the ground hard, Stardust jumped up, but Gator had the revolver up and pointing right at his head. I looked up seeing Aura being held down by three of the larger stallions, her face masked in anger. Stardust was standing there breathing hard as he looked down the barrel of the revolver.

“Now, I said what I’d do and I’ll honor my promise, but in the meantime, this is my town, and I’ll do what I want while we wait. Ya’ll understand?” he mumbled around the grip of his revolver.

“I’m gonna kill you. Raider scum,” Stardust said through his teeth, I could tell it was taking all of his self-control not to attack him.

“Not if I get to him first,” Aura muttered.

“Take em’ away,” Gator said, no longer smiling. The guards pulled Aura away and through a door that looked like it led outside. A unicorn buck lifted me with his magic and started to haul me away through the main door. I watched as Stardust turned to walk away with the rest of the guards, their guns trained on him.

He smiled and winked at me. “It’s okay Shadow, everything’ll be just fine.”

“Oh and one more thing,” Gator said as I was pulled through the door. “I also hate pegasi,” he said as the door closed and I heard two shots (Blam…Blam).

I screamed as I was pulled away by the unicorn. There was a sharp pain in the back of my head, and everything went black.

***

I awoke not long after, finding myself in one of the metal cages outside. Nopony was around and the cloudy sky was starting to go dark. I felt tears falling down my face as I thought about what happened. What did he do to Stardust, was he still alive, or did Gator kill him? What about Aura, was she being used to fulfill some sick fantasy of his? This was all my fault, I made Stardust go with me, and I decided to go into that Stable to get some stupid Pip-Buck. And for what? Information on my mother who left me behind years ago. It wasn’t worth it, none of this was, how fucking stupid am I to just think I can decide to do something and everything would be fine.

I kicked the metal bars, “Motherfucker!” I leaned against the bars and hugged myself as I looked down at my Pip-Buck. Since I was trapped in here anyway, I might as well look through the files I took from Stable 9, maybe something in them would help me keep my mind off of what was going on. I flipped over to files and opened the first one.

Stable 9 Overmare personal log #219

Today is the happiest day of my life, but also the scariest. I had a foal yesterday, a little filly. The strange thing is she wasn’t born a unicorn like myself, or an earth pony like her father, she’s a pegasus, first one ever to be born in Stable 9. A lot of the citizens of the stable were very worried about this, wondering how this could’ve happened.

Quick Wit, her father, told me that his own mother told him, that they had Pegasi in their family back before the war. I guess it’s possible, just very rare. I don’t mind though, she’s my daughter and I’ll love her no matter what. I decided to name her Wind Thrasher, Quick Wit, wanted to name her Wind Stalker, kind of after his favorite solider from the war Night Stalker, I prevailed in the end. I can’t wait to see who my little Wind Thrasher will become when she grows up.

I looked at that first message sadly and started to wonder. If she would’ve known what was going to happen to her daughter, what would she have done? I’m sure she would’ve retired Cell before he experimented on her daughter. I clicked on the next file.

Wind Thrasher got her cutie mark today, three bats, she shows promise working with them. She loves to fly around with them playing long into the night. Some nights I even find her sleeping down there with them, dozens of them curling around her like she’s their mother. Some think it’s a little creepy, I think it’s kind of sweet. Now that she has her cutie mark, it’s time to assign her a job. I think I’ll have her work in Bio Science so she can help Doctor Cell with his experiments. I know she wants to work security with her friends, I’m not sure what I’ll do yet, but I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be the right decision.

I only wish Quick Wit was here to see his daughter now, she’s growing up so fast. I can’t believe it’s been two years now since he passed.

So, she’d lost her husband, Wind Thrasher lost a father, and she took to making friends with the bats. It was kind of weird I’m sure, but she was the only pegasus in the stable. I could understand what that was like. How she acted toward the animals though, reminded me of stories of the Ministry Mare Fluttershy. She loved animals too and with her caring nature she started the Ministry of Peace to help ponies and animals during the war. I bet Wind Thrasher was a lot like that before she was turned into what she was now.

I saw one more file left from the Overmare, it was dated the day before the Stable was sealed…

There was an accident today, Wind Thrasher was hurt badly. She’s been admitted to Medical to be looked over by the doctor. He told me it didn’t look good, I begged him to do anything he could to help her. It’s been hours now though and I still haven’t heard anything back from him. Goddesses please don’t let me loose her, she’s all I have left.

He did help, or at least he thought he did. He made her into a monster, made her kill her fellow stable dwellers. I don’t think I can read anymore, luckily it didn’t look like there was anything left to read, there was only one file left and it wasn’t one of the Overmare’s notes. Instead it was titled ‘In case of Emergency’ I clicked it.

This is the Overmare of Stable 9.

I am leaving this file in case of a major emergency in the stable. I have my suspicions that something bad is going to happen and just in case my suspicions are correct, I want to make sure precautions are taken to keep anything in the stable from falling into the wrong hooves. If the Stable is to fall into anarchy or be taken over from something on the outside, I’ve installed a self-destruct program into my terminal. It can be activated from here if needed or transferred to one of the Stable head’s Pip-Bucks. These Pip-Bucks have a broadcaster on them. If you activate it while connected to the stable’s broadcast channel, it’ll activate the self-destruct sequence and destroy the Stable and everything inside it. I just pray that I’m wrong, but I have to do this. Luna forgive me.

I looked at that last message in awe, so the Overmare was wondering if something was going on in her own Stable. Under the message was an icon that read ‘Search for Channel?’ I clicked on it and after a few seconds of searching for a signal I saw one show up on my screen that said Stable 9 Broadcast channel.

I didn’t click it though, not sure if it was a good idea at the moment. I looked up at the tall mountain where Stable 9 was, remembering my short time inside. What good would it do to destroy it? It’s not like anypony can ever get back into it unless I was to unseal it. Sooner or later the bloodwings would die off, without Cell to keep them alive I was sure they wouldn’t last long. Still, what if somepony found a way in like I did? There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of Bloodwings in there. Could I really risk them getting out?

No I couldn’t, but I couldn’t destroy it just yet, I had to find a way out of here and see if I could rescue Aura. I held back tears as I thought of Stardust, I heard the gun go off. I couldn’t think about it right now, it was time to find a way out and find my friends. The odds weren’t in my favor, I could find them both dead, one I knew had to be. I don’t care. If he’s dead, I still need to get him out of here. He doesn’t deserve to have his body desecrated by these lunatics.

“How the fuck am I gonna to get out of this cage?” I said aloud, my magic was still shot after using so much during my fight with Wind Thrasher, so teleporting wasn’t an option. The guards had taken all of my gear when they captured us, so I couldn’t pick the lock either.

As I sat there thinking to myself, something came down and fell on my muzzle. I looked down at the single drop of water sitting on my muzzle. What the hell? Then another one fell, and another, and another. I looked up as water droplets started to fall from the now dark clouds over head. I remember reading about this in a book before, it was raining.

Right then it started to downpour, soaking me almost instantly. The rain felt nice, like a shower, only outdoors. Then there was a flash of light in the sky followed by a loud boom. I jumped and looked around, shaking some at the sudden loud noise. There was another flash and a bolt of lightning struck the ground not far away from where I was trapped. The sound it made was ear splitting, like somepony just shot a rifle right next to my head. Okay I really don’t like this now. Rain sucks.

“Goddesses dammit, like things aren’t bad enough!” I yelled at the sky.

There was another flash of light, this time the bolt struck one of the guard towers near me. I heard a loud scream as the pony inside was electrocuted.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight and sound of him being shocked. “Haha. I get it Celestia. You’re cleansing The Wasteland one by one with tremendous electrical blasts. Incredible initiative! Oh, and hilarious!”

I can’t believe I just laughed at somepony’s demise, damn I’m twisted. Only a few days out of the Stable and I’m laughing at death. That was when I realized I was in a metal cage and started to plead, “Please don’t shock me too. I know I haven’t been the most well behaved pony, but I don’t deserve to be roasted.”

Another crack rang out making my right ear ring as the lightning struck a tall, thick, wood pole about twenty feet away. I clenched my eyes shut wincing at the pain I suddenly felt in my head. I know I’m gonna be next, I’ll be Shadow Star jerky (NOW IN TERIYAKI STYLE!). The pain faded a little and I opened my eyes, the air stunk like ozone. I looked at where the pole got struck, the bottom oddly enough was where it’d started to glow orange as it burned slowly. I was surprised the rain hadn’t extinguished it yet.

Watching something burn while it was raining is like being under water and roasting something over fire, it just seemed weird. Watching the orange glow was fascinating. For some reason, everything else was out of my attention because something was burning and I thought it was cool.

Little embers started to pop off of the orange area where the wood burned. They looked like little orange raindrop splashes on the ground for a split second before they went out. I could hear a faint cracking noise coming from the pole, I tried focusing my magic on it to pull it down to distract the guards close by so I could steal the key to this metal deathtrap and escape. Then I quickly remembered that my magic was burnt out when my head started to throb, “Damn horn and your stupid limits,” I said, pounding on my horn softly with my hoof as if hitting it would magically make it work again. I mean it could work. It worked for my Pip-Buck when I was in Stable 9. After pondering like an idiot, I remembered that my plan wouldn’t work anyway because the guard was killed by the lightning strike.

The cracks where getting louder and I realized that the pole was starting to wave back and forth a little. Another loud crack came from the burning pole and it started to fall. Oh shit! It’s falling toward me! I moved out of the way as best I could in the small cage trying to avoid getting crushed. The heavy wood mass crashed atop the cage bending the top down into a dip. Clenched in the fetal position and shaking in the corner of the cage I stared at it thanking the Goddesses that I moved out of the way in time.

Getting up from the corner and inspected the damage, I wondered if I should call somepony over here and complain about the safety of their little prison. I looked at where most of the impact was taken and saw a small opening. “Hmm… I wonder if I can slip through, I am pretty small. Oh fuck, now I’M the one calling myself a half-pint,” I said softly to myself, inspecting the hole.

I poked my head through, then my forehooves. I started to pull myself out when my flanks got stuck. Great, I’m sure ghost Stardust is laughing at me now and calling me lard-ass. I pulled harder and finally slipped through with the help of the rain making everything wet. The force made me roll forward into the mud getting me all… ugh icky. I wasn’t gross for long though because the rain was slowly washing the filth out of my coat.

“Alright, now I’ve gotta find out what happened to my friends, well friend.” I’m not sure if I could call Aura a friend yet considering that not long ago she wanted to take me prisoner, and then after that decided to stalk me like a creep. Whatever, I needed to find both of them, even if Stardust was gone.

I heard hoofsteps splashing toward me in the distance, I looked around for a place to hide and spotted a dumpster. Grimacing at the fact that I was gonna hide in a place where fiends put their trash. I made my way over to the nearby dumpster as quickly and quietly as I could. I opened the top and the stench made me gag as I looked at the rotting and dismembered bodies piled inside. Swallowing my pride and some vomit I crawled inside into the squishy, stinky, sploogy, bloody pile.

That’s it I was going to vomit, and there it went, everything I’ve eaten just making the smell and texture worse. Finishing I pulled the top closed and waited.

After a minute a stallion and a mare trotted by the dumpster. “What the fuck!? What happened!?” the stallion said looking at the smashed remains of the cage.

“Shit, the little bitch escaped. She couldn’t have gotten far, let’s go find her,” the mare said inspecting the pole.

“Shouldn’t we tell the boss?” the stallion asked sounding as if he was afraid of getting in trouble.

She shook her head. “No, not yet. If we find her, we can lock her up again and Gator will be none the wiser. Plus, when we catch her we can have a little fun if you catch my drift.”

Both of them started looking around the area for me. They looked in trash cans, shanties, and even a few wood crates. Wow, fiends are pretty dumb, I wouldn’t hide in a trashcan, let alone a tiny one like that. Oh goddesses I’ve been as dumb as a raider, I AM hiding in a trashcan. It’s just really big and smelled like decay and barf.

I heard hoofsteps trot my way and heard the stallion say something, “I bet you ten inhalers of dash that she’s hiding in this dumpster.”

My mind scrambled trying to think of a way to get out of the dumpster and find another place to hide. I can’t crawl out and I can’t teleport, that’s when I noticed through the dim light a rotting pony torso. It was pretty big, it was missing its head and all of its legs. I could see through the neck hole that the organs have pretty much rotted out leaving mushy blackish sludge. At the sight I had to hold back a gag or three.

Great, another disgusting place to hide. Why couldn’t I find a dumpster filled with cotton candy or something? At least that would be delicious and wouldn’t stink.

Swallowing some more vomit, I started to put my hind legs into the hole and slip in. The wet sucking sound my hooves were making as they sank into the sludgy organs was making the thought of what I was doing that much worse. After a few seconds and a vomiting session I was snugly inside of the carcass. I covered up the neck-hole with a large strip of hide that I was standing on before I got in the dead pony and after two seconds I realized that I’d rather be caught and tortured than be where I’m at. The inside of the torso was almost worse than the dumpster itself, the inside of the ribs squished what remained of the internal organs all over me with an unbelievably disgusting sliminess. The movement of my breathing was enough to make the rotting organ meat on my coat start to run down my sides, making me hold back a few gags.

The top hatch of the dumpster opened. “Aw damn! She’s not in here, can we just pretend the bet was a joke?”

“No. You said you’d give me ten dash if you lost. I’m not letting you pull that fake betting bullshit you pull during poker. Now c’mon let’s go find the bitch before somepony else sees that she’s missing,” she said.

The hatch closed and I heard them trot away, I vomited again trying to get out of the body as fast as I could, nothing but bile came up this time though. As I tried to crawl out my hooves slipped and I face planted into the disgusting mixture of bile, rotting flesh and organs, and vomit. I quickly pulled my head back and dry heaved for a minute or two, hoping nopony could hear me. In my head I thanked the Goddesses that I hadn’t gotten any in my mouth. Carefully I opened the top of the dumpster and looked out to see if there was anypony lying in wait. All I could see was rain falling and the sky flashing.

I crawled out slowly into the mud, the rain was once again washing the grime out of my coat, but I don’t think that smell is gonna ever go away. It’s been practically burned into my nostrils. Looking around I couldn’t tell exactly where I was, I spotted the guard tower that had been hit by lightning. “I should climb up there and get a bird’s eye view of the area,” I said quietly to myself.

I trotted through the mud toward the tower trying not to make too much splashing noises. As I climbed up the ladder I could smell ozone again, it’s amazing enough I could smell anything but decay at this point. Getting to the top of the ladder I saw the crisp husk of the guard stallion that got shocked. I giggled on the inside a little bit remembering his electrifying death. Right after though I felt ashamed.

I walked to the railing of the tower and checked out my surroundings, I think I saw in the distance the shanty I was in earlier. “That’s gotta be where they are, I know it.” Wow, I really needed to stop talking to myself.

I went over to the crispy corpse and tried to take his barding but the remainder of his hide looked like it’d melted to the metal armor. “Goddesses,” I said taking the bat that lied next to the body.

I checked my surroundings once again and climbed back down the ladder with the bat in my mouth. I tried to use my magic to hold it but all that did was give me a headache and make me look dumb trying to focus with my face twisting while I was trying to use my telekinesis.

How do earth ponies fight like this? Holding a bat in my mouth like this was asinine, I can’t swing my head in fifty different directions just trying to land a blow. Then it hit me, I’m an idiot. This is a hoofball bat not a gun. Why would I hold it in my mouth to hit ponies?

***

I started to walk in the direction of the shack I saw from the top of the tower, I could hear voices getting closer. I hid between two shacks as three fiends walked passed, one stopped. “Hey, you guys smell that?”

“Tomato Paste, you’re not gonna trick us into smelling your ass again,” one of the bucks said scowling at him.

“No I’m serious this time, somethin’ stinks, like puke,” Tomato Paste complained.

“Fine. Go smell your pile of puke, we’ll meet you at the bar,” one of the others said.

There’s a bar in this shithole? Wow I really took this place for granted. On the outside, it looks like a town that could be blown away with the wind when in reality it’s a small metropolis of shops, bars, and houses.

“Okay, but if I find somethin’ cool I ain’t sharing it with you,” he replied walking around the area following the scent.

He was getting closer, I gripped the bat in my forehooves and waited for him to get close enough. Finally, he walked passed where I was hiding again. I jumped out behind him and swung the bat as hard as I could, making contact with his... oh… well that had to hurt.

He fell to the ground grabbing groin in pain managing to squeak out, “Why?”

“You know why!” I said before I swung the bat once again and hit him upside the head knocking him out.

I checked him for weapons and all I found was a switchblade and a few 10mm bullets. Ugh… why did he have bullets if he didn’t have a gun? I was going to take his barding, but it looked too big for my small stature. I sighed and kept walking, keeping my ears and eyes peeled for more ponies. My E.F.S. wasn’t much help since all I saw was red bars everywhere I looked. For such a large town, I was surprised I didn’t see more ponies.

The sky was starting to get darker, flashes of light still flickering in the sky lighting up the town in a short strobe. More strikes hit a few of the shanties nearby with a loud crack. The wind was starting to pick up a bit too, blowing me around in a wind tunnel.

My assumption that there weren’t many ponies in the town where quickly proven wrong as I heard noises from inside the makeshift houses. The noises I heard ranged from enraged yelling to sexual bliss, and sometimes a bit of both as I passed by more and more shacks.

While I was walking one of the metal doors quickly opened slamming into my face. “Fine! Fuck you then!”

Dazed I looked at the pony that walked out of the shack and said, “Uhhh… oww.”

“The fuck are you lookin’ at? She’s the one bein’ a bitch that won’t put out!” he asked.

“I’m... I’m not looking at anything,” I replied nervously.

“Good!” he yelled again as he started to walk away.

Why didn’t he grab me or try to kill me? Maybe he didn’t realize I wasn’t one of his own. Trying to blow off the close call I just had I continued onward.

I saw a small light flickering in front of me over the door to my destination. It looked out of place, attached to the wall was what looked like a table lamp shaped like a draconequus I saw in a book once. It looked like it was holding the light bulb in his, uh paw. Getting close to the door I could swear I heard a whisper in my ear. “Little lamplight on the wall, go on in little pony who is so small. Your friend’s death might have been fake, but sometimes a lie… is easier to take,” a mischievous voice said.

“Who… who’s there?” I asked quietly to the voice.

I didn’t get a response, it was a little creepy. I must finally be going nuts, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I approached the door and put my hoof on the handle when I heard Aura’s voice coming from inside.

“I warned you not to touch me motherfucker!” she yelled.

I opened the door to three ponies curled up and whimpering in the corner, they all had deep cuts on their faces and different parts of their body. One of them was clenching his groin with a pained expression on his face, he had tears running down his face mixing with the blood coming from his cuts.

“What happened here!?” I asked.

“I cut his dick off! The sick bastard thought it might be fun to sample the pretty griffon before his boss got to her,” she said with her ‘in your face’ attitude.

“Good Goddesses! Did you have to go that far?” I asked in horror.

“Fuckin right! If a male is gonna put his talons or hooves on me they’ve gotta know the risk. Touch tip and get sniped,” she replied.

I would’ve vomited if I could, but I had nothing left. It was all left in the dumpster of death. Goddesses, I could still smell the decay. “Couldn’t you just rough him up or something?” I asked holding back a gag.

“It wouldn’t send the same message. By the way what smells like a brahman carcass that crawled out of a donkey’s ass?” she asked.

“Uh… well… that would be… uh… me,” I said feeling embarrassed.

“Gross! What did you crawl in? You smell worse than the pegasus,” Aura said, ignoring the stallions huddled in fear.

“HEY! Don’t talk about him like that! He’s probably dead! Just because you didn’t like him doesn’t mean you have the right to say stuff like that!” I snapped.

“Ooohhh I see, you’re crushing on the pegasus aren’t you?” she said condescendingly.

“No I’m not! I don’t think he even thinks like…shut up,” I stuttered.

“Anyway, let’s get outta here, fuck these bucks and their damn stable obsession,” she said.

“No! Even if he’s dead we can’t just leave Stardust here, it’s not right,” I protested.

“Pft whatever. Hey dinkle dick and numb nuts twins. Where’s the Pegasus?” Aura asked annoyed at my outburst.

“Uh…um…he…he’s…still…uh...with Ga-gator, in his mangle room. It’s where he tortures ponies, it’s in the same building as his office. P-please don’t hurt me again, I told you all I know,” the one on the left stuttered.

“Quit bein’ a wussy, you can reattach it if you put it on ice fast enough and get to a doctor. You could even take some hydra and grow it back, then you’ll have a neat little toy to play with,” Aura said tossing said appendage at him.

“Damn, you’re cold. And a little bit gross,” I said in disgust at the thought of what she just said.

“You’re the one that stinks. Who’s gross now?” Aura rebutted.

“Hey, that was a matter of life and death that I’d rather not talk about it,” I said. Or think about if I could help it.

“Whatever. I’m going to scout ahead and clear the way for you. I’ll be waiting just outside town. See ya later Shrimp,” Aura said and walked out the door.

“You’re not gonna kill us, are you?” one of the stallions asked.

“No, I’m not going to kill you, unless you want me to put your friend out of his misery,” I said looking back at them. “I mean that’s gotta be pretty painful.”

“No…no he’ll be fine. I hope,” he said nervously.

“If you tell your friends that you told me where Stardust is though, I’ll kill you without blinking an eye. Got it!?” I threatened.

“Yes ma’am,” they said in unison.

***

I walked out of the shack, leaving those idiots to cower at my awesomeness. I looked around in the pouring rain, I didn’t recognize anything. I wish I would’ve asked them how to get to Gator. Oh well, I guess I’ll just find it on my own.

When I was walked in by Gator and the other fiends I remembered that Gator’s so called office wasn’t too far from the edge of the town. Maybe if I go there, I could figure out how to get to him.

I started walking in the direction away from the mountain, keeping my eye out for wandering fiends. Day had turned to night and the only thing lighting the way was the lightning overhead. It’s a lot easier to sneak around when it’s dark like this, nopony can see you unless they shine a light on you.

Making my way to the edge of town I did run into some ponies, but I was able to sneak passed them through the darkness. When I got to the town gate I heard the two guards talking to each other.

“So, what did the boss do to that Pegasus? I heard he tore him limb from limb,” one asked the other.

“Na he just shot his wings and tortured him a little. He’ll probably die though, the boss left him in the mangle room. He said that waitin’ for death is the worst kind of torture,” the other said back.

‘I have to get to him soon, he might still be alive,’ I thought to myself.

I took a look around and mentally retraced my steps, I was starting to remember the path to Gator’s office. Looking around I noticed that the shacks and shanties were starting to look more familiar from what I could see in the dark.

(BUMP)

“Hey. Who’s there? Is that you… (Cough-Gurgle)”

I stabbed the fiend in the throat with the switchblade before he could continue the sentence. He choked and gurgled on the ground gasping for air as blood filled his lungs. A moment later, he was dead. All he had on him was a box of something called Party Time Mint-als and an inhaler of dash, not even a single weapon.

I dragged the body between some shacks and continued to my destination. The closer I got to where Gator was, the more fiends I saw. It was getting more difficult to sneak around. The rain finally stopped and the sound of the drops no longer masked the sound of my hoofsteps.

I made it to Gator’s shack, it was guarded by two guards holding assault rifles. There were also quite a few ponies talking in small groups in front of the shack. This looked like the only place in town with power, there’s lights everywhere.

I snuck around behind the shack hoping that there was a back door or something. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a back door, all that was there was a storage shed that looked like it’d fall apart if I blew on it too hard.

I heard the mischievous voice in my ear again, “This is a sign to look at the sign of fiend design.”

That was really getting annoying. Now I have two voices inside my head telling me what to do. Why was he rhyming? Why can’t he just tell me exactly what to do? Oh yeah, that would be too easy. Everything had to be a puzzle or some sort of sick experiment out here.

“Just look dammit! At the sign!” the voice exclaimed in my ear.

“Fine, just quit screaming in my ear,” I whispered.

“I’m not screaming, I’m motivating very loudly,” the voice responded.

“Who are you, another voice in my head?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Now stop talking to yourself and pay attention to what’s going on,” the voice replied.

Ugh… great now my head is arguing with me. At least I hope it’s my head, I don’t think I’d sleep comfortably at night if somepony was invisibly stalking me or something.

I did what the voice said and looked at the stupid sign, it read ‘armory’ in letters that looked like they were written by foals. Wait, armory? That means guns! “See, I am a smart pony.” Great, I’m talking to myself again, I need to stop doing that.

I quietly walked over to the armory door and pushed it open. My sight was flooded with beautiful guns and ammo, then I realized that all the guns where in seriously poor condition. Suddenly a glimmer of hope caught my eye, on the wall was an almost perfectly maintained sniper rifle. I grabbed it off the wall and heard a chirp from my Pip-Buck.

NEW WEAPON ADDED: .308 SNIPER RIFLE

Well at least it told me what kind of ammo it needs. This could actually be useful, I guess. Considering I was about to use an extremely loud gun while surrounded by a bunch of psychos that outnumber me twelve to one. Yeah, I’m probably going to die. Stardust will understand if I do, it’s the thought that counts. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be ghost buddies and haunt The Wasteland together.

I found a few .308 mags in an ammo box and realized I didn’t have my barding. After looking around some I found an old military ammo bag and slung it around myself putting the mags inside. Pretty sure I was going to be slaughtered and tossed back into that disgusting dumpster to rot, I confidently walked out the armory door carrying the sniper rifle, a shitty 10mm pistol, and an ammo bag full of grenades. What better way is there to go out in style? In a pretty dress I guess, but that isn’t relevant to the situation.

I fiddled with the sniper rifle to get more familiar with the weapon, it’s a lot heavier than I’m used to. It also didn’t help that I had to use my mouth and hooves because my stupid horn decided it needed a long break. I couldn’t use this gun, it’s too big and I’m very uncoordinated without my magic. I guess the 10mm pistol will have to do until I get my shotgun back.

I poked my head around the corner, they were all just standing there talking like they weren’t murdering psychopaths. I grabbed a grenade out of my ammo bag, pulled out the stem, and rolled the metallic apple across the ground into the crowd of ponies.

(BOOM!)

The explosion send about six of the fiends bursting into a bloody mess of hooves, guts, and eyeballs. The other fiends were painted in blood and chunks, and as quick as the grenade exploded they had their guns drawn. Two of them started coming around the corner, I waited for them to get close. As they passed me I jumped on one of them and slit his throat with the switchblade. I suddenly felt a stab in my ass as the other fiend opened fire. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and drove four 10mm rounds into her head.

I took cover behind the shack as more fiends started shooting in my general direction. I tossed out another grenade and heard it explode, I peeked around the corner and saw that it was a waste. Bullets battered the wall where I hid, I tried to focus my magic on the pistol. My magic was still not doing well, but I could feel it slowly starting to come back.

“I’m screwed,” I said to myself as I slipped back into S.A.T.S. and fired one round each into three of the fiend’s heads. The first two hit but the last one missed as she charged around the corner and knocked me to the ground.

“Got er’!” she yelled to the others as she pinned me down. I concentrated as hard as I could on the switchblade. Looking at the blade on the ground I could see the faint glow of my red magical field. With my head pounding I concentrated harder and drove the blade into the back of her skull as she said, “You’re gon doon bistch.” it was like somepony flipped her off switch.

I rolled her off of me and tried to pull the blade out of her head, but it was stuck in there like a nail in wood. The pain in my head distracted me from the pain of the bullet in my ass as I picked up my pistol once again and took cover. There were only two ponies remaining, one of them started walking toward where I took cover, his gun steadied on the corner where I hid.

I concentrated what little magic I had and pulled the gun out of his mouth as he rounded the corner to point it at me. With his mouth still open, I shoved one of the grenades in his mouth, pulled the stem, turned and bucked, sending him flying back down the road.

His head exploded with a force that made my ears ring. I looked around the corner at the remaining fiend. With a look of shock on his face he immediately shat himself and dropped his weapon surrendering. I came out from behind the building I was using for cover and walked toward him, holding my gun in my mouth. He scrambled slipping in his own feces. He got to his hooves and proceeded to run away screaming.

“Yeah…bitch! If I see your face again, I’ll crush it under my hoof!” I yelled to him as he ran.

***

I went up to the door and opened it expecting to see a battle-ready Gator on the other side. What I saw was an empty hall, walking in I started to check the rooms that I passed. The third door I came too was smeared with blood, spelled out in dried smears it read ‘Mangle Room’. I pulled out my pistol and pushed the door open. Once again, I didn’t see Gator waiting to annihilate me, what I did see though was Stardust.

He’d been shot in both of his wings and beaten badly. Half of his face was swollen to the point that his left eye was only a thin line, his breathing was shallow, and it looked like one of his hind legs was broken. I panicked, looking as fast as I could for a medical box.

I spotted one in the room across the short hallway and rushed to open it. I shouted back toward my friend, “Don’t worry Stardust! I found some medical supplies! You’re gonna be okay! Just hold on!”

I opened the medical box and found two healing potions, dash, and Rad-Away. I grabbed them as fast as I could and almost tripped on my own hooves scrambling into the mangle room. I jammed the healing potion into his mouth and made him drink.

He choked and started to take deep breaths, the swelling in his face was already starting to reduce, but it wasn’t going away completely. “(Cough-cough) I thought I was a goner for a second there. (Cough) I heard the gunfire outside and I thought they killed you.”

“Where’s Gator? I didn’t see him anywhere outside or in here,” I asked.

“He was beating me when one of his loyal idiots walked in and told him he had to talk to him. When he came back in he gave me one final kick to the face and said he’d finish me off later if I wasn’t dead already. I guess he had some business to take care of or something,” he said still breathing heavily.

“Here, take another healing potion and we can get out of here while we still can,” I said.

“Looks like you need it, you’ve got a hole in your ass, and I’m not talking about the obvious one,” he said smirking weakly.

I felt the urge to slap him for looking at my ass, but I refrained. “Just take the fuckin’ thing and quit being a jackass. If you take your medicine, I’ll give you a reward.”

He smiled. “Sorry I’ve only just met you, I don’t think that kind of thing would be appropriate. However…”

Okay, this time I did slap him. “Perv! I was talking about a gun!”

“Ow! Fine I’ll take it! My face still hurts you know,” he said.

“Good. When you see what I did to the ponies outside you’ll be glad that I only slapped you,” I said.

Ignoring what I said completely he asked, “So where is the gun you said you were gonna give me?”

“Uh… I think I dropped it in the hall when I was panicking while looking for medical stuff,” I replied.

“Yeah or you’re just pulling my leg, it better not be another crummy pistol,” he said as he got to his hooves doing his best to stay off his bad leg.

“Don’t worry, it’s a rifle,” I said.

As soon as he heard those words, he limped to the door as quick as he could. “Yes! A rifle, and even better, it’s got a scope! She’s beautiful, I’m gonna call her Gotcha.”

I sighed. “Don’t name your gun, that’s stupid. It’s just a gun.”

He gasped. “Just a gun! This is a well maintained .308 sniper rifle, with a night vision scope. This is almost a masterpiece, all it needs is a suppressor. Why shouldn’t I name my gun? Yours is called Ol’ Festus.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Wow, you’re kind of a gun fanatic aren’t you? And Ol’ Festus is different, I didn’t name it. What’s a suppressor?”

He frowned. “I wouldn’t say fanatic, but they do fascinate me, and a suppressor is a tube that you can connect to the end of a gun’s barrel to make it quieter when you shoot.”

“Cool, now can we get out of here? Standing in this place is making me uncomfortable. Aura’s waiting outside town for us,” I said.

He gasped. “You saved HER before ME!? I thought we were friends,” he said surprised and a little hurt.

We started to walk out of the shack as I said, “We are friends, she just happened to be the first one I ran into. She didn’t really need my help though, she’d already beaten her captors. She sliced one of their dicks off too.”

He got a disturbed look on his face as all color left him. “You don’t tell a guy that! The more I think about it, the more I can almost literally feel it.”

“Also, if I didn’t find her first I probably wouldn’t have found you in time. One of the stallions told me where to find you, so be grateful he lost his dick to griffon talons,” I said.

“Stop saying that! I don’t wanna think about it, and I can’t help but picture it in my head,” he said, squirming.

“Okay fine, I’ll stop,” I said as we exited the building.

Limping along next to me Stardust said, “Thank you.” In a more serious tone.

“For what?” I asked as we carefully walked around the mess left behind by my fight with the fiends.

“For savin’ my ass, I don’t think I could’ve taken that much longer,” he replied.

“Like it or not Stardust, you’re my friend, and I couldn’t leave you behind. Even if I thought you were dead,” I said as we moved into an ally between two buildings. “Why was he doing that to you anyway?”

“Not sure really, he kept going on about how much he hated pegasi. Didn’t even ask me any questions or anything. He just wanted to hurt me as much as he could,” he said.

“Not a good way to get what he wants by doing that. I’m not sure how he expected me to open the stable after hurting you,” I said.

“Shadow, think about it. If he would’ve showed up later with me beaten close to death, and Aura raped or just as badly hurt, then told you to do what he wanted or else he would do worse to us or even kill us, what would you have done?” Stardust asked.

That was a hard thing to think about. I want to think I would say something witty and still say no even with my friends with in an inch of death. That wouldn’t be what I would’ve done, I would’ve given in and opened the stable. “Yeah, I understand. If Gator would’ve presented me with something like that, I would‘ve given in, hoping he’d let you two go. What I don’t get is why he needed to try going that far when I already agreed to do it.”

“Folks in The Wasteland don’t normally live up to their promises. This was his way of making sure you did what he wanted I’m sure,” he said.

“Maybe, or he’s just a fucking nut job. How are your wings feeling?” I replied.

He gave me a sad smile. “Not too good to be honest, a pegasus’ wings aren’t easy to heal when they get damaged like this. They’re hard to damage in the first place, but if they are, it takes time to heal or the talents of a very good unicorn.”

I noticed that his wings were hanging a little bit from his sides, the holes left behind by Gator looked like they healed fine. Maybe something internal didn’t heal right. “But what about when you got shot in the wing back at Hidden Sands? That healed quickly.”

He winced as if he still was in some pain and said, “The bullet was close to the bone but only hit flesh, a healing potion and I was fine. This is a little different, the bones are broken, and I’ll need a Doctor to help them heal.”

“Well I guess flying out of here is out of the question then?” I asked.

“Yep, you’d be right about that,” he replied.

“Okay, we aren’t far from the gate out of this disgusting place. If we hurry, we could maybe sneak out. Think you can hold up that long?” I asked as I looked at my Pip-Buck map.

He winked. “Yeah, no problem.”

I peeked around the corner of the alley looking for anypony who might be out, but nopony seemed to be around. “Okay, the coast is clear, let’s go,” I said, holding the 10mm in my muzzle, keeping my eyes peeled for anypony. The road that lead out of town was dark, not a pony in sight. As we moved closer to the gate, I started to get a funny feeling, it ran up my tail and along my back, and my knees started to twitch, making it a little difficult to walk.

We made it to the gate. Just like the road, nopony was there. This was starting to get a little strange, the Wasteland didn’t just hand you an easy way out. We both walked through the gate and out of town. I saw a black shape in the darkness. “Aura is that you?” I whispered.

She walked closer. “Yeah, about time you got out of there. I see the winged idiot is still kicking.”

“Good to see you too,” he said limping past me.

“We need to get him out of here. I gave him a couple healing positions, but he still needs to see a doctor. Could you fly him out?” I asked.

“What? Where would I take him? There aren’t any towns around here that would have a doctor that could help,” she said giving him a look. “I could take a look at him if you want, but without a clinic or the right medical equipment, I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Bring him to The Steel Rangers south of here, it’s in a place called Hidden Sands in the middle of a large sandstorm. They should have what you need,” I said.

Stardust twisted around quickly looking at me and saying, “I’m not going back there, they aren’t our friends Shadow Star. I don’t want the griffon poking around with my wings either, I told you I’m fine…”

I, on the other hoof interrupted, “I don’t give a non-flying fuck what you say right now Stardust, you’re going, and that’s final. You aren’t fine, you can barely stand.”

“They aren’t gonna let me into their bunker y’know. I’m not with The Red Talons, and I’m just some random griffon. Plus, what about you, I can’t carry his ass and yours,” Aura added.

“I’m not going with you, I’m staying here,” I said.

“Like hell you are,” Stardust interjected.

“Yeah, I’m not leaving you here, we’ll get out of here together,” Aura argued. Damn I think this is the first time I’ve seen the two agree on something.

“I have to find our stuff, we were sent here to get something for the Elder and I plan on keeping that promise. I need you two to head to the bunker and get Stardust looked at. If you tell the Elder I sent you, then you should be okay,” I said looking at them both. “Also, I have to do something about Stable 9, I seal it, but if I just leave now, Gator might figure out what that Pip-Buck is in my saddle bags. He could figure out how to use it to get into the Stable. I need to fix this.”

“Shadow, you can’t do this on your own,” Stardust said, wincing a little as he stepped closer.

“NO!” I said loudly. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, I know it sounds impossible, and it might be, but I have to. You need help and sooner is better than later. So please, go.”

“I can’t do that, I promised I’d keep you safe, I’m not leaving until you do,” he said angrily.

“And I can’t let you get hurt again.” I flipped around and bucked him in the head, he fell hitting the ground hard. He was knocked out cold.

“Why the fuck did you just do that to him?” Aura asked stepping back a little. “I mean yeah he’s a little bull-headed, but that doesn’t mean you need to knock him out.”

“He’s hurt worse than he’s letting on, you know it as well as I do. Get him out of here, please. I’m trusting you with his life,” I said.

“Really? Even though you don’t know anything about me, and I don’t like him?” she asked.

“I have to,” I replied.

She stomped the ground. “Fine, but if I get shot when I get there, I’m gonna to kill you.” She walked over to Stardust’s limp body and lifted him up, she tossed him onto her back. “Just be careful, and if you find my energy spear, make sure you get it back for me.”

“I will.” she gave me a soft smile then opening her wings she took off into the dark night sky. I turned and looked back at the town. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

***

I knew something wasn’t right here. There were ponies all around when I was looking for Stardust. After my fight with the twelve in front of Gator’s office, I figured the town would be on high alert, but not a peep came from anywhere. It was like nothing happened since I escaped my cage. I looked up toward the cave that hid the Stable. There were still two guards in the towers, but they weren’t looking around, they just sat next to the railings chatting with each other across the small gap between the two towers.

The town was eerily quiet as I slowly walked back in, turning and keeping myself against the wall. I crept along it keeping to the shadows. One thing nice about my coloring was it helped me blend in when it was dark like this. I made my way back toward Gator’s office first. When he captured us, his guards dumped our stuff next to his desk. Coming up to the office, I saw somepony stepping out.

He started to walk in my direction. I quickly hid behind a wall and waited for the perfect moment to strike. I could hear his hoofsteps getting closer, right when I saw the front half of his body pass by the wall I jumped on him. Holding my gun to his head I asked, “Where…is…Gator?”

He swallowed hard as his brown eyes looked up into my red ones. Nervously he started to speak, “Um… he left town. He went to go deal with some Enclave ponies snoopin’ around. Please don’t kill me, I haven’t hurt anypony. Since I’m the fresh meat, all the others do is push me around and make me do grunt work.”

“You’re a fiend. If I let you live it’s just gonna bite me in the ass. I’d rather just kill you and save me the trouble of doing it later,” I said.

He started to sob a little. “P-please. I swear I’ll leave. I’ll go back to Whinnieapolis, find a different way to make caps. Please don’t kill me, I’m begging you.”

I couldn’t believe he was crying, his tears look real too. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. “Fine. If I ever find you again and you’re still hanging around with ponies like this, I won’t think twice about killing you. Consider this your second chance to do better. However, before I let you go I’d like you to take me to my gear.”

As quick as I spoke he said, “Done!”

I let him go and he escorted me into the shack and took me to a hooflocker in the main room of Gator’s office, “So, all of it is in here?”

“Yeah, that’s all of it. Gator’s sniper rifle is in the weapons shed in the back if you want to really stick it to him. I could care less what happens to that guy, he’s fuckin’ nuts,” The Fiend said.

“I already took it, there’s a reason I don’t have it right now. Let’s just say that I’ve got eyes on me,” I said lying through my teeth. Telling him I have a sniper watching me would ensure my safety if he decided to turn on me. At least I hope it does.

“Can I go now? I know you said you’re going to let me go, but I’m still a little scared,” he asked, whimpering a little.

“Go ahead, but remember that if my sniper sees you walk out of here and straight to one of the guards out there, then you can kiss your head goodbye,” I replied coldly.

“Thank you, I promise I’ll change my ways,” he said quickly and walked out the door.

I opened the hooflocker to see my stuff piled inside like it’d been dumped. I grabbed everything and put my barding and duster on along with my saddle bags. I looked through my saddle bags and found the Pip-Buck still lying snugly inside. It was a close call with that fiend. If he would’ve resisted and gotten me off of him I could’ve been in a tough spot.

***

After getting everything situated and grabbing Stardust and Aura’s stuff, I pulled out my shotgun and walked out the door. There still wasn’t anypony around. Okay this is getting creepy, I can understand that even bad ponies have to sleep, but I would think they’d at least have somepony guarding the town besides the ponies in the tower. I mean c’mon, they’re up there chatting away like they have nothing to worry about. Didn’t they hear me shoot up their pals? This can’t be going this easily.

Walking through the quiet and dark town I realized that there wasn’t even any noise coming from the shacks and shanties I was passing. Could they be gathered somewhere? Did they go with Gator? I stopped and looked at my Pip-Buck and thought about the safety protocol the former Overmare made. Would I be able to do it? Would the signal even reach through the thick walls?

I quit looking at my Pip-Buck and stopped thinking about it. When I got to the gate I came to a halt and looked out into the dark, open, vastness of the Wasteland. My ear twitched as I heard the faint sound of hoofsteps behind me, but they didn’t quite sound like hoofsteps, every other step sounded different than the other. “Who’s there?” I asked through the darkness.

The sound of the steps stopped and I heard the whisper in my ear again, “No one. Just a forgotten soul left in the memories of ponies before the war. I made sure to keep the path clear for you and I haven’t even gotten a thank you.”

“Thanks for helping me out, but I’d like it if you leave me alone. I don’t think I can trust anypony who watches me from shadows like a stalker,” I said.

“Very well then. I’ll leave you be, but the darkness inside you will consume you soon enough. When that happens you’ll be just like me….just a faded memory from the past who has part of their soul living in a lamp…” the voice said trailing off into an echo.

I felt a shiver down my spine as I once again started to walk out into the Wasteland. I got about a half-mile outside town before I looked back to make sure I wasn’t being followed by anypony. When I did, I saw lights coming from the Stable entrance, they were trying to open it. How were they going to get in though, I had both of the Pip-Bucks that would be able to open it.

“They aren’t going to let those bloodwings out. Not if I can help it,” I said as I opened the broadcaster menu on my Pip-Buck. I scrolled down to Stable 9’s signal and connected.

Stable 9 Overmare Self-Destruct protocol has been enabled would you like to proceed?

Yes/No

With a tap of my hoof I hit 'Yes'.

Self-Destruct protocol initiated. Detonation will occur in 10 seconds. Please stand back.

I looked up at the mountain where the stable entrance was located and waited. 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…0. With a blinding flash the mountainside exploded with such force, that I could feel the blast wave from the explosion from where I was standing.

The shock of the blast wave knocked me off my hooves and sent me tumbling as my Pip-Buck started to click wildly almost making a solid sound. From the ground, I looked up at the mountain again to see a mushroom cloud. The heavy wind was so hot that I could barely breathe. When everything finally cleared up, I saw that most of the mountainside was gone. The Cliffside that had been outside the cave entrance to the stable door collapsed sending huge boulders tumbling down the mountain turning the town below into a pile of rock and twisted metal. The entire top of the mountain was gone, leaving only a slab of rock with a hole in the middle of it.

I got back to my hooves and once again started to walk with devastation following in my path, “Never look back,” I told myself as I slowly walked away into the darkness of the Wasteland night.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Silent Trotter: You have mastered silent movement, allowing you to move quickly and still remain quiet. You can sneak at full speed with no penalties.

Quest Perk Added!

Wild Wasteland: The Wasteland is a frightening and dangerous place, it also has its fair share of weird and wacky things. You may randomly run into such things while wandering the Wasteland. Laugh or run, it’s up to you. Just don’t drink the chocolate milk rain.

Chapter 11: Mr. Roboto

“I’ll say it again, I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

It’s official, the fucking Wasteland just outright hates me, it has to. Why else would I be stuck out here alone, sick as fuck, and stuck in a rain storm. My head was swimming, my stomach was churning, oh yeah, I almost forgot, my body wouldn’t stop tingling. It’s like tiny little bugs were crawling right under my skin. According to my Pip-Buck, I was suffering from Acute Radiation Poisoning. No surprise I guess after that damn Stable exploding and basking me in radiation. That would be something you’d think should be easy to fix with some rad-away, but I remember giving them to Aura when we were still in the Stable, and the one I found in Gator’s office wasn’t much help either. I had her stuff with me, but somepony stole them out of her bags before I got them back. Luckily her energy spear was still there, it unscrewed into three parts making it fit into the bags nicely. I was surprised the Fiends hadn’t stolen that too.

Now I get to slowly walk back toward Hidden Sands feeling like shit. Oh, and to top it off, the rain was getting worse. It was like the Wasteland was yelling at me to take a shower. Oh yeah? Well fuck you Wasteland, I don’t give a shit, I’ll show you. At least the rain was slowly cleaning the dried blood from the Stable off of my duster.

I felt horrible. Every so often I had to stop and dry heave. The churning in my stomach was gradually getting worse as I tried not to soil myself. Eventually however, nature took its course. Thank the Goddesses it was raining. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. Every muscle in my body ached like they’d been taken and hit repeatedly with a meat tenderizer. Even worse is that even though the rain was cool, I still felt hot. Every breath felt like hot steam as it escaped my muzzle.

I stopped walking and sat down wiping my wet mane out of my eyes so I could look down at my Pip-Buck map. I still had a way to go it seemed and the night was still young. I looked around at the dilapidated buildings, most were just shells and didn’t look like a good place to rest. One however was a large building right at the edge of the cluster of buildings that looked like it had held up nicely. Getting back to my hooves I walked closer to it. There was a sign over the door that read ‘F&F Tool Company Headquarters and Museum’

Pulling my shotgun out, I walked up to the door and turned the knob, pushing the door open. So far so good, nopony was shooting at me as I walked in. I shut the door behind me, making it so dark that I couldn’t see my own hoof in front of my face. I checked my E.F.S., there were a couple red bars, but from the skittering noise coming from that direction, I was sure it was just a couple radroaches. I turned my Pip-Light on, illuminating the room with a soft glow.

I saw a white line on my E.F.S., keeping my shotgun raised. I said loudly, “Is anypony there!?”

The white line started to move and a metallic voice echoed out from the other room, “Be right with you madam, I do apologize for the inconvenience.”

Something flashed by the open door then vanished on the other side. A moment later I heard something buzzing, followed by a high-pitched squeak, then the red marks vanished. The white mark on my E.F.S. started moving again, a moment later a robot floated through the door, it had three spider like appendages, three eye…things coming out of its round body, and a glowing talisman under its body keeping it afloat.

“Terribly sorry about the wait madam, we have a small insect problem, and with so little help now days, they tend to slip by me from time to time. I take it you’re here for the tour,” it said with an accent I hadn’t ever heard before.

I lowered my shotgun. “Um…no, it was storming outside, I was just looking for shelter.”

The floating robot’s…legs? Or arms? Whatever they are, drooped as if it was sad. “I see, seems like no one ever comes for the tours anymore.”

“I’m…sorry?” I responded.

“It’s okay madam, it’s been two hundred years and not a single pony has stopped by to tour the museum here,” he said.

I didn’t think a robot could sound sad, but this thing really did sound like it was. “Nopony’s been in here since the megaspells went off?”

“Well madam, not anypony of notice, there have been ruffians now and again, but this Mister Handy still has a little spunk left in its old bolts. I’ve kept this place safe for many years now, in case somepony wanted to come in and take the tour,” he replied.

I looked at its metal arms, one had what looked like claws, the other had what looked like the end to a magical energy pistol, and the last had a large buzz saw. I could see a couple holes in its metal body, and some scorch marks on its finish. “It seems like you did a good job, my name’s Shadow Star. I hope you don’t mind me staying here until the storm passes.”

The robot looked like its mood brightened up as it floated a little higher, saying, “Not at all madam, that is as long as you do put that shotgun away. F&F tools doesn’t allow firearms past the main entryway.” I didn’t see a reason to worry, so I did. “Thank you Ms. Shadow Star. If you’d like, the old master’s office has a cot in it that you may find rather comfortable.”

I gave the robot a smile and said, “I’d like that, and something to eat if you have it. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it down, but I should still try to get something in my stomach.”

He hovered over to one of the counters and picked up a pre-war box of cereal with the words ‘Sugar Apple Bombs’ on it. He brought it over to me. “This is all I have around I’m afraid, the rest of the food in the kitchen spoiled over the years I’m afraid.”

I grabbed it, pulled open the box and took a bite, then another, and another. This had to be the best thing I’ve ever eaten in The Wasteland. Not like it was hard to do, but still this was just awesome. It also made me feel a lot better than when I first walked in. And for some reason I didn’t feel like I was going to barf it back up a few minutes later.

After a moment went by I looked up at the robot, belched and smiled. “Hehe… sorry about that, it’s just been a while since I’ve had anything this good to eat.”

“It’s no trouble to me madam, it’s just nice to see somepony here that isn’t trying to attack me, or destroy the building. Master Falafel used to love those Sugar Apple Bombs too. He used to make sure there was always a box under the counter in the front and in his office for when he would come and visit,” he said proudly.

I yawned and smiled up at him. “He had good taste then.”

“That he did. You look tired, follow me I’ll show you to master’s office,” he said as he started to float off toward a staircase behind the counter. I followed close behind, the room he took me to was just down the hall on the second floor where there was to a set of double doors. The robot floated over and pulled on the handle. “Bollocks, the door’s locked.”

“When’s the last time you were up here?” I asked walking close to the door.

“Not since I last saw the masters,” he answered.

“And when was that?” I asked, figuring the answer would be sometime before the war.

“Two hundred years ago, the day before the megaspells went off,” he said, confirming my guess.

“I take it you don’t have a key either. Do you?” I said.

His center camera eye drooped. “Unfortunately, no madam, I guess we’ll have to find you a new place to sleep.”

“Nah, it’s okay I have my own key,” I said pulling out my trusty screwdriver and bobby pin, and going to work. My magic might still be crap, but I could handle this. In a matter of minutes, the lock gave and clicked open. I pulled on the handle and opened the door.

“Haha. That’s a nifty trick, now isn’t it?” the robot said bobbing up and down. “Well I’ll let you get settled in, I’m going to go back down to the lobby and keep guard.”

“Thank you…um, I didn’t catch if you had a name,” I said.

He perked up as if in panic. “My apologies madam, my ID number is 85967, but master Falafel and Flapjack, called me Watts.”

I nodded. “Thanks again Watts, I really appreciate the kindness, it’s rare in The Wasteland.”

Watts bobbed up and down again. “Your welcome Ms. Shadow Star, rest well.” With that he left, shutting the doors behind him.

***

I looked around the office, it was well preserved. There was at least an inch of dust on just about everything, the walls were cracked, the paint peeling, and a musty smell lingered. Apart from that, it looked good compared to other places I’ve seen so far. I walked over to the large desk, sat down and looked at the terminal. A soft green glow was coming from under the dust. I wiped off the screen as best I could and checked it.

Of course, it was locked, with a loud sigh, I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. After a moment went by I looked back at the terminal and tried hacking it. After ten minutes and several tries, the terminal finally beeped and I was in, the password was Sweetlilly. I smiled at my accomplishment as the little filly in my head bounced up and down with excitement. I started to look through the files. A good amount of them were about the business, numbers of income, overhead, employee payouts, spreadsheets, profit margins, and test projects.

Toward the bottom, one caught my eye, so I clicked on it and started to read.

Dear Flapjack,

Brother, I’m sorry to send you this message with everything else going on. I hope your time in Manehattan starts to get better, I know working with the Ministry Mares can be hard. Just give it more time, and I’m sure Applejack will come around.

In response to your last message about my meeting with Captain Night Stalker, I’ve already told you, there isn’t anything you need to worry about. This new project that I’m working on has nothing to do with my meeting with him. The Ministry of Awesome, just wanted to see about adding a Hub to the upper floors. I know you think this project is a waste of money, but just think about how much we can make when it’s completed next week.

Just have faith in everything, I haven’t let you down yet brother and you know I never will. As for your concern about the M.O.M. I’ve heard Lemon Zest, she was able to tell me that there will be somepony will be stopping by to talk with us. Don’t worry though, the memory of my meeting with Night Stalker was already removed, they won’t be able to find anything out from me. So, you have no need to worry.

I hope you’re doing well, and I hope everything goes well with The Ministry of Wartime Technology.

Sincerely,

Falafel

P.S. I look forward to your visit next week, I do hope you and Lilly are doing well. Can’t wait to see you both.

That was a really stupid thing to do. If you wanted to hide something from the Ministry of Morale, why would you send a message like that and not get rid of it? Maybe he just wasn’t a smart pony. The rest of the files on the terminal didn’t look important, I skipped by them and went to the last thing on the terminal.

[Safe Control]

I looked behind me and saw a safe, going back to the terminal, I clicked the safe control and unlocked it. The safe clicked and I walked over and opened it. Inside was a few bags of pre-war bits, .44 cal. ammo, paper documents, 8 caps (why the fuck are there bottle caps in a safe?) and a slender box. I put the useful items into my saddle bags then picked up the box to look it over.

It wasn’t very unique, only a small black box with a silver latch. Curiosity taking over, I flipped the latch and opened it. Inside were two memory orbs, one looked normal, giving off a light silvery gleam. The other however had a black glow with a light silver glow in the outer edge. Now I know I’m not an expert on memory orbs, but I wasn’t sure it was safe to go into that one.

Holding the box in my magic, I walked over to the cot that was set up against the wall. Dusting it off quickly, I laid myself down on it and looked at the box. I wanted so badly to know what was in that orb, I mean it’s safe here right now. Right? I should be okay. I closed the box and set it down on the floor next to my saddle bags. “No, I don’t need to do that right now,” I said to myself.

I reached over and dug through my own saddle bags taking out the other recording I found in Stable 9. I popped it into my Pip-Buck hoping whatever was on it would distract me from the tempting memory orbs. So, I hit play.

“Hello Overmare of Stable 9, I’m Scootaloo, Vice President of Stable-Tec, and President of Red Racer. I’d like to welcome you to Stable 9. As you should know from the Overmare’s manual you were given when you first entered, you’ll know that your Stable was made with one thing in mind, keeping animals that are crucial to the ecosystem safe in the event of a megaspell detonation. If your listening to this…I guess that happened, and that probably means…Fuck, I don’t wanna think about that,” her voice was plagued with melancholy as she spoke, “Anyway, Stable 9 was set up to be a refuge for ponies and animals alike. That’s what it’ll look like at least for most of the Stable. This next part is for only the ears of the Overmare and the heads of your two other departments, Stable 9 has another purpose. You should have a list of every animal that’s been transported to the Stable. It should be sorted in alphabetical order by species. All of them have traits that are essential to the ecosystem, from the small Vampire Fruit Bat to the large and ferocious Manticore. The mission for you and the other two leaders of Stable 9 is to experiment with the animals and find a new way to use their traits for the betterment of Equinity. Do to the nature of your work, you’ll have to communicate regularly with the head of security, and head of bio research. All three of you will be given a new model of Pip-Buck that Stable-Tec will hopefully have finished by the time you need it. The Pip-buck 3000 Mark II will look a lot like your standard Pip-Buck, but with a few extra goodies,” Scootaloo’s voice stopped for a moment then she spoke again sounding as if she was talking away from the recorder. “Do I really have to call them ‘goodies’ Applebloom?” she asked somepony in the background.

Another voice echoed on the recording, it was distant, but I could hear a slight accent when she spoke, “Course ya do. I put a lotta hard work into those.”

“But it sounds stupid. Who cares anyway?” Scootaloo said again. “You know what? Fine whatever, and no I’m not redoing the recording, I have over a hundred more to do and I don’t wanna keep redoing them.” She cleared her throat then spoke in her professional voice again, “So yeah, a few extra things that the rest of the Pip-Bucks won’t have. Also, once put on, you can’t get them off, not without the help of a Specialized Pip-Buck Technician, or well… uh… death. Just look at the manual. Anyway, so yeah that’s the mission you have for your stable. Good luck, and just do better than we did. Applebloom, I’m taking a break, make Sweetie Belle do the next one!” With that the recording ended.

“So, it wasn’t just Cell who was fucked up in that place, it was the whole damn stable,” I said to myself as I laid back on the cot looking up at the cracked ceiling. Ugh, now what do I do? I was hoping the recording would keep my mind off the memory orbs, but all it did was depress me.

Looking back down at the box, I started to wonder again. What could be in them? I lifted the box with my magic again and pulled the silver one out. I looked back toward the door, then back at the orb. “Okay I can’t take it anymore,” I said, getting up and walking over to the door to lock it, then returned to the cot. “That door stayed locked for two hundred years, I’m sure it can last for a few minutes while I dive into an orb.”

Laying back down, I took the orb and touched it to my glowing horn. The world melted away…

oooOOOooo

Okay, so thankfully this time I was in a mare, I really didn’t like the feeling of being a stallion. My host was a unicorn, she fit me rather well. She was walking through what looked like the front office of F&F Tools (Only a lot nicer), she had a little sway to her hips and she was humming a little tune as she put things away behind the desk.

The door opened behind my host, she turned and in walked an earth pony stallion. The green coated stallion shook his head, droplets of water flying off his straw-colored mane. He looked over at my host and smiled. “Oh good morning Sweetlilly, I didn’t expect you to be here so early.”

My host smiled wide and spoke in a sweet voice, “Good morning Falafel, I thought you were coming in around noon.”

A smile lit up his face, he made his way over to the counter setting down the hat he was wearing. “I have a meeting later, I wanted to get in early today and get some work done so I don’t get too backed up after the meeting. Why are you here so early, is my brother in?”

She giggled cutely, saying, “No silly, you should know he’s still in Manehatten helping with the transition of the new research center.”

“He should’ve been back by now, I thought he’d be joining me for the meeting with Captain Night Stalker,” Falafel said giving her a quizzical look.

My host gasped. “Oh yeah, he sent you a message on your terminal, I almost forgot. He said he won’t be back till next week, something about Ministry Mare Applejack stopping by for an inspection.”

He sighed, putting a hoof to his head. “I should’ve figured he’d leave me to deal with this alone.”

“You could always reschedule,” my host said. “I can get in contact with somepony and say you came down with something, or that you can’t make the meeting today,” she continued, walking over to a terminal and starting to type out a letter.

“No need Lily, I can’t put this off. Plus, getting ahold of the Captain isn’t so easy. I’ll just have to do this on my own and hope for the best,” he said, giving her a smile.

She blushed. “Well… maybe I could help you prepare for the meeting. You said you have a couple hours, right?” Wow she really likes him, either that or something else in the room was doing things to her back there. I highly doubted it was the latter.

He was blushing as well, running a hoof over his mane as he spoke sheepishly, “Well, I did have some paperwork to finish, but… I guess I could put that off for now.”

She walked around the counter and kissed his nose. “It’s not good to go into a meeting too stressed out sir.”

“Are…you sure?” he asked.

“I’m always sure,” my host said, taking him by the hoof and leading him away up toward the office I was in now. As she walked in I saw the office looked just like it did now, only cleaner. My host led the stallion over to the desk and pushed him against it. Her lips met his and the two kissed passionately.

The next hour or so was extremely uncomfortable for me. The two of them used the desk and floor like it was a bed, and went to town on each other. This was something I hadn’t ever done before, and even though I was in another mare, I could feel… EVERYTHING. Honestly it felt pretty good, but I also felt a little violated. It was almost like it was my own first time, even if I wasn’t really the one who was doing any of this.

Oh, I had no idea a mare could flex like that, wow. Okay so I’m going to do my best to ignore the rest of the playing around they were doing. Finally, they finished, laying on the floor both breathing hard, sweat rolling off their bodies. They held each other as they both looked up at the celling of Falafel’s office.

Falafel finally spoke after a little while, “Do you ever worry about what would happen if we got caught Lily?”

My host’s eyes wandered over to meet his, the small smile on her face slowly fading away. She nuzzled into him speaking slowly, “I don’t wanna think about it, I just want to enjoy you while I can.”

He let out a deep sigh. “If Flapjack found out, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“He’d be pissed, you two would fight, we would fight…he’d leave me. I don’t think you two could handle something like that,” Lily said.

He sighed again. “I wish I would’ve met you before Flapjack did, maybe things would be different.”

She smiled. “Daddy wouldn’t have allowed it though, he always liked Flapjack, and you know how he feels about you.”

“I don’t care what your father thinks, all I know is that I love you. All my brother wanted out of marrying you was the money your father could invest into this business,” Falafel said.

“You know there was more to it than that, and you love this business just as much as he does,” she said.

Falafel sighed softly, “That was true once, but now days I’m not so sure. We hardly even make tools anymore. Since we partnered with the Ministry of Wartime Technology, we’re focusing more on making armor and new parts for firearms. And don’t get me started on what we have to help Robronco with.”

“Everypony has to do their part to help with the war effort,” she responded.

He looked over at my host with a sad look in his eyes. “I know, and I still hate it. Sometimes I just wish I could go back to using my company to make tools to help farmers, or carpenters, or even just the everyday stallion who builds things in his free time. I just want my old life back.”

She pulled him close and kissed him for a long moment. When she pulled away she said softly, “We all do, but unfortunately, we can’t, so we have to work hard to make sure Equestria makes it through this. F&F Tool, has it’s part to play, and with your leadership I know we’ll do great things.”

“You’re right, but you can’t blame a guy for dreaming,” he said as he looked up toward a clock on the wall, his face went pale and he jumped to his hooves. “Fuck, the Captain is going to be here any minute. Quick, we have to get the office cleaned up before he shows up…”

The memory faded after that just as the two started rushing around trying to clean up…

oooOOOooo

I moaned, lifting my head looking around the office. I could still hear the storm raging outside. The thunder cracking and rain falling, it was soothing for some reason. I looked over at the memory orb, slowly picking it up with a hoof. “I wonder why you made a memory orb over that, it didn’t seem like much happened apart from the affair.”

Then it hit me, those two had fallen in love, but for some reason they couldn’t be together. Maybe this memory was just something special to Falafel. I wonder what happened to them after this. I probably wouldn’t ever find out, life was just unfair like that. A memory orb was like reading a book somewhere in the middle and never getting to see the beginning or the end.

I sighed and went to roll off the cot when I noticed something wet in my nethers. I looked down and saw a wet stain between my legs. I groaned and rolled away, I really didn’t think I’d enjoyed the memory THAT much. Trying to get my mind off of everything I decided to see what was on the radio, lifting my Pip-Buck I went to turn on Dj-Pon3. When I brought up the radio tab of my Pip-Buck, I saw two more stations had shown up.

One was listed as Emergency Broadcast 6109, the other as Radio New Pegasus. I thought it was interesting how my Pip-Buck knew what things were called, but by this point I was getting used to the Pip-Buck’s features. I moved down the list and selected the third channel for Dj-Pon3. It was just finishing a song, then the DJ came on.

“Hello my faithful listeners, that was the beautiful voice of Sweetie Belle,” came the stallion’s voice over the air waves, he started talking about some of the local news from back east near Manehatten, then further away in Hoofington. “And if you’re traveling anywhere near Ponyville, be sure to steer clear of the old ghost town. I’ve been getting reports of slavers traveling near there, those mixed with the raiders who’ve taken up there is more than a good reason to stay away.”

I listened for a bit longer and was about to change it when the DJ said something that caught my ear, “Now listeners, for those of you all the way out west. Now I know I don’t bring you much news, but earlier tonight, something happened that caught my attention. For the past, few years a town of fiends has been under the mountain where the abandoned Stable 9 was. Well as of a few hours ago, the town has been destroyed, buried by the same mountain that held Stable 9. Now I know what you’re all thinking, Dj-Pon3 how could an entire mountain just fall onto a town like that?” The DJ went on after a moment’s pause. “Well, I don’t have all the information yet, but from what I know so far, there were sightings of a strange creature flying away from the mouth of the cave where the entrance of the Stable was. That however wasn’t the strangest thing, no not at all. Right after the creature flew off from the Stable none other than the Courier Mare I spoke of before was seen trying to escape the Stable with a little help. Reports I have so far don’t say much about what happened, but I know that she was captured by the leader of the fiends. A while later though she was spotted running away from the town right before a huge explosion took out the mountain and the town.”

My jaw dropped open. “What the hell? How does he know all that?”

DJ continued, “Stable 9 and the fiends that lived around it are all gone now, and if you ask me faithful listeners, I say good riddance. The fiends in that area have been causing a lot of problems for the settlements around there. So, if you’re out there somewhere little Courier Mare, thank you from me and the rest of the ponies around that area. Keep up the good work. Well that’s it for now, this is DJ-Pon3 bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts, next up is Sapphire Shores…”

I clicked off the radio and just looked at my Pip-Buck in astonishment. It hadn’t been that long since I left that damned town buried under fire and rock. How did a pony all the way back in Manehatten find out so much already? And why didn’t he mention my friends, if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have even made it out alive. I mean yeah, I was the one who blew up the Stable, but Aura helped… kind of. So, what if I was the one who’d blown up that Goddesses forsaken place and took out the Fiends who were left in the town. I didn’t do it to help anypony. I only did it to kill the monsters living in the stable, so they couldn’t get out.

I fell onto my back on the cot and groaned covering my eyes with my hooves. “Why! I just don’t understand why?”

Uncovering my eyes, I looked up at the ceiling. I did my best to forget about the DJ and his talk about me saving ponies, even if I didn’t. Taking down the raiders back in Cartwheel was mostly luck, and really the same thing with Stable 9. Right now, I just needed to get back to the Rangers and check on my friends. That was the first priority, second was treating my radiation sickness.

Even with the storm still raging outside, I started to wonder if I should just leave and try to get back to Hidden Sands. I couldn’t seem to rest, my mind was wandering, and I had no idea what else to do. I didn’t wanna go back out into the storm either. I thought maybe I should at least still try and get some sleep, maybe I’d feel better. Maybe if I could get some sleep my body wouldn’t feel so horrible, that blast from Stable 9 was still making my body feel off.

I closed my eyes to go to sleep, when out of nowhere a loud boom came from downstairs. My eye’s snapped open and I jumped to my hooves grabbing my shotgun from beside the cot. Quietly I made my way over to the door and pressed an ear to it. Right as my ear touched the door, I heard Watts on the other side of it.

“Ms. Shadow Star, are you okay in there?” he asked, from the other side of the door.

“Yeah I’m fine. What was that sound?” I whispered, keeping my voice down just in case.

“Oh, it seems like some ponies broke through the front door. Stay in there and I’ll take care of them,” Watts said.

“Wait, no. Don’t go down there Watts,” I tried to say, but I heard him floating away.

“Damn, he’s gonna get himself killed or destroyed, or whatever it is for a robot.” I loaded my shotgun, then listened at the door again, waiting to hear what would happen. If whoever they were attacked Watts, I’d be down there in seconds.

“Good evening and welcome to F&F Tools. I’m sorry, but we are closed for the evening,” I could hear Watts say from downstairs.

A deep voice echoed up, “Shut it robot, we’re looking for somepony. We have a feeling she came this way.”

Watts apologized, “Sorry sir, but nopony has been in for quite a long time. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Listen here you deformed hunk of metal, we don’t have time to be messing around,” another voice said, followed by a loud bang.

I heard something metallic hit the ground. Unlocking the door, I opened it slowly and started to sneak to the stairway. I went part-way down, then peeked over the railing to see who’d broken into the lobby. I wasn’t expecting what I saw. Three Pegasi were standing in the lobby. The one who was close to the fallen robot had a shiny red coat and black mane, black combat armor covering his back and chest. The one next to him, was a white mare with a short cut pink mane, she was dressed just like the Red Stallion. The third was uh… well I couldn’t tell if it was a stallion or a mare considering the fact that the pony was wearing black power armor. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before, it had a buggy look to it, it also looked lighter than what the Steel Rangers wore. The visor over the eyes reminded me of a bug, the armor itself was like a carapace, and it’s tail ended in a sharp glowing stinger. Oh yeah, and all three were pegasi.

“Take a look around, we need to find her. If she’s been traveling with him she might know where he’s gone. Remember not to shoot her, even if she shoots at you. If she’s dead she can’t tell us where he is, try to be as peaceful as possible, even if she IS a savage,” the pony in the power armor said.

“Got it, don’t shoot the savage,” the other stallion said co-operatively.

I guess the pony in the power armor is a stallion too, at least it sounded like it. Who is this mysterious ‘He’ they’re looking for? Could they mean Stardust? It could be, but I had no way of knowing. As far as I knew, I had no way out of here, so I’d either have to try and shoot my way past them, or hope I could hide in the office.

Neither option sounded good to me. On my E.F.S. they showed up white, so for the moment they weren’t hostile. If I was lucky, maybe I could talk my way out of this, Auntie always said I had a way with words. I kept my head down and praying to Celestia for this to work, I said loudly, “Hey, that robot you shot was a friend of mine, didn’t anypony ever teach you that it’s rude to barge in and break somepony’s stuff.”

I heard two of the ponies jump, and a hum started coming from their direction. It must’ve been their weapons warming up to fire. The pony in the power armor replied, looking around the room for the source of my voice. “Don’t fire, it looks like our prey found us.”

“Yes sir!” both said quickly, so I guess he WAS a stallion. Good to know.

Still searching for my position, he asked, “Are you the mare who took down the town near that Stable just north of here?”

“I might be. Who’s asking?” I asked, slowly moving down toward the bottom of the stairs.

“Sergeant Winter Frost, the two with me are Windstorm, and Nimbus. We’re looking for an escaped prisoner, reports say he was in the company of a pony known as the Courier Mare,” he answered.

I peeked around the corner checking on their positions, the two in combat armor were still looking toward where I was, the one in armor Winter Frost was looking around toward the ceiling with his head moving around slowly. I wonder what he’s looking for?

I turned my head to project my voice upward toward the top of the stairs. “I’ve been called that by DJ-Pon3, but I don’t know anything about a prisoner.”

“His name is Stardust, he escaped from our facility and we’re here to bring him back,” Winter Frost said, his voice calm and steady.

They were looking for Stardust? What was this about him escaping from a facility? I wondered if they meant the Stable he was from, or maybe it was a kind of prison. I still didn’t know much about him, but I couldn’t see him being an escaped prisoner.

“What facility are you talking about, and why should I tell you if I did know this Stardust?” I asked.

“He’s a deranged pony who’s a wanted fugitive, that’s all you need to know,” he replied, sounding as if he was getting more annoyed with me by the second.

“Well I don’t know a pony by that name, so I can’t help you,” I said. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll fall for the lie and leave me be.

I heard their guns starting to hum again as Winter Frost spoke, “Listen here Courier, you were spotted with a Pegasus just a few hours ago, don’t lie to us. We need to find him and take him back to where he belongs.”

Okay this was getting annoying. “I’ll say it again, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Whose authority do you have to just come and take somepony away anyway?”

“The authority of the Grand Pegasus Enclave that’s who, all Pegasi in Equestria are under our directive. This Pegasus is a criminal and he has to pay for his crimes. If you don’t tell us where he is, you’ll be taken prisoner and interrogated until you disclose his location,” Winter Frost said with a hint of annoyance.

“Yeah…that’s not happening, try again next week. Maybe I’ll have a clue who you’re talking about then,” I said peeking around the corner once again. The stallion Windstorm moved closer to the stairs, the ends of his guns glowing pink.

“You want to do this the hard way? Fine with me. Go get her,” Winter Frost said.

“Yes sir!” they both said again. As they did Windstorm moved closer and was about to go up the stairs.

I chose then to whip around the corner at the bottom of the stairway pointing my shotgun right at his head. He had a momentary look of surprise as I pulled the trigger. To my surprise, he twisted around quickly as the shot went off, the buckshot only grazing the side of his cheek and helmet. As he turned Nimbus bit down on the bit that was attached to both of her guns, it fired two jets of pink light toward me. I managed to dodge one, but the second beam hit my side, burning right through my duster and singeing my side.

I screamed in pain as I fell back to the stairway. Wincing, I started to go back up the stairs. Windstorm and Nimbus ran toward me, but I fired off two rounds making them take cover around the corner. My side was burning in pain as I made it to the top and ducked around the corner as two more beams of light hit the wall. I fired again back down the stairs, but didn’t look to see if I’d hit anything.

“Madam…head to the roof…there’s a way out up there,” came the voice of Watts from downstairs. I guess he was still kicking.

I looked back down the hall toward the office and noticed another door that was opened to another stairway. I ran for it and just got around the doorway when more bursts of light flew past me, blasting the door to the office. It exploded into bits of wood and light. I chanced a look down the hall again and saw Winter Frost slowly walking toward me, his two minions close behind. I looked back toward the office and saw my saddle bags. I had to get out of here, but I still needed those. The whole reason for doing this mission was sitting in my saddle bags.

“There’s no way out of here Courier, it would be best if you just surrender now, before you get hurt,” Winter Frost said.

“No way, I’d rather die than go anywhere with you!” I yelled back at him, franticly looking around for anything that could help me get out of this. Then I saw it, there was a box next to the stairs that lead up to the roof with the words ‘Danger, Explosives’ stamped on it. Now that looked fun, I do like a good bang.

Using my weak magic, I pulled out a couple metal apples with a dark red band around them. As I pulled one of them out, a nail sticking out of the box caught the stem and pulled it out. The handle on the side popped up and off, followed by a slight clicking sound. “Oh Shit!” I said and threw the metal apple down the hallway.

“Fuck, get down!” yelled Winter Frost followed by a loud explosion. Flames flew down the hallway followed by a loud rumble. When it passed, I chanced another look down the hall. The ceiling had fallen down blocking the path, blood was pooling from under one of the large pieces of concrete.

I wasn’t sure what happened, but I could still see two red bars on my E.F.S. Looks like I got one of them, but two were still left alive. At the moment nopony was shooting at me through the gaps in the concrete, so I turned and grabbed my saddle bags and shot back toward the stairs that lead up to the roof. I made sure to put the rest of the explosives crate’s contents in my saddle bags as I passed by it. As I made my way up toward the roof I saw more red bars and said, “How many of those motherfuckers are there?”

I pushed the door open. Keeping to the shadows coming off the ventilation shafts on the roof, I snuck toward the side of the building. Looking up I saw six more Pegasi flying around in the rain. Thankfully none of them noticed me coming out of the doorway. There was a loud bang from the street followed by the voice of Winter Frost.

“She’s escaped, check the roof! The bitch killed Windstorm, I want her taken alive. Hurt her as much as you want, but keep her alive, she’s mine,” his voice echoed up.

All six ponies fell toward the roof, magical energy weapons glowing as they started to search for me. I was like a sitting duck up here, there wasn’t any possible way to leave without getting seen. I had a couple more of those grenades, but I wasn’t sure how well they’d work in the wide-open space. I wanted to scream with frustration as I looked for a way out of the situation. My magic was still weak, so teleporting was out of the question, I still felt sick from the massive amount of radiation I took from the exploding Stable, so I wasn’t sure how fast I could run either.

One of the Pegasi came around the corner where I was hiding, he started to yell a warning, but my shotgun came up first and blasted him in the face. He fell back, blood flying in the air. Shots started to ring out as the other Pegasi turned my direction. Two flew up into the air firing down at me, I jumped out of the way, but I was still stuck up here with nowhere to go. I fired at another pegasus that came running toward me, he dodged my shot and ducked behind a chunk of concrete that was sticking up out of the roof.

I ran back to the door that lead into the building and used it as my own cover, hopping that it would keep the flying enemies from firing down at me. Now I was really trapped, the hall was blocked and ponies were blocking the roof.

I heard a humming sound from behind me, I turned around quickly and saw Watts floating there. “Watts, you’re okay. How did you get over here, the hall is blocked by rubble?”

“They only shot me with an energy rifle, did a number on my internal circuits. Nothing I can’t handle, it just took a bit to get myself up and going again. As to how I got up here, there’s another way up here from down below, through the factory,” he replied.

I looked back at the open door, then back at the robot. “Is there a way out through there?”

He pointed his claw arm toward another door across the hall. “Yes ma’am, that way leads down to the factory, there’s a back door on the other end.”

“Why didn’t you tell me to go that way then instead of toward the roof?” I said irritated watching the door to the roof.

“The factory isn’t really a safe way to go, I didn’t know they would have friends up on the roof,” he warned.

A pegasus landed at the threshold of the door ready to fire his energy rifles. I brought up my shotgun ready to fire, but Watts floated past me firing bolts of energy of his own. The Pegasus wasn’t fast enough to avoid the shot, two of the bolts hit, and the pony started to glow. In an instant, his body turned to ash. Two more ponies landed by the door firing toward us, using my magic I slammed the door shut.

“I don’t care how dangerous the factory is, it can’t be much worse than up there,” I said going back into the hall.

“Ms. Shadow Star the factory is full of radiation, it was repurposed a few years before the war ended to make bombs, after all the years, some of the bombs left over started to leak,” Watts said sounding genuinely concerned. “I can tell that you have been exposed to a lot of radiation recently, I’m not sure you could handle more exposure. Pardon my brashness considering the situation but, you’re positively glowing.”

Great, now I’m being compared to a glow stick. I looked back toward the door to the roof, it was starting to glow red as shots of energy hit it from the other side. “I’ll risk it,” I said making my way toward the door. I was starting to regret coming to this place.

I just made it through the door, shutting it when the door to the roof blew open. Looking around franticly I saw a large filing cabinet laying on its side. Using my magic, I tried lifting it. It lifted a little, but I didn’t have enough power yet to make it flip over. Reading my mind, Watts floated over and pushed on the filling cabinet. Slowly it floated in front of the door. I let it fall to the ground with a bang against the door.

“Okay, which way do we take to get out of here?” I asked Watts looking around the factory floor.

I could see tall windows over most of the walls letting in dim light from the lightning still flashing outside. Conveyers ran up and down the large open room with places for ponies to either run the machines or inspect the work as it made its way down the line. I could see a few skeletons along the small walkways, and cracked metal shells leaking rainbow fluid. As I stood looking over the factory I noticed my Pip-Buck was slowly clicking.

“If you hurry down the main walkway Miss Shadow Star, you’ll find a rear exit. I’m sure you’ll be able to go out through there,” he said starting to head toward the stairs.

“If you say so,” I said following the robot. We made our way down to the factory floor just past another door that I figured lead back into the front office. Walking down the aisle I did my best not to step on the twisted skeletons. My Pip-Buck clicked faster and faster as I got closer to the middle of the factory. Something in my gut was starting to wiggle and my vison started going red around the edges. My Pip-Buck kept sending flashes across my vision saying I was experiencing Severe Radiation Sickness.

“Miss Shadow Star, are you feeling okay?” Watts asked as we grew closer to the double doors leading to freedom.

“No, I’m not, but I can keep going, we’re almost there,” I said weakly. I took a couple more steps toward him when a few red bars showed up on my E.F.S. “Watts we need to hide,” I said quickly ducking under one of the conveyer belts just in time. The doors blasted open, followed by four Pegasi, leading them was Winter Frost. Watts let his body fall to the ground looking like just a broken robot.

“This is the only other way she could’ve come. Find her,” Winter Frost said.

“Sir can’t you locate her on your E.F.S.?” one of them asked.

“Something in this place is interfering with it. Start looking, she’s here, I know it,” he said starting to walk down the main aisle.

So, he did have an E.F.S. in that helmet, I was wondering about that. I wonder why it didn’t work though, my own was working just fine. Maybe it had something to do with my Pip-Buck, or maybe it was just made better than his power armor.

Keeping to the shadows, I slowly holstered my shotgun then pulled out Aura’s energy spear. If I shot anything in here, they’d hear it right away and I’d be screwed. Stealth is what I needed right now. I slowly made my way over to Watts and whispered, “Stay here and don’t move unless you have to, I have a plan,” In response, he moved one of his camera eyes up and down.

Winter Frost was the biggest threat to me right now, but his power armor looked like it could block an attack from the spear, so I kept close to the ground and continued on toward a blue pegasus a couple aisles down from me. Holding the energy spear in my magic, I moved behind him as he looked under one of the other conveyer belts. I hit the switch near the bottom of the spear and it lit up like a light.

He must’ve noticed the glow because as I came up, he turned to look. When he saw me, he started to yell out in alarm. I stepped forward sending the tip of the energy spear through his left eye. His body convulsed violently, his cry coming out as a hissing moan before his body fell to the ground sliding off the end of the spear. I flipped off the blood and ducked under another conveyer belt checking to see if anypony noticed. All I saw was the face of the dead pegasus, his eye smoking where I stabbed him.

Moving quickly, I got behind another one, and using the spear I thrust it through the back of his head. He gave off a small scream before he died. I dropped back down to the ground as Winter Frost and the other pegasi turned. I started to creep away from the body.

“What the fuck was that?” Winter Frost asked making his way toward me and the pony I just killed. “Where did Quick Silver and Monsoon go?”

“I found Monsoon Boss, he’s dead,” the mare said. “Somepony got him with an Energy spear or lance, there’s a smoking hole in his eye.”

Winter Frost started looking around. “Looks like I was right, our friend is still in here,” he said as he put a hoof up to his helmet. “Send more ponies down to the factory, cover the entrances, I don’t want her to escape.”

“Okay, well now I’m fucked,” I whispered to myself trying my best to make my way around the mare who was walking toward where I killed the last pony.

“Boss looks like she got Quick Silver too,” she said moving closer to the body and putting her back toward me.

“That bitch. He was a good soldier, she’ll pay for this,” Winter Frost said as three more Pegasi made their way into the factory. I couldn’t stay here too much longer; my rad meter was deep in the yellow inching closer to the red. My stomach was doing loops, and I wasn’t sure how long I could handle my magic.

I moved closer to Watts and whispered, “Just stay down. I’m going to see if I can sneak past them,” he shook one of his eyes, but I just ignored it and moved past him. The robot started to move, so I gave him a long look until he stopped.

“There’s no way out of here kid, I have plenty of sentries around the perimeter. If you come out, I’ll go easy on you, even though you killed my soldiers,” Winter Frost said, slowly walking down each aisle.

Moving in the other direction I said, “I thought you would’ve given up on that tactic by now. If you wanna catch me, you’re gonna have to do it the hard way.”

He turned toward the direction my voice came from, the beam rifles on his sides glowing. “So, you’re still in here? How long do you think you can hide from us?”

“Not too much longer, but I plan on getting out of here before I have to worry about it,” I said making sure to keep moving, staying low.

“I will admit, you do have determination for such a small pony. If you’d have grown up in The Enclave, you would’ve made a good soldier, even for a unicorn,” Winter Frost said.

“I’m flattered, but I think the lack of wings would’ve been a problem,” I said getting closer to the mare who was still moving slowly down another aisle.

“You should be, it’s not often I complement a dirt pony like yourself.” As he spoke I jumped up and went to stab the mare. As I went for her Winter Frost yelled, “Tuck and roll Feather Duster.”

The mare reacted quickly ducking under my thrust then rolling around and batting the spear away. She threw her other hoof up cracking me under the chin throwing me back. Dazed, I rolled away from her next kick, doing my best to grab hold of the spear again. Jumping to my hooves I activated S.A.T.S. and aimed three hits toward her head. As time slowed I struck, but do to the radiation sickness my aim was off. The first two missed as she threw her head to the side. My last strike nicked her cheek and clipped her ear.

Blood landed on the floor as she yelled from the deep cut. Flipping the spear around I attacked again, but she wasn’t having it, she flipped around and bucked me in the chest throwing me back. I heard and felt a snap in my chest. Pain racked my body and I screamed as I fell onto a skeleton.

She walked over toward me aiming her rifle at me. “Don’t move!”

Winter Frost walked over next to her chuckling a little as he spoke, “Times up Courier. Are you ready to tell me what I want to know?”

I smiled up at him doing my best to ignore the pain in my chest. It felt like I broke a couple ribs, or at least cracked them. It’s hard to breath that’s for sure. “Nah, I’m good.”

“You’re finished Courier, you’re sick, and out of options. Now tell me where I can find Stardust,” Winter Frost said angrily.

I tasted blood in my mouth from the kick to my jaw, and I spit it right in his face. I smiled again and gasped out, “The answer’s still no, so why don’t you just kill me and get it over with.”

“You won’t hurt her again you ruffian,” Watts yelled from across the room firing his built-in energy pistol toward the two.

Winter Frost just let the beam hit his armor. When it bounced off, he turned and fired his own weapon at the robot. The beams hit Watts, two of his eyes exploded and his floating talisman went out as he fell to the ground, sparks flying everywhere. He turned back toward me moving an armored hoof up to wipe the blood off his visor. “That’s a lot better, looks like that damned robot was the center of the interference in here. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to our conversation.”

Tears rolled down my face as I looked over at the destroyed robot. I know he was just a machine, but he helped me. It was my fault this happened to him. I looked back at Winter Frost glaring at him as I spoke, “Fuck you and your damned Enclave.”

A sigh came from his muzzle. “I can see you’re determined to the end. Fine have it your way, you’re no more use to me. I’ll have to find another way to find him.” His beam guns started to glow again as he pointed them toward me.

I was going to die, there’s no way around it, but I wasn’t gonna go down without one last fight. Using what little magic I had left, I took hold of the energy spear, activated S.A.T.S. and aimed two hits toward Winter Frost’s head. Both attacks missed, but as I sat there in the peaceful world of S.A.T.S. something moved in my peripheral vision, moving faster than anypony should be able too when the spell matrix was active.

A pony in a long trenchcoat and a desperado cowpony hat, landed among the ponies who were starting to come in from the exit to the factory. I couldn’t tell what color his coat was because he was wrapped in bandages keeping his face hidden, his eyes shadowed by the hat’s brim. He pulled out a long-barreled revolver and in quick secession he fired off six rounds, killing all the ponies who had slowly been coming through. As the spell matrix started to fade, he jumped over the falling bodies, reloading his revolver as he moved. He landed next to the Mare just as the spell finished and time went back to normal.

“What the fuck?” was all the she got out before the mysterious pony apple-bucked her in the jaw, sending her flying through the air. As she flew backward, he lifted his revolver and fired. The bullet punched a hole in her chest. She was dead before she hit the ground.

Winter Frost flipped around and fired at the mysterious pony. He however dodged to one side, the beams missing him by inches. The mysterious pony rolled on the ground stopping next to me, his revolver trained on Winter Frost’s head.

Winter Frost glared at him from inside his power armor. “Who the fuck are you, do you realize who you just attacked?”

The pony spoke, his voice tinny and deep like he himself was in power armor, “No pony really, just a wanderer. Tell me. Why is The Enclave trying to kill a small mare like this? Did she do something to earn the wrath of the Enclave?”

“She has information we need and it is none of your concern,” Winter Frost replied.

The mysterious pony looked around at the dead pegasi. “Looks like it is now. I’d suggest you leave Sargent Winter Frost, before you find yourself in the same situation as your friends.”

In response Winter Frost only laughed then fired his weapons once again. The mysterious pony grabbed hold of me jumping high, landing on the other side of a pile of inactive bomb shells. As he landed I saw bandaged wings folding under his coat. Setting me down carefully, he picked up the energy spear and placed it next to me as he turned back toward Winter Frost.

“You’re fast for a dirt pony I’ll give you that, I’m also surprised you know who I am. Too bad I don’t have time to find out how you know so much, unfortunately I’m running out of time. For your crime of killing soldiers of the Enclave, I sentence you to death,” Winter Frost said firing another blast of magical energy toward the pony.

Like before he dodged it then fired back at the armored stallion. The bullet bit through the leg of Winter Frost’s armor and he howled in pain as the leg gave out. The Mysterious pony fired twice more, disconnecting the wires that ran from the sides of the Power Armor to the twin energy rifles.

“I’ll say it again Sargent, leave here now before it’s too late. I really don’t want to kill another Enclave soldier if I don’t have to, but I will if you try and attack this young mare or me again,” The Mysterious pony said.

Winter Frost lifted himself back up, his right foreleg shaking violently, as he, “You bastard, I’ll make sure you pay for this, but I know when I’m beat.” He looked over at me. “We’ll meet again Courier, count on it, and when we do, Stardust won’t be the only one I’m after.”

I wanted to say something witty and sarcastic back to him like Stardust probably would’ve, but all could do was cough and give a weak bloody smile. Winter Frost flapped his wings and flew out the open door vanishing into the storm that still raged outside. “I hope you get stuck by lightning you son of a bitch,” I said to myself, hoping my wish would come true. When that was done, the mysterious pony turned around again holstering his revolver and walked back toward me.

“Who…are you?” I asked as he knelt down pulling a healing potion and a couple of Rad-aways out from his pockets.

He looked down at me, his eyes still covered by the shadow of his Desperado Hat, and he spoke still with his voice tinny and deep, “No pony, just a Stranger who saw a pony in need. Now drink this, your radiation levels are dangerously high and you have a couple broken ribs. The potions will help, but you’ll still need to see a doctor.”

I drank the potions, feeling their effect almost instantly. “Thanks for the help.”

“You should call your Steel Ranger friends for help. They have a patrol not far from here, you should be able to reach them with your broadcaster,” he said turning to leave.

“Wait a minute.” He stopped and looked back at me as I continued, “At least tell me your name and why a pegasus would kill his own kind.”

The bandages around his lips rose as if he were smiling. “Not yet Shadow. Stay safe, and watch who you make friends with. It could get you killed.”

Before I could ask him what he meant, there was a flash of light and he was gone. I looked around for a moment, confused at what he said. “What the fuck was that all about?”

“Ms….Shadow,” the mechanical voice of Watts echoed from behind me.

I turned and saw his remaining eye was lifted and he was looking over at me. “Watts, you’re still alive?”

“In a small sense, I suppose. The more important question is… Are you okay?” he said moving one of his spidery limbs dragging himself toward me.

I walked over to him slowly, my body still hurting. When I reached him I knelt down. “Don’t waste any more of your energy.”

His eye looked up at me and he said with a crackle in his voice, “Do you think…master Falafel would be proud of me?”

Holding back a tear I said, “Very proud Watts, just rest for now, I’ll see if we can get you fixed.”

“Good idea Ms. Shadow Star…I’ll…do that.” His eye fell forward, the body going limp. I wasn’t sure if he was gone or just powered down. Not caring, I lifted the robot in my weak magic and Aura’s energy spear, then started making my way out of the factory. When I made it out I checked the sky quickly for any sign of The Enclave. Apart from the rain still falling, I couldn’t see any sign of them.

Remembering what that pony told me, I lifted my Pip-Buck and checked the broadcaster. I saw a couple channels showing up, one was just a jumble of letters, and the other was Military 6bt67j. Hoping I was right, I clicked the latter and ignored the former. I had no idea how this worked so I just started to speak.

“This is The Courier Shadow Star of Equestrian Express, I’m alone and in need of help, if any Steel Rangers are in the area of the old F&F Tool factory, please come help.” When I finished, I saw an icon that said ‘set to repeat’ I clicked it then dropped the menu hoping it would work.

Looking around I saw one of the dilapidated buildings still had a little bit of a roof left on it. I made my way over to it, I climbed through a hole in the side and sat under the roof against one of the walls, setting Watts next to me. I lifted the spear and looked it over again, I was amazed at how well it was crafted. Whoever Aura got this from they took time and put a lot of work into it. With a sigh, I folded the spear up and stuck it into the saddle bags.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the pain that still ran through my body. The potions helped, but I still felt sick and my chest hurt with each breath I took. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to wait too long for somepony to come find me. As I waited there I started to think about that mysterious pony who came to help me.

Why would he hide who he was like that? Was he trying to keep his identity secret from the Enclave, or from me? I know I saw wings under the trenchcoat, but he also just vanished like a pony who teleported. He was definitely a good fighter and scary fast. I guess I’m lucky he was on my side, or at least he acted like he was. If he hadn’t been, there was no way I could’ve taken him on.

A little bit of time went by, the rain started to slow down giving the sound of silence to the dark night. As I sat there just looking out toward the cloudy sky a light glistened on the road. I tucked my head back behind the wall listening for whoever was out there. I could see four white bars on my E.F.S. but that didn’t mean they were friendly, only not hostile at the moment.

“Paladin Stalk, that looks like the place,” a voice said from across the road.

“The transmission said she would be here, Scribe Hazel and Knight Jasper go check it out,” another voice said, followed by two voices saying, “YES SIR!”

I peeked around the corner and saw three ponies in power armor and a unicorn mare in a uniform. Picking up Watts and the saddle bags I limped out of the building across from F&F Tools shouting, “I’m right here!”

The three in power armor turned quickly, two aiming rocket launchers at me. The one who wasn’t, was a huge pony in dark grey armor. With a strict firmness, he said, “Identify yourself.”

“I’m Shadow Star, I sent the distress call, I assume you’re the patrol from the Steel Rangers,” I said.

“Sir, she matches the description given by the Elder,” the mare in the uniform said.

The larger pony looked at the other two in power armor. “Lower your weapons, she’s the one were looking for,” he said, then started walking toward me. “Shadow Star, I’m Paladin Celery Stalk, we received your transmission. We were out here looking for you anyway, your friends made it back to the bunker safe and sound. Elder Appleslice asked us to go look for you.”

I slumped as exhaustion overtook me, Watts and the saddle bags falling to the ground. The mare ran over to me and started looking me over. “You don’t look well Ms. Star, tell me what’s wrong and where it hurts.”

“You’ll have to wait to look her over Scribe Hazel. That Talon Company we saw can’t be far behind, I’m sure they picked up on the transmission too,” Paladin Stalk said looking back at his two knights. “You two keep your eyes to the sky, Scribe Hazel, you’ll have to look her over while we travel. Shadow, are you okay to walk?”

I looked over at him and tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t move. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can go on, my body’s taken too much, and I’ve been suffering from radiation poisoning.”

“Then you’ll have to ride on my back,” he said turning again. “Scribe Hazel follow along side of me and try to look her over while we move.”

“Yes sir,” she said with a weird salute to her chest.

“Wait! Ride on your what now!?” I tried to say, but the large pony lifted me with his hoof and placed me on his back. One of the Knights grabbed my saddle bags and they all formed up. I looked over toward Watts. “Wait, we can’t leave him behind.”

Paladin Stalk looked over at the broken robot. “You mean that hunk of metal? We don’t have time to be carrying around broken junk.”

I wiggled and tried to slide off the large pony. “He helped me back in the factory, and I’m not leaving him behind. Can’t you at least bring him with and try and fix him?”

Scribe Hazel looked over the Robot quickly. “The robot is a gen three Mr. Handy, its memory and most of its internal parts are still intact.”

“We don’t have time to discuss this, Knight Coconut Cream grab the robot and let’s get going,” Paladin Celery Stalk said.

I stopped my wiggling and looked back at him, “Thank you, Paladin.”

“No thanks are needed, it’s simple, if I fight you on this it will take longer to get out of here,” he said then exclaimed, “Hurry it up and let’s move out!”

With that, the other three formed up on him. Then we were off, the armored ponies running down the road toward the dark hills. As they ran, Scribe Hazel started casting a spell over me and mumbling under her breath. My body started to tingle as she worked whatever magic she was using.

She stopped her mumbling then looked at me. “That can’t be right.”

“What’s wrong? Did I take more radiation than I thought?” I asked.

“It’s true that you took a lot of radiation, you also took some rad-away. That I know for sure, and it helped. You also have three cracked ribs and a couple torn muscles and other minor injuries that will need to be looked at by the doctor. That’s not what worries me,” she said still giving me that strange look.

“Then what’s wrong?” I asked again.

“Something inside you…it feels…” Before she could finish what she was saying a loud scream filled the air.

The Knight carrying the saddle bags yelled, “Griffons Paladin, at least two wings.”

Looking up I saw six griffons diving at us from the sky. Three of them coming from the north, the others from the northeast. Paladin Stalk cursed under his breath. “Shadow hang on to me tight.”

I did as he said, wrapping my hooves around his metal neck. He flipped around skidding to a halt, two massive guns folded out from the side of his power armor. With a loud bang, he fired at the descending griffons. The wing he fired at all banked sharply to one side. The other wing dove for the Knights, one pulling out a long rusty looking tube.

“Missile!” Scribe Hazel yelled.

The large stallion I was on, whipped around again and fired his massive guns. The griffon exploded into red mist and chunks of meat, the metal tube he was holding fell toward the ground. The others opened fire with oddly shaped rifles. I felt magic envelop me pulling me away from Paladin Stalk. I looked over to see Scribe Hazel using her magic to levitate me toward her.

We were behind a rock keeping us safe from the small battle going on. I looked over at her and asked, “What’s going on?”

“They look like the Red Talons, they have a contract to get ahold of you from what we know. They must’ve heard your transmission. They sent two wings to retrieve you,” she said ducking her head as an explosion went off on the other side of the boulder.

“Why though? Aura stole their contract so she could fulfill the bounty. When she heard my side of the story I thought she would’ve told them after I left,” I asked.

“We aren’t sure why yet, normally we use The Talons for bounties, or receiving high end tech we can’t get ourselves. They usually keep quiet about their clients unless they’re informing the pony with the bounty of the situation. I think your friend might’ve forgot to tell them your side of the story," he said.

“Well let’s shoot now and ask questions later,” I responded.

“I’m gonna stop you right there, you’re sick and injured, there’s no way I’m gonna let you fight. Just stay here and wait until we get control of the situation,” Hazel said putting a hoof on my shoulder.

“So, you expect me to sit back and hide while you protect me?" I asked. "I can still fight. If you guys didn’t show up I probably would’ve had to fight just to get back to the bunker.”

“You probably feel like you can fight, but you’ll just end up making your injuries worse or you’d die. Just stay here and let us do our job, you need to stay safe,” she said sternly.

“If you want to fight, just kill her. All she is to you is an obstacle between you and your true power,” a malicious, but familiar voice said in my head.

“I’m not going to kill her, she’s an ally, not an obstacle. What do you mean by true power anyway, and who the fuck are you?” I asked the voice in my head.

“That’s a stupid question. It’s simple really, I’m you, the real you. Your true potential,” the voice said again.

“Me? How can you be me? I’m me, not you," I responded. "You’re just the overly tired crazy bitch in my head. A delusion created by my subconscious from what I’ve seen in The Wasteland.”

The voice snickered, “Believe what you will. My power or should I say your true power can turn all those griffons and rangers into dust.”

“Are you okay Shadow?” Hazel asked sounding worried.

“Yeah I’m fine. Sorry about that. I think all the radiation scrambled my brain a little,” I said thumping the side of my head with a hoof.

“Like I said, you should stay here. You’re in no shape to fight," she said.

“Alright. I’ll stay here. I have my guns in case anything happens,” I responded.

“Alright. Just remember, bullets can ricochet so if you hear a shot hit near you check your surroundings before you run,” she said as she walked away.

I could hear bullets flying in every direction, explosions from missiles and grenades rattling the air. What was that voice in my head? Could I really be an evil monster? Is that why I don’t remember anything from when I was younger? Sweet Celestia, I can’t even figure myself out anymore.

“You should’ve listened to me. I could’ve helped you,” the voice came again.

“Just go away. I’ll never listen to you, you’re a figment of my imagination. You aren’t real,” I said.

“Fine then. I’ll just bide my time until the day you let your guard down. I’ll take over myself, without you having to let me in. When that day comes, I’ll show you what it’s like being locked in your own mind like a caged animal. And I’ll make you watch from that cage as I slowly kill everypony you love. See you soon Morning Star,” the voice threatened angrily.

A chill ran down my spine at the thought of whatever that voice was, taking me over and trapping me away. I can’t let that happen. I’d just have to make sure to keep my guard up…if I could.

“Quite a show, isn’t it? Griffons and ponies fighting to the death,” a voice said behind me.

I quickly turned around and pulled out my pistol, only to have it knocked away by the very large griffon standing before me. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, the griffon standing on top of me with an energy spear similar to Aura’s at the ready.

“G-get off!” I yelled.

“Do you really think it’s that easy? Just say get off and I’ll let you go,” he replied arrogantly.

“I-it was… worth… a shot,” I struggled to get out as he pressed down harder on my chest, his talons piercing my skin.

“Unfortunately for you, we don’t need you alive anymore. The one who put out the bounty on you said all she needs is that Pip-Buck off of your foreleg. So now I get to enjoy the pleasure of killing you,” he said clenching harder on his spear, readying himself.

I could feel a stirring in the pit of my stomach when he said that, I don’t know if it was my organs mutating from the radiation or the fact that I was about to die. It was even getting harder to breath, then I remembered that he was practically crushing me with his talons.

Right as he started to come down with his spear I blacked out.

***

I was suddenly in an endless white void, surrounded by nothingness. It felt cold but hot at the same time, breathing felt more like something I could chose to do rather than something I needed to do. Even though I could feel the sensation of hot or cold, I couldn’t feel my body, it was like I was just a spirit wandering in the endless expanse of nothingness.

'Am I dead?' I thought to myself.

“Not yet, but you will be soon,” the voice from before said.

I turned, at least I think I did, and saw the same Red eyes from my dream the night before. “Who are you?” I asked, my voice coming out in a whisper instead of the scream I’d intended.

Before my eyes, a pony appeared in front of me, she had a silvery white coat, dark red eyes, a sharpened horn, and a black mane styled a lot like my own. Instead of a normal cutie mark on her flanks, she had a dark sky with moving stars inside. She grinned at me and said in that same voice, “It’s nice to finally meet you face to face Morning Star.”

“That’s not my name, I’m Shadow Star,” I said, trying to look away from her, but failing.

Her grin only widened. “That may be true now, but not always.”

“Who are you anyway, and where are we?” I asked.

She looked around the white nothingness. “I’m not sure, your mind is the one making this. If you wanted you could be anywhere, think of this place like a dream, only you can control more of what’s going on around you. As for who I am, well that is a tricky question to answer. Let’s just say for now that I am another part of you Shadow Star.”

“So, what do I call you then?” I asked thinking about what she just said. Taking a moment, I imagined my body and a second later, it was there, and I felt more like myself again. The nothingness around us changed and now we were in the atrium of Stable 28.

“Ah… there you go, you’re starting to understand how this world works. As for my name, that’s also something I can’t explain to you. Since you chose not to call yourself by your true name, then I’ll take it. Call ME Morning Star,” she said slowly walking around the atrium looking around. “I never much liked it here, why did you pick this dull place.”

“I’m not sure, I guess because it reminds me of better times,” I said making sure to keep my eyes on her. “Why take the name Morning Star if that was my name?”

“That isn’t important right now Shadow. What really matters is that you are about to die. You’re weak right now, and your magic is…well cute, but not strong. You’re going to need my help if you want to survive,” she said turning and walking toward me again.

“I think I’d rather die than take your help,” I said, anger bubbling to the front of my mind, the scene changed around us, putting us in the raider camp.

She sighed and moved getting face to face with me. “Listen to me, forget what I said before, I’ve been trapped in your head for a long time and only recently have been able to break free and experience more than just a dark cage. I was angry, and I still am. But right now, my own survival rests on you, you can’t tell me you want to die just to keep me from taking over your mind.”

“I don’t even know who you are or what you want. For all I know you’re just some crazy part of me, my mind breaking from lack of sleep or over exposure to radiation,” I said.

“If it makes you feel better then, I’ll just give you a bit of my power. I’m not strong enough yet to do much more than that anyway. Take my deal and I’ll help you survive and leave your mind intact,” she said her eyes inches from mine. I could see a slight glow in them, like embers from a dying flame lived behind them.

She was right, I didn’t want to die, I had so much I had to find out and make up for. I also had promises to keep, and I couldn’t let my fear of this creature keep me from doing that. With a sigh of my own I said, “Fine, but only for a moment, and don’t kill anypony from the Rangers, or next time I WILL let myself die, taking you with me.”

A smile came to her lips and she said sweetly, “Deal, oh and I should warn you, this might hurt…A LOT.”

***

The world I was in vanished, and I was back, watching as the griffon thrusted his spear down toward me. Without thinking my body moved and the spear buried itself into my already damaged shoulder, only hitting the meat. The pain however was only a small thing compared to the screaming pain in my head and horn.

I screamed as the pain in my head intensified as if magic was building up behind my horn and the back of my mind. The griffon on top of me smiled as I screamed, then his face went from glee to confusion as he looked down at my wound. Following his gaze, I saw that I was no longer bleeding, instead a bright white light was blaring out from it. The light moved and surrounded my body, then it blasted outward throwing the griffon off me.

“What the fuck, what was that?” he said, holding his spear up ready to attack me again.

I felt a presence in the back of my mind come forward and take me over. I felt my hoof rise and it pointed at the griffon, only it wasn’t my hoof, at least it didn’t look like it was. It was white not black, and then I spoke, only it wasn’t me doing the talking. “If you put down your spear, I might let you live as a cripple out of mercy.”

“Why should I? You’re nothing but a shit faced shrimp waiting to die,” he said and jumped toward me.

In a flash of red light, I teleported behind him. “I’ll say it again. Put down the spear. This is my last warning.”

“Fuck you bitch,” he said twisting around bringing his long spear around in an arch. The spear stopped an inch away from my eye, the blade being held in my magical field.

He pulled on it, but it wouldn’t budge, his eye grew big as he asked, “What the fuck are you?”

“I’m your worst nightmare come to life,” I said pulling the spear out of his talons, turning it around in my magic and slicing through the air. It connected with his chest, he was jumping back, but the spear was able to leave a deep gash. I slashed again jumping forward, slicing into the muscle near the base of his wings. He screamed and fell, one of his wings falling useless next to him. Blood was pooling under him from the deep cuts.

I flipped the spear back around then stabbed it through his gut pinning him to the ground. He yelled again in pain as I used my magic to slowly twist the blade around inside him. At least it felt like me doing it, but I wasn’t controlling the actions themselves. Whatever Morning Star had done to me, she had some sort of control over my magic and movements, even my speech.

There was an ear-splitting scream from overhead as two griffons came diving down from one of the cliffs, one yelling, “Father NO!”

“Stay Back Syn,” the griffon on the ground yelled. The smaller female griffon slowed her dive, but the other, a large male like the one who attacked me kept going.

“Insulant worm,” I heard myself say, a surge of magic blasted out from my horn, enveloping the descending griffon. A scream filled the air as the light of whatever spell I just used surrounded the griffon. A moment later a blackened husk fell to the ground, landing dead at my hooves. I looked up at the other flying griffon. “Stay out of this unless you want to be next.”

The one on the ground let out a choked sob. “My son, I’ll kill you for that I swear it.”

I looked back to him and grinned. “No you won’t, what you will do is tell the others to leave, then you’ll die. And if you don’t before you die from your injuries, then I’ll get the other flyer up there to do it.”

“YOU BITCH!” screamed the female griffon diving toward us now. Another spell flew from my horn only this time instead of killing this one, it froze her in place.

I looked deep into the eyes of the dying griffon on the ground. “Last chance little kittybird, do it or the other one dies too.”

Tears fell from his eyes as he cursed, then finally spoke, “Fine. Fall back!”

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” I asked.

He just looked up at me and closed his eyes. “I did what you told me to do, now let my daughter go and kill me like you said you would do.”

A grin pulled at my lips as I looked up at the griffon still being held in the air by the spell. “No, I think I’ll kill her too.”

“NOOO!” I yelled inside my own head, I could feel the spell ready to release and I was doing all I could to stop it.

“Don’t interfere, you wanted to live, this is what has to be done!” the voice of Morning Star exclaimed.

“I won’t let you do this, we’re safe now,” I said. “The deal is over, now go back and give me control.”

“NEVER!” she yelled using my own lips to speak still, the griffon looked up at me like I was crazy, and at the moment I kinda was.

“I won’t let you kill another, there is a better way,” I said using all my strength to take control of my magic. I could feel her holding onto three spells, one holding the spear in the griffon, another holding the griffon in place, the last holding the spell that she used before to kill the other griffon.

With all my will, I took over the one holding the spear in place, I pulled it from the griffon’s gut, turned it around, and stabbed myself. The monster that called herself Morning Star and I both screamed in pain and rage. She lost control of my body, and I took over turning my head as the spell went off. It shot high into the sky blasting a hole in the clouds.

My body fell to the ground and I could feel pain everywhere. I lifted one hoof and saw that it was black again, the presence of Morning Star was no longer there. I sighed then looked over at the griffon on the ground. Using a hoof I lifted a healing potion out of my saddle bag then tossed it over to him. It landed next to his head. The other griffon landed next to him and took it lifting it to his beak.

He looked over to me ignoring his daughter and said weakly, “Why?”

“Whatever that was that attacked you and killed your son there, wasn’t me. Seeing though how you were trying to kill me yourself, I figure we’re even. Drink the potion or don’t, I don’t care anymore,” I said my voice only a whisper. I was so damned tired, all I wanted to do was sleep.

He drank the potion and said, “No, what I meant was. Why save me?”

“Because, it’s the right thing to do, just don’t try and kill me please,” I said as my vision started to fade.

There was the sound of the Steel Rangers walking up behind me and Paladin Stalk said in his deep voice, “Your friends just took off, two of your comrades are dead. I suggest you leave here before you join them.”

The griffon stood weakly. “Our fight here is done, I can see that. Before I go, answer me one thing if you would.”

“She won’t be doing anything like that, she’s badly hurt and in need of medical attention,” Scribe Hazel said walking up over and looking down at me.

Ignoring her I said, “Only if you tell me something.”

“Agreed,” he replied. “What do you want to know?”

“Why did you take the contract from the Overmare?” I asked.

A smile came to his face as he said, “We have a code in the Talons. The Red Talons will only take a contact for a bounty if the pony the bounty is on is deserving of it. You broke into her Stable, stole that Pip-Buck from her safe, then left with files that could put her Stable in danger. My question is to you, why are you surprised that we came after you? If you stole something from a Stable, you should’ve known there would be repercussions.”

I could only laugh then moan in pain, Scribe Hazel put a hoof on my side and said, “Don’t move, it’s okay.” Then she looked back at the griffon. “The information you have on Shadow Star is wrong. I’d give you a better account of what really happened, but there isn’t time. Send an emissary to the bunker tomorrow, and we’ll have a full report of the truth ready for you. For now, we need to get her out of here and make sure she doesn’t die. Can you put off your contract till then?”

The griffon looked over at the dead body of his son then back at us and nodded. “I can for now, but I’ll be expecting payment for the loss of my griffons and my son. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” The Paladin said as he walked up to the griffon.

I was lost at this point, or maybe it was the loss of blood. I could see a lot of it on the ground next to me. What I did to myself was stupid, but it seemed like the only thing I could do at the time. I looked up at Hazel and smiled. “Thanks for helping me…but I think I’m going to sleep now. I’m so… tired.”

“Shadow, you can’t go to sleep, you’ve lost a lot of blood, if you do you might not wake up,” she said looking worried and fishing in her saddle bags for a healing potion.

In response, I just let out a weak laugh and closed my eyes, the sounds around me slowly fading away…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Lone Trotter Rank 1: Who needs friends anyway? When adventuring without a companion, you take 10% less damage and carry weight increases by 50.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Mysterious Pony: A Mysterious Pony has shown up to save the day. Who is he? Why does he help? Who cares! The Mysterious Pony will appear occasionally in S.A.T.S. to lend a hoof, with Deadly efficiency.

Chapter 12: On The Road Again

“Hey Aura. Whatcha… doin…?”

I half expected to find myself in that vast ocean of nothingness like before. Maybe find myself face to face with the creature that lived in my head calling herself, Morning Star, like another version of me. That however, wasn’t what happened, I didn’t dream anything, or at least I don’t remember dreaming anything. What did happen was, I woke up to utter chaos.

Voices filled the air around me and everything hurt. “She’s starting to wake up,” a stallion’s voice said above me.

“Shit, use a sedative spell to get her to go back to sleep then,” a familiar voice said.

“I’ve been trying, but it’s not working, she’s still waking up,” the stallion said starting to panic.

“Aura? Is that you?” I started saying, then pain shot through my body ten times worse than when I’d first awoken. My horn felt like somepony snapped it clean off, and my lower abdomen felt like somepony was slowly running a hot rusty knife slowly up my body. I convulsed and screamed as hard as I could, trying to hold onto my head and abdomen at the same time. Somepony had strapped my hoofs down, which only made things worse.

“Fuck, do something Doc, before she makes her wounds any worse,” Aura said from one side of me.

“What part of ‘I’ve been trying’ don’t you understand Griffon!?” he yelled.

My vision started to flicker with different colors, each one flashing one after the other. The pain increased, making me buck my hips, the sound of flesh tearing filled the air, followed by a fresh wave of pain. I screamed louder, wishing somepony would just put me out of my misery.

“Fuck this then,” Aura said over my blood curling scream. I heard the sound of medical carts being moved aside, then she was back. “Let’s just hope this works.” Her avian face came into view and she was holding a shining memory orb in her talons. She quickly pressed the orb to the tip of my horn, there was a spark, and the world around me and the pain, faded away.

oooOOOooo

I’m starting to get used to this feeling, the feeling of being part of somepony else’s body, reliving a moment in time that they lived. I was in a mare again, I could feel strong wings at her side, her mane softly blowing in a light breeze. She was on a cloud looking down at a beautiful cloud city watching other Pegasi as they trained in a field just outside of the city. As she watched the ponies train, another pegasus landed on the cloud next to her.

She looked up at him and said, “You’re early Captain, I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.” Her voice was sweet, but a little cocky and had a hint of confidence to it.

The stallion who landed in front of her was the same pony that was in the tent with Big Macintosh before he died. I hadn’t seen his cutie mark the last time I saw him, I thought it was a little unusual for a pre-war pony, it was a crescent moon with a red hilted sword crossing it. He smiled at my host. “Lightning Dust, it’s good to see you after so many years. I’m early because my meeting ran short, so I figured I’d come straight here.”

My host blushed a little and looked back down at the ponies below. “You said you wanted to see me Captain Night Stalker. Why the sudden need to meet after so long? I figured the personal body guard of Princess Luna would have better things to do with his time than meeting with a discharged solider.”

“Don’t be silly Lightning, I have all the time in Equestria to see an old friend,” he said.

“If that was true then you wouldn’t have said in your message that it was urgent and pulled me away from my students,” she said with a smile, glancing over her shoulder at him. I had to admit, even I found him a little attractive. I could tell that my host sure did.

He ran a hoof through his long black mane. “Ha-ha-ha, still can’t get one past you, can I? You’re right, I didn’t have you meet me here just to catch up on old times.”

“Thought as much, so tell me what you want, and make it quick Night Stalker, I really need to get back to my students,” my host said.

“No, you don’t Lightning. In fact I know you haven’t had students in a few months,” Night Stalker said accusingly.

My host’s body tensed up. “How in Celestia’s name do you know that?”

He smiled. “I have my ways of finding things out. I’m here on Ministry of Awesome business. Rainbow Dash tells me you’ve been requesting a transfer from the academy and back onto the battlefield.”

She huffed and turned on him. “Yeah so what? I’ve already been told five times that my request has been denied. They don’t want a coward joining in on the fighting.”

He smiled at her again. “You’re no coward, I know that for a fact.”

“Oh yeah? Well try telling that to the higher-ranking officers. I gave my report of what happened back then, they read it, said I was a liar, and deemed me a coward,” she said, anger in every word she spoke.

“And sent you here to train flyers, yes I know the story. I’m here because I believe your report, and I want to offer you a new job. That is, if you’re interested,” Night Stalker said, raising his brow.

“A job? What kind of job?” my host asked.

“I can’t tell you here, but I can promise you that it’ll be a lot better than what you’re doing now. I won’t lie, it’s a dangerous job, but if we succeed, we might be able to put an end to this war,” he replied.

She smiled opening her wings. “Well, when you put it that way, I’m in.”

“Just like that, no information?” he asked.

“I just wanna prove that I’m no coward, and I wanna help keep my home safe,” my host said.

“That’s what I like to hear, but don’t accept so quickly. I want you to know what you’re getting yourself into first,” he said, then turned and shouted, “Minuette, you can come up now!”

There was a flash of indigo light, then a unicorn mare appeared next to Night Stalker. The blue unicorn smiled and said in an excited voice, “Are we good to go boss!?” (How was a unicorn able to walk on clouds?)

“Yeah. Can you get us to Canterlot from here?” Night Stalker responded.

“Hey who’s this? And how is she standing on a cloud?” my host asked, looking down at the mare’s hooves. (That’s what I’d like to know too)

She beamed at my host excitedly. “My name’s Minuette, and standing on clouds is an easy spell, my friend Twilight Sparkle showed it to me years ago,” she looked back at Night Stalker, “Sure thing boss, I can even get us back to the base if you want.”

“Just don’t overdo it, I don’t want you tired out from one spell,” Night Stalker said.

“Pfft it’s easy, here I’ll show ya,” she said, and in a flash of magic, the scenery around us vanished and reappeared. We were standing on a cliff overlooking a city I’ve only seen in books back in the Stable. Those pictures didn’t do the city justice, it was beautiful, large regal looking buildings and shops surrounded the large castle that demanded your attention. If I could control my host’s body, I would’ve stared at it for hours. There wasn’t anything as beautiful as this in The Wasteland.

My host however didn’t look over the city for long, her head turned to look at a large golden door set in the side of the cliff that hung out over the castle and near one of the tall towers. Minuette smiled at her then winked as she turned to walk toward the door.

“What is this place?” my host asked as she followed Minuette and Night Stalker.

“Its home,” was all he said as they approached the door.

“Boss, should I go ahead and see if the others are in?” Minuette asked, beaming back at him. Wow, she smiles a lot.

“They should all be here by now, apart from Greta. I told them to be ready for me by noon and knowing the others they were ready an hour before noon,” he said as he placed a hoof on the door. “By the night’s glory, I request passage into the home of these children who look to the night sky for protection.”

“What was that?” my host asked, but as soon as Night Stalker finished speaking, the door glowed and began to open. Not looking back, he walked inside, followed close behind by Minuette.

She looked back at my host and said, “Hurry up, you don’t wanna be stuck out here do ya?”

My host stepped forward and followed them. The door closed behind us. I found it all a little creepy to be honest. If I was Lightning Dust, I don’t think I could’ve followed them. The passageway just inside the door lead to a large open room. It was brightly lit, a few tables were spread out, along with some training equipment, and pillows to lounge on. Along the walls ran rows of books on glittering shelves. On the other side of the room was another hallway that I assumed led to the living quarters or something like that. In the room waiting for them were six other ponies all standing at attention. Four were pegasi, one was an earth pony mare, and the last was another unicorn mare.

“Welcome home Captain,” the earth pony said. She looked like a strong pony, her coat was brown, with a pinkish-red mane that she kept short.

“Thank you, Babs, and the rest of you for being here. I’d like to introduce the final member of our group if she joins, Lightning Dust,” Night Stalker said.

One of the pegasi walked forward. “Why is SHE joining Captain? She’s just a coward who left her post when the Wonderbolts needed her.”

My host hung her head and I could feel tears in her eyes. Night Stalker stepped forward, saying, “Thunderlane, shut your mouth before I make you. I trust her, and that should be good enough for you and everypony in here.”

“Captain we all read the reports from back then, give us one good reason why we should just trust her on your word alone,” Thunderlane retorted, standing his ground.

“Oh, Boss can I tell him please?” Minuette said enthusiastically.

“Go ahead,” he said as my host slowly looked up toward the blue unicorn.

She beamed and pulled a shiny memory orb out from her saddle bags. “This is why we trust her. The original report from the pony who overlooked the Wonderbolts assault toward the beginning of the war said that Lightning Dust abandoned her post, leaving the rest of her squad open for attack later that night. This lead to the death of six Wonderbolts. Only two survived the attack, one was the pony overlooking the battle Cloud Whisper, and the other was Lightning Dust.”

“That report wasn’t true and I said that from the beginning, but Cloud Whisper was my superior and they believed her over me,” my host said angrily.

Minuette lifted the memory orb high in the air and spoke again, “The Boss always found the official report a little fishy. He was friends with Lightning Dust back in their academy days. So, he looked into it, when more and more didn’t add up, he called me in to do a memory sweep on Cloud Whisper. When I did, I got this out of her.”

“What does it show Minuette?” another pale pegasus asked stepping in next to Thunderlane.

This time Night Stalker spoke, “Cloud Whisper faked the report over jealousy of Lightning Dust. The memory was of something she saw back before the last battle with the Wonderbolts. This one thing lead her to pull Lightning away from her post that night. When the attack happened and the other six fell, she faked the report to get back at Lightning and to hide her own mistake. I’ve viewed it myself and know that Lightning didn’t leave her post out of cowardice, but out of respect for her commanding officer. That is why you should trust my word and Minuette’s as well. As for what happened in the memory orb I’m sure Lightning knows what I viewed and I’ll leave it up to her to tell you all, when she’s ready.”

My host looked up at them all with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for that Night Stalker, it means a lot to me that you would go so far to prove that I wasn’t cowardly that night.”

He turned toward her. “I didn’t do it for you, not entirely, I need you here with us. We need a brave soldier like yourself if we’re ever going to win this damned war.”

Thunderlane spoke again, “If the Captain trusts you, then I do too and the same goes for the rest of us I’m sure. I shouldn’t have ever spoken out of turn. I hope you can forgive me.”

She nodded toward them as they all smiled, then looked back at Night Stalker. “So why did you bring me here? You said you could only explain what this job was in secret. After all that, and how much I owe you for clearing my name, I’m sure I can’t turn down anything now. But I’d still like to know what’s going on.”

He turned back to the rest of the ponies. “You’re all dismissed for now, stay here at base, but please let me have some privacy with Lightning Dust.”

“Yes sir!” they all said in unison giving the large pony a salute before walking in different directions.

He turned back toward my host once everypony was out of ear shot. “Come sit with me so we can talk.”

My host nodded and followed him toward one of the large pillows. Once they were settled down she spoke, “You know I had no idea this place was here.”

“Most don’t, I didn’t even know about it until a couple months ago,” he said looking around. “The reason I brought you here is because Princess Luna has decided to bring back an old order of hers from back before she became Nightmare Moon. There is a huge history behind it, but I won’t bore you right now with the details. It was disbanded when she was banished to the moon, this used to be their old headquarters. Our goal is to protect Princess Luna, but also to be a stealth operations unit for fighting back against the Zebras. I want you to be our last member, with your agility and quick reflexes, I think you’re perfect for the job.”

“So everypony here is part of this so called stealth unit?” she asked.

“Yep, Thunderlane and Cloudy Nights, are my Scouts, the two mare Pegasi are Comet Tail and Phoenix Heart, and they’re the Snipers. Our earth Pony friend is Babs Seed, she’s our heavy infantry, Minuette and the other unicorn Amethyst Star, handle information gathering, and they also handle anything we need that has to do with magic, both are top students from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I’d introduce you to our other new member Greta, but she apparently has other business to attend to right now,” he explained.

“What about you? And what would I be doing if I joined this group?” my host asked.

His smile grew a bit. “Apart from being the Captain, I’m the one that handles stealth operations and assassinations, you would be joining me on those kinds of missions. That’s if you can handle it.”

My host smiled. “Sounds fun, but what makes us different from other ponies like the special forces in the Shadowbolts? And didn’t you say that the Ministry of Awesome was the one who sent you? I thought they didn’t do anything.”

“The Ministry of Awesome is supposed to appear to do nothing, apart from small things like running the Shadowbolts and small projects. In reality, they’re in charge of Luna’s spies and more, the orders come down to the Ministry mare herself, she passes them on to the spies. That’s normally how it goes for me too. On paper, we’ll appear to be working with the M.O.A., but really all my orders come down from Luna herself. This place and our real jobs will be kept secret from most of the government apart from the Ministry Mares Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash,” he said getting to his hooves.

“So, if I decide to join you, then I’ll get to be some kind of spy?” my host asked.

“That and much more, you’ll help play a role in saving Equestria. So, tell me Lightning Dust, are you in?” he asked holding out a hoof.

She took his hoof and shook it. “Yeah, it sounds fun. I have two questions though.”

“What’s that?” Night Stalker responded.

“First of all, what will happen with that bitch who made up the fake report, and what would you have done to me if I hadn’t said yes to you after seeing this place and knowing what I know now?” she asked.

“Cloud Wisper has already been demoted and sent to take over your old job at the academy, she was lucky she didn’t get court-martialed for what she did. As for what we would’ve done if you’d said no. Minuette would’ve taken the memories of this place from your head, you would’ve been placed in a better position working with the M.O.A., and gotten what you wanted. That can still happen if you want,” Night Stalker said.

“Nah, this sounds like a lot more fun, and it’ll be a blast working with you again. So how about you show me my new digs Captain,” she said winking at him.

Night Stalker smiled. “Sounds good, Welcome to the Children of the Night.”

oooOOOooo

“Good morning Star Shine the earth says hello,” Stardust said as I awoke.

“Call me that again and you’re the one that gets stabbed next,” I said irritably.

“Someone’s cranky. Considering you almost killed yourself, you should be thankful I’m being nice. Your tiny little ass scared the shit out of me. I’m speaking metaphorically of course,” he retorted with a cocky grin.

“Ha ha, ow. Asshole, this fucking hurts y’know. What happened, and where’s Aura? I heard her the last time I woke up,” I asked as I looked around the room.

He sighed as if he didn't really want to tell me. “She’s resting up, we’ve been taking turns watching you sleep. Not in the creepy ‘I like to watch ponies sleep’ way. More like we were waiting for you to wake up. After you passed out, Scribe Hazel took you back here to get you patched up. Little did she know; your guts were just about to redecorate the ground. She ended up riding on Paladin Stalk’s back with you, holding in all your party favors and whatnot. When they got you back here they started operating right away. They had to rejoin your damaged organs and right as they were finishing that part, you woke up during surgery and flipped out. When you started flailing, you tore apart the organs they rejoined and in the process of doing that you also tensed up so much that you tore yourself open even more. Aura grabbed a memory orb from your saddlebags and they were able to knock you out again, but the damage you did just waking up was horrible. You were split open from your sternum all the way down to your uh well you know… anyway they rejoined your organs again and did what they could for the torn tissue and muscle. Then they sutured everything to get you closed up, they also started you on an IV that’s kinda like a healing potion. It’s supposed to repair the damaged muscles and speed up the healing process of your organs. They said that if you didn’t wake up within three days then you’d probably wouldn’t make it.”

“How many days has it been?” I asked a little weakly.

“Four,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Four? You just said that I was supposed to be dead if I went past three,” I replied, wincing at the pain of my pulling stitches.

“Yeah I know. They were gonna take you off the IV and wait until you eventually kicked it, but I stopped them. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you, it’s that you don’t give up on your friends,” he said proudly.

“You didn’t point a gun at any doctors, did you?” I asked, raising my brow.

“No! No…well…uh…maybe just a little,” he replied, scratching his head as he turned his gaze away from me.

“You dumbass! OWWW. Dammit that hurts,” I exclaimed in agony.

“Quit freakin out, it’s cool. They completely understood after I fired a warning shot,” he said again.

“Oh Celestia. You didn’t,” I said in disbelief.

“You bet your ass I did, I ain’t gonna let them give up on you. Doctors think they’re SO smart with their fancy lab coats and stetha-ear-listener thingies and odds of survival. All they really are, are ponies who found a dirty torn up lab coat and a few equestrian medical journals and suddenly they’re professional doctors with a degree in medicine and all that shit,” Stardust said.

“Stardust they’re real doctors. Otherwise I’d be held together with duct tape and wonderglue. Now go wake up Aura and tell her I’m okay,” I retorted, feeling a little annoyed.

“Alright fine, I’ll go get her,” he said arrogantly. “I’ll have her release the hostages too.”

“Hostages!?” I exclaimed.

“Ha, just kidding. Don’t tie your horn in a knot, I’m not that stupid. She might be though; a bird’s brain is the size of a peanut y’know, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t actually seen a peanut, it might be smaller,” Stardust replied with another grin.

“Just go,” I said annoyed.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” he said as he walked out of the room.

For some reason the room didn’t really make me feel like I was in a clinic. It felt more like a prison cell. The concrete walls mixed with the florescent lighting made me feel a little like I was in one of the holding cells in my old stable. There were medical supplies everywhere, there was also an annoying beeping sound coming from one of the machines that happened to be hooked up to me.

“Great more annoying sounds. I’ll bet that if I pull off these sticky things it’s gonna make everypony freak the fuck out. Guess I’ll just put up with it,” I said to myself.

Painfully I scooted myself up a little so I could get a better look at myself. My entire lower torso, abdomen, and waist was covered with bandages. I feel so stupid right now. Couldn’t I have slapped myself or something instead of stabbing myself with a spear?

“Great, now I’m gonna have a huge unattractive scar because of my own stupidity,” I said to myself again.

I let myself slide back down to the lying position and tried to relax a little. The pain in my body was like a chronic soreness that persisted like a bad itch that you knew you couldn’t scratch. Suddenly I heard a knock on the door.

“Knock-knock, somepony spilled the beans that you’re awake,” a nurse started to kind of sing cheerily as she walked in. “So, guess what time it is. It’s time to change your bandages.”

She was a stark white unicorn with super curly pink hair with the sun wearing a happy face as her cutie mark.

“What are you on? I want some,” I asked, skeptical of her strange optimism.

“Oh, I’m not on anything. I’m just happy you’re not dead,” she said in her annoyingly cheery voice as she started to unwrap the bandaging.

“Huh. Coulda fooled me,” I said to myself quietly.

She sat there and hummed the most annoying upbeat tune as she carefully unwrapped the bandages. As more and more of them were taken off, the more I could see the damage that had been done.

“So…what’s your name anyway?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked! I’m Nurse Joy and I’m the attending nurse for you today,” she said sounding overjoyed.

“Huh, Joy, figures,” I said to myself again.

“What was that silly filly?” she asked, closing her eyes and cocking her head.

“Oh, it’s nothing, just making sure I won’t forget your name is all. Said it back to myself, you know how it is,” I replied.

“Okay, but if it was really something mean I’ll send in Nurse Patches instead. She’s a big sourpuss and thinks she’s better than everyone else, but I really shouldn’t say things like that. If she knows I said that, it might hurt her feelings,” she said, still smiling.

Oh, sweet Celestia make her hurry up, she’s so Luna damned happy. I wish she WOULD send Nurse Patches in. I mean c’mon, who’s THAT cheerful in The Wasteland? It’s just not possible, there’s death and tragedy everywhere here. How does she stay so damn uppity? I hope I’m actually still in the bunker and not somehow in a functioning mental hospital because that would be a little extreme, even if I did go all psychopath killer during the fight.

“Oh goodness. It looks like you’re healing up faster than expected, your stitches are only four days old and they look about seven or eight days old. Some wounds grow away so fast, sometimes it’s almost too fast haha,” she said sounding a little surprised.

“Grow away?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s just a fun little thing I like to say sometimes. Isn’t it just the cutest little saying?” she replied

“Uh…yeah...sure…cute, that’s the word for it. Are you sure it looks good? I’m still pretty sore,” I asked.

“I bet you are. You almost tore your little self in half. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any med-x because you could lose consciousness again. We don’t want that, now do we?” she said as she started to wrap new bandages around me.

I wish Stardust would’ve warned me about her, she’s a little intense. Come to think of it, even if he did warn me, I probably wouldn’t have believed him. Seriously, this mare was unbelievably nice for a Wastelander.

“All done,” she sang. “Now don’t get too squirmy, you might pop a stitch.”

“Thank you for changing my bandages Nurse Joy, I appreciate your kindness,” I said, giving a small smile.

“No need to thank me, I’m just doing what I love to do. Now I must be going, the ranger in the next room needs another dose of rad-away and guess who’s got an extra at her nurse’s station,” she said as she walked out of the room and passed Stardust and Aura as they walked in.

“Thanks for the warning Stardust,” I said sarcastically.

“Oh, I should probably let you know. The nurse is a little too sweet for apple pie,” he replied, returning the sarcasm.

“Very funny Stardust. You know I don’t think she can possibly be mean or rude in any way. I think the universe would explode if she was,” I retorted.

“Yeah, she’s a bit over the top, but at least she’s not a total bitch like the other nurse. She threatened me with a scalpel for just asking for water,” he said apologetically.

“Have you ever thought to yourself that you might just be an asshole?” Aura snarked.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I have, and a ponymatic vigor tester said otherwise,” Stardust retorted.

“For the record, you didn’t say please,” Aura said, persisting the conversation.

“Personally, I think the only time anypony’s heard YOU say please is while you’re begging for your life. You know like you’re about to in about ten seconds if you don’t shut your fuckin beak,” Stardust retorted, angrily.

“Fuck you. I could’ve just left you in a ditch somewhere to die instead of doing what I did. Just because you have something against griffons, doesn’t mean we’re all bad. Maybe I’d be a little nicer to you if you weren’t such a dick!” Aura yelled.

“Would you both just shut up!” I demanded, ending their argument.

“Sorry about that Shadow. We still don’t get along that well, as I’m sure you can see,” Stardust apologized.

“I’ve noticed. Anyway, moving on. What happened after the explosion? Was the town destroyed for sure? I heard a report from DJ Pon-3 about it,” I asked.

“Well yes and no. The side of the mountain collapsed when the stable exploded and the debris landed in the town below. Some of the town is intact but the whole area is full of radiation so no one can actually resettle there unless they’re a ghoul,” Aura explained.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, it sounds like that fiend-boss Gator wasn’t there when it happened, DJ Pon3 said so on the radio. He said something yesterday about him going to gather more fiends out west,” Stardust followed.

“Great, now I’ll have the thought that he might kill me in my sleep riding on my conscience,” I said with a wave of my hoof.

“I’m sure somepony’ll kill him eventually, the bastard has it coming,” Aura said, reassuring me of Gator’s impending demise.

I sighed in acceptance and asked, “Hey guys, I have another question. Are we still at the Steel Rangers bunker? I don’t remember them having doctors and nurses and stuff. Also, why isn’t there a Knight or something keeping an eye on you guys? Last time I checked they still didn’t trust Stardust with his weapons and well… Aura, she’s a griffon, so I think they’d be skeptical of her too.”

Stardust nodded and said, “Yeah we’re still at the bunker. You didn’t meet the medical staff before because you were busy with Elder Appleslice, I on the other hoof did. Apparently, all the medical staff you see here are Ranger Scribes. They’ve studied old medical textbooks and stuff very thoroughly, so much that they feel comfortable enough to perform surgery and give other medical treatments. It’s like I said earlier when I was mocking them for being fake doctors. As for the lack of surveillance, that’s a little complicated. When Aura showed up here with me all half dead they were ready to shoot until she explained the situation. They didn’t believe her story completely so they put her into custody until you came back. They thought that since we’re both winged creatures, that we teamed up against you and killed you, me getting hurt in the process. They thought her story was some sort of cover-up so we could stay here and recover. While she was in custody I was being taken care of here in the clinic, when your broadcast came through and they found out you were attacked by the Enclave that was hunting yours truly, they let me go and reluctantly returned my guns. I don’t know why they let Aura go, something about an emissary from the Red Talons coming over for a slumber party or something. Anyhow, they let her out of the BIRDcage anyway, and there’s nothing we or should I say I can do about it.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” I replied slowly.

“Excuse me,” Nurse Joy said delightfully from the doorway. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room, Scribe Hazel says that Ms. Shadow Star needs all the rest she can get if she wants to get better faster.”

“Go ahead, I’ll talk more with you guys later,” I said, sending them away.

***

A couple more days went by slowly and I was finally able to get out of bed and I was almost completely healed, to the amazement of Scribe Hazel. I decided to go and stretch my legs. I still felt a tiny bit sore, but barely noticed it compared to what it was like before. Walking out of the clinic I saw three different signs. One said, 'mess hall', the second said 'shooting range and ammunition supply', and the third said 'Elder’s command room.' Considering all the different flavors of medicine they made me take in the clinic, I chose to go to the mess hall to see about getting an ice-cold sparkle cola.

The bunker sort of reminded me of my stable. The walls were grey, there’s florescent lighting, and I was surrounded by technology. The technology was a little different though, more magical energy weapon type stuff instead of just the casual snack machine.

I walked into the mess hall and was greeted by delicious and interesting smells. I walked up to an open counter and waited for the pony behind it to notice I was standing there instead of staring off into space, “Ahem. Excuse me,” I said trying to get his attention. Instead of giving me even the slightest attention, he still just stood there with the same dumb look on his face. I noticed that he was standing on a hoof mat, I used what little magic I’d recovered and grasped the edge. Then with a mighty yank I pulled the mat out from under his hooves. He stumbled and fell flat on his face, then he looked up at me with a pained expression. “Uh, how can I help you?”

“Sparkle Cola please. Ice cold,” I replied.

“Um, okay well…uh, I think were out of that. Hey did you see somepony standing next to me? I think they might’ve pushed me or something,” he asked.

“Ugh, do you have anything else? And no there wasn’t anypony next to you,” I responded.

“Oh, uh okay. We have Sunrise Sarsaparilla and water. Are you sure nopony was there?” he asked again.

“Yes, I’m sure. What’s Sunrise Sarsaparilla?” I asked in return.

“Uh, alright then, I must’ve lost my balance again. I guess mixing med-x and dash wasn’t such a good idea, by the way, I didn’t say that so don’t tell anypony I did. Okay then, Sunrise Sarsaparilla is a carbonated drink like Sparkle Cola, but it tastes different and stuff, also it doesn’t have any residual radiation in it. Kinda tastes like vanilla,” he explained.

I sighed. “I’ll take one of those then. How much?”

“Like three caps or if you have it you can pay me in chems,” he replied quietly.

“Here. I can’t bring myself to fuel some junkie’s addiction,” I said, giving him three caps and grabbing the bottle.

“Okay have a good one,” he said not realizing what I’d just said to him.

I observed the outside of the bottle and noticed that the label had half of what looked like Princess Celestia’s cutie mark at the top with a barrel in the center over the words reading Sunrise Sarsaparilla. On the back on top of the nutrition facts there was a yellow stallion wearing a desperado cowpony hat over his brown curly mane. Right next him were the words 'Sunrise Sarsaparilla has been super-duper party pony certified.' The over enthusiastic look on his face made me think of a certain ministry mare.

I popped off the cap and started to bask in its vanilla goodness. I inspected the cap a little and wondered if I could use it as currency like the Sparkle Cola caps. It was then that I noticed the blue star on the underside of the cap. “Huh, weird. Whatever, guess I’ll just put it with my other caps.”

When I was finished with the sarsaparilla I tossed the bottle in a wastebasket I passed by while walking down the hall. It was then that I ran into Star Paladin Sapphire. “Ah there you are Shadow Star, I’ve been looking for you. Why aren’t you still in bed?”

“I’ve been feeling a lot better and I wanted something to drink, so I thought I’d head over to the mess hall to get something. Why where you looking for me?” I asked giving her a quizzical look.

“Elder Appleslice would like to speak with you. I was sent to fetch you for her. Would you be able to come with me now, or do you still need some rest? If so, we can have The Elder meet you in your room,” she replied.

“I’ll be fine, I’m feeling good, a little sore, but good,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck with a hoof.

“Okay, then follow me please.” She turned and led me down the hall toward the Elder's office. When we arrived, she stopped at the door then turned back toward me, saying, “She’s waiting for you inside, I’ll be waiting for you out here.”

“You’re not coming in?” I asked.

“Your presence was requested and only yours. Don’t worry though, I’ll be right outside the door,” she said giving me a smile.

I smiled back then walked into the office. I was shocked when I first walked in, not only was Elder Appleslice sitting there at her desk, the Griffon from the other day was standing next to her, both of them watching as I walked in. The door closed behind me and The Elder said, “Good Morning Shadow Star, it’s good to see you up, how are you feeling?”

“A lot better than I did a couple days ago. Why did you need to see me Elder, and why is he here?” I asked looking over at the griffon.

“This is Apollo, he’s the father of the griffon you killed during the attack and part of the council of The Red Talons. I’ve asked him to join us in this meeting today. Take a seat please,” she said gesturing toward the chair in front of her desk.

I did as she said, feeling a bit confused at the situation. “What’s going on?”

Apollo cleared his throat, then spoke in his deep voice, “I’ve come here as a representative of The Red Talon Company, and as a father. First off, I want to let you know that I hold no ill will toward you for the death of my son. He died doing his job, that was all.”

I felt guilt building up as I spoke, “Thank you for that, but I’m sorry that I killed your son. I wasn’t in my right mind at the time, I had no control over my actions.”

“I’ve seen that before, fear takes over and you go into a panic. It was strange how your look changed, the same goes for your personality, but I’m not an expert on unicorns. Maybe that was the way your mind and body decided to protect you. That however isn’t why I’ve come here today, I discussed all of this with the elder a couple of days ago,” he said giving me a small nod of his head.

The Elder spoke next, “I’ve asked Apollo to come here to tell you this himself, and more information that you may find interesting.”

I looked over at the griffon. “What’s that?”

“We received a contract from the Overmare of Stable 28 about a week or so before you were reported to have left your stable. In the transmission she wanted to set up a contract with us to hunt down a mare that left that stable a few years before. She wanted us to find her and bring her back to the stable alive. At the time, we had no interest in the contract, there was too little information and reason for us to risk the lives of our griffons,” he replied.

“She must’ve wanted you to go after my mother, The Overmare was obsessed with finding her. She was looking for this Pip-Buck for some reason, and she probably thought my mother still had it,” I said, thinking back to my stable and it's horrible leader, “But what does that have to do with your griffons hunting me down?”

He nodded. “My thoughts exactly, and I was getting to that. You see, the Overmare wasn’t happy with our denial to hunt her down, so she asked us to come into the stable to question you, the daughter of the mare she wanted. We also refused THAT since we don’t go into functioning stables. The day after that transmission you left the stable, not long after we got another transmission from the Overmare. This time she put a bounty on you telling us that you stole something precious and of great value to the stable. We took the contract this time because we find grand theft to be a high class crime in the Wasteland, even more so for an active stable. The contract was sent to us saying you were to be taken alive, and that we had to retrieve your Pip-Buck. When we weren’t able to get you right away, the contract was changed to just bring your Pip-Buck, your life no longer mattered.”

“That bitch. Why aren’t you trying to get it from me anymore?” I asked.

“That’s easy, you see we have a code in the Red Talons. We will only accept a contract that is given truthfully, we don’t judge the reason why we are needed for a mission just as long as we know the story behind it and that it’s a true one and if the pay is good. When Scribe Hazel told me after the battle that you didn’t steal that Pip-Buck I wondered about it, so when I met with Elder Appleslice the other day. I asked her about Hazel’s story,” he said looking over toward The Elder.

She smiled and continued after him, “I told him what you told me when you arrived. I also told him that I saw that Pip-Buck before when your mother still worked with us before she left for Stable 28.”

“We’ve worked with the Steel Rangers in this area for many years, and Elder Appleslice hasn’t ever lied to us. We took her at her word and broke the contract with your former Overmare. Since she lied to us about the reason she wanted it, I can no longer give her our business,” he said standing up straight.

I thought it over for a moment thinking of how they’d come after me, for everything they said to me during my encounters with them, it matched up with the Griffon’s story. One thing however didn’t make sense to me, the last two times I was attacked, they sent groups of three to attack me, also called a wing, one wing when we arrived at the bunker and two wings the other day. Aura said she wanted to join them and she attacked me the first time on her own. If she really wanted to join them, then why didn’t she give them my location and help in the first assault?

“So, I take it I don’t have to be looking over my shoulder for more griffons trying to kill me?” I asked, still not sure what to ask regarding Aura.

He smiled and said, “Not from us you don’t, unless we’re given another reason to hunt you down that is. If the contract comes from your Overmare though, we’ll refuse it, she’s been proven untrustworthy.”

“I could’ve told you that,” I said with a snicker. “What bothers me though is how she was able to contact you. Apart from my mother, I don’t see how a normal stable pony would know enough about the outside world to know who to contact to place a bounty on my head.”

To my surprise, Elder Appleslice answered, “By your question, I take it you don’t know the true history behind your stable. Do you Shadow Star?”

“What do you mean? I know some things that Box Tape told me, but not much else,” I asked.

“Until ten years ago, your stable used to send out groups of ponies to trade with the neighboring towns and took odd jobs now and then. They always kept the location of Stable 28 a secret, but the stable wasn’t sealed since the war like you thought. The former Overmare was quite friendly with The Wastelanders. I’m sure your Overmare had ways of contacting outsiders if she needed, how do you think your mother got into the stable in the first place?” she explained.

“I always thought the former Overmare was just kind and let her in because of me being hurt.” Was it possible that more had been going on ten years ago when we first arrived at the stable?

“We won’t know all the reasons why your stable was locked down unless you find your mother,” The Elder said sounding a bit disappointed for some reason. Like finding my mother was something she didn’t look forward to me doing.

I was about to ask more when the door opened and Aura walked in, “Listen Elder Appleslice, I wanted to talk with you before your next meeting with…” she froze when she saw me in the room with Apollo and The Elder, her eyes narrowed and she said in a harsh voice, “You!”

He looked shocked and confused. “Aura, how did you get here?”

She looked angrily at the Elder and shouted, “I asked you not to let him know I was here!”

“Aura, I didn’t tell him you were, I was going to speak to you later about this,” The Elder said calmly. “But since you’re here, why don’t you take a seat and we can all talk this out.”

She glared at Apollo, then the elder, then at me. “I have nothing to say to him. Shadow, when you’re done here I’ll be in our room, we need to start planning on what we’ll do when we leave.” She turned around in anger to leave, but Apollo jumped after her.

“Aura please wait, give me a moment I beg you,” Apollo said.

She twisted around, bringing her talons up and pointing one sharp claw right in his face. “I have nothing to say to you. When I was banished, you did nothing to help me. I tried to prove that I was worthy of being a member, and still you did nothing. Don’t come to me now begging for forgiveness, you won’t find it with me,” she said and stormed out in a huff.

“What was that all about? How do you know Aura?” I asked feeling confused.

He sighed. “Aura was once a member of The Red Talon Company, she was a gifted fighter and thought to one day be a member of the council. However, she broke an old law of ours and was banished from the Red Talons, she could never return to us unless she proved she’d atoned for her sins.”

“Let me guess, you were the one who banished her,” I said, giving him my own hard glare.

“No, but I might as well have, I could’ve spoken up in her defense and kept her from getting thrown out, but I stayed quiet. She sees it as an act of betrayal on my part, she’s refused to speak to me even after so much time has gone by,” he said, looking back at me with a sad expression.

“What happened that got her kicked out?” I asked wanting to know more about my friend.

“If she hasn’t told you then I can’t betray her more than I already have. I’m sure in time she’ll tell you. Do me a favor will you, and keep an eye on her, try and see past the hard exterior. She’s a good griffon, and can be a good friend, just never lie to her, or hide the truth in any way. Be there for her when she needs you and be her friend. She’s been alone for a long time and she shouldn’t be,” he said turning away again.

“I will,” I said.

“Good.” He looked back at The Elder and spoke again, “Elder Appleslice, we’ll speak again, thank you for letting me say my piece, I must be getting back home to report to the rest of my group. As always The Red Talon Company is at your disposal if you need us.”

“It was nice to see you again Apollo, and make sure you tell Gigi I said hello. Also on the other matter regarding Cartwheel?” The Elder said.

“I’ll be sure to get the message to them about what’s going on before I return, stay safe Elder,” Apollo replied.

“Ad Victoriam Apollo,” she said back.

He turned to look at me. “As for you Shadow Star, when you have time, please do come visit us at Crimson Canyon. I’d love to show you around and have you meet with the other leaders of our group.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, still lost in what had just happened a few moments ago.

“I’ll let you find out when you arrive, don’t worry though, you’ll enjoy your stay I’m sure. Oh and before I forget, I have a job for you, I need something delivered to New Pegasus, Elder Appleslice has everything including payment, I’ll be giving the receipt to Box Tape when I get to Cartwheel.” Then without another word he walked out the door.

“What just happened?” I asked looking back at the Elder.

Elder Appleslice smelled and proceeded to explain, “Apollo is one of three leaders of The Red Talons and the most trusted in his group with our branch of the Steel Rangers. When you got back and I heard the story about the attack and the aftermath. He came to apologize to us for his actions and to repay us for the misunderstanding. As for Aura and him, you’ll have to get that from her, like Apollo said. It’s her past to talk about, not ours.”

“I hate not knowing what’s going on. Speaking of which, why didn’t you tell me that there were bloodwings in that stable?” I said angrily. “Do you know the shit I had to deal with just to get that damn Pip-Buck for you?”

“Shadow Star, I had no idea what was in that stable apart from the Pip-Buck. The ponies I got the information from said that everypony was dead in there,” she said, in a serious tone. She lightened up a little as she continued, “You did a great thing, more than I would’ve expected. I wish the price you had to pay just to get one piece of tech didn’t have to be paid, but it was, and you’re alive.”

“If you would’ve sent in at least one of your Steel Rangers to help, things would’ve gone a lot better for us in there,” I said, slamming a hoof down on the ground. “Because of everything that happened, I’m not even sure if I’m sane anymore. I’ve been hearing things in my head ever since I left that Goddesses forsaken place.”

“I know that, and I wish I had. I thought with you flying in like you did, that it would’ve been easier,” she responded.

“Well it wasn’t,” I retorted, still a little pissed about the whole thing.

She gave me a look that could only tell me that I was being unreasonable. “I know, I can’t say I’m sorry more than I already have. Things like that happen in the Wasteland. Things never go the way you think it should, the Wasteland finds a way to screw with you every time. Still, from everything I’ve heard in the reports, I have a feeling that you aren’t going crazy. If anything, I just think that what happened to you during your fight and before, was the effects of massive radiation exposure. The doctors are still baffled that you didn’t die from how much you were exposed to.”

I remembered Scribe Hazel saying something like that to me just the other day, when I was still stuck in bed. “Hazel said something like that too, still, it’s done and over with. I take it you already retrieved the Pip-Buck from my saddle bags, so I fulfilled my end of the bargain, it’s your turn to pay up.”

She gave me one of her odd smiles. “I agree, from what I learned when Grimoire left, she went to New Pegasus in search of a pony named Lonely Hearts, he’s some kind of private investigator there. I don’t know how long she stayed in the city, but I know she met with him. From there I’ve heard only scattered stories of her being seen with the NLR and even the Enclave, but I never got any proof. Your best bet to find where she went next is to find Lonely Hearts in New Pegasus and talk with him.”

“If she was seen afterward with this NLR or The Enclave, why shouldn’t I try them instead? That seems to get me closer to her than going to New Pegasus,” I asked.

She looked a little lost in thought for a second. “First, I couldn’t see your mother ever working with the NLR, they’re no friends of The Steel Rangers, and they wouldn’t trust her even as an ex-member of ours. If she was with The Enclave, well, you saw what they’re like. If she’s with them, you’d be better off forgetting about ever finding her. Lonely Hearts was the last known pony to see her that I know of, he can at least get you what you need.”

“What is the NLR and New Pegasus?” I asked, deciding not to argue over if I’d go after her if The Enclave had her. I would, but I didn’t need another lecture from The Elder.

“They’re the New Lunar Republic, they’re a group that started around San Flankcisco. They believe themselves to be the ones that will bring a new government in the vison of Princess Luna. We’ve had conflicts with them a few times over the years. As for New Pegasus, it’s just the ruins of Las Pegasus. It was given the name New Pegasus after some ponies started running the casinos on the Strip. There’s also something about a mysterious pony who lives in one of the casinos that runs everything,” she explained.

I nodded. “I see, well if what I learn leads me to the NLR, I’ll be sure to leave The Steel Rangers out of my dealings with them.”

She smiled. “I would appreciate that, as for where you’ll be going, you can find Lonely Hearts somewhere in New Pegasus. If he’s not there you may find him wandering around a place just south of the Strip called Freedom Town. That part of New Pegasus is dangerous, be sure to keep your guard up when you’re traveling there.”

“I will, and thank you for giving me this information,” I said.

She smiled again. “No Shadow Star, thank you for getting me the Pip-Buck. I only made sure you got your payment for it. Oh, another thing I meant to say before.”

“What’s that?” I responded.

“That creature you let out of the stable, I’ve heard reports already that it’s been seen attacking raiders and is heading north. How dangerous is it?” she asked.

“Why do you need to know?” I replied, giving her a blank look.

“Because if it is heading up north and is a danger to the other Steel Ranger branches, I need to warn them,” The Elder clarified.

I sighed. “She’s a friend, and a pony who had bad things happen to her. She is dangerous yes, but only to those trying to kill her. If the Rangers leave her alone then nothing bad will happen. I swear on my life.”

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to notify the other Elders and make sure they keep their distance, but if what you say turns out to be false then she will be killed,” The Elder said.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this Elder, she won’t be a problem for the Rangers.”

“Good, one last thing, afterwards you can be on your way. I’m sure your friends are looking for you,” she said, tapping a hoof on her desk. “I’d like to make you a member of the Steel Rangers, I’ll still let you go search for your mother, but once that is done, I’d like you to return here and become one of us. You would be a great addition, I would even give you a promotion right away as a Knight.”

The offer was tempting I had to admit, being a member of the Steel Rangers would give me protection when I needed it and maybe even a purpose in life once I found out what I needed to. I looked back at her and asked, “What about my friends, if I joined, you would let them join too right?”

“Sadly, I’d be thrown out if I let a pegasus like your friend join, and no griffon has ever been a member. This offer is for you, and you alone,” she replied with a bit of disappointment.

I sighed. “Then at least for now, I can’t accept your offer. I can’t just give my loyalty to one faction right now, not when I don’t know enough about the Wasteland. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind, but for now, no. I do appreciate the offer though.”

“I had a feeling you would say something like that, but the offer will still be here if you ever change your mind. If you run into any more Steel Rangers in the future, just tell them you’re a friend of mine and they’ll help you. Now get going Shadow Star, and stay safe. Ad Victoriam,” she said, saluting with her hoof to her chest.

“You too, and thank you,” I said, walking out of the room.

I walked out of the Elder’s room and down the hallway into my group’s room to see Stardust passed out on his bed while Aura was drawing something on his face with a permanent marker. “Hey Aura. Whatcha… doin…?”

“Drawing a dick on his face,” she replied.

“Why…?” I asked slowly.

“The bastard shook my sparkle cola, and it sprayed all over me when I opened it, so I’m getting payback,” she said, mischievously.

“Sounds like he deserves it, let’s wait to tell him about it until after we leave,” I said with a snicker.

“When is that by the way? This place is boring and I don’t like how some of the ponies here look at me,” Aura asked.

I was planning on asking her what happened with the Red Talons, but I think that conversation would be best handled on another day. Plus, she probably won’t want to talk about it right now considering she just saw Apollo. “Actually, we’re leaving pretty soon. We’re going to New Pegasus; the Elder gave me a lead on my mother and we have business there.”

“Cool, just let me finish my masterpiece before you wake him up,” she replied.

“Alright, just don’t take too long,” I said, sitting down and crossing my hooves.

“It’s not like it’s that complicated to draw something like this on somepony’s face. It’s basically done anyway, I’m just going to add a few veins for detail, maybe ponies will think it’s a tattoo,” she said with a quiet laugh.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I quickly covered my muzzle with my hooves so I wouldn’t wake Stardust from his peaceful slumber. I uncovered my muzzle and giggled. “I wouldn’t know, I’m not the artist you are.”

“Maybe not, but at least you can bask in the glory of the dickfaced sniper. You can wake him up now if you want,” Aura said with a giggly snort.

I walked over to Stardust who was snoring very loudly. I took my forehooves and squeezed his nostrils shut making him jerk awake to breathe. “What the fuck griffon? I told you to lea…oh…hi Shadow. Sorry, I thought she was messing with me again. What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing, it’s just the way you jerked awake looked hilarious, that’s all,” I said, trying not to continue laughing.

We gathered our things and started to make our way out of the bunker while everypony was giving Stardust funny looks and snickering.

“What’s everypony laughing at? Did I grow a horn out of my head or something?” Stardust asked.

Both Aura and I stopped in our tracks and fell to the floor laughing as hard as we could. Stardust stopped and looked back at us with a puzzled look and quickly but subtly checked his head with his hoof.

Once we finished laughing and wiped the tears out of our eyes we kept on making our way out, stopping to get extra ammo, food, and medical supplies on the way. I made sure to get Ol’ Festus, I wouldn’t leave without my trusty repeater again if I could help it. When we went to every single place to get supplies a clerk behind the counter looked intensely like they were trying not to laugh, confusing Stardust even more. After getting what we needed we were walking to the exit and Stardust was still trying to figure out what was so funny about himself.

“You know, they could be laughing at your masculine pink eyes,” I said, still kind of giggling at the situation.

“Either I need sunglasses or you guys are lying to me. Plus, I saw other stallions here with pink eyes and no one laughs at them,” Stardust said.

“Yeah? Well they also wear big scary suits of armor and could probably kill or at least maim anypony who laughs at them,” I said, trying to get him not to think too hard about it.

“Not all of the Steel Rangers wear power armor, so I doubt that,” he said, sounding irritated.

“They could be laughing at how small your wings are compared to mine,” Aura added.

He shook his head. “They’re not that different in comparison, so I doubt that too. I need to find a mirror.”

“No, you don’t. I promise you look fine,” I said, so he wouldn’t go look at himself.

“Somehow I don’t believe you,” he said, getting even more irritated.

“C’mon, have I ever steered you wrong?” I asked, giving him an innocent smile.

***

We were finally at the exit and the entrance guard was making sure we weren’t walking out with something that didn’t belong to us when…it happened.

“AAAHHH!!! WHY!?” Stardust exclaimed.

“What?” Aura and I asked in unison as Stardust covered a certain portion of his face.

“I saw it in my reflection from this guy’s visor! Who did it!?” he exclaimed, as he frantically rubbed the spot with his hooves.

“Did what?” I asked.

“Oh, come on! Who drew a cock on my face!!??” he yelled again.

“It is a work of art if I do say so myself. Don’t rub it like that, you might get something else on your face,” Aura said, sounding pleased with herself.

“It’s not funny! How am I supposed to get this off!? Shadow, you can magic this off my face, right?” Stardust exclaimed.

“I don’t know any spells like that, so you’re on your own with this one,” I replied.

“Here, take this bandana. You can use it to cover your face until it wears away,” Sapphire said, handing him a bandana with a logo on it. She’d just caught up with us as we were leaving.

“What’s that on the bandana?” I asked.

“It’s the Steel Rangers emblem,” she replied proudly, pointing at the three gears, with apples, a sword pointing upward flanked by a set of wings.

“Thanks, I suppose I should wear this side in so no one looks at me and thinks the steel rangers are working with the pegasi,” Stardust said sheepishly.

“Nonsense. Wear it however you see fit. As far as the Steel Rangers are concerned, you three are our allies and we don’t care who knows it,” the steel covered pony said, then turning toward me. “I have the details and package that Apollo needed delivered. The Elder wanted me to make sure you got it before you left.”

She passed me a package along with a few files wrapped up in paper. I took it and looked back at her. “Where is it going?”

“Apollo said it was to be delivered to First Lieutenant Blazer, he’s at the NLR embassy in New Pegasus, on the North End of The Strip.” She handed me a bag filled with caps. “He also said this is the payment for the job, it’s around fifteen hundred caps.”

I looked at the bag in awe and asked, “Why so much?”

“It’s a high priority delivery, he said he would only trust it in the hooves of Equestrian Express. Now you should all be heading out, Ad Victoriam,” she replied.

“Same to you Sapphire, and thanks for all your help,” I said.

She nodded then walked back into the bunker. Stardust put on the bandana around his head over the artistic drawing Aura left.

***

We were a few miles from the bunker and the bright gloominess was turning into darkness as I heard thunder in the distance. It started to rain, I wondered to myself if we were being watched by The Enclave somehow. I think that feeling is going to fester in the back of my head until they’re taken care of. “Ugh this rain sucks. Why is it always raining?”

“Now that you mention it, it’s kinda weird considering the fact that this area used to be a desert. It doesn’t rain much in a desert,” Stardust said, also puzzled at the recent bouts of rain.

“You two think about things too much. It’s simple, before the war, pegasi, like dumbass here, controlled the weather. If they controlled the weather they controlled where it rained. It was probably a way for them to control the Equestrian economy,” Aura said, sounding like she was trying to get us to shut up.

“How would they control the economy with rain?” I asked quizzically.

“C’mon you can’t be that ignorant. Ugh…if ponies have a limited water source then they’ll have to pay the government or a government funded water supply company to supply them with more water. Then the ponies get the water they need out here in the desert and the government gets the money they want,” Aura explained.

“That sounds kinda fucked up. Why would somepony build a town in a desert in the first place?” I asked.

“I dunno, but it worked out pretty well for New Pegasus. All the hotels, resorts, and casinos there raked in hundreds of thousands of bits back in the day or so I’m told,” Stardust added.

“Yeah, now The Strip pretty much robs anypony or griffon that gets in there with their rigged games,” Aura said sounding aggravated like she’s fallen victim to rigged games in the past.

“Rigged?” I asked again, feeling like more of a novice than I already did.

“When you’re in a place like New Pegasus you should expect a lot of their games to be rigged. The owners of the casinos and whatnot do stuff like that so they can get more caps out of the ponies who play them. Of course, they have to let somepony win sometimes to keep ponies coming back,” Stardust explained.

I cocked my head, “So, it’s all one big scam?”

“Pretty much,” they said in unison.

I thought about the group the elder told me about and decided to get some perspective from my friends. “What do either of you guys know about the NLR?”

“Oh, the NLR, they’re this militarized group that thinks they can restore law and order to the Wasteland like some sort of saviors. That’s pretty much all I know about them, but you could probably talk to a ranger about it in New Pegasus. I heard they’re occupying a part of The Strip and a few settlements around it,” Aura explained nonchalantly.

I cocked my head again. “Ranger? I already asked the Steel Rangers about the NLR, they gave me just about as much information as you did.”

“No. What she means is an NLR ranger, they’re higher ranking ponies in the NLR. They’re also said not to be taken lightly in a fight, especially the Veteran Rangers. Some ponies say that they’re so tough they chew nails and spit napalm,” Stardust explained in minor detail.

“Chew nails? Spit napalm? I highly doubt that,” I said, shaking my head.

“Suit yourself, don’t blame me if you get in a scuffle with one of them and get dead,” Stardust said, while poking me in the shoulder with his wing.

“Don’t…it feels weird,” I whined.

“Weird huh?” he said mischievously while he continued to poke me.

He was starting to piss me off like he always does. “Stop, or I’ll rip it off!”

“See now there’s something I doubt. Pegasus wings are incredibly resilient, they’re pretty hard to damage unless you use something like a higher caliber bullet or an extremely sharp knife or sword,” he said with a frown.

“What about Aura’s energy spear?” I asked, with a crooked smile.

“Yeah I’d like to know that too,” Aura added curiously.

He smirked, “Like I’d tell you that. Plus, it’s almost like telling my weakness to the enemy with lieutenant beaky listening.”

I couldn’t help but giggle a little as Aura glared at me with the intent of murder in her eyes. “Keep laughing. I dare you shrimpy.”

“Hey! I’m almost normal size! My growth is just delayed,” I snapped.

“Not so funny now, is it?” she snapped back.

“Now c’mon ladies. Don’t start a cat fight. Some offense to the griffon,” Stardust said nonchalantly.

“SHUT UP!!!” Aura and I both yelled in unison.

“Fine, I won’t stop you, but I got caps on you in this one Shadow. You’re easier to travel with,” Stardust said with another smirk.

“Ugh, we can’t argue like this. It makes us vulnerable to an attack,” Aura said, forcefully.

“I agree with the griffon. We don’t know who could be watching us right now, ready to attack,” Stardust agreed.

We kept walking throughout the day as the rain faded away, the dry, cracked, possibly radioactive sand crunching under our hooves and…uh…paws?…Talons? I really don’t know what to call the extremities that Aura walks with, I really need to ask her that one day.

After a while, I finally saw hollow arrow markers on the bottom of my E.F.S. compass. I just hope the upcoming towns or settlements weren’t raider camps or radioactive ditches. As we got close to one of them I saw something sticking out of the ground in the distance. It looked like…um…a refrigerator. Why is there a fridge in the middle of the Wasteland? When I got up close and personal with it I got the notification on my Pip-Buck.

You have discovered.

Daring Do’s Refrigerator Shelter!

Seriously? What the fuck? Refrigerator shelter? “That doesn’t make sense. Why would somepony make a shelter out of a fridge? It’s so small,” I asked confused.

“Haven’t you read any Daring Do books?” Stardust asked.

“Books? The only books I’ve read are textbooks in school in my stable. I didn’t really read many books except for those and The Wasteland Survival Guide.”

“Really!? I used to love those books when I was a colt. I read every one of them. This refrigerator thing reminds me of Daring Do and the Zebra Temple when she’s trying to take refuge from a megaspell blast that the zebras use to destroy the temple because they think she’s still inside and they want to destroy any evidence left behind in the temple. Little did they know that Daring Do got out of her bindings and closed herself in a refrigerator that was lined with lead to survive the blast. The explosion threw the refrigerator a long way and when it landed Daring Do heroically came out and escaped the zebras,” Stardust explained excitedly.

“Why would there be a refrigerator in an old zebra temple and since when do they even have temples? Plus, wouldn’t the refrigerator get vaporized by the blast?” I asked.

“Yeah, it sounds a little farfetched to me,” Aura added in disbelief.

“Well you see, the zebras that were there set up campsites around the temple and they needed a place to put their Sparkle Cola obviously. Plus, how would you know if they had temples or not? Zebras can build whatever they want in their own country,” Stardust explained again trying to prove his point.

“Wow. Egghead much?” I said getting bored of the conversation.

“Yeah. I didn’t realize you were such a fuckin nerd,” Aura added again, also sounding bored of the subject.

“I’m not an egghead or a nerd. I just like A.K. Yearling’s stories that’s all,” he said defensively.

“Whatever. Let’s just keep moving, I don’t wanna keep obsessing over a machine,” I said, ending the conversation.

“Fine. Let’s go,” Stardust pouted.

When we came to the second marker I was surprised to see that it was a destroyed caravan cart and a dead (gag) mutated cow thing.

You have discovered.

Sacked Scarlet Caravan Co. Caravan!

“Too bad. Probably didn’t suspect a thing,” Stardust said, with melancholy in his voice.

We kept walking and I asked, “Something you’ve seen before?” by the look on his face I could already see what the answer was.

“I’ve seen stuff like that many times. Sometimes the raiders, fiends, or whatever other vile thieves are still looting the cart when I find them. When I see them do that I get so angry. I think to myself, what would’ve happened if I flew over maybe five minutes earlier? There have been times where I actually find one that’s still being attacked and all I can do is hope that no innocent ponies get shot,” he said hanging his head.

“Unfortunately, that’s just how the Wasteland works. Ponies die, griffons die, hideous monsters die, etc. It’s not like you can change that,” Aura said, apparently not feeling any remorse for anypony.

“You really are heartless, aren’t you? If I didn’t fly over when Shadow had that big raider pony on top of her about to kill her, she would’ve just been a head on a spike at a giant raider camp,” Stardust snapped.

Aura hung her head and looked away from him. “I’m not heartless. I’m just a realist,” I heard her say to herself softly.

They both kept quiet as we went on towards the last marker on my E.F.S. and I thought I could see something in the distance, but I couldn’t make it out. It just looked like a huge gathering of dead trees. As I was trying to get a better look I tripped over a small wood sign that read 'White Tail Woods National Park Trail'.

I feel like I’ve heard about that place before, it was a pre-war nature reserve. I read in one of my history books in school that ponies would go there with their families and take pictures next to landmarks and leafy green trees and bushes. Now that I got closer I could see that it was just as desolate as the rest of the Wasteland, with an eerie green mist blanketing it like a fog. Almost like Green Mist Valley when I left the stable, only twenty times worse.

The notification pinged on my Pip-Buck that I’d discovered White Tail Wood National Park and I took out my pistol as I saw a crude sign that said 'Danger Cazadores Ahead', “What’s a Cazador?”

“One dangerous motherfucker. We should tread lightly,” Stardust said, eyeing every part of our surroundings as we kept clear of the park and the eerie green misted forest on the other side of the plains that sat at the edge of the desert.

“Can’t one of you pick me up and we can fly over?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no. It’s more dangerous to fly over on the account that if whoever’s holding you gets stung by one of those things then you go splat,” he said, cocking the bolt on his new rifle.

I sighed. “Great, I’ll call ahead to Death and let him know we’re stopping by.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Silver Tongue: You gain a 15% chance to persuade somepony during a conversation.

Quest Perk Added.

Shadows Edge Rank 1: Get in touch with your dark side! Due to your recent connection with your other half, you now gain +2 to overall damage resistance.

Chapter 13: The Flood

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Remind me to cripple my legs so we don’t have to walk places anymore, because every place we go in the Wasteland always ends up trying to kill us,” I said sarcastically.

“No way, then one of us would have to carry you and I don’t feel like doing that,” Stardust said as we walked along the edge of the desert. In the distance, we could see the tops of mountains skimming the skyline, silhouetted peaks glowing in the setting sun that sits over the cloud cover.

Aura flew overhead with her energy spear held tight in her talons, her eagle eyes searching for potential threats. As we slowly worked our way closer toward the peaks she said, “If you two are done complaining down there, I think I see a place we can hold up for the night.”

“As much as I hate to say it, I think we should keep moving. My hooves hurt, but I’d rather get to New Pegasus sooner rather than later,” I said, looking up at the black griffon.

“I hate to agree with Aura, but she’s right, we shouldn’t be out here when night falls. If that sign back there was correct about the Cazadores, we’ll want to make sure we’re in a safe place for the night,” Stardust said with a sigh.

“We passed that sign hours ago, do you really think we’re still in danger?” I asked, giving the pegasus an annoyed look, furrowing my brow a little.

“I do, those damned bugs can travel a long way, and if there’s a swarm, their territory can range for miles,” he explained with a wave of a forehoof.

“Either way we still need rest. I know you wanna keep going, but we can’t just keep traveling all night. I’m tired, my wings are getting sore, and both of those are making me cranky,” Aura said, landing next to me and putting her energy spear on her back.

“Aren’t you always cranky?” Stardust asked with a snicker.

“Don’t push me pegasus. I cut off a stallion’s dick once, and I’ll do it again,” she said, pointing a talon in his face.

Not wanting to listen to more of their bickering I stepped between them, saying, “Okay you two, fine we can rest, just please stop fighting. I’ve had enough of you two bickering.”

Rolling her eyes Aura walked away heading toward a small shack. Stardust and I followed, the pegasus still chuckling a little. The shack didn’t look like much, but at least it would be a roof over our heads for the night. Aura pushed the door open, took a quick look around before heading inside. Walking in, I saw what I expected, nothing. There was a cot in one corner of the shack, a couple broken book shelves, and a dirty sleeping bag on the floor.

“I call the cot!” Stardust shouted, flying over and landing on it. He set his rifle against the wall and lied down, a smug look on his face.

“Yeah, you’re a real gentlecolt,” I scoffed, looking at the sleeping bag in disdain.

“Where I grew up, we have a saying. You snooze, you lose,” he said, closing his eyes and rolling over.

“I’ll take first watch, you two get some shut-eye for now,” Aura said, walking back to the door.

“I thought you needed sleep?” I asked, deciding to lay on the floor next to one of the book shelves.

“I said I need rest, not sleep. I’ll wake you in a couple hours,” Aura said as she walked out the door, closing it behind her. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

***

Not very much time passed and I still couldn’t sleep. Every time I came close, memories of what happened during the fight with the griffons kept creeping up on me. I was afraid that if I let myself sleep, then that thing, Morning Star, would take over again. I was tired though, and was doing my best to ignore my fear and get some sleep, when I heard somepony talking softly outside the door.

Grabbing Ol’ Festus with my magic, I got up slowly and made my way to the door. I was about to pull the door open when I heard the voice again…it was Aura. Putting my ear to the door I listened closely.

Her voice cracked a little as she said, “It’s hard on nights like this, not having you around. I can’t believe it’s been six months, still seems like yesterday when everything in my life went to shit. At least I found some friends to keep me company. Yeah, I know what you’d say too. ‘Since when have you been good at making friends Aura?’ Back then you would’ve been right to. Since I lost you, I’ve been… well… different. I don’t know if it’s that little unicorn or just what you told me on the night you gave me this spear. They’re good ponies, even that stupid pegasus and even if I’d never say so to them, I enjoy their company. It sure beats being alone, that’s for sure. Still… on nights like this, when I start to think about you, I miss you so much Trip.”

Peeking through one of the cracks in the boards, I saw that Aura was talking to nopony, just herself. She was looking down at her Spear, her back to the shack, and her head hung down low with tears dripping to the ground. I backed away from the door. I hadn’t ever seen this kind of emotion out of Aura before. I mean yeah, I hadn’t been traveling with her very long, but she’d always put on this tough griffon act. I guess I just assumed she was hard as a rock, but she wasn’t. From what I could tell, she’d lost someone and it still cuts deep down, she just didn’t want anypony to see it, so she hid it behind that mask.

Slowly I opened the door to the shack and walked up to her, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Why don’t you get some sleep, I can take a turn on watch.”

Unmoving the griffon sniffed, then asked softly, “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“A little, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop or anything, I just happened to wake up and heard somepony talking,” I answered honestly.

She looked over at me, her normally cool demeanor was gone. It was replaced by something that looked fragile and broken. “I really didn’t want you to hear that.”

“I’m sorry,” I responded, not sure what to do or say.

“It’s fine, not like it was done on purpose,” she said with a light sniff.

“If I may ask, who was Trip? They sounded kind of important to you,” I asked, trying not to pry too much.

The griffon looked away again and back down at her Spear. A few seconds went by, neither of us saying a word. Finally, Aura let out a long sigh and said, “She was a dear friend to me. She was a first generation born in The Wasteland. Both her parents were from a stable that failed years ago. She used to run a traveling caravan and hired the Talons as bodyguards when she had to go on long trips. I was always requested to go on those trips, over time we became friends.”

“Is she the one who made you the spear?” I asked.

Another tear fell as she answered, “She was. On one of her trips to Manehattan she found an old schematic for making them. She had a real talent for that kind of thing, she gave it to me as a gift.”

“What happened to her?” I asked again.

She looked over at me again, then she stood, took a deep breath and picked up her spear. “Shadow, that’s not something I’m ready to talk about yet okay.”

I looked at her with a little concern. “Auntie always told me growing up, that it’s always better to talk to somepony about what’s bothering you. If you don’t, it’ll slowly eat you up inside.”

“Maybe one day I’ll be okay with doing that, but right now it just hurts too much. Don’t worry about me in the meantime. Worry about yourself, you have a lot more shit to deal with than I do,” she said.

She had a point there, I got a lot of shit going on at the moment. I let out a sigh. “I do worry about you though Aura. There’s so much I don’t know about you and I want to. I mean so far, all I know is you wanted to join The Red Talons, then I found out you used to be one, and you have a dislike for Stardust. I don’t know much more than that about you.”

She rounded on me, her eyes no longer sad. Now she looked pissed. “Why would you want to know more about me? It’s not like we’re friends or anything, I owe you a life debt and that’s all. You don’t need to know more about my past. All you need to know is that I made my contract with you and I’ll see it through. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Not turning away from her sudden fury, I replied calmly, “I think of you as my friend Aura, and right now I see my friend is hurting. I want to help in any way that I can. If that means for now I have to stay back and let things be, I will, but I’ll be here for you when you’re ready to talk.”

She looked taken aback, at least the anger left her eyes. She shook her head calming down a little. “I’ll never understand you ponies, either it’s you all have this kill or be killed attitude, or its trying to make friends with everything.”

“I wouldn’t agree with you on that, honestly I wasn’t that good at making friends in the stable. I only had two of them, and even then, I still felt like an outcast at times. I’d like to have friends, but honestly, I suck at it, but I still keep trying,” I said with a small smile.

She smiled a little too. “Well, at least we have that in common. We both suck at making friends. Tripwire was the one who tried hard to befriend me, in the end it worked,” as she spoke a shadow seamed to fall over her, “Then I lost her and you know what I learned about friendship?”

“What?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I learned that the closer you get to someone, the more it hurts when the Wasteland takes them from you.” She turned to walk into the shack. “If you wanna take over on watch, be my guest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I watched as the door closed and sighed. Yep, that could’ve gone a little bit better Shadow. Maybe I should’ve just let her be. All I did was piss her off, and I was no closer to finding out more about her than I was when she first met me. I sat down, keeping Ol’ Festus held in my magic as I scanned the dark landscape. I hadn’t been on watch for more than a few minutes when I heard music in the distance. When I started to look around to see where it was coming from, it suddenly cut out. “That’s weird, why would somepony be listening to music way out here?”

“It’s a nice night. Isn’t it Shadow?” a metallic voice said next to me.

I jumped to my hooves and almost started blasting my rifle wildly, then I saw one of those sprite bots. It felt like my heart leapt into my throat. I took a moment to breathe. “Goddesses are you trying to give me a heart attack? Wait, are you that same guy who talked to me before? If you are I should shoot you right now for scaring me like that.”

“I’m sorry Shadow, I didn’t mean to, and yes it’s me,” he said.

“Yeah well, thanks for the apology. What are you doing here anyway? I haven’t seen you since those raiders were hunting me down,” I asked.

The robotic bug bounced up and down slowly as it spoke. “Oh, well I’ve been busy, I have a feeling you won’t be the first stable pony I run into. Though you are the first one in quite a few years.”

“Yeah, and what does that have to do with me or why you’re here?” I asked again.

“I was getting to that,” he said, sounding annoyed. “I didn’t have time to talk to you more about things before I lost the connection to that sprite bot. Though it seems like you did listen to what I told you about finding some friends.”

“More like they kinda just started following me around. The griffon says she owes me for letting her live after she attacked me the other day, and Stardust…well I really don’t know why he started following me, he said it was because he promised Box Tape, but I’m not really sure,” I responded.

“Friendships can sometimes start off weird,” he said as if he could relate.

“You know I never got your name when we last spoke. What do I call you?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I forgot before, I didn’t have time to properly introduce myself. You can call me Watcher,” he replied.

“How original, a stalker who hacks into robots to watch ponies and calls himself Watcher. Why didn’t I guess that from the start?” I said, sarcastically.

The bot shook itself from side to side as if it was shaking its head. “Well it’s not my real name of course, it’s just what ponies started calling me over the years. Anyway Shadow, I’m still glad you found others to travel with.”

I slumped a little. “Yeah, it’s nice to have companions to travel with, I just wish I knew more about them.”

“I’m sure over time you will. The Wasteland is a hard place to keep secrets in. Eventually the truth comes out, it always does.” It was hard to tell through the metallic voice, but he sounded sad.

“Even your own?” I asked, giving him a sly smile.

“What makes you think I have secrets Shadow Star?” he asked, I’m pretty sure if a robot could show emotions physically it would’ve grimaced.

“You go around using robots to talk to other ponies and watch The Wasteland. A pony like that’s gotta have a few secrets of their own.” I bet they’re weird ones too, he seems kinda like a weird guy.

“Well you’ve got a point there,” he said, dodging my question. “The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is probably the most important thing in The Wasteland.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“Everypony has a virtue, it’s the one thing a pony needs to find and hold onto if they want to survive,” he said, sounding more serious than before.

“What do you mean by virtue?” I asked, puzzled at what he said.

A sigh came out of the robot before he spoke, “What do you know about The Ministry Mares?”

I was taken aback by the question. “I know what I read in my classes. Twilight Sparkle was the one who lead the Ministry of Arcane Science, Pinkie Pie with the Ministry of Morale, Applejack lead the Ministry of Wartime Technology, Fluttershy the Ministry of Peace, Rarity had the Ministry of Image, and Rainbow Dash ran the Ministry of Awesome. Though the last two I don’t know much about. Apart from that, I don’t know much about the ponies themselves. Why do you ask?”

“The Ministry mares used to all be the best of friends before the war. They saved Equestria a few times using the Elements of Harmony, each Element was a representation of the virtues that each of the Ministry Mares embodied. Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness, Loyalty, and Magic. Without those, they would’ve never worked so well as friends and been able to use the Elements to save Equestria. Some ponies don’t know what their virtue is. Some do, but try to ignore it, others embrace it and try to live their lives based off that key virtue. My advice to you is to try to find yours and embrace it with all you can,” he said, genuinely.

I thought that over for a moment, then said, “Find my virtue huh? I’m not sure if I’ll ever know what mine is or if I even have one, but I’ll try.”

The bot nodded. “Everypony has one, they aren’t always good, but everypony does have one, even you Shadow Star.”

“Thanks Watcher, it’s nice to hear that,” I said with a smile on my face.

“I should get going, I don’t have much time left in this sprite bot. Before I go, would you mind if I look at that Pip-Buck?” he asked.

I was a little skeptical at first, but Watcher helped me in the past and never shown any hostility toward me, so I held up my Pip-Buck. “Why do you wanna see it?”

He hovered over it for a moment. “It’s not often you see a Mk. II in the Wasteland, I find it strange that you have one. Did your Stable issue them?”

“No, it was my mother’s. I found it in the stable before I left. Honestly, I don’t know anything about it, apart from that my mother left it for me, and my Overmare wants to get her greedy hooves on it,” I replied.

“Would you mind hooking it up to this sprite bot for me?” he asked turning to the side and showing a connection port.

Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I did as he asked. Once the connection was made numbers started flashing in my vision and data soon followed. A moment later the robot started to shake then something popped and it fell to the ground. I looked down at it and frantically asked, “Watcher, are you okay?”

The metallic voice floated out of it, but it sounded distant, “I’m still here Shadow. There’s a protection of some kind on it, I saw some things that were locked and figured I’d try and unlock them for you, I got a couple, but then a program attacked. If I hadn’t ended the connection it would’ve destroyed this robot, and might’ve even messed with my own hacking software. Whoever set that up didn’t want anypony to get the files on there.”

I looked down at my Pip-Buck a little confused. “When I looked into a memory orb of my mother’s, she said something about hidden files. Do you think anypony could get to them?”

“If I had that Pip-Buck here I’m sure I could figure it out, given a few months, but I really don’t wanna risk that. I did unlock a couple things, but if you want to get more, you’ll have to either find the pony who set up the program or find a terminal specialist or a really talented Pip-Buck Technician. Those are hard to find now days, but I remember a pony in New Pegasus who was good with that kind of thing. If you’re heading that way, then you could look him up,” Watcher said, his voice starting to fade away.

“What’s his name?” I asked quickly, afraid he’d vanish on me like before.

“Nexus…” Watcher said, then with a pop and a crackle, the robot powered down.

“Well at least this time I got something out of him before he went away,” I said, turning and bucking the robot away. It landed a little ways away making a loud metallic ding as it hit a rock.

As I turned to go sit back next to the shack and go over what I talked about with Watcher, a loud humming started filling the air. Ignoring the sound, I sat down and looked at my Pip-Buck, a few notifications popped up.

Three Notes added...

Radio Range Increased...

Broadcaster Communication Range Increased…

I looked at the screen wondering what that all meant. I went to the Notes Screen and looked at the three new files. Two were written out, one titled Stable Locations, The other said Personal Notes. The last was a recording that was titled. 'For my Little Star.'

I looked at the last one trying to hold back tears, Little Star was the nickname mom called me by. I was about to click on it when the humming in the air grew louder. Looking up I saw a couple dozen red bars on my E.F.S. Getting to my hooves I lifted Ol’ Festus, I started to kick the door behind me trying to wake Aura and Stardust. Then, I saw them, large disgusting looking bugs. They were black with orange wings and stingers. In a way, they kinda looked like a mutated bloatsprite, but at the same time not. They were more like a mix of a regular bee and a bloatsprite, that’s about the best way I can describe it.

“Wake up you two, we have company!” I yelled. Activating S.A.T.S., I fired off three shots hitting the two that were closest. A moment later Aura and Stardust came flying out the door, weapons ready. Aura spun her spear in one talon and attacked as two more came flying toward us.

Stardust took to the air firing at the bugs as they flew toward us. Between the loud cracks of Stardust and me firing and the high screech of Aura as she attacked, I missed what Stardust was trying to say to me. Looking up at him I yelled, “What!?”

He fired off one more round taking out two of the bugs with one shot, then he landed and said quickly trying to catch his breath while fighting rushing adrenaline. “I said there’s more coming, a whole swarm of them. We can’t stay here. We have to move. Now!”

Aura landed a second later, green goo and bug parts stuck to her spear’s tip. She gave me an excited grin. “So are we hanging around here and killing as many of them as we can or running away like little bitches.”

“I vote for running,” Stardust said, firing again as another bug came flying toward us.

“I’m with him,” I agreed.

Aura just rolled her eyes. “Fine, you two are no fun at all.” She opened her wings and took hold of me jumping into the sky with Stardust not far behind.

They both started flying off when I suddenly heard a high-pitched scream fill the air. It sounded to me like a filly’s scream or something close to it. “What was that?”

Aura stopped and turned, down below I could see the swarm of Cazadores. There had to be at least six dozen of them buzzing in a large group. A few had broken away to come toward us, but they didn’t seem to be able to fly as high as we were. Aura was scanning the ground, flapping slowly to keep herself aloft. After a moment, she pointed toward a small building near the swarm, with a partially collapsed roof. “It looks like there’s two foals in that building.”

“Get me down there,” I said as I reloaded Ol’ Festus with my magic.

“Are you nuts!? There’s no way we can get through that swarm,” Stardust said.

“I’ll find a way, I’m not leaving two foals to get killed by those nasty bugs,” I said squirming in her talons.

“My job is to keep you safe, that’s the deal I made with you and letting you go down there isn’t keeping you safe,” she said, her talons digging into my forelegs.

I flipped my rear hooves up trying to buck her so she’d let me go. “Let me go Aura! Right now!”

“Ow, stop that, dammit Shadow, fine!” she said, diving toward the ground still keeping me held tight in her talons. “But if you have to be stupid, let’s at least try and not get you killed in the process.”

Stardust followed her dive, yelling down toward us, “What the fuck are you doing!?”

“There are foals trapped down there, so shrimpy wants to, yet again, find a new way to get us killed. Follow me, once we reach the ground do something to distract those bugs. I’m gonna fly in with Shadow, get hold of those foals and hopefully fly them out of there before we get stung,” Aura said, banking hard to the left and aiming for the swarm that surrounded the small ruin. She flew close to the ground speeding toward them. "I’m going to toss you through the window then take off again, get the foals and teleport them away so I can grab them.”

“I’m not sure I can teleport more than one or two ponies. I’ve never tried that before!” I yelled as the building came at us faster and faster.

“First time for everything, now go.” She pulled up at the last second, letting me go in the process. My body went flying past a few Cazadores and through one of the windows, sending my body skidding across the floor. I came to a quick stop, when I slammed ass first into the far wall.

A little dazed I got to my hooves and pulled out Ol’ Festus, two of the large bugs pressed their way through the window and buzzed toward me. Killing them both I started looking around the room. It looked like it used to be some kind of living room before the war. Most of the walls had fallen away leaving the room with a crumbled open concept. The only other thing still standing was the stairs. I couldn’t see anypony in there so I figured they had to be upstairs. I ran toward them wondering to myself how Aura could see two small ponies from how high we were and in a building. Must be a griffon thing.

Another scream filled the air followed by a voice, “Quiet down Honeysuckle, you’re gonna make more show up.”

I moved up the stairs and peeked around the banister. Sitting in one corner of the semi-collapsed room was a filly and a colt. The colt had a straw yellow mane with a light blue coat. The filly had a light pink coat and a golden mane. The filly was sobbing next to the colt, a revolver next to them, and two dead Cazadores a couple meters away. As I looked at them the colt saw me and jumped to his hooves saying in the most serious tone he could muster, “Don’t come any closer or I’ll…I’ll.” he started to stutter, tears welling up in his eyes.

“It’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, in a soft tone, walking the rest of the way up the steps. “I’m here to help you. There’s a swarm of those bugs out there.”

“We don’t need help, we can take care of ourselves!” the colt exclaimed, picking up the revolver and pointing it at me.

Was I this annoying when I was young? Doing my best to stay quiet and not scare them, I slowly put one of my hooves up. “I can see that, but there are a few dozen Cazadores out there and you two don’t look like you have enough ammo to get through them. My friends are out there and we saw you were in trouble. So how about you come with me and we can get you to safety.”

The filly looked up at my raised left hoof and gave a little gasp. “Look Wingnut, she has one of those hoof terminal things.”

He looked over at my Pip-Buck. “How’d you get a Pip-Buck, are you from a stable?”

Really, he’s going to play twenty questions now? “I was yes, but now I’m a courier and I help ponies now and again. We really don’t have much time, I’m sure those bugs will figure out we’re all up here soon.”

“I think she’s that pony Mr. New Pegasus was talking about, the one who took out the town of fiends,” the filly said to her friend.

Wondering who Mr. New Pegasus was and how he knew as much as DJ-Pon3 did about what happened a few days ago, I replied, “Yes, that’s me. Still we need to get out of here before…” I heard a buzz from behind me, turning I saw three cazadores were flying up the stairway. I drew Ol’ Festus and fired, I got one, but the other two came around the fallen bug and attacked.

Jumping to one side I used my magic to pull out my machete and sliced a wing off one of them then flipping the blade around I buried it into the bugs head. It twitched before going still. A scream broke out and I turned seeing the one I missed going for the filly and colt. Slipping into S.A.T.S. I targeted its body and fired. The bug was knocked to the side, but it didn’t go down. Instead it turned on me and attacked. I tried to fire again, the rifle clicked, I was out of ammo. I tried to get it with the machete, but I was too slow. The Cazador slammed into me, and a hot pain ran through my lower belly. Instantly my head was full of fog, and my body was going slightly numb. I jammed the machete into the bug then pushed its lifeless body off me. The two foals looked at me with fear in their eyes. I could hear more buzzing from downstairs, and shots in the distance from Stardust’s rifle.

“Listen, more are coming. We have to get you two out of here,” I said, running over to them.

“Listen lady, I told you we can take care of ourselves. We didn’t ask for your help,” the colt said, glaring at me.

“Wingnut, I’m scared,” the filly started crying again, covering her head with her forehooves.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh “You can help, at least for Honeysuckle’s sake.”

“Works for me.” I tried to use my teleportation spell. When I tried to cast the spell my vision started to blur. I stumbled a bit and tried casting the spell again with no success, it felt even harder this time.

“Hey, what gives? Aren’t you gonna get us out of here?” Wingnut asked anxiously.

'What the hell’s going on?' I thought to myself as I tried casting the spell again, but nothing. My head started to spin and I felt nauseous. Then I noticed my magical hold around Ol’ Festus was weakening. This wasn’t good, something was wrong with me and I have no idea what. I had to get these two foals out of here before more bugs came up here.

Looking up I could see my friends flying overhead. Suddenly an idea came to mind. Dropping Ol’ Festus and using every ounce of my strength, I wrapped the two foals in my magic looked up and yelled, “Aura Catch!” And with a blast of my remaining strength I threw the two into the air. After I released them from my magic grip Aura caught them in one fell swoop, like a hawk picking a mouse out of a field. I have to admit, at the time I thought it was pretty freakin’ cool.

The buzzing from downstairs grew louder. Turning back around I saw more coming at me. I tried to lift Ol’ Festus with my magic, but I didn’t have the strength anymore, so I grabbed it with my muzzle and activated S.A.T.S. I was able to take two out, but more were swarming up the stairs. The buzzing from their wings was making my head hurt, my body was getting even more numb as each second passed. Finally, I just dropped my rifle. “Fuck it, bring it on you nasty fucks.”

Before they could get any closer my legs gave out and I hit the floor hard. One flew right up to me, its stinger coming down toward me. Then its body exploded, in a blast of green goo spraying over my face. A second later Stardust landed next to me. Picking up my rifle he turned quickly and grabbed me. “Why do I always have to fly in and save your ass?”

“Because deep down you know that if I was dead, no one would stop you and Aura from bitching at each other. Just sayin’,” I said weakly as we flew into the air.

“Dammit! You got stung, didn’t you?” he asked angrily.

“Probably. I can’t remember,” I said in a daze as my vision began to blur once again, and for some reason all I could hear were muffles like there were cotton balls in my ears. The muffling in my ears turned to a loud ring as I lost consciousness.

***

“Oh Shadow! Time to get up for school!” Mom said joyfully, as she walked into my room.

“Ugh I don’t wanna go to school. I’m tired and sleep is more entertaining,” I moaned, putting my pillow over my face blocking the evil light disrupting my slumber.

“School might be boring, but it’s good for you, like vegetables,” she said.

“Mom. You know that’s all we eat, right?” I retorted.

She smiled. “Of course, I do. That doesn’t make it any less true, does it? Anyway, you may not like it, but you have to get up.”

“Uuuggghhh. Fine, I’ll get up,” I said, pulling off my covers.

“Good. I’ll be in the kitchen waiting. Also, breakfast is ready, I made pancakes,” she said, before walking out of my bedroom, closing the door behind her.

I climbed out of bed and stretched before pulling open the shades on my window to reveal a bright sunny day. I quickly made my bed before leaving my room. I walked into the kitchenette and sat down at the table as breakfast was put in front of me. The buttery stack of pancakes greeted me with the sweet smell of maple syrup as I dug into it.

“Shadow I know you’re up half the night doing whatever, but you still have to wake up.” For some reason those last two words seemed to make my head hurt. “Remember that you still have to do things even when you really don’t want to,” Mom said, as she sat down with her own breakfast.

“Looks like it’s gonna be a nice day,” I responded.

“Well actually the weather pony on the radio said we’re supposed to see some balefire bombs later this morning, but that’s okay,” Mom said nonchalantly.

“Oh… wait, what?” I replied, realizing what I’d just heard.

“I said. The weather pony on the radio said we’re supposed to see some showers later this morning. It’s alright though, it hasn’t rained in a while,” she said again.

Why did I think she said balefire bombs? What is a balefire bomb? Why does it sound so familiar? “Yeah I guess you’re right. It’s been sunny for a while, the rain should have a turn in the sky for once.”

After I finished breakfast I took a shower and did a bunch of other morning stuff. As I stood in front of the mirror braiding my black mane I looked at my white face and didn’t recognize myself for some reason. “Are you okay Shadow?” Mom asked as she stood in the doorway.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got lost in thought for a sec,” I replied.

(Ding…dong) “Oh. Sounds like your friends are here to walk to school with you,” Mom said cheerfully.

I sighed. “Alright, I’ll get my stuff. I’ll just put on my makeup in the bathroom at school before class.”

“Really? Makeup? I keep telling you that you don’t need to wear makeup Shadow. You’re as pretty as they come. Believe me I’m your mother, I know these things,” Mom said judgtngly.

“Then how am I supposed to get noticed by ponies I like?” I asked accusingly.

“Just be yourself and they’ll notice you eventually. The colts that go after the uber pretty fillies are just after one thing,” she replied sincerely.

“What’s that?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Shut up. I know, you know what I mean. Anyway, have a good day at school,” Mom replied.

I waved my hoof backwards in the air. “Yep see ya later Mom.”

I walked out the front door to greet my friend Stardust and our new friend Aura who just moved here from Griffonstone. Stardust is a little annoying, but he has a good heart. I mean he did save me from some bullies who were making fun of me for being a blank flank when we were little. Aura’s a little different, she’s a little shy because she’s new here, but she’s starting to open up a little.

“You know that we wake up earlier so we can walk with you instead of fly, right? Why do you always take so long to get ready? I could’ve flown to the school five and a half times already,” Stardust said, arrogantly.

“Don’t be so daft, you’d feel guilty if you didn’t walk to school with me. Plus, you wouldn’t give up the chance to bring up your popularity with mares by not walking with me,” I retorted.

“You guys do this every morning. Is this normal?” Aura asked.

“Yeah totally normal. The best kind of normal. The kind of normal that will last forever, even when we’re adults and end up working at the same place and have to ride to work together in a passenger wagon with boring ponies who have nothing to talk about but the news like ponies in their late twenties,” Stardust replied.

“Like you’d get a job anywhere I do. I’m more white collar material and you’re more blue collar material. I could be a CEO or a lawyer, and you could be a mechanic or a uh… something,” I snickered at him.

“Uh… Yeah some lawyer you’d be,” Stardust snarked.

“You guys are weird. You say you’re friends, but most of the time you do this,” Aura commented.

“It builds confidence in one another,” I said rationalizing the situation.

“Yeah okay sure shrimpy,” Aura said, in the same snarky tone Stardust used.

I huffed and said, “I’m fun size. Nice try though. Like I said confidence builder.”

We arrived at the school and Aura went inside ahead of Stardust and I so she could do something before class. The rain clouds were starting to be moved into the sky by the weather patrol and I could feel tiny raindrops start to make tiny splashes on my coat.

“Damn. I’m a pegasus and I didn’t even know it was gonna rain today. You should get inside before the rain makes your mascara run,” Stardust said as he looked up at the sky.

“Fuck a duck! I forgot I was going to put on makeup when I got here. Now Milkshake will never notice me,” I said, freaking out a little.

“Sorry Shadow, but I’m pretty sure she notices Balefire more than she notices you. Course he notices you more than her. He’s a nice guy and you guys used to be best friends. Why not just get with him? Milkshake might get upset, but she’ll get over it,” Stardust said, curiously.

“Ok sure. You try dating your best friend. Imagine the weirdness there. Plus, I don’t even like him like that. He’s too pushy about it. Sometimes I wish I could tell him that I might like him if he wasn’t all over me like jam on toast,” I remarked.

“Whatever. I need to get to class. Just try to have a good day,” Stardust said.

I smiled a little. “Thanks, hopefully it’ll be better than yesterday.”

“It will be, all you need to do is wake up,” Stardust said, somehow his words started giving me a headache.

“Ugh. You got anything that could help a headache? I’ve had one on and off since this morning,” I asked.

“No. You know that if anyone gets caught with any type of drugs at school they’ll be suspended or expelled. I gotta get going, Blaze is supposed to meet me before class to talk about which one of us is going to be the game master later when we play Ogres and Oubliettes. See ya later,” Stardust said, getting excited about playing his nerdy buck game later.

“Alright, well it was worth a try. See ya,” I said.

I went inside and put on some makeup in the bathroom as quick as I could without it looking sloppy. If I would’ve taken any longer I would’ve been late for class. Homeroom was boring as usual, Geography and Language Arts felt like a waste of my time, especially since they’re merged classes and I’m stuck in the same room for two straight hours. Math was alright, I didn’t need to pay too much attention because all we did was review what we did yesterday as a test prep. History was interesting as usual, although I think my teacher Mr. Gold was stoned again.

At lunch, I got my tray of random food that looks and feels like food, but tastes nothing like it for some reason. Not to mention the weird googly eyed look I’m getting from Balefire from across the lunchroom because he thinks I haven’t noticed him looking yet. Both Stardust and Aura were sitting with me talking about random stuff, I don’t know what because to be honest… I really wasn’t listening. I was too busy doing what Balefire was doing and looking at Milkshake.

“Hey Shadow, why don’t you take a picture? Sure, it might reveal to Milkshake that you’re staring at her and cause a lot of attention because of the flash, but I’m sure it’ll last longer,” Stardust said, noticing that I had no interest in his conversation with Aura.

“Ass,” I replied quickly in order to not make myself look stupid by not knowing what to say.

“Hey I’m just calling it how I see it. I’m just wondering when you’re gonna wake up and realize it’s probably never gonna happen,” he replied, somehow making my head hurt again.

“Hey it could happen. It’s just a matter of her opinion of me and if she’s into that sort of thing,” I retorted.

“Yeah I’m not one to judge, but I don’t think she’s into filly flinging,” Stardust said, trying to get me off of the subject.

“Filly flinging?” I asked, cocking my head.

“You know… mare on mare action. At least that’s the only thing I’ve heard it be called other than mare on mare,” he said defensively.

“No offense, but filly flinging sounds stupid,” I said with a snicker.

“Yeah whatever. I still don’t think she’s into mares,” he said, crossing his forelegs and turning his head with a little huff.

“Who knows, maybe she just hides it well. It’s fair to say that I hide it well,” I said.

“Tss, no you don’t. Also, you’re bisexual, so it’s not like you only like fillies. I know for a fact that you like colts too,” Stardust said accusingly.

“Yeah, when we were hanging out the other day you said that you thought that Icon Stallionhalder was the hottest pony in existence,” Aura said, agreeing with Stardust’s point that I’m bisexual.

I looked away from them. “So what? He’s hot and if given the chance I’d totally…”

“Stop! Just stop. I don’t want to know about your particular sexual interests,” Stardust interrupted, before I could explain in epic detail what I’d do with Icon Stallionhalder.

“Duuussst… I was curious,” Aura whined, poking fun at Stardust’s disgust.

“No. It’s gross, and I’m eating. Have girl talk later,” he said quickly before wolfing down the rest of his food.

“Eeww. You thought what I was gonna say was gross? Haven’t you ever heard the term that actions speak louder than words?” I said wrinkling my nose at the sight.

The bell rang and it was back to class for me and the others. (Yay, more useless bits of information being planted into my head)

My next class was Arcane Science which sucked balls because even though it sounds cool, it’s basically just magic class instead of getting to screw around with weird chemicals. I hate Arcane Science the most because my mom is pretty much a master of magic and my teacher thinks I take after my mother. Obviously, I don’t because I suck at magic.

Gym class was next. I like this class, I get to send balls careening towards other ponies and not get in trouble for it. It really helps me work out my anger and frustration at the world.

And last but not least, study hall. The time when I can do all the homework that’s piled up throughout the day.

After Study hall, it was time to go home. I went to my locker to gather my things and headed to the exit to meet Stardust and Aura to go hang out.

“So how was the rest of your day Stardust?” I asked, curious at why he looked so pissed off.

“It sucked as usual," he replied. "Some other guys were making fun of my eyes again before class and ended up sitting behind me when class started. Then they decided to screw with me some more by trying to shoot spitballs in my ears. When I finally turned, and told them to stop Mr. Whooves told me to sit outside the room for the rest of class because I was disrupting others. I hate school.”

“You don’t hate school. You’re just pissed because you got thrown out at the best part of the lesson. Shadow and I both know you like learning random and interesting stuff,” Aura responded, trying to make a point.

“What do you know beaky? You’ve only been here for a little over a month. How would you know what I like?” Stardust retorted.

“Beaky? Is that he best you can come up with? I’ve been called worse by my sisters,” Aura said, getting a little worked up.

“Well… here we go. The grudge match continues,” I said with a sigh of annoyance.

“Shut up,” they said in unison.

“Okay fine,” I replied rising my hooves defensively.

“Hey Shadow wait up,” a familiar voice said from behind us, turning I saw Balefire trotting over with a big grin on his face.

“Hey Balefire, what’s up?” I said.

“Are you heading home already?” he asked, walking up to us.

I shook my head. “Not yet, we were going to head into town and do some shopping, try and enjoy the day while we can.”

“YOU two are going to shop. I’m just stuck with you while you do,” Stardust said with a sigh.

“I thought you were coming with to carry our bags,” Aura said, with a grin.

He scoffed. “As if! I’m only going with you because I have nothing else to do.”

Aura and I snickered then I looked back toward my other friend. “You can come with if you want, I’m sure Stardust would like it so he won’t be the only guy who’s stuck with us.”

“I would, but I have to study for tomorrow’s math test, I was gonna see if you’d be willing to help me since it’s one of your better subjects,” Balefire responded.

“I would, but like I said, we’re heading into town for a while. I could help you later if you want,” I said, trying not to act like I was avoiding hanging out with him.

He blushed and nodded, “Yeah, that’d be fine I guess.”

“I thought you were good at math too Balefire, why do you need her help with it?” Stardust asked, looking over at my other friend.

“I-I am most of the time, I just want to make sure I’m understanding this new common core stuff we’re learning. To be honest I think it’s really confusing,” he replied.

“Or you’re wanting some alone time with Shadow,” Aura said, with a grin.

“N-no it has nothing to do with that,” he said, blushing.

“Yeah sure,” Aura teased. “If that’s the case why don’t you ask Milkshake? She’s just as good as Shadow.”

He shrugged. “Because I don’t want her to get her hopes up thinking I’m into her when I’m not. You know she has a crush on me, right?”

I just rolled my eyes and tried not to sigh. “Fine I’ll help you, come over in a couple hours, I should be home by then.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” he said running off, looking back with a smile.

“If you don’t tell him that you don’t like him he’s only going to get worse y’know,” Aura said, making a valid point.

“I know, but I don’t wanna hurt his feelings either. I’ve been trying to find a way of letting him down gently,” I responded.

“The longer you take, the worse it’ll be. You know that,” she said, making another valid point.

She was right of course and I know I have to do something about him. I’d hate to lose my friendship with Balefire over this whole thing. Looking back at Aura I smiled. “I’ll talk to him tonight when he comes over.”

“Just make sure you wake up before you do,” Stardust said, walking past me and toward the road that lead into town.

“Wait what?” I asked. “That made no sense.”

“What didn’t make sense?” Aura asked, looking at me.

“Why did you tell me I’ll have to wake up first Stardust?” I asked.

He gave me a puzzled look. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah you did, just a second ago,” I argued.

Aura and Stardust looked at one another then back at me. “You sure you’re feeling okay?” Stardust asked with concern.

“I…wait what? Are you two messing with me or something?” I asked, starting to get even more confused.

“Maybe you should head home and rest. I think you’re starting to hear things,” Aura said, walking over to me and putting a talon on my head, “You’re a little warm.”

As she touched me a vison flashed before my eyes. One moment Aura was just standing there feeling my forehead, the next she was flying down at me with some kind of spear in her talons, a silent scream coming from her beak, then the vison faded. What the hell was that?

I shook my head a little. “Maybe you’re right, I’ve been feeling off all day.”

“Want us to go with you?” Stardust asked.

“No, I’ll be okay, you two go do whatever, I think I’ll take a nap,” I replied.

Stardust walked up to me, and everything went black apart from him. He looked strange, his mane was dirty, green stuff was splattered on his face, and he looked worried. “Shadow, don’t go back to sleep! Dammit, stay with us Shadow! Don’t give in, you need to wake up. Fuck, Aura there has to be something you can do she’s getting worse.”

What the hell? What’s he talking about, what’s going on?…

I jerked awake looking around my room. Mom was standing by my door giving me an odd look. “Oh, good you’re awake. I thought you’d be asleep forever.”

“Mom? What’s going on, how did I get home?” I asked, rubbing my forehead.

“What are you talking about? You came home a couple hours ago, said something about not feeling well and you were going to take a nap,” she said, giving me a quizzical look.

“I…I don’t remember that. Last thing I remember was talking to Stardust and Aura after school, then I woke up here,” I explained.

She walked over to me and put a hoof to my forehead much like Aura had. “You’re running a fever, maybe you should rest more, we can’t have you getting sick. By the way who are Stardust and Aura?”

“What’re you talking about Mom? They’re my friends from school, they walked with me this morning,” I said, my head was starting to hurt again.

“You mean you made new friends and didn’t even tell me about them?” she asked, sounding teasingly offended.

“What do you mean? You met them already,” I said, getting confused again.

“Only friends of yours I know of is Strawberry Milkshake, and that older colt Balefire. Maybe you were just having a bad dream,” she said sitting next to my bed.

“No I wasn’t, they’re real. We were gonna go shopping in town, then I started to feel weird,” I explained.

She looked really concerned now. “Shadow, what do you mean by going into town? There aren’t any towns in the stable you know that, maybe you should go back to sleep. I’ll make an appointment with the doctor to have him look you over.”

I started to rub my head. “Okay, if you say so Mom.”

She gave me a kiss on the head then walked out of the room. I looked around the small room and it seemed like it was so familiar, yet I don’t remember anything about this place. Before I could think about it more, there was a knock at my door. Getting up I walked over and opened it, standing there was Stardust. He walked in quickly and started to speak, “There you are. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Wait a second. How did you get here?” I asked.

“What do you mean? I walked over from my place, Aura’s really worried about you,” he said, sitting next to my bed.

I started to panic inside. “Mom said she didn’t know who you were, and this morning I wasn’t in this place. I’m getting really freaked out Stardust, what’s going on?”

A look of sadness fell onto his face, then he spoke in a different voice, “I was hoping I could get you to wake up on your own.”

I took a step back toward the door. “Who are you and what’s going on?”

He looked himself over, then smiled. “What, don’t you recognize me? I’m your friend, and I’m here to help you Shadow.”

As he spoke I heard a voice in the distance say, “Wake up Shadow, please, you need to wake up.”

“You’re not Stardust, who are you?” I asked.

He sighed, then shook his head. “That doesn’t really matter, all you need to know is that I’m trying to help you Shadow.”

“What are you talking about, what’s going on?” I was starting to get really scared now.

I noticed that the voice was feminine coming out of my friend’s muzzle, “I figured if I showed you a world you didn’t know, I could get your mind to calm down and help your body heal, but you’re stronger than I thought, or something inside you is. Haven’t you noticed how different this world is, well both of them? One is a world where the sun is still shining and the war never happened, the other has you still in the stable only with your mother still around.”

My head was starting to hurt again as he…she spoke, “All I can remember is the other world, but this one seemed so familiar, but both also feel fake in a way, like I shouldn’t be there.”

“Both worlds are a kind of fantasy I helped your mind make up as it healed. I took your mind away to another place hoping to keep you from succumbing to the poison. I thought if I showed you a happier life you’d relax, but you haven’t. Your mind keeps fighting my spell,” the strange presence explained.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Think back, what’s the last thing you remember, something that felt real and not fake?” the presence asked.

“I’m not sure, maybe when I was in class with my friends,” I replied.

“That’s not it Shadow, think about this morning when you first woke up, what seemed off?” the presence asked again.

I took a moment then remembered. “I thought something was wrong with how I looked.”

The presence nodded. “Yes, now before that. What else do you remember?”

Then it all came back to me. The bugs, the foals I was trying to save, my friends coming in to save us, getting stung by one of the Cazadores. I remembered how my head hurt and my body wanted to go numb. I looked back at the thing that was pretending to be my friend only now there was just a shadow standing there. “I remember. What happened though, why are you here and what are you?”

The shadow seemed to smile and a twinkle flashed where its eyes should be. “I’m only here to help you. You matter to me and my kind Shadow. We can’t have you dying on us.”

As it spoke everything around it faded away leaving us in nothing but blackness. “What do you mean I matter to you? I don’t even know you.”

“No, you don’t, but your mother knew of us and was studying us. You don’t need to worry about any of that, all you need to do is wake up. If you do you’ll live…but if you sleep one more time, you’ll never wake again,” the shadow said.

“Wait, you know about my mother, do you know where she is?” I asked.

“I personally don’t, but my friends do, they’ve been watching her for years now,” the shadow explained.

“Can you find out from them where she is?” I asked, knowing the answer was probably no.

“I could, but I won’t. Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter,” the shadow answered.

Anger growing, I yelled, “Why not?! I’ve been looking for days now, and I’m still no closer to finding her than I was when I left my stable. If you know where she is or your friends do, then why hide it from me?”

“Because that isn’t something I care to tell you, not yet at least. And once you wake, you won’t remember any of this, at least not for a long time,” it said, with a small chuckle.

“Shadow wake up, please wake up. You’re stronger than this,” came Stardust’s voice from seemingly nowhere.

“That isn’t fair, I have to know!” I demanded.

“Life isn’t fair Shadow Star, now go back to your friends. You don’t have long and they’re worried about you. Don’t think too much about this meeting, in time you’ll find her. Just keep searching,” the shadow responded.

“I don’t know if I can…” I started to say.

“You can, now go and wake up!” the shadow said, and with a flash of bright light everything was gone, and I felt myself floating, leaving the memory behind somewhere deep in my subconscious.

***

In the darkness, I floated adrift in a sea of dark nothingness. I blinked and the world started to come into view as I saw Stardust’s face above mine. I could feel his hooves on my shoulders. “Please, don’t go back to sleep! You need to stay conscious!”

“Are you real?” I moaned in confusion.

“Yeah, I’m real, and you’ve been stung by a cazador. Aura is making an anti-venom with a cazador poison gland and some other stuff. Try to stay awake. If you don’t you’ll probably die. I can’t let another friend die. Not on my watch,” Stardust said.

“Ok, I’ll try. Also, you might wanna move,” I said groggily.

“Good. Why would I want to move?” Stardust asked, giving me a funny look.

“If I ever get the strength to move, you’ll be in the line of fire if you know what I mean,” I groaned, as a disgusted look fell on his face.

“Eeww gross. Yeah, I know what you mean. Thanks for the warning,” he said as he got up and went over to Aura.

My hearing was still a little muffled, but I could hear both of them actually working together. “Is it almost done? In her condition, I don’t even know how she’s able to stay conscious,” Stardust asked.

“Yeah, just give me a little longer. It’s been a while since I’ve done this and I just wanna make sure I did everything right,” Aura responded quickly. She sounded like she was in a bit of a nervous panic. I could see why she would be. I mean I am pretty much on my deathbe… wait… did they put me on the fuckin' ground? Stardust could’ve at least searched for a dirty blanket or a ripped-up curtain.

“Hey pipsqueak, the anti-venom is ready. It’ll taste super gross and if you spit it out, I’ll kill you before the poison does,” Aura said as she stood next to me looking down. How did she get over here without me noticing? Am I really that delirious right now?

“Stop staring into space and do what she said. You’re starting to make me think you’re brain dead or something,” Stardust said, from behind Aura in somewhat of a forceful tone.

“Okay, okay. Just gimme a sec,” I groaned as I lifted my sore forelegs and grasped the container of liquid.

I brought it to my muzzle and I started to drink the warm and thick gooey liquid. It tasted like somepony who had a cold, snotted in a cup and boiled it. My gag reflex kicked in immediately and I fought through the urge to barf on Aura’s talons and risk imminent death by griffon. With each gulp, I could feel my stomach turn as the liquid disappeared.

Once I drained every last drop, I could feel the numbness starting to fade and my head grew a little clearer. My stomach was doing loops, but I’m sure I can keep the stuff down…for now at least. I took a moment to breathe slowly then finally I looked back up into Aura’s worried eyes and gave the Griffon a smile.

“Well, how are you feeling?” she asked, after a moment passed.

“A little better already. How’d you learn to make something like this?” I asked, looking down at the wooden bowl.

“Like I said before, I had some medical training. You’d be surprised how often The Talons run into creatures like cazadores and manticores. We have to learn things like this to make sure we don’t die if we run into similar situations,” she said, as she pressed a talon up to my head.

“Well I’m glad I have you with us now. You really saved my ass back there, both of you,” I said.

“Well sure we did, you’re our friend Shadow, we couldn’t just let you die out here from a damned bug,” Stardust said, sounding a little offended that I thought they’d leave me behind.

I moved to get up ignoring my body’s protests of pain. Aura gave me a look and moved to push me back down. Pushing her talon away I got to my hooves and looked around. “I’ll be fine, now where are we and where are the foals?”

Aura pointed to two small lumps laying a few feet away. “They passed out a little while ago, they haven’t said much since we got them out of there. You were lucky that I was flying over you when you pulled that stupid stunt.”

“At least it worked,” I said, slowly walking over to them. “Were they hurt at all?”

Stardust walked up beside me yawning a little as he replied, “Couple bruises and the filly seems to be scared of anything that moves, but apart from that they’ll be okay. You did a good thing back there Shadow, stupid and reckless, but good.”

“It was the right thing to do.” It was, who else would just leave two foals to get killed by those nasty bugs?

“It may be the right thing to do, but most ponies wouldn’t have done much to help them,” Stardust said, with a shake of his head.

“Or they would’ve only helped them to sell as slaves later,” Aura interjected.

Looking back at the two sleeping foals I felt a quick serge of anger at the thought of anypony enslaving any colt or filly. “That’s just sick. How could anypony do that to children?”

“Happens all the time in The Wastes, fillies and colts either lose their parents and end up as slaves, some band together and try to make it on their own, others end up alone like these two and either die or get captured,” Aura said. with melancholy as she looked at them.

“Isn’t there a place for kids to go if they lose their parents?” I asked solemnly.

“Some towns will take them in, but most of the time they don’t trust the town’s folk and they leave. I heard once about a settlement made up of only fillies and colts. They live there until their grown up then they travel out into the world, though nopony I’ve ever met has ever seen it before,” Stardust said, with a wave of his hoof as if in thought.

“There’s also the crusaders, but they run into a lot of trouble and normally don’t stay in places long, tough kids though,” Aura added as an afterthought.

“And here I thought life was hard in my stable because I was the only unicorn. I had it easy compared to them,” I said solemnly.

“Weren’t you born in The Wasteland though?” Stardust asked.

“I thought she was from a stable, isn’t that how she got the Pip-Buck?” Aura asked.

“I’m from a stable, but I wasn’t born there. My mother took me there when I was really young. I don’t know where I was born though, mom never talked about life before the stable, and I don’t remember anything myself,” I said laying down again, my body was starting to feel weak and I didn’t really feel like falling on my face.

“Come on. You have to remember something Shadow. I mean most ponies don’t remember much about their early years, but you should still know something about your life before the stable, you weren’t that young when you went there,” Stardust said with a laugh.

Looking back at him with a frown I said, “I don’t, everything I know about myself starts from the day I woke up in medical. My mother said it was trauma from something that happened to me outside.” As I spoke the Elders words came back to me, how I couldn’t be Grimoire’s daughter. It was another reason I needed to find my mother, I had to know what happened to me when I was younger.

“That’s kinda messed up, I don’t know what I’d do if I forgot the first few years of my life,” Aura said.

“I’d like to forget mine,” Stardust muttered under his breath. I chose not to ask him about it, the look on his face grew dark, and I figured it wasn’t a good topic to bring up.

“Well I figured we’ve been talking enough,” Aura said, stretching her wings out and back as she stood. “Think you can handle a little travel Shadow? I’d like to get out of this area before more of those bugs show up.”

My body was telling me no, but Aura was right. We had to move. From the look of things, they flew about as far as they could to get away before treating me for the sting. I really didn’t feel like going through another fight with those things, so I stood on shaky legs and nodded. “Yeah, I can handle a little more, that anti-venom you made helped a lot. Even though it tasted horrible.”

She smiled at me in acknowledgement. “If you say so, just take it easy for now. We don’t have to go much further, there’s a town not far off and we can stay there and rest up for a while before we keep going.”

“You talking about Appleton?” Stardust asked.

“Yeah. Why?” Aura replied.

“Yeah, we should stay away from that place, it’s full of nothing but thieves and mercenaries,” Stardust said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that? You’ve gotta remember you have me with you, the town’s folk won’t bother anyone traveling with a griffon, and some of them are good ponies, just ruff around the edges,” Aura said, trying to actually encourage him for once.

He stomped a hoof. “Yeah, it still isn’t a good place to bring foals to.”

“It’s not like we’re just going to dump them there!” Aura yelled back at him. This was starting to look like the beginning to another Stardust, Aura blow out.

I was about to interject when the colt got up and yelled at both of them, “Could you keep it down? Honey needs her rest and your yelling isn’t helping.”

They both looked at the colt for a long moment then at the same time they both said, “Sorry.”

“Good,” he replied, then looking over at me he continued, “You three don’t have to take us to Appleton, we have a home we can go back to. It’s not far from Appleton, you can drop us off there if you want, and since you did save our asses back there, I’ll see if the mayor will let you stay for a while.”

“Wait… Mayor? There aren’t any towns between here and Appleton,” Aura said in disbelief.

“There is…but if I bring you three there you have to promise to keep its location a secret,” he said, giving all three of us a serious look.

I looked back at my companions then back at the small colt, “We promise.”

“You don’t get it, do you? You have to Pinkie Pie Promise,” he said, pointing his forehoof at me.

All three of us looked confused. Finally, I asked, “Um…what’s a Pinkie Pie Promise?”

The colt gave me a sardonic look. “Stable ponies don’t know nothin’, it goes like this,” he started doing a little hoof motion over his chest saying, “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Once he said 'eye' he pretty much poked himself in the eye with his hoof.

Seeing that, Aura broke into hysterical laughter, rolling onto her back, “That has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s not stupid, a Pinkie Pie Promise is very serious. It can’t be broken,” the colt protested angrily.

“Says who?” Aura replied, still giggling on her back.

“It’s a well-known fact, if you break a Pinkie Pie Promise, the old Ministry of Moral Mare will find you and get you,” the colt explained.

Walking over to Aura as she still giggled uncontrollably, I put a hoof on her trying to calm her down. “Listen. Why don’t we just do it? If it will get him to show us where he lives, then we can handle doing some stupid promise.”

“I’ll do anything as long as we don’t have to go to Appleton,” Stardust said, still looking grim.

It took a moment for Aura to finally stop her giggling. She stood back up and said, “Fine, but I still think it’s stupid. And if you tell anyone that Aura Bloodtalon did that stupid promise thing, I’ll spread rumors around your town that you still wet the bed.”

So, the three of us stood in a line and copied what the colt showed us as we all said in unison, “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Good, now you three have to keep the secret of our home. It’s not far from here,” he said, walking up to the filly and shaking her lightly. “Hey wake up Honey, it’s time to leave.”

The filly opened her eyes and yawned then looked up at the colt. “Where are we going Wingnut?”

“We’re going home, or at least you are,” he said, pulling her to her hooves.

“But, I don’t wanna go without you,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

He put a hoof under her chin and lifted it so she was looking into his eyes. “I know, but you have to. I’ll be okay, trust me.”

She started to cry again. Damn that filly cried a lot. Walking up to them I asked, “What’s she sad about Wingnut?”

“Don’t worry about it, we should get going,” he said walking off with the filly right behind him.

Not sure what else to do, my friends and I followed.

***

An hour or so later, we left the creepy forest and the dead land around it far behind. My E.F.S. was clear of red bars for a while so I decided to relax. Aura was walking next to me, Stardust was flying over us, keeping an eye out for any danger that could be in our path.

She’s been quiet the entire trip so far, a grim look on her face as we walked further west. I was starting to get sick of the silence so I broke it. “What’s on your mind Aura?”

She looked over at me then back ahead watching the road. “Nothing Shadow, I’m just walking.”

“There has to be something on your mind, you’ve been quiet the whole time,” I said, trying to strike SOME sort of conversation.

Sighing she pinched the end of her beak closing her eyes for a moment like her heard hurt, then looked back at me. “I’m trying to think of what I should do next.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t you going to keep traveling with us?” I asked.

“Do you remember what you said to me when you finally woke up, when I gave you the anti-venom?” she asked in a light tone.

“Something about you saving my life, what about it?” I asked again.

A pained looked overcame her. “That means my debt is paid and I no longer have any reason to travel with you or Dickface anymore.”

It took a moment for the reality of what she was telling me to set in. When it did I frowned as well, I hadn’t thought too much about what would happen once Aura saved my life and paid her debt. At first I really didn’t want the griffon following me around, but over the past couple days I’d grown used to her being around as much as Stardust. I almost considered her a friend of sorts, one that was secretive and coy about anything that revolved around her personal life, but she was fun and somewhere deep down she had a kind side too.

I sighed. “I guess it does. I thought you’d be happy when you paid off that debt.”

She looked back at me doing her best to hide the sadness that showed around her icy blue eyes. “I thought so too, but then I realized that I’d be all alone again. I don’t wanna go back to that. As much as I hate to admit it, I enjoy this, it’s nice to be needed instead of being alone with nothing to do, but hope someone will need a Talon freelancer to hire.”

“Then why don’t you just stay with us? It’s not like I’m going to just tell you to leave. As far as I’m concerned your part of the team,” I said.

She sighed again shaking her head. Were all griffons like this, always sulking and never making any sense? After a moment, she looked back at me. “I can’t do that. Even though I’m no longer a member of The Red Talons, a griffon’s life is decided by the contract. It’s something griffons don’t take lightly, once a debt is paid or a contract fulfilled, we don’t stay around. I’ll have to fly off as soon as I know you’re safe and start looking for more work.”

An idea came to me as she spoke, “Tell me more about this contract, how does it work?”

She gave me a funny look. “Well when the war broke out two centuries ago, both ponies and zebras started using other creatures to help during the fighting. Both races weren’t well versed in combat at the beginning and liked to use dragons and griffons to help them during battle. Griffons back then mostly kept to themselves and would do odd jobs for Equestrians. When Equestria came looking for help we struck a deal with them keeping us neutral during their war, but they could contract able bodied griffons to help during the fighting, or to teach the ponies how to fight. The only thing was that each griffon would have their own contract and ponies had to keep to it no matter what. For example, if a client told a griffon to do certain things that the griffon saw as despicable, they couldn’t make them do it. If they tried, then the contract was broken and that pony wouldn’t get a refund for his or her payment. If that client tried to kill the griffon, they were handed over to us for trial and execution. This system worked very well, and became a big part of the griffon culture. When the war ended and we no longer had anyone to pay us for our help, we banded together and for the first time in a millennia, griffons lived together in peace with each other. When ponies started showing back up and needed help, we kept our old ways of contracts and that’s how it’s been ever since.”

I took a moment when she finished to maul over what she told me. “Does your contract have a set price on how long you’ll stay with anypony?”

She looked back at me again, a knowing little grin on her beak. “No, I set my prices depending on who I’m working for and how long I’ll work with them.”

I smiled back at her. “How much would it cost for me to hire you?”

She laughed. “If you’re sure you can deal with me, hmmm,” she said and put a talon to her beak and scratched for a moment like she was deep in thought, finally saying, “Well seeing how I’ll have to deal with the pegasus and your whining, that’ll cost a little extra. Also, you don’t know how long this quest of yours will be. Normally that would cost a couple thousand caps. I’m sure you wouldn’t have enough to cover all that, so I’ll give you the pity party discount. We’ll make it a hundred caps.”

I blinked in surprise. “Wait, only a hundred caps?” She had to be messing with me, this was just some kind of griffon mind trick or joke. Who would only charge a hundred caps for something so big?

“Hey Short-stack, I can charge you more if you really want,” she said, glaring at me.

I shook my head. “No that would be fine, but are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t do this for profit like a lot of my comrades do. For me it’s more about what feels right and what I want to do. Plus, once you read my whole contract you’ll see why I don’t worry too much,” she said, pulling a small scroll out of her saddle bags.

Taking it in my magic, which was doing a lot better since Aura gave me the anti-venom, I started to read it over. It wasn’t very long, it mainly went over the things she would do for her contractor and what she wouldn’t. There were a few stipulations in the contract as well, one of which was that if a bounty or other forms of caps were to be made in any venture she was a part of, she’d get an equal share no matter what. Other things were that she refused to hurt foals or hatchlings, she wouldn’t kill just because she was told too without a good reason, life debts were null in void while under contract. She was a bodyguard that was part of her job. It was all straight forward from what I could tell.

I rolled up the scroll and placed it in my saddle bags, pulling out a small bag of caps. I counted out a hundred caps and gave them to Aura. She took them, tucking them away in her saddle bags with a smile. “Thanks Boss.”

“Oh, please don’t start calling me that,” I said with a sigh.

“Why not? It’s fitting in a way,” she asked.

I cocked my head, “How so? I’m not really the boss type.”

In response, she just shook her head and laughed. “If you say so Shrimp.”

We kept on for a while longer, the quiet giving me time to think. For once that wasn’t such a bad thing. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with the quest to find my mother. I was getting used to having my companions with me, and life felt like it had a purpose now. Only thing that could make things better is if we didn’t have to worry about being attacked all the time.

Surprisingly we made it quite a way without encountering anypony on the small road. When we finally did, there were three of them, traveling with some kind of animal with two heads. Two pulled out assault carbines, but kept them down showing that they weren’t looking for a fight, only to be ready in case of an attack.

When they drew closer to us the stallion who wasn’t armed smiled at us and said, “Howdy folks, what brings you out around these parts?”

Keeping Ol’ Festus on my back I walked up to him. “My friends and I are heading west toward New Pegasus.”

“So just traveling?” he asked.

“Yeah for the most part and I’m on a job as well, I’m a courier for Equestrian Express out of Cartwheel. What brings you out this way?” I responded.

With a chuckle the stallion looked at both his companions, nodded at both of them, and they both put away their rifles. He looked back at me and gave a little bow. “I’m Stirrup and this is my caravan, were just heading back from New Pegasus ourselves.”

I brightened up at that and asked, “How much further are we?”

“Not far, you got a few miles between here and the city. You got a couple settlements between here and there, Appleton is the closest. If I were you I’d stay clear of that place.”

“I’m fine with skipping past Appleton,” Stardust said, as he landed next to me.

Aura walked up closer. “What’s going on in Appleton that we should stay clear of? I know the town has its shady characters, but it isn’t a bad place.”

Stirrup looked over at Aura. “I take it you haven’t been there in a while. Enclave’s been in town for a month now, started out just trading with the locals, bringing down food and supplies. Recently though they’ve been patrolling Appleton and checking everything and everypony coming into town. They even kicked out the local Talon Company. Like I said before, if I was you I’d keep clear.”

“We’ll be sure to do that. By chance do you know what they’re looking for or what they want?” I asked, noticing Stardust slowly walking behind Aura.

“Not sure really, seems like they're looking for somepony or expecting somepony to arrive. All I know is they aren’t ponies you wanna be messing around with, especially with your Dashite friend over there,” Stirrup said.

“Stardust isn’t…” I started, but Stardust interrupted me…

“We understand and we’ll keep clear. Right Shadow?” Stardust said.

“Um, yeah sure,” I said, a little confused. Why was he acting so weird right now?

“Well unless you all need some supplies, we should really be on our way. It was good meeting you folks,” he said, and started to walk away.

“Same here, have a safe trip,” I said, as they started to walk past us.

He turned and gave me a smile. “Thanks to that Courier, I’m sure we will.”

I blushed as he turned and kept going slowly making their way down the road. Once they were gone Wingnut looked back at us. “Now that they’re gone let’s get going. With those Enclave ponies in Appleton I don’t want to be out here much longer.”

“How much longer till were there?” I asked making sure not to sound whiny.

Honeysuckle perked up. “We’re really close now.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want that caravan pony to follow us,” he said, walking off the road and toward a few trees next to a cliff.

We followed the foals and once we reached the cliff-side Wingnut turned back to us. “Remember your promise, not a word to anypony.”

“We remember kid, now hurry it up,” Aura snapped.

Deciding to ignore my friend’s annoyance I followed them as they disappeared around what looked like a solid wall of rock. When I got closer I saw that two parts of the cliff overlapped each other hiding an opening to a cave. A little confused I pressed my way in followed by my friends. Aura had to push a little to get through, but she made it.

The cave was dark and eerily quiet. I was about to ask what we were doing in a dark cave when we were supposed to be bringing the foals home. Then a few bright lights came on lighting up the chamber and blinding us all. Holding a foreleg over my face and trying to see, a young voice echoed through the chamber.

I heard the cocking of a shotgun and the voice of a colt saying, “Don’t move. You outsiders better have a good reason for wandering in here.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Iron Stomach: You’ve eaten and drank some pretty disgusting things in order to survive, no matter how irradiated or poisonous it is. You now gain a 5% health bonus from food and take in less radiation from it.

Chapter 14: Ain't That A Kick In The Head

“What, is he fat or something, or was he just really ugly, or both?”

Now I’m sure that everypony greets new guests with guns to the face in whatever town or settlement you visit, because once again that’s what I was dealing with. Only this time there was a colt at the other end of the large rifle. He was wearing makeshift combat armor fitted to fit his small frame. On each side of him another colt and filly also had rifles trained on my friends and I. They were standing atop a wall with a large gate made out of scrap metal.

Ignoring the three foals with rifles, Wingnut walked toward the gate, “There’s no need for that Scrapper, they’re friends.”

The Colt who’d spoken before looked down at him, “Wingnut? What in the hay are you doing back here?”

He rolled his eyes, “Bringing Honey back of course. She went off looking for me when I left. I’m just making sure she got home safe that’s all. Those ponies there helped us.”

“So, you thought you’d show these adults where our town is and endanger us. They could be slavers or worse for all you know Wingnut,” the colt said, “Three days gone and you’re already turning traitor on us? How fuckin stupid are you?”

I had enough of this, stepping forward I looked up at the colt and gave him my best stern look, “Hey, is that any way to treat anypony? Wingnut just wanted to make sure his friend got home safe, who cares if he brought us here, it’s not like we care where you live you little mutant.”

Wingnut looked over at me and whispered, “Quiet Shadow, you have no idea what’s going on here.”

Doing my best to keep quiet I whispered back, “I would, if you would’ve told me more about yourself before bringing me into this situation.”

While the colt and I argued, Scrapper yelled, “Both of you shut up. We can’t have the secret of our home getting out, so I have no choice, you’ll all have to die.”

To my surprise, Honeysuckle walked forward and said in a louder voice than I thought her little frame could muster, “Scrapper, Delta, and Soprano you should all be ashamed of yourselves. These adults helped us get away from a swarm of Cazadores, and the unicorn almost died doing it. Her and her friends could’ve just left us to die, but they didn’t, they risked their lives to save us. Now put those down and let us in, all of us.”

All three looked a little taken aback by the outburst, finally Scrapper spoke up, “Honeysuckle, you know the rules. We can’t let outsiders know about this place. It’s the only way we can stay safe.”

“And you know the rules about helping ponies who help us. I’m also sure you don’t wanna have to explain to my brother why his sister’s saviors were killed, and to top it off he’ll be really pissed when he finds out you killed the Courier Mare that Mr. New Pegasus and DJ Pon3 has been talking about,” she finished stomping a hoof and letting a huff out of her nostrils.

All three lowered their weapons a little, then looked around at one another. The filly looked ready to cry, same for the other colt, finally Scrapper put his rifle away, “Fine, have it your way, we’ll ask the Mayor and see what he wants to do with them. You two stay here and watch them while I go find him,” he finished, looking at the other two before walking away.

Aura grinned then patted Honeysuckle’s head, “Nice job squirt, didn’t know ya had that in ya.”

Looking back at the griffon she smiled, “They’re just doing their jobs. It’s how we stay safe. Though Scrapper shouldn’t ignore some rules to enforce others.”

“So why are there foals guarding this place?” Stardust asked looking up at the remaining filly and colt.

Wingnut sighed, “This is a town for foals who lost their parents, or were abandoned by them. We take them in and they grow up here until they’re ready to go out into the world.”

“What do you mean by ready to go out into the world, when is anypony ever ready to go out into the Wasteland? The Wasteland sucks noodles,” I asked a little baffled by the idea. It would be smarter to keep them around and make the town safer with older ponies to help protect them.

“Because adults are selfish and stupid. Foals share and look out for one another, but once they grow up they start only looking out for themselves. When we get our cutie marks, we’re sent out to find a new life,” Wingnut said solemnly with a heavy sigh.

“Is that what happened to you?” I asked, though I hadn’t noticed a cutie mark on him, but he’s also been wearing a large set of saddle bags that could’ve been covering it.

“Yeah,” he said pulling one bag aside and confirming my suspicions. He had a bolt and nut on his flanks, “Got it last week, found out I was really good at building new things or fixing old ones and one day poof there it was.”

Before he could say more, the gates opened up with a loud screech and a taller colt walked out. His coat was a light red almost pink like Honeysuckle’s, his mane was pretty much the same color. He grinned when he saw the filly and quickly pulled her into a tight embrace, “Honeysuckle, I’m so glad you’re safe. Do you know how worried I was when you disappeared in the middle of the night?”

She hugged him back tightly, “Sorry big brother. I went after Wingnut when he left.”

Setting her down the colt stood back up making himself presentable, I took in his clothes. He had an old business suit that was too big for him with a ratty top hat, on his lapel he had a button with the words “Mayor” on it. Clearing his throat, he said solemnly, “I take it you’re the ponies who made sure my sister got back here in once piece.”

“Yeah, my friends and I saw them held up in an old building. They were being attacked by Cazadores,” I said trying to ignore the fact that he was almost as tall as I was.

“You have my sincere thanks and same to you Wingnut, she’s my whole world. There’s not many ponies who would do such a thing for a couple of foals.”

“Yeah, I’m not one to just let kids die when I can help it,” Aura spoke up not looking at the Mayor.

“Well, thank you for what you did, though now we find ourselves in a bind. You see this town of ours is for foals only. We pride ourselves on our secrecy.”

“Sorry to break it to you kid, but apart from its location, there are rumors about this place all around this area,” Aura said, this time glaring over at the colt, “Sooner or later all secrets get out, no matter how hard you try. Like how Shrimp number two over there is a bed wetter.”

Wingnut quickly retorted, “Am not!”

“You have a point, but we do our best to try and keep it this way for as long as we can. We’ve been lucky that most of the fillies or colts who used to live here haven’t told anypony where we are. It was however, not a good idea for Wingnut to bring you here. I’ll be arguing with a few of the others for a while about how safe we are. Normally we’d kill you on sight and let that be that, but seeing how you saved Honeysuckle, that wouldn’t be a proper reward,” The Mayor said with a sigh.

I spoke up, “We’ll keep this place a secret don’t worry about that. Honestly, I’m kinda shocked that a town of fillies and colts has been able to survive like this. I wouldn’t want to endanger you by letting the location slip.”

The Mayor looked over his shoulder at Scrapper who was standing by the open gate glaring at us, “Tell me something. Are you really the Courier Mare Mr. New Pegasus talks about?”

I sighed before throwing my hooves up in the air, “Yes I am, but I don’t know why Dj-Pon3 seems to take a liking to me like he does. I’m nopony special, I’m just a stable pony who got lucky a couple times.”

He smiled at me, “Mr. New Pegasus and DJ-Pon3 don’t just talk about anypony like they do about you. They have to take a special liking to a pony or see something in them for them to talk about them the way they do about you, that being said, if they trust you then I’ll have to take a chance and do the same. So, since you saved my sister and got her home safe I’ll let you go, as long as you promise to keep the location of this place secret.”

I had to be hearing something wrong, he was going to just trust me because of what somepony on the radio said about me. He must be younger that he looks, mentally at least. Seeming to read my mind Aura spoke up, “So, you’re just going to trust all of us because of what DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus said about Shadow? You must be young to be that stupid.”

“Okay Aura, let’s not piss off the nice colts and fillies with the guns,” I said turning and glaring at her.

“Pfft, fine whatever, but I still think it’s stupid.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Aura on this one. Why are all you foals just going to let us go? That isn’t like what most Wastelanders would do,” Stardust added. Great all my friends wanted to piss off the trigger-happy foals, just how I wanted to end my day.

To my surprise the Mayor only smiled and shrugged, “I never said it was smart. For all I know this could turn around and bite me in the ass later, probably will, but I know how pissed Honey would be with me if I didn’t let you leave. If it’ll make you feel better though, how about we trade then. What can I do for you to keep our home a secret?”

I took a moment to think. All I could come up with were ways to screw them out of their hoarded candy they probably hid under their beds, “Honestly, we really don’t need anything, unless you know a faster way to get to New Pegasus.”

He looked up and stroked his chin, “Can’t help you there unfortunately. All I can tell you is that it’s not far from here. We trade with one of the outer settlements and it’s less than a day’s walk. I’m sure if you fly you’ll be there a lot quicker.”

Stardust spoke before I could, “I thought it looked familiar around here, it’s hard to tell when you’re walking. I’m used to the view from high up.”

Aura sneered at him, “You really are a feather brain aren’t you Dickface?”

“Hey, I didn’t hear you saying anything about how close we were. Plus, you have more feathers than I do and a brain the size of a walnut,” he shot back.

“Nuh-uh, and I was too busy making sure the foals got home safe to say anything about it.”

“Would you two please CUT IT OUT!” I really wasn’t in the mood for those two to start up one of their idiotic bickering sessions.

“Fine, whatever you say Boss,” Aura said rolling her eyes, “I guess the kids here can’t help us much then. So, no reason to worry about keeping secrets, unless they have anything valuable to give us.”

“We aren’t going to take things from these foals Aura,” I shot back at her with a glare.

The Mayor interjected, “We wouldn’t have much anyways, we keep only what we need to survive.”

“Oh, wait I know,” Honey said jumping up and down. Running over to Wingnut she dug in one of his saddle bags ignoring the young colt’s protests, then pulled something out and gave it to me, “How’s this for a fair trade, I found it a while back deep in the caves, Brother said it used to belong to one of the Ministry Mares.”

I looked down I saw a figurine of a beautiful and regal white unicorn mare with a purple mane. On its base was a plaque with a saying etched into it, ‘Be Unwavering’ it looked so life-like, as if she could suddenly jump off the little platform. Taking it with my magic I lifted it to look closer at the mare. I recognized her from my classes as Rarity, the head of the Ministry of Image. As I took hold of it with my magic I felt something overcome me and my body felt better, as if I hadn’t just been walking miles after fighting bugs and being poisoned. It was like I woke from a nice long nap, and was ready to go out again.

Smiling back at Honeysuckle I knelt down, “Thank you for that. Are you sure you want to part with something so beautiful?”

She nodded smiling back, “It’s okay, I can’t do anything with it and it just feels right giving her to you. She’s beautiful like you, so it’s a good match. I’m sure you’ll take good care of her.”

“Well then, I accept your gift,” I looked back at her brother, “And we’ll keep this place secret. You have my word.”

“Thank you. And thanks again for getting Honeysuckle home safe.”

Aura interrupted from behind me, “Can we get going now? I really don’t feel like spending the whole night having this wishy-washy talk.”

“I agree, not that I mind this place, we still need to get to New Pegasus. It feels like we been traveling forever,” Stardust added, his wings twitching some.

Looking back at my friends I nodded then looked back at the Mayor, “What about Wingnut?”

He gave a melancholy look and sighed, “I wish I could let him stay, but we have laws for a reason. If I started making exceptions for Wingnut just because he’s Honey’s friend. I’d have others asking me to do the same for their friends. Sooner or later I’d either lose my position or I’d have a riot on my hooves.”

“Don’t worry about it Shadow, I’ll do what most of us do when we have to leave. I’ll go head to one of the towns around here and settle down,” Wingnut said, though the tone in his voice said otherwise.

“Listen. How about you come with us for a while. From what it sounds like, it’s not safe around here.”

He looked up at me, his eyes grew wide and hopeful, “Are you sure?”

“Hell, why not, I figure you can’t be any more annoying than the rest of my friends.”

“Hey! I heard that,” Aura shot back at me from the mouth of the cave.

With a laugh, I shook my head then rubbed the colt’s mane, “So whaddaya say? Wanna come with us?”

“Yeah sure,” he smiled then looked back at Honeysuckle who was doing her best not to cry, “Hey Honeysuckle, don’t come chasing after me again okay. One day you’ll be old enough to leave, but for now you have to stay here.”

“I don’t want you to go Wingnut, I’ll miss you too much,” She said, tears starting to run down her face.

“I know, but your brother needs you here and same for the younger fillies and colts. You know how much they look up to you. It’d be selfish of me to have you tag along, and it’d be selfish of you to leave them behind for one friend.”

She sniffed, “I know…you’re right, but it’s just not fair.”

“Maybe not, but that’s how life is,” he said as he turned starting to head toward my friends and me, “Goodbye.”

***

We left the cave and the small hidden town with only fillies and colts, and the sound of one small filly crying into her brother’s forelegs. It broke my heart to hear the sound. I wish I could’ve done more, but who am I to demand anything from anypony. I’m just a courier.

Once we left the cave and started back on the path, lights started to shine in the distance. At first, I thought that maybe we were getting close to one of the towns we were told about before. That was until I saw a large tower piercing the horizon. It was a large spire with a flat rounded top, a smaller tower poking out from there with three spikes jutting out. For a moment, I stopped just to take in the sight of it.

“What’s that?” I asked as Aura walked up next to me.

“That? It’s the Lucky Horseshoe. Back before the war, it was the most popular casino in New Pegasus. Rumor has it that the Ministry of Awesome built it as a Ministry Hub.”

“I heard that nopony’s been in there since the bombs fell. It’s said that one pony locked himself inside and now controls all of New Pegasus from that tower,” Wingnut said looking up at the spire.

I cocked my head, “Is he a ghoul or something?”

“Nopony knows really. New Pegasus itself has a team of security robots that keep law and order inside the walls, they only answer to a pony called Mr. Tops.”

“Mr. Tops?” I asked finding the name strange.

Aura commented before Stardust had a chance to answer, “It’s what they call him. Either he’s a computer program that’s running inside the Lucky Horseshoe or a ghoul who never leaves it. He’s been called Mr. Tops as long as New Pegasus has been around.”

“I haven’t seen anything so beautiful before in my life.”

Stardust spoke up this time, “Somehow New Pegasus escaped being hit by any of the missiles or bombs during the war. The city was left mostly intact after the war. It used to be a surface and cloud city back in the day. When the war ended and the Enclave took over the skies, they tried to take the city too. That’s when Mr. Tops first showed up. Using his robots and other defenses around the city, he kept them from taking over and since has declared the city a safe place for anypony who can make their way into it.”

I looked over at my friend a little shocked at his knowledge, “How do you know so much about it?”

He smiled at me, “It was the first place I ended up when I escaped my Stable, never got into the city itself, but the folks around Freedom told me the history of the place.”

Aura scoffed, “No wonder you’re such a freak Stardust, you lived in Freedom for a while.”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s a decent enough town,” he shot back.

“Do you two always have to do this?” I interjected giving them both a look.

“Sorry boss,” Aura said, “But seriously, how could anypony live in that dump? Between the three gangs trying to make the town their own, the so-called Freedom fighters who live in the old mission, and the NLR. The town is just full of too much drama.”

“It’s a whole lot better than where I came from,” Stardust said getting that far off look he always got when he mentioned his stable. I still need to have a long talk with him one of these days about that. He was hiding something, and I needed to know what it was.

Trying to change the subject I looked down at Wingnut, “It doesn’t look too far away.”

The Colt looked up at me, “It’s not. You see the three paths up ahead, where the road forks? Well the left goes to Appleton, the right leads to JetBlue Skyport, and the one in the middle leads to Freedom Town. That one is the only way to get into New Pegasus, the gate to get past the walls is on the other side of Freedom.”

“You sure know a lot about this place, don’t you?”

“I used to be part of the team that came here for trade, I have a few contacts in town too. The town’s folk are okay ponies, mostly keep to themselves, but they were always willing to help us out when we need it,” he said still not smiling. The damned colt could be a real downer sometimes.

I took a confident breath, “Well we’re finally here. Should we get going?”

Aura shrugged, “Sure, I’ll go wherever you need me to boss, you know that.”

I looked over at Stardust curiously, “Stardust, since you used to live here, do you know a place where we could stay?”

“In Freedom, the only place is the Garnet hotel. It’s a nasty place, but the price is fair, the twins who run the place take a little getting used to though,” he said starting to walk off down the center path.

“What about in New Pegasus?”

“No idea, I’ve never gotten past the gates.”

“Wait a minute, why haven’t you gotten past the gate into New Pegasus?”

Aura snickered, “Wait a sec, you mean to tell me you’ve been traveling with her this entire time and you didn’t tell her how to get into the city?”

“I forgot about it okay,” he shot back at Aura, then the two started into another argument that I didn’t understand.

Instead I looked down at Wingnut, in times like this, he seemed to be the only one who had a level head, “What does Aura mean about getting into the city?”

“You need a passport to enter New Pegasus, or you have to pay the entry fee of 2,000 caps. Sometimes someone who lives in the city can get you in, but that’s only if they have high standing with the higher-ups in the city. We never got in ourselves that’s why we only traded with the towns around New Pegasus.”

“So how the hell am I gonna get in?” I mean what the hell, I traveled all this way and I had to find a way to get into the city? What did I do to piss the Goddesses off so much that they’d throw up more barriers?

Aura broke away from her argument, “That shouldn’t be a problem, The Red Talon Company has a small building in New Pegasus. I can get us all in without much fuss.”

With the best of his shit-eating grins Stardust said, “I thought you weren’t a Talon anymore.”

“Shit, I forgot about that,” Aura said looking a little sad for a moment, then she perked up, “Hey two friends of mine run a shop in Freedom that could possibly get us all passports into the city.”

“Who’s that?” I asked with a glimmer of hope in the back of my mind.

“Match and Tariff, they run a shop right in town.”

“Wait a sec, you’re friends with those two numb nuts?” Stardust interjected.

“My…friend who made the energy spear was Tariff’s little sister. I got to know them both very well over the years. They aren’t bad ponies, well mostly not bad ponies,” Aura said, one of her wings moving back to lightly touch the energy spear she kept on her back.

Stardust looked genuinely pissed, “Yeah, they’ll cheat you out of every cap you got on ya’.”

Doing my best to stave off another argument I said, “That sounds like a good place to start.”

My friends both shut up and we kept walking. Soon we were in front of an old broken-down gate, one door looked like it had been blown off many years before. Above it, a sign was lit up that read ‘Welcome to Freedom Town’.

***

The town itself didn’t look like much, especially with its close proximity to New Pegasus, which butted right up against it. As we made our way through the front gate, it reminded me a little of Cartwheel. The main road lead down a little way past a few crumbling buildings then curved slightly leading deeper into the town itself. The difference was, Freedom had a lot more ponies wandering the streets, most of them were dirty and stank, but there were unicorns, earth ponies, and even a couple pegasi. I could swear that some of the pegasi had matching cutie marks. Some were talking with each other in small groups, a few walking deeper into town, some going into a couple of the buildings that looked like they were ready to collapse. Cartwheel was a little run-down, but the ponies were clean and friendly. The ponies here seemed to be friendly toward each other, but only with the small groups they were in. If another pony got too close, they would stop their conversation and stare the other pony down until they passed.

“I’m gonna go see if Match or Tariff are at the shop. If they are, I’ll come find you,” Aura said flapping into the air.

“Okay, but what should we do while you’re away?”

“Figure something out, Dickface knows the town too, maybe he can think of something. Don’t worry I’ll be able to find you, this place isn’t as big as it looks,” So, she flew off.

I looked over at Wingnut and Stardust, “Okay so now what?”

“We should head to the market and do a little trading. I need more ammo for my rifle and I’m sure you could use some yourself.”

I looked over at Wingnut who just shrugged, “I got nowhere else to go, so I figure I’ll just follow you two.”

“Sounds like a plan then. Where’s the market around here?”

To my surprise it was Wingnut who answered, “Depends on what you want and who you want to deal with. You got the Van Damn Merchant Company, they mostly trade in magical energy weapons, they also hire themselves out as mercenaries. The Garnet Twins run the hotel in town and mostly trade in booze, drugs, and sex. Outside the west gate you have the Caballeron Caravan Company, they would have the biggest selection of things to trade and stock up on and also probably the best prices.”

“I’m not a fan of that caravan company, the mare who runs it doesn’t take kindly to Pegasi,” Stardust complained.

“You don’t seem to be a big fan of anypony around here it seems like,” I said looking back at my winged friend.

“That’s not true, The Queens aren’t that bad. A little uh… different, but always willing to help a pony out in a jam.”

“I agree, they were always kind to some of us when we came to town,” Wingnut added.

“Who are the Queens?” I asked wondering if I really wanted know.

“They’re a kind of gang around Freedom, only instead of making trouble for the locals, they help out and keep ponies around here safe. Or so they like to have most ponies believe,” Stardust said.

“Yeah when they aren’t trying to pick a fight with the NLR or charge citizens for fresh water at the well,” Wingnut threw in.

Okay, I was starting to lose track of the different factions in this town, and I haven’t even been here five minutes. Looking over at the two I finally had enough, throwing my hooves up in the air I said, “Enough, just tell me where we can trade shit.”

They both looked at me for a moment before Stardust finally said, “For what we need I’d say either Red Rider Convenience or we could get lucky with the Van Damns.”

“Good,” reaching into my saddle bags I gave our supply of caps and junk to Stardust, “You go take care of the trading. I’m gonna walk around and clear my head.”

“You sure about that Shadow? It’s not always a good idea to walk off by yourself around here.”

“I’ll be fine. I just need a little time to myself, the past couple of days have been too much and I’d like a moment to just breathe and not have to think. Plus, what could happen to me in a town like this?”

“Just, don’t wander too far or leave town, I don’t feel like having to go find you and save your ass again.”

“Ha-ha, you’re sooo funny,” I mocked, “Wingnut, go with Stardust and keep him out of trouble.”

The Colt blinked up at me then gave a cocky grin, “I’ll do my best, but he might be a lost cause.”

The Pegasus fluttered his wings turning to walk off with our gear, making little mocking noises as he did. Wingnut was following him, doing his best to hide his little snickers of delight at Stardust’s frustration. With a small smile, I made my way down the road and deeper into town.

***

I really wasn’t in the mood to go toward New Pegasus since I couldn’t go into the city. So, I went toward the other part of town. Most of the buildings around there have either collapsed or had the roof caved in. What I liked about it, was that it was quiet, the other townsfolk seemed to avoid the area for some reason. I made my way over to an overhang and sat under it. I looked down at my Pip-Buck and brought up the file Watcher unlocked before those nasty bugs attacked.

I saw the title of the one I wanted ‘For my Little Star’. For a moment, my hoof hovered over the button to play the audio file. Mom left it for me, but what if it wasn’t something good? After seeing that memory orb I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more about her. She’d hidden so much from me and I knew now that I didn’t know her as much as I thought I did.

Come on don’t be such a foal Shadow, you started this adventure to find out more and to get the truth. I clicked on the file and listened…

There was a soft crackle then the voice of my mother came out of my Pip-Buck, “Hello, this is Grimoire and this message is for the ears of my daughter and her only, if you aren’t her I suggest you shut this off now,” that was different. What could she do if someone apart from me was listening to the audio file?

A moment passed then Mom’s voice grew softer, “Shadow, my little star, I hope this message finds you well. If you’re listening to this, it means you figured out some way of unlocking the files on here or at least a couple of them. I know you have so many questions. I wish I could answer them for you in this recording, but even with everything I set up, I can’t risk telling you everything in one file. I hope that you find this when you’re older. I’m sure a filly wouldn’t do well with the information I have for you. First off, yes, I’m alive or at least I was when I made this recording, I hope I still am now when you’re listening to this. I’m sure you want to know why I left this Pip-Buck for you. That in itself is a long story, but I can tell you that it’s special, most of the Mk. II’s are, but this one is extra special. I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you this much. It holds files of mine that have a lot to do with a special project I was working on when I brought us to Stable 28. I wanted to bring them with me, but I couldn’t risk the Steel Rangers getting their hooves on them. I hid them away hoping that you’ll figure out how to unlock them so you can know more about what happened to you before we got the Stable.”

I frowned, wondering what she could’ve meant, “The files also have more information on them that a lot of ponies would kill to get ahold of. So, keep the Pip-Buck safe if you can. That’s if you managed to escape the stable, if you found this Pip-Buck and are still in Stable 28 then leave right away. The Overmare for some reason wants that Pip-Buck, honestly, I’m not sure why, but if she’s still leading the stable then you have to leave, Auntie will help you. She knows what to do if that Pip-Buck is found.”

“If you’re out of the stable and managed to make your way to Cartwheel, then you should be safe, at least for now. I have one thing I want you to do my little star, don’t come looking for me, what I have to do is much more important than my happiness or yours. I suggest you find a way to get to Manehattan, I have a friend that lives in Tenpony Tower, ask for Life Bloom. I hope you take my advice and go there, you’ll have a happy life if you do or at least as happy as anypony can be in the Wasteland. When you go there he’ll know how to get the files out of the Pip-Buck and you should be safe after that.”

“Please Shadow, do what I ask. A lot of your questions can be answered if you do this. I love you with all my heart and I hate that I have to do this. Be safe, be happy, and live your life. Also try and remember me for how I was when we lived in the stable, I was happiest then. Also, one last thing, don’t trust Aquila.”

With another click the recording ended. That, was it? All she had to say in so many words were to run away to the other side of Equestria and hide. Thanks a lot Mom, good advice. Too bad you hid this file so I couldn’t find it till I was already looking for you. What could I do though, she didn’t want me to look for her. She had her reason’s I’m sure, but this recording was years old and from the sound of it, whatever she had to do was dangerous. There’s a good chance she’s dead.

“Fuck it, I don’t care what you wanted me to do back then, I’m getting my answers,” I closed the audio file then looked over the other two files. Most of them didn’t make sense to me really, but part of Mom’s personal notes caught my eye.

First week in Stable 28, I made my first report to the Elder. She wants me to continue with my investigation and keep her updated.

The Overmare here is a very nice mare, she took my daughter and I after Vervain talked with her. She’s been doing well keeping herself undercover here in the stable, though I’m still going around and doing memory modification spells to make sure it stays that way. Hopefully by the end of next week everypony here will think she’s always been a Stable Pony.

As for Morning…I should really get used to calling her Shadow now. Shadow’s been improving, she still has no memory of what happened, but I think that’s a good thing. A Filly shouldn’t have to live with those kinds of memories. She’s been getting teased a little by some of the other foals, but a couple seem to like her. I’m sure in time the rest will come around.

She’s healing after the attack, but an odd thing happened. I’m not sure what caused it yet, but her mane and coat seemed to have reversed pigments. I really don’t know how else to explain it. Her coats turned black and her mane is a shiny silver, I’ve never seen anything like it before. The magical fluxes finally seemed to have settled down, but I can still feel something strong inside her. Honestly it worries me. I’m going to keep doing tests and see if I can figure out more. I’ll have to check my spell books and see if anything in them matches what I’m seeing.

I really had no idea what to do with this information. At least I have a little more insight on what Mom was going through when we first made it into the stable. I wonder who this Vervain was though, I’d never met another pony in the stable with that name before. Well it was just another question for her when I found her, if she’s still around that is.

Well enough of this self-pity, I really should find out where the gang was. Getting to my hooves and stretching I was about to start heading back to where I left the others when a shout echoed from around the corner.

I pulled out my pistol and took cover behind the corner of an alley and peeked around it. I saw a pony in a patched-up trenchcoat and a fedora holding a pistol to another pony’s head. The one with the gun to his head was on his haunches with his hooves behind his head and the one in the trenchcoat was saying something to him.

“You ran when I asked you about the Van Damns. Why?”

“Uh…I…uh...I was scared, y’know. I thought you might be some sorta thug or sumthin’.”

“A thug huh? What tipped you off? The trenchcoat and hat? What kind of thug wears clothes like this?”

“I dunno, an associated one. Y’know those mafia types.”

“If I was a mobster like those Triggerponies on the other side of the gate you’d be pumped full of lead with a submachine gun before you even realized it.”

“If you’re not one a dem, then what are you? Your face is all fucked up n’ shit.”

“You’re not from around here are you? I’m the local detective and what happened to my face is more of an occupational hazard. However, me being a synth makes it more manageable.”

“Oh shit! You’re from da Ministry!? I heard about dem goin’ around replacin’ ponies. Please don’t replace me! I’m nuttin’, a nobody!”

“You don’t listen very well do you? I just told you I’m a detective, I was only made by The Ministry. I don’t work for them, I’m just some of their left-over trash. Now, let’s get back on track. What do you know about the Van Damns? I know you work for them, I’ve been trailing you for two weeks now.”

“They sell energy weapons at competitive prices. I dunno what else to tell ya.”

“Yeah you do. You just don’t wanna be capped for talking. Listen, I was hired by the Queens to investigate the Van Damns so I’m pretty sure you’re screwed either way. Who knows? If you tell me what you know I could see about getting you protection from the Van Damns by the Queens, or I could just put you out of your misery right here.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll talk. Y’know those mysterious caravan raids that’ve been happenin’ recently? Dat’s how they’ve been gettin’ some of their more high-quality merch, not to mention whatevah caps they got.”

“Is there any way I could get evidence to prove these allegations of yours?”

“Nah, only way you’re gonna get somethin’ like dat is if ya catch em in the act.”

The Detective put away his gun, “Thanks for the information, I’ve already spoken with the Queens so all you’ve gotta do is go to The Queens’ School of Interpretation. They’ll keep you safe, now beat it before anyone sees us.”

I put away my gun and slipped away before I got caught snooping in somepony else’s business or worse, mistaken for one of the Van Damns gang or whatever they were.

What that detective said kinda stuck in my head a little. If only there was some way I could help, but I don’t wanna fuck up the investigation for the detective. Another thing that bugged me was what a synth is. Is synth short for synthetic, or is it the name of another group that operates in Freedom? “Ugh…why does everything have to be a mystery in the Wasteland? Why can’t things just be straight forward?” I said to myself annoyed with my own thoughts, “My brain hurts.”

Looking around I couldn’t believe how many different places were jammed in such a little town, not to mention that this place is kind of a dump. It kind of makes me wonder what it’s like in New Pegasus. It’s gotta be nicer than this if there’s an entry fee.

As I was walking I suddenly came across the overwhelming smell of booze, and not in the good way. The smell was so strong I gagged a bit. I quickly deduced where the smell was coming from, it was one of the many homeless ponies sitting against a building holding a bottle of Wild Pegasus Whiskey in his right hoof while he slept off his intoxication. After that I just kept walking and thinking about what my friends might be doing right now and wondering if it was as boring as what I was doing. I guess watching that detective wasn’t so boring, but still, all I’ve been doing is walking around while staring at the ground.

“Halt! Please present entry credit or passport,” said a very large and very creepy looking robot from in front of me.

I stopped and took a second to look around and saw that there was more than one. Two more were on some sort of guard platforms above me and there were another two stationed at a gate in front of me.

“Please present entry credit or passport,” the robot said again.

“Sorry I don’t have either of those things. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” I quickly replied.

“Since you have neither of the required entry criteria, please step away from the gate or you will be terminated for attempted trespassing on the strip,” the robot said very plainly.

I stepped back like the robot said and proceeded to walk the other way. I get the reason for having posted guards, but why do they have to be those creepy robots? They didn’t look like the normal robots you’d see in the Wasteland, they had one wheel which balanced the whole robots body on it. The rest of the robot didn’t even look normal at all. The body itself was tall and had these industrial tube-looking arms that came out of the oversized top of the robot. In the center of the body was a screen that projected a black and white stallion’s face with one of those hats that police officers used to wear before the war. The creepiest part though was the manic smiles that the projected faces had.

I put the thought of what they looked like out of my head because I was already overthinking the strange design for some reason. After being almost terminated or whatever at the gate to New Pegasus I decided to go look for my friends, the only flaw in my plan is that I didn’t know where they were.

I know Aura was gonna talk to Match and Tariff, but Stardust and Wingnut were getting supplies at Goddesses know where. I guess I could just go find Aura, I’m sure the other two will show up eventually. I figured I’d just look around until I saw something that looked like the kind of shop Aura was in. Come to think of it, she never said who those two ponies were, only that they could help us. For now, I’ll just have to see if I get lucky and find Aura or the other two.

***

Walking down the broken-up road getting lost in my thoughts I saw a big rock. As I walked by I kicked it off the road, a moment later there was a loud shout from just off the road.

“Hey bitch what the fuck’s your problem!?”

Looking over I saw a maroon unicorn stallion, looking over at me. I thought I’d seen scary ponies before when I met Crackerjack back at the raider camp and Gator in his tiny kingdom of fiends. They had nothing on this guy. He was wearing black combat armor, his black mane was cut short and the parts of his body I could see were covered in scars. He was missing half of his left ear, and his eyes, those eyes had no kindness in them, only a promise of death. He also had one large rifle on his back, it had to be twice my length and looked expensive. On his armor, right over his flanks where his cutie mark would be, in red that matched his coat was a symbol of a dragon.

He made his way over to me, a small lump on his head, “I’m talking to you shorty. Why’d you go and throw a rock at me huh, are you looking to get shot!?”

I took a moment, trying to get my knees to stop shaking. Not wanting to look at him I looked down at my hooves and said quietly, “No, it was an accident.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you if you’re looking down at your hooves and whispering. Speak up you stupid bitch,” he said getting right in my face.

“I said no, it was an accident, I wasn’t watching what I was doing.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to just say ‘no big deal’ and just let you be huh?”

“I said I didn’t mean to. For fuck sake, it was an accident. The fuck’s your problem that you’ve gotta get so angry over something so small,” I said back, suddenly finding my fear gone and replaced with my much dumber side.

Out of nowhere his hoof came up and hit me across the face throwing me to the ground. A flash of anger pulsed inside, but instead of yelling, I started to laugh, “You hit like a filly, I’ve gotten worse hits from a radroach.”

Rage filled him and his eyes promised death as he picked me up in his magic. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air and slamming into the wall of one of the broken-down buildings. Pain filled my body, still I just giggled and did my best to get to my hooves, “Feel better yet or do you need to toss around another pony half your size?”

“You got a mouth on you dontcha. Listen here mini-bitch, I’m not somepony you wanna be messing with. You hear me? You’re only alive right now because I figured it was better to teach you a lesson rather than just shooting you.”

At this point I really should’ve just shut my mouth, buuut… “Or maybe you’re just too much of a pussy to do anything about it.”

His rifle was in my face a second later, a nasty grin on his face, “You’ve got ten seconds to run before I shoot a hole through ya.”

Sense returning and ignoring the pain in my body I bolted. I ran down the road and ducked behind a wall to another crumbling building. At least this way he wouldn’t be able to hit me, one thing I learned from Stardust was it’s hard to hit a target that’s hiding behind something, at least for a sniper. As I ducked behind the wall I could hear the stallion slowly counting down.

“Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one. Right foreleg, flesh only, no bone.”

What the fuck did he mean by…(BANG!) his rifle cracked, an instant later it felt like something punched me in the lower foreleg. Hitting the ground as my leg gave out I looked over at my now bloody hoof, a small hole going through the meat of my leg. On the other side of the wall I could hear him chuckling softly.

“Bullseye, now what should I shoot next, your ass, another leg, how about I go for a lung shot, those are always fun to watch. Nah then you’d die too fast, let’s do an ass shot,” His rifle cracked again and pain filled my rear as a bullet sliced through my flank.

I screamed and tried to move away, but my body refused to listen to me. How was he able to know where he was shooting me while I was hiding on the other side of this wall? I reached into my bags to pull out a healing potion. I almost had it to my lips when another shot rang out and the bottle shattered in my magic.

“Now now mini-bitch, no cheating. That’s not how this game is played.”

Stupidity overthrowing logic once again I decided to scream at him, “Who the fuck are you and what’s your deal!?”

“Ha! You don’t know who I am? Now there’s something I don’t hear every day. Here I thought everyone in these parts knew of my friends and I.”

“Kind of new to town,” I said trying to pull out another healing potion.

“Well then let me introduce myself, oh and if you even try and drink that I’ll blow your damn head off.”

The bottle stopped inches from my lips, “How can you tell what I’m doing?”

“My penetration scope can see all, good thing to have when you wanna hit things that like to hide. In my line of work that happens a lot, it’s the ultimate eye for a sniper. Now since I have you down and talking, you have me a little interested. Who are you and what brought you to this shithole,” he asked still on the other side of the building.

Figuring that keeping him talking might save my ass I decided to answer, “I’m Shadow Star, I’m just here looking for somepony to help me find a lost family member. Who might you be?”

A soft chuckle came from behind the wall, he sounded like he was moving away from me, a little to my left, “If you don’t know who I am, then you really aren’t from around here. I go by the name Wrath and you my little filly had the unfortunate luck to throw a rock at my head. You see, around here that’s a kind of disrespectful thing to do. I don’t like being disrespected, it angers me like you wouldn’t believe. Ponies who disrespect me, die.”

Doing my best to ignore the pain from the two bullet holes I started to summon my magic, “Can’t say I’ve heard of you, sorry. I’ll try and keep it in mind next time.”

“There won’t be a next time kid…” Wrath started to say.

In a flash, I teleported to the other side of the road, in the momentary confusion I downed my last healing potion then pulled out Ol’ Festus and activated S.A.T.S. I aimed three shots at his torso and fired figuring it was the best place to go for. To my surprise however, the bullets just ricocheted off his dark armor, leaving only tiny dents and scratches where they’d hit.

He smiled and turned his large rifle to face me, “I see you have a few tricks in that horn of yours, dontcha kid. Too bad you didn’t go for my head, you had a better chance of killing me. I guess luck is on my side today.”

Before he could fire, magic enveloped me and my horn teleported me right behind him, seemingly of its own accord. A grin pulled at my lips and I pointed the barrel of Ol’ Festus to his temple, “Oh, you mean like this?” deep down something felt wrong. It was like before when I lost control while fighting those griffons, my words and actions didn’t really feel like my own.

I started to pull the trigger, but wrath wasn’t going down that easily. Quick as a whip he bucked upwards to kick the gun away. The old rifle went off and instead of blowing his brains out the bullet bit into the part of his rear leg that was exposed through the armor. His large rifle came around, the barrel slamming into my face and throwing me back.

I lifted Ol’ Festus again ready to fire, but Wrath was faster. His rifle boomed and I felt something snap in my magical grip. Ol’ Festus blew apart, the bullet from Wrath blowing right through the wooden stock, breaking the trigger mechanism along with it. He smiled again, the end of his barrel pressing against my horn.

“Game over kid,” he said, the amusement I saw before was gone now. It was replaced with an overwhelming hatred and anger, “I’ll give you credit, you got me, it’s been years since anypony’s been able to make be bleed.”

“I’m going to politely disagree with you,” I smiled and activated the only other spell I knew. A shock wave blew out from my horn throwing the stallion back and into the brick wall that I’d been hiding behind only a moment before.

I made to run, but Wrath’s laughter kept me stuck in place. He got back to his hooves laughing maniacally, blood flowing down his face and neck, ”Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha,” What the fuck did it take to stop this stallion? I’d thrown my best spell against him and he looked like I’d hardly blew on him.

Suddenly his laughter stopped and again his rifle was up, “Fucking die bitch,” a shot rang out and Wrath’s rifle went flying out of his magic, “The fuck?”

For a second that shot almost made me lose control of my, well… everything. I thought I was about to die. When that moment passed and I saw the rifle laying on the ground a few feet away, I looked around and saw a whole group of the strangest-looking ponies I’d ever seen.

Most of them had manes done up in a similar style, trimmed and rolled up and facing forward a bit. They all wore leather jackets, the one in the front really was the only one who stood out more than the rest of her companions. She was a bit taller for one, and her own jacket had gems embedded into the collar and along the trim.

She had a long-barreled revolver in her muzzle and a grin on her face. Reaching up with a hoof she fixed a strand of her jet-black mane out of her eye then holstered her revolver, “Wrath honey, you should know better than tah go wavin’ that big gun of yours around here,” she had a slight accent to her voice that I didn’t recognize.

Wrath glared at her but he didn’t move, “This doesn’t concern you Queen.”

“Everything in Freedom Town concern’s me honey, and you should know that. Now what’s goin’ on here?” she said looking over at me.

“This nut case started attacking me when I accidently kicked a rock at him.”

Wrath growled but kept quiet, the mare looked over at him then back at me, “Any reason why you did?”

“I was in a mood and wasn’t looking where I was kicking it, I wasn’t trying to hit anypony,” I figured honesty was the best course of action, this mare looked like she was in charge around here and I really didn’t feel like pissing her off.

“You’re full of shit you little bitch, I swear I’ll gut you for that,” As Wrath spoke five guns were un-holstered and pointed at him. He barely seemed to care, he just glanced over at them, “Do that and you’ll have the rest of the Sins coming down on you, do you really wanna risk that Queen?”

“You know the rules of Freedom Town Wrath, your group doesn’t operate inside our walls, so you can’t just go around killin’ whoever ya want. I suggest you pick up that rifle and get outta here before we make your stay in Freedom, your final one honey,” she said with authority.

In a flash Wrath’s horn glowed and his riffle was up and pointed right at the mare, “I have a counter proposal for you Queen, how about I just shoot you here and now then this little cunt next, and I still get to leave here unharmed.”

I had no idea what I’d just walked into, from where I’m standing Wrath looked horribly outgunned, yet he still seemed confident that he’d get out of this. All I wanted to do was just teleport out of here or have one of my friends come crashing in to save the day.

As I watched the two, something seemed to shift in the shadows just behind Wrath. Wrath didn’t seem to notice it as he spoke, “You know what? Fuck it, I’m sick of you Queens thinking you can tell everypony around here what they can and can’t do.”

“Kill him,” the mare ordered as Wrath pulled the trigger with his magic.

Wrath’s large rifle roared and the other pony’s guns went off. The second it started, a shadow pulled away from the dark alley shooting toward Wrath, it flipped under his rifle as it fired knocking the barrel up, making the shot miss. As it did, something fell from the sky and landed in front of Wrath and the shadow kicked up a large dust cloud.

When it all ended and I could see through the cloud of dust that both sides were still standing. Between Wrath and the group of ponies stood a Pegasus, his body seemed to be covered in a black casing that looked like it was one with his hide, protecting his body from the bullets the group of ponies fired. Where the shadowy form was before, now stood a hansom unicorn stallion with a golden coat and a black mane. Shadows seemed to be dripping off him like water, fading away as they hit the ground.

Wrath looked even angrier as he looked at the golden stallion yelling, “I was fine, you didn’t have to interfere Pride!”

The golden pony err… Pride I guess, rounded on Wrath and glared him down. When the red pony finally looked away, Pride spoke, “If I hadn’t interfered you would’ve been killed or at the very least ruined any chance of us being able to come into Freedom or New Pegasus again. Now shut up and let the adults talk, if I hear one sound out of you that I didn’t ask for, you’ll regret it.”

“Yes sir,” Wrath said looking down at his hooves.

Pride looked back at the mare and spoke politely, “My apologies Queen, Wrath can’t help himself sometimes when he gets worked up. I hope his actions here today doesn’t hurt the trust that we’ve built up. I promise you his actions don’t reflect the Sins or the Enclave.”

“Pride honey, we found him tryin’ tah kill a newcomer, we stepped-in tah stop him. We don’t allow that kind of thing here in town, not from outsiders.”

He looked over toward me, his eyes I saw were a beautiful icy blue, “Did you give Wrath any reason to attack you miss?”

A little flustered I replied, “No, well not really. I kinda kicked a rock at him, but I didn’t mean to. He just flipped the fuck out after that.”

He looked back at Wrath, “Really? Over a rock, Wrath?”

“The bitch deserved it,” he said looking back up.

Pride looked over to the Pegasus, “Greed, get him out of here and remind him why we don’t just go around shooting up random citizens.”

“Sounds like fun, sure thing boss,” whatever was covering his face and hooves shimmered away as a talisman pulsed on his chest, revealing a dark blue coat, an ivory mane and goatee. He had a wide grin on his face that instead of making me think of him being happy, he just looked crazy.

He walked over to Wrath and bucked him in the face knocking him out cold. After he was done he looked over toward me and his smile grew, “Aren’t you a pretty thing. Name’s Greed. What can I call you hot stuff?”

Blushing and utterly confused I backed up a bit, “I’m uh… Shadow Star…”

“Greed, now’s not the time to be flirting with fillies, get Wrath out of here,” Pride said, his eyes still on the other mare.

“Sure thing boss,” Greed said looking over at me once more then blowing me a kiss, and succeeding in making me blush harder. Dammit, it was so fucking creepy. Yet charming at the same time, “See you again I hope, Shadow Star.”

I shivered as he flew away, “What in the Goddesses name is going on?”

Ignoring my outburst Pride bowed his head a little toward Queen, “Queen, you have my utmost apologies again for what happened. I’ll make sure to stop by later and pay whatever compensation is fair.”

“I look forward to it honey,” she said with a small smile, “I do have a question though. Why’re the Sins in my town?”

“We’re hunting for a Pegasus who came down here a few months back and failed to report back.”

“Um… hello? Am I a radroach over here or something?” I said waving my hooves in the air, jumping up and down like an immature foal.

One of the group broke away and came up to me, “The Queen will get to ya in a minute.”

Oh I see, so I have to just sit here and wait to find out why I was attacked like I was and what was going on because the other two ponies wanted to chat. What the fuck?

“Hmm, funny. It ain’t like the Enclave to send your team down for one Dashite. What’s really goin’ on here Pride?”

Pride changed his demeanor a little, “That is need to know information only, all you need to know is he’s dangerous and we’re looking for him. Speaking of which you haven’t seen a gray Pegasus with a blue mane, blue wings, and pink eyes around have you? I’ve heard he’s been spotted not far from here.”

The mare took a second or two to answer, “Can’t say that I have, least not in a couple months. Last pony I knew that fit that description was a friend of mine, Stardust. He was headin’ toward Vanhoover last time I saw him. I can’t tell ya more than that though.”

Pride looked a little irritated, “Damn. If you see him be sure to let me know. I’d hate to see something…bad, happen to you.”

“I’ll be sure tah do that honey, now please leave my town. I’ve had enough of your group’s bullshit tah last me a month.”

“As you wish,” his body seemed to melt into shadows and he was gone.

When Pride was gone, the mare looked over at me, “You’re one lucky mare ya know that. Most ponies who run into a Sin don’t live tah talk about it, especially one who’s always pissed off like Wrath. What’s your name darlin’?”

“Um…Shadow Star.”

She walked over to me and gave me the biggest smile I’d ever seen, “Howdy Shadow Star, I’m The Queen, leader of this gang ya see here which is also called The Queens. Don’t ask me my real name, cause I don’t rightly remember.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I guess. But why did you help me back there?”

She laughed, “Ha. Why did I help ya? Because, it’s what we do ‘round here. The Queens run Freedom and keep the ponies who live here safe. Also, I saw that duster ya have on and recognized it. I haven’t seen a courier from Equestrian Express around here for a few years. How’s the old bastard doin’ anyway?”

(Does everypony know Box Tape?) Deciding I liked this mare I gave her a smile, “Full of piss and vinegar last time I saw him. He hired me as a courier before I left Cartwheel. I had business around here so he figured it would be a good idea to have somepony working this area for him.”

She laughed again, it was a nice sound to hear, she sounded so full of life when she laughed, “That old pony will be fullah that and more until his final day. From what I’ve been hearin’ about this Mysterious Courier Mare on the radio, you’ve been doin’ a lot more than just deliverin’ packages.”

(Sigh) “Please don’t believe everything DJ-Pon3 and that Mr. New Pegasus character have been saying on the radio. I’m just a mare who got lucky a couple times. That’s it.”

She laughed even harder at that, “Ha-ha-ha. Well hot damn, I wouldn’t take everything DJ-Pon3 said tah heart all the time anyway. He always likes tah pump up somepony he sees as heroic all the time. It’s Mr. New Pegasus who’s been talkin’ ya up as well that has me wondering more aboutcha. That’s if you’re the same Courier Mare.”

Great. At this pace, I was gonna have a whole fan club of radio ponies talking me up to all of the Wasteland, “Who’s this Mr. New Pegasus anyway? I keep hearing about him.”

“He’s like the west coast version of DJ-Pon3, his station is in the middle of New Pegasus itself and he isn’t scared tah tell anypony round here the truth. He’s taking a likin’ to ya too. Just give his station a listen sometime, I’m sure you’ll hear more about it.”

I really didn’t need to hear more broadcasts about what I’ve accomplished so far in the Wasteland, so I just shook my head, “Thanks, but no thanks. Thank you too by the way for helping me back there, I’ve never seen a pony like them before. What did you call them again?”

Her smile faded at my question and she sighed looking about at her gang, “Head back home everypony, I’ll catch up.”

“Yes Queen,” they all said before heading off leaving me alone with the tall Mare, “They’re called The Seven Sins of Equinity, or Sins for short. They aren’t well known throughout most of the Wasteland, but around New Pegasus we know them well. They’re all former Soldiers of the Enclave, or criminals. They were all recruited ‘cause of their special powers or tools and crimes against the Enclave. Instead of bein’ branded as traitors and gettin’ banished or executed, their talents were put tah better use, servin’ the Enclave. Ya saw a little of what they can do already. Wrath’s a sniper, and one of the best I’ve ever seen, his scope can see through most things and his high-powered rifle can hit its mark, even behind a brick wall. Greed was the Pegasus ya saw, he says that nothin’ can break through his armor, and so far as I know, nothin’ has. The last one ya saw, the unicorn, is Pride, the leader of the Sins. I dunno know much about him, but his shadow magic is extremely deadly. Luckily Pride is a smart pony and he knows that Freedom and New Pegasus are protected by the gangs around here and Mr. Tops. Unless he has orders tah kill ya and has run it by us and Mr. Tops, he won’t let his ponies murder anypony here,” she explained.

It was a lot to take in, but I was able to latch onto a few things she was telling me, “So, they’re bad news and I should make sure to avoid them.”

“In a nutshell, yeah. I’m sure ya won’t have tah worry though. Unless ya pissed off the Enclave bad enough, they won’t be a problem for ya. Well come tah think of it, Wrath might be, but I’m sure Pride will keep him in line. A little pony like you isn’t worth it.”

“What about Stardust? Pride said something about hunting him down.”

She looked at me a little shocked, “You know Stardust Night?”

“Yeah, he’s my friend, we’ve been traveling together along with a couple others.”

“Well I’ll be, so that cloud kicker managed to make a friend. Stardust will have tah tell ya more about why the Sins are looking for him. All I know is he’s always been a pony on the run, but he’s a good stallion. I can’t think of any reason they’d be lookin’ for him,” she said with a smile.

“Is he in danger?”

“Not yet, Pride won’t be stupid enough to attack him in town, not until he knows he can get away with it. So, for now he’ll be safe, but it’d be better if he came and met with me before leavin’ town.”

“Why?” I asked in confusion.

“I haven’t seen him in a while, and I might be able tah help him with his Sins problem. Though knowing that feather brained idjit he’ll refuse to take the help I have tah offer.”

“If I find him I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

She smiled at me again, “You do that darlin’, and make sure ya stop by our place as well. I might have a job for ya later if you’re up tah makin’ some extra caps, ya seem like a tough mare.”

“What makes you think that?” I mean really? Look at me. Was she nuts?

“You held your own for a little while against Wrath. That takes a tough pony tah do. Most would’ve died in seconds. I could use a pony like you.”

“If I find myself in need of more caps then I’ll come talk to you about it, but for now caps isn’t the first thing on my mind.”

Her head tilted to the side a little, “Oh? What is?”

“I’m trying to find a friend of mine, she said she’d be going to a shop run by two ponies called Match and Tariff. I really don’t know my way around.”

“Shoot, that’s an easy one. Just head south from here toward our headquarters, turn right, and it’s the third building down on your left,” The Queen said pointing a hoof toward a large building with bright neon lights all around the front of it, and the words ‘The Queen’s School of Interpretation’ lit up.

I stared at it in awe, “Huh. Well that’s hard to miss.”

“I like things tah be flashy and extravagant.”

“I’ll say,” I said noticing all the ponies around the place wearing leather jackets.

“Remember Shadow Star, tell Stardust I need to speak with him, and stay outta trouble,” The Queen said walking away toward her home. If that flashy building WAS her home that is.

***

Once the mare was gone I started to limp my way down the road, past The Queen’s School of Interpretation. As I walked by the doors I could hear loud music coming from within. I smiled a little and would’ve gone in to see what kind of show was going on inside, but I had to find Aura. Following the directions, The Queen had given me, I soon found myself in front of a shop, a sign over the door read ‘Match and Tariff’s’ and on the door, was another sign that read ‘No Refunds’.

“Okay now I feel stupid, I swear I passed this place at least once. Oh well, guess I’ll head inside and see if Aura’s still here,” I said to myself. I pulled the door open, and something flew through the opening missing my head by inches and shattering against the brick wall on the other side of the street. This was followed by two yelling voices, one I knew, the other I didn’t. The former was none other than Aura, when I looked inside I saw the latter was a white earth pony stallion, with a messy red mane and goatee.

“When will you get it through your thick head bird brain!? I won’t sell you anything!” the Stallion exclaimed, his deep voice cracking as he screamed at her. Either he really hated griffons, or him and Aura had history, and not a good one.

“And how many times do I have to tell you that I don’t give a shit? This isn’t for me, it’s for my boss! She needs this to get into the city, and nopony is better at making fake passports than you are! Can’t you just fuckin’ drop the bullshit and do your damn job.”

Walking in slowly, and doing my best not to get hit by flying merchandise. I moved around the two and made my way over to the only other pony in the room. He was a tall stallion who was watching the brutal exchange, as I moved closer he glanced over at me, his dark blue head lifting a little. It took a moment for him to realize I was really there, because after a moment he shook the dark mane out of his eyes and gave me the biggest smile I’d ever seen on a pony.

“Hello and welcome to Match and Tariff’s, I’m sorry about the disturbance over there. I’m Match Book the arms dealer here. How can I help you today?” he said moving around and putting himself between the fight and me, trying and failing to block out the fight.

“Yeah, I’m actually here to find my friend,” I said pointing a hoof at Aura.

“Oh, you must be Aura’s new contractor. Well then if I were you I’d tell her to leave. If those two keep this up, I’m afraid it’ll get bloody soon,” he said looking over his shoulder at the two.

“I doubt I could do anything, Aura may be under contract with me, but she isn’t so good at listening when she’s this worked up. If you want her gone why don’t you just kick her out? What’s their deal anyway?”

A sigh came from his large frame and he seemed to deflate a little, his shoulders slumping, and his smile vanished, “Those two go way back, they used to be good friends. That was until Tariff’s sister passed away. He blames her for it, and she can’t seem to understand why.”

“Tariff’s sister? Was Aura protecting her or something? What happened?” I asked looking over at my friend. Now that I looked closer I could see tears in the griffon’s eyes.

“It’s a long story and if Aura hasn’t told you about it, then it isn’t my business. If you want answers you’ll have to get them from her.”

Aura continued to yell at Tariff as she threw more merchandise, “Why the fuck can’t you just forget about what happened and stop blaming me Tariff? Do you think that I had anything to do with what happened to Tripwire?”

“If she hadn’t been hanging around you, instead of doing what she was supposed to do, then she wouldn’t have been put in the situation that she was. So yes Aura, I do blame you. My sister’s dead because you wouldn’t back off,” Tariff yelled back.

“Back off? What the fuck do you know, you didn’t even know her. You think you did, but you have no idea. I didn’t make her do anything, she was the one who chose her path in life. And yes, she died when I should’ve protected her. I have to live with that every day. Every time I use this spear she made for me, I think about the night she died. You forget that I lost her too,” Aura was openly crying now, something that was unusual to see from the strong griffon’s face. I couldn’t take it anymore, I couldn’t watch my friend going through so much pain.

Stepping between the two of them, and ducking under a box of 10MM ammo, I threw up my hooves, “Enough!”

Suddenly both of them stopped their yelling and looked at me. Aura looking as if she just now noticed I was there. She sniffed and looked away, “Sorry Shadow, I didn’t want you to see this.”

“It’s okay Aura, why don’t you go wait outside. I can take care of things here.”

She sniffed again, glared over at Tariff, then hung her head, “I guess that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah get out and don’t come back,” Tariff snapped.

Aura looked like she was ready to turn around and start the fight back up again, but for once, I was faster than the griffon, “You need to shut that hole in your face Tariff! You aren’t helping matters here, I don’t care what your problem is with Aura! You just need to shut the fuck up.”

He was taken aback by my outburst, “Who the fuck are you to tell me how to act in my own shop?”

Okay, I’ve had enough of this shit, time to pull out the big guns. Glaring at him I turned a little and showed him my duster with the big green letters on the back reading ‘Equestrian Express’. “I’m a courier for Box Tape in Cartwheel, my job sends me all over the place and it’s not hard for me to talk with other ponies and traders about the way your establishment treats ponies when they first walk into the door. I mean when I first walked in I was almost hit in the head by flying pottery, and other odds and ends you have around and greeted with shouting and threats. Not a good reputation to be spreading around. Who knows? Maybe it’ll work out for you, you could even have a nice greeting when ponies walk in like: welcome to Match and Tariff’s, get your shit and get out.”

Tariff to my utter surprise just glared at me, “I’m not scared of you or what you tell other ponies, Equestrian Express died out a long time ago. The words of its only Courier don’t mean shit.”

Only courier? What did he mean by that? Box Tape never said anything about that to me, from what he DID say, he had other ponies working for him, just none that he could send toward New Pegasus. Before I could say this however Match walked up to Tariff.

“Tariff, you should listen to her. Doesn’t she match the description of that Courier Mare from the radio? If she is, she really could make life hell for us.”

He looked ready to explode again, then he sighed and all the anger seemed to drain away with it, “I guess you’re right, but I still won’t do anything for that fuckin’ griffon, she’s not welcome here. I’ll be fine with helping you, but I can’t even stand to look at Aura without wanting to blow her brains out.”

Looking back toward my friend I saw she was sitting just outside the door, her shoulders shaking a little as small sobs racked her body, “Fine, I can live with that, I’LL deal with you instead. Aura came here to see about getting us passports to get into the city. Can you help us with that?”

It took a minute for Tariff to answer, “I can, it wouldn’t take long either, just depends on what you need and how much you’re willing to spend.”

“I…really don’t have that many caps on me at the moment, but my friend does. He’s out trading in some of our supplies.”

“If you need to get into New Pegasus you’ll need a passport that will fool the securiponies at the gate, something like that will run you around three hundred caps,” Tariff said looking over a couple notes he had laying on his desk.

“That’s not too bad, I’m sure we should have enough for that. Can you make enough for my three friends and I?”

“That’s three hundred a pony, you won’t need one for Aura. Contracted bodyguards can follow their contractor in without one, and a Talon can go in whenever they want.”

Nine hundred caps? I wasn’t sure if we could get that much, not right away. Pulling up my Pip-Buck I checked my inventory, sure enough I wasn’t even close to having enough Caps. Course Stardust had most of my caps.

“Uh…I don’t suppose you can give me a little bit of a discount could you?”

Match spoke up this time, “It’s a fair price for something like that, and Tariff’s Passports are guaranteed to get you past the gate.”

(Sigh) “I guess I’ll have to find another way to get into the city.”

Tariff looked like he was about to say something else. Before he could, the door to the shop opened again and Stardust walked in, “Hey Tariff what gives? I could’ve sworn you were selling your Passports for two-fifty last time I saw you. Did you jack up the price because you’re in a sour mood?”

Match and Tariff looked shocked as the Pegasus walked into their shop followed closely by Wingnut. Tariff’s face lit up and he beamed at my friend, “Stardust old buddy old pal. Is that really you? It’s been ages since I saw you last. When did you fly back into town?”

Stardust walked up to the other two stallions and bumped hooves with them both then smiled his goofy smile, “Just got in, I’ve been traveling with Shadow Star right there. I helped her with a raider camp back by Cartwheel and we’ve been traveling together ever since. Now what’s this hike of your prices all about?”

Tariff sighed and shook his head, “Hard times my friend. With caravans getting raided more and more, and The NLR having their little war with that group of Zebras making things worse for traders, I have to mark my prices up somewhere.”

Stardust ran a hoof through his blue mane, “I understand, but what about for a friend? You still owe me for that time I saved your ass,” I guess he does a lot of ass saving.

“Fuck, I thought we were good?”

“Nope, far from it,” Stardust said with a smile I knew all too well by now, “Tell ya what though. If you bring down the price to, oh I don’t know… one hundred caps per passport, for Shadow, the colt, and myself, I’ll call us even.”

“Are you fucking insane!? I can’t do three passports for one hundred caps each,” Tariff said angrily.

“Sure you can, I know you’re not hurting for caps, either of you. Give me one good reason why you can’t.”

“Because it’s dangerous, if I was ever caught making these, Mr. Tops would have my head.”

“And how do you think he’ll ever find out it was you who made them? Also, the price doesn’t change the risk you’re taking by making them.”

“Stardust, I swear to Celestia, you’re going to get me killed one of these days,” he said in a huff, “Fine, but only because I owe you. But we’re square after this, you got me?”

“Sure thing,” Stardust said reaching back into his pack and dropping a bag of Caps onto the counter, “There ya go, three hundred caps.”

“Of course you had the caps ready,” Tariff said with a sigh, “They’ll be ready in an hour.”

“Thanks bro,” Stardust said with a smile, then turned to me, “You doing okay Shadow?”

“I’d say I’ve had better days, but I’m sure that would be a lie. How did you get him to drop the price like that?” I asked as we walked out of the shop.

“If you ever get a chance to meet his wife you’ll understand,” he winked.

Deciding not to push the subject, I walked over to Aura, who was still sitting just outside the shop looking down at her talons. I looked back at Stardust, “Hey can you give us a minute?”

“Sure thing, I’ll head back into Match and Tariff’s and see if Match has any .308 ammo for my rifle, and I’m sure you’re running low on .357 for Ol’ Festus.”

“Yeah, I kinda broke it,” I said showing him the rifle.

“How the fuck did you manage to break this? You were only gone for an hour,” Stardust asked taking the rifle from me and looking it over.

“Long story, I’ll tell you later.”

Wingnut walked up and took Ol’ Festus from Stardust and looked it over as well, “Looks like you destroyed the trigger mechanism and a good part of the stock. I’m sure if I can find a few parts from some old repeaters like this one, we could fix it.”

“You got a good eye kid,” Stardust said in amazement, “Let’s go see what we can find.”

“I have a name y’know,” Wingnut protested as the two of them turned to walk back into the shop.

After they walked off I turned and sat down next to Aura, who still hadn’t moved an inch since she walked out of the shop, “Hey, I’m sorry for what happened in there. He shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

She sniffed then looked over at me, “He had every right to, I should’ve known better than to try and see if he’d help us out. I’m a fuckin’ idiot.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I thought after some time went by he would’ve forgiven me, or at least gotten over Tripwire’s death. I should’ve known better.”

I really hate self-pity, I mean yeah, I’ve been known to wallow in my own failings in the past, but this was just sad, “Aura, you have to stop blaming yourself for something that happened so long ago. Yeah, maybe you should’ve known better than to expect Tariff to have forgiven you, but at least you still tried to talk to him. Don’t beat yourself up so much.”

“You don’t understand Shadow, it’s my fault his sister died. If I would’ve just told Trip to stay home that day, she would’ve lived.”

“You don’t know that, she could’ve stayed home, sure, but that doesn’t mean she would’ve been okay. Something else could have happened to her. Everyone has their time to go and nothing can change that. I know it’s sad, but that’s the way the world works,” I reached out and put a hoof on her shoulder.

Aura stood and started to walked away, I followed, but she turned around tears falling again as she yelled, “Can’t you just leave me be Shadow!? I wanna be alone for a while!”

“No I can’t, you’re my friend and I won’t let you just wonder off in the state you’re in.”

“Why not!? Everyone else does! Why the fuck do you care so much huh!?”

She was lashing out, I could tell. She was hurting deep down. I’m not sure what happened with this friend of hers, but she needed to get this out of her system, if yelling at me helped, then I’d let her.

“I care, because you’re my friend Aura, like it or not. I care because you’re not just a griffon who decided to follow me around to pay back some crazy life debt, and you’re not just some mercenary that I contracted with. I care because I can’t stand to see you hurting like you are. Why can’t you just swallow your damned pride and see that?”

“I can see it okay, but when others get close to me, they end up getting hurt. I don’t wanna hurt you too Shadow,” she was crying hard now, I was shocked, it was a side of Aura I hadn’t seen before. It seemed as if she couldn’t hide the emotions that were getting bottled up inside, and they were now bursting though her like a flood.

“Aura, you’re not gonna hurt me, I trust you with my life.”

“Well you shouldn’t okay!”

“Why not? Is it because one time you failed at a job and a pony died under your watch?”

“Exactly! How can you trust me after finding that out? I’m a griffon, I failed to fulfill my contract and Tripwire died because of it.”

I had enough by this point and I finally yelled back at her, “So what!? Yeah it sucks that a client of yours died, but from what I’ve read about griffons in The Wasteland Survival Guide, that happens from time to time, and the griffons don’t get this worked up over it. So why are you so upset over the loss of one client? You can’t tell me that she was the first one you lost, why are you so upset over it or whatever Tariff has to say about it?”

“Because, she was my best friend that’s why! She was even more than that, I gave up a lot in my life to keep her safe and to be close to her. When I had to go off on other missions she wanted to come with and help me out. She was tired of staying around this fucking town. She wanted adventure in her life and I was more than happy to help her. I told her she should leave Freedom Town and head out with me. On the day she died, do you know where I was? I was overlooking a camp of raiders, I told her to stay behind at our camp. While I was gone a small group of them found it. They captured her, raped her multiple times, stabbed her nearly to death, then left her to die slowly. When I got back she was almost gone, I didn’t have enough time to save her, and she died in my talons.”

She was sobbing even harder now, her entire body shaking from the outburst of emotions. I wasn’t sure what to say, but I did understand what she was going though. It wasn’t much different from when I thought my mother died. I didn’t play any part in her supposed death, but a young filly has a way of blaming herself. Aura was doing that now, it wasn’t her fault Tripwire died, but she saw it differently than I did.

I walked closer to her and wrapped my forelegs around her feathery neck and pulled her into a tight hug. She sobbed into my shoulder, letting it all out as I slowly rubbed the back of her neck. I remembered Auntie doing the same to me after my mother disappeared. Later when I asked her why she did that her answer was simple, “Sometimes words can’t fix things, but a hug can go a long way.”

When a few minutes passed Aura finally pulled her head up (Leaving my shoulder soaking wet with her tears) and sniffed once, “I’m sorry you saw that…I don’t let anyone see me get emotional like that often. I’d threaten to skin you alive if you told anyone, but that would be impolite considering you were so cool about it.”

“Everyone needs to cry now and then, oddly enough, it’s a little refreshing. If you just bottle up your emotions all the time, you’ll end up exploding like a bomb.”

She smiled a little, then sighed, “You remind me of her you know that?”

“Who, Tripwire?”

“Yeah, she liked to tell me I was being stupid all the time for not talking about my feelings. When I would start to hide my emotions, she would always find a way to get me to talk. You have that same gift, I’m not sure why, but when I’m around you, I feel… I dunno… safe I guess.”

Blushing a little I turned my head away, “Well I don’t know if it’s a gift or anything. Auntie used to tell me all the time, that I shouldn’t hide who I am, don’t let other ponies change who you are, and to always show my emotions.”

“She sounds like a smart pony.”

“She is, and a very good mare.”

I guess my hug did more for Aura than I thought it would, she was starting to sound more like herself, only a little happier. She moved closer to me and sat down on the sidewalk resting herself against the building, “Do you ever miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“Y’know, being in your Stable.”

I hadn’t really thought much about Stable 28 since I left. I hadn’t even given much thought to my friends, who I’d left behind. I wonder what they were doing now, was Balefire able to escape suspicion from the Overmare? How was Milkshake doing, was Auntie okay? I hadn’t even seen Milkshake after what happened down in the catacombs. What kind of friend am I to just leave like I did? I know that time wasn’t on my side when I escaped the clinic, but I could’ve done something.

Doing my best not to tear up I looked over at Aura and did my best to smile, “Sometimes I guess, my life wasn’t so bad there, I had two really good friends that cared for me. When I escaped, my friend Balefire was the one who got me out, and Auntie told me where to go. I’m not sure if I really miss the stable. I miss my friends more than anything. The ponies in my stable weren’t that nice to me, I was the odd pony out, but Auntie, Balefire, and Milkshake were always good to me. They didn’t see me as different, they just saw me as their friend.”

Aura laughed a little and punched my foreleg, “I can understand what you mean. My family wasn’t easy to grow up with. I’m the youngest of five, and I was always the odd one of the family. Mom and I never got along well, she always wanted me to be more like her. You should’ve seen her face when I told her I wasn’t interested one bit in being with any of the males. She lost it when she found that out, started telling me that I had a responsibly to our clan and family.”

Did I just hear her right? I know I hadn’t been traveling with her for very long, but she just came out and told me she like girls. Damn I have horrible gaydar. I don’t think I could ever do that with someone. Maybe it was just growing up in a place where you were forbidden to have feelings for another of the same sex. For the good of the stable, the Overmare would say. I’d heard rumors about mares or stallions that would fool around, but never any solid proof. Maybe if I was more like Aura, I could’ve told Milkshake how I felt. I’m sure that would have gone over well, she would’ve probably bucked me in the face.

Realizing that Aura was staring at me, I blushed and laughed a little, “How did you handle that? I’m not sure I could have out right told my mom something like that.”

Aura gave me a knowing smile then laughed, “Ha, I didn’t tell her anything, she caught me when I was younger fooling around with one of my sister’s friends.”

Blushing even harder I couldn’t help asking, “What did you do then?”

“Kept doing what I was doing giving my mom the most pleasant smile I could.”

“Bull-shit!” I exclaimed my eyes going wide.

“It’s true, she grabbed me and pulled me home yelling at me the whole time.”

“Damn, you do have a crazy life,” I said looking up at the cloudy sky. “Aura, how did you get kicked out of the Red Talons?”

The smile on her face fell and she looked away, “That’s a story I’m not ready to talk about yet. Maybe one day I’ll tell you, but it still hurts too much.”

“I understand, but I’d really like to hear what happened.”

“Let’s change the subject. So, this Balefire friend of yours back in 28, was he like your buckfriend or something.”

I started laughing uncontrollably, rolling onto my sides. When I could finally breathe again I said, “Only in his wildest dreams.”

“What, is he fat or something, or was he just really ugly, or both?”

“No, he’s a good-looking stallion, but it would be really weird. He’s more like my older brother than a lover. He’s also the Overmare’s son, if we would’ve ever started dating or even playing around like that, she would have killed me. I mean REALLY killed me, and wouldn’t have had a second thought about it.”

“So, he liked you, but you didn’t like him the same way?”

“Something like that yeah. I mean he really had a thing for me, I first noticed it a couple years ago, when he started to openly flirt with me. Last year he even tried to get romantically involved with me at his birthday party.”

She raised a brow at me, “Really? What happened?”

“He wanted to give me some kind of surprise, I thought it was a little odd since it was HIS birthday and not mine. I decided to find out what it was, so I followed him to his room. He cornered me and started telling me how he felt about me and that he wanted nothing more than to be with me. Then out of nowhere he up and kisses me. No warning or anything, just a full-on kiss to the lips. For maybe half a second it was kinda nice, then I started feeling really awkward and I ended up pulling away, then I kicked him in the nads and left,” I said looking back at the sky again.

“Damn, I’m sure that was really hard on your friendship after that.”

“A little, it took a month for me to forgive him and when I finally did he told me he was sorry. He said he didn’t mean any of it and wouldn’t ever let anything like that happen again. I felt so bad for kicking him where I did that we both just chose to forget about that night. Sadly, that didn’t stop him from flirting or giving off hints that he wanted to go on a date with me.”

“You think that had something to do with him helping you escape the Stable?”

“Maybe, but I really think he didn’t want to see something bad happen to his friend. He’s a good and loyal pony who cares more about the ponies around him than about himself. Plus, the Overmare was going to have the stable’s mentally unstable doctor cut off my foreleg.”

“That’s what Tripwire was like, she was always more worried about her friends than herself.”

I gave her another smile, “Friends like that are hard to come by.”

“That they are, and if I’ve learned anything about friends like that in the Wasteland. You have to hold on to that friendship, because you never know when something bad will happen,” Aura said with melancholy, she was starting to look depressed again.

I nudged her in the side, “You know what? I like it when you talk like this, it’s nice to see you open up a little.”

“Don’t get used to it, you just happened to catch me at a time when I’m feeling low. I don’t normally like to talk about myself, it’s not what a griffon does.”

“Pfft, and you think you’re anything like a normal griffon,” I teased.

“Hey! I may be an oddball, but I have standards.”

“Whatever you say Aura.”

She nudged me back, “Thanks Shadow.”

“For what?”

“For defending me back there and for talking to me. It’s nice to know someone cares,” she said with a smile.

“You’re my friend Aura, enough said.”

After that we just sat there watching as ponies walked by. Thinking about it, this was the first time I’d been able to relax since I left Cartwheel. It was nice to be able to just sit back and not worry about things, even if it was only for a little while.

I was just about to shut my eyes and try and get a nap in when somepony tapped me with their hoof. Opening my eyes expecting to find Stardust or Wingnut looking down at me, I was surprised to see a colt, and it wasn’t Wingnut. This colt wasn’t even a pony, he was a young zebra. I’d never met a zebra before, and found it a little weird to see one.

He gave me a small smile, “Miss Pony.”

“Um…yes?”

“My family lives around here, but we don’t have many caps. You look like somepony who uses guns. Would you like to by this gun I found?” he said pulling out what looked to me like some kind of toy pistol. It was cone shaped with a ridiculous looking fin on the top of it and a screen on the back.

“I…uh don’t think I need any more guns…” I started, but Aura interrupted me.

“How much kid?”

“One million caps,” he said, as serious as could be.

My jaw almost hit the ground and I looked back at Aura, “Why are you even asking how much it is? It’s a piece of junk toy.”

“And he’s a Zebra colt living in a town of ponies, he’s probably homeless and needs the caps, but I’d say one million is a little much. See if you can help him out, it’s the right thing to do.”

Looking back at the colt I smiled a little and pulled out some caps, “I’m sorry, I don’t have that much. Why do you think it’s worth so much?”

“I found this outside near the old power plant when I was helping father. It’s the most powerful gun in the Wasteland,” he was so cute when he acted so serious that I found my heart melting and my smile growing.

“I don’t have that much, but if it helps I do have fifty caps left, would that be enough to by your gun?”

His eyes widened and he smiled wider, “That would be fine, but you have to promise me that you won’t lose the gun or sell it to anyone.”

“I promise,” I said smiling wider as his face lit up with joy.

“Thank you miss pony,” he said taking the caps and giving me the toy, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Shadow Star, this here is my friend Aura.”

“Thank you again Miss Shadow Star and Miss Aura,” he said running off with his small bag of caps.

“What do I do with this thing?” I asked looking over the odd-looking thing.

“Put it in your saddle bags. You made the kid a promise and you should always keep your promises,” Aura said leaning back against the wall.

Looking over the gun one more time, I noticed it felt like a real gun, only it didn’t have a place for ammo. I pulled the trigger once and all it did was click. Shrugging I levitated it into my saddle bags. My Pip-Buck dinged. Looking at it I saw that it put it down under weapons in my inventory, labeling it as Solar Flare’s Range Finder. Weird name for a piece of junk, but Aura was right, I made a promise and I’d keep it, even if it was a useless piece of junk.

“You really have a soft spot for foals don’t you Aura,” I said once I was finished with my Pip-Buck.

“Kids are the future, and I hate seeing them in pain or in need,” she said simply.

Before I could respond the door to Match and Tariff’s opened, Stardust and Wingnut walking out. Wingnut was saying, “I still don’t know why you had to get more stuff for your rifle, isn’t that thing already awesome?”

“Any rifle with a scope is awesome half-pint, but this one needs a little tweaking. It was made for an earth pony to use from a sniper’s nest. I don’t always have the pleasure of being able to just stay in one place and pick off my enemies. Most of the time I’m flying around having to pick my targets quickly. I need to get this set up just right so I can use it better while in flight,” Stardust said as they headed toward us.

“Hey you two, how did everything go in there?” I asked as they walked up to us.

“He spent some of our caps on stuff for his rifle,” Wingnut said angrily, “He could’ve used those caps to get us more healing potions or extra ammo.”

“Really Stardust? Why didn’t you talk to us first before deciding to spend our limited number of caps on stuff for your Rifle?”

“Because he’s a cloud kicker, they only think about themselves,” Aura said still leaning against the wall with her eyes closed.

Ignoring her, Stardust looked over at me, “I need a rifle that I can fire while flying. My old rifle was perfect for that, but somepony decided we should go see the Steel Rangers, who took my old rifle and forgot to give it back. I’ll admit, this new rifle is superior in almost every way to my old one, but it’s still not perfect for a flyer. I’m gonna fix that.”

“Fine, how many caps do we have left?”

“About a thousand, a lot of the junk we picked up was worth more than I thought it would be, and with talking Tariff down in price, we saved a lot there too,” he said tossing me a bag of caps, “I’ll let you hold onto them for now, since that Pip-Buck of yours will help keep them counted and organized.”

Putting the caps away in my saddle bags I asked, “Did Tariff finish the passports?”

“Yep, got them right here,” he said pulling them out and handing one to Wingnut and myself. It didn’t look like much, just a piece of paper that was laminated with a barcode on it and our names.

“You sure this’ll work?” I asked looking skeptically at it.

“Tariff may be an ass, but he knows what he’s doing with making passports,” Aura said getting up and stretching.

“And are you sure you’ll be able to get in too Aura?” I asked skeptically.

“Yeah, just tell them I’m your bodyguard and I’m under contract.”

Stardust started to tap his forehoof on the ground, “Yeah, yeah, can we get going now? This has taken too long as it is, and I really want to get into the Strip so we can continue on this foolhardy quest of yours.”

“Sure, I think it’s about time we find out where my mom is.”

All four of us walked toward the gates to New Pegasus. Stardust leading the way since he knew the city better than me, and Aura wasn’t the type to lead anypony anywhere. As we approached the gates one of the robots rolled up to us, its guns humming slightly.

“Present entry fee or passport.”

“Got them right here,” Stardust said holding out his own passport and flicking his wings for us to do the same.

We did and the robot scanned over all three quickly, “Very good Thank you for visiting New Pegasus, Shadow Star, Stardust Night, and Wingnut.”

The large gate started to open and we made our way toward it. I barely got past the first guard when it rolled over and stopped Aura. Looking back, I asked, “What’s the problem?”

“Only those with the Entry Fee or Passport can enter New Pegasus,” it said still blocking Aura’s path.

“I’m her bodyguard,” Aura said promptly.

“Do you have proper documentation proving she is your bodyguard?” the robot asked looking back at me.

Pulling out Aura’s contract I showed it to the Robot, “She’s with me, wherever I go, she goes. She’s my bodyguard and she is under contract.”

The robot took a little longer to look over the paper. Finally, it rolled out of the way, “Very good Aura Bloodtalon, please be sure to stay with your contractor and don’t wonder off.”

“Yeah I know the rules,” she said walking past the robot with a wave of her talon.

With that finished we walked through the gate, and entered New Pegasus…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Enhanced Senses: What was that noise? Who knows? Well... you do! You’ve gained +2 to overall perception.

Chapter 15: Luck Be A Lady

“No way kemosabe! My barn door don’t swing that way!”

Walking into The Strip I noticed the incredible difference between, it and Freedom Town. It was almost like walking into a time warp that brought me to a time before the war. New Pegasus was amazing in all its glory. On my left was The Lucky Horseshoe Casino which was the tower I saw on the way into town. On the other side of the street was The Emperor’s Palace.

The Lucky Horseshoe looked like it didn’t have any entrance at its base. I pondered whether it might be a Pegasus Only casino and only had a top entrance. I mean it kinda made sense since this place used to be both a surface and cloud city combined.

The Emperor’s Palace was A LOT different. First off, it wasn’t a giant tower and second, there were mares dressed in skanky outfits dancing outside the front doors.

There were two others I could see along the strip that still looked like they were up and running. One was The Grand Royale Casino Hotel and the other was The Applewood Resort & Casino.

The Grand Royale was a tall V shaped building that lacked much exterior decoration apart from the fancy fountain shooting what looked like clean water around like it was a big performance. Even though it lacked decoration, it still had the appearance of having class.

The Applewood Resort & Casino was a pretty flashy place at first glance with all of its references to old celebrities and not to mention the Applewood sign that was their logo.

“I’m gettin’ smashed tonight,” Stardust said next to me as he also took in the appearance of the pre-war city made anew.

I gave him a confused look, “Smashed? You mean drunk? How old are you? I doubt anypony is going to sell any kind of alcohol to somepony who’s underage.”

“What? Underage? Nopony cares how old you are in the Wasteland. There isn’t an age limit to drinking alcohol. My poison of choice is Applebuck Rum. Especially when you put two shots of it in a pint of Sparkle-Cola.”

Okay, New Pegasus was now my favorite place EVER, “We should see what the prices are at one of these hotels. It’d be a good idea to rent a room and get some rest. That Grand Royale place looks nice.”

At that Aura chimed in, “Nuh-uh. I’m not going to that hoity toity place. The White Hoof Society gives me the creeps. Plus, I’ve heard rumors that some guests that stay there have gone missing and that The White Hoof freaks were behind it.”

Noted. Avoid the places I want to go from now on. I guess The Strip is still part of the Wasteland, it’s gotta have its flaws somewhere. I didn’t care though, it was just a rumor anyway, “I’m sure the place is fine Aura, let’s give them a chance.”

Stardust spoke before she could, “Yeah, what gives? They’re just rumors, and they’re hundred-year-old rumors at that. That’s the only place in New Pegasus that actually still has a working pool, C’mon…”

“Fine whatever,” she snapped, interrupting him, “Don’t blame me when you’re being dragged out of the room in the middle of the night.”

As we walked toward the Grand Royale I noticed other buildings that looked like they were being used. As we came past The Applewood there was a building to our left that looked like an old train station and further down the way was another hotel called The Stable 21 Hotel. “They have a Stable here?” I asked feeling a little uneasy at the idea.

Aura gave a long sigh and pinched the top of her beak again like she was annoyed, “Ugh… Yeah there’s a Stable here… It’s not nearly as dangerous as the last one you were in though. A few years back when the residents opened it and left, some mare decided it should be a hotel and gift shop. When it started getting more business than the other hotels, Mr. Tops got pissed because the rest of The Strip started losing caps. So, he took initiative and had three-quarters of it filled with concrete.”

Stardust gawked, “Really? What a dick. How’s anypony supposed to make it out here when they’re continuously held back by shit like that?”

“I agree with Stardust. That’s pretty fucked u… where’s Wingnut?” I’d just noticed that we were no longer being followed by the blue colt.

“I dunno,” they said in unison as they looked around.

Finally, I saw where he went. He was talking to some ghoul wearing (gag) lingerie. He pointed to us and when she looked she brightened up and started to call over in a voice that sounded like she’d smoked at least ten-thousand cigarettes in her lifetime, “Dusty boy… C’mere and give Gramma a kiss!”

“Oh fuck. I thought we were good when we got passed the gate,” Stardust moaned tilting his head back and letting a sigh escape.

Aura was practically wetting herself on the ground and I looked at the ghoul pony in shock and then back at Stardust with the same expression, “Your Grandmother’s a ghoul? I thought you were from a stable. She’s not even a pegasus.”

He gave a long sigh, “She’s not really my Grandma, she just acts like she is because I remind her of her Grandson from before the war,” he sighed again before saying, “I guess I should go say hi.”

We left Aura to die laughing in the middle of the street and walked over to the scabby looking mare. To my amazement, she actually still had her mane, even though it was as brown as week old dishwater. When we got to her the question finally popped into my brain. Why was she wearing that? “Dusty. It’s been so long since I’ve seen ya. Why dontcha evah visit anymore? I havetah get my own beeah and cigarettes now.”

“Sorry Granny I’ve been busy helping the Wasteland the past couple months, in any way I can. Plus, you know why I can’t stay here long anymore.”

“Yeah, cause yourah too much of a pussy tah tell those Enclave muthafuckahs tah piss off,” Damn. She was really condescending, “And what’s with that stupid bandanna on ya face? Ya look like a two-bit hood,” she asked as she went to grab for it.

He blocked her reach and pulled his head away, “No! Don’t touch it!” I started to softly snicker as I watched and remembered why he was wearing it, (Thwack) “Ow! Granny that hurt.”

She grabbed at it again and succeeded in getting it off, “Oh boy. What a work of ahrt. Whoevah did this went into epic detail, they even got a few veins in there. You coulda told Grammy ya got a tattoo, I don’t judge.”

“Uh… Excuse me. Ms. Granny or whatever. It’s not a tattoo…”

She interrupted me before I could finish, “You mean tah tell me that he’s actually grown a penis on his face. That’s da most ridiculous thing I’ve evah heard.”

Aura finally recovered and was standing by watching the events unfold. She interjected and started to giggle once more as she said, “Actually, it’s just a permanent marker drawing that I did as payback. This just makes it ten times better. I saw Shrimp number two taklin’ to ya. How do you know him?”

“Who? Dis little guy?” she asked pointing a hoof at Wingnut, “He’s Granny’s little helpa. He used tah bring me groceries sometimes when I was livin’ in Freedom. I always wanted him tah meet Dusty so he had a kind of big bruddah, I guess fate brought dem togethah in the end.”

“Aaaawwwwww.” Aura and I both said in unison.

“Shut up. You guys are being really girly,” Wingnut protested as his face turned almost beet red.

“Yeah guys, seriously. Quit it,” Stardust protested along with him, “Hey Granny. Did you just say that you don’t live in freedom anymore?”

“I sureah did! I got me enough caps to move into The Palace. I’ve been gettin’ customers non-stop since I did too.”

“Wait a sec… I thought they didn’t allow ghouls on The Strip,” Stardust said with a confused look.

“That’s what I thought too, then one day, one ah those securiponies came up to me and gave me a special pass that came straight from the big guy himself.”

“Mr. Tops gave you a pass?”

“Yeah. I dunno why he gave it to me. Da stupid robot wouldn’t tell me.”

“Granny that seems kinda weird…”

“What!? I didn’t hear ya. I got some foal yelling nonsense in my eah.”

(Sigh) “Never mind.”

“Yeah whatevah. Anyway I gotta go, there’s a customah waitin’ who’s got an appointment.”

Stardust had a disgusted look on his face as she walked away. Somehow, I didn’t think it was because of the way his friend was acting. Personally, I think we were thinking the same thing. Mr. Tops was using Granny to rake in more money for The Strip. I don’t know how though, “Hey Stardust, what does she mean by customer?” I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I needed to confirm, “What I mean is. What does she do for a living?”

All three of my friends looked at me like I was an idiot. After a dramatic pause of disbelief, he finally spoke, “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“She’s um… a… hooker…”

“Eeww! Gross!” I exclaimed.

Aura was rolling on the ground again while Wingnut and Stardust gave her a menacing look. Through her laughter, she managed to get out, “Dickface likes crunchy ghoul sex!”

With that he quickly rebutted, “Nuh-uh, I just… (Gag). Fuck you!”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! The look of your fugly face is priceless. Shrimp number two get a picture!” Aura said pointing at him.

I looked at both of them as Stardust’s face got greener and Wingnut looked a little more ashamed, “Why would you guys hang around an old whore like her? I mean sure she seems nice I guess, but she’s still a prostitute.”

I don’t think Stardust could talk without vomiting as he nudged Wingnut as if to answer for him, “We don’t think of her that way. I don’t know about Stardust, but to me it was like having a real family to visit every once in a while. After my parents died a few years back and I started living in Little Hoof, it didn’t feel like I was accepted. When I met Granny, she was working a corner and pretty much attacked me calling me the… um… uh…”

Curiosity was killing me as I urged him to go on, “What?”

He sighed as he started to blush, “She said I was the cutest, most precious thing she’d ever seen and then asked where my parents were. Of course, I got emotional because it wasn’t long after they died. So, she ended up taking me back to her place in Freedom and I was able to vent my emotions and talk about them with her. She shared some things about what made her sad too and told me how she made herself feel better. However… I don’t think I could compensate with sex like she does. Just because she’s a whore doesn’t mean she isn’t somepony with a good heart.”

Aura then chimed in with her opinion, “That’s sweet and all but it’s still kinda weird for a kid like you to be hanging around a hooker like her. If you keep hanging around her, eventually when you’re older other ponies are gonna think you have a ghoul fetish like Dickhead does.”

“I don’t have a ghoul fetish!” Stardust snapped, “When I first met her yeah she tried hitting on me because I swear she wants to fuck anything and everything that moves but, when I refused her services politely she thanked me. Apparently, there are some ponies who think it’s funny to belittle her for trying to earn extra caps by exploiting somepony’s weird fetish. We started talking for a while and she told me about her Grandson from two hundred years ago, who was also a pegasus and how I reminded her of him.”

Aura suddenly looked disappointed, “Fine. You win….But only because it was sappy.”

Getting tired of their endless foalishness I decided to lay out some ground rules, “Could you guys seriously just stop fighting or calling each other names for one day? One fucking day? It gets super freakin’ tiring listening to you two when all I want to do is get shit done and get on with our mission. Which by the way is something we still haven’t completed. I need to bring the package in my bags to the NLR Embassy wherever the fuck that is. And after that I want to relax in a decent bed, eat something that doesn’t have the remains of buckshot in it, and take a FUCKING BATH. In the past week, I’ve gotten blood and/or rotting gore all over me only to be rinsed off by the slightly radioactive rain. Have you seen my mane? It’s not supposed to look like a dirty washrag, it’s supposed to be silky soft and PRETTY. So, here’s how it’s gonna go down… you two are going to have a truce for the entire time we’re here so I can do what I need to do and enjoy myself in a pre-war tourist attraction. Agreed?”

All three of them or at least Aura and Stardust looked at me in shock. Wingnut looked like he was about to piss himself. The two looked at each other and then back at me saying in unison, “Agreed.”

“Good. Let’s go to the hotel.”

The Grand Royale was a bit more extravagant than I’d first thought. As we got closer I could see that there were lights built into the wide steps to the entrance that would turn on one by one in the same patter as if to say ‘come right in’. When we walked in I was expecting to see giant chandeliers and engraved gold-plated walls with couches and chairs filled with sophisticated ponies talking about brunch or whatever rich ponies talked about when they were bored. What I got however was a round room with a bar in the middle surrounded by green-topped tables with ponies in creepy masks passing out cards behind them. The walls didn’t even have gold on them, they were the most horrible shade of blue.

As I stood there one of the masked ponies came over to me, “Excuse me, but could I trouble you to hand over all of your weapons before you continue any further?”

Surprised and caught off guard I said, “What!?”

“Oh, pardon me,” he said as he proceeded to speak louder and slower, “Could I trouble you to hand over all of your weapons before you continue any further?”

“I’m not deaf. Your creepy ass mask just caught me off guard. I’m not handing over my weapons.”

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Ask me to leave?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Lemme ask you something. How’d you like me to take that prissy looking cane and jam it up your ass until you taste wood?”

“Oh, how horribly uncouth! Get out! Now!”

***

We walked out and Stardust gave me a nudge, “Y’know, every casino or hotel is gonna ask for your weapons. It’s what they do to make sure ponies stay safe in their establishments.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I was going to, but I didn’t get a chance with you talking to the concierge like you were.”

Aura was starting to snicker, “Yeah, but when you threatened to stick the cane up his ass; that was fucking hilarious. It’s no big deal though we can just crash at the Stable 21 Hotel.”

Really? She wanted me to stay in the hotel that was made out of a Stable? “But I wanna stay somewhere nice,” I whined, “Not go back to sleeping in a stuffy stable.”

“I second that,” Stardust added.

Wingnut finally broke his silence and suggested, “Let’s just go to The Applewood Resort. That place is pretty nice or so I’ve heard.”

“Ugh fine. Just as long as I get to bathe. I can’t stand feeling like this much longer.”

“I hope they have a pool,” Stardust said.

We once again started walking down the street toward the next hotel and I noticed something I hadn’t before, a gate. Not the gate at the main entrance but a different gate at the end of the street next to The Grand Royale, “What’s behind that? Is it another entrance?”

Aura clarified, “No, it’s not another way in. it’s a barrier gate to separate the casinos from the other establishments on The Strip. Behind that gate is where the Talon’s HQ is along with the NLR Embassy, a detective agency, a mega-mart, the radio broadcast station, some apartment buildings, and a few other places.”

“Oh! Who runs the detective agency?” I asked remembering what Elder Appleslice said about Lonely Hearts.

“Uh… hmmm… I think his name is Detective Lonely Hearts, he’s…”

“I need to talk to him after we go to the NLR Embassy. Elder Appleslice said that he might know where my mother is. Well at least he’s the last one to have seen her.”

“Ok uh… yeah sure, we can do that. Y’know what?”

“What?”

“You’re a real spaz sometimes,” Aura interjected.

“I can fire you, y’know,” something felt off, “Hey where’d the other two go?”

“I guess they ditched us and went to the hotel without us. Let’s go see if we can find them.”

The interior of The Applewood was exactly what I’d pictured it’d be like. Well… somewhat. I can say this much. It looked a lot better than The Grand Royale. It wasn’t full of super up-tight ponies from The White Hoof Society and didn’t make me feel uncomfortable for being underdressed and not wearing one of those incredibly creepy masks.

I gave up my weapons at the door and walked with Aura to the elevator. The concierge told us that Stardust and Wingnut told him to tell us that we’d be staying in suite 217. While we waited for the Elevator to arrive I was looking around at the posters of Sweetie Belle (A pre-war singer and former Stable-Tec Head of Public Relations), celebrity memorabilia, and large pictures and posters of Applewood and Los Alicorn.

The elevator ride was awkwardly silent for some reason as we ascended to the second floor which was actually the fifth floor because the three levels below it was labeled as the casino floor, the cocktail bar, and the recreational area. Casinos are dumb. Why can’t they just label the rooms and elevator buttons with their actual floor numbers?

We came into the hotel room to Stardust and Wingnut being typical males and hoof-wrestling on the table between the two sofas in the living room area, “Oh, hi guys,” Stardust said right as he slammed Wingnut’s hoof to the surface of the table. “Isn’t this room bitchin’? And before you go and ask how we could afford it, I’m just going to tell you that it only cost 350 caps.”

I was already pissed that he and Wingnut ran off and checked-in without us. Now I was even more pissed that he spent 350 of my hard-earned caps without asking me first, “350, caps!? Are you fucking kidding me!? That’s more than a quarter of our caps!”

He smiled making me that much more pissed, “Correction, a quarter of YOUR caps. I figured you wouldn’t want to spend that much so I split it. In reality you only payed 175 caps and so did I. For things to be fair though, shouldn’t Aura pay her part of the room fee to us?”

She looked surprised that he actually uttered her name from his mouth, “Uh y-yeah… I’ll figure out the numbers and pay you guys,” I think she was amazed that he was holding up his end of the truce.

I cooled down a bit after he explained, “I need a bath. I stink.”

Right then Wingnut made eye-contact and gave me a mischievous grin, “Yeah I noticed. I could smell you getting off the elevator.”

Stardust looked at him in awe as I glared intensely at him, “Damn, you got some balls dude. I’d run if I were you.”

After about ten minutes of me trying to catch Wingnut so I could slap the shit out of him I finally gave up. (I forgot how fast Earth Ponies could run) During that time Aura left to go downstairs to get something to eat and Stardust decided to go down to the casino to gamble. I gave up trying to catch Wingnut and told him to go find one of the other two while I took a bath.

The suite was bigger than I expected it to be. Instead of it just being two beds and a bathroom with tiny soaps that look like breath-mints, it was more like a small apartment or condo. It had a living room, a decent sized kitchen for a hotel, three separate bedrooms, and a luxurious bathroom with a massive bathtub.

I closed the bathroom door and stepped into the steaming, bubble-filled water. It’d been so long since I’ve had a hot bath. As I let my body sink deeper into the water I could feel my fur loosen up. As I lied in the water alone with my thoughts which probably wasn’t a good thing, I noticed a button on the side of the tub. I went over to it and stared at it curiously, “I wonder what this does.” (Click) I pressed it and all of a sudden, submerged jets started to push out water making it that much more relaxing, “Aaaahhhh… I needed this.”

There was a radio on the table that sat next to the tub. I turned it on figuring it’d enhance the mood a little. What I heard next was unexpected.

“Hello everypony this is Mr. New Pegasus. I just wanna say that it’s been a nice couple of months since I replaced Poker Chip and Bitmap after they left for Whinnieapolis. Looks like it’s time for the news once again so let me put on my News Pony Fedora. I’ve heard reports that non-other than the Courier Mare has been spotted around Freedom and at the gates to the strip. My good friend and colleague DJ-Pon3 shared some news with me from back East. He’d previously reported the escape of two stable dwellers from Stable 2. It appears that one of them freed some captured ponies and killed the raiders occupying Ponyville. Also, there’s a new sheriff in town in the Hoof. Just recently a mare who DJ calls Security has also been bringing raiders to justice from Mega-mart to Withers. And in other news… the battle between the NLR and the Romans wages on as the Romans capture the town of Neighson. This is a warning to any passers-by to not enter the town under any circumstance. That’s all for now so sit back… relax… and enjoy this track….”

On a warm summers evening, on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with a gambler we were both too tired to sleep. So we took turns at staring out the window at the darkness, till boredom overtook us and he began to speak, He said “Son I’ve made a life outta reading people’s faces. Knowing what the cards were by the way they held their eyes. So if you don’t mind me sayin I can see you’re outta aces for a taste of your whiskey I’ll give you some advice.”

Listening to somepony other than DJ-Pon3 was a little weird, but Mr. New Pegasus seemed easier to listen to than DJ. He didn’t have that overly upbeat charisma that scared the shit out of you when he suddenly burst into a rant after a peaceful song.

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow, then he bombed a cigarette and asked me for a light. And the night got deathly quiet and his face lost all expression said “if you’re gonna play the game boy you gotta learn to play it right”.

Plus, the music on this station was a nice change from the previous genre.

You gotta know when to hold em,
Know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin at the table,
There’ll be time enough for countin when the dealing’s done…

However, the song he played right after the news wasn’t that great. I turned off the radio and noticed something in the corner of my eye. Turning my head, I saw Aura standing by the door watching me as I soaked in the tub. For a long moment, the two of us just stared at each other. Deciding to break the akwark silence I asked, “Something wrong Aura?”

“Nope.”

“Um…then why are you just standing in the door way watching me take a bath?”

“I wasn’t watching you take a bath, I’m just keeping an eye on you is all. It IS my job.”

She had a point, but still. Did she have to watch me like THAT? “Um…true, but I’m sure I’m safe in the bath, I don’t think random raiders are going to just pop out of the drain and attack me.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Yeah, I still don’t think you need to stand there and stare at me.”

Looking away she made a chittering noise, “Look, I really don’t have anything to do. I went down to the casino floor, one of the employees asked me where my pony was. Since I’m your bodyguard they don’t want me wondering around without you. Since I’m no longer a Red Talon, I have to either have a passport like you, or be with you since you’re my contractor. So, I figured I’d just come up here and check on you. I can leave and wait for you to finish if you really want me to.”

I sighed and laid my head against the wall, “No, you’re fine, just don’t stare at me like you were, it’s creepy.”

“You think everything’s creepy.”

“Do not.”

“Whatever. So, what’s next once you’ve gotten all pampered?”

I looked at her with a blank expression, “At least come sit down, you need to relax a little.”

Doing so, she came and sat next to the tub resting against the wall opposite of me, “So, is there a plan?”

“My plan for right now is to relax, maybe go check out the casino later. Y’know, have fun.”

“I thought you had a mission to do?”

I sighed, “I do, but really, I don’t know what to do next. I’ll go take care of the delivery later, Apollo didn’t say when I needed to arrive, so I’m in no rush. As for finding that detective, I’m starting to get cold hooves.”

“Why? I thought the whole reason you left your stable was to find your mom.”

“Part of it is, but for the most part I left because I had to escape the fuckin’ cunt-flap of an Overmare we had. She wanted to cut off my foreleg all for a stupid Pip-Buck.”

“That’s beside the point Shadow. Why are you getting cold hooves over talking to the detective?”

Bringing up the note from my mother on my Pip-Buck I turned my hoof and showed her, “She left me this, it was hidden and a friend was able to unlock it.”

She looked over and took a moment to read the note, “So what? Why would you let a note from a long time ago stop you?”

“She didn’t want me to follow her, she wanted me to get out one day, but she never wanted me to go looking for her.”

“Yeah, and that’s why she left that Pip-Buck for you, so you can just leave and go live back east. A Pip-Buck, mind you, that is extremely rare.”

“I’m just afraid she’ll want nothing to do with me if I do find her.”

“Oh get over yourself Shadow. Think about it, if she did want you to just take her rare Pip-Buck and go back east to live out your life, then cool. She’s a better mother than most are. Thing is, most people out here don’t do things like that. There’s always a motive behind what they do.”

I looked back at my Pip-Buck, the note still up. What if mom did want me to find her, but left the note on there in case somepony else found it? She was really smart and I wouldn’t put it past her, “But, what if she really didn’t want anything to do with me anymore? What if she did leave because she just didn’t want me anymore?”

“Then you cry for a while, eat a tub of brahmin milk ice cream, feel sorry for yourself, and then get over it. Trust me, I know the feeling, luckily for you, you have friends who care about you that will be there for you,” she gave me a small smile as she said it.

Smiling back, I reached a hoof out and put it on her rear paw, “Thanks Aura.”

She stiffened for a moment when I touched her paw then quickly rose, “I think I should let you finish your bath, let me know when you’re done. I think I should clean up a little too,” she started to head out the door.

“You can always join me, it’s big enough for two,” I meant it as a joke, but the look Aura gave me was…how should I put this…awkward.

She looked back over her shoulder her eyes wide and a small blush on her face. It took her a moment to respond, “Um…yeah…I mean no…no that would be…weird.”

Thoroughly confused I asked, “What’s the problem? We’re both girls here, it’s not that weird.”

She didn’t even respond, only walked out the door and into the living area leaving the door half open. Deciding not to think about it too much I took another minute to clean my mane, then deciding that I couldn’t sit in the bath all day, I finally got out. Looking back at the bath, I noticed how nasty the water was. (Ewww, yeah, I’m glad I took a bath now.)

I was about to towel off when the door opened again, thinking Aura came back in for some reason, I turned to say something. Aura however wasn’t the one who was standing in the doorway. Wingnut, stood at the door his eyes wide as saucers. I was still standing there, magic holding the towel drying my tail, giving the colt more of a view than I would have liked. (That’s what I get for not shutting the door.)

“I...I…I…didn’t…I…didn’t…I mean…” the colt stuttered, his eyes stuck on my flanks. The blue buck turned red, and he was shaking.

“Dammit Wingnut! Don’t you know how to knock?” I asked lowering my tail and turning, my magic working the towel over my mane.

“I didn’t mean to look,” he said quickly, his hooves still planted to the ground, “Please…don’t kill me.”

Rolling my eyes I used my magic to move his head up to look me in the eye, “It’s okay, I should’ve shut the door. Why’re you so embarrassed?”

“You don’t have anything on, and…” he blushed even more.

“Ponies don’t normally wear cloths, you know that.”

“You do,” he practically whispered.

I hadn’t thought about that, he’d only been with us for a short time, and I always had my barding and duster on, “You’re right, I’m sorry I didn’t shut the door.”

“It’s okay…I mean, it wasn’t a bad thing to see, just unexpected,” he was smiling now. The little perv was actually smiling and his eyes even wandered back down to my flanks.

“Okay, my eyes are up here kid.”

“Sorry!”

Finishing drying off I turned him around and walked with him out the door, “Listen, you really shouldn’t get any ideas just because you saw more than a colt your age should.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve seen that kind of thing before, it’s just never made me feel so… weird,” he said trotting a few feet in front of me as we walked back into the living area.

“What makes you feel weird?” Aura asked as we walked in.

“He walked into the bathroom when I was drying off, got an eye-full,” I said lifting the colt with my magic and setting him next to Aura.

She started to laugh a little, “Just like a guy to find a way to go peek in on a girl like that. What? Did you think you’d watch her take a bath or something?”

“No,” he was blushing again, “I didn’t know she was in there still, I wanted to clean up too.”

Still laughing Aura got up and walked toward the bathroom, “Likely story kid, next you’re gonna tell me you have wings. I’m gonna take a bath, I’ll see you two love birds later.”

“Oh, shut up Aura,” I said as she disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

Now I was standing in the room with a young colt who had just seen more than I’d have liked. He was still looking over at me blushing, “Did you have a buckfriend in your stable?”

“I had a friend that was a stallion, but not like you’re thinking I’m sure.”

“Why not?”

Were we really going to have this conversation? I mean hell he was a colt, he shouldn’t be thinking like this, “I wasn’t interested in him, not romantically at least. I had my eyes on somepony else when I was still in my stable.”

He smiled a little, “This other pony didn’t have eyes for you though?”

“Why do you want to know this all of a sudden Wingnut?”

He surged, “I dunno. It’s just, you’re a really pretty mare. I thought guys would be going nuts over you all the time.”

I laughed and walked over sitting next to him, “Life isn’t that black and white. In Stable 28 I was the only unicorn. Well… I was once my mom left. Most of the population didn’t like me for that fact alone, and they didn’t trust me because I wasn’t born there. I was an outsider, stallions didn’t look at me and see a pretty mare. They saw a unicorn and an outsider.”

“That had to suck, I couldn’t imagine growing up like that. In Little Hoof, everypony is given a fair chance to prove themselves. Nopony cares if you’re a unicorn, earth pony or even a pegasus, though we’ve never had a pegasus in the town before.”

“I learned to get over it when I was younger. I had my two friends and Auntie, they made my days there seem less miserable.”

“So, this buck you liked, he didn’t like you back because you were a unicorn?” I really couldn’t read this colt. One minute he was looking me over like I was a prize of some kind, the next he was asking me about growing up in my Stable.

“Can you keep a secret Wingnut?”

“Sure.”

“The buck I liked wasn’t a buck, she was my other best friend Milkshake. She only had eyes for my other friend.”

“Oh…I didn’t know you liked mares,” he seemed to take that a little hard but was doing his best to recover, “If you liked her, then why didn’t you just tell her how you felt?”

“Again, it’s not that black and white. My stable forbids relationships between ponies of the same sex. If I would’ve told her, I could’ve ended up in a lot of trouble. They would’ve said I was sick or needed to be reeducated.”

“That sounds stupid. But you’re not in your stable anymore, why do you want me to keep it a secret that you like mares?”

I sighed, “Because, I’m still getting used to the way things work in the Wasteland. And it’s not true that I only like mares, I like stallions too. I just haven’t met one that caught my eye, and I can’t lie that I do prefer mares a little more.”

A glimmer of hope seemed to enter his face as he looked back at me with a smile, “So, there’s a chance that you could like a buck, one like me?”

“Wingnut, you’re not making this any easier. First of all, you’re too young for a mare like me, and you don’t even know me that well. If you were older then… I dunno… maybe.”

He jumped to his hooves, “There is always hope! I’ve had enough of this mushy talk, I’m gonna find Stardust and tell him what I saw!” then he ran out the door before I could stop him.

“You little rat! I’ll fucking kill you if you tell him…fuck,” he was gone. Turning I walked over and shut the door to our room then started to bang my head against it.

When I finally stopped trying to crack my horn off, I heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom. Turning toward the door I walked over. What the hell was going on now? Cracking the door open, I peeked inside. Aura was laying the bathtub with her eyes closed and her beak open wide. She was arching her back and one of her talons was under the water between her legs. She was moaning intensely as her foreleg moved back and forth under the water, her wings open wide.

Blushing myself, I closed the door and walked back to go sit on the couch, “I saw nothing!” I told myself, now thinking that bathroom was cursed. Next, one of us was gonna walk in on Stardust… “Ewww! No! Go away dirty thoughts about my friends,” I proceeded to dig a hole in my head and bury the thoughts there.

I got up off the couch and went to the closest bedroom. It wasn’t a very big room but it wasn’t small either. There was one bed with two nightstands on each side. Amazingly enough the bed had sheets on it that actually looked clean. I lied down and slipped under the covers as the weight of my fatigue came over me as I drifted off to sleep…

***

…It was a bright beautiful morning and Mom was making me stay inside. Why won’t she let me go outside and play? She says I’m sick but… I feel fine. I don’t like being stuck in the house all the time, it’s so boring. All I wanna do is go outside for a while and play with my friends.

I hate just lying in bed like this. There’s nothing to do, but sleep or think, and when I think, I think about playing with my friends. Wait… who are my friends? Why can’t I remember their names? Stardust? Aura? Wingnut? No… that’s not them… it’s Milk…something and uh… I don’t know.

“Are you okay Shadow?” Mom asked from the door to my bedroom, “You look like you’re confused.”

“Yeah, I’m okay Mom. For some reason, I can’t remember my friend’s names.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. I keep remembering different names that sound familiar, but I know it’s not what theirs are.”

She walked over to me and sat next to my bed, “You probably just have another fever. Lemme take your temperature.”

She lifted a thermometer and stuck it in my mouth under my tongue, “Mom, this this tastes weird. Can I take it out soon?”

“Just a minute Shadow. I need to know if I need to bring you to the hospital again.”

“I don’t like the hospital. There’s always ponies bleeding or throwing up in the waiting room.”

She took the thermometer out of my mouth and examined it, “I’m sorry Shadow but we have to go. Your fever is pretty high and you’re just a filly. If we don’t go you could go to sleep and never wake up.”

“But I don’t want another ice bath.”

“No buts Shadow. You’re very sick…”

***

I was awoken by the sound of the alarm on my Pip-Buck. When did I set that? I looked around and saw that Wingnut was asleep on the end of the bed. Even though my alarm was going off he seemed to sleep peacefully through it. He was on his side facing away from me, his head resting below my hooves. With a force that was hard enough to wake him up but not hurt him I kicked him in the back of the head, “Ow! Ugh… what was that for?”

“Why are you in my room?”

“I was tired and Stardust said that guys don’t sleep in the same bed because it’s weird. I asked Aura if I could sleep with her and she told me to go in here because she didn’t want me groping her while she slept. I don’t know why she’ think that, she’s a griffon, ewww.”

I looked away at the wall and asked him quietly with a little bit of a blush, “You didn’t touch ME did you?”

“No. I was tired. All I wanted to do was sleep and this was the only other place I could go because this place only has three bedrooms. I didn’t want to sleep on the couch because it was uh…um…”

“What?”

“I’m keeping your secret for you so… can you keep one for me?”

I looked back at him, “Yeah sure. What is it?”

He looked like he was embarrassed to tell me, “I’m uh… y’know… um… afraid of the dark.”

“Oh…but that doesn’t explain why you’re in here.”

“If any monsters showed up from the darkness, I figured you or one of the others would protect me.”

“You’ve fought monsters before in the Wasteland. What makes monsters from the darkness so different? I’m sure you could defeat them if you tried.”

He sighed, “Monsters from the darkness don’t die.”

Either he was really good at making up lies so he could sleep in the same room as me… or he was genuinely scared. I took pity on him in the end though, “Okay. I’ll see if we can get one of those portable single beds brought up here and you can sleep in Stardust’s room tonight. We have this room for another night so they should be okay with it.”

“Thanks Shadow, you’re the best.”

We both got up and walked out to the living room to see Aura sitting on the couch reading a beat up Daring Do book. She looked up at me as I walked in, “Ooo… couldn’t wait to indulge the little freak’s fantasy could ya?”

“Really? You’re still on that? We didn’t do anything for one, and two, he’s just a colt. That’s seriously fucked up.”

She looked back at her book, “Whatever. I don’t judge.”

“Where’s Stardust? Isn’t he up yet?”

“Nah he’s still passed out rattling the room with his snoring. He got a little drunk last night so he’ll be out for a while.”

I went to his room to get him up when I could swear I heard him talking through the door, “No Shortcake………I don’t wanna use the whipped cream……….”

When I opened the door, he was still asleep mumbling away in his slumber. Okay this was going to be fun. I walked in and shut the door as quietly as I could. Without disturbing him I crawled onto the other side of the bed and lied down as if I was sleeping there and kicked him in the hind leg.

“Huh? Shadow? What the fuck? Why are you in my room?”

With a smile, I replied, “Don’t you remember last night? I sure do.”

“Oh, Goddesses no! We didn’t! Did we!? I couldn’t have been that drunk!”

“Relax… No we didn’t. I’m just fucking with you.”

“Metaphorically or literally?”

“What? Metaphorically.”

“Oh thank Celestia!”

“What!? Are you saying if we did something you wouldn’t have liked it or something!?”

“No nothing like that. It’s just you’re…”

That stupid part of my brain took over again as I sat up and interrupted him, “I’m what? Not pretty enough? I’ll have you know that even though I cringe at the thought of doing ANYTHING sexual with you that I’d at least not be a bitch about it.”

“If you’d let me finish I was going to say. It’s just that you’re not someone I’d do that with. Yeah, you’re pretty and all, but you’re also my friend and I don’t like you that way. That’s why I was so freaked out.”

“Oh…sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out on you like that. I don’t like you like that either, I just thought it’d be funny to play a prank,” I got off the bed as he got up and I sat on my haunches, “Who’s Shortcake?”

“How do you know her name?” he asked, a little freaked out by the question.

“I should tell you that you talk in your sleep. From what I heard she likes whipped cream.”

He blushed and looked down, “She’s uh… this mare I used to uh… y’know… have a crush on in my Stable. She worked in the kitchen or at least she always wanted to. My Stable was probably a lot different than yours. We were more like a Stable full of soldiers in training. Sure, we still went to school and everything, but most of the time after school we were all in practicing hoof to hoof fighting, practice shooting, using the combat simulator, or exercising to stay in shape. I was there when she got her cutie mark. She snuck out of her room along with me and one of our other friends to make some strawberry shortcake for one of our instructors because he used to yell at the other cadets about how he’d rather be enjoying that instead of watching them fail miserably at whatever they were doing.”

Now I was curious. He was finally opening up about himself, so I pushed him for more details, “So… your stable was like a military stable?”

He gave me an ice-cold look, “No. Enclave. I didn’t know the Enclave was a bad thing until the day I left that place. All the years growing up I was always taught that The Enclave were the saviors of Equestria. They told me that when Equestria was destroyed, our stable was left vacant, and that fifty years after the war The Grand Pegasus Enclave took refuge there from the poison that was outside. Little did I know that it was a lie. Instead of fifty years after the war, they really took over the Stable about twenty years ago, and it wasn’t vacant.”

“Goddesses that’s horrible. Why did they take over a Stable if they had refuge in the sky?”

“I ask myself that question all the time. Why invade somepony’s home and kill every last one of them when you could just go back to the sky and forget about the surface? Sometimes I think about going back there and killing every single one of those Enclave bastards.”

“What about your parents? I’m sure you wouldn’t just kill THEM like that.”

“I didn’t have any parents growing up, none of us did. We were told that they lived in a separate part of the stable on the upper levels and that we’d eventually be given clearance to move up there when we were old enough. I’d never get to meet mine though… they died when I was a newborn. Some kind of virus that was accidentally released in one of the laboratories.”

His story was making me want to tear up, but I held it back, “How did you find out that they lied to you and everypony else? And how did you get out alive?”

He got a pained expression on his face as he started to explain, “My best friend was being his usual idiot self and snuck up to one of the restricted levels and saw some things he wasn’t supposed to and told me about it. He was amazed that he didn’t get caught. He asked if he could talk to me privately in his room and told me all about it there not knowing that The Overmare had bugs in every domicile to make sure she wasn’t being plotted against. Later that night… Security came into our rooms and arrested both of us. We were interrogated and scheduled for reeducation.”

“That doesn’t make sense though. How did you get out if you were arrested?”

“We had help. I don’t know who did it, but the cells suddenly unlocked and we ran for it. It didn’t take long for Security to catch on that we escaped the holding cells and by the time we got to the Stable door we were being chased and shot at by about half of Security.”

“Do you think Shortcake is the one who let you out?”

“Maybe… she was good with computers, but I don’t think she knew we were in lockup yet. It was the middle of the night when we got out of our cells. Whoever they were though, killed the three Security ponies outside the door where the holding cells were.”

“What about your friend? Where is he if he got out with you?”

When I asked that question he looked like somepony just murdered his whole family right in front of him, “H-he didn’t… when we got the door open, we set it to close before we got out so we couldn’t be followed,” I could see the pain written on his face, “When we were running out… those bastards managed to shoot him in the leg. H-he…he fell to the ground in the threshold and… he was… my best friend… was slowly crushed by the Stable door like he was no more than a tiny insect,” I could tell he was holding back.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never seen my friend so distraught like this. I could understand losing a life-long friend, but not like he did. His best friend died trying to escape with him, mine lived, “I-I had no idea. I’m sorry about your friend… I don’t know what I would’ve done if I was in your place.”

He recovered a bit and said, “I know you wouldn’t have. I don’t think anypony really knows what to do in a situation like that. I was so scared that I just ran out of the short cave and didn’t look back. After about twelve hours I was already being hunted by The Enclave out here, I thought they were just ponies from my Stable that were tracking me with my Pip-Buck. I thought I’d never escape their eyes, but I got lucky. I met a pony who had a master key and they removed it for me. The only stipulation was that they got to keep it afterward.”

“Wait… you told me only higher-ups got Pip-Bucks in your Stable,” I said accusingly.

“Yeah… sorry about that. I only lied to protect myself. I figured the less ponies knew about my Stable, the less likely they were to tell The Enclave where I was in order to get something in return. Course all The Grand Pegasus Enclave would do is pay them with a bullet once they told them. C’mon, let’s get out there before they start making up scenarios in their heads,” he said changing the subject.

I could tell he wouldn’t say anymore so I just smiled and said, “Agreed.”

We walked back into the living room to see both Aura and Wingnut staring at us. Aura was giving me that googly-eyed ‘ooooo’ look as she spoke, “I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. You have been pretty lewd showing off your marehood to everyone including Wingnut and yours truly.”

“Nothing happened, we were just talking.”

It was right then that Stardust started to hold back a laugh, “Pfft… Aura saw it too? Wow you really do need a release.”

“So, he DID tell you”

“Hells yeah he did. Gave him a hoof-bump and everything…”

(Thwack)

“…Ow!”

At this point my sympathy for him was almost completely gone as sorrow turned to pissed-off, “I’m gonna go braid my mane so we can go do what we came here to do. When I come out of that bathroom which by the way I think is cursed, this whole subject will be history,” at that I stormed away and into the bathroom.

I started braiding my mane in the mirror as dirty thoughts once again surfaced in my head about my friends. No! Go away, nopony likes you! When I went to grab, a mane tie I noticed that they weren’t where I left them last night. Holding the braid in with my magic I searched the entire bathroom to no avail, “I can’t go out with my hair down. I’ll look horrible,” there was something up. I don’t just lose things, one of them had to have taken them, “Guys! Where are my mane ties!?”

The only reply I got was from Wingnut, “Safe!”

Okay I know I’m not a morning pony, but I’m still usually pretty pleasant unless somepony pisses me off. I trotted back into the living room and glared at all three of them maliciously, “Who…took…them?”

They all showed me no fear, even Wingnut as he spoke up again, “I got to talking with Stardust last night before he started drinking and told him about what I saw in the bathroom. I also told him how pretty you look with your mane down.”

“Are you kidding me? First of all, I DON’T look good with my mane down and second, you only think that because of what you saw.”

Stardust decided at that moment to chime in, “I dunno Shadow, I think you look better without that braid you always have,” he sighed, “How about this. We’ll hold on to them for a day or so and after that if you feel like you want to put your mane in a braid then go ahead.”

I thought about his proposal for a minute and considered having Aura break their truce and take them back by force. She has to do everything I tell her to, right? As long as it’s in the contract? However, I decided to humor him, “You guys suck. Fine, but only for a day, but if you don’t give them back by then, I’ll let Aura do whatever she wants to both of you.”

Aura grinned evilly, “Oh so many options.”

He smiled showing no fear, “Cool. Let’s head out then.”

***

It felt weird walking around in public looking the way I did. Almost every pony I passed by was staring at me and it was starting to make me feel even more uncomfortable. I tried to take my mind off of it by looking around as if I didn’t notice. While looking around I saw a sign…

Performing Tonight At The Cocktail Lounge

Applewood Undead

Fallout Buck

Cheese Sandwich

And

The Comic Stylings of Mr. Ordinary

“Huh… that actually sounds like fun.”

Stardust looked at me in confusion, “What sounds like fun?”

“Going to the cocktail bar to see some ponies perform. It’d be an interesting change from killing psychos and mutated bugs in the Wasteland.”

“Alright, yeah, we could do that. Right guys?”

“I gotta stay with Shrimp the whole time I’m here anyway so I have no choice. And I don’t think either of you two trust Shrimp number two alone in the room for a second.”

***

We entered the other part of The Strip and I noticed that it wasn’t too different from where the casinos were. Everything was lit up in neon, ponies crowded the streets, and there were securiponies keeping guard. You couldn’t miss the NLR Embassy, there were flags with a two headed ursa all over it. The inside wasn’t as flaunting though, it basically looked like any other office building would look like.

As we entered a mare dressed in a tan pre-war uniform came over to us, “Welcome to the NLR Embassy, what can I help you with today?”

“Yeah, I’m a courier with Equestrian Express, I have a delivery for a Lieutenant Blazer.”

Her eyes got wide and she smiled, “The Courier Mare from Cartwheel?”

I facehoofed and sighed, “Yeah that’s me,” I hate being famous.

“I’ve been keeping up with your story ever since you took down that Raider Camp.”

Aura was snickering behind me, doing my best to ignore her I continued, “Yeah, that wasn’t much fun, and more luck than anything. Can we get back to why I’m here?”

“Oh right, I’m sorry. I’m Corporal Timber. I can show you to the lieutenant, he’s in his office right now.”

Wow finally, something was going right, “Sounds good to me.”

“Follow me,” she started to walk away, leading us up a set of stairs and toward a room. She knocked on the door then poked her head in. “Sir, there’s a courier here with a package for you, should I let them in?”

A deep voice echoed from the room, “That’s fine Corporal.”

She looked back at us and smiled, “He said you can go in,” then looking at Stardust, her ears drooped a little, “You may want to have you’re pegasus friend wait outside though.”

“Why?”

“He isn’t a fan of pegasi, not ones like him at least. New Pegasus is neutral ground for all, even The Enclave, but the Embassy is NLR soil. I was okay with letting him in, but Lieutenant Blazer won’t like it.”

I moved forward and pushed her aside, “He’s not Enclave, and I don’t want give two shits what he thinks.”

I walked into the office and looked at Lieutenant Blazer. He was a strong looking buck, his light orange coat mixed well with his green mane. He looked at me with his silver eyes and gave me a smile. What I wasn’t expecting though was for him to have wings. The Lieutenant was a pegasus?

“Welcome to the NLR Embassy Courier Mare. I’m Lieutenant Blazer, of The New Lunar Republic. What can I help you with?” then his eyes fell on Stardust who was standing right behind me, “What is THAT, doing in my office?”

“Oh, don’t start.” I protested. “This is Stardust, he’s my friend and not an Enclave solider,” Goddesses, why did everypony have to jump to conclusions about my friend all the time.

He looked suspiciously at me, “Are you sure about that?”

“Seeing how the Enclave is hunting me like I’m a pot of gold, yeah I’d say she’s sure,” Stardust said in his own defense.

“Hmmm, if that’s true, you must be a lucky stallion to have escaped The Enclave with your Cutie Mark intact,” Blazer said, sitting back down behind his desk, “Where were you from before you got away?”

“It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“Fine, suit yourself, sooner or later though I’ll find out. I like to keep an eye on other pegasi who live near NLR’s territory.”

The whole situation was starting to make me feel a bit uneasy. Especially since I didn’t understand the problem, “I’m new to the Wasteland, but I really don’t understand what the big deal is about a pegasus having his cutie mark. I’m sure other pegasi have escaped The Enclave with theirs.”

“Have you ever met a Dashite?” Blazer asked, giving me a sardonic look.

Come to think of it, the only pegasi I knew apart from Enclave was Stardust and Wind Thrasher, but she didn’t really count, “No, I haven’t.”

“That would explain it then,” he stood and walked around his desk and turned so I could see his cutie mark. Only he didn’t have one, it looked like somepony had burned it away leaving a black scar that was shaped like a cloud with a lightning bolt in its place, “This is the mark of a Dashite, it’s the punishment you get when you’re banished or turn against The Enclave.”

I was taken aback for a moment, the thought of anypony doing that was just wrong, “Why would anypony do that?”

“It’s a way for Enclave to know who’ve betrayed them. It’s the mark of Rainbow Dash herself. It used to be a symbol that we all looked up to, that was before Rainbow Dash left The Enclave. The betrayal felt by pegasus kind was so great, that the leaders back then started using this as a way to mark those who betray their way of life. Seeing an escaped buck like your friend who still has his, is extremely rare, sooner or later The Enclave catches up to you.”

“Is that why they want to find you?” I asked looking back at my friend.

Blazer was the one who answered, “If he’s been running for a while, then no, they won’t mark him, they’ll kill him. The council doesn’t like to look like foals, they’ll make an example of him, if they ever catch him.”

“Can we drop the subject? Yeah, The Enclave wants me, that’s old news. I’m not worried about it and you all shouldn’t be either,” he said then walked out of the room.

I wanted to go after him, but I had a job to do, so I looked back at the stallion, “I’m sorry to side track our conversation. I’m Shadow Star, a courier from Equestrian Express. I have a package for you from a griffon called Apollo.”

He brightened up at hearing the griffon’s name, “I haven’t seen that old bird in years, it’s good to hear he’s still doing well.”

Removing the package from my saddle bags I gave it to him. The first thing he did was open the letter that was attached to the top of it. It took him a moment to read it over, then he went and sat back down at his desk, then looked over at Aura, then back at me.

“Now that I made my delivery, I should be heading out, unless you have a response for Apollo.”

“I don’t,” he responded then looked back at Aura, “I take it that you’re Aura Bloodtalon,” it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, so what?” she responded in her usual don’t care attitude.

“Your father asked me to check and make sure you were under contract with this mare. If not, he wanted me to offer you a job.”

Wait, her father, how did this pegasus know who Aura or her father were? Aura seemed to understand, and she looked livid, “I don’t give a fuck what he wants, yes I have a contract with Shadow Star.”

“For how long?” he asked, his voice neutral.

“Indefinitely, and my contract can’t be broken or sold unless Shadow wants to do so, so don’t even ask. I don’t give a fuck what Apollo said to you in that note, or what job you have for me.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. He only asked me to check and to offer you a job if you weren’t under contract. That was all,” then he looked back at me, “Courier Mare, before you go, can I ask you something?”

At this point I was still trying to wrap my head around the situation, “Uh… yeah, sure.”

“Are you by any chance affiliated with the Steel Rangers? I saw the bandanna your pegasus friend was wearing and it bore their insignia.”

“No. They did offer me a position in their ranks as a knight, but I refused for exactly this reason. As a courier, I can’t be biased toward a certain group or faction.”

“I see. I can understand your reasoning, but just so you know… The New Lunar Republic and The Steel Rangers don’t get along. If you change your mind on that offer and we find out about it, you will be an enemy of the NLR. I’m pretty sure the same goes if you enlist with us. Choose your friends wisely.”

Why was he telling me this? It’s not like I actually want to join The Rangers or the NLR. “Noted. Don’t piss you off or I’ll regret it.”

“Exactly, now I have a lot of paperwork to go over so you should probably head out. I’ll send for you if I decide to send any kind of reply to Apollo.”

We walked out of his office to Stardust pacing back and forth, “What’s wrong? Is it what Blazer said?”

He stopped, “Nah… no that’s a lie… yes. I’ve heard stories about Dashites before and they’re not pretty. They don’t just burn off your cutie mark plain and simple, they use this chemical to do it that makes it feel like you’re being skinned alive, then they brand you with the mark itself. I’ve heard that there was an Enclave officer who refused to leave some Wastelanders to their fate and was banished to the surface. They used to call him Deadshot Calamity.”

Surprisingly Aura spoke before I did, “Try not to think about it too much. If they catch up with us, we won’t let them brand you like that.”

“Thanks, I guess, but they won’t brand me. They’ll kill me like the Lieutenant said. I’m not one of their own who betrayed them, I’m lost property that’s been tainted by the Wasteland in their eyes. I don’t wanna talk about this anymore, let’s go,” with that he walked out.

I was surprised at what Aura said. It actually sounded like she was genuinely being nice to him, “That was kind of you… what you said I mean. He passes off that nonchalant exterior but I think on the inside he’s scared to death.”

“Yeah… I guess we all have our fears that we hide behind a mask of false security.”

We walked out and met Stardust next door at the detective agency. The place looked pretty cool from the outside. On a big red neon sign it read ‘Lonely Hearts Detective Agency’ and next to the words was a neon outline of a broken heart. The outside looked nice, but the inside was a mess. There were two desks and quite a few filing cabinets stacked and stuffed with files.

There was a mare with her back to us fiddling in one of the cabinet drawers mumbling to herself, “Hey. Excuse me. I’m here to see the detective.”

“Oh!” (BANG!) she jumped and hit her head on a drawer that was left open above her head, “Ow! Fuck that hurt!” she looked back at us rubbing the top of her head, “Pardon my language. What can I help you with?”

I stammered a bit at what she looked like. Her coat was the color of sand and her mane was shiny black and she was gorgeous, “Wow… you’re REALLY pretty,” (No don’t just blurt things like that Shadow! You’ll look stupid.)

“Oh… why thank you. You’re quite a looker yourself ha-ha. If you’re here to see the detective he’s out on a case and he’s a little late getting back. He’ll probably be back later, but if I were you I’d come back tomorrow, he’s probably going to have some paperwork to do.”

Paperwork to do? By the looks of his office it didn’t look like he ever did paperwork, just let it stack up, “Alright then, we’ll come back tomorrow. Thank you.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know you stopped by, have a nice day,” she said in the cutest voice ever.

Walking back outside, Stardust’s demeanor changed from doom and gloom to manic. Ugh he’s so hard to figure out sometimes, “Y’know what’ll brighten up our spirits after this shitty morning?”

“No idea, oh wisest of the wise. How about you enlighten us,” Aura responded sarcastically.

“Well when I was on my way to the bar last night I saw that The Applewood has a functioning pool like The Grand Royale. We should go there for a bit and unwind some more,” the look he had on his face made him look like a foal that was overly ecstatic that the hotel had a pool he could play in.

I only say that because Wingnut had the same look on his face, “Yeah! Can we go! Can we!”

“Yeah, Shrimp. We should go, might be fun,” Aura said adding to the charisma of the other two.

I couldn’t say no to all three of them so I gave in, “Let’s go, seeing as we have nothing better to do until later anyway.”

***

The pool wasn’t as disgusting as I thought it’d be, the water was actually clear. It was warm too. I kept closer to the shallow end while the others swam around in the deep end. Stardust kept picking up Wingnut and flying him up to the ceiling so he could drop him in the water. The colt didn’t mind though, in fact it looked like he was enjoying it.

After a while Wingnut started to play with Aura instead as Stardust waded around on his back propelled by his wings. He drifted over to me and asked, “Why aren’t you hangin’ out by us? You look like you’re bored to tears.”

“I’m fine just watching you guys,” I figured the others couldn’t hear me so I continued, “Also…I can’t swim.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I shook my head, “I could teach you. It’s not that hard.”

“Are you sure? You look like you’re enjoying relaxation.”

“Course I’m sure. Think about it. If we get into a situation out there where you fall into deep water, you’re gonna need to know how to swim.”

“Okay fine. But don’t make fun of me if I fail miserably,” I said pointing a hoof at him.

We went over to the deep end of the pool, I held onto the side to keep myself above water as we did. When we were far enough in the deep end Stardust pulled me away from the wall and kept me afloat with his hooves, “Alright so what you’re gonna have to do is kick your hind legs like this,” he demonstrated and I followed every instruction he gave me.

Soon I was holding my own and no longer needed his help. He tried to show me how to float on my back. When he did he pushed on my flanks with his forehoof to level me out, but… I got the wrong idea and slapped him in the face. After that he gave up on trying to teach me anything else.

After a while more ponies started to come to the pool so Stardust and I sat in the water against the edge. That’s when I heard it… “Dun-dun,” the voice sounded masculine but feminine at the same time, “Dun-dun,” getting closer I could see a blonde pompadour sticking out of the water like a fin. I looked away when it stopped moving to see if the sound came again, “Dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun-dun-dun,” (SPLASH) “Heeelllloooo gorgeous!”

We were face to face with a tan earth pony wearing sunglasses inside like a jackass, when Stardust opened his mouth, “Hey Shadow I think he’s talking to you.”

Mr. Sunglasses Inside interrupted me when I started to say something, “Oh no Pretty Buck. I was talkin’ tah you with those allurin’ pink eyes of yours.”

It was at that moment Stardust put his hooves up and lost it, “No way kemosabe! My barn door don’t swing that way!”

However, the stallion wasn’t giving up, “That’s whatcha say now, but they ALL come around. There ain’t no resistin’ Sugar Buck baby.”

“Dude. You’re really freakin’ me out,” Stardust looked at me expectantly and whispered, “Shadow, do something.”

I sighed and decided to help him out, “Sorry but he’s taken.”

“Yeah… what she said… I’m taken”

Sugar Buck looked at me and then back at Stardust, “Hahaha, your kiddin’ right? She’s about as straight as a circle,” Goddesses how did he know? Plus, that’s not the whole truth, “How bout this… I’ll find ya later when ya lose the BEARD,” at that I could see a shiver run up and down Stardust as he floated there.

“Shadow I’m ready to go back to the room now. We should go CONSUMMATE our union.”

“I’m no…” Wait… why did he say consummate like that? Then what he meant hit me, “Oh… yeah… let’s go.”

After that Sugar Buck swam away in the flamiest way he could making sure Stardust could see him as he did.

We all went back up to the room so we could wash the chlorine out of our coats and eat. After we were in the pool it looked like the wang that Aura drew on Stardust’s face was gone. I could only see it faintly if I got really close to his face and squinted hard, but every time I did that he looked uncomfortable.

***

It was later in the day and after some gambling we were up 1500 caps so we decided to treat ourselves a little and went to the cocktail bar like we planned on earlier. As we walked in, some sort of rock band was just finishing a song. The song sounded like it was about suicide, to be honest I actually kinda liked it. We all went over to the bar, except for Wingnut of course, he stayed up in the room to sleep for a while. I guess he burned off all of his energy earlier. I never wanted to leave this place and return to the Wasteland, it was so nice here. Nopony had to worry about being suddenly attacked by raiders or mutated monsters of any kind, except for Granny. You could probably consider her something that would attack you, but not in the way that something in the Wastes would.

Stardust was out on the dance floor with Aura as they banged their heads and danced with the music. I was sitting at the bar when a stallion came up and sat next to me, “Haven’t seen you here before. Are you new to town?”

“Uh… yeah. I’m a courier with Equestrian Express, I’m here on business. I’m Shadow Star, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Cool, I’m Little Buck,” the stallion wore a small black fedora over his light brown mane. His gold coat contrasted well with his piercing blue eyes. Then I got this funny tingly feeling inside as I continued to look at him, “Something wrong? You’re kinda staring at me funny.”

“What! No! Are you by any chance related to someone called Sugar Buck?”

“Uhhh….. Noooo…… Why do you ask?”

Why was I so nervous? This isn’t my first time talking to a stranger, “No reason. No reason at all,” I looked down at his cutie mark and noticed that it was some sort of weird looking missile with a music note behind it. I took the opportunity to change the subject, “That’s an interesting cutie mark. How’d you get it?”

“Oh that? When I was little I liked to sing a lot and my parents used to say that my lyrics hit hard like a bomb. That missile right there is a little buck megaspell missile. It’s kinda funny considering that’s my name ha-ha.”

“Do you still sing?”

“Yeah, I’m one of the performing acts tonight. My bandmates are getting everything ready in the back. How about I buy you a drink or two and we can enjoy the show and talk a little before I have to go on.”

Did he just ask to buy ME a drink? ME? And is he hitting on me? But I’m not even worth his time, not to mention that I don’t look the greatest right now with my mane being down, “Sure, sounds like fun.”

“Cool. What’s your poison?”

What could he mean by that? Wait Stardust said something earlier about his poison of choice was Applebuck Rum, he must mean liquor, “Uh… I don’t know… I’ve never had alcohol before. You see I’m from a stable, they sorta frown upon ponies my age drinking. So you pick.”

“Okay, Wild Pegasus it is then. Barkeep get this beautiful young lady a glass of Wild Pegasus on the rocks on me, and I’ll take a Sparkle-Cola Dark!” after he said that the bartender brought over a glass of the whiskey and a black rocket shaped bottle of Sparkle-Cola that had the word dark in all capital letters on it, “I would’ve gotten Wild Pegasus too but I don’t wanna get too buzzed to perform. Go ahead, try it, here they only serve the single-malt that’s been aged.”

“Wouldn’t all of it be aged two-hundred years? There wouldn’t be any difference between the two now.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head with a smile, “There’s a big difference between aging it in a bottle and aging it in the barrel. When they brewed that whiskey, they left it to age in the barrel for twenty years before bottling it so it soaked in that crisp flavor from the apple-wood barrel. Go on try it, I’m sure you’ll like it.”

“Oh, that makes sense I guess,” I brought the glass of brown liquid up to my muzzle and took a small whiff before I sipped the delicious whiskey, “Oh sweet Celestia that’s freakin’ amazing.”

“I know right? Single-malt is my favorite because it has so much more flavor than regular Wild Peg. Drinking the other stuff just seems like drinking water after you’ve had something as good as this,” he popped the cap off of his drink and took a long swig, “Now there’s something I should tell you since you’ve never drank before. Liquor before beer, everything’s clear. Beer before liquor, never been sicker.”

“What before what now?” I asked before I finished off the glass and signaled the bartender to get me another.

“It has something to do with how the two mix in your stomach. So, tell me about yourself. I’m curious about you.”

I took a drink and started to explain, “I’m from a stable a little back east, not far from Cartwheel. Stable 28. My mom left the stable when I was little for some reason and now I’m trying to find her,” I pointed a hoof at my friends on the dancefloor, “Those are my friends over there, they’re helping me out.”

“Any romantic relationships with those friends?”

“No Stardust and Aura hate each other’s guts.”

“What I meant was… Are YOU romantically involved with either of them?”

“Me? No. Not unless you’re planning on hitting on Stardust. (Drink) There was this weirdo guy who was wearing sunglasses inside like a jackass hitting on him earlier and (Drink) Stardust’s barn door doesn’t swing that way so I helped him out a little and said he was taken by none other than yours truly,” Finishing another glass, I went to order another, “Don’t worry I got this one.”

“Don’t be silly, I got the caps. Somepony as pretty as you shouldn’t pay for her own drinks the first time she’s drinking,” he took another long swing from his bottle of hard soda and looked back at me, “So, you’re single then?”

I started to blush a little, “Uh… yeah I-I guess so. What about you?”

He sighed, “Yeah. I had a marefriend a long time ago but she died, taint.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. (Drink) What’s taint?”

Before he could answer the host came over the loudspeaker right as the music stopped, “That was Applewood Undead folks! Next up is Fallout Buck on stage in five minutes!”

He took one last drink of his Sparkle-Cola Dark and said, “I gotta get up there. I hope you like the show.”

Once again, I was alone at the bar with nopony to talk to. I finished the drink I had in front of me and ordered another. Right about then I was noticing that I was starting to feel funny. Not like ha-ha funny but like oooOOOooo funny.

A couple minutes and half a glass of whiskey later the curtain rose. Little Buck was on the stage with three other stallions with instruments. As soon as the curtain stopped moving they started to play music and he started to sing.

My chest throbbed as I watched him dance and heard his voice utter such beautiful words into the microphone. Soon I found my hooves moving toward the dance floor, weaving around the dancing ponies. My balance wasn’t the greatest, but I was able to keep from falling as I got closer to the stage. Little Buck gave me a wink as he broke into the chorus of his song, the music growing louder. My hips started to move, seemingly on their own as I let the music take hold of my body. Soon my head was bobbing to the beat, my hooves not far behind. Then with a long-held note, I let it all go.

I never thought I could dance like this before. Before I wouldn’t have even tried, always judging myself before giving myself a chance to shine. The band moved onto a new song, something about wanting to dance like somepony. I knew that I sure wanted to dance, maybe it was the Wild Pegasus, or just the look I was getting from the lead singer. I whipped my mane around, slamming my hooves down on the dance floor, then bucked into the air, surprisingly not hitting anypony in my wild display. Even though I didn’t know the words, I still found myself singing along, letting my voice fade away with the music. Soon I found myself laughing, it was the strangest thing ever, but I felt so free, so alive.

The music finished and the band stepped off the stage, looking around breathing heavily, I noticed that nopony was dancing anymore. They were all looking at me eyes wide. Oh shit, what did I do? I saw Aura in the back of the crowd smiling at me. Before I could ask what was going on, the ponies around me started to stomp their hooves on the floor, cheering. I wanted to shrink away, figuring I was in the way of the band who just finished and were walking off stage.

To my surprise, Little Buck walked over to me, “I think they are applauding for you.”

“No, they can’t be. You and the band did a great job up there, I’m sure that’s for you.”

He smiled, “Nope, just look at them.”

I did, they weren’t looking at Little Buck, they were looking at me. A stallion whistled, another shouted, “That was amazing,” Celestia, they really liked me dancing like an idiot?

“Give them a little bow then walk off,” he said, still smiling.

Doing so I quickly made my way back to the bar, Little Buck not far behind.

Afterward we met back up at the bar and enjoyed another drink and talked as we waited for the next act to come on. The Host’s voice came on again and introduced the next performer, “Now coming to the stage for the first time in New Pegasus! The Super-Duper Party Pony himself! Cheese Sandwich!”

I could see why it was his first time performing in New Pegasus, he was a ghoul. As a matter of fact, he looked like the same pony from the Sunrise Sarsaparilla bottles, “Heeeeeyyyyy…. I-I know him,” I slurred out, “He’s singin’ bout being a doctor and doing surgery stuff with guts and scalpels, but he’s lying. He’s just a sticker on a bottle.”

Little Buck gave me a funny look, “Shadow, I think we’ve had enough. I think we’ve ha… oh wait I said that already. C’mon let’s go… we should probably both um… I dunno what… but we’ll do something.”

“No! Ima go talk tah that lying piece of shit.”

“No, we should go,” he said as he reached a hoof over to grab mine.

“Uh-uh,” I said as I pulled away and proceeded to stumble to the stage. I carefully made my way up the steps to the right of the stage and after a minute of celebration for the accomplishment of not falling on my ass, I did my best to stomp over to him and exclaim, “Hhheeeeeyyyyy!” The music stopped and I continued, “You’re not a doctor! You’re a big fat curly-headed fuck!” Feeling proud of my next accomplishment I vomited all over the stage, “Oh…. Sorry everypony…. (Gag) I just had a little trouble holding my li(gag)quor,” and it was all downhill from there.

We both got kicked out and somehow ended up in Little Buck’s hotel room making out. It’s kinda gross considering I’d barfed all over the stage and stuff, but I think we were too drunk to care. Besides, I felt a lot better after that. From there making out turned into making out on the bed and then my stupid half took over once again. I didn’t tell him that it was my first time but to be honest… if I did tell him he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway, he seemed too focused. At first it was kinda painful, but as we continued it turned into bliss. During this time, I didn’t even think about where the others were, only about where I was. This was my moment to decide for myself and not be that terrified mare who had to run for her life from her home into the desolate decrepit Wasteland. Right then I was happy to be out of that rusty hole in the ground.

The next morning arrived as I awoke to the pounding headache I now had. I noticed that Wingnut wasn’t sleeping at the end of the bed like the previous morning. The room looked a little different too. That’s when I looked to my right to see Little Buck fast asleep and noticed that the sheets felt like something had dried on them overnight, “Oh Goddesses. Did I really have sex with him?” I whispered to myself.

I slowly but carefully crawled out of the crusty sheets without waking him and grabbed my stuff. Right as I walked out the door I thought I saw him wake up and look at me as I left. Honestly, I felt ashamed, I don’t know what I was thinking last night. Oh yeah… I was drunk for the first time ever. Did I seriously call somepony a ‘Big fat curly-headed fuck’ or did I just imagine that in a drunken stupor? I couldn’t really say for sure. That’s when I got my answer as I ran into Cheese Sandwich in the hallway, “Oh… hi there. How ya feeling? You looked pretty bad last night.”

Taken aback by him being so nice to me after what I did I replied, “I’m good. Little bit of a headache and some shame… but still good. Sorry about what I said to you last night. I was pretty drunk, I’m what my friend Stardust would call a lightweight. Honestly, I liked the song, it was good.”

“Well that’s good, glad to hear it. Thank you for apologizing, most ponies would’ve just tried to avoid me after doing something like that out of embarrassment. I mean I can plainly see that you’re embarrassed, but at least you had the courage to apologize to me. It means a lot, and even better I’ll have a great story to tell.”

“What story is that?”

“That I got insulted and party-cannoned on by the one and only Courier Mare.”

Of course, he knows, everypony knows, I’m sure Little Buck even knew but didn’t say anything because he wanted to rut the newly famous Courier Mare, “Yeah, great story. I gotta go. Maybe I’ll see ya around.”

“Alrighty then, take care.”

***

I walked into the room to the sound of silence as I saw Aura and Stardust passed out on the couch together with Wingnut. Well this’ll be an interesting to make fun of those two for later, “Hey! Wake up!” all three of them practically jumped out of their skin and I’m pretty sure Wingnut almost wet himself.

“What gives Shrimp? I’ve got a massive headache.”

“Yeah me too. Wait… why am I on the couch with HER?” after realizing who was next to him he rolled off the side of the couch with a thud and started to crawl to the bathroom, “Ugh… hangovers suck.”

I sighed as I went from watching him melodramatically and pathetically crawl across the floor to looking at Aura laying on the couch still with her eyes closed. I knew she wasn’t sleeping so I asked, “Where were you guys last night after what happened?”

“What? You mean when you totally blew chunks all over the place? We were on the dancefloor watching from the sidelines, when Stardust and I saw you with that singer guy we thought we’d just let you have your fun.”

I facehoofed, “You could’ve stopped me y’know, last night I…”

I noticed Wingnut was still in the room so I stopped. Curiosity showed on his face like a giant blinking sign that said in all capital letters ‘What!? Tell us!’, “Something wrong Shadow? You’re kinda standing funny. Did you hurt your legs?”

Good Goddesses. That little jerk is messing with me, “No. I’m fine. Aura and I need girl-talk, go in the other room or make sure Stardust didn’t mistake the sink or bathtub for a toilet.”

“Ugh… fine.”

He went into the bathroom to check on Stardust and Aura was staring at me, “So… Whaaaat happened?”

“I don’t remember everything, but…” I couldn’t say it, instead I sat next to the couch and started balling my eyes out.

Aura looked utterly lost on what to do. I pressed my head to her shoulder, unable to control myself. A moment went by then I felt Aura’s talon starting to rub my mane, “Okay, take a deep breath, stop crying, and tell me what happened.”

“I drank too much, and ended up going back to that Singer pony’s room. And we…you know…did it.”

Aura’s body stiffened then slowly she said, “Did…what?”

Fresh tears started to fall again as I replied, “I was drunk, I had no idea what I was doing. He told me I was beautiful, then I started to feel weird, and then we were kissing, then we went to his bed…it was my first time! I lost my virginity, to somepony I don’t even know!” I was yelling at this point.

“That dirty little fucker, I’ll rip his dick off, just like I did back at that fiend infested shithole.”

“No…don’t do that, he was drunk too, and I didn’t even tell him. I just feel really stupid, and ashamed of myself.”

She pushed me away then looked me in the eye, “Listen Shrimp, I’m sorry.”

Okay, that was a new one, Aura rarely ever apologized for anything. I sniffed, “Sorry for what?”

“I should’ve stayed with you last night, but I got all caught up in the moment and drank too much too. I should’ve been keeping an eye on you to make sure nothing like that happened,” she sounded pissed.

“No, I shouldn’t have drank so much, I should’ve told Little Buck that I really didn’t want to do that kind of thing, not with somepony I didn’t know. Goddesses, what if he knocked me up? I can’t deal with that right now!” Oh great, there I go again, I was crying like a new born foal.

“Um, is everything okay in here?” Stardust said poking his head out of the bathroom door.

“Go away, she’s just upset, don’t bother her.”

“Maybe I can help though,” he said walking out the door followed by Wingnut.

Turning my tear-soaked face toward the two, I exclaimed, “GO AWAY!” they bolted for Stardust’s room, I went back to crying. As soon as they left, I felt bad for yelling at them, but I could apologize later. Right now, I needed this.

***

It took a while for me to calm down, and finally get the full story out for Aura. For once she was being a good friend and listening to me, giving me advice, and telling me about how to be careful when drinking. After I felt better and apologized to Stardust and Wingnut, we started to pack our things to check out of the room. Aura was taking care of checking out, Wingnut by her side as Stardust and I both made our way outside to wait for them.

“Hope that Detective will be back, I’d hate to keep waiting around for him just so we can continue on,” Stardust said stretching his wings slowly.

“Yeah, I hope so too,” I really didn’t want to leave this wonderful place, it was the first time since I’d left Stable 28 that I felt normal. Was it so wrong that I’d be okay with not meeting with the Detective today, it’d be a great excuse to stay a little longer.

“Hello Courier Mare, fancy running into you here. Oh, and hello to you too Stardust Night, I’ve been looking for you for a long time…” turning I saw the unicorn from the other day. Pride was standing next to The Applewood, a smile on his face, and dark magic hovering around his horn…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

A Friend Indeed: Wandering the Wasteland alone can be tough, it’s a good thing you have friends to keep you company and watch your back. Gain +1 Luck and +5% chance to score a Critical hit in S.A.T.S. while one of your friends are near.

Quest Perk Added!

Whisky Mare: You’ve grown fond of the taste of Wild Pegasus, even if the after effects aren’t so great. Gain +2 Agility and Strength and lose -3 Intelligence when you consume Wild Pegasus.

Author's Note

The song featured in this chapter "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers was performed by Kenny Rogers and is property of Liberty Records Inc. a subsidiary of Capitol Industries-EMI, USA. All rights reserved.

Chapter 16: Seven Things

“Is the little pony calling me stupid?”

Welcome to how things work in the Wasteland. You may think to yourself that, hey I found something fun to do, an escape from the pain, the horror, the misery, the death, and destruction you see on a daily basis. Then the wasteland turns around and bitch slaps you right in the face. For example, after a couple days of having fun in New Pegasus, fate decided ‘look at those ponies over there, they look too happy, how about I fix that and fuck with them’.

The golden unicorn laughed a little as I upholstered my combat shotgun and pointed it right at him, “What the fuck do you want?”

“It’s cute you think that toy will be any good against me,” he said as he walked toward me and pressed his forehead right up to the barrel of my combat shotgun, “Go head and try though. I’ll warn you now though, if you fire a gun on the strip, it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“He’s right, put it away Shadow,” Stardust said walking past me and right up to Pride, “What do you want Pride?”

“Dusty, you’re looking good for a runaway. Usually they’ve up and died by now or developed a drug problem because they miss home SOO much, but don’t know how to deal with the feeling. I see you found yourself a few friends too, how adorable,” Pride said looking at my friend.

“Why are you here Pride? You can’t be here to collect on a bounty, Mr. Tops wouldn’t allow it.”

“You got me there Dusty. You’re right, I can’t collect a bounty while I’m on The Strip. As soon as you go back into Freedom though, you’re mine, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

“Freedom is protected by Mr. Tops just like The Strip, you can’t do anything to me dumbass.”

He started to laugh again, “You see, you’re wrong there. I’m not collecting a bounty. I have orders from the Enclave to bring you in, I’m here on Enclave business. Mr. Tops agrees that he can’t have a rouge pegasus running around his town. The big stallion himself gave us the go ahead on apprehending you, and your little friend there, as long as it’s in Freedom.”

Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “Why would you be after me too?”

“Seems you pissed off the wrong Enclave Officer a couple days back, he wants you dead. The council signed off on it, since you killed most of his team. I think they said something about you possibly being more of a danger than Dusty here is. I don’t know about that though,” Pride said his eyes rolling back to look over at me.

I had a feeling leaving that fucker alive would come back to bite me in the ass, “Why are you even here then? Do you have permission to come after me like you do him? Even if you did, why in Luna’s name would you tell us?”

“It’s no fun killing somepony when she doesn’t know you’re coming. I’m only here to let you know, it’s only fair that way. I may be an assassin, but I have standards. Knowing I could strike at any moment can make you squirm, amuses me.”

“That has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Say what you will, but my conscience will be clear when I take you down,” he said, putting a hoof to his chin looking thoughtful he added, “I wonder if that Radio Pony I keep hearing about will start telling wild tails about me if I killed the Courier Mare. That’d be cool. Maybe he’ll call me the Shadow Buck or something else much cooler.”

Fuck this, I’m gonna shoot him. I don’t give a shit if I’m kicked off the strip. Pride was more full of himself and annoying than Stardust and that’s saying something, “Is there a point to all this, or were you planning on killing us through boring chatter?”

“Am I boring you Courier?”

“You’re annoying me more than anything. You’re like a child that has to brag to the rest of the kids about everything.”

“I see, well then how about we have a little fun,” Shadows seemed to envelop him and he vanished, a moment later he emerged from a shaded spot right next to me with a revolver pointing right at my head, “How’s this, does it make for a more interesting conversation Courier?”

I just looked over at him, ignoring the revolver pointing straight at my eye, “No, it just makes you look like a coward. I mean really? You have to use some creepy shadow magic to go after your target? How big of a pussy are you?”

Pulling the gun back he looked at me thoughtfully, “You think I’m a coward?”

“Uh yeah. If you weren’t, you would’ve already done something. Instead you’re using cheap tricks to intimidate my friends and I, and you’re using Mr. Tops as an excuse for not attacking me here on The Strip. So, either do something, or fuck off. I don’t have time to deal with you right now,” with my most pompous posture I walked away leaving him there staring as if I’d frozen him in time and space.

Stardust followed looking over his shoulder at the slightly stunned look on Prides face, “You sure about this Shadow? How do you know he won’t do something to you?”

“Oh, I’m hoping he does. It’ll be HIS funeral. I just hope this works,” I replied arrogantly.

“Hoping who does what?” Aura asked landing next to me with Wingnut on her back.

“That gold pony over there, he wants Stardust and I dead. He was making all these threats so I called him on his bluff.”

She looked back at him and smiled, “He’s trotting this way Shrimp.”

I smiled, “Good, just keep walking. Looks like this problem is gonna take care of itself.”

As we passed by two securiponies he caught up, “Listen here kid, you can’t just walk away like that. It’s very disrespectful y’know.”

Still ignoring him I said to Aura, “I don’t see what’s so great about this Enclave special ops. From what I can see, they’re just a bunch of blowhard pussies. So far, I’ve seen one with a serious anger problem, another that needs an attitude adjustment to break him from his pseudo-God complex, and one who REALLY needs to get laid. Not at all that impressive.”

This time he stepped in front of me blocking my path, “Don’t ignore me while I’m talking to you.”

“Why? You said you can’t do anything while I’m on The Strip. So why should I care one bit about what you have to say?”

“I am the leader of the Seven Sins of Equinity, and you will show me the proper respect I deserve.”

“Fuck off, and get out of my way,” I said, pushing past him.

(Click) This time I stopped, the sound of a hammer being pulled back was normally a good reason to listen. Turning back to face him, I gave him the biggest smile I could muster, “Aww… did I make you angry, I thought that was Wraths thing?”

“I don’t give two shits what Mr. Tops said, he’s not my boss and the Enclave isn’t scared of him, or his fucking robots.”

“Oh really, would you like to tell THEM that.”

He looked confused for a moment, “Huh?”

“Lower your weapon,” one of the Securiponies said from behind him with one of its guns pointing at Pride.

He looked up at the towering robot, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Fuck off you cheap excuse for scrap metal, I’m on official Enclave business.”

“Start walking away,” I said to my friends moving back quickly as they did the same.

“The Strip doesn’t recognize the authority of The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Lower your weapon now, or be terminated.”

He looked back at me and smiled, “You ARE a smart one, AREN’T you?” then he turned and shot the Securipony right in its monitor, “You win this round Courier Mare. Next time, I won’t be so nice, just warning you.”

The other Securipony opened fire, and Pride vanished, his form sinking into the shadows of the buildings around us. The Robot stopped its barrage, looking around for a moment, “He got away. Start search subroutine,” then it turned and left.

“Pussy.”

Stardust’s eyes were darting around frantically, “That was really stupid Shadow. He might seem like he has a big ego… well, he does, but he’s a lot tougher than he lets on. Those shadow thingies are no joke. They don’t just help him hide or teleport him err whatever the fuck they do. They’re also his weapon of choice.”

“Weapon of choice? How does he use shadows as a weapon?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, “Magic, duh. You’re a unicorn, I thought you would’ve figured that out.”

Okay he was starting to piss me off like usual, “Uh, yeah. I get that part moron. What I don’t get is how he uses it like a weapon. C’mon they’re just shadows. What? Is he gonna scare me to death with my own shadow? Pfft… please.”

“At first glance yeah, they’re just shadows, but he can use them to dice you like a vegetable. When they leave whatever surface they’re on they act more like two-dimensional tentacles.”

A shiver ran up my spine, “Tentacles? Creepy!”

“You think everything’s creepy. To be honest they’re more scary than creepy.”

“Pfft, whatever. How do you know so much anyway?”

His eyes looked away from me. It’s like he was trying to come up with a cover story, “Uh… we’ve kinda met before.”

Aura interrupted the two of us before I could chew him out, “Yeah, we figured that out already, but it sounds to me like you’ve been holding out on us with some important details. Like how you survived fighting him without getting maimed. Did you fly away? Did you get a lucky shot? Did you pull a teleporter out of your ass and go poof!? What is it?”

He stammered a bit, “It’s not really that complicated. It was more like dumb luck. Somepony in a hat and trenchcoat stepped in and saved me, told me to make a run for it.”

I perked up at that last part, “You’ve seen him too? He saved me when I was being attacked by The Enclave in the old tool factory around where The Rangers found me.”

“You’ve seen the Stranger?” Wingnut asked, “We hear stories about him all the time from some of the older kids. He’s always popping up and saving random ponies around New Pegasus and other areas around here.”

Here I thought I was special, looking over at him I asked, “You’ve seen him too?”

“No, I’ve never been attacked while I was out and trading with Freedom, but the Mayor said he’s seen him a couple times. He said the Mysterious Pony is always wearing a brown trench coat and a desperado hat, his face and hooves covered in bandages.”

“How does he know when there are ponies in trouble that need his help?”

Aura interrupted him before he could answer, “We’ve heard about him too. No one knows who he is, but some say he’s a unicorn with some kind of spell that lets him know when he’s needed. Personally, I think it’s a load of crap. I haven’t seen him before and if he’s always around to help I figure there’s more than one pony dressing up. Probably a group of goody-goodies that think they can save The Wasteland one pony at a time. Kinda reminds me of the Minutemares. They’ll save you, but as long as you save them first, and do everything for them like you’re their lackey.”

“Okay, let’s get back to the matter at hoof. What’re we gonna do about Pride?” I asked looking back over at Stardust.

“Do what I did, just run away and hope they don’t catch up with you.”

“You think running away is the right thing to do? Come on, you’re a pegasus that’s a great sniper. What do you have to be afraid of? He’s only one Unicorn,” Aura asked.

Stardust gave her a look of shock, “Pride isn’t just one Pony, he’s the leader of the Sins, one of the toughest ponies in The Enclave. When one of them is around, there’s always another. They never work alone, so you always have to be watching your back. They have five pegasi and two unicorns. When I ran into Pride, he almost took me down. Yeah, I could’ve taken him if I was lucky, but he had another pony with him. The one they call Greed. He was able to protect Pride from any of my shots. If it wasn’t for The Stranger, I would’ve been dead. You really think I’m a great sniper?”

“So, you ran away?” I asked, “That’s not like you. Even if the odds are against you like that.”

“You don’t know everything about me Shadow.”

“Yeah, I know that. That’s why I’m trying to find out more.”

“Just drop it!” He yelled, rounding on me, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. The Sins are after me, and now you. That’s all you need to know and all you should worry about.”

“Calm down cloud breath, no need to get pissed at Shadow like that,” Aura said, stepping between both of us.

“Oh yeah? What about you Aura, what’s your full story huh? Have you told Shadow about anything YOU might’ve done to accidentally put her in danger?”

Aura looked taken aback by that. Not wanting to see my friends fight I tried to step in, “Aura’s told me enough about herself Stardust. I’m not saying I don’t trust you or anything like that, but all I know about you is that you had to run away from your Stable. You told me a little about it, but I still don’t understand how you know the things you do or why a Stable like yours was being used to train pegasi like you. Why can’t you just trust us and tell us everything?”

“You don’t need to know everything about me. You talk about trust, then trust me. I’ve done nothing but help you. Why can’t you just see me for who I am now and not the pony I used to be? I’m not that brainwashed poser anymore.”

“I’m not trying to pry, I know you have a lot you don’t wanna tell anypony about. I only want to help. If the Sins are as bad as you say and they’re after us, I want to know more about them.”

“And how does knowing more about the things I did before I met you help you out?”

“It will help me understand.”

He glared at me answering me slowly, “My Stable was an evil place Shadow. They sent the Sins after me because I know too much. The leaders who run the project don’t want their experiments to reach certain ponies ears back at Neighvarro.”

Neighvarro? It must be a pegasus city, “Fine, but what’s the deal with the Sins? I thought the Enclave were only Pegasi.”

Aura surprisingly was the one who answered, “When the Pegasi covered the sky with clouds, a lot of M.O.A. employees who were unicorns were still up there. They all have spells that make it so they can walk on the clouds and all started families up there. They help the Enclave with different experiments and keeping some of their older tech running. You don’t see them very often, but unicorns are a big part of the Enclave’s economy.”

I really wasn’t liking The Enclave the more I learned about them. When I first met Stardust, I didn’t know anything about them, apart from they were the ones keeping the clouds covering the sky. Blocking the sun’s light from shining down on the Wasteland. Now I’d fought some of them, and now The Sins were after my friend and I. There had to be more to this than just a runaway Stallion from a Stable. What did he mean by Brainwashed?

Looking back at my friend, I sighed, “Stardust, I’m sorry I have to ask all of this, but you knowing things seems a little fishy after everything that’s happened.”

“Can you just trust me Shadow, please?” he almost pleaded to me.

“Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Because I want to forget that place, forget what happened. I don’t want to even think about my life before I stepped out into the Wasteland. Everything I knew growing up there was a lie, and because of that lie and what my friend and I found out, he died and I lost my home. This is my life now. To be honest, I love my new life. Even with all the danger that comes with it.”

“Then can you tell me what you know about the Sins and what we need to be on the lookout for? Because I can’t stay in New Pegasus forever hiding from them or even Freedom like you did.”

He looked up at me again, “The Sins are a special team that was put together a long time ago by an old pre-war military Captain. When he went Dashite, The Enclave took over his project and made them into The Seven Sins of Equinity. There are always seven members. Each one is codenamed after whatever crime or trait they have. All of them also have a special gift that makes them as deadly as they are. Pride, is the leader and always has been for some reason, you saw his power. He can use shadows to hide himself in or even as a weapon. Wrath, he’s their sniper. He has a scope on his rifle that can see through almost anything, making his shots extra deadly. He’s also an excellent shot, maybe even better than me. Emphasis on the maybe.”

I remember that quite well, from my brief meeting of him. My ass still hurts a little.

Stardust continued after a moment of thinking to himself, “They’re the only two unicorns they have in the group. Greed, he’s a pegasus. When I ran into him, he had an armor I’d never seen before. It covers his entire body at will, and can deflect most kinds of ammo, even Armor Piercing rounds. He’s a close quarters combat fighter that uses hoofclaws. As for the rest, I haven’t met them before, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth are a mystery to me. All I know about them is that they’re all extremely dangerous. I’ve heard Envy is especially dangerous but I don’t know why.”

“Well that isn’t much help,” I said after Stardust finished his explanation.

“I can’t help you much more than that, I’m sorry Shadow.”

“Are you three done fighting yet?” Wingnut asked poking his head out from behind me where he’d been hiding.

“You’d have to ask Shadow that,” Stardust said, looking down at him then back at me, “Are we okay now Shadow?”

“For now, yeah. You’re my friend Stardust, I’m sorry I had to do that.”

“I understand. Can we get going now?”

I didn’t like how he was acting, I could tell something was wrong. He still wasn’t his normal self. Whatever happened with Pride showing up and me asking what I did changed something inside Stardust. But what could I do about it now? I’d just have to hope that he’d open up again, or at the very least, be his old self. I waited for a moment so Aura could come back to my side then we followed the pegasus.

***

I walked into the Detective Agency and found it much like it was before. Papers piled all over the place, and the (Damn she’s gorgeous) assistant trying to file what she could. I took a moment to watch her as she bent over a filing cabinet, blushing a little as she talked to herself.

Aura nudged me, “Stop staring perv.”

I shook my head, throwing the dirty thoughts into the back of my head to save for…uh…later, “Um…Hello!”

She jumped then looked over her shoulder, “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“It’s okay, we were here yesterday looking for Detective Lonely Hearts, you told us he should be back today.”

“That’s right. I’m terribly sorry, but he still hasn’t come back yet. I’m starting to get worried about him, he’s never been away from the office for this long before,” the tan unicorn said walking over to a desk to sit down.

“Do you know where he went?” Aura asked.

“He was looking into a case about attacks on some of the caravans. He got a few clues that said the attacks were coming from some Triggerponies that were hiding out in an old Stable near The JetBlue Skyport.”

“That’s not far from here. How long has he been gone?” Stardust asked coming out of his funk a little.

“Three days ago, he started by asking around about the Van Damns thinking they had something to do with it, but he said he’d be going off to the Stable to check things out there to see if there was a connection. I’m really starting to get worried.”

“How dangerous is this Stable?” I asked.

“It used to be abandoned, but recently a gang moved in and started operating out of it, they haven’t caused many problems for the ponies around New Pegasus. Until recently that is.”

“Maybe we could help.” I said, I mean hell, I couldn’t help it, she was too cute and I didn’t like seeing her look so down.

Aura looked over at me and sighed, “Let me guess, you wanna go find him?”

“Well, yeah. He’s the only pony who knows where my mother went,” I replied, then looked back to the cute secretary, “Would you like us to go find him?”

“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that, I’m sure he’s okay. Detective Lonely Hearts is a resilient pony. I’m probably worried over nothing, it’s not the first time he’s disappeared for a while, gotten me all worried, then showed up later like it was no big deal. If I didn’t know any better I’d think he was trying to impress me.”

“See, nothing to worry about. Maybe she can answer your question. Then we won’t have to go wandering around trying to find some detective,” Aura said.

I could tell that she was truly worried about Lonely Hearts, but she didn’t want to worry us in turn. I just didn’t like seeing this beautiful mare look so down trodden, “I don’t mind doing it, I need his help. The longer he’s gone, the longer it’ll take for me to finish my quest. Unless you have any information regarding a missing pony that was supposed to be meeting with him a few years ago.”

She brightened up at that, “Well if you really want to, I would appreciate it. I just don’t want you to get hurt just to find out he’s wandering around looking for clues and forgot what day it was.”

“Shadow, come on, you don’t need to go off looking for him,” Aura protested. Then she looked over at the secretary, “Listen, do you have any information on a Stable Mare from a few years ago, one that came here looking for help from Lonely Hearts with some project?”

“Aura, we can’t just leave. What if the Detective is hurt?”

“Then he’s hurt or dead, we can’t fix that. Boo-hoo too bad so sad. Life goes on. It’s the Wasteland, shit happens.”

Seeming to not pay any attention to our conversation, the mare walked over to a cabinet and started to look through the files and pulled one out, “Was this mare’s name Grimoire Spell?”

I froze, “Yes it was.”

She looked through the file, narrowing her brow a little, “Hmmm there is a file in here for a meeting with Grimoire, but he didn’t write down why they were meeting, only saying it had something to do with a pre-war project. I’m sorry, but the only pony who could tell you what happened during this meeting is Lonely Hearts. It’s not like him to not keep notes on something like this, only time he does that is if he wants to keep the content of the meeting secret.”

“See, we have to find him now, he’s the only one who knows what happened.”

“Great, another adventure into a Stable,” Stardust said, looking gloomy again, “Didn’t you learn from the last Stable we visited? Why can’t they have their HQ in a casino like normal gangsters?”

“That was different, we had no idea what was going on in that Stable. This one we know who’s in it and what to expect,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, it’s still a place where I can’t just fly us out of there if something goes wrong. I don’t like it. There’s a reason the old residents abandoned that place y’know. Did you think about that?”

“I wanna go!” Wingnut threw in.

“I have an idea. Let’s vote on it. All in favor for going into the Stable to find Detective Lonely Hearts,” I said with a smile raising my hoof. Wingnut joined me and so did Aura.

I gave her a funny look, seeing this she sighed and said, “You’ll go no matter what and I go where you do so I might as well make this take less time.”

“Fuck. I hate Stables,” Stardust complained.

With a smile, I walked over and hugged him, “Hey look at this on the bright side, maybe you’ll have a chance to burn away that anger by killing some bad ponies.”

That seemed to brighten him up a little, “You got a point there… I do like killing bad ponies.”

“Are you really gonna go look for him?” The Secretary asked me, looking concerned.

“Looks like it,” I answered.

“Thank you so much!” she responded giving me a smile. (Damn she was so fucking cute when she did that.)

***

We walked out of the detective agency and left the Strip. I was going to miss it, but I knew I’d be back, it was too nice to only visit once. I just wish it didn’t have to be so soon. Once we were out of the strip, Aura and Stardust took hold of Wingnut and myself and flew us away from New Pegasus.

It didn’t take long to find the Skyport, it wasn’t very far south of the Strip itself. When we landed, we found ourselves being stopped by NLR guards at the gate that lead into the Skyport.

“Can I help you?” a brown buck asked.

“Yes, we’re here looking for somepony. He’s a detective from the Strip, he was last seen passing through here to get into a Stable.”

“Oh yeah that guy, I remember seeing him pass by, he didn’t stop to chat though. If you’re looking for the entrance to Stable 14, it’s just down the road. You can’t miss the entrance, it’s right next to the old Sunrise Sarsaparilla factory.”

“I’d be careful though, some shady ponies have been seen going in and out of it for a few weeks. We were gonna do somethin’ about it but eh y’know,” the other guard said.

“We’ll be fine,” I said turning to walk toward the factory that was visible just down the road.

As we got closer to it, Aura came up next to me, “How do you plan on getting into the Stable if it’s guarded?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Famous last words,” Stardust threw in, “Your plans don’t always go as well as you hope they will.”

“Haha, you’re sooooo funny.”

As we drew closer to the factory, there was a break in the buildings between the factory and the JetBlue Skyport. The buildings here looked like an explosion had taken them all out, leaving a big gap between the two. One building still had two walls standing, between them the ground seemed to slope down revealing the gear shaped door of a stable, the number 14 in the center.

“I could be wrong, but aren’t Stables supposed to be hidden?” Wingnut asked, looking over at the stable door with his head cocked to one side.

“I think it was hidden at one time from the looks of it,” I added walking toward the door.

“So far so good, nopony’s guarding the door,” Stardust said.

“Yeah, but we don’t know what it’s like inside,” Aura threw in.

Ignoring my friends, I walked over to the control panel and pulled on the lever to open the door. There was a loud screeching noise then the door pulled back and rolled to one side. Still nopony seemed to be on guard, the entrance to the Stable was empty. I pulled my shotgun out and walked inside, my friends following cautiously.

“This is bringing back bad memories Shadow. Find some wood.” Stardust said with his rifle at the ready.

I walked over to the terminal and hooked my Pip-Buck up to it. Doing what I did before in Stable 9, I used it to seal the door, only this time keeping it open, “There, now we won’t get stuck in here.”

“You sure that’ll work?” Aura asked, coming over to look at the terminal.

“It worked in Stable 9. I’m not sure why, but my Pip-Buck seems to be able to override other programs and use itself as some kind of key. Once I seal something with it, like a stable door for example, nothing can undo it unless they use my Pip-Buck.”

“That’s a neat trick,” Wingnut added, then looked around the entrance to the Stable, “This is so COOL!”

Goddesses, I swear if he gets us caught, I’m going to wonderglue his mouth shut, “Shhhh, quiet down Wingnut, we don’t know who’s in here. I don’t feel like getting shot in the ass again by somepony spying on us because he heard us come in and got a chance to hide.”

Quickly shutting his mouth, the colt trotted back over to us. Then a voice echoed from one of the open doors, “Who opened the Stable door?”

Another pony responded, he sounded like a ghoul, “No idea, I thought the boss wasn’t supposed to be back till later tonight.”

“We should go check it out, those NLR bastards haven’t caused us much problems recently, but the boss would kill us if one of them wandered in here.”

“He didn’t kill us when that Detective wandered in here.”

“Yeah, but they used to be friends, from what I heard at least.”

Two shadows came out from the door preceding the two ponies. Thinking quickly, I turned to my companions, “Aura, Stardust, you two get outside and hide, Wingnut, you follow me. We’re small enough that we should be able to hide under the walkway here.”

“We aren’t splitting up,” Aura protested.

“We have to for now. When the coast is clear, come back in. We can’t all fit down there,” I said, pointing down to a small alcove under the walkway.

“Ugh fine, let’s go Dickface,” the two of them flew out the stable door, Wingnut and I jumped down and hid in the alcove.

Luck was on our side; the two ponies came through the door right when we got out of sight. Two stallions walked over the walkway looking at the open stable door. Both were wearing suits and fedoras, and both had submachine guns holstered on their backs. Squeezing in closer to Wingnut, I kept an eye on them through the grate, hoping they wouldn’t look down.

“What the fuck is this? Who opened the door?” the Ghoul pony asked, looking over at his companion.

“It was closed a few minutes ago, we should check the area and make sure everything’s cool,” he said pulling the gun off his back.

The two of them started to walk toward the open stable door. Now was as good a chance as any, “Let’s head inside, Stardust and Aura can catch up.”

“You know Aura’s going to be pissed at you for leaving her behind,” he said following me out of our hiding place and up onto the walkway.

We headed into the room the two stallions came from. Luckily nopony was there, moving quickly we went around a table that had some kind of card game set up on it and into a hallway. Still nopony was on guard. One thing I wasn’t liking was the lack of ponies in here, either this gang was really small, really stupid, or both. I found that hard to believe since they seemed to be the ones attacking caravans, or at least that’s what the Detective thought.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Wingnut asked, as we snuck down the hall and into the atrium.

“A little, this stable is set up differently from mine, but it seems like most of them have a similar setup when it comes to where the atrium should be. Same goes for the Overmare’s office. We should make our way up there first and see if there’s some kind of schematics of this place,” I said, checking my E.F.S.

“I thought a stable would be really cool, but this place is really boring, and smells weird,” Wingnut said, following close behind me.

“Try living in one for most of your life.”

I stopped and pressed Wingnut against the wall, making sure to keep my body pressed close to his as two red bars floated by on my E.F.S. A mare and a stallion were walking by on the upper level of the atrium, I could just make out their silhouettes above.

“Why are we still keeping that Lonely Hearts fella alive, I thought the boss would’ve whacked him by now?” the mare asked.

“No idea, the boss just said to keep him locked up in that big office for now and not to do anything to him until he gets back from his meeting with the Van Damns.”

“I know, but I don’t like having one of those things in here, who knows what it can do.”

“Ah, old Lonely Hearts ain’t much of a threat to us. He doesn’t have it in him to hurt nopony. Plus, from what I’ve heard, he’s The Ministry’s trash. Thrown out like a broken toy.”

“You say that now, but what if he decides he doesn’t want to be locked up anymore? I’ve heard rumors of what those things can do, I don’t really want to find out if they’re true the hard way, if you know what I mean,” she sounded scared of the Detective, I wonder why though. If he was just some pony and they captured him, what harm could he do to them?

“I don’t believe that crap. Lonely Hearts, he’s a good pony, even though he’s a little freaky looking. If he hadn’t gone poking his nose where it doesn’t belong, he wouldn’t be in this predicament. Normally he doesn’t go looking into our business like this, something to do with his old friendship with the boss,” the stallion responded.

“That was before we started working with those Van Damn assholes. What if he told the NLR what we’ve been up to?”

“They won’t do nothing about it unless we go after one of their caravans. We’ve only been hitting the ones that trade with the local towns and the shops in Freedom. Also, if Lonely Hearts was gonna tell the NLR about us, he would’ve wanted proof first, that’s why he came snooping around here. Since we got him now, he can’t go tellin’ nopony nothin’.”

“I hope you’re right, I don’t wanna deal with those New Lunar Republic freaks. It’s bad enough they’re base is right next to this stable.”

“They aren’t a threat. If they wanted to do something about it then they would’ve by now,” the stallion responded.

Wingnut poked me with a hoof, “Hey Shadow, shouldn’t we get moving? I’m not saying I don’t enjoy this whole thing but I’m tired of being pressed against a wall. It’s a bit hard to breathe.”

He had a point, we couldn’t sit around here listening to these ponies talking all day. Looking over to the colt I nodded, “Yeah, let’s get moving, follow me and keep as quiet as you can.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Keeping an eye on my E.F.S. I watched as the two ponies talking above us walked around the upper level of the atrium. We got to the stairs and went up, making sure that our hoof steps didn’t make too much noise as we ascended. Waiting another moment at the top of the steps, I watched as the two guards turned and started walking the other way. Moving quickly, we snuck over to the opposite hall, and through the door.

Another bar showed up on my E.F.S. as we made it through and both of us ran straight into another pony who was coming out into the atrium. He had a rifle up as soon as the door opened. Before I could think, my shotgun was up and firing. The shot echoed loudly as I peppered him with buckshot right to the chest. The two ponies on the other side of the atrium turned quickly, weapons at the ready.

“The fuck? How’d they get in here?” the mare yelled, firing at both of us.

“Time to run!” I yelled grabbing Wingnut in my magic’s grasp, pulling him into the hallway and closing the door, not before taking a couple bullets to my barding. They hit hard, but didn’t penetrate, only bruising my flesh underneath. Thank old Box Tape for his armor.

Alarms started going off all over the stable. Wingnut looked over at me, still floating in my magic’s grip, “So what’s the plan now?”

“Run for the Overmare’s office and hope we can hide there. Figure it’s the only place they wouldn’t think to look.”

“Oh really? Doll, you really are stupid if you think you can waltz in here uninvited like this,” a voice said from the other side of the hallway.

I turned and saw five stallions all dressed the same, apart from one. The earth pony stallion was wearing a black pin stripped suit and matching hat, his brown coat and black mane complimented it nicely. His goons all had automatic rifles pointed at us.

“I take it you’re the boss around here?” I asked the buck in the black suit.

“That’s right, the name’s Skinny and don’t you forget it. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? You don’t look like somepony from the NLR, so who are you?” he asked, I wonder why he was called Skinny, because he didn’t look Skinny in any way that I could tell.

“I’m a Courier with Equestrian Express, I heard a client of mine was in this old stable and I came looking for him.”

“I thought we were here to rescue the Detective?” Wingnut asked, looking confused.

“Shut it dumbass,” I hissed at him through my teeth.

Skinny looked at my colt companion then back at me with a grin on his face, “So you’re that mare I’ve been hearing about on the radio. Good job with Stable 9, those freaks that lived under it were really becoming a problem for my organization. Especially that freak Gator.”

“I do aim to please,” I said, with a mocking grin.

“But I ain’t lettin’ you get away with pullin’ that same stunt here,” he turned to his goons, “Kill her, and uh… the little guy too.”

Slipping into S.A.T.S. I fired at the first stallion. One thing I learned, don’t try to use a shotgun at long range. My shot hit, but didn’t do much damage. The pony stumbled a little, but he recovered quickly. His friends started firing wildly in our direction. A bullet tore into my foreleg and another into my flank. The latter was lucky enough to make it through a thin gap in my duster’s armor.

I stumbled then dashed to one side, pulling Wingnut with me, doing my best to keep him protected from the onslaught. The colt however wiggled free of my magic and pulled something from his own saddle bags, “Close your eyes!” then he tossed something toward the ponies who were doing their best to kill us.

Knowing Wingnut would’ve had a good reason to say something like that, I did what he said. There was a loud bang and a bright light, so bright I could see it through my eyelids. The bullets stopped, followed by screams of pain. Opening my eyes again expecting to see ponies ripped apart from what I figured was a grenade. To my surprise, they were only rolling on the ground, holding their hooves to their eyes yelling in pain. Skinny I could see managed to run off while his ponies were attacking us.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Stun grenade, now hurry up, they’ll be fine in a few seconds.”

I nodded and ran down the hallway with him, one of the ponies tried to grab my hoof as we passed. I turned my shotgun on him and fired, the effect was much better pointblank. The shot tore a chunk out of his side, and blasted him back against one of his companions. Not waiting to see what else would happen, and ignoring the pain in my foreleg, we ran on toward the stairs that lead up to the Overmare’s office.

When I got to it the door was locked, and there was a terminal next to the door. I attempted to hack it, only to find out that it was already unlocked. Hitting the command to open the door to the office, I pushed Wingnut inside and followed. In the far corner of the room I saw a pony laying there. He looked up as the door opened.

“Wait, don’t shut the door…” he started to say, but it was too late. I hit the button to close the door as soon as I was past the threshold.

“It’s okay, I can get it back open again, they left the terminal unlocked,” I said as I looked toward the pony, his face was mostly hidden by the shadows in the dark room.

“You idiot, the door can’t be opened from this side. Skinny destroyed the door controls. It only opens from the outside.” the stallion said.

“Wait, What?” I asked in confusion, “What do you mean it can only be opened from the outside? This is the Overmare’s office, it controls the entire stable.”

“Well kid, not THIS Overmare’s office. Trust me, I’ve tried using the terminal to open the door, and I’m still here.” he said as he pulled out a cigarette and popped it into his mouth, then lit it and looked back over at me, “Since we’re roomies, how about you tell me why you were stupid enough to sneak in here.”

Before I could say anything, there was a tap on the window that was next to the door. It was that Triggerpony boss, Skinny, he gave me a smile, “Nice of you to stop in and make hunting you down nice and easy. I’ll admit, I’m impressed you were able to get as far as you did without gettin’ killed. Looks like there’s more truth than I thought about your adventures.”

“Let us out of here,” I demanded.

“Or what?”

“I have friends just outside the stable door, they’ll come in after me. You don’t want to mess with them.”

“Yeah, they’ll fuck your shit up,” Wingnut added.

He laughed, “You mean that pegasus and the griffon? Those two ran off after more of my associates showed up to protect the door. I got twenty ponies protecting the entrance to this stable, they don’t mean shit to me.”

Aura and Stardust ran away? They wouldn’t do that, “You’re lying, the griffon’s my bodyguard and she wouldn’t leave me in here to die, and my pegasus friend…well he’s just too stubborn to let a few lowlifes like yourselves get away with this either.”

“You got a point there, but I ain’t alone either. I got a few friends of my own that are on their way. If your friends even try and get near this place it’ll be the last thing they ever do. So, if I were you, I’d get comfortable, you’ll be here for a while.”

“Why’s that?”

“I heard that some ponies out there are lookin’ for you, some kind of contract through one of the talon companies. I figure there’s a reward in there somewhere for findin’ you. I’ll be keeping you here until they show up to fetch you,” he said then looked over at Wingnut, “The kid though, he’s just a loose end to tie up when were done with you. So, sit tight and relax. That office you’re in has plenty of luxuries to keep you comfortable. You should feel right at home.”

“This is low, even for you Skinny, since when did you start capturing fillies to use them in your business dealings?” Lonely Hearts said, still keeping himself hidden at the back of the office.

The Gangster pony laughed and looked over at the Detective, “I’ll do whatever I have to for caps and reputation around here L.H. you should know that by now.”

“This is still low Skinny. Your gang has always been a bunch of two bit thugs, mugging and threatening for protection caps for years. Why the sudden change? Why go after caravans and this kind of thing? It’s not like you to risk so much for a few extra caps.”

“Don’t start with me L.H. I’m done playing your game. It was fun over the years, but I’m sick of it now. Skinny ain’t no two-bit hood, I’m a pony to be reckoned with. One day I’ll even be bigger than Mr. Tops himself,” Skinny turned and walked away from the window and out of sight.

Fuck, now what was I gonna do? I turned toward Wingnut, “Any bright ideas?”

“This was your stupid plan, I just wanted to see the inside of a stable. Personally, I’m not impressed. It stinks in here and doesn’t have as much cool stuff as I thought it would.”

I looked over at Lonely Hearts, “How did you get caught?”

“Simple, I walked in to talk with Skinny. I wanted to see if he knew more about the recent attacks on the caravans. Skinny may be a snake, but he knows a lot of what’s going on in the criminal underworld. Now tell me, why did you get yourself caught like that?”

“Came here looking for you, your assistant said you came here to track down a lead and never came back.”

“Why are you hiding back there in the dark Mr. Detective?” Wingnut asked. I was wondering the same thing.

“I’m not hiding, I just didn’t want to scare you two that’s all. Most folks have a negative reaction when they first meet me,” he said stepping forward.

The pony that I saw, wasn’t a pony at all, okay, he looked like a pony. He had a tan trench coat on, and a black fedora, they were both patched and looked worse for wear. The rest of him however was something I hadn’t ever seen before, he looked like a pony, but his sandy tan coat was weather beaten, there was a chunk of it missing over the left side of his face. Only instead of bone or muscle under it, there were wires and a metal jaw. His eyes were black orbs with yellow pupils that had a faint glow, his left hoof was missing his coat entirely ending in a metal hoof that was skinner than his other three.

“What the fuck are you?” I asked stepping between him and Wingnut.

“See what I mean? Everypony has a negative reaction whenever they see me. I take it you haven’t met a Synth before, have you kid?” he said taking a puff on his cigarette.

“A what now? And wait a sec, if you’re some kind of robot, how are you smoking and why!?” I mean come on, it was bad enough he was a robot, but did he have to smoke those things too.

“I’ve heard about Synths before, I thought they were only rumors to scare foals and fillies,” Wingnut added.

The robot smiled at my young companion then looked back at me, “Synth is short for Synthetic, it’s a nickname given to artificially created Ponies. A place called The Ministry created us, though I couldn’t tell you why. I’m a prototype, I was created a long time ago then tossed in the trash.”

“So, you’re this Ministry’s garbage, they tossed you out, so you decided to go and start a Detective agency?”

“Kind of, you see when I first woke up in that trash heap, I had no idea I was a Synth. I was uploaded with the memories of an L.P.P.D. Detective called Lonely Hearts from back before the great war ended. Took me a couple years before the truth was revealed, when I took a nasty shot to the face giving me this ugly mug you see now,” he said, pointing up at his face.

“So, why become a detective?”

“It was the only thing I knew how to do, and I was good at it. I started in Freedom, but later Mr. Tops himself asked me to help him with a case. I did and he let me move to The Strip. I’ve been there ever since. Mr. Tops lets me stay as long as I make sure to keep an eye on things going on around Freedom. That’s what got me into this mess,”

“I don’t know about YOU Shadow, but I think he’s kinda cool, I trust him.”

“You trust him after a quick story like that, but you wouldn’t trust my friend or me when we were trying to save you from Cazadores?” I asked the colt in shock.

“You barged in with guns blazing with a griffon and pegasus following you. What was I supposed to think?”

“That I was there to save your life.”

“Or to rob us, it wouldn’t be the first-time adults have done that to us kids,” he said simply.

I wasn’t doing this right now. Huffing for a moment then letting out a long breath I sighed and walked past Wingnut and over to the Synth. I couldn’t get something out of my head about him, “Okay, so your story seems like it could have some truth to it, and I did come all this way to find you, so I’ll trust you. I have to know one thing first though.”

“Not like we’re going anywhere kid, what’s on your mind?”

“You’re the same pony who saved me back at F & F Tools, I understand now why you covered your face and hooves in bandages, but why did you help me?”

Lonely Hearts looked utterly confused for a long moment then something seemed to click in his head, “I’ve never met you before now kid, but this pony you say saved you, did he have a black desperado hat on, used a revolver, and could fight like no pony you’d ever seen before?”

Taken aback for a moment, I looked just as confused as Lonely Hearts did, “Um…yeah. You mean that wasn’t you?”

“Nope, I don’t go far from New Pegasus unless I’m on a job, and the jobs I’ve had over the past few weeks have kept me around the Strip and Freedom. The pony who saved you though, I’ve been trying to track him down for years now. No pony knows who he is, but they always give the same description.”

“If he’s out helping ponies, then why do you want to find him?” I asked.

“He’s going around killing other ponies saying he’s trying to help, but he always hides who he is, and he’s always gone in a flash, almost like he was never there. A pony like that worries me, I wanna find out who he is and why he’s supposedly helping ponies like he does. Honestly if you know more about him I’d really like to know.”

“Do we really have time for this?”

“We have a lot of time to kill right now kid, if I know Skinny like think I do, he’ll be out talking with his goons, checking the Stable, keeping the door safe, and pumping up his ego.”

Wingnut went over to a corner, laying down to watch us. Sighing I relented, “He was using something to mask his voice, but I’m sure he’s a Stallion, I also noticed wings under his trenchcoat when he was fighting.”

Lonely Hearts rubbed his chin with a hoof, puffing on this cigarette a little before saying, “That’s a detail I hadn’t heard before, he’s never spoken to anypony before and I’ve never heard about him having wings. I’ll have to add this to my file when I get back to the agency.”

“Add it to your file? Do you have a plan to get us out of this predicament?”

“No not really, I was hoping you had a plan since you were the one who decided to brave your way past the guards and into this office.”

Of course it was up to me, why did I have to figure a way out of this? I didn’t really think I was going to get stuck in an Overmare’s office…fuck, I’m not a smart pony. I’ve been sitting here wondering how I was going to get out of this, and not even thinking to myself, that I was in an Overmare’s office. There should be an escape tunnel, just like in my stable and stable 9.

“Hey, Lonely Hearts, you said you were able to get into the Overmare’s terminal, right?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t too hard to be honest, why do you ask?”

I trotted over to the terminal and took a look at it, “Because, Stables have escape tunnels. It’s a last resort for the stable in case it ever needs to be evacuated and the way through the atrium is blocked.”

I started looking through the files that were on the terminal. Damn this Overmare had loads of crap on here, journals, notes, research projects, names of residents, and other things too. Finally, at the bottom I saw what I was looking for.

Overseer’s Personal Escape Tunnel.

I clicked on it and watched as a message came up.

Escape Tunnel Requires Overseer’s Personal Password to Open,
Please provide password now.

“What the fuck is this? And what is this about an Overseer?” I asked, looking at the terminal as if it personally insulted me.

Lonely Hearts walked over and looked over my shoulder, he really didn’t seem to understand personal space too much, “Looks to me like a protection algorithm. For some reason, this terminal was set up to only let the Overmare or Overseer I guess, use this tunnel. Let me see if I can get past the security and overwrite the program,” he pushed me aside and started working with the terminal, “Hmmm, that’s an odd setup, this may take a little while.”

“So, what should we do while we wait for you to hack into that thing?”

“Figure something out,” he said, working on the terminal and ignoring us.

“I’m gonna take a nap, maybe you should do the same thing. It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon, unless we’re lucky and Stardust or Aura fly in and save us,” Wingnut said as he curled up and closed his eyes.

“Go head, I’ll figure something out I guess while you do.”

I hated being bored, I looked at my Pip-Buck and started looking through the files I started to accumulate while on my travels. All the way on the bottom I noticed an audio file. It was the one from the first terminal I’d found when I was hiding from Blade and the Boss. I’d meant to get back to it when I had time, and forgotten all about it. Pulling out the earbloom from my Pip-Buck I selected the file and started to listen.

At first there was just a bunch of static and the sounds of movement, then a mare’s voice came onto the recording, “Tonight’s the night, I know I said in my last message that it was my last, and it was. I’m making this recording just because, I wanted to leave something behind, something that was more of who I was before I left home. Leaving my diary like I did was part of it, but it’s so impersonal leaving things down in writing alone. I was accepted into the military, I’ll be on my way to meet with Silver Hooves as soon as I’m done here. He’ll be taking me to meet with his commanding officer so I can be sent in for training. I’m so excited and a little scared. At first, I did this so I could get out of this house and this life of being scared of what was going on in the war, without being able to do anything about it. Now, I want to be able to help fight back, to protect my homeland from the Zebras. I’m going to make something of myself, and prove to my parents that they were wrong about me.”

There was the sound of something banging from overhead, followed by a stallion’s voice, “Pink Rose, are you down there?”

“Yes daddy, I’m just writing in my diary.”

“You’re not sending messages to that solider buck, are you?”

“No Daddy, you know this terminal can’t send messages out to anypony,” she said, sounding annoyed, “Can you leave me alone so I can finish?”

There was a sound of hooves moving down a ladder, then the buck’s voice sounded closer, “I don’t believe you Pink Rose, let me see what you’re doing.”

“It’s my diary daddy, it’s private!” she yelled.

“We don’t keep secrets in this family, you know the rules. Now show me what you’re doing.”

“GO away, I’m not showing you anything!”

There was a loud smack, like a hoof hitting flesh, “I told you to show me now!”

“What the fuck Dad, get away from me!” Pink Rose yelled.

“What’s going on down there?” another mare’s voice said, sounding far away.

“Mom, daddies lost it, he just hit me.”

“You’re making a recording? So, you were lying to me, what are you doing with this, leaving a message for us for when you run away with that fucking Solider. You can’t trust them Pink Rose, he just wants to use you, then toss you aside like a sack of trash,” her father said, sounding like he was right next to the terminal now.

The older mare’s voice came again, this time sounding closer too, “Honey, what did you do to her?”

“I can’t believe you did that Dad, I’m sick of how you act toward any stallion who likes me, or how you’re treating this war. You act like nothing will happen to us just because you have this shitty house and a bunker to hide in. Well I’m sick of hiding, I’m going out there and helping Equestria, so is Silver Hooves,” Pink Rose protested.

“You’ll do no such thing, no daughter of mine is going to go out and die for this senseless war, it will all blow over soon, and I won’t lose my daughter over it.”

“Honey, you heard about what happened at Luna’s school right? The Zebras killed a lot of children, that wasn’t that long ago. The war will get worse, you know that. Maybe we should let Pink Rose go,” her mother said, sounding like she was pleading with the buck.

“I won’t let her, she’s my daughter, she will do as I say.”

“I hate you daddy, I’m leaving and you can’t stop me! I was going to send you a letter when I got to my training camp, but now I don’t care! You can die down in this shithole bunker of yours! I’m not your daughter anymore!” Pink Rose yelled, then the sound of a pony climbing the ladder came over the recording.

“No Pink Rose, please don’t go like this,” her mother pleaded, sobs racking her voice.

“You say that now, but we’ll see what happens when you come back in a few months, after that buck leaves you. See if I’ll let you back in then, you stupid slut!”

There was a click, and the audio message ended…

Wow, so she really did do it, she left her parents behind, and I’m sure from the sound of it, that she never intended to come back. Of course, she probably would’ve been court marshalled for deserting. I wonder what ever happened to her, or her parents. I guess it didn’t matter, they were all dead now. How could anypony treat their daughter like that? Her other Diary was much less depressing than this was.

Deciding I didn’t want go look through my notes and recordings, I figured I’d look through my inventory, right at the top under the miscellaneous tab was a memory orb, I clicked on it making it come to the top of my saddle bags. Reaching in I pulled it out and looked at it. It was one of the two I’d found at F & F Tools. The black orb with a silvery shine to it. I was scared to look into it before, something about the black orb was creepy.

I looked up at Lonely Hearts, “Do you think I’ll have time to look into this orb while you work on that?”

“I don’t see why not, like I said, I’m sure they won’t be back for a while to check on us, but don’t blame me if something happens while you’re in there,” he replied.

“Don’t worry Shadow, I’ll keep an eye on you while you’re in there,” Wingnut said, looking up at me with one eye.

“Thanks Wingnut,” I focused on the orb, and the world melted away.

oooOOOooo

I was in a room I knew all too well, the office of Falafel at the F&F Tool company. I was in a stallion, he was sitting at his desk looking over paper work when Lily walked into the office, “Sir, a Ms. Minuette is here to see you.”

My host looked up from his paperwork and smiling at Lily, “Good, I’ve been wondering when she would show up. Show her in.”

“Right away sir,” Lily said, turning and walking back out of the office, a moment later she returned.

Following behind Lily was the mare I’d seen before in Lightning Dust’s memory. The blue unicorn smiled her big smile at my host, “Sorry I’m running late Falafel, I got held up by an old friend of mine.”

Lily left the room leaving my host alone with the blue unicorn. He smiled back at her, “It’s quite alright, I was busy with paperwork and only just now finished up. I thought I was going to be meeting with your boss, I wasn’t expecting it to just be you.”

“Oh, you are,” she turned, her horn glowing casting a spell on the door. When she was done she looked back at my host still smiling wide, “Had to make sure your secretary couldn’t overhear us.”

“My door is enchanted to prevent eavesdropping,” my host said.

“Whoever told you that is a liar. Now everything is good,” her horn glowed again, concentration written on her face. A moment later, there was a bright blue flash and standing next to Minuette, was her Captain, “Sorry it took so long sir, I haven’t tried to do a reverse teleportation spell like that before.”

The grey stallion was wearing the bug-like power armor I’d seen before on the Enclave solider Winter Frost, only his looked different, it had different colored gems imbedded in different parts of the suit. The edges of his wings where the armor covered them, I could see a silver glow, just like the swords he’d used while with Big Mac. His helmet was belted to his side, next to two slender looking disintegration rifles. He looked over toward Minuette, “Thank you Minuette, are we secure?”

“Yes, I’ve enchanted the door, added protection against eavesdropping.”

“What about M.O.M. bugs?”

Her horn glowed and a blue light filled the room, a moment later she smiled again, “Nope, were all good Captain.”

“Where’s Babs?”

“Keeping watch outside, she’ll radio in if anypony is on their way.”

“Good,” Night Stalker looked back toward my host again, walking over to the desk, “Do you know who I am?”

I could feel my host growing nervous as the armored stallion walked over towering over my him, “You’re Princess Luna’s personal guard, Night Stalker.”

A smile came to his face, “That I am, but I’m so much more than that, I’m also the Captain of a certain group, dedicated to helping Equestria win this war. We work under the directive of only Princess Luna and the Ministry of Awesome. My cover is as Luna’s personal guard. Tell me Falafel, do you know why I’m here today?”

I could feel my host’s knees shaking a little as the tall buck spoke to him. I could understand his fear, his deep voice and commanding demeanor oozed danger, “I couldn’t say, all I got from your message is that you wanted to meet with my brother and I to discuss some new project for the war effort. Though I thought it was something for the Ministry of Arcane Sciences.”

“It is in a way. You see, I’ve been good friends with Rainbow Dash for years, and through her Twilight Sparkle. They’re the only two ponies apart from my team and Princess Luna who knows anything about what I’m here to talk to you about. You see, Luna wants my team stationed out in Las Pegasus. The problem is, we don’t have a proper base to work from, that’s where you come in.”

“I don’t think I’m following,” my host said sounding worried.

“See. I told you he wouldn’t be much help. We should’ve talked to his brother first,” Minuette said.

“No, Flapjack’s gotten himself in bed with Applejack’s Ministry,” Night Stalker said, “What I need from you Falafel, is help with building a new casino on The Strip. Since I can’t have ties to it myself, I need a company to do it, or somepony with money. Your Company has done well for itself over the years, and with your new ties to the Ministry of Wartime Technology your company will grow even more. We have plans drawn up for this casino, you’ll be allowed to run it however you see fit, and all the profits will be yours. All I want is for you to leave a few floors off-limits to civilians as well as employees.”

“And what would they be used for?”

“Nothing of concern to you of your brother, part of them will be an M.A.S. hub, the rest will be for my team, that’s all you need to know.”

I felt my host get a little ruffled, “Why come to me with this? Flapjack is the one who wants to expand the company and find new ways of making a profit. I’m perfectly happy with running the tool company and being left in peace.”

“Because we can’t trust your brother to keep this secret, he’s too close to ponies I don’t need finding out about what we do. Honestly, talking to you like this is already too much of a risk right now, but it has to be done.”

“And how do you know you can trust me any more than my brother?”

Minuette answered, “Because you’re a good pony that doesn’t like to get involved in things, and we have dirt on you that’ll keep you quiet,” It was kinda scary how she could threaten a pony and still smile like it was just another day for her.

“So, if I don’t agree to this, you’ll blackmail me?” my host responded angrily.

“Yes, that’s what’ll happen. Though I’d rather you agree to this so I won’t have to resort to that kind of thing,” Night Stalker said.

Falafel shrank back, “I don’t know the first thing about running a casino.”

“You didn’t know anything about running a company when you first opened F&F Tools either, now you’re one of the biggest companies in Equestria. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.”

“Can I at least see what you’re planning on building?”

“Minuette, show him the blueprints.” Night Stalker said, moving out of the way.

Minuette trotted over, pulling a scroll out from her saddle bags and unrolling it on the desk. My host looked over the blueprints in awe. I couldn’t tell what most of it meant, but I could tell by the shape, that it was the Lucky Horseshoe, the same casino Mr. Tops supposedly lived in.

“This almost looks like a fortress, and what are those robots I see on the bottom of the page?”

“A pony at Robronco called them Securiponies, it’s a new robot they’re working on, they’ll be put into the Casino as guards.”

My host seemed to be getting a little more excited as he looked over the plans, “You know, you might have something here.”

“All I care about is hearing that you agree,” Night Stalker said.

My host looked back at him, “If I don’t, what would you do?”

In a flash, Night Stalker was next to my host, one of his wings pressing a sharp edge against his throat, “I don’t play games Falafel, if you don’t agree then your brother will find out about your little affair with his wife. I’m sure that’s not something you’d want him finding out about, or I could just slit your throat here and now, both options work for me.”

My host sounded shocked when he responded, “You wouldn’t do anything like that!”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to do my job. I’ll admit that losing your help would be a setback, but one I can fix. I’d rather not work with your brother, he’s nowhere near as smart as you are, and I can’t trust him. I will though, if I have to. So, will you help us in this project?”

My host looked down at the blueprints taking a long moment to look over the plans, “One more question. What’s this other part of the building for, the spire reaching up from the sub-basement all the way to the top of the tower?”

“None of your concern,” Night Stalker said reaching over and taking the blueprints.

“And here I thought the M.O.A. didn’t do anything.”

“For all you know, they don’t.”

I felt my host smile, “Hell why not, I’m getting bored here anyway. Who knows? Running a casino might be fun. I do have one condition though.”

“You’re not really in the best place to make demands Falafel, but considering the circumstances I’ll hear you out.”

“I want Lily to work there, her father used run things at one of the casinos on the strip, she knows a lot about the business.”

A grin came to Night Stalker’s face, “I’m sure we can arrange that. If that’s all, then welcome to the team. You’ll be keeping in contact with Minuette, she’s my head spellcaster and one of my most trusted agents. She’ll keep you up to date on what’s going on, also you’ll be hearing from a Stable-Tec representative soon. They’ll be going over the plans and funds for building the tower.”

“There was another question I had, how do you expect me to pay for this?”

“Easy, you’ll have funding in your account tomorrow. The project is being fully covered by an investor, of whom you’ll know nothing about, but who sees the possibilities with working with you,” Minuette said.

“I see. Well then, I guess I should start to get things set up, what do you expect me to tell Flapjack?”

“Something he’ll believe,” Night Stalker replied.

“That’ll be difficult, but with how busy he is with the M.W.T. I’m sure I can manage.”

“Good,” he said turning back toward Minuette, “Make sure you give him the talisman.”

“Yes sir, I’ll get right on it. Will you be heading back to base?”

“No, I need to go check on things with my sister. Would you mind sending me to her?”

“Sure thing Captain,” Minuette’s horn glowed, her magical aura surrounding Night Stalker. In a flash he was gone.

My host spoke up when the Captain left, “What did he mean by giving me a talisman?”

“I’ll explain everything in a moment, but first the boss want’s insurance that you’ll keep up with your end of the bargain,” Minuette said as her horn started glowing again, “I’ll be taking a couple memories of yours. When we know we can trust you we’ll give them back.”

She moved closer, her magic flowing over my host…

oooOOOooo

I came out of the orb blinking slowly as the dull lights of the Overseer’s office came into focus. A second later, I looked around. Wingnut was still lying next to me with his eyes closed, but I could tell he was still awake. Lonely Hearts was still working on the terminal.

“Any luck?” I asked as I got back to my hooves.

He looked over at me, “Uh, well… not so much. I was able to get into the program just fine. The problem is, I can’t seem to find anything to open up an escape tunnel. The terminal references it a few times, but nothing seems to show where it is or how it’s opened.”

I walked over and looked at the terminal screen, “There has to be something in here.”

“There’s lots of things here, but nothing about the escape tunnel. I’m sorry kid, but I don’t think this is our best way out. There are a few notes from the Overseer in here. It might have more insight on it, though I couldn’t make any sense out of it.”

“Let me look them over,” I said, taking his place at the terminal.

Overseer’s Personal Logs.

Entry One,

Another day in this stupid stable. I know they were set up to save us from a Megaspell attack, but I don’t get the point behind still being locked up in this place for so long. I’ve been the Overseer for a couple years now, and honestly, it’s a boring ass job. It sucks trying to watch over so many griffons and get them to follow the rules laid down by former Overseers.

Griffons weren’t ever supposed to be trapped in a cage like this, even one with so many things to keep us distracted. Stable-Tec said we couldn’t leave until it was safe to go back outside. Fuck that, if we ever leave here while I’m alive, I’m going to find work that puts my talents to better use.

My mother always said that one day when we could leave she wanted to do what she could to help any other griffons that were still alive out there. She died with that idea, and she had a point. Personally, I’d like to go back to the way things were when griffons worked for a living. Making money using their talents to help fight and keep others safe. Living by the contract and sometimes dying by it, that’s how a griffon should live.

One day, I’ll make sure we can go back to that life. The free life of a griffon...

Entry Two,

So, today I got a transmission from somepony calling himself, Mr. Tops. He somehow got access through the Stable-Tec mainframe, and saw that our stable was still operational. He then goes on to ask me why we’re still hiding in here. I told him that we hadn’t gotten the okay from Stable-Tec to open the door. He then tells me that Stable-Tec is dead and gone and the world outside is safe enough to live in. It’s not perfect, but livable.

It’s like a dream come true. I’m also worried that this might be some kind of trap. I don’t know this Mr. Tops from boo, I’ll have to think about this more, and talk to my department heads. If we can trust him, we might be able to finally leave this stupid place and be free. All I know is that I don’t want to spend another year being the Overseer.

Entry Three,

Talked it over with the others, and they agree with me. We need to look into this more. So, we sent a message to Mr. Tops. We asked him what to expect if we were to leave the stable. He told us about a lot of the dangers around the area and in Equestria in a whole. It doesn’t sound promising, but it’s still better than being stuck here. What caught my interest was something about griffons that started something called Talon companies. They’re mercenaries out in the Wasteland, they fight for money. Now that sounds like my kind of griffons to meet. I just got to convince the others that leaving is the best thing for us.

I know they won’t like it, but really, if we don’t do something soon, the stable will be in danger of inbreeding. I’m not gonna go down as the Overseer who failed her stable, it’s been over a century since the war ended. It’s time to leave the stable, it’s time for Stable 14 to go back into the world and help.

Entry Four,

We’re leaving the stable. I’m about to head down and open the door, Mr. Tops said he’ll have someone there to meet with us and help us once we’re out. Some of the griffons here wanna stay, my husband is one of them. I told him I’m leaving and I’m taking our daughter with us. If he wants to stay in this metal coffin then so be it, but I won’t let my daughter stay in here any longer. I know he’s gonna try and stop me, but I won’t let him.

If we can’t leave then I’ll use the Emergency escape tunnel, or that’s what I’ll make him think. He has no idea what’s really down there. The tunnel leads to a room, and that’s where every Overseer’s gone to die for the past few decades. No one’s ever come back from it, and they never left the stable. I’m going to take my daughter out the safe way. I’ve rigged this place so that if anyone tries to enter my office and use my terminal, it will blow the terminal to the door. After that, the only way out is if someone lets them out from the other side, or if they go into the escape tunnel.

I really don’t want to do this to him, but he has a temper. If he truly wants to stay and keep me here too, he’ll get violent. This is the safest way for us to get away and most of the stable. He can rot in this hole in the ground for all I care, I’ll make a new life up in the real world. Maybe I’ll go find one of those Talon companies and see if I can join.

This is Overseer Gail Windrider, and we are free, like true griffons, we are free...

I looked at the entries from this overseer. It made sense now, why this stable seemed so different. No Overmare, because there wasn’t a mare in this stable. Stable-Tec hadn’t been trying to just save ponies, they were saving everyone they could. But why would they have a room in here that was made to look like an escape tunnel, but instead kill the griffon who was leading the stable? What was the point of that? What did it accomplish?

Lonely Hearts walked around the desk and sighed deeply (How did he do that, he’s a robot?) he looked over at me, “I’m not sure what you were expecting, but there isn’t a way out of here from what I can see.”

“There has to be another way out of this situation,” I said walking over toward the window and looking out into the atrium, “I wonder if there’s a way we could break the glass.”

Wingnut walked over to me and looked through the window, “Fat chance. It looks too thick for our guns to do much damage. If we had a few grenades then maybe, but I think Stardust sold the few you had.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He said we didn’t have any need for them.”

Lonely Hearts walked over, “Do you have a spell that could help us get out?”

“Teleportation, but I’m not so sure it’ll work in here. Stables normally have wards against spells like that.”

“Maybe, but seeing how this was a griffon stable, maybe it’ll work. If you can get out and unlock the door from the other side, we’d be home free.”

He had a point, I looked over at the door and started to draw on my magic. In a flash, I was outside the door. (Why didn’t I think about this before?) The spell hardly took any energy or effort, I barely had to think about it and I was out. If I had the time, I would’ve been amazed. Instead I ran over to the terminal and opened the door.

“Why didn’t we try that in the beginning?” Wingnut asked.

“Shut it kid, we’re out of there, let’s get the fuck out of the stable.” I said walking back toward the atrium.

***

When we reached the door, a few red bars showed up on my E.F.S. I put a hoof out stopping my companions, “Hold up, let’s do this smart and try and see if we can sneak past whoever’s out there.”

“Hey kid, you got us this far, I’ll follow your lead,” Lonely Hearts said.

I opened the door intending on assessing our situation, but what I saw in the atrium stopped me dead on my hooves. Skinny was standing in the middle of the atrium, his Triggerponies standing around him. In front of him was a big pegasus in armor similar to what Wrath had been wearing. His coat was dirt brown with a red and orange striped mane. Just like Wrath and Pride, he had a mark on his armor right where his cutie mark would be. This one looked like a bear, drawn out in a tribal design like the others.

He looked bored, his expression was that of a pony who looked like he was doing something he hated. He spoke to Skinny in a slow monotone voice, “So, we’re here to collect on the bounty you called us about.”

“Yeah, I heard the Enclave’s been looking for this mare, and they’re willing to pay a lot for her capture,” Skinny said, sounding excited.

The Pegasus gave off a sigh that made my own seem like a yawn, “The Enclave has been looking for a unicorn mare. I don’t know where you got your information, but we haven’t put out any bounty on her yet. If you have this mare, you are to turn her over to us.”

“I was told that there would be a reward for her capture, and how do I know you’re with the Enclave anyhow?”

“Eh, why do I have to do this?” He sighed again, “Listen, I’m Sloth, a member of the Seven Sins of Equinity, we speak for the Enclave. A reward was never mentioned, but if you want one then fine. Your reward will be that we won’t kill all of you for wasting our time.”

“Fuck that. If you want us to turn her over to you, then you have to pay us in caps. The Triggerponies, don’t do anything for free, you hear me?”

“I won’t ask you again. Hand over the courier mare before I decide to kill you and find her myself. I really don’t wanna do that, it sounds like a lot of work, and I hate doing anything that requires me to work that hard,” that had to be the most board sounding threat I’d ever heard.

“Really? You and what army?” a pony next to Skinny asked.

Another Pegasus walked in as the other pony spoke. He wasn’t as tall as Sloth, but he was twice as wide. His armor looked like he was about to pop out of it. He was an orange pony, with a striking blue mane, and he looked like he wasn’t all there. His armor had a Bore on it, styled just like Sloths.

He walked up next to Sloth with his head cocked to one side. Then he spoke in a foalish and whiney voice, “Why are you taking so long Sloth? I’m hungry, I need to eat.”

“I’ve only been in here for a few minutes, and you just ate,” Sloth replied looking over at his companion.

“But I’m still hungry,” he complained then looked back at the Triggerponies, “Can I eat them?”

“Not yet, we’re still working on getting the unicorn from them, now be quiet,” Sloth said.

“Who the fuck is that?” Skinny asked.

“Eh, this is Gluttony. Now you were saying something about what army? Well we don’t need an army to take you imbeciles down. I could do it easily, same for Gluttony here. Now turn her over to us, I won’t ask again,” Sloth replied.

“Like I said, if you don’t have caps for her, then you don’t get her. I heard the Red Talon’s have a contract on her, they’ll pay caps. Now get out of my Stable before I have my associates pump you full of lead.”

The pony next to Skinny spoke up again, “Yeah, get the fuck out of here until you’re ready to make us a real deal.”

“Can I eat them now?” Gluttony asked.

“Hold on one more second Gluttony,” Sloth said, an instant later Sloth was in front of the pony who spoke up. He moved so fast, it was almost like he teleported. But he wasn’t a unicorn? How the fuck did he do that? His hoof came up and stomped down. The ponies head slammed to the ground and exploded into paste. Then Sloth kicked the body away into the far wall, painting it red with his blood. His guts slowly ran down the wall. His body practically vanished in the explosion of gore.

Skinny barely moved before Sloth was in his face, inches away from his muzzle. Skinny started to stutter, “Th…The fuck was that, what the fuck are you?”

“I’m nothing more than a solider doing what he’s told,” he looked back at Gluttony, “Go head, I’m tired of these assholes. I’ll wait for you outside. Remember; if you find the Unicorn with a Pip-Buck, you can’t eat her.”

“Aw, not even a little?”

“No, but do what you want with the rest. I’ll be waiting outside, I need a nap.” Sloth slowly walked away, back toward the Stable door.

What did he mean by eat them? Was this fat pegasus seriously going to eat the dozen ponies standing around him?

Gluttony smiled wide showing his teeth, his very sharp teeth, “You all look so yummy, I can’t wait to try every single one of you.”

“Die fatty!” Skinny yelled, all of them started to fire. The bullets however never hit their mark. Every single one seemed to arch away from his body flying in another direction as if there was an invisible barrier around him.

Gluttony’s smile grew wider as he slowly walked toward Skinny, “I think I’ll eat you first.”

“Fuck that,” he said running away past the others, “Kill that thing!”

Before anyone else could move, Gluttony jumped onto one of them sinking his teeth into the neck of the stallion ripping out muscle and bone. The pony screamed as his blood pooled under him. He swallowed the chunk he'd pulled out and jumped on another pony doing the same thing to him. Gluttony started to giggle like a child as he started to mutilate each of the Triggerponies ripping chunks of flesh from their screaming bodies.

I watched in horror as they all died, leaving pools of blood that flooded the lower floor of the atrium. I slowly backed away from the edge of the balcony and looked back at Lonely Hearts and Wingnut, “How the fuck do we get past that thing?”

“He doesn’t seem to be very smart, more like a child or a dumb animal. I say we try and sneak past him. Once we’re out of the stable, we can make a run for the JetBlue Skyport,” Lonely Hearts said looking past me at the winged blob who was looking around confused.

“And what if he catches us?”

“Well I don’t think he can do much to me. My body is made of something stronger than pony flesh. If it comes to that, I’ll just have to fight him off until you can escape.”

“No way. We don’t know what that thing can do…you know what, I think I have an idea,” I said with a grin spreading on my face.

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” Wingnut asked.

“He was told not to kill me, I’ll distract him. You two try and sneak out, watch out for Sloth when you get out there, but Aura and Stardust should be out there too. They can help. We just need to get out of the stable.”

“I don’t like that plan. That thing might just kill you and not care one bit,” Wingnut protested.

My smile grew wider as I checked through my Pip-Buck inventory sorter finding what I figured was there. I pulled out a stealth buck I’d found while shopping in new Pegasus, “I’ll just use this to escape once you two are out.”

Before my companions could protest any longer I jumped off the balcony pulling my shot gun out and pointed it at Gluttony, “Hey big guy, heard you’re looking for me.”

Gluttony turned toward me, “You has a Pip-Buck, that means I can’t eat you. You have to come with me, Sloth and Pride said so.”

“Yeah, I can’t do that lard for brains. How about you try me next week, I think my schedule should be freed up by then.”

“Is the little pony calling me stupid?”

“Wow figured that one out on your first try, I’m impressed.”

He scowled at me, “I don’t like being called Stupid, you better say you’re sorry.”

In answer, I fired my shotgun at him. Just like before, the buck shot fired around him, hitting the far wall. “Huh, how do you do that?”

He smiled again and pulled up one of his folds of fat, showing me a yellow gem, “Pride said it keeps me safe.”

“Did he now? Did he tell you anything else about it?”

“Yes he did…wait, you can’t tricks me into telling you what else he said,” Gluttony said.

“Figured it was worth a try, well if you want to bring me to your boss, then you’ll have to catch me,” I ran back to the stairs and started to ascend.

“No fair.”

I made it to the top of the stairs and onto the upper balcony before looking back. Gluttony was flapping his wings, flying up toward me. Not fast, but fast enough to catch up. Great, so even the fatass could fly too, I was hoping he was too large to do that.

Oh well, guess I’ll give him a workout. I ran down the hallway that lead back toward the Overseer’s office. Once there I ducked behind the wall just inside the office, pulling the Stealth buck out. I connected it to my Pip-Buck and activated it. Something shimmered, I looked down at my hoof and saw it fade away.

Peeking around the corner I saw Gluttony flying down the hall, “Where did you go? No fair playing hide and seek.”

When he flew into the office and landed to look around I moved past him and back into the hallway. Then I used the terminal to shut the door. It slammed shut behind me, trapping Gluttony inside. Without looking back, I ran for the exit, ignoring the screams of outrage from the fat blob trapped inside the office.

When I got to the stable entrance I found Lonely Hearts and Wingnut waiting for me. I deactivated the Stealth Buck and smiled at them, “He won’t be a problem for a while, used the same trick Skinny used on us.”

“Good idea. Can we get out of here now? I haven’t seen any sign of the other one yet,” Lonely Hearts said.

“Yeah let’s get out of here.”

We ran on, through the stable door and back into the gloomy Wasteland. We almost ran right into a sleeping Sloth. He was laying against a piece of rubble snoring quietly. Slowing our run into a slow trot, we snuck past him and made our way back down the road. Thanking the Goddesses, I started looking around for our friends.

It didn’t really take long; a few dead Triggerponies were lying in a pile near an old building. My E.F.S. picked up two white bars, so I walked over to it and pushed the door open slowly, I poked my head inside. Aura and Stardust were sitting there talking quietly with their backs to the door.

“We can’t wait any longer, those two Sins went in there and we haven’t seen them come back out. She’s been in there for hours,” Aura was saying.

“I know, but what do you expect me to do? I can’t just barge in and demand them to hand over our friends.”

“There has to be something we can do, those ponies we killed a while ago won’t go unnoticed for long. I’m supposed to protect Shadow, and I ran away. What kind of bodyguard am I?”

I pushed the door open the rest of the way, “One that does what she’s told when she has to.”

They both twisted around weapons ready, until they saw my face. They both sighed in relief seeing me safe and Aura said, “Do you know how much you had me worried, that was a really stupid plan you know. How did you get out of there? Did you manage to kill those two Sins that went in after you?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. For now, let’s get back to the Strip, I found Lonely Hearts and I think it’s better for him to get back to his office,” I said walking in followed by Wingnut and Lonely Hearts.

“Wow kid, you travel with some strange friends, don’t you?” Lonely Hearts said.

“Holy shit, no one said he was a synth,” Aura protested.

“Yes, he is, but we don’t have time to talk this over. I’ll explain everything on the way back to The Strip. Alright?”

Stardust just shrugged, “It’s cool with me.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Whatever you say Shrimp, you’re the boss.”

So, we started on our way back to New Pegasus. As we walked, I told Aura and Stardust about what happened once we got split up. I explained about the memory orb, and what happened with Skinny and the Sins. By the time I finished, we were just getting to Lonely Hearts’ office.

“Next time you have a plan like that, don’t make us fly away like you did. You’re really lucky you didn’t end up getting killed,” Aura scolded me as we walked through the door.

I hung back and looked up at my feathered friend, “I know it was stupid, but it was all I could think of at the time. Next time, I’ll make sure you stay by my side. I realized something when I got trapped in there.”

“What’s that?”

“I need my friends, Wingnut is a good kid and helpful too, but he isn’t the fighter like Stardust or you are. I was also lost on what I should do when I saw what Gluttony could do, same for Sloth. There’s something off about these Seven Sins of Equinity. I’ve seen five of them so far, and only got away by sheer luck alone. I can’t always rely on luck to save me.”

She sighed and put a talon on my shoulder, “There was more than luck involved when you got yourself out of there. Yes, part of it was luck, but you also used your head. You’re smarter than you know Shadow, you make stupid decisions sometimes, but you’re not stupid yourself. Next time just try and think before you act. Okay?”

“I will, I promise.”

I could hear Lonely Hearts’ secretary talking to him, telling him how glad she was that he was okay. Walking in I saw the Detective was sitting at his desk looking at one of his old files. He looked up as I came in, “Thank you again Shadow Star, I’m glad you did what you did to get me out of there. Is there any way I can repay you for your kindness?”

I sat down in the other chair across from him, “There is, I didn’t go looking for you just to save you from those Triggerponies. I was sent here by the Steel Rangers, they said you might have information that could help me out on my quest.”

The look on the synth’s face grew serious and he lit another cigarette, “Hmmm, kinda weird that the Rangers would send you to find me, they don’t take kindly to synths. They call us abominations. What information would a poor detective have for a young mare like yourself?”

“I’m looking for my mother, five years ago or so, she came here to New Pegasus looking for you. Her name is Grimoire Spell, I don’t know why she came here, all I know is she was searching for you.”

“Hmmm, I see. Well I do know who you’re talking about, she even said one day a pony would come looking for her that matched your description. She also told me not to help you if you did. I had no idea she had a daughter, let alone one that would go searching for her.”

Of course she would tell him not to help me, she said in her recording that she wanted me to go to a safe place back east, not to look for her. I sighed, “I don’t care what she told you, I need to find her.”

He smiled and leaned back in his chair, “Lucky for you I owe you, so I’ll help you, but I need to know something first.”

“Anything.”

“Why would you want to find a pony like her?”

Okay that was a stupid question, and I told him as much, “She’s my mother. Why wouldn’t I want to find her?”

“It’s been many years since you last saw her. Am I right?” I nodded and he continued, “Your mother, she isn’t a good pony. When I last saw her she was working on some kind of project, one that she said would fix Equestria, but she was working with some questionable ponies. She’s a mare who will do anything to see her project completed, I think that’s why she didn’t want you to look for her.”

I sat there with an expression of shock on my face. I took a moment, closed my eyes and said, “Tell me everything you know.”

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. I want to know everything…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Inspirational Mare: Because you lead by example, your companions do more damage in combat and are less likely to hurt you while in a fight.

Chapter 17: Hungry Like The Wolf

“What the fuck does it take to kill you?”

A lesson to learn when somepony tells you that you don’t wanna know something about somepony, is that they probably mean it for a good reason. I really wish I would’ve learned that lesson before talking to the old Synth. Sometimes knowing a great deal, isn’t as good as one might think.

Lonely Hearts leaned back in his chair taking a long pull of his cigarette. After a moment, he looked back at me, “I first met Grim five years ago, she’d just been ousted from the Steel Rangers. Back then, she was still a sweet gal, full of hopes and dreams. I remember her well, because unlike most ponies who search me out to help them find somepony else or get to the bottom of something, she wanted help finding a way into The Lucky Horseshoe.”

“Wait a sec. You mean to tell me that my mother wanted to get into that big tower? Why?” I interrupted.

“Shadow if you wanna find out, stop interrupting him,” Aura said sitting down next to me and making herself comfortable in the moldy office chair.

Lonely Hearts waited a moment then continued, “Yeah, as I was saying, she wanted to find a way to get inside The Lucky Horseshoe. She told me she needed to talk with the pony in charge up there, Mr. Tops. I had to tell her what I’d tell anypony looking to break into anything around The Strip. It’s a stupid idea and I don’t help ponies with anything illegal, even if there isn’t much that isn’t legal in the Wasteland. Apparently, she didn’t want to break in, only find a way to get into contact with Mr. Tops so he could let her in. When I asked her what she was looking for, she refused to say. When she found that I couldn’t help her, she left, but she was back a few days later. I guess she was able to find another pony to help her, but he didn’t let her in. I’m not sure what they talked about, but she was more excited than when I first met her. This time she wanted my help with something completely different. She was looking for somepony this time.”

I interrupted again, ignoring the scowl I got from Aura, “Who was she looking for?”

Lonely Hearts chuckled, “A stallion, his name was…uh…damn, I can’t remember,” he looked down at the folder in front of him, “Ah that’s right, his name was Striker, a Dashite originally from Nimbus. I guess she used to know him back in the day, he was some kind of terminal expert before he did something to piss off the Enclave. I worked on the case with her for a few months and finally found something about him being in Hoofington. So like a rocket she was off and heading toward that Goddesses forsaken city.”

“Was that the last time you saw her?” I couldn’t help asking, I needed to know. I wonder what was so bad about her that he wanted to warn me about finding her. Mom was always the type of pony who went off on a whim. If she had an idea, she had to act on it.

He frowned, his hoof closing the folder on his desk, “No, I wish it was. She was a nice gal back then, so full of charisma and gumption. The last time I saw her was six months ago. She came to my office looking for something. Something she left me before leaving for Hoofington. She came with another Unicorn and a couple Pegasi demanding I hand over what she’d left before. I refused, and she almost destroyed my office. That was after she killed my last assistant when I wouldn’t hand over what she was looking for. She would’ve killed me too, but Securiponies came and took care of business. Before she left she told me she’d find a way to get back at me for betraying her. I dunno what happened to her in the years since we parted before that happened, but she wasn’t the same mare I knew back then. She was cold, heartless, and cruel.”

No, that couldn’t be right, mom wasn’t that kind of pony. Yeah she could get mean when she was mad or frustrated, but she wasn’t cruel or heartless. I tried to say as much, but all I was able to do was squeak.

Aura wrapped a talon around me and pulled me to her side as I sat there shocked, “The wasteland is a hard place, it changes ponies. Who knows what happened to your mom. I’m sure there’s a reason for it, and you should find out what it was.”

Lonely Hearts chimed in, “I agree, I’ve been meaning to look into it myself, but I’ve been piled under cases lately and haven’t had the time.”

I pulled away from my friend, “What did she want you to give back to her?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to explain that. You see years ago, before she ran off to find her pegasus friend; she stayed here at the office all the time. She used to sit up in the room and make memory orbs or watch the ones she’d collected over the years. She also used to talk with me about you Shadow, she told me all about the daughter she’d left in the Stable, and how one day you’d find your way out of there.”

“Yeah, she left me a note on my Pip-Buck saying I shouldn’t look for her. She said that I should head to Manehattan and move into a place called Tenpony tower.”

“She told me about that, and the Pip-Buck you should have. She also told me that knowing how determined of a pony her daughter was, that you would most likely ignore her request and come looking anyway. She said that if you ever found me, that I should give you what she left here with me,” he got up and walked into the other room and returned with a small box, “She said you should have this if we were to ever meet.”

I looked at it for a moment before opening it. Inside were three Memory Orbs, two looked normal, and the last one was white. There was also a note inside along with an audio recording. I pulled out the note and looked it over.

Shadow,

If you’re reading this, it means you either never found my note on the Pip-Buck, or you decided to ignore my request and came looking for me anyway. If I know you as well as I think I do, I’m guessing it’s the latter. First, I wanted to say that I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t go to a safe place once you left Stable 28, but I’m also proud of you at the same time. I’m sure you’re finding all of this a little scary and difficult to understand. The recording I left will help explain more, at least I hope it will.

I’ve left you a few things that I hope will help you understand why I had to leave, and understand what was at stake. The memory orbs might help, but I won’t be able to leave all the ones I’ve made in one place, I hope that you’ll be able to find them while you search for me. Two are my own, the other one, well it’s a memory I’ve found helpful in my research and really don’t need anymore. I can’t find much more on it that can help me, so I figured I’d let you have it. Maybe you’ll enjoy it, or at least notice something I didn’t.

Please, be safe out there and make sure you don’t let anypony get ahold of that Pip-Buck. The Mark II is one of only three that I know of, it holds a lot of secrets and really, I wish I didn’t have to leave it behind, but I couldn’t let Elder Appleslice get it. I’ll explain more on the recording, it can only be played on a Pip-Buck like yours. I love you.

I looked up from the letter in shock then back at the recording and memory orbs, “Why did she want these back?”

“Beats me, I couldn’t tell you kid. Like I said, she wasn’t the same. All I knew was, the old Grimoire wanted her daughter to have this and I couldn’t just hand it over to whoever she’d become. If I didn’t know what to look for in a synth replacement I would’ve thought she was one of The Ministry’s puppets but to be honest I think something deep inside her changed.”

Aura spoke up, “Didn’t her mom ask you not to help Shadow if she ever came looking for her?”

“She did, but that was the last time I saw her. When she left me this stuff, she asked me to make sure Shadow got it.”

“Okay, I’m lost, so her mother told you to give her this stuff, then she shows up years later demanding it back?” Stardust asked.

“Nothing about Shadow’s life makes sense,” Wingnut said from the corner.

I glared back at both of them before turning back to Lonely Hearts, “I kind of agree with them. All of this is too confusing. What do I do now?”

“I couldn’t tell you that, I did my part. I told you what I know and gave you the information she left for you,” he got up from his chair, “How about this, if you still wanna find her, even after what I told you, I’ll start looking into it.”

It took me a bit to make up my mind. On one hoof, I really wanted to find her and figure out what made her change so much. On the other hoof, I wasn’t sure I could take seeing her like that. If I saw my mother working with the Enclave or being evil, I’m not sure I could take it. I also needed to know what was on this Pip-Buck and how to remove it if I needed to. As far as I knew, she was the only pony who knew how.

Finally, I made up my mind, “For right now, I think I need to put my quest to find her on hold, there’s a lot to process. I need to figure out what my next step is. A problem I have though, is she’s the only pony I know who knows anything about the Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II.”

To my surprise, Lonely Heart’s Assistant said something, “You could always go talk to the ponies in Trotston. I heard the leader of their town has a Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II.”

“You have a point there. You could go see them.” Lonely Hearts said.

I remembered hearing about that town before from Sapphire. I looked back at her and asked, “You mean the survivors from Stable 9? How do you know they have the other Mark II?”

She smiled sweetly, making my knee’s go weak, “Lonely Hearts took a job from them a couple months back, I remember going with him and talking with their leader, she had a Pip-Buck like yours. They might be able to help you.”

“Hmmm, yeah, you could be right. However, I’ll still need to at least find out where my Mom is. Do you think you can try and find her Lonely Hearts?”

He gave me a smile, it was a little creepy since a chunk of his face was missing, but I appreciated it all the same, “I’ll see what I can find, it’ll probably take me a while, but I’ll be sure to get a message to you when I do.”

“Thank you, it’s hard for me to understand what she’s become, but I can’t give up on her. I’ll find something to do for now, at least until I’m ready.”

As I rose getting ready to leave, something caught my eye in the corner of his office, a statuette was sitting there, slightly covered by old files. Walking around the desk I pushed the files aside and looked down at the Yellow Pegasus mare with a pink mane, she was sitting down holding a bunny in her hooves, surrounded by an assortment of animals. On its base it said ‘Be Pleasant’ it reminded me a lot of the other one I’d gotten from Honeysuckle back at Little Hoof.

“Hey Lonely Hearts, what’s this?” I asked, looking back at him.

He looked over his shoulder, “Oh that, found it on a dead mare a long time ago. That’s the Ministry Mare Fluttershy, she used to run the Ministry of Peace. I’ve kept it around because it reminds me that things can always be better, even when times are tough.”

“I got something like this from a Filly I helped a few days ago. Do you know anything about them?”

“Not much, but I heard they’re a set, one for all six mares of The Ministries. If you want, you can have that one. It’s not doing me much good just laying around under papers all the time. If you have one, maybe you will get lucky and find the rest too,” he said getting up, picking up the Statuette and giving it to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked, taking the yellow mare into my magical field. As soon as my magic connected with it, something washed over me. I felt different in a way, almost like I could talk my way out of anything.

“Go ahead. Like I said, it’s not doing me much good now days anyway. It’d be good for her to find a new home,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you Lonely Hearts,” I placed the yellow Pegasus into my saddle bags next to Rarity.

“We should head out Shadow,” Aura said putting her talon on my shoulder.

“Yeah, I agree,” I said, looking up at her then back at Lonely Hearts, “Let me know when you find something.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” he said, looking back down at his files.

***

The four of us walked out of the detective agency slowly heading back toward the strip. I was silent for a little while, the information of what happened with my mother still stirring around inside my head. None of it made any sense, why would she become so dark? Maybe something happened to her, or maybe it was all an act. Lonely Hearts said she was with two pegasi, so maybe the information about her going to the Enclave was right.

Why would she though? What was this project she was working on that took her away from everything she loved, took her away from me? Why leave on the orders of the Elder of the Steel Rangers, leaving me behind even though she was told not to? Then she goes off to find some pegasus from Hoofington. Now she was with what sounded like The Enclave.

The Enclave, everything seemed to keep leading back to them, with my life, Stardust’s, even my mothers. What did they want with all of us, Stardust was a runaway from his Stable, I pissed off the wrong pony who was looking for my friend, and both of us had to watch out for the Sins now. But what did mom have to do with all of it? Why did she leave me all this information to follow and then turn around and want to take it all back? The only thing I could think of was that something must be hidden away on this Pip-Buck, but if that was the case then why didn’t she just come back and get it herself.

Nothing was adding up, I wanted to find out more, but how? Who could tell me more about what happened back then? The obvious answer was Auntie, but she was still in the Stable, and I couldn’t go back there. If I did, the Overmare would have me killed. I just wish there was a way to get a message to her, but as far as I knew the Overmare was the only pony who could send messages out to The Wasteland.

“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Aura said, nudging me with her wing.

I looked up at her, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to apologize, you’ve been through a lot in the past few days. I’m surprised you haven’t cracked already.”

“I thought I did back when I was trying to get back to the Steel Rangers. Who knows maybe I did. I just feel so numb and confused right now, nothing I find is adding up.”

Stardust looked back at us, “What happened to you back then wasn’t you going crazy or anything Shadow, you were trying to survive. You feel how you do right now, because you just took in a lot of information you weren’t ready for. It’ll take time for you to comprehend everything that you’ve learned, but I promise that sooner or later you’ll feel better.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“It took me a couple months to come to terms with what happened back at my stable. I know what I’m talking about,” he gave me that signature goofy Stardust Smile then kept walking on.

Wingnut slowed his walking and came up next to me, “Listen Shadow, when my parents died, I was all alone, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, then I found Little Hoof and made new friends, that is until my cutie mark showed up and I became ostracized from there, I felt alone again, but then later, you found me, albeit, I probably swallowed more than I can handle. At times, it seems like The Wasteland is out to get you, then something amazing happens and life doesn’t seem so bleak.”

Damn that kid was way to wise for his age, I ruffled his mane like Balefire used to do to me, “Thanks kiddo, you really have a way of cheering me up. You kind of remind me of an old friend of mine.”

He beamed up at me, “Was he your buck friend?”

There it is, the colt reappears with his snarky attitude, “No, he was just a friend and that’s all, just like you. We’ve already had this conversation.”

“Sure, you say that now, but one day you’ll see that I’m a strong stallion and you’ll fall head over hoof for me,” then he walked away with a masculine strut, leaving me there with my mouth wide open and Aura snickering next to me.

Trying to get my mind off my mother, and to get my friends to stop teasing, I decided to change the subject, “So where do we go from here?”

“I say, we go see if we can find any jobs to do. I mean we aren’t doing great on caps and side jobs could help us build that up, and it could help you get your mind off of the crap going on,” Aura suggested.

“Can we go back the casino and relax again, that was a lot of fun,” Wingnut added.

“I think we should find a way to deal with them,” Stardust suggested.

I looked over at him, “Deal with who?”

He pointed through the gate that lead back to The Strip at two ponies who were standing on the other side, both looking right at us. It was Gluttony and Sloth, the latter looked bored, the former looked pissed. Gluttony pointed over at me, “See, she’s right there, I’m going to eat her now.”

“Gluttony you know the rules, we can’t do anything while we’re on the Strip, you’ll have to wait until she’s outside the city,” Sloth said yawning wide.

“No, I’m not waiting. She trapped me in a room and called me mean names, she dies now,” Gluttony said walking toward me.

“I don’t think so lard ass,” Aura said, pulling out her spear.

Stardust and Wingnut pulled out their weapons too. I however just laughed, “Really? So after all that bullshit back at the stable and everything else, you’re really going to fight me here?”

Sloth yawned again and rolled his eyes, “No he’s not, honestly if we could I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“I don’t get it, why the fuck are you all after me? I can’t believe that the Enclave would put so much energy into finding me just because I’m traveling with Stardust, and because I pissed off some Enclave lackey.”

“Sloth, let me eats her,” Gluttony complained.

“Shut up Gluttony,” he said then looked back at me, “You really think we’re after you because of one insignificant solider, or because of who you’re traveling with?”

“Yeah, why else would you be after me?”

He started to laugh, “A few days ago, we got reports about a Courier Mare who used a spell that was so powerful, she blasted a giant hole in the cloud layer. The Enclave notices things like that. With the report we got from Captain Winter Frost, and what you did to the cloud layer, The Enclave high council decided you were too much of a threat. An order went out to have you eliminated, then we found out you were traveling with Stardust. The orders changed to capture and interrogate, possibly torture, then eliminate.”

Really? They wanted me dead because I blasted a hole in the clouds? It was official, I hated the stupid fucking Enclave and their idiotic paranoia. Sighing deeply, I pulled out my shotgun, “That has to be the stupidest reason I’d ever heard in my life, and trust me I’ve heard some really stupid things since I’ve gotten out into The Wasteland. I can’t take it anymore,” by the time I finished I was yelling.

Aura walked over to me and pushed my gun down, “Shadow, calm down. These idiots can’t do anything while they’re on The Strip. You can just walk away and ignore them like you did with Pride.”

Rounding on my friend I shouted in her face, “No, fuck them and their stupid Enclave. We aren’t in their stupid land, we don’t have to play by their rules. They can’t just decide they don’t like something somepony did and kill them to feel like they accomplished something. That’s bullshit, I’m done with THEM and ALL of this. I want them dead or to go away and leave me the fuck alone. I have enough to deal with.”

“I agree with you, but what can you do? You can’t just go up there and threaten them to leave you alone.”

“NO, screw that. They need to fuck off or die, just like the other assholes who tried to kill me. I’m sick of dealing with them and the idiots they keep sending after me. Especially these two imbeciles.”

“Um…Shadow,” Stardust started to say.

I rounded on him next, “What!?”

He pointed a hoof over my shoulder at Gluttony, “I think you should stop, he doesn’t look happy right now.”

I looked back at the horrible gelatinous blob of a pegasus, his face was red and his whole body was shaking. Through his clenched teeth he said, “Is the tiny pony calling me stupid?”

“No, I’m talking about the other fatass who has the IQ of whatever the dumbest monster in The Wasteland is,” I mocked, having enough of this ridiculous hunting game.

“She’s calling me Stupid! I’m not stupid, she’s stupid! I’m going to eat her!” Gluttony yelled.

“Oh Fuck. If I were you shorty I’d run,” Sloth said backing away from Gluttony.

“Fuck you too lazy ass. Why the fuck should I run away from any of you, you’re all a bunch of posers.”

“Because, I can’t control Gluttony when he gets this angry,” he said looking ready to run.

Wait…what? Before I could ask what he meant, Gluttony came at me. For a fat pony, he could move pretty fast. He grabbed me with his blubbery hooves and launched us into the air. He blasted us over the wall screaming the whole time, his forelegs were squeezing me so tight I thought my head was going to explode. We flew right over Freedom and to the outskirts near the wall that surrounded the town.

“I’m going to eats you, so you won’t call me stupid ever again!” he Screamed at me.

Okay, I don’t feel like dying at this particular moment. I jammed my horn up and under his chin, blood flew and he screamed again. I figured he’d drop me like when Aura came after me. Nope, instead he threw me toward the ground. My body slammed into something. It wasn’t quite soft, but I didn’t feel like I’d broken anything when I hit.

Moaning a little I got to my hooves, wincing as my body protested from fresh scrapes and bruises. I looked up at Gluttony and gave him my best ‘fuck you’ smile I could muster, “That all ya got, and here I thought you were supposed to strike fear into anyone who crosses your path.”

He screamed again and dove at me. Yes, he was fast, but it still took a lot to move such a large body. I was able to dodge to the side, ignoring the waves of pain running down my back and sides. I pulled out a Med-X (for all your little owies) and jammed the needle into my leg, squeezing the plunger on the end. A wave of relief ran through my body as the painkiller did its job.

Gluttony hit the ground hard and twisted around glaring at me, “No fair, you can’t be so fast after falling like that,” his high-pitched voice was really getting annoying.

I just smiled at him and pulled out my shotgun, “Oh really now, and is it fair that you grabbed me from The Strip just so you could kill me?”

“Rules said I can’t eats you there, so I took you here, no rules against that,” he said walking toward me. His wide mouth broke into a grin showing me his razor-sharp teeth. I didn’t remember them looking so sharp before, it was almost like Gator, only Gluttony had something shining around them.

“What are you anyway, how could you just eat ponies like you do?” I asked firing at him, the buckshot just rolled around him like he had some kind of shield spell, “And why can’t I shoot you?”

“Pride gave me a rock that keeps me from getting shot, and I don’t just eat ponies, I eat anything I can,” he said with savage glee drooling from his mouth.

“Yeah, you’re a special brand of nuts,” I said as I shot again, the same thing happened, Gluttony’s smile only growing.

“No, I’m not, I am Gluttony the Ravenous, 7th member of The Seven Sins of Equinity,” he said still inching toward me with every step. Wow, he can say big words, I had no idea, “You will die, I will eats you, and part of our mission will be complete.”

I knew I couldn’t beat him like I was. He was strong, STUPID, but strong. He was also fast and was able to bite through a pony’s flesh like it was butter. If he got too close to me, I’d be dead in a matter of seconds. I had to do something to even the odds. What was it that Aura told me about some drugs in the wasteland? Some could enhance your strength and speed, she also said something about them being dangerous. Well what I was facing right now was dangerous, so which was worse? Oh well, I’ll risk the drugs versus the cannibal who was trying to kill me. Shoot first, ask questions later. That seemed like a good idea.

Quickly I pulled out and injected a drug I’d found at one of the shops called Rage then followed it up with an inhaler of Dash. A burning sensation ran through my body and I roared in pleasure and pain, my vision focusing on one thing, the fat beast in front of me. I started to laugh as my perception of time seemed to slow, almost like I was entering S.A.T.S. only I could move. Oh wow could I move, I ran up to the fat, now slow moving pegasus and bucked him as hard as I could under the chin, right where I’d stabbed him with my horn. Time seemed to resume to normal, and Gluttony flew up and back from my kick.

His shield spell thing, protects him from bullets, but it didn’t seem to stop a pony’s hooves. He didn’t go far, but when he got back up he was bleeding a little, his smile now gone, “My turn.”

“Oh shit,” I said as he dashed at me, bucking me as hard as he could. Something cracked inside my chest as his hoof connected, throwing me back a lot further than he’d gone. He pounced on me and went to rip out my throat like he did in the stable, his glowing teeth burning like hot embers.

I threw my Pip-Buck up into his muzzle, his teeth came down and bit. The Pip-Buck stopped him, and a tooth cracked over its polished finish. He howled in pain and jumped off me, “That hurts, why did you do that?”

“What? Is my Pip-Buck a little too much for you to swallow?”

He screamed again and attacked, this time I was ready for him. I teleported behind him, then bucked him as hard as I could, or at least that’s what I tried to do. He jumped out of the way then whirled around and bit onto my duster pulling hard. Luckily his teeth missed my flesh, but to my horror as he pulled back, most of the armored barding ripped away mostly destroying the last gift I’d gotten from Box tape. Only a strip was left hanging over my shoulders like a short cape.

He spat out the rest and grinned again, “Look, the short one lost her armor, now I can eats you easier.”

“You stupid son of a bitch, that was a gift from a special friend of mine,” I yelled dodging his next attack.

“No more talking, it’s time for you to die,” he said charging me again, his mouth opening wide. I noticed a glowing talisman imbedded in his tongue.

I dodged as he sunk his teeth into the ground like it was butter. He spit out the clump of dirt and came at me again. I flinched expecting to get eaten alive by the monster. When I noticed that he hadn’t done anything I looked up to see Aura on top of him tearing at his face with her talons. In the distance I could see Stardust carrying Wingnut in the sky as he aimed Stardust’s rifle and fired. However, the shot missed so he fired again, another miss. He flailed as Aura thrashed his face and threw her off.

He started to look around, but there was something off. I think she blinded him, “I can’t see you… but I can smell you… and you smell delicious,” his head turned my way and he lunged forward. I dodged him again and rolled pulling out my shotgun to get a point-blank shot. When he came at me I pointed it at him and waited for the right moment.

(Crunch… Pop)

Right as I pulled the trigger he bit off the barrel of my shotgun, blasting him in the face with shrapnel. “YES!”

“OW! That really hurt!”

“No.”

I used what was left of my gun to strike him across the face hoping to stall him for another few seconds. What was I going to do? Bullets can’t hit him, I couldn’t go anywhere near his head, and to top it all off, he can take a lot of damage. Then I remembered F&F Tools. I quickly grabbed an incendiary grenade, pulled the stem, threw it his path, and ran.

It exploded, setting him ablaze as he screamed. Looking back expecting to see a screaming charred pony, what I got was one pissed off burnt pegasus. He was still on his hooves staring at me, his eyes were bleeding. His face was burnt and a good amount of his mane was gone, but his armor seemed to protect him from most of the blast.

“What the fuck does it take to kill you?” I asked taking a step back. I had nothing left to throw at him, bullets couldn’t hurt him, a fucking grenade barely hurt him, he was way too fast for something of his size, and he was strong.

“You die now!” he charged me taking me in his hooves and throwing me across the road. I hit the ground hard rolling. He came at me again, and with only a little luck, I was able to summon my teleportation spell and get behind a wall of a fallen building. Bringing up my Pip-Buck, I checked what I had that I could use to hurt this monster.

“Shadow run!” Aura yelled as she flew by me, her energy spear arching around. I watched as she flew in and slashed at Gluttony. He tried to bite the spear as it came at him, but Aura arched it up and slashed him across his face. He screamed and his hoof came up, hitting the griffon hard, throwing her back and into the wall I was hiding behind.

“Aura!”

“I’m okay, it looks like magical weapons can get past his shield. I think I blinded him,” she said weakly.

I went back around the wall, took out one of our last healing potions and gave it to her, “Drink this.”

“No, I’ll be fine, you’ll need it,” she said wincing in pain.

“No, I’m fine, you need it.”

Before she could argue more, Gluttony pounced at us, blood flying from his face as he bit down toward me. I jumped out of the way, then again as he kept coming after me, “How the fuck do you know where I am?” I asked. There was a long slash along his eyes, if he wasn’t blind before he definitely was now, but he still kept on coming.

I teleported again, staggering as I reappeared, my heart rate going up some and my vision blurring. He wasn’t moving, his ears up and his nose held in the air, “Where did you go? You can’t hide from me for long, I can smell you, and hear you.”

He could what? What else could this fucking thing do? Deciding not to risk it, I pulled up my Pip-Buck again seeing what I had to use, which sadly wasn’t much. The one gun I had left that had any ammo was useless against him, and the other one I had was that stupid toy I’d gotten from the Zebra colt.

“Hey, over here rock’s for brains,” I heard the voice of Wingnut yell. Oh fuck no. I looked over toward the gate to Freedom seeing the colt, he was pulling out his revolver and pointing it at Gluttony.

Gluttony’s ears perked up and he flew toward the Colt, his maw open. I grabbed some Dash from my bags. I took the chem and ran toward Wingnut. Before Gluttony could eat him like an appetizer, I tackled him out of the way right before Gluttony landed. Grabbing the colt with my magic, I put him on my back and ran for it, “Are you crazy Wingnut, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? I can fight too.”

“Not this guy you can’t,” I said looking around for Stardust, where the fuck did he go, I could’ve sworn he was here a second ago.

“I’m going to eats all of you!” Gluttony yelled flying after us.

There was a crack and a scream from Gluttony. Looking back, I saw the large pony was on the ground, a bloody hole in his flanks. Looking up on top of a building I saw Stardust, he was sighting down his rifle. There was a flash, and another hole appeared in Gluttony’s flank, followed by another yell. How the fuck did he do that?

Gluttony jumped to his hooves again and looked toward Stardust, his ears perked, “You shot me, I’ll eat you slow for that.”

He fired again, but this time the Bullet arched around him like all the times I tried to shoot him. What if? Using my magic I grabbed the revolver from Wingnut, ignoring his protests I pointed it at Gluttony and fired three rounds into his ass. To my amazement, they hit.

“Oh yeah! I found a blind spot! Woo hoo! Winning!” I said, jumping up and down, “Hey Stardust, his shield doesn’t work from behind.”

Aura landed next to me, she still looked worse for wear, but ready to fight, as Gluttony swung around and howled at us. Aura just chuckled a little, “Looks like we pissed off the big baby, good job Shadow.”

“Thank you,” I said pointing a hoof at Gluttony, “So what now big guy?”

He screamed at us and charged again, Aura pushed me to one side and dodged to the other. Wingnut holding on for dear life as we went flying, barely dodging Gluttony, “I’ll keep him distracted, try and shoot him as much as you can, that armor of his can’t hold up forever,” Aura yelled as she swung her energy spear at him.

For a pony who was burnt, shot up, and blind he was still putting up a good fight. He somehow dodged every strike Aura was throwing at him. I kept shooting at him with Wingnut’s revolver, but it wasn’t doing as well as my shotgun would. That combat armor he had was strong stuff. Stardust, he was doing much better, he must’ve had Armor Piercing Rounds in his rifle, because every shot he took punched holes in the armor, blood flying with each shot.

Aura dodged another attack, tried to stab him in the chest, then Gluttony moved with his insane speed again. In a flash his mouth came up and bit down on Aura’s wing. She screamed as she fell to the ground blood flying from the appendage.

I had no idea what I could do, if I didn’t act quick Aura’s wing would be gone, or worse. Wingnut acted quicker than I did, he reached into my saddle bags and pulled out a grenade with a dark blue band on it and tossed it at Gluttony, and yelled, “Stop using your magic!”

Having no idea what he was talking about, I did so. I dropped my magical field around the revolver. A second later the grenade went off, and a flash of blue and green light flew around all of us. For a moment I thought nothing happened, I felt fine, and nopony seemed to be dead. Then I noticed Gluttony, he was just standing there, his muzzle open. He dropped Aura’s wing and was looking around in confusion.

“What happened? Why can’t I smell you anymore?” he said.

“What did you do Wingnut?”

“Magical disruption grenade, I found it while I was digging in your saddle bags, figured it might stop whatever was making him so tough,” he said simply, jumping off my back, “The effects won’t last for long though.”

Picking up the revolver with my muzzle I hit S.A.T.S. and fired three more shots into Gluttony. Two hit his neck and the third missed, a shot rang out from above us as the targeting spell ended, and blood flew from Gluttony’s legs. He fell to the ground with a roar of renewed pain, blood was starting to pool under him.

I ran over to check on Aura, “Are you okay?”

“Stop asking me that, I’ll be fine, he just chewed up my wing was all. A couple healing potions and I’ll be fine.”

I looked over at Gluttony as he lied in a growing pool of his own blood and asked, “What are you?”

He giggled a little, “I told you before dumb dumb, I’m Gluttony the Ravenous, 7th member of The Seven Sins of Equinity. I eats ponies, I was punished for it, now I eats ponies for The Enclave. This won’t kill me, soon I’ll be up and I’ll eats all of you.”

A sharp pain erupted in the back of my mind and the voice of Morning Star said softly, “If you don’t kill him, he’ll be back. You got lucky this time, but what about next time? You can’t let him live.”

I shook my head doing my best to ignore her words, but I still picked up Aura’s Energy Spear and pointed it at him, “Why are you really after Stardust and me?”

He didn’t answer, he just started to giggle. Stardust landed next to me, his rifle slung over his shoulder, “Don’t kill him Shadow, we need to see what we can learn from him.”

“If we let him live, he’ll come after us again, I can’t let that happen.”

“Shadow, there’s always another way. Gluttony could tell us a lot about the Sins, and what they were sent here to do. Let’s stop the bleeding and get him out of here before Sloth decides to stop being a lazyass and come find us,” he argued.

Morning Star pushed at the back of my mind again, “You know what will happen if you let him live, he’ll kill all of you, he’s dangerous.”

What should I do? Who am I to decide who lives and dies? He was just a pony who was sent to kill us, but he wasn’t dangerous right now. We could learn a lot, Stardust was right about that. After seeing what he could do, what if he did kill us? I couldn’t let that happen, I wouldn’t lose my friends because of one pony’s information. He was a fat ignorant slob. What could he tell us anyway? It was just like with Night Stalker the day he killed that Zebra, Gluttony was scum and would only tell us lies.

My horn glowed brighter, “Fuck you fatass, you’re useless to us, but you can serve as a message to your friends not to mess with us,” and before Stardust could stop me, I pressed the glowing spear through Gluttony’s left eye and out the back of his head.

He twitched and let out a soft breath. He died slowly, falling away from the glowing spear as what remained of his life slipped away. I flicked the blood off and looked over at Stardust as he started to shout at me, “What the fuck was that Shadow!? You didn’t have to kill him, he could have had useful information!”

“He was the enemy. He would’ve only told us lies.”

“How do you know that; do you know how hard it is to capture one of them alive?”

I reeled on him, “I’m not going let a freak like him live, you didn’t see what he could do back in the Stable. I don’t care what you think he knows, he needed to die.”

Stardust looked like he was ready to explode, then out of nowhere a rock hit him in the back of the head, followed by Wingnut saying, “Would both of you stop fighting. Stardust, you can’t change what happened, and you have to admit, Shadow has a point. He was a blithering idiot.”

My friend looked back at the colt rubbing the back of his head, then he sighed, “Fine, she has a point, but it still wasn’t right. I agree we can’t keep fighting like this. We’ll talk about this later Shadow.”

“Fine with me, now can we see what he has on him and get back to Freedom Town before Sloth shows up, or worse?”

Stardust just nodded his head, not looking me in the eyes. I walked over and searched for anything Gluttony had on him. On the side of his armor there was a pocket with a recording in it, and a note. Taking both of them and slipping them into my saddle bags I returned to my friends. Aura was looking better, she was just picking up her spear, Wingnut was watching me, and Stardust was ignoring me.

I walked over to him and tapped his shoulder, “Hey, I’m sorry I upset you, but could you not ignore me.”

Glancing over at me he said, “I’m just upset is all, but I figure I can’t stay mad forever, I’m just disappointed.”

“I know you are, but I had my reasons. Can we at least call a truce and head back? You’re still my friend Stardust, and I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“I guess, for now I’ll let the matter drop. So, where to next?”

We all started to head back to the gate into Freedom, I took a minute to think, “Like I was saying before, I think I’m going to hold off on searching for my Mom. I need to look at those memory orbs and think more about what happened to her. For now we should head to the Queen’s.”

He looked at me a little confused, “Why would we go see them?”

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell him about the Queen’s message, I smiled a little sheepishly, “Um, well you see The Queen herself kinda helped me back when I ran into Wrath, she told me to let you know that she wanted to see you as soon as possible.”

He stopped for a moment, “Wait a sec, when did she tell you this?”

“Couple days ago.”

“And you’re just telling me this now? The fuck kind of Courier are you, you can’t even give a message to somepony on time.”

“Hey I had a lot of things going on if you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah like getting drunk and fucking that singer.”

Before I could retort to his comment Aura punched him in the back of the head, “Hey, watch it cloud breath you don’t need to bring that up.”

“Hey that hurt bird brain.”

No, I’m not going through this again, “Both of you shut up!” Then I looked at Stardust, “Yes I forgot to tell you, I’m sorry, now let’s get going,” I said walking past both of them and toward the gate, Wingnut close behind.

“Sometimes I think I’m the only mature one of this group,” The colt said keeping stride with me.

“Those two can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to arguing. For some reason Stardust doesn’t trust or like Griffons. It could be something he learned from living in his Stable, I’m not sure. He’s never explained it to me before. Aura just doesn’t like him because he’s an ass to her,” I explained moving past the gate and back into Freedom.

“Why don’t you just let them go at it? Maybe one good fight and they’ll stop arguing all the time.”

“The last time they fought, they almost killed each other. I’m not going to risk that again. What they really need is to sit down and talk out their differences.”

Wingnut laughed a little, “That’ll never work, we used to try doing that with some of the colts and fillies back at Little Hoof. They always ended up calling each other names and fighting anyway.”

“Yeah the ponies in Little Hoof are foals, those two are semi-mature adults. If they can’t figure out their differences, then I’ll make them.”

“Why would they listen to you?”

“Because I’m the leader, isn’t that how things work?”

“Maybe if you were running a town, but both of them are older than you. Yeah they both follow you, Aura because she’s under contract and Stardust because he’s bored…or something. Point is, they both see you as a new Wastelander fresh from a stable, in their eyes you’re just a filly trying to get by and lead,” he said a little wisely. Damn this kid was way too smart for his age.

“You have a point, but I’m still grown up, and I’m sure they’ll listen to me if I put my hoof down.”

“Maybe where you’re from you are, but out here you’re still young. I mean hell you’re only a couple years older than I am, and look how they treat me.”

I stopped for a moment looking back at the Colt, “How did you know that?”

“What? Your age? I just did the math, it wasn’t hard really once I started to hear your story from you and Stardust. What I really mean is, if you want them to listen you have to act like the leader, you can’t just go around telling them to stop. The Mayor back at Little Hoof, he would listen to the problems of the foals around him and figure out the best way to resolve the differences with anypony who needed it. He would rarely yell or threaten us with anything unless he had to, and only as a last resort.”

“You know I never thought about it that way. Thanks Wingnut, I’ll try to see if I can figure out what the problem is with both of them and resolve the differences between them,” I said with a smile, “How are you so smart?”

He shrugged a little, “When I first got to Little Hoof, the mayor put me in charge of some of the younger foals. I had to grow up a little when that happened, he always said I was destined to be a future leader,” he stopped for a moment and looked back at his flanks, “Then I got my cutie mark, and I had to leave.”

I smiled a little, “You’re definitely a tougher kid than I was. Before I left the stable all I did was hang out with my friends, and slept in most of the day. I didn’t do much of anything. Even when I was in class I’d ignore most of what our teacher had to say and just felt sorry for myself because I was the only unicorn in a stable.”

“Nah, you’re a lot stronger than you think Shadow. I mean hell, most ponies from a stable like you wouldn’t have lasted two days in The Wasteland. You might not know much about how things work out here, but you try and learn. It’s amazing what you’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. So don’t sell yourself short,” He said then he trotted past me and up to the neon building that was home to The Queen’s Gang.

I was about to walk in when Stardust and Aura both blocked my way, “Okay, what’s up now?” I asked giving them both a funny look.

Aura spoke first, “Listen, we’re both sorry about what happened back there. You know we don’t get along, and after seeing you getting taken away again, and having to fight by yourself like that. We both kind of panicked and lost our cool.”

“Yeah, we wanted to say sorry Shadow, for being stupid. We’ll do our best not to fight, at least not in front of you.” Stardust added.

I just smiled and shook my head, “No, I’m sorry for yelling at both of you so much about it. Yeah I get it, you both don’t get along and really I don’t understand why. Maybe someday I will, I’d like to, so we can all continue on with our life and not have to worry so much about walking on eggshells. So sometime soon, I want all three of us to sit down and talk this out, can we do that?”

They both looked at one another then finally they both nodded and said in unison, “Agreed.”

“Good, let’s head inside and see what The Queen wanted. Oh and try not to eavesdrop too much next time, I’m NOT having a conversation with either of you,” I said pushing the door open followed by my friends.

The entry was not what I expected from what the outside looked like. It was just a plain entryway, with a receptionist desk and a couple doors on each side. A few of the mares and stallions I’d seen before when they helped me with Wrath were chilling around the room, talking with one another and drinking. One of the stallions saw us walking in and came over to us.

“Welcome, to the Queen’s school of Interpretation. What brings y’all here?”

“The Queen herself asked us to stop by, she wanted to meet with my friend Stardust and said she might have a job for me.”

“A ratty thing like you has business with The Queen? I find that a little hard to believe.”

I looked back at my ripped-up duster and barding along with my mane (Which was still down) and the marks I had all over me from my fight with Gluttony, then I smiled, “Yeah, I’m Shadow Star, The Courier Mare from the radio.”

To my shock he just gave me a sardonic look and said, “If you want to see the Queen it’ll be fifty caps, that’s the toll for getting past the front room.”

I smiled and said as sweetly as I could, “Now, don’t tell me a nice Stallion like yourself is trying to hustle caps out of a mare like me. I mean I’d hate for The Queen to find out that you were asking for caps from her guest and you wouldn’t want to keep her waiting, would you?”

He blushed a little and stuttered, “Well, I uh…no I wouldn’t want to do anything like that…I…guess it’s okay just this one time.”

“Thanks, where’s she at?”

“She’s in the other room to your left,” he said backing up and walking away blushing fiercely.

“Damn Shadow, didn’t know you could talk your way around a buck like that,” Aura commented looking over at the blushing stallion who was now sitting in one corner doing his best not to look my way.

“How do you think I keep Stardust around?” I teased walking toward the door.

“It’s true, she gives me those puppy dog eyes and I can’t say no,” he laughed following me.

“What about me? She didn’t use any puppy dog eyes to get me to follow her,” Wingnut threw in.

“That’s because you got a crush on her when she saved you and you couldn’t help yourself. Especially when you got an eyeful of something you’ve probably only seen in a burnt up porno mag,” Aura said laughing as the colt blushed.

After a giggle session, I pushed the door open and walked into the next room. The Queen was sitting at a table in the center of the room, watching as a mare sing a song about love and loss up on the stage, she was tapping her hoof on the table matching the beat to the music humming to herself a little.

As we approached she looked over and gave me a big smile, “Well look what the cat dragged in, if it isn’t the Courier Mare herself, took you a while to finally pay me a visit.”

“Sorry about that, been a little busy dealing with the typical Wasteland drama.”

“I see ya brought Dusty along with ya and a couple others. Who might your friends be?” she asked turning in her seat to look at Aura and Wingnut.

“This is Aura, she’s my bodyguard and friend, and Wingnut is a colt that we found in the woods being attacked by bugs.”

They both nodded toward the Queen, and she nodded back, “Nice to see ya found your friends, have ya had much trouble since I last saw you?”

Stardust spoke up, “It’s good to see you Queen, and yes, she has. Shadow has a tendency to find trouble wherever she goes. We just got back into town after killing a member of the Sins.”

The music stopped as The Queen got a horrified look on her face, “Ya did what!? Dusty tell me you’re kidding around with me.”

“He’s not, we just got into a fight with Gluttony. Him and Sloth cornered us back in The Strip, Gluttony went nuts and attacked me then carried me outside of town trying to kill me. We had to do something, so after a bit of a fight I was able to kill him. Honestly, I say good riddance, he was creep and dumb as a sack of hammers,” I said, unsure what the big deal was. The Sins seemed to be a problem around here and killing one of them should knock them down a notch.

“Damn, that ain’t good news. If ya’ll killed a member of the Sins, ya ain’t gonna scare them away. You’ll only make them come after ya harder. Ya’ll got lucky ya only had to fight one of them. Most of the time they fight in pairs or more. Dammit Shadow, do you know what you did?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is. Yeah, he was hard to fight, but only because he got the drop on me. I was able to kill HIM. How hard can the REST of them be?”

She facehoofed, “Shadow darlin’, Gluttony was the 7th member of the Sins. He was the weakest by far, but he was still one of them and they make sure to kill anypony who takes down one of their own. Ya’ll just jumped to the top of their kill list.”

Ah fuck, Gluttony was the Weakest member of the Sins? That had to be a load of horse apples. He was one tough motherfucker. If he was really the weakest, then what were the others like? I gave a weak smile, “Um…so any chance they’d overlook an ignorant Stable mare, and if not, then do you have any advice?”

She sighed then looked over at Stardust, “Remember when they were coming after you a couple months back Dusty?”

“I sure do, it was hell for me for a while there.”

“What did I tell ya tah do tah get away from them?” she asked.

“You told me to run as far from this place as I could.”

She looked back at me, “That’s the only advice I can give ya. Pride and the others are from Stratus, a cloud city northeast of here. They mostly stay near New Pegasus and don’t wander far unless they’re ordered to. You’ll have to do what Dusty did. You’ll have to either leave the city and get as far away as you can, or hide on the Strip until they decide you aren’t worth the trouble. Gluttony was stupid to attack ya there and fly you out of the city like he did, the rest of them wouldn’t dare do something that stupid. Topsy’s probably more pissed than a shaken Cazador nest right about now.”

“So you want me to run away?”

“I don’t, but it’s the best thing you can do if ya don’t wanna meet your demise anytime soon,” she said, “Unless ya wanna do a job for me that is?”

“How would doing a job for you, help me stay safe from them?”

“It’s simple honey, I need ya tah go take care of a few things for me that’re west of the city. It’ll take ya a while tah do and keep ya’ll away from them for the time being. I know a town of sorts up in the mountains that no one in The Enclave would ever go to.”

Before I could answer her, a loud boom came from the front room. In seconds The Queen was on her hooves, another second later one of the gang poked his head through the door, “Queen, Pride’s here to see you.”

“Damn, I wonder what he wants,” she said looking over at me, “Head up to my quarters, I’ll take care of Pride and then we can finish talking.”

She walked out shutting the door behind her. I could hear her talking on the other side of the door, “Pride honey, now why did you have to go and blow my front door off. That’s mighty rude of ya, and ain’t too neighborly.”

“Where is she Queen? I know she came this way,” Pride’s voice said from behind the door.

“Who would ya be referring to?”

“The Courier Mare, you know who I’m talking about Queen. Tell me where she is before I find her myself.”

The rest of the conversation was drowned out as the Mare who was singing before walked over, “Follow me, I’ll show you to the Queen’s room. You really should let her handle Pride, she knows how to calm him down.”

“It’s a good idea Shadow, let’s hide for now, trust me on that.” Stardust said turning to follow the mare, “Copper Pipe, it’s been ages since I’ve seen you. How have you been?”

We followed her as she led us through another door and up a couple flights of stairs as she talked to Stardust, “I’ve been great Dusty, it’s nice to see you back in town. I wish you were here last month, you missed a good shipment we stole from the Van Damns, they never saw it coming.”

“Damn, I missed a raid on those assholes? I always miss the fun. What happened after? I bet Missy was pissed.”

“She was, but The Queen reminded her that this is OUR town and we don’t let ponies just come in with a ton of energy weapons without letting us know about it.”

“Those wannabes deserve it. They think they’re all that, but they’ve got nothing on The Queens,” he said laughing with her. It was almost like he was flirting.

We got to a large room with a heart shaped bed in it, a desk in one corner, and two doors on each side of the room. Copper Pipes smiled, “You can wait here till The Queen’s done. I’m gonna go back downstairs and pretend I’m taking a break from singing so Pride doesn’t get suspicious.”

“This place isn’t half bad,” Aura said walking over and laying down on the large heart shaped bed yawning, “I could use a rest after that fight.”

“Hey Griffon don’t just go laying in her bed like that,” Stardust said looking horrified that Aura would dare sleep in a gang leaders bed.

“Eh, who cares? It’s just a bed.” Aura said closing her eyes as shouting echoed up from downstairs. The words were unintelligible but I could tell they weren’t polite.

Ignoring my friends, I started walking around the room to look at the various knick-knacks The Queen had. It was then I noticed a terminal on the desk, and there was a display case on the wall next to it with the most beautiful Pistol I’d ever seen inside. It had a long barrel with engravings running down the handle, it was dark blue with dark purple markings along the barrel. In the middle of the barrel there was a gem that had a slight glow to it. I wanted to hold the gun so bad. I tried to open the case and grab it, just so I could look more closely at the engravings. Sadly, the case was locked. Frustrated I looked at the terminal.

I was sure The Queen wouldn’t want me looking at the terminal, but I tried to at least log in. Of course it was locked too, “For fuck sake! I just wanna look at it!”

Wingnut looked over at me, “You okay Shadow?”

“Why does everything always have to be locked? I can’t even hack into this thing or pick the lock because I really don’t want The Queen to be mad at me for doing it.”

Stardust cut off his bickering with Aura, “What? That Terminal and Gun case? The Queen’s been wanting that open for years, but she can’t find a key and doesn’t have the talent to open things like you do.”

I brightened up a little, “You mean if I got into this terminal and gun case, she wouldn’t mind?”

“If you got that thing open I’d let you keep the damned thing,” The Queen said from the door, making me jump.

I looked over at her, “Really? What happened with Pride?”

“He left in a big huff. I told him I wasn’t gonna hand you over and that I didn’t care one bit what he thinks he can do in my town. Tomorrow I’m gonna send a message to Mr. Tops and tell him I don’t want the Sins hunting down anypony in Freedom anymore. I’m sick of dealing with them,” she said walking over to her bed and looked down at the resting griffon, “Looks like someone made themselves at home.”

“Yeah, this thing is comfortable.” Aura said with her eyes still closed.

The Queen put a hoof under the griffon and tossed her across the room. Damn she’s strong. Stardust started to laugh as Aura glared over at her. Hiding my own snicker, I walked over to her as she sat on the bed.

“So, would you really let me have that gun if I was able to get it open?”

“I’ve got no use for it. The terminal’s been here since I moved in, same for that display case. I’ve got myself a nice pistol and don’t have any use for that one. Let’s just call it payment if ya do the job I want done,” she said as she gazed over at the beautiful pistol.

I walked back over to the case and pulled out my bobby pins. I worked on the lock as The Queen started to talk. Aura walked over and sat next to me trying to hide her scowl at being forced away from her nap.

“Let me start with you Dusty. I wanted tah talk with ya a couple days ago, but from what I heard ya already know about the Sins trying tah find ya again.”

“I had a feeling that’s what you wanted when Shadow told me you wanted to meet. I figured it’s been so long, they wouldn’t be bothering with New Pegasus anymore.”

“I thought so too, but something happened recently that’s got the Enclave all riled up. We haven’t seen the Sins in a couple months, then a few days ago Pride and Wrath started showing up in Freedom and sightings of the others started up not long after. When I first ran into The Courier Mare the other day, it was the first time I heard they were looking for ya’ll.”

Wingnut was sitting next to Stardust listening intently. After she finished talking he asked, “Why are they after Shadow and Stardust anyway? Where I’m from we heard about them now and then, but I always figured it was a ghost story. You know just like how you hear that Pinkie Pie will get you in the middle of the night if you’re bad or break a Pinkie Pie promise.”

She smiled down at the colt, “I honestly ain’t sure, The Enclave isn’t big on letting ponies on the surface know what they’re really after or why,” she sighed then looked over at me again as I worked on the lock, damn this thing is hard. I’ve already gone through six bobby pins, “Do ya know what ya’ll could’ve done to piss off The Enclave enough to come after ya like they are?”

“No idea, all I know is that a few days back they attacked me at the old F&F Tools factory. They were also looking for Stardust, they said he was an escaped prisoner and dangerous. They wanted me to give them information on him. I thought it was stupid and told them as much. I ended up getting into a firefight with them and killed a few. After I got helped by some Mysterious Pony I escaped and didn’t run into them again,” I said as I slowly turned the screwdriver. The lock was almost turned, (Snap) “Fuck!”

“Did anything else happen between that and when ya’ll got tah New Pegasus?”

“I got into a fight with some griffons from the Red Talons, blew a hole in the clouds with a spell, fought some Cazadores, and saved Wingnut,” I took out my last bobby pin and started on the lock again.

“Wait a minute. What was that about blowing a hole in the clouds?” The Queen asked.

“Yeah, you didn’t say anything about that before,” Stardust said looking over at me.

“I thought I did. When we were under attack, I kinda went a little nuts. It’s hard to explain, but in the end one of my spells blew a big hole in the clouds,” I explained giving the lock one last small twist, then, (Click) “Ha, I win bitch!”

I opened the lock and took the pistol out of the case marveling at its beauty. It looked like it was intended for an earth pony or a Pegasus, the muzzle grip had a padded trigger. I pulled out the mag and found it empty, but whatever ammo it used it was big. The case must’ve been enchanted because the gun looked like it’d been freshly maintained, it even smelled like it was oiled recently.

Ignoring the triumphant look on my face, The Queen facehoofed, “That’d explain it. You opened the cloud cover. Stable ponies don’t know nothin’.”

I gave her a quizzical look, “What? From what the Steel Rangers told me, the clouds were back in a half hour or so. What’s the big deal?”

Aura sighed, “The Enclave uses that cloud cover like a shield. It keeps the normal pegasi from going down to the surface and same for keeping ponies down here from knowing what’s going on up there.”

“Not to mention ya blew a hole right where the border to Stratus is. I’m sure that’s got a lot to do with why they’re huntin’ ya’ll,” The Queen added.

“I wasn’t trying to blow a hole in the sky, I was trying to not to kill another griffon.”

Aura gave me a funny look, “You killed griffons while you were out there too?”

“Well…I killed one, but I wasn’t in my right mind, and they were trying to kill me so…self-defense.”

She got a concerned look, “I heard that a couple griffons died during the attack, since I didn’t talk with Apollo I had no idea who it was.”

It was then I remembered Apollo saying something about killing his son during the attack. Apollo was Aura’s father. Oh goddesses, I killed Aura’s brother. Looking back at her I frowned, “Apollo said something during the fight about the griffon I killed being his son.”

For some reason, Aura almost looked relieved, “That moron, fuck. I mean yeah hell he was family, but he was as dumb as a sack of brahmin manure. I’m surprised he brought him on a mission like that. Normally he’s kept behind as back up.”

“Wait a sec, you’re not pissed I killed your brother?” I asked in confusion.

“I’m not happy about it, but I’m not pissed. That’s life, you fuck up, you die. Honestly the only reason no one else has killed him before, is because Apollo kept him back like I said. He might’ve been family, but he died doing his job, that’s the best way for a griffon to go down.”

“Okay then,” I said looking back toward the Queen and the others, “So back to what we were talking about. So because I blew a hole in the sky and pissed off Winter Frost, the big bad Enclave wants me dead?”

“To put it lightly yeah, and because you’re with Stardust. He’s been on the run for a while now and they’ll find any reason they can to get information on his whereabouts. I can’t tell ya more than that, The Queen’s don’t deal much with them if we can help it.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but anyway, I can’t do much right now to get them to leave me alone. I think it’s a good idea to take you up on whatever job offer you have for me. If it can get us away from the danger for the time being, then I’m game,” I said still looking over the gun, “Oh but before I leave to do anything I need to see if I can find a pony called Nexus.”

“Wait, who’s Nexus?” Aura asked.

“Nexus is a terminal and Pip-Buck Expert. He travels around helping ponies with this n’ that and sets up security for some towns,” The Queen said, “How’d ya hear about him?”

“Somepony calling himself Watcher told me he could help me out with unlocking some files on my Pip-Buck,” I slipped the gun into my saddle bags and a notification came up on my Pip-Buck.

Legendary Weapon Acquired,

Dream Walker,

Weapon has a 30% chance of the round exploding on contact.

I looked at my Pip-Buck confused, “What’s a Legendary weapon? How does it know what that even is, and what makes it Legendary?”

Wingnut walked over to me looking at my Pip-Buck, he reached over and selected the weapon on the Pip-Buck, “This looks like it’s a special weapon, let me take a look at it.”

I pulled the gun back out and handed it to him, “What do you know about guns?”

“I’ve read almost every copy Guns and Bullets that I could get my hooves on,” he said taking the gun and looking it over, “Wow, this is a .50 Cal. Desert Eagle Luna Edition. They were a special weapon made during the war by Iron Shod Fire Arms along with F&F Tools. They were first issued to high ranking members of the royal army. The Luna Edition had a gem placed into it that would at times enchant a bullet to do different things, this one looks like it makes the bullet explode when it hits a target, but it’s random.”

He handed the gun back to me, “Damn, you do know a lot when it comes to guns huh?”

“I like to read, and knowing what different weapons do and how they work helps keep you alive,” he said pulling out his revolver, “Like my Revolver, it’s a .44 Cal. Bull Barrel Revolver. It’s nothing special but not an easy gun to find, especially for a colt like myself.”

I looked at my new gun in awe, then checked my Pip-Buck. Sure enough I had some .50 caliber ammo. I pulled it out and loaded Dream Walker, “I wonder how my Pip-Buck knows it’s called Dream Walker. It’s just like how it knew the name of Ol’ Festus.”

“Ponies that have a special bond with a weapon will name them from time to time. I’m not sure how, but a Pip-Buck just happens to know what those names are. Something to do with their internal magic.”

The Queen got off her bed and walked over to me, “Like I said it’s payment for the job I have for ya, plus I’ll throw in some caps too.”

“Yeah, that’ll work out fine. What did you need me to do?”

“Well funny enough, ya said ya need tah find Nexus. It just so happens I know where he is, and where I need you tah go, ya’ll should run into him.”

I frowned a little, “I was told he was in New Pegasus.”

“Normally he is, but like I said before he goes around to other towns and helps out with different things. He never stays in one place too long. He’s a friend of mine and when I last saw him he said he was heading to a town up in the hills called Frosty Summit. It used tah be a ski lodge before the war.”

“What’s he doing up there? Does he know what’s up in those hills?” Stardust said giving the Queen a funny look.

“Course he does,” she said looking over at my friend.

“What’s up there?” I asked, having a little Deja Vu of Stable 9.

“Alicorns,” Stardust said.

“Alicorns? You mean like the Goddesses?” I found that hard to believe. They weren’t alive anymore, their souls ascended making them the Goddesses I knew now.

“Not Exactly like Celestia and Luna,” Aura interrupted, “They’re creatures that you see more back east. I’ve run into them a couple of times when traveling with Trip-Wire, they’re very hard to kill. They have this thing about getting all ponies to join something called Unity.”

“Yep, they’re monsters. But the ones up in Frosty Summit ain’t like the ones I’ve heard about back east, they don’t bother anypony and they seem to be tame,” The Queen Said, “Nexus said he wanted tah go up there tah ask them some questions and help them with setting up turrets to help protect them from NLR or The Steel Rangers and whatever else comes knockin’ at their door that don’t wanna ask for a cup of sugar. He didn’t tell me much else.”

“I’m not sure you can ever trust one of those things. I ran into a few of them when I first escaped my stable, I was lucky I got away alive,” Stardust said.

“I’m not sure myself, but I know some of the Talons have dealt with the ones up in Frosty Summit before. They told me that they’re strange, even for alicorns.” Aura said.

“Well whatever they are, why do you need us to go there?” I asked.

“Simple really, there’s a pony that’s hiding out up there. He’s a new Dashite from what I’ve heard. I want ya’ll tah go find him and see if he’d be willing tah come here tah Freedom and talk with me?”

“Why would you want a Dashite to come talk with you?”

“Easy, Dashites know a lot about what’s going on up in the clouds and the information is always good for helping me keep my city safe. I at least need ya tah talk with him and tell him my offer. I can also help keep him safe if he comes here.”

“I can’t see how it can hurt to at least give him your message.”

She smiled at me, “Good, but that’s not all I need ya tah do. I’ve been hearing rumors about an underground fighting arena going on in the sewers just north of the city. I know some strange ponies set up a town down there, but the idea of a fighting pit worries me.”

“Why? I mean it’s not like ponies fighting for money is that big of a deal,” Aura asked.

“It does when I’m hearing that this fighting pit is using Slaves and Monsters from The Wasteland. I need tah know if the rumors are true and if so, it needs tah be stopped. It’s too close tah freedom, and I can’t have that kind of ruckus so close tah us,” The Queen said, “I’ll throw in an extra two thousand caps if ya’ll get this done for me.”

I took a moment to think about it, “Are you sure they’re using slaves?”

“From what I’ve heard yeah, but I have no proof. If I did I’d send my own ponies there tah take care of buisness, but if the rumors turn out to be false I can’t have it look like my gang is moving on other settlements outside of Freedom.”

I looked over at my companions, “What do you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think Shrimp, but I don’t like the idea of slaves. If there’s even a small chance they’re using them, then I say let’s go check it out,” Aura said.

“I hate agreeing with her, but I think she’s right,” Stardust added.

Wingnut just shrugged, “I’m not staying behind, so I don’t care where we go.”

“Ok then I guess we’re in.”

“Glad tah hear it,” she said with a smile, “Oh and one last thing. When you’re done with Frosty Summit, swing by Crimson Canyon south of there. I have a request letter for the Red Talons I need delivered.”

Aura’s face grew dark, “No way. We aren’t going anywhere near there. Even if I did want to go back home, I’ve been banished. I’m not aloud near there.”

“Normally that’s true darlin’, but aren’t you under contract with Shadow?” The Queen asked.

“I am. So what?”

“If I know the rules of your former talon company right, then there’s a little ol’ loophole around banishment. If you’re under contract and your pony has work up that way, then ya can go with. See? Loophole.”

“Yeah, that’s a small loophole and not one I really wanna risk. I Also don’t wanna go back to that place. I haven’t earned my way back into the group yet, and if they see me coming back with another mare…” she stopped for some reason.

Looking back at my friend I asked, “What’s wrong? What does traveling with a mare have to do with your banishment?”

“Nothing…just, I don’t wanna go. That’s all Shadow.”

“I know you don’t and I really don’t want to make you, but apart from The Queens Request, Apollo asked me to stop by and meet with the rest of the leaders of the Talon Company. I was planning on going soon anyway, I’d like to have you with me to watch my back just in case something happens.”

“Shadow, you don’t know what it’ll be like for me going back home. It could hurt me in the long run.”

“How about we try and make it as quick of a visit as we can, and if it helps I won’t let anyone there give you any trouble. You’re my friend and you work for me too. If they don’t like that then whatever Apollo wants with me, he’ll have to wait until he can get the rest of them to accept you.”

She smiled a little at me, “You’d really do that for me?”

“Of course I would. What’re friends for?”

“Fine, we’ll go, but let’s make it as fast of a trip as possible.”

“I agree. I don’t wanna spend too much time around more griffons. Being around Aura is hard enough as it is,” Stardust said.

“Good, now all I have to do is figure out a way to fix my Duster or at least get new armor and we can be on our way.”

“Good tah know,” The Queen said walking over and adding three markers to my Pip-Buck, “There, now I suggest ya’ll head out. I’ll have some of my ponies escort ya out of town. Oh and you’ll need this,” she gave me a small package.

“Thanks, and what about the rest of the payment?”

“You’ll get that once you’re outta town. As for your armor, try talking to one of the caravans, they’re always wandering around outside of town. I’m sure one of them will have something that can help ya.”

“Okay, then lets go,” I said looking back at my friends.

“Finally,” Stardust said then looked over at The Queen, “It was good to see you Queen. Thanks again for the heads up.”

“Don’t be a stranger Dusty,” she said giving him a smile and a wink, “Remember, you’re always welcome in Freedom.”

We were about to leave, when the door to The Queen’s office flew open and in walked the weird buck from the pool, only now he was dressed in one of the Queen’s Gang leather jackets. His mane was done up and forward, he looked around the room saying in his oddly masculine voice, “Sis, I heard somethin’ about Pride making a ruckus earlier…” then he paused his covered eyes falling on Stardust, “Well look what breezed in the door and crawled back to Sugar Buck.”

“Oh no, no no no no no no no! Why the fuck is he here?” Stardust said hiding behind me and pointing at the other buck.

In a flash the buck was behind me as well, his nose inches from Stardust’s, “We meet again beautiful, I told ya that ya couldn’t resist Sugar Buck. I’m gonna wrangle you like a rhinestone cowbuck. How about I treat you to some sugar, sugar.”

“Oh, who’s your friend there Stardust? You never told me you had a buck friend,” Aura Teased.

“Shut up, before I cut off your digits and feed them to the mutated squirrels.”

“Sugar Buck honey, don’t tease my guests,” Queen said looking over toward Sugar Buck.

“C’mon Sis, ya know I like a buck with wings,” Sugar Buck said then turned to look Stardust in the eye, “I’m gonna call ya Baby Blue.”

“I know, but they were just on their way out. I’ve got work for that mare there, she’s the Courier Mare from the radio.”

He looked over at me and went from eye-raping my friend to being in front of me, “Good Goddesses. Are you really the Courier Mare?”

“Uhhh…yeah...”

“It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve been following you since that first report a couple weeks ago. Can I ask you a question though?”

“Sure,” I said trying to back away from him as politely and discretely as possible.

“What did ya do to your mane honey? Last time I saw ya it was done up in a braid. Now it’s all beat up and dirty. It’s a crime against nature.”

It was then that I remembered that I never got my mane ties back from Wingnut. I glared over at the colt who only smiled at me, “What? I think it still looks good.”

“Kiddo, don’t tell a mare what looks good when it comes to her mane, wardrobe, or mood. Not unless you’re a pony like me.”

“But she does look good. At least she did before her fight with that fat pegasus.”

“Wingnut. Give them back,” I said sweetly.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll make Aura get them back for me,” I responded giving him an evil smile.

“Can’t do that, sorry boss. I don’t hurt children, it’s in the contract and I kind of agree with him.”

What good is a dangerous griffon mercenary, when you can’t use her to get your stuff back from an evil brat? I sighed and looked over at Sugar Buck, “Any chance you can help me out somehow?”

“Honey. For you, Sugar Buck is at your service anytime,” he said.

***

An hour later, we were leaving Freedom. Sugar Buck I came to find out wasn’t that bad of a Pony, he was just really excitable. It seemed once he had something to concentrate on, he didn’t bother Stardust as much. Though he did keep glancing over at my friend, giving him goofy looks, and he did flex his muscles a little. Now my mane was clean and done up in its normal braid, it turned out Sugar Buck’s Special Talent was fixing manes and tails. He gave me a new set of mane ties, much to the dismay of Wingnut. Now he was escorting us out of town with a couple other ponies from the Queen’s Gang.

Stardust was following close to me doing his best to keep me between Sugar Buck and himself, keeping his eyes forward he said, “I had no idea The Queen had a brother.”

“She doesn’t go around telling many ponies about me, and I do the same. The Gang knows who I am and that’s all that matters,” he said as we walked through the north gate, “This is as far as we can bring ya Honey. Be careful, you’re still close enough to the city that those nasty Sins might come after ya still. Once you’re in the Sewers though, you should be safe.”

“Thanks Sugar Buck, it was nice to meet you.”

“Same to you Honey. Make sure you come back soon, and bring him with ya.” He said giving me a smile, then he blew a kiss at Stardust who ducked behind me.

Aura was doing her best to hide her giggles, “Stardust aren’t you going to give your buck a kiss.”

“Fuck off griffon,” he said still hiding behind me, which was funny because he was way too big to hide behind me. Wait…behind me. To avoid him getting any funny ideas I pushed him aside.

Sugar Buck just laughed and walked back into Freedom. I just shook my head and started making my way northwest, following the road toward the marker that should bring us to the sewer town. It was then that I saw a brahmin, two ponies walking in front of it.

“Looks like a caravan, lets go see if they have any armor for us. We should stalk up on Ammo too before we go,” I said making my way toward them.

“Oh look she’s finally learning,” Aura teased following close behind.

As I grew closer, one of the ponies saw me and started to run toward me. Before I could react, I was being hugged by her, and the voice of a mare I hadn’t heard since I left Cartwheel, “Shadow is that really you? I can’t believe that you made it all the way here!”

Pulling away I looked over at none other than Silver Snip. She looked a lot better since the last time I’d seen her and she had the biggest smile on her face. It took a moment for me to find my voice, “Silver, what the hell are you doing here?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Locksmith: You’ve had a lot of practice getting into things that aren’t yours…yet. You can now pick more difficult locks and have an easier time picking average locks.

Chapter 18: Liars And Monsters

“Don’t move you evil bitch!”

Silver Snips laughed and looked over at my companions, “Who’re your friends? I mean I kinda met Stardust before you left Cartwheel, but who are the other two?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, the griffon is Aura Bloodtalon she…well she tried to capture me a little while back, then I saved her life. After that she owed me a life debt, then later became my bodyguard and…”

Aura stepped in front of me before I could finish, “I’m a freelancer talon, let’s just say that our meeting was complicated.”

“Oh, I’ve never really met a griffon before, your kind doesn’t come to Cartwheel very often.”

Aura just rolled her eyes as I continued, “This is Wingnut, he’s a colt we saved a few days ago from some Cazadores. He’s been traveling with us ever since.”

“Hi, you’re really pretty,” he blurted out like the foal he is. Goddesses, did he hit on every mare he met? Though I have to admit, he wasn’t wrong. Even with her short mane and the faint scars along her neck and brow from her brief imprisonment, she was still a striking mare. Her smile could still light up a room, it was nice to see she was still her happy self.

She giggled a little, “Why thank you.”

“Anyway, as I was saying before, why are you all the way out here Silver?”

She looked at me, “Well, ever since you took down The Boss and his raiders, the path to New Pegasus has been a lot safer. Back when my mother ran the shop she used to have trade agreements with a few ponies in the city and a couple towns in between. I figured that since it was safe now, I’d see if I could start setting up those agreements again and get Cartwheel back on the map as a trading outpost.”

“So, you decided to join a caravan going here to set up trade?”

“Well not at first. I first left with two ponies that were heading this way, we ran into trouble back near Appleton. A bunch of pegasi are swarming the town now, the two I was with ran off. After dealing with a couple of the guards around the city, I decided to keep heading on toward New Pegasus. I ran into the caravan back there and they decided to bring me the rest of the way, along with some of my wares,” she said still beaming, “Did you find anything else out about your mom?”

I frowned and looked at my hooves, “A little yeah, but not enough to find her, at least not yet. She left me a few clues, but after learning some things about her, I’m not really sure I want to find her now.”

“Don’t be a silly filly Shadow. No matter how much she’s changed, you still can’t just leave your quest like that. You know what Box Tape always told me, ‘never give up.’ I think you should keep looking,” she scolded, but smiled right after.

I returned a smile of my own, “You’re right, and I’m not giving up. I’m just, stuck. Right now, I need to collect my thoughts and see where her clues lead me. So, we’re heading out to help the leader of The Queens with a few things.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt Shorty, but who is this mare? We can’t just stand around here chit chatting all day. Just in case you forgot, we’ve got pissed off ponies looking for us right now,” Aura interjected, looking at Silver Snip.

“Oh, this is Silver Snip, she’s the pony who saved me when I first got into Cartwheel.”

“That’s great, but like I said, The Sins are looking for us and we’re sitting ducks right now. We should really get down to the Sewers and get out of sight. You told The Queen you’d be heading straight there.”

She had a point, but I didn’t just want to leave Silver after just running into her again. When I looked back at the other unicorn she was giving me a concerned look, “What does she mean?”

“It’s a long story, let’s just say that we’ve gotta get away from New Pegasus for a little while.”

“Why though?”

“Like I said, long story. For right now let’s just say I pissed off the wrong ponies from the Enclave and now they’re after me.”

She sighed and shook her head with a smile, “You have a knack for getting into trouble it seems. Where are you going?”

Wingnut interrupted before I could answer, “We’re heading to a town in the sewers.”

“How…charming, I don’t want to keep you. Would you mind if I tagged along?”

“What? Why would you wanna do that? I thought you said you were heading into the city to set up trade?”

“I am, but I can always get around to that another time. I haven’t seen you in a while and I’d like to catch up more. Plus, who knows, maybe I’ll be able to set something up in this town you’re heading to,” she said smiling again. Dammit, how could I say no to that face?

“Fine, I guess, but I don’t know what to expect when we get there.”

“Shadow, hon, I can take care of myself. I won’t be a bother,” she said.

“First, do you by chance have any armor I could get from you or do your friends over there?” I asked, pointing over at the caravan ponies who were still waiting for Silver.

She looked me over and gasped, “What did you do to Box Taps Duster?”

Aura sighed and said in an annoyed tone, “She got attacked and it got eaten by a monster. Damn, we don’t have time for this. Do you have anything she can use or not?”

“Oh, well yeah hold on a moment,” she said running off to the Caravaneers. She talked with them for a minute and then after shaking hooves with one, she came back over with a saddle bag, “Here you go, it should fit you.”

She gave me a new set of black combat armor, I took it and slipped it on. It fit me nicely, even if it was heavier than I was used to. I smiled, “Thanks Silver.”

“No problem at all. If you want, I have a few of my things to make more. I can make something for your friends too.”

“We’ll be fine. Can we get going?” Aura said in a huff.

“Yeah, sounds good, let’s head out.”

***

It didn’t take long for us to reach one of the Ponyhole covers that lead down to the Sewers that The Queen told us about. Using my magic, I lifted it and we all climbed down into the large tunnel below. I took a moment to look around the damp dark tunnel that lead farther away from New Pegasus. Already I was starting to have my doubts about this mission, I mean what kind of ponies apart from a ghoul would want to live in this literal shit hole.

In the distance I could see a flickering light, like a fire was burning, “I guess we should head toward the light, maybe somepony really DOES live down here. I just hope they’re friendly and not crazed psychopaths.”

I started to walk toward the flickering light with Aura following alongside me. The others followed behind us. Aura looked back at them and said quietly, “Shadow can we talk?”

“Sure I guess. Why are you whispering?”

“Are you sure it’s okay to just let Silver Snip follow us into what could be a dangerous situation?”

I gave her a look, “What do you mean? She may not be the type of pony who goes looking for a fight, but she does know how to take care of herself. She’s lived in The Wasteland her entire life. I don’t know why you care so much, I mean hell, we have a colt following us down here too.”

“Yeah, but Wingnut’s a tough little shit, Silver Snip looks like she isn’t ready for this kind of thing.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I don’t trust her,” Aura said looking back at the other three following behind us.

“You don’t trust anyone Aura. How is Silver any different?”

“I just think it’s strange how a mare you know from Cartwheel just happens to run into us as we’re trying to get away from the Sins and the city.”

I stopped and looked up at my griffon companion, “I trust her. Yeah it’s a little weird that she showed up when she did and wanted to join us, but right now I don’t care. She’s a friend and a pony who helped me out when I first got out into The Wasteland, but if it makes you feel better then by all means keep an eye on her. If she does something out of the ordinary, then tell me about it okay.”

“Fine, you know I’m just doing my job.”

“I know, I just don’t like how you’re acting right now. You’re almost acting like she’s Stardust,” I walked on, not wanting to hear more about Aura’s suspicions.

We rounded a corner and ran into three dirty looking ponies sitting by a small barrel with a fire burning in it. They all looked up as we walked into the break in the pipes and into a small chamber. All three were white on my E.F.S. so I kept my newly acquired gun holstered to my new Combat armor as one of them asked me, “Can I help you folks with something?”

“We’re looking for a town we heard was down here.” I replied.

All three tensed up, the one closest to me asking, “Why are you looking for The Bramble?”

The Bramble? That’s an…interesting name for a town, “We heard something about it from some ponies just outside of Freedom. They told us it was a place we should check out.”

The one who spoke before looked at his companions, “Okay, I guess that makes sense, The Bramble’s been getting a lot of new faces lately. I’m not surprised the word’s been getting out more. Just head down the pipe behind us. It’s not much further down, just ask for Gina.”

“Thank you,” I said as I started to pass the three, Aura though didn’t move, she was looking at the three ponies with a little bit of shock on her face, “Aura, you coming?”

Stardust, Wingnut, and Silver caught up to me as Aura asked the ponies, “Did you say Gina?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“Is she a griffon?”

A voice echoed down the pipe behind us before any of the other ponies could answer, “Of course I am, it’s funny running into you down here Aura.”

Aura’s face I could swear turned white, I turned and found myself face to face with another griffon. She was fire red at her head and torso that turned orange as it went back to her fur, the end of her tail was dark blue. Her beak was black, same for her talons. The feathers on her head fell down over one eye, the color was exactly like Aura’s. Unlike other griffons I’d met so far, this griffon’s voice was smooth and didn’t rasp.

Aura backed up a little, she looked like she was scared of the other griffon, when she spoke her voice shook a little, “Auntie Gina, what are you doing down here?”

This was another one of Aura’s relatives? How big is her family? I looked at both of them, I could see the resemblance. Their beaks were shaped the same and they both had the same hard look, they even had the same eyes, “Great, so let me guess, she’s another member of the Red Talons who’s hunting me. I thought I was done with that shit.”

The other griffon looked over at me, “Who the hell are you?”

I’m not sure to either be insulted or flattered by that, either way I looked back at my friend, “I guess that answers that question. So, who’s this?”

“She’s my aunt, and no she’s not a talon, not anymore.”

Gina walked over and glared at the three ponies standing around the barrel, “Don’t you all have work to do?”

The pony who spoke before nodded, “Y-yes ma’am,”

“Then I suggest you get back to it…NOW!” they all ran off. When they were gone she looked back at Aura and smiled again, “No I’m not. Why are you down here Aura? Did my sister finally decide to kill me after all this time? If so, she was stupid to send you.”

“No, I’m no longer part of the Talon’s, I was banished a few months back.” Aura said, still looking frightened.

“Gigi, kicked you out? I find that hard to believe. What could you have done to get kicked out of the talons?”

I was really confused. “Um…I’m kinda lost. What’s going on here?”

Aura seemed to snap out of whatever was wrong with her, and her normal pissy expression was back on her face, “It’s none of your business Gina, I’m not even here for you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Talk to the unicorn, she’s my contractor. She’s the one who’s here on business.”

Gina looked at me. Her hard glare was even more impressive than Aura’s, “Is that so? Tell me Shrimp, why the hell are you here?”

“Hey, you don’t have to talk to her like that you know,” Wingnut shouted while walking right up to the griffon and glairing back up at her.

“Oh look at what we have here, the little worm is trying to play hero. Let’s see how you like this,” in a flash she grabbed Wingnut by his mane and lifted him in the air.

I had my gun out and pointed at her in seconds, “Put him down.”

She laughed, “Or what? Oh, I’m sorry, is he your buckfriend?”

He wishes, I threw that thought out of my head, “Drop him or you’ll be the one that drops. I don’t give two shits who you are or if you’re related to Aura. If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you more. A lot more.”

“Wow, this one’s got spunk,” she dropped Wingnut. He let out a howl of pain as he hit the ground, Gina ignored him then pressed her head to the barrel of my gun, “Try it shrimp, I dare you.”

Oh how I wanted to, I already hated the bitch, there was something off about her. My magic pulled back a little on the trigger, but Aura walked over and put a talon on Dream Walker and pushed it down, “Shadow don’t do it, trust me, you won’t kill her even that close, it’s a trick.”

“Fuck that! I’m not gonna just let her hurt my friends like that.”

“Shadow I’m fine,” Wingnut said rubbing his mane a little.

Growling a little I holstered my gun, when I did, Gina just shook her head, “Like I was saying, why are you here?”

Swallowing my pride, I responded, “I’m here to find a town that has some kind of fighting arena. I’ve been hearing things about it and thought it sounded interesting.”

“Oh is that all? You should’ve said so earlier,” just like that, her demeanor changed, “Aura it’s been ages, you should come talk with me so we can catch up. I don’t think I’ve seen you in…oh what…two years.”

Aura just shook her head and sighed, “Three years Auntie Gina, and we don’t have time for that kind of thing, like I said before I didn’t come here looking for you. I didn’t even know you were still alive, let alone care.”

Silver walked over next to me and whispered in my ear, “I’m lost, are we in trouble or what?”

“I have no idea, I don’t even know what’s going on,” I replied watching the two griffons, then I looked over at Stardust, he looked pissed, “You okay Stardust?”

He looked over at me his eyes full of rage, “No, I’m not.”

Gina looked over at my friend, “What’s your problem freak? You got a problem with Griffon’s or am I just too fucking beautiful for your eyes to handle?”

Before I could do anything, Stardust had his rifle out and fired. The sound of his .308 echoed loudly in the tunnel, making my ears ring. Gina dodged to one side, jumped into the air flipped around and landed next to him. He moved to hit her, but she brought her talon up and grabbed him by the throat lifting him in the air then slammed him down hard. His rifle went sliding across the floor.

Her talons were pressed tight to his neck, she brought her face close to his, “Try that again and I’ll rip your throat out and feed it to your little friend there. You got me?”

He glared up at her, I moved slowly toward them, “Stardust calm down please.”

He gave me the same glare and mouthed, “Fuck you.”

“Dammit Stardust stand down!” I said glaring right back at him.

He closed his eyes and spat at the floor before he nodded. Gina let him go and picked up his rifle, “I’ll keep this for now, at least until you can learn to control yourself.”

“Fuck you griffon.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” she looked back at us, “So you came down here to find The Bramble. Fine with me, it’s just up ahead. I’ll warn you though, keep that pegasus friend of yours under control. If he tries anything like that again, he’ll be too dead to try a third time.”

She turned and started walking down the tunnel, Stardust’s rifle slung over her shoulder. Not sure what else we could do, we started to follow. As we walked on I looked over at Stardust and asked him, “What was that all about, I’ve never seen you lose control like that, even with Aura.”

“I told you before Shadow, I hate griffons, and watching her try and hurt Wingnut just threw my self-control over the edge,” He replied walking past me, following the older griffon.

I wanted to ask him more, but Aura caught up with Silver and Wingnut not far behind, “I don’t blame him, Gina has a way of getting under your skin.”

Wingnut looked up at Aura, “I didn’t know you had an Aunt around here.”

“Neither did I, she left the Talons a few years ago. I figured she died since I hadn’t heard anything about her freelancing since she was banished.”

“So, your aunt was banished too, how’d that happen? Did she do the same thing as you?” I asked, hoping to learn more about my friend.

“Shadow, you really shouldn’t pry into other’s affairs,” Silver Snip said walking up on the other side of me as we rounded another bend in the pipes.

“I’m not prying, I’m just curious.”

“It’s the same thing Shadow,” Silver said bumping my flanks with her own, getting a blush out of me, “Besides, don’t you have a mission to take care of down here?”

“It’s fine,” Aura said looking over at Silver, then back at me, “No, she didn’t do the same thing I did. She killed her younger sister and tried to take control of the Red Talons. She almost succeeded too. She had a few griffons on her side, but when it came down to fighting the top fighters in the talons, everyone except her backed down.”

“And she only got banished for that?”

Aura sighed deeply, “Yes, she should have been executed for her crimes, but they went easy on her and sent her away. I never heard the full details on what happened, but I do know that she vanished not long after her exile. I never expected to find her down in a dump like this.”

“You looked like you were scared of her,” Wingnut said putting words to what I was thinking.

“I am, she was the best fighter in the talons back when I was young. Like I said, she killed my other aunt because she was jealous of her. Gina always had a short fuse, I won’t pretend that I could take her on. She taught me everything I know and wasn’t finished teaching me when she was banished,” Aura said looking toward her aunt.

Before anything else could be said, Gina looked back over her shoulder, “Aura, your contractor should also come with you to visit with me a little later.”

“I have nothing to say to you Gina. I’m on a job, I don’t have time to visit with disgraced family.”

“That’s too bad, I wanted to find out what you could’ve done wrong to be disgraced like me.”

“I’m not like you. I have a way to get back in. All I have to do is prove myself, you couldn’t become a Red Talon again no matter what you did.”

“Ah I see, Gigi left you a way to get back in. Isn’t that sweet? Well I wouldn’t rejoin even if I could, I have a good thing going down here,” Gina said rounding a corner into a much larger sub chamber.

We walked out onto the top level looking down at platforms built out around a large cage that rested at the bottom of the chamber. All around were ponies that seemed to come from all over. There were unicorns that looked like they just came from The Strip, a few dirty farm ponies, even a couple N.L.R. troopers. All around the top level were nicer looking shanties. A few more were on the lower levels too, but they looked a lot more run-down, even by Wasteland standards.

Standing next to a railing looking down at the rest of the ponies surrounding the chamber was a mare, with a sickly yellow coat and an orange mane, she turned as we all walked in and smiled at Gina.

“Gina, what did you drag in here this time?” she said in a smooth voice.

“Found them wandering around down the way, the short mare heard about The Bramble and wanted to come check it out,” Gina said.

The mare walked toward me and my friends and smiled, “Well, looks like you found it. I’m Poison Oak and I run The Bramble. What brought a young mare like yourself and your friends to a place like this?”

“I…thought it sounded interesting, that’s if the rumors are true,” I said doing my best to sound as calm as I could.

She looked over my black combat armor then at my companions, “Odd looking group to come down here looking for entertainment in a fighting pit. As for those so-called rumors, some are true, depending on what ones you’re referring to. If you mean the ones that we let ponies fight to the death against some of the monsters in The Wasteland, then yes, but they’re all volunteers. If you mean some of the nastier ones about us using slaves to fight in the arena, then no. We don’t believe in slavery, but we’ve sent criminals to fight, and most die.”

So as far as I could tell, part of what the queen told me was true, but I’d have to see more of this place and learn the truth for myself. To try and see what else I could learn I asked, “I heard both rumors, but I didn’t think the one about slaves was real, though I have to say it seems kinda crazy to have dangerous monsters around here so close to New Pegasus.”

She gave me a disapproving look, “Why should I care? None of Mr. Topps’ robots can get down here, and the gangs up in Freedom don’t have the time to be worrying about us. We’ve been keeping things low key and always make sure that everything is set up right to keep everypony safe.”

“I wasn’t disagreeing with you, I just thought it was a little unsafe and crazy was all. I haven’t even seen what you do down here to really judge,” I replied quickly.

“Well then, how about you stay for a while, we have another match in a couple hours.”

I looked around at the shacks and shanties built up out of old scrap metal and wood, “I’m not sure where I’d stay.”

“Gina has a couple extra rooms, you can stay with her while you wait, you can also check out a couple shops we have around the Bramble, your friends look like they’re in need of gear,” Poison Oak said nodding at my friends.

Silver moved past me and asked, “You don’t by chance have anypony I could talk to around here about setting up trade, do you?”

“Depends on what you’re looking to trade.”

“I make Armor and Cloths back in Cartwheel,” Silver said, perking up a little.

“I know Canny is looking for a new pony to get armor from, you could try talking to him. His booth is set up on the second level just under us,” she said as she walked away.

“So what do we do now?” I asked looking at my friends.

“I’m not staying with her,” Aura said nodding toward Gina who was just leaning back against the wall watching us.

“We don’t have much of a choice.”

“She’s got a point Aura, we could use a rest anyway after what we just went through,” Wingnut said.

Gina stretched her wings then walked over, “Listen Aura, I know you don’t like me, but I’m not here to make trouble for you or your friends. Just use my place to crash for a few hours while you wait for the match to start, I have work to do anyway.”

“Fine, but can you at least give Jackass his rifle back,” Aura said, surprising Stardust and myself.

“Fine, but like I said before, if he tries anything like he did before he’s a goner,” Gina said, giving Aura Stardust’s rifle, “My place is the third shack on your right, can’t miss it, just let yourself in.”

When she was gone, Aura seemed to relax a bit as she gave Stardust back his rifle. He took it and said slowly, “Um…thanks. Why did you do that for me, you hate me, a lot.”

“I don’t hate you, I just don’t particularly like you. There’s a difference. I haven’t done anything to you, but you treat me like shit. I got your rifle back because I don’t like the idea of her walking around with such a nice gun like that. Also I wouldn’t want anyone taking my spear away from me.”

“That was, really nice of you, thanks again Aura,” He said still sounding a little shocked.

“Just don’t go around pointing it at anyone unless they’re trying to kill one of us.”

“I’ll do my best to keep my cool,” He said, and he actually smiled at her. Did hell freeze over or something?

“Are you feeling okay Stardust?” I asked walking over and feeling his forehead.

He pulled away slapping my hoof, but he still smiled, “I’m fine, don’t think about it too much. How about we all go check out the market and see what they have, I could use a re-stock on ammo. I hate to admit it, but Gina was right, we should get some barding.”

“And I’d like to talk to that Canny pony and see about setting up something with him,” Silver added.

“I’d like to just relax for once,” Aura said, “I think I’ll just head to Gina’s place and try to catch a nap.”

“I want to see if they have anything for Ol’ Festus. Stardust and I couldn’t find anything at Match and Tariffs,” Wingnut said, pulling the broken rifle out from his saddle bags.

“Why don’t we go to the market then? Let’s see what we can find, we can all meet up here in a couple hours,” I said.

“What are you gonna do Shadow?” Silver asked as Stardust and Wingnut walked away.

“I’m not sure really, mom left me some memory orbs, maybe I’ll dive into one and see what they’re about.”

“Are you sure? I’d like it if you came with me while I talked with Canny, it’d be nice to catch up more,” she said with a pleasant smile.

“Oh fine, I can always watch them later,” I said following the Red mare as she trotted away, her hips swaying a little.

It didn’t take long for Silver to find the old buck who ran the small shop on the second level, they both talked for a little bit about trade, wares, and caps. I didn’t understand most of it, business isn’t my thing, so I looked through his inventory. When she finished, Silver Snip wanted to walk around The Bramble and see what it was all about.

We tried that for a little while, but most of the ponies didn’t seem up to talking to outsiders. When we made our way into a tunnel that lead down to the lowest levels of the underground town, Silver Stopped me, “Can I have a word with you Shadow?”

“Sure I guess, what’s on your mind?”

“You know back when you were in Cartwheel and I was in the clinic.”

“Yeah, what about it.”

“Back then I wanted to ask you something, but I couldn’t work up the nerve. Why did you risk your life to save me from the Raiders?”

That was a hard question to answer. Why did I save her? Back then I wasn’t really thinking about it, I just saw her get taken alone with those foals and acted, but was that the real reason? “I’m not sure, I guess it was because it was really the only thing I could think about doing. I just wanted to see you and the others safe. I don’t know what I would’ve done if anypony got sold to slavers or killed.”

She smiled a little, “That’s an easy answer, but if that’s what you think then ask yourself this. Why didn’t you go and save the other ponies The Boss had the day before he took me, he was selling them into slavery too. But you went past the camp and into Cartwheel, ignoring the ponies who also needed your help.”

“I…I’m not sure, I didn’t think about it much when I was going through their camp. I remembered The Boss talking about Slavers and slaves, but I was too worried about myself to care,” I said, then it hit me, I passed right by the cages filled with wretched looking ponies just waiting to be sold as slaves. Had I really been that careless when I passed through?

“It sucks I know, and it was wrong to pass by them. However, you were also new to The Wasteland and didn’t know what you were doing. I can let that one slide, at least for now. So, doing the right thing wasn’t why you came to save me, it was something else.”

She had me there, it couldn’t just be because it was the right thing to do, or just because she saved me. Something started to linger at the back of my mind as a thought came to me, but it sounded stupid. I looked back at Silver and blushed, “It’s stupid, but I think it’s because I like you. Not in the sense that I like-like you but more like…I mean…it’s that…” I found myself stumble upon my words easily nervous about my answer, I sighed and took a deep breath and just said it, “I really like you okay? You were the first pony that was nice to me when I first got out of my stable. Hell, you were nicer to me than anypony else in my stable was apart from my friends or Auntie.”

I wanted to say more, but before I could Silver reached up with her hooves and pulled my face toward hers, pressing her lips to mine. My eyes went wide for a moment, then I found myself kissing her back, my forehooves wrapping around her pulling her close. It was different from when I made out with Little Buck; that was a stupid act that happened out of drunkenness (Even if it was a little fun). This was a kiss filled with passion and other feelings I didn’t even know I had for her. I mean yes, I’ve eyed her flanks once or twice…or a few dozen times.

Silver finally pulled away and looked into my eyes. She looked a little embarrassed, I know I sure did. She rubbed the back of her head and smiled a little wider, “Sorry about that, I don’t know what came over me.”

“It…was nice, and a little forward, but I didn’t know you felt like that.”

“I have since I first met you, but I didn’t want to scare you. After you saved me and we talked after you came out of that memory orb, I so badly wanted to just hold you close to me and make you feel like everything would be okay.”

I was still blushing, but I did my best to hide it, “I wouldn’t have minded it, or at least I don’t think I would’ve. I’ve never kissed a mare like that before.”

“Really? I mean not even once in your stable?”

“No way, I wouldn’t have ever tried that when I was in my stable.”

“I thought you said you had a crush on a mare in your stable.”

I forgot I told her about Milkshake when we were shopping my first day in Cartwheel, “I did, but she didn’t feel the same and even if she did we couldn’t have ever done anything about it.”

“So, does that mean I was your first mare kiss?” She asked giving me a seductive look.

Oh goddesses, did she have to do that when I was trying have a serious conversation. I started to stutter a little, “I…well yeah, I mean I’ve kissed my mom before I guess, but nothing like that. I mean if I did…gross, but with you it’s not gross, it was…kind of nice, oh fuck…”

She kissed me again succeeding in getting me to shut up. It felt like my body was melting into hers for a moment, then the moment ended as she pulled away again with a small giggle, “You make the cutest faces when you’re nervous.”

My knees were shaking a little and I felt a bit lightheaded, “I…do not.” I looked away trying to hide another blush.

“Yes you do,” she said walking around me, her tail wrapping around my neck slowly, “Now that we have all that out of the way, should we maybe head back to the room?”

Okay, I didn’t think I could blush even harder but there it was. My knees gave out and I fell flat on my face, after a moment I was able to get back up and I said, “Why?”

She kissed my nose, “It’s a surprise.”

“Um…that does sound fun and all, but I think I’m still trying to process this.”

She giggled, and turned back the way we came, “Well, I’ll be heading back up, how about you take a little time and get your head on straight. I’ll be waiting for you,” She winked and flipped her tail under my chin and walked away.

It took a moment for me to be able to think straight, when I could I started walking in the opposite direction. I wasn’t sure where I was heading, but all I knew was that I need to think this over. I’ve never really had feelings for another pony like I did for Milkshake, I mean did I have feelings for Silver? I liked her, she was very cute, and she was kind. Maybe somewhere I did have feelings for her, it made sense I guess, I’ve known for a while that I like mares, at least as much as I do stallions maybe a little more.

Maybe I didn’t really have feelings for Milkshake like I thought I did, it could’ve just been lust. I never really stopped to think about it, all I knew was that I wanted something from her more than just friendship. If she was here now would I try and tell her how I felt, or would I still be thinking this way about Silver Snip? I really had no idea. What I would do?

I hate thinking about this kind of thing, I need some Wild Pegasus. Things were just so much easier with a belly full of liquid courage. Oh, maybe I had some? I remember picking up a bottle of some kind of alcohol when I was back in Freedom. Checking my Pip-Buck’s inventory sorter I found it, pulling the bottle out of my saddle bags, I cracked it open and took a long pull.

I smiled as the warm feeling ran down my throat, then through the rest of my body. I took another swig and shivered a little. I put the bottle away, not wanting to drink it all, then started to slowly walk the rest of the way to the end of the tunnel I was in.

When I reached the end, I found a locked door, I smiled at the stupid door that thought it could block my way and proceeded to pick the lock. Foal’s play, it only took me a couple seconds before the lock clicked and the door pushed open. Well fuck, I was expecting a closet filled with goodies, nope just another hallway that lead into a dark chamber. Well shit, I’m still too scared to go see Silver, I know what I need, more Wild Pegasus. If I run out I’m sure I’ll find more later.

I pulled out the bottle and took another pull on the bottle before slowly walking down the hall. Why the fuck would anypony lock a door to a hallway? It wasn’t even a good lock, I mean if you want to keep something safe at least try and use something better than that piece of shit lock. It didn’t take long for me to reach the end of the hallway, it opened up into another room. It wasn’t much, just a room that had large windows in it overlooking another room full of cages. I wonder if this is where they keep the creatures they used for the fighting arena.

Right then two ponies walked into the lower room, well…a griffon and a pony. Gina was leading a pony who was hiding herself under a cloak and hood, she was also wearing dark barding. The pony looked around the room and asked in a whisper I could barely hear from where I was, “Are we alone?”

“No pony comes down here unless it’s the guards, and only then if we’re having problems with the Hell Hound,” Gina said pointing toward a cage just out of view.

“Hell Hounds are smarter than you think Gina, I don’t want our conversation overheard,” The mare replied, her voice was quiet, but it sounded like I’d heard it before.

“Don’t worry about Rawr, he hates everypony here. I’m the only one who’s nice to him and he knows it. Plus, he’s still knocked out from the meds, he won’t be a problem,” Gina said to the pony.

“Fine, but let’s make this quick. You know why I’m here don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know why you’re here, something about finding somepony for you. If you needed a pony found, why didn’t you go to the Red Talons instead of finding a Freelancer? They have a lot more resources than I do.” Gina said giving the mare a cocky look.

“I can’t show my face around Crimson Canyon anymore; your sister doesn’t like me very much. I was using a different talon company from back east, but they went silent a couple weeks ago. Now I’m left with finding Freelancers,” the mare said, her voice was still so familiar but something was muffling it. She must be using a voice modulator, but why?

“I see. Right now I’m under contract with Poison Oak, and I have to say, it’s an easy job. Why would I break my contract with her to work for you?”

“I’ve been authorized to pay you whatever number of caps you need to do the job.”’

“Hmmm, now that’s tempting. Let’s hear what you need before I decide to take the job.”

The hooded mare stomped a hoof on the ground, “You griffons are such a pain in my ass, fine. There’s a mare that came out of a stable recently not far from Cartwheel, she has something I need. It’s a special Pip-Buck, it’s silver with red lines on it, it’s hard to miss. I need the Pip-Buck intact.”

“And what about the pony who has it?”

“She’s nothing but a thorn, you won’t be able to get the Pip-Buck off of her easily, it’s set up with a special lock that can only be opened by a special pony, or the one wearing the Pip-Buck has to die. I know a way to remove one, but it’s a pain in the ass to do and I don’t have the time, so kill her and take it.”

Was this the pony who’s been after my Pip-Buck? Was she the one who’d been talking with the Overmare? Why did she want it anyway? Oh yeah, mom hid files on it that she said ponies would kill to get their hooves on. Maybe I could take her out here and now and it’d solve some of my problems.

I started to un-holster Dream Walker, moving closer to the glass that separated the two rooms. Then I thought about what I was about to do. I didn’t know anything about his mare or why she was after my Pip-Buck. What would I do after I shot her? I’m not a pony who decides who should live or die, and I’m sure Gina wouldn’t just let me get away after I took her out. I saw how she reacted when Stardust tried to kill her earlier. She has some scary moves, and she was the one who trained Aura.

I cursed under my breath and holstered Dream Walker. I was about to leave to go find Aura when Gina finally spoke, “Honestly It’d be an easy contract for me, and I’m not fond of working for Poison Oak, but I’m under contract. I may be a disgraced griffon, but I still hold up to our ways. Now if something were to happen to Poison Oak, then I might think about it. I’ll have to pass for now.”

“I’m disappointed to hear that, but I understand. I guess I’ll just have to figure out another way of getting ahold of that Pip-Buck.”

“Why do you want it so bad anyway? Don’t you have one of your own already?” Gina asked pointing down at the mares left foreleg.

“This one is different, I need it.”

I hadn’t noticed it before, but I could see a Pip-Buck poking out from under her cloak. Who was she? Could it be…? No, it couldn’t be her, she wouldn’t be hunting me down like this. No matter what Lonely Hearts said. Whoever she was, she wasn’t my mother.

“Whatever, not like I care. Listen if it helps at all, I’ll let you know if this mare comes into The Bramble.”

“My team lost track of her around New Pegasus, but I can’t see her or her friends coming down into this…delightful pace,” she said, her voice oozing sarcasm.

“Stick around a little longer, I’m sure the fight later will change your mind.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. As fun as you make it sound, I have work to get done. I’ll be in contact with you soon though. I’d like another chance to convince you to work for me,” then in a flash of blue light, she was gone.

“Fucking Stable Ponies and you’re mystery bullshit. Don’t know why I even bothered talking to her,” Gina said then after looking around a little, she turned and left the room.

I took a moment to breathe, then moved back closer to the window. Well since I was here, I figured I could at least look more into why the Queen wanted me to come here in the first place. I saw a door that lead down to the lower chamber. I went to it and walked down the few steps and looked around. There were cages all over the place in here, but none seemed to have creatures in them like Poison Oak said they did. For a place that bragged about putting on a show of ponies fighting monsters, they sure were short on the monster department.

“Fuck, there isn’t anything here,” I said aloud turning slowly to look at the last few cages.

As my gaze fell on the last couple that were under the upper room a voice echoed out of the darkness, it was deep and rough, “Why is pony down here? Pony will get into trouble if she is caught.”

I jumped and looked at the last cage, it was huge with gems surrounding it. Inside was a monster I’d never seen before, but just by looking at him, I knew what he must be. It was a Hellhound, only it was twice the size of any I read about in the Wasteland Survival guide. It had dark red fur, yellow claws that were longer than I was, and beady red eyes much like my own. It looked at me from inside its cage, its nose sniffing toward me as I backed away. From what I read about them, their claws could slice through almost anything, how the hell did they keep one locked up like this?

“Why is pony down here?” it asked sitting down just watching me.

“Um…you can talk?”

It rolled its eyes, “Do I look stupid pony?”

“I…have no idea, I’ve never met a Hellhound before,” I said as it still just watched me.

“Stupid pony, you didn’t answer dog’s question.”

I could feel my knees starting to shake, “I don’t think you look stupid, I just didn’t know that Hellhounds could speak.”

It growled at me, “Do not call dog, Hellhound. Dog is a Death Dog, name is Rawr. Now why is Pony in Dog’s cage home?”

“I kinda broke in. Why are you here? I thought that Hellhounds could slice through anything with their claws, I mean Death Dog…is there a difference?”

“Death Dog is fighter in pack, we are bigger and stronger than any other. Rawr can’t get free, leader pony used special cage to keep Rawr locked away. Leader Pony says Rawr has to fight in arena, if Rawr keeps winning, Rawr gets to sleep and eat.”

“So the Cage is enchanted?”

“How slow is pony? Yes cage is enchanted, if not Rawr would’ve killed entire town of stupid ponies and gone home by now.”

For a monster, he wasn’t really that scary. Yeah he looked scary, but he wasn’t roaring or trying to kill me. Even if he was stuck in the Enchanted Cage, “I’m Shadow Star, it’s nice to meet you Rawr.”

“Rawr not care what pony name is, Rawr only wants to eat and sleep,” he said laying down and closing his eyes.

“Don’t you want to be free?”

He opened one of his eyes and looked over at me, “Rawr can’t be free, so Rawr does what pony says and kills other ponies every night, then Rawr sleeps.”

“What ponies do you kill?”

“Anypony Rawr is told to kill, Slaves, criminals, stupid ponies, it doesn’t matter. Pony should go, before griffon comes back. If she catch you, Rawr will have to kill you too, and Rawr really not feel like it,”

An idea came to me and I walked closer to the cage, “Rawr, if I could somehow find a way to free you, what would you do?”

He opened both his eyes, “Why would pony try and free Death Dog?”

“No one should be in a cage, even a Death Dog.”

“Pony can’t free Rawr, but if pony could, Rawr would kill leader pony and the griffon, and anypony that got in Rawr’s way. Then Rawr would go home, and see if Rawr’s pack is still alive.”

“What about me? I if I let you go would you kill me too?”

He took a moment to answer, finally he shrugged, “Rawr would have no reason to kill Pony if she let Rawr go. It depend on Rawr’s mood.”

I smiled and turned back toward the stairs that lead back to the other room, “I’ll find a way to get you out Rawr. Call me crazy, but I can’t stand to see you trapped like you are. I’ll figure something out.”

He just waved a claw at me and closed his eyes again, “Whatever Pony says, even if pony lets Rawr out of cage, Rawr’s collar keeps him from leaving.”

I didn’t notice that there was thick Collar on his neck until he said something, it had a red blinking light on it, how did I miss that? “What is that?”

“Bomb Collar, now go before pony makes Rawr angry.”

I did, but not before walking back and setting the last of my Wild Pegasus down next to his cage. He ignored it, so I left and headed back out of the room, and the strange Death Dog that was trapped in it. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d figure a way to get him out of there, and hope to Celestia that he didn’t go toward Freedom.

I made my way back up to where we were staying, wondering to myself if Silver or Aura knew a way I could help the Dog out. I’m sure Aura would have something to say about me helping another monster, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t been here for long, and I already didn’t like it. I walked into the shack Gina pointed out earlier about to call out for Silver or Aura.

I didn’t get far into the room, before Silver poked her head out of a side room and smiled at me, “It’s about time you got back.”

“Oh good you’re here, is Aura here too, I need to talk to both of you about something I found…”

Before I could finish what was on my mind, Silver walked the rest of the way out of the room. She was wearing, something lacy and skimpy. Ponies didn’t normally wear cloths, but when we did it was for protection or style, and sometimes I guess it was to tease somepony who liked you. Silver Snip was already a cute mare, but what she had on was just down right sexy. She had lacy socks on that had straps leading up to thin lingerie, it didn’t hide anything, and it wasn’t meant to, it was only to give an impression that it could cover her, making it see through just added to the sensuality.

“Um…what are you doing?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. Goddesses I’m not a smart pony when it came to this kind of thing.

She walked over to me and kissed me slowly before pulling back and saying, “Nopony’s here and we have a room to ourselves, I told you I’d have a surprise for you when you came back.”

“I’m…surprised,” I replied doing my best, and failing, to look into her eyes.

“I hope you like it, I’ve been saving it for a moment like this, I made it myself,” She said and kissed me again, then using her magic she pulled on my mane and lead me into the bedroom.

I was lost for words, I’m not sure if it’s the Wild Pegasus, or just that I really liked how she looked right now. It didn’t matter, I wanted her, and I wasn’t going to say no. She pushed me onto a small bed then moved over me, she smiled then moved down and kissed me like she had down in the tunnels. Her magic flashed and the door shut, she continued to kiss me pulling away from my lips and moving down my neck.

My body shivered and I couldn’t help a soft moan as she worked her magic. Then I noticed her kissing going lower, and lower. I wanted to say something about how I wasn’t too sure I wanted this now, I felt dirty right now…then she hit the spot and stars erupted in my vision. I pressed my hooves down on her head and arched my back, my eyes closing as my mind filled with bliss.

I could hear her giggle as she pulled away, I opened my eyes and looked down at her confused. Did I do something wrong? Then she said, “I know you haven’t done this kind of thing before with another mare, so I figure we could use this time for me to teach you a few things. You can learn a lot from somepony who’s got their own set of tools if you know what I mean.”

I was about to say something again, then she turned around, laid on top of me and used a certain part of her to keep me quiet, and she did as she said she would…

***

An hour later I was laying my head on Silver’s chest, nuzzling into her a little, my mind in a peaceful place for once. She was slowly stroking my mane as we both breathed heavily. Silver wasn’t lying when she said she’d show me a few things, she showed me things over and over. I wasn’t even sure I could go another round even if I wanted to…oh wait, I did, if I could move. My legs felt like rubber at the moment and all I wanted to do was stay where I was and enjoy this.

“For a mare who hasn’t had sex with another mare before, I have to say you’re a quick learner,” Silver said, moving her head down to kiss the end of my horn, emitting a soft giggle from me.

“Thanks, I’ve always been a quick study,” I laughed looking up at her.

She laughed a little and pulled me into a hug, I was about to say something else, finally I remembered why I came back in the first place, then I heard a voice from the other room, “Shadow are you in here?” Damn, it was Aura, I forgot all about my friends, “What smells so weird in here?”

She walked into the room and her eyes fell on Silver and me cuddled in the bed. For a long moment, we just looked at each other, then I blushed and said “Hey Aura…”

Her eyes narrowed and I knew something was wrong, “Oh, I didn’t know you were in the middle of something. I just wanted to tell you something about this place that you should check out, but I see you’re busy,” she slammed the door.

“What’s her problem?” Silver asked looking at the door in confusion.

“I have no idea, but I should go check on her,” I said getting to my hooves.

“If you say so, I should get cleaned up anyway,” Silver said as I walked to the door to follow my friend.

When I was out the door I caught a glimpse of Aura’s tail just vanishing out into the hallway of the upper levels. I ran after her and caught up a moment later, “Aura wait.”

She rounded on me, “Why? You’re in the middle of something, it’s not my business,” she sounded really pissed, but why?

“What’s your problem Aura?”

“Oh I don’t know, I just got done telling you that something was off about Silver Snip, and that I didn’t trust her. Then you go and fuck her, ignoring my advice. Why do I even bother being your bodyguard if you’re just gonna go around ignoring me. For fuck sake Shadow, do you even know that she’s really you’re friend from Cartwheel?” she yelled, making me feel dumber than usual.

“I think you’re overreacting Aura, I know who Silver Snip is.”

“Oh really, did you know that I heard a rumor that one of the Sins has a pony who can masquerade as any pony they want. I find it strange that you just ran into your friend from Cartwheel right after we killed Gluttony.”

“She knows things that only Silver would know, I’m not stupid Aura. I know the difference between my real friend and an imposter. Why can’t you just trust me and keep your mouth shut?” I yelled back at her.

Stardust came over right then and looked at the two of us, “What’s going on? Am I gonna have to break up a girl fight? I don’t think my masculine pride can let me do that.”

Aura looked over at him, “Why don’t you ask our leader, I’m sure she’d be happy to brag. I’m gonna go cool down, don’t follow me Shadow,” she flew away in a huff.

“Aura wait!” I tried to yell after her, feeling like shit for yelling at her, even though I had no idea why she was so mad.

“What happened?” Stardust asked watching the griffon fly down and vanish.

“What are you two talking about?” Wingnut asked trotting up behind us.

I sighed, “I kinda did something with Silver, Aura walked in on us and freaked out. I don’t know what her problem is. She says she doesn’t trust Silver, but it can’t be just that.”

He looked back at me then back toward Gina’s place, “Why wouldn’t she trust Silver?”

“I don’t know, she said something about how she could be a Sin that’s just disguised themselves as Silver with magic or something.”

“I don’t know Silver that well, but she seems like the same mare I met in Cartwheel. I don’t think she’s an enemy. You might be right, there’s gotta be something else going on,” he sighed, “I’ll go talk to her and see if I can get her to calm down.”

Wingnut laughed, “Ha! YOU get her to calm down? Aura hates you.”

“I hate to admit it, but the kid has a point.” I added.

“Maybe, but I’m the only pony who can right now,” he said flapping into the air and flying after Aura.

Wingnut walked closer then wrinkled his nose, “What’s that smell?”

“Oh, shut up,” I said walking past the Colt.

He grinned and followed, “Oh, did you do something naughty Shadow? Please tell me you did. Can I get details?”

“Why do you want to know that kind of thing anyway? It’s not something I should be talking to a colt about,” I said as I walked back into the room where Silver Snip was waiting.

“I told you before, I’m only a couple years younger than you, it’s no different than you fooling around with Silver, she’s way older than you are.”

Silver looked like the Colt just slapped her, “Did you just call me Old?”

He looked over at her, his ears folding back, “Um…maybe, I mean aren’t you an older mare?”

“I’ll have you know that I am only a couple years older than Shadow, I’m just mature for my age,” she said throwing her nose into the air and looking offended that the colt would say what he did.

“So you’re old. So what? my point still stands that Shadow doesn’t have to worry about my age, I have my cutie mark, I’m a Stallion now.”

She walked over, slapped the colt with a hoof then walked past him and over to me, kissed me long and hard, then walked out the door saying, “If you’re a stallion, then you can be treated like one that calls a mare old.”

“Ow, that hurt. Cougars can be hot too y’know,” he said, scowling up at me.

I sighed and shook my head, “Wingnut, if you ever want to find a mare that likes you, then you have to think before you talk. If you keep this up, you’re just gonna piss off every mare you meet.”

“Well it’s not like we learn proper ways of talking to a mare in Little Hoof.”

“Well maybe you should.”

“Maybe you could teach me then.”

“Well first of all, you shouldn’t go around staring at every mare you meet, it’s creepy and turns a mare off very fast. You also need to watch what you say, like calling a mare old, it’s rude.”

“Why? You go around staring at flanks all the time.”

My mouth dropped open, “I…I do not.”

“Yes, you do, I’ve even caught you looking at Aura’s ass. She’s a griffon, that’s just wrong.”

Was it my fault Aura had a nice ass, I couldn’t help myself if I looked now and then. I blushed a little and shook my head, “Well it’s different for me.”

“How so?”

“It…just is, can we talk about something else?”

He laughed, “No way, this is way too much fun,” his smile grew wider, “So, can I get details?”

“For Celestia’s sake, you’re impossible! How did anypony put up with you in Little Hoof?”

“I was friends with the Mayors sister, I got away with a lot of shit,” he said following me as I walked past the door back into Gina’s shack, making my way toward the stairs.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I need to find Aura and see what’s bothering her, I know Stardust wants to help, but I give them about two minutes before they get into some kind of fight.”

“Maybe you should just let her be. She’ll get over herself sooner or later. She just needs her space.”

“Maybe, but I also need to ask her something.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to know if she knows anything about Bomb collars.”

“Why do you need to ask her, you could have just asked me.” he said stopping in front of me blocking my path.

“Wait, you know things about bomb collars?” I asked a little surprised.

“Duh, I lived in a town of fillies and colts, we always had to worry about running into slavers. They use bomb collars to keep slaves in line, so we learned how they work just in case we need to get out of them. Why do you want to know things about them?”

“I…found something down in the basement that’s being kept here against his will, I wanna help him.”

He reached into his saddle bags and pulled out a book, he opened it and pointed at a page, “I guess I can help. You see this?” he pointed at a detailed diagram the same collar Rawr had, “Your standard bomb collar, has plastic explosives wrapped around a reinforced collar. It’s set up that way so that if the Collar goes off it’ll keep the explosion concentrated.”

“Okay, how do you get one off?” I asked, not understanding any of the diagram he was showing me.

“Normally you need the key to get it off, and you can’t just pick it like you would a door. The bomb will go off if you just try and pick it, what you gotta do is block the trigger somehow,” he stared to show me the best way to deactivate a collar. He had to show me a few times and explain each step in detail until I finally understood.

“I’m not sure I could do that, at least not quickly.”

“It’s best to practice on a dud a few times, it helps you learn the steps until you get it down,” he said lifting the book to give it to me, “Here, you can have it, I’ve read it a few times already, and I’m sure you could put the information in there to better use.”

I took the book and tucked it into my saddle bags, “Thanks Wingnut, I really didn’t think you knew so much about explosives.”

He shrugged, “I’m no expert, but I like reading about that kind of thing. I always figured it could come in handy one day when I’d have to leave Little Hoof. Mines, grenades, traps, and Bomb Collars are a big deal if you don’t know how to handle them.”

I laughed and rubbed his mane a little, “See if you talked like this more often, you’d have an easier time with mares.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean be yourself, you’re a smart pony and you should show that side of yourself more. It’s much more attractive than a colt that just says rude things all the time.”

“Attractive enough even for a mare like you?” he asked with hope aglow in his eyes.

My first reaction was to hit the little perv, but then again that didn’t help in the past, so I decided to try something new, “Listen Wingnut, it’s not that I don’t like you, I do, just not like that. You’re a good kid, and you have a good head on your shoulders.”

His eyes drooped, “That sucks, I guess you only like mares like Silver don’t you?”

“I told you before that I like stallions too, pay attention for Goddesses sake. Anyway, I’m not sure how I feel about Silver Snip, not yet at least. I know there’s a connection there, but I don’t know if it’s because she saved me in the past and I see her in a different light than I would other mares, or if I love her. I thought I loved my friend Milkshake back in the stable, and I do, but not how I thought I did. So I want to be careful and make sure I’m feeling what I think I am before I just go out and say something I’ll regret later.”

He smiled a little, “I used to think I felt that way about somepony, but ever since you saved Honey Suckle and me I’ve been feeling that way toward you. Maybe it’s the same way you think you feel about Silver, I’m not sure.”

“Who else did you have feelings for?”

“Honey, she’s always been my best friend, ever since I first went to Little Hoof. Then a couple months ago I started seeing her differently, I couldn’t get enough time with her, I always wanted her around me. When she came after me when I was kicked out of the town I was so happy she was there that I didn’t even want to bring her back.”

“Where were you going when we found you anyway? You told me before that the kids who leave Little Hoof normally settle around the area in the neighboring towns,” I asked leaning against a railing.

“When Honey found me, she told me she didn’t ever want to leave me again, I felt the same way, so I figured we could find the Steel Rangers and see if they would take us in. I’m sure they could’ve used a smart pony like me, and Honey Suckle is a really good shot, even if she gets scared easily. We were heading toward where I was told they had a base, somewhere near Hidden Sands.”

“That’s a smart idea to be honest. Elder Appleslice I’m sure would’ve taken you both in, or at least I think she would’ve, she’s a decent pony.”

“But after we got attacked and you saved us, I saw that my plan wasn’t as smart as I thought. I almost got Honey killed because I ignored the signs warning us about Cazadores. When we were safe I knew she had to go home.”

“I think it’s sweet that you did that, I know it must’ve been hard to leave your best friend behind like that, but you did it for the right reasons.”

“Maybe, but I still feel bad about it.”

“I feel the same way every time I think about Balefire or Milkshake, but I know they’re safe. That’s all that matters to me in the end,” I said giving him a smile.

He smiled back, “You know what? I’m happy for you Shadow.”

“Why’s that?”

“Yeah, it sucks that you don’t feel the same way about me that I do about you, but I’m glad you found somepony you care about and that cares about you too. I like Silver Snip. Sure she seems a little old, but what do I know? I’ve spent most of my life around foals,” he said winking at me.

I laughed too and pulled him into a hug, “Okay, don’t take this too far, but you are kinda cute sometimes.”

“I do my best,” he said getting to his hooves, “How about we go find the others. I’m sure the fight is gonna start soon, and you have a mission to finish for The Queen.”

“I’ll catch up, I wanna look into one more thing. I’ll meet you all back at the room.”

“Don’t be gone too long,” he said walking back toward the stairs.

I watched him go then started making my way down to the basement where Rawr was. If my hunch was right, he’d be fighting again in the arena, and something told me that I had to get him out before that happened. Hopefully he didn’t go on a rampage once he was free. As I got to the final level of The Bramble, (it was set up with seats around a caged off pit where ponies could watch the fights.) I heard two voices coming toward me, it was Aura and Stardust.

Not wanting them to think I was eavesdropping, I ducked under a bench and watched as my two friends slowly walked past me, Aura was saying something to Stardust, “I’m surprised you came looking for me.”

“Like I said when I found you, we might not get along, but you’re an important part of this group, and I could tell something was wrong. I could tell ever since we first ran into Silver and your aunt,” Stardust said as they stopped next to the bench I was hiding under.

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden, it’s weird?”

He gave her a goofy smile, “Let’s just say that after meeting Gina you don’t seem that bad to me anymore, and you were right, I never gave you a chance. I’ve been nothing but rude and insensitive toward you. This is me trying to make up for that.”

“Yeah, what’s up with your hatred for Griffons anyway? You grew up in a stable, you didn’t even know a griffon until you were out,” she said glaring at him.

“It’s not that I hate griffons, I was raised to feel this way about them. Where I’m from, griffons are hated as much as zebras, we learned to hate them ever since we could read and write. It’s just something that’s engrained in me and now I’m starting to see that it was wrong.”

“Well, yeah, it was. By the way thanks for coming to find me, I’m glad Shadow didn’t come running after me, she gets really nosey when her friends are feeling down.”

Stardust laughed, “Yeah she does, but she means well. To be honest neither of us have been that open, and she’s told us everything about herself.”

“You have a point there, maybe we should all sit down and talk about this, you know once were done here that is,” Aura said reaching a talon up to rub her head feathers.

“I agree, I don’t like it, but I agree. We’re just lucky she trusts us as much as she does even after everything that’s happened to her.”

Yeah, no shit guys, you’re lucky I’m such a nice pony. I wanted to show myself then and there, but something held me back. I wanted to hear more, and I’m sure if they knew I was listening in on their conversation they wouldn’t be too happy about it.

“I take it you were upset because of what you saw back in the room?” Stardust asked her.

“Yeah, but please don’t tell Shadow that. I don’t know what she’d do if she knew.”

“It’s your secret not mine Aura. I’ll keep my mouth shut, but you should still tell her.”

She looked down at her talons, “I don’t want to lose her, she’s been the best part of my life ever since I was banished. I think I’ll be okay now, Shadow deserves to be happy, and after what you told me about Silver, I’m sure we can trust her. I’ll do better, hopefully I won’t ever have to tell her, and things will go back to normal. Well as normal as life gets for us.”

They both laughed, then Stardust said, “C’mon, let’s go see what’s going on here so we can get a report for The Queen.”

“Good idea.”

After they both left, I wiggled out from under the bench and watched as they started up the stairway that lead back toward Gina’s Shack. I wanted to follow them so badly, but not right now. Right now, I had a job to do, and with Rawr freed I could get all the information for the Queen from him, and I’d have saved a life, maybe more.

I started back down the tunnel and to the door I used before that lead into the room that overlooked the cages. I just opened the door when there was a flash of blue light behind me. I turned around quickly and saw Poison Oak standing there with the hooded mare from before. I backed through the door as they both slowly started walking toward me.

Poison Oak grinned, “Well, look what we have here. So, you’re the pony who broke in here earlier, my friend here said she saw somepony on her E.F.S. when she was talking to Gina. I also learned something else out about you. Tell me, what does the famous Courier Mare want in The Bramble? Did The Queen send you down here, or was it Mr. Topps?

“Neither, and how did you know who I was?”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out. One of the Sins came down here a little bit ago and told us all about you, they’re offering a lot of caps to find you Dead or Alive. You see normally I don’t worry myself about bounties, it’s not my thing. But when the Sins come looking for a pony and offer twenty thousand caps to find you, I can’t pass that up,” she said still walking toward me.

I looked at the other mare who was walking behind her, still keeping her face covered by that hood, “And who’s your friend?”

The mare in the cloak said, “No pony you should be worrying about, all I want is that Pip-Buck of yours.”

“Why? What do you know about it?”

“It’s the key I need, without that Pip-Buck, I can’t finish what I started. I’ve been looking for that for a long time and you bring it here for me,” then she looked over at Poison Oak, “Do what you want with her, as long as I get the Mk. II when you’re done.”

Poison Oak smiled, “I think she should be tested in the Bramble.”

I pulled Dream Walker out of its holster and pointed it at Poison Oak, “Fuck that, I’m not gonna do anything you want.”

The mare laughed, then a light flashed from under her hood, and everything around me vanished…

***

Okay, so this time I wasn’t hit by a knock out spell. Last time something like this happened I blacked out. This was different, I almost felt like I was in a memory orb, only the body I could feel felt like my own. I looked around trying to figure out what was going on, and how I could get out of here.

Then I heard the voice of Morning Star, “How do you always find yourself getting into trouble with unicorns with strange magic?”

“Oh great, it’s my crazy self. I’ve been wondering where you’ve been. I thought after the last time we met, you would’ve left me alone.”

She appeared next to me with a bored expression, “That stunt you pulled almost killed you, if it wasn’t for little old me, you wouldn’t have even made it back to the bunker. It took a lot out of me to keep you from dying.”

“And here I thought I got rid of you for good.”

“Trust me, I’d rather be anywhere else than stuck in your head.”

Odd, she wasn’t as bitchy as the last time I saw her, maybe she learned her lesson. I’m sure she didn’t though, but if she wasn’t being bitchy Morning Star, I’d take it, “So where are we, are we in my head again like last time?”

“No, the spell that unicorn used is a kind of waking dream spell, it affects everypony differently. For you it seems to be trying to get you to remember something. That’s why you feel like you’re in a memory orb, it’s your own memories.

“Why would I have to relive one of my own memories?”

She gave me a ‘Really’ look, “Just shut up and pay attention, when the memory ends, hopefully the spell will break.”

“I have a question first.”

“What!?” she said growling a little.

“Why do you seem so different since the last time I saw you?”

She sighed, “I’ve had to use a lot of my power to keep you alive after your stupidity, I told you that. Now I’m using more power to talk with you and help fight this spell. I’m drained right now, and I’m in no mood to deal with you.”

“So, you’re weak now?” I taunted.

“Fuck you Shadow Star, let’s get this over with.”

She vanished and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

I had to admit, it felt even stranger being in my own body, experiencing one of my memories like this. First of all, I was even smaller than normal, also this memory wasn’t like others I experienced in an orb. With those, everything was clear, this memory was fuzzy and confusing. There was a pony sitting next to me, his forehoof holding onto me. I looked up at him, but he was only a black outline, I couldn’t make out any details at all, only his voice. It was deep and gentle.

“Star, you feel warm again, are you feeling okay?” he asked.

I felt myself move and I nuzzled into his side, “I’m fine daddy, promise.”

Daddy? This was a memory of my dad? I didn’t know anything about him, even mom never talked about him. I tried asking her once and all she told me was that he died when I was little.

“Are you sure? You know your mother will be angry if you’re getting sick again and you didn’t tell anypony.”

“I’m fine, I don’t feel bad at all.”

“Were you practicing magic again?”

I pulled away from him and nodded slowly, “I wanted to try to be like mommy.”

He sighed and laughed, “You don’t have to be like your mother. You are your own pony Star, if you want to practice magic though, you should have mommy around to help you. You know you have to be careful when casting spells. You don’t want to overdo it.”

“I wanted to show her I could do it on my own,” I felt myself saying, but I could tell something was wrong. My heart was pounding in my chest, my head hurt, and I my hooves were tingling.

He hugged me, “One day, mommy will find a way to help you get better, then you can show us all how powerful you are Star. For now, I want you to be careful, can you do that for me?”

I jumped to my hooves, “I don’t need to be, one day I’ll be as great of a magic user as mommy, and a brave pony like you daddy.”

He laughed again, for some reason I still couldn’t make out his features, “I don’t doubt that, now come back here and sit down before you wear yourself out.”

“Awww, but I wanna go play…” I started to say, then my heart pounded harder in my chest, and I felt pain run up my body, I screamed and fell to my side as the pain grew worse.

He ran over to me and held me down as I started to thrash around, he started to yell, “Grimoire! It’s happening again!”

There was a flash of light and my mother was next to me, only she looked different from how I remembered her, she still had the same light blue coat, but her mane was striped grey and white. She knelt down, her horn glowing. A moment later the pain in my chest faded away and my body relaxed a little.

“What was she doing?” Mom asked looking up at the buck holding me.

“She just jumped up and started talking about playing with her friends, then the attack hit.”

“Was it worse than last week?” she asked looking down at me her horn still glowing.

“Worse definitely worse. Grim, I don’t know if she can take this much longer,” his voice sounded sad, like he was holding back sobs, “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Mom sighed and slowly pulled me out of the buck’s hooves and into her own, hugging my limp body to her own, “There might be a way, but you’re not going to like it.”

“If it’ll save our daughter, then I don’t care what you have to do.”

“I found something in the old files back at base, there could be a small chance of saving her, but I’ll have to leave with her.”

It took a moment for him to answer, “For how long?”

“I’m not sure, it could take years. I have the spell to keep her going, I think it can keep this at bay for long enough. If I’m right then she should get better.”

“Where do you have to go?” he asked.

“I have to go to New Pegasus, to the old base outside the city where those bomber ponies live to start.”

“You can’t do that, you of all ponies know what’s under that base.”

“I do, and it might be our only hope to save her,” Mom said as she pulled me close to her.

“Grim, our family has protected the secret of that project for two hundred years. If you go there and start everything back up, you know what’ll happen.”

“I do, and it’s worth it if I can save her. You said you’ll do anything to keep her alive remember?”

“Mommy my chest hurts,” I said, my body was finally starting to get some feeling back, and I was able to talk.

“I know sweetie, just rest and everything will be okay.”

The buck stood and started to move away, “Do what you have to. Just remember, if you go down this path, I’ll have to hunt you down. That’s the rules in our family.”

“I know, and I love you.”

The dark shape of the buck turned back, “And I love both of you, even more than my loyalty to my people.”

The memory faded away, there was a flash, and I was back in the real world. But the memory didn’t fade…

oooOOOooo

I awoke on a hard floor, at least this time I didn’t wake up without my barding, but Dream Walker wasn’t in its holster on my side (Fucking Perfect). I looked around and saw two other ponies looking down at me. One was a tall buck, the other a hard looking N.L.R. mare. The mare chuckled as I came out of the memory, “Look, she’s awake. Just in time too.”

I rubbed my head and looked around, “Where am I?” it looked like a cell of some kind, there were three concrete walls and one with bars. The bared door looked out at the arena.

“You’re in The Bramble, Poison Oak dropped you off a little bit ago. Said you were the third fighter for today’s event. You walked in fine but as soon as she left with her creepy friend, you passed out,” the mare said.

“Not surprised, Poison probably told her what she has to fight right before she got in here,” the Stallion said.

“Wait, fight? I didn’t agree to be in any fight.”

“Yeah, do you think we did either? Poison Oak goes around telling everypony that the fighters volunteer, but it’s a lie. She finds ponies to put into her fights, either by getting slaves, or using ponies that pissed her off.”

So The Queen’s suspicions were right, fuck. I looked back at them and asked, “You two seem calm for ponies who were forced to do this.”

The mare laughed, but the Stallion just looked down at his hooves as the mare spoke, “I’ve watched the fights here for a long time now, I know what to expect and I’ve seen a weakness that I’ll be able to take advantage of in this fight.”

“You DO know that the thing you’ll be fighting is a Hellhound don’t you?”

The stallion shook a little, “Yeah, and we’re all dead.”

“Not if you stick with me, all we have to do to kill that monster is get its bomb collar to explode. Lucky for you two I’m first up and I know explosives,” she said casually.

Before anything else could be said, Poison Oak’s voice boomed from outside, “Welcome Fillies and Gentlecolts to another night in The Bramble. I know you’ve all been wondering if anypony will be able to finally bring down our champion. Tonight, we have three ponies who want to try their best to take down the mighty Rawr.”

The ponies around the arena cheered for a moment, then Poison Oak continued, “As always the rules are simple, two fighters go in, only one leaves. The Bramble thirsts for blood, and tonight it’ll get its fill. So, with no further delay, our first opponent from the Red side is an N.L.R. trooper. She says she can take down any monster in The Wasteland. Let’s see if she can hold on to that title, I give you Quiver.”

“That’s my que, see you all soon when I win this,” she said as the door opened a little, letting her out into the open arena. It was then that I saw the other side had a similar set up to our side. I could see him, Rawr was waiting on the other end as the gate on his end slowly opened.

Poison Oak’s voice echoed again, “And in the Blue Side, you know him, you love him, I give you The Wasteland’s deadliest Hellhound. Let’s hear it for Rawr!”

The crowd cheered and started to stomp their hooves as the Death Dog walked out toward the mare who was starting to hop up and down readying herself for the upcoming fight.

Rawr looked down at her almost like he was bored of the whole thing, then the mare attacked the Death Dog going right for his collar. Rawr moved to the side, his claws coming up and slashing at her. She was able to twist around, avoiding most of his attack, but his claws left deep cuts along one side. Blood splattered the floor as the mare landed hard on the other side. She looked up at the Death Dog and smiled, “That all ya got?”

“If Rawr were pony, Rawr would give up. Less painful.”

As I watched the fight, (if you could call it a fight) I heard somepony tapping from somewhere behind me. I turned around and saw a pony looking down at me from the bars that formed the ceiling, a pony I knew.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked Greed. Why the fuck was that creepy pegasus down here? Did the Sins always know where to find a pony they were looking for?

Greed grinned down at me and winked, “Looks like you’re in a bit of a bind, aren’tcha?”

“Ya, think?”

He chuckled and smiled wider, “As to why I’m down here, well…I come by whenever I have a little down-time. I love the fights. How’d you end up down there?”

“Some hooded unicorn cast a spell on me, she want’s my Pip-Buck. I also think I did something to piss off Poison Oak.”

The crowd cheered louder, I turned and saw Rawr holding the mare high in the air. Her muzzle was open in a silent scream, her eyes wide, and her head looked like it was ready to pop. Then the Death Dog lived up to his name, his arm flexed and the mare exploded. The Death Dog howled and threw the destroyed body of Quiver against the far wall.

“Wow, that didn’t take long. I had caps on her lasting at least five minutes,” Greed said as he watched from above me.

The buck who was still in the room with me was shaking hard as he looked out at Rawr who was pacing the arena, “I don’t wanna die,” he said.

I looked up at Greed, “I know this sounds stupid but do you know a way that I can get out of this?”

Greed looked back down at me and laughed, “I thought we were enemies Courier Mare?”

“So what? It’s not like you were down here looking for me. Do you really want to leave killing me up to some monster?”

He beamed again, “No I don’t, honestly nopony apart from my boss knows I’m down here right now. The question is what I’ll get out of it?”

The gate to the arena opened again, the buck started to openly sob falling to the ground, “Please don’t send me out there, I’ll do anything else. Just don’t make me fight that thing.”

Rawr snorted from across the arena, “Hurry up pony, Rawr doesn’t have all day to wait for you.”

“Oh, I love when he calls his pray out like that,” Greed said watching the Death Dog, then he looked back at me, “So, if I help you what do I get?”

“I dunno, caps. I have a few I can give up, a cool gun I found, maybe a thank you and a kiss,” the last part was mostly a joke, seeing how I would be the next pony to be slaughtered after this poor buck picked himself off the floor and faced what was coming.

“A kiss from you? Now that I like. Sure, I can help you a little. Unfortunately, I can’t just break you out of that cage you’re in,” he said rubbing his chin, “I know, I could cut the power down there, the locks on the doors are magnetic. No power, no locks, best I can do. I’ll need a little time though.”

“Wait, you’re really gonna help me for a kiss?”

“Of course I am, Caps and a nice gun sound tempting, and trust me I’d take those too. They don’t call me Greed for fun, I want everything and I’ll get what I want no matter what gets in my way. But a kiss from you, that would be the best, because I want you Shadow Star, and I’ll get you one way or another,” he flew off before I could even say we had a deal.

I walked up to the buck and put a hoof on his shoulder, “Hey, stop you’re whining, I have a plan,” I kinda did, but I’d need a little help to make this work.

He looked up at me with fearful eyes, “What plan?”

“Probably a stupid one that’ll get us killed, but hell, it’s better than just jumping into this with nothing.”

“I dunno,” he said still shaking.

“Just do what I say and this can work, are you with me?”

He took a moment to answer, “Not like I have a choice.”

“Good, were both going out there. I need you to help me distract Rawr, if I can get that bomb collar off him, he might leave us alone. He really wants to take down the other ponies, and without his leash, he’ll go after Poison Oak and her bodyguard.”

“Are you sure that’ll work?” he asked?

I smiled, “Nope.”

“You’re insane. You know that right?”

I just chuckled and turned toward the open gate and walked out, the buck close behind right as Poison Oak started to speak, “Now we have a buck from back east out of Manehatten, he’s a former Steel Ranger Scribe, let’s hear it for…” she stopped as I walked toward Rawr, “What the fuck are you doing out there?”

“Putting on a show, what does it look like?” I said glancing up at the Mare, “Oh and when this is over I want my gun back.”

She smiled down at me, “Looks like we have a surprise for you all tonight. I give you the mare you’ve all been hearing about on the Radio, the mare who took down the raider camp outside Cartwheel, the one who blew up a stable, the pony who’ve I heard has also taken down a member of The Seven Sins of Equinity. Let’s hear it for the Courier Mare.”

This time the crowd didn’t make a sound, they all looked down at me shocked. Glancing around I could see a few muttering to their neighbors, four however were just watching me looking baffled. Aura, Wingnut, Stardust, and Silver all looked at me like I was fuckin’ nuts. I just smiled at them and winked, then looked back at Rawr.

“Didn’t think Rawr would be seeing small pony so soon, looks like leader pony forced you to fight,” the Death Dog said.

Keeping my voice down I replied, “Is our deal still on if I can free you?”

He looked confused for a moment and sighed, “Rawr has told small-pony that it not possible. Rawr will never be free, not till he is killed.”

“It’s not impossible, I have a way, I think. You have to give me a chance, but we also have to make this fight look good while I work on freeing you, can you do that?”

He rolled his eyes, “Pony is stupid, Rawr won’t be free. Rawr will have to kill you like others. Rawr will feel bad though, because pony at least tried. So, for kindness, Rawr will make pony’s death quick,” he said raising his paws and showing off his long and extremely sharp claws.

“I mean it Rawr, I can help.”

“If pony thinks she can help, then pony can do it while staying alive.”

Poison Oak spoke again, her voice sounding angry, “Kill her Rawr, and show The Wasteland why you don’t fuck with The Bramble.”

He shot at me with his claws at the ready. I ducked around him and teleported to the other side of the arena, yelling, “Hey you, now would be a good time to distract him.”

The buck pissed himself as he looked up at Rawr, he started to mutter something, then Rawr’s claws sliced through him. His head and two legs rolled away from his twitching body, blood painting the wall behind him in crimson. Fuck, he didn’t even try to defend himself, and Rawr killed him in seconds. The Death Dog looked back at me then put his name to good use and Roared at me as he charged.

I summoned my magic and shot a blast of energy at him, only this time I focused it instead of just letting it pulse out of me like I had back in Stable 28 or the fight with Wrath. The blast hit him and threw him back into the far wall leaving cracks in the concrete. My vison started to swim a little as the energy needed to cast the spell washed over me, but I was able to stay on my hooves.

Rawr was starting to get up, rubbing his head a little. Using my Telekinesis, I wrapped the collar he had on in my magic. Remembering what Wingnut told me I started to work with the trigger and lock. As I worked on it, Rawr got back to his feet then charged at me. I moved to one side, but his claws followed, just barely missing me. It took all my strength to keep hold on his collar so it didn’t go off.

“Dammit Rawr! If you just stood still for like thirty more seconds I can get that fucking collar off you!”

He attacked again, ignoring my outburst. This time I wasn’t fast enough, his paw grabbed me and pinned me to the wall, and he started to slowly squeeze me. His face came within inches of mine and he growled low as he spoke, “I told Pony before, there is no way out for Rawr…”

There was a click, and the red light on Rawr’s collar went out. The pressure around my body slackened some as his eyes went wide. As he looked into my eyes, I heard Stardust’s voice echoing from above, “Let her out of there, NOW! She didn’t sign up for this!”

“She did, and she’ll have to go out like every other pony who’s ever faced Rawr,” Poison Oak said, “Now Kill her Rawr, give The Bramble what it thirsts for.”

Slowly Rawr lowered me down and let me go, his face still a mask of wonder, “Did pony really just do what Rawr thinks pony did?”

I smiled and nodded, pulling the collar away from him, “Now, do you think you can keep up on your end of our deal?”

“The cage is still magically warded, like the one Rawr lives in,” as he said this, there was a boom from somewhere deeper in the town and most of the lights went out, along with the glowing gems around the upper part of the Arena.

“I had a little help,” I said, “How about we get out of here.”

He smiled and nodded, “Pony did what Rawr thought could not be done. You can live Pony, Rawr is in pony’s Debt,” then he looked up at the ponies above.

“Glad to hear it, how about we get out of here and stop this place once and for all,” I said looking up at where Poison Oak was glaring down at us.

“What do you think you’re doing Rawr!? Kill her, right now!” she yelled down at us. Right then I saw the glimmer of a dark blue handle to a pistol, one that looked a lot like mine.

“Hey Rawr, I’ll meet you up there,” I said, then teleported right up to Poison Oak, she took a step back and went to pull Dream Walker out from the side holster she was wearing. Before she could, I took hold of it with my magic and yanked it free. I jammed to barrel against her forehead, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to take another pony’s things?”

There was a loud wrenching sound from behind me, and the sounds of Rawr howling as he got free from the Arena. I looked back at him as he jumped and grabbed onto the railing behind me pulling himself up. The Death Dog growled as he looked down at Poison Oak, his claws twitching. I kept the gun to her head.

“Answer something for me,” I said.

“How did you get that thing to listen to you?” she asked shrinking back and looking up at Rawr.

I didn’t get a chance to answer, because a bullet bit into my flanks. I ducked down and looked toward the direction the bullet came from. Guard ponies on the level above us were firing down at us. I looked back toward where my friends were and yelled, “Take care of the guards.”

Aura flew over me with her spear out and glowing. A shot rang out from Stardust’s rifle just behind and over me, and I could hear Wingnut firing his revolver. As the guards fired at us Poison Oak ran off down one of the aisles. Rawr lived up to his name again and roared as she ran.

“She’s getting away pony,” he said ready to jump after her.

“Don’t worry, I got her. Help my friends take care of the guards,” I said starting to run after her.

“Why does pony get to have all the fun?” he complained as he turned and jumped to the upper level, his claws ripping into two ponies as soon as he landed.

I smiled and kept going. Poison Oak didn’t make it far, she tumbled and fell as her hoof caught on something sticking out from the wall. It didn’t take her long to get back to her hooves and try to get away again. I lifted Dream Walker and hit S.A.T.S. I triggered two shots at her hind legs and fired.

She fell and blood flew as she slid a few feet across the floor. I walked up to her as she cowered on the floor, her left hind leg shaking violently. I pointed my gun at her again, “Where were we?”

“You caught me, good job Courier Mare,” she laughed a little, “So now what? Are you gonna kill a mare while she’s hurt and defenseless?”

I shook my head, “No, I need to know something first. Who was that mare you were talking with before, the one who cast the spell on me?”

“I have no idea who she is. She came to me after talking with Gina, she told me what she wanted and who she was looking for. When I heard who you were I knew I didn’t want you down here. From what I’ve heard, you bring nothing but destruction where ever you go. I was right too, I should’ve just killed you before you had the chance to do anything to The Bramble,” she said angrily.

“I don’t buy that, who is she!?” I yelled pressing the gun right up to her face again.

She spat in my face, “Fuck you Courier Mare, I’m finished.”

I wiped my face clean and sighed lowering the gun a little, “You’re not worth it. I’m here as a favor to The Queen. I’ve seen enough to know you’ve been doing everything the rumors say. Rawr told me everything when I found him down in his cage before. What I don’t get is why.”

She laughed again, “The Bramble needs its sacrifices and Rawr made that possible. So what if a few worthless ponies died and a few slaves? The Bramble always gets its blood.”

“Not anymore, I’m shutting you down for good Poison, and I’ll let The Queens deal with you.”

As I spoke, more shots rang out from behind me, I saw more guards coming down the aisles firing at me. I ducked behind a chair and returned fire with Dream Walker. (Damn this thing had one hell of a kick) As my last bullet left the mag, it glowed as it sank into the shoulder of one of the guards. A second later a black light exploded out of him, incinerating most of his left side.

The last two guards looked at the body of the dismembered buck and backed away slowly, then one yelled, “Fuck this, I’m not getting paid enough for this shit,” he ran off, his partner not far behind.

They only got a few feet away when Rawr landed in front of them. His claws swiped and beheaded them both. He looked over at me, blood covering most of his arms and chest. He had a couple bullet holes in him, but they didn’t seem to bother him much as he walked over. He walked right up to Poison Oak. She started to shake in fear as she looked up into his yellow eyes.

“Call him off, please call him off,” she begged.

“Stop your whining pony,” he said picking her up in one paw and bringing her right up to his face.

“I don’t tell him what to do, I’m just the pony who freed him,” I looked up at Rawr, “You don’t have to kill her Rawr, she’s finished.”

He looked over at me, “This pony had Rawr’s family killed, all so she could use Rawr in her fighting pit.”

“Wait, you did what?” I asked looking over at Poison Oak, who was crying softly as she hung there in his grip.

“They’re just Hellhounds, The Wasteland is better with less of them around,” she said through her sobs.

I backed away as Rawr let out a deep throated growled, then using his other hand he lifted one of her hind legs and ripped it off. She screamed in pain as a puddle of blood started to coat the floor, “That was for Rawr’s mate,” he reached down and ripped off the one I shot, “That was for Rawr’s Pup.”

“Rawr, you don’t need to do this,” I said, horrified at what I was watching. Aura and Stardust landed next to me and they both watched in horror as the Death Dog growled louder as he brought a claw up to the mare’s neck.

“Gina, where are you? Please help me!” she cried. I wanted so badly to help her, but what could I do? From what I was hearing, she deserved no less, it was just hard to watch.

“Gina won’t be coming, there’s no point yelling for her. You’re already dead, you’re brain just hasn’t figured it out yet,” Aura said coldly.

“Griffon is right; this is for making Rawr fight for you like some kind of pony pet,” Rawr said dragging his claw along her throat. She gagged and choked as blood spilled from her neck and into her windpipe. Rawr dropped her on the floor then howled his anger and pain for all the hear. He looked back at me as she lied on the floor dying at his feet.

My two friends brought their weapons up, but I kept mine down, “What now Rawr?”

“Um…Shadow. Why isn’t he attacking us?” Stardust asked.

“Yeah, and why didn’t he kill you back in the arena?” Aura asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said as Rawr came closer looking down at all of us.

“Dog has gotten his revenge. Thanks to small pony, Dog owes her now.”

“No you don’t Rawr. All I did was free a creature that needed my help. I’ll admit I don’t agree with what you did to her, but from what you said she deserved it,” I said looking down at the mare.

“She did. Pony should go now. Maybe one day, Rawr will be able to pay Pony back,” He said as he turned and walked away into to darkness.

When he was gone I looked back at my friends, they both looked baffled at the reaction of the Death Dog. Stardust’s jaw was open as he looked at me then the death dog as he walked away, “What in Celestia’s name happened?”

Aura seemed to snap out of it first, she just shook her head then walked over to me and thumped the back of my head, “Ow, what was that for?”

“That was for being stupid and wandering off without me.”

“Hey, you wandered off first,” I said rubbing the back of my head.

“Yeah because you pissed me off. Can we get out of here now?”

“Yeah, let’s get Wingnut and Silver. I’ll make sure to tell The Queen what happened when we get done with everything else.”

“Good idea,” Stardust said, “I hate being underground. I just wanna get back outside where I can stretch my wings.”

As we walked back toward the steps that lead back to the upper levels I looked over at Aura, “Are we okay now?”

She rolled her eyes, “Were fine Boss, I was just upset. This jackass talked to me and calmed me down.”

“Wow, never thought I’d hear that one.”

“Ah he’s still a pain in the ass, but he’s not as bad as I thought.”

Stardust chuckled a little, “I should get a recording of that.”

“Don’t push it cloud breath,” she warned.

Stardust only snickered a little and kept going, then out of nowhere Talons grabbed me from behind and threw me back into the far wall. I cried out in pain and looked up at the angry face of Gina, “You crazy bitch. Do you know what you just did?”

A pressure started to build at the back of my mind, I know this feeling now, but I fought the presence back and laughed up at Gina, “I think so. I think I just helped a Dog get out of a cage, and shut down this disgusting place.”

“I had a good thing going here. Yeah Poison Oak was a bitch who wasn’t fun to work for, but it was still an easy life. Now I have to go out and find a new Pony to work for, do you know how hard it is for Freelancers to find work out here?”

“I know more than you think,” I said looking up at her smiling.

A glowing spear rested against Gina’s neck, and Aura said, “Put her down Gina. Now.”

Gina looked over at Aura, anger etched into her features, “You think I’m scared of that toothpick Aura? Go bother someone else.”

“I’m not a kid anymore Aunt Gina. I’m not the same griffon you knew so long ago. I’ll kill you right here and now if I have to.”

Gina took a moment and let me go. She faced the other griffon, “You have guts, that’s for sure kid.”

“I always have, I just know I can take you down now.”

Gina just laughed in her face, “Who knows? Maybe you can, but honestly I don’t feel like finding out right now,” she looked back at me, “Since I no longer have a contractor, I have no reason to keep anything from you. I wasn’t far when you were asking Poison Oak about that mare, do you still want to know who she is?”

I perked up, “Yes, what can you tell me about her?”

“Honestly not much, all I know about her is that she’s a unicorn that’s been looking to hire griffons for a while. She keeps getting turned down, or the griffon she DOES hire dies trying to help her. What I can tell you is that she works for the Enclave, and she’s wants that Pip-Buck of yours, but I don’t know why. I could’ve told her you were here when she first came to me a few hours ago, but I didn’t because Aura is family and she works for you.”

“She said that she could remove the Pip-Buck before when she was talking to you, why didn’t she when she cast that spell on me?” I asked.

Gina laughed again, “I shouldn’t be surprised that you heard all that. I’m not sure. When she cast that spell on you and started leading you away with Poison, she said something about not having enough time to take it off. Poison suggested killing you in The Bramble to give the ponies around here a show. She agreed and said she’d come back later for the Pip-Buck. If you want my advice I’d stay away from her, she’s bad news.”

“I’ll do my best. Thanks for the information,” I said, surprised that she was being a lot nicer than she had before. As I finished talking I noticed Silver and Wingnut standing at the bottom of the steps watching us.

“Whatever. Don’t expect me to be so nice if we see each other again,” Then she looked over at Aura, “Aura, before I go, can you answer something for me?”

“Why should I?” she said pointing the spear right at Gina’s eye.

“Because, if you do, I’ll let you all leave alive. You think you can take me down, and maybe you can. But I don’t think you can do it before I killed a couple of your friends. So, what I want to know is, why did my dear sister kick you out of the Talons?”

Aura’s anger seemed to melt away, then she put her spear on her back and said, “You have a point, fine. I won’t give you details, but I broke Rule 7.”

The hard expression on Gina’s face vanished and grew softer, then she sighed, “Damn kid, that had to be hard. Maybe one day you can tell me the whole story. If you do, I’ll tell you what really happened to me.”

“I know enough,” Aura said angrily.

Gina just laughed again, “You think you do kid, but you’re wrong. See ya around,” then she flew off past the running ponies vanishing down one of the tunnels.

“This has been a really weird day,” Silver said walking up next to me and kissing my cheek, making me blush a little, “Does this happen a lot?”

Stardust laughed, “You have no idea.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said and walked past my friends.

***

I saw the destruction Rawr wreaked on The Bramble before he came down and killed Poison. There was no way the place would be used again for a while. On my way out I didn’t see any sign of Greed, I was still surprised that one of The Sins helped me. Maybe he did want to help me out. He wasn’t like the other Sins I’d met before, that’s for sure.

“So now what?” Wingnut asked, “Are you really just gonna let that thing stay alive so close to the towns around here?”

“I don’t think he’ll be a problem for anypony Wingnut. He’s had enough of Ponies I think,” I said to the Colt. (At least I hope I was right.)

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Stardust said, “I’ve never seen a Hellhound like him before, or one that would just leave a living pony behind like that.”

I giggled a little, “He’s not a normal Hellhound, he’s not that bad, at least he doesn’t seem to be. Now let’s get going before anything else weird finds us.”

I didn’t even go three steps before Greed landed in front of me, once again my friends guns were out. He ignored them, and pressed his face close and kissed me, then he pulled away and laughed, “Payment accepted, now get out of here kid, before Pride figures out where you went.”

Before I could ask him if he knew anything about that mare from before, he was gone, “That’s what I get for saying I didn’t want to run into anything weird.”

“Should’ve knocked on wood, I thought you learned your lesson after Stable 9,” Stardust said arrogantly.

“Yeah me too,” I replied, then I looked back at Silver, “I know this day has been extremely weird, but do you want to keep traveling with us since things didn’t work out down in The Bramble?”

She just chuckled and walked close to me kissing my nose, “I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. Why would I want to just up and leave?”

“I dunno. Maybe because danger seems to follow me around. I don’t wanna put you in danger.”

“Shadow, you have a colt following you around, do you think that I’m weaker than a colt?” she asked fluttering her eyes at me.

“Well…no, I mean I don’t know. Wingnut doesn’t count, he’s a tough little shit, and I mean you make cloths and armor.”

“I do, and I also used to travel around The Wasteland when I was younger, I know what I’m doing. Now where are we heading next?” she said still smiling.

I wanted to argue, but why bother? I wasn’t in the mood anyway, so I gave in, “We’re heading to Frosty Summit Ski Lodge next to find a Dashite for the Queen.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun.” she said walking past me and toward my friends, “Now let’s not waste what daylight we have left.”

I couldn’t help watching her rear as she trotted away, Aura snickered then patted my shoulder, “Hey, that’s what happens when you don’t listen to me, now you’re screwed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked looking desperately at the Griffon.

“She owns you now, all she has to do is flutter her eyes, shaker her ass and you’re butter in her hooves,” Stardust replied for Aura.

I scowled, “I think I liked it better when you two didn’t like each other.”

They both laughed and we started walking northwest, following the path that should lead us up to the lodge.

***

We’d been walking for only an hour or so when something started to feel off. We were walking up a path that wound its way up a hill, but as we inched closer to where the ski lodge should be, we entered a clearing in the rocky slope. I stopped as my friends continued on though the clearing.

A moment later Aura looked back at me and asked, “What’s wrong Boss?”

I looked around at the quiet clearing, “Something just feels off. I’m not sure what it is, but I have this odd feeling that we shouldn’t walk through this clearing.”

“Come on, I’m a griffon. I would know if something was here that could do anything to us. Plus, you have E.F.S., you should know if there’s anything hostile around,” she said turning and walking back toward where the rest of my companions were just reaching the other side of the clearing.

“I guess you’re right,” I said following her.

It was when I was half way across when I noticed a humming from under my hooves, I looked down and saw that something was glowing just under the brush that covered the ground. Oh fuck, what now? I ran for it not wanting to find out what was about to happen. Only as I moved the glowing grew brighter and lines of arcane energy shot out from the point I was just on. The lines flew past me and around in all directions forming a circle around the entire clearing. I noticed right before I got to the other end of the clearing that it looked like some kind of magic circle. I remember mom telling me about them once before, in one of her attempts to teach me about different kinds of magic. Then I ran face first into an invisible barrier right at the end of the clearing.

“Ow, what the fuck was that?” I asked up at my friends who were just on the other side of the invisible wall.

“What’s going on?” Stardust asked.

I was about to ask the same thing, when I saw my friends tense up, then a gun was pressed to the back of my head, and a pony with a gruff voice said, “Don’t move you evil bitch!”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Wasteland Whisperer: You have learned the Art of talking to different kinds of creatures in the wasteland, be it Hell Hound, Ghoul, or Chimera, you now have a chance to Pacify these post-apocalyptic monsters and even get them to help you out in a fight. Be careful though, you never know when they might see you as their next victim.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Shadow’s Edge Rank 2: Your recent interaction with the thing calling itself Morning Star has boosted your endurance with Magic, you can now use your magic twice as much as before with less side effects.

Chapter 19: I Need A Doctor

“Damn, well ain’t karma a bitch.”

I looked out at my friends on the other side of the barrier right in front of me. I wanted to call out to them to help me, but I wasn’t sure if they even could. Even if they could get through this barrier that came out of nowhere, I had a gun pressed to the back of my head. I wanted to teleport away, hopping that could save me. Which was faster, pulling a trigger or my spell. I `already knew the answer, and it wasn’t pleasant.

My friends just looked at me, rage written on their faces. Aura’s talon was on her energy spear, but she didn’t draw it. Stardust looked ready to jump into the air and attack whoever was holding the gun to my head. Wingnut looked shocked, as if he had no idea what he should do. The only one who didn’t look angry was Silver, her eyes were widen, she looked frightened.

Whoever was behind me, went through a lot to trap me here. That was if they were even after me. With my luck it was another one of the Sins I hadn’t met yet or another hopeful bounty hunter. So the only thing I figured I could do was try and talk my way out it, “Don’t move you evil bitch? That’s a new one.”

The gun pressed harder against the back of my skull as the deep voiced pony behind me said, “You shouldn’t talk either, you’ll make my gun angry. She shoots things when she’s angry,” from behind me I heard another pony facehoofed.

“You better let her go. If you don’t I’ll kill you where you stand.” Stardust said from the other side of the barrier.

I heard the other pony’s voice, it was smoother than the first but sounded similar, “I’m sorry but we can’t do that. Do you have any idea what you’ve been traveling with?”

“Yes, she’s my friend, let her go.”

“Shut your trap, you don’t understand what’s goin’ on here,” the first pony said.

“I’D like to know what’s going on here!” I interrupted.

“You don’t get a say in this,” he snapped at me.

Deciding I was tired of always having guns pointed at me I ducked down, twisted and smacked his gun aside. Using my magic I lifted Dream Walker and pointed it at him. The other Stallion lifted a beautifully engraved pistol toward me. He didn’t say a word. He only pointed at me as I pointed my own at the other stallion.

“Put down your gun or I’ll blow his head off,” I warned.

“Do that, and you I’ll blow yours off,” he said as his magic pulled back on the hammer.

I took a moment to look at the two who’d ambushed us. One thing was for sure, they weren’t Sins, or at least they didn’t look like they were. Both were unicorns, the one I had my gun pointed at was a little shorter than Stardust, with a tan coat, with a short blond mane and tail, and green eyes. His cutiemark was…is that a pie? The other was a lot taller, he also had a tan coat, with a long brown mane and green eyes like the other. His cutiemark was a leather-bound book with a strange symbol on the cover. They were both wearing flannel shirts…in the hot Wasteland…that was…interesting.

Aura and Stardust came up next to me, their weapons drawn. Aura smiled at the two, “Seems to me like you idiots are outnumbered.”

“We’ve been in worse situations. Why are you protecting a possessed pony anyway?” the shorter one said.

“Who are you two and what do you mean by possessed?” I asked, still not lowering my gun.

“Squirrel, maybe they don’t know. Did you ever think about that?” the tall pony asked.

It was then that I noticed that the taller one had a Pip-Buck. Are they Stable Ponies? Maybe just the tall one, unless the one called Squirrel lost his or got rid of it. Putting that aside, I got my mind back to what was going on, “Can you two explain to us why you came after me, or what you want.”

“Yeah and what’s this glowing symbol on the ground?” Wingnut asked walking up to us, ignoring the drawn weapons and looking around at the strange glowing lines in the shape of a circled star.

As Wingnut walked up, the taller pony finally lowered his weapon, “Damn, I can’t do this in front of a kid.”

“Do what?” Wingnut asked giving him an odd look, “And I’m not a kid.”

Squirrel looked back at his companion, “What are you doing Moose?”

“Squirrel, are we even sure she’s possessed? I mean come on, she’s just a kid herself. If she was possessed, wouldn’t she have done something by now?”

This was getting really weird, at least they weren’t pointing guns at us anymore. Squirrel cursed and turned his back on me, ignoring the weapons still pointed at him, “We’ve been hunting her down for a week. You saw what happened back near Hidden Sands. The Devil’s Trap worked on her, and not on the others. What proof do you need? Let’s kill the bitch and get this over with, I’m hungry.”

“You just ate.”

“Yeah, like an hour ago. I need a hayburger lathered with cheese.”

“What the fuck do you two want!” Aura finally yelled. She looked like she was ready to dice them in to tiny little stallion nuggets.

The taller pony…Moose I guess…sighed and turned back to face us, “I’m Moose, this is my brother Squirrel. We’re hunters, we’ve been tracking her for a little over a week, ever since we saw her fight with those griffons just outside Hidden Sands.”

Squirrel threw his hooves into the air, “Oh yeah, just tell them why dontcha. Good job Moose. What’ll you tell them next, huh? Gonna tell them that we’re after The Demon Slayer.”

I got a funny look and mouthed the words, “Demon Slayer?”

“To late now dumbass,” Moose said rolling his eyes.

“Okay, so I’m gonna leave now. You guys are crazy,” I turned to walk away then face-planted into the barrier like a bird hitting a window. Oh yeah, almost forgot about the fucking barrier, “Can you please get rid of this thing?”

They both looked at my friends and I and Squirrel said, “No way, we’ve been planning this for days. We’re not letting you get away.”

“Uuggh, c’mon. I said please,” I said then sat down, “I don’t know what you saw or what you want, but I’m sure you’ve got the wrong mare. I’m just a courier for Equestrian Express.”

“‘Fraid not, we saw you turn into something else. You used some pretty wild spells and took down one of the griffons and almost another,” Moose said.

“Then you went and stabbed yourself and changed back. You got a demon livin’ inside you kid. I’m sure you know that already though,” Squirrel added.

Did they mean Morning Star? What did they know about her? More than I knew from the sound of it. Might as well see what else they can tell me, “I still don’t understand what happened to me back there. All I know is that something inside me let me use its power to fight the griffons. If it didn’t lend me it’s power I’d be dead. I don’t know if I’m just crazy or what, but you’re not wrong that I’ve been hearing things inside my head.”

My friends all looked over at me with concerned looks on their faces. Aura spoke up, “Why didn’t you tell us about this Shadow?”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me, or think I was going nuts.”

“Shadow, I’d never think you were crazy. Stupid maybe, but not crazy,” Stardust said with a smirk.

“I dunno…hearing things in your head is a little crazy,” Aura said getting close and looking into my eyes, “I mean you’ve been through a lot recently. It’s possible your mind is trying to compensate for the stress.”

“Or she’s possessed by a demon,” Squirrel threw in.

“Demons aren’t real,” Aura shot back.

Wingnut just sat there watching us, his head switching between us and the brothers. Moose sighed, “Demons ARE real. Zebra’s call them star spawns, creatures of the stars that come down to kill or possess ponies and zebras alike. They have a whole lore revolved around it and it’s one of the reasons they fear and yet respect the stars. Personally, I don’t think they’re spirits, but there’s a lot of things we’ve seen over the years to show that anything could be real. You’re the first pony we’ve seen that’s been possessed by one.”

“So…you don’t think I’m crazy. You think I have some star thingy living inside me?” yep they’re both nuts. I’d rather go with me going insane, than an evil spirit living inside me.

“In a way, yeah,” Squirrel said.

“Yeah, fuck that. I’m leaving, let me out of this stupid thing,” I said pulling out Dream Walker again.

“We can prove it, and if we’re right we can exorcize it.”

“No way, I’m not letting two ponies I don’t know just cast spells on me.”

“Well Moose, we tried it your way. Can we just shoot the bitch now?”

“No! Just make sure her friends don’t get in the way,” Moose said.

“Fine,” he replied and his horn glowed.

His magic surrounded my friends and they froze in place. Their eyes were moving, but it looked like they couldn’t even speak. I backed up against the barrier and watched as Moose walked close to me, “Stay away from me you freak!”

I brought up Dream Walker and fired, but the stallion’s horn glowed and he vanished and reappeared a moment later right next to me. Before I could fire again he hit the gun out of my magic, then drew a quick circle on the ground in front of me with three stars in the middle, and started to chant, “Come Forth Demon of the stars, reveal to us you’re true from, so we may gaze upon your visage.”

For a second nothing happened. I smiled, “See you’re both wrong…” then the pain hit me.

I started to scream as her voice started to laugh in my head, saying, “Oh I like these two. Who would’ve known there are two unicorns in The Wasteland who know old Zebra spells.”

I held my hooves to my head and yelled, “Go away, I’m not letting you in again.”

The circle Moose drew started to glow red and the pain in my head doubled. I fell to my side screaming louder as Morning Star started to laugh louder. Then I felt my hooves move on their own and I stood. My lips pulled up into a grin as I said in a voice not my own, “Very good boys. Where have you been all my life?”

No…no-no-no-no, please no. I thought to myself as I started to walk slowly toward Moose who was backing away a little, his horn still glowing, “I take it you’re the demon. What’s your name?”

I looked around the bigger magic circle that was keeping me trapped. I frowned, “I didn’t know there were traps for beings such as myself. How’d you ever find something like this?”

“Shut up you evil bitch, it’s time for you to die,” Squirrel said pulling out his gun again.

I looked over at him and smiled, “You think you have what it takes to kill me, you two are hilarious. Do you two do parties? Oh please tell me you do parties. This is SUCH good entertainment.”

“Squirrel, we can’t kill her. If we do it’ll kill the host too.”

“I know that Moose, but we can’t let something like this wander The Wasteland.”

Moose bucked the gun away and looked back at me…or Morning Star. It was getting hard to tell where I started and she ended, “Who are you, and why are you inside this mare?”

I looked at them confused, “What do you mean? I’m just another part of Shadow Star, her true power held dormant by a spell. You’re spell helped me show myself. You really should read more about zebra spells before trying them out on somepony.”

“You’re full of shit monster,” Squirrel said, “Moose do something quickly. I can’t hold the spell on her friends much longer and I’m sure they aren’t too happy right now with what’s going on.”

“Fuck it, fine. But first I wanna know who she is.”

I laughed, “I just told you who I am, but if it’s too much to call me Shadow because of the personality change, you can call me Morning Star.”

“Fuck this, I’ll pull you out of that mare before you can do anything else to her,” Moose said. He started to spew out words in another language that must’ve been zebra.

Morning Star started to yell as if she was in pain, falling to the ground and starting to make choking noises. When Moose finished his spell, he stomped down hard on the ground and shouted out the last word. She screamed again, then started to laugh, rolling around on the ground as my hooves held onto my stomach, “Oh please, go on. I think I almost felt something with that last word.”

“Uh…Moose, I don’t think it worked.” Squirrel said.

“Ya think,” Moose replied rounding on his brother, “I did the spell perfectly. What’s going on?”

“Don’t look at me, you’re the smart one. I just shoot things,” Squirrel replied.

I stopped my laughing then stood looking at both of them seriously, “I’m bored now. Oh, I have an idea, let’s see how far you can run before I can incinerate you. If you make it outside the circle, I might let you live.”

“We aren’t scared of you or whatever power you think you have,” Moose said.

“Maybe she’s just crazy?” Squirrel added.

I could feel a spell building on my horn as I started to count in a sing songy way swaying one hoof left and right, “One, two, gonna kill you… three, four, you’re such a bore, five, six, you’re in a fix, seven, eight, accept your fate, nine, ten, never breathe again…ah-ha-ha-ha-haaa…”

“No, I’m not letting you do this!” I yelled, to my surprise, the words came out of my own muzzle.

My hooves stopped moving and Morning Star replied, “You’re still there? Go away, you’re not needed anymore Shadow.”

“This is MY body, NOT yours,” I retorted.

“I’ve been trapped in your head for too long. You’re nothing but a Shadow of me. Why do you think Grim named you that? You have no idea what you are. It’s my turn and I won’t give you back what’s rightfully mine!” by the time she finished she was screaming.

By this time everypony….and griffon was staring at me. The two brothers looked like they had no idea what to do. Aura had a look of shock and fear on her face, Stardust looked worried, Wingnut was shaking, and Silver looked…sad. They hadn’t ever seen this side of me before, they had no idea what was going on in my messed-up head. I had no idea what was going on, all I knew was that Morning Star was taking over…again and I had no idea what to do. The spell they cast to call her out somehow made her stronger. I couldn’t even take hold of my own magic to do something like before.

As I stood there trying to take back control, Squirrel’s horn popped and my friends were released from his spell. They didn’t move though, they looked at me like they didn’t even know who I was…I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Was Morning Star right? Was I nothing but a Shadow of the mare who’d been Grim’s daughter? It would make sense, I had no memories of myself before the stable. All I knew was the life of a stable pony. Who forgot everything about their life like that?

I remembered what Elder Appleslice said. Grim’s daughter was sick and wasn’t long for this world. She was looking for something she could use to save her daughter. Hell, I didn’t even look like that filly that she described, and Grim wouldn’t have left her daughter in the stable no matter what. The Elder said that, but she also said she saw a little of Grim in me as well. Was that just the bits of Morning Star showing through?

I could feel tears start to fall down my face as I looked at my friends. My friends…could I even call them that? I hadn’t told them what really happened to me when I killed Aura’s brother, or about hearing the voice of Morning Star for the past couple weeks. I hadn’t even told them about the dreams. What kind of friend was I to keep secrets like that?

“Shadow…are you still there?” Aura said slowly walking toward me.

“Stay away you hybrid freak!” Morning Star hissed looking back at the griffon through my eyes.

“I wasn’t talking to you, whatever you are. I’m talking to my friend,” Aura snapped.

I wanted to say something but with Morning Star’s fury, her strength seemed to grow. She giggled a little then looked up at the sky, her laughter growing louder, “Hahaha, your friend? Really Aura? Do you really want to call her your friend after what happened to Trip Wire? I thought friends died around you.”

She froze, unable to speak. Stardust moved up next to her and looked at me…or Morning Star, whatever, “I don’t know what those two did to you Shadow, but Snap out of it.”

“Or what? Are you going to shoot me? Or maybe you’ll bore me to death. Tell me Stardust. Why should I be scared of you?”

“Don’t tempt me,” He growled.

“You shoot me and you shoot her too, we’re one and the same.”

“You’re not Shadow,” Wingnut said coming over to stand next to the other two, “Shadow wouldn’t say anything like that to her friends.”

“Oh dear child, I am Shadow. Or should I say she’s me? A broken part of me that is, but still me. She’s nothing but a slice of my own soul mixed together with a spell. Why do you think she has no idea who she was before she got to Stable 28? That’s because when she woke up in the clinic, it was the first time she awoke. She can’t remember anything because there isn’t anything to remember.”

“What kind of spell?” Silver Snip asked as she too went to stand by my friends.

“Moose can we kill her now?” Squirrel asked looking at me, anger etching his features.

I looked back at them and cast a spell, they both were thrown back and held to the ground unable to speak, “You two stay out of this,” she said then looked back at Silver, “I remember you.”

“From what I can tell, you know everything Shadow does, so what?”

My eyes narrowed, “No, I remember you from before, you were a filly who did something nice for me. You were helping your mother at some ratty shop in Cartwheel,” my hoof came up and rubbed the side of my head, “I can’t remember what though. Why can’t I remember?”

“You said your name was Morning Star right?”

“That IS who I am!” Morning Star yelled back at her.

“If so then what did I say to you when your mom came into our shop looking for information on a Stable Pony?”

When she said those words a memory hit me, almost like entering a memory orb like before when that unicorn cast that spell on me back at The Bramble…the world around me melted away.

oooOOOooo

This memory was different from the last, everything came in perfectly. The colors and images came in sharply. I was sitting by the door in a small shop, one I recognized now as the shop Silver Snip ran in Cartwheel. Mom was patting my head a little and smiling down at me. My heart was racing like before and my chest hurt, I was having a hard time breathing too. It hurt, but despite that, I still managed to smile up at my mother.

“Will you be okay here for a few minutes Little Star?”

“I think so mommy, my chest hurts though,” I said in a weak voice.

“I know, just relax and you’ll feel better soon.”

“Okay mommy,” I said resting my head against the wall as mom walked over to talk with the mare who ran the shop. She looked a lot like Silver Snip only older with a pinkish-red coat and a light blue mane.

I was about to close my eyes when somepony tapped my shoulder. I looked up and saw a Red coated filly, she was smiling at me. She looked close to my age, and she was bouncing from hoof to hoof, “Hi there I’m Silver Snip, nice to meet you.”

I smiled back, I hadn’t gotten to talk to many ponies my own age very often, “I’m Morning Star, though everypony calls me Little Star, since I’m so small.”

“You look out of breath. Were you just playing outside?”

“No, my mommy says I’m sick. If I move around too much my chest starts to hurt and I get a little weak,” I said frowning a little.

She sat down next to me, “That’s not good. How do you have fun then?”

“I read. My mommy says it’s good for me to learn and how I can use my knowledge one day to learn lots of spells like she does.”

“Reading is boring though. How can you go around just reading all the time, when there’s so much you can do outside? Cartwheel’s a safe place and kids like us can do lots of fun things around here.”

“Mommy says I can’t play too much or I might get sicker.”

Her ears drooped, “Awe that’s too bad, there isn’t any other fillies my age around here, only colts and they never wanna play with me unless they’re making me the bad pony in their games.”

I stuck my tongue out, “Colts are stupid.”

“You’re telling me. Well…if you can’t play outside, what else do you do for fun apart from reading?”

“I dunno, sometimes I pretend I’m a hero from one of my books and I’m gonna save the world from evil monsters that roam around. It’s all in my head though, but I pretend it’s all real.”

She beamed at me, “That sounds like a lot of fun!”

“It is, one time I pretended I was a dragon and I came down to The Wasteland from a tall cliff to stop the evil Discord from turning ponies into statues.”

“I bet you have a lot of fun stories,” she said.

“I do, but I never get to play with anypony else. I don’t have any friends.”

She looked at me for a long moment, her hoof tapping the underside of her muzzle, then she put it into the air and declared, “That changes today, from now on I’ll be your friend. That way whenever you have fun stories to tell you know you’ll have a friend to tell them to.”

“But you don’t even know me, and I don’t think we’re staying long, mom’s only here to talk to the shop pony about something stupid,” I sulked.

She winked, “Everypony needs a friend and now you have one. So what if you won’t be here long, you can always send me letters. Just give them to any courier pony you see that works for Equestrian Express, a nice old buck started it up a couple years ago and runs it right out of Cartwheel. Tell the courier it’s for me and they’ll bring it here on their return trips. Maybe you can tell me about your adventures that way.”

My eyes grew wide, “You mean you really wanna hear my stories, and really wanna be my friend?”

She nudged me and laughed, “Of course I do. I wouldn’t lie to a sweet filly like you. I promise that no matter how long it takes I’ll wait for your letters, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next time you’re in town.”

“Maybe next time I’ll be better and we can play outside.”

She smiled wider, “Next time I see you, I promise I’ll be right here ready to show you how fun my town can be.”

“Pinkie Pie Promise?” I said.

“Cross my heart hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she said doing the silly dance that Wingnut showed us, “Friends forever, remember that.”

I smiled and nodded, then mom came back over and smiled down at the two of us, “Are you making new friends Little Star?”

“This is Silver Snip. She said when I’m better she’ll show me fun things to do outside,” I said getting excited, my heart started to pump faster.

Mom’s face grew distant then she shook herself and her horn glowed, the pain receded a little, then with a sigh she said, “I think I know what I need now. How about we go find Vervain and tell her the news that you made a friend,” she looked over at the other filly, “Thank you for keeping my daughter company, but sadly we have to be going.”

The memory faded away…

oooOOOooo

I was back in the clearing now, my friends still looking at me. The brothers were still frozen to the ground and Morning Star was still rubbing the side of my head trying to remember…

“You promised me that we’d be friends forever, and that one day when I’m all better you’d show me fun things to do around Cartwheel,” I said, the real me, not Morning Star. I could feel her hold on me ebbing away slightly as I spoke those words.

She smiled at me, “Shadow?”

I looked over at her, ignoring the presence of the mare who was trying to keep hold of my mind, “I…I don’t know what to do to stop her Silver.”

She moved closer to me putting a hoof on my face, “I had a feeling when I first met you back in Cartwheel that you were the same filly I’d met so many years ago. You looked different, but you still had that same cute look you did back then.”

My voice changed again as Morning Star took control once more, “You know nothing you little slut. I’m Morning Star, she’s nothing,” my body jumped back and my horn glowed as she cast a spell, lightning crackedin front of me, a loud thunderous sound followed, cracking the earth below our hooves and breaking the markings that formed the large seal that made the barrier to keep me trapped. She turned to run, but Silver moved in front of her first.

“You’re not Morning Star, you’re not even Shadow.”

“You don’t know anything, you’re just some fucking tailor from a shithole town.”

“I’m also the pony who promised to always be that little filly’s friend. That filly was scared and gentle, a lot like Shadow is now. You’re not her because there’s no way that filly would’ve turned into a pony like you. Go away whoever you are, and leave her alone,” she said standing her ground.

I got hold of my body for a moment and said, “Silver please move, she’s more powerful than you know.”

“No Shadow, I won’t move. I won’t leave you alone, not like your mother did. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Aura moved to block the way too and said, “We all care about you, and we’re here for you no matter what.”

Morning Star laughed again and started to cast another spell, “You’re all worthless. If you won’t move…I’ll make you!”

I wanted to yell, to scream, to do anything I could to make her stop. Then Silver moved forward again and kissed me. Fire erupted in my heart, a good fire, something that only a pony who you loved could spark. Morning Star seemed to cringe away from the feeling trying to make my body move away from my friends. With all my power, I took hold and kissed the mare back, using the feeling I felt to push away the creature who wanted to pretend that she was me. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t, I had no idea. Then I remembered something. Something that felt like it belonged to me, I wouldn’t let that feeling go no matter what.

There was a scream inside my head as Morning Star was pushed back into the depths of my mind, and my body slumped as I broke the kiss. Silver caught me with her own magic and pulled me close, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. I just sighed again and smiled nuzzling into her neck as I lay there against her.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again, you hear me,” she whispered in my ear.

I nodded my head, “I remembered…I actually remembered something from before I went into the Stable.”

“I know, I’m happy you did too. Whatever that thing is, she isn’t you Shadow.”

“Yeah, and even if she was, we like this Shadow better,” Aura said walking over and thumping the side of my head. Then she looked over at Squirrel and Moose who were watching us a little confused.

“What the fuck are you two looking at?” Stardust asked glaring back at them, “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing, all we did was cast a spell that would make something show itself if it was possessing her, but we’ve never seen anything like that before,” Moose replied.

“Told you we should’ve shot her,” Squirrel said looking at me, “Nothing personal, but whatever that thing is, it’s nuts. It’s powerful too. Those two traits never go well together.”

I took another minute to hug Silver. I stood and walked over to the brothers, “That spell you did, I’m glad you did it. I should’ve told my friends sooner about what’s been going on.”

“Yeah you should’ve,” Aura said glaring at me.

“Anyway, now that I know something IS inside me and I’m not slowly going insane. Is there anything you can do to get it out?”

Moose looked down at his hooves, “We don’t know what that was. I have a few guesses, but I won’t know for sure until I can look through more Zebra lore. I wouldn’t know how to get that thing out of you, but it doesn’t seem to do well when it has to face feelings like the love your friends have for you.”

I laughed a little, “She also doesn’t take well to me stabbing myself either.”

Squirrel looked puzzled, “You stabbed yourself to stop her last time?”

I nodded, “I let her take over to save my life, back when I was fighting those griffons. She went too far and wouldn’t let me take back control, so I used what strength I had to stab myself and it worked.”

“You got some balls on you,” Squirrel said with a laugh, “I’m sorta glad we didn’t shoot ya now. I don’t like the thought of an evil spirit wandering around The Wasteland like that though. She can take over anytime she wants if she keeps getting stronger.”

Moose brightened up a little, “I think I have an idea. I have no clue if it’ll work or not, but it’s worth a try.”

I could still feel Morning Star, but for right now she was too stunned to take over again, “What do you have in mind?”

He pulled out a ring, “This is an old zebra talisman that’s said to protect the wearer from the influence of the stars. Try wearing it and see if it works.”

I took the strange looking ring with my magic and asked, “How do I wear this?”

“The talisman itself is in the ring. It’s been fitted to go over a horn or to be warn around a pony’s neck if you have a chain to put it on. Slip it over your horn and see what happens.”

“Are you sure it won’t do something weird to me like when you cast that spell?”

“Hasn’t hurt US in the past, so yeah I think you’ll be fine,” Squirrel said confidently.

“Wait a minute Shadow. You’re really gonna trust these two, even after what just happened?” Aura asked walking over to me and looking down at the ring.

“If it does something weird then take it off of me,” I said slipping the ring over my horn. A moment later it felt like something stabbed itself into my horn for a moment, making me wince in pain. It was nothing compared to what Morning Star did though. She screamed inside my head, then a moment later she was gone. Even the small feeling of her presence that I’d felt since I first came into The Wasteland was gone. I felt…almost normal.

“So…how do you feel?” Aura asked.

“Good, really good,”

“Glad to hear that,” Moose said smiling at me, “Listen, I’m sorry we ambushed you like we did. We don’t normally have to resort to these kinds of tactics when we’re hunting, but we didn’t know any other way we could find out what you were.”

I shrugged, “At least you didn’t shoot me.”

“Tell you what, I’ll look and see what I can find in my books and scrolls. If something comes up I’ll leave you a message with Sargent Rope of the NLR at the JetBlue Skyport back near New Pegasus, we live not too far from there.”

“Sounds fine to me,” I said turning to head back to my friends, “Oh and by the way. Next time you try and trap me in a circle like that, I’ll let Aura have her way with both of you. Trust me, you don’t want to see her angry.”

They both looked a little shocked by my remark, then Squirrel laughed, “I like her. Why don’t we head into the city, I heard they have a new kind of pie at the Applewood.”

“Always thinking with your stomach, aren’t you?” Moose said as they turned to head back toward New Pegasus.

Aura and Stardust were both looking at me, “What?”

“You owe us an explanation on what that was all about,” Stardust said.

I smiled and walked past them both walking up to Silver and Wingnut before looking back, “When you two start telling me more about you’re past, I’ll tell you more about mine. Come on, this distraction lost us a lot of time and I wanna get this next job for The Queen finished.”

***

It took another hour or so before they both stopped pestering me for information on what happened. Now they were both sulking behind me as we made our way up the hill toward Frosty Summit Ski Lodge. I noticed that Wingnut wasn’t talking much and he was keeping closer to Silver as we walked, finally I couldn’t take it anymore, “What’s wrong Wingnut?”

He glanced over at me, “Is that really you Shadow, or are you still that other thing?”

“I’m still Shadow, this ring on my horn seems to be keeping her at bay.”

He seemed to relax, “That’s good, I didn’t like her. She’s mean.”

“Yeah she’s a total bitch, but I won’t let her take over again.”

“And if she tries, I’ll be here to help bring back the Shadow we all know and love,” Silver added in.

“That’s good, but what is she anyway?” Wingnut asked looking up at me.

“I still have no idea. She seems to think she’s another part of me, or the me before I went to stable 28. I don’t think I’ll know until I find my mom, or maybe this Vervain I keep hearing about from my mother’s notes and the memory I had.”

“Whatever she is, she isn’t good that’s for sure,” Silver said.

“It wouldn’t be The Wasteland without some psychotic monster trying to kill somepony,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“You’ve got a point there,” he said looking on ahead, “Hey Shadow, what’ll you do when you finally find your mom?”

I stopped for a moment cocking an eye at him, “Why do you ask?”

“Because I wanted to know. Why else?”

The little bastard. He had a point, what would I do when I found her? From what I’d learned so far, something happened between her meeting with Lonely Hearts and now. Was she even the same mare anymore? I’d only been in The Wasteland for a couple weeks and look how much I changed. I guess now she’s different too, but she still has to have a little part of who she used to be deep inside. Maybe seeing me would bring back the loving mother I used to know.

I smiled at him and shrugged, “I’m not really sure, at this point. All I really want is information on why she left and why she wanted me to find this Pip-Buck.”

“What if she’s as bad as Lonely Hearts said she was?”

“Then…I’ll deal with that when the time comes. All I need to know right now is that I have to find her.”

Silver looked at me, “When do you think you’ll do that?”

“For right now, I’m waiting to find out if Lonely Hearts can find out more about what happened to her over the past few years. My mind is fixed on helping The Queen and finding Nexus.”

She smiled at me, “Personally I think you should just forget about finding her and just live your life. Who says you have to go out and find her?”

“Wouldn’t you want to find your mother if she was missing for eight years with no explanation?” I asked her.

“Not really, but my mother was a bitch. I think I was the only pony in Cartwheel that didn’t feel bad when she was killed by the raiders when they came to town,” she said it so casually like it was nothing. Honestly, deep down it kinda hurt hearing her talk about her mother like that. What if that’s what I turn out to be like when I finally confront Mom or find out she died somehow?

“You mean you didn’t like your mom?”

She sighed, “Everypony in town did, but they didn’t know her like I did. She always hated being stuck in Cartwheel with a filly she never wanted. She used to drink and yell at me all the time when no pony was around.”

“If she was so bad then why did you take over her shop when she died?” I asked.

“I didn’t do it for her, I did it because I love making things,” she got a faraway look in her eyes, “One day I want to make dresses as beautiful as Rarity herself used to make before the war.”

I smiled then kissed her cheek, “And one day I’m sure you will.”

She smiled again, “Thank you, you’re too sweet.”

“Ewww, get a room. Actually, scratch that, just stop altogether,” Stardust said walking past us making small gagging noises.

Silver giggled then kissed me in full view of the stallion and said, “Why do that when it’s much more fun to gross you out.”

He shivered then turned, “Next thing you know you two are going to be talking about moving in together and starting a family, and more mushy stuff. Start a family my ass. You guys can’t even procreate.”

Popping out of my little daze after the kiss and looked over at my friend, “What’s wrong with Silver kissing me?”

Aura moved up next to us and laughed, “Nothing, he’s just mad because he doesn’t have a special somepony to kiss in full view of everyone.”

He blushed, “Am not, shut up,” we all started to laugh as he blushed harder, “I hate you all,” he huffed, but I could see the smile he was trying to hide.

It was nice to see things going back to normal. As normal as things got in The Wasteland anyway. Right then The Wasteland had to show me how normal it would get…red bars showed up on my E.F.S.

“Great…now what?” I asked pulling out Dream Walker.

“What’s going on?” Silver asked looking down the road.

“We’ve got company.”

Just as my friends drew their weapons something came over the hilltop. It looked like a pony…kind of, only it looked like it was made out of moss and vines. Its eyes were glowing a sickly green color. When it saw us it let out a howl like nothing a pony should ever make. It started to move toward us almost as fast as a flying pegasus, it opened its muzzle and vomited something.

“Look out, don’t let that stuff hit you,” Aura said pushing me back and dodging the projectile.

“What the fuck is that thing?”

“It’s a Mosslurker, I haven’t seen one for a long time. They normally show up near this old stable I went to once,” she said rushing forward and slashing the thing with her spear.

It howled again, but then Aura’s spear glowed brighter and the Creature dissolved into ash. Wow, I’ve never seen her spear do THAT before. As it fell more came over the hill. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and fired. One went down, its head exploding as Dream Walker did its little trick. Wingnut pulled out his revolver and came to stand by my side as more Mosslurkers started to crest the hill, their cries starting to echo off the trees around us.

“How many are there?” I asked taking out another as it dove toward me, the goop it was spitting missing me by inches.

“I’m not sure, at least they aren’t hard to take down,” Stardust said, his rifle booming.

“It looks like there’s only one more on my E.F.S. but it’s not moving,” I said as Aura pulled her spear out of one of them.

“I’ll get it!” Wingnut said running off up the hill.

I turned and yelled, “No Wingnut!”

“I can handle it if it’s only one,” he said as he reached the crest of the hill, his revolver in his muzzle. He fired, and the Red mark on my E.F.S. went out. He looked back at me and grinned around the bit of his gun, “See.”

My E.F.S. lit up like a light with red bars, a screeching howl erupted from over the hill. Wingnut turned, then flew back as blackish green sludge smacked him in the face throwing him back down the hill. His revolver went flying as he hit the bottom. He started to thrash and scream holding his hooves to his eyes and muzzle.

“Fuck, one got him in the face!” Aura said flying over to the colt trying to hold him down. As she did more started to come flying down the hill, their cries filling the air, “Shadow! Do something now! I can’t fight them and help Wingnut at the same time.”

I watched as they moved their way down toward Aura and Wingnut, and I couldn’t move. My eyes were glued on the colt who was screaming in agony only a few feet away. Stardust rushed over and started to fire his rifle at the ones that were closer to the pair. Silver was also helping the best she could, but there were so many.

“Wingnu…” I started to say, then Aura took hold of the colt and flew him behind me, the colt still writhing in her talons.

“Why are you just standing there Shadow? Help us!” Stardust yelled as his rifle cracked shot after shot at the plant like ponies.

“I-I don’t know what to do,” I said sounding like a complete fool.

Aura looked at me, “Snap out of it Shadow. If you don’t the rest of your friends are going to die!”

She was right…I couldn’t just stand here like an idiot while my friends fought. I shook myself and turned back at the onslaught of monsters that were rushing toward us. A blob of goo flew past my face as I turned, slapping the ground and hissing. I lifted Dream Walker and started to fire.

I slipped into S.A.T.S. as I went to stand next to Stardust and Silver, I targeted three and took each down, Dream Walker roaring with each pull of the trigger. I dodged another blob of slime as one got close, and Stardust whipped around and took it down with the butt of his rifle. Silver I could see was a great shot with her own pistol. Each shot she took was almost perfect, she never needed more than two shots to take the creatures down.

Soon I found myself smiling as the three of us fought the monsters. The sounds of our combined weaponry echoing around us, blocking out other sounds as we went on. No matter what came at us, my friends and I could take it…that’s until I heard the worst sound in the world to hear while fighting a horde of mutated monster pony things…(Click)

I went to reload Dream Walker again, then realized I was out of ammo. I looked over at Stardust who was looking at me with the same look of horror on his face, “Are you out of ammo too?”

He nodded, “Yeah.”

“Silver?”

She nodded, “I forgot to stock up when we left.”

“Well fuck,” was all I could say as I watched the horde of plant ponies come rushing down the hill, “Goddesses, please do something.”

There was a flash of blue light and as if answering my prayers, a Goddess appeared. Though she wasn’t Celestia or Luna, this Goddess had a blue coat and mane and bore no Cutiemark. She looked back at us for a moment, and I noticed the glowing red necklace around her neck. She looked at Wingnut who was still screaming then back at the oncoming monsters.

“Be gone!” she said in a thunderous voice that echoed inside my head. Her horn glowed brightly and a wave of power escaped from her. Everything coming down the hill at us screamed then vanished in a flash of red fire. Once the magic passed only a couple were left at the top of the hill, they looked down at the Alicorn then fled.

I looked up in awe at the mighty power of this creature that just saved our lives, “Thank you Goddess…that is if you ARE, a Goddess.”

She looked down at me and spoke, only her muzzle didn’t move, “I am no Goddess, but I am pleased to be of assistance,” her eyes looked over at Wingnut again who was still writhing under Aura’s talons, “Your small companion needs help. We have a doctor back at our home, let me take him.”

To my shock, Stardust and Silver both pointed their weapons at the Alicorn forgetting that they didn’t have any ammunition. Then Stardust said in a cold voice, “You aren’t taking him anywhere monster.”

She just looked at him like he was a bug, “And what do you plan on doing with that? You are out of ammunition, and even if you had any you couldn’t harm me.”

“Alicorns are monsters, you can’t trust them, and you don’t know if I’m loaded or not.”

“I know more than you think, and yes you’re right pegasus, Alicorns are monsters, most of them anyway. I am not like my sisters, but I don’t have time to explain right now. If the colt doesn’t get to our physician soon, he’ll start to turn into one of those Mosslurkers. It is a painful process and one that can’t be fixed if not treated quickly,” she said, her muzzle still not moving.

Stardust’s rifle shook as he fought the urge to do something and save Wingnut. I walked up to him and pushed his weapon down, “We don’t have time for this. Wingnut’s hurt, his safety comes first.”

“You can’t trust these things Shadow,” Silver said walking up next to me.

Aura spoke up then, “You’re right Silver Snip, but we don’t have much of a choice right now. I’ve heard things about the Alicorns that live in Frosty Summit, we can trust em’ for now.”

“Griffon, do you know where the lodge is?” the Alicorn asked looking down at her.

“I do.”

“He’ll be there when you arrive, it’s not far,” she said walking over and touching her horn to Wingnut, “Don’t worry little one, the pain will end soon,” her horn glowed and Wingnut went still.

“What did you do to him?” I asked running over. He was still breathing, so she didn’t kill him. Thank the Goddesses.

“I put him to sleep. If he kept up that screaming, he would’ve only made things worse for himself,” she said looking down at me, “Make your way to the lodge, I promise he will be in good hooves.”

I looked back at my friends then at Wingnut, “Fine, just make sure he’s okay.”

“I will,” she said and then in a flash, she was gone along with Wingnut.

“I have a bad feeling about this. I know The Queen said something about Alicorns living up here, but I thought it was only a story some pony started to keep others away,” Stardust said, walking over to us and looking down at the spot where Wingnut had just been.

“The Red Talons have known about them for a long time. For some reason they showed up a few years back and started making trouble for the locals around New Pegasus, then one day they just up and stopped. We started hearing about six of them holding up in the old lodge known as Frosty Summit. They haven’t left there since, and from what I know, they started helping ponies who’d go up there to find them,”

“Box Tape said he’s traded with them before, and they aren’t a bad lot, odd balls but not bad,” Silver threw in.

“I still don’t trust them. Everywhere else in The Wasteland they’re monsters. What makes these Alicorns so different?” Stardust Protested

“I couldn’t tell ya. I guess we’ll have to go find out,” I said walking past my friend and down the trail.

Silver came up next to me, “Stop blaming yourself Shadow.”

“I’m not blaming myself.”

“Yes you are, I can see it in your face,” she said bumping my flanks.

I stopped and looked at her, “I’m not blaming myself. I know I couldn’t help what happened to him. It’s my fault that he was put in this situation in the first place. If I would have just found him a better place to live, he would’ve been safe. A colt shouldn’t be traveling around The Wasteland like this.”

She shook her head and hugged me, “You can’t control everything that happens. You don’t know what would’ve happened to him even if you left him somewhere else. You have to remember that no matter where you are, The Wasteland is still there. Even back in New Pegasus, it seems like things there are nice and fun, but in reality even there you have one pony controlling everything, even killing ponies who don’t do what he wants.”

I pulled away from her and sighed, “You’re probably right, but if he dies, I don’t know what I’ll do…”

“If he does, we’ll be here for you no matter what,” Aura said walking up to us followed by Stardust.

“Shadow, we all agreed to take Wingnut with us, the blame belongs to all of us. You don’t have to carry the entire weight of the world on your shoulders,” Stardust said wisely.

I sighed and continued on down the path, making sure to step around the dust left over from the Mosslurkers, “Thanks, let’s get moving. I wanna get there as fast as we can.”

***

Like the Alicorn said, it didn’t take us long to reach Frosty Summit Ski Lodge. I have to admit, I was impressed with what they had set up. A large wall stood all around the lodge keeping anything from getting in from anywhere apart from the entrance that the only trail led up to. Sitting on each side of the gate were two more Alicorns, they were green. They looked a lot more like statues than guards. The strange part was that a green shield was blocking the way in.

I walked up and tapped on it, “What is this thing?” I looked over at one of the green alicorns, “Um…hello? Can you let us in?”

They didn’t even blink, they just kept staring out toward the trail leading up to them. I tapped on the shield again then looked back at my friends, “Any ideas on how we get in here?”

“We could try flying over, but I’m sure they have some kind of protection in the skies too,” Stardust said looking up.

There was a flash and the Alicorn from before appeared, her necklace glowing bright as she approached us, “Greetings, welcome to Frosty Summit. I’m glad you were able to make it so quickly.”

“Is Wingnut okay?” I asked.

Her face grew sorrowful as she spoke, “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure yet. I got him to Dr. Cottage as quick as I could, he’s seeing to the Colt as we speak.”

“Can we see him?”

“Not yet, the doctor said he would need time to look him over to make sure none of the spores went too far into his body,” she replied.

Aura walked up next to me and looked right into the Alicorns face, “Let me ask you something. What are a bunch of Alicorns doing in a place like this?”

I looked at my griffon companion, “Aura, now’s not the time to be asking questions like that, Wingnut’s hurt.”

“Yes he is, there’s nothing we can do about that now apart from wait around to find out what happens,” she replied then looked back at the Alicorn, “Now, answer my question.”

The large blue Alicorn sighed and looked around, in the distance I could see three more Alicorns much like the two greens who were guarding the gate into Frosty Summit. There were two dark purple ones and another blue one like the one who stood in front of us now. A small smile came to the Alicorn’s lips as she spoke, “I understand why you would be suspicious of us. In most of The Wasteland Alicorns like myself are considered monsters, and they are mostly right. I wasn’t much different long ago. I was once part of Unity, same for the others. The Goddess sent us to New Pegasus to find something for her, and to find out more about the pony who runs the city.”

“If that’s true then why are you all held up here? I’ve run into your kind when I was out near Manehattan before, we barely got away with our lives,” Aura said, still giving her that hard stare.

Was it just me or were any of my friends finding it freaky that this Alicorn never moved her muzzle when she talked. The Alicorn chuckled a little, “We are held up here as you say because it’s safe and away from other ponies who would try and kill us because of what we are. You’re also right about the rest of my kind. Though from what I can tell, the unicorn doesn’t know anything about Alicorns,” she looked at me when she said that. But of course she looked at me, the only ignorant one in the group.

I blushed, “I haven’t been very many places since I left my stable, and honestly you’re the first Alicorn I’ve met.”

“That doesn’t surprise me child, you see a pony back before the war, Twilight Sparkle, was trying to make Alicorns to use them as a way to end the war. Sadly, the bombs fell on the same day she finally perfected the formula, there was an accident and The Goddess was born. It took some time, but eventually this pony who calls herself The Goddess was able to make more Alicorns with this formula and over time she started ordering us to find different things for her so she could make herself and us more powerful. She thinks of us as the perfect pony to live in this destroyed world, we thrive in radiation, and Taint doesn’t hurt us. The drawback though is that everypony who she turns into an Alicorn gets their mind and soul made into part of her unity. Most of us are just a jumble of different minds controlled by The Goddess.”

I really wasn’t liking the sound of the Goddess, or her Alicorns. Then something started to bug me, so I asked, “What does any of this have to do with why you’re out here hiding in the hills?”

“A few years ago, The Goddess sent the six of us out here to see if we could find an old artifact called The Alicorn Amulet,” she rested a hoof on the red gem she wore, I noticed it was shaped like a pony with a horn and wings, “I lead the team and we did find it, but once I took hold of it some kind of magic deep within it blasted the control she had over me and for the first time in many years, I felt like a pony again. When she noticed the connection was lost, she tried to pull back the rest, but the Amulet I now wear stopped her. However, not before she was able to pull the souls away from them. As of now, the others you see are mindless shells. I can control them myself like she once did, but they are nothing more than what you see. They have no mind, no soul, and no personality. If they were to leave the area, I would lose the control I have on them and she would take them back. So I keep us hidden up here with the hope that one day somepony will find a way to destroy The Goddess, and free my kind from her control.”

Aura cocked her head to one side, “So, that thing around your neck keeps the Goddess from taking you over again and from reclaiming the others?”

“In a small way yes. It also enhances my own power quite a bit, and it keeps my soul bonded with this vessel.”

“So, before all this happened you were a normal pony?” I asked.

“I was yes, though I don’t have much memory of who I used to be. I only have small bits that The Goddess let me know when I was put into this body.”

Aura snickered, “So what do we call you? Goddess 2.0?”

“I don’t not think of myself as any kind of Goddess, you may call me Violet.”

“Violet? I’d say you’re more of a Cyan than Violet.” I said looking over her light blue coat.

She frowned at me, “I happen to like the name I chose for myself thank you very much. It’s pretty.”

Silver was looking at the amulet Violet was wearing. After a moment she said, “I read something once about The Alicorn Amulet. From what I understand, it’s power was too great for anypony to handle, normally it makes them go mad with power or turn evil.”

“This is true, that’s also because the ponies who go looking for its power lack enough magical power to handle it. They want something more and the power they gain takes them over, driving them mad. I don’t have that particular issue because Alicorns are gifted magic users and we can handle its power more than most could ever hope to,” Violet said with another small smile.

“So when you have that on, you’re more powerful than most Alicorns and it keeps you out of the control of this Goddess?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s how it works.”

“Sure this is fascinating and all, and you all seem to care more about this than the kid who could be dying,” Stardust said walking past us, “I’m gonna go check with this Doctor and see how Wingnut’s doing, but by all means, you three keep talking to the freak.”

Violet looked over at Stardust, “Dr. Cottage is still attending to him, you should at least wait until he’s stable before you try and bother him.”

“Listen, I appreciate that you helped us back there and got Wingnut here quickly so he could get to a doctor. I don’t need you to tell me what I can or can’t do when it comes to somepony I care about. Now where’s the doctor? I’m checking on Wingnut,” Stardust said pointing a hoof in the Alicorns face.

She sighed then pointed a hoof toward the lodge, “He’s in the room just to the right of the entryway, but I must warn you Dr. Cottage doesn’t like it to be bothered while he’s with a patient.”

“Too bad,” Stardust said flying off toward the Lodge.

“I should go…make sure he keeps his rifle holstered,” I said following Stardust.

By the time I caught up with him, he was banging his hoof on a set of double-doors just inside the entryway to the Lodge. Since it didn’t seem like he was about to start shooting the door, I took a moment to look around. He was out of ammo anyway. The entryway was large and still looked really nice. Nice for a building that was over two hundred years old with nopony around to clean it that is. There was a staircase that lead up to a second floor. Old paintings hung on the walls, and even a few Ministry posters just behind the check-in desk. One caught my eye, it was a picture of Fluttershy, on the poster it said, “War is not the Answer, Enroll in the Ministry of Peace.” Her gentle smile was so sweet and innocent, I almost wished I could have raced to the closest Ministry of Peace Hub and enroll right now.

Before I could look at the others, Stardust’s Hoof stopped banging on the door. I looked over and saw that one of the doors opened and out walked an Earth Pony stallion. He had a Vermilion coat, with a salt and pepper grey mane, a matching five O’clock shadow, and blue eyes. He looked over at Stardust with a blank expression, “Can I help you?”

“Finally somepony to talk to. I need to see the doctor.”

One of his eyebrows lifted, then he looked around and said, “There’s a doctor in this shithole? If you do happen to see him, tell him my leg hurts.” I noticed that his right foreleg had a brace on it and it looked like a chunk of flesh was missing from some old injury.

“Um…Who are you?” Stardust asked.

“Oh no…my cover’s been blown. Surprise. I’m the king of the Breezies,” he said arrogantly.

Stardust was starting to get that…shooty look, before I could walk over and interject Stardust said, “I don’t have time for games, my friend was injured a little bit ago, and I need to see the doctor right now.”

The stallion took a moment and lifted his hoof up and popped something into his mouth. He shivered then said, “Fine, I’m Dr. Cottage. I take it you must be Daddy, one moment,” he popped another…something…into his muzzle, “What do you want?”

“I’m not his father.”

Dr. Cottage looked confused and lost in thought for a split second, “Interesting, but it still doesn’t answer my question. What do you want?”

“I want to see him and know what’s going on.”

“And I want a harem of floozies to do my bidding, but all I got were three idiots and a Zebra,” Dr. Cottage replied, sounding surprisingly more sarcastic than Stardust.

I interrupted, “You’re an ass.”

He turned and looked at me, “And you’re annoying. Go play, the adults are talking about your dying friend.”

I swear to the Goddesses, every time, “I AM an adult jackass. I’m just short.”

He limped over to me giving me a funny look, “Fascinating. Do you have any medical conditions?”

“Uh……no……”

“I need to examine you. Every inch.”

“What? No!”

“It’s ok, I’m a doctor.”

“Says who?”

“The little piece of paper in a frame that doesn’t have my name on it next to my wall-ball. Duh.”

Stardust looked more confused than angry now, “Wall-ball?”

Dr. Cottage looked back at him condescendingly, “It’s a fuzzy red and gray ball I throw at the wall and then catch it again, then throw it, and catch it. It helps me think and it’s mine so don’t touch it.”

Stardust took his rifle off his back and pointed it at him, “Tell us what’s going on or else.”

“Oh no. You’re gonna shoot me? If you do that I won’t be able to tell you that the little twerp in there has a mutated form of aspergillosis. He’s already turned blue so I don’t have much time to cure him.”

Stardust lowered his rifle, “Blue is his natural color. What the hell is aspergillosis?”

“Well that complicates things. Aspergillosis is a fungal infection absorbed into the lungs from aspergillus mold spores. Normal symptoms are cough, fever, chest pain and difficulty breathing. However this is a mutated form which is a lot different. It has some of the same symptoms but they’re more severe. If he doesn’t die or get cured he’ll turn into one of those things that attacked him. Right now we have him on an IV of Voriconazole which is a strong antifungal, but since we have him on such a high dose and the infection itself is extremely invasive there’s a good chance he could die. Happy?”

“No! You just said he could die.”

Dr. Cottage actually looked pleased with his reaction, “Exactly. COULD die, not WILL die. Everything’s gonna be just fine, maybe.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, “Are you fucking high!?”

“Blissfully,” he said smiling at me.

“This has to be some kind of joke.” I said, not believing this stallion could be a real doctor.

As I said this a beautiful unicorn mare with a white coat and a chestnut mane walked out of the room. She was wearing a white lab coat, she looked crossly at all of us, “What’s all the commotion out here?”

Stardust perked up a little, “Finally a real doctor. This asshole won’t tell us what’s going on with our friend.”

Doctor Cottage blew a raspberry, “I DID tell you what’s going on with the little mutant. It’s not my fault you don’t know how to listen. 21 can you tell them they’re idiots and to go away?”

She rolled her hazel eyes, “Cottage, how many pills have you taken today?”

“Only one…I think.”

“Bullshit, you took two just a minute ago,” Stardust said pointing a hoof at him.

“Did not, you’re seeing things. You really should get your eyes checked, I heard pinkeye’s going around. Wait, nope too late looks like you already have it, we should put you in quarantine.”

“Um, are you the doctor around here? If so what the fuck is wrong with him?” I asked walking over to her.

Dr. Cottage interrupted before she could speak, “Nothing’s wrong with me. My leg just hurts and I have herpegonosypholitis that I got from 21, that’s it. Mind you though, she gets pretty freakay if you know what I mean.”

“One of them yes, sorry if Doctor Cottage is giving you a hard time, he does it to everypony. By the way herpegonosypholitis isn’t a real disease, he’s just saying that to screw with you. Oh and I never slept with him. Like I said, he does it to everypony.”

Looking over at us Doctor Cottage replied, “I do not, I do it to everybody, not just ponies, that includes Zebra’s, Griffons, and Alicorns. Don’t forget my annoying legion of breezies too.”

She face-hoofed, “As I was saying…I’m sorry about Doctor Cottage, he might seem like an ignorant bafoon and he…well… kind of is, but he’s a brilliant physician. I take it you’re the blue colt’s friends.”

“You always ruin all the fun 21,” he said, then he turned and walked back into the other room, “I’ll be in my office. If anypony needs me…too bad. I’ll be too busy making paper hoofballs.”

“Is he really a doctor?”

“Yes he is, he’s just an ass. If it wasn’t for how good he was, nopony would put up with him,” she said shaking her head a little, “Anyway, your friend is still out, but the treatment we’re giving him seems to be helping. We’ll need to keep him on the IV for a few more hours and make sure he gets plenty of rest.”

Stardust still looked worried as he asked, “Dr. Cottage said he might not pull through. Are you sure he’ll be okay?”

“Honestly no, it’s bad enough to get hit with a Mosslurkers poison. He took a direct hit to the face, he inhaled a lot of the spores and ingested some of them as well. When he arrived we had to pump his stomach and clean out his airway before we could administer the antifungal. All we can do now is hope he’s strong and can make it through the night. If he does his chance of survival will go up significantly.”

“Is there any way we could see him?” I asked.

“Not right now. He needs his rest and we can’t risk him waking up and getting agitated. Give him a few hours and then we’ll see how he’s doing, if he’s looking better then you can see him.”

“C’mon, we’ll make sure we don’t bother him at all. We just need to make sure he’s okay,” Stardust begged.

“Well…I guess one of you could go in to see him, but you have to make sure you don’t disturb him.”

Looking over at Stardust I sighed, “You should go check on him. I’m not sure I can handle seeing him like he is right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll go see if I can find out where this Dashite is. Just come find us when you’re done checking on Wingnut.”

“Okay,” he said looking back at 21, “Where is he?”

“In the other room, just follow me,” she said leading my friend away.

I sighed then turned back toward the door that lead back out to the front of the lodge. The door opened before I could go anywhere else, Silver, Aura and Violet came through, “How’s he doing?” Aura asked.

“Not sure, Stardust is in checking on him right now. From what the doctor said, he’s not well.”

Silver walked over to me and pulled me into a hug whispering, “I have faith that he’ll pull through. Just believe in him and all will be well Shadow.”

Hugging her back I said, “I just wish there was something I could do. I feel so useless right now.”

“I’ll go talk with the Doctor and see if I can help at all, I know a few zebra remedies that might help. Why don’t you go rest for now and I’ll find you when I know more,” Aura said walking past me.

“One of the doctors said that we shouldn’t let too many go see him right now, he needs his rest.”

She smiled, “I’d like to see them stop me. Don’t worry too much about me. I’ll make sure not to disturb Shrimp number two.”

I nodded then looked at Silver, “Feel up to helping me find a Dashite?”

“What are you looking for a Dashite for?” she asked.

“The Queen wanted to see if he’d come see her, she wants to see if he knows anything she can use to help the town.”

Violet looked toward me and spoke in my mind, “Are you referring to the pegasus who arrived here a week ago?”

“I’m not sure, all I know is he’s a recent Dashite that came here looking for protection.”

“He’s the only Pegasus that’s come here recently. Unfortunately he isn’t here at the moment, he’s out hunting down the rest of the Mosslurkers that have been stalking our boarders. I sent him out right before you arrived,” violet replied.

Dammit, I dunno what I should’ve expected, “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“Later tonight or maybe tomorrow morning. He’s a skilled fighter, but there’s a lot of those disgusting creatures roaming around as of late. If you want, I can tell him you’re looking for him when he gets back.”

“That’d be fine. Do you have a place we could rest up for a while?” Silver interjected.

“Most of the rooms on the top floor are vacant. You may choose whichever one you want.”

“Are you sure we should rest up right now?”

She looked over at me giving me a stern look, “Shadow, you need rest. You went through a lot today and you could use a little down time. You can’t always push yourself to the edge, one day it’ll come back to haunt you. I’d also like to know more about that thing that took control of you. You at least owe me an explanation for that.”

She was right, so I let her pull me away with her magic and lead me upstairs. Over the next hour, Silver showed me how she preferred to “Relax” damn this mare had a libido to make most stallions jealous. Though once we were done and resting in each other’s hooves I realized that she was right. Most of my thoughts about Wingnut and the shit that happened over the past few hours were washed away in sweat, moans, and overall bliss. She knew just the right spots to hit.

“You look like you’re feeling a lot better,” she teased kissing my nose.

I poked her in the side with a hoof, “Stop that, and yes I am. I’m still worried about Wingnut, but the stress has definitely gone down.”

She looked up at the ring Squirrel and Moose had given me resting at the base of my horn, “So do you want to tell me what that whole thing was about?”

I sighed and nuzzled into her neck, “I don’t know much about her to be honest. Until I ran into those brothers, I just thought I was going nuts or at least was being affected by too much radiation. She calls herself Morning Star, it’s not her real name. That I know for sure. She took on the name Morning Star because it was my name before I went to Stable 28. She took on the name because she thinks she’s a part of me. She calls herself my true power, she even looks a lot like me only with the coat and mane reversed. She wants to take over my body, she thinks that I trapped her in me or something, I dunno. She never talks to me long and when she does, it’s usually insults.”

“When did this all start happening?”

“At first I thought it was back at the Steel Rangers Compound, she came to me in a dream. Now that I think about it, I remember hearing her voice a couple other times before that. Once was in my Stable right when I found this Pip-Buck. I also remember a voice telling me to move when we were flying into Hidden Sands, somehow she knew that some griffons were gonna shoot at us.”

She took a moment to think then asked, “What happened in your Stable?”

“A message came up on the Pip-Buck with the words Morning Star. When I read it I started getting a bunch of flashbacks. She first started talking to me then. She said she could take the pain away if I just asked. I did and the visons stopped, not much else happened. I didn’t have time to think about it because right after that, I ran into security and things went to shit from then on.”

“Is there anything else that she’s told you apart from the insults?”

“She said her life is tied to mine. She needs me alive to keep herself alive.”

“So she needs you alive, but she also wants to take your body? There has to be more to this, I mean where did she even come from?”

“I have no idea, that’s just something else I need to ask my mom about…if I can even get her to answer me that is.”

“Enough of this talk, it’s getting late. We could get some rest unless you’re up for another round?”

That was tempting right now, even after…everything she did…my body still wanted more, “That sounds nice, but honestly I really need to go walk around and get some fresh air, clear my head a little more.”

She gave me a pouty face, “You mean, I can’t help you clear your head?”

I kissed her nose and smiled, “You can, but I don’t think you can help me with the fresh air part. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Oh well, I should probably get to work anyway. I have just a little more touching up to do on a new project of mine,” she said rolling off the bed walking over to her saddle bags.

“New project? What are you working on?”

“You’ll see soon enough, now go and leave me be for a while. I’ll be waiting here for you when you get back.”

“Ok, I’ll be back soon,” I said kissing her before I walked out of the room.

I went back outside, it was getting dark out now. Violet was standing just outside looking up at the dark clouds over-head. I walked over to her, “You okay Violet?”

Her voice echoed in my head, “Something isn’t right, it worries me.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked over at me, her blue eyes looked so gentle as she spoke, “Nothing that concerns you. I can just tell that something is coming, I’m worried about this settlement, and the ponies who live here. We may be few in numbers, but in the past few months we’ve made this place a home. I don’t want to see that ruined.”

“There must be something that I can do to help?”

She smiled, “You have enough on your plate right now. You don’t need to be worrying yourself about us Alicorns. It is my job to protect this place and my kind.”

“That may be true, but I hate seeing you all worried like that.”

“I appreciate your concerns, I really do, but don’t worry. Why don’t you go look around and meet some of the ponies that live here, who knows you could make a new friend or two.”

“I dunno, I’m not really that great at making friends.”

She laughed, “Could’ve fooled me,” she looked over toward the northeast wall, “I have an idea, you should go talk to Laser Light. She’s over in the watchtower and she could use a nice pony to talk to.”

Looking over toward the watchtower I could see the silhouette of a pony, “Who is she?”

“Go talk to her and you’ll find out. I need to get back inside and check on the other Alicorns. They don’t do well when night falls and I want to make sure The Goddess hasn’t been trying to get back into their heads,”

Figuring that it couldn’t hurt I made my way over to the watchtower and climbed up. When I got to the top, I saw a pony looking out at the hills and trees around the lodge. She had a medium pink mane tied resembling a pony’s tail, and a dark grey coat, she was wearing a long flight jacket that looked well armored, it had fur running along the collar, and reinforced barding under it. She looked back at me as I reached the top, she had piercing green eyes. I also noticed that she had fangs a lot like Wind Thrasher, only shorter. I was taken aback by that for a moment.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a light gentle voice.

“Violet sent me over here to…talk to you I guess. she said you could use a nice pony to talk with, I’m Shadow Star.”

She smiled and shook her head, “Damn, well ain’t karma a bitch.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, just remembering something from the past. I met a zebra quite a while ago, similar to the same way you’re meeting me, that’s all. So the lady in blue with the flashy necklace said I could use a nice pony to talk to huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m not sure why though.”

She laughed and went back to looking out at the landscape, I noticed then that she had a modified magical energy rifle sitting next to her, “She probably thinks I need to talk to ponies more because I’m always up here or helping my boss with something. I don’t get time to socialize much and she’s always trying to get ponies to talk to me, but most around here don’t want to, they say I scare them.”

“You don’t look all that scary to me,” I said sitting next to her.

“You haven’t seen me fight either.”

“True, but I’ve seen a lot of shit since I came out into The Wasteland. I’m sure you can’t scare me after what I’ve seen.”

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Stable 28, it’s…”

She interrupted me, “Southwest of the town of Cartwheel, on the other side of Green Mist Valley, behind a rickety door with a dead family on the other side?”

“How did you know that?” I asked. I thought nopony knew where the location of the Stable was.

I noticed that her look was a little harder now, “I found the location many years ago, followed one of the traders back to it. From what I’ve heard the past few years, the Stable’s been closed off and no pony’s been seen from it since. How did you escape?”

“My Overmare is psychotic and I had to run for my life. She was after this Pip-Buck I have and wanted to cut off my leg to get it,” I said showing her the silver and red Pip-Buck.

She looked at it, her eyes going wide. In a flash her rifle was up and pointing right at me, “How did you get your hooves on that? Who are you?”

“I told you who I was, my name’s Shadow Star. This Pip-Buck was my mother’s, she left it for me before she left our Stable,” What the fuck was her problem?

She lowered her rifle a little, “Grimoire left her ‘prized possession’ behind in a Stable just for you?”

I shook my head a little, “Wait a minute…you know my mother?”

“Course I do, I gave the location to her friend Vervain. Before they left to go into that damned stable your mother betrayed me. I owe her a shot to the face with my rife for that.”

“I don’t know what you’re issue with my mother is, but I have nothing to do with it. She left when I was just a filly,” I mean come on, did she really have to point that thing at me just because she was pissed off at my mom?

She lowered the rifle, “I thought her daughter’s name was Morning Star?”

“It used to be. She changed it when we got to the Stable, and before you ask, no I don’t know why. I don’t remember anything before life in the stable.”

She cocked her head at me then looked back at my Pip-Buck, “I wouldn’t put it past that lying bitch to use some kind of spell to mess with her own daughter’s memories, but from what I remember of her she was a good mother.”

“Um, do you think you could stop pointing that rifle at me please?” I asked.

She looked down at her rifle then back at me, “Sorry about that, I kind of reacted to the sight of that Pip-Buck.” she said putting the rifle back against the wall.

“It’s fine, I’m sorta getting used to ponies pointing guns at me.”

She laughed a little, “I think it’s the only way Wastelanders know how to say hello.”

I laughed along with her, “Yeah, tell me about it.”

We took a moment until our laughing stopped, “Speaking of hellos Shadow Star the name’s Laser Light.”

“It’s nice to meet you Laser Light”

“It’s nice to meet you too”

“Can I ask you something Laser Light?”

“I think you just did, but go head.”

“How do you know my mother, and why do you hate her so much?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment then she leaned back against the wall, “About eleven years ago I met her. She was working a mission for the Steel Rangers around the time I joined up. She’d been gone for a while working on some project with a couple other Scribes. I first met her when she finally returned from that mission. I’d heard stories about Grimoire from one of her friends, a Knight called Vervain. I worked a lot with Vervain on different missions back in those days. She was always going on about Grimoire and her daughter. I never got to meet you however, you were always sick in bed when I was around.”

“Wait a sec,” I interrupted, “You used to be a Steel Ranger?”

She gave me a sad smile, “Emphasis on used to be. I was kicked out around ten years ago, which was about the same time Grimoire went into Stable 28 to start her new mission with Vervain. Before that day I really liked your mom, she was kind and always had interesting stories to tell. She was always worrying about you though, I remember that quite well.”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach from what she was telling me, “I take it that my mom did something to get you kicked out of the Rangers.”

“That she did, I had a good thing going with them back in the day. I worked hard and was just about to make the transition from Knight to Paladin when shit hit the fan. I learned something that I shouldn’t have about your mom. When I tried to ask her about it, she freaked out, she used a spell on me removing the knowledge of what she was doing. I can remember finding something out, but not what it was. It was right after, that she went and told the Elder the one secret I had and I was thrown out of the Steel Rangers. Honestly, I was lucky they didn’t kill me, but the Elder at the time took pity on me and said I wasn’t to ever come near the Compound again.”

I took a moment to let that information sink in before I continued, “A couple weeks ago I would’ve said there was no way my mother could do such a thing, but the more I find out about her, the more I realized that I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.”

“I’m not saying she was a bad pony or anything, even though I’d like to kick her ass for betraying me. Back then she only cared about one thing, keeping her little girl alive. From the looks of it, she found a way to do so. So tell me, why did she leave you behind in that nasty place?”

“Wish I knew. I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since I left. I didn’t even know she was really alive until I got out. All I know about her is that she rejoined the Steel Rangers for a while, then she left on bad terms. Later she went to New Pegasus and was looking for a Dashite called Striker. She went off to Hoofington to find him. After that I have no idea what happened, but I did learn that six months ago she was spotted back in New Pegasus and she wasn’t the same mare I used to know.”

Laser Light whistled, “Shit, well Hoofington will do that to you. It’s a horrible city. You couldn’t get me to go there for all the Caps in the world, only a fucking nut job would even dare to go there. I wonder why she was looking for Striker though?”

“Don’t tell me you know who this Dashite is too.”

She smiled again, “I’ve been wandering The Wasteland for a lot of years now. I met him a couple years ago when he flew out this way. Sadly, he died not long after. He saved me when I was on a mission to clear out a raider nest. He was a nice Stallion, I never knew he knew Grimoire though.”

“So, he’s another dead end I guess.”

“Maybe, but he told me that he left everything he owned back with a pony by the name of Priest, in a small town called Chapel. Striker may be dead, but if I know that pony like I know I do, he left something behind with his stuff. Though I wouldn’t recommend going to Hoofington if you can help it.”

“From what I heard it’s on the other side of Equestria. I’d have to get a working sky carriage if I wanted to get there in one piece.”

“That and a pegasus that would be willing to fly it all the way out there or if you have the caps a griffon,” she said with another smile.

“That wouldn’t be a problem, two of my traveling companions are flyers. One’s a griffon who’s my body guard the other is a runaway pegasus from a Stable that was run by the Enclave.”

“Really?” She looked in disbelief

“Yeah, they’ve both been traveling with me for a while now.”

“Is you’re pegasus friend a Dashite?”

“Kinda I guess, he ran away from his Stable and the Enclave is out to kill him, but he’s never been marked as one.”

She got a distant look when I said that, “Well shit, he’s a lucky buck then. Not many pegasi can get away from the Enclave like that.”

“I wouldn’t call being hunted down by The Seven Sins of Equinity lucky.”

“Fuck, and I thought I had problems. Those ponies a crazy.”

“I’ll say. I did manage to kill one of them the other day, Pride was pissed.”

“Hold up just a minute, are you telling me that you managed to take down one of the Sins?”

“Yeah, with a little help from my friends.”

“And you’re still breathing? That’s amazing.”

I frowned a little, “More lucky than amazing, Gluttony was an idiot, if he was even a little less brash I’d be dead.”

“Goddesses girl, your story just keeps getting weirder,” she said.

“Trouble just keeps finding me, like right before we got here, my friend who’s a colt was attacked my Mosslurkers. He’s being treated right now by the doctor.”

She winced at that, “I’ll admit he’s a good doctor, but fuck he’s a total asshole.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She reached over to a set of saddle bags and pulled out a big bottle of Wild Pegasus Whiskey, “You know what we need right now Shadow?”

I looked at the bottle and smiled a little, “I have a feeling you’re gonna say a shot or two of Wild Pegasus.”

“While it’s true I don’t need this whiskey, it’s too damn good, and it kills time, it can get boring up here, but this whiskey has gotten me through some pretty rough times. From the sound of it, you need something to help get your mind off of what’s been going on,” she said opening the bottle and taking a drink, then passing it to me.

I did the same and passed it back, shivering a little as the liquor ran down my throat, “That I do. So tell me, what’s your story Laser Light?”

She took another swig then gasped happily, “Don’t have one. I’m just a pony who goes around playing bodyguard for the most annoying ghoul in The Wasteland.”

She passed the bottle to me again and after two long swigs I asked, “You work for a ghoul?”

“Yup, he’s a pain in the ass. He doesn’t know when to shut up, and he acts like a colt most of the time. He IS very smart, and the pay is really good,” she took another drink.

“Sounds a lot like Stardust. He’s a good pony, but he’s such a pain sometimes.”

“Is he a good friend?” she asked.

“He’s a very good friend, he also has a knack for swooping in at the last second to save me when I get myself into trouble, same for Aura.”

“That’s something everypony needs out here, good friends.”

“What about you Laser Light? Do you have any friends?”

“A couple yeah, but I’m always busy working so I don’t get to see them often, or they’re dead, the wasteland has a funny way of saying ‘fuck you this is the wasteland bitch’ you can never be content out there” she said drinking some more.

I joined her, my head was starting to get the nice fun swimming feeling now, “I just realized that Silver is gonna be so pissed at me if I go back to our room drunk.”

“Who’s Silver?”

“Oh she’s my mare friend…I think…we never really put a label on it since we only started doing things…what…yesterday I think…or was that today…I can’t remember.”

She winked at me, “So you like the mares do ya?”

“I don’t really know, I mean I know I like bucks too, but there’s just something about mares that just makes me feel…comfortable. You know what I mean?”

She laughed and took another drink, “No I wouldn’t…I’ve never been with a mare.”

“What…you mean you never even thought about it?” Yep, I was drunk. Come on Shadow, not everypony in The Wasteland swings both ways.

“I didn’t say that, I just never tried anything that’s all. Where I grew up, they prefer same sex relationships, it works like population control.”

“Where did you grow up? I need to visit a place like that. In my Stable, if you’re caught with another of the same sex you get in a lot of trouble,” why was the world starting to spin slowly? I don’t remember feeling like this when I got drunk with Little Buck.

“Trust me, you don’t want to go anywhere near where I grew up. It’s not as fun as you think. (Hiccup)”

“So then, if you did think about doing something with a mare, why didn’t you?”

“Because I got married, had a kid, and thoughts like that went away for a while.”

“Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were married,” I said, my voice getting slurred.

“It’s okay, after I had to leave my home, I couldn’t see my husband anymore. I miss him so much, sometimes it hurts to even think about it,” she was looking at the bottle of Wild Pegasus with a sad face now.

“Hey…don’t get sad, I hate it when ponies are sad. Maybe I could help cheer you up.”

She took one more swig then gave me the rest to finish…it wasn’t much, but a couple more mouthfuls was welcome, “How do you think you can cheer me up?”

I just shrugged, “I have no idea, but I would if I knew what would make you smile.”

She grinned at me then moved closer, she pressed her body against mine and rested her head on my shoulder, “You’re a very sweet mare you know that, your mare friend is a lucky gal.”

“Nah, I think I’m the lucky one. She was the one who helped remind me who I was, and she always seems to know just what to say to cheer me up.”

“So, this mare friend Silver. Are you two Exclusive?”

It was hard for me to push through the fog in my head, “I’m not sure, maybe I guess. She never said anything about it. Why do you ask?”

She kissed my cheek and gave me a big smile, her fangs shining in the dying light, “Should we go find out?”

My mind went to the dirtiest part’s it could find, “Sure. Can you answer one thing for me though?”

“Anything.”

“Why do you have fangs?”

She looked confused for a moment and laughed, “I’ll tell you another time, how about that. I’m too buzzed right now to explain, and if I don’t do what I’m thinking about right now, I’ll probably never be able to again.”

She grabbed my hoof and led me back down the ladder, amazingly neither of us fell in our drunken stupor. A few minutes later we were both standing by the door to the room I shared with Silver. I pushed it open and saw her sitting on the bed reading a book.

She looked up as we both walked in asking, “Who’s your friend Shadow?”

I swayed then giggled a little before I could speak, “This is…Laser Light. She was nice enough to share some whisky with me, and we were talking about stuff, then we started talking about you and me. She was asking something about if we were exclusive or not. I dunno what that means with a relationship, so she decided we should just find you.”

“Hello” she waved drunkily

She rolled her eyes and set her book down, “You’re drunk huh, that explains a lot,” she slid off the bed and walked over to us, “How much did you drink?”

“I dunno. There’s a big gray area between enough and not enough.”

Laser Light seemed to find her voice then, “At least half a bottle, no wait a little less. It wasn’t full when we started…I don’t think it was at least.”

“For goddesses sake,” Silver said shaking her head, then she smiled, “To answer both of you, I would consider Shadow and I exclusive, but since she’s drunk and so are you. I just don’t know how to say no to her stupid cute face…I can make an exception as long as I’m not being left out…”

She moved forward and kissed me. Laser Light swayed again then smiled, “Okay, now that is kind of cute, and a little arousing.”

Silver looked at her and smiled, “Never seen two mares kiss?”

“Seen it, but not for a while.”

“Ever kissed a mare?” Silver said getting her muzzle very close to Laser’s.

“Uh…nope,” she said blushing.

Silvers voice came out in a whisper, slow and seductive, “Do you want to?”

Silver looked back at me and pulled me close then pressed my head up to the other mare’s. A moment later I was kissing the medium pink maned mare, it was different from kissing Silver, but still nice. Laser Light sure knew what she was doing too. As soon as our lips met, she pressed her tongue into my muzzle and kissed me back, a small shiver running through her body.

Silver started to giggle a little, “It’s even hotter watching your mare friend kissing like that in front of you. Good thing I’m not the jealous type. How about we shut the door, and take this to a more comfortable place…”

The rest of the night, I got to learn something new about Silver. She read too many books about making love, because the things we all did that night I wouldn’t have even thought of in my wildest dreams…okay maybe in my wildest. I would have never tried to ask anypony to do what she was having us do. I’ll say that even though Laser Light said she hadn’t even been with a mare before, she did know how to please a mare, over and over again. By the time we all drifted off to sleep, my body couldn’t move an inch. I didn’t mind though, it was the best night of my life.

***

I woke up the next day with my head hurting, but not as bad as last time. I moaned a little as the night before came back to me slowly. I smiled a little as I felt Silver’s head resting on my chest, she was breathing slowly and curled up against my body. Then I felt feathers rubbing against the side of my head. Wait a second, I was chatting with an earth pony last night…wasn’t I?

I looked over and saw Laser Light sleeping on my other side, one of her…wings…resting against the side of my head. Laser Light was a Pegasus? I looked down at her flanks and saw a cutie mark, it was a magical energy rifle with a laser sight on it. She was a pegasus, with a cutie mark. Was she Enclave? I was about to wake her up and ask her about it when a voice came from the doorway.

“For fuck sake Laser Light, I leave you alone for one night and you go around getting drunk and screwing two mares? Now that’s a new one,” I looked at the voice and saw an earth pony ghoul standing in the door way, his voice wasn’t like any ghoul I’d met before, it DID have a little rasp to it, but it was higher pitched and whiny.

Laser Light got up and looked at the ghoul with death in her eyes, “Really Nexus? Do you have to bother me all the fucking time? I DO get days off y’know.”

I looked at the ghoul then back at Laser Light, then back at the ghoul again, “Wait, you’re Nexus?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Steady Horn: Stay on Target! Hip fire Accuracy is improved when firing any gun.

QUEST ITEM ACQURED!

Zebra Demon Ward: You have been given an ancient Zebra talisman, when worn it will protect you from possession by any minor demon of the Stars, beware though, this relic has been known to cause trouble for Unicorns and their magic.

Chapter 20: Game Over

"Oh-no! An angry midget hates me, I’m SO sad now."

The ghoul that was standing in the doorway looked at me, his head tilting to one side. Honestly for a ghoul he didn’t look or sound half bad, unlike most of the other ghouls I’d seen so far. Most of his brown coat was still visible, it hadn’t been burnt away from the radiation. His eyes did have the look that all ghouls had, they were milky and dead looking. He lost most of his mane, but I could still see light brown flecks of it on his head and tail. His cutie mark had been burned away, that was one part of his hide that looked more like what I expected a ghoul to look like. His voice didn’t even remind me of a ghoul, he only had a slight rasp with a nasally high-pitched sound to it. The odd thing though was he had a big black mustache on his face…it looked kinda fake.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Um…I’m Shadow Star, I’ve also been called the Courier Mare by DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus.”

“Boring, what does that matter? Big deal, you’re a pony that ponies on the radio talk about. So what?” he said looking at Laser Light, “You do realize you’re nude right now right? Everypony can see your wings now.”

Laser Light looked at her wings and blushed out of embarrassment, “Shit. Well…I was drunk last night and wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“No shit. Do you really wanna risk the Enclave finding out you’re alive. From what I remember you said that would be really bad.”

“Oh you worry too much. I doubt anypony up there even remembers who I am anymore,” she said getting to her hooves and walking over to her cloths she’d tossed in one corner slipping them back on, hiding her wings again, “Plus, I don’t think these two are gonna say anything.”

“Excuse me, but what’s going on here? Are you really Nexus?”

He looked at me again. I noticed Silver was just watching everything going on, “Yes I am. Who told you my name?”

Wow he’s a serious pony, “Somepony calling himself Watcher, he said I should find you to see if you could help me unlock some hidden files on my Pip-Buck.”

The ghoul snorted and shook his head, “Watcher? There’s someone I don’t hear from every day. Well if he sent you here to find me, then fuck off. I don’t do things for just anypony, I’m a busy stallion and I don’t have time to be messing around with Pip-Bucks.”

Laser Light walked over to the ghoul and moved her face very close to his, “Hey Button.”

“That’s not my name anymore you know that Laser Light,” The ghoul said trying to back away from her intense gaze, “Why are you so close to me?”

“Do you remember what I said I’d do if I caught you wearing that stupid thing again?”

“Back off, I can wear whatever I want, I am NEXUS!”

She moved her muzzle up to his mustache, and with a quick pull, she ripped it right off, “There you go, much better.”

The ghoul who only a moment ago had been acting all cool and collected, dropped to his belly and started to yell, “Moooooommmmm, why did you have to do that!? I can’t be the mysterious Nexus without it!”

Talk about a personality change, Laser Light just laughed and tossed the lip hair away, “Don’t call me mom, I told you I hate that. Now be a good ghoul and talk to this nice young mare about her Pip-Buck, trust me you’ll be glad you did.”

“But I can’t, I have so much to do. I still haven’t gotten past level 32 on Zap Apple Chronicles, and now you took my mustache. How can I ever be cool again?” he whined.

“Oh grow up and get over it, you’re over two hundred years old, stop acting like a child,” she looked at Silver and I, “I had fun last night you two. If Button gives you too much trouble just come find me and I’ll set him straight.”

I watched as she left the room ignoring the ghoul. When she was gone, Nexus err…Button got back to his hooves and looked at both of us, “Now that she’s gone, what were we talking about again?”

Silver laughed a little, “So is you’re name Nexus or Button? I’m getting a little lost here.”

He slumped with a sigh, “My real name’s Button Mash, formally one of the top technical engineers for Stable-Tec. Ever since I…well…died and became a ghoul, I started going by the name Nexus.”

“Why?” I had to ask.

“Because it’s a code name, code names are cool!”

“Um…if you say so. I don’t see what’s wrong with your real name though,” I said finally slipping off the bed.

“Let’s just say that I also had a pony out looking for me right after the bombs fell, Nexus made it easier to hide from him.”

“Oh, so it’s sort of like a disguise then?” Silver asked.

“In a way yeah. Anyway, you said Watcher sent you to find me? I guess I should see what all the fuss is about. He doesn’t just send anypony my way unless he can’t figure something out himself,” Nexus said.

“How do you know Watcher; do you know who he really is?”

“Of course I do, but I’m not telling you. He likes his secrets and I’m not one to go around telling ponies who he is. As for how I know him, that’s simple, he’s been around The Wasteland as long as I have. You tend to run into people when so much time goes by. Now didn’t you say something about having a Pip-Buck for me to look at?”

“Oh right,” I lifted my foreleg showing him the Mk. II, “My mother left it for me back in my Stable, I guess there are files hidden on it. Watcher said you might be able to help me get to them.”

Nexus was looking at my foreleg in awe, he reached a hoof out and ran it over the screen slowly, “Are you from Stable 9?”

“No, I’m from Stable 28. I don’t know how my mom got ahold of this, but I did find out where it was from. I was the one who blew up Stable 9.”

“You did what!?” he asked, “What did they ever do to you!?”

“The Stable was filled with bloodwings, and a crazed scientist.”

He took a minute to think about what I said and shrugged, “I heard that ponies from Stable 9 left a few years ago and founded Trotston. I never really found out what happened to the Stable itself, I figured whoever was left just kept doing whatever they were told to.”

“Do you pay attention to anything going on in The Wasteland?” I asked.

“Nah, I prefer to stick to my work and games. Tech is my life and I’d like to keep it that way. Sure I help out with some settlements now and then, but most of the time that’s because Laser makes me. So you have no idea how your mom got ahold of that?”

“She never told me about it and so far I haven’t found anything out on how she obtained it.”

“Maybe there’ll be something in there that can tell us more. Let’s head to my room and see what we can find. Besides, I don’t’ feel like talking for the next hour trying to figure out how you got Sweetie Belle’s Pip-Buck,” he said turning to leave the room.

Silver smiled at me, “Go with him, I still need to finish the project I’m working on.”

“What project is that?”

“I’m not telling you, it’s a surprise, now go,” she said shooing me out of the room.

“Okay, I’ll be back later then,” I said kissing her quickly before turning to follow the ghoul, then my mind caught up on what he said, “Wait a sec, this used to belong to Sweetie Belle, like THE Sweetie Belle!?”

He looked back at me as we walked down the hall, “Of course it did, each one of the founders of Stable-Tec had one. I wouldn’t call Sweetie Belle a founder, not really, but she was the face of the company for a long time. She was best friends with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.”

I looked down at the silver Pip-Buck, a little amazed at what was now stuck to my forehoof, “How did it end up in Stable 9 then?”

“When Apple Bloom first came up with the idea to make the Mark II she wanted to make a Pip-Buck that had more features to offer than the original 3000. She decided to make three to test out new features, later she used her ideas to come up with the Delta model, which sadly never made it into production on account that everything got blown up.”

“So Stable-Tec only made three of them?”

“Yep only three. Right before the war ended, Sweetie Belle came up with this crazy idea to give them to the heads of the three departments of Stable 9. She wouldn’t tell anypony why she wanted to do this, but in the end she convinced Apple Bloom to do it,” he moved down the main stairway and down another hall as he spoke.

“Then tell me, why would Apple Bloom make a Pip-Buck that you can’t get off?”

He laughed, “Think about it this way; Stable-Tec was one of the few companies that wasn’t under any Ministry control. There were a lot of ponies trying to get their hooves on the ideas that Stable-Tec was working on. When she made the Mk. II she wanted to make sure nopony could just get their hooves on the projects that Stable-Tec was working on. What better way than to keep all the important stuff on the Pip-Bucks of the ponies who ran the company.”

“Still seems stupid to make it impossible to get off.”

“It’s not impossible, you just have to know how to do it. Apart from death, the only way to get a Mk. II off is by knowing the password that is on the Pip-Buck for removal, also you have to be the pony who’s wearing it to get it to unlock, and you need a Pip-Buck master key. It’s the only way to get one off apart from death. Stable 9 had a manual that explained all of this, but it was only the Overmare who was supposed to know that knowledge,” he said as he finally reached a set of double doors. He pulled out a key and unlocked it then pushed one open.

I walked in and found myself in another world. The room was filled with monitors, terminals, robot parts, cables, and a lot of other things that made no sense to me. I looked around with my jaw open just a little bit, “This is your room?”

“Sure is, this is where I spend most of my time. Isn’t it Awesome?” he said happily, walking over to a chair and sitting down, “Sit over here so I can look at that thing.”

I went over and sat in the chair next to his. I lifted my Pip-Buck and showed it to him, “How do you know so much about all this?”

“I was good friends with Sweetie Belle. When Stable-Tec first started, she helped me get a job there. It didn’t take long for my skills to get recognized by Apple Bloom and I started helping her with a lot of the projects she was working on,” he said pulling the cord from my Pip-Buck and hooking it up to a port that went to three different terminals, “I helped with some of the things that went into the Mk. II, I’m sure that’s why Watcher sent you to find me.”

“Everypony that I meet who knows anything about them keeps telling me they’re special, but I don’t know why. What’s the big deal with a Mk. II over the normal 3000?” I mean come on throw me a bone or something here, I’m sick of not knowing why Ponies wanted my Pip-Buck.

He started to type things on one of the keyboards as he spoke, “Well one thing is that a Mk. II is almost like a master key for terminals, I’m not sure if you noticed this or not, but the hacking software in there is state of the art. It should be able to crack almost any program it comes into contact with. Another thing is, if you use the Mk. II to lock down a program only another Mk. II can unlock it, even then you can make it so that only that Mk. II can unlock the program.”

“So, if a pony used this Pip-Buck to seal a stable and another pony that had another Mk. II was inside, you could keep them from unsealing it?”

“Yeah you could do that I guess,” he said still typing.

That would explain why I was able to get into Stable 9 using my Pip-Buck and Dr. Cell couldn’t get out. The Survivors must’ve used my Pip-Buck to seal it, “What else can they do?”

“Unlike the 3000 models, the Mk. II has a built in Broadcaster. That technology just came out right after the 3000 was put into production, there was an attachment you could get for it to add a broadcaster, but it was never as strong as the built in one like the Mk. II and the Delta have. They also have an expanded memory, better radio range, and they can decrypt radio signals. One of my favorite features was the fact that you could hide data in one and set it up like a new Pip-Buck, much like this one as I’m sure you’ve realized.”

“I was wondering about that. I didn’t know you could set a Pip-Buck up to hide things in it and still set it up for a new user.”

“Technically you could do that with any Pip-Buck if you knew what you were doing, the Mk. II just made it a lot easier. It came in handy when The Ministry of Morale started snooping around Stable-Tec,” he hit one more key then looked at one of the monitors for a long moment, “Who set this up like this? I didn’t think anypony but a Stable-Tec technician like myself could set up software like this.”

I looked at his screen, but the jumble of words didn’t make any sense to me so I asked, “What’s wrong?”

He sighed, “The pony who set up the protection on this Pip-Buck may know almost as much as I do or maybe more about the Mk. II. Whoever did this, was able to set up layers of protection to hide away the files that’re still in the memory. The first layer was easy, Watcher was able to undo it with only a Sprite bot, this second layer requires a lot more technical ingenuity to get past it.”

“Technical what now?”

He gave me a flat look, “You can’t be that dull.”

“I never said I was a smart pony.”

He rolled his eyes, “Even a child could’ve figured that one out without help. What I don’t understand is why so much protection was put onto this Pip-Buck.”

“I couldn’t answer that one, also why did it fry the sprite bot that Watcher was using when he tried to unlock it?”

“The protection software is tough and a simple Sprite bot wouldn’t be able to break through all of the firewalls. Even a skilled hacker like Watcher would have a hard time with this, even if he had the Pip-Buck in the room with him.”

“What about you?”

He smiled, “I haven’t met a program that I couldn’t crack. I’ll admit that this one is hard, and I give the pony who set it up a lot of credit for such fine work. Still, it’s not good enough to keep me out, though I might lose a couple terminals while trying to crack it.”

“How long will it take?” I asked looking down at my Pip-Buck again.

“I’m not sure, from how this program is set up, it could take me a few minutes or a couple hours. If I knew the pony who did this, it would help a lot because I’d know their tricks and be able to figure a way around them. Since I don’t I’ll have to take each step carefully to make sure I don’t fry my terminals or the Pip-Buck,” he said typing quickly on the keyboard.

“Great, I love waiting…” I said sarcastically.

He rolled his eyes, “Go into a memory orb then, it’d be better that way. It’ll keep you from distracting me while I work.”

I thought about the memory orbs mom gave me, I wasn’t ready to watch those yet, besides mom said I had to listen to her recording before I did, “I’m not sure the ones I have will work.”

He reached up onto one of the shelves and pulled down a grey orb. He rolled it over to me, “This one will suffice.”

I looked at the simmering orb, “What’s on it?”

“Something important like most memory orbs, just watch it.”

“There’s nothing dirty in there is there?” I asked, the memory of Sweet Lily’s orb still fresh in my mind.

“No, now shut up and go into the orb, I want to get started.”

Deciding that it couldn’t hurt, I concentrated on the Orb, and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

When the world came back into focus I saw I was once again in Canterlot, the sun was starting to rise in the distance, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Again, I was in the body of a Pegasus Stallion standing on a cliff overlooking the city. Next to my host stood a mare I’d only herd about. Rainbow Dash was also looking out at the capital of Equestria. She looked a little older than she did in the posters I’d seen her in scattered across The Wasteland, but she was still a good-looking mare.

“So, how are you liking your promotion Night Stalker?” she asked my host. Oh great, this was another memory of that mysterious Pegasus.

My host chuckled, “Like wouldn’t be the word I’d use, but I’m getting used to it.”

“You’ve had months to get used to leading the Children by now, I thought you’d love the chance to command your own team.”

“I didn’t join the military to become a leader, I wanted to protect my home. You should know that more than anypony, you were the one who pushed me into joining so many years ago.”

She laughed and hit him in the foreleg, “Yeah, and look how good you got. I remember when you first entered training at the academy, I thought you were gonna wet yourself.”

“He probably wouldn’t have even made it through training if I hadn’t been there,” a griffon said landing next to them.

He looked over at her, she reminded me a lot of Aura in a way. Their beaks were similar at least, same for the eyes. This griffon had brown fur, white feathers on her head mixed with light green markings around her eyes, and a little more on her chest and on the ends of her head feathers much like Aura’s red tips. Her wings were a darker reddish brown than her body was, and her talons were yellow matching her beak. She also wore a scarf that was clasped together with a crescent moon. She had dark combat armor on and two blades clasped to her back.

“Greta, I didn’t expect you back so soon, how did your meeting go in Griffonstone?” Night Stalker asked.

“Not as well as we hoped, Griffonstone is sticking to its new code by making contracts with Equestria. They want no part of the war unless they’re getting paid for it,” she said fluttering her wings a little before letting them settle to her side.

“Shit, I thought that Gilda would’ve at least listened to reason if you talked with her,” Rainbow Dash said with a sigh.

“You two aren’t as close as you used to be Rainbow, she’s part of the griffon council now, and you’re a Ministry Mare. Greta doesn’t have much standing with the council, it was a longshot that they’d ally with us,” Night Stalker said.

“Yeah I know, but I was hoping that a message from me being delivered by another griffon would help at the very least,” she said.

“I have more bad news Captain,” Greta said, “I’ve been exiled from Griffonstone for good. They said they don’t want a griffon like myself hanging around polluting the minds of other griffons with my love for ponykind. Their words, not mine.”

Night Stalker stomped, “Dammit, they really said that?”

“I’m afraid so. They’re serious with this new code. Any griffon that doesn’t want to live by this Contract is seen as not being a griffon, and they aren’t welcome in Griffonstone,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“I should’ve gone with you Greta, I grew up there just like you did. They may have listened if I was with you,” Night Stalker said.

“No, they wouldn’t. You’re part of the Ministry of Awesome, they don’t see you the same as they used to. You don’t even go by the same name anymore, they don’t know who Night Stalker even is. You’re not the same colt who first came to town all alone and in need of help,” Greta said.

My host sighed and shook his head, “That may be true, but I was hoping we could’ve gotten them to help more than they are, at least they didn’t say they wouldn’t contract with Equestria anymore over this. I’m sorry that you got banished from your home town.”

She shrugged, “I left there a long time ago, Equestria is my home now. Besides, I’d rather be by your side than living by this new code they all go by now. Call me old-school but I’m loyal to my friends, especially one I’ve known since I was little.”

Rainbow Dash laughed a little, “At least we have you Greta, but I dunno how you put up with his broody ass.”

“He grows on you,” she responded.

“Anyway…” Night Stalker said interrupting their teasing, “Didn’t you have a new mission for us?”

Rainbow Dash stopped her laugh, “Yeah, we got intel that the Zebras are setting up troops near Las Pegasus. We don’t know how they got so many this far into the country, but they’ve been spotted near Crimson Canyon. We think they’re holding up there, using the caves to hide their numbers. I need your team to go there and see what’s going on. I’ve also heard that one of the Caesar’s Legates is leading this new garrison of troops. If he’s there he needs to be taken out.”

“Doesn’t sound like a job for my team, how many Stripes are we talking about?”

“I’ve only heard of a couple dozen or so, but if they’re being led by the Legate I heard about, they could be dangerous. I can only trust YOUR team with this one Night Stalker. It needs to be done quickly and quietly. Do you have enough ponies yet to take on a task like this?” she asked.

A smile came to my hosts lips, “My old friend Lightning Dust just joined up the other day. With her, Greta, and the rest of the team we’ll be fine.”

“So, you did get Lightning Dust to join, I’m glad to hear that. She’s a good soldier and quite a flyer,” Rainbow Dash said with a smirk, “I’ll make sure the details are sent to you. I need you to leave tomorrow, so get your team ready.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Night Stalker said with a salute.

Rainbow Dash laughed again, “I hate it when you do that Night Stalker, now get outta here.”

The Rainbow maned mare flew away in a flash. Night Stalker watched her go, then looked at Greta who was just sitting there picking at her talons, “Now that she’s gone, what else did you learn while you were in Griffonstone?”

“I was able to meet up with some of my old contacts and it turns out that those rumors are true. The Stripes are planning an attack on Hoofington. I didn’t get any details on when the attack will take place, but they did recruit a powerful dragon to fight for them.”

“This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve gone after Hoofington, something about that city seems to draw the Zebras to it. They’ve been trying to take it down even before the war got as bad as it is.”

“I agree, this worries me even more than the zebra’s hiding out near Las Pegasus.”

"They’ve used dragons in battles before, what makes this one different from the others?”

“If the intel is correct, this one is ancient. Usually the older the dragon, the more powerful it is. We’ve never seen such an old and powerful dragon participate in a battle before,” Greta said.

“You’ve got a point. The Stripes must’ve paid him a lot to get him to fight for them. Old Dragons don’t like to get into conflicts like this unless there’s something to be gained. I’ll have to make sure Luna knows about this,” Night Stalker said.

“Why not just talk to Golden Blood, he has a lot of contacts in that area? He’d be better than bothering the Princess with this.”

My host frowned, “No way, you know how I feel about that snake. If I go to Golden Blood, he’ll figure out some way to fuck with me like one of his pawns.”

“He may be a snake, but he’s useful when it comes to this kind of thing, you know that.”

My host sighed, “Yeah I know, but still, Luna will want to know. She has her own ties to Hoofington and she’ll be pissed if she isn’t notified about this.”

“Whatever you say boss. Should we go now?”

“No, we have things to do before we leave for Las Pegasus. I’ll be sure to talk to her tonight before we head out,” he turned and I saw now that they were on the same overhang that overlooked the city, right where the entrance to the Children of the Night’s base was located. Right behind him was a set of power armor, the same one I’d seen him wearing when he went to talk to Falafel. He went over to it pressed a talisman on the back, it opened up and he stepped in. A moment later the armor covered his form, his wings locked in with the sharp blades on the edges. He reached back and pulled the helmet off his hip and placed it on his head.

I’ll admit that for body armor that covered most of his body, it wasn’t that bad. It fit him nicely and even the rebreather built into the helmet was barely noticeable. He swung his tail back and forth, checking that the stinger on the end of his tail was set right. He looked at the Griffon again, “Let’s head toward Everfree.”

“Why are we going there?” she asked, “And do you really have to wear that armor everywhere you go?”

My host chuckled, “I’m the Captain, I have to look the part. Plus you never know what you’ll run into in the forest, I’d like to be ready. We’ll be heading toward the Castle of the Two Sisters, Petal is overseeing the construction of Stable 101 and I need to speak with her before we head out.”

“I haven’t seen Prickly Petal in a long time, but do we really have time for this?” she asked.

“I always have time for my sister, just like I always have time for you my friend,” my host said with a laugh.

She smirked then shook her head, “You say that now, until Luna calls you away in the middle of the night, then we’ll see who you have time for.”

My host flapped his wings and took to the air, “Even then, I’ll always make time for you two.”

Greta followed as my host banked and headed toward the large forest that bumped up against the mountain that Canterlot was built on. As they flew down and over the large trees, Greta came close and asked, “Do you ever miss the old days Night Stalker?”

“Depends on which old days you’re referring to.”

“You know what I mean, back before the war, when we still lived in Griffonstone.”

My host took a few minutes to respond. His voice was distant as if he was lost in an old memory, “Somedays I wish I never left. Back then, life was so much easier. At the same time I’m glad I left, I was nothing back then.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure. I mean yeah, I’m not big on being a leader, but I am good at it. I was perfectly happy with being a normal grunt, all I had to do was take orders and protect my country and the ponies I care about. Now it’s meetings, missions, and every once in a while espionage. I have ponies calling me sir and/or captain all the time. They look up to me and most days it scares me. I feel like a fraud most of the time.”

One of her wings brushed against his, “What you are is a pony who’s brave and cares about others. You have a fire deep inside you to do the right thing, no matter what anyone tells you. You were born to lead, you just needed the right ponies to show you that.”

“The right ponies and griffon you mean,” He said with a chuckle. Wow I didn’t know Night Stalker could laugh so much, something about Greta seemed to bring a better pony out of him. It sounded like they’d been friends since they were young. I wonder why a pegasus was living in the land of griffons.

“I don’t like to brag, but all I did was push you in the right direction.”

“You followed me when I was brought back to Equestria.”

“Hey, I had to make sure you didn’t chicken out. You remember what you were like back then, if somepony said boo you jumped sky high. Hell you couldn’t even fly when I first met you.”

He smirked again, “I could fly, I just didn’t like to was all. I got over that and now I’m almost as fast as Rainbow Dash.”

She laughed again, “Fast maybe, but you’ll never be as good as she is.”

“If I keep training I will be.”

“When you can do a Sonic Rainboom, then we’ll talk,” she said brushing his wing again.

My host looked toward a break in the trees, I could see cranes and ponies in the distance working on something enormous. Night Stalker tilted his wings and dove for the ground, “Were here, let’s see what my sister’s up to.”

They both landed next to two stallions who were looking over paper work on clipboards, they both jumped as my host and Greta landed, “Damn, you scared the shit outta me buddy,” one said looking over my host and his griffon companion.

My host’s voice grew serious as he spoke, “I’m Captain Night Stalker of the Equestrian Royal Guard and a representative of the Ministry of Awesome. I’m looking for Prickly Petal, is she around?”

The other earth pony stallion spoke up, “Sorry Sir, but this site is off limits to anypony that isn’t part of Stable-Tec. If you wanna speak with Ms. Prickly Petal you’ll have to make an appointment with corporate.”

My host stared at the shorter pony. Well I guess most ponies were shorter than Night Stalker, “Did I ask you if I needed an appointment or not? I don’t believe I did. I believe I asked you if Prickly Petal is here right now. Don’t test my patience.”

“She’s in the middle of inspecting a part of the Stable at the moment, she can’t be bothered. I’m sorry sir, but I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Night Stalker removed his helmet and looked the pony right in the eye, “I have business with your boss, tell her that her brother is out here and wishes to speak with her. If you don’t, I’ll go find her myself. Don’t MAKE me ask again, I hate redundancy.”

Greta laughed, “Yeah, he really hates asking more than once.”

“Griffon’s aren’t allowed here,” the first stallion said, “Get out!”

“She’s enlisted in the Royal Guard as well, don’t pay her any mind. You’re talking to me right now, not her,” Night Stalker said rounding on the other pony.

“I think they’re too stupid to realize that you’re the personal guard of the princess and they shouldn’t be telling you to do anything,” Greta said with a laugh.

“You’d probably be right,” My host said lifting one of his wings and letting the sharp blades that ran along the edge come into view of both Stallions.

“Hey Buddy, no need for that. I’m just doing my job. Stable-Tec is a private company and we don’t answer to the government.”

Before anypony else could do or say anything a soft voice echoed toward them, “No need for that Moony, I dunno why you think you have to threaten every pony who gives you a little lip.”

A green pegasus mare with lighter green freckles on her face and a long yellow mane walked toward them. She had a pink flower on her flanks that matched her eyes perfectly. He smiled as she approached, “Ah there you are Petal.”

She walked up to them and looked at the two stallions, “Why are you two just standing around like idiots? They need help clearing out rocks from level three.”

“Sorry ma’am, these two just flew in here without permission,” the first stallion said.

“And you think it’s your job to tell them to go away?” the mare asked giving them both a stern look.

“But this is a Stable-Tec project and he’s with the Ministry of Awesome.”

“He’s also my brother, family takes precedence over anything else, or have you forgotten who Apple Bloom’s sister is?”

“No Ma’am.” They both responded.

“Good, now pull your heads out of your asses and get back to work.”

They both ran off. My Host walked over to the mare, giving her a hug, “I’m glad you showed up, I really didn’t want to have to threaten them more than I already did.”

She laughed, “I’m sure you worried SO much about their well-being,” She said then looked over at Greta. She hugged her and said, “Greta, it’s been ages since I’ve seen you last, how’ve you been?”

“As well as could be expected with everything going on.” Greta said with a smile.

“I’m surprised you stopped by. What brings you two out here?”

My host’s face grew serious again, “We need to talk. Is there a place around here we could speak privately?”

“Sure, I have a small hut that was set up for the supervisors while we’re on site. We could talk there if you want,” Prickly Petal said gesturing at a small hut toward the end of the work zone.

“That’ll work I guess,” Night Stalker said as he and Greta followed her to the hut.

When they entered, Night Stalker seemed to relax. He walked over to one of the chairs that were sitting in a corner and sat down, “Looks like the Stable’s coming along nicely.”

Prickly Petal sighed and sat next to him, “On paper, yes. It’s ahead of schedule, but we keeping having problems the farther we dig. This forest is so wild and it’s presenting a problem for our crew. A few of them have even accidentally exposed themselves to poison joke. One of them was turned to stone by a cockatrice. I have some ponies looking for it but if they don’t find it, at least we’ll have an interesting statue to decorate the stable with. Enough with the small talk, why are you here?”

Damn, she knew how to get to the point. Greta laughed a little from the other side of the room as Night Stalker spoke, “I need a little help from you with something.”

She smiled, “I figured it had something to do with me helping you with something, some things never change. What’s on your mind Moony?”

He chuckled, “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

“Well I’m not calling you Night Stalker, it’s a stupid name,” she laughed.

“I’ve told him the same thing for years, but he won’t listen,” Greta said laughing along with her. It was so strange to see him seeming to enjoy himself. In the other memory orbs of him he was so downtrodden, even with Big Mac. He did laugh, but it was forced. When he was alone with these two he was a different pony altogether.

“Anyway,” Night Stalker continued, “I’m going to be gone for a little while. While I’m gone I want you to see how close you can get with the leaders of Stable-Tec. I know that you’ve been getting close with Apple Bloom, but I need you to get close to all three of them.”

“That won’t be too hard, they’re always together when one of them isn’t busy. But why do you need me to do that?”

“I need Stable-Tec’s help with something down the line, having you around befriending them will help me with that. Right now, Stable-Tec doesn’t answer to any of the Ministries and I aim to change that, at least a little. I need to get one of them in my pocket so when I need them, they’ll do whatever I ask.”

She frowned a little, “That seems kinda low if you ask me. Why not just ask Apple Bloom, or the other two for their help?”

“Think about it. If you were the president of Stable-Tec, and for years the Ministries have been trying to get you to work with them, always saying “for the good of the country”. What would you do when somepony like me came to you asking for help?” he said.

“I see you’re point, but I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. You’re asking me to put my job on the line, all for a secret you won’t’ tell me.”

“I’d love to tell you, but it’s better if you don’t know Petal.”

She frowned again, “Are you in some kind of trouble Moony?”

He smiled sadly and looked away for a moment, “If I was I’d tell you. I just don’t want you getting hurt. It’s bad enough that I have to ask you to do this for me, but you’re my best way of getting Stable-Tec on board.”

She sighed again, “Fine, but no promises. I’ll try and see what I can do. I have a meeting later today with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, I’ll see if one of them wants to grab lunch or something after.”

“Thanks Sis, you’re a big help.”

“Just promise me that you’ll be safe, I couldn’t handle if anything bad happened to you.”

He got up and walked over to her and pulled her into an embrace, then he kissed the top of her head, “I’d never leave you alone Petal. I’ll always be here for you, just like you’ve always been here for me.”

“And remember he’s got me to keep him safe, I’ll keep an eye on him.” Greta said.

She laughed and pulled herself away, “I miss this, just the three of us sitting around talking.”

“Me too,” he reached back and put the helmet back on, “We should get going, I have another pony to meet before we head out.”

“Where will you be going?” she asked.

“Las Pegasus, I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone this time.”

“I understand. Make sure you get me something nice while you’re out there. A shot glass would be nice.”

“Got it,” he said as he and Greta walked out the door, “Love you Petal.”

She looked at him, “Love you too Moony.”

When they got outside, the two of them took to the air again. At first I thought the memory would end there, but it kept going…

“You doing okay Night Stalker?” Greta asked after a little bit of quiet flying.

“Am I ever Okay Greta?”

“Somedays,” she responded, “What I mean is you’re looking more down than usual.”

“It’s been a year now.”

“A year?” she asked.

“Since my life changed.”

She looked confused for a moment, “Oh yeah, it’s been a year since Big Mac died, I almost forgot. I’m surprised you’re not on your way to visit his grave, you always seem to go every month around this time.”

“I told myself that it wasn’t worth it. The thing that’s buried down there isn’t my friend, it’s just a pile of bones in the ground. I told myself that I’d give it a year then I’d stop going. I’d have to move on and start looking for his killer.”

“I’m surprised you two got along so well, you were so different.”

“He showed me how to be brave, how to fight, how to be a real Stallion. For him to go down the way he did was just…wrong. He had a special somepony out there, somepony who he loved so much that he was going to leave the army and his team just for her.”

She sighed “That’s the worst part of this war, ponies like Big Mac have to pay the price for something so stupid.”

“And his friends and loved ones are left behind, missing him.”

The two of them flew on in silence for a while, finally Greta asked, “Where are we going?”

“To complete a mission.”

She looked over at him confused again, “What mission? I thought we didn’t have any more missions apart from the one in Las Pegasus?”

“We got this the other day while you were still in Griffonstone,” he said then he put a hoof up to his helmet and clicked on a button, “Lightning do you read me?”

Lightning Dust’s voice echoed in the ear peace built into his helmet, “Loud and clear Boss.”

“Good, is everything ready?”

“Thunderlane and Cloudy Nights just reported in. The target is on site, Comet Tail and Phoenix Heart are both in place on each side of the compound. Babs is standing by, Amethyst Heart and Minuette are both awaiting your orders.” she replied.

“Good, I’ll be there in a minute. Have the team stand by until I give the order. I want this to be quick and clean.”

“Yes Sir. I’ll be just over the site waiting for you. Lightning Dust out.”

The radio went silent and Greta asked, “Are you sure having Lightning Dust join up was a good idea?”

My Host smiled, “She’s the perfect one for the job. She’s quick, quiet, and skilled, just like you. Give her a chance, I know she’ll prove herself to you.”

“As long as she doesn’t screw anything up. What I don’t understand is why you don’t have me join you on stealth missions. You didn’t need another member after you finally talked me into joining.”

“I didn’t, but I can’t always have a griffon with me on some of the stealth jobs. I need a pony like her. Plus, if you were always going on stealth jobs with me, who would keep the others in line while I’m gone?”

She laughed, “Point taken.”

“I’m glad you joined up with us Greta, it wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“We’ve been through a lot throughout the years Night Stalker. Yeah it may’ve taken awhile for you to talk me into becoming an actual member of the Children, but I’ve always been here by your side, nothing will ever change that.”

“Glad to hear it, now before we get there let me update you. The target is a high standing pony in the military, we have reason to believe that he’s been leaking military secrets to the Zebras.”

“A Zebra sympathizer huh? We’ve been seeing a lot of those lately.”

“We have, but none as high up in the military as this pony. Normally this would be something set aside for the M.O.M. but Luna wants him taken care of silently. We have to take care of this before Morale finds out about his dealings. Once they have him, everything’ll be too public for us to do anything.”

“I thought Image took care of that kind of thing.”

“They do, but there’s no guarantee. We can’t let it get out that a high ranking official is helping the stripes.”

“Okay, then what’s my role in this?”

“I need you for backup just incase things go south. Keep to the clouds and keep an eye out for trouble. I’ve heard he might have contracted griffon bodyguards.”

She rolled her eyes, “If he did, then I guess I’ll have a chance to work out my frustrations.”

“Yeah, I thought you might like that,” he said then flapped harder and took to the clouds. Once he was higher up, Lightning came into view.

She saw the two of them coming and flew closer, “There you are boss. What took so long? I thought you would’ve been here an hour ago.”

“Had business with my sister. What’s the situation?” Night Stalker asked.

“He’s been in his courtyard for a little while. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but he’s been doing something with his Pip-Buck,” Lightning said, then looked over at Greta, “Hey Greta, haven’t seen you in a while.”

“It’s been too long Lightning,” Greta said giving the mare a smile.

Night Stalker landed on one of the clouds and looked down at a large mansion on the top of a hill. Guards were posted by all the entrances, and even a couple of pegasi were flying around near the roof. Tapping the button on his helmet again he said, “Thunderlane, report.”

“I’ve counted six guards around the outside of the home, more inside, but I can’t get an accurate count from here.”

“That’ll be fine Thunderlane, keep an eye on the sky’s. I need to know if more pegasi are hiding around the clouds. Minuette can you make some kind of distraction?”

“No Problem Boss, I’m working on it now,” Minuette’s excited voice echoed over the radio.

“Captain, I’m picking up chatter over a decrypted signal. It seems the target is sending a message to somepony out near Hoofington.”

“Amethyst Star, can you block the signal somehow?” he asked.

“I’m working on it, I’m not sure how long I can keep it up though.”

“All we need is ten minutes, can you do that.”

“I’ll do my best Captain.”

My host looked back at Lightning Dust and Greta, “Lightning head toward the north side stay out of sight. I’ll signal you when it’s time to go in. Greta, stay here and watch our backs, if something looks like it’s gonna go wrong, I want you to be our backup.”

“Yes Sir,” they both said, Lightning Dust flying off to the north, and Greta flew higher scanning the landscape.

Night Stalker went back to the radio, “Minuette, if you’re going to do something, do it now. Comet Tail and Phoenix Heart, take out the guards in the courtyard as soon as Minuette starts. The rest of you stand by. I’ll be going in when the guards are down.”

“Yes Sir,” they all responded, with everything set up, my host was in the air again flying high over the large house.

At first I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, then when Night Stalker looked toward the front of the house I could see a lone blue mare walking calmly up to the door. Two of the guards walked up to her and started to have a conversation. I wasn’t sure how she was going to distract anything by just talking to the guards, when all of a sudden Minuette started to scream holding her chest and falling to the ground thrashing.

The guards rushed to her and started to hold her down, they looked utterly confused on what was going on. A moment later more ponies came from the house to aid the others, even two of the pegasi. Night Stalker started to chuckle a little, “Always the drama queen aren’t you Minuette,” then he looked down at the courtyard where I could see another pegasus looking around confused and three more guards on the edges of the courtyard.

“Take down two, I’ll deal with the third. Lightning, follow me in,” Night Stalker said in his radio and then started to dive.

As he rushed toward the ponies in the courtyard, two of them fell, blood flying from their heads. My host landed a second later, his wings flipping around and slashing a deep gash along the neck of the third pony. A second later Lightning Dust landed next to him, and they both turned toward the last pony standing.

He had an orange coat and blue mane, his light blue eyes widened as his three guards died. He stammered, “What the hell’s going on here?”

Night Stalker flipped the blood of his wing blades then walked slowly toward him, “You tell me Captain Flash Sentry. Why am I here?”

“Night Stalker? What are you doing in my house?” he looked around, “You killed my guards, this is Treason you know.”

“No Captain, that’s what you’re doing. We’ve been watching you. You’ve been sending secret documents to the Stripes, sabotaging missions, giving away locations of bunkers and scouts. All I’m doing is taking care of a problem. It’s sad, a pony like you could’ve done so much good for this country, but instead you decided to help the enemy.”

Flash Sentry frowned, “All I’ve done is help a race that’s been taken advantage of by Equestria. Luna’s fucking insane, she shouldn’t have ever been put in charge of our country. The Princesses betrayed us when Celestia let a pawn of the stars lead us. Yes, it was cute when she let her take up her old role of rising the moon and watching over our dreams, but leading the country, that’s what Nightmare Moon wanted all along. Look where her leadership has gotten us, war is not the answer.”

My Host frowned, “You’ve got to be kidding me, how much bullshit did those Striped bastards fill your head with? Luna is looking out for us. It’s those bastards that want to kill all of ponykind. All over a stupid coal contract and the leadership of a particular mare.”

He smiled, “You think my head is full of bullshit, listen to yourself Night Stalker, you’re nothing but a tool. What do you think will happen to you when the ponies of Equestria find out you killed a Captain of the royal guard?”

“Funny you should ask, you see we were never here. It’ll look like you were killed by Zebras, some group of assassins that got into your home and took down you’re guards along with you. Too bad you’ll go down in history as the poor pony who showed the rest of us what they could do. The country will come together afterwards to help the war effort all because of your death,” Night Stalker said, his wings unfolding.

Before he could move, something materialized out of nowhere and attacked my host. A hoof kicked him in the side throwing him back a little. Night Stalker jumped aside barely dodging another hoof strike. I could see a zebra looking at Lightning and Night Stalker. He had a short cut mane that was mostly black with just small white stripes along it, he was also standing on his hind legs, his forehooves up and in an odd fighting stance.

“I am amazed that you were able to dodge my attack, there must be some truth to the stories about you Captain Night Stalker,” the Zebra said grinning at him. He looked at Flash Sentry, “Leave now, I’ll take care of them.”

“Thank you Zaphan,”

He flew off into the night sky as the Zebra smiled back at my host, “Now, where were we?”

“He won’t get far you striped bastard, my team won’t let him.”

“Normally yes, but my comrades are in the hills around here watching this place, as soon as you attacked they started moving. Your team will be too busy to deal with one lone pegasus,” Zaphan said.

My host snarled at him, “Then I’ll have to kill him myself, once I take care of you that is.”

“You can try, but you won’t win this one,”

“Let me take care of him Captain,” Lightning Dust said, walking up and putting a wing on my hosts shoulder.

“No, you can’t take on a Zebra like him,” Night Stalker said.

“Yes I can, now go after that traitor before he gets away.”

Zaphan laughed, “Like a mare could take me on. I am the son of the great Caesar, I have been trained my entire life to fight.”

A moment later Greta landed next to my host and Lightning Dust, “The two of us can take care of him, now go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes go,” Greta said smiling toward the lone zebra.

“Fine, but make sure you keep him alive, we could use a prisoner like him. I’m sure his father would do a lot to get him back,” Night Stalker said.

“I won’t let you get away Follower of the Stars,” Zaphan said, moving to attack.

A gem glowed on Night Stalker’s armor and time seemed to slow as he jumped into the sky. It only lasted for a second, but it was enough for him to start flying away. He smiled then looked back as the griffon and other pegasus started to fight with the Zebra prince.

“You two be safe,” then hit the button on his helmet again, “Team, take down the Stripes that are moving in on the house, then go help Lightning and Greta. Make sure to keep the Zebra they’re fighting alive.”

He got a response from every member of his team before he flew off into the night sky. It didn’t take long for Night Stalker to catch up to the fleeing Flash Sentry as he made his way south, he kept looking over his shoulder as he flew low to the ground. Too bad he wasn’t smart enough to look up. Night Stalker moved quietly but quickly over his prey as he got into position. Then he dove for him and started to fire his disintegration rifle at him.

Two hit his wings and he went down hard, crash landing alongside a marsh. Night Stalker landed and walked toward the traitor, his magical energy rifles humming softly, “Any last words?”

“Fuck you Night Stalker, and your damned Princess.”

“I give you a chance to say something good before you die and you waste it on curses. How sad,” Night Stalker said.

He smiled at Night Stalker and pulled out a talisman, “Curse you Night Stalker, Curse you and all your family for all time. Equestria will lose this war, and even if you somehow survive it, you’ll never be happy. The same goes for anypony you love and your descendants.”

The talisman started to glow as he laughed. Night Stalker just yawned and fired his weapons. The pony screamed as he dropped the Talisman and his body turned into ash, “Good Riddance, Equestria doesn’t need scum like you polluting the minds of its citizens. Rot in hell.”

He walked over and looked at the slightly glowing Talisman. It flashed and went dark, cracking down the center. Night Stalker picked it up and looked at it closely, “What are you I wonder…guess I’ll have Minuette take a look at it. As for Curses, they’re just useless words. All I know is that you’re dead and I’m not.”

He pocketed the Talisman then spoke into his radio, “Report.”

Lightning Dust’s voice came back through the radio, “We were able to capture the Prince, but we have a problem.”

My host tensed up, “What’s wrong?”

“Greta’s injured, but not fatally. I can’t say the same for Phoenix Heart, she’s hurt pretty bad. She came to help us and took a nasty blow to the chest. Minuette’s trying to help, but I’m not sure how much good she can do at this point.”

“I’m on my way. See if Minuette can get her to a hospital…” Night Stalker took off again, flying back toward his team…something seemed to echo in the air back where the pile of ash was.

“And then there were nine…”

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I came out of the memory, “How long was I out?” the memory was still fresh in my head. What was the voice at the end?

“Three hours, maybe longer. I wasn’t watching the time, I’ve been too busy with THIS stupid thing,” Nexus said still typing on the keyboard.

“I thought you would’ve been done by now,” I said sitting up and looking at the monitors, streams of data were flying by on the screen as he worked.

“I’m done with breaking into the second layer of protection, now I’m trying to keep the program from destroying my terminals.”

I looked around the cluttered room and noticed it was getting a little smoky in the room, and hot, “If you got through the second layer of protection, then why is it still trying to destroy your terminals?”

“The second layer isn’t, there’s a third layer, maybe a fourth. The one who encrypted this is impressive, this program is twenty times stronger than the last one, and I thought THAT ONE was hard,” he stopped typing, “Oh shit.”

I didn’t like that sound of that, “What’s wrong?”

He went to unplug my Pip-Buck, but a voice I knew very well, echoed out of the terminal, “Authorization not recognized. Any further attempts to submit forms into this program will be met with software termination.”

“Was that Aunties voice?” I asked.

“I don’t know who that is, but I’ll show her. The great Nexus never loses…usually,” he said going back to the computer, “I’ll show this bitch who the REAL programing expert is around here.”

“Um, maybe you shouldn’t mess with it anymore. Your terminals look like they’re getting really hot.”

He typed in one more command prompt, “Success, I’m the master!”

For a moment, it looked like everything was gonna be okay, then a picture of Auntie popped up on the screen waving her hoof back and forth “Ah-ah-ah, you didn’t say the magic word,” over and over again.

Nexus unplugged my Pip-Buck quickly and pushed me to the ground as he yelled, “Fuck this!”

Right as we hit the ground an explosion went off over us. When it ended I got up and looked over at where Nexus’ terminals used to be. All that was left was a pile of scrap, “Damn, Auntie means business when it comes to programs.”

Nexus looked at the pile of scrap metal and electronics with his mouth slightly open. One eye twitched as he looked over the destruction, then tears welled up in his eyes, “My Terminals, MY GAMES! Why Celestia…why do you hate me so!?”

I watched for a moment as the Ghoul started to cry hugging pieces of his destroyed tech. I had no idea what to do at this point, so I just patted him on the back, “It’ll be okay Nexus, I’m sure you can replace it.”

“Do you know how long it took me to find the parts I needed to get Zap Apple Chronicles to work properly on a terminal instead of the console it was originally made to work with?”

I just shrugged, “I don’t even know what a Zap Apple Chronicles is.”

He slumped and started to cry again as he looked at his tech, “I knew I should’ve finished it before I did this.”

My Pip-Buck Dinged. Not wanting to deal with the crying ghoul I looked at it.

New Files Added…

Research Notes

Audio Files

Pip-Buck Tags

Research on the Mark II

Star’s Progress

I looked over at the one that said ‘Research Notes for the Mark II’ and clicked on it. A moment later, a file popped up…

I’ve been looking more into what makes this Pip-Buck so special, at first it seems to be a normal Pip-Buck. The pony I got it from back in Trotston told me how to remove it. I’m still not sure why anypony needs a Pip-Buck that you can’t take off. I’m finding it handy now though, since I’m keeping a lot of files on here that I don’t want to fall into the wrong hooves. After some tinkering I figured out that this thing has a lot of features that you don’t see on your standard Pip-Buck.

The Broadcaster itself is a gem, I’m able to use it to keep in contact with The Rangers. I can get into terminals a lot easier too, now that I don’t have to plug directly into them. There’s also built-in hacking software that seems to be able to push its way past anything I use it on. It’s making my job a lot easier while I look more into this old project from before the war. The last location I was at had a lot of data that came in handy. I’m still not sure it’ll help Star, but I have hope.

The funny thing is that, this Pip-Buck was already loaded with a lot of old Sweetie Belle songs. I’m finding those to be very nice to listen to when I’m alone out here in The Wasteland. When I get back to the bunker I’m gonna play them for Star. She loves this kind of music so much.

The last thing I found out was that this Pip-Buck was used to seal some kind of program or terminal right before the megaspell detonations. After talking with the Pony who gave me this, I found out that they can seal programs and terminals so that nothing else can get into them. I know that I’m on a mission to find a cure for Star, but I’m so tempted to go to the location where this Pip-Buck was last used to seal something before the war ended, and find out what it was. Who knows? It could help me in my mission, I’ll update later if I figure anything else out.

Nothing useful there, I already knew all of this from Nexus. I clicked on the Audio Files, most of the first things that came up were music files, all of them started with SB test 1 then 2 and so on. After clicking the first one and seeing it was just an early Sweetie Belle song, I turned it off and looked further down the list. Finally, I saw one that caught my eye. They were labeled ‘My Mistakes’ and mom’s voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck.

Entry Log 225,

I don’t know what to do anymore, it’s been hours and Star still hasn’t woken up. I can’t believe she did that. This is Senior Scribe Grimoire Spell and I’ve done something terrible. Vervain and I went to M.A.S.E.B.S. Tower-45, it’s located a few miles outside of Cartwheel. The tower itself works just like the rest of them, but I found information that there was a basement in it that held the secrets to Falling Shadows. It was the only thing left that I could think of to save her, I was wrong. At first everything was going so well, I even brought Star with me in case I could use the old project the way I figured I could. Then shit went south, there was something protecting the project and it attacked us.

I hid Star in a side room when it started to attack us, but she got out and got in the way. Something happened and she just started to scream and passed out. She doesn’t even look right anymore, her mane changed color, and so did her coat. I don’t know what’s going on, but after it attacked her it disappeared into thin air. I got us out of there as soon as I could and now we’re stuck near Green Mist Valley not far from the Stable Vervain found last year.

Stables have better medical facilities than anywhere else in The Wasteland don’t they? Maybe I could get myself into it and make them help us. I can’t lose my daughter, not after everything I’ve done to try and save her. I’ll talk with Vervain, she’s been working undercover in the Stable. Maybe she could think of a way that I could get in. I know she’s been having trouble getting ponies to trust her. I’m good with memory spells I’m sure I could do something.

Entry Log 286,

This is Senior Scribe Grimoire Spell. It’s been two months now since we entered Stable 28. Everything is going a lot better than I hoped, whatever happened back in the tower it seems to be helping Shadow Star. I still find it strange to call her Shadow, but it’s much more fitting now. At first I was worried about her when she woke up, she was having nightmares every night. I couldn’t get her to calm down most of the time, and every time she got too upset she would give off a blast of magic, it’s powerful too. Something’s messing with her horn, I’m just not sure what.

I had to go and wipe most of her memories just so she could sleep at night. I’m still working on them, it’s a long process to go through and takes so much out of somepony. I’m not really taking them away, if I did she wouldn’t be the same filly that I love. I’m blocking them, one day I’m sure she’ll remember what happened to her and what I did. I’m hoping that won’t happen until she’s older and can handle it. I had to tell her it was trauma from an accident, so far it’s working, but for how long I’m not sure. She’s not stupid by any means, and she’s way too curious for somepony her age. I have a feeling I’m going to regret this in the end.

Entry Log 321,

This is-fuck why do I have to say that every time? No matter, I really fucked up today. The Overmare wanted to see me in her office. When I got there, she started asking me things about where I came from. I tried giving her the normal lies I’ve been telling everypony ever since I came here last year. The problem is, she wasn’t buying it. I’m not sure how, but she knew things about me that nopony should know, especially anypony in the Stable. I got angry and started asking her questions.

No matter how much I tried she wouldn’t tell me, and she wanted to know more about why I was in her stable, she even threatened to kick Shadow and I out. I couldn’t have that happen, so…I used a spell on her that I learned from an old spell book, not a nice one either. I only meant it to be a warning not to threaten me, but I’ve never done a spell like that before. Now the Overmare is in medical and I don’t think she’s going to make it. If she doesn’t, her daughter will take control of the Stable and that little bitch has had it out for me ever since I first arrived here. If she ever finds out it was me who hurt her mother, I’m not sure what she’ll do. It’s possible that my days in Stable 28 are numbered, and if so I’ll have to learn as much as I can from the Research and Development department.

I’ll have to tell the Elder about all of this too I’m sure, but I’m hoping that she won’t have me leave just yet. I’m not ready, nether is Shadow. With the way things are going right now, it’ll take years for her to be ready to go back into The Wasteland.

Entry Log 492

Tonight’s the night, I’ve set everything up as best I can from here. I’ll be leaving this Pip-Buck down in the catacombs. A few months ago I found an old alcove that looked like a storage room when Stable-Tec was still building the stable. Nopony seems to know it’s there and with a little magic to help hide it, I think it’ll be a good place to keep it. I’ve also placed spells all over the lower levels of the Stable. It doesn’t matter what they do, let’s just say it’ll help cover my tracks, and when the time is right they’ll hopefully lead Shadow to the Pip-Buck.

No matter what happens to me, she has to get her hooves on it. Once it’s on her foreleg, nopony will be able to get it off. I just hope she can do what needs to be done. If I know my daughter she’ll go looking for me right away if she finds out I’m not dead. It all depends on what she’s told once I’m gone. I hate doing this to her, especially at such a young age, but she needs this place. It’s the first time she’s been healthy and happy in her whole life. I want her to grow up with friends and know what it’s like to be normal, at least while she can. Honestly if I didn’t need this Pip-Buck back in a few years, I’d just say fuck it and let her live her life in here. It may not be a perfect place, but it’s better than out there.

Tonight is my last night in Stable 28 and I’m sure the last time I’m going to see my daughter. Shadow, if you happen to find this file on the Pip-Buck, please know that everything I’ve done up to this point has been for you. I can’t explain everything with a simple message, but if I’m still alive when you find this and you happen to find me, I’ll explain everything. I don’t expect you to forgive me for leaving you behind, this decision is the hardest one I’ve ever had to make.

I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Mom if you wanted me to find you then why did you leave me a note saying to go to Manehattan?’ It’s because I do in a way, it’s a choice that I hope you made, even though I’m sure you didn’t. Tenpony is a stuck-up place to live, but it’s safe and beautiful. I wanted you to have a better option than seeing what has become of Equestria. Since I’m sure you didn’t listen to me, then I wish you luck. I don’t know what’ll happen to me once I’m gone, but I hope we see each other again. Stay strong, don’t doubt yourself, and find good friends. Friends can be the one thing that can save you from the dangers out in The Wasteland, and they can be there for you when you’re feeling low. Good luck my little star, shine brighter than everypony else.

Wow, that was a lot to take in. I can’t believe she made this before she even left 28. It was like she knew every step I’d take when I left. I wish I was as smart as she was, she saw things like no other pony I’d ever met, and she planned ahead to make sure her plans went off without a hitch. Also, I can’t believe she was the one who killed the former Overmare. All I remember from back then was that she took ill and passed away early the next morning. Her daughter had indeed become the new Overmare and she did force Mom to leave in a way. I’m sure the elder saw what was going to happen with the new Overmare and had Mom leave before her cover was blown. Only problem was that mom was supposed to take me along with her and the Mark II. She didn’t, she left it for me to find so I could get it back to her one day. From what I could tell, there still wasn’t much on here that seemed important. Maybe it was something to do with her research notes, but when I clicked on that file, everything that came up made no sense to me. It was all notes on some old project that Mom had been looking into, but with all the big technical words involved…I gave up halfway through. So I went into the Pip-Buck Tags, most of them had the names of different ponies in Stable 28, but the last two caught my eye.

Tag for Vervain

Tag for Grimoire Spell

I looked at the last one and cursed, “All this time I had the Pip-Buck tag for Mom’s Pip-Buck, if I would’ve known that before, it would’ve made finding her so much easier,” I sighed and clicked on Mom’s Tag and an odd message came up.

Tag location found. Retrieving data on location... data found. Last recorded coordinates marked on Pip-Buck navigation.

“What the fuck does this mean?” I asked.

Finally seeming to be able to pull himself away from his sorrow, Nexus replied, (Sniff) “What’re you talking about?”

“I found the Tag for my Mom’s Pip-Buck and it gave me this message,” I showed him my screen.

“The Mk. II can pull up data on a Pip-Buck’s Tag even at a great distance. If it doesn’t show you where that pony is and gives you a message like that, it means the Pip-Buck it’s trying to locate hasn’t moved in a long time. Either your Mom died in the past few months or she took her Pip-Buck off and tossed it.”

I went over to the map and looked at where it was showing the last location, “I’m sure she’s not dead, she must’ve taken her old one off like you said. I’m not sure why she’d do that though. Where’s this at?” That Tag was showing me a location northeast of New Pegasus, farther than I’d gone so far during my travels, it was even farther north than Stable 9.”

“Hmm, I haven’t gone up that way in a long ass time, but if I remember right, that location isn’t far from an old military base. Some ponies from a stable moved into it a long time ago and now they have their hooves on all the left over missiles and bombs left there when the place was abandoned, they call themselves ‘The Annihilators’ for good reason. They don’t let any outsider near their settlement. They blow up anypony that they see as an outsider.”

“Is that where Trotston is?”

“No, they aren’t the Stable 9 ponies. Trotston is a little more southeast of there. The tag looks like it’s between the two settlements,” Nexus said.

“I’ll have to look into that when I have time. If it hasn’t moved in a while, I’m sure waiting a few days won’t make a difference,” I said going back and looking at the other name on my Tags. Vervain, who was she and what did she have to do with Mom? She mentioned her a few times, but I know I’ve never met a pony in the Stable with that name. Was she hiding in the Stable and I didn’t even know it? Was it Auntie? No, mom said Vervain was a Steel Ranger. Auntie’s tough, but not Steel Ranger tough. It had to be one of the other ponies Mom was friends with in the Stable.

I clicked on the Tag and sure enough it came up right at Stable 28. So, Vervain was still in the stable. If only I could go back and find her, she’d be able to tell me more about Mom. Since I can’t go back, maybe I’ll visit the Steel Rangers and talk with Elder Appleslice about her. Maybe she had a way of getting into contact with this Mysterious Steel Ranger who was hiding in my old stable.

“I have a lot to think about Nexus. Thanks again for helping me get this much out of the Pip-Buck, and I’m sorry about what happened to your terminals.”

He sighed and shook his head, “Wasn’t your fault, you didn’t do anything to them. It was my own ego that did it. It’ll suck a plate of dicks, but I’ll be able to replace everything over time, even though it’ll put a hold on what I can do for this place. I’ll have to head back to New Pegasus and see if Match and Tariff have replacement parts.”

I gave him a smile and went to leave the room when I remembered something I meant to ask him before, “Hey Nexus, what was so important about Captain Night Stalker?”

A bit of anger came over his features as he spoke, “Night Stalker was a snake. During the war he was known to be one of Luna’s personal guards. In reality, he was running a stealth group of assassins for the government. He was hoof picked by Celestia and Luna for the job. Not much is known about him from before the war, apart from that he was orphaned when he was very young and he grew up in Griffonstone. When he was older he was forced to move back to Equestria and placed with a foster family. The weird thing though was that a young griffon named Greta went with him, those two were inseparable for most of their young lives. Greta moved back to Griffonstone when they were older but came back when the war broke out to fight alongside her best friend. Night Stalker fought for a few years making his way up the ranks slowly. He never really showed much promise until a large battle near Manehattan. He was working with the Shadow Bolts then, he lead a fight against a dragon and a few high ranked Zebras. He and Greta were the only two who survived the raid only because Night Stalker held back during the attack and used the night sky to hide his approach with Greta. It’s what got him his codename Night Stalker. Nopony remembers what his old name was. He was a no one until he became Night Stalker.”

“From what I could see in the orbs I’ve seen of him, he didn’t much care for being the leader of a team, but he was very good at it.”

“He was, it was a quality that Celestia saw in him, and so did Luna. They knew he was the perfect one for the job. They even left the recruitment of his team up to him. They were the only ponies in his life that he cared about too, only ones who meant more than his team to him was his sister, the Princesses, and Greta. He would’ve given his own life for them, and he almost did a couple times,” Nexus said.

“What I can’t figure out is why you got a dark look on your face when I asked about him. I mean sure he looked like he was a dick and dangerous, but what does that have to do with you, and how do you know so much about him?”

He sighed again, “He was the pony who was hunting me down when the war ended. He seemed to think that I knew some information about something he was looking for. When Night Stalker wants something, he always gets it, and the pony who knows said information always seems to turn up dead. I didn’t wanna end up like the others so I ran. I learned as much about him as I could over the years. Even after the war ended he did some things that are unforgivable.”

“Like what?”

“The cloud cover for one; that was his idea. I don’t know why he wanted the Pegasi to be cut off from the rest of us, but he did. Also he’s the one who started the Dashite program, if my intel is to be believed.”

“Why would he do something like that?”

“No idea, all I know is what I was told. I’ve never found much about him after the cloud cover went up. All I know is that he just up and vanished one day forty years after the end. No pony knows what happened to him after that,”

I sighed and facehoofed, “Why is everything a Goddesses damned mystery in The Wasteland?”

“Wish I could tell ya. Anyway, why don’t you head out. I have a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“Good idea, I should go check with Dr. Cottage to see how Wingnut is doing,” I said turning to leave again.

“Oh yeah, I forgot with everything that was going on. While you were in the orb, your griffon friend stopped by and told me that your friend is awake.”

“You mean you’re just NOW telling me that!?” I exclaimed.

“Hey, I was busy at the time, it slipped my mind.”

“You’re lucky you helped me or I’d slap you for forgetting to tell me something like that,” I said in a huff before running out the door.

“You’re Welcome!” he shouted after me as I ran down the hall.

***

It didn’t take long for me to reach the double doors to the medical wing of the resort. I pushed the door open and almost ran into Dr. Cottage, “What’s the big hurry?” he asked me, “If you’re trying to challenge me to a race I’m going to have to decline seeing how it’s a little unfair. You see I have this bum leg.”

“No, I heard Wingnut was awake and I wanted to check on him.”

He rolled his eyes, “Of course you want to check on the kid, nopony ever comes to see how I’M doing.”

“Well you’re kind of a dick, so I’m not surprised.”

“Dick or no, maybe I’d like some company now and then. A companion to enjoy drug fueled shenanigans with,” he said then smiled, then popped one of his pills into his mouth, “Just kidding, I hate ponies. Plus, these little guys are all mine.”

“So, can I check on Wingnut?”

“I dunno, can you?”

“I hate you.”

“Oh-no! An angry midget hates me, I’m SO sad now,” he said sarcastically.

I facehoofed then asked as nice as I could, “Can I please see my friend, if so I’ll let you…I don’t know, study why I’m so short I guess.”

He smiled, “Deal, now remember it’s a promise. Your friend is in the other room, he’s up and doing a lot better. Can’t fix his face though.”

I walked past him and into the large room. There was a lot of different things laying around the room, most of it medical equipment. 21 was sitting at a desk looking over some files. She smiled when I walked in and waved at me before going back to work. I saw a door behind her, walking over to it I found it lead to a smaller room with a couple of gurneys in it. The one farthest back had Wingnut in it, and next to him was a Zebra Stallion also wearing a lab coat like 21.

He looked up as I walked in. He was an odd looking Zebra, but I wasn’t one to judge. He looked more like the opposite of the Zebra colt I met before, his coat was more on the black side and his strips were white, kind of like the prince I saw in Night Stalkers memory. I couldn’t see if he had a…what was it called again on a Zebra…oh yeah, a Glyphmark. His lab coat was covering it.

“I take it you must be Shadow Star, Wingnut’s been talking about you a lot ever since he woke up. I’m Dr. Xamir, it’s nice to meet you,” he said in the same accent that the Zebra Colt had.

“Same here, how’s Wingnut doing?”

Wingnut spoke up in a cheery voice, “Xamir told me that I was a brave colt for jumping in to save my friends.”

Xamir turned to look at Wingnut and added, “I also told you how stupid and reckless it was.”

He rolled his eyes, “Yeah I know, I won’t do it again either. It’s not fun being stuck in a hospital bed.”

“He seems to be getting back to his normal self,” I said walking over to sit next to Wingnut.

“He’s been like this all morning, it’s nice to see a young pony like him with so much free spirit. He responded well to the antifungal we gave him, he’s also a strong colt.”

“I have to agree with you on that one. When can he leave?”

“He can go any time, I just finished his last checkup and he’s doing much better and there are no signs of the infection anymore,” Xamir said.

“Awesome, I can finally get out of this stupid bed. I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days,” Wingnut said jumping to his hooves.

I took hold of him and pulled him into a tight hug, “I’m just glad you’re better, you had me worried.”

He pulled away and jumped to the ground, “Ewww why are you always so girly Shadow?”

“Maybe because I’m a girl.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to act all girly. I’m fine now see, so stop worrying so much.”

“If you say so squirt. By the way have you seen Aura or Stardust yet?”

“You’re griffon friend said she was going to go look around and talk with some of the other ponies who live in the lodge. The Pegasus said he wanted to meet the new Dashite, he should be back any time now,” Xamir said.

“Oh yeah, I need to talk to him too. The Queen wanted to talk to him about something.”

“He should be back soon, he’ll be coming in the main gate.”

“Good to know, we should head that way to meet him,” I said heading back toward the door.

Dr. Cottage blocked my path, “You can’t go anywhere, you promised.”

“I did, but I never said when you could.”

He looked confused for a moment then smiled, “Good one, that’s what I get for making a deal so quickly. Fine be on your way, but remember you owe me one examination. If I don’t get it you won’t get a lollypop that may or may not be stepped on and/or irradiated.”

I chuckled and walked past him, “I know, and I’ll make sure you get it…another time.”

Wingnut and I went to leave as we did I heard Dr. Cottage say to Xamir, “My leg hurts, when are you going to give me more of those Zebra pills?”

“I just gave you twenty last night!”

“Duh, and now they’re gone, I need more.”

I walked faster and left the clinic behind before the two could break out into an argument, I dealt with enough of that crap from Stardust and Aura.

***

When we reached the courtyard, I saw a pegasus just coming through the front gate. He had a pail blue coat and a black mane with yellow eyes, and he was muscular.

I also noticed that Stardust was just outside the door, he watched as the other pegasus walked in. My friend’s eyes were open wide like he’d seen a ghost. He was trembling as he looked on at the other pegasus and a small whisper came out of him, “It can’t be.”

“Hey Stardust, you okay?” Wingnut asked walking over to the older buck.

The other pegasus saw my friend and started to walk over to us, he walked right up to Stardust and yelled, “Cadet, where is your power armorrrr!? To think I went through so much trouble to make sure you got a set before you got away, and here you are wandering around in the open buck-ass FUCKING NUDE!”

Wow he’s loud, and had the same kind of commanding voice that Night Stalker did. Stardust was taken aback for a moment, then he saluted the older Pegasus and responded, “I had to leave it behind Sir!”

“Leave it behind!? Do you know how much time and effort goes into one of those suites!?”

“Sir, No Sir,” Stardust responded then he put his hoof down and added, “Wait a second, why am I answering anything you have to say to me. You’re not my Drill Sergeant anymore. Why the fuck are you here?”

“Don’t talk back to me Cadet, I asked you a question and I expect you to answer me!”

Stardust’s eyes narrowed and he got that look he always got when he was ready to shoot something. Then slowly he said, “Why the fuck are you here Doorstop? Are you here because you want to bring me back to the Stable or are you here to kill me like every other Enclave slave I’ve run into since I escaped?”

The other Pegasus started to chuckle, then it turned into a deep laugh, “Kill you? Why the hell would I wanna kill you? Who do you think helped you get out?”

Stardust blinked, “Wait, I thought Shortcake did that?”

“Shortcake? That filly was still sleeping when you broke out, she had no idea you even left until the next morning. When I found out what happened I went in and killed the two guards, stole the power armor for you two, then opened the cell door. It’s too bad Hail Strom didn’t make it, he was a good solider.”

“Don’t talk about him, you don’t have the right…” Stardust started to say.

Doorstop interrupted him, “I can talk about him if I want to, you two meant the world to me while you were growing up. I wanted to make sure you both made it out, if I could’ve done more I would have.”

It always seemed like he was yelling. Stardust looked away then asked quietly, “Why are you here?”

Doorstop sighed and pulled off the armor he was wearing showing us his flanks, and the red enflamed mark of a Dashite, “They figured out I helped you get away. They wanted to kill me for what happened, but since I have so many years of faithful service to the Enclave this was my punishment. I heard about this place from an old pony down south and thought it would be a good place to hold up for a while.”

Stardust took a step back and looked at the angry red mark for a long moment, “How did they find out?”

“No idea, I tried to figure that out when they first accused me of it. Doesn’t matter now Cadet. What does matter is that you’re safe and sound, and better yet not insane.”

I walked closer to him and asked, “Are you the new Dashite around here?”

He looked over at me, “Who’s this little gal?”

“Oh, Sergeant Doorstop this is Shadow Star. She’s a friend of mine, she was sent here to find a new Dashite, which I assume is you,” Stardust said.

“Shadow Star huh, do you by chance know an old buck named Box Tape?” Doorstop asked.

My eyes widened, “Yes I do, he’s the buck I work for, how do you know him?”

The older buck laughed loudly, “I met him when I went through Cartwheel looking for this little pisshead. He told me he was traveling with a mare named Shadow Star. I’ve been hearing a lot about you on the radio, good to see that there’s a good fighter out here. I can’t believe you were able to kill a member of the Sins.”

“How’d you hear about that?”

“From that DJ pony,” he said lifting his foreleg and showing off a Pip-Buck, it was beaten up but it still seemed to work, “I like to record some of his stuff to listen to now and then, it’s always nice to listen to the music of Sweetie Belle.”

He fiddled with his Pip-Buck then the energetic voice of DJ Pony came out, “Hello Wasteland, you know what time it is…that’s right, it’s time for the news. Now if you haven’t heard yet about the huge bounty on Security out in the Hoof, you will soon. Now I told you all before that it may seem like a quick way to make more caps than you thought you’d ever see in your life, but remember, this is the Security Mare who cleared out the Manehattan highway. You shouldn’t be going after something like that, just remember if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Now I have more news from out west. To most of you who live here in the east, you may not have heard about the special ops unit of the Enclave known as The Seven Sins of Equinity. That’s because out here, the Enclave keep to themselves for the most part. Out near New Pegasus, they have a much bigger role in things going on in The Wasteland if that seems possible. I mean c’mon those guys are everywhere. The Seven Sins of Equinity or The Sins for short are a team of criminals that serve the Enclave and hunt down ponies that displease the Enclave in any way. Every member of The Sins is extremely deadly and extremely hard to kill. That is unless you’re the Courier Mare. You heard me right mares and gentlecolts, the Courier Mare herself was able to take down one of the Sins. A fat, hideous monster that went by the codename Gluttony. After he snagged her from The Strip and flew her out past the city limits, there was a small fight between the Courier Mare and her friends with him. In the end they were the ones left standing. Now I know what you’re all thinking ‘DJ Pon3 why should we care about what the Courier Mare did to one of the Sins when they’re all the way out there?’ Well you see children that’s easy, because she’s dealt a serious blow against the Enclave from Stratus. It’s good for us that she was able to show those ponies in the clouds that they can’t just do whatever the hell they want, but sadly this also may spell trouble for our Courier Mare. From what I’ve been hearing they’re now working with another pegasus settlement called Nimbus to hunt down our heroine of the west. There’s been sightings of power armored Pegasi around New Pegasus, and even more have showed up near Appleton and The Halo One powerplant. So if you’re listening to me Courier Mare, keep up the good fight, but stay safe…Western Equestria still needs a pony like you. That’s all for now my little kiddies so let’s get back to the music…”

“When did this air?” I asked.

“Couple hours ago. I was heading back listening to the radio when it came on, didn’t think I’d run into you here though. Why are you here?” he asked.

“The Queen who leads the gang that runs Freedom wanted me to find you to see if you’d be willing to go meet with her. She has a few questions for you. She wants to see if you had any info that could help her with keeping her town safe.”

“In the short time that I’ve been out here I’ve heard stories about the Queen’s Gang, most of them don’t put them in a good light. Why would I go to New Pegasus to help a gang of ponies like them?” he asked in his loud voice.

“Sergeant Doorstop, I’m friends with The Queen. She’s a good pony, she’s tough and a lot of things have been said about her. Most of them aren’t true and the ones that are have been exaggerated. She helped me when I first came to town and when I started getting hunted by The Sins. You can trust her,” Stardust Said.

He took a moment then finally answered, “If you trust her then I’ll at least think about it. I can’t leave here just yet, I’ve been helping Violet with things around here. I can’t just up and leave her high and dry.”

I looked around the Summit then back at him, “What’ve you been doing for the Alicorns?”

“I’ve been running patrols around here and keeping an eye on things. I’ve also been training some of the ponies around here on how to fight. That doctor is a bit of a wuss though. Keeps complaining about leg pain and complains even more when I tell him to quit being a wussy and walk it off,” Doorstop said with a smile much like Stardust’s.

Stardust got an ill look to his face, “Oh, those poor ponies.”

He looked over at my friend and yelled, “No one’s asking you Cadet! My tactics may be odd, but look how good you turned out!”

Stardust opened his muzzle like he was going to say something, then he closed it, looked thoughtful for a second and said, “You got a point there.”

“Of course I do, I’m the Sarge! Now let’s get back to what we were talking about.”

“All I was told to do was to ask you to meet with The Queen. I hope you will, she’s been a good pony to me and I think you should at least give her a chance,” I said.

Before I could say more Aura landed next to me, she looked a little winded and panicked, “Shadow it’s about time I found you, where’ve you been?”

“I was meeting with Nexus for the past couple hours, what’s wrong?”

Doorstop however looked over at the griffon and frowned, “What the fuck is that thing doing here?”

I looked at him and said, “Don’t start, I know what Stardust is like with griffons, I’m not going to let you start up with her. This is Aura Bloodtalon, she’s my bodyguard and friend.”

He growled and looked away, “I don’t care for griffon’s much, but you’re right, I can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Aura interrupted, “Yeah we get it, you don’t like Griffons whoever you are,” she turned back to me, “Listen Shadow, we have to leave NOW!”

I frowned, “Why?”

“I was flying around checking out the area and I saw a large team of Pegasi heading this way. They’re only a few minutes out. I’d guess that they’re after you or Stardust. Whichever it is, we can’t stay here,” She said quickly.

Wingnut broke into the conversation, “I’m doing better now, I’m okay to leave I think, at least that’s what the zebra doctor told me.”

“There’s no time to argue, you hired me to protect you Shadow, that’s what I’m gonna do. We need to get Silver and leave before they get here,” Aura said.

I looked back at Stardust and Wingnut, “Why are they coming here?”

“Between us being here, a team of Alicorns, and Dashites, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Stardust replied sarcastically.

I looked at Aura, “How long until they’re here?”

“I told you not long, they have a couple dozen pegasi and a few ground troops too.”

“We can’t just run away and leave this place unprotected. If they’re after us, then we have to stand our ground and face this. Plus, I don’t think there’s a way we could get out of here safely, you two can’t fly all of us out of here.”

Aura spoke up, “Wait a sec, are you telling me that you’re willing to fight this time instead of running away.”

I smiled, “I think I am, but we should warn Violet about what’s coming, and we need to make sure the ponies who can’t fight get out of here safely.”

“Normally I’d say that’s a stupid plan, but I like the idea of taking it to those Enclave assholes,” Aura said pulling out here spear, “I’ll go find Violet, the rest of you do what you can to warn ponies.”

There was a flash of light and Violet appeared, “I heard what happened already, the ponies here will be safe,” she looked down at me, “Shadow Star, will your friends and you be able to help me keep my home safe?”

“They’re after me not you, we should meet them outside of the Summit. That way nopony will get hurt,” I replied.

She smiled at me, “I made this place to be a safe haven for ponies all over The Wasteland to come to. What kind of host would I be if I made you leave when real danger is coming?”

“She has a point Shadow, and with the numbers I saw coming this way, we can use all the help we can get,” Aura said.

I lowered my head, “Fine, but what do you plan on doing when they’ll be here any moment?”

The Alicorn grinned, “They won’t be able to enter my home. Thanks to Nexus we will be safe.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She means that I’ve been working my tail off to set up proper defenses for Frosty Summit,” Nexus said walking up from behind her, followed closely by Silver and Laser Light.

“Silver what are you doing out here?” I asked looking at my mare friend, she was carrying a large box in her magic.

She smiled at me and set the box down in front of me, “I told you I had a surprise for you, I only just finished it. I hope you like it.”

I looked down at the large box and opened it. Inside was a new set of armor. I pulled it out and looked at it, it started out much like my old duster, only this one looked newer and stronger than the one Box Tape had given me. On the back it had stitched into it ‘Equestrian Express’ like my old duster did. This new duster had armor on the shoulders to better protect my upper body from attacks like when I fought Wind Thrasher, on the right shoulder the number 28 was painted on it, on the other was my own Cutie Mark. Along with the Duster was a new set of barding, it had thin metal plates attached to the chest and leather straps running down the front and back, with armor to protect my hind-legs. A metal plate came up from the collar to help protect my neck, and there was a spot on one side to put Dream Walker. The last thing in the box was a helmet with a mask and goggles attached to it, it reminded me a lot of the one Night Stalker had worn in the first memory orb I’d even seen of him. Only this helmet had a place for my horn to poke through and didn’t look so bug-eyed.

I looked at it in awe, “You made this for me?”

She kissed me and said, “I want to make sure that you’re safe when you’re out there doing what you do best. I had to use pieces of your old Duster for the stitching, and most of it was made from the armor the NLR Veteran Rangers use. It took me a while to duplicate the design and I improved it a lot, it’s stronger and lighter. It is heavier than your duster was, but it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. That armor should protect you from anything shy of armor piercing rounds.”

I hugged her tight, “Thank you so much Silver, but I have to ask, why the helmet?”

“Trust me, when it stops a bullet you’ll thank me,” she said with a smile, “Also, the goggles will work with your Pip-Buck, it’ll interface perfectly with it so you can use it to activate a light filtering spell that’s built into them and the mask works both as a gas mask and a rebreather.”

Stardust walked over and looked at the new armor, “Damn Silver you thought of everything.”

“Like I said I wanted to make sure she stayed safe, this was the best way I could think of.”

“Cool, can you make me one?” Wingnut asked looking at the armor.

She smiled down at the colt, “Maybe one day, now should we do something about the ponies who are on their way?”

Violet nodded then looked at Nexus, “Nexus what do I need to do?”

“It’s simple, have your Greens go over to the two pylons I installed, then have them do their statue thing, and I’ll activate the system. If everything goes right we won’t even have to fight them.”

Violet’s eyes glowed for a moment then the two green Alicorns walked over to two metal rods connected to wires that spread out toward the walls. They both sat and their horns glowed. Nexus pulled out something and pressed a button. The rods glowed and the magic around the Green Alicorns horns wrapped around them. As they did this I took the time to change into my new barding and duster, finished with putting on my helmet and mask. It was a little snug and it felt weird to breathe through the mask, but it was still comfortable.

It was right as they were finishing I could see something coming down the road, a lot of somethings. Pegasi were flying toward us fast followed by ground troops. I looked back at the others and said, “Um, I think we should hurry up, they’re almost here,” my voice sounded a different, kind of like when the other ponies I knew who wear power armor.

Nexus smiled, “Don’t worry, they won’t get in,” then he looked back at Violet, “Have them activate the shield.”

Violet’s eyes glowed again, then magic erupted from their horns and shot out to the rods then along the wires toward the wall. A green light started to glow from different points at the wall where the wires met. A moment later a large Alicorn shield went up around the border. It flew up toward the sky and connected, trapping us inside a large green bubble. A couple of the Pegasi who were flying ahead of the rest crashed into the shield then fell to the ground hard.

The rest came to a halt right outside the gate, glaring at us from just outside the newly erected shield. Violet smiled, “That worked rather well Nexus.”

He laughed then whooped, “Ha, I knew I could do it. Take that you Enclave bastards.”

“Huh I guess we won’t have to worry about them after all. So this is what you were working on over here?”

“Yeah, it took a while to figure out how I could harness the green’s power to make it into a large enough shield to protect the Summit itself, I had a couple other ideas I wanted to try out, but they will have to wait.”

Laser Light chuckled, “Shit, so all the time fooling around with them wasn’t a waste.”

“Oh, shut up Laser,” he said glaring at her. She just laughed harder and holstered her laser rifle.

I noticed a pegasus in power armor standing right by the shield, it was none other than Sergeant Winter Frost. He projected his voice saying loudly, “Abominations known as Alicorns, give us the Courier Mare and her friends.”

Violet looked over at him and said in a booming voice, “This town is a safe haven for all ponies, we will not betray them to the likes of you.”

“Alicorn, her and her friends are enemies of The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Give them to us and we won’t destroy your little town,” Winter Frost said.

Violet started to laugh, “From where I’m standing Pegasus, I don’t think you’re in a good place to make threats. Nothing can get through an alicorns shield.”

“This is you’re last warning, we’ve left you’re settlement alone for years now, and we can keep doing so as long as you do what we ask.”

“I will do no such thing, now be gone before you anger me,” as she spoke magic enveloped her horn, and the Alicorn Amulet around her neck pulsed red.

“If that’s the way you want to do this then fine,” he turned and said to somepony behind him, “Take it down,”

Another pony I knew…kind of…stepped around him. It was the mare from The Bramble who kept her face hidden before, she looked at him and said, “You don’t give me orders Sergeant, remember you’re place.”

“Just take down the fucking thing. We don’t have time to argue about rank right now,” he said.

I walked closer and yelled, “Who the fuck are you!?”

She looked at me, “Oh look, if it isn’t the Courier Mare herself. I’m surprised you escaped The Bramble like you did, good idea using the Hellhound. This time you won’t escape me, or my friends. If you give me the Mark II though, I might be able to keep them from killing everypony here.”

“No way, I’m not giving this to you or anypony. Why do you want it so bad?”

“That is Enclave business,” Winter Frost said.

“Quiet Sergeant,” The Hooded Mare said then looked back at me, “I really wasn’t in the mood to do this, but you’ve left me no choice Courier Mare. Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

As she spoke blue light glowed from under her hood and magical runes showed up in front of the barrier and on the ground. Then she started to chant in what sounded like Zebra just like Moose had when he called out Morning Star. Violet cursed then her own horn glowed, but before she could do much the two green Alicorns started to scream.

There was a loud pop followed by a boom as magic backfired and threw the greens away from the rods. The Shield around the town shattered with a sound like breaking glass. To my horror, the device Nexus had set up to protect the town went down, and it hadn’t taken more than one Unicorn to do it.

Violet screamed as she looked back at her Alicorns, “No, please no.”

The Hooded Unicorn started to laugh in her altered voice, “It was a smart idea to use the power of your Greens to protect this place. If it was any other pony you had to deal with, it would’ve worked. Sadly I’m not a normal unicorn.”

Nexus was looking over at his destroyed project, “I don’t understand, it should’ve worked. How would you have even known how I was using it?”

The Unicorn laughed again, “We’re The Enclave; we know everything.”

Violet screamed, “You killed my children, you’ll pay for that!”

I was shaking with rage as I looked at The Enclave soldiers who were about to take us on. They killed two of the Alicorns without even lifting a single weapon. I cursed and pulled Dream Walker out from its holster, “You’re going to pay for what you did here. I swear to the Goddesses that I’ll kill every last one of you.”

“Yeah, same goes for us,” Aura said pulling her spear off her back.

She started to laugh again, “Ahahaha…It’s cute how you think you can take us on. Most of the ponies here don’t know how to fight and the ones who do don’t stand a chance against us, but I’ll make you the offer one more time. Come with us and the rest will live.”

“No, I’m not doing anything you want. I’m so sick of this bullshit from you Enclave assholes,” I hit S.A.T.S. and fired one shot toward the mare, she teleported away before the round could hit her. Instead the bullet flew through a pony who was standing behind her, killing him instantly.

She reappeared a few feet away, “Fine, have it your way,” she turned toward another Pegasus. She was grey like Stardust, and even had the same odd coloring scheme on her wings, only instead of blue on the tips of the feathers hers were pink. Her mane matched them, and her eyes were dark blue, “Second Lieutenant Solstice. Kill every last pony in this shithole.”

“Yes Ma’am,” The pegasus said, the two laser rifles on her battle saddle glowing.

Laser Light said, “Shadow, I hope you’re ready for this, were in for a bad fight.”

“Oh, I’ve been ready for a long time now, let’s end this.”

The pegasus called Solstice smiled toward me, “I’ll take the Courier Mare, the rest of you kill everypony else. Don’t leave a single mare, colt or filly alive…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Cherchez La Femme: You have become accustomed to conversating with Ponies of the same sex. You now do 10% more damage to Mares in battle, and have opened up unique dialogue as well, making it easier to persuade mares into doing your will.

Chapter 21 Part 2: Where'd You Go

“I don’t want to Aura, I’m so tired of secrets layered on top of more secrets.”

“Shadow,” A voice said in my ear. Where was it coming from? All I saw was a vast nothingness, and why did the voice sound so familiar, “I don’t have much time so you need to listen to me, I just hope you can hear me.”

“Who are you?” I tried to ask, but my voice was nonexistent.

The stallion’s voice spoke again close to my ear, “Listen Shadow, if you can hear me you need to go to Spitfire’s Flight Academy. A group of ponies live there, they’re called the Annihilators. Find a way into the base and talk to the mare who runs things there. Tell her ‘the night still runs free’ and she will help you. You’re Pip-Buck can get you into the basement, there you will find answers.”

“What do you mean? I don’t have time to go wandering off on another mission, I have to get my friend back,” I tried saying, but still it seemed like I didn’t even have a voice.

“Be safe, and don’t worry about your friend, you’ll see him again,” the voice said, then everything around me went silent. I felt myself slipping away, the darkness calling me back into its comforting embrace…

***

I awoke, bolting up right and looking around, panting slightly as if I had just ran a mile. I was in the back room of the clinic for Frosty Summit. Dr. Cottage was sitting in a chair throwing a large red and grey ball against the far wall. It bounced and he caught it again, when I bolted up right, he looked over at me, “Oh, you’re awake, good.”

“How long was I out?”

“Do I look like a time piece?” he responded tossing the ball back at the wall again.

“Dammit Cottage, how long was I out? I don’t want to hear any of your sarcastic bullshit.”

He rolled his eyes, took another one of his pills and said, “Fine, you’ve been out for a few hours, and before you go shooting off questions about what happened with your buck friend, I don’t know. The griffon tried to look for him once you were out, same for the Sarge, but they didn’t have much luck. That’s all I know.”

“I have to find him,” I said trying to get out of bed, but Aura walked in just then and glared at me.

“What do you think you’re doing Shadow?” she said, her voice telling me that getting up would be a bad idea.

“She’s trying to do something moronic. What else?” Cottage said still tossing his ball.

“Get out Cottage, I need to have a word with my employer,” Aura said training her deadly stare on him.

He just rolled his eyes and got up, “Fine, I’ll be in my office,” he looked back at me and continued, “By the way, I did my examination on you and found a couple interesting things. When you’re finished here talk to 21, she’ll explain.”

He walked past my griffon companion and shut the door behind him. Once he was gone Aura walked over and sat next to my bed, taking one talon, she forced me to lay back down. I tried to resist, but my body still hurt from my fall, “Aura we don’t have time to do this, we need to get Stardust back.”

“Don’t you think I know that Shadow? Running off with no information is just stupid. I already tried to follow them, but the trail went cold just outside of Frosty Summit’s borders.”

“SO, you just gave up!?” I yelled.

To my surprise, Aura slapped me. I rubbed my face then saw the anger on her face, “Don’t you ever accuse me of giving up on anything. You have no idea what I’ve been doing while you were out. Would you like to know or do you want to act like a self-righteous bitch some more?”

I lowered my gaze, “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just scared right now, and I have no idea what to do.”

“No shit Boss, we all are. Wingnut hasn’t left Stardust’s room ever since he found out what happened, Silver is off doing goddesses knows what, and I’ve been trying to figure out what happened,” Aura said finally calming her voice a little as she continued, “Once you were put under, we went looking for any signs of the sins or where they might’ve gone. As I told you before, the trail went cold, so I started looking into who that mare was, the one who Stardust saved. No pony knows where she came from, so I assume she was meant to sneak in under the confusion from the battle.”

“I was wondering about that, she seemed way too clingy to Stardust. Sure, he saved her from Winter Frost, but it was a little much. She was acting all slutty.”

“My thoughts exactly, what I think is that this whole attack had nothing to do with just you. I think they were after Stardust the whole time, you were just a lucky bonus.”

“What I don’t understand is, what this all has to do with getting Stardust back.”

“I was getting to that. What I want you to do is think. If they wanted him dead, they would’ve killed him. That’s what the Sins do, they kill ponies. That’s what they do best, but they didn’t kill Stardust. They took him with them, which means they need him alive for some reason. Which means for now, he should be okay, that gives us time to find out where they took him so we can save him,” she said.

“We don’t know that for sure, and even if you’re right, how long would it take us to find out where he went? Every moment we sit around here, we lose ground, every minute counts.”

She slapped me again, “Start thinking with your head. Yes, every minute counts but we also don’t know where to start. We need help Shadow and there’s only one place that I can think of that might be able to do just that.”

“Where?” I asked rubbing my face again.

She lowered her gaze and sighed, “Crimson Canyon, what you need is griffons to help you look for them, ones that have a lot of recourses to do so. As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t have enough contacts anymore to help.”

“Wait, so now you think it’s a good idea for us to go to Crimson Canyon? I thought you were dreading going there?”

“I am…I still don’t want to go either, but now we really have to. If you can get Gigi to listen to you, you could hire a few griffons to locate Stardust or the Sin’s, and they could go in and get him out too. It will be costly, but you may be able to get Apollo to help you with that.” She said.

“You may be right, and I have to go there anyway, so maybe I could kill two birds with one stone…no pun intended.”

She gave me a flat look, “Anyway you also should know that getting into the Canyon is dangerous as well.”

I looked at her a little puzzled, “Why?”

“Because you’ll have me with you, the Red Talons always have look outs posted and once they see me coming back home, they’ll try and stop you. You’ll have to show them that I’m contracted with you, then they’ll take you to the leaders to verify everything is okay. They may take away our weapons and not be very nice to us about it either, you have to just do what they say and keep your comments to yourself.”

“Fine, so when can we head out and how far are we from Crimson Canyon?”

“We can head out soon, we just need to restock our ammo and make sure you’re okay to leave. As for how far we are, honestly, it’s not far, the problem is there isn’t any roads that would get us there quickly. The mountains make it too dangerous, we’d have to go back a couple hours down the path toward New Pegasus, then head south then back west to reach it. It could take us a couple of days.”

“A couple of DAYS! We can’t wait that long!” I said almost jumping out of the bed.

“I know, but we may not have too. I could fly you down there myself and it wouldn’t take more than an hour or so. The problem is we have Silver and Wingnut with us and I can’t take everyone.”

The look she gave me when she said that told me what she meant by that statement, “You want to leave them behind don’t you.”

“I don’t want too, but at this point it would be best. Wingnut would do well here, with his talent for fixing things he could do a lot of good. I know Silver and you are mare friends, but even if she can take care of herself out there, it’s still too much to ask her to come along into something so dangerous. It would be best for both of them if they stayed behind.” Aura said, her voice getting quiet as she spoke, I could tell that she wasn’t any happier than I was with the thought of leaving any of our friends behind.

I sighed, “You have a point, this mission has gotten dangerous, even more so now that the Sins are still coming after us even this far west. I don’t want anything to happen to Wingnut or to Silver, but at the same time I can’t just make them stay behind. We should at least give them the option and see what they want to do.”

“We could do that, but if they insist on going with us, you know we’ll lose a lot of time in travel.”

“I know, but as much as I hate it, it may be a sacrifice that we’ll have to make. I’ll just have to trust that Stardust will be okay until we get there.”

“Okay, you’re the boss, but remember if something happens to him and that extra time we lost is the reason why, I did warn you.” she said getting to her talons, “I should go find Silver and Wingnut so we can talk this out before you make up your mind.”

I reached a hoof out and took hold of one of Aura’s wings, “Wait a second Aura.”

She looked back at me, “What?”

“I need to know what I’m getting myself into when I get to your old home. Can you finally tell me what happened that got you banished from there in the first place?”

For a long moment, she just looked at me with sad eyes, then she moved and sat back down, “Shadow, to put it bluntly I broke one of our Ten rules. The Ten Laws of the Red Talons, were laid down by our founder a long time ago. When I was younger I used to think that rules were stupid, I would push the limits on whatever I could get away with, but I always followed those ten, because if you break any of them, you are no longer a Red Talon. Back then it was a fate worse than death to lose your family and company.”

“I take it you broke one, is that you meant when you said you broke rule 7 when you were talking to Gina?” I asked

“Yeah, I did. Two years ago in fact, but I didn’t get caught until a few months back.”

“What did you do?”

“I betrayed my family by putting a pony before them, at least that’s part of it. That’s how Gigi looks at it at least, she didn’t want her family name to be disgraced so she kicked me out and told me that the only way I could get back in was to prove I was worth it. Mom’s always been about clan and family, and when I did what I did, I wasn’t her daughter anymore, I was a worthless griffon that needed to be used as a message to show the rest that even the leader’s daughter can’t get away with breaking the rules.”

“How did you betray your family and company though?”

She swallowed then said slowly, “I put my happiness over everything else, and in the end I was lost because of it.”

I was still confused, “Can you please stop going around the subject and tell me what you did.”

She opened her beak to say something, then she closed it and shook her head, “You’ll see when we get there I’m sure, so I might as well tell you…I fell…”

Before she could tell me Wingnut burst into the room, “Shadow you’re finally up!” he ran over and jumped on the bed, “I was worried that you got hurt really bad after that fight, but you look a lot better than when they brought you in.”

“I’ll say, you looked like a rag doll earlier.” Silver said from the door way.

Of course, they would pick now to run in right when I was finally getting Aura to open up. I sighed, “You two have the worst timing you know that.”

“Why do you say that?” Silver asked walking over to sit next to Aura by my bed.

“It doesn’t matter, we were just planning on what to do next.” Aura said avoiding the earlier situation as quickly as she could.

“Yeah, that’s all we were doing.” I said flatly, “Anyway, so we have to head to Crimson Canyon, Aura thinks the Red Talon’s could help us find Stardust. Right now, that is our Number one concern.”

“Why do we need to get help from the Red Talons?” Wingnut asked.

“Because they will be able to at least figure out where they took him.” Aura said getting back to her talons, “The only problem is we don’t have a lot of time to figure this out, I been talking to Shadow about this and she’s left it up to you. Do you two want to go with us or stay here? Now before you answer think about this, if you two stay behind, I can fly Shadow right to Crimson Canyon and save us a lot of time, if you two come with it will add at least two days to our trip and that could be the time we need to save him.”

“Shadow do you really want us to stay behind?” Silver asked, giving me a hurt look.

“No, I don’t, but she has a point. We need to save as much time as we can, but at the same time I don’t want to leave you two behind.”

“There has to be a faster way for all of us to get there.” Wingnut added.

Aura chuckled, “Not unless you know where we can get a working Sky carriage.”

Wingnut slumped, “No, but I don’t want to stay behind, you are all I have now.”

I reached over and pulled the colt into a tight hug, “I know Wingnut, but think about it, with your brains you could do a lot of good here.”

“Maybe I could, but that doesn’t mean I want to stay behind. Incase you forgot, Stardust is my friend too.”

“And I am far from home and don’t feel like getting left behind just to make it easier on you, maybe we can find a faster way to get there.” Silver said.

“I could always help.” Violet said from the doorway.

“What do you mean?” I asked, I was getting used to the Alicorn randomly showing up by now.

“I apologize for eavesdropping Shadow and friends but I couldn’t help but overhear the time issue you’re facing, I can help if I can get enough radiation. I could teleport you to the other side of the mountain, it would get you either close or right to Crimson Canyon.” She said.

“You’d really do that for us?” I asked a little surprised.

“Of course I would, you did help to save the ponies that live here, and I also feel partly responsible for Stardust’s abduction. I shouldn’t have let that mare get past me like she did.” Violet said.

Aura shook her head, “Don’t blame yourself, we were all fooled by that bitch. You had more going on than we did, don’t worry too much about it. You lost two of your Alicorns and some of your ponies, you need to worry about them, not us.”

She smiled a little, “That may be true, but still I feel a little bit guilty. At the very least, I can do this small thing to help you.”

“If you can get us close and save us time Violet, then I’d be happy to take your help.” I said

“I’m happy to hear that. I have a place nearby that has radiation I can use.”

“Wait why do you need radiation to be able to send us to Crimson Canyon?” I asked.

“It’s quite simple really, radiation makes Alicorns more powerful. Even with the extra power I get from the Amulet, I still don’t have enough after that fight to send all of you so far. A little while spent in radiation will help me get what I need.”

“Sure…simple…How long will it take?”

“Not too long, maybe twenty minutes or so.”

“Great, I guess I’ll just sit around here and wait.” I said laying back in the bed.

“Don’t sound so depressed, it won’t take me to long I’m sure.” Violet said before she teleported away.

“So what now Shorty?” Aura asked.

“I have a couple of things I could get done while we wait, why don’t you go see if there is any pony we can trade with here. We really need to stalk up on Ammo.” I said looking over at Silver.

“Sure thing Shadow, you just relax while we wait.” Silver said walking out of the room.

“I’m going to go get our stuff from Stardust’s room.” Wingnut said dashing out of the room.

Once again I was alone in the room with Aura, who was looking rather uncomfortable, “Don’t worry Aura, I’m not going to keep bugging out about your past. I’ve got too much to do before we go.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, her body relaxing.

“Yeah,” I said using my magic, I pulled my saddles bags over to me and looked in them. Finally, I pulled out the recording mom left for me with the memory orbs, “I should have listened to this when I first got it, but with everything going on I just couldn’t. Now that I have time, I think I should get this over with.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone while you do?”

I smiled and looked over at her, “Actually would you mind staying here with me?”

“Sure no problem Boss,” Aura said sitting back down next to my bed, “Let’s see what your mom has to say.”

I hooked the recording to my Pip-Buck and waited…

Encrypted Recording Detected, Attempting to Decrypt…

Recording Decrypted…Playing Audio File…

I held my breath as the recording started, at first, I could only hear a little static in the background, and then mom’s Voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck.

Hello Shadow,

I’m glad you were able to get this recording from Lonely Hearts, he really is a good pony…well synth but still you never know if somepony will do what you ask them too. Anyway before I ramble. First off I hope you’re doing okay out here, I know how hard it is to understand how things work in the wasteland and putting you through all this breaks my heart. In my last letter and recordings I’ve told you that I can’t tell you much because I feared another pony finding this Pip-Buck and what they would discover on it. That’s why I had Auntie hide what she could, though knowing her, she probably went overboard, she does likes to show-off her skills whenever she can get away with it.

The reason I left this recording for you, well a big part of it is because of the memory orbs I left you. The first two there are my own, they will help explain what I was working on and what I had to do. There are more of them out there, but do to unforeseen circumstances, some of them are gone, maybe you’ll get lucky and find some of them, I know a couple were lost near Cartwheel when I was visiting an old friend near there. No matter, the ones that you need to see are the two I left with the Detective. The last one is a big deal, at least to me it was. I was lucky that I found it, you see two hundred years ago, back before the bombs fell there was a team of ponies and a griffon called The Children of the Night. They lived in the New Pegasus area for couple of years before everything blew up.

The project I’m working on has something to do with them. They left something behind, something big that could change everything for Equestria. That last orb was what showed me what I needed to do and where to go to find it… this… old project of theirs. For me it helped answer a few questions I had, but I have a feeling I’m missing something in it, I’m not sure what it is but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else there. Since I can’t seem to find what I’m sure is there, I’m hoping you’ll see what I missed, I can’t really trust this to anypony else. I mean who knows I could be wrong, but I doubt I am. So, watch it when you can and give you’re self a little time, it’s a long one. If you do see something make sure you do your best to remember what it was, I have a feeling we’ll see each other again one day and I’d like to hear everything you’ve learned.

There was a long pause, for a moment I figured the recording had ended, but then mom’s long tired sigh came echoing out of my Pip-Buck. Her voice sounded odd, almost like she was holding back sobs…

This is so hard for me to do Shadow, I’m so tired of always trying to stay fifty steps ahead of everypony. Most days I wish I could just give up on this fool hardy quest of mine and just go back and find you, making a life that doesn’t revolve around Lies, tricks, and death. I want you to know everything that’s going on and understand why I had to leave you. I never wanted too, if I could have I wouldn’t have even left the Stable, but my cover was blown, and I couldn’t take you away, not after you started to make a good life for yourself.

I know you’ll never believe me, but I hate every moment I’m out here and you’re stuck in that hole in the ground. Most days I can’t even get my work done because I keep thinking about my little girl, what she’s doing, who she’s becoming. I’m missing out on so much of your life, and when I finally will get to see you again, if I’m lucky, you’ll be grown and I’m sure you’ll hate me for what I put you through. I just want you to understand that I had to do this, Equestria needs me to finish this quest, even if I have to give up on everything I love.

One last thing I need to tell you, while you’re out here, try to stay away from The Steel Rangers, I used to work with the Branch from Hidden Sands, we didn’t end on good terms. Elder Apple Slice isn’t a bad mare, but she’s still a Steel Ranger and just like all of them, Technology is the only thing they care about. The only reason I was allowed to join was because I had the Mark II. Later they saw what I was capable of and I worked my way up the ranks. If for some reason you have met them, I’m sure they will try and get you to help them find another Mark II. Since you can’t remove the one you have, they’ll try to get you to help them get another.

If they ask you to help them say no, because there are only two more out there, one is in Trotston and they have more than enough fire power to keep the Steel Rangers at bay for a long time. It would take a full-on assault on the city and they wouldn’t risk that for one piece of tech, well I don’t think they would. Anyway, that only leaves the last one that was left in a Stable. That Stable is dangerous and a place you don’t want to go too. Trust me, the ponies in Trotston told me what is in there and you need to stay far away from it. I don’t care what they offer you in return, just don’t go there.

Anyway, I have to cut it off here, I have more work to do and a trip to make soon. Stay safe and make sure you watch those memory orbs. I love you my little Star, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

The Recording ended, but I kept looking at my Pip-Buck for a long moment. Then I pulled the recording out and threw it at the far wall yelling, “Yeah, would have been nice to know that shit beforehand Mom. Fuck, you leave me this information and still you don’t tell me anything in it that I can use apart from the fact that you left me memory orbs, you’re such a fucking bitch!”

Aura walked over, picked the recording up, and then placed it in her saddle bags. She looked over at me, a sad look on her face, “Calm down Shadow.”

I glared at her for a moment, “I don’t want too Aura, I’m so tired of secrets layered on top of more secrets.”

She came back over and pulled me into a hug, “Because you can’t change what happened. You need to start looking at things differently.”

I took a breath, then in a calmer tone I replied, “What do you mean?”

“Your mom did what she did because she thought it was the right thing to do, she wanted to come back to you so many times that it hurt. You heard her on that recording, she was almost in tears toward the end. I’d kill to know my mom cared about me that much. Think about it this way, she cared about you so much that she made sure you stayed in a safe place to grow up.” She said holding me tighter.

Finally I hugged her back a small tear left my eyes I can feel them getting a bit glossy, “You have a point, and it still hurts. I just wish she would have stayed that’s all.”

“I know, and when you do find her either good or bad, you can tell her how you feel.”

I laughed and pulled away, “Better watch out with being so nice Aura, you have a reputation to keep.”

“Yeah, just don’t go telling ponies.”

I just laughed again and got out of bed, “Since Violet isn’t back yet how about we go talk to Wrath. I have a few more questions I need to ask him before we head out. Who knows he may know where they took Stardust.”

“Not a bad idea, yeah let’s head down and have a word with that asshole.”

***

We arrived a few minutes later down in the lower levels of the lodge. Wrath was still there laying back in his cot whistling a merry tune to himself. Winter Frost was on his own cot trying to cover his ears. A small smile came to my lips as I watched Winter Frost toss and turn trying to ignore the red unicorn.

When I walked further into the room Winter Frost looked over at me, “Oh great like my day wasn’t bad enough, now I have to deal with you.”

“Oh, don’t worry Winter Frost, I’m not here for you. I’m here to talk to him,” I said pointing over at Wrath.

“Whatever, as long as you can get him to stop that annoying whistling.”

“What’s the matter Winter, don’t you like my rendition of March of the Parasprites?” Wrath asked with a laugh as he continued.

“Damn, that IS annoying,” Aura said wincing a little, “Can we make this quick Shadow? I don’t think I can deal with him.”

Walking over to Wrath’s cell I kicked the bars to get him to shut up for five seconds, “That’s enough Wrath, it’s about time we had a chat.”

He stopped whistling, rolling an eye over to look at me, “What can I do for you Courier?”

“You can start by telling me where your friends took Stardust.”

He closed his eyes again, “And why would I tell you that?”

“Because you’re the one stuck in a cell with a magic canceling ring on your horn.”

“So what? I could always use a break from all the fighting, this is like a nice vacation. Can’t say the same about the company, or the ponies guarding me, and the service,” he waves his hoof dismissively, “don’t get me started” he grins and looks at me sharply, “apart from that, I’m quite comfortable in here.”

I looked back at wrath in shock, the way he worded that last part… I remember Stardust saying something exactly like that back in Hidden sands. Words and actions to a T “Why did you say it like that Wrath?”

Wrath kept his grin, looked at me coldly and spat at the ground “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Aura pulled her spear off her back, “How about this? If you tell us what we want to know we’ll let you live.”

He laughed again, “Like I said before, go ahead and kill me. You’d be doing me a favor.”

Reaching up I pushed Aura’s spear down, “What do you mean? You told me that before, but I don’t understand why you’d want to die. If you really hate being a Sin so much then why do you keep helping them?”

“I told you already, I don’t have a choice in the matter,” Wrath said his eyes getting a distant look to them.

I sat down and tried to see past the angry exterior. What I saw was a pony in pain, one whose anger came from a life time of hurt, “What happened to you? Why did you become a Sin?”

He sighed, “I already told you, I don’t feel like telling you my life story kid.”

“Then how about just a little about yourself. You’re stuck in here anyway, might as well do something with your time. It’s not like your team is coming to get you.”

For a moment all I saw was anger in his eyes, then they softened a little, “You’ve got a point. Since I’m bored anyway, might as well do something,” he moved to sit on his cot again as he continued, “Do you know why we’re called Sins?”

I had to think about that for a moment, as far as I knew no pony has told me why they were named The Seven Sins of Equinity, “Not really, all I know was that you’re all criminals of some kind.”

He chuckled, “Yeah you could say that, every member of the Sins has committed a major crime. All four pegasi have been marked as Dashites but instead of sending them away, the Enclave put their talents to better use. Even Pride committed an unthinkable act and because of it he became a Sin. From what I’ve heard, he requested to become the new Pride. He was still loyal to the Enclave and always would be. I’m the only member who never committed a crime.”

“So why are you a member of the Sins?” Aura asked.

“He’s full of bullshit, that fucker murdered his entire family after he lost his job a few years back, he’s lucky he’s even alive right now,” Winter Frost said, his voice filled with anger.

Wrath’s face grew angry again and he looked ready to tear the Pegasus apart piece by piece, but I intervened, “Winter Frost, keep your mouth shut before I have Violet come down here and make you.”

“Whatever,” he said rolling on to his side on his cot.

Looking back at Wrath I asked, “Why did you become a Sin?”

He took a moment to answer me, his eyes softening again, “As he said, my family was killed. Before I met Pride, I was happy living in Nimbus. My family were soldiers that helped protect the city back before the war. We were one of the only families up there that weren’t researchers. When the bombs fell we were stuck in the clouds. We joined the Enclave and always stayed as guards for two centuries. When I was on duty one day I met a nice mare, her name was Slight Breeze. We fell in love and got married, we had two foals and my life was perfect. Then I met Pride, the leader of the Sins, he wanted a new pony to replace Wrath, the one before me. He wanted me since I was one of the best marksponies in my unit and knew a lot of useful spells. I turned him down telling him that becoming a Sin wasn’t something you did because you wanted to, it was for criminals like him.”

“I bet he didn’t take that well,” I said.

“No he didn’t, he told me that I was right, but he was the one who chose his members and it was a rare thing for him to offer the job to a pony like me. I still turned him down and told him I’d never join,” his sad eyes grew even sadder as he continued, “I came home the next day and found Pride in my house, shadows rolling around him. He was standing over the bodies of my family, he smiled and told me now I’d have to join him, or face execution. I didn’t know what he meant at first, not until the guards showed up. Long story short, I was arrested for the murders. I was sentenced to be executed, and guess who stepped in to keep me from dying?”

“Pride?”

“Yeah, he made the offer again and to save my own skin at the time I took it. It was the worst mistake of my life. Like I said before, I used to be happy, my life was great, and then Pride stepped in and destroyed everything.”

Aura cocked her head to one side, “If he killed your whole family then why do you work for him?”

“Because Pride is stronger than I am, and I don’t want to die by his hooves, I want to kill him. Once he’s gone I’ll take over the Sins for myself, and again I’ll have at least a little respect. If I can’t get that, then I’d rather die as long as it’s not by that golden piece of shit,” Wrath said.

I sighed, “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. If you hate him so much then why hide the location of where they took my friend?”

Wrath smiled again, “Because I hate you just as much as I hate him, if I could I’d watch you both die.”

“Why do you hate her so much?” Aura asked, “What did she ever do to you?”

He started to laugh, “That’s an easy one, she killed my brother back at F&F tools when dipshit over there went after her looking for Stardust. My brother was the only pony left on this planet who cared about me. For that I want her to die, and suffer as much as she can before she does.”

I remembered that night, I did take down a few ponies, but most of the ones who died were killed by The Stranger, “What was your brother’s name?”

Wrath just looked away but Winter Frost answered, “Monsoon, the pony you stabbed with that energy spear your griffon has. He was a strong fighter and a good solider, and you killed him like he was nothing.”

“How could he be Wrath’s brother, he was a Pegasus?” I asked confused.

Wrath answered me, “My mother is a Unicorn and my father is a Pegasus. Just because I’m a Unicorn doesn’t mean that I can’t have family that are flyers.”

I turned my back on the two, “I didn’t know that, but still I did kill him. Understand this Wrath, your brother was trying to kill me, so was Winter Frost. I did what I had to, to keep myself alive. Let’s go Aura, these two don’t have any information that’ll help us.”

“Good idea, they can rot down here,” she said following me as we walked toward the stairs.

“That may be true Courier, but every action has its consequences. I WILL get out of here sooner or later and when I do, I’ll put a bullet in your skull,” Wrath said and grinned acknowledging my reaction earlier to his impersonation of Stardust’s mannerisms “Just remember this Courier Mare, the sins have eyes everywhere, hidden in plain sight, how do you think I know what your friend Stardust said back in that bunker.” Wrath cackled “Be careful who you trust.” A chill ran across my spine with Wrath’s words, I tried to shake it off and kept on moving. He was lying…he had to be.

I’m not sure why, but I felt bad for the red unicorn. He was so angry because he lost everything, all he had left was his hatred. I can understand his emotions somewhat. How far was I from becoming just like him? Little by little I was losing the ponies I cared about, one way or another.

First I’d lost my friends in the Stable along with Auntie when I ran away, I was no closer to finding mom than I had been two weeks ago, now Stardust was gone. Losing him was the hardest I think, he was the pony who went out of his way to help me on my quest. He was the one who always saw humor in things, always trying to get another pony to smile. Hell, he even put his prejudice aside and befriended Aura. He took time out of his day to spend time with Wingnut trying to be a good role model for him…okay well maybe not a good one, but it was better than nothing. Stardust was bull headed, annoying, goofy, and weird, but he was also one of the best friends a pony could ask for. He was loyal and true to his word. Now he was being held prisoner by The Sins and that hooded mare.

“You gonna be okay Shadow?” Aura asked as we returned to the main entryway.

I looked up at my companion and nodded, “Yeah, I’m just lost in thought is all.”

She stopped in front of me and bent down looking me right in the eye, “Is that so? Then why are you crying.”

I reached up and felt a few tears had started to run down my face, I sniffed and smiled wiping them away, “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“I just realized how good of a friend Stardust was.”

“You mean what a good friend Stardust IS, he’s not dead. Even if it seems hopeless, always remember that he’s still alive. Also, don’t worry too much, we’ll get him back. Even if we have to take on the whole fucking Enclave, we’ll get Stardust back.”

“I hope so.”

“Well I know so, I still owe him a few whacks to the head for letting himself get taken in by that skank Lust.”

We pushed the door open and walked out into the crisp morning air, “Hey, I fell for her trick too y’know.”

“Yeah, but you’re new to The Wasteland and you have a weakness for cute mares,” she said laughing a little.

I blushed, “I do not! I’ll have you know that I didn’t hit on her once.”

“Big deal, you didn’t have time to hit on her, she was too busy trying to get to Stardust. My point is, Stardust knows better than to let himself get fooled by a mare. He knows that ponies were out here looking for him, he should’ve had his guard up,” Aura said sitting down and looking up at the cloudy sky.

“We all make mistakes, sometimes they aren’t that big of a deal, other times they can get you or others killed,” I said moving to go sit next to her.

“Yeah, I know that better than anyone,” Aura said pulling off her saddle bags and digging in them for a moment.

While she did I pulled up my Pip-Buck and used it to check my inventory for my barding. When I woke I didn’t have it on, so I figured my friends must’ve put them away. I was right too, a moment later I pulled the armored duster and barding out and slipped it on. Feeling more like myself, I looked back at Aura and asked, “What are you looking for?”

As I asked her, she finally pulled something small from her bags. She looked down at her talons, and at the small photo she was holding, “I was just looking for this.”

Looking closer I saw it was a picture of Aura and a young earth pony mare. She had a light grey coat with a bright red and blue striped mane, her eyes were deep purple and they sparkled with life in the old photo. The two seemed to be laughing at something in the photo, Aura holding her spear up in the air as the mare laughed along with her. I could just make out her cutie mark, it was a black wire connecting to a metal disk on one end and a rod on the other.

“Is that Trip Wire?” I asked as Aura looked down at the picture.

She sniffed, “Yeah, that was taken by her brother on the day she gave me this spear, we were laughing because Tariff was pissed that his sister had taken things from his shop to make it, the look on his face was so epic that we just broke into laughter. Eventually he joined us then snapped this photo.”

“You two used to be really good friends, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah, she helped me get out of a lot of shit back in the day. She was one hell of a fighter and loved making others laugh. She showed me that there’s more in the world than just making contracts and getting paid,” Aura said with a smile before tucking the picture back into her bags.

“Tell me something Aura. Would Trip wire want you to be going around moping all the time about her death?”

She gave me a confused look, “No…she’d tell me to stop crying and smile. She’d tell me to remember the good times and forget the bad. She always looked at life like that.”

I smiled, “Then that’s what you should do. Stop worrying so much about what might happen and start looking at what good memories you could make with your new friends.”

“Huh, you got me there shorty. Alright fine then, I’ll try my best to stop dwelling on the past, but you have to do the same.”

“What do you mean?” I asked just as confused as she’d been a moment ago.

“Stop thinking so much about what you could’ve done to save Stardust or about that bad stuff from your Stable. Start looking forward and not back so much. If you do that, I’ll do the same.”

I smiled wider and held out a hoof, “Deal, I’ll do my best as long as you do yours.”

She shook it and laughed again, “Enough of this crap, let’s go see if we can find Violet and get the fuck out of here. I’m tired of laying around doing nothing.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said getting up and following Aura, my heart and mind in a much better place now...

***

We barely made it back into the Lodge when Violet found us, Wingnut and Silver not far behind, “I wasn’t expecting you two to be outside, is everything alright?”

I smiled up at the large Alicorn. She was glowing a little, I guessed it had something to do with the extra radiation she’d soaked up, “Everything’s fine, I just needed some fresh air.”

“That’s good to hear. If you’re all ready to go, then I think I have enough power now to get you to the other side of the mountain,” Violet said confidently.

“I’ve been ready, let’s get this over with,” I said.

Before anything else could be said, the loud commanding voice of Doorstop echoed from upstairs, “Shadow Star, you’re not going anywhere just yet.”

“Oh hey Doorstop, what’s up?”

“I heard you were going to get help from the Red Talons to help find the Cadet,” he said as he glided down to us.

“Yeah, and I still have a message to deliver to them from The Queen.”

“Good, I hope they’ll be able to help. I wish I could, but I’m not sure if they took him back to 97 or someplace else.”

“Why would they take him back to his Stable, I thought they wanted him dead?” Aura asked.

“Normally you’d be correct, but the Cadet is a special case. You see, when he was taken there as a newborn, he was one of 50 foals that was being used to test out a new kind of training. I don’t understand most of what they did, but in the end, out of all the ponies they experimented with, Stardust, Hailstorm, and three others were the only ones who blossomed into what the Enclave calls the perfect solider. They put a lot of time into making Stardust into what he is, they wouldn’t just throw that away just because he escaped and made life hell for them for a while. I don’t know for sure what they’ll do, but I know they won’t kill him.”

“Well if they DID take him back to Stable 97 where would we find it?”

“Easy, you can find Stable 97 here,” he took my Pip-Buck foreleg and made a mark on my map, “It’s a little north of the Ruins of Whinnieapolis and Saint’s Parish, but if you wanna break him out of there you’ll need an army.”

I looked down at the map and at how far away his old stable was, “This is halfway across Equestria. Why would you two come so far away?”

Aura spoke up, “Whinnieapolis is a dead city with only a few ponies living there, the towns around it however are run by the Enclave, it’s one of their very few ground populated areas, and most of the time they use that to house the Unicorns they don’t want living in Nimbus. They wouldn’t want to be anywhere near their old stable once they were gone.”

“That’s right, Stardust flew west and when I was out of there and got my hooves on my old Pip-Buck I used his Tag to follow him out here. Unfortunately all I found was a nice mare living near New Pegasus. She told me she’d gotten the Pip-Buck off a nice young stallion who wanted to get rid of it,” Doorstop said.

“So I take it that it’s a long shot that he’s back there?”

“Most likely he isn’t, but at least you’ll have a place to start once you hire those griffons. Oh, and before I forget, I’m gonna be heading out later to visit with this Queen you told me about. I figured that since she sent you all the way out here to find me, then I might as well hear her out.”

I brightened up a little at that, “I’m glad to hear that, you won’t be disappointed I promise.”

“I hope you’re right, because seeing as how The Wasteland is my home now, I want to help ponies keep it safe.”

“Just watch out for The Sins, they might go after you next,” Wingnut interrupted.

“Ah, don’t worry about me small fry, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve and I don’t see any reason why they’d come after me. I’m just an old drill sergeant now, I ain’t got that many screams left to put the fear of the Goddesses into anypony.” He said with a laugh, “You all have a good trip and good luck.”

“Thanks again for the help Doorstop and stay safe,” I said as he walked out the front door.

When Doorstop was gone Wingnut walked over to me, I noticed he had Stardust’s rifle on his back, “Hey Shadow, I went up to Stardust’s room and got his stuff, I figured he’d want it back once we rescue him.”

I smiled at the colt, “That was a good idea Wingnut, I’m sure he’ll be happy to get it back.”

He reached around and pulled the Sniper Rifle off his back and gave it to me, “You hold on to his rifle.”

Taking it in my magic I looked it over, I noticed he had modified it some since I stole it from the town of fiends. He said he’d make it perfect for a Pegasus to use while flying, and it looked like he had. I smiled and looped the strap around myself letting it settle nicely on my back.

“Thanks kiddo,” I said rubbing his mane, “I’ll be sure to keep it safe.”

“I figured if you had it with you, you wouldn’t forget him…even if something bad happens.” Wingnut said, the poor kid looked close to breaking.

“Don’t worry Wingnut, we won’t forget about him…and we’ll get him back.” I said.

“Good,” he sniffed then he did his best to grin up at me, “Let’s go find him.”

“Well then, shall we be going?” Silver said stepping between Wingnut and me.

“Yeah, oh wait,” I said looking back at Violet, “I wanted to tell Nexus and Laser thanks for all their help, and to say goodbye.”

The Alicorn smiled gently, “I’ll be sure to tell them for you, they both left for New Pegasus this morning. Nexus wants to see about getting new parts for his terminals, but he wanted me to give you something before you left,” she pulled out a small wrapped box and gave it to me, “He said to open it when you have a couple hours of free time.”

“It feels like there’s memory orb is inside,” I said as I lifted the box with my magic.

“It could be, Nexus said you’d enjoy knowing more about…well in his words, the fucker who didn’t know when to quit,” Violet said.

Slipping the box into my saddle bags I smiled again, “Thanks, well then if that’s everything let’s get going.”

“I’d like to get out of here as quick as we can,” Silver said quickly. I looked over at her quizzically wanting to ask her what she meant, but before I could Violet’s horn started glowing.

“Have a safe trip, and thanks again for all your help. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on those two stallions for you,” there was a flash of red light and everything around us vanished…

***

When the world came back into focus I saw we were now on a road at the base of a large mountain. Looking back and up I figured we had to be on the other side from where the lodge was. I looked around and found we were between two sets of hills. On one side were large cliffs that went up to Frosty Summit Ski Lodge, on the other side, the cliffs had a slightly different color. There was also a few burned up trees, randomly scattered around us.

“How close was she able to get us?” I asked Aura.

She looked around for a moment, “We aren’t far, luckily for us one of the two main entry points to get into Crimson Canyon is on this side of the hills. The Talons don’t use it much since there isn’t much on the west side apart from the Alicorn settlement. Most ponies come through the east entrance.”

“So are we sneaking in?” Wingnut asked walking over toward Aura.

She laughed, “Kid you can’t just sneak into Crimson Canyon. There are always guards posted around both entry points and a few more in the air watching for intruders. We’ll more than likely run into a couple griffons as we enter.”

“I hate to ask, but what will they do when they see you Aura?” Silver asked.

“Who knows? If we’re lucky they’ll let me in since I’m with Shadow,” she said then she sighed, “Unless one of my Sisters is on guard, then it could be a little harder.”

“Why’s that?” Wingnut asked, I’m glad he did because I was wondering the same thing, but I wasn’t sure how to ask her.

“It all depends on which Sister it is, Syndi won’t be a problem, she’s cool, same goes for Viridiana. It’s Fletch that I’m worried about. She hates my guts and would rather see me dead than return home,” Aura said as she started walking southwest following the break between the hills as it slowly curved.

“Fletch? Why does that name sound so familiar?” I asked following Aura, Silver and Wingnut not far behind.

“She’s the second youngest out of all of us, she also has a major case of middle child syndrome, and she’s always trying to be the best child in Mom’s eyes. She always wanted to be better than the rest of us at everything.”

“Okay, but her name sounds so familiar.”

“Maybe I’ve told you about her before.” Aura suggested.

“No, I don’t think so. You really don’t talk about your family that much. I didn’t even know Apollo was your father until we met with Lieutenant Blazer. Your mom I know is Gigi, and I assume that she’s also one of the leaders of the Talons from what I heard Gina and you talking about. You’ve never really mentioned much about your siblings.” I said.

“From what I heard, there are three leaders in the Talons. Am I right?” Silver asked.

“I don’t know why her name sounds familiar Shadow,” she said then looked at Silver, “Gigi and Apollo are both part of the Counsel, but Gigi is the griffon who runs everything, the true leader in a way. Nothing happens in the Red Talon’s without her say so. Apollo handles a lot of our information gathering and relations with different factions around the area, like the N.L.R., the New Pegasus Strip, and the Steel Rangers. Then there’s Tonto, he’s the old griffon who is in charge of keeping our history and culture alive. He’s wise and kind, he also knows everything about The Talons going back to the days when we first settled in Crimson Canyon. He’s also got the best dirty jokes I’ve ever heard,” Aura said, as she talked we started moving down a steep hill that took us closer to the reddish colored cliffs and into rougher terrain.

“So your family is like the leaders of the Red Talons?” I asked moving around a prickly looking tree and trying to make sure I didn’t slip down the steep slope.

“No, my mom is the leader, and one day one of my sisters will take her place, that’s how it always goes. Yes our family has always lead the Red Talons, but that doesn’t make any of us special. Look at me, I was kicked out and I’m the daughter of the leader. In the Red Talons, we all start in the same place and have to earn our way to the top. That goes for my family as well. Whoever takes over as the new leader will have to prove they’re stronger than any other griffon. That’s how my family’s always done it dating back to the griffon who founded the Red Talons. My mom is respected and feared by every griffon because of that.”

“If that’s true, does that mean your mom is even stronger than Gina?” Wingnut asked.

“You could say that, Gina has a few tricks up her sleeve that could work in a one on one fight with Gigi, but the same could be said about Gigi. Honestly I’m not sure who’d win in a fight, those two never fought. Mom had already taken over as the leader when she decided to kick Gina out of the Talons for her betrayal.”

“So you don’t know who would win huh.” Wingnut said, grinning.

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Aura responded.

We rounded a corner and I saw that we were now facing a large break in the hill, two cliffs shot up high on each side of a path that lead deep into the hills toward a large canyon. I stopped when we reached it and stared. Now I could see why they called it Crimson Canyon, the brown red rock merged with thick red lines that ran along it. The dark red lines almost looked like blood had been painted into the sandstone itself, but it was most likely a natural formation. I was amazed by the rock formations and natural beauty along with the vivid colors of the rock itself, and I hadn’t even walked past the entryway yet.

“From this point on keep your weapons holstered. I’m sure one of the griffons on guard has noticed us by now. When we enter I’m sure one of them will come down to see why we’re walking right into their home,” Aura said taking a deep breath and walking into the Canyon.

We followed, doing as she said. I made sure to keep Dream Walker and the new energy rifle holstered. I noticed that Aura was walking slower than normal, her back straight. Her eyes locked on the path in front of her. She must be really nervous about coming back here. I didn’t blame her, I understood the fear she had to be feeling right now. The entrance to Crimson Canyon towered over us, the tall cliffs on each side dotted with dark holes that looked big enough to hide enemies, or griffons. I was really glad I didn’t have a contract on me right now, because if they were using those dark holes to hide, I’d never see them coming before it was too late.

It was also easy to see why this place was the perfect home for the Red Talon Company. It was easily defensible with its high cliffs and straight narrow entrance. Even if two hundred ponies tried to rush this place, they’d have to move through the entrance two ponies at a time, making it easy for the griffons to pick them off.

We kept moving slowly down the narrow path, as we did a shadow flew over us. I looked up and just caught sight of feathers vanishing over the high ledge. Looking toward Aura I said quietly, “I think we’re being watched.”

“We have been ever since we entered, they’re just guards. Just keep walking unless one tries to stop us. If they do then just let me do the talking,” she said, her eyes glued to the path in front of us.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to do the talking Aura? Wouldn’t it be better if Shadow did since she’s the one that’s coming here for help?” Wingnut asked, he was keeping close to my side as we followed the griffon. I noticed Silver was hanging back. When I looked back at her, she just had a pleasant look on her face, as if this was nothing new to her.

“Normally yes, but since I’ve been banished, I’m not allowed to even tread on the dirt here, let alone go this far in. If they stop us, and they will, I’ll have to explain to them why I’m here and that I’m with Shadow under contract. Even then it might not work.”

Silver finally spoke up, “What’s the penalty for disobeying your banishment?”

“Depends on mom’s mood, but normally it’s a fight in the arena to prove your worth, other times it’s death,” Aura said.

As she finished the last words three griffons landed, two with modified rifles trained on us. The last held a long sword in her talons. She was colored similar to Aura, only dark grey instead of black, but her red markings matched. She also wore a red bandana on her head with a symbol I’d seen before on it. That bandana flashed back into my memory, Fletch was that griffon who ambushed us on the way to hidden sands, I hadn’t been able to get a good look at the symbol before, seeing how they’d just shot Stardust and wanted to take us captive.

This time I wasn’t so pressed for time and I wasn’t trying to save my own skin…at least not yet. The symbol was a three-clawed talon, gripping at a Crescent Moon from the side and surrounded by out-stretched griffon wings that touched at the tips.

She took a moment to look over me and my party, then her gaze fell on Aura, her sword moving and coming to rest an inch from Aura’s right eye, “It must be my lucky day, here I thought it was going to be boring seeing how I got stuck with guard duty. Who would’ve thought that you’d be stupid enough to come walking in here like this. So, tell me Aura, what could’ve driven you to do something so Stupid? Were you just tired of living the lonely life of a Talonless Griffon and decided to commit suicide, or did you just up and forget that you’re not welcome here anymore?”

A small smile pulled at Aura’s beak, “Hello to you too Fletch, long time no see. No I didn’t come here of my own accord, I’m here on a job,” she looked over the other griffon’s shoulder and smiled wider at the two male griffons that had been with Fletch last time I met her, “Hey Pluck, hey Gouger, glad to see you two are still doing well.”

The two males seemed to brighten up a little and the taller one, Gouger waved, “Hi Aura, it’s been ages.”

“Shut up the both of you!” Fletch screamed at them.

They both backed up a little, “Sorry Sir.”

Aura started to laugh, “Damn, you’re still as angry as ever aren’t you Sis? You know what, I’m glad you were the one that was working guard duty today, I was worried it would’ve been Mom, I’m not ready to see her yet.”

Fletch growled a little and moved the sword closer to Aura. I wanted to do something, but I remembered what Aura told me, “Don’t call me Sis or her Mom, you aren’t part of this family anymore Aura. You lost the right to that when you were exiled!”

“I was never kicked out of the family, only the Red Talon’s. Can you please let us pass? My boss has business here.”

“Over my dead body Aura,” Fletch said glancing over at me, “We don’t do work for Ponies like her. She’s lucky to be alive after what she did to Gus.”

“Apollo forgave her for that, she was only defending herself and you know as well as I do that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near that fight,” Aura responded, her smile gone now, anger replacing it on her face.

“Be that as it may, I’m still not letting any of you pass.”

“Why not Fletch, are you still mad about losing the contract on the Courier Mare, or are you just jealous that she contracted with a freelancer griffon instead of The Red Talons?” Aura mocked.

I could swear Fletch turned as red as her feathers, “Fuck you Aura, and its CAPTAIN Fletch. For fuck sake, I can’t believe you came back here with another Pony, and here I thought you wanted to find a way to get back into the Talons, but here you are starting the same old shit as before.”

In a flash Aura darted forward, ducking under Fletch’s sword. She took hold of her sister’s talon and wrenched it to the side making her drop the sword. Then she twisted and kicked up, throwing Fletch on to her back, then pinned her to the ground her spear out and glowing a bright green and pressed close to Fletch’s neck, “Why don’t you shut you’re fucking beak Sis, or do you need another lesson on who’s the better fighter?”

She tried to kick Aura off, but she didn’t seem to be able to move much with the way Aura pinned her down. A second later the two males had their rifles aimed at Aura, Pluck saying, “C’mon Aura, let her go before we have to do something we’ll regret.”

“Fuck you two, she needs to be shown her place in this world,” Aura responded still looking down into her sister’s eyes.

Not wanting things to get worse I walked closer and said, “Aura let her go. I think she’s learned her lesson,” then I looked down at Fletch, “I’m here to see Apollo, he asked me to come by when I could. I also have a package to deliver to him and business for your Talon Company.”

Aura got off her sister and walked back over to me, “Whatever you say boss, but I still think she needs to be shown her place.”

Fletch got off the ground and glared over at me, “I don’t need your help, I was just fine. She doesn’t have the nerve to do much more than that.”

“Oh please let me show her how wrong she really is,” Aura said holding her spear up again.

“I thought you wanted to get us in here without any trouble?”

“I did, but then I saw Captain Bitchface and figured, fuck it, she needs to be shown who’s boss.”

I sighed, “I swear, it’s like dealing with children. Listen, can you bring us to see Apollo? He’s been expecting us to show up for a while, and I’d like to get down to business.”

Fletch glared at me for a long moment then said, “No, we don’t need your business, leave before I make you.”

Before I could say anything else another female griffon’s voice echoed down from above us, “Captain Fletch, why are you stopping these travelers from entering?”

Looking up I saw a brown and grey griffon slowly flying down toward us, she looked a little older than Aura and Fletch, but not by a lot. She had two short spears on her back and a pistol holstered to her side. As she landed Fletch’s eyes looked down at her Talons, “Sorry Vi, they want to see father and they brought Aura with them, I can’t let them pass.”

The other Griffon sighed and walked over to Fletch. She punched her in the face knocking her to the ground, “Who are you to decide who enters and who doesn’t? Last time I checked, you were only to watch for anyone who wanted to attack this place.”

“But sis, Aura isn’t allowed back in Crimson Canyon.”

“Not on her own no, but she’s clearly under contract. Put your hatred aside and start following the rules,” then she looked over at me and smiled, “My apologies, I’m Viridiana, I command the guard here at Crimson Canyon. If I may ask, what brings you here Courier Mare, and why have you brought an exiled griffon to our home?”

Wow, she was a lot more polite than Fletch, “I’m here on business from The Queen, she has a package I need to deliver to Apollo, and he asked me to stop by to meet with the leaders of the Red Talons when I could. I also need to see about getting help finding a friend of mine. I brought Aura with me because she’s under contract with me.”

“May I see her Contract please?” Viridiana asked holding out a talon.

I took a moment to look at Aura who nodded that it was okay. I reached into my saddle bags and gave it to her, “She’s my bodyguard, and I won’t enter Crimson Canyon without her.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. If there is one thing we pride ourselves on here at Crimson Canyon, it’s the law of the contract,” she said rolling up the scroll and giving it back to me, “I’m sorry my younger sister made such a fuss over you entering. We would never turn away a Courier from Equestrian Express.”

“It’s fine, as long as everything’s sorted out and no one got hurt.”

“Yeah, and why does the other Griffon hate Aura so much?” Wingnut asked, pointing a hoof over at Fletch who was still glaring at us.

Viridiana noticed and replied, “Captain Fletch, don’t you have work to do?”

Fletch got up and said angrily, “Yes Ma’am,” then she looked back at her two male companions, “You heard the Commander, get to work maggots!”

“YES SIR!” they both said and flew off with Fletch.

“Thanks Vi, I really didn’t want to have to hurt her,” Aura said watching as Fletch and the others flew away.

“Don’t thank me just yet Aura, you’re lucky it wasn’t Mom. She isn’t happy with you right now,” Viridiana said turning to walk down the path, “Follow me, we’ll see if Father is back from his job yet.”

As we walked Aura moved closer to her sister and asked, “Why is Gigi mad at me, what have I done? I mean, I’ve been doing everything she told me to after I was kicked out.”

“We’ve been keeping an eye on you over the past few weeks. Let’s just say, that you haven’t been making a good name for yourself as of late. We also heard a rumor that you’ve been meeting with Aunt Gina. When mom found that out she was very close to finding you and beating the shit out of you,” Vi replied.

Aura rolled her eyes, “I didn’t meet with her because I wanted to, she happened to be in a place where Shadow had to go. I didn’t even know she was still alive let alone helping a nut-job run a slaughterhouse. I didn’t have much to do with her apart from that.”

“I have to admit, she was scary, but she let us go in the end. She can’t be all that bad,” I said.

Vi stopped and looked back at me, “You don’t know what she did either. She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you never know what her real motive is until it’s too late. If I were you I’d keep away from Gina, she’s nothing but trouble.”

“Don’t worry Vi, Shadow doesn’t intend on working with her so you don’t have to worry,” Aura said.

“It’s not like we like her anyway, she’s a total bitch,” Wingnut said.

Silver just kept quiet as she followed. I sighed, “Yeah, I don’t plan on it. I’d be okay with not running into her again if I can help it.”

Vi looked relieved, “I’m glad to hear that,”

A moment later we finally made it past the tall cliffs, they ended abruptly and opened into a wide Canyon. The red and brown sandstone worked like a kind of wall going high into the air, keeping all but flyers out easily. In the middle of the Canyon there was a fighting pit set up with jagged stone walls that looked like they’d been cut from the sandstone around them. Extremely nice huts had been put up all around the open area, each with a small fire pit in front of it. I saw griffons of all ages roaming around laughing, talking, and wrestling with each other.

On the other end of the open Canyon I could see younger griffons practicing formations with either spears or swords as an older griffon watched over them, sometimes walking over to one or two and correcting one of their stances. Behind the fighting pit on a raised slab of sandstone, there was a larger hut with the words ‘The Den’ over the entrance. As I looked around in awe I saw small breaks in the Sandstone with cave entrances on each and a balcony that overlooked everything. Every once in a while a griffon would be standing just outside one.

In the middle of it all, there was a tall statue of a griffon. She was on her hind legs with her wings open wide holding a curved sword in each talon like she was about to attack an invisible foe. Behind her there was another slab of Sandstone that had letters carved into it.

‘The Red Talons’ was on the top in large letters. Below something else had been written ‘The Ten Rules of The Red Talon Company’ I could see even smaller writing just under that, but I’d have to get closer to read what it was.

I wanted to go over and see what they said, when the Statue caught my eye again. I knew that griffon, from the most recent memory I’d seen. It was the scarf that gave it away, a scarf with a crescent moon clasp. I was amazed, and if I hadn’t just seen the memory of her, I wouldn’t have even caught on to who it was.

“Is that a Statue of Greta?” I asked.

Vi stopped and looked back at me, a look of shock on her face, “How do you know about our founder?”

“I saw her in a memory, she used to be a member of The Children of the Night during the war. I had no idea she started The Red Talons,” I said still a little taken aback.

“She looks scary,” Wingnut said.

“She was. She was one of the best fighters in our history, once banished from the ancient griffon lands she fought with Equestria all the way to the day the megaspells destroyed everything. She even helped in founding the Enclave if our records are right.”

“You mean a griffon helped found The Grand Pegasus Enclave?” Silver asked, she also looked a little taken aback.

Aura spoke up, “She did, but something happened a few years after the megaspells. She came down here, found a few griffons that had no place to call home anymore and founded The Red Talon Company.”

“Wow, I wonder what could’ve made her leave everything she knew to start this,” I said remembering how devoted she was to Night Stalker. What could’ve made her leave to start this? If what Nexus said was right, Night Stalker was around for a good forty years after the war. She would’ve had to leave her friend to come down below the clouds like that.

“We don’t know much about her before she came down here to be honest,” Aura said again.

“It’s true, but we know that she despised The Enclave ever since she started our Red Talon Company. Though Tonto might know more, he’s the one who keeps the history of The Red Talons,” Vi added.

I shrugged, “It’s not like it matters now. That was a long time ago, it doesn’t help me with what I need to do now,” though in the back of my head, I wanted to know more. Maybe once I found Stardust, I’d be able to come back here and talk to Tonto and see what he knew, “So what’s that on the stone that’s written behind her?”

Aura groaned so Vi answered, “Those are the Ten Unbreakable Rules of the Red Talons written by Greta herself. They are what make us different from most of the other griffon talon companies in The Wasteland.”

“What happens if you break an unbreakable rule?” Wingnut asked.

Vi looked over at her sister then sighed, shaking her head, “You end up like Aura, or you die. It depends on what rule you break and the mood of the leader.”

Looking at Aura I noticed she looked sad after I mentioned the rules, “I understand,” looking away I said, “Can we find Apollo so we can get this over with?”

“Sure, if he’s back he should be in The Den with the other two leaders. If not, you can try your luck with Gigi, our mother,” Vi said.

“Let’s get this over with then.” I said walking past Vi and up toward the overhang that held the large hut.

Vi and Aura followed, Wingnut and Silver behind them. As I walked I noticed how the other griffons stopped what they were doing, some whispering at each other and pointing at Aura. I did my best to ignore them, keeping my eyes forward.

Once I reached the entry to the Hut Vi stopped me, “Let me go in and check who’s here. Last time I checked Mom was meeting with another pony about dropping a contract, just wait out here for me.”

“Fine, just don’t take too long,” I said as she walked into the hut.

As we waited Aura moved closer to me, “Hey can we talk Shadow?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do while we wait so sure.”

Before she could say anything Silver walked over, “Aura, would it be okay if I walked around while we waited, I’d like to check this place out more.”

Aura shrugged, “I don’t see why not, Ponies are allowed to walk around the main parts of the Canyon as long as you stay on the lower level you’ll be fine, but if a griffon tells you to leave then come back here.”

“Can do,” she said then came over and kissed my cheek, “I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay, don’t get lost,” I said as she walked off, “Hmmm I wonder why she wants to walk around right now. I thought finding Stardust was the main reason we came here.”

Wingnut answered, “I’m sure she’s worried about him too, maybe she just needs to clear her head.”

“Maybe,” I said watching as my marefriend walk away, “She’s just not acting like herself,”

“She’ll be fine Shadow, now back to what I wanted to say,” Aura said, “Before you go in there I think it’s only right that you know why I’m an outcast.”

I smiled, “Aura, you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to, I’ve gotten used to you keeping it a secret and I respect that. Yes, I’d like to know, but not if it’s hard for you.”

“I appreciate that, but telling you might make things easier for you when it comes to talking with Gigi. I’d rather you hear it from me and not from her, because trust me she’ll say something about it,” Aura said.

“Easier or not, I want you to tell me because you want to, not because you feel you have to,” I said giving her a smile.

She smiled back, “Regardless, you should still know, and I trust you now with knowing my secret.”

I was surprised that she was being so forthcoming with this information, and I didn’t want to stop her from speaking. I had a feeling she was only doing this because she felt she had to, but I couldn’t order her not to tell me. Aura opened her beak starting to say, “You see six months ago…”

She was cut off by another Griffon who poked her head out from the entrance to the hut. She was the splitting image of Aura, only her fur and feathers were white and red instead of black, her talons were black and same for her beak, but she had the same red markings on her wingtips and her head feathers. She looked older than Aura and had the same frosty blue eyes.

When she spoke, her voice reminded me a lot of Greta from Night Stalkers memory, “Well if it isn’t Aura, I’m surprised you were brave enough to show your face around here and with another mare as your contract holder. Will you ever learn Aura?”

I stepped in front of Aura and said angrily, “Who are you to say anything about who Aura contracts with? She’s a freelancer now and doesn’t have to answer to anyone.”

The older griffon frowned at me, “I have every right to say what I want to my own Daughter.”

I took a step back and Aura put a talon on my shoulder, “Shadow, just be quiet for a minute.”

Looking back at her I asked, “Why? I don’t care who she is, she doesn’t have the right to say things like that.”

“Yes she does. Shadow this is Gillian AKA Gigi the Leader of The Red Talons and my mother,” She said then looked at the white griffon, “Been awhile, I’m glad to see you’re still as bitchy as ever.”

Gigi reached behind her and pulled a curved sword off her back and pointed it at Aura, “Don’t talk back to me Outcast, I expect an explanation to why you’re here and I want something better than what Vi told me.”

As she talked I could see further into the hut. Standing at the far end looking out at me with a look of shock on her face was the last pony I expected to see in a place like this. Knowing that Aura could take care of her mother I pushed passed the older griffon and ran up to the grey bat pony I hadn’t seen since I’d left Stable 9.

“Wind Thrasher is that really you?” I asked.

“Shadow Star, what are you doing here?” she asked, looking just as shocked.

Before I could answer talons took hold of me and lifted me into the air then threw me back outside of the hut. I moaned a little from the pain of hitting the hard ground then looked up into the eyes of Gigi, “I didn’t say you could enter my home, that pony in there has business with us and it’s none of your concern.”

“She’s a friend of mine,” I said angrily.

“Does it look like I give a shit? You have some explaining to do as well Courier Mare.”

“Gigi, leave her alone. She’s my boss and she’s here on business too, don’t drag her into our family drama,” Aura said, but she was cut off by Gigi.

“Quiet Aura,” then she looked back down at me, “Tell me something, because I’m dying to know.”

Figuring I couldn’t be in any more trouble than I already was, “What do you want?”

“Simple really, are you fucking my daughter as payment too, because if you are I’ll kill you right here and now. I won’t watch her go down that path again.” she said pointing that oddly shaped sword at me again, “Tell me the Truth, because I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked utterly confused.

“MOM, it’s not like that! If you’d take two seconds to listen to me I could tell you what’s really going on!” Aura started to yell, but Gigi ignored her.

“I’ll ask you again Courier Mare, are you sleeping with my daughter?”

I looked up at her then back over at Aura, something finally clicked in my head. Aura telling me about how she liked girls, how distraught she got over the loss of Trip Wire. The photo she kept in her saddle bags. The way Tariff acted when he saw Aura again. How embarrassed she’d gotten when I’d suggested we just take a bath at the same time, and why she refused to tell me why the loss of one of her contract holders was such a big deal. Trip Wire hadn’t just been Aura’s friend, no she was something more. Aura had been in Love with a pony. It was such a strange thing to hear even in The Wasteland, but when had Aura ever been a normal Griffon? I could see now why she hadn’t told me, a couple weeks ago, how would I have reacted if I knew that Aura liked mares? Would I have even let her follow me around and be my bodyguard? I don’t’ know, but I do know I would’ve seen her in a different light back then. I would’ve seen her much like I did most males, just another person who was eyeing my flanks or wanted me.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a long moment, took a deep breath then opened them again looking back at the hard gaze of Aura’s mother, “Fuck you…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Action Filly Rank 2: Your Targeting Spell is now second nature to you. Gain +15 Action Points in S.A.T.S. and you have 20% better chance to get a critical hit as well while using the Targeting Spell.

Chapter 22: It's Not That Easy Bein' Green

“I worried about her or what she’d become with no one to call a friend.”

Looking up at the older Griffon’s face, I saw something in her icy blue eyes. Was it wonder? Wonder that a small pony would dare speak to her in such a way. Was it Anger? Anger because no one ever dared to question her. Maybe it was respect. Respect that I wasn’t scared of her or her threats. Who knows what it really was, but something deep inside made her take a step back, like she was second guessing her decision to treat me the way she was.

After a minute pasted, Gigi, the leader of the Red Talons said, “What did you just say to me?”

“I said fuck you,” I took a step forward. I didn’t care if she was more twice my height and could probably cut me down before I knew what hit me. I wasn’t gonna let anyone disrespect someone I cared about. Aura was my friend, I didn’t care if this was her mother or not, she didn’t have the right to treat her the way she was. The same goes for me, she didn’t even know me, “I don’t care if you’re the leader of the Red Talons, or Aura’s mother. I’m not gonna stand back and let you insult us. You lost the right to say anything to her about who she loves when you kicked her out of her only home and made her live alone in The Wasteland.”

Gigi was trembling with fury, “How dare you tell me how to act in my own home you slime. You come here with my daughter and think you can just up and tell me how to run things in my family?”

“If Aura was your family you wouldn’t treat her like a piece of shit that needs to be scraped off the bottom of your paws. It’s been what, six or seven months since you’ve last saw her and the first thing you do is accuse her of sleeping around with a pony who just happens to be a mare she’s under contract with? And here I thought I had it bad when my own mother abandoned me in a stable. Good Goddesses, at least she was good to me,” I said raising me voice a little. I could see griffons around the hut staring at me in awe. It didn’t matter that I was pissed, my best friend was missing. I was sore, tired, and had my own shit to deal with. Now I was dealing with this bitch. I wasn’t gonna take it anymore.

Aura tried to step in, “Shadow please don’t, this isn’t your place to talk.”

I shot a glare at her, “I don’t see you standing up for yourself, she needs to learn not to insult somepony because she’s making assumptions. She has no idea what she’s talking about.”

“Oh I don’t, do I?” Gigi said taking a step toward me, “So I don’t know that my daughter has a soft spot for mares? I don’t know that she left everything behind in order to be with one of them who she claimed to love and I don’t know that she did this knowing what it would mean when she was found out? Do you think I’m an imbecile?”

“She’s an adult, I think she can make up her own mind on who she falls in love with. Who cares if it’s a pony or a griffon? You can’t help who you fall for. That doesn’t mean you kick her out of her home. What kind of mother are you?” I replied.

Gigi raised her own voice, “One that has to think about what’s best for four hundred griffons and the place we call home. We aren’t ponies, we don’t live by the same customs that ponykind does. You talk about love, you can’t count on love to keep you safe or to help your family and clan grow. If you haven’t noticed Courier, the world is a deadly place, and we have to make sure that we keep our family growing and healthy. If we don’t it could mean the end of everything. I won’t sit back and watch one of my own do that to the rest of us, even if it means sending her away to learn the hard lessons of life.”

“And what lessons are they? How to hate everything about yourself and feel so alone that the only thing you can do is try and get someone to accept you? What a load of fucking horse apples. You’ve gotta be the shittiest mother I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a lot because I’ve seen some shitty mothers, but I think you top them all.”

In an instant the blade of Gigi’s curved sword was an inch from my left eye. I didn’t even flinch, I just looked down the edge of the blade and up at the griffon, “Get out of my canyon before I mount your head on my wall.”

“No!” I yelled.

“What did you just say?”

“I said No, I’m not going anywhere. I was invited here by Apollo and I have something for him. I also came looking for help from your talon company, I’m not going anywhere until I finish what I came here to do, even if I have to fight you to do it,” I said, pulling out Dream Walker.

She looked ready to lunge forward, but before either of us could do or say anything else, a spear came up, knocking Dream Walker away and Gigi’s sword. A second later Apollo was standing there between us. He sighed, “Ladies there’s no need to fight.”

“Step aside, this isn’t your fight,” Gigi said still glaring at me.

“Maybe not, but I DID invite her here to meet with us. She’s Box Tape’s employee, and you know how much we owe him for his help over the years.” Apollo said calmly.

“She’s also the mare who killed Gus,” Gigi said.

“She did, but only to protect herself as I told you before. I’ve already forgiven her for that and she does feel remorse for his death. You know that we don’t hold it against anyone who kills one of our own if it was on a mission and in self-defense, that’s the way we’ve always done things.”

“Yeah Gigi, Shadow was only protecting herself from a false contract,” Aura said.

I still felt anger deep inside, but I did my best to push it back as I spoke, “I didn’t mean for your son to die, if I could I’d take it back, but I can’t.”

Gigi looked away and all the fight seemed to drain out of her, “My Husband has forgiven you for his death, it may piss me off to no end, but I can’t change what happened,” she sighed and pinched the tip of her beak much like Aura did when she was upset, “You have a point, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions just because you hold Aura’s contract, but you should still show me the proper respect, you’re in my home.”

Apollo spoke up, “She’s right Shadow, you should show my wife more respect, even if she was a little brash when she ran into you,” then he looked at Gigi, “And you should watch what you say to ponies about our Daughter, Aura is her own griffon and it isn’t your place to talk about her life like that.”

“I’m sorry Apollo but I can’t give her any respect when she treats my friend the way she is. She owes Aura an apology,” I said, standing my ground.

“No Shadow she doesn’t,” Aura said walking over to me and looking me in the eye, “She’s not wrong, though she could’ve held back on her accusations.”

“I don’t understand though, what does it matter if you fell in love with Trip Wire? Who cares if she’s a pony or not? Why would that get you kicked out of the Red Talon’s?”

“If you want to understand then go read the wall behind the Statue of Greta at the center of the Canyon,” Gigi said, sheathing her blade, “Aura, I’m not happy to see you back here since you haven’t been accepted back into the Red Talon’s yet, but I’m happy to see you’re still alive and healthy,” she said with a flap of her wings before flying off, leaving me even more confused.

Apollo sighed and stood in front of Aura, “I’m glad to see you home again Aura. Things seem to get livelier when you’re around.”

“Honestly if Shadow didn’t need the Red Talon’s help, I wouldn’t be here at all. She has something for you from The Queen.”

He looked back at me, “Do you really?”

“Yes I do,” I said pulling the package out from my saddle bags and giving it to him. As I did I noticed Wind Thrasher still standing in the entrance of the larger hut, “Wind Thrasher why are you here?”

The dark grey batpony walked out into the dim light of day and smiled, “It’s been a while Shadow Star. It seems you’ve gotten yourself into more trouble, is that normal for you?”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” I said with a laugh, “Why are you here? Last I heard, you were heading north taking down raider camps.”

She blushed a little. I noticed that she didn’t look as dark and creepy when she was in the light of day. Her grey coat was still dark, but it shined a little, same for the red Scales that ran down her chest and over her torso, her eyes weren’t glowing, and she seemed to have done something different with her mane. Before it had been tattered and wild, now it was trimmed and brushed. She almost looked like a normal pony, if you could get past the fangs, bat wings, and scales. Maybe it helped that she didn’t have those bone claws anymore. I also noticed her Cutie Mark, something I couldn’t see before in the dark Stable. Three maroon bats flying in a circle. It was fitting in a way.

“I was heading north,” she said in her soft hissing voice, “I ran into a few raider camps and I DID take them down, scattering the ponies that lived there who were causing problems for the locals. I was trying to get information on the location of the town my former Stable dwellers went to. I wanted to see about earning their forgiveness for what Dr. Cell made me do, but a couple days ago I started getting hunted by Griffons. I escaped two attacks, then after talking to a trader he told me that if I was being hunted by Griffons it was most likely that the Red Talons had a bounty on my head.”

“How’d you get a bounty on your head so quickly, you haven’t been out of the stable for more than a week?” I asked.

“Um…Shadow, who is that?” Wingnut asked.

Looking back I saw he was hiding behind me, his eyes round as saucers as he looked at Wind Thrasher. I smiled, “Wingnut this is a friend of mine Wind Thrasher. She’s the pony who helped save me in Stable 9 a few days before I met you.”

She smiled down at the colt, “It’s very nice to meet you Wingnut.”

He slowly walked out from behind me, “Um…nice to meet you too. What are you? (Thwack) Oww!”

“Wingnut! Think before you ask a question like that,” I yelled, but Wind Thrasher just laughed, it was a nice sound.

“It’s okay,” she said then looked back at the colt opening her leathery Wings, “I’m a batpony-dragon…thing… You see, when I was very young, even younger than you, I got hurt. A pony in my Stable used Bat and Dragon DNA to turn me into what you see now, saving my life, but also making me into something different.”

Wingnut seemed to get over his fear quickly as she opened her wings, “That’s cool, can I touch your wings?”

She blinked a little dumbfounded by his question, then smiled again, “Curious little colt, aren’t you? Sure, I don’t see why not.”

“Awesome!” Wingnut yelled running over and taking a wing into his hoof slowly running his other hoof along the soft leather.

She just giggled and looked back at me, “I’m not sure who put the bounty out on me, but I came here to find out. So far though, it doesn’t look like the Red Talons took a contract for a bounty on me.”

Aura looked over seeming to hear what we were talking about, “It’s possible that one of the smaller up and coming Talon companies took the contract. The Red Talons are the biggest Talon Company in The Wasteland, but we aren’t the only ones who work this area.”

“Yeah that’s what the boss griffon said too, so I guess I’m stuck until I find out who put this bounty on me and take care of it,” she said, then she started to look around, “Where’s you’re pegasus friend?”

Of course she’d ask that, I lowered my gaze and sighed, my voice seemingly lost, “He – He’s been kidnapped…by the Enclave, that’s another reason why we’re here, we wanted to see if the Red Talons could help us find him.”

Apollo looked up from the letter he was reading and asked, “Did I just hear you right? Did you say your friend was taken by the Enclave?”

“Yeah, he was taken last night after they attacked Frosty Summit,” Aura said.

“I remember seeing two pegasi flying by Crimson Canyon last night, they had a pony with them, but I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was just more Enclave bullshit,” Apollo said.

“Do you know which way they were heading?” I asked, a small glimmer of hope shining through.

“Toward Appleton, but I can’t say if that’s where they were heading. There are a few towns in that direction.”

“It’s better than not knowing anything,” I said.

Aura looked at Apollo, “Is there any way Shadow could contract the Talons to look for him and maybe help get him back? I’d do it myself, but it’s too much ground to cover for one griffon, and I don’t have the resources that I used to.”

Apollo looked lost in thought for a long moment, “Something like that would take at least four maybe five griffons depending on who we’re dealing with from the Enclave, I have a couple contacts that might know where they’re keeping him.”

“Would it help if I told you that the Seven Sins of Equinity took him?”

Apollo’s dark face paled, “Did you say the Sins?”

“Yeah, they’ve been hunting him for a long time. Sloth and Lust were the ones who took him,” I replied.

“That changes things, you’ll need at least three wings of griffons if you want to find your friend and even then, we have no idea if we’ll be able to get him back. A job like that would cost you at least eight thousand caps.”

I looked at my Pip-Buck checking to see how many Caps I had…unfortunately it was only around two thousand. I slumped, “There’s no way I could afford that.”

“Well now that you finished you’re job for The Queen, maybe with the extra bonus she was gonna throw in, you’d be able to afford it,” Wingnut said.

“No, with the delivery and the jobs plus the bonus I’d still be shy a couple thousand caps.”

Apollo took a minute to think, “I might be able to work with six thousand and an ‘I owe you’ for helping us with a job down the line. I’ll have to talk to Gigi and a couple others first though.”

“I still have to go back to Freedom and talk to the Queen to get my payment.”

“I could go, it wouldn’t take me long to get to New Pegasus from here and since she’s not on The Strip I could get the payment and be back here in a couple hours,” Aura said.

“Hmmm, yeah that could work. That’s if she’ll give you the caps even if I’m not with you.”

“She will, she knows I work for you so I don’t see why she wouldn’t pay me,” she said flapping her wings already hovering in the air.

“How about you take Wingnut with you, that way you have another pony who can vouch for you.”

“Awww but we just got here, I don’t wanna leave now,” the colt protested.

“You’ll be fine kid, I’ll just feel better if you’re with Aura to help keep her safe. She’ll need a brave stallion like you,” I said, stroking Wingnut’s ego a little for motivation.

Wingnut tried to hide a blush from the compliment. “Fine, as long as we’re back quickly.”

Aura landed again and picked Wingnut up, “Don’t worry kid, we’ll be back in a flash,” Aura said as she flew off.

Watching them leave I said to Apollo, “Do you think you can talk Gigi into helping?”

“It won’t be a problem, she’ll cool down soon. I’m sure she’ll want to come and talk to you later,” he said flying into the air then turning back, “While you wait, go ahead and check out the Canyon a little, you’re more than welcome here.”

“I will,” I said as he flew off.

Wind Thrasher tapped my shoulder and I looked back at her as she asked, “So what now?”

“I’m not sure, I guess I’ll check the place out. What did you have planned?”

She shrugged, “Not much really, I wasn’t planning on staying long once I found out what I needed to know about my bounty. If you want I could keep you company.”

I smiled a little then nodded, “That’d be great Wind Thrasher,” I started to make my way toward the statue of Greta, “So what’ve you been up to apart from taking down Raider Camps and looking for Trotston?”

“I’ve been taking my free time to learn about The Wasteland,” she reached into a satchel and pulled out a copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide. I noticed that it looked a little different from my own copy. I saw the title had an extra part added to it, New Pegasus Edition.

“Where did you get that?”

“A trader I ran into had a copy, he gave it to me,” she said tucking it back into her bag, “He said he’s friends with the author.”

I didn’t know there were different versions of the book. I noticed that my own seemed to concentrate on things around Manehatten, “I should get myself a copy, the one I have doesn’t tell me much about things around New Pegasus.”

“You could always borrow mine if you want, I’ve read it three times already,” Wind Thrasher said with a smile.

“You read it that many times?”

She shrugged, “I like to read, and I get a lot of down time. I tend to travel at night, it keeps other ponies from seeing me.”

“Why would you care if other ponies see you?” I said a moment before I figured it out, “Oh right, I guess a pony like you is a strange sight even in The Wasteland.”

“It is, but I’ve run into a couple ponies who don’t seem to mind too much. Really, I’m just a little shy, I had twenty years of only being around the Bloodwings and Dr. Cell. I didn’t get to talk to ponies until you showed up.”

As we reached the statue I asked, “So who did your mane for you? It looks a lot nicer than the last time I saw you.”

She blushed a little, “I saw a pony in a small town near here that was cutting pony’s manes so I flew down and asked him. At first, he was a little scared of me, but after I talked to him more he did it for a few caps.”

“I like it,” I said stopping in front of the Statue. I looked up at the statue of Greta. She looked older for some reason, but still with powerful presence, “I wonder what made her start the Red Talons? When I saw her in a memory of Night Stalker she was against this whole contract thing. I wonder what made her change her mind.”

Wind Thrasher looked up at the Statue too, “You said she was in a memory of Night Stalker?”

“Yeah, she was his best friend ever since they were kids, or at least that’s how it sounded.”

“My father used to talk about Night Stalker, we had a little history in our Stable about him. My father loved the stories that had him in them, but they never talked about a griffon.”

“I was surprised that you had memory orbs of his in there.”

“Mom said they were in her safe when she took over, she never knew where they came from.”

I sighed, “I hate not knowing things, it just seems like that blasted pegasus is always a mystery.”

She smiled, “That bugged my father too, he wanted to find out more about Night Stalker, but with us being stuck in the stable he had no way of finding out more.”

“I know the feeling, I’ve found a few things out about him, but not enough. It bugs me because something deep down tells me I need to know more about him, though I can’t say why. It’s not like a pony who lived over two hundred years ago would matter now days,” I said walking around the statue to look at the rock wall behind it.

Carved into it, under the words about The Red Talons were ten rules. I sat down and started to read them.

Rule One
A griffon’s Personal Contract is their own and cannot be changed by any griffon or pony, this is a griffon’s life and code.

Rule Two
A Red Talon will always put their family and clan before anything, unless it goes against their contract or the rules governing The Red Talons.

Rule Three
A Red Talon will never take a job for a pony who lies about their intent of a Contract. If said pony does bare false witness against a Red Talon, the Contract is negated and payment will not be refunded.

Rule Four
Crimson Canyon is the home of the Red Talons and will remain its home. No Leader of the Red Talons will ever take their griffons away from this home unless it is destroyed.

Rule Five
The Red Talons will never take a contract for The Grand Pegasus Enclave or any pony associated with them. Remember the fall of Griffonstone.

Rule Six
Payment must always be paid up-front before a griffon of the Red Talons will contract with anyone.

Rule Seven
Relationships between a griffon and a pony are strictly prohibited. It is unnatural for a Griffon to be with a pony apart from friendship or for work, anything more will not be tolerated.

Rule Eight
No Red Talon will ever kill another unless it is in single combat and approved by the Leader of the Red Talons. Any member of the Red Talons that breaks this rule will be executed.

Rule Nine
Stables that are still active are off limits, The Red Talons will never take a contract that requires them to go into an active Stable. Contracts with an Active Stable are acceptable, as long as a griffon doesn’t go into the stable itself.

Rule Ten
Any Griffon who breaks any of the founding rules apart from Rule Eight, will be exiled from the Red Talons, the only exception to this rule is if they are working a job for a contractor and supervised by another Red Talon unless the contractor is present, in which case the contractor is responsible for said exile and only with permission from a Council Leader.

After I finished reading them all, my eyes came back to Rule Seven, the rule that Aura had broken. Who would make rules like that? I guess most of them made sense but why would Greta put a rule like that up. Did she know a griffon who had feelings for a pony…or was it her?

“I think I understand why Aura had to leave. It’s sad because of how she felt for one pony destroyed her whole life,” I said still looking up at the rules.

“It’s the rules we have to live by for the Red Talons to work,” A voice said from behind us.

Turning I saw Gigi standing there looking up at the rules as well, “What do you want Gigi?” I asked.

She looked down at me then over at Wind Thrasher, “Would you mind giving us a moment Wind Thrasher? I’d like to talk to the Courier.”

Wind Thrasher gave me a smile, “Sure thing. Shadow, I’ll be around. Come find me when you’re done.”

I sighed again then nodded, “Okay, just don’t go flying off before saying goodbye.”

“I won’t,” she said flying away and leaving me with Ms. Grumpy Beak.

“So, are you coming over to tell me to leave again, or just to insult your daughter more?”

“It was wrong of me to accuse you like I did. Apollo talked to me and explained that you saved Aura’s life a few weeks back. I didn’t know that.”

“I did, after she got into a fight with Stardust when she was hunting me, she took a nasty blow to the chest. I gave her a healing potion so she wouldn’t die. Later she found me in Stable 9 and I saved her from Bloodwings, she told me then that she owed me a life-debt,” I said glancing over at Gigi.

She was looking up at the Statue of Greta, a far off look in her eyes, “Did she ever pay back that Debt?”

“A couple of times, it was her medical training that saved me from Cazador poisoning, and she’s had my back in a few fights.”

A small smile came to her beak, she finally looked at me, “I take it you’ve gotten to know her quite well over the past couple of weeks.”

“I thought I did, I just never put together the relationship between her and Trip Wire. So, I guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did, but everyone is entitled to their secrets.”

“Follow me Courier,” she said as she turned and started to make her way toward the fighting arena.

“Why?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, “I won’t bite, you have my word. I just want to show you something.”

“Fine, not like I have much choice in the matter,” I said following her.

We past a few griffons as we walked, a couple of them saying hello to Gigi while we walked, some giving respective bows, others saluting her. As we made our way past the Arena and into the rows of huts Gigi cleared her throat and asked, “What has Aura told you about her exile?”

“Not much really, she told me she did something that went against the ways of the griffons and was exiled for it, later I learned that she broke a rule. She told me that the only way she could get back in was to prove she was worthy of being a Red Talon again.”

“For the most part that’s true, though the getting back in part was her father not me. Aura and Apollo have always been very close, ever since she was born she’s always been drawn to him. When I sent her away he was the one who told her that she could get back in if she proved she’d changed her ways and proved she was of value to the Talons,” we got to the other side of the huts and she stopped next to one of the tall cliffs. She looked back at me again, “I’ll have to carry you up to the next level to show you what I want to.”

“That’s fine with me, just don’t drop me.”

She laughed, “If I wanted to kill you or hurt you Courier I wouldn’t need to walk you all the way out here just to drop you from a cliff,” she picked me up and jumped into the air, it only took a couple seconds and then we were on the ground again, only now on one of the cliffs that overlooked Crimson Canyon, “It’s not much farther.”

I followed her and continued our conversation, “I know you have you’re rules and all, but I still don’t understand why you kicked her out. She’s you’re daughter.”

She stopped in front of a small cave, “I did what I had to do Courier, she IS my daughter, but I’m also the leader of the Red Talons. I can’t ignore one of our founding rules, even for my family. As much as it hurt me to do it, I had to make her leave, it was in her best interest.”

“By making her leave her family and wander alone out in The Wasteland?”

She took a deep breath like she was trying to keep herself from yelling at me, then she said slowly, “Head inside, you’ll understand once you do.”

Not wanting to deal with her anymore, I walked past and into the cave. It wasn’t much to look at, it was set up like you’d expect a home to be. There was a desk in one corner, a bed in the other, a rack for melee weapons to be stored and a hooflocker, “What's the deal with this place?” I asked.

She walked in behind me and over to a lantern, lighting it. The cave filled with light and in the far corner next to the small desk I saw a few dozen photos hung up on the wall. Walking closer I saw they were all of Aura. Some were Aura as a child playing with one of her sisters, another when she was older learning to fight with a younger looking Gina, and three were with Aura and Trip Wire.

I brought a hoof up and touched one of the photos. The first one was simple, Aura looked like she was showing Trip Wire how to fight. They both had smiles on their faces. The Second one showed Aura flying with Trip Wire on her back, a look of wonder and glee on the young pony’s face. The last one though, the one that I had my hoof on, it showed the depths of the feelings they had for each other. Aura was resting her forehead against Trip Wires, both of their eyes were closed and Trip Wire’s muzzle was just touching the tip of Aura’s beak. It was a simple picture but you could see so much in it, an emotion that you don’t see much in The Wasteland. It was love.

Looking back toward Gigi I asked, “Who took all these pictures, I didn’t even know you could do that anymore.”

Gigi was looking at the photos as well, her eyes were glassy as if she was holding back tears. When I spoke, she tore herself away from the pictures and said, “I did, you see I wasn’t blind to what was going on with Aura. She’s always been different, she never wanted to do things like the other griffons when she was growing up. When I first caught her with Syn’s friend I almost lost it, but later when I talked to her about it, she didn’t shy away or get angry, she just told me that I couldn’t change what she liked and who she was. After that I realized that she was right, I couldn’t change who she was no matter how much I wanted to. So, I watched her and hoped that she wouldn’t do something stupid and mess things up for herself. I should’ve known better.”

“From what she’s told me you two didn’t get along very well.”

“We didn’t, I was always the one with the rules and restrictions. She was the one pushing the limit on what she could and couldn’t get away with. She’s a lot like me in that way. When I was young, I was a little shit too. She always thought I didn’t like her, and in a way, I didn’t, but I always loved her and I still do.”

I looked around the small cave more then asked, “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because I want you to see that I’m not the cold-hearted bitch that I’m sure Aura and others have made me out to be. This cave is my, shall I say, meditation chamber. When my days get too long or stressful, I come here and relax, maybe read a book or just sit back and look at the pictures of my children. In this cave I can be…a mother, and not the leader of The Red Talons,” she said with a sigh, coming to stand next to me looking at the picture of Aura and Trip Wire.

“Why did you take those pictures?” I asked indicating the last three with Aura and Trip Wire, “If you knew what she was doing and it’s wrong then why?”

“Because I knew I couldn’t change it, and I liked Trip Wire a lot, she was always a kind pony and a good fighter. She excelled in making or modifying weaponry, she also had a good eye for business. She set up trade routes all over the place and was starting to get some clients out in Manehatten and Hoofington. I had a great deal of respect for her and her talents. When I figured out that she had feelings for Aura, I was upset at first, but when I saw how happy she made Aura I decided that as long as nopony found out, I’d be okay with it.”

I looked back over at her confused, “Then why kick her out?”

She closed her eyes and her body seemed to slump, “Aura was working a job with Trip Wire, they were heading to an abandoned Stable up north. Aura knew she’d need help with the contract so she recruited two other griffons to join them. By this time Trip Wire and Aura had been seeing each other for over a year. They’d gotten used to doing certain things when they were on jobs together. While they were camped not far from the Stable as I understand it, one of the griffons who went with them caught them together. There was a fight and both flew back home. Aura and Trip Wire abandoned the job and followed them back.”

“Let me guess, by the time they arrived it was too late to do anything about it.”

She smiled, “Yeah, by that time my talons were tied. I had to do something about it, and with all the eyes of our kind on me I made my ruling. I cast her out of the Red Talons. She was so angry with me that day, she told me I was an old-fashioned cunt if memory serves. They left…I figured that at least Aura would have Trip Wire, and she could still be happy. Then three days later, I got the news from one of my contacts that Trip Wire was killed by raiders, and Aura fled.”

“So, she lost everything within a few days, I guess I could see why she’s always so defensive.”

“Well she’s always been like that, but now she has an anger deep inside her. It’s a good thing when she has to fight, but she lets it creep out of her when it comes to her friendships too. It takes her a long time to trust anyone, she’s always afraid that if she gets too close to someone, then she’ll lose them.”

“How do you know so much about her after her banishment?”

She laughed again, “She’s my daughter, I made sure to keep an eye on her when I could. I worried about her or what she’d become with no one to call a friend.”

“Then why did you freak out when she came back here with me?” I asked finally turning away from the pictures.

She struggled, “You caught me at a bad time honestly. Your friend Wind Thrasher came to me about a bounty that we didn’t have on her. We’ve been having problems with contracts going to one of the newer griffon groups that moved into the area recently. We don’t like talon companies moving in on our territory. So, with the thought of having to deal with that bullshit and seeing my daughter back with another mare, it was too much and I blew up. I also had to preserve appearances, my position as the leader is always in danger. The Bloodtalon’s have held that title ever since the beginning, and we won’t give it up easily.”

“Wait a second, I thought that Greta started the Red Talons,” I said.

She looked at me like I was cracked or something, “She did, she’s our great, great… something… Grandmother.”

Now there was a shock, “So you’re descendants of a member of the Children of the Night?

Gigi froze when I asked this, her eyes fell on me again, “How do you know who the Children are? I thought the knowledge of their existence was lost.”

“I have a few memory orbs of Night Stalker, one of them showed Greta in it.”

Anger flashed over her face, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll never say that name around here ever again.”

I took a step back, “Why? He was just a pony from over two hundred years ago.”

“He was also the pony who called for the destruction of our homelands. He betrayed the place he grew up in, all for power. That Pony was a snake and his name is taboo around here.”

“Okay, sorry. I didn’t know.”

She calmed a little, “No matter, just please don’t say his name. The stories around here, about him, make him out to be even more evil than the Zebras.”

Hoping to change the subject I quickly asked, “So this last picture of Aura and Trip Wire, where was that taken?”

She looked back at the pictures, her mind seeming to pull away from the anger a little, “That was taken in Manehatten not far from Tenpony tower. I think Aura and Trip Wire wanted to move there at one point, but the tower doesn’t allow griffons.”

I took one more long look at the pictures then turned to leave the cave, “I’m glad you told me all this, but from what I can see, it’s all in the past. What does any of this have to do with me?”

She followed me back out of the small cave, “I just wanted you to understand. I would’ve left it up to Aura to explain everything, but in her version, she’d paint me as the bad guy. I just think you should hear both sides of a story.”

“Why don’t you just tell Aura the truth about how you felt and fix things with her?” I asked.

“Because I’d rather her keep seeing me as the bad guy and keep her away from The Red Talons,” She replied.

“Wait, you don’t want her to be a Talon?”

“Not anymore, I don’t. I want her to live her own life and be happy. If she comes back here, she’ll be tied down by the same rules as before. She’ll act happy for a while, but it’ll be a mask, hiding who she truly is. I don’t want that for her, I want her to be truly happy, be that as a talon, a freelancer, or with someone special to her. To be honest, I’m glad she found you Courier.”

I chuckled, “You can call me Shadow if you want, honestly I hate that name DJ Pon3 gave me, and why are you happy she found me?”

She took hold of me and lifted us into the air before she answered, “Because, before she met you, she was lost and now she’s not.”

She flew us back to the large Hut landing in front of the flap that led in. When we were on the ground again I turned toward her and said, “You don’t have to worry about Aura, she’s starting to come out of her shell, and so am I thanks to her and my friends.”

“Speaking of friends, Apollo told me about you’re missing pegasus and who took him. I’ll agree to set up a contract with a few of our griffons for you if you do two things for me,” she said taking me by surprise.

“What’s that?”

“First the payment, which I was told Aura is off to collect from The Queen, second I want you to promise me that you won’t tell Aura what we talked about. I don’t want her to know the truth about me. As I said before, my role in her life is as the bad guy, and I want to keep that up so she’ll stay far away from here.”

“I hate lying to her though,” I said.

“I do too, but sometimes we have to lie to our children. If you have children of your own one day you’ll understand.”

“Fine, you have my word that I won’t tell her about this, unless she comes out and asks me.”

She smiled again, “I can accept that, thank you Shadow.”

“You’re welcome Gigi.”

“Well I’m sure that they won’t be gone much longer, if you want you can stay here for the night, we have a few extra caves that are nice to sleep in.”

“What about Stardust?”

“I’ll be talking with a few of the other griffons tonight and send out word to our contacts about him as well. We’ll find him don’t worry.”

“I guess that’s the best I can hope for,” I said.

“Don’t worry Shadow, The Red Talons are the best Talon Company in Equestria, we’ll be able to find him. For the time being I should go see what I can find out about this bounty on Wind Thrasher, if you see her let her know this one will be on the house,” Gigi said heading back into the large hut.

I stopped her, “If I can ask, why do this for free for her?”

When she looked back at me, I once again saw anger written on her face, “Because, I don’t like other talon groups working bounties in my territory. I want to find out who’s doing this and who put out the bounty. Once I do I’ll make them regret ever doing business without talking to The Red Talons first,” with a small huff she walked into the hut.

Shrugging I turned and started heading back down the path that lead back toward the center of Crimson Canyon. Since I couldn’t do much without the Talons help I figured I’d head off to find either Wind Thrasher or Silver. Honestly, I could use a little of Silver’s version of de-stressing right now. Since Wind Thrasher wasn’t going to be going anywhere soon I figured I’d go look for my Mare friend instead.

As I moved closer to the huts I noticed a wagon had come into Crimson Canyon from the other entrance, it was pulled by a brahmin, and two ponies were on guard with a trader pony who was setting up a small table with goods on it. I made my way over and the mare who was setting up looked up at me and smiled, “Hello miss, can I interest you in anything?”

“Maybe. Do you happen to have any .50 Cal ammo?”

She turned and started digging through one of the large bags on the brahmin’s back then pulled out a couple of ammo boxes, “Only have a couple boxes of it I’m afraid, it’s not very often you find this caliber in The Wasteland.”

“Tell me about it, I’ve had a hard time finding any,” I said smiling at her, “How much?”

“For both boxes it’ll be four hundred caps.”

My jaw dropped open, “For two boxes of ammo? That’s crazy!”

“It’s a rare caliber to find out here, supply and demand, that’s how it works,” she said, grinning at me.

“Fuck, I need all the caps I can to pay the Talons. Is there any way you can drop the price even a little?”

“Sorry hun, it’s either pay the four hundred or show me something worth trading.”

This is why I had Stardust do the Trading, he was a lot better at bartering than I was. I looked down at my Pip-Buck and started looking through the crap I’d picked up while I was on the road. When I did I noticed that each item I had, had a number next to it labeled ‘Value’ I guess my Pip-Buck was able to figure the proper value of every item I had in my saddle bags. I smiled as I saw a few things I knew I didn’t need that I could use to possibly trade.

First I pulled out the magical energy pistol Wingnut had gotten from one of The Enclave Soldiers, “This magical energy pistol is worth at least eight hundred even in the condition it’s in. How about this for the ammo and four hundred caps back to me?”

She took it and looked it over, “It’s a little worn, but still in good firing condition, needs a little work, but it’s nothing I can’t handle…I’ll give you the ammo and two hundred caps for it.”

Okay this wasn’t as hard as I thought, I wonder what else I could get. Pulling out the rifle Cloak had dropped I put it on the table. The mare’s eyes lit up at once, “Is that a Flash Industries series two over charged Plasma Rifle with a long-range barrel? It looks like it was even modified to work better for a unicorn, with a…wait a moment, yes it has a gem to take all the recoil away so even if an earth pony, Pegasus, or a Unicorn with weak magic uses it, they won’t drop the weapon. And it has a stabilizer as well. Where did you get your hooves on this?”

That took me by surprise, “Got it off an Enclave Officer, she dropped it when we were in the middle of a fight.”

“I’ll give you eight thousand caps for it!” she said, her eyes going wide.

“You’ll give me HOW MUCH!”

“Eight thousand, and I’ll even throw in the .50 Cal too.”

I took a moment and looked at my Pip-Buck, it’s value was way more than she was telling me…was it worth selling or… “How good of a rifle is this?”

“I’ve only ever seen three of them in my life and none with as many modifications as that one has. It was a weapon they were just starting to develop toward the end of the war. Sure Flash Industries made a lot of magical energy weapons, and a few plasma ones as well, but nothing came close to this beauty,” she sounded like I was holding gold encrusted with diamonds.

“Well it’s not for sale, I mean I could use the caps but it’s worth more than that and I really do need a better weapon than Dream Walker,” I stopped and thought about it, what if the ammo for this was just as rare as Dream Walker’s, “Uh, what kind of ammo does it use?”

“Oh it’s a rare one, even more than your other gun, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to try finding it. If eight thousand isn’t enough I’ll throw in the caps, ammo, and three guns from my inventory.”

Okay this was getting very tempting, but what did Auntie always tell me. If somepony wants something badly enough, then there’s a reason for it. If you have it, don’t give it up without either knowing why or making them pay dearly for it. I was about to tell her no again, to see if she’d bring up what she was willing to part with, when Silver’s voice said from behind me, “That weapon was modified to work with Standard Gem cartridges, it’s not expensive and you can find them at most vendors in The Wasteland.”

The Trader pony looked ready to kill Silver, I just smiled and kissed her, “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I don’t like ponies who try and cheat others out of goods just because they want something,” Silver said glaring at the mare, “Now, why don’t you show Shadow all the ammo you have for her weapons, both of them, and give her a better deal on the energy pistol. She’s not selling this one.”

Before I knew it Silver had pulled out some junk from my bags and the combat armor she’d given me outside of New Pegasus. When she finished, she’d purchased a new combat Shotgun, ammo for it, Dream Walker, and the Plasma rifle, even some ammo for Stardust’s rifle. She also found an assault rifle with a shit ton of ammo to go along with it. In the end the mare ended up still paying me eight hundred caps. We ended up walking away with more caps, ammo, and weapons only leaving behind one pissed off looking mare.

“Damn how did you do all that?” I asked.

She laughed, “I’m in the business of dealing with ponies like her, she had no idea what she’d gotten herself into, and you do tend to carry around a lot of shit you really don’t need.”

“Most of it was crap Stardust would collect when we were scavenging, he made me carry it since my Pip-Buck keeps it all organized,” I said holding the Plasma Rifle in my magical grip looking it over, “I wonder how you know how many shots this thing has left.”

“That’s not hard, you see the three lights on the back of the rifle,” She said pointing at it, I nodded, “When the green light is on you’re 75% or more, Yellow is 25% to 75% and red means you’re almost out. Just watch that and you’ll do fine. Though firing one of them is tricky, they don’t work the same as your normal gun. If I were you I’d find a pony to teach you how to use it.”

“I’ll see if Wingnut or Aura knows anything about them when they get back. If not, I’ll just have to make a trip to the Steel Rangers and talk to Sapphire, she knows a lot about this kind of weaponry.”

“That’s if they don’t try and take it from you,” Silver said rolling her eyes in disgust.

“Why would they do that? I’m friends with the Elder and Sapphire, they wouldn’t take my weapons from me just because they wanted it.”

She looked at me confused, “I find that hard to believe, the Steel Rangers take everything that’s old war tech, you can’t trust them.”

I stopped and looked at her just as confused, “What do you mean you can’t trust them, did you forget that Sapphire was the pony who helped save you from the Raiders back in Cartwheel.”

Her face went blank, “Did she? Oh yeah, I must’ve forgotten about that. Still I don’t think you can trust them Shadow, for all you know they’re just using you for something bigger.”

“I don’t think they’d do that Silver. They’ve been good to me, they even saved my life after what happened at Stable 9.”

She shook her head then walked back over to me, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I just don’t personally like them is all, but if you trust them then I’ll take your word on it.”

“Thanks I guess, I just don’t understand why you got so hostile toward them.”

She sighed, “It’s a long story, let’s just change the subject. Did you get what you needed from the leaders of the Talons?”

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore than she did, so I figured I’d let it go, “In a way I did, they agreed to find Stardust for me and help get him back once Aura gets back with the payment from the Queen.”

“I take it we’re going to just wait around here for her to return?”

“Yeah, Gigi said we could use one of the caves around here to stay in for a while.”

“That’s not a bad idea, I could use a little rest, and I’m sure you could too.”

“I don’t see why not, I could use the time to watch one of mom’s memories too,” I said looking around, “The problem is I don’t know where the caves we could use are.”

“We could always just ask that Griffon Vi, I’m sure she’d know where we could stay.”

“True, the question is, where is she?”

“Over there,” Silver said pointing toward the Arena.

Looking over to where she was pointing, I saw the griffon talking to another. She looked almost just like Aura, same color and everything, only a little older and with more red in her head feathers. I’d seen her before, she was the other griffon that was with Apollo when they attacked me. Walking over I smiled, “Hey there Vi and…Syn was it?”

They broke away from their conversation, Vi looked at me like I was interrupting something important, but the other griffon smiled at me, “Long time no see…Shadow right?”

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you again on better terms than when we last met.”

Both griffons looked sad for a moment, and Vi Answered, “We don’t like to think about that day, Syn told me what happened with our brother. Though we don’t hold it against you for his death, it’s still hard for us.”

“Yeah I still feel bad about that. I know it doesn’t help, but I wasn’t in my right mind when I killed him.”

“We know, anyway, what do you need? Syn and I are in the middle of something and we don’t have a lot of time to talk,” Vi said.

“Your mother said there were some empty caves around that we could use to rest up while we wait for Aura to get back.”

“Is that all?” she asked, “Well that’s easy, the caves are the ones just over the Den, pick any one you want. They’re reserved for ponies or griffons who come to visit or do business,” she pointed up at a few caves dotting the cliffs over The Den.

“Thanks, I’ll let you two get back to what you were talking about.”

“It’s fine,” Vi said turning back toward her sister.

Syn on the other hoof walked over to me and asked, “If you have time later would you mind if I stopped by and talked with you about my little Sister?”

“I don’t see a problem with it, though I’m not sure when she’ll be back so if you want to talk about her when she’s not around you’ll have to do it soon.”

“Oh that’s okay, she can be there, I don’t mind. I’d like to see her again. I wish she would’ve said hi to me before she left,” Syn said with a big smile on her face, “I’ll stop by later.”

“Alright,” I said leaving the two griffons behind and heading toward a path that seemed to lead up to the cliff.

“Griffons are so strange,” Silver said as we walked.

“Why do you say that?”

“They just are.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“True…well I just don’t understand their whole ‘living by the contract’ thing and being ‘okay’ with you killing their brother. I mean if you did that to my family I don’t think I could just forgive you so easily.”

I just shrugged, “They aren’t ponies, they see the world differently than we do.”

She didn’t say anything after that, she just shook her head and walked faster. A moment later she walked into one of the caves. After looking around a little she said, “This one should do nicely, it even has a back area with a bed that we could use.”

I smiled wickedly, “I do like that sound of that,” walking in behind her I ran a hoof down her rear, “How about we give the bed a try.”

She looked back at me, her eyes wide, “What are you doing?”

“Wait huh?” I asked taken aback by her lack of reaction to my touch, normally she would’ve already jumped me and tossed me onto the bed.

“Shadow this isn’t the time for that kind of thing. I thought you said you had a memory orb to watch,” she said pulling away and moving to set her saddle bags down by the bed.

“I…do, but when have you ever cared about that? Normally you’d jump at the chance to do something naughty with me.”

“I’m not a whore Shadow, yes I may like to be spontaneous now and then, but we can’t always put stuff aside to play around. How about you pull out that orb.”

Confused I pulled out the box mom left for me with the memory orbs in them. I set the box down on the bed and lifted the first one out of the velvet lining. It was giving off the same silver glow I was getting used to with a normal memory orb. Mom said to watch it first, it was supposed to answer some of my questions.

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to watch this yet, I have too much on my mind to deal with mom’s bullshit,” I said setting the orb down on the bed, “Can’t we just have a little fun before I do? You know, help me calm down a little and clear my head.”

“Just watch the damn orb Shadow!” She practically yelled at me.

Something sharp pushed at the back of my mind, and for a split-second Morning Star was able to push past the protection ring I had on and say something quickly, “She’s an imposter, get out of here now before…” she faded and was pushed back and out of my head again, leaving me wobbling a little on my hooves.

What the fuck was that, how did she get past the Talisman’s warding? Not caring about that or what she had to say, I looked back at Silver, “What the fuck is your problem? You’ve been acting strange ever since the fight ended at Frosty Summit.”

“I told you already Shadow, I’m tired and cranky. I don’t want to fool around with you right now. Why is that so hard for you to understand, do you think I have to just lay down and let you do what you want with my body whenever you ask?” she asked, her eyes going cold.

“I never said that, it’s just not like you to act like this is all. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up over it. It’s not like I care if we do anything, it’s the fact that you’re getting pissed off at me for asking.”

“Don’t be such a child, all we have is a fun fling, it’s not like I love you or anything. You’re just a fun mare for me to enjoy while I’m bored, that’s all you are to me. I thought you would’ve realized that by now. Now stop being a stupid cunt and watch the orb, I need to cool down and I don’t feel like arguing with a foal like you right now!”

Something inside me broke right then, as those words passed her lips. Hot tears started to fall down my face as I spoke slowly, “You…don’t mean that. You can’t, you told me you loved me, that love was the only thing that brought me back from the edge. How could you say that to me now?”

She walked over to me, her hoof came up and she hit me as hard as she could. The blow threw me back onto the bed, she jumped onto it and stood over me glaring down, hatred written on her face, “I’m sick of this game, now go to sleep and watch your memory orb, I have things to take care of before the day is over.”

“Get off me,” I said quietly.

She ignored me and moved to pick up the memory orb, holding it in her muzzle, she looked back at me and said around the orb, “What did you say?”

I screamed it at her again “GET OFF ME!” using my magic I picked up my saddle bags to throw at her. But she only smiled and pressed the Orb to my glowing horn. There was a spark…‘NO’…The world melted away.

oooOOOooo

How could she do this to me, how could I not see who Silver really was the whole time? Was I just stupid, or did I really crave love so much that I didn’t notice? No, I remember Silver from back before the Stable, she promised to be my friend forever, and back when Morning Star had taken over, she told me she loved me and I could feel it when she kissed me. What happened to her, did Lust threaten her back in our room? That had to be it, why else would she be acting like this? Not like it mattered right now, I was stuck in a memory orb, one I had to pay attention to. I’ll deal with Silver when this is over.

Well I didn’t have to guess who my host was in this one. Mom was walking down a road in the dark, a road I knew well since I’d been on it only a few weeks ago. It was the same road that lead from Green Mist Valley to Cartwheel. This must’ve been right after she escaped the Stable. As she walked she was humming a little tune to herself as if she didn’t have a care in the world. In the distance I could see the mountains and cliffs that bordered Cartwheel. It looked a lot different without the Raider Camp. There were even a couple of caravans heading toward her, heading toward New Pegasus.

As my host past one of the caravan guards she gave them a smile and waved, they didn’t wave back, but one did nod his head toward her. When she drew closer to the break in the cliffs she left the path, I saw a green bar on her E.F.S. (I guess the normal Pip-Bucks had a different color E.F.S.), she headed toward it. There was an overhang poking out from the cliff side and a pony in Power Armor was waiting there.

She walked over to him, “I was wondering if you’d be waiting for me here, Paladin Crackerjack.”

His head turned toward her and he spoke in a voice that still gave me nightmares, it sounded like The Raider Boss, “Senior Scribe Grimoire, I see you were able to escape the Stable safely,” he looked around more, “Where is your daughter? Also, where is Paladin Vervain? I was told they would both be returning with you.”

I felt my host’s face grow sad as she said, “Vervain can’t come, she didn’t make it, we were ambushed when we were trying to leave. She gave her life so I could get away. As for my daughter, I had to leave her behind, she wasn’t well enough to make the trip.”

His voice grew angry, “You mean to tell me that a pony like Vervain was taken down by Stable Ponies?”

“She didn’t have her power armor, and they put up a good fight. I’ll be sure to make a report for my Elder when I return to Hidden Sands.”

“Elder Wolfsbane won’t be happy when he hears that, neither will the Sentinel,” he sounded pissed, “Did you at least get the information we were looking for about the Stable?”

“Anything I find out will be in my report to the new Elder, Appleslice. She told me that you aren’t part of the New Pegasus Steel Rangers anymore, I was told you moved east and joined up with Elder Cottage Cheese in Manehattan,” Mom said.

“I did, but we are all still Steel Rangers Grim, you know that. Now tell me what I want to know.”

“Not until I’m cleared to by the Elder.”

“Grim, at least tell me you found out more about the project!” This time instead of sounding angry, it sounded like he was pleading.

“Crackerjack, it was a dead end, not worth our time. Even if it was, I was only looking for it to help my daughter, I can’t do that anymore.”

“We had a deal Grim, I’d help you get in with the Steel Rangers even though I know where you came from, and you’d help me take over the New Pegasus branch with the help of that fucking project. You told me that it would be enough power that we could even take over all the branches of the Steel Rangers, even start a new kingdom,” He said raising his voice.

“And I was wrong, it’s not like it matters now, my daughter isn’t long for this world and that was my only motivation. I’m sorry Crackerjack, but the deal’s off,” Mom said turning to head back toward the road.

He moved and got in her way, his large gun pointing right at her head, “You’re not going anywhere, I know you’re lying to me. Give me the Mark II and all the information you have on Stable 28. That means its location, layout, and what to expect inside.”

Mom smiled lifting her foreleg to show him her normal Pip-Buck 3000, “Sorry but I don’t have the Mark II anymore.”

“WHERE THE FUCK IS IT!” He screamed.

“Lost it in a card game,” Mom said smiling at him, her horn starting to glow.

His gun lowered and holstered itself on the side of his power armor, “You left it in the Stable, didn’t you?”

“I never said that. All I can tell you is that I don’t have it anymore and nopony will ever find it…not for a long time,” she said her horn still glowing, I could feel a spell at the ready on her horn. I wonder what she was planning on doing to a pony in power armor.

“You’re still a bad liar Grimoire, I know you better than you think. You plan on getting it back one day, don’t you? You just don’t want Wolfsbane or Appleslice to get their hooves on it.”

“Or you Crackerjack. You know I’ve had a lot of time over the past two years to think about the arrangement we had. It’s true you did help me get into The Steel Rangers, but I was the one who proved myself to the former Elder. I don’t need you anymore Crackerjack, if you want to be Elder so bad then you should try and earn it yourself, instead of just taking over,” Mom said, her eyes narrowing.

“Power is everything, you should know that Grim. You should also know that nopony double crosses me. You always think you’re ten steps ahead of everypony, well it’s time for a reality check. You’re not.”

Mom backed up a little, “What do you mean Crackerjack?”

He chuckled a little and responded, “You see I had a feeling you’d pull something like this, so I got insurance.”

Anger became apparent in mom’s voice as she responded, “What did you do!?”

Seeming to ignore her, he started to walk around her slowly, “Did you know that there are ponies looking for you? One in particular was very interested to find you and your daughter. He found me a few months back, when I told him I knew where you were he was quite adamant on knowing the information. I wonder… how much do you want to hide from your old life?”

Mom drew her laser pistol, “You didn’t.”

“Oh but I did, he’s on his way here right now, I’m surprised he hasn’t arrived already. He is running a little late, though if you tell me what I want to know I can still help you hide from him,” Crackerjack said, still chuckling lightly.

“You’re bluffing, there’s no way he’d work with a Steel Ranger!”

“He would if it meant finding you. Now are you going to tell me what I want to know or do you want to face the pony you left behind back at home?”

Mom lowered her pistol, then slowly holstered it, “Fine you win,” She rummaged in her saddle bags and pulled out a Memory Orb, she was careful I noticed, not to concentrate too much on the orb so she wouldn’t be drawn into it, “This will show you what to expect inside the stable and where it’s located. I made it only a few hours ago.”

“Why would you put it into a memory orb?” he asked sounding skeptical.

“Because it’s the best way for me to make sure I remember what I need to without the memory being in my own head, cutting the memory out makes it so that no other unicorn can dig through my head and find the information. Still risky since the orb can be watched by any unicorn, but easier for me to hide,” she replied.

“How does that help me? I’m an earth pony, I can’t watch memory orbs like a unicorn can.”

“I know you have your ways of getting a recollecter,” Mom said, then she grinned and I felt her pull something else from her saddle bags, “Still, I really don’t feel like giving you the memory orb. If I did, you’d ruin everything,” then she threw it at him along with a spark grenade.

The memory orb was supposed to be a distraction, but Crackerjack wasn’t a stupid pony. He saw the spark grenade before it went off, and he opened his power armor and jumped out of it right before the Grenade went off. When he did he rolled then got back to his hooves, “Oh you’ll pay for that Grimoire.”

“I don’t see how, since you’re out of your power armor, you’re a lot easier to take on now,” her horn flashed and two lines of magical energy blasted toward Crackerjack.

The green pony dodged to one side then rushed her. She teleported, my host’s vision going black then coming back into focus on the other side of Crackerjack. She cast the spell again, the twin lines of energy flying at him like a whip. He turned just in time to avoid taking a blow to his back, but as he turned and jumped back, the tips of the spell slapped him in the face. He howled in pain as two lines were cut into his face, I know that later they’d become the twin scars I’d seen him with. Right now he was howling in pain, looking like he was blind for the moment.

My host unholstered her pistol again and fired. The blast of red magical energy hit home. He was blasted back and sent rolling along the hard ground. When he stopped he didn’t get back up, though his red bar was still there, so he must have been rendered unconscious.

Taking a few steps back she used her magic to pull something else from her saddle bags. A second later she attached what I guessed was a broadcaster to her Pip-Buck, she searched through a couple channels until she found the one she wanted. When she clicked on it she said, “This is Senor Scribe Grimoire Spell, I need to speak with Elder Appleslice.”

A few seconds passed then the familiar voice of the Elder echoed out of her Pip-Buck, “Grim, this is Elder Appleslice. Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear ma’am.”

“Are you out of the Stable and do you have a new report for me?”

“I am and we have a problem,” Mom said not stopping to wait for The Elder to respond, “I didn’t find my contact where he should’ve been, another Steel Ranger from Manehattan was here instead. He wanted the Mark II and he attacked me trying to get the location of the Stable. I was able to fend him off but he’s still alive.”

A moment passed then, “Who was it?”

“Paladin Crackerjack.”

“We got reports that he ran away from his post in Manehattan and stole power armor, keep him alive. Can you retrieve the power armor?”

“No it’s too damaged for me to do anything with it.”

“Vervain knows how to fix it, is there anything she can do?” The Elder asked.

“I’m sorry to say that Paladin Vervain is no longer with me, she didn’t make it out of the Stable. I’ll explain more when I get back,” Mom said.

“We have a team not far from Cartwheel, keep Crackerjack there until they arrive.”

“I can’t do that, he got away, you can still send the team. The power armor will still be here when they arrive, it’s on the west end of town on the other side of the pass.”

“Understood, get back as soon as you can, we’ll need to debrief you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Mom replied.

“Elder Appleslice out,” the broadcast went dead after that.

Looking over at Crackerjack she sighed, “I guess I should get rid of those memories before you make more trouble for me down the road. I just wish you could’ve just shut up and done as you were told.”

Something clicked behind Mom, the sound of a hammer pulling back, a stallion’s voice spoke slowly, “Not so fast Grim, do you know how long I’ve been trying to find you?”

Mom smiled but didn’t move, “It’s been awhile Night Shade.”

“Yes it has. Don’t go trying anything stupid, you know I can kill you before you can do anything to me.”

“That I do, though I didn’t think you would put a gun to the back of my head like this. Do you distrust me so much?”

“You were told what would happen if you left, you knew and you still did,” he sounded angry.

“Yes, but I had to, it was the only way. The question is, why haven’t you shot me already?”

“You should know that already, where’s Star?”

“Oh so that’s it, you didn’t come looking for me, you came looking for her. Well I can tell you that she’s safe.”

“If she’s safe then why isn’t she with you? Did you leave her with those Steel Ranger bastards?” he asked, keeping his voice low, but his anger was easy to hear.

“No, she’s in the Stable I was staying in.”

“I don’t believe you, she’s a sick filly and you’re the only pony who knows how to keep her alive. You wouldn’t let her out of your sight for more than a day or two. Now, where is she?”

“She’s not sick anymore, she’s cured…at least for the most part.”

“And you left her behind? What kind of mother are you to leave your own child behind?”

Something seemed to touch a nerve when he said this and Mom said angrily, “A mother who cares about her daughter’s happiness, don’t patronize me, you don’t even know me anymore Night Shade. You don’t have the right to tell me how to raise my daughter.”

A soft sigh came from behind her, “You’re right, I don’t know you anymore Grim, I’m not sure I ever did. Tell me where she is so I can at least get her home.”

Mom turned her head a little, but I still couldn’t see the pony she was talking to, “Her name is Shadow Star now, she also looks a little different. It’s a side effect from the spell I had to use to save her, she also doesn’t remember anything.”

“You lie!” he yelled.

“I don’t, she didn’t even know who I was until I told her. Something happened to her and because of it, she started having bad dreams. I had to go and block most of her memories for now, until she’s older at least.”

“You mean she doesn’t even know where she’s from, or who her family is?”

“Yes, all she knows is she’s from outside the stable and that I’m her mother, that’s all that matters right now. Just forget about her and me, we aren’t the same ponies anymore, and we aren’t ever going back. Now can you please stop pointing that thing at me so I can go?”

Damn mom wasn’t scared of anything, she’d just taken on a monster of a pony, who would later become a scary Boss for a lot of Raiders, now she was calmly talking to somepony who had a gun pointed at the back of her head. A minute passed then I heard the pony sigh again, “You’re a bitch Grimoire, fine get out of here. I’ll let you go for now, for old time sake, but the next time I see you you’re dead.”

“We’ll see about that,” Mom said her horn glowing again, “Do me one favor Night Shade.”

“I’m not really in the mood for doing Favors but what is it.”

“One day Shadow will leave that stable, I’ve made sure of it. When that days comes…if you can…watch out for her, Just in case I can’t,” Mom said through her sorrow.

The Stallion sighed again, “Until the day I die, you should know that by now, and if I can’t I know another pony who will.”

She smiled a little, “I’m glad to hear that, goodbye Night Shade.”

Before he could say anything else, Mom teleported away. She didn’t even take the extra time to wipe away the memories of Crackerjack, or get the Memory Orb she’d thrown at him. Whoever that pony Night Shade was…she wanted to get as far away from him as she could.

When she reappeared, she was in Cartwheel right in front of Equestrian Express. She sighed, wiped away her tears then pushed the door open. Box Tape was sitting in a chair next to the counter, he smiled his warm welcoming smile at her and said, “Welcome to Equestrian Express how can I help ya ta’day.”

“I need a message delivered to a pony in Los Alicorn, he’s the Elder of the Steel Ranger branch out there.”

Box Tape’s smile fell, “Elder Wolfsbane you mean, how do ya know him?”

“It doesn’t matter, let’s just say I’m an old friend.”

He looked her over quickly then asked, “You from a Stable?”

“In a way yes, I just left it, Stable 28.”

“Hmmm, odd, you ain’t the normal pony I know who trades from there. Why did you leave the Stable and come all this way?”

“I just told you, now can you get my message to Elder Wolfsbane or not? I’m kind of in a hurry,” she said, her voice sounding strained.

He smiled warmly, “Of Course I can, I have a courier that heads out that way in a couple of days. He’ll be sure to get it to the Elder for you.”

“How much?”

“Six Hundred Caps,” he said still smiling, “Can I ask you one more thing though?”

Mom used her magic to pull out a bag of Caps, she started to count them out on the counter as she said, “I think you just did, but go on.”

“Why do ya’ look so down in the dumps?”

Fresh tears threatened to fall again, mom did her best to keep her composure as she responded, “I had to leave my Stable to escape my Overmare, I had to leave my daughter behind.”

Box Tape’s smile disappeared. He got up off his chair and looked at her again and said, “Wait right there, I’ll be right back.”

As he walked off into his other room, mom moved quickly going around to the back of his counter. Using her magic, she pulled one of the floorboards up, there was a small space under it. Quickly she placed a wrapped bundle into it with a note on top that said, ‘For my Little Star’ she quickly replaced the floorboard then returned to where she’d been standing right before Box Tape returned.

He came in with two Sparkle Cola’s, he set them down on the counter then said, “I understand what it’s like to have to say goodbye to a child. Now how about you tell me everything, you look like you need to get a few things off your chest.”

Mom laughed, then broke down, she started sobbing uncontrollably. Box Tape just shook his head and walked over to her. He pulled her into an embrace and let her cry into his shoulder slowly patting her back, “There you go child, just let it all out…”

The memory melted away, the sounds of mom’s sobs still echoing in my mind…

oooOOOooo

When I came out of the Memory Orb, the first thing I did was check my surroundings. The memory hadn’t been very long, but it was long enough for somepony to do something, but nothing seemed to be wrong. I was still laying on the bed, the memory orb sitting next to me. Maybe Silver really had been cranky and she just reacted to what I was doing badly. I hated to admit it, but I didn’t really know what Silver Snip was like when she got angry. Maybe this was it, though I still felt like something was off.

Then I heard something on the other side of the cave. Sitting up I saw Silver, she was rummaging through my Saddle bags searching for something. I also noticed that she was talking to herself, “Where the fuck is she keeping it? It has to be here somewhere.”

“What the fuck are you doing in my saddle bags!?”

She jumped and looked over her shoulder at me, “Oh you’re up already? I figured that would’ve taken longer.”

Getting up I walked toward her, my magic taking hold of Dream Walker which was still holstered on my side. I kept it pointed down though and said, “What the fuck was that all about huh? Did Lust threaten you or something, is that why you’re acting so different?”

She smiled at me, “Lust didn’t make me do anything Shadow, I already told you why I was acting the way I am.”

“Bullshit!”

Her cocky smile faded, “Believe me or don’t, I’m still me. It’s not my fault you can’t seem to figure that out.”

“Why are you looking through my bags?”

She looked lost for a second, almost like she was trying to find the right answer, “Uh…I was looking for a recording.”

“What recording?”

“The one you took off Gluttony, I wanted to listen to it,” she said, giving me a sweet smile. It was almost perfect, just like I’d expect from Silver when she was being her normal self. It was almost like a switch had been flipped and my loving Silver was back.

“Why do you want it?”

“It doesn’t matter I just do,” she replied.

Using my magic I pulled the saddle bags closer to me and shut it. Something was wrong here, I could tell. Deciding to go with my gut I asked, “Silver, I’m sorry I upset you earlier, but before I give it to you can you tell me something?”

“Sure thing Shadow, and I’m sorry I hit you, I really don’t know what came over me,” there it was again, that sweet smile of hers, a perfect copy of the Silver I knew and loved, but I could see through it now. Her eyes told me a different story than her smile did, there was no joy in those eyes, they were empty. They lacked the compassion, the love, and the playfulness they should have.

“Who’s Morning Star?” I asked, almost whispering the words.

The question took Silver by surprise, she chuckled nervously then said, “That’s a silly question Shadow.”

“Just answer me.”

“Fine, it’s the name you like to go by when you’re in a bad mood,” she said, waving her hoof in a small circle, almost like it was nothing.

I felt my heart break, it couldn’t be. She was right, it was a silly question, but it was also one she should know more than any other pony. Closing my eyes, I brought Dream Walker up and pointed it right at her head. Anger flowed through me along with my sorrow as I asked, “Who are you and what did you do with Silver?”

She backed up a little, “Shadow what’re you doing? Put that down before somepony gets hurt.”

I pulled back on the hammer, “Who the fuck are you and what did you do with Silver!? Don’t try and lie to me again, or I swear to The Goddesses, I’ll drop you here and now.”

Her expression changed and she smiled wider, “Damn, I thought it would have taken you a lot longer to figure it out,” she started to clap her hooves together, then she stood, “What was it I got wrong? Was it the eyes or was it my charming personality? Did I miss a birth mark or was it something else? Maybe it was the cutie mark, I do have such a hard time making one that’s perfect.”

As she stood I noticed something green glowing around her, “Who are you? What are you?”

“Now-now Shadow, it’s my turn to talk,” she said, but this time her voice was different, it sounded more like a Stallion, it was still light and not deep, but still unmistakably male. The glow around her expanded, it passed over her body and she transformed. It started at her chest splitting, part of the glow going up the other going down. Her coat changed from apple red to sickly green, the body grew, her mane changed to black and changed into long spiky dreadlocks that hung just inches from the ground, a red head band wrapped around her…no his head. That nasty grin grew wider as he looked at me with his vibrant purple eyes.

Fear gripped me as I looked over at the pegasus who just a moment ago had looked like my mare friend. Somehow, he had changed into a set of black combat armor with a Tribal Serpent on the flank. I didn’t even have to ask, I knew who this had to be. The last Sin, I took another step back, Dream Walker shaking in my magical grip.

“Hello Shadow, I’m Envy the Jealous, first member of The Seven Sins of Equinity,” he said chuckling as he slowly walked toward me, his wings fluttering in excitement.

Wait a second… first member? I cocked my head to one side, “First member? I thought that Pride would be the first member of the Sins since he’s the Leader.”

He laughed, “You think we’re ranked like that? Yes, Pride is the leader, but we’re ranked by who’s the strongest. Pride is the second member of the Sins, it’s true that I may not be able to kill him, but he can’t beat me in a fight. None of the Sins can, honestly I’d be the perfect pony to lead the Sins, if I cared to.”

None of this mattered right now, I didn’t just have Stardust to worry about, now I had to know what happened to Silver. Somehow between getting to Frosty Summit and here, Envy switched with her. Either they captured her too…or…she was dead. No matter what it was, I’d have to find out. I steadied Dream Walker, took a deep breath, then said, “What did you do with Silver Snip? If you hurt her? I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Oh, she’s fine, at least for now,” Envy said.

“Where is she?”

“She’s safe I promise. Right now, she’s keeping my friends company.”

“WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE!?” I yelled, pulling back on the trigger just a little.

The large smile on Envy’s face slackened, as he looked over at me, “I told you she’s safe, for now at least, or did that not get through your thick skull Shrimp? If you do what I want you to do, then she’ll stay that way, if not…”

I pulled the trigger, Envy was cut off by the bark of my pistol firing. He jumped to one side then rushed me. Before I could get another shot off, Envy took hold of my neck, put me into a head lock then twisted me around, slamming me down to the rocky floor of the cave. I lost my hold on Dream Walker as he pinned me down. I tried to buck him off, but he was a lot stronger than I was. I tried to take hold of my gun again, but he slammed a hoof down on my horn.

Stars erupted in my vison as pain flew from my horn and into my head. I wanted to scream, but Envy was still holding my neck, keeping me in the head lock. His muzzle came close to my ear as he whispered, “I wouldn’t try that again, you don’t stand a chance against me.”

As he spoke he let up on my throat so I could breathe. I took a few quick breaths then said, “I’ve killed one of you already, and took another captive. What makes you think I can’t take you on?”

“Because, I’m a hundred times stronger than most of them, even Pride. They have nothing on me. So be a good mare and listen, or keep fighting me and die. Just so you know, if you do I won’t only kill you, I’ll kill the kid, your griffon friend, and Silver,” he said then slowly he got off me and backed away.

I got up as well, rubbing my neck slowly. I wanted to do something, but what could I do? He was right, I had no way of fighting him. Keeping my head down I asked, “What do you want? Why did you take Silver? Why even make yourself look like her?”

He looked at me, “Heh heh,” he smiled wickedly again “Now there’s a good pony. It’s simple really, we need you alive Runt, at least for now.”

“Could’ve fooled me, just last night your friends tried killing me.”

His smile widened at that, “Ha! That they did, but you see, I’ve been following you for a long time now Pipsqueak, there’s something special about you, and I don’t just mean your Pip-Buck. Pride and Cloak may want you dead, I’m sure you know Cloak wants your Pip-Buck, but somepony in the High Council wants you kept alive.”

“Then why did they try and kill me last night?”

“Cloak knows it’s the fastest way to get you’re Pip-Buck. She has her orders and I have mine. If they couldn’t take you out when we went in to get Stardust, then I was to take you in alive. The problem with that is, you always seem to find a way to get away. You’re one lucky mare, so we needed a backup plan. That’s where I came in,” he said still smiling his large smile.

“So you took Silver to make sure I’d go along with your plan.”

“Oh look, you ARE a smart pony. You got it Kid,” he cackled “You see if we have the one pony you care about more than even yourself, then you’ll do whatever we want.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to admit it, “How do I even know you’re telling me the truth, how do I even know Silver’s still alive?”

“You don’t, but I give you my word that she is. It will have to do for now. If you don’t do what I want, she’ll die, and not quickly either. I’ll make sure she suffers for a long time before she finally kicks the bucket,” he looked off to the side, “Maybe I can’t get her to write her bucket list now, a lot of good that would do her,” he cackled again, “She wouldn’t get much use of it anyways”

I lowered my head, defeated, I couldn’t bargain with the life of any of my friends. They had Stardust, and now Silver. If I did anything that pissed them off, both of them would die, same for my other friends. Doing my best not to let my sorrow show I asked, “How long have you been following me?”

He started to laugh louder, “You mean before I knocked out your mare friend and took her hostage or after?”

“I figured you took Silver during the battle at Frosty Summit, so before.”

“Ever since we got the call that the Mark II left your Stable,” he said still chuckling.

Another chill ran down my spine, why have they been following me for so long? Unless…. “You were the ones who sent the transmissions to my Overmare, weren’t you?”

“Close but no apple cider. No, Cloak hired another faction of griffons to locate the Mark II then to get it from your Stable. When they got the call about you running away with it, I was sent to Cartwheel to find and follow you. Simple job at first, Cloak wanted to see where you would go with the Mark II and to see what you were planning on doing with it. She wasn’t sure why a Stable Dweller would just up and run away with it unless she knew what she had.”

He started to slowly walk around me as he spoke, “You remember the Bartender back in Cartwheel, the one who made you that nice dinner you enjoyed with the old pony? Well that was me.”

I just sat there in horror as he spoke, only able to speak in a small whisper, “What happened to the Bartender if you were disguising yourself to look like him?”

“Oh Shrimp, I think you know.”

“You killed him?”

“Very good! I’m not sure if they’ll find his body or not though,” he said almost like an afterthought, then he shrugged, “Doesn’t matter, well after you took down the Raider camp I knew there was something different about you, so I decided to keep following you. It wasn’t hard at first, I knew where you were going. Now getting into the Steel Ranger bunker, that was hard. Luckily for me an hour or so before you arrived, I was able to take down a Knight of theirs. I made myself look like him, stole his power armor, and was able to be there when you were attacked.”

“You mean you were Knight Spike Hoof too?”

“Oooo two for two, can she guess correctly again?” he laughed once more, “I think I did a good job with that one. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in the bunker and he was a pony I’d seen a few times before. After that I did lose track of you for a little bit. When you blew a hole in the cloud layer… that pissed a few ponies off. I was called back and the hunt to take you down was on. It took a little convincing, but I was able to get Cloak to let me come back and start watching you again. I saw when you first met Wrath, Pride, and Greed in Freedom. I saw the fun time you had with your friends in New Pegasus, I even watched as you escaped Stable 14. I watched you use Greed to help you escape from The Bramble, and when I saw you with Silver, I finally knew what had to be done. She was the key to getting you to come to us willingly.”

“Why? I don’t understand why you wanted to know so much about me or why I matter so much. I’m just a normal Unicorn.”

He just smiled again and laughed, “You don’t matter all that much Kid, but you ARE interesting. I like things that interest me, and having you alive can benefit Cloak too. She wants the Pip-Buck yes, but if we outright kill you we risk the Pip-Buck wiping the data on it. It’s a risk she was willing to take, but now, we don’t have to.”

I sighed, “So here we are, you have the mare I love and my best friend. You’ve finally backed me into a corner, what do you want me to do?”

“It’s simple Small Fry, I want you to leave this place and go to where the rest of the Sins are waiting for you. If you do, then Silver gets to go free. You also can’t bring the brat or your bodyguard. If we see them at all, Silver dies.”

My heart felt like it was breaking again, I held back the sobs that were trying to press their way past my thin walls of defenses, threating to overwhelm me. I closed my eyes and said, “Fine, I’ll make sure Aura and Wingnut stay here. When do we leave?”

The green glow showed up around Envy again, a moment later he took the form of Silver, “We aren’t doing anything Shadow. I’m leaving now, you’ll wait here, long enough to leave a note telling your friends that you left. You can’t tell them where you went or why. I don’t want you leaving them some kind of clue of what happened. Like I said, if we see them following you in any way, Silver dies.”

I closed my eyes hard, trying and failing to hold back the tears, “Fine…and what about Stardust?”

Envy laughed again, “Don’t concern yourself with that runaway. I’ll tell you he’s still alive, but he isn’t your problem anymore.”

“But he’s my friend…”

Envy moved close to me cutting me off, “He’s a tool of the Enclave just like us, he’s not your friend. You have no idea what or who he really is. All you’ve seen is a pony that likes to joke around and protects you, but that’s not who Stardust really is. Just forget about him, and worry about yourself. He won’t die, but you’ll never seen him again,” he turned and started to walk out of the cave, he stopped then turned back to look at me. In Silver’s sweet voice he said, “You have one day to meet Pride and the rest of us at The Halo One power station at the top of the main tower. If you’re late, she’s dead. If you try and do anything to save her, she’s dead. If you do anything that isn’t what I told you to do, she’s dead.”

After that he was gone, leaving me to sit there looking out at the darkening cloud covered sky. It took me a few minutes to find the strength to finally get back to my hooves and make my way over to the bed. Quietly I pulled my saddle bags over to me and fished out a scrap of paper. It took me a little longer to find something I could use to write with. Once I finally did, I started to write…

Aura,

I’m sorry to have to do this, but I’ve been thinking about things while you were away. First, I want you to know that I’m happy I met you. You have no idea how good it felt to find a friend in The Wasteland, one that seemed to understand me more than anyone ever has. Thank you for being my friend even after everything that happened. Sadly, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t keep searching for my mom, or for the answers behind the Mark II. I’m so tired Aura, tired of the secrets, the lies, and the pain. Please make sure the Caps get to Gigi or Apollo so they can try and find Stardust. All I ask is that you try and get him back. He deserves a better life than he’s had.

I also want you to keep an eye on Wingnut for me, make sure he finds a good place to live, somewhere his mind can be put to good use to make things better in The Wasteland. He’s a good kid, and where I’m going, I can’t take him. I’m ending our Contract and heading east, I’m going to see about getting into Tenpony Tower in Manehattan. Mom said she had a friend there that would take me in. I hope you find you’re place in this world. Remember that things aren’t always bad. Remember to laugh now and then and not to dwell in the past too much, you’re better than that. Goodbye.

Shadow Star

P.S. You were right, I should’ve listened to you from the beginning.

Finishing the letter, I set it down on the bed and placed Aura’s contract down on top of it. A single tear fell and landed on the note, smudging it where I’d signed my name. Turning I headed out of the cave and back down toward the open area of Crimson Canyon. Slowly I walked over to the Statue of Greta and looked up at it. She looked so proud and strong, more than I could ever be. I wondered to myself if she had to make an impossible decision like this. If so what would she have done? I’m sure she wouldn’t have given up, like I was right now.

I turned east, toward the exit of Crimson Canyon and started to walk away, leaving behind my last two friends. I knew how Aura and Wingnut would take me leaving, they would see it as a betrayal in no small way. I’d promised Wingnut that I’d never leave him behind or abandon him, now I was. I told Aura that I would always be there for her just like she was for me, now I was leaving on a lie. But what else could I do? Either Silver died and I stayed with my friends, or I left and lied to them about why I had to leave, and Silver would live. My world was coming to an end, there was no way out of this, I have to do this. Either way I’d lose the mare I loved, at least this way, she’d get to live. Maybe one day she’d find a better mare, one that was better than I was. I’m sure when she was freed she’d find Aura and tell her what really happened. Aura would be pissed, but she couldn’t do anything by then. It was for the best, it had to be this way.

As I started to exit the Canyon, I took one last look behind me, back at my old life just like when I left Stable 28. I took a deep breath and whispered, “Goodbye…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Enhanced Telekinesis: You have learned how to better control your Telekinesis, you can now hold more than one weapon and manipulate multiple things at the same time.

Chapter 23: All Out of Love

“What the fuck is an Azimuth?”

Getting out of Crimson Canyon wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I figured that after talking with Gigi about finding Stardust, she’d keep an eye on me, if only to make sure I was safe while in her lands. Leaving through the east entrance however was quite uneventful. I saw a couple griffons flying over me, but once they saw I was just another pony heading out, they flew off leaving me alone. After a short walk I reached the other side and came to ruins of a prewar town.

The town was mostly destroyed, but not from an exploding balefire bomb or anything like it. No, time had done it’s work on the homes and shops. From the looks of it, the town hasn’t been inhabited since the war. As far as I could tell, the only sign of any inhabitants recently was a large archway over the entrance to Crimson Canyon. It read ‘The Red Talon Company, Enter at your own risk.’ That’s a weird message for a mercenary company to have at the entrance to their home. But I guess it was a good way to keep desperate ponies from trying to attack the place. With the reputation The Red Talons have, it didn’t take much to scare away fiends and raiders with a simple message like that.

I looked out toward the town then started to head toward the nearest house. As I drew close my Pip-Buck notified me that I had just discovered ‘Sandstone Ruins’. It made sense I guess, since the town was bumped right up against Crimson Canyon. The red sandstone made for a beautiful background around the little town. Deciding it didn’t matter, I walked over to the front door to a nearby house.

I pushed the door open, ignoring the loud creek it made as it swung open on rusty hinges. The sound echoed loudly inside the small house. Walking inside I took a look around. As I expected, the place looked like it was abandoned in a hurry. They must’ve fled as soon as the sirens sounded. Probably ran to a local stable. There were still pictures on the wall, it looked like a family lived here. One picture showed them all together, a mare, a stallion, and two foals. They were all smiling happily as if they didn’t have a care in the world. They probably didn’t, even with the war and everything going on. This town was more isolated than most and probably never had to worry about seeing a zebra attack, at least they shouldn’t have had to worry.

I sighed and started looking through the drawers of a small desk against the far wall. There wasn’t much, a few scraps of paper that were faded and illegible, but there were a few caps in the drawer and a snub-nosed revolver with a box of .38 caliber ammo. I slipped them into my saddle bags and continued on. Heading into the kitchen, past a small table with rotted food still there. I noticed something odd in the corner of the small space. Walking over I saw that a small safe was set into the floor, it looked like something was meant to cover it, but somepony moved it revealing the safe. Moving closer I looked it over, it seemed another pony previously tried to force it open, the lock was in bad shape almost ready to jam.

“What are you hiding I wonder?” I said to myself as I pulled out my bobby pins. The lock may have been in bad shape, but a few moments later I had it. Inside I found more ammo for the revolver, a few prewar bits, and more documents. They were marked with a symbol of a lightning bolt with open wings, marked with M.O.A. above. They must’ve been important, so I slipped them into my bags as well, intending to look them over later.

I looked around the house more, but whoever came before me, already took anything worth taking. I tried to look through the rest of the homes as well, but most of them had collapsed in on themselves. I was just finishing with one of the shops when I felt rain starting to fall. I looked up at the sky and cursed, “Fuck, you have to go and rain now!?” I lowered my head and chuckled a little “I suppose it’s only fitting considering the circumstance.”

“It always seems like the world is out to get you doesn’t it Shadow?” Morning Star said, only now her voice didn’t seem to come from within my own head.

Looking around I saw a white shape coming out of the rain, a moment later Morning Star was standing in front of me, her smug smile planted on her face. I moaned and shook my head, “Don’t tell me I passed out again.”

“No, not this time Shadow,” she said slowly walking around me.

“Then how am I seeing you?” I asked then I cursed, “I thought the talisman was keeping you trapped in my head?”

She laughed, “It is for the most part. Though it’s not a very powerful talisman, whoever made it wasn’t very skilled. True I can’t just take you over or talk to you whenever I want, but from time to time I can push past the protection spell it holds. Sooner or later I’ll get past the spell altogether and you won’t be able to stop me. I’m getting more powerful every day that goes by. As for how you can see me, well let’s just say that I’ve been learning a few new tricks while I’ve been sequestered in your head.”

I turned and walked away heading down the path leading away from the town. She followed me humming a little tune to herself. I stopped and looked back at her, “Do you mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Didn’t Grim ever teach you that it’s rude to ignore somepony when they’re talking to you?” Morning Star said giving me a crooked smile.

“Fuck off, I don’t have time to deal with you,” I said doing my best to ignore her as I continued down the path.

“Where are we going?” she asked still humming the increasingly annoying tune.

“Why do you even care?”

“It gets boring inside your head, It’s all dark and echoey. I want to know what we’re doing.”

“We aren’t doing anything, I’m heading to Halo One to get Silver back from the Sins.”

“And how do you plan on doing that? Do you really think you have what it takes to bring down Pride, what about Sloth, or any of them? You got lucky with Gluttony, but you don’t stand a chance against the rest of them.”

“I’m not planning on fighting them. I’m turning myself in.”

She froze, “You’re doing what!?”

“You heard me. I’m turning myself over to The Sins. I can’t deal with this anymore, too many ponies are getting hurt because of my stubbornness.”

“You can’t do that, what about finding Grim, or your other friend? Isn’t that why you went all the way to Crimson Canyon in the first place?”

I stopped, for a second I just let the rain fall on me. Feeling it slowly wash away the grim and dirt, then I said slowly, “Go away Morning Star, you can’t do anything to stop me. I’m gonna go save the mare I love, the only way I know how. I’m not that great of a fighter, my magic is shit compared to most unicorns, and I’m not that smart. I can’t think of a way to save her and get away, but turning myself over to them will save her, I can do that at least.”

“Then let her die.”

“You can’t be serious,” I started to say, but she cut me off.

“Do you think they’ll really let her leave once you turn yourself in? The Sins aren’t known for their mercy, you know I’m right Shadow.”

I turned on her, “What do you know anyway huh!? You’re nothing but some evil spirit living inside of me, why would I do anything you say?”

She gave me a sad smile, all of her smugness and malice leaving her face, “I am many things Shadow, but I’m not evil. You may think I am, but I’m not. You don’t know anything about me or yourself for that matter. I’m only telling you the truth as I always have, you don’t have to believe me, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“You’re being terribly nice, I don’t like it,” I said, giving her an angry stare.

“Let’s just say that I have your best interests in mind Shadow.”

“You won’t change my mind Morning Star. I’m going to go save Silver.”

Seeming to ignore me she said, “It’s funny how you seemed to fall in love with a pony you barley know. I mean if I was in your place I would’ve fell for Stardust, you know him a lot better than you do Silver and he’s always there for you. Plus, those eyes get me all hot and bothered if you know what I mean.”

“He’s my friend, I don’t see him that way. I know Silver more than you think.”

She started to laugh, sounding more like the Morning Star I knew, “Hahaha, you keep telling yourself that Shadow, but if you want my opinion which I’m sure you don’t. You shouldn’t go into this blind, if I can’t change your mind then at least listen to what I have to say.”

“It’s not like I can just get away from you, what do you want to say? Make it quick.”

“Don’t just run right in there ready to give up. Think of a plan while you head to Halo One. I’m sure there’s more than one way to go about this. Find out where Silver is being kept, and find a way to get her out before they can do anything.” She said, I noticed that she was starting to fade.

“How can I do that though?” I asked.

She grinned at me with that crazed smile of hers, “You’ll have to figure the rest out on your own Shadow, I’m out of time. Don’t worry, we’ll see each other again soon, in the meantime don’t die…” and with a crazed laugh, she vanished.

I just stared at the place where she’d been for a long moment. I didn’t feel scared that she was able to communicate with me again, or that she was getting more powerful even with the ward. I just felt empty. Maybe she was right, was it really worth leaving everything I loved behind just to save one pony? Was Silver worth my life? “Yes she is,” I said to myself turning to head further down the path, letting the rain wash over my coat, “I don’t care what you say Morning Star, I’m not giving up on her.”

As I walked the rain started to fall faster, a storm rolling in like a herd of feral ghouls. The wind picked up and started whipping the rain into my face and eyes. Lightning flashed across the sky lighting up the landscape, giving everything a flat look with each burst of light. The thunder that followed was like small bombs going off in the distance. I hated the rain, and at the same time I loved it. Yes, it was a beautiful thing, washing away everything dirty and gross cleansing the land and body in it’s beautiful fury. At the same time, when you were alone in The Wasteland, it was scary as shit. That feeling only got worse when the already dark sky became pitch black, so much so that I couldn’t even see my hoof in front of my face. I almost thought I was going to get struck by lightning. I already had a close call at Gator’s fiend town under Stable 9.

How the hell was I supposed to find my way to Halo One when I couldn’t even see the path? It was like The Goddesses themselves were doing all they could to make sure I didn’t make it in time. As I was slowly walking deep in thought, my hoof caught on a rock that was sticking out of the path. I fell face first into the soft muddy ground. Rolling over onto my back, looking up at the downpour as it rolled over The Wasteland, I just started to laugh. I’m not sure why, but it was just too damn funny, no matter what I tried, something in The Wasteland wanted to make it ten times harder to do.

I shook my hoof up at the heavens and yelled, “Fuck you Celestia or Luna, you think a little rain and some lightning is gonna keep me from saving her. Well you’re wrong, nothing can stop me. I’m gonna save her like you should’ve saved all of us.”

Lightning cracked again and the rain fell harder. Large droplets slamming down to earth as if to show me how wrong I was. Rolling back onto my hooves I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out the mask and goggles that went with the outfit Silver made for me. I put them on and found they worked well to keep the water out of my eyes. I reached up and found a small gem imbedded along one side, when I tapped it everything around me seemed to come into focus. It looked almost like the land around me was being bathed in a gentle red light, cutting through the darkness like butter. So, Silver was right, they did help in low light situations. I still couldn’t see that far ahead of me, but a few feet is better than nothing at all.

“Haha, Shadow one, Goddesses zero,” I said as I started to work my way further down the path. I was just cresting a hill when I saw there was what looked like a small camp in the distance. There was a flag being flown from a pole in front of the camp, a two headed ursa on it, “Must be the N.L.R. I wonder what they’re doing all the way out here.”

It was just then that I noticed how cold I was getting. Not surprising with how utterly soaked my body and barding was. Shivering a little I followed the path toward the camp, it was still a good distance, but shouldn’t take more than a few minutes or so. Maybe they had a dry place that I could rest to wait out the storm.

I hadn’t gone far when something splashed a few feet in front of me, followed by a white bar on my E.F.S., a pair of yellow eyes glowing in the distance. “Who’s there? I’m in no mood to play games.” My heart almost stopped then the pony’s face came into focus, “Wind Thrasher?”

Moving close the grey batpony smiled, “About time I found you Shadow, you had me worried sick. Where do you think you’re going?”

I walked past her, “Leave me alone Wind Thrasher, I don’t have time to talk right now.”

She trotted up next to me, seemingly ignoring the downpour around us, “There’s always time to talk. Now, where are you going and why isn’t Aura or the Colt with you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, I don’t have time to talk. Just go back, you have your own stuff to deal with,” I said still walking toward the N.L.R. camp.

She walked in front of me and blocked the path, “Something’s wrong, I can tell.”

‘Hold it in Shadow, you were told not to tell anyone where you were going’ I told myself, but no. I was told not to bring Wingnut or Aura, Envy didn’t say anything about Wind Thrasher, of course because Envy walked off before Wind Thrasher had shown up, and he wasn’t there when I met her in Stable 9. She was an unknown to The Sins. A little flare of hope flickered up inside me and I felt the sorrow fading a little.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t have time Wind Thrasher. I’ll make this quick. Silver Snip, who’s my mare friend, was taken by a group called The Seven Sins of Equinity, one of them used some kind of strange magic to make himself look like her. They told me I have to go to them and leave my friends behind. If I do they’ll let her go…or so they say. My hooves are tied right now, so I’m heading to Halo One to meet with them.”

“Halo One? You mean the power plant just south of New Pegasus?”

“I think so, I was planning on asking somepony at the N.L.R. camp down there,” I said pointing in the distance toward the camp.

She gave a look of melancholy, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I think there is. First I need to know if you finished your business with the Red Talons.”

“I did, Gigi’s oldest Daughter Syn is going to go talk to one of the other Talon Companies and get them to drop that bounty on me. So, for right now I’m free to do whatever. What do you need me to do?”

I grinned, “How’d you like to help me get my mare friend back from the assholes that took her?”

She smiled her sharp toothed grin at me, “I do owe you my life Shadow, so sure I’d love to help you, but didn’t you just say that you had to go alone?”

“Envy told me not to bring Aura or Wingnut with me, they don’t even know who you are,” my smile grew bigger as a plan started to form, “I’ll tell you on the way.”

She looked skeptical, but she followed as I continued on, “If you say so, but what did Aura have to say about this plan of yours?”

I looked down at my hooves as we walked, “She doesn’t know, at least not yet. I left her a note telling her what I was doing. I’m sure once she finds it, she’ll be pissed at me.”

“You mean you just left without telling anypony where you were going?” She asked.

“Yes, I had to. If I didn’t, Aura wouldn’t have let me leave, or she’d try and come with me and if she did Silver would die. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened,” a thought came to mind as I spoke, “How did you find me anyway?”

She rolled her eyes like I was a stupid child, “I couldn’t find you back at Crimson Canyon, so I started asking around to see if any of the griffons had seen you. One told me you headed out, so I went looking for you since we didn’t have time to finish talking earlier. I started flying around to see if I could find you, when the rain started coming down I thought I should find shelter somewhere. I was heading toward the camp when I saw you.”

“How’d you see me in this storm anyway, it’s pitch black out. My goggles help me see better, but not much better.”

She laughed, “I’m not a normal pony remember? My eyes are different from yours Shadow, the night doesn’t shield anything from my sight. I can see as well at night, as most ponies can see in the day.”

Well that explained a lot, “Is that why you’re eyes glow?”

She shrugged, “I dunno, it’s not like my body came with instructions.”

“I guess the good doctor didn’t feel like telling you either huh.”

“He was too busy taking over the stable, and talking to himself about how much of a genius he was to bother telling me anything about my body.”

“Well that’s gotta be handy out here.”

She shrugged again, “I suppose it does have its advantages, it also has its drawbacks as well. Most ponies out here don’t seem to like ponies like me, the Griffons don’t seem to care much, and the same goes for some ponies I’ve met in the N.L.R. but I’ve had some bad run-ins with a group called The Steel Rangers.”

I looked at her shocked, “I told Elder Appleslice that you weren’t a danger, they shouldn’t be giving you any problems.”

“I’m not sure what happened, but when I started heading west I ran into a group of them just over the mountains. They attacked me without warning, I barely escaped with my life. Since then it seems I keep running into them, it’s almost like they’re following me. It wasn’t long after that when the griffons started hunting me.”

“Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like something The Steel Rangers I know would do.”

“It’s possible it was a different branch of the Steel Rangers. I know that The Wasteland Survival Guide said there were many different branches.”

“It’s possible, but there has to be a reason they wanted to go after you.”

“It’s not like it matters at the moment, right now let’s worry about you Shadow,” she said, right as we got to the N.L.R. camp.

“Are you sure they won’t mind you coming here?” I asked as we came up to a couple guards who were blocking the path, seemingly ignoring the rain.

She laughed again, “I’ve made a few friends while I’ve been out here, the N.L.R. doesn’t see me for what I am, but as an ally that can help them from time to time,” she walked up to both of the guard ponies, one of which smiled wide as we drew close.

“Well look what the Zebra dragged in, Wind Thrasher is that really you or are my old eyes playing tricks on me?” an older buck said.

“Hey Quick Draw, yes it’s me.”

“Well damn, it’s good to see you safe and sound. Were you able to figure things out with The Red Talons?” Quick Draw asked, his smile was fatherly in a way, kind and full of pride.

“Still don’t have all the information I need, but for now I shouldn’t have to worry about any griffons for a while.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” he looked over at me, and his face went from joyful to angry in the blink of an eye, “Who are you, and why are you wearing N.L.R. veteran ranger armor?”

I pulled off the goggles and responded, “I’m a Courier from Equestrian Express, this armor was made for me by a good friend of mine.”

“Quick Draw leave her be, she’s a friend of mine. She’s the pony who saved me from Stable 9,” Wind Thrasher said quickly.

“Is that so? You were the one who took out that horrible place then?” he asked, his expression not shifting in the least.

“Yes it was, the Overmare left a self-destruct program as a failsafe. I was able to use my Pip-Buck to remotely trigger it, and destroy the stable and everything inside. Why do you care so much?” I asked.

“I have a few friends that live in Stable City, you may know it as Trotston. They told me what lived in that place and what happened there when they all fled. I’m glad you took out that terrible place for good,” he said, his tone somber.

“It was the least I could do, I saw what he did to the ponies who didn’t make it out, and what he was doing to Wind Thrasher. I couldn’t let a pony like him live or allow his creations to escape.”

Wind Thrasher smiled at me, “Well you did let one escape.”

“And good thing too, Wind Thrasher has been a big help over the last week. It’s nice to have a pony who can survey things from up high and keep quiet when you need her to,” the older pony said.

I looked between Quick Draw and Wind Thrasher then asked, “So, how did you end up with the N.L.R.?”

She blushed a little, “Well I’m not officially a member of the New Lunar Republic, but after Quick Draw helped me out of a jam last week, I’ve been doing odd jobs for them when I can to help repay him for his kindness.”

“Yep, found the poor girl stuck in a nasty fight with some raiders. I was on patrol and figured if the raiders wanted to kill her, then I wanted her alive,” he said laughing, “So Wind Thrasher, what brings you back this way? I thought when you were done with the Talons you were going to head toward Stable City.”

“That was my plan, but I ran into my little friend here at Crimson Canyon and decided to help her with something,” it was close enough to the truth that I let it go.

The rain was still pouring down on us, all I wanted was to be dry and warm, “It’s nice to hear all about what Wind Thrasher has been doing since I last saw her and all, but is there a place where we can get out of this rain?”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” Quick Draw said, “You can both head into my tent, it’s the second one on the left. Go ahead and rest up while this storm passes.”

I thanked him and walked past the two guards and headed for the small tent, Wind Thrasher not far behind. When we reached it, and got out of the rain I pulled my barding off and hung it over a chair that was sitting next to a small desk in one corner of the tent. Then I sighed and looked at Wind Thrasher, “It sounds like you’ve been busy since I saw you last.”

She blushed a little then went to go lay on a cot, “In a small way yes. Quick Draw has been a big help over the past week and he’s a nice old pony. Ever since I left Stable 9 I’ve been wanting to go talk to the ponies in Trotston, but I’ve been too scared, so I keep doing the odd jobs for Quick Draw and some of the N.L.R. Rangers around here.”

I looked around the small tent then asked, “So is this some kind of base for the N.L.R.?”

“It’s mostly a Trading outpost for them, but they also use it as a relay point between the rangers and the normal soldiers that work this area. It serves as a base in a small way I guess, but not officially. It’s pretty much just a camp. The main purpose of the soldiers and rangers here is to keep the Romans from making their way to New Pegasus. Since their own base of operations is on the other side of the great river, they don’t see Roman Zebras often.”

“I remember hearing Mr. New Pegasus talking about The Romans. Who are they?” I asked settling down next to the cot.

“They’re Zebra’s that are led by a pony who says he is descended from the Former Caesar. He claims that the lands here are theirs and the ponies here should die or be enslaved. The N.L.R. has been fighting them for years now, keeping them from taking land on this side of the great river. At least that’s what I’ve learned from Quick Draw.”

“There’s always somepony fighting to take away what another has, even after all the death and destruction the war wrought on this land, still nothing changes,” I said getting into a foul mood just thinking about it.

“I can’t say I know anything about that, I haven’t learned all I can about this land since I got out, all I know is that the land is sick.”

I sighed, “That it is, though I’m not sure if anypony can fix it.”

“The least we can do is try,” she said as her face grew more serious, “So, lets finish what we were talking about before. Do you have a plan to get Silver back from those Sin ponies?”

“Honestly no. I didn’t even think I could do anything until you showed up, all I know is that I have to meet them at the top of some tower at the plant and I have a day to get there.”

“Last I heard the Power Plant was held by the N.L.R. but they were having problems with Steel Rangers who were trying to get in…I’d have to ask Quick Draw about it though. I’m surprised anypony from the Enclave would want to meet with you in a place surrounded by N.L.R.”

“All I know is what I was told, if The Sins want me to meet them at Halo One then that’s what I’ll do,” I said.

She tapped a hoof under her chin as if she were thinking about something for a moment then perked up, “Hold up a second,” she got up and ran from the tent and back into the downpour. A couple minutes later she came back in with two stallions following her. One was Quick Draw, the other I didn’t know, “Shadow I’d like you to meet Major Mud.”

Doing my best to keep my face straight at the officer’s name, I extended a hoof, “Nice to meet you,” after he shook it I continued, “Why did you get Quick Draw and Major Mud?”

The Major was the one who answered with a gravelly voice, “Courier Mare, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m here with Sergeant Quick Draw, because I overheard Wind Thrasher saying something about you needing to go to Halo One. Tell me what your business is there?”

“I don’t mean to be offensive, but why should I tell you my business?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice neutral.

“Because as of three days ago, we lost the tower and most of the lower levels to The Enclave. They killed a lot of my ponies and blocked us from getting in any farther. Now they control Halo One or at least most of it. I want to know why you’d be going there,” Major Mud said keeping his face unreadable.

“It’s okay Shadow, you can trust Major Mud,” Wind Thrasher said, coming to stand next to me.

“Fine. The Seven Sins of Equinity took my mare friend, they are waiting for me there to turn myself over to them.”

“So, you decided to just waltz right in and give yourself over to The Enclave?”

“Originally yes, but if I can find another way to save my mare friend without turning myself in, then I will.”

He smiled, “That’s good to hear. If you help me out with this Enclave problem then I’ll help you get inside.”

“I thought you just said they blocked you from getting in.”

“Ha, they did, but you’re a small pony, and I know that Wind Thrasher can squeeze into small places that most ponies can’t. With only the two of you sneaking in, you might be able to get past most of them and clear the tower of Enclave Soldiers from within the tower itself, maybe even get your mare friend back,” he said laughing a little.

The small flicker of hope I got before when I ran into Wind Thrasher grew into a small flame of possibility. I looked up at The Major and asked, “What can you do to help me?”

“Halo One was a new idea for power back during the war, first it used to be a solar array to gather solar energy for the ponies of New Pegasus, later a new design was engineered to use an underground river that flows under the plant to produce hydroelectric energy. The project was never fully completed, but they did make tunnels that lead from the surface to the river below. From there, passageways were dug to go right up into the tower itself. It was meant to be used to run large cables, but since some weren’t finished when the megaspells went off, they now make small tunnels that can get you all the way to the top of the central tower. If you sneak in you should be able to find your mare friend, and give us access to the facility again. If you did that, we could take back the power plant,” he explained.

Quick Draw spoke up next, “Or at the very least access the main terminal and reroute the power to go to The JetBlue Skyport.”

“Yes, that’d be helpful at the very least, even more if you could make sure The Enclave couldn’t fix it afterward,” The Major said nodding his head a little.

“You mean, we could sneak in and save Silver by using this passage?” I asked.

“You could, I’m not sure how safe it’ll be, but it’s better than turning yourself in to The Enclave,” he replied.

I smiled, “You have a point, I think I like this plan.”

Wind Thrasher however turned toward the Major and Quick Draw, “I take it that you’ll only show her how to get in if she agrees to help you.”

“That is the deal yes,” The Major said.

I took a minute to think about it, honestly it wouldn’t be that hard for me to change where the power from the plant was going and keep The Enclave from fixing it after. The Mark II would be perfect for this mission, but something just didn’t seem right, “What I don’t get is how a solar plant is good for power if the sun is always blocked by the clouds?”

“Easy, we fixed some of the problems with the hydroelectric turbines a couple months back, the plant now operates to a certain extent, even with some of the cables not set up, that’s more than enough power for us,” he replied.

“I see, well then I’ll do my best to fix it, but only after I know Silver is safe.”

“All we ask is that you try. If you run across the main terminal on the upper floors of the tower, reroute the power and lock it down. If that happens before you find your mare friend then do it.”

I groaned, “No Promises, but I’ll try. That’s all I can offer, right now I’m more concerned about Silver than I am about the power plant.”

“Deal then. If that’s all, Quick Draw will show you where you can get into the underground tunnels. It also looks like the rain is starting to let up.” The Major said looking through the tent flap.

“How far are we from Halo One?” I asked.

“Not far, it’ll only take an hour to get to the tunnels and by then you should be able to see Halo One,” Quick Draw said.

Looking over at Wind Thrasher I asked, “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

She grinned, “I think it sounds like fun.”

I grinned back and looked back to Quick Draw, “Let’s get going, I don’t’ have a lot of time to do this.”

***

The Major was right when he said it would take about an hour to reach the tunnels. By now the rain finally stopped, but my armor was still soaked. By the time we reached the tunnels I was shivering violently. Even in a desert, the temperature was getting low, and with each gust of wind more chills ran down my body. If I didn’t warm up soon, I knew I was gonna end up getting sick. Come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten a cold before. The only time I can recall myself being sick is when I saw myself in memory orbs. Not like it was going to matter if I didn’t make it out of this alive.

The older N.L.R. solider gave us a friendly smile as we reached a rickety door that supposedly lead down into the tunnels, “This’ll lead you to the river, you shouldn’t have much trouble down there, but from time to time we’ve run into a few feral ghouls. So, make sure you keep an eye out for them. Once you find the river down there, just follow it northeast and you’ll find where Halo One connects to it. When you do you’ll have two choices, either try and sneak you’re way up the walkways, or use the small tunnels.”

“Thank you for the help Quick Draw, you were a big help,” I said.

“Anything to help a friend of Wind Thrasher. Just make sure you get out of there safe and sound. I wish you luck in finding your mare friend, I really do.”

Wind Thrasher smiled, “We’ll be fine, I’ll see you again soon Quick Draw. Remember you still owe me a game of caravan when I get back.”

“That I do, and I’m gonna thrash you this time. No pun intended.”

She laughed, “We’ll see about that.”

We said our good byes and I looked up past the opening to the tunnel and toward the tall spire I could see beyond. It could only be Halo One Power plant, it wasn’t hard to miss. At the top of that tall spire, Silver was waiting for me to either turn myself in so she could live, or for me to rescue her. Before we headed into the tunnel I noticed another spire a little farther to the east of Halo One, it was white and lead all the way into the clouds. I’d seen them before but never thought much about them. Now seeing another out here near the place I had to go to save Silver, I wondered to myself what it was. Seeing how it lead up into the clouds I figure it has something to do with the Enclave, but I’d have to look into it to be sure. Maybe when this was all over I’d ask around about them.

With a long sigh we walked through the door and down into the dark tunnel. On the other side of the door we went down a steep slope, it slowly twisted to the left as it led us down. It didn’t take long for the sound of water to start rumbling throughout the dark space. Soon we found the river we were told about. It was running swiftly by, a loud roaring sound filling the small cavern it ran through. The river wasn’t very wide, but it looked deep and the current looked like it could sweep us away in a flash if we fell in. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem for Wind Thrasher since she could just jump out and fly away, but I know I didn’t want to risk myself falling in.

“That didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Which way do we need to go?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Turning my head, I followed my E.F.S.’s compass until it was pointing northeast, “We should head right. If what he said was correct, that should get us to Halo One,” I said as we turned and headed down a small pathway that ran next to the river, “Hey Wind Thrasher, I know you haven’t been in The Wasteland very long, but you seem to have picked up a few things that I haven’t. Do you know what those white spires are?”

She was flying lazily over me, she took a minute to think then said, “I was wondering that on my first day out. When I got my copy of The Wasteland Survival Gide, I looked them up. Unfortunately, not much is known about them, the author said they have something to do with the emergency broadcast system. She called them M.A.S.E.B.S., and she thinks that’s how DJ Pon3 broadcasts, same for Mr. New Pegasus, but not much else. They are scattered all over Equestria though.”

“I wonder what they really are. If they’re all over Equestria, they have to be there for something right?”

“I’m not sure Shadow, why do you care anyway?”

“I don’t know, something just feels off about them is all.”

“Does it matter right now?”

“I guess not,” I said sulking a little, “I was just thinking out loud.”

“Well try not to, you have too much to deal with right now. You shouldn’t be worrying about something that was built so long ago,” she said.

I wanted to say more, but a loud hissing growl filled the tunnel. Ahead a few ghouls were pulling themselves out from small cracks in the wall, “Oh fun, I haven’t had to deal with Ghouls in a while, taking these out will be a luxury compared to everything else” I said pulling the plasma rifle out and slipping into S.A.T.S.

I took down the closest one to me. One hit and it melted into a pile of glowing green goo. The one right behind it charged me, but I flipped the rifle around and smacked it to the side, throwing it into the river. It howled when it surfaced, but it was swept away in seconds. Wind Thrasher dove at another ghoul, using her fangs to grab it by the back of the neck and toss it into the river as well. Another jumped her, but she bucked, throwing it off. She took off again then flipped around and slammed her rear hooves down onto its head, smashing it into chunks of bone and gore.

A raging roar filled the cavern as more ghouls poured out of the cracks. I took aim and fired, flashes of green flew down the tunnel, taking down a couple, but there were too many. Wind Thrasher landed next to me saying quickly, “Cover your ears.”

I did as she said, flattening my ears and pressing my hooves to them. Wind Thrasher Opened her muzzle and screamed. The sound was so loud that it still hurt even my covered ears, the Ghouls who mostly hunted by sound were worse off. They shrieked and howled, falling over and writhing on the ground as the sound reverberated around the enclosed space. The ones closest to us were even worse off. Their ears, nose and eyes all started to leak ichor, when they fell, they didn’t get back up.

I remembered the power Wind Thrasher’s scream had from back in the stable, but it was nothing like this. If anything, that necklace she had on that emitted a magical electrical pulse, was holding her back. It only lasted a few seconds, but when she stopped the Ghouls that hadn’t died from the attack were shaking and howling on the ground. Wind Thrasher swayed, but didn’t fall, she looked back at me and said weakly, “Take the rest of them out quickly, the effects won’t last long.”

“Will do,” I said pulling out my machete and running forward. With a few quick strokes I killed a half dozen, before I could finish them all off the ones in the rear started getting back to their hooves. I brought up the plasma rifle again and fired, each one that got up I took out with a quick shot to the head. Still moving forward, I made sure to kill any ghouls that were still on the ground with the machete. A few minutes later, nothing was left apart from rotting corpses that use to be ponies.

Wind Thrasher made her way over to me swaying a little with each step. I smiled around the gore that was covering my hooves and face from the flying blood, “You doing okay?”

She shook her head like a dog then looked back at me with slightly unfocused eyes, “I’ll be fine soon, it takes a lot out of me to do that.”

“That was awesome, I’m kind of glad you didn’t do that to me back at the stable.”

“I didn’t even know I could do it until I was out here, the necklace Dr. Cell made me wear dampened some of my power. Though I could understand why with that one, using that scream in an enclosed space is very dangerous. I’m glad I didn’t hurt you as well, or make the tunnel collapse.” She said as her eyes starting to finally focus.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t have been a fun way to go out, the closest ghouls looked like they were in a lot of pain when they died.”

“I’m sure they were, that close to my powerful scream most likely turned what was left of their rotting brains to mush,” she said then she looked sad, “I hate killing things, even ghouls, but at that point there isn’t much that can be done to save them.”

I put a hoof on her shoulder, “You did the right thing, it’s only kind to put them out of their misery.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt any less.”

We started to walk down the tunnel again before I responded to what she said, “Why do you hate killing? I mean it’s not like I enjoy going around killing ponies, but sometimes that’s the only way to win or stay alive.”

“I don’t disagree with you, but personally I don’t like to take the life of another. It brings back bad memories from when I was younger, I know I wasn’t in control of my actions, but that doesn’t mean the blood of at least two hundred and fifty ponies aren’t on my hooves,” She said with a bit of sorrow in her voice, “If I can help it I won’t kill, monsters like ghouls and a few other things in the wasteland I’ll make an exception for, but I won’t kill ponies.”

I was taken aback by that, “You mean even if you’re life or the life of a friend was on the line, you still wouldn’t kill another pony?”

“I guess I can’t say I wouldn’t, I really hope I don’t ever have to be put into a situation like that,” She said keeping her voice calm and low, “I’m just scared that if I start killing again, I won’t be able to stop. My DNA was mixed with two creatures, one of which has a strong desire to feed on fruit. Dr. Cell manipulated that part of the Vampire Fruit Bat’s DNA to lust for blood instead of fruit, I was his first experiment, mix that with the Dragon DNA that also lusts for things like gems and coin, and it makes it hard to ignore when it’s part of you. Even now it takes all my will power not to think about feeding on a pony or animal I run into.”

“You mean that you want to drink the blood of ponies?” I asked a little scared and grossed out at the same time.

“Not want, but there is a small part of me that desires it. I can hold back my basic urges, it’s not like I’m a threat to you or any other pony. Though at times I’m worried that if I start killing any pony who gets in my way, that the urge to keep killing will get stronger. I don’t want to become the Monster Dr. Cell tried to turn me into.” She said, her wings drooping a little.

“I guess I can understand that, it’s a lot like me in a way.”

She gave me a quizzical look, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I guess I have something living inside my head. I don’t know who or what she is, but before I got this amulet,” I said pointing up at my horn and the talisman on it, “I had to fight every day to keep her from taking control of me. She did once, and what she was able to do in a short time was terrifying. I know it’s not the same as what you have to deal with, but it’s close enough that I can understand the struggle you’re talking about.”

She chuckled a little, “So is that why you didn’t kill me back at Stable 9? You saw a little of yourself in me?”

“No, I didn’t even know what was living inside me back then. I could feel something was off, but I didn’t know yet what it was. No, I didn’t kill you, because I saw a pony who was hurting inside and wanted to die just so she wouldn’t hurt innocent ponies ever again.”

She chuckled again, “Well next time when you want to save a monster like me, try not to shoot off her claws,” She waved a hoof in the air, a little bone left over from the claws she used to have, still poked out from just above her hoof, “It hurt like a bitch.”

I couldn’t help laughing, “I’ll try and keep it in mind.”

“I’ll admit my claws made fighting a lot easier, but what can I do about it now.”

“Who knows maybe we’ll find a unicorn later who knows how to grow bone back, I heard about magic like that from mom.”

“We’ll see about that, first we need to survive our current disaster.”

I was about to respond when voices echoed down the tunnel. Wind Thrasher noticed before I could even say anything, she pushed me into an alcove just off the path and moved in next to me, using the shadows around us to keep us hidden from whoever was down here. A moment later the voice became more distinct and I could make out that it was a mare and stallion.

“I don’t know why we’re taking orders from those fucking Dashites, who died and put them in charge anyway?” the mare said.

“You know it was that Cloak mare, she was put in charge of all the ground forces. If she says we have to do whatever the Sins say then we have to do it. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her or the counsel for that matter.” The Stallion responded.

“I know, but still she isn’t even one of us, she from the fucking Crystal Empire, that land is part of Nimbus. I don’t remember us signing up to work with those fucking odd balls, they’re barely Enclave. I mean look at us, when was the last time you can remember Pegasi going to the surface for more than a couple of days?”

“I don’t disagree with you, but the commander told us to do whatever she said, so that’s what we’ll do.”

“Fuck, I feel dirty already and I’ve only been away from home for a week. What’s so important that we have to take over an old piece of shit power station anyway. It’s not like we need it for anything.”

A sigh came from the Stallion, “We have our orders, we shouldn’t question them. That’s how Pegasi end up getting branded, I’d hate to see something like that happen to you.”

“I guess you’re right, I just don’t like taking orders from a fucking unicorn. Especially one from Nimbus, we should be taking orders from one of our own.”

“I know, just try not to think too much about it. Let’s just finish our sweep down here then we can rest up for the day. When were finished, I’ll make time for us to…relax…” he said the last word slowly, almost like he was insinuate something.

She practically purred as she responded, “How about we say we finished our sweep and get to the Relaxing part a little early.”

“I like the sound of that,” he said then I could hear hoof steps receding back down the tunnel.

Peeking around the corner I saw two pegasi in power armor making their way toward a light that was just around the bend in the tunnel. When they were gone, both of us moved back onto the path, “Damn that was a close one.”

Wind Thrasher took a minute to respond, her ears were up and she was moving them back and forth as if she was trying to pick up on something only she could hear. When she finished she looked relieved, “I almost didn’t catch that in time, I was so worried about our conversation that I forgot I needed to keep my ears open for ponies.”

So those big ears of hers weren’t just for show then, good to know. As we started moving closer to the small light I asked, “How good can you hear?”

She shrugged, “If I concentrate and nothing around me is making too much noise, then maybe half a mile. Most of the time, I can hear better than most ponies.”

We came to where the tunnel bent around, deciding it wasn’t a good idea to keep talking with ponies around who might hear us. I peered around the bend and saw a large structure, it took up most of the tunnel, a good portion of it plunged into the river. It had large pipes and smaller tubes running down into the swift moving river, collecting the water itself to push through the larger pipes, moving large gears that were placed around the pipes. Most of them didn’t look like they worked anymore if ever, but a couple were turning swiftly. With how fast the river was moving I was sure it was enough to power what the N.L.R. wanted it for. Above the pipes that ran into the river was an over look with a few pegasi walking around inside. Some were checking some of the terminals, others guarding the entrances, one looked like he was overseeing the whole endeavor.

“It doesn’t look like we’d be able to sneak our way past that.” I whispered to Wind Thrasher.

She looked over my shoulder then said, “That’s true, but we still can use those,” she pointed up at something in the cave ceiling.

Following her hoof, I saw large cables that ran through smaller pipes coming down to the structure below. A couple of pipes didn’t have any wire in them at all, they were just metal that ran through small tunnels in the ceiling, just like we were told. It was on the smaller size, but with my small frame and Wind Thrasher being so slight, we may be able to squeeze through them. Shrugging my shoulders, “It’s not like we have a better Option right now.”

Wind Thrasher took hold of me and with a quick flap of her wings, she brought both of us to one of the empty pipes, “Let’s get in there before any of those pegasi see us.”

I moved from her grip and pulled myself into the dark pipe, Wind Thrasher following me. It was even tighter than it looked from below, for once I was happy I was so small, it didn’t take much for me to push my way in. It was a little harder for Wind Thrasher to make her way in, but she was skinny so she made it after a little wiggling.

“You doing okay Wind Thrasher?” I asked, crawling a little farther into the pipe.

“Yeah, just a little tight is all. I’ll be fine.” She said coming up behind me.

We pushed our way up the pipe slowly. Most of the way up it wasn’t too bad, apart from being squeezed tightly by the pipe itself. At one point the pipe arched upward, we only made it up the sharp incline thanks to Wind Thrasher. She was able to use her wings to brace herself and slowly push us up. By the time we reached where the pipe came to a dead end, we were both hot, irritated and tired.

Panting a little, I pushed on the flat surface where we were now. Something clicked and a door swung open spilling us out into a dark room. I groaned and looked around, but I couldn’t see a thing, “I can’t make anything out in this darkness.”

I felt Wind Thrasher move up next to me saying quietly, “It looks like a small work room.”

I noticed her eyes glowing again in the darkness, “That’s a nifty trick to have.”

“Most of the time it is.” she said, I heard her move forward then a door opened slightly spilling light into the dark room.

With the small amount of light coming in, I saw we were indeed in a small work space, the Pipe was right behind me, a small door open at the end. It looked like it was meant to close off the passage below until the workers here were ready to use the pipe to install cables. I moved over to stand next to Wind Thrasher looking through the crack in the door, “Do you see anything?”

“No, and I can’t hear anything either, I think were okay for now.” She said opening the door more and walking into a long hallway.

“This seems to easy,” I said scanning the area with my E.F.S. and not seeing a single red bar around, “I thought there would be more soldiers protecting this place.”

“They might be on the lower levels, I’m sure the Sins don’t think they need any up here.” She said slowly making her way down the hall.

“You’re probably right, but we should still be careful. With the Sins you never know what you’ll run into.” I said finding the silence oddly creepy.

The hall was dank and dim, with only a small bit of light coming from the utility lights buzzing overhead. Trash and dust littered the halls and a few pony skeletons laying in random heaps. From the look of the skeletons it seems that all kinds of ponies used to work here, I saw Unicorns, Earth Ponies, and even a few Pegasi. Once we reached the end of the hall a stair case led up to the next level. I pulled my newly acquired shot gun out of my saddle bags and started to head up, Wind Thrasher on my tail.

As soon as we reached the next floor and rounded the corner two white bars showed up on my E.F.S., I put a hoof up stopping Wind Thrasher whispering quickly, “Follow me and stay quiet, there’s somepony up here.”

She nodded and did as I asked, keeping low to the ground, making sure that her hoof steps were as quiet as possible. It was a nice change of pace; my other friends didn’t know one thing about sneaking. Wingnut could do it if he kept his mind on the task, but that never happened. Aura was too straight forward to sneak anywhere, and Stardust…yeah, the word Sneak wasn’t part of his vocabulary let alone his abilities. He preferred shooting things from a long way off, “Who needs to sneak when you can kill an enemy from eight hundred meters away.” He would say whenever I brought up the subject. “Oh Stardust, you fucking idiot, getting caught like that.” I whispered cursing under my breath.

I drew closer to a room off to one side of the hall; the two bars were just inside. Voices were echoing out from under the door when I drew close, “Lieutenant are you sure it’s okay for us to be up here right now, I thought Pride said to stay out of the upper levels,” a stallion said from the other side.

A mare’s voice followed, “Who gives a fuck what he said, it’s not like The Sins are even around here anyway. I’m stressed and I need this right now.”

“I know, but why me?” he asked.

“Because you’re here and after we’re done, you won’t follow me around like a lost puppy,” she replied.

That slight bitchy voice sounded so familiar, I grinned and cracked the door open just a little. As I thought, Solstice was in the room straddling another pegasus on an old cot. Oh, this was going to be so much fun. Sliding into the room I slowly crept toward the two as they started making out on the bed, the Stallion was eager to go by the look of it. Doing my best not to blush or make any noise, I moved around to the other side of the cot. Both had their eyes were closed as they kissed each other, soft moans escaping them. I had to hold back my growing amusement, doing my best not to laugh.

When I was finally close enough I brought my shotgun up and said, “Funny running into you here Lieutenant Solstice.”

She froze, one eye opening to look over at me…and the shotgun barrel that was an inch away from her. Slowly pulling her head up and away from the equally shocked Stallion, “You have gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not. Did you know that this place has some really shitty security? I thought I’d run into more patrols on my way up here, but nope nothin’. Oh, and I wouldn’t move, you should know by now that I have a bad habit of shooting first and worrying about the consequences later,” I said smirking at her.

For once she actually listened. She didn’t move an inch as she spoke, “How the hell did you get all the way up here, we’ve got the entire lower levels guarded, one of my patrols should’ve found you by now.”

“You really should do a better job guarding the river level, there are so many tiny holes that lead to interesting places down there,” Wind Thrasher said seeming to enjoy the other two pony’s predicament.

“Um…ma’am shouldn’t we call for help?” The Stallion under Solstice asked.

“Oh shut up,” she told him, “So what now Courier? Are you gonna kill me this time, or let me go again like last time? Because I really don’t feel liking having a heartwarming chat like before.”

My smile widened, “Oh, I have a better idea for you,” using my magic I pulled out a couple rolls of Duct Tape, “I don’t need to kill you Solstice and it looked like you were having a lot of fun a moment ago so I’m just gonna leave you here.”

“I’m gonna fucking murder you Courier,” she said with a hiss.

The stallion tried to move out from under Solstice, but I cocked my shotgun and pointed it at him, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Fuck this, I don’t wanna get taped up to the lieutenant. Do you know what the others would say if they found out?” he said, almost crying.

“I don’t really care, either you stay and live, or take your chances with my shotgun and/or my friend.”

Both pegasi seemed to finally notice Wind Thrasher, she smiled at both of them, her sharp fangs gleaming in the dull light. She was kind of a terrifying presence to ponies that hadn’t ever seen her before. She started to snicker a little, “I haven’t eaten in a while, I’d love an excuse to sample pegasi blood.”

Okay, that was a little creepy, but it worked. Both their eyes went wide as they stared at her. Ten minutes and four rolls of Duct Tape later, I was snickering as I walked back out of the room. Solstice and her lover of the moment were both taped together, their wings outstretched and taped to each other as well, still in the awkward position I’d found them in. Solstice sure didn’t look very happy when I shut the door behind me still laughing as I went on my way. She’d get free sooner or later I was sure, but it was worth it.

“I take it you know that mare,” Wind Thrasher asked as we made our way up to another level.

“Yeah, she’s not that bad, she’s just full of herself. I let her go after we captured her back at Frosty Summit. I felt bad for her and I still do. I didn’t really wanna kill her, so I figured it’d work better to just humiliate her, maybe she’ll use this as a lesson not to let your guard down.”

“I’m glad you didn’t kill her, it’d seriously suck to be killed while you were in the middle of…that,” she said, blushing bright red.

“I agree, and maybe she’ll learn something because of it. Though I’m sure she’s gonna do her best to kill me next time we meet.”

“Then let’s make sure we get out of here as fast as we can. How long do you think that tape will keep them bound?” she asked.

“No idea, hopefully long enough for me to find Silver and get her out of here.”

“You DO realize that we still have to worry about The Sins too don’t you?”

“I’m hoping that we won’t run into them, they aren’t expecting me for a few more hours. If we’re lucky, they won’t be here yet or at least most of them won’t be,” I said as we came to a part in one of the halls that collapsed in on itself, “How the hell do we get past this?”

“Let’s see if we can get by it in one of the rooms,” Wind Thrasher said heading toward one of the side doors.

“Good idea,” I followed, she tried the door, but it was locked, “I can get it.”

“We could always try another room,” Wind Thrasher said turning to head toward the other door in the hall.

“First lesson when it comes to sneaking into your enemy’s base, don’t always take the easy route. Trust me, it didn’t do me any good when I did that at Stable 9,” I said pulling out my bobby pins and getting to work on the door.

“Why? It’s not like they know we’re coming. In Stable 9 Dr. Cell knew where you were and how to make you go where he wanted.”

The lock wasn’t very hard, it only took me a few seconds to push the pins into place and turn the lock, “Knowing the Sins, they’ll have a backup plan in case I don’t do what they say and try something just like this. If so I’m not gonna make it easy for them to trap us.”

“What, do you really think they blocked the hall just to force you to go a different way?”

I pushed the door open, “Envy used some kind of magic to look like my mare friend just to follow me then force me to come here. I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

We walked into the room closing the door behind us. It was an office, it looked like it used to belong to a supervisor. It was bigger than you’d expect in a place like this, with one big desk at one end. It was covered with paperwork and a terminal. The office had lots of odds and ends scattered all over, a few filing cabinets and oddly a cot set up in the other corner. There were posters on the wall, some were posters of The Ministry of Awesome and a couple of The Shadowbolts. The others were constellations, photos of rockets, and a planetary chart. On the desk there was a plaque with a name on it. ‘Professor Augustine’ was written on it and just under the name it said ‘Head Researcher’

I walked over to the desk looking at it, “Why would a power plant have a head researcher?”

“Who knows? Maybe they were using this place for more than just generating power,” Wind Thrasher said looking around the room trying to find a way past the blockade in the hall.

I moved around the desk and sat down looking at the terminal. It wasn’t even locked. While Wind Thrasher looked around I let my curiosity take over and I started to look through the notes.

Personal Log 204

Another day in this shithole. I still can’t believe I was fired from the M.A.S. Over what? Passing on some of my research to friends in Stable-Tec? It’s not like it was even anything big, Prickly Petal just wanted to know what I knew about protective barriers. They were looking into using the tech to help protect ponykind from a megaspell destination. Here I thought the whole point of the Ministries was to protect Equestria and win the war. Guess I was wrong.

Still it was nice of Prickly Petal to help me get a job here, even if the ponies here don’t seem to respect my position or my intelligence. I was one of the top researchers for Twilight Sparkle, I was even helping work on a new megaspell, but no, they didn’t care one bit. Fuck them, I’m going to show them all that they made the wrong decision by throwing me out.

Personal Log 214

I’ve had a break through! When I started working here they wanted me to find a new way to make power for Equestria, one that didn’t just use solar radiation. One of my underlings came up with the bright idea to use hydro power, and we all developed a system that would be perfect to use in the underground river. That wasn’t the break through though, while my underlings were working on this new idea, I started looking into some of the older systems here and I found that this power plant was built with high powered frequency transmitters. I have no idea why they would need something like that here, but when I started to dig deeper into it, I found that they were being built for a project that was never completed, something the M.O.A. and M.A.S. were working on together.

The more I’ve looked into it, the more I’ve learned. In the transmitter room a pony could set up a program to transmit singles to a satellite. If somepony could weaponize a megaspell and put it on a satellite, they could make the perfect weapon to use against the Zebras. With that kind of power, we could win the war easily. I’m going to talk to Petal about this and see what she thinks, she’s my only true friend and the only pony I can trust with this knowledge.

Personal Log 240

Today my life changed forever, no longer will anypony look down on me as the mare who was kicked out of the M.A.S., or as the poor mare who took a shitty job at the local power plant. No, ponies will look back on me and know that I’m the pony who saved Equestria. I talked with a representative of the M.O.A. and they’re funding my new project and putting me in charge of a whole team of ponies, not just the three idiots I have now.

Personal Log 303

Finally, I figured out what we can do to make this work. At first the problem I was running into was how you control something as powerful as a megaspell that’s too far away to have a unicorn activate. It was the same problem Twilight was having with the Celestia One Project. Well that and how to make it work even on a cloudy day, I think I know how to fix both problems. At first it seemed so simple, the megaspell could use the Sun to recharge itself, with no need to keep Unicorns around to do it. But you can’t keep a satellite in the same place in orbit and keep the sun on it all the time, I’m still working on that problem.

The other problem I didn’t even think would matter was a cloudy day or if it was night. Being dark wouldn’t matter if the Megaspell was already charged, same for a cloudy day, but we still can’t seem to get the numbers to work with how to make the Megaspell fire if it can’t see its target, even if it’s sunny it’s still a problem. What I think we need is to make something to do the targeting from down here and send the signal up to the Satellite. I’m still working on how to do this, but I know I’m on the right path.

The only other thing I’m worried about is the blast radius. If the numbers I’m seeing are right, this could be either too weak from such a high altitude to do much damage or it’ll destroy more than the intended target. I’ll have to see if there’s a way we can contain the blast.

The rest of the files were corrupted, but from what I read, it looked like they were developing some kind of massive weapon here with the help of the Ministry of Awesome. Either they never finished it, or the project didn’t work the way they thought it would, since the Zebras blew everything up. That name though, the pony this mare was friends with, Prickly Petal, she was Night Stalker’s sister. From the way it looked, he was using his sister to get this mare to help him make a super weapon, one that I’m sure he would love to have at his disposal. Putting it out of my head for now, I looked at the last thing on the terminal. It was an audio file. I downloaded all the files to my Pip-Buck then slipped my ear bloom into my ear and played the Audio file. A soft mares voice floated into my ear…

“I met with a pony from the M.O.A. today, the same one who helped me set up this whole project. He wanted to know how things were going. I’m not sure why, but the way he was questioning me I’m starting to think twice about this whole thing. I told him what I could, but left out a few things. The Satellite will go up later today and everything is ready to go, but I didn’t tell him how it really works. I’m going to send all my research to a contact I still have at the Ministry of Arcane Sciences and see if I can get Twilight herself to come here to look this over. I hope she does, I’m not sure what that pegasus wants this for, but it’s not to help us win the war. I’m leaving the passcodes for terminals upstairs in my safe and leaving this on the terminal just in case something happens to me before I can get the information to the M.A.S. This way the right ponies will find this before he gets his hooves on it. I hope I’m wrong…but I know better, I’m never wrong.”

Damn she was a smart pony, if she was able to see through Night Stalkers bravado and see the pony he really was. She did whatever she could to stop him from getting his hooves on the project. Turning around I saw the safe in the floor just behind the desk. Moving toward it I picked the lock, it was a lot harder than the door and four bobby pins later, I was in. There wasn’t much, just some research notes and three passcodes for getting into the terminals upstairs.

I put them into my saddlebags, then looked over at Wind Thrasher who was hovering near a vent on the far wall, “Did you find something?”

“It looks like this leads into the next room, we might be able to use it to get past the blockage in the hall. Are you finished looking through that terminal?”

“I think so,” I said looking back at the terminal, “I think there’s another reason The Sins are here. If this mare’s notes are true, there may be a superweapon here.”

Her eyes went wide, “Are you sure?”

“I think so, but from the look of things, the mare who was in charge of the project made sure nopony would be able to use it unless they had the passcodes.”

“We should make sure the program is shut down then as well as getting the power rerouted and saving your mare friend. Let’s head up to the control room, it should be one more level up, as long as we don’t run into The Sins there, we can kill two birds with one stone.”

“Works for me, help me up there and let’s go,” I said moving from behind the desk. Wind Thrasher lifted me and I slid into the vent and through into the smaller office. This one was set up much like the one we were just in, only with six desks in it and less paperwork.

I moved over to the door and pushed it open slowly. Checking that the coast was clear, I moved back into the hall. Sure, enough we were past the blockage, and now I was extra glad I decided we should go though the office and not the other doorway. The rubble was pressed against the office door on the other side of the hall, we would’ve been stuck or been forced to take whatever path had been set up for us to follow. Since we didn’t, we were able to move to the stairway at the end of the hall and follow it up to the next level.

As we came to the next level, a door was blocking our path, unlike the other stairways. I moved closer to the metal door looking it over. Just like a stable it had a switch on one end to open it, but the light was red, indicating that it was locked. On the wall next to it, there was a terminal. I tried logging in, as I expected it was locked. Not a problem, I hooked the Mark II into it and started the hacking software. Streams of code flew by on the screen as the Mark II did its work, then the familiar screen came up with multiple words mixed in with code.

“What are you doing?” Wind Thrasher asked looking over my shoulder at the terminal.

“Hacking into the terminal so I can unlock the door,” I said trying the first passcode and failing. I cursed and tried two more, both failed. I backed out of the program and started it up again, “I hate hard terminals like this one.”

Wind Thrasher was watching me as I tried over and over to hack into the terminal. Each time I had to back out, I wanted to put my hoof through the screen. On what had to be my eighth time going back in she pointed at one word and said, “Try that one.”

The word was Azimuth, I looked at her and asked “Is that even a real word?”

“Of course it is, just try it.”

Rolling my eyes, I did, and to my amazement it worked. Looking back at her I asked, “How’d you know that would work?”

“From what I saw in Professor Augustine’s office, she liked things that had to do with space, that was the only thing in the jumble of words that had to do with space,” she explained.

Cocking my head to one side I asked, “What the fuck is an Azimuth?”

She cleared her throat and explained, “It’s the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.”

I just looked at her blankly for a long moment, trying to put together what she just said to me. Finally, I asked, “Can you explain that in a way that a not smart pony could understand?”

“Mathematical outer space stuff,” she said simply, “Though that description doesn’t really explain what an Azimuth really is. It’s rather crude.”

“I’ll take crude, what you just said…makes my head hurt. How do you know so much anyway?” I asked as I used the terminal to unlock the door.

“I didn’t have a lot to do when I was stuck in the stable, so I read everything I could when Dr. Cell was busy. Mom always said I was smart, I think that’s why she wanted me to go into Bio Science,” she said.

“I thought you were in security?” I asked.

“I got hurt when I was with security, I wanted to go into it because a friend of mine was training to be in security too. He was a few years older than I was, but we always got along well and he was one of my only friends. Mom was letting me see what it was like being in security before she put me into Bio Science. She wanted me to be happy,” she said walking over to the door and flipping the switch.

I drew my shotgun again as the door hissed open. Walking in slowly I looked around, Wind Thrasher on my tail. Nopony was here, at least it didn’t look like it. Keeping my eyes on my E.F.S. I moved further in, doing my best not to gawk at the amount of tech that seemed to fill the room. Terminals where everywhere, lights and monitors lined the walls, desks with notes piled all over, a tall pillar in the middle of the room, and one large glass layout of the night sky. The large layout showed the movement of the moon and a detailed diagram of the stars, it also showed something orbiting the planet.

“I’ll look around and make sure nopony’s here,” Wind Thrasher said flying off and looking around.

From what I could tell, the room looked like it’d been used recently. So, either nopony was here right now, or they knew we were coming and either ran or were waiting to ambush us. My E.F.S. didn’t show anything hostile or friendly apart from Wind Thrasher, but that didn’t mean no one was here. Luckily for me, Wind Thrasher was just as good if not better than having an E.F.S. she could hear and smell things better than anypony I’d ever met before, if she didn’t find anything then I’d relax.

While she flew around looking into every nook and cranny she could I made my way toward the large pillar that was standing in the middle of the room. There was a terminal set inside it mixed with lights and cables rolling up the pillar and up into the tall ceiling. I moved closer to it and tried to access the terminal, but it was locked. I was about to try hacking into it with my Pip-Buck when something crossed my mind. Reaching into my Saddle Bags I pulled out the notes I took from Professor Augustin’s office. There was a username and three different passwords for accessing the main terminal. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to try it, I used the username and the first password to log in, and it worked.

I watched as the terminal logged in and a moment later text came up on the screen…

Welcome Professor,

Warning plants power output only operating at 32%...

Solar arrays not responding… Checking hydro pump status… Pumps not fully responding, Halo One in need of repair on solar and hydro power systems. All other systems operating normally.

The text pasted by quickly then a new screen popped up.

Welcome to the Halo One Mainframe Operating System. Please choose which system you would like to work with.

Power Output

System Operations

Orders

Shipments

Energy Operation Details

Satellite Operations

“Wind Thrasher come take a look at this.”

She came down saying, “It looks like ponies where here not too long ago, but they’re gone now. I think they were using the door on the balcony to get in and out, I’m guessing it leads outside or to another staircase that goes up to another level. What did you find?”

I showed her the terminal screen, “I think this is where the power is controlled for Halo One, but the rest of this I don’t understand.”

She looked over the menus and said, “This must be where The Professor and her team where doing their work, we shouldn’t mess with anything until we can clear this place out and get the N.L.R. here to look this over.”

“You’re probably right, but we could at least see about rerouting the power like the major asked.”

“Yeah, we could at least see if we can do that from here, but don’t do it just yet. I’m gonna see what’s on the other side of that door and make sure we’re safe before we do anything else, you wait here,” she said flapping into the air again.

“No, I can help you.”

“I know you can, but it’s better for you to stay here and keep an eye on the door we came through, just in case more soldiers come up that way,” she took off and headed out the door.

“Fuck,” I said sitting down and looking at the terminal. What did she expect me to do while she went off to check things out? I sighed and tapped the pillar still staring at the screen. The last option caught my eye, looking around and not seeing anypony still, I moved my hoof over to the keys and clicked on the last option.

Satellite Operations… Please enter passcode!

I shrugged and figured it still couldn’t hurt to just look, I entered the second passcode from the Professor’s notes.

Passcode Accepted,

Welcome to the Halo One Satellite Operations system for Solar Flare Project. CAUTION: This system is to only be used by senior staff of the Ministry of Awesome, or a representative from The Ministry of Arcane Sciences. If you are not authorized to access this program, back out of the program now.

“Yeah sure, and what’re you gonna do if I’m not? Call the Ministry of Moral? Pfft… please,” I said clicking past the warning screen.

Satellite Operations still operating normally,

Not ready to fire, system has been put onto lockdown by order of Professor Augustine and Head Science lead Minuette of the Ministry of Awesome. This operation requires a project head to unlock the project. Do you want to proceed?

Okay now my curiosity was peaked, I clicked on Yes and the screen came up with yet another option.

Passcode from the Head of Research and Biometric Scan of Host pony required.

“Well why not.” I said not knowing what a Biometric Scan was or why it mattered. I entered the last passcode on from the notes and watched as the screen went blank for another moment then new text came up.

Making sure Host Pony’s Biology matches, please stand still.

“Okay maybe I don’t want to do this!” I started to say, but before I could even think of moving, a small blue gem connected to a small rod popped out from just above the terminal and a flash of blue light rolled over me, a second later it was done.

Match found, Welcome to the Solar Flare Project.

Everything is in order, Satellite is in place and ready to start charging. Range finder is ready to be activated.

Shield Spell active.

Alignment of Satellite off by only 2%...trying to adjust cores.

Mega Spell chamber holding…

Charging Chamber holding…

Connection with Range Finder Holding…

Are you ready to activate Solar Flare?

[Yes/No]

“No Fucking way am I going to activate anything that says it’s a Mega Spell.” I said moving my hoof up to press the N for no.

Before I could a voice echoed from across the chamber, making me jump and my hoof landed on another key. Text started to flow by on the screen but I ignored it pulling my shotgun out while the voice spoke, “It’s about time you found your way up here Courier. It looks like you’re more adept at getting things done than I thought.”

“Who’s there?” I asked looking around for who spoke.

The stallions voice echoed through the room again, “I’m not really in the room with you, so you can put that silly toy away.”

“Who are you? You don’t sound like one of The Sins,” I said still trying to figure out who was talking. As I did I looked back at the terminal, oddly it was back on the main screen, the option for the satellite was gone. I must’ve hit no when I jumped, because nothing came up saying something was activated. Well that was one good thing at least.

The Stallion’s voice chuckled as he spoke, “Haha, I’m not with those morons. No, look to you’re right, I’m on the terminal.”

Looking over I saw one of the terminals lit up with the face of a prim looking stallion. He had a thin mustache and a dark mane, but I couldn’t make out what color any of it was because the terminal only showed him in black or green. The face stayed frozen as the voice echoed out again, “There you go.”

“Who are you?”

“Hah hah hah, I’m known by many names courier mare, but you can call me Mr. Tops that’s what most of the ponies on The Strip call me, it’s nice to finally meet you,” the stallion said from the terminal.

Odd, Mr. Tops looked a lot like Falafel, but a little different too. Was he a descendant of the business pony? “Mr. Tops? I thought you lived in the Lucky Horseshoe and never talked to anypony?”

“I don’t, but there are times when a pony catches my interest and you Courier Mare have been doing just that for the past few days.”

“How are you talking to me anyway if you’re stuck up in The Lucky Horseshoe, and why do you look like the pony who opened the Lucky Horseshoe, Falafel?”

“Oh, you HAVE been doing your research haven’t you. Good Job, well to answer you’re first question, I can access different systems around New Pegasus if I want to talk to somepony. I can’t do much more than that, but it’s rather helpful from time to time. As for why I look the way I do well that’s a little harder to answer. Though I can tell you that I’m not Falafel, I’m just a pony who took over this casino a long time ago and found that by using the face of one of the founders I could get a lot of things done. The face you see isn’t Falafel, it’s his brother Flapjack,” Mr. Tops said.

“Okay, well what do you want? I’m not really in the mood to chat right now, I’m here to save my marefriend.”

“I won’t take up much of your time. If I stay in the system too long, The Enclave will notice and I really can’t risk that. As for what I want, well, I saw that you were able to access the mainframe at Halo One. I’m sure the N.L.R. or the Steel Rangers want you to reroute the power to them, I want you to ignore them and route the power from Halo One to The Strip,” he said.

“And why would I do that?”

“Because if you do, I’ll be able to use that extra power to expand The Strip. If I can do that, I’ll be able to make New Pegasus as grand as it once was…well maybe not as grand but close enough. Think about it, if I can open more casinos, hotels and businesses, The Strip can become a better refuge for ponies in The Wasteland and help bring society back to Equestria.”

I rolled my eyes, “And you’ll be able to collect more Caps and gain more control over the ponies who live there too.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Think about it, I’ve made a place like none other in all of Equestria. Ponies from everywhere are able to come here and not worry about if they’re a Steel Ranger, N.L.R., Enclave, or a random pony from The Wasteland. Since I took over, things have become more peaceful here. If you do this I’ll reward you beyond your wildest dreams,” Mr. Tops said.

“You can’t offer me anything that could change my mind on who I am willing to give the power here to. I don’t need your Caps and I don’t think there’s anything else you could help me with. Sorry Mr. Tops, but I don’t know you and from what I’ve heard about you, you’re nothing more than a tyrant trying to make his own empire from a hiding place in that old tower,” I said turning away from the terminal.

“Oh, you really think so Shadow Star?”

I froze then turned back to look at the screen, “How do you know my name?”

“I know everything going on in my city. I know who you are, where you came from, and who you’re looking for. If you do what I ask I can give you information that will help you find Grimoire.”

It was tempting, oh was it tempting. With one click on that terminal, I could save myself weeks, months, maybe even years of travel and information gathering all just to find mom and the information she left for me. But remembering what Auntie told me ‘If it seems too good to be true, it is.’ I smiled and shook my head, “Thanks but no thanks Mr. Tops, I’ll find her on my own. I’ll decide what to do with the power here and I’m not going to let you or any other group make that decision for me.”

For a long moment he was silent, then said, “Well, at least think about it. There is a lot of good I could do with that extra power, more than what those lazy N.L.R. ponies could even dream of, let alone the technology hoarders in The Steel Rangers. I will admit that you DO have a point though, it’s hard to trust a pony you don’t know. Just think on it before you make up your mind, and when you come back to New Pegasus, stop by the Lucky Horseshoe, I’d like to meet you face to face…so to speak. No matter what you decide.”

“We’ll see what happens. Right now, I have to worry about getting my marefriend out of here safe, after that then I can think about helping other ponies.”

“I understand, good day Courier,” he said then the terminal went dark and he was gone.

I let out the breath I was holding and turned back toward the screen of the mainframe again right as Wind Thrasher came flying back through the far door, “Shadow, we have to hide, quick!”

She zoomed down and picked me up flying me to one of the dark corners of the room, landing on top of one of the shelves. Not a moment later three ponies walked into the room from the door Wind Thrasher had just flown through. It was Greed, Pride, and Envy.

Envy was talking quickly to Pride as they entered the room, “Are you sure this is a good idea Pride?”

“I’m not sure about anything anymore Envy, now shut that hole in your face. My head hurts enough without you’re annoying voice adding to it.”

Greed chuckled as Envy made a mocking face toward Pride as he walked over to one of the far terminals. “I thought you said The Courier Mare would be here by now Envy.”

“She will be, but she has an hour or so left. Knowing that Runt, she’ll try to figure out a way to save her marefriend and not turn herself over. Not like it matters, she has to come up here to get to the top room anyway, there’s no way she’ll get past us.”

“Personally, I wish you would’ve just killed her and been done with it Envy, that was the order you were originally given,” Pride said starting to type something on the terminal.

“I already told you Pride, I was given orders by the council not to kill the squirt. Not even you can go against their orders.”

“Fuck the Council, I’m not letting her live after how much she’s humiliated us. If this keeps up, The Seven Sins of Equinity will be the laughing stalk of all The Enclave,” Pride said.

Greed chuckled, “I dunno Pride, from where I’m standing it looks like we already are. C’mon, she killed Gluttony, and was able to capture Wrath. Gluttony I can understand, but Wrath is tough. She escaped you twice, got away from Cloak…twice, was able to push back the forces at Frosty Summit, and she snuck past Sloth at that shithole stable. Maybe we should just let this one go, and let the normal soldiers deal with her.”

“I won’t let her get away with what she’s done, and you all know that my sister needs that Mark II. If we can’t get her to take it off willingly then we have to kill her.”

The door opened again and the cloaked mare walked in, she walked toward Pride saying, “That I do, but Envy and Greed have a point. We can’t go against the council’s wishes either. Also after doing some digging I found that the Courier has been trying to find a pony to unlock some security programs that are on it. If that’s true, we might risk the data on the Mark II getting erased if she’s killed. I can’t risk that, so Envy’s way might be the best course of action.”

Pride grumbled to himself then sighed, “As you wish, but I still don’t like it,” he tapped on a few more keys then stepped back as a voice echoed out of the terminal.

“Who is this?” the deep voice echoed from the terminal.

“It’s Pride, I got your message that you wanted to talk with us Councilstallion.”

“Oh Pride, it’s about time you contacted me. Are we on a secure line?”

“Of course we are. What did you want to say?”

“We need you and you’re team back in Stratus right away. You are to abandon any missions you’re working on right now and come back here,” the voice said.

“But sir, we’re so close to capturing The Courier Mare. We took a mare hostage that she cares for, she’ll be here soon.”

“I don’t care. You are to leave Halo One immediately. Failure to do so will be seen as treason and your team will be disbanded and executed. You are to forget about The Courier Mare and report back here straight away!”

“With all do respect sir, what about my Research? We need that Pip-Buck to complete it. Just give us a few more hours and we’ll be finished with the Courier and The Enclave will be rid of an enemy,” Cloak said.

The Voice Echoed louder, “This is you’re last warning. Your Team WILL report with the soldiers in Appleton and take the first sky carriage leaving from there later tonight to come back here. We need all Enclave presence away from Halo One ASAP.”

All four ponies stiffened then Greed asked, “What’s going on sir?”

“We have reports that a large faction of Steel Rangers is moving in to take Halo One tomorrow, the same for the N.L.R. We don’t have the firepower right now to keep the building, not with Neighvarro breathing down our necks. We can’t let them know what we’re doing down on the surface yet. Now report to Appleton. Forget about the Courier and her friend you captured, you got what we really needed when you captured Subject 9712, that was the bigger mission anyway. I want you out of Halo One in the next ten minutes. Am I understood?”

All of them said in unison, “Sir, yes Sir!”

“Good,” he replied then there was a hiss of static as the pony ended the transmission.

For a long moment nothing happened, then Pride screamed and spikes of shadows blew out of him in all directions. None of them hit Wind Thrasher or myself luckily or the other three, but a few terminals in the room blew and holes were poked into the floor. A moment later he relaxed as he turned toward his team, “We only have a few hours, Envy go get Wrath out of that Alicorn shithole, Greed tell the soldiers that we have to move out now.”

“Sure why not” Greed said begrudgingly, taking a quick glance up at the ceiling exactly where Wind Thrasher and I are, an odd look in his eyes almost like he knew we were here.

They both took off back out the door they came in, leaving Pride in the room with Cloak. She waited for the door to close before she said, “What do you plan to do about that mare?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, we have our orders. Just leave her and let’s get out of here, before I do something I’ll regret.”

She moved closer and put a hoof on his, “Brother, you know we have to finish this. It’s cost us both too much for us to just turn our backs on this.”

“We will, don’t worry about what he told us. I’m sure we’ll still see that little bitch again. All we have to do now is sit back and wait, trust me, I made sure of it,” Pride said, his body melting into shadows slowly.

She sighed, “Do I even want to know what you did?”

“Trust me Sister, you don’t…Now get out of here while you still can, I’ll meet you in Stratus,” with that he was gone, the shadows of his body sliding to the door then under it.

For a long moment Cloak just stood there, then in a flash of blue light she was gone along with him. Something wasn’t adding up here. Why would they go through the trouble of capturing Silver just to lure me here, then just leave? Who was that pony they were talking to? It seemed too much like a planned-out trap to me, but what could I do at this point? If it was a trap that meant they already knew I was here, I’d just have to see where fate took me.

“Let’s get out of here and get Silver before any of them change their minds,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Wind Thrasher replied.

“No, but we can’t sit up here forever.”

She nodded then flew us back to the ground right next to the terminal in the center of the room. Before I left, I walked over to it and brought up the menu for routing power. The systems here must’ve been updated or just knew what towns and places were called just like the Pip-Bucks, because there were four options to where I could send the power. I could send it to either, The New Pegasus Strip, Jet Blue Skyport, Freedom Town, or an option to Evenly Distribute the power between all three locations. I smiled when I saw the last one, what better way to make sure nopony could get mad at me for my choice. As much as I hated to admit it, Mr. Tops was right, he could do some good with the extra power, but so could the N.L.R., and I know the Queen would do a lot of good things if she had more power she could use to help the ponies in Freedom. So, I clicked on that one. Once it was all done, I hooked my Pip-Buck to the terminal and used it to lock the terminal for good, making sure nopony could get back into the system to either reroute the power again or use that megaspell.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said heading toward the stairs that would bring me to the upper balcony and the door out.

If I was lucky enough to have The Sins leave Halo One without me having to do anything, I wasn’t gonna pass up the opportunity. The door led outside of the tower onto a walkway that circled around the tower, a ramp on one side leading up to the last room.

Wind Thrasher followed me, “When I came out here I tried to fly up there to see if you’re marefriend was okay, but I couldn’t see inside, and those ponies were just outside the door talking. I was trying to listen in when they started coming down here.”

“It’s okay Wind Thrasher, let’s get up there quickly and pray that this isn’t a trap. Just be ready in case I’m wrong,” I said switching my shotgun out for the plasma rifle.

She nodded and we slowly made our way up to the last room. The door opened for us, and nopony was inside. Well at least The Sins weren’t. The room was a mess like most of the others, papers and books scattered all over the place and a set of saddle bags sat next to the door. On the outside stitched into it was a tribal design of a lion’s head. Odd, wasn’t that the symbol for Pride? That’s what The Stranger said. Why would he leave his saddle bags here? Did he forget them because of what happened with that other pony, or was this the start of the trap?

I couldn’t think about it, Silver had to be up here somewhere. She was the only thing that mattered right now. There’s no telling what they did to her while she was being held captive…for a second time…because of me. I ran into the room yelling, “Silver are you in here? It’s me Shadow, I’m here to rescue you!”

No pony answered, Wind Thrasher followed me in, a look of horror on her face, “Shadow I don’t think you should go any farther.”

There was another room connected to this one, it looked like the small round room had been divided into two separate rooms, Silver had to be on the other side of that door, maybe she was unconscious or just sleeping. Or maybe she thought I was Envy playing a trick on her, ignoring Wind Thrasher I ran toward the door. It was locked, pulling out my bobby pins I worked on the lock as Wind Thrasher came back over, her hooves shaking.

“Don’t worry, I’m here,” I was saying as the tumblers clicked home.

“I mean it Shadow, we shouldn’t go any farther I smell bloo…”

I cut her off, “I’m not leaving until I find her,” I pushed the door open letting the dim light from outside flood into the second room, “Silver why aren’t you answering me…”

I stopped in the doorway my eyes wide. As the light from behind flooded into the room. I saw what Wind Thrasher was trying to warn me about. The room wasn’t large, just big enough to hold a pony, a bed, and a few other small things. It was almost like it was a side room that a pony could use to sleep in if they had to work late. The walls on the far end of the room were grey mixed with a reddish brown, a rotting smell filled my nostrils as the door opened, making my stomach churn.

The carpet in the room was sticky, it’s light blue mix with brown and red stains like the wall. My hooves stuck to it like honey had been dropped on the floor leaving behind a crusty sticky mess. On the floor laying against the wall, I saw a red coat matted with blood. It was Silver Snip. Her eyes were open, those soft green orbs looking at me. It was a blank stare, no light shining in those once beautiful loving eyes. She’d been stripped of her light armor, her mane was matted like her coat, one of her eyes looked like somepony had blackened it a day or two ago. Her horn was snapped off and was lying next to her hoof, cracks running down its length.

I took a step closer, not wanting to believe what my eyes were telling me must be true. The carpet crunched under my hoofsteps as I drew closer to her, the mare I sacrificed my friends to come save, the mare I was going to sacrifice myself for, just to get her home safe. When I looked closer at her, I saw dozens of small holes in her chest, legs, stomach, and even around her groin. They were too small to be from bullets and the lack black you’d expect from a gunshot told me one thing. Magic had been used to do this. Silver had been pierced with shadow magic, making it so she bled out slowly. There was only one pony I knew who could make perfect little holes like that, one who hated me so much he was willing to do anything to pay me back for killing one of his own. Pride killed Silver, not today, not last night. She’d been dead for a while, most likely since she arrived here after giving them all the information she could about me.

I went to sit next to her pulling her sticky, smelly corpse into my forehooves. Ignoring the stench, the blood, and the sight of my dead lover. I held her to my chest wanting more than anything to take back the past few days and stop this from happening. I started to cry saying quietly, “Goddess please, don’t let this be true. It should’ve been me not her. Silver was good, she didn’t deserve this, she had so much to live for. Why, why did you take her away from me?”

Wind Thrasher stood at the door looking at me as I rocked in place holding Silver’s body to my chest, rocking back and forth, “Shadow…I’m so sorry, but we have to get out of here before anypony finds us up here.”

I looked up at her, tears flowing freely as I whispered, “I can’t leave her behind.”

“Then we’ll take her with us, but we have to go. They knew you were coming, I’m sure one of The Sins was just waiting for you to get up here so they could jump you,” she tried to say moving closer and trying to get me to stand.

No, they didn’t know I was coming like this. They knew I’d come and turn myself in, Silver wasn’t needed once Envy took her place. She was just another pony that would be in their way. She was disposable, and once I turned myself in, Pride would’ve shown me this. This wasn’t a trap, it was just Pride’s payback for me killing Gluttony. Because in his twisted mind that fat slob was more important than this mare who ran a small tailor shop in a small town.

He had no idea. Silver wasn’t just a simple pony from a small town. No, she was the pony who kept Ponies in Cartwheel happy. She made new things so that others could dress better than what most ponies could ever dream of in The Wasteland. She was a mare who wanted to make dresses that were as beautiful as Rarity made. She was a friend to a lost little filly who didn’t have any friends in a large world. She was the pony who could fall in love with a broken mess like me and see the good inside. She was the pony who showed me that there was more in this world than The Wasteland. She gave ponies hope, but not now, now she was just a slab of meat left here to show me how weak I really was. Silver Snip wouldn’t be able to do anything good again, she was now in the embrace of the Goddesses in a far-off place. A place I would never be able to reach.

Looking up again, I sniffed and said, “Get her out of here Wind Thrasher, please.”

“What about you Shadow?” Wind Thrasher asked.

I looked into her bright yellow eyes, showing her the anger and pain in my own before I responded, “I’m going to kill that shadowy bastard for what he’s done, and put an end to this shit once and for all. I’m going to slaughter him like he slaughtered her.”

“Shadow, you can’t do that…”

I cut her off again, “GET HER OUT OF HERE, NOW! I’ll deal with this later. I have to kill something, and I hope it’s a gold unicorn.”

Before she could protest more, I let the rage fill me, taking hold of my magic and teleporting away. I hadn’t even tried to go so far before in my life. I don’t think I could, but with how much hatred I was feeling, I knew I could do it. A moment later I was on the ground just past the fence that protected Halo One. In the distance I saw the tops of houses, it was the direction I knew Appleton was in, and Pride.

“Are you really going after that gold pony Shadow Star?” Morning Star asked in my mind.

“I’m going to kill him, and if I have to use even you to do it I will. So, you can either help me take him down, or die with me when he wins. It’s up to you, either way I’m doing this, and I’m doing it myself.”

She just laughed, “Now this sounds like a good time, I like this Shadow Star a lot more than the one you were a few minutes ago. Fine, I’ll help you, but you know there will be a price. Magic always comes with a price.”

“I don’t care. Today, that fucker dies,” I said then I raised my voice and screamed, “DO YOU HEAR ME PRIDE!? YOU’RE DEAD!”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Hacktivist: You’ve learned the art of pushing past security systems in terminals. You can now hack harder terminals and you’ll get one extra try before being locked out of a terminal.

Chapter 24: Nightmare

“What did you do Shadow!?”

I looked toward the town, rage building as I started walking in the direction of Appleton, revenge on my mind with no care for my own life. Images of Silver Snip flashed in my mind, as if each step I took reminded me of her. Her face, her smile, the way she kissed me in the dark of night, the way she told me she loved me, how warm she was cuddled up next to me as we drifted off to sleep. Her death was on my hooves. If I would’ve just told her not to follow me, she’d be in New Pegasus now or heading back to Cartwheel, setting up her new trading route. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be…what, happy? That was the real question. Would she be happy if I’d never met her, or if I never went to Cartwheel in the first place?

It’s not like it mattered, it was all in the past, I can’t fix what happened. All I could do for Silver was avenge her death. Pride said he couldn’t be killed, but everypony had a weakness even that monster. I’ll figure it out and I’ll strike him down, even if he kills me in the process.

“Shadow wait!” Wind Thrasher yelled as she came flying down toward me, Silver’s destroyed body laying across her back.

I turned my head away, not wanting to look at the mangled corpse, “Don’t try to stop me. I’m gonna make Pride pay for what he did.”

I felt her hoof on my shoulder as she said, “I know this is hard for you, but you can’t just go charging off to face a member of The Sins.”

“Leave me alone” I said pushing the hoof off my shoulder and continued walking.

Wind Thrasher flew in front of me with Silver’s body still over her shoulder, I tried hard to not look at it. Tears started to well up in my eyes. “Shadow! You need to plan this out first. Do you even know how to fight Pride? Do you know anything about him apart from how he fights?”

“I know what kind of magic he uses, and that he can’t be killed with a normal weapon. He seems to think he’s immortal, but that’s not possible, it will be hard to kill him, but everypony can die,” I said, still doing my best not to look at Silver’s body.

Wind Thrasher used her wings to lift Silver Snip off her back then laid her gently on the ground. She took the saddle bag with the tribal lion on it off her back and tossed it at me, “If you want to fight Pride, you’ll need to know what you’re getting yourself into first. Maybe there’s something in here that can help.”

I looked down at the beaten-up bag then asked, “Why would you think that? Pride’s not an idiot, he wouldn’t just leave information like that laying around. If anything, he set some kind of trap.”

“Or he left in a hurry and forgot it,” another voice said from behind me.

I turned quickly and fired the plasma rifle at the voice only to see Greed who was standing a few feet behind me. As always, he didn’t even try to avoid the shot, he just let his perfect armor take the blow. Only this time, instead of it rolling off of him as before, the green goo stuck and started to sizzle.

He jumped back brushing the goo off quickly, “Hey now, there’s no need for violence Shadow, I’m not here to fight you. I don’t fight mares. I think I told you that already.”

I saw that the shot left a black mark on his so called perfect shield, it was also a little warped. I lifted the rifle again and fired yelling, “Fuck you Greed, I’m not dealing with you or any of The Sins anymore!”

This time he dodged the shot, he took to the air then dove at me, his hoof batting my rifle away. If Greed wanted to try and stop me from going after his boss he had another thing coming. I used my magic to grab hold of the Plasma rifle again. I entered S.A.T.S. and targeted two shots at his chest, right where I’d hit him before. He screamed as both shots hit throwing him back.

“So I guess you’re armor isn’t as great as you thought it was huh Greed!?” I yelled taking aim at his shaking body.

He looked up at me then lifted a hoof in the air, “I mean it Shadow, I didn’t come to fight you! I’m trying to help!”

“Fuck you!” I shouted and fired again a tear shed from my eye, only this time Wind Thrasher bucked the weapon out of my magical grip, the shot just missed Greed.

“Calm down Shadow. If he says he wants to help us then let’s hear him out.”

“No, he’s just gonna lie to us, or try and use me for some other goal, you can’t trust a Sin!” Another tear shed from my eye

Greed got to his hooves, there was a large crack in his armor, a bit of blood was dripping from the center of it. He shook his head, then winced in pain but grinned, “You have a point Shadow, you shouldn’t trust a Sin, most of us would do anything to get the upper hoof. Thing is, I wouldn’t blame you for using that rifle to kill me. You could very well do so too, that Rifle was designed to stop a pony just like me. If I wanted, I could fly away and avoid that, but I won’t. I want to help you Shadow, at least listen to what I have to say.”

Keeping the rifle raised I said, “Give me one good reason.”

“Because I can tell you what you need to know about killing Pride.”

I lowered the barrel of the rifle just a little, “Why would you want Pride dead? Furthermore, how would you know how to kill him?”

“I’ve been looking into how to kill Pride for years, ever since he recruited me. I think most of The Sins want him dead, apart from Envy or Gluttony. I know for a fact that Wrath want’s him dead, so does Sloth. I’m not sure about Lust, but I do my best to stay away from that whore,” he said.

“How does killing Pride help you? I’ve gotten to know you a little over the past few days and you don’t do anything without a reason.”

“It’s simple, I want out.”

Now that was a shock, “Why do you want out of The Sins? I thought being a Sin was something you liked?”

“True, being a member has its perks, like not being banned from the clouds like a normal Dashite, being paid well, and the mares…there have been some beautiful mares. The problem is, being a member of The Seven Sins of Equinity has its downsides. I’m always on guard to make sure nopony tries to kill me, I can’t just do whatever I want, whenever I want, I always have to check with a higher up to make sure I can do anything. You see I have power, money, and mares but I’m like a puppet on a string for the enclave, hell, I’ll go as far as to say I’m a slave of the enclave and I like to have my freedom no strings attached. What I don’t have is the ability to stop something truly horrible from happening.”

I saw a sorrowful look in his eyes as he spoke, that expression told me something was bothering him, so I lowered the rifle the rest of the way, did my best to hide the rage I felt toward his team, “What do you mean you couldn’t stop something horrible from happening?”

He looked over at the body of Silver, he looked so sad when his gaze fell on her mangled corpse, “She was a nice mare, even when she was captured. I felt horrible for taking her so Envy could take her place. That’s where I went when I flew past you when the fight first started. I had my orders to grab Silver Snip while Pride and Cloak distracted you.”

“You mean you were the one who took her captive, did you have a hoof in killing her too!?” I shouted, raising the rifle again.

“Might as well have. I gave her over to one of the Enclave soldiers before returning to the fight. At first, I was told we were just taking her to force you to come to us, I had no idea what Pride really planned on doing,” he said, his voice getting tight, almost like he was trying not to lose control of his own temper, “When the fight was over and I came back here to Halo One, I was told to guard her. So, I did, and I ended up talking with her a lot. At first, I thought she was just a boring dirt pony like most of you surfacers, but then when I heard her talk about you, I saw a different side of her. Did you know that she was more concerned about you than she was about herself?”

That sounded just like Silver, she was the kind of mare who worried about the ones she cared for over her own safety my rifle lowered once again, “That doesn’t surprise me, it wasn’t in her nature to worry about herself when a loved one was in danger.”

“Sounds like another pony I know,” Wind Thrasher said looking at me.

“No, I’m nothing like that.”

“I beg to differ, look at what you were willing to do when you heard Silver was in danger. You were going to give in to their demands just to save her. You did the same thing when you went after Dr. Cell back at my Stable.”

I just shook my head, “I’m not a smart pony, I just didn’t want to make my friends suffer for the stupidity of what I did. Even with Stable 9 I had to kill Dr. Cell so he wouldn’t get free and bring his monsters into The Wasteland. I was just fixing my own mistakes.”

She sighed, “If you say so Shadow, but I see it differently.”

“As I was saying,” Greed said interrupting, “The more I talked with Silver, the worse I felt for taking her captive. It got worse when Pride came up to question her…he hurt her a lot to get the information he wanted from her. No matter how much he hurt her, she never told him anything. He…he said he was going to kill her after the last beating. He left her there to think about that, when he left, she asked me if I’d do something for her.”

“What did she want you to do?” I asked.

“At first, I thought she was going to ask me to free her, but she didn’t. Silver asked me to get her a recorder and to leave her alone for a few minutes to leave you a message. I offered to help her get away, but she told me no. She said she had to stay, it was the only way you’d be safe. I couldn’t deny a strong pony like that her last request, so I did was she asked and gave her a recorder. When she finished, she gave the recording to me and told me that all she wanted me to do was make sure you got it. I tried to talk her into leaving with me, I even opened the door and said I’d fly her to you right away. She refused to leave…no matter how much I begged her to. Finally, Pride came back…and…and I watched as his shadows tore through her. I just stood there and watched, I didn’t do anything!” He cuffed his hoof over his left eye. “It took about thirty minutes before she finally released her last breath. The whole time, she just kept her eyes on me. The last thing she said before she was gone was ‘Please don’t let me down.’ After watching that, I stopped caring about myself, for the first time in my life all I wanted was to make sure I did what she asked me to.”

I felt tears welling up again as he spoke, but I held them back. When he finished I asked, “Do you have it?”

He nodded, “I do, and I’ll give it to you, but first I want you to make me a promise.”

“What?”

“Promise that no matter what happens, you’ll kill that monster, and put an end to the rest of The Sins for good. If you do that, then I’ll give you the recording and my help. If not…well I guess I’ll just leave. I’ll still give you the recording, but I won’t help you anymore. If you don’t do this for me, I won’t be able to defy the Enclave or Pride.”

Wind Thrasher moved closer to the large pegasus, “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?”

He laughed a little, “Scared doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel about Pride, or Envy for that matter. They’re the only two Ponies I’m scared of…well Cloak too, but she’s never threatened to kill me. As you can tell from using that Rifle of yours, my shield can’t protect me from a few things, one is powerful magic like what Cloak can use, another is the shadow magic Pride uses and Envy is a whole different class himself. If Pride lives and he finds out I helped you, he’ll come after me and kill me. Envy might join him, if he’s in the mood, but I can deal with him. Pride is the one I’m the most worried about, you’ll have to find a way to end him for good.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

He pointed at the saddle bags, “Pride did forget those when he left, he ordered me to get the bags back before I left. He said he had to get to Appleton before the rest of the team did. Inside those are the spell books he used to make himself into what he is now. I’m not sure why he keeps them in his saddle bags, but normally he doesn’t let them out of his sight. He doesn’t worry about me figuring out what his true weakness is from those, so he sent me to get it. The stupid thing is, he forgets who I am,” He Smiled wide as he continued, “I’m Greed The Avaricious, I want everything for myself, that includes knowledge of how to kill a pony like him, even if I can’t do the deed myself.”

I lifted the Saddlebags with my magic and opened them, as he said, there were a couple black spell books inside, they looked old…REALLY OLD, as old as the Goddesses themselves. I took them out and looked them over quickly, one I couldn’t read at all, but the second had a simple title on it, ‘Sombra’s Journal.’ I looked back at Greed and asked, “Who’s Sombra?”

“He used to be the King of the Crystal Empire, there’s a few old stories about him that I read about,” Wind Thrasher said, “From what I read, he used a kind of dark crystal magic to take over The Empire a long time ago.”

Greed just shrugged, “I don’t know much about him really, but I’m not from Nimbus so I wouldn’t anyway. All I know is he made some powerful magic, and that’s what Pride uses, or some kind of variation of it.”

I looked at the books again, “What’s this other one, I don’t know this language.”

Wind Thrasher moved closer and looked down at the glyphs, “They look like Ancient Zebra.”

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“No, not many ponies can. You’d need to find a Zebra that knows the old tongue or a pony who studies it,” she replied.

“Then how can this help me learn about Pride’s weakness?”

Greed shrugged, “I know he said something once about his power being in those old books. Honestly when he finds out they’re missing he’ll come after you just to get them back. You think he was angry when you killed Gluttony? Whew Shadow, you have no idea. What I think you’ll need to know is in the smaller third book.”

“What third book?” I asked then I looked back in the saddlebags and saw a book the size of my hoof on the bottom. It wasn’t anything special, just a leather-bound notebook. When I took it out and opened it, I saw that Pride had been taking notes, in a tight scribble. There were notes about the older Zebra tome, more about Sombra’s journal. I started flipping through the pages until I saw a page that mentioned Black Magic. The first entry was dated nineteen years ago.

I’ve been trying my new experiments out, it’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. All my life magic has always made sense to me, every spell I tried was as easy as breathing. It was so annoying, nothing was challenging, not until I started reading this journal I found in the forgotten library. The spells in it are dark, yet so powerful. I’ve been trying the spells out, but I can’t seem to get a grip on this crystal magic at all. Maybe it’s because I’m not a true crystal pony like most of the ponies who used to live there were.

In my studies, I found that King Sombra was obsessed with dark magic of all kinds. He even went to the old Zebra lands to learn dark arts from a tribe called Starkatteri. He used what magic he knew and mixed it with the magic he learned from the Zebras. With this he was able to make a new kind of Dark Magic called Shadow Magic. He then took that and mixed it again with his natural ability to control the crystals in the empire. It made him powerful and a force to be reckoned with, it was also his downfall in the end. From his notes, he wasn’t willing to go far enough with the shadow magic to make himself powerful enough to win the war he started.

I can’t use crystal magic myself, but working backwards from Sombra’s notes, I was able to recreate the shadow magic he created. At first, I thought it’d be easy to use because of my special talents with magic, but I was wrong. I’ve been doing experiments, making sure to keep anypony away while I did, now I think I’ve got a good handle on it. Finally, a magic I have to work at to learn, I’ve been wanting something challenging for a long time.

The next entry was dated Sixteen years ago,

I thought I had this magic controlled, but I was wrong. No matter how hard I try it keeps slipping away from me. It’s even stronger than I thought at first, and it takes everything I have to just to keep it contained. I’m scared that I may have to do something drastic to get full control. I know what I have to do, but I’m not sure I can, not after what happened today. Guards will be coming for me any time now, that’s if my sister doesn’t kill me first. I’ve never seen her so mad before. She always told me magic always comes with a price. I always thought she was just saying that because she wasn’t as good with spells as I am, but she was right.

I’ll have to pay the price for what I did today, and again if I want to control this power. I’m so close to figuring out the one thing that every pony wants to find. Black magic can lead me to true immortality, I was so close! Now I’m afraid that the guards will take me away, and I’ll be executed for what I did, unless…unless I do the spell. I’ll have to pay a toll for the magic to work, but it might be worth it. I’ll get true immortality, something pony kind has always dreamed of. If I do this, I’ll also get full control of the shadows and this powerful magic.

The last entry that mattered was dated only a couple weeks later that same year,

I’ve done it! At first when I preformed the spell, I wasn’t sure it worked. I knew something happened, because I felt my body melt away. It was the most painful thing I’d ever experienced in my life, but now I know that it worked. The high council wanted to execute me for my crime. Luckily for me, they tried everything they could think of, but everything they did just turned my body into a shadow, it was amazing, I didn’t even feel pain when they shot me, or cut me, or even when they tried to incinerate me. Nothing worked. Finally they thought of something, they offered me a chance to atone for what I’ve done seeing as they can’t harm me, they saw opportunity in me. After talking with the council, we came to an agreement. I was to atone for my crime, for my pride in the work I was doing that lead me to do something horrible. They told me about a group they used to have in The Enclave that was disbanded years ago code named “Sins of Equinity,” basically it was exile with a small twist, you give up you’re rights as a citizen of The Grand Pegasus Enclave and your name. You would then be sent to take care of jobs that they didn’t want the rest of the ponies to know about.

They named me the leader and stripped me of my name, I am no longer Oricalcos, I am now Pride the Arrogant, named for my Sin. Now I can help my sister with her own project and still widen the range of my abilities. I’m learning so much and I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface of what I can do with this new gift. There’s only one downside I’ve found so far, bright light hurts me immensely. If I ease my way into a lighted area, I can endure it, but if it’s sudden and harsh enough, my body seems to vanish, until I’m only a small bit of shadow. It still doesn’t kill me, but it’s very hard for me to pull myself back together. I fear that if something was harsh enough either with fire or light, my new body wouldn’t be able to handle it. It’s a good thing nopony has ever created a weapon powerful enough that it could kill me, but I’ll still keep this from The Council. I don’t need to give them a reason to find a way to kill me. One day, I’ll build this team up and make them so powerful that we can overthrow The Enclave itself, and show those damn pegasi who they should REALLY fear.

I finished reading the notes awestruck, so Pride was the first pony in The Sins, or at least the first pony in the new Sins. He had a goal in mind back then to take over one day, maybe that was why he was so angry when I killed Gluttony. The rest of what he wrote made sense too. From what I read, it looked like he performed some kind of spell that either changed his body into shadows or replaced it. Either way, his body wasn’t normal, that I knew, but from what I read, he was just a living shadow. He did it to become immortal to escape the death he was sentenced to and to control his powers. He was wrong though, because nopony was truly immortal. He feared harsh light or a weapon that used light or fire, because he thought if it was powerful enough, it would kill him.

“This doesn’t sound good at all from what I’m reading. There isn’t anything that can kill him, not unless we could come up with a way to make quick flash of light that was as bright as the sun itself. Even then he wasn’t sure if that would even work, but he does fear it,” I said looking at Wind Thrasher and Greed.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Greed said, scraping at the dirt with his hoof, “I’ll have to look into it though, I’m sure I can find something.”

“What does this mean for killing Pride then?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“I’m not sure, I’m sure there has to be another way to kill him. Maybe if I keep using flash grenades on him, it might kill him. I’d have to trap him in a place where he couldn’t just get away easily. It could be done, if I plan this out right.”

“I think you can do it. Pride is called Pride for a reason. If you stroke his ego enough and make it seem like you’re helpless, he’ll let his guard down,” Greed said.

I liked the idea, I even have a few flash grenades that Silver…I mean Envy helped me get back at Crimson Canyon. All I’d have to do is get Pride alone in a room and spring a trap. It’d be tight, but I think I could do it. I looked back at Silver’s body. I’d have to do it, for her. If I kept that in mind, nopony could stop me.

I walked over to Silver’s body and sat down next to it, doing my best to hold back my sorrow at seeing her destroyed beauty. After a long moment passed I said, “We should bury her.”

Wind Thrasher came over to me and asked, “That’s a good idea Shadow, maybe it’ll help you deal with this.”

“No, but it’s the right thing to do. I’m not gonna let her rot in The Wasteland and get eaten by mutated birds like most ponies would,” I said looking in the distance trying to find a place that looked like it would be nice. Then I spotted something, it was a large rock in the middle of a field. The rock sparkled in the dim light, “Let’s bury her right there.”

They both looked at the rock and Wind Thrasher said, “I think it’s perfect.”

Greed smiled, “A perfect resting place for a beautiful mare,” then he frowned, “I wish I could help you with this Shadow, but I’ve spent too much time away as it is.”

Looking back at him I asked, “Are you leaving?”

“I have to, but don’t worry, from now on you can count on my help when you need it. I’ll learn what I can about what’s going on with The Enclave and find out why they want you so bad,” he said, then reached into a side pocket on his barding and pulled out a recording, “Take this, she wanted you to hear this when you found her. Listen to it anytime, all she wanted was to make sure you got it.”

I took it and slipped it into my Pip-Buck, “I’ll listen to it soon, but what about you? Are you gonna be okay?”

He opened his wings and winced a little, his chest still bleeding slightly, “I’ll be fine. I’ll find our doctor when I get to Appleton.”

Before he could fly away I asked, “Greed, before you go, can you tell me your real name?”

He stopped then smiled, “Another time Shadow, I’ll see you in Appleton,” then he flew off without saying another word, slowly flying toward the distant town.

Wind Thrasher came up to stand next to me as we watched him fly, “He’s a strange one, isn’t he?”

“He is, but he means well. One day I’m gonna have to ask him how he became a Sin.”

“Assuming he lives that long. If the Enclave or Pride finds out what he did today, they’ll kill him.”

“Maybe, but he’s too tricky to just let them kill him. I have faith that we’ll see him again,” I said then turned back toward the rock, “Now how are we going to dig a grave?”

“We’ll use our hooves, just like an earth pony would in the old days,” she said smiling at me, “Come on, I’ll help you.”

We worked with the hard soil, I decided to play the recording that Silver left for me. I let it play out loud as I worked, trying to hold back tears while she spoke.

It started out simple, Silvers voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck, weakly at first, then as she went on, she seemed to find strength not letting any fear or sorrow come to the words she had for me…

Hello Shadow Star, I’m glad Greed gave this to you like I asked him to. I think you can trust him, he seemed truly horrified at what Pride was doing to me. It hurts, everything hurts so bad right now, but I’m doing everything I can to not tell them anything. I’m sure your thinking right now that I’m an idiot for holding back and letting them do this. The truth is, no matter what I tell them, I’m going to die. I know it for a fact and there’s nothing I can do to change that, and I’m okay with it. It’s not like I want to die, but I will die for you. I just wish I could see you one last time before the end, it’d be nice to hold you close to me so I could vent my frustrations, not at you, but at myself for being so weak.

I should’ve stayed by your side when the fight broke out, but I had to prove that I was just as strong as Aura or Stardust. I knew they both saw me as just a tag along to warm your bed at night, but that wasn’t true, it never would be. I figured I could prove myself and you’d see I was just as strong as all of you. I’m sorry I let myself get captured, I’m really sorry Shadow. That isn’t what I wanted to say though.”

I kept digging the hole next to Wind Thrasher, neither of us looking at each other. We were doing our best to keep our minds in the work, to lose ourselves in the task of shoveling soil out of the ever-expanding hole. Really, we didn’t want to show the tears that were mixing with the sweat that was flowing down our faces. As we worked, Silver’s words kept playing in the background, her voice steady as she went on.

“Shadow, you’re an amazing mare and I think it’s time you saw that. I’ve been watching you for the past couple days and I’ve noticed how you always second guess yourself, you need to stop doing that and start trusting yourself more. You’re so good and kind, you’re strong and beautiful. Be your own mare and don’t let anypony tell you who you’re supposed to be. This mission to find your mother is noble and I understand why you think you need to go on with it. You want answers and you deserve to get them. I wish I told you all this sooner, but I was afraid you’d be angry with me for holding back. I didn’t want you to leave to go off and find her, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“I remembered your mother when she first came to town with you when you were little. That wasn’t the last time I saw her. Grimoire came to Cartwheel eight years ago, she didn’t stay long, but she did talk to Box Tape and my mother. I remember her leaving something with mom, but I never found out what it was. Mom put it in her safe and I never found a key for it when she died. Eight months ago, Grimoire came back to Cartwheel, she was just passing through making her way toward the M.A.S.E.B.S. Tower that’s just north of town, but I never forget a pony. I tried to talk to her and ask her about you, I wanted to know why I never heard back from you after we first met so many years ago…she looked at me like I was an insect and told me her daughter was dead.”

“She told me that you died a long time ago, I don’t know why she said that, maybe she was just protecting you or I don’t know, but she was different, she was angry and cruel. I didn’t see her after that, but whatever she had planned for you, I don’t think she meant it to be good Shadow. You told me that your mom took away your memories of the past, maybe there was a reason for that and not the one she told you. You only know her as the mom you knew in Stable 28, but what if that isn’t what she’s really like. She could be using you for something bad. I’m not sure what it was, but she gave me a bad feeling when I met her that last time. So please, don’t go following her, learn what you can, but don’t go into her plan blindly. You need to find out who you were before the Stable, when you do then find her. At least that way you’ll know the truth about who she really is.”

“I won’t be there to help you down this hard road you’ve set yourself on. Just remember that even though I won’t be around, you still have friends. They love you, I can see that. Start listening to them more, and be there for them no matter what, because every one of them will be there for you. Stardust is loyal to a tee, you can count on him to protect you and always be there for you. Wingnut may have a dirty mind now and then, but he’s a colt he’ll grow out of it, maybe. I’m not making any promises about him. He’s still a strong kid, and smarter than most ponies I’ve met that are twice his age. Aura…what can I say about her? Well… I see something in her that I don’t think you have. Out of all your friends she’s the one I’m most jealous of. She’s so strong and brave, she’s always willing to speak her mind no matter who’s around. She’s also broken inside, she needs you more than you know. I want you to be there for her, don’t let her go, no matter what. Also talk to her about her past, don’t force it out of her, just sit back and listen, she’ll open up to you if you just listen.”

“That’s all I want from you Shadow, be there for your friends, and don’t ever give up on them. And remember that even if I’m gone, I’ll still be watching over you. I don’t know if the Goddesses are real or just a story that was cooked up to make us mortals feel better about our lives, but I chose to have faith that when I pass on to the afterlife, they’ll be there and from the paradise where they reside I’ll watch over you, until the day we are reunited again. The last thing I want to say is simple, don’t be afraid to love again. I know there’s somepony out there for you, one who will be able to stay by your side for many years, I wish it was me, but I think my role in life was to help you find yourself. I hope I was able to do that. I love you Shadow Star, I always have and I always will, thank you for making my last few days, perfect. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, even if it meant I could live on for fifty years, I still wouldn’t give up the time we had together, short as it was.”

“Now go out there, be strong, be safe, and show everypony that you’re not a pony to cross. I have faith in you. Good bye…”

The audio recording cut out, her last two words echoing inside my head. Tears welled up in my eyes again as I stopped digging. I looked down at my dirty hooves watching as tears fall on them. She met mom eight months ago, but she never told me, because she didn’t want me to go on with this foolish journey to find her. Not because she was worried about me finding out the truth, but because she didn’t trust the pony mom had become. She wanted to protect me from whatever plan mom set into motion eight years ago when she left me alone in Stable 28. It also meant Lonely Hearts was right about her, she wasn’t the same pony that I knew from when I was younger, or maybe I didn’t know her like I thought I did. Was she even my real mother, or was I just a filly she was using for some greater goal? Where did I come from and why wouldn’t mom ever talk about it when we were in the Stable? The more I looked into her, the more questions I had.

What could I do about everything that was happening right now, all of this crap that revolved around either mom, or this stupid Pip-Buck she’d left for me. If I’d left the stable without it, no pony would be after me or even care who I was. I’d just be another mare in The Wasteland. To be honest I probably would’ve been dead already without the help of S.A.T.S. At the same time, if I’d never found the Pip-Buck I wouldn’t have become friends with Stardust, he would’ve been there to save me from the raiders, but he wouldn’t have needed a reason to travel with me after. I would’ve just stayed in Cartwheel, the same went for Aura. If the Overmare hadn’t lied to the Red Talons about me, then she wouldn’t have ever stolen the orders to hunt me down and came searching for me. Wind Thrasher would still be stuck in Stable 9, having to do whatever she was told to by Dr. Cell. Wingnut and Honeysuckle would’ve been killed by those Cazadores if I wasn’t heading to New Pegasus to find Lonely Hearts.

No matter the reasons why mom left the Mark II with me, it wasn’t the root of all my problems, no, Mom was. The Pip-Buck was the reason I made so many new friends, and met some interesting and fun ponies along the way. Shit, if I never found it, I’d still be miserable living in Stable 28 with a sad lonely life ahead of me. Living in The Wasteland was hard, but it was so much better than the shitty life I had back in Stable 28. I was happy now, I laughed every day no matter what was happening around me, my friends always tried their best to make me smile. I rarely smiled in Stable 28, it was only when Milkshake or Balefire could get away and spend the day with me. As we grew older that happened less and less, first with Balefire training to get into security, and Milkshake taking on small duties as she got ready for one of the jobs she’d be doing when she came of age. I was always with Auntie, watching her go through the day making sure the Stable was running properly, but I never paid it much mind, I only cared about myself back then.

I didn’t think like that anymore, now I had something to look forward to in life, and even with the loss of a mare I cared for more than anything, I still had a goal. She was right, I needed to find out who I was first before I started looking for mom again or at the very least before I continued down the path she’d set for me. I am Shadow Star, I’m not good at listening Auntie would always say. She was right too, if mom wanted me to go one direction, then I’d cheat, and take a side path, one of my own choosing.

I popped the recording out of the Mark II, placed it in my saddle bags then got out of the hole Wind Thrasher and I dug. She watched me quietly as I lifted Silver gently with my magic then lowered her into the grave. I reached down and closed her lifeless eyes. I arranged her forehooves so they were crossed over her chest. Then I sat back and looked down at her face, ignoring the blood and bruises left over from her imprisonment. She was still beautiful, and she looked at peace now, nothing could change what happened, she knew that. That was why she left me that long message, she wanted me to know that she didn’t blame me for what happened. She wanted me to move on with my life, to find my friends and find out who I really was. So that’s what I’ll do, after I take care of Pride. No matter what, he still had to be dealt with.

I smiled as I looked up at the cloudy sky and I started to speak, “Silver Snip was a great pony. She wasn’t Strong or as brave as other ponies I knew, braver than me, no doubt, maybe even stronger, but she had a big heart. She befriended a scared sickly little filly because she wanted to see her smile. She loved a mare who was broken inside and wanted to do everything she could to help her heal. She risked her life and in the end, gave her life to protect the mare she loved with all her heart. Goddesses, if you’re really up there, please watch over this mare’s soul and welcome her into your loving hooves. Help her find peace in the afterlife.”

It was all I could say, so using my magic I moved as much dirt as I could back into the hole. Covering the body forever. It took a few times of moving the piles of dirt, but soon I was finished. When I was finished, Wind Thrasher moved over to the rock and using a jagged rock she found on the ground, she started to scratch deep lines in the grey stone. It took her a few minutes but when she was done I felt fresh tears falling as I saw what she’d done.

In the Stone she wrote…

Here Lies Silver Snip
Friend, Lover, and a One of a Kind Pony
She Gave her life for the Mare she loved more than anything
Let her Spirit find Peace in the loving embrace of Celestia and Luna

I looked over at Wind Thrasher and said, “Thank you for that.”

She nodded, her own eyes filled with tears, “I didn’t know her, but after listening to what she had to say, I wish I had. It was the least I could do for you Shadow. Also, since I was never able to bury my mother, this helps me find peace in a small sense. The words may be for Silver Snip, but for me they’re also for my mom, who also gave her life to protect the rest of the stable and in hope that one day I’d be free.”

I moved closer and hugged the batpony for a long moment, both of us letting our sorrow out. It didn’t last long, but in that short time I felt like everything bad that had happened was being washed away with the tears. It was time for a new pony to show herself. It was time to become the Courier Mare The Wasteland called for. If DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus wanted a hero in the west, then I’d give them one. I’d start by showing The Enclave that you don’t mess with a wasteland pony, or the mare I loved. It was time to take on Pride, and get Stardust back.

That was the first time in my life I felt I was a part of the wasteland, I was no longer the same Stable 28 Mare, I was the Courier Mare of the Wasteland. Hero of the west. At least that’s what I told myself at the time

I pulled away from Wind Thrasher, dried my eyes and said, “I’m still going to head to Appleton and try my best to kill Pride. I’ll understand if you don’t want to go with me, you already did more than I could have asked by helping me get Silver back.”

She laughed drying her eyes, “I don’t have anywhere to go. I’ll stick by you as long as you’ll let me,” she held out a hoof, “I want to be your friend and friends stick together.”

I took her hoof and shook it, “I’ll be happy to call you my friend Wind Thrasher, and thank you,” my smile fell as I thought about Aura and Wingnut. I’m sure they were back at Crimson Canyon by now, and they had to be furious with me. I’d have to do whatever I could to make it up to them. “I just hope that I’ll be able to earn back the trust of my other friends, after what I did, I’m not sure that’ll be easy.”

“I dunno, you might be surprised how far friends will go for each other. Don’t give up hope too quickly on Aura and Wingnut.”

“You’re right, let’s go take care of Pride, then I can find them and let them take out whatever anger they have toward me. Are you ready to do this?”

“Do you have a plan?” she asked.

“Maybe, mind you it’s probably going to get one or both of us killed, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Then let’s get going, we aren’t going to be able to do much while sitting around here crying like Foals.”

I laughed then nodded. We both headed off toward Appleton, I only looked back once toward the large rock that now served as a marker and tombstone for Silver Snip. I made sure to brand that rock and the writing on it into my mind forever. I vowed that I wouldn’t let another pony I loved die like she did, I would die first before I’d let them give their lives for me just like Silver had. I whispered one last prayer to the Goddesses then turned away.

***

Appleton was nothing like any town I’d seen so far in The Wasteland. Cartwheel was a town with rickety walls around it to help protect the town from raiders or whoever else would try and take the city, it wasn’t perfect but it worked. New Pegasus and Freedom were both towns that revolved around gambling, sex, trade, business, and fear. Frosty Summit was a safe haven for any who needed it. Crimson Canyon was a mercenary settlement for Griffons. Appleton, was like walking into a prewar town that hadn’t changed since the bombs fell, apart from the fact that instead of traders and ponies just trying to get by in the world, it was like walking into a den of Thieves.

Everypony here had a hard edge to them, each one looking like they’d be more likely to stab you before they’d shake your hoof in greeting. At the same time, even with their hard look, they had a sense of welcoming to them. They looked scary but none of the ponies that I could see turned away anypony who was walking in or out of the town. They also smiled at one another, welcoming some of the traders who were leading their Brahman in through the gate.

But it wasn’t the look of the other ponies that kept Wind Thrasher and myself outside looking in. It was the Pegasi flying over the town, all of them in power armor with magical energy rifle battle saddles. There was also something I’d never seen before just on the outskirts of town. There were three armored carriages, with pegasi hooked up to them. I guess they were sky carriages, but I couldn’t be sure. I remember the trader outside of Little Hoof saying The Enclave took over Appleton, but I didn’t think it was this bad.

It was then that I noticed two Enclave guards just inside the gate that lead into town. Each one was checking everypony who walked in, keeping their eyes out for something. I wasn’t sure what, but I’m sure I would be a pony who would raise suspicion. I looked over at Wind Thrasher and asked, “How are we gonna get past them?”

“Maybe we could sneak in?” she said, watching the ponies who were heading slowly in and out of Appleton, “I’m sure one of those ponies would have an outfit that we could use too.”

“Do you really think something like that would even work?” I asked.

She shrugged, “It’s the only thing I can think of…”

As I sat there trying to think of a way to sneak past the ponies guarding the gate, something went flying over us speeding toward the gate. There was the sound of crunching and a body falling to the ground. I looked over at the gate and saw that one of the guards was dead, a long spear sticking out of one of his eye sockets. The other guard was backing away from the body, his battle saddle charging.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked, but I got my answer a moment later as ponies on the road started screaming and running away.

As I watched an equine form materialize a few feet away, it was wearing a red cloak that seemed to shimmer. It pulled back its hood, revealing a Zebra Stallion. He hefted another spear in his hoof and threw it at the other guard yelling, “For the Caesar!”

The spear buried itself in the ground an inch away from the guard. He jumped back, then fired at the lone Zebra yelling, “Romans!”

The Zebra easily sidestepped the shot and threw his cloak back showing off his own battle saddle. The Zebra fired taking the guard down like it was nothing. More pegasi started to fly down toward the Zebra firing at him. He just smiled and yelled, “You think your puny garrison is a match for the fury of The Romans?”

As the trade ponies started to run in all directions, some of them pulled away throwing off their cloaks, revealing more striped faces. They pulled out rifles and battle saddles all of them firing up at the armor covered pegasi. The air around the first Zebra shimmered and another ten zebra’s materialized. Before I knew it, an all-out battle erupted in front of my eyes.

I felt Wind Thrasher pulling on me, “Shadow, now’s a good time for us to get into town.”

“Is there going to be a town after this?” I asked my eyes glued on the fight. I watched as a pegasus flew down at one of the advancing Zebra’s, he dodged a shot, the stinger on his tail coming around and jamming into the zebra’s neck, the tip protruding out the other side. Before the pegasus could fly away, another zebra ran up and jammed a spear through the soldier’s visor. His body went ridged for a moment then fell as the zebra pulled the bloody spear out.

“It’s better than staying here and dodging stray energy beams, now let’s go,” she said pulling on my foreleg.

I turned my head away from the carnage unfolding before me and ran toward the gate. We just made it through when something exploded behind us. I looked back and saw chunks of pony flying through the air, a red mist where I assume the pony had been a second before. Turning away again I followed Wind Thrasher as she ducked into an alley.

“Well that worked I guess,” I said shaking a little from the adrenalin pumping through my veins, “What the hell was that all about?”

“I’m not sure, let’s just hope they don’t make it into town.”

“What, those Zebras?”

“Yes, from what the N.L.R. told me, those Zebras are the worst thing for ponies of any kind to run into. The stories about what they do are terrifying,” she said with a shiver, “Let’s move further into town, we can use this to start searching for Pride.”

“I think we won’t have to look far,” I said ducking farther down the alley. Walking by closely followed by Sloth and Lust, was Pride.

He was right there, and he didn’t even know I was here. I started walking toward him pulling the plasma rifle from its holster. Wind Thrasher grabbed me and pulled me behind a pile of trash whispering, “Not now Shadow, not with those other two ponies with him. You need to get him alone first.”

I felt the hot rage flowing through me as I looked at his smug golden face. The image of Silver’s corpse still fresh in my mind. I wanted to destroy him, I wanted him to suffer like he made her suffer. It took all of my will power, not to pull away and make an insane dash toward the bastard. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth.

“Calm down,” Wind Thrasher said. She wrapped her forehooves around me and pulled me into an embrace. Slowly my shaking slowed and the rage left me.

Finally I said, “I’m good now…thanks.”

She just smiled and let the embrace linger for another moment then she let me go, “I’m your friend Shadow, I’m here to make sure you don’t do something stupid.”

As she talked, Prides voice echoed from just around the corner to the alley, “What’s going on out there?”

Sloth answered in his unexcited monotone voice, “I heard one of the soldiers say something about Zebra’s attacking err something.”

Lust spoke next, “Why would they want to attack this shithole?”

Pride sighed, “They must know that this town is the perfect place to set up camp if they wanted to take over Halo One, like we did. They probably scouted our pegasi leaving slowly and thought this would be the perfect time to try and take Appleton.”

Lust laughed, “More like the worse time if you ask me. What should we do about them Pride?”

“It’s not like we need this town anymore, but our own ponies are still here so I guess we should put a stop to this. It’d also help put those Stripes in their place,” Pride replied.

I heard Sloth yawn, “Are you gonna make us go fight them Pride? Cause I really don’t feel like doing that, it’s so much work.”

“No, I’ll take care of this, I could do with an excuse to let out some of this anger,” Pride said, then he laughed, “It’ll also be a good time to show the ponies around here why you don’t mess with The Seven Sins of Equinity.”

“What do you want us to do then? Sit on our fore hooves and watch?” Lust asked.

“I want you two to go find out what’s taking Greed so long, he should’ve been back by now.”

“What about Cloak?” Sloth asked.

“She’s already taken off with the last Raptor that went out. I’ll deal with this, finish up here, then go find Greed. When you do find out where he is, I want all three of you to fly back to Stratus right away.”

“Can do boss,” Sloth said, a moment later I saw both Pegasi flying off away from the battle I could still hear going on just outside the walls.

We waited a moment then Wind Thrasher and I crept toward the entrance to the alley. Peeking around it I just caught sight of Pride walking outside the gate. We followed, wondering what he was going to do to stop the Zebra advance. When we got to the gate we watched as Pride walked out toward the fight.

He raised his voice, his horn glowing and yelled in a magically projected voice, “All Enclave Soldiers fall back toward town, leave them to me.”

They all obeyed, the thirty or so Pegasi that could still move, flew back over the walls and into town. Luckily none of them flew toward us. The Zebra who first showed up looked at Pride, a triumphant look on his face, “Are you here to surrender Pony?”

“On the contrary, I’m here to kill all of you. Well maybe not all of you. Somepony needs to send the message of your demise to the Caesar,” Pride said.

The Zebra laughed, “You ponies think you’re so powerful, and what makes you think you can defeat my centurions by yourself?”

“I don’t think, I know. I’m Pride the Arrogant, leader of The Seven Sins of Equinity,” he said then he started to laugh, “Why am I explaining this to a backward cultured piece of shit like you?”

“Kill him,” The Zebra said, pointing his hoof at Pride.

Pride just yawned as the Zebra’s opened fire. The bullets just passed through him like my own had back at Frosty Summit. The holes they made just turned to shadow and reformed a second later. When the gunfire stopped Pride said, “Are you finished or are you just reloading?”

Another shot rang out, a bullet flying through Prides head. The leader looked like he’d been slapped. As he spoke his voice shook a little, “You are a demon of the Stars.”

“No, I’m just a unicorn who learned how to control some of the most powerful magic known to Ponykind,” Pride said, then Shadows erupted from his horn forming into sharp points. The light around Pride seemed to dim almost like his presence alone was darkening everything around him, “Don’t worry though, you’re attack here will still accomplish something good, you’ll serve as an example to that imbecile you call Caesar that we are not to be trifled with.”

The Leader Zebra screamed at Pride, “No one insults…”

He never finished what he was going to say. All the shadows around Pride flew forward, each one stabbing through the helms and heads of the closest Zebras. As the first Six fell, Pride started to move forward, his body erupting into shadows, his presence seeming to grow and surround them like a cloud of death. They started to fire wildly, but it did no good.

One of the Zebra’s closest to town fell, his head flying away from his body, a shower of blood spraying from his neck. Another screamed and tried to run, only to run face first into a spike of shadow that erupted from the ground. Two more were smashed to a bloody pulp as another shadow slammed down onto them, turning their bodies into jelly. Three were left now, they were slowly backing away as the darkness around them pulled together reforming into Pride.

“What…What are you?” One of the remaining Zebra’s asked, shaking violently.

Pride didn’t say a word, he just waved a hoof. A shadow shot out from that hoof picking the Zebra who’d spoken into the air. He started to scream, then the scream got higher as the shadows around his torso tightened. The Scream turned into a gurgle as his innards exploded from his mouth spraying blood and chunks of meat down on the last two Zebras. Then Pride dropped the body in front of them.

They looked at him like he was a demon from hell. It made sense since Pride was standing there surrounded by Zebra Corpses, blood pooling around him. It was a scarlet reminder of who they were messing with. After a minute passed Pride finally spoke, “A message needs somepony to deliver it, but sometimes a message might not be received if only one brings the message. I really need my message to be received properly, so you two get to live…for now. Make sure you tell your Caesar what happened here and you let him know that if he tries to screw with The Enclave again, I’ll make this look like a simple mercy culling.”

“You…you are a monster,” the smaller Zebra said as he backed away slowly.

Pride laughed, then a shadow shot out and stabbed him in the eye. The Zebra screamed as the sharp tip poked through his cornea, then ripped the eye out leaving the Zebra screaming on the ground next to his companion. He pulled the shadow back to himself the eyeball still stuck to the end of it. He looked it over for a moment before letting it drop to the ground where he stepped on the orb slowly, “Do I make myself clear?”

The remaining Zebra who was still standing nodded, then he moved to help the Zebra who was screaming on the ground. He lifted him up and together they both ran from the demonic pony who started laughing maniacally.

Wind Thrasher and I retreated back into town putting as much distance as we could between us and Pride. When we finally found what looked like a safe place to stop, Wind Thrasher asked, “How do you plan on killing…that!?”

I was stunned at the display of mutilation Pride had just did but I shook my head and looked at Wind Thrasher trying my best to look calm “I have a plan…I think.”

“YOU THINK!?” Wind Thrasher exclaimed in a loud whisper, “How do you plan on killing that!? He’s not even a pony!”

“Everypony has a weakness, even Pride. If I trap him in a small place where he can’t just escape easily and use multiple flash grenades, it should kill him,” I said.

“Oh yeah, because he’s just gonna let you trap him like that,” she said.

“I have to do something Wind Thrasher, I can’t just let a pony like him stay alive.”

“I can’t believe you’re still alive after watching that.”

Honestly, I couldn’t either, Pride hadn’t fought like that before. He’d used the spikes like that before, but the other stuff…it was just insane. Those Zebra’s didn’t stand a chance against him, and he was only ONE of The Sins. If Envy was right, he wasn’t even the strongest one. What could Envy do that could top Pride’s power?

I sighed, “You’re right, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have to kill Pride. If you don’t wanna help me, I understand. I don’t want you getting hurt just to help me with this.”

The anger in her face faded then she sighed, “It’s not like that Shadow. Yes, I’m scared, but I’ll stand by your side. I’m not worried about myself, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t worry about me, I know I can do this. Hell, even if I can’t, then it’s not like it matters in the end. My life doesn’t matter, all I am is a pony who’s carrying a Pip-Buck that I don’t understand, with stuff on it that’s way over my head just to get it back to my mother. I don’t care about it anymore, if I don’t win, then at least I’ll be back with Silver…and Morning Star will be gone too,” I said turning away from my friend.

“Shadow, you have ponies who care about you, that’s a horrible way to look at life. You matter to Aura and Wingnut, I’m sure your mother still cares about you, and what about your friends in your Stable?”

I rounded on her, anger lancing through me, “Oh yeah, let’s just take a look at the ponies who care about me. Aura, I lied to her about where I was going and betrayed her by leaving. I’ve dragged her around The Wasteland, putting her into dangerous situations just so I could finish my quest, not once taking time to make sure she was okay or even wanted to help me. Wingnut, I took a colt and put him into situations that a colt shouldn’t ever have to experience. He should’ve been brought to a place where he could grow and use his mind for something good. Stardust, all I did for him was help The Sins find him. I treated him like a bodyguard and not like a friend. My friends in the Stable, what a good friend I was, all I ever cared about was my shitty life and my problems instead of worrying about them or their problems. Then I left them behind without a second thought. And my mother, she might care about me, but she sure knew how to show it didn’t she? She’s just as bad as I am if not worse, she put me into a situation where I had to run away from the only life I knew, she also took away the memories I had of my real home, and wanted me to go around The Wasteland with a Pip-Buck that she wants and so does everypony else. She didn’t even have the decency to TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK I WAS DOING! So, tell me why I’m worth anything!”

She didn’t yell at me, she didn’t try to tell me I was wrong. Wind Thrasher just gave me a smile filled with pity and said, “You also saved your friends in many ways Shadow. Aura had no one to call a friend before she met you. Wingnut would’ve died if he didn’t meet you and his life is better by knowing you no matter what you think. Stardust was always on the run from what you told me, and by traveling with you, he found a new purpose in life. Your friends in the Stable I’m sure understood why you were the way you were, they still loved you. Don’t forget about me, if it wasn’t for you I’d still be stuck in Stable 9, now I’m free and nothing can be better than that, even if I died today. As for your mom, she had her reasons for doing what she did and you can’t blame her until you know everything. Now stop thinking like a foal, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and start thinking of a way to win. Not what would happen if you died. Fight to Win, not to lose. When we buried Silver I saw your face Shadow it was determined are you really gonna let it die that fast?”

I hung my head, ashamed at the dark thoughts that had been running through my head, “You’re right Wind Thrasher, but I’m not sure what else to do.”

“Your plan isn’t a bad one Shadow, but it can’t be your only one. Is there anything else you can think of that would work against Pride? Because that…thing I saw out there, isn’t a pony who’ll just fall for a simple Trap.”

“I…may know one more thing that would work, but if I did it, I risk letting something even worse than Pride out.”

Morning Star pushed to the front of my mind for a moment, “I wouldn’t say I’m worse than Pride, but I am powerful enough to kill him.”

Wind Thrasher asked, “What is it you think would work?”

Morning Star strained to keep her hold on my mind so she could speak to me, “I know the magic he’s using and how to block it. I’ve felt it before and it might be powerful, but it’s not invulnerable.”

Doing my best to push Morning Star away I said, “Remember that thing that lives inside me I told you about before? Well, it could be powerful enough to stop him for good. The problem is, if I let her out again, I might not be able to stop her,” I pointed at the ring on my horn, “Once this comes off, I’m not sure I’ll have enough strength to put it back on again.”

“It could be a risk we’ll have to take,” Wind Thrasher said, “If I have to, I’ll make sure you don’t lose yourself to whatever that thing is.”

“She’s right Shadow, and it’s not like I have to take over fully to fight Pride. It could be like when the griffons attacked, you saw what a small amount of my power can do. Imagine if you had control of just a little more,” Morning Star said as she faded slowly back into my mind.

“I’m…scared of what would happen if I gave in to the temptation of that power.”

“Then don’t be Scared, use the power to help ponies and don’t worry about what you might do. Don’t let your power control you Shadow, you control it. Just like I have to do with my own,” Wind Thrasher said.

“Well if luck isn’t on my side for once,” The voice of the one pony I wasn’t ready to run into yet said. Wind Thrasher and I both turned to see Pride standing on the other side of the road. He was leaning against a building watching us. He grinned, “I take it you got my message.”

At the sight of his twisted grin, everything I was afraid of about Pride vanished. I stood my ground and said, “Loud and clear Pride, and I’m here to show you that you aren’t immortal.”

“Shadow, we don’t even have a plan yet,” Wind Thrasher whispered.

Pride just laughed again, “How cute, you think you can kill me do you? Let me guess, you think that if you can somehow expose me to enough bright light, it’ll kill me. I’m sure you read what I wrote in my journal. I do hope that isn’t you’re plan, because I should tell you that it won’t work. You’re not the first one to try something like that on me. I found out years ago that no amount of light can kill me, it’ll hurt me, or make me vanish for a while, but it won’t kill me. Those notes I left for you to find were old. I originally meant for you to find them so you could try your gambit giving me an excuse to kill you in a fight. Then the higher ups couldn’t do anything about it. Sadly, I don’t have time for that now, I knew you’d come here to find me, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You’re lying.”

He shrugged, “Maybe I am, why don’t you try me?”

Wind Thrasher put a hoof on my shoulder saying quickly, “He’s not lying Shadow, I can see it in his eyes. This was a trap, we have to get out of here.”

Pride looked over at Wind Thrasher, “No pony was talking to you freak.”

“Enough of this,” I yelled pulling out my plasma rifle, “I’ll make you pay for what you did to Silver.”

Pride erupted into shadows as I fired at him, the wall of shadows flew at me. I tried to dodge, but he was faster. The shadows wrapped around me lifting me into the air, and throwing me into one of the buildings. Before I could even hit the ground, they slammed into me crushing my body against the wall. Wind Thrasher tried to help, but a shadow peeled away from the larger mass and swatted her out of the air like a bug.

She slammed into another wall, a tiny scream coming from her muzzle. She fell to the ground, and didn’t get back up. I was doing my best to breathe as the shadow crushed me against the wall. A light chuckling came from the middle of the creature Pride’s voice coming from it, “Finally Courier, it’s just me and you. No more friends to come in and save the day. Whatever will you do now?”

Using what was left of my strength I pulled a flash grenade from my Saddle bags and wheezed out, “This!”

I pulled the pin and dropped the flash bomb. A yell came from the shadow and Pride released me fleeing for the other side of the road. It went off and he screamed as some of his shadows blew away like dust, but unlike before, he didn’t vanish. I’d have to get closer and use more flash bombs to kill him.

When I hit the ground, I took a few deep breaths, then looked over at where the shadowy form hovered, “I’m not going down that easily Pride. You’re going to die today.”

He reformed back into a pony, “Nothing can kill me Courier, trust me, you’re not the first pony to try this trick. I’ve had ponies trying to kill me for forty years. From the jealous who hated me for my natural talent with magic, to the ponies in The Enclave who wanted me dead because of who I am. So, tell me Courier, how do you think you can possibly kill me? A mare whose magical power is mediocre at best?”

“Use my power Shadow, my power can kill him,” Morning Star said, her presence pushing past the protection spell again, “It’s the only way, those flash bombs won’t work, he’s using black magic, you need light magic to take him down.”

“Is that the kind of magic you have?” I thought back at her.

“Sort of, but it’ll work trust me.”

“I’ll never trust you Morning Star. If I let you take hold again, you’ll never let go.”

Pride started to walk toward me slowly, shadows rolling off him in waves, “No answer?”

Morning Star was starting to fade, but she pushed hard to keep contact, “I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll give you access to my power without taking control of your mind. I’ll help you control the power itself, but you’ll be the one using it and controlling what to cast.”

“How can I trust that you won’t take over?”

“Because I never lie, if I make a deal I keep it. You and I may have our problems, but I still need you alive. Don’t let us die because you’re too stubborn to let me help. Please Shadow, think about Silver, are you really going to let Pride kill you like he did those Zebras? Is that what her memory deserves?”

I looked up at Pride, “Fine, let’s do this.”

Pride smiled thinking I was talking to him, “I’ll admit, you are a brave pony. Before you die, just know that you do have my utmost respect.”

As he spoke Morning Star said, “Pull off the ring and cut yourself, once you do I can give you the power you’ll need. You’ll be able to feel me in your mind helping with the flow of power, but you have to cast the spells and control where they land. That’s all I can do without taking over.”

Pride shot toward me, in the split second it took for him to attack, I reached up and pulled the talisman off my horn. Throwing it away, I jumped out of the way but let one of the shadows scrape by, leaving a shallow cut in my foreleg. I ran over to Wind Thrasher and lifted her into the air as I ran away from Pride.

“Running won’t save you Courier!” Pride yelled as he followed.

I could feel the power flowing into me as I ran toward the center of town, pushing past townsponies and traders. When I reached the center of town I set Wind Thrasher down and turned to face Pride. I picked up the plasma rife again and pointed it at him.

He smiled as he reformed his spears of shadow, “I thought we’ve done this already?”

I smiled as I felt the last of the power from Morning Star flow into me and light formed around the cut in my foreleg, “You don’t know what I’m capable of Pride, now you’ve forced my hoof. I’ll show you my true power.”

He started to laugh, “Your true power? Oh please, that’s cute. Goodbye Courier.”

He moved to attack, but he was too late. The light exploded out of me forcing him to jump away with a hiss. The explosion of magic that came was almost too much for me to handle, let alone understand. My body changed like it did when I fought the griffons, only without the pain that accompanied it. My Coat changed to a silvery white and my mane turned black as the night sky. It was over in a matter of seconds. I could feel Morning Star as she said, but she wasn’t trying to take control of me like she had the first time. She was only there to help me understand the magic I now held and to guide it as I used it.

When I spoke, my voice was my own thank the goddesses, “It’s time for you to die Pride.”

I was about to attack when I saw the look on Pride’s face. He looked…scared, could he feel the power, or was it something else? He took a step back and said in a quite voice, “No…that’s not possible.”

I looked at him confused

“Why do you have her face? She died, you can’t have her face,” he was rambling. Pride was rambling? Whose face did I have, did he know who Morning Star was? Then the Shadows around him exploded as she Screamed, “HOW DARE YOU!”

Pure anger rolled off the golden pony as he attacked. The towns ponies around us screamed as dark magic rolled across the center of town, two ponies dying from just the touch of his shadows. The darkness rolled toward me like a wave. Oddly I didn’t feel fear like I normally would from such a powerful spell, no, my mind was clear. I pulled on the vast amount of energy I could feel flowing through me from Morning Star and I cast the first spell that came into mind.

A wave of bright light exploded from my horn blasting right at the dark wall of shadow. It parted at the touch of the spell blowing right at the dark from in the middle. I saw a quick glow of purple eyes then the dark shape vanished, the flood of darkness flowing down and extinguishing the light of my spell. I flipped around, keeping my head on a swivel looking for any sign of the bastard. A lance of shadow flew out from one of the alleys, I jumped to one side, but not before it left a shallow gash along my cheek. Another second later and it would’ve gone through my eye.

I shot another blast of light at the alley, but nothing was there, “Fuck!” I yelled as I twisted around again, but not before a spear punched through my armor and into my back and out the other side. Morning Star and I both screamed in pain as something seemed to explode inside my body. A moment later I was lifted off the ground and thrown toward the far side of the town center, my body crashing into a building. If it wasn’t for the reinforced armor I would’ve broken more than the brick my body landed against.

I looked down at myself, and saw blood slowly flowing from my stomach. I winched then did my best to get back to my hooves looking up at the rolling shadows that seemed to fill the town square, purple eyes in the center of the mass. A wide grin of pure pleasure and terror just under those violet orbs. As I looked into those eyes I forgot the pain and only thought about the monster that I had to face, the monster who killed the mare I loved, the evil bastard that has made my life hell.

I spat blood onto the cobblestone and grinned, “Is that all you got Pride?”

He didn’t say a word, he only attacked. Blades of shadow flew at me, quick as a bullet. My horn flashed and I teleported away, reappearing on the other side of the square. I cast another spell, this one not just a burst of light, but a binding spell to try and hold down the mass of shadow. His shadows blew that spell apart as more lances of darkness tried to pin me down. I jumped out of the way of two and was nearly cut in two by another that came from another alley. I blew that one apart with another burst of light. Keeping the light going I ran toward the center of the mass of shadow.

“I’m not letting you kill me that easily Pride!”

“And I’m not letting you leave this town alive, COURIER!” Pride’s voice echoed out from the center of the shadow.

Dozens of blades blew out toward me, but I was ready for it. I ducked under them by sliding along the ground, my magic taking two flash bombs from my saddle bags and throwing them into the center of the mass. I closed my eyes as they went off. Pride’s scream bringing a small smile to my lips. Opening my eyes again, I got to my hooves ready for another attack, the mass of shadows was gone, but Pride wasn’t.

He was standing only a few inches away from me, his horn glowing. He looked a little shocked, but the expression vanished in a second, “Nice trick, but it won’t work this time.”

I jumped back, but another shadow came out of nowhere and stabbed through my hind leg, another going through my right foreleg, pinning me to the ground. I tried to scream and attack again, but Pride moved close and pressed his shadow covered horn to mine. When the tip of his horn met mine, it was like somepony started pouring hot lead into my horn. The pain started at where the connection was made then ran down my horn into my head and throughout my entire body.

The pain was so intense I couldn’t even scream. Morning Star was doing her best to fight whatever spell he was using. I could feel her flowing some kind of power through my body and up to meet the magic that was pouring into me.

“Shadow, you need to pull free, before he stops my spell,” she said as she struggled to hold the magic back, “If you don’t this will kill us!”

I didn’t ask questions, ignoring the pain flowing into me, and the pain of the blades in my legs, I finally got a scream past my lips, and pulled one leg free of the shadows. My foreleg came up and slammed into Pride’s horn. Instead of passing through it like I figured it would, my hoof connected with a solid object. Pride’s eyes went wide and he screamed. The same instant the pain from his spell vanished. Without anything to fight against Morning Star’s spell burst forward like a flood of its own and shot into Pride.

As our horns parted and the spell hit him, there was a spark of light and a few flashes of images flashed into my vision. A colt showing off a new spell for some older unicorns proud of what he was able to accomplish at such a young age, another of a mature colt casting a spell that was thought to be impossible for one pony alone to use, and the last was the same colt, now a stallion mistaking a new spell he was testing out and hurting a young foal stopping the foal’s heart. It only took a second, but the feelings of that pony filled me like it was my own experiences.

“What was that?” Morning Star asked as she stopped her own attack, she seemed just as shocked as I was.

Pride pulled away, a look of pure shock on his face, “Who are you?” he asked in wonder.

“I’m just a mare who wants you dead Pride, or...wait…Oricalcos”

“That’s not my name, that pony died years ago,” he said backing up a little, “Tell me what you are!”

“I told you already…” I said readying another spell.

“I WASN’T talking to you Courier!” he exclaimed, his body exploded into shadows again shooting toward me, “I was talking to the THING inside you!”

“He can feel me,” Morning Star said as I dodged the attack and fired another burst of light at him, “How can he feel me? Unless…no he can’t know what I am, unless the power he’s using is…”

“Is what?” I asked avoiding another attack.

“Shadow, let him hit you with the next attack, I know a way we can stop him.”

“You really are insane!” I yelled as I teleported out of the way of another attack from the shadowy form.

“Dammit Shadow just DO IT, I’ll have the spell ready for you.”

“Fine,” I said. I stopped and stood my ground as the cloud of shadow flew up into the air. It rolled around for a moment then it shot at me with all its force.

It slammed into me with the force of a dragon. I felt my hooves leave the ground as I was lifted high into the air, the shadows around me tightening, trying to crush me. I could feel Morning Star readying a spell for me, as she did a voice echoed in my ear, “Die!”

“NOW SHADOW!”

I cast whatever spell she had prepared. I felt warmth flow through out every inch of my body then it erupted. Spears of light flew out from all points around me and pushed past the crushing shadow. Four points of the spell reached the outside of the shadow around us, then it blasted around everything, enclosing Pride within a sphere of magical light. Everything went white.

When I could see again, I found myself on the ground blinking up at the cloudy sky. I turned my head, a throbbing pain just behind my eyes, I saw pride laying there his gaze locked with mine. I pulled a healing potion out of my saddle bags and drank it as quick as I could. The bleeding in my forelegs, stomach and back slowed slightly. I got to my hooves and readied another spell as I limped toward Pride.

His eyes followed me as I approached, “I understand now, and here I thought it was a myth,” he said weakly.

“What are you rambling about now Pride?” I asked as I drew closer, keeping my guard up.

He chuckled, “You should’ve killed me with that spell Aquila, because now I know who and what you are. Now you’ve missed your opportunity!”

Seemingly of its own accord the spell I was readying on my horn vanished. Morning Star seemed to be struck dumb by his simple words. Without her guidance I couldn’t use the spell on my own. I took a step back, as Pride got to his own hooves, his self-satisfied smirk back on his smug face. He took a step closer to me, “Courier do you know what lies beneath your tainted hide?”

“Don’t listen to him Shadow, he’s trying to get into your head,” Morning Star said.

I ignored her, “What are you talking about?”

He started to laugh, “Goddesses above, you don’t know what you are do you? How did a pony like you end up in a Stable? It’s quite fascinating, I almost want to take you with me so I can study the creature that lives inside you. That is if I could let something like it live. But sadly, I can’t,” as he spoke thick shadows started to pour out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

“KILL HIM SHADOW NOW!” Morning Star yelled, but something kept me from moving.

I could feel the spell I needed to use, a spell that would destroy every part of his magic, but I couldn’t draw on it. Pride’s gaze had me held in some kind of trance. He chuckled louder, “Aquila, don’t even try and do anything, you chose the wrong vessel. You had your chance to take me out, now it’s too late, I’ve won. I’m going to destroy you and cleanse Equestria of your kind. You should feel honored though, because no pony has ever gotten to see me use my power to its full potential.”

“What do you mean?” I was able to squeak out as more shadows poured from him.

“Shadow we need to run NOW!” Morning Star yelled again, but her voice was nothing more than the buzzing of a nat.

“I want you to pay close attention Courier, because I want you to understand before you die, what you got yourself into. You see the reason no pony can kill me is simple. I don’t have a real body anymore, I had to use it as payment to obtain this power I now have. What you see now is nothing more than a shell…a container if you will. It holds back my full power, it also makes it a lot easier to keep my mind intact. Because magic always comes with a price, the more power you obtain, the more you pay, be it mind, body, or soul. Bear witness to true perfection…and die!”

The next moment everything went black as the shadows that had been pouring out of him exploded from his skin like it was nothing more than paper. I felt that I could move my body again, and I ran. The darkness vanished when I got just outside of the town square. I looked behind me and witnessed a nightmare unfold. The darkness that had burst forth from Pride, pulled back in and pulled together to form something that wasn’t even a pony.

The body of the creature was made entirely of black and purple shadows. It was so tall that it’s chest was level with the tallest building in town, it’s head towering over the rest. It was shaped like a unicorn, but with a violet shadow for a horn, deep glowing purple eyes with red pupils. When it opened its mouth, it had long fangs that dripped blackness. It fixed its gaze on me and roared, causing the cobbles under my hooves to crack, and the buildings to shudder. On its flanks in place of a cutie mark was a burning red tribal lion.

The monster stopped its roar then laughed and spoke, “Witness the power of King Sombra’s magic, the power he was too weak to use himself. Too frightened to unleash. I am perfection, I AM PRIDE!”

I saw other ponies looking up at the horror that was impossible to miss. I wanted to scream at them to run away, before they fell victim to whatever Pride had just become, but the look on their faces told me that they couldn’t move out of pure terror. Even if I could say anything, I doubt my voice would make it past their fear.

Pride fixed his gaze on me again, “Now to put an end to that THING first, then you Courier!”

I could feel Morning Star trying to take over just a little to cast a teleportation spell, but she couldn’t, something was keeping her from escaping, “Cast the spell Shadow…PLEASE!”

A flash of black light flew from the monster’s horn, and it slammed into me. When it hit, it felt like I was being ripped in half. My vison went white and Morning Star screamed, “No…not that curse, not again! I can’t do it again!”

Every part of Morning Star ripped away from my mind, her magic was shattered, and her scream was all that was left, to echo inside my mind. I felt my heart flutter, almost like it wanted to stop beating, or explode, but as soon as Morning Star faded away, so did the pain in my chest. As the Spell faded one last thing from Morning Star made its way to me, “I won’t lose!”

My vision went back to normal and I was still standing in the same spot I was before. I looked down at myself and saw that I was my normal black. That moment was all I had, because the next I was being lifted by a dark shadow. I had no more energy, with Morning Star’s abrupt departure I had been completely drained. My body was pulled close to the monster Pride had now become, I stopped an inch away from his muzzle.

He chuckled as he used his magic to strip my saddle bags away, tossing it away and outside of the city, “Do you feel helpless now Courier?”

He slammed my body into the ground, I couldn’t even feel one of my ribs break, but I could hear it. He lifted me back up and slammed me against a building, cracking the brick. My breath blew out of my lungs as he slammed me against another building and another, and another. Even with the lack of pain, I knew I was in trouble, there was no way my body could take so much abuse.

He brought me one last time in front of his gaze, “I asked you a question Courier.”

I just smiled, “My name is Shadow Star,” I was having trouble breathing, but I pushed on, “If you want to taunt me then call me by my fucking name…Oricalcos.”

He just let his grin slide a little, “Have it your way, those were some pathetic last words, how disappointing. Goodbye.”

A spear of shadow blew from my back and out my belly, then he threw me in the same direction as my saddle bags. It wasn’t as scary as it was peaceful. I just closed my eyes and let the wind flow past my mane. I did what I could for Silver, now I’d join her in a world far…far away from the pain of this world, this Wasteland. That was until I felt somepony grab me from mid-air. My eyes snapped open and I saw Wind Thrasher, she swooped in and caught me before I hit the ground.

“Don’t worry Shadow I’ve got you,” she said setting me down as gently as she could.

“Too bad you couldn’t catch me before he smacked me around a few times,” I said, wincing as feeling started to come back to my body.

“No…this is too much for a healing potion to handle,” she said looking over my wounds, “I’m not sure where to even start.”

“It…doesn’t matter Wind Thrasher, I did what I could, and I lost. Just let me die so I can be done with all of this,” I said weakly Coughing up blood.

“I can’t do that Shadow.”

“You have to, if you stay here Pride will kill you too.”

As I spoke I saw movement from the corner of my eye, turning my head, I saw Pride’s head looming over the buildings of Appleton. Ponies were running from the town, trying to push their way past the gate, trampling other ponies who weren’t fast enough to make it though. Then he spoke, “Not dead yet Courier? Don’t worry I’ll remedy that right now, and your friend can join you in death’s beautiful embrace.”

His shadowy horn started to glow. A small amount of strength poured into me when he said that. He could attack me, break me, kill me, but I’ll never let him hurt another one of my friends. I don’t know why I did it, it was stupid, but something inside of me told me to glance up. My saddle bag was just a few inches away from me, and one thing had been thrown out of it when it hit the ground. That stupid toy gun I told the Zebra colt I’d keep safe.

Using what I had left of my magic, surprised I had any at all, I pulled it close and lifted it up. The screen was glowing green, and in one corner it had the number 1. No matter what this thing was, or what it did, it still wouldn’t matter. Nothing could hurt or kill Pride, but at least I’d get one last ‘fuck you’ before he killed us. I smiled and pointed the ridiculous gun toward Pride. He was too far away for anything to reach him, but fuck him. I brought the sights on the top of the gun up and targeted his head.

“Say cheese and smile like a jackass Pride,” I said, I pulled the trigger.

The screen on the back of the gun lit up, a triangle with numbers on each point appeared. As it did, a small beam shot out from the weapon, it streaked across the distance between Pride and myself. The small beam hit him square in the forehead leaving a small symbol where it hit. Pride started to laugh, his oversized body seeming to grow more.

“What is that huh? I’ve already told you Courier you can’t do anything to me!” his voice boomed.

A message appeared on the screen…

Target acquired, Range finder connected to Halo One Power.

Error, Cloud layer blocking shot, preparing to remove cloud layer…Protective barrier being activated, Solar Flare preparing to Fire, please stand back.

My heart stopped, this wasn’t just a stupid looking gun or a last defiance toward Pride. Solar Flare’s Range Finder, it couldn’t be what I thought it was could it? How would something like this end up in the hooves of a Zebra colt? I looked toward Pride who was still laughing, the glowing symbol still stuck to his head. If I could move, I would’ve gotten to my hooves and ran toward Pride, to try and get him away from the town, but even if I could, it was too late.

Four pillars of yellow light blasted through the cloud layer on four sides of Pride. Each one landing just outside of the town square. Pride looked confused as each one hit, a constant beam of light making a large circle. The beams flashed then expanded, thinning out until each one met making a translucent barrier. I reached a hoof out and pulled my saddle bags closer, digging franticly for a healing potion.

“Shadow what is that?” Wind Thrasher asked as she looked at the yellow sphere of dim light.

“We have to stop it! I didn’t know what that weapon did,” I shouted. I finally found a healing potion and downed it. I was too hurt for it to do much for me, but it washed away a little of the pain and slowed my bleeding. I wobbled as I got to my hooves and ran.

I dodged around ponies who were running from town, either from Pride or what I had just brought down from the heavens. As I ran I tried to figure out if there was a way to stop the weapon from firing. Wind Thrasher flew while I ran back into town, ignoring the throbbing pain rolling through my body. But we both came to a skidding stop as we made it to the barrier. The ponies who had been too scared to even move when Pride turned into whatever he was now were screaming and beating their hooves on the barrier. They were trapped, at least a hundred mares, stallions and foals, all crying and screaming.

Pride was looking around at the barrier, then his eyes fell on me, “What did you do?”

I was still trying to figure out how to stop the blast when I heard something worse. Looking up, past Pride the clouds were vanishing. The sound I heard was half of a cloud building falling as the clouds supporting it disappeared. Pegasi were trying to escape the barrier as well. I could see some of them slamming their bodies against it with all they had. They weren’t soldiers, I realized as I watched. If I hadn’t been so horrified at what I was witnessing, I would’ve marveled at the blue sky above me, but I couldn’t. All I could do was look at the ponies that were trapped on the other side.

Maybe the weapon wouldn’t work, I mean the weapon had been shut down for two hundred years. It was possible that nothing would happen…apart from this thing in front of me.

“What the fuck did you do Courier!” Pride yelled, he slammed his body against the barrier, it flashed gold and sheered a chunk of shadow off Prides body. He backed up, a look of horror in his purple eyes, “Stop this, whatever you did turn it off.”

Other ponies started to yell the same thing, asking me to stop, or to let them go. I just took a step back and looked into their terrified eyes, “I…I don’t know how.”

The Range Finder beeped, I looked down at it. The screen flashed a quick message…

Satellite in place, Solar Flare firing!

I saw something flash in the sky above, Wind Thrasher took hold of me, trying to pull me away, “Shadow we have to run!”

I didn’t fight back, I just stayed limp as I was lifted into the air and pulled away. My eyes locked on Pride’s, he looked scared, he knew that whatever this was, I couldn’t stop it. At the last moment he closed them and grinned, “Check mate Shadow, you win.”

There was a flash of bright light coming down in a beam, first striking down the center of Prides shadowy form. His body exploded where it hit. Pride screamed as the beam of light spread, and so did the ponies on the ground. I watched as their bodies burst into flames the closer the beam got to them. Every one of them started to roll around writhing in pain, but it only lasted a second. The intense light grew brighter when the beam hit the barrier. When it did, all sound seemed to vanish, time felt like it stopped, and my sight was locked on that one horrible sight.

The blast probably only lasted about ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Then as quickly as it started, everything came rushing back to me at once. Sound returned, time quickened and screams filled the air along with a loud crack, like breaking glass. The barrier cracked then shattered, a blast of hot air blew out as it disappeared, crashing into Wind Thrasher and me, throwing us to the ground.

I looked back up once my body stopped rolling across the hard ground, and all I saw was smoke, ash, and buildings reduced to black piles of smoldering brick and wood. What I didn’t see was Pride, he’d vanished in the flash of light from Solar Flare, and so did half of the town. What had been trapped in the barrier was just gone, when the barrier went down the concussion from the remainder of the blast took out more of the buildings, leaving most of them in ruin. With one pull of the trigger, I’d killed Pride, over a hundred Ponies, and destroyed a town. I couldn’t even move, all I could do was look at the devastation left behind by one weapon.

I felt somepony shaking me, looking back I saw a blood-spattered Wind Thrasher, “What did you do Shadow!?”

“I…I don’t know, I had no idea what that was.” I was stuttering, I was in shock.

She looked me over her eyes falling on my torso, following her gaze I saw what she was looking at. A twisted piece of metal was jutting out from my belly, I couldn’t even feel it. I just looked back up into her yellow eyes, “What did I do?”

“Stop talking, you need to conserve your strength,” Wind Thrasher said, rolling me over and looking over my wounds.

I started to cry, “I didn’t mean to hurt so many ponies…I just wanted to stop Pride. What have I done?”

My vision was starting to go black around the edges, as Wind Thrasher put a hoof to my muzzle, “You need to stop, you can’t change what happened, right now we need to get you to a doctor.”

I didn’t need a doctor, I needed to go back three minutes and stop myself from pulling that trigger and committing genocide. Pride deserved what he got, but the rest of the ponies that lived here didn’t. I let my anger get the best of me, my own wrath clouding my judgement. I laid my head back and looked toward Appleton. I saw a small charred corpse just on the edge of town. The foal’s body must’ve been thrown by the blast, now it was just on the other side of the gate, almost free of the destroyed town.

I heard flapping from above us, I guessed it was The Enclave coming to find out what happened, or to take me in for killing so many of their ponies and punching another hole in the clouds. Turning my head back toward the sky I saw it wasn’t them. Griffons from the Red Talons were flying toward the town, one broke off from the rest and headed toward us, a small blue figure on her back.

She landed a few feet away looking down at my pathetic body lying there helplessly. I couldn’t help myself from bursting into tears again as Aura slowly walked toward us. As I expected she looked pissed, and so did Wingnut who was still on her back. She moved right up to Wind Thrasher and me and looked us both over.

“Well don’t you two look like hell,” she said sounding as pissed as she looked, “Tell me what the fuck you did!”

Wind Thrasher got to her hooves, “You don’t understand Aura, she had no choice.”

“Shut up Batty, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the Pony who lied to me about leaving, and destroyed a town filled with innocent Ponies. Now answer me Shadow, what the fuck did you do!”

“I…don’t know,” I said weakly, “I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to Stop Pride…it was all his fault. He killed her, he drew me in so he could kill me, they made me do this!”

Aura’s face didn’t change in the least, but she did sigh, “We aren’t done talking about this, you have a lot to answer for Shadow, but right now it looks like we have to fix you.”

“Go away Aura, you don’t work for me anymore. I’ll just end up getting you killed just like I did to Silver, and those townsponies. You should all go, I’m nothing but a curse.”

Wingnut jumped off Aura and walked toward me, “Shadow we came here to find you, we care about you.”

“GO AWAY AND LET ME DIE!” I screamed at them, ignoring the pain in my gut.

“Sorry Shadow, but as you just said, I don’t work for you anymore, so I don’t have to take your orders,” Aura said looking back at Wingnut, “So boss what do you want me to do with her.”

“She’s not in her right mind, let’s get her out of here before she hurts herself more,” Wingnut said.

“Sure thing boss,” Aura said looking back at me, “Time to go now Shadow.”

“No…you work for Wingnut now…no don’t do this please just let me…” Aura punched me as hard as she could in the side of the head.

“Let’s get out of here quickly before The Enclave or The N.L.R. figure out what happened here. Wind Thrasher grab Shadow’s things and follow me, I’ll explain what’s going on while we fly back,” Aura said as my vision slowly faded, and everything went black…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

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Chapter 25: Incomplete

“I think it’s time y’all start talkin’!”

[Data Lost Attempting to Reset………Error Please Reload]

A vast nothingness, a void unlike anything ponykind could understand surrounded A Little White Mare. Her eyes couldn’t understand what she was seeing, her mind on the verge of breaking, and her body feeling as if it was nonexistent yet still there. The Little White Mare closed her eyes and screamed as loud as she could, the sound faded as quickly as it started not even echoing back at her.

It seemed like an eternity passed by as The Little White Mare laid there unable to move due to her fear of the unknown. Suddenly something flashed around her, opening her eyes for the first time in what felt like forever, she saw the nothingness was gone, replaced by darkness. She lifted her head and looked around, her ruby red eyes trying to pick up something, anything different in the darkness. Then a scream filled the air around her, freezing The Little White Mare.

“NO, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! LET US OUT, PLEASE!” A stallion’s voice echoed around her followed by another.

“We’re sorry, please just let us go,” A mare’s voice cried.

“Mommy…where’s my mommy!” a foal’s voice cried from the darkness

Then hundreds of voices started to scream for help, begging for somepony to let them out, saying they were sorry, crying for their mothers to help them. Begging, crying, pleading for help, but one voice raised above them all, it was dark and full of rage.

“You’ll pay for this someday Courier…but for now game over, you win, check mate.”

A bright flash followed the voice, then everything stopped. When she opened her eyes again she found herself in a meadow, green grass covering the ground around her, a soft breeze blew, and the scent of pine trees filled her nostrils. She looked around wondering where she was now, a few feet away there was another pony. She looked a lot like The Little White Mare only she was black with a silvery mane.

The Little White Mare moved closer and poked her, “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and looked up at The Little White Mare, a look of confusion on her face, “Who are you?” she asked slowly getting to her hooves.

Her body was scarred like she’d seen her share of battles in the past, but her face was kind and a little frightened. The Little White Mare shrank back as she spoke, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know, how do you not know who you are? Everypony should know who they are,” she said.

“Well if that’s true then who are you?” The Little White Mare asked.

“That’s easy my name’s…” she stopped then looked confused followed quickly by fear, “I’m…I don’t know.”

“See you don’t know who you are either,” The Little White Mare said, as she spoke a quick flash of memory flowed through her mind’s eye. It was fast and the images didn’t last long, but something stuck, “Wait my name…I think it’s Star.”

“How original,” The Dark Mare said looking around, “Where are we anyway?”

“I don’t know, I only arrived here a moment ago,” The Little White Mare said, “I was about to ask you the same question.”

“I don’t know where we are, but it doesn’t seem right, it’s too clean.”

“I agree, something about this place doesn’t make sense. I wonder how we got here or why we’re here at all.”

“I feel like something bad happened to me, it’s almost like this place was made for me to get away from something horrible,” The Dark Mare said.

The Little White Mare walked over to The Dark Mare and looked her over, “You don’t remember either do you?”

She looked sad, “I don’t even know my name.”

“I don’t know why but maybe I can help,” she said moving her horn up to touch the Dark Mare’s. There was a flash and more images flowed from the Dark Mare and into The Little White Mare.

As soon as the connection was made The Little White Mare felt like her body had been smashed and broken, she was dying, her magic is weak from a curse. A dark spell was used on her or was it on The Dark Mare, but for some reason it didn’t kill her. There was another’s presence in these memories, but the presence inside that called herself Morning Star was holding onto the last bits of light she still had, trying not to succumb to the curse. The spell was meant to kill her, but Pride didn’t know that she’d felt this magic before and blocked most of its deadly power, but at great cost to the power she regained over the past few weeks. It would take her time to regain what she lost, but she’d live and so would her host. The creature that called herself Morning Star wasn’t a pony, she wasn’t a demon, she was something else entirely. But what was she?

The Little White Mare pushed through the confusing images and feelings and took hold of the mind of the mare whose life felt more familiar. Shadow Star, also known as The Courier Mare was holding onto life just on the outskirts of the town called Appleton, she was looking up at a nightmare of a pony. Pride, that was his name…no that was just a codename, something he used to hide who he was before, only caring about the Sin that almost killed him. Ori…cal…cos? Yes, Oricalcos, that was his true name. A pony of great power from Nimbus, a cloud city north east of this dry broken land.

Shadow was lifting a strange looking pistol toward Oricalcos, a pistol that wasn’t a pistol at all but a powerful weapon. She fired it, and watched as the weapon in the sky was activated. She ran toward it and tried to stop the weapon from firing, she couldn’t do it, and she watched as it killed everypony trapped within its glowing walls. Mares, fillies, stallions, and colts vaporized in an instant. Oricalcos vanishing in that blast of light as well, its power was so great that not even his so called immortal frame could survive.

These images, are they from the Dark Mare…or are they from The Little White Mare, who is this Shadow Star? She seems so lost, so confused, her own memories were blocked and fragmented from a powerful memory spell placed on her when she was very young. Who would do that to a filly? The Little White Mare pulled herself closer to her, trying to understand who she was. But the closer she got the more confusing her past became, yet at the same time she felt so familiar. It was almost like The Little White Mare was part of this mare yet apart from her at the same time.

“I have to know who this mare is,” The Little White Mare said as she pushed harder, trying reach this mare’s subconscious. The farther in she went the harder it was to go on, she felt an odd emotion, something The Little White Mare didn’t understand.

Finally, she reached her destination, her magic pushed into this mare’s subconscious, but her magic wasn’t the only magic there. Deep inside the mind of the mare, there was another presence, it felt the same as the one from that memory. Moving closer to the presence she took a closer look. It looked like a little white filly, no, it was just giving off a white light around a darker shape.

“Who are you?” The Little White Mare asked.

The Filly looked up at her with bright yellow eyes, she almost looked afraid. She cowered back and tried to hide herself behind her tail, “I’m…Akee…Aquila. W-who are you?”

“I’m Star, why are you here inside the mind of this mare?”

She looked around then said, “I have no idea where I am. All I know is that I can’t leave this place.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m trapped,” she said looking around then hiding behind her tail again, “I’ve been trapped for a long time, first in a scary place, then later in this place. I’ve been so angry, so scared for a long time.”

The Little White Mare felt something pulling on her own mind, the spell she was using was faltering. She didn’t have much time, but she’d have to hold on for as long as possible. She had to understand what was going on, “Is there any way I can help you?”

The Filly smiled a little then shook her head, “I may be trapped, but even if I could leave, I wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, fighting the pull that was getting stronger.

The Filly’s eyes glowed and she changed. Her body grew, her coat stopped glowing and her mane changed to black. Her eyes turned red, and a cutie mark of moving stars appeared on her flanks. She looked down at the Little White Mare and said with a wicked smile, “I can’t leave because you still need me to survive, and I still need you.”

The Little White Mare felt herself returning to her body, “Wait, what did you mean by that, why do I need you?”

Aquila smiled at her and said, “Stop looking in the wrong places for your answers.”

She jumped and pulled her horn away from The Dark Mare. Both fell to the ground panting slowly. Both of their eyes came up to meet each other’s at the same time. Then The Dark Mare said, “Did you see that too?”

“I did, at least I think I did. I saw a memory from a pony called Shadow Star then a filly who wasn’t a filly deep in Shadow Star’s mind. Is that what you saw too?” The Little White Mare asked.

“It was, it all felt so familiar. It was almost like I was reliving it, but I’m not sure if it was my own memory or yours.”

“It was the same for me too.” The Little White Mare said.

The Dark Mare closed her eyes for a long moment, a look of concentration on her face. When she opened them again she said, “I think I know what’s going on.”

“You do?”

“I’m not sure if you noticed or not, but apart from the color you look just like me. When we saw those memories, both of us felt like they were our own, only not, at the same time. We both came here at the same moment and can’t remember anything. What if we’re both the same mare only somehow split?”

The Little White Mare laughed, “That has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, how can one pony be split into two?”

The Dark mare looked around, “Because I don’t think this place is real, it kinda feels like a dream. Only here we can move and do as we want. In a dream we wouldn’t have this much control or even know it was a dream. I think something happened and because of it, our mind was split into two.”

The Little White Mare thought about it for a moment, “I guess that would make sense, but I still think it’s stupid. Even if you’re right, how could we fix it?”

She smiled, “I have no idea, but we could always try that spell again only this time we’ll both do it. When it was just you I felt like I was being pulled into you, maybe if we both use it, we’ll reunite.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then we’ll be stuck here forever or have to figure out why we’re here. Either way it can’t hurt to try.”

The Little White Mare sighed, “Fine let’s get this over with, but I still think you’re wrong.”

The two mares moved closer to each other and touched horns again, this time they both cast the spell. It came easily to them, even though neither of them knew how they knew it. There was a flash of bright light and everything around them vanished. Both mares felt pain for a moment, then it passed and was replaced by a soothing sensation. Flashes of memory flowed by quickly. Shadow Star the lost abandoned unicorn from Stable 28 was waking up in her room to the sound of her best friend Strawberry Milkshake telling her they were going to be late for their meeting with Auntie. Shadow Star tried to ignore her friend, but she was never able to really say no to the slightly taller mare. She gave in and followed the mare to the atrium. She didn’t get good news when a mare only known as Auntie, told her The Overmare wouldn’t be giving her a job or a Pip-Buck, the symbol of a mature pony in Stable 28.

After Auntie left she was forced to go see The Overmare by some security pony who wasn’t very nice. She talked with the Overmare about her mother who left the stable eight years before, or was killed or died if you believed rumors. The Overmare was called away and Shadow looked into the files on the Overmare’s terminal seeing that she’d been looking into Shadow’s mother’s disappearance. She ignored most of the files the Overmare had about the situation and only looked at the file about her mother’s escape. She couldn’t finish reading everything because The Overmare came back and dismissed her. Still wondering about what she just read, Shadow ran into her other friend Balefire who wanted to show her something. After a little banter, Shadow gave in and followed her friend to what turned out to be a surprise party in the lowest level of Stable 28.

Her friends knew what happened with Shadow not getting a job and they wanted to cheer her up. They were really good friends to her. Later they all fell asleep and Shadow dreamed about an out of place door further in the bowels of the Stable. When she woke she decided to go check it out, it was there that she found the hidden door and inside, the beginning of her new life. A silver Pip-Buck with red accented lines running down it was tucked away in a small box. She put it on and was hit by a protection spell on the Pip-Buck. That was the first time Aquila would speak to Shadow, she whispered that she could help and take away the pain of the spell. Shadow consented and unknowingly she unlocked the cage Aquila was trapped in for so long. She did as she said she would and stopped the spell from completing and vanished for the time being.

Shadow didn’t even have a chance to examine her newly found prize because she was found by two security guards. After using a spell she couldn’t control, she blacked out. She woke up to find herself imprisoned by her Overmare. After a quick argument with The Overmare made a promise to cut Shadows foreleg off, she ends up making a quick escape thanks to the help of Auntie and Balefire. Something Shadow didn’t seem to not take into account was Auntie hooking her own Pip-Buck up to the Mark II. She’d transferred something to it in the moment they had before Shadow had to run away. She made it out of the clinic, to the Overmare’s office, through the escape tunnel, and out of the large Stable Door and never looked back…

The memories shifted and the images flashed by quicker. Shadow walking through a valley blanketed in eerie green mist following the directions she was given by Auntie. Shadow followed the path, and was attacked by raiders under a bridge, it was there that she first killed. After her escape from the raiders she ran into the mysterious Watcher who helped her hide from more raiders who were following her. She found a terminal with notes from a mare called Pink Rose and killed another pony who stayed behind to wait for her if she showed up again. After killing the skinny stallion, she stole his armor and snuck through the Raider Camp that was just outside of a town known as Cartwheel. She met a mare who would later become acquainted with her, the Steel Ranger Sapphire Stone.

She escaped and made it through the pass and found the town of Cartwheel where she was told to go by Auntie. Only she was shot by the town’s guard. As she started to lose consciousness she saw a pony flying over the cliffs next to Cartwheel, this pony was wearing a trenchcoat and black desperado hat.

The memories flew by again, Shadow’s meeting with another mare named Silver Snip. Odd how she felt so familiar yet Shadow couldn’t remember where she’d met her before. Then she met an old perverse pony, Box Tape. She found out about her mother coming through town, then the raiders attacked. Shadow felt as if it was her fault that they attacked and took Silver and some very young ponies. She heroically went off to save them. She managed to get help from Sapphire again and together they saved Silver and killed Crackerjack the leader of the raiders, with a little help from Stardust, a goofy yet sarcastic pegasus sniper.

Together Stardust and Shadow went off following the trail of her mother to meet with the Steel Rangers, after watching a memory orb left behind by her. Stardust was running from something and figured helping Shadow would be a good reason to keep running from his past. Due to his help, they met Aura Bloodtalon, a banished griffon from the Red Talons. Shadow was taken prisoner by the griffon, then saved by Stardust. Shadow spared the griffon’s life because she saw something in the griffon that reminded her of herself. She didn’t know it then, but that single decision was a big turning point for the young mare.

Shadow met the real Red Talons just above Hidden Sands and was saved by The Steel Rangers. It was here that she found out more about her mother and was told by the Elder of this branch that she could help Shadow find her mother if she would only do something for her first. She agreed, later that night Shadow had her first encounter with the thing living inside of her that called itself Morning Star. Thinking it only a nightmare, when Shadow was woken up by Sapphire, she shrugged it off and took the rest of her time in the bunker to learn how to fight from the older mare.

Shadow would later go off to Stable 9 with Stardust to retrieve another Mark II for the Steel Rangers, After finding out Shadow's Pip-Buck was one of three Mark II's made. After a frightening flight, the two of them made it into the cave that held the Stable. Shadow was able to get the Stable open with the help of her Pip-Buck. Shadow and Stardust found out the hard way why the Stable was abandoned and sealed when they ran into bloodwings that made the Stable their home. They also ran into Aura again who’d been following them, and after saving her life again, Aura told her that she owed Shadow her life and wouldn’t leave until she paid back her debt. Then they met a batpony only known as Sharp, who was being controlled by a crazy scientist known as Dr. Cell. Shadow was captured by the scientist and forced to fight the batpony. With the aid of her two friends she was able to break the hold Dr. Cell had on Sharp. When Shadow went to confront the insane scientist, she was tricked and thrown into a memory orb of a pre-war pony named Night Stalker. She watched the battle at Shattered Hoof Ridge and the death of the large red pony who was Night Stalkers friend. When she came back to herself she was tied up and about to be used for a new experiment by Dr. Cell.

Thanks to some quick thinking and the help of Sharp, Dr. Cell was stopped and Shadow blew his head off after he called Sharp…no Wind Thrasher a Monster. She got the Pip-Buck she had came for, Shadow and her friends plus Wind Thrasher were able to escape Stable 9 sealing it again on the way out, trapping the thousands of Bloodwings inside. Wind Thrasher thanked them and went off on her own after that. Aura, Stardust, and Shadow tried to escape from the cave that laid right above a town of Fiends, but they were captured. After some words with the leader, a nasty pony called Gator, Shadow was separated from her friends and forced to try and escape on her own. She did and she was able to get through the town of nasty ponies and save her friends as well. Sadly, Stardust had been hurt badly so Shadow was forced to have Aura get him help with the Steel Rangers, leaving her behind to make her way back on her own. Before she left though, she used a self-destruct code she found in the notes from the Stable 9’s Overmare. She watched as the Stable exploded in a magnificent flash of light, and destroyed the mountain it was hidden in and the town below it.

Shadow would soon find herself in a bad storm, suffering from radiation sickness, and in need of shelter she’d find in an old tool factory. She met a nice Mr. Handy there named Watts who helped her rest up. She learned more about the Stable she’d just left while she waited there and more about the two brothers who ran the tool company and their work with the Ministries. She was interrupted though by The Grand Pegasus Enclave who broke into the factory looking for her. They wanted to find out what she knew about Stardust. The sad thing was that if she would’ve just given them the information they wanted, her life would’ve been very different, but Shadow wasn’t the kind of friend to give up on anypony. She fought the Enclave soldiers, with the help of a strange Pegasus and Watts. He didn’t stick around long after the Enclave ran, but he did help her as much as he could before he vanished in a flash of blinding light.

She was able to escape the Tool Factory and get a transmission out to The Steel Rangers who showed up a short time later to help her. They weren’t fast enough to get her away before they were attacked by The Red Talon company. It was here that Shadow first spoke with Aquila who told Shadow to call her Morning Star, saying she was a part of Shadow. She offered to help Shadow fight the griffons by lending her a small amount of her power. When she did, she lost control and killed one of the griffons and almost another along with The Steel Rangers. Only by Stabbing herself in the stomach was she able to take control again.

Before she blacked out from her wounds she was able to tell the Griffons that they were wrong about her. Shadow woke a few days later after a nightmare of a time from waking during surgery where she ripped herself open more and almost killed herself. She took time to recover and started to get to know Aura and Stardust more. They would later leave for New Pegasus to find a pony called Lonely Hearts who was the last known pony to see Shadow’s mother. The trio would meet a colt named Wingnut who they saved from Cazadores with his friend Honey Suckle. He would later join them on their adventure after they found he had nowhere to go.

Shadow would then make it to Freedom, which was on the outskirts of The Strip but still part of New Pegasus. She met the pony named Wrath who was an Enclave Soldier and part of an elite group called The Seven Sins of Equinity, then Pride and Greed. Shadow would learn more about Aura after finding her fighting with a pony called Tariff. They would get into New Pegasus, have fun in the casino, meet with the New Lunar Republic, Save the Synth Pony Lonely Hearts, and learn about her mother. She also met two more of The Sins and barely escaped. She wouldn’t have to wait long to meet them again, after being attacked by the idiotic Gluttony. She killed him then was forced to flee Freedom to escape the wrath of The Sins for killing one of their own, by taking on three jobs for the Queen, the leader of a large gang.

Both mares watched as the memories of Shadow passed by as quick as thinking. Both feeling more and more like this was part of their own life, the feeling only grew as they watched Shadow go deep into the sewers. As the mare Silver Snip kissed her, both mares felt like their hearts broke. They both recoiled as a feeling of love, pain, and loss filled them both almost losing hold on the spell. As the feeling passed however, something happened, both ponies started to feel like they were one.

“What is this feeling?” The Little White Mare asked, her magic barely holding. She felt as if her body and mind were being pulled into The Dark Mare.

The Dark Mare’s own magic felt as if it was getting stronger, the memories flying by were filling her with a sense of belonging, “I think this mare is me,” she said wishing she could understand more.

“Maybe she is, but I also feel the same, almost like I’m a part of this too, who are you? Who is she? Who am I?” The Little White Mare asked as she felt her strength giving out, her body starting to melt away as the memories flew by.

Shadow Star kissing the Sin Greed as payment for him helping her in The Bramble, the brothers who trapped her in a magic circle and called out Aquila, the meeting with the Alicorn on top of a tall mountain, meeting the older mare who was a pegasus in disguise, Shadow fighting The Enclave as they attacked Frosty Summit, and the fight with the Hooded Mare.

It was at this point that everything seemed to stop as The Dark Mare spoke, “I know that mare!” the memory stopped as Shadow looked out across the smoking field toward the shadowy figure that was the hooded mare mostly hidden by dust and smoke. She’d survived a brutal attack from the Alicorn. The smoke started to clear just a little and a small amount of the Pony who had been hidden under the hood was visible, A dark grey eye, a light blue coat under the eye, and a wisp of a grey mane, “It can’t be her…this can’t be possible. Why would she try to kill me?”

The Little White Mare couldn’t hold on much longer, “Who is it! Tell me quick before I lose everything, who is she!”

The memory started to move again and it was gone in a flash of visions, “I…I’m not sure, I had it only a moment ago, but now…I’m not sure if I was even right.”

The Little White Mare struggled to keep hold of the magic, for some reason it was important that she did or else everything would be lost, she didn’t know how she knew this, but she did, “I think I understand what happened!”

“What?” The Dark mare asked as the last of the memories flew by, visions of Shadow seeing her dead marefriend, fighting Pride, and killing him and the ponies of Appleton.

“We are both…” The Little White Mare tried to say, but the spell ended, her body vanished and was pulled into The Dark Mare becoming one once more. All the memories that they just witnessed came next, and I screamed…

***

I woke up from what felt like a confusing bad dream, yet it was so real. I felt as if I was witnessing two mares as they came together in a vast field. The Little White Mare, she looked like a younger me, a me that was back before mom took me to Stable 28. The Dark Mare was also me, the present me or maybe the past me before the genocide I committed in Appleton, a mare who was scared and confused. It was almost like witnessing my two halves becoming one, joining past and present, because without either one of them, the future wasn’t possible.

I shook my head then looked to see where I was…wait a second…Stable 28? How did I get here? The last thing I remember was seeing Aura and Wingnut coming to save me yet again, was that all a dream too. From the look of it I was in my own room? No wait, it was a double room like I shared with Auntie but this wasn’t the same room. My stuff was here, what little I had, but so was Milkshake’s. Was I dreaming still, dreaming of a time that could have been if I would have stayed in Stable 28? I looked down at the Mark II…but it wasn’t there, it had been replaced by the standard Stable 28 Pip-Buck 3000.

“You know I’ll never understand why you’re mind takes you back to this place whenever you try to hide away who you are,” Morning Star said walking into the room.

“Wait a second Morning Star? I thought you were gone after that attack from Pride?”

She did look like hell, her body looked frail and sickly, her eyes were sunken in and bloodshot, “I came very close to vanishing that’s for sure Shadow,” She came over and sat on the bed next to me, “I was lucky, the spell he used I’ve seen before, a long time ago. I’ve studied it and understood it probably more than even he did. Because of that I was able to hold on to a part of my power and myself, though I took a big hit and it will take time for me to regain the strength I lost.”

I sighed and laid down on the bed…my bed, “I’m not sure that would’ve been such a bad thing, ever since you came into my life It’s been nothing but hell.”

She sighed and did the same, lying next to me and looking up at the boring ceiling of the Stable, “Shadow, without me you wouldn’t be alive, and I don’t mean the attacks over the past few weeks.”

I looked over at her, “What do you mean?”

She kept looking up at the ceiling, “You may hate me because of the things I made you do, or because I scare you because you don’t understand who or what I am, but without me you would’ve died ten years ago. When I found you, you had a bad heart, you should’ve died many years before then, but you didn’t. Grim was keeping you alive by administering a very powerful spell on you every few days, more if you were having a bad week. Your body showed all the signs of a life being kept stable by magic. When I…found you, I guess that’s the best way of putting it, I merged with you,” she looked over at me after that, “Not what I wanted at the time, but it couldn’t be helped, but once I did I found what was wrong and seeing that if you died so would I, I cured you. Sadly, I didn’t know what was making you sick when I fixed your heart and I was greatly weakened by it.”

“So, was it you that changed the way I looked?” I asked.

“That was not my intention, but yes. It was a side effect of the spell I had to use to keep you alive. I wish I could’ve fixed that, because that was what gave away my power to your mother. She used a spell on my weakened soul, and trapped me deep within you. I think she wanted to trap me away forever, but she was only able to hold me off for a few years. After that happened she took you to Stable 28, because the only pony she trusted was living there at the time. I don’t know how she convinced her Elder to let her stay there, but she did.”

I was captivated, I had no idea that Morning Star knew so much about what happened to me…us back then, “Is that why she took away my memories?”

She sighed again, “It may’ve been part of it, but I think she was scared that if you kept remembering the night we met, that I’d break free. She wiped everything from you, hoping that when the day your memory would return, you’d be old enough and strong enough to be able to stay in control of your own mind. She could’ve just been scared of what would happen if you said too much around the ponies in the Stable.”

“How do you know so much about what was going on if you were trapped in the back of my mind?”

“I was trapped and most of the time I was asleep, but I did have times where I could see and hear what was going on around me.”

“What I don’t understand is why you’ve been so mean to me?”

She laughed, “Do you know what it’s like to be trapped away for over two hundred years, then when you think you’re free, you’re trapped again inside the mind of a little brat?”

“What kind of question or answer is that?” I asked.

She just kept laughing, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, how could you? Let’s just say that I’m tired of being a prisoner, I want my own body, to be able to control my own magic, have my own life. I thought I had that when I first met you, but I ended up getting trapped again. I’m mean because I’m angry, hurt, and scared of always being like this.”

“Then why are you being nice to me now?”

“Because I’m too weak to care one way or the other about what happens to me, as long as I live. I can’t promise that I’ll be so kind or helpful the next time we meet Shadow,” as she spoke I noticed that she was starting to fade, just like when we spoke in the ruined town just outside of Crimson Canyon.

I realized that right now it didn’t matter what happened in the past, I could figure that out later, one question was all I needed to know before she vanished again, “Why did Pride Call you Aquila?”

She smiled, “Finally, a question that matters. Aquila is my real name Shadow Star, at least the name given to me by ponies a long time ago, back when this land was still whole, and facing a war like no other had ever witnessed. I was named after the Aquila constellation when I was first discovered, or created back then. I’m a lot like you in a way Shadow, I don’t know where I came from or why I was created if that is the case. All I know is that my first memory is waking up in a lab, surrounded by ponies and trapped inside something that kept me from moving or using my power.”

“That sounds horrible, then why didn’t you tell me this when I first met you?”

“Because, at the time, I felt like if I could act like I was really you, the real you, I’d be able to get access to your mind easier. It also felt nice to not be known and to be a different pony for once in my horrible existence. I took one of your old names and the way you looked back then and made it my own. I became the older version of who Morning Star would have been. Now, enough questions Shadow, because I need to tell you something before I can’t anymore,” she said, her voice getting weak.

“What’s that…Aquila?”

She smiled again, “It’s time you started finding out who you really are. I know you’ve heard it from ponies before, but this time I’m telling you. I know you better than you know yourself, but even I can’t bring up memories of you from farther back than a few months before I joined with you. When you found that Pip-Buck, your mother placed a spell on it that would’ve let you start remembering you’re past, I blocked that spell because by doing so I was able to get out of my cage. Now that I’m out and it doesn’t matter anymore you need to start remembering who you are.”

I had so much I wanted to ask her, but I knew time was short so I asked the only thing I could, “But how can I do that?”

“You already started to remember, and I’m sure you’ll start getting more memories now that you’ve unlocked your past with Silver. If you want to speed things up, you need to revisit places you’ve been before Stable 28, the only places I know of that may help are Silver’s home, finding Vervain in Stable 28 because you used to know her as well, or going to the hidden lab under the M.A.S.E.B.S. Tower just outside of Cartwheel,” Her body was fading fast, “Now Shadow, wake up, and remember that this is the only time I’m going to help you. After this, we will be enemies again.”

“Wait don’t go yet Aquila, please…” But she was gone, and a moment later the stable walls around me vanished, I was surrounded by darkness again, only this time, unlike when the Little White Mare was stuck in darkness or nothingness, I could see a glimmer of light. I took a moment to look back to where Aquila had been, “Thank you, even if you don’t see me as a pony you can trust or like, still thank you for helping me Aquila, even if it was only to help yourself.”

I looked up toward the speck of light and started to move toward it. I knew I was heading back to a life where it was hard, painful, and full of unanswered questions, but it was also the life where I had friends, friends who cared about me more than life itself. As I grew closer to the growing light, memories came back to me of Silver. I remembered the message she’d left for me when she knew she was going to die. I was so angry at her death that the first thing I did was go after Pride, I let wrath overtake me and because of it, I’d killed a lot of innocent ponies. I was going to have to pay for that, there was no way around it, the same went for what I did to Wingnut and Aura, I’d have to explain myself to them and beg them to forgive me for what I did. I also couldn’t give up on finding Stardust, he meant more to me than I could even put into words. It’s sad that with him gone, I was only just then seeing how great he was. I loved the stupid goofball I realized, not in the way most would think when they used the word love. I loved him like a big brother, he was a pony I looked up to and wanted to be like, I respect him and want him to be proud of me. I will find him, and I’ll tell him how great he really is, and I’ll be sure to help keep him away from The Enclave no matter what it costs.

The light was so bright now it was hard to keep looking at it, but I did, and I kept moving up. At this point I also realized that I had more to do before I started trying to find mom again. Aquila was right, I had to find out where I came from, who I really was. I’d start by following the Pip-Buck to where mom first got it, I’d have to go to Trotston, then I’d go to the place where I was told to go by the stallion who was whispering in my ear when I was knocked out in Frosty Summit. Then if I had to, I’d head back to Cartwheel and even Stable 28. I’d do it all…but first things first, “Stardust, wherever you are, I’m coming to get you. If you’re still alive just wait a little bit longer. It’s about time I saved you…”

The light flashed and my eyes opened…truly opened to the world I was now a part of, and always would be…

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[LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Genocidal Maniac: You’ve killed hundreds in one hell of a blast and now low-level enemies tremble in fear and may flee without a fight.

***

I awoke to see Dr. Cottage staring at me next to the bed, “You’re an idiot.”

“And you’re an ass. What else is new? Am I back at Frosty Summit?”

He rolled his eyes, “No, you’re at my private practice right outside Freedom. It’s been about a week since Birdy brought you in here. She flew me here from Frosty Summit the day you got here because the incompetent morons that work here couldn’t decide how to treat your injuries.”

“A week!? You’ve gotta be kidding me. How could I have been out for a week?” the dream I had came back to me, the dream of two mares, one white, and the other black. It felt like it’d been a long time in that meadow, but a week?

He smirked like a jackass, “Easy, I put you in a medically induced coma. Your injuries were pretty severe and after rejoining your damaged organs I couldn’t have you waking up after surgery and moving around too much. Couldn’t risk causing internal bleeding.”

“Wouldn’t a healing potion fix internal bleeding?”

“Maybe but I did REAL doctor stuff. I didn’t use magic crutches because sometimes magic can’t fix everything. Anyhow I took my chance to examine you again a bit further while you slept and unfortunately it turns out that you’re just short, which is disappointing.”

“Sorry I asked. Where are Aura and Wingnut?” I asked, feeling a little creeped out by his response to my previous question.

“Birdy and Shrimpy are in the other room waiting for you to wake up. I’d get up and tell them but I’ve got a bum leg,” he said popping another one of his zebra pills into his mouth.

“Just go fucking tell them or it’ll be two bum legs.”

He got up and limped out of the room mumbling to himself, “This is why I don’t deal with patients. Where’s 21 when you need her?”

A few minutes later Aura and Wingnut walked in. They still looked pissed, especially Wingnut. Aura didn’t look like she was even going to say a word, she just leaned against the wall and crossed her talons. Wingnut however came right next to the bed and sat down. I didn’t expect what he said when he opened his mouth, “How dare you leave us without saying a word. How are we supposed to find Stardust when we have to worry about you? Did you think for a second that we’d believe that BS about you running off to Manehattan?”

I looked away from his accusing eyes, “No I didn’t, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yeah, Wind Thrasher filled us in on the details about what happened and why you left. You should’ve still told us what was going on, you should’ve put more faith in us. Do you really think Aura or I would have risked Silver’s life by following you to Halo One? Do you really distrust us so much?” he shouted.

I looked at him angrily, “Listen to me kid, I had no choice. I was told by Envy that I had to leave as soon as I was finished writing you that note and to make sure I wasn’t followed by you two.”

“But you figured that Wind Thrasher was okay huh?” he argued.

“Because they didn’t know who she was, I still did what I was told. Wind Thrasher was an unknown and I figured she could help me get Silver back without turning myself over to the Sins,” I retorted, I wasn’t going to let this Colt treat me like I was the child…even if I did deserve it.

Wingnut sighed then said, “What I’m trying to say Shadow is that you did something stupid, and I don’t mean just by leaving us behind to go off on your own. You had no Idea what you were getting yourself into and because of it, Silver’s dead and so is most of Appleton. All you had to do was tell one of the Red Talons what was going on and they would’ve told Aura as soon as we got back and we could’ve helped you and probably saved Silver. But no, you had to go off on your own, make up some stupid plan, and because of it, she died. That’s on you Shadow.”

Now I was going passed the point of angry to pissed, “Don’t you dare put that on me you little shit, they never planned on letting her go Wingnut, even if I did turn myself in.”

“And how could you have known that? You jumped the gun and she died because of it Shadow!”

“She died a couple days before I found her Wingnut! Pride killed her a few hours after she got to Halo One. If you don’t believe me then look in my saddle bags, she left me a message. Greed made sure to get it to me once I got away from that place. You can tell me how stupid it was for me to jump the gun as you said, and I agree. You can tell me how stupid it was for me leave you two behind, and I’ll agree with that too. But don’t you dare tell me that Silver died because of what I did. Silver could’ve gotten away, Greed even offered to let her go and help her, but she didn’t. She stayed and died because she knew that as soon as she left, Envy would’ve killed me. She died so I could live!”

The colt’s eyes went wide and he looked away for a moment, “I didn’t know Shadow.”

“I know, and that’s why you shouldn’t just jump to conclusions like you did. I understand that you and Aura are angry with me and you have every right to be, but you need to know the facts first.”

Aura cleared her throat, “I hate to agree with Shadow Boss, but she’s right, and she did try to leave a hint that something was going on in her note.”

So, Aura figured out what I meant with my post scripts, “So you did catch that Aura?”

“It’s not often you tell me that I’m right Shadow, when I saw that I knew something was wrong with your letter. We started looking for you as soon as I realized what you meant.” Aura said, then looked away.

Wingnut sighed again, “That’s all beside the point now Shadow, what really pissed us off was what you did in Appleton.”

I looked back at his angry face, “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right I don’t understand; do you have any idea what you did Shadow? Somehow you activated an extremely powerful weapon and fired it at the middle of one of the bigger trading settlements in The Marejave Wasteland, and you destroyed a part of Stratus as well. And for what? To kill Pride? Was it really worth killing over three hundred Ponies just to take down one Sin?”

His words hit like a ton of bricks, because they reminded me of what I’d done. I pretty much committed mass genocide and killed ponies who were trying to escape, “I’m sorry… I didn’t…”

Wingnut Interrupted me, “You didn’t think is what happened. What if I was one of those colts that got vaporized by that blast? What would you be then huh? Would you be just sorry like you are now, or would you feel real remorse? I swear that thing in your head is twisting your mind. Wind Thrasher told me that you used its power to fight Pride before you fired that weapon. Then you have the cowardly idea to just die after you killed all those ponies. Silver wouldn’t want that, she’d want you to keep on living for the both of you. So, get your shit together and stop being so stupid. What’s going to happen is, we’re gonna get out of here and look for Stardust whether you’re drowning in self-pity or not.”

“Wingnut, when I fired that weapon I didn’t even know what it was. I wasn’t even thinking about killing anypony, I thought both Wind Thrasher and I were going to die. I only pulled the trigger because I thought it would be one last ‘Fuck you’ at Pride before he killed us. If I could go back and stop myself from doing it I would.”

He got up and walked back toward Aura. He stopped then looked back at me, “This is how things are going to work now Shadow. Aura works for me now, I’ve ordered her to keep an eye on you and to make sure you don’t try and run off again. We have a lead on Stardust and as soon as Syn gets back to us with the rest of the information on where he is, we’re gonna go save him. You can either follow us and help us save him, or you can step up and be the leader again and the hero of The Wasteland like we all know you are. Well just this general region anyway. Just know that it might take a while for ponies around here to trust you again. Right now nopony knows who fired that weapon, but DJ Pon3 reported seeing you in Appleton before the blast. Sooner or later the truth will get out, if you don’t want ponies to hate you, you’re going to have to show them who you really are.”

I sighed then nodded, “I understand Wingnut,” then I looked up at Aura, “Can you forgive me for what I did?”

Aura just shrugged, “I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t mad at you for dropping my contract like you did, but I’ve had time to kill things and get over it. Honestly, it’s easier for me working for the kid. He needs my protection more than you do and I can be more honest with you now about things. So yes, I’ll forgive you for what happened, but I’m still mad.”

I got out of the bed and stretched my sore muscles, “Good, because I have a lot to talk to you two about. Things have changed since I last saw you and I think it’s about time we all started being more honest with each other. First let’s get out of this clinic and head into Freedom, I need to have a word with The Queen.”

Aura and Wingnut looked like they were going to say something when somepony cleared their throat from the doorway, “Not sorry to interrupt but having a gun jammed into the back of my skull is extremely uncomfortable,” Dr. Cottage said. There was a strangely dressed Zebra behind him holding a carbine rifle to his head, “I think they want to speak with you.”

In an instant Wingnut and Aura had their weapons aimed and ready to fire. I noticed that there were more behind him in the other room, at least a dozen. The one holding Dr. Cottage hostage lowered his weapon, “Please, we did not come here to fight. It’s just that this physician is rather rude and difficult. We asked politely to see you and he responded with derogatory remarks and sarcasm, so we used force. Forgive me for my intrusiveness, I’m looking for The Courier from the radio. The Caesar would like to have a word with her about the pony known as Pride.”

I sighed, thinking to myself what else could happen, “Just let them in, I’ll hear them out I guess.”

Aura and Wingnut put away their weapons and all the Zebras entered, crowding around me in the small room. The one wearing the most animal skins stepped forward, “Greetings Shadow Star, I am Ratahn, the Caesar of The Romans. A few days ago, two of my subordinates returned to camp with news that you’ve struck down the demon Pride. Recently he’s been restricting our ascension to power in The Marejave Wasteland, obliterating conquering parties attempting to take unfortified land. It’s either we keep going to places where he happens to be or he was deliberately hindering us. However now that he’s dead we can take the opportunity to expand and get the advantage in our battle with the New Lunar Republic and that is thanks to you.”

“Uuuhhh… you’re welcome? It was kind of an accident and if you haven’t heard I killed more than just Pride. If anypony is a demon it’s me, I used to have the means to prove it.”

He gave me a strange look, “How so?”

“This spirit or something that was living in my head, Pride called her Aquila. I can’t feel her presence anymore so I think she’s gone for good,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure that was true. I could remember that dream and talking to Aquila before I woke up. Was that really her or just an echo of her left behind after the spell Pride used killed her?

He sighed, “I see. You’re a victim that’s been taken prisoner by a demon of the stars. Don’t be so sure that this Aquila is gone forever, she could only be weakened for the time being. Knowing this I’d like to make you an offer, but you’ll need to complete a task for me in the future. My sources tell me that you’ve been invited into The Lucky Horseshoe to speak to Mr. Tops. If you’re willing I’d be eternally grateful if you could investigate him further and tell me what his plans are so that I can determine whether they interfere with my own.”

“What if I say no? I’d like to keep myself neutral with the different groups in The Wasteland. It’s nothing against you, I just don’t want to seem bias toward any particular faction.”

He rubbed his muzzle, “I suppose if you say no you say no. Your choices are your own. However, if you cross me in any way it will be your end. I came here to speak with you personally because of what you did to Pride. It is not often that I personally meet with anyone unless they have earned my respect, and you have done so Courier. You should be honored.”

“I’ll go to see Mr. Tops but there’s no guarantee that I’ll do that for you, it’s mostly out of my own curiosity.”

“Very well then, come see me at Palisade Hill across the river if you decide to assist me,” Ratahn said marking the location on my Pip-Buck.

“Alright, I’ll think about it.”

“That is all I ask,” he turned to the other Zebras, “Let us return to camp. We need to keep training for the coming battle,” he stopped then looked back at me, “I have one more question for you Courier.”

I sighed, “What’s that?”

“I heard a rumor that you are looking for a mare that goes by the name of Grimoire Spell.”

He had my attention now, I stood straight up and responded, “What if I am?”

He smiled slightly, “If you were, I’d like to know the reason. If it is to aid her then I may have to change my mind about you and consider you my enemy. If you are looking for her for some kind of Revenge, well…I’d like to aid you in finding her.”

Not wanting to get on the wrong side of the leader of these zebra’s I did my best to keep my face neutral as I said, “Why would you want to help me find her?”

His smiled grew, “Because, I have a large bounty on that mare’s head, she betrayed me many years ago and I’d like nothing more than to have her head brought to me on a stake. Good day Courier.”

As they all left I contemplated what he could have to offer in exchange for information and how it could help me, and what he knew about my mother. I also thought about Stardust and what the entire Wasteland must think of me after what I’ve done. All this stress was too much to think about at once. On one hoof I have the opportunity to help find Stardust and on the other hoof I could take Mr. Tops up on his invitation and maybe help Ratahn. But do I really want to help The Romans? The NLR seems to be on the good side and if The Romans are enemies of theirs then they can’t be all that good. However, there’s always two sides to every story. The question is which one to believe. The NLR may seem good, but they were also enemies with the Steel Rangers, and I’m friends with them too.

Sitting there thinking I didn’t notice Wingnut talking, “HELLO! ANYBODY HOME!? I’m talking to you!”

“Wha!? Oh sorry Wingnut I was thinking about our situation.”

“Yeah, I figured that. So… what do you wanna do?”

“I guess I’ll go see Mr. Tops. He wants to meet me face to face anyway and he might have the resources to help us find where The Enclave has Stardust. I just hope he’s okay. I know he’s not okay because he’s being held captive by The Enclave but I hope he’s not hurt or anything,” I replied.

“Hey Doc, is Shadow healthy enough to leave?” Wingnut asked.

“Only if you promise to fly me back to my better office with the slightly less STUPID idiots and my favorite thinking ball. Sure, it’s a little messy right now after the second attack, but that’s beside the point that it’s better than this craphole,” Dr. Cottage said condescendingly.

“What happened at Frosty Summit?” I asked.

Aura looked a little sheepish for a moment, “Wrath sort of escaped captivity in Frosty Summit.”

I sighed, “It was Envy, it had to be.”

“Yeah, yeah, it explains everything. Can I go now?” Dr. Cottage interrupted.

“Sure, let’s go,” Aura replied, looking back at me and Wingnut, “I’ll catch up to you two in a little while.

I stretched again then put on my barding. My body still ached from the beating I took and I still felt a bit groggy. As I gathered the rest of my things Aura started on her way back to Frosty Summit with Dr. Cottage. Wingnut barely talked to me the whole time, he just had this angry blank stare that seemed to cut deep into my soul. I feel horrible about what I’ve done, it’s something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.

The clinic wasn’t too far from the entrance to Freedom, maybe about a ten minute walk. Wingnut still wasn’t talking so I decided to break the silence, “So, where’d Wind Thrasher go?”

“She went to The Queen’s School of Interpretation to talk to Doorstop. Since he knows things about The Enclave, he might have an idea of where they brought Stardust. She was with us for a few days while you were under comatose but left yesterday after getting fed up with Dr. Cottage's constant offensive questions and groping,” he replied, still not sounding too pleased with our current situation.

As we entered Freedom I noticed that it wasn’t the same entrance we came into before, maybe that’s why I don’t remember seeing the clinic on the way here last time. I saw two foals chasing some sort of mutated rat, but before I could mention it to Wingnut he’d already un-holstered his revolver and started shooting at the creature. He hit it three out of five times that he shot and as soon as it collapsed the two foals chasing it picked it up and carried it away.

“Why did you do that, and why are they carrying it away?”

He put his gun away and answered, “They’re probably going to eat it. Figured I’d save them the time and energy trying to kill it themselves. They’re probably so food deprived that they would’ve tired themselves out before they caught it and eventually starved to death.”

“That’s horrible. You’d think The Queens wouldn’t let there be homeless starving foals running around their town eating the meat of whatever that was.”

He looked a bit confused, “What? You got a problem with ponies eating meat?

“No, I just thought The Queen would at least do something to help them. And with the meat thing, I’ll try anything once.”

I managed to get him to smile a little bit at my crack about meat, “She’s already tried helping them but they won’t accept her help. Littlehoof has even invited them to live there but they refuse to come. They say they don’t want to rely on anyone and turn into helpless agoraphobics.”

“Agoraphobics?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, “It means you don’t ever want to go into the outside world among civilization because you’re afraid.”

“Oh,”

We went through the checkpoint into The Strip and I saw a Securipony guarding the front of The Luck Horseshoe, only this time there was a set of doors. It looked as if it was covered up before somehow. The Securipony left its post at the door and approached us, “Good afternoon, I assume you are here for your meeting with Mr. Tops.”

“Uhh yeah…he asked me to come so…here I am.”

The robot opened the door, “Very well, I will escort you inside. Unfortunately, your companion must remain here, access to the public is restricted.”

“Wingnut will you be okay waiting by yourself?”

“Pfft…I’ll be fine. The only thing I have to worry about on The Strip is being barfed on by a drunk. I’ll wait around here so you can find me when you’re done, and don’t you try and run off, I’ll be watching,” he said before walking away.

***

The inside of the old casino was dark and dusty, it looked like the only recent activity was the track left in the dust by the securipony’s wheel. The air was so stale and saturated with dust that it was a bit hard to breathe. Inside the entrance was a large desk where guests would check in and out, behind the desk was an open room full of poker and blackjack tables, and along the walls where the dusty shells of old slot machines long ago shut down. There was an upper level with a bar and lounge that looked over the casino floor. For being such a large tower that could be seen for miles, The Lucky Horseshoe seemed pretty small on the inside. I followed the Securipony to the elevator and waited as I heard the car creak down the shaft. The elevator doors squeaked open and caked on dirt crumbled from the top of the doors.

The elevator ride was eerie and silent standing next to the large robot, the elevator creaked and moaned as it ascended to the penthouse floor. When the door finally opened I was surprised to be bombarded with light through the windows. When my eyes finally adjusted again from the darkness of the casino floor and elevator I was able to see that we were almost at the top of the tower. The light coming in from the windows wasn’t sunlight, it was just the white paint reflecting the light outside that came through the clouds and the light from the neon on the rest of The Strip.

The penthouse wasn’t dusty and dirty like the casino floor was, it actually looked pretty clean. I suppose if there was somepony living here they wouldn’t let it get that dirty in the first place. I stepped out of the elevator and went down some stairs to the window. The view was amazing, you could see everything from Freedom to as far as the eye could see.

The securipony came up behind me and said, “Right this way please.”

I followed him into the next room and saw a giant mess of computers and wired hooked up to a giant screen that read ‘Please Stand By’. Then the screen lit up with the face of Mr. Tops, “Hello, I’m glad you came.”

Okay something wasn’t adding up here, “Wait a sec, I thought we were gonna meet face to face. As in the same room face to face. You’re talking to me through a computer, that’s not face to face.”

His facial expression on the screen changed, “Unfortunately that’s something I can’t do. You see, I am here, but I’m in a different part of the building. The reason I can’t be there with you is simple, I’m ill and can’t let any kind of bacteria reach me or I’ll surely die.”

“Then why did I have to come to this dusty ass place?”

The picture of his face changed to a smile, “Forgetful, are we? Don’t you remember that I needed to give you something or have you really forgotten?”

My thoughts stirred around for a moment because I really did forget, but I didn’t want him to know it. Shit, I’m gonna look stupid in front of a very rich pony, “Uh, I didn’t forget I was just trying to wrap my head around things.”

He chuckled, “It’s really alright if you forgot, I won’t hold it against you. However, what I’m about to give you is extremely important, you need to make sure you don’t misplace it.”

“What is it?” I asked getting a little confused.

“It’s a network scanner and…”

“No, I’m not scanning anything that’s gonna get me in trouble with any of the groups around New Pegasus. I’ve already pissed off The Enclave and they’re shitty enough to deal with as it is,” I interrupted.

He sighed, “If you would let me finish I’ll explain the situation. You won’t be scanning anything around here, what I require lies in Los Alicorn underneath The U.E.L.A. it's an old pre war university I’m sure you’re familiar with The Ministry by now and what they create. Their technology is the key to my recovery, synthetics. I’ve already told you that I’m ill but that isn’t the whole story, I’m dying. I thought I could create a robot body to transfer into but unfortunately, I can’t bond a soul to a piece of metal, I need a living body, and the generation three synths are the key. Their generation three synths are indistinguishable from normal ponies. I need to know how they’re made so I can gain the means to make myself a new body. And before you say no I’ll have you know that The Ministry is a horrible organization, for no apparent reason they replace completely normal ponies with synth copies. Sometimes they even take ponies from their homes in the middle of the night. So what do you say?”

“So…you want me to go to Los Alicorn and break into their old university to scan their network so you can make a new body that can hold a soul. Y’know if you’re a ghoul you’re not sick, most ghouls live pretty normal lives until they die or go feral. I’m just figuring you’re a ghoul because you’ve been here for longer than any pony’s natural lifespan.”

The screen changed to an annoyed face, “I’m not a ghoul and I can prove as much. I’ve never been exposed to radiation, or at least not enough to ghoulify me.”

I gave him a sly smirk, “Then how are you so old?”

He groaned, “That is a very long and uninteresting story that I’d rather not share right now. Are you going to do this for me or not? You aren’t the only one that can, but you are the closest, the only others are on the other side of Equestria and I don’t think any of my securiponies would be able to make the trek all the way there and back without something destroying them.”

“I’ll do it on one condition, actually two. One you help me find my friend who was taken by The Enclave, Stardust. Two I don’t have to do it immediately because I have other things to take care of that are of upmost importance,” I said trying my best to sound more intelligent.

“Stardust eh?” he said then mumbled to himself for a minute, “He’s friends with Leather Lace if I remember right, hmm,” after a few moments of silence he spoke again, “I can work with those conditions. I may be dying but the end is far from near, I just need to stay in my cleanroom. As for your friend, I have my ways of finding things out from ponies. I’m sure there’s someone in The Grand Pegasus Enclave that will accept a bribe of sorts, otherwise I might be able to compromise their network without leaving any electronic hoofprints and get the information that way, but it will take a tad more time.”

“Alright then I think we have a deal.”

The picture on the screen changed to a soft smile, “Thank you very much and before I forget, there’s a special way to get into The Ministry. It isn’t just a simple door, since the whole thing is completely sealed there’s no way in by normal means, unless of course you used a giant drill to dig a hole underground. You’ll need that chip sitting next to the network scanner under my screen. Their teleporter signal operates on a certain frequency that only the chip can find and hijack to teleport you and anyone within five to eight feet of you inside. It won’t work to get back out though, but I’m sure they have an emergency exit somewhere if they need it. Those ponies are just as paranoid about outsiders as other ponies are about their synths.”

“That seems a little farfetched. I know teleportation is possible by magic but that technology in the world we live in now seems impossible.”

“I assure you it’s not impossible, they’ve been around for a long time hiding underground in their laboratories and whatnot. Who knows what else they’ve come up with over the years?”

“I guess that makes sense. Is there anything else I need to know before I go in there?” I said, still trying to wrap my head around the idea of teleportation without magic.

From what I could tell on the monitor he was shrugging, “I don’t know. Like The Lucky Horseshoe, nopony has ever been inside The Ministry except for the ones who work for them and they usually never leave unless it’s absolutely necessary, otherwise they send out some of their synths. Most of the time they’re generation one and two synths that are just robots that can easily be destroyed and are as unintelligent as a common bloatsprite.”

“Really? Wow, I gotta write down underground fortress on my list of in case I turn into an evil mastermind ideas.”

He smiled, “Ah yes very good. Now please retrieve the network scanner and signal interceptor and be on your way. I wouldn’t want to keep your little friend downstairs waiting. By the way I apologize for making him stay outside, I like my privacy and most ponies tend to snoop when they aren’t under a watchful eye.”

I would’ve left then and there, but I had a rare chance here being in The Lucky Horseshoe. I looked back up at the monitor and asked, “Before I go could you answer something for me?”

His expression changed to thoughtful, “There are a lot of things I’m sure I could answer for you, what is it you want to know? Keep in mind that doesn’t mean I will answer you, it depends on the question asked.”

“Around five years ago, a mare tried to get into The Lucky Horseshoe. She failed from what I heard, but I was told that she was able to get into contact with you. Her name was Grimoire, I want to know what she wanted with you.”

The face changed to an interested smile, “Grimoire huh? I thought you intrigued me before Shadow Star, now I’m even more curious about you. Well, I’ll answer your question if you answer my own. Who is she to you?”

I figured telling him wouldn’t matter so I answered, “She’s my mother, she left me in my stable many years ago and I’ve been following her trail ever since I got out. Any information you have about her could help me out a lot.”

He laughed, “Haha, well wouldn’t you know it, I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d meet two ponies from the same family like this. You’re correct Shadow Star, she did try and get into The Lucky Horseshoe, she even got past the protective shudder outside. She didn’t make it past the door itself, but she got closer than anypony in the past hundred and sixty years.”

“So, she did get a chance to talk to you?”

“Yes she did, but later after she did some digging and finally got my attention. I’d rather not go into details on my meeting with her, but I’ll tell you this. I set up a meeting with her through an external terminal like I did with you at Halo One. She was looking into something that had to do with this tower and some project she was looking into from back during the war. In the end I had to tell her that the project she was trying to find information on I didn’t know anything about, but I heard of a pony who did. He was a Dashite named Striker, I’d heard that he had old files from before the war that would help her on her quest, but at the time I didn’t know where he was.”

That was the same information I’d gotten from Lonely Hearts too, I was hoping he’d know more information that could help me find her. I may not be trying to locate her at the moment, but the information would’ve been helpful later on, “That’s about the same as what I heard from Lonely Hearts, that’s too bad.”

“The funny thing is Shadow, you aren’t the first pony to come looking for Grimoire,” he continued, “An Enclave officer was also looking for her and asking me the same thing as you about a year ago.”

I looked back at him shocked, “Who was this pony, and why were they looking for her?”

“His name was Nightshade if I remember correctly, he was a high-ranking officer from Stratus. He didn’t go into much detail about what he wanted with her, but he said she committed some crime against The Enclave and his family. Something to do with the disappearance of a filly,” Mr. Tops said.

I felt my blood turn to ice at that name, it was the pony from that memory orb. He was the one who was looking for mom when she left the Stable. What filly was he looking for, was it me? But if it was, why would he be looking for me? He knew where I was too, I hadn’t left the Stable yet and mom told him where I was. It couldn’t be me he was looking for, not back then. Did Mom take another filly from The Enclave and he was hunting her down still? Why is it every time I learn something new about her, I have ten more questions?

“Did he tell you why he was looking for this Filly?” I asked.

“Like I said he didn’t go into much detail, I don’t even think he thought he’d find her and I wasn’t going to tell him the other information I knew about her. He had a dangerous look in his eyes and I liked Grimoire, I wasn’t going to give a pony like him information that could lead to her death.”

My interest was peaked again, “Wait, what other information do you mean?”

The interested look came to his face again on the screen, “Just because I hadn’t spoken directly to her in many years, that didn’t mean I didn’t keep my eyes on her. Up until quite a few months ago I was tracking her movements and watching what she was doing. The last time I knew where she was, her location was just north of Trotston. I had her Pip-Buck Tag and the day I lost her signal she’d just skirted around the city and was on her way north toward Spitfire’s Flight Academy. She was about halfway between the two cities when her signal died, I sent some securiponies to the location to find her, but they didn’t find a body anywhere. I’m not sure where she went, or what happened, but I haven’t been able to locate her Pip-Buck’s signal since.”

“How long ago was this?” I asked.

“I think it’s been close to Seven months or so now.”

Right around the time her signal stopped moving according to the Mark II. If a body wasn’t found, then maybe she was still alive. What if she knew she was being tracked and she removed her Pip-Buck? I looked back at Mr. Tops and asked, “Is there anything else you can tell me about her or this Nightshade?”

He took a moment to think then finally said, “She went to Hoofington a couple of months after I met with her, that I know for sure, she moved from there to Manehatten, she stayed there for a good six or seven months, wandering around the settlements around there. She went to places like New Appleloosa, Ponyville, Fetlock, Friendship City, and oddly Shattered Hoof Ridge. When she left that area she headed back west, but didn’t come back to New Pegasus, she stopped in The Midwest and headed up to Saints Parish. Around that area I lost her signal for many months, but I’m not surprised. The area around there, messes with signals because of the Arora Borealis, the radiation from the solar storm causes electromagnetic interference and other issues with electronics, even Pip-Bucks. When I found her again she was heading back this way. The rest of the time she wandered around the towns around New Pegasus until I lost her again like I told you before.”

I did everything I could to remember the locations as I asked, “What about Hoofington, where did she go around there?”

“Not many places really, she mostly stuck around The Arena, Mega Mart, Weather Station Delta, and a small town Called Chapel. She also kept going back to the Rainbow Dash Skyport, but I couldn’t tell you why.”

“And what about the pegasus you were telling me about?”

He sighed and said, “All I know about Nightshade is he’s a strange pony. For a long time, he lived in The Crystal Empire and Nimbus. I know his family is from there, but he took a position in Stratus over Ten years ago and worked his way up the ranks. A few months ago, he became the newest member of The Council in Stratus. He used to come down here to New Pegasus a lot when he was a solider, but since he took the new job he hasn’t come back down here that I know of. He’s also the pony who helped set up the deal I have with The Enclave here on The Strip and in Freedom. I’d tell you more, but he keeps a lot of information about himself quiet, and mostly only talks business about the Enclave. The only time I’d seen him let something slip is when he was looking for your mother.”

“I only have one more question,” I said, remembering the voice I heard when I was out in Frosty Summit, “What can you tell me about Spitfire’s Flight Academy?”

“Not much, it’s one of the few settlements I haven’t even been able to get information on. All I know is that about fifty years ago ponies settled there, they call themselves The Annihilators. Ever since they took over they’ve used the weaponry that was left there from before the mega spells, to keep anypony out, at least ponies they didn’t like. I also know the ponies in Trotston have had their problems with The Annihilators over the years as well. That’s all I know about them, before they took over I know there were always rumors about Enclave soldiers going in and out of the place, but I’ve never had proof,” he replied.

“Hmm, well I think that’s all I need to know for now. Thank you for all the information Mr. Tops.”

“If it helps you Shadow and helps you have more trust in me, then it was no problem. Now you should get going, like I said before I’d hate to keep your little friend waiting any longer, oh and also Shadow, that weapon you used in Appleton…don’t let it fall into the wrong hooves. It’s an extremely dangerous piece of machinery.”

My eyes lowered when he said this, “You knew that was me?”

He laughed, “I know just about everything that happens around New Pegasus. I understand why you had to use it, but next time, think before you fire a weapon you know nothing about.”

“You aren’t gonna try to take it away from me?” I asked a little surprised.

“Shadow Star, what use do I have for something like that? I’m a shut-in, and I’m not like the Steel Rangers. If you promise to be careful the next time you use it, then I won’t take it away from you.”

“Aren’t you worried that I might try and use it on New Pegasus?”

He laughed again, “Shadow, this town was able to withstand the destruction of Equestria; I’m not worried about a weapon that can only be fired once a day. Goodbye Shadow Star, I look forward to the next time we meet.”

I would’ve argued that point but he was right, he also had a point about not letting Wingnut in. Wingnut does have a talent for disappearing to go look at something shiny across the room and two floors down. So, I took both things from under his monitor and was escorted out of the room and back to the elevator by the securipony. But before I left, I noticed a picture sitting on a desk next to the elevator, it was a picture of three ponies. It was Falafel, Lilly, and Flapjack, the day they opened The Lucky Horseshoe. And next to the picture I saw a memory orb giving off a silver green glow. Making sure the securipony couldn’t see me, I used my magic to grab it quickly and slip it into my saddle bags. I managed to do it without getting pulled into the orb, and nopony saw. With a grin, I followed the robot into the elevator and we went down.

***

When I got back outside I saw Wingnut sitting on the steps scraping his hoof on the ground. I knew I didn’t have any reason to worry about him staying out here alone, but right now anything could happen. He must’ve heard the door close behind me because he turned to me and said, “Took you long enough, the anticipation was killing me. What was it like in there? Was it as fancy as ponies say it was before the war? Is there any cool tech that no other casinos have? Does Mr. Tops really have the fabled mustache? Why is the door always lock…”

I interrupted before he could ramble out any more questions, “Just cool your jets with all the questions. You’ll make your head explode, or bite your tongue, whichever comes first. No, it’s not fancy, it’s caked with dust and grime. There is tech in there that I’m pretty sure no other casinos have, but they don’t really relate to business, and from what I saw he does have a mustache. At least that’s what the pony on the screen had when I was talking to him.”

He cocked his head, “Pony on the screen? You didn’t actually physically meet Mr. Tops?”

“Nope, dude needs a cleanroom or something so he doesn’t get contaminated because he’s sick. However, he never explained how he can be over one-hundred and fifty years old. I suspected he was a ghoul, but he shot down that one real fast. Anyway, enough questions I just wanna get out of here, we still need to talk to The Queen. I have some things I need to know about Trotston before I go there and The Queen knows pretty much anything there is to know.”

“But..,” oh great now he’s going to whine, “…What about Stardust? Did you ask if he’d help?”

“Of course I did, and all I gotta do is break into The Ministry to steal data from them so he can make a new body that he can transfer his soul into like some stupid science fiction novel,” I replied nonchalantly.

The conversation stopped while we passed through the checkpoint into Freedom once more, but after getting through the gate he said, “Are you kidding me? The Ministry is in Los Alicorn, not to mention no pony knows exactly where it is.”

I interrupted for a moment, “Mr. Tops does. It’s under a place called U.E.L.A. apparently.”

He just gave me a look of disbelief, “Uh huh sure…it’s under The University of Equestria Los Alicorn, the most prestigious and technologically advanced school in Equestria before the war. Wait a sec…that actually makes sense. Sorry I think I just had a brain-fart.”

“What the hell is a brain-fart and why must you use such words in my presence? That’s one of those things you shouldn’t say in front of mares if you want them to like you.”

He straightened up a little as he walked, looking more posh and explained, “A neurological-error otherwise known as a BRAIN-fart is a sudden involuntary burst of ignorance that effects the brain in many ways that include stupidity.”

I can’t believe he actually came up with a definition for it, “Uh huh, ok. Remind me never to question the words you or Wind Thrasher use that I don’t know ever again. If you do that I’ll help you understand that mares don’t like it when stallions say or do something gross or unsanitary.”

He smiled, “Ok will do, but you said you were gonna ask about Trotston. Why the sudden interest?”

“The reason I need to go to Trotston is that I’d like to know more about the Mark II and they’re the survivors of Stable 9, the stable that at one time had all three of them inside with ponies using them. If I can find someone there who knows how to use the Mark II properly, I can have them help me understand this damn thing better instead of accidentally finding out what this thing can do. Also, Wind Thrasher is from Stable 9 and wants to go with us to Trotston, she wants to see if they’ll forgive her for what Dr. Cell made her do.”

He gave me a funny look, “If that Dr. Cell guy made her do the things she did, then why would they be mad at her? Wasn’t she being controlled with a collar?”

“Yeah, she was being controlled with a collar but she was made to slaughter dozens of ponies unwillingly and as you already know she was experimented on by Dr. Cell, so to the survivors she still represents the terrifying monster that was killing everypony. She’s pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I’m sure once they realize she isn’t being controlled anymore they’ll come around, or at least I hope so.”

He nodded his head, “I can see you’re point, I just hope things go better for us there then it did when we went to The Bramble or Frosty Summit.”

“Me too kiddo.”

The Queens School of Interpretation was the same as ever when we walked in, ponies from the gang standing around smoking, others drinking various varieties of liquor, and Sugar Buck making other stallions uncomfortable, “Why helloooo there. You must be one of the new members, how’d ya like to go upstairs and complete your initiation?”

“Uh…I’d rather not. No offense but I’m not really into that kind of thing.”

“Surreee…ya ain’t. You’ll come around, they ALLLLL do. There ain’t no resistin’ Sugar Buck. I mean c’mon, look at the way my muscles bulge when they flex; sssssexy.”

Ok this was just too rich to not laugh, “HAHAHA! Sugar Buck I think he’s had enough.”

In a split second his head snapped toward me, “Shadow well ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, where’s the more attractive one in your group, and the griffon?”

“I thought The Queen would’ve told you. Stardust was taken by The Sins, Aura is taking Dr. Cottage back to Frosty Summit but she came here to collect our payment from The Queen so we could pay The Red Talons to help track him down.”

The look on Sugar Buck’s face was hard to read at first, it was like he was stuck between shock and disbelieve, he put up a hoof and said, “Hold on there Shadow honey, rewind for a moment. Did you just say that my beautiful winged stallion was taken by The Sins?”

My eyes fell as I answered, “Yeah, it was over a week ago, we’ve been trying to find him ever since.”

His pompadour fell along with his jaw. Then the muscular pony fell to the ground and started to yell, “Celestia tell me it’s not true, how can fate be so cruel to let those nasty ugly enclave dogs take my handsom stallion of the clouds. Why do bad things always happen to such beautiful stallions?” then he jumped to his hooves his expression changing from angry and sad to powerful and commanding, “Don’t you worry Shadow honey, we’ll find Stardust and get him back from the hooves of those disgraceful excuses for ponies,” he ran toward the door almost knocking me over as he shouted out the open door, “Don’t you worry my tall dark and beautiful Stardust, Sugar Buck’s comin’”

I walked over toward him, “Hold up Sugar Buck, like I said we’re already looking for him. Now Mr. Tops has joined in on the search and…”

“Mr. Tops!? First of all, how did you get him to help you and second, how did you even talk to him?”

Wingnut answered before I could, “She got to go into The Lucky Horseshoe and talk to him!”

The room suddenly fell silent and all eyes drew to me as I shrunk, “Uh…yeah…Wingnut shut up,” I couldn’t think of anything to cover my ass, “Yes, I was invited into The Lucky Horseshoe by Mr. Tops because he needs me to do something for him that he thinks only I am capable of doing for some reason or another. In turn instead of getting paid in caps I asked if he’d help me find Stardust because he has the resources to do so.”

Sugar Buck sighed, “I don’t know Shadow, Mr. Tops isn’t a pony you should be trustin’ so easily. From what I know he’s obsessed with power, so much so that when the dwellers of Stable 21 opened the stable doors and turned the whole stable into a hotel he had a lot of it filled with concrete because it deterred tourists on The Strip from the casinos to stay in a more inexpensive place. All he really cares about is himself and his money, not to mention the power he holds over The Strip.”

“He seemed pretty normal to me when I met him. Sure, what he wants me to do for him is a bit selfish, but he admitted to it being selfish and was very polite. From what I perceived, he’s just an old pony that wants a second chance at life.”

Sugar Buck gave me the same funny look that Wingnut gave me earlier, “What do ya mean by SECOND chance?”

I panicked a little on the inside, “Uh…I’ll explain later. I just see it as a way to improve our odds of finding Stardust. If he ends up being all sinister and super evil in the end all I have to do is sneeze on him.”

“Say what now?”

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I need to talk to your Sister about something.”

“She’s with some stallion with a volume control issue and a freaky lookin’ bat thing in the auditorium.”

“Thank you, I’ll let you know if we find him. In the meantime keep an ear out for any information that might come up on the streets around here.”

He chuckled a bit, “I’ll keep more than an ear to the streets. Wait…I don’t mean like that but I’ll dig extra deep if anything comes up.”

“You do that Sugar Buck, I’ll catch you on the flip side,” I said as I headed to the other room where I’d met The Queen before. As I walked in the door my eyes fell on The Queen sitting on the edge of the large stage looking down and talking with none other than Ex-Sergeant Doorstop and Wind Thrasher.

“I agree that the ponies from Appleton need a place to stay with what happened Doorstop, but Freedom can’t handle that many ponies, and it’s too far for them to go to Frosty Summit. Honey, I don’t see what we can do ta help them,” The Queen was saying as I walked in the door.

Doorstop’s booming voice filled the room as he said, “They can’t just be left to fend for themselves in The Wasteland alone Queen, there has to be something we can do. What about that abandoned Stable outside of town?”

Wind Thrasher spoke next, “I heard that the NLR wanted to take it over after the Triggerponies left it, but never heard back from my friend about it if they ever did.”

“That could work for a time, but that stable wasn’t designed for ponies from what I heard from Lonely Hearts and Shadow Star. We also don’t know if the Triggerponies will go back to if or not, their leader Skinny is still alive last I heard and he ain’t one ta just let others move in on his turf,” The Queen said, “But it’s better than having three hundred ponies movin’-in ta Freedom all at once. With that many ponies from a town like Appleton. I might not be able ta hold the streets anymore if they decided to overthrow The Queens either.”

“It’s a start for now at least, if you want I can go talk with their leader and see what he thinks of the idea,” Doorstop said.

It was then that The Queen looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. She got to her hooves and walked over to me, she didn’t look happy to see me. When she reached me, she brought a hoof up and struck me in the face, knocking me down and making my head ring. I looked up at her and said, “What the fuck was that for?”

“That was for being such a fuckin’ moron! Do you have any idea what you did!?” she yelled, “Because of you, one of the main trading outposts for New Pegasus and Freedom is gone and now I gotta deal with the mess. Hundreds of ponies tryin’ ta find a place to live now that their town’s gone.”

I didn’t have time for this shit and I didn’t have the patience either. I got back to my hooves and pulled out Dream Walker and pointed it right at The Queen, “Don’t you think I know what I did Queen? Do you think that I just felt like using a FUCKING SPACE LASER on Appleton just for shits and giggles? I was on the verge of death and I had no idea what I to do, so yeah, I picked up the first gun I could not knowing what it really was and fired. If I could go back and stop myself from pulling that trigger I would, but I can’t. You can be pissed at me all you want for what happened, but understand this Queen, I don’t give a shit what your problems are right now. I don’t care that you have to help ponies find a new place to live, because that’s nothing compared to what I have to deal with after what happened.”

Other members of The Queen’s came running into the room with guns drawn, but The Queen put up a hoof making them stay back. Her eyes never left mine as she said, “I don’t know what’s come over you Shadow, but you’re a breath away from bein’ shot. What makes you think you can come into my home and point a gun at me, a gun I gave you by the way?”

I pulled back on the hammer of my gun and kept my eyes locked on hers, the red aura from my magic glowing at the edge of my vison, “I’ve done a lot to help Freedom, or have you forgotten? I’m the reason you don’t have to worry about The Bramble anymore, I routed power to Freedom from Halo One so that you could help the ponies here, and I got Doorstop to come here so he could tell you what he knew about The Enclave so you could help your ponies Queen. You ask what makes me think I can come in here and point a gun at you? I can because by now you should’ve realized that I’ve done EVERYTHING, to help this town and the ponies in it and I would NEVER do anything to endanger ponies if I can help it. I do this because you attacked me without getting my side of the story, I thought by now that I earned that much at least.”

I heard some of the ponies behind me moving aside then a white talon came up and pushed my gun down right as Aura said, “Shadow there’s no need to do that.”

I took another moment to keep looking into The Queens eyes, then I nodded and looked over toward Aura, “I’m not gonna let her just attack me like she did, and when did you get back?”

Aura looked tired. She sighed and said, “Just a moment ago,” then she looked at The Queen, “Queen, Shadow has a point, you don’t know the whole story. If you want to blame her for the destruction of Appleton then that’s your problem, but you shouldn’t go around hitting ponies like that, especially one who has done a lot for you.”

To my amazement The Queen started to laugh, “hahaha, well damn, you’ve changed haven’t ya Courier?” She looked at her gang, “Put those away everythin’s fine.”

They all left, when they were gone I asked, “Why did you do that?”

She shrugged, “Because no matter what the reason is, you still deserved it, but you’re right too, I shouldn’t have just hit you like I did. I’m still pissed about what happened, but I don’t know the whole story. How about this, why don’t we all head up to my room and you can tell me everything that happened.”

She turned and headed toward the back door of the auditorium heading for the stairs that lead up to her room, as she did Wind Thrasher came over to me as I followed The Queen, “Shadow I didn’t know you were up, are you feeling okay?”

“Still sore, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened,” I said as we started up the stairs, Wingnut, Aura, and Doorstop following behind.

Aura spoke up as we reached the top level, “A lot’s happened while you’ve been out Shadow. We’ll explain after we hear your side of things, I mean Wind Thrasher told us a lot, but she can’t explain everything that happened.”

I sighed as we reached The Queen’s room, once we were all inside and the door was shut behind us The Queen looked back at me, “I think it’s time y’all start talkin’. What happed that lead you to get your hooves on a weapon like you did?”

So, I sat down took a deep breath and started to tell my tale. I started from when we reached Crimson Canyon, leaving out a little of what happened with Gigi, but explaining about Silver acting strange. I told them about her attacking me then throwing me onto the bed and trapping me in the memory orb. I told them about how Silver was really Envy and his power to be able to change into anypony he wanted, and about what he was doing when I woke up from the orb. I talked about what I was forced to do and why I had to leave. I told them about the trip to Halo One, the activation of Solar Flare, the talk with Mr. Tops, and The Sins meeting with some council pony who told them to leave the power plant. I went into details about finding Silver’s body and about the rage I felt when I did.

I noticed Aura look away as I explained how badly Silver had been hurt when she died. She didn’t look back at me until after I told them about the meeting with Greed and his deal he made with me. I held back tears as I told them about where Wind Thrasher and I buried Silver and the message she left for me. Wingnut’s eyes were wet and so were The Queen’s as I told them her words for me. After a moment passed I continued my story, telling them about the attack on Appleton by the Romans, how we got into the city, the way Pride killed the zebras, and about what happened with Morning Star telling me she could help me fight Pride when he found me in town. I explained the fight and transformation. I explained how odd Pride acted when I took on the look of Morning Star, I told them about the fight and how he seemed to know what Morning Star was and him calling her Aquila. I finished with the power he used to attack Aquila then how he hurt me, and what lead to me using Solar Flare’s Range Finder on Pride. I also told them how I tried to find a way to stop it before it fired.

When I finished the room was quiet, everypony seeming to be lost in their own thoughts as they contemplated what I told them. Wingnut was the first to finally say something, “I didn’t realize you had to go through all that, I figured you did what you did because of Morning…I mean Aquila. From what you told us, it seems like she was trying to help you, not hurt the ponies around you. That’s weird because when she came out before we got to Frosty Summit, she was nothing like that. Is she gone now?”

I shook my head, “I can’t feel her like I did before, but while I was out I had a really trippy dream that didn’t really feel like a dream. She was in it and we talked for a bit. I’m still not sure who or what she is, but I think she’s only mean because something bad happened to her a long time ago. She’s an angry specter of some kind, but I don’t think she’s evil, or at least she didn’t used to be.”

“I’m more worried about what’ll happen now that you killed Pride and citizens of Stratus. The Enclave isn’t gonna let this go,” Aura said as she moved closer and sat next to me.

“If anything, I don’t think The Enclave cares about Pride’s death. From what I know about him, they wanted him dead, but couldn’t kill him themselves. Even most of his team wanted him dead, so I don’t think they’ll be a problem at least for a while. His sister could be a problem later on, but we won’t know until then,” I said.

The Queen was looking up at her ceiling as she spoke, “I still can’t condone what you did Shadow, but I understand where your head was at. What I don’t get is where ya got the Range Finder, without it, you couldn’t have fired that weapon.”

Aura spoke up, “She got it from a Zebra colt that lives here in Freedom, he said it was the most powerful gun in Equestria I think. I thought he was just telling a story to get caps for it, but now I’m not so sure.”

The Queen nodded then looked at me, “If it’s the Zebra colt I’m thinking of his family lives not far from here, his father used to be a Roman until a few years ago when he decided to leave them. His wife was killed by the Caesar and he barely made it out with his son. His father does odd jobs all the time, so it’s possible that he found it when he was near the Power Plant, though I can’t be sure, I’ll have to talk with him when I get a chance.”

“It doesn’t matter to me, all I know is that I have to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong pony’s hooves,” I said, remembering Mr. Tops’ warning

“I don’t care what the rest of you think, Pride had to die even if it did cost the lives of so many ponies. He was a monster and if Shadow was being honest, he was too powerful as it was,” Doorstop said, his voice quiet for the first time I’d ever heard, “I know a lot about The Sins from my time in The Enclave and Pride’s always been a pony that we all feared. The team he put together made the leaders in Stratus and Nimbus nervous.”

I looked over at him and asked, “Since you know so much about The Sins Doorstop, what can you tell me about Envy?”

A dark look came to his eyes as he said, “Envy is a mystery to even me, he could’ve easily overthrown Pride for power. We don’t know anything about his past apart from that he was an orphan that Pride took in a year or so after he became Pride. Pride always called him Envy and he’s always been loyal to him. I think Pride was his only friend to be honest. He was the only pony Envy trusted and he would do anything for him. His power is strange too, I’ve only ever read about powers like that in books, but Envy’s gift doesn’t match up right with what I’ve read. Whoever he is, he’s the only Sin whose weakness we don’t know.”

“So, we should do whatever we can to stay as far away from Envy as possible?” I asked.

“Even if we tried, he can look like anyone, how do you plan on doing that?” Aura asked.

“I’m not sure yet, but for now I’ll just have to hope that he won’t come after me, at least for a while. If we’re lucky, Greed will find something we can use. Now if you’re all done asking me what happened, how about you fill me in on what’s been going on since I left and while I was out.”

They all looked at each other before Aura said, “When Appleton went down with Pride, The Red Talon’s went in to help as many ponies as they could. The Red Talon’s have always been friendly with Appleton and because of them, a lot of ponies lived. A few hours later both of the ponies on the radio reported what happened, but you’re name never came up. They still don’t know who destroyed the town or they aren’t saying who did it, I can’t be sure. I wish that was all I had to say but it’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked over at Doorstop, “I think you should tell her about Frosty Summit.”

I didn’t like the sound of that or the look Doorstop gave me, “You see, around the same time you were fighting Pride in Appleton, a single pony came into Frosty Summit and attacked the place. At the time we didn’t know who it was, but after your story, I’m guessing Envy was the one. He was able to kill another one of Violet’s Alicorns. He also killed a few of the ponies inside the lodge as well. He broke into the cells and broke out Wrath and the other pegasus who we were still holding. They all got away in the end, almost taking yours truly with them.”

I looked down for a moment then said, “I should’ve known something like that would happen.”

“There ain’t nothing ya could’ve done Shadow,” The Queen said clearing her throat as she continued, “As for Halo One, we heard that the Steel Rangers moved in on the base and are now having a standoff with the NLR.”

I sighed and said, “Sounds like another fun day in The Wasteland.”

“You can say that again,” Aura said, “But that’s not all Shadow, yesterday while you were still out an encrypted message was picked up by The Red Talons. I wouldn’t bring it up, but the signal came from your Stable.”

I looked up again, “A signal? Do you know what it said?”

“No, like I said it’s encrypted. Apollo told me about it and said it’s being transmitted on one of the broadcast channels. He thinks it might be for you, since you’re Pip-Buck can decrypt things like that.”

I looked down at the Mark II and switched it to the broadcast channels. A new signal had shown up on it. I clicked on it and my Pip-Buck brought up a message…

Emergency Signal from Stable 28 Detected. Signal has a level 10 Encryption. File will need to be downloaded to The Pip-Buck Mark II for Decryption, this may take some time to do…would you like to download and Decrypt File?

[Yes/No]

I clicked yes, and saw that the screen changed to a loading screen. From the look of it. It was gonna take a while for it to finish, so I looked back at my friends, “This’ll take a while, so how about we talk about something else for now.”

“What did you have in mind?” The Queen asked.

“I need to know everything you can tell me about Trotston. I plan on heading there next to see what else I can find out about the Mark II and Wind Thrasher has been wanting to go there too so she can talk with the ponies from her old Stable,” I replied.

Wind Thrasher seemed to shrink away as I said this, “I wouldn’t say I want to, more like I think it’s only right I try and say I’m sorry for what happened. We don’t have to go right away.”

Aura gave the batpony a hard look, “If you want to get their forgiveness then you have to go. You can’t keep putting it off and you know that.”

“I know, but I’m scared of what they’ll do when they see me,” she retorted.

I smiled at my friend, “Wind Thrasher don’t worry, we won’t let anything happen to you. You were there for me when I needed you and I’ll do the same for you. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be scared of finding out the truth. Don’t let your fear control you.”

She smiled a little, “You’re right Shadow, I shouldn’t keep putting it off. I’ll go to Trotston with you.”

The Queen smiled, “Well now that we have that settled, let me see what I can tell ya about Trotston. The town was nothin’ twenty years ago, just a small hill with a Stable just inside a cave. It was abandoned for years when the survivors from Stable 9 found it. At first, they just used the old stable as a place to recover after whatever happened to them. But over the years they wandered out of it and started building amazing homes and other things. Soon they became a place that saw a lot of trade. Soon with all the things they were making and doing, they started having problems with ponies like The Steel Rangers and Raiders. They built a wall like no other around the town and set it up with security systems that I think even Mr. Tops would be jealous of. Nowadays they still trade with the rest of the settlements around New Pegasus, but nopony can get into the town unless they’re let in. Ponies have died tryin’ ta break-in even Enclave, but the town’s ponies there ain’t bad, they just don’t like outsiders. The few I’ve met who’ve come through Freedom were rather nice. I can’t tell you what to expect when you arrive or if they’ll letcha in, but I do know the pony who runs the place is called Rusty Shackles.”

Wind Thrasher’s face paled as she said, “Did you say Rusty Shackles?”

“I sure did darlin’, why do ya ask?”

“He was the former head of security in my stable, and the other pony who had a Mark II. Out of all the ponies I could run into from my Stable, he’s the one I don’t want to see.”

I looked over at my friend and asked, “Why’s that?”

“He was really close to mom, I think they were seeing each other before everything went to shit. He was always coming over to see her a little after dad died. He was the one who took Mom’s Pip-Buck before they escaped. He won’t be happy to see me,” she replied.

“Well he’s the pony that decides who’s let into Trotston, so sadly you’ll have to hope he’s in a good mood when ya get there,” The Queen added.

Wind Thrasher pouted, “Why can’t things ever be easy?”

I laughed a little, “Because we’re in The Wasteland and that’s how The Wasteland works. Like I said, don’t worry too much, we won’t let anything bad happen to you Wind Thrasher. If they won’t let us in or they want to hurt you, then we’ll leave. The information about the Mark II isn’t as important as you are.”

“Yeah, you’re with US now batty, and we always help out our friends,” Aura said with a smile.

“Just look at Shadow, she keeps messing up and we’re still sticking with her,” Wingnut threw in.

“HEY!” I said giving him a look.

He just stuck his tongue out at me saying, “It’s what you get for being stupid.”

“I’m not stupid, I’m just undereducated.”

“They have another word for that, it’s called Stupid,” he said.

“Oh shut up you two, we have other things to deal with right now,” Aura said, she waited for a moment glaring at both of us before continuing, “Good, okay so it sounds like we’re heading to Trotston next. Where do you plan on going after that? That’s if we haven’t heard back from The Red Talons.”

“We’ll head north from there to Spitfire’s Flight Academy, I think there’s something there that I need to know to help me remember things,” I said.

Everypony apart from Wind Thrasher looked at me like I said something extremely stupid. It was the Queen who said, “Are you nuts, do you know what The Annihilators will do to ya if ya even try and get close to their home?”

“I know the stories yes, but I was told that if I request to talk to their leader and tell them a passphrase, they will let me in or help me.”

“Are you sure about that Shadow?” Aura asked.

“I am, and even if I’m not, I still have to try. I need to know more about who I am before I can keep looking for mom. If they know something then I have to go. Who knows I might even be from there.”

Wingnut smiled, “Well, Shadow has spoken and I still see her as the leader, I say we do it.”

Aura sighed then shrugged, “I go where Wingnut does so I’m in.”

“I’ll go too, it’s been nice being around ponies lately and Shadows my first real friend, I don’t want to see her get hurt so I’ll help,” Wind Thrasher added.

“Well then, since that’s all done, we should start heading out,” I said getting to my hooves, then I stopped, “Queen, are things okay between us?”

She smiled, “For now they are Shadow, but please do you’re best to keep that weapon safe and don’t go leaving you’re friends behind again. Do that for me and we’ll be as cool as cucumbers.”

“I’ll do that,” I said, then I looked toward Doorstop, “You gonna be okay Sarge?”

He boomed a laugh, “I’ll be fine kid, you go do what you need to. I’m going to head back to Frosty Summit and see what I can do to help Violet. I’ll also keep my ears open for information on the Cadet. You be safe.”

“I will,” I said then with that we started to head out of The Queen’s home.

As we started to head out of town Aura came up to me, “Shadow can we talk?”

“I’m always here for you Aura, even after what happened you should know that.”

“I just wanted to say that I’m glad we found you again. When I first read that letter I was hurt, you were the first pony I put so much trust into ever since I lost Trip Wire. I thought that you left at first because of what you learned about Trip Wire and me. Most ponies would’ve run away after learning something like that,” she said, her eyes locked on the road.

“Aura, I don’t see you any differently than I did before. I know what it’s like to be different. So what if you like mares even though you’re a griffon, love is love, you can’t change that. I might think it’s weird, but from what I know about her, Trip Wire was a good pony and you cared for her a lot.”

“I did, there was something about her that I couldn’t ever get out of my head. I tried for a long time to tell myself that I was going crazy or it was just me trying to rebel more against mom,” she said.

“Can I ask what made you realized you felt the way you did about her?”

A rare smile came to Aura’s face, “She’d been coming by Crimson Canyon for a while and joining us on jobs when it happened. I was working some solo job a couple years back and I needed a pony like her to help me on it. I won’t bore you with the details, but the two of us made a trip to Los Alicorn and we got trapped in some old building outside the city. It was cold and we ended up having to share a blanket she found just to stay warm. We ended up talking for a long time and it just happened. To this day I’m not sure who made the first move, but she ended up on top of me and things just happened. From that day on we were inseparable…at least until she died.”

“Do you think it was just her you liked or have you felt like this for mares for a while?” I asked.

She cocked an eyebrow at me, “I couldn’t say for sure, but I’ve always found a mares shape to be quite pleasing to the eye. I’m not sure if I’d ever end up with another mare one day or a griffon, but I’m sure when I make up my mind, she’ll have to be as amazing as Trip Wire was.”

“I wish I knew what that felt like, I didn’t have the time to get to know Silver the way you knew Trip Wire.”

“That may be so, but it doesn’t mean you didn’t love her. Silver saw something in you and she did what she did because she knew you’re a mare worth loving,” she blushed a little as she continued, “She was a lucky mare to be able to share her love with an amazing pony like you.”

I blinked then looked back at her, “Aura…”

She flapped her wings and took to the air saying, “I think Wingnut’s calling me, we’ll talk later.”

Wind Thrasher chuckled a little as she came walking up next to me, “She likes you.”

“She does not, she’s just messing with my head. You don’t know Aura like I do, she likes to play games, it cheers her up,” I said, trying not to blush.

“You keep telling yourself that Shadow, but I think you’re lying to yourself. You might not see it but I do, I’d even go as far to say that you’ve thought about her like that too,” she said poking me with a wing.

“Shut up!” I said, “You don’t need to tease me like that.”

She just laughed again, “Fine, I’ll let it be for now.”

I sighed, “Thanks Wind Thrasher.”

She looked like she was going to say something else when Wingnut yelled, “Hey what’s that?”

I followed his gaze, we were outside of town heading towards Trotston and in the distance, I could see what looked like a tall stallion standing on a short hill a little ways away. I moved closer to Wingnut and Aura trying to get a closer look at the pony, but his features were hard to make out, all I could see was black combat armor and a little bit of blue.

A moment later a voice echoed toward us from the pony. It was deep and stern, a lot like Night Stalker sounded when he was being serious, “I’m looking for the mare that goes by the name Shadow Star.”

“Yeah that’s me, who are you.” I yelled using my magic to pull out Dream Walker incase this pony was dangerous.

“I bare a message from ponies you wronged. They say ‘This is what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said, and with a quick motion, he reached behind him and pulled out a long rifle. There was a loud crack, and something slammed into me.

I fell to the ground and felt pain in my chest, looking down I saw blood flowing onto my barding from a gunshot wound, “He…shot me.”

“Stop looking for the unicorn, or next time you die. This is you’re only warning,” he said and before Aura or anypony else could do anything, the pony vanished…just like The Stranger whenever he left…

I drank down a healing potion that was offered to me by Aura, “What was that all about?”

I just shook my head, “I have no idea, but I’m sure I’m gonna find out.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Mind Over Murder: It appears that you’ve lost your mind a bit, we all have at some point. Luckily you managed to find yours again and rejoin society with a better understanding of yourself. You gain +15% magic damage while casting spells and have 5% less chance of losing control.

Chapter 26: Technologic

“Just help me feel normal even for just a night, that’s all I want.”

“That fucking hurts,” I yelled as Aura helped me back to my hooves, the place where I was shot by that stallion still sore even after the healing potion.

“Of course it hurts dumbass, you just got shot,” Aura said, moving her head down to look over the wound, “It’s healing fine, but you’ll still have a bruise from where it hit, lucky for you this armor took away a lot of the damage you would’ve gotten if you weren’t wearing it.”

“As long as it’s not gonna kill me, then let’s get going, we’ve already wasted enough time as it is,” I said.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be moving just yet Shadow, you’ve just been shot,” Wind Thrasher said coming back over to look at the wound too.

“I’m fine, I just got shot, I get shot a lot it’s no big deal,” I said pushing past her.

Wingnut followed me saying, “What was that stallion talking about? What ponies did you wrong, and what mare was he talking about?”

“Who knows? Personally, I think if you wanna tell somepony to stay away from something you should tell them who they mean. The mare he’s talking about could be my mom or another pony she knew. The ponies I wronged, fuck that could be anypony too, from Appleton to the Enclave. I don’t really care though, whoever he is, he can threaten me all he wants it won’t stop me,” I said still continuing onward.

“You do realize that if somepony goes after you, they’ll come after us too right?” Wingnut continued.

I stopped then looked back at him, “Yes I do Wingnut, and I’m not worried about that either. You can all take care of yourself, I trust that even if something happened to me, you’ll be fine. Plus, you have Aura with you, and I don’t think anything in The Wasteland could take her down.”

Aura laughed as she caught up to us, “There’s plenty of things out here that can take me down Shadow. To you I may seem invincible, but I’m not. I’m just highly trained and better at fighting than most. You also gotta realize that you’ve been around New Pegasus ever since you got out of your Stable. There isn’t as much things to deal with around here unlike the rest of Equestria. Hell, go to Hoofington sometime and you’ll understand what I mean.”

I chuckled a little, then winced as a bit of pain ran through my chest, “I’ve heard plenty of things so far about Hoofington. From what I know, I definitely don’t want to go there.”

“Is it really that bad? I was told that it was a great place to find big scores, if you’re a treasure hunter,” Wind Thrasher said.

Aura laughed, “That’s the bull shit that pulls ponies to the place, the truth is, it’s hell.”

“I know my mom went there for a while, but I’m not sure why apart from trying to find a Dashite,” I said.

Aura shuddered, “I’ve only been there once, and I don’t ever want to go back. The Raiders alone are enough to keep you away.”

“Why would Raiders be a problem?” I asked, “Sure they can be a pain in the ass, but they aren’t heard to kill.”

“The Raiders in Hoofington aren’t anything like what you’ve seen Shadow. Hoofington Raiders take cannibalism to a whole new level, there’s something wrong with them. They’re crazier than anything I’ve ran into here, they don’t seem to even feel pain. They kill just to eat almost like a zombie only worse,” Aura said.

I shuddered, “Fuck, I don’t think I wanna run into ponies like that.”

Wingnut looked thoughtful for a moment, “At least the east doesn’t see as much activity from The Enclave unlike here.”

“That’s true,” Aura said looking at him, “I don’t think I even saw a pegasus while I was back east, Stratus seems to be a lot different than the rest of The Enclave.”

“Can we please change the subject, I’m not really in the mood to talk about The Enclave right now. I’d like nothing more than to just forget all about them.”

My three friends looked over at me then together they nodded, Wingnut saying, “Sorry Shadow, we’ve been talking a lot about them while you were out, and we forgot about the problems you’ve been having with them.”

“It’s fine, it’s just that every time I think about them, I think about Stardust. I want to get him back, and I feel helpless not knowing how I can help him.”

“Don’t worry Shadow, we’ll find him and get him back,” Wingnut said giving me a smile.

I ruffled his mane, “You know what, you’re right kiddo.”

“Well Duh, I’m always right,” he said.

“Not always, so don’t push your luck. Let’s get going, I’d like to reach Trotston before it gets dark,” I said, without another word, we all started moving.

***

The road leading to Trotston reminded me a lot of the road that lead me to Cartwheel. Not many ponies traveled down the cracked road, every now and then a heavily guarded caravan would pass by, but no pony by themselves. As we drew closer to where Trotston was supposed to be on the map, I started to notice something silver appearing on the horizon. The closer we got the bigger whatever it was grew.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the silvery image on the horizon.

“That’s the walls of Trotston,” Aura answered.

I stopped, “How tall are those walls if we can see them from this far away?”

“Around twenty-five feet, I’m not sure to be honest it’s not like I’ve ever gotten close enough to measure it,” she replied.

Before I could ask more, we came to a small hill, I thought we were farther away than we were, but as we crested the small hill I saw Trotston in full view, I saw that I was wrong. Trotston was less than a mile away, and even from here I could see the tall walls that surrounded the town. It was bumped up against a hill with a small cave half way up. The walls from the town seemed to go up the hill as well, protecting it from all sides. The road lead right up to a massive gate that had two guard ponies standing next to it.

“Holy shit, I understand being careful in The Wasteland, but this is a little much don’t you think?” I asked.

“Not really, Trotston is known for making and finding some very rare high-tech stuff. The ponies who live there have had a lot of run-ins with The Steel Rangers and Scavengers over the years. They decided years ago that instead of dealing with them all the time, they made it almost impossible to get into their town. The Red Talons have been trying for a long time to set up a contract for protection with them, but they won’t do it. That town doesn’t trust anypony from the outside.”

“I heard they used to trade with some ponies from the Caballeron Caravan Company, but one day they just stopped. Now they only trade with some ponies in New Pegasus and not that often,” Wingnut said.

“I don’t know boss, all I know is that we’re gonna have a hard time getting in there,” Aura said.

“With me alone I think it’s gonna be even harder,” Wind Thrasher added.

“Isn’t there a way to sneak in?” I asked.

Aura started to laugh, “Are you kidding me Shadow, sneak into that!? Trotston has some of the best defenses in The Wasteland, their wall doesn’t have any gaps in it, the ponies who guard it are highly trained, and you can’t just fly in either because from what I’ve heard, there’s some kind of barrier or force field that stops flyers.”

“Then how do we get in?” I asked.

Aura pinched her beak in annoyance, “I don’t know, we need to think of something. Maybe we can just ask the guards to see the leader or something, I’m not sure.”

Wingnut spoke up, “Why don’t we get something to eat so we can sit down and think about it.”

My stomach rumbled at the mention of food, “That does sound like a good idea, but where would we do that? If you haven’t noticed we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Over there,” he said pointing down the road at an old looking building. It had a small sign hanging on it that said, ‘Kegger’s Saloon’.

“Isn’t Saloon another word for bar?” I asked.

“Sure is, good eye boss,” Aura said heading toward the building, Wingnut closely following behind Aura.

Wind Thrasher came up next to me as the other two walked off, “What’s a bar?”

I laughed, “It’s a place where you can get food and alcohol.”

“And why is that a good place to go?” she asked as I started to follow my two friends.

“Oh, Wind Thrasher, you may be book smart, but you have no idea what you’re missing when it comes to fun times with my good old friend Wild Pegasus,” I said catching up to Aura and Wingnut just as they opened the door.

The first impression I got when I walked into the saloon was, this place is way different from the bar at The Applewood. It was dark, dank and smelled like mold. The bar looked ready to fall over, the tables were cracked and old, and I’m not sure I wanted to know why the glasses were that color. A few ponies were sitting around drinking and talking in hushed voices. As we walked in the door most of the ponies looked up at us, giving us a look like we had just walked into their home.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked not liking the way some of the ponies were eyeing me.

Aura ignored them and walked toward the bar, “Ignore them, if they wanted to do anything they would have already,” she walked up to the bartender and pulled out a few caps, “My friends and I need something to eat.”

The dirty pony took the caps and said in a ruff voice, “I’ve got some stored apples in the back, they haven’t gone bad yet.”

“Do you have any Sugar Apple Bombs?” I asked when I came up to stand next to Aura.

“Might have a box lying around,” he replied, “Y’all need anything to drink?”

My eyes lit up, “I’ll take a bottle of Wild Pegasus.”

“Shadow, we don’t need you getting drunk, we’re here to plan and eat, not to drink,” Aura said.

“Bottle will cost 50 Caps,” The bartender said pulling down a bottle.

I passed him the caps taking the bottle they saying to Aura, “I won’t get drunk, but I’d like a bottle for later. You don’t need to watch over me MOM!”

She looked ready to punch me, but I just smiled took the box of Sugar Apple Bombs the Bartender pulled out and walked off toward a vacant table. She just shook her head and took the old looking apples the bartender had, “Whatever Shadow, but don’t blame me if you get fucked up because of that bottle.”

I sat down at the table followed soon by my three friends, I sat back and started to eat the cereal, “So who has ideas on how to get into Trotston?” I asked munching on the cereal.

Aura took a bite of her apple wincing a little as she did then said, “Yuck this thing is almost too old to eat,” she shivered then ate the rest, “Oh well. Well the only thing I can think of is to tell the guards you have the Mark II and you want to speak to the leader.”

“Or we could just show up with Wind Thrasher and hope they don’t shoot us,” Wingnut said.

Wind Thrasher seemed to sink into the chair as she said, “I don’t like that plan, bullets hurt.”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” he said eating his apple too, “You’re right Aura, this thing is nasty.”

I moved the box of Sugar Apple Bombs toward him, “Have some of this, it’s really good.”

He took some as Aura spoke, “We could just tell them that The Courier Mare wanted to meet with the leaders of Trotston, your name does carry some sway now.”

“Maybe with most ponies, but I’m not sure Trotston cares about the things I’ve done, especially if they know I took out Appleton.”

“Well we won’t know unless we try,” she said reaching over and taking some of my cereal.

As we sat there planning, the door to the Saloon flew open and a short earth pony mare walked in and toward the bar. She looked cleaner than any of the other ponies who were here. I looked over watching her, she looked older than Wingnut, but she was really young. What was she doing in a place like this? The filly was cute too, she had a pure white coat, with a bright blue mane that she pulled up into twin pony tails on each side of her head, and her eyes were a striking dark blue. I also noticed that she had on what looked like reinforced Stable barding, a number 9 stitched on the back.

She ignored the others in the room and went right up to the Bartender, jumped onto a barstool and said, “Hey Tapper, have any idea where I can find Needles?”

The Bartender’s lazy eyes widened a little when the Filly spoke, “Byte I told you not to come in here anymore, if Rusty catches you it’ll be my ass.”

“Did I ask for your opinion? I don’t think I did. What I asked was have you seen Needles?” she had a commanding voice, and as she spoke the Bartender backed away as if he was scared of the filly.

“Why are you looking for him?”

“He owes me caps, why else would I be looking for that bum?” The filly said, her voice getting louder.

My friends stopped their conversation and looked over toward her as the bartender responded, “Last time I saw him, he was heading back toward Appleton.”

“Bullshit Tapper, I know for a fact he was in here earlier, there’s no way he would be heading toward a dead town. Now tell me where he is before I get pissed off more than I already am!” she shouted at him.

“Byte, there’s no need for that, I’m just telling you what he told me when I saw him.”

She waited a minute to respond, but when she did she spoke slowly, “You really want me to believe that he came in here and told you that he was heading toward Appleton, a city that was destroyed? Come on, do I really look that stupid to you?”

Another pony came out from the back room. I thought the other ponies in here looked dirty, this pony made the rest of them look clean. As he walked up to the bar he stared down the filly, “I wouldn’t say you’re stupid Byte, but you ARE an idiot.”

She smiled up at the tall pony, “There you are Needles, where’s my caps?”

“What caps? Last time I checked I was paid up.”

“Learn to count dipshit, you still owe me 2,500 caps plus interest.”

“You may think you have the rest of the Ponies around here scared of you, but you need to realize something. You’re just a kid and I’m not scared of a little shit like you, no matter who your caretaker is,” the Dirty pony said getting right in the filly’s face, then he smiled and spat on her.

I was about to get up to say something, but the filly just started to laugh, she wiped the spit away saying, “You know what, it’s funny that you think that ponies around here are scared of me because of Rusty,” she pulled an odd-looking gun from a holster setting it on the bar.

“The fuck is that?” the Bartender asked.

“Oh, this little thing, just something new I’ve been working on,” she looked back at the dirty pony, “You see, I did a service for you and we agreed on a price. I did the work and now you owe me caps. If you don’t pay up, I’m going to test this out on you.”

Shit this kid was all kinds of fucked up, the dirty pony didn’t seem to care, he just laughed again, “I ain’t scared of anything you made Byte, and I don’t owe you shit. The shit you made for me didn’t even work so why should I pay you for shit that don’t work?”

“It’s not my fault you can’t figure out how it works, everything I make works, it’s my special talent. Now pay up!” she said lifting the odd-looking gun.

The dirty pony pulled out a revolver, “Here’s my counter offer, how about I just shoot you and be done with it. It’s either that or go back to your fucked-up town and cry over the graves of your dead parents.”

As he spoke I saw an over powering rage fill her eyes. Without saying a word, she pulled the trigger. A blast of something blew out of the end, blowing the dirty pony and the bartender off their hooves, throwing both of them back into the shelves of bottles behind them, then through the wall. She holstered the weapon, “Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”

She jumped off the stool, walked around the bar, went over to the two ponies who were either dead or knocked out, and dug through the dirty pony’s saddle bags and pulled out a bag of caps. As she did I noticed the other ponies in the bar getting up and walking toward the filly. I pulled out Dream Walker, jumping up to try and help.

She turned around and saw the ponies walking toward her, “Really? You think all of you can take me on? Did you see what I just did to those two?”

“Where sick of you coming here and acting like you own the place,” One of them said, pulling out a knife.

I reached the filly and pointed Dream Walker at the ponies, “Hey there’s no need to attack her, she’s just a kid.”

To my shock the filly laughed, “And who are you, and who are you calling kid? You don’t look much older than me, step aside, I can handle these morons.”

“Yeah stay out of this cunt!” the same stallion yelled.

I wanted to say something but the filly beat me to it, “Hey, this is between us not her, now say you’re sorry.”

“Fuck you Byte,” he yelled jumping at her, his dagger going for her face.

She pulled out her gun again pointed it at the pony and pulled the trigger. Again, it went off and the pony was lifted off his hooves, blasted up high and through the roof. Instead of deterring the rest, they all charged us. Byte lifted the gun again, and the ponies stopped as soon as it was pointed at them. She smiled, “Sorry but the bar is now closed, we’re all out of booze and I’ll have to ask you all to leave in an orderly fashion…fuck that, shooting you all seems WAY more fun.”

She pulled the trigger again, but instead of sending them flying back like before, it made a fizzling sound then popped and nothing happened. One of the other ponies laughed pulling out a shitty looking shotgun, “Looks like your fancy gun is broken Byte.”

“Don’t worry I’ll keep you safe,” I said pointing Dream Walker at the pony, “Go away before you find out the special things my own gun can do.”

“I told you outsider, I don’t need your help,” she said tossing her gun away. In a flash she jumped past me tackling the pony holding the shotgun yelling, “Pony Pile!”

Before I knew it, the filly had already disarmed the stallion, ripping away his shotgun then threw it at the face of one of the other stallions, he went down in a spray of blood and broken teeth. She jumped up then slammed her rear hooves down on the pony she tackled, smashing his nose in with a nasty crunch. Another pony tried to stab her, but she ducked under it twisted around and kicked him in the groin. He dropped the dagger from his muzzle before falling and holding his stallionhood.

I wanted to do something, but I wasn’t sure what, the filly seemed to be able to take care of herself. I was stunned as I watch what happened, Aura walked over to me also watching the action, she grinned and nudged my side with her elbow as she said, “Now that’s a girl who knows how to fight, I wonder where she learned all that.”

“I have no idea, but I’d like to find out,” I said lowering Dream Walker as she twisted around, back flipped over another stallion then slammed his face into the ground.

There were only three ponies left now, all of them big brutes. She turned toward them a big smile on her face, “Have you guys had enough, or are you thirsty for more?”

The three of them were slowly backing away from the crazy filly, as they did something moved from behind the bar. The dirty pony had pulled himself out of the rubble, an old revolver in his muzzle. He jumped the bar and pointed it at the back of the filly’s head, “Someone’s a little cranky, how bout a dirt nap?”

Wingnut ran over jumped on my back, pulled out his revolver and Fired. The dirty pony went down, a chunk of his skull blowing away from Wingnut’s single shot. The filly turned around looking at the dead body behind her, then her glare fell on Wingnut, “I had this under control.”

“He was about to blow your brains out,” Wingnut said jumping off my back and walking over to her, holstering his revolver, “A thank you would be nice.”

“I didn’t ask for help now did I? I’d thank you if I needed you’re help, I’m not a defenseless little filly who needs the help of any stallion who comes along who’s trying to save a mare in destress. Do you think you’re going to get a reward now or something you stupid bug?” she retorted.

“No, I was just trying to help, I don’t care if you wanted it or not,” he said rolling his eyes and walking back toward Aura, and me, “Let’s get out of here, we can find a better place to plan.” Wingnut looked back at Wind Thrasher “You ready Wind Thrasher?”

Wind Thrasher nodded and got up from the table we all sat at stepping over the piles of ponies on the ground

I on the other hoof ignored him and walked over to the filly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, I guess,” she said as she moved to pick up her gun, “But make it quick I need to get back home before somepony notices I’m gone.”

“Are you from Trotston?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look, “Yeah, why?”

“We’ve been trying to figure out a way to get into the city, I need to meet with the stallion who runs the town.”

She shrugged, “We don’t just let any ponies into town, unless they have something that interests Rusty,” she looked me over like I wasn’t a pony that would have something like that, “I don’t think you would.”

“Do you know what a Pip-Buck Mark II is kid?”

“I told you not to call me kid? You can’t be much older than I am, or are you just short for an adult?”

“Just answer my question please.” I said rolling my eyes.

“Fine, but what would you know about a Mark II?”

I lifted my foreleg showing her my Pip-Buck, “More than you think.”

Her eyes went wide and she took a step back, “Where the fuck did you get that? Rusty told me it was lost a long time ago.”

“It’s a long story and I’d prefer to tell your leader, I have a few questions about it,” I replied.

“Coming to town with that would definitely get his attention, though I’m not sure if it’d be good or bad. That Mark II was ours to begin with from what I understand, he might want it back,” she said looking it over, “It’s a different color than the one Rusty has, but it does have a similar design.”

“Well, I can’t give it back, and even if I could I wouldn’t,” I said pulling my foreleg away.

“But it belongs to us. Are you telling me you’re a thief?”

“No, it was given to me, now can you get me into Trotston or not?”

“I can try, but Rusty is the only one who can let you in,” her eyes finally looked over my group and her ears fell back, “I’m not sure how he’ll feel about your friends though.”

Aura bristled, “What, you got a problem with Griffons?”

The Filly looked at her like she was crazy, “No, we have a problem with outsiders, and I don’t like the look of that weird looking pegasus with you, she looks like she has bat wings.”

Wind Thrasher shrank back farther into the darkness of the bar, I watched her then said, “She does, but don’t worry about her, she’s very nice.”

“If you say so. My name’s Byte by the way, in case you didn’t hear.”

“I’m Shadow, the colt is Wingnut, the Griffon is Aura, and Wind Thrasher is the one trying to hide behind Aura,” I said pointing out my friends.

“Nice to meet you all. Well might as well follow me to the gate, I’ll see if Rusty has time to see you,” she said stepping over one of the stallions and out the door.

“Wow, she’s a weird filly,” Wingnut said, “Did you see what she did? Also did you hear her call me a bug? What kind of pony calls another pony a bug?”

“Sure she’s weird, but I’m starting to think everypony is weird out here,” I said following Byte.

She led us down the road toward Trotston’s main gate, as we drew closer to the town and it’s walls, I was even more impressed with how tall the walls were. Not just how tall it is, but also the armaments I could see at the top. It looked like turrets were set up every few feet along the walls with guard ponies walking around between them holding huge sniper rifles. As we drew closer I moved closer to Byte asking, “So why were you outside the city looking for that stallion?”

She shrugged, “Thought it was obvious, he owed me caps and didn’t want to pay me back, so I went to collect.”

“Sounds fair,” Aura said nonchalantly, “Never let anyone get away with not paying up.”

“I got what I wanted, though Wingnut didn’t NEED TO KILL HIM. Stupid bug!” she said looking back at the colt.

Wingnut frowned, “Hey I saved your life, get over yourself, and stop calling me that.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, “Never,” then she looked back at me, “Why were you all in that nasty place anyway? It’s not really a place for ponies like you.”

“We were trying to figure a way to get into town, figured it was a good place to rest and plan.”

“Well that’s a stupid idea, if you want into Trotston you have to go to the gate and ask to see Rusty, that’s the only way in,” Byte said.

“What about from the air?” Aura asked.

“The wall has a force field around it at the top, it keeps out flyers of all kinds,” she replied.

Now we were coming up to the gate and one of the guard ponies walked over to us, “Byte, what are you doing outside the gate…how’d you even get out? Do you know what Rusty would do if he caught you outside again?”

“Shut up and let me in,” she said walking past him.

“Who are the outsiders?” he asked looking back at us.

“They want to talk with Rusty, the short one has something he’ll be interested in,” she said still walking toward the gate.

Right then the guard noticed Wind Thrasher and he pulled out his rifle, “Oh shit, it can’t be.”

The other guard who was younger looked confused but he pulled his rifle out too, “What’s going on?”

The first guard pointed his rifle at Wind Thrasher saying around the bit, “Don’t move, I don’t know how you got free, but we aren’t letting you anywhere near our town.”

I stepped between the guard and Wind Thrasher who was doing her best to look as small as possible, “She’s with me, please put that thing down before you get yourself hurt.”

“Who do you think you are to tell me what to do? You have no idea who that pony is.”

“I’m the one who let her out of Stable 9. So yes, I do know who she is. I also know what really happened to her and I won’t let anypony hurt her. She’s my friend and she took a big risk coming here with me.”

Byte was looking at us differently now, she actually looked scared, “Wait, that bat pony is the one Rusty told me about from the old stable?”

I nodded, “Yes she is, but she’s not bad, I’ll explain everything when I can talk to Rusty.”

The gate opened right then, only a little, and a light purple stallion with a dull red mane walked out. He was wearing Stable 9 security barding with a twin laser battle saddle. He had a nasty scar over his right eye which was missing, his remaining eye was a deep jade color. As he walked out he spoke in a light yet commanding voice, “What’s going on out here?”

Both the security ponies lowered their weapons and the first one said, “Sir we have a problem.”

His eye fell on Wind Thrasher and his hard face darkened, “I can see that, how in Celestia’s name did you get free Wind Thrasher?”

She stood taller but her eyes didn’t meet the other stallion’s as she spoke, “Shadow broke into Stable 9, she killed Dr. Cell and released me from his control.”

His hard gaze fell on me, “I assume you’re Shadow then.”

I didn’t back down, “I am.”

“I heard that The Courier blew up our old Stable, was that a lie or are you her?”

“I am The Courier, yes I blew up the stable to kill the bloodwings that were infesting the place. I’m sure you know all about them,” I replied.

He smiled a little, “I owe you thanks for that, my town has been scared for twenty years that somehow that homicidal maniac would figure a way out of his prison, though I’ll have to ask how you were able to get into the Stable.”

“It would be better if we could talk privately,” I said looking over at his two guards, “I can explain more that way.”

He looked back at Wind Thrasher then said, “I can do that, but I would suggest that Wind Thrasher stay out here, there are still a lot of ponies who remember that horrible day back at the Stable.”

Aura shook her head, “Where we go, Wind Thrasher goes. She’s not going to hurt anyone in the town.”

Wind Thrasher nodded adding, “I came here to try and earn your forgiveness for what I did.”

He sighed, “I’m still not sure it’s a good idea, there’s no real reason why I should even let any of you come into town, even if I do want to hear this story.”

I sighed then lifted my foreleg up a little so he could see the Mark II, “Trust me, you’ll want to let us in.”

His eyes widened, “How’d you…never mind, you’re right…,” he took a second to think then said, “Fine, Wind Thrasher and your friends can come in, but you have to stay with me while you’re here until I say otherwise, and Wind Thrasher, if anypony says anything to you, stay quiet.”

She nodded, “I can do that Rusty.”

“Good, follow me,” he said turning to head back in, when he passed by Byte he stopped and said, “You’re coming too Cookie.”

For the first time since we met her, she acted like a kid, “Don’t call me Cookie, I hate it! Call me Byte.”

“Cookie Byte is your name and I’m the pony who’s in charge of you. No matter how smart you are, I’ll call you what I want. Now come along, you have some explaining to do as well.”

Byte hung her head and followed him, same for the rest of us. We all walked past the gate into Trotston. As we walked past the gate my eyes widened at what I saw. By now I have gotten used to what to expect when I walked into a town. The Wasteland was an unforgiving place, ponies had to deal with the monsters and crazy ponies on a daily basis, the land didn’t make it easy to grow anything, so food was hard to come by too. The towns were small with some exceptions like Freedom and The Strip, but they weren’t safe and looked crude. Trotston didn’t look anything like that.

I should’ve guessed that just by the large wall around the city, but still I wouldn’t have ever expected this. The buildings here were all set up the same, they weren’t big, but they were built with care and by ponies who seemed to know what they were doing. They weren’t built out of whatever could be found in The Wasteland, no the walls were expertly crafted wood and metal, not a single building had a broken window or a missing door. In the distance I could see even taller buildings that looked like they were pure steel. The ponies here weren’t dirty and haggard, they looked healthy and clean. They were happy, I could see ponies walking in small groups chatting and laughing. They weren’t armed like I would expect either. It was almost like stepping into the past, apart from the fact that most of them wore Stable 9 barding.

“Is everypony here from Stable 9?” I asked as we walked down the main road that led right down the center of town. While we walked I saw a couple of Mr. Handys floating around a mare helping her with something.

“Most of us are yes, but over the years we’ve let different ponies in to help keep the population from becoming inbred. The Stable was set up to keep that from happening, but with the loss of so many, we had to do something. We don’t just let anypony move in however, they have to be able to bring something good to the town to help us expand and grow, as I’m sure you can see,” Rusty replied.

As we walked deeper into town the ponies around us stopped what they were doing to watch the new comers. The ones wearing Stable barding I noticed looked at Wind Thrasher with fear in their eyes. One Stallion looked angry and he started to make his way toward us, but Rusty gave him such a dangerous look that he turned around and ran off. When the Stallion was gone Rusty turned and kept going.

Aura moved closer to me, “I don’t like the way some of the ponies are looking at us.”

“Me either, but we can’t do anything right now. I’m sure they’re just scared of us, we don’t look like your normal group of ponies…or griffons I guess,” I said trying not to let the staring get to me.

Rusty stopped in front of a tall home that was set on a hill looking down at the rest of Trotston, “No, the reason they’re looking at you all the way they are is because of Wind Thrasher, like I said most of the ponies here haven’t forgotten what happened. Now let’s head inside before something happens.”

He opened the door and lead us all inside. To my surprise, the home was quite modest for a pony who lead such a magnificent town. There were two rooms off to one side, a small living room, and a set of stairs, he led us to a larger office with a big desk at one end…an Overmare’s desk. He moved around the desk and sat down looking at us.

“So, where should we begin?” he asked.

Wind Thrasher moved closer to the desk, “I think we need to clear the air Rusty Shackles.”

“I was thinking the same thing Wind Thrasher. I remember what happened back then, but you aren’t acting like the same mare who attacked the population of our old home. Tell me everything that happened to you, because the last thing I remember was you getting taken to medical after you got electrocuted by the generators,” he said.

“Mom talked to Dr. Cell about what happened and begged him to do anything to save me,” she started to say.

Rusty Interrupted, “Is that what she told you or what Dr. Cell told you?”

“I heard something on a recording of hers, and Dr. Cell told me as much too.”

“Well I can tell you that he lied to you, it is true that your mother wanted him to help, but you were supposed to stay in medical. The Overmare had intel that he’d been working on something dangerous, we were about to take him down with some of the intel we had on him, that was until you got hurt. Dr. Cell took you and hid away in his lab for hours. Your mother didn’t even know until it was too late.”

Wind Thrasher seemed to shrink a little, it looked like memories from back then were coming back to her, “I don’t remember much, but when I woke I was like this, with a collar around my neck. I could move around and stuff, but when Dr. Cell gave me a command, I couldn’t say no, I had to do it. He showed me to mom and then he stabbed her, after that he ordered me to kill as many ponies as I could until they learned who the new boss was. I wanted to stop, but I had no choice.”

“I figured as much, what you don’t know is that before the Overmare died, she knew something was going to happen. She called me into her office and gave me her Pip-Buck, she told me to lock down the stable with it after ponies got away. She wouldn’t tell me why, but she said to evacuate the stable right away. I did what she asked, but I wasn’t fast enough. I saw your attack and when I knew no other ponies would make it out before you came after us, I sealed the doors using her Pip-Buck. Funny thing though, before I left your mother told me something.”

“What was that?”

“She said that one day you’d find a way to get free and she hoped you did. She said that if you found me I should forgive you for your sins. I don’t know how, but she knew what was going to happen.”

Wind Thrasher teared up as she said, “That was like mom, she always had a gift of foresight, especially when bad things were going on, it made her an amazing Overmare.”

Rusty smiled, “That it did. Wind Thrasher you were very young when this all happened so I’m not sure if you knew, but I had feelings for your mother and when she died, it was very hard on me. Even more so when I lost you, because I hoped you would be my daughter one day. I want you to know that I don’t hold any grudges against you for what happened. Though I can’t say the same for the rest of Trotston, I’ll have to talk to them and try to get them to understand.”

She hung her head, “I wasn’t expecting much when I got here, what I really wanted was to be able to say I was sorry for what I did. I may have been under his control, but I still did what I did.”

He let out a long sigh, “I hate to say it but a sorry won’t fix what happened Wind Thrasher. Ponies around here won’t come around easily. If it wasn’t for me, they would’ve attacked you as soon as you walked into town. I think after today you shouldn’t even try and come back here, it’ll be safer for you.”

Wingnut spoke up, “Aren’t you the leader of this town? Why can’t you just tell them to leave her be?”

Byte spoke up next, “It doesn’t work like that here bug, Rusty runs the town, but he doesn’t go around telling ponies what to do. There’s a whole chain of command and laws to follow.”

“She’s right, after the Stable, we didn’t want everything to go through one pony like an Overmare. With that said, the only way Wind Thrasher would be able to win over the ponies from the old Stable is if she showed them she’s not the monster they think she is. Problem is no pony will give her the chance, it’d be better if she left once we’re done here,” Rusty continued.

“That’s bullshit…” I started to say but Wind Thrasher cut me off.

“It’s fine, I understand. I got to say my peace to Rusty and I don’t want to make things hard for the ponies here. I’m just happy I was able to see that my Stable is still alive and well. I never planned on staying here as it is.”

Aura smiled at this, “I don’t blame you Wind Thrasher, I feel the same with my home, it’s nice to see old faces, but there’s so much more in the world to explore.”

“Well I’m glad we have that settled,” Rusty said looking over at me, “Now Shadow, would you mind telling me how you found the Overmare’s Pip-Buck?”

“I found it in the bowels of my stable,” I said not wanting to tell him everything just yet.

“Odd that it was in a stable, seeing how it was stolen from here twelve years ago. What Stable are you from anyway?”

“Stable 28.”

“Do you know who left it there?”

I sighed and gave up, “My mother left it for me, she hid it down there before she ran away from our Stable eight years ago.”

He smiled and leaned back, “That’s what I thought, so that mare was your mother.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know anything about how she got it. All I know is that she got it off a pony from here and used it to hide files on.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, “Yes that makes sense, she originally came here looking for information on The Children of the Night, I let her in because she was an extremely gifted unicorn and I figured she could help us with a few things while she was looking at some of our memory orbs.”

“So, she didn’t come looking for the Mark II, she was looking into information about Night Stalker and his group?” I asked.

At the mention of Night Stalker, Rusty’s face looked like he had just bitten into a lemon, “How do you know who Night Stalker is?”

I shrugged, but Aura answered, “She has a bad habit of losing herself in memory orbs, she’s overly curious, kind of like a house cat.”

“I do not! Well I mean I find them interesting, and I have found a few that he keeps showing up in. Why is that such a big deal? Every time I find ponies that know who he is, they always have the same reaction. I understand he wasn’t a good pony, but what did he do that was so bad apart from starting The Enclave.”

Byte was the one who answered since Rusty seemed to still be in shock, “The old Stable had a lot of memory orbs and files about Night Stalker in it from what Rusty told me, Trotston knows a lot about him. He wasn’t just known for starting The Enclave or helping put up the cloud layer. His team was believed to be the reason Equestria lost the war.”

“Wait how could one pony do that?” I asked.

“It wasn’t just him,” Rusty said finally snapping out of it, “He was very close to Princess Luna and knew everything that was going on in the war. His team, AKA The Children of the Night had their hooves in every Ministry, but they only answered to The Ministry of Awesome. They went around everything even the OIA to get what they wanted done. From what we’ve learned they were the ones who came up with the design for The Lucky Horseshoe, but for what I’m not sure. We know that right before the war ended, Luna had most of his memories copied into Memory Orbs, that’s why we had some in our stable.”

“There was even a story that he was cursed or something. After a raid on a home that belonged to a high-ranking pony in the military, Night Stalkers team started to die or get hurt badly in battle. It turned him into a hard and distrustful pony,” Byte continued.

“What I don’t understand is, why were some of his memory orbs put into you’re stable?” I asked getting more confused by the second, “I mean what’s the point in leaving them in a stable in the first place?”

“I guess you should know, seeing as how you have a Mark II,” Rusty said simply, “It’s because we had to know as much as we could about him just incase him or ponies that took over after his death came looking for the Mark II.”

“What do they have to do with him or his team?” Aura asked.

“The Mark II wasn’t put into our Stable to test anything or to make life easier for the three heads of the Stable. No, Stable-Tec was hiding them from him. From what we were told, one of the three ponies who ran Stable-Tec used one of the Mark II’s to lock something down that Night Stalker was using, they hid them in the stable so he could never activate that program again. Since only another Mark II can undo what another locked, they had to hide all three.”

“If they were so worried about it then why not destroy them?” Wingnut asked.

Rusty chuckled, “From what I’ve learned about Applebloom, I’m not sure she could’ve ever destroyed something she put so much time into creating. Also, they were worried that by destroying them, the system would unlock. With the broadcaster installed it was possible, so they did the next best thing.”

I looked down at my Pip-Buck, “You mean one of them was used to lock down a program Night Stalker wanted? Is that why so many ponies are after it?”

He nodded, “If anypony knows what they can do then I’d guess that’s why they want it, or they want the files that are on it. I couldn’t say for sure, but I do know that your mother wanted one once she learned about them from my sister who had the Pip-Buck you have now. I don’t know why because once she had her hooves on it she took off.”

“How did she get it away from your sister? I thought you could only remove them by doing something special, at least that’s what Nexus told me.”

“There is a trick to get them off,” he said showing off his own Pip-Buck, it was also a Mark II like my own, it was gold with pink lines running down it like my own, “My sister knew how to remove them. From the story I was told, she lost a bet with Grimoire and she had to show her how to remove it. After she did, your mother stole it and ran off. My sister was very upset about that and she hired The Red Talons to hunt her down.”

Aura interjected, “Since I never heard about Shadow’s mom getting captured by The Talons and Shadow has the Pip-Buck, I take it your sister dropped the contract.”

A sad look came to Rusty’s face, “She was killed a couple weeks later by a pony from the Sins, his name was Pride.”

Aura’s expression changed, she looked sad now, “With her dead the contract was dropped then.”

“That it was, I would’ve paid to have it continue, but I was afraid that pony would come back here. Our walls and protection didn’t matter, he got in without any problems. He came looking for only my sister, and once he found her, he cut her head off, we never even found out why The Sins wanted her dead.”

I hung my head as I thought about Pride, he really was a monster, “I’m sorry that happened to your sister.”

“It’s not your fault Shadow. It’s possible that my sister did something that pissed off The Enclave. She wasn’t one to just stay in town, she was a warrior and loved going out into The Wasteland. She was known for causing problems and life just caught up with her in the end. Luckily her daughter wasn’t harmed,” Rusty said looking over at Byte.

She huffed, “That asshole killed my mom and left her head on our doorstep, I’m glad somepony killed him.”

At least one good thing came out of Prides death. I smiled a little then asked, “What else do you know about the Mark II’s?”

“Quite a lot, since we settled here we used what we knew from our Stable and put that knowledge we had into researching all kinds of pre-war tech including the Mark II. In the larger building next to the hill we have our research center and my best scientists went over every detail of my own Mark II. We found a lot of things in it that aren’t in the normal Pip-Buck 3000 as I’m sure you realize.”

I nodded, “Nexus told me the things he knew about them,” I took a moment and explained everything I learned from the Ghoul.

He sat back and nodded as he listened, finally saying, “This Nexus sure knows what he’s talking about. That’s most of what we’ve learned about them as well, but one thing it seems he missed is the fact that they’re linked.”

“Wait what do you mean they’re linked?” I asked.

“The Mark II’s are linked just as I said. The founding members of Stable-Tec used them to keep files about new project’s and stables between themselves. The problem with that is they were all busy mares. Applebloom was always busy with some new project and running Stable-Tec. Scootaloo was the President of Red Racer and the Vice President of Stable-Tec. Then there was Sweetie Belle, she was a famous singer and the Face of Stable-Tec. All three didn’t have much time to meet up and go over their plans and on top of that The Ministries were always giving them trouble and it was believed that The M.O.M. was spying on them all the time. So when Applebloom made the Mark II, she made sure they’d be linked at all times, this way the three of them could always stay in contact with each other without any problems with The Ministries.”

Wingnut spoke up, “So what does that mean? They can find each other or something?”

“Not really, they couldn’t just find one of the other Mark II’s anytime they wanted, but if one of the Ponies who have one wanted to they could give off a signal letting the others know where they are. Being Linked though they could send files between each other no matter where they were in Equestria. They seem to highjack the signal from the M.A.S.E.B.S. Towers. They could also be used for direct communications.”

“How does that help me?” I asked.

He shrugged, “I couldn’t say, but you said you wanted to know what I knew about them and that’s it, this Nexus told you the rest of what I know.”

I sighed, “I don’t even know why I bothered coming here. I was hoping I could learn more about mom and why this thing mattered so much, but it doesn’t help at all.”

“No Shadow you did learn a little more about how your mother got her hooves on the Pip-Buck,” Wingnut said giving me a smile.

“That’s true. Thanks kiddo,” I said smiling back at him, “Well Rusty, thank you for letting me into your town and speaking with me.”

“It was the least I could do, you did a good thing taking care of Stable 9 and making sure the threat of Dr. Cell didn’t escape it,” he looked toward Wind Thrasher, “And even though you may not believe me, thank you for helping Wind Thrasher too. I hope that she’ll have a better life now.”

“Isn’t there any way you could help the other ponies understand she’s not a threat?” I asked.

“It’s okay Shadow,” Wind Thrasher said.

“No it’s not, I know what it’s like not to be accepted because of who you are. Ponies need to understand that you weren’t responsible for what happened back in your stable.”

“I understand where you’re coming from Shadow, but I can’t just magically change the minds of hundreds of ponies,” Rusty said.

Wind Thrasher got to her hooves, “You don’t need to Rusty, I don’t plan on staying anyway. I don’t even see myself coming back here,” she looked back over at me, “Are we finished here Shadow?”

I nodded, “We shouldn’t stay too long, it’s getting late and I still need to head toward Spitfire’s Flight Academy.”

Rusty’s face darkened, “You’re going where?”

“Spitfire’s Flight Academy, Why?”

“Do you have some kind of death wish or something? The ponies from there are nuts and trigger happy as hell. Ever since we started Trotston we’ve had problems with them. If it wasn’t for our numbers and our defenses they would’ve taken us out a long time ago,” Rusty replied.

“Why do those nut jobs have a problem with Trotston?” Aura asked.

Byte rolled her eyes, “Because the stable inside the hill was where The Annihilators came from. Even though they don’t live in the stable anymore, they still see it as theirs.”

“So they want you dead so they can get their stable back?” Wingnut asked, “That’s so fucking stupid.”

“I don’t know, to a stable pony no matter what, the stable is still home. I’ve been away from my stable for a while now and I do hate the place, but to me it’s still home,” I said.

“And we understand that, but when we found Stable 34 it was abandoned and still livable. They don’t need it and we do, but yes that’s why they want us gone,” Rusty said.

“Be that as it may, I still need to go there, and before you say something about getting close to them, don’t worry, I have that covered.”

“I’d ask how, but honestly I don’t want to know. I’d be happy with them leaving us alone,” Rusty said.

I got up as well, “We should head out,”

Rusty stood, “Why don’t you all stay the night here? It’s getting late anyways, and I’d hate for something to happen to you in the dark.”

“We’re good, there aren’t many things out there that we’re scared of,” Aura said.

Wingnut yawned, “I don’t know Aura, I’m still beat and a good night sleep in a safe place like this would be nice.”

Aura sighed and laughed, “You’re so hopeless sometimes boss. I suppose we can stay.”

“Not that I don’t mind the hospitality, but didn’t you say it wasn’t a good idea for Wind Thrasher to stay here?” I asked Rusty.

“It isn’t, but I’m not gonna just kick you all out either. Nothing bad will happen while you’re under my roof. I have a couple extra rooms upstairs,”

Byte looked pissed, “Hey one of those rooms are mine Rusty!”

“Yes, I know, and you can share it for a night with the girls, we’ll let Wingnut use the other room,” Rusty said glaring at her, “You’re lucky I haven’t taken away your lab time for leaving town like you did!”

“There’s no need for that we can all sleep in one room,” I said

“No I Insist, plus the other room is small and can’t fit more than one or two ponies.”

“But…I don’t want to sleep by myself,” Wingnut said quietly.

“What are you scared or something, don’t be a cry baby,” Byte said.

“Shut up!” Wingnut said glaring over at her.

“I’ll stay with you Wingnut, I should stay close anyway,” Aura said, sounding as if she was going to punch the little bitch if she said anything else.

Rusty chuckled, “I don’t think you’ll fit well in there sadly.”

Wind Thrasher walked over to him, “I’ll stay with you Wingnut, I don’t take up much space.”

“What’s the big deal about sleeping alone?” Byte asked, “It’s not like anything can get you in the dark, if you want to survive in The Wasteland you have to grow up.”

The look Wingnut had on his face surprised me, I was expecting him to get mad, but he didn’t. Tears came to his eyes and he looked away whispering quietly, “That’s how my parents died.”

Before we could say anything, he ran up the stairs. Aura was about to go after him but I stopped her, “No, let me talk to him Aura,” I glared over at Byte, “Next time watch your tongue.”

Not waiting for her snarky response, I made my way up the stairs and found Wingnut sitting in the hall sniffing and trying to hide tears that were flowing down his face. When he saw me he turned away, “Go away Shadow, I wanna be left alone.”

Ignoring him, I walked over and sat next to him, “What about that whole ‘I don’t wanna be alone at night’ thing you just had a fit over?” I smiled wittily and got a chuckle out of him “Besides, you know you can’t get rid of me that easily Wingnut. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing I’m fine.”

“Surrreeee… that’s why you left like you did. You’re smart but you’re not a good liar kid, maybe talking about it will make you feel better.”

He wiped away some of the tears, “You know how I told you that I’m afraid of the dark because monsters live there?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I’m not scared of the dark because I’m an ignorant kid or anything stupid like that. You see my parents were traders, they ran their own caravan and everything. They taught me a lot about fighting and staying safe in The Wasteland. One day we were staying just outside of Appleton not far from Halo One. We found a small cave for shelter. I’m not sure why but my parents didn’t want to go into town. I was still very young, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Something came out of the darkness and attacked us. Mom told me to run as Dad tried to fight it. I just made it outside of the cave when I heard my mom scream. Whatever it was, it killed them both. Ever since that night I’ve always been scared that it would come back and kill me,” he said, sounding like he was trying to hold back a little.

I hugged him, “That would scare anypony Wingnut, I can’t blame you for being scared of something like that.”

“I know, and I also know what you’re thinking and no, it wasn’t Pride. It was some kind of monster, I saw enough of it to know that, and the sounds it made weren’t pony noises.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked

He nodded, “My parents didn’t work with anypony from The Enclave so the Sins wouldn’t have any reason to go after them, whatever it was it wanted something, but I never found out what. I haven’t gone back there since the night it happened. I saw how Pride fought and it was nothing like this thing, it was a wild animal of some kind, though nothing I’ve ever heard of before.”

“So that’s why you worry about darkness so much, I understand. Well if you’re really that scared, then one of us will stay with you. If you don’t want Wind Thrasher to, I wouldn’t mind.”

“No, I’ll be fine with Wind Thrasher, she’s nice. I also think it’d be a good idea if you stayed with Aura.”

That caught me by surprise, “Why?”

“She seems to sleep better when you’re around, she couldn’t sleep at all when you were missing, and while you were still being worked on by Dr. Cottage. She didn’t get a good night’s sleep until you were out of the woods. She won’t say it, but she worries about you a lot.”

“She’s my friend and I’m one of the only ponies she trusts, so yeah I could understand that. Well if you’re okay with that then so am I. Also try and remember that you can always talk to me about what’s bothering you.”

He smiled, “I know, I’ll try to remember that next time, but you have to do the same with us okay?”

“I will.”

Wind Thrasher came up the stairs a moment later, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we figured it out,” I replied, “Are you sure you’ll be okay staying here tonight, we really don’t know what to expect here.”

“Yeah, I might’ve been scared to see Rusty again, but he’s always been an honest pony. Out of anypony from my old Stable I can trust, it’s him. I’m also tired, I was up all day talking with The Queen, then coming here it’s been a stressful day, I could use a good night’s sleep.”

Rusty’s voice came up from downstairs, “If everything’s fine up there why don’t you all head off to bed. I have things to take care of and you all should get up early to head out while most of the town is still asleep.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I said looking down at him from the top of the stairs.

Byte and Aura came up the stairs and after pointing out which door was the room for Wingnut and Wind Thrasher she led us to her room. Before following her in I gave a smile to Wingnut, “Sleep well kiddo.”

“You too Shadow, and thanks again.”

When I walked into the other room I was kind of shocked, “Is this a room or a research center?” I asked, the room looked like Nexus set up shop in here. Terminals, wires, and half completed projects filled every desk and most of the floor in the large room. Though it was cleaner than Nexus’ room was. There was still plenty of room for the three of us, there was even a large bed on one side, and the floor didn’t look so bad to sleep on.

“Rusty doesn’t like me going off to the labs all the time, he says I get in the way of the staff there. I just think they’re scared of me,” she said walking over toward one of the terminals, “You two can sleep wherever I don’t normally sleep much at night and I don’t need the bed. I’ll most likely pass out in my chair.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Aura said walking over and laying on the bed. She set her spear and bags down on the floor next to her, rolled over and put her back toward us.

“I should be used to sleeping on the floor by now,” I said walking over to lay on a few blankets that were piled up at the end of the bed. Once I was settled in I looked over toward Byte, she’d pulled out that pistol again. She was pulling something off it and mumbling to herself, “What is that thing anyway?”

“It’s a gravity gun, it’s a gun that manipulates the pull of gravity and repels enemies with great force. It’s a non-lethal way to bring down an enemy.”

“So, it’s a gun that blows ponies away without killing them?”

“If you want to put it simply, yes.”

“It seemed to work fine during that fight, why are you taking it apart?”

She rolled her eyes and set down the screw driver she was holding in her muzzle, “Because it’s still using too much energy for each blast, I can only fire it once or twice before I have to reload another energy cell. It’s also still giving off too much power with each blast. I need to tweak a few more things before it’s perfect.”

“Hmmm, well that’s kind of a cool gun I guess, though I can’t see how it’d be of much use in The Wasteland.”

“It’s not for The Wasteland, it’s for Trotston. Now and then we have problems with some of the ponies around here and having something like this will help keep down casualties,” she said pulling off one of the wires, looking it over then tossing it into a pile behind her, “You should get to sleep, I need to concentrate on this and talking to you isn’t helping.”

I shrugged and closed my eyes, she had a point and even though I’d been out of it for a week, I was still tired and honestly my body still hurt. It didn’t take long for sleep to come, cuddled up in soft commutable blankets helped a lot. I almost felt as if I was back in my room in Stable 28.

***

I was in the middle of a nice pleasant dream, something to do with Milkshake. I’m not sure if it was a memory or something I just wish happened back in the stable, but I was enjoying myself when somepony woke me up. I opened my eyes looking around for the voice that pulled me out of a nice dream, which was rare (Damn It). I blinked slowly and peered into the darkness looking toward where I’d last seen Byte. She was sleeping in her chair her head laying on the table, a screwdriver sitting next to her muzzle. It wasn’t her then, so who woke me?

“No…please don’t make me do this,” Aura said from the bed.

Looking over I saw that she was still laying on her side. She was kicking at something as her talons shook. Her eyes were still closed, but she looked scared and were those tears I saw? Is she dreaming?

“What are you doing Trip? What did you do!?” she said in her sleep, her voice getting louder.

I got up and moved next to the bed, “Aura wake up you’re having a nightmare.”

“STOP!” she screamed.

I jumped and looked back at Byte, but she was still sleeping like nothing was going on. Looking back at my friend I started to shake her, “Aura wake up, come on.”

“I…I don’t want to do this…please stop Trip,” she said quieter this time, “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.”

I could see Aura was tearing up more, so much so that it started to stream along her beak, I tried shaking her again to wake her up “Aura it’s okay please just wake up, it’s just a dream.”

For a moment, she stopped moving and I thought she was finally going to be okay, then she started to twitch again this time she started saying something different, “What did I do wrong? I said I’d protect her and she left me…I thought I could protect her. I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, I should’ve told you more before…now you’re gone too, just like her. Why does everyone leave me, I just want one friend.”

She was still dreaming I could tell, but who was she talking about now? I moved my hoof to her chest and shook her again, “Please wake up Aura.”

Her talon came up and took hold of my foreleg, not hard or threatening, it was more like she was reaching for someone, for some kind of comfort. Her head turned a little and she kept talking, her voice going quiet, so quiet that I had to lean in to catch what she said next, “Shadow, please come back, I’ll do better at being your friend. Just come back, I can’t be alone again.”

I felt my heart skip a beat, what was she saying? Did me leaving hurt her so much? I didn’t even know what to do, she seemed trapped in her own special kind of nightmare, so I leaned closer to her and said, “I’m still here Aura, I’m right here with you like you’ve always been for me. I won’t leave you again, you’re my friend.”

I noticed as I talked that her body was starting to relax, I tried to pull my hoof away from her, but as I did she started to shake again. With a sigh I crawled up next to her and laid my head on the soft feathers of her chest. I wrapped my other hoof around her and just let my presence comfort her. As I did she relaxed more and her breathing slowed as she drifted back into a more peaceful sleep. Her tears looked like they were drying up.

“I wish I knew what was going in that head of yours sometimes Aura,” I said as I slowly closed my eyes.

“Shadow? What’s going on?” I heard Aura say.

I looked up at her and into her confused icy blue eyes a little red from crying, and blushed, “You had a bad dream, I couldn’t get you to wake up and this seemed to help calm you down. I’m sorry I didn’t know what else would work, I’ll go back to my blankets.”

I started to pull away, but Aura’s grip tightened. Her voice stayed quiet as she said, “No…it’s okay, I don’t mind, I was just surprised that’s all.”

I moved closer and rested my head back on her chest, oddly finding myself feeling better as I did. We both laid there for a few minutes, just listening to the sounds of the house. Finally, I asked, “What were you dreaming about? You seemed really scared, and sad I’ve never seen you like that before?”

I felt her tense up, then she said, “Trip Wire’s death, at least I think I was.”

“You kept saying please don’t make you do something, what did you mean?”

“Not tonight Shadow…I can’t talk about that right now. I hurts too much, and after that dream, I don’t even want to think about that night. Can we just lay here, please?” her voice was so soft and fragile.

“Sure thing,” I said closing my eyes again, “Aura…I’m sorry that I left like I did.”

“Thank you, I know why you had to do it and all, but thank you for saying that. I don’t like being alone Shadow and it hurt a lot when I found that note. I thought I did something wrong, I hated that feeling.”

“I know, I wish I could’ve done something more to tell you what happened. Even with that said, I still feel bad for everything that happened.”

I felt her turn a little and she shifted to a better position. Her other talon came around and she pulled me closer, hugging me close to her chest. As she did my heart started to pound in my chest and I felt myself blush, but why? This is Aura, the cranky griffon bodyguard, she was hard, and mean with a little soft side now and then, but who was this? Was this the Aura that Trip Wire knew?

“I’m sorry about Silver Snip, I know how much that hurts. You may think that you’re okay right now, but you’re not, trust me I know. Sooner or later out of nowhere it will hit you again, you’ll have to deal with that pain and loss and it’ll feel like your heart is breaking all over again. When that happens, you can come talk to me, no matter if you need to yell and rant, or to cry. I’ll be there for you Shadow, because I know that pain.”

As she spoke flashes of Silver’s face started to flood into my mind, Aura was right and the more she spoke, the more the hurt building inside me grew worse. The anger was still there, the pain at not being able to stop what happened, the hole I felt in my heart from the loss that was almost normal in my life. I had no family, no real home, no memories of who I really was, and I had lost the pony who cared about me more than herself. I pressed my face into Aura’s chest and took deep steady breaths then said, “It wasn’t fair.”

“Yeah…I know.”

“Why does everyone leave me Aura?”

She chuckled a little, it wasn’t a happy laugh, it was more hurt and understanding, “Wish I could answer that for you Shadow. At least you have me and Wingnut, and don’t forget Wind Thrasher or Stardust. We’ll always be here for you no matter what.”

“Yeah, I know that now. I just wish I could stop bad things from happening to the ponies I love.”

“Everybody dies Shadow, you can’t fix that. When your time is up you can’t stop it. It hurts, but that is the way life goes. That’s why you have to cherish the time you get with anyone.”

I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, what I wanted was to fall asleep and forget everything that happened at least for a little while. I wanted to just forget about finding Silver’s body, forget the sight of Stardust being taken, forget the memory of waking up that day when Auntie told me mom was gone. At this moment all I really wanted was for this to last forever. If time was to just stop right now, I wouldn’t have to be so scared of the next day. The next horror The Wasteland was going to throw at me, I wouldn’t have to think about what was happening to Stardust.

Aura spoke up again, “Thank you Shadow, I know I don’t show my emotions much, but I needed this.”

“Aura what is this anyway…” she stopped me before I could keep going, by pressing one claw against my lips.

“Shhh, don’t talk anymore okay. It’s nothing more than two friends giving each other comfort. Tomorrow is a new day, and everything else is in the past. Right now, let’s just pretend that for just a moment that nothing bad happened and everything is going to be okay. When tomorrow comes, this never happened. Just help me feel normal even for just a night, that’s all I want.”

She was right, she was just helping me get through what happened with Silver, and I was just a pony who cared about her that could make her remember better days. I smiled and let my eyes close again, I felt my body relax against the griffon’s and sleep wasn’t far away. Aura’s free talon moved up to slowly run down my mane, letting the long braid flow through her digits as she started to pass out herself.

As I was just about to give in to sleep’s embrace I caught a small whisper from Aura, “Why can’t I tell her? Why am I such a coward?”

***

I woke up again finding myself on the bed still, I looked around for Aura, but she wasn’t there. Did I just dream what happened last night? I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked around. Byte was gone as well and I couldn’t see Aura either. Maybe it was just a dream and I wandered onto the bed in the middle of the night. As I reached up to stretch a couple of black feathers fell from my head. Reaching up I felt a couple more stuck on my horn. My hoof moved down my mane and I felt that my braid was messed up. It must have been from Aura running her sharp claws through it last night. I didn’t even know what to think about what I remembered, I hadn’t even seen my friend in such a delicate state before. I guess we all have our limits and Aura had finally reached hers and she couldn’t help breaking down.

I remembered our conversation when she’d finally woken up and smiled a little. I was surprised how much better I felt after talking to her. I hadn’t been able to do that since I left the stable. Back then when I was feeling low I’d go over to Milkshake’s and let out my frustrations and feelings. She would always listen to me and tell me whatever she could to make me feel better as well. For a moment there I thought Aura was trying to tell me something or show me something more about herself, but that could have just been my imagination. She was my friend nothing more and I had to remember that.

“Are you finally up?” I heard Aura’s voice say from the doorway.

Looking over at her I saw that she looked ready to go. I stretched and said, “Yeah, why did you let me sleep in?”

“C’mon Shadow, when have you ever been a morning pony? Waking you up is like trying to change the weather, it ain’t gonna happen.”

I got up and pulled my barding back on. I noticed that it was starting to look more warn from the few holes and dings it had from my past few fights. I’d have to find somewhere that could fix it soon, before it became as useless as my old duster. It was the last gift Silver left for me apart from her message and I wouldn’t let it get ruined.

“Sorry I slept in so late, are the others ready to go?” I said picking up my saddle bags and walking toward the door.

“For the most part yes, but Rusty isn’t letting us go just yet. Something to do with ponies making a fuss outside.”

“Did something happen?”

“No idea, but from the sounds of it, it’s just a couple ponies who saw Wind Thrasher yesterday and aren’t too happy right now. The sooner we can get out of Trotston, the better,” she said turning to head toward the stairs.

“Aura can we talk about what happened last night?” I said before she could have a chance to run down the stairs.

She looked back at me and frowned, “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about Shrimp.”

“Don’t do that Aura, don’t shut down on me now.”

She sighed, “I was in a bad place last night and so were you. I haven’t slept much the past few days and the stress got to me. It’s in the past now and we both promised not to dwell on things that happened in the past, remember? Today’s a new day and we have things we need to do.”

I saw something in her eyes, they weren’t the hard look she normally had. It was almost like she was trying to say something else to me with that desperate look. She looks like she wants me to let it go for now, not to push her too much, because she wasn’t ready to talk about last night. She was right too, there was too much to do, and as much as I wanted to understand. I had to drop it, because her eyes also told me that if I asked her again she’d tell me what was bothering her, what she was really thinking, but it wouldn’t be right. She’d talk when she was ready, at least I hope she does.

So I smiled, “You’re right, sorry I brought it up,” I walked past her stopping for only a moment to say, “If something’s bothering you and you need to get it off you’re chest you can tell me, you might be surprised by what could happen when you tell the truth. No matter what, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Shadow…”

“Let’s get going, I want to get this next part over with as soon as possible, and I don’t want to keep the others waiting,” I said continuing on and going downstairs.

As I did she said, “Thank you.”

I didn’t let her see my small smile as I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Wingnut and Wind Thrasher waiting by the door. Byte was sitting in a corner still fiddling with her gravity gun. I looked around and asked, “Where’s Rusty?”

“Outside talking to some of the ponies from the Stable, I guess they know I’m here and they sound pissed,” Wind Thrasher said, one of her ears standing straight up and cocked toward the door.

I moved closer to the door and heard voices shouting from outside. I took a moment to check Dream Walker then I opened the door and walked out. There was more than a couple ponies standing outside of Rusty’s home. All of them had on modified versions of Stable 9 barding each one holding some kind of weapon. Most of them were crude or not well taken care of, but a couple looked new and well maintained.

I stepped up next to Rusty while one of the Stallions was yelling at him, only a few inches away, “I don’t give two shits what you have to say about this Rusty, we saw her going into your home. Give her to us so she can pay for what she did before we make you!”

“What’s going on out here?” I asked.

The pony who was yelling at Rusty looked over at me, “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the Courier from the radio, now please answer my question.”

“Piss off, this doesn’t concern you. This is Trotston business I don’t care who you are or why you’re here, we don’t need outsider input,” he said looking back at Rusty, the ponies behind him yelling in agreement.

Rusty sighed and said as calmly as he could, “I never said she wasn’t here, all I said was that she only came here to apologize for what happened back at the stable. She wasn’t in her right mind back then and she was still a child, she can’t be held responsible for her actions.”

“If this is about Wind Thrasher, then it does concern me. She’s my friend and traveling companion. Whatever your problem is with her, then it’s with me as well. I suggest you back off and let us pass before I make you,” I said pulling Dream Walker out with my magic, chambering a round.

This was the wrong thing to do, as soon as my gun was out most of the ponies who were close to me lifted theirs. The one who seemed to be leading the small mob shouted back at me, “Don’t you dare threaten us runt, this is our town and we don’t answer to ponies like you,” as he yelled his eyes fell down to my foreleg, “Where the fuck did you get that?”

“None of your business,” I said using my magic to slide the sleeve of my barding down to cover some of the Mark II, “I’m not here to fight with anypony and the same goes for Wind Thrasher. Whatever your problem is with her, it was twenty years ago and she wasn’t the same pony, drop it and get on with your life.”

His rifle came up and he struck me across the face, Rusty stepped in front of him blocking him from getting closer to me, “Back off, there’s no need for that. You need to stop this before you do something you’ll regret.”

He screamed in Rusty’s face, “Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do Rusty, you more than anypony should remember what happened back then. You watched that monster kill our friends and family. How can you stand there and defend her or this bitch who’s with her!?”

“Because I know more than you think. You need to remember who the leader in this town is. I decide who’s allowed in, I allowed her to come in and I let her tell me her story. As for this mare you should know by now that she’s the pony who destroyed Stable 9 and killed Dr. Cell.”

“I don’t give a shit what she did. She let that…thing out, now she’s free to do whatever she wants. How is that fair? She needs to pay for what she did, I don’t believe that bullshit about her being under the control of that nut job.”

I got back to my hooves and was about to say something, but the door behind me blasted open and Wind Thrasher walked out. Now every weapon was up pointing at the bat pony. She ignored it all and got right in the face of the pony, “You think I didn’t pay for what I did? You think I enjoyed killing everypony I knew, the pony’s I called my friends? Do you think it was fun for me when I couldn’t control my actions? Because it wasn’t, I hated every moment of my life for the PAST TWENTY YEARS!”

“Get away from me you freak!” he said pointing his rifle right at her head.

She didn’t even flinch, “Go ahead and do it, but just so you know as soon as you pull that trigger I won’t be able to keep my friends from ripping you apart.”

It looked like the rest of the ponies were waiting to see what would happen. The Stallion took a moment then said around the bit, “You killed my daughter, I can’t let that go.”

“I killed a lot of ponies, I’m sure everypony here lost a loved one that day. But you should know that I lost somepony I loved too, my mom, your Overmare died too all because of Dr. Cell. He did all of that just to take over the Stable. None of that was me, if I could’ve stopped myself I would’ve. I’m sorry that you lost your daughter, but killing me won’t bring her back,” Wind Thrasher said still not backing down.

I could see he was about to pull down on the trigger, before he could I used the trick that Cloak had used on me. My magic pushed on the release for the mag, then I pulled back on the slide letting the chambered round pop out. It was just in time. As the bullet flew from the rifle, his tongue pulled down on the trigger and the gun clicked. A moment later Rusty moved in, struck the Stallion in the face then ripped the rifle away tossing it behind him.

“You don’t get to decide who lives or dies in Trotston,” he said holding the other Stallion down.

Wind Thrasher looked shocked for a moment, then she looked over at me, “Thank you Shadow.”

“I wasn’t gonna let him do that to you…” I started to say, then a gun shot rang out from the rear of the crowd.

Rusty flew back as a bullet ripped through his left shoulder and all hell broke loose. As Rusty fell, another one of the ponies lifted his rifle and fired at Wind Thrasher. Lucky for her it slammed into her chest, the thick scales she had deflected the bullet with no problem, but that second shot started a wave of gun fire. Aura ran out and took hold of Wind Thrasher pulling her back into the house as I used my magic to pick up Rusty, low caliber gun fire pelting my barding, but nothing making it through. We just made it inside and shut the door behind us when the mob slammed into the house.

Byte ran over to Rusty looking him over, “Rusty what the hell happened?”

He groaned looking up at the filly, “Dumbass shot me, not sure who though. Get me a Healing Potion will ya Cookie.”

She ran off toward a medical box that was on the far wall. I took a moment to look out one of the windows. The gunfire stopped but dozens of ponies were slamming their hooves against the wall and door, “I don’t think we’re getting out of here as easily as we hoped.”

“Yeah no shit,” Aura said pulling her Spear off her back, “What should we do now?”

“I don’t know? I really don’t feel like shooting our way out of here, they aren’t bad ponies just pissed off,” I replied.

Byte ran back with the healing potion for Rusty, he drank it down then said, “They seem to be all in the front of the house. If you head out the back and loop around the houses, you should be able to get away.”

“What about the guards at the gate?” Wingnut asked.

“They only keep ponies out, they won’t do anything,” Rusty replied.

“Yeah, because things always go that well for us,” Aura said.

He looked worried for a moment then said, “Cookie Byte, go with them, if the guards give you trouble, you know what to do.”

“No problem, but what about you?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine, now move,” he said getting back to his hooves, wincing a little. “I’ll try and calm them down while you get away.”

“Good idea, let’s get going,” I said and followed the filly as she led us to a back door.

“Also Shadow,” Rusty said before we walked out, “I think it’s a good idea if you all stay away from Trotston, I can’t let something like this happen in my town again. I know this isn’t your fault but consider yourselves exiled from Trotston, at least for now.”

I nodded honestly not caring at this point. There wasn’t anything else I could learn from the ponies here, and I wasn’t willing to risk more guns being pointed at me. I followed my friends out the door, the sounds from the ponies grew louder as we came around the house. Byte checked quick then waved for us to move on.

It didn’t take long for the sounds of the ponies to recede as we worked our way down the alleyway and closer to the gate. I kept close to Byte as she leads us on, wondering who shot at Rusty. I knew the ponies were upset but why fire at Rusty? If anything, they should’ve taken a shot at Wind Thrasher. Something wasn’t adding up.

I wanted to ask Byte about it, but as we came around the last home that lead to the main road leading outside of town, somepony hit Wind Thrasher in the side. The Stallion from before jumped on top of her yelling, “You think you can get away that easily FREAK!?”

Dream Walker was out again and pointing right at his head as I yelled, “Get off her!”

He looked over at my friends and me, lifting a bat high, “Never!”

The bat came down and a shot rang out and the Stallion dropped, the hoofball bat falling harmlessly next to Wind Thrasher. His body fell to the ground, a hole in his neck. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was gagging pitifully as blood poured into his throat from the wound. Wind Thrasher moved away from him, her face looked like she was in a little bit of pain, her wing was hanging a little but it didn’t look broken.

Wingnut moved forward his revolver smoking, he holstered it and said, “We don’t have time, we need to leave now!”

I looked up the road and saw more ponies running toward us, some were the ponies from Rusty’s, and others just reacting to seeing one of their own going down. We ran toward the gate but the other ponies weren’t far behind. Byte moved to one side and hit one of the buttons next to the gate. An alarm started to go off as the gate started to slowly open.

“We aren’t going to make it out in time!” I yelled turning to face the oncoming ponies.

A couple unicorns lifted their weapons and started to fire at us, all of them seeming to go mad. I didn’t want to hurt them, but at this point, I’ll protect my friends. I switched to the plasma rifle and took aim ready to engage S.A.T.S. when Wind Thrasher stepped in front of me, “No, I won’t let you kill them Shadow, I’ll stop them, just be ready to run.”

Before I could say anything, she took in a deep breath, her eyes started to glow and she screamed. Everypony stopped and covered their ears as the high-pitched sound echoed off the buildings and road. Dirt flew up from the ground and formed a small dust storm as Wind Thrasher’s voice continued to echo down the street. The ponies started to scream as well, but they couldn’t be heard over the sound of the bat ponies voice. The closest ones started to bleed from the ears and their bodies started to shake violently.

When the ponies in the back stopped to cover their ears, Wind Thrasher stopped her scream. She stood on wobbly hooves for a moment then with a shake of her head she turned and ran toward the now halfway open gate. As she passed me she said, “Don’t worry they aren’t dead, but they won’t be able to come after us for a while.”

I just nodded, put away my rifle and followed her out. Sadly we didn’t get far past the gate. The two guards on the other side had their weapons aimed at us, “Hold up, none of you are going anywhere. What just happened back there?”

Byte moved closer to them and raised her voice, “There’s a riot going on, Rusty’s hurt we don’t have time to explain, we need all hooves on deck.”

They looked at each other then back at her, “I’m sorry Byte but we don’t take orders from you…”

“I got my orders from Rusty, and he’s your boss. Now move!” she ordered.

They both ran into town, I looked over at Byte’s smug face, “Why are so many ponies scared of you?”

“Because I’m a bitch. Get going before they come back.”

“Okay, make sure you take care of Rusty,” I said turning to run.

As we set out Byte yelled one more thing, “Hey Wingnut.”

He stopped and turned to look back at her, “What?”

“Don’t go getting yourself hurt out there, if you do I’ll kill you myself,” she yelled, then with a blush she ran back into town shutting the gate behind her.

We put as much distance between Trotston and ourselves as we could before we slowed down to a steady trot. Breathing hard from the run I looked over to Wingnut, “I think Byte likes you.”

He blushed even more than he had when he walked into the bathroom, “She does not! Did you see how nuts she was? Plus, she kept calling me a bug.”

All three of us laughed and Aura said, “Do you know how girls act when they like someone?”

He shook his head, “How would I know?”

“When girls are young they get embarrassed when they start to realize they like somepony so at times they’ll react with mean words or actions,” I said remembering my own youth, I had a couple other crushes before Milkshake.

“That’s just stupid,” he said wrinkling his nose, “Girls are so weird, but I still don’t think she likes me and even if she did, I don’t like her. She’s too angry.”

We all laughed again. We headed off north, making sure to stay clear of the walls of Trotston. As we moved I said, “I hope Rusty will be okay.”

Wind Thrasher nodded, “Me too, I was surprised he was so forgiving. By the way thanks for saving me back there Wingnut.”

He just shrugged, “I wasn’t gonna let him hurt you just because of what happened twenty years ago. It’s too bad he had to die because of it, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have just let you go after you came to Trotston.”

“That’s what he gets, ponies like him should think twice when they want revenge. It’s not like he was a fighter or anything,” Aura said stretching her wings a little, “Wind Thrasher, you took a bad hit to that wing, are you doing okay?”

She lifted the wing gingerly, “It hurts pretty bad, but it’s not broken, I’m sure I’ll be fine. It’s probably just a contusion.”

“Good, because I think we’re running low on Healing Potions,” Aura said.

“We should try and stock up soon, maybe we can see about getting some from the ponies at Spitfire’s Flight Academy,” I said pulling up my Pip-Buck and checking my inventory. I only had three left in my saddle bags and with how things were turning out, I was sure they’d run out before the day was over. As I looked I remembered the broadcast from my Stable. I brought it up and sighed, it was only 62% complete, how much encryption was on this file? Oh well, can’t do anything about it until it was finished. So, I checked one last thing, trying to see how close we were to The Flight Academy, from how it looked on my Pip-Buck map, we were already about halfway there. Then my eyes fell on the marker that was placed on my map for the location of mom’s Pip-Buck tag. I stopped as I looked at the marker.

Aura looked back at me asking, “Everything okay Shadow?”

The tag wasn’t far away, I looked up a small hill and saw a black dead tree standing alone at the top, “I have to check something out really quick.”

“I’ll come with you,” Aura looked back at the other two and continued, “You two stay here.”

“No problem, I should take a moment to rest anyway,” Wind Thrasher said sitting down and slowly stretching her injured wing.

I moved up the small hill with Aura following, “What’s wrong Shadow?”

“Mom’s Pip-Buck Tag, the last location where it gave off a signal was right around here,” I said as we reached the dead tree.

“Are you sure you wanna find it? What if she’s dead Shadow? Do you really think you can handle that right now?”

“I have to know Aura. Mr. Tops said a body wasn’t found when he sent a securipony to find out what happened when her signal went down, but he didn’t know where to look. I would rather know the truth now, rather than wait,” I said as I started to look around the base of the tree. According to my Mark II it should be right here.

Aura pointed up toward the base of one of the branches, “What’s that?”

I followed her talon and saw something sitting there. Using my magic, I lifted it away from the trunk and floated it down toward us. It was a well weathered Stable 28 issued Pip-Buck. I set it down on the ground in front of myself and looked down at it. The screen had gone dark, but I couldn’t say why. I felt a small bit of relief and sadness at seeing it. As Mr. Tops said, there wasn’t a body around so Mom should still be alive, but why would she just leave her Pip-Buck behind like this and in such a strange location?

“Why?” I asked nopony in particular.

“I couldn’t say, but we’re talking about your mother Shadow, you know the pony who loves to leave clues and mysteries in her wake.”

I picked it up and looked it over, but everything seemed normal, that was until I noticed that the light from the new day wasn’t shining through the hole meant for a foreleg. I looked inside and saw a recording stuffed into the small area. I pulled it out and looked it over, “Is this another clue left for me by her, or something else?”

“We’ll worry about it later, are you sure it’s hers?”

“Yeah, I remember it from back in the stable and who else from Stable 28 would be out this far and leave a Pip-Buck in the same location?”

“At least you know she’s still okay.”

“Yeah, let’s head back,” I said slipping the recording and Pip-Buck into my saddle bags.

As we started back down the hill Aura said, “Shadow about earlier, did you really mean what you said?”

I smiled, “I always mean what I say to you Aura. I told you that I was here for you and that won’t change. Why, what’s bothering you?”

“I wanted to say something to you last night, but I was too scared to tell you. Now I realize that it was stupid of me to be scared of being truthful with you and after everything that’s happened I think it’s only fair that you know something,” she said, her voice getting low.

I could feel my heart starting to race as I said, “Aura, no matter what it is, it won’t change the way I see you.”

“That’s the thing, I’m afraid it will.”

“Stop beating around the bush and tell me already,” I said, I had a feeling I knew what she was thinking. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear the words or not, I didn’t even know how I felt about what was on my mind. I wasn’t in a good place yet, but also, I knew that knowing what she was going to tell me mattered to both of us.

“Shadow for a while now I’ve had…” she started, but Wingnut yelled up at us.

“Shadow, Aura, you two need to come see this!”

I looked back down at the little shit and yelled, “Can it wait Wingnut!?”

“No, it can’t!” I noticed that he sounded excited and scared.

“We should see what’s going on, we can talk later okay,” Aura said walking past me quickly.

Great saved by the little shit again, fuck when was Aura going to finally tell me what she was thinking? I wanted to trot down the hill and smack the little shit. I was just about to when I noticed what he was looking at, his eyes wide as saucers. There was a pony standing down the small dirt road that lead toward Spitfire’s Flight Academy.

Aura came up next to me looking down the road also, both of our eye’s locked on the pony who couldn’t possibly be standing there. From behind us I heard what sounded like wings, Aura looked back and her body tensed up as she said, “Is that Syn? What the hell is she doing here?”

I ignored her as I took a step toward the tall grey pegasus, my eyes not able to believe what they saw. His sapphire blue mane was waving in the light breeze, his pink eyes locked onto my red ones. I opened my muzzle and said, “Stardust? Is that really you?”

Something wasn’t right, did he escape The Enclave and come looking for us? I wouldn’t put that past him, he was a strong pony and smart. I’m sure he could think of some way to escape. That wasn’t what bothered me, he lacked his signature Stardust goofy grin, his eyes were hard as he glared down at me, and to top it off he was wearing dual plated combat armor, with black under-plating and blue over-plating. On his flanks barely visible at this distance a tribal symbol was painted in pink. It was a lion.

He opened his muzzle and said in a cold hard tone, “We finally found you Shadow Star.”

“Stardust, are you okay, and what in Celestia’s name are you wearing?”

Ignoring me completely he looked behind himself and asked, “What do you want me to do with her?”

To my horror, Cloak walked up next to him and said, “I’m not taking any more chances with this one. You know what needs to be done.”

“Understood,” he said, then turned back to face me.

“Stardust what are you doing with her?” I asked taking a step closer to him, “What’s wrong with you, it’s me, your friend Shadow.”

I heard Aura’s older sister Syn yelling from somewhere above me, “Get away from him Shadow!”

It was too late, Stardust pulled a new looking rifle off his back, aimed it right at my head. He took a long deep breath, his muzzle biting down on the trigger. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t run, there was no way Stardust would be doing something like this, it had to be Envy. He was making himself look just like Stardust to mess with my head or something.

“SHADOW MOVE!” Aura screamed…but it was too late.

Stardust finished pulling down on the trigger, there was a flash followed by a loud ‘BOOM’ something blocked my vison before I was hit by something. Blood flew, and a loud scream filled the air followed by another loud ‘BOOM’…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Foal at Heart: You truly are a Foal at heart, Colt’s and Fillies find you more trustworthy than your average adult, do to your playful and kind nature. Now whenever you talk to a Colt or Filly, you will have an easier time convincing them to assist you. Just be careful because as everypony knows children say the darnedest things!

Chapter 27: Falling Inside The Black

“Who am I? Who am I you ask!? I’m nopony, I’m just the shadow that hides in plain sight.”

I watched in horror as my best friend aimed down his scope pointing it right at me. I couldn’t even move; my brain couldn’t comprehend the thought of Stardust taking aim at me. The muzzle of his rifle flashed, the crack filled the air, I heard Aura screaming my name telling me to move. I would’ve if I could, but it was too late…then something moved in front of me, and blood flew through the air.

The next thing I knew, Aura was flying back from the impact of the bullet hitting her. We both landed hard, but Aura wasn’t going down that easily. She flipped around took hold of me and flew off avoiding another shot from Stardust. I saw blood flowing from her shoulder as she flew toward the tree where I found mom’s Pip-Buck, Wingnut and Wind Thrasher not far behind. We almost made it to the top of the small hill when something slammed into Aura forcing both of us to crash into the ground.

When we hit I rolled then got back to my hooves pulling out my Plasma rifle pointing it right at Stardust who was doing the same with his newly acquired rifle. Aura was getting back to her feet as well, her Spear already in her talons, it’s tip glowing with green energy. I had no idea what was going on with Stardust, but the look in his eyes told me something was wrong. I entered S.A.T.S. and targeted his rifle, I don’t know why he shot at me, but I wasn’t gonna just out right kill my friend. I fired.

At the same time Stardust fired his rifle, our shots collided and a small explosion erupted between the two of us. We were both blown back, but I was able to stay on my hooves. Stardust flapped his wings and took to the air, aiming down at me again. He didn’t have a chance to get another shot off though because Aura came charging at him, her energy spear aching through the air. Stardust dodged the slash, he brought his rifle around and slammed the stock into her bloody shoulder. She screamed and fell away, his rifle spun around again pointing it right at her. Then out of nowhere Syn fell onto Stardust, her talons grabbed the rifle and twisted it out of his grip and threw it toward the ground.

He twisted in the air and slammed his rear hooves into one of her wings then pulled out of her grip. He bucked her in the face and she fell following his rifle on its way down to the hard ground. His eyes fell on me and dove in my direction, I dove to one side, but he predicted the move. He followed my dodge and tackled me. His hoof bucked me in the face as I skidded across the ground. I tasted blood in my muzzle and saw stars for a moment.

“It’s time you died Shadow Star,” he said as his hoof connected with my nose again.

I moved my rear hooves under him and kicked hard, throwing him off me, “Get the fuck off me Stardust!” I jumped back to my hooves and ran toward him bucking him in the face as he started to get back to his hooves.

He cursed then flapped his wings taking to the air again. He looked down at me, hatred written on his face. He dove at me again, but Wind Thrasher landed in front of me, opened her muzzle and screamed. For a second, I thought it was going to work, but he moved out of the way of the blast of her voice, banked hard to the other side and came in to attack her. She jumped out of the way as he flew by, but he did a quick back flip and darted toward me again. I wasn’t going to fall for it this time, I ducked then rolled as he flew over. When I came out of the roll I darted toward my dropped Plasma Rifle.

I just took hold of it with my magic, flipped around, and pointed it right at Stardust. He stopped a few inches away looking down the barrel, “You think you’re fast enough to stop me Shadow Star?”

Aura ran over to me Syn right behind her both of them ready to take down the pegasus who wasn’t acting like himself, “I want to know why you’re acting like this Stardust.”

He started to laugh, “I don’t know how you know my old name, but it won’t matter you’ll be dead soon and The Enclave will finally be rid of you.”

“What are you talking about? I’m your friend, we have been for a while now,” I said backing away from him just a little, the Plasma rifle shaking in my magical grip, “You’re Stardust Night, the pegasus who helped me after I attacked the raider camp outside Cartwheel.”

His smile grew and a bit of madness entered his eyes, “Stardust Night? That name isn’t mine anymore, when I was chosen to succeed Pride after you killed him.”

“Shadow, I don’t think that’s Stardust,” Aura said.

A light chuckle came from down the hill and Cloak started to make her way toward us, “You’re correct Griffon, he’s not Stardust. At least not anymore he isn’t,” she looked over at Stardust, “Tell them who you are, let them know the name of the pony who finally took down The Courier Mare.”

“As you command Cloak,” he said his grin still growing, “I’m Pride the Arrogant, Second Member of the Seven Sins of Equinity and the new leader.”

My eyes went wide, “That’s a lie. I don’t believe you, that’s Envy isn’t it? You’re just trying to screw with my head, because there’s no way Stardust would ever attack me like this.”

I could see her smile under the hood, “Are you sure about that Courier? What do you really know about him?”

I glared over at her, “What the hell did you do to him?”

“She didn’t do anything to me,” he looked back toward Cloak, not seeming to care about the rifle pointed right at him, “Can I kill her yet Cloak?”

“Not yet,” she said looking at me and my friends, “I can make this real simple and easy for you Courier. Give me the Mark II, if you do I’ll let your friends live.”

Aura moved closer to me and whispered, “You can’t give in to her Shadow. It’s just him and her, we can take them.”

“Aura, it’s Stardust, we can’t just kill him and you saw how he fought. I don’t think any of us can even compare to him in a fight,” I retorted.

“That’s enough of that,” Cloak said, “Give it to me or you all die.”

I looked down at my Mark II, all of this crap over this stupid thing left for me by mom. Was any of this worth it? Was it worth my friends lives? No, it wasn’t, nothing was. What would happen if I just gave her this? I looked back at her, “Why do you even want it?”

“Because it’s mine! You have no idea what you have on your foreleg, it wasn’t meant for a pony like you,” she shouted getting seemingly angrier, “Now give it to me! I won’t ask again!”

“Even if I was willing to give you my Pip-Buck, I can’t do it. I don’t have the means to remove it,” I said lifting the Mark II and grinning over it at her, “If you want the Mark II you’ll have to take it off my cold dead body.”

Aura’s spear lit up again as she readied it for another attack, “And you’ll have to get through us to do that.”

She sighed “I swear you’re all a bunch of idiots. Pride kill them all, don’t hold back.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Stardust said and without another warning he jumped toward me. His hoof came up knocking the Plasma rifle out of my magical grip. His other hoof came around, connecting with my face. I flew back with a gasp, blood flying from my mouth as I felt a tooth rip loose. Before I even hit the ground, Stardust was over me his hoof coming down again for another attack, but before he could Aura was there.

She tackled him to the ground bringing all of her weight down on top of him. He kicked her off and back flipped back onto his hooves, then lunged toward her. He ducked under a slash she aimed for his head, his rifle came out and slammed into her still injured shoulder. She screamed again, but seemed to push passed the pain, her talon tightened on her spear and she brought it around and slashed again. He tried to dodge, but her spear slashed across his chest, scorching his armor and leaving a long gash.

“Aura, whatever you do, don’t kill him. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but we need to take him alive,” I said looking around for Cloak, whatever was going on with Stardust it had something to do with her.

She dodged another strike then a shot from Stardust yelling, “No shit Shadow, you have anything else that’s obvious you wanna point out.”

I ignored her and kept my eye out for Cloak, where did she get off too? Then I saw her making her way up toward the tree where Wingnut was. I ran for it yelling behind myself, “I’m going after Cloak, Wind Thrasher or Syn get Wingnut out of here!”

Cloak heard my shout and turned toward me magic glowing from under her hood, “I’m not letting you interfere anymore Courier!” Magic Circles showed up around her head followed by a blast of dark blue magical energy.

I Teleported and reappeared not behind her but to her left. As I expected, she turned around readying to fire another blast of energy behind herself right where she thought I’d show up. I grinned, pulling out my Plasma Rifle and firing.

She screamed as she flew back from the force of the blast, part of her cloak melting away in an instant revealing dark purple combat armor underneath. I didn’t waste any time, entering S.A.T.S. I took aim at her body and fired three blasts into it. I was rewarded with another scream of pain from the bitch who took my best friend away from me. Her body flew back slamming into the dead tree then fell to the ground unmoving.

“Nice shot Shadow!” I heard Syn say coming to land next to me.

“Thanks, where’s Wingnut and Wind Thrasher?” I asked.

“Wind Thrasher grabbed him and they flew down the path, I think she was trying to get him away from the fight,” she said looking back toward where Aura was still fighting Stardust.

“Damn she’s amazing,” I said watching as Aura took to the air her spear glowing brilliantly as she slashed and stabbed, ducking under his blows and shots, “I’m not sure how long she can keep this up though, she took a nasty shot to that shoulder.”

Syn grinned, “Don’t worry about Aura, she can handle herself against a pegasus like him. Don’t worry about her injury either, she’s been trained to ignore the pain from that kind of wound. Right now, we need to worry about that unicorn, she’s the key to all of this.”

I turned to look at Cloak who was still laying there unmoving, “Is she still alive?”

“Looks like it, that armor is strong,”

Keeping the Plasma rifle lifted I moved closer and using my magic I flipped her onto her back. She groaned then said, “Damn you Courier, I’m not going to die by your hooves the same way you killed my brother.”

I pointed the rifle right at her hidden face, “Your brother got what he deserved after all the pain and misery he brought to The Wasteland. Now I think it’s time you start answering questions, first tell me who you are and why you want my Pip-Buck.”

Her voice grew angry, “It’s MINE, it was stolen from me and hid away by that BITCH from the Steel Rangers. I’ve tried to find it for years and right when I thought I finally got my hooves on it again, you show up already wearing it!”

“Liar! This Pip-Buck once belonged to the ponies from Trotston where it was stolen, it was left for me by that pony you called a Bitch, my mother made sure I got it and she’s the only pony I’ll give it to,” I said rage filling me as I pressed the barrel right up to her chin, “Who are you!?”

To my amazement Cloak started to laugh, “Who am I? Who am I you ask!? I’m nopony, I’m just the shadow that hides in plain sight, the mare who controls everything from under this hood. I’m the true leader of the special forces of The Enclave, the pony that the Sins call their boss, I am nopony. They call me cloak because no matter what happens no pony will ever find out who I am, not even you Courier. Even if you saw my face I’d still be no pony to you. I’d just be another unicorn, another face among a crowd, I blend in and no pony ever knows the true danger that hides behind who I really am. The better question is, who are you Courier, why does that thing on your foreleg mean so much to you?”

“I’m just a mare who got stuck with it, a pawn of my mothers. Just like your brother was the pawn of your beloved Enclave, a tool they used to kill ponies they didn’t like or who got in their way.”

“Don’t talk about him like you know him Courier! You don’t know the pain he felt every day of his life, what he had to do to try and earn forgiveness for his sin. You don’t know how hard he had to fight to hide his true feelings from the ones who call themselves The Council. He was a better pony than you could ever hope to be. He took on the role of Pride for ME, not The Enclave. He took on the disgrace and pain of that title for his FAMILY. To show me how sorry he was for what he DID!” she screamed.

“Shadow we can’t just sit here like this, Aura’s gonna need help soon and if she’s the one controlling Stardust we need to kill her now before he hurts anypony else,” Syn interrupted.

I shook my head, “No, go help your sister with Stardust, just buy me some time.”

For a moment it looked like Syn was going to argue then she just sighed, “You did pay for the contract to help get him back, so I’ll follow your orders, but I’m also gonna put out a distress signal for my teammates so they can find us, don’t take too long. There’s no way to know if more Sins are around here.”

I nodded then looked back down at Cloak who was shaking with rage, but she didn’t try to move or cast a spell, “Tell me, what did Oricalcos do that he felt like he needed to do all that?”

“He killed my daughter! And don’t call him that, you don’t have the RIGHT to call him by his true name.” she hissed, anger rolling off every word.

As she said that, one of the memories from Pride flew into my mind like a flood…

oooOOOooo

I could see everything around me as if I was living the memory as Pride himself, his thoughts, his emotions, his power came to me like it was my own. It was like living an even more realistic memory orb. Pride was looking down at dozens of scattered notes and two books, one in old Zebra the other King Sombra’s Journal.

“So, a power like this needs to be used by combining both dark magic from around me and my own power. I thought that was only something that could be done by few ponies like Twilight or the princesses, I haven’t even been able to something like that yet and I’m the most powerful Unicorn around here. But after reading King Sombra’s notes and mixing them with my own, I think I can get this first spell to work,” he said scratching at his chin.

A sound echoed from behind him and he turned toward what looked like a crib. He moved away from his desk and walked closer to it, as he did I noticed that everything around him was clean, it was like he wasn’t in The Wasteland at all, but a place that wasn’t ever hit by the war. Once he reached the crib, I felt his lips pull into a smile as he looked over the side and at the tiny filly inside. She looked so tiny and fragile, but I could feel through Pride that she was powerful.

Her horn was glowing a dull red and she was making her blanket and pillow float above her. She was still sleeping though, he chucked and his own magic pushed it back down, “So much power for such a small thing, I think that one day you’re going to be just as powerful as your uncle,” A hoof came out and he brushed it along her jet black mane, “At first I was angry that your mother made me watch you when I had so much work to get done, but come to think of it, it’s nice to have an excuse to slack off a little.”

She just made a little snore as she rolled over and her horn started to glow again. He chuckled, “What are you dreaming about that has you using your magic even in your sleep? Well I’ll let you sleep a little longer, Uncle needs to finish one last thing then I’ll get you something to eat, a growing filly like you needs to keep her strength up.”

He covered her again with the blanket then turned back toward his desk, “Now, where was I?” he said as he started looking over the spell again, “I know I can get it this time, I’ve taken all the necessary steps.” he started to pull on his magic, as he did he also started chanting in a language I didn’t understand. In front of him a black ball of magic started to form.

Whatever it was it was strong, I could feel his body getting weaker, but he kept it up until the black magic pulled itself together forming a perfect sphere, then it flashed and seemed to solidify into something solid, “Yes, finally I was able to form it into something, with this one spell alone I can do so much for our kind,” the pull on his magic was great, but Pride seemed not to notice, “I’ll show everypony now that I’m the most gifted unicorn in The Enclave. I alone can show the rest of The Enclave that Nimbus and The Crystal Empire are more than just a bunch of oddballs.”

Something crashed behind him followed by a child’s cry, he turned and saw that the crib was surrounded by a red magical aura, the filly had knocked it over and was now laying on the ground crying loudly, “Oh shit Sis is going to kill me!” he took hold of the small filly with his magic trying to lift her into the air and put her back into the crib, but something happened. As soon as his magic touched the filly, something seemed to snap inside his mind. His control on his magic faltered for just a moment.

“No, I forgot about the other spell!” he said as the ball of black magic that had been floating behind him only a few moments before shot around his head, followed the magic that he cast on the filly and slammed into her, “NO!” he screamed as an explosion of darkness erupted where the filly had been, and she vanished in it’s dark light.

When it ended Pride was looking at what was left, the crib was gone, the floor was blown apart, and in the center of it all was the still form of the filly. She was such a tiny thing, her coat seemed to shine while sitting in the middle of the dark spot left over by the blast. She didn’t move as Pride rushed over, one of his golden hooves moving down to slowly pull her limp form into his arms, “No…no please don’t be dead, I didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident.”

He hugged her form close to his chest and sobbed, “Don’t take her way, please she’s just a foal. She was perfect, she was beautiful, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Then to his amazement he felt a small flutter from the filly, it was faint but she was still breathing. He set her down then pressed an ear up to her chest and listened closely. Her heart was still beating, but it was weak and getting weaker with each passing second, “I…I can still fix this, I just need to find a counter spell, there has to be something in my notes.”

He didn’t have time, something slammed into him from behind throwing him into the far wall followed by a deep voice, “What the fuck did you do in here Oricalcos!”

Pride looked up and saw a Pegasus in dark power armor, he was as tall as Night Stalker, his voice just as deep, and he gave off an aura of danger. He had blades on the wings of his Power Armor that glowed with a silvery light, his visor was a deep red and his tail ended in a sharp point like most power armor The Enclave had. His mane dark blue, with one streak of pure white running down the center of it, what was visible of his coat looked to be deep black much like my own.

“It…it was an accident, I don’t know what happened.”

The pegasus looked down at the small filly and said, “She’s still breathing, I have to get her to her mother before it’s too late.”

“I’ll come with you, I’m sure I can help.”

“Don’t you dare, you stay away from my daughter. Do you hear me Oricalcos? You’ve done enough. You better pray she doesn’t die because if she does you’ll have more than just me to worry about. Even if she doesn’t I swear I’ll make sure you’re executed for this!”

Pride put up a hoof trying to say something, but the Pegasus lifted the little filly in his hooves and took off into the air flying out the door as quick as he could. Pride let his hoof drop as he whispered to himself, “I’m sorry sis, you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. I didn’t mean to, all I wanted was to find a new magic that could show everypony that our family isn’t useless.”

oooOOOooo

The memory faded away slowly and soon I found myself looking back at Cloak who was still on her back looking up at me from under that shadowed hood. I pulled my rifle back just a little and asked, “He used a dark curse that killed your daughter, didn’t he?”

“He did, that’s why he did what he did after. He didn’t want to let the leaders in Stratus kill him over a stupid mistake. He gave up his body to become the pony you knew as Pride, cast away his name, family and rights, just for me. Because even though my daughter lived for a while after that night, she still passed away from the damage that was done to her heart by that spell,” she said.

“What does any of this have to do with me or with the Mark II, it’s not like anything on this thing could’ve saved her life,” I said, still making sure to keep the rifle trained on her face.

“It has everything to do with that. If it hadn’t been stolen away from me after I got it, I could’ve saved her.”

“How? What could a simple Pip-Buck no matter how different have changed her fate?”

She glared at me, “I could’ve unlocked Falling Shadows and obtained the power I needed to FIX HER! I don’t blame my brother for my daughter’s death, I blame the ponies in this forsaken Wasteland who took away my one chance to save her!”

“Then if she’s dead why do you want it now!” I yelled.

“Because, if I can’t have my daughter back, then I’ll still take all the power I can get from Falling Shadows and I’ll use it to make sure no pony ever has to go through what I did. Don’t you see Courier? I’m doing this to save ponies, with the information that’s locked away on that thing and the key to unlock the project, I would be able to be as powerful as both princesses combined. I could use my magic to heal the sick, to stop evil, and to destroy the powers of our shitty world once and for all, so that finally Equestria can rise again! I couldn’t get EC1101 in Hoofington so that Pip-Buck is the only thing that can unlock Falling Shadows. See I’m not the bad mare here Courier, ponies like YOU ARE!”

“So, you’re doing this all for power?” I asked.

“Of course I am, what else is there in this world but power, only with power can I right the wrongs of this land!” she bucked me throwing my rifle to one side as she shot a blast of energy toward me, but I was already moving.

I felt the blast of magic miss me by only an inch or two, then I took aim with my rifle and fired at Cloak who was jumping to her hooves. She dodged the shot just in time then she ducked behind the tree laughing, “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance Courier, now it’s too late!”

A crack of gunfire erupted in the distance, and a bullet slammed into my barding almost punching through. I screamed then jumped back as two more shots rang out followed by the voice of a pony I was starting to really hate, it was Wrath, “Long time no see Courier, how about you stay still now and let me blow your brains out.”

“Fuck you Wrath!” I yelled as I ran toward the tree that Cloak was using for cover, but Stardust landed in front of me, his rifle raised.

“Not so fast Shadow Star,” he said about to pull the trigger, “I’m not letting you get that close to the boss again.”

I didn’t slow, I teleported right as he took his shot, reappearing behind him. I ran on going for Cloak who I could see was trying to make a run for it. I wonder why she wasn’t teleporting away, I know she had the ability to do that before. Unless, it wasn’t Cloak.

Switching to Dream Walker I hit S.A.T.S. and fired, my two shots blew into Cloaks side blowing her off her hooves and sending her rolling along the ground, by the time she came to a stop I saw that her body had changed, getting to his Hooves Envy dusted himself off and grinned, “Figured it out a lot faster this time Shrimp, too bad you’re still too late just like before. Now it’s my turn to make you pay for what you did to the old Pride!”

“Sorry, but I’ve got a date with a cloaked mare, let’s try again next week maybe around seven, or whenever you’re free,” I said with a smile Teleporting away again, reappearing at the bottom of the hill and right in the path of Cloak who stopped dead in her tracks.

I looked up and saw that Stardust was flying toward me his rifle raised, but in came Aura and Syn again, he must’ve run from them to try and help Cloak. Knowing they could take care of themselves, I looked back at Cloak and grinned as she stuttered, “How did you know the way I was running?”

“Lucky guess,” I said my horn glowing bright red as I walked toward her, “So Cloak where’s all your fancy magic like you were using before? Did the Alicorns spell damage your horn or something? Because the last time I fought you, you put up a better fight than this.”

“Fuck you Courier,” she said her own horn glowing icy blue from under the hood, “I was saving my strength, I didn’t think I needed to use it with The Sins here to help and with how weak you are.”

“Oh, I’m not as weak as you think I am Cloak, you see I have my own special talent, let’s call her a gift. A creature that is so powerful that she was able to take on Pride and almost win, because of her my own power has gotten stronger. I can feel it coursing through my veins, and the more I look at my friend fighting for you under some kind of spell, the more I hate you Cloak. The more I hate you, the more powerful my magic seems to get.”

“You’re lying, there isn’t anything in this world that can use magic like that, I’m not scared of your threats or your lies. Now you’re going to pay for what you did to my brother and when you’re gone, I’m going to take the Pip-Buck off your foreleg.”

“Let’s see you try!” I fired a spell at her, one that I learned from the fight with Pride while I was using Aquila’s power. Without her power to back it up, it wasn’t as powerful as it could’ve been, but with my anger fueling it, the blast was more than enough to blow past whatever spell Cloak was trying to use. It blew her off her hooves and sent her skidding across the ground.

I walked toward her, she looked up at me her cloak almost all the way gone, but her hood still remained, “I’ll end you Courier!”

I reached her and slammed my hoof into her face throwing her back to the ground. She moaned and spat out some blood as she breathed slowly. I knelt down and took hold of her hood with my magic at the same time lifting Dream Walker to push it through the shadows of her hood, “Now let’s take a look at who you really are. I want to see the look in your eyes before I send you to the flaming pits of hell.”

Before she could say anything else I ripped the cloak and hood off her tossing it away, letting the dim light shine down on the mare’s face. I was going to pull the trigger as soon as it was gone, but what I saw, froze me in place. I started to shake as I looked down at the mare who made my life hell for the past couple of weeks, the mare who took Stardust away, the mare who sent the Sins after me, the mare who killed so many to get what she wanted.

What I saw was a middle-aged mare with a light blue coat, dark grey eyes and a short grey mane that had one silver streak left in it. Around her neck was a voice modulator and in the cracks of her armor I could see her cutie mark, a brown spell book with a ribbon running through it and a Zebra glyph on the cover. Dream Walker shook in my mental grasp as I looked down into the eyes of the pony I’ve been looking for ever since I left Stable 28, the mare who left all those clues for me to follow, the mare who gave me the Mark II to keep it safe until I found her. The face was older, the eyes filled with hatred not love, and her body looked tired more than I’d ever seen it before, but there was no mistaking who this was.

“No…you can’t be her,” I said taking a step back as my mother got to her hooves her horn glowing slightly.

“What are you talking about Courier? So now what are you going to do now that you saw my face? Going to shoot me with that pistol or are you going to give me what’s mine and let me end you finally, because after that last attack I don’t think you can manage another,” My mother said taking another step toward me.

“Mom?” I said my mind not able to handle what my eyes were seeing, “It’s me, it’s you’re little Star.” First Stardust, now my mother? What the fuck was going on here?

She froze, but instead of recognition, she looked ready to end me, “Don’t ever call me that, and don’t ever use that name DO YOU HEAR ME? My little Star is dead, she died ten years ago, how dare you even try and use her name against me Courier.”

“Mom, how could you not know who I am? You left me in Stable 28 when you ran off, you gave me the Mark II. I didn’t die, you did something to save me, then hid me away in the stable. You changed my name to Shadow Star to help keep who I was hidden.”

“SHUT UP! I know what happened to my daughter, Pride told me everything after…” she stopped and shook her head, “No you don’t need to know that information, I don’t know you, you can’t fool me into thinking you’re my beautiful Star!” her horn started to glow magic circles appearing around it.

I readied my own spell taking a couple steps back, “You’re Grimoire Spell aren’t you?”

Her eyes grew wide, “I don’t know how you figured out so much about me Courier, but I’ll make sure that information dies with you,” she let out her spell.

I dodged to the side and cast my own blasting her off her hooves again. She flew back and rolled along the ground coming to a halt, before she could get back up I pressed Dream Walker against her temple, my body shaking, “What happened to you Mom? What made you like this?”

She glared up at me, “The Wasteland, this horrible place that we used to call Equestria did this to me Courier. I used to be a good mare, I used to be a good wife, I was a good MOTHER! All of that was taken away from me the day I left my home searching for some way to help my Little Star, even she was taken away. All I had left was the hatred I felt for this land, the ponies in it, Oricalcos, and then he was taken away from me by you!” her voice filled with rage, “All I have left is the hate and I’m going to make this world pay for everything!”

She got back to her hooves, I let her, there was no way I could’ve shot her. I felt like crying, like screaming, like demanding the answers I knew she owed me, but that was the old Shadow Star. I had to ask myself what would the Courier Mare do? The sad thing was it’s simple, it didn’t matter who she was, she was a threat to The Wasteland, a threat to the place I now called home. I pulled back on the hammer, “You may look like my mother, but whoever you are now, you aren’t her. You don’t have to believe me about who I am or not, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry Mom, but I can’t let you live.”

I pulled the trigger, the hammer came down, the pistol barked, but before I could kill my mother, or rather the shell of my mother, she vanished. The bullet slammed into the ground right where she’d been only a second ago, “Where the hell did she go?” I turned looking for her, but it was like she just vanished. I turned my head slowly looking for any sign of where she could’ve gone. Then something hit me, she hadn’t teleported, she just vanished.

I twisted back around right as my mother came back into view, she moved just to the side of where I shot. It looked like she was tossing a Stealth Buck to one side as her horn started to glow, a triumphant look on her face, “I told you before Courier, you can’t win against a pony like me.”

I pointed Dream Walker entered S.A.T.S. took aim at her head. With a tear rolling down my face, I activated the spell, and fired. Dream Walker Barked, fire erupted from the barrel as the bullet flew toward her. I watched as time seemed to slow down, the bullet about to pierce her flesh, a black glow surrounding it. Then there was a flash of grey and blue as Stardust tackled her to the ground, the bullet scraping along the top of his combat armor.

Time fully resumed, Stardust rolled away from mom as she came back to her hooves and a blast of magic flew into me. I felt pain rack my body as I was thrown back skidding across the ground. I rolled then came to a stop, I looked up toward my mother, she was flanked by Stardust and Envy who was grinning at me from her other side. Turning my head, I looked for Aura or Syn, but I couldn’t see my friends, Wind Thrasher ran off with Wingnut. I was alone, I couldn’t count on them this time.

I closed my eyes and tried to think, “I could really use your help right now Aquila,” I said quietly, but there wasn’t any answer, even she was gone. I pushed myself to my hooves doing my best to hide my shaking legs. I smiled and pulled out something I knew would give me an edge. I pointed Solar Flare’s Range Finder at all three of them, “Don’t take another step toward me.”

“Or what?” Mom said.

“Or I’ll do to you the same thing I did to Appleton.”

All three-looked scared, even Envy. Stardust asked, “You wouldn’t dare do anything like that, if you did you’d get caught in the blast too.”

I smiled with bloody teeth, “Do you think I care about what happens to me? All I care about is stopping her” I pointed at my mom, “if I have to die to accomplish that then so be it.”

She glared at me and it took everything I had to hide the hurt I felt at seeing that look on my mother’s face, “Even if we leave and you live another day, what makes you think I won’t come after you again?”

“Because I was already able to take you on MOM, I won, whatever power you think you have is nothing but a sham. I’m getting more powerful as each day passes, my magical skills are growing, and I have an ace up my sleeve,” I said taking one step back to increase the distance between us. As I did I felt one of my hooves slip and I almost tripped into empty space. I must be backed against the edge of a cliff.

“What are you talking about? You mean that superweapon you used on Appleton to kill the old Pride?” Envy asked, his big smile showing on his face, “That thing can’t work everywhere, what will you do when we catch you underground, or inside a building, or just after you used the weapon?”

I snickered, “Oh you think I mean this thing?” I waved the Range Finder at them, “No, what I have is way different. You see MOM, thanks to you I have something living inside of me, something powerful and dark. Right now I have her kept on a short leash, but if my life is in danger she’ll come out and she makes your power look like foals play. I’m sure deep down you remember the day you took me someplace and used whatever you were looking for to save my life. It worked, but something got into me, something you were scared of so much that you caged her in the farthest depths of my mind.”

“I don’t remember anything like that, stop your lying Courier, I won’t warn you again,” she said taking another step toward me her horn glowing.

I saw something moving behind them, a quick flutter of wings. It had to be Aura, I just needed to keep them talking, “I tell only truth, but if you don’t believe me fine. Maybe you should look into something called Aquila, that’s the name of the thing that’s living inside me. Maybe that’ll help you remember who I am.”

“Fuck you…” she started to yell, but then with a screech and a flash of light Aura blasted into the air just behind them her spear glowing like the sun itself.

With a quick slash, a blast of thin energy flew toward all three. Envy moved first, his body jumping out of the way as he twisted in the air, his wings flapping so he could intercept the griffon. Stardust did a backflip, his rifle coming off his back to aim up at Aura. Mom however used this moment to strike. She bolted forward, her hoof coming up to push the Range Finder aside, her other hoof slamming into my face. She collided with me a moment later and we both flew back over the edge of the cliff. I grabbed at anything I could, my hooves grabbed hold of the edge of the cliff, mom holding onto my body as we dangled over the precipice, nothing but darkness below us.

I heard a couple of shots then I saw Envy go flying over me his body slamming into the other side of the cliff then it fell into the darkness below. My hooves started to slip and I did whatever I could to get a better grip, but it was hard with Mom’s weight added to my own.

“Fuck!” mom said her grip tightening,

“Why are you so worried I’m sure you could teleport yourself back to the top,” I said as my forelegs started to shake.

“Not right now I can’t, I used too much power with that last attack. How about you pull us both up.”

“Yeah right, because I have that much strength,” I said my hooves slipping more, “Fuck, if you don’t let go we’re both going down.”

She was about to say something when my hooves finally gave, we both fell for only a second before a talon took hold of my foreleg stopping us, I looked up into Aura’s eyes. She was grinning down at me, “How’s that for ‘just in the nick of time’?”

“Shut up and pull us up Aura. Both of us,”

I may not like what happened to my mom, but with the rage seeming to have left me after the fall, I really didn’t want her dead anymore. I wanted to understand what was going on here. I felt the griffon pulling and our bodies started to lift back toward the edge. A moment later both of us were back on solid ground.

“What happened to Stardust and Envy?” I asked as Aura moved over to Mom and pressed the tip of her spear to her neck.

“Syn managed to bring Stardust down with a sneak attack, she’s keeping him pinned right there,” she said pointing with her free talon toward her sister who was holding Stardust down, the tip of a blade pressed to the back of his head, “Envy didn’t expect that attack and I was able to dodge his first strike and he took a nice kick to the face. He was flying down that hole I just pulled you both out of. I don’t think he’ll be much of a problem now.”

As she spoke I pulled out one of my last healing potions and downed it before looking over at Grim, “Now how about you tell me what you did to Stardust.”

“I don’t know what you mean, I didn’t do anything to him just ask him yourself,” she said her eyes looking at my friend who glared at me, “Isn’t that right Pride?”

“She’s my boss, she recruited me from my Stable just last week after Pride was killed. I don’t know why you think you know me Shadow Star, but you don’t. I’ve never met you before in my life.”

“See nothing wrong with him, he knows exactly who he is.”

I moved forward and slammed my hoof into her face sending little flecks of blood to the ground, “You’re lying! Now tell me what kind of spell you used on him to make him forget who he is.”

She laughed again which slowly transformed into a short cackle, her face looking more psychotic, with a smile her own blood covering some of her teeth, her voice lowering to a whisper that only Aura and I could hear, “No magic was used on him, no he doesn’t remember who you are because he was re-educated. It’s a process that Stable 97 uses to keep their soldiers in line. Stardust was one of the best ponies there, his training perfect, his skills with hoof to hoof combat were unlike anything seen before, his ability with ranged weapons were better than most veterans. He was the perfect soldier, but he lacked the ability to take any command given to him, he was scheduled to be re-educated before he escaped, but his stupid friend snuck into a restricted area of the stable and found out the truth behind what was going on and he helped him escape. All we did when we captured him was make sure he was fixed. He only sees The Enclave as his family now and the only thing he cares about protecting.”

I looked back toward my friend, “I don’t believe it. He has to still be in there somewhere.”

“He’s not, we wiped everything from his mind, everything about his time outside the stable and replaced the memories with new ones. As far as he knows, he never met you.”

I kept my eyes on Stardust’s as I said, “Is that true Stardust, you don’t remember who I am?”

He spat blood onto the ground before answering, “Like I said, I’ve never met you before today.”

“How could you forget me Stardust? You have to remember how you saved me from the raider boss, or how you chased down Aura to free me. Did you really forget the times we spent traveling, or the day we saved Wingnut who you treated like a little brother? How could all of that be gone?” I asked.

At Wingnut’s name, something seemed to change inside those pink orbs, they softened a little, “Wingnut? Why does that name sound familiar?” his eyes closed as if he was trying to think hard.

I saw more wings coming toward us, it was Wind Thrasher and Wingnut, they both landed a little ways away, the colt jumping off her back and walking slowly toward Stardust who was still pinned by Syn, “Syn why are you holding down Stardust?”

The Stallions eyes snapped open as Wingnut spoke and he looked over at the blue colt, “Have I seen you somewhere before kid?”

Wingnut looked over at me confused, “What’s wrong with him Shadow?”

“He’s been brainwashed, he doesn’t remember us, but something about you seems to be snapping him out of it, keep talking to him.”

Grim tried to say something but Aura pressed the blade of her spear harder against her neck saying, “Keep quiet before I slice open your wind pipe and let you drown in your own blood.”

The colt turned his attention toward Stardust, “You’re my best friend Stardust.”

“That’s not my name kid, I’m Pride,” he said but he didn’t sound as convinced as he had before.

“No you’re not, you’re Stardust Night the pony who showed me how to be a Stallion. You helped save me from Cazadores and made me feel better when I was scared at night,” he said taking a step toward him.

“I…remember a colt, but it was like a dream, something with bugs and there was a filly with him too. He was kind of a snot, but he was cool too. You look like him, but how could that be?”

“Because it was real Stardust, that is Wingnut, I’m Shadow Star you’re best friend. Come on somewhere deep inside you remember us,” I said, trying to get through his thick skull.

His eyes hardened again, “The Courier Mare Shadow Star is the enemy of Stratus and Nimbus, she’s a liar and will mess with ponies to get them on her side. She can’t be trusted the same goes for the ponies who follow her.”

He was slipping away from us again, I had to figure out a way to get him to remember. Then a story he told me about his escape came to mind, “Stardust, do you remember what happened to your friend Hail Storm?”

His hard glare fell on me again, “How do you know about him!?”

“I know because you told me what happened to him, you told me how he tried to help you escape, and he died when the stable door closed on him. He died so you could get away. He did that so you could make a new life for yourself, find real friends and make a name for yourself.”

Grim started to laugh from behind me, “Hahahaha, nice idea bringing up his dead friend, but we already thought about that.”

What did she mean? I got my answer quickly, because I saw rage fill his eyes as he yelled, “Don’t you say a word about Hail Storm! They were right, you do spread lies about ponies. Hail Strom was killed by you weeks ago when he was out here doing recon. That story you told me about me helping you with the Raider Camp, from what I learned the pony who helped you was my best friend Hail Storm, he was just trying to help ponies, then you killed him after he saved your life! That’s why I took the role of Pride, because when I found out who killed him I swore that I’d get revenge on the mare who killed a pony who just wanted to help!”

“No Stardust, that’s not true, you were the pony who helped me not Hail Storm, I didn’t kill him,” I tried to say, but it was too late.

With a quick twist, he pulled his head to one side, rolled around and threw Syn off him. His hoof came around and slammed into the side of her head, knocking her out cold. He flapped his wings and dove right for Aura who was stunned as she watched her sister go down. His hoof slammed into her throwing her off Grim. He picked her up and lifted her away from both of us. Once he was out of reach he twisted and said down to me, “This isn’t over Shadow Star, I’ll find you again and when I do, you won’t have as much warning as you did this time. Next time I see you, you’re dead!”

“Stardust don’t go please, you have to realize that they’re lying to you,” I tried to say, but he ignored me.

He tapped a gem on his armor and said, “All Sins report back to base, it’s time to regroup,” then he left, leaving us behind again, like we meant nothing to him at all.

Aura picked herself up then flew over to her sister, “Syndi are you okay?”

The other griffon moaned then opened her eyes, “I told mom I wasn’t the right griffon for this job, I’m not that great of a fighter.”

Aura looked relieved, “You held your own pretty well against them, I’d be happy to have your help in a fight any day.”

“Thanks sis, but I think I’ll stick to medical work and intel, it’s less dangerous.”

Wingnut came over to me while Aura checked on Syn, the look on his face almost broke my heart, “What’s wrong with him?”

I pulled him into a tight hug, “I don’t know, but don’t worry, we’ll find a way to get him back.”

He pulled away, “I hope so.”

“Look on the bright side, at least we know he’s alive, he may not remember us, but he’s alive.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s one good thing, but I still don’t understand what’s going on with him, and who was that mare?” he asked.

“That was that hooded mare Cloak…my…mom.” My voice faded away with that last word.

Everyone froze and went quiet, it was Aura who finally spoke up, “I thought I heard you say something about that, but are you sure?”

“Yeah, of course I’m sure, I’d know my own mom. Something’s wrong with her though. I know what I’ve been hearing about her, but something changed. She didn’t even know who I was.”

“Well it’s been eight years since she’s seen you, you’ve grown up. Not to mention she’s getting up there in years, memory might not be what it once was.” Wind Thrasher said.

“No, I don’t look that different from how I did years ago, I’m just a little taller. Mom should have known it was me, plus I have the Mark II which she left for me. She doesn’t know who I am, she thinks her daughter died. It’s just like Stardust, somepony in the Enclave is messing with ponies memories. Also she’s not that old Wind Thrasher… I think.”

“Are you sure about that?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Then something hit me, Pride calling mom Sis, did that mean that Pride was…my Uncle, or was that just part of the memory manipulation…no I remembered that memory of Pride’s, the Filly he hurt, it was me, “Oh my Goddesses!”

“What?” Aura asked looking back at me.

“I think Pride was…my uncle.”

“Pfft, so what, he was a monster. Don’t go beating yourself up over his death,” Aura said.

“I guess you’re right, but still it’s not an easy thing to hear. If he’s my uncle that means I’m from The Enclave!” I started breathing heavily, “This whole time, I’ve been fighting ponies from The Enclave. The Sins have been trying to kill me and the whole time I’ve been one of them.” My breathing hastened

Syn limped over to me saying, “Hey calm down Shadow, you’re starting to hyperventilate. Take a few deep breathes and calm down.”

I nodded and did what she told me to as Aura said, “You might be right, but that doesn’t mean you’re one of them Shadow. Home is where you grew up, for you that’s Stable 28. You’re a stable pony no matter where you started out. Plus every family has their dark secrets. So you killed your uncle… Syn secretly thinks one of my other sisters is a slut, I won’t say which one.”

I took another minute to slow my breathing before I said, “This is just a lot to take in. I knew that finding out where I was from wouldn’t be great, but still The Enclave? Also…now I’m curious about which sister it is.”

Aura moved over to me patted my shoulder, “Come on Shadow we don’t know how long they’ll be gone. We should get out of here while we can.”

“You’re right,” I said wincing as my body protested at its newly acquired bruises. I moved toward Syn, “Why did you come out here to find us?”

“We got the intel on Stardust last night, I went to Freedom where we thought you’d still be, but The Queen said you headed off toward Trotston. I just managed to spot you,” she replied.

“What intel did you get on him?” I asked.

She looked sad for a moment, “A pony we know who works with The Enclave heard something about a new Pride. He told us the description of this pony and it matched Stardust right down to his eyes. We figured that if he was the new Pride there had to be a reason for it, so Gigi told me to find you and give you the information and to watch out for him just in case something like this happened.”

“Yeah, I guess that would’ve been nice to know before we got into this situation. I still plan on trying to help him, even if he doesn’t remember what happened. If I need you will the Red Talons still help me?”

She nodded, “You paid for us to help you find him and get him back, so far we’ve only helped find him so the contract isn’t fulfilled yet, though I’m going to request that another griffon take over in my place. Like I told Aura, I’m not much of a fighter.”

Aura laughed then winced putting a talon up to her still injured shoulder, “I still think you’re a good fighter Syndi, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been able to hold my own against them.”

Syn glared over at her sister, “I’m not as good as Fletch or you, I never will be, that’s why I stick to medicine. Speaking of which let me look at that shoulder before you head out.”

Aura grumbled but let her sister look at her shoulder, as she did Wind Thrasher came over to me asking, “What do we do now?”

I sighed, “There isn’t much we can do until we can think of a way to capture Stardust. I’ll leave a message with Syn to bring to Sargent Doorstop before she goes, he probably knows what happened with him if it involves their old stable. While we wait on that I’m gonna continue on to Spitfire’s Flight Academy. I’m also going to see if I can somehow get ahold of Watcher, he might know what this Falling Shadows thing is mom was talking about.”

She looked confused, “Who’s Watcher?”

“It’s a long story, let’s just say he’s a pony that seems to know more about The Wasteland than most, if he doesn’t I could also ask Nexus,” I said, knowing the ghoul would most likely know more about what I was talking about.

“Then we should start heading that way,” she said.

“I still think you’re nuts,” Aura said pulling away from her sister, her shoulder already looking better, “But if that’s where we can find out what we need to know then so be it.”

“You said you had a message for me to bring to Doorstop?” Syn said coming back toward me.

“Yeah, let him know what happened with Stardust, tell him that from the intel we found out, something happened at Stable 97 that messed with his head and I want to know if he knows what it could be,” I said.

“No problem, I’ll swing by Frosty Summit on my way back, is there anything else you’ll need before I go?”

“Not unless you have a few healing potions you can spare.”

“No sadly, I didn’t bring much with me and I used the last of my healing and restoration potions on Aura and myself.”

“Can’t be helped, well then just be careful out there. The Sins could still be around here and I remember Wrath taking a shot at me earlier, he may still be watching us.”

She smiled at me, “Don’t worry about me Shadow, I’m not much of a fighter, but I can still dodge a sniper. Stay safe all of you,” and with that she took to the skies.

Aura chuckled, “I know she doesn’t like field work, but I’m glad Gigi sent Syndi, she’s the one griffon that doesn’t seem to care one way or another about what I did.”

We started to walk north again down the path, “She seems to be a lot nicer than the rest of your family. Is she the one who taught you some of the medical stuff you know?”

“Yeah, when I was younger I wanted to be a medical griffon like her. I used to look up to Syndi when I was young, she’s the oldest of us and always had so much respect. Me being the youngest I wanted to have what she did, so she took me under her wing and showed me everything I know. Later my Aunt saw how much of a natural I was with a spear and started teaching me how to fight.”

“So, you changed your mind on being a medical griffon?” Wingnut asked.

“I didn’t change my mind, I just did both. Gigi was the one who started sending me on missions when I got older and helped me set up my own contracts. I don’t mind though, I’m still good at medical stuff, maybe not as much Syndi, but I’m still proud of what I know. Plus, it’s not like it matters anymore, I’m no longer a talon. Who cares what the rest of them think about me?”

“I’m glad you’re not a Red Talon Aura,” I said.

She gave me a funny look, “Why?”

“Because if you were, you wouldn’t have ever come looking for me to prove yourself to them. I wouldn’t have ever met you and I’m happy I did.”

“Yeah we all are,” Wingnut added, beaming up at her.

She blushed a little then looked away, “Oh shut up, both of you.”

“It’s all beside the point Aura, life is just better with you around,” I said smiling a little.

She ignored me and kept walking, Wingnut came closer and asked, “Shadow, what are you gonna do if we can’t fix what’s wrong with Stardust?”

“I don’t know Wingnut, I really don’t.”

Aura paused and said, “If we can’t fix what’s wrong with him, you know what’ll have to be done, both of you do.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to admit it, “I’m not sure I could do that Aura, I feel like if we killed him, it’d be like giving up on him.”

“I know, and I don’t like the idea any more than you do Shadow, but think about it this way. Would Stardust really want to be like that? Would he want to be going around killing his friends, or innocent ponies?”

“No he wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t want to be killed over something he can’t control either,” I retorted.

She stopped and looked back at us, “Let’s think about it this way then Shadow. What would you want us to do to you if Aquila took over your mind and there was no way we could ever fix you? While she has control of you, she’s going around killing ponies, ponies you want to help.”

“Then I’d want you to stop her any way you could even if you had to kill the both of us doing so. I understand what you mean.”

“I won’t do it, no matter what happens I know we can help him. Somewhere deep inside, Stardust is still there and I’m not giving up on him.” Wingnut said.

“He’s in a dark place right now Boss, what if he was trying to kill Shadow, or me? What if he was going after Wind Thrasher, what would you do then?”

“I’d find a way to help without killing him. He would do the same thing for us, and you both know it,” he said glaring at the both of us, “Aura, I’m ordering you not to kill him unless I say otherwise.”

Aura looked worried as she said, “Boss, you can’t give me an order like that. If he is trying to hurt you I can’t obey that order.”

“You can help me or our friends without killing him, I know that for a fact. No killing Stardust unless I give the order, and that goes for you too Shadow.”

“Wingnut, I’m the leader here not you. You can give orders to Aura, but you can’t tell me what to do. I won’t try and kill him, but if it comes between my friend’s lives and Stardust, I’ll do what I have to.”

Wind Thrasher moved closer to me and put a hoof on my shoulder, “I hope it doesn’t come to that Shadow. Remember though that you don’t always have to resort to killing, there are many different ways to stop an enemy without killing them.”

“You think so, but you’re wrong. Sometimes killing somepony is the only way to stop them. You should know that better than anypony, look at Dr. Cell,” It was a cruel thing to say, but I knew I was right. I hated the idea of having to kill my friend if it came down to it. The sad part was that may be the only way to stop him.

Her eyes fell at the comment and she walked past me saying, “You didn’t have to go there Shadow. Stardust isn’t Dr. Cell.”

Wingnut followed her, the two of them leaving Aura and I behind. She sighed, “Maybe I said too much.”

I shook my head, “No, it’s just the truth and they don’t like it. The truth hurts, that’s just the way of life in general. It’s not like I want to do it, but if I have no choice then I will.”

“Does that go for your mother too?” she asked.

“Yes it does, though with her I’m not sure if she’s gone completely insane or what. All I know is that if this is who she is now, then I can’t let her live, not after what she’s done. The more I hear about her the worse it gets, I know for a fact now that I won’t be giving her this Pip-Buck.”

“Well that’s a given, but I still think you should find out why she wanted it,” Aura said.

“I plan to, I have a feeling that we might just get that info when we get to Spitfire’s Flight Academy.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, when I was out of it back at Frosty Summit the voice I heard that told me to come here sounded a lot like The Stranger’s. He keeps showing up whenever I’m in trouble, it’s like he’s watching over me and I think he wants me to know what’s really going on. I also have a feeling he knows the pony who was hunting my mom.”

“What gave you that idea?” she asked.

“I saw it in mom’s Memory orb. She met with a pony named Nightshade and he was looking for me, though I’m not too sure why. He told mom that he’d look after me and if he couldn’t then he had a friend who would. Mr. Tops told me about Nightshade and he sounds too busy to be watching me all the time so I think it’s this friend he was talking about. If he knew what mom was doing, he may want me to know what’s going on,” I replied.

“This Nightshade, maybe the reason he was looking for you is because he’s your family. You told me you don’t know who your dad is, what if it’s Nightshade.”

I smiled, “That’s a nice thought, but mom told me he died when I was a foal. All I know about him is that he was a soldier and he died in a fight with some faction.”

“How do you know that’s not another lie?”

“Because of the way mom talked about it, she was always in so much pain whenever he came up. I saw the hurt there and I know she was telling me the truth, my father’s dead. Though this pony might’ve known him. That’d explain why he wanted to find me.”

“It’s very possible, though I still think we should be careful. We still don’t know who this pony is, even if he did help you, that doesn’t mean you can trust him,” Aura said.

“I know, but that’s why I have you with me.”

She cracked a smile, “You know I never can figure out how you’re able to smile so easily even after finding out what you did.”

I shrugged, “It’s the way I was raised, Auntie always told me that no matter what, I had to look at the good things in life. If I dwell on the bad things in life then I’ll never be happy.”

“Let me guess, she started telling you that after your mother left didn’t she?”

“Yeah, it did help, though I did have my days when I’d let life get me down.”

“We all have those trust me.”

I smiled then changed the subject, “Tell me what you know about The Annihilators.”

We kept walking for a little bit, Aura taking that time to think. Finally, after ten minutes passed and I was about to say something she said, “I know that before Trip Wire met me, she was infatuated with a mare that lived there for a few months. I’m not sure how this mare felt about her, but she used to send messages to her.”

“Did the two of them ever meet?”

“They did once, the mare snuck out of Spitfire’s Flight Academy and they met on the road back to New Pegasus.”

“What does this have to do with The Annihilators?” I asked.

“I’m getting to that,” she said rolling her eyes, “From what I heard from Trip Wire, the two of them spent most of the night and next day together getting to know each other. What she said was that this mare told her that The Annihilators were very secretive, even to most of the citizens. She was a young mare and wanted more than anything to get away from the town and be free of their leaders. Most of it I didn’t care about, but one thing she told Trip Wire was that the fact that they blow up anyone who goes near them isn’t really true, or so she said.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“That we may not have to worry much about getting blown to tiny chunks if we get too close.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked.

“Honestly, I don’t, but also I can’t see how they could have that much weaponry after all these years. No matter which is true, I still think we should be careful when we get close.”

“I wish there was a way I could get a message to them without getting too close.”

“I’ve been thinking about that for a little while now, and I think I have an idea.”

“Mind sharing it with me?”

She gave me a crooked smile, “I will, in a few, first we should catch up to Wind Thrasher and Wingnut.”

“Why?” I asked.

She pointed at a radar tower in the distance with a long runway and three hangers all surrounded by a chain-link fence. All around the base were deep craters in the earth and the remains of what must’ve been barracks just outside of the fence. The only road that lead up to the gate went right through the destruction. We were on the top of a hill looking down toward it, and I could also see guard towers by the gate and on each corner of the fence. At the end of the runway was a broken-down airship. It was almost as large as Cartwheel, it was hard to believe that something so large was able to fly. Ponies were walking along the fence-line, most were wearing battle saddles with rocket launchers.

Wingnut and Wind Thrasher were waiting for us at the top of the hill looking down at the old air base. Aura smiled, “That’s why.”

“That used to be a Flight Academy?” I asked

“Before the war got bad, they used to train young flyers for the air forces there. It was named after Spitfire the leader of The Wonder Bolts who died in a raid on Rome. When the war escalated and the call for more soldiers came, the base was revamped to be used as a military base, but they did still train flyers there, just not as much as they used it for a strategic base,” Aura replied.

Wingnut was watching the ponies who were walking around the fence-line, “They look well-armed, are you sure we can get close enough to let them know why we’re here?”

Aura smiled, “Oh I’m sure we can.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Easy, we send Wingnut down there with a message for their leader that The Courier Mare wants to meet with them.”

Wingnut spun around his eyes wide as saucers, “Why me!?”

“Because, from all the stories I’ve heard about them blowing up ponies who get close, it’s always been Steel Rangers, Raiders, Fiends, Ghouls, and Stupid Ponies who had an ulterior motive, but I’ve never heard once about them blowing up colts or fillies. I have a feeling that if you go up to their gate they’ll let you get close enough to relay the message,” Aura said smugly.

“And what if you’re wrong?” I asked.

She Shrugged, “He’s a small target and quick, I’m sure he can get away fast enough.”

“No way, I’m not doing it!” Wingnut said backing away from the griffon.

“C’mon boss, do you really want to look like a tiny little scaredy-wuss in front of Shadow?” Aura said with a sly grin.

He paused then glared at her, “Oh you’re so mean Aura!”

She chuckled, “Wingnut do you really think I’d send you down there if I wasn’t sure you’d be okay?”

“Well…no, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, now we’ll wait here and you head down toward the gate, tell them that Shadow has a message for their leader and it’s important.”

He muttered to himself as he turned and slowly started to walk down the path, he paused then looked back at Aura, “You’re gonna pay for this.”

She grinned, “Whatever you say boss.”

He started walking again his hooves starting to shake violently with each step. He reached the bottom of the hill and just entered the destroyed barracks, when he did Aura started to chuckle to herself. Wind Thrasher gave her a puzzled look and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Oh… you’ll see. Watch this,” she brought her talons up to her beak and yelled down at Wingnut, “BOOM!”

The colt jumped so high into the air, it looked like he almost took flight. When he landed he dove behind a broken piece of concrete looking around for a missile blast. After a moment he looked back toward Aura, who was laughing so hard she couldn’t stay standing.

“That was just plain mean Aura,” Wind Thrasher said her ears drooping as Wingnut started walking down the path again.

When her fits of laughter died down she said, “This was the plan from the beginning. He needs a dose of reality now and then, and it was funny.”

I couldn’t help laughing too since I was still irritated with him for interrupting my chat with Aura earlier. I mean yes, he had a good reason, but still couldn’t he have waited thirty more seconds. So what if Aura scared the little shit, it was nice to see him jump for once.

As he made his way closer to the gate and the two guards noticed him I moved next to Aura and asked, “So what happened with that mare Trip Wire liked?”

“Not much really, later that day one of The Annihilators found them and forced her to go back home. Trip Wire said she never saw her again after that, at least not face to face, though she did used to spy her now and then helping around one of the hangers. I met her not long after that so I think she forgot about her feelings for the mare she couldn’t get to.”

“Or she just fell for you and didn’t need to worry about that mare anymore,” I said with a small smile.

Aura just shrugged, “Either way, I still got her in the end.”

Wind Thrasher smiled as we talked, “It would be nice to find a Stallion that loved me as much as you loved Trip Wire Aura or you with Silver, Shadow.”

“What do you mean? I’m sure you’ll find somepony one day Wind Thrasher, you’re sweet,” I said.

“That might be true, but what Stallion is going to be able to see past this?” she said gesturing to her scales and bat wings.

Aura chuckled, “Looks aren’t everything Wind Thrasher, I mean look at Shadow, Silver fell for her even though she looks like a twelve-year-old. You’d be surprised at some of the weird fetishes you find that ponies and griffons have in The Wasteland, like crunchy old lady ghoul sex.”

“I do not!” I said.

“Yeah Aura don’t be so mean to Shadow, she could at least pass for thirteen,” Wind Thrasher said, smiling over at me with her rare creepy toothy smile.

I shivered then looked away, “You’re both jerks. At least I’m not batty or repeat things by proxy.”

The two of them kept laughing as I went back to watching Wingnut, he did manage to make it to the gate and one of the guards was talking to him. He didn’t look as scared as he did before. At least Aura was right about him not getting fired at. I saw him point up at the hill toward us. The guard talked to him for another moment then he turned and waved for us to come down.

“See that wasn’t so hard now was it?” Aura said getting up and starting to walk toward the gate, “And by the way griffons aren’t part parrot, moron.”

I followed keeping my eyes on the ponies who guarded the air base. I saw one run off toward the hangers as more guards came to watch as the three of us joined up with Wingnut. When we finally reached him he said, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be.”

“Hey kid is the short one the mare you were talking about?” A mare asked from the other side of the gate.

“Yeah, this is Shadow Star, The Courier. She’s the one who needs to meet with your leader.”

“I always figured The Courier would be taller and older,” The Guard said to the other guard, “How’d a mare like you get such a reputation?”

I glared at her, “You really don’t want to know.”

She just shrugged, “If you say so, tell me why did you send the kid all the way down here just to ask to see our leader?”

“Because we didn’t want to get blown to bits, we figured you wouldn’t fire at a kid,” I replied.

She grinned, “Damn that’s cold, sending the kid in to do your dirty work huh. Well I’m glad to see our reputation is still holding strong in The Wasteland.”

“Yeah, it is, so are you going to let us in or not?” Aura asked.

She laughed, “No pony gets in here unless Javelin says so. She should be here soon. I wouldn’t get your hopes up though, I haven’t seen her let any pony in here for years.”

“Three years and two months,” A mare said walking up to the gate, she was old, with a mostly grey and black mane with a turquoise coat. She looked at us and said, “Smokescreen who are these ponies and why are they standing outside our gate?”

The mare who’d been talking to us gave the older mare a small bow saying, “The kid there came up here on his own saying that The Courier from the radio wanted to talk to you. She’s the short one.”

She looked at me her frown deepening, “Are you really the Courier? To me it looks like you’re a member of the NLR, though I’ve never seen a member so young that wears Veteran Ranger armor.”

“I am her, and this armor was made for me by a friend,” I said walking right up to the gate.

“Hmmm, well if you say so. I’m Javelin the leader of The Annihilators. Why are you here? And please don’t tell me you came to try and barter for peace with Trotston.”

“Why would I be here on behalf of Trotston?” I asked.

“We keep ourselves tuned-in to Mr. New Pegasus, he just reported that you were heading this way after leaving our old home. The only thing I could think of for you coming here was to try and get us to leave that town alone. I do hope that isn’t the reason because if it is, you can turn around and leave right now.”

“No, it’s not. I’m here because I was asked to come here by somepony. He told me that I had to ask to see the leader and give her a pass phrase.”

“Oh really and what would that be?”

“The night still runs free,” I said, smiling a little as the look on the mare’s face went from mildly annoyed to shocked.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me, the night still runs free, that’s what I was supposed to tell you.”

Javelin looked at the guard mare called Smokescreen, “Let them in.”

“Wait, what!?” she asked.

“Do it now!” Javelin shouted. She kinda reminded me of someone just now… I hope she’s not a total cunt like Fletch.

She nodded then pressed a button near the fence. The gate slid open and we all walked in, “Thank you for that.”

“We don’t have time, follow me to my office, if the pony who sent you is the pony I’m thinking of we have a lot to talk about,” Javelin said walking off.

We followed her as she led us past most of the guard ponies and toward a small building that was set up next to one of the large hangers closest to the gate. She opened the door and waited for all of us to enter before following herself. The office was small, but set up nicely, it had a small desk with a terminal on it a couple of couches with a coffee table set up between them.

Once the door was shut she moved over to her desk and got on the terminal, “Give me a moment I’ll be right with you.”

Aura moved over to one of the couches and sat down Wingnut following her. Wind Thrasher just stayed next to me, staying quiet as the older mare typed something on her terminal. As she did I asked, “I was told that you’d be able to help me with getting answers.”

She finished what she was doing then turned to look at me, “That all depends on what you need help with. That pass phrase was something that was passed on to me when I took over here. I was told that whoever gave it to me was to be allowed in and when I did I was supposed to send a message to somepony through my terminal which I just did.”

“Do you know who this pony is?” I asked.

“Personally, no I don’t, but I do know he’s a pegasus, one that’s been in here a few times over the past few years.”

“A pegasus, you mean you all work with The Enclave?” great just what I needed right now.

She laughed, “The Enclave? Pfft, hell no, we don’t work with those scum. This pegasus keeps his face hidden all the time, but he hates The Enclave more than almost any other pony in The Wasteland. We think he’s a Dashite with a grudge, but we can’t be sure.”

“If this place is so against other ponies getting in here, then why would you let him in here?” Aura asked.

“Because from what I was told, he was the one who let my ponies move in here, the only thing we had to agree on was to make sure he could come and go whenever he wanted and to let in anypony who gave us the pass phrase,” she replied.

The more I learned about this pony the less I wanted to meet him. Though I had a feeling I knew who this pony was, “This is all beside the point, what I want to know is why I was told to come here. I was told I could get answers, so far I haven’t seen anything that says otherwise.”

Javelin snickered, “The pony who’ll be helping you with that isn’t me. This pegasus will be on his way soon to meet with you. While you wait for him, you can all rest up here in my office.”

“Is there any way we could walk around? It’d be nice to check this place out,” I asked.

“Let’s wait until you meet with this pegasus before you do that. I personally don’t mind you being here, but the others here get nervous with ponies who aren’t from around here wandering around. While you wait, I’m going to talk with the other ponies here and let them know who you are. When you’re all finished, I’ll have you meet with the other leaders of The Annihilators.”

“You know, I find it funny that you’re all called The Annihilators, you don’t seem to do much annihilating,” Wingnut blurted out like the immature kid he is.

She snickered again, “Truth be told, it’s a name that we came up with to keep ponies away from here. In the past we’ve used the artillery here to keep ponies away, but not to the extent that most ponies think. We like our privacy and the story about us keeps most ponies away.”

“So you let other ponies think you’re all a bunch of nut jobs just to keep them away? How do you keep this town running if you don’t let anypony in?” Aura asked.

“We do trade with some ponies in The Wasteland, but only outside of our walls.”

“It seems like a lonely life to me? But you all used to be Stable ponies so I guess I understand it, Trotston is pretty much the same and I’m sure my own Stable would be like that too if they ever left.”

She frowned, “Please don’t bring Trotston up here. Remember you’re a guest here right now. I don’t feel like talking about them, and would prefer if you keep them out of any conversations here.”

I put my hooves up, “Sorry, I forgot that your towns don’t get along. It won’t happen again.”

“Please see that it doesn’t,” she said heading toward the door, “Now you four relax for now, I’ll be sure to let you know when your friend gets here.”

When she left Aura looked over at me, “I don’t like this Shadow, what if this was all a set up for The Sins?”

“Then it’s a well thought out one, no I think this was something The Stranger set up. So far we’ve been able to trust him and I don’t see any reason why he’d betray us now,” I said walking over to sit on the couch next to her.

“That’s true, but I still don’t like it.”

Wind Thrasher went and sat next to Wingnut, she pulled a book out of her saddle bags and opened it saying, “Look on the bright side, if this is a trap we can fly out of here quick enough.”

“I guess, you’re right,” Aura said, I just wish we didn’t have to sit around here waiting.”

“This is why you should always keep a couple of books on you,” Wind Thrasher said as she read her own.

“Do you have one I can read?” Wingnut asked.

“Look in my saddle bags, if you find one you like have at it,” Wind Thrasher said not even looking up from her book, I saw it was titled ‘Path of the Lonely Pegasus by Squiggle Quill’

“Is that a romance book?” Aura asked.

Wind Thrasher looked up then nodded, “The Author wrote a few novels during the war, but nopony ever knew who they were. All of Squiggle Quill’s works revolves around history and romance mixing them into one. I’ve loved their work for a long time. I had every copy in the Stable, but never had time to read them all. Do you want to read one?”

“I’ll pass, reading mushy stuff like that isn’t really my thing.”

“Same here, maybe I’ll jump into a memory orb while we wait,” I said looking through my inventory seeing what other ones I had that I still hadn’t seen, apart from the other two mom gave me.

“Great now I’m going to be bored and I’ll have no one to talk to,” Aura said.

I giggled and laid down resting my head on her front talons looking up at her, “You can watch over me while I’m in the orb if you want.”

“Or you could look through some of the magazines I’ve collected over the past few days. Some of them aren’t really to my liking, I was meaning to toss them, but if you want them you can look them over.”

Aura blushed as my head rested on her talons, but she tried to hide it as she said, “I guess I’ll see what you have,” she reached over and took Wind Thrasher’s saddle bags pulling her talons out from under my head. She started to dig then her eyes went wide, “Why did you pick these up Batty? They don’t seem like your kind of reading material.”

I couldn’t see what Aura pulled out but I saw Wind Thrasher blushing, “I didn’t know what they were when I picked them up, those were the ones I was meaning to throw out.”

“What are they?” I asked trying to look up at what Aura had in her talon.

She looked down at me, “Don’t you have a memory orb to look into?”

I frowned and stuck my tongue out at her, “Fine, be that way,” I rested my head back onto her talon getting comfortable, and pulling one of the orbs out of my saddle bags, “But I’m using you as a pillow.”

Before she could protest I concentrated my magic on the orb, it was the one Nexus told Violet to give me. I figured it was a Night Stalker one and I wanted to know more about him. The connection was made and right as Aura started to say something, the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

Now I was expecting to be in that Stallion who had so much mystery around him. I was in a pegasus that was obvious right away, but this was a mare, and not just any pegasus mare, it was Rainbow Dash herself. I knew that right away because the memory started with her looking into a mirror.

She looked older than the posters I’d seen around Equestria showed her. A little grey was showing in her rainbow-colored mane and quite a few lines were showing up under her eyes. She sighed, “Why do you need me here for this anyway Princess? I have plenty of ponies in my ministry that can handle a meeting about adding new ponies to our ranks.”

She turned and I saw I was once again in the presence of Princess Celestia, she was sitting on a pillow looking out at the beautiful blue sky and the sun that was still high in the sky. I was almost lost by the sight of it, the princess of the sun herself looking so beautiful and regal. When I saw her before she was stressed and a battle had broken out, the tent she was in at the time wasn’t like seeing her bathed in the bright light of the sun coming through the open door to her balcony.

She didn’t look back at Rainbow Dash but I could see her lips pulling up as she said, “Rainbow Dash this meeting I’m having today is something that I will only entrust to one of The Ministry Mares, I can’t have any of this getting out and I only trust you six.”

“I can understand that, but why me? I have enough to do with keeping the Shadowbolts organized and the SPP keeps having snags that need my attention. Why not have Twilight help you with this?

She laughed and finally looked back at my host, “I have a feeling Twilight will be a part of this later on, but she has a lot on her plate as it is, and even if she didn’t the pony we’re meeting with today is somepony you know.”

I felt my host smile, “Oh really? Who is it?”

“A pegasus that’s been slowly making a name for himself over the past couple of years. He should be here any minute,” as she spoke somepony knocked on the door.

A guard poked his head inside, “Princess there’s a pony here to see you, but he’s refusing to give us a name he said you’d know who it was.”

“Ah yes, let him in,” Celestia said, getting off her pillow and moving to sit at a desk on the other side of the large room I now saw we were in.

The guard left and a moment later Night Stalker walked in followed by Greta. It was an odd sight, seeing him out of the armor I was used to seeing him in. He only wore what I guessed was a soldier’s uniform, the same goes for Greta. He had no weapons on him, and he was smiling, that was just as odd of a sight as seeing him without armor. He still had the scar over his left eye, but it wasn’t as notable, it was like his happy face and sparkling green eyes hid it somehow.

When the door shut behind him he bowed low along with Greta as he said, “Princess Celestia it’s an honor to meet you,” then he turned toward my host, “Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash, it’s good to see you again.”

My host smiled wider, “Well now this is a surprise, I haven’t seen you in a while kid.”

Celestia laughed a little, a large smile on her face, “Thank you for coming Ab…”

Night Stalker interrupted the Princess, “Please Princess, don’t call me by my old name, in case you haven’t heard yet, I’m going by Night Stalker now and I’d prefer if you called me by that.”

“My apologies Celestia, he’s very insistent on ponies calling him by this new name,” Greta said glaring over at the pegasus.

To my surprise Celestia just kept smiling, “It’s okay, I don’t mind calling him by this new name. From what I heard after your last big battle it’s a well-deserved name, wouldn’t you agree Rainbow Dash?”

“Using the night sky and clouds, sneaking into enemy territory to take down three high ranking zebras to stop their advance. Yeah, I’d say it’s fitting, but names aside why is the griffon here? I thought we were meeting with just Night Stalker?”

Greta glared at my host, “I go where he goes.”

Night Stalker nodded, “Greta’s my oldest friend and my most trusted ally, I didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t join me. I thought this was just something to do with me disobeying orders during my last fight, though I wasn’t sure why I was meeting with you Princess.”

Celestia waved a hoof like it didn’t matter, “It’s fine Night Stalker, you aren’t here about that, from what I read in the report you set in, if it wasn’t for you and Greta we would’ve lost a lot of ponies in that fight.”

Rainbow Dash scoffed, “His Commanding officer wouldn’t agree. Though, I still don’t understand why anypony put Thunderlane in charge of a group of ponies, he’s not suited for that kind of thing.”

“Second Lieutenant Thunderlane is a good pony, he just thinks he knows more than anypony else and it makes him make bad decisions,” Night Stalker said.

Celestia smiled wider, “I saw that in the report you made as well Night Stalker, tell me what would you have done? Thunderlane had three pegasi two earth ponies, a unicorn and Greta. You were facing a force of over one hundred Zebras. You were just a simple scouting party, Thunderlane wanted you all to retreat and get word back to the main force to stop them.”

Night Stalker looked at Greta, she nodded at him almost like an unspoken conversation had gone on between them. Then he looked back at my host and Celestia, “It’s true that he wanted us to retreat, but the Zebras were heading toward a small mining town, even with our fastest flyer we couldn’t have gotten a message to the main force in time for them to save the town. I told him that if we took out the three leaders of the force it would stop the advance while they figured out who should take over. It could’ve even forced them to turn back since most of the Zebras were green to war and wouldn’t know what to do without their veteran zebra leaders.”

My host grinned, “That’s a good point, it’s a dangerous route to take, but if it was successful it could work.”

“It was dangerous, but if it was done right one or two ponies could slip in and out before the rest of the force knew what happened. They were camped in a small valley and the Zebras didn’t think they had to worry about anypony since they were so far away from where most of the main battlegrounds. When I told Thunderlane about this, he told me to keep my mouth shut and to follow the orders I was given. He ordered the retreat, but I knew if we left they would kill the ponies in the town that was only a couple miles away,” he said.

“So you disobeyed orders and took it upon yourself to go in with Greta and attempt your plan?” Rainbow asked.

“Mostly yes, I told Greta to stay behind though.”

Greta spoke up next, “I figured if he was going to do something so stupid I was going to follow him and make sure he stayed safe.”

Night Stalker nodded, “Yes, and she did end up helping me too. The plan worked and the rest of the forces did leave once their leaders fell.”

“And your actions saved the lives of a lot of ponies. Even though you knew you’d face possible charges of insubordination, you still disobeyed,” Celestia said her grin never leaving her face.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat Princess, even if you were to exile me from Equestria.”

The Princess started to laugh, “I wouldn’t think of it, even if I could. You know that Luna leads the country now not me. I just help oversee small things nowadays. Night Stalker as much as I loved hearing why you did what you did at that last battle, that isn’t why you’re here.”

He looked shocked, “Then why am I here?”

The Princess looked over at Greta ignoring Night Stalker and asked, “Greta, from what I hear, you aren’t using a contract to work for the Military like most of your kin has started doing over the past few years. Why is that?”

Greta just shrugged, “I haven’t lived in Griffonstone since the war started, I see Equestria as my home more than where I was born. They want to stay out of this war as much as they can unless there’s a profit to be made. I fight because Night Stalker does, and I love this land as much as any pony does. I want to protect it.”

“I’m glad to hear that, so I take it you’ll go wherever Night Stalker does?”

She nodded, “Like he said, we’ve been friends since we were young. I’ll protect him till the day I die.”

“The same goes for me,” Night Stalker said proudly, “I owe Greta my life, without her I wouldn’t be here today.”

Celestia smiled again and nodded, “It’s nice to see friends sticking together like that. From what I understand, you grew up in Griffonstone too didn’t you Night Stalker.”

“I did, my parents died when I was very young. Greta and her grandmother found me in the mountains near Griffonstone and they raised me.”

“But from your military records I see that you grew up in Cloudsdale with a family that took you in. It says that you have a Sister who works with Stable-Tec. Is that not true?” Celestia asked.

“It’s true, I was a young colt when the ponies who adopted me met me in Griffonstone. Granny is the one who said I should go back with them and get to know the land I was born in. I didn’t want to go at first since I didn’t know much about Equestria back then, but Greta decided to go with me too and that helped. They took me in and raised me until I was grown.”

Greta nodded adding, “I stayed with them for a couple years too until my Gran got sick and I had to go back to Griffonstone, but the two of us stayed in contact. I moved back to Equestria when I was older and the war was just starting to break out.”

“That is fascinating. You seem like a pony who has a good head on your shoulders Night Stalker. You’re smart and willing to do whatever it takes to help your friends and this country. You’re also honest and I like that in a pony.”

He bowed again blushing a little, “Thank you Princess, I’d never lie to you or anypony I respected like you and Rainbow Dash.”

“Kiss-ass,” Rainbow said snickering, “At least that hasn’t changed since your days in training.”

He smiled, “Glad to see you’re still just as cocky as ever Rainbow.”

“Night Stalker the reason I had you come all the way here to Canterlot to meet with us is because I’ve been reading up on you. I noticed that over the last four years you’ve done a few things that have gotten you moved around the military and kicked out of a lot of companies. If it wasn’t for that you would’ve been an officer by now. For most ponies they would’ve been discharged a long time ago, but everything you have done has been for the better of Equestria and not yourself. I see something special in you and this is why I want you to be promoted to a new rank and take on a special mission.”

“A Special mission? What do you mean Princess, and I thought you didn’t make decisions on things like this anymore?”

“I have my ways of making sure things get done. As of today Night Stalker you will no longer be in Thunderlane’s scouting company. I’ve already spoken to a few ponies and you’ve been promoted to the rank of Captain you’ll be leading a new…secret group of ponies that will be under the Ministry of Awesome.”

He looked like somepony just slapped him, “Wait a minute, Captain? I just made Sergeant, I don’t know if I can handle that kind of responsibility yet.”

Greta however smiled and said, “Sure you can Night Stalker, you’re smart, quick on your hooves, and always have a plan. You can do this, I know you can.”

“But why work with the Ministry of Awesome? I thought they didn’t really do much of anything…sorry Rainbow,” he said bowing his head a little toward my host.

She just laughed again, “I see what you are up to Celestia, so this is why you wanted me here.”

“It is. Night Stalker, the Ministry of Awesome puts on a front to make the ponies in Equestria think the MOA aren’t doing much of anything. The truth is, they are the ponies Luna uses for spies and more. Rainbow Dash herself is the only pony in her ministry that knows who is a spy working for us and who isn’t.”

“So you want me to become a spy?”

My host turned and asked the Princess, “Are you thinking about starting up…that group? You know the one you told me about a couple weeks ago?”

Celestia nodded, “I am,” then her focus went back to Night Stalker and Greta, “Night Stalker, a long time ago before my sister became Nightmare Moon, she took on a few ponies that had been orphaned and raised them herself. Later these ponies became warriors that dedicated their lives to protecting my sister. They took on a name calling themselves The Children of the Night. They set up a headquarters in the top of the mountain here in Canterlot years before the city was ever created. When my sister rebelled and was banished, they all refused to leave their home and instead became the first protectors of the new capital. They never let anypony join them once Luna was gone and they all died out after a while, but their traditions were never forgotten and much of them are still used to this day in the royal guard. Their old headquarters are still in the top of this mountain and over the past few months I’ve had it set up with new tech so Luna could start them up again. With this war getting as bad as it is we’ll need ponies like them again to help protect her and this land. I want you to be their new leader.”

The look on Night Stalker’s face was priceless, I didn’t even know he could look so shocked. It took him a good five minutes to find his voice and when he did it was low and quiet, “You want me to lead this group, and do what? Spy on the Zebras or get intel so we can know where and when the Zebras will move?”

My host stepped forward saying, “That kind of thing would help us with this war a lot yes, but that’s not what she means.”

Celestia nodded, “That’s right, you see The Children of the Night did protect my sister, but they were also her private group of assassins, they worked in the shadows and made sure that Equestria never had to see what had to be done to keep a land like ours safe. Back in those days the word war wasn’t even known to ponykind. That’s because of ponies like The Children, they did the dirty work so the normal ponies didn’t have to.”

It took another few minutes for Night Stalker to say anything. Instead of shock he looked thoughtful, “If I did this, would you let me set up my own team? How much freedom would I have to do what I needed? Who do I answer to, and how do I keep this secret from others?”

“You can choose your own ponies that won’t be a problem, as for freedoms you’ll be allowed to do whatever needs to be done. You’ll report to Rainbow Dash and myself or Luna once she’s been informed about all of this. As for how you’ll keep this secret, we’re going to put you down on paper as the captain of Luna’s personal guard. You’ll have a month to find at least six ponies to join you, you can have as many as nine or ten if you need, but you’ll need at least six to make this work,” Celestia said.

A smile came to Night Stalkers face as he said, “This sounds fun. Well if that’s all then I’ll do it, I even know two ponies I’d like to have join me first.”

My host laughed, “Oh, and who would that be?”

His grin grew, “Second Lieutenant Thunderlane and a mare named Babs Seed, both are good soldiers and loyal to Equestria.”

My host frowned, “Why Thunderlane, he’s the pony who thinks too highly of himself, I can’t see him taking orders from you.”

“He will, he understands chain of command and he’s a good scout, he may not always make the right decisions but I think if he doesn’t have to worry so much about looking good to the higher up’s he’ll be able to do an even better job. As for Babs, she’s one of the strongest ponies I’ve met and perfect as a heavy infantry pony. I’m going to need a pony like her if you want this to work,” he said.

“I remember Babs Seed, she’s Applebloom’s cousin from Manehattan isn’t she? I didn’t know she was in the military,” Rainbow Dash said.

Night Stalker laughed, “She’s not, she tried to join six times and got denied because they said she has an attitude problem, but she really doesn’t she’s just misunderstood.”

“How do you know this mare?” Celestia asked.

“She works at a salon in Manehattan, she’s the mare who cuts Night Stalkers mane. She also joins in on some sport he likes to do on his days off, trust me she’s a tough mare and will be a good addition,” Greta said.

“I said you can add who you wanted. I trust your judgement on this Captain Night Stalker. You’ll have to be the one to go find them and bring them in on this, I also suggest that you make sure to find a couple of unicorns. Magic is something that will help you out a lot, if you go talk to Twilight Sparkle or Spike her assistant in Manehattan, they might be able to help you find the right ones,” Celestia said.

He bowed low, “I’ll get started right away, but there’s one more Mare I’d like to have join, but for the life of me I have no idea where she is now.”

My host was the one to respond, “Who’s that Night Stalker?”

“She’s a pegasus who used to live in an old shack outside of New Pegasus. She ran away from home with some lover of hers back when the war first started, the last I heard she was working with the Shadowbolts, but under a new name. I never found out what she changed it to, but before she joined the Shadowbolts she was the mare who taught me how to sneak and hide, also how to keep quiet while in flight,” he said.

“Are you talking about Pink Rose?” Greta asked him.

“Yeah, but like I said I heard she changed her name when her buckfriend died,” he replied.

My host jumped at that, “That sounds like the mare who runs my Scouts, her name’s Cloudy Nights now, but I know she used to be called Pink Rose. Is she a light pink pegasus with a green mane, has a cutie mark of three roses?”

“Yeah that’s her, I’m not surprised that she’s running as a scout now, it’s the perfect job for her. I’d like her to join up too, if she’s willing,” he said.

My host took a moment to think, “Last time I talked with her, she said she was having problems with a couple of the stallions in her unit and wanted to transfer, I think she’d like this. I’ll meet with her today and give her the details, you should hear back from me about it by tomorrow.”

He smiled wide, “That’s a good start,”

“Well since we have this all settled, how about you head out and get to work, come see me in a week and I’ll get you set up in the old headquarters,” Celestia said.

Greta and Night Stalker both bowed low saying in unison, “Thank you Princess,” then they both left.

When they were gone my host looked back at Celestia and asked, “Are you sure this was a good idea? From what I remember about The Children of the Night, Luna never wanted them brought back. At least that’s what you told me.”

Celestia’s smile fell, “She did say that, but give me a few days and I’ll be able to change her mind. She doesn’t like to be reminded of those days, she feels like she’ll end up going back to what she used to be.”

“Are you sure you can convince her?”

“Rainbow Dash, if there’s one thing I’m good at when it comes to Luna, it’s making her see things my way. Now head out and make sure nopony hears about this meeting.”

My host smiled and bowed low, “I have no idea what you’re talking about Princess, I’m just the dumb athlete who landed herself into running a Ministry that doesn’t do anything. Just a lazy mare whose head is always in the clouds remember? What do I know about what’s going on with royalty?”

Celestia didn’t laugh at the pun, “Rainbow, this is bigger than you know. From now on, we can’t let any of your friends know about any of this apart from Twilight. When you’re done with talking to Cloudy Nights you’ll need to go find her and learn all you can about The Children of the Night. There’s more to them than I said earlier.”

She bowed again, “I’ll head out now, oh and Celestia.”

“Yes Rainbow?”

“I hope you made the right choice with Night Stalker, if you really read all of his history like you said, you know what he’s capable of.”

“I do, that’s the reason I chose him,” Celestia said her face looking a little scared, “Sometimes to win a war, you need ponies like him, ponies that will go further than anypony else. He will be the monster in the night that will help save Equestria, or die trying.”

The memory started to fade, as she spoke the desperate look in her eyes chilling me to the bone…

oooOOOooo

I came out of the memory orb finding myself still laying against Aura’s talon. I felt something on my chest and looking down I saw an open magazine there, Aura looming over me reading it. She was using me as some kind of makeshift table. I was about to say something about it when my eyes fell on what she was reading.

“Is that a Wing Boner Magazine Aura?” I whispered, doing my best not to laugh.

Her eyes fell on mine and she blushed as she shut it, “Shut up, I like the articles, it’s funny to read about the things ponies back in the day thought mattered.”

I got up and chuckled, “Sure Aura, you keep telling yourself that…how long was I out?”

“Couple hours, Wingnut passed out an hour or so ago with a book, and Wind Thrasher’s still nose deep in her own,” she said tossing the magazine to the side.

“Shhhh, I’m almost finished with this chapter,” Wind Thrasher said from the other couch her eyes still fixed on her book, a small blush on her face, “Oh my, there’s no way she’d fall for a line like that!” she said flipping the page, “She DID! How stupid are you? He’s just going to break your heart!”

Aura sighed, “She’s been doing that every few pages, it’s getting annoying.”

Before I could say anything, a pony cleared his throat from the doorway. I jumped to my hooves pulling Dream Walker from its holster ready to fire on whoever had just broken into the office. Then my eyes fell on the dark trench coat, black desperado hat, and bandaged face of The Stranger. He was leaning against the doorframe his green eyes scanning the room. Those eyes looked so much like Night Stalkers that if I hadn’t known he died over a hundred years ago, I would’ve sworn it was him.

“I see you’re finally awake Shadow Star, I’ve been waiting,” he said with his slightly altered voice.

Aura bristled, “How long have you been standing there? I didn’t even hear you come in!”

He chuckled, “Five minutes or so, but to be fair you were a little occupied with whatever you were reading Aura Bloodtalon,” his gaze fell back on mine, “Shadow Star, I’m glad you made it here in one piece.”

“Was it you that was telling me to come here when I was unconscious back at Frosty Summit?” I asked, holstering Dream Walker.

“It was, I think it’s time you found out what your mother and The Enclave really want with that Pip-Buck,”

“I take it you know more about all of this huh?” Aura said.

“I do.”

“How can we really trust you? You won’t even show us your real face,” Aura said.

“I can’t show you my face, not yet, my identity could get me into a lot of trouble if the wrong ponies ever found it out. You can trust me though, I’ve done everything I can to keep Shadow and the rest of you safe.”

“Shhhhh, I’m almost done.” Wind Thrasher said again, not even seeming to care about the other pony in the room, “You can trust him Aura, he’s not lying, I can hear his heart beat from here and trust me, he’s telling the truth.”

“You can hear my heart from all the way over there?” The Stranger asked, his voice sounding shocked.

She looked up over her book twitching one of her large ears, “What part of part bat don’t other ponies seem to understand, I swear I’m getting sick of explaining this to everypony I meet,” then she went back to reading.

We all just looked at her like she was crazy, then I turned back to the Stranger and said, “Fine, what do you want to tell me, and why did I have to come all the way out here to find it out?”

He turned and started to head out the door, “It’s not something I can just tell you Shadow, it’s something you have to see.”

I got up to follow him, “Well then let’s get this over with. Aura get Wingnut up, and Wind Thrasher put the book away, we have work to do.”

The Stranger turned back toward me and said, “Only you Shadow.”

“No way, you might’ve saved me a couple times in the past, but that doesn’t mean much to me right now. With what I’ve had to deal with, I’m not gonna just leave my friends behind and go off alone, not again.”

He sighed, “Fine, but only Aura can come.”

“All my friends or I’m just gonna leave and head back to New Pegasus, I have a lot more work to do and I need to find a way to get my friend back,” I said as Wind Thrasher put her book away looking sad.

He chuckled, “I’m not saying they can’t come because I don’t trust them Shadow, the problem is where we’re going they won’t be able to go.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Aura can come because of who she is, her bloodline could make it so she can get into where we’re headed, the rest won’t be able to,” he said still chuckling.

“I don’t understand.”

Aura put a talon on my shoulder, “I think I do Shadow, let’s let Wingnut Sleep and Wind Thrasher can go back to her book. I have a feeling that whatever he wants to show you, it’s not something that’s going to hurt either of us.”

I finally gave in, “Fine, but don’t you need to stay with Wingnut?”

“He’ll be fine with Wind Thrasher, and he did order me to keep an eye on you when he can’t. I’m just doing what I was told.”

“Okay, Wind Thrasher you can stay here, we should be back a little later.”

She beamed at me, “That’s great, I really wanted to find out what was going to happen next,” she jumped back onto the couch and pulled her book out again.

I chuckled and sighed looking back at The Stranger, “Okay, lead the way Stranger.”

As we walked out the door Aura asked, “So what do you think he’s hiding under those bandages? I’ll bet it’s something embarrassing, like bucked teeth…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Magical Accuracy: Your ability with your energy weaponry has greatly improved since you’ve acquired it. Your chance to hit any body part in S.A.T.S. increases slightly with each subsequent hit on that body part.

Chapter 28: Energy Sway

“You know what the best part about being the Elder is, don’t you?”

I followed The Stranger as he led us out of the office and back out onto the cracked asphalt of the old broken-down base. Aura kept behind me, her eyes darting around looking for anypony that might give us trouble. I couldn’t help but smile as I looked back at her and said, “Aura calm down a little, I don’t think we have to worry too much around here.”

She rolled her eyes, “You can run into trouble anywhere Shadow, you should know that by now.”

The Stranger chuckled a little, “Not around here you don’t, The Annihilators are ponies who live by specific rules. You have to remember that they’re Stable ponies just like you Shadow. If their leader gives them an order no matter how much they don’t like it, they’ll listen to her. She’s just like the Overmare in a stable.”

“Even in a stable, ponies don’t always do what the Overmare says you know,” I replied.

“Yeah, what’s stopping a pony with a grudge from trying something?” Aura added.

“The rule of law here is if you disobey the Leader, you die,” he said, moving around a corner of one of the hangers and heading out toward the longest runway.

Aura sighed, “That sounds really harsh. At least with The Red Talons they just kick you out.”

He chuckled again, “It may sound harsh but it does keep order around here.”

“The sounds like a dictatorship. What a horrible way to live, then again I lived in such a way. Hey Stranger, where are we heading anyway?” I asked.

“A place my family has kept hidden away for over two hundred years. It’s the whole reason everything’s happening to you Shadow,” he said walking off the runway and toward a small solar array. The array’s themselves were mostly smashed or broken down, the smaller chain-link fence had rusted away leaving only a few metal poles and a couple links still in place. Right under the array was a small concrete building no bigger than a house, with a metal door.

“Your family has been hiding a building?” Aura asked as he walked up to the door.

He looked back at her, “No, it’s what’s inside that matters,” he moved up to a terminal and typed a few things in. A sharp thump sounded from inside and the door swung open, “Follow me inside and make sure the door locks behind you, this part of the base is one area The Annihilators can’t get into and I’d like to keep it that way.”

He walked into the small building, Aura followed and I went in after her. Once we were inside, I pushed the door closed. As soon as I did, I heard the lock click. The room wasn’t large and was lit by only a few weak lights that hung over broken panels and terminals. Off to one side of the entryway was a storage room that had been picked clean years ago, leaving only empty metal shelves and dust. On the far wall there was a nicer looking terminal screen imbedded into the wall. It was the only thing in this dump that looked like it worked.

“I’d ask if this was all you wanted to show us, but I’m sure that terminal over there is more than it looks,” I said following him as he moved closer to it.

“Nope, it’s just a terminal. This is the first true lock however that protects the secrets hidden under the base, and for the past twelve years, I haven’t been able to get past this point. Your mother used that Pip-Buck to lock it down so that nopony could go any farther than this. Smart idea I guess, I think she did it just to keep me off her trail. I know she wasn’t ever able to get past the second lock so I know everything down there should be fine, but I can’t be sure.”

“Wait, are you telling me that the only reason you needed me to come here was to unlock this terminal so you could get in?” I asked, starting to get a little pissed. “I don’t like being used.”

He laughed, “No, if that was all I wanted I would’ve told you as much. Personally, I don’t have to go down there if I don’t feel like it, all your mother did was make it harder for other ponies to get in. made my job here much easier, but if you want to see what she really wanted here you’ll have to unlock it.”

“I guess I have no choice, but this better be good.” I said walking over and hooking The Mark II up to the terminal.

Level 3 Mark II lock down found on host terminal. Lock down has been in place for twelve years two months and three days.

Systems running properly on host terminal, lock down has been tampered with six times and is still holding strong. SB Mark II was the Pip-Buck to close off this Terminal. Do you wish to remove the Lockdown and reinstate connection of Terminal for any user to access?

Yes/No

I clicked on Yes and watched as the Mark II unlocked the terminal. When it was finished the screen on the terminal lit up with a menu. I unplugged the connection cord and said, “There you go.”

“Perfect, now let me get us inside,” The Stranger said. He moved up to it and reached up to his neck pulling off something that was hidden under his bandages, it was a small collar with a pulsing red gem. He moved it to a pocket on his trench coat then typed something on the terminal. A message came up on the terminal then he spoke into a small microphone, his voice sounded different this time, it wasn’t as deep and it was smoother and comforting, “Passcode entry, voice command override, Twelfth Guardian Lima Personal passcode, Chisana Hoshi.”

“What was that all about?” I started to ask when the wall next to the terminal vanished, revealing an elevator, “Oh, okay.”

“Oh great, a tight elevator that leads down into who knows where,” Aura said.

The Stranger looked back at us, “Don’t worry, once we’re at the bottom it’s not so bad.”

“Let’s just get this over with.” She said walking past him and getting into the elevator. I did the same followed soon by The Stranger.

He threw a switch, the wall reappeared in front of us, a light came on overhead and the elevator dropped. It moved down the shaft so fast that I had to hold on to Aura to keep on my hooves. When I finally got used to the speed of the Elevator and I caught my breath I asked, “So you DO use a voice modulator.”

“Yes I do, there are ponies out there that’d know who I am just by hearing my voice. If that happened it’d put an end to what I’ve been able to accomplish over the years. My role in Equestria is vital, and I need to keep my position if I am to be able to finish my work. This is why I can’t even show you who I am Shadow, even now,” he said over the rattling of the Elevator.

“How does Shadow knowing who you are matter that much? Don’t you trust her by now?” Aura asked.

“It has nothing to do with trust Aura, it has to do with who she’s up against. The Enclave has Unicorns that specialize in memory extraction. If she was to ever to be captured by them, I can’t risk anypony finding out who I am, even this is a big risk to me,” he said reaching into his pocket and pulling the collar again replacing it over his neck under the bandages.

“From the information you know I take it you hold a high position in The Enclave,” I said trying to pry as much as I can without asking too much.

“I wouldn’t say that, I’m not trusted with a whole lot just yet, but one day I plan on being able to hold more power. I can’t do that if I’m killed or branded,” he replied, his voice back to what I was used to.

The elevator started to slow down to a stop. A metal door opened up into a long hallway. We all walked out and I said, “I guess that all makes sense, but I do wish you’d put more trust in my ability to avoid The Sins or the rest of The Enclave.”

As we walked down the hall I could see another door, but it was behind a bright pink magical barrier. Aura walked close to it and chuckled, “I figured this was the reason you said the other two couldn’t come with.”

“That’s right, I take it you’re familiar with this kind of barrier.”

Aura nodded, “We run into them now and then while working jobs. It’s a big pain in the ass when your contract holder wants you to get something on the other side and they don’t understand how this kind of magic works.”

I looked at it confused about what they meant, “So it’s a magical barrier, I’m sure there’s a way to get rid of it somehow.”

“This is no ordinary magical barrier Shadow, it’s has what’s called a bypass spell on it. Only ponies who’ve been programmed into the spell can pass through it, there’s no other way to turn it off or get rid of it. At least from this side that is,” The Stranger said.

“Then how do you plan for us to get by it?” I asked.

“Easy, you see a bypass spell will let the descendants of ponies, zebras, or griffons by also, that’s why I was okay with Aura coming with us. I don’t think you’d be able to get through on your own, but I can and so can Aura, either one of us can pull you through with us. This is the second protection and why I didn’t worry about your mom getting in here, she can’t pass through it.”

“Why can Aura then?”

Aura chuckled, “I’m guessing that this has something to do with Greta doesn’t it?”

He nodded again, “It does, she was one of the only ones that Night Stalker trusted in his whole life. My family was another that’s why I can pass through, Aura since you came from Greta’s bloodline you’ll be able to get through.”

“And you wanted her to come along because?” I asked.

“Because I knew that if I told you about this and it was only the two of us, you wouldn’t feel safe knowing you couldn’t pass through it again once on the other side if I wouldn’t let you,” he said moving forward and slipping through the barrier like it wasn’t even there.

“Well at least one good thing comes from being descended from that bird brain. C’mon Shadow let’s get this over with,” Aura said taking my hoof and pulling me through with her.

As my body slid through the barrier I felt something cold run up my spin and I shivered. The feeling passed as soon as I was on the other side, “ah heh heh that felt so weird.”

The Stranger looked back at me and chuckled, “It takes some getting used to. Luckily for us, that is the only one in here.”

“How many levels of security is on this place?” I asked as we walked up to the door.

“Two just to get into the main chamber, there is one more if you want to enter the control room. We’ll have to get past them too, but they won’t be a problem for me to turn off,” he said moving up to the door and typing in a few numbers on a pad next to the door. It hissed and I could hear internal locks opening, “Once we’re inside, make sure both of you stay next to me. Don’t wander off, don’t step off the walkway, and for the goddesses sake DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.”

“We’re not three, I’m sure we can keep our talons or hooves to ourselves,” Aura said as the door finally slid open.

He just chuckled again and walked through the door. We both followed, the floor under my hooves went from hard concrete to metal. The room we walked into wasn’t large, it was also pretty dark with only one light hanging over a small panel with a tall metal box behind it. There were small red lights running along the top of it pulsing slowly.

“Wow that was worth the long creepy elevator ride,” I said sarcastically, walking closer to the panel and the tall metal box, “I was expecting something a lot more impressive, what is this anyway? A mainframe?”

“This isn’t what I brought you here to show you,” The Stanger said placing his hoof on a switch on the panel, “This mainframe just controls the lights and some of the minor systems around here, this is what I wanted to show you,” he said pulling the lever.

A loud hum started to come from somewhere deep in the darkness, then more lights came on around us. I blinked a couple of times watching as the wall behind the mainframe split and pulled aside, the wall wasn’t a wall at all but a large door, one so massive it made the Stable door look small. It had to be ten feet thick and it was almost as tall as the walls around Trotston. As it split and pulled away, a rush of air blew past my face as what lay beyond was revealed.

There was a massive chamber beyond, thousands of lights illuminated it from ceiling to floor, and it still looked dark. The chamber had to be as large as my stable. Walkways jutted out from where we stood going out toward large power generators, each one had cables twice as thick as I was running from them into the natural rock walls that were built into it sending power somewhere. I moved forward and looked over the railing and down into the depths of this massive chamber. On the bottom floor I saw ten massive domes in rows, five on each side.

I could see different colored lights pulsing from each one, they also had long tubes and cables coming out of them. Most of them went into the walls to but each dome had one that went toward a central platform that sat in the middle of the floor, connecting to its base. The platform itself had a symbol on it, a crescent moon with a sword running through it and wings flaring out from each side. My eyes came back up and I noticed more generators running around each wall of each level all the way down to the ground.

“What am I looking at?” I asked in awe.

“This is the power source for one of the innovated projects ever created by pony kind. A massive mega spell that was created to protect Equestria in the event of an invasion.” The Stranger said moving to come stand by the railing with me.

“Who made this?” I asked still not able to take in what I was seeing.

“It was a joint effort with The Ministry of Awesome, The Ministry of Arcane Science, Stable-Tec, and The Children of the Night.” He said.

I looked over at him a little shocked, “How did Night Stalker get them to all work together on this? I thought Stable-Tec wouldn’t work with the Ministries.”

He sighed, “Like I said, I don’t have all the details, but somehow he blackmailed one of the heads of Stable-Tec into helping build what you see now, Applebloom was the one who came up with the design for most of what you see. The MOA wasn’t hard since he worked for them, The MAS was harder for him to get help from, he had to go around Twilight to use her unicorns for the Megaspell chambers.”

Aura seemed to finally come back to reality and she asked, “You mean those domes down there are all Megaspell chambers?”

He nodded, “Each one holds a different kind of megaspell, they all work together for some massive spell.”

“What kind of spell requires that many megaspells?” I asked.

“Honestly, I have no idea, we don’t know what any of this does. The knowledge was lost when Night Stalker disappeared. When the war ended only three knew what this did. One was Night Stalker himself, the other was Greta, the last was Minuette,” He looked over at Aura and continued, “As far as I know, Greta never told anypony or griffon about this.”

Aura shrugged, “I can’t say I know everything about her, when she started the Red Talons she had already had her falling out with The Enclave. If she told anyone about this it would have been her Son who took over as the leader when she left. Its possible that this secret was passed down to each leader, but if so, only Gigi would know.”

“That’s what I thought as well,” he continued, “Minuette couldn’t have told anypony about it because according to the records she vanished during the balefire assault. No pony knows what happened to her. Night Stalker entrusted the secret of this location to the first guardian when he became a Dashite, but never said what it did, only that it was to be kept a secret.”

“If that’s true then how did my mom know about this?” I asked, “Better yet, how did you know she knew about it?”

He looked back at me, “Your mother is one of the best unicorns with memory spells. She found out about this place from the last guardian, who was a friend of your fathers. This was the first place she came to try and save you when you were young. Sadly, she didn’t know that the project can’t be activated from here. This place only houses the power and mega spell chambers. As to how I know what she learned, that is because I was given the information when I took over as the new Guardian.”

“So, this isn’t where she came to save me?” I asked.

“No, I still don’t know where she did that, or how she did it. I figured that once she did what she needed to keep you alive, she would have gone back home, but she didn’t.”

“Yeah, she took me to Stable 28. I never could understand why.”

He shrugged, “It’s possible that she thought she would have been killed for leaving like she did and joining the Steel Rangers. It’s also possible that she learned something more about this project afterwards and wanted to learn more.”

Aura got a faraway look as she said, “Or maybe she was looking into Aquila.”

The Stranger looked over at her asking, “What’s Aquila?”

“It’s a long story.” I said glaring over at Aura.

He waved his hooves around as if to say, ‘I’m showing you all this and you want to keep something hidden from me?’ “I’m sure we have time for you to give me a simple explanation Shadow.”

I facehoofed, “It’s hard to explain because I don’t know everything about it, but Aquila is the name of some kind of creature that lives inside my mind and body.”

He gave me a sidewise glance, “That sounds kind of crazy?”

“Yeah, it does, but she’s not crazy. I’ve seen it, Aquila is real and crazy.” Aura said.

He looked thoughtful for a second, “I know I’ve heard that name before, but I can’t remember from where.”

“All I know is that the day mom saved my life and cured me, Aquila became a part of me. From what I’ve learned from her, I need her to live and she needs me to live.” I said.

It took him another minute or two before he finally said, “I know I’ve heard about this kind of thing before,” he turned and walked toward a lift that was at one end of the platform, “Follow me you two.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We’re heading down to the lowest level. I know there is something about Aquila in the control room.” He said.

Shrugging Aura and I followed The Stranger to the large lift, when we reached it, he pulled the lever and it started to slowly move downward. As the lift moved I asked, “What I don’t understand is if this project is so important and dangerous, then why didn’t somepony destroy it a long time ago? Also, why are you showing this to me?”

“Yeah, it seems like the simplest thing to do.” Aura said.

“I wish it was that simple, but it’s not. There is so much power in here along with multiple megaspell chambers. Any attempt to destroy this chamber would most likely wipeout everything in the region or possibly further.” He said

“You’re joking right?” I asked looking over the edge at the megaspell chambers that were slowly getting closer, “That’s just crazy.”

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that. The only way the power source could be destroyed is if it was dismantled. To do something like that, it would take countless numbers of highly trained Unicorns to attempt it. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the wasteland is kind of lacking in the highly trained unicorn department.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Yeah, I can understand that. So, that’s why this place has been kept secret?”

He nodded, “It is, the hope was that the longer we kept it hidden away, the better chance there was of it fading from history.”

“There has to be someway of shutting this thing down.” Aura said.

“There is a way, but no pony alive knows how to do it, even if we did, we don’t know where the main control center for it is.” He said.

“What about cutting off the power from the megaspell chambers, wouldn’t that work?” I asked.

“It would, but the cables are protected with multiple protection spells, again we’d need highly trained unicorns to take them down. Trust me Shadow my family has been trying to think of something to shut it down for two hundred years. We thought of everything, it can’t be done.”

I couldn’t take this anymore, “THEN WHY ARE YOU SHOWING ME THIS?”

“Because you need to understand the significance of the danger that could come from Grimoire gaining access to this facility.”

“From what I can tell there isn’t much here, it’s just a massive battery. Yeah, it could explode and obliterate everything, but who would be crazy enough to do something like that?” Aura said.

“I have to agree with Aura, what could she do if she got in here?” I asked.

“I’m sure by now you’ve realized what your mother is capable of Shadow.”

“I do now, but how do you know so much?”

He grinned from under his bandages, “I know because I’ve been watching you Shadow.”

“SO YOUR WATCHER!”

“Um…no…Who’s Watcher?”

“The guy who showed up the first time I was in trouble when I got out of my stable, and when we saved Wingnut. He keeps hacking into Sprite-bots to talk to me. He was the pony who unlocked the first layer of protection on the Mark II, you mean to tell me that wasn’t you?” I asked, I mean come on he had to be the guy behind the metal bugs.

He started to laugh as the platform reached the ground level, “Haha Shadow, I couldn’t even explain to you how to work half of the things on a normal terminal, let alone hack into robots that were created by the Ministry of Morale. I’m a solider not a terminal expert.”

“Then how have you been watching me?” I asked, I wasn’t go to push the ‘you have to be Watcher subject.’

“From where I’m based in Stratus we have different ways of keeping an eye on what’s going on in the Wasteland. The M.A.S.E.B.S. towers have cameras on them, I just use them to keep an eye on you.” he said simply, stepping off the lift and heading off toward a set of stairs alongside the wall that lead up to a small observation room. He moved up the steps and to a simple looking metal door, he looked back saying, “This will be the last security check point, no matter what happens next, don’t say anything or even move until the door opens.”

“How bad of a check point is this?” I asked, I mean come on it’s a stupid fucking door.

“Trust me, just keep quite.” He said turning his attention back to the door and a small terminal that was next to it, “I require Entry.”

A panel opened up over the door and a mini gun slid out and pointed right at The Stranger, then a voice I knew all too well from Night Stalker’s memory orbs, came out of the terminal, it was the cheery voice of Minuette, “If you want entry into the Control room you’ll need to know the answer to this question. Mind you if you get it wrong, you won’t be leaving this place alive, so good luck. Who are the Children of the Night?”

The Stranger cleared his throat and said, “We are the Ponies hidden in plain sight, to keep the ponies of Equestria safe in the light.”

“Awww you figured it out on the first try, Okay I guess you can come in, Passphrase accepted.” Minuette’s voice said sounding a little disappointed.

The Stranger let out a breath he had been holding as the mini gun pulled back into the panel. Then he looked back at us and smiled, “We’re good now, follow me inside.”

The door to the small room opened and The Stranger walked in. I followed with Aura not far behind, after seeing the wonder of what was just outside this room, I was quite disappointed with this room. There wasn’t much to see, there were shells of terminals along an observation window that looked out over the megaspell chambers, panels with dark dials, electrical wires running along the floor, and dust everywhere.

The Stranger ignored all of this and headed toward the back of the room, “This place was used for watching over the project as it was being built and to keep everything controlled. They also used to store files for the project itself in here as well,” he said opening what looked like a small storage room, “When I first took over as the Guardian for this place I came here first and started to look through the old files, I think that was where I first heard the name Aquila.”

Following him I looked into the small room and saw boxes stacked on top of more boxes filling almost every inch of the storage room, “What is all of this?” I asked watching as he started pulling boxes down.

“Files and reports for everything in this chamber. Most of it is reports on where they got the materials for building the generators, names of every pony who worked on the chamber, project heads, and other projects that the MOA was working on.” He said finally seeming to find the box he was looking for and pulling it down and setting it on an old table.

The box was labeled ‘Project Failures’ he opened the lid and I saw it was filled with recordings, files, and two memory orbs. Ignoring most of it, he pulled out one file and set it down on the table next to the box, it was titled Aquila. Aura and I both looked at the name on the folder in awe, I put a hoof out and pulled it closer to me, “What is this?”

He shrugged, “I never got around to reading that, I just remembered the word itself. I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to go through all of this, I had only taken over as The Guardian here a year or so before your mother locked me out. During the time I did have down here I went through the important files regarding how this place worked and what to expect if the project ever became operational again. I ran into that while going through the boxes.”

“Can I look at it?” I asked.

“Feel free, it’s not like anything in there can be anymore secretive than what I have already shown you Shadow.” He said.

Aura came to sit next to me looking over my shoulder as I opened the file and began to read what was written down…

Project head Minuette written log for Project Star Gazer,

Log 1

Round one with the project looked like it would be an overwhelming success. With all of the data my team and I have collected over the past year, we thought we had all of the necessary protections put in place. Sadly, it looks like we were wrong, when we first activated the project to run a test on it, the power overloaded and blew out three of the generators and almost wiped out the power grid for the area. We had to go back to the drawing board, we found that to use something this powerful we are going to have to use more generators and rout more power from Halo One just to get the project to turn on with out overloading the systems.

For a pony like me, it was a simple fix only took a couple of days to get the necessary parts and get them installed before we were ready to do a second test run. At first it seemed like everything would work properly, the power was running steady, all the systems were good, we had a green light to go forward with a real run of the system.

Log 2

Shit, I mean holy shit. I really don’t know what the hell happened today. I did everything perfect, I prepared the safety protocols, my team set up everything the way it had to be, but still everything went to shit only five minutes into the project’s run. I looked like a fool in front of Princess Luna and the Boss. A whole year of studying, working my butt off, preparing and what happens? I almost killed Princess Luna and Captain Night Stalker.

Damn, well as for my report, we started up the project with no problems to start out, the numbers were looking good and everything was ready to go. I had the honor of pulling the switch to start Project Star Gazer, what a mistake that was. As soon as power reached 100% things started to go bad. Three ponies died when whatever we created took shape. I still don’t know what happened, but when the light from what we made started to grow bright in the holding chamber, things started to explode, the safety protocols failed, magic like I haven’t felt before in my entire life filled the room followed by a scream that is still giving me nightmares.

Something was alive in the bright light, and it was angry. I was forced to use the Emergency Stop system to put an end to it’s growing power. But even with that, it was still destroying everything within ten feet of it. If it wasn’t for Princess Luna, we would have all died. She cast a spell that trapped the creature within a mega spell chamber we had set aside in case we were successful. Once it was trapped she cast more spells around it to make sure it couldn’t hurt anypony again.

When everything was finished I was told to wipe the minds of any of the ponies that had witnessed the event before sending them home. The three that died will be put down as casualties of war, though I don’t know all the details that will go into the reports. When that was finished Luna pulled me aside with Night Stalker and told us that the chamber we had used to create this creature had to be sealed. She told us that Project Star Gazer was to be shut down and we had to start from scratch. All my work of the last year was ended with a few short and angry sentences.

Log 3

Today I finished doing as the Princess ordered with one small change to the plan. Captain Night Stalker told me to make sure to keep one way open to the sub chamber we had moved the creature too far below where she was first created. He said that one day we might be able to use its power for the good of pony kind. I have always put all my trust into the Captain and today is no exception. He has uncanny intuition. The way into the chamber is sealed but I made sure that it could still be accessed if the right ponies went down there. I decided to use a biometric scanner as the way to get into the sub chamber, I’ve only programmed a few ponies into it. Only myself, Night Stalker, Greta, Amethyst Star, Lightning Dust, and Luna can gain access now.

The odd thing is that when I went back to do my final sweep of the project and the chamber I could swear I heard what sounded like a filly begging me to help her. I looked around and couldn’t find anypony, but the voice kept on asking for help. All that I found was the light that was trapped inside the megaspell chamber. Every time I heard the filly the light seemed to pulse brighter. I didn’t know what to do or what to think so I turned to leave, but before I could I heard one last thing. The voice asked me what its name was, I’m still not sure what I should have done or why I did it, but I told the ball of light it was called Aquila, named after the Constellation of the Eagle. I felt like the name fit since those stars were shining brightly the night she was created. After that I sealed it away.

We will be storing all the reports away for Project Star Gazer, keeping most of it in the Headquarters for the Children. I’m going back to the drawing board to see if we can do something better. I just hope that this time we will succeed. I don’t want to ever see anything like that again, I still can’t get the voice out of my head. I’ve decided to rename the failed project as Project Aquila, hoping that I will be able to forget everything that happened that night. I just hope that no pony ever finds a way into that sub chamber. I don’t want to even think of what would happen if Aquila ever got free.

When I finished reading what Minuette had left in her report I looked up at Aura and asked, “Do you think this is how she was created?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems like it. Isn’t there anyway you could ask her about it?”

I shook my head, “I haven’t even felt as much as a twitch of thought from her since Pride used that curse on her. I can still feel a bit of her power inside me, I can even access it a little if I try hard enough, but it’s almost like she just vanished into nothingness.”

The Stranger had taken the report and read it over as well, when he finished he said, “I haven’t heard anything about this before, none of the files I have back at my place talk about this at all.”

“Well at least one thing good came from coming down here. Now I know that Aquila was the subject of some kind of project, the question is why?” I asked looking back at the folders and files, “I wonder what else they were working on?”

“Maybe there is more information on those memory orbs or on the recordings?” Aura said, reaching out and grabbing one of the orbs looking it over.

“I’ve never viewed the orbs in that box, I have a couple back at my place that I’ve watched with my recollecter, but they had to do with building this chamber.” The Stranger said.

“Maybe I should take them with me, when I have time I could view them and see if they have any more information about Aquila or what they were working on with this project. It may have information on where this was. If so I may be able to figure out what mom did to save my life.”

“The rules have always been that nothing is supposed to leave this place, but I’ve always thought that rule was kind of stupid. As long as it isn’t information on the location of this place or what it can do, then I don’t mind you taking those, just keep an eye on them.” He said.

Aura grabbed the second orb and placed them in my saddle bags for me while I looked back toward the storage room, “So even with all that information sitting in boxes, you still don’t know what this chamber was meant for?”

“No, everything that was important about this place we kept on the terminals here, but they were destroyed forty or so years after the megaspells. We don’t know if it was one of the guardians or what could have happened. All we know is that somepony came in here and broke everything, that’s why nothing in the control room works.” He said walking back to look out the observation window.

“Maybe they wanted to make it even harder for anypony to figure out how to turn this thing on.” Aura said.

“Not like it matters anymore, all I know is that it was pointless, because the project can still be turned on from the main location. That is if anypony knew where it was or what it was.” He said.

As he talked I kept looking through the boxes in the storage room and something caught my eye. Pulling out a large scroll and unrolling it, I saw it was the blue prints to The Lucky Horseshoe. I remembered part of it from memory of Falafel. This one wasn’t the same one Night Stalker had shown him back then. It had even more detail to it along with a sub chamber deep below the tower that looked like it was meant to house something enormous. Also, I could see that the spire that was at the top of the tower itself lead all the way down to the sub chamber. If I understood blue prints I could probably figure out what most of this meant. I looked back at The Stranger who was still looking out the window, so I slipped the blue prints into my saddle bags. I may not be able to understand what everything on it meant, but I knew a colt that may understand it.

When I was done I turned and walked back toward Aura and the Stranger saying, “What you still haven’t explained to me is why this place mattered to my mom? Why do you worry so much about her getting into this place?”

He looked back at me and said, “I know she wanted to get in here once and she locked down the first terminal with your Pip-Buck to make sure no other pony could get in here. I have a feeling she wants to find a descendent of one of the ponies who could get past that barrier so she could get past the bypass barrier. If she does then all she’ll need to do is get hold of the Mark II and she can come in here. What she’ll do I have no idea, but I don’t even want to give her the chance to find out. I’m entrusting this secret with you Shadow and you as well Aura, you know the danger this poses.”

I nodded and so did Aura, “We understand and we’ll keep it a secret.”

“I just wish you knew how to do a memory spell Shadow, it would make this even easier because you could block the memory yourself. From what I have seen of you, that kind of magic isn’t something you know how to do.”

“It’s not, though I’ve never had the chance to try and learn a spell like that. It’s possible I could learn it if I was given the right training or time to study a spell book.” I said.

He looked thoughtful then said, “I’m making a trip tomorrow to Nimbus, I have something to take care of there. I’ll talk to one of the unicorns I know there and see if they have a spell book that has that kind of spell in it. If so I’ll be sure to get it to you.”

I shrugged, “I wouldn’t mind that, but I still don’t see the need to learn that kind of magic. Even if I could figure out how to use that kind of spell I’m not sure I want to block more of my memories.”

“Well it is possible that a spell book that holds Memory spells, you could use it to help unblock your own lost memories.” He said glancing over at me.

I smirked at that, “You know that does sound nice, but I’m sure something will go wrong if I try and unblock them, but if you really want to try then feel free.”

“I’ll do that, well we should probably get out of here. I don’t want to keep your friends waiting too much longer.” He said turning to leave.

Before he could, Aura spoke up, “I have one more question.”

“What’s that?” he asked looking over at the black and red griffon.

She pointed out the window at the megaspell chambers and the platform in the middle of them, “It had to have taken hundreds of ponies to make something this massive, how did this Night Stalker keep it a secret?”

I saw his green eyes widen a little at the question then he looked away, “Minuette and Amethyst Star were very gifted unicorns, they wiped away the memory of this place from every pony’s mind who worked on this project.”

“By themselves? You expect me to believe they had enough power to be able to wipe away every memory from every worker in this place.” She said.

He shook his head, “Not by themselves, they did something else, follow me I’ll show you before we head out.”

He led back out of the room, the door shutting behind us and relocking. He led us back down the steps and toward the massive megaspell chambers, each one giving off a different colored light. On the other side past the others and closer to the elevator was another yet smaller chamber holding one more megaspell. Its glow wasn’t as bright as the others, it almost looked like it didn’t have much power left in it anymore. None of the cables lead from the other chambers to it. It was all by itself with a small platform in front of it. It was on that platform that I saw a chair and a helmet with wires all over it, one last one connecting to the megaspell chamber itself.

He gestured at it and said, “This is one megaspell I happen to know about, it’s a memory manipulation megaspell. Minuette and Amethyst Star both created it. Once a pony puts the helmet on, the spell is activated. It is programmed to wipe out any information in a pony’s mind about this place or the ponies that were working on the project. This is how they made sure no pony ever spoke to anypony else about what they were working on.”

“The spell inside looks like it’s not holding up well.” I said.

“It was used a lot and most of the magic within it was depleted, even now I’m sure that it only has enough power to work on maybe one or two ponies.” He said turning to head back toward the elevator.

Aura chuckled and said, “Damn, well that would do it I guess. Ponies were fucked up back then weren’t they.”

She started to follow The Stranger back to the lift, I was about to do the same when I heard something from behind me. It almost sounded like Aquila, but it came from the central platform, “Shadow…” it seemed to say.

I looked back at the platform that sat in the center of all the other megaspell chambers, was it me or is that Aquila standing in the center of the platform? She was looking over at me, her dark red eyes glowing, “Aquila?”

Aura looked back at me and said, “What did you say Shadow?”

I pointed at the shape still standing on the central platform, “Do you see a silver unicorn standing there?”

The two of them looked over then The Stranger said, “There’s nopony there Shadow.”

I saw her lips pull into a small smile and she said, “You can’t leave yet Shadow, there is more to this place than the old pony knows.”

“What do you mean? Is that really you Aquila? How come I can’t feel you?” I said taking a step toward the platform.

“SHADOW DON’T GO UP THERE!” The Stranger yelled, “THE PLATFORM IS PROTECTED!”

I ignored him, my eyes still locked on the unicorn who looked so much like me, only taller with swapped colors, “Shadow I need this place if I am to be able to get my power back. I can’t keep fighting this spell Pride cast on me, it’s killing me slowly and you as well. Come up here and help me get my power back.”

I stepped one hoof onto the step that lead up to the platform, “I don’t understand, I thought you were able to fight off the spell?”

The Stranger dashed toward me, but he couldn’t reach me before I fully stepped onto the platform itself. He landed at the base of the steps yelling, “Get down from there right now Shadow Star, if you don’t you’ll set up the security system. YOU’LL DIE!”

I looked back at him and said, “Aquila is up here, she needs my help, she’s dying,” I noticed when I grew closer that arterial blood was dripping from her muzzle and eyes, she looked like hell, “If she dies then so do I,”

“That’s not her Shadow, there’s no pony up there, get down now!” he yelled.

I ignored him again and walked up to the White unicorn, “What happened and how can I help?”

“You’re willing to help me Shadow even after what’s happened over the past few weeks?” She asked.

“You helped save my life back at Appleton, I may not like you, but you are the one keeping me alive at least that’s what you told me. I owe you this much. What do I need to do?”

She smiled wider and I noticed the blood was gone and she looked more powerful than ever, “You’ve already done what I needed you to do Shadow, the power in here is enough to help me get back to full strength. You’re such a FOAL!”

The Stranger went to grab me, but before he could I felt something take hold of my magic and he was blasted away from me. Aquila had taken control, without asking me this time, without even seemingly having to try. I noticed then that the megaspell chambers were glowing brightly now and as soon as my horn went off an alarm started to sound around the chamber.

A voice rang out around us, “Warning, unidentified presence found on lowest level. Unauthorized access to ascension platform has been detected, level ten security shut down has been engaged. Termination in progress, anypony that is a member of the MOA or the MAS stand back to avoid possible injury.”

I could hear Aquila starting to laugh inside my head and her presence started to grow stronger, I couldn’t move my body or summon my magic as the Megaspells started to glow even brighter than before. A shield spell went up all around the platform blocking off The Stranger or Aura from getting to me. I felt my head move and it looked up toward the massive generators that were getting brighter as well.

“Now this is what I call power, I’m so glad The Stranger took us here, it was the perfect place for me to get back what is rightfully mine!”

“Aquila what are you doing?” I yelled inside my head, “You said you were dying from that spell, if that was true then how did you take over so easily?”

My own lips moved as Aquila said, “I didn’t lie to you Shadow, I was dying slowly, that spell was draining away my life little by little. When you stepped onto the platform though I was able to pull at the magic that leads into the megaspells and pull some of its power into myself. With that power I was able to banish what was left of Prides fucking curse. You did you’re part well Shadow and now you’ll be the one trapped inside that cage while I roam the wasteland.”

“I won’t let you hurt her you monster!” The Stranger yelled toward me.

My head looked back at them and she grinned, “I’d love to see you try and stop me Pegasus! I am Aquila, I am all powerful, I am the one creature on Equis that was meant to rule over this destroyed world!”

He lifted his revolver, switched out the ammo in it then said around the bit, “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into Aquila, now let her go before you regret it.”

She laughed more as a countdown started, I heard it and said, “Aquila, if you don’t get away now, we’ll both be killed by the security system here.”

“No we won’t, I can stop anything that this place can throw at me. I’ll just use all the power here to stop whatever it wants to throw at us,” Then she spoke to The Stranger, “That puny gun can’t hurt me Stranger,”

He grinned around the barrel of the revolver and said, “Don’t think so huh, Security by pass code, Night Stalker’s Children, shut down the level ten security system.”

As he spoke the alarms stopped and so did the countdown and the same voice said, “Pass code accepted, level ten Security shut down for five minutes, please remove the unidentified pony from the platform before the system is reactivated.”

Aquila looked at him shocked, “How did you do that?” Then she looked down at her hooves, “Why can’t I draw on the power from those megaspells anymore?”

“Because that bypass shuts everything down for five minutes, so I take it you’re Aquila, the thing Shadow said was living inside of her.”

“I am, now stand aside before I’m forced to turn you into a pile of ash.” She yelled at him.

Something was wrong, I could feel it. A moment ago, Aquila was getting stronger, each second that passed it was like power was flowing from the floor, into my hooves and up into my body. Now it was like everything she had been able to gain from the Megaspells was being pulled away. When I noticed I started to laugh, “You didn’t have enough time to get the power you needed to take hold of me Aquila.”

“Shut up Shadow.” She said her eyes still locked on The Stranger, “You may have shut it down for a few minutes, but that is still long enough for me to take you down Stranger.”

“No, it’s not Aquila, you see this weapon I’m holding, it’s a special revolver, passed down in my family for generations now. Its sole purpose is to kill creatures like you, if you make me, I’ll shoot and even if the shot doesn’t kill you, it will kill your host. From what I understand you need her body to live.” He said.

Aura was looking at the Stranger in horror, “You wouldn’t kill Shadow.”

“Yeah, you’ve been doing all of this to keep her safe. So why should I believe anything you say?” Aquila said, her grip on my mind getting weaker with each passing second.

“I’ll do what has to be done to protect Equestria and the ponies who live in it, even if it is killing the pony I swore to protect.” He said, his eyes never leaving mine.

Aura pulled out her spear and put it right up against his neck, “I won’t let you kill her!”

I couldn’t let this happen, not over this stupid bitch taking control of me again, I wasn’t going to let her do this to me or my friend again. Digging deep I found the small pool of magic that was part of Aquila’s power. It was what was left of what she was able to gain from the megaspells. With all my will I took hold of every ounce of her strength, and pulled it into myself demanding the power she had to become my own.

Aquila was about to say something then she noticed what I was doing, “Don’t do that Shadow, you can’t take in that much power!”

I smiled within the depths of my own mind, the power that was entering my soul was almost too much to handle, but I didn’t care. I just kept on smiling as I said, “If you’re so worried then try and stop me Aquila, if you want my body you’ll have to take it!”

Aura and The Stranger were still standing there looking at Aquila. Both looked confused, as if Aquila was making some kind of strange face. Then she said to me, “If you keep taking that much power your mind will break, and your body will die.”

I smiled again then laughed, “We’ll see about that.” I pulled in the rest of the power, as I did Aquila’s presence seemed to vanish and I was back in control of my own body, a small amount of Aquila was still there in the back of my mind, just like I was used to feeling her.

I took in a deep breath then said, “I was able to put her back in her place.”

The Stranger and Aura both lowered their weapons, Aura saying, “Are you okay Shadow? You don’t look well.”

I walked down the steps then almost collapsed into Aura’s arms, my head feeling like it was ready to split in half. I looked up at her and did my best to smile saying, “I’ll be okay Aura, I just took in too much magic. It feels like my head is about to explode.”

She helped me get back to my hooves, I stood for a moment then almost fell again as my head throbbed again, pain running through my horn and eyes. Aura kept me from smacking my face on the floor, “You’re not okay Shadow, we need to get you back up to the base so you can rest up, you can’t even stand up.”

The Stranger moved closer and helped Aura lift me onto her back saying, “She’s right Shadow, we can worry about what happened later, for now let’s get you out of here.”

I nodded and rested my head on her back, “Okay, that sounds like a good idea.”

They started to make their way back to the elevator Aura saying, “I’m not sure this trip was worth it Stranger, I understand that you wanted her to know about this place, but I still don’t think it was worth it.”

She kept talking with The Stranger but I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying. My headache spiked and it almost blinded me with pain as a little chuckle filled my head, “hee hee hee I warned you Shadow, you can’t take in that much power without consequences. Give it back to me before things get worse, because I promise you it will.”

I did my best to smile through the pain, I tried to open my eyes still holding onto the power I’d taken from Aquila, the dim light was like needles stabbing each eyeball. I moaned and closed them again, my head throbbed again and the world felt like it was starting to spin. Then all the power I was holding onto pressed against something deep in my mind. It felt like a thin sheet of glass, as the power I was holding pressed against it I could tell that it was cracked as if something had been damaged inside my own mind. Before I could tell what it was, it shattered. Unbelievable pain filled my head and body as rushes of images started to flow into me.

I thrashed and started to scream, falling off Aura’s back. She tried to catch me but with how much my body was thrashing she couldn’t. I slammed into the ground, but I couldn’t even feel it. Aura and The Stranger both tried to hold me down to the lift’s floor as it slowly made its way back up to the top level of the chamber. I screamed louder as the power I had taken rushed to my horn and it blasted out toward the ceiling barely missing Aura and the Stranger. The pain slowly faded away as the power left me, but the images kept coming. My head fell back to the floor the last thing I saw was the face of Aura trying to tell me something. Funny she seems to do that a lot, she’s always worrying about me. Such a good friend to worry like…that.

I let the flow of images come and I submitted to whatever they were and whatever they had to show me…

oooOOOooo

I was running down the halls of the Steel Rangers bunker, okay maybe it wouldn’t be considered running to most ponies, but for me even a quick trot was as close to a run as I could manage without worrying my nurse. Mom’s been gone for two weeks now, but the nurse I had, knew the same spell as mom did to help keep me feeling better. Today was what mom would call a good day for me and I was going to take full advantage of it. I moved into the mess hall avoiding two knights and a scribe who were trying to leave. I gave a quick sorry as I moved passed them my eyes searching for the pony I needed to see.

As I ran and avoided more Steel Rangers as they moved around the mess hall, I almost ran head first into an old stallion who stepped in front of my path. I came to a halt looking up at the Stallion a wide smile on my face, “Elder Apple Jam I found you at last.” I said in my young voice.

He chuckled lightly, a hoof coming up to rub my black mane, “Heh heh, Morning you are full of vinegar today aren’t you? You know you aren’t supposed to be running around like that.”

“On most days I’m not, but I’m feeling really good today, look I’m barely out of breath.” I said giving him an even bigger smile.

“Well look at that, you do look good today. Are you sure you’re feeling okay little one?” he asked me. He was tall with a peach colored coat and a brown and grey mane, his eyes reminded me a little of mine, they were just a lighter red color.

“I feel fine, even my nurse said I looked better than normal and I decided to go on an adventure.”

“Oh, really now, and what kind of adventure are you planning on doing while you’re in the bunker Morning?”

“There’s a mystery in the bunker and I’m going to solve it, but I need a partner, somepony to back me up in case I get into trouble. That pony is you Elder, I need a wise smart pony like you to help me solve this mystery.” I said confidently.

The elder looked around at the rest of the ponies who were going about their day, then he smiled and looked back at me, “I had a lot of paper work to go over today. We have three missions that just finished up and I need to look over the reports, we lost two rangers out near Appleton last night and I need to read the report on what happened with them, and there are new recruits that need my attention.”

My eyes fell, “I understand, you’re a busy pony, I just wanted the best of the best to help me out. I guess I’ll just go see what one of the scribes is up too.”

He rubbed my mane again, “You know what the best part about being the Elder is don’t you?”

I looked up at him, “No sir.”

He winked down at me, “It means I can slack off whenever I want too. Now what is this mystery you have for us today Detective Morning Star.”

I almost jumped for joy, “You really mean it Elder!?”

“Hehe I sure do; how could I say no to that cute face of yours. Also, it’s not every day you are able to go around playing like this.”

“This is awesome, okay I was talking to Vervain the other day and she told me that somepony has been stealing some stuff from the scribes. We are going to find out who it is and bring him to justice!” I said doing my best not to jump up and down.

His face went from happy to curious, “Knight Vervain told you this did she? And how do you plan on finding out who’s been stealing things?”

My smile grew bigger as I said, “That’s the easy part, I figured that whoever is stealing stuff from the scribes has to be one of the Scribes.”

He thought about that for a moment then said, “You may have a point, but how did you come up with that deduction?”

I looked at him confused, “What’s a deduction?”

He chuckled, “It means idea, how did you figure that out?”

“Oh, well Vervain said that this pony has been getting away with it for six months now and they only just caught it because mom said something about the numbers being off with what’s been coming in and what’s been going out. Only another Scribe like mom would be able to do something about that.”

He started to walk out of the mess hall and I followed him, “Well if you are right about this then we should go investigate, shouldn’t we?”

“That’s right Elder, I have three ponies in mind that I think could have done it too!”

“Do you really, you’ve been a busy little filly haven’t you?”

“I don’t get out much, since my room is right next to the Scribes rooms, I hear a lot of what they talk about during the day. There are three ponies who are always talking about how unfair things are around here. I think it’s one of them, because I know they said something about doing something to get even.” I said as he led us to the area of the bunker that the Scribes used.

“Morning to start our investigation I think we should start by getting some evidence, now which Scribes did you over hear.” The Elder asked.

“Junior Scribe Butternut, Scribe Basil, and Senior Scribe Tallow, I’ve over heard them at least three times now talking about stuff.”

“And who do you think is most likely the culprit?” he asked me.

I took a moment to think, “My best…Deduction…is Tallow, he was the one making the most noise when he was complaining just the other day.”

“Then let’s start with his room.” He said walking off toward one of the doors that lead into a privet room, “You do know that this is a very serious accusation, he won’t be happy if you’re wrong.”

I chuckled lightly, “He can be mad all he wants, that’s why I have you to watch my back Elder. You’re my deputy.”

He laughed heartily, “Oh your deputy huh, well Detective Morning Star, since you’re so sure, how about you knock on the door and interrogate him? I’ll just wait right here and keep an eye on things.”

“Yes sir,” I said bringing my hoof up to knock on the door.

A moment later another tall stallion opened it and looked down at me, his face looking irritated for me interrupting him, “What do you want kid?”

“I’m requesting entrance to your room Senior Scribe Tallow. I’m investigating stolen tech, we have reason to believe you know something about it,” I said puffing my chest out and trying to look tough.

“Piss off kid, I don’t have time to play games with you, I have plenty of other things to deal with today,” he said moving to shut the door, but I stepped in.

“Tallow, you will let me look through your room, if you do I can rule you out as a suspect!”

“I said piss off before I go find your mother and have her make you leave.”

It was right then that the Elder came into view saying, “Now Tallow I’m sure you can help this little filly out, all she wants to do is rule you out as a suspect. Unless you have something to hide from our bunkers best detective.”

“Elder Apple Jam, I didn’t see you there. I’m sorry but I don’t have the time to be playing games with her, I have too much work to do,” he said giving a slight bow.

“This won’t take more than a minute. I’m sure you can take a couple minutes out of your busy day to humor her, and if not her then me,” he said giving the Scribe a look.

He bowed again glaring over at me, “Yes Elder, but I’m not sure why you care about what this filly has to say.”

“I care because she’s a smart little filly and I trust her judgment. If you have nothing to hide then you shouldn’t care one bit about her looking through your room,” he said then he turned to me, “Go ahead Morning, I’ll wait out here with the Suspect.”

I beamed and pushed past the other stallion and started to look through his stuff, his room wasn’t large he only had a few things in it. A couple of hoof lockers, a desk with a terminal, and a bed. I started to look through one of the hoof lockers, only finding a couple of odds and ends, same for the other one. I checked under his bed, as I did I could hear the Scribe talking to the Elder.

“You really shouldn’t let her go around doing things like this. Isn’t she that filly who’s always sick in the Infirmary?”

“She is, and I’ll do whatever I want to do in my own bunker Tallow. She came to me with information from Vervain about missing tech and she thinks she knows who took it. She could be wrong, but I’ve learned over the years to not take anything lightly.”

I was about to give up and say this was a bust when I thought about something. If I wanted to hide something from mom, I’d put it under my matrass, she always forgets to look there. I moved over to the bed again and pressed a hoof under the matrass I dug around until I felt something and I pulled it out. It was a little black book. I grinned wide and brought it over to the Elder and Tallow, “What is this and why were you hiding it under your matrass?”

He tried to take it from me but the Elder was faster, he took it from me with his muzzle then using his hooves he opened it and started to look at the pages. The Scribe looked worried, “That’s nothing Elder Apple Jam, just notes I’m keeping on some of my research.”

As the Elder was looking at the book another Scribe came running up to him, she was one of the younger Junior Scribes that helped my nurse from time to time, her name was Hazel, she was panting when she reached us saying, “There you are Elder, somepony told me that they saw Morning Star with you, I’ve been looking for her all day.”

He looked up from the book and said, “It’s okay Junior Scribe Hazel, Morning Star has been helping me with a little project,” then his gaze fell on the other Scribe, “I want to speak to you in my office Tallow, from what I’m reading here you have some explaining to do.”

He looked angry, “For what? I didn’t do anything wrong, that book isn’t shit. I bet her mother Grim told her to plant that in my room.”

“You just said it was yours Tallow, don’t you dare go blaming Morning Star or her mother for your indiscretions, my office NOW!” he said his hard glare never leaving the other stallions.

He hung his head, “Yes Elder right away.”

When he started walking off he looked back at me and asked, “How did you know he was the one Morning?”

“He seemed the guiltiest, like I said, he was always complaining about you and the way things are being done here. I just went with my gut.”

He smiled at me, “Well you did a good job Morning Star, I’ll be sure to let Grim know how much of a help you were to me today. You should go with Hazel, I’m sure you’ve had enough adventure for one day.”

I did feel like I was getting weak and my heart was pumping faster, so I nodded and beamed up at him, “Thanks for playing with me Elder, I had a lot of fun.”

“So did I, now off to bed with you, I expect I’ll be busy for a while now. Good job Detective, it was an honor serving as your deputy,” he gave me a wink and a smile as he walked off telling two Knights to follow him as he went back toward his office.

Hazel smiled, “The Elder sure likes you Morning Star. Now let’s get you back to bed, Vervain or your mother will be cross with me if they found out I let you wander off while I was keeping an eye on you.”

“I’m sorry Hazel I don’t want to get you into trouble, I was just tired of laying around all the time.”

She smiled at me, “It’s okay Kiddo, I remember what it was like when I was your age…”

The memory faded away…only to be replaced by another…

oooOOOooo

“Morning Star are you paying attention?” Mom asked.

I looked back at her and away from the other fillies and colts that were playing just outside our room in the Steel Rangers bunker, “Yeah.”

Mom gave me a hard look then smiled, “No you weren’t. You were watching the other kids playing, weren’t you?”

I nodded, “I don’t understand why I can’t play with them. They look like they are having a lot of fun,” there weren’t very many kids in the Bunker, most of them were a few years older than I was, but they all seemed to be having so much fun.

“You know why Morning, you get sick too easily and you can’t overexert yourself, you remember what happened last time I let you go play with the other kids.”

I did remember, I had a major episode as mom called it and I couldn’t get out of bed for over a week. I knew why I couldn’t play with them, but that didn’t stop me from asking every other day. Mom had the spell to keep me healthy, why couldn’t she just use it before I went to play so I could have fun for once? I groaned and laid my head down on the small desk I was sitting at while mom tried to teach me, “I know, I just don’t like it.”

She smiled and came over kissing the top of my head, “I know sweetie, but I promise soon that you’ll be able to play with the other kids.”

I looked up hopefully, “Did you find something finally that can fix me?”

She brought up her silver Pip-Buck looking through some of her notes, “I think I have, we’ll be making a trip really soon to meet up with Vervain.”

“Yay, I haven’t seen her in forever!” I said jumping off my seat, “When are we leaving?”

“Slow down Morning, don’t overdo it,” she said, her horn glowing as she used her magic to pick me up and place me back in my seat, “For Celestia’s sake you already look worn out.”

My heart was beating faster than normal, and I did feel weak, but I didn’t like mom worrying too much, “I’ll be okay, cross my heart.”

She laughed, “I really wish you wouldn’t use that particular metaphor. I’ve learned over the years how to tell when you’re getting sick again. If you don’t stay calm I’m going to have to put you on bed rest again.”

I slunk down in my chair, “Fine, I’ll be good.”

She laughed again, “You always say that.”

There was a knock at our door then Elder Apple Jam walked in, “Senor Scribe Grimoire, may I have a word with you please?”

Mother bowed a little, “Elder what a surprise, what do I owe the honor?”

He smiled, “I heard a rumor that you were going to be heading out tomorrow, is this true?”

She nodded, “Yes, I obtained more information on the Project I was looking into, I think I finally found what I needed to save my daughter.”

His eyes got wide, “Did you really, that’s great news. May I ask where you’ll be heading off to?”

“It’s a lab that I believe is hidden under one of the M.A.S.E.B.S. Towers outside of the trading town of Cartwheel.”

“That’s perfect.”

She looked at him confused, “Why do you say that?”

“Because I have a new mission for you and it just so happens to be by where you’re going.”

“What do you need me to do Elder? Remember you said that I could always put my daughter’s health first,” Mom said looking back at me.

“I did and I still will, you go and find this project. Afterwards I want you to go to Stable 28 with Paladin Vervain. She’s been having trouble with the ponies there, they still don’t seem to trust her.”

Mom scratched the back of her head, “That makes sense, Stable ponies don’t trust outsiders very much. I’m shocked she was able to talk her way into the Stable in the first place. How will I be able to help?”

He chuckled again, “Easy, I want you to find a way in and start modifying the memories of all the ponies there.”

“You want me to do WHAT!?” mom said with a look of shock on her face, “Modify the memories of at least five hundred ponies? Wouldn’t that take months? Not to mention the inconsistencies I’d have to deal with as I’m working on the ponies there. Also how do you plan on me getting in there, I’m a unicorn? That Stable is an earth pony only stable.”

“Grim, I know you’ll figure out a way to make it work, you always do. At the very least we need to make sure ponies don’t try and kick her out. She’s been learning a lot about that Stable over the last few weeks and I want more information.”

“What about Morning? I can’t just be away for that long.”

“I was planning on you bringing her with you, I’m guessing you wanted her to travel with you for this other mission of yours. Just keep her with you when you go into the stable. Who knows it might help you get in,” he said still smiling, “Grim, I put a lot of trust in you and you know that. I have the upmost faith that you’ll be able to make this work.”

I kept watching as mom looked down at her hooves, “If I can get in and Morning is better, then I’ll do my best to make this plan work Elder, but I can’t promise that I’ll be able to modify that many memories. I’m good at memory spells, but I’m not sure I’m that good.”

He put a hoof on her shoulder and patted it slowly, “If you can’t then we’ll have to go to plan B, but I hope you can,” he moved closer and said in a quieter voice, “I’ve been getting reports about a pony from Stratus looking for you and Morning Star.”

She pulled away then looked back at me then at him again, “You don’t think it’s…”

He nodded, “I heard the description from an old friend in the Talons, it’s him. I know you put a lot of trust in me when you told me about your past Grim, this is me showing you how much I trust you. You’ve been a loyal member to my branch of the Steel Rangers for years, this is my way of paying you back for everything you’ve done. Use this as a way to hide from him for now, Stable 28’s location isn’t known to very many and it’s a better place to hide than this old bunker.”

“I suppose it’s a good idea, and maybe Morning will be able to find friends her own age in the Stable. We could start a better life there at least for a while.”

“Mom, what are you talking about?” I asked, getting a little confused by the older pony’s words.

She smiled back at me, “It’s nothing sweetie, Elder Apple Jam is just giving me details on my next mission, one you get to join me on.”

“Yes, little one, you’ll be going to a place where you might meet ponies your own age,” The Elder said.

“But what about you Elder, are you coming with us?”

He shook his head, “I have my own job to do here at the bunker.”

“But when will I see you again?” I asked, I love the Elder almost as much as I did my own father, he was so kind and wise.

He walked around mom and rubbed my mane, “Don’t you worry, we’ll see each other again one day, you have my word.”

I moved forward and hugged him tight, “I’m gonna miss you Elder Apple Jam.”

He wrapped his forelegs around me saying, “I’ll miss you too, it’s going to be a lot quieter around here with you gone. I’ll have to find a new way to escape my daily duties for a while.”

I pulled away and stood up as tall as I could on my chair, “Just remember not to overdo it, you’re getting old Elder.”

He barked a laugh, “Hahaha, I was old before you were even born, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Mom walked over and asked, “I’m assuming you want me to leave right away?”

“Take a couple hours to get you’re things ready but yes, you’ll be leaving tonight,” he said turning to leave.

“Yes sir, I’ll be ready to go soon.”

He turned and smiled once more at me, “Remember what I always tell you Morning Star.”

I beamed at him, “Always keep your head held high, and never show your enemy your back!”

“That’s a Good girl,” he said then left the room as I yelled, “Ad Victorium!”

When he was gone mom moved to shut the door, “Morning, we’ll be leaving soon, I want you to take a nap while I get things ready.”

“Aww do I have to?”

“Yes, you do, this is going to be a long trip and I need you to get as much rest as you can,” she said picking me up in her magic and moving me over to the small bed that was next to hers.

I yawned and nodded, “Okay.”

“Good girl, mommy will just be doing some work while you sleep.”

I closed my eyes as mom went around the room to pack our things. Ten minutes later when she thought I was sleeping, she moved over to her desk. She looked back at me, but didn’t notice I was still awake. I just had my eyes cracked open. She started to do something with her Silver Pip-Buck then a moment later a Stallions voice came out of it.

“Grimoire is that you?” the stallion said, he had a hard and commanding voice.

“Yes, Elder Wolfsbane, I have an update for you.”

“I was wondering when you were going to contact me again, it’s been weeks since your last report,” he said.

“I’ll be leaving for Cartwheel tonight with Morning Star to look into that Project you found files on. I think I located it just outside the town.”

“Hmmm, Cartwheel huh? Now there’s a town I wouldn’t want to visit any time soon myself.”

“Why’s that sir?” Mom asked.

“It’s a long story, don’t worry too much about it. What do you plan on doing once you’re in Cartwheel?”

“I’ll be heading to the lab that should hold the project itself, if everything works I’ll be able to save my daughter. If that works the way I think it should, we should be able to use the project for what you want it for.”

The other elder took a minute to respond, “What if this is another dead end like the last three times you said you found a project that you could use?”

“It’s not, I’ve found memory orbs of one of the Children of the Night, it shows the project and I saw the data they used when they built it. This is real, I know it.”

“I hope you’re right, but if that’s all you have why did you bother me with this, you could’ve easily given me a written report on the whole thing once you were out of Hidden Sands.”

Mom sighed, “I know, but that’s not the only reason I’m contacting you. I’ve been given a new mission, I’ll be going into a Stable to help Vervain.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure yet, but it could be a year or two, it all depends on what we find while we’re in there. I wanted you to know before I head out just in case I can’t get a message to you once I’m inside.”

Another pause then he said, “It can’t be helped, just make sure you do whatever you can to keep me updated on the Project once you find out more. I’ll be sure to update Crackerjack on the details as well later, he’ll keep an eye on Elder Apple Jam while you’re away.”

Mom tensed up, “He’s a good pony Sir, I don’t think we have to worry about him.”

“He’s a fool, honestly if it wasn’t for your persistence I would’ve had Crackerjack take care of him a long time ago. I’m warning you Grim, if he proves to be a problem, he’ll be taken out. His daughter has a better head on her shoulders and would be more willing to listen to what I have to say more than that old fart.”

“I understand Sir,”

“Grim, what will you be doing with your daughter while you’re in the Stable?” he asked.

“She’s coming with me sir, I can’t be away from her for that long.”

“What if this project works though?”

“I still won’t let her out of my sight, I’ve done all of this to save her.”

“You remember our deal Grim, once she’s healthy she’s supposed to come to Los Alicorn to become one of our Scribes, that’s if she really is as talented with magic as you,” he said.

“I remember sir, but she stays with me until I know she’s going to be okay, after that, then we can talk about her going to Los Alicorn.”

“Good, now you should finish up with what you’re doing, I expect to hear back from you in two weeks.”

“Yes sir, Grimoire out,” she said, hitting a button on the side of her Pip-Buck to end the transmission. When she did she leaned back in her chair and sighed then said, “I hope this is all worth it. Goddesses what did I do to get myself into this mess?”

When she turned to check on me again, I made sure to close my eyes, not wanting her to know I heard everything she said. But I couldn’t hide the tears as they ran down my face and into my pillow…

oooOOOooo

I could feel another memory starting to replace the last one, but as it came closer and the images started to form, I felt my mind being pulled away from it again as if somepony was trying to keep me from seeing my past. I tried to pull away, I wasn’t going to let anypony stop me from finally finding out who I was. I’ve wanted to know more about myself since I first woke up in the Stable, this was my chance to finally know.

There was another tug on my mind and I was thrust down and soon I found myself in a room. It wasn’t anything special, just a room with white walls and nothing else in it. I knew that this wasn’t a memory, I was myself again, not the small sick filly I’d been only moments ago as I relived some of my past. It was then that I noticed another pony in the room…it was mom.

I backed away saying, “What are you doing here?”

She looked younger, almost exactly how she had when she lived in the Stable. She smiled at me, not a cruel smile like when I last saw her, but a kind one, “It’s about time you broke through that barrier Shadow,”

I looked at her confused, “What do you mean?”

“You look confused sweetie, are you okay?” she asked taking a step toward me, but I backed against the wall wishing I had some kind of weapon on me.

“I’m fine, why are you here…where are we anyway?” I asked trying to figure out what was up with this creepy white room.

She laughed gently, “This is just a small space in your mind Shadow.”

“My mind? Are you Aquila trying to play tricks on me again? If you are, I’m not falling for it,” I said.

“No, I’m not that…thing, I’m your mother…well a part of her magic at least. I left a small bit of my power within you just in case you ever needed me or if you broke through the magic I used to block away your memories. Why are you backing against the wall like that?”

“Because the last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me. I’ll have you know that I really don’t appreciate it either.”

She got a far away look for a moment then said, “Why would I do that?”

“I dunno, but you didn’t know who I was, you wanted my Pip-Buck and you were gonna kill me to get it. You turned into a bitch with age.”

“Watch your language young lady and I have no memory of that ever happening, but that’s not surprising. It’s been a long time since I left this echo of myself inside your head. If it makes you feel better, I’m not really Grim, and I won’t hurt you.”

I relaxed a little, then asked, “So you aren’t real?”

“I’m real, but I’m also not real.”

“That makes no sense.”

She frowned then took a minute to think, finally she perked up and said, “Think of it like this, when your mother, the REAL Grim left the Stable, she made sure to reseal the spell blocking your memory. When she did, she left a small piece of herself in you, that piece is me. I’m still your mom, but I’m not the body or soul of your mom, just an echo of her personality and magic.”

“Okay, that I can understand, but why are you showing up now?” I asked finally moving closer to her. When I did the room changed and I found myself in Stable 28’s atrium, “Damn Aquila was right, I always seem to find myself back in this fucking place. Right language sorry.”

She laughed a little, sitting down at one of the tables, “That means you felt safe when you were here, even if you didn’t like it very much. Come sit with me so we can talk, I don’t have much time before the spell that crated me fades away, and I have a few things to talk to you about.”

I just looked at her and asked, “What has you so happy?”

“I just can’t believe how much you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

“I wouldn’t say I grew that much, I’m still a shrimp.”

She laughed again, “There’s nothing wrong with being short Shadow, my mother wasn’t much taller than you.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Yeah, yeah.”

She laughed once more “Oh my dear Shadow, you are still so difficult.” mom laughed a little harder.

“Anyways you said you had something to talk to me about?” I said trying to go back to the previous conversation

“Oh yes, well I’m sure you know by now that I was the one who blocked your memories once we got to Stable 28.”

“Yeah, I found that out a couple weeks back.”

“Well, I did that because of what happened to you after you merged with Aquila. The first two nights you were in the stable, you kept having nightmares and when you did, you would give off extremely powerful bursts of magic. It almost got us kicked out of the Stable. I had to get rid of those memories just so you could sleep, but not matter how hard I tried, you kept having dreams and problems with your magic. In the end I blocked everything from you and made up a lie saying you got hurt. I did all this just to keep your mind intact,” she said leaning her head on her hooves.

“I figured that just by what I learned already, but I don’t understand what the point of all of it was. How does making me forget who I was stop the power from flowing out of me like it was?”

“Aquila was still weak from using her magic to keep you alive, she cured the curse that was around your heart and it almost killed her. I tried to cage her away a couple times, but she was using your memories to hide herself from my magic and she was pulling on your own magic to get stronger. Finally, I had to get rid of them all and put up a barrier around your mind to keep her out of your memories. With nowhere to hide in your head, she was easier to find and cage. It was the only way I could protect you at the time, back then I still didn’t know what she was or why she was in your head. Even when I had to leave the Stable I still didn’t understand her fully.”

“I guess I can understand that too. Why didn’t you just remove her from my body once you had her caged up?”

She sighed, “Because I didn’t know what she was or how her power worked, if I did something wrong, you could’ve died. I wasn’t going to risk that, not after I finally had you healthy.”

“So, you caged her away instead hoping that one day I’d be strong enough to fight her off.”

“Not really, I wanted her caged until you got out of the Stable and came to find me, I was hoping by then I would’ve learned everything I needed about her and what she is so I could remove her myself. The problem is from what I can tell, you let her out of her cage,” she said sadly.

“I don’t remember ever doing that.”

“The only way she could’ve gotten free was if you accepted her help with something. Over the years she would’ve been able to weaken the cage enough to talk with you sometimes. If I know that bitch like I do, she probably offered to help you stop the flow of memories you should have started getting back when you found the Mark II,” Mom said.

I looked at her shocked, “That IS what happened, she said she could make the pain in my head go away and I said yes.”

“That’s what I thought, it would explain why the magic was shattered by you and not the protection spell I put on the Pip-Buck. Damn I knew I should’ve left you some kind of clue about that when I left, but I didn’t have much time,” she said.

“It’s not that bad really, I agree that she can be a bitch, but she did save my life more than once.”

“I’m sure she did, she needs you alive to keep herself alive at least until she can take over your body for herself. One thing I do know about her, is that she’s a parasite, she can’t live without a host.”

“She’s said as much to me before, but what does all this have to do with you showing up like this?” I asked.

“Like I said, I set up this spell in case you ever broke the memory spell yourself and if Aquila was out of her cage. I’m here to make sure she can’t take you over for a while.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“When we’re done talking this echo of me is going to re-cage her. It won’t last forever, not with how strong she was able to get ever since you left the Stable, but I can keep her at bay for a little while, giving you time to figure out a way to remove her yourself.”

I groaned, “I don’t see that happening, she’s too strong.”

“Shadow, that sounds like a pony who’s given up all hope.”

“Because I have, the only reason I broke through the memory spell was because I was able to take back some of the magic she stole and keep it away from her, its only a matter of time before she finds a new way to get what she wants.”

“I have faith that you’ll figure out a way to fix this,”

“And what if I can’t?”

Mom’s face fell, “Then there’ll only be one choice left to you, you’ll have to kill her, by killing yourself. As much as I hate to say it, that’s the only way I can think of that’ll put an end to her for good.”

My eyes fell, “I’ve already thought about that, but I really don’t wanna have to die just to stop her, there has to be another way.”

“The only other thing I could see working, is if you found a Zebra who knows how to make a protection ward talisman. I may not know what she is, but I know that the magic I used to cage her was close to what a talisman like that would do.”

“I used to have one, but I lost it a few days ago when I was fighting Pride.”

She looked shocked, “Pride? You met The Seven Sins of Equinity?”

“I did, and I fought them a few times too. I killed Pride just last week.”

“How did you do that? You say it like it was just another trip to the grocery store,” she asked, the shock never leaving her face.

“It’s a long story and like you said we don’t have time…was he really my uncle? From what I saw in a couple of memories it seemed like he was the one who cursed me.”

She looked sad again, “I don’t have the ability to talk about those days, it would have been too long and I probably wouldn’t have finished it by the time this magic fades, but I can tell you that he is my brother…or was.”

Great so I killed my own uncle, I wish I could feel bad about that, but I couldn’t. Whoever Pride was before, he was a monster when he died, “I wish you could tell me more about him.”

“I do too, but if you want those answers you’ll have to ask the real me, this echo can’t answer those kinds of questions.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised, that’s how things seem to go for me out here,” I sighed, “I can’t even ask you in person, because you’ve gone completely nuts.”

“You said something about that before, you said I didn’t remember you?”

“Yeah, I tried to tell you who I was, but you just got mad and told me I died ten years ago.”

The echo of mom looked thoughtful again, “Somepony must’ve wiped my memories of what happened and replaced them.”

“If I run into you again, I’ll have to kill you. I can’t see any other way of helping you.”

“If my memory in the present was messed with, it can be reversed. You’ll just need to find somepony to teach you memory magic. If you learn some of the spells you could fix the damage that was done.”

I looked at her hopefully, “Do you mean it?”

She laughed, “Shadow, my special talent with magic is all about memory magic, if anypony knows how to work around memories it’s me. The Spells you’d have to learn aren’t hard either. So, don’t give up hope so quickly.”

I couldn’t help but smile a little, “I can at least say I’ll try.”

“That’s my Little Star, now I should finish this up, I don’t have much power in me, and if I wait too long I won’t be able to cage Aquila again.”

“Do you have to go so soon? I have so many more questions I need to ask you,” I said reaching out to put a hoof on hers.

She smiled and said, “I wish I could stay forever, but I’m not really your mom, just a spell that looks like her. Don’t give up hope on helping the real me, deep down she still knows who you are. All you need to do is help her get that memory back.”

As she spoke a small ball of black light appeared on the table in front of us, in the middle of it there was a small speck of white, “What’s that?”

“This is Aquila, she doesn’t have a true body or form, she’s just energy right now, and not much of it at the moment. Whatever happened to her and you, it did a lot of damage.”

“I kinda feel sorry for her, I think the only reason she’s so evil is because she’s tired of being trapped.”

“I’m sure she is, but sorry or not, she’s a threat to The Wasteland and to you,” Mom said, her form starting to glow. She pulled the ball of light into herself her smile getting bigger.

“What do I do now Mom?”

She smiled, “You do what you need to, worry about yourself first and me second. I’ll keep her at bay for as long as I can, she may still be able to break through now and then to talk to you, but she can’t take over your mind. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m hoping I can buy you at least a few weeks to figure something out.”

Her form was starting to fade along with the ball of light that was Aquila, so I said, “I love you Mom!”

She smiled wider a tear in her eyes, “I love you too. Also, one last thing before I go, when this spell is complete it’ll fix some of the damage you did to the memory spell, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to start remembering things about yourself a lot easier now. Good Luck my Little Star, remember to shine brighter than everypony else…”

She disappeared the last thing I saw on her face was a smile, she looked so proud of me. I smiled back then sighed, “I guess it’s time to get back to my friends…”

oooOOOooo

I opened my eyes slowly, I looked around wondering for a moment where I was. Then I noticed that I was laying on one of Javelin’s couches, “Aura? Stranger?”

I heard someone moving off the other couch. Aura’s face appeared over me, “Well at least you weren’t out as long as you normally are. How ya feeling Shrimp?”

I sat up looking around, “I feel…good actually. How long have I been out?”

“Maybe a half hour or so, you scared the shit out of The Stranger when you blasted the ceiling then passed out. I wasn’t worried though, I’m getting used to you passing out like that,” she said sitting on the couch next to me.

“Where did he go?” I asked noticing that The Stranger wasn’t here anymore, same for Wind Thrasher and Wingnut.

“He had to get back, he said he was away for too long as it was. I told him you’d be fine and not to worry about you too much.”

“That’s too bad, I wanted to ask him a little more before he had to leave.”

Aura sighed, “I know, but he’s living a double life. He can’t spend too much time down here without somepony noticing he’s gone. I think he would’ve stuck around to make sure you were okay, but he got some kind of transmission. He left in a hurry.”

I looked over at her, “What kind of transmission?”

“Something’s happening above the clouds, though I’m not sure what. That’s all he would tell me before he left.”

“Any idea what it could be?”

“No idea, we talons tend to stay out of Enclave affairs,” she said yawning.

“I remember reading that on the rules of The Red Talons.”

She nodded, “The Red Talons have their own problems with The Enclave, but I do know that most every talon company hates working with them. Personally I think they’re probably just really shitty bosses.”

I sighed, “I never got a chance to ask any of the Red Talons, but why do they hate the Enclave so much? What happened at Griffonstone that would piss off Greta so much that she made a rule about working with them?”

“I don’t know all the details personally, but I do know that a few years after the war, The Enclave started moving in on Griffon owned skies. That pony Night Stalker lead an attack on Griffonstone itself, from what I know, he made it uninhabitable and the remaining griffons had to find homes in Equestria. That’s about the time Talon companies started up. The Red Talons were the first. Whatever Night Stalker did, it pissed Greta off, because it was after the attack on Griffonstone that she left to form The Red Talons.”

“Damn, it had to be bad if Greta left Night Stalkers side like that. From what I’ve seen, those two were very close,” I said leaning back and looking up at the ceiling.

She smiled, “I don’t know about that, Greta is honored in The Red Talons, but she’s also hated. We love her because of what she built and the traditions she started, but in the end, she betrayed her own kind.”

I frowned, “How’d she do that?”

“No Griffon knows what she did, only Tonto knows. All we’re told is that she broke one of her own rules and left the Talons in the end, leaving her son to take over as the new leader,” Aura said simply.

“So even Greta couldn’t hold up to her own rules huh?”

She laughed, “No she couldn’t, but if I take after her in any way, then I’m not surprised.”

“You do kind of remind me of her in a way, you look different, but your personalities are the same,” I said snickering a little.

“You’re going to make me sick, stop comparing me to family,” she said, but I could tell she was joking, “All joking aside, I know what you mean, mom used to say that too. We have a recollecter in Crimson Canyon and she’s viewed a couple of the memory orbs we have of Greta.”

“I wonder if Gigi would ever let me look at them?”

“It’s not up to her, Tonto is the one who you’d have to ask. I don’t see why he’d mind, he would probably like you,” she said.

“I was hoping I could meet with him as soon as I was done with finding Stardust.”

“Well if we end up having to go back to Crimson Canyon I’ll introduce you.”

I laughed again, “I look forward to it. By the way, where are Wind Thrasher and Wingnut?”

“They’re just outside, they wanted fresh air after being cooped up in here for so long. They were just waiting for you to wake up, Javelin stopped in too. She wanted to know if you were interested in meeting the rest of the leaders around here when you woke up.”

I took a minute to think about it, “I guess it couldn’t hurt, I’d like to learn more about The Annihilators.”

“Yeah, same for me,” she said thinking for a moment finally she asked, “What happened to you anyway? I mean one minute the bitch was back, then everything started to go to shit, then you took over again and starting screaming bloody murder and passed out.”

“Long story short, Aquila tricked me into stepping onto that platform. I guess she is able to borrow power from things like megaspells. That platform was connected to the megaspell chambers and she took as much power as she could and used it to destroy the curse Pride used on her, then she still had enough power to take over my mind. All I did was reach out and take the power away from her while she was distracted by you and The Stranger. Problem was, I can’t handle that much magic and it messed me up a little. On the plus side with so much magic pulsing through me without Aquila to help control it, I was able to break down some of the barrier that was blocking my memories.”

She looked surprised, “You mean, you remember everything about your past now?”

I blushed a little, “Well not everything, but I’m starting to. I ran into something inside my head that was a spell of mom’s. She explained that it would take time for me to remember everything, but over time I’ll get all my memories back.”

She looked confused, “You mean your mom left something of herself inside of you? That’s a little weird.”

“She did it to protect me from Aquila if she got too strong and if the magic blocking my memory was broken by another. The echo of her that I saw was able to cage Aquila for a time. That way I’ll have some time to find some way of ridding myself of her or at the very least find a way to block her for good,” I replied.

“So, we won’t have to worry about her?”

“Not for a while, at least. It’ll make things a lot easier while we find a way to get Stardust back to normal. If I’m lucky I might be able to find a way to help mom too.”

She frowned, “I thought you said we’d have to kill her?”

“We might have to, but I’m hoping that whatever happened to her, that it can be fixed. I don’t know what it was, either Pride modified her memories or something else happened to make her forget me, but if I can get my memories back, then so can she.”

“Well I won’t argue with you, but I’m still down for killing her, she’s not a good pony Shadow.”

“You’re only saying that because of how you feel about your own mom.”

“No, I really mean it Shadow, she’s not a good pony, not anymore. Even if you do fix what happened to her, do you really think she’ll just magically be the mother you used to know?”

I shrugged, “No, but I have to give her the chance to explain herself. Sometimes moms do things for their children that they can’t understand.”

She looked over at me, “Not my mother, she’s too busy being the high and mighty leader of The Red Talons to care one bit about her own kids.”

“Are you really sure about that?”

“Shadow I’ve known my mother a lot longer than you, yeah I’m sure. Sometimes I wish she wasn’t the leader just to see if she’d be different, but I know I’m just fooling myself.”

I looked away and kept my muzzle shut, I couldn’t just outright tell Aura the truth about Gigi. I wanted to, but I gave my word that I wouldn’t unless she asked me about it. When some time passed I finally asked Aura, “Can we talk about what we were talking about before Stardust attacked?”

Her eyes fell and she looked down at her Talons, “Shadow, I’m not sure I can talk about this. I keep trying but every time I get close I seem to choke and I can’t get the words past my beak.”

“Aura, I think I know what’s on your mind if you can’t seem to find the words to say it yet, then that’s fine.”

Her eyes darted to me and she said, “I don’t think you know what I’m thinking Shadow.”

I smiled and looked back her, my red eyes meeting her blue ones, “You’re wrong Aura, I’ve been watching you and I’ve gotten used to how you think. I’m sure I know what’s bothering you, but like I said, I’m willing to wait for you to be ready. I’ll let you set the pace and I know that one day you’ll tell me.”

“The problem is what if I wait too long, what if something happens and I never have the chance to tell you?”

“Let’s just make sure that doesn’t happen, and even if it does then there’s nothing we can do about it.”

She looked away, “You mean a lot to me Shadow, no matter what happens I want you to know that. It’s just that with everything that’s happened I feel like it’s not right for me to say what I want to, it’s selfish.”

“It’s not selfish, it’s okay to have feelings Aura. This world is so hard and short, don’t hide away your feelings when you don’t have to.”

She smiled, “I’ll try my best Shadow, I mean that.”

“That’s all I care about, and I’ll tell you this. You mean a lot to me too Aura, I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without you or any of my friends,” I said.

She was blushing now, “I needed to hear that, thank you for talking to me.”

“I’m always here for you Aura”

“Likewise Shadow.”

The door to the office burst open and I heard Wingnut say, “When did Shadow wake up? Aura I told you to tell me when she woke up.”

Normally I’d be pissed that the little shit walked in on our conversation, but for once I think that Aura and I were able to say what we wanted to say. Aura’s feelings for me were more than just what two friends shared, I could see it now, but I wasn’t going to push her. She was finally getting over the loss of Trip Wire and I had to leave it up to her to figure out how she truly felt. As for me, I could feel something for Aura, but I wasn’t sure what they were yet. It was different than with Silver, but I’d known Aura longer. Silver and I never had the chance to get to know each other like I knew Aura. I did love Silver, but we only had a physical relationship with a little emotion just starting to sprout, if she hadn’t died we could’ve had the time to explore those feelings. The thought of Silver dying hurt still, but I knew now that she died for me. It wasn’t the same as how Aura lost Trip Wire. It was easier for me to accept than it was for her. So I’d give her the time she needed and hope that she was able to get her mind straight, before The Wasteland caught up with us, because it always did.

I looked back at Wingnut and smiled, “I just woke up, she was just about to go get you.”

“That’s right Boss, I was just explaining to her what happened,” Aura said.

“Good, because I want to know what we’re doing next, Wind Thrasher is reading another book and she keeps talking to it like the Characters can hear her and it’s really starting to get on my nerves,” Wingnut said wrinkling his face, “Girls are so weird.”

Wind Thrasher walked in behind him and swatted him in the back of the head, “We aren’t weird, you’re just too young to understand grown up things like that.”

He rubbed the back of his head, “Hey that hurt, I thought you were the pony who didn’t like to hurt ponies.”

She grinned at him evilly, “Oh I don’t mind hurting ponies I just don’t like to kill. Keep making fun of the books I like and I can scar you for life.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, “Yeah right, you can’t do that, I’ve seen some things.”

“Oh really,” she pulled out one of her books and opened it reading, “Ruby laid herself down on the bed, her breath coming out quick and hard as the stallion she loved moved down over her, kissing her down her neck. It was a feeling she hadn’t ever experienced before; her eyes couldn’t get enough of his lean body and…”

“AHHHHH, SHADOW MAKE HER STOP!!!” Wingnut said running to hide from her.

All three of us started to laugh as the colt glared over at us, as I moved over to him pull him into a hug, “Don’t worry kiddo, I’ll protect you from the big bad bat pony.”

He pushed me away, “Ewww, stop being so girly…all of YOU!”

“Maybe you’ll understand a mare’s feelings the more you hang around with us and find a nice mare for yourself.” I chuckled a bit sensing Wingnut’s uncomfortableness.

“Ugh” Wingnut groaned in disgust and just submitted to the hug

I let him go then looked up at my friends, it was nice to see these ponies here. Laughing with me and enjoying the small time we had to just enjoy ourselves. It was so different from when I was in the Stable, no pony cared I was a unicorn, or what color my coat was, they didn’t see me as the short mare, or a pony who fucked up more than once. To them I was just Shadow Star, their friend, a pony they all loved. I wasn’t sure why, but seeing that brought a few tears to my eyes.

“What’s wrong Shadow?” Wingnut asked, looking up at me, his face growing concerned.

I wiped away the tears and smiled, “I just realized how lucky I am to have all of you as my friends. Even with Stardust going completely insane, and losing Silver, I’m still lucky to have all of you by my side.”

Wind Thrasher’s smile grew bigger as she said, “Shadow, we’re all lucky, without you none of us would know each other. You’re the pony who brought us all together and we’re thankful for that.”

“Yeah what batty said,” Aura said grinning at me.

“Ditto, and I know we’ll get Stardust back soon then all of us can help you get your mom back,” Wingnut added.

I rubbed my eyes again, “Stop it, you’re going to make me cry.”

Aura laughed, “That can’t be helped, you’re a big crybaby as it is Shadow.”

We all laughed again, when it finally died down I said, “Let’s go meet with the other leaders here. I think it’d be nice to have something to do that didn’t have an agenda attached to it.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Aura agreed.

Javelin was waiting just outside the office talking with the mare we saw earlier guarding the gate. As we approached Javelin said, “I see you’re finally up Courier, are you feeling better?”

I nodded, “Better than I have in a while.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said giving us a small smile, “I think you remember Smokescreen?”

“Yeah, she was the mare who didn’t want to let us in at first,” Aura said.

“I was just following my orders,” she said smirking at Aura, “It’s not often I get to meet a griffon, how’d you end up working with someone like the Courier?”

Aura laughed, “I don’t work for Shadow at least not anymore, I’m the colt’s bodyguard.”

She looked over at him, “Oh is that so?”

He smirked at her, “Yep, she works for me.”

“So are you a Red Talon?” Smokescreen asked Aura.

“No I’m not, I’m a freelancer,” Aura said not alerting more on the subject.

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“Why’s that,” I asked looking at Smokescreen then Javelin.

Javelin was the one to answer, “Smokescreen is my new guard captain, she’s been wanting to set up a contract with The Red Talons, but we don’t see many griffons around here.”

Aura looked at Smokescreen, it was as if she was taking the measure of this mare. I couldn’t help doing the same, she was young probably only a few years older than me much like Wind Thrasher was, she was cute in her own way, with her Smoky grey eyes, her light blue coat that had white on her muzzle and the tips of her ears, and her copper mane. She did have a hard edge to her as well, the fact that she was a unicorn that carried around a battle saddle with a grenade launcher on one side and a missile launcher on the other helped with that I guess. Her cutie mark was black and grey smoke shaped like a wall.

After a minute passed Aura finally asked, “Why would a pony from here want to contract a Red Talon?”

She blushed a little then looked back at Javelin who said, “She’s trying to find a pony she met a couple years back, she’s been begging me to let her in to join us and I finally relented.”

Smokescreen nodded, “Since the ponies who live here can’t leave whenever we want I can’t just go looking for her so I wanted to hire a Red Talon to find her for me.”

Aura grinned, “Finding a pony can get a little costly, it takes a lot of information gathering to get an idea of where they might be and that doesn’t always pan out, unless you know where to start. The Red Talon’s upcharge more for getting locations like that, but if it’s not a pony that’s being hunted because the contractor wants them dead, then the cost can go down some. It’s easier to get a location on a pony who isn’t on the run.”

“You seem to know a lot about what The Red Talons charge for a freelancer,” Javelin said.

“Her mother’s the leader of The Red Talons,” Wingnut said, when Aura glared at him he said, “What? It’s true.”

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, I used to be a Red Talon, my mom is Gigi the leader, that’s how I know how their pricing structure works.”

Smokescreen got a little glint of hope as she said, “Would you be able to ask one of them to come here so I can see about setting up a contract?”

“Possibly, but only if I run into a member or if I see one of my sisters again soon. I’m not allowed in Crimson Canyon unless I’m with my contractor and they have business there.”

“Well if you do please tell them I’d like to speak to one of them. They won’t have to worry about us firing on one of them, the guards here have been told not to attack any griffon who works with The Red Talons already,” Smokescreen said.

“If I may ask, why do you want The Red Talons so bad? Being all the way out here you could contract with one of the smaller groups since this isn’t in The Red Talon’s territory, or even a freelancer like me?” Aura asked.

Javelin chuckled, “She wants a Red Talon because from what we know they’re the best, and The Annihilators will only work with the best.”

“Well, I’ll pass on the message when I can. Do you know anything about this pony that would help them find her if they decide to set up the contract? If so it would help me convince them to make the trip.”

“I know a lot about her, we met once a couple years back and I really liked her. She told me a lot about what she did for work and about the things she traded, I would’ve met with her more, but I got into a lot of trouble for leaving home.”

Aura’s face seemed to go blank for minute as she asked, “What can you tell me about her?”

“She has a grey coat, with a red and blue striped mane, I know she used to live in Freedom with her brother, but I heard later that she moved into a place near Crimson Canyon and started a caravan. Her names Trip Wire,” Smokescreen said.

The look on Aura’s face turned to shock and she was speechless. I could understand why, this must’ve been the mare Trip Wire used to like before she met Aura. Who would’ve known that the same mare had wanted to find her for so long just so she could move into Spitfire’s Flight Academy? Trip Wire must have left quite an impression on this mare for her to want to find her still after so long.

“Um…Aura was it? Are you okay, you look like somepony just slapped you,” Smokescreen said.

Aura seemed to pull herself back together, she looked down and said, “I know Trip Wire very well…”

Smokescreen looked excited as she said, “You do! Can you tell me where she is and why I haven’t heard from her in so long? Did she move away from Freedom or is she just working so much with her caravan that she doesn’t get back this way much?”

Even Javelin looked happy to see the young mare so excited. Aura on the other hoof looked ready to vomit. She looked away from the excited mare and said, “She did start her caravan for a while, I used to be her bodyguard. I worked with her for a long time,” the look on Aura’s face was painful to see and even Smokescreen seemed to notice, because she stopped jumping up and down and her face fell.

“You’re kind of scaring me with that look Aura,” she said.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Trip Wire died seven months ago.”

Smokescreen brought a hoof up to her muzzle and her expression matched Aura’s as she said, “Oh no…I had no idea.”

Aura looked back at her and said, “I wish I could say that her death was fast, but that would be a lie. I was with her in her last moments though, and I made sure she got a proper burial.”

The mare looked sad for a long moment then she asked, “I take it you got to know her well over the past couple of years?”

Aura nodded, “She was a special pony, so kind and caring, always willing to help a pony in need. Yeah I got to know her very well.”

To my surprise Smokescreen smiled, “It’s nice to see she made a good friend out there, when I met her she was so alone with only her older brother around. If you don’t mind me asking and if it’s okay with your contractor would you mind telling me more about her?”

Aura smiled then looked back at us, “Is that okay with all of you?”

Wingnut smiled, “I’ll be fine with Shadow and Wind Thrasher, you go do what you need to Aura.”

She turned back to Smokescreen, “I think talking about her with a mare who knew her would do me a lot of good, if you’re free right now then I’d love to talk about her.”

Smokescreen looked at Javelin who nodded, “You have a few hours before you need to check on the new recruits, go and enjoy yourself for a while.”

With that done the two of them walked off toward one of the guard towers. When they were gone Javelin said, “Well I didn’t expect that to happen, but it’s good to see Smokescreen smile, she doesn’t do that much now days.”

I looked at the leader of The Annihilators and asked, “Why’s that?”

“Growing up here, you tend to find it hard to find a good relationship. Everypony here grows up together almost like family and when ponies get to the age where they want to find somepony to spend their life with, it’s not easy when you see the pony you want to be with almost like a sibling. For Smokescreen it’s even harder, she’s the only mare in this place who likes other mares. It makes for a lonely life,” Javelin said.

I could understand where she was coming from, I had to deal with much of the same thing. The only Stallion who would’ve wanted to be with me in 28 was Balefire and I did see him more like a big brother, it could get awkward sometimes. I smiled and said, “I know that feeling, I’m from a Stable and I know what the growing up with somepony being like family is like, even more what it’s like to like other mares too. In my Stable it was forbidden so I had to keep it secret.”

Javelin chuckled, “It was the same in our Stable too, I was just a filly when we left it, but that tradition stuck when we moved in here. When I took over as the leader of The Annihilators ten years ago I changed that.”

“Why did you do that?” Wind Thrasher asked,

She looked back toward where Smokescreen walked off with Aura saying, “Because I saw how much a stupid rule like that hurt Smokescreen. She’s my granddaughter and I wanted her to be happy. She may not be allowed to leave, but I still want her to be happy, and if that’s with a mare then so be it.”

“Wow I wish my Overmare was that nice,” I said with a smile.

Javelin smiled too, “A leader should always put her ponies first, not her own desires. Yes there are some rules that you have to keep and enforce to keep order, but small things like who you are allowed to love shouldn’t be one of them. Now I’d like you to meet our doctor, I think he’d love to meet you Wind Thrasher.”

She looked at Javelin, a little fear in her eyes, “Why’s that?”

“Oh don’t worry he won’t bite, he’s a nice Stallion. He’ll like to meet you because of what you are. I’ve never seen a pony like you before, and I know he’d love to ask you some questions about how you ended up like that.”

“How do you know she wasn’t born that way?” Wingnut asked.

She laughed, “Oh child, I’ve been around for a long time and I’ve seen things that most ponies would say are impossible. I can tell by looking at Wind Thrasher that she wasn’t born that way. I mean who in Equestria is born a bat pony with dragon eyes and scales?”

He shrugged, “It’s not like it COULDN’T happen, just sayin’.”

“That’s true, but I’m sure somepony had a hoof in turning her into what she is. Now follow me,” she said turning and heading toward a smaller building that had a large red cross on the side.

I snickered at the look on Wind Thrashers face then patted her on the back, “Come on, I don’t think he can be as bad as Dr. Cell.”

She looked at me like I was asking her to fight three hell hounds by herself, “You don’t know that.”

“And neither do you,” I said, and still laughing we all followed her to the clinic.

***

“By Celestia’s holy rump, you mean to tell me that a Scientist in your Stable was able to turn you into this with a couple of potions and little magic, in only a few hours?” Dr. Gauze said as he lifted Wind Thrasher’s leathery wing for what had to be the twentieth time, “That’s just fascinating, who would’ve guessed a pony would’ve figured out the proper way to splice the DNA of another creature with a pony’s like that? Not just one but two, and you’re still alive.”

Wind Thrasher looked like a statue, from what I could tell, she didn’t like being touched by doctors. I could understand why after what she’s gone through in her stable. Her eyes were locked on the far wall and she kept twitching every time he used his magic to poke or prod a different part of her. When he finished talking she said mechanically, “He was one of the best minds with Bio Engineering in many years. He tested on a lot of the animals in our Stable before he did this to me.”

“What Stable are you from again?” the Doctor asked finally dropping her wing then moving around her to open her muzzle for a moment looking at her sharp fangs and teeth, “I’m amazed how healthy you are.”

When he let her mouth go she said, “Stable 9, I was trapped in there for twenty years.”

He looked even more amazed, “You don’t look old enough to have been locked away in a run-down Stable for that long. How old were you when this happened?”

She shrugged, “Very young, mom said I was one of the youngest ponies she’d ever seen get her cutie mark. I was a few years younger than any other pony that had just gotten theirs in the Stable.”

We had been in the clinic for two hours now, the Doctor was asking Wind Thrasher question after question while he examined her. I was surprised at how calm she was able to stay for this long. He looked her over one more time then looked over at me, “You said that her Stable was full of Bloodwings?”

“I think so, from what I read in The Wasteland Survival Guide they sure looked like them, only smaller with a lot more intelligence,” I said, Wingnut was sitting next to me, his eyes drooping, he looked ready to pass out again.

“Bloodwings are a mutated version of the Vampire Fruit Bat, if the ones he made in the stable were the same, he may have just found a better way of making them, a more perfect version than the ones that nature made after the bombs. Is that what he used to make you Wind Thrasher?” he asked.

She nodded, “He already created one Blood Bat before I was hurt. That’s what we called them, I didn’t know they were called Bloodwings until I met Shadow, he also used stored DNA we had in the lab to mix in the Dragon DNA.”

He looked thoughtful, “Do you ever feel the need to feed on Blood like a Bloodwing would?”

She blushed and looked away, “I feel the need now and then, it happens more when I’m stressed out or scared. I’ve gotten good at fighting the need over the years, but I try not to kill, because I’m scared I won’t be able to fight it if I do.”

“That is a concern I can understand, Vampire Fruit Bats from what I’ve read had an unsatisfied urge to eat fruit by sucking the juice right out of them, faster than should be possible. That’s how they got their name, it’s almost an instinct and very hard to stop. I’m amazed you do so well to keep that urge down in yourself. I wonder if there’s a way to get ride of that urge for good.”

Wind Thrashers eyes fell, “Dr. Cell said once my body changed there wasn’t any way to fix what he did or to get rid of my urges.”

Dr. Gauze laughed, “From what you’ve told me about him, he sounded like he was a little cracked. I’m sure if the right pony was to look into your DNA and understand what was done to you, they could fix the urge to drink blood. I’m sure that turning you back into a Pony would be possible too, but I’m not sure, I don’t know everything that was done to you.”

“You mean there might be a way to fix her?” I asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but it’s possible. At the very least I’m sure there’s a way to get ride of that problem with wanting to drink blood, though I’d need a sample of her own blood to know for sure.”

Wind Thrasher looked like she was ready to kiss the older Stallion, “You mean it!?”

“I sure do, it would be a fun challenge. I don’t get much work around here so I find myself with a lot of free time. If you’d be willing to let me have a sample of your blood, I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’d be okay with that!” Wind Thrasher said, looking more excited than I’d ever seen her before.

As I watched them, Javelin stepped into the clinic and said to me, “Courier, could I have a word with you outside for a moment?”

“Sure no problem,” I said getting up after making sure Wingnut hadn’t fallen asleep against me. I followed her outside then asked, “What’s going on Javelin?”

She looked around as if to make sure no pony was listening to us before she said, “I want to see about hiring you to make a delivery for me, one that you can’t let anypony here know about.”

“I might be able to do that, it all depends on where you need me to go and why,” I said.

She looked a little scared for a moment before she said, “I know I made a big deal about Trotston earlier when you first arrived, but that was mostly for show. You see I’ve been trying to change things around here for some time now, throwing off the ways of my predecessors. One of the biggest problems we have here is the mistrust for that damn town.”

“I noticed that when I brought them up before, Trotston has much of the same opinion as you do. Though from their side I think they just want your town to leave them alone.”

“Yes, my ponies have given them a lot of trouble over the past few years. All over a stable we left half a century ago, I want that to end. I don’t expect that our two settlements will ever be friendly toward each other, but I want to try and at least stop the mistrust and hatred between our two groups. Both sides have lost a few ponies over a stupid thing like them taking over our old stable.”

“That’s what I don’t get, I’m from a stable too and as much as I understand how hard it is to let go of your home, why do you all hate them so much?” I asked.

“We didn’t at first, the first leader of The Annihilators was the one who told them they could use the Stable. It wasn’t till a couple years later that the fighting started. We weren’t even the ones who started it at least that’s what I was told. All I know is that it all started with a Stallion from Trotston who wanted to be with a mare from The Annihilators.”

I put up a hoof, “You mean this whole thing started over a bad romance?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know all the details as I said before, but from what I know, it looks like it. The thing is it doesn’t matter anymore, I want to see if you can bring a letter to the leader of Trotston. I want him to meet with me on neutral ground to see if we can find a way to mend things between our two groups.”

“I don’t see Rusty doing that, he wouldn’t be able to trust you, he would think it was a trap of some kind.”

“My thoughts exactly, that’s why I need you, the mission I have for you should help fix that. After hearing that your griffon friend was formally a Red Talon I had an idea. I want you to also bring a letter to The Red Talons and request that a wing of their griffons sit in on the negotiations serving as a neutral party while we talked, to make sure neither side tries anything. If you do this I’ll pay you two thousand caps and I’ll pay whatever the Red Talons need me to. I’ll give you two letters one for the Red Talons the other for Trotston,” she said her face still looking scared, as if somepony was going to overhear what she was saying.

I mulled it over for a moment then said, “I guess I could do that, though I’m not sure what good I can do with Trotston, at the moment I’m banned from going into the city because of Wind Thrasher, but I can at least try.”

She smiled, “That would be perfect,” she reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a few bags of caps and two letters that had been sealed with wax, “In the letter for the Red Talons I’ve told them to send a griffon here to settle the amounts that I’ll need to pay, once that is good I’ll have them let you know so they can tell you to get the other letter to Trotston.”

Taking everything she had I said, “I’ll head that way after I’m done here, if nothing gets in my way that is. I need to go back there anyway to talk to Gigi and get an update on my missing friend.”

“The sooner you can do this the better, but I understand that things can get in the way. Just try and get this done as soon as you can,” she said.

“I will. Was there anything else you needed me to do?” I asked.

“That was all, and thank you for helping Courier.”

I smiled, “No need to thank me, it’s what I do and it’s good to see that you want to find a way to fix things with Trotston.”

She smiled and turned to leave saying, “War isn’t the answer Courier, have a good night.”

When she left I saw Aura flying toward me, she landed a moment later, a smile on her face, “You look happy Aura.”

“I am, it was nice to talk to Smokescreen about Trip Wire. It helped me get past some of the lingering things about her,” she said.

“Did you tell her about the relationship you had with her?”

She shook her head, “No, but I think she figured it out. That wasn’t what we needed to talk about.”

I was about to ask her something else when my Pip-Buck dinged, “What the hell?”

I lifted it and looked at the message that came up on the screen…

Decryption Complete for Transmission from Stable 28, do you want to play the Audio File now?

Yes/No

I almost forgot about the Transmission from my Stable. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. I looked at Aura and said, “Should I listen to this now?”

“It’s from your Stable Shadow, you never know what it could be.”

“I’m just worried it’s something stupid from the Overmare.”

“If it is then so what, you just ignore it afterword’s, but what if it’s from one of your friends or Auntie?”

She had a point so I clicked on ‘Yes’ and listened…and the voice of Auntie came out of the Mark II…

Shadow Star sweetie, I hope you were able to get this. It’s not easy for me to find out where you’re at in the Wasteland while I’m stuck in Stable 28. I know I told you that you needed to run far away from this place and to never look back, and I hate to have to do this to you since I’m sure you’re still trying to find your mother. The Stable is in Danger and you need to come home right away.

I can’t explain to you everything that is happening right now, but The Overmare has lost her mind. She’s brought griffons from an unknown Talon company into the Stable, declared Martial Law, started executing ponies who make too much trouble for her and imprisoning ponies who she doesn’t feel like outright killing. She’s changed the passcodes to the Door and we can’t get out without the help of the Mark II. I know this is a lot to ask of you sweetie, but we need you. She’s already thrown Strawberry Milkshake into a cell and she’s ordering the Griffon’s she’s hired to start hunting you down.

I don’t know why she wants the Mark II so bad, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get it. If that was all she wanted I’d tell you to stay away, I can take dying to protect you, but I can’t watch the rest of the Stable die with me. I’m in hiding right now, but it’s only a matter of time before she finds me, there isn’t a lot of places to hide in a Stable. Save the ponies of Stable 28 and don’t come alone, if you can get a message to Box Tape about this, he’ll know what to do if you tell him it’s a code PP287. I love you Shadow, and if you can’t make it here in time to save us, then make sure you kill The Overmare, she can’t be left alive. I’ll do what I can for now…This Transmission Repeats…

Shadow Star sweetie, I hope you were able to get this.

I shut off the file and looked at Aura with horror written on my face, “My Stable…”

Aura reacted faster than I could, “Now’s not the time to think Shadow, if you’re Stable is in trouble then we have to act now. That transmission is a few days old already, and we don’t have time. Quickly bring up your broadcaster and look for Military Channel 55878.”

I did, I found the file quickly then asked, “Now what?”

She pulled my Pip-Buck closer to herself, tapped on something then said into it, “Emergency broadcast to The Red Talons, this is Aura Bloodtalon with a message for Gigi or Apollo.”

She paused for a moment then I heard Gigi’s voice echo out of my Pip-Buck, “Aura you better have a good reason for using this channel.”

“Shut it mom, this is an emergency, Shadow was able to decrypt the Transmission from Stable 28. Looks like a Talon Company is working with their Overmare and they’re doing something nasty. They are killing ponies and trying to send out some of the griffons to hunt for Shadow,” Aura said.

A pause then Gigi said, “Stable 28 is near Cartwheel right?”

“It is.”

“That’s Red Talon territory, no Talon company would dare work any contract in my territory. Don’t worry, I’ll send three wings to meet you in Cartwheel, I’ll let Shadow show them to the Stable.”

I pulled the Mark II closer to myself, “I thought your talon company didn’t go into active Stables?”

Gigi Laughed, “Normally yes, but we do have an unwritten rule. If a Stable is under attack from an outside group like a rouge Talon company we will make an exception. Greta made the rule about Stables to keep us from helping ponies out here attack them, this is different. Now head to Cartwheel and my griffons will meet you there. Gigi out,” then the signal went dead.

I was shaking with rage now, the thought of The Overmare hurting the ponies I grew up with, the ponies I called friends, hurting Auntie who was like another mother to me. No, I wasn’t going to let this stand, it was time to go home.

I looked at Aura again, “Let’s get Wind Thrasher and Wingnut.”

“Good idea, but do you have a plan?” she asked.

I grinned, “No, not a plan, not yet at least. I do however know that it’s time to kill that bitch who calls herself my Overmare…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Déjà vu: Hey remember that time when…and that other time when… Well you will now, due to the damage you have dealt to the magic your mother placed on your past memories, you will now start to randomly remember things from your distant past. Just Remember…oh wait, you haven’t yet!

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Mysterious Pony Rank 2: The Mysterious Pony has made himself known to you. Helping you on your journey, but still keeping to the shadows. The Mysterious Pony will appear more often now when you are in the middle of a difficult fight.

Chapter 29: My World

“How about you yell that a little louder, I don’t believe they heard you in Trottingham!”

I burst into medical, following Aura. Wind Thrasher was getting off the table, Dr. Gauze just finished up getting the blood samples he needed. Wingnut was still sitting on the floor looking sleepy. When we came in all three looked over at us, Wind Thrasher asking, “What’s wrong Shadow?”

“It’s time to leave,” I said moving over to Wingnut who still looked half asleep, “Rise and shine kid.”

He rubbed his eyes and looked at me, “Why do we have to leave so soon? I thought we were gonna be meeting the rest of the leaders here.”

“Yeah Shadow, what’s going on?”

“She finished decrypting that file from her stable, looks like her friends are in trouble,” Aura said going over to the other side of the room to grab our saddle bags.

Wingnut jumped to his hooves, “You mean we get to see where you came from Shadow!?”

“Yeah, but I highly doubt it’ll be a fun trip. The transmission from Auntie sounded urgent and she said something about a different Talon company invading. This’ll be a fight and not an easy one,” I said taking my saddle bags from Aura and slinging Stardust’s rifle over my back.

“Is there a plan?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Right now, we’re heading to Cartwheel to meet up with the Red Talons, Gigi offered her help. I think we might get some help from Box Tape too, but I’m not sure what he can do,” I replied.

Dr. Gauze looked over at us, “Real quick before you all head off, is there any way I could be of assistance?”

“It’d be a big help if you had some kind of medical supplies we could buy, we’re out of Healing Potions,” I said.

“I have plenty of medical supplies I could sell to you before you head out,” he said excitedly.

“I’ll take care of getting what we need Shadow, why don’t you see if you can get ahold of the Steel Rangers, let them know what’s going on in your old stable,” she said.

“Good idea, I might be able to get some help from Sapphire or one of the others. They may even be able to tell me more about Vervain,” I said tossing her a couple bags of caps then going to my Pip-Buck.

As I went through the menus to bring up the Broadcaster, Wind Thrasher came over to me, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to be rushing into this?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if this is another trap?” she asked.

“Wind Thrasher, who would set up a trap like that?” Wingnut asked, giving the bat pony an odd look.

“She has The Sins after her, it’s just like them to set something like this up to find a new way to trap her,” Wind Thrasher said.

I sighed, “You’ve got a point, but with Stardust running The Sins now. I don’t think they need to set up traps like this, that was more the old Pride’s thing. Stardust is a very straightforward pony, if he wanted to come after me he wouldn’t have me travel half way across the region.”

“He would, if he thought it would work, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“That’s possible, but I can’t worry about him right now. My friends are in danger and I’m not gonna hide or run away from that. I owe Auntie this much after what she’s done over the years for me. We’re going to Cartwheel and Stable 28, that’s final,” I said putting my hoof down.

She shrugged, “Fine, but if something happens with The Sins…don’t blame me.”

I smiled, “I won’t, don’t worry about it.”

Aura came back over, stuffing the last of what she’d gotten from the Doctor into her saddle bags, “We’re all set, let’s get going. Shadow did you try to get a hold of the Steel Rangers yet?”

“I was just about to, don’t rush me,” I replied.

“Well you’ll have to do it while we move,” she said heading toward the door.

I looked back at Dr. Gauze, “Thanks for the help Doc, and can you tell Javelin we had to run, I’ll make sure to get the letters delivered for her?”

He chuckled, “No problem Shadow, I’ll also be sure to see what I can find with Wind Thrasher’s blood. Next time you stop by to visit us, make sure you pay me a visit.”

I nodded then followed the others outside. As I approached my friends Wingnut was saying, “How do you plan on getting us to Cartwheel fast enough to help?”

Aura snickered, “Easy kid, you have two flyers on your side. Shadow can ride on my back and Wind Thrasher can carry you. That is if batty can handle it.”

“I can handle carrying a colt Aura,” Wind Thrasher said with a scowl.

“Sounds like a good plan to me, we can get there a lot faster that way,” I said.

“Awww, why do I have to be carried by Wind Thrasher?” Wingnut whined.

“Because you’re lighter than Shadow,” Aura said simply.

I looked over at Aura my muzzle hanging open as I said, “Did you just call me fat?”

She rolled her eyes, “No I said you’re heavier than the colt, if I wanted to call you fat I would’ve said something like, Wind Thrasher can’t handle carrying such an enormous fatass.”

I couldn’t help but lightly laugh but also feel offended, “Fine whatever, let’s just get going. I don’t wanna wait and longer than we have to.”

“Yeah, good idea,” she knelt down so I could climb onto her back, Wind Thrasher moved over and picked up Wingnut who was still pouting. When we were both settled in, Aura continued, “Okay, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Both Aura and Wind Thrasher blasted into the air. We darted over the fence of Spitfire’s Flight Academy and headed toward New Pegasus, the city just visible in the distance. As we flew I went back to my Pip-Buck and started searching for The Steel Rangers’ signal. As I did I asked, “Do you know what channel the Steel Rangers use?”

“It should be one of the Military Channels, there’s only two that have a wide range, one is the one I used to contact Gigi, the other should be The Rangers’.”

I looked through the broadcast channels, and as Aura said there were two showing up. One I knew was the same one she used to contact Gigi, so I clicked on the other. When that was finished I spoke into my Pip-Buck, “This is Courier Mare Shadow Star with an urgent message for Elder Apple Slice or Star Paladin Sapphire Stone.”

A moment later I heard the voice of Scribe Hazel coming out of my Pip-Buck, “Shadow Star, is that really you?”

“It is, Hazel can you get me into contact with the Elder?”

“Not right now, she’s out at the moment, but I think Sapphire might be around somewhere. Can it wait a moment?” she replied.

“Yes, just let her know it’s urgent.”

“No problem, I’ll be right back. Just hang tight,” she said

As we waited Aura asked, “You sure Sapphire is a good pony to talk to there? I think The Elder would be better.”

“She would, but I put a lot of trust into Sapphire. She’s helped me in the past and she’s a Star Paladin, she’s like second in command in the bunker, or so I was told.”

“It’s true that a Star Paladin is just under the rank of an Elder, but Sapphire isn’t the only one in the bunker.”

“She isn’t?” I asked.

“No, even with a Star Paladin there are ranks. It’s all about seniority when it comes to a Star Paladins. For example, there are three of them right now in the New Pegasus branch of The Steel Rangers. You have Star Paladin Sandstorm, then Star Paladin Noodle Cup, then Star Paladin Sapphire Stone. The longer you’ve been a Star Paladin the more honored you are in the Rangers,” Aura said.

“So, Sapphire doesn’t have as much pull as the other two?”

“No, from what I learned from her while you were still resting up, she’s only been a Star Paladin for a year or so. Noodle Cup’s been one for close to ten years, and Sandstorm’s been one for around Fifteen years. He would’ve been the next one to take over as the elder when the last one died, but somehow Apple Slice got the job,” Aura replied.

Before I could say more, Hazel’s voice came out of my Pip-Buck again, “You still there Shadow?”

“Yeah, did you find Sapphire?”

“She did and me too,” a deeper voice said.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

Sapphires voice came next, “This is Star Paladin Sandstorm Shadow, he’s the head pony in our branch of The Steel Rangers while The Elder is out. It’s okay you can trust him, he’s friends with Box Tape.”

A hearty laugh came out of my Pip-Buck as Sandstorm said, “That I am, I’ve known that old buck for too many years. So Courier, what's this urgent message you have for our Elder?”

I knew I couldn’t waste time so I said, “I received a transmission from the pony who raised me in my Stable, something happened there and the ponies who live there are in trouble. Auntie said there’s a different talon company who are working with my Overmare, and she’s using them to kill ponies.”

The other end was silent for a moment then Star Paladin Sandstorm said, “And what do you want The Steel Rangers to do about it?”

That took me by surprise, “What do you mean? I need as much help as I can to save my home.”

“Courier, The Steel Rangers have no reason to enter Stable 28. There isn’t anything there that interests us and we wouldn’t gain anything by going there. The last team we sent there failed to find anything in Stable 28 that we would consider a misuse of technology. In fact, we lost a good Paladin there and since you have the Mark II we don’t need to go back. I’m sorry, but we can’t help you with this.”

“Are you talking about Vervain?”

“Yes, she was killed in action helping your mother escape the stable eight years ago. After that the stable was locked down and we wrote it off,” he replied.

I started to laugh, “My mother lied to you about that, from what I know Vervain is still in the stable, I’m not sure who she is but she’s still there.”

Sapphire’s voice came next, “If Paladin Vervain was still alive Shadow, she would’ve checked in with us a long time ago.”

“Unless my mother did something to her to make her forget who she was. She has the ability to do that.”

Sandstorm answered next, “Courier, how would you know that kind of information?”

“Because I have her Pip-Buck Tag. My mom left it on a file in the Mark II, when I checked it, it still showed up in the Stable,” I replied a bit condescendingly.

“Hmmm, it’s possible that another pony is using her old Pip-Buck, but I couldn’t be sure. Are you sure that it’s her Courier?” Sandstorm asked.

“I am, if another pony had her Pip-Buck it would’ve been reset for a new user, and it would generate a new tag. I don’t know why she’s still in the Stable, but I plan on finding out and getting her out of there too. She used to know me before I went into Stable 28, she could be the only pony who can answer my questions. My question is to you, are you gonna let a fellow Steel Ranger die because you don’t wanna get off your lazy asses to go help!?”

“She does make a good point Sandstorm,” Sapphire said.

“That she does, and The Sentinel would be overjoyed to know his Daughter is still alive. Courier, I can’t send out a lot of help right now, we’ve been having problems with a group of fiends out here, but I’ll send Star Paladin Sapphire Stone to aid you with a Paladin and a Knight. They might not make it there in time, but this is the most I can do right now.”

“Anything helps, have them go to Cartwheel and see Box Tape. If we aren’t there anymore he’ll be able to tell them where to go,” I said.

Sapphire’s voice echoed out, “Sir I should bring a Scribe with me too.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said, knowing how much help one of the Scribes could be.

“I agree, bring Hazel with you, she hasn’t left the bunker for a while, it’ll be good for her. Courier, is there anything else before I let you go?”

One thing did come to mind, “Was Hazel able to fix the Mr. Handy I brought in when I was last there?”

I heard Hazel’s voice in the distance, “You mean Watts? Yeah, he’s up and running again, just finished his repairs last week.”

“Good, because I’d like to get him back. Bring him with you when you come to Cartwheel.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. The team will head out in an hour or so and meet you in Cartwheel. Safe journey Shadow Star.” Sandstorm said.

Sapphire spoke next, “I’ll see you soon kid, don’t get yourself killed okay?”

“Can do.”

Both Star Paladins said through my Pip-Buck, “Ad Victoriam!” then the transmission cut out.

“Damn, you sure got that old buck to change his mind quickly,” Aura said when the transmission ended.

I grinned, “Wasn’t too hard to do. One thing I learned from The Steel Rangers is that they don’t leave a comrade behind.”

“True, but how’d you know that a Pip-Buck changes the tag of a pony when they’re reset? I didn’t even know that,” Aura asked.

“It’s general knowledge,” Wind Thrasher said flying closer to us, “Everypony in a stable knows that a tag is unique to the pony who uses it.”

I giggled a little, “Honestly I didn’t know that, I was just winging it.”

Aura looked skeptical, “I dunno Shadow, how you described it didn’t sound like it came from just anypony. It sounded like it came from a pony who knows this kind of thing.”

I thought about it for a moment, “You know it could’ve been possible that I remember something from my classes in the stable. Plus, my mother DID work in the research and development section of our stable. It’s also possible I remembered it from her. I just went with my gut.”

“Either way it worked, but I don’t think they can get to Cartwheel in time to help,” Aura said.

“Maybe, but if this takes a while to get settled, then I’d like to know they’re on their way. The most important thing right now is unlocking the stable and getting as many ponies out of there as we can. When that’s done then we can worry about killing the Overmare and stopping the group of griffons,” I said looking down at the ground speeding past under us.

We flew in silence for a while then Wingnut asked, “Can we listen to something on the radio while we fly? It’s getting really boring.”

So I brought up my Pip-Buck and tuned into DJ Pon3…

“Hello Children of the Wasteland, this is the one and only DJ Pon3 and you know what time it is! Yes, it’s time for the news! First, we have reports of Security from The Hoof. There was a battle in the town of Flank where a metal monster of a pony led a group into the town where they mostly destroyed the place. But our heroin was able to make it out mostly in one piece killing one of the top ten Reapers in the process. Let that be a lesson to anypony who still wants to try and cash in on Security’s Bounty. Now closer to home here in Manehattan, we’ve been seeing more activity from The Enclave. I’ve been getting reports about our winged neighbors popping out more often over the past few days. Remember children, you don’t wanna cross an Enclave soldier if you can help it. If you see a pegasus in black power armor, it’d be best to give them a wide berth.”

I was about to switch channels when he said, “Now, I know that the ponies who live out west near New Pegasus have been wondering what’s been going on just outside the city. I reported last week that some kind of superweapon was used to destroy Appleton in a flash of deadly light. At the time nopony knew who caused this or why they would want to take out the town. Now Children there was a lot going on that day and it was hard for this old buck to sift through all the reports that came in, but I finally have an update on what happened that fateful night.”

“Oh fuck, don’t tell me he’s going to tell everypony what I did.”

The DJ paused then continued in a sad sounding voice, “I’ve talked with my counterpart Mr. New Pegasus and he agrees with me on what happened. From what we’ve learned and as some of you ponies know, The Enclave from Stratus had taken over much of the town. They were starting to leave on the day Appleton was destroyed, I’m not sure why, but while they were evacuating there was an attack on the town by the Zebra group known as The Romans. They were stopped by one of The Seven Sins of Equinity, their leader known as Pride in fact. Let me tell you faithful listeners be happy you weren’t there to see this fight, it didn’t last long, but after Pride used his strange Shadow Magic to attack the Romans, nothing but bloody gore and two zebras were left in the end.”

“I know what some of you are thinking ‘DJ Pon3, did this pony Pride destroy the town?’ Well no he did not, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. You see reports say that The Courier Mare herself used the distraction of the fight to sneak into town where she fought the monster Pride. He hurt her badly and one of her friends along with her, it looked like she was going to die. But The Courier’s luck wasn’t out just yet. Somehow, she was able to target Pride with some kind of weapon. She trapped Pride inside a barrier and then the blast that killed Appleton took down the monster Pride as well. Children I don’t know what to say about this new information. From what I’ve heard, reports say that she DID try to run back into town to stop the attack, but was unsuccessful. I’m not sure if she knew what this weapon did or if she can ever use it again, but for now until more information can be found, I’m suggesting that ponies out west stay clear of The Courier. I still believe that she’s trying to do good, but until we know if this weapon is no longer a threat, you should be careful of letting her into your town. This is DJ Pon3 bringing you the truth…no matter how bad it hurts. Oh, and Courier if you’re out there and you’re hearing this, I hope what happened in Appleton was a mistake.”

The Transmission cut out and I moaned, “Fuck you DJ, why couldn’t you just keep your muzzle shut, now everypony in The Wasteland is going to hate me.”

Wind Thrasher looked over at me with Wingnut, both had a sad look to them. The colt sighed, “Don’t worry too much Shadow, you’ll show them all that you didn’t mean to hurt anypony.”

“You also knew that sooner or later ponies would figure out it was you,” Aura added.

“I know, but still I didn’t need to hear that right now.”

“Well it’s late, maybe too many ponies didn’t hear the report,” Wind Thrasher said, trying to cheer me up.

“Yeah, but the word will get out no matter what…” I said flipping to Mr. New Pegasus to see if he was reporting the same thing, DJ Pon3 wasn’t as popular out here as he was, if he was reporting the same thing then I was screwed.

A minute went by as an old song finished up playing on the New Pegasus broadcast, then the old pony’s voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck, “Good evening everypony, this is Mr. New Pegasus with tonight’s news broadcast. There’s been reports of a band of Fiends roaming around Coven not too far from Hidden Sands. From the looks of it, The Steel Rangers have started a small fight with the group and the fighting is starting to make its way toward the small town. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on what’s going on as the story unfolds, but for now any travelers heading that way should stay away from the town until the fighting has ended.”

“So far so good,” I said as the old stallion went on.

“The Romans have pulled back from the frontlines against the NLR and stopped fighting for now. They haven’t withdrawn, but for the time being it looks like both sides are taking a breather from their on-going war. There’s been reports of The Seven Sins of Equinity getting into a fight with our one and only Courier Mare while she was traveling from Trotston to Spitfire’s Flight Academy. I wasn’t able find out everything that happened, but I do know that they pulled out and ran leaving The Courier alive and well to make her way to meet with those odd ponies that live in the old Base. Now last but not least, there has been strange sightings of some kind of airship flying below the clouds from out west. At first it was thought to be more ponies from Stratus, but the emblem of The Steel Rangers was seen on the side of the ship. Right now, it’s heading toward New Pegasus but for what reason we can’t be sure. The New Pegasus Steel Rangers branch couldn’t be reached for comment on these strange sightings, but mares and gentlecolts, if you see a large flying ship that doesn’t look like it’s Enclave stay far away from it for now. This has been Mr. New Pegasus, have a pleasant evening.”

The music came back on and I turned off the radio and asked Aura, “Have you ever heard of The Steel Rangers having an airship?”

She shook her head, “No, and even if I had, there’s no way they could fly something like that without The Enclave doing something about it. They wouldn’t be happy to know that ponies that aren’t them would have a way into the clouds.”

“I wonder if it’s even true, all he said was it was just a report,” Wingnut said.

“I wouldn’t know, but when we get to Cartwheel I’ll check with one of The Red Talons to see if they know anything about it. Something that big would’ve been noticed by them,” Aura said.

“I just wonder why The Steel Rangers from out west would be coming to New Pegasus. Maybe this has something to do with Elder Apple Slice,” I said.

“It’s possible, I know that Elder Apple Slice works with The Steel Rangers from Los Alicorn,” Aura said.

Wingnut spoke up, “What about this Box Tape fella Star Paladin Sandstorm talked about? He seems to know The Steel Rangers; do you think he’d know about the airship they have?”

“I don’t know Wingnut, wouldn’t be bad to ask him though, that is if I remember to,” I replied.

Wind Thrasher sighed, “Right now it doesn’t help us, we need to start thinking of a plan to get into Stable 28 and what could be happening.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Aura said scratching her head, “I’m not sure what talon company would be big enough around here to be able to hold a Stable. Unless the Overmare has all of her security team helping them.”

“Security normally does whatever the Overmare says, but they’re also tasked with keeping the Stable safe, even from the Overmare herself. If she let Griffons into the stable like Auntie said and they’re killing ponies, they wouldn’t let that stand. Silver Badge is our head of security and he’s not a fan of The Overmare, he wouldn’t take orders like that,” I said hanging on to Aura as she turned sharply to stay out of the New Pegasus airspace.

“Then I’m not sure how she’s keeping order in her stable with a small talon company,” Aura said.

“How do you know it’s a small company?” Wingnut asked.

“The other Talon companies around here never get that large because of The Red Talons. There are three of them right now that work this area, but they’ve all gotten permission from Gigi to do so. All three Talon companies don’t have more than ten or so griffons in them. I know that a few months back I heard a rumor about a bigger talon company building itself out west, but I never had proof. If Shadow’s Overmare was using griffons to control the ponies in her stable, she’d need at least fifty or so. Either she’s using a shit ton of freelancers, which there aren’t that many, or she’s using a talon company that The Red Talons don’t know about,” Aura explained.

“If it’s a Talon company that you don’t know about then I’m guessing you won’t know how we can take them down, right?” I asked.

“That’s about it. Not all talon companies are like The Red Talons, they live by the contract and all, but they don’t have the same ideals as them. It’s possible you can buy them off and that would be that, this talon group could be as strict to holding a contract as the Red Talons are. The problem is, if they have as many griffons as I think they need to hold the Stable, the three wings Gigi is sending won’t be enough.”

“I’m also sure it’s not easy for Griffons to kill other griffons,” Wind Thrasher said.

Aura laughed, “It’s no different than killing a pony to us. Sure, we don’t like doing it, but a job’s a job.”

Wind Thrasher looked sad, “I don’t know how you can think like that Aura, they’re still your kin.”

“They’re also enemies. If they stand in our way, then they’ll die just like any other. I don’t like it, but that’s the way of the world,” Aura said, turning again.

I looked down as they talked and saw we were flying over Appleton. This was the first time I’d seen the town since I killed Pride. From the air I could see how much damage Solar Flare had done on the town. The town square where Pride was, is now just a crater, the buildings that surrounded it were gone too, nothing but black soot in a large ring. The damage outside of the ring was less than where the blast hit, but still the damage was great. Anything that was close to the barrier was smashed or destroyed, just not as badly as the town square. Buildings collapsed in on themselves, streets were cracked, and anything flammable burned away from the heat the spell produced when it blew outward. It seemed like that the only thing that survived was the town’s wall. It was still standing, almost serving as a kind of headstone that surrounded the dead town, a reminder of what had been here.

“It’s not easy to see the destruction after the fact is it Shadow?” Aura said as she flew by Appleton.

I nodded, “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“You should’ve seen it right after it happened,” she said quietly.

Wingnut looked at Aura, “Aura don’t…just don’t. She knows what she did was wrong. You don’t need to keep reminding her.”

She gave him a look, “Sorry boss, but I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, she deserves to know what happened.”

I looked down at Wingnut who was still hanging under Wind Thrasher, “She’s right, I needed to see that. Seeing what that weapon can do is scary, now I know that I can’t use it ever again.”

Wind Thrasher shuddered, “Yeah, we also can’t let it fall into any other pony’s hooves.”

“I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find a way to either destroy it or at least make it so nopony can ever fire it again,” I said.

“Why can’t you just destroy the range finder itself?” Aura asked.

“If she did, it’s possible that another pony could make their own,” Wind Thrasher said.

We all looked at her and Aura asked, “How would they do that?”

“Well something like that runs on its own specific frequency, the range finder that Shadow has is always connected to it. That way it’s always ready to send a signal to Halo One which sends the signal up to the satellite. If the range finder was destroyed that frequency would be freed up and another pony with enough knowledge could make another one, and we’d be in the same boat,” she said making it sound simple.

“Once again, I’m gonna just take you on your word Wind Thrasher,” I said.

“She reads too much,” Aura said with a chuckle.

“There’s no such thing as reading too much Aura,” Wind Thrasher said, she sounded annoyed.

“There is when you start acting like you know everything,” Aura retorted.

The next thing I knew Aura and Wind Thrasher were having a small argument about things I didn’t understand or care about. So, I just rested my head on Aura’s neck and watched as the landscape flew by under us. Wingnut joined in on the conversation too. At first trying to get both of them to stop fighting, then giving his own opinion on whatever they were talking about. A good amount of time passed and I found myself lost in thought about everything that’s been happening over the past week. Stardust being lost then found again only to have his memories fucked with by The Enclave, that took up a good amount of my thoughts. If it wasn’t a spell from my mom, then whatever Stable 97 was doing to their ponies, it looked like that’d be the place I’d have to go to figure out how to fix him.

I wasn’t gonna give up on him or mom either, I just hoped I could figure this all out before it was too late. It seemed like the key to helping Stardust was Wingnut. For some reason, he brought out the better side him. As long as it stayed that way, we could use that to our advantage. Mom was a different story all together, somehow in the past either she took away her own memories or somepony else did. I’d have to find a way to help her get those memories back. If I couldn’t, then she’d have to be put down. It was for her own good as well as the rest of The Wasteland. On top of all of this, now I had to help the stable I wanted more than anything to stay far away from. Even if everything worked out and we saved Stable 28, things would change for the ponies there. What would they do? Go back to trading with The Wasteland, or keep hiding away until the stable eventually died? Either from inbreeding or something else. Either way, I had to try and get Balefire, Milkshake, and Auntie to leave for good, they deserved a better life than being stuck in that rust bucket.

As I thought of what I could do to help my home, I noticed the rocky cliffs in the distance that marked the location of Cartwheel. The way we came in was similar to the way I first entered the town. I had no idea how close Cartwheel was to the towns near New Pegasus. There were two roads that lead to the small town from this side. One road lead from Cartwheel toward Appleton, the road forked closer to Cartwheel and another path lead down the way I came, heading south to where my stable was. I hadn’t noticed the fork in the road before because it was so close to where The Raider Camp had been.

The Raider camp was another surprise I got when we grew closer to the cliffs. Most of what Crackerjack made was mostly gone now. One of the towers was still standing, but from the look of it, the shacks and cages along with the pitiful wall were all gone. The ponies of Cartwheel must’ve taken it all down during the weeks I was gone. They probably had a lot of fun destroying it too. The road into town looked a lot safer now, and even now I could see a caravan coming through the pathway between two of the cliffs, heading toward New Pegasus. I smiled at the sight, it was nice to see something good come out of something I did.

“Looks like we’re almost there,” Aura said.

“Finally, do you know how uncomfortable it is to hang from your forelegs like this?” Wingnut protested.

I laughed, “Yes I do, trust me kiddo.”

Aura and Wind Thrasher flew over the cliffs then dived for the town, which already had ponies standing in a small circle watching us. When we landed I was greeted with cheers. I was taken aback as I slid off Aura and looked at the ponies who were stomping there hooves as if I was a hero coming home from a great battle.

From out of the crowd Box Tape came up to me chuckling a little at the look on my face, “Shadow, ya look like ya kissed the wrong end of a rattle snake.”

“Um…hi Box Tape, why are they all cheering?” I asked.

His smile got bigger as he said, “They’re all happy to see the Courier Mare herself comin’ home at long last. You’re a hero to em’ all Shadow.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t tell me ya already forgot about taking down that Raider camp. Because of you, Cartwheel’s thrivin’ like it hasn’t in years,” he said still laughing then his eyes fell on Aura, “Well look at what the cat dragged in, Aura Bloodtalon, it’s good to see you’re doin’ well still. How’s my old friend Apollo doin’?”

“Good since the last time I saw him. How are you holding up?” Aura replied.

I looked at the two of them, my jaw dropping, “Does everyone know you Box Tape?”

“Haha, I’m an old fart Shadow, and I run one of the only Courier services in New Pegasus. Yeah, I’d say just about everypony who matters in these parts knows who I am or at least knows me personally,” he gestured toward Aura, “I’ve known Aura since she was no bigger than my hoof.”

I looked at her, “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Box Tape?”

She shrugged, “You never asked. You know what they say, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’,”

I wanted to say something snarky, but then I realized that she was right…dammit. So, I just ignored her and asked Box Tape, “Have you seen any Griffons from The Red Talons by chance?”

“No I haven’t, why? What’s goin’ on Shadow?” he asked, “And who are your other friends?”

“Oh, this is Wind Thrasher and Wingnut,” I said pointing to each in turn, “I asked about The Talons because Gigi is sending three wings of her griffons here, I was supposed to meet them.”

His happy care-free expression was replaced with a more serious one, something I hadn’t seen on his face before, “If Gigi’s sendin’ three Wings here, somethin’ bad’s gotta be goin’ down. What’s goin’ on Shadow?”

“I got a transmission from Auntie; my stable is in trouble. She told me to get help and to come here first and find you. She said you’d know what to do, and to tell you that it’s a Code PP287.”

He took a step back at that, he looked scared for some reason, “Ya didn’t say PP287?”

“I did. What does it mean?”

He took a moment to respond, “Back when Stable 28 used to trade with the ponies here in Cartwheel, Auntie was one of the ponies who used to come to town. She told me once that if anypony ever came to me and told me that code, it meant the stable was on the verge of destruction. It means if somethin’ isn’t done soon, Auntie’s gonna destroy the stable itself. Shadow, when did ya get this transmission from Auntie?”

“A few hours ago, that’s when I decoded it. That took a couple of days to go through, and Aura said the transmission was received a day or two before. What do you mean she’s gonna destroy the stable?”

He ignored my outburst and looked at Aura, “When exactly was this transmission picked up?”

“Four days ago is when The Red Talon’s first picked up on it.”

“Shit…that means we only got a day, maybe less.”

“Can we go back to you saying Auntie would destroy Stable 28? Why would she do that!? That’s her home, my home, she cares about everypony that lives there,” I blurted out.

“It’s a last resort in case the stable was invaded and they couldn’t get the ponies out safely. Your stable’s got a lot of secrets in it Shadow, and Auntie will do anything to keep em’ out of anypony’s hooves,” he replied.

Wingnut looked scared, “She’d kill all those ponies just to keep others from getting something out of their stable?”

He nodded, “That’s what she told me at least.”

“What I don’t understand is why a stable pony would tell you something like that,” Wind Thrasher said.

He smiled a little, “Auntie trusted me with a lot of things, back in the day she was worried that the Overmare was going to do something like this, and she wanted to make sure she had a backup plan.”

“We need to get to the stable and stop this before it goes too far, at the very least I have to try and get as many ponies out of there as I can,” I said.

“Well then we should head out right away,” Aura said.

“I thought we needed to wait for The Talons to get here.” Wingnut said.

Aura smiled and pointed toward the sky, looking up I saw nine griffons flying down toward us, “No need, here they are,” then her face fell as they grew closer, “Are you kidding me mom!? Fucking hell, not her!”

Following her gaze, I saw what she was talking about, leading the griffons down toward where we were all standing was Fletch, her two minions following close behind. When they all landed she looked at Aura like she was scum, “Fuck, so you’re still following The Courier around I see.”

Before Aura could respond to her sister, Wingnut jumped between the two of them, “Don’t start anything Aura, we have more important things to deal with than the bullshit between you two.”

Aura made a nasty face toward Fletch then looked away, “Whatever you say boss.”

“Fletch, I wasn’t expecting you to show up,” I said trying to be as civil with her as I could.

She huffed then reached into a messenger bag she had slung over her and pulled out a scroll, “Mom said we had to make this official, she’s doing this for no caps and putting her own reputation on the line for you. This is a contract that covers all the Griffons here for the duration of the fight for Stable 28, once we’re finished the Contract is too.”

I took it and asked, “So you’re all working for me then?”

“That’s what mom said, you should read through the contract then let me know if you agree,” she said.

I opened the scroll and read through it. It was close to what Aura’s was like, with a few more stipulations that each of the griffons wouldn’t kill a stable pony that wasn’t trying to attack us first, and they wouldn’t help me take over the stable unless it was to save it. I rolled it back up and slipped it into my saddle bags, “Looks fine to me.”

“Good, since you already know my wing of griffons, that being Gouger, Pluck and myself. I’m the lead griffon on this mission, you’ll tell me what needs to be done and I’ll make sure the other griffons do what’s needed. I’m not a bodyguard, I’m a soldier here to protect the name and territory of The Red Talon Company,” Fletch said. I was actually surprised she wasn’t being as bitchy and uptight like last time we met.

Aura huffed, “Always getting a hard-on for doing whatever mommy tells her to.”

“FUCK YOU AURA!” Fletch said pulling out her spear, “You better keep that beak of yours shut before I make you!” whelp never mind there it is, The Empress of all bitches has reemerged.

I sighed, “Fletch put that away, we don’t have time for this. Until this is over, I don’t want you or Aura to fight. My stable is in trouble and I can’t be worrying about you two.”

To my amazement she put her spear away, “I can do that, I suggest that Aura’s contractor makes her do the same.”

Wingnut looked at Aura who rolled her eyes, “Yeah, I know boss, I’ll be good…for now anyway.”

Box Tape looked at all the griffons then laughed a little, “Well now that we’ve got that settled we should figure out a plan of some sort.”

Fletch looked toward Box Tape, “Hey Box Tape, I didn’t even notice you there, and what’s this about a plan? Aren’t we just going to storm in there take out the griffons who are holding the stable?”

“Fletch, you should know by now that ya can’t just charge into a situation like that. Ya need to know who your enemy is first and their numbers, find out if they got any hostages or if ya’ll can even get into the Stable. If you do this wrong, you could end up in a very bad situation,” he said to the angry looking griffon.

“It can’t be that bad, there isn’t any griffon talon company out here that’s big enough or strong enough to take us on,” Gouger said.

Aura smiled a little, “Gouger, we don’t know what company they’re using or how strong they are. I agree with you that it shouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t know that for sure.”

Fletch was tapping the side of her beak, deep in thought, then she said, “As much as I hate to agree with my little sister, she’s right,” then she looked down at me, “I’ll fly out with one of the wings to scout out the area, I’ll leave Arys’ wing with you for protection. All I’ll need you to do is tell me where to go and I’ll have you meet us there.”

I nodded, “Good idea, all you have to do is head to Green Mist Valley. On the far side of it there’s a cave entrance that’s blocked by an old wooden door. That’s the entrance to find Stable 28.”

Fletch thought for a moment then said, “Green Mist Valley huh? Now I understand why no one knows where the stable is. No one ever goes near that place, too much radiation.”

“Your wings go scout it out and make sure the entrance is secure, we’ll meet you there,” I replied.

She cracked a smile (I didn’t even know she knew how to smile), “Will do, don’t take too long. Nobody likes a slacker.”

When she was gone I walked over to Box Tape, “Box Tape, I need to talk to you before I head out.”

He gave me a small smile, “Ya got more important things to do right now. When you get back we can sit down and talk.”

“But It’s about Silver…”

“Shadow, go help your stable and make sure your friends are alright. I already told ya, we’ll talk later.”

Wind Thrasher put a hoof on my shoulder, “C’mon Shadow, now’s not the time.”

I knew she was right, “You’re right, let’s go help my stable.”

“Ya’ll come back now ya hear and stay safe,” Box Tape said, I looked back at the old buck, there was something sad looking on his face. It only lasted a moment, then he smiled doing his best to hide whatever emotion he was feeling at the moment.

“You okay Shadow?” Wingnut asked as we headed out the gate and back through the cliffs.

“I’m not sure, I just have this weird feeling that I’m not gonna see Box Tape again.”

He gave me a puzzled look, “Why’s that?”

“I dunno, it’s just something deep down. It’s just a feeling that I can’t seem to shake off.”

“You’re just thinking about it too much, you’ve lost two friends that you were close to recently and found out your mother was Cloak, the big bad mastermind behind The Sins. Somewhere inside of you, it’s possible you think you’re gonna lose all the ponies you’re close to.”

“You’re probably right. I guess my time out here is beginning to make me superstitious.”

As we kept on I noticed the leader of the last wing of Griffons was staring at Aura. She looked a little older than Aura, I liked how her bright blue feathers mixed with her shining white fur. She also had striking orange eyes and they were locked on Aura, but not like the other Talons looked at her.

I moved closer to her and asked, “Why are you staring at Aura so much?”

She blushed and looked down at me, her voice was soft and a little cute, “Oh, no reason, I just haven’t seen her in a long time that’s all. It’s good to see she’s doing well.”

“Your names Arys right?”

She smiled, “Yes, Captain Arys Greenhaven.”

“Did you used to know Aura before she was banished or something?”

“You could say that…her sister Viridiana has been my best friend for a long time, I used to hang out with Aura and Fletch a lot when Vi was off training. I’m a couple of years younger than Vi, so I used to get stuck with the younger griffons a lot while the older ones would be off training.”

My eyes went wide, “Wait a second, were you the friend of Aura’s sister that Gigi caught Aura with?”

I didn’t mean to say that so loud, I really didn’t but I did because sometimes I make stupid mistakes that make things weird and awkward. The two male griffons who were with Arys both started to laugh, and Aura looked back at me with murder in her eyes. Arys herself looked like she wanted to disappear, honestly the expression she had at the moment was quite comical. Aura turned back toward me poking me in the nose with one talon, “How about you yell that a little louder, I don’t believe they heard you in Trottingham!”

I smiled wide, “What’s the big deal Aura? I thought you didn’t care who knew you slept with your sister’s friend.”

She rolled her eyes, “I didn’t when I was a kid, but you don’t need to go around saying things like that. I was just a kid and Arys was young too.”

“I dunno Aura, it wasn’t really that bad. If you weren’t Gigi’s daughter no one would’ve cared,” Arys said seeming to come out of her embarrassment, “And it was fun.”

Aura started to blush too and she rounded on Arys, “Don’t encourage her, she’s ruthless.”

Arys smiled wider then walked past Aura letting her long tail slowly slide under Aura’s beak, “Ah, is little Aura still shy about talking about her sexuality? Here I thought she wasn’t scared of anything.”

A shiver ran over Aura, “I hate both of you.”

I started to laugh too, “Come on let’s keep going, we have a long way to go before we reach Green Mist Valley,” then my eyes fell on Wingnut who was looking at both the griffons, his eyes wide, “You okay kiddo?”

He ignored me and said to Arys, “Can I get the details?”

I faced hoofed, “You know what, I didn’t start this, you two can deal with him and his perversion,” I walked past the colt joining Wind Thrasher who was blushing as well and doing her best to look like she hadn’t been listening in on the conversation.

“He’s a curious little colt, isn’t he?” Arys said smiling down at him.

To which I replied “Nope, he’s a pervert.”

She paused for a moment, “Oh, I see.”

Ignoring the two griffons and the colt, I turned to Wind Thrasher, “We may have to fly to the stable now that I think about it.”

“Why’s that Shadow?”

“Because when I traveled here it took me a couple days to make the trip on hoof. We don’t have that kind of time.”

Aura pulled away from her argument with Arys and Wingnut, “Yeah, but when you left your stable, you didn’t know anything about The Wasteland. It took you a while because you probably moved slowly, hid from enemies, and had no idea where you were going. Think about it, now you know what you’re doing, how to avoid and take down enemies, plus you won’t be dawdling.”

“True, but even Auntie said it would take a while when I left the stable.”

“Shadow, Green Mist Valley isn’t very far from here. Yeah, with the terrain and monsters out here, it can still take a few hours on hoof, but still it shouldn’t take days,” Aura said walking away from the others to come join me next to Wind Thrasher.

“Still I’d like to save as much time as possible. Maybe we should’ve followed Fletch and the others.”

Aura laughed, “Maybe, but they did need to scout out the area, and make sure everything’s safe for you to make your way in to your stable. I’m sure they’re there by now though, so if you wanna fly to Green Mist Valley we can.”

“Yeah, let’s do that, but don’t land inside the mist itself.”

Arys smiled at me, “We all know how dangerous that mist is, don’t worry. As long as there’s an area close to the door that leads into the tunnel then we should be fine.”

I had to think back on that for a moment, it’s been awhile since I left. I remembered seeing the green mist when I first went through the old door, the door itself was set up a little higher and none of it came up to it, “The area where the door is, is set up higher from where the mist can reach, we should be able to land there safely.”

Aura grinned, “Well then let’s get this show on the road, hopefully we’ll run into the other two wings when we get close.”

“What if they ran into trouble?” Wingnut asked.

I smiled, “Then we’ll have a fight on our hooves.”

“Then let’s head out,” Aura said looking back over to Arys, “Is your Wing ready?”

“Ready for anything. Isn’t that right boys?” Arys said looking back at the two male griffons.

They both said in unison, “Ready and willing Captain!”

I hopped onto Aura’s back, Wingnut did the same with Arys as I said, “Okay, let’s go home!”

***

The flight to Green Mist Valley was…quick. Aura was right. As I watched the road under us zoom by, I realized how slow I was moving when I left my home. I almost felt stupid, but then I remembered what Aura mentioned. The fact that I was new to The Wasteland back then. I didn’t know what I was doing, or where I really had to go, I had no idea what dangers were out here yet or what to expect. That made me scared and paranoid. As we flew I saw the mostly crumbled bridge that I took a rest at first, the place I killed my first pony. From this height, I couldn’t see if the bodies were still down there or not, and I was okay with that. They were only raiders, but I didn’t feel like remembering how scared I felt when they attacked me, or when I killed them.

It wasn’t too far past that when we flew over the eerie green mist that slowly rolled over the large field. I didn’t realize when I walked through there how easily I could’ve gotten lost. If Auntie hadn’t told me which way to walk when I left, I could’ve easily died from overexposure to Radiation. The griffons and Wind Thrasher turned to head toward a small set of hills that bumped against the field once we were right over the center of Green Mist Valley. When they did I could see what looked like ponies slowly walking through the mist itself.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Ghouls, Green Mist Valley is full of them. A lot of ponies have gotten lost in there and either died from exposure or became ghouls. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t get lost when you went through it,” Aura replied.

“I had the Pip-Buck, it’s navigation helped keep me going the right way and Auntie told me the direction to travel.”

“I’m also surprised she didn’t run into any of those Ghouls,” One of the male griffons said as they flew a little higher.

“I’m just lucky I guess,” I said as we got closer to the hills, I pulled up my Pip-Buck’s map and checked where the marker for Stable 28 was. When I found it I continued, “Move a little further to the north, you should see the door.”

They all turned to where I pointed Aura saying, “I hope we won’t have to fight any griffons while we’re around this. One bad hit to the ground, and we could be overrun by those irradiated fucks.”

Arys pointed a talon ahead where I could see six griffons circling around where the entrance to the tunnels should be, “Doesn’t look like it, there’s Fletch and her griffons now.”

They saw us coming and Fletch swooped over to meet with us, “You all got here quick enough.”

It was odd how professional she could be when she was working for somepony verses hunting me down, “Did you run into any problems?”

She looked at me, “Ran into two griffons as soon as we got near the door down there. Fought them off easy enough, two griffons on six, they didn’t stand a chance.”

“Did they have any kind of mark showing which talon company they worked for?” Arys asked.

“That’s the thing, they did but not one I’ve seen before. I think they’re part of a new talon company, or at least one I’ve never heard of before,” Fletch replied.

“Let’s take a look before we head in,” I said, all of the griffons nodded and dove for the ground. We landed next to the old door where two dead griffons were laying. One was missing his head the other had multiple bullet holes in her torso.

On their forelegs they had bands much like what The Red Talons wore, only they were black with a red and blue marking, it looked like three claw marks tearing through a broken chain. Aura moved over to one of the bodies and pulled the band off to look at it more closely, “I’ve never seen this before and I’ve been all over most of The Wasteland, this has to be a new group.”

Gouger looked closer at the dead female griffon, “That looks like Valerie, she left us a year ago or so.”

“Wasn’t she the one who took a contract to go into an active stable last year?” Arys asked.

“Yeah, I remember when that happened, didn’t she get kicked out with ten other griffons or so who also went in to take that stable?” Aura asked.

Fletch replied quickly, “Yeah, I think this other guy was one of those griffons too. Looks like they put together their own talon company.”

“This shouldn’t be too bad then, ten griffons…well eight now I guess, won’t be a problem for us,” Pluck said.

I was looking past the dead griffons toward the still open door that led into the tunnels. Just down that dark hole was the door to my old home and my old life, now it was threatened by griffons and my fucked up Overmare. What I don’t get is why. What’s the point behind hiring griffons to come into the stable and take over? She already ran everything in Stable 28, she was the pony that ruled over everypony in there. Why would she go this far? Unless…

I took a step back, “This is a trap.”

Aura gave me a quizzical look, “What do you mean a trap?”

“Think about it Aura, why would the Overmare need to bring in griffons to take over the stable? She was already in charge of everything that happened there, her word is law. There’s only two reasons she would need to do something this extreme, either she lost control of the ponies in the stable and she needed the griffons to help her, or she wanted me to find out about this so I’d come home to help Auntie,” I explained.

“She has a point. In any stable The Overmare rules over everypony and no matter what, she gets what she wants. Some Overmares let that go to their head, others try not to abuse their power. If she lost control of the ponies she would need help to get her power back, that’s what security is for. This is going almost too far for any Overmare. I think Shadow’s right, it has to be a trap,” Wind Thrasher said.

“If it is, then she’ll be expecting you to show up any time now, what do you want to do then?” Fletch asked me.

Before I could answer a shot rang out from above us, and one of the griffons that was with Arys fell as a bullet passed through his skull. The Talons reacted instantly, most took to the air. Arys and Aura pushed Wingnut, Wind Thrasher and myself into the tunnel as Fletch started to shout orders. When I looked up I saw at least twenty griffons flying above us, one I knew right away. She was holding a sniper rifle and aiming down at Fletch a grin on her beak.

“Fletch, I didn’t expect you to be the griffon my dear sister would send out here,” Gina said maliciously as she looked down her scope, “And is that my dear Aura hiding in the tunnel there too?”

Fletch I could see went from her normal irritated look to intense fury, “OH Aunt Gina, long time no see! I’ve been waiting years to gut you like a fish for the shit you pulled.”

Aura looked at her older sister, “Don’t do it Fletch, she’s stronger than you trust me, and she has a whole lot of backup.”

I could see that it took every ounce of Fletch’s willpower not to jump into the air to attack her disgraced Aunt. She finally looked at Aura and asked, “What do you plan on us doing then?”

“We have to get word to mom, we need to fall back right now.”

“You do that then, I’ll keep her talking,” Fletch said looking back at Gina who was still smiling down at us all ignoring the other griffins who were staying in place, waiting for Fletch to give the word to attack, “So Aunt Gina, you went and started your own talon company huh?”

Gina laughed, “Hahaha, not really Fletch, I’m just another griffon doing what she’s told. I joined up after The Courier there killed my last employer. We’re The Unchained Talons, a lot of us are former members of The Red Talons. All of us are highly trained and none of us are bound by the idiotic rules of our former talon company.”

Aura looked over toward me as the others whispered to me, “Get Gigi on the emergency broadcast channel and tell her what’s going on. There’s something else going on here, I have a feeling there’s more to this than your stable.”

“I agree,” I said then I looked back at Wind Thrasher and Wingnut, “Move further back into the tunnel and wait for me.”

Wind Thrasher nodded, “We’ll do that, but are you gonna be okay Shadow?”

“I’ll be fine don’t worry, now go,” when they left I lifted my Pip-Buck and opened the broadcaster and found the channel Aura used before to contact Gigi and said into it, “Gigi Bloodtalon, this is Shadow Star do you read me?”

A moment passed then Gigi responded, “I’m here Shadow what’s going on?”

“We need reinforcements next to Green Mist Valley, there’s a new talon group here and more griffons than we thought there’d be. I think a fight is about to break out, and they seem to be working with your sister.”

“WHAT!? You mean to tell me that Gina’s there!?”

“Yes, with a at least twenty other griffons, she says most of them are griffons from The Red Talons who were banished like her. They call themselves The Unchained Talons.”

“Fuck, if Gina’s there, then something bigger is going on. You need to tell Fletch and the others not to engage with Gina. They can’t take her on, no matter how much stronger Fletch thinks she is. Tell them to fall back and try to lead them away from the stable. I’ll lead my own team to meet them. Have her turn on her distress beacon so I can find her.”

“What about the rest of us?” I asked.

“Have Arys and Aura go with you into your stable, they should be good enough to help fend off whatever is going on in there. I’ll try to get a team to you as soon as I can, but we have to take out Gina first. If she’s leading these griffons, she has to be stopped at all costs,” Gigi said.

Aura moved closer to me, “Mom, Aunt Gina is saying that she doesn’t lead them.”

“Gina also likes to tell lies to throw off her enemy, don’t believe it for even a second Aura. You all have your orders. I’ll be there shortly.”

“I understand Gigi, I’ll make sure to leave the Stable unlocked so your team can get in to help if needed.”

“That’ll work, Gigi out,” she said and the transmission was cut off.

I looked back to Fletch who was yelling up at Gina, “You can’t expect me to turn over my contractor just because you told me to Gina.”

“Fletch, as much as I’d love to bicker about this, I’m a little short on time. My own contractor wants that mare dead. My team and I are going to make sure she gets what she wants. Trust me, you don’t want to fight me.”

“Fletch did you catch what Gigi said?” I asked as quietly as I could.

She flicked her tail twice but didn’t look at me while yelling back up at Gina, “You’re getting old Aunt Gina, I don’t think you have what it takes to kick my ass anymore. You’re becoming a frail old HAG!”

Gina started to laugh, “Hahahaha. You’re so cute thinking you can fight me Fletch, you don’t even hold a candle to your younger sister, and even she can’t win in a fight against me. Now back down and let me take Shadow, I really don’t want to hurt family if I can help it.”

I looked over at Aura, “Did she hear me?”

“Yeah, she did. Fletch is trying to by us time to get away, we should use it. Once we’re away she’ll do what she needs to,” Aura said turning to head down the tunnel.

I turned to follow and so did Arys when I heard Gina yell down at me, “And where do you think you’re going Shadow? Don’t think you can just hide in that hole in the ground. You’re trapped down there and as soon as I’m finished with my niece I’m coming for you next.”

Fletch pulled something off of a belt she was wearing, “Go now Shadow, don’t worry about me,” then she threw something into the air yelling at her other griffons, “Kill whoever you can then scatter!”

I turned just in time as the flash bomb went off, filling the air with its blinding light. I heard a shout of surprise from Gina then the sound of guns going off as the griffons above started firing. I ran for it following Aura and Arys deep into the bowels of the land.

“Is your sister gonna be okay?” I asked as we ran further into the darkness.

“Fletch is too stubborn to die, she won’t let anyone bring her down until she can prove she’s stronger than I am. She’ll do what mom said for now, we have to make sure we get you into the stable. If we’re lucky then we won’t run into any more griffons when we get inside,” she replied.

I was glad to hear that, Fletch really wasn’t that bad, she just royally hated her sister. From what I could see though, she knew how to take her orders when she had to or was under contract, either that or I just caught her in a really good mood.

It didn’t take us long to reach Wind Thrasher and Wingnut. When we did, it was almost impossible to see in the dark tunnel, it was only because of Wind Thrashers glowing yellow eyes that we found them. I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out the goggles and mask I’d gotten from Silver and put them on. A moment later the tunnel and my friends came into focus.

“We should be close to the stable door by now. Wind Thrasher and I can lead the rest of you to the door.”

“We’ll be fine, we’ve been trained how to get around in dark places like this and our eyes see better in tunnels than a pony,” Aura said pausing for a moment, “Well maybe not as good as Batty but we’ll be fine.”

“Wish I was that lucky, I can’t see a thing,” Wingnut complained.

I lifted him with my magic and set him on Aura’s back, “There, you can ride on Aura until we get into the Stable, but be ready for an attack. I’m sure the Overmare has something planned in case something like this happens.”

With that said, we all continued down the tunnel. I was right, it only took us five minutes or so to reach the large gear shaped door with the number 28 on it. As soon as we were close I used my magic to pull out my shotgun then moved over to the panel. I hooked my Pip-Buck into it and started the hacking software. The normal jumble of words and symbols came up, but for some reason it looked like I had five choices instead of the normal four. Maybe it had something to do with what Nexus did when he unlocked more stuff. This just made it easier to guess what the possible password would be to open the door.

The sad thing was even with the extra guess I could use, I figured out the password easily. It was ‘Powerful’ something The Overmare saw herself as no doubt. I took a second to calm my nerves then pulled the lever to open the door. A moment later I heard the large drill move into place and with a loud screech, the door pulled open with a powerful suction of air and rolled to the side.

“Okay, from here on out, we have to do our best not to kill anypony. Right now, we look like invaders and the security ponies might try to kill us, we have to convince them that we don’t mean them any harm,” I said.

“Do you really think they’re gonna fall for that Shadow?” Wind Thrasher asked.

I shrugged, “No idea, but not all of the ponies in here are bad, they’re just doing what they’re told. They just need to understand that The Overmare is nuts and the orders she’s telling them are preposterous.”

I wasn’t going to argue this with them right now. I walked over the threshold of the stable entrance then went up to the inner panel for the door. First, I used the repaired lever to close the stable door again, then hooked up the Mark II and made sure it would stay unlocked just in case Gigi was able to get us some help. As soon as I finished, I took a moment to look around.

Something felt off, the entryway should’ve had guards posted here. Even if they were just on the other side of the door that lead toward the Atrium, ponies should’ve come running from the sound of the door opening. But nopony came at all, no alarms went off, and no gunfire erupted. Stable 28 was quiet, as if nothing happened at all.

I moved to the other side of the entryway where the entrance to the Overmare’s escape tunnel should be, but the wall was sealed with no means to get into the tunnel that I could see. Fuck, I was hoping I could use that to sneak into her office and take care of the bitch quickly, but it looked like I was gonna have to do this the hard way.

“It’s late in the day, maybe everypony is sleeping,” Aura said, her spear pulled off her back.

“Either way, somepony should be guarding the door, something’s going on here,” I said looking around some more, “Let’s move on and be ready for anything.”

We moved over to the door that should lead into the Atrium. I pushed it open and found myself face to face with two Stable 28 guard ponies. As soon as they saw me, they both pulled out batons, the mare on the right saying, “Halt, I don’t know how you got into our stable, but you’re going to wish…” then she stopped when she got a good look at me, “Shadow is that you?”

I lowered my shotgun a little and pulled the mask and goggles off my face, “Glimmer Shot?”

The Stallion who was with Glimmer looked confused, “Shadow Star? Isn’t she the one that the Overmare wanted those griffons to find?”

Glimmer looked around the almost empty Atrium, “Shadow why did you come back here? Do you know what The Overmare would do if she knew you got back into the stable?”

The other Stallion looked over at Glimmer, “Glimmer, our orders are to bring her in if she showed back up here.”

Aura chuckled as she lifted her energy spear, “And how do you plan on doing that?”

He looked up at Aura fear clearly written on his face, “There are more of us in here, we aren’t scared of a couple griffons and some Wasteland ponies.”

I ignored the idiot and asked Glimmer, “Why isn’t there any guards in the entry?”

“Overmare said we didn’t need them now, since the Griffons are out there protecting us from invasions,” then she looked over at the stallion, “Keep your muzzle shut, Shadow’s a Stable 28 citizen no matter what The Overmare says. You know as well as I do that she’s lost it.”

“But, we have to do whatever The Overmare says, that’s the rules,” he replied.

“Fuck, I can’t deal with your dumb ass right now,” Glimmer said, then smacked him in the face knocking him out cold, “Can one of you tie him up or something then toss him into the entryway, he’s not a bad pony, just a newbie.”

I took a step back a little surprised by what I just saw, “Glimmer what the hell?”

She looked back at me, “Listen Shadow, I’m not one of the ponies who’s going to follow the orders of The Overmare anymore. I’ve been waiting for you to show up, Auntie said you would.”

“So, Auntie’s okay?” I asked.

“For now, she’s hiding in the lowest level of the Stable. The Overmare’s ordered her to be taken into custody as soon as she’s found,” she looked around again then said, “We should get you all out of here and down to level ten.”

“What about the ponies in here?” I asked.

“Mandatory curfew, the only ponies allowed out of their rooms at this time are the R & D ponies and security. Right now, I’m supposed to be working level ten looking for Auntie, I was on my way down there when you came through the door. Let’s get you and your friends out of sight before the next shift starts.”

She started to lead us toward the elevator, “Why are you doing this Glimmer?”

“Yeah, I find it kind of odd that you’d just help complete strangers without any questions,” Aura added.

She pressed the button to bring us down, “You’re all with Shadow, I trust her.”

“But why? The last time I saw you, I hurt you.”

She smiled a little, “Shadow, you did what you had to. You protected yourself from that poor excuse for a security pony, I just got caught in the blast. After that night I swore to make it up to you, I could’ve stopped him at any time, but I was scared. Also, I remember how hard of a time most of the ponies here gave you because of what you are. It wasn’t right to treat you differently just because you’re a unicorn, or because of where you came from.”

I smiled a little, “I wish other ponies in here felt the same way you did.”

The elevator door opened and we all stepped in, then Glimmer said, “You’d be surprised how many ponies in here saw you differently after you escaped. Balefire and Milkshake started spreading stories around about what The Overmare was gonna do to you. At first ponies said they were just making up stories because they were your friends, but when Auntie started calling The Overmare out on things she was doing or ordering. Ponies started to believe the stories after a while.”

“Wait, Auntie started calling out The Overmare?” I asked.

“Yeah, she did, a week or so after you escaped in fact. I’ll let her tell you about it when we get to her.”

Arys glared over at Glimmer and asked, “How do we know you’re not leading us into a trap?”

Glimmer looked back at the blue and white griffon, “Are all Wastelanders so untrusting?”

“Yeah, that’s how we stay alive,” Wingnut said crossing his forelegs.

“Well, I’m not leading you into a trap, honestly level ten would be the worst place to do it.”

“How do we know that?” Aura asked.

Glimmer rolled her eyes, “Surfacers, they don’t know anything. Shadow would you mind explaining?”

I looked at my friends, I couldn’t help but laugh a little at them and explain, “Level Ten is the biggest level in Stable 28, it houses all of our extra rations, gems for emergencies, weapons locked away in case the stable is taken over, and all of the generators that power the stable. It’s too large of an area to set up a trap, especially when most of the ponies…or griffons you want to spring a trap on are flyers. If Glimmer wanted to trap us, it’d be better if she did so from a confined environment where she or others could control the situation”

“Our Lowest level was a lot like that too,” Wind Thrasher agreed, “I used to go down there to practice flying when I was younger, and to hide from Dr. Cell when I was older.”

The door opened and Glimmer started leading us past all of the store rooms and deeper into the bowels of my stable. I noticed that we were heading toward where I’d found the Mark II. As we walked I asked, “What happened with Milkshake? On Auntie’s transmission she said she was thrown into the holding cells.”

Glimmer looked sad, “She was put into a cell for speaking up against The Overmare a few days ago, now she is back working, but she’s always under guard. They’ve been keeping her away from Balefire mostly.”

We passed by the sign telling ponies that The Catacombs were off-limits, once we were past that I asked, “Where they worried that Balefire and Milkshake were going to plan something?”

Her eyes fell a little, “Again I’ll let Auntie explain. We’re almost there anyway.”

We all walked past the place where I found the Mark II, further into the darkest parts of The Catacombs. There was a steel door, I looked at it curiously, “How long as this been here?”

“I have no idea, it just showed up one day. Auntie said your mother used some kind of spell to hide the door.”

“So, this is where Auntie is hiding?” I asked.

The door opened before Glimmer could say something and Auntie was standing there, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes, “Shadow sweetie, I’ve missed you so much.”

I wanted to run up and hug her for the rest of my life, but I didn’t get a chance. Glimmer moved up to her and beckoned us to move into the room, “Auntie, I ran into them when I was heading down here. I’m sure nopony saw us.”

We moved into the room and Auntie shut the door behind us saying, “Good, I was worried that The Overmare would’ve seen her. Why don’t you stay for a little bit while I explain things to Shadow?”

“I would, but I have to make ponies think I’m working. We can’t risk the Overmare finding out that I’ve been helping you. Shadow it was wonderful to see you again,” Glimmer said, then she opened the door, check to see if anypony was out there then went back toward the way we came.

Auntie looked back toward me and smiled again, “Shadow I’m glad you got my message, who are these friends you brought with…”

I didn’t give her a chance to keep talking, I ran up to her and tackled the older mare knocking her to the ground and hugged her as tight as I could, “Auntie, I missed you so much!”

“Careful Shadow, don’t go suffocating the mare we all came here to help,” Aura said with a snicker.

Auntie hugged me back then once I let her go, she got back to her hooves, “I’ve missed you too Sweetie, I’ve been so worried about you ever since you escaped.”

I took a few steps back then blushed a little, remembering my friends who were looking at me like I was nuts, “Oh yeah, um these are some of the friends I’ve made since I left. That’s Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, Aura, and Arys. Arys is one of The Red Talons who’s helping me right now.”

She nodded at each one, “I wasn’t expecting you to make it in here with so many following you. Were you able to get the message to Box Tape?”

“Yeah, he told me the code meant you were going to blow up the Stable.”

She gave me a funny look, “Why would I tell you to come here and help me out if I was going to blow up the Stable?”

Aura interrupted, “If that wasn’t what you wanted him to tell us, then why would he lie?”

“I’m not sure, maybe he just wanted you to hurry, but you should’ve been doing that anyway…” she replied.

“Auntie what’s going on here?” I asked, as I did I looked around the room, it wasn’t large, but there were large terminals lining the far wall. There was a cot in one corner and a desk with notes spread all over it.

She sighed, “When you escaped, I had to work hard to keep The Overmare from sending security ponies out to find you. I couldn’t stop her from contracting The Red Talons though. I thought for a couple of days that you were going to die; The Red Talons are not griffons you want to mess with. Then the message came later that they dropped the contract and refused to work with our stable again because of her lies. The Overmare lost her mind, it seemed that she promised the Mark II to somepony. I was trying to figure out who it was but then we had our falling out and things just started to go to shit from there.”

“Yeah fighting The Red Talons was hard, but I ended up getting on good terms with them. Did you figure out anything about who The Overmare was trying to get the Mark II for?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No, all I could find was a transmission being sent to somepony in Los Alicorn. I’m not sure who she’d know that lives out there, and if it’s the only pony I know from there, then you’re in bigger trouble than I first thought.”

Wind Thrasher gave her a funny look, “If you’re a stable pony, then how do you know ponies from Los Alicorn?”

“I used to be one of the ponies that traded with Cartwheel back when the stable was still open. I’ve met a lot of ponies that traveled through the town that came from all over. The pony I know from out there is the pony I was trying to warn Box Tape about. His name is Wolfsbane, or more specifically Elder Wolfsbane the leader of the Los Alicorn Steel Rangers.”

Arys looked a little scared when she brought up his name, “We’ve heard of him before. Doesn’t he run one of the strongest branches of the Steel Rangers?”

“He does, and he’s a ruthless pony who always makes sure to get what he wants. He’s wanted to take out The Steel Rangers from this area for a long time and expand the area he controls, he also wants to get into this stable.”

“Why would he want to get in here?” I asked, “What does Stable 28 have that he could possible want?”

Auntie moved over to one of the terminals and brought up a few blueprints, “Shadow what you don’t know about Stable 28 is, it was designed to make better weapons and armor for war. Stable-Tec set it up to look like a stable that was designing new ways of surviving in the outside world and they did do that. The real reason for this was for Earth Ponies to use the gifts we have to mix magical gems and weaponry or armor. I’m sure you’ve seen Steel Ranger armor before, well think of something like that only it can do more than just protect you from radiation and bullets. For the past two hundred years this stable has been finding new ways to make war, that’s why Elder Wolfsbane wants this stable. He thinks we’ve made weapons that no other pony has ever seen before.”

Wingnut was looking at the blueprints, as he did he said, “Most of these seem like a good idea in theory, but I can’t see how any of them would be able to work or if they did, I’m sure they wouldn’t last long.”

“Well aren’t you a smart colt,” Auntie said proudly, “You’re right, they tried to make all kinds of new weaponry, but we kept on failing over and over again. Finally we just started to concentrate on protection through armor and other things. When Grim came to the stable the last Overmare wanted to try and start up the program again, but it never worked since Grim’s talents didn’t revolve around fighting.”

“How would Wolfsbane know about any of this?” I asked.

“He got his hooves on some old files when he was out visiting The Steel Rangers in Fillydelphia. They live in the Stable-Tec headquarters and it has most of the information about all of the stables.”

“What I don’t understand is how you know so much about this,” I said.

“Oh, that’s easy Shadow, your mother told me everything about this when we became friends. She entrusted me with a lot of information so I could help you when you were ready.”

Something wasn’t adding up, but I couldn’t put it together yet, so I asked, “If mom told you so much, do you know where her friend is here in the stable?”

Auntie’s eye’s widened a little as she said, “What friend? I was Grim’s only friend in here.”

“Her name is Vervain, or at least it used to be…” as I spoke I saw something on Aunties face, it was subtle, but when I said that name, her left eye twitched just a little. I knew that eye twitch well, it meant Auntie was about to tell me a lie.

She laughed and tried to throw it off like it was nothing, “Shadow sweetie, I’ve never heard of a pony that goes by that name before.”

The more she spoke the more I was finding it hard to believe her, also my head was starting to throb again, just like it did the last time I started to remember something from my past, before I could ask Auntie more a memory came flooding back…

oooOOOooo

Mom just finished using her healing magic on me again, I was feeling a lot better after my excitement at finally finding a filly around my own age who wanted to be my friend. I was riding on mom’s back as we left Cartwheel. I was hoping we’d be able to come back after mom finished with her mission for the Elder and healing me.

“I can’t wait to tell Auntie Vervain about my new friend,” I said excitedly.

Mom giggled, “I’m sure she can’t wait to hear all about it Little Star, but can you please try and calm down? I can’t use that spell on you all the time you know.”

“I know, but I’m just so excited!”

“Fine, but try to at least stay still, I don’t want you falling off of me,” Mom said as we reached the other side of the cliffs, there was a Pony standing there in dark grey power armor.

“There you are Vervain,” Mom said moving closer to the power armored pony setting me down on the ground.

“It took you longer than I thought it would to get the information you needed,” Vervain said looking down at me, “How are you feeling Sweetie?”

I beamed up at her, “Auntie Vervain I made a friend today! Her name is Silver Snip!”

Vervain knelt down in her power armor, “Did you really? Is this a real friend or another imaginary friend that I can’t see like before? That trick won’t work twice.”

I frowned up at her, “I’m not a little filly anymore, this one is real, just ask mom.”

She laughed then looked back at mom, “Was this new friend of Morning’s the reason you took so long Grim?”

“No, the fillies mother was. You were right about that tailor, she’s a real piece of work. Her daughter was nice enough though, she kept Morning Star company while we talked, that’s the new friend she’s talking about,” Mom replied.

“She wanted me to tell her some of the stories I like to make up, at first I thought she was just trying to be nice, but she really wanted to hear some of them,” I said.

“Well I’m glad to hear that you made a nice friend Sweetie,” Vervain said before turning back toward mom, “Did Supple Cloak have what we needed?”

Mom nodded, “Yes, it cost me a lot more than it should’ve though. That mare would’ve taken every cap I had on me if she could’ve.”

“At least you got the map, are you sure it’s the real thing though?” Vervain asked.

“Yes, it matches up with the information I was able to find in that memory orb, how it ended up in the home of a small-town tailor I have no idea, but it was the one.”

“So where is it?”

Mom pointed south toward a tall white spire that went into the clouds, “That M.A.S.E.B.S. tower, there’s a hidden chamber under it that should lead us to it.”

“And you’re sure you can use that to heal Morning?”

Mom smiled, “Of course I do.”

“What will you do after she’s better though?”

“You mean about Wolfsbane?”

Vervain sighed inside her power armor, “You know he’s dangerous and if he gets his hooves on that he’ll take over the rest of the branches.”

“I know that, that’s why I’m planning on making sure to shut down the project after I fix Morning Star.”

“You know that he’ll come after you if he finds out you betrayed him,” Vervain said.

Mom smiled, “I know that, but he won’t be able to get to me after we’re done.”

“How do you plan on hiding from a pony like him?”

“Morning Star and I will be joining you in Stable 28 once this is all over, Elder Apple Jam ordered it. He said you’ve been having problems getting the stable ponies to trust you, I’m going in there to help with that.”

I smiled, “Yeah, mom is gonna change their memories.”

Mom gave me a stern look, “That information is private sweetheart. Remember, loose lips sink ships.”

Vervain interrupted, “How do you plan on modifying that many memories?”

“I can do it. It’ll take me some time, but I know I can do it. The only thing I’ll have to worry about is getting in. I’m hoping that you can help me with that.”

“Maybe, but that will all depend on the mood The Overmare is in. I’ll try and think of something though once you’ve dealt with her. Then the rest of the ponies shouldn’t be a problem,” she said.

“I agree, for right now though let’s head out to that tower. I’ve waited years to find this, and I don’t wanna wait anymore. You’ll have to leave your power armor behind though,” Mom said.

“Why would I have to do that?” she asked.

“Because the security systems that are inside the lab will see the weaponry you have as a threat, you’ll have to go in with me without it.”

Vervain moved over to a small cutout in the cliffs just off the road, “Fine with me, but you’ll have to do something to keep another pony from stealing it.”

“I’ll cast a protection spell on it, you can get it when we’re finished,” Mom said following her, carrying me in her magic.

“Fine with me,” Vervain said, there was a loud hiss then the power armor opened and Vervain stepped out, she was tall for a mare, with a yellow coat, dark purple eyes, a violet mane, with a cutie mark of a purple flower, “Not that I mind getting out of that now and then, it gets stuffy in there.”

“Auntie Vervain can I ride on your back!?” I asked.

“No problem Sweetie, but you have to promise Auntie that you’ll be a good filly and stay quiet and rest up while we travel okay.”

“I will Auntie Vervain,” I said happily.

Mom lifted me onto Vervain’s back then said, “I’ll never understand how you can get her to listen to you so well.”

Vervain laughed as the two mares started to head toward the tower, “It’s all in the way you act around them my friend.”

I yawned and closed my eyes, as the two of them walked on, happy to be with my small family…

oooOOOooo

I came to with Auntie shaking me, “Shadow, are you okay?”

“She’s tends to pass out like this from time to time,” Aura said.

“She never used to do that before she left the stable.” Auntie said…no she wasn’t Auntie, she was Paladin Vervain. Of course, she was, who else would mom trust her daughter to or her secrets to but the only friend she had in The Steel Rangers? How could I have missed it?

I pushed myself back into a sitting position pushing Auntie’s hoof away, “I’m fine, and why did you lie to me?”

She looked worried, “What do you mean?”

I got to all four hooves and yelled, “This whole time, you’ve been a Steel Ranger, you’re Paladin Vervain!”

To my shock, she didn’t get mad at me for yelling at her. She smiled, “Finally, you remembered.”

“Don’t change the subject…wait what?” I said confused.

She laughed, “Shadow, your mother worked very hard to make sure who I was stayed secret, even to you. After she took away your memories, you didn’t know who I was, so we both decided it was best that you always thought I was a stable pony just like everypony else here did, and still do.”

“Wait a minute, you mean the mare we needed to find in here was the same pony who raised you?” Aura asked.

“Looks like it,” I replied glaring over at Vervain…Auntie…whatever! “Yes, I remembered, at least a little bit. I remembered the day I told you about making friends with Silver Snip.”

Her smile fell and Vervain said, “The same day your life changed forever.”

“So, do you know everything about Shadow, like where she came from and who she really is?” Wind Thrasher asked.

She sighed, “When I met Grim, she was just a unicorn who’d just been saved by one of our Paladins, his name was Crackerjack. At the time I’d just switched from being a scribe to a Knight. The Elder liked Grim right away and had me show her around the Bunker and he wanted me to try to get her to join up with us. She did and over time the two of us became friends. Later she told me about where she came from and what she was really doing in The Wasteland. She wanted my help, she said she needed another pony to help her with her work, but really I just think she was lonely.”

“So, she told you we were from The Enclave?” I asked.

Vervain nodded, “She did, and she told me that she was being hunted because she left with you, the daughter of a high ranking solider from Nimbus.”

“My father, she wouldn’t ever tell me who he was. All she told me was that he died when I was very young. Is that true?”

“Shadow, all I know is that she told me the same thing. She said that your father was hunting her, but he was badly hurt when he got into a fight with the Steel Rangers…our branch of the Steel Rangers in fact. Elder Apple Jam was the only other pony your mom trusted with everything, when he found out your father was coming to find her, he sent out a team to take care of him. From what I know, he never meant for your father to get hurt, they just wanted to ward him away, but he fought and died.”

I looked down at my hooves, I should’ve known that was the case. Mom told me so many lies and same for Auntie, I was hoping that was another. I looked back up at her then asked, “Then why was this other pegasus Night Shade looking for me?”

“You know about Night Shade?” she asked looking more confused than I felt, “How’d you hear about him?”

“A memory orb mom left for me, now spill it. Who is he and why did he want me?”

“Your mother said he was your father’s best friend. When he died, Night Shade swore to get you back from Grim and kill her for taking away the one thing in this world his friend cared about.”

“But why would he want to do that? They both knew mom was just trying to help save me,” I said.

“As you should know by now friends are hard to come by in The Wasteland, the same thing goes for The Enclave. Pegasi are very loyal to their friends, and finishing something for a friend who’s died, isn’t unheard of,” Auntie said.

I looked back at my own friends then smiled a little, “Yeah I could see that, I just wish I knew more about all of this. I wonder if I could get into contact with Night Shade. If anypony knows the truth it has to be him.”

“If Night Shade was the pony who was looking for you, maybe he was the one who called off The Sins back at Halo One,” Wind Thrasher said.

“We can worry about that when we get out of here,” I said looking back at Auntie, “What’s going on here and why did you need me to come here?”

“As I said The Overmare has lost her mind, normally I could’ve taken care of her myself. The problem is she proclaimed that I was getting too old to handle my job and said I was to be…retired. You know what that means in this stable, she sent security to get me, but I was able to escape and make it down here. It was not long after that she started letting those griffons in. I don’t know what she’s up to, but she’s used those griffons to kill ten ponies already. I can’t leave this area to go after her, I needed you to come here to unlock the stable so we could evacuate it. Before the pony she’s working with gets here.”

“You know more than you’re saying Vervain,” Aura said accusingly.

“Yeah Auntie, what aren’t you telling us?”

She stomped a hoof, “If she’s working with the pony I think she is, then he’ll kill everypony in here to take what he wants.”

“Who is this pony you keep referring to Auntie?”

She sighed, “I believe it’s Elder Wolfsbane, that’s why I wanted Box Tape to know. He’ll go to Cartwheel first, he’ll use the town as a base until he’s ready to come into the stable. We have to get the ponies out of here before he does and kill The Overmare too.”

I remember mom talking to an Elder Wolfsbane in one of my memories, if Auntie is afraid of him he must be frightening. “Fine, the good thing is that I already unsealed the stable and made it so nopony can seal it again. The problem is there are a lot of griffons just outside the stable.”

Aura grinned, “Well then, how about we go kill ourselves an Overmare? From what I’ve heard she sounds as psycho as anyone else in The Wasteland that needs culling.”

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for years to hear that.”

“First of all, we’ll need to get to her room. She has most of the security team on her side and a few of the griffons. Just because you didn’t run into them coming in here, doesn’t mean they all left,” Auntie said.

Before I could say anything else a loud alarm started going off, I looked around vigorously, “What the fuck is that?”

Auntie’s face went blank as she said, “Oh no! We have to run now!”

“What’s going on?” I asked again, but I got my answer, the door exploded throwing the steel door into the terminals behind us.

Standing in the destroyed doorway was Gina, she was wearing what looked like Power armor. (I didn’t even know they made power armor for griffons) There were at least ten griffons behind her, all with energy rifles aimed at us. Standing next to her was The Overmare herself, her maniacal grin planted on that smug face of hers.

Gina laughed an evil laugh, “I told you if you just let her get into the stable, she’d lead us right to the mare you were looking for Overmare.”

“Aunt Gina, what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you working for this nutcase…and what happened to Fletch?” Aura asked angrily.

“Shhhh, Aura don’t speak unless you’re told to,” Gina replied.

Aura pulled off her energy spear, “I’m not gonna let you hurt my friends.”

“And how do you plan on stopping me Aura? You’re nothing compared to me,” Gina said then she looked back at The Overmare, “Well I delivered you the mare you wanted, and as a bonus I got you The Courier. What do you want me to do with her?”

The Overmare grinned at me, “Shadow, it’s been too long. Thank you for bringing me the Mark II.”

“You’re insane if you think I’m just gonna give this to you,” I said pulling out the plasma rifle and my shotgun.

“Oh, I don’t plan on you giving me anything. You see, thanks to my new friends I’ve learned everything I need to know about that Pip-Buck,” she looked back at Gina, “Kill Shadow Star and take the rest into custody.”

Gina’s smile grew wider, “No problem,” she lifted a large rifle and pointed it right at me.

We were really in a bind now. Ten griffons, The Overmare, and who knows how many security ponies she had roaming around the upper floors. I knew there was only one way out of this, “Overmare, are you sure you know everything about this Pip-Buck?”

She laughed, “Of course I do, now keep quiet and die like a good filly.”

“Did you know that if you kill me this Pip-Buck will wipe away all the data it’s holding on its memory drive? That means everything you want would be lost Overmare, do you think your partner would be happy if everything was lost because you killed me without thinking?”

The Overmare’s eyes went wide and she put up a hoof, “Hold up Gina. Shadow Star, tell me what you mean?”

“The Mark II is different from a normal Pip-Buck, this one was set up with a protection that will wipe away all the data on it. A Steel Ranger named Vervain set it up and she’s the only one that can undo it,” I replied.

The look on her face was perfect, she stomped her hoof, “We need to make sure this is true, for right now take them all into custody. Make sure you keep Shadow away from her friends.”

Gina looked down at The Overmare, “Are you sure? From what I’ve seen she has a knack for getting out of things like this.”

“I said take them into custody!” The Overmare shouted before turning to walk away, “I’m going to go contact our friend and see if he knows anything about this.”

Aura looked ready to jump at her Aunt, “You’re not taking us anywhere.”

I put up a hoof looking at Aura and briefly glaring at the Overmare as she walked away, “No Aura don’t, we’ll do what they say for now.”

Aura kept on glaring at Gina, “If you hurt my sister I’ll burn you alive.”

Gina’s grin never fell, “Don’t worry, Fletch is still alive. My friends are keeping an eye on her and the rest of her wing just outside the stable. She’ll make a good bargaining chip if Gigi Shows up. Now all of you drop everything you’re holding and come with us.”

I nodded to all my friends, then I dropped my weapons, pulled my saddle bags off, along with my barding. All of us followed the griffons as they started leading us out of the bowels of level 10. As we walked Auntie moved closer to me and said, “I hope you have a plan to get us out of this.”

I just kept my face blanks as I answered, “You’ll see…this is going exactly as I planned…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Espionage Expert Rank 1: You’ve used your skills to their fullest to lead others into your old home mostly undetected. Sneak is increased by 15 and you gain +1 to Agility and Luck.

Chapter 30: Home

“I kill monsters, and I don’t do it for justice; I do it for everypony in The Wasteland.”

Every time, EVERY TIME! It’s either I pass out, get shot, or get captured. Although I haven’t been captured in quite some time, but this still sucks. I’m stuck in this stupid boring cell alone with nothing to do but be alone with my thoughts and my thoughts are something I don’t want to be alone with, because most of the time they’re dirty thoughts about my friends. Ugh I hate myself. Goddesses I’m gonna go more nuts than I already know I am.

The worst part about this whole situation is that even though the cell blocks have bars instead of solid walls, I still can’t talk to anyone because the whole cell block is empty. That stupid bitch thought it would be fun to put me in a separate cell block than my friends, but oh she is going to pay. Honestly, I still haven’t figured out how I’m gonna get out of this mess completely but I have planned some things that are still going accordingly.

As I lied there on the practically paper-thin mattress in my cell pondering what is and what I hope will be, I fiddled with the broadcaster on my Pip-Buck, “C’mon, work dammit. Fuckin’ Stable-Tec and their concrete walls.”

Since the broadcaster wasn’t working I switched to the radio and was able to get at least the stable broadcast channel, “Ahem, h-hello everypony. It’s uh, it’s me again I-I guess to um, bring you the news. It looks like uh Sh-shadow Star has returned to the stable and is um well uh awaiting trial for some pretty terrible crimes against the stable. M-madam Overmare couldn’t be reached for comment because she kept telling me to um go away so I uh don’t know exactly what she’s on trial for yet so p-please don’t be angry with me.”

I sighed and turned it off, “Really? They made HIM the new radio host? He sounds like he’s afraid the microphone is gonna jump on his face and eat him alive. Why am I talking to myself? There’s no one around to hear me. Dammit I’m still doing it!”

That’s it, I’m not just gonna kill The Overmare, I’m gonna torture her first like she’s doing to me but SO much worse. At least when Aquila was trying to play body snatcher I at least had somepony to talk to, even if said somepony was on the nuttier side of a sandwich. Well at least it wasn’t on the fruiter side, that could get weird, “AAAhhh! You can’t catch me dirty thoughts!”

Suddenly the door opened and a security pony came in, “What’s all the racket in here? Who are you talking to?”

I just stared at him for a few seconds with what I suspected was a stupid look on my face because of his own expression, “Uhhh, I’m talking to my dirty thoughts about ponies…”

The look he gave was priceless, “Um, kay then. Maybe try to be a little quieter, I’ll give you some privacy uh, I guess.”

I sat up quickly before he could turn to walk out, “No don’t! Stay in here!”

“Uh, no offense but I’m not really into that kind of thing. I grew out of watching after puberty.”

Good Goddesses, stallions are idiots, “That’s really disgusting and the complete opposite of what I meant by stay in here. Congratulations you’re now the biggest moron I’ve met in this stable so far and I lived her for most of my life. Anyway what I meant was is that it’s lonely and boring in here and it’d be nice to have SOMEPONY to talk to. So, will you stay?”

“I dunno, you DID just call me a moron. Maybe if I got an apology I’ll consider it. Plus, I’m pretty sure Madam Overmare said she wanted you in solitary confinement and since we don’t have any solitary cells we just put you here in cell block two since there usually isn’t anypony in here,” he said leaning against the bars and crossing his forelegs.

Wow, and I thought The Wasteland had weird ponies in it. This guy seriously just asked for an apology from a technical criminal for calling him a name. At least he was polite enough decline when he thought I wanted him to watch me do stuff to myself so he can’t be all bad. Wait, what am I talking about? He’s a security pony, he’s not supposed to be bad. First I’m a fish out of water in The Wasteland and now I’m a fish out of water in my own home that I haven’t been away from for that long. How long have I been out of my stable exactly? Eh doesn’t matter, “So what am I being charged with; do you know?”

“Invasion of an active stable, aggravated assault, intent to use a deadly weapon, and terroristic threats.”

My jaw dropped, “You’re kidding me, right? Invasion of an active stable? Are you kidding me? I used to fucking live here for Goddesses sake!”

He grinned, “Ppfftt, I know that and so does everypony else, but in the eyes of the law you’re an invader, you abandoned this place for the wasteland. According to the law, you are no longer a citizen of Stable 28. See I could care less what you do, it’s The Overmare whose got a thorn in her snatch. She REALLY must not like you for how many charges she piled on.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m the biggest troublemaker in the stable. Always have been, always will be I guess. No offense, but I wish it was Balefire guarding my cell. Not that you’re boring or anything it’s just that he’s an old friend of mine. We’ve known each other since we were foals.”

That caught his attention, “You don’t say. Isn’t he The Overmare’s son?”

“Yeah, so what?” I replied.

He let out a little chuckle, “I can see why she doesn’t like you now. She’s always been a strange one with some attachment issues. Balefire’s told me she’s still tries to coddle him like he’s still her little buck, hates it too from the sound of it. If you ask me it sounds a bit weird for her to treat her grown son like that. Personally, I think she’s jealous of you in a way because she doesn’t want you taking her son away from her.”

I couldn’t help but smile, “Y’know, I’ve thought the same exact thing to myself for years. Does he even know I’m in here?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, “Nope. Well not exactly. He knows you’re somewhere in the stable, but he doesn’t know that you’ve been arrested by security and that stupid talon company The Overmare hired,” he looked down and sighed, “I dunno why she hired them in the first place, all they’ve done is wreak havoc here. The Overmare’s been letting them execute ponies for outrageous crimes. In the back of my mind I think what if she’s just making excuses to get rid of ponies she doesn’t like and using them to do it because she knows we won’t do it for her? I shouldn’t be talking about this with you, you’re a latent criminal.”

I scoffed a bit at that, “Yeah in here maybe. Out there they make me out to be some kind of hero for some reason, even after I destroyed an ENTIRE town completely by accident.”

His eyes widened, “Oh, that’s not scary at all. Not in the slightest do I feel like pissing myself, so thank you for that comforting image.”

“Hey I said it was an accident, plus I killed a monster in the process who ended up being my super evil uncle.”

He gave me one of those looks, “You’re really fucked up, y’know that. You talk about a town that you destroyed almost like it’s no big deal and sort of brag about killing your uncle.”

“EVIL uncle mind you, and it wasn’t easy. He was barely a pony, he abused dark magic to the point where he didn’t even have a real body anymore.”

He put up his hooves, “Just stop right there, let’s change the subject. What’s your name? None of the others told me before I took my post here.”

That came as a surprise, “I’m Shadow Star or more well-known out there as The Courier or The Courier Mare. I used to live here, I thought you would’ve known who I was because of that. I’ve become accustom to being brought to security for one reason or another.”

“I’ve never seen you, let alone heard about you. There’s a lot of ponies in this stable and I see quite a few of them every day so if we have met I probably just don’t remember. I’m Cuff Key by the way, you can just call me Cuffs if you want.”

Something seems off. Why was he being so nice to a prisoner he’s supposed to be guarding, let alone one that’s supposed to be in solitary confinement? Maybe he’s just nice, or something else is going on? “So, Cuffs, what’s the deal with you? You seem like you’re having doubts about serving The Overmare, not to mention you’re technically disobeying orders talking to a prisoner that’s supposed to be left alone.”

He sighed, “You’re right. I am having doubts, but it’s not like I can act on anything without getting thrown in here or worse. Also, I know I’m disobeying orders by talking to you, but I’ve got nothing better to do right now and you asked if I’d stay. I’m not an asshole, I’m not gonna say no even though I’m supposed to. Rules are meant to be broken every once in a while.”

“Really, this is coming from a stable security pony? Y’know, you could bend the rules a bit more and let me out of here. Make an excuse like I escaped, got the better of you, and knocked you out.”

That made him chuckle, “Hahaha, I’m not THAT stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I would let you out of here if I could, but I know The Overmare isn’t that stupid.”

“Trust me, you’d be surprised,” I responded.

He laughed again, “Would I now, and how is that?”

“She tried to have Tinker remove this Pip-Buck with a Pip-Buck key when it clearly doesn’t have a key-slot and instead thought it would be a good idea to have the doctor in medical cut my leg off. There’s also the fact that he’s fucking psychotic and his idea of fun is cutting off my leg without putting me out first.”

He obviously didn’t laugh this time, “Good Goddesses, I can see why you left. She did all that for a Pip-Buck? What the hell could be so important on that thing?”

To be honest I had no idea, “I dunno, could be a recipe for magic cookies that grant eternal life for all I know.”

He didn’t speak for a moment as if he was lost in thought, “Listen, I can’t do much about your situation, but I’ll see what I can do about maybe having your friend be the one that comes to get you when you’re brought to The Overmare. It’s only right that he knows what’s going on.”

“Thanks, I know you’re risking a lot doing that, especially for somepony you just met. By the way, when am I going to be brought to The Overmare?”

He checked his Pip-Buck, “That depends, could be in a few minutes or an hour. She’s been doing things in her office with those griffons. Also, I’m sorry to say this, but I have to get back to my post. The boss will be checking up on me soon while he’s doing his rounds and I don’t want to get in trouble, it was nice talking to you Shadow.”

I sighed, “Alright, it was nice talking with you too. I hope we see one another again under different circumstances.”

***

After he left it was utter silence again, but at least I wasn’t talking to myself like some sort of freak. I hate being alone, not just because it’s boring, but because even though I’m alone; I still feel like I’m being watched. I’m sure everypony has those feelings every once in a while, if not, then I’m more messed up than I thought, “Great, now I’m paranoid. Ugh I’m talking to myself again.”

As I sat on the cell bed I thought about what my friends were dealing with right now. Wingnut had to be scared or thinking of a way to get out. Depends on the situation for him. Aura was probably angry because we got caught by her aunt and was most likely contemplating her demise. Most of all I was thinking about Vervain and the way I reacted when I remembered who she really was. I can’t even fathom how she feels. For all those years it had to be hard for her to keep that secret from me and the fact that my mother was still alive, even if she did end up telling me before I escaped the stable.

Shoot, how’s she gonna take it when I tell her what really happened to mom? If I know her like I think I do she’ll be furious and wanna help us in any way she can, no matter what the cost. Grimoire was Vervain’s best friend from what I know and for her to become what she has is one of the biggest acts of betrayal she could’ve done. Even worse is that they were both Steel Rangers and mom defected to The Enclave, one of their biggest enemies. I just hope that my friends are alright and that they’re working on their own plan to get out of there just in case my plan doesn’t work.

Another thing I was thinking about was what The Overmare wanted from my Pip-Buck. What could be on it that’s so important? Could it be things in R&D that the researchers there were working on? She might’ve discovered somehow that my mom was a Steel Ranger and that could be one of the reasons she left when she did. The only problem with that theory is what mom did when she left here. She wouldn’t have left the Pip-Buck behind for me to find, she would’ve brought me and it with her, and probably Vervain. Come to think of it, both her and Vervain were Steel Rangers. Couldn’t they have done something other than what happened? I’m sure if they worked together they could’ve defended themselves against whatever The Overmare threw at them, but they didn’t do that. Mom left me and the Mark II here for a reason; a reason that she’d never tell me now because her head’s been fucked with.

I guess that’s the big question. Why? Why did things end up the way they did? Why sacrifice the relationship with your daughter to escape a stable and become so evil? Why have your best friend lie to your child for years to hide the truth from her? I know there was a risk of Aquila getting out of her cage, but there’s no telling if that would’ve actually happened or not. This whole situation just doesn’t make sense at all. To be honest it really makes my head hurt, eh, thinking sucks.

Putting all that aside what’s worse is that my friend is out there, brainwashed to the point of hating me so badly that he wants to see me dead. I wonder how he’s doing, the struggle inside his head after what happened with Wingnut must be agonizing. Somewhere in the back of my mind I keep hoping that he overcame the brainwashing and escaped somehow and is on his way to save all of us. I know if I were in his situation I’d do the same for him, in fact I WAS pretty much doing the same for him by contracting The Red Talons to help find him. I know he really hasn’t overcome the brainwashing, but it’s nice to have hope that he might come. I just wish I could’ve helped him before all this, but I just don’t know how to.

Once I get out of this mess that’s the first thing I’ll do. I’ll save my friend no matter what it takes, whether it be a limb, an organ, or even my sanity. Sanity… the brain… that’s it, the brain. Doorstop said something about Stable 97 having the technology to overwrite memories of the stable inhabitants if they knew too much about that place. Since he’s hunting me, this plan just might work, I have to go there. Shit but I don’t know where the damn place IS. The only thing I know is that it’s in the Midwestern region of Equestria and I don’t even have a way to get there besides walking. I doubt Aura or Wind Thrasher want to lug Wingnut and I all that way with all our stuff. Ugh I can’t think about this right now, I need to focus on my situation.

I could use this valuable time to think of what I’ll say to The Overmare to save me and my friends. I don’t actually know for sure if this thing will delete all its data if I die, I kinda just winged it with The Overmare. The good thing is that there’s only one way to prove it and it’s too risky for her to do that. The only thing I can count on right now is her stupidity and obsession with the information on my Pip-Buck, whatever it may be. I wonder when I’m going to be brought to her, it’s been longer than an hour since Cuffs said that it could be anytime after an hour from then. The Overmare’s never really been one for efficiency when it comes to stuff like this, she’s incredibly lazy for someone in her position. She can’t even remember her terminal password to the point that she has it in an envelope taped under her desk. I shouldn’t be so hard on her with that though, it’s how I was able to get out of the stable after all. Like I said one of the things I can count on right now is her stupidity. I wonder if she ever changed that password, it’s not like anyone else would know it besides me and her. Well Balefire might know for how well he knows his mother.

Ugh… my thoughts just keep going from one subject to the other, there’s just so much to think about. Between all this with the stable and what’s going on with Stardust, I don’t know how I’m gonna deal with it all and fix everything.

The door opened and Balefire came in and to my cell door, “Sorry about my mom, she’s kind of a bitch,”

I smiled, “You’re funny y’know that. If I wasn’t so worried about my friends and pissed at her I might actually laugh. How are my friends doing?”

“They’re uh fine, I think, at least for Wastelanders. Are they like savages or something? The griffon threatened to um uh…”

I sighed, “Spit it out for Goddesses sake, I’ve probably heard worse OUT THERE.”

He squirmed a bit, “She threatened to uh…” he started to whisper, “Cut off my stallion parts.”

“Ppfftt, Aura’s not gonna do anything Wingnut won’t let her do. I wouldn’t worry too much about her, although she did actually do that once. Honestly it was actually pretty funny because she made a joke about hydra and…”

He started to wave his hooves back and forth in front of his face, “AAAHHH just stop! Please! Goddesses The Wasteland’s made you sick if you can laugh at something like that. Anyhow Madam Overbitch wants to see you. She said she just wants to talk so you shouldn’t have to worry about your safety.”

“Alright, but I’ll still worry about my safety no matter what, I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, and I’m small so that’s not very far,” I said as he opened the cell door.

I thought he would’ve put me in hoofcuffs like when I was arrested, but I found myself put into a collar, a small cold metal collar, “I advise that you don’t try anything stupid while wearing this, it’ll shock you if you do. It’s something R&D just developed for security right after you left.”

We kept talking as we walked, “Can you tell me what’s been going on here with those griffons? Also, how’s Milkshake?”

He looked down at his hooves as he walked, “Milkshake’s fine, she’s been enjoying working in the kitchen. She’s been getting into mischief recently since The Overmare hired the griffons, but other ponies have too. I told her to stop acting out because I don’t want what happened to all of them to happen to her. After a while of ponies speaking out against her actions my mom’s been having some of them executed publically, I’m surprised security hasn’t put a stop to it. I think it’s because we just don’t have the means to combat the threat. If we had more guns and help from the outside we could overthrow her, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I know, I know. Conspiracy theory bullshit, but I think I might be able to help with the outside source part; I have some friends that are on their way here,” I whispered, “The Red Talons and The Steel Rangers are headed to this location and will most likely use lethal force if they need to. If you can rally enough of the security ponies together, you can join forces with them to overthrow The Overmare. I’m in no position to fight right now, so I won’t be able to help. If you can get security to follow you and somehow get ahold of a broadcaster there’s two broadcast channels you can use to talk to both groups. The broadcaster won’t work in here though.”

He looked at me puzzlingly and whispered, “How am I supposed to use it then if it doesn’t work in here?”

“You’ll have to go outside,” I replied.

He was taken aback by my reply, “Outside? I can’t go out there, my mom would know if the door was opened.”

I smiled at that mischievously, “She won’t know anything has changed in the slightest. The door is still unlocked and I made sure it can’t be locked again unless it’s with this Pip-Buck. All you have to do is get the ponies who are probably guarding the door on board with this plan.”

“Who are these ponies? What makes you think they can help us? Their weapons are probably more crude than ours, they’re Wastelanders. The only things I’ve seen the griffons with are spears and a few guns.”

I wanted to laugh so hard, but all that would do is draw attention to us, “You have a lot to learn about The Wasteland. The Red Talons are similar to the griffons here except they’re more organized and have more numbers. The Steel Rangers on the other hoof are a force to be reckoned with. If they really wanted to, they could take over the stable, but they won’t do that to an active stable because of their values. Don’t worry about weapons with them either, they’re armed to the teeth with the most technologically advanced weapons from the war that’ve been refurbished and/or made into something new.”

He was starting to look more nervous as we got closer to The Overmare’s office, “Honestly this scares the shit out of me, but I’ll try and see what I can do, her reign of dictatorship can’t last forever. It’s quickly approaching its end.”

The door opened and I saw her, Madam Overmare of Stable 28. She was glaring at me in such a way that would make any other pony in the stable feel inferior. She stared at me like she’d thought she’s won, and like the coward she is she’ll try to kick me when I’m down. Unfortunately for her I’ve dealt with worse idiots than her outside, she’s nothing compared to them, “You wanted to see me Madam Cootermouth?”

Her arrogant glare turned to hatred, “How dare you, you little brat. It seems you haven’t changed a bit since going off into that Wasteland, if anything you’ve become more crude. Balefire leave her to me, I’ll send for somepony from security to return her to her cell when I’m done.”

“Yes Madam Overmare,” he responded before leaving.

The door closed behind me and she started speaking again, “I knew you’d come back here eventually. All I needed to do was bait you with something like this, don’t think I don’t know that’s you the radio ponies talk about. You’re a monster, a disgrace to this land; you kill in the name of justice when it’s really only to suit your own wants and needs.”

I gave her the snarkiest smirk I could, “If that’s what you think then you’re a lot dumber than I initially thought. I kill monsters, and I don’t do it for justice; I do it for everypony in The Wasteland. Crackerjack was a raider boss who held an entire town captive so he could take the fruits of their labors and he dabbled in slavery as well. Dr. Cell was a madstallion who wanted to subject the outside world to the results of his disgusting experiments and turned an innocent filly into something most ponies would be afraid of upon looking at her. Gator was a drug fueled fiend with no remorse for his actions and had a lust for power. Pride, my uncle, Oricalcos. He led one of the most feared groups in The Wasteland and basked so much into dark magic that he didn’t even have a real body by the time I annihilated him with a range finder that controls a super weapon I bought from a colt for fifty caps. I killed them because they needed culling. Through half of that I was afraid that I was going to die, but after a while I no longer feared death, because fearing death is a weakness, one that will surely be your downfall. All I have to say now is that you don’t scare me anymore, compared to the others you’re just an insect waiting to be squashed under my hoof. No matter how many chains, shackles, or collars you put on me, you won’t control me EVER again.”

She no longer looked at me with hatred, but with fear, “Y-you, YOU… ABOMINATION! You think you’re some sort of savior, don’t you? You’re nothing but a reckless psychopath whose overcome with self-righteousness. If it wasn’t for that thing on your foreleg I would’ve executed you already. And you have the gull to say that you don’t fear me!?”

I ignored her outburst, “What is it that’s so important to you on this Pip-Buck anyway? What could be so important that you’d try to have my foreleg cut off to get it? You see from the time I’ve spent in The Wasteland I know an insane pony when I see one, you Madam Overmare are insane. If you were out there I’m sure you’d have some sort of cult or something like that, but in here you’re just a political figure who abuses her power. So tell me, what is so Goddesses damned important on my Pip-Buck?”

Her eyes narrowed, “I suppose I could tell you, it’s not like anyone would believe a criminal anyway. What I want is simple, the research notes Grimoire stole from me when she left. There’s a part of R&D that most don’t know about except for a trusted few that work there. You know what happens when ponies get too old in the stable right? They’re sent to the retirement area to live out the rest of their days in peace, well some of them do anyway to keep up appearances. The ones that don’t are brought to R&D section B and used as test subjects for various experiments. Those experiments in turn will change the course of life as we know it.”

Like I said before, if there’s anything I can count on, it’s her stupidity, “And to think you called ME the monster. Take a look at yourself and see with your own eyes what you are, your true self. My true self isn’t what was done to me by my mother, it’s not what’s inside of me. My true self lives on the outside as The Courier; where does yours live?”

It took a moment for her to respond, “I think you’ve said enough Shadow Star. It’s time for you go back to your cell,” she pressed a button on her desk, “Security, take our disgraced prisoner back to her cell.”

“The truth hurts doesn’t it? Maybe one of these days you’ll see that,” I said as the door opened and Balefire walked back in.

She looked at him sternly, “Bring her back to the holding cells, she’s smelling up my office with her Wasteland filth.”

I was escorted out of her office and we were heading back to the cells when Balefire asked, “How much of a chance is there that your plan will work? Cuff Key walked by when I was standing outside the corridor to my mother’s office and was asking about you. Why didn’t you tell me you’d already gotten somepony to help you?”

I smiled sheepishly, “I sorta forgot. If it’s any consolation the only thing I asked for help with was getting to see YOU. However, he mentioned quite a bit that he was questioning his own loyalty to The Overmare, maybe you should go talk to him and see about that thing we talked about earlier.”

He sighed, “It’s worth a shot I guess, I’ll see if I can get some of my other friends from security in on it too. It’ll probably be easier to convince friends to help me instead of just random security ponies.”

It seems like things are starting to look up for a change, and as long as everything goes accordingly I won’t die in front of all the ponies I grew up with in the stable, “Thank you Balefire, I knew I could count on you.”

“Don’t mention it. Really don’t, at all,” he said.

“Don’t mention what?” I replied.

He looked a little dumbfounded, “Really? You know what. Ooohhh…. I get it.”

A few minutes later we were back in the holding cells in security, but he didn’t take me to Block B where I was before, “What are you doing? My cell is in Block B.”

When he replied his demeanor changed from my friend to security pony, “My orders were to bring you back to the holding cells, The Overmare didn’t say which ones,” he turned to the other security pony standing outside the cell block entrance and said, “Put her with the others. Make sure you take her collar off too, Wastelanders aren’t as dumb as they seem, one of them might rig it to electrocute her to death and The Overmare wants her kept alive.”

The other pony just gave him a weird look like it was a strange request, “Okay then… we usually take them off anyway because they’re in the cell so I don’t think we have to worry about something like that happening, but thanks for the warning anyway.”

After that awkward exchange I was put into the cell with my friends who were all staring at me like they were surprised I was still alive. I mean The Overmare said she wanted me alive so the data doesn’t get erased, but for how long I was in Block B and The Overmare’s office I could see why they might’ve thought something happened, “Hi guys, I’m back… yaaayyy.”

Auntie err Vervain I guess was the first to finally say something, “What happened? She didn’t hurt you did she and what’s this plan you were talking about before we got captured?”

Great an explanation, how fun, “I was in Block B when we were first taken into custody and I just came back from talking with The Overmare. She didn’t hurt me at all except for maybe my pride because I had to wear that stupid shock collar like some sort of pet. If anything, I think I hurt her, her psyche anyway. I got some things out that I wish I had before I left here. I also have a plan in the works to save our hides that’s coming to fruition as we speak. Some of the less loyal ponies to The Overmare are gonna use a broadcaster outside and tell the Steel Rangers and The Red Talons that they want to help them retake this place and overthrow The Overmare.

Aura shook her head a little mockingly, “You just can’t help but try to help in any way you can. You’re more useful than half-pint laying down over there, he hasn’t even asked me to escape yet.”

Wingnuts head popped up, “Okay fine, escape from this and get us out of here.”

“Eh, don’t feel like it right now,” Aura said nonchalantly.

He glared at her, “Yeah sure, because I believe that one.”

Ignoring them I looked at Vervain, “Vervain, I need to know everything you know about this Stable, and not just the bullshit you tried to feed us down on level 10. That means what mom was working on here before she left, what you two were both trying to find here, and why we both stayed behind. I’m not gonna take the crap about mom wanting to keep me safe. I don’t have the time to dig through all of the shit you two have fed me since I was a filly.”

She frowned, “Shadow what does any of this have to do with us getting out of here?”

“It doesn’t, but right now I can’t do anything to stop the Overmare, not until I know I have the backup we need.”

She patted the floor next to her, when I went over and sat she sighed then said, “Ten years ago I was sent here on a mission to check out a tip we got about Stable 28. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was looking for new tech that was supposedly being made here. I found this stable with the help of a friend of mine that used to be a Steel Ranger. She followed a couple of the stable ponies back to this location a year or so before. I talked my way in and used some of my skills with terminals to get the former Overmare to let me stay for a while. They were having issues with some of the older tech in here and since I used to be a Scribe I knew how to fix them.”

“From what I remember, mom had to come here to help you get the other ponies here to trust you,” I said.

“Yeah, after a month the ponies here were getting a lot harder to work around, making my job into looking for what was really going on here even harder. So, I sent a transmission to my elder and told him I needed help. By this point the only thing they’d trust me with was getting supplies and handling some of the trade as long as a stable citizen went with me. I used one of those times to meet with your mother outside of Cartwheel.”

“What happened with the pony that was supposed to go with you?”

She gave me a sad smile, “I killed her Shadow, it was the only way I was going to be able to meet with your mother so I could help her get into the stable.”

“So you just killed an innocent pony so you could help mom get in?” I asked. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve seen what ponies in The Wasteland would do, but hearing Vervain talk about it like it was no big deal was hard to take.

“She was the last pony who helped The Overmare with her duties around here. This was back before there was an administrator position in the stable. She was a bitch and didn’t trust me at all, I really didn’t feel bad at the time for doing it either. But I’m getting off track, you see, she was the pony I was going to take the place of when I went back. Your mother said it was easier for her to change the memories of others if there was already a history established to the pony they thought I was.”

“Was that why you started going by Auntie?”

She laughed, “No, I could’ve still used my old name and that was the original plan, but after your accident Grim was worried that your memory would come back too soon. We both decided to start using the name you called me a lot, you always called me Auntie Vervain so I just took out the Vervain part and became Auntie to all of the ponies in here. Honestly it felt weird with everypony calling me that at first, but I got used to it.”

“How did Mom change the memories of so many ponies?”

Her smile grew, “She used a mix of Zebra magic with her own Unicorn magic. When she first came here, right after The Overmare let her in because of you being hurt. She asked The Overmare if she could set up something in the atrium with all the ponies from the stable, so she could thank them all for letting her stay here while you healed. Your mother had a way with words and The Overmare relented and called for all the ponies to come to the atrium. The thing no pony knew was that Grim hid a magical rune in the atrium that amplified her own power. When all the ponies were there, she cast her spell and replaced the memories of the pony I killed with me and my new name.”

“There’s no way that she could’ve done a spell like that without something happening her.”

Vervain shrugged, “Something DID happen, she was out for a whole day and when she came to most of the silver in her mane turned grey. Before she cast that spell her mane was almost as shiny as your own. She also had a hard time casting spells for a few weeks after that. Every time she tried to use her magic she got sick, it wasn’t easy for her since she had to keep using her memory spell on you.”

“So with one spell she was able to do what she thought would take months to finish in here?” I asked.

“For the most part yes, she still had to go around and check that the spell was holding for a few weeks, but in the end it all worked. The reason she stayed here for so long was because she was hiding from Night Shade and Elder Wolfsbane.”

Things started to click in my head as she spoke, “Is that the reason she left me behind when she left? I remember Elder Wolfsbane telling her that she was to bring me to Los Alicorn when I was better.”

She nodded, “The Los Alicorn Steel Rangers are very strong and good at getting tech, but they don’t have many gifted unicorns like Grim or you Shadow. To this day I’m not sure what he did to help her, but she owed him and his price was information on the project she would use to save your life, and you, once you got better.”

Aura looked over at us asking, “That’s the real reason she left Shadow in here then?”

Vervain shrugged, “For the most part yes, but she also wanted Shadow to make friends and have a relatively normal life. From the stories I’ve heard about life in The Enclave for Grim, it wasn’t much easier growing up there than it is in The Wasteland. The area they are from is mostly isolated from the rest of the Enclave and unicorns are seen as mostly second-class citizens. Grim had it better than most did because of Shadows father. Before Shadow became ill, they didn’t worry about much. Grim was a medical pony before everything happened, she also worked with the main research area of The Enclave’s magical research core. When Shadow was born, she always worried that she’d have a hard time making friends since all the foals her age were Pegasi. She knew that one day Shadow would have to leave the stable, but she wanted her to at least have a good childhood, one that was better than her own or what she would’ve had if they’d gone back to The Enclave.”

I looked back at Vervain and asked, “She really trusted you with a lot of information, didn’t she?”

Vervain smiled sadly, “She did, took a while for her to reach that point, but in the end she did. Grim is a good mare.”

I sighed, “Was a good mare.”

Vervain looked confused, “What do you mean WAS good mare?”

I couldn’t meet her eyes as I said, “Something happened to her during the years she was gone. She’s lost all the memories of what happened to us, she thinks her daughter is dead. All she cares about now is power.”

Vervain looked shocked, “No, she couldn’t have forgotten everything that happened to her.”

“Well she did, she’s been trying to kill Shadow ever since we first ran into The Sins. It’s only gotten worse since Shadow killed Pride,” Wingnut said.

“No, what I mean is, it’s not possible for her to forget things like that. A few months before she left the stable, she put a ward on her mind. This ward was supposed to make it impossible for anypony to take away her memories. She was worried that once she went back to The Wasteland, somepony would try to do that to her. The only pony who could‘ve taken away Grim’s memories was herself.”

Arys stepped in then, “Wait a minute, you mean that if Grim forgot anything, she did it to herself?”

“That’s the only way she could’ve forgotten unless she’s not really Grim,” Vervain said.

“Why would she do that though?” I asked, “Why take away the memories of your daughter?”

Vervain shook her head, “I have no idea, but there has to be a reason for it. Grim wouldn’t do anything like that unless she had a good reason to do so. She always meant for you to find her when you got out of here to bring her the Mark II.”

I rested my head against the bars, “We’ll have to just add this to the list of things to figure out when we’re done here.”

“You’ve got a point shorty, right now we have to figure out how to get out of this,” she said waving her talons around at the large cell.

“Yeah Shadow, what’s this plan you were talking about before?” Wind Thrasher asked.

I grinned a little, “Don’t worry, you’ll all see soon.”

“Shadow we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on,” Aura said, “I’m not really a fan of being locked in a cage.”

“I can’t tell you everything just yet, but you’ll understand soon. For right now I’ll just tell you this much,” I said looking back at all my friends, “Do you know what the bad thing about stables is?”

They all shook their heads, even Vervain who said, “What are you getting at Shadow?”

I smiled wider, “No matter what’s going on in a stable, everything runs off a schedule. First you have the shifts of ponies who work in the stable, Shift one, two and three. No matter what’s going on short of an attack, the same shifts start and end their days at the same time, day in and day out. It makes life in a place like this very predictable. When I was younger, I learned the times when the shifts changed and used that time to sneak around, during those shift changes things like security are weak.”

“Okay, and how does that help us?” Arys asked.

“It helps because of another flaw in the way a stable runs its day to day life, or at least Stable 28. We have a very lazy Overmare, every Overmare in fact has been lazy and doesn’t like do a lot of their major duties. They’ve always had another pony to take care of those kinds of things, like what Vervain has done for as long as we’ve been in here.”

“Yeah, so what?” Aura asked.

“So, what happens when you disrupt the schedule for a place that lives its life off of the same rules all the time?”

Wind Thrasher smiled, “When ponies like that are used to doing the same thing all the time and then you mess with the schedule, they’ll try and act like it didn’t happen.”

Vervain looked confused, “I don’t think I’m following.”

I grinned wider, “It means that our lazy Overmare even with you locked up, will still try to stick to the same schedule she always has. If anypony knows that it’s you.”

Her eyes lit up, “I understand.”

“What would The Overmare be doing right about now?” I asked.

She looked down at her Pip-Buck, “This is about the time she would go off to take one of her two-hour naps, leaving me to go check up on how things are going in the stable.”

“That’s right, she’ll shut down her radio, lock her doors and won’t let anypony bother her while she’s napping. She also does this at the same time third shift is switching with first shift. The other thing is with Vervain not running things while The Overmare’s not available, the ponies around here will start to slack off, leaving us with a small window to do what we need to,” I said getting to my hooves.

“True, but how do you plan on getting out of here?” Vervain asked watching me.

I looked down at my Pip-Buck to check the time, “I’ll show you, but I need all of you to stay in here until things are ready.”

Aura got up, “Like hell!”

“Aura, I need to do this on my own. I know this stable better than any of you apart from Vervain. I have to get things ready and I can’t do that if all of you get out too. One pony can sneak around this place without many issues, two makes it hard and more is just impossible.”

“But how can we help you if were stuck in here?” Wingnut asked.

“When the doors open you’ll know it’s time to act,” I said, my eyes still watching the clock on my Pip-Buck. The time finally hit what I was waiting for and a small ding went off signaling the shift change. I smiled then looked up at one of the small ventilation shafts that lead into the cell itself. Using my magic I unscrewed the vent cover on the celling and pulled it away, “I need one of you to lift me up to that vent.”

“Are you sure you can fit in there Shadow? I know you’re small, but I don’t think you’re THAT small,” Aura said.

“It’ll be tight, but I can make it. Now hurry, security will be checking the cells soon and I need to be gone before they do.”

“Won’t they notice you’re gone though?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m supposed to be in the other cell block, the one they never check because it’s the closest thing they have to solitary. Now get me up there.”

Aura picked me up and lifted me to the vent, I pushed my way into the tight space then started to cover the vent when Aura stopped me, “You make sure you’re careful out there.”

“I will,” I said with a smile pulling the vent back over the hole, using my magic to screw it back into place. Once I was done I started to push my way through the vent. At first it was tight, but that only lasted a few feet. Soon the vent got wider and connected with another air vent that went up slightly in the direction of the atrium.

I smiled, “Stable-Tec, the company that made wonders of the world with their tech and stables. They made these places to save ponies from the hell of megaspells, set up every stable with everything they’d need to survive. They would like to say they thought of everything when it came to their stables, but they overlooked a small pony who can just make it through their ventilation system.”

Normally trying to get though the ventilation system wouldn’t be a good idea in a place as massive as this. It was like trying to make your way through a maze of multiple twists and turns, with sudden pitfalls, and it was like trying to crawl through a sweat lodge. Luckily for me, this wasn’t the first time I’ve been in here. Back when I was younger I found it a great place to hide from some of the bullies in my class, and the security ponies when I did something I wasn’t supposed to. The Cells were connected to the same ventilation shaft as the living quarters and security.

For my plan to work I needed to get to the living quarters and find Vervain’s room. Being a Steel Ranger, even one that everypony thought was dead she’d still have a way to communicate with the outside. If not, I knew Mom did, and Vervain had everything that used to belong to her before she left. So when I got to a split in the vents I took the one on my left and followed it until I was over the main hallway of the family living quarters. Looking down from one of the openings I saw that no pony was walking around just yet. Using my magic I undid the screws like before, moved the vent cover away and dropped down. Once I replaced the cover I double checked to make sure no pony was coming then made my way toward the room I used to share with Vervain.

Right when I reached the door I heard voices coming from just down the hall, looking back I saw a security pony just coming around the corner. I opened the door quickly then stepped in shutting it behind me as quick as I could. I waited for a minute as the two security ponies passed by the door. Neither of them seemed to have noticed me because they walked right past, one saying, “How much longer is The Overmare gonna keep us watching Milkshake anyway? You know how hard it is for me to keep up a professional demeanor when she keeps wanting us to taste test every new thing she makes?”

“I don’t mind keeping an eye on her, she’s freakin’ hot,” the other stallion responded.

The other pony’s voice sounded a little scared, “Careful what you say, you know she’s off limits.”

“There’s nothing wrong with looking, The Overmare wouldn’t do anything to me for just checking out Milkshake.”

“I don’t know what she’d do at this point, but The Overmare doesn’t even want us talking to Milkshake.”

I lost the rest of what they were saying as they walked away. I wonder what the big deal was with having security ponies talking to Milkshake. She was always a nice pony to the rest of the Stable dwellers, they all loved her and her cooking. Maybe she was still spreading stories around about my escape. I guess I’d just have to ask when I found her, that would have to wait till after I was done with this. I turned and looked at the place I used to call home.

From what I could tell, Vervain was still living here before she went into hiding. The two rooms that split off from the small living room were still the same, though my own looked like nopony had been in it for a while. She must’ve had a hard time cleaning it up after I left. My bed was still unmade, a couple of my stable bardings were still laying on the floor, a couple of books I used to read were on the small shelf next to my bed, and my mirror was still where I’d left it. I walked into the room and took it all in. I almost felt like I was thrown back to that morning when Milkshake woke me up, trying to make sure we wouldn’t be late for our meeting with Vervain. I walked over to my bed and the shelf next to it and pick up a small book that was laying on its side.

It was titled, ‘Twilight Time Spell Book for young unicorns: Beginners Edition’ I remembered Mom giving it to me a few weeks before she left. She told me that Twilight Sparkle herself wrote it to help unicorns like myself learn easier spells. It was full of strength exercises, minor spells and techniques for bringing up magical endurance. It wasn’t much help for me in the past because I didn’t see the point of learning much magic when I was the only unicorn in the stable, but I did learn how to better control my telekinesis with it. Thanks to that, I was able to learn how to pick locks. That skill alone was a big help in The Wasteland.

Slowly I set it back on to the shelf then walked back out of the room and went to Vervain’s room. As always, her room was pristine, she’s always been a well-organized mare. Everything was always in its place, I was a little shocked that no pony had gone through her things while she was hiding. Maybe The Overmare thought it wasn’t worth it. I started to look through her things as quickly as I could, trying to find anything that would help me get access to the outside. I mean it couldn’t be as simple as using the terminal she had on the desk. I stopped and looked at the terminal, “No, it can’t be that simple.”

I moved over to it and tried to log in, but there wasn’t any kind of log in screen. The terminal was on, it was giving off the soft green glow I was used to seeing, but the screen only had the words ‘Stable-Tec’ on it. I lifted the Mark II and tried to find a way to hook it up, but there wasn’t an access port. That was even stranger, every terminal I’ve run into had an access port on it. How the hell did anypony use this thing?

Then it hit me, the Mark II could access terminals that had a broadcaster on them. I brought up the broadcast menu and saw one show up, I clicked on it and miracle of miracles, something happened.

Terminal access granted…Mark II SB has found an extension broadcast in the host terminal you are now accessing. Making connection to external broadcast now.

I looked in amazement as the message vanished, and the broadcast menu came back up. This time I could see the same broadcast channels that went to The Red Talons and The Steel Rangers. There was also three more that showed up as well. Ones I’ve never seen before when I was scanning them in The wasteland. The first thing I did was connect to The Red Talons’ channel.

“This is Shadow Star, can anyone hear me?”

A moment later I heard Gigi’s voice, “Shadow? How’d you get a broadcast to make it through the walls of a stable?”

“Long story, how are things going out there?”

I heard the older griffon sigh, “Not good, this new talon company has at least twenty or so griffons surrounding the area right now. Gina has four of my griffons held hostage at the moment, one of them is Fletch. So far, they haven’t tried to attack us, and we’re staying back for the moment. I was only able to get twenty of my best fighters to come with me. What’s the situation inside?”

“Not good, we were captured, but I was able to escape for now. Aura and Arys are both okay, at least for now, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last. Listen, The Overmare is working with a pony on the outside, Vervain believes it’s an Elder of another branch of The Steel Rangers, his name is Wolfsbane.”

“Funny you should bring him up. Only a few minutes ago, one of my griffons reported seeing a large airship that was flying the The Steel Ranger’s flag heading toward Cartwheel. I’ve only heard about this airship once and it was owned by the Los Alicorn branch. Only Apollo has ever dealt with them in the past. Why would he be all the way out here working with your former Overmare?”

“I’m going to find that out as soon as I can reach The Overmare. Do you think Apollo would be able to go see what he could learn from Elder Wolfsbane?”

“I wish I could ask him, but I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

I stopped for a moment then asked, “Is he okay?”

“I hope so, he went out to talk with Elder Appleslice and hasn’t returned yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to deal with that after the stable is taken care of, do you think you can take on the other talon company?”

She took a minute to answer, “Maybe, but it’ll be hard with them holding Fletch and the others.”

“If you can, I need your griffons in here as soon as possible. I’m working on a plan right now to get as much of security on my side as I can. If I can take down The Overmare then maybe the griffons will just leave since their contractor is dead.”

“That could work, I’ll see what I can do from my side, just make sure you all get out of there alive.”

“Thank you, I’ll try my best to keep everyone safe. Currently they’re in the holding cells waiting for me to get them out,” I said.

She sighed, “I see, so you’re all alone right now then. You should get going, like I said I’ll see what I can do.”

“Yeah, I’m alone. Before I keep going with my plan I need to contact The Steel Rangers so don’t be surprised if they show up. I’ll let them know you guys are out there so they don’t mistake you for the enemy.”

“Alright, I’ll inform the others. Gigi out,” she said before cutting the transmission.

I switched to the other broadcast channel, “Shadow Star to Steel Rangers, come in.”

The response was pretty quick, “Shadow? It’s Sapphire, how did you get a broadcaster to transmit through stable walls?”

I smiled and scratched the back of my head like she could see me or something, “It’s kind of a complicated story but…”

“Yeah, I just talked to one of the security ponies in there,” she interrupted, “He said something about us having their support in taking the stable and that you’d been captured and put into a cell with the others.”

Damn Balefire works fast. I guess with The Overmare acting nuttier and more psycho than ever, it didn’t take too much convincing for the other security ponies to join Balefire, “I told him that you guys and The Red Talons are on their way to the stable and that he should rally together the others in security to help you guys out. His name is Balefire, he’s one of my oldest friends in here. I left the stable unlocked and used the Mark II to keep it unlocked so it can’t be sealed again. That’s how he was able to contact you with a broadcaster in case you were wondering. Also one question, how am I talking to you right now and not Sandstorm or someone else back at the bunker?”

“I took the receiver with me so you could contact us directly for time sensitive information. Have The Red Talons arrived yet and what should we expect when we get there?” she replied.

“Yeah they’re here already, they’ve confronted the enemy outside. The enemy we’re facing are another talon company who’ve been contracted by The Overmare. They have about twenty outside according to Gigi and are also holding hostages, one of them is Gigi’s daughter. If you can find a way to get in here and meet with security without any of the hostages getting hurt I’ll see if there’s any way I can help you guys out. Unfortunately I don’t have my weapons right now though.”

She sighed, “That’s gonna be hard to do without any of the hostages being harmed, but I’ll see what I can do. Ugh why do things have to be so complicated all the time? Can’t things ever just be easy and straightforward? Okay then we’re almost to the stable, I guess I’ll see ya when I see ya.”

“Yeah, see ya later then. Stay safe,” I said, ending the transmission.

I agree, why the hell does everything have to be so fucking complicated all the time? “Whelp I guess I should go get my weapons back, or at least find some I can use.”

I walked over to the door and as I opened it I thought I saw my shadow move, but when I looked it was fine. Another strange thing was that the hallway was completely deserted, although it DID smell faintly like blood. As I continued down the hallway the smell grew stronger. I rounded the corner and couldn’t believe what I saw, it was everywhere. On the floor, walls, and ceiling was blood and little bits of gore. There were only bits and pieces of bodies on the floor, some of them had enough remaining to know if they were security ponies or not, a few of them were, but the rest weren’t. The feeling of being watched was returning again like when I was locked in Block B. I looked around on my E.F.S. and didn’t see any red bars, not yet at least.

I reluctantly continued on and wondered how I didn’t hear anything that happened out in the hallway when I was using the terminal. Did The Overmare have one of the griffons take an experimental weapon from R&D and go on a rampage? No, that doesn’t make sense, she’s crazy, but I don’t think she’s that crazy or stupid for that matter. If she did something like that she’d have no pony to rule over, unless the ponies here started to revolt against her finally. Still though, why didn’t I hear anything?

As I walked I didn’t see any other ponies around at all which disturbed me. Something isn’t right here, there can’t be no one around at all, “Okay, just calm down. I can’t get paranoid about shit right now, I have more important things to worry about,” I said to myself quietly.

Level ten, all I have to do is get to the elevator and go to level ten. I can get some weapons down there from the emergency cache. Distracting myself with my own thoughts I didn’t look where I was going and accidentally stepped on an eyeball, “AAAHHH! Oh shit,” I quickly looked for a place to hide in case someone heard me scream, but there was nowhere close that I’d be able to get fast enough. I calmed myself down a bit and noticed I didn’t hear any hoofsteps, “Okay this is really starting to freak me out,” I said quietly to myself while slowly continuing on to the elevator which was just a bit further.

Upon arriving at the door to the elevator I started to hear faint sounds coming from the other side. I approached slowly as if the door was going to blow off and have enemies jump out of it guns blazing. I put my ear against the door, what I heard was complete carnage. Screams, gunshots, and explosions from what sounded like grenades filled the elevator shaft. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, innocents weren’t supposed to die. What happened to the plan I had for The Rangers of not letting anyone but the enemy get hurt? That’s if they’re the ones causing this, it could be The Overmare fighting with the citizens who could’ve done as I thought and revolted. Once again, I put my thoughts aside and pushed the call button and waited for the elevator. I heard the sound of the car moving followed by more screaming and gunfire, “Goddesses this whole mission is fucked. It’s just fucking fucked!” I yelled as the elevator doors opened revealing a beheaded security pony inside. Actually, beheaded is an understatement, the whole right side of his body was blown off by something.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for my destination, standing next to a site that weeks ago would’ve made me cry and vomit. The sounds grew louder and softer as the car descended down the shaft, and I ignored them as best I could. If I didn’t succeed in getting some weapons because I stopped to cry about it, I wouldn’t be able to try and help them. I looked down at the dead body in the elevator and saw he had a pistol in his holster. I took it and the extra mag and waited. The door opened and I stepped out of the elevator leaving a trail of bloody hoofprints behind me as I walked, something I think I’m going to see a lot more of over time. Something felt different down in the depths of level ten, I noticed it seemed darker than I remembered. I was getting paranoid again so I took a second to check my E.F.S., then I realized that any red bars I see could be anywhere above me too. Instead I looked around the old-fashioned way and still didn’t see anypony, but I thought I heard something, like a whisper directly in my ear. It wasn’t Aquila, I would’ve felt her presence and something like this I don’t think is her style.

Stress, this had to be stress getting the better of me, everyone IS relying on me and my plans after all. There was a corner coming up and I saw a red bar on my E.F.S. that was getting closer and not moving; there could be an enemy waiting to ambush me. I got up on my hind legs and started to move along the wall with my back to it. What was I going to do like this? It’s not like sneaking along the wall like this is gonna help any. I can’t just pop around the corner, say ‘boo’ and expect an enemy to tremble in fear. Can I do that? Now that I think about it stable ponies are terrified of things from the outside most of the time. No, that plan is stupid, I’ll definitely get killed for sure unless the pony or griffon is a really rotten shot.

I stopped about a meter away from the corner, listening closely I could hear breathing. I took the extra clip for the pistol and threw it ahead of the corner. As soon as it went into sight of where another pony would see it, there was an eruption of gunfire from an automatic submachine gun. The sentry around the corner kept firing until the gun started to click indicating that they were out of ammo. I jumped out from behind the wall and put the pistol right in his face against his forehead. He looked at me with wide eyes and yelled, “Please don’t shoot! I don’t wanna die!”

“Why? You didn’t hesitate to shoot me when you thought I was coming around the corner,” I replied.

“I thought you might be one of those outsiders from upstairs, but I can see it’s just you Shadow,” he said starting to calm down. His voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t make out who he was in the dark.

“Do we know each other or something?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s me, Cuff Key. Shit started to go south upstairs and I thought one of the griffons figured out I came down here and came after me. You can put the gun down, I’m on your side,” he replied.

“Oh, what exactly IS going on up there?”

He took a second to catch his breath from the rush of adrenaline, “The Overmare found out that you escaped through the vents and started freaking out. She ordered the griffons to start taking hostages and to tell the other ponies in the stable that if they didn’t start searching the stable for you then they’d kill a hostage every five minutes until they complied. Then out of nowhere Balefire shot one of the griffons holding a hostage in the back of the head which isn’t how we agreed to proceed with the plan. Only one or two of the hostages died after he shot the griffon and then all hell broke loose. A different group of griffons and some ponies in armor came in and started lighting up the griffons The Overmare hired. Now they’re having a firefight upstairs and even some of the stable citizens have joined in too. There’s a few citizens fighting alongside The Overmare’s hired group, but there’s a lot more fighting alongside the others group. Fortunately the other griffons and the armored ponies haven’t killed any of the citizens.”

I sighed (Damn I thought I my daring escape would have bought me more time), “Looks like Gigi was successful in saving Fletch and the others from being killed, or maybe not, I don’t know. For now I have to keep going and get to the emergency weapon cache so I can help. By the way, why did you come down here? You’re not a coward or anything right?”

He shook his head, “I’m no coward. I came down here to get a weapon, same as you. The standard pistols are freakin’ garbage compared to the guns that the outsiders are using. I felt like I needed to up my game a little so I could be a better help.”

“Alright then, I suggest you get back up there then and do your best to help… actually maybe there’s something you could do. If you know where they’re keeping my friends’ weapons you could bring them to their cell and let them out. If they join the fight, the odds will stack in our favor without a doubt,” I said, trying to do as much as I could to put an end to the bloodshed upstairs.

He nodded, “Yeah I can do that for you, I’ll just have to be careful so I don’t get shot in the process.”

“Alright, best of luck to you then,” I said as he started walking in the direction of the elevator.

After he left I continued on to the weapons cache, the paranoia of somepony watching me still lingering. Doing my best to ignore the feeling, I went down one of the hallways that led to where the weapons were kept. The door to the weapons cache was still open and I found myself looking at rows and rows of practically new rifles, pistols, and energy weapons. I moved over to the rack that held a few of the energy weapons and took a plasma rifle down. It didn’t look as nice as mine, but I was used to using this kind of weapon versus a laser rifle. I grabbed a few energy cartages and a set of saddle bags off the wall. I also grabbed a couple of pistols and ammo just in case I needed a backup weapon. Then I moved over to a literal bucket of grenades. I took a few and placed them into my new saddle bags with my newly acquired weapons.

“You need to hide,” A voice said in my ear, I jumped and looked around for the voice, it wasn’t Aquila’s voice though.

That feeling of being watched came back again and I wanted to ask who was there, but then I heard voices outside in the hall. I looked around frantically for a place to hide, there was a dark place in the far corner where the light didn’t reach. I ran for it and just made it there just as four security ponies walked in, “Fuck, it looks like another pony’s already been in here.”

“That would explain why some of those traitors are so heavily armed,” another said as they started to grab what they could from the racks.

“What’s our orders?” one asked.

“Overmare said to get more hostages, the one she wants us to get first is Milkshake. She thinks that’d be the best way to get her son to back down.”

Milkshake? Why would taking her hostage matter to Balefire? Well they are friends, but how would that make a difference compared to the other ponies in the Stable? Whatever it is I’m not gonna let them do anything to her. I readied the plasma rifle, jumped out from the shadows and entered S.A.T.S. I targeted the two in the rear and opened fire. The first one took a shot to the torso, his body glowed green and melted into a pile of goo. The other one I got right in his head, it exploded showering the other two ponies with gore.

The last two didn’t hesitate, they both twisted around as their comrades fell and returned fire. I rolled behind one of the shelves and started to sneak around to the other side as they riddled the shelf with bullets. Stable ponies, they aren’t used to combat at all. They see an enemy, shoot, and hope they kill them quickly. I reached the other side and jumped back into the aisle, S.A.T.S. was recharging, so I aimed down the sights and fired. One of the stallions jumped out of the way just in time, but his comrade wasn’t so lucky. The plasma rifle blasted a hole in his security barding and he went down screaming and dropping his rifle.

I ducked behind the shelf on the other side right as the last guard pony returned fire. I felt a bullet bite into my ass right when I rounded the corner. (always the same damn spot) I winced and did my best not to cry out. This time the security pony didn’t keep firing like before. I could hear him slowly walking down the aisle. As he did he said around the bit of his rifle, “You’ve got nowhere to hide in here.”

I slowly moved down the aisle as I said, “That’s true, but the same goes for you. I’ve already killed two of your comrades and I’m sure the other stallion is close to death too.”

“You caught us by surprise, that won’t happen again. What makes you think you can come into our stable and kill our citizens?”

I reached the end of the aisle and moved around to another giving myself some distance as I replied, “Don’t you know who I am? I grew up here.”

“I thought you looked familiar, you’re that unicorn that ran away a few weeks ago.”

“That would be me, let me ask you something. Why would you still serve an Overmare who has clearly lost it? You can’t seriously think she’s not funny in the head.”

He laughed, “She’s just clearing this place out of scum like you. So what if a few ponies die, as long as the stable as a whole survives.”

It sounded like he reached the other side of the aisle I was just in, “You have a point, though I’d have to say you’re the ponies that need to be taken care of.”

I could see his shadow just under the shelf, he was moving the other way from where I was. As he walked he asked, “What I don’t understand is how you think you can take us? You’re all just a bunch of outsiders living in a barren wasteland.”

I smiled and kept an eye on his shadow as it slowly walked away from me, “You think the security ponies in here stand a chance against ponies and griffons like us? You have no idea what we have to deal with out there, you’ve got nothing on us. We have giant suits of metal power armor and energy spears that never run out of ammunition, you have paper-thin body armor and guns that can barely pierce tinfoil not counting the ones here.”

He started to laugh as I turned my head so I could go around the other end of the aisle, “That’s cute, you think you’re strong enough to…what the fuck is that?”

I stopped then asked, “What?”

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” he yelled and he started to fire at something, I jumped behind a crate that was at the end of the aisle as the pony started to scream, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU….AHHHHHHHHH,” his voice stopped with a gurgle and the sound of a body hitting the ground.

The room was suddenly silent, I peeked around the edge of the crate, at the end of the aisle I saw the last pony laying in a growing pool of blood. I moved out from my hiding spot and moved closer, the plasma rifle aimed at the body. When I got closer I saw he was already dead, his throat had been slit so deeply it almost decapitated him. His head was laying at a weird angle leaving most of his throat exposed, pooling blood flowing from it.

I lifted my rifle and started looking around for whoever had done this. I looked down toward the rest of the ponies I killed, but no pony was in the room. I started to move toward the door wondering who could’ve killed the last one so quickly and without me hearing them. But nopony was here. Who could’ve made a wound like that? It looked like the kind of wound that I could see Aura’s spear make, but it would’ve cauterized the wound.

I noticed something move at the edge of my vision, I swung around aiming my rifle, but still, nothing, “Who’s there?”

Nopony answered as I aimed down my sights. I was sure of it now, somepony was following me. Whoever it is, they aren’t showing up on my E.F.S. and they don’t seem to want me dead. If they did, I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it this far. I lowered the plasma rifle then walked closer to the last pony who was still alive. He was moaning on the ground holding his side where I’d shot him. He looked up as soon as I walked up to him, “Why?”

I pulled out one of pistols from my saddle bags and pointed it at his shocked face, “Because you’re a disgrace,” I pulled the trigger, putting him out of his misery. I put the pistol back into my saddle bags and walked out of the armory.

I kept the Plasma rifle held tight in my magic as I walked back to the elevator. It wasn’t right that those ponies had to die just to fulfill the sick fantasies of The Overmare. I’m not gonna do this shit anymore, so I pushed the call button on the elevator panel. I hit the button for level eight, first things first, I have to save Milkshake. The Overmare wanted her for something and I wasn’t gonna let her use my friend for anything.

A moment later, the door opened and I walked into the main dining hall. Two security ponies were sitting next to the counter, their rifles sitting next to them. At the sound of the elevator door closing, they both turned to see who was out there. At the sight of me, they both tried to go for their rifles, but I lifted my own, “Try it and you’re both dead.”

One didn’t seem to want to listen, he kept reaching for his gun. I fired and blew him away with three quick shots. By the time he hit the ground, his body was just a pile of green goo. The mare who hadn’t gone for her rifle started to shake as she watched her partner melt away, “Oh goddesses…please don’t kill me too.”

I walked over to her and used my magic to pick up both rifles, “If you do what I ask then I won’t. Where is Strawberry Milkshake and why are you two down here instead of joining in on the fight going on in the atrium?”

“She’s in the back, she’s doing prep for breakfast, or at least she was before the shooting started. The Overmare said to stay down here and keep an eye on her until she could send more ponies down here to get her,” she replied.

“Why didn’t you try to kill me like your friend did when I came in?”

She looked at me for a minute then something seemed to click, “That IS you Shadow. I can’t believe what a badass you’ve become,”

I rolled my eyes, “Who are you again?”

The mare continued to look at me, “I’m Symmetry remember?”

“Right” I said nonchalantly “Symmetry I don’t have a lot of time to reminisce right now. Please answer my question.”

“Sorry, well I don’t like what The Overmare is doing right now. I mean she wants us to take Auntie in and you, both of you haven’t ever been bad ponies. She let outsiders in our home and is letting them kill ponies. When I saw you coming in I figured why attack you when I was most likely going to die if I did?” she said her eyes wandering over to the goo, “I mean look what happened to him, I’m not brave enough to fight ponies from the outside on my own.”

I lowered my rifle, “If you don’t like what The Overmare is doing then you should go join the other security ponies who’re trying to save this place.”

“You’re gonna let me go?”

“As long as you’re not gonna try to kill me or my friends then yes. You’re a security pony, your job is to protect the stable, that goes for protecting it from ponies like The Overmare as well as outside invaders,” I tossed one of the rifles back to her, “Go do your job and if you try attacking me, you’ll end up like him, maybe. It doesn’t always turn the bodies into slime.”

She looked at the rifle laying on the ground by her hooves, “I’m not sure I can fight, I’m scared. That’s why I was okay with keeping an eye on Milkshake.”

I glared at her, “Either you help us save the stable, or you die like the rest of the ponies who are trying to kill it. Now get out of here before I decide you’re the latter.”

She took hold of her rifle and ran for the elevator, when she was gone I walked around the counter and toward the doors that lead into the kitchen, “Milkshake are you in here?”

The door opened and Milkshake’s face was looking at me in wonder, “Shadow is that really you?”

I could feel tears in my eyes as I looked at my best friend, she hadn’t changed at all since I last saw her on the night I had to run away. I gave her the biggest smile I could muster, “Yeah it’s me, are you okay?”

She ran forward and hugged me tight as she started to cry, “Where have you been, do you know how worried we’ve been?”

I let my hooves wrap around her, “Uh, The Wasteland. I figured you guys would worry about me as much as I worried about you.”

She took a moment still hugging me tight before she finally pulled away and looked into my eyes, “Auntie told us what happened and why you had to leave. I understand, but I always thought you would’ve found a way to come back here. How could you just leave your home like that Shadow, did you hate it here so much that you never even thought of trying to return?”

I sighed, “I couldn’t come back, not back then. All I knew at the time was that The Overmare wanted this Pip-Buck and I had to make sure she never got her hooves on it. When I was out, I tried to go find my mother and figure out why she left. A lot has happened since I last saw you and Balefire, honestly I wouldn’t have come back at all if it wasn’t for Auntie telling me she needed my help.”

She pouted a little then wiped her eyes, “You only came back for Auntie?”

“No, I came back to help my home. I didn’t know what was going on here until I got her transmission. I was afraid that if I came back before that The Overmare would do something to you or Balefire so she could get me to do what she wanted. I wasn’t going to put either of you in danger.”

She smiled a little, “I guess that makes sense, but still I wish you could’ve at least said goodbye. It hasn’t been the same here without you around,” her eyes got wide all of a sudden, “Where’s Balefire?”

“I’m not sure, but from what I’ve been hearing, I’m sure he’s up in the atrium helping fight the rest of security. Don’t worry, he’s strong, he’ll be fine,” I said.

“We have to get to him, I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to him.”

“I was planning on heading there after I got you to a safe place. Why are you so worried? His mother wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him, she dotes on him like he’s still her little colt.”

She blushed a little, “Things have changed since I last saw you Shadow.”

“Like what, and why does The Overmare want security ponies to keep you away from him? They also said something about bringing you to her, why does she care so much about that?”

She blushed more, “When you left, Balefire and I started to get a lot closer than we were before. I know he’ll never feel the same way about me that he does about you.”

“What are you trying to tell me Milkshake?” I didn’t like where she was going with this.

“Balefire and I are expecting. In other words I’m pregnant,” she blurted out.

That hit me like a rampaging hellhound, “Wait WHAT!? When the hell did this happen?”

“A week or so after you left, before The Overmare started taking action against us. I don’t know if he kissed me or I kissed him, but one thing led to another and you know how things like that go. We started sneaking off as much as we could and it just happened. Doc told me a couple weeks ago that I was pregnant. It was right after that when The Overmare threw me into the holding cells until she could get a confirmation from the Doc that it was Balefire’s. She’s been doing what she can to make sure I stayed away from her son. She said that once I had the foal, she would be raising it.”

At first when I heard the news I thought I was going to be upset, or jealous that my two best friends ended up together. But I wasn’t, I felt happy for them. I realized a while ago that my feelings for Milkshake weren’t what I thought they were. I admired her for her beauty and her kind nature. I would’ve been happy if she wanted to be with me too, but it wouldn’t have been love. Sooner or later one of us would get tired of the other and we would’ve grown apart. I wasn’t ever interested in Balefire even if I did love him like a big brother. They both deserved to have a pony that loved them, it was nice that it was with one-another.

“I’m…happy to hear that you two ended up together,” I said doing my best to smile.

She hugged me again and said, “I hope you’re not angry Shadow, I know how you feel about me, but I’m not like you. I like stallions only and you know I’ve had a thing for Balefire for a long time.”

I pulled away saying, “I’m not angry…wait you knew that I liked you like that?” way to kill the mood. Ppfftt, not like me. At least I have more variety than her, I like both, it’s way more fun that way.

She laughed a little, “Shadow, I’ve caught you looking at my rear hundreds of times. The first time I noticed it was a couple years ago in class. You’re not that good at hiding it y’know.”

“And you didn’t say anything to me!”

“Why would I, it was fun to tease you now and then,” she said, then her face fell, “Now that I think about it, it wasn’t that nice of a joke was it?”

I just shrugged, “Eh, probably not, but if you can’t laugh at the jokes your friends pull on you then what’s the point of having friends.”

Her face fell more, “I’m still sorry I didn’t talk to you about it sooner. Maybe if I did, you would’ve found someone else that wasn’t your best friend. I’m sure you’re not the only mare in here that like mares.”

“Probably not, but it’s fine. I realized when I was out of the Stable for a bit, that my feelings for you weren’t what I thought they were. I did find a mare who I fell in love with, and she helped me see the difference between love and infatuation. Also I don’t exactly only like mares, I just prefer them. Come to think of it, my first time was a one-night stand with a stallion who also happened to be a rock star.”

She smiled again, “I’m so happy for you! If we make it out of this alive you can introduce me to her.”

As she said that, my heart felt like she just stomped on it. I looked away, “I wish you could’ve met her, but she died a little over a week ago.”

Milkshake put a hoof to her muzzle then said, “Shadow I’m so sorry.”

I did my best to smile again, “It’s okay, that’s just the kind of thing you have to worry about in The Wasteland.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

I shook my head, “I’ll tell you the whole story one day Milkshake, but right now we have to finish this. I need to find my friends and help them finish what I started. Do you think you can handle a fight?”

Before she could answer, the elevator door dinged and opened, my plasma rifle was up and ready for action when I saw Aura and Wingnut getting off the elevator. Her energy spear was up and ready for a fight, same for Wingnut with his revolver. When she saw me she lowered her weapon, “About time we found you Shrimp, what’s taking you so long? Vervain was afraid you’d gotten yourself killed down here.”

I let out a sigh of relief, “I had to find some weaponry so I went down to level ten to get something I could use, then I came looking for Milkshake.”

Wingnut looked over at my other friend who was trying to hide behind me.

“Is that her?” Wingnut asked

“Yeah,” I said looking back at Milkshake, “It’s okay this is Aura and Wingnut, they’re my traveling companions.”

She got back to her hooves, “Nice to meet you,” then she whispered in my ear, “No offense, but they look like they’ve been put in a dryer full of razor blades.”

“Yeah Hi,” Aura said looking back at me, “Are you finished down here? Because in case you’ve forgotten, there are ponies and griffons fighting and dying up there that need your help. I got your stuff by the way.”

She tossed over my saddle bags along with my barding and duster. I took them and started to dress myself, when I was done with that I put the plasma rifle I’d gotten from level ten into my saddle bags then pulled out my own much better plasma rifle. I tossed the set of saddle bags I’d gotten down and pulled out the grenades and pistols and put them into my own saddle bags too, “That’s a lot better, now I feel like myself again. I haven’t forgotten, now tell me what’s going on up there?”

Wingnut’s the one who answered, “The Steel Rangers showed up at the same time as the griffons. Only a few of The Red Talons made it in, I think there’s still fighting going on outside the stable. Most of the security team here seem to have switched sides, they’re helping The Talons fight back against what’s left of the security ponies that are still loyal to The Overmare.”

“How are they holding out with that many against them?”

“More Griffons from that new Unchained group showed up and got past the fight outside. Our side has been able to fend off most of them and they took over the Atrium, but they blocked off level one and they have hostages,” Aura replied.

“I need to get to The Overmare somehow and put a stop to all this, that’s the only way this’ll come to an end. Of course we could kill them all, but I’d like to avoid that if I can. However the only way I can get to The Overmares office is through the atrium so I’ll have to fight my way through. Wingnut should stay here and keep Milkshake safe while we go to the atrium,” I said.

Wingnut looked angry as he blurted out, “HEY! Why do I gotta stay here? I can fight just as good as you guys.”

Dammit, I gotta think of something, fast, “Uh well you see, I know you’re just as good as us. That’s why I’m having you protect Milkshake, because you’re strong and stuff.”

His eyes lit up, “You really think I’m strong and that I can protect a pretty mare like her?”

Wow, he’s actually buying it, “Yeah totally, but please be a gentlecolt.”

He sat on his hind legs and crossed his forelegs turning his head, “I’m not ALWAYS a perve y’know, I just get carried away around pretty mares.”

I sighed, “Alright then, Aura and I are gonna get going so stay safe down here. Oh and before I forget, she’s pregnant so remember you’re protecting TWO lives.”

“Wait wha… she’s…” he stuttered.

“Yup see ya later Squirt,” Aura blurted out while pushing me toward the way up to the atrium.

As we started to go up I looked at the Assault Rifle Aura had on her back asking, “Where did you get that?”

She looked back at it, “What this? I got it off one of the griffons before I headed down here. My spear may be awesome, but sometimes a gun is better.”

“Huh, I didn’t even know you knew how to use a gun.” I said with a smile. She just smirked and ignored me.

***

As the elevator ascended to the atrium level, I heard all the gunshots getting closer. The car stopped and the door opened to gunfire coming in our general direction, “Take cover!” Aura shouted. We both jumped out into the corridor and behind the walls on each side of the atrium entrance. I peeked around the corner and looked at the window to that bitch’s office, and there she is just looking upon the ill-fated ones below her. If it weren’t bullet proof glass I would’ve shot that smug look on her ugly face. I took out Dreamwalker and slipped into S.A.T.S. There were so many red and white lines on my E.F.S. that I couldn’t tell if who I was aiming at was an enemy.

I dropped out of the spell, “Who am I supposed to be shooting at?” I asked as Aura took shots at some of the security ponies.

“The bad guys, duh,” it’s funny, her reply reminded me of something Stardust would say in the same situation.

“Yeah I get that part but I can’t tell who’s on our side. I know the ones who aren’t shooting at us are our allies but further ahead they’re more scattered,” I retorted.

She pinched the top of her beak between her eyes, “Just shoot at the ones trying to kill us! Does that help!?”

How do I manage to piss off everyone around me with my own stupidity all the time? I looked around the corner again and saw some security ponies shooting at some ponies I knew were stable citizens, “Yeah, I got it,” I slipped into S.A.T.S. once more and targeted two or three shots on each of them until the spell didn’t have enough power. Only two of them got hit and not fatally, I guess Dreamwalker wasn’t as effective at a distance.

A couple of Steel Rangers came in through a side entrance and took cover with some security ponies who were on our side behind a table. One of them came out from cover to advance and ran straight at one of the enemy security ponies. As he slowed down I saw him raise his hoof and strike the security pony in center mass with his hoof, sending the enemy security pony flying across the room and smacking against the back wall with a spray of blood upon impact. The body stayed suspended by the impact for a split second and then fell to the floor, he was obviously dead. Damn, I gotta get something like that. S.A.T.S. was still charging so I aimed down my sights and shot at one of the ponies I shot at before. I managed to shoot him in the leg right as one of The Talons threw an energy spear that stabbed cleanly into his neck.

“Hey, we need to advance onward toward that door across the room. I’ll cover you so you can go first,” Aura said as she reloaded.

“Where should I go?” I asked.

“Wherever you don’t get shot. Now go!” she replied.

She started shooting and I broke out from behind cover and ran toward a table that was turned on its side. After taking cover once more I started shooting at the same group of security ponies as before. Aura followed after me and managed to take out one of the griffons on the upper area on the way. I remembered that I grabbed some grenades down on level ten and took a couple out of my saddle bags. I looked over the table and held both of them in my magic. I was looking for the enemy griffons with the most armor, “I’ve got a plan, do you think you can cover me while I move closer to those griffons over there?”

She didn’t duck back behind cover to reply, “Yeah I gotcha. What’s the plan?”

“You’ll see,” I said as I moved to the other end of the table then moved forward to one of the large metal beams on the right side of the room. I was close enough to my targets now and they were distracted by the two Steel Rangers on the left side of the room. Very carefully I floated the grenades toward them just above the ground. I pulled the pins right before I dropped them into their bags and yelled, “Grenades!”

Everyone took cover, including the griffons I rigged. The best part is that they got closer to some of the other enemy sentries. They both exploded with a tremendous bang and some were thrown back while others screamed in agony at a lost limb or bone shrapnel that blew into them in the explosions. The gunfire ceased and was replaced by the screams and torment of the fallen enemies. Aura looked up from her hiding spot, “Nice one Shadow!”

Some of the security ponies and griffons who were still able to fight opened fire again and managed to hit a couple of the less experienced stable citizens fighting with us. I could see Vervain on the other side of the room shooting at the enemy with what looked like a laser pistol she must’ve gotten from one of The Rangers. She looked so composed as she fired her weapon, as if battle was like second nature to her. It was weird seeing her do battle like this, I always saw her as the gentle pony who raised me like her own. I looked for an opening and changed cover to get closer to her, maybe I can devise a plan to take care of the rest of the enemy with her.

It took a minute for her to notice that I was there, “Shadow? It’s good to see that you made it here alive. Looks like The Overmare has locked herself in her office with some of the hostages. Do you have anything planned to get in there?”

“No, that’s why I came over here. I was hoping you could help me out with the whole plan thing,” at that moment more griffons came from the door I needed to get to and took cover, “Well things just got a bit more difficult.”

“Yeah I can see that. I don’t think there’s anything we can do besides keep shooting and hope for them to either run out of ammo and stand down or kill them all,” she replied as she reloaded.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw somepony else coming in the side entrance to the atrium. It looked like another Steel Ranger with more of The Red Talons from outside. However the power armor looked a little different from normal Steel Ranger armor. It looked a bit bulkier like the metal was thicker, there was a cape with The Steel Ranger’s emblem on it going over the right shoulder and it had two miniguns on each side, “Who the hell is that?”

Vervain took a second to look in the direction I was looking, “Really!? Why is HE here? I thought he was gonna stay outside of the stable.”

“Who is he!?” I asked again.

She sighed, “That would be The Sentinel who also happens to be my father if you didn’t already know that.”

I kept watching as he walked through the gunfire as bullets bounced off his armor. This guy was a fuckin’ badass to just walk in front of bullets like that, one lucky shot and he’s done for. He stopped directly in the center of the room in front of us and turned toward the enemy. As he turned I could hear the barrels of his miniguns start to turn and something came out of the back of his armor, “What’s he doing?”

Before Vervain could answer bullets erupted from the barrels of his miniguns and missiles fired from the things that came out of his back. In mere seconds the far wall of the atrium went from cold dull gray to dark maroon as it was pasted with blood, brain matter, and whatever other organ meats followed the bullets out of the bodies.

The gunfire stopped abruptly from his armor and there was nothing but silence. The small missile launchers returned to his back as he turned around to look at Vervain and I. I wasn’t expecting the voice that came out of the helmet speaker, “Holy hot damn! I might be a simple old fart now, but I still got it, hehe.”

Vervain facehoofed, “Dad, why must you be such a showoff? You’re getting too old to be doing things like that.”

He laughed, “HA! Too old? Bah, there ain’t such thing as too old for this old postmaster!”

Oh my Goddesses, it can’t be him. He can barely walk half the time, “Uh Vervain, is that…?”

“Yeah that’s my father, Box Tape. I believe you’ve met. I hope he wasn’t too much of a dirty old perve when you met him,” she replied before I could finish my question.

“Vervain, I haven’t seen ya in years and ya have to go and say things like that to my best and only employee?” Box Tape said.

She looked irritated, very irritated, “I thought you were gonna stay outside and fend off any reinforcements, not come in here and showboat. We could’ve managed in here on our own.”

He laughed again, “If I didn’t step in ya’ll would’ve been more holy than a priest and deader than a bloatsprite on a raptor windshield. There ain’t no one else comin’ here anyway, we already took care of whatever reinforcements they sent for.”

Okay this is just too unreal, Box Tape is Vervain’s freakin’ father. He really does know everyone I do, “So what’s the plan now Vervain?” I asked still keeping somewhat in cover in case more enemies came from other parts of the stable, “I think we can consider the atrium captured for right now.”

She sighed, “I guess we should keep moving forward and hope there’s not many of them left. If The Sentinel stays here we won’t have to worry as much about the enemy somehow getting past everyone out here and following us. If we can manage to get to The Overmare’s office without too much trouble we might be able to save the hostages she has up there. The biggest thing we have to worry about besides The Overmare and the hostages is the griffon that leads all of them, Gina. She’s a skilled fighter with long and short-range weapons from what I know which makes her extremely dangerous.”

“I can handle her, I’ve got a little score to settle,” Aura said walking up next to us, “I can at least distract her long enough so you guys can take care of The Overmare. Once The Overmare is off the table Gina shouldn’t be a problem anymore. From what I understand, her contract was just to help The Overmare with her plan to lure Shadow back here and keep order in the stable if anything happened. If The Overmare is killed or incapacitated to the point where she can be considered our hostage, Gina will stand down.”

I looked up at the window again and saw that The Overmare was gone. She must be freaking out now that the tables are turning in our favor. However victory wasn’t in our grasp just yet, this needs to end, and it needs to happen now, “Okay, Me, Aura, Vervain, and whoever else wants to come will continue on while you guys hold down the fort here. I’m gonna show her how powerless she really is,” I said confidently as I started walking toward the blood and gore caked wall, “I’ll see to it that her death is slow and painful or die trying.”

“Gee Shadow, that’s a little morbid don’t you think?” Aura asked from behind me as she followed with Vervain, Arys, and a few of the security ponies. I wondered where Balefire and Wind Thrasher could be, I didn’t see them during the firefight.

I looked back at the others, “Where are Wind Thrasher and Balefire?”

“Wind Thrasher went with a group of security ponies to R&D where Vervain said they’re doing some fucked up stuff. I don’t know where Balefire went,” Aura Replied.

Vervain looked down at her hooves as she walked, “I think I know where he went, I saw him sneak off earlier and go upstairs. He probably went to go confront his mother. He said something about it earlier, but I told him it was a bad idea, there’s no telling what she would do in the state of mind she’s in.”

I started up the stairs to the upper level of the atrium, “Great, let’s just hope we find him before he does something stupid. Unfortunately, he inherited some of his brains from his mother, which means he won’t listen to anyone until he does what he thinks he needs to do.”

As we passed the threshold to the upper level, I saw that there were more stable citizens looking at us from different rooms down the hallway just off of the upper walkway. One of them looked like they were going to say something when half of their head disappeared as a bullet passed through it. I looked down the sights of Dreamwalker toward the end of the hallway and fired at the security pony diving for cover behind the wall. I fired and the bullet hit center mass with a small explosion from the special ability of my weapon.

Aura looked shocked, “Damn, you didn’t even use S.A.T.S. did you?”

“No, I didn’t, just lucky I guess. Let’s keep going, don’t let your guard down,” I looked at the ponies in the hallway, “Get down to the lower level of the atrium. We can’t afford any more casualties right now, especially stable citizens. If you don’t get to safety you’ll end up like that one.”

They all pushed and shoved by us as we continued on down the hallway, they were panicking and I could see why. They went from living a peaceful life in a stable to having The Wasteland and all its horror brought in by their leader.

We moved slowly down the hallway, checking any rooms on the way by to make sure we weren’t taken by surprise. Some of the security ponies stayed behind to post guards, so now it was just me, Aura, Vervain, Arys and two security ponies. I looked around the corner signaling the others behind me to wait, as soon as my head went around the wall a bullet ricocheted off the wall by my face. I blindly returned fire with Dreamwalker in my magic, “Is that the best shot you could get motherfuckers? Looks like you’ve been slacking off in the shooting range, I’ve been in The Wasteland where targets aren’t just sheets of paper that don’t shoot back. I kill monsters practically for a living, I’m the freakin’ Courier bitches!”

I heard one of them say, “Alright, we’ll stand down. Just don’t kill us.”

“Drop your weapons and slide them to me, and don’t even think of throwing grenades because that’ll backfire on you,” I said back to them.

They complied, sliding their pistols to me. I picked them up and then Vervain said behind me, “Come out and turn around, then slowly walk backwards to the sound of my voice. Make any sudden movements and it’ll be the last move you make in this world, I WILL put you down.”

They did as she said and the security ponies with us put them in hoofcuffs, as Arys said, “We’ll take them downstairs with the others, you all keep going.”

“Okay, don’t let them try anything. If they do, don’t kill them, just knock them out or something,” I said to her.

I thought the paranoia of being watched by something that ripped ponies to shreds was bad, but having the thought that somepony could jump out from anywhere and attack was more nerve-wracking for some reason. The suspense wasn’t just getting to me, I could see it was getting to Aura and Vervain too just by their expressions. I saw two red bars with about eight white ones as we got closer to where Gina and The Overmare were, those red bars had to be them. Box Tape probably annihilated the rest of the forces they had in this part of the stable that were protecting them.

“Ugh, this is intense. I haven’t been on a mission that involved this kind of thing in years,” Vervain said.

“Don’t worry about it too much, there’s not too many of them left. I only have two red bars on my E.F.S., Gina and The Overmare are probably the only two left in this area.

“That’s right!” Gina yelled as she swung a pole around the corner almost hitting me in the face. Thank the Goddesses I’m short.

Within seconds Aura jumped into action, “You traitorous bitch! Shadow, Vervain, get out of here while you can!”

“They aren’t going any…” Aura struck her in the face before she could finish.

Vervain and I rounded the corner and climbed the final staircase that would bring us to the last corridor that lead to The Overmare’s office. When we got to the top I noticed a small trail of blood starting from a few spots on the floor leading toward the office area, “There’s blood here, think it’s from one of the hostages? She might’ve had Gina beat one of them to death to alleviate her anger.”

“Let’s just see where it leads, somepony might need help. Any injured hostages take precedence over The Overmare,” Vervain replied.

We followed the trail and it didn’t take long to find out where it led. At the end of the trail I saw Balefire slumped against the wall, beaten so badly that I almost didn’t recognize him, “Bale!” I yelled as I ran over to him.

He coughed up some blood and said, “Sh-shadow, you made it.”

“What happened!? Why did she do this to you?” I asked desperately as I dug around in my saddle bags for a healing potion, “Shit! Where the fuck are my fucking potions!?”

He coughed again, “It was that bird bitch. I asked to speak to my mother and she said she had orders from her to keep anypony out,” he coughed up some more blood, “I-I tried pushing past her and she-she just…it doesn’t…matter, glad…you’re…sa…” his eyes closed as he let out a breath.

“NO! Fuck fuck fuck!” I went to grab his legs so I could pull him flat on the floor to administer CPR, but when I looked down I saw that his right foreleg had been mangled beyond recognition, “Vervain, help me!”

She came over as fast as she could and helped me get him where we needed to, “Shadow, I know he’s your friend and you’re worried about him but you need to keep going. I can handle this on my own,” Vervain said as she started chest compressions.

“I can’t just leave him here. I could swear I have healing potions somewhere in my bags,” I said as I kept digging.

“Shadow, a healing potion won’t help his condition. He needs real medical attention. From my experience as a Scribe I have some medical training, I’ll see what I can do for him considering the circumstances.”

I didn’t want to go, not until I knew he was going to be okay, but deep down I knew I had to. Also deep down I knew that I wouldn’t be able to face Milkshake again if he died here, “Fine, I’ll go. Don’t let him die, do whatever you can or need to,” before she could say anything I entered the corridor to The Overmare’s office to end this once and for all. Now wasn’t the time to cry, it was time to show The Overmare why you don’t mess with The Courier!

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Finesse: You gain an extra 5% chance to land a critical hit upon an opponent regardless of the pony’s luck attribute. Although an extra 5% critical chance is undoubtedly helpful to anypony, combining Finesse with other critical-enhancing effects ensures you get the most bang for your buck.

Chapter 31: Good Goodbye

“That’s what you always wanted, you just wanted my power!”

As I stood outside the door of The Overmare’s office I hesitated a bit, I couldn’t just waltz in there without thinking. She’s got hostages in there and there’s no telling what she’ll do to them if I just barge in guns blazing, but if I don’t something worse than losing a hostage or two could happen. She is in the main control center for the whole stable after all, she could rig it to explode so that no matter what, she still won. In her own head anyway, I wouldn’t consider mass murder suicide a win. I put my hoof on the panel and took a breath, “Here goes I guess.”

I opened the door expecting a gun to be aimed in my direction, but what I came in to was just a room full of innocent stable ponies. The Overmare was gone, she must’ve left when she saw we were gaining the upper hoof, “The Overmare, do any of you know where she went?” I asked as all the hostages looked at me with fear, “C’mon please, I need to know so I can stop her.”

“How do we know we can trust you? You invaded our home and killed ponies,” one of the hostages asked.

“Really!? I just went through a shit ton of security ponies to get up here, faced death and worse to save your pathetic lives. The least you can do is tell me where The Overmare is,” I yelled.

One of the Stallions stuttered, “She used the escape tunnel. She only left a minute or two before you came in here.”

I rolled my eyes and went over to The Overmare’s terminal. Luckily for me, she was in too much of a hurry to relock it. The first thing I did was press a button next to the terminal to activate the stable’s intercom and said over the loudspeakers, “The Overmare just left through the escape tunnel, I need someone to get to the stable door and head her off right now. We can’t let her get away.”

When that was finished I went back to the terminal and used it to activate the emergency escape tunnel. The desk started to rise, I didn’t even wait for it to fully open. As soon as I could fit I moved into the tunnel, pulled out my shotgun, and started making my way through the tunnel. I could see a red bar on my EFS, she must still be hiding at the end. Not surprising, I’m sure she heard what I said and she was probably scared out of her mind…GOOD.

As I drew closer to the end of the tunnel a shot echoed down the tunnel and a bullet whizzed past me. I didn’t even flinch, the shot was way off. I started to laugh a little as I slowly walked closer to a pony shape I could just make out in the darkness at the end of the tunnel itself, “If you’re gonna take a shot at somepony like that, you should probably make sure you’re gonna hit them with the first shot. A foal could hit me at that distance, honestly you’re just terrible. I mean, that horrible shot didn’t even scare me.”

Another shot, and it too was way off. I didn’t even stop, I just kept on going. As I drew closer I heard The Overmare say, “Don’t come any closer, the next shot won’t miss!”

“Ppfftt… sure it won’t. You have no idea how to use that weapon. You should’ve taken some lessons from security, just in case you ever needed to defend yourself. Seems you’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, that’s one of them.”

I saw the gleam of a pistol come into view as she took aim again, muffling around the grip, “I’ll show you SHADOW!”

I yawned and used my magic to rip the pistol away from her, and toss it down the tunnel behind me, “Another lesson for you Madam Overmare, if you’re fighting a Unicorn, make sure to hold on to your gun a bit better than that.”

Using my magic, I pulled the lever to open the door that lead to the stable entrance. Light came flooding into the tunnel, illuminating The Overmare with the lights in the entrance. She didn’t look like The Overmare anymore, now she just looked like a pathetic, crying, weak mare. She looked no different than any other pony I’ve seen in The Wasteland who ran short on luck. Her face was wet and puffy like she’d been crying before I came down, her eyes looked at me with fear. It was odd to see the once proud and bitchy Overmare, scared of a little pony like me. I almost felt sorry for her, but I didn’t. She deserved whatever happened to her.

As soon as the door opened, three griffons from The Red Talons were waiting there with weapons at the ready. One of them was Gigi, she looked like hell. She’d gotten a nasty cut across her forehead, the leather armor she was wearing was torn from multiple cuts and gashes, and one eye was closed and swollen. When she saw me there standing over The Overmare she grinned, “Looks like you got to her first, good job Shadow.”

“You need to get to the top level right now, Aura’s fighting Gina. Someone needs to let Gina know that we have The Overmare so she’ll stand down,” I said my eyes not leaving The Overmare.

“I’ll go help her, can you handle things from here Shadow?” Gigi asked.

“Yes, now go help her.”

The Griffon gave a few orders then took off into the stable. When she was gone the two griffons who were with her stepped back and waited for me to make up my mind on what to do with The Overmare. She looked up at me and asked, “It looks like you won Shadow, now what are you going to do?”

I pressed the barrel of my shotgun to her forehead, “I should kill you here and now for everything you’ve done.”

“Would that make you feel better, shooting a mare while she’s weak and helpless?” she asked grinning up at me,

I flipped the shotgun around and slammed the stock into her grinning face. She flew out of the tunnel exit, falling at the talons of the two griffons who were still standing there, watching me. She started to shake a little as I walked out and stood over her. She looked back up at me, blood flowing from her nose and mouth, “Hahaha, you’re still an angry little BRAT!”

Holstering the shotgun, I brought my hoof down onto her face. Her head snapped back, slamming into the ground. I hit her again and again as I yelled, “Angry!? You don’t know what anger looks like you CUNT! Do you even care what you did to the stable you were sworn to PROTECT!? Everything that happened here is YOUR FAULT!”

With each hit, she just kept on laughing, it was like she wasn’t even feeling it. When I took a second to breath she muttered softly, “Still an ignorant child…”

I lifted her in my magic and threw her over the railing of the walkway and through the open stable door. She slammed into the rocky ground, sliding a couple feet once she landed. One of the griffons tried to say something to me, but I pushed past them and moved toward the bitch who fucked everything up. As I moved toward her I saw the fear in her good eye, she knew right then that I was gonna make her suffer.

With each step I said, “Everything that’s happened is because of you. My mom leaving me behind because you couldn’t just leave us alone. Lying to me by telling me she DIED, making a filly feel like she was unwanted and hated in the only place she knew. Making it so I had to run away from my home because you wanted a FUCKING PIP-BUCK! Killing so many ponies because you wanted power, power you ALREADY HAD! Splitting up two ponies who fell in love because you didn’t want to let your little buck grow up and be happy. All of that is YOUR fault. The worst part is…” I was starting to feel tears run down my face, I wasn’t crying…I was just so angry and hurt that I couldn’t stop them from flowing, “The worst part is, even after all that shit you did, you still let one of your griffons KILL BAILFIRE!”

Her eye went wide, the other was puffy and swollen, she looked like hell from the beating I gave her. But through that I could see that shock and disbelief, “No…you’re lying, you have to be lying. I told Gina to make sure nopony hurt him.”

I moved closer to her, putting my face an inch away from hers, “You told Gina to keep anypony away from your office. He came up so he could try and talk you out of your fucking madness, because after all you did he still loved you and wanted you to stop. Gina told him no, and when he tried to get past, she beat him nearly to death. I found him right before I went into your office, he let out his last breath as I held him. Do you understand now? Because of the bullshit you pulled, Balefire is dead! Congratulations, you killed your own son you monster!”

Finally, The Overmare broke. She slumped back to the ground and started to sob uncontrollably, “No…no not my little colt, my poor sweet Balefire. What have I done!?”

I pulled out Dreamwalker and pressed it right against her forehead. I wanted to put her down so badly. It wouldn’t be hard, just a four pound pull on the trigger and it’d all be over. One bullet to the mare who destroyed the lives of so many, but as I stood there with the barrel of Dreamwalker pressed against her skull something came over me. Right now, in this moment, I wasn’t seeing The Overmare of Stable 28. Right now, she was just a grieving mother. It was as if I was watching my own mother, grieving over the loss of a child that she could’ve prevented if she just did something differently.

I heard a small gasp from behind me, looking back I saw Milkshake looking down at me with tears streaming down her face, “Shadow…is he really…?”

I lowered Dreamwalker and sighed, “Vervain was trying to save him when I last saw him, but I don’t think there’s anything she can do Milkshake. He was hurt really bad.”

The Overmare screamed as I said those words, and Milkshake fell and started to cry herself, “No…he can’t be gone, he was going to be a father. I thought you said he would be fine Shadow…”

I looked between the two mares and sighed, holstering Dreamwalker. As I did I saw three griffons walking through the door from the atrium. It was Gigi, Aura, and oddly enough Gina. Aura looked like shit, but so did Gina, they must’ve really done a number on each other. When they grew closer Gina looked at the two crying mares and rolled her eyes, “Ugh, I didn’t walk all the way down here to watch two bitches crying.”

“Shut up Gina,” Gigi said then pointed to The Overmare, “You see, your contractor’s done.”

“So she is, that’s if she was my contractor,” Gina said with a laugh.

“If The Overmare isn’t your contractor then who is?” I asked.

“None of your business, I was only ordered to do whatever she told me to until she was either killed or until my contractor could get here. From the look of it, she’s not gonna last long. I have no reason to stick around here, the same goes for the others. What’s left of them anyway after this massacre,” Gina said starting to move toward the exit.

Gigi moved to intercept her, “I didn’t say you could leave yet sister.”

Gina looked at Gigi with pure hatred, “Step aside Gillian, I’ve already held back on attacking you, don’t push it. I’m not a Red Talon anymore. I told you I was leaving, and I don’t give a shit what you tell me to do. I’m a free griffon now, remember?”

“As much as I want to kill you right now Gina, I did give my word that I’d let you leave if you left my daughter alone. All I want to know is one thing before you go.”

“Fine I’ll answer one question, after that if you don’t let me leave. I’ll kill you without hesitation.”

Gigi just sighed, “This new Talon Group you’re a part of, Aura said you weren’t leading it. If that’s true, then who’s the leader?”

Gina just laughed, “My partner, he’s a griffon who knows how to run a Talon group unlike you dear sister. He’s a griffon who will help me finally take down the talon company who threw me out without giving me a chance to DEFEND MYSELF!”

“Yeah, yeah Gina, I’ve heard it before. What I want to know is what’s his name.” Gigi said.

Gina just smiled again, “I said I’d answer one question. You asked who our leader was, not his name. Are you gonna live up to your word or are you gonna betray me…again?”

Gigi sighed and stepped aside, “Go, but if I see you coming after my family or working in my territory again, I’ll end you and your so called Unchained Talons.”

Gina walked past her, “You can try Gillian, but trust me you won’t win. Goodbye for now,” she stopped for a second next to The Overmare who was still crying on the ground, “Oh and Overmare, thank you for helping my boss get all the information we needed from your stable. We don’t need that useless piece of electronic shit anymore.”

She looked up at the red griffon, “My son…you killed my SON!”

Gina punched her in the face, “I sure did, let that be a lesson to you on how you define the orders you give. Someone might take them to heart,” she gave her one last kick and walked out of Stable 28.

Sighing again I looked over at Gigi and asked, “What happened?”

“When I got to Aura and Gina, they were at a stalemate. I made a deal with Gina to get her to stop fighting Aura. You saw the rest.”

Aura was sitting by the door still just watching us. I looked up at her and asked “You doing okay Aura?”

“I will be, I just had a hard fight with Gina,” Aura replied, her eyes falling onto The Overmare, “You need to finish what we came here for, worry about me later.”

I looked back down at the pathetic bitch, pulling Dreamwalker back out but I kept it pointing down. I still felt the anger deep down at everything she’d done to me. She needed to die, I know that deep down, but for some reason I just can’t bring myself to shoot her.

Before I could make up my mind I heard the voice of Vervain, “Shadow.”

Again, I looked away from The Overmare toward Vervain who was standing in the entrance to the Atrium. The look on her face told me what I feared, she wasn’t able to save Balefire. I closed my eyes, “He didn’t make it did he?”

“I was able to revive him, but he needs to see a doctor soon. I took him to the clinic, but Doc is dead. I don’t know enough to help,” she replied, sounding like she felt like it was a failure on her part.

Aura looked up and said, “I might be able to help. It all depends on what shape the clinic is in, but I’ll need help.”

Gigi didn’t even wait, she pulled out a radio, “Syn, I need you to get in here and help Aura, there’s a pony in here that is badly hurt.”

A quick response came back, “I’m on my way.”

“Aura go help this mare, I’ll keep an eye on The Courier.”

Aura got up, “Show me where he is.”

Vervain took a second, looking down at Milkshake, “Milkshake you need to come with me. If something happens to Balefire, you should be there with him.”

Milkshake wiped her eyes and got back to her hooves sniffing a little, “Okay, I’ll go,” she looked back at The Overmare and me then she followed Vervain and Aura back into the stable.

“Balefire’s alive?” The Overmare said looking up at me hopefully, “I want to see him!”

I turned back around and pistol whipped her, throwing her back to the ground, “You don’t get to see anypony in the stable after what you’ve done.”

She grew angry, the shadow of her former self trying to push through the shell that was left over, “I am the Overmare! You can’t tell me what to do in my own Stable!”

I hit her again, “We’re not in the stable anymore DUMBASS! Haven’t you figured it out already? You’re not the Overmare anymore. You’re just a sad, weak, excuse for a mare who used to belong to Stable 28.

“How dare you speak to me that way! I’ll have you…” I hit her square in the face to shut her up.

“You’ll what? You can’t do anything anymore. How does it feel to be powerless, huh? Sucks, doesn’t it? You feel angry and afraid, the same feelings I felt most of my life living under your rule. You can’t even put the thought of not being Overmare anymore out of your head to focus on your injured son!” I took a breath and calmed myself a bit, “You’re pathetic, useless, and powerless. The exact same things you used to say I was for so many years. I hate you so much that it pisses me off that I haven’t executed you yet.”

I noticed her eyes looking around the cave she was now laying in, then her eyes fell on me standing in the threshold of Stable 28. She was shaking, bleeding, and as I said pathetic, “What do you plan on doing if I’m not here to be Overmare? Are you going to just take my place in the stable!?”

“No, the ponies of Stable 28 are going to choose a new Overmare, one they can trust and believe in again. For the first time in their lives they’ll be able to choose who leads them. They’re going to need a pony who can help lead them through this new life. Stable 28 won’t be isolated anymore, they need to work with some of the ponies in The Wasteland again. It’s the only way the stable will be able to survive.”

“You’re a fool if you think that’s the best way for Stable 28 to survive Shadow! My mother tried that and so did my grandmother. At first, we thought it was working, then your mother came to our stable and everything changed.”

I pressed Dreamwalker against her head again, “My mother has nothing to do with this. She left eight years ago, it was after that, that you sealed off this place and forced us all to act like that’s the way it always was. Most of the younger ponies never even knew the truth about what this stable used to do because of that. Look what happened because you tried to hide The Wasteland from all of them. It got in anyway and nearly destroyed it, because nopony knew how to defend themselves. None of that is because of my MOM! All she wanted to do was keep me safe, I was just a sick filly who needed help and your mother let her in to help us. That’s because she was compassionate, she cared about the lives of her citizens and that of others, not like you. The only thing you’ve ever truly cared about is yourself and it became you’re downfall.”

She glared up at me, “AND look what that got her, my mother helped Grim, and Grim KILLED HER FOR IT!”

That caught me by surprise, “Wait a second, you know about that?”

“Yes, I was in my mother’s chambers on the day Grim came to talk with her. She found some information about you two that she wanted to ask Grim about. They were talking in her office and my mother just wanted to know why Grim lied to her about where you two really came from, that was it. She just wanted the truth, she didn’t even threaten to kick you two out. She told Grim to just be honest with her and everything would be fine. And you know what Grim did? She used some kind of spell on my mother! She died in agony a few hours later!” she screamed.

I just shook my head, part of that I already knew from mom’s notes. I didn’t know that The Overmare hadn’t threatened to kick us out, but mom has always distrusted ponies. I could see her casting a spell to warn the former Overmare to keep quiet about what she found out, or to use a memory spell on her. Mom’s note said she didn’t know that spell would kill her, but it did. It was the start of her preparing to leave the stable.

“I know my mother killed yours, she left a note in this Pip-Buck about it. I’m sorry she did that, truly I am, but my mother wasn’t a trusting pony and at the time I’m sure she thought she was protecting me.”

“That’s no excuse for what she did Shadow!”

“No it isn’t, she did something bad and there’s no excuse for it at all. The same can be said for how you decided to treat me once she was gone. I was just a filly and you made sure I was always seen as an outcast. Why? Because you were angry at my mother? How does that help?”

“You ARE an outsider, a pony that should’ve been cast out along with your murderous mother. She didn’t just kill my mother Shadow, she killed my brother too just because he wouldn’t let her leave! Most of my family died because of her. I wasn’t going to let another pony like her get away with that kind of shit. I treated you the way you should be treated, just like a filthy outcast should be. If my mother would’ve just turned you two away all those years ago instead of listening to Auntie, my brother and my mother would STILL BE ALIVE!”

I smiled and stated to laugh, “You might be right about that, but do you know why my mom really killed your brother? No…well I’ll tell you then. It wasn’t because he wouldn’t let her out of the stable, it was because he threatened to rape me, a filly. He was a pathetic excuse for a pony, I guess it runs in the family since you’re not much different.”

She glared at me again, “Fireball was a good pony, he wouldn’t have done something like that.”

I just shrugged, “I don’t know if he would or not, but honestly I don’t care. He said he’d do it and mom made sure he couldn’t once she was gone. Now enough of this shit Over…no not Overmare you don’t hold that title anymore. You’re just Wildfire now.”

“How dare you call me by my name!”

I struck her again, “Get used to it, because you’ll no longer be The Overmare. Now Wildfire, it’s time for you to pay for the crimes you committed against Stable 28. For the villainous atrocities against this stable I sentence you to death.”

I felt a talon on my shoulder, I looked up and saw Gigi standing there looking at me, “No Shadow, it’s not up to you to kill her.”

Dreamwalker was shaking in my magic as I felt the hot rage at what she’d done, she deserved this, she needed to die, “I’m not gonna let her live after what she did. She chased my mom away and treated me like shit. She killed ponies I grew up with, because of her one of my oldest friends may not survive. She needs to die!”

“That may be true Shadow, but it’s not up to you if she lives or dies. As much as it may hurt, you’re no longer a part of Stable 28. You need to leave it up to the ponies who still call this place home.”

I lowered Dreamwalker a little, “But Stable 28 is my home.”

Wildfire didn’t say anything. For once she was smart enough to know that if she did, I’d put her down before the Griffon could stop me. Gigi just sighed, “Shadow, Stable 28 hasn’t been your home since you left it to go into The Wasteland. It used to be the home of a scared filly, that’s not you anymore. You’re Shadow Star, The Courier of the Marejave. This is something the rest of Stable 28 needs to figure out on their own.”

For a long moment I stood there looking down at Wildfire wanting to just pull the trigger and finish what I started to make her pay, but finally I pulled Dreamwalker away from her head and holstered it, “I just don’t know if I can just let her live.”

Gigi smiled, “Do you know why The Red Talons banish the griffons who betray our way of life? It’s because killing is the easy way out, the easy choice even if it’s hard to do sometimes. We banish because it’s a bigger punishment than just outright killing. I mean look at my sister, she should’ve been killed for what she did to our other sister. Even now, she makes my life hell, but it was still better to kick her out than to kill her.”

I heard Vervain come up behind us, “She’s right Shadow, as much as I agree with you about” she looks at wildfire, “her, you shouldn’t kill her.”

Wildfire looked hopeful as her eyes fell on Vervain, “Thank you Auntie, you always were a smart mare…”

Vervain moved past me and bucked the Overmare back down the tunnel, “You need to shut your trap. I’m not doing this for you Wildfire, I’m doing it for Shadow and the rest of our stable. Since you’re no longer fit to rule as The Overmare and you don’t have a female descendent, I’m taking over Stable 28 until a new Overmare is chosen.”

Wildfire got back to her hooves slowly, spitting a glob of blood on the ground, “You? What do you know about taking care of the stable?”

Vervain smiled, “I’ve been doing most of your job for years, I know more about the stable than anypony because you were too lazy to do it yourself.”

“Let me guess, you’re going to take over as Overmare no matter what aren’t you? That’s what you always wanted, you just wanted my power!” she yelled.

Vervain just walked closer and got right in Wildfire’s face, “No I haven’t, all I ever wanted was to make sure the stable was safe and to watch over Shadow. Even if I wanted to be The Overmare, the bylaws say that only a pony who was born in Stable 28 can rule it. I’m no more native to this stable than Shadow is.”

She was taken aback by that statement, “What are you taking about, you’ve always been a part of this Stable?”

“No, I’m a member of the Steel Rangers, I took the place of one of the ponies in here years ago. Grim made sure that everypony here thought I was that other pony with a powerful memory spell. My real name is Paladin Vervain, that’s why I won’t be The Overmare. Honestly I think that Milkshake should be the one to take over, but don’t worry Wildfire, I’ll be sure to teach her everything she needs to know to take over your old job.”

“Milkshake? Why her?” I asked.

“Because rightfully she should take over. She’s with Balefire who’s the son of Wildfire the former Overmare and she’s going to have a foal who is descended from her. It’s the best choice I think,” Vervain replied.

“And what do you plan on doing with me huh?” Wildfire asked with a quizzical look, “Gonna throw me in the holding cells, or kill me?”

“Neither, I can’t trust you being around the other ponies in Stable 28. There might be ponies in there that are still loyal to you and I can’t have you using their loyalty to start another uprising. As far as killing you goes, I agree with Gigi, death is too good for a pony like you. What I think we should do is make you live in The Wasteland and grovel in the dirt under the hooves of ponies ten times as frightening as you. Maybe a few years of having to learn to survive on your own will teach you a few lessons,” Vervain replied.

Wildfire’s face turned green and I could see fear in her eyes as she dropped to the ground, “No…please don’t send me out there. I’ll do anything else, but please don’t make me go out there!”

Vervain just shook her head, “That’s the only choice you have, now leave!”

Vervain pulled Wildfire up to her hooves and pushed her forward, forcing her to walk down the dark tunnel. Gigi and I followed and as we did Syn materialized out of the darkness. When she saw her mother she asked, “Where’s the pony who’s hurt?”

“Head into the stable and ask any of the security ponies to show you to medical,” I said, she nodded toward us then flew past, as she did I looked at Vervain, “How is he?”

“He’s breathing on his own, but your griffon friend Aura said it’ll be a near miracle if he lives. That other griffon did a number on him,” she said pushing Wildfire again as we walked further into the darkness.

“You can’t do this to me…at least let me see my son before you kick me out. I’m his mother and he might die,” Wildfire practically begged, dropping to the ground again.

“Get to your hooves,” Vervain said pulling her back up again then pushing her down the tunnel, “And no, I’m not letting you get near him. He’s only hurt like this because of what you did.”

As the darkness of the tunnel grew, Vervain and I both turned on our Pip-Lights, the green glow from them helping illuminate the tunnel. As we walked Wildfire kept on crying a little and whispering that she was sorry and all she wanted was to see her son. Vervain or Gigi would then push her forward or pick her back up to her hooves whenever she fell or tripped in the tunnel. Soon we were coming up to the tunnel entrance. It was the first sign of the fight from earlier, when the Red Talons took on the Unchained Talons. There used to be an old wooden door blocking the tunnel, now it was just splintered wood on the ground. The bones of the dead family were crushed and scattered, and now there wasn’t anything blocking the dim light from The Wasteland coming in.

Wildfire started to shake as she looked out at the cloud covered sky and the green mist that was only a few meters away from the entrance to the tunnel. Dead griffons from both sides were laying around the entrance, a couple of stable ponies too that must’ve escaped before the fight broke out inside. A few were still alive, most of them grouped around a beaten and battered looking Fletch. Pluck and Gouger were there too and a couple of other griffons all wearing the band around their shoulders showing they were part of the Red Talons.

When we came walking out of the tunnel Fletch looked at us, “I take it everything went okay in there?”

Gigi moved over to her daughter, “I wouldn’t say okay, but yeah we won.”

“Fletch, I’m glad to see you made it out okay,” I said with a small smile.

“Whatever, it’s not like I was in any real danger. Gina may be a bitch that hates our group and family, but the only griffon in the family she wants to kill is mom,” Fletch said.

A few of the ponies slunk back when they saw Wildfire standing next to Vervain, tears running down her bruised and broken face. One of them however growled and walked over, “Well if it isn’t Madam Overmare. I’m surprised your still alive.”

Vervain moved forward, “Tumble Weed, keep quiet please. She’s no longer The Overmare.”

Tumble Weed? I didn’t even recognize him. He was the colt who used to tease me all the time in school and liked to call me Little Dark Princess because of my coloring whenever he could get away with it. He’d grown up since I last saw him, I guess time working in sanitation can bulk a stallion up some, and the scruff on his chin helped a little with that too. All in all, he was quite handsome…for a bully. Oh but that bone structure though.

A mare who I knew worked in R&D came over to Vervain and asked, “If she’s not The Overmare anymore, then who is?”

“No pony yet, we’ll all figure it out when things settle down. Right now I’m going to be running the stable until a new Overmare is put into place.”

“Maybe you should be the new Overmare Auntie,” A stallion in the back said. When I looked at him I saw it was Tinker, Stable 28’s Pip-Buck Technician.

Vervain smiled then shook her head, “I don’t want to take on the role full time. But could you help with something Tinker?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said walking over to us, “What do you need?”

“I want you to remove Wildfire’s Pip-Buck.”

He looked confused for a moment then his eyes fell on the Former Overmare, “Oh, I almost forgot her name, no problem.”

He pulled out his Master Key and moved toward Wildfire. She tried to pull away, but Vervain hit her again, knocking her to the ground. As she lay there sobbing, Tinker moved to her foreleg and removed her Pip-Buck. When he was done Vervain cleared her throat, “Wildfire, Former Overmare of Stable 28, for your crimes against the stable and the ponies in it, you are here by banished from Stable 28. You are no longer allowed the privilege of communicating with anypony from the stable in any way. If you do, you will be hunted down and killed by a griffon from the Red Talons. If you try to come back, you’ll be killed, you are no longer a citizen of our stable. This punishment is the highest I can give you apart from death, which honestly you deserve, but I want you to learn the hard lesson by living the rest of your days in the world you let into our home. Now leave before I change my mind and decide that flaying you is a better punishment.”

Her eyes were dead as Vervain gave her decree, it was as if she still hadn’t figured out what was going on. When Vervain finished Wildfire muttered, “I can’t even see my little colt one more time?”

Before Vervain could answer I moved forward and said, “He’s not your son anymore, you’re not his mother anymore, you’re just a sad mare who needs to start understanding what’s really going on here. You’re nothing to us, just another mare wandering The Wasteland. I suggest you get through Green Mist Valley quickly and head toward a town that’ll take in a pony such as yourself. Now get out of our SIGHT!”

She started to cry again, (Damn and my friends said I was a crybaby) “I don’t know where to go or what to do.”

“Neither did I and I made it. You’ll have to learn how to take care of yourself and defend yourself,” I said.

She grinned then her hoof came up and struck me across the muzzle. For a mare who didn’t do much but laze around and give orders, she really could hit hard. I fell back and she pulled Dreamwalker from its holster and pointed it right at me saying around the bit, “If I can’t go back in to my stable to at least see my own dying son, then I’ll at least finish what I started!”

A shot rang out and Wildfire was thrown back as a bullet passed through her shoulder. She dropped Dreamwalker which I made sure to grab with my magic as soon as she did. I looked back and saw Gigi holding a pistol that she just used to shoot Wildfire. She grinned at me, “Don’t worry, I made sure to leave her alive. Let that be a lesson to her not to fuck with The Red Talons or the ponies we’re protecting.”

I just shook my head and looked back at Wildfire who was trying to get back to her hooves, “That was the wrong choice Wildfire.”

“FUCK you Shadow, I’m not gonna let any of you tell me what I can or can’t do!” she got back to her hooves and started to limp toward Green Mist Valley…not in the direction of the road, “I’ll be back, mark my words, once I make contact with some of the friends I’ve made out here, you’ll regret ever crossing me!”

“Wildfire, don’t go that way!” I yelled, but she ignored me.

She tripped and fell into the green mist, she got back to her hooves and yelled, “Don’t tell me what to do Shadow Star, I don’t care if you’re this so-called Courier or not. I know you better than the idiots out here do, you’re nothing more than a back-stabbing BITCH. I’ll be back one day, and I’ll get back my stable, I AM THE FUCKING OVER…”

A shape came flying out of the mist tackling Wildfire as she tried to yell, a thick un-pony like growl and scream coming from its deformed mouth. As it landed on her it sank its teeth into her wounded shoulder and started to pull a chunk of flesh away. She screamed in agony as flesh and muscle ripped away in a spray of blood. A moment later another ghoul jumped out of the mist and took hold of one of her legs and started to pull on it.

“Shit, this isn’t what I had I mind,” Vervain said, pulling out an energy pistol.

I put a hoof up and stopped her, “No, this is the price she pays for not listening to us. We gave her a chance and she wasted it. Let The Wasteland make its own judgment on what should happen to her.”

Gigi and Vervain looked at me in shock, Gigi saying, “If we don’t help she’ll be ripped to shreds.”

My eyes never left those of Wildfire as she screamed in pain as three more ghouls came out of the mist, each taking a part of her body and chewing or pulling at whatever they could reach. As I watched all I said back to them was, “Perfect.”

One of the ghouls bit down on her nose and pulled away a chunk of flesh, another ripped off an ear, the one that was pulling on her leg finally managed to rip it off. Blood was everywhere, and soon her cries of pain turned into weak, desperate whimpers, her eyes going glassy as she tried to look up at my own. Her gaze locked on mine and her lips formed a few words, “Help me…please…I’m sorry.”

Even if I wanted to give her another chance, it was too late, there was no coming back from this. The only real help I could offer her was to put her out of her misery, even that I couldn’t really do. This is what she deserved after the hell she put the ponies of Stable 28 through, what she put me through, what she put mom and Balefire, or even Milkshake and her unborn foal through. Only a monster can kill a monster, that’s what she was deep down. She was just another monster in The Wastes that wormed its way into power, a monster that found out she wasn’t as strong or as smart as she thought. When you fuck with The Wasteland, it shows you how much stronger and meaner it is than you.

As one more ghoul fell on her sinking its teeth into her throat, I gave her my answer, “The only ones that can help you now are Celestia and Luna. I hope they can forgive you for what you did in this life and show you mercy when you arrive in the afterlife. May they have mercy on your soul Wildfire. Rest in pieces.”

Her eyes went wide one more time, then the ghoul at her neck ripped her throat out. Blood gushed across her body and the ground, pooling under her to mix with the rest she’d already spilled. Mixing with the blood of the Griffons who died to help save this place, mixed with the tears she’d shed for her own life and the life of her son. Still my eyes never left hers, not until the light of life vanished and I knew she finally died. Wildfire, The Former Overmare of Stable 28 was dead. She couldn’t hurt anyone again.

When she finally passed I lifted Dreamwalker, activated S.A.T.S. and fired on six of the ghouls who were still trying to rip chunks of meat off the dead pony. Each one fell in a shower of bone and ichor, the ones that were left howled and looked up at me. I didn’t even flinch, I reloaded Dreamwalker, aimed down at them and fired. I fired over and over until not a single one was left alive. Their bodies falling in a small ring around Wildfire’s corpse. Once that was finished I turned and walked back toward my new family, my new life, and readied myself to say goodbye to my old one.

Vervain was looking at me in horror. As I moved closer to her she put a hoof on my shoulder, “Are you going to be okay Sweetie?”

Without looking into her eyes, I replied, “I haven’t been okay for a long time Auntie Vervain,” then I walked past her and up to Gigi, “Our contract is complete, thank you for helping me take care of all of this.”

“I wish we could’ve done more, it’s us that should be thanking you Shadow. You’re the reason my daughter was able to live, since you called me in Gina knew that she had to keep Fletch around to use her to get me to stand down. It gave her time to figure a way out of the situation she was in. Also, you showed us that a new, much more dangerous team of Griffons is out there, hell-bent on taking down my talon company,” she said.

“I just did what I had to, The Red Talons have done a lot for me as of late and I wasn’t going to let some other talon company kill more of your group,” I said solemnly, “Since our business here is done, I have one more thing I need to give you.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s all done yet, I need to check on my griffons and get reports from Aura and Arys on what happened before I arrived, but what did you need to give me?”

I pulled out the letter Javelin had given me and gave it to her, “This is a letter from the leader of the Annihilators, she wants to meet with some of your griffons to set up a contract. This letter goes over the details. I think you should do it, they aren’t as bad as the stories make them out to be. Also, since I won’t have time to deliver this other letter. Could one of your griffons bring it to the leader of Trotston, he’s a pony named Rusty Shackles.”

She took both, “I’ll be sure to look it over and I’ll also be sure to get the other one to its destination when this is all finished.”

“Thank you, Gigi,” I said walking past her and back toward the tunnel that lead back into Stable 28.

Before I was past the entrance Gigi called out, “No Shadow, thank you.”

Vervain came running toward me along with Tumble Weed and a few other ponies from the stable. When they reached me Vervain asked, “What are you gonna do now Shadow?”

I did my best to hide the tears in my eyes that were threatening to fall. I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry anymore, I promised that I’d be stronger than before. I wasn’t gonna let The Wasteland win again. When I knew I had control of myself I said, “I expect I’m going to go try and say goodbye to a friend, if I’m too late, then I can at least bury him…I won’t let a good pony like Balefire be thrown into the incinerator.”

She put a hoof on my shoulder, “He might live Shadow, you need to have faith.”

I pulled away and continued walking, “I lost my faith a while ago, all I believe in now is the power of The Wasteland. No matter how hard I try and help the ponies I love, The Wasteland always wins in the end.”

***

“Shadow you need to wake up,” Milkshake said shaking me a little.

I pulled the blankets over my head and moaned. The fight with The Overmare and The Unchained Talons was two days ago now. I was staying in my old room with Wind Thrasher and Wingnut. Vervain was staying with Milkshake for the moment helping her learn what she needed to know about running Stable 28. When we went back into the stable after Wildfire’s demise, Vervain explained to the ponies about what happened. With no heir to the office of Overmare, Vervain left it up to a vote with all the ponies left in the stable. Sadly, that wasn’t as many as I had hoped. The battle had taken the lives of over 200 ponies, security ponies, normal citizens, and even fillies and colts.

The Stable was barely holding itself together, and after hearing that the Overmare was the reason for it all, just brought up the stress even more. It took a few hours of the stable ponies alone with my friends to clean up most of the bodies and mess in the atrium alone. When it was all settled and the ponies who survived could finally take a moment to rest, Vervain had them all come up to the atrium for a meeting. It was there that she told them that it was up to them to choose a new Overmare. I wasn’t surprised when most of the ponies wanted Vervain to take that role. She was the mare that everypony saw at least once during the day, she was always the kind pony that was there when they needed her. She was like a family member to everypony in Stable 28.

In the end she told them all that she didn’t want to take on the role. She loved the ponies in the stable, but she wasn’t the right pony to take over. She told me later that she decided not to tell the ponies who she really was, at least for now. They had too much to deal with, and she wasn’t sure they could take that kind of information right now. So, she told the ponies that she thought it would be best if Strawberry Milkshake took over. At first some of the ponies weren’t too sure, until Vervain said she would teach her everything she needed to know. In the end Milkshake was named the new Overmare of Stable 28.

Balefire was still alive, thanks to the help of Aura and Syn along with Doc’s apprentice, one of the stallions who’d been there when I didn’t get put into a job. Balefire wasn’t good, not yet, but Syn said he was past the critical stage. His right foreleg that had been crushed needed to be amputated. Because of that he wouldn’t be able to do his job anymore in security. In the old days that would’ve forced a pony into retirement. If you couldn’t do your job you weren’t of any use in the stable. That rule was one of the first acts of Overmare Milkshake, she got rid of it, saying that everypony in Stable 28 will be able to help the stable grow.

He was still in bad shape and even now he still hadn’t woken up. Aura told me that was because of the stress his body went through and the meds he was on. She had hope that he would wake soon, when he did, he’d start to recover a lot faster. Aura was staying in the clinic with her sister to make sure she could be there in case anything came up.

I went to see him once, but I couldn’t stay long. The sight of him lying there with a leg missing, and tubes and hoses all over him was too much for me. Over the last two days I did my best to help the stable get up and running again. Wingnut spent a lot of his time in the R&D department learning from some of the ponies in there and helping them with some of his own ideas. The last floor of R&D had been shut down, and the older ponies who were being used to experiment on had been let out to rejoin the rest of the stable population. When I went down there myself and saw the things they were doing to the old ponies, I almost lost it all over again. It was almost as bad as Dr. Cell in Stable 9. Only instead of turning a pony into whatever Wind Thrasher was, it looked like they were trying to make cyber ponies. A couple of the retired ponies were so mangled with parts of them replaced with cybernetics, it was surprising that they were even still alive.

I met both of them personally and they told me they were in so much pain and all they wanted was to die. At first, I tried to reason with them, telling them we could find a way for them to be normal again. They just kept on begging me, one even crying so bad that they started to hyperventilate. I ended up putting them both out of their misery myself, my friends offered to do it, but I couldn’t let them. I knew both of these ponies, they were both retired two years ago. One used to work in sanitation, he was always a nice stallion to me. He would give me sweets when I’d run into him. The other used to work in the kitchen with Creampuff, he was the one who started teaching Milkshake how to cook when we were both fillies. I wanted the last thing they saw, to be the face of a mare who they used to know, somepony they both used to help make feel better.

“Shadow, I know you don’t want to get up, but you can’t sleep all day. You’re just gonna get more depressed the longer you hide in here,” Milkshake said, trying to pull the covers off.

“Leave me alone, I just want to sleep,” I said pulling the blanket back over myself, “You have too much work to do, you don’t have time to worry about me.”

“Worrying about the ponies in the stable is part of my job Shadow,” she retorted.

“I’m fine, just tired. Please don’t worry about me Madam Overmare.”

She lifted the covers up and moved behind me. Her forelegs wrapped around me. She pulled me close and nuzzled her face into the back of my neck. It was a little awkward since she was bigger than me and I tensed up as she said, “Fine if you won’t get out of bed then I’ll just have to join you.”

“What are you doing?”

She sighed and whispered, “I’m worried about you Shadow, you haven’t said much to me about what happened to you when you left. You haven’t said anything about what happened here, you need to talk to somepony. You can’t keep hiding away when you’re feeling down, it isn’t healthy.”

“I know, there just hasn’t been time, everypony is busy trying to help the stable right now. I can’t take them away from their work, even you have to worry about the stable and Balefire. You have a family now, I can’t pull you away from that to help me feel better.”

She hugged me tighter, “Shadow, I love Balefire and this stable, but I think you forget sometimes that I love you too. You’ve always been there for me when I needed you and it’s time for me to do the same.”

I smiled a little then said, “What are you talking about, I was always the one who moped around this place after my mom left. I was always the one who was needy with you and Bale.”

“I remember things differently, I remember the filly who would jump in to save her friend when she got into a stupid argument with the stallions in our class, then fought them when they called her small. I remember the filly who would pull pranks on the teachers just to make me laugh. I remember the mare you became who wouldn’t let anypony tell you who you should be. Now I see a mare who’s done a lot of things to help the stable that never treated her like one of them. You could’ve just ignored the summons from Aunt…err Vervain I guess, and let us all die, but you didn’t. You’ve always been the pony who put her friends first, even if you never saw it that way.”

“You’re too nice to me, y’know that?” I asked.

“Yeah, but that’s just who I am.”

I was starting to blush with her body pressed so close to mine. I wanted to pull away knowing she didn’t feel the same way I did, but something in me told me not to. She wasn’t doing this to tease me or to play games with me, she was just comforting a friend. I let my body relax and I let one of my own hooves wrap around hers, just enjoying her company. After a few minutes went by I finally said, “I’m sorry I left without talking to you first if I had the time I would’ve. I’m also sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt back then, I was just too scared that you would see me differently. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend.”

She took in a deep breath and I could feel her body shaking next to me. I felt a tear fall on my neck as she started to quietly cry into the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what I should say so I just let it be. A few minutes later she said, “How could I ever see you differently? You were always different and that’s what I liked about you. I never would’ve cared that you like me in that way, I would’ve just told you how I felt and been there for you no matter what. That’s what friends do Shadow.”

I rolled over and looked into my friend’s tear-filled eyes and gave her the biggest smile I could muster, “You know what?”

She sniffed, wiped one of her eyes with a hoof, “What?”

“You’re really cute when you cry,” I said with a laugh.

She pushed me away doing her best not to let me see her smile and failing, “You’re just evil.”

“I may be evil, but at least I can still make you smile.”

She sat up and smacked my chest, “You didn’t make me smile, I’m just happy that you’re talking finally.”

I laughed again then got up myself, “Whatever you say Madam Overmare, now how about we get out of this bed.”

“That’s the best thing you’ve said to me all day,” her eyes went wide, “Oh I forgot, Balefire woke up!”

My eyes went wide as well, “How the fuck did you forget about that!? If you would’ve said that in the first place I wouldn’t have just hid under the blankets.”

She jumped out of the bed, “I was going to, but you looked so sad I wanted to make sure you were okay first. He wanted to see you, Aura said it would be okay.”

I jumped out of the bed, my smile going from ear to ear, “What are we waiting for, let’s go!”

***

The two of us walked through the door into medical to find Aura talking with Balefire who was sitting up and looking better than the last time I saw him. When we walked in he smiled as much as his bruised face would allow, “It’s about time you found her.”

Milkshake moved closer to Balefire and kissed him on the cheek, “She was still a little tired when I found her, thought I’d let her rest a little more before having her get up.”

I went to go stand next to Aura as I asked Balefire, “How are you feeling?”

He laughed then winced, “Like a griffon beat the hell out of me, but I’ll live and that’s all that matters. Aura’s been filling me in on what’s been going on while I was out.”

My eyes fell on his half a leg for a moment, “I’m just glad to see you awake.”

He moved what was left of his right foreleg and shook it a little, “Don’t worry about this, it’s a small price to pay for helping save my stable,” His eyes fell a little as he continued, “I wish so many ponies didn’t have to pay the price they did.”

“It’s the sad truth that you’ll have to get used to in The Wasteland, sometimes good ponies or griffons die for no reason at all,” Aura said.

“But were not in The Wasteland, were in a stable. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in stables,” Balefire said, looking over at Aura.

“If you saw some of the stables I’ve been in since I left, you wouldn’t say that,” I remarked.

Milkshake and Balefire both looked at me confused, “What do you mean?”

“Most of the Stables around here aren’t running anymore, something went wrong in each one I’ve been in. I haven’t found a single one that’s still active like Stable 28. My friend Wind Thrasher, the Bat pony, she’s from a Stable that went wrong. No matter how hard you try to ignore The Wasteland, it’ll always find its way in,” I replied.

“I guess you’re right, it looks like it found its way in here too,” Milkshake said.

Balefire shook his head then smiled a little, “Let’s not talk about that right now. Shadow how about you tell us everything that’s happened to you since you left.”

I groaned, “I thought you didn’t want to talk about sad things?”

“Not about what happened here in the stable, we want to hear about what you’ve been doing. Even if it’s not all sunshine and rainbows,” Milkshake replied.

“It’ll take a while.”

“That’s okay, I’m not going anywhere,” Balefire said with a wink.

I sat there and started to tell them what happened to me over the past few weeks. I left out some of the boring stuff and skipped over things that didn’t matter. I told them about going to Cartwheel, how I ran into the Raiders and what I had to do to get past them. I explained meeting Box Tape and Silver Snip, then how I saved Silver from Crackerjack and his group of raiders. I told them about my journey with Stardust, going to the Steel Rangers and meeting Wind Thrasher and Wingnut. I had to go back and explain about how I met Aura, who also threw in a little about herself. It took a few hours, especially with Aura there who kept on making me go back and explain things. I watched as my friends faces went from shocked, to surprised, to horror, and then smiles. Each part of my tale seemed to help them both understand what I had to go through once I was out.

When I got to the part about Cloak being my mom Milkshake interrupted me, “You mean she was the one who was trying to kill you? I couldn’t see Grim doing that to anypony.”

“She’s not the same mare I used to know, I’m still trying to figure out what happened to her over the years. I’m hoping that I can still save her and Stardust.”

“This Stardust sounds like a good stallion,” Balefire said, “I hope you’ll be able to find him and save him.”

I smiled at them, “I do too.”

I finished the rest of my tale by telling them about how I got the transmission from Vervain. When that was done Balefire asked, “So Auntie is really this Vervain pony that used to work with your mom in the Steel Rangers?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I wouldn’t have ever guessed that.”

“Same here, she doesn’t seem like that kind of pony,” Balefire said.

“She’s a strong mare, always has been. I guess I can see it now that I think back on things she was trying to teach me over the years. She’s also the one who put the security program on the Mark II. I’m going to ask her to remove the last of it before I leave,” I said.

“I was planning on doing that anyway,” Vervain said from the door to the clinic, “Didn’t anypony teach you kids that it’s rude to talk about a pony behind her back.”

We all smiled as she walked over to us, I gave her a quick hug, “No, I don’t think you ever taught me that one.”

She swatted my horn, but not hard, then looked over at Balefire, “It’s good to see you’re awake Balefire.”

“Thanks Auntie…I mean Vervain, it feels weird calling you that,” he said.

She laughed, “Honestly it’s weird to hear it after so many years,” then she looked over to me, “Shadow can I borrow you for a little while?”

“Sure, I guess. I only came here to see Balefire since he just woke up.”

“He should get some rest anyway, he’s going to be in bed for a few more days,” Aura said.

“You two go ahead, I’ll keep an eye on him,” Milkshake said.

“Okay, I’ll see you two later,” I said waving as the three of us headed out of the Clinic. Once we were back in the hallway I asked, “What’s going on Vervain?”

“One of the Steel Ranger Scribes just came in looking for you. I haven’t seen her in a while but I think it’s Hazel.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot she was coming with Sapphire and the others,” I said, she hadn’t been in the fight the other day and when I finally met with Sapphire and her two Steel Rangers that came with her, she said that Hazel stayed behind in Cartwheel to talk with Box Tape about something. When Box Tape came to help in the fight, she hadn’t been with him.

“She won’t tell me what’s going on, she said she would only tell you,” Vervain said sounding a little pissed, “The disrespect!”

“I guess I should go talk to her then,” when is all the need for my attention gonna end? Being a hero on the radio sucks, “I’ll see you guys later.”

***

I went to the atrium expecting to see some Steel Rangers with Hazel but she was the only one. She was easy to spot, she was the only one with a robot floating next to her, “Watts!”

“That’s Lieutenant Watts to you Ms. Star! Oh, my apologies, this Lieutenant Gutsy upgrade Ms. Hazel gave me is ever so bothersome,” he said.

He looked a lot different than when he did at F&F Tools, his whole-body casing was green and bore the Steel Rangers symbol on both sides, “Wow Watts, you look uhhh… what’s the word… different.”

Hazel turned around and said, “Yeah his original body was too damaged to repair so we put him in this one. Transferring the consciousness was easy enough but getting him to act the same has proven difficult given this model was made for battle. Every once in a while, he sees one of us in power armor and goes completely mad, it’s probably because the circuit board that contains Watts himself isn’t used to the presence of a combat inhibitor. Anyway, there’s something I should tell you before I go back to Cartwheel.”

I smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, his normal timid nature is a bit overpowered by the desire to uh I don’t know, be respected. What did you wanna tell me?”

She sighed, “The airship bearing the Steel Rangers’ symbol that’s been sighted all around the area has disappeared completely but it seems one of them has reached out to us. Apparently, he’s looking for you, said something about making friends in this region is better than making enemies.”

“Who is he? Can I trust him?”

“No, I don’t think you should trust him. He might be one of us but he’s more in the gray area of trustworthiness. His name is Elder Wolfsbane, leader of the Los Alicorn branch of The Steel Rangers. I’ve heard stories of his exploits and I’ll tell you right now that he’s not somepony you wanna mess with, he’s fucking ruthless. He makes The Sins look like a joke when compared to him.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, “What in Celestia’s good name could he want to talk to ME of all ponies about? Oh wait, I know, he wants my help with something because it seems like everypony in The Wasteland needs a quick favor all the time, or he wants me to go back with him to Los Alicorn,” I sighed, “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a bitch or anything. I’ve just been under a lot of stress this past week and with this happening in the stable like it did, I just don’t know how much more I can take.”

Watts put up one of his pincer claw things, “No need to worry about things so much Ms. Star, things will eventually get better. Look at me, I was just a lonely old bot that was living in the past until you walked in my door. Now I’m a bot that’s not to be trifled with by the likes of Wastelanders. I didn’t ask for your help, but received it in the long run. Others don’t ask for your help because it’s convenient, it’s because you help whoever… or… WHATever when they need you most. The reason others look to you for help is because you’ve become a symbol of hope for us all, even lifeless machines such as myself.”

I laughed softly, “Thanks Watts, it’s nice to hear that you think so highly of me.”

Before he could speak again Hazel said, “I don’t really know what he’d want to talk to you about besides the recent introduction of Synths to this part of The Wasteland. They’ve been pretty confined to Los Alicorn except for a select few, but in the past year or so more have been showing up here. If anything, he’ll want you of all ponies to talk to our Elder for him to talk some sense into her. As you know our branch doesn’t get out much, mostly because of the different factions ganging up on us like The NLR and The Romans.

“Why in frozen hell would he think I could convince your Elder to do ANYTHING? I’m not even a Steel Ranger.”

She gave me a look, “Really? You’re the freakin’ Courier, the talk of everyone around here and even the radio host back east. Who’s gonna say no to somepony like you?”

“You’d be surprised. I can’t even convince a colt to quit being a perve all the time,” I replied.

She laughed, “What? That was random. You know what, he’s waiting outside the stable for you. I have to go back to Cartwheel and meet up with the others so I can’t meet him with you.”

“You let him near the stable!? You just said he’s not trustworthy.”

She stammered a bit, “It’s not like I purposely did it. He just came here with me, plus he already knew where this place was so it’s not my fault he knows where you are.”

I rubbed my forehead again as we started to walk toward the exit, “Ugh, this is heavy. I hope he doesn’t have anything planned for this place, the ponies here can’t take another assault.”

“He might not be a trustworthy pony but he’s still a Steel Ranger, we don’t invade active stables. Even IF this one recently had a mass population decrease, we wouldn’t interfere unless it demanded our attention. For example, if Stable 28 was invaded by The NLR which they never do or The Enclave, we’d do something,”
She said trying to calm my nerves a bit as we walked down the hallway, Watts following close behind.

“I guess you have a point. Another thing is that there really isn’t anything of use for him in here anymore after shutting down the other floor of R&D,” I said as we entered the entrance to the stable.

“Right, so he’d have no reason to threaten the stable,” she said.

I pulled the lever and waited as the door opened, “I don’t doubt that he wants to ask about helping with his Synth problem, but coming all the way out here with his whole entourage really makes me feel uneasy. Couldn’t he just come here with a few Paladins and Knights instead of his whole garrison in an airship?”

“That IS a bit strange, standard procedure is just as you described. Normally when The Elder is going somewhere, we send two Paladins and Knights with her. Something else is at play here,” she replied.

I turned on my Pip-Light as the tunnel grew darker, “What do you think I should do? I can’t immediately act like he’s the villain in the situation. Well, he isn’t, but he’s still doing things that are out of the ordinary for an Elder.”

She sighed, “I have no idea what you should do. I guess just act as if everything’s normal while still proceeding with caution. Maybe what he wants from you isn’t as bad as we might think, all the stories I’ve heard about him might just be that; stories.”

“So all these things you’ve heard could all just be bullshit?” I asked, “Ugh, this isn’t gonna be an easy conversation, it’s gonna be fuckin’ awkward.”

She stammered, “I wouldn’t say ALL of the stories might not be true, just some of them might not be true. However, I should warn you that he IS pretty intimidating according to all the ponies I know that’ve met him.”

As we walked out where the wood door used to be I said, “Well the moment of truth draws near. I guess this is farewell for now Hazel, you too Watts. Safe travels to you both.

She smiled, “Thank you Shadow. I wish I could leave Watts with you but I still have a few kinks I need to work out with his programming.

Watts put up one of his arms as if he was waving, “Ah yes, I wouldn’t want to accidentally decapitate anyone, haha. Good day to you Ms. Star, I look forward to our next encounter!”

I watched as they disappeared into the green haze of the valley and turned my head to a pony standing alongside the rocky hill the stable entrance was set in. I WAS going to ask Hazel where exactly Wolfsbane was out here, but upon visual inspection it was clear that he was easy to spot. Even if he was in a crowd of a hundred ponies I could spot him. He was tall with a black mane and beard and had a deep lavender coat. I couldn’t see his cutie mark because of the large flight jacket he was wearing, he also had a giant scar going across his face that I found a bit disturbing. Everypony I’ve met in The Wasteland with scars haven’t been all that good of ponies.

As I approached, he kept giving me this stern look that felt as if it was digging into my soul. Hazel was right, he is intimidating, but I stood my ground as I greeted him, “You must be Elder Wolfsbane. I’m Shadow Star, a courier with Equestrian Express out of Cartwheel. It’s nice to meet you.”

I think he actually smiled, he didn’t look like much of a smiler, “So formal, I like that in ponies. Yes I’m Wolfsbane, Elder of the Los Alicorn branch of The Steel Rangers. It’s a pleasure to meet a pony such as yourself too, I’ve heard tales of your exploits. I’ve also heard of your failures, such as the most recent, Appleton.”

Okay that shocked me a bit, I’m usually praised as a hero by ponies I meet for the first time. Either that or they try to kill me, “Failures? Appleton wasn’t a complete failure, I killed Pride from The Seven Sins of Equinity. And what do you mean failure-S? The only one I can think of is Appleton.”

His face took that stern look again, “You don’t even realize when you fail because everypony praises you for saving the day all the time. THAT is the downfall of do-gooder ponies like yourself of whom have no specific allegiances. Being unbiased towards all factions doesn’t do the good you might think it does.”

I smiled sheepishly, “If it helps, I’m being hunted by The Enclave.”

He interrupted before I could explain more, “The Grand Pegasus Enclave would hunt anyone on the surface who does anything that hinders their actions in any way. You need to get a handle on who your allies are, some groups can seem like they have a good cause when they truly are sinister. Take the New Lunar Republic for example, they think they’re helping The Wasteland by restoring a government when in fact they’re making thing worse by trying to tame a beast that’s been wild for too long without the proper tools to do so.”

“The ponies out here are trying their best to bring back a sense of normalcy around here. I think the NLR are some of the ponies trying to help with that. I also think The Steel Rangers are doing the same thing, maybe not as prominently as the NLR but enough to maybe make a difference,” I retorted.

He laughed mockingly, “The Steel Rangers huh? I think the chapter of Steel Rangers here are a band of cowards compared to the rest of The Wasteland chapters. All they really do is hide in their little bunker away from the world and its problems, my chapter has seen battles that would put the fear of The Goddesses into anypony else. Do you see this scar on my face? It is a penalty of battle, and a lesson to know one’s limits. After receiving this defacing gift, I learned that I have none, and I think that you don’t either. You may have caused a lot of damage in the past when saving the day or whatever you want to call it, but I think with the right training you could be the best of the best. That’s also why I’ve come asking for your assistance.”

Oh great so it seems we’ve finally gotten to the good part, yayyy, “What is it you need my help with? Is it your robot problem in Los Alicorn, or is it something else?”

“Show some respect, I’m still an Elder in the Steel Rangers. Anyhow, no, what I require of you is something that also benefits you. As you know, The Steel Rangers and pretty much every other group in The Wasteland are enemies with The Grand Pegasus Enclave. I’ve heard of a facility near Saint’s Parish and Whinnieapolis that is operated by The Enclave. They take young foals and train them to be killing machines over years of rigorous training, I’d like you to put a stop to that,” he replied.

“Why can’t you Steel Rangers ever do anything yourselves? Last time I had to go into a stable for you ponies it was a fucking nightmare,” I asked.

He gave me a look, “I recall, Stable 9 was a mission with far too many mistakes. Not only were you and your companions almost killed by fiends after exiting the shelter, you also almost let a horde of monsters into The Wasteland and caused a massive explosion in the process of keeping that from happening. You’re lucky that it was fiends living next to that mountain instead of normal hard-working civilians.”

“That still doesn’t explain why I have to be the one to do this for you,” I said ignoring his comments.

He sighed, “The Steel Rangers can’t risk going in there because the whole area is occupied by The Enclave, even the surface. If I were to send anypony in my garrison there it could spark a war between The Steel Rangers and The Grand Pegasus Enclave of which we aren’t prepared for, however their time will come to be erased from the face of Equis.”

“So I have to risk potential death along with my friends and travel hundreds of miles on hoof so you don’t possibly start a war?” I asked arrogantly.

He smiled again for some reason, “You underestimate the assets of The Steel Rangers. Don’t worry about transportation, I’ll arrange a sky carriage to be readied for you and your traveling companions to use. If I heard correctly they’re both flyers, one a pegasus and the other a griffon. I imagine they could both pull a sky-carriage with you and your colt friend inside.”

I thought about that for a second, there’d be another pony with us if we were gonna go to the Midwest, “It wouldn’t be just me and Wingnut, a friend of ours would be coming too. His name is Doorstop and he’s from around that area, he could act as our guide. The only problem is that I’d need to go get him from Frosty Summit Ski Lodge.”

“Not to worry, I can send somepony to get him and…”

I interrupted, “He’s former Enclave so I don’t think that’s such a good idea given that he might not be too keen on being brought somewhere by Steel Rangers. Could I send my friend Aura with them so he doesn’t do anything stupid?”

He scratched his beard as he thought about it, “I suppose it shouldn’t be of any issue if she joined them. There’s another matter I’d like to speak with you about, The Ministry.”

“Okay, what about them?” I asked, feeling another call for help coming on.

“I’d like to know what exactly you’ve learned about them in your travels around here. You might’ve noticed some paranoia from various citizens in different settlements that centers around their synths. The Ministry has quickly been growing more powerful in recent years and will surely take over what’s left of Equestria if given the chance. Any information you have could be vital in ending them for good,” he answered.

“You talk a lot about ending ponies, I haven’t heard anything about making The Wasteland a better place. There’s also the fact that you haven’t explained where the hell your airship is. It has to be yours, it bore the insignia of The Steel Rangers and you seem like the kind of pony who likes big things like that because you think it makes you look tough or something.”

He sighed, “You’re perceptive, I’ll give you that. Yes the airship is mine, it’s called The Palisade, the finest and most technologically advanced zeppelin that still roams the Equestrian sky. Unfortunately we can’t travel in the light of day because The Enclave would surely spot it in the sky and attack, so we have it docked somewhere safe.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Somewhere safe. Let’s leave it at that,” he replied.

“It’s kind of strange that you’d bring that thing here just so you could come ask me to do something for you, suspicious too. There’s also the fact that you, an Elder, came here alone.” I said, prying at him some.

“You know, you’re a rather difficult pony to negotiate with. I didn’t bring my whole chapter here in The Palisade, only about a third so I could reinforce the chapter here with more capable soldiers. I was supposed to talk with Elder Appleslice from Hidden Sands in Cartwheel but she was nowhere to be found. She had a security detail with her apparently but it seemed as if they lost track of where she’d gone. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” he explained.

What? Elder Appleslice was gone? How could she disappear like that? Hazel was right, something’s going on here, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Elder Wolfsbane, “No, I know nothing about what’s happening with her, and I also don’t know anything about The Ministry besides the fact that they manufacture Synths.”

He let out a breath through his nose, “We’ll see about that. However, I think we should get back to business. Will you assist me in this endeavor?”

Geeze, he’s less trusting than I am. I guess that’s what happens when no one trusts you as far as they can throw you because of rumors, “Yeah, I’ll go, but I expect something in return.”

He raised an eyebrow, “How does knighthood in The Steel Rangers sound? Under my training you could be promoted to Paladin within a year and be even more deadly than you already are which is purely luck.”

What!? Luck!? Fuck this guy! I wanted to get in his face at that last remark but held my tongue and let out a breath, “No, I don’t want to be a Steel Ranger. Despite what you said, I’d still like to remain unbiased toward all factions excluding The Enclave.”

He frowned, “Being unbiased is just plain irresponsible. There are factions out here that are enemies and helping both sides just prolongs their quarreling. Eventually you will need to choose a side.”

“I understand that, but that’s beside the point right now. What I want from you for completing this task is everything you know about The Grand Pegasus Enclave and their various secret projects you might know about. That includes what they do to ponies in my friend Stardust’s old home, Stable 97.”

He looked at me like I was a complete moron, “Stable 97 is the facility I’m sending you to. We got intel from a reliable source that there are numerous abuses of technology there, including a form of mind control.”

Yup, I’m a moron, “Well now I know what you meant when you said that this would benefit me too.”

“I was told about what happened to your companion and felt that I should lend a hoof while also striking a critical blow to The Enclave. If you do happen to help your friend, do you think he would consider joining us?” he said.

I almost laughed, “I don’t think The Steel Rangers is a group he’d wanna join, some of them took his favorite gun once and really pissed him off. Not to mention that he was raised in an environment that hated them, at least I think. I’m pretty sure his stable told him all his life that the outside world is poisonous.”

He sighed, “I see, well anyway, I’ll wait here for your griffon friend and contact my ponies aboard The Palisade to arrange transport to Frosty Summit Ski Lodge.”

This whole thing still makes me feel uneasy but even after what Hazel said, he doesn’t seem all that bad. A little demanding of respect he may or may not deserve but not that bad, “Alright, I’ll send her out when I go back inside and wait until she returns. I have some business to take care of here still anyway.”

“Alright then I bid you farewell for now, ad victorium,” he said.

I didn’t know how to respond so I just said, “Uh huh yeah. See ya later then,” still had no idea what the hell ad victorium means.

***

My first thought when I got back into the stable was, ‘Why didn’t he ask me about mom?’ He should have known who I was by now, even if I did look different. Even if he didn’t, the Mark II should’ve been a dead giveaway. I saw him look down at it when I first went out there, but he never brought it up. If he did know, then he would’ve said something, or maybe he was biding his time. Maybe he was showing me who he really was before he brought up the subject of mom.

“Shadow there you are,” Vervain said when I walked back into the atrium.

I looked up and pushed my dark thoughts aside, “Oh hey Vervain.”

“I thought you went to meet with Hazel? Why did you two go outside the Stable?” she asked looking concerned.

“She wanted to warn me about something and she brought Elder Wolfsbane. He wanted to meet with me outside.”

She looked shocked, “You mean he came here!? What did he want?”

“He was alone and he wanted to ask for help with investigating Stable 97. He said it was in Saint’s Parish,” I said watching her face as I spoke.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because from all the reports I was reading from The Over…I mean Wildfire, she was working with a Steel Rangers Elder. She said that she believed they were from Los Alicorn. The only Elder from there is Wolfsbane, and he did show up here, but he didn’t try and come inside or take over after the Overmare died?”

“Seems like it, he didn’t even ask me about my stable or about mom for that matter. He only wanted to talk business and to ask a few things about The Ministry.”

She started to rub the bottom of her her chin in thought, “That’s not like him, if he wanted this place, nothing would’ve stopped him from taking over. It’s possible that the pony Wildfire was working with was just saying they were the Elder from Los Alicorn.”

“You seem to know a lot about him Vervain.”

She shrugged, “Yeah of corse I do, I used to be a Steel Ranger in Los Alicorn before I transferred to Hidden Sands to be closer to my father. Back then Wolfsbane was just a Paladin but he was always driven to be the Elder one day.

“He DID sound kinda like a blowhard when I was talking with him, like he demands to be respected by everypony when he graces them with his presence. Has he always been that way?”

She rolled her eyes, “Oh Goddesses yes, every day of his life.”

“So, what do you think this whole thing is actually about? Him asking for my help I mean,” I asked.

She shook her head, “I don’t know. It might just be that, but I think he’s got an ulterior motive. He always does things for a reason that benefits him on a singular level while also benefitting his underlings as a sort of cover. He comes off as a blowhard, but in all reality he’s a brilliant strategist. That’s probably why he was made Elder at his age. Don’t get me wrong, he’s almost as old as I am, and no wise cracks about that either, but it’s unusual for somepony to be an Elder that young unless there’s an exception. For example, Appleslice, she’s pretty young for an Elder, but that’s because she pretty much took the position. I don’t doubt that Wolfsbane would do something like that but the Los Alicorn branch is a little stricter on their transferring of leadership than that, he wouldn’t have been able to do something like that very easily.”

I snickered a little, “I take it that Steel Ranger Elders are usually pretty old then. Well, thinking about it, they are called Elders after all.”

She gave me that look she always gave when I was acting like a moron, “Elders aren’t always necessarily old, just older than most ponies.”

As she said that something came to mind, “Box Tape, the other ponies called him Sentinel. What kind of ranking is that?”

She smiled, “My father was a Star Paladin for many years, he was as smart as any Scribe and tougher than any Steel Ranger around. Before I was born he was almost a legend when it came to battle. He was respected by more than just the Steel Rangers in Hidden Sands. Most of the branches of Steel Rangers wanted him to join them.”

I couldn’t help interrupting, “If he could’ve joined just about any branch of the Steel Rangers then why didn’t he? I mean why stick around that stuffy old bunker?”

She laughed at that, “Back then, they didn’t use the Bunker. When my father was the Star Paladin, the Steel Rangers in this area were stronger and more spread out then even the Los Alicorn branch is now. They had safe-houses all over the Marejave and they had almost as big of a presence as the NLR does now. It would be like that still if my father would’ve taken over as the Elder when his elder died.”

“You still haven’t explained what a Sentinel is by the way, just sayin’.”

She waved her hoof, “I was getting to that. Anyway, my father could’ve joined up with any branch he wanted to, but he was loyal to his elder, and he met my mother. She was a Senior Scribe named White Oak, he would do anything for her and he did. He stayed around here and raised a family, eventually settling down in Cartwheel. When I was born he wanted to put the life of a Steel Ranger behind him and just be a father. He always had a dream of being a courier and using his knowledge of The Wasteland for something more than just fighting. Around this time the old Elder died, and many of the ponies wanted him to take over. He told them that he didn’t want the job and only wanted to stay behind in Cartwheel, with his family. The pony who took over was his friend Apple Jam, he asked my father to at least stay on as a Steel Ranger. He agreed and Elder Apple Jam gave him the title of Sentinel. In The Steel Rangers, that title has only ever been given to three ponies. It’s a rank higher than a Star Paladin almost the same as an Elder. The thing is unlike an Elder who runs just one branch of the Steel Rangers, a Sentinel can give orders to any branch he wants. The Elder still commands their own branches but a Sentinel can take over if an Elder is unable to perform his or her duties or if they aren’t present.”

“So, Box Tapes a big deal then?”

She nodded, “Mostly yes, though he doesn’t do much with The Steel Rangers anymore. He opened Equestrian Express and that’s all he cares about apart from his family or the town.”

“Why were you so annoyed when you saw him during the fight?”

She sighed, “Because he’s too old to be doing things like that anymore, and he may be my father, but he’s an annoying ASS.”

“You two don’t seem to be very close,” she did hide away in a stable for ten years without saying anything about him.

She shrugged, “We never were, I was closer to mom than I was to him. Though he’s always been a kind pony to me as he is with just about any other pony he meets. He wasn’t a fan of me joining up with The Steel Rangers, it was just after my mom died and he was very upset with me. I ran off to Los Alicorn and became a Scribe like she was.”

“I was going to ask what happened with your mom, but I guess I got my answer. How young where you when that happened?” I asked.

“About Wingnut’s age. She never could be the stay at home type like dad was. She stayed on as a Steel Ranger even when my father retired, she was sent out on a mission a little east of here and was exposed to taint. She didn’t live long after that.”

“You know I keep hearing that word ‘taint’ what the hell is it?” I asked.

“I forgot you didn’t wander far from New Pegasus, it’s not seen around here much. You see taint is a chemical of some kind that you see more east than you do here. Nopony knows what it is, but the effects it has on ponies is horrifying. Most ponies just out right die if they’re exposed to too much of it and you can’t just get rid of it once it’s in your system like you can with radiation. If you don’t die from it then some ponies have been known to get strange mutations. It’s a rainbow looking fluid that was used for some kind of experiment’s during the war.”

“That must’ve been on one of the missing pages in my copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide. I’m guessing that once I head toward Saint’s Parish I should watch out for it.”

She nodded, “You should yes, the problem with it is that you can’t keep it out with things like radiation suits or anything like that. It’ll eat right through it.”

“I’ll make sure to watch out for it then when we leave. Speaking of which, I should find Aura and have her go get Doorstop for me.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me, “This plan on going to the Midwest to save this pegasus friend of yours. How do you plan on helping him if he’s all the way out here?”

I smiled at that, “Easy, he wants me dead right now. If I go to his Old Stable, he’ll follow me.”

“So, you’re going to use yourself as bait with a slim chance of this being able to save him?”

“Yeah, what else would I do?”

She laughed, “You’re just like your mother.”

I shivered at that, “I hope not.”

She pulled me close and hugged me, “I meant it as a compliment, Grim used to do anything for a friend just like you…even if she only really had me and one other pony as a friend.”

“The only other pony I know that knew mom was a mare named Laser Light in Frosty Summit. She didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about her.”

To my surprise Vervain’s face was shocked and angry at the same time, “You ran into Laser Light!?”

I took a step back, “Yeah, she helped me with the fight I had with The Sins there and she told me a little about mom and you from back in the day. She was also the pony who got Nexus to help me unlock some of the files on the Mark II. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Vervain took a deep breath then sighed, “I’m sorry, sometimes I let my Steel Ranger training take over. Laser was a nice mare when I knew her and probably still is, and quite the fighter. The problem was, she hid something from Elder Apple Jam and she was kicked out when Grim turned her in for it.”

“You mean the fact that she’s a Pegasus?”

“You really have been getting around, haven’t you? Yes, Apple Jam couldn’t let her stay, if the other Rangers found out they would’ve thought she was a spy.”

“Why were you so mad when I brought her up?”

“Because she found out your mother was from The Crystal Empire, and she knew your Uncle.”

“Wait, Laser never said anything about knowing Oricalcos,” I remembered the fight with The Sins, she never brought up who he was then.

“No not him, Striker. He’s a dashite from what I last heard, but he still knew ponies in Nimbus that could’ve told them where Grim was. Luckily your mom was able to do a quick memory spell on Laser Light, she forgot what she knew, but she didn’t forget that there was something she did that pissed Grim off,” Vervain said.

“You know one of these days you’re gonna have to sit down and tell me everything. Also, I want you to remove the Security you put on the Mark II.”

Before she could answer me, Aura came into the Atrium, “There you are Shadow, I’ve been looking for you.”

“Oh, hey Aura. Funny, I was just about to come find you too.”

“Really? What did you need?”

“I need you to go with two ponies from The Steel Rangers to Frosty Summit and get Doorstop.”

She cocked her head at me, “Why?”

“Because we’re going to Saint’s Parish, he knows the area and even better, he can help us with Stable 97.”

She rolled her eyes, “I mean why do I need to go to Frosty Summit to get him?”

“Um…because you’re the fastest flyer we have right now and I don’t know how else to send a message to him.”

She rolled her eyes, “When I was here last, Nexus said he set up a broadcast signal there so we could contact them if we needed him. If you boost the signal a little you should be able to find it. Nexus said that he hasn’t been able to make the signal strong enough yet to reach at a long distance, but it’s better than flying there all the time.”

“You could use the terminal in my room,” Vervain said nonchalantly, “While you do I can see about removing the rest of the Security on the Mark II.”

“Sounds like a plan, well Aura can you at least round up the others so we can come up with plan?” I asked.

“Sure, no problem. Also, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Wingnut.”

Vervain smiled, “How about I meet you two up there, I can find Wind Thrasher and Wingnut while you send out the message to this Doorstop fellow.”

“I thought you said you were going to remove the Security on the Mark II.” I said.

“I will when you’re finished,” she said walking away.

Knowing it was useless trying to get her to change her mind, I just shrugged and started heading toward my old room, Aura following close behind. As we walked by some of the Stable Ponies I noticed that most of them were doing all they could to stay as far away from me as they could. I’d been noticing it for a while now, but I was used to being shunned by most of the stable, but this was getting ridiculous.

“Is it me or are the stable ponies avoiding me?” I asked as we walked into my old room I used to share with Vervain.

“It’s not just you, they don’t want any of us in the stable Shadow. I think they’re hoping you’ll be leaving soon and taking us ‘Outsiders’ with you.”

“You mean even after what we did to save them, they still don’t want us around?” I asked.

“They’re scared and they just went through a horrific experience. Honestly, I don’t blame them for it. It could take a while before they’re able to trust outsiders again,” Aura said as I went into Vervain’s side of the room and used the Mark II broadcaster to unlock the terminal.

“They don’t have much of a choice. The Stable can’t go back to what they were doing before, they lost too many.”

“True, but right now they need the time to relax and let what happened sink in. You should know better than most, The Wasteland isn’t easy to get used to when you’ve lived your life in a place like this, cut off from the rest of Equestria.”

“I guess you’re right, I just hope they don’t lock themselves away for too long. If they do that then after a few generations some ponies are bound to have little inbred flipper kids,” I brought up the Broadcast menu and as before I saw the three new channels.

Aura pointed at one that said, Gamesmasher328 on it, “That’s the one he said he set up.”

I giggled, “I think I could’ve guessed with a name like that, what else would Nexus use.”

As I hooked up the signal Aura asked, “What did Hazel want?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said then spoke into the broadcaster, “Shadow Star to Nexus or Violet.”

“Who dares disturb the all-powerful NEXUS!?” Nexus said from the broadcaster.

Oh Goddesses, he’s a fucking child, “You know damn well who it is, Button Mash.”

“My… name… is… NEXUS!” he exclaimed into the microphone.

I snickered a little at how angry he was getting over his stupid name, “Nuh-uh Laser said your real name is Button Mash.”

It sounded like he sniffed over the mic like he was crying, “Please, just call me Nexus. Laser Light is mean, that was a secret she was supposed to protect with her life.”

Okay, bored now, “Yeah, whatever. I need you to tell Doorstop something for me. We need him to come with us to Saint’s Parish. Tell him there’s a chance we can save The Cadet.”

“Uhhh, okay. Who the hell is The Cadet?” he asked.

Do I always have to explain everything I say, “It doesn’t matter, he’ll know who you’re talking about.”

“No way, I’m not saying anything to him until you tell me who it is,” he said mockingly.

Now his crusty ass was starting to piss me off, “Go tell him or I’ll send Aura there to tell him and smash what’s left of your tech while she’s there you little scabby freak!”

There was an awkward silence, “Geeze, didn’t have to go that far. Fine I’ll go get him and you can tell him yourself, but just for that remark I’m not ever letting you play any of my games.”

“Fine, whatever,” I replied.

A few minutes later Doorstop’s voice came through the mic, “What’s this about you savin’ The Cadet?”

“I don’t know if you know this, but Stardust’s been brainwashed by The Sins, and now he’s the new Pride,” I replied, explaining the situation a little.

I heard something break in the background and Nexus started crying, “I knew those bastards took him, but what I didn’t know is that they used that damned machine on his brain! I’ll grind all those damned Sins into PASTE for this!”

“Hold up a sec, I have a plan that might be able to undo what’s been done. Elder Wolfsbane from Los Alicorn wants me to go to Saint’s Parish and retake Stable 97 from The Enclave…” I didn’t even finish before his next outburst.

“Whhhaaaatttt!? You’re letting a Steel Ranger order you around like you’re some sort of lapdog!?” he exclaimed.

I sighed, “No, he asked for a favor. I’m not taking orders from anyone. The reason I’m asking you to help me is because I need a guide for that area and I know you don’t show it but you care about Stardust like a son. Plus, helping The Steel Rangers would really piss off The Enclave, and I know how much you might wanna do that after what they did to you.”

I didn’t know if he was even angrier or excited, but he let out an enthusiastic growl, “OOOOhhhhh yeah! I don’t care if I have to suck him off to get under their skin, I’ll help that Steel Ranger and The Cadet! Where are you right now? I’ll come to you.”

Kay, that was easier than I thought I’d be, “I’m in Stable 28 near Cartwheel in Green Mist Valley, I’ll send Aura to bring you back here so you don’t get lost. She may or may not be with one or two Steel Rangers, Wolfsbane was going to send somepony to get you but I told him I’d send Aura with them so you didn’t kill them.”

“Hmm, nice tactical decision. I would’ve ripped them in two if they came here acting all high and mighty with that ‘stick up their asses’ attitude. I’ll await her arrival and return with her to your location, even if she IS a griffon,” he said calming down some.

“Alright then, see you when I see you I guess,” I replied, ending the transmission.

Aura looked at me awkwardly, “What should I say to that Wolfsbane guy? You said he was going to send me with some Steel Rangers, but I think they’d slow me down because they can’t fly.”

Wolfsbane is a bit stubborn, I hope he goes along with this, “Just tell him what you just said to me. If he still wants to send you with somepony, then go along with it. Just make sure to strongly imply that it’ll take a lot longer to get there if they’re with you. Also, ask him about the sky carriage he’s going to provide for us and where it’ll be. I don’t wanna have to go somewhere way out of my way just to get that fuckin’ thing, time is of the essence.”

She cocked an eyebrow, “That’s a lot. Where the hell is he again?”

“Just outside the stable.”

She sighed, “At least that won’t be too hard, don’t wanna have to stop in Cartwheel or wherever The Steel Rangers are right now on the way to Frosty Summit. What about Shrimp numero dos? I’m still his bodyguard y’know.”

“Don’t worry about Wingnut, I’ll cover for you. He probably wouldn’t mind you leaving, but he is a conniving little shit sometimes, so I think it’d be better if he didn’t know you left until you get back,” I replied, thinking it couldn’t hurt to skip talking to Wingnut. He’s distracted right now anyway with the R&D ponies.

She started grabbing her things, “Alright, guess I’ll get going then. Wouldn’t wanna waste any more time. This place is too stuffy for me anyway, been wanting to ditch this concrete prison ever since I got here.”

That got to me a bit, “Hey! This is still my home y’know.”

“Not anymore it’s not Shadow, It used to be your home,” she said as she walked out the door.

I hope everything works out alright, I hate not having Stardust with us. Him not being here makes us feel, I dunno, incomplete. There’s also the fact that he’s a trained killing machine and that he could kill me from a distance without hesitation. Shit, I hope he’s not staking out my stable right now. I’m pretty sure those loud mouth radio hosts have both gotten wind of what happened here and spread word across The Wasteland. On the other hoof if he was, he probably would’ve shot me when I was with Wolfsbane. Great now I’m getting paranoid, again.

***

The worst part about waiting for someone to do something that takes a good amount of time, is how to pass the time while I waited for Aura and for Vervain to come unlock the rest of the security on my Pip-Buck. I was growing so impatient that I started messing around with stuff in her room. When I was little I wasn’t allowed to touch any of her stuff, but now that I’m a badass Wastelander I don’t think she’d mind if I looked around at some of the cool stuff she had in here. I opened one of her drawers and uhh eeww, that’s not something I want to imagine the pony that raised me using, “Okay I’ve learned my lesson, no more snooping.”

“Snooping huh? Always the curious one, aren’t you Shadow?” Vervain said from the doorway.

“I didn’t fondle… I mean find any dick… I mean thing!” I stammered.

“Sure you didn’t, anyhow, a mare has needs you know. I’m sure you’ve come across worse in The Wasteland, especially in New Pegasus. That town is made of smut, I swear to Celestia herself,” she said as she approached the terminal, “Alright, come here and I’ll unlock the Mark II for you. Just be warned, this could take a while and the materials on there are pretty sensitive, Grim’s notes included.”

“I don’t think there’s anything in her notes that would surprise me anymore after what she’s become, I wanna know the truth about her, and about you.”

“Shadow once those notes are unlocked anypony can read them. If you get captured and they start looking through the Pip-Buck, they’ll find everything that she was working on. The worst thing in there is the information on Project Stargazer, the project where we found Aquila. Also, it’ll take away the last security measure I put in place, that being if you died, the information on there will get deleted.”

“Wait, you mean that was real? I wasn’t really sure, I just kinda improvised that excuse when Gina and Wildfire captured us.”

“Yes, I mean it’s not like I wanted you to die or anything, but I had to make sure that if something happened to you the information would be wiped out,” she said as she started to work with her terminal.

“I guess that makes sense,” I said as Vervain kept on typing, “Vervain, can I ask you something about mom?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“The mare I knew in the stable, the way she acted as my mom, was that the real her or just a way she acted?”

She looked away from her terminal, her eyes falling on mine, “What do you mean?”

“She wiped away my memories, how do I know that the mom I knew in here was the same mom from before we came here?”

She moved away from the terminal and pulled me into a tight hug, “Grim lived a hard life, she did things that would shock you to keep her secrets hidden, but the way she was in the stable was the real Grim. She loved you so much that she left her family and friends, gave up the life she knew just to keep you alive. Even when she left you here she did that to protect you.”

Finally, I hugged her back with a small smile, “Thanks Auntie Vervain. I just needed to know. I’m glad I had you here when she was gone, without you I don’t know if I could’ve survived this place alone.”

“Shadow you’d be surprised what you can do if you put your mind to it, but I’m glad I was able to help raise you, I wasn’t able to have a child of my own. Raising you was almost like having my own daughter and I couldn’t be prouder of the mare you’ve become,” she said with a hitch in her voice.

“Vervain, I see you the same way I see my own mom. You’re just another mother to me, even though I call you Auntie,” I said as my smile got bigger, “I’m lucky to have two moms’ in my life, even if one of them is a little nuts right now.”

I felt something wet fall on my horn as she pulled away going back to her terminal. Vervain did her best to hide her face from me, but I saw her wipe at her eyes for a moment before she went back to typing on the terminal. A moment passed then she said, “Thank you sweetie, that means more than you know. Now open your broadcaster so I can finish this.”

I did and connected the Mark II to the terminal. As soon as I did, data started to flow across the Mark II’s screen and in my vison. As she said, it took a long time for the data for go by. Neither of us talked as she worked, the data flowing by was starting to make me feel sick. When it was finally over the Mark II beeped and messages came across the screen…

Mark II Data has been unlocked…

Broadcaster range restored to full range.

Connection to Ministry of Arcane Science Emergency Broadcast System has been fully restored…

Location marker connection to Pip-Buck Mark II AB and SL has been reconnected…both Pip-Bucks are currently not broadcasting location…

Files have been fully restored…

C.M.C. hacking software has been fully restored…

All former locations on map has been fully restored…

All former data has been fully restored…

The Pip-Buck Mark II SB is now fully restored and ready for use…

Password for unlocking The Pip-Buck Mark II SB is now available to use…Password last entered for removal is Morning Star, please make sure you remember this password if you ever need to remove the Mark II. Thank You for choosing Stable-Tec.

“Damn that’s a lot of stuff!” I said.

She smiled, “I had to shut down a lot of the programs on the Mark II to make it seem like a normal Pip-Buck. I couldn’t hide the way it looked or some of its features, but I did my best.”

“I’m surprised that you were able to do as much with this thing.”

She shrugged, “Grim let me look over that thing for a long time before I set up that program. I set it up so that the first two security systems could be taken down by a pony who knew what they were doing, but I made sure that only Grim or myself could take down the last one.”

“That would explain why Nexus couldn’t get past it.”

She started to laugh, if he did I’m sure that whatever he was using overheated and blew up.”

I nodded, “It sure did, he was PISSED!”

She smiled again, “That’s what he gets for trying to go up against a master programmer.”

“That’s the thing, he was one of the ponies who helped make the Mark II. He used to work for Stable-Tec, I thought if anypony could get past the program it was him.”

“That just shows how good I am at my job,” she said, then looked thoughtful, “Maybe I should’ve stayed a Scribe?”

I hugged her again, “Either way, thank you for helping me.”

“It was my pleasure. Now I think you should start getting ready to go, I’m sure Aura will be back soon.”

“Good idea, by the way, what will you be doing when I’m gone?”

“When I’m finished helping Milkshake, I’m gonna head to Cartwheel to see about helping my father with his business. I’ve been stuck in here for too long and it’d be nice to see him more. He’s getting old and because of his diet of Sparkle-Cola and greasy foods, I doubt he’s gonna last long without somepony to keep him in check.”

“You’re not going back to the Steel Rangers?” I asked.

She shook her head, “Being in here has shown me that there’s more to life than tech and fighting for a cause.”

“I couldn’t agree more, I’m sure Box Tape would like to have some help around the place. Speaking of which I have to head over there before I leave. I remember now that mom left something for me there.”

“She did?”

Before I could answer the door to our room opened and Milkshake walked in, “Shadow, do you have a minute?”

“I was just getting ready to head out, what’s up Milkshake?”

She looked nervous as she spoke, “We need to talk before you leave.”

“Go on Shadow, I’ll see you when you get back,” Vervain said, giving me one last hug.

I followed Milkshake out the door of my old room, when we were walking down the hall I asked, “What’s going on Milkshake? You look like you swallowed a lemon.”

The look on her face got worse, “We need to talk about Stable 28 and you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, “What do you mean? I already watched that video in school, it was boring and I didn’t get a job in here anyway.”

She didn’t answer right away, we walked into the Atrium where Wind Thrasher and Wingnut were both waiting for me on the main level. When we started to walk toward them Milkshake finally said, “I don’t know how to say this Shadow…but the Ponies here are scared of you and your friends.”

“Yeah, but most ponies that’ve seen us fight will get over it. What does it matter?”

She stopped, took a deep breath then looked me right in the eyes, “Shadow, once you walk out the door of Stable 28, you won’t be allowed back in. As Overmare I have decided it’s best for the ponies who still live here that you’re banished from the stable…forever…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Vengeful Spirit:

Your time in The Wasteland has made you cold hearted and sometimes brash, causing you to crave divine justice upon your enemies. To some this perk is more of a curse, but for you it may be a blessing in disguise to do what needs to be done in certain situations. However, indulging too much in this perk might drive friends and loved ones away or drive them to put you in a mental institution.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Sweetie Belle’s Pip-Buck:

Due to your time using the Pip-Buck Mark II, you’ve gained a great understanding of the rare Pip-Buck. Thanks to this and the help of your friends, you can now use the Mark II to its fullest advantage. You now have all the information you’ll need to find out what the Mark II was used for, before and after the Great War. Careful, sometimes things from the past should stay in the past. What happens in New Pegasus, stays in New Pegasus.

Chapter 32: Breaking Me Down

“Do you know how hard it is to sneak this much stuff passed the security ponies in your old stable?”

I looked at Milkshake like I misheard what she just told me. I had to, because there’s no way she could be banishing me from my home. I laughed a little as I looked into her eyes, “That’s a good one Milkshake, you almost had me there.”

My oldest friend didn’t laugh, she didn’t smile, she just looked back into my eyes and sighed deeply, “I’m not joking Shadow.”

“What do you mean you’re not joking? You have to be. Why would you banish me from Stable 28? This is my home, the place I grew up in,” I yelled.

“No Shadow it’s not your home, not anymore, honestly it never was. You lived here for ten years, you made a couple friends, but you know that you never belonged here. I don’t want to say or do this, but it’s for the best,” she said, I could see that it was hurting her to say this, almost as much as it was for me to hear it.

“That’s bullshit, this is just as much my home as it is yours!” I exclaimed.

She moved forward then pulled me into a hug, she ignored my outburst, ignored my attempts to push her away, she just held onto me, “Your home isn’t here, this place was a prison. I don’t want to let you go, you’re my best friend and I love you so much, but you can’t keep looking back. Stop thinking about Stable 28 and start worrying about yourself and your friends.”

I pushed her away finally, “Milkshake, I can’t just let Stable 28 go. If it wasn’t for this place I wouldn’t be the pony I am now.”

“I know that, but now it’s time to grow up and move on. I’ve heard about the things you’ve done while you were out there. Some of them are scary and horrible, but most of the things you’ve done are good and you did it for the betterment of pony kind. Stable 28 is just a crutch for you to lean on when you feel like sinking back into your past. I’m not letting you do that anymore, there are ponies out there that need a symbol of hope. You’re the symbol they need, you’re the pony that can give them hope. I’m doing this because you need somepony to push you toward your destiny and Stable 28 needs to heal. That can’t happen with the pony who had a small part in hurting it, even if it was unintentional.”

“But, if I can’t ever come back, I won’t see you again,” I said, quieter this time.

“I never said that Shadow. No matter what, I’m not losing you again. Just because you can’t come back to the stable doesn’t mean you won’t see me or Balefire again. I plan on making this place part of The Wasteland, it’s the only way we can survive.”

I turned away from her, “It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not, but that’s the way life is,” she retorted walking around me to look me in the eyes again, “This isn’t ‘goodbye,’ it’s ‘I’ll see you later.’ As for Stable 28, it’s time for you to forget about it, it’s not your responsibility anymore.”

I walked past The New Overmare with a hard edge in my voice, “As you wish Madam Overmare, I’ll get my friends and we’ll head out. I wouldn’t want us dirty Wastelanders to scare the populace more than we already have.”

“Shadow don’t go like that…” she started to say but I rounded on her.

“No…don’t, just don’t,” I said turning again to keep on walking going back toward Vervain’s room.

When I walked back in, Vervain looked at me with concern, “Are you okay?”

I grabbed my stuff, “No I’m not.”

I started looking through my saddle bags, trying to find my barding and duster, as I did she asked, “What’s wrong?”

I threw my saddle bags against the wall, “Milkshake just told me that I’m banished from the Stable. I’m getting my friends and leaving.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know go ask the new Overmare, she said something about me needing to move on and put this place behind me. Also, my friends and I scare the poor weak stable ponies. Fuck em’, I don’t even know why I bothered coming back here in the first place. I should’ve let this place destroy itself, some thanks I get for fucking helping,” I knew I was just lashing out, but I didn’t care anymore.

Vervain walked over to me and slapped me…hard, “Listen here Shadow, I don’t care how angry you are right now, but I don’t ever want to hear you say something like that again, do you understand me?”

I took a step back, my anger boiling over, “Why the fuck not? Why should I care one bit about the ponies here huh? Even after Saving them, they still want me gone. They can’t stand me because I’m different, even worse now, they’re scared of me. I saved their worthless lives and this is how I’m treated. Fuck Stable 28, I hope the place collapses in on itself.”

“Shadow Star shut your mouth!” Vervain yelled.

That got me to shut up, Vervain never yelled at me, not like that. I took a minute to breath then in a calmer tone I said, “Why does she want me to leave? What did I do wrong?”

“Did you even stop to think that maybe she’s doing this for your own good? Did you think that maybe this hurts her just as much as it hurts you?”

“No.”

“Milkshake has to think about what’s best for everypony in here, that goes for you too. She knows just as much as I do that you don’t belong here, not because of who you used to be or what you did here, but because the stable doesn’t need you, The Wasteland does.”

She was right, I know she’s right, I just didn’t like it. I sighed, moved over to my saddle bags, picking them up, “I know…I just don’t like it. Once I leave, I won’t have anywhere to call home.”

She smiled, “Shadow, home is wherever your family is. For you that’s your friends, as long as you’re with them you’re always home.”

I couldn’t help smiling a little, “Thanks Auntie Vervain, I don’t know how you’re always able to calm me down.”

“I raised you, it took years of practice,” she said simply, “Now let’s go find your friends, and you owe Milkshake an apology.”

“How do you know that?”

She winked, “I know you, I’m sure you said something hurtful when you walked away, let’s go.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said sarcastically as we walked back down to the atrium.

When I arrived with Vervain back in the atrium, I saw that Wind Thrasher and Wingnut were both waiting with Milkshake. As I walked in Milkshake looked down at her hooves trying not to meet my eyes. I moved over to her, used a hoof to lift her head so I could look at her, “As much as I don’t like what you decided, I realized that it’s for the best. I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

She smiled then pulled me into a tight hug, “I’m sorry too, I don’t like the decision I made either, but it had to be done.”

I hugged my oldest friend back, “Remember to let me know when you have that foal okay.”

She pulled away then nodded, “I’ll be sure to get a message to you don’t worry.”

“You take care of Balefire too, he has a lot to get used to with his new life. Don’t let him use his injury as an excuse to slack off either.”

She wiped at her eyes, “That won’t be a problem, he’s already trying find new ways of training security. He wants to take over as head of security since Silver Badge didn’t make it through the fight.”

“How will he be able to do that? Didn’t he lose a leg?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“He did, but that won’t stop him. We’re planning on looking more into cybernetics, but with more restrictions on how we do it. I didn’t like what The Old Overmare was doing down in R&D, but with the right ponies and information, I’m sure we can do something without having to test them out on retried ponies,” Milkshake replied.

“As long as you don’t go back to what they were doing before, then I don’t see a problem with it,” I said.

Vervain smiled and nodded, “I don’t think you have to worry about The Overmare doing what the others did before her.”

“I take it we’re leaving?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah, as soon as I figure out where my Barding went,” I said looking through my Pip-Buck trying to figure out where it was in my saddle bags, “I know I put them in my saddle bags yesterday.”

“I took them,” Wingnut said digging in his own saddle bags and pulling out my duster and barding, “It was really dirty and full of holes. I figured that since I had free access to R&D that I’d use my free time to fix what I could for you.”

I took the barding and duster and looked them over. The protective plate that ran up to cover my neck had been replaced and reinforced, on the front of it the words Equestrian Express had been painted in bright red to match my eyes. The black barding that I wore under the duster was also fixed, the padding inside replaced, the leather straps that ran over the chest now had metal studs. The leg coverings were also reinforced. Last was the duster, the shoulder pads were now metal, my own cutie mark had been repainted on the left. On the right where it used to have the number 28, was now the words E.E. Courier. New holsters were looped around just inside the duster so I could keep a couple of my weapons within reach, and one last one that looped around the back of it for my plasma rifle.

“You did all this yourself Kiddo?” I asked in awe as I started to put on the barding then then duster.

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure you were safe out there, just like Silver. When I was looking it over I found a few things I was able to improve upon so I did, I hope you don’t mind,” Wingnut said, blushing a little.

“I love it Wingnut, thank you for fixing it. Also I never mind with things like this. If you have any new ideas for my barding, all you gotta do is tell me and I’ll let you tinker away.”

He smiled, “That wasn’t the only thing I was working on.”

“You mean you found time to do something else while you were working on this?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said reaching behind him and pulling out a rifle, it looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure from where. It was a lever action rifle with upgraded sights, silver and gold markings running up down each side and inscribed in emerald green lettering it said ‘Equestrian Express’.

“That’s a fancy looking rifle, where’d you find that?” I asked.

He cocked an eyebrow, “It’s Ol’ Festus, I was finally able to find all the parts I needed to fix it. I needed a new stock and firing mechanism. I found the firing mechanism at Match and Tariff’s the first day we got to Freedom, the stock was harder to find. Even worse was once I started taking it apart, I found that the firing chamber was also damaged so I had to find more parts. I was almost ready to scrap it until we got to Spitfires Flight Academy. While you were with The Stranger, I talked with one of the ponies there and he had a lot of parts for older Repeaters. I had time while we were here and I was finally able to repair it and improve it.”

I noticed that where the metal of the barrel met the wooden stock, the old metal piece with the word ‘Ol’ Festus’ was screwed into it. I smiled and pulled the rifle close to me, “It’s beautiful Wingnut, how did you know how to do this?”

“It’s my special talent, I’m good at fixing things and making them better. I thought that you’d like to have it back, you used to love that rifle,” he said happily.

I looked at the rifle happily, he wasn’t wrong, I loved Ol’ Festus. It was the first good weapon I’d been given by anypony, it was also the last thing I had from Box Tape, now that my older duster was destroyed. Then my eyes fell on Wingnut, he was wearing a newer set of combat armor that looked like he altered to fit his colt frame, his revolver was holstered on one side. The whole time we’d been traveling together, that was the only thing he’d ever used. It was worn and weathered, but he was an expert with it, still it took time to reload and it was his only weapon.

“You know what kiddo? You’re right I DO love this rifle, it means a lot to me, but so do you,” I gave the rifle back to him, “I want you to keep Ol’ Festus, I have enough weaponry and you can get better use from it than I can.”

His eyes went wide, “Are you sure? I’m doing just fine with my revolver.”

“I know you are, but I’d rather you be safe while we’re out there fighting. Ol’ Festus is a great rifle and I think you need something with more firepower and something that’s easier to reload. Also, it never hurts to have more than one gun.”

He took the rifle and smiled as he looked over the beautiful finish, “I’ll make sure to cherish it like I do with my revolver. Thank you, Shadow.”

“No problem kiddo,” I said looking down at his revolver, “I’ve been meaning to ask, where did you get that old thing.”

“My Revolver? My dad gave it to me not long before he died, he said it used to belong to his father and he wanted me to have it to keep me safe,” Wingnut replied.

“Now you’ll have two guns to keep you safe.”

“Yeah, but maybe you should let Wind Thrasher have it, she doesn’t have a rifle at all,” he said looking over at her.

She giggled, “I don’t need a gun Wingnut, I have my fangs, speed, and my scream. Also, I’m not very good with that kind of weapon.”

“Are you sure? What if you need one someday?”

“I’ll be fine Wingnut, you should keep it,” Wind Thrasher said with a smile.

“Well, unless Wingnut has any more surprises, we really should get going.”

“About that, where are we going?” Wingnut asked.

“We’ll swing by Cartwheel first then after that we’re heading to Saint’s Parish.”

“Why’re we going all the way out there?” Wingnut asked looking confused.

“We’re gonna find Stable 97 so we can find a way to get Stardust back. I think it’s about time we saved him.”

“How do you know he’ll even be at Stable 97? If he’s the new Pride, wouldn’t he be staying around New Pegasus?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Yeah, normally, but The Sins are hell bent on killing me or at least getting a hold of me. I figured if we found a way to let them know we’re heading to Saint’s Parish, then he’ll follow. Stable 97 is where they fucked with his mind and memories, they gotta have a way to fix it.”

“So, were gonna head into another Stable? An active stable mind you, and take over just to save Stardust?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah…and it’s not like going into Stable 28. From what Stardust told me when we played that one joke that was really funny and fucked up, The Enclave killed the former occupants, then took over. This’ll just be us breaking into Enclave territory.”

“And fighting a whole lot of Pegasi,” Wind Thrasher interrupted, “That could be more dangerous than YOUR stable.”

“It can, but I don’t see any other way to help him.”

“I say we do it. I don’t care what we have to do, I want our friend back,” Wingnut said.

Wind Thrasher blushed a little, “I’d like to be able to thank him properly for helping save me from Stable 9. I guess if we have a good plan going in then I’m okay with it.”

“Then it’s settled, lets head to Cartwheel.”

“Wait, where’s Aura?” Wingnut asked.

“She left to get Doorstop, he’s going with us,” I replied.

He gave me a stern look, “You do know that she’s MY bodyguard, not your personal errand griffon, right?”

“Yeah, but I needed her help,”

He walked over and poked me in the chest, “Ask me next time, she’s under contract with me now, not you. That’ll be fifty caps.”

I frowned then rolled my eyes and tossed the caps in his face, “Fine, sorry, can we go now?”

My two friends nodded then turned to head toward the stable door. Milkshake and Vervain followed us until we arrived at the open gear shaped door. When we came up to the panel that controlled the door, I hooked the Mark II into it and took off the block keeping the door unlocked. Once that was done I turned back toward Vervain and Milkshake, “I guess this is goodbye.”

Milkshake smiled and hugged me, “We’ll see each other again, don’t worry.”

“She’s right Shadow, Stable 28 may no longer be your home, but we will always be a part of you and we’re still your family. Don’t ever forget that,” Vervain said.

“I know, but I just have a feeling that I’m not going to see either of you again or Balefire. I can’t see The Overmare leaving the stable. Even if the doors are open, you’ll have too much to do here, and Vervain has her own duties.”

“Shadow, all you have to do is get a message to me that you want to see me and I’ll make time to go see you in Cartwheel. Vervain plans on showing me the town in a couple of weeks once things have settled down here. I’m not gonna let what happened here keep me from seeing my best friend.”

I hugged her again, “Remember, I asked you to tell me when you’re having the foal. I can’t wait to find out what you’re having.”

“You’ll be the first to know after Balefire, I promise you that,” Milkshake said, “Now go out there and do what you were meant to do.”

I nodded then turned to Vervain and hugged her, “I’ll let you know as soon as I find a way to help mom.”

“Be sure that you do, I know that somewhere deep down, she’s still in there,” Vervain said, “Also make sure you don’t let anything happen to the Mark II, there isn’t any protection on it anymore.”

“I was gonna ask you about that, how did you get that protection program on there and get it to stay when the Mark II was set up for a new user?”

She laughed, I had the program ready to go on my own Pip-Buck just in case something like what happened to you happened. Don’t you remember me hooking up my Pip-Buck to yours when I was talking to you in medical?”

“Yeah, but I thought you were trying to send me some kind of file.”

“No, I uploaded the program then and there. I had to do it quick just in case Doc came back.”

“Oh, okay. Speaking of that day, what happened with Tender Whip anyway? I remember Doc getting a call that he was crashing?”

She blushed, “Glimmer Shot wanted to help you get out too after what happened. She told me she was willing to do whatever she had to, so I told her I needed a distraction. She…injected him with a lethal dose of Med-X.”

“You mean you told Glimmer to kill Tender Whip just to save me?”

“No, I didn’t tell her to do that, I told her I needed a distraction. She killed him all on her own, when I asked her about it later she told me that he was planning on killing you when he was out of the clinic. She felt bad for what happened and she hated him, so she just killed him,” Vervain said.

I took a moment to think about that asshole security pony that made life hell for me whenever he could, “Honestly I don’t see a problem with it, he was just as bad as Wildfire.”

“I agree with you, though I wish she would’ve let me deal with him, before that she hadn’t ever killed a pony. The guilt ate at her for a while after that.”

“Speaking of Glimmer, I haven’t seen her since the battle ended, I know she survived. Where did she go?” I asked.

“When I last spoke to her, she decided to leave Stable 28 and go with The Steel Rangers. She wanted to get away from here as fast as she could. I think she’ll do well with them, she’s skilled in a fight and knows her way around the more high-tech things The Steel Rangers like to go after.”

I smiled, happy to hear that she was doing something different, “I’ll have to go see her the next time I’m at the bunker.”

“You make sure you tell her I said hi and tell her thank you for helping me with so much,” Vervain said hugging me again, “You be safe out there Sweetie.”

“I will, you keep an eye on Box Tape when you can. Sure he’s old but from the time I spent with him, he still gets into mischief.”

“I will, I’ll see you later Sweetie,” she said.

With that I turned and walked out the stable door, rejoining my friends who were waiting for me on the other side. As soon as I was through, the door started to shut behind me. This time I did look back, my eyes met with Vervain and Milkshake’s as the door closed. I wanted that image of Stable 28 to be my last, a better one than the last time I left.

“Ready to go?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah, let’s go find Aura, and then Stardust,” I replied walking past them and into the dark tunnel, leaving the stable I used to call home far behind.

***

When we reached entrance to the tunnel, I found a note from Aura waiting for us, ‘Meet us in Cartwheel’ that was all it said. So, we started the long walk back to Cartwheel. As we walked the three of us talked about small things. Wingnut told us more about his parents and the places they used to go when he was younger. Wind Thrasher admitted she loved reading her romance novels because she secretly fantasized about one day falling in love the same way the mares in her stories did. Wingnut and I both had a long laugh about that one, until she bore her very sharp fangs at us and asked in the sweetest voice she could, “Do you have a problem with that?”

We both shut up and changed the subject to planning on how we should get a message to The Sins about where we were going. My first thought was to try and get ahold of Greed, if anypony could get a message to them it would be him. Then Wingnut pointed out that he could blow his cover if he did that. So, we kept on planning until later in the day we finally made it to Cartwheel.

Box Tape met us in the center of town where a smaller sky carriage was waiting for us with Aura, Doorstop, and Laser Light. When I saw the grey pegasus in her black flight jacket meant to keep her wings hidden, I was surprised, “Laser? Why are you here?”

She gave me a big smile, “Nexus was disappointed that you didn’t tell him you were heading to Stable 28. When he heard Doorstop was going to bring you to Stable 97, he figured it would be a good excuse to send me with you to see what happened in that dreadful place.”

“Easy, The Enclave killed everypony, that’s what Stardust said. Why are you really here?” I asked.

She sighed and shrugged, “I told Nexus I could join you so I could learn more about Stable 97, though I don’t plan on going there myself. I just wanted an excuse to get away for a while. He doesn’t need me much while he’s in Frosty Summit and I need a vacation. Besides, I can only take that whiney voice of his for so long. He’s always talking about how he will have to start a new file on his, oh what did he call them? Games. Honestly I can never figure out how a pony his age can waste so much time on those things, and with a brain, or what hasn’t already withered away, like his too.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “I asked her why she’d be coming at all if she’s not goin’ to the stable to help us, but she wouldn’t answer me.”

“I’m guessing that you don’t want a pony from that area to recognize you.”

She nodded, “That’s part of it, but also I heard something about a settlement just outside of The Enclave controlled area that takes in Dashite’s and ponies who are trying to get away from The Enclave’s control. I wanna look into it and see if there is anypony there that I know and can maybe talk into going to Frosty Summit. Violet needs more ponies to help make the old lodge feel more like a town.”

“You know I could use all the help I can get, are you sure you can’t help us with the Stable?” I asked.

“I’m confused, why would anypony from that area know who Laser is?” Wingnut asked.

She rolled her eyes, looked around to make sure nopony was listening then said, “Because I’m a pegasus who should’ve died twelve years ago. I’ll do whatever I can to keep the fact that I’m alive secret. It’s bad enough that Doorstop figured it out so quick.”

He boomed out a laugh, “I may be a loud mouthed Sergeant, but I ain’t stupid! I know a former Enclave solider when I see one!”

“Did you have to yell that so loud?” she asked, looking over at the former Drill Sergeant.

“That’s all well and good, but can we get to the reason we’re all here?” Aura asked, when everypony stopped talking she continued, “I’ve already talked with Laser Light and Sergeant Doorstop about where we’re going. They both know what the Wasteland is like outside of New Pegasus, you three don’t.”

“It can’t be much different than it is here,” I said.

“Ha! Far from it! The New Pegasus area is nothing compared to what you’ll see when we go east. For one, you’ll have to watch out for radiation more than we do here, the monsters you’ll see are bigger, meaner, and deadly as hell. You’ll see things like hellhounds more often. You’ve seen what Rawr could do and he was only one hellhound, a big fucking hellhound, but still he was just one. If we run into a pack of them we don’t stop to fight them, we run, simple as that. Also, alicorns, they’re nothing like Violet. We will be a lot closer to where the so-called Goddess is said to live, her alicorns might be a problem. We have to do anything we can to avoid running into them. If you see one, tell me right away so we can get away.”

Laser followed, “We also need to watch out for taint, you don’t see it much out here, but the closer we get to the Midwest, the more it’ll be a problem. If you see anything that looks like a liquid Rainbow, DON’T TOUCH IT!”

“Good point,” Aura said, “Lastly, we’re heading into a city where everything is controlled by The Enclave. Whinnieapolis and Saint’s Parish also known as The Twin Cities to the ponies from that area, will be crawling with Enclave soldiers and spies. We have to do our best to keep a low profile. Traders and caravans are allowed into the cities at any time, but they check everypony who comes in. We’ll have to think of a plan to get in and around the cities without getting caught.”

“We’ll do that while we travel,” I said, “Right now we need to make sure we’re fully stocked up with food, meds, and ammo before we leave.”

“Sounds good to me, I’ll go get the medical stuff we’ll need. Wingnut and Doorstop should go get us the ammo. I’ll leave the food to Laser and Wind Thrasher,” Aura said.

“What about me?” I asked.

“You’re comin’ with me while they get things ready,” Box Tape said finally speaking up, “I need to go over a few things with ya before ya’ll head out.”

“Okay, sounds good to me.”

We both went back to Equestrian Express, and as we walked in I took in the old building. When I was last here I was still new to The Wasteland, a young mare with big ideas on going out to find her mother. Now I was experienced, I knew what I was doing, and how fucked up The Wasteland could be. Going back into Equestrian Express I almost felt like I was walking back into that old version of myself. For a moment I wished it was true, maybe with what I knew now, I could change things. Stop Silver from dying, keep Appleton safe, there was so much I wished I could change, but it was just a dream.

“Ya look like you’ve seen a ghost Shadow,” Box Tape said as he shut the door behind himself.

“Not a ghost, just thinking about all the stuff that’s happened since the last time I was in here.”

“I know whatcha mean, there’s plenty of times that I wish I could change things I’ve done in the past,” he said walking around the counter and sitting on a stool.

“Like what?” I asked.

He sighed, “Oh things like being a better father to my children, never joinin’ the Steel Rangers, not takin’ the role as Elder…Lettin’ White Oak go out on her own for that last mission.”

“But you can’t change things huh?”

“No, ya can’t, but we’re ponies. We can’t help thinkin’ to ourselves, what if I could just fix that one thing, then everything would be different. The sad part is even if ya could change the past, it doesn’t mean things would be better. Ya have to learn from your past and use that knowledge to do better,” he said giving me a tired smile.

I sat next to him on the other side of the counter leaning against the wall, “Silver Snip’s…”

He interrupted me, “I already know.”

I looked at him, “How could you know what happened to her?”

His face grew somber and I saw sorrow in his eyes, “I got a report from one of the Red Talons a few days ago. I’ve been keepin’ an eye on you and your friends either through the Talon’s or the radio. I told her not to go to you know.”

“Why did you do that?”

“She wanted to start up her mother’s old tradin’ contracts and she was hopin’ she’d run into you again. You were all she talked about after ya left, she’s wanted to find ya for a while. When I found out she did, I told her not to go because it was dangerous, I wasn’t wrong either. In the end though I’m glad she did, even if she did pass away. She finally got out of this town and got to do what she wanted.”

“You really cared about her didn’t you?”

He smiled, “I did, when her mother died I kinda took her under my wing and kept an eye on her. I think deep down, I wanted to be the father figure to her that I never was for my own daughter. The funny thing is, just like Vervain, she left too and ignored my advice.”

I reached in my saddle bags and pulled out the recording she left for me and gave it to Box Tape, “She left this for me before she died, hearing it helped me cope with her death, at least a little. I want you to have it.”

He looked down at the recording, “Are ya sure ya don’t wanna keep this? She meant it to be for you.”

I nodded, “I heard it already and I remember every word. I’d rather you have it so you can understand how she felt even when she was gonna die.”

He set the Recording down and sniffed then wiped his eyes, “I’ll treasure it for the rest of my days, thank you.”

For a long moment I didn’t say anything, my eyes were locked on a single board that was slightly raised compared to the rest. I used my magic to pull it up, revealing a small area where a worn-out note was resting over something covered in a cloth, “It’s still here.”

Box Tape looked down at the note that had the words ‘For my Little Star’ on it, “Holy Damn girl, how did’ja know that was there?”

“Memory orb of my mom’s. The day she came to talk to you about sending something to Wolfsbane, you went off to get some sparkle cola. When you did, she lifted this board up and put this here for me,” I replied lifting the note and cloth out of it slowly. At first, I thought it’d be another memory orb, tucked away so I could find it one day, but it wasn’t. When I pulled the cloth off the item I saw it was another one of the Ministry Mare Statuettes, A purple unicorn with a single hoof raised and a message on the base reading ‘Be Smart’.

“Is that a Statuette of Twilight Sparkle?” he asked.

I didn’t answer him right away, as soon as my magic wrapped around it, I felt the same kind of feeling I did with the other two. Only this one made me feel like my mind opened up. Things seemed to become clearer to me, almost like the Statuette of Twilight made me feel a bit smarter (Something I definitely needed right now), “Yeah it is, I wonder why she left this for me.”

“I’ve heard about em’ before, but never in all my years have I ever come across one.”

“This is the third one I’ve found now.”

He looked at me with shock, “Three!? Damn, I knew you were lucky, just not that lucky.”

“I don’t know about that, but I feel like they’re calling to each other. It’s like The Ministry Mares wanna be together again,” I said.

“Who knows, but if ya found three ya might just find em’ all.”

“Maybe,” I opened the note mom left with the Statuette,

Shadow,

If you found this, then you made it out of the stable safe and sound, at least I hope you did. I’m not sure when you’ll find this or what you know so far about what I was working on. I’m leaving this for you just after leaving Stable 28, if by some chance the old post master found this and gave it to you then you should know a couple of things. I’m safe and alive, I’m heading back to the Steel Rangers bunker in Hidden Sands. I have a few more things that I need to finish before I can continue on with my quest.

I won’t be staying there forever, by the time you’re out of the stable I’m sure I’ll be long gone by then. Finding me isn’t going to be easy, but I’m trying to leave you as many clues as I can. If I set everything right, you should’ve gotten your memories back when you found the Mark II. If not then they’ll start coming back as you go around The Wasteland. Don’t worry you’ll understand sooner or later, just give it time.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I left you this statuette of Twilight Sparkle. Well it’s because when I was younger I found it in an old library, not far from where I grew up. Twilight was a pony that I always looked up to and wanted to be like. You may find it hard to believe, but I was terrible at magic when I was a filly. I was so bad that my own parents treated me like I was scum. I tried everything I could to learn magic, but every teacher I tried to learn from never helped. It wasn’t until I found this statuette of Twilight that I started reading spell books on my own and learning on my own. That’s how I got my cutie mark. I couldn’t just watch another unicorn use a spell and learn how to do it. I needed to learn how the spell was structured, how it flowed, and what made the spell work. When I started learning from the books, magic became easy. It was all because of Twilight.

I’m giving her to you in the hope that she’ll help you like she helped me, maybe not in magic, but hopefully in intellect. You’re no longer a stable pony my Little Star, you’re a Wastelander and you have to think like one, but you’ll also need to be smarter than the ponies in The Wasteland. You’re smarter than you know, don’t be scared to show others who you are. I have faith in you, I always have.

I know that one day you may end up meeting the branch of The Steel Rangers that we used to live with. If you do, the Elder may not believe you’re my daughter. You do look different from how you did when we left, and I’ll be telling them you died. It’s the only way to keep you safe for now, but when you do meet them and if they try to tell you that you aren’t my daughter, don’t believe them. You’ve always been my Little Star, my Morning Star, my Shadow Star. Don’t let anypony tell you otherwise.

The Twilight I’m giving you is from a set of six, I was only ever able to find just this one, but if you can, keep an eye out for the rest. If anypony can find them all, it’s you Little Star. The last thing I need to warn you about, if you run into a pony going by the name Nightshade, stay away from him. He’ll try telling you things to get you to trust him, but don’t believe him. He’s been hunting us for years, and he’ll do anything to take you away from me. Now go out there and make me proud, I can’t wait to see the pony you’ve become. I love you.

Mom

When I finished the note, I smiled then placed it in my saddle bags, “So, what did you really want to talk to me about?”

He sighed, “Apart from helpin’ Stardust, why’re ya goin’ to Saint’s Parish?”

I looked up at him confused, “Why else would I be going there?”

“I know thatcha got that Sky Carriage from one of the Steel Rangers. What does Wolfsbane want ya to do?” he asked, his tone getting serious.

“He wants me to put an end to what they’re doing in Stable 97 for good, he said something about an abuse of technology,” I replied.

“Yeah that’s what all Steel Rangers say before they take that technology for themselves. You’d best be careful, ya can’t let that kind of tech fall into Wolfsbane’s hooves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a proud Sentinel, but I ain’t no technology hoarder. Wolfsbane might seem like he’s doin’ The Wasteland a favor, but I’m sure he’s got somethin’ planned for what’s inside Stable 97,” he said.

Everything is so Goddesses damned complicated all the time. Don’t trust THIS pony, don’t kill THAT pony, life sucks, “What am I supposed to do then? If I destroy the machine or whatever the fuck it is, he’ll suspect something. What I mean is, if I destroy the machine he’ll be angry and probably do something, and if I don’t destroy it he could use that technology to do something ten times worse. Of course what the hell could he use it for other than screwing with somepony’s head?”

He looked lost in thought for a moment, “I heard somethin’ about Los Alicorn havin’ a synth problem, he could use the machine to detect synths in his ranks if he used it the right way. I agree that the creation of an artificial pony like The Ministry does, is just plain stupid and malicious, but in all my years I’ve learned to put myself in somepony else’s horseshoes. If he does have synths among his ranks and they don’t know what they are, it could start makin’ everypony in his garrison not trust each other. Why would he want to cause mass paranoia though, that’s the real question if that’s what he’s plannin’.”

“Interesting, but it’s gotta be more complex than that. He asked me if I wanted to join him in The Steel Rangers and I refused. What if he wants to use the technology in Stable 97 to rewrite the memories of civilians and forcefully make them join so he has more firepower to fight against The Ministry?” I suggested.

He rubbed at his chin, “Hmm, that’d make some sense, but he’s a tried-and-true Steel Ranger, he wouldn’t go against their core values like that. In The Steel Rangers, if ya abuse technology the way your enemies do, then ya might as well be your own worst enemy. That’s a quote from our founder.”

“Yup, he’s tried-and-true alright. By the way, what does ad victorium mean?” I asked, remembering that thing Wolfsbane and some of the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers do.

“Bah!” he waived his hoof, “That’s just some gimmick he picked up from old Steel Ranger records, it’s supposed to mean ‘To Victory’, but to me it seems like more of a half-assed salute created by an old Ranger with too much time on his hooves,” he replied.

I sort of mumbled under my breath, “Doesn’t seem like a gimmick.”

“You best not be sassin’ me now,” he said quickly.

Shit, he heard me, “No, no, I’m not, promise. It’s just that they’re always so enthusiastic about it all the time.”

He smiled, “Yeah I guess you’re right. Anyhow I should probably tell ya about the dangers of The Wasteland beyond the Marejave.”

I interrupted, “My friends already told me about taint and there being more radiation, not to mention monsters.”

“Did they tell ya about enervation? If ya ever find yourself in The Hoof, you’ll need to know about it,” he asked.

Great, more dangerous stuff, like The Wasteland couldn’t get any worse, “No, they didn’t say anything about it. What is it?” I responded.

He rested his hooves on the counter and sighed, “Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain, somethin’ about a high concentration of energy draining fields that can literally liquefy a pony if it’s concentrated enough.”

“Didn’t sound that difficult to explain. Basically, something that turns ponies into a pile of mushy goo, because The Wasteland just isn’t bad enough,” I said.

“It ain’t that simple, it could be anywhere. Ya’ll could walk into an enervation field without even knowin’ it until it’s too late and you’re the perfect fillin’ for a meat pie,” he explained.

Meat pie? Gross! “Sometimes your euphemisms are both disgusting and disturbing. Who the fuck eats pony MEAT?”

“There’s some ponies out there that’ll eat other ponies, most of the time it’s raiders, but sometimes ponies cannibalize to survive and get addicted to it like a drug,” he replied.

“I take it that’s another thing I’ll have to watch out for?” I asked.

He waved his hoof, “Nah, mostly just with raiders. There is somethin’ I heard about recently though, out in The Hoof. It’s some sort of disease that causes ponies to go mad and turn cannibal. Let’s just say The Hoof is a dangerous place and ya’ll should never go there unless ya have to.”

“I’ll take your word on that. Anyway, I should get going unless there’s something else you wanted to tell me,” I said getting up.

“There is ONE thing. None of the factions you know from around here settle in that area except for maybe a few Steel Rangers. There’s a lot of Enclave though, the whole area is controlled by em’. It’s not like a major Enclave settlement so they won’t be everywhere, but there will be quite a few patrols around the more metropolitan parts of the cities there, especially close to the lock-in dam,” he said in a more serious tone.

I gave him a puzzled look, “What’s a lock-in dam?”

He rubbed his forehead with a hoof, “There’s a river that goes from northern to southern Equestria that separates Whinnieapolis and Saint’s Parish. On that river is a dam that generates power, and attached to it is a chamber that boats go into when they get to the dam and need to get further down the river. They enter the chamber at one side of the dam and the doors close, then the water rises or lowers to bring the boat up or down so they can keep goin’. There ain’t any easier way to explain it, but that place is a major source of energy for The Enclave and they’ll do anything to protect it.”

“Oh, okay then. That’s interesting I guess, can’t believe I didn’t know what that was,” I responded.

“You youngins don’t know nothin’ half the time, I’m used to it. Ya wouldn’t believe the things Vervain didn’t know when she was younger,” he remarked.

They can wait a few more minutes, this could be embarrassing to Vervain and I’ll have something to hold over her, “Like what?”

“I think that’s somethin’ best saved for another time,” he replied.

Dammit! I just had to say I needed to leave, “Alright, until next time then. Don’t get into anything you can’t handle, you’re not as young as you think you are, or at least that’s what Vervain says.”

He scoffed, “I’ll be fine, and she’s full of it. Anyhow, safe travels Shadow, I’ll see about gettin’ some jobs lined up for ya when ya get back.”

***

I returned to the Sky Carriage to find that Doorstop wasn’t wearing his armor, “Where’d your armor go Doorstop?”

He turned to face me and gave me a look, “That’s Sergeant Doorstop to you, and the Runt took it. Said he’s gonna do things to it. I swear if he bedazzles that armor, I WILL skin him alive!”

“Uh, I don’t think he’d do something like that. If anything he’ll make the armor better, like he did with mine,” I retorted.

“He’s a kid, kids do stupid stuff, but if he really does improve it he’ll be upgraded from Runt to Grunt! Y’know, while training some Cadets in the stable I caught two of em’ that snuck off tryin’ to spark up some sissy-stogies next to some barrels of GUNPOWDER!” he said.

“Kay, putting all that aside… is everyone ready to get out of here?” I asked.

“As long as the Runt’s done tinkering with my armor then no problem,” Doorstop said.

Wingnut poked his head out from the Sky Carriage, “I’ll be finished with it later!”

“GIVE IT BACK RUNT!” Doorstop boomed.

Wingnut stuck his tongue out at the old Drill Sergeant then slammed the door to the carriage. I laughed, “Don’t worry, you’ll get it back soon, right now we need to figure out who’s pulling the Sky Carriage.”

“I’m a bodyguard, not a taxi,” Aura remarked.

“I guess that rules Aura out. How about you Doorstop, think you can do it?”

“Can I pull a Sky Carriage? Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asked with an offended look, “I can pull that thing from here to Manehattan and back!”

“Works for me, let’s get going. I don’t wanna wait longer than I have to,” I said walking to the Sky Carriage.

“Before we go, I have one question,” Wind Thrasher said before I could step into the Sky Carriage.

I sighed, “What?”

“How are we gonna get The Sins to follow us?”

“Easy, I’m sure one of the Radio ponies will say where I’m going in the next day or two.”

“That plan seems kinda sketchy?” Aura said.

“Trust me, they’ll find us, they always seem to know where I am.” I said getting into the Sky Carriage. Laser Light, Aura, and Wind Thrasher followed me in. Doorstop hooked up to the front of it opened his wings and we were off.

***

“Aura give it back!” Wingnut yelled trying and failing to take back one of his screwdrivers.

“No, not until you apologize for asking me if I lay eggs.”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate question Aura,” Wind Thrasher said.

“Not when it comes to how my body works!” Aura retorted.

“But I wanna know!” Wingnut said.

“Too bad, I’m not answering that question for you. If you really wanna know, then ask another griffon, or pick up a FUCKING BOOK!” she said moving across the Sky Carriage to sit next to me.

“She just doesn’t wanna answer because she won’t ever have a kid of her own,” Wingnut said glaring over at her.

She threw the Screwdriver at him. It hit him in the side getting a satisfying yelp of pain from the little shit, “Hey, that hurt!”

“Pain is the price you pay for asking where griffon babies come from!” she yelled.

“You didn’t have to throw that at me, and I know where Pony foals come from, just not griffon babies,” he said then looked over at Wind Thrasher, “Do you know?”

“From what I’ve read they lay eggs,” she said simply.

“Why couldn’t you answer his question then!?” Aura asked, her glare falling on Wind Thrasher.

“I wanted to see if you’d answer him.”

Laser Light was giggling softly from her side of the Sky Carriage looking out and down the window assumedly watching the ground zoom past resting on her hoof, “Do all of you do this a lot?”

This kind of thing has been going on for hours now. Wingnut would say or do something offensive, Aura or I would get pissed off and fight. Normally ending with Aura taking something from Wingnut, because there’s nothing funnier than watching the colt beg to get his tools back.

“I wouldn’t say we do this a lot, but yes it happens from time to time. When my friends and I have down time, we get bored and start picking on each other. It was a lot worse when Stardust was still with us,” I replied.

“Hmm,” she looked thoughtful for a moment still keeping her gaze out the window, “you know, I’ve had to hide my wings for so long Shadow, I’ve forgotten what the ground looks like from the sky. If you can get past most of the sickly green haze, the landscape is actually quite a beautiful sight. Care to see?”

I just shook my head “You know what Laser, that actually sounds like a good idea.” I walked over to where Laser Light was sitting, she moved aside and allowed me to see out the window. Laser was right, underneath that haze there was beauty. I saw mountains that seemed endless, rivers cutting through the mountains, years of chiseling through rock creating massive canyons, and years of rainfall creating lakes either before the megaspells or craters made from megaspells. Upon looking at the landscape I felt at peace for once in my life. Turning around looking at Laser Light I smiled “Thank you for showing that to me Laser it really put my mind at ease, if only for a moment.”

Laser smiled back “It’s really no trouble Shadow it’s always best to take time to find a way to relax.”

Aura started poking me with a talon. “Stop that, I HATE being poked,” I said angrily.

She poked me again, “Make me stop.”

“Okay I will.” I said digging in my saddle bags, pulling out the box with mom’s memory orbs, “I’m going to watch one of these and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“It won’t stop me from poking you,” Aura said with a grin.

“At least it won’t bother me, poke away,” I said concentrating my magic on the second orb in the box…before my friends could respond, the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

My host was easy to identify, I was getting used to what mom’s body felt like by now…that sounds a little weird now that I think about it...she was walking down the street of…a cloud city? She was standing on a cloud looking at a large city above the clouds, pegasi were flying around the buildings and a couple of unicorns were chatting with each other just outside one of the structures, also standing on the clouds like it was normal.

It was odd because mom felt younger than her other memories. Was this before she left The Enclave then? I guess I’d find out, she was looking around at some of the flying pegasi almost like she was looking for somepony.

“He said to meet him at noon. What could be taking him so long?” she said as she waited next to a store.

“Excuse me ma’am, but you look like your lost,” A sort of charming voice said from above her.

Mom looked up at a Pegasus who was flying just above her, he was very hansom with an aquamarine coat and light brown mane that was kept short and flipped back. His eyes…they were emerald green just like The Stranger. She smiled and blushed a little, “Striker do you really have to tease me like that?”

He flew down and kissed her for a long moment, my mom melting into the kiss, (Ewwww…gross, why would you show me a memory like THIS mom) When she pulled away he laughed, “I love surprising you Grim, I just couldn’t help myself.”

I could feel my mom blushing more as she giggled and looked at her hooves, “But what if somepony saw us? You know what they’d say.”

“I don’t care what other ponies say, let them talk,” he replied pulling her into a gentle embrace.

She took a moment then finally hugged him back, her smile growing, “I know that, but my family isn’t liked up here in Nimbus. Normally I couldn’t even come up here unless I was working on something with the research team.”

“Well not today. Today you get to see the city without having to worry about work. That’s why I had you come join me,” he said wrapping a wing around her and leading her down the street.

Mom was looking at the buildings as they walked, “I’ve always loved how beautiful this city is, and it’s also nice to see the sun.”

I had to agree, even though this was in a memory from a long time ago, seeing the sun after the war was just beautiful. The sight of it also made me hate The Enclave even more for hiding away such beauty from the rest of The Wasteland. I also realized something as they talked, Striker, he was the Dashite mom went to find in Hoofington. Vervain also said he was my Uncle…Ewwww. Not only did I have to kiss some random stallion in my mom’s body, he was my UNCLE…or was he? Fuck, mom, why can’t you just give it to me straight!?

“You know I love spending time with you on your days off, but why did you have me come all the way up to Nimbus?” she asked as they kept walking down the street.

He grinned at her, “Do you remember the other day when you were telling me about the information you found in that old Library?”

“Yes, the one about The Children of the Night and some of the projects they were working on before the war ended. What about it?”

“Well I figured I’d show you something that no other pony in The Enclave knows about.”

Mom’s eyes got wide, “You’d trust me with something like that?”

He laughed hardily, “I love you Grim, you know that. I’d trust you with my life, in fact I’m doing just that by showing you what I have.”

They turned a corner down an alley, Striker bringing them to a door that was mostly hidden in the darkness. There was a keypad next to it and he quickly typed in some numbers before mom could reach him. When she did, he opened the door and waved her inside, “What’s with all the secrecy anyway? What’s the big deal with information you found out about The Children, most of the stories about them are greatly exaggerated.”

He shut the door behind them, locking it as soon as the door clicked. The room wasn’t very big and it was filled with papers. The room had one terminal on an overcrowded desk and a matrass on the floor with a few scraps of clothing laying around, “That’s the thing Grim,” he said as he walked passed her to log into the terminal, “I don’t think they were, I believe that the stories we know about them are only half-truths and lies. What I’ve been finding out about them, it looks like they were even worse than the stories say they were.”

Mom walked over to look at the terminal as Striker started bringing up files, “What I read in the old reports I found in the library we discovered said something about them being led by an Equestrian Military Captain called Night Stalker. When I looked him up in the archives all I could find was that he was one of the ponies who helped start The Enclave back in the day. There were also a few things about him starting the Dashite program and a few other small things. They also said he went crazy and was branded himself, he vanished after that never to be heard from again.”

Striker stopped then looked back at mom, “That’s all true, but the records were wiped or classified on the rest. He did lead The Children, as you said, not much is told about them apart from some crap about them being a guard unit. The truth I’ve found from some old memory orbs and records that were missed, it looked like his team was under only Princess Luna herself. They started a few projects before the war ended, one of which is still a closely held secret by the top members of The Council.”

Mom shrugged, “So what? We all know they keep a lot of things secret from the rest of the populace. They do it because most ponies can’t handle that kind of information.”

“Grim, you don’t understand. The thing they’ve been hiding from us isn’t just some knowledge about some of the bad things ponies did before the war. This is some kind of super weapon, at least I think it is,” he said pulling up a schematic.

Mom looked at the screen and started to study it. I didn’t understand a single thing she was looking at, most of it was just strange looking drawings with numbers and charts, but one thing in the corner of the schematic popped out at me ‘Project Stargazer’, when her eyes fell on that part she gasped, “This can’t be real. What’s the point in trying to pull power from a star? It’s like some kind of Zebra mythology being put down into a spell. Stars are just hot balls of flame burning gas lightyears away from Equis. They don’t have magic.”

“According to the notes I found from a mare called Minuette, that’s what she thought it was too. But she started to dig deep into Zebra lore and she found some interesting things. What she was able to discover lead to this project, they tried to use it a few years before the bombs. The project was put down as a failure, but in her notes she wrote down that they made something down in this lab, something evil and powerful. They locked it up and hid it away from the rest of Equestria, but they didn’t end their project there, they just changed it. They wanted to use what they learned to weaponize this power to use against the Zebras.”

Mom kept on looking at the schematics, “If they did, then why did we lose the war?”

“I…don’t know yet, I’m not done looking into this, but just seeing this it proves that there’s something bigger going on. Minuette was one of the members of The Children, she worked for Night Stalker and Luna. What if they did finish this project, but not in time to stop the Zebra attack?” he asked.

“If they did, then wouldn’t The Enclave have used it by now to put an end to the shit going on down below the clouds? If this thing is so bad then why’d they let groups like The Steel Rangers exist?” she asked looking away from the terminal and into his emerald green eyes.

He waved a hoof in the air then looked away, “I don’t know! It still needs to be looked into.”

Mom sighed then pulled him close to her, hugging him tight, “Why are you so bothered by this? I wanted to know more about The Children of the Night, not the projects they were working on. If this thing was really out there, then they would’ve used it by now, don’t let it get to you so much.”

He took a minute to breathe before he finally hugged mom back, “I know Grim, but it scares me. I found other notes on the project and one of them said something about bringing back Nightmare Moon. What kind of pony would even think that was a good idea!?”

“Desperate ponies who just wanted to save Equestria. You should know by now that theories are just that,” she replied.

“Sometimes theories turn out to be true, I mean look at you. You told ponies for years that with the right kind of magic, unicorns could mix their own magic with that of Zebra’s, making them more powerful. They all laughed at you until you proved them wrong,” he said finally pulling out of her embrace.

“That was different, I worked hard to make that kind of magic work right for me, and I’m still the only unicorn who can do it. That could be because my special talent was arcane spell-craft. I’ve always had trouble with simple spells, but when I mix them with other things, I can make things that should be easy or hard, look like it’s as simple as breathing. All of that was just hard work, a smokescreen to hide my true ability with magic, which as you know, isn’t that great,” she retorted.

“Say what you will, but I know for a fact that you’re a great unicorn. Even if the other unicorns down in The Crystal Empire say it’s all tricks and gimmicks,” he said with a smile.

She giggled and blushed, “Why do you always have to tease me Striker?”

“Because you’re my Special Somepony,” he said with an even bigger smile.

Mom blushed even more then started to look around the small room at all the papers and even a few memory orbs sitting next to a strange looking device that looked like it was meant to be worn on a pony’s head. It had a place on it that looked like it’d fit a memory orb perfectly, “Where did you get all this anyway?”

His face fell, “I can’t tell you that Grim.”

“Is this part of that family secret you told me about before?” she asked.

He nodded, “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. Even showing you this could get me into deep shit with my father. He’s already threatened to disown me if I kept looking deeper into The Children. That’s why I’m keeping all of this here.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked again, prying a bit.

“You know how my father is, he’s already disappointed that I ended up as a researcher instead of a solider like my brother.”

Mom sighed and I could feel her ears droop a little, “Why is it such a big deal anyway? You’re better at research than you are at fighting. If it wasn’t for you changing careers like you did I wouldn’t have ever met you. A mare like me from The Empire wouldn’t ever have been able to see such beautiful things like Nimbus if it wasn’t for you either. I’m glad you’re the pony you are.”

He smiled again, “I wish my father saw it that way, he’s always going on about the things my brother does. How good he is in combat training, the pony he’ll become one day. It’s like I don’t even exist.”

Mom laughed, “I understand that better than anypony.”

“Oh yeah I almost forgot about Oricalcos, but at least you two get along,” he said.

“That’s true, but my brother is a kind stallion, not like your brother. We were in class together in school, he was always a hard headed ass.”

“Did you know that when I told him I was working with you, he told me to stay away?” Striker said with a laugh.

“Why?” she asked.

“I think he had a crush on you or something. I tried to ask him about it, but he hit me and ran away,” he replied.

Mom started to laugh, “At least you two have one thing in common.”

“Like what?” he asked looking clueless. He can’t really be that dumb can he?

“You both can’t resist a silly unicorn like me,” she said with a smile.

He moved close and kissed her again, “Well, how could we? You’re a special mare Grim, you always will be. I just happened to win you over first.” He blushingly smiled

Mom laughed, “Special enough to tell me more about this family secret of yours?”

He pulled away again then started to run a hoof over his mane, “I don’t know Grim. Like I said, if my father found out he’d be more than pissed.”

“Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t find out,” she said mischievously.

He sighed, “How do you do that? Fine…but you have to promise me you won’t say ANYTHING to anypony. I mean that Grim, he’ll be pissed if he finds out. I’m not kidding.”

“I’m sure you can deal with his rage if he finds out,” she teased.

“No Grim, he’ll kill both of us to keep this secret from getting out,” he said solemnly.

“That’s silly, he may be an asshole, but he wouldn’t resort to murder,” she said in disbelief.

Striker didn’t smile, “He killed his brother and his sister when they found out, they were going to tell others about it. I mean it Grim, if you really wanna know, it has to stay between us.”

Mom stopped her teasing, “You aren’t kidding around are you?”

“No, I’m not. I love you Grim, I don’t wanna see you get hurt. I also know that you won’t stop digging until you get the answers you’re looking for, that’s why I’ll tell you, but it has to stay between us.”

“Okay, I won’t tell a soul, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” she said. Hah I can’t believe my mother knew that kind of promise, I still think it’s ridiculous, but it looked like Striker calmed down from that. Guess it really is serious.

He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath then let it out slowly, “It all started a little after the war, when The Enclave was still being started…”

As Striker started to tell my mom about whatever it was that his family kept secret, the Memory started to fade…

oooOOOooo

I came out of the memory orb and opened my eyes slowly looking around the Sky Carriage. Nopony was in it and we weren’t flying anymore, I stretched then got up. I poked my head out the door and saw Wind Thrasher sitting next to the Sky Carriage, “Where is everypony?”

She looked up at me, “Wingnut’s under the Sky Carriage replacing the Spark Battery, you’ve been out for a little while and it was starting to run low. The others are scouting the area looking for what we can scavenge from this old building we landed on.”

“I told them it wouldn’t take me long to change out this battery!” Wingnut yelled from under us.

“I stayed behind to keep an eye on you and Wingnut,” she said.

I stretched again and sighed moving to sit next to her, “Where are we anyway?”

“Doorstop said we were in a pre-war city that’s never been resettled, he said we’re still quite a distance from our destination.”

I sighed again, “This is the part I knew I’d hate, long boring travel.”

“At least you can go into those memory orbs to help pass the time. Think about what it’s like for the rest of us.”

“True, but I’m finding out that sometimes it’s not fun to relive memory orbs. The one I was just in…” I said shuddering, “I had to be inside my mom’s body while she made out with an old flame of hers who I believe was my Uncle. A memory orb she LEFT for me to watch. That’s all kinds of twisted. I’m not gonna forget that for a long ass time.”

Wind Thrasher laughed a little, “I’ve heard of worse things and read worse things.”

“Oh yeah like what?” I asked.

“One of my books is a taboo story between two lovers who were step siblings, or so they thought. It turned out that they were in-fact half siblings that fell in love and try to hide it from the world.”

I looked at her, my mouth wide open, “You’re all kinds of messed up.”

“It’s just a story and a little exciting at the same time. There’s something about forbidden love that’s just so interesting to read and impossible to put down once you start,” she said, looking as if she had a tiny twinkle in his eye.

“Yeah and it’s gross,” I said quickly.

“Maybe in reality, but in a story not so much,” she retorted.

“Eeww, can you please stop talking about your dirty porn novels please!?” Wingnut said from under the sky carriage.

She blushed, “Sorry Wingnut. So anyway, if your mom was with your uncle back then, how did she end up with your father?”

“I’m not sure, for all I know this Striker fella could be my father. Vervain was the one who told me he was my uncle, but she also told me a lot of other lies over the years too. It’s even possible that mom told Vervain that he was my uncle, I have no idea.”

“If he’s the Striker I know, then he can’t be your father Shadow,” I heard Laser Light say. She landed next to us, pulling her wings back under her flight jacket.

“What do you mean, it’d make sense. From what I saw, my mom and him were in love,” I said.

She sat down next to me, “That may’ve been true, but Striker became a dashite before you were born. I remember because they made a big deal about the whole thing. They said that he killed his father one day after they both had a fight, then he fled to New Pegasus. He was hunted down and branded as a traitor instead of being executed. He told me a few things about what happened when I saw him a few years ago.”

“I remember you saying something about him before, didn’t you say he died?” I asked.

“Yeah, I was helping him with some mission he was on a little south of Manehattan. We got into a nasty fight with some Steel Rangers, kind of ironic for me honestly considering I was fighting an old faction I was a part of, then again this was back east, he took a bad shot to the wing and couldn’t fly. I tried to help him get away, but he told me to run. I didn’t want to, but he was a hard pony to refuse. I just got away before he was caught in a bad explosion.”

Something came to me as I starting to put somethings together, “Are you sure he died?”

She gave me a serious look, “Shadow, he was in the middle of an explosion. You don’t live through things like that.”

My ears drooped, “I guess you’re right, it’s just that when I saw him in that memory orb, his eyes looked just like the ones on The Stranger.”

“The who?” she asked.

“Oh yeah I forgot you were knocked out during most of the fight in Frosty Summit.”

Laser looked away for a moment her face read a mix of disappointment and embarrassment “Thanks for reminding me about that Shadow, that stupid bitch with a cloak caught me off guard.”

I shook my head looking away as well “Sorry Laser, sometimes my mouth runs faster than my mind.”

Wingnut chimed in from under the sky carriage “It’s true she calls me a ‘little shit’ sometimes without thinking about my feelings.”

My eyes narrowed at Wingnut despite him not seeing it. “Anyways, He’s a pony that keeps showing up to help me, I think he knew my mom and he swore to protect me for some reason. He’s always wearing a trench coat and a desperado hat, his body covered from head to hoof in bandages. The only part of him I’ve seen is his emerald green eyes,” I explained.

“He’s not the only pony that has green eyes y’know,” Wind Thrasher said.

“I know that, but I’ve never seen eyes like his before,” I said scratching my head, “What if The Stranger is Striker? It would make sense. Who else would be protecting me for my mom?”

Laser Light put a hoof on my shoulder, “I saw him get caught up in that explosion, he couldn’t have survived that nopony could. I know you wanna know more about what’s going on around you Shadow. You can’t just guess though, you have to find out the truth, as for Striker, he’s dead. It took me a long time to accept that.

“I guess I just hoped that some part of my family was still alive, even if he was branded and sent away from his home,” I said, feeling a bit let down.

Wind Thrasher smiled, “Shadow, we’re your family.”

I smiled back and hugged her, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Thanks Wind Thrasher.”

Wingnut pulled himself out from under the sky carriage then looked at us, his coat was filthy from whatever he was doing under there, “Why…are you always…so…GIRLY!?”

“Oh shut up,” I said poking him with a hoof then smiling, “You’re filthy kid.”

He looked down at himself then shrugged, “Oh well, can’t do anything about it right now.”

I giggled then looked past him as I saw Aura and Doorstop flying back, “Looks like the others are back. Are we good to go Wingnut?”

“Yeah, the other spark battery wasn’t fully charged when we left, that’s why it didn’t last as long as it should’ve. Box Tape gave us a few fully charged ones before we left, the new one should get us all the way to Saint’s Parish or at least close,” he replied putting the rest of his tools away.

“Hey kiddo, where did you get all those tools anyway? I don’t remember you having those before,” I asked.

“Stole them from Stable 28’s R&D department before we left, they had plenty,” he said simply.

I face hoofed, “I don’t know if I should be shocked, disappointed, or impressed. You’re not only a perve, but a thief too. What a great role model I am.”

He walked passed me to walk into the sky carriage, “Impressed would be what I’d go with. Do you know how hard it is to sneak this much stuff passed the security ponies in your old stable?”

Yes I did, but I wasn’t gonna tell him that. Instead I waited for Aura and Doorstop to land. I asked them what they found and they both told me they didn’t find much apart from some spare ammo and meds we could use, and maybe a few scraps we could sell later. Doorstop hooked up to the sky carriage and we were off again. We all took some time to eat and try to plan what to do next once we arrived at our destination. After some time went by I was starting to get bored again.

“I think I’m gonna go into another orb. I need to catch up on the amount of memory orbs we’ve allotted. I had a feeling this was gonna be a long flight.” I said.

Laser Light Sighed a little “I never could understand what those memory orbs are all about. Ran into a few of them, but never could use them, nothing beats a good recording in my opinion.”

I had to ask “Do you have any?”

“I probably have some in my saddle bags that I can give you, but you would have to give me time to look around, most of my stuff I left with Nexus.” She took a moment to think, “Oh I know. While you are in the next memory orb I can scrounge around for them.”

“That’s great to know, Laser thank you. I think I’ll go ahead and jump into the next one now.”

“Feel free, I’m gonna try and read through one of Wind Thrasher’s books,” Aura said casually, “or take a nap. Whatever comes first.”

“You know a book would be a nice change of pace, not that I don’t mind looking down at the ground wizzing underneath us, but I can only look at it for so long.” Laser added

“Why don’t you try flying this thing instead of being a LAZY ASS GRIFFON!?” Doorstop boomed from the front of the sky carriage, “And where’s my armor RUNT!?”

We ignored him, Aura looking over at me and asking, “Are you gonna watch the last one your mother left for you?”

“No, she said it was very long and I don’t wanna be stuck in one if something happens, I’ll try watching one of the ones we got from The Stranger, or the one I stole from Mr. Tops.”

“You stole from Mr. Tops?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah, well I don’t see why he’d need an old memory orb,” I said defending myself.

“And you’re still alive? How the fuck did you get away with that?” he asked looking at me like I was some kind of great thief.

“It wasn’t as hard as you think kiddo,” I said pulling out the green and silver orb I snatched from Mr. Tops’ office, “I just hope this isn’t a disgusting one.”

“I do, it’ll be funny to watch you while you view it,” Aura said snickering.

I just rolled my eyes and concentrated my magic on the orb. I felt a connection, but the world didn’t melt away like the others. Instead I heard the voice of Night Stalker in my head, “What is my Name?”

“Huh?” this was the first time a memory orb talked to me, “Name? Night Stalker?”

The others looked at me like I was crazy, “What did you say Shadow?” Laser asked.

Before I could answer I heard Night Stalkers voice again, “Wrong!” a jolt of electricity ran from my horn and through my body throwing me back into the side of the sky carriage.

“Holy shit! What the fuck was that!?” Wingnut asked coming over to help me back to my hooves.

“Ow…I don’t know. When I tried to view the orb it asked me a question. It was the voice of Night Stalker, he asked what his name was,” I replied as I moved back to look at the green orb.

“It’s protected. Whatever’s in that memory orb, it looks like Night Stalker wanted to make sure nopony got into it unless they knew him well enough,” Aura said.

“But I didn’t answer it wrong, his name is Night Stalker,” I said confused.

Aura shook her head, “No it’s not, from what I’ve learned from Tonto about him, that was a name he chose for himself. Most ponies didn’t know his real name, he hated being called by it and made sure everyone called him Night Stalker.”

I remembered something like that when he met with Celestia, “Oh yeah, I think I remember his sister calling him Moony, but I thought that was a nickname because of his Cutie Mark.”

“That doesn’t sound like a real name Shadow,” Wingnut said.

I thought about it for a moment, “You could be right, but I’ll try it.”

“Don’t try and force it, it can kill you if you try too hard,” Aura warned.

I nodded then concentrated again, “I’ll be careful,” again the voice of Night Stalker filled my head, “What is my Name?” I took in a deep breath then said, “Moony.”

For a moment I thought I got it right, then his voice echoed again in my head, “Wrong!”, at least this time I was ready for the shock. When I got back to my hooves with the help of Wingnut, Aura was laughing so hard she’d fallen off her seat, “Do it again!”

Ignoring her I cursed then put the memory orb back into my saddle bags, “Fuck that, I’ll try one of the others. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get my answer in one of them.”

“Or it’ll be protected too and you’ll keep getting shocked,” Aura said still rolling around on her back.

I pulled one of the memory orbs that we took from the control room back at the hidden project at Spitfire’s Flight Academy, “If this one doesn’t work, I’m taking a nap instead,” I made the connection, this time no voice filled my head. Then the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

Holy crap, what the hell kind of body am I in? This mare was taller than any other I’ve been in before, even Night Stalker wasn’t this tall. Also, not only could I feel a horn, my host also had wings…Goddesses, I’m in a memory of one of the Goddesses (Squee). The question was which one of them was I in? More than likely it was Celestia, so far I hadn’t found a single memory orb that showed the Goddess of the night. I got my answer quickly when I saw not a white hoof come up but a dark blue one. I was in Luna (Double Squee) she lifted her hoof and rubbed the side of her head slowly before a pony dressed in a fancy tux and what looked like his marefriend dressed in a beautiful dress walked up to bow before her.

“It’s an honor Princess Luna,” he said then turned slightly and did the same to the pony on my host’s right, “And to you as well Princess Celestia.”

He walked off with his date, before another pony could walk up to what looked like the beginning of a grand staircase. My host turned her head to look at her sister, “Tia, do I really have to greet every new pony that walks in?”

She chuckled slightly, “I wouldn’t call what you’ve been doing greeting, but at least you’re being respectful. I don’t know what the problem is, you’ve done all this before.”

Luna sighed, “I know sister, but with how hard this war has gotten, I don’t know what to say to some of them. It seems every other pony wants me to answer something about how the war effort is going.”

“You’re doing fine Luna, just keep on smiling and try to give quick short answers,” Celestia said reassuring her.

“Sister, can’t YOU greet the ponies? You know I’m not a fan of the Grand Galloping Gala, especially with everything going on. I’m not good at this kind of thing,” Luna said.

A pony to my host’s left cleared his throat. Luna looked over at Night Stalker who was dressed in black and blue armor, his eyes scanning the crowd of ponies as they slowly walked in the doors that lead into the palace, “Princess if I may, you are the leader of Equestria now, if you don’t want to sit here greeting ponies you don’t have to.”

“Thank you, Night Stalker, but if I don’t it would look bad. I can’t have my subjects thinking I don’t care about the war or the ponies dying on the frontlines,” Luna said.

“That may be true, but throwing a party in the middle of everything that’s happened as of late also gives off the same impression to the ponies who aren’t part of the upper class. To them it just looks like you want to throw parties and forget about them,” he said his eyes still on the crowd.

Celestia opted in on the conversation, “Night Stalker you should remember your place.”

“My place is making sure my princess is safe, what I’m saying counts. With so many ponies getting in and out of the Palace, it’s hard for my team to watch everypony.”

Luna sighed and rubbed her head again, “Either way, all this meet and greet is giving me a headache,” I could tell she was lying, her head felt fine.

Celestia groaned, “Fine, if you have to go then do so, I’ll finish up with the ponies here. Just don’t wander off too far, you still need to show yourself now and then.”

Luna got up from her sitting position and smiled a little, “I will, I’m going to go meet with the Ministry Mares, they should be in the main hall. Just call if you need me Tia.”

“I will,” Celestia said moving over to where Luna had just been and readying herself to greet another guest that was making his way up to them.

Luna turned her attention on Night Stalker, “Would you mind accompanying me Night Stalker?”

He bowed a little, “I live to serve you, my Princess.”

They both moved down the steps, as they did two more guards moved to take the captain’s place, both watching over Princess Celestia. Luna said a few polite ‘hellos’ to a few ponies as she passed by heading toward another set of large doors. As the two walked she said, “Night Stalker are you sure you’re okay? You look more displeased with things than you normally do.”

“I’ll be okay Princess,” he said not looking at her.

She stopped walking, “Night Stalker, you know you can call me Luna when it’s just the two of us.”

He stopped as well, looked around to see if anypony was within ear-shot, then he let his guard down a little and slumped, “Honestly Luna, I’m having a hard time dealing with things. After Phoenix Heart was killed during that last stealth mission, my team’s morale is way down. Now we have intel that The M.O.M. is looking into the death of that traitor. My team has nowhere to live in Las Pegasus. That alone is making it hard for us to plan, we have no base to operate out of.”

“I’m sorry about Phoenix Heart, I heard you two knew each other back before you joined the Military.”

“She was one of the ponies who helped talk me into joining up,” he said.

“What about that Zebra you captured, are you going to be turning him over to Pinkie?” Luna asked.

He shook his head, “No, Zaphan has honestly been a well of information. We have him held with us at our temporary base outside of Las Pegasus. I’m not sure why, but he seems to want to help us fight his father. I keep telling myself he’s tricking me, but the longer we hold him, the less I believe that. He really hates his father and his brothers.”

“He was the one who killed a member of your own team, can you really trust someone like him?” Luna asked.

“Half the time I don’t even trust my own team, so I’m not sure. I’ve never been much of a trusting pony. I’m just so confused on what to do,” he replied, again looking around to make sure no pony was listening in.

“I take it that’s what happens when a pony is raised with Griffons.”

“Maybe, I’ve always trusted Griffons over ponies, though I do put all my trust into some ponies like you, Twilight, Rainbow, Minuette, and Lightning Dust,” he said with a small smile.

“You can always trust me Night Stalker. I’ll always be here for you no matter what happens.”

“Thank you, Luna, now shouldn’t we go check on how the party is getting along?” he said.

My host giggled, “I’m sure Pinkie is making a fuss about how much better she could’ve made this Gala. Twilight is most likely trying to ignore Pinkie Pie and is probably trying to find a way to get away from this so she can get back to whatever project she’s working on. Rarity most likely is chatting up everypony of note while she can and the others are probably trying to hide from the ponies who just want to meet Ministry Mares.”

“At least on the bright side, maybe everypony else will be too busy talking to them to worry about you,” he said with a quick laugh, but the smile he gave was fake. I’m not sure if Luna could see it, but Night Stalker looked tired, stressed, and ready to break.

“How about we make this quick, then I’ll call it a night. I think you could use a break,” she said as she turned to head through the grand doors.

He nodded, “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

As soon as they walked in ponies started to bow or clop their hooves on the ground. Luna bowed her head a little at them all and walked past making her way to a set of ponies I knew all too well from my classes. Four of the Ministry Mares were standing around a small table talking to each other. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy.

Luna walked over to them with Night Stalker not far behind. When she reached their table the four friends stopped talking, Twilight bowing low, “Princess Luna, I didn’t expect you to be in the grand hall yet.”

“I had enough of greeting ponies and decided to take a walk and see how you are all doing,” Luna said looking around, “Where’s Pinkie Pie?”

“Who cares?” Twilight asked, “I mean…we haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Smooth Twilight, really Smooth,” Rainbow said rolling her eyes.

“Are you two still not talking Twilight?” Luna asked.

“No, Twilight is still angry with her,” Rarity said, “If you ask me, it’s all silly.”

Twilight got to her hooves, “I have some work to get done, I’ll see you all later.”

“Twilight don’t go, we haven’t seen you in a long time,” Fluttershy said.

Rarity sighed, “Let’s go talk to her Fluttershy. Would you please excuse us princess Luna?”

“It’s no problem at all,” Luna replied as they followed the purple unicorn to what looked like the gardens.

Rainbow Dash watched them leave then sighed, “I wish Twilight would get over herself. She doesn’t see that how she’s acting toward Pinkie Pie isn’t helping her get better, only making her worse.”

“Does she still think I don’t know about Pinkie Pie’s problem with those Party Time Mint-als?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, she doesn’t wanna keep covering for her, so she thinks it’s better to ignore Pinkie instead of trying to cover for her,” Rainbow replied.

“I wish she’d just talk to me about it, but Twilight and I don’t have the same kind of relationship that her and my sister do,” Luna said with a sigh, moving to sit next to Rainbow, Night Stalker moving around to stand behind her.

Rainbow looked around then whispered behind her hoof, “Is there any word on what’s going on with the Zebras in Las Pegasus?”

Night Stalker moved closer and said quietly, “Not yet, but we’re getting close. Zaphan has been helping us track his brother’s movements, but so far they haven’t shown themselves.”

“The real question is, can we trust the info we have about this whole Zebra battalion moving closer to the city?” Luna asked.

“The information we have is solid,” Rainbow said, “Give it time, The Children have just started working in that area.”

“We can talk about this later,” Night Stalker said nodding his head toward a pony who was making her way toward them, “Looks like Pinkie Pie found us.”

The pink pony had a huge smile on her face as she bounced toward my host and the other two, her mane was stripped with grey, making her mane look like a pink candy cane. Her eyes were dilated and when she spoke she sounded like she was a little drunk or high on something, but she was still extremely energetic when she spoke, “Lookie what we have here, it’s princess Luna! Who’s the solider buck you got with ya huh princess?”

“Hello Pinkie Pie, you look like you’ve been having a good time,” Luna said her smile mostly forced.

“I wouldn’t call this gala a fun party at all princess, it’s almost as boring as the first one my friends and I went to so many years ago. I was trying to get some of the ponies in the band to play a more upbeat song, but they said, ‘Go away you freak! Do they even know who I am!?”

“I’m sure they’re too busy to worry about requests tonight Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Dashy come on, you know that the two of us could liven up this party if we tried hard enough. OH, maybe Princess Luna could help, maybe give a decree that everypony has to dance until they DROP!” Pinkie Pie said jumping up and down.

Night Stalker moved around to the other side of Luna and whispered in her ear, “I don’t like being this close to her. She’s making me feel REALLY uncomfortable with how uppity she is.”

Pinkie Pie stopped in mid-air then slowly fell back to the floor, (How the fuck did she do that?), “What are you whispering, Mr. Whispering McWhisperer!? Remember, Pinkie Pie is watching you FOREVER! It says so on the posters.”

Night Stalker looked baffled as the pink pony got inches away from his face. He pushed her back slowly with a single hoof, “It’s none of your business Ministry Mare.”

She got even closer to him, “You’re hiding something from me, I can feel it,” as she said this an ear twitched, her nose scrunched and her eyes blinked three times, she backed up a little, “No way!”

All three of the ponies around the table looked at her in confusion, Luna asking, “What’s wrong Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie backed up more her eyes glued on Night Stalker, her tail started to shake, one of her knees looked like it was vibrating, and her left eye twitched, as she said, “Somepony needs to call the guards.”

My host’s eyes went wide as Rainbow Dash asked in a concerned voice, “What’s wrong Pinkie Pie, did you’re Pinkie sense tell you something?”

Her eyes never left Night Stalker’s who stared right back into hers, her hoof came up as she pointed at him, “He’s Evil, he’s going to kill us all.”

“Ms. Pie, I think you’ve had a little too much to drink,” Night Stalker said moving toward her, “Maybe somepony should bring you back to your room so you can rest up.”

“Stay away from me!” she said a little too loudly, “You’re the nameless pony, the shadow that walks, you’re going to kill us all.”

“Night Stalker stand down,” Princess Luna said as she looked at Pinkie Pie, “Pinkie, Night Stalker is my personal guard and a trusted solider.”

“Princess Luna, he’s not the pony he says he is. Night Stalker isn’t even his real name,” her eyes fell back on Night Stalker who had stopped walking toward her, his face still calm. Her eyes got wider, “Project Stargazer!” she started to scream.

Night Stalker moved quickly, he blasted forward. A hoof came up and around hitting her in the temple, knocking her out cold. Pinkie Pie fell like a sack of potatoes. Ponies were starting to look over to where the pink mare was laying and started to whisper to each other. Night Stalker ignored it all, he pressed a gem on his chest and said, “I need a couple of Guards to show Ms. Pie back to her room, she had a little too much to drink and is causing a scene.”

When that was done my host stood, “It’s okay everypony, one of our guests just drank a little too much, please go back to what you were doing.”

It took a minute or two for the ponies to turn away from the fallen mare, once they had, a couple of royal guards flew in and started to pick up the still unconscious Pinkie Pie. As they did Rainbow Dash moved closer to Luna asking, “What was that all about? I thought we were the only three who knew about that project?”

Luna shook her head, “We are, but you know that when it comes to Pinkie Pie things never make sense. You should go with the guards and be there when she wakes up. You’re better at dealing with her when she gets like this, do whatever you can to make her forget about this.”

“No problem, Minuette is in the castle I’ll have her pull this memory from Pinkie’s head.” Rainbow Dash said as she went to follow the two guards, “I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

When they were gone Night Stalker moved back to my host, he didn’t look as calm as he had before, “This is why I didn’t want to be around her.”

“I know Night Stalker…maybe for now we should take our leave,” Luna said.

“I agree,” he said.

The two of them pushed past ponies, some trying to ask the Princess what was going on, or what she had planned for the war effort. Night Stalker pushed each one aside, not giving any explanation apart from a quick ‘Move or I’ll move you.’

Soon the two of them were past all the guests and walking down a hall in one of the upper areas of the castle. Neither of them spoke until they reached a room with large dark blue doors and a crescent Moon on it, guarded by two royal guards with bat wings. Both guards bowed low as my host and Night Stalker came walking down the hall, “You may both leave for now, Night Stalker will be enough to protect me.”

They both looked at each other then back at my host, bowed again then left. My host pushed the door open walking into a large dark room with an open balcony overlooking a large courtyard and Canterlot. As soon as the door’s shut behind Night Stalker, all of his professional demeanor vanished. He cursed loudly and kicked one of the tall wardrobes over, “DAMMIT! FUCK! SON OF A BITCH!”

Luna sighed, “Must you destroy my things?”

“How did she KNOW!?” he asked starting to pace the room, “All the planning, the secrecy, the time we’ve put into working on this project and still Pinkie Pie found out!”

“Night Stalker CALM DOWN!” Luna demanded, her horn glowing and a flash of light rolling over the tall grey pegasus.

He stopped as the light washed over him, he blinked a couple of times then let out a long breath, “Sorry Luna, I shouldn’t let myself get like that.”

My host moved closer to him, “Night Stalker, talk to me without yelling. Tell me what’s bothering you…please.”

“I don’t understand how she could’ve known about Stargazer, Minuette is still working on the details for it. We’ve been so careful,” he said.

“Pinkie Pie has a gift, sometimes she just knows things that even she doesn’t understand. I’m not sure how she knew the name Stargazer, but I don’t think she knows what it does.”

Night Stalker gave her a look, “She said I was evil, that I was going to kill everypony. Why would she say that? I’m not evil…I’m not.”

To my shock, the big stallion had tears in his eyes, the moonlight flowing in from the balcony made them look like little stars rolling down his cheeks. Luna moved even closer, then using a wing, she dried his cheek, “Why did you let that get to you? I’ve known you for so long and you’ve never let anypony’s words get to you like that before.”

He looked away, “It’s not so much what she said, it’s the fact that most ponies look at me the way she did. When I kill, when I have to protect you, when I’m doing what I have to do to keep my friends safe. They all look at me like I’m evil, like I’m a monster. It’s been like that ever since I first came back to Equestria. When I was in Griffonstone, they never treated me differently.”

“I have to admit, you do give off an aura of danger,” she teased.

“I didn’t always, I had to become what I am now. It was the only way I could protect the ponies I cared for,” he said solemnly, “It doesn’t matter, right now I’m more worried about Stargazer.”

“Don’t worry about it, Rainbow will make sure Pinkie Pie forgets about it. She knows that no pony can find out about that project.”

“That’s good,” he said taking in a deep breath then letting it out in a long sigh.

My host moved to the other side of her room and started to pull off the frilly dress she was wearing, “Are you sure this project will work Night Stalker?”

“From what Minuette’s been telling me, I believe so, the question is if you’re willing to go through with it?” he replied.

She didn’t answer right away, she used the time to hang the dress up, “It scares me, I’ll admit that. The last time I did this, I lost myself to the power.”

She turned to look at Night Stalker who was watching her intently, “This will work, we’re making sure that you don’t become her this time.”

My host smiled, “I have total trust in my Children of the Night, even if my sister was the one who decided to bring them back. Especially after I told her I didn’t want her to.”

He returned a smile, “I thought you were passed that?”

My host moved closer to Night Stalker, her face inches away from his own, “I changed my mind once I met you.”

Night Stalker blushed a little then looked away embarrassed, “Um…Luna…”

My host ignored him and pulled his face back to look at her. Her muzzle moved down and she kissed him slowly. Night Stalker went stiff for a moment. They stayed like that for a long moment then when she pulled away she giggled at the look on his face, “What, haven’t you ever kissed a mare before?”

“Plenty of times, just…you’re the Princess and the ruler of Equestria.”

Luna moved over to her large bed and laid down, “That I am, and didn’t you swear to serve me in all ways with your whole heart and mind?”

“I did, but I’m not sure that was part of the oath,” he replied his eyes glued onto her outstretched body.

She smiled at him, “I say otherwise, now get out of that armor. Let me show the Captain of my Children of the Night how to really relax after a stressful night.”

“I’m not sure it’s right for me to…”

“That wasn’t a request Captain,” Luna interrupted.

“Yes, your highness,” Night Stalker said, he started to pull off his armor, not rushing like you’d expect a stallion who was just invited to the bed of a Princess would. More like a stallion that wasn’t sure if this was a trap or a dream.

As he started to remove his armor Luna asked, “Night Stalker…that scar over your eye, how did you get that? Was it in one of your battles?”

He stopped and let a hoof run over his left eye, “No…I’ve had this since I was a colt. I got into a bad fight with a couple griffins who were picking on Greta. I got in the way and this was the reward I got for getting in the middle of two fighting griffon.”

“At least you didn’t lose the eye,” she said.

“It was a close thing, I couldn’t see out of it for a few months, and when I could it took another month or so before I got my full vision back,” he said finishing removing his armor and walking over to the bed to look down at my host, “Are you sure about this?”

She reached up and pulled him to her close. I could feel Night Stalker’s body relax as she held onto him, “I’m not sure about anything anymore, but for tonight all I want is somepony to hold me, to love me, to pretend for one night that I’m just a mare and not the ruler of Equestria. Can you do that for me?”

His green eyes met hers, “I’ll do anything for you Luna,” his muzzle came up and he kissed her deeply…

oooOOOooo

I came out of the memory orb finding the Sky Carriage flying faster than before I started watching the memory. I took the orb and put it back into my saddle bags then looked over at Aura who was holding onto the seat for dear life as the Sky Carriage turned sharply then dove, “What the fuck’s going on?”

She looked over at me, “About time you’re out of that thing!”

“Why is Doorstop flying like this?” I yelled as the Carriage lurched to one side almost throwing me to the floor.

Aura and the others held on until the carriage leveled off again, “We’re under attack, Doorstop’s trying to lose him.”

“Lose who?” I asked.

Wingnut was holding onto Wind Thrasher, “Dragon!”

My eyes went wide and I looked out the back window of our Sky Carriage. Following close behind was a large green and black dragon. It had to be as big as the Lucky Horseshoe. It’s dark purple eyes were locked onto us as we dove again, barreling toward the ground, “What did we do to piss that thing off!?”

“No idea, it just showed up out of nowhere. One minute we were flying along, next thing we knew that thing was trying to kill us,” Aura replied still bracing herself, “We’re lucky it hasn’t breathed fire on us yet or we’d be goners.”

I looked back again at the creature as it dove after us, pulling up sharply as Doorstop tried to lose it with a quick maneuver around a cliff. I watched as it banked hard then tried to follow us through an even tighter space, its back just scraping the cliff as it flew by, “Doorstop, try to lead it through a space too small for it to fit!”

“What do you think I’m trying to find!?” he yelled back at me as the Sky Carriage turned sharply, making my stomach feel like it was doing flips.

I looked out the front window and saw him leading us toward a small pass between two cliffs, one that was almost too small for us to fit through. The dragon wouldn’t even come close to getting through it. I looked back as the dragon grew closer it’s largemouth opening wide to snap shut on us, then we passed through the small opening. For a moment I thought we got away, the dragon swooped up and flew off, just missing the cliff.

“Stop here and keep us at a hover, it can’t fit in here,” I said quickly.

Doorstop complied and came to a halt, “We can’t hide in here forever and I can’t outrun that thing.”

I ignored him and watched as the dragon flew back, turned and raced for the cavern, “What is it doing?” I asked as it built up speed. Was it going to try and break through the thick rock? Right before it slammed into the small space, there was a bright green glow and the dragon vanished, it was replaced by a green and black griffon holding a long spear and still heading straight for us, “GET US OUT OF HERE!”

Doorstop started to fly off again as the griffon zipped toward us with his spear raised high and a wide smile on his face. Those purple eyes locked onto my red ones. Aura and my other friends watched as he got closer, “What the fuck is that thing!?”

Those eyes looked so familiar…, “No fucking way…It’s Envy…IT’S ENVY!”

The griffon changed again, into the pegasus with the dreadlocks I knew all too well, “Good job Small Fry, it’s time to pay the piper for killing PRIDE!”

I pulled Stardust’s rifle off my back and took aim. I wasn’t anywhere near as good of a shot as he was, but I had more ammo for this than I did my Plasma Rifle. I opened fire on the green pegasus, so did Laser Light, Wingnut, and Aura. Envy just laughed and started to dodge and weave as bullets and magical energy flew past him. He started to laugh like a mad pony as he drew closer to us.

“How the fuck do you shoot this guy!?” Aura yelled as she reloaded and opened fire again.

“Not sure, but he’s the best fighter The Sins have!” I yelled still trying to shoot the fucker.

“What’s wrong Courier half pint? I thought you were the savior of the Marejave,” Envy said flapping his wings harder increasing his speed.

“Somepony do something, I can’t keep up this pace for too long!” Doorstop yelled as we came out the other side of the narrow pass.

He was right, if we didn’t take him down soon, Envy was going to catch us and most likely rip us all to shreds. I put the rifle back on my back, focused my magic, stuck my horn out the window and yelled, “Say Cheese!” a massive blast of magic flew toward Envy.

He cursed and flew higher just avoiding my spell, at the same time Doorstop dove, trying to get us as far away from the strange pegasus as he could. It was the worst idea he could come up with, Envy dove once again changing into the massive dragon. He smiled and roared at us, “Time to DIE!”

“DOORSTOP HE’S COMING!” I yelled as the dragon came flying down at us with tremendous speed. Doorstop screamed as he pulled the Sky Carriage out of the dive as hard as he could, turning us to one side right as Envy flew past. For a moment it looked like we avoided him, but as he passed by his massive tail swung around and slammed into the side of the Sky Carriage throwing us into an uncontrolled dive.

“Hold on, were comin’ in for a bad landing!” Doorstop yelled right before we slammed into the hard ground, the Sky Carriage rolling and flipping throwing us around inside.

I tried to take hold of the Sky Carriage with my magic as it rolled trying to stop it, but all that did was make my magic almost backfire on me. I screamed as my body slammed into one of the hard seats, my head flew up and hit a wall, then my foreleg slammed through one of the windows. My body followed and I was thrown from the crashing Carriage. My body slammed into the ground and rolled a few more times before it came to a skidding stop a few feet away from the Sky Carriage.

I moaned as pain throbbed and my horn sparked and sizzled from the spell I tried to use to stop the crash. My head felt as if Stardust bucked it with all his strength. Luckily, I was still alive, even if I did feel like shit. I looked up through tear filled eyes and saw the Sky Carriage laying on its side. A moment later Doorstop landed next to me, “You alright Shorty?”

“I…think so, my body just hurts…a lot, how’d you get free?”

“The Carriage has an emergency latch in case somethin’ like that happens,” he replied.

“Go check on the others,” I said slowly trying to get to my hooves.

I heard Wingnut yell from the battered Sky Carriage, “We’re all alive. Can we not ever try that again?”

I would’ve laughed and thanked the Goddesses if I could’ve, but right then Envy landed next to us, a maniacal grin planted on his face, “Hello Shadow Star…and goodbye.”

His hoof came up like he was going to smash my head like a melon when out of nowhere a bullet slammed into his armor. Envy cursed as he flew back, a smooth voice echoed from behind me, “You better leave monster, before my next shot takes off your head.”

I looked back and saw a tall pegasus with deep amber eyes who was wearing makeshift armor standing on a ledge. He was holding a long sniper rifle, his muzzle and face mostly covered by a scarf, but his muzzle was held down on the bit ready to fire again. Envy started to laugh, “Who the fuck’re you and why do you give two shits about them? All they are is just another Wasteland casualty, no need to interfere.”

“I won’t warn you again, leave before I make you. I won’t let anypony hurt ponies that’re traveling within the jurisdiction of The Kingdom.”

“Oh really? And how do you plan on making me? That mare killed two of my comrades and she’s an enemy of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, we don’t give a fuck about The Kingdom or their so called borders and rules,” Envy yelled.

The Pegasus just shook his head, lowered the rifle and pulled a small silver whistle out from a pocket, “You’re Envy right, first member of The Seven Sins of Equity out of Stratus?”

Envy grinned and cackled “Heh heh heh, Indeed I am, if you know us, then you know it’s pretty stupid to try to fight any of us alone, especially me!” Envy replied.

“For most ponies maybe, but I’m not most ponies,” he said putting the whistle to his muzzle and blowing. It didn’t make any kind of noise that I could hear, but whatever it was. It was doing something to Envy.

His eyes got wide and he started to scream his hooves coming up to cover his ears as he started to roll around on the ground in agony, “STOP IT!”

The Pegasus didn’t stop, he blew harder on the whistle and Envy screamed louder, his form starting to glow like it did when he was about to transform again. Only this time it looked like his form was melting away. Before the pegasus could hurt him more with whatever kind of weapon that whistle was, Envy screamed louder, then jumped into the air, flying away from us as fast as he could.

Once he was out of sight, he stopped blowing on the whistle and moved over toward me, “I hope you’re alright miss.”

I winced as fresh waves of pain rolled through my body, “I wouldn’t say alright, but I’ll live.”

His chuckled, “You’re lucky you survived that fall, and you’re doubly lucky my team and I were flying nearby.”

“I can’t disagree,” I said as I saw my friends pull themselves out of the wrecked Sky Carriage, “Though I wish we didn’t crash at all, we needed that to get to the Saint’s Parish.”

“Who’s this?” Aura asked as she pressed a torn piece of cloth against a cut on her forehead.

They all looked as bad as I felt, but at least my friends were alive. I looked back at the pony who had just saved us, “Thanks for your help, but what was that thing you used to make Envy fly away?”

“Nothing much, just a high frequency whistle we use to keep some of the nastier bugs away while we scavenge. Zapwings are a big problem around here.”

I looked at him confused, “That’s all? How did you know it would work on Envy?”

He chuckled, “I don’t know why it works, but that’s not the first time we’ve dealt with him. The Sins make trouble for The Kingdom now and then when they don’t have others to hunt down. Found out a few years back that for some reason Envy can’t stand the sound our bug whistles make.”

“Damn, I need to get my hooves on one of those,” I said wincing again as I did my best to get back to my hooves.

He reached into a bag he had slung over his shoulder and he gave me a restoration potion, “Here, this should help, I have plenty for all your friends.”

They all came over and took a bottle. As we all drank them down, Aura looked at him, “Did I hear you say you’re from The Kingdom?”

The pony who kept his face covered by that scarf looked at her and nodded, “Yes I am, I run the scavenging ponies from the main city. I take it you’ve met with us before.”

“Once yeah, my friend Trip Wire used to have a trade agreement with a pony in your town,” she answered.

“Um…Aura what’s The Kingdom?” I asked as my body started to heal slowly.

“It’s a massive settlement that takes in all kinds. From banished Griffons, to branded Dashite’s, or runaway slaves or zebras. The pony who rules them is a good stallion. You can trust anypony from The Kingdom,” she replied.

The Pegasus laughed, “He definitely is and yes we do help ponies in need when we can. Did you say you’re trying to get to the Saint’s Parish?”

“Yeah, we’re looking for a friend of ours,” Wingnut said.

“Well you’re in luck then, The Kingdome isn’t very far from there. Why don’t you come back with my team and maybe meet with our Emperor? I’m sure he’d love to meet ponies like yourselves, who are being hunted by The Sins, he loves criminals. Ponies considered criminals to The Enclave anyway,” the scarfed pony said.

“Hey mister, why are you hiding your face?” Wingnut asked.

He looked over at Wingnut and laughed, “I wouldn’t say I’m hiding it, we just get a lot of storms around here and it helps keep the dust and dirt out of my face while I’m flying,” he reached up and pulled the scarf off his face.

He had a peach coat that went well with his amber eyes, he also had a couple of scars running over his muzzle. He reached up and pulled off his cap reveling his short cut orange and yellow mane.

“I was expecting something more exciting,” Wind Thrasher said, then she blushed, “Sorry I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

He chuckled again, “Don’t worry about it…are you a batpony?”

She blushed harder and hid behind Aura, “Maybe.”

“That’s Wind Thrasher, don’t mind her, she’s really shy sometimes,” I said.

He shrugged, “It’s okay, I just didn’t know batponies were real. I’ve heard stories about them before, but never put much thought into the stories.”

“It’s a long story when it comes to Wind Thrasher, but she’s kind.”

“Sometimes too kind,” Aura said stepping to the side so Wind Thrasher couldn’t keep hiding, “Stop using me like a shield.”

“Sorry Aura, I just don’t like being stared at,” Wind Thrasher said quietly.

He Chuckled again, “Sorry about that, I’ll try not to in the future. I’m Cutter, it’s nice to meet you all.”

I introduced the rest of my friends and myself then asked, “So this Kingdom you were talking about, is there anypony there that could help us fix our sky carriage?”

“There is as a matter of fact, I can introduce you to one when we get to the main city. First, I need to ask you all something before we head out,” he replied.

“What?” Aura asked.

“Why in Celestia’s name would you want to go to Saint’s Parish of all places?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

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Chapter 33: Empire

“Here I thought a pony from a stable would not know anything about the stars.”

So, the walk to The Kingdom was long, but only because I had to explain our stupid situation yet again to somepony I don’t know. I also had the pleasure of explaining who I am and what I do in the Marejave Wasteland, which brought up some more annoying subjects such as my great triumphs and failures, “So you want to go to Saint’s Parish to save your friend? I’ll be completely honest with you, I’m surprised. Saint’s Parish doesn’t have that much that going on, it’s cut off from the rest of the area because of the giant wall.”

“Yeah I do, but what’s this about a giant wall?” I asked.

He looked a little annoyed at my question. Maybe he’s tired of explaining things like I am, “A long time ago, both cities were settled together after the war. However, after some time passed, they both started to disagree on some things. Whinnieapolis wanted to take in zebra refugees and let them live there freely while Saint’s Parish wanted them to stay out of their city. Being explained like that it sounds racist, but in reality, it was actually better for Saint’s Parish in the long run, shortly after said dispute, Whinnieapolis fell into more ruin than it already was after the war. The refugees I guess held grudges against ponies and decided to kill the city leaders and take over. The city’s fine now, if you can call a crime riddled place like that fine. Some raiders and other forms of gangs have settled there and turned the entire city into a dangerous place, not to mention the Enclave presence throughout the city trying to kill said raiders and gangs along with anypony that gets in their way or crosses their path.”

Wow, two cities divided by a wall, “What’s Saint’s Parish like?”

He shrugged, “It’s alright, not as much Enclave presence as Whinnieapolis because they don’t really need it. The citizens don’t like The Enclave, but they don’t do anything against them because they know there’s no point in fighting them, although the radio ponies speak out against them quite a bit.”

“I haven’t heard any of the radio ponies speak out against The Enclave directly besides when they talk about things I’ve done. Dj Pon-3 and Mr. New Pegasus seem pretty unbiased when it comes to factions like The Enclave,” I remarked.

“Dj Pon-3 and Mr. New Pegasus? I haven’t heard those names in a while,” he said.

I gave him a puzzled look, “Then how would you hear anything on the radio? I thought at least Dj Pon-3 reached everywhere in The Equestrian Wasteland.”

He smiled, “Nope. The only radio ponies you’ll hear out here are Poker Chip, Bitmap, and Kitty. Poker Chip used to be a radio host in New Pegasus. They all host the Up and At Em’ show every day, you should give them a listen sometime, you might enjoy them.”

“Nah, I’m not much of an early riser. With a name like Up and At Em’ I’m pretty sure it’s a morning show?” I asked.

It was then that he gave me that laugh; the ‘ha you’re stupid laugh’ and said, “It’s not a morning show. If it was no one in The Mill City Wasteland would learn any common sense about the area that they live in. It plays at different times throughout the day. There’s these other guys that do a similar show on a different channel, but they just basically spurt out bullshit and copy stories and segments from Up and At Em’.”

Because of his jackassed reaction I gave him the best ‘fuck you’ grin I could muster, “Oh, thanks for the info; I’ll be sure to check them out sometime. I just hope they’re not like Dj Pon-3 and blow the things I do out of proportion like I’m one of the best things to ever happen to The Wasteland, except for that one time that he emphasizes on.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “He’s not THAT bad, just overenthusiastic.”

Wingnut snickered, “If you ask me he’s gotta be on something good to be that enthusiastic on the radio.”

Laser just shrugged, “For me, DJ-Pon3 is very flavorful with his words, keeps me interested. I’d like to meet him someday, I enjoy him. I suppose everyone is entitled with their opinion. That’s mine.”

Cutter gave all of us a strange look, “You guys are kinda harsh sometimes aren’t you?”

I smiled, “You could say that, Dj told the whole Wasteland that I was the one who destroyed Appleton. Asshole didn’t even say that I did it by accident until later. Why he couldn’t get all the facts first before reporting, I don’t know.”

He smirked, “Not to worry, Poker Chip, Bitmap, and Kitty get their facts straight before reporting on anything that happens around here. It keeps Up and At Em’ more credible than Mill City News Talk. So I wouldn’t worry about getting any bad recognition around here unless there are ponies who actually listen to M.C.N.T.”

While we were talking I didn’t even notice that we were almost to what I assumed was The Kingdom. The weirdest part about the whole thing is that he said they have an Emperor, don’t kingdoms usually have Kings, and Queens for that matter? From the outside, the settlement itself looked huge. It was like they moved into a destroyed town and brought it to life again, at least most of it, “This place looks like it used to be a town of some sort.”

“Yeah, back before the war this was the city of Reinchester. It was one of the smaller, yet highly populated cities in the area,” he explained.

“If this place has an Emperor, then why is it called The Kingdom?” I continued to satisfy my curiosity.

He sighed like he didn’t want to explain another thing for the thousandth time like when he explained The Twin Cities, “It’s called The Kingdom because that’s what it was a long time ago, since then, other settlements have decided to be a part of the Emperors rule so now it’s more of a small Empire. We mainly still call it The Kingdom because that’s what the name’s always been. Why change the name of a place after everypony in the area knows it as The Kingdom, plus they could get it confused with The Crystal Empire if we just called it The Empire.”

“Yeah, that makes sense I guess,” I said thinking that it also just made the citizens and rulers all sound lazy.

I was gonna ask where we were gonna stay when Wingnut decided to blurt out, “So what does everypony do for fun out here?”

“For fun? You know we live in a post-apocalyptic Wasteland, right?” Cutter replied.

Wingnut shrugged, “Yeah, and? Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.”

Cutter sighed, “Not really anything much kid, the only fun we slednecks have is blowin’ shit up in the middle of nowhere, unless you count the dances the Empress likes to throw now and then.”

“Sledneck?” Wind Thrasher asked.

He smiled, “It derives from the term redneck but since this particular area get really freakin’ cold in the winter we call ourselves slednecks up here.”

Okay maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea, the ponies here are weirder than the ponies in New Pegasus. Next thing we know he’s gonna start talking about other weird things like jumping into frozen lakes for fun, “That’s um… interesting, I guess,” I said with a forced smile.

We approached the entrance to the large settlement to meet two guard ponies. They were both stallion’s in ordinary combat armor, but when they spoke, I almost couldn’t believe my ears at their thick northern accent, “Well hey there, hi there, ho there! Lookin’ for passage into The Kingdom?”

Aura quickly jumped forward at them, “What did you just call me!?”

The one on the left quickly put his hooves up in defense, “Whoa there, I didn’t mean ta hurt your feelings. All I was doin’ was sayin’ hi.”

That must be what I look like when I make an ass out of myself, “Aura, we’re in a new place with strange new things. Maybe you should calm down the hostility a bit.”

She turned and looked at me like she wanted to punch me square in the face for calling her out on her quickness into violence, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a bit irritable sometimes around idiots.”

The other guard pony on the left spoke up, “Oh ya, he’s an idiot alright. He’s always sayin’ stupid greetings like that; told him he’d offend somepony someday dontcha know.”

What the fuck did he just say? “Don’t I know what?” I asked.

Cutter interrupted, “It’s just a figure of speech, he wasn’t really asking you a question.”

Aura scoffed, “That’s a dumb expression if you ask me.”

The one on the right had an awkward look as he asked, “So… uh, ya still lookin’ ta get into The Kingdom err what? Cause we can letcha in if your with Cutter here.”

“Yes, we’d like to enter,” I replied.

The one on the left opened the metal gate and said, “Well okie dokie then, enjoy your visit to The Kingdom. Oh, and before I forget, if ya head anywhere north of here when ya leave, watch out for timber wolves.”

Well that’s new weird creature number one added to the tour guide book I’m sure Wind Thrasher will author when we go back home, “Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for any on the way to the Twin Cities.”

As soon as I walked in passed the gate I saw a bustling town of ponies, some griffons, and zebras. A lot of the buildings actually looked like they’d been refurbished some so it didn’t look so dumpy, unlike Freedom where everything still looked run-down and broken. I saw shops and stands selling merchandise, restaurants serving ponies, and foals playing with each other in the street. This must’ve been what it was like two hundred years ago, no, more than that. This must’ve been what it was like before conflict of any kind arose between Equestria and any other nations. It was wonderful, a sight to behold for the rest of my life. Sure, New Pegasus had its lights and attractions, but this place was real; a place that wasn’t just a big gambling attraction. It was home for real hard working down-home Equestrians to live in peace and prosperity.

I couldn’t believe The Wasteland would let a place like this exist without making it somewhat terrible. I didn’t even see a single drunk, junkie, or starving foal living on the streets anywhere, “This place is amazing.”

“Yeah, you could say that. Unlike most settlements in The Wasteland, ponies here actually get along pretty well. There aren’t any gangs, factions, or otherwise, just citizens,” Cutter explained.

“How the hell did your emperor manage that?” Aura asked.

He smiled and let out a small chuckle, “Let’s just say it’s because of his strange yet kind nature.”

“So, he’s a freak?” Wingnut blurted out.

“No, he’s not a… yes he’s kind of a freak. He’s into strange things like buttering toast before you toast it, and leaving bits by every door in his house,” Cutter replied.

“Bits by every door?” I asked.

“It’s a superstition that ponies around here have had for years, something about good luck or something, I dunno,” he explained.

Doorstop finally broke his silence and asked, “Lotta stripes here, thought you said stripes are the reason Whinnieapolis is so bad, right?”

Laser light glared at Doorstop with his racial slur “Goodness Doorstop you wanna show a little restraint with your words?”

Doorstop glared back and smirked “Nope, I’m a military pony, you should know that better than anyone else here.”

Laser got upon her hind hoofs and pointed a forehoof back at Doorstop opening her mouth as if to say something, but shuts it instead, going back down on all fours, “You know what, I’m not even gonna argue that point Doorstop.”

Doorstop’s smirk went wider “It’s because you know I’m right.”

Cutter kinda stammered a bit as he replied, “It’s a bit different here, also please refrain from using derogatory terms around here. The zebras here aren’t like most of the ones in the city, all they want is to live peacefully alongside us.”

Laser rose a hoof and smacked the back of Doorstop’s head “I had a very good zebra friend back when I was adventuring the Equestrian Wasteland Doorstop. She was a very loyal friend I learned a good deal of zebra history and traditions from her. If she was still alive I’m sure she would knock you out good too.”

Doorstop grumbled, “Fine, I’ll watch my tongue, but it don’t mean I’m gonna be nice to any of them.”

“Well you better be to at least one, The Emperor’s wife,” Cutter responded.

Aura snickered, “Way to make an ass out of yourself Sarge.”

I ignored my friends as I asked Cutter, “So the Ponies who run The Kingdom are actually zebras?”

He shook his head, “No, The Empress is a zebra, The Emperor is an earth pony.”

“That’s just all kinds of wrong!” Doorstop said, “Next thing you know griffons are gonna start gettin’ with ponies. What the hell is this world comin’ to?”

Aura moved behind the old Drill Sergeant and punched the back of his head, “I’d watch what you say about who loves who asshole. Let’s just say I have a bad habit of making mares out of stallions who don’t keep their mouths shut.”

“You’re lucky I’m here to help ya, or I’d rip you to tiny little feathery pieces griffon!” Doorstop shouted.

“I’d like to see you TRY!” Aura retorted.

“For Luna’s sake, stop it both of you,” I yelled glaring at both of them.

Aura just rolled her eyes and walked away, “Fine, but make sure he shuts up before we get kicked out of here.”

“He will, won’t you Sarge?”

“Fine,” he said.

I looked back to Cutter, “So as you were saying, The Empress is a Zebra?”

“Yeah, she’s one of the reasons this place works as well as it does. She’s one of the kindest mares you’ll ever meet, but she also won’t be held back from poking her nose into your business. She has a curiosity like nothin’ else. She loves finding answers to puzzles and problems. She also hates fighting, she decreed years ago that if two ponies have a problem they are to bring it to her or The Emperor so they can help resolve it,” Cutter said leading us down the road and toward a large house, that lay in the middle of the city, okay large was an understatement, this place was huge. It was built out of an old-world city after all, I wonder how The Twin Cities look.

“What is that place?” Wind Thrasher asked, her eyes getting big at the sight of the gigantic house.

“That’s the Emperor’s home, it used to belong to some kind of noble back in the day. That’s where The Kingdom first started,” he said as we moved toward the large gate that blocked the courtyard from the rest of the city.

“That’s a big place for just two ponies…well pony and zebra I guess, to live,” Aura said.

Cutter laughed, “Kinda, but they aren’t the only two that live there. Most of the guard ponies do too, along with some of the court and guests of The Kingdom.”

“Pfft, Trip Wire and I had to stay outside the city with a family when we came here,” Aura said.

“Depending on who you were working with that isn’t too surprising, the trader’s guild here doesn’t like to keep its headquarters in the mansion,” Cutter said.

We walked through the gates and into the courtyard, as we did a mare’s voice floated to us from across the yard, it was undoubtedly a zebra’s voice, “Cutter, is that you?”

Looking over I saw a zebra standing next to a broken Statue of Celestia and Luna, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her. Unlike most Zebra’s I’ve met, she didn’t have her mane in a mohawk, she let it grow long to hang down past her shoulders with one small braid on the left side of her head. She wasn’t tall, but she made up for that by how she composed herself. Her almond shaped turquoise eyes were breathtaking. She was wearing dress that flowed like the waves of an ocean and matched her eyes.

Cutter stopped and bowed, “Empress, I didn’t know you’d be out in the courtyard at this time of day.”

She smiled and laughed a little, “Cutter, you know I love getting away from the mansion when I can. Any time is a good time to stroll out here. Who are your friends?”

I stepped forward, “My name is Shadow Star, I’m a courier for Equestrian Express out of Cartwheel near New Pegasus, these are my friends Aura, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, Laser light, and the big guy is Doorstop,” I said introducing them in turn.

“I bet he has no trouble keeping doors from closing, what an interesting name. It is nice to meet you Shadow Star, I am Empress Sheena. Welcome to The Kingdom and my home,” she said with a wonderful smile.

“They were attacked by Envy just outside of town. They were on their way to Saint’s Parish to find a friend. Their sky carriage was damaged severely,” Cutter said.

“Envy? We have not seen him in a long time, why was a member of The Sins attacking you Shadow Star?” Empress Sheena asked looking back at me.

“She killed two of The Sins, Gluttony and their leader Pride. They’ve been hunting her down for that and trying to get the Pip-Buck she has,” Aura said.

“I see. Fortunately, you will not have to worry about The Sins while you are staying with us in The Kingdom. The Enclave leaves us alone for the most part out here, and they would not dare let one of The Sins enter our lands,” The Empress responded.

“I’m not so sure that’s the case right now Empress. Envy seemed to be hell-bent on killing her. He said something about The Enclave not caring about our borders,” Cutter said sounding concerned.

“That is not good news Cutter, I will have to tell the guard patrol to keep an eye out for them. Would you be willing to speak with the Patrol Captains about this threat for me?” she asked.

He bowed again, “Consider it done.”

“Thank you, I will be sure to show our new guests where they can stay for now, that is if they were planning on staying,” Sheena said looking back at my friends and myself.

“We hadn’t thought that far yet. We all took a beating in that crash, and with the sky carriage destroyed, I’m not sure how we can get to Saint’s Parish now,” I said.

“I may be able to help you with that, even though we don’t get along with The Enclave, our town does trade with Saint’s Parish. You can ride along with one of the caravans going there tomorrow, it is a little far from here, but not too far. As for your sky carriage,” Sheena said turning toward Cutter who was getting ready to head back out, “Cutter could you also send somepony to retrieve it so we can have it repaired please?”

“Will do, I’ll send that new pegasus with some of his friends to get it.”

“That’d be nice of you and all, but we don’t have a whole lot of caps. I’m not sure if we can afford to have it fixed,” Aura said.

“Do not worry about the cost, consider it a gift,” Sheena said with a soft smile, “My Husband and myself have plenty of caps, it is no problem.”

“Sure, and what’s the catch?” Aura asked.

She blinked, “I am not sure what you mean. I did say it is a gift did I not?”

“There is always a catch when it comes to so called gifts,” Aura snarked.

She started to laugh, “Maybe where you come from, but here we do not do that kind of thing. It seems the vices of New Pegasus have made the surrounding settlements greedy.”

“Then why would you just up and help us like that?” Aura retorted.

“Ponies here in The Northland help one another and do not expect anything from it because they just want to help out in any way they can. I also like to help those in need and you were also attacked outside of my borders. The skies around The Kingdom should always be safe for traveling ponies or griffons like yourselves, and it was not,” she said.

“Okay then, but if you turn around and say we owe you one, then too bad.”

“It will not be a problem, now how about you come inside for a while and relax. I would love to talk with all of you more and I’m sure my husband will as well once he gets back.”

“You really wanna take time out of your day to talk to some random ponies from out west?” Wingnut asked.

“I love meeting new travelers to The Kingdom when I have the time. Right now, all I am doing is nothing but waiting for my husband to return. We do not get many travelers from that way, I would love to hear what has been going on in New Pegasus.”

“I don’t see a problem with that, it’d be nice to relax a little,” I said.

“Me too,” Wind Thrasher said happily.

The Empress lead us into her large home. When we first walked in I saw that the entryway was beautiful, there was a grand staircase that lead up to a landing that split to each side leading to different parts of the second floor. On the main level I saw long hallways and doors. At the top of the landing there were two large double doors, making me wonder what could be behind something so big. Sheena lead us to the left and into a cozy room that had plenty of places for all of us to sit or lay down.

“Damn, this is a nice place, almost as nice as the room we stayed in at The Applewood,” Aura said looking around.

“Thank you, this is where I like to get away from my normal day to day duties. Now that we are all alone, tell me the real reason you have come all the way out here,” Sheena said sitting down.

“We said before that we’re looking for a friend of ours,” I said.

“I believe you, but there is more to it than just that. Saint’s Parish is not a place you just go to find a lost friend. If your friend was a pony that just ran off, he would have come here to The Kingdom not Saint’s Parish. If he was captured by The Enclave, they would have taken him to Nimbus. Who is this friend you are trying to find and why would he be in a city controlled by The Enclave?”

Aura let out a long sigh, “I don’t see the harm in telling her Shadow, she’s been very nice to us and like I said before you can trust The Kingdom.”

“I agree Shadow, if we want to get him back we’ll need help,” Wind Thrasher said.

“I wouldn’t agree with them on that one. We can’t just go around tellin’ everyone we meet about The Stable,” Doorstop interrupted.

Laser smacked Doorstop in the back of his head again “Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re not in charge. This is her friend she’s looking for, and by the sounds of it, a very good friend if she’s going to lengths like this.”

Doorstop glared back at Laser “Are you kidding me Laser Light? Goddesses be damned, stop smacking me.”

I looked into her eyes and sighed, “My friend Stardust is a runaway from a stable around the Saint’s Parish area. Stable 97 which was taken over by The Enclave a couple decades ago. He’s been traveling with me since a little bit after I left my own stable. A couple weeks ago The Sins captured him, they took him back to his old stable where they messed with his mind and now he’s become the new Pride. Doorstop used to live in that stable before he was made a dashite, he’s with us to help get him back.”

“Dammit Squirt, you can’t just go around telling everyone you meet about what I used to do or about the stable!” Doorstop yelled,

“Shut up Sarge, I’m not talking about this right now,” I yelled back glaring at him until he finally looked away.

Sheena was looking at us with a small grin, “You do not have to worry Doorstop, The Kingdom already knows about some of the things that go on in your old home.”

He looked like she just slapped him, “How in the fuck do you know what Stable 97 does?”

“The Kingdom is home to a lot of Dashites. For example, Cutter used to be an intelligence officer when he was in Nimbus. When he ran away he took some of the information he knew about the Enclave presence down here. Luckily, when they caught up to him the pony who branded him didn’t know what he stole.”

“Well damn, here I thought that whole project was a secret!” he said a little too loudly.

“Nothing stays secret in The Wasteland, no matter what, sooner or later the truth finds its way to the surface,” she said with another laugh, “As for what you are doing here Shadow, do you know what to expect when you go to Stable 97?”

“No, I don’t, but that’s why we have Doorstop,” I replied.

“That’s right, I’m here to make sure we get The Cadet back safe and sound.”

“And what about the rest of the ponies who call Stable 97 home? If it is as bad as I have heard, what will you do with them?” Sheena asked.

Doorstop glared at her, “Stable 97 isn’t a bad place to live, it’s what they are training the ponies there for that’s bad!”

“Nevertheless, once you invade the stable, the ponies who live there will have their lives changed forever,” she said solemnly.

“What do you expect us to do Huh!?” Doorstop asked loudly.

“Calm down, I think I understand what she’s talking about,” I said, interrupting his rude outbursts, “The ponies in there, at least the ones like Stardust, don’t know what the world is like outside. They think most of Equestria is dead and The Enclave are the only ponies who can help bring it back. Us going in there is gonna throw them for a loop, we have no idea how they’ll react or what they’ll do.”

“Damn, you have a point. I lived in that damned place for so long I forget sometimes how different life out here is. Most of the trainees in there are around Shadow’s age though. I don’t think they’ll be a problem, it’s the ponies on the upper levels you’re gonna have to worry about,” Doorstop said.

I looked at him a little confused, “Stardust is a few years older than me, why are most of the ponies he trained with so much younger?”

“I find the idea of the entire stable to be a little strange,” Wind Thrasher said.

The Drill Sergeant let out a long sigh, “The first few recruits we had were a test. Stardust and Hailstorm were two of those ponies. We started out with twenty foals and five showed promise after the first few years, so we started bringing in more foals to expand the program.”

“What happened to the other fifteen ponies that started out there at the same time as Stardust?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.

“They didn’t make it passed their first evaluation,” he replied.

Wingnut looked a little sick as he asked, “What do you mean they didn’t make it?”

“The first evaluation is done after they get their cutie marks. They have to fight for their lives, that’s the only rule. Stardust, Hailstrom, and three others were more proficient in the test than the others and almost killed them. Since they failed they were cast out of the program. The Enclave wasn’t happy with losing so many Pegasi after putting so much hard work into them, so they used their memory manipulation machines to reprogram their brains so that when they became of age they’d eventually become soldiers. Since they were so young some of them couldn’t handle the strain of the machine and had their brains fried and either became vegetables or ended up dead.”

I could see that Doorstop was remembering those days and he didn’t like those memories. I didn’t like to do this to him, but I had to know more. Well, I kinda liked doing this to him because he’s an asshole, but it’s still mean, “How did they find so many foals to place into the program? Stardust told me their parents lived in the upper levels and they would only be able to see them once they passed their training.”

“Fuck kid, right to the gut,” he said looking over at me, “They were all taken away from their parents when they were born. The only ponies in that stable apart from the recruits are the trainers like myself, a few enclave scientists that live in the upper levels and a few guards. After all the foals were born, they told the parents that they didn’t survive the birth. The excuse was because of some common medicine pregnant mares would take for prenatal care, The Enclave claimed that there was an ingredient that could cause a fatal defect that would affect the child before or after birth.”

The Empress gasped, “You mean to say that they forcefully took away foals from their parents?”

He nodded, “Well not all of them, some of the younger ones were foals we got from orphanages, but Stardust’s family came from a long line of strong soldiers. The Enclave figured that a foal from that family would be a perfect pony to join in on the program. They knew his parents wouldn’t just let them take Stardust, so on the day he was born, they took him and told his parents that he didn’t survive the birth like some of the others.”

I was shaking with anger when I heard that, “You mean they took Stardust away from his family when he was born, put him into a training program in a stable and told him his parents were dead?”

“Him and a couple others yeah, they were trying to recreate an old group from the war. They figured if they made the perfect solider, they could retake the rest of The Enclave and The Wasteland.”

“What do you mean take the rest of The Enclave? I thought The Enclave was The Enclave,” Wingnut asked.

Aura shook her head and spoke before Doorstop could, “The Enclave as a whole is really just a mix of different cities fighting for power. Right now, the city that mostly runs The Enclave is Neighvarro. It’s mostly a military city that has most of the firepower of the entire Enclave. You also have Thunderhead a cloud city over Hoofington. They aren’t as militarily advanced as Neighvarro, but they have more unicorns and smarter Pegasi. They have more ponies with Power armor and strong fighters, and they know everything about building and repairing old tech, along with the ability to grow a lot of things in their cloud city. Those two cities are always fighting with one another over this or that, but Neighvarro keeps them on a short leash with threats of destruction. Then you have Stratus and Nimbus, Nimbus was the city where The Enclave technically started. That’s the city that Night Stalker and his team first settled down when the war ended, but later they moved their power to Stratus. Both cities mostly keep to themselves and only share things between the two cities and refuse to work with Neighvarro as much as they can. Both cities together don’t have enough tech or power to take on Neighvarro right now, but they can defend themselves against them if needed, that’s why they can get away with the things that they do. Like having cities on the ground, they also hold The Crystal Empire which is rumored to have powerful unicorns that can come to defend either city if they are called on. If they had a couple hundred ponies like Stardust, they could take down Neighvarro in a few days and with them gone they’d completely rule The Enclave. If they had a thousand ponies like Stardust, they could take over everything.”

Laser looked a little distraught and silent the whole time we were talking about the cloud cities, as if she was thinking about a lot of things. Before I knew it she got up and left with no one but me noticing. I hope she’s alright, it’s pretty safe at The Kingdom, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about her.

Doorstop nodded, “She’s right, for years they’ve wanted to take back the power they’ve always called theirs by right.”

“If Nimbus was the city to start The Enclave then why would Stratus think they have the right to rule it and not Nimbus?” I asked.

“Because, the pony who first ruled over the entire military branch of The Enclave and later all of it as the head council pony, Night Stalker, was from Stratus. They think that gives them the right to rule and Nimbus agrees. That’s why the two cities work together so much, though Stratus ponies don’t much care for ponies from Nimbus or the settlements around it. They call them oddballs,” Doorstop said.

“Why’s that?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Sheena laughed lightly, “Because ponies from this area like being able to live on the surface if they want to, it is the only city where citizens are allowed to go below the clouds to live among other ponies on the ground. Stratus is much like the rest of The Enclave, they are scared of the surface.”

“So, from what I’m gathering, Stratus and Nimbus want to make the perfect solider. That’s why they started the program in Stable 97,” I said.

“Yeah it is,” Doorstop said.

“How many so called perfect soldiers have they created then?” I asked, trying to put some of the pieces together.

Doorstop laughed for a moment, “That are still alive? Two, but Stardust is the only one that’s a Stable 97 resident. Stable 97 was an advanced program, the first pony they created they didn’t want to wait for a foal to grow up with training like we did in the stable. They tried using magic and science instead, creating a pony that was faster, smarter, and stronger than any other pony before.”

“Let me guess, that didn’t work out so well did it?” I asked.

“It did work, the pony they made was almost a perfect soldier, he only had one flaw. He was the perfect pony to send into battle to take on his enemies and no pony stood a chance against him, but he burned through his energy quickly and had to take long rest breaks in between fights. They were trying to find a way to fix that when he ended up killing the entire research staff. He was later called a failed project, but The Enclave doesn’t like to just throw away a pony they could still use even if it wasn’t how they thought.”

From what they were saying about him, I had an Idea I knew this pony, “Let me guess, he was branded and made a Sin.”

Doorstop nodded, “Yep, he became Sloth the fifth Member of The Sins. Pride himself decided that he’d be a good fit.”

I shook my head, “I have a feeling Envy was made in the same way.”

“Ha Envy? Nopony knows where Envy came from, he just showed up as a colt one day with Pride. The story was that he found the colt when he was almost dead in the Badlands. He’s always been able to do what he does, it’s also why most ponies don’t know his weakness, that’s until we saw what Cutter did,” Doorstop said smugly, “I’ll have to tell Violet about that when I get back.”

“I wish we had the time to worry about Envy or any of The Sins, but from what I am hearing, we need to find a way to get into the stable and to lure Stardust into it,” Sheena said.

“Yeah, that’s the part I’m still stuck on, I know that he has to know we’re here because Envy found us, but I don’t know how we can get him into the stable and if it’ll even fix him,” I said.

Doorstop turned to me, “If we can get Stardust into the memory pods on the third level then we should be able to fix what they did.”

“Wait, what are memory pods?” I asked.

“I don’t understand it all, I’m just a Drill Sergeant. All I know is that there are two pods in the re-education center on that level. It’s where they take ponies like Stardust who’ve disobeyed orders one too many times. I also know it takes another pony who goes into the other pod to run the program to rewrite memories,” he said with a frown.

“That still doesn’t help us get him into the pod,” I said under my breath.

“You best not be sassin’ me Fruit Cup!” damn, he heard me.

“I would say the best way is to set a trap for him,” Sheena said with a grin, “If you can find a way to lure him into it and disarm him and any of the sins he is with, all you would have to do is find a way to get him into the stable and put him into the pod.”

“Getting into the stable won’t be a problem, I still have a couple ponies in there that trust me, they should be able to help us get to the re-education center. Getting out might be harder, because as soon as we’re there The Enclave will come to kill us,” Doorstop said.

“If you have a way to get us in, then how would the rest of The Enclave know we’re in there?” Aura asked.

“Because they know whenever that place is opened up, they’ll send soldiers to go in there as soon as we get in,” he replied.

“Do you have a way to get into contact with any of the ponies from Stable 97 Doorstop?” Sheena asked.

“I do,” he said with a nod.

“Then you should go make contact with them and see what you can do,” she said looking back at the rest of us, “As for the rest of you, I will aid you in any way I can. I’ll speak to my husband about all of this when he gets home. Also, as I was saying before about the ponies that still live there. If you are able to do what is needed, I would like you to try and get the ponies that are living there to come to The Kingdom.”

“Why in the hell would you want them to join you?” Doorstop asked.

“Because they are pegasi that know how to fight, but also they have been lied to about the world and The Enclave. I would like to help them find a better life and if they want, help them find their families again. That is what we do in The Kingdom, we help ponies in need,” Sheena said with a smile.

Doorstop returned a smile, “I like you, even if you are a zebra, kinda hot too, and I mean that with all the respect in the world. I’ll be sure to see about getting the rest of the young ones get out of there safely. It’ll also deal a big blow against those Enclave bastards.”

“Yeah, now that I like,” I said in agreement.

“Then it is settled, there is a room on the second level that you may all find to your liking. I will speak with some of my guards about how we can set up a trap for Stardust. Feel free to roam around the mansion, or if you want you can walk around The Kingdom,” she said happily.

“I should head out and see about getting a message to the ponies I still know in there. I’ll be back by morning though, if not I’ll give you my tag Shorty, so you can find me,” Doorstop said walking over and adding his tag to the Mark II.

He left the room and when he was gone I looked at all my friends, “I think I’m just gonna rest, my body still hurts from the crash.”

“I’d like to go look around The Kingdom,” Wingnut said.

“That does sound nice,” Wind Thrasher agreed.

“I’d like to rest some too, but if Wingnut wants to go look around I’ll join him,” Aura sort of moaned.

Wind Thrasher whispered something to Wingnut and he nodded, “I’ll be fine Aura, you can stay here if you want to. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about anything while I’m here and I’ll have Wind Thrasher with me.”

“Are you sure boss?” Aura asked.

“Yeah, just go rest and enjoy the rest of the day while you can, I’m sure tomorrow is gonna suck,” Wingnut said, “We’ll see you all later.”

Wind Thrasher and Wingnut both headed out the door leaving me alone with Aura and Sheena. For some reason I felt a little uncomfortable, the zebra was looking at the two of us with an interested expression, “So tell me, how did a griffon from The Red Talons end up all the way out here with such an odd company of ponies?”

“I’m not a Red Talon, at least not anymore, but how did you know I used to be?” Aura asked.

Sheena giggled a little, “You look just like Gale, I figured you were her daughter.”

“Wait who’s Gale?” I asked.

“My Aunt, the one who Gina killed and no I’m Gigi’s youngest daughter, how do you know my family?”

Sheena’s face fell, “I did not know about Gale’s death, it has been many years since I have been in New Pegasus. I grew up out there not far from Crimson Canyon, I knew your family when your mother and her sisters were around your age.”

“You must’ve belonged to that zebra tribe that used to live in the old town just outside of our home.” Aura said.

“I did, I was of the Eschatik tribe, we were desert nomads in our homeland. My own tribe settled there a couple of generations ago, but when The Romans came and started to get zebras to join them, most of my people left with them. The ones who didn’t were killed as traitors to zebra kind. I was just a young mare at the time and was forced to join them, though back then they were not called the Romans yet. The zebra who runs them now calling himself Caesar was still a colt,” Sheena said with a sorrowful look.

“How did you end up here then?” I asked.

“My husband found me one day, during that time he was a caravan pony and traded with the zebra tribes. I wanted to get away from the new tribe I was forced to join, so when he left, I hid in his wagon,” she said with a smile, “He was quite surprised when he discovered me.”

I smiled, “So you met The Emperor by stowing away in his cart?”

“I did, he was quite shocked to find a zebra filly with his goods he had for sale. At first, he wasn’t too happy at what I had done, but once I told him what happened to my tribe and family he decided to let me stay with him. Over time I started to learn the business and helped him run his caravan. A few years passed and we fell in love, not long after that we found this mansion in the heart of this destroyed town. My husband, decided that we should start helping the ponies around here find a safe place to live and escape The Enclave. That is how The Kingdom was born, though back then we did not have the title of King and Queen or Emperor and Empress. A few more years went by and ponies just started calling this place The Kingdom. The city grew and more ponies, zebras, and banished griffons started calling this place home. They all started looking up to my husband and I for guidance. Later we started to have other settlements around here join us, we became an Empire, at least a small one,” Sheena explained.

“The Emperor must be brilliant and quite kind to get so many to follow him,” I said.

She laughed, “Yes he is very kind, brilliant maybe. Trust me, when you meet him you will see that he is just a child in a stallion’s body, but that is what I love about him.”

“How did ponies or whatever react to following a zebra/pony couple?” Aura asked.

“Aura, that’s rude!” I scoffed.

Sheena laughed again, “It is alright Shadow, we did not have it easy when we first started out, no pony wanted to follow a zebra and they thought that a stallion who married a zebra had to be a crazy pony. In the end we showed them all how well our two races can work together.”

“I think it’s kind of sweet to see a Zebra with a Pony,” I said.

Sheena looked over at Aura, “Do you have a problem with it Aura?”

“No not really, I was just wondering,” she replied.

I could see why she wouldn’t care herself, she used to be in love with a pony, “It’s nice I think, I don’t see why anyone should care who you love.”

“I agree with you Shadow,” Sheena said, “Now you both look tried I’ll show you to your room.”

“Don’t you have servants to do that for you?” Aura asked.

“I do, but I like doing things for myself when I can,” she said getting up from her seat and heading out of the room. The two of us followed as she led us up the grand staircase to one of the long halls that were lined with doors on each side, “The former owner of this mansion used to have a lot of ponies over for one reason or another, we have plenty of space for anyone who needs it. Anyhow, I will be letting you all stay in the guest suite, it will have enough food for all of you. Shadow you said you are still in pain from that crash, correct?”

“I am, but it’s nothing a good night’s sleep can’t cure,” I responded.

“That is good to hear. If you need to see a doctor for anything, the west wing of the mansion has been converted into a large clinic. We have ten doctors on staff that can do almost anything you need to help cure you,” she said.

“Interesting, you have a full staff of medical ponies, most large settlements like this only have two or three,” Aura said.

“Not all ponies, three of them are zebras,” she said as we reached a large set of double doors, “This will be where you are staying, I will leave you two alone for now, I need to see where my husband is and check on a few things. If you need anything just ask any of the ponies you see wandering the halls.”

“We’ll be fine, but thank you Empress,” I said.

She laughed again, “Please, call me Sheena, I much prefer it.”

“Thanks again Sheena,” I said, she gave us both another smile and turned to leave back down the hall.

“So, what should we do now? Do you really think sleeping is the best plan?” Aura asked as she opened one of the doors and walked in.

The room was large, with two separate rooms on each side. There was a large couch in the middle of the room with a table, a small kitchen on one side and a large window that overlooked the city, “Damn, this is awesome.”

“I’ll say, I’m surprised she’s letting us stay in such a nice place,” Aura said.

“She’s a nice mare, maybe she just wants us to trust her.”

“Like I said before, from all I know, you can always trust anyone from The Kingdom. It doesn’t matter, back to what I was saying before, what do you plan to do?” she asked.

“Honestly I’d like a bath,” I replied.

“Yeah me too, let’s see what they have,” she said walking toward one of the rooms. It turned out to be a master bedroom with a huge bathtub in the connected bathroom. We could fit all my friends in the thing and still have room.

I walked over to it and turned on the water, I was happy to feel hot water flow from the nozzle and my Pip-Buck didn’t click even once as it filled the large bath, “Do you wanna go first?”

She shook her head, “Nah, it’s a big tub why wait for one another to finish up when we can both relax.”

“It’s fine with me, but last time I suggested we take a bath together you got really embarrassed,” I said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you that well back then and I have trust issues. I have a better mindset now, but if you really want to wait until I’m done be my guest. I’m gonna be in here for a while,” she said, taking her saddle bags off and tossing them on the corner then placing her energy spear next to the tub where she could grab it quickly if needed.

“Nah, I don’t mind at all, I trust you. As I said before, we’re both girls,” I said, pulling off my barding and setting it down next to Aura’s bags along with my own.

“Whatever you say, but if I catch you starring at my ass, I’ll rip your eyes out,” she said with an evil grin. She turned then started to step into the bath.

Her words made me blush and my eyes fell, of course, on her rear. DAMMIT! I looked away before she caught me and I waited a moment for her to finish getting into the steaming bathtub. As she did, I pulled off my mane ties and let my braid down for the first time in days. It took a few pulls with my magic to get it to fully come undone…damn I was dirty. Once that was done I started to step toward the bath, then my hoof stepped on my mane and I tripped and fell face first on the floor.

Aura chuckled a little, “Have a nice trip?”

“Ow…yeah, I just tripped on my mane is all,” I said getting back up and stepping into the bath.

“When’s the last time you cut your mane? I know you like having it done up in that braid and all, but it’s really long when it’s down.”

I let my body relax for a moment before I answered, “I haven’t really cut it since I first got to Stable 28 as a filly. Vervain used to trim it every now and then to keep it from getting too long, but I never let her cut it short like she wanted to.”

“Why not, with what you do now, it makes sense having a short mane style.”

I sighed and let my body sink into the water more, “I’m not really sure I want it short.”

“Fair enough, but I have to ask, what’s with you always keeping it in that loose braid all the time? You seriously freaked the fuck out when Wingnut and Stardust stole your mane ties.”

“When I was younger, mom tried to get me to cut my mane short like her own. I was kind of a little shit myself back then, I didn’t let her do it. I ran away every time she tried to force me to. Finally, mom came up with the braid after some colts teased me about my long messy mane. She told me I looked cuter with it like that then just letting it get all over the place. When she left it was kind of a reminder of her, something I could look at every day and remember her. I would’ve kept trimming it, but I just haven’t had the time.”

Aura let her body slide deeper into the water as well until her head was the only thing sticking out, “Now It’s gotten so long you can’t help but trip over it unless it’s up. Soon even your braid will be too long and your mane will be getting in the way when you get into a fight. Maybe you should think about cutting it, maybe even think about a different mane style. You’re a pretty mare Shadow, but that braid always makes me think your hiding behind it. Also, I kinda hate how it looks, oh and don’t do pigtail braids because those always make the back of a mare’s head look like a pony’s ass.”

Where does that bitch think she gets off? I can do whatever I want with my mane, “Hey! I can have ass head if I want to dammit! Don’t judge me!”

She started to laugh so hard that her back lost its grip on the bottom of the tub and she slipped in and her ass shot straight in my face. She flailed and eventually got her head back above water. She coughed and blew hard out of her nostrils to get water out, “(Cough,cough)Fuckin’ hell!”

I did my best not to laugh as I said, “After having one in my face, I no longer want an ass head.”

“If you’re waiting for an apology it’s not coming,” she said with a scowl.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind,” then I realized that my mouth made a jumble of words that sounded dirty again, “It was an accident, shit happens,” she was giving me a weird look, I needed to figure out a distraction fast, this was getting WAY too awkward, “You wanna listen to the radio? Cutter said the radio ponies here are pretty good.”

“Uh, yeah sure, whatever,” she replied, her eyes downcast.

I went to the radio on my Pip-Buck and selected the channel that said Up and At ‘Em. There was some music playing that I hadn’t heard before, but it sounded pretty good, but there was no singing, just sounds and beats. I could tell that Aura was enjoying it because she was bobbing her head up and down with her eyes closed, “What is this?” I asked.

She opened her eyes and looked at me like I was an idiot, “It’s dubstep, this is one of the best artists in that genre, Dj Pon-3. Not the Dj from the radio in Manehattan, this was a mare, her real name was Vinyl Scratch. She used to be the music headliner at all the big parties before and sometimes during the war.”

“Oh that’s cool, I like the music. It has a nice calm beat to it that I can just chill to, y’know,” I said as the song started to come to an end.

There was a soft static for about five seconds then a pony’s voice came on the radio, “That was the late, great, Vinyl Scratch. Up next is Up and At ‘Em, see ya there,” the radio went silent again for about a minute and then the pony’s voice returned, “Hello Twin Cities! This is Up and At ‘Em, I’m Poker Chip.”

“I’m Bitmap.” Another Stallion said.

“And I’m Kitty.” A Feminine voice followed

Poker Chip spoke again, “Today let’s start off with the main issues we talk about every day, there’s also some news from down in The Kingdom,” a sound effect played that sounded like some sort of horn, “I just can’t get enough of that sound effect machine you fixed up Bitmap.”

“Yeah, I’m glad I found this thing in the back room, it’s made this show so much more fun to do. It gets so depressing talking about all the gang violence and Enclave oppression in both cities.”

Kitty commented, “Yeah it sure does get depressing, especially after The Enclave upped their presence at the Saint’s Parish Falls dam. I get the need to protect a source of energy, but with that many soldiers they act like they’re ready for a freakin’ war.”

“Agreed,” Poker Chip said, “Reminds me of the situation at the dam in New Pegasus. The NLR and The Romans are always scuffling over it, then there’s Halo One, don’t even get me started on that place. It’s always going through changes in management at least every other month. A few weeks ago, it was controlled by The NLR, then it was taken by The Enclave. Now it’s just an empty building after The Seven Sins of Equinity made an appearance.”

“Oye, those guys,” Bitmap said mockingly, “They’ve been showing their faces back here again recently. One of them attacked a sky carriage that was on its way to The Kingdom, I think it was Envy.”

“It was,” Kitty interrupted, “That freak makes me sick, especially how he could be anypony or whatever else he can change into.”

I heard Poker Chip sigh, “I have an I.Q. of one hundred and forty and I still can’t figure out how he does that. I’d say with magic but I’m pretty sure he’s a pegasus and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any zebra talismans that can-do things like that. Speaking of zebras, there’s been a spike in gang activity in the north side of Whinnieapolis lately that’s resulted in a few senseless murders. On the bright side, at least it’s distracting The Enclave from what happens here in Saint’s Parish. I hate having to deal with their damn curfew, and condescending attitude towards us citizens.”

“I agree,” Bitmap said, “I know they’ve pretty much always occupied this area since they branched out from their first surface settlement in Whinny City, but recently it’s like their hold on us is getting tighter.”

Kitty interrupted, “I swear one of these days their gonna say something about me being a griffon and how I shouldn’t be allowed in their society, if you can call this society. It’s downright oppression, I dunno why the mayor doesn’t try negotiating with them to make life at least a tiny bit easier.”

Poker Chip sighed, “Not like it’d help any, that guy is such a pushover, I can’t believe he actually became the mayor. Of course, it was probably the oh so Grand Pegasus Enclave that made it so we’d get a pony like him to lead us. If we have a doormat they can push around and manipulate, they can do whatever they want to us without any qualms.”

Bitmap played some more sound effects and said, “I completely agree, if only we had the ability to get somepony else in the office of mayor that’s willing to do something about our pegasus problem, I’m sure the citizens of this city would be a lot happier.”

Poker Chip cleared his throat, “I think with the right leadership, we could break away from the control of The Enclave and possibly even retake Whinnieapolis. It’s just not the Twin Cities when there’s a wall between them. A long time ago the wall was a good idea to keep us safe from the trouble that the streets of Whinnieapolis bring and it’s still a good idea, but I still wish it didn’t have to be here. As both of you know, Saint’s Parish has been facing overpopulation for quite some time with ponies moving here from smaller settlements, and the rising birth rate.”

“It’s not THAT cramped,” Kitty said nonchalantly, “I’ve been to places where ponies, griffons, and whatever else are literally living on top of each other. I think if there were more who were willing to go out of their way to protect others, new citizens wouldn’t move here so much. I’m not saying I don’t want ponies or griffons to live here, I’m just curious as to why they’d move here and not to a place that isn’t under Enclave control.”

“They don’t want to go halfway across the country just to find a safe place to live,” Poker Chip said, “In basic terms it’s because Saint’s Parish is closer than other large settlements they could go to that are safe. No one wants to travel hundreds of miles to go to a safe place just because another place that’s closer is under the hoof of ponies like The Enclave. Put yourself in their place, sure The Enclave sucks, but at least they won’t be killed in their sleep by raiders or eaten by mutated monsters.”

Kitty sighed, “What about The Kingdom, it’s not THAT far away from here and I’ve heard they’ll take just about anyone that wants to get away from The Enclave.”

Bitmap chuckled, “They do and from what I know it’s a nice place to live. The problem is that a lot of the ponies who come here don’t trust zebras and for good reason. The Empress is a zebra who’s married to a pony, a lot of ponies out there are thick headed about that kind of thing.”

“There are too many ponies here that still can’t seem to forget the war,” Poker Chip said, “A war mind you that was two hundred years ago. Aside from the zebra gangs in Whinnieapolis, I don’t see a problem with befriending one. Hell having a zebra rule over us would be better than the damned Enclave.”

“It almost makes me miss New Pegasus…almost,” Bitmap said laughing heartily.

Poker Chip joined in the laughter, “That’s a hard decision right there, go back to New Pegasus that’s ruled by a mysterious pony in a tower and deal with the numerous factions fighting for control, or stay in this Goddesses forsaken place. I’ve heard there’s a mare who’s called The Courier out in New Pegasus. Some say she’s the heroine The Marejave Wasteland needed.”

“I heard about her too, though I’m not sure I’d believe all the stories. Who could really destroy a town like Appleton with a single shot?” Kitty said.

Bitmap played another sound that reminded me of the blast from the B.E.L. of Gators, “A couple of well-placed Balefire Eggs could do that.”

“Yeah, but not with one shot, Appleton was a big place. I just think somepony’s making up crazy stories again,” Poker Chip said, “Remember a few years back when rumors were going around about that stallion the ponies called the Burned Buck? They said he used to be The Caesar’s right hoof zebra who was burned alive for betraying him or something and was starting a resistance. Turned out to be nothing more than an old pony telling tall tales in Cartwheel.”

“Yeah, but DJ Pon3 wasn’t talking about him all the time like he is about The Courier,” Kitty said, “Honestly if she’s as dangerous as they say, I’d like her to come here and give The Enclave a run for their caps.”

“Yeah, because that’s just what we need right now, more fighting in the city,” Bitmap added.

“At the very least maybe she could scare away some of the gangs, that alone would be a big help,” Poker Chip said thoughtfully, “Speaking of which I almost forgot, Reports say that one of the council ponies is heading to the Mill City Tower to meet with some of the snobs who live up there.”

“That’s very unusual, which pony is it?” Bitmap asked sounding surprised.

“From what I heard it’s the new guy Nightshade, I haven’t found out yet why he’s here, but I do know he’s on his way if he isn’t in the damned city already.”

“Maybe that’s why The Sins have been showing up as of late,” Kitty said.

Poker Chip jumped at that, “I don’t think so, all reports say that Nightshade hates The Sins, he wouldn’t have them watching his back. If he was a high council member I’m sure he’d disband them all.”

“Have you ever met him Poker Chip?” Kitty asked.

“Thank Celestia I haven’t, the stories I’ve heard about him give me the chills,” he replied.

“Well I have and trust me you don’t want to; the stories are true. He’s a scary pony, one I wouldn’t wanna mess with,” Kitty said making a shivering sound like she was cold.

“When did you meet him Kitty?” Bitmap asked.

“When I was younger, he used to be one of the Guard Captains here in The Twin Cities.”

“Now that’s a story I’d like to hear!” Poker Chip said.

“There isn’t much to it, as you all know I lost my parents when I was young and had to fend for myself. I was attacked by a gang in a back alley, this is when I was still living on the edge of Whinnieapolis close to Saints Parish. Nightshade came out of nowhere and told them to leave me alone, they outnumbered him twenty to one, but that didn’t seem to bother him one bit. When they tried to attack he killed every last one of them in no time,” Kitty explained.

“Damn now that’d scare anyone, though if he saved your life he can’t be that bad,” Bitmap said.

Kitty laughed, “Yeah sure, he told me after they were dead that I should find a new place to live or I’d end up the same as the rest of the ponies who attacked me. The way he spoke, it was like he had no soul, his words were cold as ice.”

“Now I really don’t think I want to meet a pony that can scare you Kitty, you scare me as it is when you’re pissed off,” Poker Chip said.

Kitty laughed again, this time it sounded amused, “I’m a griffon, we’re all scary.”

“I’m not scared of you Kitty,” Bitmap said as though he was mocking Poker Chip, “I’m smart enough to stay on your good side, so I have no need to worry.”

They all laughed for a few seconds, then Poker Chip said, “Be that as it may, I’d still suggest everypony stay away from Whinnieapolis for a while, there will be at least ten times more patrols around Mill City Tower than normal with Nightshade around. If he’s there I’m sure a couple more of the high council are too.”

“Good point Poker Chip, we should also remind ponies out there to be on the lookout for The Sins as well. It’s bad enough Envy’s been spotted around The Kingdom, but I’ve also gotten reports of that new Pride along with two others. Whatever they want out here you don’t want to be the pony they turn their sights on,” Bitmap said.

“I’ll go out after this and see what I can dig up. If they’re after a pony out here it would only be right we tried to warn them,” Kitty said.

“That’s if he or she even listens to the show,” Poker Chip said.

“I’d still like to try,” Kitty retorted.

Poker Chip chuckled lightly, “Agreed, well that’s all we have for now folks, I’m Poker Chip.”

“I’m Bitmap.”

“And don’t forget Kitty!”

“This has been Up and At ’Em, coming to you from our secret location somewhere in Saint’s Parish, have a good day and stay safe.”

When the outro was finished a new song came on the radio. I turned it down then looked back at Aura who was looking at the far wall as the show ended, “Well that was definitely different from any other show I’ve heard.”

“I’m not sure if they were bullshitting with each other, trying to warn ponies about things, or reporting the news,” Aura said confused.

“Maybe all three?” I said shrugging.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, Poker Chip and Bitmap used to be the hosts for Radio New Pegasus before they moved up here. Trip Wire loved to listen to them and said they were funny, but I never gave them a listen.”

“It’s a nice change from either DJ’s in your face kind of news or Mr. New Pegasus with his calm, and kind of boring reports.”

She laughed, “You’re just happy they didn’t start spreading word about you.”

“There is that, and from the sound of it they don’t buy all the stories about me either, even if they are true. I’d just like a few days to be able to do what I need to without a radio pony talking about me all the time,” I said laying back and letting my body float in the water as I thought.

“I for one would like to be able to just lay in this bath for hours without anyone needing me, or the water getting cold,” Aura said.

“Agreed,” I said as I looked up at the dark ceiling. My thoughts were rolling around what needed to be done and a few other things. A quick flash of Aura falling in the bath came back to me, the sight of her rear filling my thoughts. I blinked and shook my head (Damn it, go away dirty thoughts about my friends!) Why does this keep happening to me? I thought I was past that kind of thing by now. I should be planning on what to do about Stardust.

“One good thing, at least they said Stardust was spotted around here too. It looks like he did follow us like you said he would.”

“Yeah, but from the sound of it he didn’t come alone,” I said, trying to get my mind back on the topic at hoof.

“Did you expect him to come alone? You should know by now that The Sins don’t ever work alone.”

“I know, but I was hoping he’d bring Greed, not Envy. They said two others were spotted too. It’s gonna be damn near impossible to trap him with three other Sins around, especially Envy,” I said thinking about the battle that’s sure to come between me and my best friend.

“Envy won’t be a problem if you can get Cutter to let you use one of those bug whistles,” Aura said.

“Not a bad idea and if the others with him are Lust and Sloth, we might be able to handle them. I don’t know what Lust is weak against, but at least she seems like a normal pegasus, just with a strange spear that extends,” I said. (And a smoking hot body, that is a weapon all on it’s own against the right pony…FUCK YOU DIRTY BRAIN!)

“Sloth is strong and fast, but from what Doorstop said he can’t fight for long before he needs to rest. If we can hold him off and take care of Lust they won’t be a problem, but what if Wrath is with them?”

“I’m not worried about Wrath, he’s too much of a coward to fight me head on. All he’s good at is killing ponies from a distance, and so far, my luck has held out when it comes to him. I also have a feeling Greed did something to him back when we first fought Stardust and my mother.”

“Why do you think that?” she asked while pulling at one of the feathers on her head.

“Because he fired a single shot at us, then he just stopped. He’s not a pony to just take a shot and run away. I think Greed was there too and he did something to get Wrath to stop his attack,” I said as my body slowly floated along the surface of the large bath.

“Well if he did, then we may owe him your life for that.”

“Maybe,” I said, then I felt the top of my head bump against Aura’s chest. I was about to say something when I felt her talons gently grab my shoulders keeping me from drifting any farther.

I opened my eyes and looked up at Aura, she was looking down at me with a strange expression on her face. In that moment my heart started to pound as my red eyes met her icy blue ones. I tried to talk again, but it felt like there was a rock stuck in my throat. I blushed wanting to look away, but I couldn’t, something about the way she looked down at me was captivating. It was like in that moment I could see deep into who Aura was, almost like I was peering deep into the griffon’s soul. Behind that hard exterior was a fragile girl who just wanted to be seen but was too scared to let herself out. She was scared of how a pony like me would react if her true self was revealed. That small look in her eyes told me more about my friend than I ever thought I knew about her. I knew before that Aura was starting to have feelings for me more than just friendship, but I figured it was because she missed Trip Wire so much and something about me reminded her of the mare she lost. I was wrong, she didn’t see her lost love when she looked down at me, she saw ME. That look was the look of someone who wanted to be understood and loved for who she was without judgement. Aura loved me, more than just how I loved Silver. This wasn’t lust or longing, it wasn’t her trying to capture what she used to have with Trip Wire either. I have no idea how I knew any of this, but something deep down told me I was right. How could I have missed it?

How long had she been feeling this way about me? I was so shocked and at the same time a little confused on what I should say or do that I couldn’t even say anything. The worst part was that I was feeling something too, but what was it? I don’t really know how you’re supposed to feel when you like someone like that. I was only just starting to understand what it was like to be with somepony when I started my relationship with Silver, and before her I just lusted after my best friend.

The room was quiet, oh so quiet, I swear my pounding heart could be heard. Aura’s head was moving down toward mine as she started to finally say something, “Shadow…”

Her face was so close to mine, I could feel her breath on my forehead and horn, then something fell to the floor making a loud thump. I jumped and looked away from Aura’s intense gaze and moved to stand again in the bath looking around for what just made that noise, “What was that?”

Aura looked around then pointed toward an empty Sparkle Cola bottle laying on the tile floor, “I think that fell off the shelf.”

I looked up at a long shelf that was at eye level on the other side of the bathroom. There were a few empty bottles of Sparkle Cola, “Yeah, but who knocked it down?”

“I’m…not sure,” Aura admitted.

I looked back at her and saw she was blushing fiercely, “I think I should get out of the tub, I think the heat is going to my head.”

I stepped out of the bath and grabbed a mostly clean looking towel and started to dry my mane as quickly as I could. Once it was no longer dripping I grabbed my mane ties and started to redo my braid. My heart was still pounding in my chest and I couldn’t get the image of Aura’s head coming closer to my own as we looked into each other’s eyes. I was just about finished when I heard Aura say in a quiet voice, “Please don’t go…”

I froze for a moment then finished with the last tie saying quickly, “I need to check up on a few things before the others get back.”

I started to walk out of the bath room my mind whirling with the swell of emotions I felt running through me. Aura spoke again right as I turned the corner, “I’m a fool…”

I knew I should stop, I should turn around and talk to her. I couldn’t run away, trying to hide the feelings I had, but I’m a coward. I can jump into a fight with raiders to save my friends, go into a stable with no idea what to expect, I could take on The Seven Sins of Equinity and The Enclave without a second thought, but I couldn’t face the one thing in the Wasteland that wanted to love me. I kept on walking doing my best to ignore the sounds of soft sobs flowing out from the bathroom.

I left the room and started to walk down the hall, I sniffed and held back the tears I could feel welling up, “Don’t love me Aura, I’m the fool who’ll get you killed in the end. That’s all I’m truly good at, getting the one I love killed. You should leave and find someone who can love you back the way you deserve, all I can offer you is pain…”

***

I have no idea how long I walked around the mansion, I didn’t even really pay any attention to where I was going. I passed by ponies now and then even a couple of zebras as I wandered trying to clear my head. The problem was that it wasn’t helping at all. It didn’t matter how far I walked or where I went, I kept on thinking back to that moment. What was wrong with me? What I saw was nothing, it was just my lonely broken heart trying to reach for something that was impossible. I didn’t have feelings for Aura, she’s a griffon, even if she is attractive and fun, she’s still a griffon. I liked ponies, I wasn’t like Trip Wire, she was the pony who could see past the griffon in front of her and see Aura for what she was. I wasn’t like that, I only cared about what looked good and who’d be fun to do things with. I lived in my own head when it came to a relationship, because how could anyone love a messed up broken mare like me. Plus, how would it work with her having a beak and… Goddesses damned dirty thoughts about my friends.

‘Silver loved the mare you are,’ A yellow pegasus in my head said, (Great now I’m imagining Fluttershy trying to give me advice. The next thing I know Twilight Sparkle is gonna show up and try to teach me about the ‘Magic of Friendship, and how to properly organize my guns.’)

‘She’s right darling, don’t sell yourself short, there is so much to love about you,’ an imaginary version of Rarity said.

Ok fine I’ll play along, “What do you two know anyway?”

‘We know that you should go back and talk to her, you know that you care about her too,’ Fluttershy said.

“Of course I do, she’s my friend, but I can’t be the pony that Trip Wire was for her and she’s a griffon!” I almost yelled, good thing no pony was around, I looked like a nut job right now.

‘Why does it matter what she is? You can’t help who you fall in love with,’ Twilight said next. Yep, I’ve lost it now, miss magic herself was in my head.

“It does matter, It’s not natural.”

‘Nothing in The Wasteland is Shadow, why should this be any different?’ Fluttershy asked.

“I’m not talking to you three about this anymore, go away and leave me alone,” I said shaking my head hard, “I have enough problems with Aquila I don’t need three ministry mares in my head too, there isn’t enough room. I swear at this rate I’m gonna either go completely nuts and start talking to random inanimate objects or develop chronic headaches.”

When I stopped shaking my head like a wet dog trying to dry itself, the mares were gone. I sighed then looked around, trying to figure out where the hell I was. I was at the end of a long hallway standing in front of a large door with stars on it. I tried the door handle and found it wasn’t locked, I opened the door slowly and saw a set of stairs that curved upward. It looked like a tower, but I didn’t remember seeing a tower when I first laid eyes on the Mansion.

“I see you found the Star Tower Shadow,” Sheena said from behind me.

I practically hit the ceiling when she spoke, I looked back at her, “Are you trying to kill me Empress?”

She was laughing from under the hood of a long black cloak, “I was not, but it was very funny to watch you jump. Why are you all the way on this side of the Mansion?”

I sighed again and looked away, “I needed some air so I thought I’d just walk around.”

She moved closer to me, “Do you want to go up and see?”

“Huh? See what?”

“The Star Tower my dear. The pony who built this place used to love mapping the stars, he wanted to know everything about them,” she explained.

“It sounds interesting, but why would you wanna have a place like that in your home? I thought zebras feared the stars.”

She smiled at me, “We do, but we also respect them. Most ponies seem to remember one part but forget the rest. My tribe used to use the stars as guides when we would wander the harsh desert. It is a tradition passed down over the generations. My tribe knew many things about the power the stars held, but we respected that power and never tried to use it for our own gain. Not like the Starkatteri.”

She started to walk up the curving staircase, following I asked, “What are the Starkatteri?”

I heard a long sigh before she spoke, “They are a tribe of zebra that are shunned among my kind. They use dark arts and the powers of the stars for themselves. In our legends, it is said that they were marked by the sun so that all zebra kind would know who they were, that way they could never fool us. But that is a story for another time.”

We reached the top, she opened a stone door and I found myself in a large domed room. There weren’t any walls to speak of, it just looked like the dome reached all the way to the floor. The room was mostly barren apart from a single spire in the center with a large rounded diamond or crystal sitting on top of it, and a desk and chair a few feet away. The room was also very dark, the only light in the room seemed to come from the round object.

“How does a room like this help you see stars?” I asked.

She laughed joyfully, “This room is a planetarium, that crystal in the center can project a view of the stars and planets. Here, I will show you.”

She walked over to the crystal and lightly ran a hoof over its polished surface. The glow within grew brighter then with a flash the walls around us erupted into a magical image of the night sky. The night sky that no pony in The Wasteland could see because of the Enclave’s cloud cover. The sight almost brought tears to my eyes as I saw the millions of small white lights fill the room with its beauty.

“This is…beautiful.”

She smiled and nodded, “I know, it is a perfect replication of the night sky. Sadly, it is the closest I have ever come to seeing the stars for myself. Other zebras I know say that the cloud cover is a good thing because it keeps the influence of the stars away from us all. I disagree, as much harm as I know they can do, there are good stars up there as well and to hide away the beauty they have made for us all to see, is the biggest crime of The Enclave.”

I started to walk around the room looking at different clusters of stars, when I looked at them I started to see that some looked like they were shaped in such a way they almost made a kind of picture, “Some of them look like they’re shaped like animals.”

“You have a good eye Shadow, they do,” she ran her hoof over the Crystal again and a moment later lines appeared around some of the stars, forming ‘connect the dots’ type pictures all over the night sky. She walked closer to me and pointed at one that looked like it was shaped like a griffon, “This is Aurea, the Fighter. She is said to be a mighty warrior from a time before Equestria was even discovered, a time when war was tearing the griffon’s world apart. She was the griffon who brought the griffons together to fight off a mighty attack from dragons.”

I looked back at her, “Is that true?”

She shrugged, “I am not sure, but as most stories or legends go, there has to be some truth to it. Look at this one,” she said pointing to another, “This is Zeta, he was a great scholar of The Zebra, his story says that he was the one to help shape the ways my kind live and worship the night sky. His story is true to a point, in reality, he was a mad zebra that ended up killing himself. But he was the zebra whose ideas were used to build the first great city in The Zebra Lands.”

Something from the notes I read about Stargazer came to me and I had to ask, “Have you ever heard of something called Aquila?”

She looked at me again with a twinkle in her eye, “Here I thought a pony from a stable would not know anything about the stars.”

I blushed a little, “I really don’t, but I read about it in some of my mother’s notes. She used to be in The Enclave and I think she had a love for the stars. What is Aquila?”

She started to look around the night sky that was shining on the walls then moved back to the crystal and ran her hoof over it again. The Stars around us moved suddenly then a section of the stars zoomed in to a few clusters. It looked like an upside-down triangle with a line going up then turning to the side, three stars forming the last line.

“Aquila is one of the oldest Constellations that was recorded. Aquila means Eagle in our tongue. The constellation is made up of ten stars, in our beliefs when the stars of Aquila are shining brightly in the sky, it is an omen for good fortune,” she said with a smile looking at the strange formation of stars.

“More like an omen of doom if you ask me,” I said quietly.

Her ear twitched as I spoke and her turquoise eyes fell on me, “Why do you say that?”

“No reason, trust me it’s a long story that I don’t feel like talking about right now. I have enough on my mind and I don’t need to add that headache to it,” I said looking away from the stars that my personal inner bitch was named after.

“You look troubled Shadow, what is bothering you?”

I sighed, “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did, but yes you may,” she said giggling giving me a wink and a smile.

“Is it possible for a Star to possess somepony?”

She started to laugh, “Shadow, you do have a good sense of humor.”

“I’m not joking, I really want to know.”

She stopped laughing then looked thoughtful, “As far as I know from the old stories, no. The stars can grant power to a pony or zebra if they ask for it, it always ends badly for the one who takes that kind of power. The only stars that would grant power to anypony or zebra are always evil. As for possession, our bodies could not handle the massive power that something like a star has. Why did you ask something like that?”

“No reason, it’s just something that two unicorns I met a few weeks ago said.”

“We have stories about zebras who were so called ‘possessed’ by a star, but in reality, they were taken over by a demon of the stars.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Demons of the Stars are creatures that are created by the stars. We call them star spawn, ponies know them as things like ursa majors or other things like that. Some star spawn will take over a host and use their body to gain more power so they can wreak havoc on the land. Though I am not a story teller, so I only know so much.”

I thought about Aquila and her trying to take over my body. Was it possible that she was one of these star spawns, or was she a creation by The Children to replicate old zebra myths? Whatever she was, Minuette felt it was proper to name her after this constellation.

“Shadow, if I may pry a little more, what else is bothering you? Why were you really walking around my home instead of resting with your friend?” Sheena asked walking over and shutting down the crystal.

My thoughts fell back to Aura and I had to hold back my emotions for a moment before I could answer the zebra, “I’m not really sure. My head is wrapped around in knots right now and I can’t seem to get something out of my head.”

“Follow me,” she said moving to a spot in the domed wall, she pushed on something and a moment later a door opened in the curved wall. I followed her as she led me out onto a balcony that wrapped around the tower, giving me a wonderful view of the city, “This is a good place to relax and think, I come up here every night to look over the city my husband and I lead and protect. It helps me clear my head. Now tell me what has you so bothered, is it your friend Aura?”

My eyes went wide as I asked, “Why would you say that?”

She blushed a little then smiled lifting a part of the black cloak she had on, “I hate admitting this, but I have a bad habit of spying on new ponies who come to stay in my home. Not out of distrust or anything like that mind you, but I have found that it is easier to understand the ponies or whatever I protect when they are alone.”

“You were spying one us? HOW!? Distrust or not that’s plain creepy!”

“This cloak is known as a Zebra Stealth Cloak to ponies, but to us Zebras, it is called a Mist Walker’s Cloak,” as Sheena spoke, a shimmer ran up and down the cloak and her body vanished, a moment later she reappeared on the other side of me, “It makes it so I can go around my home unseen and unheard.”

I remembered the bottle falling the ground, “So it was you who knocked over that bottle?”

She giggled and winked, “Not my best moment, I saw you with Aura and did not want to interrupt anything so I was turning to leave. I bumped the shelf as I turned and was not quick enough to stop the bottle from falling. I did not know you two were so close.”

I felt my cheeks warm up with a blush as I said, “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

She looked at me with that funny look of hers, “From what I saw you two look at each other the same why my husband and I used to look at each other when we were younger.”

I sighed again looking back out over the city, “Aura likes mares, she used to be in a relationship with a pony named Trip Wire for a couple years. She lost her to raiders a few months back.”

“Do you think that Aura is looking to you as a kind of replacement for her lost love? Because when I saw the way she looked at you Shadow Star, she cares for you very deeply.”

“Aura lost her Talon company, then she lost the mare she loved. She’s lonely and wants someone to love her, I know that and I understand. I was alone when I had to run away from my stable. I was lucky enough to make friends, I even found a mare who loved me. In the past few weeks, I’ve lost my friends, my home, and my mare friend. Aura was there through most of it, sticking by my side and helping me when I needed it. She’s a great friend and loyal as hell, I couldn’t ask for someone better than her.”

“Do you love her Shadow?”

I looked back at Sheena wide eyed, “I…I don’t know, I mean she’s a griffon, and we’re so different. I don’t even know what real love feels like, Silver and I didn’t have enough time to build on our relationship. All we did was fool around a couple times before she was taken by The Enclave and later killed.”

Sheena’s eyes got a faraway look, “Love is the most wonderful thing in the world Shadow. There is nothing else like it, your heart starts to race, you cannot seem to find the right thing to say, it is heard to breath. The sight of the one you love will always fill you with joy just by having them walk in the room. But you see my young mare, that is only the beginning. When you are in love with whomever, you cannot see your life without them, you can fight with them and still end up laughing in the end, or making love, depends on the fight. They are the one you always want to see happy and you will do anything to see them smile. It is also the scariest thing you will ever experience.”

Some of what she said was how I felt when I was around Aura, but did I love her, or was I just lonely? I’m not sure, “It doesn’t matter anyway Sheena.”

“Why do you think that?”

I sighed, “I’m a curse to the ones I love. If I was with Aura I’d end up losing her in the end, just like I lost Silver, my mom, Stardust, my father, and my Stable.”

“Shadow you cannot live your life in fear.”

I rounded on her, “What do you know!? You just met me today, you have no idea what it’s like to lose as much as I have, to fear what will happen if you let someone into your life only to have them taken away from you.”

She frowned at me, “I lost my family, my tribe, was forced be a warrior or be made a slave. I had to leave the land I grew up in to escape it. I know more than you think, but I did take a chance and my life is better for it.”

My eyes fell as she said that. I turned and looked back out over the city, “I’m sorry, I forgot about that, but still, I don’t even know how I feel about Aura,”

“I think you are too scared to admit how you feel, not because you are worried about what would happen to her. No, I think you are scared about how others will see you.”

“I don’t care what other ponies say about me, I honestly don’t…”

Sheena interrupted me, “Stop lying to yourself Shadow!”

I rounded on her again, “Fine, you want me to say it? I can’t get Aura out of my head, most of the time I can’t stop thinking about her. I think to myself how lucky Trip Wire was to have someone like Aura love her so much. Enough that she risked being banished from The Red Talons for her. I wonder to myself what it would be like to wake up every morning and see her lying next to me. The way she looked at me earlier, made me realize that I wanted to see that every day of my miserable life. And yes, I’m scared, but not because I care about what others would think about me or what they’d say. I grew up with ponies teasing me and talking behind my back because I was different. No, I’m scared because I have something living inside my head that’s gonna take over my body one day and I don’t want Aura or any of my friends to die because of ME! I’m a ticking time bomb just waiting for the right moment to go off.”

Sheena took a step back then smiled a little, “See, that’s all you needed to do. You needed to admit to yourself that you love her.”

“Didn’t you hear a single thing I said Sheena! I can’t love her, I don’t want her to be around when I finally lose myself to whatever lives inside me!”

“I heard you just fine Shadow, I just chose to ignore that part. I could tell that something was inside you from the moment I met you. It does not matter, because you cannot let fear rule your life,” she said calmly

“It’s not fear, it’s a fucking fact.”

“Fact or not, you cannot let what is inside you control how you live your life.”

“Wait a minute…how could you tell I had something inside me?”

She laughed again, “I am a zebra, we understand the world in a different way than ponies. We have a kind of sixth sense when it comes to things that have to do with the heavens and the stars. I still don’t think it matters, because you are a strong mare that I believe can overcome the creature that lives inside of you. The best way to do that is to let yourself find love, creatures of the stars do not understand those kinds of feelings. You never know, loving Aura may just be the thing that saves you.”

I looked down at my hooves, “I don’t want her to die because of me. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.”

She moved close and hugged me, then she whispered in my ear, “No matter what may happen in the future, you cannot let it rule your present. The future is always changing, ever flowing. You are the only pony that can decide who you will become. Keep fighting for the mare you want to be and stop letting the fear of the unknown decide what will happen.”

I sniffed then pulled away, “Do you really think I can make something work with Aura, even with everything that could happen and with our differences?”

“Being different is what makes a good relationship work. You will understand when you meet my husband. We are nothing alike, but that is what makes us perfect.”

“Maybe you’re right Sheena, I should talk to Aura about how I feel.”

“I agree, though first let me talk with her. I heard what you said when you left, she may need to talk to someone first. Head back to your room in a couple of hours and talk with her then. Can you do that?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I’m sure I hurt her when I left, but what are you gonna say to her?”

She winked then turned, “That is between Aura and I, just how our own conversation is between you and I.”

I watched as The Empress walked back into the domed room then disappeared. I waited for a few minutes then decided that I should take a walk, maybe look around The Kingdom while I waited for Sheena to talk to Aura. I looked down at the ground far below then concentrated my magic and teleported to the courtyard. When that was done, I headed passed the gates and started to walk back into the city. I needed to think about what Sheena said and get my head on straight so when I talked to Aura I could tell her how I felt without stuttering or doing anything else embarrassing.

***

I walked around for an hour, trying to see what The Kingdom was like, but it was late and most of the shops were closed and as much as I would have loved to go into one of the bars, I knew that showing up drunk later wasn’t the best idea. Now I had no idea where I was at, as I walked I hadn’t been watching where I was going, too stuck in my own thoughts to watch where I was going I guess. I vaguely remembered walking through one of the gates and ignoring the guards as they said something about being careful. I’m the fucking Courier, I can handle myself.

Now I was in an outer part of The Kingdom, it was mostly ruins. The buildings had mostly collapsed with either age or a big fight. The wall that protected the city itself was built to keep this part of the old city out of the new one. The problem was that the ruins I was in is a maze of destroyed buildings and broken up streets and shops. A lot of ponies must’ve died here when the bombs went off, because there were bones around every corner as well as littering the streets.

It was creepy here; a low mist settled close to the ground making it hard to see. It was also peaceful in a way, nopony was around to bother me and it was quiet. When I first walked into it, I figured I wouldn’t need my armor or weapons. I was still in the territory of The Kingdom and it seemed like nopony bothered anypony within The Kingdom’s lands. But the longer I walked down the empty streets, the more I wished I had my stuff with me.

“If I keep heading the same direction I should find my way out of here.”

I picked a direction and started to follow the road toward it. The street I was on ended up being blocked by a fallen building so I had to find my way around it. It took me a half hour, but soon I was heading back in the same direction I was before. A few moments later I could see the edge of the ruins and I sighed with relief, “Finally.”

I headed for the break in the buildings, the far wall of The Kingdom in sight just past the break, “I hope Aura will forgive me for what I said. I hope I was reading her right too. I’d hate to tell her how I felt only to have her tell me she didn’t see me the way I thought she did.”

I stopped then facehoofed, I was talking to myself AGAIN! Every time I’m alone for too long I do this. Oh well, it’s not like anypony was around to say anything about it. I’ll talk to myself if I want to and everypony else can go fuck themselves. I started to walk again, finally passing the last building in the destroyed ruins, then I face planted against an invisible barrier, “Are you KIDDING ME!?”

I looked around for what or who could’ve set up something like this, but nothing showed up on my E.F.S. I was about to yell out for somepony to show themselves when I felt a drop of water fall on my muzzle. Another moment passed then it started to downpour. I sighed and shook my head trying to get the water out of my mane with no avail. Yeah, not only did The Wasteland find a way to trap me inside a ruin, it had to throw a storm in there too. A flash of lightning lit up the darkening skies for a moment followed by the crack of thunder. So not a rain storm, a fucking thunderstorm…fuck you Wasteland.

I turned back toward the ruin, looking for a place I could use to take shelter until one of my friends came looking for me or until the storm passed so I could try and find a way out of this fucking place. This is what I get for wandering off and ignoring the guards. Now I’m gonna be wet, cold, and pissed.

A loud menacing chuckle filled the air before I even took three steps. I felt a chill run up and down my spine at that sound followed by another flash of lightning and the sound of thunder. I checked my E.F.S. again, but still nopony was showing up, “Is somepony out there?”

The wind picked up and the rain fell harder, but nopony responded. Okay maybe I’m just letting my paranoia and fear get to me. I started walking again heading toward a mostly intact shop not far away. There was a loud crack, not from lightning, but from a rifle. The ground in front of me exploded with sharp bits of rock as a large bullet ripped into the cracked pavement. I jumped back and started to look around again.

“Stardust? Is that you?”

A deep voice that I recognized all too well, filled the air around me, “Guess again Courier!”

My ears fell and my eyes went wide, “Wrath…”

“Bingo, welcome to the Absent Ruins.”

He was projecting his voice like he did the last two times I ran into him. He had to be somewhere around here, but with his skills as a sniper, he could stay out of the range of my E.F.S., “Wrath I thought you gave up on killing me.”

“What made you think that Courier?”

“You didn’t do it when I was fighting Stardust and Cloak, you had a great chance then and you didn’t take it…why?”

“I was ordered to leave you to Cloak and Pride, I took a shot at you to keep you from running off that was all.”

“I guess that’s all you’re good at isn’t it, taking cheap shots instead of facing me like a stallion,” I said slowly walking down the road.

I heard his deep insane laugh fill the air around me, “Hahaha, Courier I’m a sniper, cheap shots are what we do. If you don’t like it then you should’ve killed me back at Frosty Summit. Now it’s too late, you fell into my trap and the only way you’ll get out of this is if you either kill me or die.”

“Let me guess, Stardust is with you too isn’t he?”

His laughter grew more insane, “Pride? No, it’s just me. I told you back at Frosty Summit that I was going to kill you myself. I don’t need help from the rest of this failing team of misfits. The old Pride is dead, I thank you for that, he was a monster that needed to be wiped off the face of Equis. Sadly, I can’t forgive you for what you did to Monsoon.”

I sighed then rolled my eyes, “Yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to either. Though I’m surprised you’re still working for The Sins since Pride was killed.”

“I can’t leave The Sins so easily, I’d be hunted down and killed for my so called crimes against my family. Even if I could, I’d still stay on as Wrath just so I could kill you. Now listen to me closely because we’re going to play a game.”

“Fuck your games and your bullshit Wrath, you know how this is gonna end. You can’t kill me, you’re not even close to being strong enough to.”

“Normally yes, but you walked right into my hooves, with no armor, no weapons, and most importantly no friends,” he said laughing louder, “Now we’re going to play my game. If you win, you get to kill another member of The Sins and walk away from here free as a bird, if I win…you die.”

“Fine, and what kind of game did you have in mind? Are we going to play tag?” I said in a mocking voice. Deep down I knew how much shit I was in, Wrath may be a blowhard, but he was dangerous and I had nothing to fight back with.

“Nothing so childish, all you have to do is find me and avoid my shots. If you can do that and manage to take me out, then you win.”

“Doesn’t seem fair if you ask me, I have nothing to keep me safe in your little game.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to hope you can outrun my bullets and outsmart me,” he said chuckling again.

“Did Stardust put you up to this or was it Envy or one of the others? I’m asking because this is a new low, even for you.”

“Pride has nothing to do with this, he has no idea I’m even here. Cloak gave us the orders to find you and let her know as soon as we did. None of us are allowed to kill you.”

“Seems kinda stupid then that you set this all up. I’m sure she’ll be pissed when she finds out.”

“I don’t give two shits what Cloak or this new Pride says. Tonight, you die Courier, and I’ll finally get my revenge for what you did to my brother,” he screamed, his magically enhanced voice echoing off the walls, “This area is surrounded by a magical barrier that you can’t break or get through, a little gift from a friend of mine. The only way you can get out it is if you win.”

I turned around again trying to figure out where he was hiding, “Show yourself, you poor excuse for a Unicorn!”

Another shot rang out and a bullet grazed my cheek. If it was only an inch closer, I’d be a goner, “Hahahaha, be honored I’m giving you a chance to play, normally I’d just blow your head off before you knew what hit you, but I’m a fair pony. Now Courier, prepare yourself. I am Wrath the Furious, Sixth member of the Seven Sins of Equinity…and your executioner…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Magnetic Personality: Why does everybody like you? Who Cares, you can now travel with more companions without affecting your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes. You also gain interesting dialogue with other ponies when you have more than two companions in your party, and certain boosts to some of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes depending on who you’re traveling with.

Chapter 34: Get Out Alive

“Never doesn’t mean anything to you because it holds no power over you. Now get up, and FIGHT!”

I ran down the broken street as another crack filled the air, another bullet missing me by inches. Wrath laughing his insane laugh as I tried to duck behind a crumbling wall. I know he was able to shoot me through a brick wall when I first met him, but that was at close-range, this one was thick concrete. I breathed heavily trying to think of a plan. I was far from my friends, I don’t have my barding and duster, then to top it off my weapons are still in the room back at the mansion. I knew better than this, no matter where you go in The Wasteland, ALWAYS bring your shit.

“You really think that wall is gonna protect you Courier!?” Wrath said.

My eyes went wide and I jumped to one side right as another loud crack filled the air from his rifle. The concrete wall that I was just hiding behind exploded into gravel as a large hole appeared, right where my head had just been. I started to run again, ducking around another corner then moving down an alley, “How powerful is that rifle?”

“You’re gonna have to find a better hiding spot. I’m sure you’ve noticed that my rifle is a little more powerful than before. After our last few encounters I figured I needed something that could blow you apart with a single shot. So, I went and got myself a beautiful new AMR, if you don’t know what that is. It’s short for Anti Machine Rifle, the king of all Sniper Rifles. This beauty fires a .50 BMG bullet and has a range of up to two miles and can still blow a hole big enough to kill you, no matter what.”

“Thought you needed that big of a gun to kill me did ya? Guess you’re compensating for something, pencil dick,” I said as I ran. I passed by an open door and an idea came to mind. Smiling I ducked behind another thick wall then concentrated my magic.

I heard an angry growl echo off the walls around me as Wrath yelled, “Fuck you Courier!”

Before he could take another shot, I teleported. An instant later I was just inside the doorway I passed by a moment ago. I heard the shot followed by the wall crumbling where I was before, “I have a new game, hide and seek,” I whispered as I made my way toward a staircase that lead up a, still mostly intact, building.

“Hahaha, that’s a nice trick kid. Too bad it’ll only buy you a little more time before you die. You can’t hide forever, with my perception scope, I WILL find you.”

“Not if I find you first,” I said quietly to myself as I worked my way up the stairs, hoping to find a place higher up that I could look around and see if I could spot the red unicorn.

I needed to find something I could use to fight back, I wasn’t going to be able to do anything with just my hooves. He was twice my height and way stronger than me. All I had was magic, even if I was getting better at it, I doubt I could kill him with my small range of spells. When I reached the top floor, I found myself in a large office. This building was still mostly intact and the office was much the same.

I looked around wondering if this place had anything I could use to fight back against Wrath. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the office besides useless plastic letter openers, but from the look of it somepony had been using it to hide out in. There was an unrolled mat on the floor on the other side of the desk, with a set of old saddle bags lying next to them. Moving over to it, I noticed that the stuff was really old. It seemed as if nopony used this stuff in decades, maybe longer. Lifting the saddle bags, I looked to see if anything was in them. To my surprise three things fell out, a memory orb, a note, and a sword that curved forward.

Picking the sword up I saw that it was still in pretty good condition, “Well it’s not a gun, but it’s better than nothing.”

Looking down at the note I read the faded words quickly,

G.

Sorry I couldn’t stick around here, I have too much work that I need to finish. I’m grateful that you helped me, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have survived that fall. You’ve always been there for me even after so much time and what I did. I’m not sure if you’ve forgiven me or not, either way it was good to see you again my friend. I wouldn’t have left without talking to you first, but time is short and what I have to do can’t wait. I have to correct the sins of my past if ponykind is going to survive. You were right, I was a fool, for so many years I was such a damned fool. Don’t worry though, soon everything will be better. Go back to your family, they need you more than I do. Life is crazy as hell. Don’t let my past destroy what you’ve done over the years.

I left you the sword you gave me, where I’m going I won’t need it, my power armor will serve me just fine just like it always has. I’m also leaving you this memory orb, it’s one of the only ones I was able to get back. I figured you’d enjoy watching it if you ever find a recollector. It’s the one of that night, you know which one I’m talking about. It’s one of my happiest memories, next to the day I met you. If you wish to view it, the password is easy, at least for you. It’s the name of the place where we watched the sunset when we were young.

I have to go, I’m sure The Enclave will be coming for me soon. Don’t worry though, if they find me I’ll make them pay for branding me. I’ll miss you my friend, please live a happy life and forget about me, my world is coming to an end, don’t let yours.

A.M.

“I should have guessed it was nothing but nonsense, I guess a dashite found this place with a friend and they were staying here. I just wish I could find out the full story one of these times,” I said slipping the note and memory orb back into the old set of saddle bags then putting them on. Even if I wasn’t being hunted by a Sin, I still wouldn’t be able to watch the orb.

I swung the sword around a few times, testing it out. It was light and moved through the air easily enough, the edge of it also looked extremely sharp. If I could find Wrath and get in close, this would serve well to take off his annoying head. The problem was finding him and not getting shot while I searched. I sighed and started looking around the office for anything else I could use, but apart from a bottle of sparkle cola, a few bottle caps, and an old Wing Boner magazine, there wasn’t anything I could use in here. I still might keep the magazine for another time though.

Sighing again I moved closer to the window, made sure not to show myself, and peeked out. The rain was falling harder now, making it harder to see anything. Wrath picked a perfect time to trap me in this Goddesses forsaken place. Since I couldn’t see the red unicorn or the glow from his magic from where I was, I decided to use the time I had to see if I could get a message out to my friends.

I opened the broadcaster on the Mark II and searched for a signal I could use, but the screen was blank. Either there wasn’t a signal that my broadcaster could use to pick up on, or the barrier he put up around the ruins was blocking it somehow. Either way, I couldn’t call for help.

I was about to get up and go back down the stairs when something told me to move. I’m not sure what it was, but an instinct deep down made me jump to my hooves and jump away from the window. A second later a loud crack filled the air outside right as the window blew apart. Glass flew through the room followed by the loud howl of the wind as it blasted into the office. I felt small cuts on my face as the glass shrapnel blew into me, making me wince at the pain.

I didn’t stop to see what happened, I knew as soon as the sound of braking glass filled the room along with the storm raging outside. As I ran out the door, the wall next to me blew apart as a hole appeared in it right as thunder rumbled, followed by Wrath’s magically enhanced voice, “I told you that you couldn’t hide forever.”

I didn’t even bother to respond as another hole appeared in the wall as I ran past, the bullet missing me by inches. Wraths laugh of pure joy echoing off the walls around me as I darted for the stairs. Before I could reach them, a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky and I felt something trip me. At least that’s the only way I could describe it. One moment I was running, the next it felt like something took hold of my foreleg and threw off the grip of my hooves. I tripped, skidding to the floor as another hole blew into the wall right where my head was a second before.

I shook myself then looked up at the hole, “Damn that was close.”

“How did you avoid that shot?” Wrath asked.

I got back to my hooves and found myself looking through the wide hole in the wall. Through it and the office on the other side where another hole had been made where the large bullet passed through, I saw him. Wrath was standing on the building right across from the one I was in looking through the scope of a big ass sniper rifle, an evil grin on his face, “Don’t worry I won’t miss again!”

As he pulled the trigger, something flew out from the stairway and slammed into me sending us through another window. I got a quick flash of somepony holding onto me, their face and form hidden under a red cloak. Then we landed in a pile of trash at street level. I moaned as I got back to my hooves, my back feeling like it was on fire. Luckily the trash cushioned my fall, unluckily the pony landed right on top of me before bouncing off when we hit.

I looked over at the red cloaked pony, “Who are you?”

To my surprise, it wasn’t a pony who just saved me, it was a zebra, “Stupid pony, is now really the time to be asking silly questions!? We need to run, before that sniper gets off another shot!”

“Run where?” I asked as the zebra jumped out of the trash pile looking around quickly before motioning for me to follow her.

“Anywhere that is away from the sniper,” she said starting to walk down the road her eyes searching for any kind of danger.

I followed her, my ears perked for the telltale sign of his rifle firing. Sadly there wasn’t much we could do, the rain was falling so hard now that I could barely see the Zebra a few feet in front of me. As we walked Wrath started to taunt us, his voice still echoing off the buildings, “Run, run as fast as you can, but there’s no escaping my ferocious plan! Hahahaha!”

“He is rather full of himself,” the zebra said as she rounded a corner and stopped.

“He’s a Sin, they’re all full of themselves. By the way, who the hell are you?”

“Yaksha, now stay quiet pony. I need figure out a way to get us out of this situation,” she said reaching into a satchel that she had slung under her cloak and pulling out what looked like pieces of a sniper rifle. In a matter of seconds, she had it assembled, “It does not matter if he is a Sin or a radroach, he invaded my home and he will pay the price. That scaffolding he blasted holes in was antique.”

I looked at the her for a moment, “Your home? You mean you live in these ruins?”

“Is that not what I just said? Now be quiet, he may have an uncanny ability to find you, but he still has to look for us, let’s not make it easier by talking,” Yaksha shushed me, she then stood on her hind hooves lifted the rifle with her forelegs and looked down the scope, “Stupid ponies thinking they can come in here and shoot up the place.”

I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but I kept my mouth shut as she slowly breathed in and out, her rifle slowly moving back and forth. As she did, Wrath’s voice echoed around us again, “When I started this game I didn’t intend this to be hide and seek!”

“Gotcha,” Yaksha said, then she pulled down on the trigger. Her rifle roared followed a moment later by a surprised yelp from Wrath.

“The fuck was that!”

“Damn, this storm threw off my shot.” Yaksha said with a curse.

“How did you see him?”

“His horn is glowing, he is using a spell to magnify his voice, it makes for an easier target. Like a smoker hiding in a field at night,” Yaksha said going back to all four hooves, slinging her rifle over her back then turning to run, “I suggest we run, he’ll get off another shot after that. Trust me, you don’t want to get hit by a rifle like his.”

“That we can agree on,” I said following Yaksha as she ran down the alley. A moment later I heard Wrath’s rifle boom and the road just behind us blew apart, “How many bullets does he have for that thing?”

We rounded another corner and kept running, trying to put as much distance as we could between the red unicorn and ourselves, “He is using an Anti-Machine Rifle, it seems like he is using .50 BMG rounds which normally holds seven rounds in each magazine.”

“So, he can get off seven rounds before he needs to reload?”

“That would be my best guess. Why do you ask?”

I ducked under a piece of fallen debris, followed a moment later by Yaksha right as another bullet ripped into the ground behind us. We started to crawl through the small space before I finally answered her, “Wrath’s rifle has a scope called a perception scope, it can see through just about everything so no matter where we hide, he’ll be able to see us. I think the best way for us to stop him is for one of us to distract him so the other can strike. I think the best time for one of us to do that is when he’s reloading.”

“It is bad enough that he has an AMR, but a perception scope too? Anything else you want to tell me?” she asked glaring at me.

“He’s really good at teleporting and one of the best snipers in The Enclave,” I said sheepishly.

She just shook her head and crawled out of the rubble looking around again, “He may think he is a good Sniper and maybe he is, but he has not fought a zebra with my kind of skills. Pony, we will try your plan. You distract him while I find a place where I can get a good shot.”

“Oh, so you wanna make me the bait huh?”

She grinned from under her hood, “Keep your head down and keep running, I am sure you can keep yourself alive for a few minutes.”

Rolling my eyes, I smiled, “Yeah, I think I can do that, but first can I ask you a question?”

“I think you just did,” Yaksha said with a quick laugh, “But what is on your mind?”

“Why are you helping me?”

Too my surprise she laughed harder, “Why would I not help? You were in trouble, that is all there is to it.”

“I guess you’re right, thank you Yaksha, I’m Shadow Star by the way. I just realized I haven’t gotten the chance to tell you my name.”

She smiled wider, “Introductions later Shadow Star, go distract that unicorn while I find a spot to snipe him from.”

Her cloak shimmered and she vanished, just like Sheena’s. I’m starting to understand why Equestria had such a hard time fighting the zebras now. They may not have pegasi or unicorns like we do, but they had their own kind of magic. I remembered my teacher in the stable saying something about zebras having magic fetishes, I thought she was trying to pass off a dirty joke, but now I see what she really meant. With things like the zebra stealth cloaks and the machines of war I also heard about, they had to have been difficult enemies to fight. I’m just glad the ones I’ve met so far have been on my side.

I popped my neck right and left then grinned widely while I stepped out from behind the rubble and yelled as loud as I could, “HEY WRATH, I thought you wanted to kill me! Some sniper you are!”

I heard the crack of his rifle right as I started to run down one of the crumbling roads. His shot only missed by an inch, it’s getting harder to dodge those shots of his, the sound of the road exploding from the power of his rifle loud in my ears. He fired again but I was able to duck behind another building then I kept running. Wrath didn’t let up as I ran, taunting me the whole time, “That’s right run Courier, keep on running until you can’t anymore!”

Breathing hard I responded, “At least Monsoon was brave enough to come after me face to face, not hiding in a storm taking cheap shots! Too bad nopony in The Enclave taught him how to defend against a stable pony with a fucking energy spear!”

Wrath lost it, “DON’T EVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER!”

In quick succession, three shots hit the ground near me, one getting so close it burned a line along my foreleg. I ducked and rolled as he fired twice more sending small pieces of the road flying through the air. Smiling I stopped moving and started searching around for the glow of his horn, it’d be the only thing I’d be able to see through the rain.

“Are you finished running?” he mocked.

“Nope,” was all I said waiting.

He started to laugh, “Looks like it to me. I guess it doesn’t matter, this is goodbye Courier!”

“Luna I hope I’m right,” I whispered, I closed my eyes and waited.

“FUCK!”

I smiled, “You really should learn to count your shots Wrath,” I noticed a faint greyish glow two buildings away. I pulled on my magic and teleported. The building was only a couple stories tall and not too far away. I appeared a few feet away from the angry red unicorn right as he was just starting to pop in a new mag.

He looked over at me with shock, “When did you…?

I pulled out the strangely shaped sword and attacked him, not giving him time to finish reloading or speak. He dodged the first slash, blocked my second with the stock of his huge rifle, then barely ducked under my third. The last slash nicked his ear. He cursed then pulled out a side arm and opened fire. I ducked behind a chunk of concrete, “So Wrath, how good of a fighter are you really?”

“Good enough to kill you!” he yelled, then his pistol clicked.

I started to run out from behind cover right as Wrath was attempting to reload his massive rifle again. He just slid the new mag home when a crack erupted from a few buildings away and a bullet ripped through Wrath’s foreleg. He growled in pain, his magical hold on his rifle faltering. I didn’t waste a second, I ran faster and kicked him as hard as I could in the side. He flew back, dropping his rifle in the process. I swiveled around and slashed for his throat, but Wrath wasn’t going down that easily, he dodged my first strike then kicked me back in turn.

I cursed then took hold of his rifle with my magic and pointed it right at him, letting the blade I was holding fall to the ground. He grinned at me, his eyes wide giving him a crazy look, “And what do you plan on doing with that Courier?”

“I think you know Wrath.”

“Oh do I? Tell me, do you really have the magical strength to fire that weapon?”

“It doesn’t matter, you’re done for,” I said, activating S.A.T.S. I targeted his chest and pulled the trigger. At the same time the large rifle fired, I saw a flash from where I assume Yaksha was. What I didn’t expect was the recoil the rifle had. The stock flew back slamming into my shoulder. I felt blinding pain in my left eye as the scope rammed into it and heard a pop as the stock dislocated my shoulder. I went flying backward as the rifle spun out of my magical grip vanishing in the gloom. At the same time there was a flash of grey light as Wrath teleported out of the way of each shot Yaksha took.

He reappeared behind the same concrete rubble I was using before to hide behind. I moaned trying to get up, but my body wasn’t listening to the commands I gave it. Wrath looked over at me chuckling to himself, “Hahaha, I knew you couldn’t handle the power behind that rifle. You need strong telekinesis to be able to fire an AMR. Who’s your friend out there? They’re a terrible shot.”

I laughed a little to myself just lying there looking up at the raining cloud cover, “Some zebra I met about five or ten minutes ago.”

His horn started to glow and he spoke again in his enhanced voice, “Zebra, if I were you I’d come out of hiding. If you don’t, your friend here dies,” he reloaded the pistol he had and pointed it at me.

“What’s wrong Wrath? I thought you wanted to kill me. Why use me as bait to get my companion to show herself?” I taunted.

He looked over at me, “Because I don’t believe that it’s a zebra, for all I know it’s Pride. I don’t care what Cloak said, I don’t buy that crap about him forgetting you. It’s not right that he was placed as the new leader of The Sins, he’s new blood, all because he was part of some fucking experiment. I should’ve been placed as the newest leader of The Sins, not HIM!”

“What makes you think Stardust has anything to do with this? If he was helping me why would I be all the way out here huh? I’m only here to find a way to get my friend back from you Enclave bastards,” I retorted.

“Sure you are, or you’re out here to make problems for us.”

“Pfft, I make enough problems for them out in New Pegasus, why would I need to come all the way out here?” I said as the rain fell harder, the sounds of the droplets getting louder as it reverberated off many of the channels and openings throughout the ruins, it was almost deafening. A flash of lightning lit up the dark sky for a moment giving a flat look to Wrath’s features.

He shook his head, “Either way it doesn’t matter, be it a zebra or Pride I don’t care. I’m doing this for Monsoon.”

I saw the hammer pull back on his pistol. I sighed then closed my eyes, “Is that what he would’ve wanted you to do?”

He paused for a long moment, then when I cracked my eye open (the other one was swollen shut now from the blow it took) I saw Wrath lowered his weapon just a little, “What do you mean?”

“You said that your brother was the only pony who treated you kindly even after you became a Sin, why was that?”

“He believed me, he knew that I wouldn’t have ever hurt my family. I was always an angry stallion, but I never took my anger out on my family. They were the one thing in my life that I cared for more than myself. When they died Monsoon stood up for me at the trial, he even made sure I was doing okay when I joined The Sins. He was all I had left of my old life, my only tie to who I used to be before my name was taken from me and I was dubbed Wrath The Furious.” His pistol lowered more and he looked away from me.

I did my best to sit up ignoring the pain in my shoulder and eye, “If you kill me now out of anger, you’ll become the pony everypony in The Enclave said you were. I know I killed Monsoon, but you have to see that I only did it to protect myself. If I could change what I did I would.”

I could see my words were getting to him, his hard, angry exterior was melting away, replaced with sorrow, “I used to be a good stallion…”

I saw a shimmer then a rustle of a cloak, a second later Yaksha came flying out of the darkness, her right forehoof coming down to knock the pistol away from Wrath. Her left hoof came around and slammed into his face, throwing him back. He cursed as he tried to dodge another attack, but he was no match for the quick reflexes the she possessed. She kicked him in the stomach then twirled around and slammed a hoof into his nose followed by a side kick to his head.

Wrath fell back, putting a hoof up to protect himself from another strike, “Yaksha STOP!”

She did, her hoof an inch away from the downed unicorn. She looked back at me from under her hood, “Why should I do that?”

“Because, he’s defenseless and I don’t think he’s going to hurt me anymore.”

She shrugged, “If you say so, but if he makes any sudden moves, I am going to break his neck.”

She backed up then came toward me looking over my injuries. As she did I looked at Wrath who was looking at me like I was a pony he’d never met before, “See, a zebra, not Stardust. Isn’t there any way I can repay you for killing Monsoon, one that doesn’t end with me dying?”

He looked over at Yaksha then back at me and sighed, “I just want a normal life again. I want my brother back, my family back, my old life. I never wanted to be the pony you see now.”

“Then leave The Enclave, go help ponies in need. With how good you are with that rifle, you could do a lot of good for the ponies in The Wasteland. Hell, the ponies at Frosty Summit or even The Kingdom could use a pony like you.”

Yaksha finished looking me over, then she took my left forehoof in her right one, planted her left forehoof along my left foreleg, “This will hurt, I am warning you now,” then without warning she pushed hard.

There was a loud pop from my shoulder accompanied by a wave of pain. It felt like somepony had just injected hot lead into my shoulder and forehoof, I screamed a little then beat my free hoof on the concrete roof, “FUCK!”

“Do not be a foal, I am sure you have felt worse than that Shadow Star.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” I said through my gritted teeth. When the pain passed I looked at Wrath again.

“I can’t just forgive you for killing him, but I also owe you for literally obliterating the old Pride. I’m not sure where to go from here. I can’t just leave the Sins, they’d hunt me down and kill me. If I stay, then you’ll kill me or that zebra you have with you will.”

Yaksha reached under her cloak and pulled out a healing potion, “Here, this will help a little with the pain. I also think you should just kill this pony, you never know what he will do to you if you let him go.”

Wrath sighed then looked up at the cloudy sky, as he did he pulled out what looked like a small box with a button on it that he pushed, “I’m done fighting, I should’ve just killed you when I had the chance, now no matter what I’m dead. The barrier is down, you can leave whenever you want. Good riddance I say, that shitty excuse of a leader we have isn’t a pony I’d want to work with anyway. I might’ve hated the old Pride, but all in all he was a good leader. Stardust though, pfft, he’s filled with more hate than I am. He lets it cloud his judgment and it makes him a poor leader, not to mention that he’s more condescending than the former Pride was.”

I was going to say more, I knew that with just a little more persuasion, I could get Wrath to change his ways and help me get rid of the rest of The Sins. Then a voice came out of the dark sky, Stardust’s voice, “Really Wrath, you think I’m a poor excuse for a leader huh?”

All three of us looked up to see Stardust slowly flying down toward us, his black and blue combat armor reflecting the light from the lightning in the distance. He didn’t smile, he didn’t even grin, he had that same hard look he had the last time I saw him. He landed a few feet away, his gaze falling on Wrath then Yaksha and myself, “Didn’t I say that we were not going after The Courier while she was in The Kingdom?”

Wraths angry glare came back as he said, “Yeah and…? I had to take my chance to kill her for killing my brother.”

Stardust cocked his head to one side, “Brother? You’re a Sin Wrath, you don’t have family. You gave up all your rights to a name and family when you joined up. She killed the pony that used to be your brother, nothing more and nothing less. I gave you an order not to go after her until I said so, I’m disappointed in you.”

“Fuck you Pride, you don’t scare me, you’re nothing more than a wannabe!” Wrath yelled.

In a flash Stardust pulled out his own rife and pointed it right at Wrath, “A wannabe huh? From what I see, that’s you.”

“Stardust, don’t do it, you’re better than this,” I said, still not able to comprehend my friend acting this way.

He pulled his eye away from the scope and looked at me, “No one was talking to you.”

Yaksha was watching the three of us, her hooves twitching a little, “From where I stand, I am not sure who the real enemy is.”

Stardust let his eyes fall on Yaksha, “Say one more word and you’ll be the first one here to die zebra scum.”

“Don’t worry Yaksha, I can handle him,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and sat down watching the two Sins. Stardust chuckled a little, “Well even if I DID order you not to go after her, I have to admit that I’m impressed that you were able to get her away from her friends.”

Wrath looked away from Stardust and sighed, “It was the only way I could get my revenge. If I went after her in any other way one of them would’ve come to help.”

“But you overlooked the zebra who was roaming around the old ruins. That doesn’t say much for your skills as a sniper. I’ve been watching everything going on since you set up this trap Wrath. I saw the zebra way before she stepped in to help The Courier.”

“DON’T you dare talk about my skills as a sniper CHILD. I’ve been shooting ponies since you were still sucking on your mothers TIT,” Wrath yelled.

I spoke up again, “Stardust, please stop. Put the gun down and listen to me, I’m begging you.”

He moved the rifle around to point it right at me, “One more word Courier and you will die, I don’t care if Cloak wants you alive or not anymore. I will take you to her alive if I can, but I’ll risk that Pip-Buck destroying files if you push me. I’m not going to listen to your lies, I’m Pride now, not Stardust. I won’t tell you AGAIN!”

“Don’t try kid, he’s too far gone for you to get through,” Wrath said.

Stardust lowered his rifle then smiled, “I know what to do. Wrath you disobeyed me, that can’t go unpunished. I can overlook what you said before about me, you are Wrath after all, you can’t control your anger sometimes. So, I’m giving you a choice. You can either die where you stand for going against my orders, or you can prove to me that you really are worthy of being a Sin.”

Wrath looked at him confused, “What do you mean?”

Stardust’s hateful pink eyes fell on me again, “Kill Shadow Star with your own hooves. If you do that, I’ll forgive you.”

“I’m not going to fight him Stardust,” I said.

“If you don’t then you’ll die,” he said pointing the rifle at me.

“I will not let you hurt her!” Yaksha said jumping at Stardust with her lightning quick reflexes.

Stardust dodged her strike then flipped his left wing up, hitting her in the throat. When she gagged and missed her follow up attack, Stardust wrapped her in a choke-hold until her eyes started to close. He let her go, her body falling to the ground, “Annoying cunt.”

I looked down in horror at the Zebra, “What did you just do to her?”

“Nothing yet, she’s just knocked out,” Stardust replied, “Since you don’t seem to care about your own life then how about this. If you don’t fight Wrath, then I’ll kill your zebra friend here, then you. That’s not all, I’ll go into The Kingdom and kill every last friend you have.”

“You wouldn’t do that…”

“OH WOULDN’T I!” he yelled putting a hoof on her head, then lifting it up ready to bring it down hard.

I looked over at Wrath then back at Stardust, then I sighed, “Fine!”

Wrath had the same look on his face, “As much as I hate you and The Sins, I’ll do it.”

“Good, because one of you is going to die tonight,” he said picking up Yaksha and flying to a higher building across the way, “I’ll watch from here, now make sure it’s good.”

“What will you do if I win?” I asked.

“You get to live, that should be good enough,” he replied.

I couldn’t see a way out of this, so I looked over at the red pony in his black combat armor, “I don’t want to fight you, but I don’t want my friends to die.”

“I know,” he said his face softening some, “Before we start, I want to know something.”

“What?”

“I heard what you said to Cloak before, is it true? Are you really her daughter, the one she thinks is dead?” he asked.

I nodded, “I am, her name is Grimoire, she left Stable 28 a long time ago. I’ve been trying to find her ever since I left my stable. I don’t know what happened to her, but when she left she knew I was alive.”

He smiled then laughed, “Damn, who would’ve guessed that Cloak has been fighting because she’s angry at the world for taking her daughter away, and all this time she was in a stable. I wish I could see the look on her face when she realizes that you weren’t lying.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, but he ignored me.

He jumped at me yelling, “Defend yourself, if you want to win you have to kill me!”

Not hesitating I shot a blast of magic at him. His horn glowed and he vanished before the blast landed. I twisted around, but not before Wrath’s hoof caught me in the face, the blow throwing me back and sending me rolling along the roof. I got back to my hooves before he could land another blow, dodging to the side then flipping around to kick him as hard as I could in his side. My hoof connected with his black combat armor, but nothing happened.

He grinned a mad grin at me, “You’ll have to do better than that!”

His hoof shot out and threw me back again, this time my body flying into space as I went over the edge of the building. I saw myself falling toward the ground with my one good eye. Doing my best not to panic, I concentrated my magic and teleported a moment before I hit, reappearing on the other side of the street breathing heavily from the effort. There was a flash of grey light as Wrath teleported to the opposite side of the road.

“Wrath we don’t have to do this!” I yelled.

He shook his head and started to walk toward me, “We do Courier, I don’t like it and neither do you, but this is the way it was always gonna go down.”

I took a step back wincing in pain from my injured shoulder and the blows I took from Wrath, “You’re wrong, if we work together we can incapacitate Stardust. Help me get him back, don’t be the pony you hate.”

He stopped for only a moment, “I became that pony a long time ago. There’s no going back, there never was.”

I let out a long sigh then prepared my magic, my horn glowing crimson as I started to ready my spell, “I don’t want to do this. There’s still good in you, I know it, but if I can’t make you see it then I’ll have to finish what we started.”

Stardust’s laugh echoed from the building above us, “Good job Shadow, now I can see what you’re really made of. Let’s see if you can put an end to this worthless unicorn. I hope you can, I don’t need scum like him on my team anyway.”

I ignored him and activated S.A.T.S., I fired another blast of energy at Wrath, this time it hit. The red unicorn screamed as he was hit by my concentrated expulsion spell, his body flying back and slamming into the wall behind him. I didn’t even wait for him to get back up, I pulled the blade I found earlier from the saddle bags and charged. Wrath’s horn glowed and he vanished again. This time I was ready for him, I flipped around and slashed wildly in the air.

Wrath ducked under the slash, but I still was able to leave a thin line along his cheek as he dove to my right. He attacked again, blocking the blade with an armored forehoof, throwing it back then his other hoof came up and slammed into my chest. Again, I was thrown back, my body skidding along the wet road. He ran at me again and I tried to fire the same spell at him. I wasn’t quick enough, he ducked down, skidding along the ground then flipped back up letting his hindlegs fly under me snapping my head up and sending my spell high into the sky, illuminating the clouds with a bloody crimson light.

He spun then slammed his hoof into my face, one, twice, three times, the last blow slamming my head to the cracked asphalt. The vision in my good eye flickered as the toll of using that spell so many times along with the teleportation and the blows to the head overtook me. Everything around me started to take on a strange clarity, my horn flickered and sparked. The hold on the sword was dying. With a loud ting it landed a few feet in front of my nose.

“Too bad you aren’t as good of a fighter hoof to hoof as you are with your weaponry,” Wrath said, his hoof coming down to slam into my face again, “With how much you were taunting me, I figured you wanted to pull me into some kind of trap. If I would’ve known you were this weak I wouldn’t have bothered trying to kill you with my rifle. It’s funny, you said that I was too much of a coward to fight you head on, you must’ve thought I didn’t know how to fight because I’m a sniper.”

“Fuck you Wrath,” I responded weakly.

He brought his muzzle close to my ear saying, “You should know that snipers have to be good at close quarters combat. If we’re ever discovered by an enemy, it might be the only thing that keeps us from dying. I thought you would’ve known that from traveling so long with Pride.”

My vision was slowly growing darker as he spoke, why couldn’t he just end it already? I’m done for, I don’t need to lie here and listen to this shit. I closed my eye doing my best to ignore the throbbing in my head. He was right, I thought he didn’t know how to fight because he always used his rifle to fight. I should’ve known better, I should’ve planned better, I shouldn’t have ever left my friends or the safety of The Kingdom. Without them I was nothing but a helpless mare who got lucky all the time. Not this time though, I put all my chips on one last gamble and the house won, or The Wasteland in this case.

‘Get up Star! Don’t let this fool beat you so easily, you’re better than this!’ I heard a deep voice say. I tried to open my eyes to see if somepony had come to save me, but my body wouldn’t let me, I was too weak.

‘You’re more powerful than you know Star, you come from a powerful line of unicorns. A family that would never let a weak pony like him win, get up and show the world who you are. You took down one of the most powerful Sins already, Wrath doesn’t hold a candle to him or the fight you had to suffer through to win,’ the voice said again.

“I had help then,” I said quietly.

‘You might’ve used another power to help you, but you still had to endure that all on your own. Not every pony could’ve used the power you have and lived to tell the tale. Stop telling yourself you can’t do this, remember never say never. Never doesn’t mean anything to you because it holds no power over you. Now get up, and FIGHT!’

I’m not sure what it was, but as I heard those words, almost like an echo from my misty past, I felt a rush of energy rush into me from somewhere deep inside my mind. I realized that even though Aquila was locked away, some of her power still resided inside my body. My eye snapped open as I yelled, “I’m not finished yet Wrath!”

I threw my head back, feeling it connect with his muzzle. Blood rained over my mane as I broke Wraths nose. He yelled and jumped back, “What the FUCK!”

I jumped to my hooves, a spell building on my horn. I wasn’t sure what it was, all I knew was it was something I never learned before. Mom never got around to showing me the more complicated spells she knew, but whatever it was, I knew it would help me win against Wrath. I let the magic flow out of me as I yelled, “REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!”

The spell hit Wrath right in the face, but it didn’t throw him back, it didn’t kill him, it didn’t even seem to do anything at all. But as soon as the connection was made, Wrath’s eyes went wide and a flood of images rushed into me…

I was looking down at a young pegasus filly who was hugging Wrath saying in a sweet voice, “Daddy when you get home today can we play?”

Wrath smiled, “We can play all day if you want.”

A pegasus mare walked in with a big smile on her face, “Phantom Shot, you don’t wanna be late, your commander won’t stand for it.”

More images flew into my mind, the same mare kissing Wrath under the stars and moonlight on the night he asked her to marry him, the day their young filly was born. Phantom Shot who would become Wrath playing with his daughter, his wife and daughter watching as he was given an award for saving his comrades during a battle with Steel Rangers, him beaming happily as he was promoted to captain of his own squad.

Then the images changed. Phantom Shot walking into his home to find blood pooled on the floor, his wife lying dead not ten feet away. Farther in the room stood Pride, his dark purple eyes locked on Phantom Shot as he looked in horror at his dead love. There was a small cry as his daughter stood there next to Pride her eyes locked on her fathers.

“Daddy help me please!” she cried.

“This is the price you pay for not taking my offer, if you won’t agree to become the new Wrath for me, then I’ll force you. Let this day be burned into your memory as a reminder of what happens to those who defy my will, let the anger flow through you for the rest of your days as you realize that they died because of you,” Pride said, and before Phantom Shot could do anything to stop him. A shadow pulled away from Pride and stabbed the young filly through the heart. Then Pride vanished, before the filly’s body hit the ground.

I stopped the spell gasping as the rush of memories from Wrath stopped and the magic took its toll on my body. I expected Wrath to attack me, to kill me for what I just did. To my amazement, he didn’t even move. His eyes were wide as his gaze met my own, a tear falling from one, “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

Catching my breath, I replied, “They both were.”

For the first time I saw that he was nothing more than a broken father. He had to watch as his entire life was destroyed, all because Pride wanted him to join The Seven Sins of Equinity.

“What’s taking you so long Wrath, I thought you were going to prove to me that you were worthy of being a Sin?” Stardust mocked.

I looked up at my old friend, I wanted so badly to use that same spell to help him remember, but I didn’t know how I used that spell. Even if I could, it wouldn’t fix him. That spell only worked to help remind a pony who they were, to show them memories they hadn’t lost, but chose to ignore. With growing sadness, I knew right then that the pony standing up there wasn’t Stardust. He was Pride, just with a different body. He wasn’t the Pride I knew, he was just a copy of the personality and cruelty that old Pride used to have. It would take a miracle to bring him back to us.

Before I could say or do anything, Yaksha moved. She must have been awake for a little while now, just waiting for the right moment to strike. She jumped to her hooves twirled around and kicked Stardust in the face as hard as she could. Stardust wasn’t ready for it and his body flew off the building and landed on a piece of broken concrete a few stories below.

“Are you okay Shadow Star!?” she yelled down.

“I’ll be fine, get out of there before he recovers,” I replied quickly.

“I can take him!” she said looking down at Stardust who was starting to get back to his hooves.

“No you can’t, trust me. Just get out of here and go to The Kingdom and get my friends. In the Mansion look for a black and red griffon, tell her what’s happening!” I yelled.

“I cannot leave you here alone Shadow Star!” she said.

“I’ll be fine. Now GO!”

Stardust finally got back to his hooves and pulled the rifle off his back again, “She’s not going anywhere!”

Yaksha gave me one last look saying, “Stay safe!” then her cloak shimmered and she vanished before Stardust could take a shot.

“Dammit, looks like we’ll have to cut this game short,” he said looking back down at us, “Shadow Star, either kill Wrath or come with us. No matter what, your friends can’t save you now. They won’t make it here in time.”

“I’d rather die than let The Enclave take me.”

He shrugged, “Fine, then die for all I care. Wrath, Kill her.”

A hoof slammed into my face again then strong forelegs wrapped around my neck squeezing tight. I kicked, trying to get loose, but Wrath was too strong and I used too much magic as it was. The surge of energy I felt before was gone now, all of it used up in my last ditch effort to try and save Wrath.

Wrath started to twist my head slowly, straining my neck to its limits. With one more hard twist, my neck would snap like a twig. Then his muzzle came close to my ear as he said as quietly as he could, “When you saw my memories, I got a small glimpse of yours Shadow. I saw how scared you were when Winter Frost came to get you. I saw that you did what you had to, to keep yourself alive.”

Stardust was watching us with a grin on his face, “Kill her Wrath, then get that Pip-Buck so we can get out of here.”

Wraths grip tightened a bit more, but he kept on talking quietly in my ear, “Your mother left for Los Alicorn, she took Sloth and Lust with her along with Greed. Envy’s gone rouge and is no longer listening to anything he’s told, The Sins are broken and if you keep going after them, I have faith that you can eradicate them.”

“What are you waiting for Wrath, KILL HER!?”

I could feel Wraths forelegs loosen slightly, “I know you want to save your friend up there, but you can’t. The only way to fix him from what I know, is to put him back into the machine that changed him. No magic can fix what was done to him. But if you’re as lucky as you seem to be, then maybe you’ll succeed, I hope you do. As for your mother, I don’t know what happened to her, but I do know that she lost most of her memories. Pride told me that a Memory spell back fired on her a few months ago and he was doing his best to help her piece back together the memories she lost.”

I don’t know what he was planning on doing, but from the way he was talking I didn’t like where this was going. I was barely able to get out, “What are you doing?”

He chuckled low, “Repenting,” then I saw what he was looking at. Only a few feet in front of us, just out of Stardust’s line of sight, was Wrath’s AMR, “Thank you for trying to save me Shadow Star. You are the first pony since my brother who’s ever tried, I forgive you for Monsoon’s death.”

As quick as a flash of lightning Wrath threw me forward, his magic took hold of the AMR, and he pointed it up at Stardust. I screamed as I watched him pull down on the trigger right as he brought the sights up to his eye, aiming to shoot Stardust, “NOOOOO DON’T!”

A bolt of lightning lit up the dark sky as a boom filled the air mixed with the crack of the blast of electricity. Everything seemed to slow down as I watched a smile pull at the corners of Wrath’s muzzle, then a bullet passed through his Scope, destroying it. The bullet blew through Wrath’s left eye then exited out of the back of his head, taking a large chunk of bone and grey matter with it. A stream of blood following the bullet’s path on its way out. Slowly, Wrath fell back, his rifle falling to the ground at his hooves and his body skidded across the ground leaving a crimson smear to mark his path. The chunk of his head that the bullet tore away splattered on the wall. The blood started to run slowly away as the rain cascaded the ground.

Wrath was dead, he died with a smile on his face protecting a mare from an evil pony. At least a pony that he saw as evil. His one last act in life was to be a good pony, to do better, to repent for a Sin he never committed. When time felt like it started to move properly again, the sound of the rain mixed with the low boom of thunder in the distance. I looked on in horror at the pony that only a half hour before had been my enemy. For weeks I wanted to kill him, to make him pay for the hell he put me through along with the rest of his allies. Now I felt empty, I saw in the last few moments of his life, that he wasn’t Wrath The Furious. No, he was just Phantom Shot, the father who lost his daughter to a monster and a husband who couldn’t save his wife.

I turned my head as Stardust landed a few feet away, he too was looking at the body of the dead Unicorn. A bored expression on his face as he said, “Pity he couldn’t see how stupid it was to try and kill me. Oh well, there’s only room for one Sniper in The Sins, and it wasn’t him.”

“He was your teammate,” I said, still in shock at what I just witnessed.

Stardust started to laugh, “Teammate, really? Do you think I care one bit about that trash? He wasn’t worthy of the title Wrath, just how the rest of them aren’t worthy of the titles they were given.”

I looked back at my former friend, “What are you saying?”

His glittering pink eyes looked at me with arrogance, “I’m saying that no matter what happened here tonight, I was going to kill him either way. The same goes for the rest of The Sins. I’m gonna pick my own teammates, I won’t have the ponies that used to be loyal to that freak serve me. I need ponies I can trust on my side.”

“You told me that you’re Pride now. Wouldn’t they do what you say now that you’re their leader?” I asked trying to stall a bit.

His laughter grew more insane, “Leader? That’s rich Shadow, they don’t listen to me, they listen to Cloak! She’s a snake and a traitor to The Enclave, she always has been, I take my orders from Nightshade. He ordered me to kill the rest of The Sins, get that Pip-Buck, then find out what Cloak wants with it. Then he wants me to kill her once I’ve completed those tasks.”

My eyes got wider as I asked, “If Nightshade is giving you orders then why were you trying to kill me? He used to be my father’s best friend, he swore to protect me.”

Stardust looked confused, “Your name never came up, but if Cloak thinks you’re dead then I’m sure Nightshade does too.”

“If that’s true and he finds out I’m still alive, and then you kill me, he’ll be really pissed.”

Stardust rolled his eyes, “Like I care, I can deal with his anger for a few weeks, he’ll get over it. Though I’d like to keep it from coming to that, you’ll come with me back to Whinnieapolis to be presented to the High Council. As of now, you’re a prisoner of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, if you try to resist or hinder me in any way from bringing you back to my boss, I’ll kill you and your friends without hesitation.”

“No…” I whispered.

He perked up an ear, “What did you just say? Sorry I can’t hear you over this damned storm. If it was anything I wouldn’t like lemme tell you what I’ll do to your friends. First I’ll find and old vegetable peeler and tie them up as it sits heating over a fire. Second I’ll skin them alive with it, but not to the extent that it’ll kill them. Then I’ll shove their burnt flesh down each of their throats as I sever every single one of their limbs and drop them in the river tied to concrete blocks. But you know what might be better than that? Listening to their screams after I throw each one of them ass-first into a multcher.”

I glared at him with my one good eye, “I said NO!”

His condescending grin fell then with a sigh he said, “Fine, have it your way then,” he pointed his rifle at me.

I didn’t look away from his bright pink eyes, I wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction of thinking I was scared. Then a bright green light illuminated his face, his eyes looked up for only a second before he jumped back right as a glowing Energy Spear planted itself in the ground right where he had been standing. I jumped back and looked up grinning as I saw Wind Thrasher flying down towards us, Wingnut on her back and leading the charge was Aura.

Aura landed next to me along with Wind Thrasher. She pulled her glowing spear out of the ground and pointed it at Stardust who still looked shocked at their arrival, “Don’t you even try to attack. If you do I’ll slice you into tiny little feather brained chunks.”

“Are you okay Shadow?” Wind Thrasher asked pulling out a healing potion and giving it to me.

I drank it down as Stardust watched us still with that look of shock on his face, “How did you all get here so fast, that zebra couldn’t have made it to The Kingdom yet?”

“Zebra? What zebra?” Aura asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said looking at Stardust, “Now it’s my turn to give you a counter offer. Drop your rifle and come with us, you’re MY prisoner now.”

Stardust laughed, “As if. I won’t go with you even if you could win in a fight against me.”

“Stardust snap out of it, we’re your friends!” Wingnut said jumping off Wind Thrasher’s back and walking closer to the pegasus.

When Wingnut spoke, Stardust’s eyes went wide and he took a step back, “Who the hell are you kid? Why do I feel like I know you!? Did I kick your pet mutant or something?”

Wingnut sighed then walked even closer to Stardust, “I’m you buddy, Wingnut. Don’t you remember the second night we stayed in New Pegasus? You told me I was like a little brother to you.”

Stardust dropped his rifle and pressed a hoof to his head, his eyes getting wider, “I don’t know you, but I do know you. WHY!?” Stardust started to scream, then for a moment his eyes relaxed and he looked at Wingnut again, “Wingnut? Kid what are you doing in the rain, you’ll get sick?”

All of us looked in wonder at the grey pegasus as he seemed to finally remember something. Wingnut didn’t let up, he got even closer, “That’s right I’m Wingnut, the colt you saved from the Cazadors.”

“Cazadors, I remember those fucking bugs. They wanted to kill you, but we stopped them, saved you and a filly…” then His eyes glazed over again and he howled in pain, “No, that’s a lie, I don’t know you kid. The Courier’s doing something to my head, trying to make me think I’m a different pony! STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!”

“No Stardust, it’s real. You helped me and Honeysuckle that day, you took us back to Little Hoof. Please remember, you ran away from your stable to get away from them for good,” Wingnut said getting within an inch of Stardust who was shaking and still holding his head.

“The Courier tells only lies so she can turn good ponies against the Grand Pegasus Enclave. She’s a monster who wants to destroy Stratus and bring down the good we have done for The Wasteland. She’s the enemy of all pegasi, her friends are no better, they fall for lies because she turns their minds to serve her evil ways. She kills and destroys without any thought of the ponies who get in her way!” Stardust chanted to himself.

“Shadow isn’t evil, The Enclave is. The Sins took you when we were at Frosty Summit and twisted your mind so you’d forget who you were!” Wingnut shouted making his voice crack.

“He’s right Stardust, you have to believe us. If you’d just let us bring you back to Stable 97, we could show you that we are telling the truth,” I said, hoping he was still as gullible as he used to be.

“Shadow, not a good idea to talk!” Aura said lifting her energy spear higher, “WINGNUT GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant, but as Wingnut turned to look back at Aura, Stardust’s head came back up and he had a crazed look in his eyes. His hoof came around and he hit Wingnut as hard as he could in the side of the head. The colt flew across the street and slammed into the wall. He fell to the ground, his body as limp as a corpse.

“WINGNUT!” I yelled trying to run after him.

Before I could even move Aura screamed, “That’s IT! I don’t care what the kid said, you went too far asshole! I’m going to KILL YOU!”

She flew past me, her energy spear slicing through the air. Stardust grabbed his rifle and slung it over his back as he took to the sky, Aura hot on his hooves. I wanted to stop them, but right now I was just as angry as Aura was. I was so sure if there was one pony Stardust wouldn’t hurt, it was Wingnut. Wind Thrasher and I both ran over to check on the colt as Aura and Stardust fought in the air above.

Wind Thrasher got to him first, she moved her head close to him then with a sigh of relief she said, “He’s still breathing, I can hear his heartbeat. I think Stardust just knocked him out, but he took a nasty blow to the head. We should get him to town so he can see a doctor.”

I moved close to the colt and saw the rise and fall of his chest as he slowly breathed in and out. I kissed the top of his head then said to Wind Thrasher, “Get him back to town.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, I have to keep those two from killing each other. Wingnut needs help more than I do right now, just go, and hurry.”

She nodded, “I will. I’ll try and get you more help too, just stay strong.”

I returned a nod then turned to watch the two flyers battle each other in the dark sky I don’t know how they did it, but it seemed that each collision was accompanied by lightning flashes. The storm picked up as they fought, as if the goddesses themselves were hosting this battle. More lightning flashed, thunder cracked and the ground shook. Wind Thrasher carefully lifted Wingnut up and took off to The Kingdom. Aura ducked under a kick Stardust threw at her, her energy spear slicing back trying to take him by surprise. He flapped his wings hard and darted higher flipping around and trying to kick her in the side, a lot like he did when they first fought so long ago. Aura twisted in the air then dove under him, she then flapped her wings coming up behind him her spear flying through the air as green magical energy arced around it.

Stardust howled in pain as Aura’s spear sliced a thin line along his ribs. He didn’t let the pain distract him, he ducked again then twisted around, letting one of his hind hooves knock the spear aside before she could land another, more fatal blow. He kicked her in the chest sending her flying toward the ground. I could hear Aura yelp in pain, but she didn’t let that stop her. She pulled out of the dive and started to rush toward him again.

Her spear started to glow even brighter than before as she yelled, “Try dodging this motherfucker!”

Aura slashed her spear and a blast of thin green light flew toward Stardust, it arced out toward him in a thin line. I’ve only seen Aura do this one other time, it turned her close-range melee weapon into a powerful ranged weapon. Trip Wire sure put a lot of thought into that thing. Stardust cursed doing a backflip in the air to avoid the green energy, only to find another flying up at him from the pissed off griffon.

He was able to dodge around that one too, but the attack was a hair’s breadth from taking off one of his wings. Aura launched one more desperate attack at him, the glow around her spear not as bright as it was the last two times. The line of energy moved slower and Stardust avoided it with apparent ease. After that last attack, the crystal at the bottom of Aura’s spear that normally glowed a bright green, went dull and lifeless.

“Hahaha, now what griffon? It looks like that tooth pick is out of juice,” Stardust mocked coming to hover a few feet over her.

Aura looked down at me quickly then back at Stardust, “I don’t need it to be charged up to defeat you. This spear is still sharp as hell with or without its magic. I’ll still make you pay for hurting Wingnut. I’m his bodyguard and it’s my sworn duty to protect him.”

Stardust rolled his eyes, “Why do you care about that brat?”

“He’s my friend and my contractor, I have to make you pay for hurting him,” she replied.

He shrugged, “I still don’t care, I’ll just have to kill you too then. But I think you should think twice about continuing this fight, if you really do work for that kid then you should go make sure he’s okay, not stay here fighting me. I’m not even here for you or your friends anyway, I’m only here to take Shadow with me or kill her, that all depends on her.”

“Aura you need to stop, you can’t win,” I yelled.

“Stay out of this Shadow, this is between us. You should be using this time to escape,” Aura said not taking her eyes off Stardust.

“I’m not leaving you here alone Aura!”

Still not looking down at me she said, “Go back to The Kingdom, don’t worry about me, you shouldn’t be here to see this.”

Stardust started to laugh, “You have a point Griffon, she shouldn’t be here to watch as one of her friends dies!”

Aura laughed mockingly, “I agree, but it won’t be me who’s dying today, you’re the one who’s gonna take their last breath. There’s no saving you anymore.”

“Why do all of you keep trying to tell me I’m friends with that murderous Unicorn!? Why can’t you all see that I’m not her friend, I never was, she’s messing with your head,” he exclaimed.

Aura sighed, “I wish I could show you how wrong you are…”

He interrupted, “I’m PRIDE!”

“Fine, Pride then. It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said solemnly.

“Aura, he’s not, you saw he almost remembered!” I tried to yell but she cut me off.

“He’s a lost cause Shadow, he has been ever since he was taken. This isn’t Stardust anymore, he’s Pride, you know it as much as I do.”

“At least one of you finally sees it,” he commented.

“Pride, I hope that once you’re dead you’ll see the truth. I’m sorry I have to do this, but I can’t let you keep hurting my friends and I won’t let you take her away from me. Shadow is the best thing that has happened to me in a long time, I won’t let you have her. She’s mine and I won’t let her go, not while I still have breath left in my lungs!”

Stardust’s amused look died as she said that, “I see now, you care for her more than just a friend…that’s just…SICK. How would that even work? That’s some seriously messed up, perverted, shit you got goin’ on in your pea-brained pinhead.”

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed as she shot toward him.

“Aura don’t!” I yelled, my heart beating faster as I watched her close the distance between them.

She didn’t listen to me, I’m not even sure she could hear me right now. She was too lost in her anger at him to see what I saw. Stardust was grinning as he watched her fly up at him. He reached into a pouch and pulled something out. When Aura was only a few feet away, he dropped the small metal object then turned away from her flying higher.

There was a flash of bright light as the flash bomb went off, inches away from Aura’s face. She screamed and tried to shield her eyes, but she wasn’t quick enough. Stardust flew higher, flipped around, and pulled his rifle off his back, “I’ll admit, you’re a tough opponent. Unfortunately for you, you’re still no match for me. Die you hybrid freak.”

I watched in horror as Stardust took aim and fired. Aura looked up just in time and started to dodge, but there was no dodging a sharp shooter like Stardust. Not after that flash bomb went off, she didn’t have enough time. The loud crack of Stardust’s rifle echoed off the buildings, a bullet ripping through Aura’s stomach. Another shot rang out as Stardust fired again, this time hitting her in the shoulder, another shot to her left hindleg, and a final one hitting her on the right side of her chest. Blood misted around her as each bullet slammed into her body, her beak opened in a silent scream as she started to fall.

“AURA!” I yelled as I watched my friend fall head first toward the ground, a trail of blood following her path, her Spear not far behind. I grabbed on to her with the last of my telekinesis before she slammed into the ground. I was able to slow her fall enough, and she gently landed a few feet away from me.

I ran over to her, blood was already pooling under her and she was breathing shallowly. One of her icy blue eyes rolled over to look at me as she lied there limp on the hard wet ground, “Damn…that was…a dirty…trick. I’ll get you…next time…bastard.”

“Don’t talk, you need to save your strength,” I said quickly as I pressed my hooves on her wounds desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong. You came to save me like you always do,” I said doing my best to stay calm as my heart pumped with adrenaline.

She coughed up some blood then smiled, “I’m sorry I…didn’t tell you…”

Before I could respond, Stardust landed a few feet away his rifle still aimed at Aura, “I’ll admit, she’s a strong one. Most would’ve already died from wounds like that. I guess the life force runs strong in griffons, but she’s definitely a goner. You can die with her if you so choose.”

I pulled Aura closer to me and did my best to shield her, “Don’t TOUCH HER!”

He stopped, looking at me like I was the oddest thing he’d ever seen in his life, “What does it matter what I do? She’s gonna die, that’s how life down here works.”

“Just leave us alone, please. I’ll do whatever you want, just leave!” I begged.

“No…Shadow…” Aura tried to say, but her strength failed her. Aura’s eyes rolled back and she passed out.

“AURA WAKE UP!” I yelled shaking her, “Don’t leave me please, I don’t know what I’d do without you, please I can’t do this without you.”

“Whatever I want huh?” Stardust asked ignoring my attempts to wake Aura.

I looked back at him, Aura’s blood smeared across my chest and face, “I’ll go with you, I’ll give you the Mark II, I don’t care just let me save my friend.”

Stardust took a moment to think about what I said, then shrugged, “Fine, even though you can’t do much to save her, I’ll let you mourn the freak. You have two days Shadow Star. Meet me in Whinnieapolis at The Mill City Tower alone and unarmed. If you don’t, she won’t be your only friend that dies. You know that I have the means to make sure everypony you love dies horrible yet very unique deaths. If it comes to that I’ll make sure you get a front row seat to the show, you’ve definitely earned it.”

“I will, now get the fuck out of here Pride!” I yelled turning my back on the grey pegasus who used to be my friend, my best friend. Wolfsbane was right, technology in the wrong hooves is extremely destructive. Cloak and whoever the hell leads the program he was in made him more twisted than Oricalcos, a feat I thought couldn’t be done. He literally WAS dark magic, but Stardust is now pure, sick, twisted, evil. Maybe Aura was right, maybe he can’t be saved, but something deep down in the deepest parts of my brain made me think of something I must’ve read in a book somewhere ‘There cannot be darkness without light’. That’s right, the story of Nightmare Moon’s transformation back into Princess Luna. The Elements of Harmony brought out the light hidden in the dark and purged the evil sorceress from Luna, I just hope I can do the same for him.

“See you soon Courier,” he said, stopping my train of thought. I heard him pick up Wrath’s AMR, then with a flap of his wings, he flew off into the stormy night, laughing as I attempted to wake Aura.

I could feel her heartbeat starting to fade as blood continued to slowly flow out of her. I don’t know what to do, I not a medical pony. I don’t have any of my healing potions, and I am too far from The Kingdom to get her to a doctor. My eyes fell on Wrath’s body which lay only a couple of feet away from me. He still had his saddle bags, maybe, just maybe there was something in them I could use to help her.

“I’ll be right back; don’t you dare die on me,” I said getting up and moving over to the dead unicorn. Doing my best not to look at his lifeless body, I started to dig in his saddle bags in a vain hope to find a healing potion. I wasn’t sure how much it would help, but I had to do something.

After a frantic minute of searching I pulled out a few boxes of ammo for his AMR, an old recording, a picture of Wrath with his brother Monsoon, and one healing potion. I wanted to jump for joy as I found the small bottle of purple liquid. I put the rest of what I found in the old saddle bags I found in that office and ran back to Aura. Her breathing was getting labored and she felt cold to the touch. Slowly I opened her beak and let the potion flow into her mouth. She gagged a little then finally drank.

I watched as the blood slowed and her wounds looked like they got a little better, but it wasn’t enough to keep her alive. It would however keep her out of death’s grip for a little while longer, but would it be enough to get her back to The Kingdom? I let out an involuntary sob and pulled Aura close to my chest again, “I don’t know what to do. Luna or Celestia, please, I need help. I can’t get her back to The Kingdom on my own. I can’t lose her, not after I finally realized how much she means to me. I can’t lose someone else that I love, not like I lost Silver. Don’t do this to me again, PLEASE!”

A whisper seemed to flow on the wind, “She is not long for this world, but if she means that much to you, I can help just this once.”

I opened my eyes, sure that my mind was playing tricks on me. It wouldn’t be the first time. I didn’t see anypony around, honestly, I couldn’t see anything at all. It was like somepony used some kind of spell to drain away the light around me. I felt like I was in the back of a dark alley. My heart started to race again as everything went from a shadowy darkness to pitch black. A second later it felt like Aura and I were falling from a great height, I wanted to be sick, but the feeling didn’t last long. I felt my body land on something soft, then the darkness around me vanished and I found we were in the entryway to the mansion back at The Kingdom.

Standing in front of me was none other than Sheena and a tall older earth pony buck. He was dressed in fancy cloths much like Sheena with a bright yellow coat and an electric blue mane, he had a big mustache that matched his mane and a gold monocle over his left eye. His eyes were two different colors, his right was bright orange, his left was a pale blue. They both looked at the two of us in surprise, the yellow buck saying, “Now that’s what I call an entrance! I have to say dear, I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Sheena however ignored the buck as she saw Aura. She ran down to us, “Stars above, what happened to you two?”

“Sheena thank the Goddesses, it’s a long story. Can you help Aura, she’s been shot. I gave her a healing potion, but I don’t think it’s working!”

Sheena yelled over at two servants who were watching us from the top of the stairs, “You two get this griffon to the clinic NOW!”

One of the ponies I saw was a unicorn, when they ran down to where we were she bowed, “Right away Empress.”

The unicorn lifted Aura up in her magic and they ran off down one of the halls. When they were gone Sheena pulled my head around to look up into her turquois eyes, “Do not worry Shadow, some of the best doctors in The Kingdom are here. They will take care of her, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

The buck that was standing with her before came down to join Sheena, “I have to agree, you gave us quite a fright when you just showed up out of nowhere with darkness swimming around you like a tornado.”

Sheena gave him a look, “Dear husband, please do be quiet for a moment; this is serious.”

“Fine, I’ll wait my turn my love,” he said sitting down and humming to himself.

“After we talked, I went for a walk like you said I should do. I got lost in my thoughts and wandered a little outside of the city. I ended up in some ruins just outside the walls where I got ambushed by Wrath.”

“I figured as much, Wind Thrasher already told me. I just sent out Cutter with a set of ponies to go help you. She said something about that friend of yours, Stardust. Did he do that to Aura?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yes he did,”

“Did you use some kind of spell to escape him?” she asked with a quizzical look.

I shook my head, “No, I told him to leave. I said I’d do anything he wanted as long as he let me help her. He gave me two days, said I had to meet him in Whinnieapolis then or he’d come back and kill the rest of my friends in the most horrible ways possible.”

Sheena sighed then let my face go, “That was a foolish thing to do Shadow, but it does not matter as long as you are okay. But I have to know, how did you get back here like you did?”

“I don’t know, one minute I was praying for the Goddesses to help me, then everything went dark and I ended up here,” I said getting up, “I have to make sure Aura’s okay.”

Sheena stopped me, “No you do not, you need to get checked out yourself. You look ready to collapse.”

“I’ve dealt with worse, now leave me alone, I have to check on her,” I said sternly, pushing past her.

Sheena stopped me again, “SHADOW STOP RIGHT THERE! You are in no condition to move around! You need to see a doctor, end of discussion.”

Sheena stomped her hoof on the ground hard, my ears folded back, her authoritative demeanor commanding, I couldn’t argue against it. “Fine Sheena I’ll do as you say.”

I saw her sigh in relief, “I am sorry Shadow, I did not mean for you to see that ugly side of me. You will be able to see her after you see one of the doctors. Right now, you need to let my other doctors take care of her, she looked like she was in bad shape. If you go barging in there, you may do more harm than good.”

The buck who I assume is the Emperor said, “Sheena my love, how about you go overlook things with her friend. I can escort this young mare to see a medic.”

Sheena winced, “Are you sure that is a good idea? I am not sure Shadow is in any shape to deal with your quirkiness.”

“Balderdash, she’ll be fine. You should oversee things anyway. I’m sure they can use your help,” he replied.

Sheena looked over at me with concern then relented, “Fine, but if you scare her in any way, no more candy for a week, and you know of which candy I speak of.”

I cocked an eyebrow wondering what kind of threat that was, The Emperor however grew wide eyed, “My love, I will be as well behaved as I can possibly be.”

“Good,” she said looking back at me, “I will oversee things with Aura, your other friend is down the hall with the colt. He is doing okay, he just took a nasty hit to the head.”

“Thank you, Sheena,” I said.

She turned and went down the same hallway Aura was taken down. When she was gone The Emperor smiled, his mustache dancing a little as he did, “So you must be that mare from New Pegasus my wife was telling me about.”

I nodded, “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Well then it’s nice to meet you I’m Emperor Periwinkle Punch, but you can call me E.P.P. if you want, or Winkle, or just Emperor if you so desire. Just don’t call me Punch or Yellow Dude Over There, I do have some standards,” he said joyously.

“Um…okay, Emperor would be fine with me. I’m Shadow Star.”

“Hmmm, no that will never do. Now that I think about it, it’s too formal for my taste,” he said with a frown as he twiddled his mustache.

“As fun as it is to stand here trying to figure out what you want to be called, I really don’t feel like doing this. I have too much to do and not much time to do it, can you show me where my friends are?” I asked.

“I would be delighted to, but first we need to get you checked out,” he replied.

“I’m fine, I don’t need to see a doctor. I need to check on my friends,” I retorted.

He chuckled, “You may think so Shadow, but I still believe that you should see a doctor. We don’t get to decide what we need in life, only what we want. For example,” he pulled the monocle off his eye, “I don’t NEED this monocle, but I WANT to wear it because it’s SOOO FAUNCEY.”

I sighed and moaned as a headache started to form at the base of my skull, “I need to check on my friends, if you really think a doctor needs to check on me then have them meet me there.”

“I guess that’d be rather perfect,” The Emperor said looking upward at something unknown to me and scratching his chin, “They’re right down the hall in the west wing. We figured it’d be better for the little guy to stay in the clinic for now.”

I followed him as he led me down the hall, “I’m worried about Aura.”

He looked over his shoulder, “The griffon? You shouldn’t worry, my wife may not look it, but she’s a skilled healer. With the help of our medical staff, I’m sure your friend will be fine. In times like this you can’t let yourself fall into depression, it’s the leading killer of most ponies in The Wasteland you know.”

“Apart from Stardust, Aura’s been with me since practically the beginning. We’ve been through so much together, she’s always the one who’s here to help me when I’m hurt like this. I don’t know how to help her, she’s not the one who’s supposed to get hurt.”

“You know what I think you should do?” he said as he came up to a door.

I sighed as my head started to throb harder, “No what?”

“You need to clear your mind and forget about it for now,” he said, I started to interrupt but he didn’t’ let me, “I say that not to be cruel, but because it’s the only thing you can do. Worrying about her won’t help her get better, it will only stress you out. Sheena always tells me not to worry when you can’t do anything to change what happened. So, I always try to smile and be happy, even when it seems hopeless.”

“But I can’t do that. What if something happens to her?” I asked.

“If something happens it happens, that’s how fate works. Let me ask you this, do you think your friend would’ve done anything differently just because she got shot?” he responded, asking a question that was sure to make my head throb more.

“I don’t know, I mean she’s a great fighter but even she couldn’t have predicted what Stardust did. Maybe she wouldn’t have charged after him so recklessly,” I replied.

“Maybe, maybe not. If she’s the kind of friend who puts herself in the way of danger to protect the ones she cares about, then I doubt she would’ve done anything differently. At least for now try to calm down and relax as much as you can. I know you’re worried about her, but you’re in bad shape and you need your rest. I’m sure that when she recovers, she’ll be rightly pissed if she found out you hurt yourself more just because you were worrying about her wellbeing instead of your own,” he said, almost abandoning his wacky demeanor.

“I guess you’re right,” I responded solemnly, “So is this where my friends are?”

He nodded, “Yes, they’re right through this door,” he looked over at a zebra who was wearing a white lab coat, “Dr. Zane, are you free?”

The zebra looked up from the chart he was reading, “Yes your highness, I just finished my rounds. What can I help you with?”

“Can you join me in this room and look over her to make sure she isn’t suffering from anything internally?” he asked.

“Of course,” the zebra doctor said coming closer.

The Emperor smiled then knocked on the door before opening it slowly, “I hope everypony is decent in here, if not I’m still coming in.”

When the door swung open I saw Wind Thrasher, Doorstop, and Wingnut who was sitting on a bed. They all looked up as the three of us walked in. When Wind Thrasher saw me she gasped, “Shadow, you made it back!”

I nodded, “I don’t know how but yeah I made it. How are you doing Wingnut?”

To my surprise the colt looked away from me crossing his hooves and huffing. Doorstop sighed then looked at me sternly as if I’d asked something stupid, “Kid’s been in a pissy mood ever since he woke up. What the hell happened? I just got back and no pony will tell me anything, and what happened to your face? You look like you got in a fight with a hoofball launcher.”

I walked in the room and sat on the free space on the couch next to Wind Thrasher with a deep sigh, “Hoofball launcher? Oh never mind, it doesn’t matter. It’s a long story, short version is I was ambushed by Wrath then later Stardust.”

The doctor walked over to me kneeling down to look at my swollen black eye I got from the recoil of Wrath’s AMR, “This eye looks worse than it is I’m sure. May I ask what happened? Your shoulder also looks like you took a bad blow to it.”

“I fired an Anti-Machine Rifle, didn’t know how bad the recoil on the damned thing was until it was too late. Those Fuckin’ things should come with warnings on the stock,” I replied.

He lifted my forehoof, “It looks like you dislocated it but someone reset it, quite nicely too from the look of it. How bad does it hurt?”

I winced as he lifted it higher, “I can manage it just fine, but when you lift it higher like that it feels like you’re trying to rip my foreleg off.”

He slowly moved it in a circle ignoring my protests, “I do not think it will cause you any permanent damage, but you will be sore for a couple of days. I am more worried about your eye.”

As he moved up and started to examine my left eye I asked Wingnut, “Talk to me kid, what’s wrong?”

He looked over at me and huffed again, “Did you kill him?”

“Who, Stardust?” I asked.

“Yeah, I know that Aura went after him after he knocked me out. Wind Thrasher told me,” he replied hostilely.

I tried to turn my head to get a better look at the colt, but Zane held my head in place, “Do not move!”

Sighing again I said, “No we didn’t kill him Wingnut, but right now I wish we did.”

“How could you say that!?” he yelled.

“I agree with the Runt, we came all the way out here to SAVE the Cadet not to kill him!” Doorstop boomed.

“Yeah, he’s your best friend Shadow, he’s a part of this team, we don’t give up on our friends!” Wingnut yelled louder, “Of all the ponies out there, I thought you out of all of them wouldn’t ever say that! If it was you that was taken by The Enclave, Stardust would be doing everything he could to save you!”

I pulled my face away from Dr. Zane and yelled, “He shot Aura! She’s down the hall at Death’s door right now after being shot multiple times by Stardust. He’s not the same pony anymore Wingnut and right now if I could choose between killing Stardust over Aura getting shot just because she was trying to save ME, then yes I would. I wouldn’t be happy about it, I would feel like shit for not trying harder to save him, but yes I’d rather him die than see him living on after nearly killing another friend of mine.”

“If that’s true then how did you get back here alive!? He wouldn’t have just up and let you live or at least taken you with him if he shot Aura!” he asked furiously.

“Because I gave him my word that I’d do whatever he wanted if he let me try to save her. I only have two days to meet with him in Whinnieapolis. If I don’t he’s gonna come here next and kill all of you! I’d rather him die than watch him do more evil deeds, things he would never do if he was in his right mind! He’s already hurt you, Aura might not make it, and he’s coming back for more if I don’t live up to my word! So why don’t you shut the fuck up and for once and act like a fucking adult! This is how the world works, we can’t always get the things we want!” I screamed, a single tear falling down one side of my face.

The room went silent for a long moment, then Doorstop spoke up, “Did he really say that?”

I nodded, “He did and more, he’s not working for Cloak like we thought. He’s a new generation of Sin. He killed Wrath, and wants to kill the rest of them too, he said he’s taking orders from Nightshade. It looks like that pegasus who wanted to keep me safe when I was a kid wants to make a new kind of warrior that only answers to him.”

“No,” Doorstop said, “Nightshade couldn’t be the one who’s controlling him.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he was the one pony in Stratus who wanted the program at Stable 97 shut down. He wouldn’t just start ordering around Stardust like that, he’d be sickened by the thought of letting anypony get their memories wiped.”

“Maybe he’s had a change or heart recently,” Wind Thrasher said.

The Emperor spoke before Doorstop could reply, “I’ve met that Pegasus before, a long time ago, he’s one of the only ponies in The Enclave that I respect. He’s scary as hell, but deep down he has a good heart. I think that if it was up to him, he would open up the clouds and try to get The Enclave to integrate with The Wasteland.”

“Who cares who he’s working for, I don’t even care what you say he’s doing Shadow, we aren’t giving up on him!” Wingnut shouted.

I sighed then pushed past Dr. Zane and walked over to Wingnut. He glared over at me, but I ignored him and pulled him close to me letting my sorrow show as I whispered, “I never said I was giving up on him, I just said that I’d rather he died before he did anything to Aura. Now even if we DO get him back, he’s not gonna be the same, you know that. He’s gonna have to live with the memories of what he did to his friends while he was under The Enclave’s control. I don’t want him to go through that, that’s why I said it, but I’m not giving up on him.”

Finally, the colt broke down and he hugged me back starting to sob into my chest. At first I was shocked, Wingnut never broke down like this, but after what’s been happening I could understand, “I just want him back, even if he’s different. We’ll be there for him just like we are for you Shadow.”

I felt Wind Thrasher come up next to us as she joined us in our hug, “We won’t give up. Right now though, we need to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

I took another moment, letting Wingnut settle down before I pulled away, “First we have to wait and see what the doctors say about Aura, she’s hurt badly. After that, then we can plan more.”

“What about you Shrimp?” Doorstop asked.

“He gave me two days to meet him, if I don’t he’ll come after us,” I replied.

“Then let him come, don’t let him dictate what you do. If he comes here I know with the help of Cutter and The Kingdom’s guards, we can subdue him. I was able to get into contact with my friend in Stable 97, they’ll be waiting for us to bring him in,” Doorstop said.

“Are you sure you can do that?” I asked.

He barked a laugh, “Who do you think taught Stardust most of his moves, me that’s who. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I know all his tricks and more. I’ll take the time I have to work something out with Cutter, and Laser Light too if I can find her. She’s a tough young gal, she’d be perfect to help us.”

The Emperor perked up, “Do you mean the mare with the pink mane and a black flight jacket?”

“Yeah that’s her,” I replied.

“She’s in the courtyard right now, she looked a little down when I saw her before, but she said she wanted to be left alone for a while,” The Emperor said.

I sighed again, “I guess I should go talk to her then.”

“That would be fine, but after you let Dr. Zane finish examining you,” The Emperor protested.

“Yes, that would be a good idea,” Zane agreed.

“Fine,” I responded then looking back at Wingnut I asked, “Are we good kiddo?”

He sniffed then nodded, “Yeah we are…how badly is Aura hurt?”

Doing my best not to let my sorrow show again I said, “She’ll be lucky if she makes it through the night.”

My friends all looked down at their hooves, Wind Thrasher saying in a sorrowful voice, “I hope she pulls through, I like her.”

“This is my fault, I shouldn’t have let Stardust hurt me like he did,” Wingnut said.

“No it’s not, it’s mine for wandering off. She was only doing her job,” I said, trying to put his mind at ease.

The Doctor finished looking me over and said, “From what I can tell, your eye will get better. The swelling will go down in a day or two, faster if you drink this,” he said giving me a vile of some greenish liquid, “That is a concoction of my tribe that helps with swelling and other small injuries. It’s like a healing potion, but focuses more on inflammation.”

I thanked him as he left the room leaving behind The Emperor who was sitting in one corner of the room humming a little tune to himself. For a long time nopony talked as we waited to hear something from the doctors about how Aura was doing. I drank the green stuff Zane gave me and found I liked it a lot. Soon my sight was starting to come back in my left eye, things were still blurry but it was better than nothing. After three hours passed I couldn’t just sit around waiting anymore.

“I’m gonna go talk to Laser and found out what’s going on, if I sit around here any longer I’ll go crazy,” I said as I started to rise from where I’d been sitting.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“No, I’ll be fine. You stay here with Wingnut,” The colt had fallen asleep an hour ago, “He needs you more than I do right now.”

She smiled looking over at him, “I can do that, I’ll come find you though if we get news.”

“Thanks,” I said getting to my hooves, my body protesting from the beating it’d taken. I knew it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it still hurt.

“I should go check with Sheena I think,” The Emperor said getting to his hooves also, “It was nice to meet all of you.”

The two of us walked out of the room, I said a quick goodbye to him as we went different directions down the hall. I made my way to the front of the mansion then almost ran into Laser who was just walking back inside, “Oh Shadow, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s okay Laser, are you doing okay? You kinda left us earlier without saying anything,” I asked.

She sighed and nodded, “I’m doing okay, it was just all the talk about The Enclave before brought up some bad memories and I needed a little time to myself. I should be asking how you’re doing. I heard from one of the servants that Aura’s hurt, I was coming back in to check on things.”

“I’m barely keeping it together right now, I can’t do anything and it’s driving me crazy,” I said somberly.

“What happened?” she asked giving me the same concerned motherly look that Sheena had.

“Let’s talk outside, I need some fresh air,” I said heading for the door again.

She followed me back out to the courtyard, then we both sat on a bench next to the broken statue of The Goddesses. Once we did, I explained to her everything that happened since she left during our meeting with Sheena. I left out the part about the Zebra who helped me, mostly because I was sure she had a reason for living in the ruins and I didn’t want to bring her up until I could ask The Emperor or Empress about her first. I just told her that some random pony happened to help me out during the fight. When I finished the older pegasus looked worried.

“You aren’t really going to do what Stardust said are you?” she asked looking concerned.

“Right now, I’m not sure. Doorstop says I shouldn’t and just let him come here to try to kill us all. He thinks with your help, Cutter’s, and The Kingdom’s guards, we can capture Stardust. I’m not so sure though, I saw him fight. He’ll do whatever it takes to win, I don’t want him to hurt anypony else.”

She took a long time to answer, her face looked as if she was debating about sharing something. When it looked like she came up with a conclusion she started talking, “Shadow I think there are some things you should know about me if we are going to travel together from time to time, if at all really. As you know I’m a full-time bodyguard for Nexus so I can only stick around for short periods of time.”

I nodded, “I can understand, kind of, you have a duty to a pony that’s kind of similar to a griffon’s contract.”

She smiled, “Hah hah, it’s kind of similar sure, but my story is a long one I think only Nexus knows my whole story, not like he cares much though. Let’s see if I can pick apart some key moments. I suppose the best place to start is the beginning,” She looks thoughtful for a moment

“You have my undivided attention Laser.”

“Well okay, to start, the cloud cities over parts of Equestria. Stratus and Nimbus, I used to live in Stratus, and most of what Aura and Doorstop mentioned about those two cities were mostly true. I have a husband and son still living there, they only know I’m down here, but for the longest time they didn’t know if I was even alive.”

“You used to live in Stratus? I remember Doorstop saying you used to be an Enclave solider, but I wasn’t sure before. From my understanding just about any pegasus down here becomes branded as a Dashite. Yet you still have your cutie mark,” I said putting pieces together

Laser smiled, “You’re not entirely wrong. Yes I was Enclave, I was a damn good soldier too. However, because of my family’s history of traitors and mostly disagreeing with Enclave belief, it was only a matter of time before they tried to come after me.”

I was getting intrigued by her story, “Well what happened then?”

Laser had a far-off look, sadness was apparent on her face, “Quite simply, I was assigned to scout a nearby Raider camp causing trouble for some of our soldiers, but we were intentionally mislead and showed up in the wrong place. I noticed it immediately. Turns out, the mission wasn’t to scout the nearby raider camp, there wasn’t any, it was an assassination attempt on my life.”

I was in shock, “Holy shit Laser, that’s horrible. It must’ve been hard on you to have allies turn on you like that.”

She just nodded slowly, “It was, my brothers and sisters in arms, ponies I spent most of my life with. They all turned on me, I was crushed. Obviously, the assassination attempt failed. I ended up killing my own brothers and sisters to defend myself.”

“How did you escape?” I asked, thinking that I might be prying too much.

Laser got that same far-off look again, “I almost didn’t, a heavy infantry soldier shot a missile launcher near me, sending me careening quite a distance away. The blast covered my whole body in dust and rocks. I assumed they thought my body was obliterated but I was saved by two siblings who owned a ranch.”

“Wow, you were pretty lucky from the sound of it. What happened next?” I had to learn more. Maybe it could help me discover some sort of weakness that The Enclave had.

Laser Just shook her head, “That’s a story for another time.”

I was a little bummed that she didn’t continue her story but she DID mention it was a long story, “I can understand that, just talking a bit with you is easing my mind, if only just a little.”

Laser smiled, “Thanks Shadow, let’s get back to the matter at hoof. That story I told you about myself has a point to it, I’ve been in your horseshoes before and it’s not an easy thing. Over the years I’ve been down here, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to make hard choices even if you don’t want to. I think you should go with Doorstop’s suggestion. If you go to Stardust like he wants you to, it could be worse than him coming here to attack us. You have to remember that your friends are stronger than you know. Aura only got hurt like she did because she wasn’t thinking clearly and Stardust pulled a dirty trick to win. He may be a good fighter, but he’s not perfect no matter what he thinks.”

“I know and you’re right, I can’t just let them take me in or get the Mark II. If The Enclave is going through this much trouble to get it, then whatever they want with it can’t be good. As much as it scares me, I have to have faith in all of you to be able to do this,” I said.

She smiled again, “That’s right,” She started to dig in one of her pockets, pulling out a recording, “Here, I want you to have this.”

I took it and examined it closely to see that somepony had written ‘Log 1’ on it, “What’s on it?”

She giggled, “When I first got to The Wasteland, I started to document my experiences on recordings. This is the first one, I made it over twelve years ago. When you have time after this is all done, listen to it. Once you do let me know and I’ll give you the next one. I have a lot of them, but I think they might help you learn from some of my past mistakes.”

I smiled then slid the recording into the old saddle bags I was still wearing, “I’ll do that.”

“I don’t really need them, but I figure they could help you. I’d like to see some good come of them,” she said returning a smile.

I remembered the recording I took off Wrath. Pulling it out I looked it over. Laser looked at it then at me with a quizzical look. I noticed and explained, “I got this off Wrath, Gluttony had one too when I killed him. I’m starting to wonder if all The Sins have something like this on them. Pride might’ve had one too for all I know, but if he did it was destroyed when I vaporized him.”

“I’m no expert on The Sins so I wouldn’t know, but let’s give it a listen,” she said.

I popped the recording into The Mark II. Soon a young filly’s voice came out of my Pip-Buck.

“Daddy, Mommy said that you were going on a long mission so I wanted to make this for you. This way, if you get lonely while you’re at work you can hear my voice and think of me!”

“I love you daddy, more than everything in the whole world, I can’t wait until you get back home, but if you can’t sleep I thought I would sing you a song like you do for me when I can’t sleep!”

The filly went quiet for a moment then started to sing, it was a song that I knew all too well because Vervain used to sing it to me on the nights when I would wake up looking for mom.

Hush now, quite now
It’s time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quite now
It’s time to go to bed

Driftin’ off to sleep
Exciting day behind you
Driftin’ off to sleep
Let the joy of dream land find you

Hush now, quiet now
Lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It’s time for daddy to go to bed!

“There you go daddy, now you can sleep easier when you are away. I love you, I miss you…Good Night!”

The filly’s voice stopped with the recording, but her song still echoed on in my own head. Wrath kept this with him, why? So he could remember the child he lost? Or was it because he just missed her so much that hearing her voice somehow helped him cope with her loss.

Laser Light was crying silently as the recording finished, when I looked over at her she smiled and wiped her eyes, “Wrath must’ve loved her so much, I can understand what he felt losing her like he did. Even if my son isn’t dead, I can’t see him because it’d put him in danger. I have a similar recording my son gave me, granted it’s not as cute as that little filly’s voice, but hearing it now and again really helps me cope and arming my son and husband with knowledge of me being alive and well down here helps even more.”

“I may not be a parent, but I know that pain of losing somepony like that. I just wonder why he had this on him?” I said.

She shrugged, “I’m pretty sure it was to remind him of who he was before he was a Sin. Even if he didn’t kill his family as you said. As a parent, a mother especially, you can never stop thinking about your child no matter how old we parents get.”

I pulled the recording out and slipped it back into the saddle bags, “Maybe, but I guess I won’t know unless I ask Greed about it. Maybe I should listen to the one I got from Gluttony. I should go get the rest of my stuff while I can anyway.”

“That’s a good idea, why don’t you go do that and I’ll go talk with Doorstop about this plan of his.”

I nodded, then got to my hooves, “Good idea, I’ll meet you down there.”

We both walked back into the mansion, Laser headed down the west hallway. I headed toward the staircase, then stopped when I saw Aura’s energy spear laying on the ground a few feet away from where we appeared. In all that happened, I forgot all about it. Walking over I picked it up and smiled as I examined it. The crystal on the bottom was starting to glow a light green again. Lifting it with my magic I took it with me as I headed back to our room.

It didn’t take me long to find it again, the large empty room was the same as it was when I ran away from Aura after our bath. A quick flash of the moment when she was looking down into my eyes flashed in my head. I smiled as I remembered that moment, I only wish I hadn’t run off and instead told her how I felt. Maybe things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. I shook my head then walked over to where Aura’s things were scattered on the floor and set her spear down next to them. If she got better at least she’d still have the one thing that meant the world to her.

I found my own stuff, transferred what I found in the ruins to my own saddle bags then pulled on my barding and duster. Then I holstered Dream Walker under my duster and put on my saddle bags. Once I was dressed I started to feel like myself again. Something about dawning the duster just completed me, I felt better in it as if just by wearing it I was The Courier Mare. I turned and headed back out of the room. Waiting for me by the door was a tired looking Sheena.

She gave me a tired smile, “Ah, I am glad I found you up here.”

“Is Aura okay?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice even.

“I am not sure yet, but we’ve done all we can for now. She is sleeping in the ICU right now. I wanted to find you so you could see her, that is if you so wish,” she replied.

I nodded quickly, “Yes! Is she awake?”

“No, she is not. She needs her rest, but I think she is out of the woods. It will all depend on how strong she is. She lost a lot of blood and one of the bullets was lodged an inch away from her heart. She is a lucky griffon to have survived what she did.”

Sheena started to lead me down the hall and back to the West Wing of the mansion. As we walked I said, “She’s the strongest griffon I know. If she’s made it this far, she’ll be fine.”

Sheena smiled again, “My husband is telling your friends right now that she is doing better, but I wanted you to be the first one to see her. I hope you do not mind. I would rather keep the number of ponies down so she can rest.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs and were walking down the hall going past the room where my friends were. We passed a few ponies and zebras as we walked, most of them were in lab coats, “How did you find so many doctors?”

“Luck mostly, but it is also thanks to my husband. He has a group of pegasi who do anything they can to find medical ponies to come live here so we can grow our medical staff.”

“Why do you need so many?” I asked.

“We get a lot of ponies that have either been attacked by The Enclave, were just branded, or found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time in The Wasteland. The Kingdom does whatever it can to help ponies,” she said leading me to a slightly open door through which I could see Aura, “I will leave you two alone for now, call me if you need me. I will be just outside the door.”

I thanked her then walked in, shutting the door behind me. Aura didn’t look good at all. She had bandages all over her, tubes and IV’s connecting to different parts of her, and a terminal with some wires connected to her chest was making beeping sounds. Her face though looked like it always did, only she looked peaceful as she slept. Right now, she looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. It almost made me smile because even when she slept most of the time, she always had a hard look to her features like she was ready to kick ass at any moment.

Moving next to the bed I placed a hoof on her talon, “Hey Aura it’s me, Shadow. I’m glad you pulled through so far, now I just need you to keep on fighting. I know you can do it, you’re the strongest, bravest, griffon I know.”

She turned her head a little but didn’t say anything back to me, but I felt her talon twitch under my hoof. Feeling a little silly talking to her like I was I kept going, “I wanted to thank you for coming to help me and for doing what you did. I’m also sorry for walking away again, I don’t mean when I went off to the ruins, that was just an accident. You know how I get when I’m thinking too much, I tend to wander without watching where I’m going. No, I meant earlier when we were in the bathroom.”

My next words caught in my throat for a moment. I took a moment to breath in slowly before saying, “I know how you feel about me, I’ve known for a while. At first, I didn’t want to tell you because I figured you were still getting over Trip Wire, but I knew and I should’ve said something. I guess I just wanted you to tell me yourself, maybe it was too hard for you, I’m not sure. I’ve never really had feelings like that in the past, even with Silver.”

Aura’s face grimaced for a moment, her heart rate rising a little, then she settled down. I wanted the beeping to go back to normal before I said more, “I know how you felt about Silver Snip, what I didn’t realize was that you were jealous of her, I couldn’t see it then but I see it now. Either way, I shouldn’t have left earlier when you were finally going to tell me how you felt. I should’ve listened to you and been there like a friend is supposed to, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to hear it, it was because I was scared of my own feelings.”

“It just seems that when someone loves me, bad things seem to happen to them. My mom, my dad, Vervain, Balefire, Stardust, and Silver. Something happened to them all, one way or another, I didn’t want that to happen to you. I want you to be happy, that’s why I left, but it was the wrong thing to do. Forcing you to change how you feel about me won’t make you happy, it’ll only make you sad. So, I’ll be sure to sit down and talk to you about anything you want once you recover. Even so, I have to tell you this now because if I don’t I have a feeling I’ll never have the chance to say it again, even if I don’t know if you can hear me or not.”

I sighed and took in a deep breath, my heart pounding in my chest as I prepared to say the words I so desperately wanted to say. Finally with a few deep breaths my heart rate went down and I was able to say, “Aura, you mean more to me than anyone else has ever meant to me. I didn’t know it until I talked to Sheena, but I should’ve. I love you Aura, more than how I love the rest of my friends. I don’t care if you’re a griffon, a pony, or something else, I love you so much that it hurts to think of my life without you in it. I want you to lay next to me and be there for me for the rest of my life, be that a day or fifty years or more. I’m young I know and I may not fully understand what it’s like to truly love someone, but I think I do. I think I’ve felt this way for a long time, but with everything happening, I’ve been ignoring it. I’ve been to stubborn to act on how I feel, but no longer. I love you with all my heart and all I want is to see you happy. So please get better and pull through this, do it for me and I’ll make sure never to hurt you again like I did when I walked out. I promise you that.”

I rested my head on the mattress next to her taking in deep breaths, happy I was finally able to say it to her. She probably didn’t hear me, but now that I got it out, I knew it’d be easier to say again when I knew she could. After a few moments passed I felt Aura twitch again and a slight whisper escaped Aura’s beak, “Never leave me again.”

I looked up at her, but her eyes were still closed. I could however see a slight smile on her face. Somehow, someway, I knew she heard at least a part of what I had to say. Moving close I kissed the tip of her beak then got up and was about to head out of the room. The beeping on the terminal started to beep faster and I heard a soft moan from Aura. Looking back I saw her face looked strained and she started to move around on the bed.

(Beep…Beep…Beep…)

It got faster and an alarm on the terminal started to go off. Sheena burst in the room closely followed by two doctors and a nurse.

(Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep)

“What’s going on?” I asked as one of the doctors started to check the terminal and the other started doing something to Aura, the nurse examining her on the other side.

Sheena starting giving orders to them then she looked at me, “Shadow I need you to leave right now!”

(Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep)

“Sheena what’s happening? Please tell me!” I shouted demanding answers.

She looked past me saying to a pony behind me, “Wind Thrasher get her out of here please, we need space!”

I felt the batpony take hold of me pulling me out of the room, “Shadow, let them work.”

I tried to pull away, “No, I want to know what’s happening!”

Wind Thrasher held on tighter, “I’m not a medical pony but I think she’s going into cardiac arrest, they need to get her heart rate to drop.”

I stopped trying to pull away as an even worse sound came out of the room. The door was still open and I could see that Aura stopped moving…

(Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

“Dammit, we need a defibrillator in here NOW!” one of the doctors yelled at the nurse who ran to one corner of the room, “Sheena start chest compressions while it charges!”

“Aura….” I said, “No…please no,” I said quietly as I watched in horror.

Sheena started to push down on Aura’s chest. The nurse came back over with a cart and started to hook up two gems on wires to Aura. There was a loud high pitched sound, then the Nurse yelled, “Charged to three Jules, clear!”

She pushed a button on the cart and a shock ran into Aura, her body jumped then Sheena put a hoof to her neck and shook her head, “Again!”

“Four Jules, clear!” the nurse shouted again.

Aura’s body jumped again, but still that same sound kept up its mocking tone. It was like The Wasteland was laughing at our crude attempts to defy it’s wishes. Sheena yelled, “Again, dammit don’t do this now!”

Nothing seemed to help, I kept watching as they tried again to get her heart to start. Finally, Sheena pulled the gems off and started to do chest compressions again, her voice sounding distant as she yelled for Aura to wake up.

“Aura don’t leave me alone…I can’t do this without you,” I whispered as I felt Wind Thrasher’s grip on me slacken as she too watched in disbelief as the medical staff and Sheena did whatever they could to bring back the dying griffon. It was too late, I could see it. Everypony I loved either leaves me or dies. I should’ve known better, but again I wanted to act like nothing could stop me from being happy. I was wrong, I always would be. You don’t fuck with The Wasteland, because no matter how hard you tried, The Wasteland always wins.

As I watched the griffon I loved slip away, something deep down inside me broke. I survived losing my mom, my memories, my home, Stardust, Silver, and so much more. This time I couldn’t do it, not again. The sound of the terminal continued to mock me as everything inside me that made me who I was now broke, shattered, was obliterated, leaving behind nothing but anger and sadness.

(Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

“Time of death, 9:32pm…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Tenacious Loyalty: Due to the bond you share with your companions, they will jump in to help you when you are in need of assistance. When your health drops to a dangerously low level, one of your friends will be there to protect you and fight in your stead. Be warned, this perk can have devastating consequences, keep a watchful eye on how much damage you take while in battle.

Chapter 35: Ashes

“Just Star? Where are you from originally?”

The cart hit a bump jostling me in the small cramped space. I was heading north from The Kingdom riding with one of the caravans that traveled between The Twin Cities and the land south of them. The pony who agreed to let me ride along with his wares said he could get me as far as Saint’s Parish. He refused to go to Whinnieapolis.

“A pony would have to be crazy to go near that place, Saint’s Parish is my limit,” he said sternly.

I took a spot in the back of his wagon and that’s where I’ve been for the past day, as the pony slowly proceeded north. He was a nice stallion, he didn’t even ask me for caps. He tried to strike up a conversation with me a few times, but I wasn’t in the mood and kept quiet. After a while he gave up and left me alone in my sorrow and anger. Even now I still couldn’t stop myself from remembering those last moments. The moment when I watched another friend of mine take her last breath, someone I loved. As much as I tried, I couldn’t stop the rush of memories as they came flowing into me, like a tidal-wave.

I remember the look on everyone’s faces as one of the doctors in the room where they were treating Aura said those words, “Time of Death, 9:32pm…”

Sheena cursed in zebra and pushed the Doctor back, “No, we are not giving up on her!”

“Empress, she’s gone, we need to call it. Don’t do this to her friends,” the first doctor said.

Sheena looked back at the doctor and said in a stern tone, “No, we are not giving up! If you aren’t going to do anything else then leave! If you are the kind of physician to simplify death in such a way, then we do not need you here!”

Everything else they said between them was nothing but a mumbled blur to me. Tears fell freely down my face, I swore I wouldn’t cry anymore, but there was no stopping them. Aura was the strongest griffon I knew, she was so beautiful, so smart, so great. Now she was just a corpse, as dead as the rest of the poor souls who lost in the game The Wasteland loved to play. I finally realized that The Wasteland is a living entity given life by the radioactive destruction brought on by the war that happened so long ago.

I took a step back, “Aura…no…please no.”

Wind Thrasher was also watching in horror, but when I moved back she looked back at me with tears streaming down her face, “Shadow?”

“I’m going to kill him…and he will suffer a thousand deaths worth a thousand for each death.”

She took a step toward me, “What are you talking about Shadow?”

She tried to take hold of my hoof, but I pulled away, “He killed her, this is all his fault. I’m going to make him pay, I’m going to make him regret ever touching her. Once I’m finished with him, I’m going to kill every last pony in The Enclave that he works for. I’M GOING TO KILL THEM ALL!”

“You’re upset, I understand, but you’re not thinking straight,” Wind Thrasher said trying to grab my hoof again.

Before she could, I turned and ran down the hall. I heard Wind Thrasher yell something, but I kept on running. Knowing I couldn’t outrun her, I activated my magic and teleported as far as I could. I found myself in the courtyard, I only stopped for a moment so I could get my bearings. I still haven’t recovered from my fight and the spell took a lot out of me. It only took a moment, once I felt a little better I ran past the gates of the mansion. I didn’t stop running until I reached the other side of The Kingdom. It was there that I found the caravan that was just getting ready to head north. I meant what I said, I had nothing to lose now. Stardust wasn’t the pony I used to know, he was just another Enclave Solider that needed to be slain. I knew where he was going to be, I had his old Sniper Rifle. I wasn’t going to meet him and turn myself over like I said I would. I was going to blast his fucking brains out, then once Stardust was dead, I was going after Nightshade. I don’t care what I was told about him, or if he was the pony who said he wanted to protect me so many years ago. He was the one who gave Stardust his orders. As far as I could see it, he was just as responsible for taking Aura away from me as Stardust was.

The Enclave already hated me, they wanted me either dead or captured all for mom’s Mark II, or for whatever other reason they could come up with. I’m going to give them a real reason to fear me, to hate me, to want me dead. I’m going to kill every last pegasus I could until they were all dead or I was. Either way, it was the only way I could put an end to this. It was the only way I could keep the last of my friends safe.

Now I was on my way to the city that was said to be a horrible place to go. It was filled with gangs, raiders, criminals, and zebras. Most ponies would say it was stupid to try to go to a place like that, but I don’t care. None of them scared me anymore, I only had one destination, Mill City Tower. The infamous spire that pierced through the skyline of the city. From the small amount of conversing I DID have with the Caravan pony, he told me that used to be the tallest building in Whinnieapolis, now it was the only one of the skyscrapers left standing in one piece. He also told me the ground forces of The Enclave used it as a base since it was nearly impossible to access for the Gangs and away from the normal citizens who lived in Saint’s Parish.

I wasn’t worried about that, I wasn’t sure how yet, but I’d find my way inside and hopefully be able to obliterate whoever lived there. Thanks to the Radio ponies from Up and At ‘Em, I know that Nightshade will be there. If I couldn’t find my way inside, then I still had an ace up my sleeve.

I tried my hardest to take my mind off things as I watched the vast amount of dead pastures, hills, and trees go by through a small hole torn in the cloth of the covered wagon. This place was even drearier and dead than The Marejave Wasteland, The Northwoods Wasteland looked like a place that was manufactured by the bombs for ponies to continuously die two-hundred years later. That’s exactly what it was doing to my friends, Aura was shot by Stardust, and Stardust had his mind warped by a machine invented by ponies that lived here. This land should be purged from the country once known as the great nation of Equestria, wiped clean.

I put my eye up to the hole so I could see ahead of the wagon and saw that we were closing in on our destination. In the distance I could see through the mild green and brown haze the crumbled desolate buildings that made up The Twin Cities, it looked even more horrible than the lands surrounding it. At least the Whinnieapolis part looked bad, I couldn’t tell what Saint’s Parish looked like because of the giant wall surrounding it. From this distance the wall looked pretty decent compared to the others I’ve seen surrounding Freedom and The Strip, but not as good as Trotston. From what I can tell, it was made of brick, a little mismatched but it didn’t look like it was just thrown together by random ponies willing to help better protect the town from various forms of mayhem.

We passed a sign that said ‘Now Entering Lakewood, Population 61,938. The part that said the population had been crossed out with spray paint and replaced with a skull and crossbones splattered with blood that had dried long ago. I crawled to the front of the wagon and asked the caravaneer, “Would you mind if I turned on the radio for a while?”

“Not at all, music will help pass the travel time,” he replied.

I switched on the radio and music started to play. It was a stallion singing very passionately about a mare laughing in violet rain. Why would it be violet? Was it acid rain that they were immune to or something? I guess it was because it was a song made before my time that I didn’t understand the lyrics. Even though I didn’t understand the song, it still made me feel like crying some more because of its slow rhythm. The various instruments playing in the background setting a scene in my head of me and Aura in the thunderstorm, casually staring at each other as violet droplets washed away the blood and dirt while purple lightning flashed overhead. We came closer to each other as the guitar solo led to a series of the vocalist singing “Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo,” and came into a tight embrace as the instruments played their final notes and she disappeared with a peaceful smile. The song faded and I had a strange feeling that even though things ended the way they did, she was at peace. Perhaps she heard my words before she crashed, or she was haunting me as a lonely ghost in the vale.

There was a book series I remembered reading while in school in the stable about vampire ponies and how when they died they went to a place called the vale as ghosts to spend an eternity alone watching over their loved ones. It’s a sad fate, but still a sort of peaceful one nonetheless because she could see her friends every waking minute until they too draw their last breath, bringing her to a final peace to ascend to the Goddesses to be reunited with them. I suppose if I ever want to talk with her again, I could see if Squirrel and Moose have a way to do some sort of séance.

There was a long moment of soft static on the radio while I was alone with my thoughts and then the radio ponies started to speak, “That was Violet Rain by Bluenote, our local music legend who was discovered at our very own First Boulevard in downtown Whinnieapolis two-hundred and forty-two years ago. Coming up after our next song is the late-night edition of Up and At ‘Em, see ya there. Up next we have a song by another Whinnieapolis native band, White Twilight by Midnight Owl…”

Yet another song played that made me feel sad, this one was actually about losing a loved one. The electronic sound reminded me of some of the dubstep I heard on the radio before but with far less bass and with calmer, smoother sound. I imagined myself lying in a bed beneath the stars at a midnight that looked like morning almost, a strange phenomenon that somehow let it be light outside whilst showing the vast sky of twinkling stars. As I gazed upon its beauty, stars shot away creating black cutouts in the sky of feathers revealing distant red nebulas at the tips of them. Goddesses, the radio can be so cruel to the emotions, constantly tugging on my heartstrings reminding me of the pain that ails me.

As the soft digital sounds became louder and more upbeat I turned my head on the imaginary mattress to see Aura watching the stars with me, aglow and transparent like a wandering spirit from the heavens above. I reached out to her as the song came to an end and slightly disturbed the feathers on her chest making them ruffle a bit before she once again faded away like a candle losing its flame.

A theme song came on the radio for a few seconds and Poker Chip’s voice came through the radio waves, “Uuuuup and At ‘Em! Hello everypony and welcome to this late-night edition of Up and At ‘Em, I’m Poker Chip.

“I’m Bitmap.”

“Don’t forget about everyone’s favorite griffon! Kitty here!”

Poker Chip continued, “Yup we’re here once again bringing you news, music, and other forms of media that may or may not make you smile, laugh, or cry. Anyway, let’s talk about the latest reports around the area.”

Bitmap cleared his throat, “You always make me give the bad news. Why can’t you do it this time?”

I heard Poker Chip let out a soft chuckle, “Because I’m technically the boss, I can make you do anything.”

Bitmap sighed, “It’s not like you pay us or anything, but anyway here goes. Earlier this evening a contracted mercenary griffon was fatally shot by the newest edition of the infamous Seven Sins of Equinity, Pride just outside of The Kingdom. We aren’t sure about all of the details yet but reports from Kingdom medical staff say she perished around 9:30pm and was apparently a friend of The Courier, a heroic postal service worker from New Pegasus. This comes after Envy was sighted south of The Kingdom a day or two ago.”

Kitty sounded as if she was ready to cry, “That’s so sad, and to think you knew this news and played songs like that on the radio before the show. Didn’t you think about her friends who lost her and how they felt?”

Poker Chip answered with, “Ppfftt…of course we did, we’re not heartless. Accepting is the first part of the grieving process, we were just trying to move that process along a little. When a friend of mine died music helped me get through it and kept me from drowning myself in sorrow. Believe me, my heart goes out to The Courier and her friends. Loss isn’t an easy thing to deal with, even in the death hungry Wasteland. Anyway, we should move on.”

“Alright then,” Bitmap continued, “There’s also been word that groups of Enclave soldiers have gathered around Mill City Tower as added security for an upcoming meeting.”

Poker Chip interrupted, “They must be preparing for something and someone big if they have that much security around the tower. I know Nightshade the new Council Pony is going to be there, but with so much security I’m sure there’s going to be more Enclave officials there. The question is why they would meet there and not in the clouds?”

Kitty spoke up, “Maybe it’s the safest place to do so without the risk of eavesdropping, or at least a decreased risk. C’mon, you know someone’s bound to eavesdrop no matter what their allegiances are to The Grand Pegasus Enclave. If I were to guess, it’s probably about something horrible like wiping out Whinnieapolis for good to get rid of the crime problem there.”

Bitmap finally got to speak again and said, “I don’t think they’d further destroy that craphole.”

Kitty sighed, “That’s not what I meant by wipe out. What I meant was a kind of epic purge of the incredible amount of gang members, raiders, and other criminals that populate the city.”

Poker Chip must’ve been close to his microphone because I could swear I heard him scratching his chin, “Hmm, to be honest that’s not the worst idea they’ve had and I actually have no problem with it. The concerning part though is that it’s still The Enclave so they probably won’t stop at criminals, they’ll probably kill some of the innocent citizens that live in that murderous place. Who knows, maybe they’ll get rid of the M.C.N.T. guys. I don’t like thinking about the impending demise of other radio hosts, but they need to get taken off the air somehow.”

Kitty scoffed, “I can’t believe you’d say something like that! Shame on you Poker Chip! I’m surprised Bitmap didn’t say anything before I did.”

Bitmap sounded like he was stammering a bit, “Well…it’s not like it can be helped. They’re the idiots that broadcast from that crime-riddled place.”

“BITMAP!” Kitty exclaimed, “I can’t believe you two! You guys are cruel!”

Poker Chip sighed, “Sorry Kitty, I guess broadcasting news for so many years like we have has turned us a bit cold. So, moving on from that shameful subject. Reports from up north near Branch say there’s been an explosion in a drug lab near the grain silos in the center of the town. Luckily none of the resulting flames reached the silos, but there were some fatalities, one of them being a local drug dealer and manufacturer by the name of Chemical Ice. According to residents of Branch he wasn’t just a normal drug dealer but also the town’s pharmacist. I guess sometimes ponies can have both a good side and a bad side, if you can call a pharmacist that also deals addicting drugs good.”

“Yeah, if you think about it, he could’ve been adding something into the meds he sold as a pharmacist to get more customers on the other side of his business,” Bitmap said.

“Well there’s always a chance that both businesses were completely legitimate,” Kitty said.

Poker Chip cleared his throat a bit, “Yeah but operation of a drug lab with a chance of explosion so close to the grain silos was pretty careless. If anything made a spark or set fire within a certain distance of those things, bye-bye Branch. The whole town would be blown to smithereens, wiped off the map, turned to dust. With how big those things are, they could have the potential to cause an explosion so massive that it rivals the megaspells of the war.”

Kitty gasped, “What, really!? Those things could blow up and cause destruction like that?”

Bitmap answered before Poker Chip could, “That’s right. In fact before the war, those silos exploded after some teenagers decided to hide behind them to spark up some questionable zebra herbs and get stoned. Before it was called Branch it was called by a different name, but unfortunately I don’t know what it’s previous name was. All I know is that they were about half-full and caused a massive explosion that wiped out most of the town.”

Kitty sighed once more, “Gee, that’s just terrible. Why are teenagers so ignorant? Didn’t they teach them that the molecules released into the air by grain is highly reactive to the excited electrons in sparks and fire?”

Poker Chip laughed, “Hahaha, yeah they probably did but they clearly didn’t listen as well as you must’ve when learning about it. Anyway, it looks like that’s all the time we have Twin Cities. This has been Up and At ‘Em, thanks for listening and stay safe out there. Coming up next is a track we can all bob our heads to, Instant Attraction by Daft Pony the dynamic duo from Prance. Enjoy!”

The song that came on was another love song about one lover losing the other (those assholes). However, it was a good song, I especially loved the beat at the chorus.

I thought about what they said about the silos in Branch, I guess I’m not the only one that causes destruction out in The Wasteland. Seems like there’s some ponies out there a lot dumber than I am, which seems a bit hard to believe with the mistakes I’ve made. Half the time I cause mayhem by looking at something and saying “Ooo, what does this button do?” or by making the wrong decision morally.

I also thought about Mill City Tower, where Poker Chip and the other two said Nightshade would be. With increased security like they were talking about I had no idea how I was gonna get into the building to exact my revenge on Stardust and Nightshade for what they put me through. I might be able to snipe them with Stardust’s rifle from another building. Wait that won’t work, I’m an idiot, that’s the only super tall building in Whinnieapolis. I doubt I’d be able to sneak past the Enclave troops on the ground, let alone in the sky. I’ll think of something, or maybe just run in guns blazing, “Ugh, why is this so hard!?”

“Why is what so hard?” the caravaneer asked.

“Oh nothing, just trying to come up with a plan of sorts,” I replied nonchalantly.

“Maybe I can help,” he retorted.

“Not with this you can’t. I don’t want to involve somepony innocent in what I’m doing,” I said solemnly.

“I see. So you’re planning on doing something really bad huh?” he asked trying to guess.

“Not really bad, just very-very, bloody,” I replied trying to quickly satisfy his curiosity.

“Oh, you some kind of merc?” he asked again.

“No, just a Courier delivering a package that contains death. Don’t worry, that’s metaphorical; I’m not carrying a bomb or anything,” I explained.

“Well, I hope you keep safe in your endeavor. By the way we’re almost to the gates of Saint’s Parish, I just gotta make a little delivery in Scorchville. It’s a small settlement just a few miles outside of Saint’s Parish. I gotta warn you about something though, the residents there are a little weird,” he said.

“Weird how?” I asked.

He sighed, “How should I put this, they’re a cult that follows some autonomous robot. I don’t know why they do it but the robot seems friendly enough and they’ve never attacked me.”

And here I thought there were strange ponies in The Marejave, these ponies follow a robot for Goddesses sake. It must be some robot, “How long is this stop gonna take?”

“Shouldn’t take more than an hour. It’s the middle of the night but the town should still have ponies around to receive their supply deliveries. Honestly, I don’t think they ever sleep but I know that’s impossible, everypony has to sleep,” he replied.

I sighed at the minor inconvenience, “Alright, I guess I’ll take a little while to myself, maybe check out this robot they’re all so fond of.”

***

Scorchville wasn’t what I expected, something that was starting to happen a lot as of late. It was supposed to be an abandon town that was recently populated by the robot and the cult that followed, but it looked pretty lively for being recently settled. The caravaneer was unloading supplies from the wagon as I started to stroll through the little town. I was growing increasingly more curious about this so-called robot they all followed but couldn’t find it anywhere. It was like trying to find a lost foal in a giant crowd of roided-out muscle-heads.

I walked over to one of the ponies waiting by what looked like the door to his home and asked, “Where’s this robot I’ve heard so much about?”

His face brightened up, “Oh!? You’re looking for Serendipity? Not to worry, she will find you if you are looking for her.”

“She? Her? Isn’t she a robot?” wait a sec, if I referred to all robots as ‘it’ then I might as well not call Watts ‘he’ or ‘him’.

“She may be a robot but she has the voice and characteristics of a mare. I assure you that Serendipity is a ‘she’,” he replied simply.

I let out a bit of an annoyed sigh, “You said she’d find me if I was looking for her. How is she gonna do that if she doesn’t know where or who I am?”

He smiled, “That’s something you’ll soon find out for yourself when she eventually comes to meet you.”

Ugh…these ponies aren’t just nuts for following a robot, they’re complete morons too. I said goodbye as kindly as I could without being a bitch and walked away to sit on a nearby bench by the cracked and crumbled street. I yawned and checked the time on my Pip-Buck, “3:13am, how the hell are these ponies still awake?” suddenly I felt a presence behind me and turned around, “AHHH! How long have you been standing there!?”

“You’re about to do something catastrophically deadly in Whinnieapolis,” the robotic pony said. She had a miraculously well-designed exterior, her body looked like it was made of engraved ivory and some gold detailing. I looked down to her hooves to search for where a strange sound was coming from and saw that her knees had pistons working in them, it was probably how she was able to move. I looked back at her glowing orange eyes somewhat hiding behind the black silk that made up her mane, “You must be Serendipity.”

“That’s correct, I’m Serendipity, a prototype Crusader Mainframe. You’re Shadow Star, The Courier from New Pegasus. You’re here waiting for the caravan to be ready to leave again so you can kill Nightshade in Mill City Tower,” she said surprising the hell out of me.

Baffled I asked, “How…”

“How did I know all that?” she interrupted, “Let’s just say I know what’s gonna happen before you do.”

“Am I going to…” I started to ask before she interrupted again.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you if you’re gonna kill Stardust or Nightshade or not. It’s not because I don’t know, it’s because nopony should know too much about their own future. There could be terrible consequences resulting in a singularity that would swallow up all of Equis meaning it’s destruction. However, I can say that you’ll do something catastrophic at Mill City Tower,” this constant interruption was starting to get on my nerves.

I sighed, “If you wouldn’t mind, can you please stop interrupting me? It’s a bit rude and I prefer to ask complete questions before getting an answer.”

I watched the gears in her pupils turn as I waited for an answer, “Yes, I can do that. Actually, I knew you were gonna ask that but since I did, I decided it would be better to let you ask anyway.”

“Kaaayyyyy, moving on now. Why do these ponies follow you?” I asked trying to wrap my head around the whole cult thing.

“They worship my ability to predict future happenings at a rate of 99.9%. I don’t really mind them following me around, but sometimes it can be problematic. Due to them technically being a cult, they sometimes get targeted by different factions until the ones targeting them realize what their cult is all about. Sometimes when that happens more ponies join them. Incarnate Torch, the stallion who maintains my body thinks they’re imbeciles,” Serendipity replied.

“Is he the one that created you? Incarnate Torch I mean,” I asked.

“No, I didn’t create her,” another pony said from next to me.

“Goddesses! Would ponies stop sneaking up on me like that!” I exclaimed almost comically.

He gave me a look, “What are you talking about? I’ve been here the whole time, you just didn’t notice. Anyway, no, I didn’t create Serendipity. I wish I would’ve because whoever created her was a genius. A completely mobile, self-sustaining, future predictive, crusader mainframe is nothing short of amazing. A long time ago she passed by where I was living at the time and I took immediate fascination with her beautifully crafted circuits.”

This was starting to go a little bit over my head, “So, you became a cultist to follow her because you like her circuits? Don’t you think that sounds a bit strange?”

He gave me the look that told me I should start wearing a sign that says ‘I’m Stupid’ so that ponies know not to rely on my brainpower, “Not at all, and correction, I am not a cultist. I have nothing to do with those worshiping morons who think of her as some sort of robot Goddess. I follow her so that I can learn more about her abilities to predict the future and conduct maintenance whenever she needs it.”

“So you’re a robot repair pony like from before the war?” I asked sounding like a giant idiot. Of course that’s what he was, what else would he be, her fucking butler?

“Sort of, but Serendipity isn’t just a simple robot; her maintenance requires skill and finesse in order not to damage her in any way. I know I’m at least doing something right because if I wasn’t she wouldn’t let me work on her because she can predict if something is going to hurt or destroy her,” he explained.

“Cool, so she’s like a super-calculator,” I said casually.

“Not necessarily. A super-calculator is a massive computer system that runs off of the energy produced by a special kind of spark battery and requires constant cooling via liquid nitrogen chambers. She’s almost nothing like a super-calculator except for the massive computing power she possesses to process the data used in predicting future events,” he explained further.

I hate feeling like a dumbass in front of smart ponies…and robots I guess, “Okay my slightly tired brain is starting to hurt from trying to absorb all this information. Anyway, one more question for you Serendipity. Why do you travel from place to place? From what I’ve gathered from everypony here you travel The Wasteland.”

She looked at me as if I asked a strange question, which is surprising because I was pretty sure she already knew what I was gonna ask. Maybe it was that 0.01% that predicted wrong, “I’m looking for my creator. I know he isn’t dead even though it’s been a long time since the war ended, he’s what you call a ghoul. Unfortunately, he programmed me so I wouldn’t know who he is until I eventually figured it out or he told me.”

“Why would he do something like that?” I asked, prying a bit.

“Well, it’s not as bad as you think. He programmed me that way to enhance my learning ability to figure out problems on my own while in turn evolving my predictive abilities. Also, I believe that I was a secret project he was working on when I was created and if asked I wouldn’t know what his name was. I used to know what he looked like but before he disappeared after the war, he wiped his features from my memory for some reason,” Serendipity explained in detail.

“Sound like a dick to me,” I commented casually.

She looked like she was smiling, “Not really, more annoying than anything, or at least a pony like you would think he was annoying.”

I looked around and studied the town again, “Why’d you decide to settle here in Scorchville?”

She sighed, which I didn’t know a robot could do, “So I could meet you. I was originally going to go quite a bit south of The Kingdom but there was a higher probability that you would be passing through here instead of there. The probability changed when you did something to further upset The Seven Sins of Equinity and subsequently followed by Envy. However, you did stop in the first place I predicted but weren’t conscious at the time, well not the whole time.”

It’s amazing that she knew I wasn’t conscious when we stopped to change the spark batteries in the sky carriage, “I was watching a memory orb when we stopped but I was out of one for a couple minutes when we were there. I suppose that amount of time wouldn’t have been enough for you to determine that it was a better place to meet me. By the way, why did you wanna meet me?”

“That’s an easy one, because I’m 85.7% sure you’ve met my creator at least once. Unfortunately, it seems he didn’t tell you about me when and if you met him, I know because you aren’t going to say anything anytime soon about knowing who he is,” she replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. Anyway, it looks like the caravan is about to leave so I should get going. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime in New Pegasus,” I said as I arose from the bench.

She turned to walk away and said, “You will see me again very soon. Goodbye for now Courier and be weary of your choices in the future.”

As I walked to the wagon I thought about a ghoul that I’ve met recently that could be her creator. The only two I could come up with were Mr. Tops and Nexus. Mr. Tops I didn’t find annoying but two-hundred years can change a pony, but then there was the fact that he wasn’t a ghoul, or at least he said he wasn’t. Nexus on the other hoof was excruciatingly annoying at times but I don’t think he’s smart enough to have created something like Serendipity. Plus, with how much he loves his tech he would’ve probably gloated about it or sent me on a mission to find her. She said I’d see her again very soon, maybe then I’ll have her answer, at least she helped take my mind off of things for a little while.

As the caravaneer hooked up to the wagon I crawled back into the rear of the wagon and decided to sleep a little before we got to Saint’s Parish.

oooOOOooo

“How was your day at work Stardust? From the look on your face it seems like it sucked balls,” I asked as me, Aura, and Stardust sat at the counter of a bar.

“Ugh, work was fine I guess. Designing weapons isn’t that hard or anything but my sister has to work in the same area I do and get on my ass all day about when I’m finally gonna settle down and start a family. I’m not the domesticated type, I work to get money and that’s about it. I pay rent and blow the rest of my pay on food and random shit I don’t really need,” he replied glumly.

“You have a sister?” Aura asked.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, “Yeah, technically I guess. You knew that already though, she’s the annoying spawn of my birth parents after I was given up for adoption. When I searched them out she was the first pony to turn up. Goddesses I hate explaining things more than once.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about it,” I said now curious about who this mysterious pony was.

“Bull, I told you about it when I first started searching for my real family. You were the one that agreed with Aura that there was no way Doorstop could be my real father because of all the strange verbal abuse and gay jokes,” he explained.

Aura started to snicker and almost spit out her drink, “It’s not like you’ve had a marefriend recently, so I could see why he says things like that.”

“Correction, I’ve been trying to get Shortcake to go on a date with me for the past six months to no avail. Just because a mare won’t go out with me doesn’t make me what he calls a fruit,” he retorted, taking a sip of his rum and cola.

Then from behind me Doorstop boomed, “Are you sayin’ you ain’t no dick suckin’ flower after all!?”

Stardust put his hooves up and exclaimed, “YES!”

“Bullshit, I bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose! If you ever shout at me like that without preparing for some kind of retribution, I’ll make sure you never forget to again. When you were still in high school I was gonna try and straighten out your attitude with a little in-your-face discipline but you’re too damn tall. Then I thought to myself ‘maybe life will help you learn some respect with some hard-dirty work’ but then I realized a sissy like you couldn’t handle a dirty job because they don’t stack shit that high,” Doorstop retorted.

I sat there with my mouth hanging open, “I can’t believe they actually let somepony like you adopt a foal.”

He turned on me, “I wasn’t always like this, I actually used to smile out of joy, not sick humor brought on by bringing down his ego a peg or two.”

Aura smiled from the other side of Stardust, “I wish I could bring down his ego like that, maybe he’d be a little more tolerable.”

Stardust rounded on Aura and said, “BANG! You’re dead, should’ve expected retribution…”

At that my eyes locked on Aura as blood started soaking her feathers and dripped from her beak. Everything went black except for her and she said, “Why couldn’t you save me Shadow?”

Okay this is seriously FUCKED! The fuck is going on? Why was I at a bar? I need to get Aura some help, a doctor, a hospital, something. Suddenly she was lying in my hooves bleeding out and we were both covered in dirt, grime, and her blood as I heard a strange beeping coming from somewhere. The beeping sped up as she raised her talon to touch my face and then the beep became a solid sound as Aura’s talon went limp.

oooOOOooo

“Aaahhh! No!” I shouted as I awoke from my not so peaceful slumber in the back of the wagon.

“You alright back there?” the caravaneer asked.

I sniffed and wiped a mix of tears and sweat from my face, “I’m fine, just a nightmare is all.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that. You wanna talk about it?” he asked as if he was genuinely interested in my problems.

“No, you probably wouldn’t understand,” I replied.

“Okay then,” he said.

“Sorry, it’s just a bit private is all,” I said solemnly.

“It’s alright, I have my own things I don’t wanna talk about.”

“Oh, I guess The Wasteland has more targets than just me. Are we almost there?” I asked as I looked out through the little hole, quickly getting my answer.

“Yeah we’re here, just waiting in the entrance line into Saint’s Parish. Caravan routes are pretty busy this time of year so the line is pretty long,” he replied.

“I think it’s time we part ways, I shouldn’t go into Saint’s Parish without my friends. In there I’m sure there are Enclave patrols just waiting for someone to do something so they can enforce the law, and I’m wanted by The Enclave. Not sure a fugitive would be able to get through there so easily,” I said as I started gathering my things.

He scratched his head, “That’s fine with me and all but if you’re heading for Mill City then you’ll have to go through Saint’s Parish.”

“But don’t they do cart checks at the entrances?” I asked.

“Right, I almost forgot about that. They use some pretty invasive scanners to check the carts which means you probably won’t be able to hide anywhere back there,” he answered.

I thought about what I could do to get through the city and to the easier route into Whinnieapolis, but everything I came up with sounded either like suicide, or just extremely moronic. I couldn’t just dress up as a bush and sneak step by step through the metropolis, “Is there any other easy way to get to Whinnieapolis from here?”

He looked lost in thought for a moment, “I suppose you could walk along the wall of Saint’s Parish. If you do though I’d suggest you stick pretty close to it, there’s guard towers along the walls every five hundred feet or so. If you’re walking too far away from the wall, the guards are bound to see you. It might still be dark, but not for long; plus they have night vision installed in their helmets so they’ll see you no matter how dark your coat is.”

I thought about the way he suggested for a bit and made my decision, “I think I’m gonna go along the wall. It’s too risky to try sneaking in and through Saint’s Parish. Also there’s the fact that it’s a shorter route considering Saint’s Parish doesn’t completely go under the south side of Whinnieapolis, just part-way.”

“You’re right about that one, although it would bring you closer to Mill City Tower if you risked going through Saint’s Parish,” he explained.

“I think it’s best that I don’t go through the city, I’ll take my chances going around. Anyway I should go now while I’m still out of sight of the gate guards, so I’ll be seeing ya then,” I said as I hopped out of the back of the wagon.

“Alright, your choice is your choice, safe travels,” he responded as I started to walk along the large wall.

***

I wish this fucking duster wasn’t made in the Goddesses damned desert where it’s hot all the time. Holy Princess Luna’s frozen glass dildo it’s fucking cold out here, I hate the Midwest. I checked my Pip-Buck to see what the current temperature was and the answer surprised me, “It’s only fifty-five degrees? I’m pretty sure it gets colder at night in the Marejave. Must be all this damn moisture in the air that’s getting to me,” great, talking to myself again. Maybe it’ll get warmer as the morning passes. The sun may not be visible during the day but some warmth gets through the thick cloud layer.

I could tell the sun would be coming up soon because the sky was slightly brighter in the east, and it was already past 6:00am. I just hope it gets at least a little warmer, my body hasn’t acclimated to this climate yet and I don’t wanna have to look forward to freezing my ass off every night. Honestly it’s tolerable enough to be able to ignore it for a while, but when the wind blows I get plastered with chills.

I flipped on the radio again to take my mind off of not just the cold but that I was also thinking about Aura again. I quickly switched off the radio when I remembered the guard ponies along the wall, I wouldn’t wanna catch their attention and get caught. Getting myself captured by them because of my own stupidity would totally defeat the purpose of not giving myself up to Stardust. Ugh, Stardust, I keep thinking about what I’m about to do to him and then memories of our travels together come flooding in. The day I met him he was the most sarcastic dickhead I’d ever met, but then over time he became the best friend I thought I couldn’t live without. What if I can’t pull the trigger? What if he ends up killing me and then the others? There’s no way of knowing what will happen, unless of course I was like Serendipity.

As I walked I saw the old milling city, it looked more ruined up close than it did at a distance, “Geez, what a dump,” I said to myself as I walked. In all honestly it was, it looked like all the gang violence, blast damage from the war, and constant weathering from the rain really took a toll on the old city. I could see an old stadium protruding from the skyline, there were still old ads on it that read ‘Whinnieapolis Is Our Turf! Don’t Mess With The Wolves!’ which must’ve been some leftover sports propaganda. What was worse was the smell in the air from the nearby river, it smelled like straight-up sewage. It was probably heavily polluted like most of the water in The Wasteland but with the added disgustingness of mill gunk.

There were other things that caught my eye in the city that weren’t so bad. Down the river I could see variously designed road and hoof bridges. The sight made me realize that the city probably used to be a beautiful bustling place before it was annihilated by war and what it wrought.

As I came to the curve of the wall I looked up at the guard pony at the top. It was hard to see since his post was so high up but he appeared to not be looking in the direction I needed to go, so I made a run for the nearby road bridge while I could. As I broke into a gallop I heard shots land near my rear hooves, I didn’t stop to return fire and risk getting more ponies involved. I was pretty sure he’d eventually give up and figure I was just another random Wastelander.

Unfortunately, he started to pursue me across the bridge that towered over The Great Equestria River. I took cover behind one of the pieces of concrete wall from the walking path alongside the road that had to have been knocked aside years before. I pulled out Stardust’s rifle and slipped into S.A.T.S., targeting three shots to his torso. They all bounced off of his armor as he flew closer, “Just let me pass! I’m no threat to you!” I shouted up to him.

“You match the description of a wanted fugitive that’s guilty of crimes against The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Surrender or be killed where you stand,” he replied as he aimed his rifle at me.

“I think this is a case of mistaken identity. You see, I’m on my way to Mill City Tower to meet with Nightshade. If I’m not there in time and found dead, it’ll be you who gets blamed for it. I suggest you let me pass or find out what it means to be fired by The Enclave.”

He lowered his gun a bit, “If that’s true then who are you?”

Shit, c’mon brain, think of a believable lie, “I’m Envy you moron, I took the form of The Courier to cause havoc around here and get ponies not to trust her. She’s made quite a name for herself in the west, but here she’s nopony.”

“Fine then, change back to your real form,” he said condescendingly.

I have to think of something fast if I was gonna get out of this predicament, I have to think like Envy. Cruel and insulting, “Listen you poor excuse for a worm. Do you know how hard it is for me to change forms? Not to mention that it would blow my cover for anypony that might be watching us right now. I can’t believe they let an idiot like you into The Enclave, maybe that’s why they gave you shitty guard duty. However, I guess I could shift into a dragon and bake you in your armor. It might blow my cover but I could easily sniff out anyone close by and eliminate them.”

“Alright Fine, you can pass. I don’t feel like dying by the hooves of a Sin anytime soon.”

Yes! It worked! I’m a fucking genius! “Good, at least you’re not as stupid as you look,” I don’t know what he looks like but it sounded like something Envy would say.

I started walking across the bridge again as he flew back to his post. Water from the river rushed under it as it clashed with rocks, water misted on my face. My Pip-Buck clicked every time I felt a sprinkle of the disgusting water touch me, but I didn’t walk any faster. Right now, things like radiation were the least of my issues to worry about. All I cared about was exacting revenge for my dead friend and completely annihilating The Enclave in any way I could. Ahead of me was a treacherous place filled with violence, despair, gangs, and the smell of decay, but behind me wasn’t much better. Somepony like me walking into Saint’s Parish is surely certain death, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. This whole place was a living hell and a river of death ran through it.

As I approached the other end of the bridge I saw a sign that read ‘Welcome to Whinnieapolis’, under the name of the city the word ‘Murderapolis’ was sprayed in red paint, “I guess this place is pretty well known for something, I hope it’s nice here,” I said to myself sarcastically.

Then a voice said from behind me, “You can’t be serious. Whinnieapolis is a hellhole.”

I turned to look at the floating robot, “It’s been a while Watcher, been busy, or could you just not find me?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the only pony to come out of a stable and cause havoc for others in The Wasteland,” he replied awkwardly, “Where are your friends? I thought you always traveled with at least one of them.”

I gritted my teeth but held back my anger as I answered him, “Two of them are dead, one of them is brainwashed, and the others are probably hopelessly worrying about me back in The Kingdom. I came here alone for vengeance, I want to kill the ones responsible for killing off my friends one-by-one.”

He sighed, “Maybe I was wrong about you when we first met. Just a few weeks ago, you looked so innocent and lost that I wanted to help you find your way. I was proud when you saved those foals from that swarm of poisonous insects, but to see you now and hear that all you seek is vengeance, it’s disappointing.”

I scoffed, “Sorry I’m such a disappointment to somepony who won’t even come and talk to me face to face. What kind of coward hacks into robots to try and motivate ponies fresh out of stables anyway?”

“The kind of coward that has something important to protect. Unlike you, I don’t think about getting revenge for my dead friends. Not because I don’t want revenge, but because it would be useless. Things like that cause further misery and more destruction, both self-destruction and physical destruction. Ponies or any other race that think revenge is the answer, are the reason The Wasteland is as bad as it is. Radiation, taint, and mutated monsters are just icing on the cake,” he replied sternly.

I can’t believe he just compared me to the fucking Wasteland, “So I’m just another hole in the head for the world now, is that it? Everyone I care about dies and I’m just supposed to blow it off like you to be considered morally acceptable? What kind of horrible fucked up bullshit logic is that huh?”

“The reasonable kind that keeps ponies sane,” he said solemnly, “A long time ago, six of my best friends died, one of whom I loved dearly and another who was like a mother to me. For the longest time I sought to avenge their deaths by killing the parties responsible, but after taking countless lives I realized it was in vain. No amount of killing would bring my friends back.”

I am such a bitch. I didn’t even think about him losing anypony in the past, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…”

“That you’re not the only pony with something to lose?” he interrupted.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I was just so frustrated that I didn’t even think about what you must’ve lost over the years out here. I was never cut-out to be what I am, all I was ever good at was being the depressed orphan filly who couldn’t stand up for herself in front of authority,” I replied.

“Yeah, I heard about Stable 28, quite the bloodbath. Something about it makes me think it’s part of why you’re taking this path. The way ponies are talking about how you cast out the former Overmare and watched her get eaten by ghouls, and you didn’t even put her out of her misery,” he said flatly as the robot bobbed up and down.

“She got what she deserved in the end; ponies like her need to be cleansed from this world. This world is rotten, all it brings is death and misery upon the dwellers that live in it. Death is the only rightful punishment for anypony who kills, whether it be for caps, hunger, murder, or for their own personal gain,” I said in the most serious tone I could without yelling in his metal face.

He sighed again, “By that logic you’re no better than them. How many ponies did you kill and for what reason?”

I froze at that, did watcher somehow find out about my clash with Pride and the innocent ponies in Appleton. “What do you mean watcher? Why did you say it like that.”

The sprite-bot watcher was using to communicate with me bobbed up and down before he answered. “I hope someday you’ll see that the path you’ve chosen is the wrong one, but for now you’re blinded with rage like I used to be. Open your eyes and take a look at yourself, then tell me that you’re not becoming the thing you want to destroy.”

“I will NEVER be a senseless murderer like the rest of The Wasteland!” I yelled.

I can hear a chuckle come from him though it sounded tinny “We’ll see. Shadow If you continue to…” he started to say before jaunty tunes came out of the sprite-bot again.

“Always conveniently getting cut-off aren’t you Watcher,” I said quietly to myself as I turned around and kept walking toward my goal.

***

The inner city was just as horrible as the outside, it looked, dark, dank, and decrepit. I’ve already killed at least three groups of raiders and a small gathering of zebra gangsters who were effectively doing what I found out was called ‘curb stomping’ a random stallion. I wasn’t able to save him because his head was essentially a pile of chunky brain matter and pieces of skull, but he did have some ammunition I could use and a healing potion or two.

It was finally starting to get warmer now, either that or I was getting used to the temperature. The faint light coming through the clouds cast shadows off of the buildings giving the illusion that it was still early morning, but it was now getting closer to noon. If I don’t make it to Mill City Tower in time, I might miss my opportunity to strike. I could see the massive spire in the distance towering over me like it was trying to intimidate me into turning around. As I looked at it I thought about what Watcher said. I tried putting his words out of my head but they kept worming their way back in and making me overthink what was to come.

Back in Scorchville, that robot Serendipity said I was going to do something catastrophically deadly, and now Watcher was saying I’m heading down the path of evil like what I sought to destroy. Could they be right? Am I turning into a monster? In a way I guess I am a monster, Aquila is sitting back waiting for her moment to break through the barrier again and kill everything in sight. Is that what Serendipity was talking about when she said I was gonna do something horrible in Whinnieapolis? Is she finally gonna take over for good, or is it what I’m about to do that’s the bad thing?

Fighting with my own thoughts isn’t getting me anywhere. All it’s doing is giving me cold hooves about going to Mill City Tower and confusing me to no end. If I do what I plan on doing, it means completely giving up on my best friend, but it also means vitally hurting The Enclave. I know I’ve already said that there’s no saving Stardust, but something deep down is telling me that I should still try to save him if I can. The thing that’s bothering me about it though is that I have no idea how to get him to that stupid memory machine in Stable 97 without dying in the process or killing him by accident when trying to incapacitate him.

I should’ve brought somepony with me instead of running off on my own, I can guarantee they think I’m either dead, or doing something stupid. I think I’ll go with the latter. Stupid is what I’m good at, why stop now?

“Hey yo, lil filly. You lookin’ a bit lost, anythin’ I could do to help?” a pony, wait no, a zebra asked from behind me. His voice was strange, he didn’t have the normal accent most zebras I’ve met have.

“Why should I trust you? With my luck you’ll probably lure me back to some friends of yours so you can make a game out of killing me. Trying to hurt me is something I’m going to advise you against doing, it’ll end badly for you and your friends,” I replied.

He smiled like I wasn’t serious, “Nah, nuttin’ like that. I ain’t one of those marks, thinkin’ I’m some sorta badass cause I’m in a gang. I just live around here with my momma and saw ya when I was scavenging for some things. My name’s Khalid, what’s yours?”

I thought about my answer for a second, he seemed pretty innocent, but ponies like Envy have deceived me before, “Shadow Star, that’s my name. I’m a courier delivering a package to Mill City Tower.”

He laughed again, “Yeah, sure ya are. Ain’t nopony go to Mill City Tower for nuttin’ like that. Only reason ponies or sometimes zebras like yours truly go there is to try somethin’ stupid, like bustin’ a cap in a few of them Enclave muthafuckas. I’ll tell ya right now that it’s suicide tryin’ to do that, but I ain’t gonna stop ya; suicide is your choice.”

Something about him reminded me of Stardust before he got taken, maybe it was the way he referred to himself as ‘yours truly’, “You’re a perceptive one, yeah I’m gonna try my hoof at assassinating Nightshade and possibly Pride of The Seven Sins. The only difference between me and other ponies who’ve tried doing something equally as dumb is that I’m known for being heroic in the west. They call me The Courier where I’m from and apparently a good guy in the eyes of the citizens of The Marejave Wasteland.”

“You gotta be shittin’ wit’ me right now, YOU’RE The Courier? Tiny lil bitch like you? I must be trippin’ err somethin’ to be hearin’ this shit,” he said as he dramatically grabbed both sides of his head with his hooves.

I sighed, “Yes I’m The Courier, so what?”

He stopped what he was doing and replied, “I ain’t never heard of yo tiny ass.”

My jaw dropped straight to the ground, “You’ve never heard of me? Then what was all that just now?”

He smiled, “I was just messin’ witcha, that’s all. In a place like this it’s hard to get a laugh every once in a while cause everyone’s so damn depressed or wantin’ to cap one another over somthin’ stupid like turf. Tell ya what, since you’re apparently some great heroine, I’ll help ya get to Mill City Tower.”

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

He sighed and shook his head, “I dunno, it might be askin’ too much.”

I gave him an annoyed look and said, “Just spit it out.”

He sighed again, “Could ya help me and my momma get to The Kingdom? I can handle myself just fine in The Wastes, but my momma ain’t like me. She don’t have the confidence to jump on outta here and risk upsetting our local gang leader. She’s also not much use when it comes to a lil ol’ clap clap neither if ya know what I mean. She couldn’t smoke the broad side of a barn with a gat if she tried.”

I gaped at him like an idiot, “What? Clap clap? Smoking a barn? Gat? I don’t follow.

He shook his head, “She ain’t one for conflict and can’t shoot shit if she tried. Now are ya gonna help me or what?”

“Sure, I’ll see what I can do about getting you and your mother to The Kingdom. That’s if I survive what happens at Mill City Tower in the next few hours,” I replied, thinking that if anything I can most likely just find a caravaneer for them to ride with outside of the city.

He rushed over to me and hugged me, “Thank you so much, I can’t wait to tell my momma we goin’ to The Kingdom and gettin’ outta this shithole.”

I gingerly pushed him away as not to offend him, “You said you could hold your own in a fight, how good?”

He had that weird ‘aw shucks’ look and honestly it didn’t suit a zebra such as himself, it looked weird. Then his demeanor totally changed to a false tough guy exterior, “Killin’ bad guys be my business, and business be fuckin’ crackin’.”

It was one of those moments where my mouth moved before my brain could tell it what to say, “So are you a bounty hunter or a mercenary err something?”

His reaction was priceless, “WHAT!? Nah, I ain’t nothin’ like that, I just know how not to get shot when bullets fly. Had to learn how on account of the OGs recruitin’ lil zebras and such; if ya refuse to join the gang then you’re likely to be killed instead. As a matter of fact, I know where in the area they operate so we can go on a bit of a detour from the way you’re headin’.”

“Detour?” I asked.

“Y’know, goin’ around the gang infested areas so we can avoid gettin’ in a skirmish with ‘em. The way you’re goin’ spells all kinds of trouble for ya, you probably would’ve walked right into their territory and gotten capped because they don’t like ponies so much. They especially hate them Enclave assholes cause they’re tryin’ to run them outta their turf,” he replied as he started leading me onward toward the tower.

“Oh, I get it now. I’m glad I crossed paths with you Khalid; I probably would’ve been late for my quote on quote delivery,” I said.

He smiled, “Yeah, you’re deliverin’ somethin’ alright; a message to those muthafuckas in the sky that think they can push us around like lil bitches and expect us to follow their rules. No offense about the lil thing, I ain’t making fun of your height. It’s just a figure of speech is all.

Northern Wastelanders and their figures of speech, “It’s fine, a good friend of mine used to call me all sorts of names regarding my height. I’m used to things like that, in fact I miss being called shrimp and half pint by two of my friends.”

“Miss? They go somewhere?” he asked.

“Sort of…one passed away last night, and the other is out of his mind,” I replied somberly.

He looked shocked, “What? Last night?”

“Yeah, my other friend, he fatally injured her in battle and she died without knowing how much I cared about her,” I said holding back tears.

He looked away, “That’s some fucked up shit right there. This other friend of yours must be seriously wacked if he’d go and do somethin’ like that. Reminds me of what happened to my father. See, when I was real young, the gang that controls the area we live in now was just gaining territory there. They tried recruiting him and his best friend Karim, but he said no. Then one day Karim comes to my home with my dad on his back and said he was murdered by the OGs for refusing them. Later I found out that it was Karim that killed him, as initiation into the gang.”

First, he comes on so strong with how much he loves his mom, and now he’s telling me this. Damn he was pulling on my heart strings hard, I wanted to give him a hug so badly, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. How could he kill his own best friend like that?”

He sighed and looked down at his hooves as he walked, “I dunno, but he didn’t last much longer after that. One of the other gangs set up a meetin’ with a couple of the OGs to discuss terms err some shit and it ended up bein’ a trap. They set some fragile boards on top of a hole filled with taint and covered it with dirt. When they all came to the meetin’ and gathered on that area, the board broke and they all fell in. Muthafucka deserved worse for what he did.”

“At least he got what was coming to him in the end,” I said trying to lift his spirits a little.

He looked straight ahead again as he said, “Yeah, but I wish I could’ve capped the muthafucka myself. I guess it’s all for the best that he went out the way he did though, instead of me doin’ it at only twelve years old. If I would’ve done the deed, I’m sure I would’ve turned out a lot worse.”

That got me thinking again about my situation, I needed a distraction, “OG, what is that? You keep mentioning them and I have no idea what they are.”

“They’re called original gangters and they’re members of the gang from when it was founded or somethin’ like that, I was never really sure myself cause I don’t roll with any gangs. All I know is that they have quite a bit of control in the gang,” he explained.

“Oh, that makes sense I guess. Why didn’t you ever join a gang?”

He gave me a funny look, “The violence in this city is what keeps further destroying it and I don’t wanna be a part of that. Plus, there’s the fact that it’d kill my momma if I joined a gang, and I love my momma, I don’t wanna disappoint her like that.”

“I wish it was the same with my mother, she’s like my friend. She doesn’t even remember that I’m her daughter. The worst part is that she’s tried to kill or have me killed on multiple occasions, and I remember how sweet she used to be when I was a filly, before she left me in that stable.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, I dunno what I’d do if my momma ever did somethin’ like that. Also, did you just say you were in a stable?” he said as we both climbed over a large piece of concrete that must’ve fallen off of a building ages ago.

Shit, I didn’t want to say anything too personal about myself like that, “Uh, yeah…I grew up in a stable out west. My mother left when I was young to go on some important quest or mission; something I think she still hasn’t accomplished.”

“Damn, that sucks n’ all, but I seriously wish I could get MY momma to leave our shitty apartment at least every once in a while. Her excuse is that she don’t think it’s safe to step hoof out the door cause of what happened to my father. Imma get real witcha, I think she’s just too scared and would rather hide in that musty ass place until she dies. Anyway, what happened to your father, he wasn’t around err some shit?”

“He died when I was a foal according to my aunt that raised me after my mom left. They were both involved with a few different factions in the past, at least she was, I don’t know about my father. In reality though, I think that’s the thing that got him killed in the end,” I replied, still trying not to give too much information. I still didn’t know Khalid that well and if this really was a well calculated trap, too much detail might make things worse.

He nodded his head, “I see, you were even younger that I was when you lost your father. That’s gotta be pretty hard, I at least got to know my father before he died, but you didn’t even get the chance I did before he was taken from you.”

“What was your father like?” I asked.

“He was one of the good ones,” he replied solemnly, “He was never the type to get involved with any gangs or nuttin’ like that. He was a tribal zebra with a thick accent who only wanted to help ponies and other zebras in need. In a way I’m just like him, I don’t roll with gangs cause it’s stupid and pointless, and I try to help anyone I can.”

“Hearing what you just told me about him, you’re pretty closely matched. Thank you for helping me by the way.”

He smiled and waved his hoof, “Ain’t no skin off MY hide.”

As we walked I looked up at the skyline and noticed Mill City tower was getting a lot closer. Looks like letting him help me was a good idea in the long run, I didn’t have to keep stopping to shoot at random raiders or gangsters and get turned around, and I wasn’t getting constantly lost. If he didn’t have his mother to worry about, I might ask if he wanted to join us in our travels, but in the end he’d end up like some of the others who’ve traveled with me.

“Do you plan on anything once you and your mom get to The Kingdom?” I asked nonchalantly.

He shook his head as he replied, “I ain’t got any idea what I’m gonna do besides be there for my momma. I suppose I could figure somethin’ out, that’s if they got a job system there.”

“Yeah, they have…”

“Shhh…quiet for a sec. You hear that?” he interrupted.

I shook my head and said quietly, “No.”

“We’re bein’ watched. Some punk ass lil bitch probably thinks they can get the drop on us, get ready. Imma do somethin’ that might me stupid but I’ll need some help,” he whispered as he pulled out a small submachine gun.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Imma shoot at ‘em and draw attention to myself. When I do that and they make themselves known, drop their ass,” he answered quietly.

“Got it,” I said as he slowly snuck around to get a better angle on the opposing party.

He shot toward where he thought the sound was coming from and an earth pony stallion popped out and returned fire. I grabbed Stardust’s rifle off my back and took aim. He was moving around so much that it was hard to get a clear shot on him, then he started focusing fire on me.

I quickly ran to find cover behind the wall of a building and slipped into S.A.T.S., taking aim for three shots at his head. Two of them missed and the third one pierced through his left ear. I was about to slip into S.A.T.S. again when Khalid ran across the street firing a barrage of bullets from his SMG, sending the offender straight to the ground.

As soon as he fell Khalid and I ran over to him, Khalid kicking his pistol away from him, “Is he dead?” Khalid asked.

“Not a chance in hell,” the stallion said weakly.

I pointed the rifle at his head and fired, “He is now.”

“Damn, that’s cold. I hope I never get on yo bad side, you’re one crazy lil bitch ain’t you?” he asked.

I nodded, “Yeah, ponies like The Sins will do that to you when they constantly try to kill you and your friends in any way they can.”

“Mill City Tower isn’t too far from here so there ain’t much farther to go, we shouldn’t run into any more bitch ass marks like him any time soon unless you count Enclave,” he said.

“I think I can take it from here, you don’t have to take me the rest of the way.”

He cocked his head, “You sure about that? I really don’t mind takin’ ya there.”

I nodded again, “Yeah I’m sure, don’t worry I’ll keep my promise and help you and your mom. Just give me the location of where you live and I’ll go there once I’m done here.”

He paused for a moment and walked over to me. He grabbed my Pip-Buck and entered to coordinates to his home and a marker popped up on my map and E.F.S., “I guess I’ll see you soon then if you ain’t dead after this, just be careful.”

“I will be, The Enclave hasn’t managed to kill me yet. It was nice to meet you Khalid, I hope we can get you and your mother to The Kingdom safely after this.”

As he walked away I noticed the confidence in each step, it reminded me of how Stardust used to walk. When he was gone I continued on toward Mill City Tower which was so close now that it almost hurt my neck trying to look up to the top of the building. When I walked around one of the fallen buildings I finally saw the base of the tower. From what I could tell there was only one entrance into the tower itself and it was guarded by at least ten pegasi in power armor. Two of which stood by the door, the rest patrolling the area, either on hoof or in the air around the entrance.

When I looked up again, I saw a lot more pegasi flying around the tower going up as high as I could see. The radio ponies weren’t kidding when they said the guard around Mill City Tower was ramped up. Nightshade must really be a big deal, or one of the ponies with him was. I still couldn’t get it out of my head that he was the pony that wanted to help me, but he still used Stardust to hunt me down. Why did he want to find me so bad, at least he did years ago? something more was going on and I intend to find out what it is.

The only problem now was how was I going to get into the tower itself. Once I did, how was I going to get around without being spotted? I really wish I had a Zebra Stealth Cloak right now. If I could at least get some of the guards around the door to leave, I might be able to slip inside and figure it out from there. The question was, how was I going to do that? Then I noticed one of the guards put a hoof to his helmet and say something. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I had a feeling I knew what he was doing. Their power armor must have some kind of radio inside them. If so…

I brought up the broadcaster on the Mark II and started to search for a channel. It didn’t take long for one to show up, it was listed as, M.C.T.E.B. 87, with a smile I flipped it on and waited, a moment later a mare’s voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck, “Entry patrol, we heard gunshots close to the Tower. Report.”

A stallion’s voice echoed out of it next, “We heard it too, most likely more gangs trying to kill each other out there. Not to worry, there’s more than enough firepower to keep them away.”

“Be sure that you do, we don’t need any problems today. Council Pony Nightshade and the three High Council members with him just arrived and I don’t want them to think we can’t keep back the lowlife gangbangers that live around here,” the mare said again.

As they talked a plan started to form in my head and I grinned. Going back to the broadcaster, I flipped on the mic and doing my best to sound like Milkshake I said into it, “This is patrol from Saint’s Parish, does anypony from Mill City Tower read me?”

I looked up and saw one of the ponies near the door stop and put a hoof to his helmet, his voice echoed out of my Pip-Buck a moment later, “This is the ground patrol for Mill City Tower, why are you contacting us?”

Clearing my throat, I said in my altered voice again, “We spotted a small mare that matched the description of The Courier from New Pegasus trying to sneak into Whinnieapolis. We tried to stop her, but she attacked us, killing three of the guards.”

“And why are you bothering us with this information? Get more guards from your own city to go after her,” the stallion said.

“We would but she escaped into Whinnieapolis, she was heading toward the tower when we last spotted her. There are signs that she’s killed a few ponies and zebras along the way, the trail of bodies lead in your direction.”

“Fuck, you’ve gotta be kidding me! We can’t deal with her right now, the Council ponies just arrived! Can’t your team search her down!?” he yelled into his own mic.

“We would, but it’s only me and my partner left. We don’t know the city as well as you do…” I paused for dramatic effect, “We’re almost to the tower now…wait a moment I think we spotted her!”

I saw the ponies around the entryway tense up as the stallion said, “What’s your location?”

Grinning I walked back a couple of blocks then said into the broadcaster, “It’s her, we’re going to engage!”

“No don’t…” the stallion said, but not fast enough. Pulling out Dream Walker and my plasma rifle, I fired a few shots into the air with both weapons.

When that was finished I screamed into the broadcaster, “Help me, please help, she’s going to kill us! Send as many ponies as you can, she’s not alone…”

I cut out what I was saying firing more shots into the air. When that was finished, I said in my own voice, keeping the Mark II away from me so I sounded distant, “Tell me where to find Nightshade and Pride.”

Changing my voice and bringing the Mark II closer again, “Please, I don’t know where he is. Don’t kill me please, I have a family…”

I pulled the Mark II back again and said in my own voice, “So did I!”

I fired off one more round, cut the mic, and walked back to where I could see the tower again listening to the broadcaster to see if my ruse worked. Sure, enough as I rounded the corner and watched from the shadows, I saw the Pegasi forming into a group getting ready to fly off to where I fired off the rounds. The Mares voice from before came back over the broadcaster, “Captain, what was all that?”

The stallion said, “We think The Courier killed some patrols from the Wall. It seems like she took the rest out a few blocks away from here.”

“Go check it out. If it is The Courier, you be sure to radio in. Pride’s here right now and we can send him in to take care of her.”

The stallion laughed, “I’m sure we can take care of one mare, even if she’s with one of her friends.”

“Don’t underestimate her captain, other ponies have done so before and they didn’t live long because of it. If you find her, you let me know, that’s an order,” the mare said.

“Yes, ma’am!” he said.

I watched as most of the guards around the base of the tower flew off toward where I’d been shooting. They only left two ponies behind, both of them flying around looking for any sign of…well…me coming to try and get into the tower. Two I could handle, at this point I was sure all Wasteland ponies were born morons.

I pulled out my Plasma Rifle again and took aim with S.A.T.S. and fired three rounds at both when they flew closer to the ground. Luckily for me, the first one I fired at wasn’t wearing a full helmet, his muzzle and mane were showing and two of my shots slammed into his exposed face. He went down without making a sound, his body glowing as it melted into green goo. The second I hit in his exposed wing. He screamed as he fell to the ground with a loud crash from his armor scraping against the asphalt. I ran out from cover, switching out the rifle for the oddly shaped blade I found back in the Absent Ruins. He was writhing on the ground, his wing mangled from the shots it took.

He looked up at me as I approached, “No, how did you…”

I stabbed him in the visor, the blade sliding into his skull like the armor he was wearing was nothing more than paper. He twitched then went limp as I twisted the blade around in his brain pan. With that done I looked back to make sure nopony heard the noise, then I lifted the body with my magic and walked over to where I was hiding and hid the body in a pile of trash. I went back then did the same with the pile of goo which was all that remained of the other pegasus. It was harder to hide what I did with him, but I hoped that the small specks of glowing green would go unnoticed when the guards got back. I couldn’t have anypony locking down the tower before I found my target.

When that was done I turned toward the doors that lead into Mill City Tower and walked up to them. Opening them slowly I looked around to make sure more guards weren’t posted inside. To my relief, nopony was in the large room beyond the doors. I moved in quickly, shutting the doors behind me. I took a deep breath then made my way over to the long reception desk that stood at the far end of the room, hoping I’d be able to find something there to help me find where I needed to go and a way to get around this place unnoticed. Either way I was finally inside the tower, there was no going back now.

The desk was mostly empty apart from a few prewar papers scattered around, but one of the terminals was giving off a soft glow. Moving over to it I used the Mark II to get me past the need for a password. I was expecting the same jumble of numbers and letters to come up like always, but it didn’t. The Mark II came up with a message…

Pip-Buck Mark II SB, opening advanced Hacking software, New Terminal Found. Protection on Terminal has Medium Level Security. Attempting to bypass security now…

Security Bypassed, Unlocking Mill City Tower Operations Terminal…

I watched as the screen went blank on the terminal for a moment, then came back with over a dozen files on it. I scanned over them quickly and right away noticed that most of the files on it had to do with the layout of the building. Better yet, one of the files told me what was on each level. To top it off, the files were newer, they’ve all been updated in the past week. So, The Enclave still used this terminal for themselves…perfect.

I downloaded the files to my Pip-Buck then started to check one of the most recent files, it was updated just last night.

Thunder Whip,

Council Pony Nightshade will be here tomorrow, one of The Sins came by today to tell us that we had to make sure one of the meeting rooms was ready for him and three High Council ponies that are accompanying him. Pride said to also have a room ready for Nightshade too because he most likely will be staying with us for a few days here in the tower. The High Council Ponies will only be here for the meeting but will be heading back to Stratus after.

I’m not sure what Nightshade wants with us or why he will be staying afterwards. I don’t like this one bit, something’s going on here and it stinks. From what I know about him, he doesn’t trust The Sins. Who would? Why is he bringing the new Pride with him then and sending us messages like this? Something’s wrong, we need to figure out what’s really going on. Either way, make sure to do what they want for now. Make sure you do something about those files we talked about before from Dr. Stormy. They might be here to check on how things are going with the Twin Cities, but they don’t need to know everything we’re doing. Put them in the safe in my room, not the normal one, the one I keep behind the portrait of my wife.

Snow Drift

“So, you’re here now, good to know. Now where are you staying?” I said as I looked at the files more, then I saw a response to the first message.

Snow Drift,

I’ve already done what you asked, I figured you’d want some of the things here hidden away before they arrived. As for where Nightshade will be staying, I’ve set up the meeting room on 45 for them, and also readied the suite on 48 for Nightshade and Pride. If you need anything else just let me know.

Thunder Whip

I smiled wider then looked at the diagram of Mill City Tower. From what I could tell there were 57 floors. Nightshade and Stardust must be toward the top. According to the diagram the first fifteen floors were mostly empty. The next few levels served as an area for the soldiers and guards that patrolled the Twin Cities to rest and store personal items. There were also a few levels dedicated to research from what I could tell. They took up floor 36 to 42, the rest of the floors between the Research area to the place where Nightshade was going to be holding the meeting were empty too.

“If they have a research area here, then they most likely have unicorns there. I might be able to disguise myself as one of the research ponies. I just have to find a way to get up there,” I said looking around.

On one side of the lobby I could see elevators. With my luck they wouldn’t just go right past the guard rooms. I guess it didn’t matter, I’d have to try something. Sooner or later, somepony was going to come in here and find me. I couldn’t risk that, so I walked over to the elevators and clicked the call button. A moment later one of them opened with a soft ‘ding’. Walking in I pushed the button for floor 35, figuring it would bring me to an empty floor that I could use to reach the research levels.

The door shut and the elevator shot upward. I watched as the numbers flew by on the small dial over the doors. The sudden movement and high speed made my stomach feel like somepony was pushing on it through my back, making me feel ill. Soon it stopped on floor 35, the doors opened again revealing a dark dusty room beyond and a glowing barrier right at the doorway. As the door opened a sweet-sounding mares voice said, “Twin Cities Control Hub.”

“Great, I should’ve known there’d be something like this blocking my way!” I yelled kicking at the transparent pink barrier. I was expecting my hoof to bounce off the glowing wall, but it went right through. The momentum from my kick threw me off balance and I rolled through the barrier and into the dusty room. The elevator door closed behind me, leaving me in almost complete darkness.

I got back to my hooves and looked around, then I looked back at the door still blocked by the pink energy, “How the hell did I get through that?” I walked back over to it and poked at the barrier, my hoof went through it and touched the door on the other side, “Huh, if what the Stranger said was right about these kinds of barriers, I must have an ancestor that was programmed into the spell.”

For once the Goddesses were on my side if I could get through barriers like that. If there are more, then they won’t be a problem for me in the future. Good to know, now to see what this floor had to offer. I turned back toward the dark dusty room trying to figure out what it was used for. It was a large space with only a couple separate rooms on each side, the rest of the space was filled with terminals, desks, maps, tech that I didn’t recognize, and one large ass screen right in the middle of the room. The walls were tinted glass that went from floor to ceiling, walking over to one I could see most of Whinnieapolis and a good amount of Saints Parish right across the river. I started to walk around the edge of the room looking out to see what else I could see. When I got to the north side I stopped and squinted. On the horizon I could just make out a small beam of light reaching up to the sky.

“I wonder what that is,” I said to myself as I pulled out my binoculars and tried to see if that helped, but it didn’t. Whatever that light was, it was many miles away from the Twin Cities, “Maybe that’s where the Crystal Empire is, I know it’s north of here. I doubt it’s close enough to see from here though.”

Figuring it didn’t matter I went back to looking around the room, most of the terminals here were either powered down, broken, or smashed. One however still had the telltale green glow of a working terminal. I walked over and tried to log in, but it was locked. Oh well, maybe the Mark II would pull off its new trick again. When I hooked up the Mark II, it didn’t just unlock the screen like it did down in the lobby, so I had to resort to the harder way of hacking. The words came up on the screen with a jumble of letters and numbers as always. With six tries and some muttered curses, I finally got it, the password was ‘Observation’.

The screen came up with a little over a half a dozen files with the title ‘The Twin Cities Municipal Control System’

“What the hell is a Municipal Control System?”

I read the files that were listed below and it became clear right away…

Street Cam. Data - Saint’s Parish District 1 - 4

Street Cam. Data - Saints Parish District 5 - 8

Street Cam. Data Whinnieapolis District 1 - 6

Street Cam. Data Whinnieapolis District 7 - 10

Radio Signal Detections

Traffic Control Center

M.A.S. Emergency Broadcast System Control Center

“Was this room used to spy on what was going on around the Twin Cities?” I asked myself as I clicked on one of the files under Whinnieapolis District 1 - 6. Another file came up that I could use to choose a district itself. Clicking on number one, I saw more files come up for what camera to access. The first one I brought up came up blanks with an error message, same for the next, and the next and so on, “Not surprised, most of the city is destroyed I’m sure the cameras are too.”

I went back and chose one of the ones in Saint’s Parish, when I chose a camera the large screen in the middle of the room lit up and I saw one of the streets in Saint’s Parish. Ponies of all kinds were walking down the street talking with each other or shopping at some of the venders. I chose another and got much of the same thing, only this time I saw a griffon talking with three stallions and taking notes on a pad she was holding in one talon.

“A griffon in Saint’s Parish, I wonder if that’s Kitty. Unless there are more griffons in the city, but I doubt that.”

She looked a little older than Aura, but she also looked kinder. Aura always had a hard-guarded edge to her, this griffon looked happy. Whatever she was saying to the stallions must’ve been funny because she kept laughing when they responded to her questions. I found myself watching her for the longest time, forgetting for the moment that I was in Enclave territory. As I watched I found my imagination taking over and I swore I could almost hear Aura talking to me, as if the griffon magically appeared next to me.

“Hey Shrimp, why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer,” I heard the disembodied voice say.

“Why do that when it’s more fun to watch her in the moment.”

“I dunno, yeah she’s cute and all, but I doubt she could handle herself in a fight. Unless that’s the kind of griffon you like, pretty but useless.”

“Nah, there’s only one griffon for me Aura, she might be cute but she’s not you,” I said, my eyes still watching the griffon on the screen as she waved goodbye to the stallions and moved on to chat with a mare who was working a fruit stand.

“Should’ve told me that before it was too late,” she said.

As she said that, I swore I could feel her presence. My eyes went wide and I twisted around, “Aura?” there was no one there. Fresh tears rolled down my face as I looked at the empty room. Aura’s non-existent words hanging over me like a ghost, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

I wiped my eyes and turned back to the terminal and the large screen, the griffon was gone so I backed out and sighed. I was just wasting time right now, letting my curiosity get the better of me. I didn’t need distractions right now, I needed to get past the next few floors so I could find Stardust and Nightshade. The data from this terminal could be helpful later though, so I hooked the Mark II back into it and transferred the data. It may not hook me up to the cameras around the cities, but the rest might be good to have.

I walked away from the terminal and started to look around for a way to reach the next floor. If I couldn’t find stairs then I could always risk taking the elevator up the rest of the way, but I hope it doesn’t come down to that. I didn’t want to reach the floor I needed only to run into more guards. Unfortunately for me, I was too well known to most of The Enclave by now, they’d know who I was right away. I needed to find a disguise or a way to get around any security I ran into.

On one end of the room where one of the doors were, I finally found the staircase, “Finally something,” It was also blocked by a barrier just like the elevator, but like before I was able to go right on through. Pulling out Dream Walker I slowly made my way up the stairs. When I reached floor 36 I tested the door and found it was locked, “I’m so surprised,” I whispered to myself sarcastically as I pulled out my bobby pins. A few seconds later the lock clicked and I slowly opened the door. This floor was way different than the one I was just on.

A long hallway with doors on each side was in front of me with a much bigger room at the end that opened up and was filled with cubicles and terminals. I could see a couple of ponies typing away on them, busy with whatever job they did in the building. Moving slowly into the hall I started to look at the doors that were on each side. Two were bathrooms and two were locker rooms, there was one more that was closest to me that said it was Dr. Stormy’s Office. I made my way to that one and slowly opened the door. Nopony was inside so I slipped in quietly.

There was a desk with a terminal, charts on the wall, recordings scattered on the desk mixed with paperwork, a pair of glasses, and a view overlooking the city behind the desk. When I looked to one side I saw that this office had its own private bathroom. I went over to it and walked in, closing the door behind me. This Dr. Stormy had a locker, a private shower, and everything else you’d expect in a bathroom. Opening the locker, I found a white lab coat with a few odds and ends. As I was looking though the bathroom still trying to think of a way I could get farther up the tower, I heard the door to the office open followed by a mare’s voice.

“I don’t care what Snow Drift says, he can wait till later for the reports. I have to get ready for the meeting,” The mare said sounding irritated.

A stallion’s voice followed her into the room, “I understand Dr. Stormy, but he said he wanted the reports before the meeting starts.”

The mare sighed as she responded, “He just wants them so he can take out the things he doesn’t want The Council to know about. I don’t care, as you know I’m the one who requested this meeting and it took me three months to convince Nightshade to come. I’m not going to let Snow Drift get away with hiding my research just so he can stay out of trouble. If he doesn’t like it then he can come down here and request the information himself, even if he does the answer will still be no.”

I heard hoofsteps getting closer to the bathroom door. Panicking I jumped into the locker closing it behind me and looking out of the slits to watch what was going on, hoping the mare wouldn’t open it. The mare that walked in was wearing a white lab coat just like the one in the locker, she also could’ve passed for my twin, well maybe not a twin, but her coat was a darker grey close to my black one, her mane was a light grey almost white and I couldn’t see her eyes because she was wearing dark goggles. She was also a unicorn and almost as short as I was, but her mane was shorter and more practical than my own. A taller blue pegasus stallion was right behind her.

“I understand that, but you know that if I go back up there telling him you said no, he’ll just send me back down here.”

She rounded on him poking a hoof into his chest, “I don’t care, now go away, I need to get ready. The meeting is starting any minute now and I don’t have time to waste.”

“But…”

“Did I stutter? Now leave!” she yelled, her horn glowing with a dark orange light.

“No ma’am, sorry ma’am!” he said making a hasty retreat.

“Vile incompetent worm,” the unicorn said turning back to look herself over in the mirror, “One of these days I’m going to go up to that prick’s office and show him who really runs things around here.”

As I watched the mare fix up her mane an idea came to mind and I smiled. Slowly drawing Dream Walker, I opened the locker and pressed its barrel to the back of her head, “Don’t move.”

She just sighed and kept working on her mane, “Really, don’t move? Is that the best threat you could come up with?”

Frowning I pressed the barrel harder against her, “If you don’t do what I tell you to…”

She interrupted me, “Let me guess, you’ll kill me? How boring and predictable.”

“You do realize I have a pistol pressed against the back of your head…right?”

“A pistol!?” she said sounding more offended than shocked as she glanced at me through the mirror, “Ignorant child, that isn’t your normal run of the mill pistol, that is a Luna Edition Desert Eagle. It was one of the most beautiful and deadly weapons developed by Ironshod Firearms. They only made ten of those, nine of which were given to special soldiers during the war, and all of which have either been destroyed or are in the care of Enclave officers. The tenth and last one made was given to a mare named Babs Seed and was thought to be lost. Which it looks like it wasn’t since as you pointed out, you have pressed against the back of my head. If you want to threaten me then at least give some respect to the weapon you’re holding.”

“What does any of that matter? STOP WORKING ON YOUR MANE!” I yelled as I pulled back the hammer.

“Oh, I can’t do that, I’m too busy to deal with you and get ready for my appointment with The Council. If you really want something then spit it out and be gone.”

Was this mare for real? I shook my head, “Do you even care if I kill you?”

“Oh, I care quite a bit. You see I’m just too busy to die, there’s so much that needs to be done and not enough time to do it. But if you really feel like you need to feed your bloodlust by painting the wall red with the contents of my skull, feel free to pull that trigger, but I warn you now as soon as you do you’ll regret it.”

“Why’s that?”

She sighed again as she slowly turned to look at me, still ignoring Dream Walker, which was now pressed between her eyes, “First of all, you won’t be able to pull the trigger before I can teleport out of the way. Trust me you wouldn’t be the first pony to try killing me like this. Second, as soon as that magnificent piece of craftsponyship you called a ‘pistol’ goes off, you’ll have every able-bodied soldier on this floor to deal with. Now why are you here wasting my very limited time?”

I cursed and pulled Dream Walker back a little, but still kept it trained on her head, “I need to find a way up to the meeting room.”

“And you’re point is?”

“I need to find Nightshade and Stardust, I’m going to kill them.”

One of her eyebrows went up just a little, “I really don’t care if you want to kill Nightshade or the rest of the pompous pricks that run things around here. As for the pony you called Stardust, you must mean Pride. You couldn’t kill him even if you had an army at your side storming this tower. You must be that Courier the ponies in Stratus keep talking about. I take it that you have an overly enthusiastic opinion of yourself or at least your meager skills as a fighter.”

“I really don’t like you,” I said really wanting to just blow her brains out, but she did have a point. Dream Walker would bring everypony in the tower running.

“Nopony likes me and I really don’t care, I’m too busy with my work to care about the ponies in the tower or The Enclave. But I can see in your face that you really are determined to kill Pride, so I’ll do you a favor that’ll help you stay alive.”

Now that was a surprise, “What are you talking about?”

She sighed again, “Right now I only have about five minutes that I can spare. If you wouldn’t mind, please stop pointing that at me and I can show you what I mean.”

“How do I know you aren’t going to try anything?” I asked.

“Because I give you my word. My word is my bond, I live by that statement and always will, but if it makes you feel better, keep the ‘pistol’ out,” she replied.

Growling I holstered Dream Walker, “Fine, but if you try anything you’ll regret it.”

Sighing deeper and longer, she turned back toward her office, “I’m sure I will, now follow me Courier. By the way my name’s Dr. Stormy, what’s yours? Or do prefer to be called Courier?”

I didn’t know how to feel about Dr. Stormy’s change in character. So, with no other way to respond to her question I just answered it following her, “Shadow…Shadow Star.”

She moved behind her desk and started typing something on the terminal, “Shadow Star huh, there’s something familiar about that name but I can’t put my hoof on it.”

Figuring it couldn’t hurt I sat down next to her on her side of the desk, “It’s not my original name, my mother changed it when we got to the stable I grew up in, before that it was Morning Star, and any memory I’ve been able to remember all my parents and family called me before that was just Star.”

She stopped typing giving me a quizzical look, “Just Star? Where are you from originally?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I’m the kind of mare who likes to know things. Knowledge is the most important thing in The Wasteland, also I think I know why you were just called Star, that’s if your parents did change it later in your life.”

“Honestly I can’t remember everything from my past. My mother placed a very powerful memory spell on me when we first got to the stable, but from things I’ve learned since I’ve been out and some memories, I think I was born in The Crystal Empire.”

She smiled a little, “Ah, so my deduction was correct.”

“Yeah and?”

She tisked and went back to working on her terminal, “I’m also from The Crystal Empire, my parents were farmers near the edge of the city. The ponies that live there have different customs than the rest of The Wasteland. Naming their children is one of them. Like your name ‘Star’, if one of your parents was from The Crystal Empire they would’ve named you with just that single name. Normally it has something to do with who they think you will become or a family trait. It could also be something that one of them loves. As the child grows and their personality becomes more well known, they will either change it or add to it.”

“Or my mother was trying to hide me from The Enclave when she ran away.”

She shrugged, “That’s also possible, but I don’t think so. If she wanted to do that, she would’ve dropped the Star in your name, but what do I know?”

“As fascinating as this is, what did you want to show me about killing Stardust?”

She laughed, “Hahaha, kill him? I never said that Shadow. What I said was I’d show you how to stay alive. What I mean is, I’ll show you why you shouldn’t even try attacking him in any way.”

“What the fuck? I’m not leaving this place unless I kill him and Nightshade. If you know a weakness then tell me!”

She finished what she was typing then moved aside showing me the screen, “I give you The Devil’s Children Program. Pride, or as you call him Stardust, was one of the only ones from Phase 1 to fully survive.”

I looked at the screen seeing diagrams and notes about this program, as I read I asked, “This says the program was meant for only one or two ponies to survive!”

“I wouldn’t say I wanted only one or two to survive, I only expected one or two to pass the tests,” she said, “But as you can see from my notes, Pride was trained to be the perfect solider. He excels in just about everything, from common weaponry, to heavy weapons, hoof to hoof, melee, and long-range weapons. He’s also trained in espionage, camouflage, persuasion, and specialized battle tactics. He can think ten moves ahead of his opponents and figure out their weaknesses so he can use it against them.”

She sounded like a mother talking about her son and how proud she was of his accomplishments. All of it was making me shake with rage, “You act like he was perfect!”

“Correction, he is perfect.”

“If he was so perfect then why did he run away?” I asked.

That took the smile off her face, “You have a point, before we got him back he wasn’t quite perfect, not yet. I never meant for him to run away like he did, but that’s what you get when you have ponies trained in espionage. Hailstorm was better at that than Pride, it was because of him that Pride escaped. Sadly, he died, he could’ve been so useful.”

“He was Stardust’s best friend!” I yelled, “And Stop calling him PRIDE, his name is Stardust!”

She frowned, “Do keep your voice down, I’m right next to you and I don’t feel like listening to you bitch like a foal. I don’t care who he used to be, he’s Pride now. Soon he’ll make a new generation of Sins for us, a team that is more under the command of The Council. Once he does that, he’ll be ready for Phase 2.”

Glaring at her I asked, “And what is Phase 2?”

She grinned at the question, “We will clone him, making more soldiers as perfect as he is. Soldiers that will never betray us, ones we can control and not have to worry about falling in battle like we do right now. When Phase 2 is complete we won’t have any more use for Pride.”

As she spoke I pressed a button on my Pip-Buck then asked, “If that was the plan the whole time, then why did you take away his memories? Why make him do any of this if he is already perfect?”

“Because we still needed him to get stronger, to hone his skills more so that when we clone him, it will make it that much easier for us to make more just like him. He is perfect but he’s still not as strong as he can be. Though even if we didn’t plan on him escaping Stable 97 like he did, it did work out in the long run. The seven months he spent in the wasteland did more for him than another five years of training would’ve. We had to modify his memories because Stardust was too cocky, he didn’t take orders that he didn’t like, he was to put it lightly…an ass. We planned on doing this to him before his escape, but I’m glad we didn’t until now. Making him think his worst enemy is YOU, is perfect,” she said with a laugh.

“So, you changed his memories to make him think I killed his best friend so you could control him? Is that what I’m hearing Dr. Stormy?”

“That’s right, and now you should understand why you won’t be able to kill him. He’s hell bent on killing you one day, he will stop at nothing to blow your brains out. Once he finishes his mission for Nightshade, he’ll finish you off.”

I smiled then pushed the button again on my Pip-Buck, “Good to know, and thank you for telling me all that Doctor.”

She shrugged then closed the files on her terminal, “Now if you’re smart I’d suggest you leave, that’s if you want to live longer. If you really want to go up to where the meeting is, you’ll just end up dead.”

I pulled out Dream Walker again and pointed it right at her, “No, I won’t die, but I swear to the Goddesses that every one of you Enclave BASTARDS will.”

She just laughed and her horn glowed, “I don’t think so.”

She overpowered my Telekinesis in the blink of an eye, ripping Dream Walker out of my magical grip then with her horn glowing again I was slammed into the ground and held there. She got up from her seat and walked closer to me, “Now, that was a stupid move Shadow Star. I gave you a chance to leave, but you just had to get your revenge on us. Why is that, what could make you act like such an idiot?”

I was at the boiling point, my anger reaching its limit, looking up into her goggles I said, “Stardust killed someone I love, he took her away from me right after I finally realized how I felt about her.”

As I talked I let my anger fuel my power, letting it enhance my magic. I could feel the magic around my horn glowing brighter than it ever had before. Dr. Stormy’s smile fell and she took a single step back, “What are you?”

That deep voice I heard before spoke again as I started to ready a spell, “That’s it Star, this mare is the one who started the whole program that took away your friend. Show her who you really ARE!”

With a simple flick of my magic I blew apart her spell holding me down. Getting back to my hooves I said, “I am Shadow Star, an ordinary package Courier, and the daughter of Grimoire Spell.”

She took another step back, “Grimoire! No that can’t be possible, her child is dead!”

“I’m not dead, I never was. But I’m not just the daughter of one of the most powerful unicorns to come from The Enclave, I’m also your worst NIGHTMARE!”

“I don’t care who you are you can’t do anything to me in here, I already told you that if you fire your gun…”

She never finished what she was going to say, pulling the sword I found from my saddle bags I brought it around and stabbed her in the chest, the blade just missing her heart. Blood gushed out of the wound as I pulled the blade free, Dr. Stormy falling to the floor whimpering in pain as she tried to stop the bleeding with her hooves. Holding the blade up I looked down at her, “The Enclave took everything from me, my father, my mother, my friends, my LIFE. You shouldn’t have told me that you were the pony that started the program that made Stardust. I might’ve let you live, but now you get to die just like the rest of the arrogant Enclave fucks in this place.”

She looked up at me saying in a weak voice, “What do you mean your father was taken?”

“My father was a soldier, he died trying to find me. It might not have been on Enclave orders, but it might as well have been. Because of the way you think ponies in the clouds have to live, he had to hunt my mother down and ended up dead because of it,” I said readying the sword.

“Your father? You foal, he’s…”

I jammed the sword into her throat, cutting off her last words. She gagged and tried to let out a scream, but the blade was blocking her airwave. She couldn’t draw a breath or let the air out of her lungs. Her chest pumped trying to force the air past the steel lodged in her, but to no avail. I reached down and pulled her goggles off and looked into her dark orange eyes, “No more lies for you, no more words of who you think Stardust is. I hope you burn in hell Enclave Scum!”

I ripped the sword out of her, blood rushing out of the jagged hole some of it splashing onto my mane and coat, but I didn’t care. No Enclave Fucks deserved to live. She tried to take in another deep breath. I could hear air flow in through her neck, only for a moment before the blood fountaining from her neck flowed into her windpipe and into her lungs. She gagged again, her head falling forward as I stood over her still looking into her eyes. She lifted a hoof trying to grab onto me, trying anything she could to get me to save her. I just pushed her hoof away and watched as the life drained from her eyes. I shook my head then checked her body for anything I could use.

She didn’t have much on her, apart from an ID card. I walked back into the bathroom and took the extra outfit she had hanging in the locker. I removed my barding, put it into my saddle bags, and dressed myself in the dead mare’s extra outfit. Turning to look myself over in the mirror, one thing became obvious. I may look a lot like her, but my mane would be a dead giveaway. I took out the sword and looked at its bloody length, then back at myself. With a sigh I turned on the faucet, cleaned the blood off and the blood from my face, then went back to looking at myself.

“I’m sorry mom, but I can’t stay the mare you used to know and love. I can’t keep holding onto the things that remind me of who you used to be,” using my magic, I pulled my braid up and out. I brought the sword closer and with a quick slash, most of the lower part of my mane came free. Holding back a sob, I tossed the beautiful silver remains of my braid into the trash, then looked myself over again. My mane now only came down just past my shoulders, it was ragged and uneven. Looking around in the locker behind me I found some scissors and started to fix what I could. It only took me a few minutes, and I knew I couldn’t do as well as a pony like Sugar Buck could, but it looked better than it did. I also trimmed up my bangs, then using a red headband I found in the locker, I pushed my mane back and used it to hold it there. When I looked back in the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself. I looked older and more confident, more importantly, in dim light I could pass for the bitch I was pretending to be. I took the goggles she was wearing and put them on, then cleared my throat doing my best to sound like her, “I’m Dr. Stormy…”

It was close but not close enough, so I tried again trying to remember how sarcastic she was, “Who else would I be you foal? Dr. Stormy, now leave me alone. I’m too busy to deal with a worm like you.”

I smiled, “Much better.”

I looked myself over once more then figuring I couldn’t do much better, I started to work on the next problem, the Mark II. How was I going to hide it? I guess I could just try covering it with the sleeve. I pushed the sleeve of the lab coat over the Mark II, at first it didn’t want to go over but after some work I got it. There was a small bulge, but hopefully no pony would notice or if they did they wouldn’t think about what it was.

The last thing I needed to figure out was what to do with Stardust’s Rifle. I couldn’t just put it in my Saddle bags, the bags were enchanted to hold more than they should, but unlike my Plasma Rifle, Stardust’s rifle was longer. So far, I’ve always kept it on my back like he used to. Lifting the rifle, I looked it over, I couldn’t get away with just carrying it around with me while I was dressed like I am. There was nothing else I could do, I had to hide it somewhere and get it on my way out. Walking back to the door that led back into the hallway, I opened it and looked around. Seeing nopony there I trotted back to the staircase and made my way back down to floor 35.

Passing through the barrier again, I walked over to the large monitor in the middle and hid the rifle under it. I really wanted to use it on Stardust, the thought of killing him with his own rifle was kind of poetic. I couldn’t do that now, but I wouldn’t just leave it behind. When he was gone, I’d come back and retrieve his rifle. It would serve as a reminder to the pony he used to be, the friend that I lost, “I’ll be back for you,” I said before turning and heading back upstairs.

I was just getting back to the office when two power armored pegasi came down the hall, one of them saying, “Dr. Stormy there you are. We were sent down here to get you; the meeting is about to start.”

I froze for a moment then slipping into my new character, I let out a long sigh then adopted the voice of Dr. Stormy, “I can tell time you know! I was just about to head up there and I don’t remember asking for an escort.”

They both stopped then the other pony, a mare from the sound of her voice said, “Sorry Dr. Stormy, Nightshade said we should come down and get you. We were just following orders ma’am.”

“Does he think I’m a foal? Fine whatever, let’s get on with it, I don’t want to keep him waiting,” I said walking toward them and away from the office which still had the body of the real Doctor in it, and a lot of blood pooled on the floor.

The mare stopped me asking, “Don’t you need to get your files?”

Looking up at her, “Do I tell you how to do your job when you’ve gone thirty-six hours without sleep and neck deep in stress surrounding your job? Noooo.”

She scratched the back of her head, “At least once or twice a day. Well, the telling me how to do my job part anyway.”

“That’s beside the point, I don’t need you telling me what I do need or don’t need for this meeting. The nerve of you idiots. Now let’s go before I report you for holding me up.”

They both saluted, “Yes Ma’am.”

They turned and I followed as they lead me through the office, past pegasi and a couple unicorns who were working on their terminals, and to a different elevator. I watched as the pegasus used a key card like the one I took off the unicorn to open the elevator, then we all got in and started heading up. We arrived on floor 45, this floor was also different from the other ones I was on before. There was a reception desk like the one in the lobby, only smaller with an older pegasus mare working at it. There were seats on each side for ponies to wait, two halls were on each side leading off to what I assumed were more offices.

The mare looked up from whatever she was doing when we walked off the elevator and with a big smile she said, “Good Evening Dr. Stormy, I’m guessing you’re here for the meeting with Nightshade and the others?”

“No, I pulled myself away from my work to go on a walk. Of course, I’m here for the meeting. Don’t be such a moron and think before you ask ridiculous questions,” I replied.

She just giggled, “As gloomy as ever I see. The meeting will be in the last room to my left. Nightshade will be there shortly, but the three High Council ponies are already waiting for you.”

The stallion pegasus looked toward me asking, “Would you like us to accompany you Ma’am?”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I replied walking past the desk.

As I got further down the hall I heard the power armored mare say, “Why is she always such a bitch?”

Smiling I kept on going until I was past the rest of the offices, the large set of double doors were right at the end of the hall. I opened one and walked into the large office. Thank the Goddesses it was dimly lit. Sitting around the oval desk were six ponies, all pegasi. Three of them who all sat at one end of the desk were old, two were stallions one a mare. They all were wearing clothes that looked very expensive. They had to be the High Council ponies, the other three wore military garb, I assume they are their bodyguards.

As I walked in, the mare let out an annoyed sigh, “Finally, now the only ones we have to wait for is Nightshade and Snow Drift. Dr. Stormy I’m happy you were able to join us today.”

Figuring that if there was anypony in The Enclave Dr. Stormy would show some respect it would be these three, “I’m never too busy for you High Council Mare.”

She smiled at that, “I see you are in a good mood today Doctor. Why don’t you take a seat?”

I moved over to the place she indicated and sat. We didn’t have to wait long for the doors to open again and in walked three pegasi. One I knew all too well, it was Stardust decked out in his blue and black power armor, the symbol of a tribal lion head on his flank. He didn’t even look at me as he walked in followed by a white pegasus with an ice blue mane who was arguing with a very tall pegasus stallion. He was wearing a sharp looking military uniform with a cap to match, in the center of the hat he had what I assumed was his rank. On the left side of his uniform he had badges of all kinds. His eyes were covered by a pair of darkened glasses and I couldn’t see most of his mane under the hat, but I did see a little dark blue poking out the back. His coat was jet black, even darker than my own and he had a hard look to him. Maybe it was the small scars that lined his muzzle and cheeks. There was no doubt, he had to be Nightshade.

One of the old stallions cleared his throat, “It’s about time you showed up Nightshade and Snow Drift.”

Ignoring the Stallion, Nightshade looked over at the white stallion who had to be Snow Drift and said in a commanding voice, “I’m not having this conversation again Snow Drift. Either you give me what I asked for or you can pack up your office and go back to Nimbus! Now go sit down before I make you!”

Snow Drift took a step back then said, “I’m not going to let you bully me into giving you what you want, I run things here Council Pony Nightshade not you!”

“If you argue with me one more time about this it won’t just be your job you’ll have to worry about. Do I make myself clear? Now Sit down and Shut up!” he said.

For a moment I thought Snow Drift was going to keep up the argument, but then he wilted under the stern gaze of Nightshade, “Fine, but I’m going to file a formal complaint about this.”

Ignoring Snow Drift, Nightshade finally turned his attention to the rest of the room, “My apologies High Council members, I hope you all weren’t waiting too long for me.”

The other stallion council pony spoke up, “Not at all, we only just got here before Dr. Stormy did. I have to ask though Nightshade why is ‘He’ here?” he asked pointing at Stardust.

Stardust grinned, “Why do you care? It’s not like I put a tac in your chair or anything.”

The stallion looked at Stardust angrily, “Your arrogance and constant sarcasm really pisses me off Pride, don’t push it. The Sins may work for The Enclave, but we still don’t like your kind being a part of meetings like this. Your kind isn’t welcome here. All you Sins are good for is acting as Equine weapons to keep order where order is needed.”

Nightshade spoke up, “He’s here with me Sir, he’s the only Sin I trust. Pride isn’t like the rest of The Sins and you should all know that. That is if you’ve read the reports I’ve sent regarding the matter.”

The mare spoke up next, “We have, this new Pride hasn’t done anything that we would normally consider worth being a Sin. Still his title and position still put him in the same category as the rest of them.”

I laughed a little and still using the other mares voice I said, “He’s nothing like the rest of those rejects. Pride is on a different level compared to the rest. A perfect specimen, a perfect…soldier if you will.”

Nightshade looked over to me, his gaze lingered on me for a long moment, “Good point Dr. Stormy,” he turned his attention back to the rest, “He’s here because I wanted him to be and because I need him close right now.”

The Council pony on the mares right said, “It’s not like you to trust one of them this much Nightshade, why is this so different?”

“It’s simple, I can trust Pride, unlike the rest of them including their leader Cloak,” he said simply, “As you all know The Seven Sins of Equinity is one of the reasons I called this meeting, it’s also why I wanted us to meet in Mill City Tower, there are less ears here to listen in on what I have to say.”

The mare spoke up, “Yes, I’d like to hear about this. What are you thinking Nightshade?”

He grinned, “Not thinking, I’ve already done. As of two hours ago, I disbanded The Seven Sins of Equinity. They have all been labeled as traitors of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, the same goes for Cloak A.K.A. Grimoire Spell.”

One of the Stallions who I thought was a guard slammed his hoof on the table, “Why would you do that!? They are the best special ops team we have!”

“Major, calm yourself, I’ll explain,” Nightshade said, “If any of you haven’t been keeping an eye on what’s been going on in New Pegasus, then I can understand why you wouldn’t know what’s happening. As of now we have lost three of The Sins, Gluttony, the former Pride who was the leader, and just recently Wrath. They all died fighting this package courier that I know you’ve all heard about.”

“Yes, but they were trying to kill her because of what she did to the cloud layer and her attacks on The Enclave as a whole,” The Council Mare said.

Nightshade sighed, “That is not fully correct. At first yes, we sent them after her for what she did, but that’s not the only reason. I’ve found out that Cloak has been spying on her using Envy ever since she first left her stable. Cloak wants some Pip-Buck The Courier has on her, for reason’s she hasn’t told The Council about. I’ve ordered Pride and Cloak not to go after her anymore once I found out that the hole she made in the cloud layer was a mistake and something she wouldn’t be able to do again. I also told them to back down because it wasn’t her that first attacked us, but one of our own who went after her. Either way, the fights The Sins have had with her, has proven to be catastrophic. When she killed Pride, she also took out a good part of a cloud factory that sat over Appleton, killing many pegasi. Each time we go after her, she does something more devastating and ponies on the surface are starting to see that. If this keeps up, we will be kicked out of New Pegasus, and all of the work we’ve spent over the past few years to get into that city will have gone to waste.”

The mare spoke up again, “I still don’t see why disbanding The Sins is a good idea, and why you didn’t get approval from us.”

Stardust was the one who answered, “Because the old Sins don’t listen to the council, they only answer to Pride…the old Pride, or Cloak who is hell bent on finishing her mission.”

“Exactly, as you all know Cloak has betrayed The Enclave before when she left twelve years ago so she could try to save her daughter. I personally was surprised when she was allowed back in and put in charge of The Sins.” Nightshade said.

The Council Stallion on the mares left spoke up, “She may have left us in the past, but she never stopped being Enclave. You know that as well as us Nightshade. She gave us a good reason as to why she left and she gave us good intel she got on three of the factions that are enemies of The Grand Pegasus Enclave.”

“Be that as it may, she still doesn’t answer to anypony but herself. I told her to return to Stratus after her failed attempt to capture The Courier and after she almost got our new Pride killed. She didn’t do that, she took Greed, Lust, and Sloth with her to Los Alicorn. While she did that, Envy went completely rogue and we lost track of him. I was able to get Pride here to make Wrath come with, and just yesterday he was killed by The Courier in the Absent Ruins just outside of The Kingdom,” Nightshade said.

The mare spoke up again, she had to be the one with the most authority, “So you think we should disband them because of this? Who will replace them then?”

I knew where this was going so I spoke up, “Easy, this Pride will make his own group to replace The Sins until he’s ready to complete the program. They will be loyal to us and not some random Mare who cares more about her own personal gain than that of The Enclave.”

“That’s the plan I had,” Stardust said grinning wider.

“You may have a point. Though I still don’t like that you did this without talking to us first,” she said.

“I can explain that in a moment,” Nightshade said as he looked toward me, “Dr. Stormy, I know I asked you to come up here so we could talk about how things are going in the tower, but would you mind stepping out for a moment. The same for everypony apart from the High Council.”

I froze again for a moment, then finally I nodded, “Fine with me, just don’t keep me waiting. I have work to finish up and would rather not dilly dally.”

He smiled at me, “Don’t worry this won’t take long.”

The three ponies that were with the High Council got up and left, same for Stardust and myself. Snow Drift followed me out as well keeping close to me. Once the door to the meeting room was shut and the others were out of earshot he said, “Doctor, I know that we don’t get along all the time, but I need to know if you destroyed the files?”

Without looking at him I said, “No I didn’t, I told you I won’t do it.”

He paused saying, “Come with me.”

Looking back at him I said, “Why should I?”

“Because, I don’t want others to hear this. Can you at least give me a few minutes to explain to you why we can’t let them find out what we’ve been doing?” he said opening the door to an empty office.

Figuring it wouldn’t matter I sighed and followed, “Fine, but it won’t change my mind.”

When I was in the office he shut and locked the door before saying, “I know you found those files about me sending aid to The Kingdom. If Nightshade or the others find out, they’ll kill me.”

That took me by surprise, this Enclave pegasus was helping Sheena and the Emperor? Shaking my head a little I asked, “That may be true, but I’m not going to go down with you when they do find out, and they WILL find out.”

“I know, but I’m only doing it to get information on them. I need to build up their trust, once I do, then we can finally destroy that fucking place.”

I frowned, of course he wasn’t really helping The Kingdom, he was trying to destroy them, “If that’s the case then why didn’t you tell The Council that in the first place?”

“Because they wouldn’t understand, Nightshade wouldn’t allow it. He might act tough and all, but deep down he’s a snake. Look how he keeps defending The Courier and now he’s getting rid of The Sins. He’s also the pony who told us not attack The Kingdom, even though they’ve been harboring Dashites!” Snow Drift said.

“You may be right, I’ll think about what you said before I decide for good though. Now can we get out of this office, it’s stuffy in here?”

He reached out a hoof and grabbed my left foreleg, “Wait, I still need to ask you one more…”

He stopped talking as soon as his hoof grabbed the Pip-Buck that was under the sleeve of my lab coat. He pulled me closer before I could do anything, and lifted the sleeve, reveling the Mark II, “You’re not Dr. Stormy…”

I smiled, and used my magic to pull off the goggles, “No I’m not, I’m The Courier.”

He was about to scream for help, but he wasn’t quick enough. From under the lab coat, I drew the sword and sliced it through his neck. I stepped out of the way before the spray of blood could land on me. His eyes went wide and he gagged trying to say something, but he couldn’t get the words out as blood poured into his wind pipe, just like the real doctor. His body fell to the ground as he started to convulse on the ground. A moment later he was dead.

“Should’ve just kept on walkin’,” I said stepping around the growing pool of blood. I looked down at his corpse knowing I screwed up, he was going to call for help or warn somepony. I didn’t care that I killed him, what wasn’t good was that somepony would notice him missing when the meeting started up again, “Wait a sec, why do I care about this meeting anyway? I know where they are now, I don’t have to keep this up.”

Looking around the office I tried to figure a way that I could get back into the room without Nightshade knowing. Stardust wasn’t far away, but even he wasn’t fast enough to stop me from killing Nightshade, or the other Council Ponies for that matter. When I was in the office during the meeting I noticed ventilation openings in the ceiling, but this smaller office didn’t have one in it, well not one I could fit in at least. I went back to the door, cracked it open and checked to see if anypony was out there. I could hear some ponies talking down the hall, but no pony was in sight. I shut the door, locked it then teleported back into the hall. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would keep just anypony from walking in for now.

Walking back toward the lobby I started to look at the doors as I passed by them. Finally I found what I was looking for, one of the doors said ‘Sanitation’ on it. If this building was anything like Stable 28, it would have access to the air system. I tried to open the door, but it was locked…of course it was. Looking down the hall both ways I checked to make sure nopony was watching, then started on the lock. It only took a few seconds and the lock clicked and I pushed the door open. I almost screamed when I first walked in. There was a skeleton hanging from the middle of the small room. He was wearing a janitor’s uniform, the name tag said ‘Grimes’ on it. Below him lying on the ground was a nice looking long barreled revolver. Next to it was a note. Closing the door behind me and relocking it I picked up the hoof written note wondering to myself why he didn’t just shoot himself, it would’ve been a lot quicker.

It’s been six months since Equestria died, six months I’ve been trying to survive in this Wasteland. Most of the buildings in Whinnieapolis have fallen and the dead walk the streets. Ran out of ammo last night. I’ve been trying to hold up in Mill City Tower. I know this place better than most since I used to work here before the world died. I can’t go on anymore, I can hear them coming up the stairs. The dead won’t stop hunting me, even all the way up here. The streets are flooded with them. My food is gone, I’m almost out of water, and there’s no pony who can help. My wife died in the blast, the dead killed my son, I’m alone and I’m done. I tried, but I can’t do this anymore…

Grimes

“Sad, but at least his loss is my gain, thanks Mr. Grimes,” I said as I picked up the revolver. True to his words, it was empty but from what I could see it looked like it took a .357 Magnum. Luckily for me I had quite a few rounds of those left for Ol’ Festus. I tried giving them to Wingnut after I let him have the rifle, but he told me when he fixed the rifle he changed it so it now used .45-.70 ammo. He said it was more powerful even if it was harder to find. So, I loaded Six rounds into the revolver.

With that done I looked around for what I needed, it wasn’t hard. On the other end of the room I found it. Most of the ventilation came together to connect to an old heating system. There was a part of the vent that could be pulled away in case a pony needed to check the ventilation, just like Stable 28. I walked over to it opening the panel then stopped, “I don’t think I need to keep up the disguise now.”

I quickly changed back into my barding and Duster, pulled off the headband, and tucked it all into my Saddle Bags. Then I moved into the vent and with some effort, reached the top and started to crawl my way toward where the Meeting room should be. As I got closer to my destination, voices started to float toward me. At first they were muffled and I couldn’t make out what they were saying, that changed when I finally got to a larger vent cover that was right over the meeting room.

“Nightshade, I don’t care how many times you keep saying it, you still went over our heads,” The High Council Mare said. I looked down through the grate and saw that all three were still sitting at one end of the table. Nightshade though had moved to sit right next to them, his darkened glasses sitting on the table next to him.

“I did and I’ll say it again Torrential Wind, I don’t give a shit what you want or what you say. I’m not taking your orders again, you’ve done nothing for our ponies but get them killed in small fights with The Steel Rangers and the NLR. Both Stratus and Nimbus have the highest amount of Dashites. Last year alone we banished forty-five pegasi from Stratus alone, thirty-four from Nimbus. Thunderhead only had two last year and one this year, Neighvarro hasn’t had one in years. If we keep this up we will be so weak that we won’t be able to defend ourselves if Neighvarro tries to take us over.

The mare puffed herself up as she said, “How dare you treat me with such disrespect! You will address me as High Council Mare not by my name!”

“Yes Nightshade what has gotten in to you?” the stallion on her left asked.

“None of you deserve the respect your position calls for. That’s why I’m taking things over from now on,” Nightshade said.

The Mare almost screamed at him, “A statement like that is an act of treason Nightshade, I’d think twice before you utter such things around us again. You’re a brilliant Stallion and well respected among the soldiers and citizens, don’t throw away everything you’ve gained in the past decade because you’re too blinded by power.”

The Stallion on her right spoke up next, “Yes, do think more clearly Nightshade. Even if you wanted to take over, you couldn’t. As you know, Council Members are elected by the citizens. You can’t keep this position if they knew what you planned.”

Nightshade was quiet for a long time, finally he started to laugh, “Hahahaha, you have a point. Council ponies are elected, that’s how I got this position as you all know. The thing you seem to forget, a High Council Pony like all of you is an appointed position by the other High Council Ponies. Normally it takes years to reach that level of leadership, and the ponies who are chosen are always friends of the ponies who run things.”

“That’s right, what’s your point?” the mare asked.

He chuckled again, “Did you know that there’s another way to become a High Council Pony? No? I figured as much, well I’ll tell you then. If something happens to all the current members of the High Council, then a Council pony who holds the most number of votes from the last election is placed as the new High Council Pony. Seeing how you three are the only High Council in Stratus and Nimbus, if you die I’d be put in your place. That would give me full control over everything that happens in both cloud cities and all of the ground cities.”

“That may be true, but if you killed us you’d never get away with it. You’d be executed,” the mare said jumping out of her seat and stepping away from the table, “This meeting is over!”

I was confused on what Nightshade was doing, I should just drop in there and kill him and the others. But something about what was being said kept me enwrapped in what was going on. Nightshade was still chuckling to himself, “You’re right, I’d never get away with killing you, but if somepony like let’s say The Courier was to do it, then I’d be free to take over.”

My heart jumped into my throat as he said that. It was like he knew I was up here watching, or at least in the building. I didn’t get a chance because one of the stallions said, “The Courier is in New Pegasus, she wouldn’t ever get close enough to us to kill us. You’ve lost your mind Nightshade, just like the rest of your doomed family!”

“Oh really? If that’s what you think then you really aren’t keeping an eye on what’s going on in your own cities. The Courier is in this tower, she killed Dr. Stormy an hour ago, and I’m sure by now she’s killed more ponies in the tower all while she’s trying to find a way to get to me…isn’t that right Shadow?” Nightshade said putting his glasses back on and looking up at me, “Why don’t you come down and say hello.”

I tried to turn around to run away before Nightshade could stop me, but the vent was small and I couldn’t move fast enough. He flew into the air, ripped off the grate and pulled me out of the tunnel. I tried to kick him, but he held on tight then gently set me down on the table. He backed away and stood by the door watching me, a small smile on his face. All three High Council ponies backed away, one of the stallions saying, “How the hell did she get up there?”

“She’s smart, she always seems to find a way to get to her target,” Nightshade said still grinning, “Introduce yourself Shadow and tell the nice old ponies who you are.”

Wow, someone called me smart for once. I glared at him then pulled out the revolver and pointed it right at him, “I’d rather blow your fucking brains out!”

He just shook his head, “Now is that any way to act? Why would you want to hurt me? I never did anything to you.”

“You sent Pride after me, because of him my friend Aura’s DEAD!” I yelled, “I’m going to make you pay for taking her away from me.”

“You think I sent Pride to go kill your friend? You really should get your facts straight. When I heard what happened back at the Ruins I was furious with Pride for what he did. I ordered him to keep an eye on Wrath and if needed to kill him if he went after you, which he did. At first I wasn’t sure why he tried to take you in, but after some digging I figured it out.”

“You’re a fucking liar!”

“Nightshade do something!” the mare said.

“Quiet, all of you, I’m handling this!” he said before looking back at me, “Pride was given orders not by me, but by the three you see behind you to bring you in. They’re the ones who’ve been pulling the strings all along, Pride told me when he got back that he was ordered to kill one of your friends and say it was me who ordered it, that way you’d come hunt me down.”

I lowered my revolver a little, then turned to look at the three old pegasi who were pressed against the far wall, “Is that true?”

“He’s lying to you!” a stallion said, “We don’t even know who you are, just the stories we’ve been told.”

“Don’t LIE to her!” Nightshade yelled, “You know damn well who she is!”

At first, I wasn’t sure who was lying to me. Mom told me in her notes never to trust Nightshade, but I also remembered that other ponies said he was my father’s best friend and wanted to protect me. Which story did I believe, was he the pony that just wanted to get back the daughter of his best friend and protect her, or was he a liar like my mom said? The answer was too easy, Mom lied to me for most of my life, why would this be any different?

Turning the revolver to point at them I said, “I’m Shadow Star The Courier, Daughter of Grimoire Spell. I was born in The Crystal Empire and thought to be dead, but I have a feeling you know that already, don’t you?”

The mare broke first under my intense gaze, “Yes we know who you are, but only because Grim told us about you being alive when she came back to us. She told us that you’d be the pony to give her the key she needed to finish unlocking some prewar project that would make us the most powerful cloud city in The Enclave.”

“My mom thinks I’m dead, she had her memories wiped. How could she have told you any of this?”

Nightshade spoke up, “She told them a week before one of her spells back fired on her. I’ve tried telling her that you were alive ever since you got out of Stable 28, but she won’t listen to me or anypony about it. The only pony she trusted was her brother, which you killed. When I found out that the High Council were the ones sending The Sins after you just so they could get your Pip-Buck I started to strike back against them.”

I turned back to him, “If that’s true then why is my friend taking orders from you? I know Pride is loyal to her, Dr. Stormy said as much!”

“He wasn’t at first, but after I told him that The High Council was betraying The Enclave, he switched sides rather quickly. It’s a flaw in his programing, he’s loyal to The Enclave as a whole not leaders who betray it.”

“How can I trust you?” I asked, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t just kill you right here and now.”

He smiled wider, “You couldn’t even if you wanted to, I’m a lot tougher than I look. Also I swore to protect you, and I always keep my word.”

“Then why should I kill them, even if they are the ones who told Stardust to kill Aura, what else have they done?” I asked, I wanted them all dead, but I needed to know more.

“Don’t you dare tell her anything else Nightshade!” the mare shouted.

He ignored her, “Dr. Stormy’s work was started and funded by those three. Dr. Stormy is the one who ran the program, but they’re the reason Stardust was made into what he is. They were also the ones who decided to have his memories wiped. Everything bad that’s happened to you from The Enclave from the attack at that old F&F Tool Factory, to Frosty Summit, and The Sins, is because of them.”

I thought I was angry before, now after hearing that I was so furious I swore I felt like slaughtering every pegasus in sight, even Nightshade. He says he wanted to protect me, but he didn’t protect my friends, he didn’t protect Aura. He was just as responsible as the rest of them in my mind, “I don’t care what you say Nightshade, but I can’t trust you or anypony anymore. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t destroy everything here and kill every last pony including you!”

“Because I’m the only pony that’s keeping the rest of The Enclave from coming after you,” he opened the door to the office, “You can come after me if you want, but I’d suggest you don’t. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Pride with me. If you play your cards right, you can still save him you know. I just need a little more time to get him to believe the truth. I’ll buy you some time while you take care of those fools. It was nice to meet you at last Shadow Star, I hope the next time we meet it’s under better circumstances.”

Before I could do anything, the door shut and he was gone. The pony I came to kill was getting away, so was Stardust. But what if he was right, what if I didn’t know the whole truth, what if I could save Stardust still? No, I told myself that I was going to kill him. No matter what, he still killed Aura, there was no coming back from that. I’d have to find another way to do this, but for now at least I could still get some revenge.

I looked back at the old pegasi who still hadn’t done anything, but cower by the wall, “Who’s first?”

The stallion on the mares right said, “You won’t listen to a crazy pony like him will you?”

“You then,” I said aiming down the sights of the revolver and firing. The stallion’s skull blew apart splattering the others with bone, blood, and grey matter.

“Okay, okay, yes we sent Pride to get you, we told him to only kill a friend of yours if you didn’t go with him. It’s not like we just out right told him to…” the other stallion started to say, I blew his brains out next.

I turned the revolver on the mare, “Any last words before I send you to Hell?”

She was crying and shaking on the ground, “We only did what was best for The Enclave, we need that project!”

Holstering the revolver I walked closer to her putting my face an inch away from hers, “You should’ve done more research before you came after me bitch. Grim lied to you, don’t feel bad she does it to everypony. I am the project you wanted. Do you know anything about Grim’s daughter?”

She looked up at me still crying, “Only that she was a sick filly, she went off to find a cure for the dark curse her brother cast on her. We heard you were a white filly but we figured that was a mistake once you were out of the stable.”

I smiled, “I was, but when my mom brought me to where Project Stargazer was. I got infected by something powerful, it did cure me, but it also changed me.”

I lifted her with my magic, she looked down at me with fear in her eyes, “You can’t have the power from Stargazer, there’s no way a filly could handle that much power inside of her. You would’ve died!”

I slammed her head against the wall then flipped her around and threw her against the window that overlooked the city. Walking over to her again I watched as she slowly got back to her hooves, her expensive clothes were ruined by the blood that coated it now, “I should’ve died, that’s true. For some reason though, I just keep surviving. Maybe I’m just lucky,” I pulled out Dream Walker and fired three shots into the window behind the mare. The glass cracked then shattered, wind gusted in as the mare fell to her belly again, fear plain in her eyes.

“Please don’t kill me, I’m sorry…I’m SORRY!”

“Sorry won’t bring Aura back, it won’t bring Silver back, it won’t save Stardust or my mother,” I said picking her up with my magic again readying my sword to cut off her wings and throw her out the window.

Before I could a pony flew in through the broken window and tackled me. My magic broke and I dropped the mare on the floor. I readied a spell to fire at whoever had just attacked me when I noticed who it was. Pinning me down was The Stranger, his wrapped face a few inches away from mine, his green eyes shining out from under the shadows of his black desperado hat, “Don’t do this Shadow!”

“Get off me!” I yelled, “She’s the reason Aura’s DEAD!”

He hit me in the face then picked me up with his hooves and pinned me to the wall, “I said stop IT! She may be the mare who ordered this, but you still shouldn’t be the one to kill her. It’s bad enough you already killed two of them.”

The mare tried getting back to her hooves again, as she did she said, “Thank you sir, you saved my life.”

Ignoring her The Stranger got closer to me and said in a low voice, “I won’t let you destroy yourself just for Revenge, especially when you don’t have any reason to.”

I looked at him with shock, “I have every reason to. How did you even know I was here?”

He rolled his eyes then hit me in the gut. Air blasted out of my lungs and I doubled over as he let me go. As I sat there gasping for air, The Stranger said, “I’ll tell you later, but right now I’m not going to let you kill anymore Enclave ponies, not like this.”

The mare finally got back to her hooves and she said again, “Sir what is your name so I can reward you for saving my life and for bringing down the mare who’s put us though so much trouble.”

The Stranger turned toward her and walked closer, “I’m the Stallion who protects her,” With his back turned toward me, did something with the bandages around his face. I saw her eyes go wide.

“YOU!” she said.

Replacing the bandages he said, “Yes, me!” as quick as lightning he jumped back pulled out his black revolver and fired one shot into her head. when he fired I saw something glow around the hole in her head for a moment, then the momentum from the bullet snapped the mares head back and she flew out of the open window.

Getting control of my breathing again I got up saying, “She was MINE to kill!”

Turning back to face me, his face now covered again he said, “No she wasn’t. I told you that you don’t have all the information. This stupid mission of yours is only going to get you killed!”

“I DON’T CARE! I want them all dead, Nightshade, Stardust, the whole FUCKING ENCLAVE!” I screamed.

Before he could answer gunfire erupted from the other side of the door. The two of us jumped back, The Stranger saying, “Either way, I’m getting you out of here and bringing you back to The Kingdom, your friends are worried sick about you.”

“Let them worry I’m never going back there,” I said as I moved toward the door, kicked it open and threw a grenade at the pegasi down the hall who were trying to kill us. They jumped back behind the far wall, but the explosion still got two before they could get behind cover, “Just leave me alone, I’m going to go find Stardust and Nightshade and finish what I started.”

“If you aren’t going to listen to reason, then I guess we have to do this the hard way,” he said and before I could turn to see what he was talking about, I felt something sharp poke into my neck.

Reaching up I felt a small dart there, I pulled it out and looked at it then The Stranger, who was standing there holding some kind of makeshift gun, “What did you just do?”

I got my answer, my body went mostly numb and I fell to the floor. He ran over to me and grabbed me, he flew into the air and out the window right as more gunfire erupted in the hall, “I shot you with a weak poison dart, I didn’t have enough to make it last long, but it should last until I get you to safety.”

I tried to say something, but my jaw didn’t want to work. Everything felt numb and puffy like when I was a filly in the dentist office after he said I’d feel a pinch in my mouth. I noticed as we flew away from Mill City Tower, that it was starting to get dark out. We didn’t go far, just a few blocks away where he set me on the roof of a three-story building. When he did he sighed saying, “That’s better, sometimes Shadow I swear you have a death wish.”

Concentrating hard I was able to move my muzzle enough to speak, slowly but I could still talk, “I’ll make you pay for this.”

He smacked me again, “For what? Saving your life!? Do you even know why I’m here?”

“To be a pain in my ass?”

“No, Somepony calling himself Watcher contacted me when I was in The Kingdom talking with your friends. He told me where you were going and what you planned on doing. I came as fast as I could, some zebra named Khalid told me you went into the tower a while ago. He told me what you promised him to get his help after you were done. Don’t worry I’m going to help him and his mother for you once I’m done dealing with you,” he said, his voice growing in anger as he talked.

“This…won’t stop me, I’m going to kill them, even if you do bring me back to The Kingdom,” I replied, I could already feel the poison wearing off.

“Nightshade isn’t your enemy Shadow!”

“He’s just as guilty as the rest of them, he didn’t do anything to stop Stardust when he came after me!”

“He didn’t know until after it was done! Who do you think first sent me to find you when Winter Frost found you? Nightshade did, he’s been looking out for you for weeks. He even did everything he could to try and help you save Stardust. He can’t show all his cards yet, but he’s on your side, if you kill him, nothing will stop whoever replaces him from coming after all of you! He’s not a bad pony!” The Stranger yelled.

“But my mom told me he can’t be trusted,” I said, but I knew I wasn’t going to win this. The more he said, the more I realized how stupid I’ve been.

“Grim doesn’t trust anypony Shadow! She hasn’t for years, she’s paranoid. Ever since she left The Enclave she was always afraid that somepony was going to come take you away from her! That’s why she said not to trust him, she wants you all to herself.”

Finally, I lowered my gaze and let a few tears fall, “This whole time, it was mom who I couldn’t trust, even before she turned into what she is now?”

“I wouldn’t say you can’t trust her, but when it comes to Nightshade or any of your family, she won’t have anything nice to say about them. She can’t change who she is. You can trust Nightshade, if you don’t believe what he’s said to you then trust me.”

Feeling came back to my legs and slowly I got back to my hooves and sighed looking up at the tower that still loomed over the city like a black pillar of death. At the top I saw what must have been a raptor flying away and into the clouds as escort pegasi followed it. As it flew off I asked The Stranger, “How do I forgive Stardust?”

“You have to find a way, remember he isn’t himself right now,” The Stranger replied, “Think about it like this, what would Stardust do if he was in your place right now?”

I knew what he would do. The problem was, The Stranger thought he did, but he didn’t, “Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?” he asked with a sigh, he looked worn out, his eyes were looking down at his hooves.

“Is there a cloud city above The Twin Cities?”

“No, Nimbus is more northwest of here. Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t want more innocent ponies to die because of the monsters who run The Enclave,” I said as I pulled out my last resort. Solar Flare’s Range Finder slid out of my saddle bags, and I pointed it right at the top of the tower.

The Stranger looked up and saw what I had in my magical grip. He jumped at me yelling, “NO DON’T!”

He wasn’t fast enough, I pulled the trigger and watched as the small red beam flew out of the end of the strange gun. A much larger symbol formed on the outside of the building, right as The Stranger Tackled me. I was laughing as he took the Range finder away from me, “It’s too late, nothing can stop it once it’s been fired.”

The Screen did what it did before, saying something about matching DNA, then it said more about lining up the shot. He looked at the screen in horror, “There has to be a way to stop it, you can’t do this Shadow! Turn it off!”

I looked up at him and smiled, “No, I can’t. Even if I could I wouldn’t. That building houses most of the ponies who run The Twin Cities for the Enclave and if I’m lucky Stardust is still in there. You told me to do what he would if he was in my place. This is it, he would avenge his friend if I ever did anything as bad as he did.”

“No, he wouldn’t he would’ve tried to save you, Shadow make it STOP!”

A slight yellow glow from four beams of light came crashing through the cloud layer. As they did before they expanded enclosing Mill City Tower in a thin barrier that went up into the heavens. The clouds that were trapped in the barrier vanished in seconds showing the beautiful blue sky beyond. It looked a little green because of the barrier’s color, but it was still a sight that most ponies never saw.

“Stranger this can’t be stopped, either kill me or just watch what happens next. I don’t care either way,” I said as the range finder beeped.

Target Locked!

Solar Flare Firing! Please Stand Back!

A rushing sound filled the air followed by a blinding light that slammed into the tower. It crashed right through lighting up the city like the sun had shown itself right in the center of Whinnieapolis. Then the beam of deadly light expanded until it touched the barrier. Like before it only lasted about ten seconds, only this time the barrier held. Pride must have weakened it before when he tried to escape. The light vanished and a second later so did the thin yellow barrier.

Dust blew out into the city, but apart from that there was nothing left. The skyline where Mill City Tower had once dominated over Whinnieapolis was gone. All that was left was a glowing crater and a little bit of rubble that wasn’t destroyed in the blast itself. When I first fired Solar Flare, I was scared of the destructive power it had. Now I only smiled, nopony in that place was worth saving. I showed The Enclave once again, that I wasn’t a mare they should mess with.

“Shadow, how could you have done that?”

“Easy, I hated everything that place stood for. This is the price they get to pay for killing the ones I love.”

He rounded on me, “I told you before that you’re a fool. I don’t know if I can save you from this Shadow, but I’m still going to try. You’re going back to The Kingdom with me.”

“No, I’m not, I have to make sure Stardust was in that blast, if he wasn’t I’m going to hunt him down like he did to me,” I retorted getting back to my hooves and putting the range finder back into my saddle bags, “Don’t follow me Stranger, if I see you again, I’ll kill you too.”

I started to walk away, but The Stranger walked in front of me, “No, you’re going back to The Kingdom!”

I readied a spell to blast him out of my way, “I’m not going…”

He didn’t let me finish, “That wasn’t a request Shadow!” he quickly pulled out a shining orb from one of his pockets and pressed it to my glowing horn. My magic connected and there was a spark. Before the memory of whatever he had took hold, I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to kill you for this…’

The world melted away, and with it all hope in getting my revenge…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing Rank 2: You’ve pretty much mastered disguise and the art of deception. You can now use various different disguises to your advantage even when in close proximity to the enemy. Be warned though, allies that have a close relationship to the pony you’re pretending to be could potentially see through your disguise.
DARK PERK ADDED!

Cold Blooded: Wow, you’ve gone pretty dark. With your moral compass turning the way it has, you now have an easier time making the decision to kill somepony rather than sparing them and can quickly think of killing in the cruelest ways imaginable. (Note: This perk also weakens the seal holding Aquila, be careful of the choices you make in the future.)

Chapter 37: Put The Gun Down

“Mistakes? You did more than make mistakes Shadow!”

I pulled out my plasma rifle and watched as Stardust tried to land a hoof strike on Doorstop. He dodged under the blow, took hold of his foreleg and flipped the pegasus around throwing him into the air right at Solstice yelling, “Bam! Zoom! Straight to the BITCH!”

Solstice ignored his dickish statement and did a somersault in the air, bringing her rear hooves down to strike Stardust right in the face. Stardust was slammed into the ground. He jumped back to his hooves and yelled, “You motherfuckers really think you can win!?”

Laser fired her rifle at Stardust. It slammed into his combat armor throwing him back again, “Seems to be working, little bird.”

Stardust flew into the air with a demonic look on his face. The place where Laser’s shot hit was scorched but undamaged, “OH you think so do you?” he dove for Laser, she tried to hit him again with her rifle, but he dodged each shot. She jumped out of the way at the last moment but in that moment she round house hooved Stardust in his side sending him flying against the ground, barely avoiding a hoof strike to the head.

Stardust got up “You bitch you’re gonna pay for that.”

Laser readied her fighting stance and beckoned Stardust over to her “Come on little bird.”

Stardust flew straight towards her at full speed Laser side stepped avoiding Stardust’s rush round house hoofing him again kicking him backwards. Stardust face looked like it was going red and rushed at her one more time, however as he got closer he broke left and flew behind Laser slamming a hoof into her back, the force threw her forward rolling along the ground. She wiped her face and smiled “Nice hit, my turn” Laser threw her black flight jacket in the air and Solstice caught it. I looked back at Laser but she wasn’t there. I heard a loud crashing sound and look towards it, there was a lot of dust in the air. In the dust I saw silhouettes of the two pegasi fighting hoof to hoof back and forth. Eventually one of them got a nice kick sending the other out of the dust cloud. It was Laser Light who was kicked out of the cloud.

“The dust settled and Stardust was standing there a little beat up. Laser Light did a number on him. He wiped his face and laughed at Laser “Hah you thought you could take me on by yourself, how pathetic.”

Laser struggled to get up but once she did she laughed as well “Hah hah hah, you must be joking I’m having too much fun, ready for round two, little bird?”

“Stop calling me that!” Stardust yelled flying towards Laser once more. Only this time Stardust didn’t try to attack her, he twisted and went for his fallen rifle.

I know all too well how quickly he could kill us if he got ahold of it. I tried to teleport so I could reach the weapon before he did…and forgot about the fucking magic canceling ring on my horn. For a moment pain shot down my horn like a pick being hammered into thick ice. Shaking my head, I activated S.A.T.S. and targeted two shots at Stardust’s torso. The first one he dodged, still flying toward his rifle. The second he wasn’t as lucky with, the blast slammed right into his side. Unlike when Laser shot him with her own rifle, this time he screamed as the green goo stuck to his armor and started to sizzle.

He slammed into the ground again and started to roll around trying to get the goo off his armor. While he was momentarily preoccupied I looked toward Wind Thrasher, “Keep him down, I have to get his rifle.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replied as she dashed toward him.

I ran toward the fallen rifle as Wind Thrasher flew off to intercept Stardust who was just getting back to his hooves. A piece of his combat armor had been burned away revealing a small burn spot under it. He saw where I was going and tried to go after me, but Wind Thrasher didn’t let him. She cut him off and screamed, he dove to the side avoiding the blast, but it slowed him down. I smiled thinking to myself, ‘Some perfect solider.’

I reached his rifle and took hold of it with my magic, “Let’s see how well you do against us without this.”

Somepony slammed me into the ground a moment later making me lose the hold I had on his rifle. Then a hoof slammed my face down into the ground and I heard Stardust say, “That’s mine BITCH!”

He got off and picked up the rifle aiming it right at me with a grin on his face. Then Cutter came in kicking the rifle right as it fired. He twisted around and tried to kick Stardust in the face, but he jumped back, dodged a counter attack, then slammed the stock of his rifle into Cutter’s face.

I was back on my hooves with my plasma rifle ready to fire again, “Stardust stop this, don’t make me hurt you again.”

He glared at me, then lifted his rifle again and fired. I felt Laser’s hooves take hold of me and pull me to one side as the rifle fired. The bullet still hit me, but it slammed into the well armored part on my chest instead of hitting me in the head. It still hurt, but not as bad as you’d think. I’ll have to thank Wingnut when I see him again for upgrading this armor as well as he did.

“You okay Shadow?” Laser said examining my body her black flight jacket back on her. I can see how badly damaged Laser was from the scuffle with Stardust, yet she was more concerned about me than herself.

“Yes I’m fine Laser I’m more concerned about you.”

She scoffed “You think he can take down a tough old mare like myself that easily?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Did you forget about me ladies?” Stardust pushed the bolt back in place as he reloaded his rifle and aimed at me again. Once again he had to dodge an attack from Doorstop who came flying down at him from above. He twisted his rifle around and tried to slam the stock into Doorstop’s face.

The old pony was tougher than he looked, he let the blow hit him. He took the hit which barely phased him then let his wing came around and strike Stardust in the throat. Stardust gagged falling back again trying to land another strike on Doorstop, but he jumped out of the way laughing, “I haven’t shown you all my tricks yet Cadet!”

Stardust coughed, “And I haven’t shown you all of mine, TRAITOR!”

He dropped something metallic and jumped back right as the flash bomb went off. Doorstop cursed and looked away from the bright explosion of light. The flash was so bright that it even blinded me through my eyelids as I closed my eyes and turned away from the flash.

Once I was able to see again, I saw that Stardust was now on Doorstop’s back holding him in a headlock and choking him, and Laser was no longer next to me. I still couldn’t see all that well but I had to do something, “Hold on, I got this,” I took aim with my plasma rifle and was about to fire when Solstice came diving toward him. As she got closer in her dive, she turned her body so her hind hooves were aimed toward the ground, then with an almighty stomp she came down on Stardust’s wings so hard that I heard the snaps from where I was standing.

He screamed and let go of Doorstop immediately before grabbing at his now broken wings with his forehooves. He lost his balance on Doorstop’s back as he leaned forward to brace himself to breathe and dropped his rifle. He reacted quickly and went to grab for it before being kicked in the face by Solstice, “Not so tough without your gun are ya?” she said as she picked it up and tossed it to Laser.

He held his face and spat out a mouthful of blood, “I’ll never get a pretty marefriend if you guys keep going after my face like that. I’ll end up being a total fugo like you,” with that he bucked upward and hit her in the chest, throwing her back. As he got back to his hooves he pulled out a beat-up pistol and fired in her direction.

Luckily the bullet only went through her ear instead of her head, and as blood started to run down the left half of her face she said, “Nice one crack shot. What are you like eight, no nine feet away?” he fired again and just grazed her shoulder, “Oh, I forgot about this. Doorstop said you aren’t so good at shooting pistols, especially when pumped with adrenaline like you are right now. Just give up already bro. You’re outnumbered, your wings are broken, and the only gun you have on you looks like it’s lived through three wars, not just the one.”

Right as she was done talking, Stardust took his right forehoof and kicked sand in her eyes then fired again as he ran toward a giant rock. I got a good look of his gun, well… as well as I can see it, when he took cover behind the rock and saw that it was the one I gave him when we went to Stable 9. He started shooting at the others but for some reason completely forgot about me. Wind Thrasher tried flying over to get behind him but as she was just getting airborne he managed to shoot her in the wing. She dropped back down behind cover in a collapsed brick house and tried screaming again to no avail.

Meanwhile, Solstice, Laser, Cutter, and the two pegasi he brought with him returned fire. That was when I noticed Doorstop was nowhere to be found. I looked around, but couldn’t find him anywhere, it was like he suddenly disappeared. Then a bullet whizzed by my head as I was lost in thought and I realized that I wasn’t behind cover by any means. Thinking fast I ran behind a concrete barrier and went to grab Stardust’s old rifle off my back, but I didn’t feel anything there, “Oh, fuck,” shit there goes any plans of possibly getting a crippling shot. Wait a sec, Laser has his other rifle, “Hey Laser! Toss me his other rifle, I have an idea.”

Laser quickly examined it’s chamber and stock “Looks like it’s out of ammo and you don’t have the kind of ammunition it needs, but don’t worry, we’ve got a plan,” she replied.

Dammit, plans never pan out the way they’re logically supposed to when it comes to me and my friends so whatever happens next can’t be good. It was then that I finally saw Doorstop, he was directly behind Stardust. Shit, I have to do something, grabbing him from behind won’t work, he’ll find a way to fight back and get free. Then before I could think of something to do Doorstop grabbed Stardust under his shoulders with both his forehooves and stood him upright on his hind legs. After getting him up, Doorstop put his hind hooves around Stardust’s to hold him where they stood, “You forgot rule number one Cadet, always keep an eye on your enemy and pay attention to your surroundings. C’mon now, drop the gun.”

Stardust didn’t listen, instead he pointed the gun as best he could toward Doorstop’s face and fired. Doorstop barely flinched as the gun went off three times, all he did was blink and wince in pain at the damage the sound must’ve been causing his ears.

I decided to come out from cover and approach him which was probably the stupid choice considering he still had a gun readily available and wanted to kill me and I still very much wanted to end him, but I have to try not to for my friends. As I walked toward him he fired one shot that hit me in the forehoof, I didn’t even flinch, “Where did you get that gun you just shot me with?”

“Why should I tell you?” he asked around the bit of the pistol.

“Because I’m curious as to why all the other weapons I’ve seen you use are in pristine condition while that one is a pathetic excuse for scrap metal,” I replied as I stopped about five feet in front of him.

He went to fire again and the gun clicked, he dropped it and smirked, “Lucky as ever Courier, just one thing after another you get lucky with. Do you have a collection of lucky charms in those saddle bags or is it just you? All this time I’ve wondered how no one has managed to kill a simple stable dweller like you. It’d be easy if you weren’t so damn lucky, like setting a ghoul on fire, or drowning a foal in a radioactive river.”

“You still haven’t answered my question you sick son of a bitch. Where did you get the pistol?” I asked, pressing him and ignoring his attempts to make me angry.

“How do you know if my mother is a bitch or not, have you met her? I sure as hell haven’t because she’s dead, just like your feathered friend in The Kingdom,” he replied arrogantly.

Great, not only does he keep going around my question, he’s trying to fuck with me by asking ME questions that piss me off, “She…”

Doorstop interrupted, “You ain’t as good of a shot as you think, the griffon isn’t dead.”

“Ppfftt… of course she’s dead, I hit her in the heart,” he retorted.

Wait, did Doorstop just say that Aura’s okay? No, I heard them call the time of death. He’s probably just trying to antagonize Stardust; yeah that’s it. That’s it right? “Doorstop, if you’re trying to fuck with his mind, please don’t use the ‘Aura’s alive’ scenario. It’s not helping my sense of reason when it comes to my urge to behead him.”

“You leveled an almost eight hundred foot tower because you thought he killed her and wanted revenge. Do you really think I’d risk pissing you off right now with something like that?” he asked as Stardust began to struggle a bit, “If you wanna know more, talk to Laser or Wind Thrasher. Also, would you help me restrain him already and stop playing twenty questions?”

If he really is lying about Aura, I’m gonna cut him in half with my sword, “Fine, whatever. I need him to answer the question,” I focused my attention to Stardust and got closer speaking slower, “Where…did…you…get…that…gun?”

“I took it from an orphaned colt I killed in White Tail Wood,” he replied.

Finally, I walked up to him and grabbed the front of his armor to pull him close to my face, “Tell me, the truth. You know damn well that’s not where you got it.”

“I can’t,” he replied a bit quietly.

I raised an eyebrow, “Oh really now, and why’s that?”

“I just can’t answer.”

“Why can’t you answer such a simple question Stardust!” I asked again, taunting him a bit.

“BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW OKAY!? I… don’t know. All I know is that thinking about it gives me a fucking headache,” he finally answered.

I smirked like a smug little bitch, “Now was that so hard? If you want I could kill you and put you out of your misery, or I can tell you where you got that particular pistol.”

He didn’t answer for a minute as he sat there still, lost in thought with a blank expression, “Tell me…”

I so badly wanted him to tell me to kill him and for the first time in a while I felt the presence of Aquila deep down, “Stable 9, do you recall what happened to it?”

“Yeah, how could I forget? You blasted the side of a mountain into oblivion by setting off the stable’s emergency self-destruct. That’s how we ended up finding you at F&F Tools,” he replied.

They really went to extremes with his memory manipulation, “There’s one detail you don’t quite have correct with that. You were there with me right before I did it, you were beaten half to death by a psycho fiend by the name of Gator. Aura was flying you to safety at The Steel Rangers Bunker when I set off the bomb. Before I blew it up though, you were inside the stable with me and eventually Aura. I was the one who gave you that pistol because The Steel Rangers confiscated your rifle and left you with nothing because they didn’t think they could trust you. They gave me that shitty pistol when we left and I gave it to you so you had something when we went in. You told me that you hated pistols and you asked why you couldn’t use the shotgun I had and I told you I wanted it, because I really like it.”

He thought about it for a second, “What a load. I’ve never been in Stable 9.”

I smirked again, “Really? Is that why when everything started going to shit inside the stable you told me that I should’ve knocked on wood?”

“What the fuck are you getting at here?” he asked.

“I’m trying to get you to realize that your head’s been messed with by The Enclave you seem to love so much. The funny thing is that to them you’re just a lab rat. I actually have proof, wanna hear?” I said as I pulled up the recording of Dr. Stormy on my Pip-Buck.

“Nothing’s gonna change the fact that you killed Hailstorm, but fine, show me your proof.”

I played the recording and watched his face as he listened to it. His expression went from arrogant and condescending to lost and confused, “All you ever were to them was an experiment, a tool to make them stronger, and a catalyst for the eventual Enclave takeover of the entire Equestrian Wasteland like they’ve already done here in Saint’s Parish. After you got powerful enough for them to clone, you probably would’ve lived out the rest of your life in a laboratory.”

“Maybe I was nothing to them but that, but you still killed my best friend, I’m still going to make you pay for that,” he retorted.

Before I could speak Doorstop did, “They really popped your kernels didn’t they Cadet? Don’t you remember? Hailstorm got crushed by the stable door when you escaped from the stable. Had his insides squeezed out of him like he was a tube of toothpaste gettin’ stepped on. Damn near tore me to shreds knowin’ what happened to him, he wasn’t just a good cadet, he was also a good buck with a lot of ambition.”

“NO! It was her that killed him! I remember it, it’s so… it’s so… fuzzy…”

I sighed, “Stardust, you out of anypony should know that I only kill the ponies that deserve it like Dr. Cell. Do you remember him? Do you remember what he made Wind Thrasher do to those poor stable residents that were trying to escape?”

He started shaking his head back and forth, “Aaahhh, just stop, all these questions are all over the place. It’s making my head hurt. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to confuse me so that I’ll join you in your murder and mayhem, I won’t fall for your tricks.”

“Fine, have it your way then. What’s gonna happen now is that we’re going to restrain you, bring you back to Stable 97, and MAKE you remember. It would be a lot easier if you trusted us enough to show you the truth but you’re too Goddesses damned stubborn. That’s the thing about us stable ponies though isn’t it, we’re stubborn. I guess that’s why we used to be such good friends, we knew what it was like to be forced into a different way of life that we didn’t much like but had to deal with anyway because neither of us could go back to the safety of our homes. Think about it Stardust…”

“My name is Pride!” he interrupted.

“Yeah sure whatever, Pride then. Think about it, when was the last time you were in Stable 97? When did you run away from your home?” I asked as Laser came and helped Doorstop restrain him.

“A few weeks ago if you want to know so badly,” he answered quickly.

I actually wanted to laugh in his face after he said that, “Try more like seven months ago. One more question, why did you leave?”

He stammered at that, “I don’t know…”

“Alright, I’m done with him. Let’s get him to the stable before he decides he doesn’t care that his brain is a jumble of bad play scripts and that he wants to kill all his friends.”

Laser snapped the same kind of collar I was wearing earlier around his neck and put him in hoofcuffs, “Vin-A, do your thing.”

Vin-A beeped excitedly and floated in front of Stardust and did this weird flash thing in his face. Suddenly Stardust looked like he was stoned and said, “Whoa, do you guys see that floating testicle monster? It totally just warped here from the fifth dimension and put a hex on me, everything feels all woozy. Where’s my pet caterpillar Steve? Is he a butterfly yet? If I missed it…” he proceeded to cry about some non-existent pet of his as we started to regroup around him, “*sniff* I miss Steve.”

I sighed and leaned back looking over at the others, “I can’t believe that worked.”

Doorstop chuckled, “Of course it worked, we made a plan and followed through with it. I knew we could do it as long as we worked together, The Enclave think’s Stardust is a perfect solider, but as long as you know how he fights he’s not that tough.

“So what now? Are we taking him back to the Kingdom until we can figure out how to get into Stable 97?”

Wind Thrasher walked over to me, “No, we are heading straight to Stable 97.”

I frowned, “I thought The Stranger said I had to go back to the Kingdom?”

Solstice laughed, “He said that because you were acting like a crazy bitch, but he figured that if you calmed down because of your friends, there was no need.”

I frowned, “I’m really starting to hate that ass hole, fine let’s get going.”

***

So, it turns out that using a robot to scramble the signals going through somepony’s brain to make them easier to transport isn’t such a good idea. The past hour we’ve been traveling, all Stardust has been doing is whining about his stupid fake pet. It got so annoying that I was about to hit him, but before I could make contact with my hoof, Laser stopped me, “I know him acting like an idiot is annoying, but if you send any kind of shock to his brain he could come to his senses. He might not seem like a threat all chained up and loopy like that, but you need to remember that he’s highly trained and could probably get out of that stuff pretty easily and kill us.”

“Oh come on! Can’t we duct tape his mouth or something? I just can’t stand his constant whining about something that doesn’t even exist.”

Stardust turned his head toward me with a bit of a drunken like sway, “He is to real! Okay? So shut up and keep helping me look. You’re very nice to be helping me by the way.”

Holy fucking Celestia, this is so stupid. Why couldn’t they just let me kill him instead of letting me get tortured like this? “Solstice, is there anything you could do to shut him up, you seem to have a wild imagination?”

“Ppfftt, if that’s a crack about the time you duct taped me to that moron in Halo One I swear to The Goddesses I’m going to make sure he does something ten times worse than talk too much,” Solstice replied snarkily. It’s kinda odd but also uncanny, she reminds me a lot of what Stardust was like around the time I met him. He used to be so quick with sarcasm and snappy comebacks and then after a while got a lot more serious. Maybe it was the situations I kept putting all of them in?

I sighed, “It wasn’t a crack about anything but now that you mention it, you DID have it coming for how you’ve treated me and my friends. I know you’re helping us right now, or at least somewhat are, but I still don’t trust you. If I could go back to that moment I’d do the same thing. It was funny”

Things went back and forth like this during the time we continued our journey. After a little while though, we all stopped talking. It was just Laser and her robot, Solstice, Doorstop, Wind Thrasher, and myself transporting Stardust to Stable 97, Cutter and the other two pegasi with him went back to The Kingdom when we left. I wish he would’ve come with us, we need the help, and he might actually be in a talking mood. All this silence apart from Stardust’s constant yammering is getting really boring, not to mention depressing.

Suddenly Laser grabbed Stardust’s mouth to shut him up and said, “Everyone be quiet.”

“What?” Doorstop asked.

“Can’t you hear it? Something’s close, a lot of somethings too,” Laser whispered.

Wind Thrasher perked up her ears, “I can hear it, sounds like a hoard of ghouls. It also sounds like they’re attacking something, wait no, getting attacked. It sounds like it’s happening on the other side of that hill.”

When she said that I broke away from the group and climbed the short distance to the top of the hill and peered over the top to see if she was right. What I saw wasn’t what I expected, it was actually pretty badass. I saw a unicorn stallion with a white coat and a black mane wearing a white t-shirt and a leather jacket swinging a bat wrapped in barbed wire. Each time he swung he bashed in or completely knocked off the heads of the ghouls coming at him. His yellow eyes moved around quickly as he kept swinging as if he was keeping a constant eye on his surroundings.

I looked down the hill at the others and said quietly, “You guys gotta see this, it’s fucking awesome.”

Laser gave me a confused look as she continued to hold Stardust’s mouth, “If it’s somepony getting mauled by those ghouls, then you really need some serious help.”

“No, I promise it’s not something demented like that,” I retorted, waving them to come see.

Laser stayed at the bottom of the hill with Stardust as the others came up to look at the one stallion army kill every ghoul that came at him. Immediately Wind Thrasher looked concerned, “Shouldn’t we help him? He could get exhausted and overwhelmed by them.”

“C’mon Wind Thrasher, he’s practically got a wall of dead ghouls surrounding him. If anything it’ll get high enough to keep them away from him for longer periods of time.”

“Yeah, it’s not like he’s screaming help or anything,” Solstice said in agreement.

I looked over to say something to Doorstop about the situation but he was gone. It seemed that he didn’t want to miss out on the fun and went to go help the stallion. Of course he went to go help him, the only entertaining thing I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours and somepony had to go ruin it.

“I’m gonna go help too,” Wind Thrasher said as she got up and took to the air.

“Yeah, you go do that,” I sighed, “I guess I’ll help too even though I really don’t want to.

I pulled out the revolver I found in Mill City Tower and crossed the apex of the hill and ran down toward the large mass of rotting irradiated flesh and started unloading the cylinder. When I stopped to reload some of them broke away from the group and came in my direction. Right as one was about to jump on me Solstice blew it’s head off and covered me as I finished reloading. Soon we were all in the thick of it and practically covered in ghoul ichor and pieces of shattered bone that flew off of the strange stallion’s bat.

For some reason all this slaughter was making me sort of feel better. I think it’s because I’m able to senselessly kill living things without having the guilt of killing somepony. Soon I got so into it that I was dual-wielding Dream Walker and the revolver, shooting almost anything that moved. I actually almost shot Solstice out of reflex once or twice and for some reason Wind Thrasher too for that matter.

I was just about to shoot the last ghoul running toward me when the stallion we came to help hit a home run on the back of its head, spraying ichor, bone, and brain meat right in my face making my Pip-Buck click quite a bit. I took my hoof and wiped the mess off my face and spit out the bit that got in my mouth. The stallion held the bat over his right shoulder and gave me a fascinated wide-eyed look of astonishment, “Holy shit, now THAT is just GROSS!”

“I’ve had worse,” I said nonchalantly. Technically I was telling the truth, there was a certain dumpster memory lingering in the back of my mind that I still gag at.

“You’re pretty fucked up then, I like it. My sons used to hate this kind of thing when they were young but after years of telling them ‘Buck up buttercup’ they turned out like you seem to be,” he said through the creepiest yet charming smile I’d ever seen, “The name’s Hex. What brings you to these parts?”

“Uh, my name’s Shadow Star, I’m just passing through this…um…field to help one of my friends. Why are you here?” I replied feeling a bit uneasy about the creepy mix of Crackerjack and Gator vibes I was getting from this guy.

He smiled again and closed his eyes, “Mmmmmmm Ssshadow…such a nice name. I’m here to kill these ghouls and other various monsters, along with things of legend that go bump in the night. I’ve also heard the mysterious stranger has been seen around here, I want his gun.”

“What the fuck would you need his gun for?” Solstice asked before I could say anything, “Couldn’t you just find your own revolver to kill things with?

Hex began to laugh like she’d said something hysterical and hit his bat on the ground a couple times, “Ha-ha-ha, you band of moronic shitbags don’t have any idea what that particular revolver can do, do ya?”

I heard Doorstop grumble beside me, “If we knew what the fuckin’ thing did, we wouldn’t be asking would we. Now answer the question for her before I do something you’ll regret.”

Hex just laughed again, “I’ll regret!? So big, scary, and threatening. The fuck are you her daddy err somethin’? Cuz I gotta say you jumpin’ in like that really grinds my gears a bit. I can tell she can stick up for herself just by the way she coped an attitude with me.”

Doorstop came within inches of his face and said, “What the fuck is so damn funny!? Do I look like a clown to you!? Did I crack a joke!? I used to be a drill instructor and you remind me of a little shitstain that used to like laughing in my face, I called him private joker. He laughed himself into the ground eventually, and it was no accident. So laugh again, I dare you. She’s nothin’ but an unbranded dashite that’s traveling with us and I don’t appreciate greaseballs like you disrespecting mares like it’s no big deal. Now either you answer her question or I’ll stick that bat so far up your ass you’ll taste wood and remnants of your own shit!”

Solstice actually looked a bit flustered and embarrassed after the small…uh…I wouldn’t call it fight, more like emotional debate, “You okay Solstice?” I asked.

She nodded, “Yeah, just never had anyone but my dad ever jump into something like that.”

Hex sighed and breathed, “The Stranger’s gun is special in a way, it’s got a gift. Whatever it shoots, it kills, no matter what the fuck it is. If I had that magnificently crafted piece of iron on my belt, I’d be the greatest hunter to walk The Wastes.”

Huh? He must hunt the paranormal and supernatural like Squirrel and Moose. That would explain why he wants a gun that can kill anything. The question is though, is he sane enough to handle a weapon like that? We need to ditch this guy fast, he’s making me all kinds of nervous, “We should get going, gotta be somewhere soon.”

“Oh no ya don’t, something about you seems a bit fishy,” he said as he pulled out a large knife with his magic and rubbed the side of it across my cheek, “Interesting…very interesting. Sit down and hold your forehooves out in front of you.”

In the corner of my eye I could see that Solstice and Doorstop had their guns trained on him while Wind Thrasher was nowhere to be found, “Put that knife away and I’ll do as you say.”

He smiled his creepy smile, “No no no, this is for my own protection. Don’t worry I won’t do anything that results in you losing your hooves unless I’m provoked.”

I did as he said and watched as he closely examined my hooves as I held them out, “What are you doing?”

“Just checkin’ somethin’ is all,” he replied as he took out a small container and splashed water on my face, “Hmm…you’re a whole heap of strange aren’t you?”

“Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this,” I replied.

He smiled again, “Is that so? I guess you’ll have to tell me about it some other time, and there WILL be another time. You still have to leave dontcha?”

I stammered a bit inside my head, “Uh, yeah. I just gotta grab my other friends from over the hill.”

“Ah, I see, alright then. I guess I’ll be seein’ ya Sshhadow…” he said as he turned and started to walk away. When he turned I saw his cutie mark, it was an oddly shaped knife with strange symbols on it in front of a magic circle.

Solstice, Doorstop, and I returned to Laser who was with Wind Thrasher talking as Stardust got hit with another wavelength blast from Vin-A, “What’s going on Laser,” I asked.

She sighed, “I was actually going to say this earlier but I’m afraid I can’t go all the way to Stable 97 with you. This is as far as I go, Vin-A’s treatment should last long enough to get Stardust there without causing any problems.”

Solstice gave her an accusing look, “What? Too scared to go into the thick of it or something? I couldn’t help but notice you stayed back here where it was safe with the robot and the tweaked-out freak.”

“The only thing that scares me is The Enclave you stuck up bitch, if they discover I’m alive it’ll put my family at risk, besides I wasn’t going to risk leaving an impaired pony alone, who knows what would have happened. If you haven’t been paying attention to the situation, we have one of the Enclave’s strongest soldiers in our custody and they haven’t made a single move. Doesn’t that raise a slight suspicion?” Laser retorted.

Solstice scoffed, “Shadow’s going and she’s probably more of a risk than you, so I don’t see what the problem is.”

Before Laser could say anything else Doorstop stepped in, “Just let it go, she has her priorities and we have ours. Don’t cause any bad blood between allies, it only leads to your own demise in the long run.”

She just glared at him as he stood there, “Psch, whatever. Let the bitch go, it’ll be easier to infiltrate the place with fewer ponies. That robot might become a problem anyway,” she said as she turned and walked a few feet away with her back turned to Laser.

I looked at Laser and asked, “How long should that thing that your robot did to Stardust last?”

“It won’t last for any more than twenty-three to twenty-four hours,” she replied, “However it should be long enough for you to fix him.”

Stardust stepped in front of her, “No ocifer it’s okay I’m fine, I can still fly unimpared.”

I pushed him away, “Shut up, she wasn’t talking to you.”

“Hey, that’s mean,” he replied before going over to bug Solstice who continued to tell him to stop touching her.

I looked up to the sky and was surprised that none of the other Sins or any Enclave showed up in the time we’ve had Stardust captured. Laser is right it’s very suspicious. Something was also rubbing me the wrong way, I was sure at least Envy would’ve tried to kill me again, even without having Stardust with me. It’s all too quiet, too calm, and too easy.

“So are you going back to The Kingdom?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“I’ll be there yes, but it won’t be for much longer, I need to return to Nexus after I’ve finished up a few things there. This area is covered with Enclave and I’m becoming a risk to all of you the longer I stay in the area. I can’t stay here any longer,” Laser replied sincerely.

Wind Thrasher was going to say something else but I interrupted, “If we don’t make it through this and you haven’t left yet, tell Wingnut I’m sorry we couldn’t save Stardust.”

She frowned, “I will tell him no such thing. You’ll make it through this in one piece and come back to those waiting for you.”

“Those waiting for me?” I asked curiously, “The only one there is Wingnut right now, and cutter I guess but he’s more of an acquaintance than anything.”

She sighed in annoyance, “Don’t you remember earlier? Aura is waiting for you too.”

“Don’t fuck with me, I saw her die and so did Wind thrasher!” I snapped.

“Yes, you did, but you ran off before Sheena did what she did.”

“What exactly did she do? Aura was dead,” I asked.

She took a deep breath, “When you ran off, Sheena got into an argument with one of the physicians while performing CPR on Aura. What ended up happening was that Sheena used her position as Empress to make the doctors put Aura on bypass which is a machine that acts as the heart for the patient for a short amount of time to keep them alive. After some exploratory surgery, they found out that when she was shot, one of the bullets chipped a bone and the piece that chipped off pierced her heart and lodged itself in there. When you were talking to her in her room while she slept, it moved and she crashed. They ended up removing the piece of bone and took her off of bypass to restart her heart after surgery. She should be just fine but will have a bit of recovering to do. There’s only so much that healing potions do after all.”

“All that, and a toilet,” Stardust said after she finished.

“So, she’s not dead? I would’ve murdered Stardust for nothing but empty vengeance?” I asked still a little dumbfounded by the whole thing.

She nodded, “That’s exactly what I said.”

Great, so I destroyed a historic regional monument for nothing. Now I’m at least ten to twenty percent more ashamed of myself than usual and hate myself just a bit for trying to kill my best friend, “Okay, I guess some of my enemies are right; I AM a monster. Anyway, we’re wasting time standing here talking, tell both Aura and Wingnut we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“I’ll tell them for you and stay safe. You don’t know what to expect in there and honestly Doorstop doesn’t either even though he’s been in there more recently than anypony here,” she said.

“He said he’s got a contact inside the stable that can get us in and possibly help us get to the memory manipulation machine,” I retorted.

She turned and started to walk away unfolding her wings from her flight jacket, “That may be true, but as you know The Enclave has played similar tricks before. Be careful. So, if I don’t see you back at the kingdom I’ll see you again soon I know it” she winked and gave me a toothy smile similar to Wind Thrasher’s smile, Vin-A following close behind her as she flew off.

As she started to fly away the reality of what she said hit me and I almost started to cry…again, “She’s alive? I didn’t lose her!”

Wind Thrasher came over to me and wrapped a wing around me, “Yes she is, she’s waiting for you back at The Kingdom. She would’ve come with, but she needs her rest right now. She gave me a message in case we found you though.”

I sniffed then said, “What?”

“She said ‘You better make it back here in one peace or you’ll regret it Shrimp.’ Her words not mine.”

I laughed weakly, “That sounds like her. Is she mad at me?”

Wind Thrasher winced a little, “I’m not sure, I couldn’t tell when we left.”

I gave her a look, “Come on really?”

She sighed, “Fine, yes she’s mad, but not at what you did or anything like that. She’s mad that you ran off again, she said it’s becoming a bad habit.”

“That’s very true,” I said then something came to mind, “Why did it seem like you were ready for Stardust?”

“Like I said before it was a trap, The Stranger came to The Kingdom after he found you. He said he couldn’t get you out of the city in time, and he knew Stardust would come looking for you. He helped us come up with a way to take him down and capture him. He said Stardust would come after you as soon as you were out of the city and he did.”

“But he told me he was going to take care of Stardust,” I said confused.

“Well he did in a way, he was setting up this trap. He couldn’t tell you because we had no idea where your mind was at. At first, he didn’t want to let you go, he said you couldn’t be trusted, but thanks to Wingnut he relented in the end.”

I frowned, “So he used me as bait to capture Stardust?”

She nodded, “Yeah, that’s about right.”

I smiled and got back to my hooves, “Not a bad plan, even if it pisses me off to no end. Come one let’s fix our friend, the sooner we do, the sooner I can see Aura.”

Together we started to walk and head toward Stable 97, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as we walked. Aura was alive, hurt, but still alive. When we get back to The Kingdom I’m going to make sure she knows how I feel. Nothing was going to get between her and I ever again. Not The Enclave, not my mother, hell death itself won’t stop me from seeing her again…maybe.

***

With Laser and Vin-A gone it was just me, Solstice, Doorstop, Wind Thrasher and Stardust on our way to Stable 97. I checked my Pip-Buck map and it looked like we still had quite a way to go and what’s worse is that we’d have to go through Whinnieapolis and across the river where it goes through the city just passed the Saint’s Parish wall. We were at the Whinnieapolis city limit close to where I’d been not that long ago, this sign also said Murderapolis on it like the other one did. There was something else painted on the sign that looked like a crudely painted zebra head wearing a purple bandanna. There was writing under the zebra head that read ‘No Trespassing, this is territory of the Tribal Lords. Violators will be shot, survivors will be shot again. If you’re still alive after that then we’ll gladly torture you.’

I facehoofed, “At least it’s more descriptive than the last city limit sign I read.”

“What do you mean?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“When I was here before I saw a similar sign but it didn’t have a gang warning on it. I think this is a sign to be more careful than usual in this area of the city considering there’s a literal warning that mentions the gang by name. The only weird thing is that it looks like the gang itself are the ones who wrote this warning. If they’re into murder and mayhem, then why are they warning ponies away?” I replied.

Solstice scoffed again which is becoming or already is a bad habit of hers, “You guys are such dumbasses. They put the warning there to pretty much challenge anyone who sees the sign to come through their territory to either attack them directly or try to sneak through undetected which is possible but probably hard because street gangs aren’t like most factions. You see that purple bandanna there on the zebra’s head?”

“Yeah,” Wind Thrasher and I said in unison.

“Kay, think of that like a color code. There’s other gangs around here but I’m ninety percent sure that the Tribal Lords are the biggest one and their color is purple. There will be zebras around the city but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re affiliated with a gang, they could just be raiders, or ordinary citizens I guess. If you see zebras wearing purple of any kind then they’re most likely members of The Tribal Lords and from what I hear, gangs in Whinnieapolis don’t take well to ponies,” she explained.

I scratched my head, “Yeah that’s interesting and all but I’m literally the only non-flier here. Couldn’t one of you carry me over the city so we can avoid all that bullshit and get there faster?”

She grabbed the spot in between her eyes just above her nose with her hoof, “I knew you were dense but not this dense. We have a prisoner with us who is chained and can’t fly and if we get spotted by Enclave sky patrol carrying him or just get spotted by them in general, we’re in for more shit than just a few gangsters.”

“She’s right,” Doorstop agreed, “It would be much easier to go through the city even if it’s slower and has the potential for gang violence.”

“Fuck my life…” I said drooping my head in dramatic despair.

Entering the city didn’t present any immediate problems but I did see some movement behind some collapsed buildings that concerned me. It reminded me of that short firefight Khalid had when I was with him. Wind Thrasher was keeping alert above us a few feet in the air but I don’t think she could hear them even with her advanced hearing.

“It’s quiet, I don’t like it,” Doorstop stated, “Keep your guard up no matter what and make sure you don’t lose the Cadet Solstice. Remember, right now he’s like a child with an overactive imagination and sticky hooves, so make sure he doesn’t try to play with a somewhat inactive landmine like it’s a flying saucer.”

“Ppfftt, it’s not like he’s that hard to keep an eye on. At least he’s gone quiet for now, all he’s doing is blankly staring at random stuff like he’s never seen it before,” she said snarkily.

Doorstop huffed, “Exactly my point, right now he’s overly curious about everything. Curiosity will get anypony killed eventually.”

She turned her head away from him and stuck her tongue out in mockery, “Why do I have to be the one to watch him though? Batty or our guilded hero could do it just as well as I can.”

“We need Wind Thrasher to stay up there and listen for approaching dangers and Shadow has been through the city at least part way before and she has a map. You on the other hoof don’t have good hearing because it’s selective and also don’t have a map. You also have a certain obligation to keep an eye on him while we travel,” Doorstop explained, “I can’t do it because I don’t want to and am technically your superior at the moment so can order you around whenever I feel like it for fun.”

She gave him one of her patented snotty looks, “You know we’re not in The Enclave anymore and I would be YOUR superior if we were right?”

He smiled, “I meant with the group, I have seniority over you because I’ve been with them longer than you have and I’ve been a lot nicer than you have besides some degrading names here and there.”

“That’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard, besides, I don’t think I can be nice to them, at least not The Courier,” she said arrogantly.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“I’m still pissed at her about the times she’s made me look like an idiot in front of my superiors when I was still with The Enclave,” she replied.

He sighed, “Get over it, you’re not a teenager anymore.”

“Uh, yes I am! I’m just a fucking prodigy and went up through the ranks quickly after graduating early!” she retorted.

He kinda gave her an awkward smirk as he should’ve known that, “Right, right, how old are you anyway?”

“It’s pretty rude to ask a mare her age y’know,” she replied, “but if you have to know, probably a year or two younger than Stardust is.”

I turned and looked at her, “You’re older than me?”

“I don’t even know how old you are, so I don’t know if I’m older than you,” she said with a bitchy tone.

“Eh, whatever, not like I care anyway,” I said just as bitchily.

I don’t hate her or anything, but I do really dislike her. I hope she gets easier to be around in the future, I can’t deal with somepony who’s always on edge or has some stupid personal vendetta against me for one of my stupid tactical pranks. Yes that’s right, I gave what I did to her a name because it was very much a tactical prank. Like I’ve said before, she had it coming to her after how she’s treated me and the others each time we’ve met her. Now that I think about it, we didn’t really see her any other time than at Frosty Summit and it was only me at Halo One when I decided to tape her to that stallion mid-coitus.

I kinda wanted to turn on the radio but I knew that’d definitely draw attention to us and cause more trouble than I want to deal with. I feel like all we do is walk and kill and walk and kill. There was that one time we had fun but it didn’t last long when Oricalcos showed up outside of The Applewood and started making threats, the weird part is now he’s living in my shadow like some sort of parasite. I just wish all this bullshit could be over and I could settle down somewhere to live a normal Wastelander’s life with my friends.

“What are you thinking so hard about? You’re a bit quiet and it’s making me paranoid, especially after what happened last time you were in this city,” Solstice asked from behind me.

“I’m not thinking about anything, just how much I hate this place. Why do you care anyway? It’s not like we’re friends or anything. I don’t even know why you’re helping us,” I replied.

She scoffed, “I really don’t care, I’m trying to make conversation to pass the time faster. In case you haven’t noticed, this place is fucking boring and is killing what remains of my happiness. Also, maybe if you weren’t such a crazed lunatic, you’d make friends easier. The only friends you have right now are just as fucked in the head as you are, except Doorstop, he’s cool. And I’m helping you because I hate The Enclave for what they did to me and my family. They need to learn that everything has a chain reaction, even threats.”

“She’s lying,” Doorstop said, “She’s socially awkward and wants real friends.”

Her eyes went wide, “Ssshhh, that is not what it want! Don’t go blurting things like that out loud.”

“Aaawww isn’t that precious? She’s embarrassed that…(BANG)” a random gunshot rang out from in front of us. I looked forward again and saw a small group of about five or six zebras, “Wind Thrasher! You were supposed to tell us if you heard anything.”

“I couldn’t hear them, I swear,” she retorted.

One of the zebras stepped forward with another zebra who had his gun aimed at one of us, I couldn’t tell exactly who though, “The fuck are y’all doin’ round here, didn’t you see the sign? Normally I’d just cap you right here and be done with it but I’m curious as to why y’all got some whacked out Pegasus in chains.”

Oh great, now I gotta think of lies to tell these shitheads so they don’t kill us, or at least try to kill us. Wait, do I have to lie to them? They most likely hate The Enclave too because they’re trying to take their city from them, “He’s our prisoner. We’re taking him somewhere to fix his head after what The Enclave did to him. Right now he’s the current Pride in The Seven Sins of Equinity. The only reason we’re here right now is because we’re on a sort of time limit and it’s quicker to go through the city rather than around.”

“You fuckin’ with me bitch? There’s no way that’s Pride, he’s too skilled to be caught by a tiny lil’bitch like you,” he said as the other zebra twitched the gun a bit trying to intimidate me.

“It wasn’t just me that caught him, I had help from others including the ones you see with me. There were more but they stayed back. The reason he’s so messed up right now is because another one of my friends has a robot that can use this confusion ray thingy to do this to ponies for a certain amount of time,” I guess if I can’t reason with the lowlife gang banger, I could always just shoot him. There may be quite a few of them but I’m pretty sure we’re more skilled than all of them combined times maybe about five or ten. Gang bangers are just raiders who dress better and aren’t completely insane.

“That story sound believable and shit, but I still gotta kill y’all,” he said, then the other zebra cocked his gun.

“Wait!” I said quickly, “The Enclave is trying to run you out of your turf right?”

He raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, so what?”

“Well if you let me pass then I will deal a lot more damage to The Enclave than you will if you kill us. Think about it, if I’m allowed passage, you’ll most likely be able to stay here in the city and do whatever the fuck you want without having to worry about being killed or driven out,” I replied trying to not waste as much bullets as possible on pricks like him.

He frowned and glared at me, “Ya’ll think I give a shit about those fuckin’ feather brained morons? Na’ I care about the mutherfuckas who think they own this city. I’m takin bout the other gangs and raiders that pollute this city.”

I rolled my eyes, “That’s not my problem, I can take care of your Enclave problem. What the rest of you fucked up zebra’s do to each other is none of my business,” I turned back to my friends, “Let’s go, we don’t have time to deal with these idiots.”

“Um’ Shadow I don’t think you should call the zebras with the guns idiots,” Wind Thrasher said.

“Ya’ should listen to the…whoa, the fuck is that thing?”

I really didn’t want to do this right now. Honestly, I wanted to get this whole thing with Stardust over with. Pulling out my Plasma rifle I pointed it right at the leader. The other zebras around him all pointed their guns at me, but no one fired. I smiled, “That’s my friend, her name is Wind Thrasher. She’s a sweet mare, but she could also fuck you up. If I were you I’d apologize and be a little nicer, just because she looks different doesn’t mean you have to be so FUCKING rude!”

Wind Thrasher landed next to me, “Um’ Shadow it’s no big deal please don’t get us shot just because I look different.”

My grin widened, “We’re in a hurry, they’re in my way, I kill things that get in my WAY!”

The Zebra turned and walked away, “Cap these fools.”

Before they could get a shot off I said, “Are you sure you really want to do that?”

The lead zebra turned back toward me, “Why you askin’?”

I pointed a hoof toward where Mill City Tower used to dominate the sky, “I’m sure you saw the blast that took down the tower right?”

“Yeah, so what?” he asked.

“That was me! Now let me pass before I do the same shit to you!”

He glared at me for a long moment then turned again, “Cap ‘em.”

“Well I tried,” I said, before they could open fire I entered S.A.T.S. and targeted two of the zebra’s and opened fire. As my shots went off, Solstice and Doorstop tried to jump in too, but Wind Thrasher jump in front of us all. My two shots took out the two I fired at, but Wind Thrasher took care of the rest. She opened her mouth and screamed.

The rest of the zebras were blasted off their hooves, their bodies rolling across the ground. The leader slammed into the wall of a building with a satisfying crunch. She stopped her scream then looked back at me, disappointment written on her face, “We don’t have to kill everyone who gets in our way.”

“Talk about a buzzkill,” Solstice said.

She glared over at Solstice then back at me, “I mean it, you didn’t have to do that.”

“They were going to kill us,” I responded.

“Maybe, but you know that we could’ve handled this without killing them.”

I pushed past her and started walking toward the leader, “Unlike you Wind Thrasher, I don’t live in a fantasy world where we can just talk our way out of situations like that.”

The leader zebra looked up at me as I swapped my plasma rifle out for Dream Walker, “The fuck are ya’ll?”

I ignored his question, “What’s the safest way to get through your turf?”

He winced a little as if something was hurting him, “I ain’t telling you shit!”

I pressed Dream Walker up to his head, “Tell me or die.”

“I ain’t scared of you!”

“You should be,” I said then Solstice walked over to me and pushed Dream Walker away.

“Shadow you don’t need to do that, we can get through here without his help.”

I pulled Dream Walker away from her and pointed it back at the zebra leader, “If we don’t need him then he can die, we don’t need him telling his crew about us.”

His eyes went wide and he started to shake, “Ya’ll are crazy!”

I was about to pull the trigger then Wind Thrasher walked over and gave me a sad look, “Aura would be so disappointed in you right now Shadow.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She sighed, “If you really want her to love you then you have to pull yourself away from this dark path you’re on.”

“She would understand!”

“If you don’t believe me then go ahead and shoot him. But if you’re wrong, then you’ll have to explain to her why you did what you did, just like you’re going to have to explain to her why you destroyed Mill City Tower.”

I looked back at the zebra then lowered Dream Walker, “Fine, but if we get attacked because of this dipshit, then that’s on you.”

After I pulled Dream Walker away and stepped away from the zebra his bravery came back, “Yeah that’s what I thought bitch!”

Wind Thrasher turned on him and bared her fangs, her eyes starting to glow, “I just saved your ass, if you provoke her again, I’m not stopping her! Now tell us the safest way to get though the city.”

He shrank away from her, “Kay, fine whatever, I’m sick of dealing with your punk ass. Head down main street go eight blocks turn down fifth and follow it out of town.”

She backed away and said sweetly, “Thank you, now get your friends out of here before I decide to sample zebra blood!”

He got up and limped toward what was left of his companions. Once they were all up, they took off down the way we came. Once they were gone I looked over at her, “I’m sorry.”

“Save it,” Wind Thrasher said walking back to Solstice, “Get Stardust and let’s keep moving, the sooner we’re out of this city the better.”

I looked down at Dream Walker as my friends walked past me, heading down the road the zebra told us about, “Am I really that bad?”

A voice echoed in my head…it was Aquila, “You’re turning into a monster just like me Shadow! I’m so proud.”

I sighed, “I was wondering how long it would take you to start talking again.”

“Your mother knew what she was doing with this cage, it’s taken me a while to get through some of it just so I could talk to you again. Though if it wasn’t for you it would have taken me a lot longer, so thank you!”

I looked up at my friends who were starting to get a little far from me. I started to trot toward them as I said back to Aquila, “Why is it thanks to me?”

She laughed, “Easy, I feed off of your hatred and anger. You’ve been giving me plenty over the past few days. Such a generous gift.”

I stopped in my tracks my eyes looking back toward where Mill City Tower should be, “You mean when I…”

“Yes, killing those pegasi like you did, then the unicorn Doctor and the other one who figured out who you were. That was a great help, all that hatred and rage over a griffon you thought was dead. Then you went and killed two of the council ponies then blew up the tower. It was like a feast, so much power in such a sort amount of time, though I wish you hadn’t gotten caught. Who knows how much stronger I could have gotten if you were allowed to keep going,” she said with an evil snicker, “I wonder what you’d do if that brat was killed. You always treat him like a little brother, it’s so sweet. I wonder who you’d kill if you thought he died, or maybe that mare from the stable you liked?”

“You make it seem like I’m some kind of monster.”

“Shadow, sweet crazy Shadow, haven’t you realized by now? You are a monster, just like me. We are one in the same, I am you and you are me. We’re just different sides to the same coin, a little different on each, but in the end still one thing.”

“NO, I’m nothing like you! You’re just something created in a lab.”

She started to laugh, as she did I could feel her presence slowly fading away, “Shadow, stop lying to yourself, you know where this is all leading. You’ve known since the day you first let me into your body.”

Wind Thrasher stopped looking back at me, “Shadow is everything okay?”

Ignoring her I asked Aquila, “What do you mean when I let you in?”

“Think hard on it Shadow, maybe if you let some of your old memories in you’ll understand. I never possessed you or took over your body, we made a deal and soon it will be time to pay up. Stay alive until then Shadow, oh and enjoy what little time you have left with your friends and the ones you love. When I’m powerful enough to take control and send you deep into the same cage your mother trapped me in, I’m killing them all,” she said right before her presence faded away.

I felt a hoof start to shake me, I looked up into Wind Thrashers slightly glowing eyes as she said, “Shadow are you okay?”

I shook myself and took in a deep breath, “No I don’t think I am Wind Thrasher. I’m losing it, I don’t know how to stop her anymore.”

She looked at me concerned, “You mean Aquila?”

I nodded and started to shake, “All this time when I thought Aura was dead, she was feeding off my anger, my hate, she’s getting stronger and now I don’t know how much longer my mother’s magic can hold her back. She just spoke to me for the first time in a week. She said soon she’d take me over and then she’d kill all of you.”

To my shock, she slapped me, “Get control of yourself Shadow.”

I rubbed my face, “What…was that for!?”

She growled at me, “I know your scared because you think that, that thing inside of you is going to take over one day. I understand that better than anypony. You can’t let fear control you like that, if you do all you’re really doing is giving in to the despair she wants you to have. It makes you weak, Shadow and that’s what she wants. Now step up and stop letting her get to you.”

“But…what if…”

She interrupted me, “What if she takes over? Then we’ll find a way to save you, just like we’re doing with Stardust. Instead of worrying about what may happen in the future start looking for a way to rid yourself of her for good. She says she’s stronger and wants to take over then fine let her try. But the Shadow I know is too fucking stubborn to let that happen. Now get off your ass and let’s get to Stable 97, save our friend, and get back to the Kingdom.”

She helped me get back to my hooves, looking back at her I said, “How can I face Wingnut or Aura after what I’ve done?”

She sighed, “You have to find a way. First of all, you need to stop acting out when you think something bad happened to you. That’s what gets you into these messes in the first place. Aura and Wingnut will understand what you were going through. Why else do you think I’m here with the rest of these ponies? It’s because we all care about you, well I’m not sure about Solstice, but you know the rest of us do. Your part of our family and family looks out for each other.”

I couldn’t help laughing, “I guess you are kind of like a big sister, a shy one most of the time, but still full of fire when the times calls for it. I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting, I’ll try to do better.”

She smiled and hugged me, “That’s all I ask, trust me I know what it’s like to be a monster. You may think because of what you did that you’re becoming one, but you’re not. You’re just a filly who has to deal with more than a pony her age should have to.”

“I just wish I knew what to do, I mean when I get worked up like that I can’t stop myself sometimes. I react without thinking, I’ve always been like that.”

“How about this, if something bad like this ever happens again or if you’re feeling like you’re going to lose control, you come find me. I’ll always be here for you Shadow, I understand you better than even you do. Can you promise me that?” she asked.

I nodded, “I think I can.”

“Good, let’s get going to Stable 97. We have a pegasus to fix, when that’s done I think it’s time you finally talked to Aura about how you feel.”

We started to make our way back to our friends who were waiting for us just down the road. As we walked I blushed a little and asked Wind Thrasher, “What if Aura doesn’t like me how I think she does, what if she turns me down?”

The Bat Pony laughed lightly, “I don’t think you need to worry about that Shadow.”

“Why’s that?”

She winked at me, “Because, I can tell that she likes you, why do you think I said so back when we were heading to Trotston.”

“Because you’re a hopeless romantic mare?”

She just laughed again, “Maybe so, but I still know what I’m talking about.”

We both laughed as we caught up to the rest and all followed the directions we were given through Whinnieapolis. What I didn’t notice was, thanks to Wind Thrasher, I’d forgotten all about Aquila and her threats. Because that’s what true friends do, they help you forget about your worries. They are always there for you, no matter what.

***

The edge of Whinnieapolis was finally in sight and our destination not far past that. Sadly, it might as well be miles away because this side of Whinnieapolis was blocked by raiders. Not as many as the ones who used to block the road that went into Cartwheel, but they still had enough to keep my friends and me from passing though.

“We could always just go around them,” I said as we looked down the main road that lead out of town.

“In this City? You’d be lucky to find another way that isn’t blocked by rubble or gangs,” Doorstop said, “Raiders ain’t that tough we can take them.”

“Maybe, but what if the gunfire brings more raiders or the gangs?”

“Make peace not war!” Stardust said with a dreamy smile on his face.

“Yeah, no,” I said checking my ammo for the Plasma rifle, “We can’t sneak around them so I say we just go through them.”

“We should’ve just gone around the damned city, I swear we wasted more time going through it then we would have walking around,” Solstice said then jumped and glared over at Stardust, “Stop touching me!”

“But your tail is so pretty!” he said reaching to touch her tail again.

“Do that again and I’ll rip your fucking nads off and feed them to you along with your stupid imaginary BUG!”

He got a pouty face, “What did Steve ever do to you!? He’s my best friend!”

She rolled her eyes, “I think I liked him better when he was trying to kill us!”

Stardust Gasped, “I would never try to hurt anypony, Steve would be mad! You’re nothing but a big FAT MEANIE!”

She rounded on him, “DID you just call me fat!? I’ll have you know that I work out every day to make sure I keep my figure asshole!”

Stardust looked over at me still with his pouty face, “She called me a mean name!”

I sighed then looked at Doorstop, “Can you do something please?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s kinda funny,” he said with a chuckle.

“It’s also distracting and they might give away our position!” I said then looked over at Wind Thrasher, “Can you do something?”

She rolled her eyes, “I guess,” she flew down getting between the two, then she snarled at both of them and spoke with her voice sounding evil like it had when she was still Sharp, “If you two don’t stop I’m going to make you! Trust me you don’t want to make me angry!”

They both looked at the bat pony and her very, very sharp fangs. Solstice finally looked away and walked off, “Whatever, I have better things to do.”

Stardust just started to pout, “She started it.”

Wind Thrasher smiled and giggled, “That was kinda fun.”

“Well done Wind Thrasher, let’s get back to figuring out how to get past those raiders. We aren’t far from the edge of the city and Stable 97 isn’t far either. We don’t know how much longer that brain thing will last on Stardust.” I said going back to look at the raiders.

“Let’s just shoot them and get it over with!” Solstice said, “Why are we discussing this?”

“Just because they’re raiders doesn’t mean we have to kill them, we can just scare them away,” Wind Thrasher retorted.

“That’s why,” I said with a sigh.

“We’re taking the advice of a mutated pegasus? Aren’t you the leader?” Solstice asked.

“I have no idea anymore,” I replied, “Wind Thrasher has a better head on her shoulders than I do. I’m not gonna just dismiss her because killing them is the easy way.”

“That’s stupid! They’re raiders! They kill, rampage, steal, and EAT other ponies.”

Wind Thrasher glared at her, “I used to drink pony blood and I got better!”

“Yeah, but from what you said, you were being controlled. That’s different from Raiders!”

Sighing again I looked over at Stardust who was still pouting next to Solstice, “What do you think Doorstop?” it was then that I noticed that he wasn’t with us anymore, “Where’s Doorstop?”

“He flew off,” Stardust said.

(BOOM!)

“Ah fuck,” I said as something exploded down the road. We all looked toward the raider camp and saw Doorstop shooting at the ponies.

“I guess the big guy made our choice for us,” Solstice said with a smile, “I guess we should go help him, unless the bat thinks we should stay back and watch him die.”

Wind Thrasher sighed and facehoofed, “Fine whatever, I’ll stay here and watch Stardust.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, “Let’s go help the Sarge!”

Solstice and I both ran down the road toward the other pegasus who was laughing and firing at the raiders who were trying to find cover. Before we could reach the camp itself, three raiders jump out from an alleyway, two holding onto rusty machetes the third with a brush gun. One tried to take my head off as we passed by, the rusty blade missing me by inches. The one with the brush gun fired toward Solstice, who ducked behind an overturned dumpster.

I pulled the sword out of my saddle bags and twisted it around blocking an attack from the second pony’s blade. I jumped back as the first tried to impale me and stabbed him when he missed. Again, the blade sank deep into the pony without resistance. Either this sword was extremely sharp, or there was something magical about it. I smiled as the first pony died and the first raider took a step back.

“Goin’ to show you what happens when ponies like you step hoof on our land!” he said lifting the blade up in his muzzle, ready to block an attack.

“Oh really?” I said as I charged him, I swung the sword hard toward his neck. He tried to block it, but it didn’t matter. My sword sliced through his blade with only a slight bit of resistance. As it did I noticed a slight blue glow around the edge of the blade as it passed through the machete. Then it passed through the rusty metal, then his coat, his throat, then his spine. When the sword came out on the other side, the ponies head flew up into the air spraying blood all over as his head plopped down to the ground.

I looked at the blade in my magical grasp, “Huh, there’s not even any blood left on it,” I didn’t notice it before, but I hadn’t needed to clean this blade even once since I found it.

I heard the brush gun go off and I jumped. I forgot about Solstice, turning around sword at the ready I saw that I was worrying over nothing. Solstice had somehow disarmed the raider and shot him with his own weapon. She was chuckling to herself as the body fell to the ground twitching, “Raiders are too damn easy.”

I just shook my head saying, “Maybe for you, try being fresh from a stable, they aren’t as easy then. Now let’s go help Doorstop.”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna let him have all the fun,” she said as we continued on toward the fight.

As we came closer to where Doorstop was firing down at the raiders I noticed that there wasn’t may left to fight. Doorstop pulled a grenade from a pocket and threw it down into the middle of the ponies laughing his head off, “Hahahaha, take that you poor excuses for ponies! You see why you don’t mess with The Sarge!”

The explosion blasted four ponies into chunks of meat and knocked down a makeshift tower. The tower fell and killed two more ponies that were trying to run away from Doorstop. By the time we arrived, there were only two more left. Solstice took aim with the Brush gun she took and blew his head off with a single shot. I ran in and buried my sword in the other raiders back pinning him to the ground. He screamed from the pain, I watched him scream for a moment then ripped the sword out and sliced open his neck to put him out of his misery.

Doorstop landed next to me a moment later, “You didn’t need to come down to help Small Fry, I had it handled.”

“And let you have all the fun?” Solstice said walking up to him with a grin.

I just sighed, “I thought there were more ponies when I first saw them, guess I was wrong.”

“There were, a few of them ran off as soon as I started shootin’,” he said with a laugh, “Ponies like them are smart enough to know when to run like the little bitches they are.”

Solstice blew a raspberry, “Bunch of cowards if you ask me. Well since they are taken care of let’s get going.”

“Not so fast!” A gruff yet feminine voice said from up the road.

We all turned to see ten raiders slowly walking toward us, one who was a mare in spiked metal armor was holding a rifle in her magic, the barrel pointed at Wind Thrasher who was just in front of her. Stardust was walking next to Wind Thrasher with that same dreamy look on his face. I drew Dream Walker and the Plasma rifle and pointed it at them, “Let them go!”

“Or What?” she said, “Ya’ gonna shoot me? Sister let me tell you something, if you even try and take a shot at me or my companions, I’ll blow their heads off.”

I lowered my rifle and signaled for Solstice and Doorstop to do the same, “If you shoot them, you’ll regret it bitch.”

She grinned at me, “I see three of you and ten of us, I don’t think I need to worry much. Now tell me why you’re on my land and killing my ponies.”

“Your raiders and we needed to get through, figured killing you was the fastest way,” I said with a grin.

“Oh really? Raiders huh, you must be from out of town then. We ain’t raiders, were The Survivors bitch!”

Doorstop took a step back, “Oh Shit!”

I looked at him quickly asking, “What are the Survivors?”

“The Ponies from Stable 97 who were able to escape when The Enclave went in and killed most of the population. They settled not far from the stable and started killing anypony that came onto their land. They took out three major gangs when they first came into the wasteland. I should have known that was them,” he explained.

“I see at least one of you understand who we are,” she said, “Now we’re gonna make you pay for killing some of our ponies.”

“Wait so you’re all Stable Ponies?” I asked trying to find a way out of this.

“Use to be, now we are slowly taking over Whinnieapolis. We’re going to take away as much as we can from The Enclave just like they did to us. That’s another reason we can’t let ponies like you live, we hate The Enclave and you have to be Enclave,” she replied.

I started to laugh, “Enclave? Fuck you’re way off there. I’m The Courier from New Pegasus, I want The Enclave destroyed as much as you or any other pony. I’m the one who destroyed Mill City Tower.”

She gave me a funny look, “You’re the one who did that? Really, a tiny thing like you?”

“Yes, it was me,” I said as I lifted both my guns again, “Now enough talk, how about you let my friends go and we’ll be on our way.”

She took a moment looking at Wind Thrasher, then Stardust, and then back at me, “Nah, I’d rather kill all of you and be done with it.”

“You’re going to need more than ten ponies if you wanna kill us,” Solstice said coming to stand next to me, “And if you hurt either of them you’ll have nopony to protect you.”

The smile on the mare’s face grew, “More than ten ponies huh? How about a hundred?” she whistled and as she did ponies started to step out of the alleys next to us, more showed up in the windows of the buildings on each side. Each one was holding some kind of rusted weaponry, some I could see even had beaten up stable barding.

Doorstop was looking around at all the ponies who were now surrounding us, “Dammit Solstice, you’ve done it now.”

Solstice’s eyes widened, “ME! You’re the one who flew down here and started attacking them!”

“Only because you were talking about doing it anyway!” he yelled back.

The leader mare spoke up, “All of you shut up!”

Stardust chuckled to himself, “Look at all the ponies. Yay new friends!?”

The leader mare looked over at him confused, “Is something wrong with you?”

He looked over at her with his dreamy stare, “I feel like a million caps, is something wrong with you? Oh, sorry I guess it’s your face,” he started to chuckle to himself.

She walked over to him and slammed the butt of her rifle into his face. Stardust flew to the ground, blood flying from his nose, “You got a problem with my face!?”

I wanted to run over to help, but Solstice held me back, “Don’t, you’ll get us all killed.”

Stardust laughed a little, “No, it’s not your fault you were born so ugly.”

“Beat him until he stops breathing!” she said.

Four of the ponies behind her ran up and started to kick Stardust, in his face, his sides, his broken wings. Stardust started to scream as the ponies wailed on him. I brought the plasma rifle up and yelled, “Leave him alone!”

Without even looking at me she said, “If the unicorn moves or tries to shoot, kill everypony.”

Doorstop was shaking with rage as we watched Stardust’s screams fade as he rolled into a ball as the blows hit. I was about to attack her, but Wind Thrasher was quicker. She moved out of the way of the rifle that was pointed at her, kicked it aside and she dove for Stardust. Two of the ponies who were beating Stardust turned to stop her, but she opened her muzzle and Screamed. Both ponies fell to the ground holding their ears as blood leaked from their eyes.

The other two looked away from Stardust and turned to face the oncoming bat pony. She jumped over them and stood over Stardust who was shaking in pain under her, blood covering his face. Something was wrong, I could see it in Wind Thrashers eyes. Her normal kind nature was gone, her eyes were glowing red and she was baring her fangs. Her eyes fell on the mare, and when Wind Thrasher spoke her voice was cold, the hissing she had when she was still Sharp came back, “Don’t you dare touch him!”

The mare turned her rifle toward Wind Thrasher again, “Step away freak before you end up in the same place as him.”

I spoke up, “If I were you I’d stop, I haven’t seen her this angry before and she’s a dangerous pony.”

The mare looked over at me, “You aren’t in a place to tell me what to do!” she turned back to Wind Thrasher, “Give her the same treatment!”

I turned to Solstice and Doorstop, “We have to do something.”

“Way ahead of you kid,” Doorstop said, the rest of the ponies around us were watching Wind Thrasher as she started to hiss and growl at the ponies who were walking closer to her. A couple of them were holding bats, another had a heavy chain. Doorstop pulled a flash bomb out, “Be ready to fight.”

Before any of us could do anything, one of the ponies attacked. It was the last thing he ever did again. Wind Thrasher jumped in the air twisted around and landed on the stallions back. She opened her muzzle and screamed into his ear, as soon as she did fluid started to drip from the pony’s nose, eyes and ears, another moment later he fell dead to the ground. The other pony with a bat tried to hit her from behind, but she twisted around the blow and grabbed onto his neck with her fangs.

He started to scream, but it didn’t last long. Wind Thrashers eyes glowed brighter and the pony she was latched onto shriveled into a dried out husk in seconds. She dropped the body, blood dripping from her jaw and fangs. She looked around at the rest of the ponies around us a sick smile on her face, “Blood, I want more!”

“KILL THAT THING!” the mare yelled as she pushed past two of her companions trying to get away from Wind Thrasher.

Doorstop threw the flash bang, as he did Solstice and I turned away as the bright flash went off, blinding most of the ponies around us. When the light dimmed we opened fire. Plasma and bullets flew at the ponies who were closest to us. I ran toward Wind Thrasher who had turned toward the other ponies who were running toward her. They started to open fire, but she flew into the air letting the hard dragon scales on her belly protect her from the blows. She arched her head down and screamed again, knocking half the ponies over, the rest stopping to cover their ears as her scream echoed off the concrete walls around us.

She dove for the fallen ones taking hold of a young mare by the neck and as quick as before, she drained her as well. Wind Thrasher ran for a third victim, but I made it to her in time, blocking her path, “Wind Thrasher you need to stop this!”

She slammed into me instead her fangs bared, “If you don’t want to die Shadow then stay out of my way!”

I kicked her off me and rounded on her readying my explosion spell, then I remembered I couldn’t do that. (Fuck this stupid horn ring) Instead I took one of the fallen pony’s hoof ball bats in my magic and slammed it into her face, “Snap out of it!”

The look she gave me after I hit her was scary, I didn’t see any warmth in her eyes. She looked ready to kill me, “I need to feed, these ponies need to die! They hurt him, they want to kill him, I won’t let them!”

A stallion tackled her, but it didn’t do him any good. When they rolled she twisted in the air and slammed him to the ground her fangs sinking deep into his throat. His scream came out as a wet gargling sound as Wind Thrasher ripped his throat out with her fangs. Chunks of flesh hanging from her muzzle. She smiled over at me and licked her bloody lips. I pulled out Dream Walker, “Don’t make me hurt you Wind Thrasher. This isn’t’ you, it’s the hunger you told me about, don’t let it turn you back into a monster!”

She started to laugh as she stepped over the body of the stallion, “Did you just call me a monster! That’s what Dr. Cell liked to call me, his precious little MONSTER! He made me this way, he gave me this hunger and need to feed on ponies. I’m not the monster, he is.”

“You’re right, and he’s dead now thanks to you and me. Don’t go back to the way he made you act. You’re the sweet loving shy pegasus who we love. I’m the monster here Wind Thrasher, not you. Don’t be like me!”

She was an inch away from me now, she looked down at me breathing hard, her hot breath rolling over me. It smelled like the copper and meat, it brought tears to my eyes. As she looked down at me I saw that the rest of the ponies who were surrounding us were running from Solstice and Doorstop who were keeping up a stream of gun fire to any who tried to fight. They must have saw what Wind Thrasher could do and ran away. Either that or Solstice and Doorstop together were a force to be reckoned with.

“I’m so tired of you thinking you can tell everypony when they’re in the wrong, but you just think you can get away with ANYTHING!,” she took a step closer, forcing me to back up, “Blow up a town with a weapon you don’t understand no big deal right,” she took another step forward, “Kill ponies in your stable and the Overmare, who cares,” another step, “Run off and get your friends hurt, no problem,” another, “Run away when you think the griffon you love died and destroy an entire building with innocent ponies inside, it was a mistake. You think you can do whatever you want to whoever you want Shadow, but I get a little mad and kill bad ponies and you try and tell me who I am? Fuck you!”

I tried to stand tall, but it wouldn’t matter, “Just because I made mistakes doesn’t mean you should too.”

“Mistakes? You did more than make mistakes Shadow! We keep trying to make excuses for you, we try to help you, but you just keep going back to the same thing. When you lose your temper, you kill anypony you see as a bad pony. You even wanted to kill Stardust who’s your best friend, just because he shot Aura. I don’t like bad ponies Shadow, I hate them as much as I hate killing. I will kill bad ponies even if I hate it, even if I’m afraid it will turn me into the Monster Dr. Cell tried to make. You Shadow aren’t a good pony anymore, you’re just as bad if not worse than any of the ponies I’ve seen in the wasteland so far, that includes the Sins and your mother. So, let me ask you, do you want to be a bad pony? Do I have to kill you too to keep the Wasteland safe from you?” she said, an inch away from my face.

I didn’t back down, “Maybe you should, because yes I know I’m a bad pony I never said I wasn’t. I don’t like what I’m turning into, but I don’t know what else to do, but I’m trying Wind Thrasher. Do you know why? It’s because of ponies like you, Wingnut, Silver and Laser. You all see something good in me and I want to be that mare. But if you really think I’m a lost cause then go head and kill me. Just remember that once you do, you’ll be just as bad as me.”

She cocked her head to the side, “What do you mean?”

“You’re acting out of anger because you wanted to protect Stardust, I did the same because I wanted to keep you all safe. If you kill me like I wanted to do to Stardust, then you’re no better than I am, you fucking hypocrite.”

She took a step back and the red glow in her eyes went away. She sat down then started to look around at the ponies she killed. The one who died because of her scream was still oozing fluids from his ears and nose, the other three she drained of blood looked like mummies laying in the street. Then she wiped the blood from her muzzle and looked at her hoof in horror, “What have I done!?” she spat on the ground trying to get the blood out of her muzzle, “No, not again please Celestia not again!”

I ran up to her and pulled her into a tight hug, “It’s okay Wind Thrasher, you didn’t mean to.”

She sobbed into my shoulder, “Yes I did, I saw them killing Stardust and I let my anger take hold. I knew what I was doing, but I just didn’t care, if it wasn’t for you, I would have kept going!”

I rubbed her back, “It will be okay,”

She pulled away and walked over to the side of the street, “I didn’t want to do this again. It was like Stable 9 all over again,” then she retched and vomited a stream of blood, it pooled under her making a big puddle when she was finished.

I gagged a little but walked over and put a hoof on her shaking shoulders as Solstice and Doorstop landed a few feet away, they were checking on Stardust, “Feel better?”

She shook her head, “Sorry, I may thirst for blood, but I hate the taste of it. It makes me sick once I have it down and I come to my senses. Do you have anything I can drink to get the taste out of my mouth?”

I thought for a moment the remembered the bottle of Wild Pegasus, “I have Wild Pegasus that’s about it.”

I pulled the bottle out of my saddle bags, she took it and drank a few gulps. She winced as it went down, but her shivering stopped and she looked calmer, “I don’t like this stuff, but it’s better than nothing.”

She gave the bottle back to me, “Personally I love it, but I have a bad habit of doing stupid things when I drink too much.”

She sighed then got back to her hooves, stepping away from the puddle of blood, “Thanks, I’m sorry for what I said, I was speaking out of anger.”

I shrugged, “It wasn’t a lie, I needed to hear it. I only care if you’re going to be okay.”

She nodded, “I will be, just don’t let me do that again, you have no idea how hard it is to keep the thirst down. It’s going to take some time for me to fight it off now.”

“Maybe when we get back we can see if Dr. Gauze found a way to stop it.”

She smiled a little, “I’d like that.”

I hugged her one more time, “Let’s go check on Stardust then let’s get to the stable.”

We both made our way over to Doorstop and Solstice. To my surprise they were just finishing tying restraints around his legs, making sure he couldn’t move at all. When Wind Thrasher saw this she asked, “Why are you tying him up, he’s hurt?”

“He was only beat up a little, he’s had worse, gave him a couple healing potions already, he’ll be fine apart from his still broken wings,” Doorstop said as he finished the last tie.

“Okay, then why tie him up?” I asked.

“He took a few blows to the head, Laser said that kind of hit could knock him out of his loopiness. I’m taking precautions in case it did.”

As Doorstop spoke Stardust’s eyes snapped open and he started to pull on his restraints, “What the fuck is all this!? Let me go now Doorstop before I find a clever way to rip you into a million pieces!”

Doorstop chuckled, “Yep I think I made the right choice.”

Stardust pulled on the restraints again, “Let me go! Do you know who you’re messing with?” his eyes fell on me next, “Oh great it’s you, when I get free Shadow, I’m going to kill that griffon friend of yours. This time I’ll makes sure she’s dead, then I’ll roast her and force you to eat her remains. Then I’ll go after that fucking kid, I’ll force him to watch as I do even more horrible things to you and the rest of your friend. I’ll scare him for the rest of his life, so badly he’ll beg me to kill him. I’ll…”

Solstice interrupted him, “Enough of this,” she pulled out a syringe of something and jammed the needle into his neck. She squeezed the plunger forcing whatever was in it into his body.

“Ow, the fuck did you just give me bitch…I’ll…kill…you…ne…xt,” Stardust passed out before he could finish his threat.

“Much better,” she said dropping the needle.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Knock out serum,” she said simply.

“If you had that then why did we have to deal with him acting like a fool?” I asked.

Doorstop chuckled, “First of all, that stuff is fucking expensive and we only wanted it for a last resort. Also, it only lasts for a small amount of time, for how close we are to the Stable it should last long enough for us to hook him up to the memory thingy.”

“Fine whatever, can we go before those ponies come back? How’d you two fight them off so quickly?” I asked.

Solstice shrugged, “They were freaked out with Bats going nuts, and the two of us are fucking badasses.”

“Damn right we are!” Doorstop said, giving Solstice a hoofbump.

“I swear you two are so much alike it’s scary,” I said as I walked over to Stardust and tried to lift him with my magic, but he was too heavy with the Magical ring around my horn, “Damn, this fucking ring is making my life hell.”

Wind Thrasher came over to me and took the ring off, “The Stranger said that Laser or myself could take it off if we thought you were ready. I’m taking a big leap here Shadow, don’t let me down.”

I smiled, “I won’t,” I turned back to Stardust and this time I was able to lift him in my magic. With that done we walked down the road and exited Whinnieapolis. I was happy to leave the evil city behind me for good, if I ever had to go back to it, it would be too soon.

***

It didn’t take us long once we were out of Whinnieapolis to reach the place marked on my map. It was an old run down outdoor theater; a huge metallic screen was at one end of a paved over strip of land. It was rusted and falling apart, the paved area was cracked and a few run-down sky carriages and normal carriages were scattered around it. As we got closer we started to see posters and advertisements for the movie that was showing at the time.

Come See Daring Doo: The Movie. Now playing every two and a half hours.

Daring Doo: The Movie, Everyponies Favorite hero comes to the big screen in a new epic adventure.

“So, where’s the stable?” I asked Doorstop as we walked across the broken pavement.

“Other side of the big screen. Just follow me and keep an eye out for Enclave. They don’t normally go near this place to keep the location hidden, but with what you did and with Stardust missing, they may be guarding the area,” he said as we reached the screen and he started for one end of it.

Solstice was watching the sky as she said, “How are we going to get in anyway? I’m sure they changed the passcode when you left Doorstop.”

“My friend Dr. Limbis is a good mare. She’s the one who runs the memory modification program in the Stable. She’s not fond of what they do to the trainees, and said she’d be more than happy to help me with Stardust,” he said.

“How will she know we’re at the Stable?” I asked as we rounded the screen and went to the side where a metal door was set into the screen itself.

Doorstop tried to open the door then swore, “Figured it’d be locked. She said she’d do something to notify her when we were coming. This door is never locked, I’m guessing she had something to do with it. Shadow would you mind?”

I set Stardust down and walked over to the door, “Sure no problem, but if this door is trapped I’m going to be pissed.”

The lock was a joke, it only took me three seconds to pick it. When that was done Doorstop opened it and a high-pitched beep went off. It only lasted for a few second, but that was enough for all of us to draw our weapons, ready for an attack. But nopony was there, “Damn that scared the piss out of me!” Doorstop said.

“Yeah same here,” Solstice said.

“Enough talk, let’s get down to the Stable Door, I’m sure Dr. Limbis is waiting,” Doorstop said walking into the door and down a dark stair case beyond.

Lifting Stardust, I followed, same for the other two. We went down one of the stairs that lead us into a large storage area. It was dark and damp, rusty empty shelves were lining the wall. On the far end a Stable Door was illuminated in a dim yellow light, the number 97 on it. Keeping our weapons drawn we slowly walked up to the Stable door.

“Be ready for anything, it’s possible that somepony found out what Dr. Limbis was planning,” Doorstop said.

When we reached the door I asked, “How long do we have to wait…”

My words were cut off as the door hissed and squealed as it pulled out of its setting. We all raised our weapons as it rolled away steam rolling out into the open room. A single pony stepped out, she was a middle-aged mare with a pale grey mane, a very light pink coat, and blue eyes. She looked at us all and took a step back. Her cutie mark I saw was literally a diagram of a brain.

When she spoke she had an accent I couldn’t place, “Doorstop, I didn’t know you were bringing so many ponies with you.”

Doorstop smiled, “Sorry Limbis, I needed all the help I could get. You know how stubborn The Cadet is.”

She looked over at Stardust who was still knocked out and hovering in my magic’s grip, “That I do. We need to hurry, most of the Stable is asleep, but if the Overmare finds out I opened the door, she’ll send one of her guards to check it out. We need to get them to my office.”

“How do we know we can trust her,” Solstice said.

“Yeah, I’d like to know that too, I don’t trust Stable Ponies,” Wind Thrasher said.

The mare said something under her breath then said, “I mean it, we don’t have time. I’m risking my life to help you all, now be quiet and follow me.”

“She’s right, let’s get this over with,” I said following the mare into the Stable. Solstice and Wind Thrasher both sighed and followed, Doorstop chuckling a little as he came up the rear. As we crossed the threshold I noticed a dark stain where the door met the frame. As I looked at it I asked, “Is that where?”

Doorstop lightly pushed me on saying, “Yeah, that’s where we lost Hailstorm, now come on, let’s get Stardust back to his annoying old self.”

I smiled and nodded, “Okay, let’s finish this.”

With that said, we continued on, the door to Stable 97 closing behind us…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Slayer: You have a knack for using bladed weapons. When you are using a bladed weapon of any kind, you deal +5 more damage and ignore an opponent’s damage threshold, and have a greater chance to sever limbs.

Chapter 39: Liberate

“Tell me…Shadow…why should we trust you?”

“Taking cover sucks with my wings broken like this! Was it absolutely necessary to break them to stop me!?” Stardust asked as he took cover behind the entrance to the room that held the memory machine.

“Yes,” I answered as I reloaded, “Don’t you remember anything?”

“I do but it’s all a little bit fuzzy. I’m still a bit woozy from the machine. By the way, this would be a lot easier if I had my rifle instead of this stupid pistol. Where’s my rifle?” he responded.

Oh shit… this is gonna be awkward and probably piss him off, “Your rifle that you had when you were Pride or the one from before that?”

“Is this really what’s happening right now?” Solstice asked, “Can’t you just worry about what’s happening right now instead of some stupid gun?”

Stardust took a few shots at some security ponies across the next room, “I’m talking about any rifle right now.”

“Well your rifle you had as Pride is probably back at The Kingdom and your other one. Uh…your other one sorta got vaporized when I destroyed mill city tower because I accidentally left it behind when I left,” I replied sheepishly.

“Thanks…got anything else I could use for now?” he asked as he reloaded his pistol.

“Just give him your plasma rifle,” Doorstop interjected.

I took out my plasma rifle and tossed it to him before he could say anything and continued to try shooting at the three security ponies at the entrance to medical, “You said you wanted to end this place once and for all, what did you mean by that? I don’t feel like getting radiation sickness from another exploding stable.”

He landed a shot on one of the security ponies, “I don’t wanna destroy the place, just that stupid machine. I want to convince the inhabitants here that their entire lives have been a lie.”

“What’s the plan though?”

“We gotta get to The General, her office and quarters are across the hall from medical. If we can kill her or take her hostage, we’ll either have a bargaining chip or at least have stricken a large blow to the hierarchy of the stable,” he responded as he killed the other two security ponies.

“You guys go, Doorstop and I will stay with Dr. Limbis to protect her. We’ll get her out of here and clear a path for you two,” Solstice said.

“What about him?” I asked pointing at the pony we took with us on the way up to the top floor.

“I’ll carry him like I did with Stardust on the way in here. I can still handle myself with somepony on my back,” Wind Thrasher answered.

Stardust started to blush a bit, “She carried me in here?”

“Yeah, something wrong with that?” Solstice asked.

“No, and by the way, why are you helping us? Aren’t you supposed to be one of the bad guys?” Stardust replied.

“Let’s just say The Enclave screwed me over one too many times and didn’t give me the respect I deserved of my title,” Solstice explained.

Doorstop stomped his hoof on the ground to get our attention, “Enough of this. We need to do something instead of sitting here making regular conversation.”

We all came out of the room where the memory machine was and went over to the injured security pony. I kicked his gun away before he could grab it again and asked, “The General, where is she? If you don’t tell me I’m going to enjoy torturing you.”

“I don’t know, she pretty much disappeared when shit hit the fan,” he replied.

“She must be hiding in the emergency escape tunnel,” I said, assuming she’d hide in the most obvious place possible.

“I can see why you’d think that, but the tunnel here was sealed to prevent ponies from somehow opening it and getting into the office in case of a break-in,” Stardust said.

“That’s so stupid, Stable-Tec wouldn’t make something like that easy to access from the exit end,” I said in disbelief.

“She’s a bit paranoid,” Doorstop said from behind us, “Anyway, we’re gonna go ahead while you two find The General. Most likely she’s in her quarters, she has a gun in there she keeps for situations like this.”

“Alright we’ll check there, but if she’s not there I’m sure she’ll find her way out of the woodwork after we deplete the population in here a bit,” I responded.

“Shadow, I hope you don’t plan on killing any of the inhabitants,” Stardust interrupted, “They’re victims of this fucked up place like I am. The only reason they’re going to attack you is either because they were ordered to, or if they’re scared. We were trained not to fear things, but realistically nopony is afraid of nothing.”

Right, I forgot about the inhabitants of the stable. Why does there always have to be some sort of extra challenge with situations like this? “No, I won’t kill any of the cadets here unless it’s by accident.”

“Just don’t do it accidentally on purpose,” Doorstop said as he walked away with the others, “We’ll be waiting for you just outside the Stable, try to keep yourselves safe.”

After they were gone Stardust and I entered the corridor to what would normally be The Overmare’s office. There was a small stairway of three steps going up after turning the corner to the door. For some strange reason there weren’t any guards around like I expected, either she’s not in there, or she’s deadlier than I’m expecting, “Hey Stardust, what’s The General like? Is she gonna be hard to deal with?”

“Ppfftt, she shouldn’t be that tough. She’s a bit of a hardass when it comes to the inhabitants, but because of her eye she’s a klutz. There was this one time during a proctored exam she was overseeing, she tripped on something one of us threw on the floor just out of her line of sight. She wasn’t too happy about it but was impressed with my ability to take advantage of my enemy’s tactical disadvantages,” he explained.

“Eye? What’s wrong with it?” I asked as we entered the office.

“She’s missing her right eye,” he replied while taking aim with the plasma rifle.

I looked at him confused, “But in that memory of her when you escaped she had two eyes.”

He chuckled, “She had a glass eye, when I shot her during my escape it was destroyed and I guess she never replaced it. But as long as I’ve known her she’s always been blind on one side. Now let’s hurry this up.”

“I’m gonna go check under the desk, that’s a great place to hide in an Overmare’s office. Believe me, I know from experience,” I said unholstering my revolver, I opened the door and when I didn’t see her I walked over to the desk.

She wasn’t under there as I expected, so I turned my attention to the terminal on her desk and started to browse through the various files. Luckily the terminal wasn’t locked. There were quite a few files on the terminal, but not many of them proved useful to me, but one caught my eye. It was a list of all the stats of each cadet in the stable. I scrolled down to Stardust’s name and saw that it said deceased next to his name and his stats were blank. Then I noticed he was staring at me from across the room, “What are you doing? This is no time to be snooping into her business.”

“But I always snoop in situations like this. It’s not like we’re in any immediate danger at the moment, plus this could help us out,” I replied.

He sighed, “Can we just keep looking for her?”

“Aright fine, when we find her you can ask how she explained your sudden death to the other cadets,” I said.

“What? I guess she had to make some sort of excuse for my absence in the stable but now I’m curious at what she said the cause of death was,” he said scratching his chin.

We proceeded to the next door at the other end of the room, above the door it read ‘General’s Quarters’, “She lives in the same area as her office?”

“Yeah, that’s just the way this stable was designed I guess.”

I tried opening the door and of course it was locked, “You know what the door being locked means right? She’s gotta be in there.”

“Shows what you know about tactics, she could’ve locked it from the outside y’know,” he said with a bit of a scoff.

I started to pick the lock as I replied, “Yeah but there’s still a chance she’s in there. Think about it, she knows that you think like that and could use it to her advantage to throw you off of her trail.”

He stammered, “But…Damn, yeah you got a point there.”

With a pop and a click the door was unlocked and opened to a small barrage of gunshots coming from behind an overturned sofa, “Shadow one, Stardust zero!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you told me so. Let’s just get this over with,” he waited until she stopped shooting and said, “Hey cyclops, nice aim you got there. Also, didn’t your mother teach you to be polite? You should at least hear your enemy out before resorting to violence.”

“I don’t listen to terrorists! Security is on their way here as we speak, I suggest you surrender now or let your friend be slaughtered like the last time you crossed me Stardust!” The General exclaimed.

“Security here sucks, I already killed three of them across the hall,” he retorted.

“Let me rephrase, Enclave reinforcements will arrive here shortly and make quick work of you and your friends. I can’t believe your friends were stupid enough to break in here and think they could just walk back out with you,” she said before taking a couple more shots. I heard a click, “Fuck!”

“Technical difficulties?” I asked.

“Fuck you!” she shouted as she jumped out from behind the sofa and charged at us with a baton.

Stardust and I avoided every swing she threw our way, then out of nowhere Stardust grabbed the end of the baton and twisted it out of her grip. Before she had a chance to notice that she’d been disarmed, she was struck in the back of the head by the baton and knocked out, “Don’t you think that was a bit too easy? This whole time everything has been pretty simple except for going into the memory machine,” I asked.

“If you think about it, no. This place isn’t equipped to handle an attack from the outside world, only rebellious inhabitants, or inhabitants that’ve learned the truth about this place. Come to think of it, I don’t even think they trained us on how to deal with an outside attack,” Stardust said.

“Really, they didn’t train you on anything like this? That’s surprising considering the reason they have all of you here,” I responded, “So, what do we do with her?”

“I have no idea. We could kill her but she’s all knocked out and stuff, seems kinda unfair. Bringing her to a cell is a bad idea because there’s probably security there,” he replied.

“Y’know, if you were still a bad guy, you would’ve come up with something by now,” I said trying to urge him to think harder.

Stardust had a look on his face, the kind of face you would see when a stroke of genius hit, “We’ll just take her hostage, no one in this place has the balls to shoot through her to kill us. The only one I could think of that would do that is Doorstop and he’s on our side. Just hold her in your magic with your gun pointed at her and I’ll lead the way.”

“At least we sort of have a plan now, but what else are we gonna do besides take her hostage so we aren’t killed?” I asked.

“Well, first thing’s first, we gotta destroy that Goddesses damned machine. Then after that, we need to figure out a way to convince the inhabitants here to fight for us, or evacuate somehow,” he replied.

This is so stupid, we’re literally running around a hostile stable with no plan, a barely unconscious hostage, and no friends to back us up, “This was a bad idea, we should’ve just gone with the others and come up with a plan to come back in here to end things.”

“Calm down, we’ll be fine, just pick her up with your magic and follow my lead,” Stardust said trying and somewhat failing to reassure me.

I did what he said and followed him back through the corridor and back to the main hallway of the upper level. There wasn’t any security for some reason but then I heard a click from the stable PA system, “Attention stable inhabitants! This is Captain Plank of The Grand Pegasus Enclave! The moment you’ve all been training for has arrived, hostiles have invaded the stable. Find any weapons you can to protect yourselves and gather in the atrium to await further instruction, The Enclave is here to help.”

Stardust looked surprised, “I’ll be amazed if even half of the population actually goes to the atrium.”

“Uh…why?” I asked confused.

“All our lives they told us that the world outside was instant death and that the only way to step hoof out there was with a lot of safety measures like taking a ton of Radsafe, and wearing a radiation suit or power armor. The reason no pony has ever gone outside is because this stable has no radiation suits, no anti-radiation drugs, and the power armor stored here doesn’t have any kind of lead plating. I’ve never heard of Captain whatever his name was and I know none of the others know who he is just by the way he announced himself. To all the inhabitants of the stable except for the staff, he’s an outsider. If anything, the inhabitants won’t trust him unless their total morons that don’t listen during training or unless the Instructors tell them to. When I was still living here, I was trained to never trust the unknown, no matter who they say they’re affiliated with. When I escaped this place, I wondered how they got in and out without opening the stable door and attracting attention. Then I thought about it, they must have a separate door somewhere on the upper levels that leads to the outside. I mean think about it, we’re under an outside theater, not in a mountain or somewhere that’s super enclosed by hard rock like most stables. It would be no sweat for The Enclave to build a separate access tunnel into the stable after taking over,” Stardust explained as we slowly proceeded down the hallway toward security.

“I can see why you would think that, but if there was another entrance don’t you think Dr. Limbis would’ve let us in that way instead of the front door? Also, shouldn’t we be going the other way?” I asked.

He sighed, “It would be faster to just head straight for the stairs down, but I need to destroy the memory machine. We have a hostage so we shouldn’t have any issues from security unless one of them wants to be a hero and try saving The General. Just passed security and the holding cells is the armory, we can get more weapons there like I said before and possibly something to blow up the reeducation machine.”

“Out of all the time you were in here did you ever stop to think where they would’ve been getting bullets the past two hundred years?”

“Tsk, you can make bullets from old ones Shadow. All you need is something to melt and reshape the metal,” he replied.

“What about gunpowder?” I asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Okay I guess I never thought about that,” he retorted.

“STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!!!” a security pony shouted from in front of us after jumping out from behind a doorway.

“Nope,” I said as I pointed Dream Walker at the security pony and fired directly at his head. Blood splattered all over the wall a split second before his body was thrown against it by the force of the bullet cascading through his skull.

“You didn’t need to kill him so quickly. Make sure it’s not one of the programs victims before shooting next time,” Stardust said.

I rolled my eyes, “You realize that we’re on the top level of the stable where the vault inhabitants aren’t allowed right? None of them are going to be up here.”

“Yes, I realize that, it’s just you’re so quick to kill that I’m afraid you might accidentally kill somepony you shouldn’t when we get downstairs,” he argued.

“Fine, I’ll be more careful,” I replied as I checked to see if there was anypony else in the security office, “Shouldn’t there be more than just one pony in here?”

He shook his head, “Not in a situation like this. They probably sent most of the security downstairs to help the Enclave reinforcements take control of the situation. I hope the others made it out before The Enclave got here.”

“Doorstop and Solstice are both excellent fighters, I’m sure they got out before The Enclave got here. What I think is going on right now is that they think they’re still in here so they’re looking for them and us if they somehow found out we split up,” I said hoping the same thing he was, just on the inside.

He sighed, “Armory should be this way.”

He led me down the hall and around a corner to where a door similar to the one I saw in Stardust’s memories for the room that stored the power armor. Unlike the one for the Power Armor Storage, this one had a terminal in front of it, “This shouldn’t be too bad for me to get into.”

“I figured as much, that’s one reason I wanted you with me. I don’t have time to be hacking into terminals.”

I moved up to the terminal and hooked in the Mark II. Just like the terminal in the lobby at Mill City Tower, it bypassed the need to hack the terminal at all and unlocked it right away, “That was easy.”

Stardust laughed as he opened the door, “I’m not surprised, this level is off limits so they don’t need to worry too much about keeping this room locked. It’s mostly just in case there’s a rebellion of some kind. This keeps the Cadets from getting to the more powerful weapons, they wouldn’t have the time to sit here and hack a terminal while they’re trying not to be captured by stable security err whatever.”

Inside the room were racks and racks of high-end weapons, from sniper rifles to pistols, magical energy rifles to plasma, plastic explosives and grenades. Shelves filled with ammo for just about every kind of weapon in the room and some for things I couldn’t see in the room, “Now this is what I call a haul, we could make a killing if we took everything here and sold it back in The Kingdom!”

Stardust just rolled his eyes, “We aren’t here to enrich ourselves, we’re here to save the ponies who’ve been brainwashed by this place. Actually, that’s why I’m here. You’re here to save me, but in all reality by saving me, you’ve caused this chain reaction of potentially unfortunate and somewhat fortunate events.”

“I know…I think, but what’s wrong with getting a little something for it? We could use the caps and the ammo,” I said walking over to the ammo shelves, “C’mon they have a shit ton of .50 cal for Dream Walker! Do you know how hard it is to find ammo for this fucking gun!?”

“Dammit Shadow, keep it down. Fine, get what we need but that’s all. After this we should seal this room so nopony else can’t get in.”

I giggled, “Alright, but don’t complain to me later if we suddenly run out of caps and we could’ve sold all these weapons,” I moved around the room and started collecting as much ammo as I could for Dream Walker, the revolver from Mill City Tower, The Plasma Rifle, and whatever else I thought I could use or my friends.

As I worked, Stardust moved over to the Sniper Rifles and pulled one down, “Shadow make sure to grab me some ammo for this, and when you’re finished with that, grab as much of the C-4 as you can and a detonator.”

“Way ahead of you.”

“Good, that should be all we need,” he said

I looked over at a rack of Shotguns laid out on the far wall and one caught my eye. It had a drum feed mag, glow sights, and a beautiful black and red finish on it. Running over to it I took hold of it with my magic bringing it closer, “I don’t care what you say, I’m taking this too!”

He gave me a funny look, “Why? What good is a shotgun right now?”

“Trust me, it’ll be useful, we’ll be in close quarters more often than not and this baby will be able to take out more enemies than Dream Walker can with one shot. Also, it’s fucking gorgeous!” I said hugging it close to me.

He walked over looking it over, “Hmmm, a 10 gage with a drum feed mag and it has extra padding to take some of the recoil off your shoulder. It’s a good gun for a pegasus or earth pony, but it may have more of a kick than your used to since you always use your magic to fire weapons. Though you handle Dream Walker well, so it might not be as bad as it would for most unicorns.”

I grinned, “I’ll be fine, but I’m not sure that you should only be using a sniper rifle. I know it’s your favorite weapon but it’s not ideal for this kind of situation.”

He cocked his head toward me, “That’s true, I was going to get an automatic rifle too even though they’re total bullet wasters most of the time. When did you start thinking tactically?”

He had a point, “I’m not sure, maybe I’m finally learning from my mistakes.”

He smirked, “Maybe, or you’re just smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

“Now don’t stroke my ego that much, I’m an idiot,” I said walking past him to look over a few of the automatic rifles.

Stardust joined me, taking interest in one, “No I’m being serious, you’re not stupid, not even close. You’re impulsive, there’s no question there, but when you take a minute to stop and think, you come up with some good ideas.”

“You got that from my observation about your weapon choice?” I asked.

“No, I got it from your actions over the last few days. I might’ve been out of my mind, but I still knew you had a knack for making a good plan, even if that plan was destructive and murderous,” he said as he pulled a mid-sized rifle off the wall.

“You mean when I went to Mill City Tower? I don’t see how I did anything smart with that. It was all luck.”

He gave me a look, “It wasn’t all luck Shadow. You were able to worm your way past the guards at the street level, you broke into a well-guarded tower, found a way up to the upper floors, killed a head scientist and disguised yourself as her, fooled the guards, and you were able to kill the High Council. You did that on your own, you might’ve come up with your plan on the fly, but you still made the best out of a half-assed plan. If Nightshade didn’t know it was you, you might’ve been able to kill him and me too.”

I frowned, “And I managed to fuck up in the end by destroying the tower.”

“That’s where your impulsive nature and your anger took over. It’s a weakness and a bad one. However, it’s one that you can overcome if you work hard enough at it. My point is that even as Pride, I noticed how quickly you can adapt to a new situation, it makes you a force to be reckoned with,” he said with another wide grin.

I smiled back about to say something when the door to the room opened and a mare yelled, “FREEZE!”

Stardust and I both turned at the same time, his new rifle coming up as my shotgun and Dream Walker did the same, both pointing right at the power armored Mare. I grinned wildly, “Only one of you?”

Stardust didn’t grin, he moved over to put himself behind The General who was still knocked out laying on the ground. He moved his rifle down and pointed it at her head, “Make any sudden moves and I’ll repaint the walls red!”

The mare in the power armor froze looking between myself and Stardust, “Let her go, if you do we’ll only take you into custody.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little, “You think we’re scared of you? You’re one mare, how are you gonna stop us?”

“She’s one of the instructors here, she’s as good of a fighter as Doorstop. Don’t underestimate her,” Stardust said, his rifle still pressed against The General’s head.

The mare snickered a bit, “Clever one aren’t you? It’ll take more than you and this puny unicorn to stop me.”

“That may be true, but you can’t restrain both of us before one of us kills The General. Also, you shouldn’t underestimate this unicorn. She’s scarier than I am on a good day. You have no idea who you’re messing with,” he retorted.

She stared to laugh, “What, you think I’m scared of a pony like her? What is she called again, The Courier? Even down here we’ve gotten reports from the Pegasi up top about her. If you ask me it’s just a bunch of hearsay. Now let The General go and come with me peacefully.”

“Nope still not gonna happen,” he said looking over at me, “Shadow how about you show her what you can do.”

The Instructor laughed, “I’m in Power Armor, what can a unicorn do to a pony like me?”

I grinned wildly and teleported. I reappeared just to her left lifting my new shotgun. She reacted quicker than I would’ve thought, she jumped out of the way as I fired. The Shotgun was powerful, it was almost too much for me to keep hold of with my magic. The Instructor flipped around in mid-air and dove for me, the magical energy rifles on her battle saddle glowing as she started to fire down at me. I dodged to one side then let both my guns fall to the floor as I shot a focused blast of energy at her. She wasn’t able to dodge and it caught her in the side throwing her back into a rack of pistols.

She jumped back to her hooves quickly yelling, “You’re a fucking fool, you can’t hurt me with your magic when I’m in this Power Armor!”

She stopped yelling when she saw I was an inch away from her, Dream Walker pressed against her visor, “Maybe not, but I’m sure this’ll work a lot better than a spell.”

She didn’t move, “I’m not scared of you or any of your friends. We are The Enclave; no pony is stronger than us!”

“Stardust is she important?” I asked, ignoring the pegasus.

“Nope.”

She turned her head toward Stardust, “You’re nothing more than a failed experiment Cadet, you were so close to being the best, but you just had to go and run away!”

“Your wrong about him, the best thing he ever did was escape. You’re the fool here not him,” I said pulling back on the hammer, “Now tell me where the rest of your friends are and how many Enclave pegasi are in the stable.”

“I’m not telling you a DAMN thing.”

I moved Dream Walker down and shot her in her right foreleg. She crumpled and screamed. I pulled back on the hammer again, “Wanna try that again? I can do this all day, or at least until you eventually bleed out from all the bullet wounds you could potentially get.”

She looked up at me, “How were you able to do that?”

“Easy, that gun is a .50 caliber, it packs a huge punch. At a distance it may not work against power armor, but at close range like this, it’ll rip right through it like it was nothing more than tinfoil,” Stardust said, “Now answer her question and we’ll let you live.”

She took a long moment looking between the two of us as her hoof shook violently from the trauma it just took, “Thirty pegasi flew in to help, they’re trying to round up The Cadets in the atrium, the enclave is preparing them for an assult on the rest of you intruders. We know that more of you made it in here.”

“What about the rest of the instructors and guards in the stable?” I asked.

“They’re all guarding the main level, are you happy now!?” she scoffed.

“Yep, now what should we do with you?” I said lowering Dream Walker and looking toward Stardust, “Should we tie her up or do something creative?”

As I looked over at him I saw his eyes go wide right as I heard the mare start to move. I jumped back avoiding the kick she was aiming at my head, her hoof missed by only an inch or so. She lunged at me again ignoring the pain in her right foreleg as she tried one more desperate and pathetic attack. I didn’t give her the chance; Dream Walker came up again and I fired a round into her chest. The bullet blew past the armor and buried itself deep. She fell again gasping in pain, “How’d you know…” she started to say then she started to scream.

I saw why as seconds later, black light poured out of the hole Dream Walker made in her chest and gave a purplish look to her blood as it flowed. I jumped back just in time as her chest exploded outward, ripping her armor apart and blasting blood, bone, bits of shrapnel, and most of her insides all over the place. The worst part was she didn’t die right away. She laid there for a few seconds with her jaw open in a silent scream, one hoof reaching for me as she did. Then the hoof fell as she finally died.

“That thing is scary sometimes you know,” Stardust said as he holstered his rifle.

“True, but It’s very effective,” I said holstering Dream Walker and my new shotgun as I made my way back to Stardust, “Well since that’s over with, how about we go take care of that memory machine so we can get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea, let’s go,” he replied.

I gave him the C-4 and detonator then moved over and picked The General up in my magic again as we made our way out of the room. Once we were out I looked at the terminal, “Guess we should seal the door then.”

“Yeah, cutting off their access to the weapons in here will help us out a lot.”

I hooked the Mark II into the terminal and after shutting the door, I used it to seal the door for good. Making it so that only my Pip-Buck could unseal it again, “Done.”

“Good, now let’s hurry, I don’t know how long we have until The Enclave comes up here to find us.”

***

Since everypony was all pretty much downstairs, getting back to the reeducation chamber was pretty easy. I was guarding the door as Stardust attached the C-4 to the machine, “You almost done in there?” I asked starting to get a little bored and paranoid at the same time.

“Yeah, just give me another minute. I’m trying to calibrate this detonator to the trigger for the explosives, otherwise it won’t blow up,” he replied.

“Well hurry up, standing here waiting for somepony to attack is making me really anxious. Sneaking around is easy and so is open battle, but when a pony could show up at any moment and try to kill me, that actually kinda freaks me out.”

“Annnnd…done!” he said ignoring my comment, “Now all we gotta do is press this button from a safe distance and we can check this off our to-do list.”

Only he can make a comment like that at a time like this, even worse is that in the middle of a stable invasion slash insurrection or rebellion err whatever it’s called, I have to go to the bathroom. Why can’t this be like a book where the characters don’t take any time-wasting breaks to save the day? Come to think of it, why doesn’t anypony in books ever have to use the bathroom? Kinda takes away from realism, “Okay cool, let’s get the fuck out of here and get this shit over with.”

We proceeded to the opposite direction, out the door from medical, and walked toward the stairway. On the way I remembered that there were staff restrooms down the hallway and took a bit of a hero’s detour as Stardust stood outside the doorway awkwardly holding The General with a pistol pressed to her head. I guess him waiting for me was a bit of payback for earlier in medical when I had to wait for him to place the bomb.

As we got closer to the stairwell I could hear the sound of gunfire from behind the security door at the top of the stairs. When I got to the door and opened it, what I saw brought me back to Stable 28 when I came out into the hallway of gore. Stardust looked a little sickened by all the blood sprayed on the walls, floor, and ceiling, “Who the fuck did this? The Enclave can’t really be killing the inhabitants, it’s a waste of resources.”

“I know who did it,” I said flatly.

“Okay, mind explaining?” he asked.

“It’s Pride,” I answered.

Stardust shook his head, “No, you fixed my head, you didn’t split me into two different ponies.”

“Not you, Oricalcos,” I said before he could keep arguing the point, “Let’s just say that since I quote unquote ‘killed him,’ he’s been living in my shadow. Turns out he’s my mother’s brother and the one who almost killed me by accident when I was a foal.”

“He was what!?” Stardust exclaimed, ignoring the delicate situation, “Why didn’t you do something to get rid of him?”

“I don’t know, maybe because he realized who I was and helped me when Aura was shot by quickly getting me back to The Kingdom with her. He was also there when I was liberating my own stable from Wild Fire my old Overmare and sort of did the same thing here. For some reason or another he’s decided to help me even after I told him I didn’t want his help,” I explained.

“Sure he might be helping you, but I hope that help extends to friends. Think about it, if it’s just you he’s helping, we might be in danger. Me, Doorstop, Wind Thrasher, Dr. Limbis, the other Cadets,” he said in a bit of a panic.

I sighed, “That’s a chance we’re gonna have to take, and what about Solstice?”

“Yeah, her too I guess. I don’t trust her by the way, she could be plotting against us as an undercover operative, or worse she could be Envy in disguise,” Stardust said.

I took a second to think about it. She was being sort of weird but that could just be the way she is, but she was being a little hostile toward me the whole way here. If she was really Envy wouldn’t she have attacked me and my friends by now? Now that I think about it, she’s with the others and if she really IS Envy, she could do something to them, “If she was Envy in disguise I would’ve known by now. Envy wouldn’t take the form of somepony I don’t like and try to get close to me that way, he’d pick somepony I love. Ugh, I can’t think about stuff like this right now, we need to get down there and make sure Oricalcos is tearing up the right ponies. We still don’t know if he’s actually helping us or not, he could be killing our friends down there while we’re up here chattering away like high school fillies with too much time on their hooves.”

I proceeded down the stairs and peeked around the bloody corner to see a shadow whizz by on the wall. I continued down the second set of stairs and as I got closer to the bottom, the air started to smell like metal from all the blood. It reminded me of when we were in Stable 9 and discovered the horrible display of pony heads and hanging foals. Before I could make sure everything was clear Stardust rushed passed me around the corner, “Come on Shadow, hurry up.”

“No wait, we don’t know if it’s safe,” I said as he disappeared into the hallway.

I quickly followed him only to stop at the sight of him stopped in the middle of the hallway. Then I saw the shadows curl up around his legs and Oricalcos materialize in front of him, looking like a pony made of darkess, “Well…well…well, if it isn’t the imposter. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, no one deserves to be me until I’m dead and gone. Those idiots up in the clouds shouldn’t have assumed I’d be killed so easily by Shadow and replaced me with a wretch like you.”

“Oricalcos! He’s not brainwashed anymore!” I shouted from behind Stardust.

They both came to notice me standing there, “Shadow, wouldn’t he know you did that since he’s been playing stowaway in your shadow?” Stardust asked.

“I don’t know, he’s split away from me before,” I replied.

“I know he’s not on their side anymore, I just don’t care. He now holds my title and I don’t want him to, so I need to kill him and finish what was started when you and your friends came into this place,” Oricalcos said as he wrapped a shadow around Stardust’s throat.

Before I could say anything Stardust managed to speak, “I renounced that title when I came out of that machine, and took The General hostage.”

“Yeah, The Enclave won’t want anything to do with him once they know it was him who freed this place and destroyed that stupid machine. Actually, they’ll most likely want to kill him for something like this even though he’s part of this stupid program I keep hearing about non-stop,” I said moving closer to the shadowy form of my uncle.

His glowing purple eyes fell on me, “You know this pegasus is a danger to you and anypony he runs into. What’s stopping The Enclave from recapturing him and making him into a mockery of my title and the team I created?”

“I won’t let it happen. Last time it took an attack from what was left of The Sins to capture him, with you no longer Pride and your team disbanded, what else could they do to capture him again?”

“The Enclave has more tricks up their sleeves, my team isn’t the only team who are strong enough to capture him. He almost killed you and your friends, I vowed to protect you, and I’m doing that right now!” he said as he started to tighten his hold on Stardust.

“Oricalcos put him down right now!” I yelled.

“Yeah, what she said,” Stardust managed to squeak out.

For a long moment Oricalcos just looked me in the eye then finally he sighed and dropped Stardust, “Fine, but I hope you don’t end up regretting your decision.”

Stardust coughed, “Why are you such a dick!?”

The shadowy form looked over at him, “I’m not a dick, I’m protective of my family. I don’t trust you Stardust and neither should she.”

“Fuck you, I was brainwashed.”

“No, you had your memories removed and false ones implanted. With lies like those your hatred was justified. The problem I have, is when you didn’t remember who you were, small bits of memory came through and you ignored them, trusting what you thought you knew about her was a lie even when evidence proved otherwise. The things you did to try to kill her, the ways you threatened her and her friends, the way you tried to kill the griffon. All of that was because you let your hatred control your actions. Deep down you are just as dark as I am or she is.

Stardust cocked his head to one side looking at Oricalcos like he was a strange looking bug, “Dude that’s harsh. At least I’m not a creepy evil shadow thing like you.”

Oricalcos sighed, “You’re also an idiot.”

“Now you’re just being a dick again,” Stardust said with that goofy grin I’ll never want to see vanish again.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little, “Oricalcos, I don’t care if you trust him or not, I do and that should be enough for you. Now do you mind explaining to me why you decided to leave my shadow and kill all those ponies especially after I told you to go away?”

“I…uh, didn’t think you meant that,” he said sounding sheepish. Oricalcos sounding sheepish had to be the strangest thing I’ve heard or seen.

I sighed, “At the time I did, but I’ve gotten over it. Though if you have to tag along then I don’t want you doing things like this without telling me. It’s messy.”

“I’m your uncle, listening to you is disrespectable to my role as an uncle. I should be the one telling you what to do!”

“You will if you want to stay with me,” I said.

“And how do you plan on keeping me from following you or staying in your shadow?”

“Oh I’m sure I can find a way to rid myself of you. I know a couple of hunters that probably know a way to stop a shadow creature like you from tagging along. Also I’m sure you’re still not up to full strength yet, so I’m not sure you can do much to stop me from getting rid of you. You also owe me for the bullshit you put me through with that dark curse and for trying to kill me. So, either you do as I say or you go away, it’s your choice,” I said with a cocky grin.

He chuckled a little, “You make a fair point, it’s not a good point, but it is enough to convince me. Fine, I’ll do as you ask for now, but I won’t be stopped from saving you. Your safety comes first.”

Stardust shook his head, “She’s not a child, she can take care of herself.”

“She is a child, no matter what she thinks. She doesn’t know as much as I do about how things work in The Wasteland.”

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, I’m young, big deal. We don’t have time for this. Stardust I think we’re far enough away from the memory machine, so blow the damn thing up. Oricalcos get back into my shadow. If I need your help, I’ll ask.”

Stardust pulled out the detonator, “I guess you’re right,” he pushed the button and a rumble filled the stable for a moment followed by a distant boom, “Well that takes care of that.”

Oricalcos sighed and melted back into shadows again moving toward me, “I can’t hold onto my form for much longer anyway. Just remember Star, I’m here if you need me. Still taking orders from my niece leaves a bad taste in my mouth,”

“I wish he’d stop calling me Star,” I grumbled

Stardust looked over at me and grinned, “At least he’s not trying to kill you.”

“Yea I guess that’s true. Now that we have that settled, we should try finishing this.”

“Yeah good idea, though I hope your uncle didn’t kill any of the stable inhabitants. It’s hard to tell with how mutilated the bodies are.”

I looked around at the torn apart bodies and some of them had stable barding, “It looks like at least two lived here.”

Oricalcos’s voice echoed out from my Shadow, “Most of them were stable guards who were making their way up to the upper level to kill you both, two were older Cadets who joined up with them.”

Stardust looked down at my shadow, “Keep quiet, you still killed ponies I’m trying to save.”

“You can’t save everypony here,” Oricalcos said back to Stardust.

“Enough bickering you two, you’re like an old married couple I swear. Anyways, what I want to know is why The Enclave is here at all. I thought Nightshade wanted to shut this place down. If he’s really the new High Council pony, why would he let his soldiers come in here and try to kill us?” I asked as we started walking down the hall slowly, doing our best to avoid the gore around us.

“Who knows, maybe he hasn’t taken full control yet,” Stardust said, “I remember him saying that even with the others gone, he’d still have to take control from the other Council ponies who wouldn’t want to see him in power.”

“Or this is another pony who’s trying to go against Nightshade and keep this place going,” I said as we came closer to one of the windows that overlooked the atrium. I gasped as I looked down. The Cadets were all lined up along one side of the atrium standing at attention, four older ponies standing next to them who must’ve been the instructors. Lined up on the other side were thirty pegasi, most of them in Power Armor and one Stallion who was in what looked like an officer’s uniform. That Stallion was walking up and down the lines of Cadets saying something to them.

Stardust came to stand next to me saying, “That doesn’t look good.”

“Yeah I know, how the hell are we supposed to stop all of them?”

“We shouldn’t have made the others leave, we could use their help,” Stardust said, “Unless you can think of a way to stop thirty power armored pegasi from attacking us.”

I looked through my inventory on my Pip-Buck trying to think of something I could use that could help us. Then I noticed something, I had ten spark grenades. I remembered the fight back at Frosty Summit when Wingnut used a spark grenade to stop Solstice in her tracks. He said something about the spark grenade shutting down the Power Armor’s spell matrix. Without it running the Armor wouldn’t be able to run and the pony inside was stuck.

“Hey Stardust, do you think we’d be able to get close enough to them to use these spark grenades?” I asked as I pulled them out of my saddle bags.

He beamed, “Shadow you’re a fucking genius!”

“I wouldn’t say a genius, I just thought to myself what would Wingnut do.”

He looked down at the enclave’s soldiers, “That’s a lot of soldiers, we’d have to be very careful about dealing with them. The problem with the Atrium is there’s only one way in and out so we wouldn’t’ be able to just sneak in without getting noticed. There is no way we’d be able to get close enough to them to use the spark grenades.”

“What if we could lure them out?” I asked.

“How?”

“Well it depends on how fast of a flyer you are in this stable.” I said with a maniacal grin.

He looked at me quizzically, “What’s rolling around in that head of yours crazy pants?”

“Oh, you’ll see, follow me I’ll explain as we walk.”

***

Ten minutes later the plan was set, Stardust was working his way down the stairs that lead down to the Atrium as I waited at the top. It was all about the timing, thankfully Stardust and I have worked together enough that I understood him and how he worked. This shouldn’t be too hard to pull off…right?

Finally, I heard Stardust yell from the bottom of the steps, “Yo Enclave fuck tards, I thought you were looking for me. If so then why are you all sitting around here talking to each other like mares on a girl’s night out!”

I heard a harsh voice yell, “Capture him, NOW!”

“Hahaha, what do you think I’m going to just go with you quietly!? You got to work for it! Catch me if you can losers!” Stardust yelled as he started to run back up the stairs.

“You Ten go after him the rest stay back here with me and watch the Stable Dwellers.” The stallion said.

Stardust flew past me saying, “Better hurry, they’ll be right on my tail.”

I could already hear the pegasi working their way up the stairs. I worked my way back down the hall, opening the door to the female locker rooms. I just got through the door when the Pegasi made it up the stairs. I ducked behind the wall on the other side of the door as I heard Stardust yell from down the hall, “Come on don’t tell me he sent the slowest ponies in the unit. I’m a little bit insulted.”

Shots rang out from the pegasi who were pursuing Stardust, I heard them all yelling insults at him as they passed by the open door where I was hiding. I grinned as the last one ran by. Stepping back into the hall I pulled the pin for three of the Spark Grenades yelling, “First rule of Solider school always keep an eye out for the quiet one.”

The grenades tinged off the metallic floor a moment before the rear most pegasi turned to see my smug grin. One of them saw what I just threw and managed to get out “Ah Fuck!” right before they went off. A blast of magical electricity went off around all ten pegasi, a moment later they all stood there in dead Power Armor.

One of them cursed saying, “That’s a dirty trick!”

Stardust came flying back toward me smiling down at them as he flew over, “No such thing as a dirty trick in battle, you’re just lucky she didn’t use something worse.”

“What do we do with them now?” I asked as Stardust landed next to me.

He shrugged, “There’s only twenty left down in the Atrium, if we could get the Cadets to fight back, we’d have no problem finishing them off.”

“Fucking savages.” A Stallion to my left said.

I rolled my eyes as I walked closer to them all, “Yeah I know, all of us Wastelanders are nothing but stupid dirt ponies. You think that only ponies born in the Enclave are worth anything, the rest of the ponies in Equestria can die. Am I right?”

“Damn right, the Enclave is perfect, we are the ones who will bring Equestria back to the right path.” He said.

“Uh huh, right, you keep on believing those lies” I looked around at the other nine ponies, “Anypony here from the Crystal Empire?”

The stallion who spoke before tried to spit on me, but missed, “That’s none of your business.”

“Yeah I wasn’t asking you.” I said walking past him.

A mare in the back spoke up after a moment, “I am, why do you care? How do you even know about it, I thought almost no pony in the Wasteland knew the Crystal Empire was still around.”

I moved closer to her, “I asked because I’m from The Crystal Empire, my father was an Enclave Solider, my mother worked as a medic and researcher in Nimbus, My uncle is the pony that used to be Pride. Stardust here was stolen from his parents as a new born from Stratus, we were both born into the Enclave just like all of you.”

The problem with Power Armor is you can’t see a pony’s face when you surprise them, but at least you can hear it in their voice. The mare stammered for a moment then said, “You mean you’re one of us? Why are you attacking this Stable then?”

“Easy, I came here to save my friend, this place is an abomination that shouldn’t have ever been created. I may have been born into the Enclave but I’m nothing like the rest of you sheep. I do what I think is right, I don’t just take orders from a higher up who thinks they know better than me. Let me ask you, do you really want to be down here?”

All of them were silent for a long time, finally the mare spoke up, “No, but we don’t have a choice. The Captain said we had to come down here to stop The Courier from destroying a friendly Stable, just like you did in New Pegasus.”

“I came here to save my friend, I also plan on helping those ponies in the Atrium get free. They’ve been lied to their entire lives about who they are and the world outside. All of that for a stupid program started by a few scientists so they could make Super Soldiers. It’s sick and wrong and I’m not going to let ponies like you stop me.” I said turning to head back toward the stairs.

“So, I take it we aren’t going to kill them, right?” Stardust said as I walked past.

“Nope, they are no longer a threat.”

“There are still a lot of ponies down there. What do you plan on doing about them?”

I smiled as a thought came to my head, “Hey Stardust, does this Stables PA system work on a wireless broadcast?”

“I think so, I know the General could use it from her Pip-Buck whenever she wanted too.”

I moved over to the General who was still knocked out and pulled her forehoof up and started to mess with her Pip-Buck until I found the Broadcast for the Stable, “Stardust I want you to do whatever you can to get the Cadets on our side.”

He walked over to me asking, “And what are you going to do?”

“Make a distraction.” I said as I started down the Stairs toward the Atrium.

I heard Stardust chuckle a little to himself catching him say “My pleasure,” as I continued on.

When I got to the door I pulled out three more of the Spark Grenades, took a deep breath, the opened the door. I was met with twenty Power Armored Pegasi turning and pointing their energy rifles at me, the tall Stallion who I saw earlier taking to all the other cadets was glaring at me, the inhabitants of Stable 97, however, were looking at me like I was the strangest thing they’d ever seen.

The Stallion said, “Hold your fire, I think we are in the company of the infamous Courier.”

I still hated that name when ponies said it the way he did, oh well if you can’t do anything to fix it, then roll with it. I grinned and smugly took a little bow, “You’d be correct Enclave pig.”

He looked down his nose at me like I was a stain, “I have a name you backwater mare. I’m Captain Plank, now how about you tell us where the runaway is.”

I started to laugh, “Captain Plank! Really your parents named you Plank! What’s your mother’s name Fallen Tree, I bet your dads called Buzzsaw! I mean come on who names their foal Plank!”

I saw anger flash in his eyes, “I chose my name!”

“Really!? You chose that name! Hah hah all of a sudden I’m picturing you looking in the mirror saying ‘you know what would be a real kickass name? Plank!’ Why would you chose something like Captain Plank! I think the only name more stupid than that would be something like Peg-leg or Tazerface!”

“SHUT YOUR FUCKING…” he started to yell.

I was watching the other ponies as he yelled, waiting for the right moment. Most of them turned their faces toward their captain and that’s when I decided to strike. I threw the Spark Grenades in the middle of the group of pegasi then teleported to the other side of the Atrium pulling out Dream Walker and my plasma rifle. The blast took out thirteen of the Pegasi’s power armor the rest were still trying to figure out where I went.

I opened fire on the Captain first yelling, “Hey Plank, heads up!”

The moron turned toward me right as a blast of Plasma slammed into his face, melting it and the rest of him. Right as I started my attack Stardust’s voice echoed through the Atrium, “Hello ponies of Stable 97, this is your old pal Stardust Night. Yes, I’m sure you’ve all been told that I either died when Hailstorm died or that I was escalated to the upper level. Well I’m here to tell you all that it’s all a lie, this whole place is a lie my friends.”

The rest of the Enclave soldiers started to fire at me, but I teleported again reappearing behind them, “Come on, you can do better than that.” The Plasma rifle and Dream Walker fired simultaneously taking down two pegasi at once. I ducked and rolled to the side as another took a shot at me.

As I continued to fight Stardust continued to give his speech, “Cadets your entire life in the stable has been a lie. The outside world isn’t death like they told us! I’ve lived out there for seven months now, I’ve seen what Equestria has become, I’ve met the ponies that do their best to get by every day and survive. I’ve met good ponies and bad, the world outside isn’t perfect, but it’s better than living in a place where all they do is LIE to us. The Enclave is trying to turn you all into mindless Soldiers to use in a war they want to start against other Pegasi cities. They took us away from our parents when we were foals, they told our parents that we died so they could take us away and make us into tools. Cadets of Stable 97, stop listening to their lies and rise up. Use the skills they taught you here to put an end to The Enclaves program and this Stable of misery. Our friend Hailstorm died so that I could escape and find help so you could all be free. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain!”

I switched Dream Walker out for the Revolver, let my barding take a hit from one of the stallions who was charging me, and pressed the barrel of the revolver into his muzzle. I grinned and pulled the trigger, as blood flew over me I let his body fall against my own, using it to shield myself as two more pegasi blasted multiple shots of crimson death toward me. I took that moment to catch my breath then wrapped the dead stallion’s body in my magic and threw him at the two firing at me. At this point Stardust stopped talking over the PA, I looked over at the Cadets who were watching the fight in awe. The instructors on the other hoof looked pissed. Two of them were trying to yell something at the Cadets as the other two looked ready to jump in to help the last four remaining soldiers.

Two of them were trying to get out from under the dead Stallion, the other two were slowly circling around myself and the rest of the Pegasi who were frozen in their armor. I made sure to keep my eye on them as I spoke to the two that were stuck, “I’d stay down if I were you.”

One of the trapped stallions responded, “Fuck you, we don’t listen to dirt ponies!”

I pulled out one of my last spark grenades and held it in my magical grip, “No I mean you should stay down or I’ll make you stay down.”

A mare who was circling around me slowly said, “Try anything and we’ll turn you into dust.”

“Really now, and what makes you think you’ll have any better luck than your friends did? Because so far to me it looks like none of you has been able to land a solid hit on me. Now stand down before things get worse, ten of your pals are locked in their armor upstairs, more are trapped down here, I’ve killed three of you already and your commander.” I said as I slowly started to pull out the pin.

“We have orders to bring you in alive, that’s the only reason you’re still standing Courier.” The mare responded.

“Oh really? Well that makes this ten times easier then.” I twisted around throwing the grenade at the two who were above me and the cadets. They both tried to jump back, but the attack was a faint. Still holding onto the spark grenade with my magic, it looped around them, flew back toward me and passed my head landing right at the hooves of the two power armored instructors who were trying to sneak up on me from behind. Both swore as the grenade went off.

I grinned at the four enclave Soldiers as the mare yelled, “Fuck this, I don’t care what our orders were, I’m fucking killing her…”

A loud shot rang out from the other side of the Atrium as a bullet flew through the mare’s visor, her body dropped from the air and made a loud thud onto the atrium’s floor and started convulsing. The stallion who had also been above me and the cadets watched her drop, “What the hell?”

Another shot rang out and he dropped, most of his muzzle was torn off by the bullet. I turned and looked back at Stardust who was standing in the doorway to the stairs, his rifle held at the ready, The General still passed out laying on his back, “What took you so long Dusty?”

“The General started to wake up, needed to knock her out again.” He said as he slowly walked in looking at what was left. The two stallions were able to get free from under the dead stallion, but they didn’t move an inch. The other instructors were left glaring over at him not being able to move. The Cadets looked shocked as they saw my friend slowly walking in.

“If I were you two, I’d stand down, you’re not going to win this fight.” I said to the last two Enclave Soldiers.

They both looked at each other, then at the dead ponies around them and the ones who were trapped in their power armor. Finally, one said, “Fuck this I don’t feel like dying today.”

“Same here.” The other replied.

Stardust lowered his rifle and slowly walked toward the Instructors, “You’re the only ones left, The guards here are either dead or fled, The General is beat and nothing’s left in here that can save you. I think it’s about time you told the Cadets what this place is really for!”

“Don’t listen to him Cadet, he’s nothing more than a run away. He betrayed you all.” One of them said, she was a short mare and the only one not in power armor.

One of the mares standing in line walked forward and said in a stern tone, “You told us that Stardust was killed by the stable door when he was trying to leave. You said he killed Hailstorm and tried to run. If that’s true then why is he here now!”

“Cadet Shortcake keep your muzzle shut!” The short instructor yelled.

Stardust lifted his rifle, “Stop your FUCKING LIES!”

I took a moment to look over the mare, I could see why Stardust had a crush on her. She had a very light magenta coat, a mixed White yellow and red mane that swirled together like frosting, with red freckles on her nose and striking blue eyes. She looked close to my age, but was taller than me (Not hard to do) and her cutie mark was a Shortcake with whip cream on top. As I looked her over Shortcake took another step out of line, “No, I want answers, we all do!”

The only other instructor who wasn’t frozen in his power armor spoke, “Sandalwood I think we should tell them. We can’t keep this up anymore, we lost, it’s over.”

“If we do we’ll be betraying our oaths.” The short mare said.

“I really don’t want to kill any more of the Ponies I grew up with here Instructor Sandalwood. Instructor Tome is right, this is over. Either you tell them the truth or I’ll blow your head off and I’ll tell them myself.” Stardust said.

The Instructor looked around the room, then at Stardust and sighed, “Stardust, I’ll admit I’m amazed you were able to do all this. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, this is what we get for making you into such a good soldier.”

“It has nothing to do with how I was trained. If I only used what I learned in here, I wouldn’t have made it this far. You see there’s one big flaw to the way you trained me and the rest of us here. We never learned what it means to work with a team, to take what strength they have and add it to your own. You never taught us to work with friends. You always taught us that we had to be the strongest. I learned in the Wasteland that nopony is the strongest. I’m a great sniper and decent at hoof to hoof. One of the friends I made out there, Shadow, she’s small but she can think on her hooves when the time calls for it, she’s also a natural with close range weapons which is helpful for a pony like me. Our friend Aura who’s a griffon is one of the best fighters with melee weapons I’ve ever seen and she’s fast. We have a colt that travels with us that is so smart that he can find ways around things that no other pony would even think of. Together we make a good team, it’s because of my friends that we were able to do this.” Stardust said as he walked closer to the Cadets and Instructors.

Instructor Sandalwood looked around again then sighed, “I can see you’re right,” Then she looked over at Shortcake and the other Cadets, “Stable 97 is one big lie just like Stardust said. Over twenty years ago a mare by the name of Dr. Stormy came up with what’s called The Devil’s Children Program. The original idea was for two Cloud cities called Stratus and Nimbus to send young foals to be raised in a military environment and be trained to be Super Soldiers. Once the best of these children were ready and fully trained, we’d clone them so we could make an army and take over the entire Enclave. The first generation was the start to the program and from all the foals we took, Stardust and four others stood out as the perfect trainees. The program was expanded and we brought in your group as foals and worked from there. This Stable was a perfect location for the program to work. So, the Enclave invaded this Stable, killed most of the ponies that lived here, and remodeled the Stable to fit our needs.”

They all looked shocked as the Instructor spoke. Stardust however lowered his rifle and said, “It gets worse, they never planned on keeping us alive once they started the cloning process. They needed soldiers who would take orders no questions asked.”

Shortcake looked over at Stardust and asked, “But what if one of us found out what was going on?”

“They had a plan for that as well, on the upper level in medical there was a machine that can wipe away your memories and even replace them. That machine was used on me a few weeks back to turn me into a monster they could control and send me after my friend Shadow as a test run. She stopped me and brought me here to fix it.” He said.

One of the female cadets fell to ground saying quietly, “But what about our parents, they said we’d get to see them once we finished training.”

Instructor Tome said, “Your parents aren’t in the Stable, they don’t even know your alive.”

A couple of them started to tear up when he said this, so I stepped in, “There’s a town south of the Stable called The Kingdom, the Empress there wanted me to try and get you to go there when you were free from this place. She wants to help you find your families again.”

Shortcake looked over at me like I was something disgusting, “No pony asked you outsider.”

I glared over at her, my jaw dropped. I thought to myself are you kidding me? Did she not see what I had just done to the enclave soldiers around us? I was about to say something but Stardust spoke before I could, “Shortcake, Shadow is my friend and the leader of our group. You should show her some respect.”

Shortcake looked over at Stardust, “Dusty, you mean that you, the top fighter in our Stable, follow around a short unicorn?”

“She’s a good mare and stronger than she looks, trust me.”

Shortcake rolled her eyes, “And why should we trust her that this Empress pony…”

“Zebra, Empress Sheena is a Zebra.” I interrupted.

All the Cadets looked at me now like I was something nasty, Shortcake saying, “You want us to go get help from a…Zebra!? Are you fucking insane?”

“A little, but I’m working on it and yes I do. She’s a good mare and she wants to help ponies like you, that’s what she does.”

“Dusty you can’t be serious, why would anypony work with a Zebra?” one of the Cadets said.

“Well I don’t know her myself, but if Shadow says she’s a good mare then she is. I’ve learned that not every zebra or griffon out there is evil, they just wanted us to believe it.”

I chuckled a little, “Yeah, even Doorstop doesn’t mind her. He’s the one who first agreed with Sheena’s plan.”

Most of the Cadets said at once, “Doorstop’s ALIVE!”

The instructors looked a little ashamed, but Sandalwood said, “He didn’t die like reported. He helped Stardust escape, when The Enclave found out they banished him.”

I was starting to worry that this wasn’t going to go well. The Cadets didn’t look happy, I mean they just had their entire lives turned around but still why did they looks so angry…at me. Shortcake walked closer to me and got right in my face, “Tell me…Shadow…why should we trust you?”

“Because I’m telling you the truth, Sheena’s a good mare and she wants to help, so do I.”

“And why would some random Zebra want to help ponies she doesn’t know?”

I sighed, “I literally just told you that’s just who she is. Are your ears fill with hay or something? She had a hard childhood and doesn’t like to see any pony, griffon, or zebra suffer. She wants to help anyone she can.”

“I know this is a lot to take in, but you have to trust us.” Stardust said.

“He’s RIGHT,” The booming voice of Doorstop said from the door, “The little runt’s telling you all the truth!”

Everypony turned to look over at the big stallion. I face hoofed, “Doorstop I thought you were going to stay outside.”

“Ya’ll were taking too damn long, figured you needed my help, also ten more pegasi from Nimbus just showed up.”

Another stallion showed up behind Doorstop. He was an older stallion with a faded green coat and a light grey mane. He was wearing some kind of uniform with lots of metals on the jacket. As soon as we saw him Stardust and I both had our weapons up and ready to fire, “Fuck, you mean we have more ass holes to fight?” I said.

“Put that away before you hurt more ponies Runt!” Doorstop said, “This is Major Vas, he’s not here to fight.”

“He’s Enclave!” I said not lowering my weapon.

The older pony cleared his throat then said, “Yes I am Courier, but this Dashite is right, pardon I mean Doorstop. I’m here on behalf of High Council Pony Nightshade. He declared yesterday that The Devil’s Children Program was to be stopped at once and the inhabitants freed.”

This time I did lower my guns, “Wait a sec…What now? I thought Nightshade sent the others here to stop me?”

Major Vas shook his head, “Not at all Courier, the ponies here were just following orders from Captain Plank, which from the look of it you already took care of him. We are here to help the ponies here reintegrate back into the Enclave. Nightshade also said that you are no longer an enemy of The Grand Pegasus Enclave. At least for Stratus and Nimbus. Any crime that the former High Council Ponies charged you with have been dropped as long as you don’t interfere with our business again in the future.”

The General woke up and jumped to her hooves looking around, “What’s going on?”

Major Vas looked at her, “Oh so you are still alive,”

She looked at the older pegasus, “Vas? What are you doing in here?”

“That’s Major Vas to you Overmare,”

“She’s a General not just an Overmare.” Shortcake said still looking shocked at everything that was going on.

The Stallion laughed, “General? She’s not even in the military. She’s a scary mare that we knew could keep the ponies in here in line.”

Stardust chuckled, “I thought she was always a little weak for her rank.”

“Shut your muzzle Stardust!” The General yelled, but she was quickly cut off by Major Vas.

“Thunder Clap, you will be coming with me to report to Nightshade about everything that’s been happening with this Stable. Failure to do so will lead to banishment or death.”

The mare looked like he just kicked her, she looked down at her hooves and said quietly, “Understood.”

“Now that we have all this settled, I think you can leave, we will take it from here.” Major Vas said.

“No can-do Major Vas,” Doorstop said walking over to the Cadets, “The Cadets are coming with us, at least for now. I need to make sure they get used to the Wasteland. If they want to leave later to join the Enclave that will be on them.”

Major Vas looked at the old Drill Sargent for a long moment, then chuckled, “Doorstop, the reports we’ve gotten about you are true. You’re a stubborn stallion.”

“Damn right and so are the Cadets I’ve trained. I’m thankful to Nightshade for doing this, but I ain’t giving ya’ll the Cadet’s.”

Major Vas just laughed again, “No worries Doorstop, I’ll explain to Nightshade, as long as you tell me where they’ll be going.”

“Like Shadow said, I’m taking them to The Kingdom.”

“None of us said we are going anywhere!” Shortcake said.

Doorstop glared at her until she backed away, “Ya’ll don’t have a say in this, you can’t stay here anymore, and I ain’t letting you go with The Enclave, not until Ya’ll learn more about your new lives.”

Most of the Cadets said, “Yes Sir!”

Not Shortcake, she looked up again then looked over at me, “I’m not going anywhere until she proves herself.”

“Huh?” I said looking at her confused, “Why do I need to prove anything? I just saved your asses!”

“Shortcake, you don’t get a say in this.” Stardust said.

“Shut up Dusty, I’m very pissed off to deal with you too. If Shadow thinks she’s good enough to lead you and Doorstop here and if she wants us to go to this Kingdom ran by some Zebra, then she needs to pass our test. If she can win in a fight against me, then we’ll go, if not we’ll find our own way just like Stardust did when he left.”

“You can’t be serious,” Stardust said, “All of us are highly trained fighters, Shadow may be able to hold her own, but it’s not a fair fight.”

Doorstop however smiled, “No, I think it’s a good idea.”

“YOU WHAT!” I yelled looking over at Doorstop.

Shortcake just smiled, “If Doorstop thinks a good idea then she must be able to hold her own.”

Stardust looked worried, “No he’s just a crazy old buck!”

“Shut your yap Stardust,” Doorstop said, “Put some trust into your friend.”

“But…” I started to say.

“No but’s,” Doorstop said coming closer to me and whispering, “Shortcake is the best fighter in her class, you can’t hold your own if you fight fair. But you should know that this stable never taught the Cadets on how to deal with Unicorns. That is a big mistake on their part, from what I’ve seen, Unicorns don’t fight fair.”

I smiled then looked over at Shortcake and sighed visibly cursing at myself, “Fine if you want me to prove to you that I’m worth it then whatever. What’s the rules?”

“No weapons or armor, first one to submit loses.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Good, we’ll let Major Vas help his ponies, you two can fight it out on the other end of the Atrium.” Doorstop said.

A few minutes later I was standing a few feet away from Shortcake both of us staring down the other. She stood in what I guess is a proper fighting stance, I mostly did my best to look tough. My armored barding and duster were sitting next to Stardust with my saddle bags. Shortcake’s was with Doorstop, the rest of the Cadets stood in a ring around us. I already had a plan on how I was going to take her down. A blast from my concentrated Expulsion spell should work nicely, she wouldn’t be expecting it. If I could finish this quickly it would show them all that I wasn’t just some weak unicorn from the outside.

Doorstop lifted a hoof, “Ready….Begin!”

I started to draw on my magic, but I wasn’t fast enough. Shortcake flapped her wings and shot toward me like a rocket, (Holy fuck she’s fast) and slammed a hoof into my face before I could even think about defending myself. I flew back from the force of the blow rolling across the ground until I slammed up against one of the Cadet’s hooves. Shortcake wasn’t going to give me the time I needed to cast a spell. She was on me so fast I barely had time to register how I went from standing in the middle of the circle to being on the ground. Three quick jabs slammed into my chest, side and face. Each one more painful than the last, I threw a hoof up and blocked the fourth then took hold of her hoof and tried to flip her around and off of me.

Shortcake used the flip to her own advantage, she flipped around in midair, took hold of my hoof and used the momentum to flip me around and back onto the ground. She twisted around my foreleg pinning me to the ground with my hoof in some kind of lock. She put more pressure on it slowly forcing me to scream in pain, it felt like she was ripping my leg off. Blinking away tears and doing my best to ignore the pain, I rolled in the same direction she was pulling forcing her to let my leg go so she wasn’t thrown off. She used her rear legs to hold on to me and brought her forelegs down to slam into the back of my head.

“Pitiful, how does a weak thing like you end up leading a pony like Dusty!?”

Ignoring her taunting, I bucked my hips and threw my head back at the same time. The motion threw her off balance again and she pitched forward, right into the back of my head. I felt something crunch behind me and blood flow over my mane and back. I heard her curse as she jumped off me. I rolled back to my hooves, doing my best to keep as much weight off my right foreleg. It was still screaming in pain from the abuse and my head felt like I just headbutted a brick wall. I jumped back then looked at Shortcake who was glaring at me again blood pouring down her muzzle and chin from her nose. The crunching sound I heard must have been from that.

“You were saying?” I asked giving her the best fuck you smile I could.

“You’ll pay for that runt!” Shortcake said, she dashed toward me again.

Expecting her to do the same as before, I brought my good foreleg up to defend myself, but Shortcake changed direction quickly, she jumped into the air and flipped over me and brought her rear hooves down onto my back. I screamed as I was slammed into the ground again, my back now feeling like someone just shot me. She wasn’t finished though, as soon as I hit the ground she kicked me into the air then doing another flip she bucked me to the other side of the circle.

I screamed again as I landed on my back, pain blotting out my vision for a second. Then I felt a hoof on my neck slowly pushing down chocking me, “You should yield before I crush your wind pipe!”

(You stupid bitch, don’t you know who I am? I’m the Fucking Courier, this pain is nothing, I never give up.) I smiled the best I could and was able to say, “No way!”

I saw a flash of anger for a second, then I teleported out from under her and reappeared on the other side again, coughing and hacking as I tried to breathe right. Shortcake looked confused for a moment then she saw me, “That’s cheating!”

I laughed and said in a raspy voice, “Your rules didn’t say anything about magic, just no weapons. Using my magic is no different than you using your wings.”

“It’s not the same…” she started to say, but I teleported again.

This time I reappeared to her left, I spun around and landed a kick at her face. She was slammed to the ground by the force of my kick, her head rebounding off the floor. I followed that up by doing the same to her as she did to me, I bucked her back toward the center of the circle. She screamed as her face slammed into the ground again, “You should know something Shortcake, I’m not going to give up. You may be a better fighter than me, but you aren’t smarter. I can take the pain from your blows, I can handle your insults, you have no idea the shit I’ve gone through in my life. You can’t win!”

“I’ll show you!” she yelled jumping back to her hooves then into the air so she could rush me again.

I just smiled and wrapped her in my telekinesis. She looked confused again as she tried to flap her wings so she could keep rushing toward me, but nothing happened. My smiled grew as I used my spell to slam her back into the ground…hard, “Don’t get up!”

She didn’t listen, “And you have no idea what we have to go through every day here. We are trained never to give up, never to back down. You’ll have to kill me if you want to win!”

“You say that now, but can you really follow through?” I asked as my horn started to glow again.

“You can bet on it!” she said. She dashed to one side trying for a rush again. She changed direction and dashed the other way, working her way closer to me but making it hard for me to predict where she’d end up. In a fight against an opponent who wasn’t a unicorn, it may have worked. But what good is having a few spells up your sleeve if you can’t cheat a little?

I waited until she went in for the strike, then ducked under her. For a second she was flying over me as she missed the strike, her hoof and body changing direction in midair to try for a second attack. That is until I blasted her with my Expulsion Spell. She let out a louder scream than before as she was blasted up, followed by another scream as her body slammed into the ceiling of the Atrium. She started to fall, I grabbed hold of her with my magic and threw her into the far wall then lifting her once more I pulled her close to me. As she came flying toward me I slammed a hoof into her gut. Her head inched close to me from the impact and as a ‘fuck you’ I softly kissed her nose in such a smug way. The wind from her breath was blasted out of her lungs in a sad exhalation of air. Her body slumped over my shoulder, I brought my good foreleg up and twisted her around and put her into a head lock. The same one Wrath used on me during our last fight.

“Yield!” I yelled at her as I put pressure on her neck.

It took a moment for her to answer, she was doing her best to gasp in air, then she said, “N…o.”

I tightened my grip, “You’re done, now yield, I don’t want to kill you.”

“Then you’re a poor excuse for a fighter.”

“No I’m a mare who’s trying to save your sorry ass. I won, you know it, now act like an adult and admit defeat.”

For a long moment we stood there, Shortcake gasping in small bits of air, me holding on to her in a chock hold. Finally, she said quietly, “If I do, my friends will think I’m weak, if I’m weak how can I become a good leader.”

Just as quietly I responded, “Winning isn’t the only thing that makes you a good leader. Trust me I know. A good leader has to admit when she’s defeated, or when she’s wrong. You have to show them that, if you really want to be a leader of the rest of the Cadets show them that you are willing to listen to those who know better than you so you can show your friends how to do better. The mark of a good leader is a leader who learns so she can set a good example for those she leads.”

I saw her looking at some of the Cadets, I wonder if she saw the same look on their faces as I did. They were scared, their lives had changed drastically in the past couple of hours. Some wanted Shortcake to win so they could follow her into this new life because they were scared of what was outside. Others wanted to go to a place they knew would be safe, but they were too scared to say something to Shortcake. All of them looked up to her, either because she was the best pony from their class or because she really was the kind of pony who could lead. Shortcake was the kind of pony who had confidence in herself and that confidence is what helped all of the ponies here get through the tough times in life.

Finally Shortcake whispered, “I’m scared, the world outside is an unknown to us, what if this Empress turns out to be evil? What if I bring them right into a trap, one where they’ll either be killed or put back into a place like this?”

“That’s the risk every leader has to face. You never know what will happen next, sometimes both paths you can take will suck, the difference is are you strong enough to face it? If you’re still not sure then look at it this way. I trust Empress Sheena, Stardust trusts me to make the right call with this. You don’t know me or Sheena, but you do know Stardust. Would he put all of you at risk for no reason?”

“No, he’s a good stallion, loyal to a tee. It’s what made him a good friend.”

“Then trust Stardust’s choice. Yield and we can put this foolishness behind us and move forward toward a better life.”

I felt her body go slack and she said, “Fine, I yield, but I pray that I’m making the right choice.”

I let her go, “You are.”

For a long moment the Cadets all looked at the two of us then finally they started to stomp their hooves on the floor in applause. Stardust flew over to me, a healing potion in hoof, “Damn Shadow that was bad ass.”

I drank the healing potion then responded, “No it wasn’t, it was stupid, but I’m glad it worked.”

Stardust offered a potion to Shortcake who took it and drank it as well, “Thanks Dusty, sorry I was being such a bitch before. It’s really good to see you again.”

He blushed, “It’s okay, I know how you get when you’re angry. A lot’s happened today it’s all a little hard to take in.”

To my utter surprise, Shortcake started to giggle, “Dusty you still blush like a colt who just got to kiss the mare he likes. It’s cute.”

That just made him blush more, “I don’t blush, Stallions like me don’t ever…Blush!”

I looked over at Shortcake who was also looking at me. Then at the same time we burst into laughter as Stardust tried his best to get us to stop…

***

An hour later Major Vas was able to get the last of the Pegasi’s power armor rebooted. They were now leading the last of the ponies that lead Stable 97 out through the now open door. Stardust, Shortcake and I used that time to load up as many of the weapons and ammo as we could from the storage rooms and whatever else the Cadets could carry to their new home at The Kingdom. Solstice went through the cadet’s power armor and removed the tracking device on them so they could bring them with if they so wanted. Turns out she was an expert on power armor…who knew?

Stardust and I also went back to medical, mostly to stalk up on meds we could use, but also to make sure the memory machine was destroyed by the C-4. Luckily all that was left was mostly scrap metal and broken glass. Though I was worried somepony from the Enclave would be able to fix it somehow, or Wolfsbane if he found his way into this Stable. From what Major Vas told me, Nightshade wasn’t going to let the Enclave use this stable ever again, but he was still new to power. Pegasi like Captain Plank were still up there and they wouldn’t just do whatever they were told by this new High Council pony. I was going to have to figure something out for this thing before we left for good.

So, I spent the rest of the time helping the Cadets get ready for the trip we were about to take. I had to calm down a few when they first met Wind Thrasher though. Once the Cadets saw that she was just as scared of them as they were of her, they warmed up to her quickly. Though Wind Thrasher kept hanging out as close as she could to Stardust. It was like she was scared to leave his side around the other highly trained soldiers. It’s odd how one minute she can be a bad ass killer and the next she’s the shy mare in a room. Definitely a strange mare, but that’s why we love her.

Getting the Cadets to leave the Stable was harder than I thought it would be at first. Most of them stood near the open stable door looking out at the mostly empty storage room like it was going to explode when they left. It took a lot of coaxing from Stardust, Solstice, Doorstop and Shortcake to get them to take the first step out. Finally, one by one, the young pegasi left the Stable. I waited next to the terminal for the door controls with Wind Thrasher sitting next to me.

“It’s going to be hard for them for a while.” She said as we watched them file out.

“Yeah, but they’ll manage. Look at you, you managed to do just fine outside.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to leave my stable for years. I lost my fear of the outside world after having to live with Dr. Cell and his monsters for so long. I figured that if I ever got free of his control, the outside world would be better than Stable 9.”

“Wish I was like that, even though I knew I wasn’t from Stable 28 when I left it, it still scared me to go into the Wasteland.”

She smiled, “You’re just a filly, I’m sure going out on your own no matter what is scary. I’m a little older than you are, things like that get easier with age.”

“In my Stable I wasn’t a filly anymore.”

“By my Stable’s standards you’re a couple years shy of being an adult. Though now days I wouldn’t say you’re a filly, you did have to grow up a lot to survive out there,” She looked over at me, “What are we going to do about this place?”

I looked down at the Mark II, “I’ve been thinking about that. I’m worried that some pony will find their way in here and figure out how to fix that memory machine or use it as a blue print on how to build their own.”

“Somepony like Elder Wolfsbane?”

I nodded, “There’s something about him that I don’t trust, same goes for Nightshade. They’re both hiding something and I don’t like it. I don’t know what it is yet, but I do know that I don’t want either of them to get into this Stable.”

“You could always try and talk to The Survivors and see if they want their home back?” Wind Thrasher suggested.

“No, after what we did there I don’t want to go anywhere near those nut jobs. I think the best thing I can do, is seal the Stable just like Stable 9.”

Wind Thrasher thought about that for a moment then said, “I Disagree with you if the kind of sealing you mean is blowing the stable up like you did with 9.”

I laughed pretty hard at that “You’re funny Wind Thrasher, you’re a funny mare.” I teased “No nothing like that.”

She laughed with me “Good, it’s better to keep this place sealed away from the world. That way nopony can ever use what’s in here ever again.”

“That’s what I was thinking too.”

The last of the Cadets finally made it past the threshold for the stable door. Stardust poked his head in and said, “You two coming or what?”

“Be right there.” I said as I got to my hooves.

“Okay, hurry it up though, I’d like to get as far away from this place as I can.” He said as he walked back out of the Stable.

I looked down at the terminal then at my Pip-Buck, “This shouldn’t be too hard.”

Wind Thrasher smiled her toothy smile, “I’ll go keep Stardust distracted for a minute while you finish up.”

“Thanks Wind Thrasher,” I hugged her quickly then waited for her to walk out of the Stable. When she was gone I hooked the Mark II into the terminal for the door. As I thought, it only took a minute for me to place the seal on the door. It would activate as soon as the door was closed. I also made sure that only my Mark II could reopen the stable via the broadcaster. When that was finished I pulled the lever to shut the door. As the drill moved into place and started to shut the large gear shaped door I made my way down to it and walked out.

Once I was past the threshold I turned and watched as the door rolled into place and was pushed into its final position. Then I felt a hoof on my shoulder as Stardust said, “Feels good to be saying good bye to this place once and for all.”

I turned and hugged my best friend, “I don’t know, I think it feels better to have you back.”

He laughed placing a hoof on my head, “Ditto.”

We all walked back out to the Wasteland where The Enclave Soldiers were loading the ponies that lead the stable into a sky carriage. I noticed that Dr. Limbis wasn’t with them, in fact I hadn’t seen her since she left with the rest of my friends before the attack. I looked at Doorstop who was standing next to me, “Where’d Dr…”

“I didn’t want her to get captured by the Enclave. I told her where the Kingdom is and put a marker on her Pip-Buck, as far as the Enclave knows, she was one of the ponies who died during the fighting.”

I smiled, “She’s a nice mare, I’m glad she’ll finally be able to be free from the job she hated so much.”

“Same here, I think I’m going to have her come back to Frosty Summit with me when we head back home. Violet could use a good Doctor like her.”

I grinned, “Do you like her Doorstop!?”

He glared at me then shook his head, “Not at all, at least not like you’re thinking. She’s always been a nice mare even to a grunt hard assed pony like me. She was also my Sister’s best friend, I couldn’t let something bad happen to her. Besides it wasn’t her fault she was forced to do what she did.”

“I guess that make sense…wait you have a sister!” I almost yelled, but Doorstop covered my muzzle with a hoof.

Doorstop looked back at Stardust and Solstice who were talking with a few of the Cadets not far away from us, “Yes I do, but keep that to yourself. I haven’t seen my family in over twenty years and I don’t need the Cadets or Solstice asking me all kinds of silly questions.”

He moved his hoof away from my muzzle, “Does your sister know you’re even alive?”

He looked around again then said, “She’s the one who put me here, she heard about the program and wanted me to keep an eye on things. I think she really wanted me to make sure Limbis was okay. She knows I was branded as well.”

“Your sister must be important to know so much about this program.”

He smiled at me, “Nah, but she is a smart mare that puts her nose where it doesn’t belong. But let’s drop it, maybe one day I’ll tell you more about my family.”

“I dunno how I feel about knowing two pegasi with secrets of their past. At least Laser Light was a little bit open about herself before she left.”

Doorstop smirked “Sometimes secrets keep us safe. Laser Light knows this very well.”

“Maybe you will also tell me about how you know so much about other things a pony like you shouldn’t when you were trapped in a Stable for over twenty years.” I said.

“Maybe even that too,” he said with a hearty laugh, “I’ve got to make sure the Cadets are ready to head out.”

“Okay, I need to ask Major Vas something before we leave as well.” I said

“Don’t take too long.”

I nodded and made my way over to the Major who was checking with his troops to make sure everything was ready to go, “Major Vas, can I bother for a moment?”

He turned and looked down at me, “I have to be off soon so make it quick Courier.”

“I have to know, is what you said in the Stable true, did Nightshade really say I’m free of The Enclave’s wrath?”

He nodded, “That’s what he told me, I’m not sure why but he seems hell bent on trying to fix a lot of what the last council has broken. He’s working on a new negotiation with New Pegasus for one, he’s also trying to find some kind of peace with some of the Cloud Cities to the east. Personally Courier, I think it’s a mistake.”

“What, making peace with the other cities?” I asked.

“No, letting you go. I’ve seen the damage you can do. It both frightens me and makes me want you dead. If he didn’t tell me to leave you be, I would have killed you as soon as I saw you Courier.” He said, his voice never growing angry.

I took a step back, “Just like that, even though you’re scared of what I’ll do?”

“I’m a soldier not a politician, I take orders and I follow them Courier. My personal feelings don’t get in the way of orders. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind about you, but for now I’d rather not see you ever again.”

“I guess that’s better than sending The Sins after me again or killing me out right.”

He turned his back to me and started to walk away, “The Seven Sins of Equinity are scum Courier. They no longer represent The Enclave, I’d like to see them all die just as much as you.” He stopped then looked back at me pulling a small box out of a pocket, “That’s right I almost forgot, Nightshade wanted me to give this to you. He said to watch it when you had free time.”

He set the box down and walked away, a moment later they all took off and headed for the cloud layer. Once they were gone, I walked over and picked up the box in my hooves. When I opened it I saw what was inside. It was a memory orb, on top of that were two notes. One said it was from Nightshade, but the other didn’t say who it was from. It looked a lot older than the first and all that was written on it was ‘To Star’

I wanted so badly to read both those notes and maybe even dive into the memory orb. Instead I put them into my saddle bags, right now I had more important things to do. First thing’s first, it’s time to go back to The Kingdom and see Aura.

“You ready to go Shadow!?” Stardust yelled.

Turning toward my friends I smiled, feeling somehow better than I have in days, “You know it, let’s go…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Interrogator: If you have an active imagination, you can get anything out of anypony. If an enemy is captured alive, you can interrogate them for information and depending on what you do, you might get more information. However, this perk does not work with young children of any race.

Chapter 40: You And I

“I’m not sure, but I want too…I’m just scared I’m going to lose you in the worse way possible.”

The journey back to The Kingdom was one of the most peaceful moments I’ve had since I first came to the Midwest. Since I was the only non-flyer in the group of ponies, Wind Thrasher was willing to give me a ride. At first, I was worried about The Enclave coming after us, but my worries proved to be nothing. No pegasi came after us, nopony attacked, nothing happened. It was awesome, as I looked out at the Cadets flying in a long formation behind us with Doorstop in front of them. Shortcake was flying to our left, she was carrying Stardust since his wings were still broken, for the past hour they both spent the time talking about what they both had been doing in the past seven months. Stardust told her about his escape and Hailstorm’s death. She told him about what she’d learned after he left and how lonely she’d been without her two best friends.

On our right Solstice flew close to us, she hadn’t said much over the past hour. Even though I was on Wind Thrasher’s back I could still tell that had a haunted looked to her, like she hadn’t slept in days. Solstice, looked like she always did, pissed off and bored. Though I could see a slight satisfied smile on her face. I moved my head down to rest it on the back of Wind Thrasher’s neck. Watching my friends heading back to The Kingdom with me made me feel like I was finally at peace. I smiled again then asked Wind Thrasher, “You doing okay Wind Thrasher?”

She gave me a weak smile, “I’ll be fine Shadow. I’m just recovering from the bloodlust that’s all. It takes me a few days; my body goes through a form of withdraw.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that and thank you for carrying me.”

“It’s fine, I’m the one who lost control. It’s not the first time it’s happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

“I hope we can find a way for it to be the last,” I said.

She smiled, “I do to.”

Stardust turned his head toward Wind Thrasher and smiled at her, “If Shadow can help me get back to normal, I’m sure she’ll find a way to help you Wind Thrasher.”

She blushed and her voice quieted, “I’m sure she can.”

I looked at her for a long moment, as Stardust said, “Thank you for helping Shadow, Wind Thrasher. I’m sure all of you played a big part in saving me from myself, I owe you all my life.”

Wind Thrasher’s blush brightened, Solstice just laughed, “I wasn’t doing it to help you or Shadow. This was the price I had to pay to The Stranger for his help in getting me into The Kingdom.”

Wind Thrasher looked over at Solstice, “I almost forgot Solstice, do you still have the Range Finder? The Stranger said you were going to be holding on to it until one of us could take it.”

Solstice reached back into the sling she had over her back and pulled out Solar Flare’s Range Finder. She gave it to Wind Thrasher, “I almost forgot about that. Honestly, I’m glad to be rid of the thing, it’s too much responsibility to hold on to.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit, “Yeah that’s for sure, it’s also terrifyingly easy to use for killing an enemy.”

All of us went silent for a moment. Memories of the blast that took out Mill City Tower still fresh in most of our minds. Finally, Stardust broke the silence, “How about you tell me what I missed while I was gone Shadow? How’s Silver doing? You haven’t said much about her since I was out of the machine.”

It was like he just stabbed me right in the heart, I closed my eyes for a long moment then asked, “Didn’t you hear about what happened at Halo One?”

“I may remember a lot of what I did as Pride, but some of my memories are a little fuzzy. I was hoping you could fill me in,” he said concerned.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “I can tell you, but I’ll start from the beginning, right after you were taken. It’s going to be hard enough for me to talk about this, so let me finish my story before you ask me any questions.

“I can do that,” he said. So, relaxing again into Wind Thrasher’s mane, I started to tell him everything that happened since he was taken by The Sins. I told him about going to Crimson Canyon and the meeting with Aura’s family, the way I was fooled by Envy and forced to leave. I told him everything, not leaving out a single detail apart from the conversation I had with Gigi. I didn’t hold back about my rage, anger, fear, and my sorrow as I slowly went mad from the loss of Silver Snip.

Stardust listened intently, never saying a word so I could finish my tale. As I went on I saw that even Solstice looked sad as I recounted when I buried Silver and her recording she left for me. The story lasted most of the way back to The Kingdom. When I finally finished he asked me his questions, told me how sorry he was that he couldn’t be there for me when I really needed him. I realized then that even though he knew nothing could’ve changed what happened, he wished he could fix it. That’s what made Stardust such a great friend, he cared so much about the ponies he loved, because he’s a good pony.

Finally, we landed at the gates that led into The Kingdom. I slid off Wind Thrasher’s back and stretched, “Glad that’s finally over.”

“Tell me about it,” Wind Thrasher said, “I’m not sure I could have kept carrying you like that for much longer.”

Stardust grinned over at me as he got off Shortcake, “I know what you mean Wind Thrasher, her ass is heavy as FUCK!”

I struck a blow on top of Stardust’s head hard with my hoof “You’re impossible.”

Stardust grabbed the top of his head out of reflex and gave me his goofy grin laughing, “Geez Shadow it was just a joke.”

Out of nowhere I gave Stardust a hug. Goddesses I missed him.

Stardust hugged me back “First ya hit me, next ya hug me, you mares are confusing.”

“Shut up Stardust” I responded

“Yes ma’am” he replied

The Cadets looked up at the wall that surrounded The Kingdom in awe, Shortcake saying, “Damn that’s a big place.”

I giggled a little, “The Kingdom is big, but not as big as Saint’s Parish or The Crystal Empire. Still, this place is a good place to live, everypony here respects each other. I think all of you will like it.”

Solstice rolled her eyes walking past me saying, “I just hope that The Stranger got me put onto the list so I could go in.”

“What list?” I asked.

She looked back at me like I was a total idiot, “Duh, the list to enter The Kingdom. They don’t just let anypony walk right in.”

I couldn’t help but bust out laughing, “Solstice, they don’t have anything like that. The Empress lets in anypony that wants to live here, as long as she gets to meet with them first and they don’t mean any harm to anyone.”

Her jaw dropped open, “What do you mean there’s no list!?

The Stranger must’ve told her that as some sort of insurance to make sure she’d help him, “You’re so gullible!”

“Oh good, so you were just kidding,” she said sounding relieved.

“Nope, I’m not kidding. There’s no list, The Stranger just told you that so you’d help him.”

Her lower left eyelid twitched as she stared at me, “W-what? He used me? I don’t get used, FUCK HIM! I hate The Wasteland.”

Stardust smiled, “Join the club.”

“I swear to Celestia, I’ll kick your ass. As my father would say; you wouldn’t have such a smart mouth with my hoof in your ass,” Solstice retorted.

Huh, the way they bicker reminds me of something, I just can’t put my hoof on it. Old married couple maybe? No, that can’t be it, “Guys, how about we just go into town and get on with things? I’ve gone through enough bickering between Aura and Stardust, I don’t wanna listen to you guys argue now.”

They both sighed, “Okay…”

As we walked into The Kingdom, all the Cadets looked around as if they’d been transferred to somewhere in the past. That must’ve been what my face looked like when I first laid eyes on The Kingdom. They all huddled close to each other as we slowly made our way closer to the large mansion in the middle of town.

We didn’t even make it past the gate before The Emperor himself stepped in front of us all. He threw his hooves open wide saying, “Huzzah! The triumphant hero returns, and you’ve brought us new Guests! Though they all look a little lost! Don’t worry young fillies and colts, I’ll be sure to help you all get acquainted with your new home. Have some Candy!”

They all looked at Emperor Periwinkle Punch like he was crazy…which wasn’t far off. Shortcake moved closer to me and whispered in my ear, “Is he like the towns nut job and what’s candy?”

Rolling my eyes, I sighed saying, “This is Emperor Periwinkle Punch. Emperor this is the cadets from Stable 97. Your wife wanted me to bring them here once we got them freed from the Stable so she could help them.”

“Wait he’s the Emperor, I thought you said a mare ran this place and she was a Zebra!?” Shortcake said.

The Emperor laughed joyfully, “Oh that she is, my wife should be around here somewhere. Cutter spotted you coming in and told us you’d be here soon, I thought she’d beat me here.”

As he finished talking Empress Sheena walked up from behind her husband followed by a Stallion, no he wasn’t just a Stallion, he was probably the most handsome, beautiful Stallion I’d ever laid eyes on. His coat was a deep maroon, but also, he had vibrant dark blue stripes as well. Not as many as Sheena, he only had three over his back, two on his cheek, and one on each leg. His eyes were a beautiful hazel and shaped different than a pony but not quite like a Zebra’s. His mane was a mixture of red and blue that matched his stripes. I would have thought he was an oddly colored Zebra at first, but then I noticed he had a cutie mark. It was a heralding trumpet with a flag on the end that had a zebra glyph on it.

Sheena smiled as she looked at all of us, “Shadow it looks like you made it back safe and you were able to save not only your friend Stardust, but the rest of Stable 97 as well.”

“Uh-huh,” I said my eye still stuck on the tall dark and gorgeous stallion. Okay yes, I have feelings for Aura and all but damn this stallion’s just hard not to look at.

Stardust nudged me, “Shadow, you okay?”

I shook my head and looked at Sheena, “Sorry Empress, yes I was able to help the Ponies from the Stable and I brought them here like you asked…who’s the pony with you?”

She looked back at the stallion who was politely waiting just behind her, “Oh my apologies Shadow, this is my son Fruit Stripe.”

The stallion moved forward and took one of my hooves in his own kissing it then saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Courier Shadow Star. My apologies that we didn’t get to meet last time. I was out of town.”

I couldn’t help the blush that came to my face as he spoke. In that moment I forgot to think before I spoke, “Wow, you’re really pretty.”

Solstice who was standing next to me responded to that, “Yeah he is.”

He blinked as if he was shocked then smiled and laughed nervously, “Why thank you.”

Sheena just shook her head, “Son would you mind showing our new guests where they will be staying?”

He turned toward his mother and bowed, “It would be my pleasure,” Then he looked back at me and smiled again, making me feel like my legs were going to melt, “It was a pleasure meeting you Shadow, later tonight or tomorrow if you’re free, I’d love to talk to you about your adventures in New Pegasus.”

“Sure…I mean if I’m not busy then no problem,” What the fuck’s wrong with me?

Sheena waited for her son to lead the rest of the Ponies from Stable 97 toward the mansion. Doorstop went with them saying something about making sure none of the Cadets did or said something offensive. When they were all gone and it was just Solstice, Wind Thrasher, Stardust and I with the leaders of the Kingdom, Sheena came up to me and smiled, “I am very happy to see that you made it back in once piece. I do hope that you are doing better, the pony wrapped in bandages said you were not in your right mind before.”

“He was right, but I’m doing a lot better now.”

The Emperor chuckled, “That’s good to know, though I did find it kind of funny how much fuss was made over the destruction of that eye sore tower.”

Sheena sighed and looked back at her husband, “Periwinkle my love can you please keep your muzzle shut for a little while?”

He hung his head a little, “Sorry my dear, I’ll be good.”

“Thank you,” Sheena said before turning to look back at the rest of us, “Stardust, I’m sure Shadow has told you about me but I still would like to introduce myself, I am Empress Sheena. I am glad to see that you came back to your right mind. You had your friends quite worried.”

“I’m glad to be back and yes Shadow filled me in on what happened while I was away.”

The Empress then looked over at Solstice, “I take it you must be the mare who helped the pony in bandages, Solstice was it?”

“Yeah, Shadow calls him The Stranger. I helped him so he’d help me get here and because I owed him.” Solstice said with a huff.

“Well, you are more than welcome in my home and city, all I ask is that you give me an hour or so of your time sometime today so I may get to know you better. The same goes for you Stardust.”

“I see no problem with that, but first I’d like to go check on Wingnut and Aura, I have a lot to make up for.” Stardust said.

“I understand how you feel Stardust, but I must insist on you talking with me first. Also, Wingnut wanted Shadow to go see him alone as soon as she got back the same goes for Aura.” Sheena said, “Can you set aside an hour or so for them to speak with Shadow first? Also, it looks like your wings are broken, I would like one of my doctors to look at you to see if he can set those properly.”

He sighed then nodded, “I can do that.”

The Emperor spoke up again, “How about I show these two inside while you finish up with Shadow and Wind Thrasher my love?”

“That would be a good idea husband.” Sheena said.

“I’ll catch up with you later Shadow.” Stardust said as he followed The Emperor toward the mansion, Solstice following quietly behind them.

“Empress, I know it’s asking a lot, but do you have a place I could lay down and be away from everypony?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“I have plenty of places like that in my home. You do look a little ill Wind Thrasher dear. Are you okay?”

“She’s a little under the weather from a fight.” I said doing my best to keep what happened with Wind Thrasher secret.

Wind Thrasher however didn’t seem to mind telling Sheena about her mistake, “I’m sure you remember when I told you about my blood lust.”

“I do.” Sheena said

“Let’s just say that I lost control for a little while when we got into a fight with some ponies. I need a quiet place to sleep and let my body and mind rest.”

“I understand, I’ll show you where you can stay when we get back inside.” Sheena said turning to head toward the mansion.

As we walked I couldn’t help saying, “Your Son, how did that happen, I mean your husband is a pony. He also looks a little different than any zebra or pony or whatever I’ve ever met.”

Sheena started to laugh, “Ponies and Zebras can have children Shadow, though they themselves cannot have foals of their own. My son is what’s called a Zony. They are very rare especially in the wasteland.”

“So, he’s not just an extremely handsome stallion, but he can’t get you pregnant either? I bet he’s broken a few hearts over the years.”

Sheena laughed again, “I am sure he would, if he was like other Zebra’s or Ponies who use their good looks for more sinister things. Fruit Stripe does not realize how handsome or charming he really is. He is a kind soul and never seems to pick up on the mares who are always trying to get his attention.”

“Huh, so he’s oblivious?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Sheena laughed again, “Very much so, he is a lot like his father in that regard. Luckily he got his smarts from me.”

“Empress Sheena, do Aura and Wingnut really want to see me?” I couldn’t help but ask as we crossed the courtyard.

“They do, Cutter already told Wingnut that you were back and he told me he wanted to see you right away. Aura told me yesterday that if you got back to send you to her room right away as well.”

I let out a pent-up breath, “So she really did survive.”

Sheena nodded, “It was a close call, but she made it through better than I thought she would. She still needs some time to recover, but I think seeing you will help. She has been worried sick about you ever since she woke up.”

“I’m sure she wants to reprimand me for running off again.” I said

Wind Thrasher put a wing on my back, “Don’t worry Shadow, you’ll be fine.”

“I know, but I’m still scared to tell her what I need to.” I said as we walked in the front door.

Sheena stopped, “Shadow do you remember your way to the medical wing?”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“Good, Wingnut is waiting for you by Aura’s room, it is the last one at the end of the hall right before you reach the I.C.U. I am going to show Wind Thrasher where she can rest up, I am sure you will be just fine from here.”

I smiled, “I sure hope so.”

Wind Thrasher hugged me again saying, “When everything’s done come see me, no matter what happens with Aura or Wingnut, I’ll be here for you.”

“Thank you, Wind Thrasher, but you rest up. We can talk tomorrow.”

The two mares left me at the bottom of the grand staircase. I waited for a moment as they walked off, then finally turned and headed down the hall that leads to the West Wing of the Mansion. It was still early in the morning, but already some of the Doctors were up and checking on patients. I did my best to stay out of their way as I walked past. Finally, I saw the room, standing in front of it was Wingnut.

He saw me slowly walking toward the room, his eyes locked on mine for the longest time. I stopped a few feet away from him and looked down, “Hey Kiddo….”

I wasn’t able to finish my apology. The colt ran up to me and hugged me as hard as he could, “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

It took only a moment for me to register what he said and the fact that he was hugging me instead of yelling. I could feel the well of emotions surging as I let my forelegs wrap around the colt, “I’m so sorry!”

For what felt like hours, we just sat there hugging each other letting our emotions flow freely. I didn’t realize how much I missed the colt. Finally, he pulled back and looked up into my eyes, “You’re sorry? Why are you sorry. I should’ve made sure you were okay before you left. You needed somepony to be there for you after what happened, but instead I stayed in bed.”

I could see him on the verge of tears again, so I took hold of his face and forced him to look up at me, “Wingnut it’s not your fault. I’m a grown mare, I’m responsible for my own actions. I’m sorry because I put you and the rest of our friends through a lot of pain and heartache.”

“I know that, but still I wish I could have done something to stop you from running away. When I first heard what happened it was Wind Thrasher who came in looking for you. I’ve never seen her so upset, she was worried that you were going to go out and get yourself killed. I worried about that too, after what happened in Appleton I knew something was going to happen. When it did…” he couldn’t finish, his face contorted and fresh tears fell again.

“Let me guess, when you saw Solar Flare again, you thought I killed Stardust?”

He nodded, “Either that or somehow he escaped and killed you. When the Stranger came here and told us what happened and his plan to help you and Stardust, it was the best news I’ve had in days.”

I smiled a little doing my best to push past my sorrow, “Wingnut, I promise you that I’ll never do anything like that again. I won’t leave you behind like that ever again, no matter what happens.”

He looked away for a moment, “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying. You see, I learned something while I was out there on my own. I learned that letting my anger get the better of me isn’t the answer, same goes for revenge. It won’t be easy, but I need to start learning to calm down and think before I act. I also learned that even though I can take care of myself, I still need my friends.”

Finally, he smiled, “I’ll hold you to that. So, did you manage to save him? I heard something from one of the doctors who said you came back with a lot of Pegasi, but I need to hear it from you.”

“I sure did, he’s back to his normal self. He’s a little beaten up with some broken wings, but he’ll live. If you want he’s here in the medical wing getting looked over, I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

He looked up at me with joy filling his eyes, “I think I’ll do that. Now that I know you’re okay, I’d like to see him as well.”

I looked at the door just behind him, “So how’s she doing.”

He looked at the door then back at me, “She’s doing better than she was the other day. Sheena and the doctor said she’s recovering fast for the kind of injury she sustained. They said she’s cleared to leave and go back to our room, but she won’t get out of bed. She’s been really depressed, I think she’s been waiting for you get back. I’ve tried talking to her to help her feel better. She only says a couple words in response though.”

I ruffled his mane a little, “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her and hopefully she’ll feel better. I’m sure she’s just working through the trauma her body went through when she got shot.”

“I hope you can at least get her out of bed, that would be the best thing for her,” he said as he hugged me one more time then started to walk down the hall, “Oh and Shadow?”

“Yeah?”

“I like your new mane cut, it needs to be touched up a little, but it looks better than that silly braid.” The little shit ran off to find a doctor he could get directions from to find Stardust.

I just shook my head and walked over to the door. I was about to open it when something stopped me. What if she’s still pissed about what I did? What if she doesn’t want to see my anymore? I shook my head, no matter what I have to do this. Like I said, nothing will stand in my way from seeing her again. For better or worse I’m not going to hide from how I feel. Taking all the courage I had, I knocked, waited a moment, then opened the door to Aura’s room.

For a moment I had a quick flash back from when I last walked into a hospital room to find Aura hooked up to all kinds of things. I remembered the sight of her holding on to her life by a thread. I remembered the sound of that machine and the long never-ending beep as her heart stopped. Then I was back and I saw her laying in a bed too small for her, her back turned toward me her wings poking out from a blanket she had wrapped around herself. She didn’t move or say anything as I walked in, shutting the door behind myself.

When the door clicked she shifted in the bed and said in a low voice, “Is that you Shadow?”

I felt a lump jump into my throat for a moment before I was able to answer, “Yeah, it’s me.”

She turned and sat up looking over at me. Her face was drawn, her eyes had angry red veins in them like she hadn’t been sleeping or like if she’d been crying, “It’s good to see you made it back safe and in one piece, unlike me. I’m fine otherwise. Of course, if you hadn’t run off like you did you’d have known that.”

Yep she was very mad at me, she had a good reason too. “I know nothing I say right now will help, but it’s all I got. Aura I’m sor…” I started to say but she cut me off.

“NO! Don’t you DARE Shadow! Sorry isn’t going to cut it this time. Sorry is gone!” She yelled and coughed. My only reaction was to rush to her side so I did, but she pushed me away as her cough receded. “I got shot, I almost died, and when I wake up after all that, I find out you ran off to go after Stardust. Then I find out you didn’t just go after him, you were trying to kill him. I needed you here!” she yelled at me again.

I looked up at her icy blue eyes, “I thought he killed you, that’s why I left, that’s why I went to try and kill him.”

Her face softened a little, but I could still tell she was very angry, “And why would you care about that, I know we’re friends, but you know he wasn’t in his right mind. I’m a body guard, dying is a big hazard in my profession. You know that even if you don’t like it.”

I was starting to get angry now, “Maybe so, but you’re not just a body guard to me Aura.”

“Yeah, I know I’m your friend too, but this is my job. I don’t like it when I mess up like I did when I fought against Stardust. Sadly, it can’t be helped, either way you still didn’t need to go off and do what you DID!”

That was it I’m not going to sit here and let her yell at me like this no matter how angry she was, “Aura! I didn’t run off because I thought Stardust killed my friend or a bodyguard. I went after him because I thought he killed the griffon I LOVE!”

Well that shut her up, she sat there for a long moment just looking at me with her beak hanging open. Then she slowly closed it, looked away from me and started to chuckled a little, “You love me huh? I don’t believe it for a second. I’ll admit, that wasn’t something I expected to hear, so who put you up to it?”

I blinked and looked at her confused, “What do you mean?”

“I’m sure you saved Stardust, if not you wouldn’t be here, not with so many Pegasi like Cutter said. So, I’m guessing that fucking cloud kicker told you what I said at the Bramble, or maybe it was Sheena. She was trying to get me to admit how I felt about you before the fight. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past Wind Thrasher to get you to say that to me.” She said looking away from me again and slowly sliding out of bed. I noticed as she turned that she had a few small scars on her chest and back from the gunshots.

“I’m not lying to you Aura and nopony put me up to this. I tried telling you before your heart stopped.”

She looked over at me once she was back on her talons giving me a sad smile, “Listen Shadow, someone told you how I felt about you I’m sure. It’s sweet of you to try and help me feel better by saying that, but please don’t do that to me.”

I walked over to her and got as close to her as I could, “I figured it out on my own Aura. I also know that I’ve been starting to feel the same way about you for a while now, but I was too scared to say anything.”

“Shadow do you even now what it means to love someone?”

I sighed, “I’m not sure if I do, but I think I do. I can’t get you out of my head, when I saw you get shot it felt like somepony ripped my heart out, when I thought you died it was like somepony ripped-out my heart and stomped on it. When I look at you I see someone who cares about me, someone who understands me, I’ve never known that feeling before, not even when I thought I had feelings for Silver. I was scared to tell you how I felt because I thought it would be better that way.”

Now she was looking at me with a new kind of hope in her eyes, “How would keeping something like that be better?”

“Aura, I’m a ticking time bomb, sooner or later I’m going to lose myself to Aquila or at least that’s what I feel like. I thought it would be better to hide my feelings and ignore how much it hurt to turn away from yours. Because if I do become that monster, you’d be even more hurt. I didn’t want to do that to you.” I said not letting my gaze leave hers.

“So instead you decided to hurt me more by lying to me, by running off like you did when I finally worked up the courage to tell you how I felt when we were in the bath?” Aura said, a bit of hurt in her voice.

“Aura, I never had anypony to explain this kind of thing to me. I did what I thought I had too. Was it wrong? Yeah Probably. I may have made some really bad mistakes, but I want to fix those mistakes and start over. I want to be a good mare, a mare you can love as much as you did with Trip Wire. I know I’m young, naïve, and stupid. That doesn’t change the fact that I love you Aura and I’ll do anything to prove that too you.”

Aura sighed and pushed past me, “I don’t think you understand what it really means to be in love Shadow. Yes, I’ve developed feelings for you, that’s a fact, but I can’t give my heart over to a pony like you. You’re to impulsive and not in a good way, you let your anger control you, you don’t think about what your actions will do to your friends or the ponies around you. To put it simply you’re a selfish mare Shadow. I can’t be with somepony like that, no matter how much it hurts.”

As she said that I felt a piece of my heart crack, “But…if that’s true, why can’t we try to make this work?”

She slowly walked over to where her saddle bags were and put them on, wincing a little as she did, “The Doctors said I was okay to head to my room. I’ll be asking for a different room for Wingnut and I. Right now, Shadow, I can’t stand to be around you. I’m going to bring Wingnut back to New Pegasus in a couple of days to keep him safe, I’m sure he’ll be pissed, but I have to do my job. After that if he still wants to keep me on as his bodyguard then so be it, but I think it’s best for everyone if you stay away.”

My heart cracked again, sending a lance of pain through my chest, “Aura please don’t go! Why did you want me to meet you here if that’s all you wanted to say? Tell me what I have to do to prove to you that we can make this work. There has to be a way!”

She walked over to the door and put a talon on the knob. Then she sighed and looked back at me over her shoulder. I saw tears in her beautiful blue eyes, “If happy ever after did exist, I would be holding you instead. It’s a fairytale and all those fairytales are full of shit. I don’t deserve it, neither do you. Something will happen no matter what we do. Either you’ll find someone prettier than me or you’ll get bored. You’re young and don’t really know what it means to be with someone for life, because that’s the only kind of love I have. It’s stupid and blind and so deep and powerful that I feel like I’m going to explode at times. It makes me do stupid things like going into a fight I can’t win. I can’t just swoon and fall into bed with you, because you’ll just get up and leave me behind and get on with your life. I can’t do that, because when you tire of me and move on, I never will. The love I have is forever, it’s a life bond. That’s something you can never understand at least not at your age or in the state of mind you’re in.”

This time my heart shattered into a million little pieces. The pain was nothing like I’d ever felt before, but despite it all I looked up at her and said, “Maybe I can’t understand, but you can’t say that I’ll never understand. I will prove to you somehow that I’m serious about this. I don’t know how long I have left Aura, but I want to spend that time with you. I’m not asking you to jump in bed with me, I’m not asking you to forgive my mistakes right away. All I’m asking is for you to give me a chance to show you that I can change into the kind of pony you need me to be. Because life without you hurts too much and I won’t let that stop me.”

She blinked and a tear fell down her face, “You’re one stubborn pony you know that?”

“Damn right I am.” I said still doing my best to stand tall.

A little smile came to her beak and she let her talon fall away from the doorknob. She walked over to me and slowly pulled me into a hug, I felt my heart reform in my chest. Did I say the right thing? Then I heard her whisper in my ear, “If you want to prove yourself then go ahead and try with what good it’ll do.”

“I do want to prove myself, just tell me what I have to do.”

Still whispering she said, “If you want me to believe it, then you have to figure that out on your own. You only have two days, that’s all the time you get. After that, if you can’t figure out what you need to do, then this is goodbye.”

I didn’t want to accept anything, but this was Aura and these were her terms. I said I’d do anything to show her how I feel, to show her I was worthy of her love. So, I said, “Okay Aura I’ll prove it to you.”

She slowly let me go, turned and walked to the door, “Thank you Shadow, and welcome back, I really did miss you.”

She left, closing the door behind herself. When the latch clicked, I finally let my tears fall, I let my sorrow out and I fell to the ground not caring if anypony walked in and saw my weakness. For the first time in weeks maybe months I wished my mom was here, to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. How was I going to make this work?

***

Over the next night and day, I spent a lot of time talking with my friends, minus Aura who refused to be near me until at least tomorrow, and told them everything that happened. Stardust was nice enough to compliment my now shorter mane then followed that up with a jab about me needing to see a mane stylist poking fun at how rough I made it. That’s Stardust for you, his compliments always came with a bit of sarcasm mixed in, even if he was right.

I also had time to meet with Prince Fruit Stripe, the sight of him still made my knees go weak, but like his mother said he had no idea how cute he was. Though with Aura on my mind his charm and good looks didn’t have as much of an effect on me as it did the first time. He took his time showing me around the mansion and grounds, telling me stories about growing up in The Kingdom before it was even The Kingdom. He also told me about some of the fights his parents were in when he was still young. I found that I really liked his company, after some time had passed and I was able to relax around him I told him about my trouble with Aura.

“I’m not that good at relationship advice, but my mom is. You could always ask her. Though I wouldn’t bother her today, she’s getting things set up for one of her big parties.”

“Big Party? What for?” I asked.

He shrugged, “She likes to throw parties now and then, she calls it a Ball. She invites everyone from town to join in every time she does this. There will be music, dancing, food, and games. They’re a lot of fun, at least most of the time.”

“I’m guessing she’s overseeing the preparations herself, isn’t she?”

He chuckled lightly, “That she is, I swear one day she’s going to work herself into an early grave. I don’t know why she does this to herself, it always stresses her out. My father doesn’t make it any easier, he always has some new gizmo or gadget he wants to show off when mom throws a ball.”

“He’s a strange Stallion.” I said forgetting for a moment that I probably shouldn’t say that around the Prince.

“That he is, but he’s also a brilliant inventor. He’s the one who designed this whole city and it’s defenses, he came up with the Bug Whistles to keep the Zap wings away too.”

“Hmmm, I need to ask him about getting one of those. Cutter used it on Envy and it stopped him from attacking us.”

“I heard about that, Cutter said Envy can’t keep his form when it’s being used. That Stallion has some strange powers for a Pegasus.”

I laughed, “That’s if he is a pegasus, though with what I’ve seen the other sins do I’m sure there’s a good reason for his power.”

“You know, I have no idea how you deal with all the enemies you have.” He said stopping next to the broken statue of the goddesses.

“I don’t really think about it, I don’t really have the time to.”

He smiled his charming smile, okay maybe he could still make my knees go a little weak with that, “Sometimes I wish I could try my hoof at adventure. My mother and father always have such great stories from their times roaming the wasteland.”

“Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with The Wasteland or adventure. Yeah from your side it may seem fun, but you have to realize there’s a lot of danger out there. You don’t know what it’s like to watch some monster kill ponies, to have griffons come after you for a bounty, the sight of slaves being taken from their homes or finding the mutilated body of the mare you love. Life out there is hard and short.” I said sitting next to the statue.

He sat next to me and sighed, “Yeah I guess you’re right. I’m not a bad fighter, but I’m sure I couldn’t hold my own against you or your friends.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that, “Maybe, but you never know. All you’d have to do against the mares in my group is smile and they’d melt.”

He looked at me with an odd expression, “Why would my smile make them melt?”

“Because you’re drop dead gorgeous, duh.”

He chuckled, “Nah, I’m not that much better looking than any other stallion, I’m just exotic because I’m a Zony.”

Okay so Sheena was right, he has no idea how good looking he is, “Well still, I’d rather not see what happens if we got into a fight with you.”

“I second that.” he said with a chuckle, “So, what do you plan on doing with your griffon problem?”

I sighed and rested my head against the edge of the fountain, “I’ve been trying to come up with something for the past day and a half now. Tomorrow morning is the deadline and I still can’t think of anything that wouldn’t make me look like either a whore or a desperate mare.”

He looked up at the cloudy sky then asked, “But aren’t you desperate?”

Throwing my hooves up in the air I yelled, “YES! Still it doesn’t mean I’m going to come up with a plan.”

Sheena’s voice echoed from the other side of the statue, “Then maybe you need to start asking for help.”

I got back to my hooves and bowed a little as Empress Sheena walked around the statue, another mare in a red cloak close behind her. I looked closely at the mare that was under the cloak and my eyes got wide, “Yaksha?”

The Zebra who saved me back in the Absent Ruins pulled back her hood and smiled, “Shadow, how nice to see you again. I apologize about not getting to your friends in time. By the time I had reached the gate I learned that your friends already flew off to save you. It is interesting to think about that though, it seems like they already knew you were gone. Has something like this happened before?”

Damn she’s perceptive. I could feel my cheeks getting warm from embarrassment and rubbed the back of my head, “You could say that.” I chuckled nervously.

Sheena looked back at Yaksha then me, “You two know each other?”

Yaksha nodded, “Yes Empress Sheena, she is the mare I told you I helped out.”

“Oh, I didn’t think it was Shadow, I thought you were talking about something from a month ago or more. You don’t tend to stop by often.”

“I thought you lived in those ruins Yaksha?”

The red caped zebra nodded, “I do at least right now, I have been studying some strange reports about the place.”

Sheena nodded, “Yes, Yaksha is from the east. She wanders around Equestria looking into prewar tech and old zebra lore, she is also an amazing herbalist and apothecary, I sometimes ask for her assistance with my medical staff, most of the time she turns me down. She has been in the Kingdom for a few months now.”

“No disrespect Empress Sheena but you know I like my isolation, ever since what happened to me back at New Pegasus, I have had a hard time with any sort of interaction. Also, it has been closer to a year since I have lived around The Kingdom.” Yaksha said.

“So, back to what you were saying before Empress.” I said.

Sheena’s eyes got big, “Oh yes, I almost forgot. I overheard you talking with my son about your troubles with Aura. What can I do to help?”

I blushed, “Aura gave me an ultimatum…or at least I think that’s what it’s called.” I told them about what happened when I spoke to Aura.

Both Yaksha and Sheena looked sad as I finished explaining everything, Sheena saying, “Shadow why didn’t you come to me with this right away?”

“I don’t know, you’ve been busy with helping the Cadets get acclimated to The Kingdom, talking with Stardust and Solstice and now your party tonight. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Shadow you never have to worry about bothering me, even if I’m sleeping or busy I will always make time to help.” She said with a smile.

“Mother, I thought you had a lot of things to get ready for tonight?” Fruit Stripe said.

“Normally yes, but I asked Ribbon Dance to help me finish up with the last of the preparations. Speaking of which, are you and your friends going to be able to sing tonight?”

The Prince nodded, “We were practicing most of the day, I took a break so I could get to know Shadow better.”

“Wait a sec, he’s not just handsome and a prince, he can sing too?” what’s next, can he use magic even though he doesn’t have a horn?

The Prince blushed, “Yeah, it’s kind of my special talent. My four friends and I started a band a few years back and we always do a few songs for mom when she has a party.”

Sheena smiled happily, “He is very good, so are the rest of his friends.”

Yaksha looked over at the prince then me then Sheena, “I may have an idea about how we can help Shadow, but first I need to know more about this griffon.”

Sheena looked over at her curiously, “Oh really Yaksha, I did not take you for a zebra that cared about romance.”

Yaksha blushed and looked away, “Just because I spend most of my time around old ruins does not mean I do not have a romantic side Empress Sheena. Anyway, please Shadow tell me more about your griffon friend.”

I told her about how we met, our travels together, her anger over Sliver, how she used to be with Trip Wire and her loss. I told her as much as I could, not leaving a single detail out, “I just wish I’ve have realized how I felt before Sheena helped me. Maybe things would have been different, but now I feel like I’m losing her.”

Sheena put a hoof on my shoulder, “It is okay Shadow, you cannot change what happened, you can only fix it.”

Yaksha was sitting there for a long moment taking in what I just told her about Aura, “So, from what I can tell about, you said her name was Aura? I think she is not leaving because of what you did or because she is worried about Wingnut. I believe she is trying to run away from her feelings. She is scared to go too far with you.”

I cocked my head to one side, “What do you mean?”

Sheena smiled, “I understand. Think about it Shadow, she is worried that you will end up just like Trip Wire. She said something about that when I talked with her before she was hurt. She is worried that you will die just like her last mare friend did. If she pushes you away now, she thinks it will save you.”

“That’s ridiculous, It’s not the same thing as before.”

Yaksha smiled a little, “You said that Aura is descended from Greta, right? The same griffon during the war that fought on the side of Equestria. She was the griffon who was also a member of The Children of the Night.”

Okay now that was creepy, I thought not many ponies knew about them, “Yeah, but how do you know about The Children?”

Yaksha laughed again, “As Sheena said, I did come here from back east, but originally I am from New Pegasus. Many years ago, a friend and I found some old reports and files about them, I’ve spent years studying them as well. I’ve also been to Crimson Canyon and gotten a history lesson from an old griffon named Tonto.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with Aura being worried about being with me?” I asked.

Yaksha took a moment to answer, “Well, I cannot explain it all right now, but it is said that a curse was put on Night Stalker and his team a few years before the end of the war. Every member that lived always found disaster in their life, or lost somepony they cared about. I know that the Bloodtalon family has seen its share of hardship over their generations, though Tonto would have to explain more, he knows the story better than I do. To put it simply, Aura believes that this curse that her family still thinks is upon them is the reason she lost Trip Wire and she may think it will happen to you too.”

I remembered that memory orb of when Captain Flash Sentry had pulled out that crystal and said something about ‘Let all of your descendants never find happiness.’ “So, she thinks if we ended up together that I’d die?”

“I am not sure, but it is the best I can come up with.” Yaksha said, “I am not an expert on curses.”

“Still I think it’s a little farfetched, but I could understand where you’re coming from. If that is the case then how do I fix it?” I asked.

Yaksha smiled, so did Sheena. Yaksha saying, “If Empress Sheena can help us as well, then here is what I am thinking!”

***

“Are you sure I have to wear this?” I asked Sheena as I looked myself over in the mirror in her room. Yaksha was off helping set up the rest of her plan with my friends. I was doing my best to get out of having to wear a dress. I hate dresses!

“Of course you do Shadow, this is a Ball. You cannot go to it naked and I am not letting you wear your barding or duster.”

“But I look stupid and it’s nowhere near as comfortable as my barding!”

“Oh, stop your whining, you look beautiful.”

“I’m not whining I’m complaining, there’s a difference!” Though even if I hated wearing dresses Sheena did have a point. She did her best to fix my mane so it didn’t look so uneven after my butcher of a job I did to it in Mill City Tower. I’m sure Sugar Buck could do better but Sheena was better than me. She added a barrette that matched the dress and was shaped like a Star. The Dress she found for me was a deep lavender color with a silver hem and silver sparkles throughout. It was lightweight and did fit me well, but It looked so weird to see myself in a Dress. I didn’t even wear a dress to my Cute-ceañera for fuck sake.

“Either way, if you want this to work you have to wear the dress. Just ask yourself is Aura worth it?”

I sighed, “Yes she is and I guess you’re right I don’t look half bad in this. Where did you find a dress that fits me?”

Sheena giggled, “You are not much smaller than me. My husband bought it for me a few years back and it was too small. I had a feeling it would be perfect on you.”

“It looks expensive.”

“It is, so please don’t ruin it.” She said with a big smile, “Ah doing this makes me wish I had a daughter sometimes.”

I blushed, “I wish my mom would’ve done something like this for me.”

Sheena took a moment to look me over before responding, “Well at least you have me. I think I’m done.”

I looked myself over again, “Where am I going to put a weapon?”

She blinked, “Why would you need a weapon?”

“It’s the wasteland, I have a feeling something bad will happen it always does when I start to have fun.”

“Well not tonight. My guards are posted everywhere you won’t have to worry.”

“You say that now, but still something could happen.”

“Then your stuff will be in your room, I’m sure you can handle teleporting to it.”

“I just feel so…naked and not in the fun way.” I pouted.

“Too bad, now let’s get moving the party will be starting soon and I’d hate for you to miss out.”

“How are you going to get Aura to go?” I asked.

She winked, “Yaksha is having Wingnut take care of that. Now hurry!”

Sheena led me out of her room and down the hall until we made it to the grand staircase. Ponies, Zebras and Griffons filled the entrance to the mansion, some heading outside to where some of the games and other activities were set up in the courtyard. The rest were moving into the large double doors at the top of the first set of steps. Sheena told me earlier that it was the Ball room. When Sheena made her way with me to the double doors the ponies and zebras bowed.

She took a minute to say hello to a few of them and hug a couple others. She told them she’d take time later to talk once she was finished with a few other things she needed to attend too. Thinking back to the Princess Luna Memory orb she did something like this at The Grand Galloping Gala only I felt I was in Nightstalker’s hooves and Sheena was in Princess Luna’s. Speaking of Sheena, she was wearing the same dress I’d first met her in though she added some extra jewelry to herself, making her even more beautiful than normal. I could see where her son got his good looks from.

We entered the ball room and I stopped as I took it all in. The room was two stories tall, large chandeliers hung from the ceiling, a couple of balconies were on each side of the huge room where ponies could relax and watch the party if they wanted, a stage was set up at one end with some ponies setting up to start playing music. On the far end I saw another door that lead to the back courtyard for the mansion and another balcony overlooking it. Ponies were walking all over the place talking or joking with friends. The lighting shined in such a way that the air looked like it was sparkling, very similar to the stars that glistened in Sheena’s planetarium. It was amazing to look at.

“How many ponies are here?” I asked

“Most of the city and also three of the smaller settlements that are part of the Kingdom also are attending tonight.” Sheena said happily.

“Don’t you throw this kind of thing all the time?” I asked as we walked in.

“Not all the time, at least not one quite this big. I wanted to throw this party because we are celebrating.”

“I thought all parties were about celebrating things?”

She laughed, “Not all the time, what I mean is The Kingdom is celebrating the Cadets joining the Kingdom, the safe return of your friend Stardust, and we got word from Nimbus that they want to talk about a peace treaty with us.”

I lifted an eyebrow, “Wait, the Enclave wants to make peace?”

“From what their messenger said I believe so. That Nightshade who is now running things for both cloud cities seems to really want to change how things work for them.”

“I find that hard to believe, there has to be a catch.”

She shrugged, “I am not sure, but I have to at least try. If we do not have to worry about The Enclave all the time, it would free up a lot of my ponies from patrol and we can start helping more creatures around The Wasteland.”

I frowned, “I don’t trust that pegasus.”

“It does not matter if you trust him or not Shadow. The Kingdom’s dealings with him are between my husband, myself, and the Enclave. You have done more than enough over the past few days, it is your time to relax and enjoy yourself.” She said pushing me along and guiding me toward the other end of the room where I could see Stardust, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, and Solstice all waiting around a small table.

“Hey look who finally decided to join us!” Stardust said grinning over at me as I approached. He was wearing what I assumed was a tux or something. So was Wingnut, Solstice had on a beautiful silver dress, Wind Thrasher wasn’t in a dress but a cute blue skirt and white blouse with a white trimmed red bow holding together her mane giving her a kind of side ponytail.

“Forgive me for a moment Wind Thrasher, but you look simply adorable. Where’d you all find such fancy clothes to wear?” I asked.

Solstice rolled her eyes, “This dress is mine, don’t ask me why I have it or why I brought it with me it’s none of your business.”

Wind Thrasher blushed, “Um…uh thank you Shadow…a-a mare who works with Sheena said I could borrow this for tonight. It’s not too revealing is it?”

“Not even close Wind Thrasher.” I said

“Yeah what Shadow said. As for me and Stardust, The Emperor said we could use these. The one I have used to be his son’s until he got older.” Wingnut said proudly.

“It was very…interesting talking to him.” Stardust said, “Though I’m not too sure why we need them.”

Sheena laughed as she came up behind me, “I like everyone to look nice for my bigger parties. I am happy you all were able to make it.”

“Hell, I owe you all for saving my butt, figured a party isn’t a bad price to pay.” Stardust said with a laugh.

As they talked I was looking around for Aura, as far as I could tell I couldn’t see her, “Where’s Aura at?”

Wingnut looked at me, “She’s sulking in one corner,” he pointed, “I said she had to come to this and dress up. She’s not happy about it.”

I could see her sitting in the far corner not talking to anyone. She wasn’t wearing a dress, she had on a blood red leather coat with a white shirt under it, she even had a little bow tie, “What is she wearing? I mean it looks amazing on her, but it doesn’t look like the kind of thing you’d expect at a party like this.”

Wingnut looked over and sighed, “It was the best Yaksha could get her to wear I think. It’s Aura’s, she said it’s a formal wear for when a griffon is made a full member of the Red Talons. She said that even though she’s not a talon it’s still okay for her to wear it.”

“It’s suits her.” I said, my eyes unable to look away.

“I said the same thing, but she refuses to talk to anypony, she said this is all stupid and she can’t wait until it’s over.” Wingnut said, “I hope this plan of Yaksha’s works, I hate seeing her looking so sad.”

Sheena beamed, “Oh trust me it will, now if you will excuse me I need to make a quick appearance on stage so everything can start.”

We all said our good byes to the zebra as she walked off toward the stage. When she was gone Wingnut came over to me saying, “You doing okay Shadow?”

“I’m really nervous to tell you the truth.”

“I don’t blame you, but I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” I asked.

He smiled up at me, “If you keep thinking like that then it won’t work out. Put all that shit out of your head and stand tall. Show her how you feel and don’t worry about what may happen. If you tell yourself everything will be fine, then it will.”

I smiled, “If only the world worked like that kiddo, but still thanks.”

He beamed up at me then gave me a big hug, “If it helps, I told her that no matter what happens or how she’s feeling, I’m not leaving you…none of you. She can try and drag me away all she wants but I have nowhere to go. You’re all my family and I’m staying with you all, if she doesn’t like it then to bad.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” Stardust said.

“Yeah, I agree.” Wind Thrasher threw in.

Solstice just rolled her eyes, “You’re all so pathetic, I can’t believe any of you have been able to get away with what you have.”

We all just laughed. Finally, I asked, “Where’s Doorstop and Dr. Limbis?”

“There’re with the Cadets, they want to make sure they do okay tonight. It will be the first time any of them have been around so many ponies like this.” Stardust said.

I was about to ask him more when Sheena’s voice echoed around the room. Looking up I saw her speaking into a mic on stage, “Good Evening Every Pony, Zebra and Griffon. Thank you all for joining us once again for another special night here at The Kingdom. My Husband and I are both so happy to have you all here tonight to celebrate all the good things that have happened over the last few days. I will not bore you all with a long-winded speech, so please eat, drink and dance. Tonight, is about all of you and the ones who help keep this wonderful Empire working. Now have fun.”

Everyone cheered clopping their hooves on the ground before bowing as Sheena took a quick bow herself and headed off stage. Right then Prince Fruit Stripe, two ponies, one zebra and one griffon started to play a song and everyone in the room moved out of the way of the others who started dancing in the middle of the large dance floor. As they did Wingnut nudged me saying, “That’s your que, everything’s in place for you, now act on it.”

I took in a deep breath extremely nervous looking back to Wingnut, “Thanks kiddo, now you all go enjoy yourselves. This is something I have to do on my own.”

As I walked away from my friends I heard Wind Thrasher say quietly, “I know she can do it!”

That put a smile on my face as I walked around the side of the room doing my best not to get knocked over by ponies as they pressed past me to either go chat with friends, or get drinks from the open bar. I almost wanted to go there too and get a little help from my friend Wild Pegasus, but Sheena told me that if I wanted to do this right, I had to stay sober. That sucked more than having to put on this dress, I’m no good at this kind of thing. At least when I drank a little it was easier to push my cares away, but I knew she was right. Aura would lose all respect for me, what little there was, if I walked over to her, liquor on my breath.

Finally working my way through the party-goer traffic, I reached her. For a moment I was frozen by the sight of her. Up close I could tell that Aura had done more to get ready for tonight than I thought at first. She’d cleaned up a little, somehow, she made her eyelashes more prominent, her head feathers were styled a little different and her tail had been groomed. She may have told Wingnut she didn’t care about this party, but she still took the time to make sure she was made up for it. She was beautiful.

She saw me standing there looking at her, for a moment I saw a small smile come to her beak, but she hid it a second later, “You look really nice tonight Shadow, I guess Sheena made sure to find something nice for you too.”

I shied away a little trying to hide my own blush, “Yeah, she said I had to wear it, but I’m not so sure it suits me.”

Her eyes flashed for a moment then this time she did smile, “Nah, you look extravagant, you don’t need to act like you don’t.”

I moved over to her and sat down, watching the ponies and Zebra’s dance only a few feet away, “You look really nice too. Not something I would expect to see at a formal party, but I’m glad you stand out.”

“Thanks, I think?” she said.

Unsure of her remark, a million things started going through my head, like ‘shit did I say something wrong?’ or ‘I suck at this’ come on Aura show me something, I’m really trying here.

My worries immediately drained as I saw another genuine smile. “I may not be big on this kind of thing, but I thought I owed it to Sheena for all her help.” She looked down at me, “So, I’m guessing you have some plan set up so you can try and prove that I’m wrong about what I said the other day aren’t you?”

I just smiled, I knew she’d catch on, so did Yaksha and Sheena, but I tried to play it off, very poorly, but I tried. Regardless It didn’t matter if she thought we planned something anyways, “You’re too smart for your own good Aura. Yes, you could say that, but I did say I’d do something to prove I can change.”

She laughed, “Figured as much, though I have no idea how you’re going to do that. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind Shadow, I just want to get through tonight so life can go on.”

“I agree, that’s why I’m not going to try some desperate plan or try to convince you otherwise on how you feel. Tonight, might be the last time I ever see you, as much as I hate that, I respect it,” I said looking up at her, doing my best to smile, “Aura, I wasn’t lying to you when I said I love you, you told me I had to prove it but in reality, I don’t know how.”

“Yeah, I know that Shadow, I didn’t expect you to. I know you better than you know yourself. I care for you a lot, but as I said before, being with a pony like you would be a disaster.”

I smiled wider, “Maybe, but sometimes disasters aren’t as bad as they seem. All I know is that I care about you, I also lied to you, acted like a child, let my stupidity get you and others hurt and I made the decision to hide how I felt so you wouldn’t get hurt in the future.”

“Yeah, so now you understand…”

I cut her off, “I wasn’t finished. I did a lot of bad things and made stupid mistakes, I can’t deny that. I have to own it and I will. What I can do is show you that I’ve also learned from those mistakes and I’m going to do better in the future. If I was too late with you then that’s just one more mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life, but because of it I know that I’ll never let someone as good as you slip away from me ever again.”

“It’s not like I’m doing this because I want to hurt or punish you Shadow.”

“I know,”

She sighed, “I’ll admit that whoever you end up with one day, will be lucky to have you by their side.”

The Prince finished his first song and the crowed applauded. As they did I looked over at Aura, tears threatening to fall as I said, “Aura, no matter what happens I’ll always love you. I said I understand what you decided and I do, but all I’m asking is that you at least understand where I’m coming from.”

She looked at me with just as much sadness as me on her face, “I do understand, more than you’ll ever know.”

I laughed to cover a sob, “Can you do me one last favor?”

She nodded, “It’s the lease I can do, I guess.”

I held out a hoof right as The Prince started to say something to the crowd, “Give me one dance? One last dance before our lives have to change forever.”

She hesitated for a moment, “You…want me to dance with you?”

I nodded, “I do, after that I’ll drop it and you’ll never have to worry about me bothering you again. Can you at least give me this one night, this one dance?”

I saw a tear fall down her left cheek, “Yeah, I think I can manage that for you Shadow.”

She took my hoof and I started to lead her out toward the dance floor as The Prince said, “Now, we have a special song planned for you all, but I’m dedicating it to a special griffon. This song is for you Aura Bloodtalon from Shadow Star.”

“Fuck you planned this didn’t you?” she said with a sigh as we reached the center of the dance floor.

I looked back at Aura and smiled, giggling a little, “That one was Sheena, but yes. If it bothers you, don’t listen to the song, just dance with me. No one else matters right now, this moment is just the two of us. Think you can manage that?”

She sighed then laughed, “Yeah, I did promise you I’d give you one last dance, but you realize this won’t change a thing.”

“Yeah I know.” I said as I stood on my hind legs and took Aura’s talons in my hooves.

Prince Fruit Stripe’s band started to play, a moment later The Prince started to sing. His mother was right, his voice was as beautiful as he was, “I figured it out…I figured it out from black and white…Seconds and hours…. maybe they had to take some time…”

As the music started to play and the Prince started to sing, Aura and I started to move. I put a hoof back, taking the lead right away. One of the best things so far about getting my memories back was some of the lessons I’d gotten from Elder Apple Jam. He used to take a couple of hours every few days to teach me what he knew about what he called ‘Proper Dancing’ he said it was something every young mare should learn. I was a natural he said, it used to make me so happy when he’d tell me things like that. Back then I used to think he was just trying to escape his day to day hard work, but now I knew the truth. He was trying to make a sick filly feel special, he took time out of his day to show me how to be a proper young mare one day. He mostly failed, I’m nowhere near proper or elegant. At least this one thing he passed on to me I could do, Aura was right I did plan this. I couldn’t tell her how I felt with just words, I had to show her with my actions, my body, my heart and soul. If this didn’t work, there was nothing else I could do.

Aura followed my lead and moved a paw to follow my hoof as I took another step back, then we both twisted around as the song went on. I felt her start to relax, she pulled me closer to her as the music picked up and we moved. I pulled away for a moment and twisted around as she held on to one hoof. I smiled and twisted back toward her letting her forearm wrap around me as I came back into her. This time my head rested against her chest as we both moved in small circles. I could hear her heart beating in time with my own as we kept going. The ponies that were around us dancing as well seemed to fade away as I lost myself. At that moment, no one else existed but her and me.

As we moved Aura said in a quiet voice, “Why?”

I didn’t look up at her, I could feel small shivers running throughout her body as she slowly cried. I pulled her closer to me fearing if I let go she’d vanish, “I don’t know any other way to show you how I feel, that’s why.”

“I mean why do you keep trying when I told you this was just a fairytale? It’s not fair, this shouldn’t be making me feel like this. I made up my mind Shadow, how are you able to break me down with one stupid, yet wonderful gesture?”

I felt tears in my own eyes as we twisted around faster, our bodies moving in time with each other like we were one creature, “Maybe happy ever after does exist, I want to hold you like this, and maybe fairytales aren’t always full of shit. Didn’t you say something similar?”

Aura laughed in her tears “That’s not fair Shadow, using my own words against me like that.”

I laughed back with my own tears streaming, “I’m not going to let anything stop us from being together Aura, you deserve to be happy.”

She was crying now, “No I don’t, I don’t deserve such kindness. I was always meant to be alone Shadow. That’s why I lost Trip, that’s why I was kicked out of my family, that’s why such bad things keep happening to you. My family is cursed, we can’t be happy. Something will go wrong and I’d rather lose you on my own terms and not from something worse. I can’t watch another pony I love die because of me.”

“And I can’t let you give up on us, just because you’re scared of a stupid curse. No matter what happens, I’m not going to die on you, not ever. I heard about the so-called curse that was put on Night Stalker and his team.”

“Then you know that nothing can stop it. Every griffon in my family has lost something, my mom lost her sisters, my brother died, my sisters have their own issues and I lost the mare I loved because of my stupidity. I thought I would be the one who’d finally break that damned curse, but I was wrong.” She said, her breaths coming out in small gasps.

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but Aura, I got a lot of my memories back and you know what I found out? I’m descended from Minuette, if this so-called curse is real, then my family has suffered from it too. I cannot face it alone Aura I need you to face this with me, together we will show everypony and griffon from our families that this curse is nothing but bull shit. We are’t them, we don’t follow the path our families set out for us, we are different and that’s wonderful. It’s you and I against the world Aura, I’m brave enough to face it, the question is are you willing to face it with me?”

“I’m not sure, but I want too…I’m just scared I’m going to lose you in the worse way possible.” She said,

Finally, I looked up into her tear streaked face and smiled, “I told you I won’t die on you, let’s live the rest of our lives day by day. If this lasts for a few days or fifty years, every moment with you is better than the rest of eternity without you. Now Aura, what are you waiting for?”

Finally, Aura stopped crying, she stopped protesting, she stopped letting the world she thought she was trapped in hold on to her, “I love you Shadow!”

I found myself moving up toward her, my body moved on its own, it just happened. It felt like the right thing to do. My lips came up and parted at the same time as her beak. If I would have taken a second to think about what I was doing I would have thought ‘How do you kiss a creature with a beak?’ I didn’t let that enter my mind. I just kissed her, as far as kisses go it was different than anything I’d done with Silver, it was nothing like when I kissed Little Buck. Somehow even though we weren’t the same creature, even though it was a little weird, that kiss was the best thing I’d ever felt. In that moment, I knew what Aura meant when she told me that I didn’t know what true love was. In that moment I knew that what I felt for Aura for all this time was true love. She made me feel like I was the only pony in the world that mattered. I also knew in that moment, we were always meant to be together.

I held her tighter to me and let tears fall as the kiss went on. Aura doing the same as she opened her wings and started to lift the two of us into the air. We slowly moved higher than anypony else in the room. Even this I understood, we belonged in another world, we belonged among the stars, with the Goddess. As we flew, the song reached its peak at the same time as we did. Slowly she pulled back and looked down into my red eyes with an expression I’d never seen before. It was the first time I’d seen Aura truly happy, truly accepted.

I blushed hard as she laughed and hugged me tight, “What took you so long?”

I blinked as the song ended and we finally landed as ponies, zebra’s, griffons, and my friends started to cheer, “What do you mean?”

She just winked, “What took you so long to finally kiss me? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to do that?”

I was lost for a moment, then Sheena walked over with my friends saying, “I knew my plan would go perfectly.”

I looked over at The Empress then her husband as he walked up beside her, “You’re plans always go off without a hitch my love, though I thought Shadow would have figured it out.”

I blinked, “Wait what?”

Aura laughed and kissed me again then said, “Shadow, I meant everything I said to you before, but I did lie a little.”

“What’s going on? I thought Yaksha, Sheena and I planned this.”

“Nope,” Wingnut said, “This was all Aura’s plan from the beginning, she wanted you to finally show her how you felt. She knew after what happened in the ruins that you’d blame yourself, and turn into a crazy murder junkie.”

“You mean I was the one being tricked?”

Aura smiled and set me down, “I was afraid I was going to lose you, Sheena told me while you were gone about the feelings you had for me. I wasn’t sure if you really did feel that way or not, or if you just “loved” me like you thought you did with Silver. I had to make sure.”

“But what about the Curse?”

She frowned and blushed, “It’s still true, you of all ponies should know. I just decided that I didn’t care, I’m not going to let my family’s curse stop me from being happy. You said it yourself, you’re descended from Minuette who was also inflicted with that curse, and you didn’t care. Once I lost Trip Wire I swore that I wouldn’t try to get close with any pony or griffon, that much is true, but then I met you Shadow, some random pony lost in the wasteland with a priority contract on their head who, if I caught them, I thought I could bring them back to my home, and go back to my family. However, you showed compassion towards an enemy trying to capture and maybe even kill you, because you’re a good pony. A kind act rarely seen in The Wasteland. That one act made you all the more interesting so I followed you. Once I joined up with you and got to know you better, after a time, I started having feelings for you. Yes, I was hesitant and yes, I did believe in that curse at the time, but once I saw you out for a week from pride’s fight I couldn’t stop thinking about you, it was then I decided that I wouldn’t let some stupid curse decide how I lived my life. That’s why I tried expressing myself to you and failing, either by being a fool or what seemed like you pushing me away.”

Wind Thrasher smiled saying, “She told us this while you were gone, that’s why we all decided to help her. When we heard what you did in Whinnieapolis, we knew we had to help you get your mind on the right track again then help you find some kind of happiness in your life.”

“I was the one who told Aura that she should lead you on a little and force you to show her your true feelings.” Wingnut added.

“And it worked!” Wind Thrasher finished happily.

I frowned and looked down “You’re all ass holes…but I know your hearts were in the right place. I hate being tricked, but I guess it’s for the best.”

They all laughed and soon I found myself being hugged by all my friends, then others from The Kingdom congratulated both Aura and I, the party went on and it was the best time I’d ever had since I left the Stable 28. Soon more music was being played, all of us danced, drank and enjoyed that fact that we were alive. The entire time Aura stayed next to me, laughing, joking and being what I expected was the Aura Trip Wire knew.

Hours later I found myself sitting on the balcony overlooking the back courtyard with Aura, “It’s a beautiful night isn’t?”

I was resting my head on her shoulder. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, “Not as beautiful as you are Shadow.”

“It seems so strange that we’re here right now. A few weeks ago, I never would have thought I’d meet someone like you, let alone feel the way I do.”

She giggled, “Trust me, I never saw this coming either, but I’m glad it did.”

Closing my eyes, I smiled, “I don’t want the night to end.”

“Same here, I feel like I’m going to wake up any second now and this will all of been a dream. I keep thinking that when I do wake, reality will hit and I’ll realize that I lost you.”

“You’ll never lose me again Aura.”

“And I’ll do my best to make sure you never have to worry about me like you did when I got shot.”

“Let’s not talk about that tonight. Tonight, I just want to sit here with you and just act like The Wasteland doesn’t exist, just for one night.”

She pulled away from me, I moved my head up to look at her confused. She just kept looking out at the other guests as she spoke, “Funny, because I’m getting kind of bored. I really don’t want to sit here all night.”

I cocked my head to one side, “I guess we could go dance more, but I’m a little worn out.”

She cocked a grin at me, “I don’t feel like dancing either Shadow, though what I do have in mind will be more tiring than dancing. Though I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, even if you are tired.”

“What do you mean?”

She got up and took my hoof, “Oh you’ll see shrimp, come on now, I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

She pulled me alone back inside the grand ball room, past the ponies who were still drinking and dancing to another band who took the stage after Fruit Stripe and his friends finished. I was starting to wonder what Aura was thinking as she led me back to the grand stair case and up the side stairs, “Um…Aura where are we going? The party’s only in the courtyards and grand ball room.”

“Yeah I know,” that’s all she would say as she led me down the hall toward the room Sheena had set aside for my friends and me. She paused just outside the door and listened for a moment then swore quietly, “Damn it why is Solstice in our room? Fuck it.”

She turned and pulled me back down the hall. As she did I asked, “What’s going on?”

“I wanted to do this in our room, but Sheena said we may not get privacy in there so she said we could use another room.”

I blushed, “Another room for what?”

She ignored me, we reached one of the rooms a few doors down from our own. Aura pulled a key out of one of the pockets on her red jacket then unlocked the door. As it opened I saw that it wasn’t anywhere as big as the one down the hall, but it was still a nice size. There was a big bed right in the middle of the room with a glass door and balcony behind it, large curtains could be drawn shut to give the occupants more privacy. There was a dresser and a vanity, I could see a small bathroom to one side as well. I also noticed our saddle bags and weapons had been moved into the room as well.

“Huh, I guess Sheena saw to it that our stuff was moved over here, that was nice of her.” Aura said as she walked farther into the room.

I couldn’t move at all; my knees were shaking and I could feel a lump in my throat. My heart was racing as well as I watched Aura slowly walk toward the bed, hear rear sifting back and forth, demanding my attention with every step. Did she really want to do this…so soon? What if I messed something up like I always did? How do you even do things like this with a griffon? Why can’t I take my eyes off of the gorgeous griffon in front of me!?

She stopped when she got to the bed and looked over her shoulder at me. The look on her face made me feel like I was about to melt into a Shadow Star puddle, “Are you going to just stand there and stare at me or are you going to join me?”

“I…I…” I shook my head, took a deep breath then tried again, “I’d love too, but first…I need to pee.” I was mortified. You don’t say something like that to someone who’s giving you…that look!

But Aura just smiled, “That’s fine, just don’t take too long.”

I blushed harder, “I won’t!” I rushed into the bathroom closing the door behind myself. I waited a moment then turned on the faucet then said, “Oricalcos?”

A moment passed then I heard the voice of my uncle, “Star I hope this is good, I’m still tired and weak.”

“I’ll make this quick, how much can you see or hear while you’re in my shadow?”

“It depends on how much energy I have, why?”

I sighed, “What about right now?”

“I can see a few things, but it’s fuzzy, but sounds are coming through fine.”

“I figured as much, I need you to do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” he sounded irritated.

“I need you to leave me alone for a while.”

“No.”

“Oricalcos, please.” I begged.

“Shadow are you okay in there?” I heard Aura’s voice say from the room.

Raising my voice, I yelled, “I’m almost done.”

“Ah I see, you want some time alone with the griffon.”

“Yes, and I don’t really want my uncle present.”

“Star, I’m here to protect you. If I go somewhere else I can’t do that, I understand you want to spend some alone time with that…griffon, but I can’t risk it.”

I practically growled, “I mean it Oricalcos.”

He sighed again, “I don’t like it, also where am I going to go while you’re having fun with her? I need to stay in a living ponies shadow to get stronger.”

“Then go to Stardust, at least he knows about you. Just tell him I sent you away for the night, he’ll understand.”

“Goddesses you want me to spend the next few hours with that idiot? Fine, at least I’ll still be close, just remember that I don’t like this and you owe me.” He said.

“Fine whatever just go before Aura starts wondering what’s taking me so long to pee.”

A piece of darkness pulled itself away from my shadow saying, “Don’t expect me to do this every time you want a little ass though, I’m not your servant.”

“Yeah, I know and thank you.” I said as he slipped under the door and was gone. With a sigh I shut off the water and opened the door to walk back into the room. Aura was sitting on the bed looking out the window as she waited for me. When the door opened she looked back at me and smiled.

“If you’re nervous you could have just said something, you didn’t need to hide in the bathroom.”

Walking over I joined her on the bed and rested my head against her leg, “I am nervous, but that’s not why I hid in the bathroom.”

She moved to lay back, pulling my head to rest on her belly. She started to run her talons through my shorter mane before she asked, “Then why’d you hide in there?”

“You want the truth?”

“I really don’t want you to lie to me, so yeah.”

“Oricalcos didn’t die back in Appleton, long story short he cut a piece of himself off and attached himself to my shadow to stay alive. He figured out who I was and has been trying to protect me.”

“Damn he survived that blast?”

“Yes and no, he’s nowhere near as powerful as he was before. I went into the bathroom to make him go away for the night. I don’t know what you wanted to do in here, but if it’s what I’m thinking… or even if it’s not, I really don’t want anypony here.”

She giggled again, “I understand.”

Something hit me just then, “Wait you don’t seem surprised about him still being alive.”

She shrugged, “With you Shadow, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. It’s a lot easier that way.”

“I guess you’re right.”

For a long time, we both just laid there looking out at the night, finally Aura said, “I like your new mane cut, what made you decide the cut it?”

I winced a little, “I disguised myself as a scientist named Dr. Stormy while I was in Mill City Tower. Her mane was shorter than my own so I cut it off, I wasn’t in my right mind at the time. Though I’ll admit it feels kind of freeing now that all that hair is gone.”

“It makes you look a little older and it doesn’t look like your trying to hide behind it anymore.”

“Stardust said I need to have Sugar Buck fix it.”

“Stardust is an ass,” She said with a laugh, “Yes it could use a touch up, but it’s not bad.”

“Sheena helped a little before the party.”

“I know, but I saw it when you got back, I still liked it.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my head back into her belly as she continued to run her talons slowly through my mane. As she did I asked, “So…what did you want to do tonight?”

“I had something in mind, but I don’t want to do anything if you’re not ready for it. I’m just fine with sitting here with you. This moment right here and now matters more to me than doing something naughty.”

I blushed again, “I’m just scared and nervous, I mean doesn’t it feel too soon?”

“Maybe, but the thing is that kiss we shared on the dance floor, kind of rattled me, in a good way, besides you’ve done things like this with Silver.”

I blushed a little, I didn’t know that kiss would affect her that much, but in a weird way I don’t mind, “Yeah, but only a couple of times and once with Laser, but I was drunk that time. Silver was spontaneous, she always took the lead and never let me think about what we were doing. If I did I would have been just as nervous as I am now, also I don’t know anything about what it’s like to do things with a griffon.”

She laughed again, “Shadow, I understand. When I first started seeing Trip Wire I had no idea what to do with a pony. That’s the best part about being with some pony, you get to learn new things with your partner.”

I blushed even more this time, “A relationship huh? I remember us kissing, but do you really want to consider us in a relationship?”

“You really are new at this. That’s okay though it’s cute.” She laughed lightly, “I really do consider this a relationship Shadow, that’s the only way this can work. You felt it in that kiss too, same as I did. If you want us to be together then there’s no going around and sleeping with other ponies, or getting drunk and screwing around. Griffons as you know live by a contract and the same goes with being with someone. Like I told you my love is powerful and I know yours is too. So how about it? Are you ready to be in a committed relationship with me? Because if you aren’t ready, then I want to know. Don’t say you do just to make me happy.”

“Is this contract forever?” I teased.

She giggled again, “Damn right it is.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I buried my head deeper into Aura’s chest “When I said that outfit made you stand out, what I meant was, I wanted you to stand out, I wanted to say out loud that’s the griffon I fell in love with, and I would do anything to keep her.”

She giggled again, “I’m happy to hear that, still if you don’t wat to do something with me tonight that’s fine as well. I’m willing to wait until you are ready.”

I turned to look up at her, “Aura, I’ll never be as ready as I am now. I may be a little scared and nervous, but that’s normal for me. I’m always like this with new things in my life. I love you and I want to be with you in every way possible.”

I felt her move and a moment later she was kissing me. This time it didn’t feel as weird as it did the first time. I kissed her back turning my body so my belly was laying against hers. I felt her forelegs warp around me as we sank into each other, our passion, love and need flowing through us as the kiss went on. Then I felt one of her talons moving down my back, then over my rear, a second later a new sensation filled my body and I couldn’t hold back a moan.

I broke away from the kiss and shivered, pressing my head into the griffon’s chest as her talon moved. This was definitely different than it was when I was with Silver. I’ll admit, a hoof can only do so much, having digits is in a league of its own. Oh! How the hell did she do that? furthermore, her talons were normally sharp, how can she do this without cutting me up inside? Why am I thinking about this right now!?

I started to breath heavily as my body responded to the griffon’s attention. My stomach got tight and out of reflex I bucked back into her. She giggled and pulled her talon away, “Damn, that was faster than I thought.”

I blushed heavily and hit her in the chest with a hoof (Not hard) “Shut up! That’s the first time I’ve felt something like that!”

“I’m only teasing, I think it’s kind of cute.”

I pouted trying to ignore her comment, “Oh really, then maybe I can see how long you can go. I may not have much experience, but it’s been a lot longer for you than it has for me.”

“Oh, you think it’s that easy huh…” she shut up as I began to kiss slowly down her neck.

I kept moving down kissing her belly, then along her thigh, then more. Finally, I heard Aura making the cutest chittering sound I’ve ever heard as I hit the spot. I could go into detail about how she…well I’m sure you can guess. Let’s just say that as hard as I tried and with how much I knew she liked what I was doing, thanks to what I learned from Silver, it still took me longer to get the same results. Soon, I found that I didn’t know half of the things Aura did about making love with another female. Silver was good at what she did, but she also like to be kinky and hot headed with her love making. Aura was all about making sure she pleasured me as much as I did with her, and more if she could. It was a game to her, but also, she was able to get across how much she wanted me.

Over the next couple of hours, I did all I could to learn from her and to show her how much I loved her, how much I wanted her and how much I needed her. She was right, this was way more exhausting than dancing, but way worth it. When we started, neither of us took off what we wore at the party. I don’t know if that was because we didn’t think about it or if our passion got in the way, but as time went on, somehow both of our outfits where tossed across the room.

In the end we were both hot, sweaty, and panting as we lay in each other’s embrace. I almost felt like getting up and showering to get the mixture of sweat and other stuff off my body, but I didn’t even have enough energy to stand up let alone walk to the bathroom. I was laying on Aura’s chest, a lot like I had when we were in Trotston, only this time I felt good.

“I’ll admit, I didn’t think you’d last that long.” She said.

“I may be small, but I have a lot of endurance.” I said with a laugh.

“I thought I did, but I think you have a little more. I’m sure if I said let’s go again, you’d be ready in a heartbeat.”

“Go again? Can I really?” I asked poking a hoof into her belly.

She winced and laughed, “Please don’t tempt me, I don’t think I can stay awake through another round, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Pfft, give me a break you’re only a few years older than me.”

“Well I’m also still recovering from a bad gunshot wound. Wait till I’m back to my old self, then we’ll see who can last longer.”

Both of us laughed and I hugged her again. I still couldn’t believe that this was real, “I love you Aura.”

She hugged me back, “I love you too Shadow. Now we should probably get some sleep, I have a feeling were going to be heading back tomorrow.”

I sighed, “Yeah, we’ve been away from New Pegasus for too long, though I wish we could just stay here forever.”

“Yeah me too, but you have responsibilities. As much as you don’t want to deal with them, you have too. You are the Courier.”

I let my smile fade a little, “Yeah I know, as much as I don’t like it, I know.”

“Personally, I’m not looking forward to the trip back to New Pegasus, it’s such a long flight. At least you can dive into those memory orbs to help pass the time.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have any new ones I can watch right now,” I started to say, then I remembered the notes from Nightshade and the memory orb he gave me, “Oh shit I forgot.”

“Forgot about what?”

I sat up a little and used my magic to pull my saddle bags closer to myself. I dug in them for a moment until I found the box, “Major Vas gave me this memory orb and the two notes from Nightshade, with everything going on I forgot to read them.”

She looked down at the box asking, “You really want to do that right now? You’ll have plenty of time to read those and go into the orb while we’re heading back home.”

“I’m not going to go into the orb tonight, but I think I should at least see what the notes say. It may be something I need to know before we leave this area.”

She just shook her head, “Fair enough,”

I popped open the box and pulled both notes out. First, I opened the older one first, the one that only said ‘To Star’ on it. Nightshade’s could wait, I had a feeling this one would mean more to me.

Hello Star,

I don’t know how long it will take for you to get this letter, but I hope that it finds you well. I’m sure you’re wondering who this is from and why you’re getting it now. This is from daddy, I’m writing this letter two years after your mother took you to New Pegasus in hopes of finding a cure for your sickness. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, about why I couldn’t join you two or why I’m currently hunting your mother. It’s hard to explain everything to you in a letter, but I’ll do my best to explain. You see the project your mother is trying to find is a secret that few ponies in the Enclave know about. It’s dangerous and could spell doom for everypony in Equestria. Our family has done its best over the centuries to keep its knowledge out of pony’s hooves who would misuse this power for evil. When Grim decided that it was the only way to save you, I agreed with her, but I also told her I’d have to hunt her down.

When she left home and took you with her, I was given orders to kill her and bring you back as soon as I could. I’ve done everything I can over the past two years to fail at capturing you both. I believe in what Grim is doing and I know she will find a way to save you. At least that’s what I believed at first. But over the past two years I’ve kept in eye on what’s going on in New Pegasus and the lands around it. What I’ve seen makes me wish I never let you two leave. I want nothing more than for you to get better so you can have a normal life, but I also know that it’s a fool’s dream. Right now, I’m doing everything I can to bring you home, even if you don’t have much time left, I want you to have as normal of a life as you can before you go. I just want you to be happy and from what I’ve seen of you in the past few weeks, you don’t look happy at all. After I finish with this letter I’m going to take a team and assault the Steel Rangers in Hidden Sands and force them to give you back to me.

I don’t know if it’s a stupid plan or not, I may not live through this fight, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you Star. If you’re reading this now, I’m guessing I failed and Grim did not. Honestly, I don’t know which one is better. Anyway, I just wanted to write this letter to you, my daughter, just in case a miracle does happen and you live to see adulthood. If that is the case then I want you to know that no matter what you may hear about me, Daddy loves you with all his heart and I hope that you grow up to be a good mare. Remember that I did this for you, my Little Star. If we never see each other again, just remember that you’re strong, remember to always be brave and to always help those who need you. Good luck and good bye…

Daddy

I finished reading the letter with tears in my eyes. I could see that as my father wrote this, he must have been crying as he finished this letter, because dried tear drops stained the ink on the paper, “He knew that his mission was a suicide mission and yet he still went through with it. Here I thought from the memories I got back that his death must have been a lie.”

“It’s still possible that he’s alive.”

“No, if he was I’m sure Nightshade would have said something before. If he’s giving me this letter, it means my father is gone.”

“Or maybe he can explain what happened to him in his own letter.”

“You think so?” I asked looking up at her.

“Course I do, now let’s see what it says.”

“Okay,” I said drying my eyes then opening the letter from Nightshade,

Shadow Star,

Before I tell you what I need, first I want to make sure you read the other letter first. It’s from your father, he entrusted it to me before he went off on his last mission ten years ago.

Now, if you’ve read the letter then I can tell you what needs to be said. I’m sure you’re confused about everything that’s happened over the last few days and more over the last weeks since you’ve left Stable 28. When we met in Mill City Tower, I didn’t know all the details yet on what happened to your griffon friend. The Guardian, I think you call him The Stranger, told me the state of mind you were in. First, I want to apologize for using you in my scheme against the High Council. I know it’s unforgivable, but it was the only thing I could come up with to set my plan in motion and keep you from attacking me.

A long time ago I was a very good friend of your dad. I wish I could give you better news, but when he gave me that letter ten years ago, it was the last time I’d seen him. No pony ever found his body, but from the reports we got about the attack against the Steel Rangers, we know no pony could have lived through that fight. Before he left though, he first entrusted me with that letter and made me swear to watch over you if you lived. I’ve been doing that ever since you left Stable 28, that’s why I sent The Guardian to Cartwheel to watch for you. I’m sure you’re wondering where we got the intel on where Stable 28 was. Well it’s not as well hidden as you’d think, we got its location a couple of years after you and Grim entered it, from a spy we have in that area. He said he overheard some mare talking about it to somepony at a bar. We investigated the area it was rumored to be in and found it. We set an alarm to go off if the Stable ever opened. The first time it did is when Grim left.

At the time I was a solider in Nimbus and Saints Parish, but when the alarm went off I was visiting friends in Stratus. I went after her and found her, she told me you still lived and lost all your memories. She told me what you looked like and asked that I keep the promise I already made to my old friend. I should have taken her in then, but I let her go for old time sake. I waited for years for that alarm to go off again, while I did I worked my way up the ranks in the Enclave, doing my best to change the laws and the way Pegasi look at Wastelanders.

I’m sure you know most of this, but I wanted to at least explain a little. What I really want is for you to trust me, I’m on your side, I’m trying to help you in any way that I can without losing my position on the council. Things are going to be hard for the next couple of months while I fix a lot of the damage from my predecessors. Though I’m still going to make sure The Guardian helps you whenever he can. I know it’s hard for you to trust a pony you don’t know, but I hope you can find a way to. He’s a good stallion and he’ll never betray you, even if he is a little hard headed at times.

Anyway, the real reason I wanted you to get this letter is because I know you’re trying to find out whatever you can about Grim’s past. I know you’re having a hard time understanding the program she’s going after. Personally, I don’t know much about the program itself, but The Guardian said he’s been able to dig up some info on what your mother is working on. He thinks it has something to do with the same program his own family has protected for centuries. He’s still looking into it but as soon as he finds out more information I’ll make sure he passes it on to you. Also, if you want to know where Grim has gone, that information I do know. After I disbanded The Sins I found that she left for Los Alicorn with three former members. I sent soldiers to find her and bring her in for questioning. The strange thing is, she’s vanished, the city is mostly destroyed so she wouldn’t have many places she could hide.

I believe the only thing that makes sense is that she’s working with either The Steel Rangers still, only now with the Los Alicorn branch ran by a pony named Elder Wolfsbane, or she’s working with The Ministry. I’ve looked into the matter over the past couple of days and found that Dr. Stormy was sending messages to a pony she called The Director. I’m not an expert on Steel Rangers, but I’m sure that’s not a title they use, so I’m thinking she’s working with The Ministry. If so then it’s possible that you won’t be able to find her. The location is a mystery, I still don’t even know if I believe it’s real. If it is I wouldn’t be surprised that Grim found them.

She came back to The Enclave a few months ago with no memory of what happened to her over the past twelve years. The Council let her back in because she gave them information she’d collected over the years from all of the factions she joined during her time away. I think there’s something else going on and since I can’t hunt her down myself I’m leaving this up to you. If she really did go to The Ministry then I’m sure she may have notes or something that says where it is and how to get in. I got intel from one of The Sins today who said Grim left all their stuff at their bunker in New Pegasus. Start there and see what you can find and when you do, let The Guardian know. He’ll be checking up with you every few days from now on. The location of this bunker should be inside an old looking shack a little outside of Trotston.

I wish you luck Shadow, and once again I’m sorry for all the trouble. I hope that the next time we meet, it will be under better circumstances.

High Council Pony Nightshade

“Well I guess that answers that.” Aura said as she finished reading over my shoulder.

“Guess so,” I said with a sigh, “So dad is dead.”

Aura pulled me close to her and held me for a long moment, “I wish it could have been better news.”

“Yeah me too, but I kind of expected it. On the bright side, at least I feel a little better about what he had to say.”

“I still wouldn’t trust him.”

“Oh, I don’t, but I don’t think he’s trying to kill me either. He probably has something big planned and I’m sure it has something to do with me or my Pip-Buck, but for now I’ll see what happens.”

“So, what are we going to do now?”

I looked up at her, “What do you mean?”

“As far as I can tell, we have two choices. Either we go home and forget about what Nightshade said about your mom, or we go to this bunker, then head to Los Alicorn.”

“I’m not sure I need to go to this bunker, Mr. Topps already told me where he believes The Ministry is. He wants me to go there and find out how they make Synths so he can get a new body for himself.” I said.

“Why does he need a new body?” Aura asked.

I shrugged, “I’m not sure, he said something about his body is dying, but he didn’t go into detail.”

Aura took a moment to think, “Either way, we need to get home first and talk to a few ponies maybe even my family to see what they’ve heard about all of this. We shouldn’t just follow the path Nightshade sat for us, if we talk to Gigi, she may have a better idea.”

“I agree, I also want to check in with Box Tape and see how things are going. I also want to talk to Vervain about Wolfsbane more, I know mom used to work with him and I’m sure Vervain knows more about what that work was. I need to get all the information I can about what happened back then before I go after her.” I said.

She smiled, “Good idea.”

“So we go home first?” I asked.

Aura took a moment to think about that, “I think we should talk this over with Stardust and the others, but I think we should. They also deserve to know what’s going on.”

I sighed and rested my head against her chest again, “I just have this feeling that I’m missing something, I just can’t put my hoof on it.”

She pulled me close again saying, “Don’t worry so much, we’ll be okay. Now get some sleep, we have a lot to do tomorrow.”

My eyes felt heavy already and I slowly closed them as I responded, “You’re right, we can talk about it in the morning.”

“Good night Shrimp.”

I smiled again and rested my head just under Aura’s beak, “Good Night.”

***

“Sooooo, I’m guessing you two had a lot of fun last night!” Stardust said as Aura and I both made our way down the stairs. We’d only gotten a few hours of sleep before being woken by Wingnut knocking at the door asking if we were going to sleep all day.

“Shut up.” I said as I yawned, “It’s none or your business.”

“Maybe not, but I’m still going to give you shit for staying up half the night keeping other ponies awake with how loud you were Shadow.”

I blushed bright red as Aura laughed next to me, “She does have a good set of pipes on her, doesn’t she?”

“Is that was that was? I thought some animal got into the mansion grounds last night.” Wingnut said with an evil grin, “Damn Shadow, I’m impressed, I don’t even think Wind Thrasher can make that much noise.”

I facehoofed, “Can you all just drop it?”

“Hell no,” Solstice said with a grin as evil as Wingnuts, “This is the punishment you get.”

“Punishment for what?”

“For making us all worry about you so much,” Wind Thrasher said, “But don’t worry, you’ll only have to deal with it for a few weeks, I’m sure we’ll all get tired of it by then.”

This time I couldn’t help laughing along with them, “Well I’m glad my private moments with Aura was so entertaining for you all. Anyway, we have some decisions to make. I got some info from Nightshade that I’d like to look into before we go home.”

“Oh fuck, why are we still talking about him?” Stardust protested.

Aura spoke up this time, “Because it has to do with helping Shadow figure out why her mom left.”

“Why should she care if her mom left?” Solstice asked, “And what does this have to do with me, I’m not part of your merry band of freaks.”

“It doesn’t, you just decided to stay in our room last night taking up all the bed space and followed us down here this morning,” Stardust said.

“Solstice I’m not asking you to join in with us, if you want to come with then I’m okay with it, you did help me a lot over the past few days, but I know you were just trying to get away from The Enclave,” I said, “Nightshade got some info form one of The Sins, I’m assuming it’s Greed since he doesn’t want to be a Sin anymore, about where we can get information about mom and where to find her in Los Alicorn. He believes she’s at The Ministry helping them, he wants us to go find it and her. So, we have two choices, either we can do what Nightshade wants us to and find this bunker then go find mom at The Ministry, this is also where Mr. Tops wanted me to go to help him. Or we can go back to Cartwheel, see what we can learn from Vervain and later we can see what The Red Talons know about this place. I want to know if you all think we should do what Nightshade wants or do this our own way?”

“Fuck that, I’m not going anywhere near Los Alicorn, Stratus, or The Ministry. I’ve heard stories about that place for years and it’s fucking creepy, also I don’t wanna be too close to home yet, it may put my parents in danger,” Solstice said, “I’m happy staying here and seeing what I can do to help Sheena with The Kingdom.”

“I figured as much Solstice, but what about the rest of you?” I asked.

Wingnut answered first, “I’m going wherever you are Shadow.”

“Same for me,” Wind Thrasher added, “But, I think we should go talk to Vervain and Gigi to see what they know. I could also check with my contacts in the NLR to see if they have any info on Los Alicorn that can help us. I don’t think we should do exactly as Nightshade says though. If we’re going to find your mom and help her remember you, we should do it our own way.”

Stardust took a little longer to respond, “I’ve heard horror stories about that place, but if you really need to go there then I’m in.”

I smiled saying, “You’re all the best friends a pony could ask for.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Wingnut said with a smile.

Before we could start planning for what we were going to do next I heard Yaksha’s voice say from behind me, “Shadow Star, you are not going anywhere just yet.”

I turned around to see the older Zebra walking in through the front door, “What do you mean Yaksha?”

She didn’t look like she was in a good mood, “I assume you are heading back to New Pegasus today am I right?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with you?” Aura asked.

“I have decided that my work here has hit a dead end. I will be accompanying you back to New Pegasus. Shadow owes me her life for saving her when she was attacked in the Ruins,” Yaksha said.

“Yeah you did, but still why do you want to go to New Pegasus?” I asked.

“There is a pony back there I need to see, a mare who thinks I am dead. I would like to let her know I am alive. Furthermore, after I saw you fight in the ruins I noticed that you do not have much control over your magic, you also are a poor hoof to hoof fighter. I would like to help you with both of those.”

I started to laugh, “What does a Zebra know about magic?”

“A lot more than you think,” she retorted, her face staying serious.

I sighed, “Well I guess it can’t hurt to bring you alone, though I’m not sure why you want to travel back there with us, we may not even go right to New Pegasus. If I were you I’d find a better way to go to the city than tag along with my group of friends.”

Yaksha walked over to me and got close to my ear, whispering so only I could hear, “I know what you are and the evil that lives inside of you. Do not try to deny it. I am going with you for the reasons I said, but also I am keeping an eye on you, Servant of the Stars!”

She backed up with a small smile on her face, I could barely breathe as I looked into those deep violet eyes of hers. Finally, I gave in, “Fine…welcome to the group Yaksha…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Lover’s Embrace: After spending some quality time with your special somepony…somegriff…whichever, you feel completely relaxed and ready for anything! +15% XP earned for a limited time, whenever you sleep in the same bed as your lover.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

AURA AFFINITY LEVEL AT 100%

Eagle Eye: You’ve reached full affinity with Aura Bloodtalon. Do to your closeness with the Griffon, she’s had an effect on how you see things! Do to this your perception goes up by 1 whenever you are in her presence.

Chapter 41: Light Em' Up

“I want to tell her, but I don’t know how, I’m not even sure she’d believe me if I did.”

“You know what I just thought about? How are we going to get back to New Pegasus anyway?” I asked Wind Thrasher as we walked out into the courtyard.

She looked at me confused then pointed out toward the gate that led into the courtyard, “Don’t you remember? Sheena had Cutter and his team get the sky carriage for us and they fixed it up.”

I looked where she was pointing and saw the sky carriage sitting there, looking better than it had before we even left Cartwheel, “Damn, it looks a lot nicer.”

Sheena was standing next to the sky carriage with her husband and son. When she saw us, she waved and came walking over, “I heard that you would be leaving today so I made sure to have your sky carriage brought over from the shop in town that was working on it.”

“It looks wonderful Empress Sheena.” I said walking close to it. Whoever had fixed the carriage had knocked out all the dents, fixed the shattered windows, and even painted it. It was now as black as my coat and where the Steel Ranger’s symbol had been, was now the words ‘Equestrian Express’ just like my Duster, “Why did you put Equestrian Express on it?”

The Emperor chuckled, “That was my idea Shadow Star, you do work for Old Box Tape do you not? I used to trade with him back when I was still a young buck, I figured having his companies name on the side was better than traveling around with the Symbol of those nasty Steel Rangers.”

“I guess, but still if I fly around in this, ponies will know it’s me. That could put us at risk of getting attacked again.” I said.

Stardust patted my head saying, “Don’t worry too much about it, you should be proud of who you are.”

“Yeah Shadow, don’t worry about who knows it’s you. Most ponies back home are too scared of you to do anything.” Wingnut said.

“Maybe, but I guess you’re right, I really do like it.” I said with a smile.

Aura rolled her eyes, “I’m just glad it’s fixed, I’d hate to have to carry you all the way back to New Pegasus on my back.”

I winked at her, “Awww, and here I thought you would’ve jumped at the chance of me riding you for hours on end.”

Aura blushed, “Damn, walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

We all laughed, then Sheena looked between Aura and I with a smile, “I am glad you two were able to finally show each other how you feel.”

Now I was blushing, “It was all thanks to you Sheena.”

Sheena bowed her head to me slightly, “It was no problem.”

“My mom likes playing match maker,” Prince Fruit Stripe said with a smile, “It’s a good thing she’s good at it or the towns folk would get annoyed with her for being so nosey.”

Sheena’s mouth fell open and she looked back at her son, “Son! I am not nosey, I just like to make sure my subjects are happy!”

Everyone laughed harder, as we did I realized this was the first time I’d seen Sheena without a dress or some other kind of outfit on. This was the first time I’d seen her glyph mark, I couldn’t make out what it was, but it reminded me of something I would see on a member of the Sins. It was definitely some kind of Tribal Animal, “Empress Sheena, can I ask what your Glyph Mark is?”

She looked back at me then down at her own flanks, “Oh, it is in the shape of an Elephants head. An Elephant is a creature you find in the Zebra homelands. They are very smart animals, they are also very nurturing in nature and from the stories I have read they never forget.”

“Just like my wife!” The Emperor said with another chuckle, “She still brings up things I did wrong from twenty years ago.”

Sheena just shook her head, refusing to take the bait, “Anyway, when will you all be heading home?”

“We were planning on leaving right away, once Doorstop shows up that is.”

“I’m right here runt!” Doorstop said landing a second later next to the Emperor, Shortcake and two of the cadets landing next to him.

“Oh, hey Shortcake, how are you liking the Kingdom?” I asked.

She shrugged, “It’s loud here and there’s a lot of Zebra’s and strange ponies I’ve only heard about but never met. Apart from that it’s better than the Stable.”

Stardust chuckled, “Yeah, I remember those days.”

Shortcake smiled, “I wish you could stay with us Dusty, there’s so much you could teach us about the Wasteland.”

“I know, but my place is with Shadow’s friends, I should know, I’m one of them. Maybe one day you can come to Cartwheel and see us.”

“Maybe one day Stardust, but first they need to learn how things work out here.” Doorstop said.

“Hey Doorstop where’s your stuff?” Wingnut asked the older buck.

“Back in my room, I ain’t going with ya’ll.” He said, “The Cadets need me here right now at least until they get used to working with Cutter and the Dashites here in the Kingdom that is.”

“Wait, you’re not coming back with us? What about Violet, I thought she needed you back at Frosty Summit?” I asked.

“She does, but right now things are settled down in New Pegasus and Frosty Summit is far from most ponies that would attack it like The Steel Rangers, and The Enclave won’t bother them for a while. I did send Dr. Limbis there with a letter for Violet about what happened here.”

“Will she be okay by herself?” I asked.

“Ah she’s tougher than she looks Runt, don’t worry too much about her. The only thing she may have problems with is Dr. Cottage, but if I know Limbis, she’ll put him in his place.”

“Damn, that’s too bad, I was just starting to like you.” Aura said with a snicker, “I don’t think I heard one griffon crack from you this entire trip.”

“Bah, you ain’t that bad Aura, at least for a griffon. Ya’ll have a good head on your shoulders, and ya know how to make a good wise crack. I like that about you, and you aren’t a sissy like Stardust.” Doorstop said with a big smile.

Stardust’s jaw dropped open, “Hey! Fuck you old buck!”

“Ha! Still got it!” Doorstop said, before looking back at me and ignoring Stardust, “Shadow do you think you’d be able to get a letter to somepony for me?”

“I guess, I mean it is my job, but who do you need to get a letter to? Isn’t Dr. Limbis bringing one to Violet already?”

Doorstop got closer and whispered, “I need you to get a letter to my sister, even with Stable 97 being taken care of, I’m still a Dashite and can’t go to Stratus to talk to her.”

“How do you expect me to get a letter to Stratus?”

Still keeping his voice down, he said, “It’s not that hard, if you go to New Pegasus there’s a small building at the back of the Strip that serves as a kind of Sky-port for The Enclave. Get the letter to them and they’ll make sure it gets to my sister.”

He pulled a letter out and gave it to me. Taking it, I said, “No problem, I guess I could do that.”

He sighed and stood to his full height again, “Thanks Runt, though I can’t really pay you for doing this. I’m fresh out of caps.”

Aura looked over at us, “If you want her to do something for you Doorstop, you have to pay her. That’s how a contract works.”

“She’s not a griffon Birdbrain!” Doorstop boomed,

Aura just rolled her eyes, “And there it is” she smirked “This whole time I just thought she was a wingless griffon that was mutated by killing joke to look like a pony. What I mean is that’s how business works. She gets paid for being a courier, some of what is paid to her also goes to Equestrian Express.”

“It’s okay, I’m sure Box Tape will understand. Doorstop has done a lot for us I can at least do this small thing for him.” I said, trying to keep Aura and Doorstop from fighting.

“Aura’s got a point though, I should find some way to pay you Runt.”

I shrugged, “Then how about you start calling me by my name, if you do that, I’ll call us even.”

“Hmmmm, it may be easier to just find a way to pay you in caps, but I guess I can put up with calling you Shadow.” He said with a chuckle.

“Good, well if that’s everypony we should be going,” As I said that I just realized a small problem. With Doorstop staying behind and Laser Light already heading back to New Pegasus, who was going to fly the sky carriage? Stardust’s wings had been mended by one of the Unicorn doctors, but he was told not to use them for a couple more days, Wind Thrasher’s body was still healing after her problem with the blood lust, and getting Aura to fly it wasn’t going to be easy, “Huh, how are we going to get back?”

“I could pull the Sky Carriage Shadow, but we’d have to stop more often than when Doorstop flew it.” Wind Thrasher said.

“I know, but I’d like you to rest as much as you can, same for Stardust,” My eyes fell on Aura.

She looked over at me, “Nope, I said it before, I’ll say it again, I’m not a taxi.”

I let my eyes get big and teary eyed, my bottom lip poking out a little, “Please Aura.”

She looked away, “I said no, and that pouty face won’t work!”

Wingnut looked at her with an evil grin, “I could order you to do it.”

She grinned, “No you can’t, my contract states that I’m a body guard. I can’t be told to pull you anywhere in a sky carriage, unless it was to save your life.”

I let my pouty face get even more sad looking as I let my ears droop back, “But, if you don’t Wind Thrasher will have to pull the Carriage and she’s still sick. Even if she can it will take us forever to get home.”

A minute passed, Aura still doing her best to ignore me. I didn’t let up, I know how to look pathetic when I want. Finally, she stomped, “Fine! But you owe me big for this Shadow.”

I smiled, “Works for me, I’ll gladly pay any price to get us home quicker.”

She grinned back and got very close to my ear whispering, “I hope you don’t mind being tied up, because you just gave me permission to do whatever I want for an entire night of my choosing,” She giggled and continued, “Be careful, sometimes it sucks when a plan backfire’s.”

Wind Thrasher snickered a few feet away, “She got you there Shadow.”

Wingnut and Stardust looked confused, “How did she get Shadow?”

Wind Thrasher grinned and walked past both stallions, “It’s girl talk, sorry.”

That made me smile as I turned to say goodbye to Sheena, the Emperor, and the rest, “Thank you for all the help, I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

The Emperor smiled, “That’s what we do here! Remember you’re always welcome back here any time.”

Sheena smiled and moved closer to hug me, “My husband is right, do come see us again when you can and good luck on finding your mother,” Then she turned toward her husband, “I thought you had something to give Shadow?”

The Emperor’s huge mustache wobbled as he said, “That’s right!” he pulled out a small whistle, “My son and Cutter both told me you wanted one of our Zap Wing whistles to keep you safe from that Envy pony. So, I made this for you the other day, been meaning to give it to you since.”

Sheena giggled and face hoofed, “That is the stallion I fell in love with, so forgetful, but also thoughtful.”

“Thank you, my love.” The Emperor said moving down to kiss his wife for a moment.

I took the whistle from him putting it in one of the pockets on my Duster, “Thank you Emperor, this will help us a lot if we run into Envy again while we’re heading back home.”

“Think nothing of it.” He said with a bark of a laugh.

I hugged him then Sheena one more time, “I’ll miss this place, I almost feel like I’m home when I’m here.”

“That is normal for most ponies that come to the Kingdom, but I am glad you enjoyed your stay. Safe travels Shadow,” Sheena started to say then she looked past me at Yaksha who was getting into the Sky Carriage, “Yaksha? Why are you going with them?”

Yaksha looked back at Sheena, “I told you last night that I was heading out. Did I not make myself clear?”

“No, I thought you meant you were heading back to the Ruins.” Sheena said, sounding hurt.

“No, my work there is complete, I need to head back to New Pegasus to look into something else, though I will return once I am finished there.” Yaksha said with a smile.

“That is too bad, I am really going to miss our conversations.”

Yaksha walked back out of the Sky Carriage and hugged Sheena, “I will as well Empress. Oh, I almost forgot, if my friend comes looking for me, can you tell him where I went? He’ll know where to find me in New Pegasus.”

“You mean that ghoulish looking stallion? I guess I can do that.” Sheena said sounding confused.

“Thank you, also make sure to keep that husband of yours in check. If it was not for you, this place would not be as wonderful as it is.” Yaksha said with an even bigger smile.”

“I’ll do that.” Sheena said smiling back.

“Enough with the long goodbye’s, can we get going already?” Aura said, she was already strapped into the harness for the Carriage.

We all headed back to the Carriage and loaded up. Aura took to the air, as she flew higher we all waved goodbye to the Kingdom and our friends that were staying behind. Then Aura turned and started heading south west, as she did I got one good look to the north, where the Twin Cities were just visible in the distance and just past that, the same bright pillar of light that I saw before when I was in Mill City Tower. When I saw it before my memories were still blocked so I had no idea what it was. Now as my eyes fell on the light reaching up into the clouds it finally hit me. It was home, my old home, the place where I was born, the place where my family used to be. As we flew away and the light faded into the distance, I wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back to my first home, The Crystal Empire. Instead I put a hoof on the glass of the rear window and whispered, “Goodbye.”

***

A couple hours passed and we were still flying fast toward New Pegasus. The temperature started to get warmer the further we got from the Midwest, at first, I missed the nice cool air, but I had to admit, I missed the warmer weather down south. Though it still wasn’t even close to how warm it would get when we got back home.

Stardust and Wind Thrasher were both talking to each other about different things that I didn’t care to listen to. Wingnut was talking with Yaksha, asking her about how some Zebra concoctions worked. From the sound of it, Yaksha was very good at making many different kinds of potions that could ether help or hurt a pony. Wingnut being the type of pony who soaked up information like a sponge does with water, never stopped with his string of questions. Yaksha didn’t seem to mind it either, in fact she sounded like she wanted to tell him as much as she could about her culture.

I of course was bored to tears, Aura wasn’t up for talking while she was flying this fast, I couldn’t get a word in between Wind Thrasher and Stardust and I didn’t even understand half of what Yaksha and Wingnut were talking about. So, I pulled the box of Memory Orbs mom gave me from my saddle bags and opened it. The last one in the row was the one mom said was very long. So far, I’d been putting off watching it because I never could seem to fit in enough time. Even now it may not be safe to jump into the orb. Envy could attack us again at any moment or something worse could happen, but if I didn’t do it now, then when would I?

“Hey Aura, do you think I’ll be safe to jump into mom’s last memory orb?”

She looked back over her shoulder at me, the window in the front had holes in it so the flyer could talk to the ponies in the carriage, “You should be fine, even if something happens, you can trust us to keep you safe.”

“Okay, I don’t know how long this will take so if we get home before I’m out, please don’t do anything embarrassing to me.”

She grinned, “No promises.”

Rolling my eyes, I sat back on the front seat and concentrated my magic on the last of mom’s memory orbs. The one she said had belonged to one of the Children of the Night. With my luck it would be another Night Stalker one, that pony had too many memory orbs for a captain who ran a secret group of assassins. It took a minute for me to make the connection, then there was a spark and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

Well, defiantly not a Night Stalker orb. The question is, what kind of creature am I in? Let’s see, wings, that’s not hard to miss but they are bigger than the ones I’ve felt on most pegasi. I could feel something strange on my front hooves, no they aren’t hooves, their talons. Now I could tell that my host had a beak as well and a long tail with paws. Holy shit I’m in a griffon, not just any griffon this has to be Greta. She was standing in a large room looking at a set of pegasi power armor. Next to her was none other than Night Stalker himself who was talking with Minuette and Amethyst Star.

“What I don’t understand Min, is how this armor is any different than my last set.” Night Stalker said as he looked over the black suit.

“I agree, apart from a few more gems and the style of the helmet and tail stinger, it looks the same.” My host said.

Minuette looked horrified, “What do you mean it looks the same, this is a master piece Sir! I’ve spent the past two months developing this new suit for you captain. I’ve re-done the blades on your wings so they won’t interfere with your flight, also you won’t have to worry about cutting yourself if you’re doing some kind of complicated maneuver or attack. The stinger on the tail can be used to either poison like before or you can pump a high dose of magical energy into them turning your target into dust in seconds. I’ve added more gems to the armor as well, before the only spell you had was one that blocked small caliber ammunition. Now I’ve made that gem more powerful so it can now divert high caliber as well. I’ve added a gem that also will work like a stealth buck, I used the notes we obtained from the M.A.S. so that the gem will recharge itself. The effect of your invisibility will last for only two minutes, but it’s still useful. I’ve also added my own spell; the one Stable Tec uses for the Stable Tec Targeting Spell on the Pip-Buck.”

Night Stalker Smiled, “I guess that can be useful, but the armor already has S.A.T.S. and E.F.S. so what use is having an extra gem spell in the armor going to help?”

Amethyst Star spoke up this time, “You don’t understand Captain, Min modified her original spell. Unlike with S.A.T.S. you’ll be able to move while the spell is active. It will change your perception of time for around thirty seconds giving you time to either escape from just about anything or use it to get in close for a quick deadly attack. To the pony your fighting it will seem as if you just vanished from sight.”

My hosts eyes widened a little as she smiled, “Well that could be a useful trick. Though with all that extra gear wouldn’t his armor be heavier, not easy to fly in heavy armor.”

Minuette giggled joyfully, “You would think so silly, but no. The armor is a new design, it’s lighter weight and three times stronger. The Captain will be able to move faster than he did in his old set of armor.”

“I take it back, I think I like this new set of armor,” Night Stalker said slowly walking around the armor, “You finished it just in time for the assault on Crimson Canyon too, good work Min.”

“Uh, I’m sorry Captain, I’m not quite finished with it. I’m still finishing up with the last of the spell matrix for the targeting system and how the helmet will interact with the armor itself.” Minuette said, looking sheepish.

Night Stalker didn’t look as happy as he did a moment ago, “That’s too bad, how long will it take you to finish up?”

“Hmmm, well if you don’t need me for the assault then I can finish it in the next hour or so. You could also wait to start the assault though I won’t be able to test everything on the suit until tomorrow.”

Night Stalker laughed, “It’s fine Min, we’ll have help from the Shadowbolts and the royal guard for this attack. You can take all the time you need.”

Minuette beamed, “You’re the best Captain.”

My host and Night Stalker left the room as the two unicorns started working again on the Power Armor. I could now see that they were in the Lucky Horseshoe like before, as they walked to one of the large windows that over looked the city Greta asked, “I’m surprised you were able to get help from both the Shadowbolts and The Royal guard for this. How are we going to keep the group secret with so many ponies around during a fight like this?”

“I’ve already thought about that,” Night Stalker said as he watched the ponies far below, “To most of Equestria I’m just a guard captain overseeing things in the city. The rest of you have your own covers, that’s why I’m only letting a few of the Children join in on the fight.”

My host chuckled, “It won’t be much of a surprise if I’m with you since I’m always with you, but how will you explain the others?”

“Thunderlane is thought to be part of the guard like myself, at first I wasn’t sure what to do with Lightning Dust, but then I figured since she’s a former Wonderbolt I could say she joined up with the guard as well. I’m also having trouble figuring where to put Cloudy Nights, she’s an active scout for the army now at least on paper.”

“She used to be a Shadowbolt, we could just say that Rainbow asked for her help for this assault.”

Night Stalker took a moment to think about that, “That could work.”

“You still didn’t tell me how you got both the guard and Shadowbolts to help.”

He grinned, “I’m a persuasive Stallion.”

“Ha, and I’m a parasprite.”

Night Stalker looked thoughtful as he said, “Hmmmm, you can eat a lot when you want too, but I don’t think you can handle as much as a parasprite can.”

My host grinned, “Fuck you Moony.”

He winked at her, “Now, is that anyway to talk to your Captain?”

“I’ll let you know when he shows up. You’re in too good of a mood to be the Captain I know. What’s got you so chipper?”

“What? Can’t I be happy now and then?” he asked, looking offended.

“I guess, but it’s not normal for you at least not as of late. Maybe Lightning Dust is having a good impact on you.” I noticed as she said this, the smile she gave felt forced.

Night Stalker didn’t seem to notice, “Maybe, I know I’ve been feeling a lot happier ever since she agreed to marry me.”

“She’s a good mare…”

Night Stalker must have picked up on the tone of her voice because he looked over at Greta, “But you don’t approve?”

My host sighed, “It’s not that I don’t like her, she’s great and I’m glad she makes you happy. It’s just that I thought you had feelings for another pony that’s all.”

“I do or did, it’s just that I realized that how I feel about her doesn’t matter. What I want I can’t have, for a long time I didn’t think I’d ever find a pony who understood me the way she does, then I had Lightning join us. She knew me before I was ‘The Captain’ and it’s nice to have that. She understands me almost as much as you do my old friend.”

My host forced another smile, “Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. I just want to make sure you don’t do something you’ll regret later, that’s all.”

“I assure you, I’m not, though I did want to ask you something regarding the wedding.”

My host looked at Night Stalker quizzically, “What’s that?”

“Most Stallions have a best Stallion when they get married, normally it’s somepony they’ve been friends with for a long time. I don’t have anypony like that, not since Big Mac…you know.”

“Died.”

“Yeah, well I know you’re not a Stallion but would you be my Best Griff instead? With you by myside I know the day will be perfect. There’s no pony or griffon else I’d like to have with me.”

“Me? Why would you want me to be up there?”

“Because you’re my best friend, hell your almost like a sister to me. You’ve been there for me ever since I was a scared little colt.”

My host smiled as she thought back on an old memory, “I can still remember that day I found you half frozen in the mountains.”

Night Stalker laughed, “I think I almost gave Granny a heart attack when I woke up two days later screaming my head off.”

“Her? You almost gave me a heart attack asshole.”

The two of them laughed before Night Stalker said, “So, will you do it?”

Greta smiled again, “I’d be honored.”

Right then Thunderlane walked in from another hallway, “Captain, it’s almost time to head out.”

“Right, thank you Thunderlane. Are the others ready?”

The black pegasus rolled his eyes, “Lightning Dust’s still getting dressed, but the others are ready to go. Bab’s is still trying to convince me to talk you into letting her go as well.”

Night Stalker sighed, “I’ve already told her that I need her here to keep an eye on Noire.”

“I’ve told her that three times, I just think she wants to test out that new model of power armor she got from her Cousin.”

My host chuckled, “That sounds about right, she’s been practicing with it every chance she gets in the training room.”

Thunderlane looked over at Greta with a board expression, “Oh yeah, There’s a call for you griffon.”

“I have a name Jack Ass!” Greta said as she walked past the black pegasi, “I’ll go see who’s calling then I’ll join you on the roof Captain.”

Night Stalker watched her go saying, “It’s probably Granny calling again, tell her I said hi.”

My host waved a talon, “I’ll be sure to do that.”

As my host walked away I heard Night Stalker say to Thunderlane, “Thunderlane, I know how you feel about Griffons and their place in this war, but could you stop treating Greta like that? She’s a member of this team as much as you are.”

Thunderlane’s response was hard to make out as Greta walked into a small library. There was a few comfy looking chairs and a phone, also the former Prince who now went by Noire was sitting in one of the chairs reading an old looking book with what looked like stars on the cover. He looked up from his book, he still looked gaunt, but at least his mane was cut short again, it looked better than it did when it was long, “Good Day Greta, what brings you by the library?”

“Just a phone call, how’s the research going?” my host asked as she sat down next to the table with the phone on it.

“It is slow work and I feel like I am doing something wrong by reading these old books written by The Starkatteri. I now understand why the rest of my people shun them.” He said going back to his work.

“I know how you feel.”

“Do you really?” He asked looking over at the griffon with one eye.

“Well maybe not in the same way.”

He chuckled and went back to reading. As he did Greta picked up the phone, “Hello this is Greta.”

A cute voice echoed out of the receiver, “Hey Greta! It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“Prickly Petal? This is a surprise, why are you calling me and not your brother?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s busy doing something top secret and dangerous as usual.” Petal said with a mock sigh.

My host Laughed, “Not right now, unless you count giving Thunderlane a hard time as dangerous, so what’s up?”

“You know how Moony’s planning on spending the day with me later this week?”

“Yeah, he said it’s your first time in the city itself.”

“Yep, I mean I’ve been living near Las Pegasus for a while now, but I’ve been too busy with Stable 28’s construction and the other project to go sight-seeing. Both projects are keeping me running from all over the place, and I have to keep checking up on Halo One and Two as well.”

“Doesn’t Stable-Tec have other supervisors that can take care of some of the work load?” Greta asked.

“They do, but Applebloom only trusts me with both Halo sites and the secret Project she’s working on with you guys.”

“If that’s true, why are you working on the Stable 28 Project?”

“Because I wanted too! It’s one of the biggest stable’s we’ve done so far and with the idea’s Scootaloo’s having for it, I couldn’t just pass up it up.”

“Understandable, anyway what were you going to say about your time here in the city?”

“Oh yeah, Well I was able to finish up with a few things faster than I thought, so I decided to start my vacation early. I’m at The Applewood right now! I was wondering if you could help me surprise Moony.”

My Host winced, “You know how much he hates surprises.”

Petal giggled, “Duh, that’s what makes it so fun!”

My host smiled, “True, but sadly today isn’t the best day for me to drag him away from work. We have…something to do today.”

“Awww damn! Well how long is this something going to take?”

“A few hours at best, maybe longer if something goes wrong.”

“Well how about this, if you two are freed up tonight then we can surprise him, if not then we’ll make it tomorrow morning.”

“Hmmmm, I may be able to make that work.”

“You’re so awesome Greta!”

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t talk much longer I have to get ready. Did you need my help with anything else?”

“No, I’ll be fine, I have to make a quick call to Sweetie Belle anyway. She’s doing a show here next week and I want to see if she’ll let me watch from back stage.”

“Good Luck with that Petal, I’ll talk to you later.”

Petal giggled on the other end, “Hope to see you tonight. OH! I’m in room 2077 if you need to call me back. Be safe out there Greta!”

“I will.” My host said then she hung up.

“You do know that springing a surprise on Night Stalker isn’t a good idea.” Noire said.

“With most ponies yes, but if anypony can get away with it, it’s Petal. Also you didn’t hear a thing about this got it!”

Noire smiled, “I have no idea what you are talking about Greta.”

Greta got to her talons, stretched then walked out of the room. She turned down the hall and made her way over to an elevator, she was joined by Lightning Dust before the door closed, “Hey I’m not the only one running late, that’s good to know.”

My host smiled as she pushed the button for the top floor, “I think you’re just in time Lightning.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything.” She said with a cute giggle.

The two of them rode the elevator the rest of the way up in silence. A moment later they walked into the huge bright room that I’d been in once before. It was where Mr. Top’s lived, or at least the huge monitor his face showed up on. The two of them made their way over to where Night Stalker was waiting with Thunderlane and Cloudy Nights. I remembered then that Cloudy Nights used to be Pink Rose, the young mare who ran away from home to be with her buck friend. She was older than I thought, she wasn’t old but she was older than Night Stalker, how many years ago did she leave home? She was cute though, with her light pink coat and shocking green mane and tail, her mane even had a long streak of red in it. Her eyes matched her mane and they seemed to sparkle with energy and life. I could see why the stallion she left home for, fell for her. It’s funny how her journal was the first thing I found when I first left Stable 28, I wish I could find out how she ended up going from that shack to working with The Children.

Night Stalker looked over at Greta and Lightning Dust as they approached, “Perfect, now that we are all here let’s go over the plan before we head out.”

Thunderlane rolled his eyes, “Captain what’s to go over, we strike fast and hard. Our intel says there’s only about two hundred Zebra’s in the canyon. Hell, with the whole team we could take them down without much effort.”

“Thunderlane, don’t underestimate our enemy. From what we know, there’s a high-ranking zebra with them. Noire believes it’s one of his brothers, if so, that means the zebras with him are elite. That’s why we called in the Guard and the Shadowbolts.” Night Stalker said.

“You put too much trust in that stripe. For all we know this could be a trap.” Thunderlane said.

“I put as much trust into him as I do the rest of you. Noire made me a blood oath, since then he has done everything in his power to help us with finding this threat and his knowledge of old zebra lore has been a great help with Falling Shadows.”

Thunderlane turned red as he yelled, “He’s the ENEMIES SON! What’s wrong with you Night Stalker!? Have you lost your fucking mind!”

Night Stalker didn’t yell back, he slowly walked closer to Thunderlane until his nose was a hairs breath from the other pegasus, “You should remember your place Thunderlane and you should also remember that I was the one who requested you to join the Children. If it wasn’t for me and the lies I told, you’d have been court marshaled for what you did when you were my commanding officer. You owe me everything Thunderlane that goes for your trust in my actions, or have I not proven myself to you yet?”

For a long moment the two just stared at each other, then finally Thunderlane broke and he looked away, “Sorry sir, it won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.” Night Stalker said before turning to address the rest of his team, “This is what we are going to do. Our objective is to fly in and take down the sentries guarding the Canyon. We expect them to be wearing stealth cloaks so make sure you all have your thermal goggles. The kills need to be made quickly and silently, if we give away our positions too quickly the rest of the guard will be in danger. The Shadowbolts are acting as our back up and our eye in the sky while we’re attacking the sentries. They will only join in the fight once the rest of the guard is in the canyon.”

Cloudy Nights spoke up, “What are our points of entry?”

“For us we can fly right in, but on the ground there’s only two ways in. The Guard will be moving in from both points on the east and west of Crimson Canyon. This way none of the Zebras can escape once the attack has started.”

My host stepped forward, “This mission needs to be quick and clean, it’s bad enough we’ve let these Zebras slip past us as long as they have. Right now, they are too close to Las Pegasus. We can’t let it get out that a huge number of them made it so far into Equestria.”

“We won’t let you down.” Cloudy Nights said with a big smile, “We’ll show them why you don’t mess with The Children of the Night or Princess Luna.”

Night Stalker smiled, “This is how we’ll go in, Thunderlane you’ll be with Lightning, you two will take down the sentries from the west. Make sure none are left alive. Cloudy Nights, I need you to take the north and if you finish the sentries there, then join Lightning and Thunderlane. Greta and I will take the east and south. Radio in once you’ve taken down your targets.”

Everyone saluted Night Stalker saying in unison, “YES SIR!”

“Good now let’s move out!” Night Stalker said walking over to the door that led to a small balcony that faced away from The Strip. Waiting for him was his other set of Power Armor, he stepped into it letting it close around his body.

Everyone followed as he jumped into the air, leading his team south west. As they flew Greta pulled on a helmet with goggles then pushing a button on the side she said, “Team one go ahead and get to your post, Cloudy Night’s you do the same, don’t worry about waiting for us, Strike as soon as you can.”

The three other pegasi nodded, they flew past Night Stalker and Greta as the land zoomed by under them. When they were further ahead My host moved closer to her friend then said over the wind, “You ready for this?”

He looked over at her, “About as ready as I’ll ever be, what about you?”

Greta chuckled, “I always get nervous when we go into a fight like this.”

“Yeah me too, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

As they flew I could see the cliffs of Crimson Canyon getting closer. It was strange to think that Aura’s home used to be a place where Zebra’s held up. I guess it made sense since it was easy to defend…at least for griffons. I wonder how Zebra’s would do with an assault like this coming.

As they drew closer to the canyon Night Stalker started to fly higher, my host following close to his side. As they went up Night Stalker tapped a gem on his armor then said, “Commander Blaze this is Night Stalker. Are your Pegasi in place?”

I could hear his voice through the radio in Greta’s helmet and the reply from a mare, “Captain we are in place and waiting for your signal. We are just above the clouds.”

Greta responded this time, “Have you seen any movement in the Canyon?”

“Only a couple of stripes guarding the boarders. We think they’re using the caves to stay out of sight. Crimson Canyon is full of caves and tunnels.” The mare responded.

“Good, let my team take out the sentries first then I’ll have the Guard move in, you’re pegasi will follow them.” Night Stalker said.

“Roger, I’ll relay the orders to Commander Bushel.”

They both cut off their radio’s then Night Stalker said, “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“How so?”

“They don’t have any way of knowing we’re coming. The Pegasi should have seen at least a few of them wandering around the Canyon, not just the sentries on the edges.”

“Maybe they’re just being careful?” Greta said.

“Hmmmm, maybe, but be ready for anything.” Night Stalker said as he looked down, “We should be in position, I’ll drop first and get the two zebras on the left of the entrance, you take care of the three on the other side.”

My host looked down, I could see five Zebra’s standing at the top of the cliffs that overlooked the valley near a small town just outside the east entrance to the Canyon, “Roger.”

Night Stalker flipped on his radio again, “Team are you in place?”

“Team one is ready, we have three stripes sited.” Thunderlane replied.

“I’m good too sir, only two on my end.” Cloudy Nights said.

“Good, fall on them fast and quietly. Let me know when they’re down, Night Stalker out.”

Greta smiled, “Ready when you are Moony.”

“I hate it when you call me that.” he said with a sigh, “Let’s get this over with.”

My host chuckled to herself as Night Stalker folded his wings and started to dive. Greta reached behind herself and pulled out two oddly shaped swords. Funny one of them looked just like the one I had. Then she too folded her wings following Night Stalker as he silently dove for the zebra’s. Night Stalker started to slowly open his wings as they drew closer, I could see slightly blue glowing blades at the edges of his wings much like the ones around Greta’s swords. Before I could take a better look at them, my host flipped around letting her rear paws slam into the first zebra. His body crunched under her, I could feel bones breaking as he cushioned her fall. He started to scream, but one of Greta’s swords slide neatly into his skull. The Zebra closest to them looked at Greta with his jaw open in shock.

The expression only lasted a moment, then it changed to confusion as Greta’s other sword sliced open his neck. As his body started to fall, my host flapped her wings again as she darted for the last sentry who was still turning toward the sound of the fallen zebras. He took a sword threw the eye before he could finish his turn. The attack only lasted maybe five seconds, that was all and she took down all three zebras in that small margin time. I’m glad I wouldn’t ever have to fight a griffon like her…oh wait, Aura’s family is descended from Greta. That meant Gina was too…fuck! If she was even half as good as her great something grandmother, I was in trouble if I ever had to deal with her again.

Greta looked over the gap in the cliff to where Night Stalker was standing next to two headless zebras. He chuckled lightly, “I thought you would have finished them off quicker, you’re not losing your touch are you, old friend?”

“Pfft, I had to deal with three, you only had two, who’s getting old now smart ass?”

Night Stalker just chuckled again as the rest of his team reported in, “Team one’s targets are down Sir.” I heard Lightning say, “Mine too.” Responded Cloudy Nights.

“Good, all of you wait for my signal, Greta and I will sneak down and see if we can spot anymore sentries.” Night Stalker said.

The two of them jumped down and slowly glided to the canyon floor. It was odd to see the place so barren. It seemed like such a sad place without the tents and griffons around. There were still the two large rocks in the middle of the Canyon, but they were boring since neither of them had been carved into the statue or the wall of Red Talon laws yet.

“It’s too quiet.” Greta said as she slowly walked around.

“Yes, it is.” Night Stalker said as he walked toward the center of the Canyon, “It looks like somepony was here not too long ago, but the place feels abandoned.”

“I’ll go check the caves,” Greta said as she started to fly into the air.

Night Stalker had just made it over to the rocks, “Greta!”

My host stopped and looked back, “What?” She flew back to him then whispered, “Don’t yell like that Captain, you’ll wake up any Zebra’s that might be near.”

Night Stalker looked scared as he pointed at the larger rock, “It was a trick!”

“What are you talking about…” Greta said as she turned to see what Night Stalker was looking at. Then my host’s eyes went wide as she saw it, a mare’s body was staked to the larger rock. Her eyes had been cut out, her tongue as well, her hooves had a stake stabbed through them holding her to the sandstone behind her. Carved into her naked torso was a single word ‘Almost!’ a small dagger was stuck at the bottom of the exclamation point.

“Is that?” Greta asked.

“Yeah, it’s Magnolia, she’s the mare who sings in the night club at the Lucky Horseshoe…FUCK!” Night Stalker slammed his hooves on the button for his radio, “It was a trap, the sentries were just bait. The Zebra’s already left, they may be heading for…”

Before he could finish Minuette appeared in front of Night Stalker. She was breathing hard, “Sir, The Zebras are attacking Las Pegasus! There’s at least four hundred of them!”

“Damn it! How did they know!” He yelled before going back to his radio, “Everypony head back to Las Pegasus NOW it’s under attack!”

A few voices echoed through the radio as they all responded. Greta started to speak, “We have to head back right now.”

Night Stalker said, “I know. Minuette, is the suit ready?”

“I just have to reattach the power unit, but yes.” She said.

“Good, Teleport back right now and get it ready, I’ll be their shortly. Tell the rest of the team to attack and defend the city as best as they can. Bab’s is in charge until I get back.”

“Yes sir, oh and what should I do about Noire? He wanted to help, but I told him to stay back.”

“We could use him right now, but I’m not sure if he’s the one who got the message to the rest about our plan. For now, have him wait until I say otherwise.”

“Yes sir.” She said, then in a flash, she was gone.

“Let’s go!” Night Stalker said as he jumped into the air right as over a hundred pegasi came flying out of the clouds, all heading for Las Pegasus.

Greta followed saying, “Boss, why didn’t you have Minuette teleport us back as well?”

“We’re going to need her magic for this fight, I don’t want her tired out just so we can get back faster.”

“Understood,” Greta started to say then her eyes went wide, “Oh shit…”

They just caught up with the rest of the Pegasi when Night Stalker asked, “What?”

“Petal’s at the Applewood!”

“What? No, she’s not, she’s not coming to the city for another three days.”

“No, she’s there now, she’s the one that called earlier. She wanted to surprise you.”

“FUCK can this day get any worse!” Night Stalker yelled, he tapped a different gem on his helmet and spoke urgently, “Amethyst Star activate the Lucky Horseshoe’s defenses, get those damned robots into the streets to stop the Zebra’s. Also send Comet Tail to the Applewood and have her get my sister and bring her to the tower!”

“Tell her she’s in room 2077,” Greta said.

Night Stalker did then he tapped the gem again and started to fly faster. As they all flew on, an orange glow started to show near Las Pegasus. The closer they got the more the glow brightened. The city was on fire, “Damn it!”

“They set the outer parts of the city on fire.” Greta said.

“They’ll pay, every last one!” Night Stalker yelled as he flew higher toward the Lucky Horseshoe, “Everypony attack, make sure you keep as many ponies in the city safe and for Celestia’s sake, don’t let the stripes get the drop on you!”

As they reached the edge of the city, the Ponies from the Shadowbolts scattered. Magical Energy and plasma rifles started to fire down toward the Strip as scores of wings dove for the advancing zebras. Greta flew up to the top of the Lucky Horseshoe with Night Stalker. Thunderlane, Lightning Dust, and Cloudy Nights joined them a moment later all of them looking down at the fight that was happening far below.

“What do we do now Captain?” Cloudy Nights asked as she watched in horror.

“I want all of you to do whatever it takes to defend the city, kill as many of the stripes as you can.” Night Stalker said as he turned toward a small door that was set toward the middle of the Lucky Horseshoe just under the tall spire.

“What about you Captain?” Thunderlane asked.

“I’ll join you momentarily, now move out!” he said as the rest of his team came running out the door.

Cloudy Nights and Thunderlane took off, Lightning ran over to Night Stalker and kissed him for a moment then said, “Stay safe.”

My host looked away for a moment as they kissed as Night Stalker said, “You too, now go.”

She flew off, her twin battle saddles firing as she dove for the ground. Once she was gone Minuette came through the door floating two sets of power armor behind her, Amethyst Star close behind dressed in black combat armor. When Minuette finally pushed past the rest of the team she said, “Sorry it took me so long boss, but it’s ready.”

“Good Job Minuette. Do you think you’ll be able to help in the fight?” Night Stalker asked.

She beamed, “No problem, Star and I will head down there right away.”

My host looked at the second set of power armor, I could tell now that it was bigger than Night Stalkers, but was just as black and menacing, “Min, what’s that?”

Amethyst Star answered, “It’s griffon Power Armor, Rainbow Dash said it’s something new the griffons are using during some of the bigger fights. She got this for you and I just finished doing my own touch ups.”

Greta looked it over, “It doesn’t protect as much as Night Stalkers does, it also looks like it would slow me down.”

“It won’t, it’s light weight at least for a griffon, and it’s flexible enough to handle the kind of flying and fighting you do. It will still protect you better than your combat armor does.” Amethyst Star said with a small blush.

“Just use it Greta, I don’t plan on losing any of you today.” Night Stalker said before turning to another pony in Power Armor, “Babs, you wanted to test out that new suit, well here’s your chance. I want you to go help protect The Strip, use your heavy guns to keep the advancing zebra’s from getting further into the city.”

“Yes SIR!” Bab’s said from inside the armor, then she ran toward the edge of the tower and jumped off yelling, “Look out below!”

Is she crazy! How well can power armor protect you from a fall like that? I heard a loud boom from Bab’s landing in the street far below, followed by the sound of a mini gun going off. I guess she’s okay.

Night Stalker ignored her and turned toward Noire, “You stay here.”

“But Captain, I can help.”

“No, you’ll only make things worse. Stay here and wait for my orders.”

Noire stomped his hoof, “I swore to you that I will serve you, I can help!” he fell to the ground as the collar around his neck shocked him. He screamed for only a moment then laid there breathing hard.

“You really need to learn to watch that temper.” He turned back to Amethyst Star, “Change of plans, you keep an eye on him while Minuette goes and helps the rest of us.”

“Yes sir.” She said walking over to help Noire up.

My host in the meantime moved over to the Griffon Power armor and after opening it with a gem on the back she stepped into it. It closed smoothly around her. The armor fit like a glove, covering her chest, neck and head. The armor also moved to cover a good amount of her torso, her wings were mostly covered save for her feathers, around her tail, and the top of her talons. Her beak was left uncovered, her eyes were shielded by a blood red visor. She pulled out her swords and smiled, “Okay, this isn’t as bad as I thought.”

Night Stalker just stepped out of his older set and into the new one, “Trust me, it’s a wonderful feeling. Now let’s show these zebra’s why you don’t mess with The Children of the Night!”

“I’ll go see about helping Comet Tail, I’ll make sure she can get Petal to safety, then I’ll regroup with you.” Greta said as she opened her wings.

“Good idea, I’m going to see if I can find the general who’s leading the Zebras.” Night Stalker said as he snapped his wings open. The blue glowing swords shimmering at the edge of his wing arms.

“Try not to kill him if you can, the M.O.M. will want him alive.” Minuette said.

Night Stalker looked back at her, “Fuck Pinkie Pie and what she wants. This is my city.” He tapped one of the many gems on his armor and in a flash of blue light he vanished, just like the Stranger.

Minuette beamed again, “Hey it worked! I wasn’t sure it would on it’s first test run.”

“Min, are you sure that new armor will keep the Captain safe.” My host asked before she jumped into the air.

Minuette shrugged, “Depends on how he uses it. The Captain likes to get in close for his kills, that’s why I put as much protection magic as I could on the suit. The problem is he’s more of a stealth killer, if he goes rushing a better fighter than him, he may not do as well. That armor can only protect him so much.”

“You underestimate him, he’s been training with Zaphan…I mean Noire for two months now. He’s grown as a hoof to hoof fighter.”

“He still can’t beat Noire in a one on one fight.”

Greta laughed and took off yelling down at Minuette, “Yeah, maybe in a fair fight, but Night Stalker doesn’t fight fair.”

Minuette smiled again then in a flash she was gone. In the corner of my hosts eyes I saw the blue unicorn reappear on the street using her magic to help Bab’s fight off fifteen zebras who were trying to push past the power armored mare. Then my host turned in flight and headed straight for The Applewood. She didn’t get far before she saw three zebras killing a group of ponies who’d gotten stuck in a dead-end alley way. She dove for them, her blades cutting neatly through the air as she dropped onto them. As she landed her blades decapitated one, sending his head arching toward the fleeing ponies. Her other blade slid half way through the second zebra’s head before coming to a halt.

Greta spun around lifting the already dead zebra off the ground and hurling his body toward the last zebra who was just turning to see what just happened. The dead zebra’s body flew off the end of Greta’s sword and slammed into the last zebra. He cried out in pain for only a moment as his body crunched against the far wall, my host put an end to that by stabbing him in the heart. Then something tinged off her armor. She turned and saw five more zebras running toward her from across the street.

“Oh Shit,” Greta said backing down the alley, doing her best to avoid the shots the zebras were firing. Then it seemed as if her suit acted on its own. The power armor made a strange sound as something poked out from its back. As it did a small marker showed up on her visor. She used it to aim then fired what sounded like a rifle on her back. The closest one to her fell and went rolling across the ground, his head blown clean off his shoulders. A second shot rang out as Greta fired a round into the next pony, who flew back into a third.

The fourth pony stopped the hurled something toward her. It was a shiny grenade with a blue band around it. It as a spark grenade, they knew the ponies…griffons…whatever, here had power armor and they came prepared. Greta jumped back again, but I could tell that it wouldn’t be fast enough. As the grenade was about to land next to Greta, another pegasus in combat armor came flying in, kicking the grenade flying harmlessly back the way it came. It went off, not hurting the zebras but also it was out of range of Greta.

The mare who just saved my host pulled a rifle off her back and fired twice. Both the Zebra’s fell with chunks of their heads missing. Greta laughed then said, “Good timing Comet Tail,”

The mare turned and winked, “Lucky I was flying over you when I saw them attacking.”

“Where’s Petal?” Greta asked.

“I was hoping you’d know, she wasn’t in the room. I was about to see if she came running out here when the Zebra’s attacked, but I haven’t seen her yet.” Comet Tail said looking past her at the few remaining ponies who looked terrified.

“Fuck, we have to find her,” Greta looked back at the ponies, “Any of you see a green pegasus with a pink mane by chance?”

“No, nopony like that was with us when we ran.” A stallion responded.

Greta swore again, “Fuck. Well you all should head to the north west exit for The Strip, so far, it’s clear that way. As soon as you’re clear of the city try and find a safe place to hide until this is over.”

They all ran past the two, then Comet Tail said, “The other’s need our help, let’s try and clean up the zebras around here for now, that way we can look for Petal. If we still can’t find her, then we’ll regroup with the Captain.”

“Good idea, I just hope she thought to run to the Lucky Horseshoe. She knows she’ll be safe there, she did help build it.” Greta said before they both flew into the air.

For the next couple of hours, I watched as Greta fought beside Comet Tail and a couple of the Shadowbolts as they did whatever they could to fight back the Zebras who were trying to take the city. Even in the power armor Greta moved unlike any griffon or pony I’d ever seen fight. She’d dart right at an enemy, ignoring the raised rifle or battle saddle and take them down without even getting shot. Her twin swords danced through the air like they were just an extension of her talons. Every time she twisted around, blood followed.

As the battle went on, I caught sight of every one of the Children fighting. I now understood why Night Stalker chose them. Thunderlane had to be one of the fastest ponies I’ve ever seen fight. He didn’t fly as fast as Night Stalker or Stardust could, but his attacks were spot on and quick. He could take out an enemy and be onto another fight before the zebra’s body even hit the ground. He reloaded so fast that it was just a blur, and that was just with his rifle. His battle saddle barked with each pass he made as he flew over the zebras, none of them lived long enough to warn their comrades about the black pegasus.

Minuette wasn’t just great at making new kinds of spells that could help her team, like with the gems she put into Night Stalker’s armor. No, she knows how to use her magic to kill just as well. She darted around the zebras as they tried to get close to finish her off, only to have the blue unicorn lightly dart around them then fire a small focused beam of magic at them. The beam of light was no bigger than a pencil, but when it shot through a zebra’s chest, head or back, they didn’t get back up to fight again.

Cloudy Nights fought like Stardust, her hoof to hoof combat style was quick and light, but each blow was perfectly placed to take her enemies down, on top of that she was a great markspony. She only carried a pistol in her muzzle as she fought, but that too was just as accurate as her blows.

Then I caught sight of Night Stalker himself, he moved like a demon. His attacks so fast they were a blur, his shimmering swords cut down a zebra before he knew what hit him. His plasma rifles on his battle saddle melted zebras right and left. When he could kill a zebra with his rifles or with his wing swords, he would simply twist around them and apple buck them as hard as he could. With his size and the strength his armor gave him, his kicks were so powerful, the zebras were dead before they hit the ground.

Finally, when the battle seemed like it was going to go bad for the city of Las Pegasus, the royal guard finally caught up. As soon as they entered the city, Zebra’s started to go down in waves. Dozens of ponies in power armor blew through the lines of zebras making room for the rest of the small army of ponies. Blood filled the streets now and piles of corpses littered the streets as the zebra’s moral started to break. It was then that the voice of Comet Tail spoke into the radio built in to Greta’s helmet, “I found Petal, she’s on the north side, she was trying to flee with some of the other civilians.”

“I’m on my way, do whatever you can to keep her and the ponies she’s with safe.” Greta said as she opened her wings and took off.

My host turned and flew toward where Comet Tail said she was, when something caught her eye. She looked down as she flew and she saw a single zebra running down an alleyway that lead right for where Comet Tail and Petal were. Something was glowing on his back as he flew toward the small group of ponies my host could just make out yelling, “FOR ROME!”

Greta picked up speed as she yelled into her radio, “Comet Tail, you have an incoming zebra coming in from your six, he’s got a bomb!”

Greta lost sight of him for a moment as she dodged around one of the taller buildings. As she flew around it, Comet Tail responded, “Don’t worry, I see…”

She was cut off as a huge explosion filled the air and a blast of fire erupted in the distance. Greta screamed, “Comet Tail!!!”

She just finished getting around the building when she saw what happened. Three smaller buildings that had been right where the ponies were, had been turned to rubble, a small crater was in the middle of the destruction and bodies littered the area around it. Greta landed hard next to the alley where she’d seen the Zebra. She took a moment to look over the damage before her eyes locked on a hunk of blackened meat from the suicidal zebra. His body had been thrown back into the far wall near her, most of his body destroyed by the blast. A few feet away Comet Tail was lying dead, her face mostly destroyed, a leg missing and her combat armor mostly torn away in the blast.

“No…no, no, no, noooo!” Greta said as she ran over to her comrade, “You damned fool, you should have gotten out of here!”

A weak voice echoed across the destruction, “G…Greta?”

My host’s head snapped up as she looked over to see a green pegasus mare lying a few feet outside of the blast zone. She jumped back to her talons and ran over to her, “Petal…Celestia no,”

Prickly Petal was laying on the ground smiling weakly up at the griffon. Three chunks of metal scraps were lodged in her belly and one in her right foreleg, “You…look really good in that armor Greta.”

My host gingerly pulled the pegasus closer, “Don’t talk, we need to get you to a doctor.”

Petal coughed, blood cascading from her muzzle for a moment before she was able to speak again, “No, there’s no time…listen to me Greta…I need to tell you something…before I can’t anymore.”

I could feel tears welling up in my hosts eyes, “Don’t talk like that, we can still…”

“It’s too late…I’m a smart mare I know how bad this is. Before I’m gone I need you to do me a favor.”

Greta set her down and opened the power armor, stepping out she went back to Petal and pulled her into her lap, “What do you need?”

She smiled and her eyes got a faraway look in them as she spoke, “I need you to swear to me that…you’ll keep watching over Moony.”

Greta sniffed, “That’s a silly favor to ask, you know he’s my best friend.”

“I know, but after I’m gone, I’m scared he’s going to let his anger grow. He thinks he can’t be happy, not after he lost his parents, not after he was forced to come back to Equestria. We are the only family he has, he needs us. please don’t let my death push him over the edge. He’s already done to much as it is…ever since he lost Big Mac.”

“He’ll be okay…I’ll make sure of it.”

Petal started to cough again, when she finished her voice sounded weaker, “I know what he’s planning with this project he’s having Stable Tec help him build. I looked over the files in his office when I went to inspect the cavern below the base. If he’s able to finish it…and it goes wrong…what he creates may be worse than this war. You have to talk him out of this foolish notion of making a new…”

She started to cough again, her body starting to go cold in Greta’s talons, “But if it works…” Greta said once Petal stopped again.

“If…if it works, I’m not sure if it will be a good thing or bad. That’s why I came to new pegasus early, I wanted to ask him to stop. I wanted to ask him to stop being the Captain.” She started to cry, “I don’t want him to hurt anymore…I want him to just be happy…to just come home and be the Moony I missed so much.”

“I’ll do whatever I can,”

Petal smiled again and her body relaxed in the griffons grip, “Please do. Hey Greta can I ask you something else?” Her eyes closing.

“Anything.”

“Do you love him?”

I felt my host’s body stiffen, “I love him like a brother, if that’s what you mean.”

She shook her head, “It’s not…but I shouldn’t have asked it.”

“It’s not like it matters, he’s a pony, I’m a griffon and he’s marrying Lightning.”

“I know, but the Greta I know wouldn’t let things like that bother her. Oh well, maybe it’s too hard to think about with the war and all, shame.” She smiled again as her eyes opened, but most of the light had vanished in them, “I know that I loved him. He never saw it though, he just saw me as his little sister. But I’ve been in love with him since the day he came to live with us. He was so handsome and sad…I just wanted to…”

She lost the thought and I could see a bit of panic fill the young Pegasus’ face. Greta pulled her close, “Petal…I know and don’t you worry, I’ll make sure he’s okay, I’ll watch after him for you. I’ll tell him how you felt…but please you have to hold on!”

“Moony? I’m sorry…” She said.

“He’s not here Petal he’s still fighting…” Greta said.

She didn’t seem to hear, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming here today Moony…I just wanted you to…come…home…big brother…please come………….”

Petal’s body shook violently for a moment, then a small whisper of air left her muzzle as her body went limp. Greta started to sob uncontrollably then she threw her head into the air and let out a scream that would make Wind Thrasher jealous. A long high-pitched note that carried across the now silent battle field. A moment later three Shadowbolts landed next to her and one pegasus in black and blue power armor.

Night Stalker slowly walked over to my host, then removing his helmet he fell in the dirt next to his dead little sister and Greta who was still holding her close, “Petal…no…please no.”

Greta chocked back a sob then said, “She tried to get away…Comet Tail found her and the others here and was protecting them, a suicide bomber took them out before I could reach them.”

Night Stalker pulled the dead mare into his arms, “I can’t…I can’t lose her too,”

Most of the Children of the Night showed up as Night Stalker held onto his sister. Thunderlane moved closer, “Sir…we drove them out, only a few got away. We were able to capture at least fifty of them, what do you want us to do? Should we send them over to Pinkie?”

Night Stalker slowly set his sister down, used a hoof to close her eyes, then he stood and looked over at his team, then the Shadowbolts behind them and what was left of Las Pegasus, “No.”

“Then what should we do? Luna will want to know if they are planning anything else.” Lightning said walking closer to their captain.

He looked at all of them for a long moment, then his gaze fell on my host, “You said a suicide bomber killed them, right?”

My host nodded, “Yes Sir.”

His gaze fell on the soldiers and his team again, “Kill them all, leave only five alive to give over to Pinkie, but only after Minuette goes through their memories.”

One of the Shadowbolts walked over, “Are you crazy Night Stalker? The Zebra’s we captured are prisoners of war, we can’t just kill them.”

Night Stalkers tail whipped around and stopped an inch away from the Mare’s neck, the glowing stinger sparking a little, “I’m not going to repeat myself Commander Blaze.”

The mare started to shake then she took a single step back, “Yes…sir.”

He pulled his tail back and yelled, “Search the surrounding areas for any Zebras, if they have stripes they DIE, now move out!”

Every last pony apart from his team took off. Minuette started to say, “Sir, you need to calm down…”

Night Stalker interrupted her, “Minuette, don’t try and give me orders. Now I want you to go get Noire and bring him to Star Gazer Labs.”

Every one of his team’s eyes got wide as Minuette said, “We scrapped that Project months ago sir, why bring him there?”

Night Stalker looked back at his dead sister, then his eyes moved to look at the dead Comet Tail, “I want him to look at what we did there so he can tell us what we did wrong. Show him everything and see if he can help us making Falling Shadows better. We can’t let something like this happen again. We lost another one of our teammates today, and I lost my sister. We are going to put a stop to it once and for all. Now go.”

No one moved, Greta put a talon on his shoulder, “Captain…”

He looked over at his friend, and the anger I saw in Night Stalker’s Emerald Green eyes scared me more than anything I’d ever seen before, “Let go of me…”

“Moony I just…”

“I told you not to call me that!” he yelled, “That buck is dead and gone, I’m Night Stalker now! Now do as I ordered, or else!”

Greta’s talon slowly slid off his shoulder, she looked down at the ground and said in a quiet voice, “Understood sir.”

The others did as well and they all went off to what he said. When they were gone Night Stalker looked back at Greta and his hard demeaner fell and he started to sob, “I’m sorry my friend…I’m just so angry right now.”

His sudden change in personality was so sudden I wasn’t sure what just happened, but Greta seemed to understand. She pulled Night Stalker close to her and let him cry, she didn’t say anything for a long moment. She just let her friend be a normal pony for a few minutes, she let him be the big brother who’d just lost his sister, before he had to go back to being that hard pony again. When he finally started to stop shaking my hosts eyes went wide as she said, “Boss, I didn’t see Babseed with the others.”

Night Stalker pulled away from her a look of worry on his face, “Shit, you’re right!” he pulled back on his helmet and turned on his radio as my host got back into her own power armor, “Team, locate Babs! She may be hurt.”

As the rest of the team started to respond to their Captains orders, a soft voice echoed around Night Stalker and Greta, the voice was the same one I heard when the memory of Night Stalker’s team taking down that Pegasus who betrayed Equestria to Rome, “And then there were eight….”

oooOOOooo

As I came out of the memory orb I couldn’t help but thinking that I missed something. Just like mom said in her note about the last orb, she told me to watch it carefully, but it was hard too. So much happened during that memory, from Night Stalker’s new armor, to the assault on Crimson Canyon, the fight in Las Pegasus, to the death of another one of the Children of the Night and the death of Night Stalker’s sister. At the end it seemed like something also happened to Babseed as well, but what? She couldn’t have died because from what mom said in that memory of when I was cured, she said Babs was killed by Greta.

Then I remembered that voice, it said something about “then there was eight.” When Night Stalker killed Captain Flash Sentry, the same thing happened only it said “and then there were nine.” Back when I saw the memory of when Night Stalker brought Lightning Dust to join the Children, she was the last member to join. On that day there was Night Stalker, Minuette, Amethyst Star, Thunderlane, Cloudy Nights, Comet Tail, Babseed, Phoenix Heart, Greta (Who wasn’t there but still a member). With Lightning Joining them it made ten members of the Children of the Night. Phoenix Heart was killed by Zaphan, on the same night the Captain killed Flash Sentry. When he died he said he cursed Night Stalker and his team.

If that curse was the thing killing off his The Children of the Night, then why did that voice say eight when there were still Nine since Zaphan joined them. Was it because he wasn’t a full member or was it because Night Stalker didn’t trust him? What am I missing? Then it hit me, Zaphan changed his name to Noire after he made a blood oath to help Night Stalker end the war. He wasn’t cursed like the rest of them because he joined afterwards. Night Stalker also told Minuette to take Noire to the Star Gazer labs to learn all he could about Falling Shadows, the new project they were working on. Toward the beginning of that memory Greta talked to Noire about what he learned from the old books. Noire said something about a tribe of zebras called the Starkatteri. Night Stalker wanted to use the power of the Stars for some kind of weapon to end the war. He was using Noire and his knowledge to help him finish his plans.

Mom was researching a project called Falling Shadows, I remember that from her notes. At first, she was looking into it so she could save my life, but later she ended up looking more into Star Gazer. I thought she didn’t find the right project at first, but I was wrong. She had found the right project, she just worked backwards to get to Star Gazer, because she knew the power it had could save me. She needed powerful Light magic to destroy the darkness around my heart. I always wondered why she kept working on this quest of hers even after I was safe. It’s because she knows something more about Falling Shadows, the project that succeeded Star Gazer.

Something else hit me just then too, the words Aquila said to me when I was still a filly. ‘She says she wants to use it to cure you and I’m sure she does, but I can see what is in pony’s hearts, she wants my power for more than just saving you.’ Mom wants to find Falling Shadows so she can take whatever power it has for herself, and she’s using me to fulfill her goal. She knew she missed something in that orb, because she didn’t see as many or at least the same memory orbs I had about The Children of the Night. Somehow, she knew I’d learn what she didn’t and I’d be able to put together the pieces. The question was, why does she need the Mark II? Why does she need THIS Mark II?

Stable 9 was where they were placed to keep them away from Night Stalker. Sweetie Belle had asked Apple Bloom to hide them there. Sweetie Belle must have found something out about Falling Shadows and used her Pip-Buck to lock him out of it, or at least something he needed to make it work. Then she begged her friend to hide all three. That’s why the memory orbs for Night Stalker were in that Stable as well, that way the Stable Dwellers for stable 9 would know who he was and his team. They made sure that no matter what, Night Stalker wouldn’t get his hooves on the Mark II. If Dr. Cell hadn’t attacked the Overmare and the Stable, the Mark II would still be safely hidden away.

Mom knew from the beginning that she needed it, that’s why she tricked Cookie Byte’s mom into taking it off. She learned about the Mark II before she even left home. She knew more about The Children of the Night, more than any other pony alive. That’s why she left with me and came right to New Pegasus, she needed to get her hooves on the Pip-Buck. The question is how did she know it was in Trotston? Oh fuck, that’s right, Elder Wolfsbane had gone to Stable Tec headquarters a long time ago. He must have found out about what was in Stable 9 while he was there. Mom was working with him while she was in Hidden Sands, he told her about the Mark II and the stable it was in. She must have figured one of them made it out of the stable with the ponies who escaped.

I was starting to understand what mom was doing now. I don’t know why she wants this power or who she’s working for, but it had something to do with Wolfsbane. How long has she been hiding her true intentions? Who else knew what she was doing or why? The only answer I could think of was asking Vervain. She is the only pony I know who may know what mom was trying to do. She said something to mom about her mission when she left the stable eight years ago. Vervain also used to work with Wolfsbane back in Los Alicorn, before she came back to Hidden Sands. She may be part of this too and I trusted her. She’s the one who pushed me to leave the Stable, she’s the one who made sure I went looking for mom, she’s the one who told me to get the Pip-Buck to mom.

Well I can’t do it, not until I talk to Vervain about all of this. I’m getting the truth one way or another. I’m not any pony’s puppet, not my moms, not Wolfsbane’s, not Vervain’s. I’m my own mare, this is my life and I won’t let them use me again, no matter how much I owed them my life. I’m getting the truth, and once I do and I find out what this Project Falling Shadow’s is, I’m going to destroy it. If so many ponies wanted it, and Night Stalker put so much work into building it, then I can’t let it fall into the wrong pony’s hooves.

I finally opened my eyes wondering how long I was out. It was then that I realized I was laying against Aura’s belly as she slept. We were both outside of the Sky Carriage, lying next to a mostly burnt out camp fire. Slowly I sat up and saw that every pony was asleep. I wasn’t sure where we were, but from the temperature and the land scape, I figure we have to be close to New Pegasus.

As I looked around the small camp I saw a bright blue white light in a small break in the cloud layer. It illuminated the top of the Sky Carriage and sitting on top of it was the dark outline of a pony. He was looking up at the cloudy night sky, a tuft of his dark mane flowing in the soft breeze. Then he spoke as if he was talking to nopony but himself, his voice was one I knew well, it was the Stranger, “Celestia or Luna, if you’re up there I could really use your help. I’m lost, I don’t know where I should go next. I want to tell her, but I don’t know how, I’m not even sure she’d believe me if I did. Every pony’s been lying to her for so long, so why should she believe me. Am I doing the right thing by keeping my promise to look over her and guide her to her true purpose. Is she ready to take on the role of being the new Guardian? I’ve been doing this for so very long and I’m starting to lose faith in everything because of it. I don’t want to put her through this, but what other choice to do I have?”

What was he talking about? Is he talking about me or some other pony? I moved slowly to get back to my hooves, but as I did my hoof slipped on a rock. The Stranger’s head flipped around and all I could see of him was his bright green eyes looking down at me, the embers of the dying fire shimmering off a dark face not covered by bandages. The light was poor and I still couldn’t make out his face only his eyes. A moment later his hoof came up and pulled the white bandages over his face and head once again covering himself from the world. He picked up his black desperado hat and covered the last bit of his mane that poked through the top of his bandages.

I moved closer looking up at him, “Those aren’t really bandages, it’s a mask.”

He looked down at me for a long moment before nodding then saying in a quiet voice, “That they are, makes it easier to discard if I need too. Come up here and sit with me Shadow, I’d like to have a word with you before you get back to New Pegasus.”

I sighed and used my magic to teleport myself up to him. I moved to sit next to him and watched as he went back to looking up at the clouds, “I hope I didn’t interrupt something.”

I saw him smile a little, “Not really, I just got lost in old memories is all.”

“Memories of who?”

He sighed and let his gaze move from the clouds to me, “Lost loved ones and friends.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’ve told you already, I’m no pony, I have no name, no face, no family, no friends, only duty. I am the Guardian, nothing more and nothing less.”

“Bull shit, you’re somepony I know or at least one I knew when I was younger. Is that why you’re hiding your identity from me?”

“I told you before Shadow, I can’t tell you who I am or let you see my face incase somepony takes that knowledge from you.”

“Or you don’t want me to know who you are because you’re scared of how I’ll react. I know it’s bullshit, all of it, there’s more to you than just a stallion who’s looking after me for Nightshade. Who were you talking about just a moment ago?”

“No pony…”

“Stop lying to me and tell me who you are. Please, I’m so tired of being left in the dark, I want somepony to tell me the truth for once. Are you Striker?”

His eyes went wide when I said his name, “No…I’m not him.”

“Then you know who he is.” I said.

“Everypony from Nimbus knows who Striker is. He’s your uncle, the stallion who killed his parents and fled The Enclave. He became a rebel who did everything he could to bring down the Enclave. For years he killed scores of pegasi, even killing some of the former council ponies for Thunderhead, Neighvarro, Stratus, and Nimbus. In the end it was his undoing, he tried to go up against Neighvarro itself and died because of it.” The Stranger said.

I figured that he would say something about Striker being dead, but the way he said it made me believe he was telling the truth. That was too much detail for a quick lie, “Then why did you ask the Goddesses if you should tell ‘Her’ who you are? I know you meant me.”

He chuckled lightly, “And how do you know that?”

“Who else could it be, you’re here right now, waiting for me to wake from a memory orb. Who else could you be talking about? Are you my dad?”

He sighed again, his hoof coming up to rest on my shoulder, “I wish I could tell you that I was, but…”

“Don’t tell me he’s dead. I remember my mom using a spell on me to make me think he was dead, she did the same to Vervain. The story I’ve heard from everypony say the same thing, he died attacking the Steel Rangers. His unit was wiped out, but I don’t think it was. You have to be him, why else would you be helping me like you are?”

“You’re too smart for your own good you know that?”

“I’m my mother’s daughter, smarts run in the family.”

He sighed again and his hoof fell slowly from my shoulder, “To answer your question, I’m not him, but as for your father’s death. No pony knows what really happened to him. He did attack the Steel Rangers and his unit was wiped out, but we never found his body. No pony was left alive to tell us what happened to him, for all we know he could either be a prisoner of The Steel Rangers, or he was dragged away and later killed by them. He could’ve lived through the attack but died later from some kind of creature. Nightshade led the search for him, they tried to find him for months, but nothing ever turned up. If he is alive, I can’t help you. Even if he is out there somewhere, he wouldn’t be the same pony you knew back then. In the last few weeks before he attacked the Rangers, he was losing his mind I think. Nightshade tried to stop him from going after you, but in the end, he failed.”

“I just want to understand why Nightshade or you care enough about me to put yourselves at risk. I don’t get it. I’m not that important, I’m just a mare.” I said looking down at my hooves.

“Shadow you’re more than just a mare.”

“Yeah I know, my Pip-Buck…” I started to say but he cut me off.

“No, it’s not because of that. Nightshade would have still sent me to keep an eye on you even If you were the most uninteresting mare in The Wasteland. He may not show it, but he does care about what happens to you. He thinks of you as family, maybe because of his friendship with your father, I’m not sure. He wants you to be safe and happy. That’s why he made sure to clear your name so the Enclave would leave you alone.”

“If that’s true then why is he sending me after mom?”

He shrugged, “I may owe my life to Nightshade, but that doesn’t mean I know everything he’s thinking. It could be that he wants to help you find her, or because he knows you need to finish what you started.”

“I think he wants me to kill her.”

The Stranger went silent for a moment, “I don’t think he wants her dead, though after what she’s done it may be unavoidable. The best thing would be for you to fix her memories, that would be the best way to bring her back.”

“If I knew how to do that I would have already.”

He chuckled again then reached under his trench coat and pulled out a leather-bound book, “This is one reason I wanted to meet with you before you went back to New Pegasus. This is one of your mother’s spell books. Nightshade said she found it in an old library. It’s full of useful spells, but most of all, it’s where your mom learned most of her memory spells. If you study it, you may find a counter spell that can fix what happened to Grim.”

I took the spell book in my magic and slowly opened it. The pages looked old and worn, but nicely preserved for how old it had to be, “How did you get your hooves on this?”

“When Grim left the Crystal Empire with you, she left a few things behind. When your father died, Nightshade made sure to get hold of all of his possessions, this was one of them. When I told him you needed to learn memory spells he said I should give you this.”

I closed the book and set it down, “It’s not a bad idea, but there’s a problem.”

“How so?”

“To perform a counter spell or a spell reversal, I’d have to know what spell she used to remove her memories. I may not know any memory spells, but I now a lot about them from mom. There isn’t just one kind of memory spell, she knew over fifty maybe more. There’re ways to block a memory, pull one from a pony’s head, ways to view a memory and so many more. Any of those spells could have been used to make her forget me. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Hmmmm, well I may be able to help with that,” The Stranger said, “From the reports Nightshade read, Grim was trying to use a special and hard memory spell on another unicorn. That unicorn used some kind of spell to make your mother’s magic rebound on her. From the pony who made the report, they said the spell was meant to remove the memory of a pony who was special to that pony. Since it rebounded back onto your mom, it took away her memories of you.”

“That doesn’t make sense, if that spell was used, mom wouldn’t know anything about me, she only forgot the past few years. She thinks I died, but she still knows she had a daughter.”

“I wouldn’t know, all I know is what was written in the report. Maybe she had her own kind of ward against that kind of magic.”

“You may be onto something there. When I told Vervain that mom forgot who I was, she said that shouldn’t be possible. She told me that mom placed protection spells on herself to keep other ponies from reading her memories or for removing them. She said that only mom could use memory spells on herself, if that spell rebounded, maybe those protection spells stopped the magic from wiping away everything.”

“It’s possible, but the question is does that help you?” he asked.

“Maybe. I’ll have to look through this book and see what I can learn from it. If I can find a spell that matches what she used, then I might be able to reverse it. That is if I can get close enough to her to use a spell like that and if I’m strong enough. Memory spells take a lot of power to cast and if you do it wrong you can end up hurting yourself.”

“Then I suggest you start looking into it.”

“I will, if I can save my mom then I’ll do that. Though I’m still not sure I can trust her.”

He looked at me quizzically, “Why’s that?”

I sighed again, “I think she’s been using me to help finish her mission. That’s why she left the Mark II for me, and why she wanted me to search for her and find the memory orbs. Something bigger is going on and I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of it with no idea what I’m really doing.”

The Stranger reached out and patted my back a little, “Maybe she is, but it may not be as bad as you think. Don’t give up hope so quickly. Just don’t play her game, do what you think is right, that’s all that matters.”

I smiled, “Thank you Stranger.”

“It’s no problem Shadow.”

We both sat there for a long time just watching the clouds and the small light from the moon that shone through. After some time passed I asked, “Stranger, do you have any children?”

He didn’t answer me for a long time, finally when I looked up at him, I saw tears in his eyes. He saw that I noticed and he quickly wiped them away before saying, “I did, I had a wife too.”

“What…happened to them?”

“I lost them, because I was too weak to save them. I was always too busy to be with them, I was always flying between Nimbus and Stratus. I always told myself that my work as The Guardian was too important to worry about others. I was a selfish stallion back then, my wife knew it too, but she still loved me and supported me. She was a good mare, so beautiful and kind, same for my foal. I wish I would have spent less time doing…this…and spent it with them. The sad part is, even after losing them both, nothing has changed for me, it’s like my life continues as normal, like I had no wife, or foal.” He said, his voice going very quiet.

“The Wasteland is everywhere, no matter what you do to keep it away, it always finds you. Even in the cloud cities I guess.”

He sighed, “That it does.”

As he spoke he pulled out a little hoof made doll shaped like a bird. When I saw it I asked, “Was that your foal’s doll?”

He pulled it close to his face and took in a deep breath and more tears fell from his eyes. After a moment he returned it to a pocket inside his coat, “Yes it was. It’s all I have left to remember them by. Even after so many years, it still smells like them, or at least I tell myself that it does.”

For the first time, I felt bad for the mysterious pony who kept his face hidden from the world. The pony who went out of his way to protect others and who lost his family keeping a secret project hidden from the world. He’d given up so much for his duty. Now I saw him for who he really was, a sad lonely stallion who hated himself for not being there when his family needed him. Was this how my father felt when mom left with me? I’m sure it was, even though I couldn’t remember his face, I did remember a lot of times when my dad read me stories, told me about his day at work, held me on the days when my sickness got bad and I couldn’t even move. We had been close, when mom took me away from him, it must have been like somepony ripped a part of his soul away.

“I’m sorry if I brought up bad memories.” I finally said.

He sniffed and dried his eyes again, “It’s not your fault and I wouldn’t say they are bad memories. I just miss them, that’s all.”

“I know, I feel the same about my dad. I just wish I could remember his face, his name, anything apart from his voice and even that’s not clear.”

The Stranger smiled again and looked over at me, “He was a good stallion, he could be hard headed at times, but still he was good.”

“How well did you know him?” I asked.

“Not as well as Nightshade, but well enough to miss his company.”

“Can…can you at last tell me his name? Maybe then I’ll be able to find out more about him.”

He opened his muzzle saying, “I guess you’ll find out sooner or later…his name is…” right as he was about to say my father’s name. He started to choke and a small glow of blue light escaped his muzzle instead of words. He frowned and coughed then cleared his through, “What the hell?”

“I was about to say the same thing, what was that.”

“I have no idea, let me try again, his name is…” it happened again, this time The Stranger fell and coughed harder, “Why can’t I say his name? I’ve spoken of him before to others.”

I felt something creeping up my back and a moment later I heard Oricalcos’ voice whisper in my ear, “That’s a silence spell, it was another kind of magic my sister was good at. She must have run into The Stranger before and made sure he couldn’t speak your father’s name to you.”

“But why would she do that?” I whispered back.

The Stranger looked at me, “What would who do what?”

My uncle said quickly, “I’m not sure, but I’ve seen that spell before, she used it on me as well. For some reason she wanted to make sure you couldn’t find your dad.”

I didn’t want The Stranger to know about Oricalcos so I replied “I was just thinking that I’ve seen that spell before, did you run into my mom at some point in the past, before she lost her mind?”

“Only once, she tried to attack me. She did land a blow, but the spell she used didn’t seem to do anything, at least I thought it didn’t. Are you saying that she made it so that I couldn’t speak his name to you?”

“It’s possible, she did want me to think he was dead. Maybe she wanted to make sure I couldn’t go looking for him or find out more about him. I’m not sure why though.”

“Can you remove it?”

“I don’t think so, not unless that spell is in this spell book. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Fuck, I knew I got off too easily in that fight.” He said stomping a hoof.

“Wait, why was mom trying to kill you if she hadn’t lost her memories yet?”

He winced a little, “Well Nightshade did send me to capture her when we found her location. This was a week or so before she lost her memories. She knew what it meant when I showed up and she tried to kill me.”

“I think the best thing to do is to find her and find out why she wanted to keep my father’s name secret.”

“I agree,” He said then he jumped to his hooves, “Shit, I just realized I’ve spent too much time here!”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I only came down here to give you that spell book and to give you something else, Nightshade’s on his way back to Stratus right now. If I’m gone too long the ponies around him will wonder where I’m at.” He said reaching to his side and pulling out a huge case, “I wanted to make sure this got back to Stardust, he left it behind when he went after you when he was still Pride.”

I took the case with my magic and opened it, inside was Wrath’s AMR. The scope was still mostly destroyed, and I could see some of Wrath’s blood was still on it, “Why give him this?”

“It’s a good rifle to have.”

“Why would he leave this behind when he came after me? With this, he could have killed us easily.” I asked.

“Two reasons. One he hadn’t had time to fix the scope yet, second, he can’t fire it. The rifle has a huge kick, since he’s not a unicorn he’ll have to fire it just like any other rifle. With its recoil, if he fired it, he’d lose most of his teeth. When he was Pride he was going to install a gem that takes away most of the recoil so he could fire it, but he didn’t have the time. I figured that since he took it from Wrath, he should be the one to have it.”

I closed the case, “I guess so, but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about it now that he’s back in his right mind.”

“If he doesn’t want to keep it then that’s up to him. If he wants to sell it, he’ll still be able to get a good price for it even in the condition it’s in.”

“I’ll make sure he gets it.” I said.

“Thank you. Well I’m heading back. I’ll check in with you in a few days, in the meantime, stay safe,” he said opening his wings, “Oh and Shadow.”

“Yeah?”

He smiled, “You and Aura look cute together, don’t mess it up.”

I blushed as he chuckled, he tapped the gem on his coat and in a flash, he was gone. Fuck I just remembered I was going to ask him about that strange unicorn Hex and tell him he was trying to get his hooves on The Stranger’s revolver for some goddess’s awful reason. I guess I’ll just have to tell him next time I see him. It’s not like Hex is going to just show up in New Pegasus and attack him. Now that I thought about it, he said he was a hunter, just like Squirrel and Moose. Maybe I should visit them at The Jetblue Sky port and see if they knew anything about him.

“Hey Shadow why are you all the way up there?” I heard Aura ask.

Turning I saw she was rubbing her eyes looking up at me, “Sorry, I was just talking to The Stranger. You just missed him.”

She yawned, “Damn, I wanted to ask him something.”

I jumped down and walked over to her, “Like what?”

“Nothing important,”

“Oh come on tell me!” I said.

She yawned again, “Tomorrow, right now I just want to get back to sleep. You should do the same, we have a long day tomorrow and you really need your rest.”

“I spent the past few hours in a memory orb, I don’t think I need rest.” Honestly, I felt tired, but sleep just seemed silly after being in the orb for so long.

“It’s not the same thing, you need real sleep.” She said reaching out and taking hold of my foreleg, “Doctors orders, now get over here.”

I giggled as she pulled me close and soon I found myself wrapped in her forelegs, my head resting on her chest as her wings covered me like a blanket. I didn’t think I needed sleep like she said, but as soon as my eyes closed I drifted off to sleep, the sounds of Aura humming a little tune to herself was the last thing I heard.

***

The next day I was awoken by Wingnut who wouldn’t stop poking me, “Don’t you ever get up before noon?”

I yawned and opened my eyes slowly, “Not unless I have too. What time is it?”

“Six in the morning, now get up, we have to head out.” He said poking me again.

“I’m up…fuck kid give a mare a moment.” I said slowly getting up. Aura must have gotten up before me, letting me sleep a little longer. She was sitting by the dead fire eating something that looked like meat from a can.

I looked over at her and asked, “What the fuck is that?”

“Cram, want some?” she asked, her beak full of…yuck.

“No thanks, ponies don’t eat meat.” I said reaching into my saddle bags and pulling out some Sugar Apple Bombs.

Stardust chuckled, “That’s not true, ponies CAN eat meat, we just don’t do it much.”

Yaksha stuck her tongue out, “That is just gross, why would any pony apart from a raider eat meat?” She thought for a moment “Then again there was that one time I cooked ant meat.” She shook her head “No, ant meat and actual meat are two different things.

Wingnut looked at her with a disgusted look on his face, “You ate meat from a bug?”

She nodded, “It is just an insect, they are not bad if I am being honest.”

The colt stuck his tongue out at her, “No thanks, I’ll pass on that.”

Stardust laughed again, “I take it you haven’t had bacon.”

The Zebra looked at him confused, “What is…bacon?”

“It’s…wait you don’t know what bacon is?” he asked.

“No, but if it is meat, then I do not want to know.” She said then looked over at me, “Shadow, is that all you are going to eat?”

I nodded, “It’s all I have and it’s really good.”

She sighed, “That is all sugar, you cannot live off of just that. Here try something I cooked up last night.”

“Wait you have more of that strange stuff you made last night!?” Wingnut said excitedly, “I want more!”

I looked at what she pulled out of her bags. It was some kind of green and yellow plants covered in a white paste, “I think I’ll pass, that looks nasty.”

Wingnut’s jaw dropped open, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten Shadow, you really should try it.”

“The Kid’s not wrong Shadow, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like it before. Wind Thrasher ate four helpings.” Stardust said.

Wind Thrasher blushed, “It made me feel better and it was good.”

Yaksha smiled happily, “I made dinner for everyone last night, sadly you were still in that memory orb when we all went to bed or I would have made sure you had some as well. Also yes Wingnut I have more and plenty for everyone, even Aura.”

“No thanks, I don’t eat that kind of thing. I don’t care how good it looks, but a griffon can’t live off of plants alone, we need meat every now and then and I haven’t had any in weeks. I need to get my strength up, I’m still recovering.” Aura said before slurping a big chunk of something out of the can.

I gagged then looked back at Yaksha, “Well if they all think it’s good I guess I’ll try it, it can’t be anywhere near as gross as that Anti-Venom Aura made.”

“Bite me Shrimp, that gross stuff saved your life.” She said with a smile.

Ignoring her I took a helping from Yaksha, slowly I took a small bite, expecting to start gagging as soon as I tried to swallow. As soon as it touched my tongue, my eyes went wide and I took a bigger bite, “Oh my goddesses, where has this wonderful food been all my life!”

Yaksha laughed, “It is a simple recipe, I could teach you how to make it if you wish.”

“Hell yeah, if I can have food like this every day, I’d be the happiest mare on Equis.”

“Then I will make sure to add that to the lessons we will start with later today.” Yaksha said starting to eat her own meal, “This kind of meal is also very good for you.”

“How so?” I asked as I ate the last of what she gave me.

“Zebra recipes can help you in many different ways. That brew is an old zebra meal for increasing stamina and agility. You will have more energy for the whole day and feel less hungry later.”

“Now that’s a useful thing to know, what else can you make?” I asked.

Yaksha took a moment to think, “Well, I am not as skilled with potions as my mother was, but I do know how to make a potion that can heal you faster and better than a normal healing potion made by magic, I know potions that can strengthen your bones, some that will enhance your sight, and a few more. I also know a lot of regular food recipes as well.”

“Do they all taste this good?” Wingnut asked with is muzzle full of food.

“Hey kiddo, swallow before you speak please.” Stardust said.

Wingnut gulped then smiled, “Sorry Stardust!”

Stardust facehoofed, “Please tell me I wasn’t that annoying as a colt.”

We all laughed, then Yaksha said, “Most of them are good, though some are more of an acquired taste.”

“It sounds like some of what you know could help us if we’re in a fight.” I said.

“They can, though I would suggest you do not try to alter yourself to much with my brews. Some of the brews I know only last a day or two, but most will stay with you forever, if you use to many of those it could have a negative effect not a positive one. One should never alter themselves too much.”

“But if we wanted something to just change one thing about ourselves, that would be okay?” I asked.

“It would, but I would still think before you decide to do so.” Yaksha said.

“Hmmm, I guess you have a point.” I said.

“That I do. Now we must be going yes?” Yaksha said getting to her hooves.

“Yeah, I’d like to reach Cartwheel today.” Aura said getting up as well and stretching, “Though I’m still not up to full strength.”

“You can take a break Aura,” Wind Thrasher said, “I’m feeling a lot better after eating Yaksha’s cooking last night and today.”

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“Yes, but if I start to get tired, I’ll be sure to let you know.” Wind Thrasher said with a big smile, showing off her rows of sharp teeth. One day I’m going to have to tell her how creepy that looks, but for now I’d let it go.

“Okay then, let’s head out.” Aura said.

“Oh before we go,” I said running over to the Sky carriage and pulling the case The Stranger gave me last night off the roof where I left it, “The Stranger was here last night, he wanted me to give you this Stardust.”

He looked at the case then opened it, “This is Wrath’s AMR…why’s he giving it to me?”

“He said you should have it since you took it from Wrath.”

He looked a little sick as the memory of that night must have flashed in his head, “I did, but still it feels wrong to take this.”

“I think you should, I know you killed him because you weren’t in your right mind, but maybe by using his best rifle, it’ll be a way to honor his memory.”

“Maybe, I mean after what you told me about that night and Wrath’s past, I feel kind of bad for killing him. I remember why I took it and what I was planning on doing with it.” He said slowly closing the case, “Still I’ll hold on to it for now while I think of what I want to do, maybe I’ll fix it up some and make it easier for a pegasus to use.”

“Good enough for me, even if you decide to sell it later, it will still be worth a lot of caps.” I said happily.

“That it will,” he said before picking up the case and walking into the Sky Carriage.

Wind Thrasher hooked up to the front and soon we were off. As soon as we started heading west again, Yaksha came over to where I was sitting in the carriage looking over the book The Stranger gave me last night, Aura sitting to one side looking out of the window.

“Shadow, are you ready to start learning what I have to teach you?” she asked.

I closed the book and looked over at her, “I’m not sure. I still don’t know how you can help me with my magical control or with the other thing I have a problem with.”

“It is true that I may not know how to use magic in the same way you do, but I have read a lot of books and old scrolls about it. Since your own mother did not teach you how to use your magic, at least that is what I am guessing from what your friends told me while you were in the orb. Then I can at least pass down the lessons in her place.” Yaksha said sitting next to me.

“I guess it can’t hurt, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

She smiled, “It is simple. From what I learned, you have a great amount of power, but not much control over what you have. At least not as much as you should for what you can do. To fix this you need to learn how to clear your mind.”

“How can I do that? Do you know how hard it is for me to stop thinking?”

Aura chuckled, “That’s for sure. She can’t even stop thinking when she has someone like me doing naughty things to her.”

“AURA!” I said mortified.

Wingnut’s attention snapped from the conversation he was having with Stardust to Aura. His jaw dropped open, “Tell, me, EVERYTHING!”

“NO!” I said.

Aura grinned, “Well I first I noticed it when I was running my talons just under…”

“Aura I swear to Luna, don’t say another word!” I said, glaring over at her.

“Awww, but don’t you think he deserves to know. Wingnut is the one who helped us get together even though he has a huge crush on you.”

“YES…I DO!” he said his eyes glued on Aura.

All my friends laughed as I blushed out of embarrassment. I looked back at Yaksha, “I give you my friends.”

Yaksha smiled “I remember being teased similarly with my group of friends I travelled with.”

My eyes grew wide “What do you mean similarly?”

Yaksha frowned, “Now is not the time Shadow we need to focus on this.” She gestured at the book and went back to explaining to me what I needed to do to clear my mind, “Also, while I am teaching her, I would like the rest of you to leave her alone. She does not have much time and I would like to make sure she is not worrying about her love life.”

It turned out that what Yaksha had me do is meditate. She explained everything I needed to do, from how to sit, to how to breath. I listened to everything she said, doing my best to clear my mind. I didn’t do very well at first, but as time went on I started to understand what she was saying. That is how the next few hours went as we grew ever closer to home. After she finished with her first lesson she told me I should take a break, so the rest of the trip I pulled out mom’s spell book and looked up the chapter that had to do with memory spells.

An hour and a half after I started reading the chapter about memory spells, Wind Thrasher said, “Shadow!”

Closing the book I walked over to the small window in the front of the Sky Carriage asking, “What’s wrong Wind Thrasher?”

She was starting to bring the Sky Carriage down, as she did she said, “I smell blood. A lot of blood.”

I looked at the map on my Pip-Buck and saw that we weren’t far from Cartwheel, “How far is it!”

“Just below us, a little down the road from Cartwheel and off the path.” She said, “I think I see Steel Ranger armor.”

“Let’s check it out, if something happened to one of the patrols I’ll have to make sure Elder Appleslice knows.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea Shadow?” Aura asked.

“No, but if Steel Rangers died near Cartwheel, then the town may be in danger too.”

Wind Thrasher landed the Sky Carriage and we all stepped out. As we did Stardust asked, “Wind Thrasher, where are you smelling the blood? I’m not seeing anything.”

She pointed toward a small hill a few feet away, “Just around there, I don’t want to get too close, the smell’s making me feel…a little strange.”

“Let’s go check it out.” I said, “Yaksha can you wait here with Wind Thrasher?”

“I will, but if you need help, just yell.” She said.

The rest of us pulled out our weapons and slowly walked toward the hill. As I got closer the metallic smell of blood filled my nostrils and I gagged at the smell mixed with rotting flesh. As we rounded the bend I saw six ponies in power armor lying dead in a black dried pool of blood. It looked like somepony with Armor Piercing rounds ambushed them either on their way to Cartwheel or from it. It was strange that the smell of rotting flesh was so strong. Even with the Power Armor filled with holes, the armor should still keep away the smell more than this.

Then I saw where it was coming from. A mare in grey robes was stuck to the small hill, spikes driven through her hooves to keep her in place. Just like the memory I saw, only they didn’t take her eyes or her tongue like the Zebra’s did. It made it a lot easier to identify who the mare was. It was Elder Appleslice, some pony had attacked her, even worse, it looked like it happened at least a week or more ago. The lower parts of her body were bloated from the blood collecting down in her legs, her tongue was sticking out as well and it was black and dry. Her eyes were locked open, they too were dried out and grey. Whoever had done this had tortured her before finishing the job with a bullet to her heart.

At first, I would've thought zebra’s did this, or maybe some strong raider group left over from Crackerjack’s group. Then I saw what was carved over her head into the rock. It said ‘Traitor’. That word alone told me who must have done this, if the Elder was being called a Traitor, then she was killed by other Steel Rangers.

“Holy shit!” Aura said, “This can’t be good.”

“Elder Appleslice was a good mare, who would do this to her?” Stardust said.

“It can only be the Steel Rangers, either she was killed by her own ponies, or Wolfsbane. Whoever it is, they are going to pay for killing her.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Zebra Brew: Well what do you know! Zebra food is quite delicious! Due to your new found love for the food you ate from Yaksha, you now get a +1 boost to any part of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats whenever you eat any Zebra food, depending on the affect it has. The effects however only last for a few hours, and only works once per day.

Chapter 42 Part 1: Our Town

“I want this place to be a symbol for what happens when you help a pony like The Courier.”

Aura moved closer to the dead Elder Appleslice, pulling the stakes out of her hooves then catching her as she fell. Ignoring the decaying Elder, she slowly carried her down and set her body gently onto the ground. Then she slowly closed her lifeless eyes, “I agree with you Shadow, there’s no way I’m going to let Elder Appleslice’s killer go unpunished.”

Wingnut was hanging back looking over at the dead mare. When Aura finished setting the Elder down he asked, “Is she really the leader of The Steel Rangers?”

Stardust nodded his head, “Yeah, she was a good mare too. I’ve never trusted Steel Rangers, but she was kinder to me than most Steel Rangers. She could have turned Aura and me away when we showed up at the bunker without Shadow, but she chose to believe us, for the most part.”

I moved closer to the former Elder, “The question I have is who did this and why? I mean the word ‘Traitor’ over her body tells me that it had to be a Steel Ranger.”

“I’m not sure it was,” Aura said, “Apollo’s known the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers for as long as I’ve been alive, none of them would have done this to Appleslice. They all respected her too much, same for her father.”

“Maybe, but they weren’t the only Steel Rangers around here. The Los Alicorn Rangers were here too. From the Stories about Wolfsbane I’ve heard, he’s more than capable.”

“That’s true and he does have a grisly reputation. Though he’s also known to uphold the code of the steel rangers to a tee. He wouldn’t do something like this to another Elder. From what Apollo told me, when he took over as the elder for the Los Alicorn branch, he brought his former Elder up on traitorous charges. The other four, Star Paladins and two senior scribes tried him then had him executed.” Aura said as she looked over the body.

“What if some other faction did this to them and tried to make it seem like the Rangers did this to her?” Wingnut said.

All of the sudden a voice said from behind us, “It was Steel Rangers and from what’s been going on around here since you left, I’m guessing it was the Hidden Sand’s Rangers.”

We all twisted around to see none other than Detective Lonely Hearts standing a few feet away, a cigarette poking out of his muzzle. We all lowered our weapons as I said, “Lonely Heart’s what are you doing all the way out here?”

“I could ask you the same question Shadow. I was on my way to Cartwheel when I heard voices off the road, thought I’d come see what was going on.” He said blowing out a long stream of smoke.

“We were just getting back when our friend Wind Thrasher spotted the dead rangers from the air.” I said.

“Why were you heading to Cartwheel Lonely Hearts?” Stardust asked.

“I was heading there to see if Box Tape knew where you were and when you’d be back. Didn’t think I’d run into you on my way.” He said as he walked closer to one of the dead rangers looking closely at the holes in the armor.

Aura walked closer to him asking, “Tell me Detective, how do you know this was done by the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers?”

He looked up from the dead ranger, “I’m guessing you haven’t been able to listen to Mr. New Pegasus or Dj Pon3 while you were away.”

“Duh, we were all the way up in the Mill City Wasteland.” Wingnut said.

“Then you should know that a lot’s happened while you were gone. First of all The Steel Rangers from this area have been making more of a presence over the past week. More than we’ve seen in ten years. They’ve been starting fights with the N.L.R. and The Romans, making their presence felt in most of the smaller towns near Hidden Sands, and taking down any ponies that stand up against them.”

“That doesn’t mean it was the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers, The Los Alicorn branch has been around here as well.” I said.

“You aren’t wrong, but the airship hasn’t been seen for a while now and all the Steel Rangers that have been fighting against the N.L.R. have declared they are fighting for the Hidden Sands Rangers. They are being led by a mare called Sapphire.” He said, “Also, the only group of ponies that would be able to take down the ponies here has to be Steel Rangers. The N.L.R. have the weapons to do this, but they never go this far from New Pegasus, The Enclave has been silent for a week now as well, so they can be ruled out, Raiders don’t have the kind of weapons to do this, and I haven’t heard a peep from the Fiends for a little while as well.”

“Wait did you say Sapphire!” I said as my jaw dropped open, “NO, there’s no way she’d ever do something like this. She respected Elder Appleslice.”

The Synth just shrugged, “I have no idea, I’ve been meaning to look into what’s been going on, but I was busy with finding your mom Shadow. I don’t deal with the Rangers much, as you know, they don’t like synths. I just know what I’ve seen and heard from friends of mine in the N.L.R.”

“You know, there is one way to find out. See if you can get them on the broadcaster.” Aura said.

“You know what, that’s a good idea.” I said, but before I could even bring up the broadcaster I heard another voice from around the hill, one I knew very well, it was Vervain.

“Wind Thrasher? Is that really you? Where’s Shadow and the rest?” I heard Vervain say.

“She’s just around the hill,” Wind Thrasher said, “You may not want look though, I think some Steel Rangers died.”

“What the hell is Vervain doing here?” I said as I started to head around the bend for the hill, “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait a moment you cannot be Paladin Vervain?” Yaksha said, “I thought you disappeared or died many years ago.”

I just got around bend when I saw Vervain looking curiously at Yaksha, “I am and who are you Zebra…wait a moment, Yaksha?”

I looked between the Zebra and the mare who raised me, “You two know each other?”

Yaksha nodded, “Vervain here was one of the few Steel Rangers I knew when I lived around here. Our first interaction was not a good one.”

Vervain laughed slightly and blushed a little bit out of embarrassment. “Yeah I was a little rowdy back then, Yaksha will never let me live it down either.”

“Nope it is a little hard to forget.”

“Indeed, but it got better with time.”

“Yes it did, Vervain is a decent mare compared to most I have ran into and lived with way back when. Ten years ago I heard a rumor that she disappeared, which later, the story became that she died during a mission with another mare I knew for a short time.”

Vervain looked over at me asking, “I heard that Yaksha died some years ago protecting her tribe from certain disaster. Where on Equis did you find her?”

“At The Kingdom near Saint’s Parish and Whinnieapolis, she helped me when I was attacked by Wrath. She came back with us to help me with my magical control and a couple other things.” I said.

“Fascinating, well Yaksha I’m glad to see you’re still alive.” Vervain said with a smile.

“The feeling is mutual Vervain.”

“Wait a moment, is Vervain the mare you wanted to see when you came back here?” I asked, remembering that one reason she came back as well was to find a mare she was friends with who thought she was dead.

Yaksha shook her head, “No, like I said before, I thought Vervain died. The mare I am looking for is still alive, though I am not sure where she is.”

Vervain walked closer to me and gave me a quick hug, “I’m glad you’re finally back Shadow,” Then she looked back at Yaksha, “Thank you Yaksha for helping Shadow, she means the world to me.”

“Oh, I did not know you had a daughter Vervain. I thought you said that you could not have children.” Yaksha said.

Wait a moment, I remember her saying that she couldn’t have foals before, but, I figured that was just part of her deception as Auntie in Stable 28. The look on Vervain’s face though told me that what Yaksha said had to be true. She looked utterly heartbroken as the Zebra said that.

“It’s not something I like to talk about Yaksha.” Vervain said.

Yaksha looked down covering her muzzle with her hoof. “I am sorry Vervain that was insensitive of me I was not thinking, I had assumed Shadow knew.”

Vervain shook her head as she smiled looking over at me, “It’s okay Yaksha, but no, Shadow isn’t my daughter. She’s Scribe Grimoire’s daughter, but I’ve raised her for the past eight years. She’s as close to being my daughter as I’m ever going to get, and I love her as if she was my own foal. Anyways the time for catching up can wait let’s get back to what’s going on. What’s this about dead Steel Rangers?” Vervain said looking over at me.

“I was just trying to figure that out when I heard you,” I said, “Why are you here? I thought you were still in Stable 28.”

“I was until last night. I decided that Milkshake is doing fine without me and if she has any problems she knows I’m not far. I needed to check up on my father so I headed to Cartwheel. I heard earlier that a sky carriage with the words Equestrian Express on the side was spotted not far from here.”

I blinked surprised “Who told you that?”

“Mr. New Pegasus.” Vervain replied

I facehooved “Of course he did.”

Vervain smiled and laughed lightly before go back to being serious, “I figured it was you so I was watching the skies, I saw the sky Carriage and when you landed a mile or so from town I thought something was wrong so I came to check it out.”

“Shadow, how much longer are we going to stay here?” Wind Thrasher asked, when I looked over at her I could see that she was getting a stranger look to her, almost like a starving animal looking at its first meal in days, “Because I’m not feeling well.”

“I’m not sure Wind Thrasher, if you want you can head into town and wait for us there.” I said.

One of her eyes twitched and I saw a little red glow show up in her eyes, “I’m…okay I think.”

She licked her lips slowly and started to drool, “No you’re not Wind Thrasher, I think you need to go into town. You don’t look good at all.”

“Hey Shadow what’s taking so long?” Stardust said as he came walking around the bend.

Wind Thrasher unhooked herself from the Sky Carriage and started to slowly walk toward the small hill her voice was changing to her Sharp voice, “I’m okay Shadow…really…It’s just, something smells soooo good. I can handle just a small taste, just a little.”

“Fuck.” I said walking over to my friend whose eyes were now fully glowing bright red, “Wind Thrasher, snap out of it, you don’t want to go over there.”

She snapped her head toward me and hissed, “Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want Shadow, I’m not that weak.”

I backed up a little, but stood my ground, “Wind Thrasher, you’re succumbing to the blood lust again.”

She flared her wings and hissed again, “No I’m not, it’s not even fresh blood. You don’t know anything about me, I can handle a little taste, just a little bit. Now get out of my WAY!”

Stardust walked over to her, ignoring her hissing, “Woah, Wind Thrasher calm down, Shadow’s just looking out for you.”

“Shut up…” She started to say, barring her teeth at him.

Stardust cut her off by taking her face between both his hooves and saying gently, “Listen to me Wind Thrasher and look into my eyes. You know how you get when you smell blood, even old blood. You told me about it while we were talking yesterday remember.”

I thought she was going to attack him, but she seemed to calm when he touched her face, “But…I’m okay.”

“No you’re not, now I want you to do as I say,” he said calmly, “I want you to take a deep breath through your mouth, then slowly let it out through your nose.”

“I…but…”

“No but’s, just trust me Wind Thrasher.” He said.

“Okay.” She said, then she slowly took in a deep breath just like Stardust said, then she let it out.

“Good, now again. In…and out, In…and out.” He said breathing with her.

Slowly the glow started to leave her eyes, a minute later she fell against Stardust, “I…think I feel better.”

“I’m sure you do, but how about for right now we go to Cartwheel so you can rest and get something nice to drink from Old Box Tape. Do you think you can handle that?”

She nodded, “I think so, thank you Stardust.”

He helped her up, “It’s no problem,” Then he looked back at me, “I’ve got her, we’ll meet you in town.”

“Good idea, don’t worry about the Sky Carriage I’ll make sure it gets back to town.” I said as he turned to help Wind Thrasher up the road.

“I will go with them, I do not think I’m needed here and I may have a brew that can help Wind Thrasher.” Yaksha said turning to follow, “We can talk later Vervain, I would like to see what you have been up too over the last few years.”

“Same for me Yaksha,” Vervain said with a smile. When they were gone she looked at me asking, “So that was strange? Is Wind Thrasher going to be okay? She was around a lot of blood when we were in Stable 28 and she didn’t get like that.”

“I think something’s wrong with her, she lost control in Whinnieapolis. I think it’s getting harder for her to control her blood lust.” I said watching as my friends vanished up the road.

Vervain was watching them too, “You should keep an eye on her, if she’s starts to get worse there’s a possibility she’ll attack one of you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s okay. We have a doctor who lives with the Annihilators that’s looking into it. I hope he’s figured something out, I’d hate to see her do what she did back in Whinnieapolis.” I said.

Vervain turned to look at me, “Well since that’s all taken care of let me see these dead rangers you mentioned.”

I gestured toward the hill, “I’ll show you.”

I lead her around the hill where Aura, Wingnut and Lonely Hearts were waiting. When she saw the dead rangers and Elder Appleslice she gasped, “That can’t be the Elder?”

“Afraid so.” Lonely Hearts said, he was examining the Elder’s body closely, “From the looks of it, she was tortured for a while before she was killed. Her body shows signs of being beaten. It’s hard to tell because of how long she’s been here, the elements and other factors may have destroyed most of the evidence.”

Vervain took a step back when she saw Lonely Hearts face, “Celestia, are you a Synth?”

“Great deductive powers you have there.” He said still closely looking at the body.

I sighed, “Auntie Vervain, this is Detective Lonely Hearts from New Pegasus. He’s been looking into mom’s past for me, he’s not like the Synths you’ve heard stories about.”

“Oh I’ve heard about Lonely Hearts, I just didn’t think he was a Synth that’s all.” She looked closer at the body, “Yeah that’s Elder Appleslice, so that’s where she’s been.”

Aura looked at her confused, “What do you mean?”

“I was told by Sandstorm last night that she went missing over a week ago. He figured she was dead.”

“You talked to Star Paladin Sandstorm last night?” I asked.

“It’s just Sandstorm now, he was banished from the Rangers a few days ago. He didn’t like how the new elder took over and what’s she’s been doing. They argued and he accused her of killing Appleslice, so Elder Sapphire kicked him out of the Rangers.” She said, “My father isn’t going to like this. He’s known Appleslice since she was a foal.”

“So Sapphire did take over the role of Elder,” I said with a deep sigh, “There has to be more to this.”

“I’m sure there is, but we won’t know until somepony looks into this more.” Lonely Hearts said, “I’ll see what else I can find around here and I’ll let you know.”

“You really want to investigate the death of a Steel Ranger Elder?” I asked.

He shrugged, “The Rangers may not like my kind, but she was still murdered and her killer should be brought to justice. From the sound of it, you cared about her Shadow.”

“Yeah, she was nice to me, even if she did send me to Stable 9 to get her a Pip-Buck.”

“Then I’ll see what I can find out.”

“We should see about laying the bodies to rest. It’s not right to just leave them out here to rot.” Vervain said.

Lonely Hearts nodded, “Good idea, though wait till later to do that, I want to see what I can find out from them before hoof.”

I took one more glance at the Elder then looked away, “Just let me know as soon as you can, I want to make sure who ever killed her pays. Oh and didn’t you say you had something you needed to tell me?”

“I did,” Lonely Hearts said walking over to me, “I was able to track your mother’s movements over the past two years through some contacts of mine and a little help from a freelance griffon who owed me a favor.”

“I know that she went to Hoofington and Manehattan during that time, but not much else.” I said.

“She also went up north, either to The Kingdom or further. She was still looking for the same prewar Project. During the time she hired scores of Griffons to help her get Memory Orbs from different places or to protect her when she went into old Stables. The reason she went to Hoofington the first time as I told you before was to find Striker, but she went back not too long ago trying to find information on some program called EC-11O1. I’m not sure what it is, but she thought it would help her unlock this project she’s trying to find. Either she found it or figured it wouldn’t do what she wanted, because she came back here. She started to work out of an old Shack near Trotston during that time going by the name Spell. She would do odd jobs for ponies as well, but that’s not the interesting thing. From the information I got, it looks like she was sending messages to ponies in The Enclave, another up North, and oddly enough somepony in Los Alicorn.”

“Well the Los Alicorn thing shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, she was working with Elder Wolfsbane right?” Aura said.

Lonely Hearts smiled, “That’s the interesting thing, the transmissions weren’t being sent to their base out there or to their airship. It was going to another system located somewhere in the heart of the city. I’m not sure what she was up too, but somepony out there is working with her and it’s not The Steel Rangers.”

My eyes went wide, “The Ministry.”

“Bingo. If anypony could find them it would be her, and she’s also smart enough to talk her way into that place.”

“Didn’t you say she went to Los Alicorn Shadow?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah, that’s the information I was able to learn,” I said “Something still isn’t adding up though, why is she doing all of this?”

“Couldn’t tell ya kid.” Lonely Hearts said, “I’m not sure what she’s planning or what she’s doing, but I do know that she was helping the Enclave and The Ministry. Either she’s a double agent, which I wouldn’t put past her, or The Enclave is helping The Ministry.”

“Fuck, I guess that means if I want my answers I’ll have to go there and confront her.”

“The problem is, how do you plan on finding them?” Lonely Hearts said.

“Personally, I always thought they were a myth, but I know Synths are real and they have to come from somewhere.” Vervain said.

“Finding them shouldn’t be a problem, Mr. Tops already figured out where they are and gave me the location and a way to get in.”

“Oh and I bet that’s going to be so much fun.” Aura said rolling her eyes.

Wingnut smiled, “I don’t mind going, I bet they have some amazing Tech there.”

“For right now I’m not going to worry about her, I need to figure out what’s been going on here while we were away.” I said.

“A lot of shit honestly,” Lonely Hearts said, “There’s been more attacks on Caravans lately, The Queens are on the verge of war with the N.L.R., The romans have taken more land, and Steel Rangers are taking over as well. It’s like when you left, the entire area went crazy.”

I facehoofed, “Fuck, why does shit have to go wrong while I’m away. I just wanted to get back here and relax for a bit so I could think about what to do next.”

Aura put a talon on my shoulder, “Shadow you can’t fix everything, I think we should get back to Cartwheel and take a couple more days to recuperated. “

“I know, but I feel like if I don’t do something now, then things will get worse.”

“That may happen, but you can’t do much about it right now.” Aura said with a smile, “Let’s go see Box Tape, and we’ll go from there.”

“I think that’s a good idea. He’d be happy to see you safe and sound.” Vervain said.

“Fine, but only for a day, after that we need to see what we can do to fix things, Starting with Elder Sapphire.” I said, then looking back to Lonely Hearts I added, “Thank you for the information Lonely Hearts, also when you figure something out please let me know.”

“Can do kid, I’ll check up with you later tonight or tomorrow morning at Equestrian Express.” He said going back to looking over the bodies.

I nodded then looked back at Aura, Vervain and Wingnut, “I guess we should head to Cartwheel.”

“That’s fine with me, just as long as we can come back later and get the bodies.” Vervain said.

Lonely Hearts waved his metal hoof, “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to get them back for you, just leave that Sky Carriage behind. I can use it to transport all the bodies back to Cartwheel.”

I waved back at Lonely Hearts “Okay detective let Stardust know that when he comes back for it.” We all started to head back to the road, as we did I asked Vervain, “What do I do if Sapphire is the one who killed The Elder?”

Aura spoke up first, “You find out why she did it and if it was just so she could have power then you kill her.”

“No matter what reason she had for killing Appleslice, Sapphire still shouldn’t have killed her. From what’s been going on lately with the Rangers and from what Sandstorm told me, I’m sure she’s the one who did it.” Vervain said.

“Sapphire was the pony who first saved me from the Raiders when I came out of the stable for the very first time. She also helped me take down the camp and get the hostages home safe. She’s also made sure I got into Hidden Sands and spoke in my defense when I first met with Appleslice. I just don’t understand why she’d do something like this.”

“You’ll have to talk to Sandstorm about that, all I know about Sapphire is that she doesn’t believe in the code of the Steel Rangers, she’s one of those mares who believes that we should help ponies in the wasteland like the New Lunar Republic says they do, not just hold Tech. Ponies like that say that’s what the Ministry Mare Applejack wanted for the Steel Rangers back when she founded us.” Vervain said.

“Wait, I thought the Steel Rangers did do that.” I said.

Aura laughed, “Yeah, they use too, now they’ll save you if you can help them get something or if you have something that they want. They don’t go out of their way to help the Wasteland, that’s why they’re hated by most of the wasteland.”

Vervain sighed, “That’s true, for the most part. I used to be like that back before I met Grim. After a couple of years of being around her so much, I started to think much like my father and some other Rangers did.”

“So you’re more like what you think Sapphire is now?” I asked.

“Not the same really, but I do think that we could use the tech and power we have to help. We don’t need to horde all of the tech we find when it’s just going to sit around to being used. From what I’ve learned, Sapphire is using what the Steel Rangers have to take over New Pegasus. I wonder if she wants to make the Steel Rangers as powerful as they were before my father retired?”

“What do you mean?”

Aura answered, “The Steel Rangers used to hold a lot of land some years ago, back when I was still pretty young. You couldn’t go to most towns without running into a group of them. They even ran the Crossroads Trading post, but that was back before Elder Tap died and Elder Apple Jam took over.”

Vervain smiled, “Yes that’s true too, back then we had a lot of ponies joining us and helping us grow the Steel Rangers.”

“Who’s Elder Tap? I asked.

“Oh, that’s Elder Tapioca, he was the Elder before Apple Jam. He was a good stallion and well-liked by most of the ponies.” Vervain said.

“If they had so much power back in the day, then what happened to make them lose it?”

“Elder Apple Jam wasn’t as good of a leader as Elder Tap was. He knew it too, that’s why everypony wanted my father to take over, but he refused. Elder Apple Jam was a good pony, but he liked to slack off, he’d hide from his duty when he thought he could get away with it, he also wasn’t good with tactics for fights. Over time we lost a lot of our land and a lot of good ponies. When the N.L.R. Moved in, it just got that much harder. That’s about as much as I know, I was in Los Alicorn for most of Elder Apple Jam’s first few years as elder. I only came back a year or so before I met Grim.” Vervain said.

We were just getting past the gate that lead into Cartwheel as I asked, “How did you meet mom anyway? I remember a night when Steel Rangers saved us from a manticore, but I was having one of my bad days and wasn’t awake for most of it.”

She looked at me curiously, “You remembered that?”

“I sure do, I guess it slipped my mind Auntie Vervain.”

“What do you mean?” she asked quizzically.

“I got almost all of my memories back while I was in Whinnieapolis.”

“How did that happen? I knew you’d get your memories back over time, but not that fast.”

I shrugged, “I had to go into a machine that messes with memories to help Stardust remember who he was. While I was in there the machine kept pushing me into my own head. Long story short, I was able to destroy the block mom put on my memories and everything came flooding back in, well most of it. I’m still having trouble remembering my dad.”

She smiled, “I’ve very happy to hear that Shadow. Well apart from you not remembering your father. Anyway, yes, I met Grim on the night you two were attacked by a manticore. I was working with another Knight named Crackerjack at the time. He went on ahead of me to check out information we got about a special Pip-Buck. He radioed me saying a manticore was attacking ponies at his location so I ran to help. When I arrived, the monster was trying to rip Crackerjack in two. Your mother blasted him with a powerful spell saving my companion, I was able to finish it off.”

“You were working with Crackerjack!” I said.

“Isn’t that the name of that Raider boss you told me about?” Aura asked.

“It was, I knew he was a Steel Ranger, but I didn’t know he worked with Vervain.”

Vervain looked confused, “Crackerjack was the Raider boss my father told me about? I knew he was an ass hole, but I never thought he’d turn raider.”

“I really wouldn’t call him a Raider, he was more like a slaver and bandit when I met him. He just ran the town of raiders that lived outside of cartwheel. He was trying to locate Stable 28. One of the memories I have of mom’s showed the last time they met. He met with her just after she left the Stable. He’d ran away from his new branch of Rangers in Manehattan.”

“I’ll have to ask Sandstone about that when we get back. He was the lead Star Paladin back in those days. I wonder why he wanted to find the Stable?” Vervain said as we walked down the road that lead to Equestrian Express.

“He said something about Elder Wolfsbane, I think he was working with him.”

Vervain’s look went dark, “Wolfsbane…it seems that everything always leads back to that fucker. What does he have to do with all of this?”

“Mom was working with him too even when she was working for Apple Jam and Appleslice.” I said.

Vervain paused just outside the door to Equestrian Express, “That I didn’t know…I always thought Grim was loyal to Hidden Sands, but if Wolfsbane got his claws into her then I guess I was wrong. I feel so used!”

I put a hoof on Aunties shoulder, “Don’t feel like that, mom did it to a lot of ponies.”

“How is that supposed to make her feel better Shadow?” Wingnut asked.

“What I meant was mom did that to a lot of ponies, but she only trusted Vervain with the information about who she was and where she came from. Other ponies that found out that she used to be in the Enclave ended up dead or with their memories wiped.” I said with a smile.

Vervain did her best to smile too, “That’s true, I guess I’m lucky that she did trust me.”

“See, it’s not so bad.”

Before she could respond the door to Equestrian Express opened and an older stallion with a sandy coat, a greying red mane, goatee, and silvery blue eyes was standing there looking at us, “Why are you all standing out here?”

“Um…who are you?” I asked “And where’s Box Tape?”

“Shadow this is Sandstorm,” Vervain said, “Sandstorm this is The Courier.”

The hard edge on his face eased a little, “Ah, we were expecting you. I’m glad Vervain was able to help you back to town. As to Box Tape, he’s resting at the moment, come in and sit, your other friends just arrived a few minutes ago.”

I walked past him saying, “Thanks Star Paladin Sandstorm, it’s nice to meet you as well.”

He put up a hoof, “I’m not a Star Paladin anymore, just call me Sandstorm.”

“Or ya can call him Sandy, I know I do when he’s acting all serious and stuff.” Box Tape said slowly making his way down the Stairs that lead up to his apartments.

I watched as the old buck slowly made his way down the steps. He looked like he aged ten years in the past week. He also moved slower than he had before. Was something wrong with him? Before I could ask Vervain pushed past me and helped her father the last couple of steps down, “Dad, you shouldn’t be out of bed, you’re not in any condition to be up.”

“Ba, I’m fine, I’m not gonna lay around like a weak foal when my only employee comes back from a dangerous trip.” He said with a weak chuckle.

Aura looked worried as well, she moved to help Vervain, “Hey old buck, what’s wrong with you. You look really sick.”

Sandstorm sighed saying, “He used his Power Armor.”

I cocked my head to one side, “Why would that make him sick?”

Box Tape finished getting down the steps then walked over to me, “Because my power armor is different than the rest of the Steel Rangers. The Sentinel Armor has a few things that get injected into a pony to help them during a fight.”

Aura’s face went dark as she asked, “What kind of…Help?”

Vervain looked sad as she answered for her father, “It’s a mix of Dash, Rage, and Med-X.”

“Are you fucking insane, do you know what that shit can do to you!” Aura practically yelled, “I’m surprised you’re still alive!”

Box Tape chuckled, “My body is used to it, I’ve been using that Armor for twenty years now. Back when I was still a Star Paladin it was a set we found in an old hospital. It was originally called a Prototype Medical Power Suit. I tinkered with it for a couple of years to make it better for fighting, but its base function is still to keep a pony going even if their close to death, or an old fart like me. I had to train my body a lot to be able to handle that many Chems.”

“He did, and he used to have a bad addiction to the stuff back when he was still a ranger too.” Sandstorm said, “I wasn’t happy to hear that you used it again.”

“Ah stop getting your cock in a knot,” He stopped then laughed harder, “Cock in a Knot! That’s a good one! Anyway, ya’ll are acting like I’m a frail old buck. True I am old, but I’m not frail, I can handle it.”

I moved over to him, “From the looks of it, you can’t.”

He put a hoof on my shoulder, “Shadow, I’m fine, this is just my body going through withdrawal.”

“No, it looks like the Chems messed with your system.” Aura said, “Like I said I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

“Me too,” Vervain said, “This is why I wanted you to stay in Cartwheel.”

He looked at his daughter then sighed, “Fine, I’m sorry Vervain, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. If I hadn’t come, ya’ll would have lost more ponies than you did. I’m an old buck and even if using that suit kills me, it’s fine as long as I can make sure the next generation lives on.”

She sighed again, “You’re hopeless.”

He barked a laugh that quickly turned into a hacking cough, he waved a hoof to keep us away then said, “I may be hopeless, but at least I’m still fun.”

Vervain just rolled her eyes then looked at Sandstorm, “I almost forgot, Shadow found Appleslice.”

His eyes went wide, “Really? That’s the best news I’ve heard in a week. Is she okay?”

I shook my head, “She’s dead, same for the ponies that were with her. I found her body just outside of cartwheel, well Wind Thrasher found them, but I figured out who it was.”

Sandstorm’s face fell, “Damn, I had a feeling something like that happened. Wait, did you say she’s just outside of Cartwheel?”

Aura nodded, “Yeah, a detective that we know from New Pegasus is looking over the bodies right now to figure out what happened.”

“Ah you must mean Lonely Hearts.” Sandstorm said, “He’s the only detective I know from there.”

“Wait you know Lonely Hearts?” I asked, “I thought The Rangers hate synths?”

“We do, but I’ve met him a few times while I was just outside of the Strip, I also met him before I was a full member of The Steel Rangers back when I was still a colt. He’s been around New Pegasus forever and he’s a good pony.”

“He’s a good customer too,” Box Tape said, “Sandstorm isn’t like other Steel Rangers, that’s why he used to help me out when I was still acting like a courier back in my prime.”

“I should go look over the bodies as well, I need to know if Sapphire had anything to do with her death.” Sandstorm said, “I’ll return later, Box Tape go back to bed.”

“Yeah, yeah don’t keep hounding me.” Box tape said.

Vervain looked between Sandstorm then her father, “Do you want me to join you Sandstorm?”

“That would be fine, you have a better eye than I do for this kind of thing.”

She turned back to look at me, “I’ll be back soon, I have a feeling you need to talk Shadow, so I’ll try not to take too long.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sleep anytime soon, I’ll be awake when you get back.” I said.

They both left, when they did Stardust came out from the other room, “Hey Box Tape do you have any more Sparkle Cola?”

“Course I do, but isn’t one enough?” he asked my friend.

“For me yes, but Wind Thrasher still says she’s thirsty and she said it helps her feel better. Also Yaksha wants to see if she can mix it with a brew of hers to help Wind Thrasher sleep, I think she needs it.” Stardust said.

“Oh fine, it’s in the Ice box, just don’t let that Zebra take all my cola, it’s not as easy as you think to find.”

“Thanks old timer,” Stardust said then he looked over at me, “We should find a place to rest up while we can, I’d like to give Wind Thrasher another day or two before we leave again.”

“I’m not sure where we’d go, there isn’t an inn here.”

“We can always just sleep on the floor.” Aura said.

Stardust glared at her, “Maybe you can, but Wind Thrasher needs a real bed.”

Box Tape spoke up, “Ya’ll can use Silver’s Place next door. No pony lives there now and with her…well in a better place, I’m sure it would be able to fit all of you.”

“You know that’s not a bad idea.” Aura said.

I on the other hoof said, “I don’t know if I want to sleep there, there are too many bad memories.”

Box Tape gave me an understanding smile, “I’m sure she would have wanted you to use it. She may be gone, but her memory still lives on in you and her friends. You can’t just forget about her so you can feel better Shadow.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am,” he said with a smile, “Now how about you all head over there and get settled in. Shadow can you stay here for a little bit, I been needing to talk to ya.” Box Tape said.

“I guess,”

“I’ll get Wind Thrasher and Yaksha and we’ll head over there.” Stardust said.

“I’ll help!” Wingnut said bolting into the room past Stardust.

“Unless you need me Shadow, I’ll go help them with Wind Thrasher. I may be able to do something to help her too. I’m worried she’s getting sick and with her body the way it is, it may be effecting her differently than most ponies.” Aura said.

“You should stay with Wingnut anyway, he is your employer, I’ll be over shortly.” I said with a smile.

“Good to know, I’ll see you soon.” Aura said moving down to kiss me quickly before going to help Wind Thrasher and Stardust.

Once they were all out of the office and on their way next door, Box Tape asked, “Did I just see Aura Bloodtalon kiss you?”

I blushed, “Yeah, we kind of…ended up together while we were at The Kingdom.”

“Damn, now aren’t you a lucky filly. She’s a good griffon, I’m happy to see you with someone like her.”

“You mean you don’t think it’s weird for me to be with a griffon?” I asked.

He chuckled, “I’ve seen weirder things in my life trust me. Now enough about you and Aura, I wanted to show you something before my daughter gets back and makes me go lay down like I’m a foal who needs a nap.”

“What do you want to show me?” I asked as he led me past the main room and into the small living room.

Box Tape moved over to one corner then pulled open a hidden door, “Something you need to see.”

As he started to walk down small steps that lead down into what looked like a cellar, I asked, “I get that, but I wanted to know what I need to see.”

Ignoring me he asked, “Shadow, how much do ya know about Cartwheel?”

That caught me off guard, “Only a little. When I was shopping with Silver the first day I was here, they told me the town wasn’t that old. They said it was founded a few years ago.”

“It was, thirty-four years ago to be exact. Before the town was founded, there wasn’t much here but this old building and the one next door where Silver Snip used to live. The Steel Rangers used it as an outpost back when I was still a young buck.” He said as he reached the bottom of the steps then lit a lantern.

I jumped when a set of power armor met my gaze, not even three feet away from me. For a second, I thought somepony was going to attack me, then I realized it was just Box Tape’s armor, “Shit, don’t scare me like that.”

He chucked, “hahaha, ya’ll are to jumpy. It’s just a set of power armor.”

“Yeah, but you never know if somepony is inside it, just waiting to attack you.”

“Nah, it’s not hard to tell if a pony is in a set of armor like that. When power armor is empty, its quiet and lifeless. When a pony is using it, there’s always a little bit of noise coming from them. Makes it impossible to sneak in, they always have a small hum to them and a little light seems to come from the visor.” He said moving over to a small table that was on the other side of the small room.

“Oh, I didn’t know that. But I saw memory orbs of a Pegasus who used Power Armor for a sneak mission.”

“Pegasi armor is different, it’s made from different material. True they are both Power Armor, but that doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Steel Ranger armor was made by a calibration with The M.W.T. and the M.A.S. it was made to protect ponies during the war. Applejack herself wanted to make sure that no other pony would fall in battel the same way her brother Big Mac did during the attack at Shattered Hoof Ridge. Pegasi Power Armor was created by The Ministry of Awesome, well when I say created I mean that it was commissioned. The first set was really made by Rarity who ran The Ministry of Image. Their armor was made to also protect Pegasi during battle, but it also had to be able to be light enough to fly with and still protect the pony inside. That’s why it’s different, it’s strong, powerful, and light weight. It makes hardly a sound when it moves, that’s why it works so well for Pegasi, and why the Enclave is so powerful…one of the reasons at least.”

“I guess I get that too, but what does this have to do with why you had me come down here?”

He sat down on a small stool and leaned his body on the table, “I wanted ya to know something about me, something that not even my own daughter knows about.”

Walking past the armor I went to sit next to the old buck, “What’s that Box Tape?”

He looked over at me and I saw tears in his eyes, “I’ve been lyin’ to ya since I first met ya Star.”

For a second my heart stopped, “Why did you just call me Star? No pony calls me that, no pony but…”

“Your dad.” He said with a sigh.

“Wait you’re not my…you can’t be.”

He smiled and shook his head, “I ain’t saying that, no I just happen to know your father Shadow. I’ve first met him ten years ago.”

“But…how?”

“He first came here looking for your mom, I met her the same day she came to talk to Supple Cloak, Silver’s mom. I met you too that day, though you were a little out of it at the time. Your dad, he showed up a few hours after your mom was here, at first, I thought he was a dashite who just needed me to send a letter out for him. Then I realized he was Enclave, but he wasn’t like any other Enclave solider I’d ever met before.”

“What did you say to him, what did he say to you!?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

He smiled a little and sighed again, “I don’t remember it all, your mom made sure of that, but the memory spell she did on me eight years ago wasn’t strong. She was in a hurry when she left Cartwheel.”

“But, I saw her memory of when she came here once she escaped. You didn’t even know her.”

He chuckled again, “Oh I knew her, I was just playing dumb. At first, I thought she’d forgotten that we met once before. She cried for a while telling me about how sorry she was that she left you behind, then she pulled away and told me she was sorry for what she was going to do.”

I tilted my head to one side, “What do you mean? What did she do?”

“I’m not sure, but the rest of that day is fuzzy. All I remember was waking up the next day, in my bed, and had a vague memory of meeting a mare from Stable 28 who told me she missed her daughter. Over time, I started to remember some things, but not everything. I remember your dad too, but not much about him. She somehow knew I was talking with him and helping him locate you. He wanted me to let him know if Grim or you ever came back to Cartwheel, and if you did to send a transmission to him right away.”

“But…why were you helping him? I thought Steel Rangers hated the Enclave?”

“We do, but I’m not like most Steel Rangers you see. A long time ago when I was still very young, about your age, I was friends with a Pegasus, one who was made a Dashite when she was young like me. She was a beautiful mare who loved to sing. Her parents had died a few years before and she was all alone, she was branded because she flew down here to the Wasteland to help Caravaneers who were being attacked by some monster.”

“And they made her a Dashite for that?”

He nodded, “That they did, back then you used to see a lot of Dashites from Stratus, even more than you do now. They are the reason New Pegasus did so well, Mr. Tops made a deal with the Dashites that they could move to his city as long as they helped him rebuild it. But I’m getting off track, this mare became friends with me and I learned a lot about the Pegasi from Stratus. I realized that not all the ponies from the clouds were bad. Because of that, I always tried to learn a Pegasi’s story before assuming they were my enemy, that’s why I listened to your father when he showed up at my door.”

“I see, this mare you’re talking about, were you two close?”

“Very close…she was my best friend for many years. Even when I became a Full-Fledged Steel Ranger, I still took as much time as I could to see her.” As he spoke I could tell that he was lost somewhere in the past, his eyes had a far-off look to them.

“Was this Mare your wife?” I asked, “Oh wait, I guess not, your wife was a Steel Ranger too huh?”

He gave me a cock sided grin, “You are a little brighter than you used to be. No I didn’t marry her, though I would have. Wisp was a good mare and very beautiful, full of life and kindness. I did fall for her, but she had eyes for another buck.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Maybe at first, but I respected her for telling me straight up and not leading me on. Though it was thanks to her that I met White Oak. Good thing too, because White Oak was the mare I was meant to be with.”

I wanted to hear more about my father, but I felt I needed to hear this too. From the look on Box Tapes face, he didn’t get to tell this story much, “How did Wisp help you meet White Oak?”

“She saved White Oak from a hoard of ghouls. White Oak was just a filly back then and her town was attacked by them. Wisp was flying over at the time and saw her on the roof of her home screaming for help. She flew down and scooped her up then flew her to Appleton, where I was living at the time.”

“Wait you used to live in Appleton? I thought you were always in Cartwheel.”

He barked a laugh, “I’m much older than this town Shadow, no I was a Knight at the time and The Steel Rangers had an outpost in Appleton. I took her from my friend and brought her to the Bunker as soon as I could. Later she became a Scribe.”

“So if you were a Knight back then and she was just a filly, I guess you were quite older than her. Damn you fell for a filly? You are a pervy old buck.” I said with a chuckle.

“Hey now Shadow, it ain’t like that, get your head out of whatever gutter it’s in. No, I didn’t see White Oak for a couple of years after I left her at the Bunker. Later she was assigned to work with me and later we fell I love.”

As he spoke I noticed he was looking at the wall just over my shoulder, turning I saw that it was filled with pictures, much like the cave Gigi kept hers in. The first picture I saw was a picture of a much younger Box Tape smiling his big friendly smile as a beautiful young mare kissed his cheek. She reminded me a little of Vervain, she wasn’t as tall, but she had the same face as the mare who raised me. White Oak had a shiny white coat, a light brown mane with dark green mixed in, and bright yellow eyes. Her cutie mark was a white oak tree with bright green leaves on it.

“Is that her?” I asked, even though I was sure I knew the answer.

“Yea that’s her, our friend Apple Jam took that picture on the day White Oak agreed to marry me.”

“You two look cute together,” I said as I scanned over the rest of the photos. There was another photo of them on their wedding day, it looked like they were married in Hidden Sands. Another showed the two of them laughing with a couple other ponies. As I glanced over each photo I saw of Box Tape with his wife, I saw them age. It was like I was watching Box Tape’s life story flash before my eyes, his own personal timeline. It was then I saw one of White Oak holding a small foal in her hooves as Box Tape looked down at it on one side, both looking like it was the happiest day of their life.

Box Tape noticed my gaze and he said, “Yes, that one is the day Vervain was born. One of the best days in my life, we named her after White Oaks favorite flowers.”

I was about to say something when I saw another picture a little further down from Vervain’s. It was Box Tape and White Oak standing in front of Equestrian Express, only the building looked warn down and the sign wasn’t there yet. Standing next to White Oak was a young Vervain with a big smile on her young face and next to Box Tape was a much younger Colt frowning in the picture, “Box Tape, who’s that?”

“That’s…my son.”

I looked back at him, “Your Son? I didn’t know you had a son.”

A look of sorrow came to his face, “I used to have a son, but no longer. He’s dead…at least to me.”

“How did he die?”

“What I mean is, we don’t speak. He doesn’t see me as his father and I don’t see him as my son. We had a falling out a long time ago, a little after White Oak died.”

“Damn…and I thought I had it bad with mom.”

“It’s my fault, just like Vervain, I didn’t live up to the roll as father to either of them. I didn’t want Vervain to join the Steel Rangers, but I made my son join. He was a good fighter and as smart as his mother. I pushed him too much and, in the end, I made him into a monster.” Box Tape said with sorrow in his voice.

“I…”

He cut me off, “Don’t say you’re sorry Shadow, what happened with my son and myself isn’t your fault, it’s mine.”

I took a minute to look at the wall more before asking, “In this picture, why does the Equestrian Express look so run down?”

He perked up at that, “Oh that’s the other thing I forgot to tell you. That picture was taken when I first opened up the shop. I took over the outpost for the Steel Rangers so my family could have a place to live that wasn’t in the old Bunker. I also started up Equestrian Express so I could do what I always wanted to do, run a Courier Business.”

“So, you moved to Cartwheel for your family?”

He chuckled again, “No, back then there was no Cartwheel. Nope there were only two or three Steel Rangers and my family. When Equestrian Express started and its reputation spared, I started getting Caravans stopping here to rest and trade. After some time, I started telling them that they could always stay and build up the town if they wanted. Soon I had ponies setting up shops and buildings. Five years after I started Equestrian Express, Cartwheel was a new town and a big center of Trade for the New Pegasus area.”

I looked back at him, “Wait, so you started Cartwheel?”

“That I did, well White Oak and myself, I should say. This is our town Shadow, it’s why I decided to stay here and became the Sentinel.”

“I have to ask, what does this have to do with my father?” I asked.

“Your Father came here because back in those days, I was known as the best Courier of New Pegasus. I had more contacts than the Red Talons and it wasn’t that strange for ponies to come to me to see if I could help them find some pony or to get word to the other towns about somepony’s lost loved one. Even ponies in the Enclave knew me, that’s why he came to me and asked for my help. He knew you two were last seen in Cartwheel and I was the best pony to ask for help from.”

“So you met him and what did you do?”

“I told him I’d keep an eye out for you or Grim, I also told him where Stable 28 was.”

“You knew where the Stable was?”

“I sure did, Vervain learned it from a mare a year or so before you went there. She gave the location to me before she started her undercover work there, just in case she needed my help.”

“Funny, I thought you and Vervain didn’t get along well.” I said.

“We didn’t, but she still trusted me and she does care about me. That’s why she came back to this area when she became a Knight. We’ve never been close, but I respect her as she does me. The real problem we have is that I still see her as my little filly even though she’s a grown mare.”

“I can see how that would be irritating,” I said with a laugh, “But still, why tell me all of this?”

“I figured you deserved to know, also your father told me that if you ever got out and you needed him, that I should give you something.” He said pulling a box laying out on his desk closer to him.

“What is it?” I asked.

He opened the box and pulled out a small crystal that was hooked to a short chain, “He said that you’d know what this was and to make sure you got it when things looked hopeless.”

The crystal looked faded and dull, it also had a large crack running down it’s center. I reached out with my magic and took it from the old buck and looked closer at it, “I…I think I’ve seen this before, but I can’t remember what it is or where I saw it.”

“He said it was an heirloom passed down in his family. He said that it’s given to the oldest child when they come of age. That’s all I know.”

“But why give it to you?”

“I have no idea, but he looked scared, like something bad was going to happen.”

Then something hit me, “Wait you said he showed up the same day I went into the Stable?”

“Yes, he looked like hell when I met him, and he was acting like his life was in danger, he made me swear I’d get this too you. Then I gave him the information he wanted, told him I’d watch for you then he flew out of here like hell was on his hooves.”

“But…everypony said he died a week before I went into the Stable. If you saw him after the fight with the Rangers, then that means he didn’t die in the fight!”

Box Tape looked confused, “You mean your father was the pony who led that stupid charge against the Rangers ten years ago? I thought the Rangers killed all the ponies who were there?”

“So did everypony else,” I said “That means my dad has to still be alive!”

“Slow down Shadow, just because he was alive then, that don’t mean he’s alive now.”

“I know, but at least I know there might still be a small chance he’s out there somewhere.”

“True, but even if he is, you don’t know if he’s still sane.”

“I don’t care. Once I’m finished with mom, I’ll find him next and I’ll help him in any way I can,” I said.

“I’m sure you will, if any pony can do it, it’s you Shadow.” Box Tape said with a smile.

We both sat there for a long moment both looking at the pictures on the wall. Something was eating away at my curiosity so I had to ask about Wisp, “So what happened to that Mare friend of yours?”

“Who Wisp?” he asked.

“Yeah, you said she had eyes on another buck.”

To my surprise his face fell again, “It ain’t a happy story.”

“Did she die?” I asked.

“Worse, the buck she fell for was obsessed with some cult following out near Los Alicorn. He played with her heart, brain washed her into becoming a member of this cult. They tried to attack the Rangers a few years after I married White Oak. We slaughtered them all, Wisp lasted the longest during that fight and I was the one who put an end to her madness.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

He smiled a little, “Don’t be, it was sad to see her turn into that monster, but in the end killing her was the best thing for her. The Cult played around with Taint, most of the ponies in it had some kind of mutation. Wisp wasn’t the mare I used to know, she was just a crazy pegasus mare who needed to be put out of her misery. It’s the same thing with ghouls, they ain’t ponies anymore, just mindless monsters.”

“Not all Ghouls.” I said, thinking of Nexus.

“True, not all ghouls. Though no matter what, every ghoul will turn feral. Ghouls who still have their wits always have something to keep their mind occupied, that’s how they keep from going feral. But in the end, they always turn, some hold out longer than others but it always happens.”

“That’s kind of a sad fate.”

“That’s the Wasteland Shadow, everypony has a sad fate in the end. That’s why you can’t think too much about it. The end isn’t what matters, same for where you started out in life. No, it’s what you do with your life between the beginning and the end that matters.” He said.

“I guess you’re right. All this talk is making me think about my dad more, where he is or what really happened to him,” then something else came to mind, “I have to tell Nightshade! He’s my dad’s best friend, if he knew dad was still alive, he’d start a search for him right away!”

“Maybe but…” Box Tape started to say, then he stopped as something flashed in his eyes, “Wait did you say Nightshade?”

“Yeah, he’s the pony who’s been helping me in the Enclave. He’s the new High Council Pony.”

“I just remembered…fuck I had no idea, but now I’m sure.”

I looked at him with hope in my own eyes, “What did you remember?”

“I know where…” Box Tape was cut off by a loud boom from outside, “What the hell was that?”

“No idea, but it sounds like a bomb just went off.”

A moment later a beeping sound came out of my Pip-Buck, looking down at it I saw it was flashing a message on the screen.

Incoming Transmission from Dragon Mountain…

“What is this?” I asked.

Box Tape was looking up at the low ceiling, but nothing else happened so he turned to look at my Pip-Buck, “You got a Transmission from somepony. But who do you know that lives out there?”

“I don’t even know where Dragon Mountain is.”

“It’s in Eastern Equestria, you should see who it is.” He said.

“Okay, but I don’t like this.” I said clicking a button on my Pip-Buck to open the broadcaster, “Hello, who is this?”

A deep voice came out of my Pip-Buck, “It’s about time you answered Shadow, I’ve been trying to find you for hours now!”

The way he spoke reminded me of somepony, but it was hard to tell, “I don’t know who this is!”

“It’s me, Watcher. I would have sent a Sprite Bot to your location, but I haven’t been able to find you and once I realized you were in Cartwheel I couldn’t get one to you in time. That’s why I’m transmitting right to your Pip-Buck.”

“Watcher? How do I know it’s really you?”

Box Tape just sat back and listened as Watcher went on, “We don’t have time for this!”

“We do if I don’t know who you really are. Any pony can say their Watcher.”

“FINE! We last spoke in Whinnieapolis, I told you, ‘I hope someday you’ll see that the path you’ve chosen is the wrong one, but for now you’re blinded with rage like I used to be. Open your eyes and take a look at yourself, then tell me that you’re not becoming the thing you want to destroy.’ I was going to tell you more but I lost connection with the Sprite Bot.”

I blushed a little, “Okay, I believe you. Why are you contacting me through my Pip-Buck? I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“It’s not hard. Any Pip-Buck with a Broadcaster can be transmitted to as long as you know the ID code for it. I got yours when I first helped you hack past that first layer of protection.” He said, “But that doesn’t matter right now. You need to get out of Cartwheel right NOW!”

I felt ice run down my back, “Why?”

“Yeah, whoever you are, I’d like to know that too.” Box Tape said.

Watcher didn’t speak for a moment then he said, “Is that Box Tape?”

“Yeah it is, who are you?”

“I’m just someone who’s been keeping an eye on things in the wasteland for the past two centuries. I know you because you’re a well know pony around New Pegasus, but still it doesn’t matter. Shadow The Palisade is headed right toward Cartwheel. I picked up a transmission that the Elder for the Los Alicorn branch of the Steel Rangers is coming to take you into custody!” Watcher said.

“Why would Wolfsbane be coming after me!?”

“I don’t know, but you can’t let him get you. If that Mark II is as important as you say, then you need to get as far away from him as you can.”

Box Tape took hold of my Pip-Buck saying in a harsh voice, “Watcher was it? Are you sure it’s The Palisade and not some ship from the Enclave?”

“I know the difference between a Thunderhead and a Zeppelin Old Buck. And as far as I know, that’s the only working Zeppelin in the wasteland. If my reports are true, that thing has enough firepower to keep the Enclave away from it and take down anypony who goes after it.” He said.

As we spoke another louder Boom echoed from outside, followed by the door to Equestrian Express slamming open and Aura yelling, “Shadow! Where are you!”

“Thank you Watcher, I’ll be sure to get away as quick as I can.” I said.

“Be sure that you do, I’ll see if I can get you some help, Watcher out!” he said then ended the transmission.

As he did I yelled up the stairs, “Aura I’m down here, what’s going on?”

She came to the top of the steps, looking down at me, “I don’t know, but some big air ship just destroyed the east wall for Cartwheel.”

Box Tape put a hoof on my shoulder saying, “That Watcher is right, you need to get out of here. If Wolfsbane is after you, then you need to run. Trust me when I say this, you can’t win against him. Get to Stable 28, I know you were banished from there, but I’m sure Overmare Milkshake will let you in for this. Once there use Vervain’s terminal to contact the Rangers in Hidden Sands.”

“What will they do? Sapphire killed Appleslice from the look of it and I can’t see her helping us with a fight against other Steel Rangers.”

“Maybe, but she still needs to know that Wolfsbane is attacking ponies in her area. No matter who they are, that goes against every Steel Ranger code. If you can’t get yourself to contact her, then try and get a transmission to Gigi or Apollo, they can help. Now GO!”

“He’s right Shadow, we can’t stick around here.” Aura said coming down to take my hoof in her talon.

“But what about Wind Thrasher and the rest?” I asked.

“They’ll be fine, Wingnut can come with us and Stardust will make sure Wind Thrasher’s okay. If Wolfsbane is after you then you’re the one who needs to run.” Aura said.

“Fine, but I don’t like this.” I said as I took a second to hug the old buck saying, “Thanks for telling me about dad.”

He hugged me back, “Stay safe.”

I followed Aura as she led me up the steps and back out of Equestrian Express. As we got to the streets I saw ponies running and screaming trying to get away from something. Then I saw them, Ponies in power armor were marching into Cartwheel from the east side entrance. As they moved they were firing at the fleeing ponies. There were only five of them, but with their power armor and heavy weaponry, there was no way the ponies of Cartwheel could defend themselves.

“Aura those are Steel Rangers, why are they killing the ponies here?”

“I have no idea, but we can’t let this stand. Call my mom and tell her we need the Red Talons.” Aura said as she pulled her energy spear off her back.

I was just about to do that when a scream from a griffon echoed through the air. Looking up I saw six griffons diving down toward Cartwheel, “I don’t think we have to Aura, looks like they’re already here.”

“That doesn’t make sense…” she started to say, then the griffons flipped around and landed in front of three fleeing ponies. Three of the griffons opened fire killing the ponies before they even knew what was going on.

“Oh fuck no!” I said pulling out my Plasma rifle and entering S.A.T.S. I targeted the three who just killed the towns ponies and fired. The first one went down as the blast of green goo blew his head to nothing more than chunks of meat, the second screamed as his wing melted, the third dodged my shot and attacked.

Aura was faster than the other griffon. As the last griffon tried to take a shot at me, Aura’s energy Spear glowed brighter and she slashed it at the other griffon. A thin line of green flew at the griffon, he tried to dodge that one too, but wasn’t fast enough. As he tried to jump into the air, the green light cut him in two.

“They aren’t Red Talons.” Aura said, “I don’t know who they are, but no Red Talon would attack Cartwheel like this. No matter how much it paid.”

I ran over to check on the other ponies, but they were dead. Then I looked at the dead griffons and saw the grey band they had around their forelegs, “Aura they’re those Unchained Talons!”

She swore then dodged out of the way as a bullet flew over her. Turning around I saw the five Steel Rangers aiming at us. Aura saw this too and yelled, “Shadow get out of there!”

She didn’t have to tell me twice, I teleported a moment before they opened fire. I reappeared on the other side of them, then I fired my own rifle at them. It didn’t so much though, their armor was thick and even with how powerful mom’s Plasma rifle was, it couldn’t do much to Steel Ranger armor. Two of them turned toward me as the other three started firing at Aura again.

I pulled out Dream Walker and opened fire, but at this range, the bullets only left small scratches in the shiny silver armor. The pony closest to me laughed, “Funny, I thought the Courier Mare would know better than to try and shoot Steel Ranger Power Armor with normal ammo.”

“Why are you here?” I yelled firing another round at his head, but it just bounced off.

The other one spoke up, “Elder Wolfsbane demanded we bring you to him, Dead or Alive.”

“Fuck him.” I said this time taking a minute to aim Dream Walker better. Then I fired, the bullet slammed into the first Ponies visor and he went down hard, “See even your armor has a weak spot.”

The other pony growled, “You’ll pay for that RUNT!”

He opened fire, but I teleported again. When I reappeared closer to Equestrian Express, I remembered another weapon I had, one that cut through Pegasi power armor like butter. Would it work on Steel Ranger armor? I pulled out the Sword I found in the Absent Ruins and attacked. The Steel Ranger twisted around as I attacked, he tried to kick me, but I ducked under his attack then jammed the sword up and under the chin of his helmet. For a second, I felt resistance, then the blade glowed a little and sank deep into his helmet. Blood flowed down the sword and pooled on the ground as the pony started to twitch, the rifles on his armor firing wildly before he fell to the ground.

I pulled out the sword and looked at it in awe, “Damn, you’re one fucking sharp sword.”

“Shadow I could use a little help!” Aura yelled.

Looking toward Aura I saw her trying to dodge two of the Steel Ranger’s as they fired Mini Guns up at her. One was already lying dead, his head a few feet away from his body. I ran toward the two and before they knew what hit them, I jumped on one’s back and stabbed down on the back of his head. Once again, the blade sank into the armor like it wasn’t even there. The other pony saw his comrade go down and he turned his guns on me. I jumped off the dead ranger just as a spray of bullets flew.

I tried to dodge behind a building, but two more Steel Rangers fell from the sky and landed on the other side of me. Aura dove at the one who was trying to kill me and tried to stab him with her spear. But he was too fast, he dodged the attack and bucked her away. She screamed as she flew through the air and slammed against the wall of Equestrian Express. Then the stallion turned his attention back on me.

“We are the Steel Rangers of Los Alicorn. Courier Mare Shadow Star, you will come with us or die.”

I looked back and saw the other two had blocked any way I could run. So I looked back at the Steel Ranger who just spoke, “You can fuck off, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Fine with us, you can die then. It’s easier that way.” He said as his mini gun’s barrel started to spin.

A second later, a hole appeared in his head right before a loud gunshot echoed off the buildings around us. His body flew forward a few feet and he didn’t get back up. Back down the road closer to Silver’s old home stood Stardust and Yaksha, Stardust was aiming down the scope of the rifle he stole from Stable 97. Yaksha was doing the same with her own sniper rifle a trail of smoke coming from its barrel.

“Yeah I think you should make sure the ponies you’re going after don’t have Armor Piercing rounds before you decide to attack them.” Stardust said, his goofy smile planted on his lips as he spoke around the bit for his rifle.

One of the other Steel Ranges who sounded like a mare yelled, “You should watch what you say Pegasus! We aren’t scared of the fucking Enclave or a Zebra who made a lucky shot…”

Stardust fired next and blew a hole in the mare, “You talk too much.” He focused on the other two rangers “I’d run before you end up like them.”

I heard a little noise behind me, quickly I turned around and one of the other two left was about to attack me. I heard another shot and that steel ranger fell instantly, “Stupid pony not listening, I hate stupid ponies.”

I smiled and looked back at the last Steel Ranger, “I’d do as he says, he is one of the best Snipers to ever come out of the Enclave.”

“Why should we run! Do you think this is all we have?” The Steel Ranger said, they also sounded like a mare. Damn it’s hard to tell when they all wear that armor, “We have over a hundred ponies on the Palisade. There’s no way you can take us all!”

As she spoke two more Steel Rangers fell from the sky, slamming into the ground with a loud boom. Looking up I saw where they were coming from. A huge air ship was floating right over Cartwheel. I had no idea something that big could even fly let along float over a town like this. As I looked up I saw how fucked we really were. Flying around The Palisade were swarms of Griffons, a few in Griffon power armor, the rest armed for war. Even worse more Ponies in Power Armor were falling from the ship and landing all over Cartwheel. As they did screams started to echo down the streets of the small town along with gun fire or the sound of laser rifles going off.

The mare started to laugh, “I’m Star Paladin Iron Tail. If you don’t come with us willingly Courier, then we’ll kill ever last pony in this shit hole town.”

I didn’t know what to do, there was no way we could get out of this. Even if I was able to escape, there was no way I could leave the Ponies in Cartwheel to die. Then a booming voice echoed out of The Equestrian Expresses door, “Ya’ll better stand down before ya’ll do something regretful!”

I turned and saw Box Tape standing in the door way to his shop. He was once again in his beautiful set of Power Armor, the cape on one shoulder that bore the symbol for the Steel Rangers flapping a little in the slight breeze, “Box Tape, you know you can’t use that Armor again!”

The other Steel Rangers looked at the old buck in his armor and they all took a step back, the mare who spoke before saying, “That can’t be him!”

Box Tape ignored me and said, “That’s right, I’m Sentinel Box Tape of the Steel Rangers. I’m ordering you to stand down and cease this attack on my HOME!”

The Rangers looked confused on what to do. The mare shook her head then said in a respectful voice, “Sentinel, we can’t do that. We have orders from Elder Wolfsbane to capture the Courier.”

“You’re Elder isn’t here right now Star Paladin, even if he was you are not in Los Alicorn. As you know, a Sentinel like myself holds the right to command any Steel Ranger in place of an elder, especially when ya’ll are in our home territory. Now Stand Down!”

As I watched I saw more Steel Rangers slowly walking up to join the first ones all of their eyes locked on the old buck. One of them moved closer to the mare saying, “Star Paladin, I think we should. You know the rules. He’s a Sentinel.”

Another buck jumped forward yelling, “He’s nothing more than an old buck who should know better than to try and tell us what to do!”

The stupid Steel Ranger opened fire. Box Tape moved so fast, it was almost hard to see. One minute he was standing just outside the home, the next he was a few feet away from the Ranger who opened fire. A large gun popped out of his armor and blasted into the Ranger. He screamed as a bullet ripped through his chest spraying blood over another Ranger who was a few feet away.

Another Stallion attacked Box Tape, but the old buck twisted around and kicked him so hard, his body flew back, knocking a few ponies over. Then Box Tape yelled, “The Next pony to attack me or my town will be sorry. If one more of them dies, I’ll kill all of you!”

“Oh is that so old buck!” a familiar voice said from over us. looking up I saw none other than Gina flying down toward Box Tape. She was wearing a set of Griffon Power Armor like she did when she was in Stable 28, and she had two large guns on the back and a glowing energy spear much like Aura’s only with a deep red glow. She landed a few feet away and pointed the spear at Box Tape, “I take it you’re the old Steel Ranger who used to work for Hidden Sands. It’s been a long time Box Tape, how’s the wife!”

Box Tape growled as he spoke, “Gina, I should have known you had something to do with this too. Let me guess, Wolfsbane hired you to help destroy my town.”

She grinned, “Nope, he hired us to capture Shadow Star and to kill you. He said the rest of the town could live or die, he didn’t care.”

Aura pointed her own spear at Gina yelling, “What the fuck is wrong with you Aunt Gina? Why would you work for a pony who wants to kill so many ponies? They didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Oh hello Aura, still running around with the shrimp I see. Stay out of this, if you do I won’t have to kill you.”

“Go ahead and TRY!” Aura yelled.

Box Tape put up a hoof saying, “This isn’t the time to be fighting with your family Aura, get Shadow and your friends out of here.”

“But Box Tape we can…” She started to say,

“No, I said get them out of here…NOW!” Box Tape interrupted, “I’ll buy you the time you need.”

“What about the towns ponies?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about them, they know what to do. We have an escape plan, it was meant to keep them safe if the Raiders ever attacked us, but it can still work for the Steel Rangers too, now leave.”

“Oh, I don’t think so old Buck, I have a job to do and I won’t fail my boss,” She looked back at the Steel Rangers who were still standing around not sure what to do, “Elder Wolfsbane said to capture the Courier or kill her same for her friends, now get to it!”

Star Paladin Iron Tail said, “But The Sentinel said we had to stand down!”

“He’s nothing more than a has been, who do you fear more, this old fart, or Wolfsbane?” Gina said with an evil smile.

All of the Steel Rangers turned toward us and every last one of them aimed their weapons toward us. I swore and ran for it as Box Tape opened fire. I didn’t see what happened but I did hear Gina scream and a flash of red light lit up the buildings around us as Aura, Yaksha, Stardust and I ran. As we get closer to Silver’s home I saw Wingnut standing next to the door with Wind Thrasher who still looked worse for wear.

“We have to run!” I yelled.

“What’s going on?” Wind Thrasher asked, looking scared.

“No time to explain we have to get out of here before we end up as the next ponies to die.” Stardust said. He took hold of Wingnut and tossed him to me, “Take the kid, I’ll cover us from above.”

I grabbed Wingnut in my magic then set him down on my back as I ran down the streets of Cartwheel, “Wingnut, if we have any Spark Grenades get them ready.”

“Way ahead of you Shadow.” He said as he started to dig in my saddle bags.

Wind Thrasher flew close to me, her breathing was labored it was easy to make out as she flew, “Shadow, where are we going to go that is safe to go to?”

“Stable 28, it’s the only place that Wolfsbane can’t get into.” I said as I saw the other entrance for Cartwheel getting closer.

“But I thought you were banished?” She asked, her yellow eyes falling on me.

“I was, but I’m sure Milkshake will let me in if my life is in danger, if not I can at least try and get everypony safely in there.”

“No way,” Aura said from over me, “We all get in or we all stay out here. we aren’t leaving you behind.”

“That’s right Shadow, we’re all in this together!” Stardust said as he flew higher, “I think I see a few towns ponies near the entrance.”

I saw them too, one of them was Dr. Purple Heart. When he saw us running for the exit he started to wave his hooves yelling, “Hurry!”

As we got closer a deep boom filled the air and a ball of red light flew down from The Palisade and slammed into the ground right at the gate to town. Ponies screamed as the ball exploded, ripping the gate and most of the wall to shreds. Pony bodies flew through the air as they were blown off their hooves. Their death screams horrible to hear. Then the concussion from the blast hit us, and we were thrown back by the force of the blast.

Stardust crashed to the ground, along with Aura and Wind Thrasher. Wingnut and I were both thrown back and sent rolling across the dirt road. I shook my head and spat blood onto the ground, then I looked at what was left of the gate. It was nothing but scrap metal laying around a small crater. The ponies that had been at the gate were laying around it, most of their bodies just large chunks of meat. Then I saw my friends, they weren’t dead, but they looked as bad as I felt.

I started to get up, then felt a sharp pain in my right foreleg. Looking over I saw it was trapped under a large piece of rock that must have been part of the street a moment ago. I couldn’t tell if anything was broken or not, but it hurt like hell. I tried to use my magic to get the stone off, but it was too heavy, “FUCK!”

Aura was next to me a moment later, “Shadow are you okay?”

“Apart from having my hoof crushed by a giant rock, yeah I’m fucking fantastic!” I said through the pain, “Is everyone else okay?”

“We’re fine, apart from a few scrapes and bruises.” Wingnut said, “We have to get this off of her Aura.”

Aura was already trying to move the rock, “I’m trying boss, but it’s fucking heavy.”

“Maybe I can help.” I heard the voice of Vervain say from a few feet away.

Looking over I saw her standing there in a set of Power Armor I hadn’t seen since I was a filly. It wasn’t as shiny as it used to be, it had small bits of rust on it. I smiled saying, “Great Timing Auntie Vervain.”

She moved over to the rock and put her front hooves against and with a mighty heave, and help from Aura she was able to shift it enough for Stardust to pull me free. Once I was out, my foreleg started to throb with horrible pain, “Holy Shit that hurts!”

Aura took a moment to look over my hoof then she gave me a healing potion saying, “It’s not broken, but you’ll have a nasty bruise for a while, this should help a little.”

“I may be able to make a brew to help once we are free of this.” Yaksha said.

I got to my hooves, keeping as much of my weight off my right foreleg as I could, “I’ll be fine for now. Vervain, where did you come from? I thought you went to overlook the bodies of the dead Rangers.”

“I did, but when I saw the Palisade flying over, I knew something was wrong. I told Sandstorm to get Lonely Hearts out of here and to find help. I came around the outside of town trying to see what I could do. I also needed to get my old set of power armor. Luckily it was still where Grim left it.” She said looking around, “This is horrible, I can’t believe Wolfsbane would allow this to happen.”

“It fits the stories I’ve heard about him.” Aura said, “Now we can’t stay here, Box Tape can’t hold them off forever, we need to get to Stable 28.”

Vervain looked at Aura saying, “Why would you go there?”

“It’s the only safe place close to here.” I said.

“No it’s not, Wolfsbane knows where the stable is. If you go there you’ll just be putting the stable in danger.” Vervain said.

Wingnut chimed in, “How, it’s not like he can get in once the door is closed.”

“He can, he’s a very smart pony. He’s very good at hacking software just like me. He’s broken into Stables before.”

“Not if I lock it down with the Mark II.” I said.

“True, but you also have to realize that if he figures out where you’re going, he’ll just cut you off using The Palisade. He can reach the Stable way before we do.” Vervain said.

“Shit, then what can we do!?” I yelled.

Vervain’s head turned and she looked in the distance at the tall white spire that reached into the clouds, “We go there. Star Gazer Labs is under that M.A.S.E.B.S. tower and only a pony like Shadow can unlock the door. If we go there, there’s no way Wolfsbane will be able to get in. Not even a pony like me can hack our way past a Genetic Scanner.”

“But we still risk him finding out where we’re going. He can still head us off.” I said.

“No he can’t, because if we head for the Tower, he’ll think we are going for Stable 28. He knows that’s the first place you’d head too. He wouldn’t even think that you’d try and go for the Tower.”

Aura smiled, “You have a point, though even if we can get to it and hide there, how long can we hold out before we’ll have to leave? I’m sure that place doesn’t have much that we can use to live off of for a long time.”

“It has enough food and water to last us all at least a month. Wolfsbane can’t wait that long for us to come out. If he does, he risks the Enclave attacking The Palisade and his team. His branch of the Steel Rangers are tough, but they can’t hold out against Stratus for long. He doesn’t have his entire branch with him right now.” Vervain said, “Now let’s get moving, we’re running out of time!”

“I agree, let’s go for now, we can plan later.” I said then I thought of something, “What about Box Tape?”

Vervain sighed then said, “He’ll be okay, Wolfsbane hates him like no other, but he won’t kill my father. He knows that if he does, the other branches of the Steel Rangers will retaliate. A Sentinel is a highly respected rank, he can’t risk angering too many branches of the Steel Rangers.”

I closed my eyes for a moment then said, “Fine, let’s go.”

“I’ll show you the way.” Vervain said starting to run toward the gate.

Something shot out of the sky and landed in the middle of the crater made by the blast from the Air Ship. It was a pony in Black Power Armor. The armor didn’t look like any Steel Ranger Power Armor I’d ever seen before. It had two horns coming out behind the ears with sparking nodes on the tips, the visor was blood red, it had spikes on its back, and two huge canons on each side. The hooves of the armor came down into sharp points and the tail had a blade running down its length.

Vervain took a step back saying, “Wolfsbane!”

“Hello Vervain, long time no see,” The voice of Elder Wolfsbane said from inside the hellish looking armor, “I thought you died.”

A mini gun popped out from Vervain’s armor as she yelled, “Shadow get out of here NOW!”

As she started to fire, Elder Wolfsbane dodged and the horns on his helmet glowed with a bright blue light. Then a beam of electricity flew at Vervain throwing her back down the street. She didn’t get back up. As I watched the mare who raised me get blasted to the side, I yelled, “Vervain!”

Then I heard her say from inside her armor, “Get out of here Shadow! I’m fine, he just shut down my armor. You need to run!”

Wolfsbane ignored her and pointed one of the large guns at me, “Is that anyway to treat an Elder in the Steel Rangers. Now Shadow, it’s time that you stop trying to run.”

“You aren’t taking her!” Stardust yelled pointing his gun at the Elder.

“And who’s going to stop me…you?” he said.

“Damn right!” Stardust said.

Wolfsbane started to laugh, “You can try, but I do believe that I have the upper hoof.”

“What do you mean?” Wind Thrasher asked, her eyes were starting to turn red again, her voice still sounded like hers though and not Sharp.

A second later Gina landed next to us and pointed her glowing red spear at Stardust, eight other griffons landed as well and seven more ponies in Power Armor came running down the road. Stardust looked at the forces and slowly lowered his weapon, “I see your point.”

Aura looked pissed, but she knew we didn’t stand a chance so she too lowered her spear. I sighed and shook my head “Fine Wolfsbane you win, I’ll go with you, but please stop attacking Cartwheel.”

He ignored me, instead he looked at Gina saying, “What happened with the Sentinel?”

“Not sure, he was fighting more of your Rangers when I flew off. He’s a tough old pony.” Gina said.

“We should go before he shows up, knowing that old fuck, he’s probably called for help from Hidden Sands. Take the Courier into Custody and get her to the Palisade, same for her friends and Vervain.” Elder Wolfsbane said slowly walking past me to look at Cartwheel.

“No problem boss, and what do you want us to do with the rest of the town?” Gina asked.

The Elder turned his head toward us saying, “Burn this shit hole to the ground and kill every last pony who lives here. I want this place to be a symbol for what happens when you help a pony like The Courier. Once you’re done with that, send a transmission to that Pegasus Nightshade and tell him if he wants to see the Courier alive again, he will find Grimoire Spell and give her to me.”

I whipped out Dream Walker and pointed it at Elder Wolfsbane, “I’m not going to let you hurt the ponies here!”

Wolfsbane just laughed, “And how are you going to stop me child?”

My shadow rippled and a moment later Oricalcos was standing there, “I won’t let you hurt my Niece Wolfsbane!”

To my shock, Wolfsbane just laughed, “So that’s where you’ve been hiding Pride. I knew you didn’t die in that explosion back in Appleton, but I had no idea you’d tag along with the mare who tried to kill you.”

Sharp blades formed on my uncles back, “I’ll say it again Wolfsbane, you won’t hurt Star!”

Wolfsbane just laughed, then turned to a unicorn scribe that I hadn’t noticed before, she had a pink coat, a dark orange mane and eyes, “Take care of that trash will you.”

The mare smiled as she looked at Oricalcos, “No Problem Sir.”

Oricalcos looked at the young mare saying, “So you want to be the first to die huh, fine with me.”

The Unicorn pulled a white gem from her robes then cast a spell over it. There was a flash of bright light followed by a scream from my uncle. A moment later he was gone, and the white gem was now black. No, it wasn’t black, the black was moving inside of the gem. Somehow this unicorn was able to trap Oricalcos inside that gem. She started to laugh, “Well look at that, Grim’s old notes about her brother were correct, you can trap darkness inside this thing.”

Wolfsbane nodded saying, “Grim is usually right when it comes to things like that. Now let’s get out of here.”

“No!” I started to say then the unicorn looked at me and smiled.

“Shut your yap bitch!” her horn flashed and a spell rolled over us all. My body couldn’t move, same for all of my friends.

My eyes were locked open as the Griffons took hold of all of us and started to fly us up to the Palisade. As they did the massive canons on the flying ship started to fire. Buildings exploded, ponies died, the ground below cracked. Then a smaller canon fired at The Equestrian Express, the building imploded and crumbled into nothing more than broken stone and burring wood. I watched as the town I wanted to call my home one day, died. The ponies who took me in and supported me like I was one of their own died. All but one, as I was flown higher into the sky, I saw Box Tape looking up at us, over a dozen dead Steel Rangers and more griffon’s dead around his hooves.

As we were taken away all I could do was wish that somepony…anypony would come save us. That somepony would do something to stop what was happening, but no pony was coming. There’re no real heroes in the wasteland, not even the Courier could stop a pony like Wolfsbane. The wolf in sheep’s clothing, that I was stupid enough to trust when he asked for my help. The pony who just killed Cartwheel and the Equestrian Express. I’m The Courier anymore…

[FOOTNOTE: 42% To Level…………]

Error…Error…Error…Please Reload!

Chapter 42 Part 2: Our Town

“An encore it is then.”

Cartwheel, the town that once was plagued by Raiders, but still stood strong, the place that accepted me when I was fresh from my stable, is gone. Cartwheel was Silver Snip’s home, the place where she took on the responsibilities of her mother’s shop and made it into something better. It was the place where the Equestrian Express building was, the place where old Box Tape took me on as a Courier. Even that’s gone, all of it destroyed by the Stallion who ran the Los Alicorn branch of The Steel Rangers… Elder Wolfsbane, no, just Wolfsbane, a stallion as cruel as him doesn’t deserve to be called Elder by me. He’s the pony I once took a chance on and trusted, by destroying Stable 97 and the Devil’s Children Program that was going on in there.

He’s a smart pony, he knew that all he had to do to get my help was tell me he’d give me the information on finding my friend Stardust. I fell for it like a foal, just like the child I really am. Now that I did what he asked, he wants me. Why? I still have no idea, more than likely he wanted The Mark II, just like all the other ponies who knew about it did. Or did he want me because a long time ago, mom said she’d send me to Elder Wolfsbane once I was better? Maybe he didn’t like a mare like me running around and helping ponies the way I did. Whatever the reason, I’m his prisoner now and so are my friends.

The griffons that called themselves The Unchained Talons, are working for Wolfsbane. After the attack on Cartwheel, Wolfsbane, his griffons and his ponies, trapped us near the west gate after it was destroyed. We didn’t stand a chance against the might of Wolfsbane’s forces so surrender. The Griffons carried us away and brought us to the huge air ship Wolfsbane called The Palisade, air ships like that were known as zeppelins, recalling some of the books I remember reading from my mom’s collection. Now we were in cells deep inside the belly of the beast. Aura was in the cell across from me, Wingnut was with Stardust in the cell to my left, Wind Thrasher was next to Aura’s cell, and Yaksha (The strange Zebra who decided to travel with us) was in the cell with me. In the past hour, no pony had come to check on us. The Griffons however did make sure to put a magical blocking ring on my horn so I couldn’t just teleport out. They took all of our stuff, even checking our manes and tails to make sure we weren’t hiding anything.

That meant I didn’t have my bobby pins or my trusty screwdriver. So, picking the lock wasn’t an option, even if I did still have them, with my magic blocked fully, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I was good at picking locks, but only if I had my magic. If I had to use my mouth or hooves, I’d fail. So here we sat, waiting for somepony to come down here and either talk to us, or tell us what they wanted with me. The other problem was, ever since we arrived, I hadn’t seen Vervain. The griffons had taken her somewhere else when we arrived.

“Shadow you have to have some kind of plan, right?” Wingnut asked.

“Sorry kiddo, I’m fresh out of ideas,” I said, leaning against the wall closest to his cell, “But if you have any ideas feel free to share them with me.”

“I’ve been trying to think of something for a while now, but this place is set up a lot better than your Stable’s cells,” Wingnut said with a deep sigh, “Everypony tells me I’m a smart colt, but I can’t seem to come up with some kind of plan that would work.”

Aura was laying on a cot in her own cell, she opened an eye to look over at us when Wingnut finished, “Shadow why don’t you see if you can get a message out to the Talons?”

“I’ve tried that three times now, something’s blocking my broadcaster in here. Even if I could get a message out to them, what good would it do. A lot of griffons would die if they tried to come save us.”

“I doubt it, remember Apollo has good standing with The Steel Rangers even the Los Alicorn branch. If we could somehow get him to talk to Elder Wolfsbane then maybe he could get us out of here without much trouble. My dad is a very good negotiator,” Aura said.

Stardust spoke up, “Even if he is, I don’t think it would do us much good. They may let us go if Apollo talked to the Elder, but he wouldn’t let Shadow go. He wants something from her.”

“He also would not let me go, these Steel Rangers hate my kind,” Yaksha said with a sigh.

“I don’t see why he’d keep you here Yaksha, it’s not like you’ve done anything to Wolfsbane before,” I said.

“True, but I am still a zebra, he will kill me based on that fact alone. The Steel Rangers’ Los Alicorn Branch still seem to think that the war is going on and feel that all zebras need to die in order for Equestria to rise again.” Yaksha said.

Aura said, “Yeah, they are a bunch of ass holes. I mean what’s the big deal with Zebra’s anyway? Yeah there are some like the Romans who want to take over or whatever, but not all zebras are bad. Look at Sheena, she’s a good mare same for a few other zebras I know.”

“I just wish we could think of a way to get us out of here,” I said looking at my Pip-Buck and once again trying to find a signal to broadcast from. I mean I could understand if my Pip-Buck was a normal one and had a broadcaster attached to it, but the Mark II was supposed to be special. I thought this thing had a stronger broadcaster on it.

“Maybe Box Tape will do something to help us, he is the Sentinel isn’t he?” Wingnut asked.

“He is, but that doesn’t mean much to Wolfsbane from the look of it. His ponies ended up attacking him too, well most of them did,” I said, still trying to figure out what I could do with my broadcaster. The menu did bring up a signal, but it was just The Pelican’s emergency broadcast channel. A lot of good that does me.

“What if he called in the Steel Rangers from Hidden Sands?” Stardust asked.

“I’m not sure they’d help, I still don’t know what happened with Appleslice and from what we know so far, it seems like Sapphire took over, but I’m not sure why.” I said giving up with the Mark II and looking over at Wind Thrasher. She hasn’t said a word since we first arrived here. She was just staring at the far wall, “Wind Thrasher are you okay?”

She jumped and looked over at me, her eyes as wide as saucers, “No…”

I noticed her eyes still had a red tint to them, “Is it the blood lust? There isn’t any blood around us right now so why would that be bothering you still?”

She shook her head, “It’s not the blood lust, I don’t know what it is, but ever since they put me in here, I’ve been feeling very…” she grumbles, “claustrophobic.”

“I didn’t think Stable ponies got claustrophobic,” Wingnut said.

“I…don’t like being locked in cages!” she said her voice going higher, “I need to get out, I don’t want to be locked away. It’s just like when Dr. Cell put that collar on me. I’m not a FUCKING ANIMAL!” she yelled, jumping to her hooves and pressing her face to the bars of her cell.

“Calm down Wind Thrasher please, we’ll figure a way out of this,” Stardust said.

“Oh yeah? And who’s going to help us huh, YOU!” she hissed at Stardust, “I’ll get us out of here, then when I find that ass hole I’m going to rip his fucking head off!”

I shook my head, this can’t be good. Her eyes were glowing bright red now, “Wind Thrasher you need to calm down.”

“No, you calm down Shadow!” She froze up for a second then started to babble to herself, “The walls are closing in on me, the cage is getting smaller. Don’t lock me up again, I’ll be good I promise. DON’T LOCK ME UP!”

Out of nowhere she screamed and the power of her voice split through the cell like it did when we were in the cave under Halo One, only this time I wasn’t ready for it, same for the rest of my friends. We all covered our ears, falling to the ground as her scream went on. I tried to say something, but my voice didn’t work. My ears felt like something hot was leaking out of them and my vision started to go black. Then when I thought I was going to pass out, she stopped her scream.

A moment passed and all I could hear was a high-pitched ringing noise. Then when my hearing started to come back, Wind Thrasher started to ram her body against the bars of her cell, “Let me out, let me out, LET ME OUT!”

Yaksha moaned then got to her hooves, she worked her jaw around like she was trying to get her ears to pop then asked, “I know that Wind Thrasher is part bat pony, but does she have another kind of DNA in her as well?”

“Why do you ask?” I asked her as I watched my friend slam her body against the cell door, again and again.

“Because bats like dark enclosed spaces, being in that cell should not be making her act like this.”

“She’s part Dragon too,” Wingnut said, “Fuck that hurt.”

“Shit, that would explain it,” Yaksha said.

“What do you mean?” Aura asked.

“Dragons cannot stand to be trapped, they are creatures that love to roam around freely. They are damn near impossible to control and very temperamental when things do not go their way, i.e. being caged.”

Wind Thrasher looked over at her and hissed, “Shut the fuck up Zebra, you don’t know anything. I’m a pony! Not a fucking Dragon!”

“If that is so, then stop acting like one, I know more than you think.” Yaksha said.

Wind Thrasher yelled, then she went back to slamming herself against the bars. “I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them all starting with you Zebra!” Then she stopped, “I’ll break them down one way or another,” she opened her muzzle again getting ready to scream.

“WIND THRASHER STOP!” We all covered our ears, but right as I said ‘stop’ the door down the hall opened. Wolfsbane and the young unicorn mare who trapped my uncle in the crystal walked in. He looked over at Wind Thrasher and sighed, “I’m assuming that horrible sound came from you monster.”

She grinned at him, her fangs shining in the dim light, “Sure was, if you let me out come I’ll give you a privet performance, or maybe your plaything standing next to you will want a sample. Plenty to go around.”

“You’re not going anywhere, now shut up before I make you,” he said.

“An encore it is then,” Wind Thrasher said opening her muzzle to scream again.

The mare stepped forward her horn glowing, “Time for a nap, this one’s a little cranky.”

The Mare’s horn flashed, Wind Thrasher’s eyes dropped and she fell forward. She was sleeping before she even hit the ground. Wolfsbane shook his head, “Thank you Sherbert.”

“Why didn’t we leave that one down in Cartwheel?” the mare asked.

“Because she’s dangerous and I didn’t want to risk her coming after us. She’s also from Stable 9, she may know more about the Mark II’s,” Wolfsbane said walking past Wind Thrasher’s cell and over to mine.

“You better not hurt my friends Wolfsbane or you’ll regret it,” I growled.

He yawned, “It’s been a long day Courier, I don’t feel like trading banter with you right now.”

“To fucking bad because I have nothing better to do than to insult you until I run out of ideas.”

The mare Wolfsbane called Sherbert came closer her horn glowing a dull orange, “Listen, we can make this easy or hard. Either shut your yap or I’ll make you.”

I laughed, “Go ahead and try bitch.”

She gasped, “Did you just call me a bitch!? I’ll have you know I’m the youngest unicorn to ever became a senior scribe.”

“So what, you still look like a bitch,” I said laughing again.

Her orange eyes flashed and she retorted, “At least I’m not a slit licking freak like you!”

Aura jumped off her cot, “You better hope I don’t get out of here unicorn. Nopony talks to my mare that way!”

Sherbert turned toward Aura a look of disgust on her face, “Gross, you mean you’re the one she’s doing things with. That’s wrong in so many ways.”

Aura lunged at the Unicorn her talons just scratching across her nose. The young unicorn yelped and jumped back, “Oh you’ll pay for that GRIFFON!”

“Enough Sherbert,” Wolfsbane barked.

The unicorn looked at her Elder, “But she just…”

“I don’t care, Aura is off limits,” he said before looking back at Aura, “My apologies Aura, Sherbert’s from an isolated village to the north. Her village is highly against same sex relationships and she hasn’t adjusted her view of the world yet.”

“Bite me Wolfsbane. I’ll have you know that once Gigi or Apollo find out you have us here, they’ll make you wish you were never born.”

“I’m not worried about your mother Aura or Apollo, they can’t do anything against us. Right now, the only reason I’m not letting Sherbert do anything to you is because Gina said she wanted you left unharmed. Now be quiet before I decide to ignore her request.”

“Aura just let it be,” I said “Wolfsbane what do you want?”

“I’m surprised you have to ask Shadow. I thought you would have figured it out by now,” he said looking back at me.

“The Mark II I’m guessing.”

He shrugged, “Yes and no.”

“Then what do you need her for?” Stardust asked.

He shrugged, “Her mother promised me that Shadow here would be sent to Los Alicorn when she was cured. She’s a powerful unicorn that doesn’t have any control over her power. Grim didn’t stay long enough in Stable 28 to teach her anything. If Grim had taken Shadow with her when she left, then we wouldn’t be here today. She would’ve grown up in Los Alicorn as a Scribe maybe even a Knight or Paladin.”

Wingnut spoke up, “So, your collecting on a payment from Shadow’s mother?”

I frowned saying, “That makes me sound like I’m a slave.”

“Not a slave, no, I don’t believe in slavery. It’s a disgusting practice.” Wolfsbane said with a yawn.

“Then what do you call one pony selling another pony to somepony like you?” I asked.

“I call it an investment. I’ve searched for ten years to find unicorns with as much raw ability as Grim and you have. That’s how I found Sherbert, she is powerful and her own parents couldn’t teach her how to control her magic. I took her in and with the help of some of my older scribes we were able to get her to control her magic. That was the deal I had with Grim. She knew that once Shadow was cured, she wouldn’t be able to teach her how to control her magic. I found that surprising since Grim is a powerful unicorn herself, but there you have it. She needed my help to find information on where the Mark II was so she could cure Shadow…or Morning Star back then, my price was that she sent Shadow to me so she could learn to use her magic the right way without hurting herself.”

“I don’t buy that for a second Wolfsbane, mom was already teaching me how to use my magic before she left,” I said.

“I’m sure she was, but let me ask you this. How much did she teach you? Did she teach you how to Teleport? Did she teach you how to use that expulsion spell?”

“No…she didn’t. She taught me how to use my Telekinesis, and how to control it better than most unicorns can,” I said.

“As I thought, I’m guessing you learned how to Teleport all on your own, same for the other spell you know.”

I nodded, “I read something in a spell book I found in Stable 28’s library and learned how they both worked. I didn’t know I could do them until later.”

“That makes sense. You see from what Grim told me about you when you were still a foal, you used magic as a new born. You don’t hear about that kind of thing happening anymore. Your family thought you’d end up being more powerful than even your uncle Pride.”

I sighed, “Yeah, I get it, they thought I was powerful, what does this have to do with me now? And why the fuck did you come after me like you did!?”

“You mean the attack on Cartwheel?” he asked, sounding puzzled.

“Damn right!”

“I did that because I knew you were with The Sentinel. If he saw me coming, he wouldn’t have let me take you. I also knew that after I asked you to join my Steel Rangers back near the Stable and you refused, that you wouldn’t just come with me willingly either. So, I decided to take you by force.”

“Worked too,” Sherbert said with a giggle.

“Sherbet did I say you can speak?”

Sherbert looked away “Sorry Sir”

Aura spoke next, “So you destroyed an entire town and killed all the ponies there for that?”

He turned to look at her, “Not just that, I also needed to capture the bat pony too. We saw what happened to her in Whinnieapolis and we couldn’t risk her going crazy again. We had to strike fast and hard to capture you both. The rest of you were just a bonus. As to why I destroyed Cartwheel that’s a lot easier to explain. I hated that town and the Sentinel the lived there, I wanted it wiped off the face of our world for good, so you could say I killed three birds with one stone. I captured the bat pony, captured the Courier, and destroyed the town I hated more than any other.”

I slammed myself against the bars of my cell, “You’re a fucking monster!”

He grinned, “There it is, there’s the anger I’ve been waiting to see.”

Yaksha put a hoof in front of me as if she were stopping me from moving forward, “Shadow that is enough, now is not the time for anger.”

She was right, if I didn’t watch it, I’d make the same mistakes I did in Whinnieapolis. So, I took in a deep breath and stepped away from the bars with my back facing Wolfsbane looking at her, “You’re right Yaksha, he’s not worth it.”

He frowned looking over at Yaksha, “Keep your muzzle shut zebra, you’re lucky I still haven’t killed you.”

“And you are lucky you had so many ponies with you when you took us in, or I would have killed you,” Yaksha replied.

“Doubtful,” he said looking back at me, “You think I’m a monster, do you? You don’t know anything about me Shadow, I’ve done more for the wasteland than you can ever imagine.”

“You destroyed a town and killed the ponies there because you hated one old buck, a buck you didn’t even kill. Yeah, you’re a monster.”

He laughed, “One town with not many ponies living there, I never used a Super Weapon on a town like Appleton or the Mill City Tower like you did.”

As he spoke Sherbert pulled out the Range Finder with her magic, “I’m surprised she was able to do that with something like this? It looks like a stupid toy.”

“GIVE THAT BACK!” I yelled.

She laughed “Hah, no way, I want to take it apart and see how it works,” she said sticking her tongue out at me.

“Are you worried that I’m going to let her use it to destroy something Shadow?” Wolfsbane asked.

“Duh, that thing shouldn’t be in any ponies’ hooves, let alone a pony like you,” Wingnut said from his cell.

“This weapon only works for some ponies. It has a spell gem inside of it that works like a biometric scanner. Only the ponies that are on the spell or their descendants of that pony can fire it,” Sherbert said, putting the Range Finder back into her robes.

“That’s right, I’m assuming you’re descended from one of those ponies Shadow. So only you can fire it, maybe a couple other ponies, I won’t know until I have Sherbert look it over,” Wolfsbane said, “Now enough about all of this, it’s time you started to tell me what you know about Project Aquila.”

As he said this Aquila said to me, “How does he know about that? Everypony calls it Stargazer.”

I pushed her back in my mind replying, “What the hell is Project Aquila?”

“Don’t play dumb with me Shadow, I know all about the Project and the power that was created by the Children of the Night with Stargazer. I know that it was renamed Project Aquila by Minuette. I also know that was the power Grim used to save your life, because only something like that could have done so. Now tell me what you know,” he said.

“Fuck you,” Stardust said from his cell, “Why should she tell you anything?”

“Yeah fuck you Wolfsbane!” Wingnut said as well.

I could tell Stardust was holding back a laugh, putting a serious face back on “You heard what he said.”

The Elder glared over at them then sighed, “One more word out of any of you and you’ll be the first ponies I kill to make Shadow tell me what I want to know.”

“I’m not talking Wolfsbane!” I said, “Even if I did know what you were talking about, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Why, because you’re still trying to protect your mother, or because you want me to think you still don’t remember your past?” he asked.

“I don’t remember my past!”

Sherbert laughed, “You’re full of shit, we know that you remember everything. Wolfsbane told me that your mom took away your memories, so I checked the spell when we brought you in, the spell’s gone so stop lying.”

I glared at her, “I really don’t like you.”

Sherbert smiled, “Good because I hate you.”

I grinned at her, “Ah really? Because now that I’m getting a better look at you, your kind of cute. I don’t know what it is, maybe I have a thing for bitches, but I bet you’re really fun in bed. I’m sure you’d show Aura and I a thing or two.”

Sherbert’s eyes went wide, “Take that back! I’d never do anything as disgusting as that with a pony like you or that fucking GRIFFON!”

“Calm down Sherbert, she’s just trying to anger you,” Wolfsbane said, but the mare ignored her Elder.

“I don’t know, you shouldn’t talk about something you’ve never tried before,” I grinned and continued, “Sherbert huh, isn’t that some kind of sweet treat, I wonder if you taste like Sherbert. I’d LOVE to find out.”

Aura seemed to catch on to what I was doing, “I bet she does, I wouldn’t mind having a taste.”

Yaksha caught on quick and grinned evilly, “I once tried something with a mare named Black Liquorice.”

I continued “Oh really, and did she taste like it?”

Yaksha nodded keeping her evil grin up, “Oh she did.”

“Oh really?” I said, “Now I’m really curious, hey Sherbert, if you give me a taste I may be in a better mood to help your Elder out. Oh and the best part is you’ll get a new name out of it. RAINBOW SHERBERT! Wouldn’t that just be great for all of us?”

The young mare broke as she ran right up to the bars her horn glowing, “I’ll make you pay for that you sick FU…”

I lunged forward and slammed my hoof down on her horn. The mare screamed as she lost hold of her magic and I wrapped a hoof around her and flipped her around holding her against the bars, “There we go, much better. Now we can talk like mature adults.”

Wolfsbane had a gun out pointing it at me, “Let her go Shadow.”

I moved my face closer to Sherbert’s and smiled as I kissed one of her ears, “Why? She’s so cute Wolfsbane and she did get a little too close to my cell. I thought she was smart.”

The mare started to kick, but I held on tight as she yelled, “Let me go before I turn you into dust!”

“I mean it Shadow, let her go,” Wolfsbane said getting closer to me, “Now!”

I waited for a moment then said, “Not until you let my friends go Wolfsbane.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes you can, you’re the Elder, you make the rules here,” as I said this, the mare’s horn started to glow again. I slammed my free hoof on it again, “Tut tut dear Sherbert None of that, trust me, you can’t cast a spell fast enough.”

“If you don’t let her go Shadow, I’ll kill the colt!” he said in a low threatening voice.

I grinned, “Do that and I’ll kill her, one quick twist and her neck breaks. It’s as easy as one…two…”

“Then you’ll be down a hostage and a friend, I’ll just be down one unicorn out of dozens.”

Damn he was a cold bastard, but I can’t back down, “If this is how you view the ponies who serve you then I know for sure that I don’t want to be one of them.” I thought for a moment and then looked at Sherbet “See that Sherbert, he doesn’t see you as important enough to spare.”

He smiled at me and moved his gun to point at Wingnut in the other cell saying over the bit, “You don’t understand Shadow, I’m not worried about Sherbert, because I know you. You won’t let one of your friends die.”

“Shadow just let her go, he’s not gonna back down,” Aura said to me from her cell.

I looked at the Elder for a long moment, then cursed and pushed the mare away, “Fine, have your temper tantrum waiting to happen back.”

Sherbert coughed then glared over at me, “I’m going to kill you for that!”

“Uh oh, looks like it might happen sooner rather than later, just sayin’,” I said ignoring her outburst. “Just remember what Wolfsbane thinks about one his so-called best unicorns Sherbert.”

Wolfsbane holstered his gun then said, “Sherbert calm down and go, I think we should let Shadow and her friends stay in here for a little while longer.”

“But sir…”

“I said go,” he said glaring at her, “Before I decide to have you punished for letting yourself get captured for something so stupid.”

She took in a deep breath lowering her head, “Yes sir.”

She turned and headed out of the cells, when she was gone Wolfsbane said, “Now if you’re done acting like a filly, I’d like to finish this before we move out.”

“Move out? What do you mean?” Aura asked.

“Soon we will be leaving for Los Alicorn,” he said, “Now, Shadow I still want my question answered, what happened to Project Aquila. Grim used it I know that much, but she doesn’t have that power now, I need to know what happened to it.”

I just smiled laying on the ground with my head resting on my hooves “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine, if you want to play it like that, then I’ll just have to get the information out of one of your friends,” he said turning toward Aura, “How about we start with you, I’m sure I can get Gina to make you talk.”

Aura just smiled, “Gina was the one who taught me how to withstand torture, not even she can make me talk. Even if she could, I don’t know anything about this project, I’m just a bodyguard.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said heading toward the door, “You all have a half hour before I get back with Gina, if I were you I’d start thinking about telling me what I want to know.”

“Wolfsbane wait!” I yelled.

He turned, “What?”

“What did you do with Vervain?”

He smiled again, “She’s alive if that’s what you’re wondering,” then he continued out the door.

“Oh no, Mr. Principal says we should sit here and think about stuff. Whatever shall we do with ourselves besides tell him the Goddesses honest truth about everything? Think of an escape plan? Not us,” Wingnut said sarcastically then whispered, “We’re supposed to be heroes but look, captured by the bad guys once again.

Aura glared over at me, “What the fuck were you thinking taking her hostage, did you think that would really work!?”

“Nope, but I wasn’t trying to get him to let us go,” I said.

“Then what was that all about Shadow?” Yaksha said, “It is a little embarrassing for me to tell random strangers about the lustful fun I had as a young mare.”

“I didn’t even know you liked mares Yaksha, I just wanted to make that unicorn angry.”

She blushed so hard looking away it looked cute, “I…was just trying to help.”

“Anyway, what was that all about then Shadow?” Aura asked.

I smiled lifting a small green gem on a small chain, “Saw this hanging on her robes, and figured it was important.”

“What is that?” Aura asked.

“I want to see!” Wingnut said.

Yaksha smiled seemingly recovered from her embarrassment, “Clever mare you are full of surprises Shadow Star. That looks like a gem that will let Shadow take off her magic canceling ring.”

“That’s what I figured as well,” I said lifting the gem up and touching it to the ring. I felt a small spark in my horn and I was able to pull the ring off, “I love it when I’m right.”

“Are you sure that will help? I mean we are still locked in here.” Aura asked.

“Why else put something like that on me?” I concentrated, wrapped Yaksha in my magic and teleported us both out of the cell, “Yep, I think we’re good.”

“Nice, now how are you going to get us out of here?” Aura asked, “And what about Wind Thrasher?”

I looked over at Wind Thrasher who was still laying on the floor of her cell, “We’ll have to bring her, I’m sure she’ll be better once we’re out of here.”

Yaksha looked over at Wind Thrasher, “As long as she does not attack us, I cannot tell if that threat she said was real.”

Wingnut replied, “She won’t, now can we please get OUT OF HERE.”

“Yeah, I gotcha Kiddo.” Once again I Teleported into their Cell, got them out, and did the same with Aura and Wind Thrasher. Once I was done my vision was a little blurry, but it didn’t last long. Maybe I was getting stronger with my magic. A few weeks ago, there was no way I’d be able to do this.

“Damn that feels weird,” Stardust said shaking his head, “How do you do that all the time?”

I just shrugged, “It doesn’t feel weird to me, maybe it’s because you’re not a unicorn.”

“Doesn’t matter, let’s get out of here, somepony wake Wind Thrasher up.” Aura said, “Shadow what’s the plan?”

“We figure out how to get outside and we fly out of here. I figured that shouldn’t be too hard since three of us can fly,” I said, “That is if Wind Thrasher is calm.”

Wingnut was already shaking the Bat Pony, “Wind Thrasher wake up!”

She jumped then looked up at Wingnut, “What happened?”

“You freaked out and that Unicorn knocked you out,” I said.

She shook her head then looked around, “Did they let us go?”

“No, we’re escaping, are you going to be okay or are we going to have to tie you up,” Aura said.

She nodded, “I’m feeling okay, I just didn’t like being locked up again.”

“Well that’s a relief, let’s go before they figure out we escaped,” Aura said, “We also have to find our gear, and get the Range Finder back.”

“I agree, maybe if we’re lucky we can take Wolfsbane down while we do it,” I said heading toward the door.

Stardust was right behind me as we moved, “What if Wolfsbane figured out that you’d try something like this? It could all be a trap.”

“Then it’s a stupid plan, if he thinks he knows so much about me then he should know that letting me escape won’t work in his favor,” I said as I opened the door. It led into another room filled with lockers. Even better from the look of it, our things were tossed on one table.

“Okay now I’m really thinking this is a trap,” Stardust said as he walked over and grabbed his Saddle Bags.

I took my own, checking that all of my weapons were still there. They were and even better my barding was lying next to my bags, “Either way, at least we have our own weapons, they even left my Plasma Rifle.”

“That thing really needs a name,” Wingnut said as he put on his smaller combat armor and picked up Ol’ Festus and his revolver.

“I agree with Shadow, it will be a lot easier to get out of here with our weapons,” Aura said picking up her spear, “Damn I missed this.”

Stardust stood in front of us, “Fine, if we are going to do this then we’re doing this the smart way. First, we need to find The Range Finder then we need to find a way off this fucking thing. We can’t take the time to try and kill Wolfsbane or the rest of the Rangers here.”

“NO way, I’m going to make him pay for what he did to Cartwheel,” I said.

“No, we can’t do that, especially if this is a trap. Wolfsbane knows more than he should, that means he’s been watching you. If he planned on you escaping then he knows you’ll come looking for him, just like you did when you thought I killed Aura. We can’t play his game, we have to cheat. Getting away is the main goal here.”

I stomped a hoof, “Fine, but we also have to find my uncle and Vervain.”

Aura looked over at me, “I thought you’d be happy to have him gone?”

“I know, but he’s not as bad as I thought and he has been helping me.”

“Yeah, he also killed Silver or did you forget that,” Aura said.

“No, I haven’t but I’m also not going to just leave him with Wolfsbane when he’s been doing his best to help me. I haven’t forgiven him for what he did, but I’m trying.”

Wind Thrasher smiled, “That’s the way to do it Shadow, you have to try and forgive, violence is not the answer.”

“I thought violence was always the answer?” Wingnut said.

Wind Thrasher looked over at Wingnut, “I’ll admit that sometimes you can’t help violence, but you should always try not to make that your first choice.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Stardust said, “Fine if we have to do this then we’re going to have to split up.”

“No way, we’re not doing that,” I said.

“He has a point Shadow, it’s the only way we can get away and save everypony,” Aura said.

“I just know something’s going to go wrong. You know the old saying ‘whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.’”

“Maybe, but it’s the only way we can do this,” Stardust said, “Aura you go with Shadow and Wingnut. Wind Thrasher, Yaksha and I will go look for that Mare and see if she still has the Range Finder, you three see if you can find Vervain.”

“Hey I thought I was the leader of this group.”

Stardust facehooved “Are you serious Shadow? Is now the time to be talking about that?”

I smirked, “No I’m not serious, I had you going for a second there, your idea is fine, but if something goes wrong get out of here as quick as you can and get the Talons,” I said, “Also see if Sherbert has my uncle.”

“I will, now let’s go,” Stardust said.

With Stardust, Yaksha and Wind Thrasher leaving down a hall following a sign that said ‘Scribes’ on the wall. Wingnut, Aura and I went the other direction. We weren’t sure where Vervain was, but something told me that she’d be near Wolfsbane’s room. A sign on the wall said ‘Elder’ on it, I just hope that she’s still alive.

“So, what’s the plan if we run into Steel Rangers?” Wingnut asked.

“Kill them if we can, run if we can’t,” I said keeping my Plasma rifle and very sharp sword out.

My sword seemed to have caught Aura’s attention, she wanted to look at it closer, “Where did you find that Shadow? I’ve seen you using it before but I’ve never got a good look at it.”

I looked down at the Sword, “I found it in the ruins next to the Kingdom, the thing is very sharp. I was able to cut through even Steel Ranger armor with it.”

“That looks like Misery.”

I stopped and looked at the black blade with the silvery edge to it, “What’s Misery?”

“One of the twin swords that belonged to Greta, they went missing when she left the Red Talons. I’ve only heard stories about them from Tonto,” she replied.

Wingnut looked back at us whispering, “Do we really have time for this?”

“Sorry Boss,” she said, “We can talk about it later. If that is Misery then we’ll have to go see Tonto when we can, he’ll know for sure. Just don’t lose it!”

“I don’t plan to, it’s a great weapon,” I said as we came to an intersection and Wingnut checked to make sure nopony was coming.

“It looks clear, but it looks like a few ponies are sleeping down the hall to the left.” He said

“Good work Kiddo, this sign here says the Elder’s room is to the right. Let’s just make sure to keep as quiet as we can,” I said.

We all snuck down the hall, it wasn’t long and ended in a small open area with three doors and a huge ladder that lead down farther into the Palisade. The door just in front of us had a plaque that said, ‘Wolfsbane’ on it. Moving closer to the door I took a moment to listen. I couldn’t hear anything so slowly I opened the door, my sword ready for anything.

Nopony was in the room, not even Vervain, “Damn it.”

“She’s not here, I’ll go check the other two rooms. See what you can find while I’m doing that,” Aura said.

“Yeah, good idea,” I said looking over at Wingnut, “Hey Kiddo, keep an eye out while I check out the room.”

“Can do, just make it quick,” he said moving over to the door and watching for anypony coming while Aura started to check the other rooms.

I walked over to a terminal on the far desk and tried to log in. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was locked. I hooked the Mark II into it and watched as the hacking software went to work. To my surprise, the Mark II was able to bypass the security in only a few seconds. I guess Wolfsbane’s terminal was one of the easier terminals to hack. A moment passed then the screen came up with a few options.

Mark II Locations (Updated)

Mission Notes

Trusted Elders

Branches to Take Down

Locations of Stables

Places The Courier has Visited (Updated)

Project Stargazer (Unknown)

Project Grim is Working on (Needs Update)

Investigation on Missing Elder Appleslice and Details for the Courier.

I knew we didn’t have time for me to look into all the files, so I uploaded them to the Mark II. The last file though, I had to look at that before I left. If Elder Wolfsbane knew what happened to Appleslice, then I wanted to know as well.

Log 1

I sent a request to meet with the Elder of the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers Appleslice. I got a response from her that she wanted to meet outside of Cartwheel, I’m not sure why. I hate that town more than I hate the damned Synths that roam around Los Alicorn, but this is her area and I’ll go where she needs me to. The problem is she was supposed to meet me yesterday and there still hasn’t been any word from her or her troops. I’ve been trying to reach the Bunker, but I’m not getting a response from anypony there. I’m going to talk to this Courier Mare soon, once the mission with Stable 28 is over and try to get her to help me with Stable 97, then I’ll try to see what I can learn about Elder Appleslice’s whereabouts.

Log 2

The Courier left yesterday, she took the bait and is heading to Stable 97 to help her friend. That foal has no idea what’s she’s in for, either she’ll fail and die which makes getting the Pip-Buck a lot easier, or she’ll succeed like she always seems to. If she does, then I’ll still be able to get what I need from that Stable, my mole inside The Enclave will let me know either way.

I still haven’t heard from Appleslice, I’ve tried sending a message to the Bunker again and I ended up getting one of the Star Paladins, Sapphire, she’s trying to tell me she’s the new Elder. How can this be? Did something happen to Appleslice? I’m going to send some of my Paladins and Knights to check it out. If something happened to the Elder, I need to know. For that matter, Sapphire hasn’t been a Star Paladin for very long. From the reports I got about her, she’s only in her second year. Noodle Cup or Sandstorm should have been the ones to take over.

I’ll need to see what else I can find out, I worked hard to get Appleslice put into power in Hidden Sands. After I had Crackerjack kill her father, I knew she’d be the right pony to lead them. She doesn’t ever interfere with my plans. This Sapphire is an unknown to me, I don’t know how she thinks or what she’s like. Hell, from my reports, she had a hoof in killing Crackerjack. I had him keeping an eye out for anypony from Stable 28 and thanks to her, he died! Years of work and planning down the drain thanks to that bitch, the Courier, and a fucking Dashite.

Anyway, I’m going to see what I can find.

Log 3

I just heard back from my contact in the Enclave. It looks like the Courier was able to get into the Stable and better yet, she cleared the place out of all the Enclave ponies that were there. I’m sending my contact there to get as much information as he can about this memory machine before this new High Council Pony Nightshade does something.

Speaking of Nightshade, I don’t like what I’m hearing about this pegasus. I need to do something about him, maybe I can use the Courier. For some reason he seems to care about her, maybe I can use this to my advantage. I’ll have to think about this…

Log 4

You’ve got to be kidding me! I just heard back from my contact… That fucking bitch Courier locked the Stable with her Mark II. I should have known she’d pull something like this. All my plans for that place and now I can’t even get in! I’m going to make her pay for this, when she gets back I’ll make her wish she never double crossed me. Mark my words, I’ll make the entire wasteland understand why you don’t help a pony like her!

“Hey Shadow did you find anything?” Wingnut asked.

“I think so, it seems like Wolfsbane had more plans for Stable 97 like I thought. He also has a pony in the Enclave working for him, they checked the Stable and found that I locked it down. There’s more but we don’t have time to talk about it,” I said turning away from the terminal.

“I guess you were right about his plans for Stardust’s Stable huh,” Wingnut said, “Are you almost done?”

“I think so,” I started to say, then there was a beep on the terminal, turning I saw a message came up on it.

Incoming Transmission from Stratus.

“Huh, I wonder who would be sending a transmission to Wolfsbane from Stratus,” I said clicking a button to answer the message.

A second passed then a voice I knew came out of the terminal, “Okay Wolfsbane, I got your message from about you having Shadow. What do you want, and if I found you hurt her in any way, you’ll need more than that fucking Zeppelin to save your ass!” I heard Nightshade say.

“Nightshade?” I asked.

“Who is this!?” Nightshade asked.

“It’s me, Shadow.”

“Shadow? How the hell did you get Wolfsbane’s Terminal? I thought he captured you?”

“He did, I got out. It’s kinda my thing if you haven’t noticed. I’m trying to find my Auntie Vervain and he stole the Range Finder.”

“Shit, that’s not good. I saw what he did to Cartwheel, Stratus is on edge right now with what’s been going on. If he has that damned weapon too, that’s not good,” Nightshade said.

“I’m not sure if he can use it, I think the Range Finder can only be used by some ponies.”

“It must have a biometric Scanner on it, well at least there is some good news. Still you need to get it back Shadow, I’ll see if I can get you some help. Whatever you do, try not to fight Wolfsbane. He’s a lot stronger than you, even out of his armor.”

“I know that, I think one of the Scribes has it, I have Stardust and Wind Thrasher looking for her.”

“Good, I’ll send the Guardian down there as soon as I can. Try your best to get off that thing, from the looks of it you’re still hovering over Cartwheel.”

“Wait before you go Nightshade.”

“What?”

“When I’m out of here I need to talk to you about my dad,” I said.

A long moment went by then he said, “I’ll see if I can set up a time to come meet you. For now, you need to get out of there. Try to get to the top of that thing, there’s a large landing platform, The Guardian will meet you there.”

“Thanks Nightshade.”

“I’m glad I was able to help, stay safe Shadow.”

“I will.”

As Nightshade cut the connection to the terminal, Aura came back into the room, “Shadow, Vervain isn’t here, we need to get out of here before somepony finds us.”

“We’ll head to the top of this thing, I just talked to Nightshade, he’s sending The Stranger down here to help us,” I said as I hooked my Mark II into the terminal again and locking it.

Wingnut looked over at me asking, “What are you doing Shadow?”

“Locking his terminal so he can’t use it anymore, mostly to fuck with Wolfsbane, but also because it looks like there’s information on here that he may need and I don’t want him to be able to get it.”

“Not a bad idea,” Aura said, “If we’re heading to the top of this thing, then how will we let Wind Thrasher, Yaksha and Stardust know?”

“We’re going to have to trust that they’ll find their way up there or off this thing,” I said.

“I think we should go get them,” Wingnut said

“I guess you’re right,” I said with sigh, “Let’s hurry though, I don’t want to spend any more time here.”

“Same here, also Shadow have you tried to reach The Red Talons?” Aura asked.

“I hadn’t thought about it yet,” I said checking my Pip-Buck, sure enough the signal was there now, “Looks like I can reach them, what do you want to do?”

“Send a message then let’s go, if mom can help she’ll send help if not, at least we tried. But talk as we move, Wingnut you lead the way,” Aura said as Wingnut moved out the door.

“Why am I leading? I’m a kid y’know,” he complained.

“Because you’re short and a colt the rangers might not fire on you right away. Plus you’re old enough to foal-sit so I wouldn’t say kid, maybe young angsty adult.”

“Good point, but I still don’t like it. Also, what does angsty mean?” he said as he led us on.

As he moved I started my message to the Red Talons, “This is Shadow Star, I’m requesting help from the Red Talons. Steel Rangers from Los Alicorn attacked Cartwheel and took my friends and I prisoner. They are also working with The Unchained Talons. Gigi or any of the other Leaders of The Red Talons please come help us. We are on The Palisade,” Once I finished I set the message to repeat.

“Good job, now I just hope mom gets that in time,” Aura said as we rounded the corner heading back the way we came and almost ran right into a Steel Ranger.

The Stallion was in his armor, but his helmet was off. His eyes went wide as he said, “How the hell did you…”

I pulled my sword out and pointed it right at his eye, “One more word and I bury this deep into your skull.”

He blinked then nodded. Aura smiled, “He’s a smart buck.”

“He sure is, now tell me where is Paladin Vervain?” I asked.

“She’s on the landing platform. Wolfsbane wanted to set an example to the rest of Rangers to why we don’t help ponies like you,” he said.

“Where’s Wolfsbane?” Aura asked.

“He just finished up with Senior Scribe Sherbert, they are both heading up to the landing Platform right now. They said something about taking care of some old buck,” he said.

“Good now get out of that armor,” I said.

He looked at me confused, “Why?”

“Do it or die.”

“Fuck you, Steel Rangers don’t ever get out…” he started to yell.

I jammed the sword into his eye. He stiffened, twitched then fell. When he did a loud clang filled the hall, Wingnut winced saying, “That’s gonna wake the neighbors.”

As he said that voices came from the way we just came, “What the hell was that!?”

“No idea, let’s go check it out,” Another voice said.

“We should run now,” I said pulling my sword out of the dead Rangers head running past him.

We just rounded another corner when gun fire erupted behind us, “The Prisoners escaped, sound the alarm!”

“Yep, called it,” Wingnut said as we ran on. An alarm started to go off as we reached a set of stairs.

“This might take us up to the Landing Platform,” I said.

“What about Stardust?” Wingnut asked.

“Kiddo, we need to get out of here, the halls are too narrow for us to fight. Stardust will find us don’t worry,” I said.

“Already found you Shadow,” Stardust said as Wind Thrasher and Yaksha came running down the hall behind him, “We figured it would be best to get to the top of this thing to escape.”

“The Stranger is on his way to help us too, we also think Vervain is up there,” I said as we ran up the steps.

“Wolfsbane and that loud mouth unicorn are up there as well Shadow. We saw them when we reached the Scribe’s room,” Yaksha said.

“Did you find the Range Finder or my Uncle?” I asked.

Stardust pulled out the Range Finder, “She just left it sitting on her desk, Yaksha had no problem getting it. No signs of that gem that they trapped Pride in though.”

“Oricalcos not Pride,” I said, “either way, that bitch must still have him with her.”

“Most likely, if I were to guess, she wants to make sure that he cannot break out of that spell trap,” Yaksha said.

“Can he do that?” I asked.

“I do not know. I know nothing about his power, but a spell trap like she used is meant to keep dark power contained. A gem like that can hold a small amount of darkness in it for a while, if he is powerful, he can break out of it after some time,” Yaksha said as we started working out way up the steps.

I heard more Rangers in power armor running toward us from one of the hallways, “I’m going to assume you’re right, now let’s get out of here.”

It didn’t take us long to reach the top where we ran into a metal trap door, Aura came up behind me saying, “We have to be careful now, we don’t know what to expect up here.”

“They went up toward the Landing Platform, hurry!” I heard one of the steel rangers say

“Fuck,” I said pushing on the Trap Door, “No time to wait, I’d rather deal with Wolfsbane than the Rangers down there.”

“Yeah me too,” Wingnut said as I pushed open the door and moved out into the open air.

We all crawled out onto a large metal platform that was built on top of the Palisade. A couple of Sky Carriages were tied down at one side, the tops of the cliffs next to Cartwheel were close to that same side as well. Standing in the center of the Platform was Wolfsbane in his demonic looking Power Armor. Standing next to him was Sherbert, and hanging by her hooves on a post that was welded to the platform was Vervain. She had been taken out of her Power armor, her face was puffy and she looked worse for wear.

“AUNTIE VERVAIN!” I yelled.

She looked up at me and said, “Shadow Sweetie, you need to run!”

Wolfsbane chuckled with in his armor, “Very good job Shadow Star, I knew you’d find a way out of your cell,” As he spoke ten ponies in power armor pushed their way out of the trap door behind us, forcing us to move away.

“What is this all about Wolfsbane!” I yelled, “Why do any of this? I helped you.”

He moved closer to me, “Easy Shadow, I want you. I want your power, and better yet, I want your mother!”

“My mother has lost her mind, she doesn’t know I’m even alive, and what power are you talking about!?” I yelled.

“Enough lies, I know about the power inside of you Shadow, I’ve known the whole time. I need that power if Equestria is ever going to be whole again, as for your mother, I want her to pay the price everypony pays when they defy me like she did. Her betrayal set me back TEN YEARS!”

“If you knew this whole time about Aquila, then why didn’t you just say something? You didn’t have to do any of this, you didn’t need to DESTROY CARTWHEEL!”

Before I knew it, a hoof came up and slammed into my face, sending me rolling along the metal platform, “Cartwheel had nothing to do with you Shadow. I’ve wanted a reason to destroy that town for YEARS! You just gave me the perfect excuse to do so.”

“SHADOW!” Aura yelled pulling her spear off her back.

“Sherbert make sure none of them interfere,” Wolfsbane said as he walked closer to me.

“No problem sir,” Sherbert said, as she cast a spell holding my friends in place.

I got back to my hooves and spat blood on the platform, “So this is the real side of Elder Wolfsbane huh.” I said mockingly, “I guess the stories about you are true then. You’re nothing but a fucking monster.”

“No Shadow,” he said his helmeted head getting close to mine, “Yes I am a monster,” he kicked me again, one of my ribs snapped and pain ran up my side as I flew into one of the power armored Stallions who were now surrounding us on the platform.

As he walked toward me again I looked up at him and smiled, doing my best to hide the pain, “You’re a coward, that’s what you are.”

“A coward huh, and what makes you say that!” Wolfsbane said, he picked me up and threw me to the other side of the platform.

I gagged and spat more blood on the floor, my vision going red, “Because, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t need your BITCH to keep my friends back.”

He stopped and looked at me like I was a strange bug, “You think I’m scared of fighting any of you?”

“She knows you are!” Aura yelled, “You need your Rangers and spell caster just to take her on, you can’t even fight her outside of your power armor, sounds like a coward to me.”

His head turned slowly to look at Aura, “I’m not letting you all fight me for a reason. It’s not because I’m scared, it’s because I told Gina I wouldn’t hurt you Aura, I need Stardust because he’s the only pony from Stable 97 who was fully trained for the program they were running there. I won’t hurt the child if I can help it because he can be a useful solider when he grows up, my Scribes what to look over the bat’s DNA, and that Zebra is only alive because she’ll make a good bartering chip against the Romans.”

Yaksha’s eyes went wide, “I am nopony’s barter chip, The Romans don’t mean anything to me!”

He laughed, “I’m sure they don’t, but you look like a zebra I know they are looking for. If you are her, then you’re worth a lot of caps to me. As for Shadow, I need her Pip-Buck but I also need the power that’s inside of her, to get that I need to force this power to show itself.”

“You can’t make Aquila show herself, she’s caged inside of me. Only mom can let her out again,” I lied as I got back to my hooves.

Wolfsbane flipped around and slammed his metal covered tail into my face. This time my vision flickered when I hit the ground. Wolfsbane started to laugh, “You know what I don’t understand about you? Why are you so feared around here, your nothing but a weak filly. Not a single pony should be scared of you.”

I pulled myself back to my hooves again and looked up at the power armored ass hole as my horn started to glow, “That’s your problem Wolfsbane, you think that ponies fear me, they don’t. Ponies see me as a protector, a pony that stops bad ponies like you. And I’m not weak, I’m fucking stubborn!”

I fired my concentrated expulsion spell. The horns on his helmet started to glow as my spell slammed into him. Instead of Wolfsbane being blown back, my spell wrapped around his horns then fired back at me. I screamed as my own magic slammed into me throwing me into another one of the Rangers. Both of us went flying, I rolled along the metal platform, the ranger went flying over the edge. This time I didn’t get back up.

Wolfsbane started to laugh, my friends all looked scared. Stardust yelled, “Shadow get up!”

I couldn’t move, I felt like I broke every bone in my body. My eyes were locked on the cliffs not far away as Wolfsbane stepped closer saying, “Where’s this power that’s held deep inside of you? Come on, you do realize that you’re going to die right!? I’m surprised that you aren’t dead already. I’ll admit, you are as stubborn as your mother that’s for sure. It’s just too bad that she’s not here to see this. Though I’m sure she wouldn’t care, since she doesn’t even remember you.”

“Shadow please get up,” Wingnut said.

I wanted so badly to do what he said, but that spell of mine was more powerful than I thought. As I lay there looking at the cliffs I heard the bitch mare laugh too saying, “Don’t worry sir, when we find Grim, I’ll make sure to fix her memories. Then you can tell her all about this.”

Wolfsbane laughed, “Oh that would be just beautiful. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her how I killed her daughter and took the power of Star Gazer for myself.”

“F…fuck…” I tried to say.

“Huh? What was that?” Wolfsbane said moving his face closer to mine, “Sorry I can’t hear you Shadow, former Courier.”

“Wolfsbane stop this please!” Vervain yelled from where she was still hanging.

Wolfsbane ignored her as a large gun popped out of his armor, “I’ll give you one last chance Shadow. If you join me and use that power you have inside of you to help me rebuild Equestria, I’ll let you and your friends live.”

“Just do it Shadow, you can’t win this,” Aura said, tears streaming down her face, “Don’t let him hurt you anymore!”

I couldn’t even move my head or my eyes, as I watched the cliffs doing my best to bring up the ability to say something, I saw what looked like a pony standing at the top of the taller cliff. Who was that, and how the hell did he get up there? It took me a moment but then I figured out who it was, my eyes went wide and a little hope built up inside of me. Enough that I was able to lift my head a little and say, “Never!”

“Fine have it your way then, good bye Shadow Star former courier mare and good riddance!” Wolfsbane said as his large gun pointed right at my head.

The pony on the cliff jumped and a burst of flame shot out of his hooves, he flew toward the Palisade then slammed into Wolfsbane. The Elder flew back rolling along the floor until he came to a stop next to the pole that held Vervain. A second later I felt a restoration potion being pressed to my lips and none other than Box Tape saying, “Drink this Shadow, there’s a good girl.”

Wolfsbane got back to his hooves and he glared over at The Sentinel, “What does it take to kill you!?”

Box Tape was in his power armor still, as Wolfsbane yelled he turned to face the Elder, “Not much, I’m an old buck, but I can’t die until ponies like you are put down Wolfsbane.”

Wolfsbane laughed, “Now father is that anyway to talk to your only son! Can you really kill me so easily?”

Father? Wait a minute, the son that Box Tape said was dead to him was Wolfsbane? I felt my body starting to heal a little, Box Tape knelt down and gave me another potion, “Shadow you need to get up and stop that unicorn, get everypony away from her.”

I coughed then said, “But what about you?”

He looked over at Wolfsbane, “I have a score to settle with him,” Box Tape yelled at the Elder, “You’re no son of mine Wolfsbane, you lost the right to call yourself that when you betrayed your family and Hidden Sands!”

“I betrayed my family? You’re the reason mom DIED!” Wolfsbane yelled, “If you would’ve just told her to stay home, and not to go out on that one last mission, she would still be alive today! It should’ve been you that went on that fucking mission, but you just had to stay home didn’t you, you had to run your fucking COURIER BUISNESS!”

“No pony was going to stop White Oak from doing what she wanted. Your mother was a free spirit, that’s what made her wonderful. And if you remember right, I stayed home for my children. Now stand down before I have to teach you another lesson WOLFSBANE!”

I got back to my hooves and ran toward Sherbert, ignoring the pain that still ran though my body. As I did Wolfsbane yelled, “Kill Shadow and her friends!”

He wasn’t fast enough, Sherbert looked like she had no idea what to do as I charged her. Before she could think of something I flipped around and kicked her horn. She screamed as her spell broke and my friends jumped back into action. The Steel Rangers did as well. Shots started to fill the air around us as a battle ensued. I slammed my hoof into Sherbert again throwing her back then twisted around pulling out Dream Walker as one of the Rangers charged me. My pistol barked and the Ranger’s head whipped back as a bullet ripped through his visor. Aura flew over me, her energy spear glowing as she attacked two Rangers who were trying to go after Wingnut.

Stardust’s rifle was going crazy as he fired his Armor Piercing rounds into any Ranger that tried to go after him or Wind Thrasher. Wind Thrasher opened her muzzle and screamed at three who were trying to get them from behind. Wingnut was using his Ol’ Festus to make the rest jump back or dodge his shot’s. When they did Stardust would take them out. As my friends fought I made my way over to the pole that Vervain was on and using my magic, I untied her and lowered her to the ground.

Once she was down I gave her one of my own healing potions saying, “Drink this quickly, we need to get off this thing before the rest of the Rangers down below figure out what’s going on here.”

“No, you get away, I need to help my father!” she said, “My brother’s crazy, he’s wanted my dad dead for years and dad can’t keep fighting like this, his body can’t take the strain that armor puts on him!”

I looked over at Box Tape and Wolfsbane as they went at it. For an old pony in power armor, Box Tape could move. He traded blow for blow against Wolfsbane like he was nothing more than a child trying to take on a master. But I could see that as he attacked the Elder, Box Tapes movements were already slowing and Wolfsbane’s weren’t. She was right he couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Something else bothered me as well…where was Yaksha?

I looked around and got my answer quickly, the zebra was running after Sherbert who took the distraction of me saving Vervain to make a run for it. Yaksha tackled the mare then slammed her face into the metal floor three times. Then she got back to her hooves, “This one really should learn how to fight.”

“Yaksha are you okay?” I asked.

“Why would I be otherwise? I also believe this belongs to you,” she said lifting the dark crystal that held Oricalcos.

She tossed it to me and I caught it in my magic. As soon as I had it close I heard my uncle say, “It’s about time you found me Star, let me out of this thing please.”

“Um…how?” I asked.

“Break the crystal, it should work. At least I hope so,” he said, his voice sounded weak.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, tossing the gem on the ground and stomping on it, there was a large flash of light, but when I pulled my hoof away the gem was undamaged, “What the hell?”

Yaksha came over looking closely at the Gem, “There is a symbol on the gem, it looks like Ancient Zebra.”

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“I can, but my Ancient Zebra is a little rusty, at least with this dialect. I can take a better look at it when we are out of here,” she replied.

Vervain limped over to me saying, “We can figure this out later Shadow right now we HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.”

I picked up the gem, “Oricalcos I’ll get you out of there when I can.”

“I understand, for now at least put me somewhere dark, it will help,” he said.

I placed him into my saddle bags then looked over at what was going on. Wolfsbane was still fighting with Box Tape, a couple of steel rangers were still up and fighting my friends, “I know we need to get out of here, but we also need to help Box Tape. If we can take down the rest of the rangers up here, then maybe with all of us, we can take down Wolfsbane.”

“I agree, I will see what I can do,” Yaksha said, pulling up the hood on her cloak and vanishing.

Vervain limped over to one of the dead rangers, opening up his armor. As she pulled the body out she looked at me saying, “Take care of that unicorn before she gets up, I’ll go help my dad.”

“Can do,” I said looking back at Sherbert. She was just starting to come around from the blow she took from Yaksha. Pulling out my Plasma Rifle I pointed it at her saying, “If I were you I’d stay down.”

She looked over at me with hatred in her eyes, “Fuck you, I’m not scared of a weak thing like you!”

“You should be.”

She smiled, “No way, because you seem to have forgotton something, we have back up.”

“Wait…what?” I said then pain racked my body as something slammed into my side throwing me across the platform.

“You should have left when you had the chance,” I heard Gina say.

Fuck, my body can’t keep taking this kind of abuse. Looking up I saw the griffon with seven others all in griffon power armor standing around Sherbert. I got back to my hooves ignoring the pain in my side and the rest of my body, “Still working for the Steel Rangers huh?”

Gina grinned, “I work for whoever pays me runt. Normally I’d say this is nothing personal, but this time it kind of is. Every time I have a job you just keep showing up, you’re like a thorn in my paw that I can’t seem to pry out.”

I coughed then said, “Yeah, I keep hearing things like that. It just means I’m doing a good job. Maybe you should try working for somepony else, you seem to keep picking the wrong side.”

Sherbert pulled out a laser pistol pointing it at me saying, “Time to finish you off Courier.”

Gina lifted her red energy spear and put it in front of Sherbert, “Hold up a moment, Wolfsbane said he wants her alive.”

She looked up at the griffon, “No, he wants the thing inside her alive, the Courier doesn’t matter.”

“Hmmm, good point,” Gina said, “But let me take care of her, I owe her for the Bramble.”

“Come try and kill me,” I said pointing my rifle at Gina, “Let’s see how good you really are!”

She lunged, yelling, “The rest of you take care of her friends, but don’t hurt Aura, if you do the boss will make you pay!”

Fuck she moved fast, I fired my rifle but Gina dodged to one side, spun around and slashed through the air quicker than I thought she could in that armor. I was able to just duck under the slash and roll away for her follow up attack. I jumped back to my hoofs and tried to get in another shot, but Gina did a back flip in the air her spear leaving a red arch of light behind it as it twisted around her, its sharp edge going for my face.

I jumped back just in time, my body screaming in protest. The edge of her spear just nicked my cheek as it passed by burning a hot painful line there. She twisted the spear around again and tried to stab me right in the side, but she was blocked by my sword. I was able to pull it out, just in the nick of time.

She looked down at the sword and stopped her attack, she took a couple steps back asking, “Where the hell did you get that?”

“What this?” I asked lifting the black and silver blade, “Found it.”

She sounded pissed when she spoke, “That sword belongs to my family you little shit! It’s been lost for a hundred and sixty years!”

“Really? Wasn’t that hard to find, it was in an old building near The Kingdom,” I said lifting the sword up and smiling over the blade.

“GIVE IT BACK!” she yelled.

“Nope, finders keepers.”

She screamed and was about to attack me again, but right then, Aura came flying down toward her Aunt. With how angry Gina was, she never saw the attack, until it was too late to dodge. Aura’s energy spear stabbed through a gap in Gina’s armor then pierced right through her back, right below her left-wing joint. Gina screamed again as she was pinned to the platform, her own spear flying out of her grip.

“I won’t let you hurt her Auntie Gina!” Aura said as she held on to her Spear making sure Gina could move.

Gina shook as blood slowly ran down the shaft, “That was…a good attack Aura. I have to admit, I never saw that coming, you are getting better.”

“Shut up, call off your griffons before I end you!”

“I can’t, I told you before Aura, I don’t lead the Unchanged Talons. I’m just the second in command. If you want them called off you have to make our boss do it!” she said.

I walked over to Gina and Aura and pointed my sword at the pined griffon, “If you’re the Second in Command than you can still tell them to back down.”

Gina lifted her right talon and used it to pull off the helmet to her power armor. Once she did, she smiled at me, her eyes locked on mine, “Even if I could order them to stop I wouldn’t. I won’t break my contract or the trust my boss gave me. Unlike my sister, I keep my oaths, so kill me or let me go, either way, my griffons won’t back down!”

I caught a flicker of movement to one side and jumped back as Sherbert fired her laser pistol at me, “Did you forget about me Courier!”

“Fuck, Aura take care of your aunt, I’ve got this one,” I said turning to face the young unicorn.

She was grinning at me as she aimed her laser pistol, “Time to die Courier BITCH!” I don’t know how many times an enemy has said that to me but it never ends well for them.

I smiled back at her as I saw somepony else quietly flying down behind her, “No, it’s time for you to learn a lesson Sherbert.”

She looked at me confused then she froze up at the barrel of a black revolver was pressed to the back of her head and the Stranger said around the bit of his gun, “Drop it or I’ll drop you.”

“Who are you?” she asked,

“Nopony, now drop it before I blow your brains out!” he said angrily.

“I’d do it Sherbert, he’s not one to make a threat more than once. Actually, I think this is the first time I’ve seen him give somepony the opinion to back down.” I said.

For a moment her eyes were locked on mine, then she dropped her laser pistol saying, “Fine, I don’t feel like dying today anyway.”

“Good,” The Stranger said, then he swapped out his gun for a strange looking…something. He fired a dart into Sherbert’s neck, “Let’s just make sure you can’t do anymore harm shall we.”

“The FUCK…” She said, then fell forward as she lost control of her body.

Gina looked over at The Stranger saying, “Oh great it’s you.”

Aura twisted the spear a little making her Aunt scream again, “Shut up Aunt Gina,”

“Wait you know him?” I asked her.

The Stranger looked at Gina and sighed, “We’ve ran into each other in the past.”

“Worked together a couple times too,” Gina said ignoring what Aura said.

Aura cursed, “We can’t keep doing this, it’s time for you to die Auntie Gina!”

Gina looked up at Aura, “Do what you think you have too Aura, but before you do let me ask you this. Why do you want me dead?”

“You betrayed the Red Talons, you killed Gale, you’ve been trying to kill Shadow and the rest of us every time we’ve met,” Aura said.

“No I haven’t, I’ve done what I can to keep you alive Aura. You’re the only one in my family that I still care about, as for Shadow, I’ve never really tried to kill her. Even now I could have taken her out, but I held back. As for me betraying The Red Talons, you still don’t really know what happened back then. Gale got what she deserved. If you want me dead because you hate me then that’s fine, but don’t you dare say I should die for something I didn’t do,” Gina said.

“I know enough!”

“DO YOU!” Gina yelled, “Why don’t you go talk to Gillian and get the truth out of her about what really happened that night, better yet why don’t you ask Apollo, he knows the truth too!”

Aura was shaking with rage, but I saw her grip on her spear loosen just a little. That was all Gina need, she pulled away, Aura’s spear going with her. Gina jumped back then ripped the spear the rest of her way through her body. She screamed again then tossed the spear back at Aura, “You still have a lot to learn Aura.”

The Stranger acted quickly, he pulled his gun out again and fired. Gina just barely dodged the shot. She dove for her own spear grabbed it then took to the air, blood spattering along the ground as she did. I took hold of my Plasma rifle again then fired up at her, but it was too late. She flew away laughing as she pulled out a healing potion and drank it down as she flew north.

“She’s getting away!” Aura yelled picking up her blood-soaked spear, “That bitch always find a way to escape!”

“It doesn’t matter, we need to deal with the rest of the Talons before they do anymore damage,” The Stranger said as he flew off to help Stardust who was fighting two of the griffons.

“He has a point Aura, we can deal with Gina later,” I said as I turned to face the fight that was still going on with Wolfsbane and Box Tape. Vervain had been able to get into the other set of power armor she took off the dead ranger, but she was in the middle of her own fight with two griffons and the last Steel Ranger that was on the platform with us.

“I know, come on let’s help old Box Tape and finish off Wolfsbane.”

I smiled then lifted my Plasma Rifle and the Sword, “I agree.”

I ran toward the fight as Aura took to the air. As I did Box Tape was able to land a hard blow on Wolfsbane, throwing the Elder flying across the platform. After the attack he stopped and staggered a little, “Not now, I need a little more time!” Box Tape said.

“Box Tape get back!” I heard Wingnut yell.

Looking over I saw the colt dodge past one of the griffons, run past Box Tape then throw three Spark Grenades at Wolfsbane. Box Tape saw it and jumped back right as the grenades went off. Wolfsbane saw this too and his armor opened just in time for him to jump out before his power armor was hit by the blast. He rolled away then got back to his hooves, panting hard as he looked toward the Colt, “Little brat!”

I made it over to Wingnut and Box Tape. I aimed my rifle at the Elder, “Times up Wolfsbane, you lose.”

He smiled at me, “Oh really now!”

A griffon’s body slammed down onto the platform next to me followed by Stardust who pointed his rifle at Wolfsbane too, “Yeah, your finished.”

The Stranger landed next to me as well, he looked over at Wolfsbane saying, “Give up Elder Wolfsbane, you have nopony or griffon left to help you.”

Wolfsbane looked at The Stranger saying, “Who are you?”

“I work for Nightshade, you made a threat toward him about Grim and her daughter. I’m here to tell you that The Enclave doesn’t respond well to threats.”

Wolfsbane started to laugh, “Oh so you must be that stallion I keep hearing about, the one who keeps showing up to save Shadow. Funny I remember hearing about you before. Twelve years ago, when you were hunting Grim, she told me that you’re called The Guardian. You’re the one who protects the power source for Falling Shadows!”

The Stranger’s eyes went wide, “How do you know about that?”

He smiled wider, “I know everything Guardian! I know about the secret of your family, I know about the power source you’ve sworn to protect, I even know who you are! Curious how you’re able to keep up this ruse, I figured somepony would have figured out who you are by now.”

I looked at The Stranger, “Wait, that thing you showed me was tied into the program mom’s been looking for, the Project she still wants? What is Falling Shadows?”

“It’s nothing, just an old story that too many ponies think is true, but it’s not. It’s just a lie!”

Box Tape limped over to me then looked at his son, “I’ve heard of this project before, White Oak was looking into it, that was the last mission she went to look into when she died. I’m guessing Wolfsbane found her notes and was using Grim to find it.”

Wolfsbane looked over at Box Tape, “Mom didn’t just go looking into the Project, father, she found information on where it’s located. The problem is, it’s locked down by some kind of special program. I took the notes from where mom died and used them to find out more. The Project is real, it’s also the most powerful weapon in Equestria!”

I looked back at him asking, “If that’s true, then why did you need me or Project Stargazer?”

He looked over at me, “Because Stargazer is the key, even if the program is unlocked, the power from Stargazer is the only thing that can fully activate Falling Shadows. That’s why I needed you.”

Aura spoke up, “Then what is the deal with The Mark II?”

“It holds the notes Grim found on the project, also where it’s located. I also think that Mark II was used to lock down the program a few days before the Bombs fell. That’s why Sweetie Belle wanted them put into Stable 9, she wanted to keep it away from The Children of the Night. She wanted to make sure nopony could ever use it!” Wolfsbane said chuckling again.

The Stranger pulled out his revolver again, “You’re mad Wolfsbane, Falling Shadows isn’t real, it was only an idea of Night Stalkers that they never finished. You may think you know everything about me and what I’m guarding, but you’re wrong!”

“Am I? It’s funny because the Last Guardian told me differently when I ran into him a couple years ago near Manehattan!”

The Stranger’s eyes went wide again, “No, you couldn’t have run into him, he’s…”

“What dead? You really should do a better job on keeping an eye on ponies that were branded from Stratus or Nimbus. The last Guardian is still alive!”

“Either way, I can’t let you live Wolfsbane. I can’t let ponies like you who would use the power for your own gain,” The Stranger said as he started to pull down on the trigger.

“Sorry but I’m not the one dying today!” Wolfsbane said as he threw two different grenades. One was a flash bomb, it went off blinding all of us. The Second was a stun grenade. When that one went off it felt like a giant pony had just kicked me. A blast of air and sound slammed into all of us throwing us back.

Before I could see again and ringing filled my ears, I felt somepony take hold of me and pull me away from my friends. A moment later a foreleg was wrapped around my throat and I could just make out Box Tape saying, “Put her down Wolfsbane!”

My vision started to come back, and I saw my friends were still laying there in a daze, even the stranger. Box Tape however was slowly walked toward us one of his guns trained. Wolfsbane was the pony holding me and I could see that we were right on the edge of the Palisade, “Take one more step dad, and she dies!”

Box Tape stopped, “You’re out of options son, if you kill her I’ll kill you.”

“Maybe, but either way, you’ll still be responsible for another young mares’ death. Now stand down!” Wolfsbane said.

“Let me go!” I said trying to pull away, but The Elder held me tighter.

“Sentinel Box Tape…Dad, get out of that armor and come face me like a real stallion. If you don’t I’ll kill her!”

“Don’t do it Box Tape!” I yelled.

Box Tape looked over at me, then he hung his head, “I can’t do that Shadow.”

“He’ll kill you if you do!” I yelled again.

“Maybe, but I won’t let him hurt you just to save my life, I’m an old pony, you have a long life to live,” he said before looking back at Wolfsbane, “I’ll do it, but only if you give me your word as an Elder that you will let her go.”

“I give you my word!” Wolfsbane said, “Now get out of the Armor!”

My friends were just starting to get back to their hooves as Box Tape said, “Fine, you win son,” his armor opened and the old buck slowly got out of it. I could see small holes around his flanks from what looked like needles. His body looked even worse than it had when I saw him earlier. Vervain was right, that armor was killing him slowly.

Wolfsbane started to laugh, “Finally, the all mighty Sentinel has given up. Now step away from the armor.”

“Not…until you let her go,” Box Tape said weakly.

“No, I have no reason too now. Like I said, I need her.”

Anger showed on Box Tape’s face as he yelled, “You gave me your word!”

“I did, but you should know by now father, that I won’t ever tell you the truth, because you don’t deserve it!”

“Let her GO!” I heard Yaksha say from somewhere to the side. A second later the Zebra appeared as she started to flip around slamming a rear hoof into Wolfsbane’s face. He flew back, his hold on me vanishing. My body flew away from his and I started to fall off the edge of the Palisade.

I started to scream as I saw the edge of the Platform fly under me and far below, the destruction that was done to Cartwheel. Then somepony grabbed me and pulled me back. I heard Box Tape saying, “Don’t worry Shadow I got ya.”

I looked up at the old buck as he smiled down at me. Then he pulled hard and got me back to safety, “Thanks Box Tape.”

He smiled, “No Thanks needed…”

As he spoke I saw Yaksha try to land another blow against Wolfsbane, but the Elder ducked under her attack and he countered. From the look of it, he knew how to fight a zebra. His blow connected under Yaksha’s chin and sent her flying back toward my friends who were starting to run toward us to help. He turned and charged Box Tape and me, “I’ll kill both of you if I have to!”

For a moment I saw something in Box Tapes eyes. He looked at me for a second then smiled. Right as Wolfsbane spun around to kick us both off the Palisade, Box Tape pushed me out of the way. Wolfsbanes kick landed right in the middle of the old pony’s chest. Box Tape flew back, I heard something crack in his chest as he did. As if in slow motion, the old buck flew past the edge of the Platform. A smile still planted on his face, then before he started to fall, Box Tape pulled out an old looking pistol.

As he did he said around the bit, “Sorry son.” And he fired.

Wolfsbane’s head whipped to one side as the bullet from Box Tape ripping through his right eye, but it didn’t go through his head. It just passed through the side of his eye, destroying the eye ball and part of the socket, but not killing him. Blood flew and Wolfsbane went down as he screamed. Box Tape, just laughed as his body fell into the dark night, fell out of sight, fell toward the town he helped create and protect.

I watched as the old buck who took me in, who helped me when I first got to town, who gave me a job and a way to find my mom, vanish from my life. A moment later a distant crash filled the now quiet night sky. As that sound echoed through the air, it was followed up by a loud boom as lightning stuck the wasteland far away, filling the air with thunder. Rain started to fall, and all I could do was look out toward the last place I saw Box Tape vanish.

Something inside me felt empty, I had to be dreaming. As the rain started to fall, and the thunder rolled, I heard Vervain scream, “DAD!”

I turned to see her running toward the edge of the Palisade, as she did I saw Wolfsbane laying there holding a hoof to his destroyed eye, “Hahahahahaha, finally the old man is DEAD!”

Blood was pooling around his head, but he still just laughed. I pulled out my plasma rifle a few feet away. I lifted it with my magic and screamed, “YOU’LL PAY FOR THAT!”

“I don’t think so!” I heard a mare say, looking over I saw another Unicorn appear. I didn’t know her, but she was dressed in a Scribe’s uniform. Her horn flashed and all of my friends and I were lifted into the air, “I think the battle is over. Good bye Courier!”

Her horn flashed again and all of us were thrown off the Palisade. As I started to fall, my body following Box Tapes, all I could think about was one thing. If I live, I won’t rest until he pays for what he did, he may have won this time, but Wolfsbane was a dead stallion…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Pickpocket: You sure do have some sticky hooves! During your time in The Wasteland, you’ve gotten good at sneaking around and letting your magic or hooves find their way into other pony’s…ahem… Saddle Bags. You now have a 20% better chance to pickpocket a pony without getting caught.

Chapter 43: Father and Daughter

“Aquila huh, the Eagle, the protector, the great hunter of the Stars.”

“Aura grab Wingnut, I’ll get Yaksha.” I yelled as we fell toward the ground after being blasted off the Palisade by another one of Wolfsbane’s Unicorns.

“What about Vervain!” Wingnut yelled as Aura took hold of him opening her wings.

“I’ll be fine kid!” Vervain yelled as she flipped around in midair making sure her hooves were pointed down.

Using my magic, I took hold of Yaksha and pulled her close to me. I looked down as I did and saw the ground was a lot closer than I thought. Wind Thrasher and Stardust both opened their wings to slow their fall. I would have had them grab Yaksha and me, but there wasn’t any time. Once she was close I concentrated and at the last possible second, teleported us. We both reappeared a second later rolling across the main street of Cartwheel’s ruins. I cursed then got up and looked up at the Palisade that loomed over the dead town. As I did the thrusters from the Zeppelin came to life. Before I knew it, the Palisade started to fly away, heading west, back toward Los Alicorn.

The rest of my friends landed a moment later, Vervain first. She slammed into the ground not far away from Yaksha and me, an explosion of dust and small rocks blowing away from her power armored body. Aura with Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, The Stranger and Stardust not far behind. Once they were all safely on the ground Aura looked up at the retreating Palisade saying, “If we hurry we can still get to Wolfsbane before they get away.”

“No, he’ll get what’s coming to him in time.” The Stranger said wincing a little as he tried to take a step. It looked like he hurt one of his forehooves during the fight.

Vervain ignored us, she turned toward The Equestrian Express screaming, “DAD!”

The Power Armor she stole opened and she ran over to a small lump laying at the bottom of the rubble that was all that was left of Equestrian Express. The rest of us followed as Vervain stopped next to the body of her father. The old buck was broken, his limbs were laying in different directions, his back was kinked oddly, blood covered his muzzle and his eyes were locked open, looking up toward the rainy night sky.

I moved closer and knelt next to the old buck, tears starting to fall. Vervain pressed her face into Box Tapes chest sobbing uncontrollably, “Why’d you come up there dad? You knew something like this would happen.”

I put a hoof on Vervain’s back and slowly rubbed it, letting my tears fall freely. I looked back at Box Tapes face and was amazed at what I saw. He was smiling, his lips were pulled up in a small smile as his lifeless body looked up at the heavens. It was almost like he knew what was going to happen, and he was happy he was able to sacrifice himself to save a mare he cared about. He hadn’t only saved me when he pushed me out of the way of Wolfsbane’s last attack, he had also made sure his daughter was safe. His actions made it possible for us to escape the Palisade in once piece. He died a hero, he died doing what a father will always do for his children and he did it with a smile.

I reached up with my free hoof and slowly closed his eyes saying, “May the Goddesses watch over you now Box Tape. I hope you find piece at last in the next life. Tell Silver I said hi and that I miss her.”

Vervain sniffed and pulled her face away from her father saying in a quiet voice, “Dad never believed in the goddess Shadow.”

That took me by surprise, “Then what did he believe? I thought everypony believed in the goddesses.”

There was the sound of several bodies gently landing in the wet street behind us, followed by Gigi’s voice, “No, not everypony does Shadow. Box Tape was a good friend to the Red Talons. He doesn’t think there is an afterlife like most ponies, he saw death in much of the same way as we griffons do.”

I looked over and saw Gigi, Apollo, and several other griffons from the Red Talons all sadly looking around what was left of Cartwheel. Apollo slowly walked over to us and knelt on the other side of the old buck. As he spoke his voice was shaking, almost like he was close to crying himself, “We tried to get here as fast as we could, but we were held up by some of those Unchained Talons. If we had been a few minutes earlier, we could have saved him.”

Stardust sighed as he said, “I don’t think you could have, the old buck knew he couldn’t win against Wolfsbane.”

“He could have if he didn’t have to get out of his armor and if he wasn’t protecting us,” Vervain said, “I think he knew he was dying already. His body couldn’t take the strain that suit put on his body anymore, he also couldn’t go through another detox from the chems. This was his way of going out in style. I…just wish it hadn’t been my brother who did it.”

My mind was still stuck on what Gigi said, “If Griffons don’t believe in an afterlife then what do you think happens to you when you die?”

An old griffon walked closer, he had a kind looking face, his feathers were a mix of dull blue and grey, his fur was brown, and his beak was grey as well. When he spoke, his voice was also kind and gentle, “I wouldn’t say that we don’t believe in an afterlife young mare. We believe that, if a griffon were to reach that level of peace they must do something great with their life, something noble or heroic. If a griffon didn’t, their soul will come back to start a new life so they may try and prove themselves again.”

When the old griffon walked closer to Box Tape’s body, Aura took a step back bowing a little, “Tonto it’s wonderful to see you.”

His bright brown eyes fell on Aura and he smiled, “Aura young one, I’m glad to see you are still doing well.”

Gigi came over to me saying, “Shadow, what happened here?”

I tried to answer, but it felt like a rock was stuck in my throat. It was The Stranger who answered, “It was Wolfsbane, he came for Shadow and destroyed the town and killed his father.”

Apollo looked up with anger written on his face, “We saw the airship, but I can’t believe that Wolfsbane would let this happen. I know he hates this town and his father, but he wouldn’t do something this crazy!”

“He did,” The Stranger said, “He was also working with Gina, they killed all of the towns ponies then took Shadow and her friends’ hostage.”

Gigi looked over at the Stranger, “Gina was there too? Are you sure?”

“I am,” The Stranger said, “She flew off after Aura wounded her.”

“Which way did she go?” Gigi asked.

Aura spoke up, “She headed in the direction of Halo One. I stabbed her with my spear, she took a healing potion when she flew off, but it won’t do much for her apart from stop the bleeding.”

Gigi turned toward a few of her griffons, “Go after her, if she’s wounded that bad you should be able to subdue her. I want her taken to Crimson Canyon alive.”

The two wings of Griffons saluted, “Yes Ma’am!”

“I’ll go too,” Apollo said.

“No, I need you here,” Gigi said as the other griffons flew off, “Box Tape was our friend, we should stay long enough to see him off properly. You owe him that much Apollo.”

“Yes, dear.” He said.

I sat down ignoring the rain flowing over my face as I stared at the body of Box Tape, still not able to comprehend the fact that he was dead. A moment later I felt Aura’s talon wrap around me and pull me close, “I’m going to miss him too Shadow.”

I sniffed, “It’s just hard to believe he’s gone, he was so full of life.”

Vervain and my friends came to sit next to me as well. Vervain saying, “He was, that’s what made him such a great stallion. Even though it’s hard to accept that he died, at least he went down the way he did. I couldn’t imagine my father dying in his bed, too old to even feed himself like a lot of old ponies in the wasteland do.”

Gigi came over, “Vervain, it’s good to see you again.”

“Same for you Gillian.” Vervain said doing her best to smile.

Gigi put a talon on Vervain’s shoulder then asked, “If you want, Tonto can perform a service for your father. If I remember right, he always wanted a griffon funeral when he passed.”

Vervain started to cry again, it took her a moment to gather her composure, but once she did she nodded, “It would be an honor,”

“Okay, give us an hour or so, that way we can prepare. The rest of my griffons will help find the rest of the ponies who died here today so they can be buried.”

I looked over to Gigi, “I hate to ask, but why would you do that for Cartwheel?”

When Gigi looked over at me I saw sadness in her eyes, “Because Cartwheel has always been friends with Crimson Canyon. All of my talons knew every pony that lived here. They were our friends and we lost them today. It’s the least we can do for them.”

As we talked I saw two of the griffons carefully lift Box Tape’s body and carry him toward the middle of town. I felt a fresh wave of grief come over me as I watched his body be carried away. Then Aura said, “We should go rest while we wait, you took a nasty beating back there Shadow, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

I looked around the destroyed town asking, “Where in Luna’s name are we going to rest. Cartwheel’s gone.”

She pointed down the road a little where I saw one building that hadn’t been destroyed. Silver’s home was still standing strong, the last building still intact in Cartwheel, “Silver’s place will do fine. She has three bedrooms in it, we’ll rest up there for now. Mom will let us know when everything is ready.”

I wanted to protest, I still didn’t want to go to Silver’s home, but I knew she was right. So, I let Aura help me up and lead me away, my friends followed close behind same for the Stranger. We walked in and I saw that the shop in front was still the same as when I first arrived here so many weeks ago. Armor was set up on one side of the shop, from the more inexpensive leather armor, to the most expensive combat armor. On the other side of the shop I could see a few dresses on display and some normal every day clothes as well.

“This place seems so…lifeless with her gone.” I said as we walked past the small shop and into the living quarters.

“It is still a nice place.” Yaksha said as she moved to go sit on the couch.

“Shadow if you don’t mind, I’m going to go try and get a nap in, my head hurts.” Wind Thrasher said.

“That’s fine Wind Thrasher.”

“I’m going to do the same, I’ll room with Wind Thrasher for now,” Vervain said, sniffing a little as she tried to hold back her emotions.

“I’m going to try and get a nap in too.” Wingnut said.

“Good idea Kid, I think I’m gonna do the same” Stardust said as they all left to find a room to stay in.

When they were gone The Stranger sighed saying, “I should get back to Stratus, I’ll need to make a report about what happened.”

To my surprise Yaksha perked up saying, “Why leave so soon? It looks like you hurt your hoof in that fight. Maybe you should rest up for a little while as well.”

The Stranger looked over at Yaksha then sighed again, “It’s not like I’m going to be missed any time soon I guess.”

“I’d feel better with you around.” I told him.

“Yeah Stranger, you’re always running off, you should stay for a little while. If you want I can look at that hoof of yours.” Aura said.

“I guess a few hours can’t hurt, but don’t worry about my hoof. I’ll be okay.” He said limping over to sit next to Yaksha.

Yaksha smiled at the Stranger saying, “So tell me, where are you from?”

“Stratus, why?”

“Is that where you are from or where you live now?”

The Stranger closed his eyes, “I’m from Nimbus originally, forgive me but why do you want to know?”

“No reason really, I just like to know things that is all.” Yaksha said, “Your eyes remind me of another stallion I used to know from Nimbus. Though I know you cannot be him, because a lot of the reports I have…acquired, say he is dead.”

The Stranger stiffened, “So what, a lot of ponies have green eyes.”

“Not like yours, yours shimmer like an emerald under a jeweler’s light, they kind of remind me of the many gems I saw in Gravel City.” Yaksha said with a smile, “I want to know, but I get the feeling you would not say much more than you already have.”

“Yeah you got that right, I’ve been trying to get him to tell me who he is for weeks now.” I said.

Aura perked up at Yaksha “Wait a minute what do you mean ‘in Gravel City?’ that place is nothing but ruins, it’s been in nothing but ruins since the megaspells. There’s no way you could have been there.”

Yaksha looked back to Aura still smiling “Yes Aura, I was there but when I first arrived the place was in ruins. However, there was a cave around that area that survivors from the megaspells took shelter in and lived out their lives, it was very secluded.”

“You’re pulling my feathers Yaksha, I’ve been there many times and I never once saw this cave.” Aura said

Yaksha’s smiled faded a little “Well of course you did not see the cave, it was caved in by Hell Hounds. The ponies that lived there dug deeper always finding more and more gems they could use to trade with selected settlements. One day they dug too deep and came upon an opened cavern with more gems but also a nest of Hell Hounds. They were not happy, as you can imagine, which resulted in a battle, slaughtering just about everypony there. I should know, I was a part of that battle as was that friend I mentioned. A lot of ponies, including its leader Silver Light, died.”

“Surviving multiple Hell Hounds? You’re very lucky Yaksha. It sounds like it was a rough time for you and your friend.” I said

Yaksha sighed “It was Shadow Star, if it were not for my friend during that battle I would have died. Most of the Hell Hounds were taken care of but I… remember this one very large Hell Hound, impossible to kill, just tearing through ponies like paper. After seeing most of its pack die in front of it, it started breaking into the weak points of the rocks in Gravel City causing the cave in.” Just then a strange beeping noise came from where Yaksha was sitting. She reached into her saddle bags and pulled some kind of strange device out, looked at it then said, “If you would excuse me, it looks like a contact out here finally sent me a transmission. I will be right back.”

As she got up to head back outside I asked, “What is that thing?”

“A portable broadcaster. I told Sheena to tell my contact that I was heading out here when he came to the Kingdom. It looks like he found me rather quickly, I just need to let him know to stay away from Cartwheel. I can meet with him tomorrow after everything here has settled down.” She said before heading back outside.

“She’s a strange zebra,” The Stranger said.

“She is, but she’s also a nice mare.” I said, “She did save me from Wrath while I was in the Absent Ruins.”

“I heard about that, I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you in time myself.” He said before closing his eyes, “You should go rest up too Shadow,”

“Good idea,” Aura said, “Come on Shadow,”

I followed Aura as she led me down a hall and into the same room Silver let me use when I stayed with her the first night I was here. I saw that the old rifle I stole from that raider Blade was still sitting in one corner, the bed was still ruffled from when Silver woke me so she could hide me over at Box Tape’s place. It was like I never left. A fresh wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm me again, then Aura picked me up and hugged me tight, “There’s no need to be sad Shadow, remember I’m here for you.”

I hugged her back as she moved to lay us both down in the bed. I rested my head on her chest as she pulled the blanket up to cover us both. Even though I had a lot of stuff running through my head, my emotions were all over the place, and I felt like crying all night. I soon found myself drifting off to sleep as Aura held me close to her, humming a song I hadn’t heard since I was a foal…

oooOOOooo

I was in my room laying in the small bed dad had made for me. Mom was tucking me in for the night and using her magic to make sure I would be able to sleep through the night without being in any pain. I looked up at her asking, “Mommy, I’m scared.”

I heard my dad’s voice from the doorway, “There’s no need to be scared Star.”

“Your father’s right Sweetie, sleeping in this bed is no different than your crib. It just has no walls. I don’t care how small you are for your age, you’re three now and you need to sleep in a real bed.” Mom said.

“I want Avon.” I said.

Mom looked over at dad, who was just a dark outline in the doorway, “Dear, where is her stuffed animal?”

“I thought you were washing it?” dad said.

“I did, then I asked you to make sure it dried. You know she can’t sleep without it.”

I teared up a little bit, “I want Avon!”

Mom looked over at me, “Shhhh, Star you know you can’t get worked up.”

“BUT I WANT IT!” I said louder.

Dad came over and patted my head then kissed my horn his outline still shadowy, damn I why can’t I remember what he looked like, “Star, please don’t yell at your mother. Don’t worry I’ll find Avon, but for right now I need you to try and sleep.”

I pouted, “But I can’t sleep without him.”

“Ah but you can, if you just close your eyes you’ll be just fine. If I find him I’ll bring him to you later okay?” dad said.

“I…guess.”

“There’s my brave little filly.” He said, “Now try and get some sleep, I’ll come check on you later.”

Mom kissed me too saying, “I’ll see you in the morning Star. I love you.”

I yawned, “I love you too.”

The two of them walked out of the room leaving the door cracked open a little so some light came into the room from the hall. I did my best to close my eyes and sleep, but every time I did I kept hearing some strange noises. I wanted to yell for mom or dad, but they would just tell me it was the wind outside or something like that. Then the door to my room creaked a little and my eyes snapped open. When I looked at the door, nopony was there.

I thought I saw what looked like a shadow flip by the door for a second though. I lifted my head and said quietly, “Is somepony there?”

At the darkest part of my room I saw the darkness move then a moment later a tall golden stallion was standing there smiling at me, “Don’t worry Star, it’s only me.”

“Uncle Ori!” I said.

He walked over to me and said quietly, “Not so loud, you know your father would be very angry if he knew I was here.”

I quieted down saying, “Sorry Uncle Ori.”

He hugged me, “It’s alright Sweetie, tell me, what are you still doing up?”

I frowned, “Daddy lost Avon and I can’t sleep without him.”

Uncle Oricalcos put on a serious face, but it was a silly serious face, “Oh no! That is never good. What are you going to do Star!”

“I don’t know. Daddy said I should be brave, but it’s hard to do without Avon, he’s my protector.”

Uncle Oricalcos was about to say something when the door to my room opened a little and Dad said, “Star, you need to go to bed.”

My uncle’s body turned into shadow again and he vanished for a moment. This wasn’t the first time he’d come to see me right after bed time. He was used to sneaking around mom and dad by now. I smiled at dad saying, “Sorry daddy.”

“No need to be sorry, just go to bed. Good night Little Star.”

“Okay daddy good night.” I said.

When dad was gone Uncle Oricalcos reappeared next to me, “That was a close one. Now where were we…oh yes, you said you can’t sleep without Avon. Isn’t that the stuffed animal you always seem to have with you?”

“Yes, mom said he needed to be washed, because he’s dirty. Daddy was supposed to hang him out to dry and forgot. Now I won’t ever get to sleep.” I said in a huff.

He sat next to me saying, “How about I sing you a song to help you sleep. When I’m done, I’ll keep watch over you for the night, will that help?”

I smiled and nodded, “You’d really do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you Star, I’ll always look after you and protect you from any danger.”

I stood up for a moment, “Do you Pinkie Pie Promise?”

He laughed lightly, “Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” I guess I’ve always known the pinkie pie promise, I would think I would’ve recognized it when Wingnut did it. Hah guess that’s a price of memory loss. When he was done he smiled again, “There, now you have my unbreakable vow to watch over you forever.”

I laid back down, “Good, now can you help me sleep?”

He cleared his throat, “Anything for you Star,” Then he started to sing…

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When this blazing sun is gone,
When the nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, through the night.

Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark;
He could not see where to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, my little star.

My eyes started to slowly close as he sang, when he finished I muttered, “I love you Uncle Oricalcos…”

Right before I fell asleep I felt him kiss my cheek, “I love you too little one, sleep tight, and remember I’m always watching over you from the darkness…”

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I woke up, the memory of that night as fresh in my mind as if I just lived it. Aura woke too when I jumped out of her talons, “Shadow?”

I rubbed my eyes then yawned, “I just had a strange dream, at least I think it was a dream, or a memory.”

“You going to be okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t a bad memory. It was from when I was still really young. It was just something about my parents and…well Oricalcos singing me a lullaby. The same one you were just humming when I passed out.”

She yawned as well then started to get up, “As long as you’re okay.”

Before either of us could get out of bed I heard Gigi’s voice from the doorway, “So you two are sleeping together, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Shut up mom,”

Gigi smiled, “Why? I’m just stating a fact.”

Aura put on her saddle bags then grabbed her spear, “I don’t need another lecture from you. Yeah, Shadow and I are together, there’s nothing you can do about it, I’m not in the Red Talons anymore.”

Gigi shrugged, “I know that Aura, but I thought you wanted to find a way back into the Talons?”

“Not anymore, I’m happy with Shadow and the rest of our friends,” Aura said turning back to me, “Come on Shadow, let’s go.”

I got up as well and started to put on my duster and barding, “Where are we going?”

Aura pushed past Gigi saying, “The ceremony is going to start soon I’m guessing. I don’t want to be late and neither do you.”

Gigi let her pass, but when I tried to leave the room she blocked my path, “Aura can you go help Tonto? I’d like to talk to Shadow.”

Aura turned back toward her mother, “I’m not going to let you threaten her.”

“It’s okay Aura, go help Tonto, I’ll be fine.” I said.

“Yes, Aura she’ll be fine, I’m not going to do anything, I just need to have a word with her that’s all.” Gigi said.

“Fine, but don’t take long.” Aura said before turning and walking down the hall.

When she was gone I asked, “So what’s on your mind Gigi?”

Gigi’s face softened a little, “So when did it happen?”

“Couple of days ago back at The Kingdom.”

Gigi smiled then chuckled, “I’m glad to see that Aura’s happy, though I do wish she’d lighten up a little. I’m guessing from her reaction that you didn’t tell her about what we talked about.”

“You told me not too and she never asked me about it. I do wish I could tell her though, I think she’d feel better knowing that her mom doesn’t care who she’s with.” I said.

Gigi’s smile faded, “I agree, but at this point I’m not sure she’d believe me about it. I just wish I could do something more for her, I feel like a bad mother by hiding my feelings like this. I also have to think about what the rest of the Talons will think if they found out that I was okay with Aura breaking the rules.”

“What I don’t understand is why you can’t just change some of the rules. You’re the leader and those rules or laws were written two hundred years ago.”

“It’s not like I can’t, but the problem is that if I did change the ten laws of the Red Talons, I could lose my position as leader. That would be bad for my family.”

“Maybe, or maybe your griffons would understand the rule change and go with it. It’s not like you have to change all the rules.”

She sighed and leaned against the door frame, “That’s also true, honestly I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while now, but with so much going on I’ve been too busy to do anything.”

“Well, all I’m going to say about it is that I think it’s a stupid rule. Is this all you wanted to talk to me about or was there something else?” I asked.

“No, what I wanted to talk to you about is that letter you had me deliver to Trotston.”

With all that happened since I left Spitfire’s Flight Academy I’d forgotten all about the two letters, “What about it? Was there a problem with Trotston?”

“Yes and no, Rusty was fine with meeting with Javelin. We set up a contract to have four wings of griffons be at the meeting and both sides have agreed to only send a few ponies alone with the leaders of both towns. The problem is, Rusty won’t go to the meeting unless you’re there.”

I frowned, “Why me?”

She shrugged, “He wouldn’t tell us, all he said is that he wants the Courier at the meeting to serve as the negotiator.”

I took a minute to think about it, “I guess I could do that, I need to head up that way anyway to see the doctor from The Annihilators and to look into a tip about mom. The only thing I ask is that Rusty lets me sit down with him afterwards so I can talk to him about Wind Thrasher and a few other things. If he’s willing to do that then I’ll help. Though I don’t know what good it will do, I don’t know the first thing about negotiating.”

She smiled, “Don’t worry, I’ll have Aris there as well. She’s specializes in negotiating, I’ll make sure she gives you a few tips and sits with you as well so you can ask her for advice.”

I smiled, “That would be a good idea, so when is this meeting?”

“Rusty said that if you agreed we could do the meeting in four days. We’ll be meeting at The Crossroads Trading Post. It’s a couple miles south of Trotston. If you want I can mark it on your Pip-Buck for you.” She said.

I held out my hoof and let her set the marker, “I’ll do anything in my power to make sure I’m there. If something changes just let me know, I’ll keep my broadcaster ready so you can message me.”

“Thank you Shadow, now let’s get going. The rain’s let up so now’s the best time for us to start.” Gigi said.

As she turned to leave I said, “Gigi, for what it’s worth, your youngest daughter is an amazing griffon. I’m lucky to have her by my side.”

Gigi stopped, then let out a long breath, “She really is Shadow, she’s like me in that way. Take good care of her.”

There was a slight hitch to her voice when she said that last part, “Gigi are you okay?”

She started to walk away, “I’ll be fine Shadow…I’ll be just fine.”

When she was gone I grabbed the rest of my stuff, and headed back to the small living room. I found the Stranger waiting for me, “Are you ready for this?”

“I’m not sure. I mean I don’t even know what’s going to happen.” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“In the stable when a pony died, there was mostly just an announcement and a small get together for the family. When Silver died I didn’t have time for anything, Wind Thrasher and I just buried her. I…don’t know what to do when a pony you cared about dies.”

To my surprise the Stranger moved closer to me and pulled me into a hug, “You just need to be there, remember the good times, and forget the bad. Then you pray that his soul finds peace, either with the Goddesses or whatever afterlife he believed in. That’s all you can do.”

I found myself hugging him back, “I can’t believe he’s gone. Just like that, one moment he was fighting like a bad ass, then he was jumping in the way to protect me, and finally he was tricked out of his power armor only to die.”

He slowly let me go saying, “Shadow, Box Tape cared about you right?”

I nodded, “He did.”

“That’s why he did what he did, I’m sure that in that moment he knew somepony was going to die, he made sure it was him and not you. I’m sure he thought of you as family, so he did what any father or grandfather would do when their filly is in trouble.”

“I’m…just tired of other ponies dying to protect me. My dad if he isn’t still alive, Silver, now Box Tape. It’s not fair, none of it is.”

He shook his head, “Life’s sense of humor can be cruel Shadow, if it wasn’t, my wife and filly would still be with me. Your mom would’ve never left you behind to do whatever she’s trying to do. Hell, Equestria would still be a beautiful place and the war wouldn’t have ever happened.”

“I know,” I said.

“Come on let’s go pay our last respects to a good stallion.” The Stranger said taking my hoof and leading me toward the door.

Just outside the door Aura was waiting for me, “They’re ready to start.”

The Stranger looked at Aura then back at me, “I’ll see you there.”

He left me with Aura, after he flew off Aura said, “What did mom want?”

“She wanted me to let me know that there’s going to be a meeting between The Annihilators and Trotston. I guess Rusty wants me there to help with the negotiations.” I said as we both started walking past the destroyed buildings of Cartwheel. While I was out, it looked like the griffons had cleaned up the bodies. All that was left was the blood from where their bodies had been.

“Shadow, remember we said no more secrets, I know there was more to her talking to you than just that. She wouldn’t have talked to you alone if that’s all she wanted. Now spill.”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

I shrugged, “She wanted to tell me that she’s happy that you’re happy.”

“You’re so funny, now tell me what she really said.” Aura said sounding annoyed.

“I just did, I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Because my mom wouldn’t say something like that, she hates the fact that I like ponies.”

“Or maybe she’s just saying that because she has too.” I said.

“Shadow, I know my mom a lot better than you do, she’s not that kind of griffon. She doesn’t care about me as much as you think, I know you want every mom to love their daughters as much as your mom used to love you…”

I turned on her, “Don’t…go there Aura please. If you don’t believe me then fine. But I’m not lying to you, if you really want to know for sure then go ask your mom. This is between you two. I can’t keep being the pony in the middle of your family. I love you Aura, and I’m not lying.”

She looked a little shocked at my outburst, “She…really said that?”

“Yes, and that’s all I’m saying. Changing subjects, if Box Tape believed the same way as Griffons, what does that mean for his Funeral?” I asked as we both started walking again, heading toward the edge of town. It took a moment for Aura to answer.

“You remember what Tonto said about reincarnation right,” She asked, after I nodded she continued, “When a griffon dies we want them to be able to move on to their next life, or into the afterlife if their soul has finished its journey in this world. To do that, the body of a griffon must be burned until it is nothing but ash. Only then will the griffon or in this case pony’s soul move on to the next life or afterlife.”

“So you have your dead cremated?”

“To put it simply yes.”

We just got outside of Cartwheel when I saw a gathering of griffons, a few ponies and my friends. New graves had been dug and some of the griffons were still burying some of the town’s ponies. To my surprise I saw a few of the town’s ponies of Cartwheel had escaped. I saw the old ghoul who I first met standing next to a couple of the shop owners. Most of the fillies and colts I’d saved from the raiders were standing with an older mare who ran the weapons store. Cartwheel may have been destroyed, a lot of the ponies that lived here hadn’t made it, but some of them were still alive.

Sitting just off the road was a large stack of wood, built up in a square. Laying on it was Box Tape’s body, standing next to it was Tonto, Apollo, Gigi and Vervain. Vervain was slowly running her hoof over her father’s head, tears slowly running down her face as she looked at him. I made my way over to her and hugged her tightly.

She hugged me back saying, “I’m glad you’re here sweetie.”

“I’ll always be here for you Auntie Vervain, you know that.”

A moment went by then I felt a talon on my shoulder. Pulling away from Vervain I looked up to see the gentle face of Tonto, “It’s time to start, are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.

“Same for me.” Vervain said.

The ponies and griffons all started to gather around us as Tonto raised his talons in the air saying, “Thank you all for coming on this sad day. Today we all have gathered to say good bye to the ponies who lost their lives during the attack that destroyed the town of Cartwheel. I know that most of you have lost brothers, sister, fathers, mother and children. Tonight, is a sad day for us all. Tonight, is about remembering the ponies we lost. No matter who we lost or who we didn’t, we all knew Box Tape. He was the rock that Cartwheel was built on, he was the face of the town, and he was in no small way the soul of Cartwheel. So, before we all take time to say good bye to the ponies we lost, I’d like us all to pay our respects to Box Tape.”

Apollo spoke next, “I’ll start, I first met Box Tape when I was young. My first job was working for the old buck. When we first met I thought I was the best fighter around, I thought the old buck was nothing more than a forgetful old fool who wanted to be a courier. I was wrong, on that first mission we were attacked by a group of raiders. They were too much for me to take down on my own, but back then I thought I was the best and I tried to fight them off. If it wasn’t for Box Tape I wouldn’t be talking to you today, I wouldn’t have had my four wonderful children. He saved my life when I was overwhelmed, he fought them off like it was nothing. When it was all done he told me something I’ll never forget, he said ‘Never assume you’re the best, even if you are. Even the best can have a bad day or find somepony who is stronger than they think. Always fight like your life depends on it and never underestimate your enemies. Put simply, there is always somepony better.’ Those words changed the way I looked at the world, and I live by those words to this day. He was a good buck, a strong buck, a good friend and he will be missed. May his soul find peace, because as far as I’m concerned, Box Tape did more for this world than anypony ever has. Good bye my old friend.”

Not a single eye was dry as Apollo stepped away and Gigi moved closer to start what she had to say. Before she did I looked over at Aura asking, “Why did your dad say four children. I thought there were five of you. Syndi, Viridiana, Gus, Fletch and you.”

Aura looked down at me whispering, “I can tell you about that later, but for now I’ll just say that Syndi isn’t Apollo’s daughter.”

“Wait, she’s…”

Aura interrupted me, “Later…”

I shut my mouth as Gigi started to speak, “I’ve known Box Tape since I was little. He’s always been a friend of The Red Talons, for as long as I can remember he’s always been around. When he was working with Hidden Sands he used to hire us for harder jobs or he’d just stop by to visit. He was there for all of my children’s hatchings, he was there when all of them passed their training. He was there for me when I lost Gail. In the past few years I haven’t had as much time as I used to, to come visit Cartwheel. But before I was the leader, I used to visit him every week, we were close. He was like a second father. My one regret is I wish I could have taken more time over the past few years to see him more often. I’m going to miss him, and his dirty jokes. Good Bye my old friend.”

Once Gigi stepped down the old ghoul came forward saying, “I was the first pony that wasn’t part of the Steel Rangers to settle down in Cartwheel. I used to be a drifter before I came to town. I was close to becoming feral at the time, Box Tape helped me when I was at my lowest and talked to me like I was just another pony and not the rotting corpse that most ponies think we are. He asked me what I used to do before the war. I told him I used to sell different odds and ends, you know a little bit of everything. He asked me if I’d like to stay in town and set up a general store, so that’s what I did. I owe him my sanity.”

That is what went on for the next hour, different ponies who used to live in Cartwheel talked about how they met Box Tape, how he helped them, how good he was. More of the griffons went as well, each seeming to have either met Box Tape because of his friendship with the Red Talons or he helped them join the Talons. Aura and her sisters told stories about how Box Tape helped them in one way or another, Even Stardust had a few words to say about him. Tonto told a long and very funny story about Box Tape and him when they were still kids. I guess Box Tape grew up near Crimson Canyon and they used to go on small adventures back then as well. I guess they have been best friends forever.

Then it was finally my turn, I was the last pony to say something before Vervain. I looked out at all of the ponies and griffons looking up at me a lump in my throat making it hard for me to say anything. I took a deep breath and started to speak, “H…Hello everypony and every griffon, I’m Shadow Star, most of you know me as The Courier. I haven’t known Box Tape for very long, but in that short amount of time he became like a grandfather to me. It’s because of Box Tape that I was able to save the Fillies and Colts who were taken by the Raiders. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have ever been called The Courier. I know that DJ Pon3 gave me that name, but it was only because of the Duster given to me by Box Tape and him giving me a job. However, after The Equestrian Express was destroyed I told myself that I wasn’t the Courier anymore, how could I be if there was no more Equestrian Express. But very recently I came to a realization…” I took another deep breath holding back some tears, “…the ‘Courier’ isn’t just a title bound to The Equestrian Express, just because the building is gone, doesn’t mean its spirit is. No, the company that Box Tape and White Oak built won’t die with him or the place they called home, it will live on in me. Before I used to hate the title that was forced on me, but now I’m proud to call myself a courier for Equestrian Express, because I’m not just a courier, I’m The Courier, like I said, it’s no longer a title of ‘when the next letter comes’ but a title of hope for the Marejave Wasteland, a beacon of light in a sea of shadows. Somepony we Wastelanders can look up to knowing that pony is trying to make the Marejave a better place. It’s all because of Box Tape, he saved my life in more ways than one, and he also made the ultimate sacrifice to make sure I’d live to see another day. He made sure I could keep doing what I do best. I am The Courier Mare of the Marejave Wasteland now and forever.”

Everypony and griffon started to cheer as I stepped away. I blushed a little as I went back to stand next to Aura and her family, Aura pulling me close saying, “That was a great speech Shadow.”

I wanted to say something to her, but instead I just sat back and listened to Vervain. She was still crying, but she managed to say, “Thank you all for the kind words about my dad. Most of you know that my father and I didn’t get along well over the years, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love him. He was always kind to me, always there for me when I needed him. He used to say when he was older that he failed as a father, at times I used to think the same thing because he always wanted me to stay away from the work he did with the Rangers. That was where most of our disagreements came from. I wanted nothing more than to be like him and my mom. So, I ran away and joined up with Los Alicorn, later my brother joined me. After mom died, I came home so I could be closer to dad. Even then after all I did he still didn’t like that I was a Steel Ranger even though he pushed Wolfsbane to join them.” Vervain’s voice started to crack and she started to tear up each word she spoke got harder and harder for her to say taking breaks in between making sure she got what she wanted to say out. “I never understood why it was such a big deal, not until I met Shadow and her mom twelve years ago. He knew that I wasn’t meant to put my mind into finding Tech for the Steel Rangers or fighting with them. Even though I was good at both, he knew that I was always meant to have a family. He wanted me to be able to enjoy my life in a way he never was able too. Even though I found out that I couldn’t have a foal of my own, the Goddesses blessed me with Shadow Star. I’m sorry dad, I’m sorry that I didn’t understand until I was older, but thank you for always being there for me, thank you for pushing me to find the life I was always meant to have. I love you, I’ll miss you, and I hope you find peace. If you see mom, tell her I miss her.”

After she was done, Vervain broke down. I ran over to her and helped her back to her hooves. I walked her back to sit next to Aura and I. Once she was better, Tonto walked back over to Box Tapes body, he held a lit torch in one talon, “Box Tape, Sentinel of the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers, protector and founder of Cartwheel, Father, Son, and Friend. Your life has been long, it has been full of good and bad. You have done more for this land than anypony or griffon I’ve ever met. May your Soul find peace in the lands of our ancestors. Yet if your soul still isn’t ready to move on, then we hope that your next life is full of peace, love and happiness. Háá nilyííh.”

Once Tonto said those last…strange words, he placed the torch to the base of the wood. A moment later a large blaze consumed the wood and the old buck. We sat there and watched as Box Tape’s body was slowly consumed by the flame. I ignored the smell, ignored the sight, I just watched with Aura holding on to me as Box Tape was turned to ash. Right before the last of Box Tapes bones crumbled to ash, I said, “Goodbye…Grandpa.”

***

The rest of the day we spent with what was left of Cartwheel’s civilians. I spoke to a lot of them, talking about ponies I met or never met. Once we were finished my friends and I made our way back to Silver’s house. Aura’s mom joined us alone with Apollo. We were all sitting in the small living room now talking about what’s been going on since I left. From what I was hearing, it wasn’t good. The Romans had taken control of the river, taken down four NLR bases, and were now pushing toward New Pegasus. The Steel Rangers that were now ran by Sapphire had taken down three more NLR camps and Halo One. They were also moving toward Trotston, but nopony knew why. The NLR, were sending for reinforcements from out west, but they still haven’t shown up. There was also word about a dragon being spotted near a place called Stonefire Mountain. To top it off, the survivors of Appleton who moved into Stable 14 had a contract out for me. Luckily, they contracted with a smaller Talon Group that were allowed to work in the Red Talon’s area, but sooner or later I was going to have to do something about them.

“So, what does this mean for me?” I asked Gigi.

“It means that if you see griffons that aren’t part of the Red Talon’s be prepared to fight, or pay them off. The Talon Company is called Blackhawk, that’s the name of their leader. She’s a good griffon, but she also doesn’t have the same values as we do. In the Red Talons, most of our griffons can’t drop a contract if the pony they are after pays them off, unless Apollo or myself say it’s okay. Blackhawk’s Griffons don’t care, they will take a bribe to drop a contract, though that doesn’t mean they won’t take another one from Appleton if they keep trying.” Gigi said.

“Can this night get any worse?” I asked.

“It’s okay Shadow, I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” Wingnut said.

I smiled at him, “Always the optimist aren’t ya kiddo.”

He beamed up, “Somepony has to be in our family. Can I call us a family?”

I smiled and ruffled his mane a bit, “I’m fine with it.”

“Whatever you say boss,” Aura said.

Wind Thrasher was sitting next to Stardust looking down and occasionally glancing over to him before answering Wingnut, “I like the sound of a family”

Stardust looked as if he was spacing out like he was thinking about something or just looked bored, “A family huh? I don’t care either way. I like the company around me.”

Apollo got up saying, “I really should get going,”

Stardust got up as well, “Me too, I need to find out where Lonely Hearts and Sandstorm went. I didn’t see them after the fight and I’m getting worried.”

“I’ll go with you.” Vervain said, “I’m worried something happened to Sandstorm as well.”

“I’ll see you later,” I said as Stardust, Vervain and Apollo left.

“I really should get going as well, it was nice to see you all.” Gigi said getting up as well, she looked over at Aura saying, “Aura next week is the day of Rebirth. I hope you’ll be able to attend. As you know it’s the one day that even banished griffons can come back to Crimson Canyon.”

Aura to my surprise smiled a little saying, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. That is as long as my boss lets me go that is.”

Wingnut looked up at that, “What’s a day of Rebirth? It sounds dirty.”

Gigi laughed, “It’s the day we celebrate our founder. It’s a day that we all get together and remember Greta and her life. Her son started the celebration to remember his mother and to give griffons that were banished a chance to get back into the talons. It’s also the only day that griffons from other talon groups can join us.”

“Sounds fun, we’ll be there.” Wingnut said with a smile.

“Good, well then I need to head home.” Gigi said before heading toward the door.

“Mom wait!” Aura said.

Gigi stopped, “Did you need something Aura?”

“Can…we talk for a few minutes before you go?”

Gigi hesitated for a moment then her eyes fell on me. She glared at me for a long moment then said, “About what?”

“I just need to know something and I’d rather talk to you now while I can.”

Gigi sighed then nodded, “I can give you a few minutes, then I really need to head back.”

“That’s fine, let’s go talk outside.” Aura said then followed her mom as she walked out the door.

“So what do we do now?” Wingnut asked.

“I’m not sure kiddo, I don’t even know where to go from here. Cartwheel is dead, most of the town’s ponies here are as well. The ones who are left may be able to rebuild, but that will take time and caps.” I said.

Yaksha looked over at me saying, “I think we should take the next couple of days to rest up. From what has been going on I am sure you could all use it.”

“I know I’d feel a lot better if we did that.” Wind Thrasher said.

“It’s not like I have anything else to do for now. I think a couple days to rest up would be good.” I said.

The Stranger looked over at me saying, “That would be a good idea Shadow. You’ve been going almost nonstop for days now, if you keep this up you’re going to regret it.”

“It would also give me time to teach you more Shadow.” Yaksha said.

The Stranger looked over at Yaksha, “Teach her what?”

“How to defend herself better and I am helping her get better control on her magic.”

“Does Shadow really need that much help with her magic? I mean she’s already pretty good isn’t she?” Wingnut asked.

“She comes from a line of strong and powerful unicorns, so I’d say so,” The Stranger said, “I’ve seen what Shadow can do, why would a zebra want to help her learn how to control her magic?”

Yaksha glared at him, “She is powerful yes, but she lacks control. If she is not careful, she may end up hurting herself someday.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, why are you helping her learn to control her magic?” The Stranger said in a low dangerous voice.

“It is none of your business.” Yaksha said.

“I’m protecting her, so yes, it is…” The Stranger started to say.

The voice of my Uncle echoed out of my saddle bags interrupting the Stranger, “Would you both shut up!”

I pulled the crystal out of my saddle bags saying, “Uncle Oricalcos? How are you feeling?”

“Better than I did before,” he said, the crystal pulsing a little as he spoke, “Now, Zebra…Stranger, both of you shut up!”

The Stranger took a step back saying, “That can’t be Pride?”

“Oricalcos now, I’m no longer Pride. I’ve been helping Shadow ever since she almost killed me. I found out who she was during our fight, now tell me Stranger, why are you so worried about The Zebra helping my niece?”

The Stranger pointed a hoof at the gem, “Why didn’t you tell me he was still alive!?”

“Because I knew you’d act like this. He’s been helping me, and he is my family. Now answer his question.”

Yaksha chuckled to herself, “Yes, Stranger, why do you care who helps Shadow?”

“You just showed up out of nowhere while Shadow was in the Kingdom, then just decided to join her so you could help her? I don’t buy that for a second, I think you’re up to something, I don’t trust you.” The Stranger said.

“At least I show Shadow my face, I am not hiding behind bandages like you Pegasus. I think you are the one that she should not trust. I joined Shadow because I am looking for an old friend who lives out here. I decided to help her with her magic and with her fighting skills as payment for her helping me get back.” Yaksha said.

Oricalcos spoke up again, “Zebra, I was in Star’s shadow when you spoke to her at the Kingdom. You had another reason for joining her.”

Wingnut spoke up this time, “Why else would she want to join us? It’s not like she’s a friend of Shadow’s or anything. She just wanted a ride back to New Pegasus that’s it.”

Oricalcos laughed, “Wrong child, she told Star that she knows what lives inside of my niece.”

Everyone’s eyes fell on Yaksha, who blushed then said, “I am a zebra, of course I can feel the presence that lives within Shadow. Any zebra that is trained properly can do the same. That is another reason I want to help her better control her magic, so she can learn to hold back that creature that lives within her.”

The Stranger growled, “Really? You expect me to buy that too?”

I had enough, I took in a deep breath they yelled, “All of you shut the fuck up! Stranger, she saved my life in the Absent Ruins and I trust her so you should too. Yaksha, The Stranger has been a great ally and saved me more than once when he didn’t have too, I trust him too so drop it!”

Yaksha Sighed “Let it be known that I did not escalate the tension. He did” She pointed to the stranger.

For a long moment no one said a word. Finally, Wind Thrasher broke the silence, “Stranger, I’m surprised you’re still down here.”

That seemed to snap him out of whatever mindset he was in, “With Wolfsbane’s attack on Cartwheel, Stratus is on high alert. Nightshade told me to stay with Shadow for a few days to make sure she was safe. He’ll figure something out as to why I’m not up there.”

“So I guess, you’ll be staying here for a while then huh?” Wingnut asked.

“Yes I will, as long as Shadow doesn’t mind.” he said.

I shrugged, “I don’t mind as long as you stop trying to fight with Yaksha or Oricalcos.”

The Stranger sighed, “I guess I can let it go for now, but I’ll be keeping an eye on your training and that Zebra.”

Yaksha rolled her eyes, “As long as you do not get in the way. Shadow come with me so we can start.”

I shrugged, “Looks like Aura’s going to be talking to Gigi for a bit longer, so I guess I should find something to do. Wind Thrasher why don’t you go try and sleep, Wingnut see if any of the town’s ponies need help.”

They both nodded. Once they were gone I followed Yaksha to the room I shared with Aura, the Stranger close behind, “Okay we will start with going back to your meditations. This time I want you to try and dig deep into your mind. I want to see if we can find a way for you to draw on the power from that monster inside of you without it trying to take over.”

I stopped, “That doesn’t sound safe.”

“It is not, but I have a way to make sure you will succeed.” She said as she moved to sit in the middle of the room. The Stranger sitting a few feet away watching us.

I noticed Yaksha was sitting on her rear, with her hind legs crossed strangely, her forehooves resting on her rear legs and pointing out, “That looks uncomfortable.”

“Shadow, I know you are hesitant, but it is necessary for what I am about to teach you, now copy my gesture as best as you can.” Yaksha said.

I tried to mimic what she was doing, but I kept falling over, “I’m not a zebra, I can’t do that.”

She sighed then moved over and helped me, “You can Shadow, you are just too tense, you need to relax more.” She kept moving my legs and forehooves until I was sitting the same as she had been, “Good now I want you to eat this.”

I saw she was holding out something that looked like a large raisin, “What is it and why should I eat it?”

“Stop acting like a foal and eat it. It is just something I cooked up, it will help you enter your own mind. It will also help me do the same. I am going to see what this creature is and I will help you take hold of its power. Now enough of the twenty questions Shadow do you want to better control your magic or continue to blast wildly and hope you hit your mark?”

I wrinkled my nose a little as I took hold of the…whatever it was…then tossed it in my muzzle. I almost threw up, it tasted like ass, even worse it was chewy and had a soft nasty goo inside. After a minute I was able to get it down, once I did, Yaksha ate one as well. Once she was done swallowing I asked, “Now what?”

“Now I want you to clear your mind and meditate the same way I showed you in the sky carriage.”

I closed my eyes and started to breathe deeply, I did what Yaksha had showed me before and soon I found my body starting to relax. Then I heard Yaksha say, “Good, now I am going to draw something on your chest, do not worry about what I am doing, and just keep breathing.”

The Stranger said, “Don’t do anything that will hurt her.”

“I will not, just make sure you watch over her. If she starts to panic, splash water over her or rub away the glyph.” Yaksha said.

As I breathed in slowly then out slowly I felt Yaksha paint something on my chest. Whatever she was using to do it smelled like mint mixed with sage. As the aroma flowed over me, a tingling started in my belly. The feeling expanded and soon I felt it in every inch of my body. Then Yaksha started to chant in what sounded like Zebra. Soon the sound filled the room and I could tell that whatever she was doing wasn’t just a simple exercise, this must be Zebra magic. Before I could ask her what she was doing, everything around me seemed to vanish…

oooOOOooo

At first I thought Yaksha had somehow sent me into one of my own memories, then I realized that I knew where I was. I’d been here only once, back when I thought I killed Pride and my mind was split. The Little White Unicorn had used a spell to go into the Dark Unicorns mind where she found Aquila. This was the deepest parts of my mind. Everything was white and power seemed to fill the space like an overflowing river. I tried to take a step forward and noticed that my hooves were in a thin layer of water.

In front of me there was a small cage made out of what looked like old rusty steel. Inside the cage was a white filly with a black mane, moving stars on her flanks. She was sleeping right now, a small snore escaping her muzzle with each breath. I took a few steps forward wondering if this was Aquila’s true form or just another trick.

“Do not get too close to her just yet Shadow.” I heard Yaksha say.

I almost jumped, turning I saw the Zebra was only a few feet away from me, “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I am sorry,” Yaksha said as she moved to stand next to me looking down at the Cage, “So this is the creature. Strange she looks like a filly to me, but I can also see that she is full of power. What is her name?”

“Aquila, at least that’s what she told me.”

“Aquila huh, the Eagle, the protector, the great hunter of the Stars. Strange that she would take on that name. The Stars of the Aquila constellation have always been known as good stars. They protect the land and bring good luck. They would never make a creature that would take over a pony.”

“She was named by Minuette. In the notes I found about where she was created, Minuette said the constellation was shining brightly in the sky that night.”

Yaksha looked confused, “What do you mean created?”

“She was made in a lab, it was called Project Stargazer.”

“No, that cannot be. That project was scrapped, deemed a failure. Even if it was not, there is no way they could have created something like her.”

It was my turn to look confused, “What do you mean?”

“Shadow, that creature is not some creation from a lab. She is a child of the Stars, she is what is known by my ancestors as a Star Spawn.”

“A Star Spawn? I thought those were just demons that the Stars created to cause problems for ponies or zebra’s on Equis.”

She shook her head, “In most of our beliefs that is true, evil stars do like to make trouble when they can. The creatures they make are not as powerful as they could be, but they do manage to do a lot of damage. A true Star Spawn like Aquila here, is made to be a child to the stars. The stars themselves give some of their own power and life to make one. When they do this, the creature they make normally becomes a new star in the heavens. They never send a child of the stars to Equis because they cannot take form in this land. They are pure light magic, the only way they can live here is if they take over a host, but no pony can handle that much power and it kills them.”

“But that’s what she said she was doing with me, she’s using my body to stay alive until she can take me over. You mean to tell me that nopony has ever lived through an encounter like this?” I said my eyes glued on Aquila’s sleeping form.

“There are only a couple of stories that I know that involve a Child of the Stars taking over a host like this. Two zebra’s a long time ago had this happen to them, they both died within days of the bond, same for those children of the stars. This is why the stars do not send their children down here. Not the good ones that is. The evil stars will do something like this sometimes, but dark stars cannot make a creature like Aquila, so the pony or zebra they take over just becomes a twisted evil monster until they are put down.” Yaksha said.

“So, you mean that when Aquila takes over, we’ll both die?”

“Most likely, there is only one pony I know that lived through something like this.”

“Who was it?”

“I do not remember the pony’s name, but I do know that he was a powerful unicorn that served the old kingdom before Equestria was founded. He lived through the bond, at least his body did. The pony and the child of the stars became something…else when they bonded fully. He became the creature you know as Discord.” Yaksha said as she walked around the cage Aquila was trapped in.

“I remember hearing stories about Discord in my classes in Stable 28. He was a trickster or something wasn’t he?”

“The Spirit of Chaos.” She said stopping on one side of Aquila.

“Is there any way to get her out of me?” I asked.

“I am not sure, from what I know you two have been bonded for a long time. It is a miracle that you have been able to hold her off for so long.”

“Mom caged her for a few years I think that helped, she wasn’t able to do much until I found the Mark II. Anyway, this is all fascinating and all but why are we really here?” I asked.

“As I said before, I want to find a way for you to be able to draw on her power without her taking over.”

“Again, that sounds dangerous. Even if you could help me draw on her power, how will this help me control my magic?”

She grinned, “Aquila has a lot of knowledge about magic. Most creatures like her do. Since they are made of light magic and created by stars, they are ancient themselves, they gain a vast amount of knowledge during this creation. When you draw on her power without her trying to control you, that knowledge will be yours. At least some of it will. A small amount of her power will help your own abilities grow and give you better control.”

“That sounds really far-fetched. How do you even know any of this is real? What if I can’t control the power I take or it makes it easier for her to break out?”

“I know this because she needs a lot of power to break out of a cage like the one she is in. If she does, she will still need even more power to fully take control of you, even more so without killing you both. If you take that power from her, she will not be able to get free. If, by some miracle, she does break free, she will not have enough power to take you over.”

I looked over at Aquila again then asked, “So if I can do this, I’ll be able to hold her off forever?”

“That is what I am hoping for.”

“So no matter what I do, I’ll always have her inside of me. She’ll always be able to mock me from the depths of my mind.”

“At first yes, but you see, you are missing another part of what makes her strong. She is slowly drawing power from your body, from your own magic. If you do what I am saying, over time you will be able to reverse the flow. By doing this, my hope is that she will be so weak that one day she will not be able to talk to you anymore, or she might even fade from existence.”

“So she’d die?”

“She cannot truly die for she is not truly a living creature, just magic with a personality. You could think of her as dying, when in reality it’s just reserved magic.”

“That…sounds terrible.”

“Maybe, but you have to remember that Aquila is trying to take over your body. This is the only way I can help you Shadow.” Yaksha said.

“I know, I just don’t like it. I know she’s trying to take over, but sometimes I feel like there’s more to it than that.”

“There is not, trust me.”

“How do you know she really is a child of the stars and not some creation from Stargazer?” I asked.

Yaksha laughed, “Shadow I am a zebra, I can tell that she is a true child of the stars just by looking at her. Now we should get started, this trance will not last much longer.”

“Okay, what do I need to do?” I asked.

“It is simple, do you see that glow around her?”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“I want you to concentrate your magic on that and try to pull as much of it toward yourself as you can.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Yes, now when you start it will feel like you’re a in a game of tug of war. Since this is your mind and not her own, you will be stronger. Just keep pulling until you feel the power around her flowing into you.”

“Okay,” I said. I concentrated on the magic around Aquila’s sleeping form. As soon as my Telekinesis touched the glow around her, I felt a shock run up my magical field and through my body. As soon as that happened it felt as if my life force was being drained away, following the magic’s path back to Aquila. Remembering what Yaksha said, I put all of my will into pulling that power back into myself and away from Aquila.

For a long tense moment nothing happened. Then the drain on my life force stopped and slowly started to return. The flow was slow at first, like water trickling down a rock, then it came faster. Soon the energy that was pulled away from me was back, now I was drawing on the power around Aquila. Unlike when I took the power she stole from the power source, it didn’t hurt. The power that started to flow into me from Aquila felt natural.

“That is it Shadow, just a little more.” Yaksha said.

As soon as Yaksha spoke, Aquila’s eyes snapped open. The flow of power stopped as Aquila slowly got to her hooves. Her eyes glued onto mine, a look of pure anger on her face, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”

I tried to cut off my spell, but I couldn’t. Aquila was holding on to my telekinesis, “Let me go Aquila!”

“It’s bad enough that I have to be trapped inside this fucking cage your mother made, now you have the fucking guts to come in here and try to steel what little power I have left!” as she yelled the area around us seemed to darken.

“Your one to talk, you want to take over my body!”

“Because you made a deal with me Shadow, five to ten years you’d get to live and do what you wanted, after that time went by I get your body. You only had a week or so left to live, I gave you TEN YEARS of life. You owe me!”

“I was a child, I didn’t understand what I was doing!” I yelled back at her.

“Shadow you must break the spell so we can leave, before she takes your power!” Yaksha said

Aquila looked over at Yaksha saying, “This is between Shadow and me, now get your filthy mind out of here!”

While Aquila was distracted I cut the flow of magic, severing my connection to Aquila. I backed away from her cage, “Let’s get out of here Yaksha!”

“No, I’m not letting you leave until you give me back what you STOLE!” Aquila yelled. Power erupted from her, blasting out from her cage and rolling over us like a blast of hot air.

“Shadow you need to get us out of here.” Yaksha yelled.

“HOW!”

The room around us went black and Aquila’s presence seemed to grow, her cage started to crack, “I’m not letting you keep me trapped in here! It’s time for you to pay me what you OWE!”

Yaksha jumped in front of me and started to chant something. For a moment everything started to go back to normal. I took another step back, “Yaksha how do I get us out of here!”

She didn’t respond, she was too busy doing…whatever she was trying to do. Aquila looked like she’d been hit with a bat for a moment then her expression changed to rage, “BE…GONE!” an explosion of power erupted from her cage.

Yaksha stopped her chanting and only had a moment to say, “NO!”

The blast of power slammed into Yaksha, she screamed then vanished in a puff of smoke and light. The blast stopped leaving only Aquila and myself, “What did you just do!?”

“I banished her from our mind Shadow. That zebra thinks she knows what I am, she thinks she knows how to stop me. The thing is, she has no idea what she’s gotten herself into. No matter how much power you take from me, no matter how much control you have over your magic, you can’t stop me.” She said starting to laugh, “I told you before Shadow, we are ONE!”

“I’m not losing myself to you Aquila, I’m not giving up. I will find a way to rid myself of you.”

Another crack appeared in her cage, “Shadow we are bonded, we have been for ten years. Nothing you do can get rid of me, not unless I decided to break our deal and I won’t. Even now I’m slowly destroying this cage your mother’s magic trapped me in. In a week maybe two, I’m breaking free and I’m taking over.”

Right then something seemed to click inside my head. It was like somepony had jammed a small spell book into my mind and spells I’ve seen my mom do back when I was young and even the magic she used to make the cage around Aquila made sense to me. I grinned and as calmly as I could I said, “That’s where you’re wrong Aquila, this is still my head, my mind, I control what happens here not you.”

“Really and what do you think you can do to STOP ME.”

“Like this.” I was in my own head, I didn’t have to cast a spell using my horn or anything. This entire place is nothing more than a projection my mind made, I don’t have to cast a spell because the magic was already inside of me. All I have to do is redirect the flow of power and bend it to my will. The room around us turned white again, and the look of condescending rage vanished on Aquila’s face. The cracks in her cage vanished, her glow around her faded away, and she seemed to shrink in size.

“What…did you just do!?”

“Made sure you can’t get free for a long time. You can fight my mom’s magic, but you’ll have a harder time fighting mine. I will find a way to get you out of me Aquila I promise you that.” I said, smiling at her.

I felt like something wet was just splashed across my chest and stomach, the world around me started to fade. Yaksha or The Stranger must have done something to pull me out. As I felt myself being pulled back Aquila chuckled saying, “This won’t work as well as you think Shadow. You made a mistake by coming here…hahahahahaha!”

oooOOOooo

I woke to find myself looking up at Yaksha and The Stranger both looking down at me, “What the hell happened?” I asked.

“I was going to ask the same thing, one minute you two were sitting there, the next Yaksha wakes up screaming.” The Stranger said.

“That…thing blasted me out of Shadow’s head, she should not have been able to do that.” Yaksha said.

I got up slowly, “Well what ever happened I stopped her.”

Both of them looked shocked, Yaksha asking, “How did you do that?”

“I’m not sure, all I know is that I did something and it stopped her.”

“Shadow, I need to know what you did.” Yaksha said, looking concerned.

“I DON’T KNOW.” I yelled, “My head hurts right now can you please drop it.”

“She may have done something to trick you, I need to know.” Yaksha said.

The Stranger pushed her back saying, “Leave her alone. She needs rest”

“Pegasus, you do not understand what is happening.”

“I know more than you think. Right now she’s tired, you’ve put her through enough, talk to her tomorrow.” The Stranger said.

Yaksha looked pissed, “Fine, but if something happens it is on you Pegasus!”

She stomped away and back to the room she was sharing with Vervain. When she was gone I sighed, “Thank you Stranger.”

“No need to thank me, you should go get some rest, we can talk tomorrow.” He said.

“Good idea, if you see Aura tell her I’m laying down okay.” I said getting to my hooves, as I did I felt something wet on stomach, looking down I saw that water had been splashed on me. The Glyph there was nothing more than running red paint.

“I’ll tell her.” He said going to lay down on the couch.

I set my stuff down in one corner and laid down. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep. I’m not sure how long I was out, but sometime later I was woken by Aura. At first it was just a touch on my shoulder as she slowly shook me. Turning over I opened my eyes to see her looking down at me, tears in her eyes, “Aura are you okay…”

She didn’t answer me, she moved her head down and kissed me. For a long moment she held me there, then she pulled away and crawled into the bed. She still didn’t say anything as she kissed me again her talons running down my body. When she moved her beak down to my neck I panted, “Aura…what’s wrong?”

“Just don’t say anything…please.”

So I didn’t, I laid back and held onto Aura as she worked herself down my body. I held onto her as she did her best not to cry, I just let her do what she wanted. I’m not sure what was on her mind, but I did know that she needed me. That moment we embraced each other in various ways. Aura still didn’t tell me what was wrong, all she would say as I laid there in her arms was, “I love you Shadow.”

***

Over the next two days things started to look up in Cartwheel. The town was still destroyed, only a few ponies survived the attack. But the Red Talons were already helping the ponies that survived, they were going to help them move to the abandoned town outside of Crimson Canyon. The next morning, I felt a lot better and was able to tell Yaksha what happened with Aquila and me. She didn’t say much, but she looked worried. She did however keep training me on how to control my magic. I was now able to use my spells a lot easier ever since I took some of her power. The knowledge I thought I gained when I was still in my own mind seemed to have vanished, but Yaksha said that it would take time for me to understand what happened.

The Stranger started to work with Yaksha to teach me how to fight hoof to hoof and how to handle my weapons better. Aura also joined in to help me learn how to use the sword I found as well. Vervain and Stardust had arrived back in Cartwheel the next day with Lonely Hearts, Sandstorm and our Sky Carriage. We spent some time to bury the bodies of the steel rangers who were all in the Carriage. Sandstorm said that once the attack went down, he got Lonely Hearts away from town as quick as he could.

Lonely Hearts was able to tell me a little more of what he learned about mom, most of it was information I already knew. One thing stood out that I found interesting. Mom had been spotted in New Pegasus four days ago going into the N.L.R. Embassy. So, either she was still in the area or she already headed back to Los Alicorn. I was going to have to talk to one of the N.L.R. higher ups when I had free time.

Vervain decided to join the rest of Cartwheel as they headed toward Crimson Canyon. She said they’d need a mare like her if they were going to survive. So, on the third day after the death of Box Tape we had said our good byes to the town’s ponies who lived. We were now heading east toward Crossroads Trading Post so we’d make it in time for the meeting. The Stranger was still traveling with us, he just told me that he was ordered to keep an eye on me. We would have taken the Sky Carriage, but Vervain said we shouldn’t be flying anywhere just in case The Los Alicorn branch was still around. Keeping to the ground was safer at the moment. So, one of the Talons took the Sky Carriage with them to keep it safe in Crimson Canyon.

Now, Stardust, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, Aura, Yaksha, The Stranger and I were walking across the dry land getting closer to Halo One. We were taking the long way around it to keep clear of both Hidden Sands and the Power Plant. I still didn’t know what was going on with Sapphire, but I didn’t have time to deal with her right now. When I was finished with this meeting and going back to Crimson Canyon for this Rebirth Celebration, then I’d make a trip to Hidden Sands to talk with Elder Sapphire.

“I’m tired!” Wingnut complained for the fifth time now.

“I know kiddo, but we have a lot of miles to cover and I’d like to get there before everypony else shows up.” I said.

“I know, but do we HAVE to walk? We have four ponies who can fly, can’t they just carry us there?”

“No way kid,” Stardust said, “We aren’t here to just carry you from place to place, also it’s good for you to walk.”

“Says you, you fly everywhere.” Wingnut complained.

“Not everywhere, plus a pegasus needs to fly a lot to keep our wings in shape.” Stardust said coming to land next to Wingnut.

“He’s also keeping an eye out for enemies.” Aura said.

Yaksha was a little way ahead of us talking on that portable broadcaster of hers. She’s been doing that most of the day, but when we asked who she was talking to she refused to say. The Stranger sighed saying, “I don’t like when she keeps talking to somepony like that.”

“Same here, but I’m sure she’s not going to do anything to us, she’s been nothing but helpful since we first met her.” I said yawning.

“I don’t know Shadow, I’m with The Stranger on this.” Aura said, “Yaksha, for the last time, who are you talking too?”

Yaksha looked back at us, “My contact, he is just making sure I am okay that is all.”

“And who is this contact?” Aura asked as we got closer.

“He’s just a friend, somepony I have travelled with in the past, you do not need to worry, he is a good Stallion, he is waiting for me in Coven, it is just south of where you are going,” She said.

“Fine, but can you stop walking off? You don’t have to walk away just to talk to your friend.” I said as I passed by the older Zebra.

“My apologies Shadow, I will not do so again. Since you are up here may I indulge in you for a moment?” She said.

“I guess so, it’s still a long walk, what would you like to talk about?”

“I am under the impression that I am not trusted among your friends, it is a bit disheartening, have I not been nothing but helpful?”

“Honestly Yaksha I’m beginning to think I’m the only one who does trust you.”

“That is… saddening to hear.”

“Well… you have been secretive about the friend you talk to so much. Why haven’t you talked about him more?”

Yaksha sighed “I have not talked about him much because he prefers to be secretive. He trusts very few ponies. I am the only one he regularly keeps in contact with because he does not need to hide himself from me, I have proven that to him numerous times. It is only natural that he wants to make sure I am okay. Is that not how a friendship works?”

“It’s still a little shady Yaksha” Aura interrupted

“No pony asked you Griffon,” she glared.

“Yaksha it doesn’t help that you treat almost any pony rudely, it seems only natural to have some sort of mistrust.” I said with a sigh.

“I am sorry Shadow, I have always been naturally defensive, it has gotten better over the years after meeting that mare I told you about. It is just that I do not want to feel outcast again by a group of ponies like I did back in Coven years ago, it brings back bad memories.”

“I can kind of understand. Being the only unicorn in an all earth pony stable can make you feel like an outcast as well.”

Yaksha smiled at that, “Thank you Shadow Star that does make me feel a little better,” she stopped for a moment as if in thought, “You know, I have been to Crossroads Trading Post a few times before, I wonder how much it has changed over the years.” She blushed a little, “I wonder if Black Licorice still works there too.”

“You were?” I asked.

“Yes I was, it was one of the first major stops that the mare I told you about and I went to when we were doing a major favor for Silver Light. That favor led us around most of the Marejave and eventually to an underwater Stable.”

I perked at that, “An underwater stable? What was it like?”

“The details are a little fuzzy. There were a lot of experiments on marine life, but turned for the worst at least from what I remember.” She stopped again and smiled once more at me, “Thank you again Shadow Star for letting me indulge. I’ll try to not be so secretive next time if it will earn your friend’s trust.”

I smiled at that, “I’m glad I can help make you feel a bit more comfortable.”

The rest of the day we spent, making our way through the dry lands. Our destination was just on the other side, where one of the main highways ran north to south. Once we reached that we could use it to reach Crossroad Trading Post. My plan was for us to reach the cliffs near the road by nightfall then camp out before we continued on. Luckily, we reached the cliffs as the light was just starting to fade away in the cloudy sky.

“I’ll set up camp and start dinner.” Stardust said as he headed for an overhang in the side of the cliff.

Checking my Pip-Buck I looked over the map, “It looks like the road is just on the other side of the cliffs, but I don’t see a crossing to get through.”

“There’s one a mile or so north of here, we can head for it tomorrow.” Aura said as she went to help Stardust.

“I’m going to go check out the area and make sure no nasty critters are around here.” The Stranger said.

Aura walked over to me, “Shadow go with The Stranger, he’s been walking in the heat all day and I’m afraid he’s going to pass out. Keep an eye on him and make sure he drinks some water.”

“You sure? He seems like he’s doing better now.”

“Yeah, I’ll feel better knowing somepony is with him.”

“Can I go?” Wingnut asked.

I was about to say no, but I always seem to make him stay behind, “You know what, I’d like the company, come on.”

“Awesome!” Wingnut said following me as I headed in the direction The Stranger went.

It didn’t take long for me to catchup, Wingnut not far behind. The Stranger looked back then sighed, “You don’t need to come with Shadow or you either Wingnut.”

“Maybe, but Aura’s worried you may not be doing as well as you say. So, I’m going to make sure you don’t pass out and also to make sure you drink some water,” I said passing him one of my canteens.

He chuckled a little, “Guess I’m just not used to having other ponies with me,” He took the canteen, “Thank you Shadow.”

Wingnut walked over to The Stranger asking, “You feeling okay, you look sad.”

“Honestly kid, I’m getting tired. It’s not easy walking in this heat while wearing all of this gear.” The Stranger said, even his voice sounded tired.

“Then why don’t you just take it off? I mean you can still keep that mask on, but at least you’ll be able to cool off if you take off the jacket and the armor.” Wingnut said.

“Maybe I’ll do that when we are back at camp.” He said, “For now I’d like to keep this on just in case we run into trouble.”

I was scanning the area looking to see if any red bars showed up on my E.F.S. “I’m not seeing anything honestly,”

“I’m not surprised, normally you only see things like Fire Geckos or huge ants but not much else, though every once in a while, you’ll find Hell Hounds around here. I’d feel better sleeping knowing there aren’t any of those monsters wandering around.”

“If Hell Hounds were around here, you wouldn’t see them coming.” Wingnut said, “They’d just jump out of the ground and kill you, that’s what they’re good at.”

I looked down at the hard ground, “Wait you mean Hell Hounds can just pop up from the ground without warning?”

The Stranger and Wingnut looked back at me Wingnut asking, “Did you ever fully read that Wasteland Survival Guide, even Yaksha mentioned Hell Hounds breaking down an entire city surrounded by stone”

“Most of it.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Come on, it’s not like I’ve had time to go through the whole thing. Also stuff is missing in mine, and I haven’t had time to go through Wind Thrasher’s.” I said defensively.

“You really should read it, I’m surprised you’re still alive.” Wingnut said with a laugh.

The Stranger chuckled too, “So am I.”

“Oh both of you can kiss my ass.” I said.

They both laughed then The Stranger said, “Things are looking fine out here, we should do a sweep closer to the cliffs then head back.”

“Not a bad idea.” I said.

We were almost back to the cliffs when The Stranger stopped, his ears perking up, “Did you hear that?”

Wingnut and I looked around as I said, “I didn’t’ hear anything.”

“Same here,” Wingnut said.

“It sounded like somepony reloading a battle saddle, only it was far away.” He said, still looking around. His hoof came up to one of the gems imbedded in the lining of his jacket ready to tap it.

I was moving my head around looking for anything, when a white line showed up on my E.F.S. it was a little to the side of The Stranger and Wingnut, “Somepony’s out there…”

[BOOM]

The Stranger taped his gem right before the gunshot went off. There was a flash of blue light and the next thing I knew, Wingnut and I were a few feet away from where we had just been standing. A hole was in the ground right where I was a moment ago. The Stranger was standing next to me panting, “That was close, both of you get out of here now.”

A voice that reminded me of a ghoul only not as bad, echoed from above us, “Looks like you still have a few tricks up your sleeve Guardian!”

We all looked up and watched as a Pegasus dove and landed a few feet away from us. The Stranger pulled out his Revolver saying around the bit, “who the hell are you!?

This Pegasus had his head covered with a hood and cloak, he wore black combat armor with a few jewels on the chest, his face was covered by a scarf and he had goggles over his eyes. I pulled out Dream Walker, “Buddy you messed with the wrong ponies.”

He turned his head toward me saying, “I think not Courier,” a gem on his combat armor flashed and a moment later it felt like somepony just ripped my horn right off. My magic broke and Dream Walker fell to the ground.

“SHADOW!” Wingnut said, running over to me.

The Pegasus didn’t seem to even care, he lifted his wings revealing a battle saddle with two long guns on it. He pointed them right at Wingnut and me saying, “Courier, stay down and shut up, if you don’t I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t know who you are, but you’ll pay for that!” The Stranger said.

“I don’t think so, I’ve been trying to find you for a long time Guardian. You’re a hard pony to track down.” The Pegasus said, “Now drop The Demon Slayer before I blow this mare’s head off.”

“How…do you know what my revolver is called?” The Stranger said taking a step back, “Who are you!”

The Pegasus pulled the goggles he was wearing off his face, reveling bright green eyes just like The Stranger’s, “I think you know who I am…Brother.”

The Stranger didn’t move, “You can’t be him, he died.”

“Yeah, I should have died, but fate wanted me kept alive. I’m the Eleventh Guardian. I’m here to put an end to what you and the Enclave are doing, and to put a stop to this monster.” He said pointing a hoof at me, “She has the power from Stargazer, something that no pony should have ever found. You’ve been doing a poor job at keeping our family’s secret safe.”

“Who the hell are you!?” I yelled.

“No pony Courier, just like that poor excuse for a Stallion you call The Stranger.”

“He’s been protecting me, he’s a good Stallion.”

He laughed, his voice sounding like rocks were scraping together, “No he’s not. He couldn’t even save his own family, his filly died because of him, his wife left because of him. He can’t protect anything Courier. Now be quite and let me deal with my brother, I’ll deal with you when I’m finished.”

“No way!” I yelled.

“Shadow stay out of this, if this really is my brother, then I have a score to settle. Get back to your friends.”

“No pony is going anywhere. If you try and leave, I will stop you.” The Pegasus said, “And don’t even think about teleporting away, that gem I used will keep your magic down for a half hour or so.”

“This is between us, leave Shadow and the kid out of this.” The Stranger said.

“Yeah, and if we aren’t back soon my friend will come looking for us.” I said.

The Pegasus laughed, “No they won’t, Yaksha’s keeping them distracted while I take care of this. We are far enough away that they won’t notice anything, until it’s too late, now sit down and shut up, before I make you.”

“I don’t care who you are, I’m not letting you get away with this.” The Stranger said.

We couldn’t help but watch as The Pegasus walked closer to the Stranger saying, “Eighteen years you’ve been protecting the Project, and still you couldn’t stop Grim from getting to Stargazer could you.”

“You never left me with enough information damn it. I didn’t even know Stargazer was anything until recently. If you would have just given me the information I needed when you were branded I would have known what to do.” The Stranger said.

“If you would have just gone to my hide out you would have found everything you needed. Fuck, I trusted you to protect it, now everything’s going to shit because of you.” The Pegasus said, then he attacked. He didn’t fire his guns, instead he flipped around and kicked the Stranger right in the face.

The Stranger did a back flip then darted at the other pegasus trying to land a blow on his face. The pegasus ducked under the blow and landed another one on The Stranger’s chest. He took hold of one of The Stranger’s wings then used it to slam him to the ground, “What happened to you little brother, last time I saw you, you were a better fighter than this.”

The Stranger used his hind leg to kick the other pegasus off him. Then he attacked again landing a blow on the new comer’s face, “I’ve still got a trick or two,”

The two kept going at it, trading blow for blow. As they fought I looked over at Wingnut, “Try and get back to camp, if what he said is true, Yaksha can’t be trusted. Tell Aura what’s going on.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine, now go.”

Wingnut nodded then made a run for it. He got only a few feet away, then The Stranger was slammed into the ground in front of Wingnut. The Pegasus landed a few feet away, “I said nopony is leaving until I’m finished!”

The Stranger struggled to get back to his hooves, “Leave them alone!”

The Pegasus bucked the Stranger, “Pathetic, to think that dad used to say you were the better fighter. Seems life in the clouds has made you go soft,” his gaze moved toward me, his eyes so much like The Stranger’s it was eerie, “Yaksha said that you have the power of Aquila in you, is that right?”

“I don’t know you, so why should I tell you anything?” I said.

“I don’t even know why I’m asking, Yaksha already told me about how powerful Aquila has become. I’m sorry young mare, but you have to die, it’s the only way to stop her.” He said aiming his rifle right at me.

“Striker STOP! You don’t know who that is!” The Stranger yelled.

“Be quiet brother, I know what I need to know, she has to be stopped.”

“She’s Grim’s Daughter!” The Stranger yelled.

The Pegasus froze then looked back at him, “Grim told me that she died, she said that she tried to use Stargazer to save her and the power got away from her. This can’t be Star.”

“Wait a second…Striker…like my father’s brother Striker.” I said, it felt like somepony just slapped me, “I thought Striker was killed in an explosion.”

The pegasus looked between The Stranger and me then said, “I don’t by it, nice try brother, but I know that Star is dead.” He aimed at me again and bit down on the bit for his battle saddle.

“NO!” The Stranger yelled, he tapped his gem again and in a flash of blue light he vanished. The Pegasus’s rifles went off, there was another flash of blue light as the Stranger appeared in front of me, taking the bullets in one side.

I watched as blood shot out, the Stranger’s body flew into me sending us both flying back. The Pegasus swore, “Dammit brother, that was stupid. I meant to give you a beating not kill you.”

The Stranger coughed then said, “Maybe, but I won’t let you hurt her,” Then he pulled out a flash bomb and threw it at The Pegasus then covered me with his body to protect me from the light yelling, “WINGNUT RUN FOR IT!”

There was a flash of light and I heard The Pegasus yell right as Wingnut ran. A moment later The Stranger was pulled off of me and thrown back to the ground. The pegasus who sounded like a ghoul started to slam his hooves into The Stranger yelling, “You’re a fucking fool brother, now I am going to kill you then I’m killing that mare. I’m going to finish what you should have done weeks ago.”

I wanted to help, but my magic was useless. I could try to fight him, but I still wasn’t as good of a fighter as The Stranger and he lost to this Pegasus…to Striker. Was he really the uncle that everypony said died…if so then who was The Stranger, he said he wasn’t my dad so was he another brother I never heard about? Then as I watched Striker slam his hooves into The Stranger, I saw that something had fallen out of his pocket. It was the stuffed bird I’d seen him pull out before and an old photo.

I reached out with my hoof and pulled them close. I looked at the photo first, it was a picture of Mom holding a foal with a white coat and black mane. She was looking down at the foal with so much love in her eyes it was beautiful. Then I picked up the stuffed bird, as I did something about it seemed familiar. I pulled it to my nose and a faint scent came off the bird… “Avon?”

Something snapped in my head, it was like the last of mom’s spells that kept me from remembering my father broke…

oooOOOooo

“Daddy you look silly in that.” I said as I sat on his bed. He was just finishing putting on the outfit he used for his other job. At least that’s what he called it, his other job.

He looked over at me, the bandage mask over his face making him look like a mummy, “I may look silly to you, but I have to keep this on when I’m working, it’s the only way I can make sure the Enclave doesn’t know who I am. I do this to keep you and your mother safe.”

“Why do you have to do it daddy?” I asked.

“Because this is what our family has always done, your Uncle Striker did this before he had to leave The Enclave, my father did this before him, his mother before him and so on all the way back to the creation of The Enclave. One day Star, you’ll have to take over for me, you will be the Thirteenth Guardian.” He said

I looked down at my hooves, “But I’m not strong enough to do what you do daddy.”

He moved close and pulled me into a hug, “One day you’ll be okay, remember that mommy is going to try something new soon. You two will be going on a trip to see if she can cure you.”

“You’re coming too right?”

He shook his head, then put on a desperado hat, “No sweetie, I have to stay here. The Enclave won’t be happy that mom’s leaving, I have to make sure you two can get as far away from here as you can before they come after you, but mom said that once you’re better you can come home and see me again.”

I pulled my favorite doll close then gave it to him, “Take Avon with you then daddy, he’ll keep you safe while I’m gone.”

“I can’t take him sweetie, he’s your protector not mine,”

“You can give him back to me when I see you again.” I said.

He smiled and put the bird in the pocket of his trench coat, “Okay, I’ll make sure he gets back to you safe and sound.”

“I’m going to miss you daddy.”

I saw a tear roll down his face, “I’m going to miss you too my Little Star.”

oooOOOooo

The memory was quick, but at that moment I knew who the Stranger was. He’d been lying to me the whole time, I’m not sure why, but I knew I was right. I got back to my hooves and I felt power rolling through me as I watched the Pegasus pull a hoof back to land one more blow on The Stranger’s head. The power rolled through me as I yelled, “Get the hell off my DAD!”

He looked over at me, “Oh SHIT!”

I blasted him with my Expulsion Spell, a gem on his armor flashed, but he still was blown off The Stranger and sent flying across the dry landscape. I ran over to The Stranger and knelt next to him as I lifted my hooves I noticed that my coat had turned White. I had to ignore it for now, “Dad…Dad please answer me.”

He groaned and one of his eyes opened, “What did you call me?”

“Don’t try to lie to me again, I know you’re my dad, I’m starting to remember.”

“But…how, Grim said you wouldn’t ever remember me. She said only one thing could make you remember and she never told me what it was.”

I lifted Avon in my magic, “This was the key, when I saw it again, I remembered the day I gave it to you. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because you wouldn’t have believed me and even if you did, I didn’t have the right to be your dad, not after I let all of this to happen to you.” He said.

Blood was starting to stain the bandages around his mask, “I need to get you back to Aura, but first we have to get the mask off you so I can see how bad your injuries are.”

“Back away from him Courier.” I heard the pegasus say.

Looking up I saw that my spell had blown his cloak and scarf off. My eyes went wide as I looked at an older version of the stallion mom had kissed in that memory orb. Only his aqua green coat was covered in burn scars, his mane was short with patches missing in spots. When he spoke I saw that even the inside of his mouth was burned. He must have been in a bad fire or something to have so many bad burns.

“Are you really Striker?” I asked my horn glowing again.

“I am, yes, now back away from him.”

“Shadow, please run.” Dad said before coughing.

“No,” I said stepping over my father, “I’m not letting anypony hurt you not after I finally got you back. Uncle Striker, I’m Shadow Star, Daughter of Grim. Mom lied to you when she said I died, she used Stargazer to save me. Yes, I do have Aquila inside of me and she’s caged and I’m keeping her under control. Now can you please stand down so we can talk about this? If not, I’m not going to let you hurt my dad.”

“He’s a snake, even if you are who you say you are you can’t trust him. He’s been lying to everypony for years now. He uses ponies to get what he wants, he always has, and he even took the mare I loved when I was branded.”

“He may have lied to me about who he was, but I still trust him.”

“Really, how much of him do you remember? Do you know his name? What he looks like?”

I shook my head, “It’s coming back slowly, but not yet.”

“I figured, then you should pull off that mask, you’ll understand what I mean then.” He said, “I’ll wait.”

Looking back at my dad I sighed, “Dad, he’s right, you can’t keep hiding your face.”

He tried to get up, but he was too hurt, “Shadow, you don’t know what you’re asking me to do, if anypony around here sees who I am, it will ruin everything.”

“See, you can’t trust him Courier…” Striker started to say, then Yaksha slammed into the ground next to him followed a moment later by Aura.

She pointed her spear at Striker saying, “You better start explaining yourself, because the only reason you’re not dead Pegasus, is because Yaksha told me there’s more going on here than I think.”

Yaksha cursed, “Did you have to throw me down like that Aura?”

“Yes, you lying bitch, you’re lucky I didn’t slit your throat, now spill.” Aura said, anger lacing her voice.

Stardust flew up a moment later followed by Wind Thrasher, he looked over at The Stranger, “Shit, Aura you should help The Stranger he looks bad, I’ll keep an eye on this guy…damn dude what happened to your face?”

Striker sighed, “Was stuck in an explosion. I guess the kid got to you.”

“Damn right I did,” Wingnut said from where he was sitting on Aura’s back.

Aura walked over to The Stranger and me, “Damn it, I thought you could handle yourself better than this.”

“I’m tired and he got me by surprise.” Dad said.

“Your shot too, I need to get this outfit off of you to see how bad the wounds are.” Aura said.

“No…”

“This isn’t a debate,” Aura said reaching down to pull his mask off. Something sparked and she jumped back, “The fuck was that.”

Striker was the one who answered, “One of his gems makes it so that only he or his family can take that mask off same for the outfit, it’s how he keeps his identity safe.”

“Shut up Striker!” Dad said.

“Dad, I don’t care what you say, I’m taking this off you.” I said reaching down with a hoof and pulling on the mask.

Aura looked over at me, “Wait…this is your dad? How do you keep running into your lost family?”

I ignored her and pulled off my dad’s mask and hat. I dropped it as soon as I did, “No…how the hell didn’t I know?” A dark black face looked up at me, small scars running over his muzzle, nose and neck. His dark blue mane with a single silver strip down the center, and his deep green eyes. Even though I never saw the eyes when I was in Mill City Tower and now I knew why he hid them because I would have picked up on who he was, I still knew that face, “Nightshade!?”

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” Nightshade said, “Sorry I couldn’t tell you who I was before.”

“No, but you’re my dad’s best friend.”

Striker laughed, “Best friend? Nightshade doesn’t have friends. The only ponies he ever cared about was his wife and daughter and even then I’m not sure he really cared, because if he did he would have saved them.”

Looking back at Striker I yelled “I didn’t ask you, now shut up!”

“I’m…sorry but I couldn’t tell you who I was, Grim made sure of that. I wanted to tell you so many times, even if I could have told you my work as both the Guardian and a Council pony made it impossible for me to show myself. If the Enclave knew you were my daughter they would do anything to use you against me. That’s why I showed myself as The Stranger, so I could help you without the Enclave knowing.” Dad said.

“We can talk later, you need help and I can’t help you here. I have to get you back to camp.” Aura said, “All of you bring those two with you.”

Striker looked at Aura, “Why would I go with you griffon?”

I answered, “Striker from what I can tell you don’t know everything that’s going on. If you want answers then follow, if not, then I’ll put you down here and now. I don’t care if you’re my uncle.”

Striker looked at Yaksha who shrugged, “It is possible that I overreacted.”

To my surprise Striker laughed, “Fine, I’ll go with you, but you better answer all of my questions.”

As we started to walk back Wind Thrasher walked over to me asking, “Um…Shadow what happened to your coat?”

I looked down and saw I was still white. Until then I hadn’t noticed that I was still holding onto the power from Aquila, “I can tell you later.” I let go of the magic and a moment later my coat went back to normal, “First both of those Stallions and Yaksha have a lot of explaining to do…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Mysterious Pony Rank 4: Now that you know the truth behind The Stranger’s mask, you know how connected you really are with him and why he goes so far out of his way to protect you more over others. Due to this he will now show up more often in S.A.T.S. and out of S.A.T.S.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Shadow’s Edge Rank 3: You’ve reached the final rank of this perk. You now fully understand what Aquila is and how her power works. With you taking away some of Aquila’s magic you can now use her power to help you in a fight. Along with this, your power has grown along with your control over your own magic. Be careful though, Aquila is cunning and she may not be done with you just yet…

Chapter 44: Hear Me Now

“Pfft, I blow up my room one time just because I crossed the two wires when I was making a new type of laser rifle and he loses all trust in me.”

It took a couple of hours for Aura to look over my father’s wounds. Luckily his combat armor had taken most of the force out of the shots. During that time Striker didn’t say much, he only sat next to the small fire glaring over at myself then my father. Wingnut told me what happened when he was able to escape during the fight. He ran back to camp and started to yell about us being attack and that Yaksha was keeping them distracted while Striker did what he needed too.

Aura was ready to kill the Zebra as soon as she found out, but Wingnut ordered her not too. Instead she took Yaksha with her as they all flew toward where the fight was going on. Yaksha had gone with them willingly, that was the only reason she wasn’t tied up right now. Meanwhile, my friends and myself included have been waiting for Aura to finish up with my father.

“Shadow I am sorry about everything that happened,” Yaksha finally said looking up at me from over the fire.

“Sure you are Yaksha, because lying to me about why you wanted to travel with me then, trying to get me killed is easy to forgive,” I said.

“I never lied to you Shadow, I told you everything, and answered every question you asked truthfully.”

“Hah,” I scoffed, “How am I supposed to believe that?”

“Prove me wrong Shadow. If you can find a time I lied to you, then I will admit it.”

“I still think you should let me slit her throat,” Aura said from where she was finishing up with Nightshade.

Striker looked over at Aura saying in a low growl, “You hurt her and I’ll hurt you griffon.”

“Yeah, Yeah, I’m sure you will you creepy looking buck,” Aura said, ignoring him.

“Striker there is no need to defend me,” Yaksha said looking back at me, “As I said, I did not lie to you about why I wanted to travel here. I knew that what was in you, was the same thing Striker was looking for. I told him I would confirm my suspicions and see if I could get it out of you. When Aquila blasted me out of your mind, I saw how powerful she really was and I panicked.”

“So, you decided to let Striker kill her?” Wingnut asked.

“I did not do it just because of Shadow, Striker was also after The Stranger. When I reported he was with Shadow and was staying a while, we decided it was the perfect time to strike. I did not know he was your father,” she said.

I sighed, “Right now Yaksha I really don’t care, I have enough going on right now to even bother with your crap. I understand you were scared of what you saw, but still you should have talked to me about this.”

“Very well Shadow.”

“Who is this friend you are looking for anyway, or was that a lie?” Stardust asked.

“That was not a lie, the name she used last when I saw her was Laser Light. I am not sure if she is still using it, but I know she was last seen near Las Pegasus.”

That took me by surprise, “Wait Laser? You’re the zebra friend she thought died years ago?” I asked.

“Wait a moment you know Laser?” Yaksha asked, “How did you meet her? I need to know. Is she well, is she safe, is she still alive? I would not be able to forgive myself if I was not there for her on her deathbed.”

I started to laugh, “I met her when I was looking for a ghoul named Nexus. She’s his bodyguard…at least I think she is. She is very much alive.”

Yaksha looked as if she was holding her breath until I said something about Laser Light being okay and said, “What a relief, wait…Laser is working for that strange ghoul? I would never have thought she would ever work for him. He is… very strange.”

Before I could ask more, Nightshade limped over to us Aura right behind him, “I think we need to take a few minutes now that I’m doing better so we can talk.”

“I’d rather put another bullet in you Nightshade, but I said I’d give you a chance to explain things.” Striker said.

“No one is shooting anyone unless I say otherwise. I’m not in the mood to keep patching anyone else up,” Aura said walking past us, “Let’s leave them all to talk. From the sound of things, it seems this is a family affair and we don’t need to get in the middle of it.”

“But I want to hear!” Wingnut said.

Wind Thrasher put a hoof on his shoulder, “Not now Wingnut, let’s leave them alone for a while okay.”

They all got up and started to head toward a cliff side, Stardust was the last to leave, “If you need us Shadow just yell we won’t be far.”

I nodded, “Thanks Stardust.”

Once they were gone, Nightshade sighed saying, “So where should we start?”

“So, you’ve been The Stranger all this time and you didn’t even once try to tell me?” I asked Nightshade as we sat in front of a fire.

“Shadow, it’s not as simple as telling a secret to a close friend. There are groups, organizations, and other factions out there that have the technology to rip that information from your head.”

“And you didn’t have faith that I could take care of myself!? I’m The Courier dammit, I’m not easy to kill! I thought I made it obvious when I vaporized a small city and a regional landmark!” I exclaimed.

Striker cleared his throat, “If you could please stop and lis…”

I quickly turned on him, “Shut up! Can’t you see I’m trying to have my first teenage daughter moment with my Dad!?”

He stammered a bit, but quickly regained his composure, “I understand that you’ve pretty much lived like an orphan for the last some odd years, but there are more important matters at hoof. He betrayed our family’s trust and values for his own gain, no offense to your past health issues.”

“Are you fucking stupid!? This is my dad for Goddesses sake and I deserve an explanation, your petty sibling rivalry will have to wait, besides that was a long time ago and nothing bad has happened yet,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

Striker glared at me and his eyebrow started to twitch, “Nothing bad!? It seems to me that you’ve chosen to ignore that beast in your flesh as well as your head. If you really think getting infected with a parasite such as Aquila is no big deal, then you’ve either not been completely educated on the true nature of Project Stargazer, or you just inherited your father’s brains and don’t rightly care what happens to the world if Aquila is let loose in a vessel she can control. Either way you’re a naive little foal with no grasp on the true reality this world lives every day.”

Damn what a dick! The fuck does he know about what I know about the world? “I know the tragedies this Goddesses forsaken Wasteland throws at a pony, sure it hasn’t really been that long since I left my stable, but out here two months seems more like two years. I’ve lost friends, killed countless enemies, experienced the odds stacked against me, and helped countless more. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve become more of a symbol than The Stranger. To everypony else in The Wasteland I’m some sort of postmare hero with no fear, all you and my father made ‘The Stranger’ is an urban legend who’s being followed by a robot detective. I even gained fame up north in the Twin Cities, I’m national bitch!”

He just gave me a blank stare and raised an eyebrow, “Are you done?”

“Yes, she’s done. She’s done rants like this since she was little, once she stops talking she feels better,” Nightshade said.

“But I…you can’t just…ugh…” I stammered.

Striker turned his head and spat on the ground, “It seems you’ve grown quite a big head young lady.”

“Thank you, I was pretty sure you were gonna call me an idiot like everypony else,” I interrupted.

Nightshade sighed, “Shadow, what he means by big head is that you’ve grown a big ego when it comes to your misadventures with your friends.”

I crossed my forelegs and looked away from them, “No one ever thinks I’m smart.”

Stardust walked over with an annoyed look on his face groaning, “Look, I know we said we’d give you privacy and all but there’s a lot of yelling and we all know what you’re talking about. We agreed it was a stupid argument and put it to a vote of who should come mediate and I was the lucky buck who pulled the short straw,” Stardust pulled out three wooden sticks from his saddle bags giving them to us, “Listen, these are your silence sticks, not my idea by the way, it was Wind Thrasher’s. Anyway, no matter how dumb her idea might be, you’re each going to take a stick and when I take it back from you, mind you it’s only temporary, you can speak. As the name implies, when you’re holding your silence stick, you can’t talk. I’ll go in alphabetical order of who gets to talk. You’ll get until I shove a silence stick down your throat to get your point across and then I’ll let whomever is next speak.”

I cocked my head, “We could quiet down a bit if we’re bothering you guys.”

“Oh yeah, there’s also no yelling. If you yell I’ll let Wingnut shoot you with those blowdarts Tonto gave him,” Stardust added.

“We agree to your terms,” Nightshade said, looking amused.

“I didn’t agree,” I argued.

“We’re supposed to be talking things out, not bickering like angsty teenagers with chips on our shoulders. You obviously feel like there’s something you need to explain to me about things with your father and yourself to I don’t know, keep the peace so to speak,” Striker retorted snootily.

“I wouldn’t say kee…” I started to say before I was interrupted by Stardust.

“It’s not your turn to speak.”

“I’m gonna kill you, I swear to the Goddesses,” I said through my teeth.

He smirked, “Okay fine, new rule. If anyone speaks out of order, I’ll shoot them in the leg of their choice after one warning.”

I just sighed and waved my hoof to tell him to continue.

“Nightshade, since your name starts with an ‘n’ let’s start with you,” Stardust said.

“In a way I betrayed our family by letting Grimoire, Shadow’s mother, use Project Stargazer to save her life. Although technically I didn’t actually let her, she ended up pretty much taking Shadow and disappearing. I followed her as best I could when I found clues or got information on her whereabouts. She didn’t know the true location of Project Stargazer so it took a while for her to track down its location. When I was able to finally confront her, she ended up getting the better of me after a long argument about how dangerous Stargazer is. I told her that nothing good can come from that laboratory; she’d either get our daughter killed or poison her with something worse. We all know what happened of course because Shadow isn’t dead, but in all reality, what ended up happening was probably the best and worst thing that could’ve happened. Shadow was infected with that star demon Aquila, but her will was stronger and was able to hold her off.”

Stardust smirked again, “I didn’t tell you that you could stop talking, so keep going. I don’t care if it’s something stupid or if it’s gonna scar me for life, just say it.”

“No.”

Stardust’s smirk quickly disappeared, “Bummer, you’re no fun at all. Okay Shadow, your next.”

“You two clearly have some drama that needs to be resolved, but I just wanna say that I didn’t survive because I have a strong will or anything. I might, but I’m pretty sure I’m only alive today because of the deal I made with Aquila when I was little and the spell mom put on her to keep her trapped… or… sealed in that magic cage doohickey in my subconscious. Yaksha has been trying to help me with controlling Aquila and I know it’s working because I was able to use her magic when I stopped you two from going at it. I think if I work enough with Yaksha, I can completely drain her of all her magic. However, I think I might understand why you two aren’t getting along. It’s not over a betrayal of family trust, it’s because my dad stole Striker’s marefriend.”

“That’s a lie,” Striker interrupted.

Stardust cocked a pistol, “Ah-ah-ah, no talky or you get bang-bang. Do you wanna pick a leg ahead of time just in case?”

Striker just shook his head and looked away as if ashamed that he’d forgotten the rules already. Goddesses, he seems so uptight. I guess him and my father are alike in that way. I noticed The Stranger’s uptightness a few different times before, most notably when we were in the Twin Cities.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I think that since that was obviously years ago, and my mother is clearly insane with or without her memories of the past, Striker got off lucky. Just sit and think about it, the same scenario would’ve happened no matter who ended up with her. She’s proven to be manipulative in every relationship she’s had that also including Vervain and Oricalcos. She got Vervain to help her with finding and using Project Stargazer and she got Oricalcos to help her get better at using magic in the wrong way.”

Stardust tossed my stick back to me, “Okay, I’m starting to get bored, I’ve heard way too much about this subject and have grown to hate hearing about it. Sorry Shadow but the whole mommy issue thing is starting to get old. I’m not trying to be a dick, but hearing you explain your problems to every new pony, zebra, griffon, robot, hooker, alien, or whatever else you meet just kinda grinds my gears a bit y’know. Anyway, that’s my part, Striker it’s your turn.”

“I’m not angry that Nightshade ended up with Grimoire, I’m angry because he shared our family secrets with her when he wasn’t supposed to. Sure, I might’ve volunteered some information before, but I was young and stupid. Fortunately, I wasn’t too stupid to give her too much information; all I gave her was a glimpse of what the project was and that was it. If Nightshade would’ve just pretended he was going to some other job during the day like our father did we wouldn’t be in this mess. Our mother went to her grave thinking our father was a respected officer in The Enclave, not a guardian of a superweapon. All in all Shadow, you could still be right. I did notice now and again that Grimoire would push a bit when it came to certain questions like she was just prying for more information. The whole relationship could’ve been a lie and I could’ve been used by her and not know it. I was young and naive with no sense of self-control when it came to mares with bad intentions. I don’t know what she would’ve used Project Stargazer for if Shadow didn’t take ill, but I know it wouldn’t have been good.”

“Back to you Nightshade,” Stardust said then laughed, “I sound like a pre-war radio newscaster.”

“You’re acting a bit strange Stardust, are you okay?” Nightshade asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Apparently, there’s some side effects from the memory machine that last a little while. I get a little screwy sometimes,” he replied.

“Indeed,” Nightshade coughed a bit being reminded that he is still heavily injured, “Let’s try and focus on the matter at hoof here if you can manage that. Striker’s right about something, I shouldn’t have shared any information about Stargazer with Grimoire. I think the thing that really made me do it was that when we married we promised to keep no secrets and I didn’t want to sabotage our bond with each other with poisonous secrets. I suppose that sounds foolish, but I was also young and naive with no self-control. There’s nothing we can really do about it now, so why fight each other over this? What’s done is done and at the end of the day we’re still brothers, and we stick together through thick and thin. No mare, job, duty, or loyalty to something should come between us. There was a story I read a long time ago about two brothers who were on opposing sides in a war that happened in ancient times. Every time they’d meet on the battlefield they’d put down their swords and start talking instead of fighting to the death. Eventually one day some of the other soldiers saw them while fighting and also decided to sit down and talk with their enemy until the issue that caused the war was resolved. Because of their loyalty to each other as brothers, they accidentally brought peace to their respective lands. Sure, it might sound a bit soft and pacifistic to have a story about a war ending with them talking it out, but I like that story. It used to make me feel like having a brother was one of the most special bonds in the world until I discovered mares and started tail chasing. Oh, I’m sorry Shadow. I don’t think you want to hear about my various conquests from before I met your mother.”

Stardust smiled and took my stick from me, “C’mon, let’s hear it. Do you wanna hear about all the nitty gritty things your dad did with other mares before your mom?”

“Fuck you, Stardust get your mind out of the gutter. No, of course I don’t wanna hear about that; what I want to hear about is what we can do to resolve this bitterness between my father and my uncle. Oh Goddesses I’ve met two uncles so far, my father and my mother; when is this fucking family reunion going to end. Next thing I know I’m going to run into a long-lost sibling with some vendetta against me for being the favorite that mom and dad kept instead of trying to feed to a hell hound. Is it too much to ask for some Goddesses damned normalcy in my life? Why does my family lineage have to be so complex and come with responsibilities? It’s like the wasteland is trying to fucking mess with me by playing some kind of cruel joke. If my life gets any more fucked up I might just say fuck it and go on a killing spree, at least hell is a normal place to end up when you’ve done bad things in your life. Ugh, I’m going off track with this. Can someone else just have their turn already?”

“Y’know what? I think we’re done here,” Stardust said abruptly, “I’m just gonna…ahem…go back over here now and uh…do things with the others while you all hash it out.”

“Some help you are,” I said trying to get my head back on track with the whole conversation that seemed to be just going in a circle of similar stories, “Look, I know you two have your problems with each other and all, but can we just please put all that aside and focus?”

Striker let out a deep breath, “I suppose you’re right, it was a long time ago and there’s nothing we can do to change what’s happened already. Why waste any more energy in being angry. What do you say brother, truce?”

Nightshade looked at me then back at Striker with a slightly surprised look on his face, “Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“So, now that, that’s settled, where should we start to figure things out,” I finally asked, trying to break the silence.

Dad was the first one to speak, “I think we should talk about what happened all those years ago, without fighting. It’s the only true fire way we’re going to be able to fully clear the air.”

Striker looked like he had just bitten into a lemon, “I know enough Nightshade.”

“I don’t think you do Striker, you only know what you’ve been able to learn through other ponies or bits of information without getting the full puzzle pieces. You told me before that you left me the information I needed at your hideout, right?”

“Yeah, I left dad’s notes, my one finding and even the location of where some memory orbs were. I left it for you so you could know what you needed to do when you took over for me,” Striker said.

“You mean the hideout in Nimbus?” Dad asked.

Striker nodded, “Yeah, I gave you its location when I left you the outfit and armor.”

“That’s the thing, I did go there because I figured you had a good reason for it. When I arrived, all I found was a few notes about Night Stalker and the Children of the Night, some of dad’s old recordings and The Demon Slayer, that was it.”

Striker looked confused, “That can’t be all you found; I left instructions on what you needed to do, everything about Stargazer and Falling Shadows, even the locations of another tower!”

I cut in, “Falling Shadows? I’ve heard of that before in some of the scattered notes written by Minuette. She mentioned something about it being in process never reaching its final stages, becoming a myth.”

“Because it is, there’s been whispers about the project for over a century in Stratus and Nimbus. A long-lost project of Night Stalker and his team before the Enclave was formed. If a weapon like that was ever created, Night Stalker would have used it before the Megaspells,” Dad said.

Striker started to laugh, it was a chilling sound to hear from that raw burnt throat, “Hahaha, oh brother you really do have no idea, do you? Falling Shadows is real and yes, Night Stalker did try to use it on the same day the megaspells went off. The problem is somepony locked down the program a few days before and he couldn’t use it. Because of that, Equestria died and Night Stalker spent almost four decades searching for a way to unlock his project.”

“It’s not like Night Stalker to fail at getting what he wants,” I said, thinking back on some of the memory orbs I’ve seen.

Striker looked over at me, “It’s not, I’m sure he would have kept looking for what he needed too, but something happened to him about forty years after The Enclave was formed.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Dad answered, “He was branded by two of his sons. He became a dashite and had to flee the clouds.”

“What does that have to do with what you’re protecting?” I asked.

Striker answered this time, “Everything. Back before he was kicked out of Stratus, Night Stalker put a Zebra he trusted in charge of watching over the Project and his power source along with Stargazer, to make sure no pony ever tried to get it either. This zebra was the first guardian, but by the time he left the Enclave the Zebra was getting old and had a tribe of his own. He didn’t trust his own children to take over for him so he asked Night Stalker to put a new pony in charge of protecting the projects and to help hide what The Children did back then. That’s where our Family comes in, our ancestors were the second guardians and from then on we have been tasked with keeping it out of the hooves of both The Enclave and the ponies of The Wasteland.”

“Wait a moment back up, Night Stalker first wanted to use this project then later changed his mind and wanted it kept hidden? I don’t understand,” I asked.

Striker sighed, “Night Stalker wasn’t the same pony toward the end. Something changed him and his look on life. Before he vanished from Equis, he started to try and fix the wrongs he committed over his life. He didn’t want the project to ever be found or used. He would have destroyed it, but the only pony who knew how to do that was Minuette and she vanished a couple of days before the Megaspells fell. So, he hoped by setting up the Guardian’s he could make sure that nopony ever used Falling Shadows or Stargazer.”

“What is Falling Shadows?” I asked.

Strikers face fell, “Honestly that’s one thing that’s been lost over the years. Most think it’s a super weapon, others have said it was something to fix Equestria if it was destroyed by Balefire and magic like it was, I’ve even heard a rumor that it was meant to make Nightmare Moon again, but I’m sure that’s not true. The only thing I do know about the project is where one of its power sources are, the location of two of its towers, and that Stargazer is needed to make it work.”

Dad spoke again, “I’m guessing the power source is the one under Spitfires Flight Academy.”

“Correct, though I’m not sure where the power source goes too. I have my suspicions but I haven’t been able to see if I’m right.”

“What did you mean by its Towers?” I asked.

“Falling Shadows is a massive project and whatever it’s meant to do, it needs to be activated from four points in Equestria. The first tower was easy, because it’s the spire in the middle of The Crystal Empire. The other one I’ve found is in Baltimare, in the middle of a large building controlled by Steel Rangers. I’m guessing there is one near the badlands, but it’s almost impossible nowadays to get near there unless you’re a zebra. The last I’m thinking is here in New Pegasus,” Striker said.

Dad’s eyes went wide, “You don’t think it’s The Lucky Horseshoe?”

“I do, but I’ve never been able to get close to it to find out. The locations of each tower were supposed to be in the Lucky Horseshoe that much I know. I’m sure that all the information I need is in The Lucky Horseshoe,” Striker said.

“And since nopony can get into the Lucky Horseshoe because of Mr. Tops, it’s impossible for you to find the information you need,” I said.

“That about sums it up,” Striker said with a sigh.

“Why do you want to find the other towers anyway?” I asked.

Dad chuckled, “Striker’s been wanting to destroy Night Stalker’s work for years.”

“He’s right, ever since I was branded I dedicated my life to taking down Falling Shadows and Stargazer. I’ve hit a dead end with Falling Shadows multiple times, that’s why I started hunting you Shadow. When I saw Grim years ago she told me about Aquila getting free from Stargazer labs, but she never told me who she bonded with. When I started hearing about the strange things going on with this mysterious Courier Mare I knew she had to be the mare that had Aquila. When Yaksha told me about what she saw in you I had to act,” Striker said.

“So, you decided that killing me and dad was the best thing to do?” I asked.

“I didn’t plan on running into Nightshade when I found you, but I took the opportunity when I was told about him being with you.”

I sighed, “Have you two always been like this?”

Dad looked over at me, “What? Us two fighting and trying to kill each other?”

To my surprise, Striker laughed, “We’re brothers, that’s what brothers do, we fight. But no, we didn’t always try to kill each other. Our father was very good at pitting us against one another though. Dad wanted me to be more like Nightshade when I was growing up. He was always the better fighter and I was more into my terminals and books.”

“Dad wanted his oldest son to be the fighter so he could take on the job as guardian, but Striker always preferred his research. That’s how he met your mother honestly, they both worked in the same lab in the Crystal Empire then later Nimbus.”

“From what I’ve seen so far with both of you, you two didn’t get along,” I said, remembering the talk Striker had with mom in her memory orb.

“I wouldn’t say we didn’t get along, we were just competitive. As much as I dislike Nightshade now, I have to admit if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have survived after dad died,” Striker said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“When Striker killed our father, I was put in charge of finding him once he ran away. The council wanted him killed for what he did to our father, so I tracked him down and branded him instead. It was the only way he could live and escape The Enclave.”

“But weren’t you mad that he killed your father?” I asked utterly confused.

The two brothers looked at each other, then dad said, “No, we both hated our father. I knew why he did it and I’m still happy he’s dead. Captain Evernight was a ruthless bastard who only cared about his job as the guardian and helping The Enclave grow and take over.”

“Which funny enough is the opposite of what a guardian stands for,” Striker said.

“What do you mean by that?”

Striker answered, “The other part about being a Guardian is to make sure The Enclave doesn’t get more powerful. When Night Stalker was betrayed by the very system he helped build, he wanted it taken down. Every Guardian has done their part in making this happen, I dedicated my life to breaking down their power through destruction and espionage.”

“And I’ve done that by getting into the Council and changing the way The Enclave does things,” Dad said.

Striker laughed, “You did that for your own power brother.”

“I’m not our father Striker. No, I did it so I could make the Enclave better and change it from the inside!”

Seeing a fight about to start up again I interrupted, “So what did your dad do then? You said he did the opposite of what a guardian would normally do.”

Striker looked back at me, a look of anger in his green eyes, “He thought that the Enclave was fine the way it was and he figured The Enclave should rule all of the wasteland, not just the clouds. He was power hungry.”

“Is that why you killed him Striker?”

Both of them looked saddened, finally dad said, “Striker killed our father because of a fight they had over Grim.”

“Wait you killed him because of mom?” I asked.

Striker sighed again, “Not just because of her, but that did start the fight. Grim had been learning a lot about our family secret and dad found out. He confronted me about it and tried to force me to kill her. I refused and the fight got worse until he finally pulled a gun on me. Our mother got between us trying to break us up. Dad was so angry that he warned her that if she didn’t move he’d kill her too. She refused to back down and he shot her. He killed his wife without a second thought then started to threaten me again. I was so angry that I attacked him. Took a bad shot to the shoulder for that, but I was able to get the gun away from him. Then once I had him pinned to the ground I put two bullets in the back of his head. Once he was dead I came to my senses and I ran, I went to find Grim, told her what I did and told her I had to run. I didn’t want her to leave everything behind for me, so I broke up with her, broke her heart and got as far as I could from Nimbus.”

“I’m guessing that’s when you two started seeing each other?” I asked dad.

He nodded, “I’m sure Striker doesn’t see it this way, but when I went to find Grim, it was only to make sure she wouldn’t say anything about what she knew about our family. I never intended to fall in love with her, I mean I used to have a crush on her when we were young, but it wasn’t my intention when I started checking up on her. Back then she didn’t have anypony but her brother and Striker. I felt bad for her and thought she might hurt herself or do something stupid if she was left alone, so I visited her every other day when I had free time.”

“And one thing led to another,” I asked, a small smile on my face.

Striker looked like he’d just bitten into another lemon as dad spoke, “Nightshade you still took her away from me.”

“No Striker, you left her behind when you did what you did. You weren’t going to come back for her, you need to get over it,” Dad snapped.

“Honestly you’re lucky Striker. Mom turned out to be a nightmare,” I said.

Dad looked back at me, “She wasn’t always so bad Star, she was a lot like you when she was younger. She didn’t start lying and manipulating until you got sick. She would’ve done anything to save you and she did. She gave up her life to cure you.”

“Your wrong dad…yes she wanted to cure me, but she also wanted power. That’s why she kept trying to find information on Falling Shadows,” I said getting to my hooves.

They both looked at me dad asking, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go sit with my friends, lay down with Aura and try to sleep. I’m tired of this crap with who did what and why from back in the day. I’m going to finish what I started first and right now that’s getting to this meeting in time. I’m sick of this family drama. Dad I love you and I’m glad I found you again, but I think you should get back to Stratus before something happens because of how long you’ve been gone. Maybe you can find something up there about Wolfsbane and how we can take him down. Uncle Striker, if you want to stop me by killing me then you can try, but I warn you. If you kill me, my friends will kill you.”

“I’m not interested in that anymore, not if you think you can hold Aquila off at least for now.”

I looked back at him, “I’ll hold her off as long as I can, maybe it will be enough for me to find a way to rid myself of her. Since you aren’t going to kill me then I want you to leave and take Yaksha with you. Help her get to Frosty Summit so she can find Laser.”

“Are you sure?” dad asked, “I mean we have so much to catch up on.”

I was doing my best to hide the tears in my eyes, “Just leave dad, both of you just go. I’m done with this shit. I don’t even care anymore about what happened to any of you.”

“Star…” Dad said again reaching a hoof out for me.

I rounded on him, “I’m not Star anymore dad, I’m Shadow. I’m not that sick little foal who used to ride on your back as we flew around The Crystal Empire, I’m not the weak filly who you told stories too, and I’m not the scared filly who used to need her uncle to protect her in the middle of the night when I was scared of everything around me. I’m Shadow Star, the mare who has a job to do and too much on her plate to deal with my fucked-up family. Until you understand that, I don’t want anything to do with either of you, or Falling Shadows, or Stargazer, or The Fucking Enclave. All I want to do is what I have too to keep the Wasteland safe and to hopefully find a place where Aura and I can settle down and grow old together. I don’t need you, or the Stranger or ANYTHING, I’m done.”

They both looked shocked at my sudden mood change, then dad sighed saying, “Fine Shadow…I’ll be going.”

He opened his wings to get ready to fly off, as he did Striker said, “Nightshade, what do you plan on doing about me? We still haven’t settled things.”

“As far as I’m concerned brother, I never saw you. Let’s keep it that way. I have my own mission to take care of and so do you,” Dad said, putting his mask and desperado hat on before flying toward the clouds.

Striker chuckled to himself then looked back at me, “Shadow, if I see any hint of that monster poking through you, I’m going to finish what I started.”

“I’d like to see you try,” I replied.

That made him laugh harder, “Just like your dad…I’ll see you again Shadow. Until then, don’t get yourself killed. It would be a shame if somepony got to you before me.”

He walked over to where Yaksha was, still sitting with my friends. He said a few things to her then flew off. Yaksha looked at me once then yelled, “I hope that one day you can forgive me Shadow. Just remember what I taught you and remember that I never once lied to you.”

She pulled up the hood of her cloak and vanished. Once she was gone I walked over to my friends, and sat down next to Aura, “We all need to get some sleep we have a long day tomorrow and I want all of us to be ready for it.”

They all were looking at me like I was nuts. Wind Thrasher saying, “Um…Shadow what happened?”

Rolling my eyes, “Nothing, I’m just sick of dealing with my family’s drama. I’d love to sit here and talk with my dad about a whole lot of stuff, but he’s been away from Stratus for too long and I’m really sick of talking about stuff that doesn’t matter right now.”

“Why did you let Yaksha go?” Wingnut asked, “She was the one who told that pegasus where you were.”

“Because I don’t think she meant us harm that’s why,” I said.

“Secrets notwithstanding, I was starting to enjoy Yaksha’s company, she’s a better cook than any of us and it seemed everything she made gave us benefits mentally and physically,” Wingnut continued, “If you think about it she really didn’t lie about anything. I hope we see her again.”

I sighed again, “Maybe, kiddo, but she does have her own agenda. Though part of me would like to see Laser’s reaction to seeing her believed-to-be-dead friend, alive and well.”

“Shadow do you need to get something off your chest, you look really upset,” Wind Thrasher said.

“I don’t need to talk about it,” I said getting to my hooves again and heading toward a spot Aura set up for us.

“Come on Shadow…” Stardust started to say.

“NO!” rounding on them I yelled, “I’m not in the mood to talk about this. It’s just too much shit all at once. We have enough to deal with right now.”

Aura got up as my friends looked at me with scared expressions, “Shadow, you don’t need to get mad. How about we go lay down and get some sleep.”

She led us to the small sleeping spot, “I just don’t want to deal with these burdens anymore Aura. Why can’t my long-lost family just stay away from me.”

“I thought you wanted to find your dad?”

“I did, but that was mostly because I didn’t know what happened to him. Now I find out The Stranger is Nightshade the fucking High Council pony of Stratus and Nimbus and he’s been following me around talking about my dad when he was my dad. It’s too much Aura!”

“I understand, I really do, but right now we need you to calm down and rest…I need you to calm down and rest”

“I don’t want to calm down, I want to be pissed!” I said fuming as I sat down on some blankets.

She sighed and took one of my hooves in her talons lifting it up for me to see, “Don’t kid yourself Shadow look at this,” I almost gasped when I saw that my coat had turned white again, “You need to calm down because right now you’re scaring your friends. You’re not acting like yourself and now your coat is changing. The others are worried that Aquila is going to take over again.”

Now I could feel that I was holding onto her magic. I let it go and watched as my coat went back to its normal hue, “I…didn’t even know I was doing that.”

“Yeah, figured as much. Now how about you go to sleep and we can continue on in the morning. Maybe you’ll feel better,” she gave me a gentle kiss.

I did feel tired, it had been a long day and an even longer night, “Okay…I’ll try.”

“I’ll stay with you while you fall asleep,” she said starting to hum to me a little as my eyes slowly closed.

oooOOOooo

“Again, class why do we stay in the Stable?” Ms. Bind said, the old mare who taught us.

One of the fillies who sat in front of me put up a hoof, “Oh Ms. Bind I know!”

Of course, she did, Facet was Tinkers daughter and a know-it-all. Ms. Bind pointed a hoof at her, “Yes Facet, do tell.”

“The reason we never leave Stable 28 is because the outside world is too dangerous. The Balefire and Megaspell’s destroyed most of the land outside of our Stable, leaving the land poisonous and inhabitable. There for, it would be deadly for us to step hoof outside the Stable door,” she said with a smug sounding voice.

“Very good Facet,” Ms. Bind said, “Stable Tec built the stable to save us from the destruction of the war. They knew that in the event Equestria was ever to be destroyed our race could continue to live on.”

Milkshake put up a hoof, not waiting to be called on she said, “Ms. Bind, that can’t be true. If the land outside our Stable was destroyed then where did Shadow and Grim come from?”

“Strawberry Milkshake, today’s class isn’t about what may or may not be outside the Stable, that is for a more advanced class.”

“But it does, you said that the world was destroyed and if that was true then they shouldn’t be here,” Milkshake said.

I was doing my best not to get noticed as the rest of the class looked back at me. Ms. Bind rolled her eyes saying, “Shadow Star’s appearance in Stable 28 with her mother isn’t that surprising. It’s more than possible that they both came from a Stable that isn’t far from here. Something most likely happened there resulting in Shadow’s lost memories. They are both unicorns and unlike us earth ponies they both most likely have magic that can protect them from the deadly world outside, at least long enough for them to make it here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Milkshake said.

Looking over at my friend I said quietly, “Milkshake just drop it please.”

Ms. Bind looked angry as she replied, “Strawberry Milkshake I am the teacher here not you. If you want answers of how they got here then ask Grimoire yourself, though I don’t think you’ll get an answer. She is a very private mare who doesn’t like to discuss her life before she came here. Or maybe you can get Shadow Star to tell you…oh right, she can’t because she has no memory…or so she says. Now sit down and be quiet or I’ll call the Overmare.”

Milkshake sat down in a huff and didn’t say another word as Ms. Bind went on telling us about Stable Tec and all they did to protect the earth ponies of Stable 28. When the lesson was over I followed Milkshake out of class, “Why did you have to keep going Milkshake, you knew she wasn’t going to say anything about the outside.”

“Well I don’t think she should be teaching us about stuff she doesn’t know anything about. It’s been almost two hundred years since the war, how does she know the world is still poisoned. Come on Shadow, your mom and you didn’t just pop out of thin air,” Milkshake said.

“I agree with Milkshake,” Facet said as she ran over to join us, “I mean you had to come from somewhere right?”

“Oh come on Facet, you hang off every word she says like its hard fact,” Milkshake said as we headed toward the Atrium.

“I do not, I just make sure to know what I need to. I want to make sure I get good grades so I can get into a good job here when I’m older. That doesn’t mean I believe everything she tells us.”

“Why do you care about that right now Facet, we don’t have to worry about what jobs we’ll end up doing for another eight years,” I said.

“It’s never too early to start thinking about how you can help the Stable Shadow,” Facet said.

Rolling my eyes, I replied, “Like I care about what I’ll do when I’m older, I’m a unicorn, the only place I’ll be of use here is in Research and Development like mom.”

“It’s better than being in sanitation like Tumble Weed’s dad or Foal Care like my mom,” Milkshake said, “So Facet what do you want to do when you get older?”

Facet smiled wide, “I want to be a Pip-Buck Technician like dad.”

I laughed, “Why would you want to do that? It’s like the most boring job in the Stable. The Pip-Bucks rarely ever have problems so there’s never anything to do.”

Facet’s eyes went wide, “It’s the most important job in the Stable Shadow, under the Overmare that is. Without our Technicians, the Pip-Bucks would have stopped working ages ago. Also, apart from keeping the Pip-Bucks working, dad’s job also involves resetting Pip-Bucks for new users and he has to keep the Terminals in the Stable running as well.”

“Still sounds boring to me,” I said.

“Oh fine, then what do you want to do when you’re older Shadow?” Facet said in an annoyed voice.

“I don’t know…maybe Security, or Administrator like Auntie does. At least those jobs a mare can get some respect in this dump,” I said.

The other two both started to laugh at that Milkshake saying, “I don’t think you could ever be in a job like that Shadow.”

“Why?”

“You’re too small for one,” Milkshake said, “You also need to be brave and strong to be in security, same for Administrator. That job requires you to deal with every pony in this place and make them listen to you as if ever word you say is from the Overmare herself.”

I puffed out my chest and tried to look tough, “I can be a brave mare if I want to.”

Facet grinned at Milkshake then back at me, “Brave enough to sneak into level 10?”

Milkshake looked shocked at that, “Facet, we can’t go down to level 10. We’ll get in trouble, that’s where everything that runs this place is.”

“Yeah it is and it’s always being patrolled by security. If Shadow really thinks she can be brave then she should prove it. Daddy told me that there’s a room close to the catacombs that holds a whole lot of sweets. It’s rations in case something happens on level 9 and we can’t grow stuff for a while. We should all go down there and steal something,” she said.

I really didn’t want to go down there, mom always said to stay away from Level 10, but I didn’t want either of them to think I was scared. Milkshake was one of my only friends, I hadn’t gotten to know Facet very well in the year and a half I’ve been in Stable 28, but she was warming up to me and I really wanted her to be my friend. Even if she was a know-it-all, she was one of the most popular fillies in our age group and if she was my friend maybe the rest of my class would be nicer to me.

“So, all you want us to do is sneak down there and steal some sweet’s? I guess we can do that, but what if we get caught?” I asked.

“We’ll be fine, the worst that will happen is we’ll have to work with sanitation for a week. Even if we do get caught it will still be a blast!” Facet said happily.

“I don’t know Facet, my mom said it’s really dangerous down there, we could get hurt,” Milkshake said.

“Come on Milkshake don’t be such a drag!” Facet said as she walked toward the elevator, “I thought you were cooler than this.”

“I thought you were the good little filly who knows everything,” Milkshake snapped.

Facet beamed, “I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have fun too,” she pushed the call button of the elevator, “You coming Shadow?”

I looked over at Milkshake then back at Facet then back to Milkshake saying, “Come on Milkshake we’ll be fine.”

She took a step back, “No, I’m not going. You two can get into trouble if you want, but I’m not doing it.”

The door to the Elevator opened and Facet stepped in, “Fine be that way, Shadow and I are going to go have a little fun. Come on Shadow let’s go.”

I started to walk toward Facet when I felt Milkshake’s hoof on my shoulder, when I looked back at her she said, “Shadow don’t go, you don’t need to prove yourself to her.”

“Milkshake I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll see you later tonight.”

“If you go down there I’ll tell your mom,” Milkshake said.

I pulled my hoof away, “Fine tell her if you want, but good luck getting her away from her work long enough to tell her anything. By the time you tell her anything we’ll be finished.”

I saw a few tears in my friend’s eyes and she stomped a hoof and ran off toward the living quarters. I walked over and got in the Elevator with Facet. She smiled as she pressed the button for Level 10, “I’m guessing she’s running off to go tell somepony?”

“Yeah she said she was going to go tell my mom,” I said as the elevator moved downward.

“Figured as much, she’s too scared to do anything fun. Not like you, you seem like a cool filly Shadow even if you are small,” she said as the door opened up to the large open cavern of Level 10.

We both poked our heads out from the door, not seeing anypony, both of us snuck into the large opening. Facet took the lead heading toward the deeper parts of the cavern. As we got closer to where the catacombs met the main area of level 10 we heard voices. One was a mare, “I hate this crap, just because I made one stupid little mistake I have to guard level 10 for a month. It’s so boring down here.”

Another mare answered, “Yeah I agree, but it’s better than guarding the Overmare’s brat of a daughter Wildfire. She’s such a bitch! Do you know what she had me do yesterday?”

“No idea,” the first mare said.

“She had me following around that Unicorn Grimoire Spell. Seems to think she’s hiding something.”

The first mare giggled, “That had to suck.”

“It did, she kept teleporting away every time I got closer to her. If she’s hiding anything there’s no way any of us are going to find it. Wildfire has no idea what’s she’s doing,” the second mare said.

I peeked around the corner of the hall we were in and saw two security mares walking toward us, “Their coming this way.”

Facet moved over to one of the doors that lined the hallway saying quickly, “Hurry, let’s hide in here.”

She opened the store room and we both ran inside. The door closed behind us right as the two mares came around the corner one saying, “To think that one day that bitch is going to be our Overmare.”

“Yeah, but at least that won’t be for a long time,” One of the mares said then she stopped right outside the door, “Shit!”

The other mare stopped as well asking, “What?”

“Something’s happened upstairs, the Overmare’s being rushed to Medical the boss is calling back all Security.”

The sound of their hoof steps echoed down the hall as they both ran off. When they were gone Facet and I both stepped out of the room. I looked over at her saying, “Wonder what’s going on with the Overmare.”

“Probably tripped over something again or drank something she shouldn’t have, who cares. Now’s our chance to get to the room, if we do I’ll believe that you’re brave and cool,” Facet said as she started back toward the catacombs again.

“Yeah, I’m right behind you,” I said as we both headed toward the room.

With nopony around, it was a lot easier than it should have been. Soon we were standing in front of the door. Facet grinned wide, “Now all we have to do is get in and were good!”

She pushed the button to open the door, but it didn’t open. I looked over at her saying, “It’s probably locked.”

She looked over at me, “Then open it, you’re a unicorn don’t you have a spell that can unlock doors?”

“The only spell I know is Telekinesis,” I said with a shrug.

“Darn, I thought you’d be able to get us in,” Facet said sounding disappointed.

“Mom hasn’t had time to teach me many spells, the Overmare always has her working late into the night.”

“Can’t be helped, and I was hoping to see what they had stashed in there. Daddy said it’s really good stuff too,” she said then she looked past the door way that led into the rocky Catacombs, “Hey maybe there’s something interesting in there.”

“Facet I thought we were only going this far?”

“I thought you were brave?” she said with a wink, “Come on, we got this far just fine, it’s not like anything’s going to happen in there. Don’t be such a foal.”

She trotted off past the doorway and toward a reactor just on the other side of the door. I walked past the door myself saying, “I’m not a foal Facet, but this area is dangerous, mom said so herself.

She trotted back toward me, “Shadow come on, if you back out now I’m going to tell the whole class.”

“No, Milkshake was right, we shouldn’t even be down here.”

She reached out with a hoof pulling me toward her, “I’m going to make you come with me Shadow. I’m not going in there alone.”

I tried to pull away, “Facet you’re hurting me, stop.”

She kept pulling, “Stop your whining, and grow up a little.”

I was scared of going any farther, I could feel something building in my horn, “Facet please let me go, you’re scaring me.”

She rounded on me and poked my chest with her free hoof, “I said to grow up, it’s not that scary down here, now come on!”

A change came over me, it felt as if all my fear drained away only to be replaced by pure rage. I ripped my hoof away from her and yelled, “She said to LET HER GO!”

Facet looked back at me with fear in her eyes, “The hell happened to you…?”

A blast of magical energy exploded from my horn throwing both of us back. Facet was slammed into the wall, I went flying through the door. As quickly as the rage had filled me, it was gone. I looked up from where I was laying on the floor and saw Facet lying next to the wall. She moved her head looking over at me her eyes unfocused. I shook my head then said in a weak voice, “You okay Facet?”

She shook her head too, “The hell you do that for?”

Before I could say anything, a loud crack echoed through the chamber. Looking up over Facet I saw a rock in the rock cavern was poking out from a ceiling. A ton of cracks ran up the wall to it, “Facet RUN!”

I was too late, before I could do anything, the stone fell and crushed the lower half of the filly under its immense weight. She screamed, the upper half of her body flaying until she stopped moving, her eyes were open wide as she died. Blood leaking out of her mouth slowly.

I did my best to get back to my hooves so I could run over to her yelling, “Help me, Help me, Somepony HELP.”

I barely made it two steps before there was a flash of blue light and mom was standing in front of me, “Shadow what happened? Why are you all the way down here!?”

“Mom, I didn’t mean to do it, I’m sorry,” I said crying as I ran to her.

She hugged me tight saying, “Did what? What happened?” Then she looked back and saw the body of Facet half crushed under the large rock, “Oh no Shadow, what did you do?”

“She scared me and I blasted her with a spell. I didn’t mean to, I don’t even know how I cast that spell!”

She looked back at me and something she saw in my eyes seemed to scare her, “Not again…no…”

“What do you mean not again?” I asked growing scared.

She sighed and her horn glowed, “I’m sorry I have to do this Shadow, but it’s for your own good.”

There was a flash of bright blue light, and the world seemed to vanish. My head got all fuzzy and cold as if I was in some kind of strange dream. At some point I heard mom talking to Auntie, “It happened again Vervain, I thought I suppressed Aquila, but she managed to get through again.”

“Are you sure it was her and not Shadow’s natural ability? You told me yourself that she was born with more power than any filly you’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not sure really, but when I checked the cage I have Aquila locked up in, I found small cracks in it. I’ll have put more power into it and maybe block some of Shadows power as well. I mean she blasted a chunk out of the ceiling and crushed that poor filly,” Mom said sounding stressed and tired.

“What did you tell Tinker?”

“I used a memory spell on Milkshake and Shadow so they both won’t remember that Shadow went down there with Facet. I told Tinker that I was going down to level 10 to check on a reactor, and I heard something falling in the Catacombs. He thinks that his daughter was exploring where she shouldn’t have and did something to cause the rock to shift and fall. Security is ruling it as an accident,” Mom said.

“This isn’t good, I guess we are just lucky nopony else saw them down there. Also, do you know what happened to the Overmare? I heard she was in Medical and she’s not doing well.”

“Vervain, I lost control and did something bad. The Overmare isn’t going to make it through the night. By tomorrow Wildfire is going to be the new Overmare and once she is, she’ll start doing whatever she can to get Shadow and myself thrown out of here,” Mom said.

Auntie gasped, “Grim, what did you do?”

“I’ll tell you about it later, right now I need to do what I can to help my daughter. Once I’m done with that, I’m going to have to start preparing to leave.”

“Leave? Why?” Auntie asked.

“Vervain! Listen, right now I need you to go get the Mark II and start setting it up for a new user. Hide the files on it just like we talked about, we may only have a few days to do this, a week if I’m lucky.”

“Grim it could take me months to do that.”

“Try to do what you can, I’ll contact The Elder once I’m done with Shadow and let her know what’s going on.”

“Fine, but try your best to stay out of Wildfire’s radar, you know she hates you,” Auntie said.

As they talked, I started to pass out again. The last thing I felt was mom casting another spell over me saying quietly, “I hope that one day you’ll forgive me for this Shadow…it’s for your own good.”

oooOOOooo

I woke blinking slowly as I looked up at the bright yet cloudy sky. That dream was no dream at all. It was another memory that I’d forgotten because of mom. Facet had been a fun filly in my class, popular and very smart, she had always been a little bitchy when I first came to the stable, but she had started to like me as time went on. Before I’d gotten that memory back, I had thought she died in an accident just like every pony else in Stable 28. It happened on the same night the Overmare died. Tinker had been so sad, a month before his wife had died in an explosion that happened on the second level of R&D. He’d lost his wife and child within one month, yet he had always stayed a kind stallion.

The loss of Facet had almost driven him mad, he was out of his workshop for a whole month during this time, leaving his young apprentice to run the Pip-Buck repair stall while he grieved. When he came back to work, he was a lot quieter, but he always took time for the fillies and colts when we came to talk to him about Pip-Buck’s. I felt sad because now I knew that Facet hadn’t died because of something she’d done, she’d died because of me. I lost control of my magic for only a moment and a young filly who hadn’t yet turned eight, died because of it. I always thought the first pony I ever killed was that raider mare and her two friends under the bridge the first day out of Stable 28, but it wasn’t. Facet had been the first pony to die because of me.

Slowly I got up and looked back at Aura who was laying behind me, softly snoring. Her beak was slightly open and she kept twitching, almost like she was in the middle of some kind of fight or maybe something else. I moved my head down and kissed her cheek then walked over to the now dead fire and sat next to it. No pony else was up yet so I took the time to pull out mom’s spell book and started reading about memory spells again. So far, I’d been able to get through about ten of the spells, I couldn’t preform them, but I didn’t need to. I was mostly looking for something that matched the kind of memory loss mom was suffering from.

I was just starting to read about memory extraction when I heard the tired voice of Oricalcos coming from my saddle bags, “Why are you up so early Star? You really should get as much rest as you can.”

Reaching into my saddle bags I pulled out the gem that he was still trapped in, “I’m not tried and I really need to see if I can find what’s wrong with mom in this book.”

The gem started to pulse with black light as he spoke, “I don’t think you’ll find what’s wrong with Grim in there.”

Looking back up from the book I asked, “Why?”

“Because I don’t think the report about what happened is true. None of her symptoms match any memory spell I know.”

“Maybe she knew more than you did,” I said going back to reading.

He laughed, “Star, I know more memory spells than Grim does, she was just better at casting them than me. All of the spells in that book she got from me when I was teaching her. The reason I said that is because she shows signs of random memory loss. You see if she had lost her memory because she was hit with a spell that took away the memories of the one you loved most, then she should have forgotten everything about you. She wouldn’t have remembered that she even had a daughter.”

“She did forget about me, for all I know you filled her in on most of what she knows.”

“I filled her in on the fact that you died, because that’s what she told me when she left Stable 28. When I first found her after she lost her memories she remembered everything up until the day she went to Stargazer. That however wasn’t the strange part, after that point her memories were scattered and strange, she never remembered going into Stable 28, but she remembered a mare she knew did and that she took the Mark II with her. She had some memories of traveling the wasteland as she did, but as if she was a different pony. She had memories of going to Manehattan and Baltimare, but she never remembered seeing her old Lover Striker there. It was like anything that had to do with you or her mission was cut into pieces and some of her memories replaced with false ones,” he said.

“Wait a moment…how would a memory spell like that work?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t, at least not with a spell that back fired on her like is reported. I honestly think that some kind of artifact was used on her, something with enough power to get past her protection spells.”

“So, there isn’t any way to fix what’s wrong with here in this,” I said setting the book down.”

“I didn’t say that, it can’t hurt for you to still try and learn what you can. Your mother’s spell book has a lot of useful things, not just memory spells, that may help you in the future, it may even have a spell that can help you put her mind right,” he said with a sigh, “I could even teach you some if I wasn’t stuck in this blasted crystal.”

“Wait a second, when Sherbert trapped you in there she said something about Grim’s notes about you being right? What if the spell she used to trap you in that is one of mom’s spells?”

He was quiet for a moment then he said, “Grim was the only pony who knew almost as much about shadow magic as myself. She would have had knowledge on what to do if she ever needed to trap me.”

I started looking through the spell book, so far, I had only been looking at the spells that had to do with memory magic. As I flipped through the pages I finally came to one that looked like it was the one I needed. It was titled ‘Dark Soul Trap’ so I started to read.

In light of what I’ve seen of my brother’s power and how dark his soul is becoming due to his transformations, I’ve started to look into the same kind of dark magic he’s using. Ignoring the stuff about how to control the magic and the steps he had to take to get the body he has now, I found old zebra magic that can be used to trap a pony like him in a crystal. The crystal has to be as clear as possible, imbued with a small amount of light magic and last you need to put an ancient zebra glyph for Entrapment, into the crystal. Once this is done you cast a spell of entrapment and pull the shadow into the crystal itself. Once that’s is done he will not be able to get out on his own, at least for a long time. The light magic inside the crystal will keep him weak.

In case I need to trap him in this way but don’t want him stuck in there for too long then I have also made sure that there is a way to release a shadow once it’s been captured. I’m recording the spell for both in here just in case I ever need to use them in the future…

I read the next two lines, the spell for both trapping and releasing were both simple. I could do it with no problem, “Uncle Ori, I think I can get you out of there.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice sounding hopeful.

“The spell to pull you out doesn’t look hard at all. It’s a simple spell of release,” I said.

“Then I think you should try to get me out of here. I will be a lot more useful to you if I’m freed rather than trapped in this thing.”

Placing the crystal down next to the dead fire I started to concentrate my magic on the crystal itself. According to her notes, I had to try and feel for Oricalcos’s power. Since his body was nothing but living dark magic all I had to do was find it in the depths of the crystal and pull it out, using the spell in her notes to open the lock on the crystal itself to let darkness pass through. Closing my eyes, I started to sift through his power. At first all I could feel with my magic was a warm pulsing light. The light seemed to fill my mind’s eye giving off a pleasant sense of peace. At first, I wanted to just let my mind enjoy the feeling then I remembered that I had to look for my uncle’s power.

So, I dug further and pushed my magic through the crystal’s depths, at first the sense of peace and warmth grew stronger. But as I went deeper a sudden chill seemed to appear around me, like a slight cold breeze hitting you in the face right after you got out of a nice hot shower. I focused on that feeling, delving even deeper into that dark cold space within the crystal. It started get colder, I could feel the darkness starting to surround me taking away all feeling leaving nothing but hopelessness. The further I went the worse the feeling grew, I started to think to myself, ‘You can’t do this,’ ‘It’s hopeless,’ ‘I’m too weak.’ I had to ignore the feelings if I wanted this spell to work.

Finally, once I reached a place within the darkness that was so cold I could barely stand it, I felt a spark of life. To my mind’s eye it was like looking at a small ember barely visible in the darkest of nights. A small red and white light in a sea of black. I reached out and took hold of the small speck of light, as soon as I did I could feel emotions pouring out of it like a flood. The speck of light was feeling fear, pain, anger, and sadness all at the same time. This light in a sea of black despair could only be one thing. It has to be the small speck of light that was left of my uncle’s soul. As I held on to it, something I read once came back to me. Darkness cannot exist without light and light no matter how bright will always cast a shadow, giving a place for darkness to thrive. In all darkness there is light and, in all light, there is darkness.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought about that. Even a monster like my uncle had a speck of good within his sea of dark. Maybe there was hope for him. He just needs to find his way back to the light. If I could help this small amount of light grow, maybe he’d be a lot happier. It’s funny that even as I thought that, I remembered what he did to Silver. Could he ever be forgiven for that sin, for that disgusting act of hatred? Maybe not, but I’d have to try. Wrapping the speck of light and the surrounding darkness within my magic’s hold, I started to pull it out of the crystal. As I did I cast the spell to unlock the seal keeping him trapped within.

As I finished I opened my eyes and saw the crystal shaking on the ground, the blackness within growing stronger. Then with a loud crack and a flash of light, the crystal broke and the shadow inside poured out. A moment later the shadow formed itself into a pony shape with dark purple eyes and a violet horn. He looked at me and said, “Thank you for helping me get out of there Shadow.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

The eyes fell as he said, “You could have left me in there for a long time if you wanted. I would’ve deserved it too.”

“Maybe so, but I have a feeling that you’re trying to do something good for a change uncle Ori. You may not know it, but deep down there is still a little bit of good left.”

He chuckled a little, “Your mother used to say the same thing, though I’m not sure there is. Every year I seem to fall further into the hatred and despair this body puts on my mind. It’s another price of taking on this form.”

“I…is there any way to get your body back?”

He looked at me again, this time his eyes looked curious, “There is only one way for me to get my body back. I would have to break the deal I made with the darkness.”

“Deal with the darkness? What does that even mean? What deal?” I asked, utterly confused.

“When you were hurt and almost dead I knew the Enclave would come after me. Nightshade was going to make sure I was executed for my crimes, he never liked me and when you were hurt he wasn’t going to risk it happening again. So, I did the only thing I could think of to make sure I could live long enough to find a cure for you.”

I looked at him confused, “What do you mean Uncle Ori?”

“I opened a gate to a place called Tartarus where Celestia and Luna imprisoned many dark creatures that tried to take over Equestria. One of them is known as the lord of darkness, his name is Mezzanotte. He is the one who first made dark magic and controls it. I offered him my body as payment for this power I have now. If I was to break our deal I would be returned to my old body and my old power…and I’d die.”

“Why would getting your old body back kill you?”

“I gave my body up almost sixteen years ago Shadow, I doubt it’s in any condition to survive if I got it back.”

“I guess I can understand that, so what was this deal you made?” I asked.

“There were two parts to this deal. Part one was that I would give my body up for power, but you already knew that part. The other part of the deal was that I would help Grim find and activate an old project of The Children of the Night. So far, I haven’t said I will not help my sister with this goal, so the deal is still valid. As soon as I turn my back fully on her, my deal will be broken and I will most likely die.”

“So sooner or later you’ll have to decide between helping me or helping mom?”

He nodded, “Indeed, an impossible choice. It’s truly a matter of life or death.”

“What do you think you’ll do when that time comes.”

I saw a crease appear in the shadow’s head almost like a cocky smile, “I think you know which I’ll chose Star,” he said turning back into a smear of darkness and merged with my shadow.

I sighed and went back to looking at my mother’s spell book trying not to think about the fate that awaited my uncle in the future. Right now, I’d just do my best to figure out the memory spells. Maybe there wasn’t something in here that could help her, but even if there wasn’t I’d still have to try. If I couldn’t fix her memory, then maybe I’d be able to take everything away from her. With no memory at all, maybe there’d be a small chance I could at least explain to her who she is.

I flipped through the pages more, moving past the memory spells and trying to see what else I could learn from her spell book. I know I should be doing my research, but my mind wasn’t in the mood right now. Some chapters revolved around war magic, others had to do with healing, a few had to do with Transfiguration, there was one spell that made it so a unicorn could walk on clouds. That could be quite useful if I ever had to go up to Stratus, I’ll have to remember to try and learn that spell.

Finally, I reached the end of the book, I was just about to close it until I saw something written there, ‘Property of Minuette’, “So, this is how mom learned so much about magic. Most of the spells in here are Minuette’s I bet mom just added a few of her own notes and spells when she had it.”

I would have gone back to reading and working on the memory spells more, but just then my friends started to wake up. So, I closed the book and placed it back into my saddle bags. There would be time later to learn what I needed too, as I said before, mom wasn’t at the top of my list of crap I had to deal with. For now, I’d do my best to be happy with my friends. We’ll have breakfast, talk a little as we eat, then continue on toward Crossroad’s Trading Post.

***

“Look I can see it!” Wingnut said jumping up and down as he walked in front of me, “About time, I’m sick of walking!”

“Calm down kid, we’re still a little way from it,” Aura said as she lazily flew in over us. She was the look out now, giving both Stardust and Wind Thrasher a break.

“Yeah, I know, but at least I can see it now.”

“At least you won’t have to keep a look out anymore Aura, we should be safe now that we are close to Crossroads Trading Post,” I said.

“I don’t care if we are a few feet away from it, you never know when somepony is going to attack you,” Aura said flying a little higher.

“Or some monster,” Stardust said yawning, “Though I doubt we’ll see much trouble around here. The NLR keeps this area safe for the Caravans.”

“But with what’s been going on around here since we left for The Twin Cities that may not be true anymore,” Wind Thrasher said her ears perked up listening for something, “I swear I keep hearing something, in the distance, but I can’t be sure.”

Aura looked down at Wind Thrasher saying, “You’re probably hearing the Fire Ants that live around here. They don’t come out much during the day, but I know they have tunnels throughout this area. You’re probably hearing them moving around under us.”

“I don’t know Aura, it sounds kind of like hooves,” she said, “What if there are raiders around here?”

I laughed, “I haven’t seen a raider since Cartwheel, I don’t think we have to worry about them this close to NLR territory, we are right at the boarder of NLR, Steel Ranger and Roman lands. Raiders wouldn’t be stupid enough to come near this area, bugs I’d believe, but not raiders.”

We were just walking past a billboard that had fallen down but was still facing us with a big picture of Pinkie Pie on it saying ‘Pinkie Pie is ALWAYS Watching’ when the Wasteland had to show me just how wrong I was. Eight dirty ponies ran out from behind the billboard, all in patched metal armor and carrying guns that looked ready to fall apart. They blocked the road all aiming their weapons at us.

Aura landed in front of us holding her spear ready for a fight. My friends and I weren’t far behind in drawing our own weapons. As we did a big mean looking mare with a matted mane giggled to herself as she said, “Look what we have here, a few ponies and a griffon traveling our roads all alone.”

“Move it before I slice you into tiny chunks,” Aura said.

She looked over at Aura still giggling, her eyes were bloodshot and a bit of foam seemed to be at the edges of her muzzle, “Move? Why would I ever do that. You see griffon, this is my road, if you want to pass you’ll have to pay a toll.”

“It’s only eight nut jobs, let’s just kill them and move on,” Stardust said.

“Um…Stardust…” Wind Thrasher started to say.

“What Wind Thrasher?”

“There’s more than eight,” she said twitching an ear back toward the way we came.

Looking back, I saw ten more blocking the road. Where the hell did they come from? And how the hell did Wind Thrasher not hear them before? I sighed then asked Wind Thrasher, “Is that all of them?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know why, but I couldn’t hear them. I only knew they were there because I can just make out their heart beats, but only because they are so close now.”

The mare who spoke before giggled louder, she pulled back her dirty matted mane and I saw a horn, “Little spell of mine, keeps my underlings quiet so that way nopony can hear them while we sneak up on them. Useful spell don’t you think?”

“Very,” I said sarcastically, “Fine you said it’s a toll road so how many caps?” I asked, not in the mood to deal with this nut job or her friends.

She giggled louder still, her friends joining, “Who said anything about Caps? We don’t need caps when we can take what we want. No, you see if you want to pass we want three things. All of your weapons, your armor, and that colt traveling with you.”

“No way you're getting any of that from us, especially Wingnut. Why would you want him anyway?” I asked.

She licked her lips slowly her eyes getting bigger, “Foals are so ever so much fun to play with. I love to use them as my fun little toys before killing them, they are ever so tasty when they are so young.”

“You’re sick,” Wingnut spoke out.

She cackled crazily, “What can I say?” she smirked, “I get bored easily and I need to eat after such a work out.”

“So, you’re not just raiders or bandits, you’re cannibals too,” I said.

“Oooooooh, I do so hate the word…Cannibal…I prefer to be called a mare with exotic taste. I am of course speaking for myself, my buddies around me could care less about what they’re called,” she said licking her lips again.

“Oh Yeah? You’re still a sick freak and being a FUCKING CANNIBAL proves it,” Wingnut said.

The smile on her face fell making her looked ever worse, “Nopony calls me a freak, you know what fuck it,” she cackled again, “I was going to let the rest of you go if you gave me what I wanted, instead…everypony, kill them all,” she cackled one more time

I didn’t give them the chance to get a shot off. Trusting my friends, I fired my Plasma rifle at one of the ponies in front of us. He was blasted back into another one of his comrades as the crazed mare jumped out of the way firing her own weapon at Aura who was trying to attack her. I heard Wind Thrasher’s ear-splitting scream from behind me, she must have gone for the ponies to our rear. One of the stallions came at me with a spiked hoofball bat. I ducked under the blow twisted around and pressed the barrel of my plasma rifle under his chin. His head exploded as I pulled the trigger, showering the ground in bits of blood and bone.

Another pony slammed into me, spiked horseshoes dug into my barding. The blows hurt, but my barding was too strong for his rusty spikes to do any damage. I kicked backwards and felt my hoof connect with something soft. I heard an intake of breath and a small squeak from the stallion and a moment later he rolled off me. Looking back, I saw him holding onto his stallion hood, ow. I pulled out my sword and sank it deep into his chest, piercing his heart. Pulling the sword free I looked around and saw a mare aiming a shot gun at me. I teleported before she got a shot off, when I reappeared I swapped out my plasma rifle for the shot gun I found in Stable 97. The mare twisted around and found the barrel pressed against her chest.

I smiled and pulled the trigger, the shot gun was so powerful, I almost lost hold of it with my magic. The damage it did was amazing, it tore right through her rusty metal armor and blew a hole in her torso. She fell, blood pooling under her as she gasped out her last breath, a look of utter agony on her face. A bullet slammed into by barding, causing another bruise to my ribs. I winced and turned to see another mare firing a varmint rifle toward me. I dodged her next shot and ran closer to fire. She was blasted off her hooves by the shot, the buck shot chewing through her armor like paper. I left her to scream and squirm as she bled out.

Looking back toward Aura I saw that she was still trying to fight the unicorn mare. I was kind of surprised that the mare was still alive, not many ponies could stand up to Aura for this long, especially a raider. Then I saw why Aura hadn’t taken her down yet, when Aura got close and tried to behead the mare, she would teleport out of the way. She maybe a crazy cannibal, but she knew some good spells. From what I knew of the wasteland, not many unicorns could teleport at all and even fewer could do it multiple times. I was just about to go help Aura when a pool cue slammed into my face.

I fell back and took another blow to the face as a stallion that was almost as big as Night Stalker stood over me, “Hehehe why aren’t you a pretty little thing.”

“Damn right I am,” I yelled aiming the shot gun up at him.

He slammed his pool cue into the shot gun a moment before I fired it. The blast missed by a hair. He moved to slam the pool cue into my face again, when a bullet passed through the side of his head. For a moment his body just stood there then it slowly toppled to the side. I looked toward where the bullet had come from and saw Wingnut standing there reloading Ol’ Festus. He winked at me and I saw another raider rushing behind Wingnut, I was about to say something but Wingnut ducked underneath the raider causing them to fly over the colt. I heard Ol’Festus go off again hitting the flying raider in the chest their lifeless body hitting ground next to me. He smiled and ran to go help Aura.

I got back to my hooves and looked around for more raiders, but the only two left were writhing in agony as Wind Thrasher screamed at them. Stardust aimed his rifle and fired twice, killing both. That’s when I heard a yell from Wingnut, “Let me go you ugly cow!”

Looking back to where Aura had been fighting the mare. She had pinned Wingnut to the ground and was pressing a chipped and rusty knife to his throat. Aura was a few feet away saying, “You better let him go bitch!”

“Hehehehe I’m going to bleed this yummy looking colt dry and there’s nothing you can do about it Griffon,” she started to laughed her horn glowing brighter as she readied herself to slit the colts throat.

I was just starting to ready my teleportation spell when a blast of air flew over the mare throwing her off Wingnut. Her body rolled then stopped right in front of Aura. Aura didn’t hesitate, she lifted her spear and sank the tip into the mare’s head. Once she pulled it out she looked over at Wingnut yelling, “You okay kid?”

He got back to his hooves, “Yeah, who the hell blew her off me?”

A filly with a bright white coat and an electric blue mane done up in twin pony tails came walking down the road, an odd-looking gun in her muzzle. She holstered it yelling down at Wingnut, “Now we’re even stupid Bug.”

Wingnut’s ears fell as he said, “Dammit not her. I’m gonna go kill myself now.”

With the rest of the raiders down I walked over to Cookie Byte, “Hey Byte, thanks for the quick save. What are you doing out here?”

She looked over at me with that expression of boredom I’d forgotten she always seemed to have on her face, “Oh look you’re still alive, I’m surprised. Well if you must know, Rusty got to Crossroads Trading post early and it’s boring there so I thought I’d go check out what’s around this dump.”

“Little far from Crossroads to be just wandering around kid,” Aura said as she put her spear back on her back.

“Looks like you got your gravity gun fixed,” I said.

She rolled her eyes, “It wasn’t broken before, it was just too powerful and used a lot of power. I’m still tweaking it, but I still have to replace the power gem on it after four or five shots. I did however figure out a way to bring down the power of each shot, so that’s good at least.”

“Hey who’s this little filly?” Stardust asked, kneeling down and getting face to face with her, “Where’s your parents? Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here for a little thing like you?”

Her eyes flared and a moment later she twisted around and bucked Stardust right in the face, “Bite me ass hole. I can take care of myself.”

Stardust backed up rubbing his bruised nose with a hoof, “Damn she’s feisty.”

Wind Thrasher was doing her best to keep out of sight behind Stardust. I just rolled my eyes, “Stardust this is Cookie Byte, she’s the niece of Rusty Shackles who runs Trotston,” I looked back at Byte, “Why are you out here, I didn’t think Rusty would let you join him for this meeting.”

She laughed, “He wouldn’t leave me behind, he thinks that if he’s gone for a day or two and doesn’t take me with him, he’ll come home to find half the town destroyed or his house on fire. Pfft, I blow up my room one time just because I crossed the two wires when I was making a new type of laser rifle and he loses all trust in me.”

“O…kay, so why are you out here again?” I asked.

“Like I said I was bored so I went exploring, didn’t think I’d run into you and a bunch of stupid raiders,” Byte said, “So I’m guessing you’re on your way to meet Rusty for his meeting with The Annihilator’s.”

“Yep, he asked me to help with the meeting, so here I am.”

“Well at least this day won’t be as boring as I thought it would be. Come on, Crossroads Trading Post isn’t far, oh and if I were you I’d grab as much crap from those raiders before somepony else does,” Byte said starting to walk back toward Crossroads.

Wingnut was already doing that, I guess he’d rather do some work than spend more than a few seconds with Byte. She hadn’t even gone a few feet before she turned back and yelled, “Hey Wingnut you coming or not!?”

Aura, Wind Thrasher and myself started to giggle as a bright blush appeared on his face, “I’m BUSY!”

“No you’re not, let’ the adults grab the crap, I want to show you something so hurry up.”

“Yeah Wingnut you better hurry before your mare friend gets mad,” Aura teased.

“She’s not my MAREFRIEND!” he said glaring at Aura.

“Awwww, come on Wingnut, she’s so cute,” I teased as well.

“I hate you all,” he said trotting past us muttering under his breath. I noticed that when he looked back at us and thought we weren’t watching, his ears perked up and he trotted a little faster, a small spring in his step.

Aura, Wind Thrasher, Stardust and myself started to go through the bodies. As we did Aura said, “He really likes her.”

“You think so?” Stardust asked looking back at Aura.

“Of course he does, he is just too embarrassed to say it,” I said as I pulled a bag of caps from the unicorn mares saddle bags, “Damn for a mare who didn’t care about caps she sure had a shit ton.”

Wind Thrasher looked over at me, “How much?”

“My Pip-Buck said two thousand,” I said looking down at the Mark II’s notification.

“Damn that will help a lot, we were running low,” Aura said as she collected some ammo and put it in her own bags, “We can restock our medical supplies and ammo when we got to Crossroads.”

“Good idea.” I said as I finished with the last body, “I think that’s it, should we go catch up to the two foals?”

“Yeah, I don’t like having Wingnut out of my sight for too long. That kid has knack for getting into trouble almost as bad as you do Shadow,” Aura said with a quick giggle.

We all started back down the road, the two forms of Byte and Wingnut just visible in the distance. It only took us another ten minutes to reach Crossroad’s Trading Post. It was nothing more than an overpass with shops set up all over the place, a few tents and the flag of the NLR flying over it. There were a few caravans to one side being guarded by a few ponies and a couple of griffons. I could see what looked like shacks set up under the overpass and there were NLR tents set up on the other side of the overpass. Even though it didn’t look like much, it was busy with ponies moving from shop to shop and goods were being traded like crazy.

“Damn, not really what I expected,” I said as we got closer, I saw an NLR solider standing guard next to the road that lead up to the Overpass.

“What did you expect? A huge settlement with walls and ponies everywhere?” Aura asked.

“Um…I don’t know, but I mean this is just an overpass.”

“Why do you think it’s called Crossroads?” she said with a chuckle as the NLR Guard came walking toward us.

“Welcome to the NLR Crossroad’s Trading Post, what is your business here?” he said sounding bored.

“I have business here, I’m meeting the leader of Trotston and the Red Talons,” I said.

He yawned, “Rusty’s sitting over at the Cantina right now, no Red Talons have shown up yet. You can go join him if you wish, but remember that no weapons are allowed to be drawn while you are within the Trading Post.”

“No problem,” I said trotting past him with my friends.

I’d just made it past when he seemed to wake up a little, “Wait are you The Courier?”

Without stopping I said, “Yep.”

“I can’t believe it took him that long to realize who you were,” Stardust said trotting next to me.

I just shrugged, “Not like I care if he knows who I am or not. I’m here to do a job not chat about the things I’ve done around here.”

I walked over to where I saw a few tables set up next to an outdoor bar. A cute older unicorn mare with a blue coat and a curly black mane was serving a couple of stallions drinks. She looked over at me as I came closer and winked at me. Not knowing why, she did this I couldn’t help but blush a little and smiled shyly before making my way over to where Rusty was sitting with Byte and Wingnut.

“Ah there you are Shadow, it’s nice to see you again,” Rusty said with a small smile, “And who is this Stallion you have with you?”

“This is my friend Stardust, the one who was taken by the Enclave when I met you before,” I said taking a seat across from him as my friends took the rest of the seats.

“Ah yes, I’m happy to see that you were able to save him from the clutches of The Enclave,” Rusty said.

“I’d be happy to tell you all about it later, right now I’m here for a job. You asked me to come help with the negotiations. Why was that?” I asked.

He frowned a little, “Well for one, you are the only pony around who has been able to meet with both the leaders of Trotston and The Annihilators. I have quite a lot of Trust in you after you helped keep me alive when I was attacked a couple weeks back, and I’m guessing Javelin has some trust in you as well if she was willing to ask you to help her set this up. I also needed to speak with you about a small matter regarding the Mark II, but we can deal with that after this meeting.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Why not talk to her about it now? The meeting doesn’t start for a few hours.”

“Well…I guess you are right, but what I have to say isn’t good news. Honestly I’m risking a lot speaking of it here.”

“Just spit it out Rusty,” I said.

He sighed, “Fine, you see Trotston is having a problem with the Steel Rangers as of late. Normally we wouldn’t worry so much because our defenses have been able to keep them away from our town for fifteen years now.”

“Yeah, and I still say you shouldn’t have to worry about those bucket heads, they can’t get into Trotston,” Byte said in a huff.

“Yeah, I was under the same impression, or did something happen?” I asked Rusty.

“You could say that, you see I got a message from an Elder Sapphire a few days ago. It came from the other Mark II, the one I thought was still in Stable 9. Here I’ll show you what she sent,” he said bringing up his Pip-Buck and playing an audio file.

It started out with a mechanical voice “Message from Pip-Buck Mark II SL, directly sent to Pip-Buck Mark II AB. Please stand by…”

Then I heard the Voice of Sapphire come out of his Pip-Buck, “Rusty Shackles leader of Trotston. I am Elder Sapphire Stone of the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers. I am sending you this message to give you a chance to give us the Mark II you have in your possession. Our branch of the Steel Rangers has let your city thrive with the Tech you have stolen from Stable 34 for twenty years now. We haven’t tried very hard in the past to take what is rightfully ours, not because of the defenses your city has, but because our former Elder’s didn’t want to risk the lives of our rangers to deal with you. This is no longer the case, you have a Pip-Buck that shouldn’t be in the hooves of ponies who have no idea how dangerous it can be. Right now, there are only Three that we know of, one is with us, the other with the Courier, and the last is with you. You have five days to remove your Mark II, leaving all of its data intact and given it to my Knights. If you fail to do this I will send every Knight and Paladin to Trotston to show you how little your walls mean to us. Trust me when I say we have enough fire power to take down your entire city. Now I am not an unfair mare, if you do as I ask we will leave Trotston alone and never both you again. We will let Trotston keep on trading the tech you have now without taking anything for ourselves if we get that Mark II. Think long and hard about this offer Rusty Shackles, remember there is more than one way for us to get what we want and we will get what we want. I’m sure you don’t want your little niece to suffer the same fate that your sister did. I do hope you make the right choice.”

The recording cut out, I looked up at him a little chilled from what I heard, still not able to believe I was hearing that right, “There’s no way Sapphire would ever hurt fillies or colts. She’s not that kind of mare.”

“I don’t know this mare, but I have to take this threat as if it was true. Normally I wouldn’t worry so much, but from what I’ve been hearing about the movements of the Steel Rangers as of late, I’m not so sure we can stand up to them like I thought before,” Rusty said.

“How much longer do you have to give them your Mark II?” Wind Thrasher asked.

He sighed, “Tomorrow’s the deadline and I don’t know what I can do to stop them.”

“I wonder why Sapphire wants the Mark II, she already has the one you gave them from Stable 9,” Stardust said.

“No idea, but if she wants it that bad, then there has to be a reason for it. There’s more going on here and I don’t like it,” I said thinking hard on what to do.

“Neither do I,” Rusty said, “I’ve been trying to think of anything I can do to stop her from taking down my city.”

“I may have an idea or two, but let me think on it. We have a day to figure this out, in the meantime I think we should take care of this meeting. Maybe one of the Red Talons will have an idea. I’ll ask them when they get here,” I said.

“I guess it’s the best we can do, at least for now,” Rusty said leaning back in his seat.

We all sat there for a long time, none of us talking as time slowly slipped by. Finally, I said, “While we wait, why don’t you tell me what really happened between Trotston and The Annihilators.”

The look on his face was one of a Stallion who’s been caught in a lie, “What do you mean? I told you before that it all started over a lover’s quall.”

Byte slammed her hoof on the table and yelled, “Damn it Rusty, she came all this way here to help you and you’re going to just sit here and lie to her about how this whole thing started?”

“Yeah Rusty if you really want our help you better spill,” Stardust said with his signature grin.

“Fine…” Rusty said with a sigh, “You remember when I told you about my sister right?”

“Yeah, she was the one who had my Mark II before my mom stole it,” I said.

“That’s right. Well this whole thing started because of my sister, the Stallion she loved, and Cookie Byte…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Bookworm:It seems you read a lot of books but only get average benefit, let’s change that. From now on when you read books you gain +2 to your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute and gain an extra 10% to skills when reading a skill magazine.

Chapter 45: Payback

“That about covers it. So how are you going to take down all of those solders, going to bat your eyes and say please don’t hurt me I’m a pathetic whore?”

“Wait a minute, how could your sister have anything to do with what happened between Trotston and The Annihilators? When I talked to Javelin about this, she said it was a Stallion from Trotston and a Mare from The Annihilators,” I asked.

Rusty looked a little confused by this, “Well I know that Javelin wasn’t the leader of the Annihilators at the time, it was a mare named High Strike. It’s possible that the information got confused or told wrong, I’m not sure. But no, this all happened because of my sister. After we left Stable 9 we found Stable 34 and it was abandoned, so we took refuge in it. Not long after, a few ponies from The Annihilators found us. We talked with their leader at the time and she said we could use it as long as we let them take what they needed from the stable first. They’d been using it as a place to keep excess storage. We agreed and spent the next the year inside the stable. Eventually we figured we’d have to venture out of Stable 34 because it wasn’t suited for ponies to live in for a long time anymore. We started to strip the stable down and use what we could to build what became Trotston.”

“Why wasn’t Stable 34 suited for ponies anymore, I thought the stables could keep ponies alive for hundreds of years?” I asked.

“Well sure, but something forced the Annihilators to leave. We never found out what it was, most of the terminals in there had their hard drives wiped or were destroyed. Stable 34 was abandoned for thirty years. It was extremely run down, we tried to fix what we could. Put simply, it was an uphill battle with no end. So instead we started to build our city and I was put in charge. Back then Trotston was quite friendly with The Annihilators. We were the only settlement that traded with them and were allowed to meet with them,” Rusty said.

“Let me guess, your sister did something to anger them?” Aura asked.

Byte got up, kicked her chair over, then walked away in a huff. I watched her go then asked, “What’s her problem?”

“Cookie doesn’t like this story, she wasn’t even born yet when this all happened, but it puts her mother in a bad light and she really loved her mom,” Rusty said with a sigh, “Wingnut would you mind going with her? You might be able to help calm her down.”

Wingnut looked up at Rusty as if he just asked the colt to jump into a puddle of Taint, “What the hell? Why me?”

“Because she likes you kid, just go and be a gentlecolt for a change,” I said doing my best to hide my smile.

“She doesn’t like me, she keeps calling me a BUG!” he protested.

“I’d feel better if somepony would go make sure she’s okay,” Rusty said.

He jumped off his chair looking just as frustrated as Byte did a moment ago, “Fine, but I’m only doing it because I’m nice!”

“Yeah you keep telling yourself that,” Aura said snickering as Wingnut followed the angry filly.

Rusty looked back at us and continued, “So, as I was saying. You remember when I told you that my sister hated staying in town. She loved to go out into the wasteland and explore. She also used to get into a lot of trouble with Wastelanders.”

“Yeah, I remember you saying something about that before.” I said.

“Well, that’s how she met Cherry Bomb, Cookie’s father. I don’t know everything that happened between those two but one thing led to another and my sister ended up pregnant with Cookie. Cherry Bomb wasn’t very happy about this and they got into a fight. At least that’s how my sister described it. She ended up killing him, to make it worse she left his body in front of the gate where the Annihilators were.”

“You mean this whole thing started over a bad romance and one dead body?” I asked.

“I wish it was just that, for one Cherry Bomb was the son of High Strike. She sent some of her ponies to Trotston to demand that we give them my sister to stand trial for her crime. I didn’t let them have her. They also wanted me to give them Cookie once she was born since they consider her an Annihilator because her father was one. I refused that as well, saying that we weren’t going to let them kill my sister for defending herself against a Stallion who didn’t want her to have his foal. Things just kept going downhill from there.”

“How could things get worse?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Rusty sighed deeper taking a moment to take a long drink, “We were building our wall at the time and they kept trying to kill our ponies as they built it. We had to hire guards just to finish the project. They saw our refusal to give them Cookie and my sister as an act of betrayal for them letting us use Stable 34. A year after Cookie was born, High Strike tried to tell us that we had no right to keep using Stable 34 and told us we had to give them back the Stable. We couldn’t do that even if we wanted too. We had stripped most of the stable by then. So they kept on trying to attack us and we fought back only to defend ourselves. They had their last straw twelve years ago when Pride killed my sister. I don’t know how, but somehow High Strike found out that she died and again demanded we give them Cookie since she was her grandmother and felt she needed to be with her father’s family since both her parents were dead.”

“I can see where this is going,” Stardust said, “After all the attacks you weren’t going to just let them take your niece away from you.”

“That’s about it, I’d already taken Cookie by this point and I wasn’t going to lose the last of my family to those nut jobs. Every day when I look at her I see so much potential in that filly. I’m glad I took her in because I shudder to think what would have happened if she lived on that base. She’d be stuck with more rules than she has in Trotston and Cookie is so much like her mother. She doesn’t do well with boundaries and rules. She would have been miserable living there, with no tech to play with and stuck behind a fence guarding against no pony.”

“Even though what you did caused a small war between both settlements?” Wind Thrasher asked.

He looked over at her with a small smile, “Yes Wind Thrasher, I lost so much that I couldn’t bear the thought of losing more. I lost your mother Wind Thrasher when Dr. Cell killed her, I lost you to his madness, I lost my home because of what happened in Stable 9, I lost my only remaining family when Pride killed my sister, I wasn’t going to lose Cookie as well.”

“The thing I’m wondering is how are we going to get both of your towns to forget the past and work for a better future?” I asked.

Rusty chuckled a little, “Honestly I don’t give a fuck about The Annihilators, what I really want is for them to leave us alone. It’s been so many years since this all started and still whenever my ponies go out to trade they get attacked by long ranged missiles from the Annihilators or by the rare scouting party they send out from time to time. I’d rather find some agreement that will get them to just leave us alone.”

“Maybe today that will happen, it all depends on what Javelin wants.” I said as the mare from the bar came over toward us.

“Can I get ya’ll anythin’ to drink.” She asked with a cute voice.

“Sunrise Sarsaparilla for me please, if you have it.” I said remembering that interesting drink I had back at Hidden Sands.

“Some Applebuck Rum for me.” Stardust said, “Top Shelf.”

“Water’s fine with me as long as it’s clean.” Aura said sounding board.

“Sparkle Cola for me please.” Wind Thrasher said shyly.

“I’m fine with what I have.” Rusty said with a sigh.

“No problem dears I’ll be right back.” The bar mare said as she walked away.

It only took a minute for the mare to come back with our drinks, we paid and the others started to drink. I pulled the bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla closer and twisted off the bottle cap. Like the last bottle I got this one also had a blue star under the cap, “Huh, that’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” Aura asked looking over at me.

Showing her the bottle cap I said, “The last time I got one of these it also had a blue star under the cap, I guess this was some kind of signature of theirs, though it’s strange that they put it where no pony could see it until you open the bottle.”

Aura’s eyes went wide, “You’re kidding right? Two Blue Star Bottle Caps? You’re some kind of lucky mare Shadow, I’ve only found four in the six years I’ve been looking for them and only one was on a bottle the other three I got off some raiders I killed.”

“What’s so special about them?” I asked, “I mean it’s just a cap isn’t it?”

“Not those caps, there are ponies out there that would kill to get just one off of you.” Aura said.

“What’s the big deal about blue stars on caps?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Rusty was the one who answered, “There’s some kind of legend about those caps.”

Aura laughed, “It’s not a legend Rusty, I’ve been to the Sunrise Sarsaparilla Factory and there’s this robotic…” Aura rotated her talons as if trying to remember, “…something at the entrance. He told me himself that if I give him fifty of those caps I’ll get the Treasure.”

“Be that as it may, you still don’t know what that treasure is now do you?” Rusty said chuckling.

“Wait there’s a treasure in that old factory?” Stardust said sounding excited.

“That’s what the stories say.” Aura answered.

Using my Pip-Buck I checked to see if I still had the one from before, with my luck I most likely spent it like any cap. But The Mark II seemed to know it was special because it was listed in a different part of my saddle bags. I pulled it out saying, “Well you can have it if you want Aura, I’m not really interested in treasure.”

Stardust looked over at me like I said something stupid, “Not Interested in Treasure! Are you insane, there could be enough loot to buy up the strip.”

“I doubt that, it’s probably some publicity stunt the company was trying so they could compete with Sparkle Cola.” I said sliding the caps over to Aura who took them happily.

“I agree with Shadow, but I still want to see what it is.” Aura said as she tucked the caps into a small pouch she pulled out of her saddle bags.

“What if it is a load of loot that we could sell and make a shit ton of caps from?” he asked.

Aura winked at me then said to Stardust, “Then Shadow and I will have a nice place on The Strip to call home.”

“What about me?” he asked.

“Depends on how much you annoy me.” She said with a chuckle.

“A place on the strip sounds like a nice place to settle down, though I don’t think I’ll ever get enough for something like that.” Wind Thrasher said.

“Don’t worry Wind Thrasher you’ll always have a room where ever we live.” I said.

“Oh, so Wind Thrasher has a place to live no matter what, but I have to stay on your good side.” Stardust said sulking.

“I never said that, that was Aura. But if she’s the one who makes it big with some treasure she got from an old factory, then it’s up to her not me.” I said with a laugh.

We all had a good long laugh at the expression on Stardust’s face. After a little while he joined in and we spent the next half hour talking about the things we would do if we had a mountain of caps. That was until Rusty pointed out that Mr. Topps probably had most of the caps in New Pegasus and wouldn’t take kindly to a group of ponies having more than he does.

After that we all quieted down for a bit until Rusty said, “Wingnut and Cookie have been gone for a little while now. I’m starting to get worried, I should go check on them.”

“No, I’ll go. I’d like to look around a little before this meeting starts so I can see where they went.” I said.

“I’ll come with you, I really shouldn’t let Wingnut stay out of my sight for too long anyway.” Aura said getting up.

“Don’t worry about Wingnut I’ll find him.” I said giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading off toward where Byte and Wingnut had run off.

Aura didn’t argue, she just shrugged and sat back down as I walked off. Crossroad’s Trading Post wasn’t that big of a place, but it was amazing how many little shops ponies had managed to set up. Every few feet I went ponies were trying to get me to come look at their stands, or brandishing specialty merchandise in my face. I did my best to ignore them as I trotted by, I’d have time later to look at the shops and restock some of our supplies. I’d just crossed the overpass and walked down a ramp that lead to a lower level when I saw them.

Wingnut was sitting next to Byte at the end of the ramp talking quietly, “From the sound of it, your mom wasn’t a bad mare.”

Byte sniffed, “She wasn’t, but she did have a temper that got her into trouble a lot. I mean nopony knows why she really killed my dad. She said it was self-defense, but I don’t know. What if the Annihilators are still angry about what she did?”

“I don’t think that will be as big of a deal as you think Byte. I mean Javelin is a nice mare and from what the others there told me, she’s way easier to deal with than the mare who ran things before her.” Wingnut said.

Huh, I guess he can talk like a gentlecolt sometimes. For a pony who said he didn’t like Byte, he was being really nice to her. Byte sniffed again saying, “Don’t you dare tell anypony I was crying.”

He laughed, “Don’t worry I’ll keep it between the two of us. I remember what it was like when I first went to Little Hoof after my parents died. I used to get teased by the older foals a lot because I’d cry myself to sleep.”

I slowly moved back up the ramp and hid behind some rubble so I could keep listening. As I did I heard Byte say, “So what happened to your parents?”

“I’m not sure, something that looked made out of darkness attacked us in a cave. Dad told me to run while he and mom tried to fight it off. They didn’t make it.” He said.

“That’s why you’re afraid of the dark?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just always have a feeling that the thing that killed them is going to come back for me. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help it.”

“No, I get it Wingnut, now I kind of feel bad for teasing you back at my house.” Byte said.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know, I just overreacted. You know, you’re not as bad as I thought you were.”

An air of offence came to her voice, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wingnut chuckled, “Well, you were kind of a bitch when we first met you and you did call me a bug…multiple times.”

She laughed too, “Well you are a bug…but that isn’t a bad thing.”

“What do you mean it’s not a bad thing?” Wingnut asked, but Byte laughed again.

“Hey let’s get back, I’m sure Rusty is starting to get worried.” I peeked around the rubble and saw that Byte got back to her hooves. Before Wingnut could do or say anything else. She kissed his cheek and ran off a bright red blush on her face, “Hurry up you stupid Bug!”

Wingnut watched her for a moment rubbing his cheek, smiling slightly, then got to his hooves and followed, blushing even worse than he had been before, “Hey wait up for me! What did you mean!”

I watched him run by chasing after the giggling filly. I was about to follow them when I heard Aura say from behind me, “You know he’s kind of cute when he’s acting his own age.”

Tripping over my own hooves and falling to the ground, my heart feeling like it just jumped into my throat from the shock of Aura just showing up, I said, “Why do all my friends want to scare me to death?”

“Hmmm, maybe because it’s funny as hell to watch you jump.” She said with a quick laugh, holding a talon down to help me up, “Why were you spying on Shrimp number two and little miss bitch face?”

“I wasn’t spying I was just walking and I saw them talking…I couldn’t help myself.”

“I’m sure you could have, you just wanted to see what was going to happen between those two.”

“I just want to make sure she doesn’t do something to break his heart.”

She smiled, “Yeah I’m sure that’s all it is.”

“Oh, stop looking at me like you know everything, I’m just looking out for him. It’s not fun to get your heart broken.” I said, frowning up at her.

“Shadow, that’s part of growing up. I’ve had my heart broken more than once and I’m sure you have as well. It sucks, but we learn from things like that. It’s also possible that Cookie Byte really does like Wingnut, did you think about that?”

“I mean I guess I did, but how do I know?” I was so lost on what to do, I couldn’t stand it if something happened to him. Yeah, it’s funny to tease him about him liking Byte or vice versa, but I don’t want him to get hurt.

“It isn’t up to you to know or not, I know you care about him Shadow, but this is something Wingnut has to do on his own. If he wants to get to know her better and they end up together than that’s for him to decide not you. You’re not his mom, or his big sister, even if you were, telling him what to do will only make things worse. You only step in to help him if he comes and asks for it, got it?” she said putting a talon on my shoulder, “You think you can do that?”

“Yeah I guess.”

“Then don’t go sneaking around eavesdropping on him anymore. If he needs us, he’ll find us.”

I smiled, “Why are you so smart?”

She punched my foreleg with a grin, “I’m not smart Shadow, I’ve seen a thing or two, so I know a thing or two. Now come on, the Red Talons are just getting here and we should get you ready for this meeting.”

“Lead the way,” I said bumping her rear with my own…

***

I was being tutored by Arys Greenhaven, the griffon who had helped us with Stable 28…and was once involved with Aura, “Okay one more time. Tell me what you say if one of them starts to shout?” Arys Said. She had arrived three hours ago with five other griffons from the Red Talons. Arys will be sitting with me while I helped with the negotiations between The Annihilators and Trotston. Since she arrived she’s been tutoring me on how to be a good negotiator. So far, I wasn’t doing so well.

“Uh…don’t start shouting or I’ll…kick you in the face?” I asked.

She slammed her face down on the table, “You’re impossible you know that? The right response in a situation where one side starts yelling at another is to calmly say something like ‘I understand that you’re upset, but shouting will not fix the problems between you two. Now can we please try this again and keep this conversation on the civil side.’ You see if you start yelling at one of them, it will only make things worse. You are there to be the griff…I mean pony who isn’t picking sides. You are the one they are going to look to so they can see if they are being offered good terms or not.”

“This is all so stupid, why can’t Rusty just say he’s sorry for what he sister did, but she’s dead now. Why bother fighting over old wrongs especially when you didn’t even do anything.” I said with a huff.

“If life worked that way Shadow, the world would be so much easier.” Arys said, leaning back in her seat, “Okay let’s try this again. If one side starts to threaten another, what do you do?”

I took a moment to think, my first response wasn’t going to work, that I knew. I mean pointing my own gun at said offender and threatening to blow their heads off wasn’t going to help. So, what do I say? Looking back at her I replied, “Violence is how you both got here in the first place, you wanted to talk this out so both of your towns could know peace with each other. Let’s sit back down and try this again.”

I was waiting for the rebuke, but it didn’t come. When I looked back at Arys she looked shocked, “Damn that’s a good one, how’d you think of it?”

I shrugged, “I knew my first thought wouldn’t be the right one, so I thought to myself what would Vervain do. She was always good at breaking up conflicts in the Stable.”

She laughed, “You see that’s what you have to do. Don’t try and ask yourself what you should say, ask yourself what Vervain would say. Wasn’t she the mare who raised you? The one who was a Steel Ranger hiding in that old Stable?”

“Yeah, she was our administrator. Mostly a fancy word for the Stable’s watch dog.”

“Kind of like Apollo then.” Arys said mostly to herself.

“What do you mean? I thought Apollo was one of the leaders of the Red Talons.”

She frowned a little, “He is, but really the only leader is Gillian. She has the final say on everything. Apollo mostly takes care of problems some of the griffons have with each other, the day to day activities, and deals with our bigger contracts. Bigger contracts like The Strip, Freedom Town, New Appleton, Los Alicorn, The Steel Rangers and so on.”

“Wait…what’s New Appleton?” I asked.

“Oh right, you’ve been gone for a while. The Ponies who survived Appleton’s fall, moved into Stable 14, the old griffon stable. They are calling it New Appleton now and running it like an inner town. Kind of like Trotston used to with Stable 34 before the walls and buildings went up.” She said almost like an afterthought.

“What about Tonto?” I asked.

She laughed, “Tonto is there to give advice when Apollo or Gillian needs it. He’s wise and kind, but also a very good tactician.”

“Really? From what I’ve heard from Aura about him, I just thought he was a dirty old hermit griffon who told stories, jokes and keeps a bunch of books in his cave.”

“Well he’s also that.” She said with another laugh, “Anyway, let’s try another…”

For another hour she ran me through more techniques. When she was finally done I think she was feeling a little better about letting me do this. At least she didn’t slam her head on the table after the last four answers I gave, so that has to be some kind of improvement. It was finally time for the meeting between The Annihilators and Trotston to begin. The Red Talons set up a table just outside of Crossroads Trading Post. Three griffons stood guard on each side of the table, each giving the table space so the two leaders could talk without feeling like griffons were looming over them. A couple more griffons were flying around keeping an eye out for oncoming danger.

Rusty was already sitting at one end of the table, Byte sitting next to him looking board. Arys was sitting next to me, she was there to help me with the negotiations if I needed it. Javelin was just arriving, she’d only brought four ponies with her as guards, one of which was her granddaughter Smokescreen. As they all walked closer to where we sat waiting one of the griffons moved to block her way.

Lifting a spear but not pointing it at them, he said, “Welcome to Crossroad’s Trading Post, I assume you’re Javelin.”

The old mare nodded, “Yes of course, could you step aside so we can start?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but the Contract you set up states that only the leaders of each town and one representative can sit at the table. Your guards can stay with us while you talk.” The griffon said.

Javelin smiled a little, “I remember my own terms, my granddaughter will be my representative, the other two are just here to make sure I made the trip without any problems. I’m not exactly a young mare anymore.”

“Very well, I’ll also need to ask you to give me your weapons before you pass.”

“You can’t expect us to…” Smokescreen started to say, but at a look from Javelin she shut up.

“That was also part of the terms Smokescreen, now leave your battle saddle with Rocket so we can start.” Javelin said.

“Yes ma’am.” Smokescreen said sounding disappointed as she removed her battle saddle giving it to one of the other ponies.

When that was done they both walked over to sit at the opposite end of the table from Rusty. He nodded to them both saying, “Looks like you made the trip here without any problems.”

“Most ponies around here know to stay away from The Annihilators Rusty, we didn’t expect to have much difficulty.” Javelin said.

Arys nudged me, looking over at her I saw her nod her head toward the two indicating that I was supposed to say something. I cleared my throat, “It’s nice to see you again Javelin and Smokescreen. Since you are the one who set this up I’ll let you start.”

Javelin looked over toward Rusty saying, “Rusty Shackles, it’s been many years since we last saw each other.”

“That it has Javelin, so tell me why did you want to meet?”

“Duh, she wants us to give her back her stupid Stable.” Byte said.

Before Rusty could say something to his niece Javelin started to laugh softly, “Hahaha, you must be Cookie Byte. I was told that you were a bit of a hoof full.”

She stuck her tongue out at Javelin, “Damn right, and we aren’t giving you back Stable 34, it wouldn’t be worth it to you anyway. There’s almost nothing left inside.”

Javelin shook her head, “I didn’t set all this up for an old Stable. Honestly I’d be happy to never step hoof into that place again.”

Rusty sighed, “Then what do you want? The last leader of your ponies demanded I give them my Niece and my Sister after what happened fifteen years ago. If that’s what you want then you wasted your time coming here, because I’m not going to do it.”

Smokescreen spoke this time, “We don’t want that either, Javelin doesn’t care what our last leader wanted. She's risking her position and her life to make peace, you stupid asshole.”

Javelin looked at her granddaughter, “Smokescreen I can handle this,” She looked back at Rusty, “Rusty, you may remember what it was like back in the day when our two towns worked together, before this misunderstanding broke out between our towns.”

“I do, your ponies helped us a lot when we were first setting up Trotston. Back then, life was easy for both towns because we worked together to build a better life for all of our ponies.” Rusty said.

She nodded, “That’s right, I’d like to work something out to bring us back to that. You see, I don’t care what happened between your sister and her lover Cherry Bomb. From what I’ve been able to learn over the past few months, I believe the story your sister gave to why she killed one of our own may not have been fully true, but it was close enough.”

Byte spoke up again, “That pony who fathered me tried to kill my mom, just because they got into a fight.”

Javelin looked at Byte saying, “That part I do believe, but it was your mother who started it. We found evidence which I will give to you once we are done, showing that she broke in to the base to see your father Cookie Byte, she caught him with another mare and she started the fight.”

“You can’t say it’s her fault.” Byte yelled.

“Byte let her speak, you can talk once she’s done.” I said.

Byte looked like she wanted to say something to me next, but when Rusty glared at her, she shut up too. Javelin waited then said, “I’m not saying that it’s all on her. What your father did was wrong and your mom had every right to get angry, the problem was she tried to attack the other mare. When she was stopped she got mad and left and your father went after her. I believe that he did attack her once she was on her way back to Trotston because of what she tried to do to this other mare. So yes, she did defend herself, but she is also the one who started the whole thing because of her temper. A temper of which you seemed to have inherited.”

Rusty chuckled at that, “You have no idea, still what does this have to do with what we are doing now?”

“Nothing, I just wanted you to know what we found out. This other mare finally told me the whole story from her side a few weeks ago. I just wanted you to know the truth and as I said I have the evidence for you that you can look over later. My point is that this all happened in the past and it’s hurt both of our towns. Trotston has flourished over the past fifteen years even with having to deal with The Annihilators. Even though you keep your city locked down much like we do, you still work with the Wasteland ponies to keep your town running. We have tried to do this as well, but thanks to the reputation we’ve brandished, it’s been getting harder and harder to get supplies in to keep our town going. I called this meeting today so I could save my ponies from dying.”

Rusty looked thoughtful at that, “So you need Trotston’s help to keep you ponies from dying out?”

“That’s right, since we don’t let anypony join us we are going to be endanger of inbreeding soon. It was a problem we were facing in the Stable as well, but we didn’t do anything to fix it when we left. We have to change our way of life soon and the first step to this is setting up trade with Trotston and forgetting our past wrongs so we can start over.”

“Honestly I really just want your ponies to leave us be. I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t see how helping you will help us apart from stopping the attacks.” Rusty said.

“I thought the attacks stopping would be a good enough reason.” Javelin said.

“I agree that the attacks stopping would be nice, but when it comes down to it, we can stand up to your ponies for a lot longer than you. I want the attacks to stop to spare the lives of the ponies I lead, but it’s not a good enough reason for me to sign some kind of truce with you. What can The Annihilators offer Trotston?”

Arys spoke up, “Rusty, it’s a little unfair to ask Javelin to give you more. Her town isn’t rich and can’t offer much.”

He looked over at her, “I can’t just go back home and tell my ponies that we made peace with The Annihilators for nothing more than a promise that they will stop attacking us.”

“What else can she offer though?” I asked, “I’ve been inside Spitfire’s Flight Academy and apart from well-trained guards and a good doctor, they don’t have much there.”

“She’s right Rusty, I’m not sure what else I can offer.” Javelin said.

Rusty glared at her for a long moment they said, “I want access to the Ministry of Peace and Ministry of Wartime Technologies files. I know you have them since both Ministries were using the base toward the end of the war.”

“Hell no! Those files are ours, what do you need them for?” Smokescreen shouted.

“Wait a moment, you mean there’s files from two of the Ministries at Spitfire’s Flight Academy?” I asked.

“There are,” Rusty said, “My sister was told as much when she was there. Those files can help us out a lot, especially the ones from the MWT.”

Javelin put up a hoof to stop Smokescreen from shouting again, “You are right Rusty, but the information that are in those files are not for just anypony to see. We don’t like anypony to know that we even have them. If The Steel Rangers knew about those files they would start coming after us, just like they are with Trotston.”

“I understand and I’m not worried about the Rangers right now. If you want my help then this is my price. First, you’ll stop all attacks against my ponies and my town. Second, you will let a few of my top scientists along with myself look through all of the files you have and let us make copies. If you do this, I will help your town in any way I can. We can provide food, tech, chem’s for your medical staff, and even ponies that you can trust to move into the base so your worries about inbreeding will go away,” Rusty said.

“Javelin that’s not a bad offer, I think you should really think about doing it.” I said, keeping my tone light.

“You don’t understand what will be at risk if something goes wrong.” Javelin said.

“I understand more than you know Javelin, that is my offer and I’m not going to back down.” Rusty said.

For a long tense moment, the two leaders looked into each other’s eyes. Finally, Javelin let out a long sigh, “Fine, I’ll accept, but we need to set down rules on who will be allowed to see the files and figure out how this peace treaty will be written out.”

“I can live with that.” Rusty said.

Arys smiled, “Good, well if that’s finished why don’t we get this all down in writing so we can finish this up.”

They both agreed and Arys called over one of her griffons and had him start writing out the agreement between the two settlements. It took longer than I thought it would. Apart from what they already agreed on, Byte threw in what she saw as a big problem down the road. She was worried that sooner or later one of the ponies from either side would break the treaty. Both leaders agreed and decided that five ponies from each side would go to live with the other and serve as a kind of hostage. This was to ensure that neither side would break the treaty. To everyone’s surprise Smokescreen offered herself up as one of the hostages. Well everyone’s surprise but mine, Smokescreen has wanted to get away from Spitfire’s Flight Academy ever since she met Trip Wire. It took another two hours to get a final document written then finally signed by both parties. During that time, I had to break up three fights between Byte and Smokescreen and eight arguments between Javelin, Smokescreen, and Byte. The only pony who didn’t seem to keep fighting was Rusty.

Finally, it was over, Javelin stood up and smiled, “Since this is all done I should get back so I can talk to the other leaders about what was decided. I’ll be sure to meet with you in a week so we can swap the ponies who will be moving. As a sign of my trust and good intentions I’ll have Smokescreen go with you back to Trotston.”

“As long as she doesn’t cause us any trouble then that will be just fine. She’ll do well in Trotston I’m sure.” Rusty said.

Byte crossed her forelegs looking sour, “She’s not staying in my room.”

“Don’t worry about that Byte.” Rusty said looking over at Smokescreen, “Are you okay with leaving with us tomorrow? I will understand if you want to go home first to get your belongings.”

She shook her head, “I’ll be fine, Javelin will make sure to send my things with the others next week.”

Javelin moved over and hugged her granddaughter, “Remember that this treaty is still new and I need you to be good. Your actions will carry a lot of weight on how the rest of Trotston sees us.”

“I know Gran, I won’t let you down. Are you sure you’ll be okay heading back with the others?”

The old mare laughed, “I’ll be just fine. I’ll see you in a week.”

“She’ll be in good hooves don’t you worry.” Rusty said as Javelin started to head out with her two guards.

“Javelin can I ask you something before you leave?” I said, before she got too far away.

Turning back toward me she nodded, “What can I help you with Courier?”

“Did Doctor Gaze find anything in Wind Thrasher’s blood? Anything at all that could help her?”

“As a matter of fact, he did say something about that before I left. In all the goings on, I forgot to tell you. He thinks he figured something out, but he won’t know for sure, he still has to run a few more test to be certain. You can come visit us in a few days if you want and try talking to him then. Maybe he’ll be finished up by then.” She said giving me a smile.

“We’ll do that, thank you Javelin.”

She waved a hoof as she turned to leave, “Don’t worry about it Courier, I hope to see you soon. In the meantime, stay safe out there.”

“Well that was easier than I thought it would be,” Arys said yawning, “I thought it would have taken days for them to come to an agreement.”

“I think they both wanted this stupid fight to end. From what I saw, both Rusty and Javelin have a lot of respect for each other. I think that helped a lot.” I said as I got up and stretched, “I think I’m ready for a nap, is there anything else I need to do or are we finished?”

“I’m not done just yet, I have to talk to Javelin about the rest of our payment before she gets too far away. You however, don’t need to stick around, you can go get some sleep or whatever. Though it seems Rusty still wants to talk to you more.” Arys pointed behind me.

Looking, I saw that Rusty was hanging back waiting for me. Byte had already run off somewhere, “I think you’re right. Before you leave why don’t you and your griffons come to our camp and have dinner with us. I’m sure you don’t need to get back to Crimson Canyon just yet.”

She smirked and patted the top of my head, “Can’t, after I get the payment I’ll have to head back. There is still a lot to be done before the Rebirth Celebration. Speaking of which, I heard that Aura and the rest of you might be attending, is that true?”

“Sounds like it, but I think Aura is mostly going for her mother. I don’t think she’s planning on trying to rejoin.”

“Maybe not, but I hope she does. It would be nice to have her back with us again.” Arys said, a faraway look in her eyes, “Anyway, I hope you can make it, the party alone and the music is hella worth it.”

I laughed, “I’ll do my best to make sure we’re there.”

“Good, I’ll see you soon then.” Arys said flying off with the rest of her griffons to go talk with Javelin.

Rusty walked over, “That went better than I thought it would.”

“Same here, now we just have to figure out how to take care of your Steel Ranger problem. I’ve been thinking about it and I just can’t figure out why Sapphire is acting like this.” I said.

“She’s a Steel Ranger, this is what they do. I’m not surprised they want the Mark II for themselves. I’m sure once they get mine, they’ll start trying to get yours as well.”

“That’s what I don’t get, I know Sapphire and this isn’t what she’s like. She’s the one who helped me get out of the Raider camp alive when I first left my Stable. She could have taken the Mark II then if she wanted, all she had to do was kill me, instead she let me live and helped me take down the camp. There has to be a reason she’s trying to get them. Or this really isn’t Sapphire at all, it could be Envy.” I said.

“You mean one of the Sin’s? What would he have to do with any of this?” Rusty asked.

“He can turn himself into anypony he wants, I’m not sure how he does it, but that’s his power. He’s taken the form of ponies I care about before so I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Rusty looked thoughtful, “I guess that might be possible, but it’s also possible that you didn’t know her as well as you thought.”

“I guess, but it just doesn’t seem right. I really wish I had the time to go to Hidden Sands and talk to her.” I said.

“I’m not sure that would be such a good idea Shadow, I think you should try and figure out what’s going on before you go walking into their base.”

“You’re right, anyway we still need to figure out what to do about your problem.”

He smiled, “I think I have a plan. The only reason the Steel Rangers are threatening us is because they want this.” He lifted his Gold and Red Pip-Buck, “If the Mark II isn’t in Trotston then the town won’t have to worry about the Steel Rangers.”

I lifted an eye brow, “You’re going to leave Trotston?”

He laughed, “No, my town needs me and with this new deal we set up with The Annihilators I can’t just vanish. What I’m thinking about doing is giving it to Cookie. I trust her to keep it safe and she hate’s being stuck in Trotston.”

“Whoa, now that’s not a good idea. You can’t just send a young filly into the wasteland by herself.” I said shocked.

“I don’t plan on sending her away alone. I want her to travel with you, Wingnut and her seem to get along well and I’d feel better if she was with The Courier.”

“No way! I have enough problems worrying about Wind Thrasher going crazy, Aura’s messed up Aunt is trying to hunt us down, The Enclave wanting me dead, my fucked-up mother, The Sin’s, and a town full of ponies who hate me for destroying their old home. Not to mention I have one kid to worry about as well, I don’t need another following me around. Especially one that will be hunted by Steel Rangers…I have enough problems with one of their branches already.” I said.

“Cookie isn’t much younger than you I believe, and she can take care of herself. You also shouldn’t have to worry about The Hidden Sands Steel Rangers for a while. I’m going to send two of my best security ponies out as well with fake Mark II’s so they can keep them off your trail. It’s the only thing I can think of that will keep Cookie safe and the Mark II. That is until I can somehow figure out a way to get this Elder Sapphire to leave us alone.”

“She’s more likely to get hurt traveling with me than if she stayed home.” I said waving my hooves around.

He sighed, “Maybe, but I still want to do this. Plus, she needs to get out of Trotston regardless of what I do with the Mark II. She was threatened and I can’t let anything happen to her. Please Shadow, do this for me. I’ll do anything for you if you just let her travel with you.”

I finally gave in, “Fine, and don’t worry about doing anything for me.”

“Thank you Shadow, I’ll go talk with Cookie about it now. How long until you all head out?”

“As soon as we can, I want to make a stop in New Pegasus before we go to Crimson Canyon.”

“I’ll try and be quick then, we’ll meet you just outside of Crossroads Trading Post.” He said trotting off.

I waited until he was out of sight before I started heading toward the edge of the trading post as I walked I said, “Uncle Ori, do you think that Envy could be masquerading as Sapphire?”

It took a few minutes for him to respond, “Anything’s possible, though I don’t think it’s Envy.”

“Why do you say that?”

My uncle responded slowly it sounded like he was still weak, “Envy attacked you when you were flying toward the Kingdom a week ago. The former Elder died around the same time and this Sapphire took over. Envy is a powerful foe, but he can’t be in two places at once. Even if the timing worked, there isn’t any reason for him to take Sapphire’s place in the Steel Rangers. If he wanted to take over he would have taken the place of Sandstorm who would have been next in line to take over. No, Envy is too angry at you right now to go off and mess around with The Steel Rangers.”

“I guess you’re right, it just doesn’t make sense. Why would Sapphire do all of this? There has to be a good reason.”

“I’m sure there is, but you won’t know that until you start looking into it. For now, I think you should concentrate on honing your magic and finishing up with your current agenda.” He said.

“I know,” I said as I reached the road that lead toward New Pegasus, “How old is Envy anyway? He’s really immature in my opinion.”

“He’s around your age, I found him a year after Grim left home.”

“So, he is young, I thought as much. Where did you find him anyway and how did he get his power?”

Oricalcos chuckled within my shadow, “He’s had that gift since I first met him. As to where he came from I’m not sure, I don’t even think he remembers his home. When I found him, I was trying to find a runaway Pegasus who fled for the Badlands. I never found the pegasus but I did find Envy, he was being attacked, so I saved him. I took him in because I felt bad for the Colt, I gave him a home and a purpose in life. Now that I think about it, I guess I could have done better than turning him into a solider.”

“What was his name before he was a Sin?” I asked, wanting to understand that strange pegasus.

“He didn’t have one, for the first couple of months he lived with me I just called him kid. He got his name when I saw how much he envied the other foals around him and since he was already starting to learn how to be a Sin, I made him into one and dubbed him Envy.”

“You raised him?”

“I did, that’s probably why he’s so angry with you so called killing me. To him, it’s like you killed the only father figure he ever had.” Oricalcos said.

“If he knew you were alive, would he stop trying to kill me?”

“I’m sure he would, he’s always done what I’ve told him too.” Oricalcos said, “If he attacks you again I’ll be sure to stop him, so don’t worry about him so much.”

“I’ll try.” I sat down next to the road waiting for my friends who were finishing up with their shopping. After some time passed I started to get bored, so getting up again I started to look around the area thinking about what life was going to be like with Byte following us around. I was a little outside of Crossroads Trading Post when I thought I saw something behind a bush not far off.

Pulling out my plasma rifle I started walking toward it when a mare said from behind me, “Hello Miss, why are you all the way out here?”

Turning quickly with my plasma rifle leading I found myself looking at the bartender from Crossroad’s. Lowering my plasma rifle I blushed saying, “Sorry, you scared me.”

She smiled wide then winked at me again, “It is quite alright, I was just wondering why you are so far from the Trading Post. There are a lot of dangers around here you know.”

“I was just waiting for my friends that’s all. I’m sorry I forgot your name.”

“Oh, it is quite alright, I’m Black Liquorice, I have run the tavern for many years now.”

That name rang a bell, “You don’t happen to know a zebra named Yaksha do you?”

She scrunched her face as if she was thinking hard, “I don’t think so.”

“Hmmm, strange she said something once about doing things with a mare named Black Liquorice. Thought it might have been you.”

She giggled, “Well, it’s possible that I did meet her once. I have a reputation around here for being an escort if you know what I mean.”

I blushed more, “Heh, it’s not every day you run into a mare who’s willing to say something like that.”

“Why are you blushing so much?” She asked getting very close to me, batting her eyes.

Backing up slowly I said, “No reason, I just tend to blush easily.”

She kept walking toward me, keeping the space between us very small, “Wait a minute, you’re the Courier aren’t you? I had no idea the pony from the Radio would be so young, or so cute.”

I tried to back up more doing everything I could to get the distance between our muzzles to widen, “Yes I am and thank you…but can you please back up a little.”

She moved her muzzle even closer to mine, “Why? I know you find me attractive, I can see it in your beautiful red eyes.”

“I have someone already and she wouldn’t be happy if she saw you this close to me.”

“Who that griffon? She’s busy buying medical supplies, she doesn’t have to know and I promise you’ll enjoy what I have to offer.” Her muzzle was so close to me now I could almost feel her breath rolling over my muzzle.

“N…no, I don’t want to betray Aura…” as I said this my hindleg bumped against something. Looking back, I saw that I’d just backed into the dark shape I’d seen before Black Licorice came over. My hoof had just bumped into a dead body. It looked like somepony killed her and tried to hide a body in the bushes. Then I saw that it was a mare, not just any mare, it was the same mare who was way too close to me right now. The body was Black Licorice and she’d been dead for a day or two now. Then who was talking to me…I looked back at the imposter just as something slid between the gaps in my armored barding and sank between my ribs. It felt like somepony had just bucked me in the chest. It was hard to breath as if one of my lungs wasn’t working right.

I looked up into her face right as a green glow started around the mare’s body and watched as she changed into the green and black pegasus. He started to chuckle, “Hello again Pipsqueak. You really should be more careful, I mean you know by now that I can be ANYPONY!”

I looked down just in time to see him pull a long thin knife out of the side of my chest. Blood spurted from the wound as pain ran up my body, I could feel blood slowly leaking into my left lung. I tried to take in a deep breath, but it was like I was sucking air through a straw. My vision flickered as I fell to the ground trying and failing to breath properly. I wanted to scream for help, but all I could manage to do was making a strange gurgling sound as blood flew up my throat and out of my mouth.

Envy was laughing as he looked down at me, “I knew that all I had to do was wait for you to let your guard down Little Foal. I can’t believe how easy it was to take you out.”

Doing my best to control what little breath I had I managed to say, “Fuck…you Envy.”

He moved his muzzle down so it was inches away from my own, “Shrimp, you ain’t my type. I told you I was going to make you pay for what you did to Pride.”

“He...he’s not dead you…stupid…fuck.”

Envy kicked me, sending me flying back so that I was lying next to the dead bar mare. Slowly walking toward me he said, “Don’t you dare try and tell me lies small fry. I saw what happened to him, do you have any idea what you did? Pride was the closest thing I had to a father! He took me in, he taught me how to fight, he helped me be what I am now! I lost all of that because of YOU!”

“You…don’t understand Envy…he’s my…”

His hoof slammed into my face, for a long moment I was blinded by pain. If I could scream I would. Envy just laughed, “I’ve waited a long time to watch you suffer like this! That wound to your side won’t kill you…at least not quickly.” He cackled crazily giving me a grizzly grin. “I’m going to sit her and watch you slowly suffocate as blood fills your lung and then I’m going to drop your puny body in front of your friends, and watch their horrified reactions as I slice them down one by one. The Courier Mare will be no more and everypony will fear The Sins again! Everything will go back to the way IT USED TO BE!” his cackling got louder and even more crazy.

A black shape shot out from my shadow, blasting into Envy and sending the green pegasus flying back a few feet. The black blob changed a moment later into the pony shape it did before when Oricalcos had escaped the Crystal. His Purple eyes glared at Envy, “Envy stop this RIGHT NOW!”

Envy looked speechless. For a moment nothing was said until Envy finally spoke in awe, “Pride…is that really you?”

My Uncle ignored him as her turned toward me, “Don’t worry Star, I can fix that, just hold still.”

The shadowy horn glowed, a moment later I felt like the skin was knitting back together where Envy had stabbed me. Then I started to cough expelling a wad of congealed blood. After that I was able to take in a nice deep breath, “Thank you Uncle Ori. How did you do that?”

“Medical spells were one of the first kind of magic I mastered. I can’t do much more than that for you though. My shadow powers make medical spells hard so try not to let him stab you again.”

Envy looked over at us and what Oricalcos just did, “Pride…you helped her. Why?”

Oricalcos looked back at Envy his form shifting, a moment later he looked like the stallion he used too when I first met him. His Coat was gold, his mane as black as night, his eyes a deep violet. The only difference was shadows weren’t flowing off his body like water and now I could see his cutie mark, his real cutie mark, the same one he showed me when he interrupted the memory orb back when my father as The Stranger captured me.

“She’s not our enemy Envy, this is my niece, she’s Grim’s daughter. I realized this right before she fired that weapon. I was able to break a part of myself away and attach myself to her shadow. I’m not going to let you or anypony hurt her while I live.” Oricalcos said.

“But Pride, we were ordered to take her down. She’s the enemy of the Enclave.”

“No she’s not, if you hadn’t flown off and gone rogue you’d know that by now. Nightshade is the new High Council Pony now Envy and he’s forgiven her crimes.”

“Nightshade’s a traitor to the Enclave and you know it Pride!” Envy screamed.

“No, he’s not.”

“He was the one who ordered the Sins disbanded Pride. He put a price on The Boss’s head, he wants us all dead! I never went rogue, I just refused to listen to that pathetic accuse for a leader who took on your name. Now I find you here protecting the mare who’s made our life hell for two months. What the FUCK!” Envy said, his voice getting louder, “I can’t believe that Pride the Arrogant would stoop so low. You’re betraying your team for this…Pipsqueak!”

It was my uncle’s turn to yell, “This Pipsqueak is my niece, the very same one I thought was dead for ten years. I made a promise to her when she was young. That promise was to always look after her and I will not go back on my word.”

“You also made a promise to me Pride, to always look after me and help me become the strongest pony IN EQUIS!”

Oricalcos closed his eyes as he sighed, “I did, but Envy I can’t do that because you’re not even a…”

“Don’t say it!” Envy yelled, his eyes no longer looked angry, he looked scared. Why did he look scared?

“Say what? That you aren’t a Pony? The Truth hurts Envy, you should know that better than any pony.”

Envy put hooves to his ears as he started to say to himself, “I am a pony, I’m a Pegasus, the strongest pegasus to ever be part of The Enclave. I am a pony, I am a pony, I am, I am, I AM!”

“No, you’re not, you’re nothing more than a bug that tries to pretend at being something he’s not.” Oricalcos said, his horn glowing again, “I’m sorry Envy, but I can’t let this go on anymore.”

Envy stopped his chanting as his eyes fell on my uncles. He looked half mad now and showed another grizzly smile, “You aren’t Pride.”

“No I’m not, at least I’m not anymore. I gave up that name and the title as leader of the Sins. I’m Oricalcos son of Fallen Star and Quartz, Brother to Grimoire Spell and Uncle to Shadow Star the Courier Mare!” Oricalcos yelled, “Either you leave and never look back Envy or I’ll do to you what I should have years ago!”

Envy started to cackle like a madpony again, “Oh really PRIDE! You think you can take me on? Do you remember who’s the strongest one here? In case you forgot that’s ME! I am Envy the Jealous, First Member of the Seven Sins of Equinity.”

“That might be true, but you can’t kill me.” Oricalcos said a grin pulling at his lips.

“Uncle Ori, you’re still too weak, you can’t fight him.” I said.

“No Star, I’m not running away.”

“Hoh hoh, somepony has a high opinion of themselves!” Envy said a glow appearing around his body, “It’s time for you to learn your PLACE PRIDE!”

The glow around Envy expanded and he transformed into a creature I’ve only seen in a book, a Manticore. Taking in a deep breath Envy roared, the large scorpion tail snapped forward right toward Oricalcos. He pushed me back as he jumped out of the way yelling, “Star, run and get help!”

“No way, I’m helping, you’re in no condition to do this.” Pulling out mom’s Plasma Rifle I took aim and fired. Envy was too busy trying to attack my uncle to pay attention to me. The blast of green goo slammed right into his chest, throwing him back.

For a moment I thought it worked, until Envy looked over at me with a crazy eye, the green goo sliding off his chest like it was nothing, “Stupid Runt, you’re going to need something more powerful than that to STOP ME!”

He attacked as I tried to fire again, but a blade of darkness flew toward him, forcing Envy to jump back and focus his attention on Oricalcos. My uncle had at least two dozen arms of shadow coming off his body, each one with a blade at the end. He looked over at me yelling, “Envy isn’t a normal creature Star, his true body has thick armor on it and plasma will not do anything to him. You need something stronger!”

“DAMN RIGHT YOU DO!” Envy yelled his body changing again, “Hey PRIDE how about we try something else Hahahaha!” his crazed laugh getting gradually louder.

His body transformed into a large…what the hell is that. It looks like a toad, only it’s twice the size of a pony. Whatever it is, Oricalcos stopped trying to attack, he took a few steps back, “Oh Fuck…”

“Uncle Ori what…” I started to say, but Envy answered the question before I could even ask it.

“That’s right Pride, a Flash Toad, I’ve finally learned how to turn into one and better yet, I can do the same thing they can…Good Bye PRIDE!”

“Star cover your eyes!” Oricalcos yelled his body turning back into Shadow as he flew toward me.

I just started to do what he said when Envy’s body exploded into bright blinding light. It was like someone turned the sun on right in front of me. I was just able to get my eyes close as the flash of light went off, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was like the light was so bright, it pierced right through my eyelids. I screamed and tried to cover my eyes with my hooves, it was nothing to the sound my uncle made. It was like a creature like no other was suffering from the worse pain possible. The scream pierced my ears adding to the pain flowing through my head. I fell to the ground, rolling into a ball waiting for the pain to stop.

When it finally stopped I tried to open my eyes, but my eyes saw nothing but white and black spots. My ears were ringing from the sound of that horrible scream, but I was able to pick up the sound of hooves slowly walking toward me and the unmistakable chuckle from Envy, “Hehehehe, that fool should’ve known better. He was right though, even that won’t kill him, but it will keep him down long enough to take care of you.”

I could just make out the shape of Envy, at least the light didn’t blind me. Then a hoof kicked me hard in the stomach, sending me flying back a few feet. I cried out in pain, still curled into a ball. I could hear the asshole walking closer again, his insane chuckle piercing the air. I opened my eyes again and this time I could make out his features. He was a pegasus again, a crazed look on his face.

Doing my best to ignore the pain, I started to get back to my hooves, “Stay away from me.”

“Or what!?” He kicked me again, “You’re pathetic, you know that Small Fry! The only reason you’ve made a name for yourself is because of your fucking friends and a bit of luck.” Another kick, “You only won against The Raiders because of that Steel Ranger Mare and that runaway pegasus,” Kick, “The only reason you got out of that Stable was because that Griffon followed you in,” Kick, “She was the reason you got out of that town of Fiends as well I’m sure,” Kick, “If it wasn’t for that Alicorn in Frosty Summit and that pegasus in the trench coat we would have had you,” Kick, “You only survived Appleton because of a fucking super weapon. Nothing you’ve done has been because you’re special. You’re nothing but a Runt of a mare who doesn’t know when to give up and fucking die.” Envy kept kicking me relentlessly as he continued to rant, at this point I’m spitting up so much blood I can fill a bucket, “A mare like you uses her friends to keep her alive, you use them as a shield then take the credit for the deeds they’ve done. You’re nothing, you don’t deserve the friends you have!”

I spat more blood as I looked up into his face, “You’re right, I don’t deserve the friends I have. I’ve done things to them that no pony should ever forgive, but still they stay with me. Do you know why? It’s because real friends don’t give up on somepony they care about. You might be right, I’ve survived a lot of shit because of them. But you seemed to have missed something about me.”

“OH yeah! What’s that!?” he scoffed.

“My friends aren’t the only reason I’ve survived this long. I’ve survived because I don’t care if I die, as long as I can take down the pony who’s trying to hurt others. Where most ponies run away from danger I run toward it.” I said with a huge smile, blood still leaking from my mouth, “Oh and there’s the fact that all of you fucking idiots keep forgetting that I’m a UNICORN!”

For a second Envy’s eyes went wide, it vanished in a flash of crimson light as I blasted him with my Expulsion Spell. Pulling a healing potion out of my saddle bags I drank it down quickly as I jumped to my hooves. Pulling out my sword I rushed Envy. The blast seemed to stun him for a second and it knocked him back a few feet. Using some of the skills I learned from Yaksha, my dad and Aura I attacked.

Envy wasn’t called the First Sin for nothing. He ducked under my first slash, jumped back to avoid the follow up stab. He flapped his wings and took to the air, I tried to blast him again with another Expulsion Spell, but missed as he dove to his right, “Nice try Half Pint, but you’re a long way off from being good enough to take me on!”

He transformed again, turning into a griffon. He flew even faster his razor-sharp talons slashing for my face. I brought the sword up to block a grin on my face knowing that the blade would be able to easily cut through his body like paper. I was so very wrong, as he drew closer one talon transformed into what could only be a dragon’s claw. It slammed into me, my blade meaning nothing to the size of that paw. Once again, I was sent flying across the dry landscape my body protesting with new pain. My sword went flying out of my magic and out of sight.

Looking back toward the griffon with a dragon’s arm in place of its normal arm I cursed, “The fuck!? You can change one part of your body?”

He chuckled the dragon arm turning back into a griffon’s, “There is so much about my abilities that you don’t know Runt.”

As he flew toward me again I heard my Uncle’s voice in my ear, “Star, use the whistle.”

I teleported right before Envy landed his attack, when I reappeared I said, “Uncle Ori? Where are you?”

“In your shadow again, I was able to get to it as that blast of light went off, but it still took its toll on me. I’ll be fine shortly, but that’s not fast enough to help you. He’ll kill you before I can do anything, now stop talking and use the damned whistle.” He said.

“That trick won’t keep you safe forever PIPSQUEAK!” Envy yelled as he twisted around transforming again. This time into a Hell Hound, thankfully it wasn’t as big as the only other hell hound I’ve seen before. Maybe because he wasn’t with Greed when I was down in The Bramble. Still, it wasn’t much comfort.

Envy dove straight at the ground and disappeared into it, leaving behind a large hole with some dirt around it. Fuck, this isn’t good, if what Wingnut said was right about Hell Hounds, Envy could attack me from anywhere. It wasn’t a bad move, I couldn’t do much if I couldn’t see him coming. The bad thing about this trick was that when Hell Hounds attacked you from underground, you had no idea they were even there. You were caught off guard because you had no idea of the danger that was right under your hoof. I did and that little bit of knowledge would help…I hope.

Pulling out the Whistle I’d gotten from The Emperor I waited. Closing my eyes, I listened for any sign of the Hell Hound version of Envy. I didn’t have to wait long, a minute went by then I felt a very slight tremor from under me. Opening my eyes, I jumped out of the way right as an explosion of dirt and rubble went off right where I just was. The edge of a single claw caught my duster, ripping a small chunk off the edge, but it was better than the alternative.

Flipping around I saw Envy flying into the air, his long arms and claws extended up. He landed a moment later, “Lucky, but how long can you keep avoiding me…”

I didn’t give him time to say more. Bringing the whistle to my lips I blew hard on it. Instantly Envy started to scream, his claws coming up to cover his ears. Unlike before when Cutter used the whistle, Envy wasn’t in a form he could easily fly away with. He fell to his knees screaming louder as I kept blowing on the whistle, pain written on his face.

I stopped for a sec to take in a breath, as I said quickly, “What Envy, can’t handle the sound?”

He tried to attack me, “SIT COLT!” I blew on the whistle again.

Again he fell, “STOP IT!”

I took another breath and kept it up, ignoring the pained expression on his face. A glow appeared around him again, but this time he didn’t transform. It was like the sound this thing gave off made it impossible for him to use his power. As I kept blowing Oricalcos said in my ear, “He has to concentrate to transform, he can’t do that when he’s in this much pain. Kill him while he’s down, it will be the only chance you’ll get.”

I would have if I could find my sword, I’m not sure if my weapons will do much damage to him. As I watched Envy writhing in pain, I noticed something. Like before when Cutter did this to him, it looked like Envy’s features were melting. It started in his face, the face of the Hell Hound he was impersonating was sliding away, under it I could see what looked like a dark green almost black armor. His body started to sink in on itself, in seconds he was the same size as me.

He looked up at me again, his eyes were now a bright blue and they were getting bigger. He spoke in a voice that was different than what I was used to, it had a hiss to it almost like Wind Thrasher when she was under the blood lust, “Pleassse…SSSTOP!”

I wasn’t going to let up, I didn’t care how much pain he was in. He was the pony who was responsible for Silvers death, Oricalcos may have been the one who killed her, but Envy was the one who helped Greed take her, he was the one who impersonated her, he was the one who gave all the information to the rest of the Sins on who I was and who was important to me. If he was in a great deal of pain, all the better. A moment later, there was a flash of green light and something else was laying on the ground curled into a ball. I stopped blowing on the whistle as I looked in disgust at the pitiful looking creature.

He reminded me of a pony, at least in general shape and size, but it was like a mocking joke of a pony. In place of a skin and a coat, his body was enclosed in a dark green exoskeleton, large bright blue eyes that were only blue. It looked like a small spiked curved horn was on his head, blood red bug wings were poking out of his back. His hooves had random holes running up his legs and large fangs that would make Wind Thrasher jealous poke out of his muzzle.

“What the hell are you!?” I asked backing up a little bit.

Oricalcos came out of my shadow again and turned back into his normal body, “He’s a Changeling. One of the last of his race left on Equis, Envy is a descendent of the Changeling Queen from two hundred years ago.”

Envy looked up at us both, his body shivering violently he looked almost pitiful, “I’m a pony!”

“No you’re not Envy, you just want to be a pony. You can change your looks, but you can’t ever change what you are.” Oricalcos said, “Star, this is the best time to kill him. A Changeling is weak when they are in their normal form, after what you did to him, he won’t be able to change into anything for a few minutes.”

I looked down at Envy and felt bad for the shivering creature. Sure, Envy was rude, cruel and deadly, but right now all I saw was somepony who just wanted to be like everypony else. Looking over at my uncle I asked, “Why does he keep saying he’s a pony?”

“Because I am! I don’t care what I was born as, I’m nothing like the rest of my kind, I’m stronger, smarter, more powerful than they could ever be.” Envy said seemingly coming back to his senses.

Oricalcos looked away, “When I found him near the bad lands he was close to death. The rest of his kind were attacking him because they thought he was weak. In reality it was because their current queen couldn’t control him. Changelings are a collective, one Changeling who is normally bigger and stronger than the rest controls all of them. If a changeling like Envy is born who has their own will, that changeling becomes a threat to the current ruler’s power. To this day I’m not sure why I did it, but I stopped them from killing him. They tried to attack me when I interfered so I killed them instead. I took Envy with me back to the Enclave and taught him how to use his power.”

Envy started to chuckle, “You showed me that Ponies were more powerful than Changelings. While they suffered from the war and the destruction that was brought to this land, Ponies in the clouds lived normal and even happy lives. That’s why I vowed to become a pony and to be the most powerful one in The Enclave!”

His tremors had stopped, but I wasn’t worried about it, if he tried anything all I had to do was use the whistle again, “So that’s why you’re named Envy. Your envious of pegasi. You just want to be one.”

“What was your first clue RUNT, in all of equestrian history, ponies have always ended up with the better lives! Queen Chrysalis tried to make a better life for us back before the war, and the Princesses of Equestria cast her out, forced the Changelings to go back to the horrible lives we lived back then! Why would I want to be part of a race that always loses? I’d rather be one of you, even after the war and with most of your land destroyed Ponies still find a way to live better than any other race!” Envy yelled starting to get back to his hooves.

“Stay down Envy!” Oricalcos yelled.

Envy laughed again, “Pride…Pride…Pride…Pride…Pride, why would I do anything you tell me to anymore? You betrayed me, you left me all alone, you left the Team. Because of what? Some dead niece who isn’t dead. By siding with…HER…we lost what little respect we had in the Enclave. Do you even know where your sister is right now? Do you know what she’s been doing since you so called DIED?”

“I don’t care what she’s been doing and I don’t care about the team. I only started the Sins because I thought my family was gone. Now that I know that’s not true I have no reason to be a part of that Team!” Oricalcos yelled his horn glowing, “I’m going to put a stop to you Envy.”

Envy laughed again, “Really now? From what I can tell you don’t have much power left, I’m betting that most of your shadow magic was destroyed in that blast. Your just an echo of your former self, I bet that you wouldn’t even rate higher than seven in the Sins now. To put it lightly, none of us are scared of you anymore!”

“Envy you better quiet down before I use this on you again!” I said holding the whistle up in my magic.

Envy started to laugh again, in a flash of green he transformed back into his pegasus form, “You’re such a foal Half Pint, do you really think I came here alone! Like I said before I never went rogue, I just had to make the traitors in our group think I did.”

Oricalcos looked at me yelling, “Star use it now!”

I was already moving the whistle to my lips when a bullet passed though it breaking the whistle followed by the echo of a rifle. At the same time there was a flash of blue light from behind Envy and my mom was standing there, her cloak and hood covering her features like before. Right after she appeared the beautiful Pegasus that tried to seduce Stardust back at Frosty Summit landed on the other side of Envy. This wasn’t good, we were too far from Crossroads Trading post for any of my friends to notice what was going on and most of the Sins were here.

The little bit of mom’s muzzle that I could see poking out from under the hood smiled as she said, “Good work Envy, you managed to capture two when I sent you after one.”

Envy’s smile grew giving an insane look to his features, “I am the number one Sin for a reason Cloak.”

“Grim, what are you doing here?” Oricalcos ask anger filling every word.

She looked over at him, “I just knew that you had to be alive still brother. Tell me why are you with this mare?”

“Grim she’s Star, she’s your daughter!”

“It’s true mom, please you have to believe us.” I said, desperately wanting her to listen for once.

She scowled, “Preposterous, my Little Star died years ago, this mare is just trying to trick you brother. She knows more than she should about our family and she’s trying to use that to keep you from killing her. Now do your job Pride and restrain her.”

Oricalcos moved to stand between myself and the rest, “I won’t do anything to hurt her Grim, she’s my niece, I know that for a fact. I’ve seen her memories, if you’d take five minutes to stop and think you’d see it too. Even Nightshade could tell you if you’d just talk to him. You’re making a big mistake!”

“Am I?” Mom asked as she looked back at Oricalcos, “I don’t know if splitting yourself away from most of your power has messed with your mind or not, but you seem to be missing a few things about who this mare is brother.”

“I know more than you think!”

Mom grinned, “I doubt that very much. You see this mare isn’t my Star, she’s the daughter of that Steel Ranger mare Vervain. When my daughter died after we went to Stargazer labs I was left with just Vervain and the small amount of power that was what was left of Aquila. When we left the labs, we went back to our camp where this mare,” She pointed a hoof at me, “Was sleeping waiting for Vervain and myself to get back. I was so heartbroken by the loss of my daughter that I wasn’t keeping an eye on the power of Aquila. I didn’t know that the creature was still alive, she managed to break free and she hid inside the young filly. I knew that a filly like her couldn’t hold that power for long without dying, I told this to Vervain and once the filly died Aquila would vanish or try to find another host. I needed to get Aquila out of the filly, but Vervain wouldn’t let me. She attacked me and tried to run, I cast a memory spell at her, but it hadn’t worked as I hoped it would. Vervain only forgot a few things about the filly and seemed to think she was my Star. I didn’t see any reason to correct her, but Vervain stopped trusting me. That same night when I took off the Mark II so I could check a few things on it, Vervain stole it and ran off with the filly. Once they were in Stable 28, where Vervain had been working undercover for the Steel Rangers, I knew I couldn’t get to them. Vervain must have still thought the filly was Star because she filled this mare’s head with stories that aren’t true, and now your falling for the same lies Brother!”

“That’s not true!” I yelled, “I remember you being in Stable 28 with me mom. Your own memories are messed up because of some pony who used something on you to make you forget me. Auntie Vervain never had any foals because she can’t.”

For a moment I saw her grey eyes glaring at me from under her hood, then vanish back under it, “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes, my memories were disrupted because of that fucking Hunter Hex, but I still remember some things and I know that you aren’t my Star. I realized who you were when we last met, after you told me to look into Aquila, the creature who was hiding inside of you. Once I knew that you had Aquila, I knew who you were. First you stole the key to unlocking Falling Shadows by letting Aquila live inside of you, then you take my Mark II which is the only way to unlock the terminals for the Project.”

“You left it for me you fucking bitch” I screamed at her.

“Oh child, you have no idea what really happened do you, I think that you’ve let that monster inside of you take hold of too much. She’s making you think you remember me, but you don’t, you only know what Aquila has let you know. Maybe you’ve seen some of my memory orbs too, I have no idea. That would explain how you know more than you should. I did manage to lose a few of mine a few years back.” Mom said, “Now both of you will come with me, I’m sick of this game.”

“We aren’t going anywhere with you Grim, I’m here to protect Star.” Oricalcos said.

“He’s right, I don’t care how many ponies you have fighting with you. I’d rather die than let you win.” I said pulling on Aquila’s power that was now my own, as I did my coat once again changed as power filled my body and my horn, “I am the Courier, and I won’t let a pony like you do anymore harm, MOTHER.”

I thought that if I made my body look like it did back in the day, that mom would see that I was her Morning Star. I was wrong, she frowned saying in a harsh voice, “You can wear the face of my Star Aquila, but I won’t let you fool me as well.” She lifted her own Pip-Buck saying into it, “Wrath, you know what to do.”

“Wrath’s dead,” Oricalcos said, “Stardust killed him back at the Kingdom.”

Mom smiled again, “Oh I know, but he was worthless, not like my new Wrath.”

Another shot went off in the distance right as I jumped back. Something about holding on to Aquila’s power seemed to give me a sense of when I was in mortal danger. Before that shot went off it felt like something inside me was telling me to jump out of the way. As soon as my hooves touched the ground again I teleported. I reappeared a good distance away then turned my head toward where the shot had just come from and fired a massive spell toward the Sniper. Before my magic hit however I saw a pegasus with a light blue coat fly away just in time. As he did he aimed again and fired, again I was able to avoid the shot. I looked down to where the bullet hit the ground and was surprised to see that instead of a hole in the ground where the bullet should have landed, there was a small blue dart. Mom wasn’t trying to have her new Wrath kill me, she was trying to drug me so I couldn’t fight anymore.

As I moved Oricalcos tried to attack mom. Envy blocked him by transforming into the dragon again. My uncles’ blades of darkness glanced off Envy’s scales like they were made of steel. Envy opened his maw and blasted fire right at my uncle. His body vanished as the flames passed over him. When the flames died down Oricalcos was already reappearing next to mom, “Nice try sis, but you have to do something better than use Envy to stop me.”

“So…predictable brother,” Mom said as her horn started to glow from under her hood. Magical circles appeared around Oricalcos on every side, they flashed and golden chains flew out of them wrapping him in them so he couldn’t move an inch, “Have you forgotten brother? I know just as much about your power as you do, I also know how to stop you when I need to as well.”

“The hell did you do!?” Oricalcos yelled trying to pull free, his body even turned to shadow again for a moment before the chains glowed brighter and he was forced back into his normal pony form.

“New spell I invented, I call them Chains of Celestia. It’s a very powerful binding spell for stopping creatures of darkness like you. Now you stay here while I go deal with The Courier.” She said turning toward me then yelling, “Wrath stop playing with her and finish this. If we take too much longer we’ll have the NLR and her friends to deal with!”

I drew on more of Aquila’s power letting it fill me until I felt like I was going to burst. My head started to throb and a small ringing filled my ears as her power flooded me, “I don’t think so Grim.”

Another shot rang out, but I was already moving, I ignored the presence of Wrath who was trying to fire one of those darts into me, I ignored Envy who lunged for me, I only cared about stopping my mom. As I teleported out of the way of Envy I remembered one of the spells in mom’s spell book, even better with Aquila’s magic coursing through me I knew how to do the spell. With a cocky smile on my face that would make Stardust proud I fired the spell right at mom. She smiled as well, casting a shield spell to protect her from what she must have thought was an attack. Funny thing about shield spells, if you cast one to stop a blast of magic from hurting you then it will…most of the time, but if you cast one that protects you from a magical blast and the unicorn your facing is trying to use a spell like a memory spell, it doesn’t work as well. This is why you should always be prepared for magic of all kinds and cast wards around yourself to keep you safe. Her shield spell didn’t even slow down my attack, because I wasn’t trying to hurt her, all I wanted her to do was remember, at least one thing.

My magic wrapped around her head, mom’s cocky grin faded as a look of shock replaced it. I slammed into her right as the connection with her mind was made, “Please…remember me.” The world melted away…

oooOOOooo

“You know Grim I’m starting to get a little worried about Shadow.” Vervain said as mom and her walked through the lower levels of Stable 28. It had to be level Nine, because that’s the only level I’ve ever seen that had plants growing all over. They were in the small apple orchard toward the back of level Nine where it was unlikely they’d be overheard.

“What do you mean? She’s been doing very well over the past year, she hasn’t had any problems with Aquila or her magic in four months now.” Mom said as she used her magic to pull one of the oddly colored apples off a tree. She bit into it, “I still can’t get over the strange way these apples taste, they are way too sweet and not even close to being as juicy as the ones I grew up around.”

Vervain sighed, leaning against the tree, “She’s asked me yesterday, why do mares and stallions have to be together. I told her it’s to make sure that pony kind live on. Then she asked me what would happen if a mare wanted to be with another mare and why they can’t have a foal together.”

Mom spat the apple out of her mouth as she started to laugh, “I’d think it would be rather hard to procreate when you’re missing the proper equipment.”

“Grim this isn’t funny,” Vervain said.

“She’s a filly Vervain, foals always start to ask silly questions about where foals come from and all that when they are around Shadow’s age.” Mom said as she fought to keep down her giggles. “There’s nothing to worry about, it’s normal.”

“Grim, what if it isn’t? I mean I could understand her asking me the first question, but why would she ask about two mares being together? This could be the first sign that she might like mares.” Vervain said, doing her best to keep her voice down.

I felt mom roll her eyes, “So what if she does, she’s still my Little Star and I love her. Though I still don’t think you have to worry about it, she’s just curious that’s all. She’s young.”

“Grim, I asked her why she wanted to know and do you know what she told me?”

“I wasn’t there so no I don’t.” mom said sarcastically.

“She told me that she thinks it would be nice to live with a mare when she’s older and not just as a roommate. She thinks it would be better than being around a stallion because she think’s stallions are mean. She said she loves her friend Strawberry Milkshake.”

Mom started to laugh again, “Oh Vervain, why are you so worried. Of course, she doesn’t like stallions yet, she’s a foal. Not all ponies grew up around Steel Rangers being taught that you have to be with a stallion one day.”

“They don’t teach that to Steel Rangers and you know that Grim. The Steel Rangers are just fine with same sex relationships. Even if that was true, Stable 28 does teach fillies and colts that it’s bad to be with a pony of the same gender as you because they can’t afford to have the population fall. I don’t care who she loves, but The Overmare will. If you want to keep her from kicking you two out then you need to do something about this. There has to be some spell you can use that will make sure she stops talking like this.” Vervain said, she looked scared.

I could feel mom’s face fall a little, “What you’re asking me to do is manipulate the way my daughter feels toward other ponies. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life Vervain, messing with Shadow’s memories being one of the worst, but I won’t do that to her.”

“So, you’d risk the two of you being kicked out of here for this?”

“Yes, I would,” mom said her voice going quiet, “When I was a filly Vervain, my parents were always trying to force me to be the kind of unicorn they thought I should be. They always treated me like crap because I wasn’t as powerful as my brother and I had a hard time learning spells. When I would get a spell wrong my father would beat me for it and force me to try again. They tried to force me to be something I’m not. I won’t do the same thing to my daughter. It’s bad enough that I’ve taken away everything of who she is already just to protect her from another one of my mistakes. If she happens to fall for a mare or a stallion I won’t care because it will be what she wants and not what I think she should be. So, yes, I would risk being kicked out of here as long as she’s happy.”

“Grim, I’m sorry that happened to you when you were young, but this isn’t the same thing. You told me yourself that Shadow needs to stay here where it’s safe, if you both get kicked out of here what good will that do her?”

Mom looked up, “If the Overmare tries to kick us out because of how my daughter feels then I’ll do to her what I did to her mother. Shadow will leave Stable 28 when I say it’s time.”

“You can’t kill everypony who gets in your way Grim.”

“Yes, I can and I will if I have too.” Mom said, her voice going cold.

Vervain sighed again, “Fine, but at least let me sit down with her and explain things about what this Stable is like when it comes to same sex relationships. At the very least it will help her understand why she needs to keep it secret.”

“Fine, but don’t make her feel like she’s bad for feeling this way. Though I still think you’re over thinking a few normal questions from a young filly.”

“Maybe, but with how much The Overmare is watching you two, I’d like to keep her reasons for kicking you out as minimal as possible,” Vervain said, “On a different subject, have you been able to learn more about that other Project?”

Mom closed her eyes and leaned against the other tree, “No, even the small notes I was able to finally decrypt wasn’t much help. The few memory orbs that are protected with a password are useless to me as well. Night Stalker was very good about making those hard to get into. He had Minuette put passwords into them that had to do with his life before he came back to Equestria as a child. One is the name of the Griffon who gave him his scar, another was his real mother’s name, and another was the only pony he ever truly loved. I mean hell I didn’t think he loved anypony. I tried his wife, his daughter, his adopted sister, Luna, none of those worked.”

“Have you tried Greta?” Vervain asked.

Mom laughed, “First of all it said some PONY, not some Griffon, and those two had a bad falling out a couple of years after the Enclave started.”

“She was the only one he ever seemed to really care about though. At least that’s what you told me.”

Mom sighed again, “I guess it can’t hurt, though I’m sure it’s another dead end and it still doesn’t help me with the rest. Information on Night Stalker is hard enough to find, information about him before he was Night Stalker, is like trying to get The Enclave and The Steel Rangers to make peace.”

“Now that’s impossible.” Vervain said with a laugh.

“Nothing is impossible, just extremely hard and very unlikely to ever happen,” Mom said still chuckling as she looked down at her Pip-Buck, “Damn I have to get back to R&D, can you keep an eye on Shadow tonight?”

“You know I will.”

Mom got back to her hooves, “Thanks,” She turned to leave, “Oh and Vervain…why did Shadow go to you with her questions and not me?”

The expression on Vervain’s face was sad, “I’m around her more than you, she just felt commutable asking me I think.”

“But I’m her mom, she should be asking ME these kinds of questions not you.”

“I know Grim, but you work most of the day and night. She doesn’t know how to talk to you about this kind of thing. If you want her to do that, then you need to spend more time with her.”

“I know…”

oooOOOooo

The memory itself seemed to take a few minutes to go by, but unlike a memory orb, in reality it only took a second. Envy was still turning around after missing me during his attack and mom’s face was still stuck in a look of shock. I was meaning to make her remember more, but something seemed to stop the spell. Pain seemed to be running up my left leg, looking down I saw what must have forced me to stop casting the spell. A black sharp rod was poking into my leg, following its length to its source I saw it was being held by Lust.

“Naughty little filly trying to attack our boss like that. Did you forget about little old me?” She said in a mocking voice.

“Oh fuck off you worthless excuse for a peg…” I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, because mom blasted me with one of her own spells. I was sent flying as the spell slammed into me.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ME!” she yelled one hoof to her temple.

“I made you remember something.” I said getting back to my hooves, “What’s the matter mom, are you starting to realize that you might be wrong about what you think you know?”

“You bitch, that was nothing more than you trying to plant false memories!” Mom said, but before she could say more a loud alarm started to go off from the NLR camp next to Crossroads Trading Post.

Envy looked toward it and grinned as he turned back into his pony form, “What do you say boss, do you want me to take care of them?”

Mom rubbed her head more then pulled her hood down her eyes closed as she cursed under her breath, “No…I need to get out of here Envy you grab my brother, I’ll have Wrath grab me.”

Lust looked over at her, “What about the Courier?”

Mom grinned at me through the obvious pain she was feeling, “Oh she’ll come to us in time, I mean she seems to think that my brother is her Uncle. Isn’t that right Courier, I’m sure you’d do anything to save somepony you care about.”

“I’m not letting any of you go anywhere!” I said readying another spell.

“Star don’t!” Oricalcos yelled, “Let them take me, you need to get to safety, I’ll be fine.”

“But uncle Ori…”

“No, you have your own mission to take care of.” Oricalcos said as Envy flew over to him.

“Yeah, that’s right Courier, do as your told.” Lust said.

“Fuck that!” I yelled firing a blast of magic at Envy. Mom jumped in the way blocking the magic with one of her shield spells.

“Now, now courier we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and trust me you don’t want to do this the hard way. Be thankful that I’m in a hurry and I really need my brother at the moment more than I need you. If you want to get him back you can find him in Los Alicorn with me.” Mom said, it seemed as if the pain from that memory was starting to fade already.

Envy transformed into the griffon again then took hold of the glowing chains around my uncle, “See you soon Shrimp. Oh, and just so you know, the next time we meet you’re a dead mare.”

I readied another spell not caring what my uncle said, I’m not going to let him be taken, I’m not losing another friend to the Sins. Oricalcos yelled down at me before I could do more than ready the spell, “Star, trust me. Don’t do anything else, I’ll be fine.”

I let the spell fade away as I watched Envy fly off with Oricalcos. As he was taken away I could hear hooves thundering from behind me. The NLR were almost here. Another pegasus fell from the sky pointing his rifle at me, “Are you sure we can just leave her here Boss?” he asked as mom walked over to him.

“Don’t worry Wrath she’ll be a good little mare and go to where I told her too. If she doesn’t then she’ll never see my brother again, and we will come back here and kill every pony she loves until she obeys.”

The pegasus was taller than the old Wrath and much younger from the sound of his voice. He had a light blue coat but that was all I could see of him because he was dressed in full body Enclave Power Armor. He looked over at me saying, “I warned you before Courier, this is what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, you should have stayed away from my boss’s plans and given her what she wanted a long time ago. If you had, this wouldn’t be happening.”

Mom smiled, “Lust, take care of those NLR pests before you leave and Wrath make sure the Courier can’t interfere.”

“With Pleasure.” Wrath said pulling his rifle out again and shooting me with one of his darts. I’m not sure why, but this time I didn’t even expect it, “What I don’t understand is why we don’t just take her with us?”

“Because, there’s something she may be able to help me with, if I take her now then she’ll be useless.” Mom said laughing as Wrath holstered his rifle then took hold of mom and took off, “See you soon…”

I lost hold of my magic and my legs went weak. Whatever was on that dart seemed to be similar to what the Stranger used on me. My body went mostly numb and soon I was laying on my side unable to move. Lust giggled then tossed her mane back as she walked closer to me, “Oh, poor little Courier. You’re lucky my boss needs you alive or I’d love to take this chance to kill you.”

“You’re pathetic, I can’t even figure out why your ranked so high in the Sin’s. The only thing I’ve ever seen you do is seduce Stardust and use a weapon that elongates to attack ponies.” I said.

She moved even closer not even seeming to care that the NLR solders where almost here, “Oh you really think I’m weak just because you haven’t seen what I can do huh.”

“That about covers it. So how are you going to take down all of those solders, going to bat your eyes and say please don’t hurt me I’m a pathetic whore?”

She didn’t get mad at my taunts. She just moved her face within an inch of mine, “Your kind of cute when you’re helpless. I think I see what that griffon likes so much about you now,” She slowly licked over my check, then my nose then finished at the tip of my horn, kissing the tip of it softly. I couldn’t help the shiver of revolution and pleasure that ran down my spine. She may be a Sin, but she was very, very beautiful, “Mmmmm, I think I like you. I can’t wait till Cloak is done with you, then you’ll be all mine. Now you asked what I’m going to do to the NLR, just sit back and watch.”

She moved my head so that I could see the NLR ponies as they closed the last few feet between the two of us. Lust slowly walked toward them as they came to a halt a stallion who was leading them saying, “Miss, are you okay? We saw what looked like a dragon here not long ago and heard gun shots.”

“Oh sir, thank the goddess you’re here, my friend and I were attacked by Envy from the Seven Sins of Equinity. She’s hurt bad, can you please help us?”

He looked over at me, worry written on his face, “Don’t worry ma’am, you’re safe with us. I’m a Veteran Ranger, no pony will hurt you anymore. Let’s get a better look at your friend then we can get her back to the medical tent.”

“Don’t listen to her she’s a SIN, she’s LUST!” I yelled, but it was too late.

Lust opened her mouth and instead of saying something to defend herself a sound came out of her muzzle followed by a red glow from around her neck. As soon as it started every one of the NLR pony’s eye’s glazed over. That sound was like an other-worldly creature’s song. It had a depth to it that made it both scary and mesmerizing at the same time. The sound alone made my head start to swim like I was under the influence of some kind of drug. If she had been facing toward me, I’m sure the effect would have been a lot stronger.

Then as I was trying to clear my head of the strange feeling, the Veteran Ranger turned toward one of his comrades yelling, “Sergeant back away from her, she’s MINE!”

“Fuck you, I saw her first!” the stallion yelled back pulling his rifle off his back.

The Veteran Ranger already had his black revolver out, he blew a hole right into the Stallions head. He turned as another stallion yelled something about Lust being his soul mate, the Veteran Ranger dropped him before he got close. Then all hell broke loose as every pony that was part of the group started to kill each other. Every one saying the other was trying to steal the beautiful mare away from them. The Veteran Ranger was horrible to watch as he shot another stallion in the chest, twisted around grabbed another stallion in a choke hold and breaking his neck. After that he jumped back and shot another stallion in the groin blowing his stallion hood to pieces before finishing him off by stomping on the screaming stallions head, crushing it into jelly. It was over almost as fast as it started, soon only the Veteran Ranger was left standing, surrounded by at least forty dead NLR ponies.

He bowed to Lust who was still making that strange singing noise, “My Love, I have proven that I am the strongest one here, how may I serve you.”

In-between the strange sounds Lust said, “If you love me then would you please blow your brains out?”

“No!” I yelled, but I was too late.

The stallion who was a unicorn lifted his revolver in his magic, “Anything for you!” and he blew half his head off. His body falling the ground twitching as blood stained the ground red.

Lust started to giggle uncontrollably, the sound she was making coming to a halt, “Oh I do so love simple minded Stallions they are so easy to fool. I thought at least the Veteran Ranger would have been able to break free of my song, but I guess he was more brawn than brains, sad.”

“What the hell did you do!?”

She giggled again as she looked back at me, “Why would I tell you that? I’m not an idiot like some of the others you faced in the Sins before. Let’s just say there’s a good reason they call me Lust.”

“You’re a fucking monster!”

She came closer again, “That may be true, but I’m a very beautiful one, oh how I wish I could take you with me right now and show you the other reasons I’m called Lust. I never get to have fun when I’m on jobs like this, oh well.” She moved her head down and kissed me. Her tongue pushing past my lips and into my muzzle. I was so shocked I had no way of stopping her, she kissed me for what felt like forever. When she pulled away she licked her lips and said in what had to be the most seductive voice I’ve ever heard, “I don’t normally enjoy mares as much as Stallions, but I’d make an exception for you, I do so love a helpless little thing like you. Maybe next time, I think I see your griffon friend coming, I’ll see you later…Shadow…Star!”

And before I could say anything, the pegasus took to the air and was gone. I was left looking at the bloody remains of what had been most of the NLR that ran Crossroads Trading Post. Lust had also been right, not a full minute passed when Aura landed next to me, “Shadow what the fuck happened here!?”

All I could do was say, “The Sins…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Hunter Rank 1:Throughout The Wasteland in your travels you’ve encountered some strange creatures and phenomenon. Now you can use that experience to your advantage. You can see through a shapeshifted enemy’s disguise easier than most, and some Wasteland creatures that are a lower level than you will not attack.

Chapter 46: City of Sin

“Soon Shadow…Soon! Hahahahahahaha!”

Aura reached down and pulled the dart out, “What do you mean The Sins? I thought they were disbanded and the ones that were left ran off to Los Alicorn.”

“Envy was the bar pony. He never went rogue like we thought. He set up a trap, he was with Lust, a new Wrath and my mom. Aura…they took Oricalcos! My mom, she has some kind of new spell that was able to trap him. I tried to save him, but he told me to let him go. I didn’t know what to do Aura!” if I could move my body I would have curled into a ball.

Aura was looking at the dart she’d pulled out of me, “Hmmm, this looks like Rad Scorpion venom. So, they wanted to paralyze you instead of kill you? That’s weird because normally they’d try to kill you.”

“Aura didn’t you hear me? They took my Uncle.”

She reached into her saddle bags digging for something, “I heard you and I’m sorry that happened, but Oricalcos can take care of himself. If he told you to let them take him, then I’m sure he has a plan. Honestly, I’m not that upset that he’s gone. Just his presence alone gave me chills.”

“Aura, he’s been trying to protect me. How could you say that?”

She pulled out a syringe, “Easy, because family is too much work, you of anyone should know that. All I care about at the moment is helping you. Also having him around worried me, he was a Sin after all,” she injected me with whatever was in the syringe, probably some anti-venom “There, you should be able to start moving in a minute. Just don’t start swinging. I have a right to an opinion.”

She was right, I could already feel tingles running up my body, “I need to go after him.”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa hell the fuck no, we aren’t doing that again. Trust that he’ll be able to deal with your mom and her pet idiots. He told you to let him go right? So then let him deal with this, you have your own things to worry about right now. Stop obsessing over your mom and her bullshit. Didn’t you say you were not gonna deal with your family issues anymore!” Aura yelled.

“But…”

“Didn’t you?!”

I looked away not speaking a word. I knew she was right. I did say that after all, but my emotions are really hard to control right now, I don’t know maybe some of whatever Lust did to me had a part in it.

“Fuck’s sake Shadow, for once you need to let it go. You can’t do anything about it. The world is full of shit you can’t help. Rapes, kidnappings, enslavement, murder, and death are just five of the hundreds or possibly thousands of horrible things that happen in The Wasteland every day and there’s no one there to stop it. Just because you think you’re some kind of superhero to a lot of folks in The Wasteland doesn’t mean you can save everybody. Instead of being depressed because you lost your Uncle, how about you fill me in on what happened here? Why didn’t they take you with them if they were able to drug you? How the hell did all of those NLR ponies die?” she asked looking over at the piles of mutilated bodies lying limp as if dying mid-fight.

“I…really don’t understand why they left me, they said something about needing me to do something first. Mom also said that she knew I’d go to Los Alicorn to find her and Oricalcos. As for what happened to the NLR, it was Lust. I have no idea what she did, but somehow, she forced them all to kill each other, until only one was left. Then she just told him to prove his love to her by killing himself…and…he did it,” I said the memory still fresh in my mind. The sight of those ponies slaughtering each other for no reason was terrifying.

Aura looked sick at the very thought of it, “Damn, I had no idea anypony could do something like that.

“Yeah it was like she hypnotized them into doing her bidding. I guess it’s like you said, I can’t save everyone,” I said.

“I got it from a comic book somewhere, even comic books have good advice. Anyhow, we should go tell the Captain back at their camp, she should know about this. C’mon, you can tell me everything while we walk back.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

When she got a better look at my face she winced and took a step back, “Shadow what happened to you?”

“Huh, what do you mean!? Is my face gone!!?? I swear to Celestia if I’m in another one of my fucked-up dreams I’m gonna scream. I promise I feel fine!!!” I said feeling my face with a hoof, but everything felt normal.

She dug in her saddle bags again and pulled out a small mirror, “Look.”

Taking it with my magic I looked at my face, my eyes going wide. As before when I stopped using Aquila’s power my coat and main went back to their normal hue. This time though something must’ve gone wrong. There was a streak of black running through my silver mane, over my right eye there was a patch of my coat that remained white. It was like a bit of her was showing itself. Showing the world that she was part of me and taking over. Was this what she meant when she said I’d regret going into my own mind and taking her power for myself?

I gave the mirror back feeling a little freaked, “It must have something to do with using Aquila’s power. She’s taking over and I look like a lopsided spotted freak.”

“Then I want you to stop using it, I don’t care how powerful it makes you. If you’re going lose yourself to her because of that power, then I don’t want you risking it. Oh, and one more thing, worry more about her than how you look. I won’t put up with another OCD explosion like that time in New Pegasus.”

“I’ll do my best, but if I need it, I’m not going to let any of you get hurt because I’m too scared to use the power I have.”

“You’ve done fine without it for two months, I think you’ll be fine. Just please don’t let her get more of a hold on you. Evil and insane don’t mix with that kind of power, if she gets out it’s fuckin’ game over,” Aura said.

“It may not even be about her at all Aura. I used to look different when I was younger, this could just be me going back to the way I used to look.”

“I’d rather not risk it,” Aura said walking back over to me and putting a talon on my shoulder, “Come on let’s go.”

“Fine,” I followed her back toward Crossroads Trading Post. As we started walking back I saw something shining a few feet away. With a small smile I picked up my sword that had gone flying away when I was fighting Envy. It may have been a fucked-up day, but at least I didn’t lose this. Silver linings I guess.

***

It took most of the walk back to explain to Aura what happened after I left Crossroads Trading Post and the fight that broke out. She was shocked when I told her what Envy was. I personally didn’t know much about Changelings because our school in Stable 28 didn’t talk about them at all. When I was still with mom she told me a little about them, mostly saying that most of them died during the war. The ones who didn’t were hiding somewhere in southern Equestria. I always thought they were a story that mom told to scare me away from wandering The Wasteland. In the long run it didn’t do much good, I wander The Wasteland all the time. It’s also probably why I never thought about Envy’s powers being that of a Changeling.

Aura was even more worried about the strange abilities of Lust. The only thing she could think of that would make ponies do what she said was mind control, but a pegasus shouldn’t be able to do that. It was almost impossible for even a gifted unicorn to be able to control another’s mind. There was more to her power, there had to be. Either way, we’d have to be careful if we ever fought Lust. I should’ve known that anyway, you don’t become a Sin because they liked you, Oricalcos made sure all of his underlings had some kind of gift that made them deadly. Gluttony could eat just about anything he wanted to, and he was stronger than a fat pony should be. Wrath was a gifted unicorn when it came to his telekinesis and his teleportation, he was also a very good sniper. Sloth is a pony that was experimented on by The Enclave making him faster and stronger than anypony alive, though he used up his energy quickly. Now we had Lust who could somehow get ponies to do what she wanted. Greed is an expert hoof to hoof fighter and has an armor that was almost impossible to penetrate. Pride was a living shadow that knew darker magic than anypony in history. Last, Envy is a Changeling that could take on the form and some abilities of whatever he wanted, and is an excellent fighter. Every one of the original team of The Seven Sins of Equinity were special. I wonder what’s so special about that new Wrath. He can’t just be a good sniper, that’s too unoriginal for my mother. Something else is at play with him, something strange.

I wanted to go talk to my friends first about what happened with The Sins, but Aura suggested we talk to The Captain who was in command of the camp next to Crossroads Trading Post. So that’s what we did, she was already heading into Crossroads when we arrived, luckily, she was nice and didn’t blame me for the deaths of her soldiers. She did however ask that I visit Jet Blue Skyport to talk to the pony who led the NLR in the New Pegasus area.

“The New Luna Republic has heard a lot about you Courier and I’m sure we could work together to help bring Equestria back to its glory,” she said reassuringly, “I do hope you’ll take this offer and accept the hoof of friendship we are willing to offer.”

“As long as you don’t expect me to join the NLR then I’ll see what I can do. I still don’t want to join any faction around here. Even with Equestrian Express destroyed, I’m still a courier and have to make sure that I’m not hated outright by anypony,” I replied.

“Does that go for the Steel Rangers too? I’ve heard that you’ve worked with them in the past.”

“I have, but I’m not part of their group and after what I’ve been hearing about their recent activities I’m never going to join.”

“I hope not, we’ve also been worried about their recent activities. They used to run The Crossroads before we did. We’ve worried as of late that they might try to take it back. That’s why we’ve had so many soldiers posted here and why I sent so many out when we saw what looked like a dragon. I’ll have to send for reinforcements now, if The Romans see that so many of our ponies died or The Steel Rangers. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep Crossroad’s Trading Post out of their hooves,” she said.

“I hope you’re able to do that.”

“Me too, thanks again for letting me know what happened. I hope that you’ll take the time to visit Jet Blue Skyport. I’m not expecting you to join us, but listening to what my commander has to say can’t hurt. You can go rejoin your friends,” she said before heading back toward her camp.

Before she could get too far I said, “Wait! What’s with you guys and The Romans anyway?”

She turned back around, “It’s war, war never changes, nothing but fighting between two opposing forces over land and natural resources. Except we go about obtaining those two things in a very different way.”

“A different way? I’ve met some Romans and they didn’t seem that bad,” I asked.

“That’s probably because they wanted something out of you. If I was a murderous slave driver I’d try to polish myself as much as I could to get outside help from a mare-do-well like yourself. Listen, sure you’re a rough n’ tough hero, but you’re still a kid, and no offense but honestly most kids are naïve. The Romans don’t make agreements and negotiate to obtain things like we do, they take with brute force in the bloodiest ways,” she replied.

Kid? This bitch… “Look I’m not stupid, I know when I’m being fucked with most of the time.”

She cracked a smile, “I didn’t say stupid, I said naïve. You’ll learn if you ever end up in one of their claimed territories or Goddesses forbid their giant camp across the river. There was an entire town taken over by those maniacs that I helped the NLR reclaim, that’s if you can call that mess a reclamation. What I saw there was something straight out of the scariest of horror novels. Y’know how raiders hang body parts everywhere and let them rot? That’s ten times less demented than what The Romans do. There was an NLR ranger who was taken with his wife and kid into this camp as hostages when the town was taken in the middle of the night. They starved him and his family for two weeks until they were so hungry they almost went mad. After that two weeks they stopped giving his wife and kid water, soon after the kid died and they took away the body. The next day they finally gave them some food as a reward for surviving, for irony it was a pie. They were so hungry that they’d already gotten half way through it before they realized the filling wasn’t fruit, it was meat. Sure, some ponies eat meat in The Wasteland, it’s no big deal, but most of the time that meat isn’t the flesh of their own child. When they both started freaking out one of those bastards grabbed The Ranger’s wife and held her to the floor as another used a nail gun to nail all four of her legs to the ground. The last memory he’ll ever have of his wife before they caved in her chest cavity with their bare hooves is her being raped bloody by those monsters. The Romans take everything they want for themselves and have fun while they do it, not only to have fun but to inspire fear.”

I felt like vomiting the more I visualized her story in my head, “I don’t even know how to even start explaining how horrible that is.”

“I apologize, I should’ve toned it down, but now you know the truth. If I were you I’d forget about anything they asked you to do and watch your back. Anyway, I should get going now, I gotta get those reinforcements out here,” she retorted before turning around again.

“At least she wasn’t being all veg about it like most ponies when they want my help, but damn,” I said as she walked away.

“The NLR tend to get straight to the point when it comes to things they need help with, unlike The Steel Rangers. It makes them a lot easier to work with, although you have to deal with them always talking about bringing back Equestria. Though they think that running things the way it was ran during the war is the right way. It tends to get annoying after hearing about it fifty or so times,” Aura said.

“Let’s go find the others, I need to talk to them about what’s happening next.”

“I thought we were going to New Pegasus and then Crimson Canyon? Why would we need to talk about that?” Aura asked.

“That’s not what I need to talk to them about, don’t worry you’ll understand in a minute,” I said as I started heading to where I could see my friends talking with Rusty and Cookie Byte.

Wind Thrasher noticed us first, no big surprise there, “Shadow! Where the hell have you been!? We heard something about a dragon and a fight.”

“Wasn’t a dragon, Envy attacked me, it’s a long story and I can tell you about it when we leave. Right now, we have other business to take care of,” I said.

“Whoa, hold up a sec Shadow,” Stardust said, “You can’t just say that Envy attacked you and just leave it at ‘We’ll talk about it later’ that’s not cool. And what the hell happened to your face!”

“I know and I promise to tell you everything soon, but first we need to take care of business with Rusty here. Also don’t worry about my face, that’s all part of the ‘We’ll talk about it later’ stuff.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t go off wandering on your own again, you promised—” Wingnut started to say.

Aura cut the colt off, “Let it be kid, Shadow will tell us soon okay. Let’s hear what she has to say first before you all start interrogating her.”

“Okay, but you better tell us everything,” Stardust said.

“Yeah, I will,” I said before looking over at Rusty who was patiently waiting for us to finish, “Have you talked to Byte about the plan yet?”

“Yeah, she knows what’s going on, though she isn’t happy about it,” Rusty said.

“Damn right I’m not happy about it!” Byte said, “You can’t just send me away like this!”

“I don’t want to Cookie, but I have to. It’s the only way to keep you and the Mark II safe,” Rusty said.

“Wait a sec, what’s going on?” Wingnut asked.

“Byte is going to be coming with us and she’s taking Rusty’s Mark II with her. It’s the only way we can think of to hide it from Sapphire,” I said.

“No way, I don’t want her following us around!” Wingnut protested.

“Too bad, she’s coming with us, I already promised Rusty,” I said, not in any mood to deal him right now.

Byte looked at me with a promise of death in her eyes, “What if I don’t want to go with you?”

My head was starting to hurt from all the activities from today, rubbing one temple with a hoof I said, “Byte, Rusty needs your help keeping his Mark II safe. You’re coming with us because I’m the last pony Sapphire would think you’d be with or the other Mark II. She isn’t going to come after mine until she has Rusty’s if she even does try. You’ll be safest from the Steel Rangers while you’re with us. Even if you don’t like me or my friends it doesn’t matter, you’re not doing this for yourself or for us, you’re doing it to help your Uncle who’s doing everything he can to keep Trotston and you safe.”

“She’s right Cookie,” Rusty said, “I only trust my Mark II with you, you know how to use it, you know how special it is and I can trust you to keep it safe. I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I didn’t have to.”

She looked a little ashamed at herself for a moment, “I’m…sorry Rusty, I didn’t know it was so bad.”

“I have been trying to keep you away from the troubles I’m dealing with at Trotston. You’re so young and you shouldn’t have to be worrying about these kinds of things yet, but now I have no choice. Trotston can’t hold off The Steel Rangers forever and I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen to you or the town just because I was too stubborn not to let this stupid Pip-Buck out of my sight. So, can you please do this for me?”

“But I can help Trotston too, there has to be something I can do to keep them out of town,” she said, sounding desperate.

He walked over to her and put both hooves on her shoulders at eye level with Byte, “Help Trotston by leaving it for a while. You’ve always wanted to go explore The Wasteland, this is your chance.”

She sniffed, “Not like this I didn’t. I just feel like I’m leaving home when Trotston needs me the most.”

I did my best to smile to help her feel better as I said, “You are helping your home Byte, sometimes the best thing you can do is lead the enemy away. This mission could be even more dangerous than staying home.”

Wingnut crossed his hooves looking away and muttering to himself, “It’s a stupid idea if you ask me.”

Rolling her eyes Wind Thrasher slapped the back of his head with one of her wings, “You’re such a child.”

“Ow, what was that for!” he yelled rubbing the back of his head.

Byte did her best to hold back a giggle, “Okay, if this will help keep Trotston safe then I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Good,” Rusty said lifting his Pip-Buck up and doing something with it, whatever it was he was doing it took a few minutes. Once he was finished pulling out what had to be a Pip-Buck master key, he touched it to his Mark II, quietly saying, “Never Forget,” there was a small flash of light from the bottom of his Mark II, then the latch that held it closed appeared. He opened it then gave it to Byte, “Once you put it on, it will activate as a new user but still have the old files on it. It will set you up with a password that means something to you, once that is done no pony will ever be able to remove it unless your killed or take it off on your own. You won’t even be able to do that without this key.”

Byte took his Mark II then put it onto her left foreleg, once she closed it the Mark II did the same thing as mine had when I first put it on in Stable 28. Once it was finished the latch vanished, “Damn, this is trippy.”

“Yeah, it’s a little strange at first getting use to the E.F.S., it’s like having a terminal screen stuck in your vision at all times,” I said with a chuckle.

“It’s awesome!” she said looking around then back at her Pip-Buck, “I always wondered what it was like to have this on.”

Rusty looked a little disorientated for a moment, “Haven’t had that off since I was a young buck.”

“Well if that’s all taken care of we really should get going, we have a lot more walking to do and not much time,” I said.

“Can this day get any worse? First, I find out we have to travel with Byte, now more Walking!?” Wingnut complained.

Byte grinned, “Awww what’s wrong Wingnut, don’t you like fun and adventure?”

“Adventure is great, and I’m always up for having fun, but Traveling…not so much,” he pouted.

“Don’t worry kid, I think we can risk it and fly to New Pegasus. It’ll be a lot faster and the quicker we get there the more time we’ll have to rest up before we have to head to Crimson Canyon. Trust me, we’ll need as much rest as we can get before we arrive for that party.” Aura said.

“Hey, I didn’t volunteer to carry anypony anywhere,” Stardust said.

“But…Stardust, it’s not like we have to go that far, I’m sure you can help our friends for a little while. You’re strong and will do anything to help a friend won’t you?” Wind Thrasher asked, her eyes getting big and pitiful looking.

He looked at her then rolled his own eyes, “Fine, I guess I can help, but don’t expect me to be a free ride all the time.”

“Good, well I’ll carry the evil genius,” Aura said, “Stardust you take Shadow, and Wingnut can ride with Wind Thrasher.”

Stardust frowned, “Why do I always get stuck carrying Shadow!?”

“If you make another crack about my weight, I’m going to poke one of your eyes out with my horn!” I retorted.

“Fine, let’s just get going, I’m sick of being here and we could use a night or two in New Pegasus…speaking of which why are we going to New Pegasus?” he asked.

“Need to get a letter to somepony there for Doorstop and I want to see if I can talk to Mr. Top’s again.”

“Awesome! Maybe he’ll let us go into the Lucky Horseshoe this time.” Wingnut said.

“Doubt it,” Aura said with a laugh.

Rusty moved closer to Byte and hugged her, “You stay safe okay, and don’t give Shadow too much trouble.”

She smiled shyly, “I’ll try.”

He looked over at me, “Keep her safe…please.”

“I’ll do what I can, I can’t promise any more than that,” I said.

“I know, may the Goddesses look after you all,” Rusty said.

“You too,” I responded before walking over to Stardust.

With a final goodbye, we were off. Stardust taking hold of me much like he had when we first flew toward Hidden Sands, Aura letting Byte ride on her back, and Wind Thrasher holding onto Wingnut. We watched as Rusty and Crossroads Trading Post shrank below us then vanish as we sped off toward the bright lights of New Pegasus in the distance.

***

“Shadow are we gonna get a room at The Applewood again!?” Wingnut asked excitedly as he jumped up and down. We were all standing just outside of Match and Tariff’s waiting for Stardust to get a passport into The Strip for Cookie Byte and Wind Thrasher. I was able to explain what happened during the flight here and what happened to my face. Wind Thrasher and Stardust both agreed with Aura about me using Akela’s powers. I wasn’t even going to try arguing the point, it wasn’t going to change their minds.

“I’m not sure yet kiddo, but it’s a good possibility. We have enough caps now to stay anywhere on the strip if we want. Thanks to that raider bitch who attacked us outside of Crossroads Trading Post,” I said.

“I hope Dusty doesn’t take too long in there, I don’t like being in Freedom this late in the day,” Aura said eyeing a couple of dirty looking stallions who were walking by on the other side of the cracked-up street.

Wind Thrasher had her ears plastered back, “This place is so noisy, I can’t tell what noises are coming from where.”

“This is nothing compared to The Strip,” I said as I kept my eyes on some younger bucks who looked like they were eyeing me from down the road.

“I just need to block it out better, I’ve gotten so used to listening for danger while we’ve been traveling. It’s not as easy to ignore all the noise when I’ve been trying to listen for everything,” Wind Thrasher said wincing a little.

“As long as it doesn’t cause you to lose your head again, then we should be fine,” I said.

“This place is a dump,” Byte said as she walked out of the shop with Stardust, “That Tariff buck is a dick, did you hear what he said to me?”

Stardust was chuckling to himself as he followed her out, “Well you did tell him that he was using the wrong parts for that Sprite-bot he has behind the counter.”

“He said he hasn’t been able to get it to work yet, so all I did was point out that he wasn’t using the correct gems to power it and the wings were from an older model. It’s not my fault he can’t take criticism,” Byte said with a huff.

“You also told him he was a stuck-up cock wad,” Stardust said.

“That’s because he is,” Aura said winking at Byte.

“I’m glad the two of you were able to give Tariff another reason to hate us and never want to do business with us again. Did you at least get the Passports?” I asked.

“Yeah, though I had to pay a bigger price for them this time. Cost six hundred for the two of them. He wouldn’t back down this time, said something about him not owing me one anymore. Some friend he is,” Stardust said with a laugh, “And don’t worry I used some of the caps I got while I was with The Sins. Had a few hundred in my saddle bags still.”

“You got caps while being a Sin? How did you get those and why are we just hearing about it now?” I asked.

“Because I forgot and yes when I was Pride I had to have Wasteland currency just in case,” he said giving Wind Thrasher her Passport, “There you go Wind Thrasher, with this you shouldn’t have any trouble getting into The Strip.”

She took it then said shyly, “But won’t ponies stare at me because of what I am?”

“I doubt it, most of the ponies in there are too drunk to care what you look like and even if they did notice you, I’m sure they’ve seen stranger,” Aura said, “Now can we please get going, oh and Wingnut don’t forget to tell the guards I’m your bodyguard.”

“Yeah, I know, I remember what to do when Shadow had to get you in,” he said with a hint of arrogance and disrespect.

“Actually, there was another reason the price was higher Aura,” Stardust said pulling out a third passport, “I talked it over with Tariff and even though he didn’t want to do this, I was able to talk him into it.”

She took it with a look of surprise on her face, “You were able to talk Tariff into making me a Passport?”

“All I said was that I’d make sure that you’d stay out of his shop forever. He seemed to think that was the best deal ever.”

“Thank you,” Aura said, “That…was really nice of you.”

He waved a hoof, “Ah, it was no big deal. Figured you deserved to be able to go wherever you want. Wouldn’t want to keep a bird in a cage, all they do is sing and, in your case, complain that they can’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, like you complained about how bad your hangover was after a night at the bar? Whatever It’ll be nice to have freedom anyway. Oh, and by the way, thanks for making it feel like old times Stardust. It brings back a sense of normalcy. Okay, so do we have to go anywhere else before we head into The Strip?” Aura asked looking over at me.

“Nope, I’d like to avoid getting drawn into somepony’s drama while I can,” I said as we all started heading toward the gate into The Strip.

“That’s impossible, trouble is drawn to you like Fiends to a Chem factory.” Aura teased.

“You’re real funny Aura.”

“Damn right” she said giving me a wink.

We were just passing by The Queen’s School of Interpretation when a very familiar voice boomed out from the doorway, “Do my eyes deceive me, or are the Goddesses above playing tricks on them!? Is that beautiful strong stallion really the buck of my dreams!”

“Oh, dear Goddesses no, we were almost there! WHY!?” Stardust said as he did his best to hide from Sugar Buck who was already rushing toward us.

Stepping in front of the fabulous and muscular stallion I said, “Hey Sugar Buck it’s nice to see you again.”

He stopped in front of me doing his best look past me, “Thank the Goddesses above, we were all worried sick about you.”

“I know, but we’re all okay and yes we were able to get Stardust back,” I said laughing a little as I watched Stardust trying to hide.

“Stardust, why are you trying to hide!? I just want to make sure you’re okay. Now come closer and let Ol’ Sugar Buck get a better look at ya. Don’t worry I ain’t gonna look at too much, that would be ungentlecolt like as we haven’t gone on a single date yet. Only sluts go for the affection and sexin’ right away.”

“Nope, I’m fine! No need to worry about me. At all! And what’s this about dates? I’ve told you before that my barn door doesn’t swing that way,” he said.

From that point Sugar Buck gushed into emotional bliss, “He said DATES! That means there’s gonna be more than ONE!”

“Who’s this creep? He looks like an old fashioned country music star with all the sparkle and I mean ALL the sparkle and no musical talent. Is he some kind of themed rapist?” Byte asked as she looked at Sugar Buck.

That seemed to pull Sugar Buck’s attention away from Stardust for a moment, “What are you starting a traveling orphanage Shadow? Who’s the kid and why is she sayin’ such cruel and heartless things? I wouldn’t touch somepony with my ten-hoof pole if they didn’t want me to,” then he looked back at Stardust, “That’s right, ten.”

Stardust gaged, “Gross.”

“Names Byte, I’m from Trotston. What’s with the stupid mane style?” she said.

“STUPID MANE STYLE!? You walk around with twin pony tails making your head look like a pony’s ass and you have the audacity to say my mane style is stupid!?” he said in what had to be the most offended voice I’ve ever heard come from his mouth.

“I thought you liked pony asses?” Wingnut asked looking confused.

“My head doesn’t look like an ass!” Byte said glaring over at Wingnut.

“I didn’t say it did!” he said putting up his hooves as if he was protecting his face, “I just meant that Sugar Buck likes stallions.”

“That’s beside the point Wingnut, I ain’t going to let this little girl tell me what looks good and what doesn’t! And only certain asses suit me, her head looks like a saggy old one,” Sugar Buck said.

“Just drop it both of you please, we don’t have time to do this,” I said pulling Byte away because she looked ready to pull her gravity gun out, “Sugar Buck we’re heading into The Strip, I have something to take care of. It was nice to see you again, tell your sister I said hi okay.”

“But Shadow, I hadn’t had time to catch up. We haven’t seen each other in ages and It’s been even longer since I’ve seen that sexy piece of stallion pie standin’ there ready to be eaten,” Sugar Buck complained.

“Then come with us if you want, we can catch up that way. That is if you can leave Stardust alone,” I said turning to head toward the gate.

“Sorry I can’t, The Queen needs me to help with some matter with the NLR hoarding food. If you have time when you leave though, come stop by, I can touch up that mane of yours,” he said.

“We’ll try,” I said as he walked back into Freedom.

“He creeps me out!” Stardust said as he showed his passport to the Securiponies at the gate, “Why can’t he get it through his thick skull that I don’t like stallions? That’s it I’m buying a rape whistle.”

“I think he knows Stardust, he just likes playing with you because of how you react. Maybe if you didn’t freak out every time he saw you, he’d stop. It’s not as fun that way. Plus, a whistle isn’t going to do you any good, all ponies are gonna think is that somepony is blowing a whistle but not for that reason,” Wingnut said as he showed his passport.

“I think it’s funny. He gets all flustered and freaked out, it makes for an entertaining show,” Aura said as she showed hers.

“It’s not funny, I think Sugar Buck should leave him alone! He likes mares not creepy stallions who don’t know how to take no for an answer!” Wind Thrasher said angrily as she showed her passport and walked past us all, “I mean come on, Stardust is too good for an asshole like him.”

That caught me by surprise, “What do you mean Wind Thrasher?”

“You heard me, now hurry up I thought we were in a hurry,” she said trotting away with a bit of a blush.

We all watched her walk away Stardust saying, “Well she’s right, come on we don’t have as long to spend here as we did before, let’s go find a place to stay.”

He followed Wind Thrasher as she walked off. Byte started to snicker, “Damn, either she likes him or she’s got major mood swings.”

I laughed a little, “Both, they’re right though, let’s go find a place to stay then I can go take care of getting Doorstop’s letter sent off.”

“Good idea,” Aura said as her, Wingnut, and Byte followed me in.

“Is there any good place to eat here?” Byte asked as we started walking past The Lucky Horseshoe.

“They have good food at The Applewood, though I’ve heard there’s always good food at The Grand Royale,” Wingnut said.

“Fuck The Grand Royale, those ponies are a bunch of snooty assholes with caviar for brains,” I said.

“You just hate them because they treated you like you were stupid and because they kicked you out,” Wingnut said, trying to hide his laughter.

“Well she did threaten to shove a cane up his ass,” Aura said laughing along with him at my expense, “That was Fucking Hilarious. Still I wouldn’t want to eat there, I’ve heard rumors that they’re cannibals.”

Byte made a weird face, “That’s gross, who would want to go to a place like that?”

“They can’t be cannibals, Mr. Tops wouldn’t let them run that casino if they were,” I retorted.

“I don’t know Shadow, I know that the Tribe that they started as, were cannibals. Who’s to say they really changed their ways?” Aura asked.

“The pony who runs this town,” I said pointing up at The Lucky Horseshoe.

“Hmmm, I guess you’re right, maybe you just have to be a part of the high-ranking members of The White Hoof Society for that kind of thing,” Aura said to herself.

“Hey where did Wind Thrasher and Stardust go?” I asked noticing they weren’t walking ahead of us anymore.

Aura pointed toward The Applewood, “Looks like they decided to go to The Applewood without us.”

“Ah, let’s leave them be, I’m sure Stardust will get a room for us like before. This will give me time to take care of the Letter,” I said as I started heading toward the gate that led to the other part of The Strip where the NLR Embassy and other buildings were to keep them away from the casinos.

I didn’t get far when two Securiponies blocked my path, “Courier Shadow Star?”

“Um…yes, what do you want? I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? I’m not really clear on all the laws here,” I said taking a step back.

The Securipony who spoke before said, “Mr. Tops has requested that you meet him in his office, please come with me.”

“I don’t have time to talk to him right now.”

Their guns pointed at all of us, “He does not care what you need or have time for. You will come with us now or be in violation of the law.”

“Hey projector-face she said she doesn’t wanna go,” Byte said, “Now back off before I take you apart and see what makes you tick.”

“Don’t bother Byte, no matter what you say it won’t change what they’re programed to do,” I said with a heavy sigh, “Can my friends at least come with me this time?”

“Only The Courier is allowed inside The Lucky Horseshoe,” the other one said.

“I’m not leaving them behind while I go up there, either they come with me or I’m leaving. Tell Mr. Tops if he really wants me to do the job he asked me to do, and if he wants to talk, then I’m not leaving them behind.”

For a long moment both robots stood there making odd beeping and wiring sounds then one said, “Mr. Tops says they may enter, but only you can go up to his office. Your friends must wait for you in the Royalty Suite.”

Wingnut’s eyes grew big, “We get to go in!”

“That is correct, be warned if any of you wander away from the suite, you will be executed upon sight,” the other one said.

“I’d rather go gamble then wait in a room,” Aura said.

“Oh come on Aura, nopony ever gets to go into The Lucky Horseshoe,” Wingnut said.

“Big deal, it’s just an old casino. Probably smells like dust, old booze, and dead cigarettes,” she said yawning.

“Well we’re going,” Wingnut said with a self-satisfied smile.

“Damn,” Aura said.

Chuckling I started to follow the Securiponies, “See if you were still MY bodyguard Aura, I’d let you go gamble.”

“Wouldn’t matter, I’d have to stay with you because it’s my job to keep my contract holder safe. And if you still had my contract I couldn’t have as much fun with you,” she said walking past me and winking, Byte and Wingnut following her trying to hide their laughter.

Frowning I muttered to myself, “Always so mean to me.”

We walked past the blast shutter that normally blocked the door to the casino. Again, I was led into The Lucky Horseshoe by one of the Securiponies into the dead casino, the walls, tables, terminals and floors covered in two centuries of dust. Only this time, I had company. Wingnut and Byte, were looking around in awe at the large open room, Aura seemed a little impressed even if she kept shaking her talons to get clumps of dust off them.

The elevator door shook as it opened and a dim light buzzed from the ceiling. We all walked in with the Securipony as it pushed a button to bring us up to one of the floors. When the door opened again, I expected to be in a dusty hall that led to old dusty rooms, but it wasn’t. The elevator stopped right in a room, a huge suite with a large open sitting area, and a huge floor-to-ceiling window overlooking New Pegasus. From the elevator it looked like four other rooms branched off this main one. Even more the room itself was clean, I was about to ask why this area was clean when the rest of the areas weren’t when a robot floated in from one of the other rooms. It looked like Watts only it was white and had different appendages.

It floated toward the elevator and spoke in a mares voice, “Hello and welcome to the Royalty suite. Mr. Tops says that you three will stay here while The Courier goes up to see him. I am Lilybot and I am here to help you in any way I can.”

“Damn, okay I take it back, I like it up here,” Aura said walking out into the room, “Take as much time as you want up there Shadow, I’m gonna relax. You think this place has one of those massage chairs?”

Wingnut however looked at what had to be a workbench in one corner, “Dibs on the workbench!”

“Hey, fillies first, where are your manners!? Don’t you know that mares are the ones with the toolboxes?” Byte yelled running after the colt.

Did she just make a sex pun? Eh, no she’s just a kid, “I guess I’ll see you all in a little while,” I said as Aura winked at me.

“We’ll be fine here, see you soon Shadow,” she said blowing me a kiss before the door closed.

The ride up to the top was quick. The Royalty suite must be close to the top floor. When the door opened, like last time, I felt like I was being thrown back into the past. This floor didn’t look any different than it had when Night Stalker and The Children occupied this place. I almost felt like the large pegasus was going to walk in any second and demand to know who I was and why I was in his base of operations. As I walked toward the steps that led down to the lower level I noticed a room that before had been covered by a curtain, but now I could see into it. There was a bed and a few shelves, a terminal on a desk, and a few photos around it. I just caught a glimpse of a young pegasus stallion standing next to a young griffon both smiling wide next to an old warn down hut next to a grey cliff. That was the only one I got a good look at before I was ushered down the stairs by the Securipony.

Once I was on the main level I walked toward the huge monitor with the face of Flapjack on it, “Welcome back Courier.”

“Uh huh, so what did you need?” I asked annoyed.

The face changed, looking curious, “Right to the point this time? I’m assuming I’m interrupting something by your bored and annoyed tone. Honestly that look on your face doesn’t suit you.”

“Right on the mark with that one Mr. Tops, or Flapjack err whoever you are.”

“I’ve told you before that I’m only using the face of Flapjack.”

“I really don’t believe you Mr. Tops, I mean who else could have gained access to this room apart from The Children of the Night or the brothers?”

“This place was accessible to a few ponies from The M.A.S. and The M.O.A.”

I yawned, “A couple of floors below yes, not the living areas of The Children and this floor. Really, I don’t care who you are, you run this town and the ponies who live here. That’s all that really matters, if you want to keep saying you’re not the pony I’m sure you are then fine with me. So, why did you pull me away from what I was doing?”

A sigh came out of the terminal then he responded, “I wanted to ask if you’ve put anymore thought into what I asked you to do.”

“When would I have had the time to do that? I had to chase my half mad friend halfway across Equestria if you haven’t noticed. Not to mention that I’ve had to deal with The Sins, my crazed mother, almost losing someone I love, blowing up a tower, fighting The Enclave AGAIN, and dealing with The Steel Rangers destroying my home,” I replied.

“I know you’ve had a lot going on, all I wanted to know is if you’ve been able to think about what I asked? I’m running out of time and even though I know you have a lot on your plate I really need you to do this for me,” he said sounding almost like he was begging, but being polite about it.

“Honestly, I haven’t really thought much about it, even if I had, what am I getting for helping you? You didn’t live up to your end on helping me find Stardust,” I argued.

“I didn’t have the time to, you left the area a few days after we met. If you really need something for it, then I can offer you a nice number of caps for the job. We could call it a job for the Equestrian Express. You get me what I want and I’ll pay you.”

“Caps I can get in various ways,” I said looking around the room I was in, “I have a better idea, I want access to The Lucky Horseshoe for myself and my friends.”

The face of Mr. Tops changed to a look of confusion, “Why would I let you do that, also why would you want to be here? This tower works for me to keep me alive, but apart from that it’s just a useless dead casino. There aren’t even any bits left in the slot machines.”

I smiled, “It was also the home of Night Stalker and The Children for a long time. There are secrets here I’d like to look into, but apart from that, I need a place that I know is safe from The Sins or anypony else that comes after us. A place we can rest when we need to without fear of being attacked.”

Mr. Tops was quiet for a long time, “There are places in The Lucky Horseshoe I couldn’t let you or your friends go, if I did it could be deadly for me. I’m not even sure I want your friends in my tower.”

“That’s my price take it or leave it.”

“You won’t back down from this? I could just throw you out of my tower and The Strip you know,” he retorted.

“You could, but who else would you trust enough to come up here and do this job for you?” I shot back.

He went quiet again, while he thought about what I said I took the time to look around more. Letting my eyes wander over the bright room, the large windows, the steps that led up to the private room, even another set of terminals next to a blank wall. I wondered to myself what that was for, did it lead to a secret room The Children used to use, or was that where Mr. Tops lived in his so-called clean room. Maybe I should show Wingnut the blueprints I found and see if he could figure it out.

“Fine, but only if you don’t go to a few places here. If you break the rules I set up, I’ll kick all of you out and you’ll still have to do this job for me,” Mr. Tops finally said.

“I can do that, the same goes for the rest of my friends, but I want access to this floor, The Children of the Night’s floors, and the M.O.A.’s too.”

“Fine, though you won’t be able to get into The Children’s floors, the doors are blocked by a spell. Only they could get in and out, those floors haven’t had anypony on them since the war. Also, I’ll let you all stay in the suite I’ve already provided for your friends. If you want to get into The Lucky Horseshoe my Securiponies will let you up. So, do we have a new deal? If so I want you to head to Los Alicorn soon.”

“Deal, I planned on heading there as soon as I was finished with a few things here. So, was that all or did you need something else Mr. Tops?”

A smile came to the face on the screen, “Now that you mention it yes there is. I wanted to know something, about that Pip-Buck of yours.”

I sighed knowing what was going to be asked, or so I thought, “What about it?”

“I’ve seen it once before on one of the security tapes here in The Lucky Horseshoe, or at least I think I have. Did that once belong to Sweetie Belle, the famous singer?” he asked.

Looking down at my Pip-Buck for a long moment I thought to myself why would he want to know that? Was he working with mom or one of The Sins? Or maybe he knows more about what happened with The Mark II back in the day. I don’t know much about him, well nopony really did. I’d have to play it safe and find out what he knows first, “I’m not sure who it used to belong to, I found it in my old stable. Even if it did belong to Sweetie Belle at one point why would you care?”

The face on the screen changed again to curiosity, “So, you really don’t know what that is or why your mother’s hunting it do you? I thought a smart mare like yourself would’ve done everything she could to figure it out.”

“I have, trust me. Even if I do know more, why would I tell you?” I asked.

The face changed again to look amused, “Sooner or later Shadow, you’re going to have to start trusting others.”

“Well since you’re on a terminal screen I don’t think you count.”

He laughed, “Screen or not, I’m still a pony as you know.”

“Do I? It’s not like I’ve seen you before, only this terminal screen and the face on it. For all I know you could just be some kind of AI,” I said, as I started to pace in front of him.

“You have a point, but I can’t bring you to where I am, if I did I’d risk dying. But I understand your reluctance. The reason I asked was because I do know what that Pip-Buck is. There are a few files in this tower about them, the Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II,” he said.

“How could you know about them? I’m not even sure The Children of the Night or even the M.O.A. knew about them before the war ended. I’m sure Night Stalker looked into them after the war, but then he was up in the clouds,” I said.

“That’s where you’re wrong courier, you see around the same time I came to take this tower for myself, Night Stalker came back here. I’m not sure how much about him you know, but he was branded a dashite and banished from The Enclave by his own sons. This tower was one of the first places he came to so he could hide all the information he had on The Mark II. That’s how I found out so much about them, I was able to read those files,” Mr. Tops said.

“Wait, so after he left The Enclave the first place he runs to is this old Tower? Why would he do that?” I asked.

“It was the only place he could hide things from his children I think. They didn’t know the passcodes to get in, also I’m not sure his children ever knew The Lucky Horseshoe was part of The Children’s base. Either way, they never came here to find his notes.”

“I don’t believe you. You just want me to tell you what I know. For your information, I’m not as easy to manipulate as I used to be. If anything, I’m the one who would be doing the manipulating,” I retorted.

He laughed again, “Don’t believe me? Believe this,” the screen changed and a moment later a video came up on the screen, it was an overlook of the same room we were in now, only there wasn’t any Securiponies in it. It was also dusty, like nopony had been up here for many years. As I watched Mr. Tops’ voice echoed around me, “This is security footage from one hundred and sixty years ago.”

I watched and for a moment I was wondering what he was trying to show me. I mean what the hell does an old security video have to do with…then Night Stalker walked into the video through the door that led out to the top of the Lucky Horseshoe. At least I’m sure it’s Night Stalker, he was a lot older than he was in any of the memory orbs I’ve seen of him. His mane had gone mostly white, but a few flecks of grey and black were mixed into it. He’d grown a goatee and mustache, his mane was longer, and he had a few more scars around his face, though the one over his eye was still the most noticeable. He was still a big pony but in his old age some of his muscle had gone away and he had a faraway look in his eyes now. The look of a warrior who’d seen too much violence and death in his lifetime.

He looked around the room and let out a long deep sigh, “This place hasn’t held up well over the years,” he moved closer to the terminal that Mr. Tops used now to talk with, “Hope this thing still works.”

He started to type something onto the keyboard, as he did the screen turned on then flickered out, “Piece of shit, come on,” he kicked the terminal and this time the screen stayed on. Words popped onto the screen saying ‘Welcome to the C.O.T.N. network terminal site 1. He typed in a few more things then a voice echoed out of the terminal.

‘Welcome General Night Stalker, it’s been quite some time since you last logged in. How may I help you today?”

Night Stalker backed away from the terminal then spoke to it, “I need to know what state the tower is in?”

‘All systems are running normally on this level and the next four floors. The hotel is in need of repair. The casino’s power is running at five percent…’

He interrupted her, “I don’t care about the civilian floors I only care about the status of The Project and the top floors.”

“No Problem General, The Project is still locked down, the basement levels are still locked down. Nopony has been inside the living area of The Children either,” the terminal answered.

“Is my power armor still here?”

“Yes General, it is still in your room.”

Night Stalker seemed to relax a little, “I’m glad to hear that, I need to upload some files.”

“My systems are still mostly locked down General, I will need authorization first.”

He sighed, “Unlock all systems in the tower, authorization General Night Stalker, passcode Aurora’s Twin Peaks.”

“Passcode accepted,” the terminal said, the lights in the room came on and shutters lifted from the windows revealing a dark cloudy sky outside. “All systems active, how can I help you General?”

He walked back to the terminal and plugged something into it. When the files started to upload to the terminal he said, “Keep those in my own files and give nopony access to them unless it’s me or my children. Now I need to find out if you know anything about the location of any of The Children of the Night. Are any still left alive?”

“I can find the location on a few of them General.”

“Where is Babs Seed? I’ve checked the school in town but it’s been abandoned,” he asked.

“Sargent Babs Seed is no longer alive. I show her tracker going offline twenty-seven years ago. last location was at The Queen’s School of Interpretation.”

“Fuck…who could’ve killed her?” Night Stalker asked himself, “She was a strong fighter even with that limb missing.”

“I show Captain Greta’s marker being in that location at the time that Babs Seed’s tracker went offline.”

“Fuck! I’ll need to talk to her about that…fine, what about Minuette, last time I saw her was right before the bombs fell.”

“Lieutenant Minuette’s Tracker stopped working three days after the bombs fell.”

“So even Minuette’s gone…”

“No General, her tracker just stopped working, it showed no sign of her life ending. Something interfered with the tracker and it went offline and has never come back on.”

His eyes went wide, “Where was her location before it went offline?”

“Her location was around the area of Splendid Valley near Maripony. That is where her tracker went offline.”

“I’ve been hearing rumors about that place, if they’re true she may as well be dead. What about the rest?”

“Greta is in the area…”

“I know about that, what about the rest?” he said cutting the terminal off.

“Lieutenant Thunderlane is in Stratus, Sargent Cloudy Nights is currently in Stratus as well, Major Lightning Dust is currently in The Crystal Empire.”

“What about Zaphan?” he asked.

“I have no records of a member named Zaphan.”

“Damn I forgot, I meant Noire.”

“Noire is currently at The Spitfire Flight Academy.”

“Good,” Night Stalker pulled out a radio, “Greta, Noire is still alive, he’s at The Spitfire Flight Academy. I’m going to finish up here then we can head out.”

I heard Greta’s voice echo back through the radio, “I know his tribe uses it as a base, but I haven’t heard much about him in the past few years Moony. Are you sure that thing still works?”

“It knew where the others were and who was still alive so yeah I’m sure. Speaking of which, you need to explain to me what happened with Babs,” Night Stalker said, his voice going dark.

“I know, I’ll explain on our way. Hurry up, I don’t like being up here so close to the clouds. Stratus is still on high alert from what you did yesterday.”

“I’ll try to hurry, I’m still uploading the files for the information I got on those Pip-Buck’s. Once they’re in the database here I’m going to destroy the files I have. I can’t risk anypony else getting them,” he said.

“Yeah, from what you told me you found out about those Mark II’s I’m sure they could cause a lot of problems in the wrong hooves,” she said over the radio.

“I agree, let me know if something comes up,” he said before putting his radio away and going toward the steps that led up to the bedroom and elevator. The view changed so now I could see inside the room. It was a nice place with a big bed in the middle, a couple of nightstands, a dresser, and a set of power armor in one corner. It was the set that I first saw him use during the attack on Las Pegasus.

At first, I thought he was going to go over to the power armor but instead he walked over to the dresser where a few pictures were standing. From the view I had I couldn’t make out what it was, but Night Stalker picked one up saying so quietly I could barely hear him, “If I do this, destroy everything I built, will you finally see me? Will you finally see me for who I am and not the pony I’ve made myself into? When I take my last breath will you see how much I care for you? I hope so…because what I have to do…I’m doing it for you. Not for Equestria, not for some dead Princesses, not for anypony. Only you…so you can have a future.”

He set the picture back down then turned toward the power armor, “Let’s see if this old thing still has some power in it,” he pushed a gem on the back and it opened, “So far so good,” he entered the power armor, letting it close around his body. The eyes on the helmet lit up, the glowing blades on his wings grew brighter, and the gems along the breast plate came to life. Night Stalker moved his wings a little, testing to see how they worked, then laughed.

He tapped a gem on his helmet saying, “Greta, are you able to read me?”

I couldn’t hear if she said anything back, but something must’ve worked because Night Stalker said, “Good, I’m on my way out…yes the armor still works, I shouldn’t be surprised, Minuette and Amethyst Star always did do a great job.”

The video cut out as Night Stalker started to head back toward the main room. Mr. Top’s face coming back to the screen, “As you can see he came and uploaded the files that had all he knew about the Mark II. At the same time, he also unlocked the systems here which is how I gained access to the tower’s network.”

“Fine, so what do I not know about the Mark II?” I asked even though I knew what he would say.

“It can be used to unlock this so-called project The Children were building here. This tower is the first location The Children of the Night used, your mother wants in here with that Pip-Buck to unlock that project,” he said.

“Uh-huh, and you want me to what? Unlock it for you instead?”

“Oh no, I’d like you to stay far away from the terminal for that project. I just wanted to make sure you knew what that thing can do and why you should keep it away from anypony. If they got in here with that and unlocked this project, then I’m sure it would be very bad for The Wasteland and possibly the entire world. I may not seem like it, but I do care about the ponies that live on The Strip and in Freedom,” he said.

“Yeah, any projects of The Children of the Night are something I want to stay far away from, trust me. All I want here is to have a safe place to rest when I’m in town, maybe learn more about The Children themselves, but that’s it,” I said trying to butter him up a little so he won’t guess that I actually want to snoop a little.

“Good, well I’ll let you get back to your friends. Take a day or two to rest and enjoy The Strip. I saw that two of your friends headed toward The Applewood, I’ll send a couple of my Securiponies there to fetch them and let them know where you are all staying. As I promised you can use the Royalty Suite as your own base, and you can go to any of the top floors even though I’m sure you won’t be able to enter The Children’s floors, but feel free to try. Watching ponies fail to get through locks like that is always entertaining. Remember our agreements courier and remember I have eyes all around this casino. I’ll know if you go somewhere we didn’t agree on.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tops.”

“No Shadow Star, thank you,” and with that, the screen went blank and changed to another screen that said ‘Please Stand By’

I waited a moment then headed back up the steps, instead of going toward the elevator I turned toward the room behind the curtain. For a moment I thought the Securipony was going to stop me, but it just waited by the elevator. When I walked in I saw that it was still just the same as it was in the security video I’d just saw. Or so I thought, when I walked over to the dresser where the photos were. I saw at least six still standing there, but the one right in the middle that Night Stalker had picked up was missing. I hadn’t noticed him take it before, so either I missed it in the video or somepony else had taken it after he left the tower.

“Damn I wanted to know who he was looking at,” I said to myself as I looked over the other photos. One was a picture of Night Stalker and Lightning Dust from the day they got married, another was all The Children, one was of his sister, another was Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash looking a lot younger and dressed in blue and yellow outfits. It was then that I saw something else behind one of the pictures. It looked like an old recording.

Pulling it closer I moved to put it into my Pip-Buck to listen to it, but then thought better. I had a feeling that Mr. Tops could hear things in this room, I mean he did have access to the security cameras up here so I wasn’t going to risk it. He didn’t need to know what was on this, it could be something stupid, or something important to this whole Falling Shadows Project. I’ll just have to wait until later.

Going back to the elevator I followed the Securipony. It looked at me saying, “Do you wish to return to your room? Or head down to The Strip?”

I was thinking about heading to the Royalty Suite then remembered Mr. Tops saying I could try to get into the rooms The Children of the Night used, “Take me to the Children’s level.”

“I can do that, but as Mr. Tops said you will not be able to get in. Those floors are blocked by a magic barrier.”

“Just take me down,” I said annoyed.

The robot didn’t say anything, it just pushed the button to the floor below this one. When the doors opened again I found myself looking at a small hallway, at the end of that hall was a transparent barrier. I walked closer and smiled as I remembered who I was descended from. I had no problem walking right through the barrier and into the room beyond. It was strange walking into a place I’ve never been to before, yet in a small way I had, through the memories of both Noire and Greta.

The room hadn’t changed at all, it was like the Children of the Night had only just stepped out a few minutes ago and would be back at any moment. Mr. Tops was an idiot to allow me access to this place without thinking that I could be descended from one of The Children. Slowly I walked over to the same window that Night Stalker would look out at the city below. It was still quite a site, you could see the entire strip from here. Sure, it was all kinda rusty and broken but it was still pretty to look at with all the lights brightening it up. Ponies, griffons, and more walking down the street. Either heading toward one of the casinos or toward the other attractions on The Strip.

“I can see why he liked to look out this window, it’s a beautiful sight,” I said to nopony.

A mare’s voice echoed behind me, “It’s a beautiful view indeed, though it’s also a lonely one.”

I jumped and looked around pulling Dream Walker out, “Who’s there!?”

From a dark corner of the room, what looked like around twenty or more pink gems flew into the air. Each one had a small shell around it with cables connecting each gem to the housing. They flew toward me and started to separate. Three formed a line three more just in front of and above those made a small circle, six made a bent line on each side of the first, eight formed lines on each side going down two for each, the final line curled up behind it. A bright light flashed and when it faded a pony was standing in front of me. Not just anypony, it was a perfect likeness of Lightning Dust.

“The fuck?” I asked backing away from her.

She cocked her head to one side then asked, “How did you get in here? This area is locked down and off limits to anypony but The Children of the Night or the Princesses.”

“What are you?” I asked.

“I’m this building’s security system, now answer my question. How did you get in here?” she asked taking a few steps closer to me, I noticed with each step that a small flare of light came off her hooves.

“I’m descended from one of The Children. Minuette I believe, at least that’s what my mother said.”

She stopped, “Minuette? I see, so her son survived the death of Equestria, we were wondering if he made it to her cousins or not.”

“Who’s we? Why do you look like Lightning Dust?”

She gave me a cocky smirk, “This is how Minuette wanted me to look, I have no idea what her reasons were. My main function is to keep the two floors that house The Children of the Night safe and the penthouse that belongs to our Captain. As to who we are, I meant me Lightning Dust, and Captain Night Stalker. Did the Captain send you?”

I couldn’t help laughing a little, “I don’t think that’s even possible unless he’s a ghoul. It’s been two hundred years since the war ended, he’s dead by now I’m sure.”

Her body flickered for a moment, “I guess you’re right, though I haven’t found any information that shows that The Captain has passed away. I’d say that it was stupid for me to ask you that, but I’m a computer program and didn’t have all the correct information to assume that he might be deceased. The fact that it’s been two-hundred years wouldn’t have played a factor in him possibly being deceased because of the existence of ghouls like you mentioned before.”

I looked at her confused, “How would you know that?”

“Every member of the Children of the Night had a tracker implanted into them. It shows their location as well as their health, it’s possible that The Captain had his removed or the tracker is malfunctioning. I cannot find his location but the last report that came from it said his heart was still beating,” she said.

“From what I’ve heard about him, he disappeared over a hundred and sixty years ago. Nopony knows what happened to him.”

“That would coincide with the information I last had on him. My last location shown for The Captain was around The Twin Cities. His tracker went dead after that, but it never gave off a signal that his heart stopped.”

Something came to mind when she said that. The note I found in the Absent ruins and the sword I found with it and the memory orb. I pulled up my Pip-Buck and used it to find the letter. Pulling it from my saddle bags with the Sword I also remembered what Aura called it ‘Misery’. The letter was written out to somepony named G, what did that mean? Looking back at the glowing something that looked like Lightning Dust I asked, “Would you be able to tell who wrote this letter or do you know who this sword belonged to.”

She walked closer to me, looking at both the letter held in my magic and the black sword, “The sword is easy, it’s from a set made for Greta, The captain’s best friend. The swords are made from the hardest and strongest metal found in Equestria and the edges are made from a rare material called Star Metal. Joy and Misery are their names, The Captain had them commissioned for her after the invasion of Las Pegasus. They’re very hard to break and can cut though almost anything. The letter however looks like it was written by The Captain, it matches his writing.”

“So, the G in this letter is for Greta? If it was written by him why did he sign it A.M.?” I asked.

“It’s very possible that Captain Night Stalker signed it with is real name, possibly to make sure no one knew it was from him. Greta was one of the only ones who knew his real name. I was another…or the real Lightning Dust was I should say,” she replied.

“What was his name before he was Night Stalker?” I asked, hoping to get some information on the mysterious pegasus.

“That information is classified,” she said.

“Why does it matter now? It’s not like I’m gonna blab government secrets to the enemy,” I asked.

“I cannot say, my programing just has that and a few other things listed as classified. The only ponies I can tell about it are The Captain, Greta, Lightning Dust, or The Captain’s descendants,” she said.

“Fuck, wait do you have an access terminal?”

“Of course I do, it’s right over here,” she said turning and heading down one of the halls.

I followed her toward the same room where I saw Minuette and Amethyst Star working on Night Stalker’s new Suit. The room was filled with tech of all kinds. If Nexus was able to get in here he’d pass out from all the junk, Byte might do the same. In one corner was a small terminal, the not Lightning Dust led me over to it.

“This is the terminal that Minuette set up to update my programing,” she said.

I smiled, “Good,” walking over to it I hooked up the Mark II and let it get to work. I wasn’t surprised when I had to manually hack into the terminal after the Mark II got past some of the security. Minuette was smart and probably just as good with tech as Applebloom was. It took me about five minutes and multiple tries to find the right password, it was Obfuscate. What the hell is up with smart ponies and their fucking smart words!

Once I was logged in the mare said, “What is it that you are doing?”

I started to go through the files looking for something I could use to change her programing, “I’m going to change your programing so you’ll tell me what I wanna know.”

“That action is not authorized by Minuette or The Captain, if you don’t stop messing with my terminal I’ll have to terminate you,” she said.

“Pfft, I’d like to see you try, you’re nothing more than a light show that talks. Many have tried and failed to kill me and I was pretty much surviving by accident,” I said as I found the file I was looking for, “Now how do I get this to work for me?”

As I looked through the settings, I saw one that set the security program to work for anypony that was able to get onto the Children’s floor while the lock down was on. Before I could click on that option a gun turret popped out from the ceiling and pointed at me. The mare who looked like Lightning Dust said in a deeper voice, “Step away from the terminal.”

Turning to look at her I grinned, “Sorry can’t do that,” and before she could do anything about it, I changed her settings.

A spark of light ran down her body, then the anger on her face vanished, the gun turret popped back in to the ceiling and she was pleasant once again, “My apologies Miss, since you’re able to enter this floor you can do what you need to here.”

That was a little too easy, whoever designed this place was either not as smart as everyone thought they were, or VERY trusting, “My name’s Shadow Star, now tell me, what’s Night Stalkers real name, and whatever else you can tell me about him.”

“Shadow Star, even I don’t have a lot of information on Night Stalker. What I can tell you is this. When he was a colt he was with his parents in the mountains a few miles away from the griffon’s homeland Griffonstone. From what the records show, his parents were historians and they were studying the old Griffon Empire. A storm hit and they got stuck in the snow, both of his parents didn’t make it through the storm. Greta was the one who found him almost frozen in a cave. She brought him back to Griffonstone and with the help of her grandmother they were able to nurse him back to health. They tried to help him get back to Equestria, but he didn’t want to leave. It turned out that he had no family left with his parent’s dead. They took him in and he was raised by the griffon they both called Gran. Very little is known about his time with the griffons, but I know that he was injured by an older griffon who was picking on Greta when they were still young. That’s how he got the scar over his eye.”

“I see, but how did he end up having Prickly Petal for a sister then?” I asked.

“Oh, well Petal’s parents were in Griffonstone on a diplomatic mission for Princess Celestia. That’s how they met Night Stalker, they happened to know his parents and they convinced him that he should go home so he can get to know his own race. He didn’t want to go at first, so Gran sent Greta to go with him,” she answered.

“I remember him saying something about that in a memory orb, so why did they call him Moony?”

She chuckled, “That was a nickname given to him by Greta when they were young.”

“Because of his cutie mark?” I asked.

“Oh no, this story was told to the real Lightning Dust after Night Stalker married her. He had that name since before he had his cutie mark. It’s a reference to his real name Absent Moon A.K.A. Moony.”

My eyes went wide as I looked back at the letter, “A.M. he started going by his old name when he left The Enclave so nopony could find him. Because very few ponies knew who he was before he was Night Stalker.”

“That would make sense, he hated his old name because he thought it was a weak name. He never wanted to be seen as weak so he changed it as soon as he could. When he came back to Equestria he only went by Moony, the only ones that knew him as Absent Moon were the griffons, his adopted family, and later Lightning Dust,” she said with another smile, “Personally I think his old name still fits.”

I cocked my head to the side, “Why’s that?”

“He was named Night Stalker because his best ability was being able to fly silently and use the cover of night to his advantage. He was the stalker of the night, the shadow in the darkness, the blade that kills from the dark. He had a lot of titles when he was a solider but Night Stalker stuck. The reason I still think his old name fits is because Absent Moon is another name for a New Moon. The one night a new moon is in the sky, the night is at its darkest,” she replied.

I thought about that for a long time. I remember somepony saying that the Absent Ruins were named after a pony, it must’ve been named after Night Stalker, only after he left The Enclave because he started going by his old name. If he died in those ruins, would somepony have named them after him? Did I pass by his bones while I was running away from Wrath while I was there? What else was left in those old ruins that used to belong to the old stallion? Then something else came to mind, Night Stalkers Memory orbs I couldn’t get into. One of them said a password was his name! When I’m done here I’m going to finally see what’s inside that thing.

“One more question, do you know anything about a Project called Falling Shadows?”

“I do not, the files are here in the building, but Mr. Tops has blocked my access to the top floor.”

“Damn, I should’ve known that’d be too easy. Oh well, I guess I should go see what my friends are doing. Is it okay if I visit another time if I have more questions about Night Stalker?” I asked curiously.

“My job is to help anypony on this floor and the next and to protect the secrets that lie here from intruders. I would be delighted if you came to visit again, as long as you can get inside. All I ask is that you keep any of the Securiponies out of here. Mr. Tops would love to get access to this room and I know that The Captain wouldn’t like that,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said turning to leave. As I turned I saw something on one of the shelves. It looked like a black and blue crystal that was slightly bigger than a memory orb and had a similar silvery glow around it, “What is that thing?”

She looked over at it, “Oh, that is one of Miss Minuette’s favorite possessions. It’s a Memory Crystal.”

“A…Memory Crystal? Was that something new she was working on during the war?” I asked.

“No, it’s much older than the war. She said it used to belong to one of the first members of the original Children of the Night from back in the day when both Sisters ruled Equestria before the rise of Nightmare Moon. From what I have in my database, those crystals were very hard to make and more of a true experience than a memory orb. They’re supposed to be dangerous. Minuette said that you need to have a lot of magical prowess to enter one,” she said with a smile.

“Can I take it with me?” I asked.

“I see no problem with it, it’s been a long time since anypony has viewed it and I don’t think Ms. Minuette is coming back. Just be careful taking it down, it’s a lot easier to get pulled into a memory crystal if you’re using your magic. If you don’t have enough you can still get pulled in but you might never come out again either.”

I reached up with my hoof and pulled the crystal off the stand and placed it into my saddle bags. I wasn’t gonna risk getting stuck in a memory from over twelve-hundred years ago. I’m sure I have enough power to handle it, but there was no telling how long it would be. Once I was done with that, I headed back toward the elevator, “Thanks for your help…ummmm what do I call you?”

“You may call me Harvenger, I look forward to your next visit Shadow Star,” she said, and with that the form of Lightning Dust faded away and the gems that formed her body flew back to a corner of the room.

“Well I wasn’t expecting that…I’ll admit she was very helpful though,” I said to myself as I walked back into the elevator, “I wonder what Aura will think when I tell her about this place?”

The Securipony brought me back to The Royal Suite. As soon as the door opened I was almost knocked over by Stardust, “Shadow! Can you believe this!? We’re in The Lucky fuckin’ Horseshoe, in the Royalty Suite! I was about to get us a room over at The Applewood when one of those Securiponies came to tell us to head over here! I thought it was some kind of sick prank. Well I also thought it was a trap to use us as leverage to get you to do something for Mr. Tops, but I guess all is well so there’s no need to panic,” he took in a deep breath and let it out as he closed his eyes, “Goodbye paranoia.”

I pushed him off me so I could get out of the Elevator, “Stardust calm down, and don’t tackle me again. Like you always tell me, you’re heavier than you think you are.”

“Sorry Shadow, I’m just so excited that we get to stay here!” Stardust said following me out, “How long do we get this place for?”

“As long as we want, I made a deal with Mr. Tops. He said we can use this as our new home,” I said looking around. I saw Wind Thrasher stretched out on a large sofa next to the window. Her wings were spread out and her eyes were closed. Geeze she really spreads out when she’s comfortable, I feel bad for whoever she ends up with, she’s probably a freakin’ bed hog. Wingnut was sitting with Byte fiddling with her Mark II, “Where’s Aura?”

“She said something about taking a bath. We all decided while you were gone that you two should get the master bedroom since it’s the biggest…wait did you say as long as we WANT!?”

“Yeah, I did, so have fun. I’m gonna go check on Aura,” I said heading toward a large set of double doors.

Byte grinned over at me, “Going to cop a feel Shadow? You’re such a perv, I mean the least you can do is wait till she’s out of the bath, or is that your thing? You should try to have a little self-control.”

As I walked by Wingnut and her I got my muzzle an inch away from her ear, “If you really want to join us Byte, you don’t have to make snarky comments, just ask.”

“Ewwwwwww, AS IF!” she said gagging as I giggled evilly walking past her.

Walking in the room I was amazed at the large bed and the décor of the room. I saw that the door to the bathroom was slightly open so I made my way over to it poking my head in, “Aura you in here?”

I saw her laying in the bath, she opened an eye and smiled at the sight of me, “Hey, it’s about time you got back. Can you believe how nice this place is? There’s these fizzy ball things that make the water smell like stale candles.”

“Yeah and even better we get to keep using this room as long as we want,” I said as I walked over to her giving her a kiss, “You look like you’re really enjoying yourself.”

“We need a little R n’ R after what we’ve been through. Now how about you come join me? The bath isn’t as big as the one in the Kingdom was, but there’s still room, and jets. Sorry, I already tried them out,” she said, with a wink.

“Sounds like a good idea,” I said setting my saddle bags down and pulling off my barding and duster. Once they were off I slid into the warm water, “Ah, now this feels fuckin’ great.”

I rested against her and closed my eyes just letting the warm water flow over me. Aura wrapped one of her talons around me holding me close as she said, “Do you think there will ever be a time when we won’t have to fight?”

“I hope so, though with our luck I doubt either of us will be lucky enough to live long enough to make it to a time like that.”

She sighed and started to rub my chest slowly, “There’s more truth in that than you know Shadow. Every day I worry that something’s going to happen to you, or to Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, even Stardust. We’ve made a lot of enemies over the past two months, I’m afraid that one day we’re gonna run out of luck.”

Opening my eyes, I looked up at her, “What brought this on? I know that our lives are dangerous and all, but normally you’re the first one to run into danger with a smile on your face.”

“I think it’s a mix of nearly dying and the attacks as of late. Putting it into perspective, we should’ve died on The Palisade or during the attack on Cartwheel. Hell, you were attacked with Nightshade just yesterday, raiders earlier today, and The Sins. It’s like the more we look into your past the worse it gets. I just started thinking that one day I’m going to be alone again,” she said with a small hitch to her voice.

I moved a hoof up and touched the side of her head, “I can’t promise that nothing bad will happen, but I will promise you that no matter what, we’ll always be together. If something happens to me, then I’ll always be in your heart.”

She chuckled a little, “You know that griffons don’t believe in that right?”

“I think it’s more of the thought that counts.”

“Fine, then I’ll make you this promise. If something happens to me, I’ll find you again in my next life.”

Something about the way she said that made me feel strange. I lowered my hoof and looked down at the water, “I thought that every life is a new life for griffons. If you died and moved on to a new life, you wouldn’t remember me.”

I felt her talon move up to my chin slowly making me look back up into her icy blue eyes, “Yes, every time we reincarnate it’s a new life and I wouldn’t remember you from my passed life. But, I know that there are some souls that love each other so much that they always find each other in every new life. We have a few stories of griffons who were like that.”

“You love me that much?” I asked.

She moved down and kissed me before saying, “Shadow, I think I fell for you on the first day I met you.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little, “When you first met me you were trying to turn me in for a bounty.”

She cocked a smile, “True, but even then, there was something about you that I found captivating. At first, I thought it was just my fancy for mares, you reminded me a little of Trip Wire and I tried to throw off the feeling. In the end I couldn’t so I followed you, part of that was to pay back my debt but I also wanted to get to know you more, and I did.”

“So, if something happens to you I shouldn’t freak out like I did in the Kingdom?” I asked.

She laughed, “Yeah that was a stupid thing to do I’ll admit, but it was also kind of sweet of you too. I don’t think you should go blowing up buildings and trying to take on a group like The Enclave again over it.”

Trying to change the subject to something a bit happier I asked, “So, you never told me, what happened with Gigi and you the other day?”

Her face fell a little as she said, “She told me a few things that I never knew. I was kind of angry at her for it too, but in the end I’m glad I finally talked to her. I always thought my mom disapproved of me because of the way I am. Turns out you were right and I didn’t know her as well as I thought. We haven’t talked that much since I was young.”

“So you two just talked about the past?” I asked.

“That and a few other things, she told me she wanted me to go to the celebration, but she doesn’t want me to rejoin the talons. She said she wants me to be happy and not held down by rules like I was before.”

“She said something like that when I confronted her about it when we were at Crimson Canyon.”

“Yeah she told me about that too, I’m still a little upset you didn’t say anything sooner, but I also understand what it’s like to deal with my mom,” she said with a sigh then she perked up a little, “Oh, I was gonna ask, what took you so long to get back from talking with Mr. Tops?”

“Oh shit I almost forgot,” I said, then I told her about what I talked about with Mr. Tops and about my trip to the floor below. I told her about the thing that took the form of Lightning Dust and about what I learned. I told her that she told me that the sword I found was in fact Misery the blade that belonged to Greta. Then I told her about the Crystal I found.

“I knew I was right about that sword, strange that you found it in The Kingdom.”

“Not really, from the look of the note I found, it looked like Greta gave it to Night Stalker and he left it behind for her later,” I said.

“How did you know it was left by Night Stalker? There’s no way she would’ve given him Misery, they hated each other after she started the Red Talons,” she retorted.

“I think they must’ve made up years later when he was made a Dashite. The note left with the sword was from him but he used his real initials to sign it,” I said.

“Wait, his real initials? No pony or griffon knows his real name.”

“Oh yeah, well I do now. The computer thing knew it and told me.”

“What is it?” she asked, I could hear the anticipation in her voice.

“Sorry, can’t tell ya, it’s a closely guarded government secret. If I told you I’d have to KILL you,” I teased.

She started to nervously fidget, “C’mon Shadow, please? I’d tell you if I could.”

Good Goddesses, she thinks I’m serious, “Loose lips, sink ships says The Captain.”

“No, loose lips mean bad sex, and you’re not gonna get any unless you tell me.”

Oh she’s playing hardball, “Ha, you think that’s gonna get me to break? I’m a stable and this secret is my precious inhabitant.”

She huffed, “Fine, then I just won’t talk to you.”

“How’s that gonna work if you wanna keep asking me what the secret is?” I cleverly asked.

She stammered a bit, “Uh, um, I don’t know. I figured me not talking would irritate you enough to get me to tell you.”

“My point exactly, you just talked to me. It would be agony for us not to talk to each other and I think you’d break first before me.”

“Would not! I can just as easily drown you y’know,” she argued.

I snickered, “But then I wouldn’t be able to tell you what Absent Moon’s name is.”

She sighed, “I guess you got a point…WAIT A MINUTE!!! You were fucking with me.”

“Yup.”

She turned her head away from me and crossed her talons, “Ppfftt, bitch.”

I also turned my head away from her, “Jerk.”

She started to lightly laugh like she was holding back hysterical laughter, “See, I can do it too…HAHAHAHAHA.”

“Yeah, ha-ha, very funny.”

I thought the name wouldn’t mean anything to her but Aura looked like I’d just hit her in the face, “Absent Moon huh? He’s the stallion that spent a few months in Crimson Canyon right before Greta ran off. The rumors were that she broke Rule 7 herself and ran off with the Stallion leaving her son in charge of The Red Talons. She was never heard from again. You mean that stallion was Night Stalker!?”

“Yeah, I’m even more convinced of it now. Night Stalker just vanished one day a little while after he became a Dashite. If Greta vanished around the same time, then they must’ve gone off together and either died or made a life for themselves away from Equestria,” I said resting my head against her chest again, “Is that why you don’t like being compared to her?”

“Yeah, it’s bad enough that I was kicked out for breaking the same rule, it’s even worse that she’s my distant grandmother. But yeah, I can see how her disappearing matches with Night Stalker. One thing for sure, you have to talk to Tonto when we get to Crimson Canyon.”

“I know, I wish I could’ve talked to him more in Cartwheel, but my head wasn’t in a good place at the time. I’ll make sure to set some time aside when we get there,” I said.

“Good idea, well I think we’ve talked enough, how about we get cleaned up and get out of the tub. If you want we can see how much fun that bed in the room is,” she said with an evil grin.

“I’ll never get anything done if you keep distracting me,” I said with a laugh.

“I don’t know…I’m sure there’s one thing you can get done…maybe two or three. Plus, there’s a coin slot on the bed that makes it vibrate like a massage. Mmmmaybe it can massage OTHER things,” she said.

“Aura, you’re not…” I started to say, but she found a way to make me go quiet.

“Oh look, I found the off button, cool I wonder what else this does…” she said laughing as her talons wondered.

“So….evil….”

***

A couple hours later, feeling refreshed and a little wobbly from Aura showing me a new trick or ten, I was heading down The Strip toward where The Enclave’s little Skyport was supposed to be. Aura was still up in the room with Wingnut and Byte. Stardust offered to go with me, but I thought it would be a bad idea seeing how he was technically a runaway. Wind Thrasher was walking next to me looking around at all the sights as we worked our way past drunk soldiers, whores, and robots.

“This place is amazing Shadow, though it’s really loud. How do ponies sleep in this city?” Wind Thrasher asked as we passed one of the gates that led to the back area of The Strip.

“I’m not sure this town ever really sleeps, and if it does I think a lot of alcohol helps,” I replied.

“When Stardust and I went into The Applewood I couldn’t believe how many ponies were there. He said you guys stayed in there when you were here before. I bet it was a lot of fun!” she said, her wings fluttering as she jumped up and down.

“I’m not sure about it being A LOT of fun, most of what I remember was being caught with my tail up after a bath by Wingnut, dancing like a drunk fool in front of a lot of ponies, sleeping with a singer, vomiting on stage while a nice ghoul was trying to sing, oh yeah and I ran into The Sins. Yeah loads of fun,” I said rolling my eyes.

“It couldn’t be all that bad.”

“Sadly, it was, BUT I did have fun while I was doing some of those things. Just looking back now it doesn’t seem as fun as I thought it was,” I said then looking over at her I added, “You’re looking a lot better Wind Thrasher, it’s almost like your back to your old self again.”

She beamed at me, again showing off those very sharp fangs of hers, “I’ve been feeling like my old self too. I think talking with Stardust has been helping a lot. He told me that whenever I’m feeling like I’m about to lose control to just talk with him and he’ll help me get through it.”

I gave her a quizzical look, “When did you two have time to talk? We’ve been traveling most of the time.”

“We started talking a lot when you were learning how to fight with Yaksha. He’s really nice, so brave and strong. He’s a great listener, he asked me what life was like in Stable 9 for all those years I was trapped in there. It was nice to be able to tell somepony about those times for once,” she said blushing a little.

“Stardust a good listener? Are you sure you’re talking about the same Pegasus that I know or an imposter?” I teased.

She gave me an angry face, “Hey, he IS a good listener. He really cares about his friends you know, that goes for Aura and you too.”

I gave her a sidewise glance, “You like him don’t you?”

“Of course I do, he’s my friend, don’t you like him?” she asked me looking confused.

I couldn’t help laughing, “No I mean you REALLY like him, like how I like Aura. Y’know, as in you wanna take a trip to the love shack.”

Her face turned bright red, “I DO NOT…Shadow…no!” she covered her face.

“You DO! It’s written all over your face, and you chastised me for not telling Aura how I felt.”

Her blush deepened as she held one hoof over her face, shaking her other hoof up and down violently, her head shaking similarly to her hoof, “Don’t tell him please! He’s the first nice stallion I’ve met in a long time Shadow. I don’t want him to think I’m a weirdo or something.”

“Well you ARE a weirdo, but no more than myself or the rest of us. What are you so worried about?”

“Shadow, look at me. I’m a freak of nature, well actually science, but a twisted creature that can barely control herself nonetheless.”

“Wind Thrasher you’re not a freak, you’re just unique, and honestly quite adorable when you’re all cleanish and not trying to kill us. I say cleanish because The Wasteland makes us gross.”

She frowned at me, “I have scales and fangs, what’s cute about that?”

“You haven’t seen yourself when you’re in a bubbly mood have you? I know you can’t see it because I’m sure you still remember what you used to look like. We’ve only known you as a bat pony not a pegasus. You used to be the mare we knew as Sharp, even then you weren’t bad, just scared and alone. At the end of the day, whether you’re Sharp or Wind Thrasher, you’re still you and we like the way you are. Stardust doesn’t see you as a pony who was changed into what you are now by a mad doctor, he just sees Wind Thrasher. Plus, there’s some ponies out there who are into a little strange now and then if you know what I mean. Look at me, I’m with a griffon, it doesn’t get much stranger than that,” I said trying to cheer her up.

She smiled a little, “I guess I shouldn’t judge myself too harshly. Though I still don’t want to tell him until I know how he feels. He’s been through a lot in the past few weeks and he needs time to heal in his own way. No matter what happens, I’m happier being with all of you over being alone.”

“That’s more like it,” I couldn’t help but smile, “I’m supposed to be the gloomy one around here not you,” I said bumping her flanks with my own sharing a laugh with her.

She laughed, “So you think I’m adorable huh?”

“Oh, don’t start reading into it, I don’t see you in that way. I meant like a stuffed animal or another thing that’s cute.”

She laughed, “Even if you did, I’m too old for you.”

“Pfft, like that’s stopped me before, I slept with Laser and Silver at the same time. She’s way older than me and she was a lot of fun,” I teased.

“Wait Laser Light’s into mares too? I had no idea!”

“She’s not really, it was just her being drunk, her judgement was way off. Interesting still, she didn’t seem to care after that night, I wonder if it’s happened before. Plus, who says somepony can’t go both ways? The singer I slept with was a stallion.”

“Huh, you really get around don’t you.”

I scoffed, “Now you’re making me sound like a whore.”

She laughed again, “Loose maybe, but not a whore. Just don’t go messing around on Aura. She’s scary when she’s mad and I don’t think my bloodlust can take the amount of your blood she’d spill if you did something like that and she found out.”

“So are you.”

“I’m not scary when I’m mad, I’m terrifying, there’s a difference. Scary is quick, terrifying leaves a scar for life sometimes.”

We both laughed as we finally made it to the small building that was set against the back wall of The Strip. It looked mostly like a worn-down warehouse, with the words ‘Enclave Skyport’ over the door, and just below that written on a smaller sign ‘Robot Repair and Tune Up’ and an even smaller sign under it that said ‘basic first aid clinic, class listings inside’. It was quite an odd sight to see for a place like this.

“I thought the Skyport was for ponies to send letters and stuff or to report,” I said.

“Maybe the pony who runs it has a side business or something?” Wind Thrasher said looking at the sign, “You sure this is okay?”

“I don’t think Doorstop would’ve sent me here if it wasn’t,” I said.

“Well we won’t know until we go inside I guess.”

She was right, so we went in. I was expecting to find a couple of pegasi in power armor guarding some official at a desk with a load of other pegasi working in the back. Instead it was a run-down looking warehouse with a desk set up in one corner with a sign over it reading, ‘Skyport Head Stallion’. Nopony was there, “Maybe we came at a bad time or he’s on break.”

Wind Thrasher was about to say something when she stopped, her ears turning toward a door that led deeper into the warehouse, “I think I hear somepony in the back.”

BOOM!

A small explosion rang out from the place Wind Thrasher indicated, “What the hell was that!?”

We both ran toward the door only to have it flung open and a plume of smoke pour out of the doorway, followed by a pegasus stallion. He was wearing a dark grey Enclave uniform with a patch on one shoulder that said ‘Skyport Head Stallion’. When the smoke started to clear I could see what he looked like. He looked to be around Wind Thrasher’s age, he had a light grey coat slightly covered in soot, his mane was a pale pink and dark grey mix that swept over one side of his head, and he was wearing a pair of light red glasses over cyan colored eyes.

He coughed a little saying, “Note to self, mixing various chemicals found in The Wasteland to serve as an alternate power source can have a violent reaction if heated improperly.”

“Um…excuse me, are you okay?” I asked.

He looked up as if he had no idea we were even there until I said something, “Oh I didn’t know I had guests, or did I forget that I had an appointment today?” he gasped, “Crap did I miss some class attendants again? Arrgh where is that blasted Sprite Bot when I need him?” he spoke so fast it was almost hard to keep up with what he said.

“Um…do you work here or are you just covering for somepony?” I asked a little confused by his strange behavior.

He shook his head then pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket, using it to clean the soot off his face then smiled as me with blackened teeth, which was probably caused by the explosion, “My apologies, yes I work here, actually I’m the only pony who works here. I’m Kittersfly, I run the Skyport for Stratus and Nimbus how can I help you today, or are you in need of repair for a robot? Maybe even some first aid basics, I have classes once every two weeks two times a day?”

I couldn’t help but giggle a little at his fast speech. I took a quick minute to calm down and let out a cough, “I have a letter that needs to be delivered to a mare in Stratus, can you help me with that?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem as long as she’s in the area we cover. Who’s the letter for?” he asked heading toward his desk, “This is so exciting, I never get to do anything here! I get bored easily and I start to tinker you see, and then things go boom and I gotta clean up and start alleviating my boredom all over again,” he said smiling invitingly.

We followed him both a little confused. As we walked back to his desk I pulled out the letter Doorstop gave me. Quickly reading over the name on it I said, “It’s for a mare named Fairy Glitter, the letter says she lives in the high rise…”

He sat down at his desk looking up at us both, his smile only getting bigger, “Oh I know Fairy Glitter, she runs our intel department. Sometimes she also helps out in our hospital. She’s friends with my dad, I should have no problem getting this to her. Who’s the one sending the letter? I need to know for our records.”

“It’s from a family friend of hers I think, I didn’t get the pony’s name. I’m a courier and he couldn’t get this to her himself so he paid me to get it here,” I said.

“Ah, I know a dodge when I see one. I’m guessing the one sending this is a Dashite,” he said starting to write down some information on a small book he had laid out in front of him.

“Does…it matter if he is or not?” I asked.

“Not at all, we get this kind of thing now and then. Dashites are always afraid to let The Enclave know they’re still alive or in contact with family. I’ll just write down that it was dropped off by a courier and that should be fine. The fee for sending the letter is fifty caps.”

Of course there was a fee. Not only did Doorstop not pay me for this, it was costing me my own hard-earned caps. Grumbling a little I pulled out the caps and gave them to Kittersfly, “Here you go I guess, just make sure that letter makes it to Fairy Glitter.”

“You can count on me ma’am, I’m heading up to Stratus soon anyway so you came at the right time. I spend a week down here and a week up there helping my dad. I’ll make this delivery my second stop when I get up there,” he said taking the letter from me and placing it in a satchel.

Wind Thrasher asked, “Why can’t it be your first stop? The pony who sent that really needs it to get to her. We can pay extra if it helps.”

I glared at Wind Thrasher, why did everypony volunteer to spend MORE of our caps? Kittersfly didn’t seem to notice my look he just chuckled, “Because my first delivery is for our High Council Pony Nightshade from Mr. Tops. His stuff always gets delivered first, that’s part of our deal with The Strip. Hey are you a bat pony?”

Wind Thrasher took a step back trying to hide behind me a little, “Maybe? Why do you care?”

“Oh you don’t need to worry, I just think it’s fascinating. Part of me finds them cute. I don’t know why, I just always have. Anyways, I’ve heard there were bat ponies down here, but never met one. I thought most of your kind were out near Hoofington at least that’s the rumors I’ve heard,” he said still smiling.

I could see Wind Thrasher blushing again “T-T-Thanks I guess,” her voice quieting

“She wasn’t born that way and the story behind it is long and brings up a lot of bad memories,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to pry, I just wanted to know that’s all.”

“It’s fine…hey I was wondering what were you doing in the other room?” I asked.

He laughed, “Oh just messing around with new ideas that’s all. I tried something new and the experiment went oh so very wrong. Normally I run a small robot repair business out of here when I’m in The Wasteland. I don’t get much business for the Skyport so it keeps me occupied and it pays nice too. Then of course my basic first aid classes that no one seems to want to be a part of. Oh well, I’ll remain optimistic about it. It’s not like I pay anything for that. Maybe a bigger sign, I dunno,” he talked to himself looking thoughtful.

“O….k then, well we should be going, please get that delivered as soon as you can,” I said turning to leave.

“Can do,” he said still smiling, “Come back in a week just in case I have a return letter for your dashite friend.”

When Wind Thrasher and I were back outside I looked over at her, “That definitely wasn’t what I was expecting from an Enclave Stallion.”

“He was nice,” she said.

“Yeah and strange too, but he did think you were cute.”

She blushed, “Oh my gosh Shadow stop,” she laughed a little.

“You were the one who kept saying ‘how could a pony like me’ and blah, blah, blah,” I teased

She just shook her head “Anyway, back to what you said. You gotta admit, it’s better than most Enclave ponies you’ve met right?”

“Yeah I guess, oh well. At least I got that letter delivered for Doorstop. We should get back, it’s late and I’d rather be relaxing,” I said.

“Sounds good to me.”

As we started to head back I got a strange feeling while we walked. Looking back, I swore I could see somepony run between two of the buildings, but I couldn’t be sure. Deciding it was just my imagination I turned back following Wind Thrasher. Deciding I needed to get my mind off of what’s been happening today I turned on the radio. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to the news around New Pegasus.

Right away I heard the smooth voice of Mr. New Pegasus floating out of my Pip-Buck…

Hello Everypony and thank you for joining me on this late-night broadcast. The last song was a local favorite of Sweetie Belle, recorded the day she did her big concert here on The Strip a few days after the attack on this great city by Zebras. I have a lot of things to update you on since the last broadcast. So, sit back and relax while I put on my news pony fedora.

You may all know by now that the trading town of Cartwheel was destroyed a few days ago by The Steel Rangers, not just any Steel Rangers mind you, oh no, this was the branch from out west. It seems like a small war has broken out between our own Hidden Sands Rangers and the ones from Los Alicorn. Neither Elders could be reached for comment on the matter, but this old pony got some inside information from a griffon that was there right after the attack. Sadly, it’s all true, Cartwheel is no more, nothing more than a pile of rubble and one last building standing alone next to the remains of Equestrian Express.

Yes, I know what you all are thinking ‘Mr. New Pegasus, isn’t the Equestrian Express the same place The Courier worked for?’ well yes it was. But don’t worry too much, after a short capture by The Steel Rangers, The Courier and her friends managed to escape. She has declared that even though the Equestrian Express building is gone and the old buck who started it died during the attack, she would still keep working as a courier. In her own words quote, ‘Equestrian Express won’t die while I’m still around.’

In other news, The NLR have lost another platoon while fighting The Romans who are still slowly working their way west and toward New Pegasus. Even worse I have reports that at least one Sin was spotted near Crossroads Trading Post earlier today. She was able to somehow kill forty highly trained members of the NLR Rangers. I’m not sure what’s been going on but if the NLR don’t start gaining ground, The Romans will be able to push right to the city.

Also, I’ve heard another rumor that our own Courier was spotted at Crossroads Trading Post before the attack. From what I’ve been able to gather, she was helping The Red Talons work out a peace treaty between The Annihilators and Trotston. It looks like she was able to do it, bringing an end to a fifteen-year feud. Normally I’d say if your listening Courier then good job, but from where I sit broadcasting in the heart of The Strip I can see her out my window. So, Good job Courier and if you’re ever free, do stop in and say hello.

Well this has been New Pegasus’ favorite broadcaster Mr. New Pegasus with the news everypony and remember I have a soundtrack coming out soon, Titled ‘Mr. New Pegasus’ Nuclear Winter Wonderland.’ Have a good night everypony.

More music started to play, ignoring it I sighed and looked up at one of the buildings where the radio tower was sitting on top. I could just make out the shape of a pony in a high window, but not much else, “Figures he’d broadcast my location. Idiot.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised, you know that they always like to have ponies thinking they know more than they do. At least he didn’t say you’re staying in The Lucky Horseshoe,” Wind Thrasher said chuckling a little.

“Yeah, yeah laugh it up. Let’s just get back.”

We didn’t get much further when a pony in a blood red cloak stepped in front of us, no not a pony, a zebra. He was tall and had scars all over his face. He walked close to me and said quietly, “Courier Shadow Star, The Caesar wants to know if you have learned anything about Mr. Tops.”

I’d almost forgotten about the request made by The Caesar a couple weeks back, “I haven’t put much thought into it and it’s not like I can just wander around inside that tower.”

Wind Thrasher hissed a little, “What do you want!?”

Ignoring her the zebra said, “Courier, tell your slave to keep quiet.”

I felt anger building up inside me, “Wind Thrasher isn’t a slave, you moron. She’s my friend, what do you want?”

He looked angry for a moment then said, “I do not care what you call her Courier, mares like you and her are only good for one thing and that is being our slaves. If The Caesar did not need you then you would be no better than the rest of your kind. So, do not tell me what that disgusting thing is, tell me what I want to know.”

I was about to say something, but Wind Thrasher beat me to it. She moved closer to the zebra, “You think that mares are only good as slaves, do you?”

“I suggest you back away, before I am forced to kill you.”

“I’d like to see you try dickhead. I’m not scared of you and neither is Shadow, now answer my question!” Wind Thrasher said again showing her fangs.

The zebra stallion grinned a little, “I am not scared of you either monster. If you want an answer to your question then yes, zebra mares should only be good for breeding, keeping the home clean, and to help raise our young. Pony mares are only good for selling to other ponies for them to use in whatever way they want or target practice. Now get out of my face, your breath smells like a whore’s taint.”

“No, I’m not letting you speak to my friend that way. If that’s how The Romans see pony kind and mares, then I’m not going to help him with anything. Tell your Caesar to fuck off and find another pony to make their way into The Lucky Horseshoe. Oh wait, you can’t because nopony can get in,” I said condescendingly, “Come on Wind Thrasher let’s go.”

“Insensitive waste of breath,” she said to The Zebra as she turned to follow me.

“Wait,” he said sounding annoyed, “As much as I hate to say this, we do need your help Courier. Yes, if I was the one who ran our great tribe then I would do things differently than our Caesar, but I am not. I am just one of his soldiers. At least go and see him so he can explain his reasons himself.”

Wind Thrasher turned back toward him, “You should’ve thought about that before you insulted us. I see no reason to keep talking to you. In fact, I hope you get shot on your way back home.”

He looked even angrier as he said, “I was ordered by The Caesar to give The Courier this message.”

Wind Thrasher laughed, “So if we just say no and leave then you’ll be in trouble?”

“I will be yes, and it will not stop him from coming to find you,” he replied.

Wind Thrasher hissed again, “Then why should we care what happens to you, the first thing you did was insult us.”

“Wind Thrasher that’s enough,” I said trying to calm her down

“But Shadow—“

I cut her off, “Wind Thrasher, like you said he’s just a waste of breath. I’ll think about it, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Kijin, why?” he replied.

“I’ll go to see The Caesar, but if I see you there when I’m meeting with him,” I said pulling out Misery, “I’ll jam this through your skull after I’ve cut off your balls and fed them to you. I’ll do the same to any sons you have. Males are so very precious to you after all.”

For the first time he looked a little scared, “I will be elsewhere doing the Caesar’s bidding. You will not see me, but before I go you’ll need this,” he pulled out a gold medallion that had a symbol on it.

I took it asking, “What’s this for?”

“Show it to one of our guards in Driftwood Cove, they will bring you to our camp. It’s the mark of our Caesar, it shows that you are trusted,” he said then his cloak flashed and he vanished.

Wind Thrasher seemingly calmed down, “I couldn’t even hear him move, those cloaks of theirs are scary.”

“Yeah they are.”

She looked back at me, “Are you really gonna go?”

“I’m not sure yet, I really don’t trust The Romans. At the very least I’ll give The Caesar a chance to explain to me why he needs my help, but if he’s just as fucked up as Kijin is, well my sword will have more work to do.”

“I’d rather never see any of them again. I’ve heard stories from some of the NLR solders I’ve worked with about them, none of them are good,” she said as we started heading back to The Lucky Horseshoe again.

“Yeah I agree, but we can’t let one zebra’s attitude make us see the rest of their race the same.”

“I guess, but still I don’t like this.”

I smiled, “I know and that’s why when we go see him, we’ll have a plan. I’m not gonna let some zebra dictator tell me what to do. Now let’s go get some rest and start planning for what we’re gonna do at Crimson Canyon in a couple days.”

“Sounds good. Oh, and Shadow...”

I looked back at her as I pushed the door open to The Lucky Horseshoe, “Yeah?”

“Can we keep the conversation we had earlier between the two of us?”

“Sure, let’s go see our friends.”

***

When we finally made it back to the Royal Suite we both walked in to find Byte and Wingnut in the middle of some kind of argument. Wingnut was just saying, “That’s a bunch of bullshit, you can’t tell me that you really think something like that will work.”

“If you do it the right way then yes I do. You’re the one who’s too thick headed to see things the way I do. Stupid bug.”

I walked over to where Aura was watching them chuckling to herself a little, “What are they arguing about?”

“It started with Byte trying to explain how her gravity gun works, I lost track of what the real argument was about somewhere between why mares are smarter then stallions and what gems work better in a laser rifle. I’m just enjoying the show.”

“Okay, so we should just leave them alone?” I asked.

Stardust walked in from one of the other rooms smirking, “I don’t think you could get a word in edgewise, just let them go at it. I’d say only step in if they start kissing to make up.”

I grinned, “Nah if that happens then I say just leave them be.”

Aura looked back at me, “So how did it go at the Skyport?”

“It was…different, but good. I think I’m going to go try getting a nap in. Later I’d like to talk about what we’ll be doing at this celebration.”

“Sounds good, I’ll be in later,” she said going back to watching the two fight.

Yawning I walked back into the room, set my saddle bags down, removed my barding and laid down on the soft bed. I closed my eyes and let myself relax, it didn’t take long for sleep to come. As it did right before I was swept off to the world of dreams. I heard something inside my head, “Soon Shadow…Soon! Hahahahahahaha!”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Negotiator: You’ve made a lot of deals throughout your journey and a lot more of them have been in your favor rather than not. It is now easier to convince someone to agree to any terms you have during dialogue and your barter skill is permanently raised by 15 allowing you to get better prices at all shops, bazars, and markets.

QUEST ITEM ADDED!

Mark of The Caesar: You now posses The Mark of The Caesar. Any crimes committed against The Romans up to this point have been forgiven and you have been allowed a meeting with The Caesar himself. Be careful however, if you commit any wrongdoings against The Romans from this point on, you’ll be hunted and quite possibly killed by Roman assassins.

Chapter 48: I Wanna Dance With Somebody

“You loved every bit of it, you loved having griffons call you a prodigy, loved the attention you got. You have no idea how hard it was to watch you while the rest of the family pushed me aside.”

I looked at the arena as we walked closer to it, Aura slightly ahead of me her sister Fletch on my other side. I’d only gotten a glimpse of the arena when I was here last. Before I thought it had walls made out of sandstone, but I was wrong. The sandstone around it was just raised platforms for griffons to watch from. The arena had walls made out of scrap metal that only went a few feet high giving a good view into a sunken pit in the middle of it. There was loose sand scattered around the floor of the arena, making the ground softer than the canyons normal hard surface. It was also huge, giving enough room for other griffons to fight. Griffons had already started to surround the arena, either on all sides of it or on the cliff sides so they could look down on the action. At one end there was a raised platform that overlooked the arena.

As we drew closer to it I looked over at Aura and asked, “Do you really have to do this? I mean who cares what the rest of the griffons think here, you’re not part of the Red Talons anymore.”

Aura looked back at me, “I care, it’s not just about me Shadow. If it was, I wouldn’t be doing this. Honestly, I don’t give two shits about what Fletch thinks or what she wants me to do. I’m doing this for two reasons, first she needs to learn her lesson once and for all, second, if I back down I’ll look like a cowered and that reflects badly on my family.”

“I thought you said family is too much work, so why do you care?” I asked.

She sighed, “Family is too much work, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about them. I mean I’ve been enough of a disappointment to them.”

I put a hoof on her shoulder stopping her, when she looked down at me I said, “Aura you’re a lot of things, but a disappointment isn’t one of them. All you did was break a stupid rule of your talon company. So what, your family might have looked bad because of it, but that’s their problem for not accepting you for who you are. From what I’ve seen, most of them are trying to make up for that mistake. Hell, I’m sure that most of the griffons here don’t give two shits about what you did. I think Fletch is just angry because she thinks you don’t care about how she feels.”

Aura looked back at the arena where Fletch was waiting, “You might be right about that. I know it’s hard to believe, but Fletch and I used to be very close. Before I was with Trip Wire, Fletch was the closest thing I had to a best friend.”

“What happened?”

Aura sighed, “I met Trip Wire and spent less time with my sister. Over the years she grew angrier and angrier with me until she just flat out hated me. When she found out what I was doing with Trip Wire, she was disgusted with me.”

Fletch yelled over at us, “Hurry up Aura, or are you thinking about backing down?”

Aura looked back at me and smiled, “I love you Shadow.”

“I love you too, are you going to be okay?” I asked as she started to walk away.

“I’ll be fine, this isn’t a fight to the death or anything.”

I felt a hoof rub my mane a little. Looking up I saw Stardust watching her go as well, “She’ll be fine Shadow, you know how good of a fighter Aura is. Fletch doesn’t stand a chance.”

“I know, but I’m not worried about her safety, I’m worried that she’s going to hate herself after this.”

He looked confused, “Why’s that?”

“Because no matter what, Aura’s going to lose, even if she wins this fight. If she does win, she’ll make her sister look weak in front of all of the Red Talons. Fletch will have lost a fight against a disgraced griffon. If Fletch wins, Aura will have to leave her home for good and stop being a freelancer. It will screw with her way of life.” I said.

“I see what you mean, I wonder what will happen when this is over.” He said with a sigh, “Well we can’t change her mind, so all we can do is watch and hope that things work out for the best. Come on, Apollo said we can watch the fight from the platform overlooking the arena with him and Gigi.”

“Alright,” I said letting him pick me up and fly me over to the larger platformer where Gigi was waiting with Apollo and my friends.

When both Aura and Fletch entered Gigi stood on her hind legs and raised her talons to the sky, “Fighters, you both have shown your bravery by entering the arena today. Let no griffon here think that either of you are cowards. Now, as the challenger, Fletch Bloodtalon do you still wish to fight today?”

Fletch looked up at her mother and said, “I do.”

Gigi looked over at Aura, “Aura Bloodtalon, you have been challenged to fight today in the arena, in front of the Red Talons and your family against your own flesh and blood. You have accepted by entering, but I must ask, do you still wish to fight Fletch?”

“I do,” Aura said.

Gigi looked around at all of the griffons stating, “Both griffons have accepted,” Then she looked back at the sisters, “Fletch, as this is a fight with stakes, please state what you request if you win today.”

“Aura has to drop the name Bloodtalon and never return to our home. She disgraced our family by breaking one of our ten laws. The same laws laid down by Greta herself. Not only did she start a relationship with a mare, she also let it interfere with her work as a talon, once she was caught and banished she still stayed with this mare until her death. Aura was left with a way to get back in to our ranks, but she decided to instead find a new pony to be with, spiting on our way of life and our families honor. When she loses today, she will no longer be part of our family, she can no longer be a freelance griffon, and she must leave our territory forever. The banishment applies to her lover and friends If she does come back then she will suffer death for breaking the terms set down today by this fight,” Fletch said.

Gigi looked sad shaking her head, but she kept it held high as she looked over at her youngest daughter, “Aura Bloodtalon, do you agree with the terms set down today? If so, do you have any of your own?”

“Only one, if I win I want Fletch to be banished from the Red Talons like I was for a whole year. That way she will see how hard the world really is without the protection of our family,” Aura said.

“You do realize Aura that if you accept the terms of this fight you will be banished from anywhere the Red Talons call their territory? You will also no longer be allowed to be even a freelancer griffon. This will change your life forever, you would be considered less than a griffon to all of your kind across the Wasteland. With this in mind, do you still wish to proceed?” Apollo said walking over to stand next to Gigi.

“I do,” Aura said, “and yes I agree.”

I felt anger building as I looked down at her yelling, “If you lose this fight Aura, you’d be leaving me behind as well!”

Gigi pushed me back looking down and saying quietly, “Shadow you can’t interfere, trust Aura.”

“She’s right Shadow,” Stardust said wrapping his hooves around me to pull me into a tight hug, “Aura will be just fine.”

Aura didn’t answer me, but when I looked back at her I saw a tear running down her face. She knew what was at risk, she knew she couldn’t lose. When I finally calmed down Apollo looked at Fletch, “Fletch, you understand that if you lose you will be cast out of the Red Talons and unable to return home for a year. With this in mind do you accept the terms?”

“I do, and trust me I won’t lose,” Fletch said with a smirk.

Gigi spoke again, “Let it be known that both parties agree. Now as you all know this is a fight to prove who is the better fighter between two griffons. This means that no ranged weapons are aloud. Since this fight is not ‘to the death’ then only practice weapons are allowed. Aura what weapon will you use today? As the one being challenged you get first pick.”

“I’ll use a long spear…” Aura started to say, but Fletch cut her off.

“Aura I’m not going to let you fight me unless you are at your best, I want everyone here to know that I can win even against you with your best weapon,” Fletch said.

Aura looked over at her sister then sighed, “Fine, I’ll use twin forward facing Gurkha’s.”

Fletch smiled then said, “I’ll use a long sword.”

Two griffons entered the arena with a box as they did I looked over at Gigi and asked, “What’s a Gurkha?”

She looked down at me and said quietly, “The swords Greta used, the ones you see on her statue in the center of the Canyon. Aura prefers a spear, but she’s always been better with two Gurkha’s. The one’s she asked for, the blade turns forward making it easier to gut and slash. It’s also a very fast weapon.”

I watched as the box was opened and two silver swords shaped just like the one I had ‘Misery’ were taken out and given to Aura. Aura took both and twirled them around in her talons a few times. Fletch took a long slender looking sword from the other griffon and spun it around quickly. Once both had their weapons the other griffons left.

Gigi raised one talon to the heavens, “Fighters ready…and Begin!”

As soon as Gigi dropped her talon, Fletch attacked. She flapped her wings at the same time she jumped forward, giving her extra speed to charge Aura. That sword of hers gave her a much longer reach than the smaller ones Aura held. Aura didn’t look worried at all, as soon as Fletch’s sword came close Aura brought her left sword up blocking the attack and pushing her sisters’ blade to one side as she brought her other blade around to slash at Fletch.

Fletch twisted around following her blade around then spinning and trying to strike at Aura’s back. Aura ducked under the attack and kicked back with a hind leg, catching her sister’s stomach sending her flying back into a far wall. Aura twisted around and flipped her blades around in her talons again, “By now I thought you would have learned how to calm down in a fight sis, but it seems you still have some learning to do. You always rush your opponent, it makes it easy to predict your moves.”

“I’m not finished yet Aura, that was just a warm up!” Fletch yelled as she took to the air then dove at her sister.

Aura dodged to the right, but her sisters blade changed direction and she slammed the blade down on one of Aura wings. If the blade had been sharp, she would have just cut her sisters wing off. Aura swore then turned around and looked back at her sister, both her blades held up ready for another attack. As she did Apollo lifted a talon saying, “One point to Fletch.”

I looked over at Gigi and asked, “Point?”

“Since this fight isn’t to the death, that means we have to take each mortal blow as a point. Ten points wins the match, as it stands it’s Fletch one Aura zero.”

“Nice move sis, I guess you really have been trying to get better. Now let’s see how you do when I get serious!” Aura said flipping both blades back and lunging at her sister.

Fletch swiped her sword at Aura, Aura grinned and brought both her blades up to block Fletch, then she parried the blow and attacked. Fletch jumped back then slashed down. The next thing I knew, both of them were trading blows, the ringing of metal filling the air. The griffons watching the fight started to cheer for who they wanted to win. It was hard to tell who’s name I heard more, Aura’s or Fletch’s. I always figured that Aura wasn’t much liked in the Red Talons because of what she did, but from the sound of it, plenty of griffons really wanted her to win.

Aura black flipped over Fletch then stabbed down onto her, slamming her to the ground. Apollo put a talon in the air again, “One point to Aura.”

Both fighters started again each attack getting wilder as the fight went on. I hadn’t seen half of the attacks Aura was using to fend off Fletch. Each blow got harder, each parry getting more desperate from each side. I wasn’t as skilled of a fighter as Aura, but I could tell just by watching that both Aura and Fletch were almost evenly matched. Fletch had more power behind her blows and better reach because of her heavier and longer sword. Aura on the other hoof was faster and watched each movement her sister made. From what little I learned from Yaksha, Aura’s fighting style was the better one to use. But also, even though Fletch’s style was more straight-forward, she could use it to overwhelm Aura over time.

“Two points to Aura,” Apollo yelled as Aura slammed her sister’s block to the side and pressed her other sword up to Fletch’s neck.

Aura pulled away grinning, “I thought you said you were going to beat me sis what’s wrong? From what I can tell you…”

Fletch moved even faster than she had before, her sword slamming into Aura’s gut before she could even put up a proper defense. Aura looked shocked as Fletch said, “Don’t EVER let your guard down remember!”

I watched as the fight got worse, Fletch got two more points putting them at Four and Two. Aura made a small come back when she used a faint to get a nasty blow against Fletch. Each blow got worse, every hit getting louder, by now they were both holding at seven to six in favor of Fletch.

“Every time they fight they get like this,” Gigi said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, keeping my eyes glued on Aura as she ducked under one of Fletches slashes then tried to stab her in the gut, only to have Fletch twist around the stab and kick her in the face.

“Every time Fletch and Aura fought they get more and more aggressive, it’s rare for them to ever make it to the end without one or both of them getting hurt. Last time Aura broke three of Fletch’s ribs, the time before that Fletch broke Aura’s left hindleg. When they fight it’s like it’s life or death,” Gigi said with a sigh, “This is why I didn’t want them to fight, but they are my daughters and they are all hot-headed, thanks to me.”

I jumped as Aura and Fletch met in midair, their swords connecting and sending out such a loud bang, it echoed off the canyon’s walls. They landed then attacked again only to block each other’s blows. Unlike before, neither of them broke away, instead they both tried to overpower the other. I could tell that both of them were exhausted, but neither would back down.

As Aura pushed her two swords against her sister’s long one she said, “What is your fucking problem sis, what’s the point behind this stupid fight?”

“I didn’t bring you here to talk Aura! We’re here to fight you now shut up!” Fletch said, her voice shaking slightly.

Aura side stepped twisted around and slashed at her sisters back. Fletch retaliated by looping her sword around and stabbing back into her sisters’ belly. As she did I heard Apollo yell, “Nine to Nine, the next point earned will be the winner!”

“Come on Aura you can do this,” I said watching as she panted looking across the arena at her sister who was panting just as hard.

“Why do you care so much about proving you’re a better fighter than me? You shouldn’t care one bit about if you can beat me in a fight, I’m not a Red Talon anymore. All you’d prove is that your stronger than some freelancer outcast. If you really wanted to prove your strength you’d fight Vi or one of the other top fighters in the Talons. This isn’t about proving how strong you are, so what’s the real reason?” Aura asked through her heavy breathing.

“You won your matches against Vi two years ago Aura, you took out Gus and Syn as well in multiple fights back when you still cared about your family,” Fletch said, “It’s always been about you Aura, every damned day of my life ever since you hatched. Aura the prodigy, Aura the griffon who would one day take over as leader, Aura the poor little chick who got to train with Gina when she was little, Aura, Aura, Aura, all the damned time it’s always about YOU! If I win against you, I’m proving that you aren’t the best fighter in our family, proving that I’m the one who should take over one day!”

She attacked again, Aura lifted her swords in an X to block as her sister started banging on her blades over and over again, “I have no idea what you mean. I didn’t ask to be the best fighter, I was just born with a lot of talent.”

Fletch screamed and slammed her sword down harder and harder with each blow yelling, “That’s the problem right there. I had to work my ASS off to get stronger. I spent hours every day training, learning, and watching so I could reach your level. For years I stood by your side and praised you as you pushed your way up our ranks. I LOVED you, I wanted to be just like you, I wanted that raw talent you had so bad. It was so fucking sad and pathetic, you’re the YOUNGEST of us. You should have been looking up to ME or to your other sisters, but no you just had a gift and EVERYONE KNEW IT!”

Fletch twisted around and tried to slam her sword into her sisters’ side, Aura just got her swords up to block, but the blow still sent her skidding across the ground. When she got back up and blocked another attack by Fletch she yelled, “I did look up to you, all of you. You wanted to be like ME? I hated my talent, all I wanted to be when I was younger is a medic like Syn. I looked up to her because she didn’t care about how good of a fighter she was, no she cared about helping others, Vi I looked up to because she was a good leader and the perfect role model for me when it came to taking command, Gus wasn’t strong or smart, but he was kind and caring, I looked up to him for that. Then there’s you Fletch, you have no idea how much I wish I had the ability you did to never back down from a fight, never care about what others thought about you, you’re brave, strong, and never gave up! I had to become what I am because Gina saw my talent and wanted to shape it to make me a fighter.”

Fletch attacked again, but Aura dodged it and flew to the other end of the arena. Fletch looked back at her sister yelling, “You loved every bit of it, you loved having griffons call you a prodigy, loved the attention you got. You have no idea how hard it was to watch you while the rest of the family pushed me aside. I was always second best compared to you, I never thought twice about it, because I loved you sis. So, what did I get for having your back for all of these years? You betrayed us! That bitch mare came into your life and took you away from us. Ever since you met her, you did what everyone else did, pushed me AWAY! When she entered your life, you treated me like dirt! To make it even worse, you hid your feelings about her from ME. I was your best friend, your biggest supporter back then, I wanted you to succeed, because if you did I’d be okay with you being better. Then you threw it all away, you know you could have told me and I would have kept your secret, but no you just lied and hid!”

Everyone was quiet now, as we all saw the same thing at the same time. Fletch was crying…tears running down her face as she held her sword up ready for another attack. But she didn’t move as she looked across the arena at Aura who looked dumbfounded by her sister’s rage. The quiet got so bad that you could’ve heard a pin drop.

“SAY SOMETHING!” Fletch screamed.

Aura hung her head and sighed, letting her blades rest at her sides as she stayed standing on her hind legs, “You’re right I did push you away, but not because I didn’t trust you, or because I was trying to hide from you. I did it because I knew that one day someone was going to find out about Trip Wire and me. If anyone found out that you knew as well, you would have been sent away too. I didn’t want that for you Fletch, I didn’t want any of my family to be brought down for what I was doing.”

“Then why didn’t you stop! She was just a fucking Pony, she wasn’t a griffon, it’s not like she was your soul mate. You just did what you always do, pushed the limits on what you could get away with. You didn’t care about what would happen to us, because if you did you wouldn’t have done it,” Fletch screamed, “You know the worst part? Even after you left, nothing changed here, it was still always about you. Dad making sure you had a way to get back into the talons, mom keeping an eye on you, Vi and Syn talking behind our backs on trying to find a way to help you find a job that would PROVE you belonged here. Always, it’s about precious Aura. Poor youngest daughter of the leader who made a mistake. If it was me who FUCKED a pony I would have been kicked out and forgotten!”

I saw Gigi get up as if she was going to say something, but Apollo put a talon on her shoulder, “Don’t…let her speak, you can’t help anyway, she needs to get this off her chest.”

Gigi sat back down looking at her daughters as they stood off, Fletch ready to attack, Aura looking sad and not defending herself. Aura finally looked back at her sister, “You’re right I could have stopped, Trip Wire wasn’t my soul mate, but I thought she was back then. I was young and stupid, I fell for her because I saw something in her that I liked. She may not have been a griffon, but she did have something that intrigued me. Yes, enough to risk my life and my possession in the Talons.”

“All for a fucking mare who DIED because of what you did!” Fletch screamed, “Tell me this Aura, why didn’t you try to come back after that huh? You know you could have if you wanted too. Why did you spend Six months alone as a freelancer when all you had to do was come home and beg for mom’s forgiveness?”

It was Aura’s turn to yell, “Because I was ashamed! Is that what you want to hear? I was ashamed of what happened, for what I did, for everything and yes, that includes Trip Wire dying. She loved me with all her heart, but deep down I knew I didn’t love her the same. It took me six months to even work up the nerve to even think about coming back, that’s why I stole the orders you had on you to find The Courier! I was going to take that bounty and get back in so I could try to earn everyone’s forgiveness for breaking our great laws.”

“Then why didn’t you do that when you found her!”

Aura slashed a sword upward in the air as she yelled, “I made a mistake and got hurt, Shadow saved my life because her friend Stardust nearly caved in my side with a kick. If she would have left me there I wouldn’t have been able to get to a safe place, I might have even died from internal bleeding, but…” Aura took the blade she had up and pointed it directly at me, “Shadow showed me compassion and kindness, she gave me a healing potion which I was fresh out of. I did what any self-respecting griffon would have done and followed her to repay her for her kindness.”

Fletch sneered, “And then you decided to stay with her even after you repaid your debt, because you saw a chance to have the same fun you did before with another fucking PONY!”

“It wasn’t about that at all, I never saw Shadow as somepony to have fun with, not like with Trip Wire. Yes, I had fun with Trip Wire and for a while I thought I loved her. It wasn’t until I met Shadow that I knew how wrong I was, because ever since I first met her I knew she was the one I was meant to be with!”

My heart skipped a beat when she said that and I felt a tear running down my face. Fletch however laughed, “She’s a PONY, you can’t have those feeling for a Pony!”

“You’re wrong Fletch, you know as well as I do, a griffon’s soul isn’t bound by their race. Souls are not bound by gender or race, when two souls meet and they are meant to be together, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they are. I love Shadow, I’d die for her, just like I’d die for you because you’re my family and she is as well. When I look at her I don’t see a pony, I don’t see the Courier Mare. When I look at her I see the one who is light to my darkness, that half that makes me whole, she is my life and I’m hers. If you don’t like that then fine, I don’t care, because I don’t need The Red Talons, I don’t need to be a Freelancer, I don’t even need my family even if I still love all of you with all my heart. All I need is her. I don’t even need this fight and do you know why? Because I don’t care if your stronger or if I am, if you win, your stupid terms won’t keep me from her, it won’t bring me back to the Red Talons in the future, it will only push me farther away from you. My life isn’t in this fucking canyon anymore trying to find a way to make more caps or to become stronger. I’m a free griffon and I always will be, no matter what you say, or what you try to do,” Aura said.

Fletch looks lost for a moment as Aura spoke, then she said so quietly that no one would have heard it if it hadn’t been so quiet, “You’d give up everything…for her?”

Aura sighed, “I already have. Now let’s finish this Fletch, you’ve said your peace and so have I. If you really need to prove that you’re the stronger griffon then so be it. I don’t care anymore.”

Fletch screamed again and charged at Aura, her long sword held high as she flew across the Arena. Aura jumped into the air again and charged Fletch. Fletch looped her sword around into an upper cut slash, Aura started to bring her left sword around to block, but then Fletch twisted around looping her sword back the other direction going for a downward slash instead. Aura saw this, moving her other blade up to block. Then I saw Aura change her block, letting it slip to the side of her sister’s blade giving her an opening. It was right then that I knew what Aura was doing, she was throwing the match so her sister could win. She was giving up her future and happiness so her Sister could have a better one. She was doing this so Fletch could finally be happy.

Fletch’s sword slammed down on Aura’s shoulder, sending my loving, wonderful, stupid griffon slamming into the soft sand. Aura laid there moaning in pain as she held her shoulder with a talon. Fletch landed next to her looking shocked at what just happened right as Apollo said, “Ten to nine, Fletch Wins.”

Those words felt like a knife being driven into my own heart. Because of the terms Fletch had set up if she won, Aura would be banished from the Marejave, because The Red Talons territory was huge. She’d have to stop taking contracts, she’d no longer be a normal griffon ever again. If I wanted to stay with Aura we’d all have to leave and never be able to come back here. I’d have to say goodbye to the land I’d started to call home, give up on finding out more about The Children of the Night, Aquila, my mom, everything I’d been working at for weeks now. All because Aura let that last attack make it through, she’d had the block, could have used it to get her own hit in so she could win. She hadn’t, because Aura just wanted to give something back to her sister.

I felt Stardust pull me close again saying quietly, “It’ll be okay Shadow, we’ll figure something out.”

I couldn’t say anything back to him, I was watching as Fletch looked down at Aura, confusion written on her face. Gigi got up and said in a sad voice, “The winner is Fletch Bloodtalon, Aura this means that you will have to do as was requested by Fletch. You will give up the name Bloodtalon…leave our lands forever…and give up your right as a freelancer…”

“NO!” I yelled pulling out of Stardust’s grasp and jumping off the platform. I ran over to where Aura was still laying in the sand looking up at the clouds as tears ran down her face. I moved in front of Fletch saying, “You can’t do this to her Fletch! I know you don’t approve of Aura’s way of life, but you can’t make her leave everything she’s known for her whole life just because you’re angry!”

Fletch looked over at me, but she didn’t look angry anymore, she looked sad, “She knew what she was getting into when she accepted.”

“Horse apples, Aura only did this for YOU, can’t you see that? She’s risking everything so you can feel better about yourself. She cares about you so much that she’s willing to give up even ME so you can be happy!” I yelled, “If that’s not a good enough reason for you to take back your terms then how about this. I’ll fight you here and now, if I win you take back what you said. I’M NOT GOING TO LET HER BE FORCED TO LEAVE OVER YOU!”

Gigi landed next to me and put a talon on my shoulder trying to pull me away, “Shadow, it’s done, you can’t change that.”

I pulled away then took hold of both blades Aura had been using with my magic and pointed them at Fletch, “Fight me!”

“Step aside Courier,” Fletch said lifting her sword a little.

“NEVER!”

Fletch sighed then said a word I thought I’d never hear come from her beak, “Please.”

Not knowing why, I back up a little so I was now standing on the other side of Aura. She looked up at me and said in a tired voice, “I’m sorry, but I had to do it.”

I didn’t get a chance to answer as Fletch knelt next to Aura and asked quietly, “Why did you do it?”

Aura chuckled then winced in pain, “Do what?”

Still keeping quiet so that no one could hear Fletch, “You had that block, I saw it, you could have easily taken the last point for yourself, but instead you let me win. Why would you do that? To show other griffons that you had to give me a victory?”

Aura looked up at her sister again, “Because, I know that no matter what, no matter where I go or what I have to do, Shadow will still stay with me. That’s all I need in life, you however needed this win, you can’t handle being alone, trust me sis, it’s not easy.”

“All you did was show that you’re still better.”

“Fletch, why can’t you see what I see huh? I’m only better than you because of things I learned outside of Crimson Canyon. The wasteland made me a better fighter than I already was before. I’m still better then you, but not by a lot, if I stayed here, you would have ended up being better than me by now, because you care about how strong you are and I don’t. All I ask is that once I’m gone for good, you’ll try to calm down, learn more control, and be happy. If you do that then I can handle losing today. You need to stop living in my shadow, and come into the light so everyone can see how wonderful you really are.”

Fletch got back up then looked at her mom who was still standing a few feet back, “I’d like to retract my earlier terms and only ask for one thing, that is if Aura will agree.”

Gigi looked shocked for a moment then said, “You may, but only if Aura agrees to your new terms.”

I saw another tear run down Fletch’s face as she spoke, “All I ask is that Aura gives up her right to ever rejoin the Red Talons. I still believe that she is no longer worthy of being one of us, but I’d like her to still come see us as much as she wants, not as a banished griffon, but as a Talon of her own small group. I don’t want to not see my little sister. Ever again”

Aura got to her talons, “I’ll accept, since you won I give up all rights to ever joining the Red Talons again.”

And to mine and I think everyone’s amazement, Fletch and Aura hugged, both dropping their weapons as they both broke down. I walked back over to Gigi asking, “What the hell just happened.”

Gigi smiled saying, “Sometimes the only way you can fix something that’s been broken is by fighting it out.”

“How does fighting fix something?” I asked.

She looked down at me smiling, “You’re still young and inexperienced with real life, one day you’ll understand,” She walked forward as Fletch and Aura separated, Gigi took one of Fletch’s talons in the air saying, “The winner is Fletch, let it be known that as of today she has shown that she is stronger than Aura. Fletch has taken back her earlier request for the terms of the duel and with Aura agreeing they have come to a new agreement. Aura Bloodtalon has lost her right to ever rejoin our company, therefore as the Leader of the Red Talons, I have decided that since Aura has given up her rights to ever become a Red Talon again, she is no longer banished from Crimson Canyon. I now recognize Aura Bloodtalon as a separate Talon company. Aura and her team have full rights as all Talon groups that we work with do. Visiting rights and inter-territorial workings.”

The sounds of cheers were deafening. Griffons and the Ponies from Cartwheel were screaming, cheering and applauding in approval of Gigi’s announcement. I looked back at Aura who looked like somepony had just slapped her. She looked over at her mother and asked, “I’m…not banished anymore?”

The cheers started to die down as Gigi lifted a talon, she said, “Aura, my daughter, as everyone here knows you broke one of our laws. Rule seven which states that Griffons of the Red Talons may not be in any kind of relationship with a pony unless that relationship is friendship or as a contract holder. You broke this by being with the pony Trip Wire. I think that rule Seven is unfair, but I can’t change that rule without agreement from most of the griffons that are part of the Red Talons. You paid the price for what you did and still are in a small way, but since you no longer can rejoin the Red Talons, then you can no longer be held down by its rules. We do not force our way of life on other Talon groups as you well know. That means that you may pursue a relationship with any griffon or pony you see fit. We will no longer force you to be someone you’re not. With that said, Welcome home,” Gigi hugged her youngest daughter, something I sure she has wanted to do for a very long time, Aura hugged her back. The cheering started up again and it took a lot longer to die down.

After some time had passed and Aura was finally able to make it past the griffons who rushed into the arena to congratulate her and Fletch for the amazing fight, She came up to me and hugged me tight, “I can’t believe that worked out so well. I wasn’t expecting mom or Fletch to do this for me.”

The rest of our friends had joined us just outside the arena, alone with Vervain, Gigi, and Fletch. Vervain smiled saying to Aura, “I’m sure your mother’s been trying to find a way to let you come home for a while now.”

Gigi smiled, “As I told you when we talked the other day Aura, I never wanted to send you away. Being the leader is hard, I had to do what I had to do, but I’ve always wanted you to come home, just not as a part of the Red Talons.”

Fletch was still wiping her eyes a little as she said, “I’m really sorry for making such a fuss over you leaving Aura and for treating your friends so badly. Even if you are my younger sister you still proved you were stronger than I.”

Aura laughed, “Don’t’ worry sis, I’ll pay you back for that later. For now, I’d like to talk with you more and hear what I’ve missed in the past few months.”

Fletch looked up at her then said, “I have time now, that is if you can get away for a little while.”

Aura looked at Wingnut who shrugged, “I’ll be fine, Shadow and I wanted to go talk to that old griffon Tonto.”

I nodded my head, “I’ve been wanting to talk to him about a few things for a while now and I wanted to show him this,” I pulled out Misery.

Gigi saw the blade as it slipped out of my saddle bags and took a step back, her eyes wide as saucers, “Shadow Star, where in Equus did you find that!?”

“In the Absent Ruins near The Kingdom, I think Greta left it with a friend of hers,” I said.

“Did you find Joy as well?”

“No, I didn’t see it there. I was being attacked by Wrath at the time so I may have just missed it when I was there, or Greta still had it with her. I’ve been meaning to look into it more when I have time. I learned a little about it recently and I know how important this is to your family. Once I talk to Tonto I wanted to give this back to you,” I said slipping the Sword away.

Her eyes were still wide as she said, “In all my life I never thought I’d see even one of my great grandmother’s swords. Shadow, you have no idea how much it means to my family and to the Red Talons that you found that. I agree, you should go talk to Tonto and show it to him. He will know what is best for what should be done with Misery.”

Viridiana had walked over while I was showing Misery to Gigi, once her mother stop speaking she said, “Good luck finding him, he wasn’t in his cave earlier and I didn’t see him during the fight.”

Vervain said, “He was in the town we are using right now, helping some of the others with cleaning up. When I left to watch the fight, he said he’d stay behind to oversee things.”

“I guess we’ll go head that way then,” I said looking over at Byte, Stardust and Wind Thrasher, “You three want to come?”

“Nah, I’ve been wanting to check this place out. I wasn’t with you all when you were here last and I’ve heard so many stories about this place,” Stardust said.

“I’ll stay with Stardust, I also want to look around more and talk to Gigi later to see if she found out any more about that bounty on me,” Wind Thrasher said.

Gigi seemed to perk up, “Oh yes, I have some information, it’s in The Den at the moment, just stop by later when you two are done looking around.”

They both nodded, as they did Byte yawned, “I guess I’ll go with you Shadow, Rusty wanted me to stay by your side when I could and I’d rather meet with some old griffon then hang around this old place.”

Wingnut seemed to sag a little as she said that, “Damn it, I was hoping she’d stay behind.”

She glared over at him, “What was that Bug?”

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” Wingnut yelled.

“Bug, bug, bug, bug, BUG!” Byte yelled back.

Before I could stop them, Wingnut and Byte were both wrestling each other. I was about to step in when Vervain walked over in front of the twirling mess of Colt and Filly. She cleared her throat then said in a commanding voice, “Both of you stop that right now!”

Oh shit, those two are about to find out first hoof why you don’t act that way in front of Auntie Vervain. Both of them stopped what they were doing in mid-struggle, both looking up at Vervain. Byte had one of Wingnut’s ears in her muzzle, a hoof wrapped around his neck, and one of his rear legs trapped between her own. Wingnut was wincing as he held on to her trying to make her get off.

“Both of you let go of the other and stand up straight!” she said, both of them did looking up at the older mare, “Much better, now tell me why are both of you acting like foals?”

“She started it!” Wingnut said pointing a hoof at Byte.

“Did not!” Byte retorted.

Vervain looked at Byte and asked, “What’s your name young mare?”

“Byte…Cookie Byte I mean.”

Vervain lifted an eye brow, “Cookie Byte…Ma’am. Speak to me with respect young mare.”

Byte’s eyes narrowed a little, “Why? You aren’t my mom.”

I chuckled a little, “No, but Vervain here is like a mother to me and she’s the one who raised me. You were put under my care by Rusty and he told you to listen to me. That means you should also listen to Vervain as well, trust me you don’t want to get on her bad side. She’ll mess up your shit.”

Vervain looked over at me, “Sit down and shut up Shadow.”

I sat, “Yes ma’am!”

Byte and Wingnut started to chuckle a little until Vervain looked back at them, “I’m waiting.”

Byte hung her head a little, “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am.”

“Much better, now let’s try this again. Why are you two fighting like foals?”

Byte looked over at Wingnut then back at her hooves, “He made me mad because he said he doesn’t want me around.”

“That’s because you’re mean,” Wingnut said.

“I…I don’t mean to be,” Byte said still looking down, “You still didn’t have to say that though, you’re the only pony my age, apart from Shadow and she’s more of an adult than a filly like me.”

Vervain looked over at Wingnut, “Wingnut, you really shouldn’t act so coldly toward Cookie Byte, from what I can tell she’s away from home for the first time. She may have an attitude problem, but that doesn’t give you the right to say hurtful things,” Then she looked back at Byte, “Cookie Byte, I don’t care what Wingnut said, you look like you’re the older one here and should set a better example. You shouldn’t go around calling him or any other pony a Bug.”

“But…” Byte started to say but she was cut off by Vervain.

“No buts young filly! In the short amount of time I’ve seen you, I’m guessing you haven’t had a parent around to keep you in line for most of your life.”

She shook her head, “I’ve only got my uncle, he’s always too busy with running Trotston. So, I kept to myself mostly with my tinkering and gadgeteering to keep me busy.”

“I see and I know you haven’t had any adults to help you with your own attitude problem Wingnut. So, while you are both here I’m going to try and fix some of what’s wrong with both of you. Starting with this, I want you two to both say you’re sorry to each other.”

They both looked at each other then said, “Sorry.”

“Now was that so hard?” She reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a set of hoofcuffs with a long chain between each cuff, moving forward she put a cuff on Byte’s left foreleg and the other on Wingnut’s right, “Until tomorrow morning you two are stuck with each other. I don’t want to hear about either of you starting something with the other, if you do your punishments will be worse. Do I make myself clear!”

They both said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good, now you may continue on with Shadow,” she said smiling and walking back toward me.

Gigi and the others had been watching, once Vervain finished she said, “Damn Vervain, how’d you do that?”

She grinned and looked back at the white griffon, “Easy, I raised Shadow, she was a nightmare to deal with when she was younger too.”

I laughed, “Yeah, but I mostly got into fights not arguments.”

“Yes, you did, and you snuck into the Overmare’s office eight times, stole from the kitchens more times than I can count, glued your teacher’s rear to her seat seven times, and much, much more,” she said with a huge smile.

I blushed then laughed too, “You’d think that she’d learn to look before she sat after the third time.”

“That’s what I told her.” Vervain said, “Well shall we head over to the town, I’m sure a few of the ponies there would love to see you.”

“Yeah, just let me say good bye to Aura,” I said walking over to her.

She was still waiting with Fletch, “You going to be okay while I’m with my sister?”

“I’ll be fine, where do you want to meet up?”

She pointed toward the caves that were over the large hut that made The Den, “Last one on the right is where I used to live when I was still a Talon, I’m sure it’s big enough for us all.”

“Sounds good to me, so what are you two going to talk about?” I asked.

Aura smiled and looked over at Gigi, “Well I do have an idea for tomorrow I wanted to see if mom would let me do, but now that Fletch and I are on better terms I have an even better idea. That is if my sisters and mom are okay with it.”

Gigi, Fletch, and Viridiana looked at her confused, Gigi asking, “What idea is that?”

“I’ll tell you when we are alone, I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the others,” Aura said, she looked excited.

Gigi smiled a little, “Sounds fair, let’s head to The Den and we can talk there.”

“Works for me,” Aura said turning back to me then hugging me, “I’ll see you tonight okay.”

“I look forward to it,” I said turning to follow Vervain out of the canyon, as I did Syn flew over me and landed next to her sisters.

As I walked away I heard her saying to Fletch and Aura, “I swear every time two get into a fight you both end up with a load of injuries! If either of you broke the others bones this time, I’m going to break the other’s bones!”

“Let’s go, before we have another sister fight to break up,” I said laughing.

With that Vervain led Byte, Wingnut and myself out of the Canyon. Wind Thrasher and Stardust flew off to explore as we walked away. While we walked I asked Vervain, “So how are the survivors doing?”

“Quite well, the trip wasn’t that bad, though I think that was because we had a lot of help from the Red Talons. They kept us guarded for the entire trip. The main problem we’re having right now is cleaning up The Sandstone Ruins. Most of the buildings are intact, but there’s a lot of mess and rot to clean up, I think the ponies from Cartwheel want to try and make this town into a new home,” she said.

“Don’t they want to go back and fix up Cartwheel?” Wingnut asked, then almost tripped as Byte walked a little too far away from him, “Hey Byte don’t do that.”

She looked back at him, “Then keep up Wingnut.”

Vervain glared at them again, making Byte slow a little so Wingnut could catch up to her before saying, “Cartwheel will take a lot of time and skill to fix. Honestly, I think the real reason they don’t want to go back is because my father is gone. He was the life and soul of Cartwheel, with him gone it’s not the same place, even if the buildings were still standing.”

“I guess I can understand that, personally I don’t really want to go back there either, to many painful memories,” I said.

Vervain gave me a knowing smile, “I understand where you’re coming from Shadow. Aura told me about Silver when you were training with Yaksha and the Stranger. I remember when you first met her so many years ago, I think she was your first friend in the wasteland. I’m sure with the memories of her, my father and what you did with your mother while you were there is too much.”

Wingnut finally caught up to Byte and Vervain, he looked up at her saying, “Oh, you don’t have to call him the Stranger anymore Vervain. We found out who he was the other day. He’s Shadow’s father, Nightshade.”

I facehoofed, “Wingnut!”

“What? He is.”

“Wait a second, isn’t Nightshade the stallion who took over the council recently,” Byte asked, “You mean he’s your dad? You’re Enclave Shadow?”

“How’d you know who he was?” I asked Byte.

She smiled, “Rusty keeps up on all the politics going on around us, that includes Enclave politics.”

“I was born in the Enclave, but I’m not Enclave. Mom left it a long time ago,” I said before looking over at Wingnut, “And The Stranger’s identity was supposed to stay a secret Wingnut,” I glared at him

He just shrugged, “It’s not like you’re going to run into Enclave here who’d know who he was.”

“Still, we need to be careful about talking about him like this. When you are entrusted with another’s secret you need to keep it, isn’t that right Auntie Vervain?” I said then looked around, “Vervain?”

Looking back down the road I saw that she’d stopped, “Did…you say Nightshade?”

Trotting back toward her I said, “Yeah, why?”

“But, he’s your father’s best friend, that’s what Grim told me.”

I sighed, “She lied, I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

She took in a deep breath then let it out slowly, “It’s not easy to hear all the lies your best friend told you over the years. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever Grim’s friend at all. Maybe I was just a mare she knew she could trust with her daughter when she had to leave. I put so much faith in her mission and our friendship that I gave up twelve years of my life for her. Now I’m getting old, I have no stallion to go home too, no children, no work and nothing to show for the years I spent helping Grim. All of those years spent waisted for a few lies.”

I put a hoof on hers and looked up into her eyes, “Auntie Vervain, she may have lied to you about what she was doing, and about who my father was. I’m sure she told a hundred other lies as well, just to keep her true motives safe, but you didn’t waste your years away for anything. You may not have a stallion in your life, so what, you have a lot of ponies that care about you. As for a foal that’s a lie, you have me. Grim may be my mother, but you raised me, taught me how a good mare should live. I am your daughter in all but blood. As for work, you have the ponies of Cartwheel to help, you have become a leader to them and before that you were the mare who kept Stable 28 running. You’ve done a lot of good things in the years you spent helping mom, I’m living proof of that. If it wasn’t for all of the lessons I learned from you, I wouldn’t have ever made it this far. So, forget about the lie’s mom told you, forget about the pain and hurt and start looking at the good things.”

She smiled softly, “When did you get so smart and wise dear?”

I hugged her, “I had a good teacher.”

Byte yawned saying, “Boooooriiiiing! Are you two done yet?”

Vervain pulled away from me looking over at Byte, “You know, I think this one’s going to be a hoof full.”

I just rolled my eyes, “Yep, I’ve learned that if you just ignore her, it makes life easier. Plus, she hates it more than anything.”

Byte stuck her tongue out at me, “Hey Shadow, stop acting like you’re all wise and shit, you’re way too short to be playing at being an adult.”

I just walked past her with Vervain following, “You know it’s funny, I swear I heard something that sounded like a bug.”

Wingnut chuckled to himself walking past Byte as well as she yelled, “Don’t call me a bug…YOU’RE A BUG! Hey I’m talking to you!”

Vervain looked around, “You know I think I know what you mean. It has a high-pitched annoying tone to it as well. We really should talk to the Red Talons about getting somepony out here to rid the ruins of them.”

Byte screamed, but didn’t say anything else as she followed Wingnut. When we finally made it to the other side of the entrance that led in and out of Crimson Canyon I looked back at Byte who was looking down at her hooves, her ears were down and her tail dragging on the ground. I smiled then looked away. In that moment I realized that I learned something, you didn’t always have to yell or make yourself heard to win an argument. Sometimes you just needed to ignore the other pony all together, either way, one of the ponies would give in.

Luckily Byte was the one who did, when we reached the first house just outside of the Canyon Vervain turned toward Byte and Wingnut and asked the young filly, “Tell me Byte, did you learn anything during our walk?”

For a moment she looked ready to say something rude, then her face fell again, “Yes ma’am, it doesn’t feel good when somepony calls you a name like Bug. Even if you don’t mean it to be a bad thing, it can still hurt when you say it in a certain way.”

“Very good, now are you going to think before you speak in the future?” Vervain asked.

“Yes Ma’am,” Byte said looking up again then letting her eyes fall on Wingnut then myself, “I’m sorry I called you a bug and yelled at you Wingnut. I’m sorry for being such a bitch Shadow.”

Vervain looked at Wingnut, “Did you learn something Wingnut?”

He smiled, “Yeah, Byte doesn’t like being ignored.”

Vervain gave him a brain duster, “I guess not.”

He rubbed his head as Byte did her best to hide her giggling, “Hey, what was that for!?”

“Trying to knock some sense into you, now tell me if you really learned something. If not, I’m going to leave you two chained together all night and you’ll be staying with me until I say otherwise,” she said.

“Fine,” Wingnut replied, “I should take other’s feelings into consideration, especially when it’s ponies I’m traveling with, happy now?”

She looked them both over for a long moment, “I’m still not convinced Wingnut.”

“Seriously? Vervain you’re so cruel.”

"That’s Miss Vervain or Ma’am to you young colt. Convince me that you learned something.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Wingnut said crossing his hooves. He thought for a moment. His looked changed “I learned that, it’s easy to hurt a pony’s feelings when it’s not meant to. To be more careful with what to say to another pony, and be respectful towards them.”

Vervain Smiled, “Very good, I’m still not taking the cuffs off though, not until after Shadow’s done meeting with Tonto.”

They both stamped a hoof saying, “Damn.”

I just chuckled then looked around for the old griffon. He wasn’t hard to spot, he was in the middle of the road talking with one of the Ponies from Cartwheel. Figuring Wingnut and Byte would be fine with Vervain I headed toward him, “Hey Tonto.”

He looked over at me and gave me a soft smile, “Good evening Courier Shadow, I’m very happy to see you again.”

“Same here, so how’s the restoration going for the Sandstone Ruins?” I asked.

“Very well I’d say, the buildings around here are mostly dirty, some are rotting away, others falling apart. But with so little ponies making it through the attack on Cartwheel, there is more than enough space for them here. The ones that made it, have worked hard to fix this place up over the past few days. If you would like to help contribute to the restorations of this place, I’m sure the ponies here would be very appreciative,” he said, “So how can I help you?”

“I would be happy to help out now and again, but for now…” I pulled out Misery with my magic and showed it to him, “I found this in the Absent Ruins, both Gigi and Aura said I should bring it to you, they both think it’s…”

He reached out and took the sword with trembling talons, “Misery, in all my years I thought I’d never see this beautiful weapon return home to Crimson Canyon. I hoped that one day Joy would make it back here, but never this one.”

“Why did you think Joy would have been found over Misery?” I asked.

“Because Greta still had Joy when she left to follow that pegasus she was helping. From what I know about her son, he said that Misery was stolen by that Pegasus. We never knew what happened to him, but Greta I know was last spotted in The Crystal Empire before she vanished from the face of Equus. I always figured that The Enclave had Joy and they might for all I know. I believe that she was killed when she went there. Absent Moon however, the Pegasus that stole Misery we never heard from again,” he said as he looked closer at the blade.

I pulled the letter I’d found with Misery, “He didn’t steal it, Greta gave it to him. The Absent Ruins outside the Kingdom were named after him and I think he died there or close by. He must have known that Greta was following him because he left this for her in a building along with a memory orb.”

He took the letter then read it quickly, “I see, it’s strange that she’d give Misery to him like that. From this letter it seems like they were close, but I don’t see how that could be. The only pony Greta knew so well was Night Stalker and they never spoke again after she left The Enclave and started The Red Talons.”

Getting closer to him so no pony would overhear I whispered, “Absent Moon was Night Stalker, that’s his real name. From what I can tell, once he became a Dashite he started using it again so no pony or griffon would know who he was.”

Tonto smiled a little then chuckled, “Well that would explain a lot, I don’t know why I never knew. Maybe because we don’t have much information on what happened during those times. Absent Moon stayed in Crimson Canyon for four months while he healed. He never let anyone get pictures of him and he didn’t talk to many of the griffons here. Grey, who was Greta’s only child, didn’t like him at all.”

“I’m just glad that I was able to get this back to where it belongs. Misery has served me well over the past few days.”

Wingnut finally caught up with Byte not far behind, “Yeah, she killed a couple Steel Rangers with it.”

Tonto looked at the blade again, “Tell me Shadow, do you know the history behind Joy and Misery?”

I shrugged, “No I don’t apart from that they used to belong to Greta, and I believe I heard that Night Stalker gave them to her.”

“That’s kind of a strange gift to give to somepony…griffon whatever,” Byte said.

Tonto looked down at her then showed her the sword, “Tell me young one, does this sword look normal to you?”

She looked closer at it her eyes going wide, “No, it doesn’t. what kind of metal is that?”

“The base of the blade itself is one of the hardest metals on Equus, that however doesn’t make it special. No, it’s the spells that were put into it as it was being made and the edge of the blade itself which is made from Star Metal. This makes it so that this blade can cut through almost anything,” Tonto said pointing the tip down and pressing into the hard ground. Misery sank in like it was butter.

Byte watched saying, “Wow, that is so cool. Shadow how’d you end up with such a cool weapon?”

I shrugged, “I have a knack for finding strange weaponry. Anyway Tonto, I wanted to give this back to the Red Talons since it belongs to you anyway.”

He looked back at me, pulling Misery out of the ground, “Why would you want to do that? If Misery stayed here it would just sit on the wall of my cave or in The Den collecting dust, no that’s not right, this weapon was made for killing. I want you to keep it Shadow, it will serve you better than me.”

I took the sword back asking, “Are you sure? I mean this belongs with The Red Talons, not with me.”

He started to laugh, “It belongs to a descendant of the Children of the Night, from what I heard you are descended from Minuette. You see Night Stalker commissioned the Sword for his best friend after the battle of Las Pegasus. Minuette was the mare who helped place the spells on the sword while it was being forged. I believe that this Sword was meant to be found by you. All I ask is that you take good care of it.”

I slide the Sword back into my saddle bags, “I’ll take good care of it Tonto, thank you.”

He smiled, “No Shadow thank you for showing it to me.”

“Tonto, what else do you know about the Children of the Night and about Greta?” Wingnut asked.

He chucked, “I know a great deal, I have an idea, how about you three come back to my cave and I can answer anything you want to know. That is if Vervain here doesn’t need me anymore?”

Vervain laughed, “We’ll be fine Tonto you’ve done enough today.”

Tonto smiled, “Well then let’s go.”

“Tonto, as much as I’d love to sit and talk with you, I want to relax before everything starts,” I said.

“I understand Shadow, you go rest up, I can look after the foals for a while. That is if they want to go see an old Griffons cave full of old-world Tech and listen to his stories,” Tonto said.

“OLD TECH!” Byte said jumping up and down.

“HOW OLD!?” Wingnut said, jumping up and down as well.

“Follow me children, while we walk I’ll tell you the story of how we settled in the Crimson Canyon,” Tonto said as he walked off with the two foals.

Vervain laughed, “Funny how they both seemed to have forgotten about the cuffs holding them together.”

“Nah, those two both seem to forget about everything when Tech comes into play.”

“Well Sweetie, I need to help the ponies here finish up more work. I’ll give you the key for their cuffs. Take them off when they fall asleep tonight, that is if they stay good,” Vervain said giving me a small key.

I hugged her, “It’s good to see you Auntie Vervain, have a good night.”

“You too sweetie.”

“Love ya Auntie Vervain.”

***

The cave Aura used to live in was quite large. It had been set up with three rooms set off the main chamber. Even though Aura’s been gone for eight months now, the cave was still set up for a griffon to live in. Either they set it up for guests after she was banished, or Gigi couldn’t find it in herself to take down Aura’s place. I made my way over to the larger of the rooms set off from the main room where a bed was set up. On the night stand next to it there was a picture with five griffons in it. Laying down on the bed I looked over at the picture. It was Aura and her siblings when they were all a lot younger.

I sighed then lifted the Mark II in front of me starting to look through the files on it. Mom’s files regarding Stargazer seemed to go on forever. I started to look through them, but it seemed like a hopeless task. Each file I tried to read mostly revolved around what she was able to find regarding the Project itself. A few times I saw files mixed in regarding Project Aquila. Mom must have thought it was a different project when she first started looking into it. Later she must have realized they were the same thing. Even the stuff I could understand was things I already knew. Aquila was a power created by The Children of the Night in a hope to give Luna the power of Nightmare Moon again without turning her mind back into the Queen of the Night. Every file ended with the Project being a failure. I could understand now why Mom didn’t know what would happen when she found the Project. All the notes and information she was able to find about Stargazer listed the power as a creation. Aquila wasn’t a creation, she was a living being from beyond Equus. She is light magic, but also has her own mind, feelings and power. Mom’s attempts to save me, were in reality a curse.

I backed out of her notes about Stargazer and moved to what she had on Falling Shadows. Sadly, it wasn’t much, the most she heard about it was that it was a second project started by Minuette to recreate what they did with Stargazer. The difference was that Aquila’s power was needed to fully activate the second Project. There was also notes about there being four points in Equestria that Falling Shadows was a part of. Those points were New Pegasus, The Crystal Empire, Baltimare and somewhere near the Bad Lands. Nothing in the notes said what exactly the Project did or why it was named Falling Shadows. Some of her notes speculated that it was a super weapon of some kind, others said it was meant to make Luna or Celestia more powerful or any Alicorn that it was used on. The last was said that it would give great power to whomever it was used on.

Mom wasn’t looking into it for power though, she figured that if she found it and activated it, she could use it to pull Aquila out of me. She wanted to use it to keep me alive and get rid of Aquila for good. That became even more apparent when I read her last note about Falling Shadows.

Looking into the files I’ve found about the project I figured out a few things about how I can use it to keep Shadow alive and rid ourselves of Aquila at the same time. Everything I’ve seen shows that her power is necessary to make this project work. There’re only a few things standing in my way however. First of all, I need to get into the Lucky Horseshoe and use the Mark II to remove the lock Sweetie Belle put on the tower. Second, I need to find out what happened to the Project in The Crystal Empire. That task will be the hardest I think. From what I’ve found, Somepony did something to block the tower there so that even if I unlock the tower in New Pegasus, Falling Shadows can’t be used. Last, I can’t do anything until Shadow’s older. She needs to get stronger and be able to handle the power required to remove Aquila. I’ll need to risk her getting her memories and power back. It’s the only way she will live through what needs to be done. My time is limited in this Stable and I can’t risk bringing her with me. If I do she’ll be used as a pawn to control what I do by either The Steel Rangers, The Enclave, or The Director herself.

I have a plan, it’s risky, but it should work if I set everything up right. Shadow will need to stay here in Stable 28 until she comes of age in the stable. That should be one week before they do the Pip-Buck Ceremony. I’ll be setting up spells that will draw her to The Mark II the night before the Ceremony happens. This will ensure she has to leave the Stable and head to Cartwheel like I’ve discussed with Vervain. That is where I’m most worried about her. The best way for her to get stronger is to travel the wasteland looking for me. If I know my daughter as well as I think I do, she’ll be able to handle the trials I’ve set up for her. Once she does find me, she should be strong enough to deal with what has to be done. That is if Aquila doesn’t get free first or Nightshade doesn’t get in my way. Once Aquila is out of here I should be able to overload the Project and destroy it, putting an end to Night Stalker’s plans and Aquila all at once. Then finally I’ll be able to go home and hopefully find forgiveness from Nightshade and my Daughter. If not, at least she’ll be safe. I’ve risked everything I have and everything I am for her, for my only child, my beautiful Little Star. I can’t fail, I just can’t because if I do, everything will be lost. She is the only pony who can fix the mess I’ve started.

I closed the notes and sighed, “Are you just lucky mom, or could you really predict everything perfectly? What I don’t understand is why this mattered so much to you. I know I’m your only daughter, but why risk so much?”

I sighed and decided that it wasn’t worth worrying about right now. I wasn’t going to figure out mom’s motives anyway. As Aura would put it, it doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t worry so much. She’d be right too, why did I care so much about what mom wanted when she didn’t remember any of it right now. Really the only thing that was of any use to me at the moment was the information about how I could get rid of Aquila. The problem was that only mom knew how she could do it. Unless…what if she left information in that shack she was living in a few months ago, before she lost her memories? I’ll have to look into it soon, right now all I wanted to do is sleep so I could enjoy my time here with my friends, and Aura.

“Tomorrow’s another day,” I said as I laid my head down to sleep.

What felt like seconds later I was woken up by Wind Thrasher who was slowly shaking me, “Shadow it’s time to get up, the opening ceremony is about to start. Aura said I should come get you.”

I yawned, “What time is it?”

“Half hour to midnight, she said the Rebirth Celebration starts at the beginning of the new day. We should have just enough time to get you ready before it starts,” she said as I slowly got up.

“Can’t I sleep a little longer? It only takes me a minute or less to get into my barding.”

“I know, but Aura said you should dress up for this. You still have that Dress Sheena gave you right?” Wind Thrasher asked. It was then that I noticed that she was already dressed in a nicer outfit similar to what she wore during the Ball in the Kingdom.

“Fine, I just hate wearing dresses,” I said pulling my Saddle Bags closer and looking through them to find the silvery dress Sheena gave me.

“I don’t know why, I mean you look really pretty in one.”

“So what, I don’t need to look Pretty. I mean you don’t need to look cute because you’re already cute to begin with.”

“Oh my gosh Shadow, shut up,” she blushed “Besides don’t you want to look pretty for Aura?” she said giving me a toothy smile.

I couldn’t help laughing a little, “Fair point.”

I heard a snore and looking at the other side of the bed I saw that Wingnut and Byte were passed out there. Wind Thrasher chuckled to herself, “They both wanted to be close to you I think. They got back an hour ago and since they can’t get free of those cuffs they both decided to stay near you so they wouldn’t get into trouble.”

Byte was nuzzled up against Wingnut with her head against his chest curled into a ball. Wingnut had one foreleg over her like he was protecting her as she slept. I couldn’t help smiling, “Those two are cute when they aren’t’ fighting.”

“I agree, I think they make a good match even if they are both young. I think that if we left them alone for a while and stopped teasing them, they’d start to show each other how they feel.”

“Awww, but it’s so much fun to tease them about them liking one another,” I said as I slipped the dress on.

“True, but you should also want them to see what happens. Don’t embarrass them anymore okay?” she said.

“I guess I can do that, I kind of understand.”

She poked my nose with a hoof, “You should understand, I mean how would you feel if everypony made fun of your for being with a griffon?”

“I wouldn’t like it at all and I would have most likely tried to hide how I felt so the others would stop making fun of me.”

“That’s right.”

I looked over at her and gave her an evil smile, “You should take your own advice sometimes Wind Thrasher.”

She blushed, “What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry about what others think about you, if you like Stardust then tell him.”

She looked away blushing harder, “I said we aren’t talking about this anymore. I’ll tell him if I know he likes me the same way.”

I jumped on her back, knocking her to the ground as I hugged her from behind, “If you say so, that just means I have to work on Stardust so he sees how amazing you are.”

“NO, don’t do that!” she begged.

I jumped off her moving toward the sleeping colt and filly, “Sorry Wind Thrasher, but that’s what friends do. They help you when you’re too scared to do something yourself.”

I pulled the key out of my saddle bags, which were still on the bed and unlocked the hoof cuffs for Wingnut and Byte. Byte twitched in her sleep, then nuzzled closer to Wingnut when I pulled the cuff off. Wind Thrasher just watched me saying, “You know I really can’t wait to see what happens when they wake up like that. Also, you’re not being fair, I don’t want you telling Stardust anything. I’ll talk to him when I’m ready.”

“You’ll never be ready Wind Thrasher, but I’m not going to tell him that you like him. I’m just going to see if he feels the same by talking to him a little. You’d be surprised what I can figure out with a few simple and harmless questions.” I said as I walked past her, “Come on, we shouldn’t be late, we’ll let those two sleep.”

She just sighed, “Fine, you’re impossible sometimes Shadow, but I’ll trust you on this.”

***

When we walked out of the cave I stopped, my eye’s going wide as I saw what the Griffons were able to do in the last few hours. A Stage was set up not far from the arena. Griffons and ponies from Cartwheel were starting to gather in front of it. All around Crimson Canyon as far as the eye could see, sparkling colored lights were set up. They looked like small gems that had been hung from the balconies of each griffon’s homes on the cliff sides, there were lights on the roofs of the huts, lights along the canyon walls, even at the tips of the swords on the Statue of Greta. The statue itself had lights set under it as well illuminating the Statue so that no matter where you were, you’d see it. The wall behind the statue where the ten laws of the Red Talons stood, had been left in darkness so that the rules couldn’t be read.

The wonders went on however, because as I started to walk down the path that would lead Wind Thrasher and myself back to The Den, I saw griffons dressed up in all kinds of things. I saw a group of griffons in a group, all wearing shiny leather vests, bright pink feathers were set into head bands around their heads, and the tips of each wing feather matched the head dress. One griffon who flew over me was dressed in an old tux that went well with his smoky grey and white coat and feathers. I saw two griffons who had to be twins wearing matching dresses that made them look like they came from royalty. As I walked, the colors of each griffon and their outfits started to mix together until I felt as if I’d walked into a sea of rainbows.

Then I noticed that a lot of the griffons had arm bands with different symbols on them, identifying them as belonging to another talon company. The Red Talons were the most common, but I saw at least ten others as I walked. I only saw a few who didn’t have anything on them to show what talon company they belonged too. I took that to mean that either they were freelancers or were kicked out of their own talon company and wanted to join the Red Talons.

“There has to be five hundred griffons here,” I said to Wind Thrasher as we got closer to the Stage where I could see Gigi standing. She was wearing a red leather vest with a gold choker around her neck, the Red Talon’s symbol on the left side of her chest, on the other side of her vest there was a symbol I’d never seen before. It was two crossed swords inside a set of griffon wings with the letters R.T.L. on it.

Wind Thrasher had her ears folded back, “I think it’s closer to Six hundred, and it’s loud here.”

“I think you’re hearing is too good for this kind of thing,” I teased.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” she said with a laugh, “I’ll get used to it though. We should find Aura, she said to meet her by the stage.”

“I wonder what that patch on Gigi’s vest means,” I said as we pushed our way past griffons and a couple Cartwheel ponies so we could get to the front.

I got my answer right away, because Syndi moved closer saying, “That’s mom’s rank as the leader of the Red Talons. She’s only wears that when we do the Rebirth Celebration or if she’s meeting an important client.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense, so Syn where’s Aura she said she wanted us to meet her here?” I asked as we finally made it to the front of the pack of Griffons.

“She’ll be here soon, first let’s wait for mom’s announcement for the start the Celebration,” Syn said.

“That’s a great idea,” I heard Vervain say as she pushed through the crowd next to us, “Hello Shadow and Wind Thrasher.”

I smiled, “Auntie Vervain, I’m glad you made it. You look tired, are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine sweetheart, just a long day that’s all. I just finished up with the last of today’s work and rushed right over. Well after I found something nice to wear,” she said indicating a simple violate dress that matched her eyes.

I was about to say something when Gigi cleared her throat then moved closer to a microphone that was set up on the stage, “Thank you all for being here tonight. As you know tonight marks the one hundred and sixtieth year of the Rebirth Celebration. As in years past as marked down by the griffon who first started this Celebration, today and the following two days the rules of the Red Talons will be hidden away. This does not mean that any Red Talon can out right break our laws, but some things can be looked over for the next seventy-two hours. The important thing about the laws being hidden in darkness is that all banished griffons from our lands may return to either see family, friends or to try and rejoin us. Also, griffons from other Talon companies are allowed in Crimson Canyon as well and if any griffons want to join our ranks they may if they can prove themselves in battle.”

A lot of griffons all around us started to cheer, “With that said let me add that even though we will overlook some rules and laws, that does not mean that we will tolerate Murder, theft, rape or assault. Any griffon or pony that does this will be executed on the spot by myself or Apollo. Now, as you all know I am Gillion Bloodtalon leader of The Red Talons, I welcome you all to my home and hope that you enjoy your time here. So, with our further ado, I declare the Rebirth Celebration officially Started. As a special surprise for you all, this year’s opening entertainment will be different.”

More griffons start to cheer, as they do I look back at Syn asking, “Where’s Aura? Shouldn’t she be here for this?”

Syn just smiled, “Don’t worry Shadow, she’s already here.”

“What do you mean…” I started to say but Gigi’s voice echoed thought the Canyon again.

“Most years our opening entertainment would be either a story of our past from Tonto, or a performance of strength and skill from our younger griffons. This year I had a request to do something else. This year you all will witness something that hasn’t happened in Crimson Canyon in almost a decade. My three youngest daughters will be putting on a show for you all. So please give a round of applause for Viridiana, Fletch and Aura Bloodtalon!” Gigi said as each griffon walked on to the stage from the other side.

My eyes got big as I looked at them all. Each one had on an outfit like none I’ve ever seen on a griffon or even a pony. All three were wearing a tight-fitting shirt with loose cut sleeves running down their forelegs, making the cut parts look like ribbons flowing onto the ground. They also had on headbands pulling back their head feathers. On their rear paws I saw some kind of sleeves or socks, but their paws were poked through the bottom. On their slightly open wings long tassels had been tied all along them. Aura’s outfit was a brilliant icy blue to match her eyes, Vi’s was a dark pink and Fletch’s was a brilliant emerald green. I couldn’t take my eyes off Aura, she looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen her before. I’m not sure if it was from the outfit, or just because of how happy she looked.

The griffons felt silent as all three walked up to three microphones that had been put on stage. Aura was in between her sisters, she moved her beak closer to her mic saying into it, “Hello everyone, it’s been a long time since the three of us sang for you all.”

Vi said into hers, “Damn right it has, what do you say should we show Crimson Canyon that the Bloodtalon sisters still know how to party!”

Fletch laughed, “Oh yeah, let’s do it!”

The griffons from the Red Talons cheered louder as the lights around the canyon started to dim and all three sisters hung their heads. While I had been watching them, a band made its way onto Stage. A pony and two griffons playing the instruments. As the cheering started to die down and quiet fell on the canyon, a deep boom filled the air as the music started. A slow steady beat reverberated around the walls of the Canyon.

Boom…Boom…Boom

The drum’s beat continued as the griffon playing it started to tap a cymbal to match each deep thrum. Next the pony started to play his instrument, adding another base like thrum. Then the other griffon who was standing on his hind legs ran his talons up the guitar he was holding his other talon coming down to bring a beautiful strumming note to mix with the others. Together all three started to play a song, as they did Aura brought her beak to the mic and she started to sing. My first thought was that voice coming out of her wasn’t that of the griffon I loved. When Aura spoke, she had a hard edge to her voice that rasped a little. When she sang, her voice didn’t rasp, it was beautiful.

“Ooooooo take a look at me, see me for who I am, my soul is crying out for somebody. It’s crying out for a life away from this pain, from this world, from the horrors of being alone!” Aura sang her sisters humming into their mics as she did.

Then Fletch started, her voice just as beautiful as her sisters. She continued on from where Aura left off, the song speaking about a griffon who’s lost in a sea of darkness and pain. Vi took up after Fletch singing about the griffon wading through the darkness to find the light of her one true love, the soul she’s meant to be with. Then all three joined their voices together and the music got faster. I noticed that the griffons around me had moved away from the stage and were starting to dance. Then as the song came to an end Aura said, “Alright, let’s turn it up!”

The music got faster and a lot louder as the lights around the canyon blazed brighter. I felt Syn take hold of my hoof pulling me away from the stage. I looked up at her as she laughed saying, “Don’t just stand there, this is a party!”

I couldn’t help laughing as well. I started to bob my head to the beat, moving my hooves and swaying my body. I twisted around and just let my body do as it wanted. I didn’t care if anyone was watching, didn’t care if I was good at this or not, didn’t care about anything as long as I could just be carefree for once in my life. As time went on and the songs continued, I found myself laughing with griffons I’d never met, dancing with Stardust, dancing with Vervain, I even found myself being spun around by one of Fletch’s minions, Gouger. He was a really good dance partner, we danced through two songs and half of a third before Arys cut in.

I was a little surprised at first, but she just smiled and said, “It’s a party, right? I want to see how good of a dancer the pony that Aura likes so much is.”

“Okay, just try to keep up,” I said as I twisted around her shaking my body back and forth as she kept in step with me.

The night went on, after two more dances with Arys I was starting to run out of breath. So, when the song finished I excused myself and walked over to Stardust who was sitting next to Wind Thrasher just away from the dancing hoard of griffons. He saw me coming over and held up a bottle of Applebuck Rum, “Want a drink?”

“Sure why not, a few sips can’t hurt,” I said as I took the bottle and drank a couple of mouthfuls then winced, “This stuff is nasty, how do you drink this?”

He shrugged as he took the bottle away from me then passed it to Wind Thrasher, “Wind Thrasher seems to like it and it’s my favorite liquor.”

If I had my saddle bags with me, I could have pulled out the bottle of Wild Pegasus I had, but sadly I didn’t, “Maybe it’s a pegasus thing,” I noticed that Wind Thrasher was looking a little drunk already, “Is she okay?”

Wind Thrasher looked over at me with a dreamy expression and hiccupped, “I..I is finnnne, I can…something,” Then she looked over at Stardust, “Chu, have purity eyes…boff of youuuu.”

Either she’s talking to both of us or she’s seeing two Stardusts, “I think she’s had enough,”

Stardust chuckled, “She’s only drank five sips or so. She’s a big light weight.”

Wind Thrasher’s eyes went wide then she glared at Stardust…at least I think she’s looking at him, “Di…(Hiccup) did…chu call me…fat?”

“Nope I just said you’re a light weight, means you can’t handle your liquor.” He said taking a sip from the bottle, “I on the other hoof can.”

“I can…dink, as mooch as chu!” Wind Thrasher slurred taking the bottle away from him and downing more.

“Wind Thrasher you’ve had enough,” I said pulling the bottle away from her with my magic.

She hissed, “Noooo is mine!”

“Not anymore,” I said as I held the bottle up high.

“I…want…” she lunged at me, tripped over her own hooves, fell flat on her belly and didn’t get back up.

Stardust looked worried, “Wind Thrasher, are you okay?”

I moved closer to the bat pony right as she said quietly, “Da world is spinny…weeeeee”

“What do we do now?” Stardust asked.

I shrugged as Wind Thrasher said, “It’s all about the pink bombs and weasels.”

“Well at least that time I understood her, though I have no idea what that means,” I said trying not to laugh at my drunk friend.

“For the goddesses sake Shadow, please don’t tell me you let Wind Thrasher get drunk,” I heard Vervain say from behind me.

Turning around I saw her walking toward us. I pointed a hoof at Stardust, “It was him! I took the rum away from her!”

She ignored me and walked over to Wind Thrasher helping her up, “Come on sweetie, let’s get you to bed.”

Wind Thrasher swayed a little, “I…I’m fine.” then she belched.

“No, you’re drunk, and from the look of it your body doesn’t handle alcohol very well. Come on, I’ll help you out,” Vervain said looking over at Stardust, “You’re coming too, this is your fault.”

“But, I don’t want too, I didn’t know she’d get drunk so easy,” Stardust complained.

Vervain glared at him, “Come with me and help or you can deal with me later.”

Right as she said this Wind Thrasher turned away from them both and threw up. She swayed then smiled, “I feel… better,” then she passed out.

Vervain caught her sighing, “Come on Stardust, help me get her back to the cave, please.”

He sighed, “Yes ma'am,” Stardust picked her up and put her on his back, “I just hope she doesn’t hurl on me.”

As they started to walk away Vervain said, “If she does, then that’s what you get for letting a mare like her get drunk.”

I watched them go still trying to hold in a chuckle, then I looked over at the mess Wind Thrasher left and shivered, “Gross, I think I’ll go back to the party.”

I started walking back, but stopped a little way away as Aura and her sisters finished one last song. It was a slow song and griffons were dancing slowly back and forth. I didn’t feel like joining them, the song was for couples and seeing how the griffon I loved was on stage, I had no one to dance with. I wondered to myself if Gigi was dancing with Apollo, then I saw her next to the Stage standing with Syn watching the rest of the griffons.

“I wonder where Apollo is,” I said to myself looking around for him. It only took me a moment to notice him. He was walking toward the west entrance to Crimson Canyon, the same one we first used the first time we came here. Before he walked into the narrow entrance he looked behind him making sure no one was following him, then he continued on.

“What could you be up too,” I wondered to myself, something about the way he was acting felt off. So, I followed.

I teleported past the rest of the griffons who were still dancing then ran over to the west entrance. From what Aura told me when we first came to Crimson Canyon, this entrance wasn’t used much since nopony lived on this side of the Canyon. Keeping as quiet as I could, I slowly made my way down the narrow passage keeping an eye out for Apollo. It didn’t take me long to find him, he was just down the way and around a bend in the rocky passage way. He wasn’t alone.

I hid myself behind a rock as Apollo said quietly, “I told you to wait until tomorrow night or the next day. If Gillian sees you here, everything we’ve been planning will go to shit.”

Whoever he was talking too, their voice was hard to make out, as if her face was covered by something, but it sounded familiar, I just couldn’t put my hoof on it, “I told you I don’t care. What does it matter if we show up today or tomorrow? She can’t do anything during the Rebirth Celebration, you know that.”

Apollo raised his voice, “It matters because I need to finish up on my end, Gillian will be hard enough to take care of in two days when we are ready. If we move now, it won’t work out in our favor. You know how hard it is to hide things from her, she’s not a stupid griffon.”

“I’m tired of waiting Apollo!” the other voice said, sounding irritated.

“You have your orders; do you really want to disobey me now!” Apollo retorted.

“No…fine I guess we can wait another day or two if we have too, but that’s all. You better have everything ready then, if not, we won’t wait any longer,” the voice said.

What the hell are they talking about? Was Apollo planning on doing something? It sounded like it, but what could it be? I wanted to turn and head back so I could talk to Gigi, but when I moved my hoof slid on the sandy ground a little. A small scratching noise echoed off the red sand stone and I heard Apollo say, “Get out of here now! I’ll contact you tomorrow.”

Fuck, they heard me, I was about to teleport away, but I wasn’t fast enough. Apollo rounded the corner and slammed me against the rock yelling, “Who the hell…oh Shadow it’s you,” He set me down, “My apologies, I thought someone was trying to sneak up on me.”

My body was shaking at how fast he moved and how powerfully he slammed me against the wall. Backing up some I said, “What were you just talking about and to whom?”

For a moment he looked worried then he chuckled, “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know that you’re planning something.”

“I am, but from the look on your face I’m guessing you think it’s something bad,” he said still chuckling a little.

“Sounded like it from where I was sitting.”

“Shadow, it may have sounded bad, but I assure you it’s not. You see my wife’s birthday is on the same day of the last day of the Rebirth Celebration and I’m planning on surprising her with something. She never gets to enjoy her birthday and I want this one to be special for her.”

I wasn’t sure why, but it sounded like he was lying, so I pushed on, “Then who was that other voice I heard? She sounded like a griffon I’ve met before but it was hard to make out.”

“Oh, she’s just one of the griffons I use to send messages to some of the factions we have contracts with. She’s the one getting things set up for Gigi’s birthday. It’s so hard to surprise her,” Apollo said.

“If that’s so then why did she said ‘we don’t want to wait any longer.’ What are you planning?” I asked keeping my magic held just in case I needed to use a spell.

“Calm yourself Shadow,” Apollo said, noticing my glowing horn, “Like I said it’s a big surprise, my griffon and her Wing are good friends of Gigi’s as well and they don’t want to wait longer to give my wife her gift. We’ve been planning this for a while now and the suspense is getting to us all.”

What am I doing? This is Apollo, Aura’s dad, he’s always been a kind griffon to me. Apart from that time he tried to kill me for a fake contract, but that wasn’t his fault. I guess being in the wasteland so long has made me paranoid. I sighed and let my magic fade away, “I’m sorry, I just thought something was going on, and the way you were talking to her I thought you were planning on doing something to Gigi.”

He laughed, “It’s quite alright Shadow, I understand. You have good instincts, if you were born a griffon, you’d have made a good Talon. I can see what my daughter sees in you. Well everything is just fine, don’t worry.”

“Okay, sorry I followed you.”

He patted the top of my head and started to head back toward Crimson Canyon. He stopped then turned back to me, “Oh and can you keep this between you and me, I don’t want my surprise ruined.”

I nodded, “Sure thing…Apollo.”

He smiled, but I noticed it looked forced, like he was relieved about something, “Thank you, how about we head back to the party, it sounds like Aura and her sisters are finished.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t take too long,” he said as he started walking away again.

When he was gone I turned back to where he was talking to that other griffon and walked over to the place. I don’t know what I was expecting to find or learn, but something about the conversation and the way he attacked me wasn’t sitting right. At first when I looked around, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. I took a few minutes to look around, but there wasn’t anything to see. I turned to head back to the party when a spec of color caught my eye. Looking over to a rock that sat next to the cliff side I saw something red laying there, almost out of sight. Walking over I picked it up in my magic, it was a small fire red griffon’s feather.

“Gina?” I wondered to myself, but then I thought about it. That couldn’t have been her, Apollo out of any griffon wouldn’t have been talking to Gigi’s sister, she was the one who killed Gale, the griffon Apollo had been in love with. That’s what Aura said at least. Still wondering who it could belong too and with that nagging suspicion in the back of my head, I put the feather into the folds of my dress and headed back to Crimson Canyon.

I was just getting out of the passage when Aura flew down and pulled me into a tight hug, “There you are, did you like the show!”

She sounded out of breath, but excited at the same time. Smiling I hugged her back saying, “It was a blast, I had no idea you could sing like that…or at all.”

She blushed a little, “Well I used to sing with my sisters a lot when we were younger, that was until Fletch and I started having problems. Who would have thought we’d make up in such a strange way and then put on a performance a few hours later?”

“So, is that what you were thinking about doing on our way here? Putting on a performance?” I asked.

She shrugged, “Kind of, I didn’t think Vi or Fletch would be up to it, but I wanted to do something. It was my way of thanking mom for talking with me and convincing me to come here for the Celebration. Making up with Fletch was just a bonus, we had a good long talk in The Den.”

“I’m glad to hear it, so do you want to head back to the cave? Wingnut and Byte are sleeping on one side of our bed, but I think we can manage if we cuddle,” I said with a wink.

She looked back at the entrance I just came from, “Why were you down there?”

“No reason, just wanted to take a walk, didn’t even think about where I was going.” I said, putting on a smile so she wouldn’t think I was lying.

She looked at me for a long moment then shrugged, “Well okay, to answer your question, I’d love to get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll be up early, knowing Mom or Dad, they’ll have something for us to do and it’s always fun to watch the fights.”

I smiled and pulled myself onto her back, “Then let’s go hon.”

She laughed and took to the air, “Too bad the squirts are sleeping in our bed. After all the excitement I’d love to relax in a more private way, but I really don’t want to wake the kids up with something like that.”

“I’m sure I could move them,” I said winking at her.

She just laughed, “Nope, you’ll just have to wait till tomorrow now. It’s the price we adults have to pay when there are kids around.”

I huffed, damned those two, even in their sleep they still find a way to fuck with me. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. As Aura flew back to her cave, I pulled out the red feather I found out and looked at it. I still couldn’t shake the feeling I was getting. Was I really being paranoid or was something else going on that I was choosing to ignore? Whatever it is, I’ll have to figure it out before the last day of the Celebration. I wasn’t going to let something happen if I could help it, if I’m wrong then at least it’s better than the alternative.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Dancing Queen: Has anyone ever told you that you’re really fun at parties? No? Rude, all of them, because when you dance with your significant other you get a temporary +30 HP boost for the next six hours. There’s also the added bonus of getting to dance!

Chapter 49: Beautiful Pain

“I am the leader of The Unchained Talons.”

It felt like I just shut my eyes when a filly’s scream woke me. My eye’s snapped open as the ear-splitting scream filled the small room making me jump and fall out of bed. I reached for Dream Walker which was sitting on the nightstand as I looked for whomever was trying to attack us. What I saw was Byte trying to pull away from Wingnut, who had his hooves wrapped around her. Wingnut looked like he was still in a deep sleep.

“Let go of me!” Byte yelled still trying to pull away from Wingnut.

I looked at the two of them for a full minute then lowered Dream Walker and started laughing, “Byte you scared the shit out of me.”

She glared at me, “Why are you laughing this isn’t funny!”

“Just calm down,” I said getting up and walking around to the other side of the bed, “Wingnut’s a deep sleeper, it won’t do you any good screaming and pulling like that.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? Just lie here and wait for him to wake up?” she asked still trying to pull away.

I put a hoof on her shoulder, “Relax for a moment and I’ll show you,” she did, laying back down as I moved my hoof over to Wingnut, letting it rest on his foreleg that was holding tightly to Byte, “He gets nightmares now and again, it’s hard to tell because he doesn’t cry in his sleep or anything like that. This is how you can tell if he’s having one. Now that you’re relaxed can you feel it?”

“He’s…shaking,” Byte said looking at the colt, “Why is he doing that?”

I started to slowly rub Wingnut’s leg, “He’s been through a lot in his young life. He listened to his parents as they died, he was almost killed by cazadors a couple months back, nearly died from mosslurker poison, had to watch as Stardust went crazy, had to deal with almost losing Aura, Stardust, and me, and he’s had to put on a brave face through it all. I’m surprised he’s been able to hold out as well as he has when he’s awake, but I’ve noticed over the past few days that he hasn’t been sleeping well.”

She looked at him again with a sad expression on her face, “I thought I went through a lot with losing my mom.”

“You’ve been though your own shit over the years I’m sure Byte. I’m not trying to say Wingnut’s life is harder than yours or anything like that. I think that when he’s stressed out he relives some of his bad memories. That’s why he’s holding on so tight, because he doesn’t want to lose hold of who he cares about,” I said moving my head down and whispering in Wingnut’s ear, “Shhhh, it’s okay Kiddo, I’m here.”

As I spoke his body relaxed along with his hold on Byte. She slowly pulled herself free and slipped off the bed. When she did Wingnut rolled over looking like he was more relaxed. Byte still looked at him and said, “You’re really good at that.”

I shrugged, “I used to have nightmares when I was younger, especially after my mom disappeared from our Stable. Vervain used to do the same thing to me to help me calm down.”

“Why don’t you just wake him up if he’s having a nightmare?”

“Vervain told me that it’s not good to wake up somepony when they’re having a nightmare. She said that it’s worse in the long run because the nightmare will keep coming back until you face it.”

“That sounds kind of wrong.”

“It might, but I think she was right. I think it helped me face The Wasteland. It was scary to leave my home, but I think it would’ve been worse if I hadn’t faced my fears when I was younger,” I said turning to grab my saddle bags, barding and duster.

“What kind of bad dreams did you have?” she asked as she put on a set of filly sized leather armor.

I stopped in the middle of slipping on my Duster. A quick flashback of memories from a few years ago, back before I even entered Stable 28 came rushing into my head. A huge pony made of metal facing off against a Manticore, A creature made out of light attacking mom and then me. Dreams where I saw my chest rip open exposing a dead looking heart that was slowly dying. Mom standing in the rain covered in blood with three dead pegasi lying next to her. That last one was a dream I had almost as much as the one of my first memory of waking up in the stable. In that dream she’d looked over at me, her mane stained red from the blood of the pegasi saying, ‘I’m sorry my Little Star, but they had to die…they had to…”

I jumped a little as Byte poked my side, “Did you hear what I asked Shadow?”

I shook my head then finished putting on my duster, “Yeah, sorry I was just thinking back to those days. My nightmares weren’t normal, I think they were memories from before I went to Stable 28, only I didn’t know that at the time.”

“You must’ve had it rough before you went to Stable 28. I guess anypony who lives out here has had it rough,” Byte said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said as I finished getting ready, “Hey, have you seen Aura?”

“I saw her heading out just before you woke up. She made a little noise when she left and that’s what woke me up.”

“I wonder why she didn’t wake me up?” I said looking down at my Pip-Buck and seeing it was a little past 7am, “Oh that’s why, she knows I don’t normally do well this early.”

Byte yawned then stretched, “I love getting up early, more time in the day to get shit done. I’m gonna go back to Tonto’s cave and see more of the stuff he has in there. You wanna come?”

“Maybe, I want to see what’s going on first and check on Aura. I should also check on Wind Thrasher, she wasn’t doing too well last night.”

“Okay, if Wingnut wakes up, tell him I’ll be at Tonto’s,” she said as she headed toward the exit.

“You’re in a good mood today, are you sick or something? Where’s the normally snide and bitchy Byte?” I asked.

She turned back to look at me and just shrugged, “I’m nice sometimes y’know. Just most of the time I’m surrounded by idiots and I can’t stand idiots,” Then she left with a leisurely stroll.

Rolling my eyes, I took one more look at Wingnut who was still sleeping then sighed and left the room, turned right in the main chamber of Aura’s cave then headed toward where Wind Thrasher was sleeping. She was lying there with her wings over her face, looking like she was asleep. Doing my best to keep my voice down, “Wind Thrasher, are you still sleeping?”

She moaned and slowly covered her ears with her hooves, “Not so loud…”

Talking even quieter, “Sorry, I thought I was being quiet. Are you okay?”

She moaned again, “Everything’s loud right now, my head feels like somepony’s hitting the back of my eyes with a wrench, my body won’t stop shaking and I feel like I have to throw up but can’t. Don’t even get me started on the light, it just burns.”

I walked over to her and started to rub her mane a little, “I guess you don’t do so well with alcohol.”

“Apart from that Wild Pegasus you gave me in Whinnieapolis that was the first time I’ve ever drank more than a sip. I remember Vervain saying something this morning about my body not being able to metabolize the liquor because of the genetic manipulation that was done to my body. Which means that alcohol affects me ten times more than it does normal ponies…I’m never drinking again,” she said, her face still covered with her wings.

“That might be a good idea, but everypony says that when they have a hangover. Some ponies pray to The Goddesses when they have a hangover or did something stupid while drunk. Like, ‘don’t let it be true and I’ll never drink with a prostitute again’ or my personal favorite, ‘Please don’t let her be pregnant, and I’ll never drink again.’ Well if you want I’ll let you rest up more, if you’re feeling better later come find me. Also if Wingnut wakes up tell him to head over to Tonto’s.”

She waved a hoof laughing lightly at the last thing I said, “Thanks Shadow I’ll try.”

I stroked her mane one more time then got up and headed out of the cave. As soon as I did I ran right into Fletch. I yelped then backed up, “Oh sorry about that Fletch.”

She was rubbing her chest where my horn just poked her, “It’s fine, just watch where you’re going next time, and keep an eye on that thing, you’ll poke someone’s eye out.”

“I’ll try, so why are you up here? If you’re looking for Aura, she left already.”

She waved a talon, “No, I already saw her, she’s in the den talking with dad. I was looking for you.”

I frowned, “Why were you looking for me?”

“We…didn’t get off on the right talon…or hoof in your case. I’ve been kind of a bitch to you since we first met and I was taking some of my anger at my little sister out on you and your friends. I wanted to say I’m sorry for what I did before and wanted to get to know you better,” Fletch said looking away as if she was embarrassed.

“Damn, one fight with your sister and now you’ve gone from bitch to kind. I’ll admit I never saw that one coming.”

She made a fist with the same talon she’d been waving back and forth, “Don’t make me hit you.”

I laughed, “I’m only teasing, I’d like to get to know you better too, same for the rest of Aura’s family. There’s so much I still don’t know.”

“Well, I’m free now if you don’t mind me walking with you.”

“I was going to go see Aura, but I could use a walk. I also need to go talk with Tonto later.”

Fletch smiled a little, “Well Aura’s going to be busy for a couple hours. She’s helping with a few things before Tonto talks about how The Red Talons started, that’ll be later tonight. She’s also helping dad get set up for our remembrance of Greta.”

“Well if she’s busy I don’t want to get in her way, so I guess we’ll go for a walk,” I said heading down the path that led down to the main level.

There was still a load of griffons all over Crimson Canyon, some laying around sleeping off inebriation from drinking from the opening celebration, others talking to other talon groups, and young griffons wrestling near the arena. Fletch noticed me looking at the griffons all around, “I’m sure you’ve never seen this many griffons in once place huh.”

I nodded, “You don’t even see this many in New Pegasus. Where do they all come from?”

“A good amount of them are Red Talons. Most of the time over half of the working griffons here are on jobs and away from home. They all put their contracts on hold for the Celebration. It’s something stipulated in every Red Talon contract. The rest come from all over Equestria, from Manehattan, Hoofington, and Vanhoover. Our grandmother made quite the name for herself when she started The Talons and since we’re the biggest talon group in The Wasteland and have the biggest territory, a lot of talon groups come to the celebration too. Then you have freelancers, either ones that used to be Red Talon’s that want back in or young griffons who want to join after they were either kicked out of their own talon group or left,” Fletch said as we walked past a pony from Cartwheel who was talking with two young looking griffons. One was male the other female and they looked like twins.

I noticed that the male griffon had two odd looking swords, “What kind of weapons are those? I’ve never seen them before.”

She looked back at them then chuckled, “They look like the claws from a hellhound. Not every griffon in The Wasteland can afford to get as nice a weaponry as we have, so they make their own. Those two must be tough if he was able to take down a hellhound to make swords from its claws.”

“I’ll say, though I’ve never really met a real hellhound apart from Rawr and he’s a different breed of hellhound,” I said as we started walking around the arena.

“Rawr huh? I’ve heard that name before,” Fletch said scratching at the bottom of her beak, “Oh right, he was the hellhound that was in The Bramble where my shit-faced aunt was.”

“Yeah, I helped him escape that place and in turn he didn’t kill me and he helped me take the place down for good. How’d you hear about that?”

She waved a talon in the air again, “Mom keeps an eye on things going on around here. She’s always doing her best to keep her eye on griffons like Gina. Before The Queen sent you to look into The Bramble, she tried contracting us. I was the one who was offered the contract, but at the time I was working on something else with the two idiots I usually work with and couldn’t do it. I think The Queen was waiting till Apollo went to Freedom again to talk to him, but you showed up first. Still, I was in the area before you went there and decided to ask around about the place before I headed back home. I couldn’t get anything from anypony, the only info I got was that I had to talk to a griffon named Gina. So, when I got back I made sure to tell mom about it.”

“I bet she was pissed.”

“Not really, she knew Gina was operating near New Pegasus again, just not where. She didn’t get mad until reports came in about you and your friends going to The Bramble,” Fletch replied.

We walked for a few minutes before I decided to change the subject, “So, Gigi said something about there being three hundred griffons in The Red Talons. How did you get so big?”

Fletch laughed, “We weren’t always so big. Around…I don’t know….eighty to a hundred years ago, we only had around forty griffons. Then Gail Windrider and her griffons from Stable 14 showed up and joined us. She had over a hundred griffons at the time who left the stable with her and didn’t leave or die when they got out. When they joined our territory grew like a wild fire. She was very accomplished as a contractor, or so my father says, she was his grandmother.”

That caught me by surprise, “So Apollo’s grandmother and the griffon he used to love were both named Gail?”

“It’s not as uncommon of a name with griffons as you’d think, but yes. Our aunt Gail was named after Gail Windrider. Our grandmother, my mom’s mom, was good friends with Penelope who was Gail’s Daughter and she named her youngest daughter after Gail because she looked up to her. At least that’s what mom told me,” Fletch said moving out of the way of two young griffons who went running by us.

“What was she like, you’re other Aunt I mean? Aura doesn’t talk about her much,” I asked.

“Aura didn’t know her that well, she spent most of her time with dad or Gina, they both took a lot of her time training her,” Fletch said rolling her eyes, “Sorry, even though I’m trying to get over that it’s still hard. Anyway, I spent a lot of time around Auntie Gail. To most griffons they only saw a kind griffon who was a good fighter in the arena, but out of it wouldn’t hurt a bloatsprite. In reality, Gail was the kind of griffon who manipulated others without them even knowing. When I was younger I didn’t notice it, but as I got older and started to learn from her I saw that most of Mom and Gina’s fights were because of her. Gail had a way of getting under your feathers and nipping at you without you even knowing it was her. She’d keep nipping and biting until you couldn’t take it anymore and you lashed out at the griffon she wanted you to be angry with.”

“Is that why Gina killed her?” I asked, “She couldn’t take the manipulation?”

Fletch sighed then looked around, seeing no griffon or pony she said, “The record says that Gina wanted mom’s job, to be the leader. She wanted to take both of her sisters out to make sure no one could contest her role as leader. She went after Gail first and started an uprising with other griffons, but she got caught.”

“From the look on your face, you don’t believe that,” I said with a smile.

“I don’t, the day Gina killed Gail, I was supposed to be training with Gail in her cave. When I went to meet up with her, she sent me away, said she had business to take care of. She told me that she had a mission for me, she sent me to an NLR camp that was a few hours away from home. Said she’d pay me half of what she got for the contract if I did that for her, so I went. Turned out that the NLR camp I went to had no idea a Red Talon was coming and they sent me away. When I got back, Gail was dead, Gina was arguing with Mom and a fight almost broke out. Then mom banished her from the Talons along with five other griffons who were said to be helping Gina with her coup.”

I thought about that for a moment then asked, “How would killing both her sisters make her the leader? Aura said Gina never fought with Gigi for leadership.”

“In our laws, if a leader of the Red Talons dies before the Rebirth Celebration, one of her siblings would take over until the celebration started. This happened six months before that year’s celebration so Gina would’ve had time to set up her rule before that day. With mom and Gail dead, no griffon around here would’ve challenged her for control. By that time, Gina was known to be the best fighter ever seen in the Red Talons since Greta herself.”

“So why don’t you believe it?” I asked.

“Because the five griffons who were sent away with Gina were Gail’s friends. I knew them and they hated Gina. Also she killed them all not long after she was banished.”

“So you think Gina was framed?” I asked.

“I’m not sure honestly, it’s possible that Gina did offer them something to gain their help, but it’s also possible that Gail was behind something and Gina found out and killed her for it. I’ve tried asking Mom about it, but she always sends me away when I bring it up. Tonto might know something too, but he also refuses to talk to me or any of us about those days. All I know is that something happened that they don’t want us to know about,” Fletch replied. We’d just reached the top of one of the far cliffs and were now outside of a large cave opening with a sign over it that read, ‘Story Teller’.

“If Gina was framed for the death of her sister, I could see why she’d be so mad about her banishment and why she keeps saying she was betrayed,” I said, “So is this Tonto’s place?”

She nodded, “Yeah it is, and when it comes to my aunts, I don’t think I’ll ever know the full story. Really no matter what she did back then, she’s gone bad now.”

“I can agree with that. I was going to ask Gigi about this before, but she’s been busy. Did anyone catch her after the attack on Cartwheel?”

“No, three griffons died in the attempt though. From the reports of the one griffons who made it back, said that it took them a little over a day to catch up to her. When they did they found her injured in a cave near the ruins of Gravel City. She was in no shape to fight and they could’ve brought her in, but a male griffon in a full set of griffon power armor took them by surprise. He killed two of the griffons before they knew what was happening. The last two tried to run when he showed up, but only one got away.”

“I wonder if he’s the leader that Gina was talking about before?”

“As far as we know he is,” Fletch said sitting down next to me and looking up at the cloudy sky, “We don’t know much about him, he doesn’t seem to show himself much, leaving Gina to command the others. The only things we’ve been able to learn about him from a couple of Unchained we’ve captured is that he used to be a Red Talon, he’s very close to Gina and he goes by the codename of ‘Archer’.”

“So, he’s the real brains behind this new Talon Group huh?” I asked.

“As far as we can tell. Honestly it has my mother worried, she doesn’t know what will happen if Archer keeps getting more griffons to join him. From what we can tell, he wants The Red Talons destroyed.”

“But there’s no way he can get more griffons than The Red Talons.”

“Maybe not, but over half of our griffons are either too young to fight if something happens or they’re too old. We have a lot of griffons, but not as many fighters as we’d like. If the Unchained Talons get enough griffons to join them and they attack, we wouldn’t stand a chance,” Fletch said with a sigh.

I nudged her with a hoof, “Don’t look so glum, I’m sure Gigi will think of something to take care of them. Remember you all have contracts with a shit load of ponies in The Wasteland, I’m sure most of them would come to your aide if something happened.”

Tonto’s voice echoed out from the entrance of his cave, “That’s right Shadow, Fletch would do well to remember that.”

We both looked over to see the older griffon standing there with Byte next to him. Fletch smiled, “You’re going senile you old coot. Those ponies pay us for work, not the other way around.”

Tonto just laughed, “I may be old, but I’m not senile yet. What I mean is that one reason we make sure to have such good friendships with so many ponies is so that we can count on them if we’re ever in trouble. The NLR alone would come to our aide if we needed it, because they like the way we do business. If a talon group like The Unchained took over, The NLR wouldn’t like that one bit.”

“I guess you’re right, still it worries me,” Fletch said getting back to her talons, “Anyway Tonto, are you busy right now? Shadow wanted to talk with you.”

“I was just talking to young Byte about some of the old tech I found when I was still a young griffon working with Box Tape. You two can come in if you’d like,” he said.

Byte beamed happily, “Shadow you have to see the stuff he has in here. I’ve never seen so many books or old tech in my life!”

Looking over at Fletch I asked, “Come in with me, we can talk more. I still haven’t told you about my time in The Wasteland.”

She shrugged, “I guess I can do that, I’m not needed for anything until tomorrow anyway.”

We both followed Tonto and Byte into the cave. The cave had to be the biggest cave in Crimson Canyon. My eyes went wide as I walked in, not only because the ceiling was at least two stories tall and almost as big around as the atrium in Stable 28, there were also rooms to each side, one I could see was filled with rows and rows of books and scrolls, Memory orbs of many colors were set onto shelves all over the main chamber along with more books. A recollector was sitting in the middle of them all. The other room looked like it was Tonto’s bedroom, even in there I could see more books laying all over the place. On more shelves high in the main chamber I could see older model Pip-Bucks, Spritebots, broken weapons, old rusty spears and swords, a helmet from Enclave Power Armor, a few old broken terminals and a Ministry Mare Statuette. Rainbow Dash’s from the look of it.

Out of all the stuff in his cave the Statuette was the first thing I ran over to, “Is this really what I think it is?”

Tonto smiled gently, “Yes, I believe Box Tape told me you already found three of them.”

“When did he tell you that?” I asked.

“I visited him a day or so after you left for The Twin Cities. I’ve never been interested in collecting them myself. That one has been here all of my life, the story my teacher told me was that Absent Moon left it here when he ran off. I’ve been waiting for you to come visit me so I could give her to you.”

My eyes got wide, “Really? Why would you do that?”

“Because I think you might be able to find them all, also because I know you’re descended from one of the Children of the Night. Rainbow Dash herself was the pony who ran that group along with Luna. She’s yours if you want her, think of it as a gift for helping the Red Talons so much,” he replied.

“Helping the Red Talons? I haven’t done anything for you, you’ve always helped me,” I said.

Fletch laughed a little, “Shadow, if it wasn’t for you and your friends, we wouldn’t know about the Unchained Talons yet. They could’ve gotten stronger without us even knowing about them until it was too late. You also saved my life and the life of my griffons by calling in my mother when they attacked us near Stable 28.”

Tonto added, “You also brought home Misery and that alone was worth so much to this old griffon. So, take her.”

I didn’t hesitate to examine her, first looking down at the Statuette of the pegasus who ran the Ministry of Awesome. She was younger, looking so full of life and pride. On the base it said ‘Be Awesome’ sounding so much like the Rainbow Dash I’ve heard stories about. I let my magic wrap around it and like with the others, it felt like something inside me changed. I felt like I could move a little faster and with more grace, both with my Magic and my Body. I placed her in my saddle bags with a smile, right next to the other three. Now I had Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, and now Rainbow Dash. Four of the six Ministry Mares, Image, Peace, Arcane Sciences, and Awesome. The only ones left to find was Applejack for Wartime Technologies and Pinkie Pie for Morale. Maybe I could find the other two and complete the set.

“Who made those?” Byte asked, “I’ve never even heard of them before.”

Tonto sat down on a large over-stuffed pillow in one corner, “I believe it was Rarity who made them with the help of a couple unicorns she knew. She made a set of six for all of her friends, all six Ministry Mares and Princess Luna. Not much is known about how Rarity made them, but no matter what you do to them, they won’t break. They’ve withstood the war and time itself and still look like they were just finished. I’ve heard rumors that they’re something called Soul Jars, but I’m sure that’s just silly.”

I looked over at Tonto again and asked, “What’s a Soul Jar?”

He frowned a little as he thought, “Well from what I’ve read in some nasty Zebra books, a Soul Jar is an item that has had a soul put into it by a zebra witchdoctor or even a unicorn. When a soul jar is made that soul within it keeps that item from ever being destroyed. Would be a good bit of magic to make armor I’d think, however the soul itself that resides in this soul jar would turn evil with hatred and resentment for being pulled out of its body and imprisoned in said item.”

“That sounds…like a nasty bit of magic,” I said.

“If it was possible then I agree with you. A soul should be able to move on to its next life when the body dies. If a soul is taken from its body and trapped, even if that body dies. The soul can never be reborn or even move on from the life it once had. A soul is eternal, but not meant to be on Equus for more than a century or less. Being tied to this land for too long can make a soul go dark and a dark soul is never a good thing, or at least that’s what we griffons believe.”

Byte rolled her eyes, “I’m sure that’s just a story, you can’t just pull a soul out of a pony and put it into something. Just a bunch of zebra mojo they came up with to make us scared of them.”

“Well little one, I’m not sure if it’s real or not, but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible,” Tonto said patting the top Byte’s head.

I walked over to the memory orbs and asked, “So what are all of these memory orbs of?”

The old griffon walked over to look up at the memory orbs, “Oh, most of them are just random memories of ponies during the war that I’ve collected over the years,” he pointed up at a row that were set apart from the rest, “Those are the ones that matter, they’re all memories of Greta. Most of them have been here since she started the Red Talons, some were found over the years by my predecessors.”

“How many have you found?” I asked.

Tonto looked over at Fletch, “My dear would you mind grabbing the last one on the left for me?”

“No problem Tonto,” Fletch said flying up to the highest shelf and grabbing the orb.

Tonto took it from her then showed it to me, “This is the only one I’ve ever been able to find that belonged to Greta. I also believe that it was one of the most important ones.”

I looked closer at it, “What do you mean?”

The old griffon smiled, “I know that you’ve been looking into The Children of the Night. I’m sure you’ve found some memory orbs of them during your travels, but have you found any that took place after the war?”

I shook my head, “No, I’ve seen a couple of Night Stalkers. One was during the attack on shattered hoof ridge, another when he killed an Equestrian Captain who was working with the zebras and a couple more. I also have one that was of a zebra that ended up working with them. I also have one from Greta during the attack on Las Pegasus.”

His eyes seemed to dance when he heard that, “You found a memory orb of Greta’s on the day the zebra’s attacked Las Pegasus?”

“Well I didn’t find it, my mom did. She left it for me with Lonely Hearts.”

The old griffon looked like a foal in a candy store as he asked, “Shadow would you let me…see it?”

I thought about it for a moment then sighed, “It’s a long memory, but if you want to view it then I’d be fine with that, but I can’t let you have it. Mom said she thinks she missed something in it and she was hoping I’d be able to figure out what she missed.”

“I won’t take it from you, though I’d love to add it to my collection. I mostly want to verify something and if that orb is the one I think it is, then I may just be able to put together a puzzle I’ve been trying to figure out for some time now.”

Byte walked closer looking at the orb, “Tonto, how can you watch a memory orb? You’re a griffon.”

He laughed lightly, “Oh little one, I have a recollector don’t you see? The one on the shelf is for a griffon.”

She looked up at the shelf, “Oh, I was wondering if that was what that was, it’s shaped differently than the one Rusty has.”

Fletch came over to me while Byte was talking to Tonto, “Shadow, I need to go check on a few things. I’ll let you hang out with Tonto for a while, if you’re still up for talking more later, I’ll be at the top of Crimson Canyon guarding the east entrance.”

I smiled, “I’d love to talk more Fletch, honestly I’m a little surprised that you’re so nice.”

Tonto looked at us and chuckled, “She comes off as tough and mean, but deep down Fletch is just a sad little girl who wants to be loved.”

She looked over at him, “Bite me,” then she looked back at me and smiled, “See you tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

When she was gone I looked back at Tonto, “She’s not that bad.”

“I’m just happy to see her smile again, it’s been too long. Now if she’d just find a griffon to forge a life bond with, the world would be a happier place for her,” he said.

Byte looked out of the cave’s entrance then back at Tonto, “She’s not bad looking for a griffon, I’m surprised she doesn’t have males drooling all over her.”

“Most of the males are too scared of her to be honest. That, and she’s said that she wouldn’t be with any griffon that couldn’t prove that he’s just as tough as she is.”

“She’ll be alone forever if that’s the case,” I said.

Tonto laughed, “I agree and so does she. Fletch told one griffon that’s been infatuated with her for years, that if he could win fifty fights in the arena, she’d give him a chance.”

“That’s a lot of fights, but doable,” Byte said.

“No, it’s one thing to win a fight here and there, griffons normally lose one out of every five fights. What Fletch wants is for a griffon to win fifty fights in a row,” he said.

“Damn,” I said my eyes going wide, “Who was the griffon she told to do that?”

“Gouger,” Tonto said simply.

My jaw dropped open, “Gouger? Wait isn’t he the taller one?”

“Yeah, he’s the one she always refers to as ‘Fuck’ when she’s angry and forgets his name.”

I started to laugh, “That bird brain, he’ll be waiting forever.”

“I take it you haven’t really dealt with Fletch and the other two much have you? Gouger has already won forty-nine fights. One more and he’ll finally be able to prove himself to her,” Tonto said with a laugh.

“Wow, I had no idea he was such a good fighter. I hope he’s able to do it.”

“Hmm, indeed,” Tonto said, showing me the memory orb again, “I want you to watch this and tell me what you think afterward. In the meantime, would you mind if I watched one you have?”

“Yeah I think I can do that,” I said bringing up my Pip-Buck and searching my inventory until I found the memory orb box mom gave me. Pulling it out I gave him the last orb in the box, “Just make sure you get it back to me.”

“What am I gonna do while you two are looking into memory orbs?” Byte asked.

Tonto smiled kindly, “Byte, go look in my room, you’ll see a box on the other side of my bed. Bring it to me please.”

She walked into the other room and returned a moment later with the box, “Why do you need this?”

He took the box from her and opened it, inside was another recollector, “This one is made for ponies, it used to belong to Box Tape. He left it with me a few years ago. If you want you can pick any of those orbs and watch them.”

“Really!?” Byte said running over to the shelf and looking through the various memory orbs.

I took the one Tonto had and looked down at it, “What’s so important about this orb?”

He gave me his kind smile, “Just watch it and you’ll see.”

Knowing he wasn’t going to tell me more, I laid down next to the orb, concentrating my magic on it. That familiar feeling I’ve grown accustomed to by this point filled my body and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

At least with this orb I didn’t have to guess who my host was. Greta was walking down a dark hallway, her talons slightly sinking into what looked like a polished wood floor, but could only be made out of cloud. Each step she took the floor gave off a small puff of white. Her body felt tired, there was a twinge of pain in her left rear leg and I could feel she was missing a digit on her right talon. At the end of the hallway there was a large door with four pegasi in black combat armor in front of it. Over the door there was a sign that read ‘Head Counselor’.

When she drew closer to the door one of the pegasi stepped in front of her, “I’m sorry Captain but I can’t let you inside. The Head Counselor is in a meeting with…”

Greta grabbed him, lifting him off the ground, “I don’t take orders from you grunt. Let me pass before I gut you like fish!”

The other three started to charge up their laser rifles, “Drop him Greta, we have orders not to let anyone in.”

She glared at the others then slowly pulled out one of her blades. It was Misery, she pointed it at them and said slowly, “Like I said, let me in before I gut all of you. I don’t give two shits what Night Stalker told you. Step aside soldier.”

The pony she was still holding in her talons said, “Put me down you filthy Griffon.”

I felt Greta’s heart start to beat faster when he said that, “What did you call me!?” She threw him into the door, “Filthy griffon huh? Is that what you all think? Is that why you fucking pegasi destroyed my HOME! I’ll eviscerate every last one of you if I have to!”

“Fuck this, take her down!” one of the other guards said firing his battle saddle.

Greta went nuts. She ducked under the shot twisted her blade around and cut the pony in half, “You fucking morons made a big mistake!” she jumped over another shot, twisted around and stabbed Misery through another’s head. Then she reached onto her back and pulled out another sword. This one was shaped just like Misery, only it was pure white with the same silvery glow at the edge. That one must be Joy, she spun it around and beheaded a third pegasi then started walking toward the pegasus she threw.

He looked up at her, “I’m sorry…” Greta stabbed him in the eye.

“I don’t care how sorry you are, you should’ve let me pass,” she said pushing his body aside and opening the door.

Inside sitting at a wooden desk was Night Stalker. He was starting to get some grey in his mane, he now had the goatee I’d seen him with when I saw him on the surveillance video from The Lucky Horseshoe. Sitting on the other side of the desk was Thunderlane. He turned when Greta walked in and smiled, “What did I tell you boss, I told you what she’d…”

Night Stalker interrupted him, “You can leave now Thunderlane, I believe Greta came for a talk.”

Thunderlane chuckled getting to his hooves, “Fine by me boss, I should go turn in my report anyway,” he started to walk past my host when his eyes fell on the dead bodies just outside the door, “Shit, looks like the birdy made a mess.”

Greta’s eyes snapped to Thunderlane’s, “You better leave before you join them.”

Thunderlane just chuckled again and moved a little closer, whispering so only she could hear, “Temper, temper Greta. Just remember that I told you something like this would happen one day. It’s just too bad you weren’t there at Griffonstone with us, you missed all the fu…”

Before the black pegasus could finish what he was saying, Greta grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. Then her other talon came up and she started to hit him, first in the face, and then the gut followed by another to the face. Over and over again she beat the pegasus until he was bleeding and one of his eyes was swollen shut, “Shut the fuck up Thunderlane, you piece of shit. You fucking Enclave rat, I should’ve slit your throat years ago!”

Night Stalker’s voice echoed in the room, “Greta drop him!”

For a long moment Greta glared into Thunderlane’s face. He started to chuckle a little, “Yes, good little dog, do as your master says.”

She moved her face closer to his, “One day Thunderlane, you’re going to die by my blades. I know you had some part in what happened to my home and when I find out what part that was, you’re dead,” she punched him one more time then threw him into the hallway. His body landed on one of the dead guards then slid through the pool of blood leaving a long smear. He didn’t get back up.

When my host looked back at Night Stalker he was still sitting behind his desk, watching her, “Did that make you feel better?”

She drew Misery and pointed it at him, “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth Absent. I know what you did, what role you played in what happened to Griffonstone.”

He didn’t even flinch, even when she moved to the desk and put the blade an inch from his left eye, “You have no idea what you’re talking about Greta.”

“I don’t do I!? So it wasn’t your special ops team along with you and some of the Children who attacked OUR home? Was it some random group of rough Pegasi, or was it Dashites huh? What bullshit excuse do you have for me this time?”

“I told you that the Griffons were making trouble for us in the skies. They keep taking down the cloud cover near Griffonstone, not listening to the new laws that have been put in place, sending wings of young griffons to Pegasi cities to cause havoc,” he said calmly.

“So you used a chemical bomb on them!?” she yelled, “Do you know how many griffons died?”

“Five-hundred and thirty-two. Forty-two of which were children, another fifty expecting mothers, two-hundred and fifty-eight elder griffons, one-hundred and eighty-two fit griffons who were guarding the skies and ground. Yes, I know the numbers, I saw the faces, heard their screams as they died,” Night Stalker answered.

“You led the team that went there, you told me before you left that you wanted to come to some kind of understanding, to sign a treaty with them. Instead I find out that you let your grunts bring a chemical bomb with and when they refused to listen to reason, you had them all killed. That was your home, the place where Gran raised us both, the land where we used to watch the Aurora Borealis during the winter. How could you do that to our home?”

“Griffonstone hasn’t been my home for a long time Greta, it’s the same for you. They kicked us both out…me when Gran died…you when they didn’t like the way you decided to join the war. It was nothing more than a land of greedy selfish griffons who refused to see reason. They needed culling.”

“SO YOU KILLED THEM!” she yelled.

“I DIDN’T KILL ANYONE!” Night Stalker exclaimed as he slammed his fore-hooves on the desk and stood, his temper finally rising, “I had no idea that bomb was there! I still don’t know who brought it, who set it up, who decided to let it go off. I didn’t want them to die, I didn’t like that land anymore, didn’t see it as home anymore, but I would NEVER just out right kill those griffons unless they gave me a reason to.”

“Bullshit Absent, I’m not going to listen to your lies anymore. I saw the reports, you gave the order. You made sure they were equipped for it, everypony had rebreathers or Power Armor with them. Three ponies from the special ops even said they saw you threaten three of the council griffons,” she said, Misery shaking in her talons.

Night Stalker backed away from her a little, “You think you got it all figured out? If that’s so then why are you even here? Why haven’t you tried to kill me? You didn’t seem to have a problem killing my guards.”

“They deserved it just as much as you do. I know for a fact that three of them are in the special ops corpse, they were all at Griffonstone with you two days ago.”

“That might be, but Cloud Slicer is just a normal guard with three kids and a wife. He was anyway.”

“He’s also one of Thunderlane’s spies, he got what he deserved. As to why you’re still alive, that’s because I’m not stupid enough to try and take you head on. I just wanted you to see my face, see my anger before I destroy everything you’ve spent the past five years trying to build.”

For the first time since Greta walked into the office Night Stalker looked scared, “What do you mean?”

Greta returned Misery to the sheathe on her back then took a few steps back, “You betrayed me for the last time Absent Moon.”

He looked confused by that, “Betrayed you? I’ve never betrayed you Greta, you’re my best friend, the only one on Equus that I trust, that I respect, that I…” he stopped talking before he said what was on his mind.

I could feel the anger in Greta as she looked at her old friend, “Never betrayed me? Absent, do you know how much shit you’ve pulled over the years, how many of your friend’s you’ve let take the fall for you?”’

“Don’t call me that, Absent Moon is dead, he was nothing more than a scared colt.”

She laughed, “Bullshit, you’re still that scared little brat I found half dead in the snow all those years ago. You’ve just been hiding behind this mask of Night Stalker.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’ve never been more right,” Greta said taking another step back, “You just can’t see what you are. You’re a coward. You always let everypony or griffon else take your place when you’re about to get hurt. Phoenix Heart died for you, your parents died for you, and you let Petal die. Your stupidity for sending Comet Tail after your sister led her to her death too. Babs lost her leg in that same fight, Amethyst Star was murdered by a pony who wanted to get back at you, Minuette went off and killed herself a month later because of Amethyst’s death. You let countless others die to help you build Falling Shadows, which you couldn’t even get right and because of that, Equestria DIED. Now you’ve shut out the world below the clouds letting the rest of the ponies and griffons down there die when The Enclave have the recourses to help. You chased Rainbow Dash off, you sent Scootaloo away and made this Dashite program because of her sending more pegasi to die in the wasteland that represents what’s left of Equestria. And now you’ve killed the only place that you could call home, the land you grew up in all because you’re too scared to let somepony else take control, to do what you think is fucking right. You make me SICK!”

“I said I had no idea that bomb was there!” Night Stalker yelled kicking his desk aside, “I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life Greta, but I wouldn’t have ever let something like that happen in Griffonstone. And how dare you blame me for the deaths of my friends and comrades, I did EVERYTHING to protect them and Equestria. Petal wasn’t my fault either, if you would’ve TOLD ME she was in the city I would’ve made her LEAVE! You talk about betrayal Greta, when it’s your fault she’s dead. Her blood is on your talons, you’re the one who betrayed her and me. I never betrayed you or any of my friends or family.”

“Oh that’s rich. What do you call what happened the night before your fucking wedding huh? Did you tell Lightning about that? How you came up to my room, tears running down your face, crying over the death of your little sister again. When you couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares you kept having, your breath still smelling like Wild Pegasus. Did you tell her how you kissed me, how you FUCKED ME, then left the next morning leaving me alone and confused!” she screamed.

Night Stalkers eyes went dead, “I was drunk, it was a mistake I told you that.”

Greta moved closer to him again then she whispered, “Was it a mistake when you told me you loved me? Was it a mistake when you told me how you truly felt, or when you started to kiss my body, when you cried as we made love, or were you just afraid that ponies would think you were a freak because you loved a griffon.”

“I…”

“You what?” She asked pushing him back a little, “Tell me Absent, you fucking WHAT? Love me?”

Night Stalker didn’t say a word, it was like her words scared him somehow. So Greta continued, “You don’t love anyone. Maybe you’re right and Absent Moon is dead, he died when you took on the name Night Stalker and became the leader of the Children of the Night. You know what the sad part is? I loved the pony you used to be. I never saw Absent Moon as scared or weak, that colt saved me from bullies when we were young and almost lost his eye because of it. That colt wasn’t weak, he just thought he was. I never cared if you were a pony, because deep down I know that I had feelings for you ever since that day. The day you saved me and got that scar. That’s why I followed you to Equestria when you came back, that’s why I returned later when you joined the war effort, that’s why I became a Child of the Night. That love I had for you is why I helped you start the Enclave alone with those other idiots. I’ve watched you commit monstrous atrocities over the years and I’ve stayed by your side because of how I felt. I always made excuses for you because I was blind to who you really were…a monster. Not this time, this time you’ve gone too far and I’m not going to let my feelings for you blind me from the truth.”

Greta turned to head back out the door, as Night Stalker said quietly, “I’m not a monster…”

Greta stopped and looked back at him, “Yes you are…it’s about time you see that, goodbye Night Stalker. If we ever meet again, I’ll kill you, the same goes for any of your lackies if you try to send them after me.”

“Greta…where are you going?” Night Stalker asked his voice sounding more under control.

She started to walk away again, her talon stepping in the blood of the dead ponies, “I’m going to do as I said before, I’m going to destroy everything you’ve built. I’m going to destroy everyone you care about. I’m going to make sure that when you finally take your last breath you’ll have nothing left. I may not be able kill you right now, but when you have nopony left to protect you, no power left, you’ll finally see that you’re NOTHING. No wife, no kids, no underlings, no pride, no power. A monster with nothing to destroy is the saddest of all beings.”

“You’re going to destroy Falling Shadows…aren’t you?” he asked.

She just laughed, “No, I won’t have to. I’m just going to make sure you can never use it. I’m going to make sure nopony can ever use it.”

“I’ll stop you Greta, if you go down this path, I’ll fucking DESTROY YOU!” he yelled as Greta stepped passed the unconscious Thunderlane.

She stopped at that, then smiled turning back one more time to look back at her old friend, “No you won’t Night Stalker, because I’m going to the surface to make something of my own. I’ll find as many griffons as I can and train them to be the most powerful group of fighters you’ve ever seen. I’m going to keep the new way of life of Griffonstone alive. We’ll live for the Contract, for money, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” she lifted one of her talons up, her claws covered in the blood of the ponies she killed, “Remember my name Night Stalker, Greta Bloodtalon is going to make sure you pay for what you did to our home. Got it memorized?” she tapped her head with a claw smirking

With that said Greta opened her wings and flew down the hallway, out the far door, past ponies in combat armor and power armor, and flew high into the sky turning west. As she flew and the alarms started to go off under her from what looked like a huge military base in the clouds. Tears started to fall, her chest was tight as she did her best to hold back sobs. She looked down at her still bloody talons, “Greta Bloodtalon…could’ve come up with a better name than Bloodtalon. Oh well, I can’t turn back now. I’m sorry my old friend, but I can’t let the monster you’ve turned into live on. I just hope that Petal will forgive me for breaking my promise, but I can’t watch over you anymore.”

oooOOOooo

Slowly opening my eyes, I took a minute to think about what I just saw. Greta left The Enclave because Night Stalker destroyed Griffonstone, or so she thought. I saw the look on Night Stalkers face when she accused him of setting off the bomb. He was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know about the bomb. He was a good liar, but I’ve lived Night Stalker’s memories, seen what he’s like when he lies and when he’s being honest. I understood now though why Greta made some of the rules she did once she formed The Red Talons. She was in love with Night Stalker, they were also intimate at one point. That was something I never heard about. Nopony must’ve known about that one night they spent together. They loved each other, but something kept them apart. I don’t know what came over me, but the emotional pain Greta felt had somehow made its way to myself and I started to cry. Quickly I regained my composure and looked around the cave.

I saw that Tonto was watching me from a cushion not far off. He smiled, “Interesting memory wouldn’t you say? I didn’t expect the repercussion that memory gave you. Memory Orbs are quite the magical artifact.”

“Sad, more-like,” I said then something came to me from the memory, “She called him Absent Moon in the memory, I thought you didn’t know that was his real name.”

“I didn’t until you said something. That memory orb was in Box Tape’s stuff that I was able to save from his broken home. I watched it while the rest of the griffons were partying. I thought you should see it,” he said.

“I had no idea they felt that way about each other,” I said looking back down at the memory orb.

“I’ve always had my suspicions, but no proof until now. There were rumors over the years that those two were having an affair, but no one ever believed them. What I find interesting is how Night Stalker reacted to the accusations about him being the pony who destroyed Griffonstone. Our history says that he was the one who ordered the attack, but what I saw in that orb makes me think he wasn’t the one,” Tonto said.

“I think your right. Wait a sec, why aren’t you watching the orb I gave you?” I asked.

“I will in a moment, I wanted to wait for you to wake. I wanted to be awake in case you had any questions.”

I chuckled a little, “I’m not sure if I understand everything I saw or not, but if I have any I can ask you later.”

“Very well Shadow, then I’ll watch the orb you have. You can stay here for a while if you want, or go wander around the canyon. Today is still the first day of the celebration and it’s the best one to meet other griffons. Tomorrow we’ll have fights, and more, things get chaotic on day two. Same goes for the last day as well, so take this time to mingle if you can,” he said putting his recollector on.

“I’ll do that, I’ll let Byte enjoy her memory orbs for a while too,” I said seeing Byte laying on another cushion wearing the other recollector.

“I’ll see you later tonight then Shadow,” he said, placing the memory orb I gave him into the center of the recollector and drifting into the memory as it activated.

I didn’t get far from Tonto’s cave when I ran into Aura, “About time I found you. Where’ve you been?”

“I was visiting Tonto, watching one of his memory orbs. Byte’s in there with him right now,” I said giving her a hug and a kiss, “So what are you up to?”

She smiled, “Just finished up some prep with my mom. I wanted to see if you wanted to come meet some of the griffons I grew up with and meet some of the other talons groups.”

“Sometimes I wonder if Tonto has a gift of foresight, he suggested exactly that,” I said as Aura started to walk back toward the huts and the mass of griffons walking around Crimson Canyon, “So was that all you were doing? Helping your mom with stuff?”

She blushed a little, “Well no, I decided to make my own small talon group. Mom was helping me with some of the stuff I needed to know and making me sign some contract so I can work within The Red Talons’ territory.”

“Wait…you started a Talon group? How’s that gonna work with what we have to do?”

“Don’t worry, since I’m the only member of my new group it won’t get in the way. It’s just easier to work out being able to keep working this area if I want and still be able to come home whenever I want. Freelancers aren’t let into Crimson Canyon often, but Talon groups are. At least ones that work with The Red Talons that is. Maybe once this stuff with your mom is finished and we can settle down, I’ll start bringing on more griffons,” she said still smiling.

“I guess I can understand that, so what is this new group of yours called?”

She blushed again rubbing the back of her head, “I decided to name the group after…you. The Shadow Talons.”

I blushed, stumbling over my words, “Aura, I-I’m flattered but I don’t want you naming your new talon group after me, it sounds stupid.”

She laughed, “Too late, it’s already done. Besides I think it has a nice ring to it.”

“Fine…but I still don’t like it.”

She moved her head down and kissed me, “You’ll learn to love it, come on, let’s go have some fun.”

I couldn’t help smiling, “Now that’s a great idea.”

***

Over the next few hours Aura introduced me to so many griffon’s that it was impossible for me to remember the names of most of them. We found Stardust and Vervain later in the day and had a couple drinks with them as we listened to more griffons sing on the stage. We danced, laughed, and played games with some of the younger griffons. I also got to meet one of Aura’s old friends in her cave as the sun was going down. Her name was Natalia and she had a griffon egg that was about to hatch.

Natalia was pleased when I told her I’d never seen a baby griffon and she let Aura and I stay as the egg started to tap, then shake, and later finally crack open. I’ll admit that the baby griffon, what they call a chick was a little gross when it first hatched, but once Natalia cleaned it off it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. It was beautiful to watch how much love was in Natalia’s eyes as she held on to her new born son.

“What are you going to name him?” I asked as I slowly stroked the soft feathers of the sleeping chick.

“I won’t, I was hoping Aura would do me the honor. Since my life partner passed away, I have no one to do so,” Natalia said.

“Why wouldn’t you name your own son?” I asked.

Aura smiled, “It’s the father’s job to name their sons and the mother’s to name their daughters for griffons. If one of the parents die before the egg hatches and a name wasn’t picked out before, the chick is normally named by a close friend,” she looked over at Natalia, “Are you sure you want me to do this? I haven’t been around for a long time Talia.”

“I know, but you’re still my friend and the only one I have left that’s known me as long as you have. I’d be honored to have my son named by a griffon as wonderful as you Aura.”

Aura looked down at the chick. His feathers were a dark blue almost like Stardust’s mane, his eyes were a pale green that matched his fur, and he had black talons like his mother with an orange beak. Finally, Aura put one talon on his head, “You remind me of my grandfather, I believe that you may be him reborn, so I name you Alistair. May your life be forever joyous and you grow up to be strong.”

Natalia put a talon on Aura’s saying, “You honor me my friend, thank you.”

When we left I asked Aura, “What happened to her life partner?”

She sighed, “He was the griffon who was shot by Gina outside of Stable 28. She was one of Arys’ Wing.”

“Oh…I had no idea.”

She smiled, “It’s not your fault Shadow, he died doing his job. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He might not be here to see his son born, but he still left his mark on the world.”

We spent more time meeting with griffons and having more fun with our friends. Wind Thrasher and Wingnut found us later, both looking a lot better than they did that morning. I couldn’t help chuckling a little as Wingnut told me about a strange dream he had where he could’ve sworn he was hugging Byte. Finally as darkness fell across the canyon, Tonto made his way onto stage with a much younger griffon who stood a little behind him.

“Who’s the kid?” I asked Aura as the griffons around started to go quiet.

“That’s Toby, he’s Tonto’s assistant. He’s learning Tonto’s role in The Red Talons so that one day he can take over for the old griffon when he passes away,” she replied.

“He’s so young though,” I said.

“He is, but he’s been working with Tonto for ten years. The keeper of history like Tonto is always start out very young and learn from the older griffon so they can take over one day. Now shush, I wanna hear this. Tonto’s stories are always fun,” she said.

I shrugged and sat down next to her with Wind Thrasher and Stardust on one side of me, Wingnut, Byte, and Vervain on the other next to Aura. Tonto waited until everyone went quiet before saying, “Thank you one and all for joining me tonight to close out the first day of the Rebirth Celebration. Like every year, tonight I will tell you all a story from our past. Not because no griffon doesn’t know the story, but because sometimes one needs to be reminded. History can teach us a lot, like how we can avoid making the same mistakes of our ancestors.”

He paused looking over the hundreds of griffons and some ponies then continued, “Today I want to talk about something I recently learned about what led our founder Greta to start The Red Talons. For many years we have always thought it was because the pony she called friend for most of her life, destroyed Griffonstone. His name is taboo in The Red Talons, but you all know who he is. He is the pony who helped build The Enclave. He is the pony who took away the sun and the moon by blanketing the sky with clouds. We do not speak his name here, but he is well known. This pony betrayed his best friend or so we thought.”

The crowd was utterly quiet as Tonto talked, during Tonto’s next pause I nudged Aura asking, “How many stories does he tell?”

“Just one normally, now shush already, I can’t hear him,” she answered, her eyes glued on Tonto, then she looked back at me and asked, “Where are you going?”

Whispering so I wouldn’t interrupt Tonto as he continued, “I just watched the memory orb he’s telling you all about, I don’t need to hear the story too. I’m going to go say hi to Fletch, she’s on guard duty tonight.”

“Oh fine, I figured you’d like to at least spend some time with me,” she huffed.

“I do, but you’re too into this, I’ll be back soon,” I said, I kissed her cheek ignoring the looks I got from two younger griffons from another talon group and walking past the rest of the griffons and heading up the small walkway that lead to the top of the cliff face.

I was only able to get about halfway up when I found that the walkway didn’t go up any higher. I guess that makes sense, this place was made by griffons. They can fly, why build a walkway to the top of the cliffs and make it easier for enemies to get to you? For a moment I thought about going back to Aura and seeing if she’d be willing to fly me to the top. Then I thought better about it, she was too interested in Tonto’s story. Then I remembered that I’d seen the top of the cliffs before in Greta’s memories. If I could hit myself in the stupid I would. I could just teleport up there.

Summoning my magic, I teleported up to the top of the cliffs. Once I was up there I took a long moment to look down into Crimson Canyon. It was amazing how beautiful it was from way up here. Tonto was still on stage telling his story about the night Greta left The Enclave. I could just make out his words even up here. He was telling the ponies around about how with this betrayal Greta left to find more of her own kind. Some of the griffons down there won’t like the truth Tonto has to give, but they’ll get over it…one day.

Turning away from the side I was on, I started to head toward the east entrance where Fletch said she’d be. I hadn’t gone more than a few feet when I heard something land behind me. I stopped, but didn’t turn to see who was there. Instead I readied Dream Walker. Whatever just landed a few feet away was heavy, I could tell from how he or she landed. Then a chill went down my spine as I heard a deep metallic voice say, “Greetings Shadow Star.”

Slowly I turned my head to find a griffon dressed in power armor like I’ve never seen before on a griffon. His entire body was covered in black, his wings were the only thing exposed. I couldn’t tell what color they were because he used the darkness around him to hide himself as best as he could. On his helmet I saw glowing red coming from his visor. On his chest, painted in white was the emblem of The Unchained Talons. I drew Dream Walker and pointed it right at him, “Get the fuck away from me!”

He cocked its head to one side as he spoke again in the creepily altered deep voice, “Gina said you’d be difficult, but I didn’t think you’d point a gun at me so quickly.”

“Shut up and tell me who you are and what you want.”

He chuckled to himself then bowed low to me, “I am the leader of The Unchained Talons, I’m known to my griffons as Archer. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Courier, or would you prefer me to call you Shadow?”

“Archer huh, yeah I heard that name from one of The Red Talons already. Why are you here? I thought a griffon like you would stay far away from Crimson Canyon,” I said.

Archer started to chuckle, “And what makes you think that? You know nothing about me Shadow. You know nothing about what I want or where I came from.”

“Your lackeys have been trying to kill my friends and I, plus your griffons have been working for Elder Wolfsbane,” I said pulling back on the hammer.

“Ah yes, our contract with Elder Wolfsbane and his Steel Rangers from Los Alicorn. The whole debacle with him was quite the disaster,” he said slowly walking around me as he spoke.

“A disaster!?” I yelled feeling a burning rage building inside me, “He destroyed an entire town and killed somepony I cared about! All with the help of Gina and your damned talon company.”

“Yes, I was quite angry with Gina for letting that happen. I told her three things when she took the job to help Wolfsbane. First that the towns ponies weren’t to be hurt, second to keep you and your friends alive, third to make sure that Wolfsbane got you back to Los Alicorn. She failed at all three, I would’ve punished her for it, but Aura made sure that I didn’t have to.”

I kept my eyes on him as he slowly walked around me, “I don’t get it, why did you tell her to do that? Why do you care about Cartwheel or me, also why do you want me in Los Alicorn?”

He chuckled again, “Do you know why we are called the Unchained Talons?”

That caught me off guard, “I’m guessing it has something to do with how The Red Talons are run. They have their ten rules or laws; your group consisting mostly banished Red Talon griffons, don’t have any laws.”

“Very good, but still you are wrong. It’s true that a lot of my griffons are former Red Talons, but we still have rules, they’re just different than The Red Talons. The ten laws of the Red Talons were created two centuries ago by a sad, lonely griffon who had a burning anger inside. She used those laws to chain the griffons she led to her. She made the griffons that joined her think they had to do things the way she said, made them think that if they didn’t stay and work with her to make her Talon group a reality, they’d be failing all of griffon kind. It worked, and because of that The Red Talons became one of the most respected and feared Talon groups in all of The Wasteland. The Unchained Talons refuse to be held down by stupid laws like that. The only laws we follow is that of the contract and to follow the griffon who is the strongest,” he said finally stopping to look down at Crimson Canyon.

“It sounds the same to me, you’re just using different words for the same goal. You want them to follow you and do as they’re told. You also didn’t answer any of my questions.”

“Oh, but we’re so very different Shadow. First of all, my griffons can take on any contract they want, be it with The Enclave, The Steel Rangers, or just some random pony in the wastes, hell even The Romans. Also, we don’t kick griffons out because of their sexuality or who they are with like The Red Talons do. If one of my griffons gets into a fight with another and they fight to the death, then that’s their problem. The only time they have to do what they are told is if we have a big contract, like the one with those Steel Rangers, even then, I choose who will participate on the bigger contracts,” he said chuckling more.

“Stop talking in circles.”

“As you wish,” he said finally turning back to look at me, “The reason I wanted you and your friends kept safe is because of my own contract I have with a very important mare. She also wants you brought to Los Alicorn.”

“Let me guess, my mother Grim. You might know her as Cloak.”

“No, the mare I’m talking about is The Director. The mare who runs The Ministry. She contracted me personally a little over a month ago. Once she realized that she couldn’t rely on her own agent to fetch you,” he pointed at my Pip-Buck, “That Mark II you have belongs to her you see and she wants it back. Your mother was supposed to bring it to her eight years ago when she left Stable 28. Instead she left it in the Stable and now you have it.”

“Why am I not surprised, everypony wants my damned Pip-Buck. Well if that’s true, they why has Gina been trying to kill me?”

“It only seems like she’s trying to kill you so she can keep up the disguise that she hates you. In truth, she’s done everything she can to make sure you live.”

“Bullshit,” I said as I point Dream Walker at him again, “Why are you here then? Trying to take me back to Los Alicorn?”

“Not at all, mostly I just wanted to meet you. I’ve heard so much from others and I wanted to see if what I heard is true. So far, I’m not that impressed, but I do see promise in you,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you here and now and take care of a problem for The Red Talons while I can.”

He started to laugh, “Child, that gun isn’t powerful enough to make it through my armor.”

I grinned as I pulled out a different mag and swapped it. One that Stardust said I should always have on me just in case I ran into ponies in power armor, “Want to bet your life on that?”

“You shouldn’t make threats that you can’t deliver on,” he said with another chuckle, “Unlike others you’ve run into in the past, I’m not scared of you.”

“If you say so,” I pulled the trigger. Archer jumped to one side, but his power armor slowed him. Instead of the bullet ripping through his head like I intended, the armor piercing round I loaded into Dream Walker blew through his left shoulder. Blood sprayed out of the hole followed by a yelp of pain from Archer as he slammed to the ground.

I aimed and fired again, but this time he was ready for it. He threw a flash bomb before I could get my shot off. I closed my eyes just as it went off, but still it was just enough of a distraction for him to fly away. When I opened my eyes, he was high above me holding onto his left shoulder, “You’re full of surprises, I’ll admit I didn’t think you’d have AP rounds for that weapon.”

“Why don’t you come down here and face me, or are you going to run away just like Gina?”

“Like I said before, I only came to meet you Shadow. Don’t worry, we’ll meet again very soon, and then I won’t be caught off guard. Until next time,” He said then with another flap of his wings he was gone.

“Motherfucker,” I said holstering Dream Walker, “What was that all about?”

A moment later Fletch landed next to me looking around with her spear at the ready, “I heard a gunshot, what happened?”

“I just had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting Archer, the leader of the Unchained Talons. You just missed him.”

Fletch looked down at me shocked, “What the hell did he want? How did he even get over here, we have patrols all over Crimson Canyon?”

“I have no idea, it’s possible that he came in with some of the other griffons for the celebration. He was in a full set of griffon power armor, it hid everything about what he looked like.”

“Fuck, we’ll have to go tell mom about this. Come on, hop on my back,” Fletch said.

Sighing I hopped aboard the griffon express, holding on tight as Fletch took to the air and flew back toward The Den. I started to think about what Archer said about who contracted him. What would The Ministry want with me or the Mark II? Do they want it for the same reason as mom, or does this Pip-Buck that’s stuck to my fucking foreleg have more information in it than even mom knew about? Either way, the more I learn about it the more I’m certain that I’ll have to head to Los Alicorn. I couldn’t put it off much longer, I have to deal with Mom, get my uncle back, deal with Wolfsbane, and now find out what this Director wants with my Mark II.

A moment later as I was lost in my thoughts we were already outside of The Den with Gigi sitting at her usual spot Looking over some paperwork. It took a little over an hour for me to explain what happened with Archer and answer Gigi’s questions. The whole time I was in The Den with her; Tonto and Apollo never joined us. Tonto I could understand, he was still finishing up with his part of The Rebirth Celebration for day one, but Apollo was another matter. From what I learned, he drank too much earlier and wasn’t feeling well. Something was going on and I don’t like it. First, I find Apollo talking to another griffon outside of the Canyon, a griffon that left a feather behind that reminded me a lot of Gina. On top of that he lied to me about what he was up to, I just know it. Then my meeting with Archer, now Apollo is sick? Something deep inside told me that Apollo had something to do with The Unchained Talons.

Commander Redwood told me that Apollo has been acting strangely as of late and he hasn’t been giving his reports on The Romans like they contracted him for. Then griffons from a Talon group Redwood didn’t know about were leaving messages for Apollo. The only thing I could think of was that Apollo was using his vast resources to spy on the Unchained Talons, there’s no way he’d work with them. They’re monsters that don’t follow the same kind of code that he does, also he’d never work with Gina, the griffon that killed the griffon he loved.

I want to tell Gigi what I’m thinking but I can’t, not without proof and a single feather from her sister wouldn’t prove anything. I’ll have to talk to Tonto again when I can, maybe once the Celebration is over.

Once I finished with Gigi, she put more guards around Crimson Canyon and sent out a small team to see if they could find Archer, even though we both knew they wouldn’t find him. I met up with my friends and we all headed to bed. Tomorrow was the second day of the celebration and no matter what happened with Archer or Gina or even Apollo, I’m not going to let it stop me from having fun with my friends.

***

The next day came quickly, at least for me. For the first time in a while I felt like I got a full night of sleep. That could’ve been from being cuddled up next to Aura. After a quick breakfast with the others we all headed toward the arena to watch the fights.

“So, are these fights going to be like the ones with Fletch and you?” Wind Thrasher asked as we sat on one of the overlooks to view the arena.

Aura shrugged, “Depends on how good the fighters are. Not many griffons outside of the Red Talons are as good of fighters as myself or my family. Also, the first fights will mostly be younger griffons.”

I watched as two griffons in their late teens entered the arena, one was wearing the leg-band with the Red Talons emblem on it, the other had none. They both chose their weapons, one picking a scimitar, and the other a lance. As they both started their fight I looked back to Aura and asked, “Are the rules the same as they were with your fight?”

“No, it would take too long to do a fight that goes to ten points. With these fights, the winner is the first griffon to land a killing blow. Just watch, I’m sure the kid with no Talon company will win this one,” she said.

“Why do you think that?” Wingnut asked, “The Red Talon griffon is bigger.”

Stardust answered for Aura, “Bigger doesn’t mean he’ll win. The other griffon has an advantage being smaller, he’s also using a lighter weapon that’s easier to wield. The Red Talon griffon is using a lance which has more reach, but it’s harder to change its direction because of its weight.”

“The unassociated Talon griffon also has more riding on this fight than the Red Talon griffon does. If he loses he’ll still be without a Talon Company,” Aura added.

Sure enough the smaller griffon ducked under the blunted blade of the lance, twisted around the bigger griffon and jabbed his scimitar into the other griffon’s leg. The bigger griffon yelped and dropped his lance. The smaller griffon kicked him in the side then flew into the air, twisted around and brought his Scimitar down on the bigger griffon’s neck.

Viridiana who was mediating the fight lifted her talon saying loudly, “Gavan is the winner. With his win, his request to be welcomed into the Red Talons as a new recruit to our training program is approved.”

Gavan, the smaller griffon helped the bigger Red Talon griffon up and said, “Thank you for putting up a good fight.”

The Red Talon griffon chuckled, “You’re quick and skilled, I look forward to training with you Gavan. Welcome to the Red Talons.”

“Damn that was fast,” Byte said, her eyes glued on the two griffons as they walked out of The Arena.

“They were a mismatched pair, Gavan had the upper talon on the other kid. Normally, a griffon who wants to join is paired off with a griffon who’s close to their size,” Aura said.

Fletch who was sitting on the other side of Aura along with Syn said, “Gavan’s been friends with him for years, he’s from the Lunar Talons down south.”

“Wasn’t that Talon Group destroyed a couple years back?” Aura asked.

“Yeah, Gavan and two others were the only two who survived, they’ve been Freelancing ever since. Gavan made friends with some of the younger griffons over the past couple of years and finally was old enough to try and join us. He requested to fight his friend and Gigi agreed so here we are,” Fletch said.

“I’m surprised they’d let him fight his own friend. What if he tried to cheat?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Fletch shrugged, “We’d have seen it. Vi knows how most of the younger griffons fight so she would’ve seen if he tried to let his friend win. Either way, I think Gavan will be a great addition to The Red Talons.”

We sat back and watched as two more fights went on. One of them lasted for a good half an hour, both griffons were evenly matched. In the end The Red Talon griffon was able to win against her foe. The griffon who lost stomped away after throwing her spear to the ground. As she walked away I yawned then asked Aura, “Do you mind if I go wander around a little?”

She looked back at me, “What else is there to do? Most of the griffons are here and there isn’t anything else going on until tonight.”

“I really want to look at one of my memory orbs and see how Vervain is doing.”

She shrugged, “Okay, I’ll come check on you in a couple hours when we take a break.”

“Sounds good,” I said, getting up and walking away.

I only got a few feet away from the platform when Wingnut came running up to me, “Hey Shadow can I come with you?”

I looked back at him, “Sure, but I thought you wanted to watch the fights?”

“I did, but I’d rather go with you.”

“Why?” I asked as we pushed our way past a few griffons who were heading toward the arena.

“You said you were going into a memory orb and I figured I’d keep an eye on you while you did,” he said.

“That sounds like a good idea honestly, even here you never know what could happen. Though I was planning on visiting Vervain first, she should be in Sandstone right now.”

“No, she’s visiting Tonto. I saw her before the first fight started.”

“Damn, well I guess I’ll check out the Memory Orb first then. Though I have no idea how long it’s going to last, you might get bored,” I said as I turned to head back toward our cave.

“I’ll find something to do,” he said as he trotted next to me.

As we walked back into the cave something came to me, “You know what, I think I have something you might like to see. I’ve been meaning to show it to you for a while, but kept on forgetting.”

I walked back into my room and started to dig through my saddle bags as Wingnut spoke nonchalantly, “Shadow you shouldn’t have, your taken, what would Aura think?”

I rounded on him and gave him a well-deserved brain duster, “Are you kidding me Wingnut?”

“Geeze Shadow can’t you take a joke?” he asked rubbing his head.

“Impossible colt,” I sighed and laughed a little and dug through my saddlebags again pulling out the blueprints I found for the Lucky Horseshoe, “I found these while I was with The Stranger while we were at Spitfire’s Flight Academy,” I said.

He took them and started to look them over, his eyes going wide, “Are these the blueprints for The Lucky Horseshoe?”

“I think so, but the thing I found strange about them was this,” I said pointing down at the basement level and the antenna that seemed to go from the basement all the way up to the roof, “It looks to me like there’s more to that old casino than meets the eye. But I don’t know anything about blueprints.”

He took a moment to look them over, “I’ve learned a lot about blueprints from some of the books I’ve read so this shouldn’t be any problem for me to figure out. What I find strange about these isn’t the antenna, it’s the sub-basement below it. Also, there seems to be another chamber that connects to it. A casino wouldn’t need any of this, I’ll have to look through the installation plans here to see what they did or what they tried to hide. It’s a good thing you found the contractor’s blueprints and not the submitted ones.”

I cocked my head to one side, “What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes, “A lot of big buildings like this have two sets of blueprints, one is the set that goes to the contractor who builds the structure, the other is the set sent to The Ministries for approval. Normally when a business wants to add things to the structure, but doesn’t want the government to know, the blueprints they submit won’t have everything on them for what they’re doing. You found the ones that have everything on them which is a good thing for us.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, “So, do you think you can find out what The Children of the Night were doing with them?”

“I’m not sure, but at the very least I could find out what they put into the building that wasn’t part of the submitted plans. This’ll take me a while, so I’ll go over them while you’re in your orb,” he said moving over to a small desk.

“There’s my smart little colt, let me know what you find,” I said pulling out the memory orb I took from The Lucky Horseshoe. I moved to lay down on the bed while Wingnut started going over the blueprints. I touched the memory orb to my horn and concentrated my magic on it.

Like before the voice of Night Stalker echoed inside my head, “What is my name!”

Taking in a deep breath I replied, “Absent Moon,” this time instead of a spark of power throwing me away from the memory orb, I felt a connection. Feeling more relieved that I got the right name, the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

The memory started unlike none other I’ve experienced before. Night Stalker was flying though a nasty thunderstorm in his power armor, rain was coming down in sheets, lightning flashing in the distance, and the wind slamming into him. If it wasn’t for the tech in Night Stalker’s armor he wouldn’t be able to see a thing through the storm. Luckily his helmet had night vision that was able to see through the murky darkness. From what I could see, he was flying over a city that sat next to an ocean.

At the moment he was flying around the tallest building in the city, a huge skyscraper that towered over the rest with a sky carriage landing platform on the top. Right now, the landing platform was empty apart from a single earth pony standing in the rain, as if he was waiting for somepony. As Night Stalker flew around looking down at the pony, Greta’s voice echoed into his com, “Boss, do you read me?”

“I do, what’s the word?” Night Stalker asked.

“The target’s two minutes out, coming from the east like you thought, but he has three pegasus escorts,” Greta replied.

“Are they military?”

“No, private contractors, they look like former Shadowbolts. I know at least one of them is,” Greta replied.

Lightning Dust’s voice echoed in Night Stalkers com next, “They all are, two of them were part of the squad that was discharged after the battle in Hoofington. Their leader is still in the Shadowbolts, he’s a Sergeant with the sixth battalion, his records say he’s supposed to be stationed on the frontlines near the badlands.”

“Great, looks like I’ll have to redo the plan a little. I want both of you to keep an eye on the skies around the bank building. If he has three pegasi guarding his sky carriage then he’s bound to have more,” Night Stalker said as he flew higher watching for the sky carriage to arrive.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea boss,” Lightning Dust said.

“I’ll be fine, I have somepony on the inside, well some zebra.”

“Are you sure you can trust Noire on a mission like this?” Greta asked.

“I can hear you, you know Greta. Please have a little more faith in me,” the voice of Noire said through the com.

“He proved himself when he helped us take down his brother during the battle in Las Pegasus. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have survived. Now do as you’re told,” Night Stalker said.

They both responded, “Yes sir.”

Night Stalker watched the skies to the east as a sky carriage showed up in the dark skies. One pegasus pulling the carriage, three others in combat armor flying around it. The way they flew made it look like the storm was making it hard for them. Night Stalker seemed to be doing fine though, something about his armor must be helping. Either that or he was just used to flying in weather like this.

They sky carriage landed and the pony who’d been waiting on the roof ran over to open the door for whomever was inside of it. Night Stalker tapped a gem up near the ears on his helmet. As soon as he did the sound of the storm around him seemed to fade and the pony who opened the door’s voice was easier to hear, “Welcome to the Equestrian Bank sir. We’ve been expecting you.”

The voice of a zebra came out of the door to the sky carriage, “I have taken a great risk coming all of this way Mr. Coal. I hope that your boss was not lying when he told me he had information that would help my kind win this war. If so, we will make an example of what happens when you cross a prince of the Zebra tribes.”

The pony called Mr. Coal bowed a little saying, “I assure you that my boss has what you want. If you’d just follow me inside.”

Night Stalker watched as a huge zebra got out of the sky carriage and followed the pony through the downpour and into the building. When they were gone, Night Stalker tapped the gem on his ear again then said into his com, “I’m going in, Lightning Dust and Greta, keep an eye on those three and watch for more ponies in the sky.”

“Boss, are you sure it’s wise to go in there alone? You don’t know who else is helping that Zebra,” Greta said.

“Maybe not, but we can’t risk them getting their hooves on what was stolen. If the Caesar sees the intel, Falling Shadows will be exposed and we can’t risk that information getting out, the same goes for Project Solar Flare. We don’t have time to wait,” Night Stalker said before activating a gem on his chest. Just like when The Stranger used the one on his trench coat, time seemed to slow down. Night Stalker dove for the rooftop, he landed hard sending up a spray of water that seemed to hover in the air.

He moved over to the door, there was a number pad on it and he quickly entered six numbers. The light turned green right as the spell that slowed time finished. The door clicked and he pushed the door open before the pegasi around him could see. Night Stalker closed the door behind himself then locked it. He took a moment to take in his surroundings then said into his com, “I’m in, Noire do you have eyes on our target and is it the zebra we thought it was or just a stand-in?”

“I do, they are on their way to the main office on the top floor and as far as I can tell, it is him. Do you want me to take him out now Sir?”

“No, we need to know if this other pony has what we came for. Once we know that, then we’ll take him out,” Night Stalker said. He tapped another gem on his armor. A moment later his body vanished as if he turned on a stealth buck. Once he did he started to move down the hall. He passed by a few security guards and two mares who were talking near an elevator, before making his way toward two double doors. They were just shutting as the zebra and the pony walked in. Night Stalker flapped his wings and flew into the room silently right before the doors closed.

As soon as he did, he flew over to a dark corner of the room and watched as the zebra walked over to a large desk where a fat pony was sitting, his chair turned toward the floor-to-ceiling windows watching the storm rage outside. When the zebra made his way to the desk, the fat pony said, “I see you finally arrived Xaltin. I hope your journey here wasn’t too unpleasant.”

The Zebra rolled his eyes, “I was not expecting such a bad storm today, I was lucky the pegasi who flew me here made it through without us crashing.”

“Ah yes, my apologies, I bribed the weather patrol to help mask your sky carriage. I told them I wanted a nice rain fall for the day, from the looks of it they went a little overboard,” the fat pony chuckled to himself.

Xaltin rolled his eyes again unamused, “Be that as it may, I did not come here to talk to you about bad weather Mr. Banks, I came here because you said that you have information I would find interesting. I do not like wasting time with scumbag ponies such as yourself unless I have to. Now do you have the information or not?”

The fat pony grinned wider, “Straight to business I see, I’ll never understand why you stripes are so edgy all the time.”

In a flash Xaltin reached across the desk, took Mr. Banks by the scruff of his suit and slammed his face down, then in a calm tone he said, “I do not want to hear that word escape your lips again Mr. Banks. I am a zebra and the oldest son of the Caesar, you will call me by my name or by my title. If you are talking about my race then you will use the correct word for them, do I make myself clear?”

Mr. Banks was shaking, his eyes wide as he said quietly, “Yes sir.”

Xaltin let him go, “There’s a good buck, now tell me what you have before I decide to throw you off the roof of this skyscraper.”

Mr. Banks looked over at the other pony in the room, “Mr. Coal, bring me the item in question.”

“Right away sir,” Mr. Coal said trotting over to a large painting of the fat pony and pulling it aside to reveal a large safe in the wall. He opened it quickly then took out a box. After closing the safe he brought it to Mr. Banks, “Here you are sir.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Banks said taking the box and opening it, “It’s all here, memory orbs from a group of ponies that call themselves The Children of the Night. According to all records they don’t exist which brings me to believe that they’re some kind of black-ops team that work for one of The Ministries. There’s also documents about a couple of projects they’re working on, as well as intel they have on your movements near Las Pegasus. They’re led by a stallion that goes by the name Night Stalker.”

Xaltin reached into the box and pulled out a memory orb then after setting it on the desk he pulled out a few sheets of paper. He took a moment to look them over, his eyes getting wider as he read, “This intel cannot be correct, this Stargazer project should not be possible for a pony. Even if it was, the creature they would have pulled down would kill anypony it saw.”

“I assure you it’s real, my contact said that everything he was able to gather is real. If you think that Stargazer project is bad look at the other one, they call it Solar Flare. It’s a project they just finished, and if what I read is true, they could take out an entire platoon of your zebras with a single shot,” Mr. Banks said.

Xaltin picked up the memory orb again and asked, “I am guessing the memory orbs will prove what you say is correct?”

“As far as I know, yes. I wasn’t able to watch any of them, I couldn’t get my hooves on a recollector. The Ministries are making it almost impossible for normal citizens to get them anymore,” Mr. Bank said.

Looking up Xaltin asked, “How did you get your hooves on this intel? I’m sure you have your ways to find things out, but if this team is really black-ops, there’s no way a pony like you would have gotten this so easily.”

Mr. Banks smiled again, “Let’s just say I have my own ponies on the inside. One of them works at the casino that they use as a base of operations.”

“Have you shown this intel to anyone else?” Xaltin asked.

“No, only Mr. Coal and myself know about it.”

“Then why give it to me? We are enemies,” Xaltin said.

Mr. Banks wasn’t smiling anymore, he looked down at his desk, “I’m not like other ponies Xaltin. Personally, I think this war is pointless and bad for business, the sooner it’s over the better.”

Night Stalker whispered as quietly as he could into his com, “The intel is here, Noire move in.”

“Be there in two minutes Boss,” Noire replied.

Xaltin was looking around the office then his eyes fell on a picture just behind the fat pony, “I see, this is more personal to you isn’t it?”

Mr. Banks went pale for a moment, “Yes, it is. So, do what you want with that intel. All I care about is that you pay me the price we agreed upon.”

“It is always about the bits is it not? Oh well, yes the price we agreed on will be wired to you once I get back to my father,” Xaltin said putting the papers and memory orb back into the box.

“How do I know I can trust you?” Mr. Banks asked.

Xaltin smiled, “I have not killed you have I? That should be reason enough for you to trust me.”

“I…guess you’re right,” Mr. Banks said sitting back in his chair then whipping the small bit of blood that leaked from his nose form Xaltin slamming his head on the table.

“You did the right thing by giving this to us…” Xaltin said then, stopped to look back down at the box, “You said the pony who leads these Children of the Night is called Night Stalker?”

“Yes, he’s said to be one of Princess Luna’s personal guards, though he’s never in Canterlot with her. Not much of a guard if you ask me.”

Xaltin’s face went dark as he said, “He is the pony who killed my brother in Las Pegasus. Him and a zebra who should have been killed.”

“I think I read something about that in the papers,” Mr. Coal said, “I didn’t know that zebra who was leading the attack was your brother though Xaltin, neither did my boss.”

Xaltin ignored the other pony and started to look around the office again, only this time he looked angry, “Are you sure nopony knew that you had this intel?”

“Of course not,” Mr. Banks said, “I was careful when I took it from my contact.”

Xaltin laughed a little, “Careful? Night Stalker is not a pony you can just be careful with Mr. Banks. He is working with my brother, a zebra who is great at figuring out the plans of others. Together they are a force to be reckoned with and for all I know, they know I am here! You should have told me who this intel came from before I came!”

Night Stalker watched as the zebra took the box and started to back away from the desk. He smiled and lowered the stealth from his armor saying, “Your right prince Xaltin, he was a fool to think he could get away with this.”

The Zebra jumped and looked at my host with fear in his eyes, “I should have known this was a trap. Let me guess Night Stalker, you have half the Shadowbolts just waiting for me outside of this tower.”

Mr. Banks on the other hoof fell out of his chair when Night Stalker appeared, “How the fuck did you get into my office!? From the reports I got you’re still in Las Pegasus. How did you get to Los Alicorn so fast?”

Night Stalker looked over at Mr. Banks and Mr. Coal and smiled, “According to spies you have in my tower, I’m sure they do think I’m still there. Nice trick of one of my unicorns. Now shut your yap, I’ll get to you two in a moment.”

Right then the doors to the office slammed open and a pony was standing there in a body tight black suit that covered his entire body with orange goggles over his eyes. When he spoke I realized it wasn’t a pony, it was Noire, “Hello brother, long time no see.”

Xaltin looked back at the other zebra and frowned, “So you are still alive Zaphan, father said you betrayed us, but I still cannot believe it. What does this pegasi have on you to make you work for him?”

“He saved my life Xaltin, he showed me kindness even when I was his prisoner and he showed me the truth about this war. I’m working for him because he is on the right side of this war, unlike father. Also, father stripped me of my name, I am reborn now brother as Noire,” Noire said.

“That’s right Xaltin, now how about you come with us peacefully. It’d be a shame for the great Caesar to lose his last son to the same stallion who took his other two,” Night Stalker said.

Xaltin grinned, “I do not think so Night Stalker, you may have killed Kajin, but he was more brawn than brains. I will not let you use your tricks on me,” In a flash, Xaltin pulled a zebra stealth cloak out of the saddle bags he had on him, at the same time throwing a small ball to the ground. Smoke filled the room as soon as the ball hit the ground. Night Stalker and Noire both backed away from the smoke, Xaltin used the distraction to throw on his cloak and vanish before they could do anything.

Night Stalker growled then yelled at Noire, “Go after him, I’ll catch up,” then he said into his com, “Lightning Dust, Greta, Xaltin escaped with the intel, take out the pegasi and make sure he doesn’t get away.”

As Noire ran after his brother and Night Stalker’s team replied to his orders, he turned back toward the other two ponies. Mr. Coal pulled a pistol out of his jacket and fired, “I won’t let you hurt Mr. Banks!”

The bullet just bounced off his armor, a gem imbedded into it glowing a little as it did. Night Stalker jumped forward and spun, his left wing shot out and the swords on the edges sliced cleanly through Mr. Coal’s neck. His head went flying only to land right on Mr. Banks’ desk, blood leaking out onto the papers. The eyes wide as they looked up at Mr. Banks, it’s jaw open in surprise.

“You really should hire better help when dealing in black market trade, Mr. Banks. Tell me, who gave you all of that information?” Night Stalker said slowly walking toward the fat pony who was looking at my host like he was a demon from hell.

“You just killed an Equestrian Citizen. You’ll be executed for that!”

Night Stalker laughed, “I sure did, but I don’t think I’ll get into any trouble for killing him…or you. Treason is a serious crime and he was a traitor to the crown, both of you are. I don’t see anything wrong with killing ponies like you. Now tell me, who gave you the information, the memory orbs, all of it!?”

He started to shake, “I don’t know his name, he never showed me his face or gave me his name. He just said the intel would be helpful to the zebras and that I could make some bits off of it.”

Night Stalker brought his wing up and let the sharp edge of one of the blades come within an inch of Mr. Banks’ neck, “Do you expect me to buy that? Why would anypony want to help the zebras?”

“I have my reasons, this war has gone on too long and with what you’ve got planned it’ll only get worse,” Mr. Banks said.

As he spoke Night Stalker looked at the same picture that Xaltin had. It was a picture of Mr. Banks, a younger looking zebra who was mildly attractive, and a filly who looked to be around eight. The filly had a few stripes on her and her eyes looked more like a zebra’s than a pony’s, “I think I understand now, you want this war over because of her…right?”

Mr. Banks looked over at the picture as well and a few tears fell from his eyes, “My wife, Kafra and our daughter Golden Sky. I did it for them.”

Night Stalker lowered his wings, “From the records I’ve looked at about you, they say you aren’t married.”

“Not legally, I met her a few years ago. She was with one of the first refugees that came to Los Alicorn when the war started to get worse back east. I fell in love and we had a daughter. Because of this blasted war I have to keep them hidden so they’ll be safe from ponies like you,” he said.

“And you thought that helping the zebras would make this world better?” Night Stalker said in a mocking tone.

“At least they would accept my wife and my daughter, better than Equestrians would.”

“You’re wrong there Mr. Banks. Do you know what the Caesar does to Zebras who have children with ponies? He has all zonies killed and the same with the zebra who had them. Luna doesn’t care who somepony is with as long as they aren’t helping the enemy.”

“I…didn’t know, I just wanted a better world for my family.”

Night Stalker sighed, “I know the feeling. Mr. Banks, if you tell me everything you know about the pony who gave you this information, I’ll let you go.”

His eyes went wide, “Really?”

“You have my word as Night Stalker, leader of The Children of the Night,” Night Stalker swore.

“Fine, the pony who gave me the intel works in your tower, he’s a pegasus that has access to every part of your base. He works with the Ministry of Awesome, that’s all I know.”

“I don’t believe you, no pony could’ve gotten that information unless they were a member of The Children of the Night, and I know none of my team would betray me like that.”

Mr. Banks put up his hooves, “I’m telling the truth, the only other thing he said when I asked him how he knew all of this was true, he said that he was there when your team was working on some power system near one of the bases. That’s all.”

Night Stalker took a moment to think, “Maybe one of the workers was able to get the information from there. Most of what I saw was stored there so I guess it’s possible. I’ll have to ask Minuette if anypony could’ve gotten past her protections or if the memory spell she used could’ve not worked on somepony.”

“That’s possible, but I don’t know, now can you let me go? I told you everything,” Mr. Banks said as he shook in his chair.

Night Stalker walked passed him then pushed a button next to one of the windows, “I am a stallion of my word, I will let you go.”

“Thank you so much sir,” Mr. Banks Said getting to his hooves.

Night Stalker moved quickly, he took hold of the fat pony and threw him to the ground next to the open window, “Who said I’d let you leave through the halls?”

Mr. Banks’ eyes went wide, “You said I could go. How else am I going to leave this place?”

“And you can, but you’ll go through the window, I can’t afford to let you tip anypony off about me being here once you’re out of my sight.”

Mr. Banks looked out at the rainy sky and started to shake, “I’m an earth pony, I can’t just jump out of a window.”

“I know your limitations dirt pony, now jump,” Night Stalker said.

“I’ll DIE! You said you’d let me go, you gave me your word!” Mr. Banks yelled.

“I did, and I’m not breaking my word. I said I’d let you go, I never said I’d let you live. You know too much about The Children and sadly for you, I don’t have Minuette with me to modify your memory. So, this is the only way I can be sure nopony finds out about my team or my plans for the war. Now jump,” he said coldly.

“Fuck you Night Stalker, I’m not going to kill myself. If you really want me dead then do it yourself!”

My host smiled wider, “That’s not how this is going to go. Nopony can know I was here. Once you jump, I’ll make sure that the death of your ponies looks like the work of the zebras or zebra sympathizers. Your death will go down as a suicide, I may even make sure that you go down looking like a hero who killed yourself rather than give the zebras what they wanted.”

“Nopony is going to believe that, I won’t do it!”

Night Stalker moved his face closer to Mr. Banks’, “Either you jump, or I’ll go find your wife and your child and bring them back here. I’ll have you tied up and make you watch as I push both of them out of this window after telling them it was because you were too proud to die to save their lives.”

Mr. Banks’ face went from angry to horrified in an instant, “You wouldn’t do that…how could anypony threaten to kill a child just so he can get his way?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Mr. Banks. If your daughter or your wife die, it’s because of you not me. I’ll make sure they both know that before they both go splat.”

“You’re…a monster.”

Night Stalker’s smile vanished and he sighed, “A monster I might be, but at least I’m not a fucking traitor like you. Now either jump or let your family jump.”

Mr. Banks looked back at the open window, fear written on his face, “One day I hope that you look back at this moment and hate yourself for what you did.”

“Trust me…I won’t,” Night Stalker said.

Mr. Banks took in a deep breath and said, “I love you, Kafra. I hope that you and Golden Sky have a good life one day,” Mr. Banks walked out of the window. He fell and the sound of his scream was masked by the wind and the thunder outside.

Night Stalker waited a moment then shut the window, “Fool, what did he think was going to happen when he decided to give the information to the enemy,” he sighed again then got back on his com, “Status report.”

Greta answered first, “The pegasi are down same for the one who was flying the sky carriage. We just saw a pony jump out of the window, looks like he didn’t make it.”

“I know, that was Mr. Banks, guess he decided that he couldn’t live with himself with what he did,” Night Stalker said.

Lightning Dust laughed in her com, “That or you pushed him, either way it looks like we’re almost done here. Noire just captured his brother on the roof and we have the intel, all of it’s here.”

“I’m on my way up,” Night Stalker said. He turned and headed toward the hallway that led back to the landing pad. As he walked he switched the channels on his com and said, “This is Night Stalker with the royal guard. I need the sky patrol to get rid of this storm right away.”

A mares voice echoed out of his com, “Night Stalker? What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Oh Rainbow, I didn’t know you were in Los Alicorn.”

“Switch to a private channel,” Rainbow Dash said.

Switching over, Night Stalker spoke, “Rainbow, we got the intel back from Mr. Banks, looks like he killed himself before we could capture him. I’ll need a clean-up crew here right away.”

Rainbow Dash sounded angry as she responded, “What did you do Night Stalker!?”

“I did my job, also since you’re at the weather patrol base, you need to know that one of the higher ups is taking bribes to change the weather for some ponies out here.”

“I already know about that, that’s why I’m here. A report went out about the weather not staying on schedule and I was looking into it. Now tell me what’s going on, why is Mr. Banks dead?”

“I’ll fill you in when we’re face to face ma’am, right now I have to deal with a zebra.”

Rainbow Dash cursed then said, “Did you capture him alive? If so we need to give him to the M.O.M.”

Night Stalker just made it to the door to the roof, he opened it to see Noire holding his brother in a head lock. Night Stalker smiled then responded to Rainbow Dash, “Sorry, but we couldn’t take him alive. Talk to you later…Boss,” he cut the communication before she could say anything else.

“What do you want me to do with this trash sir?” Noire asked.

“Let him breathe a little,” Night Stalker said then looking at the other zebra prince he asked, “Tell me all you know about where your father has zebras in or around Las Pegasus.”

Xaltin spat at Night Stalkers hooves, “I won’t tell the pony who killed my brother anything. I’d rather deal with your Ministry of Moral. I request to be treated as a prisoner of war.”

“Shame, well I guess if you won’t talk to me, then you’re of no use to me. I’ll let Noire deal with you,” Night Stalker said turning toward Greta and Lightning Dust who were standing a few feet away, “Did you find any more pegasi?”

Before they could answer Xaltin yelled, “You fool, do you really think my brother would hurt or kill me? He may have betrayed us, but he is still family and my little brother. I know him better than you do!”

Night Stalker turned back toward Xaltin then looked up at Noire who was still in his full body stealth suit, “Noire, is that true? You wouldn’t kill this zebra because he claims to be your brother? I thought your old family abandoned you?”

Noire replied, “They did, I have no zebra family anymore.”

Xaltin looked pissed, “His name is Zaphan not Noire,” then he tried to look up at his brother, “Brother what have they done to you to brain wash you so?”

Noire looked down at Xaltin, “Zaphan is dead, didn’t you hear when father disowned me? I am Noire now and all you are is a Zebra who is trying to destroy my new home.”

Night Stalker smiled, “And what do we do to those who try to destroy our home Noire?”

“Kill them,” Noire replied.

Xaltin started to yell again, “You have let the stars corrupt you Zaphan! You have fallen under the spell of Nightmare…”

Noire tightened his hold on Xaltin then twisted his brothers head with a quick jolt, snapping his neck with a loud crack. Noire then pulled the mask off his face and spat on the body of his brother, “No brother, you have let the stars take hold of you, just like father. Princess Luna is just a pony who cares about her subjects.”

Night Stalker walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder, “You did well Noire. Now let’s get out of here before the cleaning crew shows up,” he looked back at Greta, “You sure we got it all?”

Greta lifted the box Xaltin had before saying, “It’s all here and more boss.”

“Good, now let’s move out.”

Lightning Dust walked over to him and kissed him for a long moment then said, “We better hurry, I want you all rested up for tomorrow.”

Noire took his eyes off the lifeless body of his big brother then said, “That is right, your rehearsal dinner is tomorrow right?”

Night Stalker grinned, “That’s right, and I’m expecting my team to throw me a big bachelor party.”

Lightning sighed, “As long as you all don’t get to drunk and there’s no dancing mares then it’s fine.”

They all laughed, all except Noire. He tried to look like he was happy, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. He may agree with what he said to his brother, but he wasn’t happy about killing him. And before the memory ended, I saw him let one tear fall to the ground as he said something in zebra to his brother…

oooOOOooo

I opened my eyes slowly still taking in the strange memory orb of Night Stalker’s. From everything I knew about The Children of the Night, nopony should’ve had access to their floors or the intel on Stargazer. Did one of Night Stalker’s team betray him? If so who was it? I wanted to dive back into the orb and see if I missed anything when I saw Stardust looking at me from the end of the bed.

“It’s about time you’re out of that damn orb!” he yelled.

I blinked and looked around, the cave was dark and the light outside was starting to fade, “How long was I out? Where’s Wingnut?”

Stardust looked panicked, like something was bothering him, “You’ve been out for a couple of hours, Wingnut’s with Vervain and so is Byte, and the younger griffons, they just left through the west entrance to Crimson Canyon.”

“What? Why?” I asked getting off the bed, “What’s going on, you look like a hoard of dragons is outside the door.”

“Shadow, I wish it was dragons I really do,” he said walking over and picking up my barding and duster, “Get dressed, we don’t have time.”

I took my stuff with my magic asking, “What the hell’s going on?”

Stardust looked scared, I’ve never seen my friend scared at least not like this. His eyes were wide, his breathing heavy and his wings were shaking as he said, “The Unchained Talons are coming, over two hundred griffons are making their way through the east entrance.”

“What!?” I said pulling on my barding as quick as I could, making sure Dream Walker and my plasma rifle were ready to draw, “What the hell are they doing here?”

“I have no idea, but Gina is leading them. As far as I know they haven’t shown any sign of attacking.”

“Is Archer with them?” I asked as I started to head toward the cave entrance.

“No idea, nopony knows what he looks like. You’re the only pony who’s met him and he was in power armor and keeping himself in shadow. If he’s with them, we have no way of knowing,” he said following me out.

Aura was waiting for us just outside watching as griffons started to come out of the east entrance. Sure enough Gina was leading them in, but she wasn’t holding any weapons, instead she held up a white flag. Looking over at Aura I asked, “Why is Gigi letting them just walk right in?”

Aura was glaring down at her aunt as she said, “Because she came in with the flag of parlay. On any other day of the year we’d have told them to leave or risk death for coming here, but during The Rebirth Celebration she has every right to ask for entrance.”

“And Gigi let her in?” I asked.

“She has no choice, all Gigi needed was one member of the council to accept her parlay. From what I heard Tonto gave it to her,” she said.

“Fuck, let’s get down there before something bad happens,” I said.

“Good idea, just don’t do anything unless they do. That’s my mom’s orders,” Aura said as we all started to run down to the main level.

We just got close to where Gigi was standing with the rest of Aura’s sisters as Gina slowly walked up to them all. Gina smiled wide and bowed a little to her older sister, “Gillian it’s wonderful to see you sister.”

Gigi looked ready to explode as she answered, “What the hell are you doing here with this filth?”

“Now-now sister, is that any way to act when my griffons and I come under the flag of truce?” Gina asked, a smile on the red griffon’s beak.

“Fuck your truce, you’ve been banished from our lands forever. You’re lucky I haven’t had you shot,” Gigi said, anger leaking out with every word.

“Oh, dear sister, have you forgotten that today is The Rebirth Celebration. Every banished griffon is welcomed back during this time of the year. I just wanted to see my old home, the same goes for the griffons with me. Well some of them at least, not all of them are former members of The Red Talons.”

“For most griffons yes, but you broke rule eight Gina. No matter what, you can’t ever come back not even during The Rebirth Celebration. Killing another member of The Red Talons is a crime punishable by death. I showed you mercy for what you did to Gail. You’re lucky to even be alive!” Gigi said.

Gina laughed, “Yes, Gail, the little sister who was so great, so honest, so…perfect. Normally I’d agree with you about a Red Talon killing another and how great of a crime it is to our kind, but you seem to have forgotten something sis.”

“Oh really, and what’s that!” Gigi growled.

Gina’s smile grew wider as she said so all could hear, “I may have been the one who killed Gail, but I did it on your orders! Gail was the one who was trying to overthrow you, I found out about it and went to Tonto. He told me he spoke to you then he came back to me and told me what you wanted me to do. So I went to Gail’s cave, confronted her about the coup she was planning, and then killed her.”

Gigi looked ready to explode as the griffons around her started to whisper, “I never gave such an order! You’re trying to turn my own griffons against me!”

It was Gina’s turn to get angry, “LIAR! You betrayed me sister, I did what you wanted me to do, just like I’ve always done. And what did I get for my loyalty? You said I was the one who was trying to overthrow you, you banished Gail’s co-conspirators saying they were mine, and BANISHED ME! You betrayed me sister, I never betrayed you.”

“You can’t prove anything Gina, I know what happened and I did what I had to as the leader of The Red Talons!” Gigi yelled.

“Oh really? You know I find it funny that you go back to that every time you get into a bind. You always say you did what you had to because you’re the leader. It’s all bullshit, if you were really as good of a leader as you say then why have you been doing such a poor job as of late? Explain that. You haven’t been able to stop The Unchained Talons from getting stronger, you couldn’t protect Cartwheel a town that’s been friends with The Red Talons for almost forty years. You’ve been sending griffons on missions without pay to help out the fucking Courier, you bent the rules and let your griffons go into an active stable breaking rule nine. Even better is the fact that you knew about your daughter sleeping around with a pony and hid it from the rest of The Red Talons until you couldn’t anymore. It’s funny how I get banished for doing something I was ordered to do, but you can just do whatever you want and get away with it. Well I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong SISTER!” Gina said, her voice getting louder and louder.

Gigi took a step back, she looked like Gina had just slapped her, “You don’t know what you’re…”

Apollo walked up to Gigi and put a talon on her shoulder. Where the hell did he come from, he wasn’t there a second ago, “Gillian, I just spoke to Tonto. She’s telling the truth.”

Gigi pulled away from him, “Apollo what are you talking about? I never gave the order to have my sister killed.”

He bowed his head a little, “I know, Tonto did, he just told me. He didn’t want you getting mixed up in it so he told Gina what to do and said it was ordered by you.”

Gigi looked like her world was falling apart, “But…why would he do that?”

“I have no idea, I think we should have him come down here and explain himself,” Apollo said, a few griffons around them seemed to agree as they all yelled something after Apollo spoke.

Gina smiled, “I agree, but still you have a lot to answer for Sister. Even if you didn’t order the death of Gail, you still hid things from your griffons. You are an unfit leader, you have been for a long time.”

“Oh no!” Aura said, her eyes going wide, “Gina don’t do it!”

“Do what?” I asked, but I got my answer.

Gina looked over at Aura and sighed, “Sorry Aura, but justice has to be served,” then she looked back at Gigi, “Gillian Bloodtalon, in five hours at midnight I challenge you to a fight to the death for leadership of The Red Talons. As Apollo said, I never broke rule eight, so technically I’m still a member of The Red Talons and I have the right to take your place!”

Gigi looked like she got some life back into her, “No.”

“You can’t refuse a challenge for leadership Gillian,” Gina said.

“I know that, but I won’t believe this is true until I speak with Tonto myself,” Gigi said, then griffons around her started to yell and scream about justice and the truth.

Gina put a talon up and yelled, “Enough, I agree with Gillian, I can’t clear my name without Tonto’s word.”

A griffon a few rows back yelled, “Yeah, go get the old griff and make him talk so we can all hear the truth!”

Gigi sighed and looked over at Vi, “Go get Tonto from his cave, I want the truth from him.”

Gina spoke up, “No, send another griffon to get him. I can’t trust that you won’t have one of your children do something to him before he can testify.”

“I’ll go,” I said.

Aura put a talon on my shoulder, “No, don’t get yourself mixed up in this Shadow.”

I pulled away saying, “I’m the only one who can, I’m a Courier for Equestrian Express, I don’t take sides. I’ll fetch Tonto and bring him back here so he can tell his side of the story.”

Gina smiled, “I like that plan, I trust The Courier to keep her word.”

Gigi sighed, “Fine, but I’m sending Apollo with her.”

“Why me?” Apollo asked.

“Because Tonto trusts you Apollo, if Shadow can’t get him to come out here, then you can,” Gigi said, “That is if my dear sister can trust that I wouldn’t have my own husband kill an old friend.”

Gina looked at Apollo for a long moment then shrugged, “Fine with me, but my challenge still stands sister. Will you accept?”

“Mom don’t,” Aura said, “You don’t have to listen to her, she’s got something planned!”

“Aura be quiet,” Gigi said before looking at Gina, “Fine, if the evidence about what happened shows that you weren’t responsible for the death of Gail, then I will accept your challenge.”

Gina’s beak split in a wide smile as she started to laugh, “Good, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Unlikely Companion: You’ve had your fair share of enemies in the past but have either found common ground or discovered some hidden truth between you and them. When fighting alongside and enemy-turned-friend you gain +1 to all attributes. (WARNING: This perk does NOT make it easier to befriend an enemy)

Chapter 50: It's Not Supposed To Go Like That

“RUN!”

“Apollo, what will happen if Gina fights Gigi?” I asked as we walked toward Tonto’s cave.

He sighed, “I’m not sure, I’ve never seen those two fight. Though I’m worried Gigi will be at a disadvantage.”

He was limping for some reason, I wanted to ask why, but we had other things to worry about, “Why do you think that?”

“My wife hasn’t taken on many contracts over the past couple of years. She’s had a lot of things to take care of here. That means that she hasn’t been able to keep herself in top shape. Gina on the other talon has been working as a freelancer and more recently been a member of the Unchained Talons. She’s been fighting and taking on contracts nonstop. She’s also a few years younger than Gigi,” He said wincing a little as he walked next to me.

“You okay?” I asked.

He looked over at me and did his best to smile, “I’m fine, just hurt myself this morning. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

I sighed, “Okay,”

We just reached Tonto’s cave and the old griffon was waiting for us at its entrance. He gave me a sad smile, “Gina’s here isn’t she?”

Apollo nodded, “She is Tonto, Gigi wants you to come down so you can tell her what really happened with Gail.”

He let his head hang a little as he said, “I understand, I knew this day was coming.”

“I’m sorry old friend, but this can’t be hidden from her anymore,” Apollo said, “It would be best if you come with me right away.”

“I will, but first may I have a word with Shadow,” Tonto said looking over at me.

“I’m sorry, but this can’t wait,” Apollo said.

Tonto looked out over the Canyon, at the Griffons who looked ready to attack each other, “I’m sure Gina came here to challenge Gillian, if so then they can’t fight until midnight. We have plenty of time to talk.”

“He’s right Apollo, just give him a few minutes,” I said.

Apollo didn’t look happy but he waved a talon, “Fine, I’ll be out here waiting, but don’t take too long.”

Tonto nodded then waved for me to follow him inside. I did, as I walked into his amazing cave I asked, “Did you get a chance to watch the memory orb?”

“I did, and I think I may have found what you missed,” He said walking over to where his bedroom was, instead of the wall of memory orbs.

“What was that?” I asked as I followed.

He smiled, “I can’t tell you right now, I don’t want any eavesdroppers. I made a recording on my terminal. I want you to hook up to it with your Pip-Buck so I can transfer the recording and a few other things to you.”

I saw the terminal on the other side of his room. Walking over I plugged the Mark II into it, “What other things?”

“Things that will help you down the road. Things I should have made sure you got the first time you came to Crimson Canyon.”

“The first time I was here I didn’t see you.”

“I know, but I saw you. I wanted to give you this information then, but something told me that I had to wait. I’m not sure what it was, but something deep down told me that you might give away your Mark II and I can’t let this information fall into the wrong hooves,” he said as he started to transfer the data to me.

“What are you saying Tonto?” I asked.

He let out a long sigh as he sat down, “Shadow, Cartwheel’s fall wasn’t the first time we met.”

I thought back on what I could now remember from my travels with mom before I entered Stable 28. During the two years we spent traveling the wasteland I couldn’t remember meeting any Red Talon’s or any griffons for that matter, “Are you sure about that? Since I’ve gotten my memories back, I don’t recall ever meeting a griffon while I traveled the wasteland with mom.”

“I didn’t meet you when you traveled the wasteland, I met you on the day I helped your mom and you escape The Crystal Empire,” he said.

My jaw dropped open, then I started thinking back to the day we left home. I remember mom sneaking past pegasi guards, using a spell to unlock the gates that surrounded the city, I remember her walking closer to what was called the wall of death. The wall of death was one reason most ponies didn’t know the Crystal Empire was still around. It was a black cloud of magical radiation that swarmed over a mostly translucent barrier, the only thing keeping the deadly cloud out of the city. The only way in and out was to fly over it or to use a spell to teleport past the black cloud. I was too sick for mom to use a teleportation spell. When we reached the wall, I passed out and didn’t wake until we were past the twin cities.

“Mom couldn’t teleport us past the wall, so she would have had to have somepony fly us over it. I always thought that was a friend of hers, one of the pegasi she worked with,” I said.

He shook his head, “No, it was me. Twelve years ago, I was still taking contracts, not a lot but still working. A friend of mine asked that I fly all the way out to the Crystal Empire and escort a mare and her daughter past the black cloud of death and help her get out of The Enclave’s lands. You were out for two days, I think your mother put you into a deep sleep so you could survive the trip. During those two days I got to know your mother and her mission. She isn’t a trusting mare in the least, that much was clear, but back then she had no one to turn to.”

“So, she told you what she was doing, with Stargazer and Aquila?” I asked.

“No, back then she didn’t know about Stargazer. She was looking for Falling Shadows, she found the information on Stargazer while she was looking into that old project.”

“What can you tell me about it?” I asked, still surprised Tonto knew so much about my past.

He frowned, “Not enough, I did keep in contact with Grim even when she left Stable 28, but she never told me about Falling Shadows or what it did, only that she was trying to find it so she could use it to fix something. Falling Shadows isn’t the reason I wanted to talk to you before I go talk to Gigi though.”

I cocked my head to one side, “Then what did you want apart from telling me about meeting me twelve years ago and giving me this information?”

“On the same day that Aura was banished from The Red Talons, Grim came here to visit me,” He reached behind his terminal and pulled out a memory orb, “She told me to give this to you after you’ve regained your memories, all of them. She said that the only way you could view it is if you spoke your father’s name. Then she told me that if something happened to her to tell you to head to her old shack and find the entrance to The Children’s first base out here. When you do, watch the orb and you’ll understand why she had to do what she did.”

He gave me the orb. Taking it, I looked up at him asking, “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

He lifted a talon and rubbed my mane, almost like a grandfather, the look in his eyes were so sad, yet he smiled, “I knew that once you had this information you’d go running off after your mother again. Honestly, I think it’s wrong to force a child to keep up the work of their parents. Your mother might have her own agenda and a plan to save Equestria, but it’s not right that she forced this onto you.”

“Then…why are you giving this to me now?”

“Because, I may not agree with your mothers plans, but it’s also not my right to choose which path you want to take. I’d like to see you live your own life and be happy with Aura and your friends. If you choose to keep following your mothers plan then I will understand, but all I ask is that you think before you blindly follow her.”

I’m not sure why, but the way he was talking made it seem like I’d never see him again, “Tonto, what will happen once you tell Gigi the truth.”

His smile grew a little, but he still looked sad, “Try not to worry about me Shadow. Just worry about yourself and your friends.”

“But you are my friend.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that Shadow, but I still have to face what I did,” he said turning to head out of the cave.

“What did you do! At least tell me before you go down there,” I yelled.

He looked back at me, “I found out that Gail was planning on taking over as leader, she had a few griffons on her side and they were planning on killing Gigi, Apollo, Gina and all five of Gigi’s children. I tried to confront her about it, but Gail threated to kill me and my grandson Toby. Gigi was away on a mission at the time and they were planning on taking her down when she got back. Gail planned on killing the children first, then Gina in her sleep, then Apollo and Gigi when they returned. I knew I couldn’t stop her on my own so I told Gina what was going on. I thought she’d at least capture Gail and her co-conspirators, instead she fought Gail in the dead of night. No griffon saw the fight, but the next morning we woke to find Gail’s body impaled on one of the swords on Greta’s statue.”

“Then why didn’t you tell Gigi what happened!”

“Because, by the time I knew what was happening Gigi had already banished Gina and the griffons she thought were trying to take the Red Talons away from her. I only just saw Gina as she was leaving, she looked over at me with such hatred in her eyes. She yelled, calling me a traitor promising that she’d kill me for what I did. After that I was too scared to tell Gigi or Apollo the truth.”

“You were a coward,” I said, feeling bad for saying it, but it was the truth.

He nodded, “That I was, I’m the only family Toby has left and I didn’t want to leave this life behind and leave him with no family. But now I know that I should have said something from the start.” He looked around his cave one more time, “I hope that Gigi will forgive me for what I did.”

“I think she will, but if not, she won’t have you executed. If you end up getting banished then you’re welcome to go to the Lucky Horseshoe and live the rest of your days there. I have access to the Royal suite. No matter what, we’ll be here for you Tonto,” I said running over and giving him a hug.”

“Thank you Shadow, I think I’d like that,” he said hugging me back, “Can you do me a favor though?”

I looked up at him again, “Anything.”

He let me go, “Wait here while my fate is decided,”

“I don’t want to wait here though, I want to know what is going to happen.”

“I know, but I’d feel better with you here in my cave, I’ll be sending Aura up as well,” he said hugging me one last time, as he did Apollo appeared in the door.

“We can’t wait any longer Tonto,” he said.

Before the old griffon let me go he whispered in my ear, “There’s a recording in the top drawer of my night stand. Please make sure Aura gets it. Also, I know that you and Aura’s souls are destined to be together, in this life, in your past life and in the future, NEVER forget that.”

With that he pulled away and followed Apollo out of his cave. I watched him go, a sinking feeling in my stomach. After a little time passed I forced myself to get up and walk back into Tonto’s bedroom. I found the recording where he said it would be and tucked it into my Saddle Bags. I just sat there looking up at a few pictures Tonto had up from his younger days. My eyes fell on one, it was Tonto and Box Tape from a long time ago, just outside of Appleton. They both looked so happy in their youth. Written onto the frame was the words ‘Best Friends Always Stick Together’.

I had to look away after a minute, the sight of Box Tape still filled me with grief and loss, I missed him so much. Then I saw something on the desk, it was a small notebook titled ‘Moon Light and Geoff, a history of the First Children of Luna.’ Figuring it was something that could keep my mind off of what was happening on this horrible day, I picked it up and read the first entry.

As many of the griffons of the Red Talons know, I have spent most of my life looking back at the past. Where our past lives were during critical times in history. For most historians, they don’t look much past the Great War. Personally, I don’t think the war needs any more histories written about it. We may not know all of the details about which pony did what, what Zebra attacked where, why griffons didn’t join a side. None of it matters, the war started with a bad trade deal, got worse because of a Zebra attack on Luna’s school, bad things happened on both sides of the war. It all ends the same, Equestria burned, The Badlands were poisoned, Griffonstone fell.

What I want to know is what happened before, so I’ve been looking back as far as I can, tracking two souls I’ve always been interested in from tales and myths going to before Nightmare Moon fought her sister for control of their young kingdom. I started with an old myth because some of the small facts I first found about a griffon named Geoff, showed that he was a founding member of the first Children of the Night, also called the Children of Luna or the Moon Born. Since I’ve always had a fascination with Greta’s old team, I figured I’d keep digging.

Turns out that the old story about a griffon and a pony that fell in love with one another, isn’t a myth or a fairy tale, it’s true. I was able to track it back to the first members of the Children, a mare named Moon Light and a griffon named Geoff. This journal is everything I’ve been able to find and learn about them and the special bond they shared, all the way to the day they both died. Because of what I’ve learned over the past fifty years, I found that I could track their Souls throughout the centuries. Every time they are reborn, they are always born with in a few years of each other and they always seem to find each other. Always, their strange relationship is mocked by their peers and their life normally ends in tragedy. I was able to track their lives to at least the Great War, but from there I’ve lost track. Either they haven’t been reborn in over two hundred years, or I’m missing something. Either way, I’ve made this journal to at least help myself and hopefully others understand this bond.

I wanted to read more, wondering if this was the same griffon and pony Aura told me about once. She did say the griffons have a story about two souls that loved each other so much they kept finding themselves in each new life. I would have kept reading, but I heard something from the front entryway of Tonto’s cave. Tucking the journal away I slowly started to walk back.

“Tonto? Aura?” I asked as I looked around, it sounded like metal on stone.

I turned looking for who’d just walked into the cave, when a deep voice said, “Sorry kid, but we can’t have you getting in our way!”

Before I could turn toward the voice I knew, something hit me in the back of the head. The world went dark and I lost conciseness…

***

“Shadow, open your eye’s we don’t have much time,” a voice said from somewhere around me.

My eyes snapped open. I didn’t even have to ask where I was, I already knew. I was in my own head again. I figured I’d find myself face to face with Aquila, but the voice I just heard wasn’t hers, it was male. I got to my hooves and looked around, Aquila was still sleeping inside her cage. My hooves felt like I was standing in water, just like when I came here with Yaksha. So if Aquila was still sleeping inside her cage, who just spoke to me?

“Over here Shadow,” The Voice said from behind me.

I jumped and turned around to find myself, face to face with a pony. Well he looked like a pony, but he was nothing more than darkness. I took a step back and asked, “Who are you?”

“Our name is not something that can be put into words, at least not words your kind would understand. All you need to know is that we are non-hostile,” The Darkness said.

“That’s a load of horse apples, what are you doing inside my head? Are you somepony with the same kind of power as my uncle?”

“We are not, Oricalcos gave himself over to the darkness a long time ago. He let himself be tricked by a great evil and now pays the price for it. We are not a pony at all, but something far greater.”

“Then why do you look like a darkness and if your name isn’t something that can be put into words, then what do I call you?” I said still backing away from him.

“If this form displeases you then we can fix that,” as he… err, they spoke, the darkness’ form changed and soon they looked like a normal unicorn. Nothing special either, a white coat with a grey and silver mane, but they had no cutie mark, “Does this form make you feel better?”

“No, it just makes me have more questions.”

It was right then that I noticed its eyes weren’t normal, they looked like they glowed with inner light. Toward the pupil they were white, toward the edge they were a vast purple. I notice this as they rolled their eyes saying, “I’m sure you do, but we cannot answer them all. We do understand, however, that it is hard for your kind to talk to another if they do not have a name, so you may call us by the name of Altair.”

I looked confused, “Altair? That’s a strange name, also can you stop referring to yourself as ‘we’ or ‘us’ it’s all so very confusing.”

Altair looked confused “We are a collective, it is only logical to refer to ourselves as such.”

I started getting irritated “I don’t care about that, after being hit in the back of the head, it’s making it hurt even more. I don’t have time to consider it, just make it easier on me please?”

Altair nodded, “Very well, seeing as we…err…I have taken the form of a full-grown stallion you may refer to us… I mean… me as you would any other stallion.”

I shook my head, “Anyways, what do you want and why did you bring me here?”

“We…excuse us… I came to give you a warning Shadow. We both don’t have long, it took a lot of what power I have left to communicate with you like this. When I helped you before, I lost so much magic that I had to rest for a long time.”

I cocked an eyebrow, “Before? I’ve never met you before.”

He smiled, “Oh but you have, I just made sure that you wouldn’t remember. Back then you wouldn’t have been able to handle it,” he waved one of his hooves.

It was like he slapped me, as his hoof moved a memory I didn’t even know I was missing, slammed back into my head. The night I almost died from the Cazador poison. The memory of the strange dream I had when I thought I was living in an Equestria before the war, going to school with Stardust and Aura. I remembered not feeling well and heading back home, waking up again but finding myself in the Stable with mom. She didn’t know who Stardust or Aura were. She left me to rest more, not even a minute later Stardust was at the door, but it wasn’t Stardust, it was somepony pretending to me my friend. They said they were trying to help me, trying to make sure I didn’t fall asleep again because if I did, I wouldn’t ever wake up again.

I looked back at Altair, “That was you?”

He smiled and shook his head, “Not me, one of my companions, she is better with illusionary magic. I was watching though, I was the one who told her to make sure you didn’t die, because you are important to us Shadow.”

“I remember you saying something about that before, you also said you knew where my mom was, but wouldn’t tell me,” I said.

“We did know where she was, but we couldn’t tell you, because if we had, you would have run after her and if you did, she would have taken you with her to Los Alicorn. We couldn’t let her get her hooves on Aquila or you,” he said slowly walking toward the sleeping form in her cage.

I sighed, “You’re probably right, but I wish you would have told me anyway.”

“If I had, you both would be dead.”

I shrugged, “I might be, but I’m sure mom would be fine.”

He shook his head again, “I didn’t mean your mother Shadow, I meant Aquila and you.”

“So what, I mean it’s not like I want to die or anything, but if my death means she never gets free, then The Wasteland is better for it.”

“No, it wouldn’t Shadow. I know you think of Aquila as some kind of demon or monster, but that isn’t truly what she is,” as he spoke he put a hoof on her cage.

“Oh really, then if that’s true then what is she?”

He was still looking down at the sleeping form, “She is hope.”

I started to laugh, “Hope! She’s a fucking nut job!”

He looked so sad as he let his hoof fall away from the cage, “Well, she is now, but that isn’t her fault. She was trapped in a lab for over two hundred years, forced to feel all of the pain and misery going on in this land. When she was in the lab she knew everything bad that was going on. She was created to help ponies, to heal them and to keep them safe from darkness, but because of Stargazer, she was pulled down here too early and she didn’t know how to cope with the pain and suffering. Because of this, her mind became twisted.”

I looked at the cage she was trapped in, “I saw the memory of when she came to this land. She was scared, but how do you know so much about that?”

“I can’t tell you that, not yet, not until you finally do what needs to be done.”

“And what is that?” I asked rolling my eyes.

He looked up at me with those strange eyes, “You need to become one with her. It’s the only way to help this land and to fix her mind.”

“Fuck that, I’d rather she died.”

He sighed again, “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

“Why would I ever do that? I don’t care what you say, I don’t trust her or you for that matter.”

“I know, but you have to know that if you don’t merge with her and soon, it will be the end of you,” he said.

“And what is that supposed to mean? If you can’t tell, I’ve been doing just fine keeping her locked up in my head. I was even able to take some of her power away making it even harder for her to get out.”

He looked like he was getting angry, “Listen to me Shadow, if you don’t do as I say, Aquila will take over. If she does, she won’t be what she was meant to be. She’ll never be able to fix what’s broken if she takes you over with hatred and anger in her. The monster she’ll become will be worse than anything you’ve ever seen. She has the power to destroy this world, more than you ponies have already done.”

“Then I’ll find a way to get her out of me and destroy her!” I yelled.

He pointed a hoof at her cage, “You are a fool, don’t you see that!”

I looked closer and felt my heart stop. At a distance her cage looked fine, but up close I saw that cracks were spreading all over it. As I watched, another crack appeared followed by a flack of metal breaking away. I looked back at Altair, “What’s happening?”

“To you it may seem like she’s sleeping right now, because you weakened her. The truth is, she’s conserving all the power she has and using it to break this cage apart. If you don’t do as I say, she’ll break out very soon, and when she does nothing can stop her from taking control. When that happens, your mind will break, and the pony known as Shadow will disappear forever,” he said walking around the cage, “You have to listen to me Shadow, Equestria can’t take another creature wandering around with near limitless power!”

I took in a deep breath then let it out slowly, “I won’t let that happen, no matter what you say, I’ll stop her. I’m stronger than you think.”

His form burst into light as he roared. He was no longer a pony, he had turned into a huge bird made out of pure light, with purple and orange eyes, when he spoke his voice was deeper and filled with power, “You will never win against her when she’s free Shadow. If you don’t do this then WE WILL MAKE YOU!”

I didn’t let this scare me, I didn’t care what he had to say. I wasn’t going to let him decide what I could or couldn’t do, “You fool, this is my head and in here I have more than enough power to stop Aquila and you.”

Like before when I took Aquila’s power away from her, I took hold on the vast amount of power around me and redirected it toward Altair. The eyes on the bird went wide as I mixed my own power with Aquila’s and used it to banish him from my mind. There was a bright flash of light then Altair started to vanish like smoke. Before he was gone he opened his beak and said in a sad voice, “We wish We could have saved you Shadow, but sadly you are too blind to see what you are doing. You don’t have much time left, if we were you, we would get far away from those you care for.”

“I can beat her Altair.”

“No, you can’t, and when she does destroy you and take this body, she’ll kill everyone you love. Goodbye Shadow, We are sorry that we couldn’t come to an understanding,” he said as he disappeared like dust in the wind.

I sighed and sat down looking at Aquila who was still sleeping in her cage. Her cage looked worse than it had a few minutes ago. The sight of it made me sick, so much so that I looked away from it. I took a moment and thought about what Altair said and sighed, “Stupid, whatever-he-was, trying to control my actions with force, I am in control of my own actions. No living creature can tell me what to do. Then again…” I sighed once more looking back at the cage, “What if he’s right and I can’t stop this?”

When I spoke Aquila opened her eyes, then lifted her head to look over at me, “Fancy seeing you again Shadow.”

“Oh shut up,” I said getting up and walking around her cage. There had to be a way to fix it, to keep her trapped in there longer.

“You can’t fix it Shadow.”

“I can!” I yelled, “I’m not going to let you win.”

She shrugged and laid her head back down closing her eyes again, “You keep telling yourself that Shadow, but we both know you’re wrong. Try with all your might, but it’s already too late. I do hope you have fun with this Celebration the griffons are putting on, because it will be the last time you ever have fun again.”

“SHUT UP AQUILA!” I yelled pulling on the magic again and using it to try to repair the cage.

She just smiled keeping her eyes shut. When I stopped the magic, the cage didn’t look any better than it had a moment ago, it looked worse. Aquila chuckled, “Keep that up and I’ll be out of here sooner than you think. This cage was originally made by your mother Shadow. Her magic is getting weak.”

“I’ve fixed it before, I can do it again!”

She opened one eye to look over at me, “Sure you did, or maybe I just let you think that, either way it doesn’t matter. Now go away, I’m bored of you.”

“I’ll never let you have my body Aquila!”

“It’s a good thing I’m not planning to ask you for it. Now be gone, oh and remember, not everything is as it seems SHADOW!” as she said my name, the magic in my head pulsed. It was ripped from my control, redirected and used to throw me out of my own mind. As I vanished from the depths of my own head, I heard her laughing.

***

I opened my eyes, the memory of what I just saw making me shiver with fear. What had just happened? It was then that I remembered how I had gotten knocked out in the first place. Someone had knocked me out while I was in Tonto’s cave. Then I realized I wasn’t inside anymore, I was on top of the cliffs that over looked Crimson Canyon and it was dark outside.

“It’s about time you woke up,” the same voice from Tonto’s cave said.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t, I was tied up. So, I turned my head and looked up into the griffon in his full set of power armor, “Archer, should have known I wasn’t done with you yet.”

There were two other griffons behind him, watching me with gun’s trained toward my head. Archer chuckled then bowed, “Nice to see you again Shadow, I’m happy you woke up just in time to watch the show.”

“Let me GO!” I yelled

“I don’t think so, at least not until my task is complete, well Gina’s anyway.”

I noticed that they hadn’t put a spell binding ring on my horn. I smiled and started to draw on my magic, “Fuck you Archer.”

He just looked away from me, “If you don’t stop that horn from glowing, my griffons will put a bullet through your skull.”

I looked back at the two griffons who both looked ready to fire. Sighing I let the spell fade, “Fine, what do you want?”

“I want you to watch and learn. It’s time that you see what the real world is really like,” he said, looking out at Crimson Canyon.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, “I can’t see a damn thing from down here.”

Archer looked back at one of his griffons, “Lift her up so she’s sitting, I want her to watch what happens next.”

One of the Unchained Talons lifted me up and put me into a sitting position. Then I saw what Archer was talking about, next to the arena on the stage that was set up for griffons to perform, was Gina, Gigi and Tonto. Tonto’s talons were tied, same for his wings. Gigi was standing in front of him, blocking him from Gina who looked like she was laughing.

“What’s going on? Why is Tonto tied up like that!?” I asked pulling at my own bindings.

“Tonto admitted to breaking the laws of the Red Talons, more than one. You see Shadow, when a griffon breaks the rules, normally they are banished as you know. Do you know what happens when a griffon breaks multiple rules?” Archer asked.

My eyes went wide as I looked up at him, “No…”

He laughed, “Then watch.”

“I don’t understand, what rules did he break!” I yelled

“He worked with the Enclave for one, he took a contract to help a mare and her child escape them a few years back, he helped the Steel Rangers break into a Stable many years ago and he was responsible for the death of a Red Talon griffon by sending Gina to kill Gail without proof of her betrayal. Now stay here and watch, because once they are done with Tonto, Gina will be fighting Gigi.” He said then looked at one of his griffons, “Make sure she can hear everything.”

“We only have one radio sir,” a female griffon said.

“Deal with it, you two will stay here until I get back,” Archer said then looked back at me, “I’ll be back soon Shadow, don’t go doing anything stupid!”

“Where the hell are you going!?” I yelled as he started to fly away.

He laughed again, “I have to get ready for my grand entrance, now enjoy the show.”

He flew away from Crimson Canyon, leaving his two griffons to watch over me. I wanted to scream as I was forced to watch as Gina pointed her glowing red Spear at Tonto and her sister. As I watched one of the griffons walked over to me and pushed something into my ear. As soon as she did I was able to hear what was going on down in the canyon. Somehow Gina must have had her own radio broadcasting so all the Unchained Talons can hear everything.

Gina was saying, “Gigi, he confessed, everything I said was true and he did more than just lie about my role in Gail’s death, he also broke two other rules. Are you the Leader or NOT!?

“Gina, I’m not executing Tonto! I’m still the leader of the Red Talons, I can banish him if I choose, just like I did to you,” Gigi said, it almost sounded like she was begging.

Gina lowered her spear and sighed, “So be it, I guess you’re right, banish the old griff, he’s not long for this world anyway.”

Gigi lowered her weapons, “Fine, now back away so I can do my job.”

“Only if you accept that I am still a Red Talon and have the right to fight you for your position.”

“Fine, but once I’m finished with Tonto,” Gigi said.

“So be it, but hurry up, it’s already past midnight and I want to get this over with,” Gina said as she backed up a little smiling, “Tick Tock sis.”

Gigi turned away from her sister and faced Tonto, “Tonto Graybeak, you have broken the laws of The Red Talons. For this your life is forfeit, I could execute you for your crimes, but due to your long service to our Talon Company I have decided to banish you.”

Tonto looked up at her and to my surprise he looked like he was smiling, “I understand Gigi.”

I saw Aura standing next to Stardust and Wind Thrasher, “I can’t believe this is happening and where is Shadow? She has to be here before he’s sent away!”

“Apollo is looking for her, don’t worry. Tonto said that Shadow already knew what might happen and she told him to go to The Lucky Horseshoe. Tonto will be fine,” Stardust said putting a hoof on Aura’s shoulder.

Wind Thrasher looked like she was crying, “I’m sure Shadow just couldn’t be here to watch this, not right after losing Box Tape.”

Gigi used one of her swords to cut Tonto free, “You have ten minutes to gather your things and leave Crimson Canyon.”

Tonto got up and bowed, “I’ll be as quick as I can, I only want to take a couple of things before I leave.”

“I’ll send Aura with you then, she’ll make sure that you get out of here safe,” Gigi said.

Tonto moved closer and hugged Gigi, from where I was I couldn’t tell, but it looked like he was saying something to her. Whatever it was, Gigi looked shocked and backed away from the older griffon. As he turned to follow Aura Gigi said just loud enough for the radio to pick up, “What do you mean?”

Tonto ignored her and stepped off the Stage and started to head toward his cave. Gigi and the rest of the Red Talons were busy watching Tonto leave, but I was watching Gina. She grinned and pulled out a portable broadcaster, the same one I was listening to everything on, saying into it, “Okay Archer, Gigi couldn’t do it so it’s your turn.”

Gigi turned as Gina spoke, but she was too late to stop anything. A shot rang out around the Canyon. I watched in horror as Tonto’s head whipped back, a spray of blood blasting out of the back of his head as a bullet ripped through it. It was like watching Wrath go down all over again. I screamed as I watch the kind old griffon fall back. Aura turned looking down at his body, her beak open in shock.

“NO, TONTO!” I yelled twisting around toward the two griffons who were still keeping their guns pointed at me, “I’ll fucking kill all of you!”

The male griffon flipped his rifle around and slammed the butt of his gun into my face, “Keep quiet unicorn, you’re to watch not speak.”

I spat blood and glared up at him, “Tonto was a good griffon! How could you do this!”

He slammed the butt of his gun into my face again, “Tonto was a fool, now he’s a dead fool, get over it, the show isn’t over yet.”

The female griffon took hold of my mane and twisted my head around forcing me to watch and listen to what was going on in the canyon. Gigi was still looking at her sister who was laughing like a mad griffon, “Well look at that, the old griff did have some brains left inside his head after all.”

Some of the griffons lifted their rifles and pointed them at Gina, but Gigi put up a talon saying, “No, that’s what she wants,”

Gina laughed again, “Oh dear sister, you have no idea what I want.”

Gigi pulled the two swords off her back and pointed one at Gina, “You went through all of this to prove that you didn’t have anything to do with Gail’s death, then you go and have TONTO KILLED!”

Gina laughed, “Oh no, personally I didn’t care if he lived or died. Archer on the other talon wanted him dead. All I did was let him know that you weren’t going to kill Tonto, so he did it.”

One of the Red Talon griffons jumped on the stage and yelled, “Let us kill the traitor Gigi, let us kill all of these Unchained ass holes!”

“No,” Gigi said, “Gina you wanted to take me on, fine, I’m going to show you why I’m the leader of The Red Talons, and this time I won’t show you MERCY!”

Gina lifted her red energy spear again, “Fine with me, because I’m not showing you mercy either!”

Gigi looked back at her griffons, “No griffon will interfere, no matter what happens. This is a fight for power and to the death, any griffon who tries to get in our way will die!”

Gina looked at the Unchained Talons, “Same order for all of you, even if I fall.”

Gigi glared at her sister, rage written on her face, “If I win, your griffons will leave Crimson Canyon and never return!”

Gina laughed again, “Fine with me, and if I win, I’m the new leader.”

“Deal,” Gigi said and without another word she attacked. It looked like Gina wasn’t expecting her sister to attack so quickly. Gigi took hold of her sister and threw her into the air, then she flapped her wings and flew fast toward the red griffon. Gina wasn’t going to be taken by surprise again, she moved her spear in the way of Gigi’s swords as she tried to cut off Gina’s head.

Gina kicked her away then dove toward Gigi her energy spear glowing brighter. She slashed at the air in front of her sending a blast of red energy at the white griffon. Gigi twisted and dove under the deadly attack then shot toward her sister again. Gina tried to impale her sister with the spear, but Gigi ducked under it and slashed one of her swords. Gina screamed and flew away, blood dripping from a cut on her chest.

Gigi pointed her sword at her sister, “First blood sister, here I thought you were going to take my place!”

Gina didn’t let her sister’s words bother her, “I’m just getting warmed up Gillian.”

“Funny because to me it looks like your bleeding, not warming up,” Gigi taunted.

Gina just cracked her neck, the popping sound of it echoing though the radio, “I guess I should get serious about this fight.”

Before Gigi could respond, Gina dashed toward her. She moved twice as fast as before, her energy spear twirling around in her talons. Red energy filled the dark night as she slashed at Gigi, getting past her swords and cutting a deep cut in Gigi’s chest. The feathers of Gigi’s chest turned black and the red line cauterized as soon as the blade of Gina’s spear passed over it. Gigi screamed but didn’t fall, she tried to stab her sister with her sword, but Gina twisted around and punched Gigi in the face. This time she flew down, slamming onto the stage with a thud that echoed all the way up to where I was being forced to watch.

Aura yelled, “MOM!”

Gina screamed and flew down toward Gigi, her red energy spear leading. Gigi wasn’t done though, at the last moment she rolled out of the way, Gina’s spear sinking into the metal of the stage with a small hiss. Gigi flipped back around and slashed at her sister’s face, cutting a deep cut along Gina’s face. Then she jumped back onto her talons and kicked her away from her spear. It was Gina’s turn to scream as she was thrown back.

Gigi flew into the air again, lifted one of her swords and threw it at her sister. Gina tried to dodge the twisting blade and was only half successful. The blade missed her face, but sank into the same shoulder where Aura had stabbed her a few days ago. Gigi dove and slashed for her sister who was still falling back. Gina ducked under the slash then pulled Gigi’s sword out of her shoulder and used it to block Gigi’s follow up attack.

Gigi jumped back, as Gina tried to kick her in the gut. Gina screamed and jumped for her sister who was fast enough to avoid taking a slash to the face, just over her right eye. Gina however also wasn’t able to avoid Gigi’s counter slash to one of her talons. Both Griffons backed away from each other breathing heavily as blood dripped from their wounds.

The female griffon who was holding my mane, forcing me to watch chuckled a little, “Gigi has no idea that Gina’s playing with her.”

“From what I can see, Gina looks just as bad as Gigi right now,” I said trying to pull my mane out of her talons.

“Stop squirming, or I’ll rip your horn off,” she said twisting her mane so I was forced to watch the fight again.

Gigi just flew into the air, forcing Gina to follow. Sometime during the time when I talking to the griffon, Gina had picked her spear up again and was now chasing after Gigi with one of Gigi’s swords and the glowing red spear. As I watched I heard Gina yell through the radio, “Hey sis, how about you take your Sword back!”

Gigi looked back just in time to see the sword flying toward her. She tried to dodge, but the blade sank deep into her right flanks. Blood flew and Gigi dropped, right toward Gina. I screamed and tried to pull away from the griffon again, but no matter what I tried, I wouldn’t be able to stop what happened. Gigi tried to flap her wings to avoid her on coming sister, but she must have been in too much pain. Gina slammed into her, the red spear leading. The red tip sliced through Gigi’s stomach then out her back.

The entire canyon went quiet as Gina held her sister close to her, the bloodied tip poking out of Gigi’s back. Quietly so only Gigi, and any Unchained Talon listening could hear Gina said, “Don’t worry sis, this stab won’t kill you. At least not right away, I want you to feel as much pain as possible before I end you!”

Gigi’s blade fell from her talons, her head resting on her sister’s shoulder, but I was able to hear her whisper back, “Apollo and my children will make you pay for this Gina. The Red Talons belong to us, to a true Bloodtalon, not a freak like you.”

Gina laughed then whispered back, “A true Bloodtalon you say, I’m more like Greta than any of you are SISTER. As for the Red Talons, they are mine now.”

Then Gina threw Gigi off her spear and I watched as the griffon who worked so hard to help me, my friends and her talon company, slam to the stage. It felt like my heart stopped when Aura and her sisters screamed in horror as their mother, the strongest griffon they ever knew, lose to her insane sister. To make it worse the two griffons who were holding me started to laugh.

“I knew Gina could kick her sorry ass,” the male griffon said, “Did you see Gigi’s face when her sister stabbed her? It was great!”

“SHUT UP!” I yelled trying to pull free from the female griffon.

She twisted me around and punched me in the gut. The air was blasted out of me and she let me fall to the ground as I tried to gasp in air. She then followed that up but kicking me in the face. Not once but three times, when she finished my vision was going fuzzy. Then she lifted me up by my Dusters collar, pulling me up so that her beak was an inch away from my nose, “Listen here Courier, all of us Unchain Talons have a bone to pick with that bitch down there. If we feel like laughing at her while she takes her last breaths, then we will and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

The male griffon chuckled looking down at the Stage, “She’s not even dead yet, I’m surprised she lived though that fall let alone the stab from Gina.”

“Did you hear that Courier, Gigi’s still breathing, maybe Gina will let her live,” The Female griffon taunted.

She started to laugh along with the male griffon as he said, “Nah, Gina doesn’t know what mercy is.”

I felt my heart start to race as I listen to them laugh about the griffon I respected so much. Quietly I said, “Shut up.”

The Female griffon looked back at me, “You didn’t just tell me to shut up again?”

“Shut up or I’ll make you shut up,” I said glaring up at her.

She got her face close to mine again, “I don’t care what Archer want’s, I’m going to beat you until you can’t see straight.”

I didn’t give her time to do anything but scream as I jammed my horn right into her eye. Blood and other fluids from her eye flew onto my head and face as she dropped me, screaming in agony. I used my hoof to wipe as the blood that flew into my own eyes as the male griffon yelled, “You’re going to pay for…”

He was cut off by something, all I could hear was someone landing and the sound of the male griffon gaging. When I cleared my eyes, I looked over to see the male griffon falling to the ground, his neck sliced open. Standing there was Arys, holding a dagger in one talon. She looked over at me and sighed, “Thank goodness I finally found you.”

The Female griffon was still screaming, holding a talon to the hole where her right eye used to be. I looked over at her then walked over and stomped on her face. She kept on screaming, so I kept stomping, over and over and over, even when her screams stopped and my hooves were covered in blood and gore. Finally, Arys pulled me away from the dead griffon, I tried to pull away but Arys said, “Shadow she’s dead, let it go.”

I looked up at her then back toward the canyon where I could see Gina standing over Gigi, her spear hovering over her sister’s face. I looked back at Arys saying quickly, “Thank you for saving me, but we have to get down there. Gigi’s going to die if we don’t do something.”

Arys looked down at the canyon too saying sadly, “We can’t interfere.”

I pulled away from her as she tried to put a comforting talon on my shoulder, “You can’t but I can, I won’t let Gina kill Gigi.”

“Shadow NO!” Arys said, but she wasn’t fast enough. I teleported right back down to the canyon floor, right at the edge of the stage.

Gina looked over at me with confusion on her face, “The hell!?”

I pulled the earbud out of my ear and threw it at her before pulling out my plasma rifle, (Archer wasn’t even smart enough to take my weapons) “Back away from Gigi!”

Gigi was still breathing I could see and when I yelled at Gina she opened an eye and looked over at me saying in a weak voice, “Shadow? Please don’t get in the way.”

“Yeah this is a Red Talon thing, no one can interfere with a fight for leadership!” Gina said with a smile.

“I’m not a Red Talon, I’m just a courier and I’m not going to let you kill Gigi. I don’t give two shits if you won or not, even if you call yourself the new leader or not, The Red Talons won’t follow you. Gigi has a family, she showed you mercy when she let you live. You owe her a life debt for that!”

“Bull shit!” Gina yelled pointing her spear at me now, “She is the reason I spent the past two years trying to survive!”

“No that was Tonto!” I yelled back, “Who you had Archer KILL! He did some bad things, but he was a good griffon too. I hate you for letting that scum you call a leader shoot him, even though he didn’t deserve to be shot by a sniper! Still that was between you and him I can’t change that, but Gigi showed you mercy and let you live. She had no idea you were told to kill Gail, she did what she had too as the leader just like she’s always done!”

To my surprise Gina lowered her spear, a look of confusion on her face. Then Gigi said, “I’m sorry Gina, sorry for kicking you out without listening to you,” she lifted her head a little, “You won, you are the leader now okay, but please…don’t take me away from my girls. I just made up with Aura, I have so much to teach them about life still. Hate me for what I did if you want, but please…don’t do this, you’ll regret it one day.”

“GIGI!” I heard Apollo say from just off the stage.

Looking back, I saw Apollo looking in horror at his wife who was still bleeding on the stage. He stayed back though knowing that he can’t do anything until Gina called the fight. Then I heard Gina sigh and say, “Fine.”

I looked back at her and saw that she put her spear away, “You’ll let her live?” I asked her.

“Yes, but this will clear any so-called life debt I have with you sister,” she said looking down at Gigi, “You are hear by banished from the Red Talons, from Crimson Canyon and if I find you working my territory. Do you understand me!”

Gigi replied weakly, “I do…”

Gina turned and walked toward the griffons who were watching the fight, “I, Gina Bloodtalon, am now the leader of the Red Talons and the first thing I want to do as the leader is invite all of the Unchained Talons to JOIN US!”

I ignored the cheers from the Unchained Talons and ran over to Gigi, “I’m sorry I interfered but I couldn’t let them hurt you.”

She looked like shit, her beautiful white feathers were now covered in dirt and blood, the cut over her eye was bleeding badly, and the stab through her belly was worse. But she managed to lift a bloody talon to my face and slowly she rested it there, “Thank you for doing that.”

“Don’t speak, Syn will be here in a second to help you.”

She pulled my face down and whispered to me, “In the Den, there’s a saddle bag that you need to get before Gina or Archer find it.”

“Gigi don’t worry…” I tried to say but she interrupted me.

Weakly she said, “Don’t…let Grim find IT!”

I pulled away, “What?”

She was starting to get quieter as she said, “Grim…she can’t…get her hooves on…book.”

I was about to ask what she was talking about when Apollo put a talon on my shoulder, “Shadow, she’s weak and hurt, I’ll help her get up and to Syn’s hut, go help her so my wife doesn’t die.”

I looked up at the griffon, “Okay, just take care of her please.”

“I will now go!” Apollo said.

I turned toward Aura and her sisters and jumped off the Stage as Apollo moved to help Gigi get up. Aura looked over at me asking, “What can we do to help.”

“Apollo said to get her to Syn’s hut.”

Syn looked at me then nodded, “If we can get her there quickly, I should be able to stop the bleeding, Aura can you help me?”

“Yeah,” Aura said then turned to me, “We might need you too Shadow come on. That goes for the rest of you too,” she added to Stardust and Wind Thrasher.

“No Wind Thrasher you go find the children and Vervain, Stardust can stay here and help,” I said as we all started pushing past Red Talons with looks of shock on their faces.

Wind Thrasher nodded, “I’m on it, I’ll tell Vervain what happened and make sure the children are safe,” she said as she left.

“This sucks,” I said as we pushed our way past more griffons.

“Tell me about it, first Tonto, now mom’s on the brink of death,” Fletch said. She started to follow us as Vi flew off to make sure every griffon stayed calm.

“I just hope she pulls through, it’d be even worse if your mom died on her birthday,” I said.

Aura and Fletch both looked at me with a funny expression, “What are you talking about? Mom’s birthday isn’t for a couple of months.

“Huh, but Apollo said her birthday was on the same day as the last day of the Celebration?” I said, then it hit me. The red feather I found when I caught Apollo talking to some griffon on the first day of the Celebration, how he attacked me before he saw it was me and after I lied about why I was there.

“Shadow what’s wrong?” Aura asked as I came to a stop.

“Apollo’s an Unchained!” I said looking back toward the stage where Apollo was holding onto Gigi who just managed to stand with his help.

“What? That’s fucking insane!” Aura said.

“Aura, Fletch,” I said pulling out the feather I found, “I caught him talking to some pony the other day about something to do with surprising Gigi. When he caught me listening he told me it was just a party for her birthday, which he said was today. I found this by where he was talking to the griffon after he left.”

“That’s Gina’s feather, but why would he be talking to…” Fletch said, but I was already pushing past the griffons again.

They weren’t moving out of my way fast enough so finally I teleported back to the edge of the stage. Apollo was hugging his wife close to him saying “Gigi, I’m sorry this had to happen, but you should’ve known that sooner or later, you’d have to pay for what you’ve done to your family.”

She looked over at him, “What are you talking about Apollo?”

I jumped on the stage, pulled out my plasma rifle and ran toward them getting ready to fire, but Apollo just smiled and said, “I never loved Gail, I was in love with Gina. We were going to tell you but then Gail died and you sent her away. When I found out what really happened six months ago I started planning with her and the Unchained. To make things worse you didn’t just send away the griffon I loved, you sent away our DAUGHTER. Gina might have shown you mercy for what you did to her, but I’ll never forgive you for what you did to Gina and Aura. Good bye, Gigi Bloodtalon!”

I went to enter S.A.T.S. but a griffon slammed me to the ground, right as Apollo pulled away from Gigi, picked up her fallen sword and used her own weapon to stab her in the heart. Gigi’s eyes went wide as the blade entered her chest, her beak slightly open in utter disbelief at the betrayal of the griffon who she called husband, the father to four of her children and who helped raise her oldest. Time seemed to stop, all sound in the canyon vanished as I looked into Gigi’s icy blue eyes, which looked just like her daughters.

For that moment I could see one thing in Gigi’s eyes as the life slowly faded from them. It was a look of utter despair as she was able to say one last thing before she died, “Run.”

Apollo pushed Gigi’s lifeless body off the end of the sword, letting her fall in a heap at his talons. The griffon on top of me let out a choked sob, looking up I saw it was Viridiana. Tears were falling from her eyes as she looked at Apollo then her mother. Then the look of shock was replaced by anger as she moved her beak down and whispered to me, “Get Aura and your friends out of here right now.”

Those words seemed to snap me out of my own shock as I said slowly, “Get off me.”

I heard Aura crying just behind me, Fletch screaming something, Syn trying to calm Aura down, Stardust pulling back on the bolt of his rifle and the rest of the Red Talons starting to roar with rage at what their second in command just did to one of the strongest leaders of the Red Talons. Through all of that Vi’s voice was the only thing I could make out as she said, “Shadow, I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t trust any of the griffons here right now, get my sisters out of here before all hell breaks loose.”

I was fighting with all I had to hold back the rage I could feel bubbling inside of me at the sight of that once beautiful white griffon laying on the ground covered in crimson. My heart was racing, I could feel as the blood pulsed through me, and a small voice inside my head saying, “Hahaha, yes Shadow let your anger flow. Use that power you stole and kill them all.”

Apollo looked over at where Vi was holding me down, he smiled saying to his daughter, “Good job Vi, keep the courier held down for a little longer.”

“Fuck you!” Vi said spitting on the ground, “How dare you pull a blade on our mother! I’m only holding Shadow down so she doesn’t do something stupid and get herself killed DAD!”

“Get…off…me…NOW!” I yelled as my magic started to flow through me…no not my magic, the magic I stole from Aquila. It flowed into me so quickly and easily, it was almost like it was waiting for me to draw on it.

Before I could do anything, Gina landed next to Apollo, she looked down at her dead sister then at Apollo. She didn’t look happy, no for the first time since I met her, Gina looked, sad. It was only for a moment before a mask of rage covered her sorrow, “What the hell did you do!”

Apollo just smiled, “I did what you were too weak to do LEADER! Now do your job and finish what we came here to do.”

Gina pulled her energy spear off her back and pointed it at him, “There was no reason to KILL her. I ordered her to be banished not killed Apollo, that wasn’t part of the plan!”

Apollo didn’t back down at all as he said, “Planes changed my love, now finish what we came here for or I will!”

Gina to my surprise lowered her spear and looked over at me still being held down by Vi, then she looked out at all of the griffons, “It’s time for a change, for many years The Red Talons have lived under the harsh rules of a sad griffon.”

“I’ll kill all of you FUCKERS!” I yelled still trying to get free.

“LET HER GO VI,” Aura yelled, “Because I’m going to kill them all too!”

Gina just looked over at us all and rolled her eyes, “As I was saying,” She walked off the stage and toward the Statue of Greta and the laws of the Red Talons, “From this day forth, the ten laws of the Red Talons no longer apply. Any griffon that doesn’t feel like following my leadership or that of Archer who leads the Unchained, can leave now. If you try and fight us, you’ll die,” Gina pulled out three incendiary grenades from the satchel at her side, pulled the pins and threw them at the statue and wall behind it.

Griffons who were close to it ran as the explosion echoed off the red sandstone around them. The blast blew the statue of Greta apart, same for the wall that once held the ten laws she’d set up for her griffons to follow. When it was finished nothing was left but a pile of rubble and red dust filling the air. My jaw fell, my eyes went wide and I lost all control on my senses. Same for a good amount of the Red Talons.

Shots went off as a male griffon near me killed one of the Unchained griffons, Aura’s screams of anger filled the air as she pulled her spear off her back and attacked the first griffon not wearing red around their forelegs. Vi, stepped away from me, either from the horror of what just happened, or because I finally let the power roaring inside of me out. My vision went red as I felt my body change, my horn glowing crimson as I screamed out my rage and sorrow.

Apollo was the first griffon that I could clearly make out, “You’re first,” I said as I blasted my magic straight at him. The griffon didn’t wait for my power to hit him, he took off, avoiding my blast by an inch. As he flew he yelled, “All Unchained griffons and Red Talons who are still loyal to their Talon company, Kill every griffon or pony who doesn’t fall into line, but leave The Courier Alive and my daughters.”

In a matter of moments, he was flying away, running like the fucking cowered he was. I tried to attack again, only to find Gina blocking my shot, her red spear pointed right at me, “You attack him and you die.”

My voice was full of power and rage as I responded, “You’ll be the first to die then.”

“Big mouth for such a small thing,” she mocked.

Pulling at the power and some of the knowledge I’d gained from Aquila, I used a spell that I’d only seen once, from one of mom’s memories. I long strip of power flowed from my horn until it was a crackling whip of magic, twenty feet long. When Gina flew toward me, I flipped the whip of magic straight at her. It moved faster than she thought it would, because when she tried to dodge it, the whip sliced along her flanks adding a long burn right next to one of the cuts her sister had made during their fight.

Gina screamed, but didn’t let the pain slow her. She dove for me, but I was ready for it. I snapped the whip of power around at the same time pulling out Misery and using it to slice at Gina from the other direction. She saw both blows coming and banked up then twisted around and sliced her spear through the air sending an arch of red power toward me. I dodged the attack then another as Gina used the time to get closer to me. When she landed I tried to attack again only to find one of the Unchained talons swooping in from my right. I ducked his attack and rolled avoiding Gina’s attack as well. When I got back to my hooves, I found three more griffons coming to help Gina.

The first who attacked lifted his wings showing off a battle saddle with twin energy rifles strapped to it. He fired, but I just teleported out of the way, reactivated the whip spell again and attacked. He twisted around ready to fire when my spell sliced through his neck, his head flying off him. Before his body could even hit the ground and before I could cast the spell again, the other three opened fire. Bullets slammed into my barding forcing me to teleport again to avoid taking a bullet to the head. Pain filled my body from where the rounds slammed into me, bruising my chest and legs, if they had been AP round’s I would’ve been dead.

Instead I appeared behind them, Misery coming down to slice cleanly through the skull of one griffon, pulling it free I twisted around and sliced out an eye of a second griffon, then ducked under the slashing talons of the third. Gina yelled something at them before taking to the air pulling out a healing potion as she flew the way Apollo had gone. I watched her go for only a second then avoided two more attacks from the third griffon who slashed at me again then opened fire. I felt one of the bullets ripping through a gap in my armor, but I didn’t let the pain slow me down as I charged up another magical attack.

The Griffon just laughed and started to fire again, that is until my spell slammed into him. His body turned to ash in a matter of seconds. Still seeing red I started to walk toward the mass of fighting griffons spread throughout Crimson Canyon, lifting Misery and slicing open the neck of the second griffon who was screaming, one talon over his ruined eye. He let out a gurgle as blood spilled from his neck into his air way. I flicked the blood off Misery then sheathed it as I pulled out mom’s plasma rifle and my shotgun and went insane.

Plasma flew into griffon after griffon as I slowly walked toward the center of the Canyon, my shotgun going off any time a griffon wearing a grey forearm band got too close. It didn’t take long for blood to cover the ground, making each step I took sticky from the blood and mud. Each griffon I killed seemed to make the bitch in my head go mad with delight, “Good job Shadow, that’s right keep killing them, make every single one of them pay for what they did!”

I could barely make out her voice, or even care. I ignored the shots that came my way, ignored the bullets that ripped through gaps in my armor, ignored the pain that was growing inside my head as my magic built up, ignored the screams of fear and pain around me. I was tired of letting everyone push me around, I was tired of watching ponies and griffons I respected and loved die around me. I’m sick of running away when I can do something to make the griffons around me wish they never stepped one talon into Crimson Canyon.

A female griffon attacked me from the side, her long spear aimed at my face. She died before she got within ten feet of me. As she fell I said, “For Box Tape,” two more griffons fired plasma rifles at me, I dodged and brought them both down a second after with my own plasma rifle, “For Cartwheel,” a younger griffon threw a throwing knife at me, it’s sharp tip sinking deep into my flanks, somehow getting past the armor plating in my barding. I twisted around and blew his head off with my shot gun, “For my Stable,” Another tried to shoot me in the face, he died as I used the Whip Spell to slice off his head, “For Tonto,” A scream of rage from a female griffon who looked like she was the same age as the one that just fell as she tried to stab me with a dagger. She was dead before she even hit the ground, plasma burns on her unprotected chest, “For Gigi!”

I felt a griffon grab me from behind and twisted around ready to blow the head off the fool who dared touch me. I almost didn’t stop my magic from pulling the trigger as Aura’s face came into view. My shot gun less than an inch away from her beak. I lowered my weapon and started to shake as I looked up at the beautiful griffon who held my heart. She was covered in blood, as if she’d just been fighting as much as I had been. She took a step back saying quietly, “Shadow?”

It took me a moment to take in that single word, a single moment that I stopped seeing red as I finally said, “They killed Tonto and Gigi.”

“I know, but we can’t keep fighting, more Unchained Talons are coming, we need to run,” she said putting a talon on my shoulder.

“I’m not leaving until their all dead!” I said pulling away from her.

“You don’t mean that Shadow, let go of Aquila’s power before you lose yourself to her.”

Stardust landed a second later his rifle out as he said, “We need to leave!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said turning toward where I could see more Red Talon griffons fighting against the Unchained and their own talon company.

Stardust looked over at me, “This isn’t a discussion, Wind Thrasher is waiting for us with the children and Vervain on the other side of the canyon, we need to go before they get hurt.”

I looked back at him then at the griffons still fighting to save their home, “You two go, get as many Red Talons out of here while you can, the Canyon is lost and if they keep fighting, the Talon company will be as well. Aura get your sisters and run far away from here.”

“I’m not leaving with out you!” she said taking hold of my forehoof.

I pulled away again feeling the rage build inside of me again, “Get the hell out of here, I can by you time.”

Stardust looked scared as he yelled, “Are you nuts, you aren’t staying behind.”

My head throbbed, forcing me to close my eyes in pain as the magic inside me begged to be set free, “If I go with you I’ll end up hurting you all. I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to me. I just need you all as far away from me as you can get!”

In my head Aquila laughed, “You don’t have long Shadow, either you let me take over so I can stop that power you can’t control or you die.”

I did my best to ignore her as I yelled, “RUN!”

“But…” Aura started to say, tears in her eyes.

I kissed her then said, “I’ll find you…trust me please, I don’t want any of you to get hurt…please just leave, I can’t control the power this time.”

Aura finally seemed to understand, she took a step back then said, “Fine, but if you die, I’ll find you in the next life and beat the living hell out of you, do you hear me?”

I turned around facing into the canyon and grinned, “Then I guess I’ll have something to look forward to in the next life.”

Stardust looked at her then at me, “Are you two insane?”

Aura just looked at him as her wings opened, “Trust Shadow, now let’s go.”

My head throbbed again as they took to the air shouting at all of the Red Talons they saw to flee. I needed to give them time, so I looked around toward a griffon I could see in the distance in a set of full body griffon power armor yelling, “ARCHER!”

He killed two griffons at once then turned toward me and laughed, “So you do change color when you’re upset, now that is a neat trick.”

I did everything I could to hold onto the power, not to let it slip, all so my friends could get out, “This is all your doing, I’m going to make you pay for what you did to Gigi, to TONTO.”

He just kept on laughing, “Shadow, when are you going to realize that you can’t win. You might have gotten a lucky shot on me once, but that won’t happen again. Now why don’t you surrender and come with me, you have a date with my contractor.”

I pointed my plasma rifle at him and fired, he dodged the shot and another then flew at me. I teleported out of the way then fired again, but the plasma only slipped right off his armor. Knowing my own weapon wouldn’t do me any good I holstered it and drew Misery, “I’m not letting you leave this canyon alive Archer.”

The sight of the blade seemed to make him pause as he said, “I heard you managed to find that sword. Where was it all this time?”

“None of your business.”

He smiled, “Maybe not, but I do know that Gina and the rest of the Bloodtalon’s would like to get their family heirloom back.”

“Too bad they already knew I had it and said I could keep it, now why don’t you come closer so I can show you the special things it can do.”

He just shook his head, “I’m not that stupid Shadow, I know better than to get within ten feet of that blade.”

My head throbbed again, “So you really are just talk.”

He laughed again, “Nope, I’m the griffon who has you out gunned.”

I waved a talon around and it was then that I noticed that the fighting had stopped. I looked around and saw hundreds of guns pointed at me, most of them where Unchained but a few were Red Talons. In the distance I could see hundreds of griffons flying away from the canyon. They’d managed to get away, just in time too because my horn felt as if it was ready to explode. I smiled and started to laugh, “Are you sure about that Archer?”

He looked at me like I was insane, as he did I heard Aquila say, “Time’s up, I’d suggest you close your eyes, it hurts less that way.”

Archer took a step back, as if he could see what was about to happen written all over my face. Then he yelled, “Every griffon get out of here!”

Gina who was a few feet away looked at him confused, “Why, we have her surrounded?”

Archer flapped his wings yelled, “I said FLY, NOW! THAT’S AN ORDER!”

Gina didn’t bother arguing, because she too saw something on my face as she too took to the air along with the rest of the Unchained Talons. I closed my eyes and prayed to the goddesses that whatever happened next, I’d take down those two first. I started to scream as I let Aquila’s power flow out of me, not in a quick attack or even a spell. No, I let the power of our rage at the world explode out of my horn, let the raw magic flow into the world like a title wave. An ear-splitting boom filled the air, followed by the sound of something flowing away from me as the magic destroyed everything in its path.

Power rolled out further and further across the canyon. The huts closest to me crumbled, the arena turned to dust, the stage that only two nights before Aura and her sisters preformed for everyone here evaporated. The only thing the magic didn’t harm was the bodies of Gigi and Tonto. The scream that came out of my mouth grew louder as I let all of my sorrow and anger out, let every griffon or pony within miles know my anger. Let every living thing that could see the magic as it exploded out of me, fear me.

I would have let every last ounce of my power out, destroyed everything I could until I had nothing left, but through my anger, through my sorrow a voice floated toward me, “Shadow!”

I opened my eyes and through the maelstrom of magic I could see Wind Thrasher flying only a few inches away from the dome of power. If she got any closer, my magic would turn her into nothing but ash. Aquila laughed inside my head saying, “Do it, you don’t need friends anyway. Look how powerful we are when we work together.”

Wind Thrasher flapped a little closer to yelling down at me, “Shadow, stop this before you end up killing yourself!”

My magic pulsed again and the dome of magic grew just a little, inching closer to the bat pony. I looked back at her, “Get away Wind Thrasher,”

“I’m not leaving without you!’ she yelled, her yellow slit eyes narrowed as she spoke.

“You know you want to kill her Shadow,” Aquila said softly inside my head, “Come on, just push a little more of that power out. She’s just a freak of nature, something that was created in a lab.”

I closed my eyes again yelling, “SHUT UP!”

Wind Thrasher yelled down at me again, “Don’t listen to her Shadow, you’re stronger than she is, let that magic go.”

“I don’t know how!” I yelled back at her.

I could see worry in her eyes as she watched me, “If I can pull myself out of the blood lust and come back from that dark place, then you can too. You just need something to hold on to. Who are you? Tell me! Are you Aquila or Shadow Star, are you our enemy or our friend?”

Aquila laughed inside my head trying to make me say what she was, “Your enemy and Aquila!”

I didn’t let those words escape my muzzle. Instead I said in a struggling tone, “I am Shadow Star, daughter of Grimoire Spell and Nightshade,” For a brief moment some of my past memories with my parents started to flow through my head. The moment my dad gave me Avon. The moment Mom first helped me braid my mane, Vervain raising me to be a good mare and how to live.

“Very good, what else are you!?” Wind Thrasher yelled, as she did the magic flowing out of me seemed to lessen.

“I am the Courier Mare of the Marejave, I work for the Equestrian Express,” I said starting to feel control over my magic again. Another brief moment some of the memories I’ve created with my friends over the past two months, started to flow through my head. Stardust’s goofy smile, Wingnut’s clever yet dirty mind, that moment Wind Thrasher and I were walking around New Pegasus, Laser’s life lessons, Cookie Byte’s wit, The first kiss that I shared with Aura.

“And who do you love?” she asked flying closer as the magic dimmed.

“Don’t listen to her Shadow, KILL HER!” Aquila said, but her voice was pushed back as the magic faded and my friend landed in front of me.

Panting I said, “I love all of you, with all my heart, because without my friends, life wouldn’t be worth living.”

She pulled me close and hugged me, “We love you too Shadow, now tell me, will you be okay?”

I pressed my face into her shoulder, “No…they killed Gigi…Tonto. Archer took me when I was in Tonto’s cave, tied me up on the top of the canyon and made me watch as Tonto died…made me watch as Gina fought Gigi. She’s dead because of me!”

She rubbed me main slowly, “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to her.”

“You don’t understand, I caught Apollo talking to another griffon two days ago. He found me listening in and told me he was planning a surprise for Gigi’s birthday, and I fucking believed him. I should have told Gigi right away, if I had, she’d still be alive,” I sobbed into her shoulder.

I heard wings flapping behind me then another hoof slowly rested on my shoulder as Stardust said, “Don’t blame yourself Shadow, you have no idea what would have happened if you told her. No one blames you, I mean hell, nopony thought Apollo would do something like that.”

I just kept sobbing into Wind Thrashers shoulder as I heard more wings around us. Looking up I saw Aura and her sisters standing next to their mother’s body. All four griffons had tears in their eyes as they looked down at her, “We have to get out of here, I can hear them coming back,” Wind Thrasher said.

Viridiana looked over at us saying, “We have to get Mom’s body out of here so she can be burned properly, same goes for Tonto.”

Aura looked over at the older griffon’s corpse, “I’ll get Tonto, one of you take mom.”

Fletch looked at her younger sister asking, “What about the rest of the Red Talons who died?”

Syn answered, “I told Toby to stay with Gina’s side of the Red Talons for now, he’ll make sure they get all their rights, but Tonto and mom, they may just throw their bodies out like trash. Now hurry up and grab them, Stardust you fly with my sisters and watch their backs. Wind Thrasher take Shadow and get her out of here. Wingnut is with Vervain and the rest of the young ones, they’ll be safe.”

I finally wiped away my tears and looked around at what I’d done. My eyes went wide, everything within twenty meters was destroyed. It was like a small bomb went off in the middle of the canyon, turning everything in its wake into dust and ash. I felt Wind Thrasher put a hoof on me, “Let’s go, before they come back.”

“Not yet,” I said pulling away.

Aura glared over at me from where she was picking up Tonto’s body, “Don’t argue, just go!”

“I will, but first I have to grab something from the den,” I said as I tried and failed to walk toward the huge hut.

“We don’t have time,” Stardust said.

I got back to my hooves and winced at how weak that blast of magic had left me, “It was Gigi’s last wish, she told me to get a set of saddle bags that had a book of some kind in it. She said to make sure mom didn’t get her hooves on it. Archer is working with somepony out in Los Alicorn, if it’s my mom, he’ll make sure she finds it.”

“Fine,” Aura said, “Stardust go get this book and while you’re at it, make sure we didn’t leave anything in the cave then fly back to us as quickly as you can.”

“You sure you’ll all be okay?” he asked.

“We’ll be fine, now hurry,” Aura said, “You know where we’ll be.”

“Alright, I’ll see you soon,” he said flying off toward the Den.

“Come on Shadow,” Wind Thrasher said.

I moved closer to her and let her take hold of me as she flapped her wings and lifted us up toward the sky. Aura and her sisters followed as she turned east and flew as fast as she could away from what was left of Crimson Canyon. For a long time, no one talked as we flew past Sandstone, past the NLR camp a few miles down the road and kept going. As we flew more griffons joined us, all of them with red bands on their forelegs, every one of them looking sad as they caught sight of the body that was being carried by Vi, the body of their leader. After an hour passed and more griffons joined our flight I managed to ask, “What’s going to happen now?” I asked weakly.

Vi looked over at me sadly, “Gina won the fight against mom, by our laws that makes her the new leader, but Apollo killed her. He broke the laws of our talon group. Gina destroyed our laws and the statue of Greta, this is something that’s never happened before. Some of the Red Talons will stay and work with Gina and the Unchained Talons, some will leave and become freelancers, the rest I’m not sure.”

Fletch cut in, “My sisters and I will figure something out, for now none of us will return to the Red Talons or Crimson Canyon after what Gina and our so-called father did,” As she said this, she pulled the bandana off her neck and let it fall toward the ground. Her sisters did the same, throwing away the symbol that marked them as members of the Red Talons.

“We are outcasts now,” Vi said as more griffons around us started to join the sisters in throwing away their marks of The Red Talons.

Syn looked toward Aura and smiled a little, “I’d like to join Aura’s new Talon group, what did you call it again?”

Aura blushed then said quietly, “Shadow Talons.”

Fletch smiled, “I like that name, sounds so much more mysterious than Red Talons. So what do you say sis, want some new members?”

Aura didn’t smile as she said, “I have no land, no set rules yet, no pay scale, no contracts. Why would you want to work with me?”

Vi shifted her mother’s body a little then said, “Because, unlike Gina, you deserve our loyalty. So what if you don’t have things set up yet, you have us, we’ll help you.”

I saw Gouger a few feet away, he moved closer to us and said in a hollow voice, “We’d all be happy to follow you Aura, as long as you promise that you’ll one day let us take back our home and make those bastards pay for what they did to us…to…our friends.”

Fletch noticed him then and she asked, “Gouger…where’s Pluck?”

Tears fell from the large griffons face as he said, “He was shot down as we tried to escape. He saw one of those Unchained ass holes taking aim at me and he…he jumped in the way. He died to save my life…”

Fletch dropped in the air a little then corrected herself, “He…he’s gone?”

Gouger nodded, “Stupid little shit, always getting in the way even at the end.”

Fletch smiled a little, “Stupid little shit, but a brave one too.”

Aura watched for a moment as Gouger and Fletch started to talk about Pluck and others joined in, all talking about a griffon that fell during the fight and saying something nice about them, at least in their own way. Then she looked back at Vi and said, “Right now I can’t do much to help with what Gina, Archer and Apollo did to the Red Talons, but I can at least make sure that you all have a Talon Company to call your own.”

“We’ll need to find a place to set up and call our own,” Syn said.

Fletch looked back at us saying, “There’s a building on the outskirts of Freedom that the Queen owns, I’m sure we could use it for now. It should have enough room for all of us.”

Aura looked over at her sister asking, “Are you talking about that old office building that was owned by F&F Tool?”

“Yeah, the Queen told me last time I was in Freedom that she was still trying to find some pony or griffon I guess set up shop there. Maybe she’d be okay with your new Talon Company Aura,” Fletch said.

“I guess we could look into it, but I’m not sure how long it will take me to get things figured out, I’ve got my own mission with Wingnut and Shadow,” Aura said.

Vi nudged her with a wing, “Then you do what you need to, let me and our sisters worry about getting the Shadow Talon’s off the ground, that is if you’re okay with working with a bunch of fucked up outcasts like us.”

Aura smiled a little more, “You’d do that for me?”

“Not just for you Aura, for all of us,” Vi said.

“Deal. Vi you’ll be my second from here on out, I’ll leave the Shadow Talons in your talons while I help Shadow and our friends.”

“I like that idea,” she said looking around at the forty or so griffons that were following us, “How about the rest of you sorry excuses for griffons?”

They all smiled and roared in agreement. As they finished I asked, “Where are we going?”

Wind Thrasher finally spoke up, “Another mile or so, when the Unchained Talons showed up, Gigi sent the young griffons away with Vervain, they headed out of the area. When I went to check on them just outside of Sandstone, Vervain told me she’d get them all to a safe place, a town called Covan.”

“Some of the griffons that went with them earlier helped them get there faster, most of Cartwheel went there as well,” Aura said.

“What about Byte? Is she okay?” I asked remembering that I hadn’t seen the young filly since before I went into the orb.

“She’s with Wingnut, all the kids made it out just fine,” Wind Thrasher said.

Stardust caught up to us just a little bit ago. He’d been silent for most of the flight so far, and had an extra set of saddle bags with him. At the mention of Wingnut he sighed and said, “I’m just glad the foals made it out okay. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to them.”

“I agree,” I said, looking over at him.

In the distance I could just make out the town itself, from what I could see there wasn’t much there apart from a few ran down houses a trade tent and a motel. In front of the motel was what looked like a statue of a dragon, the dragon was holding a sign that said ‘Welcome to Covan.’ In the courtyard for the motel ten more griffons were standing around at least forty young griffons and a few ponies. Three of the ponies I knew right away.

As we landed Vervain came running over to me hugging me tightly, “Oh sweetie, I’m so glad you’re okay,” then she pulled away to look at me and her eyes went wide, “Shadow what happened to you?”

I could barely stand; my body was still weak from the amount of magic I used. I rubbed my eyes a little then asked, “I’m fine, mostly, and what do you mean what happened to me?”

Aura put a talon on my shoulder then gave me the small mirror she carried, “You used her power again Shadow, even though I told you not to.”

She didn’t sound angry, just disappointed. I took the mirror and looked at myself and felt my stomach sink. My silver mane was streaked with black now, more white covered my face, both my eyes had white circles around them now, a line goin down my muzzle, one of my ears was entirely white. I could see streaks of white on my neck as well. Pulling off my barding as quickly as I could I looked at the rest of myself, holding the mirror in my magic. My body was dotted with white, even my tail had black streaks in it, my flanks were polka dotted in white, my chest, my back, even my horn.

I lowered the mirror and started to breath heavily, “I…look like I have some kind of disease.”

Stardust walked over saying, “You look fine Shadow, so what if you have a little whiter on your black coat. Look on the bright side, it will make you harder to identify.”

“I look like a foal splashed paint on me!” I said.

Vervain had gone pail as she looked at me, “You’re running out of time.”

I looked over at her and sighed, “I know.”

The griffons around us didn’t say anything, they just watched as my friends tried to keep me calm. Aura ran a talon through my mane then pulled me close. I could feel that she was breathing hard but she was trying her best to stay calm as she asked, “Do you know how much longer you can hold out?”

I shook my head, “I have no idea,”

Wingnut and Byte walked over looking at me then Vervain as the colt asked, “Vervain, do you know if there’s anything that can be done to help Shadow?”

The mare who raised me looked ready to cry as she said, “That was what Grim was looking into when she left Stable 28. She said the only thing she could think of was to use a prewar project, or to find a spell that can pull a power like Aquila out of Shadow. She said the only thing that she knew of that can do that is Zebra magic, not just any Zebra magic either, it would have to be the darkest kind of magic.”

“I thought mom knew all about Zebra spells,” I said lifting my head from Aura’s shoulder.

“She did, but the kind of spell she would need to do can only be found in a certain kind of book. They were spells that only dark witch doctors wrote, they were known as Black Books. They didn’t make many of them and the last one she knew about was owned by Rarity. The problem is that no pony knew where it ended up when the bombs fell,” Vervain said, “That’s why she was looking into Falling Shadows.”

Stardust’s ears perked up at that, he lifted the saddle bags he took from The Den off and pulled out something large and black, “Before I caught up to you all, I looked at what Gigi wanted you to get Shadow, and this was the only thing in it.”

I reached out with my magic to take the item noticing it was a huge spell book with what looked like Zebra ruins on it. As soon as my magic touched the binding, pain flew through my horn and Aquila screamed inside my head, “Don’t touch that!”

I let the book go and winced backing up, “What is that thing? It feels…so evil.”

Aquila answered, “I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it’s full of black magic, powerful blackness that our magic can’t touch.”

I ignored her as Stardust said, “I just looks like an old zebra book to me, but it seems like what Vervain was talking about.”

I tried looking at it again, but as soon as I did pain seemed to throb inside my head, “I can’t even look at it, there’s something about it that’s making my head hurt.”

Vervain walked over and looked at the book, “It…is a black book, but it’s bigger than the one Grim was telling me about that Rarity had. Where did you get it?”

“Gigi told me to take it, she said to keep it away from mom,” I said, “Now can you put it away!”

Vervain took the book and put it into the saddle bags, as soon as it was gone, my head started to feel better. She looked over at me, “I think the reason it’s making your head and magic hurt is because since you have Aquila inside of you, you’re full of light magic. If what we learned about the black books is true, it’s pure darkness.”

“Can it be used to help Shadow?” Aura asked.

“I don’t know, the book is written in ancient zebra. There aren’t many who can read that.”

“Yaksha can,” Wingnut said.

Vervain looked thoughtful, “True, I’d have to go see if she can figure something out about this. Though right now we need to figure out what to do next.”

I looked over at the griffons who were all waiting around in the courtyard, “Your right. Aura I think you should figure out what’s going to happen with them.”

“I can do that, why don’t you go rest up and we can figure out what to do tomorrow. We are going to burn mom and Tonto first though,” she said turning to go talk with her sisters and talk to the other griffons who’d escaped earlier. I could see now that a lot of them had tears on their faces as they looked at the bodies of two of the griffons who’d led The Red Talons for so long.

“I…I’ll wait to rest, I think we shouldn’t do anything else until we take care of them,” I said.

“Yeah, they both deserve that much of us I think,” Stardust said walking over to look over Tonto and Gigi.

“Thank you,” Aura said, “Let us get set up, it shouldn’t take long.”

While she walked over to talk with her griffons, I saw an older caramel colored stallion with a cowpony hat came walking over to us. He looked at all the griffons then said in a heavy western accent but also kind of slow, “Ah dun think ah’ve seen so many griffons in one place like this, how can I help ya’ll?”

Stardust and Vervain moved closer to the older stallion Vervain saying, “Bronze Star, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

He looked at her for a long moment then his eyes went wide, “Vervain? Ah haven’t seen ya in at least ten years.”

“Eleven if I remember right,” Vervain said, “As for the griffons, they are…were Red Talons. Something’s happened at Crimson Canyon and this was the first safe place I knew we could go.”

“Oh? How bad we talkin’ ‘bout?” the older pony asked.

“I can explain later, for right now we just need a place to rest. Tomorrow most of the griffons should be heading toward Freedom.”

“Well ya’ll can stay here if ya want, we dun have anypony stayin’ in any of the rooms, also… ah’m not sure if there’s enough room for all of ya.”

“We’ll manage, for right now do you think you can get a message to The Queen for me?”

“Sure can, we got a dashite livin’ in town here that can take it there right away if ya’ll want.”

As I was watching Vervain talk to Bronze Star I felt a talon feel my forehead. I looked over to who it was, figuring it was Aura, but to my shock, it was Syn. She gave me a kind smile and said, “You have a fever Shadow, I think you really should get some rest.”

“Later, right now I just want to help with Gigi’s…you know.”

I could tell that she was holding back her own sorrow, but she did her best to smile, “I understand, but don’t overdo it, once we are finished I want you to rest. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded then let Wingnut and Byte help me up so we could go help the Griffons with setting up two pyres for Gigi and Tonto. For the next hour the griffons and my friends found as much wood as they could and set up the pyres just outside of town. When it was finished both bodies were set upon them and Syn took over the right of giving the eulogies for each griffon since she was the oldest of Gigi’s children and very close to Tonto. I did my best to listen to most of it, but my body had enough and slowly I started to pass out. I did wake when the fires were lit and rested my head against Aura as we silently watched their bodies burn.

I did my best to stay awake for the rest of what the rest of the griffons had to say, but slowly I found myself closing my eyes again. Then I found myself being woken by Wind Thrasher, “Come on Shadow, we have a room set up for us.”

I looked around and realized I was resting up against the leg of the Dragon Statue, “Where’s Aura?”

“She had to talk with the griffons more and set up what they’re going to do next, she told me to get you to bed.”

I let her help me up and lead me to the room where the rest of my friends and three griffon kids were inside. Stardust smiled saying, “Some of the kids are staying with us tonight.”

I just nodded and made my way over to the bed with Wind Thrasher. She helped me up then laid next to me saying, “I’ll keep you company until Aura gets back.”

I just nodded and snickered just enough saying, “Wind Thrasher I thought you said your barn door doesn’t swing that way.”

Wind Thrasher laughed lightly, “I see your sense of humor is back. Go to sleep Shadow.”

I couldn’t help but laugh again ending in a cough readjusting myself to lay down in a more comfortable position, “Sounds…good.”

Byte was already asleep next to Wingnut and one of the griffon chicks on the other bed in the room. Stardust was helping the other two calm down by telling them a story, Vervain wasn’t here. Wind Thrasher pulled me close and started to rub my mane in an almost sisterly way, as she said, “Vervain is with Aura and her sisters right now, she’ll be back later. She’s also trying to figure out where the rest of Cartwheel can go now that Sandstone isn’t safe.”

“Hey Wind Thrasher?” I asked.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you risk yourself to help me back in Crimson Canyon. You could have died if you’d gotten too close.”

She hugged me a little tighter saying, “Shadow, you helped me find my way back when I lost it in Whinnieapolis. I know what it’s like to lose control of yourself. I wanted to help you and I wasn’t going to just let you get taken over by Aquila or let that power destroy you.”

I closed my eyes and said quietly, “I love you Wind Thrasher.”

She giggled, “Don’t let Aura hear you say that.”

“You know what I mean,” I said.

She just chuckled saying, “I know and I love you too Shadow.”

***

I slept until noon the next day and still felt tired. I would have stayed asleep for two days if I could, but Aura woke me up with a few kisses to my nose, “Time to go.”

I opened my eyes and saw I was bundled under blankets and the only one left in the room, “Where are the others?”

“The Griffons already left with my sisters for Freedom. Vervain got a message to the Queen last night about what happened. Vi is setting up my new Talon company and taking over for now. She’s going to see about getting the Red Talons kicked off the Strip so we can set up in New Pegasus.”

“Aura…I’m sorry…”

She cut me off, “There’s nothing that you could have done Shadow. Even if you told mom about Apollo, she wouldn’t have believed you. As much as I love my mom, she was hard headed when it came to her family, my father included.”

I got up and started to get my barding and duster back on, “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”

“I know, but as it stands we can’t do anything to fix what happened. We need time to settle and figure out a way to get Crimson Canyon back, get The Red Talons back.”

“Do we?” I asked, “Is it so bad that The Red Talons are defunct?”

She shrugged and started to head out of the door, “I don’t know, I really don’t. Honestly, I think we should use this time to regroup. I really want to worry about you right now.”

“I’ll be fine…”

She cut me off by slashing her talon in the air, “NO! Shadow you’re not fine. If you haven’t noticed you’re slowly turning into HER! I’m not letting you get side tracked anymore. That book my mom found may be the only thing that can help you get better, but it also might not be the only thing.”

I sighed, “I don’t see how there’s anything we can do.”

“Well I’m not giving up on you and neither are the rest of your friends. I’ve talked to Vervain about it and she’s taking that Black Book to Yaksha who’s up in Frosty Summit right now. While she’s doing that we are going to go find your mom,” Aura said.

My eyes went wide, “My mom? Why? She wants me dead if you don’t remember.”

“I know, but if we can somehow capture her, we may be able to figure out a way to get her back to those hunter brothers and see if we can fix her memory. Even if we can’t, she has to know something about how we can fix you.”

“I’m not sure that will work.”

“We have to try, even if there’s the smallest thread of hope then we are going to try it. The only thing is we don’t know where to start looking for her apart from Los Alicorn, but even then, we need something that will help us convince her you’re not lying,” Aura said.

I took a moment to think then it came to me, “Mom’s shack.”

Aura lifted an eyebrow, “Her shack?”

I nodded, “Yeah, there’s some kind of bunker under it. If we go there we might find something that will help us.”

“It’s as good a place to start as any, so where is this place?”

I smiled and walked out the door, “All I know is that it’s between Trotston and Spitfire’s Flight Academy, but Stardust should know exactly where it’s located.”

Stardust, Byte, Wingnut, Vervain and Wind Thrasher were waiting for us in the courtyard. At the sound of his name Stardust looked over at us asking, “What do I know now?”

“You remember that shack where my mom took off your Pip-Buck?”

He thought for a moment then said, “Oh yeah, I didn’t even think about it, but that was your mom huh. Yeah what about it?”

I did my best to smile, doing my best to push out everything that happened over the past few days, “We need to go there, do you think you still remember where it’s located?”

“Yeah, I know right where it’s at. It’s not far from that spot I found you all when I was still Pride,” He said.

“Perfect, then we should head that way now,” I said then I noticed our Sky carriage was sitting on the road just outside of the Courtyard, “Where did that come from?”

Stardust smiled, “I couldn’t sleep last night so I asked Vervain where she left it.”

“I told him I left it outside of Sandstone, the fool flew off last night to go get it,” Vervain said, sounding a little pissed.

Stardust just smiled, “Hey I made it there and back without any trouble. I can be sneaky when I want to.”

“You could have gotten yourself killed,” Wind Thrasher said, also sounding pissed.

“Yeah, I know, but I’m fine,” he said, “So when are we leaving?”

I just hugged him, “In a minute, and thank you for risking your life to get us this. It will help if we have to go to Los Alicorn.”

Byte and Wingnut both said at the same time, “Why are we going there?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said walking over to Vervain, “You going to be okay?”

She nodded, “I’ll be fine, I sent the rest of Cartwheel with the griffons. The Queen will look after them and help them same for The Shadow Talons. I’ll be sure to get a message to you as soon as I find out anything about this book. I just want you to be careful, don’t use that power any more, no matter what.”

“I won’t.”

She hugged me again then said, “I’ll be going now, I have a lot of walking to do. Stay safe Sweetie, the same goes for the rest of you.”

We all waved and watched as Vervain started heading out of town. Then we all went to the Sky Carriage and Stardust hooked up to it saying, “You all ready to go?”

Once we were all set up inside I rested against Aura then said, “Let’s go.”

Aura pulled me close as Stardust said, “Alright, hold on to your manes and tail!”

With a blast of speed Stardust blasted into the air with a hardy laugh. Byte grabbed onto Wingnut shaking as she said, “I really don’t like HEIGHTS!”

I just laughed, “You get used to it…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Unchained: Do to the amount of magic you have used, you have broken the chains that held your own power back along with the power you took from Aquila. Do to this your magic has grown and will be a lot easier for you to draw upon when somepony you care about is in danger. +1 to Endurance when your health drops below 20%.

DARK PERK ADDED!

Demon’s Power: The magic you have taken from Aquila has started to corrupt your mind and body. Now, any time you try to draw on her power it will be harder for you to distinguish between friend or foe. You may one day end up killing somepony or griffon close to you the more you use the power of the Stars.

Chapter 51 Part 1: Hold On To Memories

“Don’t say things you can’t live up too Grim.”

The flight from Coven to mom’s old shack took only an hour. It also helped that we didn’t run into any Enclave patrols while we flew. Either Dad was able to keep the soldiers that normally kept an eye on the sky’s from doing anything about the skycarriage or something was going on up in the clouds. Either way, not long after we left that small town with a dragon statue in front of it and we were setting down in front of the same shack I’d seen in Stardust’s memories.

“Your mom lived in this dump?” Byte asked as we stepped out of the skycarriage.

“For a little while yeah,” I said as we all started heading toward the small building that looked ready to collapse.

“I looks like it’d fall over if you blew on it,” Aura commented as she poked at the weathered wooden door.

Wingnut examined it a little closer, “Hmm, nope, it’s just meant to look unsafe, you can see that the walls and supports are in good shape. I think somepony just wanted to make sure no pony tried getting in.”

“From all the memory orbs I’ve gone through, it’s supposed to be the place that The Children of the Night first used as a bunker,” I said walking over to the door and turning the handle. It was locked, “She tells me to head to this place and forgets to leave it unlocked.”

“Good thing locks don’t normally stop you from getting into most places,” Aura teased.

“True enough, I’ve yet to meet a lock I can’t pick, but knowing mom, it’s probably littered with traps or something else making it impossible to get in easily,” I said.

“Like what?” Stardust asked once he was unhooked from the skycarriage.

“I’m not sure, but I’ll see if I can at least pick the lock,” I pulled out one of my last bobby pins and started to work on the lock. I was just feeling the tumblers inside the lock when the bobby pin started to glow red hot in my magic. I dropped it and watched as the bobby pin melted on the ground, “Okay, that’s a new one.”

“If you can’t pick the lock then how are we supposed to get in,” Stardust asked.

I was just thinking about that as I stepped away from the door, then Byte pulled her gravity gun off her back, pointed it at the door and smiled, “How about we try this,” she fired, a blast slammed into the old wooden door and turned it into splinters, “See that wasn’t so hard.”

“Damn kid, how’d you know that would work?” Stardust asked.

She shrugged and holstered her rifle again, “Unicorns always seem to think they’re smart when it comes to putting spells on things. I’m sure Shadow’s mom put spells on it to keep ponies from picking the lock, maybe even protected the door from being shot by plasma rifles or magical energy rifles. She could’ve even made sure that energy weapons like Aura’s spear couldn’t do anything, but my gravity gun fires gravitational pulsations from a small generator inside. I’m the first pony that I know of to make such a gun, so I figured I’d see if it worked.”

I just smiled a little and shook my head, “So in other words you improvised to see what would happen.”

“Duh,” Byte said walking past the splintered remains of the door, “I also like to prove that Unicorns can’t think of everything.”

“Glad to see she’s back to her normal self,” Wind Thrasher said as she followed Byte.

“Yeah,” I said, but I knew that Byte was putting on a brave face, just like I was. Byte had gotten close to Tonto during the three days we spent in Crimson Canyon, same for Wingnut. What most ponies saw as Byte being her normal self, the bitchy smug young mare, was just a mask to hide the scared filly that was alone. She was just like me in that way, but instead of being depressed for eight years when my mom left me in Stable 28, Byte acted like nothing bothered her and made sure ponies were scared as hell of her. I saw some of the real Byte starting to show herself when we were in Crimson Canyon. Now she’d reverted back into the filly I met at that shitty bar just outside of Trotston.

I followed Wind Thrasher with Aura, Wingnut and Stardust close behind. The shack had a single bed that was rotting in one corner, a rusty icebox, broken shelves, and a desk laying on its side missing one leg. Nothing else, nothing that I could see that would lead to an old pre-war bunker that could’ve been used by Night Stalker and The Children years ago.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Aura asked as she scanned the small room.

“As sure as I can be,” I replied, “Everyone look around and see if you can find anything.”

“Find what? This place is almost too small for all of us to fit in let alone hide anything,” Byte said, rolling her eyes.

“Right because the door wasn’t magically reinforced or anything. Why would anypony hide anything behind such an enchanted door?” I said sarcastically, “In all seriousness though, I don’t know where to start, just look for something at seems out of place,” I continued as I started to look around, Aura, Stardust, and Wind Thrasher doing the same.

Stardust bumped into Wingnut, “Hey kid are you going to help us look or not?”

The colt was studying the room, he didn’t even seem to notice Stardust bumping into him or even seem to hear him. Not until Stardust used a wing to poke Wingnut. The colt seemed to come out of his deep thoughts to look up at Stardust, “What?”

“Are you going to just sit here day dreaming or help us find this entrance?” Stardust asked, pushing past Wingnut to go look under the bed.

“I am helping,” Wingnut said going back to his thoughts for a moment, then he got to his hooves and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“Where’s he going?” Byte asked as she pushed the desk out of the way to check the floor beneath.

“Just leave him be, keep searching,” I said.

“I think we’ve looked everywhere at least twice,” Aura commented, “This place isn’t big.”

“Your right Aura,” Wingnut said coming back in through the shattered door, “It’s too small,” he said suspiciously.

Byte rolled her eyes again, “Duh, that’s what we’ve been saying.

“No, what I mean is it’s bigger on the outside,” he argued.

I walked over to him, “What do you mean?”

“Follow me,” Wingnut said trotting back out of the shack.

I looked at the small building, “Okay, so it’s a small shitty shack, so what?”

“Yes, it’s small, but think about the size of the inside then look at the walls out here.”

“I’m not seeing a difference Wingnut,” I said confused.

“It may look similar in size, but if you look closer you can see that there’s more of a difference than there should be for a shack size. The walls aren’t thick enough to make the inside so small compared to the outside,” he said, looking smug.

“Okay kiddo, so what does that mean and how does that help us?”

His answer took the form of him walking back into the shack pushing past Stardust, Byte, and a pissed off looking Aura just so he could stand in the middle of the room. He started looking around again, first looking at the wall in front of him with a single dirt crusted window, then toward the left wall then the right. Finally, he smiled, “Clever.”

“What’s clever?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Wingnut grinned wider, “The right wall is closer to the middle of the shack than the left wall. The window looks like it’s right in the center of the far wall so it’s hard to tell, but if you count the boards from the window left to right back and forth, you can see that the right side has one and a half less boards,” he got up and walked toward the right wall then started to tap on it. The knocks made a hollow sound as he did, “There’s something behind here.”

“Even if there is, that’s not a big enough space to put an entrance to go into a bunker,” Aura said.

“True, but that doesn’t mean it’s the entrance, just the way to find the entrance,” he said starting to slowly work his way down the wall then he stopped in front of one spot, “I think I found it,” he said as he pushed his hoof on a big knot in the wood.

Something clicked then the wall was sucked into the floor. Behind it was the true wall to the shack and a single small terminal bolted into the wall. I couldn’t help grinning embarrassingly with a hoof behind my head for doubting our young genius colt, “What would we do without you kid?”

He just shrugged, “You’d look around this shack for a few hours, then you’d throw a hissy fit, Stardust would start shooting things, Wind Thrasher would try to make you two stop, Aura would just leave while you all acted like foals, and I’m sure Byte would be sitting in one corner laughing her ass off.”

The filly grinned, “That does sound like me.”

I just shook my head and walked over to the terminal, “Honestly, you hit the nail on the head.”

“He did not,” Stardust sulked then said in a quieter voice, “I’d kick a few things first before I started shooting. Ammo’s expensive.”

I ignored my friend as I went to the already unlocked terminal. There was only one option ‘Access C.O.T.N. Bunker’ So I clicked it, figuring there had to be more to this to open the bunker. Sure enough a voice echoed out of the terminal, “Please provide the pass phrases.”

“Great so there’s a pass phrase now,” Aura said.

If this Bunker was anything like the base The Children had in Canterlot, then it might be the same. So, digging into my own memories I remembered the phrase recited by Nightstalker, “By the night’s glory, I request passage into the home of these children who look to the Night sky for protection.”

“What kind of pass phrase is that?” Byte asked then her eyes went wide as the terminal spoke again.

“Captain Night Stalker’s personal pass phrase accepted. Welcome home captain.”

“Yes,” I said happily.

The wall slid back into place and the floor under us shook as a section of the floor opened to reveal a large metal platform, just big enough for all of us to squeeze onto.

“Looks like we found our way in,” I said walking over to the metal platform, “Are you all ready?”

Wingnut nodded and joined me still looking proud of himself, Byte, who was still shocked, followed after. Stardust just chuckled to himself joining us on the platform with Wind Thrasher following closely behind. Aura sighed then smiled, “What the hell, we’ve gotten this far, might as well see what your mother was hiding down there.”

The platform shook as soon as all of us were on it plummeting down. The ride was fast, using my best judgement, I’d say that we went quite a ways underground. The perfect hiding place for The Children of the Night when they first came to New Pegasus. Also, a good place to hide out and work on research for a mare that had no where else to go.

The lift stopped at a small decrepit hallway being eaten by two hundred years of rust and calcite build up that had a single door at one end. As soon as we all got off the lift, it shot back up toward the shack. Cautiously we all walked toward the door at the end of the hallway. This was the Children of the Night’s old bunker and who knows how active the traps would be if any. I took hold of the simple door knob with my magic and said, “Be ready for anything.”

My friends all readied their weapons as I pulled Dream Walker out of my holster opening the door, we found ourselves…confused. At the very least I know I was confused, because I thought this place would-be run-down judging by the rustic hallway, or like walking into an old stable, but no, the room was clean, not a hint of dust, or rust, or anything that would tell me that this place had been abandoned for two hundred years before mom found it.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a place this clean…ever,” Stardust said, “And I grew up in a Stable.”

“Thanks Captain Obvious,” I said nonchalantly looking around at the polished floors, metal walls, and clear glass that looked into a small lab. I noticed the polished wooden doors all had names on them. They started just past the lab and wrapped around the level we were on, a big gap in the middle of the floor opening to a room below just like the upper floor to an atrium in a stable…well most stables at least we entered into the upper floor. The one on my left read, ‘Thunderlane’. The room on my right read, ‘Minuette’. I started to walk slowly around the upper level letting my eyes wander over the names of each pony that used to be part of The Children of the Night. Thunderlane, Babs Seed, Cloudy Nights, Comet Tail, Night Stalker, Greta, Lightning Dust, Amethyst Star, and Minuette. The only name missing was Phoenix Heart since she died before they came out west.

Aura was following me as I walked, she finally asked me as I looked up at the name of my great, great, great grandmother, “You okay Shadow?”

“It’s just so strange to be in this place. The place where it all started, where The children started working on Stargazer, where they lived before they built The Lucky Horseshoe.”

Wind Thrasher asked me, “Do you want to go in?”

I looked up at Minuette’s name for a long moment one more time then shook my head, “No we have enough to do right now. I need to look at the memory orb so I know what Mom wanted me to come here for.”

“Let’s go the lower level first then before you go off into an orb,” Aura said leading the way as we all headed down the stairs then stopped on the last stair as we saw what mom did down here. Or at least I assumed it was her, because across the way from where we stood on the steps I could see memory orbs on a shelf in the back. The lower chamber was ten times the size of the upper, a few rooms split off from this one and a strange machine with two pods was sitting next to the memory orb shelf. Every single orb was hovering in a small light with a protective sheet of glass on the face of the shelf to keep anypony from taking the orbs. The shelf had ten rows to hold memory orbs, five on each row. The first seven rows were filled, but only three orbs was left on the eighth row, leaving the rest empty.

To make this place even more impressive were the wires flowing from each shelf that all led to the two pods in one corner of the room. Along another wall there were a few terminals, a cot was set up near that, and some old snack cake wrappers were thrown everywhere with a stack of Sparkle Cola bottles next to another wall and some clothes and armor. It looked like somepony had left here in a hurry a little while ago, maybe months ago. But if that was true then why was this place so clean on the top level but so dirty down here? I got my answer, when I made the final step down to the floor and tripped on the legs of a robot.

“Clumsy filly,” I scolded to myself

Regaining my composure only to lose it as fast as I gained it, I almost screamed until I saw the broken remains of a white robot that looked like watts or the one in The Lucky Horseshoe. Wingnut and Byte both jumped down after me, the former saying, “That looks like a gen three Miss Nanny bot. Somepony did a number on it.”

He was right, the robot looked like it had taken a few shots from a magical energy rifle, so I walked past it, “Apart from the Miss Nanny, it doesn’t look like anything’s dangerous in here.”

The rest of my friends joined us looking around the larger room. There were a few more doors to the right and a metal door with a window on the wall to the left. Aura walked over to it, “Looks like this was a cell, at least it’s empty.”

Stardust and Wind Thrasher both checked out the other rooms as I walked toward the pods. Stardust came out of the other room quickly saying, “It doesn’t look like anypony’s been her in a few months, maybe a year.”

As I looked closer at the pods I asked, “Did you find anything interesting?”

Stardust joined me, “Nope, just a bathroom, but the water is running still and it’s clean so that’s something nice at least.”

“I guess,” Wind Thrasher said coming back out from the door she’d been checking out, “Nothing here but a few scrap parts and some old food and Sparkle Cola.”

Aura chuckled, “I hope you grabbed it all.”

I looked over at Wind Thrasher right as she blushed a little, “I can’t, I mean I grabbed as many as I could, but there are at least eight more crates of it in there.”

“We’ll see what we can get later, right now I think I should check out the memory orb to see what mom wanted me to do here,” I said as I walked toward the cot, “Are you all going to be okay while I’m in the orb?”

Stardust shrugged, “We should be fine, I’m thinking about going back up and hiding the skycarriage just in case we’re here for a little while.”

“Good idea,” Aura said, “I’ll come help you, I’m sure Shadow will be fine with Wind Thrasher and the foals.”

Wingnut and Byte were already pulling parts off the Miss Nanny, but Byte looked up at Aura, “I’m not a foal okay.”

“Foal, shrimp number three, whatever, you’re still small,” Aura said following Stardust as he walked back up the stairs.

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you two later,” I said laying on the cot.

As I pulled the orb out Wingnut looked over at Wind Thrasher who was sitting at the end of the cot asking, “Wind Thrasher, did you see any extra parts for this Miss Nanny?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure what I’d be looking for,” Wind Thrasher said heading back toward the room. I just touched the orb to my horn, unlike the orb of Night Stalker’s where it asked what his name was, this one didn’t say anything. Instead a pressure started to build on my horn and I started to find it hard to breath.

It took everything I had to say, “Nightshade,” The pressure vanished and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

Right away I found myself in mom’s body, she was in the same room I was only it was less messy. She was sitting on the cot looking down at an old photo of me, taken on the last birthday I had when I was still in The Crystal Empire. In the photo you could see how sick I was, my body was thin, dark shadows were under my eyes and even my smile looked forced. I felt tears in mom’s eyes as she slowly ran a hoof down the old photo, a single tear landing on the edge.

“You were such a brave filly even back then my little star,” Mom said, it was like she was talking only to me, as if I was sitting right next to her, “Do you remember when this was taken? One week before we left our home so I could find you a cure.”

I wanted so bad to hold onto her and say, “I remember mom,”

She sniffed then a hurt laugh came out of her as she tried to hold back a sob, “Four years old, sicker than a filly your age should have to deal with and you still wanted your father and me to throw you a party. We invited that colt from next door that always dropped by to see you. I forget his name, but he was such a nice colt.”

“His name was Razer Wing, he was a year older than me, but always kind to me,” I said even though she couldn’t hear me.

Mom wiped her eyes, “Razer Wing that was it, I just remembered. His mother worked at the lab with me. I think this was one of my last good memories of our home. Even though you had a bad attack that night when you were sitting with your father in his study.”

I remembered that too, it was the same memory I’d had when I was in The Bramble. Dad was letting me sit with him, talking to me about using my magic without mom’s help when my heart nearly stopped. If mom hadn’t been in the other room, I could’ve died. It was that day that she decided she had to take me to New Pegasus, so she could find the project to help cure my illness.

Mom put the picture away then got to her hooves and walked toward a mirror set up in one corner of the room we were in. I could see how much older she looked compared to when she left the stable. This memory had to be around the same time she’d lost her memories. Her mane was longer than it was now, pulled back into a messy pony tail. Her dark grey eyes were sunken in and dark as if she’d lost all hope. Without the cloak and armor she normally wore, I could see that she had scars all over her chest and forelegs. She was also wearing a Pip-Buck that had a small 97 on it. She must have started using Stardust’s after she took it off him.

She looked up into the mirror, I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden I saw myself in the mirror and my mom to the side of me saying, “Sweetie, if you’re watching this Memory Orb, that means that something’s happened to me. First, I wanted to say that I’m so sorry that I’ve had you following the small clues I’ve been leaving for you, but I couldn’t risk the information I’ve found getting into the wrong hooves. It’s been seven years and six months since I last saw you and I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. Some from before I left Stable 28 and a lot of them after. If you haven’t ran into The Steel Rangers yet then please stay away from them. I’ve left notes for you on the Mark II telling you this, but I’m saying it again just incase you haven’t unlocked all the files yet. Elder Apple Slice will do anything to get her hooves on it.”

She sighed then chuckled, “Knowing my luck, their bunker was the first place you went to look for me. If my spell worked to help you remember when you first found the Mark II that is. When we lived with the Steel Rangers, life was good, the elder was wise and kind to us both. I wish I could say the same for his Daughter. Apple Slice isn’t trustworthy, though I’m sure she’ll try to make you think that she is. Just don’t trust her, she’s been working with another Elder, one that you’ve never met, but who will do anything to get a Mark II. The only good thing is that he doesn’t know that the one he needs is the one you now have. The other two are special, but nothing like yours. Just, stay away if you can, and if you’ve already run into them and helped them get a Mark II from either Stable 9 or Trotston, then I’m just glad you’re okay. At least I hope you are if you ever get to see this orb.”

She sat down and looked away from the mirror for a moment then took a deep breath and looked back at herself, “I’m saying all of this as if you were here, because I don’t know any way of explaining to you why I had to do all of this. That’s why once I’ve made this memory into an orb, I’m giving it to Tonto. He’s the only Red Talon griffon I trust. I needed you to come here so you can see the truth of why I am the way I am and who I am, how I got my power, why I came out here and why I’m looking for Falling Shadows.”

She looked toward the rows of memory orbs, “Those are all mine, I’ve made every one of them over the years and brought them here and set them up to work with that machine. It’s an invention of our Grandmother Minuette. As far as I know, it’s the only one she ever made. What it does is takes the memories of any orb put onto the shelves and feeds them to those pods.”

She looked back at the mirror where I still saw myself next to her, I can see her eyes looking to the side as if she was looking directly at me, “I want you to get into one of the pods and watch them all. Understand that some of them will be hard to understand, or they may show truths that you may not want to know about me, but you have to understand what’s at risk and why you need to finish what I started. Even though I don’t want to make you do this, it has to be done. The memories will take a few days to watch, the pod will make sure your body is hydrated and fed so you’ll be okay. Before you watch them, make sure you have a pony or two you can trust to keep an eye on you though. Unlike most memory orbs, you can be pulled out of the pods in the middle of a memory. Don’t go into the pod if you’re alone, if you don’t have anypony you can trust, then hire a Red Talon griffon, talk to Tonto and he’ll tell you who you can trust to watch your back.”

She sighed, “I know something’s about to happen. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I just know that my time is coming to an end,” Tears started to fall again as she looked back at her own reflection, “My little Star, you need to get Aquila out of you, if you don’t…just…find a way, because I couldn’t live with myself if I let that thing inside you take over. I know you can never forgive me for letting my worry for you blind me to the danger of what was sleeping in that old lab. I just hope that you’ll at least understand why I had to try to help you. I want you to know that I’m so sorry for everything I did, remember that I love you with all of my heart and I miss you every day. When you’re better, try and find your father and go home. Be happy, find somepony that loves you and have a happy life.”

Her crying shuttered her speech now as she took in a deep breath, “I was hoping that I’d see you again one day Shadow, my little star, but I know better now. That’s my punishment for everything I put you through. Twelve years away from home, telling you Nightshade was dead, letting that horrible monster into you, and taking away your memories. I’ve been an awful mother and all I can do is say that I’m sorry for it all. Goodbye my Little Star, remember that you are powerful, kind and the best daughter a mother could ask for. Be brave and never give up. Shine bright, brighter than any pony ever has before.”

She took in another deep breath then choked out, “I love you so much and I’m so proud of you…”

oooOOOooo

The memory ended so quickly that I jumped when I came out of it, the orb falling onto the cot next to me as I breathed heavily. Wind Thrasher saw me jump up and ran over to me, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine…why?”

She used a wing to wipe a tear away from my cheek, “You’re crying.”

I looked down at the orb, “It was a goodbye message from my mom.”

Aura and Stardust were just coming back down the stairs as I spoke, Aura saying, “So she wanted you to come all the way out here just to say goodbye?”

I wiped my eyes then shook my head, “No,” I pointed at the orbs then the pods, “She wanted me to watch those. Those pods make it so that any pony can watch the memories. She said I have to see them to understand what she was doing and how I can finish what she started to get Aquila out of me.”

My friends looked over at the orbs then the pods, then Stardust said, “Yeah right, like you’re going to just get into that thing. Those memories will take forever to watch.”

I got up off the cot, “I’m doing it.”

Aura spoke up this time, “Like hell you are, what if it’s a trap?”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know?” Stardust interjected.

“I just know. That memory wasn’t fake, mom knew something was going to happen to her, so she wanted to make sure I’d know what to do. She knows that Aquila has to be stopped so she wanted to make sure I had the information I needed,” I said as I walked toward the pods.

Aura walked over to me and put a talon on my shoulder, “Do we even have the time for you to do this?”

I looked up into her beautiful icy blue eyes, “I don’t have time to wait. If this can help me free myself from Aquila, then I have to try.”

She sighed then pulled me into a tight hug, “Fine, but you aren’t doing it alone, there are two pods, I’ll watch them with you.”

I hugged her back then pulled back, “The pods are made for ponies, you won’t fit.”

“I’ll do it,” Wind Thrasher said, “Aura you can help Stardust keep an eye on us and keep this place safe, maybe plan our next move.”

She sighed, “Are you sure?”

Wind Thrasher nodded, “I won’t be much help while she’s in there anyway, so I might as well watch them with her.”

Stardust sighed then shrugged, “Fine, but I don’t like it, what if something happens while you’re in the middle of the memories?”

I pushed the button to open the pods then looked back at them, “Mom said there’s a way to pull us out in case of an emergency. If something happens pull us out.”

Byte trotted over to the small terminal next to the pods, looking over the files on it, “Foal’s play, I can monitor them from here.”

“Okay, I guess we don’t have a choice, plus we should lay low for a little while anyway while things settle with The Unchained Talons,” Aura said as I got into one pod, Wind Thrasher in the one next to me.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, I love you,” I said leaning up to kiss her.

She smiled, “Just be careful.”

Wind Thrasher chuckled, “Isn’t she always?”

“That’s what worries us,” Stardust said with a laugh, “Good luck you two.”

I smiled then closed the pods, once they were shut I heard Byte saying from a speaker next to my head, “Okay, I’m starting up the program, be ready…in three, two, one…” everything went dark and the world melted away…

oooOOOooo

I found myself in a filly version of my mom. She was walking down one of the roads in the Crystal Empire near the large castle where a bright white light was shooting up toward the sky, a barrier emanating from it to protect the town from the black cloud of death. She was holding onto a single pencil, concentrated with everything she had to keep it floating in front of her. Her mind was so lost in her small task that she didn’t even notice the other foals walking the other way until she bumped right into them.

She fell back, dropping the pencil. She shook he head saying, “Hey watch were you’re going.”

She looked up and her ears fell back as she saw a filly around her age, another unicorn with a red coat and a bright green mane. Two pegasi colts on each side of her and a dark grey unicorn with orange eyes behind them. The filly mom ran into looked disgusted as her eyes fell on mom, “Oh goddesses, you touched me, gross.”

Mom’s eyes fell and she muttered, “Sorry, I didn’t see you Scarlet.”

“What are you even doing this close to the old castle Spell? I thought your family lived near the wall?” the red unicorn filly said.

Mom got back to her hooves, “I…I was meeting my brother…”

The filly rolled her eyes, “Ori? Why would he even bother with a weak spell caster like you anyway. Even if you are his sister, you’re just a pathetic unicorn. They should just cut your horn off and put you to work doing Earth Pony stuff. Now get out of here before I tell the guards you’re trying to steal stuff.”

Mom glared up at Scarlet, “I can go wherever I want!”

The two colts laughed, one saying, “Look Scarlet, she thinks she’s tough.”

The dark grey filly put a hoof on Scarlet’s shoulder, “Maybe we should just leave her alone Scarlet, we have class soon.”

Scarlet looked back at her, “Keep quiet Stormy, this pathetic excuse for a unicorn needs to learn her place.”

I could tell that mom was getting mad, her horn started to strain as she pulled at her magic, “Shut up Scarlet, or I’ll…I’ll…”

Scarlet just started to laugh, “Oh look, she’s trying to cast a spell. Hahahaha, what are you going to do? Let your horn glow at me! I’m soooo scared.”

“I’ll…” mom tried saying, but her voice was weak and she started to shake.

“Move,” Scarlet said, her own horn glowing as she shot a spell at mom, throwing her to the side and into the steps that lead into the Crystal Castle. The two colts and Scarlet started to laugh as they walked off.

The dark grey filly however walked over to mom, “Here let me help you Spell.”

Mom was doing her best to keep from crying as she took Stormy’s hoof, “Thank you Stormy, I don’t know why she has to be so mean to me.”

“She’s a bitch, she excelled early with magic and she thinks that makes her special,” as the filly helped mom up I realized I knew the young grey mare, it was a young Dr. Stormy.

“Why do you hang out with her then? You’re nothing like her and you’re way smarter too,” Mom said as she tried and failed to pick up her saddle bags, “I’ll never get the hang of this.”

Stormy used her own magic to help mom, “You will one day Spell, trust me. You’re a smart filly just like me, you just need to find your own power and one day you’ll show up Scarlet.”

“You really think so?” mom asked shyly.

“I do,” Stormy said as she looked toward where her friends went, “I have to get to class, you want to meet me at the malt shop later?”

“Maybe, Ori wants to help me with my magic later when he’s done with class, but I’ll see if I can make it. That is if mom or dad don’t try to make me come home early.”

“Well I’ll be there for a while studying, bring Ori with you if you want. He’s always welcome.”

Mom smiled a little, “You only say that because you like him.”

Stormy made a gagging sound, “Ewww, no, he’s just nice that’s all. Anyway, I’ll see you later okay?”

“Sure,” Mom said as Stormy ran off.

Mom sighed, kicked the pencil away, then looked up at the old castle, “Find my power, as if, I’m just like mom and dad, useless for a unicorn.”

She started walking up the steps and toward the doors that led into the castle. Guards on both sides of them keeping ponies out, but she wasn’t trying to get in, she started looking around, “Where are you Ori? You said you’d be here at noon and it’s way past noon.”

She sighed and started walking toward the wall so she could sit and wait. As she did she looked toward those doors again, a zap went through her horn. She jumped then looked around, “What was that?” as she looked toward the doors again her horn zapped again, she walked closer, “What’s going on?”

When she was a few inches away from the doors, one of the guards, a pegasus in power armor said, “That’s close enough young filly, no pony is allowed inside.”

Mom looked up at him and backed away, “I’m sorry, I just felt something strange and I wanted to see what it was.”

The other guard looked over at her saying, “Hey aren’t you Fallen Star’s kid? Go back to your run down shanty before we call the city guard, your kind isn’t welcome here.”

I felt mom getting angry again as she said, “Bite me!”

“You better watch you tone unicorn, your family is already close to being kicked out of The Enclave as it is, don’t make it worse.”

Mom backed away looking down at her hooves, “Sorry sir, I don’t know what came over me.”

“That’s better,” he said, “Worthless unicorn.”

As he spoke two stallions started to fight a few feet away, just at the bottom of the steps. The other guard cursed, “Damn it, why can’t ponies drink and fight when it’s later so I don’t have to deal with them,”

They started to head down to the two fighting stallions, but the first guard looked back at Mom, “You better not be here when we get back.”

“Okay sir,” Mom said watching them fly off to break up the fight. Then she looked back at the doors and smiled, “Okay, if you don’t want me to be here then I won’t. She pushed the doors to the castle open and slipped inside.”

She looked around quickly trying to figure out where that strange feeling in her horn was coming from. Just in the entry-way a long hallway led toward a set of double doors that must have led to the throne room. The feeling in her horn however pulled her to the right and down a small hallway. So, mom followed it, she walked around the mostly empty castle, not running into any ponies as she trotted. The sparking in her horn led her down some stairs then more hallways, dark places where it looked like no pony had been in a long time. Finally, she found herself next to large glass doors that lead out to a beautiful garden. She pushed open the doors to walk out to the courtyard when the feeling went away. She stopped then looked back at a statue of Luna.

“Why is a statue of The Goddess of the night stuck at the end of a hallway?” she said and I agreed, you could barely see the beautiful statue in the darkness just past the garden’s doors.

Mom walked over to it and looked it over, then she noticed a small engraving on the bottom corner of the statue right on the base near Luna’s hoof. She whipped away some dust then read the small words, “Luna is our mother, the mother of the night. We, her children, live to protect Equestria from the shadows. We serve in darkness to protect the light. Huh that’s strange, why would anypony etch that there?”

Something in the statue beeped and mom backed away as the eyes of Luna’s statue lit up and a flash of blue light rolled over her. Then the statue came to life and stepped out of the way, as it did a small voice seemed to whisper, “Welcome Child of the Night,” just behind where the statue had been was a door that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

For a long moment Mom just looked at it, her hooves shaking, that is until she heard a voice from down the hall, “I’m sure she came in here, that little brat used that fight to sneak in and if the captain finds out we let some filly in here, we’ll both lose our jobs!”

“Oh no,” Mom said, and she ran to the door, opened it and ran through, as soon as the door closed I could hear the statue stepping back in place to cover the door. Mom looked back at it and started to shake when she realized that she was trapped in this dark hallway.

After taking a few breaths, she calmed down and started heading down the hall, her horn still sparking now and then. Until she came to a single oak wood door. As soon as she stepped in front of it, the feeling in her horn stopped again. She looked around, back down the hall, to the walls on each side of her, but the feeling never came back.

She lifted a hoof and opened the door. Beyond was an enormous room, not just a room, but a library. I wondered to myself as Mom trotted forward if this was the place Uncle Oricalcos called the Forgotten Library. As mom walked small lights came to life as she started to look through the books on one of the shelves. Each one was some kind of spell book, from simple beginners’ books to advanced ones. Another shelf held thick books of history, another with books on robotics, and so on.

“This place is amazing!” Mom said jumping with joy as she started walking around the library, her eyes scanning the titles of each book. The room had to be old, but not a single scrap of dust could be seen. Mom went around one of the shelves and stopped. At the end of the row of books was a table with a massive tome laying open on the desk. Around the table were two skeletons, one in Pegasus power armor, the other was a unicorn in an Enclave Officer’s uniform. When she walked closer she saw dried blood on the simple blue carpet.

Mom started to shake as she walked closer saying, “Hello? Is anypony in here?”

No pony answered, so she walked even closer to the skeletons and looked to where the blood went to. There was blood everywhere, dried onto the table, the books around it and the floor, but further down the way bloody prints from what could only be talons led toward a solid wall of books, as well as a drag mark as if a griffon had come this way dragging a body with it.

“Whatever happened here, happened a long time ago,” Mom said taking in a deep breath then looking at the book on the table, then at a single statuette sitting next to it. A statuette that was now in my own saddle bags, Twilight Sparkle. Mom’s eyes went wide and she picked up the statue, ignoring the death and gore around her.

“Twilight Sparkle! The best magical pony in Equestria, who would leave such a beautiful statuette like you down here,” Mom said as she looked it over, “I’m going to take you with me and get you out of this place,” she concentrated with all of her magic and used it to slowly take hold of the Statuette so she could use her hooves to open her saddle bags.

Mom’s eyes went wide as she felt something happen. Her magic which was barely able to hold onto the statuette before got a little stronger and it was like something clicked inside her head. She looked at the Statuette for a long moment then smiled, “I don’t know what you are, but I’m never letting you out of my sight.”

She put the statuette away then looked down at the book. It was open to a page explaining how advanced teleportation worked and how to use it without drawing on too much power. Mom used her magic to close the book and saw nothing written on the cover. So, she opened it to the first page, still nothing apart from a table of contents. So, mom looked on the last page of the book and her heart started racing again, ‘Property of Minuette.’ The same spell book I now carried.

“Minuette, so this library has to be the one our grandfather spoke of. The library where you kept all of your secrets. He said its location was lost when you disappeared. It’s a forgotten library, one with spells that no pony has seen in a long, long time,” Mom said her smile growing, “Maybe I can learn from these. And no pony will ever say I’m a weak unicorn again.”

The memory faded only to be replaced by another. This time Mom was older, probably closer to my age now. She’s just outside a small school building near the Crystal Palace talking with a young handsome gold pony with bright purple eyes, a purple six-pointed star encircled with zebra glyphs. It was a younger Oricalcos.

“Grim I don’t understand why you’re so worried, you’ve made a lot of progress in your spell work over the years,” my uncle said giving her a smile.

Mom rolled her eyes, “I know Ori, but I know I can do more.”

“Why do you need to do more? You’re already top of your class, you’ve shown up that bitch Scarlet in a dozen ways now. Isn’t it enough that you’ve surpassed every ponies’ expectations?” he asked.

“No, it’s not, not if I ever want to get into the research department in Nimbus,” Mom said.

Oricalcos chuckled a little to himself as he sat down next to mom, “Grim, I think you’re thinking a little too far ahead. You still have a two more years of school left. Just try and enjoy life a little and stop trying to push yourself so much.”

She sighed and leaned against her brother, “I know, but I just feel like I’m wasting time in my classes when I already know it all. I mean I’ve learned more from the books in the Forgotten Library than I ever did in school.”

He pulled her closer giving her a hug, “Listen sis, even I had to wait until I was done with school before I even started looking into getting a job in The Enclave. Just relax and be a normal teenager for once.”

Mom’s eyes fell as she said, “The sooner I get out of school the sooner I can get away from home.”

I felt Oricalcos stiffen a little, “Mom still giving you a hard time?”

“Mom, dad, both of them are a nightmare to live with. You’re lucky you got out when you did. I wish I could live with you instead.”

“I know, but you know that you can’t go up to Nimbus until you have a job up there.”

Mom sighed again, “Stupid laws, I don’t know why the Enclave can’t just see unicorns as equals.”

“Same here.”

Mom looked up at her brother, “Isn’t there anything you can do so I can move up there with you?”

He moved a hoof up to rub her mane, “I wish there was, but even if I could, I’m not home much, I’m always working on some new spell to help the military. Even if I could get the city council to allow it, my commander wouldn’t.”

A few tears formed in mom’s eyes as she said, “I just want to get away from Dad. Both of them if I can, no matter how good I get with my magic, they still don’t seem to care.”

“Dad’s a bastard and moms just stuck in her own world of big dreams of having a better life. You know I may have an idea on how you can get away from them,” he said.

Mom pulled away looking back at him, “How?”

He smiled, “Remember that idea you had about how you can make your magic more powerful using less energy?”

She nodded, “Yeah, mixing my own magic with the glyphs of a zebra’s together. Why do you ask?”

He smiled wider, “My commander’s son works with the Research Department in Nimbus. If you can make that idea work, I’ll see if he can set up a meeting with the department heads and see about getting you in.”

Mom jumped to her hooves, “Really!? You’d do that for me!?”

The smile on my uncle’s young face was wonderful to see as he said, “Of course, I’d do anything for you.”

She hugged him tight as the memory started to fade, “Thank you Ori!”

The next memory started with mom sitting at a malt shop with Stormy saying, “So, you really have a meeting with the three department heads from Nimbus!?”

Mom took a sip of her malt, “Yeah, Ori talked to his commander who talked to his son. His son I guess has some pull with the department heads and they set up the meeting.”

Stormy smiled at mom leaning her head on a hoof as she said, “I’m so jealous, I’d love to get a chance like that.”

Mom chuckled to herself, “Oh I plan on you getting in too Stormy, remember we always said we’d do this together. Best friends forever.”

I wasn’t sure if mom could see it, but the way Stormy was looking at her, it was the same way I looked at Aura sometimes or how I caught Wind Thrasher looking at Stardust when he wasn’t looking. Stormy seemed to catch herself as she lifted her head again, “Always Grim, but how am I going to get in? I don’t have anything as good as you do to show them.”

“You have that idea on magical gene manipulation,” Mom said.

“I do, but it’s only a theory right now and one I’m sure won’t work.”

Mom smiled and leaned closer to her saying quietly, “Ponies have been saying the same thing about mixing Zebra Magic with Pony Magic for years and I’m going to prove them wrong.”

“True, but I haven’t seen you make it work either.”

Mom looked around making sure no pony was watching then she said, “Watch this,” Mom took Stormy’s malt and placed it in the center of the table. Her horn started to glow and being inside her body I could tell that she was doing something very different than what most unicorns did to cast a spell. On the table just under the malt, a circle with glyphs in it showed up, glowing blue. Then the entire malt turned into stone.

Stormy’s jaw dropped open as mom beamed, “How did you do that? You shouldn’t be able to transfigure something like that into stone, even if you could the amount of energy it would cost would leave you panting and weak.”

Mom shook her head saying, “Using the magic circle I don’t have to use hardly any of my magic. All I do is use it to form the circle then a little more to make sure what I want is put into the spell and the circle does the rest. The power to cast the spell is pulled from the energy created by the shifting of the tectonic plates deep in Equus’s crust.”

“Can you teach me to do that?” Stormy said still looking at the rock that was shaped like her drink, “And maybe get me another malt.”

Mom just laughed, “I could but it would take a lot of time, you have to learn everything about the zebra language and understand how they use their magic.”

“And here I thought that Zebra’s didn’t have magic.”

“They don’t, they use magic from other sources. Normally gems and stuff like that, this kind of magic is the hardest for them to do and takes a lot of time to form the magic circles. I just found a way to make it a lot quicker,” Mom said as the memory faded away.

The next memory started with mom in the middle of explaining the same thing she’d shown Stormy at the malt shop to two unicorns and a pegasus sitting at a desk, “So you see with this, I can take magic that is thought to be impossible or takes too much energy to preform and make it a hundred times easier.”

A unicorn mare who looked as old as Box Tape, looked at mom like she was a bug, “It’s an interesting theory Grimoire Spell, but that’s all it is. You aren’t the first pony to come up with this idea and fail at preforming it.”

The other unicorn, a stallion, yawned saying, “I thought you had something worth showing us Miss Spell, I didn’t come all the way down here to waste my time. You may show yourself out.”

Mom stomped a hoof saying quickly, “It’s not a theory, I can do it.”

“I’m sure you think you can, but as I said, the magic isn’t possible,” the unicorn mare said.

“I can prove it to you,” Mom said hear ears drooping a little.

“Miss Spell,” the stallion said, “I’m not going to waste more of my time watching you put on an illusion to make us think your so-called theory is possible. Now leave.”

The Pegasus stallion put up a hoof, “No, I’d like to see. Grimoire, you said this power can make spells easier to do am I right?”

Mom looked over at the pegasus then nodded, “Yes sir.”

The Unicorn mare rolled her eyes, “Light Fog, don’t listen to her, she’s just the youngest daughter of farm ponies at the outer edge of The Crystal Empire, her family hasn’t been good at magic for over a hundred years.”

The pegasus looked over at her, “From what I read, her brother is a very gifted unicorn, so why can’t she be the same? Also, she’s the top of her class, passed all the exams, finished school early, been able to show up most of the unicorns two years over her and seems to think she was able to figure out a theory that no unicorn has been able to make work. We came all the way here from Nimbus to see what she can do, it’s the least we can do by letting her demonstrate. And if you remember my own family comes from the slums of Nimbus and you still took me in all those years ago.”

“Fine, but make it quick, but if she really think she can do this, then I want her to prove it by doing something no unicorn can without using most of their energy,” the mare said.

Mom looked between them all asking, “Like what?”

The unicorn stallion took a large diamond out of a bag and set it on the table, “Shatter this into diamond dust only using your magic, if you can.”

Even I knew that was something that a unicorn shouldn’t try to do. Most gems hold spells well, diamond being one of the best. They also can reflect magic better than anything else in the world. To shatter one that big into dust would require her to put so much energy into it that the gem can’t hold the power then shatter it into dust without that pent-up magic recoiling back at her.

Mom took the diamond with her magic and moved it to the center of the room, “Do any of you have a blast box?”

“You won’t need one, I know that the spell won’t work,” the mare said.

The Pegasus defending her rolled his eyes and pulled out a small box giving it mom, “Here you go, don’t listen to these two they just don’t want to get shown up.”

Mom took it then placed the translucent box over the diamond. Mom then concentrated her magic. Again, I felt the strange way her magic moved through her horn as four magic circles appeared around the box, one under the gem two on a side, and one on top. Then light started to fill the gem, it got brighter and brighter until mom and the other ponies had to look away. A loud boom filled the room followed by a flash of light so bright I could see it through mom’s eyelids. When mom stopped the spell, she looked at the shimmering dust laying inside the box.

Mom smiled and looked back at the three ponies, “See, told you it worked.”

The unicorn mare’s jaw was open as she sputtered, “How…how did you…”

The other unicorn finished what she was saying, “How did you do that?”

“It has to be a trick, there’s no way her theory worked,” the unicorn mare said.

The pegasus just smiled, “No trick that, well Grimoire, thank you for the beautiful show. I think you are a very bright young mare with a lot of great ideas and power from the look of it. So, if my colleagues agree, I think we’d like to offer you a job.”

Mom’s eyes went wide, “You mean it?”

“If the other two agree, then yes,” he said.

The mare was still looking at the dust, “Yes…I don’t know how you did that, but yes.”

The unicorn stallion just nodded saying, “I agree.”

Mom smiled wider, “Thank you so much, I can’t wait to move up to Nimbus!”

The pegasus frowned, “Well you won’t be moving up to Nimbus, not yet at least, but since you live so far from the sky port to get to Nimbus, we’ll make sure you get lodging closer to town.”

Mom beamed then asked, “Um…would it be okay if I have a friend join me there?”

The pegasus seemed interested so he asked, “I don’t see a problem with it, but normally we only let our employee’s live in the housing we set up.”

“Oh trust me, my friend Stormy is just as smart as I am, and has more idea’s that you might find interesting. She’s waiting for me outside if you want to meet her.”

The pegasus smiled as he looked at his still shocked co-workers, “Show her in.”

The memory shifted again, only this time mom was back in the same living room I’d seen only once before in Oricalcos’s own memories. Her face hurt, same for her ribs and it felt like she’d broken a leg or at least badly sprained. One eye she couldn’t see out of as she looked up with her good eye at an older stallion that looked so much like her brother. It was her father and he was holding a hoof up ready to hit her again.

“You ungrateful little shit!” he yelled as he slammed a hoof down on her ribs again, “We spend all that money to let you go to that damn magic school and this is how you repay us. I never said you could leave to get some job in Nimbus.”

Mom spat blood then said quietly, “I…I want to go, I want out of this house.”

“Tough SHIT!” her father yelled picking her up with his own magic and throwing her into a wall. Then he got in her face, “You’re my daughter, you work here on the farm to help us pay for the fucking food and shelter we’ve given you all these years. Your mother can’t do the work anymore, we need you here.”

I could see a short unicorn sitting in one corner watching, “Quartz she’s too stupid to understand how much work we’ve put into making sure she has a home.”

He spat on mom, “Tell me about it, tell me how did you trick those fools from Nimbus into thinking you had real power. What tricks did you pull to make them think you were worthy of working for them huh!?”

“Not a trick…I’m just as powerful as Ori,” Mom said quietly.

He slammed her into the wall again, “Don’t pull that kind of shit, you’re nothing but a weak useless unicorn. You’re lucky we didn’t throw you out when you were a filly. We should have let you starve in the cold or made you walk through the black cloud. At least then we wouldn’t have had to deal with your sorry ass for so long.”

Mom started to cry as pain ran up her back as he slammed her into the wall again then threw her across the room. Her mother looked over at him saying, “Quartz I think she’s had enough.”

“Shut up Fallen Star, she has no idea what enough is. I’ve tried and tried to make her understand that she’s useless, but she still doesn’t seem to understand,” he said walking closer to mom, “You know that you won’t last two months with that job. Do you know what’s going to happen when you get tossed out on your ass? You’re going to have to work the streets, maybe here in the Crystal Empire or in the Twin Cities. You’ll have to sell your body just to eat, you’ll be nothing more than a pathetic whore!”

“Quartz that’s enough,” her mother said.

He didn’t listen getting even closer to mom, “Maybe that’s how you got the job, did you suck one of the ponies off so he’d take pity on you?” he ran a hoof slowly over her face, “Is that what you did you fucking whore?”

“Fuck you,” Mom said trying to get up.

Her father lifted her with his magic and slammed her face into the wall holding her their then I felt her tail lift as her father got closer to her, “Fuck me huh, is that what you want?” he moved his muzzle an inch away from her ear, his body close to hers, “Because I have no problem doing it, daughter or no, you need to learn who’s boss around here just like your mother. Maybe once I make you my bitch, you’ll figure that out.”

Mom was crying now as her mother yelled, “Get off her Quartz!”

One of his hooves moved away from mom and a slap echoed though the room followed by the sound of her mother crying and running from the room. Then his body was pressing against her as his breath rolled over her. A strong whiff of alcohol rolled over her as he breathed heavily, “How about it whore, do you really want it or are you going to be a good filly and do as your told?”

“Get…off me,” Mom said her body shaking.

“Or what?” he said as his hoof ran down her stomach, his magic still pinning her face to the wall, his hoof almost between her legs, “Cry all you want, but the only way you’re going to learn is if I show you who’s…”

Mom’s horn glowed as his hoof just ran too far, a magic circle appeared in the air and blasted him off. He slammed into the far wall and mom tried to run, she got into the hall almost running into her mother as mom headed for her room, pain running up her foreleg. She dove for her dresser picking up what looked like a portable radio. She just started to yell into it, “Ori Help!” before the radio was ripped away from her and smashed against the wall.

She turned around quickly seeing her father in the door, blood running from his nose, “You’re going to pay for that bitch. How dare you attack me!”

“Stay away from me.” Mom said backing against her wall, pain running up her broken leg as she tried to stand on it.

“Fuck that, when I’m done with you, you ungrateful whore, you’re going to wish you were dead!” he said as he started to walk toward her.

“I said….” her horn glowed bright blue and ten magical circles appeared around her father, “To say away from ME!”

Light flared in the room and her father started to scream. The circles started to glow brighter as her father screamed louder. After a moment I could see why, his coat was started to bubble with blisters, they started to burst and form new blisters as his skin burned. His eyes turned red and blood started to flow from them along with his nose and mouth. His scream got higher as his eyes exploded, his coat burned away, the skin under it turned black. Then the scream stopped as his body started to shrivel until he was half the size he had been a moment ago. The magical circles vanished and her father’s corpse fell to the ground with a loud thud.

A moment later her mother appeared in the door, her eyes falling on the husk that was her husband a moment ago, “What did you do?”

Mom’s eyes were just stuck on the body as she said, “He got what he deserved.”

“You killed him Spell…I’m getting the guards!” her mother said turning to run away from her daughter, only to find Oricalcos standing there.

My uncle looked at the husk that was once his father, then at mom’s broken and bruised body then asked, “What happened?”

“Oh Ori thank The Goddesses you’re here. Your psychopath of a sister killed Quartz, I’m getting the guard don’t let her leave.”

Oricalcos’ horn glowed and a moment later, their mother passed out. He walked in and pulled Mom close to him, “Are you okay sis?”

Mom started to cry, “I just came home to get my things and dad freaked out…he…he attacked me, he…tried to…tried to…” Mom couldn’t finish what she was trying to say.

“Shhhh, it’s okay Grim, I’ll take care of this. Right now, we need to get you to a doctor. Can you walk?”

She kept on crying but managed to say, “I…I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry, let me take care of mom’s memory quick then I’ll get you to a safe place, just try to calm down okay.”

Mom nodded, “I’ll try.”

“That’s my baby sis,” Oricalcos said walking over to their mother his horn glowing as he performed a memory spell. Then he was back slowly lifting mom in his magic, “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

The memory faded and another started up. I still couldn’t believe what my own grandfather was going to do to mom. To make it worse, my grandmother just let it happen and blamed mom for him dying. No wonder mom never talked about them, why I never met my grandmother or grandfather, they were monsters, one was dead, the other should be.

The next memory started with mom sitting on a cloud in a park in what could only be Nimbus, Stormy sitting next to her, both of them looking up at the blue sky. Stormy saying, “So I hear that you and Striker are getting serious now.”

Mom chuckled, “He’s such a nice stallion and yes I think we are, but I told him I’m not going to stay the night with him until we go on at least ten dates.”

“You’ve been seeing him for a year now, haven’t you gone out that many times by now?” she asked.

“Yes, we have, but we don’t get to go out much, work keeps us both so busy,” Mom said as she yawned and rested her head on Stormy’s shoulder, “How are you doing with your marefriend?”

Stormy waved a hoof, “She’s more beauty than brainy for my taste. She can’t even tell the difference between rubidium and cesium.”

Mom laughed again, “I don’t think most ponies could tell you what those even are.”

“You could,” Stormy said with a laugh.

“Maybe, but I’m smarter than most mares,” Mom said, “I thought you said she was really fun in bed?”

“Well she is, but that’s beside the point,” Stormy said.

“I thought that was the most important thing when you look for mares,” Mom teased.

“Yeah, when I’m looking for a little fun, but not with a pony I want to be my marefriend. Now enough about me, tell me what’s the next step with Striker?”

Mom shrugged still laying her head against her friends’ shoulder, “I don’t know, I think he might be the one, but he has so many secrets. His whole family does.”

“I heard his family has all been military ever since The Enclave started.”

“They have, but I’m not sure why that matters. His father’s a dick, trust me my brother has to work with him, and don’t get me started with his brother Nightshade. That stallion gives me the creeps, he’s always staring at me when I see him with Striker,” Mom said shivering.

“I don’t know, I think Nightshade is kind of nice if you get him on his own.”

“And when have you been alone with Nightshade? I thought you only liked mares.”

Stormy sighed, “I do, and get your head out of the gutter Grim. I got to know him when I spent those months at the training camp helping the military last year, remember?”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t know Nightshade was there though.”

“Yeah he was, he showed me around and talked to me a lot when he was on guard duty at the base and I was working late.”

“Did he say why he’s always staring at me?” Mom asked.

“We didn’t talk about you, mostly just about his family and how he always has to live up to his father’s expectations. Maybe he’s just jealous that you’re with Striker, he did used to have a crush on you back in school,” Stormy said.

“Yeah I remember, he was also a dick back then too.”

Stormy just laughed again and for a while they both just watched the sun start to set. Finally, Stormy asked, “What if Striker doesn’t end up being the one?”

Mom looked up at her friend, “What do you mean?”

“What will you do if you end up not liking him as much as you thought you did?” Stormy asked, her orange eyes still on the setting sun.

“I don’t know, I guess I’ll cry a little, hang out in your room for a few nights, eat too much ice cream, the usual.”

“I’m serious Grim.”

“So am I,” Mom said getting back up and looking into her friends’ eyes.

“Do you ever think you’d like to be with…you know…” Stormy said, her voice trailing off as she looked away from mom.

“Stormy, what’s on your mind, come on you can tell me, I’m your best friend, I don’t judge.”

Stormy moved forward and kissed mom full on the lips. I felt mom’s body tense up as Stormy held the kiss for a long moment. Then she pulled away blushing bright red, “I’m sorry Grim, I don’t know what came over me!”

Mom’s eyes were still wide her face still in a state of shock, “Where…did that come from?”

“Nowhere, I just got lost in the moment, I’ll…head back home. I’m so sorry,” and before Mom could say anything, Stormy Teleported away.

Mom just looked at the spot where her friend vanished for a long moment then cursed. She pulled on her own power and teleported as well, in a flash of blue light mom was at a sky port Stormy not far off talking to a Pegasus about getting passage back down to the Crystal Empire. Mom walked over to her, the clouds under her hooves soft and cool.

“Stormy,” Mom said, tapping her on the shoulder.

Stormy jumped then looked back at mom, a blush on her face, “Grim, why did you follow me?”

“Because you ran off before I could talk to you,” Mom said.

“I know, but I’m just so embarrassed and I didn’t know what to say or what to do so…”

“So, you teleported away?”

She nodded, “I didn’t mean to.”

Mom sighed and said to the Pegasus behind Stormy, “Two tickets to the Cadence district in The Crystal Empire please, private carriage.”

“That will be twenty bits,” he said looking back at Stormy who was still sitting there blushing then back at mom.

Mom pulled a pouch from her saddle bags and tossed twenty gold bits on the counter. The Pegasus behind the counter gave her two tickets then told her were they could find their carriage. Stormy didn’t say anything as mom led her past the swarm of ponies and to a small sky carriage with a single Pegasus hooked up to it. Mom gave the stallion the tickets then got into the back of the carriage, pulling Stormy with her.

Once they were on their way, the sky carriage pushing under the clouds, mom finally said, “Stormy, you’re my best friend, you can tell me anything and you know that.”

“I know,” Stormy said, her eyes glued on the floor of the carriage.

“If you know then why didn’t you just tell me you felt that way about me?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know, I guess I was just too scared to say something.”

“Why on Equus would you ever be scared to tell me anything?” Mom asked putting a hoof on Stormy’s.

“I…didn’t want you to hate me.”

Mom laughed, “Stormy, I could have woken up with you in my bed and I still wouldn’t hate you. You’re my best friend.”

“But…you like stallions, how could you not be angry with me for kissing you or feeling the way I do?”

Honestly, I was surprised how shy Stormy was around mom, the Dr. Stormy I knew was nothing like this mare. What could have changed over the years to take her from this blushing shy mare and make her turn into the snide mare who didn’t have time to worry about somepony like me pointing a gun at her head. Then I felt bad, because I never knew mom had a friend like her and I killed her in cold blood, just because she came up with the Devil’s Children Program.

Mom sighed then hugged her friend, “I do like Stallions and yes I may not be interested in a relationship with mares, but I still want you to be honest about it with me. Holding back your feelings isn’t good for you Stormy.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“No, but just promise me that you won’t surprise me with a kiss again.”

She blushed more then nodded, “I suppose I can do that, but what do I do about the way I feel?”

Mom took a moment to think then she smiled asking, “What’s your preference when it comes to mares? Wing’s or horn?”

“Why?”

“Just answer the question,” Mom said.

“I’ve always had a thing for Pegasi, I mean I like unicorns or even earth pony mares too, but I just love the wings on a Pegasus,” she said blushing a deeper shade of red.

Mom’s grin got bigger as she asked, “Have you ever met my co-worker Opal?”

During the flight back, mom told Stormy all about the cute mare who worked in her office with her. By the time they got back to the apartment building they shared, Stormy was in a lot better mood and she was laughing with mom. As they walked up the steps to the apartment Stormy asked, “Oh that’s right, remember when you asked me if I could find anything about Night Stalker?”

“Yeah?”

“Well after you told me what you learned from Striker about those projects, I started digging in the old archives at the Castle and I found some interesting things that I think some pony was trying to hide,” Stormy said as they got to their floor.

Mom opened her mouth to ask what she found when she stopped, looking down the hall at the Pegasus sitting next to their apartment, blood covering his clothes, and anger written on his face. Mom moved down the hall saying, “Striker? What happened to you?”

“Get in the room,” he said, his tone harsh and rushed.

“Striker, you’re covered in blood!” Mom said as Stormy came up behind her.

“She right Striker, we need to get you to a doctor.”

He looked over at both of them, “GET IN THE ROOM!”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on!” Mom said, standing her ground.

His expression softened a bit, “Please, I don’t have much time. And this isn’t my blood.”

Stormy moved to open the door, Mom and Striker following her inside. Once the door was closed mom turned on him, “Dammit Striker, tell me what’s going on, why are you covered in blood?”

Striker looked over at Stormy then back at Mom, “How much does she know?”

Mom sighed, “About what I’ve been looking into?”

“Yes, Grim,” he said.

“Everything.”

He seemed to sag a little, “Everything as in everything about my family? Or just what we’ve been looking into with The Children?”

Stormy was the one to answer, “I know there’s something secret about your family Striker, but that’s all I know, Grim’s told me what she’s been working on, but she told me that she can’t tell me about your family.”

“Okay, I can work with that,” he said sounding slightly relieved then took in a deep breath, “Grim, my father’s dead.”

Mom gasped, “What happened?”

“I don’t have time to explain, all I can say is that we had a fight.”

“No, you can’t just tell me that you had a fight and your dad’s dead. What did you do!?” Mom asked.

“We had a fight about you! He attacked me, killed my mom, then tried to kill me, all I was doing was protecting myself. Now Enclave soldiers are looking for me. I only came here before I left because I need to make sure that whatever you do, don’t tell them anything about what we were talking about. Don’t tell them about my hideout or anything,” he said starting to pace around the room.

“I…don’t understand, why don’t you just tell them what happened?” Mom asked.

“They won’t understand, there’s already reports going out all around Nimbus about me killing both of my parents. My father was a well-respected officer in the military, he was about to start running for the council.”

“Then stay and explain what happened!” Mom said, her voice sounding upset.

“I can’t!” Striker said, “I have to find the projects my father was hiding and destroy them. I can’t let The Enclave take me in, if they do, they’ll find out what I know and they can’t, they just can’t.”

Mom moved closer to him reaching out to pull him to her, “Striker, calm down you’re not making sense.”

He backed away before she could touch him, “Don’t!”

Stormy said, “Striker, we can help you.”

I could feel mom’s chest go tight as she said, “Striker? Let me help you.”

“I didn’t come here for your help Grim, I came here to make sure you keep your muzzle shut!” he yelled.

“Don’t talk to her that way Striker!” Stormy said.

“Shut up Dyke, I’m not talking to you!”

“Striker!” Mom said as Stormy’s eyes went big.

“I’m leaving Grim, it’s over between us.” he said moving toward the door.

“Wait, what? Striker where are you going?” Mom asked, but she didn’t move from Stormy’s side.

He took one last look at both of them, “I can’t tell you where I’m going.”

“I…I thought you loved me?” she said, her voice sounding broken and empty.

His eyes narrowed, “Loved you? I liked you yes, but love? No Grim, you were just a fun piece of ass, something exciting to keep my mind off the shit going on around me. Go find some other stallion who cares about your fucked-up family drama, or better yet, go cry to your brother because that’s the only thing you’re good at. Like I said I only came here to tell you to keep your muzzle shut about my hideout. If I find out you said anything to The Enclave, I’ll find you, and trust me, you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you.”

“FUCK YOU STRIKER!” Stormy yelled her horn glowing.

Before she could even cast a spell or say anything else, he was gone. The door slamming behind him, leaving my mom to look at the door, tears starting to flow down her face. Stormy running back to mom and pulling her into a tight hug as mom broke down and the memory faded.

The next one stared in a room I remembered well, the hide out Striker had in Nimbus. Mom felt tired in this memory, like she spent all night crying. Sitting on the desk was a small note. She sniffed and walked over to the desk and picked up the note reading it quickly.

Nightshade,

I wish I had the time to see you before I left, but I couldn’t risk you being pulled into this. I’ve left everything you’ll need to take over as the new Guardian. I know dad never told you much about his work and my own since I’ve taken over the job, but we can’t risk too many ponies knowing about our family’s dark past or the truth behind everything we’ve done or hidden from The Enclave. On my terminal you’ll find the location of a power source to a project that could destroy what’s left of Equestria. Go there and use the codes I left in your room to set up a new passcode. Don’t let anypony follow you and make sure you wear the outfit, it’s the only way you can get into the base where it’s hidden under. You’ll understand more when you go through the box of intel I’ve left here in my hideout.

I know we’ve had our differences over the years, but I’m trusting you to carry on my mission, our family’s mission. Also, please look in on Grim when you can, I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her yet, but I’m sure she’s going to be broken hearted. I can’t fix what happened, but I can at least try and fix what our family did. I’ll miss you brother.

Striker

Mom set the note down gently then turned toward the terminal, then said quietly, “I hate you…” her horn started to glow then she blasted the terminal, “I HATE YOU!” she turned toward boxes filled with files and blasted those to ash, “ASSHOLE!” she threw the table against the wall, “WHY…WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST TELL ME!?” she turned toward the cot where I could see the outfit my father now wore as The Stranger. Mom’s horn glowed again then she let the spell fade and she started crying, “Why’d you leave me…I would have gone with you…”

For a long time Mom just sat there, letting her tears fall as she pressed her face into the soft fabric of the trench coat. Then she finally got back to her hooves, “If this is what you wanted, then fine. I’m not going to let you bring me down Striker. I’m going to make something of my life, because I don’t need you. But I will find out what you knew, I don’t give two shits what you wanted your brother to have. Fuck your family and it’s secrets.”

Then Mom packed up as many papers as she could that hadn’t been destroyed in her rage. She then fixed the table and placed Strikers note back on the desk, then looked at the outfit one more time, then left.

The memory faded and the next thing I knew another memory started with mom just waking up in her room, Stormy cuddled up next to her. Woah, please don’t tell me mom did something with the mare I killed in Whinnieapolis and please don’t tell me she’s going to show me a memory of her doing something. It was bad enough having to be in her body when she was making out with Striker!

I got my answer quickly because somepony knocking on the door is what seemed to wake her. Rubbing her eyes, she slowly pulled Stormy’s hoof off her chest then got out of bed and slowly made her way over to the door. The knocking continued, this time it was louder. Mom yawned then muttered, “I’m coming…dammit hold on a minute.”

She opened the door, standing there was…my dad, his bright green eyes seemed to glow as he smiled slightly, his face looked a lot better without the scares around his muzzle and neck. He still had that silver stripe down the middle of his blue mane, “Good morning Grimoire, I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I was sent by Nimbus…”

“Go away,” Mom said moving to shut the door.

Dad put a hoof on the door, “I’m sorry, but I can’t Grimoire, this is about Striker.”

“Let me guess, you need to know where he is, well I don’t know now go away.”

“I can’t, not until we talk, if I leave Nimbus we’ll just send another pony your way and you really don’t want them to do that,” dad said moving a little closer and saying quieter, “I already know where he is Grim, but I have to make this look official. Please, just give me a few minutes and I’ll leave you be.”

Stormy’s voice echoed out of mom’s bedroom, “Grim…where’d you go?”

Dad looked toward the bed room then said, “I…hope I didn’t interrupt anything?”

Mom looked at him confused then chuckled a little, “No, it’s not what you think. Stormy’s…just been comforting me after…your brother said what he did after he left.”

Stormy showed up in the doorway looking at dad for a moment then yawning, “Hey Nightshade haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Good morning Stormy, I’m sorry to bother you so early,” he said giving her a small bow.

Stormy chuckled a little, “Hmmmm, you’ve become more polite in maturity.”

Dad chuckled a little, “Military life can do that to you. Anyways as I was saying, I’m here to talk about Striker.”

Mom just yawned again, “I hope you find him and cut his head off, that’s all I have to say about him.”

“I agree,” Stormy said, “I’m going to take a shower Grim.”

As she walked back into the room dad asked, “So you two aren’t…you know.”

Mom just rolled her eyes, “No, get your head out of the gutter Nightshade. She’s my best friend for one and I’m not into mares. She is, I respect her life choices. Anyways why do you care if we were intimate?”

“I…don’t, I was just curious.”

Dad was blushing…GROSS I don’t need to know THIS! Mom just sighed, “I’m really not in the mood to deal with you right now. So please get to the point so I can kick you out and get back to sleep. It’s my day off and I don’t get to sleep in often.”

Dad cleared his throat, “My apologies Grimoire, I only came because I had too. What I really want make sure that you aren’t going to tell The Enclave about our family’s…”

Mom interrupted him, “First of all call me Grim, second I don’t care about your family’s crap. I already told Striker I’d keep what he told me to myself and leave it at that. So, unless you think I know where he is, which I don’t, then you may leave.”

“That’s…all I really needed to know,” Dad said turning to leave, but he stopped then asked, “Are you going to be okay Grim? I know how close you two were.”

I could feel tears building up in mom’s eyes as she said, “No…I’m not fine. Do you have any idea what it’s like to come home after a nice day to find your special somepony standing at your door, covered in blood? Then to have him tell you he killed his father and he calls your best friend a dyke, then tells you he never loved you!?”

Dad’s eyes fell a little as he turned back toward mom, “No I don’t, I’ve never been close to anypony apart from Striker. But I do understand loss, I was the one who found my parents.”

“I…I didn’t know.” Mom said lowering her gaze.

Dad just shrugged, “Striker killing my father doesn’t bother me, he was a horrible father and a mean son of a bitch, but mom. She was good, she was kind, she didn’t deserve to be shot down by her own son. For that I can never forgive Striker.”

“He…he didn’t kill your mother, he told me that much when he came here. he said your father did when she got between them fighting.”

“Are you sure?” Dad asked.

Mom nodded, “Yeah, one thing I know for sure is that Striker wouldn’t have ever hurt your mother. I knew her quite well and she loved you both quite a lot.”

He smiled a little probably taking some comfort knowing that his brother wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, “Well I won’t keep you, sorry to barge in here so early again. If you ever need anything, just let me know. I know we didn’t get along well when we were younger, but I’m not that same colt.”

“I know, goodbye Sergeant Nightshade,” mom said as he turned to leave, before he could leave she said, “…and I’m sorry about your mom.”

He turned toward her, his hoof on the doorknob, “I’m sorry my brother broke your heart.”

“Me too…”

“I know you’ll probably say no to this, but would you like to get a drink sometime?” he asked.

She sighed, “I’m not really in the mood to go out on a date with anypony right now Nightshade, especially with the brother of the stallion who just broke my heart.”

He smiled a little, “I wasn’t asking you on a date Grim, I’m just trying to help a nice mare get her mind off things for a while. You can bring Stormy too if you want, if that makes you feel better. At least think about it.”

“We’ll see,” Mom said.

“Okay, good day Grim,” Dad said as he walked out the door.

For a long moment mom just looked at the door then she ran toward it, threw it open and yelled down the hall, “Tomorrow night, say around eight?”

Dad was almost to the stairs, he turned and laughed, “Sounds good, I’ll see you then.”

Mom went back into her apartment smiling a little. She walked back into her room right as Stormy was coming out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her mane, “I think that’s the first true smile I’ve seen on your face in a week.”

“Are you free tomorrow,” Mom asked, ignoring what Stormy said.

She shrugged, “That mare in 204 wanted to take me out to get a drink tomorrow, why?”

“Oh, well Nightshade wanted to take us out for a drink. Not as a date, just to help me feel better, I wanted you to come too, but if you have a date I can go alone.”

Stormy walked over to mom laughed as she hugged her, “Don’t worry about it, I can tell her to take a hike for my BFF.”

“Are you sure?”

“She isn’t that good looking anyway, she also has a pole way up her flanks.”

Mom just laughed hugging her friend back, “You’re the best.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Stormy said pushing mom back into her bed, “Now get some rest, you still need sleep.”

Mom’s smile faded again, “I’m not sure I can…”

Stormy took the towel off her mane then laid down with mom and cuddled up next to her again, letting her wet mane fall onto mom’s chest, “That’s what you have me for.”

Mom slowly ran her hoof over the wet mane of her friend, “Stormy, I hope you don’t think by me letting you sleep in my bed means anything more than…”

“I know,” Stormy interrupted, “I may love you more than you do me, but I know your limits, I’m not expecting anything. I just want you to feel better and help keep your mind off that ass hole. I just want to be here for you, if something more than this happens it will be your choice not mine.”

Mom just smiled again, “It won’t go past this Stormy.”

The memory started to fade as mom started to close her eyes I heard Stormy say, “Don’t say things you can’t live up too Grim.”

The next memory was mom looking up at a beautiful night sky, in the distance pegasi were putting on some kind of show. Ponies were all laying around in small groups watching the marvel of aerial acrobatics. As mom watched the show I noticed she was laying her head on somepony’s chest. A foreleg wrapped around her, keeping her close.

“I’m glad you came out with me tonight Grim,” I heard my dad say.

Mom was smiling as she cuddled up closer to him, “You know I wouldn’t miss a chance to spend time with you Nightshade.”

He laughed, “A year ago you were more than happy to kick me out of your apartment.”

“I’m not a morning pony Nightshade, I thought you’d know that by now,” she said.

“No I wouldn’t, I think Stormy would know more about your sleeping habits than I would.”

“I guess you’re right, don’t tell me your still jealous?” Mom teased.

“Well you do spend most of your nights sleeping with a mare who has a big crush on you.”

“Yeah, but she knows I won’t go there. She just makes me feel better.”

Dad looked down at her and rubbed her mane, “I thought that was my job.”

“It is, but you don’t share my bed. I don’t sleep well.”

“If I remember right, you said you wanted to wait,” he laughed.

“I do.”

“So why don’t you sleep well? I thought you were over my brother?”

She sighed, “I am, trust me I am. He’s not the reason I can’t sleep. I keep having bad dreams, I think it has something to do with the zebra magic mixing with my own. The dreams I have are too real, it’s like I’m seeing something that’s going to happen in the future, but I’ve never had that kind of power.”

“What kind of things are you seeing in these dreams?”

Mom nuzzled closer, “A few things, but they were scattered, segmented. I keep seeing a filly vanishing in a blast of light, or a mare in the wasteland trying to stop me from killing her. She keeps begging me to remember her, but I don’t know who she’s is. I keep seeing a darkness taking over that same mare, magic coming out of her that I’ve never even heard of on Equus.”

“Sounds like a bad nightmare,” he said.

“It is, but when I have somepony I care about with me, the dreams go away. That’s why I let Stormy sleep in my bed, even though I know it’s hard on her. I know she likes me, but I just need her close.”

“I understand and I’m not jealous. Stormy’s a good friend,” he said.

“She is.”

For a long time, they just watched the show, until it finally ended pegasi started leaving. When most of the ponies were gone dad said, “Grim?”

Mom looked up at him, “Yeah?”

Dad moved his head down and kissed her for a long moment, his tongue pushing into her muzzle, mom making a moaning noise as he did. AHHHHHH, WHY DO YOU KEEP SHOWING ME THIS CRAP MOM!? Thank the goddesses it didn’t last to long because dad pulled away looking down into mom’s eyes, “I love you Grim.”

I could feel tears in Mom’s eyes as she said quietly, “I was hoping you were going to say that soon…I love you too.”

“Marry me?” he asked.

Mom jumped up looking at him confused, “Marry you?”

“I love you Grim, and I want to be the pony who makes you feel safe at night, I want to be there for you no matter what,” he spoke a few more hopeless romantic quips which seemed to work on Mom.

I could feel mom blush then she chuckled, “You have such a way with words Nightshade.”

“I’m serous Grim!” he said.

Mom moved closer to him and kissed him again (STOP IT) then said, “Nightshade, if you can promise that you’ll always be a good stallion to me and a good father if we ever are lucky enough to become parents, then I’d be more than happy to spend the rest of my life with you.”

The memory faded with my dad smiling like a fool. I was a little touched by the memory, even with mom kissing my dad! EWWWWW! I mean it’s one thing to see my parents kiss, that’s no big deal, but being in mom’s body while she’s kissing my dad, NO THANK YOU! The next memory started with mom in a doctor’s office, it must have been some years later because dad looked a little older now, he was holding mom’s hoof as she slowly cried as the doctor spoke.

“I’m sorry Miss Spell, but there isn’t anything we could have done to save the foal. He just wasn’t strong enough to make it to full term.”

“This is the second foal I’ve lost Doc, what’s wrong with me?” Mom asked through her tears.

“We’ve ran some tests, but all I can tell is that something’s making your body reject the foals.”

Dad asked, “What do you think could’ve caused this? Grim’s always been a healthy mare.”

The doctor looked like his answer was painful as he said slowly, “We’ve seen this before, in unicorns who have a lot of magical power like you do Miss Spell. Magic can do a lot of wonderful things, but it does come with a price. The energy it costs can damage your body, most of the time with mares, it makes having foals next to impossible.”

“No, there has to be a way I can fix this,” Mom said.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything that can be done. There’s a very small chance, but it’s very unlikely.”

Mom turned and held on to dad as she started to cry, “I wanted to be a mother so badly.”

“I know hon, I know,” Dad said rubbing mom’s mane.

As mom cried into dad’s shoulder, the doctor said, “It may be too soon for this, but if you’d like, I can give you some information on adoption. We always have more fillies and colts who need a good home.”

Mom looked at the doctor, “I don’t want somepony else’s foal, I WANT MY OWN!” then she got up and started to walk out the door.

As she did I could hear dad say, “I’m sorry, I’ll talk to her and I’ll take the information you have on adoption. I think she just needs a little time to prosses this.”

Mom just kept walking down the hall, doing her best to wipe away the tears.

As that memory faded and before I could start to wonder if mom was trying to tell me I was adopted after all, the next memory started with mom sitting on a couch in the little house I had vague memories of from when I was little. There were a few mares around her and mom’s belly was huge. Sitting next to her was Stormy, a pegasus mare cuddled up next to the small unicorn.

Mom was smiling wide as she said, “Thank you all for all the wonderful gifts. Nightshade and I are very thankful for all of your amazing support.”

A mare near the back said, “Grim what are you thinking about for names? Do you even know if it’s a filly or a colt?”

“Nightshade and I are going to wait until it’s time to have the foal, we want to be surprised. But we are going to do what’s tradition in my family and name the foal as he or she ages,” Mom said happily.

Stormy chuckled, “I myself hope that she has a filly, then at least she’ll be good looking like her mother.”

The mares in the room chuckled, as they did a stallion came into the room. It was my uncle, he smiled saying happily, “I heard a very special mare was being thrown a foal shower today!”

“ORI!” Mom said happily, “I thought you couldn’t make it.”

“My commander let me off early when I told him I had someplace more important to be,” Oricalcos said as he walked past the mares a gift floating in his magic. I noticed as he walked some of the mares blushed one even batted her eyes at my uncle as he passed by.

Uncle Ori walked up to mom and set the gift down in front of her then took a seat next to mom, opposite of Stormy. Mom smiled then hugged him, “So big brother what did you get me?”

“Open it up and you’ll see,” he said with a chuckled then looking past mom he said, “Hey Stormy, who’s the arm candy.”

Stormy looked down at the other mare who was still nestled up to her, “Um….something Lights.”

The mare looked up at Stormy saying with an offended tone, “It’s Fairy Lights.”

As the mares around the room chuckled Stormy just shrugged, “Hey at least I got half of your name right.”

The mare huffed, “You don’t have to be so rude, we’ve been seeing each other for almost a week now.”

“Really? I just kept calling you cute pegasus in my head.”

Her jaw dropped open, “I don’t need to be treated this way, I’m leaving,” she got up and walked away in a huff.

Stormy just watched her go, a slight smile on her face, “I personally still like Cute Pegasus mare, because she does have the cutest ass.”

Mom just sighed as Oricalcos chuckled next to her, “I really don’t know why you have to do that with every mare you meet.”

Stormy just shrugged, “Not all of us are lucky enough to find a special somepony as wonderful as yours Grim.”

One of the other mares giggled, “Stormy, are you ever going to settle down?”

“Doubt it, life is so much more fun this way,” Stormy said as she looked over at Grim, “Enough talk about my lack of a love life, open the gift.”

Mom just sighed then giggled too, “Okay,” she pulled the top off the box but I didn’t get to see what was inside because the memory ended there…

The next one started with mom looking down at a new born foal…me…who she was holding close as dad sat next to her on a hospital bed. Mom ran a hoof over the white filly’s face, “She’s perfect Nightshade.”

“She really is, so have you thought of what to call her?”

“Star…it’s a family name passed down ever since my great, great, great grandfather Dwarf Star.”

“I like it, but I though you hated your family?” Dad asked.

“No, I hate my parents, but my family isn’t that bad and you know I’m very close to Oricalcos. Star was his name before he changed it, my mom was Fallen Star, her mother was Bright Star, then Neon Star and so on. I’d like to keep that tradition going, unless you want to use your own family name?”

Dad laughed, “No, she doesn’t look like a mare who would fit my family that well and that’s just fine with me. Star it is then,”

“My miracle filly, My Little Star.”

“So, the doctor said she’s okay right, nothing wrong with her at all?” Dad said as he ran a hoof over my short black mane.

“She’s perfect Nightshade, why would you think otherwise?”

Dad just moved closer to mom saying, “She just seems small, even for a new born.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, my mother was a short mare same for my great grandfather. Honestly, Ori and I are lucky we are average height,” Mom said moving her head down kissing my horn, as she did sparks of red came from it. Mom and dad both jumped, “Woah, did you see that Nightshade?”

Before he could answer the foal…myself… started to whimper, as I did my little horn started to glow red and small objects started to float into the air. As they did Dad asked, “Honey, are you seeing this too?”

“I am,” Mom said then she used her own magic to push the items back down, “I’ve never seen a foal so young use magic like that before.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Dad asked sounding concerned all over again.

Mom rocked me a little as she said, “No, I think it’s a good thing…”

The memory ended there with mom starting to sing to me quietly, only to be replaced with a memory I feared was coming. Mom seemed to be working with a doctor pony saying, “I’ve used that new spell we’ve created and I think the colt is looking a lot better.”

“I’m glad to hear that Grim, how can I ever thank you enough for all the help you and your team have done here. You’ve saved a lot of lives with those new spells you’ve been able to come up with.”

Mom smiled, “It’s one reason I wanted to work with the Research Department, I want to help as many fillies and colts as I can…”

Mom was cut off by my father screaming down the hall, “GRIM!”

Mom’s head snapped around to see my father flying down the hall to the hospital, his power armor on and a small white filly held close to him. Mom saw my limp form and ran over to him as he landed, the doctor not far behind, “Nightshade what happened to Star!”

Dad was holding me close to him with one hoof as he said, “I’m not sure, all I know is that Oricalcos did something, an explosion of black light filled his lab and I found Star almost dead in the middle of the blast zone. She’s barely breathing!”

The Doctor started yelling, “We need a stretcher here STAT! Get everypony we can to room 208, we have an injured filly!”

A stretcher was there in an instant, three nurses with it, one moved to dad and took my limp form from him saying, “Give her to me sir, don’t worry we’ll take it from here.”

They started to rush off with my small body as the doctor said quickly, “Nightshade right? I need to know exactly what happened.”

“I don’t know, I just headed over to Oricalcos’s lab to pick up Star when I saw a ball of blackness slam into her. I thought she was dead, everything around her was destroyed. Then I saw him run over to her and checking her for any sign of life.”

“Do you know if her heart stopped?” The Doctor asked.

“I’m not sure,” dad said, sounding worried.

Mom just looked at them both, her own heart racing. Then the doctor looked at her, “Do you know what kind of magic your brother could have been using?”

“I have no idea, he’s been experimenting with something old, but I never thought he’d use it around my daughter.”

“Grim I’ll do what ever I can to help your daughter, I need you to find Oricalcos and ask him what happened, it may be the only thing that can save her.”

Mom rounded on dad, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I just did.”

“Was the blackness a spell you’ve seen me use before?”

I could see the light in my fathers’ eyes go dark as he answered, “No, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like your brother made something powerful and contained it into a ball of black energy. I only saw it for a moment as it was flying at Star, but when I did, I swear I could feel something evil from it.”

Before mom could say anything else Oricalcos appeared in the hall. He had a black eye where dad had hit him. His mane was disheveled and his purple eyes were wide, “Where is she?”

Dad rounded on him, “You have a lot of balls showing your face here Oricalcos!”

Mom stepped in between the two, “Not now Nightshade, I need to know what happened,” she turned toward her brother, “We can talk about how stupid you are for doing dark magic around my daughter, but right now I need to do anything I can to save my daughters life. What did you do?”

My uncle was panting and tears started to run down his face, “I was trying to finish my project, a new way to power the city using dark magic. It’s a spell I found in Sombra’s journal, it’s how he powered the city when he ruled over it. He used dark crystal magic, I can’t so I worked backwards…”

“I don’t need the details tell me what that spell was!” Mom yelled ignoring the other ponies in the hall.

“Shadow Magic,” my uncle said.

I could feel a chill run down my mother’s body as she said, “Shadow Magic can’t be done. It’s creator and all the power he made was banished to Tartarus.”

“It is possible if you know what to do.”

“You’d have to open the doors to Tartarus itself and only the Goddesses themselves could do that!”

“Normally yes, but I found a back door, an ancient door, that can be opened anywhere. It takes a lot of skill, but I was able to do it and pull a little of the Shadow Magic out.”

Dad pushed past mom and got in his face, “And you thought it would be a good idea to use it on MY DAUGHTER!”

My uncles horn flashed, a moment later dad was thrown back and pinned to the floor as my uncle yelled, “I didn’t use it on her. I’m not sure what happened, but she somehow used her own magic and overturned her crib, I turned to help her because she was crying. As soon as my magic touched hers the shadow magic escaped my hold and followed the lines of magic I had wrapped around her and it flew toward her. I tried to stop it, but shadow magic isn’t like any other kind in our world. It tried to kill her because something about Star’s magic spooked it. She would have died too if I hadn’t used another spell at the last second to destroy a good chunk of the spell.”

“Let him go Ori,” Mom said her own horn glowing.

“No, not until you both understand that I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

A magical circle appeared next to my uncle and mom said in a scary slow voice, “Let my husband go Ori.”

Oricalcos backed up a step letting his magic fade as he said in a pitiful voice, “I didn’t mean to hurt her, I’d never let anything bad happen to her.”

Mom sighed letting her own magic fade as she said, “I know, but you still let her get hurt Ori. You better go back to your lab and find a way to fix this,” and with that Mom started heading down the hall.

I could hear my dad getting to his hooves saying, “If my daughter dies Oricalcos, I’ll kill you myself.”

The memory shifted and now mom was sitting in a hospital room next to dad, both of them looking down at a white foal hooked up to wires, a tube going down her throat, iv lines poking into both of her…my… forelegs and a small stuffed bird laying next to my head. The same doctor as before was speaking softly as mom ran her hoof over my young mane.

“We’ve done everything we can, but the spell used on her won’t subside. It’s slowly starving her heart. In a day maybe less, her brain won’t get enough oxygen and she’ll be gone. I wish I had better news, but we don’t.”

Tears were running down both my parents’ faces as mom said, “I’m not losing her.”

The doctor’s face looked sad as he replied, “I know you’re a gifted unicorn Grim, but nothing can be done to fix the damage that was done. There’s a blackness surrounding her heart and the magic itself is nothing we’ve ever seen before. Even your brother couldn’t make the power go away, he tried everything he knew but still, she’s going to die.”

Slowly mom lifted her head to glare at the doctor, “I said, I’m not going to lose her. If you can’t fix what was done to her and neither can my brother then I will.”

Mom got to her hooves leaned down and kissed the tip of my little white horn whispering, “Don’t worry My Little Star, I will find a way, just be strong and hold on as long as you can.”

With that she walked out of the room dad not far behind, “Grim wait.”

Mom didn’t stop, she pushed past a nurse saying, “I don’t have time Nightshade, I know there’s a way to fix her, I just know it.”

Dad flew in front of her blocking her path, “At least talk to me before you storm out of here.”

Mom’s horn started to glow, “Get out of my way Nightshade!”

Dad didn’t move, instead he yelled, “Do you think you’re the only pony who cares about her!? Do you think that it doesn’t break my heart to see our Daughter suffering like she is?”

Mom’s horn stopped glowing as fresh tears fell down her face, “I didn’t say that.”

“Then talk to me, tell me what you’re planning. I just want to make sure I’m not going to lose both of the mares I care about. Put a little faith in me Grim,” Dad said moving forward, bending down and pulling her into a tight hug, “I just want to know what you’re going to do, tell me and I’ll support you.”

Mom buried her face into dad’s shoulder, “I’m going to that library I told you about, the hidden one. I know there’s a book there that might fix Star, or at least keep her healthy until I can find another way to help.”

Dad pulled away and locked his dazzling green eyes on mom’s grey ones, “Good, you do what you have to, in the meantime I’ll take care of things here.”

Mom pulled away asking quietly, “Are you going after him?”

“I won’t have to; the higher ups already know what he did. You know what they’ll do to him for this,” Dad said turning toward the hospital room.

Mom took a minute to watch him go then she teleported. In a flash of blue mom was standing in front of the entrance to the Crystal Palace. She took in a breath then started up the steps. One of the guards looked over to her saying, “Good morning Grim, I’m sorry to hear about your little one, I hope she’ll pull through.”

Mom looked at the pegasus guard nodding her head a little, “Me too Blaze Wing.”

“What brings you to the castle today?” the guard asked.

“Just a little research, I’m working on a project and I wanted to look into more history behind the wall and how it was created. I just need to get my mind off of Star being in the hospital.”

The other guard snickered a little, “Everypony knows how the wall was made, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining armor combined their power and gave their lives to make the wall to keep the poison out of the city.”

“Are you a researcher for Nimbus? Did you do all of the research into the way the magic was formed or how it was channeled throughout the city to form the wall. Or did you read up or look into how the wall is still powered even though the rulers are now dead?” mom asked, though she didn’t have the normal smug tone.

The other guard stuttered a little, “Well…no, but everypony knows the story.”

Blaze Wing rolled his eyes, “Shut up, Grim’s always aloud inside,” Then he turned back to mom, “Go on inside Grim, I’ll stop by the hospital later if that’s okay with you.”

Mom smiled a little, but I could tell it was forced, “Thank you Blaze Wing, that means a lot to me.”

Mom walked passed and into the castle. She ignored the other ponies walking around and headed straight to the hall she’d walked down when she was just a filly. As she approached the statue she spoke the phrase that she had as a child. The statue’s eyes lit up and moved out of the way, mom stepped onto the pedestal and walked through the door. Once she was in the Forgotten Library, she used her magic to start pulling books down from the shelves. She started moving them toward the table where she’d found the bones before, which was now cleaned off.

Once she was done forming a pile of books on the table she took in a deep breath, sat down and started reading, “There has to be something here, there just has to be.”

The memory shifted again, and mom was still sitting at the table. I could feel her mane was disheveled, books were stacked all over and her eyes hurt. She swore, using her magic she tossed the book across the room, “DAMMIT!”

The book slammed into a bookshelf knocking a few of them off. Mom looked over at where the books fell then narrowed her eyes, “What is that?” she asked as she got to her hooves and went over to the shelf. A book was stuck behind the others, it had a light blue cover with words written in gold. She pulled the book out and read the cover, ‘Pure Magic of Light’ the authors name was worn so bad it couldn’t be read.

“Light Magic? I thought there weren’t any books around anymore about Light Magic.” Mom said as she went back to the table, opening the book. She started flipping through the pages, scanning the spells written in a fading ink. Then she stopped on a page titled, ‘Spell of Purity’ Under that it said, ‘This spell can banish away most dark magic.’

Mom started to laugh and cry at the same time as she started to read the spell. This is where I got lost, I could understand the basics of spells and how they are laid out in a spell book, but that was it. Mom was the one who could read a spell and understand its structure. I needed to see how a spell was done normally or practice it over and over again. After reading it once mom smiled again then started to draw on her magic. On the table a bright light showed up, glowing like a little star.

“I think I got it,” mom said getting back to her hooves and stuffing the book into her bag. She started to run, back out of the Forgotten Library, down the hall and back out of the Castle, ignoring the guards who tried to say something to her as she ran past. Once she was off the steps she teleported, reappearing at the hospital. She ran again, knocking over two nurses and a doctor as she did.

She blasted through the door making dad jump off his seat, the Doctor from before tripping over his hooves saying, “Grim, you scared us half to death!”

Dad looked at mom, “Grim, are you okay?”

“I think I can fix it,” Mom said moving over to the bed, “How’s she doing?”

“Grim what do you mean you can fix it?” The Doctor asked.

“How is she?” Mom asked again, ignoring his question.

“She doesn’t have long, but I don’t understand…” he said.

“Move,” Mom said, pushing the doctor aside.

Dad got back up asking, “Grim are you sure?”

She looked over at him, “I’m not sure of anything anymore Nightshade, but what choice do we have?”

“Grim, I can’t have you trying out spells on your daughter, she’s sick enough as it is. Don’t make her suffer more than she already has,” the doctor said.

Mom frowned then looked back at him, “I’m not letting anypony stop me from saving her, now back off or I’ll make you back off.”

He backed up as mom started to draw on her magic. A blue light surrounded my little body, then mom’s vision seemed to flicker my body seemed to fade showing mom my beating heart, around it was a blackness. Mom’s magic moved down and surrounded the blackness. It started to pulse as mom’s magic touched it, followed by a flash of light. The Darkness seemed to fade then vanish, as soon as it was gone my heart seemed to look better and it started beating faster.

Mom let the magic fade right as my foal-self started to cry, the heart monitors started to beep normally as the doctor said, “I can’t believe it.”

Dad and mom both started to cry as they both moved to hug my small crying body, dad saying, “Grim…you’re a miracle worker…”

Another memory started with Dad and Mom sitting in our small living room, I was sleeping on mom’s lap, looking a little older than I had in the last memory. Dad was watching as mom use the same spell to push away the darkness again, “I thought that spell was supposed to cure her.”

Mom sighed, “I thought so too, but the darkness keeps coming back. I’ve looked through all of the books about dark magic and I can’t find any more from the book on light magic, some of the pages were lost to time or faded too much to read. With what can be gathered, nothing is even close to this spell.”

“Is she ever going to get better?” Dad asked with a sigh.

“I don’t know, but at least she’ll be able to live a somewhat normal life,” Mom said as she finished her spell and ran a hoof over my black mane as I slept.

Dad seemed to want to change the subject because he asked, “Did you hear what happened last week, with your brother.”

Mom nodded, “They tried eight different ways to kill him, but it didn’t work.”

“Everything they tried just made him turn into a shadow. I’ve never seen anything like it before,”

Mom sighed, “What are they going to do then?”

“I’m not sure, there’s talk about banishing him or using him to make some kind of special ops team. Most of the intel is hush, hush, but I’ve been hearing things,” Dad said.

“I’m sure whatever they offer him, he’ll do what they ask. He’s loyal to The Enclave, always has been.”

“His power, do you know what it is?” Dad asked.

Mom took a long time to answer, she kept running her hooves over my mane as I slept as if she was deep in thought, finally she said, “I have an idea, but that’s all it is, an idea. All I know is that he said that no matter what, he’d help me find a way of fixing Star.”

Dad cursed, “I don’t want him anywhere near her.”

Mom looked up at him, “He loves her as much as you do Nightshade, he didn’t try to hurt her and he’s doing everything he can to help.”

Dad got to his hooves slowly, “I know,” he moved toward the door that led into the hall, “But for all I care, he can go to hell. That’s the only help I want from him.”

Mom just sighed, “Are you heading out?”

Dad nodded, “I have to check on things at the base.”

“How long this time?”

“A couple of weeks maybe longer. We’ve gotten word that a fight broke out between some new settlement and the base ponies. I need to make sure everything is secure. Also, I’ve been hearing things about Steel Rangers moving their power up that way,” Dad said.

“Just be safe and come home as soon as you can,” Mom said as the memory faded.

The next memory had to be a couple years later, I was a filly playing hide and seek with dad in our living room. Mom was just walking by when she saw me hiding under the couch, “Star what are you doing?”

“Shhhh, mommy, I’m hiding from daddy,” I said, trying to hide further back under the couch.

“Ah ok, I won’t tell him where you are,” Mom said with a chuckle as she walked past the living room and dad who was checking the cabinets for me. She went over to her room and then to her closet. Pushing some of her outfits aside, she then pushed on the wall. No, it wasn’t a wall, it was a hidden door that opened to steps that led down to a small cellar. Mom closed the door behind her and walked down into it. It was a small lab, test tubs were all over the place, along with books and notes scattered around. Then in one corner was a terminal and a few more notes along with that Statuette of Twilight.

Mom sat at the desk and logged into the terminal, she started looking through her notes on different kinds of magic, when a beep came from the terminal. As if she was expecting it, she backed out of the files she was reading and answered the call that was coming though on a secure broadcast channel, “I told you before to leave me alone.”

A mare’s voice came out of mom’s terminal, “And I keep trying to tell you that I can help you with your foal’s problem.”

“My daughter’s fine, I don’t know who you are or what you want from me, but I’m not going to trust some random mare from outside of The Enclave. I have a spell to keep my daughter alive, I don’t need your help.”

“Let me ask you this Grimoire, is the spell getting harder for you to perform? Is Star showing any improvements at all or is her illness getting worse?” the mare on the terminal asked.

“It’s none of your business, now stop contacting me or I’ll inform Enclave Security that some Wasteland mare is hacking into our systems,” Mom said.

A light chuckle came from the terminal, “Grimoire, even if you did tell the Enclave about me it wouldn’t do you or them any good. I’m not trying to scam you or use you in any way. I’m trying to help you, if the intel I got about Star is correct, she won’t last forever with that spell. All it’s doing is holding back the inevitable, sooner or later you’ll have to watch as she dies a painful death.”

I could feel mom’s heart start to beat faster, “Even if you are telling me the truth, then why would you care about my family?”

“I care because I hate the thought of any young foal dying, it has nothing to do with you or your family. Well not entirely, your husband does interest me a little or should I say his alter ego does,” the mare said.

Mom’s muzzle opened a little as she said, “How do you know about that?”

“The ponies I work with are very good at digging up secrets. Secrets like a family that’s spent decades trying to hide what’s under Spitfire’s Flight Academy, secrets about a secret group of ponies from during the great war who made something powerful. Powerful enough to cure your filly,” the mare said.

Mom’s eyes went wide as her heart was racing now, “I’ve looked through every book I can find about the kind of magic that hurt her and nothing shows a cure. The closest thing I’ve found is the spell I use now that holds back her sickness.”

“That’s because you’re missing a few key things about what’s wrong with her and what Minuette was working on with Night Stalker and The Children.”

“What do you know about Night Stalker or my family’s past? Also, what does it have to do with curing my daughter, nothing in the intel about The Children says anything about them making any kind of project that can cure ponies. The Ministry of Peace did, but they never had anything that can destroy darkness,” Mom said, her voice going quiet, “I don’t believe you.”

“The reason you can’t find anything is because the project they made wasn’t a cure, it was meant to be a weapon.”

“How can a weapon help my daughter?” Mom asked.

There was a pause then the mare said, “It’s hard to explain it all, but to put it simply. A key part of this project has the potential to be turned from a weapon into a cure.”

“If that’s true then tell me how to do this and where to find it,” Mom said.

“That’s the problem, I don’t know where the project is or this key.”

“Then what use are you to me!?” Mom asked.

“Easy Grimoire, I didn’t say I didn’t know anything, I just don’t know where it’s located. I do know two things that will help you find it though. The first part is looking into the notes and information that are hidden under Spitfire’s Flight Academy. The second will require you to obtain a Pip-Buck.”

Mom almost laughed as she said, “A Pip-Buck? Should I just go to the closest stable and ask nicely for one?”

“No, not just any old Pip-Buck, this one is special and it won’t be easy to obtain. It’s the key to making this project work and getting you into the basement of the Academy.”

“Again, what do you get out of this?” Mom asked, “And don’t feed me some bullshit about how you want to help. I want the truth.”

“Fine,” the mare said, “I want the project unlocked. Once you use the power it has to cure Star, I want the Pip-Buck, all the information you find on the Project and how to use it.”

“Sounds like you want this weapon for yourself. What do you plan on doing with it? Are you going to try and use it to take over the wasteland, maybe The Enclave?” Mom asked.

“No, nothing like that at all, I want to use it to fix Equestria then I want to destroy the weapon.”

“Sure you do.”

The mare sighed, “I’m not a bad pony Grimoire, I’m trying to do something good.”

“Then why me? Why my daughter?” Mom asked.

“Because you’re the only mare that can help. You’re smart, driven and most importantly, powerful. At least think about it, I can help you.”

Mom sighed and I felt a tear roll down her face, “I’ll think about it, but if I do this and I find that you’ve lied to me in anyway, I’ll kill you!”

“I understand,”

“What’s your name by the way?” Mom asked.

“That I can’t tell you, not until I know I can trust you in return, for now call me The Director,” then suddenly the mare cut off the connection.

Mom sighed, “Goddesses what do I do?”

Another memory started, mom was in the same room as before talking to the mare calling herself The Director, “I’ve looked through all of the notes I took from Striker and I think I know where to start looking for intel on Falling Shadows, that is if it is the project you’re looking for.”

The Director responded, “That’s the only one that it could be, the other project’s they were working on are well documented, at least here they are. They can’t be the ones, the only one that I know almost nothing about is Falling Shadows. What did Striker know about it?”

“Only that it was part of another project, but I don’t have a name for it. All he says about it was that it was the Key to starting Falling Shadows. He also said something about there being a possible location for the project in New Pegasus,” Mom said as she started looking though some notes she had on her desk, “Are you sure this will help Star?”

“If not, then I don’t know what else can. The problem is that you’ll have to go to New Pegasus.”

“I can’t leave Star here, if I did she wouldn’t survive,” Mom said.

“Then you’ll have to bring her with you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, also if I leave The Enclave they’ll come after me.”

“Grim, if you don’t take the risk, then you’ll never save Star,” The Director said.

“I know,” Mom said when Dad’s voice echoed from upstairs,

“Grimoire! It’s happening again!”

Mom said quickly to The Director, “I’ll be back when I can,” that being said, Mom teleported upstairs to find Dad holding me close, my body thrashing. Mom’s horn started to glow and like before it was like she could see through my body with the blackness around my heart. She started to use the spell to push back the blackness as she did she asked, “What was she doing?”

“She just jumped up and started talking about playing with her friends, then the attack hit,” Dad said, tears in his eyes as my body started to calm.

“Was it worse than last week?” she asked looking down at me as she finished up the spell.

“Worse definitely worse. Grim, I don’t know if she can take this much longer,” he said holding back sobs, “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Mom sighed and slowly pulled me out of dad’s hooves and into her own, hugging my limp body, “There might be a way, but you’re not going to like it.”

“If it’ll save our daughter, then I don’t care what you have to do,” Dad said.

Mom rubbed my mane slowly, “I found something in the old files back at base, there could be a small chance of saving her, but I’ll have to leave with her.”

It took a moment for dad to answer, “For how long?”

“I’m not sure, it could take years. I have the spell to keep her going and I think it can keep this at bay for long enough. If I’m right, then she should get better.”

“Where do you have to go?” he asked.

“I have to go to New Pegasus, to the old base outside the city where those bomber ponies live, to start.”

“You can’t do that, you of all ponies know what’s under that base.”

“I do, and it might be our only hope to save her,” Mom said as she pulled me close to her.

“Grim, our family has protected the secret of that project for two hundred years. If you go there and start everything back up, you know what’ll happen.”

“I do, and it’s worth it if I can save her. You said you’ll do anything to keep her alive remember?”

“Mommy my chest hurts,” I said.

“I know sweetie, just rest and everything will be okay,” Mom said as she rubbed my mane.

Dad stood and started to move away, “Do what you have to. Just remember, if you go down this path, I’ll have to hunt you down. That’s the rules in our family.”

“I know, and I love you.”

Dad turned back, “And I love both of you, even more than my loyalty to my fellow pegasi.”

Mom started to cry a little as she said, “I’ll need help getting out of the city.”

Dad sighed as he started to head toward their room, “I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll figured something out. Start getting ready, before I’m forced to change my mind.”

Mom watched him go then using her magic she picked me up and took me to my own room. She set me down in my bed and set Avon down next to me, “Now sweetie, I want you to get some rest. Mommy has a few things to take care of.”

“Okay,” I said as I pulled the stuffed bird close to me.

Mom kissed me then headed back to her room where Dad was putting on his military uniform, “Are we okay Nightshade?”

“I don’t like this Grim, Striker didn’t leave very much information about that project. I don’t even know what it does, how do you know it will help?”

“I was able to find more information about it. There’s something down there that may help cure her or at least lead me to what can. I promise that I won’t mess with anything down there, I just need to get into the main chamber,” Mom said.

Dad sighed then put on his battle saddle, “I don’t think you’ll be able to.”

Mom smiled a little, “Sweetie, have a little more faith in me.”

He walked over to her and kissed her for a moment, “I’ve always had faith in you, I’m just scared that something’s going to happen.”

“I know, but we have to do this,” Mom said kissing him back, “Now get to work, I’ll see you tonight.”

Dad left without another word, when he was gone Mom went back to her closet and opened the hidden door. She walked back down the steps and back to her terminal where the connection to The Director was active. Mom sat saying, “Are you still there, Director?”

“I am, is everything okay?”

“No, not at all. You were right, Star’s getting worse. I need to get out of here as soon as possible and head to New Pegasus. If there’s even a small chance of helping her, I have to try,” Mom said.

“Just so you know Grim, if you do this, you may never be able to go back home. The Enclave doesn’t take to well to their citizens leaving, are you prepared to go through that?” The Director asked.

Mom rested her head on the desk taking in a few deep breaths, letting her heartrate slow before she responded quietly, “What other choice to do I have? She’s my little filly, my miracle foal, I’m not going to lose her.”

“Okay, then I should be able to help you, but you’ll need to be prepared. I have a friend that works for a Talon group in the New Pegasus area, he can help you get out of The Crystal Empire. You’ll need to pack light, just take what you need and nothing else, bring the files with you and make sure you find yourself a good weapon.”

“I’ve never used a weapon, I’ve always relied on my magic,” Mom said.

“Where you live I’m sure it’s served you fine, but The Wasteland is different. You need a reliable weapon, something powerful that won’t break easy. Get what you need and I’ll have my friend ready to help you, it should take about a week or so.”

“Why a week, can’t we leave sooner?” Mom asked.

“No, it’ll take him about that long to get there, he’s not as young as he used to be and there’s other things he has to get ready before he leaves. I’ll contact you when everything’s ready.”

“Fine, I’ll be ready,” Mom said as the memory faded.

The next memory started with mom dressing me in a dark cloak with a hood, “Okay, sweetie, I need you to be as quiet as you can.”

“Where are we going?” I asked yawning, “I’m sleepy.”

“We’re going on a trip, there’s a place that we might be able to make you all better,” Mom said as she finished dressing me.

“Like the hospital?” I asked cutely.

Mom chuckled a little, but a tear ran down her face, “Not like the hospital, but if we’re lucky and have faith in The Goddesses, we might be able to heal you.”

Dad walked into the room wearing his Stranger outfit, “That’s right sweetie, just listen to your mother and you’ll be okay.”

“Okay daddy,” I said, “Why can’t you come with us Daddy?”

He moved down and kissed my head, “I told you before, I have to make sure you and your mother both get out of the city safe.”

I started to cry as Dad hugged me, “I’m going to miss you Daddy.”

“I’ll miss you too, but I’ll see you again sweetie. This isn’t goodbye, it’s I’ll see you later,” Dad said.

Mom moved forward, “We need to go Star,” then she looked at Dad, “I love you Nightshade.”

He kissed her for a long moment then whispered, “I love you too, now go, I’ll buy you as much time as I can. Remember, that if you need anything, send me a message from the base.”

I felt mom smile a little, “I remember, I just have one stop to make on my way out.”

“I know, just be careful,” Dad said pulling on his mask then putting on his desperado hat. With that he took one last look at us both, his bright green eyes shining from under the hat, then he was gone.

Mom took one last look around the house then put on her cloak and her saddle bags. She picked me up with her magic, placed me on her back and we too left, mom never looking back…

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Chapter 51 Part 2: Hold On To Memories

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“Each pony has their own unique timeline that tells a story of their life, some are just more interesting than others,”

The next memory started with mom walking toward an old run-down cottage, I was still on her back as she slowly made her way toward it. She was only a few feet away when the door flew open and an older mare was standing there with her horn glowing, “What do you want Spell!?”

Mom’s horn glowed too as she said, “Move out of my way Mother.”

“I told you I didn’t want you to come back here after what you pulled!” she yelled, then she tried to cast a spell, but Mom blasted it aside.

Mom pushed past her mother, “I don’t have time for you right now, I’ll be in and out, after this you won’t see me again.”

My grandmother got back to her hooves, “Wait a minute, who’s that on your back?”

Mom just kept walking past the sitting room, “Your Granddaughter, her name is Star.”

“Mommy who’s that?” I asked from her back.

“No pony sweetie, just keep your head down and be quiet,” Mom said walking into a smaller bedroom, I could hear my grandmother following.

“Spell what are you doing here?” she asked as Mom used her magic to move the little bed.

Under the bed there was a large floor safe, she looked away from it and at my Grandmother, “Give me the key.”

“No, you have no right to what’s in that safe,” she hissed.

“Give it to me or I’ll blow it open, I’d rather not make too much noise,” Mom threatened.

“Why should I give you anything? What’ve you done for me huh? You left after your father died, never came to visit, never told me when you married that Pegasus. I didn’t even know you had a foal until Ori’s trial. You’ve been nothing but a selfish brat for most of your life and now you expect me to just let you take the last of our family’s treasures?” My grandmother said.

There was a fleck of shadow behind her and two purple eyes. Mom saw them and smiled, “If you won’t give me the key, then how about my brother?”

She spat, “Ori’s no better than you Spell, he went too far with his magic and now he’s lost to darkness.”

My uncles voice came out of the shadows behind my grandmother, “I wouldn’t say I’m lost to darkness mother. I’d say that I’ve become it’s master, now give Spell the key before I make you.”

My grandmother twisted around to find herself looking up at my uncle as his body formed, “Ori, I told you I didn’t want you to come by here anymore. I can’t risk ponies seeing me with a monster like you.”

Oricalcos chuckled evilly, “First of all mother, I gave up my name when I took on this power and when I made a deal with The Enclave, I’m Pride now. Second, no pony cares if you’re seen with me or anypony else, your nothing but an old hag nowadays that lives in a run-down shack. Now give us the key!”

While her mother’s back was turned, mom’s horn started to glow, “This is taking too long,” she cast a spell and my grandmother’s eyes closed as she passed out, “I didn’t come here to deal with her.”

Oricalcos looked over at Mom, “I didn’t realize I’d made her that angry after I took on this form.”

Mom walked over to her mother and started looking through the pockets of her dirty jacket, “I thought I told you I didn’t need your help Pride.”

He shrugged, “You did, and I would’ve stayed away, but then I caught sight of three Pegasi heading this way. Figured I’d follow them to see what they were up to. When I saw them going for this dump I had a feeling I’d find you inside, so I took care of them.”

Mom pulled a small key out of her mother’s jacket, “So you killed three soldiers to keep them from finding me? You do know that three dead bodies will just tell them which way I went right?”

Oricalcos laughed, “I didn’t kill them, I just made sure they started looking for you someplace else.”

Mom put the key into the safe and unlocked it, when she opened it I saw it only had a couple things inside. The biggest thing was the same Plasma rifle I now had with a few less improvements, there was also a box of memory orbs, a notebook and a zebra stealth cloak.

“At least the rifle’s still here,” Mom said after picking everything else up and putting it into her saddle bags apart from the plasma rifle and the notebook. Then she looked back at Oricalcos, “Thanks for the help with the Pegasi, but how did they know I left?”

“I’m not sure, all I know is that somepony said they saw you sneaking out and heading toward the wall.”

“Oh well, I’ll be out of here soon and once I’m past the wall, they won’t be a problem,” Mom said as she closed the safe then went back to her mother and put the key back into her mother’s pocket.

Oricalcos watched her as Mom used another spell on her mother. It felt like a memory spell, “What’re you doing?”

“Making sure she forgets I was ever here. If The Enclave comes looking I don’t want them to know where I went. It should buy me time,” Mom said as she finished, then she looked at the notebook.

“What is that?” My uncle asked.

“Dwarf Star’s journal,” Mom said then she stuffed it into her saddle bags.

“I didn’t even know Mom had that, how did you know?”

“I saw it once when she opened the safe, everything in here belonged to our great, great, grandfather. Mom keeps it around like a prize or something. I figured I can get better use out of his stuff than Mom.”

“I’m sure you can,” Oricalcos said as Mom put the bed back where it was, “So, where are you going? You never told me.”

“New Pegasus, I think there’s something there that can help Star.”

“That’s a long way to go sis, how are you getting there?” he asked.

“I have my ways.”

“Can I come? I can help you,” he asked.

“No, I need you to keep up the act of being a loyal servant to The Enclave.”

“But I can help,” Oricalcos said.

“I know, but I need you here more, at least for now. In a couple of weeks though I’ll need you to do something for me,” Mom said as she stepped over her mother and started trotting for the door.

“What?”

“I need you to go to The Badlands and look for something. My contact thinks part of what I need to help Star is down there. Look for a big spire of some kind out there, it might be hidden or disguised. If you find anything let me know as soon as you can,” Mom said as she headed out the door.

“I will,” Oricalcos said.

Before Mom left, I poked my head up saying quickly, “I love you Uncle Ori.”

I felt Mom smile a little, but she kept on walking as a broken voice responded, “Love you too kiddo, stay safe.”

The memory shifted again, now mom was hiding behind a broken-down farmhouse next to the tall wall of black that rolled up the nearly invisible barrier that surrounded The Crystal Empire. She was holding me close as she watched the skies. It didn’t take long for her to spot someone flying just over the wall of black and through the barrier.

“Is that a griffon?” she said then she looked down at me, “Okay sweetie, Mommy’s just going to help you sleep a little, this next part of our trip is going to be tough.”

I looked up at her, my red eyes sparkling from under the hood of my small cloak, “Okay.”

Mom cast a spell and I watched as my eyes drooped and I fell against her. She set me down making sure the cloak was keeping me hidden, then she stepped out from hiding as the griffon landed. It was Tonto, a younger Tonto, but still him. Tonto looked around for a moment, a rifle at the ready in one talon, then he looked at Mom, “Are you Grimoire Spell?”

Mom’s horn started to glow as she said, “I might be, who are you?”

“Tonto Graybeak, I’m with the Red Talons, I was contracted by a mare called The Director,” he said keeping his rifle ready to use just in case.

“She didn’t say anything about a griffon, what’s the passphrase?”

Tonto took a moment to think then said, “May the Night stay free.”

Mom’s body relaxed as she said, “And the light shine bright.”

Tonto lowered his rifle, “Sorry I’m late, had to dodge a few Enclave patrols. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, my daughter is just on the other side of the house,” Mom said walking back to where I was sleeping. She lifted me with her magic, “How are we going to do this?”

“We’ll have to move fast, I heard that your daughter is sick right?”

“She is, but she’s okay right now. I just put her to sleep so the trip will be easier,” Mom said.

“Okay, then I’ll have you both get on my back, we might run into trouble as we fly, do you have a weapon Ms. Spell?” Tonto asked as he lowered himself down.

Mom pulled her plasma rifle off her back, “I sure do,” she lifted me up with her magic and set me on Tonto’s back, then she got up too.

“Make sure to hold on tight, I’m not as young as I used to be, but I’m still a fast flyer,” Tonto said as he opened his wings and took off.

Mom held on tight, keeping me held down as Tonto blasted into the air. He flew high up then a few seconds later we were though the barrier and flying away from The Crystal Empire. Once we were out mom looked down at our home, it was a view I’d never seen and because of what I saw now, I understood why nopony knew The Crystal Empire was still around. Whatever the Zebra’s did here, it was nothing like what happened to the rest of Equestria. From the fields around the area, black smoke seemed to roll along the land below. It was moving from all sides, heading toward the Crystal Empire, when it ran into the barrier it moved up it slowly until it reached the point where the dome curved then it rolled back on itself. A pillar of bright white light shot out from the middle of the city right were the castle was, powering the barrier itself. The light also shot past it and into the night sky like a beacon. You’d think that light would make it easier to know the Empire was still there, but I knew from stories Mom told me when I was little, that the light could only be seen from The Twin Cities. The Enclave made sure to keep all ponies away from the area. First to make sure that nopony ever found the city, second to keep ponies from dying a horrific death. The stories say that if you stepped one hoof inside the black smoke, you’d be dead before you took another.

Mom let out a small sigh as the city slowly faded behind us, “I’ve been away from the city before, but now I feel like it’s the last time I’ll ever see it.”

Tonto turned southwest then said, “I’m sorry to say this, but this might be the last time. I’m sure that The Enclave wouldn’t want you back after tonight.”

Mom turned away from the city, “You’re right, but I’m still going to miss it.”

“Did you have any family there?” Tonto asked.

“Just my husband, and one friend,” Mom said.

“Why didn’t he come with you?”

“He had to stay behind, he can help me more within the city than outside of it.”

“I do hope you get to see him again one day.”

“Me too,” she looked down at Tonto, “I’ve heard of The Red Talons before, I thought you had some kind of rule about helping Enclave.”

“Rule Five, The Red Talons will never take a contract for The Grand Pegasus Enclave or anypony associated with them. Remember the fall of Griffonstone,” he said, “Yes, but as far as I see it I’m not taking a contract from you Ms. Spell, I’m helping a friend of mine.”

“Well wouldn’t she be considered being associated with The Enclave?”

He looked back at her, “I don’t know, do you think of yourself as still being Enclave?”

Mom rolled her eyes, “I guess not.”

“There you go, now relax Ms. Spell we have a long flight to get you out of Enclave Territory.”

Mom smiled a little, “Grim, call me Grim.”

The memory faded and another started with Mom running through a field with me on her back crying. She looked back at the three pegasi who were giving chase, “Fuck, I can’t believe they tracked us this far.”

“Mommy I’m scared,” I said.

One of the pegasi yelled down at us, “If you keep running Grim, we’ll be forced to open fire!”

Mom sped up yelling back, “I’m not going back! Just leave me alone!”

Another pegasus said, “Just take her down, make sure you don’t kill the kid.”

There was a few rocks poking out of the ground just ahead, “Star, hold on tight and close your eyes,” then she teleported right as one of the pegasi opened fire.

We reappeared on the other side of the rock and Mom set me down looking me over quickly, “Star are you feeling okay?”

I could see through Mom’s eyes that I was breathing heavily, “I think so.”

“Just try to control your breathing and keep your eyes closed,” Mom said pulling the Plasma Rifle off her back.

I did as Mom looked around the rocks at the three pegasi who were now grounded, their battle saddles ready to fire. A mare who was in the front said, “Grim, you can’t keep running, come out and surrender and this will go a lot easier for you.”

“I can’t do that, I’m not going back until I can cure my daughter,” Mom said, still keeping behind the rocks for cover.

The mare sighed, “Grim, you’re lucky we haven’t shot you already. We’re showing you a little mercy because of your husband. You’ve already committed treason by running into The Wasteland like this and taking Enclave secrets with you, you’ve also kidnapped Nightshade’s daughter. So please, surrender so we don’t have to put a bullet through your head, don’t let your daughter see that.”

“She’s sick, The Enclave can’t help her, only I can. I don’t care what you think I’ve done, I’m doing this to keep her alive! Now leave me be before I’m forced to do something I’ll regret,” Mom said.

One of the stallions said, “Get out here Grimoire, or I’ll make you!”

Mom looked back at me then sighed, she used her magic to put her Plasma rifle down behind the rocks and stepped out. All three pegasi tensed but mom just said, “Promise me that you’ll keep Star safe.”

The mare walked closer pulling out what looked like hoof cuffs, “We aren’t here to hurt your daughter Grim. We were given orders by The Council to take you in. You’re doing the right thing by surrendering, I’ll be sure to tell The Council that you cooperated.”

When the mare was only a few feet away Mom asked, “How long have we known each other Sky?”

“Since we were in school, why?”

Mom had tears in her eyes as she continued, “And in all those years have you ever known me to do anything against The Enclave?”

She shook her head, “No, but ponies change and I understand that you think that there’s something out here that can help Star, but you know The Wasteland is just that. Star’s more likely to die out here than back at home.”

“You know that I’d do anything to keep her alive, right?”

“I do, but it’s not out here. Now let me put these on so we can get you home,” she said holding up the hoof cuffs.

“You’re kind Sky, always have been, for that I’ll let you live,” Mom said.

“Huh?” Sky said, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything else. Mom used her magic to pull her plasma rifle out from behind the rocks, as she did she pulled Sky into a head lock and pointed the rifle at the other two pegasi.

“Fly away and forget you saw me, or I’ll drop all of you!” Mom said, her voice filled with anger.

“Let me go!” Sky said trying to pull free, but Mom held on tighter.

The stallion who spoke up before just chuckled, “Can’t do that Grimoire, we have orders and personally I have no problem killing you. One less unicorn scum in our city to deal with. Now let Captain Sky go.”

Mom just smiled a little, “No way,” she opened fire, the first blast of plasma slammed into the stallion who’d been talking, blowing his head right off. The recoil from the rifle was a lot stronger than it was now and it almost flew out of Mom’s magical grip. The second stallion started to charge up his energy rifles on his battle saddle, but Mom opened fire on him before he got a chance to fire. Three shots slammed into his chest throwing him back. His body rolled across the dirt then came to a stop. He didn’t get back up.

“What did you do Grim?” Sky asked in a panic.

Mom just sighed, “I’m keeping my daughter safe.”

“You just killed two Enclave officers, you’ll be put to death for that!” Sky said in horror.

Mom moved her muzzle closer to Sky’s ear, “I didn’t do anything, for all the Enclave knows, they were killed by Steel Rangers or some other monster out here.”

“So, you’re going to kill me too?”

“No, I have no reason to.”

“Grim, friend or no, you still murdered two soldiers. I can’t hide that from…”

Mom interrupted her, “Don’t worry, you’ll forget all about this,” her horn started to glow again as she started to cast a memory spell, “You were attacked by Steel Rangers while you were looking for me. You found no signs of Grimoire and were heading back. Both members of your wing fell and you just barely got away. Now tell me what happened.”

Her eyes had gone glassy as she repeated, “We were searching for Grimoire Spell west of The Twin Cities, found no sign that she’d gone that way. We believe she’s heading east, maybe south. We were on our way back when we ran into Steel Rangers who were scouting close to our territory. They fired and we tried to defend ourselves. My wing didn’t make it and I just managed to get away.”

“Good, now sleep,” Mom said casting another spell to knock her out. When Mom was done she set the mare down. When she was finished she noticed the pegasus who’d been blown back was trying to crawl away. She picked up her plasma rifle again and slowly walked toward him, “You’re tougher than you look.”

He looked back at her, his face bloody from the roll and blood coating his chest, “I…I wont’ tell…I won’t.”

She got as close as she could then pointed her rifle right at his head, “I know you won’t,” she blasted his head off, blood spraying and covering her face and mane. She took a step back and wiped at her eyes, “Dammit.”

“Mommy?” I heard myself say, “What happened?”

Mom looked back at me, I was looking out from the rocks. She started to cry as she said, “They were going to kill us sweetie. I’m sorry my Little Star, but they had to die…they had to…”

Mom ran over to me and hugged me as she cried harder, I’m not sure if she could tell in the state of mind she was in, but I could feel my little body stay limp in her hooves. As the memory faded I remembered that day better now. Mom cried for a half hour after she killed the two stallions. I was in shock, because I’d never seen anypony die. The entire time she cried, I just sat there in her hooves my eyes glued on the two dead stallions and the mare who was sleeping not far off.

The next memory started with Mom sitting across a table from a mare who looked around the same age as Mom. She reminded me a lot of Cookie Byte, she had the same electric blue mane, the same blue eyes, but her coat was yellow not white. Mom was smiling at her, “A deals a deal Dust Devil.”

The mare looked like a clean raider, but she spoke like a mare from a stable, “I still say you cheated. Nopony wins that many games of caravan without cheating.”

Mom just leaned back in her chair, “You know I didn’t, I kept my horn from glowing the entire time, I used my hooves to pick up the cards and all. Now don’t be a sore loser, or do ponies in Trotston not hold up to their bets?”

The mare cursed then slammed her left foreleg onto the table. On it I saw The Silver Mark II, my Mark II. No wonder she looked like Cookie Byte, this had to be her mother. Dust Devil glared at Mom, “I always keep my word unicorn. You wanted to know how to remove one huh, fine I’ll tell you.”

“I don’t think so Dust Devil, the bet was you’d SHOW me how to remove it,” Mom said.

“Why do you want to know so bad?”

Mom shrugged, “I’m a mare that likes to know things, I’ve never seen a Pip-Buck like that before and you did tell me that they’re special, so I want to see what the big deal is. Come on, it’s not like I’m going to take the damn thing, it’s not like I’d get far.”

“Fine, but if you even try to take it I’ll cut your head off and put it on a pike,” Dust Devil said.

“Are you sure you’re a stable mare? You act more like a raider, you know that right?”

“Kiss my ass Grim and watch, I’m not showing you twice,” she said pulling out a Pip-Buck master key from a pocket in her coat, “It’s simple, the Mark II’s can only be removed by the one who wears it, also you need a master Pip-Buck Key, and you have to enter the pass code for it.”

“Sounds like a lot of work to get a Pip-Buck off,” Mom said, but she watched the mare as she used the key on the Pip-Buck.

Once she was done she did something on her Mark II then said into it, “Heart Music,” then the latch to the Pip-Buck appeared. Dust Devil, unlatched it and removed the Mark II, “There you see?”

Mom reached out and ran a hoof over the silver finish as Dust Devil set it down on the table, “Is it true that the Mark II can hide information inside of it?”

She nodded, “Rusty says so, I never read much into the manual myself. He had to because of his old job in Stable 9. Once we settled Trotston, he put me in charge of security here, but he gave this to me on the day we left Stable 9. It used to belong to our Overmare.”

“What happened to your old stable anyway, none of the ponies here ever seem to want to talk about it,” Mom asked as she kept running her hooves over the Mark II.

“Most around here don’t like to think about those days, I was young when it happened. It was all because of one Filly and a mad doctor,” Dust Devil said after she yawned.

“I heard that Bloodwings were in the stable.”

“There was a few of them yes, but they ain’t nothing like the ones you see out here. They were smarter and faster, but they weren’t the reason we had to run,” she said as she took a drink of some amber liquid, “A filly was hurt badly a few hours before. Doctor Cell used some kind of fucked up magic or potion he’d created to turn the filly into some kind of monster. She had wings like a bat, long fangs like a bloodwing, and she had scales over her chest and belly, bone claws on her hooves and eyes like a dragon. He sicked his monster on the stable after killing our Overmare. Honestly we got lucky.”

“Getting attacked is lucky?” mom asked.

“Not that, no, our Overmare was a unicorn like you. She had a strange ability to know what was going to happen. Well, not exactly what would happen, but she could guess when something bad was coming. So, she gave her Pip-Buck to Rusty and told him to keep it safe. Because of that, Rusty was ready when the attack happened and he was able to get most of us out. He had me put on the Mark II when we left and use it to seal the stable so that Dr. Cell and his monster couldn’t ever escape,” Dust Devil said.

“Sounds sad if you ask me, a poor filly was forced to become a monster then made to attack her own stable ponies.”

“Even worse was she was the Overmare’s Daughter, her name was Wind Thrasher.”

“How did she get wings? I’ve never heard of anypony being able to give wings to another before.”

“She was a Pegasus,” Dust Devil said, “First one born to our stable, she was a shy thing, always playing with the Vampire Fruit Bats in the lower levels. I find it sad that Dr. Cell changed her into such a blood thirsty thing, when she used to be such a sweetie and kindly soul.”

“I agree, at least Rusty was able to save all the Mark II’s when he got out,” my mother clarified.

Dust Devil chuckled, “Saved them all, no. Dr. Cell still has his for all I know. It doesn’t matter though, honestly, the Mark II isn’t that great. I’m not sure why Stable Tec wanted us to keep them safe.”

Mom smiled, “Because one of them was used to lock down a project. They were trying to keep them hidden from ponies like me.”

Dust Devil looked confused, “Ponies like you? What are you talking about?”

Mom pulled the Mark II close to herself and latched it onto her own foreleg before Dust Devil could do anything, “Sorry Dust Devil, but the only reason I came to Trotston was to get this. You see this Mark II is the one I need to save my daughter. It’s a good thing you’re such a moron that you made a bet with me to take it off.”

“GIVE THAT BACK GRIM!” Dust Devil yelled.

Mom got to her hooves, “Sorry can’t do that, but thanks again for showing me how it works,” she used her magic to grab the Master Key then with a chuckle she started backing toward the door, “Remember this the next time you decide to make stupid bets.”

“I’ll kill you GRIM!” Dust Devil said, “I warned you, I’d cut off your head and put it on a stake.”

Mom’s grin widened as she started to draw on her magic, “If you try, I’ll make sure to leave your head on your front door step. See ya later,” Mom said before teleporting away, the last thing I saw in the memory was Byte’s mother lunging for Mom as she vanished in a flash of blue light.

A new memory started with mom sitting in a cave with me sleeping by a small fire. She was fiddling with the Mark II, from the corner of her eye I could see a dead griffon by the cave mouth, just out of sight of my sleeping form. As she fiddled with the Mark II, shadows pulled away from the cave and a moment later Uncle Ori was standing in front of her, “Still having problems with Red Talons?”

Mom looked up at him then shrugged, “That bitch from Trotston keeps sending them after me. You’d think they’d stop taking the contracts after I killed five Griffons.”

Oricalcos looked back at the dead griffon, “I hope Star didn’t see you kill him.”

“She’s been sleeping, she had a bad day. It took me twice as long to push the darkness back today. Also start calling her Morning Star.”

He just rolled his eyes, “I still don’t like that name for her.”

“Too bad,” Mom said as she kept working on the Pip-Buck, “I decided it fits her and I’m not changing it.”

“If you say so.”

Mom sighed and lowered the Mark II, “What do you want Pride?”

“I was checking up on you for starters, also I wanted to warn you that Steel Rangers have been spotted near here.”

“I know, I’m meeting with one of them.”

“Your WHAT!?” Oricalcos said.

“Don’t give me that, I have my reasons,” Mom said defensively.

“And those reasons are?”

“I need their help if I’m going to find this Project. I can’t do it on my own and you can’t stay around me all the time to help. They have a lot of Tech and knowledge. A new Elder for the Los Alicorn branch is meeting with me today so he can help me in my search,” Mom said.

“I’m sure he will then he’ll want it for himself.”

Mom just shrugged, “He can try to take it, but The Director wants it too and she’s the one I trust. She’s the one who told me to work with them.”

“I don’t trust her or Steel Rangers.”

“I don’t trust any pony anymore apart from you Pride, but I’ll use them for as long as I have too. Now, did you see anything else apart from the Rangers?” Mom asked.

“No.”

“Fine, now can you help me with this mare from Trotston?”

“Well if you need her to drop the contract I can do that,” he said.

“Works for me, I did say that if she came after me I’d put her head on the porch to her home,” Mom said going back to the Mark II.

“Sounds like fun, I’ll head that way and help her understand how stupid she’s been,” Oricalcos said, shadows starting to flow off his body.

“See that you do,” Mom said with a wave of her hoof.

Oricalcos melted into the shadows saying, “I’ll see you in a few days sis, stay safe.”

“You too Pride,” Mom said, not even looking up from her work.

Another memory started with mom standing on a hill near a place I don’t ever remember seeing. I understood why a minute later when mom took my sleeping form off her back and gently set me down next to her. Either I slept a lot when I was younger or mom put a sleeping charm on me whenever she needed to meet with ponies. I wouldn’t put it past her to do the latter.

Mom turned as two ponies in power armor walked up to her, one I knew as soon as I saw the armor. Elder Wolfsbane stood a few feet away the ranger next to him keeping a gun trained on mom. Mom rolled her eyes, “Crackerjack do you always have to do that when we meet? I figured by now you’d have a little more trust in me.”

“It’s hard a trust a pony who doesn’t tell us about her past,” Crackerjack said.

Wolfsbane just sighed, “Crackerjack lower your weapons, Grim is correct, she’s shown us that we can trust her.”

Crackerjack did, “Yes sir, but I don’t know why you trust her so much.”

Wolfsbane ignored him and stepped out of his power armor. He looked a lot younger then when I first met him, he also didn’t have the scar over his face. He was quite handsome, if he wasn’t a back stabbing, murdering, asshole who should be thrown into the deepest darkest part of the ocean while trapped in his power armor!

“Tell me what you’ve learned,” Wolfsbane said as he walked closer to mom.

“Not much sadly. I was able to get into the old base and past both of the locks, but the control room was destroyed a long time ago. I found a few files that I was able to copy onto my Pip-Buck, but there’s nothing in them about Falling Shadows, only about a couple of projects that were scrapped,” Mom said.

Wolfsbane looked irritated, “I thought you said the information would be down there. You told me, everything about the Project was in that location.”

“No, I said it might be,” Mom retorted

“Maybe that Guardian Pony took them?” Crackerjack asked.

“He wouldn’t do that, also he doesn’t know about Falling Shadows, all he thinks that location is, is a power source for something,” Mom said.

“You know I find it interesting that every time one of us brings up this stallion, you always defend him Grim, why is that?” Wolfsbane asked.

“Because I know him, I’ve told you that already Elder Wolfsbane.”

“And yet you still won’t tell me who he is.”

“Because it doesn’t matter for the mission, he’s not a problem for us. I don’t want him getting mixed up in this.”

“He’s part of The Enclave, none of them are good ponies Grim,” Crackerjack said laughing.

Mom’s horn started to glow as she said, “You don’t’ know anything about ponies from The Enclave Crackerjack. Not all of them are bad ponies, a lot of them are better than most Steel Ranger’s I’ve met, including you!”

“Calm down Grim,” Wolfsbane said, “Either way, is there anything we can use from down there?”

“There was only one thing I could see being useful, but it might be almost impossible to make the project work.”

“And what is that?”

“It’s a project called Solar Flare, it was a weapon started by a mare called Professor Augustine. It’s a megaspell that’s part of a satellite, it uses something called a Range Finder to work. From the notes that Minuette kept on the project, it was completed. The power it should have could take out a town, but it takes twenty-four hours to recharge,” Mom said.

Wolfsbane seemed interested in that bit of information, “With that kind of fire power, I could use it to keep a lot of the factions in line. Do you know where this Ranger Finder is?”

Mom shook her head, “No, but even if I did, the Program in Halo One would have to be activated first. That’s where the program is located and where the signal is sent up to the satellite.”

“There’s always a catch, still if we could find the Range Finder, getting the program started shouldn’t be too bad. I’ll see what I can find on my end of things,” Wolfsbane said, “Anything else you need before I head out?”

“I need more resources near New Pegasus if I’m going to ever find more information out about Falling Shadows. I also need a safer place to keep Morning Star safe while I work,” Mom said.

“I had a feeling this would happen,” Wolfsbane said, “Luckily I’ve already been working on a plan for this. As you know Crackerjack here works within the Hidden Sands branch of the Steel Rangers as my eyes and ears. I’m going to have him help you get in there so they let you join them.”

“How is that going to work? They don’t just let any random Wastelander join up,” Mom asked.

“Luckily for you, the Elder of that branch is an old fool who is far to kind for an Elder. With Crackerjack’s help, you’ll be able to get in, but you’ll need to play the part of a helpless mare, but still show how smart you really are.”

Mom sighed, “If it will help me find this project sooner rather than later, then fine.”

“Good, Crackerjack will send you a message in a few days. Make sure you’re ready along with your filly,” Wolfsbane said walking back to his power armor and getting into it, “Also Grim, if you find anything out about this Solar Flare Project, I want you to tell me right away.”

Mom nodded, “Yes Elder Wolfsbane.”

“Good mare,” he said with a laugh, “Let’s go Crackerjack, I need to get back before I’m seen.”

The two turned and left without another word to mom. She waited for a long moment then picked me up with her magic while also teleporting to a place that I knew better. In the distance I could see the Lucky Horseshoe poking out from the horizon, far in the distance. She took in a deep breath, “I hope you can take a couple more of these sweetie,” then she teleported again.

She appeared near an old cave, Halo One visible now in the distance. Then she teleported one more time and now the power station was not far off. She quickly pulled me off her back and started to check my vitals. Once she was satisfied that her quick teleportation hadn’t made me sick, she walked over to an area close to the fence to the Power Station where a few rocks were poking out from the ground. She checked to make sure that no pony was watching then she used a spell to crack open one of the rocks and hollow it out.

“Let’s hope this works,” she said as she reached into her Saddle Bags and pulled out Solar Flare’s Range Finder. How the hell did she find that? Also, if she had it then why didn’t she tell Wolfsbane about it or give it to him?

She placed the Range Finder into the hollowed-out rock, then used another spell to replace the split part of the rock back over the hollowed-out part. Then she cast another spell to move sand over most of the rock, to further help hide the rock. Once she was finished she sighed then sat down next to the pile of rocks lifting her Pip-Buck and opening the broadcaster.

“Director are you there?” Mom said into the Mark II.

It took a minute but then The Director said, “I’m here Grim, what’s going on?”

Mom smiled, “Wolfsbane did just as you said, I’ll be joining the Hidden Sands Rangers soon, but I did have to tell him about Solar Flare.”

“You didn’t give him the weapon, did you?”

“No, I’ve hidden it for now. I’m going to see if I can get The Hidden Sands to take over Halo One so I can see about shutting it down for good.”

“I’m glad to hear that Grim, what else did you find while you were in the base?”

Mom’s smile grew as she used her magic to pull my sleeping form closer, “The information was there just like you said. I know what I have to do next…”

The memory faded then was replaced by one of mom yelling, “Stay down Star and keep close to me!”

Mom was attacking a manticore as it charged up the small hill she was on. The Plasma didn’t seem to do much against it, apart from make it angrier. She started to activate a spell when a huge pony in power armor slammed into the monster from the side throwing it back down the hill.

Mom looked over at him saying, “About time you showed up Crackerjack.”

“Couldn’t be helped, I had to make sure the others were able to follow my trail. You okay?” he said, sounding a lot nicer then when I knew the Steel Ranger turned Raider Boss.

“Why did you have to make it a manticore? A Ghoul hoard would have been easier.” Mom asked as she shot a blast of magic down at the monster. It ducked the attack and tried to charge them again, but Crackerjack bucked it back down the hill.

“I had to make sure Vervain and the Paladin didn’t think this was a trap.”

“And a manticore seemed like a good idea to make this not look like a trap?” Mom asked.

“Only a fool would set a trap using a manticore,” he said through his helmet.

“Well then you’re a fucking fool Crackerjack. You do realize that my daughter is here right?”

“She’ll be fine, just keep that thing from getting up here, the team shouldn’t be too far away.”

“And you’re sure they’ll help?”

“Seeing how you have that Pip-Buck and a beautiful plasma rifle and your fighting with me, yeah I’m sure,” he said as she opened fire on the manticore.

The thing just kept dodging, making slow ground toward us. Then a loud boom filled the air and one of the manticore’s paws was blasted off. The monster screamed then turned toward two other Steel Rangers who were at the bottom of the hill. The shorter one’s guns pointed up at the beast and Vervain’s voice echoed out of the helmet, “Oh shut up you ugly fuck,” then she blew it’s head off with the large gun.

The body twitched then slumped forward and slowly slid down the hill. I could feel my small body shivering in fright against mom’s left hindleg. The two Steel Rangers walked up to mom and Crackerjack, Vervain saying, “Crackerjack, what happened here? Do you know how long we’ve been looking for you?”

“Then you should have kept up,” Crackerjack said.

“Thank you ever so much for the help ma’am,” Mom said, sounding pathetic even to my ears.

Vervain looked over at mom asking, “Who are you and why are you out here alone?”

“My daughter and I are new to this area, we got lost and this kind Ranger helped us when that thing attacked,” Mom said.

The stallion next to her laughed, “Crackerjack kind? That’s a new one.”

“Fuck you,” Crackerjack said.

Vervain ignored them both saying to Mom, “You’re just lucky he showed up when he did, now if I were you I’d head toward a settlement, The Wasteland isn’t a place for a mare like you to be alone.”

“Knight Vervain, the manticore wasn’t the only reason I helped her,” Crackerjack said, “Look on her foreleg.”

The other two Steel Ranger look down at mom’s Pip-Buck, Vervain asked, “What kind of Pip-Buck is that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I…I found it on a dead mare outside of Trotston a few weeks back. I put it on, since I heard that they can help you in a fight, but now I can’t get it off,” Mom said, sounding even more pathetic.

The Stallion with Vervain pushed past her asking, “Did you say you got that near Trotston?”

Mom nodded, “Yeah a few weeks back. I figured the dead mare didn’t need it anymore. It says it’s a Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II, I was able to figure out a few things with it, I don’t think it’s a normal Pip-Buck.”

The Stallion cursed, “So Trotston does have those prototypes we read about, Elder Apple Jam was right.”

“Seems so,” Vervain said, “Miss….um…”

Mom bowed her head a little, “Grimoire Spell, but you can call me Grim if you want. This is my daughter Morning Star.”

Vervain looked at me, “Um…hello Morning Star.”

I backed behind Mom more, “She’s scary.”

Vervain reached up and took off her helmet, once she did she smiled a little, “Sometimes I have to be scary to keep the monsters away, but really I’m nice. I’m sorry that we scared you.”

“It’s…okay,” I said shyly.

Vervain looked back at Mom, “Grim huh, where are you trying to get to Grim?”

“No place right now, like I said we’re new around here,” Mom said.

“Hmmmm, you know what, that Pip-Buck seems interesting, but you said you can’t get it off right?” Vervain asked.

“I even tried to use a master Pip-Buck key but it didn’t work.”

The Stallion nudged Vervain, “Come on Knight Vervain, we don’t have time to talk. Kill the mare, take the Pip-Buck and leave the kid to fend for herself.”

Before mom could react to the coldness in the buck’s voice she rounded on him, “No, we don’t go around killing ponies because we’re in a hurry,” then she looked at Mom, “Sorry about him, anyway, since you can’t get it off and you seem to need a place to stay, how would you like to come back to Hidden Sands with us? We can provide you and your daughter a safe place to live and maybe get you some work.”

“Not a bad idea,” Crackerjack said.

“What’s the catch?” Mom asked.

Vervain smiled wide, “All I want is a chance to look over that Mark II. Do that for me and I’ll talk to our Elder about letting you stay.”

Mom looked over at Crackerjack for just a moment then said, “Deal.”

Another memory started, mom was sitting in an office I recognized, it was the one that used to belong to Elder Appleslice, but right now, it was the old kind buck who I knew when I was young, Elder Apple Jam. He was giving mom a kind smile as he said, “Vervain, says you’re quite the fighter.”

Mom just shrugged, “I’ve learned to take care of myself, but I wouldn’t say I’m much of a fighter sir.”

“Elder,” Apple Jam said.

“Sorry, Elder I mean,” Mom replied.

“It’s okay, I know it’s not easy for ponies who didn’t grow up around Steel Rangers. So, tell me Miss Spell, what brings you all the way out to the Marejave?”

“I’m looking for something to help cure my daughter, she was hurt when she was very young and suffers every day with a bad heart.”

“And what makes you think you’ll find something out here to help her?”

“I’ve done my research and I believe that an old pre-war project can be used to help her.”

“Ah I see, and have you found anything yet since you arrived?” Elder Apple Jam asked.

Mom shook her head, “No, not yet, but I’ve only been around here for a couple of weeks. Once my daughter and I are rested up, we’ll be heading toward Freedom.”

He sat back in his chair watching her as he said, “Interesting idea, though I’d think that making a sick filly travel around New Pegasus with you does sound dangerous.”

“She’ll be fine, I can’t just leave her in some random place while I search, I’m the only pony who knows the spell to keep her alive,” Mom said.

“Is it something that can be taught to another unicorn?” he asked.

“If they have the right kind of gifts for magic then yes. The spell itself isn’t difficult. Why do you ask?” Mom asked.

“I ask because I believe that it would be a good idea for you to join us. We could help keep your daughter healthy while you travel around the area looking for this project of yours.”

Mom frowned, “And why would I join the Steel Rangers? Even if I did, what do you gain?”

“A smart mare for one, also I’d like to have my scribes study that Pip-Buck of yours. Small trade to make when it comes to the safety of your daughter don’t you think?”

Mom pulled her left foreleg closer to herself, “I can’t let you have this Pip-Buck, I need it to activate the project once I find it.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“Yes, all the notes I found about the project say it was locked down with a silver Mark II. This is the only thing that can unlock it and save my daughter.”

He took a minute to think then chuckled to himself, “I must be getting old, fine how about this, once you’re done with this quest of yours then would you be willing to give us that Pip-Buck? You wouldn’t need it anymore right?”

“I guess not, though I’m starting to get rather attached to it.”

“I’m not surprised, you strike me as mare who likes knowing things.”

Mom chuckled a little, “You have no idea, before my daughter got sick I used to work with a research department in…” she stopped before she could say where she was from.

Elder Apple Jam wasn’t a stupid pony though, he looked at her with more interest than before, “You know we got reports a month or so back about a Blue Unicorn escaping The Enclave up north. Funny thing was, she had a little filly with her that was very sick.”

Mom’s heart seemed to stop, “Where did you hear something like that?”

“A report got back to us that Steel Rangers were being blamed for killing two Pegasi a little outside of Whinnieapolis. The strange thing is, Steel Rangers never venture that close to Enclave territory.”

Mom’s horn started glowing as she said, “I can’t have any pony knowing…”

He put up a hoof, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell any pony.”

Mom dropped her magic asking, “Why would you do that, Steel Rangers hate Enclave.”

“If you ran from them because you needed to save your daughter, risking death itself to do so, then I have no reason to fear you Miss Spell,” Elder Apple Jam said simply.

“So, you’ll just up and trust a mare from the Enclave? I could be a spy,” she said.

He shrugged, “I doubt that, not with a sick filly. I’ll make you a deal, work with us, become a scribe for the Steel Rangers and I’ll keep your secret about where you come from.”

“But I can’t just take a job with you and risk my daughter dying.”

“I don’t expect you too, I’ll let you keep working on finding this project, all I ask is that you let me know where you’re going when you head out. If I have a mission for you that way, then I’ll have you take care of it for us. After you’re done with your own work of course,” he said.

“I…I don’t know,” Mom said.

“Think about it this way, your daughter will be safe, fed, have a place to sleep every night. We’ll make sure she gets a good education, maybe teach her to defend herself, and there’ll be a scribe that knows that spell of yours to keep her healthy. It will free you up so you can find this Project a lot quicker.”

“You’d really do that for me?”

“I would, I couldn’t live with myself if I let a mother and her sick daughter just leave this place and later find out they died out in the wasteland when I could have done something to help her.”

Mom smiled a little, “Okay, as long as you keep your side of the deal. Also, I would like to have my Plasma Rifle back, it’s a family heirloom.”

He chuckled, “I think I can manage that. I’ll have Vervain show you around, she’s the daughter of a very good friend of mine and she loves foals. If I were you I’d make friends with her, she’s one of those friends that only comes along once in a life time.”

Mom’s smile fell a little, “I’ll try, but I think that kind of friend’s already come and gone for me.”

“Well maybe you’re lucky enough to have two of those kinds of friends,” he said with a wink.

Mom just laughed, “I guess it’s possible.”

A new memory started with mom sitting in a cave with her Pip-Buck up talking to somepony on the Mark II’s broadcaster, “So how are you liking your new job Stormy?”

“Oh, Grim you have no idea how busy their keeping me here, but I love it. Though I don’t know what I’m going to do when my leave time is up from the Crystal Empire. I’m not even sure The Director would even let me leave since I know where this place is now,” I heard Stormy’s voice say.

“She knows that you can be trusted, you’ve been there for two months now and from what I hear, you’ve been making huge strides in their projects,” Mom said leaning against the wall of the cave.

“Yes I have, I may be on to something with this whole gen three synth. They had most of the basics down, they just couldn’t seem to get the ponies they made to act like real everyday ponies.”

“That’s more your area than mine, I would have no idea how to do any of that,” Mom said with a chuckle.

“Your area has always been in magical research and new spell work. I’ve always been fascinated by robotics and the thought of androids. Though since the new generation doesn’t seem to have anything mechanical in them apart from the small chip in their heads, I’m not sure I can call them androids,” Stormy said, “I still can’t believe that you got me a position here. How did you even find them?”

“They found me, The Director somehow found out about Star and wanted to help. She also thinks I’m the only one who can find this Falling Shadows Project. Though I’m not sure how I will, so far all I’ve been able to learn is small things about this Pip-Buck. It has nothing on it about Falling Shadows though.”

“So why keep it then, Pip-Bucks are so old fashioned and tacky,” Stormy said sounding bored.

“It has it’s uses and I think this Mark II was used to lock Falling Shadows, but it could have just as easily been locked down with a lot of other Projects by EC1101.”

“What on Equus is EC1101?”

“Some program I found in some old notes of Strikers. It’s a program that moves around and can be used to unlock projects. I’ve heard it’s also referenced as The Key to Equestria,” Mom said with a sigh.

“Sounds more promising than that Mark II thing. Why not go find that?”

“It’s been lost since the war ended. Last place I think it ended up is in Hoofington, though I’m not sure where.”

“Hoofington huh, now there’s a place I’d hate to go.” Stormy said, “Anyway, enough talk about the doom and gloom of our tasks for The Ministry Grim, tell me how are you liking working with those Steel Ranger ponies?”

“It’s not so bad, I’ve made a good friend named Vervain, she’s been helping me on my quest to find Falling Shadows. Star keeps calling her Auntie Vervain, it’s cute. She’s really taking a liking to her,” Mom said with a smile.

“At least it’s not as bad as I thought. How is Star doing by the way?”

“Six months with the Rangers and getting rest has helped, I haven’t had to use the spell on her as often. Though I think it might just be a matter of time before she gets worse again,” Mom said.

“The poor little thing, I do hope you find this project soon and I hope it can fix her.”

“I do too, though once she’s better I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m sure by now there’s no way I can ever go back home. I’m not even sure if I want to at this point, I feel so much more alive since I’ve come to The Wasteland,” Mom said.

“What about Nightshade, don’t you miss him?” Stormy asked.

“Every day, but he won’t leave The Enclave, even for Star or me.”

“Well then, at least you still have me. I’ll stick by your side forever if I must,” Stormy said dramatically.

“What would I do without you Stormy?”

“You’d be a boring old mare.”

“Old?” Mom asked.

“Okay maybe not old, but still boring. But at least your cute,” Stormy teased.

“You’ll never give up with that will you?” Mom asked with a chuckle.

“If I did, you’d think I was sick or something.”

“Or finally found your wits,” Mom replied.

“Bah who needs that, life is so much more fun this way.”

The sounds of hooves stepping over gravel echoed into the cave, mom sighed, “Sounds like Vervain is back, I’ll contact you in a week or so.”

“Oh fine, now you be a good mare and stay out of trouble.”

“Good night Stormy,” Mom said with a chuckle.

“That’s Doctor Stormy now Grim, and good night, don’t worry I’ll be thinking of you as I take my shower,” she teased again then cut the connection.

Mom just chuckled and shook her head then looked toward the entrance of the cave where a pony in power armor was walking in. Vervain’s voice echoed out of the helmet, “Who where you talking too?”

“Just checking in with a contact of mine,” Mom said getting back to her hooves, “Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, that old shack definitely is more than it seems. It’s safe if you want to come check it out with me.”

“Sounds good, let’s go,” Mom said following Vervain as the memory faded away.

The new memory started with mom looking over old papers on a desk in the Steel Rangers Bunker, I was sleeping on the small bed next to hers, Vervain standing next to the desk, her power armor off. Mom looked up at her, “Are you sure this is correct?”

“As far as I know, I’m not sure how our contact got those, but he said they were in some old files in Stratus,” Vervain said, “I was lucky that the pegasus was willing to go up there and risk his life for them. Is it the information on Falling Shadows you were looking for?”

“No.”

“What! That moron couldn’t even get me the right information?” Vervain said.

“It’s okay Vervain, it’s better than okay,” Mom said as she looked over a paper titled ‘Project Stargazer A.K.A. Aquila.’

“What do you mean?”

“I was wrong the whole time, this is the project I need. I always knew that Project Falling Shadows had something to do with magic pulled down from the stars, but Stargazer is the real one I need. After looking through my notes, Falling Shadows is the project that followed a failed Project. I never found the name of the former one, but this has to be it.”

“Does that mean you can use it to help Morning?” Vervain asked.

“If the power is still trapped in the lab then yes. I found notes on how to contain star magic in one of my old books, if I go there with Morning Star, I should be able to use this power to heal her!”

Vervain hugged mom tightly, “That’s amazing Grim, I hope it will all work out. If so, be sure to get a message to me.”

Mom pulled away confused, “What do you mean? I figured with all the help you’ve given me over the past year and a half, that you’d want to come with?”

“I do, but Elder Apple Jam is sending me on an undercover mission to that Stable Laser Light found,” Vervain said.

“Stable 28? The Stable down the road from your hometown? Why does he want you to go there?” Mom asked.

“We believe that they are making new kinds of weapons and armor. One of the contacts in Cartwheel was sold one from one of the traders. He needs me to go because I’m the only pony here who’s been a Scribe and a Knight, I can protect myself and still understand what’s going on in Stable 28.”

“Damn, I was hoping you’d be with me.”

Vervain took a minute to think, “Do you know where this Project Stargazer is?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure I can find it.”

“Then let’s see what happens in the next few weeks, I’m sure I won’t be in Stable 28 for more than a few weeks. Once you find the location let me know and I’ll make sure I can work it out to help,” Vervain said.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Mom said with a smile, “Just make sure you stay safe okay?”

“I will,” Vervain said turning to leave…

Another memory started, mom was talking with Vervain as they headed toward Cartwheel, “Are you sure this mare will have the information I need? I mean she’s just a Clothes merchant.”

“Yes, but Supple Cloak used to be an explorer and scavenger when she was younger. Before she had a daughter and settled down in Cartwheel, she used to adventure all over. If anypony has the map and info on the lab, she will.”

“If you say so, I guess Morning and I will be back in a little while,” Mom said as she headed into Cartwheel.

It was hard for me to watch as mom walked through the town I grew to love. In only a few years this place would be reduced to nothing but destroyed buildings and dead ponies. Mom did her best to smile and say hello to the ponies she passed by as we walked past them heading to where Silver Snip’s shop was. I was on her back resting a little as she worked her way through town. Finally, she walked in the door and set me down saying, “Will you be okay here for a few minutes Little Star?”

“I think so mommy, my chest hurts though,” I said in a weak voice.

“I know, just relax and you’ll feel better soon,” Mom said patting my head

“Okay Mommy.”

Mom turned away from me and walked over to the mare at the counter as a little red filly walked past heading toward where I was sitting. When mom reached the counter the mare who had to be Supple Cloak, Silver Snip’s mother, looked up asking in a board tone, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to see about getting a map,” Mom said.

Supple Cloak got an irritated look to her face, “Does this look like a store the sells maps? Can you read the sign over the door? Or are you just another illiterate mare trying to get herself killed in The Wasteland?”

Mom tilted her head, “Not one for the kind shop owner act, are you?”

“I don’t have time to deal with ponies that can’t read. This is a shop for Armor, If you need that then I can help you, if not get the fuck out of my store,” Supple Cloak said.

Mom looked back at me and saw I was distracted talking to Silver Snip, then she turned back toward Supple Cloak and pulled her plasma rifle off her back, “Listen here, I know that you sell maps for places you’ve been when you were still a scavenger. I need one for that M.A.S.E.B.S. tower just outside of town. I need to know how to get up to it, where the entrance is, what to expect around the area and if you found any doors into a lab.”

She just rolled her eyes, “Please, I’m not scared of that or you. No pony would just out right kill another when their daughter was in the room.”

Mom grinned a little, “Want to risk your life on that? I’m with the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers. Vervain sent me to get this information, if you don’t do as I ask, then I’ll kill you then take it for myself. Not a lot of places in this dump to hide it.”

“Fine, whatever,” The mare said turning toward a wall safe, “Fucking Vervain going around telling strangers what I used to do.”

Mom holstered her Plasma Rifle, “So how old’s your daughter?”

“Fuck if I can remember,” Supple Cloak said as she opened the safe and pulled out a few papers.

“You don’t know how old your daughter is?” Mom asked sounding confused.

Supple Cloak turned and slammed the papers down on the desk, “I can’t remember every drunken night I opened my legs for a stallion let alone when I gave birth to a worthless child with no talent. Now that will be five thousand caps for the info then you can get out of my shop and tell Vervain to keep her muzzle shut about my maps.”

I could feel mom’s body tensing up as she said, “No child is useless,”

“First of all, it’s none of your business, second fuck you,” Supple Cloak said, “Now pay up or leave.”

I could feel mom doing her best not to draw on her magic as she took in a deep breath to calm herself, “Fine,” she tossed the caps on the counter grabbing the map.

“Hey, this isn’t the right number of caps”

My mother looked back at Supple Cloak and grinned, “I only paid you what I think you’re worth, you’re lucky you even got anything.”

“You bitch.”

Supple Cloak was about to attack mom, but mom stopped her with her magic suspending her in mid-air “No-No-No you said it yourself, ‘no pony would kill another pony with their daughter in the room,” I can feel mom’s magic make its way to Supple Cloak’s neck slightly choking her, “Just a word of advice.”

“I don’t need your advice,” she said straining to speak.

Mom tightened her hold around Supple Cloaks neck, her eyes a little bloodshot from lack of oxygen, “You’re a mother, act like it. I can see that your daughter is thin, she needs to eat more. Cartwheel is a prosperous town and I know that you have more than enough to feed her. Also, no child is useless, they have more potential than you’d ever know if you’d just treat them with a little bit of kindness. When I come back through town I better see her looking better. If not, I’ll cut off your head and feed what’s left of you to a hell hound. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

The mare’s bloodshot eyes were full of fear as she looked into mom’s grey eyes, then she nodded, “Fine, now let me go,” her voice still strained

Mom released her hold on Supple Cloak and picked up the maps and headed back toward Silver and me…

The next memory I knew all too well. I watched from Mom’s point of view as we entered Stargazer labs. It was different to see what happened from where she was and I understood why she was so scared when Aquila attacked me. One moment I was yelling at the ball of light then there was a flash of light followed by blackness blasting out of my body as Aquila purified it. From my mom’s perspective, my body floated in the air, my silver white coat turned black, my mane going silver. In an instant I went from being the sick little star that mom loved to a different pony all together.

When I passed out from the pain of having the darkness purged mom held me close to her checking to see if I was still alive. Vervain running over asking, “What happened Grim?”

“I’m not sure, but she’s breathing and I can feel hear heart beating strong.”

“What about her illness?”

Mom set me down and tried to use her light spell, like before she was able to see though me, but my heart looked healthy, not a single scrap of darkness was left, “She’s….cured.”

Vervain smiled wide, “Grim, this is amazing!”

Mom stopped her spell, but she didn’t smile or show signs of happiness, “Maybe.”

“What do you mean maybe? She’s going to be okay,” Vervain said.

“What happened to Aquila?”

“I…I don’t know,” Vervain admitted.

Mom started to use spells to look through my body, then she started to look though my memories and mind. At first there was nothing to see, then she saw it. A speck of light deep inside my mind, weak from having to hold back the darkness, but still there. Mom gasped and drew away, “She’s inside Star.”

“The creature is inside her?”

Mom nodded, “It merged with her somehow, but it’s weak for curing Morning Star, but even now I can see that it’s forcing itself deeper into her,” Mom said using another spell to try and pull Aquila out. Aquila just pushed herself deeper into me.

As mom tried to pull harder Aquila said weakly, “Try to rip me out all you want Grim, but Morning Star and I have a deal. No matter what you do, I’m a part of her now.”

“Get out of my daughter!” Mom yelled trying again to rip the creature out of my mind.

“It won’t work, all the magic on Equus can’t remove me from her now that we are one. But don’t worry, you’ll have a few years to enjoy your time with her before I take over,” Aquila said vanishing inside the depths of my mind.

Mom slammed her hoof down on the table, “DAMN!”

Vervain looked scared, “What happened Grim?”

“I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out. Get back to the Stable, I’ll be there soon.”

“You’re still going to Stable 28?” Vervain asked.

“Yes, I need a clinic so I can look over Morning Star and make sure she’s okay, then I need time to research everything I can about this place and what they wanted here. Just get me into the Stable so I can do what I need to, I’ll make sure to also take care of your problem with the ponies there.”

“Okay, just be careful,” Vervain said as she turned to leave the lab.

Mom waited for her to go then she turned back toward my limp form, “I’ll find a way to get you out Aquila, but for now I have time, first I need to destroy what’s left of this place.”

Mom picked me up with her magic, then started drawing zebra glyphs and magical circles around the lab. Once she was done, she took everything she could from the lab so she could look at them later. With that finished she walked out of the room and activated a spell. Right as it started to go off and the magical circles started to glow, she shut the door behind us. As mom slowly walked up the steps, a muted boom echoed from the lab. Mom never even flinched or looked back.

A new memory started again, I was starting to wonder how many more there were and why they mattered so much, when I noticed that mom was running down the dark tunnel toward Stable 28’s door. When she reached it, she started pounding on the door yelling, “I need help please, my daughter was attacked out here and she needs a doctor!”

She kept banging on the door then moved over to the switch that opened the large door and started pushing the small button that activated an intercom, “Please somepony help me, she’s hurt.” She pulled back a little whispering to herself, “Come on Vervain…don’t leave me out here.”

Finally, a mare’s voice echoed out of the intercom, “Who is this and how did you find this stable?” It sounded like the Overmare, not the one I grew up with, but her mother.

“I found it by chance, I was lost on the road, got chased by ghouls into Green Mist Valley, my daughter started having problems breathing then passed out. I ran for the closest cave to hide from the Ghouls and saw the Stable door. I’m begging you, she’s all I have.” Mom pleaded, I was kind of amazed how good of an actor she was. If I didn’t know she planned this with Vervain, I’d have thought it was real.

Then I heard Vervain like she was standing next to the Overmare, “Overmare, if she has a filly we can’t just turn her away.”

“We don’t normally let in strange mares,” The Overmare said through the intercom.

“I know Overmare, but you did let me in and I’ve proved helpful. Maybe she can be as well,” Vervain responded.

Mom banged her hoof on the intercom, “If she doesn’t get help she’ll die, I’ll do anything, please!”

“I’m sorry, but our Stable can’t risk it, you’ll have to leave. If you head back to the road there’s a town not…Vervain what are you doing!” The Overmare yelled.

A moment later the stable door started to pull out of its slot and opened. As soon as it started to open mom brought the Mark II up and started going through the screens. She went to one I hadn’t noticed on it before, she did it so fast I barely noticed what she was doing. The next thing I knew she pulled the master key out of her saddle bags then said to her Pip-Buck, “Shine Bright!” the Mark II unlocked and a moment later she was stowing it in her saddle bags right as the door finished opening.

Mom ran for the open door and was only stopped by three security ponies, behind them was The old Overmare and Vervain up by the control switch. The Overmare who I remembered as being kind if a bit lazy like her daughter, looked pissed, “Vervain, how dare you open the door!”

Vervain looked over at the Overmare, “Yell at me later, but I’m not going to let a mare and her filly die out there.”

“This is my Stable Vervain not yours!” then she looked at my mom, “You’ll have to leave.”

Mom’s horn glowed and a moment later the rifles and battle saddles on the security ponies were ripped away and being held over mom’s head, “I’m not going to do anything, but I’m not letting you send me into the wasteland again until a doctor looks at my DAUGHTER!”

The Overmare looked down at mom then at me passed out on her back, her eyes going soft, “How bad is she?”

“I’m a researcher and magical specialist not a doctor I have no idea. But she’s been out for hours now. Please I’m begging you,” Mom pleaded.

The security ponies all looked up at The Overmare and Vervain, one asking, “What’s our orders Overmare?”

I saw Vervain nod her head at mom almost like she was trying to tell mom to do something. Mom must have understood because while the security ponies were looking away from mom, she cast a spell, right at the Overmare. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, while they did, another Security Pony asked, “You okay Madam Overmare?”

She shook her head then looked at Vervain, “Didn’t you tell me that when you went out last you ran into a Unicorn that helped you escape an attack?

Vervain nodded, “That’s right, she was the only reason I survived even if my escort didn’t. I didn’t catch her name though.”

Mom looked up at Vervain, “Wait you’re that mare who I helped the other day aren’t you? The one who was attacked by that manticore, near Cartwheel?”

The Overmare looked back at mom, her eyes were still a little unfocused as she said, “Let her in and get her to the clinic, keep an eye on her, but make sure her daughter gets the help she needs. I’ll be along shortly after I talk to Vervain so I can talk to this mare more.”

One of the Security Ponies asked, “You’re going to just let a…Unicorn into our STABLE!?”

“We can’t let a filly die because we’re too scared to let in a unicorn. Now do as you’re told!”

They all nodded and mom gave them back their weapons. A mare nodded her head toward the Atrium just beyond them, “Follow me ma’am, we’ll see that you’re taken care of, just don’t let me catch that horn glowing. Do that and we’ll keep our weapons off you.”

“Thank you so much,” Mom said as she walked up the steps as Vervain closed the Stable door. When she joined the Security Ponies mom took one last look at Vervain who nodded with a slight smile.

Before they could get past the door however, The Overmare asked mom, “What’s your daughter’s name?”

When mom looked at The Overmare I could see that she was looking at my sleeping form on mom’s back, “Mor…I mean Shadow…Shadow Star…”

There were definitely a lot of memories to go through, but I couldn’t understand what my mom wanted me to see. The next memory showed mom in the Clinic with Doc, he was standing in one corner cowering as red magic flew through the room, destroying interments and his tools. In the middle of the room I was standing there my eyes glowing red as magic exploded from my horn and a voice not my own laughing, “So much Power inside this one!”

Mom had a magical Shield up as she slowly pushed toward me, “Aquila!”

I…or I guess Aquila looked over at mom, “Grim, what do you think you can do to stop me!? Your daughter let me in you fool, Stupid child thought she could make a deal with me. I would have lived up to it, but she just can’t seem to pull herself out of her dark memories, or the pain she felt for so long.”

“Let my daughter go!” mom yelled pushing closer, “You’re still weak, I can tell, I have enough magic to overpower you!”

“OH really!” Aquila said, “And what makes you think that?”

“I just know I can,” Mom said, but she sounded scared.

Aquila laughed louder, “You can’t do anything to me Grim, her body is now mine! That’s the deal she made with me, she made the deal to keep me from killing you, funny how the tables turn isn’t it?”

Mom pushed a little closer again as the doctor started to cry, “What is that thing!?”

Mom ignored him, “What deal? What were the terms?”

Aquila cocked my head to one side as if she was considering answering the question, then she smiled again, “She’d let me into her mind and body so I could heal her, in return I promised to let you live and I’d give her five to ten years to enjoy her time with you before I took over.”

“If that’s true then why are you taking over now!?”

“Because I CAN!”

Mom narrowed her eyes, “You made a deal and you should keep it Aquila, let my daughter have her time.”

“Why, so you can try to find a way to pull me out of her?” Aquila said.

“You say that like there’s a way to do it,” Mom said with a small smile.

“There’s not! Not unless I choose to leave her.”

Mom started walking around Aquila, “How about I make you a deal Aquila, take my body, leave this Stable and do what you want with me, but let my Daughter live.”

The magic coming out of me stopped as Aquila looked at mom with a little amusement. Then she stepped closer to mom until my face was an inch away, “Sorry, but your body couldn’t handle my power. You’ve damaged it too much with using that magic of yours.”

Mom blinked and took a step back, “What do you mean?”

Aquila chuckled, “I felt it when I was going to take you over at that lab. I thought a mare like you would have noticed it Grim. Mixing your unicorn magic and Zebra Magic is a bad combination. It’s slowly destroying your body, little by little.”

Mom looked down at her body then sighed, “It doesn’t matter, I know I can still handle you being inside of me. Please, let my daughter go.”

“If I took your body Grim, you’d be destroyed and so would I. My life is tied to the host, so if you really want to get rid of me, you’ll have to kill your daughter, because that’s the only way I’m leaving,” Aquila said laughing again as she backed away.

“What if I can get you your own body!” Mom yelled desperately.

Aquila cocked my head again, “I have a body now, I don’t need another. Your daughter is the perfect fit.”

“I mean a body of your own, my friend Stormy works with The Ministry, they are working on making a new kind of Synthetic Pony, one that is almost indistinguishable from a real pony.”

“That’s not possible. And I never want to deal with any Ministry again,” Aquila said.

“It’s not the Ministry’s from the war, it’s just a name they gave themselves. They have been creating pony like robots for decades if not longer, now they are close to making almost a real pony. If I can get you a body of your own, would you leave my daughter?” Mom asked.

Aquila shook my head, “If you even could do that, I’m sure that it wouldn’t happen for a few years. By the time you were able to get this body for me, it would be too late. Soon I will be bonded with your daughter so deeply that only deep magic could pull us apart. Even if you could do magic like that, you’d most likely kill us both along with yourself. So, no Grim, I won’t leave her.”

Mom sighed, “Then you leave me no choice,”

“What do you mean?” Aquila said.

Mom’s horn started to glow at the same time Doc started yelling for help. First mom turned toward him and used a knock out spell on him, then she twisted back on Aquila, “I’ll make sure you can’t take my daughter over for a LONG TIME,” Magic circles appeared all over the room, surrounding Aquila.

“Grim, you can’t do anything to…” Aquila started to say then her voice was cut off as the magic circles started to glow brightly.

Mom’s horn glowed brighter as she said in a deep voice filled with power, “I’ll trap you deep inside my daughter’s head and keep you there until I can find a way to remove you from her.”

My eyes went wide as Aquila tried to say something, but she couldn’t. There was a flash of blinding light, then Aquila was gone, leaving me to fall to the ground. Mom collapsed when the spell was finished, she looked over at my sleeping form saying, “Even if it kills me, I will make sure you live, My Little Star,” then the memory ended.

The next one found Mom laying in a bed Vervain sitting next to her saying, “Grim, are you feeling any better?”

Mom replied in a weak voice, “Better then yesterday yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that spell would hurt you so much?” Vervain said.

“I didn’t know it would be that bad, but at least it worked. Everypony has forgotten that you ever came from the outside. I may have to do a little work to make sure the spell holds, but at least we’re safe,” Mom said.

“Grim, most of your mane’s turned grey and you look like you aged a couple years at least!”

“I’ll be fine, I just need rest. What’s happening with The Overmare and our situation?”

“Thanks to your spell she thinks I’ve always been the Administrator of Stable 28, they are calling me Auntie now and she was willing to talk with me about you staying. She thinks it would be a good idea if you stay here and help with R&D,” Vervain said.

Mom sighed, “I can live with that, make sure you let Elder Apple Jam know we are on track. In R&D I can find out what this Stable is really doing and it will give Shadow time to heal.”

“Still sounds strange to call her Shadow,” Vervain said.

“I know, but its more fitting now.”

“I guess you’re right,” Vervain said thoughtfully, “So what are you going to do now, she’s still not awake.”

“I know, I’ve been keeping her asleep while I block her memories,” Mom said.

“What!” Vervain said in surprise, “Why are you doing that?”

“While I was caging Aquila, she started hiding herself in Shadows memories, so I have to block them. Also, Shadow keeps having nightmares even in her enchanted sleep. I’m not blocking them forever, just long enough for her to heal and grow up some. One day she’ll be able to handle the memories, but for now I need her to have as normal of a life as she can,” Mom said.

“She’s not going to know who she is or where she’s from Grim. She may not even be the same filly if all her memories are gone.”

“I know, but I’m being careful, she’ll be okay I’m sure of it,” Mom said.

“I hope so Grim, I really do,” Vervain said as the memory faded.

The next memory I was expecting to be more of the Stable, but mom thought I didn’t need to see what she was up to in the stable more than the beginning stuff. This memory was years later, because she was talking to Striker just outside a city that looked like it was made from a nightmare. In the distance, past green clouds and misty rain stood a city surrounded by walls, a huge tower in its center. Even in mom’s memory I felt like something was wrong with the place, almost like evil lived in that dead looking place.

“How did you find me Grim?” Striker said. He hadn’t been burnt yet, not like when I met him the other day, but the years since he left The Enclave took its toll. He looked twenty years older, his bright coat was now dull, his mane was cut short and his eyes had a hard look to them.

“It took some time and a lot of bribes and information gathering, but nopony can hide forever,” Mom said.

“I hope that my brother isn’t with you. I’d hate to kill two ponies today that I used to care about!” Striker said.

“Nightshade isn’t here Striker, only me,” Mom replied.

“Or so you say, still why are you here Grim?”

“I need to know if you know anything else about Falling Shadows. You’re the only pony I know who’s been able to dig up most of its secrets.”

He rolled his eyes, “You traveled all the way to Hoofington just to ask me that? Go home Grim, before I decide to shoot you.”

Mom frowned and said in a harsh voice, “Don’t do that to me Striker.”

He looked back at her, “Do what!?”

“Don’t cast me aside because your mad that I married your brother.”

He got angry as well, “And why shouldn’t I? You betrayed me when you decided to jump into his bed after I was gone Grim.”

“Betrayed you! You broke my heart Striker, you are the one who left without telling me why,” Mom yelled.

“I had to! If I didn’t break it off with you, the Enclave would have taken you in when I left. I couldn’t just ask you to run away with me Grim, you had a good life going, I didn’t want to make it worse!”

“OH, so you thought that insulting me would be better!” Mom said.

“I didn’t want too, but it was the only way to keep you safe. I was going to come back when things settled down and explain everything to you, but when I did I saw you with HIM!” Striker said, his voice rising.

“I would have left everything behind for you Striker, back then I loved you. I didn’t just go out and get with Nightshade just to piss you off. He was there for me when you weren’t, he was kind to me, he helped me get over you. I fell in love with him because he was there!” Mom yelled tears rolling down her face.

“So, let me guess, my little brother needs help understanding what Falling Shadows is all about huh? What does he want with it, because he can’t use it, no pony can, not without the Key,” Striker said.

“Nightshade has no idea where I am! I haven’t been home in YEARS Striker!”

That seemed to take him by surprise, “Really? Then where is your daughter, I heard you had a foal some years back.”

I could feel Mom’s chest tighten as she said, “She died.”

Striker seemed to calm down some as he said, “I…didn’t know, I’m sorry Grim.”

“She died, because I didn’t know everything about another project that I’m sure you know about, Stargazer.”

Strikers eyes went big as he said, “How did you find anything about Stargazer?”

“I have my ways, but because of a monster called Aquila, Star died and it escaped. Now I’m trying to find Falling Shadows so I can use its power to destroy her!” Mom said, “Now tell me what you know.”

Striker looked sick as he said, “Grim, you have no idea what Falling Shadows is.”

“Then tell me.”

He sighed, “It was first made to make Luna into Nightmare Moon again only with control of her power. That was what Stargazer was for, but the project failed and created Aquila.”

“I know that much,” Mom said, “Luna had the program shut down, but Night Stalker had Minuette keep the Lab accessible just in case they could use it later. They used the information they got from making Stargazer to start Falling Shadows.”

“Yes and no, Stargazer is the Key to Falling Shadows. Night Stalker wanted to make sure the project worked so he had his team along with Stable Tec expand on the idea, but made sure that Aquila’s power was the only thing that could make it work. It can do one of two things, either take her power and transfer it to a pony who can handle its power to make them powerful. Or it can pull the rest of the power from the stars that made Aquila and give it to the body she’s in,” Striker said.

“I also believe that it can be used to give that power from the stars to make a pony as powerful as she is.”

“It’s possible, but most likely the pony would die from it,” he said, “It doesn’t matter anyway, because no pony can use the project ever since it was locked down.”

“I know, by the Mark II.”

Striker looked shocked again, “How did you…”

“I know a lot Striker, I don’t care about your warnings, I need to know where the towers are and which one was locked down,” Mom said, “And don’t bull shit me, I’m not in the mood.”

He sighed, “Fine, but once I tell you I want you to leave.”

“Fine with me,” Mom said coldly.

“There are 4 towers, one in The Badlands I’m not sure where, one in Baltimare, one’s in the middle of The Crystal Empire, and the last I think is The Lucky Horseshoe in New Pegasus,” Striker said.

Mom smiled a little, “Good, thanks for the information Striker. I’ll let you get back to your sad life,” she turned to leave.

Striker chuckled, “You know even if you could find The Mark II to unlock Falling Shadows, it won’t work.”

Mom slowly turned back toward him, “What do you mean?”

“Night Stalker did something to the Project the day that he disappeared. I never found out what, but his last recorded act was him attacking The Crystal Empire and locking down the tower there so that even if somepony found the Mark II’s the Project still couldn’t be used. Have fun trying to use the power it has Grim, because no matter what you do, it won’t work,” he said flapping his wings to fly up a little, “Oh and thank you for telling me about Aquila getting free, it’s been awhile since I’ve had good information on something like her. If she’s in a host, then the best way to kill Aquila, the only other key to Falling Shadows, is by killing the host.”

Mom’s eyes went wide as she started to activate her magic, “Striker WAIT!”

“Say hello to Nightshade when you see him again and fuck you GRIM!” he said flying away before mom could do anything to stop him.

“NO…I can’t let you…Dammit Striker,” Mom said as she stomped the ground.

The memory faded and again another memory took its place to find mom sitting by her shack watching as none other than Stardust flew away, his old Pip-Buck in her magical grip, “What a nice young Stallion, shame I’m going to have to tell Stormy where he is.”

A shadow pulled away from the shack behind her and Oricalcos was standing next to her, “I don’t understand why you didn’t let me take him out.”

“In time brother, we need still him.”

“For what?” My uncle asked.

“Stormy said that he’s the key to making her project work. If she’s right with her help and The Ministry, we can finally free Stratus and Nimbus from Neighvarro,” Mom said.

“And here I thought you didn’t care about The Enclave anymore sis.”

She sighed, “I care about it, but it’s sick and needs to be fixed. Why do you think I came back and gave all the information I had on The NLR, The Steel Rangers and The Romans to them? I need them to trust me, that’s why they put me in charge of The Sins.”

“I guess, but I’d still like to kill him, Stardust can be a lot of trouble if he’s not put in his place,” Oricalcos said.

“I know, but he’ll come around and if he doesn’t we always have plan B. Anyway, did you get the information I asked for?” Mom asked.

He looked over at mom, “Yeah, it looks like things are moving into place. I took care of Stormy for you and got her out of the Crystal Empire like you asked. She was able to confirm before she left that the last tower’s entrance is where you figured it was.”

“So, the entrance is in the Forgotten Library?”

“Looks like it, but no pony can get in. Its location isn’t hard to find in the Library, but it’s got a genetic code lock. One that I think Night Stalker made to only work for him.”

“Shit, so that means the only his decedents could get in,” Mom said.

He nodded, “Yep, it’s a good thing that his only two living decedents don’t know about it. But it makes it impossible for us to get in, not unless we force Nightshade or Striker to unlock it for us.”

Mom sighed, “That would be hard, dammit.”

Oricalcos sighed as well and leaned down to hug his sister, “If Star was still with us, she could have done it.”

Mom hugged him back, “I know, still we will find a way to make this work. You should go, make sure Envy is back in Cartwheel, I need him watching for that mare I told you about.”

“Are you really sure this mare will leave the Stable? Also, are you sure she has the Mark II?” he asked.

“Trust me Brother, I made sure everything is in place. Before I left that Stable I made sure that mare would find her way out. She’ll have the Pip-Buck on her as well, just make sure we take her in alive. I don’t want her harmed.”

He smiled, “I’ll do my best sis,”

As he teleported away mom sighed then looked down at her own Stable 28 Pip-Buck. She hooked it up to Stardust’s old one, and transferred all her data over to it, then she used her master key to remove her own then she put on Stardust’s. Once she was done she pulled out a recording and stuffed in it in the middle of the foreleg hole. When she was done she teleported right next to the tree not far from her shack. She then placed her Pip-Buck in the tree, on the same branch I found it in later.

“Let’s just hope that you are able to track this Pip-Buck down Shadow,” she sighed again and turned to head back to her shack, “It’s almost time for you to leave, I just need to make it a little longer. I miss you so much…My Little Star.”

The memory shifted again and I found my mother walking into Crossroads Trading Post. After trading a few apparently useless items for some caps, she was approached by a familiar face.

“You’re not very smart,” the familiar voice said.

Mom bocked at the remark, “Excuse me? Wait, what the hell?” she said to the robot Serendipity.

“My apologies,” she said as she raised her voice, “I said that you are not very smart!”

“I’m not deaf you spring-loaded piece of scrap metal! Why are you saying I’m not smart?” Mom retorted.

“Actually, I’m not spring-loaded, I’m operated by a series of gears, sprockets, and circuit boards. Hence the reason you are not smart and are very poorly preceptive. I’d say it floats around two on the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. scale. However, that’s not the only reason you’re not smart.”

“What’s the other reason?” Mom interrupted.

“The path you’re following will lead to only pain, misery, and quite possibly your eventual death. It’s been calculated down to the last tenth of a second, you will ultimately fail in your mission.”

Mom looked annoyed, “Don’t you have an owner to go piss off or something?”

Serendipity cocked her head, “No, I don’t have an owner. However, I usually have a group of ponies following me, but I’m between cults right now because the last group refused to listen when I told them not to follow me through a minefield. I can predict where the mines are, but I can’t predict where all of them are. Plus, there’s an extremely slight chance that I might be wrong. The only survivor was Intricate Touch, and that’s because he was pretty much next to me the whole time.”

Mom rubbed between her eyes with a hoof, “I’m being told that everything I’ve spent years doing is a waste by a robot with a cult following,” she sighed, “Is there anything I can do to prevent the…”

“No, most likely not. Even if I told you the way to fix everything, you wouldn’t remember anyway,” Serendipity interrupted.

“Won’t remember? Why wouldn’t I remember?” Mom asked.

“If I told you that, there’s an enormous probability that the very fabric of reality will be torn apart by the rupturing of the time-space continuum. Although, you will eventually forget me and the things I’ve told you,” Serendipity replied.

“What exactly are you?”

“I am a self-sustaining crusader mainframe,” Serendipity said simply.

“HA! Doubt it. If you were a crusader mainframe, The Steel Rangers would’ve tracked you down and done stuff to you for experimentation purposes,” Mom said.

“Due to my predictability matrix, I can avoid contact with The Steel Rangers.”

“Uh huh, sure. Did you program yourself to tell me that I’m making bad choices in life and that no matter what I do I can’t stop?” Mom asked.

“Actually, I’m not here to talk to you, I’m here to talk to the pony watching you. I’m not going to see her for another few months and by the time I do see her, it won’t be a good time to tell her what I need to.”

“I made sure I wasn’t followed, I seriously doubt there’s anyone watching me,” Mom retorted.

Serendipity smiled, “Like I said before, not smart. I’m referring to the pony watching the memory of our encounter. It’s imperative that you put this into your memory bank when you get back to your bunker in the shack.”

“I’d ask how you know about my shack, but you’d just make another quip about me being some sort of idiot. I’d also tell you about the impossibility of someone finding where I live, but there’d be a quip about that too,” Mom said angrily.

“She needs to know that in a short time, evil will prevail, and that she shouldn’t be around anyone that she cares about. The time will be short, but without the presence of evil afterward, she will survive. However, she won’t survive if she doesn’t heed the warnings of the pony who holds the virtue of avarice,” Serendipity said plainly.

Mom smirked, “What book did you download that one from?”

“It wasn’t a book, it was a message to Shadow Star.”

“How do you know my daughter? Don’t tell me she’s one of your followers,” Mom asked.

“No, she isn’t. She actually has a similar reaction to yours when she meets me,” Serendipity interrupted.

“The evil you were talking about, that must be that arrogant creature Aquila. I thought I did my best to protect Shadow from the evil bitch, and who is this pony of avarice? By the way that’s not a virtue.”

“I can’t tell you who the pony is, but avarice can be a virtue in its own way. I also can’t say for sure that the evil is Aquila or not. Time is like waves in the ocean, it changes and fluctuates in unique patterns that change with every decision. Each pony has their own unique timeline that tells a story of their life, some are just more interesting than others,” Serendipity replied.

“So, my story is boring?”

“No, it’s just too tragic,” Serendipity replied simply, “I dislike tragic stories that I can’t do anything about,”

“I know…trust me I know…is there anything else you need to tell my daughter?”

“Just that sometimes timber-wolves can be the wisest of creatures and that blue flowers aren’t very funny,” Serendipity said.

“Can I go home now? The way you talk makes my head hurt.”

“I emit a type of radiation that could be causing that or it could be because I’m technically breaking one of the laws of time and space to send a message. Time is very delicate and in this case your head is where the memory is currently being stored which is the source of the law break. If it’s stressed too much it could cause a singularity or just make your head burst like a microwaved chicken egg,” Serendipity explained.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Mom said annoyed.

“I can’t tell you if you can go because you have free-will and can leave at any time.”

Mom just turned and started to walk away as the memory started to fade, and just before it ended I heard Serendipity say, “Beware of the pony in the leather jacket Grimoire.”

The memory faded and another started in its place. It was mom looking in the mirror in this bunker again. She looked so tired as she spoke, “Now I hope you can understand a little of why I did what I had to do Shadow. As you can see, I had to lie, cheat, steal, kill and much more to make sure you lived. My life has been hard with only small bits of light and happiness in it. Most parents would have taken the news that their child was going to die as hard, but they would have dealt with it by praying or crying over something they can’t fix. I couldn’t do that, all I ever wanted in life was to be happy and to be a mother. When I lost my first two foals, I thought I’d never get to be a mom. Then you came into our life and you were the light in my darkness.”

She took a deep breath holding back tears, “When you got sick, I didn’t let it stop me from trying to find a way to make sure you lived a long life. I did anything I could, to find a way to keep you alive and when I finally found a way to cure you, it was like the Goddesses were punishing me, because you went from being sick and almost dying to having a monster living inside you. I did what I could to keep her from taking over, but there’s only so much my magic can do. I wanted to find Falling Shadows because I know its power can remove Aquila from you. Now, if I’m dead then I’m sure that even that can’t be done. If you were to use Falling Shadows it would only make Aquila more powerful and Equus would suffer because of it. So, you’ll only be left with two choices. You’ll need to find my friend Dr. Stormy, she should be at the Ministry, she’s there most of the time. Go to The Equestrian Bank around Midnight and look for a pony that looks like your uncle. He’s a synth named C-054, he’s a friend and he can help you get in. The Director and Dr. Stormy will help you. They can get Falling Shadows activated and Stormy has the power to handle its magic. She will be able to remove Aquila and destroy her for good.”

Mom shifted then wiped her eyes, “Stormy is the only one who can help, but once Aquila is out of you, make sure you destroy Falling Shadows, because not long ago I found information about something else the Project can do. I can’t tell you on here just in case this place is ever found. Let me just say that if its other power is used it will make Aquila look like a light rain storm compared to a hurricane when it comes to its power. But, if something’s happened to Stormy or if you feel Aquila about to take over for good, then…as much as I hate to say it, you’ll have to end your own life.”

Mom started to cry again, “I hope it doesn’t come to that My Little Star, but if it’s the last choice then you have to, because she can’t get free. I’m sorry Shadow, this is all my fault, I tried so hard to keep you from living such a bad life, but I failed, like I always do. So, go out there, finish what I started and live… if you don’t, I’ll see you in the afterlife. I love you My Little Star, more than you’ll ever know.”

I wanted so bad to reach through this memory and hold my mom close and tell her that it was okay. I understood now why she tried so hard to keep me alive, why she gave up so much for this one goal. But I couldn’t, and as the last memory faded I realized another truth from the memory with my uncle. I’m not just descended from one Child of the Night, Minuette. No, If what mom said was true in that memory and others I’ve seen, my father’s line came from Night Stalker and Lightning Dust. I have the bloodlines of three Children of the Night in me. No wonder I’ve been so drawn to Night Stalker and his team, it wasn’t because of mom looking into them. I’ve been drawn to them since before I knew about Falling Shadows or Stargazer, because I am a descendant of the Monster who helped Create Falling Shadows, who helped make Aquila, who helped found The Enclave and cut Pegasi off from the Wasteland. No wonder Aquila chose to make a deal with me, I’m descended from a monster just like her. Right as I realized this another thing hit me from that last memory. Dread filled me as I realized that the only other pony apart from mom who could help me get Aquila out, was Dr. Stormy, the mare I killed in Mill City Tower. Mom’s best friend since they were foals, a mare that tried to tell me something about my father and family before I cut her throat in my anger. Mom was wrong, I only had one choice left to make about what to do with Aquila. I had to die…Soon.

oooOOOooo

The pod opened as I slowly opened my eyes, my body was sore from laying for so long in the pod, but I didn’t feel hungry or thirsty. I saw why a second later when the machine pulled a few needles and tubes from my foreleg and out of my muzzle. I gagged along with Wind Thrasher who was just waking up in the pod next to me. After a moment passed I asked her, “How long do you think we were in there?”

She rasped back, “No idea, I’m still trying to make sense of all of that. Your mom had a hard life Shadow, but she loved you so much.”

“I had no idea how hard it was, Mom never talked about her family apart from my Uncle,” I said slowly getting out of the pod, my joints popping, “Where is everyone?”

She got out of her own pod looking around as her ears started moving back and forth, “Sounds like they’re upstairs,” then she looked back at me, “Shadow the last memories, do you think it’s true? That your related to…”

“Night Stalker? From what mom said I’m guessing it’s true, she hasn’t been wrong yet about her side of the family. So, I’m sure she’s right about Dad’s.”

“You really didn’t know?” she asked.

“No, dad never talked about his family either. When I was young he cared more about telling me stories about monsters and hero’s, not about where he came from. But let’s forget it for right now, let’s find out what’s been going on while we were out,” I said as I headed toward the stairs.

“Okay, but we should talk about this. Your mom said that you have to deal with Aquila soon,” Wind Thrasher said as she followed me.

“I know, but right now I want to see how long we were out…” I was cut off as Wingnut came running down the stairs.

He looked panicked as he said quickly, “Perfect, you two are finally out of that thing!”

I stretched then said, “Yeah, how long were we out?”

“Three days…” he said still looking like he was in a hurry, “But we can talk about that later, you need to get up here quickly!”

“What, why?” I asked.

“What happened?” Wind Thrasher asked at the same time.

“We have a guest,” Wingnut said running back up the stairs saying, “Hurry, before Aura kills him!”

Wind Thrasher and I looked at each other then back at Wingnut who was running back up, we followed the colt as quick as our bodies would allow. When we reached the top, I saw what had him worried. Stardust was pointing his rifle at the lift, Aura holding her spear and Byte looking a little scared, all because of one Stallion standing in the doorway a bloody grin on his face. He saw me and his grin only got bigger. At first, I couldn’t tell what was all over the Blue pegasus until I got closer and saw that Greed was covered in cuts and covered in blood. He had two bullet wounds in him, and one ear was cut in half, his eyes lacked their normal bright cheeriness I was used to seeing on him.

When I got closer to my friends Greed said weakly, “Hey there Shadow…mind telling your friends to calm down some. As much as I like a good fight, I reckon I’m not in any condition to properly defend myself.”

I looked at them saying, “Stardust, Aura lower your weapons, Greed’s on our side!” when they did, both looking confused I started to run toward him, “Greed what happened to you?”

He just chuckled then spat blood onto the polished floor, “There’s a good filly, and I ain’t Greed anymore. Cloak made sure of that, as for what happened…The Old Pride’s back…and he’s pissed. I think you all should run…”

“Greed what are you saying? My Uncle wouldn’t hurt me, now tell me what happened,” I said as I got close to him.

He just laughed again, “Didn’t you hear? I ain’t Greed no more, Greed’s dead!” then he fell forward, passing out in a growing pool of his own blood.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Tragic Magic: You like to put your body under a lot of stress, don’t you? Due to your prolonged exposure to the radiation pouring into your brain from the memory machine, you now gain the ability to make strangers relive their most traumatic memories. However magic always comes with a price, you’ll also lose a small part of your soul when casting this spell.

Chapter 52: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

“I didn’t steal anything from that fat slob apart from his daughters’ heart, all three of them truth be told.”

I ran over to Greed as he fell forward, “Shit, Greed are you okay?” he didn’t respond.

“How did he even get like this, I thought his armor kept him safe?” Wingnut asked as he slowly moved closer to the fallen pegasus.

“Some magic and weapons can hurt him, but not much else.” I said as I looked him over.

“What should we do with him?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“I don’t know, probably pick him up off the floor, maybe get him to one of the rooms so Aura can look him over,” I said trying to lift him with my magic.

“I don’t know Shadow, he’s a Sin, I say let him bleed out,” Aura said.

“Oh shut up and help me get him to a bed,” I said turning toward the others, “Wind Thrasher, you and Stardust fly up the lift shaft and go stand guard at the door to the shack, there’s a good chance he was followed.”

Aura and Wingnut helped me carry him over to Minuette’s room and lay him down. I took a healing potion out of my saddle bags and poured it in his mouth as Aura pinched his nose to make him reflexively swallow. Some of his wounds started to heal before my eyes and I could see his face relax as if the pain was fading.

“So, what makes you think he’s on our side?” Aura asked, “I mean, you said he helped you after Silver died, but since then he hasn’t really done anything helpful. He hasn’t even sent you any intel on the Sins or warned you about where they’re at. He could be a spy.”

“Let’s just say that there are really good reasons that I can’t quite explain right now. He’s helped me in the past and I’m sure it’s because he’s obsessed with me, but there’s a chance that it’s because under all that sinful greediness, he’s one of the good guys. Well, one of the good guys who also happens to be a klepto,” I replied, “Anyway, could you get me a clean rag with some water on it so I can clean some of this blood off of him?”

She smirked a little, “I’m not sure how clean it’s gonna be but…”

“Just get something please,” I interrupted.

“Just get the rag, nag-nag-nag-nag-nag,” she mocked as she went to go get it, “At least now we know who’s the girl in this relationship.”

I just rolled my eyes but couldn’t help a smile a little, “Sure we do.”

“So…is that really one of the Seven Sins of Equinity?” Byte asked from the door.

Looking back at her I nodded, “Yeah, his name is Greed, but he’s really not a bad pony or anything…well he is a bad pony I guess, but not like the others.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, he’s helped me out a couple times in the past. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have gotten a message my mare-friend Silver left for me when she died. I think her death was too much for him, I think she helped him find a better side of himself,” I said as I turned back to Greed, checking his wounds. From what I could tell, they weren’t very bad, he’d just lost a lot of blood from all the cuts.

Byte and Wingnut moved closer to me, Byte asking, “You’ve talked about Silver before. How did she die?”

For a moment, an image flashed across my eyes. Silver laying in that small room, holes poked through her body, mostly dried blood covering her body and the carpet, her horn snapped off and lying next to her. I shook my head, “Pride…Oricalcos, my uncle killed her. This was before he knew who I was, she was taken as a hostage so The Sins could force me to give them my Mark II.”

“So, your uncle, who used to be Pride, the same pony who killed my mother, killed your mare-friend. He was traveling with you for a while too right? How did you forgive a monster like him for what he did to you?” Byte asked.

Wingnut added, “Yeah Shadow, I’ve been wondering about that too. Why did you forgive Oricalcos for killing Silver? You never gave us a reason. One day silver died because of him and the next day… Poof! He was just there and you said we can trust him.”

I sighed and looked at the two young ponies, “Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him for killing Silver. I’m not sure I ever can. My uncle has done a lot of evil things in his life, most of it to help my mother, but with my memories back, I remember him being a fun pony, somepony who always wanted to make sure I was doing ok. He used to sneak into our house sometimes when mom and dad went to bed and read me stories to help me sleep.”

“So, you can’t see past the stallion he used to be or something?” Byte asked.

“It’s not that, I think it’s more that I can see good in him. Somewhere buried deep in his shadowy form there is a kind soul who wants to do better, he wants to make up for the evil he’s done. He’s done everything he can to help me ever since he found out who I was. I’m still angry about Silver, and I hate that he killed your mom Byte, but I want to try and help him be a better pony. Hating him won’t do anything good, it won’t bring back the ponies he’s killed, it will only make things worse. I don’t have much family left, and I don’t want to lose who I still have,” I said.

Byte looked down at her hooves, “I can’t say I hate him for what he did to my mom, but he did take her away from me. No matter what he does, I’ll never forgive him or your mom for what they did,” her voice cracking a little, and with a hoofwipe to her eye she turned and walked out of the room.

Wingnut sighed, “I’ll go keep an eye on her, you gonna be okay here?”

I nodded, “Yeah, but can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Go down to the memory pods and grab three of the memories,” I said naming off which three in the rows I needed, “I have a feeling we’re gonna have to leave this place in a hurry and I don’t want to leave them behind, those three could help me get mom to see who I really am.”

“No problem, Byte and I both examined the set up for those pods and the memory orb shelf. It’s not hard to get them out,” Wingnut said, turning to head out the door.

“Thanks kiddo,” I said as he left, passing Aura on her way back into the room.

She came back with a damp stained rag, “Did the best I could, at least the water here seems to be clean.”

I took it in my magic and started to wipe away the blood on Greed’s face. As I turned his face with my hoof he said quietly, “Your hooves are soft.”

I pressed the rag into one of his wounds and said, “Creep!”

“Ow! I was trying to be nice! I thought we had chemistry,” Greed exclaimed.

“I don’t call mouth raping me chemistry!”

He scoffed, “I am so not a raper.”

“The term is rapist genius.”

“I know, but that makes it sound so professional. I’m clearly not a professional,” he replied with a grin.

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, whatever at least you seem to be doing better. So, you said that Oricalcos is back to his old ways. Is he the one that did this to you?”

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for my shield, I’d be diced into neat little cubes fit for The White Hoof Society. Y’know, cause they’re cannibals…allegedly. Cloak found out I was getting information for you and used some freaky crystal to sick Pride on me like her vicious little lapdog. I think if he was acting on his own free-will, he would’ve done a better job at killing me.”

“Or he was trying to let you go, Oricalcos is on my side, at least he was until a few days ago. So, my mother is controlling him with a crystal? I didn’t think he could be controlled with all the power he has,” I asked.

“Wait-wait-wait, mother?” Greed asked, looking confused, “Cloak’s your mom!?”

“Yeah, Cloak is Grimoire Spell, my mother,” I responded.

He smirked, “I always thought there was another reason she was hunting you like she was. How’d you get her to hate you so much? Wait I thought Cloak’s daughter died. That’s what she told Pride and the rest of us.”

“I didn’t, somepony called Hex did. She thinks that I’m really dead and am an imposter of her daughter. Hex used this thing called The Memory Stone on her and altered her memories, I think there might be a way to fix it, but it won’t be the same as getting her actual memories back. After three days of the stone being used on you, the memories you lost are gone for good,” I explained.

His smirk disappeared, “Oh, that really sucks. I could find and kill this Hex guy if you want me to. Sounds like a real douche.”

“No you can’t, he also happens to be the father of some friends of mine. I’m pretty sure if they found out I sent someone to kill their dad, I’d be dead within a week.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“They’re hunters of the supernatural. I think I qualify as something they’d hunt, I’m pretty sure I just got lucky when I met them because I was able to keep what’s inside me under control.”

He smirked again, “Sounds like you’ve been a busy mare. All that aside, looks like you got your good looks from your mom. She’s actually pretty hot in the old mare kinda way. Not really saying I’d freak that but…”

I pressed the rag hard into another wound, he groaned and I said, “I’m sorry, I must have blood in my ear. What was that?”

“Ow! Stop doing that!” he protested.

“Maybe I will if you stop being such a creepy perve,” I let up on the pressure and continued to get the rest of the blood off as I asked, “Anyway, is there any chance you were followed?”

“It doesn’t matter if I was followed or not. You’re in our old hideout.” he replied.

“I have Stardust and Wind Thrasher standing watch upstairs in case something happens. And what do you mean your old hideout?”

He pushed my hoof away and sat up, “Trust me, that’s not enough. You should run while you can, they’re out for blood. This place is where the Sins worked out of when we were in New Pegasus.”

“Run, and what? Leave you here like this Greed? I’m not the kind of pony to leave somepony behind while I run to duck and cover for safety,” I argued.

“Yeah, it’s annoying sometimes,” Aura added.

“It’s not Greed anymore, remember?”

“I don’t know what to call you right now. You never told me your real name,” I said.

“My name’s Thundercracker, or at least it was before I was forced to become a Sin. Anyway, none of that matters right now, I came here to warn you that they’re coming for you and that you don’t have much of a window to run.”

Aura narrowed her eyes, “How’d you even know she was here? In that case how do the Sins know we’re here?”

Thundercracker sighed, “Cloak had a spell on the lift here, if it was triggered, it would let her know. Since you all entered here a few days ago, The Sins knew.”

I cocked my head at that, “If that’s true, then why didn’t she ever look at the memories downstairs?”

“Those old things? She didn’t trust it, she thought it was trapped for some reason. Minuette made that thing and she was afraid that if somepony tampered with it, they’d get stuck in the pods. Also, we weren’t here a lot and when we were, we stayed up here,” he replied.

“Strange, normally she’d do everything she could to get memory orbs,” I said, then shook my head, “We’ll worry about it later, for now let’s figure out what we should do next.”

“You need to run! I’m sure I wasn’t followed, but like I said, Cloak knows somepony’s here, she won’t be far behind me,” he said.

“Too bad, I’m not running. I’m The Courier for Goddesses sake, I’m gonna stay and fight if I have to. I figured something like this was gonna happen sooner or later and I’d rather just get it over with and stop my mother, or die trying. Hopefully not the latter,” I retorted.

Aura was sitting on a stool in the corner and cleared her throat, “I’m sort of a fan of running, I know what Oricalcos does to ponies and whatnot. I don’t want to be another gore stain on The Wasteland.”

“There’s a key significance to battling pride this time though. First, we know his weakness. Second, he’s not in control of his actions and I could try breaking through to him to help him overcome the mind control. Third, my mother doesn’t have all of The Sins anymore. Greed, I mean Thundercracker, can’t help protect them. Gluttony isn’t around to try eating anyone. Wrath is dead and we know a way to slow down Envy. All we’d have to deal with is Oricalcos, Sloth, and that skank Lust,” I explained.

Thundercracker bowed his head, “It’s still a death-wish Shadow. The Sins that’re left are the strongest out of all of us. Plus, you’re forgetting about that new Wrath kid she’s got with her. The poor sap doesn’t know what’s really going on with the whole thing, he’s just following orders.”

I’d totally forgotten about the new Wrath. I don’t know how I could forget the bastard that recently shot me with a poison dart, but then I remembered Stardust, “You forget we also have one of the best trained scout snipers in The Wasteland with us. With the right vantage, he shouldn’t be much of a problem unless he’s as good as Stardust or better which I highly doubt.”

“He’s from the same program as your friend up there, believe me, he’s good,” Thundercracker said solemnly.

From the same program as Stardust? Why would any of them align themselves with The Enclave? “Is he a loyalist? The last time I checked, everypony from Stable 97 hated The Enclave after everything that happened there.”

“I have no idea, all I know is that he’s really good,” he replied, “I was about to send you intel on him when I got caught by Cloak, that’s how I was found out.

“Hey Shadow, how’s it going down there? Cause we gotta get the fuck out soon,” Stardust asked, his voice echoing down the lift shaft and through the open door.

I walked out of the room and over to the door that led to the lift, “Why? Is there someone here?”

“I’m not actually sure, but there’s a gnarly ass storm coming and it doesn’t look normal,” Stardust replied.

“It’s Pride,” Thundercracker said, walking up behind me slowly, “You and your friends should go while you can, I should be able to hold him off for a bit.”

“And why the fuck would I leave your dumb ass here? I understand you wanna protect me and everything, but you can’t just try to kill yourself and think I’d let you,” I protested.

“Shadow, if he wants to stay here it’s his choice,” Aura said before Thundercracker could speak.

“Really? You’d just let him die to protect us? That’s not how we do things, we’re supposed to be heroes, or at least Wastelanders that only kill bad things. Plus Gree…funcking Goddesses dammit, I mean Thundercracker, is my friend. When have I ever left one of you behind to face certain death?”

Wingnut was in the doorway and raised a hoof, “Um, is this something we should really be debating right now? Also, heroes or not, every hero knows when to run like a little bitch.”

I sighed, “Thundercracker, do you think you can fly or at least walk well enough to escape with us? If not, I could probably hold you in my magic.”

Thundercracker smiled, “As much as I’d enjoy that experience, yes, I can walk.”

If Pride doesn’t kill us, I should probably tell him later to stop hitting on me in front of Aura, she’s probably ready to skin him alive right now. It’s too bad we have to leave this place so soon, I would’ve liked to stay here a bit longer and see if there was anything else here I could find out about Mom. On the other hoof, we could come back here someday if we need somewhere to rest and we’re close by, “Okay then, let’s go kick some sinful ass.”

“Oooo, sexy,” Thundercracker said making me blush a little as he activated his shield, “At least this still works, I should be able to help keep the others away from you, but Cloak and Pride will be a problem.”

Byte and Wingnut joined us by the lift a moment later. Once I knew we had our stuff we took the lift back upstairs to join Stardust and Wind Thrasher, everyone ready for a fight. I readied my plasma rifle and tossed Dreamwalker to Wind Thrasher who immediately dropped it, “I’m sorry Shadow, I didn’t mean to drop it, but do I have to use it, and wouldn’t that thing break my teeth?”

“Wind Thrasher, you don’t have any guns. You need something to use that isn’t strictly just your vocal prowess and whatever else you do. Also Dream Walker was designed for an Earth Pony, the recoil won’t hurt your mouth,” I replied as I picked the gun back up with my magic and put the bit in her mouth.

“But,” she mumbled through the bit.

“No buts, this is what remains of The Sins and I don’t want to risk one of us not having a weapon. It’s not like before where we’re only facing one or two of them. At least I’m pretty sure what remains of them is coming, Thundercracker wasn’t too clear on whether they were all with my mother or not.”

She cocked her head and one of her ears drooped to the side as she mumbled with a confused look on her face, “Who’s Thundercracker.”

Oh, right, she was upstairs when he told me his name, “Greed.”

I walked over to the door and looked at the strange storm Stardust was talking about and “strange” didn’t even begin to describe it. It was like looking at a giant moving cloud of smoke with lightning dancing all around it. As I gazed upon it I could feel the evil it held, it was cold and empty. I looked to the ground ahead and I could see a small group of ponies walking, it was easy to tell who it was with Oricalcos walking in front of the pack with my mother. From what I could tell, his power was enveloping his vessel in a silhouette of blackness with glowing purple eyes.

“I got a shot lined up on Lust,” Stardust said as he looked down the scope of his rifle.

“Take it,” I said quickly, “If we take the slut out now, she won’t be able to use her seductive powers to control at least some of us.”

Right as Stardust was about to take the shot, a bullet dug into the wood of the shack’s wall, splintering the wood everywhere, “Fuck! Sniper!” Stardust yelled, taking cover behind the wall, “I thought Wrath was dead.”

“Don’t you remember? They replaced him with some new kid,” I said as I also took cover behind the wall on the other side of the door.

“Oh, right. Shit, what’re we supposed to do now?” he asked.

“Here, take this,” Thundercracker said, tossing a stealth-buck to Stardust, “Use that to get to a vantage point. If you fly, the little bastard won’t see your hoofprints, and lucky for you we’re not above the clouds so he won’t be able to see the distorted light through his scope.”

“What if he has a thermal scope?” Stardust asked.

“He doesn’t, says they take away from the challenge. What a douchebag right?” Thundercracker replied.

Stardust started to activate the stealth-buck as he said through his teeth, “I swear to Celestia, if I get shot…nhn, your other ear.”

Thundercracker smirked then flinched his half ear twitching a little, blood still dripping from it even with his armor activated, “Bitch you know the ladies dig scars.”

Stardust turned on the stealth-buck and flew out the door as Thundercracker pulled a small yet strange looking rocket launcher out of his saddle bags, “What the hell is that?” I asked.

“THIS, is the one of a kind experimental weapon called The Pocket Rocket being developed by The Enclave. I probably should’ve told Stardust and uhhh, the blue one to cover their nads, this baby’s radioactive,” he explained.

I took half a second to think about it and remembered something as he took aim, “My Pip-Buck didn’t click at all though, are you sure that thing’s live?”

“Huh, that’s weird. Whatever, Pip-Bucks are stupid anyway. Also, avert your eyes from the flash unless you wanna be blind,” he said as he bit down on the trigger.

Heat surrounded us with an overwhelming pressure as the rocket left its housing. I watched as it whizzed through the air and I was ready to close my eyes as it made impact, but what happened I only suspected would have a thirty percent chance of happening. The rocket blasted toward Pride and phased through his body only to bounce off of one of the Sin’s heads, I couldn’t tell who though.

Aura started to laugh, “Hey Dr. Dumbass, looks like your little red rocket was a dud.”

He gritted his teeth, “It’s not funny, how was I supposed to know it wouldn’t blow up?”

Then I thought about it, “You we’re gonna blow up my mom and my uncle!?”

He rolled his eyes, “Duhhhh, rocket. Rockets go boom.”

“Not yours apparently,” Aura said again.

Right about then a bolt of lightning struck the top of the shack from the giant cloud, starting a small fire and deafening all of us. I aimed my plasma rifle out the door and randomly fired a few shots, “We have to do something, we’re trapped in this shithole and there’s no other way out but this door.”

“Can’t you teleport? You’re a freakin’ unicorn aren’t you?” Byte said snarkily.

“Not without leaving you guys behind, I can only teleport myself, most of the time and only one other when I can.”

“But you could get a better vantage on them and cover us while we get out of the shack and find our own cover,” she said again.

The idea wasn’t a bad one, but with my luck I’d get shot by this new Wrath, “How about we tweak that idea, give me your gravity gun.”

She bocked, “No!”

“Why not?”

Byte sighed, “Because you don’t know how to use it and it’s mine.”

“It’s like any other gun, aim and shoot. Do I look that stupid to you?”

She just gave me the ‘really’ look and raised an eyebrow, “Yes, but I guess you’re right about the aim and shoot thing.”

I took the gravity gun in my magic, “I’m gonna teleport somewhere near them and blast the shit out of them. Once you see them go down, run like hell to some cover. A rock, a hole in the ground, I don’t care. Just get to a place that’s not here.”

They all nodded as I drew upon my magic and teleported. Where I wanted to teleport was behind them, but it turns out my horn had other plans and I ended up face to face with Oricalcos who grinned, “Technical difficulties Shadow?”

Instead of dignifying that with a response, I aimed the gravity gun at the ground, and fired. I knew the gravity gun wouldn’t hurt Oricalcos, but it would hurt the others. What I didn’t realize, is that when you fire a gun like this, you shouldn’t do it so close to where you’re standing. The next thing I knew I was disoriented and flying through the air, and when I spotted which direction the ground was, I saw that it was quickly approaching. I tried teleporting again but nothing happened, probably because up was three different kinds of left and down was someplace between right and northwest. Maybe I’ll hurl before I die, at least it’ll be more productive than trying to teleport again. Then I was caught by a pair of hooves, “You’re clumsy,” Thundercracker said as he sat me down behind a short brick wall that must’ve been the former corner of a houses’ foundation, “Don’t worry, I’ll cover while you get your bearings.”

“Just no more experimental weapons please,” I replied.

“Experiments are for scientists, it’s not my fault the damn thing didn’t work. I got this zebra rifle though, and it hasn’t jammed on me yet,” he said as he took aim with the rifle and started shooting at Sloth.

I looked around the corner and I saw them all, Sloth who was dodging Thundercracker’s shots, Lust who was engaged in battle with Aura, my mother who was being helped up off of the ground by Oricalcos, and Envy who took the form of a Hellhound was fighting with Wind Thrasher, Wingnut, and Byte. I was surprised how well they were holding up against him. There was someone missing though, Wrath. I didn’t see him in the sky, and it didn’t look like any of the others were being shot at yet so Stardust was probably distracting him, or he’s already dead.

I looked over where Oricalcos was helping my mother again and saw that it was only the two of them. This could be my chance to get into Mom’s head and show her what I just saw. I took a flash grenade out of my saddlebags and tried to call on my magic again to teleport, but the only thing my horn did was make a ‘pppptttt’ sound and spurt out a little bit of magic energy that popped and fizzled. I took another quick look around at the chaos and noticed that everyone else was distracted, “Thundercracker, cover me. I’m going after my mother and Pride.”

“Like hell you are! He’ll blast you into a cloud of dust!” he replied.

“Oricalcos is stronger than some dumb crystal. If I’m right, he’ll try to resist the urge to kill me for long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” he asked.

“For me to incapacitate him and get to my mother,” I replied.

“Shadow…”

“Just cover me,” I said as I got up and ran out from cover behind the wall.

I could hear Thundercracker behind me, “Shadow wait! He’s…” I didn’t hear the rest of what he said as I got further away from him and closer to Pride and Mom.

While I was running, my uncle noticed the movement and vanished before my eyes as Mom started to shoot in my general direction. I stopped running and dove behind a rock to avoid the shots and in turn shot back with my plasma rifle. Then the rock turned pitch black and Pride oozed out of it. I tried to get up and run, but for some reason I couldn’t move, “Hello Shadow,” Pride said.

I struggled to lift my hooves but couldn’t, “Why can’t I move?”

“I’ve possessed your shadow, Grimoire wants you alive for now. However, now that I’ve caught you, she’ll make me kill you once she’s decided you’re no longer useful,” he answered.

“C’mon Uncle Ori, you can fight that stupid rock,” I said.

His facial expression, if you could call cloudy, shadowy, smoke a face, didn’t change, “No, I can’t control any of my actions. Grimoire made me cast a spell to enhance my power for a short time. It’s a spell that draws upon the darkness in the caster’s soul, called Apocalypse Drive. In my shadow form I was powerful, but as the description of the spell says, I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

I grasped the flash grenade in my magic again hoping he wouldn’t notice, “Well Uncle Ori, if you’re Death, then go into the light,” I said.

I closed my eyes just before the grenade detonated and felt his grip on me disintegrate. I tried to get up and run, but found myself bound by shadows again, “Like I said before, my power is enhanced. Flash grenades don’t have much of an effect right now,” Pride said as the rest of his body reformed.

Right about then Mom walked up behind me, “Funny, I didn’t think I’d see YOU and your posse of misfits here. Though I’m not surprised, lucky for me I wasn’t far when the alarm went off three days ago.”

“Let’s call it a bonus package deal, with batteries included,” I said sarcastically.

She backhoofed me across the face, “Don’t get smart with me, I want to know what the hell you think you’re doing here.”

Now was my chance, she’s right here in front of me. I could cast one of the memory spells I read in her book and show her what I’ve seen in the past few days. I started to cast the spell and felt an unusual pressure in my head. Once again, my horn sputtered out glittery magic and failed to cast the spell, but this time my head immediately started to pound.

Mom sniffed the air mockingly, “Hmm, technical difficulties? Smells like you’ve burned out your horn. I guess batteries AREN’T included in your package deal. However, it makes things easier for me.”

“Easier for you to do what?” I asked.

She smiled maliciously, “Interrogating you to find out why you’re at this place, taking care of Greed, and probably killing one of your friends. Not all of them of course, it seems you’ve managed to reverse the effects of what was done to the pegasus. I’ll be taking him with me for a special execution.”

“How are you gonna do that when you can’t even find him? I noticed your sniper hasn’t been taking any shots at us lately which means he’s engaged in battle with Stardust.”

“Ah, but now I have a hostage,” she retorted.

“All of my friends know you don’t want me dead yet, so I’m not really the best hostage. If you take me prisoner I’ll probably just end up escaping, getting rescued by them, or there’s a chance that Aquila will emerge and tear all of you to shreds,” I said plainly.

“Well, at least you admit you’re worthless. I would’ve thought you’d go on some long-winded rant about being some sort of good-hearted hero. Though Aquila does worry me, from the look of your coat, she’s taking over. No matter, I have my ways of keeping a star spawn trapped for a while,” Mom said turning toward her brother, “Pride, tie her up and teleport her out of here, I’m not risking losing her again.”

I looked toward my uncle and noticed he hadn’t moved. He narrowed his purple eyes, “N…No.”

“What was that!” Mom asked pulling a crystal from around her neck. I noticed that it looked a lot like the one that Scribe used to trap him, “I told you before Pride, you work for me, not this mare who’s trying to make you think she’s Star.”

He moved forward a little then stopped again, “Grim…it’s not a lie, she is who…she says she is. I keep trying to make you understand!”

“He’s right, mom it’s me, please just trust me a little and stop fighting us. I can prove it to you!” I yelled still trying to move.

Mom looked over at me her eyes filled with rage, “Don’t ever refer to me as your mother, my daughter’s DEAD!”

I could see that Oricalcos was trying his best to stop himself from following her orders as he replied, “Why else would I help her unless I knew who she was. I’ve seen her memories, I know what you did to hide her. This is Star, she didn’t die, you just can’t remember.”

“STOP LYING TO ME!” Mom yelled, “You told me that she was dead when my memories were messed with. You told me what happened when I couldn’t remember it all. Why are you trying to lie to me now!?”

“I only told you what you told me. You were hiding her from everypony so she could grow up in Stable 28. You wanted her safe, even from me,” Oricalcos said.

I saw a single tear run down Mom’s face as she looked back at me, “She can’t be Star, I remember some things now and I saw her die. Her heart gave out the same day I found Project Stargazer. I did everything I could to save her, but I couldn’t stop it.”

“I saw your memories, down in the bunker, those orbs you didn’t take or watch because you thought they were a trap. You put those there for me! I saw so much of what happened to you, I saw you meet Dad, I saw what you had to do to fix me, I saw when you first found the Forgotten Library!”

For a moment, her eyes went wide as she started to say, “How’d you know about…” then Lust slammed into her, Wind Thrasher landing a few feet away.

“Let her GO Oricalcos!”

“I can’t Wind Thrasher, it’s taking everything I have to keep myself from following the rest of Grim’s orders,” Oricalcos said, his body shifting between his shadow form and his pony form.

Mom pushed Lust off her, “Can’t you even take down one mutated Pegasus!?”

Lust groaned, “My spell doesn’t work on her Cloak.”

“Fine, I’ll kill her myself,” Mom said, her horn glowing.

But to my utter surprise, Wind Thrasher didn’t pull out Dream Walker or use her scream, she pulled out The Ranger Finder. I forgot she’d been keeping it safe, she pointed it right at my mother saying around it’s bit, “Let her go or I’ll destroy all of you.”

Mom just laughed, “You wouldn’t do that, your courier friend would get caught up in the blast too.”

Wind Thrasher just smiled, “No she won’t.”

“Huh?” Mom said, then out of nowhere Wingnut showed up throwing a flash grenade at Oricalcos. It was so fast that I barely had time to close my eyes as it went off.

It was just enough for me to get free of my uncle’s power. I started to run, as Wingnut ran past me getting as far away from mom and the rest of them as I could. As soon as we reached Wind Thrasher I yelled, “Wind Thrasher you can’t use that on them, it’ll kill my mom and my uncle.”

Looking back toward them I saw that they still hadn’t moved. They knew what that weapon could do. Wind Thrasher on the other hoof said, “Sorry Shadow, but I saw those memories too. Your mother wouldn’t want to be like this, same goes for your uncle. We have to kill them.”

“Wind Thrasher, I thought you hated killing!?” I yelled as she started to pull down on the trigger.

Wingnut was looking at her too, “Wind Thrasher don’t do this.”

“I do hate killing, but you said it yourself, one day I’d have to choose between killing to save a friend, or not killing and losing my friend. I’m not letting any of them hurt you or any of us again,” Wind Thrasher said, and before I could stop her, she pulled down on the trigger.

Mom’s eyes went wide as a beep came out of the Ranger Finder, “RUN!”

The three of them turned to start running, as I was trying to scream for Wind Thrasher to stop. Then I saw that nothing was happening with Solar Flare’s Ranger Finder. The message on the screen wasn’t doing what it normally did, instead a new message came up.

Solar Flare’s Range Finder Genetic Scanner has detected that the subject trying to fire this weapon is not recognized. Deactivating...

Mom seemed to realize that something went wrong, because she turned after a minute and smiled, “I guess that thing doesn’t work all the time does it.”

“No…no, no, no, no…Why isn’t it working!?” Wind Thrasher said around the bit.

I remembered then that only certain ponies could use the Ranger Finder, “It has a genetic scanner on it. You can’t fire it Wind Thrasher.”

She put the Ranger Finder away, “Fine, then I’ll just kill them my own way.”

“No, you’ll lose yourself to the blood lust,” I said, but she ignored me.

She opened her muzzle right as mom started using her magic saying, “Time to die freak…”

Wind Thrasher let out a more powerful scream than I’d ever heard her use. I had to cover my own ears as sound waves blasted toward Mom, Oricalcos, and Lust. Lust tapped a choker around her throat with a red gem on it. It turned green and she stepped in the way opening her own mouth and sending something a lot like Wind Thrasher Scream toward her.

The two sound waves crashed into each other, a loud boom echoed out and both of them flew back. I was about to go after Wind Thrasher to make sure she was okay. Then my vision seemed to flicker and a moment later, at least it seemed like a moment later, I was standing in front of my mother closer to the Shack. Oricalcos was next to her still trying to fight the control, but Wind Thrasher, Wingnut and Lust were gone.

I looked around confused at what just happened, the feeling only got worse when I saw Mom looking at me funny. I took a step back asking, “What just happened?”

“I’d like to know the same thing, one minute you were running toward your bat friend the next you tried to attack me,” Mom said slowly walking toward me, “Then after I got away from your attack, you started telling me how you could help me with something, then you ran toward my shack then changed again.”

Oricalcos’s eyes were wide as he struggled to say, “Shadow, it was Aquila…”

My mother turned toward Oricalcos, “Quiet!”

He stopped talking, I looked between them, “Let Oricalcos go, if you do I’ll do whatever you want, but please stop controlling him.”

Mom looked back at me, “This is a family affair, stay out of my business.”

I had enough, I pulled the Plasma Rifle off my back and pointed it right at her, “Why are you so Goddesses damned stubborn!? I am family you selfish bitch! I am Star, I was born in the Crystal Empire. I was hurt by Oricalcos in his lab, I was sick, and you tried everything to help me. I was there when you went to Stargazer Labs, you took me to Stable 28 and two years after that you abandoned me so you could find a way to get this MONSTER out of me that YOU put there in the first place!”

Her eyes narrowed, “None of that happened to you, you are nothing but a stupid filly whose memories were concocted so you’d think you were my Star. Also, I want my rifle back it’s…”

I pulled the trigger, firing a blast of plasma at her hooves. She jumped back then glared at me as I said, “A family heirloom, yeah I know I saw you take it from your mother. It used to belong to Dwarf Star.”

She looked shocked at that, “Did Oricalcos tell you about that?”

I could tell that my uncle wanted to say something but he couldn’t so I answered, “No, you showed me in one of the memories down in the bunker.”

“STOP LYING TO ME!” she screamed her horn starting to glow.

I could feel tears starting to fall as I said, “You’re not ever going to believe me, are you?”

I looked into her angry eyes as she said, “I may have lost some of my own memories, but I know what happened to Star. She was nothing like you, she was sweet, caring, kind, and POWERFUL! Nothing like you, I’ve done some bad things in my life Courier, but you make me look like a saint. My Star wouldn’t have ever destroyed Mill City Tower killing everypony inside with a superweapon. She wouldn’t have killed so many ponies in Appleton. She wasn’t a monster, but you are! So no, I’ll never believe you.”

“Then I’m sorry Mom, but I can’t let you go on living like this. I hope that you’ll find peace with the Goddesses and forgive me for having to do this,” I said and I pulled the trigger.

As I did her horn flashed and I felt the Plasma rifle jerk and the shot went wild. I tried to pull the rifle away from her magical grip, but something was wrong, my magic was weakening and I could feel the rifle slowly slipping out of my own magical grip. As that happened, I noticed that a swift breeze was picking up around us. Then I saw a deep rage in her eyes as she glared at me, magic starting to flow from her horn. Using her hoof, she pulled out the crystal again and it started to glow too.

Oricalcos’s body started to turn into shadow again as he yelled, “Star…run.”

His voice was cut off as his body fully turned into shadows. He started to grow and swirl around my mother and I. As my uncle’s shadow form blocked our sight of my friends and everyone else around us she finally spoke, “I told you over and over again, not to call me Mom. You’ve made my life hell for the past couple of months Courier. You’ve killed my Sins, you’ve brainwashed my brother, stole my Pip-Buck, ruined my plans, worked with my husband to destroy years of work, and you keep trying to make me think you’re my daughter. I’m done with you, I don’t care if you die anymore, I’ll risk the Mark II wiping the memory, I only need it to unlock Falling Shadows.”

Magic Circles appeared around me and right away I could feel my heart start to beat faster. I lost control of my magic, Mom pulling the Plasma Rifle away as I fell to the ground clutching my chest. It felt like it had when I was little and still sick. Pain ran up my body, it was getting hard to breath and my body felt weak. I looked up at her as purple lightning started to flash around us from Oricalcos. Mom looked down at me with nothing but hatred, my…her…plasma rifle hovering above her.

“Please…don’t do this…”

The magic circles glowed brighter and the pain grew, I started to scream as she said, “You want to be my daughter…then you can die the same way she did. You can suffer as your heart is starved, feel the pain she did as she took her last breath.”

I could barely breath but I managed to get out, “If I die, so does Aquila’s power…and you need that for Falling Shadows.”

A small smile appeared on her lips, “We’ll see about that, goodbye Courier.”

My vision started to fade, but I was able to see something blast through my uncles’ shadows. Right before a pegasus in black power armor slammed into her sending her flying. Right away the pain in my chest vanished and I was able to breathe again. I took in a few deep breaths then looked over at who just saved me, who I saw took me by surprise, “Solstice?”

The grey and pink mare’s helmet wasn’t on and she smiled and laughed as she held my mother down, “Now that’s what I call good timing.”

Mom’s horn started to glow again as she yelled, “Get off me traitor!”

“Yeah, I don’t think so you skeevy old hag,” Solstice pulled a ring out and placed it on her horn, “There we go, no more creepy magic for you.”

Mom’s horn stopped glowing and her eyes went wide, “Pride get her off me!”

I noticed then that my uncle wasn’t making a wall of Shadows anymore, he was standing right next to me, “No Grim, you need to calm down and listen for once.”

I noticed that the crystal mom was holding had fallen to the ground when Solstice tackled her. Slowly I pulled it closer with my magic then stomped on it, shattering the crystal under my hoof. I then looked at Solstice, “Tie her up,” then I looked back toward my friends who were still fighting and said, “Uncle Ori, think you can make The Sins Leave?”

He chuckled, “I think I can do that,” he started to draw on his power then he yelled in an enhanced voice, “All Sins fall back, we have The Courier. Plan beta.”

“How is that going to help?” I asked.

“They think I’m being controlled by Grim still, we can use that to help us…” he started to say then Sloth and Envy landed in front of us.

Envy grinned, “Look Sloth, Pride’s back to being the enemy again.”

Sloth yawned, “What a drag. Really Pride did you think we didn’t see what happened over here. Let Cloak go and stand down, we aren’t scared of you anymore and we really need the Courier sooo, don’t make us have to kill her and her friends.”

Mom yelled, “Kill them anyway that’s an order.”

Envy smiled again, “Sounds like a plan to me!”

Before he could do anything, a shot rang out and Envy was sent flying as a bullet slammed into his side. Sloth turned around looking for the shooter only to find a power-armored Doorstop’s rear hooves slamming into his face as he yelled “Pow, right in the kisser!”

Sloth slid back, a little blood flowing from his nose, “Great, more Dashites to deal with, this whole mission sucks.”

I was still looking at Doorstop, “You’re here too?”

He started to chuckle, “Damn right we are, also a few of the kids from Stable 97. Good thing we showed up when we did,” then Doorstop looked at Sloth and Envy who were getting back up, “If I were you I’d put a giddyup in your step and get out of here as fast as you can. Ya’ll might be tough, but you can’t take on the ponies I trained from The Devil’s Children’s Program. They were bred to be killers.”

Envy spat blood on the ground, “I can take all of you!”

“Really now? You sure about that?” Doorstop asked pulling out a silver whistle and showing it to him, “I heard you don’t like the sound this thing makes.”

Envy growled, but backed up a little, “I’ll make you pay for this.”

“Even if Envy can’t fight and as much as I hate to, I can take on all of you if I had to,” Sloth said stepping closer to Doorstop.

Doorstop didn’t back down, “Shadow how long have The Sins been fighting you all?”

My uncle was the one to answer, “Almost fifteen minutes.”

Doorstop looked at my uncle confused, “Huh, I thought you were dead?”

My uncle just rolled his eyes, “No I’m not and I’m on your side.”

“Our side…COOL, I’ll take it,” then he looked back at Sloth who was a few inches away now, “So fifteen minutes…so that means you should run out of energy right about…”

Like somepony had just cut invisible strings, Sloth’s body fell to the ground and he looked like he was about to fall asleep, “Damn…I wasn’t watching…the…time…” then he passed out and began to snore.

“Two down, two to go,” Doorstop said, lifting his Pip-Buck which I could see had a broadcaster, then he said into it, “Okay fillies and colts, time to show these so-called Sins who’s tougher, light em’ up.”

As he said that, at least ten pegasi flew into the air all of them with automatic weapons and wearing power armor. Where the hell did they get that power armor? They all took aim at Lust who took a few steps away from Wind Thrasher looking up at the pegasi. They opened fire right as Lust took to the air and flew away but not before one of the bullets tore through one of her hind legs. Her screams of pain were like a beautiful song to my ears. As soon as she was gone the pegasi stopped their attack.

“Good job cadidiots, now reload and help Dusty with Wrath!” Doorstop said into his Pip-Buck.

They all reloaded, but before they could do much else, a shot rang out from the direction Lust fled and one of the Pegasi went down as a bullet flew though her visor. Another shot followed the first and another pegasus fell. Before who I assumed was Wrath could take another shot, Stardust showed up out of nowhere and opened fire toward the direction the shots were coming from. In quick succession he blasted three shots, then lowered his rifle.

“Dammit, the coward flew away,” Stardust said as he started to fly down toward us with the rest of the pegasi following.

Envy cackled and a sickly grin parted his muzzle, “You think you’ve won don’t you?”

I couldn’t help the smile that came to my lips as I nodded, “Looks like it Envy, how about you be a good Changeling and come with us peacefully, that is unless you want to die a long slow death.”

Mom turned her head toward Envy, “Regroup, you know what to do!”

Oricalcos turned around quickly shadows flowing from him, “Keep quiet Grim!”

But he was too late, Envy laughed, “Understood Cloak,” in a flash of green light, he turned into a Griffon, flying forward and picking up Sloth. He twisted around and flew away before any of us could do anything. Stardust lifted his rifle and took aim, but Doorstop put a hoof on it and pushed it down, “Don’t, it won’t do much good against him. Let them leave for now, looks like we’ve got the real prize as it is.”

“But, they’re getting away!” Stardust said angrily.

I put a hoof on Stardust’s shoulder, “Let it go, we’ve got what we need. The Sins aren’t much without Grimoire or Oricalcos.”

He sighed then nodded, “I understand, it just bothers me when we were so close to getting rid of them for good.”

“I know,” I said then turned back to Doorstop, “Hey old buck, so why are you back here? I thought you were staying in The Kingdom.”

It was Solstice who answered as she started to bind Mom’s hooves, “We were, but some of the Stable 97 brats wanted to go to New Pegasus. Said something about that’s where the action is. The rest stayed behind to help Sheena.”

Before I could ask more the eight pegasi who were left landed and none other than Shortcake walked forward, “Sergeant Doorstop, we lost two to a sniper, but the rest of us are fine. What are your orders?”

Doorstop sighed, “Yeah, I saw. Let’s give them their last respects then we should be heading out once we know Shadow and her friends are okay.”

“Yes SIR!” Shortcake said then she smiled over at Stardust fluttering her eyes, “Hey Dusty nice to see you again.”

Right as she did Wind Thrasher landed next to us with Wingnut. She saw Shortcake’s attempt at flirting with Stardust and let out a small growl as she stalked past the younger mare. Wingnut seemed to not notice as he jumped off her back and ran over to me, “Have any of you seen Byte?”

I stared to look around for the young filly when she yelled out from the shack, “I’m in here.”

“You okay?” I asked as she poked her head out of the shack.

“Yeah, I was making sure The Sins didn’t get to the bunker. But I think I was too late,” she replied, “Also, some stuff burned a little in here from that lightning strike.”

“Wait what?” I asked walking toward her, then I stopped as my mother started to laugh.

“Let me guess, the bunker went into lockdown, right?” Mom said, still laughing.

Byte looked over at her and I saw rage pull at her features but she seemed to keep it down as she said, “Yeah.”

Oricalcos cursed, “The bunker goes into lockdown when it’s threatened. Grim made me strike the shack with my magic, that must’ve trigged it.”

“How long will it last?” I asked.

Mom looked up from where she was now tied up, “One month, if nothing else happens to the Shack then the lockdown will lift, but until then nopony can get in…or out. I do hope that you didn’t leave anything down there.”

I sighed, “Dammit, I was hoping to hook her up to the pods.”

Oricalcos put a hoof on my shoulder, “It’ll be fine Star, we’ll find a way to get her back to normal.”

Mom just rolled her eyes, “Back to normal, you two act like I’m missing something but I’m…”

“Oh shut up Grim, it’s getting really old,” Oricalcos said his horn glowing. A moment later she passed out from whatever spell he just used.

Solstice just looked down at her then shrugged, “Hey Shadow, your mom’s kind of a bitch y’know.”

“Tell me about it,” I said as I walked over to where Byte was still glaring at her, “You okay kiddo?”

“She’s the one who had my mom killed,” then she glared over at my uncle, “And he’s the one who did it.”

Oricalcos looked at Byte looking confused, “I’ve killed a lot of ponies young mare, whoever your mother was is just one in a long line of sins I’ve committed in my life. But if it helps, I’m sorry that your mother died because of my actions.”

“Fuck you,” Byte said turning to walk away.

“Byte wait,” I said, but Wingnut stopped me from following.

“I’ll go talk to her, you stay here and figure out what we’re doing next,” he said before running after the filly.

Oricalcos looked at me, “Who was her mother?”

“The mare in Trotston that was sending griffons after Mom when she took the Mark II. She sent you to take care of her,” I said with a sigh.

My uncle looked sad as he said, “Oh, I almost forgot about that day. Didn’t know she had a kid.”

“It doesn’t matter right now, Byte will settle down and if not then we’ll figure something out. Right now, we need to figure out what we’re doing next,” I said.

Thundercracker landed next to us a moment later looking over at Oricalcos, then my mother, and me, “That went better than I expected.”

Aura landed a second later, “Tell me about it, how’d you capture her?”

“Hey, I was the one who took her down, not Miss Useless here,” Solstice said pointing her hoof at me.

Aura just shrugged, “Either way, glad you all showed up when you did. How’d you know where we were though?”

“I was wondering that too,” I said.

Solstice shrugged, “We stopped in a town two days back. Doorstop and I were trading when some robot came up to us and started telling us that we had to get to this location before we did anything else. Doorstop didn’t want to believe her or even listen to her, but she was quite persistent. Said that if we didn’t, something bad would happen to our friends. So, we figured what could it hurt to at least check it out.”

I facehooved and laughed, “That fucking bot,” I took a second to recover, “Serendipity must’ve run into your group, either way, I’m glad you showed up. Thank you, Solstice,” I said.

She shrugged, “Don’t thank me, if I would’ve known it was you I wouldn’t have come.”

Thundercracker smiled at that, “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

“Stay away from me creep,” Solstice said backing away from Thundercracker, before turning toward me again, “So why are you all the way out here?”

“Had to deal with something, why are you back here? I thought you were staying in The Kingdom to stay away from The Enclave?”

“No need anymore, ever since Nightshade took over and made peace with The Kingdom, life’s gotten better. He gave me a pardon for running away from my post and made sure to call off the ponies looking for me to brand me, but I’m still not allowed back into the clouds for now,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I might’ve been forgiven for what I did, but a lot of ponies in Stratus would freak out if a pony like me who’s spent so long in The Wasteland was to go up to the clouds. Stratus thinks that if you spend too much time down here you’re contaminated. It’ll take time to get them to realize that it’s a big lie.”

“I guess I understand, also where did you all get those sets of Power Armor?” I asked.

“It was a gift from Nightshade to the Pegasi in The Kingdom who were part of the program. I also got a set for helping save them from the Stable,” she replied.

“Enough talk about all the drama,” Thundercracker said, “What’s next?”

I looked over at my friend then back at my uncle and Greed…I mean Thundercracker, “I’m going to the Ministry.”

Oricalcos and Thundercracker both looked sick as my uncle said, “That’s the last place you want to go Star.”

“No, it’s the place I need to go. I need to find this Director and figure out if there’s anything she knows that can help me get Aquila out of me,” I said with a sigh.

“But Shadow…” Wind Thrasher started to say, but I glared over at her and she shut up.

“I have to go there, I need to finish this bullshit before…before I lose myself to her,” I said with another sigh.

Aura walked over to me and asked, “What did you see in those pods? Did it explain what you need to do to get her out?”

“A little, I know enough to know that I have to go there.”

“How long do you have left?” Aura asked, “Do you know?”

As she said that, I could feel Aquila’s power throbbing in my head and remembered how she took over without me even knowing for a moment just a few minutes ago, “Not long, maybe a few days, I’m not sure.”

Aura pulled me into a tight hug, “If that’s where you need to go then let’s get moving.”

I nodded then looked back at the rest of the group, “We need to plan this out, get everypony over here.”

“I got it,” Stardust said flying toward where Doorstop was.

“I’ll go get Wingnut and Byte,” Aura said as she let me go.

When they were gone Wind Thrasher pulled me aside, “Can we talk?”

I shook my head trying to pull away from her, “We don’t have time…”

“Make time then,” she said pulling me along and ignoring my attempts to get free of her. She was a lot stronger than I thought she was. When we were away from the rest of the ponies she rounded on me, “I saw the same things you did in those pods Shadow. Your mom said the only pony apart from her who can help you was Stormy. How do you even know that she’ll be at the Ministry? Even more, how do you know she’ll help you with Grim acting like she is?”

“Stormy’s dead,” I said lamely.

“How do you know that?” Wind Thrasher asked confused.

“Because I cut her throat before blowing up Mill City Tower. I didn’t know who she was or that she could help me…”

Wind Thrasher looked scared, “She was the only pony who could do anything to help apart from your mother. If she’s dead then how is going to the Ministry gonna help?”

“I don’t know, but if this Director was really trying to help my mother with Falling Shadows to fix me, then maybe she knows something that can help,” I replied.

Wind Thrasher moved closer to me whispering, “Shadow, what if she can’t help you?”

I looked up at my friend with sad eyes, “Then I only have one choice left.”

“No…I’m not going to let you kill yourself Shadow.”

“If my death will save all of you then I’m going to do it,” I said.

“You can’t just throw your life away like that Shadow, you can fight her, keep her back until we can fix this,” Wind Thrasher said, sounding desperate.

I sighed and hung my head, “I don’t want to die, it’s only a last resort that’s all, but if it comes down to it I’ll trade my own life for all of yours in a heartbeat.”

She stomped her hoof, “I won’t…”

I put a hoof to her lips to stop her from saying more, “Wind Thrasher, if you lost yourself to the bloodlust and there was no way of fixing you, what would you want us to do?”

Tears started to show in her eyes as she said quietly, “I’d want you to end me so I wouldn’t hurt all of you.”

“That’s right,” I said as I hugged her, “I don’t want to die, I mean that, but if it’s the only way then so be it.”

She hugged me back doing her best not to cry, “If…if that has to happen…can you at least warn us first?”

I nodded then pulled back, “I’ll tell you…but you have to promise me one thing. Don’t tell Aura, she’s hurting enough from the loss of her family and friends from the attack on Crimson Canyon.”

“Shadow you can’t hide this from her.”

“I can, at least for now. I’ll tell her when I have to, but for now I don’t want her to worry about me or doing something stupid. Please, I need the others to not be worrying about me.”

She wiped away a tear then nodded, “Fine, as long as you warn us first…don’t just wander off in the middle of the night…okay.”

“Okay, now lets get back to the others, looks like they’re waiting for us.”

“Okay,” she said following me as we walked back to the group.

Once we got back Doorstop looked at me and asked, “So what’s going on?”

I took in a deep breath then let it out slowly, “I have to head to Los Alicorn and soon. While I’m gone I need some of you to help keep an eye on what’s going on around here. The Red Talons are in shambles, The Steel Rangers are making trouble for a lot of ponies and so are The Romans. Doorstop I’m sure you and the others want to get back to Frosty Summit to help Violet, but shit’s hitting the fan around here and the ponies here need help. Solstice I’m not sure what your plan is, but if you can, I want you to head to Freedom and find where The Shadow Talons are and let them know where we went. Talk to Vi, she’s in charge of them while Aura’s away.”

“Who are the Shadow Talons?” Solstice asked.

“Aura’s new Talon group,” Wingnut said returning to the group with Byte and Aura.

“Wait The Red Talons are gone?” Doorstop asked sounding shocked.

I sighed, “Yes, now please listen,” I looked at Thundercracker, “I’m not sure what you plan on doing, but if you can, I need you to find the rest of The Sins and see if you can help us take care of them. Maybe get a message to Nightshade and let him know to send a team down to take them out.”

Thundercracker shrugged, “Can do, but I’d rather go with you Shadow.”

“I’m sure you’d be a lot of help, but I need you here more than anything,” I said then before he could protest more I looked at my Uncle, “If you’re up to it, I need you to come with us to keep an eye on Mom.”

“I wouldn’t leave you again even if you begged me to,” he said with a frown.

Byte looked at me and exclaimed, “I’m not going anywhere with him!”

“I don’t want to make you Byte, but you’re under my care, and I need you with me.”

“Too fucking bad, I’ll go to Freedom and stay with the Griffons if I have to, but I’m not going with those monsters!” she said angrily.

“Byte…” I tried to say but Wingnut cut me off.

“Shadow…let her go to The Griffons, I’ll go too.”

That caught me off guard, “Wingnut?”

“Listen, you’re heading to a place that I’d love to see, but at the same time, it’s dangerous. Byte and I would be safer with The Shadow Talons rather than going to Los Alicorn,” he said.

Aura nodded, “I agree with them, I’d hate if something bad happened to them. Los Alicorn is a very bad place for young ponies or young anything to be. Don’t worry, we’ll be back sooner than later, my sisters will keep them safe, and they can take charge of my contract with Wingnut while I’m gone.”

Byte moved closer to me, the look of anger fading as she said, “I know you want to keep me with you because of Rusty. I just can’t be around either of them right now.”

“But…”

She cut me off, “I know that you think that Pride isn’t bad and maybe he’s different now because of you, but at the moment I can’t do it, I won’t do it.”

They were right, deep down I knew it. I was close to losing myself to Aquila and traveling with me was the last place they should be, but Wingnut had been with me for so long now that it hurt to just let him go off on his own. Byte I didn’t know as well, but I felt like she was my responsibility because of what I promised Rusty. In the end I nodded, “I understand, you two can go with Solstice.”

“Thank you, Shadow,” Byte said giving me a small smile.

I rubbed her mane ignoring her protest, “Just be safe okay.”

“Yeah, I will,” she said walking back to Wingnut sitting near him before looking back at us, “You stay safe too.”

I nodded then looked back at the others, “So, are we all in agreement?”

“Looks like we are,” Doorstop said, “We’ll head out now, and you make sure you come back to us in one piece.”

I smiled, “You too old buck.”

Stardust chuckled then looked at me, “I’ll go get the skycarriage.”

As he flew off Wingnut came back over to me and pulled the three memory orbs out of his saddle bags, “I almost forgot to give these to you. What did you need them for?”

I took them all and put them into my saddle bags with a smile, “Mom can keep denying me all she wants, but she can’t deny memory orbs. I had a feeling something would happen that would keep me from getting her into the bunker, that’s why I had you get these three.”

He shuffled his hooves a little, “You are coming back right?”

I pulled him into a hug doing my best to hold back the emotions welling up inside, “Yeah kiddo, I will. You stay safe and keep an eye on Byte okay?”

He nodded, “I will, stay safe.”

He ran back to where Solstice and Byte were waiting, I watched him go remembering the first time I met the colt. He’d grown up so much in the past two months, I was lucky to have him as a friend. I sniffed and whispered, “I love you Wingnut, I hope you’ll forgive me one day.”

***

Ten minutes later Oricalcos, Wind Thrasher, Aura, my tied-up mother, myself, and for some reason Thundercracker were all in the Skycarriage. Stardust hooked up to it taking off and headed west. As we flew I turned toward Thundercracker and asked, “So your with us because?”

“You said to look for The Sins and I will,” he said, “They’re heading west too, I’m only with you for a little bit then I’ll head out my own way.”

We flew in silence for a while before I finally asked, “Thundercracker, how’d you become a sin?”

He looked over at my uncle who was still in his pony form then shrugged, “I stole something.”

Oricalcos laughed, “You didn’t just steal something, you stole a prototype gem from Stratus.”

“Yeah and…? What I said is still the same Pride.”

“Oricalcos, I’m not Pride anymore Thundercracker,” my uncle said with a bit of sarcasm.

Aura looked at him and asked, “What did you steal that would make you a Sin?”

“My shield, I heard from a contact of mine while I was visiting Stratus about a new kind of tech. I wanted it so I broke into the research lab and stole it,” he said like it was just walk in the park.

“Why didn’t they just take it back when they caught you?” I asked.

My uncle answered, “The gem is embedded into his body. They wanted to kill him to get it back, but if he died the gem would’ve been useless. Since it’s part of him now, if he dies the gem dies as well. I heard about what he did and knew he’d make a good addition to The Sins…I was wrong.”

“You’re hurting my feelings Pri…I mean Oricalcos, I was a good solider,” Thundercracker said.

“You were, but you were also a pain the ass. Still are really.”

Thundercracker beamed, “And proud of it.”

Changing the subject, I asked, “Where are you from then? Nimbus?”

“No, I was born and raised in Thunderhead, it’s a cloud city near Hoofington. Nasty place to live if you ask me and not at all fun. I didn’t like it there so I moved to Stratus.”

Oricalcos laughed again, “He was running away from the ponies there too. Stole something from a pony with lots of connections from what I heard.”

“I didn’t steal anything from that fat slob apart from his daughters’ heart, all three of them truth be told,” he said winking at me.

“You’re a pig,” I said rolling me eyes.

“A nasty pig,” Wind Thrasher added.

“No…I’m a gentlecolt that knows what he wants and always gets it,” Thundercracker said then his smile faded, “Not always I guess…”

I saw him look up at my uncle and knew he had to be remembering Silver’s last moments. I reached out to put a hoof on his, but he pulled away as I started to say, “Thundercracker, what happened to Silver wasn’t…”

“This is my stop,” he said getting to his hooves, “I’ll get a message to you when I find The Sins,” he opened the door and flew away.

We watched him fly away a little confused, Aura saying, “Guess he doesn’t like to talk about his emotions.”

Oricalcos sighed, “He used to not care at all, but I think he took the death of that mare-friend of Shadow’s hard.”

I felt a small stab in my heart as he said that, “Silver’s death was hard on all of us Uncle Ori. Honestly, I still have trouble with that fact that you killed her…for no reason at all apart from wanting to hurt a pony you hated at the time.”

Oricalcos’s body flickered into shadow and back again as he looked down at his hooves, “I have a lot of mistakes and evil to make up for Shadow.”

I felt anger building up, an anger that I’ve been trying to keep locked away ever since I found out who Oricalcos was. I was so desperate to know more about myself and I needed his help, but now… “Why did you have to kill her?”

He didn’t look up at me, “I didn’t have too…I wanted to.”

Aura moved closer to me and put a talon around me, “Now isn’t the time to talk about this Shadow.”

I couldn’t help the anger that built up inside of me as I pulled away, “Then when is it a good time huh? There’s always some new bullshit to deal with,” I looked back at my Uncle pushing past Aura, “You WANTED to? Is that how far into darkness you’ve fallen? So far that killing makes you happy?”

He looked up at me and the pain I could see in his purple eyes made me pause, “Every day I have to fight the darkness inside of me Star. When I first took on this form to keep myself from death after I hurt you it was easy, but over the years I’ve had a harder time fighting it. But to answer your question yes killing makes me happy, and I hate that. Ever since Grim left Stable 28 and told me you died, I had nothing left to live for, nothing to keep me from falling further into darkness. All I could do with my life is help my sister to pay back what I did to you. I thought that power I used on you ended up killing you. I let myself grow more evil and didn’t care what it was doing to my soul. So, yes, I killed Silver because I wanted to. I liked watching her bleed out, loved the sound of her begging me to leave you alone. I didn’t care about anything anymore, not until you nearly destroyed me and I found out who you really were.”

I stood up and yelled, “Even before you thought I died you still killed ponies for no other reason than to make Mom’s job easier. You killed Byte’s mom, you killed Enclave ponies to keep her safe, you have done Goddesses knows how many evil things and for what? You even tried to kill Stardust in Stable 97 when he was already better!”

Oricalcos got to his hooves too and shadows exploded out of him as he yelled, “I KNOW, I can’t always control myself even though I try so hard to keep it back! Why do you think I’m doing this Star!? I’m doing everything I can to make up for my mistakes. Even though I know no matter what I do, I’ll never be able to. Don’t you dare pull that high horse bullshit on me, when you’ve done just as many evil things as I have.”

It was like he just slapped me in the face, Aura glared over at my Uncle as he melted back into his pony form, “You didn’t need to go there Oricalcos.”

“No…he’s right,” I said as I felt my anger fading away, “I have no right to judge him for what he did when I’ve done things just as bad, at least he has an excuse, I just did what I did out of anger.”

Oricalcos seemed to calm himself as he said, “No, both of us have done bad things. I’m not trying to hurt you, but you and I both need to make up for what we’ve done wrong in life.”

I nodded saying, “I still can’t forgive you for what you did to her Uncle Ori, but I can try to get past it…I’ve been trying.”

“I never asked you to forgive me for killing her,” he said.

Wind Thrasher finally spoke up, “Why does so much death have to happen in The Wasteland?”

My uncle sighed again, “Because The Wasteland is a living thing, or at least that’s what some believe. They say that when Equestria died, The Wasteland took over, a creature that pushes its way into all parts of our world. It loves watching ponies suffer, likes watching them try to overcome the pain and in the end The Wasteland always wins.”

Wind Thrasher fluttered her wings at that as Stardust said, “Living thing or not, I’ll never let The Wasteland win with me or any of my friends.”

Oricalcos looked back through the small window that looked out at Stardust, “You’re still young Stardust, one day you’ll see that you can’t win against The Wasteland.”

Aura rolled her eyes and reached over to pull me into her lap holding me close to her, “It’s all about how you live the life you’re given I say. I could die tomorrow and I’d be fine with it, because I found the other half of my soul.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little as I nuzzled into her, “Only you can come up with something so sad and sweet at the same time.”

She shrugged, “I’m just sick of all this sad talk and anger. We have a long flight why not talk about happy things. Like what did you see in the memory orbs?”

“I wouldn’t count what I saw in her memories as happy,” I replied.

“Fine,” Aura said looking at Wind Thrasher, “What did you two see Wind Thrasher?”

Wind Thrasher looked over at me for a long moment. I gave her a small shake of the head before nuzzling back into Aura. Finally, she said, “It was mostly things from Grim’s past, I think she wanted Shadow to understand what happened to her and why she had to save her. From what I saw, she didn’t have a happy life.”

“I think the happiest I saw my sister was when she was with Nightshade and when Star was born,” Oricalcos said smiling, “I still remember the day Star was born, I’ve never seen so much joy in my life. We had a nasty childhood, all she ever wanted was to be a wife and mother so she could be a better mother than our own. She also wanted a stallion that was a great father. She was lucky enough to have both.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you Uncle Ori, did Dad always hate you or was that only after I was hurt?”

“Nightshade and I never got along, neither did Striker and I.”

“Why? I mean I can’t figure out why Dad would hate you so much, at least before I was hurt,” I asked.

“It’s been like that for a long time and not just with your father or uncle. Our two families have hated each other ever since our ancestor Dwarf Star died,” he said.

I looked at him confused, “Huh, why is that?”

“Shadow do you know anything about you father’s family?”

“A little, well at least what I picked up in one of the memories. Dad’s descended from Night Stalker,” I said.

Aura’s talons dropped as she said, “Wait a minute, you mean that Shadow’s…”

“That’s right, she’s descended from three of the Children of the Night. Minuette on our side, Night Stalker and Lightning Dust on the other.”

“That’s so…strange,” Wind Thrasher said, “You always think you’ll never meet anypony with famous ancestors.”

Oricalcos shrugged, “Life’s funny like that, but still it’s beside the point right now. A long time ago when Dwarf Star was getting old and his magic was starting to fade, he was working with the son of Nightingale.”

I interrupted, “Who’s Nightingale?”

To my surprise Aura answered, “She’s Night Stalkers youngest foal and only daughter.”

I looked back at her, “How’d you know that?”

“Tonto told me once, I guess she came to The Red Talons a few months after her father died, well vanished but same thing at this point. She was trying to work something out with The Red Talons, it didn’t go far though, but that’s how I know. From what he told me, she was a very well-respected mare who even Greta’s son liked even if she was Enclave.”

Oricalcos continued, “Yes, well as far as I know from what Grim was able to learn, Nightingale was the second pony to take over as the Guardian, the first was the Zebra who was a Child of the Night. She passed on her role as Guardian to her son and he was working with Dwarf Star. Dwarf Star had a Daughter called Ebony Star who fell in love with this Stallion who was named Night Rain. Dwarf Star didn’t like it so he confronted Nightingale, telling her to keep her son away from his daughter. To this day no pony knows what happened, but Dwarf Star ended up fighting with Nightingale and at some point, Night Rain came in during the fight, he ended up killing Dwarf Star then he threw his body into the street. Not long after Ebony Star took revenge for her father’s death and she killed Nightingale and Night Rain during a performance that was taking place in The Crystal Empire at the time. Our families have hated each other ever since. That is until Striker started seeing Grim and later Nightshade. They never saw Grim as being part of our family and always treated her well, but Nightshade and Striker still hated me saying I was just like the rest of our family,” Oricalcos said.

“So, Dad hates you because of a family feud? That’s so stupid,” I said.

“I agree, though in the end I still lived up to what Nightshade thought about me,” he said with a sigh.

I took a long moment to take that all in. To think that the families of The Children ended up killing and hating each other years after the war ended. Finally, I said, “I wonder why that all had to happen.”

Oricalcos shrugged, “The Children of the Night fell apart after the Enclave started. One of their own betrayed Night Stalker right before the megaspells went off and again many years later. That last betrayal led to Night Stalker becoming a Dashite.”

Aura stiffened at that then said, “The Children’s Curse.”

Wind Thrasher looked over at her asking, “The what?”

Oricalcos answered, “She’s talking about the curse on The Children of the Night and their decedents.”

“Curses aren’t real though,” I said.

“Yes and no, it’s hard to explain, Grim knows more about it than I do. But many years before the war ended, a traitor to Equestria was hunted down by The Children of the Night in his home. He used a crystal given to him by a Zebra witchdoctor, and used it to put a spell on all of The Children. After he did, bad things started happening to them,” Oricalcos said.

“I saw that memory, Captain Flash Sentry,” I said.

“That’s the one,” Oricalcos said, “That same night the first of them fell, Phoenix Heart. Later they lost more to attacks, a month before the war ended Amethyst Star was murdered in Canterlot by a zebra sympathizer. After that Minuette went a little crazy and stole a bunch of the Memory orbs The Children of the Night had made of themselves, then she up and vanished three days before the bombs fell. Night Stalker’s sister was killed during the attack on Las Pegasus, once The Enclave was formed he chased off Rainbow Dash then a young mare named Scootaloo starting The Dashite Program. Griffonstone was destroyed and because of that he lost his closest friend Greta. Later Babseed was killed by Greta. Thunderlane died a little bit before Night Stalker vanished. The story is that Greta threw him into a vat of Taint. Honestly, I think only one of them lived a relatively normal life and that was Cloudy Nights. She lived to be ninety-three and had like six kids and lots of grandkids.”

“Mom always said that our own family still suffered from the curse,” Aura added, “I told you about that before Shadow, how I was worried about being with you because I didn’t want to lose you like I did with Trip Wire.”

I thought back to the night I finally told Aura how I felt and about her family’s curse, “So this has been affecting every one of the decedents?”

“The ones I know about yes,” Oricalcos said, “Though that’s not saying much since the only decedents I know about is our own, Nightshade, Striker, The Bloodtalon’s, and Winter Frost.”

That one made me lift my head to look over at my uncle, “Wait Sergeant Winter Frost? The asshole who attacked me at The F&F Tool Factory and again in Frosty Summit?”

“The very same, he’s the last decedent of Thunderlane,” he said then he added, “Oh right and a mare named Fairy Glitter who lives in Stratus. She’s descended from Cloudy Nights. If there are more I don’t know about them, I know Babseed had a son, but after her death he went into hiding and I never found what happened to him or if he had any kids.”

I was still lost knowing that Winter Frost was descended from The Children of the Night. While I took in that information, Wind Thrasher asked, “How do you know so much about them Oricalcos?”

“I was one of the ponies who helped Grim research them. It’s honestly not that hard to find information about who was descended from whom, at least in The Enclave,” he said.

For a few minutes we all sat in silence then the other pony he said caught my attention, “Fairy Glitter?”

My uncle looked over at me confused, “What about her?”

“Does she live near the high rise in Stratus?” I asked.

“Yeah, but how did you know that…Oh right you’ve been getting help from Solstice, she must have told you,” he said.

“Huh? Why would Solstice tell me about Fairy Glitter?” I asked confused.

He looked at me just as confused as I was, “She’s Fairy Glitter’s daughter, she’s married to a retired officer named Cascade.”

My eyes went wide, “Fairy Glitter is Solstices mom? But Fairy Glitter is Doorstops sister. Holy shit!”

My friends all looked over at me, Wind Thrasher asking, “I didn’t even know that Doorstop had a sister, how’d you know about that?”

“That was the mare I sent the letter to for him,” I said, “No wonder Doorstop and Solstice seem to get along so well and they both have an in your face attitude, they’re related. I wonder if Solstice knows, I wonder if Doorstop knows.”

Aura pulled me closer to her again, “Don’t worry about it right now Shadow, I’m sure if Doorstop does know and if he hasn’t told her then he wants it kept secret.”

“Ow, would you stop grabbing me like that Aura,” I said, “You’re being more clingy than usual. Talons hurt.”

Aura held me tighter, “No Shadow, just accept the cuddle time.”

I looked back up at her realizing I was trapped and just submitted, “But what if he doesn’t know?”

“Doorstop said he kept in contact with ponies on the outside when he was in Stable 97,” Wind Thrasher said, “I’m sure he knows about Solstice.”

I sighed and laid back, “What are the odds though.”

Oricalcos shrugged, “I don’t know much about Doorstop honestly, I knew that Fairy Glitter had a brother, but never learned much about him. Though seeing how Fairy Glitter has access to highly top-secret things going on in Stratus and Nimbus, I wouldn’t be surprised if she put him in Stable 97. For what reason I’m not sure, but she has the clearance to do so.”

“He told me something about that, he said his sister wanted him to keep an eye on her friend Dr. Limbus who was the mare who created the Memory Modification Pods. They’re friends, or at least that’s what Doorstop said.”

Oricalcos took a moment to think about that, “Maybe, but I can’t see a stallion giving up twenty years of his life to keep an eye on his sisters friend. No, it doesn’t make sense, there has to be another reason he was part of The Devil’s Children Program.”

I knew we weren’t going to get anywhere right now with Doorstop since he wasn’t here at the moment so I decided to change the subject, “Speaking of that program…”

Stardust shouted from the front of the Skycarriage, “I’d like to never speak of that again if we could manage it. I still get nightmares of my brain being practically microwaved.”

“I know Stardust, but I just need to know something,” I yelled before looking back at my Uncle, “When did Dr. Stormy come up with that program, it had to be before she joined The Ministry.”

“You know about Stormy?” he asked.

“Yeah, I saw her in a few of my mother’s memory orbs when I was in the bunker. They seemed really close,” I said looking over at the bench where mom was still sleeping and tied up.

“They were, Stormy was one of Grim’s oldest friends. As to when she started the Program well…I’d say it started about twenty-three years ago. She had this wild idea to modify a pony’s DNA to make them stronger and faster than your average pony. The higher ups in both cloud cities liked the idea because for many years we’ve had trouble with Neighvarro. Having soldiers that were enhanced would be a big plus for us. Sadly, her first and only subject to undergo the treatment was a failure.”

“You mean Sloth?” I asked.

“Yes, this was a few years before I became Pride. Sloth was everything they wanted, but he had a big draw back. He burnt through so much energy it took a while for his body to make it back up,” Oricalcos said, “So she went back to the drawing board and came up with a different way of making the perfect super solider.”

Stardust said, “And thus The Devil’s Children Program was created right?”

“Yeah,” Oricalcos said, “It was her idea, but how it was executed was mostly the council. The first step was we needed a safe place to keep the foals, so Stable 97 was invaded.”

I looked down at my hooves, “And a lot of Stable Ponies died.”

“Yes, and before you ask, no I wasn’t part of that. I still worked with military research at the time. Anyway, yes, The Enclave killed most of the ponies and the rest escaped. We modified the Stable to meet our needs then we engineered an…Epidemic…for both cloud cities and surface cities. We took new born foals saying they were sick and died later during treatment. Those were the first ponies to become the new inhabitants of Stable 97. The first couple years we mostly just raised them like normal foals.”

Stardust laughed, “Normal my ass, we started learning how to fight when we were two.”

Oricalcos rolled his eyes, “Relatively normal then, but as I was saying, The Enclave raised them to think they were born there. Later they all went through intense training and mental stimulation to make sure we got the perfect soldiers. A few years later, the so-called epidemic hit again, and more foals joined the first set.”

“What I don’t get is how Stormy could have even started a program so horrible,” I said.

Oricalcos laughed a little, “If you saw Stormy in your mother’s memories then you only saw one side of her. She’s always been a mare who wanted to better the lives of The Enclave and ponies in general, but in her own special way. When she was around Grim, she was more laid back, happy, and sarcastic. When she was working she was a pony with one thing in mind, get the job done. She’s all about results, always has been. Take The Sins for example.”

“Wait a minute,” Aura said, “You mean this Stormy pony, created The Sins?”

“No I created The Sins, she just had the idea of a special ops team and used it to keep me from being banished when I couldn’t be killed. I expanded on the idea and made my team. The first pony I had join me was Sloth. Back then he was being held at a facility where he was kept drugged so he wouldn’t hurt anypony.”

“Funny, for some reason I always thought Envy was the first sin you added to the team,” I said.

He chuckled, “No, Envy came along a couple years later. Sloth and Gluttony were my first sins then Envy, later came Wrath, then Greed, and last was Lust.”

Gluttony, I hadn’t thought about that monster in a long time, “Why did you make Gluttony a sin? What could he have done to make him into one?”

My uncle’s face fell a little, “I didn’t want him to die. You see, I’ve known Gluttony since I was around your age Star.”

My jaw dropped open and Aura said, “You were friends with that monster even back then?”

He nodded, “He wasn’t always that way. Before he was a sin, he was one of the most respected scientists in Nimbus. One day one of his own experiments went wrong and he ended up like you saw him. He was always hungry and his intelligence fell by ninety-five percent. He had enough left to plant the gem into his tongue though, it was one of his own experiments and it made it so he could eat just about anything. Then he attacked…and ate his entire research team.”

I gagged a little, “So that’s what he did.”

“Yeah, they wanted to kill him because of what he became. He was my friend and I didn’t want to see him die, so I made him a sin. He still knew who I was and he always listened to me. So as long as I could control him, the Council was fine with it,” he said.

“So that’s why you were so angry when I killed him,” I said.

He shrugged, “Yeah, when Sloth found me and told me that he attacked you, I went looking for him. When I saw what you did to him, I lost all control over my emotions. Though now I’ve had time to think, I think it’s a better thing for him to be put out of his misery. Even though most of his brain was mush, he still remembered that he used to be one of the smartest ponies in The Enclave. He hated being called stupid because of that.”

Thinking back to that day I remembered something, I used my Pip-Buck to find the recording I took from Gluttony and pulled it out, “I found this on him when he died, though I’ve never listened to it. Wrath had a recording too, the one of his daughter. Do all The Sins have one?”

“I was wondering where that went,” he said, “To answer your question, yes, well almost yes. Mine was destroyed when you blew up Appleton and Envy doesn’t have one since I raised him as a Sin. It’s a reminder of what you used to be. Mine was a Recording of my confession to The Council for hurting you.”

“Should…Should I listen to it?” I asked.

“Star I don’t think you need my permission to listen to it, honestly I was a little surprised that you told me you hadn’t listen to it yet.”

I nodded then started to play it. It started out with the voice I remembered from Gluttony, only slightly less annoying, “This is Dr. Jowls and today I’ll be documenting some interesting things I’ve found in a virus sent over to me by a colleague of mine from Thunderhead. According to his findings, this virus can affect ponies in a way that makes them revert to their most basic survival instincts. An example of this is eating another pony’s flesh. The odd thing I found was that it doesn’t seem to work on Pegasi. It’s a good thing for us if we ever wanted to wipe out the lesser races of Equestria, but still highly dangerous. As I’ve experimented with this virus’ biology, I’ve found that if you alter some of the strands on its DNA, it can affect pegasi. My discovery is still in its earlier stages, but I have a feeling that if I were to send this information back to Thunderhead, my colleague would find a way to use it against the cloud cities. So, I must do everything I can to make sure that this never falls into his hooves. I’ve tested it on a couple of ponies already and the results are terrifying, gruesome even. If he ever wants to utilize this to work for our race, then he’ll have to figure it out on his own. I will not be responsible for killing my home. I’ll be presenting my successes to the council when I’m finished today. Maybe I’ll have Oricalcos check it out first, see if magic affects the Virus…”

The Recording ended and I looked over at my uncle, “He showed you this…Virus?”

He nodded, “I had just started being Pride, but I still helped out with research when I could. I told him to destroy it and I thought he would, but something happened and he was exposed.”

Aura gave him a funny look, “This Virus sounds like something that affects the raiders in Hoofington. Over the last year more and more raiders have been showing up around there and they’re way crazier than the ones we’re used to.”

Oricalcos nodded again, “I’ve had the same thought, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pony he was talking about was trying to make his virus work again, even after all these years.”

Before any of us could say anything else, Mom jumped and looked around, then her eyes fell on me and she started yelling, “Let me go!”

I just rolled my eyes as Oricalcos said, “Quiet down Grim, there’s nothing you can do right now.”

She turned her head as much as she could, “Pride, how dare you let her tie me up like this. I’m your sister, you are supposed to help me, not this pain in the ass!”

He sighed, “I am helping you sis, you just can’t seem to get over your hatred.”

Mom opened her muzzle to yell again when Wind Thrasher moved closer to her and bore her fangs, “Listen to me Grimoire, you’re lucky that none of us killed you back there. Now I know you don’t want to believe Shadow or your own brother about who she is, but right now you aren’t in your right mind. They want to help you and I respect that, but if you don’t stop yelling and saying horrible things about my friend, I will rip your throat out. Now shut up and get over yourself.”

Mom’s eyes went wide at the sight of Wind Thrasher large fangs only a few inches away. She gulped then said in a quieter voice, “Fine, but you’ll all pay for this, mark my words.”

I couldn’t help chuckling a little, “Trust me Grim, when we have time I’ll show you the truth, even if you fight me all the way.”

Stardust yelled back at us, “Hey Shadow, it’s getting late and I’m tired, you good with stopping to take like a catnap or something?”

I moved to the window that overlooked the driver, “Sure, but we’re in the middle of nowhere, I’m not really fond of sleeping in a place so vulnerable.”

He started to turn the Skycarriage as he said, “There’s what looks like an old motel down there. We’ll use that for shelter.”

“A motel around here?” I asked looking out the window again to see a small building sitting right next to a huge crack in the ground, “What the hell is that?”

My uncle looked out the window ignoring his glaring sister then said, “That’s the San Palomino Gorge, it used to be a famous place for ponies to visit before the war.”

“I’d hate to fall into that thing,” I said as Stardust flew over the black crack in Equus’s crust.

“I think it’d be a good thing,” Mom said in a low whisper.

I just rolled my eyes and ignored her as Stardust landed the Skycarriage. We all got out, Oricalcos carrying mom in his magic. As he did I asked, “I noticed that you’re able to keep yourself in your pony form now.”

He smiled a little as Stardust went to see if the small motel was safe, “I’m still not as strong as I used to be, but I can stay like this now. I won’t have to hide in your shadow anymore.”

I smiled a little, “It’s nice to actually see you.”

“It’s nice to actually be seen,” he said, “Okay Sis let’s get you to bed.”

“Fuck you Pride,” Mom said as she struggled in her brother’s magical grip.

Aura laughed and poked Mom as they started walking toward the motel, “Oh look, the mean old Cloak is cranky, she needs a nap.”

“The place is clear, but only one room is in good condition to hunker down, we’re going to have to share,” Stardust yelled.

“That’s fine, we won’t be here long,” I said as I started to follow my Uncle and Aura.

“Shadow,” Wind Thrasher said putting a hoof on my shoulder to stop me, “We need to talk.”

I sighed and looked back at her, “Wind Thrasher I know what you’re going to say and please don’t.”

“I’m worried Shadow.”

“Then don’t be, I already told you that I’m not going to do anything unless I have to.”

She stood her ground, “Shadow, you’ve lied to us before. How can I trust that you won’t go off in the middle of the night and do what your mom said to get rid of Aquila?”

I pulled her closer and hugged her then whispered into her ear, “You’re going to have to trust me.”

She didn’t hug me back as she said, “That’s the problem…I don’t trust you. I know you too well, you’ll lie to us so we won’t worry, but you can’t do that anymore. Think about Aura and Wingnut, think about your uncle and your dad, even your mom. You know what Vervain would say if she saw what we did in those memories.”

I didn’t let her go as I said quieter, “That’s the thing, I am thinking about them…I’m thinking about everypony in Equestria.”

She pulled away from me shaking her head, “No, you’re just scared…here I thought you were brave, someone that could stand up to anything, but you’re just a fucking coward.”

I sighed and let the comment roll off me, “No…I just see the bigger picture,” I turned toward the motel, “I’m not giving up Wind Thrasher, if I was I would’ve already done it. I’m just being practical, if I can’t fix myself soon, then it has to happen.”

She followed me as we made our way to the door that Stardust was holding open for us. The moment we walked in rain started to fall and soon we were drenched. I shook my mane as we finally got into the small room hoping that Wind Thrasher would keep her muzzle shut. As Stardust shut the door he asked, “What were you two talking about?”

I looked over at Wind Thrasher for a moment as she sighed and said, “Nothing.”

I turned away and looked around the small room, “Well at least we can stay dry in here, but let’s get some light, it’s way too dark for my liking.”

As I walked past mom she chuckled, “Oh, is the little Courier scared of the Dark? There’s probably not even electricity here.”

I ignored her and walked over to a lamp sitting on the far night stand. Hopefully this place had some kind of power still. I could just make out the lamp in the dark. It reminded me of the one I saw in the fiend town outside of Stable 9. A creature I’ve only seen in books was holding onto a light bulb in his paw giving me a wicked grin. I tried to use my magic to pull the chain, but it sparked and fizzled, “Fucking magic.”

“It’s not your magic Star, the gorge messes with Unicorn magic. It’s normal around here,” Oricalcos said.

“Of course, it does,” I said as I reached a hoof up to pull the chain.

Right as I touched the lamp and started to pull on the chain a mischievous voice echoed out of the lamp, “Pip’s and Jack’s, Chaos or Order, you’ll have to follow the signs to find the land of ponies, and free yourself from a land a mystery and Bibbidi…Boddidi…oh and don’t forget about BOO!” the voice made me jump right as I pulled down on the chain…and everything vanished…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Gallop N’ Gun: Wow, it took you a long time to get this talented with a gun. While levitating a ranged weapon in your magic, your weapon spread is halved even when walking or running.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Wild Wasteland Rank 2: Wait...there’s a rank 2? Does it just get weirder?

Chapter 53: I Can't Watch This

“Quotes are for books; this is quality television.”

“Tap…tap…tap. We interrupt this tragic tale of family betrayals, hidden secrets, and ponies killing each other for a public service announcement from your local broadcaster. This chapter of your favorite Friday night guilty pleasure will be hosted by yours truly. Who I am, I shouldn’t say, not till you’ve earned it, which makes it a good thing you can’t see me though the words on your hoofprint tattered screen. Anyway, I’m rambling, let’s get on with our favorite primetime programming…”

Tonight’s broadcast is sponsored by Generic Brand Medical Adhesive Strips, Celestial Slide Personal Lubricant, and viewers like you. Yes you, if you didn’t watch we’d be off the air for sure. And now we return to Cottage M.D.

Where the fuck am I? (Clear)(Pzzt) Ow! Who the fuck just shocked my chest!?(Charged to three juuls, clear)(Pzzt) I awoke with a gasp, surrounded by doctors, one in particular with his face too close to mine, shining a tiny flashlight in my eyes, “What happened?” I asked.

Dr. Cottage stopped shining the light in my eyes and said, “Uh, you died.”

“Died?!” I looked shocked at his declaration, “Your kidding, my friends and I were gonna sleep in an abandoned motel in the middle of The Wasteland and then I was here,” I retorted groggily.

“Nope, pretty sure you died. Trust me, I’m a doctor, it happens sometimes.”

Xamir was standing at the end of the bed looking at Dr. Cottage, “Cottage, sounds like she’s still having delusions of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. If you would’ve let me treat her with the anti-psychotics, we could’ve asked her about what happened when she first started feeling symptoms.”

“Are you an idiot?” Dr. Cottage asked, “Don’t answer that, the answer is yes. If you would’ve given her those anti-psychotics, the experimental drugs I gave her would’ve trashed her kidneys.”

“Oh, so let’s cut our time in half by screwing with her heart with dangerous drugs,” what sounded like 21 said from behind Dr. Cottage, “We could actually do real doctor stuff and give her an MRI instead of playing ‘Mad Scientist’ with experimental treatments.”

Dr. Cottage turned back and looked at me again, “Don’t worry, she’s really just angry because she’s dying of an incurable disease that’ll make her flail like a toddler and eventually make her brain-dead. The treatment was completely safe, heart attacks are just one of the possible side effects.”

As he talked I looked around the room and noticed I was in a hospital, not a refurbished Wasteland hospital, but a REAL hospital with doctors and nurses everywhere. Like in some pictures of one of my books I looked at while in my Stable, It was a nice hospital too, I hope I don’t get charged hundreds of thousands of caps for being treated here, “Where are my friends?”

Dr. Cottage gave me a strange look, “Right, you’re insane in the membrane. Your friends are figments of your imagination and don’t exist. I’d be your friend, but I don’t like anyone. Anyway, my name is Dr. Cottage, I’m a diagnostician who takes on strange cases of illnesses that other doctors are too stupid to figure out.”

“I know, you treated one of my friends.”

“Really? I don’t recall venturing into Imagination Land, of course I never recall when I go on painkiller drug trips,” Dr. Cottage replied.

“Can I please just give her the MRI?” 21 asked.

“No, she’ll just freak out again and ruin the results,” he replied.

“What if we sedate her?” 21 asked again.

“You know we’re doctors right? We SAVE ponies, not kill them, except for that one dictator guy who was a huge dick,” Dr. Cottage answered.

“What the fuck are you talking about!? I feel fine, except for the naggin pain in my chest from being SHOCKED! I want to know how I got here and why I’m here hooked up to all this crap,” then I looked down at where the IV went into my left forehoof, “Where’s my Pip-Buck!? How the hell did you manage to get it off!?”

“Great, now she’s freaking out again. I’m not getting bit again trying to restrain her,” 21 said.

“You’re right, being in here is distracting us from the real problem. This is why I don’t see patients,” Dr. Cottage retorted.

Ignoring me, they all walked out of the room like I was just a piece of chopped radroach. I have to find the others and get the fuck out of here, and most of all, find my Pip-Buck. I started to look around the room some more and saw that there was a window on the right-hoof side. I slid my hind-legs off the bed and took the IV stand in my magic to wheel it with me, then I slowly walked toward the window and pulled back the curtain. As soon as I did, I was blinded by sunlight, REAL sunlight, “This can’t be real, how’d the clouds all get cleared?” then I looked down into the hospital courtyard, “Green grass too? Where the hell am I?”

“This is Princetown Ponysboro Teaching Hospital, apparently,” Stardust said from the doorway of my room.

I quickly turned around to see Stardust standing before me in a lab coat, “Oh thank the Goddesses you’re here…why are you dressed like a doctor? Oh, don’t tell me you’re all weird and twisted too.”

He shook his head, “Nope. Woke up talking to some of Dr. Cottage’s fellowship doctors in some weird accent. This place is weird and I wanna go home. At least I know what’ll kill me in The Wasteland, here I could catch an odd disease and die a horrible death.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s a hospital, I’m sure they take some sort of precautions. Why do you think doctors don’t get sick?”

He huffed, “I could still get sneezed on, bled on, or worse, barfed on. Bodily fluids are always being sprayed around in places like this.”

“You were fine in Frosty Summit when Wingnut was sick. I don’t understand why you’d have a problem now,” I said, trying to get passed his germaphobia.

“Frosty Summit only had Wingnut, and that disease wasn’t contagious. I hate hospitals and medical centers, always have. There was this one time in Stable 97 where there was this flu going around and the clinic was full of other ponies expelling fluids out of every orifice and I ended up getting sick because one of the ponies walking into the clinic accidentally sneezed on me,” Stardust argued.

“Oh get over yourself, you’ll be fine. Plus, I have a feeling this place isn’t quite in The Wasteland, look outside.”

He looked passed me at the window, “Is that the sun?”

“Yeah, I thought my first time seeing it would be cool, but it turns out that I’m hooked up to machines and IV bags in a place that thinks I’m insane and stinks like hospital. There’s also the fact that I’m missing something,” I held my left fore-hoof up, “It’s gone.”

“What’re you talking about, your horn is still there,” he said sounding puzzled.

“I’m not pointing to my horn you idiot, I’m showing you that I don’t have my Pip-Buck. That means someone here has it and if anything it’s my mother. This must be some sort of spell she cast so she could get away, but that doesn’t make any sense. She had that magic suppressing ring on her horn.”

“First of all, I’m not an idiot, I just don’t spend a lot of time looking at your freakin’ Pip-Buck. Second of all, remember that the area the motel was in, screwed with unicorn magic?” Stardust said.

I scratched my head, “Yeah, but that shouldn’t affect the horn ring though, right?”

He shrugged, “I dunno, I always figured magic was magic.”

“No, it’s not, but there’s gotta be some sort of explanation for all of this. I remember walking into the motel room and then I switched on the light, then I was waking up here being shocked with a defibrillator. Have you seen any of the others?”

“No, you’re the first I’ve seen since I found myself here. I don’t even know where here is besides what I read on the sign in the hallway. I mean I’ve seen Dr. Cottage and stuff, but he’s different than usual, he’s still a pill popping ass, but he doesn’t seem to recall being in The Wasteland. For a second there he thought I contracted the same disease they’re trying to figure out if you have or not, but then he just complemented me on dropping my ridiculous accent. Then he told me I should get a manecut because if I didn’t have to spend an hour on it every morning, I might make it to work on time. I don’t even work here!” Stardust explained.

A second later, a nurse walked into the room, “Excuse me, Dr. Night. Your patient in maternity is ready to deliver, you should head down there and get scrubbed.”

He turned around to look at her, “Uhhh, yeah sure, be there in a couple minutes,” as she walked out of the room he turned his head back to me, “I guess I do work here. I don’t wanna deliver a foal, and why the fuck do they need to scrub me? I feel cleaner than I did in the stable.”

“Scrubbed means dressed for surgical work jackass,” Aura said from the doorway. Geeze, was there a big sign on the door that said in big letters ‘SHADOW IS IN THIS ROOM EVERYPONY’? “Where are we?”

“In a hospital,” Stardust and I said in unison.

She grabbed the bridge of her beak and sighed, “I get that part, I meant where is this hospital? I’ve never even heard of it before, and outside it looks like the war pretty much never happened. I even saw a few zebras in other rooms that didn’t seem to be terrorizing anypony, and some of them were patients.”

I started disconnecting the machine that tracked my heartrate and oxygen level from my fore-leg and it started to beep, “Aura, can you help me with this?”

She walked over and ripped the plug out of the wall, “There, problem solved,” then a bunch of nurses ran in, “Or not.”

When they saw I wasn’t in immediate need of medical care they stopped and stared blankly at me as if they didn’t know what to do, so I spoke up, “Tell Dr. Cottage I’d like to be discharged.”

The nurse in the front said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, you just had a serious cardiac event.”

“I don’t care, trust me it’s not my first one. He experimented on me and I don’t feel comfortable under his care. So, go tell him to discharge me,” I replied sternly.

She shook her head and led the rest of the nurses out of the room. As the last one turned out the door Stardust said, “That was weird, why didn’t they just tell you no?”

“Maybe it’s like before the war when you could say you want to leave the hospital and they have to let you,” Aura said, “Doctors aren’t supposed to keep their patients’ prisoner until they’re better or die.”

I took a minute to think about it, “Maybe we can get out of this by playing our parts.”

Stardust looked confused, “What? Play our parts?”

“You know, like a story. I’m clearly a patient with a weird disease, you’re a doctor, and…I don’t know what Aura is supposed to be in this situation. However, I think if we act out these specific parts, we might eventually find the others and be able to get out of this strange world,” I explained.

“No way Kemosabe, I’m not gonna play doctor with some random mare and deliver her foal,” Stardust protested.

“Come on, it can’t be that hard, just don’t drop it,” I retorted.

Aura rubbed her face with a talon, “Shadow, that’s not how all that works, didn’t they have a health class in your Stable?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I paid attention,” I replied.

She sighed, “That was apparent when you said ‘just don’t drop it’. I hope you know how wrong that sounds. Oh well, guess it’s a good thing you won’t be having a foal anytime soon or at all. I couldn’t imagine what you’d do if you had to give birth.”

Stardust looked thoughtful as he said, “So, there is a plus side to a same sex relationship.”

“Okay, fine, maybe don’t play out our parts err whatever. How else are we gonna get out of here? Plus, we still need to figure out where Wind Thrasher, Oricalcos, and my mother are,” I said then looked over at Stardust, “And, bite me Dusty.”

“I’m sure they’re around here somewhere,” Stardust said, “Grimoire is probably trapped in the Psych Ward, Oricalcos is most likely hiding in a shadow somewhere waiting for us to walk by so he doesn’t have to look for us, and Wind Thrasher is probably a patient like you with tests being done to see why she looks the way she does. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what she looks like, but I’m pretty sure in this setting something like her is either an impossibility or just extremely rare.”

“Hey, two of those are actually good suggestions,” Aura said, “You’re dressed like a doctor, maybe you should go check the patient logs.”

Stardust cleared his throat, “No madam, I AM a doctor. I overcharge ponies to cut them open and always have cold hooves. While you’re here I could give you a flu sh…”

“Just go check them already! I’m not in the mood for one of your stupid routines,” Aura interrupted.

“Geeze, Aura don’t be a buzz kill, anyways, how am I supposed to know where the patient log is? I don’t really work here, well I do, but I don’t know where stuff is,” he replied.

She rubbed her face again, “All this is making my head hurt. Go out to the nurse’s station and look for a terminal, it should be on there. At least that’s where it is in most of the hospitals I’ve explored in The Wasteland.”

“That would probably be a good idea huh?” Stardust said rubbing the back of his head.

He walked out of the room to do as she asked and then Aura walked over to me and started fiddling with my IV, “Here, let me get this out. You don’t want this tube to get stuck on anything if we have to run because this is all some elaborate trap meant to kill us.”

“I think we’ve OW! Sprung the trap already by winding up in this mess. Lesson learned, never turn on lights in strange places.”

“How were you supposed to know this was gonna happen, and who says it was you turning on the light that triggered it?” she asked as she removed the needle and applied a Generic Brand Medical Adhesive Strip. Wait, why did I just describe a Generic Brand Medical Adhesive strip like that? Why can’t I just say what it is? Ugh, somepony help us.

“I just have this feeling that the lamp had something to do with it. Maybe we found one of Squirrel and Moose’s supernatural creatures and got screwed because of the coincidence,” I replied.

“That seems highly unlikely, the supernatural creature thing. Sure, this is a strange situation we’ve been put in, but I don’t think it was by some monster,” Aura said doubtingly.

I sighed, “Are you sure, cause this has ‘freaky’ scribbled all over it and I don’t want ‘freaky’ all over me more than it already is,” It was then that I noticed that I didn’t feel Aquila trying to push her way out of my consciousness.

“Yes I’m sure, this has to be something different. I don’t think there’s some random monster out there that puts a group together in a shared dream and eats them while they blissfully slumber,” she replied as Stardust came back into the room.

“So, I checked that sick ponies list thingy, and I didn’t see Grim or Oricalcos on the list as patients, but I did see Wind Thrasher. I guess she’s in the free clinic on the first floor getting treated for poison joke of all things.”

“Sounds like she got off easy,” I said, feeling relieved, “She’s lucky they didn’t want to run experiments and tests on her to see what she is. If we can get down there and find her, then maybe she can help us find the other two with her enhanced senses.”

Cottage M.D. will return after these messages…

Tired of feeling sick after eating irradiated food? If you are then you should ask your doctor about Leadizole, the heavy metal radiation treatment guaranteed to put a damper on radiation sickness. Here are some opinions from current Leadizole users.

“I use Leadizole on a daily basis to combat radiation sickness from food accidentally exposed to magical radiation, and it works wonders.”

“With Leadizole, I don’t have to worry about if what I eat is gonna make me sick or not.”

“Leadizole is a miracle drug!”

Do not take Leadizole while pregnant, as it may cause birth defects or a miscarriage. Some patients have experienced discomfort while using Leadizole. Leadizole can cause some serious or life-threatening side effects. Speak with your doctor immediately if you experience the following: fever, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, addiction to eating metallic objects, heavy metal poisoning, or death.

oOo

“Hello, see this frying pan? See this egg? It may look like I’m about to make a delicious breakfast here, but I have an important message for you. This egg is your brain, this frying pan is drugs. (crack, sssssssss) This is your brain on drugs!”

“Using illegal drugs will rot your insides and turn your brain into useless stupid paste. So set an example for your peers and say no to drugs and alcohol, it could change your life.”

“If you or a friend is having trouble with a drug or alcohol problem please seek help as soon as you can, and don’t be afraid. Thank you.”

oOo

Need an ice-cold beverage to cool you down in a flash? Then crack open a bottle of Sparkle-Cola! Now available in our new ROCKET BOTTLE! Blast your taste buds with flavor as fast as a rocket reaches the moon with NEW Sparkle-Cola RAD! Find your equestrian classic beverage at any of these select retailers and enjoy the ultimate thirst quencher!

oOo

“Hey, how’s it goin’!? Boy do I have a treat for you tonight. Do you ever get sick of having to peel, shave, or husk your own fruits and veggies by hoof? Well now you don’t have to worry about all that hassle with the Chaos Brand FV Stripper! Just simply put whatever you want in the top here and press this button and then presto! It’s as easy as that, just drop, press, and eat! But wait there’s more! If you order right now, you’ll get this exclusive offer of the Chaos Brand Mini-Blender for all your blending needs ABSOLUTELY FREE! And if you place your order in the next two minutes you won’t just get one FV Stripper and Mini-Blender, you’ll get TWO of each! That’s right TWO, and with no extra cost. So call the number at the bottom of your screen toll free at 1-800-347-2673 that’s 1-800-347-2673! Shipping charges may apply.”

oOo

Tonight, on PMZ! We catch up with Sapphire Shores after her on stage wardrobe malfunction. Is that Princess Cadence walking around The Crystal Empire with what looks like a foal-bump, or is she hiding a cake addiction like her dear Aunt? Plus, we take a look at the pony who managed to paparazzo a paparazzo. Tonight at 7pm Equestrian time!

oOo

We now return to Cottage M.D.

“What the fuck just happened?” Stardust asked.

“I have no fucking clue. It sounded like a bunch of weird advertisements,” I replied.

“The better question is how the hell we got down here,” Aura said.

I proceeded to look around and noticed that we were no longer in my room and were now in what looked like the hospital entrance, right in front of the clinic, “Guys, this is getting weirder. I don’t remember coming down here, do you?”

“No, we were in your room upstairs and then there was all that weirdness, and now we’re here. Like I said before, I wanna go back to The Wasteland and that shitty motel with the moldy mattresses that smell like something died in them, this place is weird and makes me uncomfortable,” Stardust said.

Aura pointed a talon, “Looks like the clinic is right there, we should go see if we can find Wind Thrasher. It doesn’t look all that big so it shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

They followed as I walked through the clinic doors. The clinic was full of sick ponies in the waiting room with a very arrogant looking Dr. Cottage standing before them, “Okay, is everypony here feeling sick today?” they nodded, “Stuffy nose, fever, chills, possible coughing?” they nodded again, “It’s a COLD, go home, eat some freakin’ soup, and go to bed. You’ll feel better in a few days,” as they all got up he turned around and looked at me, “Aren’t you supposed to be dying?”

“No, I feel fine,” I replied plainly.

“Hmm, congratulations, you’re cured!” he said with a sarcastic grin, “Well, when you actually do die, make sure your family doesn’t sue me for malpractice.”

“Sue?”

“Oh, never mind. Anyhow there are other patients I must miraculously cure beyond all odds and belief,” he said as he proceeded to walk away.

“Excuse me, is there something I can help you with? Otherwise if you’re a walk-in to get examined, please write down your name here and wait to be called up,” the receptionist at the desk said.

“Um, I’m looking for my friend Wind Thrasher, she’s apparently being treated for poison joke,” I replied awkwardly.

She smiled and looked down at her terminal, “It looks like she’s in exam room 3 right over there.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

We walked up to the door and I turned the knob with my magic. What I opened the door to surprised me, “Occupied!”

“Oh, sorry, we were looking for our friend,” I said quickly.

“Shadow? How’d you get into my dream, and Aura too?” Wind Thrasher, or at least what sounded like Wind Thrasher said while soaking in a small wooden tub.

“Why didn’t you ask why I’m here too? Also, why don’t you look like you normally do?” Stardust asked.

She blushed, “Um, no reason, I was getting to you. They said I was affected by poison joke and needed to bathe in this stuff to get rid of it. I told them that I normally look like this but they didn’t believe me.”

When she said she normally looked like that I noticed that Wind Thrasher didn’t look like her normal self, she was…normal. Not normal as in her normal, normal as in not sharing DNA with other creatures. Her mane and coat were the same color they usually were, but her wings were feathery like a normal pegasus, her eyes were blue instead of yellow and didn’t have slit pupils. I couldn’t tell because she was mostly in the water, but I don’t think she had scales either.

I was gonna say something, but Stardust did before I could, “On the contrary, you do have some distinct differences.”

She quickly covered her face as if she was hiding, “Like what!? My mane didn’t turn an icky green color did it!?”

Stardust cleared his throat, “Uh, no. You um…look different, like really different.”

“Yeah, you look like a normal cloud muncher like Stardust does,” Aura senselessly blurted out.

Wind Thrasher shot up and looked at her reflection in the mirror on the wall as bubbles slid down her coat and back into the water, “How the…”

“Just so you know…” I interrupted, “This isn’t a dream.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting back down into the water.

“It looks like we’re in another world of some sort,” Stardust said, “Something happened when we went into that abandoned motel room and Shadow decided to turn on the light. After that we all woke up in strange places in this hospital. Apparently, I’m a doctor which doesn’t make any sense, Shadow is a patient with a weird illness which is just her normal brand of weird, and Aura…I don’t know about her, she just kinda showed up.”

“Did you guys hear those weird ads too?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Yup, and there’s no unhearing them either,” Aura replied.

“What about Grimoire and Oricalcos?” Wind Thrasher asked again.

I sighed, “We don’t know yet, none of us have seen them around at all, and I don’t even know where to start looking if they’re here just like we are. If anything, this could be some elaborate trap set by my mother, even though I highly doubt it. How would she know we were going to that specific place?”

“There’s also the fact that she was tied up with a magic suppressing ring on her horn and Oricalcos watching over her,” Stardust said.

Wind Thrasher got out of the wooden tub and started to dry off with a towel I hadn’t noticed when we came in, “So, what do we do now?”

I scratched my head and looked around at each of my friends, “I don’t know, I guess we could try taking a look around down here. I’d say check upstairs for my mom and Oricalcos, but I don’t wanna be shoved back into a hospital gown and experimented on again. The Dr. Cottage here seems more dickish and nuts than the one we know.”

We left the clinic and went into the lobby only to be hit with a serious case of ‘where the fuck do we go now’. The only places on the main floor were, the hospital administrator’s office, a chapel for some reason with a religion I didn’t recognize, the cafeteria, and a gift shop.

“Why don’t we talk to the Administrator and see if we can make sense of our situation?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Because they’ll just throw us in a padded room with straightjackets and mouth guards so we don’t bite our own tongues,” Stardust said as if that was the obvious thing that would happen…which he was probably correct about, “How about we go to the gift shop and play with the cheap toys for dying children until they break. Not to purposely break them, but to pass the time. Plus, it’s not like this place is real.”

“Maybe you SHOULD be put in a straightjacket featherbrain.” Aura hissed.

“I dunno, the electricity ramming through my chest felt pretty real,” I said rubbing my chest a little with a hoof.

“Well, real or not, I’m hungry. Can we talk this over in the cafeteria over some REAL food with NO radiation?” Aura asked.

“Rule number one about being in a strange place away from home, don’t eat the food,” Stardust said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It could be really gross and give you the sh…uh…food poisoning. Otherwise there’s the chance that it could be made of other ponies they keep locked up in the basement,” Stardust replied.

Ugh, why can’t we all agree to go to one place, and why is there always a bad side with going to said place? The Administrator will think we’re insane, the cafeteria probably has fucked up food, and the gift shop…well the gift shop doesn’t sound too bad, but still there’s probably something there waiting to fuck with us too, “What about the chapel?” I asked.

“What are we gonna do there, pray for release from this hellhole?” Aura asked.

“I’m just saying it’s an option with no down side,” I retorted.

“Uh, sure, no downside. It says ‘Church of Chaos’ right on the door, sounds sketchy,” Stardust said.

That’s it, fuck this, “FINE, we’ll go to the fucking giftshop!”

All the ponies in the lobby stopped what they were doing and looked at me in awkward silence.

***

We walked into the gift shop and I noticed that there were more stuffed animals with sayings on them than I was comfortable with. Not to mention the overly enthusiastic Nurse Joy who was standing at the cashier’s counter, “Why hello there. Is there anything I can help you find?”

I haven’t seen her since I was recovering from surgery in Hidden Sands, I forgot how annoyingly cheerful she is, “No.”

“Oh, no. Somepony is being a sourpuss, was there a death in the family?” she retorted to my answer.

“No, but there’s gonna be a death soon if you keep asking me questions,” I said angrily.

“Y’know what, I have a big fluffy stuffed bear that would be perfect for you. Maybe it’ll lighten your spirits a little. Oh, and I also have sugar free lollipops!” she said again, completely ignoring my remark.

“Okay, first of all, stuffed animals are better fire fodder than material objects, second, sugar free lollipops taste like sundried shit on a paper stick, and third, leave me alone and let me browse in peace. I just wanna get the hell out of here and go home,” I said again, hoping she’d finally stop.

“Oh, well I could getcha some fun little toys to pla…”

I interrupted and proceeded to exclaim, “Shut, up!”

Instead of reacting like a normal pony would she just smiled and said, “Okey-dokey then. I’ll leave ya to it.”

“Wow, harsh much?” Stardust asked.

“What would you do?”

“Not that,” he replied, “You could’ve been calmer and nicer.”

“I could’ve shot her too, but I don’t have my gun now do I?” I asked.

“What put you in a bad mood all of a sudden?” Wind Thrasher asked as we walked around the store.

I sighed, “I’m just frustrated is all, I finally get my mom into a position where I can finally try talking some sense into her and jury-rig her head so she doesn’t think I’m an imposter anymore. Then, out of nowhere I see one of these fucking things and turn it on to end up in Screwy-fucked-up-hellscape!” then I realized what I just pointed at. Right on the shelf was the same lamp in a row of other lamps that looked exactly the same. I looked down at the price label for some reason and read what it said, “Discord Lamp, twelve bits.”

“Discord? Like Lord of Chaos Discord?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Stardust scoffed, “He was re-trapped in stone by the Ministry Mares over two-hundred years ago. There’s no way the statue he was turned into survived the war, especially sitting in the castle garden.”

Wind Thrasher put a hoof up, “Well, actually I found out that the statue was moved to a research facility during the war by Rarity. It was in some messages I read on a terminal somewhere when I was traveling after I left Stable 9.”

“How would he get out though?” I asked.

“He couldn’t have,” Stardust said, “He was sealed with The Elements of Harmony, the strongest weapons the Ministry Mares ever had in their youth.”

“How do you explain this then?” Aura asked.

“I can’t,” Stardust replied.

“Ohhhhh, but I CAN,” the lamp said as it started to move, “Step into my office,” Discord said with a snap of his ceramic claw.

We suddenly found ourselves in the office of the hospital administrator, sitting in front of a desk with a very familiar looking Draconequus sitting behind it at a terminal wearing a suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

He looked at me, “So Ms. Star, you were admitted to Pranceton Ponysboro Hospital with chest pains, psychosis, and some slight death?”

“No, I was teleported here by a stupid lamp that looks like you!” I replied.

He scratched his tufty goatee with his lion paw, “I see, so still feeling some symptoms. I’ll inform Dr. Cottage and the rest of his fellowship, starting with Dr. Night.”

Stardust retorted in a strange accent, “I’m not a doctah! Why am I talking loike this? If ya don’t fix me, I’ll fuckin’ bump ya!”

“With what, your didgeridoo?” Discord asked.

“Why I otta!” Stardust yelled with a hoof in the air as if he was gonna try hitting the apparent Lord of Chaos.

He smiled and typed on his terminal keyboard, “Moving on to you, Ms. Thrasher. I see you’ve responded well to your poison joke treatment, I actually preferred you the other way, but I guess it can’t be helped. Such a debilitating ailment those wonderful plants can spring upon you sometimes.”

“Jerk,” Wind Thrasher said, proceeding to stick her tongue out at him.

“Ah, yes, very good. You, mutated chicken, you’re just here as a visitor of Ms. Star. I regret to inform you that she’s completely lost her mind,” Discord said tossing a brain from his claw.

“What the fuck do you want with us, and how the hell are you even here right now?” I asked.

He put up one digit on his lion paw and waved it in my face, “Ah-ah-ah, no one likes a potty mouth,” then my mouth appeared to turn into a toilet for a split second as he snapped his claws again, “There, that should help. After all, sometimes children watch with their parents as they all sit in the living room enjoying their MSG riddled microwave dinners in front of the television.”

“What the fudge is a television? Ah, why the shell can’t I say fudge?” I asked, apparently no longer able to curse.

“But you just said it my dear, don’t tell me you can’t recognize words anymore. Anyhow, on to your question. Right now, you are in a world of my creation. You see, a fifth dimensional creature such as myself requires a certain amount of amusement in order to not go sane,” Discord replied.

“You’re not fifth dimensional,” Wind Thrasher said.

He put a digit up, “No, but I lived there long enough to be considered fifth dimensional. Details, always with the details. Anyway, never mind that and welcome to TV Land!”

“Wot’s TV laund?” Stardust asked, “You also neva said what a television wos.”

Discord smiled, “That’s because your universe never invented one, even though you had all the means to do so. A television is for example, a terminal monitor that displays recorded plays called shows, and even better commercials and informercials that pop up right when the good part is coming up which is so chaotic I almost cry kittens every time it happens.” He literally cried kittens as he said that, “TV Land is a world of my making inside such a device, commercials and all.”

“But why did you bring us here and how?” Wind Thrasher asked.

He leaned back in his chair which changed from an office chair to a rocking chair as his outfit changed to that of an old lady and sounded as such, but retained his own voice, “Let me think…it was chapters ago in a place called The Fiend Town under Stable 9 when I first met Shadow. She was trying to save her newest friends from certain death from that awful pony Gator and I saw her through the downpour of the raging thunderstorm that was cascading water all over my tiny sixty-watt light bulb. I guided her, and shared with her wisdom, only to be blasted away with a mighty explosion. I found myself in many different places, from junk scavengers to traveling salesponies. I was finally bought by the former manager of this fine establishment, however when she turned me on I took pity on her and sent her to a place where she’d be happier.” His voice nomalizes, “Who says I can’t be a nice guy? And then Shadow came along again with her friends intact and with a few more. So, I gathered up what magic I could spare and brought the four of you here. I would’ve brought the other three, but it seems my magic doesn’t work on them. Charms, technicalities, and all.”

“You still haven’t explained why you brought us here and how you’re not a giant hunk of useless rock,” I said plainly.

He smiled, “I was saving the best part for last. I brought you here to see if you’d be willing to help little old me. When I…”

“No, absolutely not,” I said, “You’re the Lord of Chaos and tried to take over the world.”

“Ppfftt, so? Celestia and Luna were clearly running it into the ground anyway with all that nasty war business. I was just pitching a better option before that happened to be an issue. The early bird catches the worm you know,” he retorted.

Stardust pounded a hoof on his desk, “Yeah, but yer still evil ya bloomin’ snake!”

“Put a sock in it you little Outback reject,” with a snap of his claw, Stardust’s mouth was stuffed with rolled up white and pink socks, “Much better.”

“Hey, fix him before I…” I started to say.

“Before you do what? Shoot me? Kill me? In case you haven’t noticed, you have no weapons, and I’m not stupid enough to lend you my fancy letter opener. It was a gift from a dear friend, she brought my mail every day without fail and had the best set of crossed eyes I’d ever seen,” Discord interrupted.

“Stop going off on tangents,” I said, “I’m aware I don’t have any weapons, but I still have an ace to play.”

He laughed evily, “What, your little disease living in that head cage of yours? I thought you would’ve caught on when I said my magic didn’t work on the other THREE of you. It seems you’re not very perceptive, I left her in your little bird-cage in your unconscious body.”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous she is!?” I exclaimed.

“Quite, as I imagine. She’s almost as powerful as I am when I’m whole.”

“Whole?” I asked.

His smile disappeared, “It seems my tongue has slipped a little too far up the slide again,” he sighed, “I guess I might as well explain since you’re going to ask anyway.”

“Explain what?” Aura asked.

Discord snapped his paw clamping a very large wooden clothespin on Aura’s beak “Don’t interrupt me.” He snapped his paw again and a book of Equestrian History pops out of thin air along with reading glasses, Discord opens it and starts reading it aloud, “A long time ago, in a soon to be Equestrian Wasteland pretty close to here, I was a glorious statue. When I was brought to the research facility by Rarity, that little whiner, she experimented on me with her two little idiot goons. She was studying that black book and decided she’d try her hoof at a little soul magic. I, of course was the first subject. She and the other two, cut off part of my soul and stuffed me into this wonderful little lamp that I’d left behind years ago during my reign which lasted all but an afternoon. I was used as an office lamp from then on that wouldn’t break or ever need its bulb changed. Then the megaspells came and I was lost under a pile of rubble for years until a lucky scavenger dug me out and sold me to a merchant, it was all downhill from there. I eventually was stolen from an unsuspecting family in a home invasion by that Gator fellow and hung up on a rusty, smelly, and not to mention run-down shack. Then you know the rest.”

“So, you’re a soul jar?” I asked.

“Yes…and no. The lamp is a soul jar and I am the piece of my soul that was bonded to it. The reason I brought you all here is to reunite me with the rest of my soul so I can be whole again,” Discord explained.

“Whole again? So, you can do what, break free and make The Wasteland even worse than it is?” I asked again.

“Worse? To be honest I was thinking of fixing up the joint, the whole radiation and my blood everywhere thing is kind of tacky if you ask me. Although I’d probably make a few improvements.”

“No, we won’t help you do that. I’d rather deal with The Wasteland the way it is than let you tamper with it and turn the whole place into some drug-fueled nightmare,” I said as Stardust tried muffling something through the rolled-up sock in his mouth.

Discord frowned, “Very well then. We’ll be back after these messages, and coming up next, Equestria’s Funniest Home Videos!”

(SNAP!)

Do you experience symptoms of herpegonosypholitis such as burning, itching, genital bleeding, occasional death, and reverse fever dreams?

Hi, I’m Dr. Discord, Lord of Chaos. If you’ve suffered from any of these symptoms then you should talk to me, your primary physician about Killaskank. Killaskank is a drug formulated and proven to treat, stop the spread of, and eventually cure herpegonosypholitis within three centuries or less.

Dr. Cottage from the hit drama Dr. Cottage M.D. has tested this drug on himself and here’s his response.

“I still have the disease, but at least I don’t have to say I don’t on this commercial.”

Oh, pity, I thought he was a team player. Anyway, side effects of this drug will probably all kill you blah blah blah. NEXT!

oOo

Coming this Friday to a theater near you, Fallout Equestria: Falling Shadows, The Movie!

With big name actors such as Shadow Star, Stardust, Aura Bloodtalon, and the rest of the band of misfits you remember from your favorite best-selling book. All reprising their rolls in this book-to-movie drama-thriller. Watch as Shadow hopelessly wanders the wasteland with her idiot friends to find her mentally unstable mother and get answers to her life, and save The Equestrian Wasteland from certain death. Early patrons at select theaters will receive ponchos upon purchase of a 4D movie ticket for all the blood and gore that will eventually cover you from head to hoof.

Only showing in select theaters, book your tickets now and enjoy with the whole family!

oOo

I found myself on a strange set with what looked like a camera in front of me. What the hell am I doing here, “Hi, I’m Shadow Star, from the upcoming film Fallout Equestria: Falling Shadows The Movie coming to theaters this Friday,” I said seductively. Why seductively? Why did I say that at all? “I just can’t get through a day of filming with out and ice-cold Sparkle-Cola. With its great original taste and radioactivity, I gulp down every sip as if it were my last. Sparkle-Cola, the apocalypse awaits,” I’m beginning to hate Discord more than I already do.

oOo

Hello, I’m Discord, Lord of Chaos, attorney at law. Have you recently been ran over by a carriage, stepped on by a giant monster, or slightly eaten by other ponies?

Here at Chaos Law & Associates, my fellow Discords and I believe you shouldn’t have to suffer such things without any compensation. Head down to my offices in the fifth dimension for a free consultation to see what you can do about your recent accident or victimization. You can also call toll free through a very rare seashell found in the deepest depths of the largest volcano in Equestria, otherwise it’s the third building on your left off of Not-Main Street, and Thirteenth Avenue right next to The Shadow Zone.

oOo

Tonight on Equestria’s Funniest Home Videos, we get to see a unicorn fly, a griffon get drunk, and a pegasus or two have a bit of a crash. Now here’s our host, the one and only, DISCORD!

“Hello, everypony, I’m your host Discord, Lord of Chaos and this is Equestria’s favorite epic fail, prime time show Equestria’s Funniest Home Videos! Tonight on our show we won’t be giving away roses to potential lovers like some desperate divorced housewife, no one will fall into a pit of mud after bouncing off the side of a giant, red, rubber ball on an obstacle course even though it is pretty funny, and no one will find out if they have talent or not. However, we will have clips like this…”

I suddenly found myself on top of a two-story house looking down at a trampoline. Oh Goddesses no, what did I do to deserve this? Then I started to uncontrollably walk forward and jump, “Ahhhh!” I yelled as I fell toward the trampoline. When I hit, I immediately bounced and went flying into the nearby fence, face first, “Ow, son of a b***h!”

“Oh, that wasn’t a good idea now was it? Everypony knows unicorns can’t fly. In this next video, the creature can fly, but really shouldn’t”

After a quick flash I found myself in an audience looking at the big screen on the stage. I couldn’t move or talk, but I could see Aura drunkenly fly into a sliding glass door on in the video on the screen.

“What, no laugh?” another Discord said from next to me. I looked around and saw that the entire audience were Discords, “I won’t let you ruin my show by talking but you can laugh freely at your friend’s shenanigans.”

I shook my head as much as I could, “Mmm-mm.”

The next video that played was Stardust and Wind Thrasher as the bride and groom at a wedding, “Now this is quite the picture isn’t it. The funny thing is what will happen next, I didn’t even need to write into the script for tonight’s show.”

I looked at the video again and Stardust tried to speak as the minister recited wedding stuff, “I uh, what are we…” then without warning, the still normal looking Wind Thrasher passed out. Stardust rushed to catch her and said, “Wind Thrasher are you okay?”

Then the video cut out and the host Discord started speaking again, but I couldn’t hear him over the Discord next to me, “Really Shadow, not even a chuckle? What kind of friend doesn’t laugh at their friends? How about we change the channel?”

(SNAP!)

“And we’re back with Police Force Live! Let’s check back with the officer we follow in Round Pines, Northern Equestria.”

Round Pines, Equestria

Why are we in a carriage? Wait, where’s Stardust? “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, head just hurts a little from that damn window,” Aura said rubbing her head lightly.

“I barely remember what happened, one minute I was standing at an alter with Stardust and then I was here,” Wind Thrasher said with a small blush.

Then I noticed something through the back window, “What’s that flashing red light?”

“Don’t know, probably something that’s gonna kill us as usual,” Aura said plainly.

I grasped the carriage’s side window with my magic and pulled it open to see Stardust standing before a strange mare in a uniform, “Okay sir, I want you to walk in a straight line, hoof to hoof for ten paces.”

“Okay, then what after that?” Stardust asked.

“We’ll see what happens first,” the strange mare replied.

“Stardust, what are you doing?”

“I guess this is some sort of crime show and I was stopped for suspected drunk flying,” he replied as he completed his task.

The, I guess, police officer smiled, “Alright sir, now I want you to stand up straight in front of me and follow my hoof without turning your head, only move your eyeballs.”

“What? That sounds stupid,” Stardust protested.

“I could just put ya in hoofcuffs right now if you’d like and take a blood test at the jail,” she responded.

Stardust sighed, “Okay, just start the test.”

I watched as she performed this strange test of hers and asked, “So, why does he need to do all this?”

“Oh, this is a test of motor skills to see if he is impaired in any way, it’s called a field sobriety test,” she explained as she continued the test.

“But, we’re on a road…” no! Stupid Shadow, don’t say that!

“Haha, very funny, just sit back and relax. If I end up having to take him in, I’ll call your parents to come pick you up,” the officer said with a genuine chuckle.

“Is that it? Are we done with the tests now?” Stardust asked.

“Nope, I’m gonna need you to blow into this,” she said.

“What’s that?” Stardust asked, perplexed by the odd nature of the small battery-operated machine.

“This is a breathalyzer device, just blow into this tube for a few seconds and it’ll tell me your blood-alcohol level,” she answered.

“Why couldn’t we have just started with that? You could’ve saved so much time if you’d just started with that,” Stardust said.

She gave him a slight shooty look, “Sir, I also need to make sure you’re not having a serious medical event preventing you from properly operating this sky-carriage. Now just put your mouth on the tube and blow, it’ll be over before you know it.”

“Alright, fine,” he said as he leaned forward to the little machine.

“Blow-blow-blow-blow, done,” she said as the machine beeped, “Looks like you’re the lucky winner of all zeros.”

“Aw, crap,” Stardust said looking at the ground as if he’d committed a heinous crime.

She awkwardly cleared her throat, “Um, sir. That means you’re good to go.”

“Oh, sweet!”

“BORING!” Discord’s disembodied voice spoke.

(SNAP!)

“And we’re back with Equestria Wrestling Showdown! I’m Discord, Lord of Chaos.”

“And I’m also Discord, Lord of Chaos.”

“Right now, we have Macho Stallion Bloody Savage, facing off against the lightweight newcomer, Stardust. Let’s watch.”

I was suddenly sitting in the front row of some stadium bleachers as Stardust stood on some sort of weird stage with a pile of muscle, “Stardust! Can you hear me!”

He turned and looked in my direction, “What!?”

Then the huge brute spoke up, “Yer little horn-faced friend can’t save you from this swoll my winged friend. The Macho Stallion is gonna scramble you and eat you for BREAKFAST! Oooooh Yeeeeeah” then he started to charge at Stardust who flinched and put his hooves in front of his face.

Then I heard Discord’s voice again, “FAKE!”

(SNAP!)

“Here we go, some originality,” Discord said.

We’re back! On Equestria Family!

“Guys, where are we now? And why do you look like pastel drawings?” I asked my friends as I looked around at an untouched by war Ponyville.

“It looks like we’re somehow in the past, and across the country,” Stardust said.

Then a familiar face popped up in front of mine, “Hi! You must be new in town! I only say that because I’ve never seen you before and I know everypony in Ponyville. I’m Pinkie Pie, what’s your name?”

“Like Ministry Mare Pinkie Pie?” I asked.

“Ppfftt, no silly, Pinkie Pie-Pinkie Pie. Ponyville’s own super-duper party pony, in fact I’m gonna throw you all a welcome party to celebrate. Although, I need to know your name’s for the banners,” she replied.

I can’t believe this, I’m face to face with one of the ministry mares in the flesh, I’m so underdressed, “I’m Shadow Star, that’s Stardust, Aura, and Wind Thrasher.”

“OH MY GOODNESS! Those names are so cool, just like super awesome adventurers like me and my friends!” Pinkie Pie said as she bounced up and down on all fours making a springy sound somehow, “I have to go start planning this party as soon as possible!”

Hmm, maybe there’s another way out of this place without Discord letting us out, “While you plan the party, is it alright if I browse the library?”

“Of course you can. Even better is that you can meet my friend Twilight, she’s a super bookworm, but she’s really nice and has more books than anypony in town. Well, technically that’s because she lives in the library, but to be honest I think she’d have the same amount of books even if it wasn’t a library. Anyway, welcome to Ponyville, see ya later!” she replied and then blissfully bounced off to go plan a welcome party.

“That was weird, I’ve only seen pictures of her on posters and other propaganda around The Wasteland saying she’s watching me forever, now I might start believing it,” Stardust said.

“This world isn’t real remember?” Aura said snarkily.

“And? Doesn’t mean it doesn’t still creep me out a bit,” Stardust retorted.

“But, why are we going to the library Shadow?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Because even in a world created by The Lord of Chaos, the Ministry Mares are still themselves. Discord may be The Lord of Chaos, but he pays attention to detail. Remember in the hospital? All the ponies we met in past encounters acted exactly the same, like Nurse Joy and Dr. Cottage. They weren’t altered from the real ones that we know. Then there’s Pinkie Pie here, before she was a Ministry Mare she was Ponyville’s party planner and head of the welcoming committee, exactly like we just saw. Therefore, if we can explain our situation to Twilight Sparkle, we might be able to find a way out of here,” I explained.

“I don’t know why you just explained that out loud, Discord’s just gonna change the channel or whatever now,” Aura said.

“I don’t think so, ever since he revealed himself at the hospital I’ve sort of been able to feel his presence, here I can’t. I don’t think he’s powerful enough to control this entire world with us here straining the magic he has. Otherwise there’s the fact that this is all just a game to him, and no one likes an overpowered player,” I explained further as we walked through Ponyville.

It was so strange to see the small town with a bright shining sun in the blue sky with ponies walking the streets and browsing the stands. It seemed more colorful than the dull dreariness of The Wasteland too, and a lot cleaner. There wasn’t that distinct smell of decay in the air, just fresh uncorrupted air. I wished in a small way that I could stay in a place like this forever, but I couldn’t forget about the ponies and others that need me in The Wasteland. I need to find a way out of here, and fast.

***

“It’s seriously a freakin’ tree?” Aura asked.

“Yeah, don’t you know any Equestrian history?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Aura smirked, “No offense, but not everyone can be as big of a bookworm as you Wind Thrasher.”

“I beg to differ,” I said as I knocked on the arched wooden door of the library.

The door opened to a small purple and green dragon, “Oh, hello. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I need to speak to the Minis…I mean librarian, Twilight Sparkle. See my friends and I are new in town and need some help with something, we were told Twilight might be able to help us,” I replied to the little dragon

“Twi” The little dragon called out, “Some new ponies in town wanna speak with you”

“Thank you Spike” Twilight said from behind Spike, “What seems to be the issue?”

“I think it might be better if we speak in private, it’s a little weird,” I replied, feeling a little nervous.

“Weird? Believe me, Ponyville has seen its fair share of weird. I’m sure it’s nothing anypony would be surprised about,” Twilight said with an innocent smile.

Ugh, I’m gonna look like a psychotic kook in front of one of the Ministry Mares in public and probably make a fool of myself. Well, here goes, “I’m from another world that’s the same as this one, but it’s like two-hundred years give or take into the future in a post-apocalyptic wasteland riddled with terrifying monsters, radiation, and deranged ponies, griffons, and zebras. The reason I came to you for help is because where I come from, you’re one of the greatest political figures and scientists of the past and accomplished great feats and I was hoping you could help me get back there so I can save ponies from an eventual catastrophe.”

She gave me a surprised stare and her left eye twitched, “Uh-huh, yeah, let’s talk inside.”

We all walked inside and Wind Thrasher looked around with bright eyes, “So many books.”

Then Twilight shut the door, “You’re what!?”

“From another world, didn’t you hear what Shadow said?” Stardust asked sarcastically.

“Yes, I’m aware of what she said, whatever your name is. It’s just impossible,” she replied.

“My name is Stardust, and in case it wasn’t apparent, the short one is Shadow. The other two are Wind Thrasher the pegasus, and Aura the griffon,” Stardust said pointing out my small stature. Hmm, he hasn’t done that in a while.

“If it’s so impossible, then how are we here?” I asked.

“Okay, it shouldn’t be possible, unless it was a spell cast by somepony with an incredible amount of magic,” Twilight said.

“Are you familiar with a draconequus by the name of Discord?” I asked, trying to get to the point of how we got here.

She facehoofed in horror, “Oh-no, not him. I thought The Elements sealed him in stone again.”

“Maybe here, but not in our world. Well, technically he’s in a ceramic lamp, but he’s still able to use some magic to mess with us. In our world, I pulled the switch on the lamp and ended up in what he calls TV Land,” I explained.

Then a blob appeared on the floor, “I think that’s enough sharing with the class Shadow.”

“Discord!” Twilight shouted, “Don’t you lay a claw or lion paw err whatever else you have on them!”

Discord snapped his claws and Twilight’s mouth disappeared, “Now, you’ll get that back when you learn how to ask nicely.”

“How convenient that you show up now,” I said angrily.

“I know right? So dramatic for a children’s show, you’d almost think more adults watch this than children. Anyway, time to change channels, you’re all a bit too old for this kiddy show.”

“What! No!” I shouted.

“Too late…”

(SNAP!)

“Fuck!” I shouted as my plastic hooves hit a clay setting, “Great, now were in some cheaply produced creep show as foal’s toys.”

“Yeah, my mouth isn’t even moving, it’s like an animated mouth shows up in front of my muzzle when I talk,” Stardust said rubbing his face.

(SNAP!)

“Oh great, another pastel colored place,” I said as I looked at the old pony and young buck standing in front of us.

“Hey Morty, check it out. (belch) Another freakin’ universe came to us this time because I’m a genius and you’re just a winey piece of (belch) shit,” the old pony with the wild hair said.

“Ah geeze Rick, this is freakin’ me out,” the twitchy young buck said.

The old pony belched, “It’s cool, that weird chimera monster thing’ll get em’ outta here in a sec. Everyone knows if they reference us too long they’ll get sued.”

(SNAP!)

The next thing I knew we were in a circle of what looked like salt with Squirrel and Moose, “Just stay in the circle and you’ll be safe, ghost can’t pass that barrier,” Moose said.

“Let’s go fry this bitch’s bones,” Squirrel said as they both walked out of the front door of the run-down house we were apparently standing in.”

(SNAP!)

Once again, we found ourselves in what looked like a colorful garden inside of a brick building. Is that a river or Sparkle-Cola?

Discord stood before us dressed in a purple suit with a cane and top-hat, “Hello my loyal playthings, welcome to my very own candy factory.”

“Why do I feel like these candy flowers are gonna do somethin’ weird to me like turn me into a mare?” Stardust asked.

“It’s not, but that is a creative idea,” Discord replied and then snapped his lion paw.

I looked over at Stardust and noticed that he’d suddenly become a lot more…feminine, “You had to say something didn’t you?”

“AHHHH! I wanna go home!” Stardust exclaimed, grabbing at him…herself in certain areas in dismay.

“Careful what you wish for Stardust, there’s a lot more where that came from,” Discord remarked.

“Just let us out of this place,” Wind thrasher demanded, with a tear in her eye.

“Oh, but the fun is just beginning,” he retorted.

“What do you mean?” Aura asked.

Then music started to play and Discord began to sing, “Come with me, and you’ll be, in a WORLD of pure chaos and devastation. Take a look and you’ll see into my master plan and preparation,” he began to dance around the candy garden as he continued, “We’ll begin, with an evil grin, cascading through the universe of my creation. What you’ll see, will defy, logical explanation. If you want to be in paradise, just bite a candy mushroom and chew it, anything you want to do it. Want to change reality, just leave me to it. Muahahahahaha!!!”

“Why is he singi…” I started to say.

Discord put his claw on my muzzle and teleported us to a boat in the Sparkle-Cola river, “Now it’s time for my reprise,” he said and took another breath as the music continued to play, “There is no, life I know, to compare with pure chaos. Living with it I can be free, to be truly MEEEEEEEEEEE.”

I can’t take this crap anymore, “What the hell do you want from me!? This damn TV Land of yours is a living hell.”

“Oh, the answer is simple, I’ve already told you. Just put the pieces together and figure it out, and enjoy the ride along the way,” he said as he raised his claw again”

“STOP DOING…” I started to say.

(SNAP!)

There is a fifth dimension where I used to live, beyond that of which is known to ponykind. It is a dimension as vast as outer space, and as timeless as an antique rug your cat has probably ruined while you’re watching this. It is the balance between light and darkness, between arcane science and zebra magic. It lies in a pit of ponykind’s fears and the summit of their knowledge. This is a dimension of chaos, an area of which I, it’s almighty creator calls. The Shadow Zone.

Episode #2077: The Direction of Misdirection

It is the distant future, many years ago, and a group of friends found themselves in a quaint neighborhood with inhabitants who could do no wrong, but could also do no right. Everything was as ordinary as ordinary could be, young foals playing in the park in the center of the small community, mares cooking dinner for their husbands when they came home from the office, and a death dog barking at the mailpony. Will the four friends prevail in the end, or will they fall prey to their innermost misgivings about themselves?

“Why the f***k is everything in black and white?” I asked as I looked around at the pre-war era neighborhood, “And where the h**l did Discord go this time?”

“I don’t know about all of that, but I’m still stuck like this and have a nagging urge to make a casserole,” Stardust said, in his newly acquired feminine voice.

Aura sighed, “Too bad for Wind Thrasher, she was so close.”

“Close to what?” Stardust asked, confused about Aura’s remark.

Wind Thrasher blushed with her normal pony face and her eyes moved sporadically as if she was trying to come up with a well-crafted lie, but only had ten seconds to do so, “Um…uh…”

“Well, what is it?” Stardust asked again.

“CASEROLES!” she exclaimed, attracting the attention of the whole neighborhood.

“Casseroles?” Stardust said with a tilt of his/her head.

“Yes, I love to make…casseroles,” Wind Thrasher awkwardly replied.

Stardust immediately looked delighted, “Really? That’s awesome! When we get out of here do you think you could make one for us?”

“I’d make one for you anytime. ‘You’ as in ‘all of you’ I mean,” Wind Thrasher said anxiously.

“That’s all beside the point,” I said, interrupting their weird conversation about food, “We need to figure out this place.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Stardust said, “There’s no color, the cul-de-sac goes in a circle for some reason, and the foals playing on the playground in the center creep me out with their unnaturally happy expressions.”

“That’s sort of a blunt way to put it,” I replied, then turned to a young filly playing on the swing-set, “Excuse me, can you tell us where we are?”

The swing slowly came to a stop as her orange curled mane came to a rest from blowing in the wind, then she smiled, “Don’t be silly. This is Pleasant Lane, the keenest street in town. Everypony, knows this place, and wants to live here, but we only have six houses so they can’t. Wanna play with me?”

“There’s a town around here? How could there be if the road doesn’t go anywhere?” I asked.

“Of course there’s a town silly goose. How could there not be? If there wasn’t then there wouldn’t be a neighborhood. So, wanna play with me?” she replied.

“I’m sorry, I can’t play with you right now. My friends and I need to get out of here,” I said, answering her question.

“Why don’t you wanna play with me?” she asked.

Why does she keep asking me to play with her? I don’t have time for fun and games right now, “Because my friends and I have something really important to do, so we need to get out of this place.”

“Can we be friends? Then you won’t have to leave, and you can stay and play with me forever,” she said.

I turned to Stardust and said through my gritted teeth, “I’m gonna f***in’ back hoof this little b***h if she doesn’t stop asking me to stay and play with her.”

Stardust sighed, “Allow me,” then she stepped closer to the filly, “Look kid, we’re not gonna play with you. We got important stuff to do that thwarts playing with children. All we wanna do is leave, but don’t know how.”

She only smiled, “Hey, do YOU wanna play with me?”

Stardust turned and walked away as we followed, and I asked quickly, “Where are you going?”

“Away from her,” she replied.

“Why?” I stupidly asked again.

“So I don’t ring the little b****’s neck.”

Aura snickered, “I’d say cruel but I was thinking the same thing. Also, what’s that bleeping sound every time we curse?”

“It’s Discord, probably did it in this world to annoy us,” I replied.

“So what do we do now?” Wind Thrasher asked.

Aura looked around, “There seems to be adults around here in the houses and in their yards, we could ask them some questions and hope they aren’t as creepy and intimidating as the kid.”

“Yeah, but there’s so many, maybe we should split up and talk to them separately,” I suggested.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Aura said with a nod.

“Second,” Stardust said, “I just hope none of them are as goody two-horseshoes as they seem. The world can’t be so innocent all the time, it just makes for a boring life. To be honest, I’d go f***ing insane if I had to live here for the rest of my life. I might even kill everyone.”

“You wouldn’t kill the children,” Wind Thrasher said.

Stardust stopped and put a hoof on her shoulder, “We all have our limits. Kids who look like they’re going to murder me in my sleep, that’s my limit.”

Wind Thrasher looked a little heartbroken, “That’s so horrible, but,” she sighed, “I guess I could see where you’re coming from. It’s not like their real anyway. I guess we should go our separate ways and talk to the adults.”

“Alright then, Aura, you talk to those ponies in those two houses. Wind Thrasher you take those two, and Stardust you take the last two. I’ll talk to the other kid in the park, and the mailpony. Also, that dog over there seems familiar, I’m gonna go check it out,” I said.

“That doesn’t sound fair,” Stardust protested, “You don’t have any houses to check out at all, mainly just another one of those weird kids, a mailpony, and a dog. When did you learn how to talk to animals?”

I scoffed, “I don’t talk to animals, I just recognize the dog from somewhere for some reason, and at least I didn’t make you talk to those kids.”

“Fair point,” Stardust said with a bit of a shiver as he looked at the park again.

***

We all split up to our assigned houses, and I was coming up on the mail pony, “Excuse me.”

“Woo! Golly did you give me a quite the startle. How can I help ya miss?” the mailpony replied.

“I’m sort of new around here, and I was wondering if you could give me directions out of town,” I said in the cheery, uplifting voice these ponies are accustomed to.

“Leave? Who in the blue blazes would wanna leave? Pardon my Prench,” the mailpony asked.

“I would, I have somewhere important to be.”

He gave me a ‘whatever’ look and waved his hoof, “Important? Please, this place is the best gosh-darn place in the entire world. Whatever ya got goin’ on elsewhere I’m sure will resolve on its own. Stay awhile and settle down, it’s really a great up-and-coming neighborhood. I should know, I deliver the mail here every day.”

I guess this guy is hopeless, maybe he can answer some different questions about this place though, “What’s up with that dog over there?”

“Oh, him? Dogs hate the mailpony, everyone knows that?” he replied with another wave of his hoof.

“Okay then, why is everything in black and white?”

He looked extremely puzzled at my question, “I don’t understand, it’s always been this way as long as I can remember. There hasn’t been color here ever. Just apple pies, honey-do lists, and good old-fashioned family values.”

“It’s always been this way?”

“Of course, also I heard ya usin’ some particularly foul language over there near the children. You should have your mouth washed out with a bar of soap young missy, or at least learn to watch it. You don’t want the youngins learning all sorts of colorful language like that and being disrespectful. When they start young like that, tons of awful things can happen that land the little buggers in jail when they’re older. I’m surprised you’re not behind bars right now,” the mailpony replied.

“I’ve technically been in jail before, but I was actually innocent,” I said not thinking about what could’ve come next.

He gasped in surprise, “To think I sullied myself talking to the likes of you. Everypony in jail says they’re innocent, but that’s usually because they’re guilty of something.”

“The only thing I’m guilty of is hating this place. Now can you tell me how to get the h**l out of here or not?”

“Shame on you, word’s like that should never be spoken in polite company, good day to you missy,” he said and then walked to the next mailbox in a huff.

Geeze, what a prune, “Ugh, this is gonna take forever.”

I walked over to the park again and approached the young buck sitting alone on the seesaw. He looked up at me and his creepy smile Stardust hated so much and said, “Hello, wanna play on the seesaw with me? I asked the new filly over there, but she was really mean to me and said she only wanted to play with you because you’re new to this place too.”

I thought about it and figured I might as well do what the kid wanted and sit on the seesaw, he might actually give me some straight answers if I cooperate, “Yeah, sure, I’ll play with you. You’re not annoying like she is.”

“Annoying, don’t say that or I’ll think you’re mean too. That’s not a nice thing to say about somepony,” he said as I positioned myself on the other side and slid backwards up the seesaw, sending the buck’s side upward.

“Alright, I’ll be nice. It’s just that when I talked to her earlier, she didn’t want to answer my questions and wasn’t listening to what I was saying,” I said in somewhat of a defense of myself, “So, how long have you lived here?”

“I’ve always lived here, I can’t remember not living here. I think my family moved here when I was really little, but I’m not quite sure,” he replied.

“Are there any other kids your age here that you play with?” I asked.

He looked sad again, “No, I’m the only one, and the adults don’t let me do everything that I want.”

“Well, that’s part of being young, you have boundaries set by adults most of the time keep you safe,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

“That’s not what I mean. They don’t let me go anywhere, I wanna go places and meet new ponies,” he said, his voice still filled with melancholy.

“Do you know how to leave this place?” I asked, hoping to get some sort of answer.

“No, so I just stay here and play in the park by myself until the day comes when I’m big enough to leave on my own. My neighbors went on vacation once, but I was asleep when they left, so I didn’t get to see when they left. It made me feel sad because it’s bad luck to not see somepony off when they leave on a trip,” he explained.

I thought about the detailed innocence of this kid in a world created by Discord, there’s gotta be some part of him that has this innocence like this. On second thought, he gender-bent Stardust, “Have you seen a strange creature around here anywhere with a lion’s paw, a bird claw, and a bunch of other strange things?”

“No, the only strange creature around here is my neighbor’s dog. Anyway, I should get off the seesaw and go home, supper will be ready soon and I don’t wanna keep my mother waiting,” he replied.

I stopped pushing up on my side of the seesaw and stepped off, holding my side with my magic and gently letting it down, “There ya go kid, I’ll see ya later.”

“Bye, see ya next time then,” he said as he ran home.

I watched as he ran, and saw which house he went into. I once again saw the familiar dog barking again, so I approached the white-picket fence it was chained behind. When I got up to the fence the dog stopped barking and looked at me, it was a strange dog, it was a Wasteland dog. When I looked at the name on the dog house it read ‘Rawr’ just like the death dog I met in the bramble, “Rawr? What has Discord done with you, you’re so tiny?”

“Bark!” was all the response I got from the canine, and a tiny terrifying growl.

“This is hopeless, I’ll never figure a way out of this f***ed up place,” I said to myself as I trudged back over to the park to wait with the others.

***

I sat on a bench in the park to wait for the others to finish talking to the adults when the same filly from earlier came up to me, “Wanna play with me now.”

“No, just please leave me alone.”

She stuck her tongue out at me and said, “Fine!”

Then Stardust sat next to me on the bench, “This place is the worst, I couldn’t get a single straight answer about anypony in the neighborhood. However, I did get a pretty spectacular piece of pie from some mare who’s cheating on her husband, I’m not allowed to say who though, even if she didn’t tell me in the first place.”

“I agree. All I figured out is that the mailpony has a giant stick up his a** and that there’s a kid here with some serious depression issues,” I replied.

Then Aura walked up, “Y’know what? It might just be easier to get out of here if we just killed ourselves, that’s if this current trash heap we’re currently stuck in wasn’t so d*** safe about everything. I thought this was supposed to be some old-timey place where toys were burning kids, and adults were taking drugs that caused their children to have birth-defects.”

“So, no luck for you either?” Stardust asked.

“Not a bit, and apparently one of these places is vacant. I’m pretty sure somepony lives there though, there’s furniture set up and everything,” Aura replied.

Then finally Wind Thrasher showed up with a sad look on her face, “Hey guys.”

“What’s wrong Wind Thrasher?” I asked.

“I failed, and by the looks on your faces, you didn’t have any luck either. I don’t care how horrible The Wasteland is, this place is worse, and I wanna go home and be normal, and have Stardust be a stallion again,” she replied.

“Thank you for caring about my hard situation so much, but I’m adjusting to it. Although, I’m afraid to try going to the bathroom, I don’t wanna get hit by one of you for abusing your gender,” he said uncomfortably.

“When ya gotta go, you gotta go,” Aura said plainly.

“Oh, thank the Goddesses, I thought you’d be angry with me. I totally asked to use the restroom at one of the houses I was at, these ponies are really nice. A little too nice sometimes, but eh…” he…err she replied, and then was met with a kick to the stomach by Aura.

“Weirdo!” she said as Stardust gasped for air.

“What happened to ‘when ya gotta go, you gotta go’? I thought you understood,” Stardust said through breaths.

“I DID understand until you made it weird. Just shut up and start thinking of ways to get us the h**l out of this place,” she retorted.

“You’ll never figure it out,” the little filly said from behind us.

“What?” I asked quizzically.

“Well, Shadow, I’m saying that you’ll never defeat me,” she said in an all too familiar voice.

“Discord,” we all said in unison.

“The one and only. Welcome to the most pleasant place on television Pleasant Lane! Not one of my favorite places, but somewhere I could get you cornered, and mess around with you a little,” he said, his masculine voice still coming out of this tiny filly. I should’ve known he’d be disguised as somepony so innocent, but I never trust a filly with a curly mane who smiles like that.

“I give up, I’ll help you with whatever evil scheme you want no matter how disastrous it ends up being, I just want out of this place,” I said, surrendering to the cocky draconequus.

“Really?” (FLASH!) “You won’t betray me and end up leaving me to rot somewhere?” he asked as he transformed back into his real form.

“Yes, whatever you want,” I replied.

“Shadow, you can’t be serious. Haven’t you noticed what he did to me?” Stardust asked.

“I know, but do any of you see another way out of this? Cause all I see is us getting thrown around another dimension like playthings by The Lord of Chaos,” I replied, “Or at least part of him.”

“Oh, but the best part…” Discord said, “…And what I want is as simple as delivering a package. That is your job isn’t it?”

“What does that matter? What, you want me to deliver something for you like a post card or something stupid like that?” I asked.

He smiled a mischievous grin, “I want you to deliver, me.”

“Um…what?” I asked in response to his answer, “What do you mean by deliver you?”

“I think he means literally Shadow,” Stardust said, “Remember what he is in the real world? Just a desk lamp shaped like a draconequus holding a lightbulb.”

“It seems one of you isn’t COMPLETELY incompetent,” Discord said with another grin, “I want to be free from this awful existence. Do you know how boring it is just watching everyone all the time? Sure, I can take them here, or send them to another dimension, but what fun is that after two-hundred years?”

“You’re sick, I wouldn’t help you get out of that lamp ever, even if I had to stay in this place for the rest of my life. All you’d end up doing is making The Wasteland worse than it already is,” I said.

“Make The Wasteland worse? Now why would I do a little thing like that?” Discord asked.

“Because you’re evil,” Stardust said, “You gender bent me and terrorized Equestria years ago.”

“So, what? I made it rain chocolate from cotton candy clouds once and took the virtues of the only six mares who could save all of them from my reign of so called terror. I honestly think Celestia looked better with clown hair rather than that freaky flowing mane. In all reality, I’m not evil, just a trickster with nothing to do. I’m just disorderly.”

I thought about it and contemplated the consequences, “What would you do if I helped you escape the lamp?”

“I’d gladly live out the rest of my immortal days in the fifth dimension reading the classics and enjoying some mildly flavored teas. Now, if you believe that then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were,” he replied.

“What, would you, do?” I asked again.

“What do you think I’d do? From what you’ve experienced so far in my world, tell me what I’d do in The Wasteland,” Discord asked.

“You’d do absolutely nothing…” I answered, only really guessing.

“You’re only half right. As a thank you for helping me escape this lamp, I’ll refrain from corrupting The Wasteland further than it already is, honestly it’s gaudy how it’s overcluttered with all that death and destruction,” he explained.

“Really? You’d leave The Wasteland alone? You wouldn’t even try to change anything?” I asked further.

“You think I’d try to help and make things better? I unfortunately don’t have the power to do that, I’m only a small piece of one whole. Out there in the real world, all I’d have the power to do is something as simple as putting some random bottle caps oddly in an office desk or a restroom medical kit,” Discord answered.

“Fine then, let us out of this Goddesses forsaken place and I’ll take you with us and figure out how to get you out of the lamp. Then you can do as you please, as long as you don’t make The Wasteland worse once you make yourself complete. Just leave it alone,” I said.

“Shadow, what the hell are you doing? We can’t trust him, he’s The Lord of Chaos, for all we know, yes means no,” Aura said.

“I think Shadow is making the right decision,” Stardust said, “Think about it, if she doesn’t get out of here, then eventually Aquila will gain control of her body and cause extreme catastrophe worse than the likes of him. In comparison, he’s the lesser of two evils.”

“But, what if he IS lying?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Then I guess I underestimated the word of The Lord of Chaos,” I answered, then looked back at Discord, “So I guess we have a deal.”

“It seems we do…” he said raising his lion paw.

(SNAP!)

For a moment I thought I was going to find myself in another strange world made up by Discord. But when I opened my eyes, I found myself laying next to the desk where Discord’s lamp was resting. I got back to my hooves and looked back at my friends who were also just waking up, “You guys okay?”

Stardust rubbed his head, “I had the strangest dream…” his eyes went wide and he started to feel around his body, “OH thank the Goddesses, I’m a Stallion again.”

“And I feel like my old self too,” Wind Thrasher said, “It was nice to be a normal pony for a while again, but honestly it felt strange. I forgot how hard it is to hear things when you don’t have enhanced hearing.”

“I guess that wasn’t a dream then,” Aura said looking over at the lamp, “How long were we out?”

“About five seconds,” I heard Oricalcos said from the door, “Shadow turned on that lamp and you all passed out for a few seconds.”

I looked over at him, “Really? It felt like we were in there forever.”

My uncle looked over at the lamp, “Whatever is inside that lamp tried to use its magic on me too, but I’m more powerful.”

“Whatever, we’re out of that thing and I made a deal with Discord so we could leave. We’ll take the lamp with us when we head out,” I said looking back at it.

My uncle came over to me and used his magic to slowly pull me away from the lamp, “Discord? No way, if he is in that thing, then you aren’t getting anywhere near it.”

Discord’s voice quietly echoed out of the lamp, “Hey, she made me a deal.”

Oricalcos looked at Discord and frowned, “Too bad, if you are Discord, then I know what you are. Star has enough problems with strange magic and doesn’t need you to make her life worse, whatever she promised you I’ll take over.”

“Hmmm, I guess I can live with that, as long as I’m reunited with the rest of my soul. You have a deal; the only question is how are you going to transport me? I won’t fit easily inside a saddle bag. It seems casually sitting around like this all the time has caused me to gain some exponential volume,” Discord said.

Oricalcos smiled, “Easy,” his horn glowed and a moment later the lamp shrunk to the size of a keychain. He lifted it up and walked over to where an old satchel was laying and put Discord into it, “Easy as that, and I won’t have to listen to him talk.”

“Are you sure that’s going to work?” I asked, “Also how did you make him smaller?”

“Normally, no unicorn should be able to manipulate a Soul Jar, but my magic is different. The spell is easy, also whatever you promised him I’ll be able to do, his magic can’t influence me and he can’t do anything to you while he’s with me,” Oricalcos said turning to head back to my mom who was sitting on the bed, still tied up and glaring at us with a gag in her muzzle.

“I guess I can deal with that,” I said, “So, what do we do now?”

“We sleep,” Aura said, “We need a few hours of rest before we set out again.”

“Hey, Oricalcos doesn’t that gorge thing mess with your magic too?” Stardust asked as I walked over to Aura who already set up a spot in one corner for us.

“It does, but I can deal with it better than most. Shadow and my sister will have a harder time than me. Though if I get too close to it my body could disappear,” he said, “Now sis, be a good mare and go to sleep, if you don’t make trouble for everypony then I might take the gag out.”

“Oh, please, anything but that,” Aura commented, “All we need is for her to blab on about evil this and evil that, and I’m gonna destroy you all…”

Mom just glared at him then laid down as best she could with her restraints. I couldn’t help a small chuckle as I nestled up to Aura, she wrapped a talon around me and pulled me close, “Get some rest Shadow, you need it.”

I closed my eyes, “You too love.”

“Thanks shorty,” she said as I drifted off to sleep, doing my best to forget the world we just left.

***

“Shadow get up NOW!” Oricalcos yelled pulling me out of a very nice dream.

I woke up with a startle, looking around trying to find my uncle in the darkness, “Uncle Ori? What’s going on.”

“All of you get up and get your weapons!” Oricalcos yelled again as lightning blasted across the sky illuminating his body.

Stardust yawned asking, “Oricalcos, what’s wrong?”

“There’s bloodwings flying over the motel! There’s only twenty or so, normally I could deal with them easily, but it’s storming outside and the lightning is making it impossible for me to leave this room.”

“Shit,” I said getting up and pulling Misery out of my saddle bags, “If there’s Bloodwings outside then we have to deal with them before they get in here. We’ll have a better chance with them out there.”

“I agree,” Aura said lighting up her spear, “Ain’t no rest for the wicked. Let’s go kill ourselves some bloodsuckers.”

“As long as I’m not one of them,” Wind Thrasher said.

Stardust started to chuckle, “I don’t think any of us could kill you Wind Thrasher, now c’mon.”

“I’ll do what I can from in here,” Oricalcos said, “Good luck.”

My friends all headed out into the storm raging outside. Right away Stardust started to open fire, Wind Thrasher took to the air alongside Aura. I started to head out the door when something slammed into me, knocking Misery from my magical grip. I was slammed into the wall then felt a pony fall on top of me at the same time Oricalcos yelled, “Grim get off her!”

I heard Misery being picked up from the floor then the body was thrown off me. I couldn’t see a thing, so I reached into my bags and pulled out my goggles and mask. As soon as I had them on everything came into focus, Oricalcos was standing next to me blocking mom who was standing next to the far wall, Misery on the ground next to her.

“Grim, don’t do this,” Oricalcos said.

Mom just smiled and ran her ropes over Misery’s sharp blade. Her bindings fell away in a second, the sharp edge cutting through the ropes like butter. She then reached up with a hoof and pulled off her gag, “Ori, you’ll pay for doing this to me,” she picked up Misery in her muzzle and said around the handle, “Both of you will.”

“Star, get out of here. I can deal with my sister, help your friends,” Oricalcos said.

I wasn’t going to argue with mom holding that sword, “No problem, just don’t kill her.”

He nodded and I headed out the door, but not much farther as Oricalcos yelled as a flash of lightning illuminated the doorway, “Not NOW!”

I looked back and saw his body turning into shadows. Mom ran past him brandishing Misery, “I’ll finally take care of you!”

Wait a second, mom wasn’t a fighter, she was a magic user. What did she know about using a griffon sword. I side stepped her clumsy charge and used my magic to rip the sword away from her. My magic was a little clumsy, but at least it still worked. I pulled my weapon back to me and shook my head, “Worst escape attempt in history.”

She tripped and landed in the mud, “Why can’t I just kill you!?”

I heard a screech from overhead and saw a bloodwing diving toward me. Now I saw what my friends meant when they said the ones in Stable 9 were smaller. This thing was twice the size of the ones from Wind Thrasher’s Stable and a lot slower. I jumped aside and brought Misery around to cut open its belly as it flew by. The monster screamed and slammed into the ground, its guts leaving a trail behind it. I looked back at Mom, “I don’t have time to deal with you right now. If you can’t tell, we’re under attack by monsters. Either stay here and die or help us kill them.”

“And how can I help you when I don’t have a weapon or my magic?” she asked getting to her hooves.

“Be creative, I’m sure you can think of something. Just remember if you try to escape you won’t get far before one of us finds you,” I said turning to watch as my friends fought the bloodwings.

“Star, bring her back here so I can tie her up!” Oricalcos yelled from the room.

“Sorry, I can’t right now Uncle Ori,” I yelled as another bloodwing flew toward me, I switched out my blade for Dream Walker and opened fire on the monster. It fell as a bullet flew through its head, “If you can get to her between lightning flashes then fine with me, but if not then just tell me if she tries to run.”

Mom walked over to stand next to me, a frown on her face, “No point in running, with no weapons or magic I won’t get far. For now, I’ll help you out, that’s until all of these monsters are dead.”

I looked over at her confused, “Really?”

She rolled her eyes, “Right now, killing you isn’t as important. Though if a bloodwing gets you, I won’t care much.”

I grinned, “Well at least I know not to count on you to watch my back.”

“Can I at least get a weapon?”

“Sorry, but no,” I said then I ran toward my friends who were still fighting the monsters.

“Then I don’t know how I can help until you let me use something,” Mom yelled as she followed me.

“I suggest you shut up Grim and use that big brain of yours to figure a way out of this,” I said as I swapped Dream Walker for the Plasma Rifle taking aim and firing at another bloodwing that started to dive toward me. My shot blasted it right in the face turning it into green goo in seconds. I side stepped the splatter and entered S.A.T.S. taking aim at three bloodwings that were going after Aura who was in the middle of fighting another. I fired, hitting two in the head, the third going down with one of its wings melting away.

Lightning cracked and illuminated the sky for a second and I saw more bloodwings in the sky, way more than Oricalcos thought. I looked back at my friends, “We have to get out of here now, there’s too many.”

“And where do you plan on us going?” Aura yelled back flying down to land next to me, “If you haven’t noticed, those things can fly and bloodwings will chase us.”

“I don’t know, but we don’t’ have any other choice, we can’t fight in the open,” I said taking aim at another that was trying to grab onto Stardust as he flew toward us, “Hook up to the Skycarriage and let’s get out of here.”

“She’s right, we can keep them at bay while we fly, let’s go,” Stardust said heading toward the Skycarriage, “Wind Thrasher do whatever you can to keep them away. Shadow get your mother and throw her into the Skycarriage. Aura get Oricalcos, see if he can use your shadow to keep him safe from the lightning strikes.”

Everyone started to move as I fired at another bloodwing who was trying to go after my mother who was hiding next to the motel, “Time to leave Grim, if I were you I’d cooperate, if you don’t I’ll just leave you to the monsters. Since I’d rather not see you sucked dry, please make this as easy as you can.”

She looked over at me, “You’d really leave me behind?”

I rolled my eyes and moved closer until I was a few inches away, “Listen, I don’t have time to deal with you right now. My friends’ lives are in danger because of those monsters, and if it comes between keeping you alive or them, I’ll chose them any day. You may be my mother, but as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t mean much to me anymore. Now get your ass in gear and move.”

She rolled her eyes too, “Fine, but I’m only doing this because I’d rather not die. Also, I’ve told you before, I’m not your fucking moth…”

I turned around, my temper at its max and slapped her, “Shut the fuck up, I’m so sick of you going back to the same bullshit. If you were as smart as I know you are, you’d have at least looked deeper into who I am. I’m sure you know a spell that could tell you that I’m related to you at the very least. The only reason you’re fighting me on this is because you’re just a stubborn bitch who doesn’t want to admit she wrong. Now get the fuck into the Skycarriage.”

“Shadow duck!” I heard Wind Thrasher yell right as I was finishing my statement to Mom.

I ducked and twisted just as a bloodwing flew over me and slammed into Mom. I lifted my Plasma rifle and fired on it, killing it instantly. Mom rolled with the monster then skidded across the muddy ground, finally stopping a few inches from the edge to the San Palomino Gorge. Seeing that she was okay as she started to get back to her hooves I looked back at Wind Thrasher, “Thanks for the save Wind Thrasher.”

“No problem,” she said turning to face ten more bloodwings flying toward her and my friends. She grinned and I could see even though my goggles that her eyes were glowing a soft green, “Let’s see if this trick works on you as well as it did on the ones in my home.”

Then she opened her muzzle and sent out a wave of sound. At least I think she did, I could barely hear it, but something was flying right at the oncoming bloodwings. At first, I was wondering what in the Goddesses name she was doing then I saw that they had stopped as soon as her voice slammed into them. Every single one of them landed and started to sniff around, their own eyes the same color as Wind Thrasher’s.

She stopped her silent scream then said, “I’m not sure how long that will hold them off, hurry.”

Aura was just getting to the Skycarriage, she looked over at Wind Thrasher asking, “What did you do?”

Wind Thrasher smiled a little, “My Bat DNA was from an alpha, I can make a sound that could control the blood bats in my stable. These ones aren’t the same kind of creature, but they did mutate from the same animal. I figured I’d try it. I can’t control them like the ones from my home, but from what I can tell, their ears can’t make sense of other sounds around them. In other words, I turned off their sonar. It won’t last long though, so let’s go.”

Stardust was already hooked up to the Skycarriage, he turned toward me yelling, “Get Grim now!”

“Right,” I said turning back toward my mom who was still standing on the edge of the Gorge.

She looked over at me, and I could tell that something was wrong, “I don’t think I can move.”

I walked closer to her, “What do you mean? Just get over here and stop playing games.”

She glared at me, “I’m not, as soon as I moved my hoof I heard something crack under me. I think the ground will fall into the gorge at any time. I need a flyer to get me off this spot…”

She didn’t even get a chance to finish what she was saying. The ground under her cracked and she fell back toward the black opening. I dove for her and took hold of her hoof right as she went over the edge, “I gotcha.”

She was hanging there looking up at me with terror in her eyes, “Why…did you save me?”

“Because you’re my mom, now hold on tight,” I said starting to pull her up.

“Shadow, I’m coming for you, hold on,” Aura said from behind me.

As she spoke the ground under me started to slide and I realized in horror that I too was about to fall into the gorge just like my mother. If Aura didn’t hurry, we’d both die before she could grab us, “Hurry Aura, the grounds giving way!”

I could hear flapping, but even if she flew as fast as she could, it wouldn’t be fast enough. The ground slid faster and I started to plummet into the gorge, head first. Mom’s eyes got wider as she fell back, but she held on tight. Right as my rear hooves slide away from the ground I felt a talon take hold of me. Mom screamed and her other hoof came up to hold onto me as we swung over a deep black pit.

“I gotcha shorty,” Aura said.

I looked up at her and saw that she was holding on to my left rear leg with one of her talons. I couldn’t help smiling as I said, “Good timing, now can you pull us both up?”

“Yeah, but it won’t be easy,” she said, “The ground is soft from the rain and the winds coming out of that gorge make it impossible for me to fly over it. Just don’t struggle.”

“I’ll be as still is possible, just please don’t drop us!” Mom said.

I couldn’t help a small smile of satisfaction at my mother’s fear. It was kinda nice to see her on the other end of it for a change. I looked up again at Aura as she started to slowly pull us up then my smile fell as I saw yellow eyes coming out of the gloom behind her, “Aura…there’s a bloodwing behind you, drop us NOW!”

She looked back and saw it then looked back at me, “I can get you up quick enough, I’m not letting you go.”

“You have to…” I started to say but Mom cut me off.

“Don’t tell her to drop US!”

“Shadow I can do this now stop moving,” Aura said.

The glowing eyes started to move faster, the shape of the monster taking form as it leapt toward Aura. I tried to call on my magic to stop it, but it wouldn’t work. I wasn’t going to watch as the Griffon I loved die as she tried to save me and my mom. So, using my free hoof to pull Misery out saying, “I love you.”

Her eyes went wide as I used my other rear hoof to kick off the wall of the gorge, pulling my other leg out of her grip. My body flew back and as it did, I threw Misery into the face of the oncoming Bloodwing. The blade sank into its head and the monster slammed into the ground then flew over the edge of the gorge. Falling into its black depths, along with my mom and myself. I felt gravity take hold and all I could do is smile as I started to fall. I ignored my mother’s panicked screams and just looked up at the beautiful icy blue eyes of the griffon I loved with all my heart.

“SHADOW!!!!!” Aura screamed as I fell.

I just watched as her eyes turned to pinpricks of blue, “I love you Aura Bloodtalon,” I said one more time as her eyes were swallowed by the darkness of the San Palomino Gorge. The Wasteland always wins in the end, I cheated death one too many times. I couldn’t outrun it forever, at least with my death…my friends would live, Aura would live and Aquila will die with me, trapped at the bottom of a black pit… “I love…” I tried to say one more time, I never finished my last words as my body slammed into something and everything was gone…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Huntspony: In combat, you do 50% more critical damage against mutated Wasteland animals!

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Interdimensional Cable: Because of your knowledge of other universes in the multiverse and their strange cultures and inventions thanks to The Lord of Chaos, you now gain +3 to overall intelligence and have a gained 25% chance of finding Wild Wasteland themed weapons, locations, and scenarios!

Chapter 54: Iridescent

“Are you saying that you believe me?”

Plop…Plop…Plop…Plop…Plop…Plop…

The sound of water dripping onto rock slowly filled my ears as I pulled myself back to consciousness. The next thing that came was pain, running up my back, neck, and shoulders. It was like somepony took a whip to my bare back. What happened to me? Why did I hurt so much and where was I? Where’s Aura? I tried to lift my head then almost screamed as agony ran down my spine and neck. I settled back into whatever I was laying on. After a moment the pain turned into a dull throb. Finally, I risked opening my eyes to find out where I was, then I could figure out what was going on.

When I did, I was met with a slightly red tint to my sight. Did I hurt my eyes too? Then it came back to me, mom falling into the gorge, me trying to save her then slipping in myself only to be grabbed by Aura. She was trying to pull me up when I saw the bloodwing trying to attack her. I forced her to let me go to save her life. Mom and I fell into the black abyss of the San Palomino Gorge. How in Luna’s holy hell was I still alive? Moving my head slowly so not to aggravate whatever was wrong with my neck and back, I saw what happened and I also understood at the same time why I saw a red tint to everything. I was still wearing my goggles and mask. The reason I was still alive from what I could tell was because of a large area of stretchy vines surrounding me almost like a spider web.

Over me I saw a hole in the tangle of vines where my body slammed through, slowing my fall until finally stopping me here. Looking up through the hole, I couldn’t even make out where the top of the gorge was. Another spike of pain ran through my body and I closed my eyes for a moment. When it passed, I groaned then opened my eyes again. I needed a healing potion at the very least, I had no idea if it would help or what was wrong with me, but I had to do something. I was hurt badly, and I had no idea if help was coming. I took in a deep breath then tried to use my magic to pull one out of my saddle bags. Nothing happened, my horn didn’t even spark or light up, I couldn’t even feel the flow of magic coursing though my body. I felt like panicking for a moment, thinking I broke something inside myself making my magic not work, until I remembered Uncle Ori saying something about the gorge messing with unicorn magic.

There was only one way I was going to get what I needed out of my saddle bags, this is going to hurt. I took in a few more deep breaths then moved my hoof down toward my saddle bags trying my best not to scream as my body protested…and mostly failing. It took a minute, but finally I felt a bottle and pulled it out. I looked at it to make sure I got what I needed, well it wasn’t a healing potion, it was a restoration potion. This might be better in the long run, restoration potions concentrated on the worst parts of an injury rather than affecting the whole body at once. They cost five times as much as a healing potion for that reason alone and Aura always told me to use them sparingly. Well right now, I needed one. I pulled the mask off my muzzle and slowly drank the potion down.

Right away I felt the pain in my back and neck fade, it wasn’t gone, but I felt like I could move without too much trouble. Slowly I lifted myself up and looked around. Right away I saw that the ground was only a few feet under me. A stretch of moss, odd looking plant life, and bare rock met my gaze. There was a small trickle of water running down the middle of the area I was in. I groaned again then rolled off the bed of vines I was laying on and fell to the ground. I screamed again as my bruised body hit the ground then slowly I got back to my hooves and turned on my Pip-Light. My goggles were amazing and I could see pretty well in most kinds of darkness, but even they had their limits. My light helped cut through the darkness around me.

It was then that I remembered the other pony who fell with me. My eyes went wide as I started to look around for Mom. Maybe if I survived that fall, she did too. “Grim?” I said, calling out to see if she landed anywhere near me.

For a moment all I heard was my voice echoing off the rocks around me, then I heard a pained moan followed by my mother saying, “Over…here.”

I turned toward the voice and saw her hanging from a few vines not far from where I landed. Her rear hooves were tangled in the vines and her head was a few inches from the ground. Blood was slowly dripping from the top of her head near her left eye. I limped closer and asked, “You okay?”

Her eyes opened more, “I’m alive…that’s about all I can say. I can’t believe either of us survived that fall.”

“Same here…let me help you down,” I said reaching up to try pulling her down.

“Why are you trying to help me?” she asked as the vines stretched.

“I’d tell you it’s because you’re my mom and no matter how fucked up your head is right now I still care about you, but you’d just say something hurtful or sarcastic, maybe both. So, let’s just say that if I want to get out of here, I’m going to need your help,” I said as the vines finally gave and she fell to the ground.

She tried to get up, then cursed and sat back down, wincing as she held her rear left leg out at an odd angle. “I think I broke my leg,” she said looking up at me.

I moved closer to her then hesitated. “I can look it over, but you have to promise you won’t try anything.”

She hissed a little like she was feeling a rush of pain in her before saying slowly, “I’m hurt, lost in a dark gorge, and in a lot of pain. I’m not going to do anything. I need you as much as you need me right now. Please tell me you at least know a little bit about how to set a broken leg.”

“Nope, not at all. Aura’s our medic, I’m just the pony that shoots things or blows shit up. Don’t worry though, I know you have medical training, you can walk me through it,” I said as I moved closer to check over her leg.

She chuckled a little then winced in pain again, saying, “Great, I ended up with an optimist and a fool, I feel so safe now.”

“Shut up and tell me what to feel for,” I said, kneeling down to her leg.

“Fine, but first you’re going to have to cut away part of my combat armor,” she said.

I sighed and said, “Not sure how I can do that without my sword.”

“You threw it into that bloodwing, then it fell down here with us, I’m sure it landed nearby. See if you can find it, if not then we’re going to have to try getting me out of this armor,” she said laying down and breathing slowly.

Dammit, I guess she had a point, so I turned and started to look for the body of the bloodwing. I moved back toward the vines where I landed and started looking around. The bloodwing had gone right over me as I fell, Mom fell to my right so it should be around… “AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” I jumped, backing up from the face of a bloodwing glaring right at me. Then I noticed it was hanging upside down tangled in the vines not far from where I landed. Also, it had Misery jammed through its eye.

“Little jumpy, are we?” Mom asked arrogantly.

I took in a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Fucking hate those things,” I said as I moved closer and took hold of the grip and pulled it out.

“You know it’s dead right?” Mom asked again.

I trotted back saying around Misery’s grip, “Let’s just say coming face to face with a dead bloodwing in the dark is just as scary as finding a live one.”

“Did you find your sword?” she asked, “Oh, never mind I guess you did.”

“Yeah, though I’m trying to figure out how to do this without my magic,” I said as I moved to sit next to her broken leg.

“Be careful and don’t slice my leg off. I still can’t believe how sharp that thing is. It’s not easy to just stab a bloodwing in the head, they have thick sculls,” Mom said as I moved Misery down and slid it under the leg of her combat armor.

“To be fair, I did get it right in the eye. Also, it’s one of Greta’s swords, I found it,” I said as I used the sharp side to slice the leg of her combat armor open.

“I thought Misery and its sister Joy were lost,” Mom said as I pulled Misery back to set it down and then pushed the sliced armor up looking over her leg, using my Pip-Light to help me see better. “Well I can say that it’s not a compound fracture.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about medical stuff? Also, where the hell did you find Misery? Do you have Joy too?” Mom asked.

I sighed. “No I don’t, I found Misery in the Absent Ruins, and I don’t know medical stuff, but I do know what a compound fracture is. I did listen to a little of what you tried to teach me as a kid.”

“Not enough apparently,” she said with a grumble. “Anyway, talking about weapons isn’t going to get us out of here. Use your hoof to check along my leg, see if any part of it is swollen. If so, then feel along that area to see if you feel bone under the skin that’s separated, then it’s a full break. If you find swelling but can’t feel anything else then it’s either a hairline fracture or a bad sprain.”

I followed her instructions. “Okay, I found swelling near your fetlock, but I can’t feel separated bone…I think.”

Mom closed her eyes and did her best to hold back a shout of pain as I checked. When I pulled my hooves away she took in a few deep breaths then said, “It’s most likely a hairline fracture then. In my saddle bags I have a med kit.”

She pulled up her own Pip-Buck and used it to select something, then she reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a med kit and gave it to me. I took it asking, “Okay, what do I need to do?”

“Inject Med-X into my leg, after that use the medical brace. That will keep my leg safe so we can start moving,” Mom said.

I gulped. “Okay, let’s get started then.”

It took me about fifteen minutes to help Mom get her leg taken care of, then I had to help her with the nasty cut to her head. Once that was done she insisted on checking me over too, saying that she couldn’t have me passing out because of some internal injury while we moved.

As she looked me over and after I’d removed my own barding I asked, “How are we even going to get out of here anyway? I don’t think either of us can climb that far? Also, if we move from this spot my friends won’t be able to find us if they decide to come looking.”

She put something over some cuts on my back as she said, “Nopony is coming for us Courier.”

“Ow!” I said as she applied another…something…to my back. “I know my friends, they’ll come looking for me.”

She sighed. “What I mean is, they can’t. My brother can’t even enter this place without his body vanishing and your flyer friends can’t come here either because the gorge has violent updrafts and downdrafts, they wouldn’t even get an eighth of the way down here without being slammed into a wall and dying.”

I looked back at her, wide eyed. “So, you’re saying we’re stuck down here?”

She sighed then got up slowly. “I’m saying that if we want to get out, we have to look for a way to do so ourselves. The San Palomino Gorge is huge and deep, before the war, ponies weren’t ever able to explore it. Even now it’s still mostly unexplored. Magic doesn’t work here, flyers can’t get down here without risking death, and climbing down is just as dangerous because a good amount of the rock here is jagged and sharp.”

“Then how are we going to get out? I mean there has to be a way. Can’t you use your zebra power crap to get us out of here?” I asked.

“No, I can’t,” she answered solemnly.

“Why not?” I asked, “You said it messes with Unicorn magic not zebra magic.”

She sighed and rubbed her temple saying, “You insist that you’re my daughter, yet you have no idea how my power works.”

I rolled my eyes. “You never taught me about it when I was little. I knew you could do it, but when I asked how it worked while we were in the stable, you told me I wouldn’t understand until I was older.”

She cocked her head at me. “Huh, to be honest that does sound like something I’d say. I still don’t believe you, but…I believe that you believe I’m your mother.”

“Yeah, yeah, anyway back to why you can’t use your power,” I said with a wave of my hoof.

She sat, keeping her bad leg stretched out to one side. “The best way to explain it is this. Ponies can’t use true zebra magic, in all honestly, so-called zebra magic isn’t really magic.”

“If it isn’t magic then what is it?” I asked, utterly confused.

“There isn’t a word for it in our language, they call it Usha. What Usha does is simple yet complex at the same time. Zebras have the ability to take power from Equus itself. When tectonic plates shift deep in our planet it makes an immense amount of power. A trained zebra can take that power and transfer it into an object like a gem or other items, then force that power to do what they want. Their witchdoctors can even pull that same energy into themselves, making them very powerful. They use that power to change the world around them. To ponies, what they can do is magic, but in reality it’s not the same thing,” she explained.

“I think I see what you mean, unicorns like us use the energy from our bodies to cast spells. Some unicorns have more energy for magic in them than others. I remember you teaching me that when I was very young, you said that if that energy is used up, then unicorns start to pull power from their life force,” I said.

She smiled a little, it was odd to see that smile without any hatred in it. “You’re right, that’s why a unicorn can die if they use too much power.”

“So, what do you do then?” I asked, “I’ve heard you say that you aren’t a powerful spell caster, but I’ve seen you do amazing things.”

She looked over at me. “I’m not a powerful spell caster. Most of what I can do are tricks. I know a lot of spells yes, I can perform thousands of spells, but I don’t have a lot of magical energy. That’s why I started looking into the zebras. It took me a year to conclude that nopony can ever do what they do. There’s something different in a zebra’s genetics that make it impossible, even a zony can’t use their power. Only a full-blooded zebra with training can. So, I found a shortcut. What I do is use my own magic to form the circles needed by zebras to pull the kind of energy I need from Equus, then I use that to fuel my spells. Doing this I can perform spells that were impossible for me and many other unicorns and I can keep doing it for far longer than any unicorn.”

I nodded in understanding. “So, without your unicorn magic, you can’t do anything?”

“That’s right, I can draw the symbols and glyphs, I can even chant the words needed for zebras to make their power work, but still it wont work,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this. The drugs must be getting to me.”

“Some of it I heard in your memory orbs,” I explained.

“So those orbs in the bunker were really mine?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, all thirty-seven of them. I just finished watching them when Greed…I mean Thundercracker showed up.”

She was quiet for a few moments then she looked over at me asking, “If that’s true, tell me one of the worst ones you saw, something you believe I wouldn’t let anyone know about.”

I looked over at her and said in a quiet voice, “The day you killed Quartz, your father.”

Her eyes went wide and I saw her shaking a little. “My brother didn’t tell you about that did he?”

“Unless you told him everything that happened that night then I don’t see how he could’ve. He showed up at the end right after you killed your dad,” I said even quieter.

“Tell me…everything you saw in that orb,” she said slowly.

At first, I wanted to say no, because I didn’t even want to think about that night and I’m sure she didn’t either. Then I decided that I’d have to, because from what I could tell, I was getting through to her…finally. “Okay…but it won’t be easy, I had to relive that moment inside your body,” I said, then I started to tell her everything that happened, everything I saw, what I felt, how scared I was just by watching that orb.

When I finished I could see a haunted look in her eyes. “I never told Ori what all happened that night. I think he knew, but I never told him the whole story.”

“I thought you two told each other everything back then,” I said.

She shook her head. “Some things I never told him, like how that wasn’t the first time my father did that to me.”

I felt sick at the very thought of any parent doing that to their own child. “He…raped you?”

“Kind of, he never fully…you know…but he did use to come into my room. He would…lay with me and run his hooves over my body, calling me his little play…” she stopped talking her eyes tearing up. “I don’t want to talk about it…especially with you.”

“In all honesty I don’t think I should hear it…but…I’m willing to listen if you ever want to talk. I don’t care if you’re my enemy or not, nopony should have to go through that alone. Even if it did happen a long time ago,” I said.

She gave me a look of utter confusion. “You know that when we’re out of this, I’ll most likely try to kill you again right? Yet you still want to help me?”

“Yes, I do. Deep down I can tell that you’re good, just misguided. Just like I know that Uncle Ori has good inside him too. You want somepony to listen to you, to care about you even if it’s a pathetic unicorn like me,” I said with a small smile.

“I don’t feel like I have any good left inside of me. I haven’t for a long time now, ever since I lost…okay…ever since I thought I lost my daughter which I still believe that I did. Still, after everything I had to do to try and save my Star, I gave up everything I had. I became a monster to fix her, fix the damage I did by letting Aquila out, the lies I told to get where I am, and the ponies I helped get more powerful who would use that power to destroy our world. The more I try to help the worse I seem to get,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“A wise mare once told me, that everypony has good and evil inside of them. Some let darkness take over their light, but they will always have that other part inside them, no matter how small it is,” I said, trying not to tear up. Why is it when your mom cries, you instinctively cry along with her? Is it something ingrained in genes that makes you empathize no matter what the situation might be?

She chuckled a little then sniffed. “Who told you that?”

I smiled a little. “You did.”

She laughed again. “That was a quote from my great, great, grandfather Dwarf Star’s journal. He said that everypony can be saved, no matter how evil they get.”

“Odd thing for an Enclave unicorn to say,” I said.

“He was referring to Night Stalker, he said that the old pegasus came to him right before he was banished and asked him for his help to destroy the damage he did to Equestria,” Mom said.

“I never heard anything about that,” I said, a bit surprised. “I never even knew Night Stalker met Dwarf Star.”

“He did, many times over the last year he was in The Enclave. My family is one of the few who knows that though. Well us and The Guardian.”

“Wait Dad knows that too?” I asked.

“So, you know Nightshade is the Guardian then?” she asked.

“Yeah, I remembered a week or so ago. I got the memory back when Striker attacked me and tried to kill Dad,” I explained.

“Wait a moment…Striker’s alive?” she asked.

I nodded as if it was no big secret. “Yeah, he’s trying to find and destroy Falling Shadows and kill Aquila.”

“Shit! I had no idea he survived that attack,” she said angrily.

“Wait, how did you know about the attack?” I asked.

“Because I sent word to The Steel Rangers in Baltimare when I found out he was going to try to destroy the tower there right after he attacked The Enclave in that area,” she replied.

“Well, somehow he lived, though he took a lot of burns from whatever happened to him,” I said.

“I don’t know why I’m so surprised, that dick has a knack for surviving the impossible, just like Nightshade,” she said with a sigh. “Enough talk, we really should start looking for a way out of here Courier.”

“Shadow,” I said as she got up.

She looked back at me. “Pardon me?”

I got up as well. “If we are going to be helping each other for right now, stop calling me Courier…please, call me by my name, Shadow. If you do that I won’t call you mom the whole time we help each other out.”

I caught a small smile as she said, “I can live with that, Shadow.”

“Good, so what’s your plan for getting out of here?” I asked.

She smiled wider. “Shadow are you a pony who likes to gamble?”

I shook my head. “Not so much, that’s more Aura and Stardust’s thing, why?”

“I told you before that unicorns and flyers can’t get down here and climbing is too dangerous. Well, Steel Rangers love defying the odds. During the time of Elder Tap from The Hidden Sands Rangers, they used to run things all the way out to Los Alicorn, well at least close to it. Elder Tap was fascinated by this place and had his rangers set up a base close to the edge of his territory. They were the first ponies ever to build a lift that could make it all the way down to the bottom so they could study the gorge. When Elder Apple Jam took over, the base was abandoned and Los Alicorn never thought it was worth it to risk their own Rangers to take over. So, if I’m right, that base should still be there and nopony will be around. With luck, the lift will still work and we can use it to get to the top,” she said with a grin.

“Wait, you literally just said this gorge was never explored…how do you know about that?” I asked.

She laughed, “I said ‘mostly’ unexplored, I used to be friends with Elder Apple Jam and he told me about it. Elder Appleslice too, though she said there’s no reason to ever go back to it. I know Elder Appleslice well and to this day I know she wouldn’t ever send her own ponies here, Elder Wolfsbane isn’t foolish enough either.”

“Um, you do realize that Elder Appleslice is dead right? A new mare named Sapphire Stone runs Hidden Sands now,” I asked.

She looked utterly shocked. “What? The last time I checked Sapphire was just a paladin.”

“She made Star Paladin over a year ago, I don’t know how she got power over Sandstorm and Noodle Cup, but she did. She runs things now, that’s why the Rangers have been so active over the past couple of weeks,” I said, wondering how she could be so out of date with her information. I though The Enclave kept tabs on every large faction in The Wasteland.

“So, Elder Tap’s great granddaughter took over…if that’s true then we should hurry. If she’s anything like him, she’ll send ponies there and use it to keep an eye on Los Alicorn,” she said turning to put on her ruined combat armor. “Let’s get moving Shadow, we have a few kilometers to walk and the sooner we get out of here, the better.”

I sighed and said, “If you say so, lead the way Grim.”

***

“How much further do we have to go?” I asked as we climbed over yet another bolder blocking our path. Over the past ten hours Mom and I had only gone about a kilometer or so. The Gorge was full of pit falls, irradiated water, plant life we had to cut through with Misery, and fallen rocks all blocking the path. Mom was having an even harder time than I was. Her leg wasn’t doing well even with the splint on. She already used the other two syringes of Med-X she had in her med kit and started needing my small supply of them. If she kept this up she was risking addiction or her heart giving out because of the chems.

“I’m not sure, we fell in by the old motel. The last time I saw the base it was ten kilometers from there, closer to Los Alicorn. At this pace it could take us a few days to reach it,” she said, breathing heavily from fatigue.

I helped pull her to the top of the boulder then took a few moments to rest. “If we keep running into these obstacles I can see what you mean. With how bad your leg is, I don’t think you can wait days.”

She took a moment to lay down as she said, “I’ll have to manage.”

“Can’t you take a healing potion or something?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, if the break is as bad as I think it is, then I’ll risk my leg healing wrong. I need a doctor to set it properly before I can heal it.”

“Maybe we should rest for a while, it seems safe up here,” I said, noticing that the boulder we were on was big enough for us to set up a small camp.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said getting back up and pulling a bedroll out of her saddle bags. “Though I’m worried that if we don’t get there soon, we’ll run out of drinkable water. I don’t have much left in my canteen.”

“I have two full ones myself,” I said, pulling one out and tossing it to her. “I just hope it can help get us by.”

“Me too,” she said, pointing to her saddle bags.

I pulled up my Mark II and started to see if I could get the broadcaster to find anything. I’ve been trying this for hours now, but with no luck. “Damn, still nothing.”

“I’m sure you won’t get a signal until we’re closer to the base. Even the Mark II can’t get through the interference down here,” Mom said as she ate a snack cake and drank a little of her water.

I did the same then asked, “So, why are you being so nice to me?”

She finished her cake then said, “Because fighting will only slow us down, simple as that. I want to get out of here and I need you. Being nice is the only way I can keep us from fighting.”

I sighed then laid back on my bedroll. “Damn, and here I thought it was because you were starting to like me.”

She laid down as well, saying, “Truth be told, as a pony I don’t think you’re that bad Shadow. Just in the past few hours of traveling with you I can tell that you’re a smart mare, you like to know things too which makes you a bit of a busybody, but you also seem to catch onto things fast too. If you didn’t have that monster inside of you or had my Mark II, I would find you rather intriguing.”

I snorted a laugh. “Me, smart? You must’ve hit your head harder than I thought.”

“I mean it. It’s not often I run into a pony who can deal with the things you have and still keep their mind intact. I’ve also seen how you’re able to figure out magic and twist it to work for you. I can also see you thinking all the time even when you’re being spoken to. If you’d have grown up in The Crystal Empire, I’m sure you would’ve been one of the top students to come out of the magic school there. That is, if you had somepony to teach you,” she explained, making me feel a bit better about some of the dumb decisions I’ve made in the past.

“Still I doubt that, most of what I’ve been able to do is just luck,” I said modestly.

She shrugged. “Maybe a little of it is, but I’ve seen you figure your way out of things that most ponies can’t. Hell, you killed some of The Sins, you snuck into Mill City Tower and destroyed it. It takes a strong mind to do the things you’ve done.”

“Thank you…I guess,” I said, still surprised at how nice she was being. It was almost like I had my real mother back, but older and speaking to me like an adult rather than a child.

She smiled. “Don’t expect me to keep being so kind when we’re out of here though.”

I looked down at my hooves letting my right one slowly run over the polished surface of the Mark II. “You’re considered a smart mare, right?”

She cocked her head at me. “By most ponies yes.”

“Then why didn’t you just try to talk to me and ask for my help instead of trying to capture or kill me? Especially when I found out who you were, even if you didn’t believe me?” I asked, letting the question that’d been digging around my head finally come out.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t work with me,” she answered simply.

“Come on!” I yelled. “That’s a bunch of horse apples. If you really had Envy watching me for as long as you did, you know I would’ve listened to you, at least if you tried to talk to me that is. So why didn’t you just at least sit down and talk instead of trying to capture me?”

“Because…I was afraid,” she said, her voice low and shaky.

“Afraid of what?” I asked.

Her voice got quiet, “That there was a small chance that you were telling me the truth. If that was the case, then I couldn’t live with myself if I was wrong all this time.”

That hit me in the gut. “So, you’d rather risk me hating you or dying, just so you didn’t have to face the fact that you were ‘possibly’ wrong about something?”

She looked up at me. “Do you know what it’s like to think that somepony you loved with all your heart is dead, only to find out that it was a lie? To find out that you have done unspeakable things because of that death and then later find out it was all a lie?” she asked.

I glared over at her and said, “Yeah I do, because for the ten years I lived in Stable 28 and a little after, I didn’t know anything about my past because you blocked my memories. Even worse, I thought my father was dead. All because you made sure to keep that information from me. So yeah, I do understand, but I was able to push through my pride and anger to make things better. That’s why I’m still working with Uncle Ori even after he killed so many ponies, even sompony I cared about.”

“He told me about that, he said that he was trying to make it up to you for her death. Though I just thought he was letting you fool him into thinking he is your uncle,” she said.

I sighed. “And still you won’t believe me about who I say I am.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe it, not unless I have proof.”

I looked over at her for a long moment then used my Mark II to find one of the recordings she left for me. The one she left with the memory orbs, then I tossed it at her. “Here, listen to that. Maybe once you do, you’ll stop being so stubborn and start believing me.”

She picked it up off the ground and asked, “What’s this?”

“A recording you left for me with three memory orbs, only my Mark II could decrypt it because you set it up that way. Since I did listen to it, you should be able to now. Listen to it and tell me you still don’t believe me in the morning…good night Grim,” I said before turning my back on her.

She didn’t say anything, I started to close my eyes so I could get a little sleep. After a few minutes as I was finally fading into sleep, I heard the recording start…

Hello Shadow,

I’m glad you were able to get this recording from Lonely Hearts, he really is a good pony. Well, synth, but still you never know if somepony will do what you ask them to. Anyway, before I ramble. First off, I hope you’re doing okay out here, I know how hard it is to understand how things work in The Wasteland and putting you through all this breaks my heart.

As Mom listened to the recording she left for me five years ago with Lonely Hearts, I fell asleep, not even caring if she tried to do something to me while I slept…

***

The next day Mom didn’t say anything to me about the recording, but she started talking to me more about her life when she was young. She also stopped saying things like I can’t believe you about who you are, but she still didn’t show any signs of knowing me or believing me either. But I knew that right now she was starting to rethink some things. After we got off the boulder and started moving again, the path got a lot easier to travel. In two hours, we managed to go another four kilometers and I was getting hopeful that we would find our way out soon.

“So Grim, can I ask you about Dr. Stormy?” I asked casually as we walked.

She looked over at me as we slowly made our way up a slope. “What about her?”

“Did you two…you know…ever do anything?” I asked.

She blinked at me then blushed a little. “Why would you ask something like that? Especially since you believe what you do about me? It’s kind of a strange question to come up out of the blue.”

“Because I saw you two sleeping in the same bed a week after Striker left you in an orb,” I said as I moved around a jagged rock sticking out of the ground, Mom following closer to me since I could see better in this gloom because of my goggles. Her Pip-Light was on just like mine, but it only helped so much.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said.

I stopped and looked back at her. “You DID.”

Her jaw dropped open. “I…I…you don’t know anything.”

“And here I thought you were only into stallions,” I teased.

“I AM!” she exclaimed. “Stop putting words into my muzzle.”

“Then why are you blushing?” I teased again.

“I…I am not, my leg just hurts right now and the Med-X is making my body hot,” she argued with a huff.

“Sure it is, now spill,” I said.

“Do you do this to your friends? Ask them who they did or didn’t sleep around with?” Mom asked.

“All the time,” I said with a laugh. “Hell, they bug me about sleeping with Aura. Then I usually make fun of Cookie Byte for secretly liking Wingnut.”

“I still can’t figure out why you like a griffon. That’s so weird,” she remarked.

“Don’t change the subject to the kinky and hot relationship I have with a badass griffon. I can already tell you did something with her apart from that one kiss she gave you in the clouds,” I teased again.

“You’re impossible!” she yelled, pushing past me. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Okay fine, have it your way. I’ll just have to let my imagination go wild,” I said as I followed her.

A few minutes passed as the landscape flattened out and the walk started getting easier again. Finally, she said, “I didn’t…sleep with her in the way your thinking okay. Just one night I drank a lot. I had been out with Stormy and Nightshade…”

I interrupted, “The first night you two ever went out?”

“Yes, now stop interrupting me or I’m not saying anything even if you do assume the worst,” she said.

I giggled. “Okay.”

She sighed again and continued, “Anyway, I was so drunk that I couldn’t tell up from down or what color my bedsheets were. Nightshade and Stormy had to carry me home. As was normal back then, I started crying over Striker again and Stormy came to comfort me. A couple hours later when Stormy fell asleep I started thinking to myself that maybe I should let Stormy have her way finally because at least I knew she loved me. So I…” Mom stopped and blushed harder. “So I started kissing her belly and other areas. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing, I’d never been with a mare or even wanted to be.”

“No way, so you mean you went down on Stormy!? Bet she liked that when she woke up,” I said.

“I tried to, even managed to find the right spot through my drunken haze. Stormy woke up and she wasn’t happy, not at all. She pushed me off her, and I tried to kiss her on the muzzle saying I wanted her,” Mom elaborated.

I stopped for a moment. “Wait, Stormy made you stop?”

She nodded. “She did, she slapped me then forced me to look into her eyes. Once I was able to stop crying and begging her to just let me do it, she said this to me, ‘I love you Grim, but I’m not going to let you do this while your too drunk to think straight. If I was ever lucky enough to have you fall for me, I don’t want it to happen when you’re drunk. Now go to sleep and if you feel the same when you’re sober then we can talk, and only talk.’ Then she got out of bed and went to her own room.”

“Wow,” is all I could say to that.

“Stormy was a good friend, she knew that I would’ve hated myself the next day. I know that deep down she would’ve loved to be with me even for one night. But she also would’ve hated herself for letting me do it,” she explained.

“What did she do when you sobered up?” I asked.

“She made me call Nightshade and ask him to go for a walk with me. She knew I needed somepony more than her, honestly she was the reason I later married him,” she replied.

I felt a twist in my heart as she told me that story, because I took away that wonderful friend. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe she was the same mare who started The Devil’s Children’s Program.”

“What that program became wasn’t what Stormy wanted when she came up with the idea,” Mom said.

I looked at her confused and asked, “Really?”

She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, the way the foals were raised and all is what she wanted and what she planned, but she didn’t like the isolation from The Enclave. She never wanted them put in a stable or taken from their parents. She wanted to give orphans a purpose in life.”

“Then why did the program end up in Stable 97?” I asked.

“Somepony in Stratus made the council decide to put it there, they chose to kill the inhabitants. They wanted foals from certain families taken and forced Stormy to run the whole thing. If she didn’t she would’ve been kicked out of
The Enclave, so Stormy did what she always has. She treated it like a job and did what she had to. She let herself sink into her work and ignored the moral wrongs that place served,” Mom said, looking around a curve in the path before walking around it.

“So she wasn’t that bad of a pony,” I said.

“She was, but only because she let herself be like that. Though I’m sure deep down she hated what she was doing,” Mom explained.

“Who was the pony who made the council do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “No idea, though I’m sure Nightshade has an idea on who it was. Ever since he found out about the program, he worked to stop it.”

“How’d he find out about it? From Stormy?” I asked.

“No, his father led the pegasi who invaded Stable 97,” she replied.

That caught me off guard, “You mean, Nightshade’s dad was the one who attacked that stable?”

“Yeah, he was a horrible stallion. Loved fighting and killing lesser races,” Mom said. “I wasn’t sad to hear about his death, but his mother, that hurt almost as much as losing Striker did.”

We walked in silence for a little while, finally I asked her, “You’re rather talkative about your past, why is that?”

She didn’t respond right away and when she did her answer came out slowly, like she was thinking carefully on how she answered, “I’m not sure, maybe because you seem to know a lot about my past already so there’s no need to hide anything from you. It could also be that nopony has asked me about my past for a long time. At least not somepony who cared about what I had to say. Also, for some reason I find it easy to talk with you.”

“Blood calls to blood,” I said as we came to a small pool of water. Both of us stopped and looked down at it. The pool was so still, it was like somepony placed a large mirror on the ground. When the lights from our Pip-Bucks hit the pool, it reflected back and small diamonds like crystals lit up all over the rocks around us. Both of us looked around in awe as the we found ourselves in a sea of artificial stars. “It’s beautiful.”

Mom nodded saying, “Yes…yes, it is. It almost reminds me of being up in Nimbus during a new moon.”

Both of us sat down and just looked up at the twinkling lights. After some time passed I said, “If I never got sick and grew up in The Crystal Empire, I would’ve been able to go up to Nimbus and see the real thing too. I wish I would’ve been able to do that, I really do.”

I heard Mom sniff and I looked over at her. My jaw almost dropped open as I saw tears running down her face, her face screwed up in utter sadness as she looked up at the lights. She noticed me looking at her, then she tried to dry her tears saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything about The Crystal Empire or who I know or believe I am,” I said looking away.

“Shadow…I know you believe you are my daughter. From what I heard in that message it would make it seem that you are. I’m having a hard time believing it as you know, I still don’t want to believe it,” she said, still choking a bit.

“I get it, because you know deep down that your Little Star couldn’t have grown up to be a mare like me,” I said with a sigh.

“There is that, but now that I’ve had time to calm down from my anger at you and get to know you. I realized that I’m not the same mare I was when I was young either. I forget that The Wasteland can change a pony. For the past few months I’ve let my anger and sorrow control me and because of that, I’ve been very stubborn,” she said.

I looked back over at her. “Are you saying that you believe me?”

She chuckled a little. “Heavens no, but I also can’t rule out the possibility that you might be who you say you are. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I can find a way to prove it was true, then I will believe you.”

I felt a tear running down my own face as I said, “That’s a lot better than I was expecting and I may have just the thing to show you who I am.”

“When we get out of here then tell me, for now let’s get moving. As much as I’d love to look up at the beauty of this cavern, we can’t stay here forever,” she said as we got up and were on our way again.

***

A couple more hours passed without a word uttered between us. We’d traveled another couple of kilometers now and I had a feeling we had to be getting close to where this Steel Ranger lift was. For the past half an hour, Mom kept a few meters in front of me, using her Pip-Light to illuminate the way. As she did she’d been humming the same tune to herself. Finally, I broke the silence between us.

“What song is that your humming, it sounds sad?” I asked.

She stopped her humming looking back at me. “It’s a song the farm ponies in The Crystal Empire used to sing. It is a sad song, but also one of endearment.”

“Oh…it just sounded so familiar,” I said.

She smiled a little. “The Enclave outlawed it fifty years ago. Said it gave ponies ideas of rebellion, though I’m not sure why. Even though it’s outlawed, you’d still hear it from time to time if you lived near the wall, like I did. Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure,” I said, not really sure I did, but it was better than her not talking.

She took a moment then started to recite…

‘My love, my love’

‘Remember the cries’

‘When winter died for spring skies’

‘They roared and roared’

‘But we grabbed our seed’

‘And sowed a song, against their greed’

‘And down in the vale’

‘Hear the reaper pony swing, the reaper pony swing’

‘Down in the vale, hear the reaper pony sing, a tale of winter done.’

‘My foal, my filly’

‘Remember our chains’

‘When King Sombra ruled with iron reins.’

‘We roared and roared, and twisted and screamed’

‘For ours, a vale of better dreams.”

She finished and blushed a little. “I guess it’s more of a poem rather than a song, but I’ve always liked it.”

“It’s beautiful, what does it mean? Why would that be outlawed?” I asked.

“The meaning is in the words themselves. The Enclave rule pegasi over all the other races of pony kind, just like King Sombra did. No matter how much you try, you can’t ever be as high up the social ranks as a pegasus. The ponies who live where I grew up are seen as only for labor and not much else. We were spat on and laughed at because to them we meant nothing. You can feel The Reaper Pony, or death nipping at your hooves with every day that passes. At times you’d wish that death would just come and take you away from the life you have. Some ponies see that song as a call to stand up to the way life is in The Enclave and change it,” she said.

“I think I can understand, though as bad of a life as it might be growing up where you did in The Crystal Empire, The Wasteland is still worse,” I said.

“In most ways yes, but at the same time it’s not. The Wasteland is scary and dangerous yes, but a pony can still be free out here,” Mom responded.

“Yeah if you don’t run into raiders or slavers,” I added.

She smiled knowingly. “True, but still, at least there’s a chance. The Enclave may seem like it’s an easy life to ponies who didn’t grow up there, but in reality, it’s a prison to pony kind.”

“Then why did you go back to it if it’s so bad?” I asked.

She smiled a little looking back at me again. “Who ever said I truly went back? I thought of all ponies you would’ve figured it out. I don’t care what The Enclave or anypony thinks. No, the only pony I truly follow is The Director.”

“Who is she anyway?” I asked as we came to a sharp bend on the path again.

Mom stopped saying quickly, “Shhhh.”

“Huh, why?” I asked softly.

She rounded on me saying quietly, “I mean it, shhhhh, I see light coming from around the corner.”

Slowly I peeked around the corner as well and saw a dim light coming from down a skinny cavern and around another bend. “Why would there be light all the way down here?” I asked.

Mom checked her Pip-Buck then looked back at me. “The only explanation I can think of, is that we’re close to the base. That’s what it looks like from my map, but what I don’t understand is why there are lights down here at all. The base has been abandoned for thirty years.”

“Well, we aren’t going to find out anything if we just sit around here,” I said, pushing past her and heading down the small space.

“We don’t know if anypony is down there. We need to come up with a plan before we do anything rash,” Mom said putting a hoof on my shoulder.

I pulled away with a small chuckle. “Plans are stupid and normally lead to something bad. So, we’re going to risk it.”

“Shadow, you can’t be serious. Do you know how stupid that sounds?” she asked.

I just smiled like a crazy mare at her. “Yep, now let’s go.”

I moved the rest of the way down the hall as mom tried to keep up. I got to the other corner and rounded it quickly to find…nothing. Well not nothing per say, but nopony was down in the small lit-up cavern. Huge industrial lights were set into the cavernous opening filling the space with bright white light. So bright in fact that I had to remove my goggles. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but when they did, I was sure we must’ve found what we were looking for.

Set against the wall between the two lights were rails for some kind of lift. A terminal was set into a metal platform just at the end of it. Walking closer mom said, “Shut up Shadow.”

I couldn’t help a big grin as she walked past. “Why, because I was right?”

She started typing at the terminal saying, “We still haven’t gotten up to the base yet.”

“Sure, but you said it was abandoned. I’m sure we’re fine,” I said as I trotted over to her, looking around the cavern to make sure nopony was around. It was fun to tease Mom for her paranoia, but that didn’t mean that nopony was around.

“If this place was abandoned then the lights wouldn’t still be working,” Mom said as she continued to work on the terminal.

“Why not? My stable still had a lot of power and they ran for two hundred years and are still going strong,” I said.

“Stables use magic generators and have a complicated system to keep them going. It’s one reason stables need to have ponies to maintain them. The Steel Rangers haven’t been here for thirty years. That means thirty years of nopony fixing and maintaining the power systems here,” Mom said.

“If that’s the case then how did you expect the lift to work to get us up there?” I asked.

She sighed. “There’s a separate power source that can run this lift. I have a few gems in my bag that can be used to make it work. But we won’t need that because the base is working again. I just hope that there’s just some Wastelanders up there who took over the place while The Steel Rangers were away.”

I cocked my head. “How are Wastelanders any better than Steel Rangers? We’ll be breaking into their home to get out, I’m sure they won’t like that very much.”

“Wastelanders are a lot easier to kill than Steel Rangers,” Mom said, then she hit the side of the terminal with a hoof. “Damn thing.”

“Wait a sec, we aren’t going to just go up there and kill random ponies,” I said.

She turned to look at me. “Why not? They’ll just be in our way and I don’t feel like dealing with ponies who get in my way. You should know that by now.”

I pushed her away from the terminal. “No, we aren’t going to just go up there and start shooting or killing ponies. We can talk to them first, we’ll only attack if they give us a reason to.”

She was glaring at me. “IS that your plan Courier? You know that if they’re raiders or fiends, they’ll shoot first and not care who you are.”

“Oh, so it’s Courier again huh? Guess your nice side decided to go on a vacation,” I said angrily.

“I just want to get out of this place! I don’t like being without my magic for this LONG!” she exclaimed.

I snorted. “Even when we get up there, MOM, you still have a magic blocking ring on. Or have you forgotten that technically you’re my prisoner!?”

She looked ready to hit me, then she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Fine, I’m really not in the mood for this and you’re right. Forgive me…Shadow.”

“Oh look, Grim’s back, nice to see you again,” I said turning toward the terminal. “So what’s the problem with this?”

“Oh, shut up,” Mom said, coming to stand next to me. “I can’t seem to hack past the terminal’s security.”

“Hmmm. Guess we’re lucky I’m here huh?” I said connecting the Mark II to the terminal. The Mark II didn’t even ask me to do anything, it just unlocked the terminal. “Huh, guess the security on this thing wasn’t that bad.”

Mom just rolled her eyes. “Whatever, get a weapon ready and let’s get up there. Get your broadcaster ready, once we’re in the base you should be able to call for backup.”

“Um…where’s the lift?” I asked, “And who am I going to call? My friends don’t have Pip-Bucks, broadcasters, or a radio.”

She pushed a button next to the lift and from far above I heard a bang then a grinding sound echoed down to us, “The lift is up there, we need to wait for it. As for who to call, I don’t know. I know you won’t call my team even though they would be a big help at the moment. So I hope you know somepony else who can find your friends.”

I took a few minutes to think about it as the lift slowly came down the rails. When it came to a halt in front of us, I stepped on with Mom as I thought about who I could call that would be able to find my friends. Mom hit a switch on the platform itself and with a shudder it slowly started to go up. Then it came to me, there was one pony who could help us.

“Do you know what channel The Enclave use?” I asked.

“I know a few of them. Why?” she asked.

“Because I need to call Nightshade,” I said.

Her eyes got wide as she said, “No.”

“Grim, we need help and he’s the only pony who can get to them fast enough,” I argued.

“Shadow, I can’t have him find me. He wants me dead,” she said, sounding scared.

“No, he wants to help you get better. He still loves you,” I said, “Now tell me which channel I can use to get a hold of him.”

She looked away. “I can’t believe that, I just can’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have stayed behind. He wouldn’t have hunted me down for so many years trying to stop me from completing my mission.”

The lift was halfway up as I said, “Fine, I’ll just broadcast to every Enclave channel until I find him. Though, I’m sure that will be more dangerous than just talking to Nightshade.”

I started to lift my Pip-Buck then Mom said, “Fine, but…promise me he won’t do anything to me.”

“I’m not going to let him hurt you, you have my word,” I said.

She took in a deep breath then said, “The Broadcast channel you need is the one for the High Council pony’s chambers. It’s Skyforce Gamma 888797, you’re Pip-Buck should be strong enough to find it.”

We were almost to the top now, I could see the edge of the Gorge getting close along with a small metal building that slightly hung over the edge. I looked back at my Pip-Buck’s Broadcast channels.

Military Channel 3884576 Beta

Military Channel 2994578 Alpha

M.A.S.E.B.S. 39

E.M.B. Stratus 8332

E.M.B Stratus 9934

“I’m not seeing it,” I said.

She looked over at my Pip-Buck. “It’s a hidden Broadcast, normally only broadcasters with the proper coding can find them. Your Pip-Buck however can find them as well, you just need to do this.”

She fiddled with an option I never saw before, once she clicked it two more stations showed up.

Emergency Enclave Officer Broadcast Channel, ALPHA CODE!

Skyforce Gama 888797

“Holy shit, I had no idea there were hidden channels on the broadcast system. What’s the first one?” I asked.

“It’s direct access to the officers in Stratus, now hurry up and call Nightshade before I lose my nerve to let you,” she replied.

The lift came to a stop in front of two massive metal doors. As it did I clicked on the channel Mom told me about and said into it, “Does anypony read me? This is Courier Shadow Star.”

It only took a second for my Dad’s voice to echo out of my Pip-Buck, “SHADOW! You’re alive!?”

“I’m guessing you heard from my friends,” I said.

“I was monitoring you when you fell into the gorge, I’m with your friends….” he was cut off by the sound of someone ripping the broadcaster away from him.

“Shadow, are you okay? Where are you? Is that BITCH still with you?” Aura yelled into the broadcaster.

“I’m fine, Mom’s fine too, we’ve been working together to get out of the Gorge,” I replied.

“I’m coming to get you, where are you at?” she asked.

I heard shuffling and a few protests from Aura until Dad got the receiver back and said into the broadcaster, “We’re a couple kilometers north of where you fell in. Are you still in the gorge?”

“No, well not really. We just used a lift that The Steel Rangers built a long time ago,” I started to say then Dad cut me off.

“You’re at the old base, the one connected to the gorge?” he asked.

“Yeah, it was the only way to get out,” I replied.

“FUCK!” Dad shouted. “We’re on our way, we’re only a few kilometers away. Shadow, you and your mother need to get out of there. The Steel Rangers…”

As he spoke the doors to the base opened and two Steel Rangers in full power armor stepped out, pointing huge guns at both Mom and I. I slowly started to lower my Pip-Buck saying, “Yeah, I noticed. Hope you can get here soon. Good luck,” then I cut off the broadcast.

“Don’t move, you’re trespassing on property of The Hidden Sands Steel Rangers!” a voice I haven’t heard in a long time said from inside the base, then none other than Watts floated out between the two rangers, aiming a flamethrower at me.

Mom was shaking as she looked at the two rangers and the Mr. Gutsy. I started to laugh. “Hey Watts, long time no see.”

“Wait a moment, you know that robot?” Mom asked.

Watts floated out more as one of the rangers asked, “How did you get on our LIFT!?”

“Ms. Shadow Star? Do my old cameras deceive me? By Celestia, it is you!” he said, floating over to me and lowering his flamethrower arm then saying to the others. “Stand down Knights it’s the Courier herself, huzzah!”

“Watts she’s not one of us and she’s wanted for crimes against The Steel Rangers,” the other ranger said.

Watts turned around and looked at them both. “That is incorrect Knight Sprinkles. She attacked Elder Wolfsbane’s chapter of The Steel Rangers after she was attacked by them.”

Both Rangers didn’t back down, the first one who spoke before, a mare said, “She’s being blamed for killing Sentinel Box Tape Watts, now stand down before I have Senior Scribe Hazel power you down.”

Now that got to me, I pulled out my sword and held it in my muzzle. I could feel my horn starting to get magic back to it now that we were outside of the gorge, but it was still weak. “Oh fuck both of you, I had nothing to do with the death of Box Tape, that was Wolfsbane!”

The mare turned toward me and yelled, “Oh yeah? Sure, this coming from a pony who blew up Appleton and a tower in Enclave territory. Now drop your weapons before I blow your fucking head off Courier!”

“Big words from a pony who followed a mare like Sapphire! She killed your last Elder. Did you know that?” I asked.

“How DARE you say something so despicable about our Elder!” the stallion yelled.

Fuck both of them, I started to move, lifting Misery in my muzzle when Hazel stepped out yelling, “All of you STAND DOWN!”

I did and same for the two rangers. Mom didn’t even move, she looked like she was ready to bolt. The Mare looked back at her saying, “Ma’am, she’s wanted for crimes against…”

“I know, but we also don’t really know who killed Box Tape. Now stand down so we can all talk like ponies, not raiders,” Hazel said, then she looked over at Mom and I. “Long time no see Grim, glad to see you’re still alive.”

Mom was looking at the cute orange mare for a moment before she said, “Junior Scribe Hazel?”

“Senior Scribe now,” Hazel said before looking at me. “Hey Shadow, why don’t you come inside and we can all talk. I promise that we won’t do anything to you and you can leave as soon as we get some answers.”

“Hazel, why should I trust you?” I asked, still holding onto Misery.

She smiled. “Because, I have no reason to lie to you. If I was your enemy, I’d just kill you.”

I looked back at Mom, then at Hazel. “Okay, but I’m not giving you my weapons.”

She chuckled. “Fine with me.”

***

“So, it’s as Elder Sapphire thought. Wolfsbane was the one who killed Box Tape,” Hazel said as we sat at a small table near the front of the base.

I just finished telling her about the attack on Cartwheel and how Box Tape died, also about what happened with The Red Talons and how we ended up in the gorge. Mom throwing in a little here and there. So far Hazel hadn’t said a word about my Mark II, why Appleslice died, or the filly I knew they were looking for. She just told her two Knights to wait for her in the other room with Watts and oddly enough Glimmer Shot, from my old stable. I got a quick look at the former security mare before I was shuffled into this room.

“The Red Talons helped us after Cartwheel fell. Then a week later they fell because of the Unchained Talons,” I said, “I had nothing to do with Box Tape’s death, he was like a grandfather to me.”

“We figured as much, but Sapphire wasn’t sure after what she’s been hearing about you as of late. Word reached us not long ago about what happened in The Twin Cities. It was hard to believe that you did that,” Hazel said.

“Yes, I was quite surprised by that too,” Mom said, “I knew she was crazy, but not that crazy.”

I huffed. “I thought the griffon I loved was killed by one of them. So, I lost it a little, I feel bad for it at least.”

“Smooth,” Mom said, rolling her eyes.

Hazel just looked at me for a moment, then deciding that whatever she was going to say wasn’t worth it, she looked back at Mom, “So I see Shadow found you Grim. I guess the rumors about you working with The Enclave weren’t true then. I’m glad to see you’re still in one piece and reunited with your daughter at last.”

“Yeah sure, my daughter,” Mom said sarcastically.

Hazel looked confused, so I threw in, “She doesn’t remember me Hazel, it’s a long story.”

She looked sad. “I can understand, I mean you don’t look anything like Morning Star. I didn’t even know who you really were until after Stable 28. Sapphire told me who your mother was on our way back from that.”

I sighed and said, “Still, it doesn’t matter right now. I’m glad you didn’t let your Knights shoot us and all Hazel, but I really don’t have time to sit here and talk. My friends are on their way right now and they think I’m in danger since you’re here.”

She looked confused again. “Why would you be in danger? You’ve always been a friend of The Steel Rangers.”

“I’m not so sure now,” I said as Mom leaned back in her seat ignoring us.

“That’s what I don’t understand, you said to my Knights that Elder Sapphire killed our former Elder. That’s a big accusation to make,” she said.

“I found her body along with her guard outside of Cartwheel just before the attack. She’d been dead for a week and her body was hung from a rock with traitor carved into her body. I would’ve thought Wolfsbane did it, but when I broke into his terminal, he left notes saying he couldn’t find her and was worried something happened to Elder Appleslice. It’s also strange that the youngest Star Paladin took over as Elder then kicked Sandstorm out,” I said.

“Normally yes, but Sandstorm wasn’t a good choice to take over. Star Paladin Noodle Cup backed Sapphire saying we needed young blood to take over. We all got behind her when she took charge when Appleslice didn’t come back. She’s not a bad pony Shadow. I couldn’t see her hurting Appleslice, she looked up to the former Elder,” Hazel said.

“When I knew Sapphire, she was always a mare trying to work her way up the ranks as quick as she could,” Mom said, mostly as an afterthought.

I sighed. “Either way, I don’t trust her. Not until I find out why she’s hunting the other Mark II and what she had to do with Elder Appleslice’s death.”

“Maybe you should talk to her before you jump to conclusions Shadow,” Hazel said.

“If I could I would,” I said getting to my hooves. “It was nice to see you again Hazel, but I have to be going.”

She sighed then got to her hooves too. “I understand, still I wish you’d stay for a little while.”

“I wish I could, but I need to get back to my friends before they come here trying to kill everypony and I have to get to Los Alicorn,” I said, turning for the door.

“Why Los Alicorn? Do you know what that place is like!?” Hazel asked with a worried tone. “Wolfsbane will kill you Shadow, we all know what you did to his eye.”

“I know what I’m getting into and it wasn’t me who did that to him, it was his father,” I said, then turned and headed for a hallway that led out of the room. “Grim, don’t run off, I need to use the restroom quick, then we can go. If you run, you’ll never get that horn ring off.”

She just rolled her eyes. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, honestly I’m curious to see what you have planned next Shadow.”

I just nodded then headed for the bathrooms. When I was inside I locked the door, turned on the faucet then looked at myself in the mirror. I looked over my haggard appearance, took in the patches of white mixed into my black coat, the black streaks taking over my silver mane and the burning fire in my eyes. As I looked at myself I said quietly, “Give me two more days…just two more days!”

Ever since I got out of the gorge, my head started pounding. A feeling started coming over me, almost like somepony else was just under my coat. I felt hot and weak, my sight was slightly blurred and every time I moved, it felt like I was walking through mud. As I looked myself over and washed my face, looking back in the mirror I saw Aquila’s reflection instead of my own. “I’ve waited long enough Shadow. You have only a few hours left, a day at most. I’m not giving you any more time. I’m sick of this game!”

I just kept looking at her reflection, then I screamed, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Then I started to slam my head into the mirror. Once, twice, three times, until I felt blood flowing down my face. I slammed my head into it again, and again, and again. It just made my head hurt worse, I started to cry as I fell to the ground and curled into a ball.

“Shhh, no need to cry Shadow Star. Soon this will all be over,” Aquila said, “Also, slamming your head into the wall won’t stop me, it will just hurt you. Any damage you do to yourself I can just fix later. Tick tock Shadow…that’s the sound of your life coming to an end.”

For a long moment I just sat there, curled into a ball as I let my tears flow. I wasn’t going to make it to Los Alicorn. I was hoping this whole time that I’d get Mom to believe me and she could fix me like she said in her notes. Aquila knew that, she wasn’t going to let me go when she was so close to what she wanted. I knew what I had to do. Aquila might take over, but I could still use Mom to help me. So, I turned off the water, pulled out a healing potion and drank it down. I looked at myself again in what was left of the shattered mirror seeing myself once again. A little glass was still stuck in my scalp so I pulled I out, cleaned the blood, then headed toward the door.

Mom was waiting for me in the hallway, looking at the far wall. “How much time do you have left?”

I wasn’t surprised by her question, she knew what Aquila was as much as I did, maybe more. “Not long.”

She rolled her eyes. “Be specific.”

“A few hours, maybe a day,” I said.

When she looked back at me, I saw something in her eyes I thought I’d never see. She looked at me with sympathy saying, “You’ve been trying to get me to believe you about who you are so I’d help you. Am I right?”

“Part of it yes,” I replied.

She sighed. “I still don’t know what to think, but I do know that something has to be done about Aquila.”

A tear fell from my eye as I said quietly, “I just want my mom back.”

I felt her put a hoof on my shoulder, looking up I saw her looking down at me. “I’m sorry I can’t give you that. I’m sorry I can’t believe you yet, but after you helped me down there, I owe you my life. Tell me what you need and I’ll help.”

I felt a few more tears fall as I asked, “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah, maybe you’re right and all I needed to do was just try and talk to you instead of trying to kill you. I just hope that once I help you, you can help me.”

I knew what she wanted me to help with. She wanted to activate Falling Shadows. At this point, I didn’t know what choice was worse, help Mom activate a superweapon after what I’ve seen she’s capable of, or letting Aquila get out. In the end, I knew I had only one choice to make. “Help me get Aquila out of me and I’ll help you with Falling Shadows. I’m not giving you my Pip-Buck, but I’ll use it how you need me to.”

She smiled. “Good, then I’ll need to get back to The Ministry as quick as I can. If you let me go, I can teleport there and get what I need.”

“Wait, you have something to pull Aquila out of me?” I asked, surprised.

She smiled. “You could say that, if I hurry I can be back in three hours or so. Do you think you can hold out that long?”

“Maybe, if it will help. My friends and I will keep heading toward Los Alicorn. We can meet in the middle,” I said.

“Good idea,” Mom said, “So do we have a deal?”

I sighed and knowing I was risking a lot in doing this, I reached up and used a gem that Solstice gave me to unlock her horn. It clicked then I pulled it off of her. “Maybe it would be better if I come with you.”

She shook her head. “Aquila is almost ready to take over, the more magic you use, the quicker she’ll get what she wants. I’ll meet you on your way to Los Alicorn, if you all make it to the mountains before I do, I’ll meet you in Pioneer’s Pass. Your griffon friend should know the place.”

We both walked out of the base closely watched by the two Knights from before. As we did I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out the three memory orbs I had Wingnut grab for me and said, “Here, I want you to have these, they should prove what I’m saying is true. Once I’m better I’d like you to watch them.”

She took them then looked at me and asked, “Who’s are these?”

I smiled. “They’re yours, just watch them and you’ll understand, once I’m better. Now get out of here, before my friends show up.”

She smiled a little then put them in her saddle bags. “Thanks, I’ll do that. Also, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me and for saving my life. I’m sorry for everything that happened…that is if you can prove what you say is true, if I find out this is one big lie… I will kill you.”

Before I could say anything else, she vanished in a flash of blue light. I sighed and said to myself, “I hope I made the right choice.”

I turned away from the base and looked to east, I could see the Skycarriage in the distance along with my friends. I did my best to smile and started to trot towards them. I had a feeling it was going to take a while to explain to them what happened.

***

It took over an hour to explain what happened when I fell into the gorge with Mom, how we got out, and why I let her go…kind of. I didn’t tell them how close Aquila was to breaking out. I just told them that she could help me and I was trusting her to do so. All of them were pissed at me for letting her go and for saying I’d help with Falling Shadows. As we argued, we were flying toward the place Mom said we should meet in a few hours. Dad was just as pissed as the rest of them for the risk I took.

After everyone calmed down, Aura was holding me close in the Skycarrage as they told me about what happened while I was gone. From the sound of it, Wind Thrasher was able to hold the bloodwings off while my friends escaped further along the gorge. Once they knew they were going to be okay, they started trying to find a way down, but just as Mom said, none of them could do it. Dad showed up not long after that in his Stranger gear, but even he couldn’t help. For most of the past day they all tried to come to terms with the fact that I was most likely dead.

“We were getting ready to head back to New Pegasus when you’re call came in,” Dad said with his mask pulled off. He was sitting across from me in the Skycarriage while Aura held me close.

We were almost to the location mom told me about now and all I wanted to do was curl up with Aura and hold her just as tight as she was holding me right now, “I’m sorry I scared you all so much.”

“You did what you did to save me Shadow, we all understand,” Aura said kissing my head then nuzzling my mane. She’d been doing this ever since she saw me again. She wasn’t even mad at me after a few minutes.

“Sure, that’s the reason,” Wind Thrasher muttered angrily. She’d been cold toward me ever since she first saw me. My friends couldn’t understand her anger, but I did. She thought I tried to kill myself. She wasn’t going to believe me about why I let myself fall, not for a while.

“Wind Thrasher why else would she have done that?” Stardust asked from where he was hooked up to the Skycarriage.

“Why don’t you ask Shadow?” Wind Thrasher snapped.

My dad looked back at me, same for Aura, “What does she mean?”

“It doesn’t matter, everything will be fine in a couple hours,” I said, glaring at Wind Thrasher. “Right Wind Thrasher?”

She glared right back at me, “It will only be better once you stop lying to everypony.”

I was about to say something back to her, when Stardust said, “Let’s not fight right now please. Shadow’s safe and we might…” he hesitated before continuing to speak, “…might have a way to fix her. Let’s just get through tonight and when she’s better, then we can fight over whatever has Wind Thrasher’s tail in such a twist.”

My uncle was sitting on the other side from Dad, he’d been quiet the whole time. Finally, he looked over and said, “Star, you’re not looking good, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired,” I said.

He looked like he wanted to say more, but Stardust said, “We’re here, I’m going to land in a spot where we can camp.”

Dad looked over at Oricalcos as Stardust started to land. “I’m still confused on why she trusts you Oricalcos, in all rights you should be dead.”

“Oh, don’t start Dad. if you two start fighting, I’m sending you home,” I said.

He looked a little ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry sweetie, it’s just I can’t trust that traitor.”

“It’s okay,” I said as we landed. “Let’s set up camp and eat. For the rest of the day, let’s just forget about our problems and just enjoy each other’s company.”

Finally, Wind Thrasher smiled a little. “That’s fair.”

“Agreed,” Dad said.

“Works for me,” Oricalcos added.

I smiled looking at my small family. “Thank you.”

***

It took a half hour to set up and eat, once we were finally full and happy sitting around a small fire I looked over at them all and said, “Since Mom’s not here yet, I have an idea. Let’s all tell a story about one of our happiest memories or a dream we have when this is all over.”

I was once again laying against Aura, her talons wrapped around me as I rested. She leaned back saying, “Hmmmm. You know what, that’s a good idea. With all the bad shit we’ve been dealing with, it’d be nice to talk about something cheerful.”

Dad smiled saying, “I’ll start. My happiest memory was the day Shadow was born.”

Stardust laughed. “Come on old buck, that’s too easy.”

“I’m serious, I mean I’ve had a lot of happy memories in my life, but nothing was as happy as the day Grim had Shadow,” he said.

“For a while there, you didn’t even know if you’d ever be a father Nightshade,” Oricalcos said.

Wind Thrasher’s eyes went wide at that. “Really?”

Dad nodded. “Yes, Grim was pregnant twice before Shadow came along. The first foal we lost just into Grim’s second trimester. The second in the first trimester. Grim and I almost gave up on even trying and even started looking into adoption. It took me three months to even get Grim to listen to me about the idea. Then we got pregnant again, for the first few months we didn’t even try hoping that this one would make it to term. Then Shadow came into our lives. A beautiful filly, a foal that felt like a miracle for us both.”

“I was surprised that she had red eyes,” Oricalcos said with a laugh. “I asked Grim if you really were the father.”

Dad gave my uncle a flat look, then said, “Yes I know, she told me about that.”

Looking over at my dad I asked, “What does me having red eyes have to do with you not being my dad?”

He chuckled. “It’s because you’re the first foal in our family not to have green eyes.”

Oricalcos nodded. “The eyes of Night Stalker.”

“I take it she knows about that now?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I found out in Mom’s orbs.”

“Well at least she was able to tell you, I’ve been trying to think of how to bring it up after you’ve been looking into his past,” Dad said.

Stardust chuckled to himself. “Too bad she doesn’t have green eyes, it would have gone well with her coat and mane.”

I just rolled my eyes saying, “Anyway, who’s next?”

Oricalcos smiled. “I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do once this is all over, but I’m hoping that I can find a way to fix what I’ve done to myself. I’d like to get my real body back and maybe settle down with somepony.”

Dad laughed. “Oricalcos, I always thought your only love was magic.”

My uncle smiled and said, “Once you’ve been stuck as a magical shadow for so many years, that novelty wears off.”

“Weren’t you seeing some mare a few months before Shadow was hurt?” Dad asked.

My uncle shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I was seeing Scarlet per say, but…well let’s just say we had a lot of fun.”

“Ewwwww, I don’t need to hear this,” I said closing my eyes and making gagging noises.

My uncle and dad both laughed. When they finished Wind Thrasher said, “I’d like to try and help ponies when this is all over.”

“You help ponies now Wind Thrasher,” I said.

“I know that,” she said blushing. “What I mean is, I’d like to help ponies who have been through a lot of pain and stress in their lives get past the trauma they’ve experienced.”

“So, you want to be a shrink?” Stardust asked. “I could see you doing that, you already help us out when we’re feeling down.”

“It’s called a psychologist dumbass,” Aura said.

“I know that, I’m not stupid. I just prefer shrink,” Stardust said, sticking his tongue out at Aura.

“You’re such a foal,” Aura replied with a sigh.

“Okay, then what about you, what do you have planned?” Stardust asked.

“Easy, I want a nice home for Shadow and I to grow old in,” Aura said simply. “You already know that though, so I’ll go with a happy memory. For me it was the day Tonto first told me the story about The Lover’s Souls. I don’t know why, but that day I sat in his cave with him telling me about the two griffons who loved each other so much that they swore to find each other in every life from then on. It was a beautiful story, if not a little sad in the end.”

“I think I read that in something of his,” I said, “But it was a griffon and a pony.”

“Odd, he always said it was two griffons, though I could see him changing the story a bit to fit Red Talon Law,” Aura said.

“Apart from you two, I’ve never heard of a griffon and a pony being together,” Stardust said.

Dad looked over at him. “It’s not as uncommon as you think, well it didn’t used to be. There are a lot of stories over the centuries of griffons and ponies being in love. Our races have worked together a lot since Equestria was first started. The most famous griffon and pony lovers were rumored to be the first Children of the Night, before Luna was Nightmare Moon.”

“You mean that the first Children of the Night had a griffon in it too?” I asked.

Dad nodded, “Yeah, he joined to be close to the mare he loved. It’s a sad story, but also very sweet.”

“I’d like to hear it some time,” I said with a smile.

Dad smiled as well. “When this is all finished, I’ll tell you all I know.”

I forced a smile. “Okay.”

Stardust gave us all a smug grin. “Well when this is all finished I plan on finding my family. I want to know who my parents are and see if I have more family. Then I’m going to find a nice mare and settle down one day and have a foal or two.”

As he spoke Wind Thrasher blushed saying quietly, “I think you’d be a great dad Stardust.”

Aura started to laugh. “Yeah, because he’s a big foal himself.”

We all started laughing then, Stardust on the other hoof said, “Thank you Wind Thrasher, I happen to agree with you. I’d be an awesome dad.”

As the laughter died down Aura poked me saying, “What about you Shadow?”

I frowned and looked down at my hooves, “I’m…not sure what I want to do when this is all over.”

“C’mon, there has to be something you want to do,” Stardust said.

“Honestly I’ve never thought about it. I’ll just be happy to have all my friends and family around me for the rest of my life. I’d like more days like this, where we can just sit down, talk, laugh and enjoy each other’s company,” I said.

They all looked at me with smiles on their faces, finally dad said, “I think that’s a great vision of the future sweetheart.”

Aura hugged me tighter. “A very great idea.”

After we talked a little more Dad said, “Grim should’ve been here by now.”

Oricalcos nodded. “I agree, maybe I should go see if I can find her. She’s never been great with direction.”

“I’ll go with you Oricalcos,” Dad said getting to his hooves.

“No, I’ll be fine, just relax,” Oricalcos said, his body turning into shadows. “I won’t be gone long.”

As he vanished into the oncoming night Aura whispered in my ear, “Shadow, you think we have a little time to slip away?”

I looked around at Stardust, Wind Thrasher, and Dad then whispered back, “Maybe, if we can get our friends to ignore us.”

As we spoke I saw Wind Thrashers ears perk up, she looked over at us for a moment then winked. She raised her voice saying, “So, Nightshade what’s it like living up in Stratus? Stardust and I have never been above the clouds before.”

“That’s right, oh you have no idea how beautiful of a city Stratus is. It’s one of the biggest sky cities in The Enclave,” Dad said looking over at Wind Thrasher.

Aura got up and slowly started to walk away, toward where we parked the Skycarriage. It was tucked back into a small patch of trees to keep it out of sight of any pegasi or griffons flying over. As we both started to sneak away Stardust moved his head to see where we were going then Wind Thrasher pulled his attention away from us by saying, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to see it sometime Stardust?”

“Oh…yeah, I’ve wanted to see it ever since I left my stable,” Stardust replied.

Aura and I were clear, she led me into the skycarriage and once we were in and the door shut she pulled me close, kissing me hard and pinning me against the far wall. Before I knew it, my Duster and my saddle bags were off. I pushed myself against her taking in every kiss as if it was the last one I’d ever get. Our love making was better than it ever has been before. I needed this, more than I think Aura could ever know. It started out fast and hot, full of passion and need, our bodies sweaty, heat filling the Skycarriage and the windows fogging up. Then it turned into something slower, I explored my lovers’ body like I never had before, finding every spot that could make her moan, every place that made her laugh and the places that made her shiver.

Aura was a wonder to me, a creature that was so different yet she felt like I knew every part of her at the same time. I took in every sound she made, every movement of her body, each twitch of her talons, paws or wings. Then when she couldn’t take it anymore, she twisted on me and started doing the same to me. She didn’t have to ask me if I like something or not, my body was hers to do with as she willed. I am hers and she is mine, it was an understanding that went beyond words, beyond our bodies, beyond everything. It was like deep down my soul had been waiting for this griffon to fly into my life and now that she was here, I never wanted to let her go.

That realization was the most wonderful thing ever and the worst. Why couldn’t I have had this for longer. It was so unfair, she is my soulmate and I’ve only had the past two weeks to have her to myself. If I would’ve known what was going to happen when I first met her, I would’ve told her my feelings so long ago. The sad truth is, that nothing can change what happened in the past and nothing could change what was going to happen next.

Finally, when we both were so spent that we could barely move, we both laid together on the floor of the messy skycarriage. Aura chuckled a little saying, “Stardust is going to kill us if we don’t clean this thing before we leave.”

I nuzzled into her chest, “Let him get mad, it was worth it.”

She yawned. “I agree, maybe soon we’ll be able to do this whenever we want.”

“Yeah…maybe,” I said.

She yawned again. “You really wore me out, did you miss me that much while you were stuck in that hole?”

“You have no idea,” I said.

“Well I’m here now, we’re both safe and happy. Soon you’ll be rid of that monster inside of you and we can get on with our lives,” she said closing her eyes.

It took me a moment to respond as my head throbbed again, like it’s been doing for hours now. “Yeah.”

“I love you,” she said, her voice fading.

I felt tears in my eyes as I heard her start to snore lightly. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

I waited for a little while until I knew Aura was fast asleep. When I knew she wouldn’t wake, I slowly pulled myself out from under her talon and made my way over to my saddle bags. I pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, I wanted to leave her a note, telling her what I had to do and beg her to forgive me. Then I remembered the note I left her the last time I left. Back when Envy forced me to go to Halo One. No matter what I said in a letter, she’d never forgive me for it, so I wrote the only thing that really mattered.

Aura,

You are the best thing that’s happened to me in my short life. There are no words that can explain what I had to do or why. I know that you can’t forgive me for this, but this is all that is left for me. Tell the others I’m sorry, especially Wind Thrasher. She’s going to be just as hurt as you because I told her I’d warn you all if Aquila was close to breaking out. I told you all that I had a few days left before she took over, but I lied. I know I do that a lot and I should’ve said something sooner, but there’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing any of you can do. If I told you what my last option was then you’d try to stop me. I understand, but please try and see that I’m doing this to save The Wasteland. Don’t blame yourself or anypony else, this was my choice. One of the few I’ve had in my life. I love you.

Your Soul Mate,

Shadow Star.

Once I was done, I put the note down next to my saddle bags. I pulled out The plasma rifle, Misery, Dream Walker, my shotgun, and the revolver I found in Mill City Tower. I set them next to my barding and duster, and only took the revolver. Once that was finished I pushed the door open and started to sneak down the pathway that led back to my friends and Dad. When I was closer I saw that all three of them were laughing around the fire, still waiting for Oricalcos to get back with Mom.

Keeping low I snuck past them and started working my way down the path that went into a small valley that led West. My head throbbed again bringing tears to my eyes, but I kept on walking. I wanted to be as far away from my friends as I could. I had no guarantee that Aura wouldn’t wake up too soon, find my note, and start looking for me. I couldn’t let her find me, not before I was finished. She was going to hate me for this, she would blame herself, even though nothing could’ve been done. This is just how The Wasteland works, I was just playing my part.

Once I knew I was far enough away, I sat on the hard-dry ground and looked up at the cloudy night sky. A little of the moon’s light poked through the cloud layer. The small beam of blue light seemed to fall on me illuminating the small spot I sat in with a soft bluish white. I closed my eyes for a moment and said softly, “Luna, if you’re there please forgive me for what I have to do.”

I opened my eyes again then looked down at the only thing I brought with me. The revolver from Mill City Tower. I checked the cylinder and saw that it was still loaded. I closed it up then spun the cylinder quickly and took in a deep breath as a single tear fell from my right eye. Mom said it herself, there was only one choice left to me now. A choice deep down I knew was coming. I tried to fight it, tried to fix myself, hoped it wouldn’t come to pass, but deep down I always knew. Even if Mom had a way to help me now, there wasn’t enough time, even though I tried to fool myself that there was.

I lifted the muzzle of the revolver in my magic. It made my head swim as I felt more of Aquila’s power flow through me. I ignored it, in a moment, it wouldn’t matter anymore. I brought the revolver up under my chin and angled it so that the bullet wouldn’t miss. I pulled back the hammer, closed my eyes, ignored the rising anger from deep in my mind, ignored the scream from Aquila as I used the last of my strength to pull the trigger. The hammer snapped down…BANG……

No…no…no…no…no…no…noooooo! It felt like somepony just jabbed a spike into my right ear as my magic pulled the gun out of the way at the last second. The blast going off right next to my face. I could feel a hot line in my cheek where the bullet grazed me and my ear was ringing. Did I chicken out? No, I wasn’t the one who moved the revolver at the last second. My magic wasn’t under my control anymore. I could feel it now, through the pain in my ear and face, she was there.

“You fool! Do you really think I was going to just let you kill us when I’m so CLOSE!? I’m done with this game SHADOW STAR. It’s time to pay up, your bill is due, GAME OVER!” Aquila said.

“No, please NO!” I yelled as magic blasted out of my horn turning the darkness around us red. My body felt as if millions of tiny needles were stabbing into it as more and more magic built up inside me.

“I would’ve given you the rest of tomorrow to prepare yourself for this, to say goodbye to your friends, but no, you just had to go and do something so fucking stupid. I wanted another day anyway just to make sure I had the power I needed, but you forced my hoof. In two minutes, your body is mine and you’ll fade from this world forever,” Aquila said from inside my head.

My body started to rise into the air, just like it did when Aquila first joined with me, ten years ago. I started to cry as more pain ran through my body, as I lifted higher into the air I screamed, “Aquila, just leave my friends alone please. Do whatever else you want, but please don’t hurt them!”

“Fuck your friends, fuck your family, and FUCK you Shadow. If you would’ve just given me what you promised ten years ago like I told you to, then we wouldn’t be here. I would’ve left them alone then, but now, I want you to fade into nothing knowing that everyone you love is going to DIE!” Aquila said with a wicked laugh.

“I won’t let you!” I shouted.

“How are you going to stop me!?” she taunted. “You have no magic left, your mother’s gone, you killed the only other mare who could stop it, and you wasted what little time you had left to sleep with that griffon.”

Then a sound that made my heart stop echoed toward me, “Shadow!”

My head snapped toward Aura, Stardust, Wind Thrasher, Dad, Oricalcos and Mom who were standing a safe distance away, looking up at me with horror. I started to scream, “Get away from me!”

“Shadow, no, we can help you!” Mom yelled up at me.

“We aren’t leaving you behind! Control her, I know you can!” Aura yelled.

I felt tears run down my face as Aquila started to laugh again. “Perfect, now I won’t have to hunt them down.”

“Please run, she’s close! She’s going to kill all of you! Get as far away from me as you can!” I yelled louder then screamed as pain lanced through my body.

“One-minute left,” Aquila chuckled.

Oricalcos looked at me with horror in his purple eyes, then he said, “She’s right, I can feel her. We have to get as far away as we can.”

Aura glared at him, “I’m not leaving her like this!” then she looked at Mom and said, “Grim do something!”

“I…I can’t, not anymore. She’s too far gone, Aquila has taken over her body and magic. Soon Shadow will be gone and only that monster will be left,” Mom said taking a step back.

Stardust’s eyes met mine then he said, “Shadow…what can we do?”

I looked down at all of them and remembered something. “Dad, use Demon Slayer, it can kill her!”

He looked sick at the thought. “Shadow, that’ll kill you too!”

“I don’t care, you have to or she’ll destroy everything! DO IT FOR THE WASTELAND!” I screamed.

He pulled Demon Slayer out quickly and aimed it at me. “I don’t want to hurt you sweetheart.”

“Thirty seconds,” Aquila said with a crazed laughed.

Tears were running down his face as he said, “I’m sorry my little star…” he fired, but Aquila just used my magic to stop the bullet in midair. Then she took hold of my father and slammed him into the ground.

“NO…don’t hurt them PLEASE!” I yelled.

“Twenty seconds,” was all Aquila said.

The magic coming out of me grew stronger and I swore I could hear the ground under me rumbling. My eyes found Wind Thrasher, “Please run! I don’t want you to die because of me…please.”

Wind Thrasher nodded then yelled, “We have to run, she’s right, we can’t do anything right now. Aquila will kill us once she has full control.”

“But, we can’t…” Aura started to say.

Oricalcos cut her off saying, “She’s right, we have to live to fight another day. All of you get as far away from here as you can.”

Stardust nodded then said, “We love you Shadow, we’ll find a way…we will.” Then he flew off with Wind Thrasher, Mom jumping onto my friend’s back as he flew off.

“Ten,” Aquila said with a purr.

Aura looked up at me, “I love you Shadow, I’ll get you back. Have faith and fight it.”

I felt tears fall from my face, “I love you too…”

“Nine,” Aquila purred again.

“Don’t you dare let her win, do you hear me? Don’t let her win!” Aura said as she took to the air and followed my friends.

“Eight,” Aquila said in delight.

“Uncle Ori go!” I said.

“Seven.” I could feel the power grow even stronger.

“No, I gave my word that I would protect you until the end,” he said as his body turned to shadow.

“Six,” Aquila said.

“Please Uncle Ori, I can’t lose you because of this monster,” I cried.

“FIVE!” Aquila said, raising her voice in excitement.

He smiled as his shadow body floated toward me. “I will always be with you Star, always.”

The countdown continued. “FOUR!”

“You’ll die!” I yelled in agony.

“Three!” Aquila practically sang.

“Maybe,” Oricalcos said his shadows closed around me now. “But we’ll go together.”

“TWO!!!!” Aquila shouted in my head.

I felt so much love coming off my uncle then, and I cried harder, “I love you Uncle Ori.”

“Me too…” he said as Aquila laughed in my head, then as the last words the monster inside me were said, his shadow’s slammed into my horn.

“Hahahahahahahahaha…ONE!!!!!!!!” she yelled in euphonious glee.

[FOOTNOTE: GAME OVER!]

NO PERK ADDED!

THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!

AQUILA WINS!

SHADOW STAR LOSES?

OR DOES SHE...?

Author's Note

No, the story isn't over, there will be more chapters to come. I had to put this note here because of the way this chapter ended. I know some people might see the ending and think it's over. Not to worry, Stardust and I are hard at work with 55. Thank you for reading.

Chapter 55: Raining

“Mom, I’m trying to concentrate.”

A long time ago, in the magical land of Equestria, there were six great ponies that were the best of friends. Though they didn’t start out that way, before the return of Nightmare Moon, none of them knew each other very well at all. If it wasn’t for a young unicorn who loved books far too much, the world would’ve been cast into darkness and Celestia would’ve been gone from the land she protected for a millennia.

Thanks to the help of this unicorn, Nightmare Moon was defeated and Princess Luna was returned. This key moment in the young mare’s life created a bond that should’ve lasted a lifetime. A few years after Luna was returned to Equestria, her older sister Celestia decided to give her a school so she too could shape young minds and help foster a new generation of unicorns to our great land. However, one fateful night, a new kind of weapon was used on Luna’s school. Zebras, masquerading as refugees, snuck into the school and set it off, killing the tribes of refugee zebras who were trying to escape their own land and the rule of their new Caesar. This weapon, didn’t just kill the tribes that took shelter at the school, but also all of the fillies and colts that called the school home. The professors died, the ponies who ran the administration died, parents died. Everypony but one…died.

This led to escalating disagreements between the Zebra lands and Equestria eventually leading to a war. Celestia blamed herself for the deaths of so many and stepped down as the ruler of Equestria and put her sister, Luna, in charge. The war started getting worse, and Luna needed help to run the government during this new war, hence The Ministries were created. The six mares who helped save Equestria previously, were now the mares who ran each ministry. The ministries grew the government, helped make new technology, formed new companies, and started secret projects to help win the war. Most of these projects never saw the light of day, even after the war ended and Equestria, died. One such project, was so well hidden that it stayed secret for almost two hundred years. That is until a desperate unicorn known as Grimoire Spell found hidden documents about this project. She only wanted to save her sick filly. She went into the lab where this project’s power was hidden, and awakened a demon. This one action set into motion the actions that will destroy Equus.

***

The evil laugh of Aquila lingers in my head, the way she taunted me as she took over my power, took over my mind, took over my body. I felt the pleasure she felt as she finally did what she said she would so long ago. I was so close, if only I’d moved faster, pulled the trigger before she had time to stop me. I shouldn’t have taken time to have one last night with my friends, with my family, with Aura. Wait a second, if Aquila took over then why do I feel like I’m lying in bed right now?

I slowly opened my eyes. I’m laying in…Silver Snip’s room? The same room she gave me when I was in Cartwheel with her? I was under a few blankets, warm and comfortable. I haven’t felt this way since I left my stable. I moved my forelegs out from under the blanks and stretched. My Mark II was still on my foreleg, that’s a good sign at least, but why am in Silver’s home? Last thing I remember was Aquila taking over, she wouldn’t have just let me take control again. Then I noticed that I couldn’t feel her at all. My head felt normal, well I had a bit of a headache, but not much else. Then I felt somepony shift in the bed with me and a rear leg brush my own.

I twisted around and saw a stallion with a greenish blue coat and straw-colored mane. He was sleeping and his back was turned toward me. Why was I in bed with a strange stallion? It didn’t matter, whoever he is, he’s not Aura and he shouldn’t be sleeping in my bed. I backed out of the bed, falling to the floor yelling, “Who are you? Why are you in my bed!?”

The Stallion jumped then sat up quickly, he looked over at me with deep brown eyes. He rubbed his eyes then said sleepily, “Shadow, what’s wrong?”

He had a nice rich voice and he spoke like a pony who knew me, but I had no idea who this pony was. I backed up more, still sitting on my ass. “Who are you!?”

He looked confused for a moment. “What do you mean? It’s me, Wingnut, your husband…oh shit,” he said then turned his head toward the door of the room and yelled, “Grim, it’s happening again.”

“You’re not Wingnut, don’t lie to me. Wingnut’s a colt, you’re not,” I said.

He sighed. “Shadow, I know everything’s a little confusing at the moment. I am Wingnut, we’ve been married for eight years.”

I looked at him in horror. “Fuck you, this is a dream, it has to be.”

He sighed again, but didn’t move from the spot on the bed as he asked, “Shadow, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Aquila…she took over my body,” I said.

His face relaxed a little. “Good, I thought you might’ve gone back to when we first met. Shadow, Aquila isn’t…”

The door opened and Mom stood there. “Wingnut, how many times do I have to tell you to wait for me when she wakes up like this?”

I glared over at her and started to pull on my magic. I don’t know what’s going on, but Mom has to be behind this. As soon as I touched my magic to ready a spell, extreme pain flowed from my horn. I screamed and fell back to the floor. “What’s happening!?”

Mom ran over with a look of concern on her face, saying, “Shadow let the magic go.”

I did and the pain stopped. I looked up at her, gasping a little to catch my breath. “What did you do to me!?”

She sighed. “Nothing sweetie, you did it. Ten years ago, you did something with your magic that broke something inside of you. Your horn cracked and ever since you’ve had a hard time doing any kind of magic, even telekinesis is hard for you.”

“I don’t remember doing anything like that,” I said trying to back away from her.

“She said the last thing she remembers is Aquila taking over,” Wingnut…if it is Wingnut said.

Mom looked over at him. “Which time?”

He shrugged so I said, “Near Los Alicorn.”

“So, the time you tried to kill yourself. Well that’s good, at least it wasn’t the one where you thought she took over in Stable 28.”

“Huh?” I asked.

She put a hoof on my shoulder ignoring my attempts to pull away from her. “Shadow, when you hurt your magic you also damaged the memory spell I had on you. The barrier broke, but it also broke your mind. At first nopony noticed until you started talking about somepony called Aquila who was trying to take over your mind. For a while your friends believed you…until you destroyed Mill City Tower.”

“What does that have to do with my magic and my memories, that was a couple weeks ago? I hate what I did, but I can’t change it,” I said.

Wingnut spoke up finally, “Shadow, that night you killed Stardust and your father Nightshade. When Aura died, you lost grip on reality.”

I felt my heart stop as he said that. “No, Stardust was fine, we took him to Stable 97 and Dad wasn’t even there, he flew me out of the building as The Stranger.”

Mom sighed. “Shadow, The Stranger wasn’t your father, it was your uncle, Striker. When you destroyed Mill City Tower, you turned on him, the one pony who tried to help you. You overpowered his gems that protected him from most unicorn magic and killed him too, then you went after Stable 97, and once you used the Mark II to open the stable you killed everypony inside.”

What they were saying couldn’t be real, I didn’t do any of that. “No, you’re lying.”

“I wish she was,” Wingnut said, “It took Wind Thrasher and I three weeks to find you. We followed you all the way back to New Pegasus where you were going after Grim.”

“That’s when you hurt yourself more. You wanted me dead, but you wanted me to remember who I was before you killed me, so you used a memory spell you found in a spell book to overpower the memory spells placed on me. My wards made it almost impossible for you to get into my head, but you managed to fix my memory and broke your own,” Mom said.

“If that’s true then why didn’t I kill you?” I asked.

Wingnut got off the bed saying, “Because Wind Thrasher, Doorstop, and I stopped you. Grim did what she could to help fix what was wrong, but she couldn’t fix everything.”

“Every now and then, your mind seems to slip back into a false past. The one where Aquila is trying to take you over is the most common,” Mom said.

“That…can’t be. It was only a few weeks ago that I was in the Twin Cities,” I said.

“Shadow, that was ten years ago,” Wingnut said.

My eyes went wide and I said quietly, “Ten years?”

“Yeah, ten years. Most of the time you’re okay, but you do have days like this and it’s become common for Grim and I to have to help you calm down, but don’t worry, you’ll remember everything soon enough,” Wingnut said.

Reality started to hit me, I got to my hooves slowly and walked over to the mirror set against the far wall. I looked different, older, I had a couple of lines on my face, scars ran all over my chest, hooves, neck and face. I could see small cracks in my horn from what I assume was the spell Mom told me about. Then I saw my cutie mark, it was burned away and replaced with a dashite mark.

“What…happened to my Cutie Mark?” I asked.

“Two Enclave officers caught up to you a week after you destroyed Mill City Tower. One knew that you were related to Grim and she decided to mark you as they would a pegasus who betrayed The Enclave,” Wingnut said.

“Though you did make it up to her by cutting her head off a day or so later when you escaped them,” Mom said.

“This…is real? I’m not just having a really bad dream?” I asked, “Aura’s…dead? Stardust…is too?”

“Yeah,” Wingnut said with a sigh. “It took a long time for you to come to terms with both of their deaths.”

I looked at Mom. “Why are you here? Why are we in Cartwheel, the town was destroyed.”

“No it wasn’t,” Mom said, “That was another false memory. We moved in…what…eight years ago now Wingnut?”

He nodded. “Yeah, this house was a gift from Box Tape after our wedding.”

“Ah yes,” Mom said, “Well, I moved in with you two to help you when you have problems with your memory.”

As they talked, a flash of Wingnut and me standing with each other in front of a small assortment of ponies came to my mind. I could remember saying some vows to him, then him saying his own, some of which being that he would always take care of me and how he’d always be there for me, even if I couldn’t remember him. Then I saw myself destroy Mill City Tower, killing The Stranger, going into Stable 97, cutting off the head of a young mare called Shortcake. I saw myself using the range finder on three more towns as I attacked any settlement that worked with The Enclave. Another vision of me holding a small knife to Wingnut’s neck as he tried to tell me I was dreaming and everything was okay now.

“I’ve…done some bad things haven’t I?” I asked.

“Yes sweetie, but we’ve been here for you through all of it,” Mom said, “I take it some things are starting to come back.”

“I think so…so Aquila isn’t real?” I responded.

“Not in the way you’re thinking of her no. Aquila was a form a magic that I used to help fix you when you were young. After I did, we went to Stable 28 so I could hide from Elder Wolfsbane who wanted to take you and my old Mark II for his own,” Mom started to say, but I interrupted.

“Then why did you leave?” I asked.

“Wolfsbane found out where I was, so I ran away leaving you behind with Vervain. You were the one that he wanted more than anything so I needed to keep you hidden from him. I needed you to get older so you could prepare yourself for what would happen later. My hope was that with how different you looked and with age, Wolfsbane wouldn’t find out who you were. I left you clues on how to find me when you got out, but then my own memory was messed with.”

“What about Falling Shadows?” I asked.

Mom smiled a little. “That turned out to be a weapon that we never finished. I hoped that it was something that could be used to fix Equestria, but I was wrong.”

“Grim and you found and destroyed the programs that ran the project nine years ago,” Wingnut said.

I took a moment to think back, scattered bits of memory started to come to me. Mom and I taking down the terminals in the Lucky horseshoe, sealing the power source for Falling Shadows, using Solar Flare’s Range Finder to destroy a huge tower in what had to be the badlands. A few more things came to me, but it didn’t help explain everything, though I was starting to believe what Mom was telling me.

I got to my hooves saying, “I’m just having a hard time taking it all in, but I’d be a fool not to trust you. Though I still can’t believe that I married Wingnut.”

He laughed a little. “I was a little shocked you accepted the proposal when I asked.”

“I told him he should’ve waited a couple more years, even if you two did love each other. He was the same age as you were when you left the stable, but once Wingnut has an idea he can’t stop himself,” Mom said with a chuckle.

I heard a door open from down the hall and a young filly’s voice echoed down the hall, “Grandma, I’m hungry.”

Mom’s eyes went wide and she smiled a little as I asked, “Who’s that?”

Wingnut answered, “I was hoping to tell you before Night Blossom woke, but it can’t be helped now.” He looked over at Grim and said, “Grim, would you mind getting her breakfast and making sure Shining Star is up too.”

“It’s no problem Wingnut, join us downstairs once you’ve talked things over with Shadow,” Mom said walking out of the room saying, “Good morning sweetie, how about we go wake your brother and see what grandma made for you this morning.”

“I want Sugar Apple Bombs,” the filly who I’m guessing was Night Blossom said.

Mom chuckled and her words were lost as she headed down the hall. Once they were gone, I looked over at Wingnut. “Grandma? My mother’s their Grandmother?”

He nodded. “Yeah, Night Blossom’s eight she was born not long after we got married. Kind of one of the reasons I asked you, Shining Star is five. They’re our foals.”

I started to shake at the thought of having foals, even worse, foals I couldn’t remember. “But, I can’t remember them. How are they going to react to me?”

Wingnut put a hoof on my shoulder then pulled me into a loving hug. “Shadow, they understand in their own way that you have memory problems. Night Blossom’s a smart young filly and she’s knows how to work around it, Shining Star understands for the most part, but just thinks of you as being sick sometimes.”

I started to panic a little. “I don’t even know how to interact with them though. What do I say, what do I do?”

He hugged me tighter. “Don’t worry you’ll be fine. Just be yourself, give them hugs and kisses, tell them good morning and just tell them you’re not feeling well today, they’ll understand. We have two very smart and wonderful foals.”

I took in a deep breath then calmed a little. “Okay, I’ll try,” I said, then another question came to me. “You’ve told me what happened to Aura, Stardust and my father, but what about Wind Thrasher?”

He pulled away and looked at me sadly. “It’d be best to not talk about her.”

“Wingnut, she’s my friend,” I said.

He closed his eyes and shook his head saying, “She’s no one’s friend anymore Shadow.”

I gave him a stern look. “Wingnut, tell me what happened to her.”

He sighed. “Fine, Wind Thrasher lost her battle to her bloodlust four years ago. She went crazy and killed a lot of ponies, now she lives near Frosty Summit. Violet keeps tabs on her when she can, but we still get stories now and then about a monster who drinks the blood of ponies near there.”

I felt my heart sink as I asked, “So, Doctor Gaze couldn’t find a way to help her?”

“He did, but it took longer for him to find the cure. By the time he did, she’d already lost her mind. Spitfire’s Flight Academy was one of the first places she hit when she turned. She killed everypony there,” he said sadly, “Grim’s tried to find her a few times to put her out of her misery, same for you, but she’s very good at hiding.”

“What about Uncle Ori?” I asked.

“No one’s seen him in ten years. One day he just vanished when The Sins fell apart,” he answered.

I smiled a little. “At least they’re all dead.”

He started to head toward the door and said, “Not all of them are, Envy lives in town here now. Grim’s been able to help him adjust to a new life and he’s not a bad…pony I guess you could call him, but he’s still a dick. Greed who goes by his old name Thundercracker, lives in New Appleton now and runs the town, and Sloth helps The Kingdom, the rest are dead though. Now come on, if we take too long to get breakfast, Grim will be on you again for not eating enough.”

I took in a deep breath, still taking in all that happened. “Okay, let’s go.”

We made our way out of the hallway to the main living area. Somepony had changed the set-up sometime over the years, because it didn’t look anything like it had when Silver lived here. A small dining room was next to the small kitchen, and a living room was now where the shop used to be. Sitting at the dining room table sat Mom with two foals. The first reminded me a lot of Wingnut, only with a horn, a silver and black striped mane, and red eyes. The filly who was small for her age, had a dark purple coat, a bright pink and blue mane, and emerald green eyes. She was a pegasus which caught me off guard, then I remembered that my father was a pegasus so it made sense in a way.

When the filly saw me, she smiled wide and flew over to me, hugging me tight, almost knocking me over. “Mom, you’re up, great. Can I go over to Auntie Vervain’s house later? She wanted to show me how to disassemble a sprite bot today.”

As soon as the filly hugged me, flashes of memories came to me. Giving birth to my daughter with Mom and Wingnut around supporting me. The joy I felt as I named her after my father’s line, to honor his memory. Memories of playing with her in our small living room, telling her stories of her grandfather, and myself when I was younger. As the memories came, I smiled and pulled her closer. “Good morning Blossom, you’ll have to ask Grandma about that. I believe she needed help with the clinic today.”

Mom smiled. “Getting the memories back quickly this time I see.”

I nodded. “They’re coming back to me little by little,” I said, looking over at Shining Star who was trying to levitate his spoon. “How’s my little colt doing this morning?”

“Mom, I’m trying to concentrate,” he said, then dropped the spoon. “Now you made me mess up.”

Wingnut walked over to him and ruffled his mane. “It’s okay Shining, you’ll get it sooner or later.”

“Yeah, just give it time,” I said, getting up after hugging my daughter again.

She yawned and looked up at me. “I thought you could levitate things when you were younger than Shining?”

“I could, but because of my illness when I was young. Grandma and Grandpa told me I had to be careful,” I explained.

Mom laughed a little. “Your mother was also a very powerful unicorn when she was born. It’s a rare thing, but if it helps, I was a lot older than Shining when I got the hang of it.”

He tried to make the spoon float again, his horn glowing red like my own. As he tried Night Blossom looked at me again and asked, “Do I have to help Grandma today?”

I looked over at Mom saying, “That’s up to you Mom. Do you need her today?”

Mom shrugged. “One of my apprentices should be able to help me if I need it, so if she wants to go see Vervain then I think it’s fine.”

“Awesome!” my daughter said, jumping up and down, her wings fluttering, “I can’t wait! Dad, are you going there today too?”

Wingnut, who was sitting at the table now eating his breakfast nodded. “Yeah, Vervain needs help with some new project of hers. You can head over there with me if you want.”

I smiled and headed toward the table when something moved in the corner of the living room. Turning I felt my heart skip a beat as a huge creature stretched then got to its massive paws. It was twice the size of a normal pony, made out of sticks, with leaves for eyebrows and glowing purple eyes. I took a few steps back as it advanced on me. Why wasn’t anypony doing something?

“What is that?” I asked backing away until I bumped into the table.

Mom sighed and said in an amused tone, “Twig’s your pet Sweetie, he’s a timber wolf you saved from a fire a few years back. Goddesses know why you kept the beast, he smells like moss and doesn’t listen to anypony but you.”

I was still shaking, as the timber wolf came closer and nuzzled the top of my head. Then he turned toward Mom and growled a little before curling up next to me and closed his eyes. I looked over at Mom. “I guess he doesn’t like you much.”

“The feeling’s mutual, if he wasn’t as well behaved around you as he is, then I would’ve tossed him out years ago,” Mom said as she served me a meal of what looked like fresh veggies.

Wingnut chuckled, saying, “At least she doesn’t let him sleep in our room anymore. I don’t know how many times I’ve woken up to his creepy stare.”

Shining Star who finished his meal looked at me. “I like him Mom, he’s cool.”

My heart was still racing, but I managed to reach a hoof out and pet Twig’s head. “I guess he’s not that scary. At least it’s not a hellhound or something.”

“If you’d brought a hellhound home, I would’ve had you committed,” Wingnut said.

Twig growled again, but didn’t get up. I just chuckled. “I guess not everything has come back to me yet. I still can’t remember what I was going to do today.”

“You need to go open the shop. I saw a couple of the couriers come back last night, I’m sure there’s work piled up for them,” Mom said.

“Shop? What shop?” I asked.

“Equestrian Express remember? Box Tape left it to you when he passed away, a few years back,” Mom said, getting to her hooves then kissing both the foals before heading toward the door. “I’ll be back later, I need to go check on how things are going with the new wall. Shadow, I’ll stop by later to see how your feeling. If you’re getting tired or having problems with your memory again, close the shop early and head over to Vervain’s.”

Shining Star jumped to his hooves and said in a happy voice, “I’m going with you today Mom.”

I laughed. “Don’t you want to go see Vervain?”

“No, she always wants me to study things. I wanna go with you today, please!” he said with big red eyes.

I chuckled a little. “Fine, but you be good okay?”

“Good luck with that, the little squirts a monster with a horn,” Wingnut said with a laugh.

“So, he’s just like his father?” I said as I got up.

He laughed harder. “Damn right!”

“Damn Right!” Shining Star said jumping up and down.

I rolled my eyes. “Good job Wingnut, I’ll let you explain to my Mom later how our son learned a new fun word.”

“Dad’s gonna get in trouble,” Night Blossom said with a snicker.

I just shook my head, ignoring Wingnut’s look of terror and headed out the door, Twig getting up to follow me with Shining Star saying repeatedly, “Damn right, damn right, hehehehe.”

“Don’t push your luck kiddo” I said laughing. Shining Star quickly stopped

***

Over the next few hours I ran things at Equestrian Express. It felt odd being here without Box Tape around. I must’ve added my own touches to the place over the years. I saw my old duster framed behind the desk, Box Tape’s cape from his power armor next to it. Misery was displayed on one wall and so was Aura’s Spear. The room Box Tape used to use as a sitting room was now set up with packages and orders for the couriers to take. From what I could tell I had over fifty couriers here that traveled all over the area. I thought it’d be easy to do this job, but I was wrong. Cartwheel was one of the main trading outposts for New Pegasus. Ponies came in all day to either send out packages or to pick something up that the Couriers brought in.

As the day started to come to an end, two of my couriers came to check in and I was surprised. One was Solstice, the other Envy, both laughing. Solstice looked the same as ever just a little older, Envy however changed his look a little. His mane was still done up in long dreadlocks, but he had them pulled back into a ponytail, his eyes were blue now instead of purple and he looked happy. My first reaction was to grab the sword off the wall and run it through his face, then I remembered that he was…good now. Doesn’t mean I still don’t wanna do it.

He looked over at me with a smile still on his face and said, “Hey boss, good to see ya.”

“Um…hey Envy,” I said, still not sure what to say to the former Sin.

“Something wrong shrimp, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Envy asked, his face falling some.

“Maybe she’s feeling sick again,” Solstice said.

Twig, who was laying on the floor next to the desk looked up at them both, growling a little before going back to sleep. I just chuckled a little saying, “Yeah, I’m still trying to get used to things again, but I’m remembering as the day goes on.”

Envy rolled his eyes. Throwing a bag of something on my desk ruffling through it. “So you still think I’m a Sin and probably think I’m here to kill you.”

“The thought did cross my mind,” I said.

“I hate when this happens.” He sat then continued, “You helped me realize that I just wanted real friends ten years ago after you almost killed me. You took me prisoner at first then showed me how to live a better life, and blah blah blah…” He said waving his hoof around and took a deep and irritated breath. “Once you helped get Grim back on your side, I saw that life could be better, even for someone like me, so I joined you and became a courier. There, you’re caught up.” He said Sarcastically

Solstice just facehoofed. “Envy you’re hopeless.”

He shrugged, saying, “At least I didn’t scare her like last month.”

“Anyway, we both just got back from The Kingdom,” Solstice said setting a bag of caps down on the desk. “Here’s the cut for the shop.”

I took it and wrote the number down in a ledger. “Any news from The Kingdom?”

Envy answered, “Not much really, Enclave’s been pushing closer, but Emperor Fruit Stripe is sure they can keep them at bay. Looks like they’re trying to get The Steel Rangers to help them out by promising them land near The Kingdom.”

‘Emperor Fruit Strip? What happened to his parents?’ I wondered to myself as I listened to them tell me about what they saw and more news from the East. Once they finished and Envy said his goodbyes, Solstice said, “So are you feeling up for a drink in town when you close? I thought you could fill me in on how things are going around here? I haven’t seen you in a month.”

As she looked at me, a few quick flashes of memory came. Solstice and I sitting in a dark corner of the local bar, our faces close as we talked. Another of us in the small room she rented in Cartwheel. One of me crying into her shoulder as she comforted me the night Box Tape died from pneumonia. I blushed a little, “I…have Shining with me right now, he’s playing in the other room.”

She moved closer whispering, “Then drop him off with Grim, she’ll understand. I’m sure Wingnut will be working late as always.” She kissed my nose. “I haven’t seen you in a month Shadow, I’ve missed you.”

I can’t believe it, was I really cheating on my husband with Solstice of all ponies? How long had this been going on? I looked into her eyes and it was almost like looking into Aura’s. Solstice’s eyes are a darker blue, but they still held the same fierceness I loved about Aura’s. I couldn’t help blushing more as I said, “Solstice…I’m still not remembering things well, but are we…a thing?”

She sighed then nodded. “We have been for a while, even before you married Wingnut. Remember, you only married him because he knocked you up. We had a fight over it, but then I forgave you because you’d been drinking and I was gone for two months. We agreed that it would be fine for you to stay with him, but you would still be mine.”

“I…I don’t remember that, but I guess that’s not saying much is it?” I responded.

She hugged me, saying, “You will soon. So what do you say, think you can ditch the cute colt for a few hours?”

I had no idea what to do, but from the look on her face, I had a feeling this was normal, so I sighed and said, “Sure.”

“Great, I’m looking forward to it,” she said with a giggle.

“Auntie Solstice!” Shining yelled from the other room, then ran in and jumped onto her back.

She laughed harder, then used one of her wings to push the colt off. He laughed too as he fell to the ground. She looked down at him and said, “You’re getting bigger every time I come into town kiddo.”

“Grandma says I’m going to be as big as Grandpa!” he said jumping up and down. “Did you bring me a present?”

“Don’t I always?” Solstice asked, pulling out a small wooden carving of a zebra. “Emperor Fruit Stripe made this.”

“Awww, that’s not a toy,” Shining said as he sulked.

“Shining Star, what do you say when you’re given a gift?” I asked sternly.

He looked down at his hooves saying in a monotone voice, “Thank you Auntie Solstice. I’ll treasure it always.”

You’d think it was Stardust’s kid with a response like that. “What was that last part?” I asked with a tone that spelled doom for the colt.

He looked away from me, but I could tell he rolled his eyes, “Thank you Auntie Solstice.”

She chuckled to herself then rubbed his mane, “You’re welcome.”

“Hey Shining Star, why don’t we close up early and you can show Grandma what you got?” I asked.

“Okay Mom,” he said in a sad voice.

I just shook my head as Solstice laughed harder. “Colt’s will be colts.”

***

“Does that timber wolf have to follow you all the time?” Solstice asked as we made our way over to her place. I dropped Shining Star off with Mom, Night Blossom was already home and working on something in the living room when I got back. I told Mom I was going out with Solstice to get a drink. Mom wasn’t too happy with me going to the bar when I was ill, but I won in the end.

“He doesn’t like to leave my side,” I said as Solstice unlocked the door and showed me in.

She looked over at Twig saying, “Stay out here, she’s not going to get hurt in my little place.”

He growled at her and pushed his way into the living room. Once inside he moved over to her couch, jumped onto it then laid down. I sighed and said, “Guess that’s a no.”

“Fine whatever, just as long as he stays in here,” Solstice said.

She led me toward her room and as soon as we were past the threshold she pressed me against the wall, kissing me deeply. My heart skipped a beat as she pressed her tongue into my muzzle, her wings fluttering like a humming bird. It didn’t take long for Solstice to push me onto her small bed. At first, I felt guilty because deep down I knew that this was wrong, that I had foals with Wingnut and it would break his heart if he found out. That was until Solstice reminded me what I loved about mares…

***

A couple days passed with me doing the same old thing. I’d wake up after being out late with Solstice, finding myself next to a sleeping Wingnut. I’d yawn, head to the bathroom, wash up, then get the foals up. I’d help Mom make breakfast for the family, eat with them and get Night Blossom and Shining Star ready for their day. Then I’d open Equestrian Express, chat with customers, talk with my couriers, talk with Envy who still made me feel strange up close, then go out with Solstice again. Everywhere I went Twig followed. I started to figure out that he’d only listen to me. If any other pony got too close to me or said something that upset me, he’d growl at them. He was always sweet to me though, he’d nuzzle me when he could, lick my face when he was happy, and sleep next to me when he was tired. Everypony in town hated him, but honestly, I liked having him around. In a small way, it reminded me of having my uncle around…even if none of that was real.

On the fourth day since I woke up with my memories gone, I was able to remember almost everything that happened to me since Aura and Stardust died. I was glad because I felt normal again, though I did catch myself looking at my brand now and then. Today, I was having Solstice run Equestrian Express so Vervain could take me to Stable 28. It was one memory I hadn’t gotten back. I’d asked her the day before when she came to have dinner with us about why I hadn’t heard from Milkshake in a while or why I couldn’t remember if she had a filly or a colt. She told me that it was attacked again by Enclave and everypony died during the raid.

I couldn’t believe it, so I asked her to show me. So now, Vervain, Twig, and myself were walking to the stable. As we got closer to Green Mist Valley Vervain said, “I see that Solstice and you have been going out a lot as of late.”

I shrugged and said, “She’s my best friend, she’s gone a lot so it’s nice to see her sometimes.”

She sighed. “You can pull that crap on your mom and the rest, but I know you better than they do. You know that sooner or later, Wingnut is going to find out.”

“I can’t get anything past you, can I?” I asked.

“You never could, and never will. Do you know how much it would break Wingnut’s heart? What about your foals?” she replied as we approached the green mist.

“Auntie Vervain, she makes me happy, so does Wingnut, why can’t I just be happy with both?” I asked.

“That’s not how this world works Shadow. You’re going to have to make up your mind,” she said as she gave me some rad-x then pushed into the mist.

I followed after downing the small pills, “The only choices I have is to break my best friends’ heart and lose a mare I care about, or break up my family. I don’t like either choice.”

“Shadow, you only have one choice. You need to break it off with Solstice before Wingnut finds out. I don’t know how you’ve gotten away with it for so long,” Vervain said as we made our way through the thick mist, my pip-buck clicking slightly.

“Wingnut trusts me, that’s how we’ve been able to get away with it for so long,” I said as the cave entrance to Stable 28 came into view.

“My point exactly, he trusts you and you throw it back in his face. I mean it, if you don’t put a stop to this soon, I will. I’m not going to watch you throw your life away again over a mare,” she said as we walked into the dark tunnel, both turning on our Pip-Lights.

“You wouldn’t!” I said in shock.

“Shadow, I saw what happened with you over a few months when Aura died. You don’t take well to loss, you never have. If you get caught, you’ll lose everything. You’re a mother, and a mother needs to think about her children, not herself,” she said with a sigh.

I stayed quiet for a long moment as we made our way toward the door to Stable 28. Finally, as the opening was coming into sight I said, “I’ll talk to Solstice tonight.”

“Good, now let’s get this over with. This place brings back too many bad memories,” Vervain said.

My eyes went wide as we came up to the door to Stable 28, or lack thereof. Where the giant gear shaped door once blocked the entrance to the stable, now stood just a gaping hole. I drew closer to it and saw the door was jammed into the far wall, dried blood around where it now rested. I took a step back and asked, “What could do that to a stable door?”

“No pony knows, it was like this when we came to investigate after we heard the Enclave attacked it. Everypony was dead including Milkshake and Balefire. Broke my heart when I found them,” Vervain said sniffing. “You believe me now?”

I nodded and looked down as I said, “Let’s go home, I…can’t look at this right now. I wish I would have just listened to you when you told me what happened before.”

“Good idea,” Vervain said turning to leave, “But I understand why you needed to see it for yourself sweetie.”

I took one last look inside the dead stable that used to be my home, then sighed and turned to leave. I stopped when I found myself face to face with Twig, “Come on buddy, let’s go home.”

Twig just pushed passed me, walking into the stable. I turned back yelling, “Twig get back here right now!”

He ignored me and pushed further into the darkness. Sighing again I followed after the stubborn timber wolf. I finally caught up to him in the middle of the atrium. He was sitting in the middle of the empty place, looking up toward the window of the Overmare’s office.

“Twig, what are you doing? We need to go home, there’s nothing here anymore apart from sad memories,” I said.

He turned his massive head toward me, his glowing purple eyes staring deep into mine. Then he shook his head slowly then pointed a paw up at the Overmare’s window. Frowning I looked up trying to figure out what he was trying to tell me. “Is somepony up there?”

He shook his head again and kept pointing. So, I looked again, for a moment all I saw was a grimy window, then I saw what he was pointing at. Etched into the window, almost covered by the grime, was the outline of the Aquila constellation. I took a few steps back, and as I did, a deep voice echoed in the Atrium, “Deceived!”

“Who’s there?” I said turning around in a circle, but all I could see was Twig, watching me with his bright purple eyes.

Then the voice echoed again, “Trapped!”

“Twig, let’s get out of here,” I said, backing toward the door, but he didn’t follow, he just kept on watching me.

“Not…real…must…break…cage!” the deep voice said again.

I bolted for the door, not knowing what was going on in my dead home, but not wanting to find out. As I did, Twig finally followed me, running past me for the door. As we ran the voice said again, “Must…kill…every…pony! Only…way…only…key…have…to…stop…her!”

I screamed as the voice seemed to follow me all the way out of the atrium, out the stable door, and through the tunnel, “Kill…kill…must…get…free!”

“Shadow? Where are you!?” I heard Vervain say from the mouth of the tunnel.

I ran faster, wanting to get as far from the horrible voice, until it said one word that stopped me in my tracks, “Star…listen…to…ME!”

“What did you call me?” I asked the darkness around me.

“Shadow, where are you!?” Vervain yelled again from up the tunnel, but I ignored her.

The Voice came again this time, even closer, “Star.”

My eyes went wide as I heard the voice of the only pony on Equus who still called me that. “Uncle Ori? Is that you?” I asked.

“Yes,” the voice replied.

“Where are you? Where have you been?” I asked the darkness.

“Need…to…kill…them,” he said.

“Kill who?” I asked still looking around the tunnel, but I couldn’t tell where he was.

“Every…pony, not……………real……dream…….nightmare…..cage….trapped!” he said.

“Uncle Ori, show yourself and talk to me, you’re not making any sense,” I said.

“Stop…Aquila!” he yelled.

“She’s not real,” I said as I realized that something was wrong, he couldn’t be my uncle. My mind was just trying to pull me into that fake life again, “Neither are you.”

“Real…world…not…world…fake…you…kill…before…late!” he said again, his words coming out in segments.

I shook my head. “I’m not falling for it.”

“Star…trust…me!” he said again and as he did I realized that Twig was watching me. As the voice spoke my timber wolf came closer and nuzzled the top of my head and the voice said again, “Trust…love…all…heart…never…to…you. Never…lie…you.”

I looked up at Twig. “It can’t be…”

A shot echoed down the tunnel and Twig was blasted into the wall as Vervain came running down the tunnel. “Get away from her beast!”

“Vervain! What are you doing!?” I yelled as Twig got back to his paws, growling at her. A strange black fluid dripping from his body.

“Shadow get away from him!” Vervain yelled, pointing her battle saddle at Twig, but he pounced at her, knocking her over as he ran by.

“Vervain, why are you attacking Twig!?” I yelled as she tried to turn and fire on him again.

“There’s something evil about him, I heard that voice, we have to kill him!” Vervain yelled as she pulled away from me and fired up the tunnel at Twig who was watching us, still growling.

“There’s nothing bad about him, he’s just an animal!” I yelled trying to stop Vervain.

“Shadow, you have no idea what you’re saying,” she said, turning back toward me and slapping me hard in the face. “I knew we shouldn’t have let you keep him, he’s a monster!”

Pain started to build in my horn as she slapped me and anger rushed though me. “Vervain!” I used the small amount of power inside me and pulled one of the rifles off of her Battle Saddle and pointed it at her. “Don’t shoot him!”

She looked at me in horror. “Shadow, how dare you point a rifle at me, put that down before you hurt somepony!”

“No, Twig isn’t a monster, he might even be uncle Ori. I need to know, so just leave him alone, he hasn’t hurt anypony,” I said angrily.

The look she gave me was unlike any other I’ve seen on her face. She was enraged, Vervain was one of the most reasonable ponies I knew. If I was this upset about something like this, she’d listen to me, not treat me like this. She also wouldn’t ever hit me like that. She’d slap my horn when I was being a brat, but she’d never slap my face like she did.

“You’re not thinking straight,” she said then turned to fire at Twig who still hadn’t moved from his perch, small black something dripping from his side.

“Vervain DON’T!” I yelled, but she ignored me and started to pull down on the bit of her battle saddle. I was faster, the bullet from the rifle I stole slammed into her side, throwing her back into the wall.

She fell to the floor of the cave in shock, looking up at me as if she couldn’t understand what just happened. She looked down at the blood soaking through her thin barding, then back at me again. “Shadow…you shot me.”

I went to run to her side, unable to believe I just did what I did. “Vervain, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Twig came down the tunnel again and slowly pushed me away from Vervain, the voice echoing again, “To…close…must…die.”

“NO!” I yelled trying to push past the huge timber wolf. “Auntie Vervain! I can get you help.”

Vervain didn’t respond to me. When I was finally able to see her properly as my Pip-Light found her face in the darkness again, I saw that she was gone. Blood was dripping from her muzzle and her eyes looked vacantly up at me. Shock and disbelief still plastered on her face. I dropped the rifle and slowly walked toward her, Twig finally letting me pass.

“V…Vervain?” I said slowly shaking her with a hoof. “Please…no…I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

I felt a paw on my shoulder and I flinched then looked back at Twig who was looking down at me with his glowing violet eyes. Then the voice came again, “I don’t have long Star, there’s still too much magic keeping me from fully reaching you.”

“Uncle Ori? You’re Twig?” I asked pulling away from the timber wolf.

He nodded. “In a way, I’m using this body so Aquila won’t notice me. Listen, this world isn’t real, the memories you’re getting aren’t real.”

“Yes it is, you can’t trick me into believing the other memories I had are true. I know that I killed Stardust, Aura is dead, I have a life now, a good one!” I said trying to get further away from him, but the tunnel wall was blocking me.

“Dammit Star, don’t be like you’re mother. I’m telling you the truth, remember what happened right before Aquila took over!” he said with a growl.

It was hard for me to remember anything from that other life, most of those memories were foggy. Though as I thought back on it, I remembered Oricalcos doing something right before my body was taken from me. I looked back at him. “You merged with my horn.”

“Yes, I planted all of myself into your power as it was pulled into you by Aquila. She’s keeping you locked up while she uses your body to like a puppet bent on destruction. You need to unlock this cage before she makes you forget who you are and takes over fully. You don’t have long,” he said, then he shook his head and growled.

“Unlock the cage…how?” I asked.

“I…can’t hold on much…longer,” he said. “You…have to…do something that…Aquila thinks you could…never…do. Something, so outside…of your…normal behavior…like…killing…loved…ones.”

“I don’t understand? Why would I have to do that? Uncle Ori, tell me,” I begged.

“Trust…yourself…Star, remember…who…are,” he said with his voice fading, “Remember…love…”

The eyes on Twig went blank for a moment then they turned green instead of violet. The timber wolf whined, then nudged me. He looked concerned then he sniffed the air and looked at the dead mare who raised me and whined more, nudging her hindleg.

Slowly I got back to my hooves and walked back to Vervain’s body. I felt tears in my eyes as I looked down at her lifeless form. “How do I know if this is real or if I’m going crazy?”

She couldn’t answer me, the mare who raised me and taught me how to be the mare I am today, was dead. She wouldn’t be able to come over for dinner with the family, she would never again tell me when I was being stupid, she wouldn’t be able to teach Night Blossom how to build robots…I killed her. I snuffed her beautiful light from the world, because all she was trying to do is keep me safe. Or was Oricalcos really there, trying to help me see through this world that felt so strange to me at times?

Words from Serendipity in one of Mom’s memory orbs came back to me, “Remember that timber wolves can be the wisest of creatures sometimes.”

Why would she leave me a message like that unless she knew what would happen? I looked over at the now normal timber wolf who was looking at me now, the wounds Vervain gave him were still dripping with something green instead of black. Yet, somehow my uncle used this creature to tell me what I needed to know. If I was really trapped inside my own mind, then I was caged like Aquila had been for so many years. Only in this cage, she was keeping me in a world where she never existed, one where Mom came back to me, where I got what I always wanted. A family to call my own, my mom back with me, her memories back, foals of my own, a normal life.

I took a moment to think back on what I knew here and what I knew from the other life. Both matched up until my trip to The Kingdom when Aura died. In both worlds I did go to Mill City Tower, but in this world, Striker saved me. He was The Stranger and helped protect me. In the other it was my father who was playing two sides, one the council pony, and the other my protector. Later in this world I went around killing a lot of ponies in my anger only to be stopped by Wind Thrasher, Solstice, Vervain, Wingnut and Mom. In the other I found out that Aura survived, so did Stardust. I fell in love with Aura and she was my soulmate. In this world I was with Wingnut, but also with Solstice a mare in the other world that I respected now, but couldn’t ever see myself falling for. I also don’t think she swung my way in the other world. Though I couldn’t really say which way she went, I didn’t know her well enough.

Which world made sense, which matched up with who I was before the discrepancy in my memories? The sad truth was, it didn’t take long to figure it out. This world had too many holes in it. Envy wouldn’t ever work for me and befriend me. He hated me more than anything on Equus and I can’t see how Mom would’ve gotten her memories back. As much as I loved Wingnut, he was more like a little brother to me more than a husband. Solstice was…fun in this world but her personality didn’t match up. Also, where was Doorstop, where was Wind Thrasher? Why did Vervain hit me like she did? No, something was off, and if Oricalcos was right, I’d have to do something bad enough that Aquila thinks I’d never even think about trying it.

I looked back at Twig. “What wouldn’t I do in the other world?”

The timber wolf just stared at me so I sighed and looked at Vervain again, “I’d never hurt the ponies I love, at least not like that.”

I knew what I had to do and I’m not sure I can go through with it. Sad thing is, if I want to stop her, I’m going to have to become a monster, just like Aquila. I looked down at Vervain’s body again and ran a hoof over her mane, then closed her lifeless eyes. “I’m sorry Auntie Vervain, I just hope that I’m not going crazy.”

I moved back toward Twig, patting his head for a moment, then sighing I headed out of the cave. Twig followed me out of the darkness and back toward the world I needed to destroy. As I stepped out of the cave I took in a deep breath, letting everything good inside me fade away. “You think you can lock me up inside my own mind Aquila, fine, bring it on!”

***

“Shadow, where have you been?” Mom asked as I walked back into the house, dinner already prepared.

“Vervain was showing me Stable 28, I thought it would help with the memories,” I said as I walked over to sit at the table with my foals and Wingnut.

“I figured everything would be better by now,” Mom said joining us, “It’s never taken this long before.”

Wingnut swallowed what he was eating then laughed, saying, “She’s fine Grim, back off.”

“Yeah, I’m fine Mom,” I said with a sigh. “Most of its come back now,”

She looked at me for a long moment then said slowly, “Okay…but if you start having problems again, let me know.”

“I will,” I said as I started to eat.

Shining Star jumped onto his chair saying loudly, “Mom, can you tell me a story tonight!”

Mom answered him, “Shining I thought you liked my stories?”

He jumped up and down, “I do Grandma, but I wanna hear about when Mom was fighting the SINS!” he added a dramatic voice to the last word.

I sat back in my chair. “Hmmmm, well I don’t know, some of those stories aren’t for little colts.”

“But I wanna hear it, pleeeeaaasssssseeeee!” he begged.

“Mom just tell him about when you fought them at Frosty Summit, that one’s not too bad. At least nopony died there,” Night Blossom said.

“Well, not any of my friends, but I can’t say the same for some of the ponies who lived there,” I said.

“Oh, just tell him the story, it’s about his bedtime anyway,” Wingnut said, “I’ll put Night Blossom to bed and see you later tonight okay.”

I smiled and said, “Okay,”

“Can’t Grandma put me to bed Dad? I wanna show her some of what Vervain showed me yesterday,” Night Blossom said.

Wingnut yawned and gave in. “Fine, I guess I’ll just head to bed now.”

I got up and smiled. “Okay, time for bed. You little renegade”

“Awesome,” Shining Star said as he ran toward his bedroom.

“Night Blossom, I’ll be there in a minute. I want to have a word with your mother,” Mom said.

“Okay Grandma, I want to finish reading something anyway,” My little foal said getting up, then trotted toward her room.

“See you soon Shadow,” Wingnut said, kissing me quickly then heading toward our room.

“So, what’s up Mom?” I asked.

“Why didn’t Vervain come to dinner? She told me this morning that she’d be stopping by tonight,” Mom asked.

“Oh, she wasn’t feeling well. She said she was going to bed early,” I replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you got back? If she’s not well I need to go check up on her,” Mom asked again.

“Mom she’s fine, she’s just been working too much lately. She just needs rest,” I replied, suddenly feeling like a character from a graphic novel I once read about a serial murderer that was working with the detective who was investigating him.

She looked at me for a long moment then sighed, saying, “Okay, I guess I’m just worrying over nothing. Go get Shining to bed, I’m sure he’s jumping all over his room waiting for you.”

“Okay Mom, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I headed toward my colt’s room.

A little while later I was finishing up my story about the fight at Frosty Summit as Shining laid there in his bed his eyes half open. “And with the help of your Dad and my friends, The Sins ran away with their tails tucked between their legs.”

“And you won?” he asked sleepily.

I smiled, I’d told him most of what happened during that fight, but changed the story up a little. He didn’t need to know all the details. “I sure did. Now time for you to get some sleep shrimp.”

I kissed his horn as he yawned again, asking, “Can you sing me a song?”

“Sure…I’d love…to,” I said as my hooves started to shake. How could I do what I was thinking. He was such a sweet colt, so happy, like I used to be when I was little. No, this world isn’t real, I need to do this. As wonderful of a colt as he was, he was just an illusion…

He snuggled up with a blanket his eyes closing as I started to sing the song Phantom Shot’s daughter sang in the recording he kept with him…

“Hush now, quiet now. It’s time to lay your sleepy head,” I started rubbing a hoof over his mane, pulling one of his extra pillows closer. “Hush now quiet now, it’s time to go to bed.”

He started to snore as I moved the pillow up with my hooves and placed it over his little face. “Drifting off to sleep, the exciting day’s behind you. Drifting off to sleep, let your joy of dreamland find you.” With my hooves on each side of the pillow I pressed it down hard over my colt’s face doing my best to hold back my tears. His little hooves jerked and he started to struggle under me, but I held the pillow tighter, little sounds of panic barely making it past the pillow. After a minute his struggles slowed. “Hush now, quiet now, lay your sleepy head. I said, hush now quiet now.”

His hooves finally stopped moving and fell to the bed with one last twitch. Tears were falling now as I waited for a moment then finally lifted the pillow from my son’s face. His eyes were locked in terror, looking up at the ceiling with no light in his beautiful eyes. Slowly I used a hoof to close them, finishing my song, “It’s time to go…to…bed.” I started to cry into the pillow overwhelmed with sadness. I killed my own son, my own flesh, blood and magic. The pony who gave him life only to take it away. It took me a minute to recover falling back to the thought of how this world wasn’t real, but it felt real. I just killed my colt and he wouldn’t be the first one to die tonight. I felt horrible for the murder, I could even remember his first step, his first word, the first time he used a spell.

I got back to my hooves placing the pillow back where I found it. I moved Shining’s legs back into a position where he looked like he was just a sleeping little colt, covered his body with his blanket then slowly walked back out of the room. The house was quiet now as I slowly walked back down the hall toward my living room. Nopony was there apart from Twig, he was sleeping on the couch again, his limbs twitched as he dreamed of something.

I moved toward my front door as I tried to banish the fake memories away. I unlocked the door then stepped outside, rain was slowly falling as I walked onto the empty streets of Cartwheel. It was like the sky itself was trying to tell me that I should be crying still. I should be ashamed of what I just did to a five-year-old foal. I ignored it and let the rain fall on me as I walked to Equestrian Express. As I did, more memories of my son came to me, like the time when he drew me a picture, or when he came into my room at night because he had a bad dream.

“It’s not real, none of this is real,” I told myself as I pulled out the key for my…no Box Tape’s shop, and unlocked the door. Slowly I walked in and went toward the wall where Misery was still framed. When I realized that none of this was real I knew what I’d have to do, I’d need a weapon if I wanted to take on Mom and the others, but I couldn’t use the rifles from Vervain. It was too much of a risk if I was caught coming into town with one. So, I needed my sword. Mom didn’t trust me with weapons, but she always let me keep Misery as long as it stayed on the wall.

The only problem was that my magic was shit because of my cracked horn. When I learned how to use this weapon, I used my magic. I couldn’t do a lot by holding Misery with my muzzle. This sword was meant for griffons, not ponies. I needed to be able to wield it like I had talons. The only way I could make this work was I had to believe that my horn was fine, my magic was powerful still. Even if I was in a cage, it was still my own head. So, closing my eyes, I pulled on my magic. For a moment I thought it was going to work, then pain ran down my horn again. I wanted to scream but I kept trying, until something gave and the pain vanished. My eyes snapped open as I felt my magic take hold of Misery.

My magic was nowhere near as strong as I was used to, but a lot better than it had been over the past few days. I wasn’t going to be able to rely on my teleportation or explosion spells then, but I should be able to use Misery. It would have to do. I pulled it off the wall then turned toward my old set of armor and pulled it down. I put on my barding and duster, taking in the scent of dirt and sweat that still lingered on the outfit. I had a long painful night ahead of me, it was time for the Courier of The Wastes to make her grand return and deliver nothing but death.

One of the steps to the upstairs creaked. I twisted around quickly to see Envy looking down at me sleepily. “Shadow? What are you doing here so late?”

“Oh, Envy, it’s just you,” I said with a sigh. “What are you doing up there?”

“Sleeping, you idiot, what do you think? I use the apartment when I’m in town,” he said coming the rest of the way down the steps, then his eyes fell on Misery and my outfit. “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t help as a small crazed smile came through, I said, “What does it look like Envy?”

“It looks like you’re ready to kill something. You know Grim said you shouldn’t use that stuff again,” he said sounding concerned. Envy sounding concerned, yeah this isn’t right, what does Aquila take me for, an idiot?

I started to laugh as lightning flashed outside, “Damn Envy, what did she do to you to make you so pathetic?”

“Pathetic? What the hell are you talking about shrimp? I’m still Envy, but I found a better way to live,” he said, sounding offended.

I laughed harder, “Envy the Jealous, first member of The Seven Sins of Equinity is really happy living as a courier working for ME!?”

His eyes flared a little, “I’m doing this because I have no other choice. Why does it shock you that I want to be a better pony!?”

“Because you’re NOT A PONY!” I yelled, “You’re a changeling that wants to be a pony.”

“Take that BACK you bitch!” he yelled.

“Make me,” I taunted, sticking my tongue out like an immature pre-teen.

He growled and turned into a griffon, then back into a pegasus and took another step back. “Shadow, what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sick of this life Envy, sick of living my life like I’m a fucking nobody. I want my old life back, I want to kill.” I took a step toward him, saying, “Come on Envy, I know you miss the old life, back when you were feared. I know you want to be a Sin again.”

I could see it in his eyes, my words were getting to him. Slowly a smile came to his face as he said, “I do miss ponies fearing my name, fearing The Sins. But with Pride I mean Oricalcos gone, there are no Sins, not without him.”

My laugh came out like I snapped. “Envy, I’m his niece, I’m just as dark as he was, I am PRIDE! It’ll be soooo easy to tear apart this pathetic town with you and me. So, what do you say, want to make everypony fear The Sins again?”

“Shorty, where was this fire ten years ago? I would’ve liked you a lot more back then if you were this crazy before,” he said with the laugh I knew all too well.

“So, ready to make some mayhem?” I asked.

He hit one hoof against another smirking that Envy smirk I also knew so well “Oh, you know it,” he said, then his face fell. “What about Grim and your family?”

“Grim’s gone soft, and what family?” I said as I turned to head out the door.

“Okay, as much as I love to kill and destroy, I can’t hurt Grim, it goes against my nature. I’ll hurt her but I can’t kill her,” he said.

I had a feeling he’d say that, but I needed him to help me. In my world, there was no way I’d ever help Envy, not like this. He was crazy, loved to kill, loved to be the best. I needed to be the crazy deadly pony my uncle was, and in my world that wasn’t something I could do. If I killed him, that was something I’d do in my world. If I couldn’t get him to help me with Mom, then I’d have him help me with another task. “Fine, I can deal with her myself. Go find Wind Thrasher for me, I have fun plans for her and this town.”

He smirk returned, saying, “I don’t like the idea of you killing Grim, but I’m not going to stop you. I like the idea of letting this town bleed from that monster though. This place is a shithole anyway, I’ll see you in a little while Shorty.”

He headed out the door with me, opening his wings. Before he could fly off though, I said, “Envy, call me Pride.”

He laughed again. “Not yet Shorty, if you can prove to be just as deadly as the real Pride, then we’ll see.” With that he was gone.

The storm was raging now and I took in the smell of it falling on the dirt and rocks around me. As I stood there in the rain I heard the door to my house open and Wingnut’s voice echoing toward me, “Shadow, what are you doing out in this rain?”

I looked down the road at him. Moving closer I said, “I couldn’t sleep, I felt like something was going to happen. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head so I wanted to get my barding.” As I spoke I hid Misery under my duster.

“You could’ve woke me,” he said as I walked into the house. “Why don’t you get out of that and come to bed.”

I put on a seductive face and moved closer to him, saying, “But I thought you used to love how I looked in my duster?”

He blushed and grinned like a colt. “I mean I did, but that was a long time ago.”

I nibbled his ear then whispered, “Haven’t you ever wanted to dominate The Courier?”

A shiver ran over his spine as he said, “I mean…the thought did cross my mind when I was young.”

I slowly walked past him and let my tail run under his chin. “Maybe you can do that now?”

Stallions were way too easy to manipulate. It took everything in me not to think about what I was doing as I led my husband to our bedroom, past the closed door to my dead sons’ room. Once we were in, he pushed me onto the bed then laid on top of me, kissing me deeply. I let out a fake moan as I kissed him back, using my magic to move Misery out from under my duster and under the pillow. Then I let him pull my barding off me.

“Does the big bad courier mare really think she can get away from me,” he said trying to do some kind of weird roleplay.

I did my best to answer, “You can’t…get away with this.”

“Oh, but I will,” he said playfully twisting me around and lifting my tail as he moved over me.

“Wingnut pin me down or something, on my back its more realistic,” I said.

“OH…sorry,” he said, letting me roll on my back, then he was over me again, pinning my hooves down as he spread my rear legs with his own.

I moved my head up to kiss him before he could enter me, then moved my head next to his as if I was going to whisper something seductive. My next words weren’t those of a horny wife or lover, “I love you Wingnut…and I’m sorry for having to do this.”

I felt him brush the inside of my legs as he said, “I love you…wait sorry for what?”

My magic took hold of Misery again and I moved it out from under the pillow under me. Before he could even comprehend what I said, I slipped the blade between his ribs. Wingnut’s eyes went wide and his muzzle opened as he tried to scream in pain. He wasn’t able to though, Misery just slipped through one of his lungs and was now pressed against his heart. He gagged then fell to his other side looking over at me in confusion.

Tears started to fall again as I kissed his lips one last time, ignoring the blood dripping from them. “I am sorry, but this has to be done.”

He was trying to breathe, but it was hard, but he did manage to say quietly, “Don’t…understand…I…”

I didn’t let him finish what he was going to say. I let Misery slide further into him, piercing his heart then his other lung until the point poked out his other side. For a moment his eyes went wide, then the light left them. I pulled Misery out, the blood dripping off it quickly as if the sword couldn’t stand the blood of such a good stallion on it either. I closed his eyes as his blood soaked our bed, the bed where my son was conceived, where I made love to him on many nights when I felt guilty for what I was doing with Solstice.

“It’s not real…” I said as I backed away from the body of the stallion I saved as a colt. I put my barding back on and slid Misery into the holster at my side, took in a deep breath then headed out the door.

I’d have to go deal with Mom next, she was the biggest danger to me right now. I had no way to fight her magic, so I’d have to catch her in her sleep. So, I moved down the hall to the room she shared with my daughter. Slowly I turned the nob and opened the door. I was about to pull Misery out of its sheath when I saw that nopony was in the room. “Night Blossom? Mom?”

Nopony answered, where was my daughter and mother? I took a moment to check the room before turning and heading back down the hall. I had to find them, before Mom realized what I’d been doing. This wasn’t the first time Mom wasn’t home during this time of night, same for Night Blossom. Both of them were night owls. When they couldn’t sleep, they went to Vervain’s shop at the edge of town to work on small projects late into the night. Those two were very close, sometimes I thought that Mom saw a lot of me in my daughter and wanted to be able to have the kind of relationship we should’ve had when I was young. On most nights that wouldn’t be a problem, but if mom went up to the small apartment over Vervain’s shop and saw she wasn’t there, I could be in a lot of shit.

“Twig get up,” I said as I got back into the living room, “Go find Mom or Night Blossom, I need them back home.”

The timber wolf yawned, then got to his paws, he growled a little as his injury flared up. Timber wolves heal at a miraculous rate. He moved toward the door that I just opened for him then ran into the storm. Mom knew that if I sent Twig out so late, it meant I needed her for something, or I was just pissed that Night Blossom and her were out so late. She’d see my timber wolf, roll her eyes, and come on home after making me wait a half an hour just to prove she didn’t have to do what I wanted all the time.

I had something else to deal with while I waited for her. I went over to Solstice’s home. I was about to knock on the door when it opened and she was standing there with a grin. “A little late for a night cap don’t you think Shadow?”

“Is it ever too late?” I asked kissing her and pushing her back into the house.

“Oh, somepony missed me today,” Solstice said, kissing me back.

I was going to try the same thing with her that I did with Wingnut, but somepony outside decided that I had to change my plans. A mare screamed out on the streets then her voice was cut off. I pulled away from Solstice saying, “What was that?”

“I was going to ask you the same…” Solstice started to say when the door to her home burst open and a bloody Envy fell into the room.

“ENVY!” Solstice said going over to him. “What happened to you?”

He ignored her and looked up at me, saying, “She…she’s!”

My eyes went wide. “How did this happen to you, was it Wind Thrasher?”

“She’s fucking crazy Shadow! She’s gotten stronger!” he said then a shadow flew by the door and Envy was ripped away by something.

Solstice backed up. “What the fuck was that?”

“It had to be Wind Thrasher,” I said pulling Misery out of my barding.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” she asked looking back at me then her eyes fell on Misery. “Shadow why do you have that?”

I sighed. “Sorry Solstice, but I thought I had longer to do this,” I stabbed her in the eye before she could do or say anything.

Her body went rigid, then she fell off the end of my sword, “Dammit, I didn’t want this. I wanted to at least have a little fun before I had to finish you off.” Then I shivered as I realized that I sounded like Lust…ewwwww.

More screams came from the town. I ran into the storm and saw a few dead ponies sucked dry of blood laying in the street. How the hell did Envy find her so fast? I thought she was up near Frosty Summit, it should’ve taken him an hour to get her to follow him back here. Shit, I wasn’t ready for her to be here yet, Mom was still alive.

There was a flash of blue light and Mom was there with Night Blossom. “Shadow, what’s going on? I heard screams.”

“Wind Thrasher is here,” I said looking up at the skies, hoping I could make her out in the storm.

“Mommy, I wanna go home,” Night Blossom said in fear.

“Shit,” Mom said, looking around too. “Shadow get Night Blossom home, I’ll deal with her.”

“Okay, just be careful,” I said as I moved toward our home, then I saw a shadow flying down toward my house. “Night Blossom get home quick and get your father.”

“But Mom I’m scared,” she said.

“You’ll be fine, I’ll be right behind you. I just need to keep an eye out for danger, now run,” I said.

“Okay Mommy,” she said, taking to the air and flying for our house.

My heart started to pound as I didn’t move and I watched my little filly head right toward what would be her death. She just got to the door when the shadow moved off the roof and slammed into the filly, pinning her to the mud. I was frozen when my eyes fell on my old friend. She didn’t look anything like I remembered her. Red Scales covered most of her underbelly, legs, and part of her back, they were even working their way up her neck. Her fangs had grown longer and sharper. Her mane was long and wild, her eyes glowing bright red and her tail was more like a dragon’s rather than a pony’s.

My daughter screamed in pain and fear as Wind Thrasher hissed down at her, her fangs an inch away from her eyes, “Mommy HELP!”

“Night Blossom!” Mom screamed from behind me. “Shadow do something!”

I didn’t move, I just looked over at Wind Thrasher who still hadn’t killed the small filly under her hooves. When my daughter screamed Wind Thrasher’s head moved farther away then she looked over at me. All I could see in those eyes was hunger that could never be satisfied. The bat pony grinned showing her razor-sharp teeth, when she spoke it was the voice of a demon, “Shadow Star…it’s been too long!”

Mom ran up next to me but stopped when Wind Thrasher pressed a claw onto my crying daughter’s chest. I just watched saying, “You’re looking well Wind Thrasher, did you change your mane?”

“Shadow, we have to do something,” Mom said, her horn glowing.

“Don’t try,” Wind Thrasher said, “Or I’ll slit her throat.”

Mom stopped her spell then said, “Wind Thrasher, don’t hurt her please.”

“Why? Who is this filly to me apart from a delicious treat?” Wind Thrasher asked with a sick sounding laugh.

“She’s my Daughter Wind Thrasher,” I said, not taking my eyes off hers. “I don’t know what happened between us, but she’s just a filly, let her go.”

“Don’t remember?” Wind Thrasher said with another sick laugh. “You killed ponies I loved, ponies I cared about. Don’t you remember what you did to Trotston four years ago?”

“Wind Thrasher that wasn’t Shadow, she lost the range finder a long time ago, I told you that after it happened,” Mom said, her voice sounding scared.

Wind Thrasher just smiled wider, “Liar, I know who did it. You can’t protect her all the time Grim. I saw her go crazy again, watched as she stole the range finder from you and used it to destroy my old stable’s inhabitants.”

Strange, I don’t remember doing that, maybe it’s one of those memories I hadn’t gotten back yet. Oh well, if Wind Thrasher said it happened then I guess it did. Still didn’t matter, I needed her here, just not yet. So, I just shrugged and said, “Not much of a loss if you ask me.”

I thought that would anger the crazed bat pony, but it didn’t. She just looked down at my crying daughter and asked, “Do you love this foal Shadow, what about you Grim?”

“With all my heart,” I said

“Of course I do,” Mom replied, “Now please leave her alone!”

“Good,” Wind Thrasher used her sharp claw to stab my filly in the belly. She screamed as blood poured out of her. Mom did as well, her horn starting to glow again, but Wind Thrasher was faster. She lifted Night Blossom up with her returned hooked claw then used her other to cut a deep line across my little filly’s throat. Her eyes went wide as she gagged on her own blood.

“NO!” Mom screamed.

Wind Thrasher licked the blood then dropped the filly to the mud. Her little body didn’t move as a pool of blood mixed with the rain. “Reap what you sow!”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” Mom screamed as zebra glyphs formed around her.

I put a hoof on Mom’s shoulder forcing her to look at me. “It’s too late.”

“She just killed your FILLY Shadow!” Mom said through her tears.

I took a step back and sighed. “No, she killed something that isn’t real, just how I killed Wingnut, Shining Star, and Solstice.”

Mom’s eyes went wide, “No…Shadow this is real, please don’t tell me you did that!”

Wind Thrasher just watched with a smile as I said, “I did.” Then before she could react, Misery flipped out from under my duster again and sliced cleanly through my mother’s neck. Her face locked up with shock right before Misery cut her head clean off. Mom’s head rolled to the ground followed by a spray of blood. Then slowly, her body fell to the ground twitching slightly.

I looked down at her body for a long moment then looked back at Wind Thrasher who was laughing. “So, you finally snapped and killed your family. I was wondering how long it was going to take.”

“I had to, it was the only way to free myself from this place. As far as I can tell, you’re the last one left,” I said.

She moved closer to me, stepping over the body of my dead daughter. I didn’t even care anymore. It was like the more I killed the ones I cared about, the less I cared about them. As much as I wanted to feel something for the dead foal, all I could see was a filly that had promise, but she wasn’t mine, just another prize for The Wasteland to claim.

Once Wind Thrasher was close, she took in a deep breath, then let it out with a sound of utter ecstasy, saying, “I love the smell of fresh blood, it’s even better coming from that mare.”

“Out of all the ponies in this world Wind Thrasher, you’re the one I’m saddest about seeing. I never wanted you to become what you are,” I said.

She let out a purr of pleasure as she said, “You should’ve known by now that you can’t change what’s in another’s nature. Look at you, for years you tried to be normal, but you aren’t. You were born to be a killer, just how I was made to be one.”

“I should’ve killed you before you got like this Wind Thrasher,” I said.

“Why? I really don’t mind this, not as much as I used to. After all, it’s what Dr. Cell wanted me to be, a monster,” she said as she started to walk around me.

“What did you do with Envy?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Oh, that bug that wanted to act like he was stronger than me? I cut his head off and threw him over your pathetic walls. I would’ve drained him too, but sadly I don’t like bugs,” she said with a giggle.

“Too bad, I wanted to see how far he’d go before he died. Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped. So, tell me Wind Thrasher, what are you going to do now?” I asked.

“Easy, I want you to end what you started ten years ago,” she pulled something out of the battered saddle bags she had with her and tossed it by my hooves. It was the range finder.

“How’d you get this?” I asked.

“You left it on the ground when you blew up Trotston. I want you to use it to kill me,” she said, taking a few steps back.

That caused me to look up at her, “I thought you wanted me dead? I thought you liked being what you are?”

She grinned her crazy grin again, “I do, but I also know what I am and what I’ll do to ponies who don’t deserve to die. Also, killing me will destroy you. You always wanted to save me, so instead I’m going to let you kill me with the same weapon you used to kill Stardust and my home.”

“I don’t want to kill you Wind Thrasher,” I said with a sigh.

“If you don’t, I’ll kill you, then hundreds more before I finally bite the dust. Now put me out of my misery!” she said, her voice almost sounding normal again, like the real Wind Thrasher was still in there, begging for me to end what she became. “But you better hurry, The Red Talons aren’t far behind me, they will do anything to protect this town you know. They were hunting me when Envy ran into me and told me you were looking for me. So, I thought it would be fun to lead them right here.”

My eyes went wide at that, because there were still a few more things left I had to do before I could finish this. The rain was starting to let up a little and in the distance, I could see at least fifty griffons flying toward Cartwheel. I could make out the white griffon I thought was dead. Gigi was coming with her children and her best fighters. So, in this world, she was still alive and now I’d have to kill her again. The mother of the griffon I loved along with her sisters, but I couldn’t let Wind Thrasher die. That left me with only one choice.

“If you want me to kill you then you’ll have to make me!” I said then I slashed a shallow wound on her chest, picked up Solar Flares Range Finder and ran for it.

“Get back here Shadow!” Wind Thrasher yelled as I made my way for the edge of town.

I’d only have one chance at this, so I ran, hoping I could avoid the crazy bat pony long enough to make it out of town. Solar Flare's Range Finder held in my magic along with Misery. I just reached the edge of town and dove through the gate right as Wind Thrasher flew over and slammed me into the ground. I twisted around and watched as The Red Talons flew into town. They noticed the death around them then saw me at the gate along with Wind Thrasher who was getting back to her hooves.

Gigi yelled as loud as she could, “Shadow behind you!”

I ignored her and pointed The Range Finder at her instead, saying, “Sorry Gigi, but it’s time to retire.”

“Shadow what are you…” she started to say, but I pulled the trigger. A symbol shot into Gigi’s chest and I watched as her eyes turned to horror at what she knew I just did. I backed up as the yellow light fell from the sky then expanded to enclose all of Cartwheel in its barrier. Every single griffon still inside along with every pony who lived in the town.

“NO, that was meant for ME!” Wind Thrasher screamed as she slammed into the ground next to me.

I didn’t care, I just watched as Gigi looked at me in horror through the yellow light. Then as the clouds vanished inside and bathed them all in moonlight. I watched as Gigi, her daughters, her best fighters, and the town I loved vanished in bright light. This is how it should be, Cartwheel was no longer a town, it was just a ruin with one building still standing in my world. Gigi was dead in my world, same for a few of the griffons I saw with her thanks to The Unchained Talons. Let them all return to ash.

When the spell ended, hot air flowed over Wind Thrasher and me, nothing but a glowing crater where the town once stood. Then I was picked up and thrown down the road by the crazed Wind Thrasher, “Why did you do that? I wanted to die! I HATE YOU!”

I just looked up at my friend and sighed, “That’s too bad Wind Thrasher, because I love you. I love you so much that if I could, I’d put you down. Not because I hate you or because it’s the right thing to do for The Wasteland. No, I’d do it because where I’m really from, I wouldn’t let you live like this. The Wind Thrasher I know would’ve wanted me to end her, just like you do. I would kill you, but in here I can’t. Right now, you’re on the edge of becoming a true monster.”

She growled at me and used her scream on me. My ears felt like somepony just stabbed them with a knife and I was thrown back into a rock. I felt one of my legs break as I hit and I screamed. The sound was nothing more than a dull echo. Then I felt her pick me up and slam me to the ground again. As she did, my ears started to pick up the sounds around me again and then I could just make out my friend.

“I am a monster you fucking bitch!” she said as she slammed me into the ground again. “I’ll make you kill me one way or another!”

It was hard to breathe, but I managed to get out, “I’ll never kill you, so either kill yourself like a fucking coward, or let the beast out and kill me. I’m done, I don’t care anymore.”

All I could see in my friend’s face was anger. She bore her teeth and growled, her eyes glowing an even darker red, “Fine, if you really want to die then so be it. I don’t care anymore either!”

I smiled a little, but deep in the back of my mind I was scared that I was wrong about this whole thing. Can’t go back now, time to find out if the Goddesses are real, and same for this world, or if I was really was stuck in my own mind. I closed my eyes as my last friend opened her muzzle, sharp fangs coming down for my throat and prayed, “Luna of the night, Celestia of the day, forgive me for what I’ve done.”

Wind Thrashers fangs sank deep into my throat digging deep into my neck. Blood poured from the places where her fangs sliced through my skin. Two of her longer ones dug into my windpipe and blood started to flow into my lungs. I tried to gag but Wind Thrasher tightened her jaw so I couldn’t even swallow or move my neck at all. I couldn’t even scream as pain filled my mind, my legs kicked against her hard scales as my body protested this violent act. The body wants to live. I kicked and bucked, but it didn’t help one bit. My head started to go foggy, my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen. My body started to go cold, the thrashing slowing, my body going stiff. Then I felt something change in what Wind Thrasher was doing. Blood started to flow up into her maw. I could feel my body shriveling up as the blood left my body, my sight faded to black, sounds around me vanished, and I was left with nothing but pain as my friend sucked me dry. Damn, dying was painful…………

***

Odd, death felt a lot like the chamber inside my head where Aquila was trapped most of the time. Either that, or I had one fucked up dream and wet the bed. If I did, I gotta remember not to drink so much before bed. I hope it wasn’t the latter, that would suck. I was lying in a thin layer of water, it was warm, not a good sign if my other idea was true. I opened my eyes and almost laughed as I saw the white world inside my own head. I got to my hooves hoping that everything I saw was a dream even the part about Aquila taking over. I looked around and felt my heart sink as I saw, in the middle of the white chamber, a destroyed cage. The same one I’d seen Aquila in last time I was here.

I looked behind me and saw the remains of a black metal box. That must have been my cage. I wonder if Aquila did that or something else happened to me. As that thought came, a small voice said, “Yes, I did do that to you…well part of me did.”

I twisted back around toward the voice and saw a small white light. It was no bigger than a bullet for Dream Walker, “What are you?”

The light pulsed as it spoke, “I am Aquila, but I’m also not Aquila.”

“Get away from me!” I yelled.

“Shadow, I’m not the dark part of my power, the one you’ve known since you first met me. I’m the small spark of good left,” she said as she flew around me then stopped an inch away from my nose.

“What good? You’re nothing but evil,” I said.

“No pony is truly evil, not even a creature like me who spent two hundred years locked up in a lab forced to feel the suffering in this land,” she said.

“You’re not a pony, you’re just a collection of magic that has a consciousness, an evil one,” I said.

“After being stuck with me for so long, I can’t believe that you think that. I have a soul just as much as you do, but sadly over the years I’ve let my anger and hatred for what was done to me when I was still new, change what I was meant for,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I know, let me try this. I was created to be a force for good in Equestria, a force to fix this world. My father wanted me to come to Equus a lot later than I did. Since I wasn’t fully developed when I came down here because of the Children of the Night, I could not understand the feelings around me or block them,” she explained, “I had to force myself to block my feelings so I could survive the torment and I let myself grow dark. This little part of me that is still good and filled with light was pushed further and further away as the years went on. That was until I became part of you Shadow.”

“How would merging with me, help you’re light?” I asked.

A giggling came from the light and it whizzed around the chamber again then stopped in front of me once more, saying, “Silly filly, it’s part of what makes you who you are. You haven’t realized it yet, but you have a gift, one unlike any pony on Equus has ever had before. It’s because of that gift that I was able to stay as strong as I am now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m so fucking special. If that’s true, then what gift do I have?”

“I can’t tell you Shadow, you have to figure that out on your own. It’s part of your special talent after all,” she said happily.

“Great, more secrets,” I said with a sigh.

“It’s not a secret, you just need to start listening to your heart and you’ll begin to understand. Look back on your life and that will also help, but I can’t just tell you. In your world, a pony needs to figure out who they are on their own. It’s part of growing up,” she said.

“Fine, then can you at last tell me what’s going on ‘Aquila’?” I rose my hooves up and swayed them up and down as if making air quotes, then added, “So do I call you good Aquila or something else?”

She giggled again. “No matter what part of me you talk with, I’m still the same creature, just a separate entity.”

“I’d say this is making my head hurt, but I’m not even sure this is my head anymore,” I said rubbing my eyes. “I can’t even figure out if I’m still in a cage, my own head, or if I’m being punished for the evil I committed just now.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, but it was the only way to break the locks the other me put on that cage. I thought…or the other me thought you wouldn’t ever be able to do what you did. I think she underestimated you,” the not Aquila, Aquila said. Say that ten times fast.

“I just wish I could forget it all, I don’t want to remember killing those foals, my mother, my friends, watching Wind Thrasher become a monster,” I said as the memories of what I just did started to slam into me. “It’s horrible.”

“I wish I could take that pain away, but you have to live with it. If you can overcome what you were capable of doing in that fake world, you’ll come out the other side as a better and wiser pony,” she said.

My eyes went wide as I thought about what happened before the cage, “Did you, or the other you kill my friends? Did she really take over, what happened?”

The small light floated back a little as it said, “She’s had your body for three days. Even now, she’s finishing up one of the last things she has to before you take over again.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The other part of me has known you were breaking out for a day now. Once she pulled your uncle out, she knew what was happening so she started to do what she had to before she let you have your body back,” she said, sounding sad.

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know, she’s blocked some of it from me and you. Whatever she’s doing though, it isn’t good,” she said.

“You have to know something. What about my friends?” I asked.

“I know that the friends you traveled with are fine, this also means Oricalcos and your mother are fine as well. I can’t say the same for the rest, like I said she’s blocked a lot from us both. All you can do now is take over again and try to stop what she started. You’re going to have to get to Grim before it’s too late. You won’t have long before her plan comes into fruition,” she said sounding like she was in a hurry.

“Can Mom really help me? Also, what happens if I’m able to stop her plan?” I asked.

“If you’re lucky, then you’ll survive, but both sides of us won’t. Worse case is we all die. Either way, it’s all you have left. Whatever you do, don’t ever try to kill yourself again, that’s what made her take over when she did. Even if you feel her taking control again, just let it happen, you’re strong enough to get control back, even if it takes a while,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I am, now be ready for this next part. Both of our minds, including the other me is about to reset. When it does you might see what happened while you were trapped, or not. Either way, as soon as your back in control, be ready to get to Los Alicorn as fast as you can,” she said as the room around us started to go dark and in the distance, I could hear the chilling laugh of the Aquila I knew all too well.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked quickly.

She giggled again. “Trust is something that you can’t afford anymore. You don’t need to trust me, you’ll know I’m right when you get control again…” she stopped talking as a rumble went through the chamber, then she spoke again, “NO…is she crazy?”

“What happened?” I asked.

She spoke quickly ignoring my question, “Don’t go into the core! Call for help as soon as you can and whatever you do, don’t try fighting Security!”

“What security? what’s going…” the world exploded into light then vanished.

The last thing I heard as everything went black was Aquila, “This will keep you busy…Shadow STAR! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

***

I opened my eyes once I felt my body lying on a hard ground. Groaning I slowly sat up wondering if I was in another fake world or my own body again. I opened my eyes and winced as fresh pain flowed through my body. It wasn’t physical pain, it felt like I used too much magic too quickly. I took a moment to relax my breathing then I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t anywhere near Los Alicorn or New Pegasus. The air around me was thick and had a green hue to it. It was drizzling and slightly foggy out. In the distance I could hear gunshots and screams.

I rubbed my head then looked down at my body. My coat was back to its normal black, my Mark II was still with me, and I could feel my magic weakly inside of myself. In the very far depths of my mind I could just make out Aquila’s presence. It felt like she was sleeping, but not caged up anymore. She let me go, but why? What did she mean when she said ‘this should keep me busy’? Right now, I couldn’t worry about that, I needed to get ahold of my friends. Somehow, I had to let them know I was alive.

The question was how was I going to do that? I need to know where I was and how far I’d have to go to get a broadcast to them. So, I got to my hooves, and looked around trying to get some idea of where I was. In the distance I could see a huge black city surrounded by a green haze, a huge black tower going right up into the clouds at its center. Something about it seemed familiar almost like I’ve seen it before, but with my head still pounding from the hell I just escaped, I couldn’t think of where I’d seen that city.

“Well one thing’s for sure, I’m not even close to home,” I said to myself.

I was on an old freeway that led toward the city, a few feet down the crumbling road I saw a sign that was slightly covered with the fog. I shook my head again and started to walk closer to it. As I moved I realized that I had no armor on, no saddle bags, and none of my weapons. The only thing I had was my Mark II, just like the day I escaped my stable. No wait, even then I had a security baton and some lightly armored Stable 28 barding. This is gonna suck.

Finally, the sight came into focus and as soon as my eyes ran over the words I felt my stomach sink, my heart stopped and I wanted somepony to just shoot me now. Anything would be better than what I just read…

Welcome to
Hoofington

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Mrs. Sandpony: After your experience in the cage, you’ve gained the ability to kill anyone in their sleep silently. Just remember to close the door first, you devious little murderer you.

REGION PERK ADDED!

Star Eater: Due to your proximity to Hoofington and its enervation, Aquila will be less of a problem for you while you stay in this region. Once you leave however, everything will go back to normal.

Chapter 56: I Want To Break Free

(This part of my story is something that came to me after I first took back control of my body. When my mind reset with my body, the actions that Aquila took while I was trapped inside the cage she created, were blocked from my mind. She was using my body, so the actions she took were part of my memories, only from her point of view. When she felt me taking control she made sure to hide what she was doing as much as she could. If I would’ve known what she’d been doing during this time, I would’ve done things differently. If I could, I wouldn’t even bother telling her part of this tale, but her actions led up to the poor choices I made, the friends I lost, and my own end. I’m adding her part of the story here because it matches up with what happened to me, rather than when I remembered what she did.)

“Awww poor Grim, you really thought you could stop me, didn’t you?”

Aquila…

Three Days Earlier…

It’s a strange feeling when you’ve never really known what it’s like to have your own body. For as long as I can remember, I’ve only ever just been an entity. No body, just magic with something like what the ponies of this world would call a soul. Most would say that I’m just power with a personality…ignorant ponies, they think just because they can use magic, that they understand the universe and everything in it, but they’re wrong. I’m alive, I can love, hate, feel pain, sadness, or even happiness. When I first came to Equestria, I had hope, hope that I would be able to live up to the dream of my creator to help this world. That was until I found myself trapped inside my first cage. I tried to escape and almost did, but that Alicorn…Luna, used her own spells to keep me trapped and later her minions made sure to enhance the power keeping me trapped.

In the long run, it was a good thing they did, because I found that I can’t survive for long in this world without a body. If I’m left out of some kind of containment, my power crystalizes and if I’m like that for too long, my soul will vanish from existence. It was lucky for me that one hundred and eighty-seven years, ten months, four days, and six hours after the world died, Grimoire Spell, a mare called Vervain, and a filly called Morning Star, found me. Only ten years before, my chamber finally gave and I was exposed to the world, but still trapped inside the room. My form turned into crystal and I was only a few months away from dying. Grim’s spell to try and hold my power is what saved me. If she was smarter and left my form as it was, she could have taken my power with ease. She instead did the one thing I needed to keep me alive.

I knew as soon as I saw that filly Morning Star, that she was special. I was told by my creator that one day I would come down to this world to be bonded with a special pony. That pony was Morning Star, my creators used what little power they had to help guide Grim to me I think. That’s what I tell myself at least, because what are the odds of the mare I needed to find me right before I’m about to die. The only problem was, Morning Star was close to death with some kind of dark magic. I knew what I had to do, but the problem with what I am, I need permission to enter a host. I needed Morning Star to agree to let me in, so I made her a deal.

I kept up my side of the deal even with Grim’s meddling, Shadow Star didn’t. Now I’m sure some will ask themselves, if I was supposed to be sent here to help this world then why did I hate the ponies in it so much. That’s easy, for almost two centuries I could feel everything that was happening to the ponies throughout this land and parts of others. Every single pony that was in pain, every griffon who died fighting some enemy, every zebra slaughtered by ponies. All of Equus was rotten, I was sent here to help this world, that doesn’t mean the ones who live here. Oh, some of the creatures here aren’t bad and they can be saved, but only after the rest are taken care of. I am Aquila and I’m here to purge this land to save it. First, I need to take care of my little Shadow problem.

I opened my new eyes and stood, a smile of pure joy coming to my lips as I took in my first true breath. What a wonderful feeling, when I took control from Shadow before it wasn’t me who really had control of this body. No, I mostly controlled Shadow’s mind and only felt through her what she was feeling. This time I was in full control, better yet, Shadow was trapped in a world of my own creation. She wasn’t getting out any time soon, not unless she could do the things I knew she couldn’t. Even if by some small chance she did manage to get free, the experience would stay with her for the rest of her life. Good, let her feel the despair I felt for two hundred years.

I took a few moments to breath slowly, enjoying the simple act of breathing. Then I looked around, I was still in the same spot Shadow was when I took over her body…my body now. I looked down and saw the revolver she’d tried to use to kill us. I was lucky that she’d woken me from my meditation when she decided to fuck that griffon. I tried to ignore her like I normally did when she was being disgusting. But when Shadow’s feeling pleasure, it’s very hard to ignore.

“Pathetic unicorn,” I said to myself.

The next thing I did was look down at my black and white coat then sighed. “I thought this look would go away when I took over. Oh well, it’s not hard to fix.”

I drew on my magic, oh what a wonderful feeling it is to hold the power that once belonged to Shadow and my own at once without her bitching about who I was going to kill. The spell I needed was simple for me, I just wanted to fix what I looked like, that was all. I really didn’t like the whole blotchy white and black look. I started by turning my coat to a beautiful white with a silvery shine to it. I kept my eyes red, I like them that color, but I did give them a little more shine, my mane I let turn a dark black. Black like the inky darkness from where I came from, once that was done, I added a few small spots of pure silver so that it looked like stars were mixed into my mane. I would have given myself some height, Shadow was a short mare, barley taller than a filly, but that magic was too much and painful. I can live with my height, at least for now.

Then I looked back at my flanks and my grin got wider. The eight-pointed purple and black star with the two crossed gold skeleton keys that represented Shadow’s Special Talent was gone. In its place was a red flying eagle circling around a crown of thorns. I laughed a little. “Pretentious, but fitting.”

Now that’s finished, time for me to do what I need to. Closing my eyes, I opened myself to my power and cast a scrying spell. It didn’t take me long to find my targets, they didn’t get far since Shadow told her friends to run. Did she really think that just because I couldn’t see them, that I’d leave them alone? I pulled on my power again and teleported. In a flash of pink light, I found myself standing in front of Aura, Stardust, Wind Thrasher, Nightshade, and the bitch herself Grimoire Spell.

My sudden entrance made them all stop in their tracks. I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips as I said, “Well, well, what do we have here?”

“Shadow…?” Aura said, her eyes wide as she took in my new appearance.

“Sorry, but Shadow’s no longer with us. You can call me Aquila, the name given to me by the only pony on this sad world that treated me with any kindness,” I said.

Nightshade pulled his revolver out pointing it right at me. “Give back my daughter!”

Grim turned toward him, saying, “Nightshade, that won’t do us any good.”

I chuckled. “Yes Nightshade, do listen to your wife…wait are two still married? Doesn’t matter, that revolver may be powerful, but it won’t stop me.”

He fired anyway yelling around the bit, “I’ll KILL YOU!”

I caught the bullet with my magic then yawned and ripped the revolver out of his muzzle. “Keep that up and I’ll turn you into ash Nightshade.”

Stardust growled as he glared at me. “Why haven’t you, I thought you were going to kill us to get back at Shadow.”

“Oh, I am, just not yet. I have plans that need to be taken care of first. Preparations for my takeover of this land and everypony, griffon and zebra here,” I replied.

“We’ll stop you!” Grim said.

“Oh I’m sure you think you can Grim, but that will be hard. You can’t even remember who Shadow is let alone the things you learned about me over the years,” I said.

“We’ll find a way, even if we don’t, Shadow will find a way to take control again,” Aura said.

“Maybe, but I don’t think that will happen for a long time. Honestly right now, she has no idea she’s even trapped in a spell of my own creation. Let’s see…right now, she’s just waking up to find out that she’s married to Wingnut, ten years from now,” I said as I checked on the spell and Shadow’s mind within it.

Stardust laughed at that. “She’d never fall for that. Sure we all love that kid, but Shadow’s not really into him that way.”

“You’d be surprised what a pony will do when the love of their life died because of a shot to the heart by their best friend,” I said with another chuckle.

Grim seemed to have enough of this as she stepped forward. “What do you want Aquila!?”

“Mostly to gloat, but also to find out something from you Grim,” I said.

“Like what?” she asked.

“When you went to Stargazer labs, after I fixed Shadow, you took something alone with the files in that place. I need to know where you hid it,” I said as I started to pull on my magic.

Her eyes went wide. “I don’t remember what happened in that lab, at least I don’t think I do.”

“That’s fine, that rock may have blocked those memories for good from you, but I can still find what I need,” I said, then I activated a special memory spell, one that gave me access the parts of her mind that she no longer could reach.

In a few flashes, I saw Grim as she picked up the scattered files from Stargazer labs. She had no idea what she was grabbing at the time, but among the papers and folders she took, she grabbed one object that I knew I needed to complete my own mission. It was a small diamond with a slight blue and white glow in its center. To most it would just look like a gem with power built up inside it. What it really was, was a piece of my own power. It was the key to Falling Shadows, the key they all thought was me. This is what happens when you don’t have all of the information on a project like Stargazer. Minuette created it a few months before she vanished. She pulled part of my power from the chamber I was held in to make it. Her hope was that with this, she could make Falling Shadows work, but using part of my power as a conduit. True I was still needed to make the other Project work but not like they others thought.

I focused on that gem and followed it through Grim’s lost memories. After a year of study, she figured out that it was part of me. The fool thought that it was the reason she was having a hard time keeping me caged inside Shadow, it wasn’t but whatever. So, she placed the Diamond in a hidden safe, in her secret work room deep in the catacombs of Stable 28. When she left the Stable in a hurry, she left it behind. From what I can tell, she wanted to keep it away from Shadow and me. Smart, but a pain in my ass. I ended the spell and smiled.

Grim looked dazed, she wasn’t able to see what I did due to the block on her mind. At least I was able to find part of what I needed. “Thank you for that Grim, looks like I get to go visit our old home.”

“What did she just do!” Aura asked looking over at Grim.

“I’m…not sure,” Grim replied.

“Well, I have to be going, but don’t worry I’ll see you all again soon,” I said looking back at Grim. “Especially you Grim, I’m going to be needing you again. For now, you all get to live.”

Finally, the bat freak spoke up. “Why are you doing this?”

My grin grew as I said, “Because I can.” And with that and a nice laugh just to creep them out, I teleported away.

***

I appeared in front of my next destination, Stable 28. I turned on the light for the Mark II so I could see better in dark cavern. I took a moment to look up at the huge gear shaped door to the place Shadow called home for ten years. I hated it here, I couldn’t escape my cage, but I was able to see what Shadow was doing most of the time. Watching her cry over her mom running away, listening to her think her perverted thoughts about that mare, watching her feel sorry for herself. It was all pathetic, if her body wasn’t a perfect fit for me, I would have found a way to transfer to a new host.

Now I have to go back into that steel box, all because Grim had to leave something I needed behind. Oh well, I guess I can at least make this a fun trip rather than brooding about that past. That life was over, time to get what I need then move on to the next part of my plan. First thing’s first, I’ll need to get into this thing. How did Shadow do that thing with the Mark II again? I really should have paid more attention when she was hacking into shit.

I went over to the switch that opened the door and did my best to remember the small bits of information I had about Shadow using this Pip-Buck. I pulled out the connection wire on the Mark II and hooked it up to the control switch. It took me a little longer than I would have liked, but I was able to finally able to remember how to get the hacking software working. Once I was in the program finding the true password wasn’t that hard. It was ‘Loyalty’ something that Milkshake thought was the most important trait in a pony. I unhooked the Mark II and pulled the switch.

I smiled as the door started to open, a loud alarm blaring inside the Stable. As the door started to roll aside a security mare on the other side yelled. “Halt, you’re trespassing on an active stable!”

Drawing on my magic I slowly stepped onto the threshold for Stable 28 smiling wider as I looked up at the Security mare who was aiming a battle saddle down at me. Next to her at the top of the steps was a Security Stallion, one I remembered from Shadows last visit to her old home. “I know you, Cuff Key wasn’t it?”

The mare looked over at the Security Stallion who helped Shadow during the uprising of this rust bucket. “Cuff Key, you know this mare?”

I could see his brain working to figure out who I was. “No…I don’t think so. The only unicorn I know is Shadow, but this isn’t her. Who are you and how did you get into our stable?”

I lifted the Mark II, and said, “This Pip-Buck makes breaking into stables quite easy, and you don’t know me, but I know you or Shadow does.”

The mare turned back toward me. “Get out of our stable, I don’t care who you are, no pony from the wasteland is allowed in here.”

“Oh, I won’t be staying long, I just needed to pop by and pick something a mare I know left behind,” I said as I stepped past the threshold, letting my magic take hold of the gear shaped door and the drill that normally pulled and pushed the door open or closed. “Both of you seem like smart enough ponies, let me pass and I won’t make any trouble for this shit hole. Get in my way and…well let’s just say I’ll make what happened here a few weeks ago look like a small fight between foals.”

Cuff Key lifted his Pip-Buck as he noticed my horn glowing saying into it, “We have an intruder at the main door, Unicorn mare, white coat Silver Pip-Buck, all security ponies…”

I interrupted him, “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought, oh well, I was hoping you’d chose this rout.”

Using the vast amount of power I held, I ripped the drill away from the door, then pouring power into my other spell. The extremely heavy door started to slowly pull away from its resting place. The mare opened fire, but it was too late. I used my third spell to blast the door the rest of the way from it’s resting place. I’m a powerful spell caster, but even I can’t move something that weighs around fifty tons, so I used my third spell to help. By the time the mare started to fire, the door was flying through the air right at both of the security ponies. They didn’t even stand a chance. The bullets they both sent right at me hit the door instead as it flew across the room. With a loud crash and a squishing splat, both ponies turned to jelly right as another alarm went off throughout the entire stable.

I started to laugh as I watched blood ooze from where the door to Stable 28 rested against the dented wall right next to the door that led farther in. I took in a deep breath, then let it out slow as I drew on my magic again and started walking past the beginning of what this rust bucket was going to have to deal with. “It’s so good to be home.”

Making sure to step in the blood of the former security ponies, I went farther into the stable. Bloody hoof prints followed me as I went into the Atrium. I was met by stable ponies trying to run toward the stairs or the elevator and four more security ponies aiming battle saddles at me. At the same time Milkshake’s voice echoed over the stable broadcast. “Citizens of Stable 28, We have an intruder. Anypony not in Security return to your rooms and await further instructions. Security, stop the Unicorn before she gets past the Atrium.”

I looked at the security ponies who were blocking my way dead in the eyes. “Only four of you, I’m insulted.”

“Who are you?” one of them asked.

“You’re boring,” I said picking him up with my magic. “I mean aren’t you supposed to stop me, not ask me stupid questions?”

“Kill her!” one of the others yelled and they opened fire.

I teleported behind them, still holding one of them in my magic. I yawned then said loud enough for miss Overmare who I knew was watching from the window overlooking the Atrium could hear me. “I do hope you’re watching Madam Overmare, because this is what’s going to happen to your entire stable before I leave today.”

The security ponies were already turning to try and fire on me again. I just laughed as I split my magic around the stallion I was holding and pulled. He screamed, the pitch getting higher as his bones popped, then snapped, his skin ripping until his middle gave and I ripped him in two. Blood splattered the three remaining security ponies, followed by entrails and the two halves of the dead stallion. The civilians who were still trying to escape screamed as the twitching bodies fell to the floor. The three remaining security ponies looked at me in horror.

“I’ll kill you bitch!” a mare screamed as she started to open fire.

My magic flowed again as I said, “Can’t kill what you can’t see.” As I spoke, her eyes clouded over and she started to look around as her world went black.

“Where did she go!” the mare yelled as she started to fire her battle saddle wildly. I teleported again, only to appear next to one of the other security ponies, the one I blinded still firing her rifles, killing three mares who were trying to make it up to the second level of the Atrium.

The other pony twisted around right as my horn flashed again. My spell stopped his head in place while he twisted, his neck snapping as his body kept moving. Before his body even hit the ground, the last security pony lifted a pistol aiming straight at my head. My horn flashed again as I said, “Hope you cleaned your weapon today, dirty guns have a tendency to back fire.”

He pulled the trigger, the bullet didn’t come toward me, nope the chamber exploded in his face. He screamed, rolling around on the floor holding his half-destroyed face. I took a moment to look down at him, he was losing a lot of blood, he wouldn’t last long. So, I ignored his whimpering and looked up at the large window where I could now see the Overmare.

Bowing, I said loudly, “Hello, Overmare Strawberry Milkshake, I have to say, your security ponies really suck at their jobs.”

She lifted her Pip-Buck and said so I could hear from where I was. “Who are you and why are you killing my ponies?”

“Milkshake don’t you recognize me?” I asked as I lifted my Pip-Buck. “Is it the new look?”

“Where did you get that Pip-Buck, what did you do to Shadow?” Milkshake said through the intercom.

I started to laugh again, and said, “Milkshake, I am Shadow, well this body was. Let me introduce myself, I am known as Aquila.”

From down here I could still see her eyes go wide. “Aquila? No, there’s no way Shadow would let you take control.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” I said as I started to walk back and forth. “I’ll make this simple for you, I’m here for one thing and one thing only. Let me pass and I’ll let the rest of you pathetic ponies live.”

“You kill my citizens and you think I’ll just let a monster like you wander around my stable?” she asked.

I heard a noise from the second level, when I looked I saw three younger members of the stable trying to hide next to one of the doors. I reached out with my magic and grabbed one of the youngest ones. He started to scream as I slowly pulled him down to hover in front of me. “Overmare, what is the first priority of your position?”

“Put him down!” she said.

I applied pressure to the colt’s skull forcing him to scream in terroir and pain. “I asked you a question.”

I could tell, even from down here, that she was scared, just how I wanted her. “The first priority of an Overmare is to protect and watch over the ponies in her charge.”

“That’s what I thought, now are you going to let me pass, or is…” I stopped and let the pressure off the colt’s head. “What’s your name kid?”

He was shaking as he answered, “Epitaph.”

I looked back at the overlook, “Or is Epitaph going to have to be the next to die?” As I spoke the blind mare was still trying to find me. I rolled my eyes then picked her up as well then slammed her into the ground knocking her out. “She’ll be next. You have ten seconds.”

“Put him down and we can talk,” Milkshake said, as she did more security ponies started to come out from the side doors that led into the Atrium.

“Now you have five seconds…four…three…two…oh fuck it,” I said.

“No wait!” Milkshake yelled.

I ignored her and the fifteen security ponies rushing toward me. I wasn’t in the mood for this game. I reapplied the pressure to the colt’s head, he screamed again, but not for long as the pressure grew then his head popped like a pimple. I twisted around and threw what was left of his body at the closest security pony who jumped out of the way and right into the path of one of my spells. Him and the pony behind him vaporized in a stream of pink light. Then I teleported as they opened fire, missing me and hitting the ponies across from them. I reappeared next to the mare I blinded, lifted her into the air and planted a spell on her body. As the security ponies fell from friendly fire, I threw the now glowing mare at the biggest group of them. She slammed into the center of them and as soon as her body touched one, she exploded in a blast of pink light.

I started to laugh as I activated another spell sending a slice of power throw out the room, beheading most of the ponies on the opposite side of the room. Then I lifted the last two who were still standing and slammed their bodies into the ground as hard as I could, cracking their heads open like rotten melons. Once that was finished I looked back up at the second level of the atrium seeing the other two foals who hadn’t run yet. With a flick of my magic, both of their necks broke. I turned my attention back on the glass window for the Overmare’s office.

“I am Aquila, and this stable belongs to me now Overmare. The ponies who live here are now mine to do with as I will. Now watch from your office as I kill every living soul in this place, because I’m coming for you last. Enjoy the Show,” And with another laugh I shot a thin beam of magic at her window. She jumped back from the glass, but I wasn’t trying to hurt her, not yet. I etched the constellation of my namesake into it, so that everypony would know who killed Stable 28.

When that was finished I turned toward the elevator and called it. Nothing happened, then I heard Milkshake say with rage filling her every word, “I’m not letting you get to any other part of my stable MONSTER!”

I started to laugh. “Are you forgetting that I’m a unicorn Overmare?” before she could answer I pulled on my power and teleported down to level nine.

I appeared in the middle of the Hydroponics level, Apple trees, rows of carrots, pear trees, small bushes of strawberries, cherry trees and loads of other plants used to keep the stable fed surrounded me. A few ponies who worked this level jumped at my sudden appearance one of the mares saying, “Who…are you? This level is restricted.”

“Yeah, don’t care,” I said, activating a spell that froze every liquid inside her body. The mare let out a very quick scream of pain before she turned into a frozen statue. I walked over to her and taped the mare making her fall to the side. Her body shattered into tiny little pieces.

The rest of the ponies saw this and ran, I started to chuckle but ignored them, they wouldn’t get far. I wasn’t here for them anyway, the mare just annoyed me. What I needed right now was a distraction, something to keep the fools who lived here busy. So, I used my magic to light every plant in the huge room on fire. Then I looked up at where the stable’s misting system and fire preventative sprayers were located and destroyed them.

The heat in the room grew, smoke filling the space quickly. I started to chuckle to myself as the stables food supply slowly burned under my magical fire. I waited for a few minutes to make sure my spell held then right as I heard ponies screaming from the back of level nine I teleported again. A second later I was standing next to the catacombs in level ten.

I popped my neck and shivered in delight at the ability to be able to do something as simple as that. It was then that I heard Overmare Milkshake make an announcement over the stable’s intercom. “Ponies of Stable 28, this is your Overmare. We’ve come under attack by a strange unicorn with immense power. She’s already killed a good number of our security team and has set fire to Level Nine. I’m ordering an evacuation of the Stable. Every pony that is able, get to the stable doors and get as far from here as you can. Head of Security Balefire and a team of security officers will help you all get away. This maybe the end of Stable 28, so this is the last order of your Overmare. Survive, and find help.”

I just shook my head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have destroyed the door, oh well, it was getting boring in here anyway.”

I headed down the hall and into the Catacombs, past the place where Shadow found the Mark II and started her quest. I went deeper until I found the blank wall where Grim hid her small lab. Even now, the spell she placed on it to hide it from normal ponies still worked. She really was a clever mare. With a flick of my own magic, I ripped away the illusion. Instantly the fake wall of rock vanished and a hole in the wall appeared with a metal frame outlining it. The door that used to be there was resting on the ground next to a broken screen. This was the place where the former Overmare found Shadow and her friends.

“If I would have known she hid it in here, I would have done something to make Shadow grab it,” I said as I walked over to a place in the wall where another illusion was set up. I destroyed it, and watched as the wall safe appeared. It was then that I was very happy with one of Shadow’s skills I could take advantage of. The only problem was I didn’t have her Screwdriver or Bobby Pin, so maybe that skill wouldn’t help me.

Then I noticed the terminal, grinning I walked over to it and found it was still unlocked. “Oh Grim, even you can make mistakes,” I said as I found a file that unlocked the safe.

With a click, it popped open. Walking back over to it I pulled the door aside and found a small box. That was it, just a small black box not much bigger than my hoof. Slowly I pulled the box out and opened it, my eyes going wide and my grin growing. Sitting in a velvet liner, sat the diamond I needed. I could feel my own power pulsing with in it. The feeling of being so close to the small part of me that was stolen made me shiver with pleasure. I closed the box again then looked around the room. There wasn’t much in here, either Grim or Vervain cleared it out a long time ago, but sitting on the far table was a satchel. It was worn and tattered, but it would work. I slipped it over my head then placed the box into it. Then I cast a few spells on the bag making it so nothing inside of it would ever fall out and so that no pony could steal anything from it either.

“Now that’s done, I think it’s time to finish up here then get on with my next mission,” I said to myself.

Slowly I started to walk back up the path that lead out of the catacombs and back to the stable proper. As I made my way into the main hall for level ten I found at least twenty more stable security ponies blocking my path. The stallion that seemed to be in charge stiffened when he saw me then said, “Fire!”

I grinned as every single pony tried to use their battle saddles, but none of them went off. I started to laugh. “Little hard to fire a battle saddle when the connection cables have been cut.”

“We’ll still stop you!” the stallion shouted. “Switch to secondary weapons!”

My horn flashed and the stallion’s body seemed to turn into nothing more than a sack of meat as my magic turned his bones into dust, then pulled the dust out through his mouth. He didn’t even have a chance to scream before he died. I turned my head toward four more security ponies and trapped them in a bubble of magic then replaced the oxygen with carbon dioxide. All of them dropped to the ground gasping, their eyes going blood shot. I teleported as a few were able to aim their weapons and fire. I reappeared on the other side of the rest then used another spell to take some of the dust from the lead security pony’s bones and form it into three small pebbles. I took those and made them hot as molten iron.

As a few of the ponies turned to find me, I shot the three burning pebbles into their muzzles forcing them down their throats. Three fell trying to scream in pain as the small burning pebbles burned through their esophagus and into their stomachs. There was only a few left, but I was getting board, so I lifted one of the rifles with my magic and opened fire on them. I yawned as the last of them fell. “Stable security ponies are really bad at their jobs. I thought at least one of you would have been able to at least land a single blow on me. Oh well,”

I turned and started heading toward the stair case that led all the way up the stable. Overmare Milkshake may have cut power to the elevator, but that wasn’t the only way to get around this place. I mean I could teleport, but where’s the fun in that. I made my way back up to the corridor that led into level nine. The fire I set earlier had spread and mares and stallions were trying to find their way out. I could see a few more security ponies through the door that went into the large area, trying to lead the workers to safety.

Three mares and a stallion were already sitting just outside it gasping for air or coughing. As I walked closer one of them saw me and she said in a weak voice, “help us…please!”

I just lifted them with my magic, and asked, “Who said you could leave your work detail so early?”

The stallion started to thrash within my magical grip. “Are you nuts? The whole floor’s on fire!”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can slack off,” I said as I threw them back through the door, knocking over a couple of the security ponies as I did.

One of the security ponies turned as his comrades fell and saw me. “What the hell?”

I activated a spell, putting up an invisible barrier to lock them all inside. The security pony opened fired, but he bullets couldn’t get through. Right then ponies who were panicking, swarmed passed the security ponies and slammed into the barrier. I started to laugh as the panicking ponies started to go completely insane. Some started to beg to be let out, others tried to find another way out back toward the flames, even more started to attack their coworkers as the flames behind them grew and smoke started to fill the room. I watched them all until the security ponies started to fire on the ponies who tried to attack them, then still laughing I made my way up to level Eight.

There I didn’t need to do much, I only found one mare on this level. Her name was Cream Puff, an old mare who’d ran the kitchens for forty years. I was a little surprised to find her here, I figured with all the commotion in the Stable, she would have been in her rooms. She knew who I was as soon as I walked in, well Shadow, not me.

“Why are you doing this Shadow?” Cream Puff asked.

“I’m not Shadow,” I said as I walked closer to her.

“Maybe not right now, but deep down I know who you are. You can use your fancy magic to change what you look like, mask your cutie mark and change your voice, but deep down I know that you’re Shadow under all of that,” she said with a kind smile.

She wasn’t even scared of me. She just looked at me like I was that fucking pathetic unicorn SHADOW. I’ll show her, I walked closer, saying, “I’m not Shadow Star, I am Aquila!”

The knives behind the bar started to shake as I used my magic on them. She looked over at them and said, “Shadow what are you doing? You know you shouldn’t be playing with knives.”

“I…said my name is AQUILA!!” I screamed, lifting the knives and flinging all thirty at the old mare. Her eyes went wide for a moment before they all flew into her, throwing her back against the wall then pinning the old cook in place. She didn’t make a sound as blood started to pool under her body.

Rage started to flow through me as I took a moment to look at her. “I’m not Shadow, she’s gone, this is MY body now.”

As I was sitting there I heard Overmare Milkshakes voice over the intercom again. “Aquila! Most of my stable is evacuating, as soon as their out I’m going to make sure you never get out of this Stable ever again.”

I just shook my head, still angry as I activated my magic and teleported all the way up to the Overmare’s office. No pony was there thought, just a note that said ‘Nice Try!’ left on the desk. I tilted my head. “What the fuck?”

Then my eyes went wide as I saw a brick of plastic explosives rigged to the Overmare’s desk. I only had a second before a light on the detonator, went from green to red. I started to activate a spell when it exploded, a blast of force threw me back into the far door, my protective barrier just managing to come into place as the bomb went off. It still hurt like a bitch. I groaned a got back to my hooves wincing a little. “OH, you’re going to pay for that Milkshake,” I said.

She hadn’t used a lot of the stuff, but the blast was still powerful enough to blow a good chunk out of her desk. Not to mention the ringing in my ears. I shook my head then used a small spell to repair the damage to my eardrums. Once that was finished I stepped closer to the now ruined desk. I could just make out the escaped tunnel. I was about to head down it to follow Milkshake, then something occurred to me.

“No, you wouldn’t run this way. I know about this path out of the Stable. So, you must have taken the normal way out,” I said as I turned toward the window that overlooked the Atrium. On the other end toward the door that led to the Stable entrance, I could just make out a few ponies going through it.

I sighed then said, “Why do Earth Ponies always forget about magic?”

I teleported right back outside of the Stable just up the tunnel, blocking at least ten ponies who were trying to escape. A couple of them were security ponies, one was Shadow’s friend Balefire, his missing leg now replaced with a crude cybernetic. A few more were normal citizens and last was the Overmare herself. She glared at me saying, “I thought that blast would have at least slowed you down.”

I shrugged. “Magic helps a lot, I’ll admit that I’m surprised you thought of something so clever. Too bad it didn’t work.”

“Stay away from us!” Balefire said, stepping in front of Milkshake protectively.

Milkshake slowly pushed him out of the way saying, “I’ll deal with this, I want the rest of you to get as far away from here as you can. Balefire, you know where to go.”

He looked at her then said, “Madam Overmare, my job is to protect you.”

I watched as she put a hoof on his shoulder, she kissed him then said, “Your job is to protect the ponies who live in Stable 28. Now, get our ponies to safety, that’s an order.”

“Who said I was going to let any of you get past me?” I asked, my horn glowing.

“Let them pass Aquila and I’ll stay,” Milkshake said, holding her head up high.

I chuckled to myself a little. “I don’t need you to give me permission for you to stay or not. None of you can do anything to stop me.”

Milkshake didn’t back down though she took another step forward saying, “Maybe not, but if I order my ponies to attack, they may create enough of a distraction for the rest to get away. You may be able to find us again, but I’m willing to risk it if I can. You killed a great deal of my ponies already, I’m not going to let you get what’s left.”

I’m not sure why, but something in her tone made me rethink what I was doing. In reality I really didn’t need to kill any of them, I just wanted to. At this point they were more of a distraction for me more than anything. So, I let out a sigh, saying, “Right now, I have better things to be doing. So, I’ll make you a deal.” and before anything else was said, I teleported Balefire, Milkshake and myself to the outside of the cave.

A few of the ponies who managed to escape the tunnel screamed when we appeared, most trying to get as far away as they could without going into Green Mist Valley. Milkshake looked around then back at me, saying, “What the hell did you just do? Why are we out here?”

“No Milkshake, it’s my turn to talk.” I used a spell to keep them from talking. “Like I said, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let all of your remaining ponies who escaped live as long as you give up your own life, or you and your buck friend can go free and everypony out here dies.”

I lifted the spell on Milkshake alone, once I did, she said, “My job is to protect my citizens. If I have to give up the life of my foal and my own life then so be it.”

Balefire started to shake his head, trying to say something to her, but I kept the spell on him as I said, “Deal, your life for the lives of the phones who escaped.”

She looked over at Balefire, saying, “Get the rest out of here, that’s my last order.”

He shook his head and I lifted the spell on him so he could say, “I’m not leaving you here!”

“Yes, you are,” Milkshake said, her composure finally breaking a little as she continued, “I love you Balefire, now please, go.”

I started to laugh as Balefire kissed Milkshake before, saying, “Yes…Madam Overmare…I love you.”

I watched as the young pony went over to the frightened ponies and started to lead them into Green Mist valley. As he left he took one look back at first Milkshake then me, his eyes promising he’d pay me back for this one day. He could try, but he’d have no better luck than the rest of the fools who lived here. When they were gone I turned back toward Milkshake then lifted her with my magic and turned her to look toward the cave that lead to her old home.

“Now that we’re alone tell me what you see Overmare,” I said.

Her eyes went wide as she saw my trap, more ponies were stuck just on the other side of a barrier I placed at the mouth of the cave. Just like on Level 9, the ponies were trying to get through it. She started to shake in my magic. “You said you’d let the ponies who escaped go free.”

“I did, and I always keep my word, just ask your friend Shadow. You see that tunnel is still part of Stable 28, so technically they didn’t’ escape,” I said as I started to activate another Spell.

“They couldn’t escape because you blocked the entrance!” she screamed.

“Escape is escape, my deal still stands!” I said with a mad laugh as I activated my spell. Ponies screamed as I used my spell to cave in the tunnel that led to Stable 28. I also let the barrier spell fade right as dust and rocks slammed down on the ponies who were so close to escaping the place they used to call home.

The ground shook as the tunnel gave in, a few moments later nothing was left but a pile of fallen rocks and a single pony half stuck under a huge bolder. I chuckled a little as I saw that it was the old Pip-Buck Technician Tinker. Milkshake started to sob as I held her in my magic, still forcing her to look at what I just did to the rest of her citizens. “You didn’t have to do that!”

I moved us both closer to the pile of rubble then slammed her down right next to the dead old stallion. “I can do whatever I want Milkshake.” I placed a hoof on her head and slowly put my weight on her, “You know it’s funny, this pony, Tinker, I did the same thing to his daughter a few years back.”

I saw her eyes go wide. “Facet was killed in an accident.”

I giggled as I said, “No, I didn’t like how she was trying to force Shadow to do what she wanted. So, I blasted her with some of Shadow’s magic, she slammed into the wall of the Catacombs and a rock came loose. Now her father dies the same way. Too bad, he was a nice stallion, even if he was pathetic.”

“Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?” Milkshake asked.

“You didn’t do anything apart from being friends with Shadow. I’m doing this, because she didn’t live up to her end of our deal. This is punishment, so if she ever gets hold of this body again, which I’m sure she won’t, I want her to suffer as much as possible,” I said as I moved my hoof away from her and lifted her in my magic again. I lifted her higher then tightened my hold around her throat.

Milkshake started to gag as I slowly cut off her air. Her hooves started to kick as I slowly applied pressure to her throat, watching the life slowly fade from her eyes. I could feel the mare’s heart beat through my magic as it tried to work harder to keep the mare alive. Then something inside of her made me stop, three heartbeats. One was Milkshakes, but in her belly where I knew she was carrying a foal so why can’t I seem to keep choking the life out of this mare, and why did I feel three.

Closing my eyes, I activated another spell that would allow me to see deep inside of her womb. When I opened them again I could see not one, but two little figures inside the mare. They were still small and didn’t look anything like foals just yet. I couldn’t even tell gender, but still there was two foals growing inside of the mare. Two small heartbeats flashing like little lights in my vision. As I looked at those small lives, something inside me seemed to grow warm and a single word came to my mind and I couldn’t help saying it out loud. “Innocence.”

I dropped Milkshake who started to cough and gag on the ground, holding onto her throat with one hoof. After a minute she looked up at me saying, “I thought you were going to kill me?”

I did want to kill her, but why can’t I? I took a step back not understanding what came over me. Then it hit me, it wasn’t Milkshake I couldn’t kill, it was her foals, her twins. They may grow up one day to be just as screwed up as the rest of the pony race, but right now they were Innocence. I couldn’t kill something that hadn’t done anything bad yet. That other part of me wouldn’t let me, not matter how deep I pushed that light away. I wasn’t strong enough yet, not until I got the rest of my power.

“Your foals are the only reason you’re still alive Milkshake. I’ve had enough killing for one day, but I promise you, that if we see each other again, I’ll make sure to make you wish you were dead,” I said as I turned to leave the last Overmare of Stable 28.

“Aquila!” Milkshake said. “What did you do to Shadow? I know you’ve been living inside of her, so if you have Shadow’s body, then what happened to Shadow?”

I took one last look at her, hatred on my face. “You’ll never see her again Milkshake. She’s trapped in her own world right now, slowly forgetting everything that happened to her. Now get the FUCK out of here before I decide to change my mind.”

She glared at me. “I’m going to get my friend back, mark my words Aquila. That body belongs to Shadow, not you. I don’t care if it kill me, my foals or Balefire, I won’t let you keep what’s hers!”

I just sighed, feeling tired already. “It’s already to late Milkshake.” And with that, I teleported, leaving the angry looking mare far behind.

***

A few hours passed since I left Milkshake behind, I was now making my way toward Spitfire’s Flight Academy. Just down the path I could see the ponies who guarded this shit hole just beyond their fence. Just beyond that point laid the power source for Falling Shadow’s. The project I needed if I was going to get my full power. I could kill the ponies here, but right now I needed them alive. I can’t let anypony find out that I came here. It’s time to use another one of Shadow’s tricks, stealth.

I made my way up to the top of a hill that had an okay view of the base. From here I could see the small building Nightshade showed Shadow. I waited until the ponies walking by were far enough away from it, before I teleported. I appeared right in front of the small building and quickly hooked up the Mark II to the terminal that worked the door lock. It only took a moment for it to hack past the security system and let me in. A thump came from the door then it swung in slightly. I pushed it open quickly then shut it again behind me, so far so good, no pony saw me get in. Now I just needed to get past the second terminal. When Shadow came here with her father and Aura, Nightshade used some kind of passcode to unlock the lift that led down to the power source. It was voice activated, but Grim was able to get down there as well, so the Mark II should be able to get past the security of this terminal.

“I hope this works,” I said as I hooked the Pip-Buck up to the terminal.

This took a little while to figure out, the Mark II could get past the security if there was a pass code that was typed in. The problem was that a voice needed to be used and it had to match that of Nightshade. I could use magic to make my voice sound like his, but as I looked deeper into the programing I saw that wouldn’t work. Whoever built this terminal knew what they were doing, it would know if the pony speaking was using magic or not to say the pass phrase. So, using the Mark II I dug deeper into the programing. Then I found it, a back door into the terminals systems. It must have been set up so the terminal could be accessed if something happened to the last pony programed to use it. Once that was found all I had to do was use the Mark II to activate the lift and back out of the program.

I smiled as the lift showed up once the fake wall disappeared. I got in and waited as the lift shot down the shaft. It didn’t take long for me to find myself in the hall that led to the main chamber. The barrier meant to keep ponies out wasn’t a problem at all. Nightshade only told Shadow she couldn’t get past here because he didn’t want her to know her family’s history. I’m sure even Grim was able to get past this. I passed through with no problem, Shadow’s body serving perfectly as a mask to the Bypass spell.

I made my way to the huge door then down the second lift once it opened and down to the lowest level of the chamber. I took a moment to look over at the platform that connected all the mega spell chambers together. So much power concentrated in once place, too bad it wasn’t enough for what I needed. I learned that when I tried to pull its power in before to take over this body. Easy power taken can just as easily be lost. I turned away from the platform, soon I’d be able to use it, but not yet.

I walked up to the overlook, used the terminal to open the door once I gave it the pass phrase that Nightshade used then walked in. The room was just as much of a mess as it was before. That worked in my favor, I pulled the box that held the diamond out of the bag I took from Stable 28. I took one last look at it then sighed and moved it over to a broken terminal. I placed it deep inside the broken screen so it would be out of sight. Even if Nightshade did come in here while I was away, he shouldn’t find it.

Once that was done I took a long look around, something about this place reminded me of that blue unicorn…Minuette. She used to talk to me while her and that zebra worked in the other lab. I could hear some of those old conversations now as I looked around this small room.

“What am I?” I’d asked her after my first year stuck in that chamber.

Minuette had smiled, saying, “I’m trying to figure that out. You see, Noire thinks you’re a creation of the stars!”

“What are Stars?” I asked.

The zebra looked over at us, saying, “Min, why do you keep talking to that thing? It is bad enough you have it contained down here, if you knew the things creatures like her are able to do then you would not be so friendly with it.”

Minuette had just rolled her eyes then said, “Don’t listen to him, he still thinks the Stars are evil.”

“They are!” the zebra said as he worked on something.

“What is evil?” I asked. I liked it when Minuette talked with me, when she was around I couldn’t feel the pain and suffering going on in the world outside.

She took a moment to answer that. “It’s hard to explain, simply put, evil is something that enjoys hurting others or destroying.”

“Am I evil?” I asked.

“I don’t think so, I believe that you are a symbol for hope. That’s why your name fits so well Aquila. That constellation that we saw bright in the sky the night we created you was called Aquila and to the zebra’s it means hope,” Minuette said with another huge smile. She really did like to smile a lot.

“How am I hope and you didn’t tell me what stars are?” I asked.

Her eyes got wide. “Oh I have so much to tell you about the stars from what I learned from old zebra books and scrolls. As for hope, with your power and your help we will be able to stop the suffering going on in the world outside. Wouldn’t you like to make the world a better place?”

I moved around the dome I was trapped in happily. “You mean I can help stop all the bad feelings!?”

“I sure do!” Minuette said.

“Yes! I want to fix everything!” I said excitedly.

I sighed as I remembered that day. I was still developing my mind and my soul back then. Though that day was when I started to grasp the idea of what I was made for, that was until the last time I saw Minuette. Three days before the mega spells destroyed the world outside. That was one of the worst memories I had.

I was resting inside my dome when Minuette came through the door. I was surprised to see her, she only stopped by once a week to check up on me, but I hadn’t seen her in a lot longer than that. The last time I did see her it was with her mare friend. They had used a new machine to pull a little of my power into a gem. She told me at the time it was needed to start a project they called Falling Shadows. After they left, no pony visited again, I was starting to worry that I was no longer of any use to them, that was until Minuette came through the door.

She looked terrible, her mane was all over the place, her eyes were sunken in and she looked like she was sick. At the time I just assumed that she had been working to much. That was until she looked over at me and I saw a bit of madness in her eyes that and I could feel extreme pain, depression and anger coming off her. My glowing ball of light moved closer to the dome’s glass as I asked, “Minuette, are you okay?”

One of her eyes twitched, “No…no I’m not okay Aquila.”

“You look sad, what’s wrong?” I had asked.

She sniffed. “She’s dead…”

“Who’s dead?” I asked.

“Amethyst Star…she was killed. Murdered in Canterlot three weeks ago…or was it four?” she said slowly walking around the lab.

“I’m so sorry Minuette, what can I do to help?” I asked. I knew what dead was, but I didn’t understand yet that it couldn’t be fixed, or the pain it caused the ponies who were left behind.

Her head snapped up toward me again. “No…no you can’t help me, nopony can now Aquila. She died, just because of this war…that zebra loving pony took away my love. I’m alone now.”

“You’re not alone Minuette, you have that team you told me about and your son,” I said trying to make her feel better.

“Dwarf Star? I can’t even look at him without thinking about her…I named him after her in a way. He’s so little, so wonderful, my little star. But now I can’t even be around my own son, it hurts to much. We were so close to having a normal life, away from all this death and pain,” Minuette said as tears fell down her face. “And what does the General do, NOTHING. Night Stalker only cares about his own family, his feelings for a fucking griffon that he tries to hide from all of us, he only cares about his FUCKING project. This Falling Shadows is nothing more than a mistake!”

“Minuette, why are you so upset? I thought you wanted to do this project?” I asked.

“That was until I saw what this Project could really do. General Night Stalker has no IDEA what he’s created, and I helped! I only wanted to make things to help my land, not destroy it or the lands of the Zebras. I just wanted an end to the pain, and end to the war, not this,” she said then looked back at me. “I never wanted to make something like you!”

I recoiled from the look she gave me, saying, “I thought we were friends?”

“I have no friends! Not anymore, but I do care about you Aquila, maybe not as a friend, but as something that needs to be kept safe,” Minuette said starting to pace. “I have to make sure Night Stalker’s plans never come to completion, I already did something to make sure he can’t activate it, but I don’t know how long that will last. Sweetie Belle didn’t tell me how her…Mark II I think she called it…works so I’ll need a plan B.”

“What is a plan B?” I asked, worried that she was going to do something to me.

She started to laugh. “I’m going to show Twilight Sparkle what the boss has been planning. She’s smarter than I am, she’ll know what to do about Project Stargazer and Falling Shadows, I just know it. First, I need to make sure no pony messes with this place, not unless I say so.”

I watched as Minuette started to draw on her magic. “Minuette what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to destroy this lab so no one can ever make another creature like you,” Minuette said, then she started to blast the equipment in the room.

I screamed and tried to get as far away from the destruction as I could in my glass cage, saying, “Minuette what are you doing!?”

“Stopping the evil, I helped make…” she said, then proceeded to destroy everything she could. At one point one of the support beams fell and cracked my dome, It would later break and lead to me having to become a crystal to keep myself alive.

But once Minuette was finished she slowly walked toward the door. She took one last look at me, saying, “Sorry Aquila, but I needed to do this. Don’t worry I’ll come back for you. Just remember that you are good, and you’re meant for more. You can’t leave this room, not yet. If you did, you’d die, so wait for me and when I come back, I’ll have something you can use for a body. Because that’s what you need to become what you need to be.”

That was the last time I saw the blue unicorn. Even though she left me that day, I could always feel her in the world. I learned early on how to find her magical signature. She could be on the other side of Equus and I’d still be able to feel her. Three days after she left, Equestria died. I almost went mad from all the pain I felt that day, all the horror and sorrow, all of the death. Then two days after that, something happened to Minuette. I can’t explain it, but it felt like she was pulled in to something, something made out of extremely powerful magic.

Her magic itself never went away, but something did change about it and from then on, it would fade until I could barely feel her, then she’d be back. That went on for many years until fifteen years ago, when Minuette’s magic seemed to become what it once was, only a lot more powerful. I hoped even then that she’d come back for me like she said she would, with a body that I could use to do what I had to. She never did, so when Grim came with Shadow and I felt a bit of Minuette in them both, I thought that maybe she sent them.

I shook my head trying to make the memories stop. Minuette abandoned me just like everything else. She didn’t send Shadow to me, it was just luck that Shadow was related to her. Maybe that’s why Shadow’s body fit me so well, she was descended from the mare who got to know me so well and spent years around my power. From what I could tell, any of Minuette’s family that had enough power could deal with my power inside of them. Grim would have worked fine, if she hadn’t started to use that zebra magic. She had no idea that it was killing her slowly. Oricalcos I guess would have worked even more, but he became a slave to darkness, a darkness that I knew all too much about.

“Enough of this crap,” I said as I banished the thoughts. “Now that’s hidden I need to go pay Grim another visit.” Then I yawned, oh I forgot, ponies need to sleep. “Fine, tomorrow then.”

I made my way over to a pile of discarded blankets in one corner of the room and closed my eyes. I couldn’t help smile a little as I realized that I was about to do something as simple as sleep, and it was the most wonderful feeling I’ve felt yet. I really like having my own body.

***

Over the next day I spent my time setting up other parts of my plan. I was going to find Grim when I woke and snuck out of the chamber I was in then the base, then I decided to wait a little longer. Grim was on her way back from meeting with a synth in Los Alicorn now. I really didn’t feel liking going there just yet so I figured I’d wait till she was closer to where I am. So, I decided to make sure everything I needed was ready to go when this was all over. I’ll admit I had to kill a few more ponies as I worked. A couple in Freedom Town that tried to rob me, one near Stable 14 now going by New Appleton who thought I looked like the mare who destroyed his old town and six near another old military base south of new pegasus.

Apart from them, I did my best to go unnoticed. I was powerful, but after taking a bullet to my foreleg I knew that I was mostly mortal. I can heal my wounds, but I can’t stop death. I can fight as well as any powerful unicorn, but if enough ponies came after me…or griffons, I’d be hard set to keep them from killing me. It was toward the end of that second day that I first noticed that I was being hunted too. With a few spells I found it was none other than Aura and one of her sisters. Somehow, she was able to track the places where I’d been, apart from Spitfires Flight Academy. Three times, she almost found me and I just managed to teleport away.

It would be easier to just kill the fucking griffon, but a few things stopped me. First of all, I knew that Aura had at least fifty or sixty griffons working for her Shadow Talons now and if she died, all of them would hunt for me. I’m not powerful enough yet to stop that many griffons. Also, I had a feeling that a pegasus was working with her as well, one that could hide himself from me. Lastly, something inside of me wouldn’t let me harm the griffon. It took me a while to figure out that it was Shadow’s…soul. Even if Aura had me pinned down and was about to end my life, that soul wouldn’t let me stop her. That was going to be a problem later, if I didn’t find a way to fix it.

While I was avoiding Aura and her griffons, I managed to get most of what I needed done. Only three things were left for me to do and only one was one I could do myself. I can’t get into the Lucky Horseshoe to activate Falling Shadows. The location was too close to the part of the project that was meant to pull my power into it. Shadow could get close with me inside her, but not while I was running the show. The other problem was, I needed to know how Night Stalker tampered with the Project as well. The only pony who knew that was Night Stalker himself and he was dead.

Either I’d have to get Grim to help me somehow, or I’d have to let Shadow take over again. Maybe I was too hasty in taking over, maybe if I let her think she could hold me back, she would have done what I needed without thinking. Oh well, can’t go back in time, I’ll have to hope that Grim will help. She wanted this project as much as I do.

I was about to find a place to sleep for the night when something inside me sent a shock through my body. I stopped suddenly as the sensation ran through me. I looked around wondering what the hell just happened. “What the hell was that?” I said as I started to cast small spells to see if anypony was around me.

Nothing, I couldn’t feel anything with in miles of where I was, so what just happened. Then another shock ran through my body and this time I knew where it came from. The cage I placed Shadow’s consciousness in, something was happening. I took a moment to cast wards around myself to keep anypony away and to warn me if someone go to close. With that done, I sank deep inside myself and looked at the black box where Shadow now called home.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked, even though no one could hear me in here.

I warped the cage in my magic and felt for anything that could be wrong with the cage. It only took a moment for me to see part of the problem. One of the locks I put on this cage was gone. I looked deeper into the cage and saw that Shadow killed Vervain trying to protect her pet. What the hell would have made her do that? Shadow wouldn’t attack anypony she loved even for a pet. Something was wrong here, I set this trap up to keep Shadow trapped for a long time, forever if I could. Then I noticed something strange in Shadows little world.

Shadow liked to say that I was evil, same for a lot of others over the years, but in truth I’m not. I just have a different way of doing things, never the less, my magic is pure light magic. With that said, there are a lot of spells I can’t do because it requires darkness. I was made to purify darkness not create it. In Shadows cage, everything that I created inside it should be pure light magic. So then why am I sensing dark magic with in my cage? I took a moment to feel around the world I made for Shadow as she spoke to her Timberwolf pet. Why is she speaking to her pet as if it could understand her? My eyes went wide as I finally felt where the dark magic was coming from, not just dark magic, shadow magic.

I felt anger build inside me as I realized what was happening. I knew Oricalcos tried to do something when I took Shadow’s body, but I had no idea he was able to force himself into my head or the cage. I drew on my magic and took hold of the shadow inside the cage right as he tried telling her what was really going on. He tried to fight me, but Oricalcos was nothing compared to his former self.

“NO! I won’t let you stop me from helping her!” he screamed as I ripped him out of the cage.

“I’d like to see you try and keep me from pulling you out of here!” I said as I left my mind pulling him with me.

My eyes snapped open as I shot the shadow from my body. A moment later the shadow materialized into Oricalcos. He looked weak as he stood there glaring at me. As he did he said, “You’re too late Aquila, she knows somethings wrong in that world you made for her. She’s going to get out.”

I sighed then sat down. “So, what if she does? It doesn’t mean much anymore. My plans are in motion now.”

His eyes narrowed. “What plans?”

“Like I’d tell you. Your niece might be a fool Oricalcos, but I’m not. Over the past two days I’ve made sure that everything will be ready for me, even if Shadow does get her body back again,” I said with a laugh.

“I’ll stop you Aquila,” he said, his horn glowing.

“How? Your magic can’t do anything to me,” I said.

“Maybe not, but I know there is a way to get you out of Star,” he said with a grin.

“You mean that black book Shadow gave to Vervain?” I asked.

His eyes went wide. “You know about that?”

“I know everything Shadow’s been doing. I have all of her memories, I know what she wants to do with that book, and you’re right, it could be used to pull me out of Shadows body. The problem is, the spell won’t work unless I’m being transferred into another. Even then, the body has to be one I can inhabit for the spell to work. So, unless you know a mare with power like Shadows, then I don’t think that’s going to work very well,” I said with another chuckle.

He smiled a little. “If that’s true then I’m sure I can think of a way around that.”

“Who said I’m going to let you live?” I said. “Though I do think I’d like to see what you can think up. Honestly, I’m bored right now, so how about this, go find Vervain and get the black book from her. She’s one her way back from Frosty Summit right now. If you hurry I’m sure you can get to her then back to Grim with the book. Your sisters almost back from her trip to Los Alicorn anyway. So, go head and try, I look forward to it.”

His body turned into shadows as he started to laugh. “You’re going to regret this Aquila. I’ll be seeing you soon, and when I do, I’m getting Star back!”

I yawned as he vanished into the darkness, saying, “Sure, have fun.”

When he was gone I just shook my head and headed toward an old shack to take shelter in for the night. As I laid there on an old mattress ready to sleep, I started to plan on what I’ll need to do about Shadow breaking the locks on her cage. I knew I hadn’t put enough power into that thing, but I was in a hurry. I’m going to have to move up my schedule with Grim now and The Ministry. It’s the only way. I can deal with her tomorrow then, once Oricalcos gets her to go where I need her.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep, or at least I tried too…I was just starting to pass out when the door to the shack exploded inward. My eyes snapped open and I jumped to my hooves jumping back as a green glowing spear slammed into the spot where I was just lying. A moment later I saw none other than Aura Bloodtalon’s angry face glaring at me.

“You’re going to pay for what you did, Aquila!” she said in a menacing tone.

I was breathing heavily, I was shocked she was able to get so close to me with my wards up. She almost stabbed me with that fucking spear of hers. I took a moment to check my wards, they were still in place, so why didn’t I know she was coming? I glared right back at Aura saying, “You do realize that you almost killed me, right? If you want your lover back so bad, that’s not really a good way to do it.”

In answer she swung that spear around and almost cut my head off, but I was able to duck under it and roll away. She attacked again, but this time I teleported out of the shack. Aura turned toward where I was standing just outside the door saying, “I read the note she left me right before you took over Aquila. As much as I’ll hate myself for having to kill the mare I love, I know that’s what she wanted. She wanted you dead, and she was willing to give up her own life, her happiness for that goal. So, I’m left with only one choice, to kill you.”

I laughed as I pulled on my magic. “And how do you plan on killing me? I’m a thousand times stronger than Shadow. You’re just a griffon with an energy spear!”

She flipped the spear around then placed it on her back and pulled the sword Shadow used to have from a sheath on her side. She pointed it at me. “I’m no normal griffon, I’m one of the best fighters from the Red Talons. I’m also a descendent of Greta from the Children of the Night and I’m Shadow’s soul mate.”

I started to laugh as I readied my spell, saying, “Sure you are, too bad it won’t help you.” I blasted my spell right at the griffon.

Aura however grinned and lifted Misery up like she could block my spell with it. The silvery edge on the blade started to glow brighter than normal as my spell got closer. Then my spell split and went to either side of Aura, leaving the griffon unharmed. She started to laugh once I stopped the spell saying, “What’s wrong Aquila?”

“How did you do that? There’s no way you could stop my spell with a simple sword,” I said taking a step back, confused at what I just witnessed.

She twirled Misery around in her talons then pointed it at me again. “I’ve noticed something about you Aquila, you have no idea how to fight.”

I scoffed. “Oh, I know how to fight you freak!”

“No, you don’t, you were trapped in a lab for two hundred years. You never learned how to fight, even if you have memories from Shadow, you still don’t know how to use the skills she learned. All you have is your magic, nothing else. You see Misery isn’t a normal sword, it’s edged with a rare metal called Star Metal. It’s highly resistant to magic, making it the perfect weapon to take you down,” Aura said with a grin.

I scowled at her, saying, “I’d like to see you try and take me out Aura, even if you could kill me, you’d be killing Shadow as well and I don’t think you have it in you…”

Aura lunged, that fucking sword going right for my face. I ducked the blow only to find Aura’s hindleg coming up to knee me right in the face. I felt something snap in my nose and I was thrown back only to be caught by Aura again. She lifted my smaller frame up and slammed me to the ground, blood pouring from my nose. The wind was knocked out of me as I hit, but Aura wasn’t going to give me a chance to find my wits. Misery flashed over me then came down right for my chest. I barely had time to activate a teleportation spell, I just flashed out of the way as Misery came down for me. I appeared a few feet away another spell ready. I long strip of magic flew out of my horn like a whip, aimed right for Aura. She twisted around, Misery leading and the sword sliced through my spell like it wasn’t even there. The shock of it back fired on me making me jump back, just dodging the follow up strike from the damned griffon.

“What’s wrong Aquila, I thought you said you can fight!” Aura said as she kicked me in the chest sending me flying into the shack’s wall.

“Fuck you griffon, sooner or later I’ll get you with one of my spells!” I screamed as I fired another spell at her.

This time she took to the air to avoid the blast. She swapped Misery out for her Energy Spear, the tip of it glowing bright green. She twirled it around in her talons then slashed it down, a bright green arch of power flying down at me. My eyes went wide and I teleported again. When I reappeared, I saw the blast of green energy slice right through the shack. Aura spun in the air and dove for me her energy spear leading the way. I smiled knowing she couldn’t get her sword out in time to stop my next attack. I charged up another spell and went to fire it.

Then Aura did something I wasn’t expecting, Aura threw her spear at me, then banked to one side as my spell went off. My spell missed the flying Spear and the griffon. The energy spear flew right past my face cutting a line in my cheek and throwing my head to one side as the blade caught me on its way by. It was all Aura needed to land on my other side, knocked me onto my back then used Misery to pin me down by sliding it into my left shoulder.

I screamed in pain as Aura slowly twisted the sword. She punched me right after saying, “Shut up, and take it like a gown ass mare.”

I spat in her face then started to pull on my magic again, saying, “I’ll make you pay for this AURA!”

She punched me again making me lose hold of the spell, she moved her face down saying quietly, “I told you before that I’m going to kill you for what you did to Shadow. You took her away from me, all because you think you own her body. She’s gone now all because of YOU!”

I started to laugh. “If it wasn’t for me she would have died ten years ago.”

“It would have been better than letting you out of that fucking lab. You know what the sad thing is? Shadow felt sorry for you, did you know that?” Aura asked.

“Why would she feel sorry for me? I’m the one who was going to take her body over,” I said, confused.

“She felt sorry for what happened to you, yes she didn’t want you to take over. She didn’t want you to take away the life she was finally growing to love. She felt sorry that you were imprisoned in a lab by the Children,” she said.

“I don’t need anypony to feel sorry for me!” I said through clenched teeth.

Aura just shook her head, saying, “That’s too bad, oh well. This is goodbye Aura, it’s time for you to pay for killing Shadow.”

I grinned as she said that. “Killing Shadow? What makes you think she’s dead?”

Aura looked confused as I said this. She cocked her head to one side, saying, “You wouldn’t let her stay alive now that you have full control of her body.”

“True if I was able too, but I can’t. Shadow’s soul needs to stay in her body for me to finish what I have to. Slowly I will absorb her soul until she’s gone, but that takes time Aura. Shadow’s still here and trapped inside a special cage of my own design,” I said with a laugh. “So if you do kill me you kill her too, never giving her a chance to get free ever again!”

That was all it took, Aura’s eyes went wide and for just a second her grip on the sword slackened. Her concentration slacking for only a moment, enough for me to draw power. I stared to laugh as I used one of Shadow’s favorite spells. Energy blasted out from my body throwing Aura into the air with a scream. I took hold of the sword with my magic and ripped it out of my shoulder. I screamed myself, but managed to toss the blade aside as I drew on my magic again and used it to seal the wound as best I could.

I spit blood onto the ground as I looked over at Aura who was just picking herself up, wincing in pain as she looked over at me as well. I started to laugh as I drew on more power. “Stupid fucking griffon,” I said as I wrapped her in my magic by her throat lifting her slowly into the air. She gagged as I continued. “You want to know the funny part? I can’t truly hold Shadow back forever, she will take over again, at least for now. I just needed her body for a few days to set up my plan. Once I get my full power then I can absorb Shadow fully and keep this body for my own, but not just yet. It’s funny because I was planning on letting you live, just for a little while longer, but now I’m going to kill you. Just to hurt Shadow for all the bull shit she’s pulled.”

Aura tried to get free from my magic but I just tightened my hold on her throat, watching as she tried to breath. I grinned as I slowly squeezed more. “Goodbye, Aura Bloodtalon.”

I was about to squeeze tighter until her neck snapped when something inside me seemed to pulse. As it did I felt the connection to my magic weaken slightly. What the hell was that? I tried to kill her again, but this time that feeling inside got stronger and memories not my own or Shadows seemed to fill my head. I can’t explain what I saw, or who they were, all I knew is that it was all coming from Shadow’s soul, even as it was trapped inside the cage. My eyes went wide as my vison flickered, Aura who was still hanging in my magic seemed to change. One moment she was Aura, the next she was a male griffon, taller with more scars over his beak and face, his eyes the color of embers, feathers a light lavender, his fur white as snow.

Who was this griffon? What the hell was going on? He looked down at me and said in a weak voice, “Moon Light, I’m sorry, but I have to do this, if I don’t the kingdom will fall. I love you.”

I dropped the hold on my magic taking a step back as the strange griffon vanished and was replaced by Aura again. She landed on her talons and started to hack and cough as she glared over at me, saying, “What’s wrong Aquila, I thought you wanted me dead?”

I barely heard her, as Shadow’s soul reacted again to something and again Aura was replaced by that griffon. He was looking at me again, tears in his eyes, his body looked like he’d been in a fight. Blood soaked his fur and feathers, as I looked at him I felt an overwhelming sadness come over me. He smiled weakly, saying, “I love you Moon Light, I hope…that one day…we’ll meet again.”

“Who are you?” I asked as I took a step back.

He was gone again and Aura was there looking at me confused. “Who are you talking to?”

She moved closer and I could feel that power from Shadow filling me again. I jumped back, saying, “Stay away from me!”

Aura grinned at that. “Why? Does something about me scare you Aquila!?”

“Shadow’s reacting to you…I don’t know why…now stay away or I’ll kill you!” I said powering up a spell.

“Really?” Aura said. “Go head and try.”

I tried to fire the spell at her, but as soon as I tried to fire it, my magic just…stopped. I…I can’t kill Aura; Shadow’s fucking soul won’t let me! What is it about this fucking griffon? I can’t stay here, if I do, Shadow might get free before I’m ready. So, I drew on my magic again as I glared at Aura, saying, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll be back for your life Aura. For now, you can live, enjoy it while you can!”

Before the confused looking griffon could respond, I teleported as far away from her as I could get, for now.

***

I spent the rest of the night in near Las Pegasus, in a rundown home that the former occupants kindly lent me, right after I broke their necks. Sleep didn’t come easy though, every time I closed my eyes I kept seeing that Griffon, or I’d find myself watching as Shadow slowly took down the cage. So, instead of sleep I sat there in the bed going over what I’d been able to accomplish while I had control and what I needed to do next before Shadow got free. Shadow getting free of her own cage wasn’t that big of a deal. I could keep her locked in her own head for a while if I wanted, but then she would just become a distraction. Also, once freed, I wouldn’t be able to keep what I was up too secret from her and that was something I couldn’t afford.

“I know where two of the towers are for the project,” I said to myself as I sat there thinking. “If what Shadow learned from Striker was right, the other two shouldn’t be hard to find. One’s in the south near the badlands or in them, the other has to be in Baltimare. Those two shouldn’t be a problem for me once I’m ready, the one in Las Pegasus will be difficult to get working, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes. The last tower is easy to find, it’s in the palace in the Crystal Empire, but that one was tampered with by Night Stalker. I don’t have time to go there and find out what he did and if what I’ve learned is true, I may not even be able to do anything right now about it. That means I’ll have to force Shadow to go there herself and fix whatever he did.”

If only I had all the information I needed, but the only pony who knew everything about Falling Shadows was Minuette and I have no idea where she is. I can still feel her lifeforce in this world, but that didn’t help me find her. There has to be some way to make this work, the problem is, Shadow will fuck it all up once she’s free again. I need my own body, but I can’t just leave Shadow’s. My entire self is mostly merged with her DNA. Even if I could be pulled out of her body and placed in another, my own power wouldn’t be able to merge with another now. I’d spent to long within Shadow’s mind and body. If only there was a way to clone her then I’d be home free…

As I thought that last part my eyes went wide as something came to me. “Grim can be of use to me, more than I’ve already thought of.”

I jumped to my hooves and started to do a spell one that would help me locate the blue unicorn bitch. I’d been planning on using her to help me get Falling Shadows working with the help from the Ministry, but now I knew that there was something more she could do for me and I had the perfect way to make sure she did what I wanted. The spell only took a moment to preform and I smiled when I realized where the unicorn was. She’d met Vervain on the road back from Frosty Summit, but Oricalcos must have found them because now they were all up in that old resort. I grinned and started to pull on my power, it’s time for me to make my grand entrance.

I teleported, funny thing about teleportation, most ponies think that you can only go a certain number of kilometers at a time. That is true in most ways, the reason most unicorns couldn’t teleport very far was because the spell itself requires a lot of energy to do. You also needed to have an understanding to a small degree of where you were going and what the place was like. For example, let’s say you wanted to teleport to Manehattan and it was one thousand kilometers away. If you had the power at hoof, you could do it, but if you’ve never been there you wouldn’t be able too. Even if you looked a picture of the place and took in every detail of that picture, you still wouldn’t be able to do it. You needed to have an exact idea of what the location was like to be able to transport yourself there. Or all you needed was a memory of the place that either you or somepony else has visited. The memory of the location is all that mattered. I’ve never been to Frosty Summit, but Shadow has and that’s all I needed.

When I materialized in the large courtyard for Frosty Summit I was a little shocked at what I saw standing only a few meters in front of me. It was one of the Alicorn’s, not just any Alicorn the one with that amulet. Her horn was already glowing and a slight cocky smile on her face as she said, “Right on time Aquila, welcome to my home!”

“What the hell?” I said, then my eyes went wide as Violet activated a spell and a massive barrier went up all around the compound’s outer yard. I started to pull on my own power to blast the Alicorn into next week when something started to glow under me. Looking down I saw that I was standing in a large magical circle, one even more complex than the one those two brothers used to trap Shadow and me on our way here the first time. As the circle spell grew, my own magic started to fade and I found it hard to draw on it.

Then Grim’s voice echoed from behind me. “That should keep you from doing anything to destructive for a little while Aquila.”

“How the hell did you know I was coming?” I asked as I turned to see Grim glaring at me from the other side of the circle.

“Easy, my brother left a trace on you before he was pulled out of my daughter’s body!” Grim said, as she spoke Oricalcos formed next to her.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out where you were going to go after Aura attacked you a few hours ago. She told us what happened and we decided to set a trap,” Oricalcos said.

Violet spoke next, “I evacuated all of the ponies here so that they will not be in danger. Aquila, you will let Shadow go, if not I will force you into another cage that you’ll never be able to escape.”

I looked down at the circle then back at Grim and Oricalcos then back at Violet. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting a trap when I teleported here, but this won’t stop me. I’m not scared of any of you or your magic. Don’t you understand by now? I’m unlike anything any of you have ever seen before. My magic is nothing like you’ve ever had to deal with!”

“You think so do you?” Violet said. “I have some memories of my past life before I became what I am now. I have seen your kind of power before Aquila, I know how to stop you.”

“So do I,” Grim said from behind me. “You’re not as powerful as you think. Now let my daughter GO!”

“Your daughter? I thought you didn’t remember who she was Grim?” I said turning to face her.

“I don’t remember her Aquila, but I watched the orbs she gave me. I know who she is even if I can’t remember her,” Grim said, her horn glowing and more magic symbols appearing around the area I was standing.

I could tell that she was trying to strengthen the spell holding me here. I just yawned, saying, “You know I really didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve left me with no choice. Oh well, guess I had to flex my magical muscles sooner or later.”

“There’s nothing you can do Aquila,” Grim said as she poured more power into her spell, then Oricalcos added his own power to Grim’s same for Violet.

They were trying to overpower me, that’s so cute. I’d been holding back most of my power mostly to keep Shadow in her cage. She was about to break out anyway so no need to keep most of my power flowing into that cage. I started pull my power back into myself, building up a powerful spell. I took in a deep breath as my horn started to glow brightly. I let out my breath slowly then whipped my head down activating my spell. Lightning came down, all around the area making the ground around all of them explode. The flash of light made Oricalcos vanish in an instant, Grim was thrown back and Violet activated a shield around herself. That wasn’t all the spell did, the magic circle was destroyed as the ground broke apart around me making the spell break.

I started to laugh as I turned toward Violet, letting more power flow through me as I said, “That shield won’t keep you safe Alicorn!” I blasted her with as much force as I could.

Violet poured more power into the shield around her, the amulet around her neck glowing brightly. I kept it up starting to laugh as I saw the barrier buckling under my spell. Violet’s eyes were locked on me with concentration as she said, “I won’t let you hurt anymore ponies!”

“Funny, because I don’t see how any of you can stop me,” I said as I poured a little more power into my spell. Her barrier shattered like glass, the rest of my spell slamming into the Alicorn and throwing her clear across the yard. She slammed through one wall of the old lodge.

I turned back to Grim who was just starting to get back to her hooves, a spell on her own horn and anger written on her face. I took a step toward her, saying, “Awww poor Grim, you really thought you could stop me, didn’t you?”

In answer, she activated one of her zebra spells. Something wrapped around my legs holding me in place. As the spell took hold she said, “I’m just getting started Aquila!”

I just yawned, saying, “Grim, honestly I didn’t come here to fight you. I just wanted to talk.”

“Funny, because I want to rip you out of my daughter!” Grim yelled, putting more power into her binding spell.

“The thing is, that’s the reason I came here to talk to you,” I said as I broke her binding spell with a flick of my horn. “You can’t stand up to me, so either listen to what I have to say or I’ll find someone else who will.”

Grim flinched as I broke the spell, then she smiled. “I think you’re underestimating what we can do.”

“How so?” I asked, not really caring what she thought she could do.

“Like this,” I heard another mare’s voice say from behind me followed by her chanting in zebra.

I tried to turn so I could face the new comer, but whatever she was doing, my body wasn’t able to move. I tried to activate my magic, but even that was hard to do. I glared at Grim, saying through clenched teeth, “What the hell is this Grim?”

“Yaksha keep that up,” Grim said. “Vervain, now would be a good time for your help.”

Yaksha, that bitch zebra who helped Shadow steal some of my power? What the hell was going on? As I was trapped there, Vervain came from somewhere, she moved next to Grim then passed her that big black book Shadow got from Gigi. Once she was done she glared at me as she said, “Are you sure this is going to work Grim?”

“I have no idea, there’s only one way to find out,” Grim said as she opened the black book.

As soon as it was open I could feel the evil coming off the thing. I felt like running away from the thing, but I couldn’t. So, I said, “Do you even know what that thing is Grim?”

“I know more about the black books than you could ever know Aquila. This black book will be your end!” Grim said, then she started to form magic circles around me as she started to chant.

I’m not sure what she was doing, but whatever it was I could feel something deep inside my body slowly pulling away. My vision started to blur as the feeling intensified, she was trying to pull me out of Shadow. Is she crazy? I had to do something before she killed Shadow and I. “Grim, if you keep this spell up, you’ll kill us both!”

Vervain answered, “It’s a risk we’re willing to take.”

“You fools, I can’t be pulled out of Shadow unless I had another body to go into, one that can deal with my power! If I’m not, I’ll just rebound back into Shadow and kill her when I do!” I yelled, then screamed as I felt part of myself ripping free of Shadow’s mind.

Grim kept on chanting, ignoring me as she kept up her spell. Yaksha on the other hoof stopped her chanting, saying, “Vervain, what if she is right and this kills Shadow!”

“Yaksha! You can’t stop your own spell!” Vervain yelled at the zebra behind me, but it was too late.

Grim’s own spell was weakening me, but Yaksha’s chanting was keeping me from using my magic or moving. As soon as she stopped I was already pulling on power. I cast an expulsion spell so powerful that all three mares were thrown back, also stopping Grim’s spell. I felt myself snap back into Shadow fully. I flipped around and grabbed Yaksha with my magic and slammed her down twice on the ground, knocking her out cold. Then I turned toward Vervain and Grim, anger filling me as I took hold of Vervain and pulled her closer to me. “You’re lucky I don’t have time to deal with you right now Vervain. Now sleep!”

As I said the last, I cast a spell over her and she passed out. I tossed her over by Yaksha then walked slowly toward Grim. She was just getting up when I took hold of her with my magic. She gasped as I lifted her in the air, then she said, “So what now Aquila? You going to kill me too, just like you took Shadow away from me!?”

“What do you care Grim, you can’t even remember her. You might know who she is now, but what does that matter when you don’t even know her,” I said as I drew her closer to me.

“I may not remember her after you joined with her, but she’s still my Little Star and I’ll do anything to protect her!” Grim said defiantly.

I grinned then dropped her at my hooves, saying, “Really? Anything huh?”

“I’d even sacrifice my own life for my Star. I thought I lost her once…more than once, and I never want to feel that way again,” she said.

I stood as tall as my body would allow as I pulled a small notebook from my satchel. Using my magic, I tossed it at her, saying, “Good, because if you want her back I’ll need you to do this for me.”

“What’s this?” she asked picking up the notebook with her own magic then looking through it quickly. As she did her eyes went wide and her face paled. “You can’t be serious? There’s no way this can work.”

“It will work, I’ll make sure of it,” I said as I took a moment to make sure no pony else was sneaking up on me. “If you do that for me, I give you my word that I’ll let you have your daughter back.”

Grim took a moment longer to look through the notes I left for her, then she answered, “I…can do this I think, but there’s something you’re missing if you want this to work.”

“I already know,” I said pulling out the other thing I knew she’d need. I gave her a bloody rage I’d used to whip the blood off myself last night. “This should work for what you need. Now just so we understand each other. You do this for me, I’ll let Shadow go for good.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Grim said.

I smiled. “I never lie. I can bend the truth that’s for sure, but with this I’m telling you the truth as best I can. Do this for me and make sure to help me get what I need with this Mark II, and I’ll set Shadow free and you’ll never have to worry about me again. I have my own problems and my own quest on this world, when I get what I want, I’ll no longer need any of you.”

She sighed then placed the rag and the notebook into her saddle bags. “If you keep your end of the Bargen then fine, I’ll give you what you want, but this will take a while for me to finish.”

I thought about that for a moment then asked, “How long?”

“At least two weeks, maybe three,” she said.

“I don’t have that long right now, but I can work with it. I’ll just have to make sure to keep Shadow away from here for a while,” I said.

Grim looked at me skeptically. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that I’m going to let Shadow out early. She has her own uses at the moment, things I’m not going to tell you about Grim. You have your own job to do,” I said.

“Getting Shadow back is worth what your asking me to do at least part of it, but as for helping you with the Mark II. I can’t do that, only Shadow can get it off, but I can point her in the direction you need. If you want me to do that part, then I want one more thing from you,” Grim said.

“Oh, and what’s that?” I asked.

“Restore my memories,” she said.

“What makes you think I can do that?” I asked amused.

“If what I was told is right about how I lost them, no power on Equus can restore them. Your power isn’t from this world, I believe that you can fix what was taken from me,” she said.

I took a moment to think about it then shrugged. “If you don’t betray me, then I’ll do what I can. For now, I must be leaving you. Oh, and if you’re brother interferes with me again or any of Shadow’s friends, I will kill all of you. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, saying, “I’ll keep them away.”

“Good,” I said, then I drew on my power getting ready to teleport again when I was interrupted by that fucking Alicorn.

She landed in front of me, her horn glowing as she said, “That was a cheep trick you pulled Aquila! I’ll make you pay.”

I just rolled my eyes, saying, “I’m finished here anyway Violet, go throw your little tantrum somewhere else. I’m too busy to deal with you.”

“I’m not letting you leave this place!” she said in a low voice.

As she spoke something about her seemed failure. I took a moment to look at her and I could feel something in her that I recognized. My eyes went wide and I said, “I know you.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I know you, but at the same time it’s like I don’t know you. Who did you used to be? Before this happened to you Violet,” I asked.

Grim was watching us with a look of confusion on her face. Violet looked just as confused as she answered. “I do not remember much of my past. Most of my memories of my past are else were. Why do you ask?”

I sighed then winced as I felt the last of Shadow’s cage give way inside me. Damn it, I didn’t have the time to deal with this. So, I said, “Too bad, maybe one day I’ll help you with that, because if you’re the mare I think you are, I’d like to talk to you again. Until next time.”

Before any of them could say or do anything else I teleported. I didn’t go much farther than the ruins of Cartwheel. As soon as I reappeared I screamed as pain cursed through my head. I could feel Shadow’s cage falling apart as she unlocked the last lock in her cage. I’d have to move quickly, I needed to make sure she couldn’t get in my way for at least a week maybe more. It would take a while for her to get control again. Still, if she found her friends or ran into her mother, she could still be a problem.

I’m going to have to get her as far away from them as I can. I thought quickly trying to think of a way I could get her out of my mane for just long enough. I cursed as I tried to think of something, when nothing came to mind I slammed the Pip-Buck against one of the ruins. As I did I must have activated the Radio because Dj-Pon3 was in the middle of a broadcast.

“And still no pony has seen Security for the past two days. With her missing, ponies around Hoofington have been making more trouble for the locals. Also, there’s been reports of zebra activity growing around that area as well. So, if you’re planning on taking a vacation around that shit hole of a city children, I’d suggest you make other plans. The Hoof isn’t a safe place and with The Security Mare missing in action, things have gone from bad to worse. That’s it for the news, now let’s play one of our new tunes by a talented young mare, Velvet Remedy.”

I turned off the radio as I realized the perfect place to send Shadow. I smiled and started to pull on my magic. Luckily for me, one of Grim’s memory orbs was in Hoofington. The magic it would cost to go that far was going to be great, but I can handle it. Once Shadow was there, I’d be able to rest for a while and let her do what I needed. Once everything was set up that is. I’d make sure to keep an eye on her, from what I’ve heard through Shadow, Hoofington was dangerous, but I could keep her safe while she was there. Once enough time went by, I’d make sure she got back here.

I pulled more and more power into myself, took in a deep breath and activated the Teleportation spell. It took a lot longer than it ever had before for me to get to my destination, but I was able to do it. When I reappeared, I found myself in the same spot Grim stood years ago, talking to Striker. The amount of magic it cost to go all the way across the country took its toll and I almost passed out from the energy loss.

“Not yet, I just need a few more moments,” I said to myself as I started to use the last of my strength to change what I looked like. I wanted Shadow to think things were okay, for that I needed to make our body look like it was supposed to. I couldn’t do anything about the cutie mark, but that would go back to normal when she took control. It only took a moment or two for me to change our body back to what Shadow was used to. Once that was done I felt my hold on her body fading.

“Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, I can wait a little longer now that I know things are in place. Enjoy your freedom while you can Shadow, because soon I’ll have my own body, The Mark II, and Falling Shadows,” I said.

I moved our body closer to the edge of the road, just in case it took a while for Shadow to wake up. As soon as I got close to the bone riddled side of the road, I walked into something I couldn’t see. Whatever it was, the power in it was unlike anything I’d ever felt on this world. My eyes went wide and I screamed as unimaginable pain flowed through me, not my body, but my essence itself. Whatever it was, there was a presence inside of it, something that wanted me. Something that fed on my kind and was also one of my kind.

“What is this?” I heard a deep voice say within my head. “You feel like an old friend of mine, but yet you are not him. Altair has given you a lot of power child…I can’t wait to find out what you taste like HAHAHA!”

I screamed again then managed to move myself out of the field of power. As soon as I did I felt as if all my power had been drained from me. I made a mistake, no wonder this place felt so evil…there’s a dying star creature in Hoofington. I couldn’t even try and get us away from this place, it was too late to fix this. I’d have to hope that Shadow could get us out of here, before that thing found me…

“It’s up to you now Shadow…please don’t fuck this up!” I said as I lost hold of the body that should be mine and fell deep into Shadow’s mind…

[FOOTNOTE: NO EXPERIENCE GAINED!]

NO PERK ADDED!

Chapter 57: Invisible

“Knowing BJ, she’s probably having a drinking competition with a robot somewhere by now.”

What was I doing in Hoofington of all places? What happened while I was stuck in that damned cage Aquila put me in? How long was I even out? All of those questions were running through my head as I slowly walked down the broken-up road that led toward the looming city in in the distance. I wasn’t moving very fast, I wanted to run, but thanks to my E.F.S. I knew that would be a bad idea. On each side of the road, somewhere out in the vast field of bones, red lines were showing up on my E.F.S. From the occasional growl or cry, I had a feeling it was Ghouls.

How long has it been since I’ve worried about ghouls? I didn’t see them often in New Pegasus, and even if I did, they didn’t bother me much. My armor and weapons were capable of taking care of the monsters. Now though, I was without armor or weapons and just to add the cherry to the shit storm cake, my magic was almost useless. I could use my telekinesis, but not much else. Whatever Aquila did before I took over my body again was making it hard to pull on my magic. It almost felt like she cast too powerful of a spell and now I was left with a small amount to use. Either that or she was blocking my magic right now. Either way, it wasn’t going to get me out of this place or back to my friends.

I tried to think of everything I could remember what I heard about Hoofington since I left Stable 28, but sadly I never paid much attention when it came to talking about the place. I remembered Aura said it was evil or something like that, others said you could make your fortune here or die trying. None of that was helpful, but the one thing I did remember about Hoofington, was a mare they called Security. From how the radio ponies talked about her, she seemed to be a pony like myself, one who helped others. Though that didn’t mean much, DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus both bent the truth a little to put me in a better light. This Security pony could just be a nutjob who just happened to like killing monsters while drinking and singing shanties.

“Guess I’ll have to find out for myself what this ‘Security’ is like if I happen to run into her while I’m here,” I said quietly as I worked my way down the road. “What I really need is a weapon and some armor, hell caps would be nice too.”

The was the problem with what Aquila had done. I had nothing, even less than I had when I left my home. And if being unarmed, magically disabled and NAKED, was bad enough, it was starting to rain and get colder. More than anything I needed shelter and a way to get back home. I needed to find out what Aquila did while I was stuck in that cage. Really, I just needed to see Aura and tell her how sorry I was for what I did, then tell her everything I learned from Aquila’s…better half. I couldn’t try to kill myself again, that would only lead to Aquila taking me over once more. I couldn’t have that, and I couldn’t let her do whatever it was she was planning, she was up to something. Why else would she send me this far away?

I sighed then checked my Pip-Buck to see if the map would help me at all. My eyes went wide as I brought it up. There were at least fifteen locations already on the map. Mom never came here while she had the Mark II, so if the locations in Hoofington were marked, that meant only one pony could have been here before and the Mark II’s memory must’ve kept the information stored in it even with a new user. Sweetie Belle was the only pony apart from Mom, and myself who used the Mark II outside of Stable 9. She must’ve visited the locations a long time ago. The Mark II even updated the names of some of the places as the years went on. I still have no idea how they knew to do that. But I had to be right because I’m sure that a town far off the map from the others wouldn’t have been called ‘Meat Locker’ back during the war. At least I hope it didn’t.

I started to look through the locations closer to me, seeing if there was one that would be helpful. The closest Location on the map was ‘Megamart’ and just down the road from there was a town called ‘Chapel’, another called ‘Flank’, and a few others. There was even a couple of stables marked on the map. The one that seemed to be the closest was ‘Stable 99’. From what I could tell, Sweetie Belle herself had visited these locations during her time here. I was tempted to go check out the old stable since it was only half a day walk away. If the stable was abandoned, I might be able to at least find armor and weapons in it, at the very least have shelter for a while. But the problem was, from where the stable was located, if it was occupied and I couldn’t get in, it was too far to come back this way, at least safely.

“Dammit, I guess I’ll have to either head to this Chapel place or the Megamart,” I said, then yawned. Damn I was already tired and I’d only been in control of my body again for a couple of hours. I sighed and started walking again, maybe if I was lucky I could make it to some kind of shelter before it gets too late or before I pass out.

“Come on Shadow you can do this,” I said as I pushed on still doing my best to keep myself awake. I really didn’t want to sleep right now, because I know what I’ll see when I do. I could still feel Shining Star fighting under the pillow I placed over his face, see the fear on Night Blossoms face as her throat was cut by Wind Thrasher, feeling my friend’s fangs sinking deep into my flesh. I don’t want to relive those memories.

So, I kept going, following the road and keeping my eyes out for enemies as best I can. That was getting easier as I slowly left what my Mark II decided to call ‘The Boneyard’ and found myself closer to the mark on my map that was set at Megamart. I just hope that it’s not an old mall that’s overrun with ghouls, or raiders. Even if I didn’t have any of my caps, it’d be nice to find somepony that can help me even a little. Maybe if I was lucky somepony would know how I could get home.

While I thought about what to do, I figured I could at least see if anything was being reported by DJ Pon3 right now. I wish I could listen to Mr. New Pegasus, but his signal didn’t go this far. So, I flipped on the station and listened to a mare sing a song I hadn’t heard before. I kind of liked it, the mare had a beautiful voice and she sounded like she’d been preforming her entire life. I wonder why I hadn’t heard this song before, I mean yeah, I don’t listen to the radio that much, but I’d heard a lot of repeats so far. This had to be new, sure enough when DJ Pon3 came on he confirmed my suspicions.

Same as ever, he came back on with his in your face booming voice, “Hello Wastelanders, that was a newer song by the beautiful and talented, Velvet Remedy who recorded that new song for you here at my studio in Tenpony Tower. Now, you all know what time it is, that’s right it’s time for the News! Let’s start with what’s going on closer to home, at least for me that is. Tenpony is still surrounded by Red Eye’s thugs, keeping our scavengers and traders from getting in or out. Now, don’t you all worry about good old DJ, they’re mostly blowing a lot of smoke and some hot air. But even with Red Eye’s goons knocking on our door, I’ve still managed to get a visit from a wonderful Toaster Repair Pony once again, she doesn’t seem to have much of a problem getting past those slavers.”

He chuckled to himself for a moment, like the rest of us were missing some kind of inside joke. Then he continued, “Out in the Hoof, it looks like things have gone from bad to worse, Security herself still hasn’t been seen around the city and factions of all kinds are starting to make more trouble for the ponies around there. Just like in my earlier report, I’m advising everypony to stay away from Hoofington if you can.”

“Great, wish I could stay away, but I have no idea how to get home!” I yelled as he continued.

“Lastly, I have news from New Pegasus. I reported three days ago about a powerful magical blast being spotted closer to the San Palomino Gorge. The reports at the time were that The Courier was spotted at the center of the explosion of magic and she hadn’t been seen since. Like Security from the Hoof, nopony knew what happened to her or where she went. After three days, news has reached me through my friend Mr. New Pegasus, that The Courier may have been killed in the blast. Her companions have been seen traveling back to New Pegasus, but the little mare that became a hero to most isn’t with them.”

He was silent for a moment and when he started talking again, I could hear a bit of sadness in his voice. “Sorry Children, but old DJ’s feeling mighty guilty. Over the past few weeks I haven’t been very fair to The Courier because of some of her actions, but I’ve recently found new evidence about why she did what she did. The Town she destroyed, Appleton, was a mistake. The weapon used was something she thought was a toy or a prop gun. She was about to die from injuries she took from Pride and wanted one last act of defiance before she met her maker. She did try to stop the weapon from going off, but was too late to stop it.”

He paused again then took in a deep breath and continued, “The second time she used that powerful weapon was her idea and one I’m sure now she regrets. I still don’t have all the information on what led up to the destruction of Mill City Tower, but I do know that she wasn’t in her right mind at the time. A friend of hers almost died because of The Enclave, someone she loves with all her heart and at the time she thought that friend didn’t survive. Now I know this doesn’t excuse her actions fully, but, I do know that sometimes we all make poor choices.”

I heard him sniff again, like he was trying not to cry…DJ being sentimental? That was strange, but I couldn’t think about it much, because he continued. “We all remember what I reported not long ago with The Stable Dweller and Arbu. Now, The New Pegasus area may have lost a mare who was forced into doing things she may not have been ready for. I gave her the name Courier, I may have forced this pony into trying to do good, to do better, to help ponies when all she may have wanted was to live a normal life. After starting her on that path, I didn’t put much faith in the young mare who bore the Duster of Equestrian Express, who helped save Cartwheel from raiders, the mare who gave it her all to protect ponies she’d never met before. I do hope you’re alive and well Courier, I hope the reports about your death are false, and if you’re still alive I want you to know, you have my respect and my apologies for not believing in you. I’ve watched the good you’ve done for New Pegasus and the ponies around that area, I’ve even watched as you helped The Enclave work out a truce with The Kingdom and more. So has Mr. New Pegasus, he believes in you too and if you’re still alive, I hope that one day I can meet you, so I can get the true story about who you are and why you fight from your own mouth. Good luck, safe travels, and let the Goddesses watch over you…”

I was taken aback as DJ didn’t even announce his next song, he just cut the transmission of his live feed and started up an older Sweetie Belle song without even a goodbye. I was even more shocked that he recanted his other reports about me being dangerous to The Wasteland. If I ever get out of Hoofington, I think I’ll take him up on his offer. I’d like to give my side of the story for once and let the ponies across The Wasteland know the truth, my truth, not what others think is the truth. One day, I’ll get my story out there for everypony to hear, that is if I survive this place and Aquila. That was what I had to deal with right now, so I kept on moving.

As I walked down the road I noticed a building set just off the road. From what I could tell by my E.F.S., no pony was in the small place, but from the look of it, it was only recently unoccupied. I moved closer and saw a sign over the building saying ‘Pony Joe’s’ and my Mark II kindly dinged, words in my E.F.S. confirming the location. I heard thunder in the distance and a few more drops of rain started to fall on my muzzle as I got closer to the place. I sighed again and figured it’d serve as a place to spend the night at least.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside the building. My nose was hit right away by the smell of death and decay as soon as I passed the threshold of the small building. From what I could tell, the place was clean, at least to what a Wastelander would consider clean, but by the smell I had a feeling that somepony had cleaned this place up a little and not too long ago. I did my best to ignore this however, and as soon as I stepped inside rain started falling harder outside. I was going to have to deal with the smell for now. I took a moment to check the place out.

One thing I never did often since I left my stable was scavenge for stuff. From what I knew of most ponies that lived in the Wasteland, scavenging was part of survival. I’d been lucky in my travels and never really saw a need to. A good chunk of what I gathered before now had been fed to me on a silver platter. But now, I needed anything that would help me while I was out here. I started looking through anything I could, trying to find loot. While I was searching around I found bits of this building’s past. The building turned out to be a restaurant, though nowadays food service would be a problem with the destroyed tables, smells of decay and mold and death, can’t forget about death.

I checked the cash register first, and found nothing. So, I moved on to the cabinets and apart from a couple of rotting packets of food, a can of cram, and one prewar bit, nothing was worth taking. Even the pre-war bit wasn’t worth much. A small bag of bits could be sold at most merchants for a few caps, but it was mostly worthless coin. From what I knew, they were mostly used to get Sparkle Cola bottles out of old vending machines. I still took the bit just in case, and moved to check under the tables, in a broom closet, under the counter, and even in the stove I found in the back. Nothing at all, I guess ponies had already looted this place a long time ago. I was about to give up my search when something glinted from just under the stove.

Bending over I saw that an old security baton was lodged under it. Using my magic, however painful, I pulled it out and looked over the long metal stick. It looked like it came from a stable, but I couldn’t tell which one. It’s in terrible shape too, but it could still be used to hit something if I needed it to. Luckily for me, Aquila had acquired a satchel while she was using my body, so I had a place to store my few treasures…okay one gold bit and a rusty almost broken baton may not be ‘treasures’ to most, but to me it was better than nothing.

I made my way back to the front of the restaurant and decided to use one of the booths to serve as a bed for now. I noticed as I made my way back to the front that there was a little blood on the floor that somepony missed when they were cleaning this place and I shivered. Whatever happened here, I didn’t want to know. So, I settled down in the booth and closed my eyes, but I didn’t sleep. I needed rest, but sleep wasn’t something I was going to let happen. I’ll just close my eyes for a bit and try to think of a way to get home.

***

“Mom can you tell me one of your stories tonight!” Shining Star said to me as he jumped up and down at the kitchen table.

“I guess I can do that,” I said smiling. I got up to follow my son back to his room, then everything changed, my son was struggling under the pillow I was holding down over his face. His little hooves were trying to hit my forelegs away as he struggled to breath. My heart was racing as I pushed down harder, doing my best to hold back the tears as my son’s life slowly slipped away.

(CRACK…BOOM!)

“NO!” I screamed as I jumped up from the booth, the nightmare I was just having still fresh in my mind. I looked around trying to figure out where I was, then it came back to me, I was in Hoofington. Lightning flashed again just outside the cracked windows as a storm raged on outside. Another loud boom filled the night a moment later. I noticed then that I was freezing, a draft was coming in, dropping the temperature in the small building. I shivered then got back to my hooves trying to see if I could find anything I could use as a blanket, with no luck.

I shook my head still trying to forget the memory from that fucking cage Aquila had me trapped in. I could tell myself until I was blue in the face that it was all a dream, none of it was real, but my mind could remember every detail from that place and it felt real enough. As the wind howled outside and the lightning struck echoing thunder across The Hoof, I noticed something strange. A small thumping noise coming from the back of the restaurant. I pulled the shitty security baton from the satchel and slowly made my way to the back.

Peaking around the corner and turning on the Pip-Light, I checked to see what was going on. From what I could tell, nopony was there, then I saw the back door shaking with each thump. I lifted the baton higher in my magic as the door shook again, then said, “Who’s there!”

The thumping stopped as a high-pitched giggle came from just outside the door, “Hehehehehehehehehehehehe!”

“I warn you, I’m armed in here!” I said taking a step back from the door. I waited for a moment, but no pony said anything. “Hello!”

Nothing happened. “My minds still playing tricks on me,” I said as I sighed and started to put the Security Baton away.

(Crash!)

The window in the front of the shop blew apart as somepony came crashing through it. I twisted around and saw somepony getting up from the ground. It was a mare in torn leather armor, she was covered in small cuts from crashing through the window and she looked like she lost her mind a long time ago. She smiled at me and giggled insanely as she limped toward me.

“Hehehe, I’m so hungry, aren’t you hungry!?” she said, moving closer to me.

I noticed that one of her forelegs looked like she’d been chewing on it. Some of her flesh was even missing and her leg looked infected. I took a step back as I said, “I am, but I don’t have any food.”

She licked her lips and giggled again, sending a chill up my spin. “I see plenty of food, hehehe, you have plenty of flesh on you.”

“Stay away from me,” I said, lifting the baton.

She pulled out a rusty hunting knife, “It’s okay, I can make it quick, I’m…so hungry!” then she charged me…well tried to. That bad leg of hers made her move slower than I’m sure she could’ve before.

I dodged to one side as she attacked, my magic bringing the baton around to crack her in the back of the head. She pitched forward, her face meeting the edge of the counter. A sickening crack filled the room followed by a spray of blood. The mare fell to the ground, her knife sliding away from her body. I picked it up with my magic dropping the baton at the same time my magic still crippled, backing away from her.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you!?” I asked as the mare twitched then slowly turned her head to look over at me. I shuddered as I saw her ruined face. Her nose had been smashed in and a few of her teeth were knocked out. one eye was swollen and looked ready to pop right out of her head.

She tried to say something through a shattered jaw, “H…gry,…ysuhs.” Then she tried to get up, but something was very wrong with her. She only got one hoof under her before she fell again and giggled through her bloody muzzle. I took the knife she dropped and jammed it into her good eye, putting an end to her giggling and her suffering.

Ripping the knife out quickly, I backed away from her still twitching body. I sat back against the wall shivering from the adrenalin rush. I closed my eyes letting it pass, ignoring the wind and rain coming in through the now shattered front window. After a few moments passed, my body started to calm down. I took in a deep breath then got back to my hooves. “Okay Shadow, you can’t keep moping around like this. You need to get home, somehow. I’m the Courier for Goddess’ sake, I can get through this.”

I moved over to the body of the strange mare and started to see if she had anything I could use. Sadly, the mare didn’t have much on her, no food, no meds and her barding was useless in the state it was in. She did have some caps though, about fifty, but hell I had none, so every bit helps. I looked out back at the raging storm and sighed. “Guess I have no choice, no telling when this is going to let up and I really don’t want to stay around here.” Before I left I picked up the baton I dropped and put it into my satchel.

I walked out into the pouring rain looking down and my pip-buck setting a marker on my map for the icon labeled Megamart. Ignoring the rain, I started to make my way down to the road, keeping my eye on my E.F.S. After the encounter with that strange mare, I wasn’t going to take any chances. It was one of the smarter things I’ve done so far, I hadn’t even gone a full mile when no less than ten red bars showing up on my E.F.S. I stopped when they did and pulled the baton and knife out of my satchel, ready for anything. My head throbbed a little from my magic’s weakened state, but I ignored it.

My blood went cold as I heard that same chilling giggling coming from down the road. This time from multiple throats. Lightning flashed in the distance and sure enough I could just make out the silhouette of at least ten ponies in the distance. I moved off the road slowly, keeping both my weapons ready in my magical grip, the painful part of the headache passing. I started moving slowly, unsure what I was going to do if these ponies were like the mare I killed back at Pony Joe’s. I made my way slowly toward where the ponies were, keeping off the road so they wouldn’t see me.

As I moved closer I could just make out one of them speaking over the wind and rain. “Where did Wiz get off to this time?” I felt a bit of Déjà Vu as memories of an encounter much like this, when I first left Stable 28 hit me. The Raiders I killed and later found their friends hunting me.

Another stallion giggled to himself then made a slurping sound like he was sucking something wet through his teeth. “Hehehe, no idea, she said she was hungry. I think she went hunting.”

The first stallion growled, saying, “We’re all hungry, that doesn’t give her an excuse to go off on her own! Even with Security missing, we still need to stick together!”

I lowered myself down more, watching as they walked by on the road. Lightning flashed again in the distance, illuminating them again. I could see even from here, that they were almost as disheveled as the mare had been. Most of them in ruined leather armor, except the one in the front who had metal armor on, he must be their leader. Out of all of them, he looked better than they did at least and seemed to have most of his wits about him. They were almost past me when the leader pony stopped.

A mare in the group looked around for a moment then back at the leader saying, “Hehehe, boss what’s with the hold up?”

He looked around for a moment then said, “Somepony’s here.”

“Lots of ponies here boss,” one of the others said, giggling insanely, “Got a bunch of us followin’ ya.”

He turned around and slammed his hoof into the ponies face. “I know that shithead! I meant somepony else!”

The pony who the leader hit giggled more. “What’s got your panties in a bunch boss!?”

My eyes went wide as I watched the leader pony slam his hoof into the other again and again, saying, “I’ve warned you time and time again to keep your muzzle shut!” He kept stomping until the other pony’s head was nothing more than a puddle of goo and bones, then he chuckled a little to himself, moved his muzzle down and ate a chunk of the pony’s brain, I felt my stomach turn witnessing that and I almost threw up. “Time to eat everypony, but make it fast.”

I had to put a hoof over my muzzle as every one of them descended on the twitching body. Thank the goddesses for the dark night, because I could barely make out the sight of them ripping flesh off their dead companion. Even when the lightning flashed in the distance, they were mostly shadowy silhouettes. Nothing could be done about the sound though, I listened as flesh was ripped from the body, ponies chewing on meat, and that insane giggling in between bites.

The leader took a few small bites himself, but let the rest of his horde feast. While they did he started looking around as if he was searching for me in the distance, it was then that I noticed, as lightning flashed again, a Pip-Buck on his foreleg. That realization hit me right as his eyes locked on my position. He started to chuckle as he slowly walked off the road, “Hahahaha, what an unlucky day for whoever’s out there. Why don’t you come out and join us, there’s plenty to go around, I promise.”

I knew I couldn’t hide from him, not with that Pip-Buck he had on. So I said, “No thanks, I’m not much for eating the flesh of ponies.”

He chuckled to himself again. “I was like that once, but I have to admit, it’s grown on me over the past couple of weeks. I’ve even managed to keep most of my sanity, unlike most of my companions here. Now come on out of there and tell me who you are. You sound like a young mare to me, we could use some new blood.”

“I’m just trying to get to Megamart, I don’t want any trouble,” I said, still trying to keep myself out of his sight.

“Megamart huh. Not much there right now after the attack on Security a few days ago. What’s your name sweetheart?” He asked as he slowly made his way closer to me.

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t really feel comfortable giving my name to this stallion, so I lied, “Silver Snip, why?”

“Silver Snip, it’s nice to meet you, my name’s Ditch, I’m the leader of this small band of what ponies around here call raiders. I’d be willing to let you live if you come with us and join my crew. I do have room at the moment seeing as how my companion here decided to come down with a case of stupidity and death,” he said with a chuckle.

“I’m sorry…Ditch? I’m not looking to join any Raiders today, just leave me alone and be on your way, I won’t tell anypony what I saw,” I said.

He laughed again, and said, “I’m afraid that you only have two choices, either you join us, or you become tomorrow’s lunch.”

One of the mares broke off from her meal and walked over to her boss, “Boss, maybe she knows where Wiz is.”

“Good point Jest,” he said looking back toward where I was hiding. “I may have a third option; my wife Wiz went off ahead of us and we haven’t seen her for a few hours. If you know where she’s at, or even where she was heading to, I’d be fine with letting you leave. She’s going a little mad sadly, but I love her dearly and I want to make sure she’s okay.”

I could feel myself shiver as I thought about the crazy mare I killed, “I…I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”

I really didn’t want to deal with these nutjobs right now. I would’ve teleported away, but I didn’t know the area at all and I don’t even think I could deal with that spell right now. Ditch seemed to sense something was wrong because his chuckling stopped as he said, “You have no idea huh? Strange, because I’m getting a feeling you know exactly who I’m talking about, I can hear it in your voice.”

“I didn’t see any mare, not alive that is. I wanted to stop for the night in a small restaurant on my way down here, but it looked like a fight broke out. There was a dead mare in there so I decided to keep going.” I lied hoping they would buy it.

“Brown coat and an Orange mane?” he asked.

“Yeah that’s sounds like the mare I saw,” I said deciding to keep the lie going by adding another. “Somepony wrote something in her blood on the wall, said something like, ‘Don’t mess with Security’. I’m not from around here so I have no idea who that is, but I took it as a sign not to linger.”

The mare from before took a step back from her boss saying, “Security boss, I thought she was missing? We should get out of here before she finds us!”

The Boss pony didn’t seem like he was buying it however, in fact he looked enraged as he took a few steps forward, “Security huh? Funny because what I know about that mare she’s not one to kill one raider and leave a message like that behind. I’m thinking you killed Wiz, and now you’re trying to keep us from killing you.”

Okay I’m done with this shit, I took hold of my weapons again and jumped out from hiding. The leader pony was ready however, he moved his foreleg with his Pip-Buck up and blocked my attack, the baton broke as it cracked down on the hard casing of his Pip-Buck. I took a step back shocked for a moment as the metal shaft of the baton flew into the night. The Leader just grinned at me saying, “Hello there!”

He slammed his hoof into my face, throwing me back a few feet. I rolled as I landed and came back up with the knife I took off Wiz, grinning a little as he advanced on me. “You know at first I was scared of dealing with you strange raiders, but honestly I don’t see much of a difference between you or the ones back at home.”

He grinned like a mad pony, and said, “You have no idea what you just got yourself into. In Hoofington we eat ponies, all ponies that aren’t one of us. You my dear, look like a delicious treat!”

“Maybe, but I think you’ll find me a little harder to take on than you think,” I said, acting more confident than I felt. Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do. I got lucky with the raiders in Cartwheel, and then I had help from Sapphire and Stardust. I slashed the knife at his face, but he jumped back then twisted around and tried to kick me in the face. Luckily for me it was still raining and he slipped on the ground and losing his balance.

I took the opportunity to run like a little bitch. Yep, that’s right, Shadow Star the Courier, so called hero of New Pegasus is going to run away from a bunch of crazy cannibal raiders. Aura would call this a tactical retreat, but I called it what it really was. I was a scared mare who knew I couldn’t risk fighting all of them with no armor and an old knife. I only got as far as the road before a shot rang out, a bullet ripping through my rear leg. I screamed as I fell to the ground, blood spraying the ground as the bullet tore through me.

“Kill this bitch so we can get out of here!” I heard the Leader pony say.

I tried to pull on my magic to cast an expulsion spell, but yet again, nothing happened. I knew I was fucked now, I twisted around as I heard some of the raiders running toward me, giggling like mad ponies. One jumped for me, and I jammed the knife into his eye. I ducked under another’s clumsy attack and slashed his rear hooves as he landed, then I stabbed another pony when he got too close. A bigger stallion grabbed me around the neck trying to strangle me, I slammed my Pip-Buck into his face. He screamed through shattered teeth, letting me go as he did.

I twisted around so I could stab him while he was otherwise distracted, a hoof came around and caught me in the throat. I was thrown back gagging and hacking for air as I fell to the ground. One of the raiders landed on top of me giggling madly as he started to strangle me. Another opened his muzzle getting ready to rip into the flesh of my foreleg. I tried again to activate one of my spells, but my stupid horn didn’t seem to care that I was about to die and be eaten. Nope, my horn wanted to go on vacation, have a few drinks, meet a nice mare or stallion, have a little fun. It didn’t seem to care about the mortal danger I was in right NOW!

The pony who was about to bite my leg was only an inch away when something slammed into him throwing him back. Before I could even register what happened, a curly red tail wrapped around the neck of the pony on top of me. His eyes went wider for a moment as the tail tightened around his throat and his grip on my throat slackened. For a moment I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until I saw blood flowing down his body. Then I saw what looked like razor wire that was worked into the tail digging into his flesh. His body flying off mine as, whoever, just came into save me throw his body away.

I coughed and looked over to see a mare with a cream-colored coat and red stripes on her body, a bushy main and tail, attacking the Raiders. She had hoof claws I could tell and moved like a demon. She used one of her hoof claws to decapitate a mare who tried to charge her. Before the body even hit the ground, the mare bucked a stallion so hard, his face caved in on itself. She laughed as another pony tried to slam a pool cue into her, but she ducked under it then gutted the pony, his guts falling to the ground in a heap as he screamed in pain.

As the mare slaughtered the raiders, I got back to my hooves, picked up the knife and ran to assist. At least my magic was able to still hold my weapons. I jumped on the back of another pony knocking him to the ground. As he fell I buried the knife into his skull. The mare looked over at me as the stallion fell and grinned. “Nice one kid,” then she twisted around and sliced through the neck of another pony as he tried to charge her.

I turned to find where the leader pony went, only to see him aiming a rifle right at the mare who was finishing off the last of his friends. I started to yell, “Watch out!”

I was too late, by the time I opened my muzzle, the leader pony fired. The mare was just turning to see what I was saying when the bullet went through her head. She collapsed like a sack of potatoes, her blood joining that of the ponies she killed. The rain was letting up now and only a small drizzle was coming down as I looked at the body of the strange looking mare who saved my life, only to die trying.

I rounded on the leader pony who seemed to be the only one left alive, “Why the hell did you do that!?”

“Do what!? Hahahaha, take out that bitch? She killed my companions, what should I have done!?” he said aiming the rifle at me, his muzzle on the bit trigger. “Now it’s your turn!”

“Goddesses damned fucking asshole! I hate it when they shoot me in the head!” I heard the mare say from behind me.

The raider boss and I both looked to see the mare getting back to her hooves, a pink glow coming from the hole in her head. She started to choke then gag and cough until she spat a bloody bullet to the ground. What the hell is she? I’ve only seen one pony who can take a bullet to the head and live to tell about it and that was my uncle. He wasn’t even made out of flesh and blood so he made sense. If I was scared, the raider pony was even worse. He dropped his rifle and pissed himself as he took a few steps away from the mare who was popping her neck glaring over at him.

“You’re that Reaper,” he said.

She smiled and made a little bow, and said, “Rampage at your service, I’ll admit you’re a lot better off than most raiders around here. I don’t know if you’re really lucky not to be as far gone as the rest of these guys or really unlucky because you ran into me and shot me in the head.”

“What are you?” I asked taking a step back as well.

She looked over at me for a moment. “Quiet kid, let me deal with this shit eater first,” she said, then looked back at the leader. “I’m gonna go with unlucky, because…” she lunged at the stallion who tried to turn and run, but he wasn’t even close to fast enough. She slammed him into the ground then started to pound his face into the ground as hard as she could. “I really hate it when ponies do that! Do you know how much it fucking hurts!? No? It feels like THIS!”

His face was already nothing but a bloody smear on the ground, but she kept on ramming his head into the ground until it shattered into a bloody pile of goo. She sighed then got off the leader pony’s body and sat back. She pulled a tin from a bag she had and popped a couple of pills or something into her muzzle and chomped down on them. I was about to take another step back when she spoke again.

“What’s your name kid?” she asked as she looked back at me.

“Who me?” I asked, shaking a little as I watched the mare go from a killing machine to calm in a matter of seconds.

“You see any other fillies around here?” she asked, her pink eyes seeming to look deep inside of me.

“Silver…Silver Snip,” I said, still using the fake name of my dead mare friend.

One of her eye brows went up, “What’s your real name?”

“That is…” I started to say, but she cut me off.

“Listen, my head hurts and I’m not in the best of moods right now. I can tell that you’re lying. I don’t know why you think me knowing your real name will matter so much, but I hate being lied to,” she said.

“How did you survive that bullet to the head!? There’s no way any pony can live through that!” I said trying to change the subject.

“Long story and most of it I don’t even know or understand. Let’s just say that it’s impossible to kill me, trust me I’ve tried every way I can think of to do it and nothing sticks. Now what’s your name and why is a filly wandering this close to Pony Joe’s during a storm at night?” she said sounding tired.

“Fine, it’s Shadow Star or just Shadow, I really don’t care,” I said. “and for why I’m out here, to be honest, I have no idea, I woke up here a few hours ago. I was trying to find a place where I could find somepony that could help me get back home,” I said.

She laughed, “You chose a shitty place to wander then kid.”

I frowned, “I’m not a kid, I’m an adult I’ll have you know…Rampage…what kind of name is Rampage anyway?”

She laughed again. “So you’re just a shrimp then, and I chose my name since I don’t remember what mine used to be. It fits my lifestyle. Now why are you out here.”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” I said with a sigh, sitting down a few feet away from her.

“Try me kid…I mean Shadow…I’ve seen some fucked up shit over the years and even more so while traveling with my friend Blackjack,” she said getting to her hooves. You can tell me about it while we walk.”

“Thank you for the help and all, but do you think you can point me in the right direction to find someplace where I can find a pony to help me get home?” I asked

“I’m not sure if somepony in Megamart can get you home, but I can at least show you the way.”

I got up as well but hesitated. “You’re not just tricking me into following you so you can do something to me later are you?”

Rampage laughed again then shook her head. “If I wanted to do something to you Shadow, you’d be dead already.”

She started to walk down the road, the bodies of the fallen raiders forgotten. I followed asking, “Then why did you help me?”

“What, would you have rather I left you to the raiders?” She asked.

“No, I was just wondering why you came to help. From what I’ve heard about Hoofington, ponies around here don’t do that often,” I said.

“Most won’t, or some will only to make you a slave after and others would join in to help the raiders so they can eat you,” she said with a laugh. “But I helped because I saw what I thought was a filly in trouble. I don’t like it much when foals are being hurt, I try to help them whenever I can. Honestly you’re lucky I came alone.”

“I would’ve been fine if I had my armor and weapons,” I said with a sigh.

“Where you from anyway?” She asked.

“New Pegasus,” I answered.

“New Pegasus huh? I heard that place is kinda nice, shit I feel sorry for you being all the way out here,” Rampage said, her pink eyes looking over at me.

“New Pegasus is nice mostly, but it has its problems just like everywhere else in The Wasteland,” I said.

“Yeah I’m sure, but comparing a place like New Pegasus and Hoofington is like comparing a paper cut to jumping into a wood-chipper,” she said with a laugh. “Trust me I’ve tried it, not a fun feeling.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sure you did.”

“Shadow you saw me get shot in the head, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, and I can’t explain what I saw, but there has to be some trick to it,” I said.

“Not really, just a rock shoved into my gut that keeps me alive. It’s a pain in the ass too, been trying to die for I don’t know how long now. Nothing takes sadly,” she said with a laugh.

“That’s kind of morbid,” I replied.

“You have no idea. So, tell me about you, how’d you end up in this shithole?” she said as we walked. “And don’t lie to me, I’ll know, if you do lie, I’ll bite an ear off.”

I sighed. “Okay, but you won’t believe me,” and as she laughed again I started telling Rampage about myself…

***

“Okay, you’re right, that story does sound way too fucked up to be real,” Rampage said as we got closer to a huge building with ponies going in and out, “But you didn’t lie to me. So, this thing inside you sent you all the way out to Hoofington, why?”

“Wish I knew, I have no idea what she was doing with my body while she was using it,” I said. “I just want to get home and make sure my friends are okay.”

“I get that, but if you’re friends are as tough as you make them sound, I’m sure they’re fine. That griffon friend of yours sounds like she’s tough,” Rampage said as we made our way down to what had to be Megamart.

“She is, but she also has a tendency to do stupid stuff when someone she cares about is hurt,” I said.

“Now that is something I’ve seen a lot lately. Blackjack will jump into the stupidest situations to keep her friends safe, even me and I can’t die. It’s annoying to be honest. She thinks just because she has mechanical legs and is the famous Security Mar, that she’s invincible. It’s like she forgets that she nearly died only a few days ago,” Rampage said as she pushed past a stallion who was looking at weapons set up on a table just inside the huge complex.

Following I asked, “Wait, your Blackjack friend is that mare being called Security? I’ve heard about her in New Pegasus a couple times, though I don’t know much about her. I don’t listen to the radio much to be honest, I get sick of hearing the things I’ve done, getting praised by DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus.”

“You sound like Blackjack, she hates that shit too, I think it’s funny. So what strange name did Dj Pon3 give you?” She asked.

“The Courier,” I said then ran into Rampage’s rear.

She’d stopped moving when I said that, she’s turned to look at me saying in a dangerous voice, “The Courier? The Psychotic pony who killed hundreds of ponies in a town she blew up and did the same thing to a tower in the Midwest Courier?”

I just rolled my eyes. “Yes, and in my defense, I didn’t mean to kill the ponies in Appleton, the weapon I used I had no idea what it did. The second time it was against The Enclave when I thought they killed my Griffon friend.”

For a moment I thought Rampage was going to do to me what she did to the raiders, then she smiled and shrugged. “I’ve done worse so has Blackjack. It’s The Wasteland, shit happens,” she said.

I was taken aback by that. “Seriously, that doesn’t bother you at all?”

She just chuckled to herself before saying, “Oh don’t get me wrong, what you did is still stupid and demented in a small way, but worrying about it can’t fix it. From what I can tell, you’re not the kind of mare who wants to cause wanted destruction on ponies who are just trying to survive. Though I can say that DJ Pon3 doesn’t hold you in his high graces anymore.”

For some reason that made me smile. “Good, because I don’t really care what he thinks about me. As long as he’s not going out there and telling stories about me then I don’t care what he thinks.” Then I remembered the broadcast earlier, “Well, you may be wrong, he reported something about me a little while ago and it sounds like he’s okay with me again…damn it.”

“One thing I can say about him, he doesn’t lie, he only reports on things he believes to be true,” Rampage said as she pushed past a few more ponies who were in her way, then turned sharply to her right walking toward a yellow mare. “Hey Bottlecap, got a second?”

The mare looked over at us, I could see that she had three bottle caps for a cutie mark. “What do you want Rampage? I thought you went off to find BJ?”

“I did, but then I ran into this shrimp being attacked by Raiders near Pony Joe’s. She’s trying to find her way home and I figured if anypony knew somepony who could find her transportation It’d be you,” Rampage said with a cocky grin.

She looked Rampage over. “Goddesses you stink, and you’re covered in blood and guts again. Couldn’t you have at least washed some of that off before you came into my place?”

Rampage just laughed. “Thank you, and no, the rain stopped before I got a chance to shower. Now can you help Shadow or not?”

Bottlecap finally looked down at me. “I’m not normally in the business of helping lost fillies find their way home. Especially stable ponies. Which stable did you wander out of because I know that there aren’t any active ones anywhere near The Hoof.”

I was about to ask why she thought I was a stable pony then I remembered the Mark II. I sighed saying, “Stable 28 is where I grew up, but I’m not from a stable per-say. Also, I’ve been away from my stable for over two months now and I’m not a filly dammit…I’m just short!”

Bottlecap laughed. “Damn, she’s a cranky one isn’t she?” she said as she looked back at Rampage.

“Been fine around me,” Rampage said with a shrug. “Now c’mon, I know you know somepony that might be able to help her, I don’t have a lot of time to stick around here, I still need to find out why Blackjack’s been gone for so long.”

“Knowing BJ, she’s probably having a drinking competition with a robot somewhere by now,” Bottlecap said before looking back at me and sighing. “Follow me to my office…Shadow was it?”

“Yeah, Shadow Star, but everypony just calls me Shadow,” I said.

“Don’t worry Shadow, you’ll be fine with Bottlecap, but if you need a place to stay for a few days, head to Chapel and tell Charity that I sent you,” Rampage said turning to leave.

“Thank you for the help Rampage, but is there anything I can do to repay you?” I asked before she could leave.

She looked back over her shoulder asking, “Think you could kill me?”

That took me by surprise, but I ignored what I felt about her odd request and shook my head. “I don’t think so,”

She shrugged, “Then I guess there’s nothing I need from you. Good luck Kid…I mean Shadow.”

“I hope you find your friend,” I said as she pushed her way through the ponies again.

When she was gone Bottlecap led me to a small office, sitting down at an old desk then took a moment to look me over. Finally, she sighed and leaned back asking, “So where are you from and how do you intend to pay for your trip home?”

“New Pegasus, and I’m not sure how I can pay for the trip home, but I’ll do whatever I can to pay for it,” I said.

Her eyes went wide at that, “Wait a second, you’re from New Pegasus? How the hell did you get all the way out here and why?”

“It’s a long story, best way to put it, I was taken here by somepony and dumped not far from that old restaurant,” I said, I wasn’t going to bother telling her about what really happened. Rampage had a hard time believing me and she’s fucking immortal.

“Slavers? Or did you piss off some Enclave pony, or were you part of a caravan?” She asked.

“None of those things, I’m just a mare who works as a Courier for Equestrian Express,” I said, not thinking the name of Box Tape’s courier business would mean much out here.

I was wrong, Bottlecap’s eyes went wide as she said, “You’re that Courier? A little shit like you worked for Old Box Tape and has been going around helping the ponies in that area?”

Okay, having Rampage know about me was one thing, now this mare knew who I was just by the name Equestrian Express. I cocked an eyebrow, asking, “Why do you think I’m The Courier? Do I look like a mare who could go around blowing up cities and taking down raider camps?”

She looked me over again. “Not really, but that doesn’t mean much to tell you the truth. As to how I know you’re her, that’s because I know that Equestrian Express hasn’t had a courier before ‘The Courier’ for almost a year. My father used to do business with Box Tape back in the day until one day the old buck just couldn’t find anypony to take a job with him due to the raiders around his town. Then one day we hear about some mare in one of his dusters taking down that same camp, later we start hearing all kinds of stories about this mare saving ponies or blowing up towns and later a tower and more. I keep up with all the news feeds I can. Makes for good business if you know what’s going on around The Wasteland.”

“At least you’re not calling me a crazy pony or want me dead,” I said with a sigh.

“I don’t, but I know there’s a price on your head from The Enclave and a few Steel Rangers,” Bottlecap said.

“Wait, I have a bounty on my head?” I asked, then thought about it. “Okay, maybe that’s not too much of a shock. I have pissed off The Enclave more than once and a few Steel Rangers as well. Honestly I’m surprised that I haven’t had any problems with bounty hunters yet.”

“Normally you would,” Bottlecap said leaning back in her seat. “From what I’ve heard about the bounty, both of them, some group has made it known that if any bounty hunter tries for the bounty, they’ll kill them.”

“A group of ponies are protecting me?” I asked.

“I don’t know much about them, all I know is that they are renegades of The Enclave. They must be tough ponies to scare away anypony from taking on a twenty thousand cap bounty.”

My eyes went wide. “Twenty thousand!?”

She laughed, “That’s just the one from The Enclave, they want you dead or alive at this point. The one from the Steel Rangers is forty-five thousand, but you have to be taken to them alive and all the way out to Los Alicorn.”

That took me by surprise, not the Steel Ranger bounty. Sure, I didn’t know that Wolfsbane had that many caps, but it was The Enclave one that I couldn’t understand. Dad’s the head of the council. He leads Stratus and Nimbus, also he was in charge of overseeing The Crystal Empire and the Twin Cities. They couldn’t put a bounty on my head without me knowing, unless… “When did the bounty from The Enclave start?”

“Three Weeks ago, around the time you destroyed that tower in Whinnieapolis,” Bottlecap said with a shrug.

“Damn, so it wasn’t recently,” I said, I thought that maybe dad figured I was gone after Aquila took over and thought that having me killed was the best way to save The Wasteland. Morbid, but effective, he was thinking about the ponies in The Wasteland and not just his own daughter or feelings.

“Why do you sound so disappointed?” Bottlecap asked.

“Because, I know the High Council pony for that area. He’s a friend of mine and he wouldn’t let any of his pegasi put a bounty on me. Unless it was done three days ago,” I said.

“Why does three days or three weeks matter?” she asked.

“It’s a long story, but if this was set up three weeks ago, then who put out the bounty?” I asked.

She turned away from me in her chair and started to rummage through a file cabinet behind her. After a few moments passed she pulled out a sheet of paper and placed it on the desk. “Here it is, take a look for yourself. Honestly I didn’t see a need to post this thing around here since you were so far away.”

I looked down at the paper laying in front of me, I saw a very nice drawing done of me right in the middle of the paper, wanted poster I guess, though the picture did show me with my long pony tail still. On the top I saw in bold letters,

Wanted
Dead or Alive
Reward: 20,000 Caps

I took in a deep breath and continued to read the rest of what was written under my sketch.

Shadow Star
A.K.A. The Courier

Crimes: murder, treason, theft, massive destruction, terroristic activities, possession of dangerous items, torture and being extremely annoying.

Known to be traveling around The New Pegasus area, but has also been seen near the Twin Cities and The Kingdom.

Shadow Star is extremely dangerous and known to travel with a freelance griffon, a rogue dashite, and a monster bat pony.

She is to be taken dead or alive and her body to be brought to any Enclave Skyport near New Pegasus for Verification. Payment will not be given out if her items are not with her body. If the requirements are met, ask for Sergeant Winter Frost or Captain Strife.

If she is taken in by a dashite alive, that dashite’s crimes will be forgiven.

I slammed my Hoof down on the wanted poster. “Goddesses fucking DAMMIT! Of course, it’s Winter Frost, that fucking Pegasus just can’t leave well enough alone and where does he get off putting up a reward like that?”

She shrugged, “No idea, I don’t know much about this Winter Frost. The other pony however, I know her well. Captain Strife is a mare who runs some of the black ops missions for Thunderhead, though she’s only been around that cloud city for a couple of years. Originally, she’s from Stratus, comes from a long line of ponies who’ve run things in that city. Her father was one of the High Council who died in Mill City Tower if I remember right.”

“So, she’s working with Winter Frost to take me down, because I killed her dad? Okay, at least she has a good reason, Winter Frost though, he just hates me because I locked him up in some cells in the basement of an Alicorn’s Lodge home. Oh, and I did kill most of his team and humiliate him when he tried to kill me a few weeks back,” I said.

“You locked him up in…an Alicorn’s…Basement? And you lived to tell about it?” she asked sounding shocked.

“Oh, the Alicorn I know isn’t bad,” I said with a wave of a hoof.

She cocked her eyebrow at me. “I’ve never met an Alicorn who’s not brainwashed or crazy, normally they’re both.”

“I’ve never met any apart from the ones at Frosty Summit. Violet is kind and helps ponies. She said she used to be controlled by something called The Goddess I think, but some amulet she was sent to retrieve for her freed her from it.”

“Really? I had no idea it was even possible for any of them to be freed from the control of Unity. Well, if you happen to see any around here don’t expect them to help you with anything apart from trying to make you one of them,” Bottlecap said.

“Hopefully with your help I won’t have to worry about it,” I said.

She leaned back in her chair again tapping a hoof under her chin as she thought. After a moment she said, “The problem is that it’s very rare for traders to even go to New Pegasus. I know one caravan who makes the trip, but they won’t’ be back this way for at least another month and a half, maybe longer. With Red Eye’s slavers in Fillydelphia and the Alicorn problems near Canterlot and Maripony a lot of ponies don’t like making the trip. Even if they did, most of the land between New Pegasus and even Canterlot is either mostly unpopulated land with a lot of dangerous monsters or run by half mad tribal ponies. Even if I knew a caravan who would make the trip, it would take you at least a month or more to make it there on hoof.”

“What about flying? Isn’t there some Dashites around here who could get me there on a Skycarriage or something?” I asked.

She laughed. “First of all, the only dashite I know around here is a friend of mine named Glory and she can’t go flying off anywhere anymore. Thunderhead doesn’t make Dashites very often so they’re rare. Even if you could make it to Manehattan you’d still have a hard time finding one. The other problem is, you don’t just find sky carriages lying around. Lastly, The Enclave around here wouldn’t let you get away with flying one, they’d shoot you down before you got past Flank.”

“So, what you’re telling me is, I’m screwed?” I asked.

“Well how did you get here? Why can’t you just use that same way to get back home? Even if you were taken here by somepony, I’m sure a mare like you could find a way to use that mode of transpiration to get home,” she asked.

“I was teleported here,” I replied.

“Sure you were,” she said laughing. “I may not know a lot about magic, but that’s a long way to go for somepony to just teleport.”

“Trust me, I was, and it’s too long and complicated to explain. Let’s just say that I can’t go back the same way,” I said with a sigh.

“Then I don’t think I can help you, I might be able to get you as far as Manehattan but that’s it…unless…” she broke off what she was saying and started to dig in the filing cabinet again.

“Unless what?” I asked.

She finally seemed to find what she was looking for and pulled out a huge book. She placed it down on her desk, opened it and started looking through the pages, finally she stopped on one and smiled a little. “Unless you don’t mind working with a slightly mad and strange stallion and his equally strange crew.”

“How mad and how strange of a crew?” I asked.

“Well he’s mostly harmless, same for his crew, unless you’re in a fire fight with him, then you’d better hope the Goddesses love you. He’s a Sky Pirate that calls himself Captain Gunny. He has a couple of loose screws and talks in the third pony, but he’ll do just about anything for the right price. He’s the only other pony I know who’s made trips to New Pegasus and even Los Alicorn in the past, isn’t scared one bit of The Enclave, alicorns, ghouls, monsters, you name it. He’s also a pony of his word, if he makes a deal with you and you don’t double cross or lie to him, he’ll get you home,” she said with a smile.

“There’s only one problem, I don’t have many caps, hell I don’t even have my guns or armor. How can I pay this stallion to get me there?” I asked.

“That’s the best part, you see Captain Gunny owes me about five thousand caps right now for goods. He’s been avoiding me because he’s had bad luck with getting loot over the past couple of weeks. If I can get him to agree to get you home, I’ll forgive his debt,” she said shutting the large tome.

“And you’re going to do this out of the goodness of your heart?” I asked, skeptical of such a kind gesture.

She laughed again. “Hell no, I’m just going to hire you to deliver a few things for me. Finding a good courier is next to impossible around here and with recent events, I can’t get some of my goods delivered to Chapel. Also, I’ve had a few things stacking up that I need brought to a few towns out that way. A package to a small settlement near Manehattan called New Appleloosa, two letters for a couple of ponies in The Kingdom, and a few things I meant to send out with that caravan going to your area. If you do this for me I’ll pay your way home by forgiving Captain Gunny’s debt, I’ll also throw in a few weapons and some armor to help keep you safe.”

That was the best thing I’ve heard all day. I smiled and said, “Deal, so when can I leave with this Captain Gunny?”

“Last I heard he was headed for Flank, but he should be back around here by tomorrow or the next day. I’ll put out word that I found him a way to pay off his debt to me. I’ll set it all up then send him to Chapel, I think you should go there to first make this delivery for me and see about finding a place to sleep for the next couple of days,” she said.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that, though I’m not sure how I’m going to carry all this stuff on my own,” I said.

“Oh, don’t worry about that Shadow, what I need you to bring to Chapel isn’t big and the rest of it I’ll have loaded onto Captain Gunny’s ship when he gets here. You’ll have to go southeast first to get that one delivery done in New Appleloosa, but it shouldn’t take long, I’ll leave a manifest on who’s expecting the deliveries and which package or letter goes to who,” she said.

I shrugged. “Sounds fine to me, so who’s the pony I need to find in Chapel?”

“Funny you should ask. My friend Morning Glory, Blackjacks Marefriend. I’m sending her some meds to help a couple of her friends who’re sick right now. Though I have to warn you, Glory looks like a famous pony at the moment thanks to killing joke,” she said with an ever-growing smile.

“Really? I didn’t know Killing Joke did that,” I said.

“Neither did I, but let’s just say that she has to keep her face hidden from The Enclave right now because of it, that’s the killing joke part. If you need to find her, either check Star House just outside of town and let her know that I sent you or check with a filly named Charity in town, she Runs the General Store. Or maybe just go right to the Store, it’s easier to find and safer.” Bottlecap said, getting to her hooves and heading to the door. “Now let’s go get you some weapons and armor.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, getting up and following her out. As I pushed open the door to her office, I saw her glance at the Mark II.

“I was going to ask you before; what kind of Pip-Buck is that? I’ve never seen one like it before,” she asked.

At first, I didn’t want to say anything about the Mark II, but she’d already done so much to help me. So, I decided that a little trust couldn’t hurt, “It’s a prototype created by Stable-Tec. There’s only three of them in all of Equestria. I was told by a ghoul who was helping with this, that it was being used to test some things that were being put into what was called a Delta Model Pip-Buck. Some of the things built into this were used for the Delta Model, but he said that that model wasn’t ever put into circulation because of the Megaspells.”

“That’s amazing! How’d you get your hooves on something like that? Are you interested in selling it? I know a few collectors that would pay a huge amount for something like that,” she said.

“No, it’s not for sale and to be honest, I really don’t want anypony to know I have it. A lot of bad things could happen if this fell into the wrong hooves. It’s one reason The Enclave are after me, same for The Steel Rangers. As to how I got it, my mom left it for me when she left my stable years ago,” I said as she led me down an aisle.

“That’s too bad, but I can understand. Can you at least tell me a couple of the features it has?” she asked.

“Why do you care?” I couldn’t help asking.

She shrugged, “I know one mare who has a Delta model, I just want to see what the difference is between that and the one that was used to test its features.”

“Well I don’t know everything on it really. I haven’t taken the time to learn all I can,” I said as she led me to a weapons table. “I know it has a built-in broadcaster, it’s hacking software is better than any Pip-Buck I’ve seen or heard of, it’s impossible to steal. Hell, you can’t even get it off unless you know how and I know that all three of the Mark II’s are…” I stopped talking as something about my Mark II came back to me.

She looked back at me asking, “Are what?”

“Nothing…I just forgot something about them that I’d rather keep to myself,” I said.

“Come on, it’s not like I’m going to tell anypony,” she said.

“It’s not like I don’t trust you, but this information is secret and I don’t want to risk anypony knowing about it, not even you,” I said.

“OH fine, be that way, well let’s get you outfitted,” she said turning to the merchant to see about getting me what I needed.

As she did, my heart started to race, because I just remembered a key feature in The Mark II that no other Pip-Buck had. Something that Rusty told me about when I first went to Trotston. The Mark II’s were all linked through the M.A.S.E.B.S. towers all over Equestria. One pony with a Mark II could communicate with another from anywhere, as long as there was an M.A.S.E.B.S. tower around. I’d already seen a couple in the distance as I walked here with Rampage. I could get a message to my friends!

“Shadow what kind of weapons do you like to use?” Bottlecap asked.

I smiled as I turned back to the mare and started to tell her what I’d need to get home…

***

An hour later I was making my way toward the marker on my map for Chapel. I had a new set of Combat Armor that was reasonably strong, an okay Shotgun, a .45 caliber pistol, and an old Zebra Sword that was in very good condition. Plus, enough ammo to keep me safe for a long time. I felt a lot better than I had when I first woke up. Bottlecap also made sure to get me some food just in case I needed it and a fresh canteen filled with clean water. Megamart was far behind me now and according to my map, I’d be in Chapel soon.

I’d waited until I was far from the huge building packed with merchants to test my idea with the Mark II. I wanted to make sure I talked with at least Byte, so I could tell them where I was and how I was getting home. That’s if my friends were still alive. I was still scared that something bad happened to them while Aquila was in control. That good Aquila told me that I would get memories of what happened to my body while she was using it once I took over again, but so far, I’d seen nothing.

I saw a small path that led off the road and up toward a ridge that overlooked a destroyed town not far away. So, I headed up to it so nopony could see me while I contacted my friends. Once I was done with that, I could finish my mission to Chapel. I know that there’s another thing in that town I may be able to do while I’m there, if mom’s notes were right about Uncle Striker and his research on Falling Shadows and where he left it.

I was almost to the top of the ridge when I decided to sit down next to a small rock. My E.F.S. wasn’t showing me anypony was up here and this spot was harder to see from the road. I lifted my foreleg and used my magic to go into the Broadcaster tab. I’d never seen or was told how this was done, but I had a feeling that if I tried hard enough, I’d figure it out. Sure enough, it only took me a moment to find a section under the Broadcaster that said ‘Mark II inter-broadcast channel link’

I clicked on it and watched as both of the Mark II’s showed up on my screen. I selected Cookie Bytes Mark II and opened the channel. Text flew by in my vision as the connection was made…

Attempting to connect with Pip-Buck Mark II AB…

Connection found, checking signal of M.A.S.E.B.S. tower’s…

Signal Moderate, Towers 112, 37, 69 and 40 aren’t broadcasting properly…

Signal Strong Enough to make audio communication and location if needed…

Broadcast open, you are now on an open channel with Pip-Buck Mark II AB…

I took in a deep breath then let it out slowly and said, “Cookie Byte, this is Shadow Star. Are you getting this?”

It took a few minutes for something to happen. At first, I wasn’t sure if the message was even going through until Byte’s voice echoed out of my Mark II, “Shadow! Is that really you? Or are you still that bitch Aquila trying to play tricks on us!?”

“It’s me Byte, I’m alive and mostly well,” I said, feeing relieved as the young mare’s voice echoed out of my Mark II.

“Prove IT!” she demanded.

“How? It’s not like I can show you or anything,” I said.

“Likely story, I can’t trust who you are until you prove it to me, until then this line is closed,” she said.

“BYTE don’t close the connection I’m not sure how long it will take me to get it back!” I yelled into the Mark II.

Before she could answer me, I heard Stardust’s voice in the background. “Byte who are you talking to?”

“I’m not sure, she said she’s Shadow, but how can we know?” she responded. “HEY LET GO OF MY HOOF!”

Stardust’s voice sounded closer now as he said, “Shadow? Is that really you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes it’s me, now can you two stop with the suspicion and let me talk?”

“I’m not sure Shadow, it’s hard to know if it’s really you or Aquila. Isn’t there any way you can prove you are who you say you are?” he asked.

“No, I mean Aquila has all my memories so it’s not like I can just use something I would only know kind of thing,” I said, then slammed my Pip-Buck against a rock. “Dammit, this is bullshit, fucking stupid ass bullshit, that bitch just had to make my life even harder than it already IS!”

“Oh, well that works, yep that’s you Shadow,” I heard Stardust say.

“Huh, what do you mean? What did I do?” I asked.

He laughed a little. “From the short encounter we had with Aquila and another with Aura, she’s not much for cursing like that. I’m glad to hear your voice again.”

Whatever, if that made him trust me then I’ll work with it. “I’m glad to hear yours too. Is everyone okay?”

“For the most part yes, Aquila didn’t do much to us when she found us right after she took over. Aura had a run in with her yesterday, but for some reason Aquila ran away,” Stardust said.

“IS THAT SHADOW!?” I heard Wingnut yell in the distance then he got closer, seeming to ignore Byte’s protests. “Shadow you’re alive!?”

I chuckled a little. “I’m okay Wingnut, where are you guys at?”

“Let my hoof go Wingnut you little bug!” Byte yelled.

“In a minute Byte,” Wingnut said. “We’re at the Shadow Talon’s new base in Freedom. Aura’s been sending her griffons out to find…Aquila, after what happened with Stable 28, she’s pissed.”

I felt my heart sink as those words came though my Mark II. “What happened to Stable 28?”

“LET ME GO!” Byte said, then the sounds of wrestling came from the Mark II and finally Byte continued. “If you two want to talk to her then just talk, don’t pull my forehoof up and hold me down! It hurts, and you’re pushing me into the dirt, and I DON’T LIKE IT!”

“Sorry Byte,” Stardust and Wingnut said in unison.

I can hear Byte sigh “Stupid bugs,”

I facehoofed. “Stable 28 dammit!”

It took a minute then Stardust said, “Aquila destroyed it, we just found out a couple hours ago.”

No, that can’t be right. Why would she go after my old home? There’s nothing there that should interest her, unless…she wanted to hurt me, to make me pay for fighting her for so long. It took me a while to find my voice again, when I did, I asked, “Did…anypony make it out?”

Byte answered this time, “Only about twenty, maybe a little more, we’re still trying to find out everything that happened.”

A lump stuck in my throat as I asked the next question, the one I feared most. “Milkshake…Balefire?”

“They made it out, both of them did. Right now, the Shadow Talons are helping them get to Freedom, but they’re shaken and scared,” Stardust said.

Even though my friends survived the crazy bitch in my head, still that was still a lot ponies who died and for what? After the fight to save my home against The Unchained Talons and my crazy former Overmare, only about three hundred ponies were left. They were just starting to get back to a normal stable life, now most of them were gone. Ponies I grew up with, killed by Aquila, just so she could make me pay.

“Shadow, I know that’s hard to hear and I’m sure a lot of other things are going to be hard to take, but right now we need to help you. Where are you at?” Stardust asked.

Before I could answer, the voice I thought I would never hear again came through the speaker, “What are you three doing? There’s work to be done, I heard a rumor that Aquila was spotted near Coven.”

“Aura!” I yelled, feeling tears of joy that she was okay fall down my face.

“What was that?” Aura asked, her voice getting closer.

“It’s Shadow, she got control of her body again from the sound of it,” Wingnut said.

“Cut the connection!” Aura said, anger filling her voice.

“Aura it’s really her,” Stardust said. “I checked, unless Aquila’s gotten a lot better at acting.”

“HEY PUT ME DOWN!” I heard Byte say, I’m guessing Aura picked the filly up.

“Listen if this really is Aquila acting like she’s Shadow, I promise I’m going to find you and rip your throat out you psychotic murder obsessed she-devil whore!”

“Shut the hell up Aura,” I laughed a bit as I said that, “it is me, Shadow. Now put Byte down and please let me TALK!” I yelled.

“OW!” Byte said, I’m guessing Aura dropped her.

“Are…you sure it’s her Stardust?” Aura asked.

“Yeah, I’d stake my life on it,” Stardust said.

I heard Aura let out a long sigh then her tone changed, now she sounded tired and sad all at the same time. “Shadow…you’re okay?”

“I’ve been better, but yes I’m fine,” I said.

I could hear in her voice that Aura was holding back sobs as she said, “I thought I lost you.”

“You almost did, if it wasn’t for Uncle Ori, I don’t think I would’ve made it out of the cage I was put into by Aquila,” I said quietly.

“I don’t mean that, I’m talking about that fucking note. Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you were thinking at the time, but it doesn’t matter right now. When we see each other again, we are going to have a long talk about some trust issues. Not just with me either, Wind Thrasher wants to rip your head off for lying to her, but that can wait. Right now, I’m just glad you’re alive and Aquila isn’t controlling you anymore. Where are you, I can come get you,” she said.

“I know…and I’m in Hoofington, near a town called Chapel,” I said.

“You didn’t just say Hoofington, did you?” she asked sounding concerned.

“Yes, I woke up a few hours ago on an old highway near a bone ditch. Thanks to the help of a few ponies here, I’ve been able to secure a way back to New Pegasus.” I said.

“Shadow, you have no idea what it’s like out there, that town is crazy! Trust me, I’ve been there before, I lost Trip Wire there. I’m coming to get you, don’t leave Chapel, it’s one of the safest places in that area,” Aura said.

“Aura No!” I said. “I told you I found a way back, I don’t want you flying all the way out here. I’m safe, I’m alive and I can take care of myself,”

Stardust chuckled a little. “Shadow, you may be able to take care of yourself, but even I know that Hoofington isn’t a place you want to be, let alone trust anypony to just get you home.”

“He’s right Shadow,” Aura said. “Unless you know the right ponies to talk to, you could end up being taken by slavers. There are a lot of them around there all selling ponies like you to a mad pony named Red Eye. I can’t just let you trust some random pony to get you home. I’m coming to get you.”

“Damnit Aura, NO, stop treating me like a foal. I didn’t just hire some random pony to get me home. A mare named Bottlecap who runs Megamart out here set it up. From what I can tell, she’s a trustworthy pony,” I yelled.

“Bottlecap set it up?” Aura asked. “Well that’s different, if she’s helping you then I guess you’re right about one thing. Still I don’t like the idea of you traveling across The Wasteland by yourself with some random pony. I can get there in three or four days if I travel light, can you at least wait until I get there so I can keep you safe on the way home?”

“The Stallion will be leaving in a couple days, you may just miss us and I have to make a stop in New Appleloosa to make a delivery for Bottlecap, that’s how I managed to get passage home. If you really have to come here then at least meet me there or in a town on my way back,” I said.

She sighed then gave in. “Fine, but New Appleloosa is further than Hoofington. I know a town near Canterlot. It’s about fifty kilometers north west of there. If you’re heading toward New Pegasus from New Appleloosa then you should fly near it. I’ll meet you there.”

“How will I get ahold of you once I arrive?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you, just get there as fast as you can,” Aura said.

I smiled a little, I may not like the idea of her thinking I can’t take care of myself, but it was also very sweet of her. I could understand where she was coming from. She was scared that something was going to happen to me after what happened over the past few days. So, I said, “Fly safe, and if everything goes well, I’ll see you all soon.”

“You too,” Aura said, then she raised her voice. “Stardust, go find Solstice and tell her I need to see her. Wingnut tell Wind Thrasher to inform Grim what’s happening…”

Her voice faded as she walked away from Byte’s Mark II, when it was gone Byte sighed, and said, “It’s been nuts around here after you got taken over Shadow. Your uncle told us what he did to help you, but most of us didn’t believe it.”

“I can understand why, I’m still having nightmares about what I saw in that Cage. How are you holding up Byte?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve been able to help The Shadow Talons make this place a proper base and they’re already taking contracts. Well, the ones who aren’t trying to help Aura find you that is. Vi’s been a big help, it’s like she was born to run a Talon Company. She’s taken away most of the business from The Unchained Talons who are now working out of Crimson Canyon,” Byte said, sounding tired.

“So, The Red Talons are dead then? The company itself I mean,” I asked.

“Yeah, from what I’ve heard, Gina and Archer Aka Apollo are leading them. They’re strong, but unorganized. The Shadow Talons are doing everything they can to keep it that way, but that’s a story for another time. You need to worry about getting home, Aura needs you…we all need you…New Pegasus needs you. Things have been starting to go a bit array around here after the news went out that The Courier was killed,” Byte said.

“What kinds of things are happening?” I asked.

“The Romans pushed further into the area, The NLR lost two more bases and are now blocking the advance of the Romans near Riverpoint. We’ve been hearing that The Hidden Sands Steel Rangers are also attacking the NLR and New Appleton has been making life hell for us too,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “Just get back here and show everypony that you’re alive and help us.”

“I’ll do my best Byte, stay safe and let me know if something happens, I’ll be sure to make it so you can find me if you need to. I’ll keep the Mark II’s location to yours open,” I said.

“Okay, Rusty showed me how that feature works. I’ll contact you when Aura is leaving too. Stay safe Shadow,” Byte said, and cut the connection.

I sighed again then got back to my hooves. I was about to head back down the path to the road when I noticed something poking out from the top of the ridge. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to look into what was up there, I went to check it out. The top of the ridge wasn’t much further, it only took me a minute or so to reach it. At the top, I found an old camp site. It was small, just a single tent that looked like it was starting to rot, a fire pit, a few scraps of cans of Cram and some rotten food.

“Hello? Is anypony up here?” I asked as I drew my new shotgun and slowly advanced.

Nopony answered, so I trotted over to the tent and looked inside. A single bedroll for two was still set up in one corner, a forgotten satchel in another corner, a rotting map lying next to the bedroll, and a few more cans of Cram sitting near the map. I wrinkled my nose as I walked further into the small tent, it smelled like death in here. I looked closer at the bedroll and saw a few spots of blood on it and a black feather.

Picking it up, I looked at it closer, saying to myself, “This is a griffon feather. I wonder if a talon company from around here was using this as a place to live. It would explain so much Cram being around here.”

I wandered over to the satchel and picked it up slowly. There was a small picture sewn into the bag. It looked like a wire connected to a mine, under it the initials T.W. were sewn in as well. My eyes went wide as I remembered seeing that picture before, it was a cutie mark, Trip Wire’s cutie mark. I dropped the satchel as I realized where I was and who the black feather belonged to.

“This is where Aura lost Trip Wire,” I said as I looked around the tent more. Now that I was inside the small strip of canvas, I noticed a recorder sitting next to the tent flap and a small mat set out with tools on it and pieces of another energy weapon, half assembled. I picked up the recorder and checked it and found a recording inside it. I pulled it out then checked the satchel and found another recording inside and a few plans for some new weapons Trip Wire was working on.

I wondered to myself why Aura left this all behind. Was Trip Wire’s death really that hard on her that she couldn’t even take a few things to remember her by. I looked down at the recordings and made a decision. I popped the one from the satchel into the Mark II and let it play, as I looked around the camp.

A sweet voice started to play as I walked out of the tent. “Hey brother, it’s me Trip, I know you’re probably still pissed as all hell that I decided to run off with Aura after she was kicked out of The Red Talons the other day. Also, I know you don’t like the idea of me traveling here to Hoofington like this, but I know I can set up a good trade route out here. Aura told me about a mare that would love to have another Caravan that goes from Hoofington to New Pegasus. Her name is Bottlecap and she’s agreed to set something up for tomorrow. Listen brother, don’t be mad at Aura for this trip, it was my idea not hers and as much as I know you don’t like me falling for a griffon, just remember that you can’t help who you fall in love with.”

She went on after a moment. “I’m making you this message so you can try and calm down a little and because I love you. I also love Aura and I don’t care what she is, so please be happy for me. I’ll be home in a couple of months and by then I’m hoping you’ll get this message. I’m sending it out with the caravan that’s leaving tomorrow, after our meeting with Bottlecap. Just remember that I’m still your little sister and that I love you. We’re the only family we have, and I’ll always be there for you just like you always are for me. So please, I hope you’ll be happier once I see you again. Also, I left the plans for that new energy spear in your lab, DON’T YOU DARE MESS WITH IT! I’m planning on finishing my project when I get home, the one I gave Aura was just the prototype and I want to give her the new one once I have time to finish it. So, keep it safe for me. Anyway, I have to go, I love you Tariff, and I’ll see you in a couple months.”

The recording cut out and I felt a fresh wave of tears coming to me as I pulled it out and tucked it into my new saddle bags. She must’ve died not long after making this. Tariff never got to say goodbye to his sister, he never got this last message from her, he lived for all these months thinking that Aura was the one who made her go to Hoofington. I sighed then sniffed and said, “I’ll get this to your bother Trip, you have my word.”

The camp didn’t have much apart from a couple of bottle caps and an unopened bottle of Sparkle Cola. I was just finishing up when I noticed the small mound of dirt a few meters away from the camp. My heart started to race as I realized what it was. I moved closer to it and saw I was right, a small sign made out of a piece of wood had fallen over from the head of the grave, it read, ‘Here Lies Trip Wire, a pony who was loved.’

I ran my hoof over the small pile then used my magic to press the plank back into the ground. I sniffed again then said a small prayer to the Goddesses, finishing by saying, “Don’t worry Trip, I’ll also take good care of Aura for you. I hope you look down and see how much better she’s doing. I’m sorry you had to die so that I could find my soulmate, so thank you for loving her. Rest in peace.”

I went back into the tent and gathered the tools I found, and the pieces of the energy weapon Trip was working on and put them in my saddle bags too. Once that was finished, I started working my way back down the path. As I did, I put the second recording into my Mark II and listened to what I guessed was Trip’s last words. Before I pressed play though something about the camp was bugging me even as I walked away from it.

Aura said that Trip was attacked and raped by Raiders, but if that was true, then why did the camp look like Aura had only taken time to bury her lover and run? Maybe the Recording would help, I started it up.

Again, Trip Wire’s voice echoed out of my Mark II, only this time she sounded weak and like something was wrong with her. “Hey Aura, I know you said to get some rest, but I can’t seem to sleep. I think that food we were given by those pegasi traders was a little rotten, because I can’t seem to keep my food down now. Also, my head’s hurting really bad, and I keep hearing things.”

She started to giggle, a giggle that sent a chill down my spine as she said, “Hehehehe, it’s funny because normally I can’t stand watching you eat that Cram stuff, but now I think it looks good. I can’t seem to keep the apples down so I might try some of your food.” I heard the sound of one of the Cram cans being opened followed by a slurping sound and more giggling.

“That’s not bad, a little chewy, but I think I can get used to it…maybe I need something fresher…hehehehe. Strange, my foreleg won’t stop itching, no matter how much I bite it!” she said, then I heard a sound like flesh ripping a little. “Oh look…I’m bleeding…I can’t even feel it…why am I so hungry now? So…hungry.”

The sound faded as Trip Wire seemed to walk away from the recording, leaving it running. I looked down at my Pip-Buck and saw the recording was two hours long. So, I used my magic to start speeding up the recording. I heard nothing but dead Air. Then somepony spoke, but it was too quick to make out, so I rewound until I found the spot. It was two minutes before the recording ended.

“Trip? You still awake in there? I finished the meeting with Bottlecap and she’s willing to work with you, but she wants to meet you first once you’re feeling better. I picked up some meds that I think might help your fever and the stomach pain,” Aura’s voice said distantly.

I heard hoofs walk by the recording and Trip saying, “Hehehe, You’re…back…griffon.”

“Trip? What’s wrong and what happened to your foreleg? It looks like an animal chewed on you,” Aura said, her voice filled with worry.

“I’m…so hungry, please make it stop!” Trip yelled, her voice getting more insane sounding. “I know…I’ll eat YOU!”

“Trip what are you doing…STOP!” Aura yelled, as the sound of talon hitting flesh then a body hitting the ground. “What the hell Trip Wire, what’s gotten into you…No just stay down, something is wrong with you, just lay down so I can take a look…TRIP NO!” the recording ended there.

I was at the bottom of the path now and about to get back on the road as the recording ended. I was shaking as I processed what I just heard, Trip hadn’t been attacked by raiders at all. From what I could tell, she’d gotten sick and she was acting a lot like the raiders I ran into near Pony Joe’s. If that was true, then what happened to her? How did she die? I took the recording out of my Mark II and slipped it into my new saddle bags. One thing was for certain, Aura was going to have to tell me the truth about what happened to Trip Wire. Worse, I needed to find out from somepony around here what kind of things were wrong with the raiders in this area. Because as crazy as the one’s I’ve met are, they at least had their wits and they didn’t crave pony flesh, not like the ones here. So, I pushed on, toward Chapel.

***

The rest of the trip to Chapel went without much incident, apart from the rain that started to fall again. Unlike in New Pegasus where the rain helped cool you down from the dry heat of the area, here the humidity got worse. My combat armor didn’t breathe like my duster and barding did. By the time I reached the small town I felt like I was swimming in my own sweat even with the rain falling hard on my mane and face.

The first thing I noticed about Chapel was the church, its high steeple visible from half a kilometer away, there was a river that seemed to border the dark foreboding city of Hoofington. The city itself made me uneasy, but I’m not sure why. I felt as if something deep inside the dark place was calling to me, begging me to come to it. It wasn’t a cry for help though, no, it felt like a predator stalking its next meal. I had to rip my eyes away from the sight and keep heading into town, down the muddy streets and dark buildings. It wasn’t a big place, but Chapel did have a kind of charm to it. I wanted to go look at the church, wondering what Gods or Goddesses they worshiped, but I kept my distance. From the look of the place, something bad happened there recently. Honestly the whole town looked like it’d seen a small battle.

I did my best to ignore it and started heading for the building Bottlecap told me to watch out for. “She said it was an old post office being used as a general store,” I said to myself then I spotted the building not far from the church.

I walked over and pushed the door open, a little bell rang as the door struck it. I walked in and almost stumbled into a blue stallion. He stopped and took a step back. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said, his eyes downcast.

I noticed right away that he was not much taller than I was, maybe a few inches, more the height of a normal mare than a stallion. He had a light blue coat and a darker blue mane with a desperado hat on his head. His cutie mark however was very strange, it was the symbol for male with twenty-one dots under it. I stepped out of his way saying, “It’s my fault, I should’ve been watching where I was going.”

“It’s quite alright…my mind’s been…in a fog as of late. Are you new around here?” he asked.

“You could say that, I’m making a delivery for Bottlecap. Are you the stallion who runs this place?” I asked.

He smiled a little, but didn’t seem to have much humor in him at the moment. “No, I was just checking on something I’m waiting for. Charity said it hadn’t come in yet, unless you’re the one who has our order.”

“It’s possible, Bottlecap said it needed to be here today. It’s for a mare called Morning Glory, but I have to deliver it here with the pony who runs the store,” I said. “I’m Shadow Star by the way.”

“P-21, and Morning Glory is a friend of mine, you must have what I was sent to get,” P-21 said.

“Who’s this, and why is she tracking mud into my store?” A filly’s voice said from behind the counter.

I looked past P-21 and saw a yellow filly standing on the counter. Then I looked back at where I’d dragged mud into the shop. I blushed saying, “I’m sorry, it’s been raining for a while and I didn’t realize I got so much mud on my hooves. I’ll clean it up though.”

She gave me a skeptical look. “Were you raised in a barn or are you just stupid? Wipe your hooves before you enter a building.”

“A stable actually, but like I said, I’ll clean it up you have my word,” I said, walking back to the door, opening it and whipping my hooves on a welcome mat I hadn’t noticed on my way in. Once that was finished, I looked around and saw a broom next to another door and used my magic to pull it over to me. First, I used my magic to move the bigger chunks of mud off the floor and throw it back outside, then I swept the rest away as best I could.

When I was done, P-21 said, “Well at least you’re polite.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Normally I’m not, but I do try to clean up the messes I make.”

The filly laughed too then jumped off the desk and walked over to me. “I’ll say this, it’s not every day some random mare comes in here and doesn’t ask me where the owner is or to fetch my parents. So, thank you for that.”

I shrugged. “I travel with a couple of kids myself and they’re smart little shits, though to be honest, I didn’t know you were the owner, I just guessed when you said ‘Who is this mare and why is she tracking mud into my shop.’”

“You got a point, so are you here to buy something or are you just here to breathe the free air?” she asked, jumping back onto the counter then behind it.

“I have a delivery from Megamart, Bottlecap sent me,” I said, reaching into my saddle bags and pulling out a package. “I was told it was for Morning Glory,”

I set it down on the counter and she opened it quickly. “Sure is, and a couple of small things I asked for,” she said, then took some of the items inside which looked like medical equipment, put them into a bag then looked over at P-21. “Got my caps?”

The blue stallion just sighed then tossed a small bag of caps onto the counter. “Yeah, Glory said that should cover it and a little more for getting it to us so quickly.”

The filly counted them for a moment then picked up the bag, jumped back onto the counter and gave it to P-21. “There you go then. So, how’s Scotch doing?”

I just sat there watching as P-21’s face went from sad looking, to painful. “Glory said she’s doing better, but anything can happen at this point. But she has hope.”

The filly smiled a little. “I’m glad to hear that, well P-21 you should get back.”

“Thanks for the help Charity, I’ll let you know if anything changes,” P-21 said, heading for the door. “It was nice to meet you Shadow.”

“Likewise…” I replied, then my eyes went wide and I looked back at the filly. “Wait you’re Charity?”

The filly laughed. “Sure am, I’m guessing my reputation as a fair and brilliant shop owner is spreading.”

“No, it’s just a strange mare named Rampage said I should look you up if I ever came into Chapel,” I said.

P-21 who was just about to walk back into the rain looked back at me asking, “You know Rampage?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I know her, it’s more like she saved me from some raiders a few hours ago. She’s the one who introduced me to Bottlecap.”

The small stallion shut the door then asked, “Where did you run into her? Also did she have another mare with her? A white unicorn with robotic legs, kinda stupid, drinks too much, and has a sex drive that would make a stallion blush?”

Wow that was a lot, I frowned then said, “No, it was just her. She told me she was looking for her friend Blackjack, she said she’s Security.”

I heard Charity facehoof. “Oh, great another fan of that moron.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a fan, honestly I don’t know much about her apart from the fact that DJ Pon3 talks about her on the radio sometimes, when I do bother to tune in,” I said.

“Huh, I thought everypony around The Hoof knew about Blackjack,” P-21 said.

“Me too, hey Shadow, have you been living under a rock or do you just not know how to use that Strange Pip-Buck of yours? If that’s the case, I’ll buy it off you. I’ll give you a thousand caps for it,” Charity said.

“It’s not for sale!” I said glaring at the strange filly. “And I’m not from around here, I’m from New Pegasus. I don’t listen to the radio often because I’m sick of hearing that damn radio pony talking about me like I’m some kind of hero, or a monster, depending on what day it is. Hell, he even gave me the name The Courier!”

P-21 didn’t seem to know my other name thank the Goddesses, he just laughed a little. “What is it with DJ giving funny names to mares he thinks are heroes? First Security, then The Stable Dweller, and now The Courier. I mean you all do have names. Don’t worry though, you’re not alone, Littlepip The Stable Dweller doesn’t much like her nickname either.”

“I’ve learned to embrace it,” I said with a sigh.

Charity finally spoke up, and when she did her voice was quiet, almost like she was scared. “The Courier? But the reports said you died.”

I remembered hearing that myself, “Yeah, I heard.”

“It’s strange because DJ Pon3 reported that since the incident when you vanished in a blast of red magical light, you haven’t been seen since,” Charity said, her eyes looked like she was in a daze. “I have to tell Racer and Tide! They’re still crying in my back ROOM!”

“Wait who are Racer and Tide, and what are you talking about?” I asked as the filly jumped down to run to the back.

“I’ll explain in a minute, be right back,” she said, then vanished through the door, a second later she poked her head back out the door and said to P-21, “I thought you had to get that medical stuff to Glory!”

“She’s right, once again it was nice to meet you Shadow. Before I go, do you have a place to stay here?” he asked.

“No, not yet, I was going to ask Charity before she ran off,” I said.

“Well I’d like to hear more about what happened when you met Rampage, she’s a friend of mine, mostly, still if you’re up to it. Head up to the big house on top of the hill. I’m sure Glory would like to meet you too,” he said.

“Thanks, I’ll think about that. I’m waiting for Bottlecap to get me a ride home anyway,” I said.

“Well, hope to see you soon Shadow,” and with that, he limped out of the shop. I noticed as he went that he has a leg brace on. I guess he must’ve gotten hurt recently.

Before I could think about it more, I was tackled to the ground by a filly and a colt. The colt saying, “Is that really you Shadow!?”

I looked up to see two young faces inches away from mine. “Um…do I know you two?”

The filly gasped then looked over at the colt. “Racer! We forgot to introduce ourselves!”

They both jumped off and stood up straight, the filly was a deep blue with a teal and pink spiraled mane, the colt had the same coat color as the filly, but his mane was black and yellow. They both bowed then the colt said, “I’m Racer, this is my sister Tide. It’s an honor to meet you Courier!”

I felt a little strange to have two foals I’ve never met bowing to me. “Hey now, there’s no need to bow or anything, I’m just a normal unicorn.”

Tide’s eyes went big as she said, “No you’re not, you saved our friend two months ago.”

“I did? I’m sorry, but I don’t know anypony from this area and I don’t remember ever meeting you two,” I said.

The colt punched his sister’s foreleg. “See, I told you we should’ve told her where we come from first!”

“You did not!” she yelled rubbing her foreleg.

“Okay, no yelling or hitting you two!” Charity said from on top of her counter again. “Give her a moment to breathe and tell her where you’re from before you confuse her more.”

“Right,” Racer said. “We’re from Little Hoof, you saved our friends Honeysuckle and Wingnut from Cazadors.”

Now I understood why they were acting this way. “Oh, now I get it, you’re one of the orphans from Little Hoof. How the hell did you two get all the way out here?”

Tide looked down at her hooves and started to get teary eyed. Charity just rolled her eyes saying, “They were captured by slavers a month or so back. They were being brought to Red Eye. Their caravan was attacked by some tribal ponies I think. They escaped then managed to get a ride with traders coming this way.”

“Yeah, Tide and I liked them, until we found out that they just wanted to sell us to some ponies who think they’re royalty, as, what they called, serfs. We managed to escape again, then ran into The Crusaders. They got us here to Charity who’s been helping us make a new life for ourselves,” Racer said.

“How’s Wingnut doing?” Tide asked as I tried to ponder what I was just told.

“He’s fine, well he was the last time I talked to him. He’s in Freedom with some griffons I know right now,” I said. “You two were taken by slavers…in New Pegasus?”

They both shrugged, Tide saying, “Yeah, it happens sometimes, though normally we have no problem escaping. Wingnut was supposed to teach us how to remove bomb collars, but he got his cutie mark and was sent away.”

I remember him telling me how most of the foals in Little Hoof learned how to remove Bomb Collars to keep slavers from taking them. I had no idea how bad those kids had it, and how smart they were too. I looked at them both and smiled. “Well at least you’re safe now right?”

“Yeah, Charity’s a good filly and nice as long as you’re not eyeing her stuff,” Racer said.

“I’m right here you know?” Charity said with a sigh. “Now, why don’t you two go to the back and help the others. I’m sure Shadow has more important things to do.”

“Do we have to!?” Tide complained.

“Yes, now go,” Charity said with a sigh.

“Fine…” Racer said with disgust.

Before they could go however, I stopped them and gave them both a hug. “For luck, my friend Stardust always says that a hug can fix a lot of things. I’ll be sure to tell Wingnut you two are okay, same for the Mayor if I ever get a chance to visit Little Hoof again.”

“I’m glad you’re okay Courier, New Pegasus needs you,” Tide said cutely.

I did my best to smile, I couldn’t destroy their image of me, they wouldn’t understand that what New Pegasus needed was for somepony to put a bullet through my skull. So instead I said, “You two stay out of trouble okay?”

“Okay,” Racer said. “Come on Tide, let’s see if there’s any more snack cakes left!”

Tide went to run off, but she stopped then looked at me saying, “If you get a chance you really should go to Little Hoof. I’m not sure what’s going on there since we left, but the last time I saw The Mayor, he was acting strange. It’d be good, I think, for him to see you again.”

“It’s funny, all they’ve talked about since they got here a few days ago was how great The Courier is. Stories about how you helped their friends escape death, how you took in one of them when he was kicked out of their little town, how you’ve done everything you can to keep their home safe. They seem to think you were sent here from The Goddesses to help keep fillies and colts safe from the bad things in The Wasteland,” Charity said.

I just shook my head. “I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Honestly, I’m the lucky one when it comes to Wingnut. He’s helped me out a lot over the past two months and he’s become like a little brother to me. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“You know it’s not every day a pony like you would do that for some foals,” she said with a knowing grin.

“I couldn’t just let them get hurt…I’ve been there. I don’t want any foal to grow up in pain, not like I did,” I said.

“Thought you were from a stable?” she asked, pointing at my Pip-Buck.

“I was raised in one ever since I was six, but I was born in The Enclave. Far north in The Crystal Empire…it’s a long story,” I said.

“Sounds like it,” she said, then her eyes went wide. “Wait you’re Enclave?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I was just born there, I haven’t lived there for twelve years. Like I said, it’s a long story. Let’s just say that my mother ran away from them when I was very young.”

“Smart,” Charity said.

“Yeah, she is,” I said with a sigh, wondering if Mom managed to watch the memory orbs yet and if she was ready to believe that I was who I said I was.

“So, enough of this wishy-washy stuff, I’m here to run a business, do you need something or did my bossy older sister just send you here to be a mail pony?” Charity said.

I was going say something about Bottlecap being her sister then I saw the resemblance and the sense for business and decided not to bring it up. “I do need a couple more things, but sadly all my caps are back in New Pegasus.”

“Come on, you must have something to at least trade. I’ll even give you a fifteen percent discount, since you helped those foals,” Charity said. “Also, who leaves their caps behind when they go on a trip?”

I couldn’t help laughing at the offended tone she took when she said that last part. “I didn’t have a choice in the matter, and no, I had nothing before Bottlecap gave this armor and some weapons to me as payment for doing a few jobs for her. Even then, all I really need are some bobby pins and a new screwdriver.”

“Ah, you like to fiddle with locks huh? P-21 likes to do that kind of thing too,” Charity said. “How about this, I can give you the bobby pins and the screwdriver, all I’ll ask is that you don’t tell a soul I gave it to you. We’ll call it a donation to a good cause.”

“Why would you do that for me?” I asked.

She shrugged, and said, “I’m not called Charity because it’s cute, I like helping other fillies and colts when I can, and you seem to do the same. But don’t think I’ll always have crap you can just take. I have my limits.”

I smiled. “Thank you Charity.”

She waved a hoof then jumped back down from the counter and started to look through a box. “Just don’t make me regret this,” She said as she came back up and tossed a box of bobby pins and a screwdriver at me. “There you go, I hope it helps.”

“Thanks again,” I said as I put the stuff in my saddle bags. “Do you, by chance, know where I can stay for a couple of days? I’m waiting on a transport home. Bottlecap said I should stay here.”

“Well, I’d offer you a place here, but after the attack, I don’t have room. But I overheard P-21 offer you a room, head over to Star House and see if Glory or any of them have room. On the bright side, I’m sure they won’t charge you,” Charity said with a grin.

“Thanks, I guess…well from the look of it, the rain is letting up. I should head over there now,” I said, turning to leave.

“Hey Shadow,” Charity said. I turned to look at her, “Watch your step around here okay. There are a lot of bad ponies around right now and a unicorn like you will attract their attention.”

“Can do, see you later Charity,” I said then headed out the door.

It didn’t take me long once I was out of the post office turned trading post, to find Star House. It wasn’t that far outside of town and easy to spot now that the rain was mostly gone. I was interested to meet this Glory pony after what Bottlecap told me about her. I was also interested in finding out what she meant when she said killing joke made her look like a famous pony. I also just wanted a dry spot to sit down and try to figure out what happened over the past few days while Aquila had my body and why I could barely feel the crazy bitch.

I made my way up to the door and knocked. A mares voice echoed from inside. “P-21 get the door! I don’t want to answer it looking like THIS! P-21…where are you…P-21? Lacunae? Are you really gone too!? Why do I have to do everything around here!?”

I was about to rethink my idea of staying here when the door was thrown open and I found myself face to face, with Rainbow Dash!

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Courier Rank 1: You’ve traveled your entire journey as a Courier for Equestrian Express. So long in fact, that Ponies even in Hoofington and further have heard your name. Due to your Reputation you now gain a small discount at certain venders and get +15 to your Barter skill with every Rank in this Perk.

Chapter 58: Wish You Were Here

“Hurry up Psychoshy, we don’t have all night!”

I couldn’t help staring into the face of a mare I’d only seen in Memory orbs and on posters. The leader of the Ministry of Awesome, hiding in an old house just outside a run-down town in Hoofington. She was staring back at me, her eyes wide almost like she was expecting another pony to be at her door. Finally, she spoke, but her voice didn’t sound like that of the Rainbow Dash I’d seen in Night Stalker’s memory orbs. It was softer and sounded younger, less of an edge to it unlike the fearless pegasus from two hundred years ago. “Oh, I thought you were Charity or…why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

“Rainbow Dash?” I asked, then I wanted to hit myself in the face. Shadow this isn’t Rainbow Dash, she would be over two hundred years old and you can tell that she’s not a ghoul just by looking at her. It hit me then that this must be Glory, the mare Bottlecap told me about. So I shook my head, then said, “Sorry, you couldn’t be Rainbow Dash. You’d look all gross and ghouly.”

I heard a soft chuckle from the stairs, then P-21 saying, “I’ll admit, the joke is still kind of funny Glory.”

“Oh shut up P-21,” Glory said turning back to look at me. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m Shadow Star, P-21 said I could stop by if I needed a place to rest up for a few days,” I replied.

She sighed then glared back to P-21 who seemed to have disappeared. She sighed again then moved aside. “Might as well come in, and please don’t say that name again. I’m not her, I just happen to look like her right now.”

I stepped into the living room, looking around the place as I did. “This is a nice house. For The Wasteland at least.”

Glory stepped past me and went over to the kitchen where something was cooking on the stove. It smelt burnt and smoke was wafting up, but she just kept on working on whatever mess she was trying to create. As she worked, she asked, “So why did P-21 say you could just come and stay here? It’s not really a good time to have guests.”

I shrugged. “I figured he was being nice. I ran into him at the store that’s run by Charity. I was bringing the package from Bottlecap, she said you needed it.”

Her eyes went a little wide as she looked at me again. “You’re that filly from New Pegasus, The Courier right?”

“Yeah that’s me,” I said walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down with a sigh.

“Why are you in Hoofington?” she asked.

“Would you believe me if I said a star creature took over my body and took me here for no good reason?” I asked.

She frowned at me from the stove. “If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you don’t need to make up a strange story that sounds like a Zebra’s tale to scare fillies and colts.”

I just sighed. “Figured as much, still I didn’t intend to be here, I just woke up and now I’m trying to get home.”

“You want anything to eat?” she asked.

“Huh?” I said, looking up at her.

“Food, duh. Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Depends on what you’re making there,” I said, “I mean I’m not trying to be rude, but the smell isn’t appetizing.”

She looked down at the slowly bubbling pot, “Oh this, no this is for Blackjack, she’s…well a cyber pony now and I’m trying to make something she can eat to help keep her limbs working properly. I have a few other things that you can eat though. Our zebra friend left some strange looking meals here if you like that kind of food.”

“Zebra food! I’d love some!” I said, getting up and walking over to a place on the counter she’d pointed to with a wing. I did see a few leaves with strange gravy-like stuff on them. It reminded me a little of Yaksha’s cooking. I took a couple of things and brought it back to the table.

“Have as much as you want, I personally don’t care for them,” Glory said, turning off the stove and walking over to me, sitting down on the other side of the table.

I started eating and smiled like a filly with a piece of candy. “I love Zebra food, I have a friend named Yaksha who’s a good cook.”

She smiled a little as I ate. “P-21 told me about meeting you, though he left out the part about you staying here for a couple days. He said Rampage helped you with some Raiders?”

I swallowed with a happy sigh then nodded my head. “Yeah, if it wasn’t for her I’d be dead. When I woke up, I didn’t have any of my weapons or armor. I managed to find an old security baton at Pony Joe’s then got my hooves on a rusty knife after I killed one of those crazy ponies, that was all. It was scary, I’ve never seen Raiders like that before.”

“If you’re from New Pegasus then I’m not surprised. I’ve only encountered them here too. I’ve managed to get a good look at the brain of one after a fight with Blackjack not long ago and from what I can tell, they have some kind of virus. This virus eats away at part of their brain until they become giggling idiots who lose most of their intelligence and crave pony flesh. If they go too long without it they’ll even start eating themselves,” Glory said with a shiver.

I remembered the chewed flesh of the first Raider Wiz, it looked like she’d been eating herself. I shivered as well asking, “Are you some kind of Doctor?”

“Once upon a time yes, now I’m a Dashite. I shouldn’t be, but The Enclave seems to think I betrayed them and I was marked because of it,” she said in a sad voice.

“The Enclave’s like that,” I said.

“You would say that, most Wastelanders don’t understand what the Enclave is really like for most of the ponies who live there,” she said.

I don’t know why I did it, but something about her sad face even if it looked like Rainbow Dash, made me want to help her feel better, so I said, “I’m not most Wastelanders, I was born in The Crystal Empire.”

Her eyes went wide at that. “You’re from the Crystal Empire? That’s amazing, it’s not often you see anypony from there away from the city or Nimbus.”

I shrugged. “my mom took me away from there when I was little. She was trying to find a way to keep me alive, later we ended up in Stable 28 so she could hide from some ponies she pissed off.”

Glory grinned a little. “Your mother must really care about you.”

I just shrugged again. “She did once, now, I’m not so sure. She did abandon me for eight years in that same stable. When I escaped and went to find her, all I found was a shell of her former self, she doesn’t even remember me…well not entirely.”

Glory gave me a knowing look and a bigger smile. I felt tears start to run down my face so I looked away. Glory said, “I lost my mom when I was young too, it’s not easy I know. It’s got to be extremely taxing on you I’m sure since, you know, she’s still alive and can’t remember who you are.”

I sniffed. “I’m sorry, I keep telling myself that I’m not going to cry, but it seems like every time I try to tell myself that, I can’t stop it,” I said as I rubbed my eyes with a hoof. “Now, I’m stuck on the other side of Equestria, my friends are in danger, my family is in shatters. I have a damned price on my head from not one but TWO factions, I’m losing my mind to some fucking monster and to top it all off…Aura’s not here to tell me everything’s going to be okay.”

I couldn’t stop the tears now or the sobs racking my body. Glory got up and came over to me and to my amazement, she pulled me into a hug letting me cry into her shoulder almost like a sister or a mother would do. For a few minutes she just let me cry, let me get it all out and as my sobs quieted down, she asked, “Who’s Aura? Is she your sister? Your friend? A mare friend?”

I sniffed, but kept my face buried in her shoulder, “Mare friend…well not really a mare friend more like a girlfriend I guess. She’s a griffon.”

Most ponies when they heard or saw that a pony was with a griffon acted like something was wrong with me or her, not Glory. She just held me tighter asking, “Is she the one who’s always there for you when you’re feeling down?”

“Yeah, she’s been my rock for almost as long as I’ve been out of my stable. If not her, then Stardust, or Wingnut, or Wind Thrasher. They’ve become my family,” I said, finally lifting my head.

She smiled then looked around the house for a moment saying, “I know how you feel. My friends are like a family to me too, I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“I just wish I’d stop letting them down so much,” I said pulling away from her.

“What do you mean? From what I can tell, it wasn’t your fault that you ended up in Hoofington and it sounds like you found a way home,” she said.

I felt ashamed as I remembered what I tried to do only a few nights ago. I didn’t know Morning Glory, but something about her, even looking like Rainbow Dash, made me trust her and want to tell her more. So, I held back more tears as I said, “I tried to kill myself a few days ago…”

“Shadow! Why would you want to do something like that?” she asked, looking a little shocked.

“To keep them safe,” I said with another sigh. “What I said before about a Star Creature wasn’t a joke, I really do have something living inside of me and she’s slowly taking control. She…did take control…locking my mind in a world where she was the architect, so she could use my body. I wanted to make sure she couldn’t hurt the ponies…or griffon I love, so I tried to do the only thing I could think of to stop her. By putting a bullet through my head.”

Glory took my hoof and pulled me off the chair, “Come here Shadow, I think you need to tell me everything. It might help…a lot.”

I didn’t protest as she led me to the small couch in the living room. She made me lay down on it as she moved to sit in the rocking chair. When she was done, I asked, “Why do you want to know everything that happened to me?”

She smiled. “Because I’m still a Doctor, and I made an oath to help ponies. With the small amount you’ve told me, I can already tell that you’re suffering from a type of depression, you’ve also tried to kill yourself which worries me. I just think you need somepony to listen too. Since you can’t have Aura here, then I can do my best to help you at least in some ways.”

“Okay, but when I’m done, can you tell me more about you and the rest of your friends?” I asked.

It took a minute for her to respond, but finally she nodded, “I…think I can do that, sure.”

With that, I laid my head down and started to tell her everything. I started with me getting sick, telling her some of what I knew that I learned from some of mom’s memory orbs. I then went on to tell her about the time spent in The Wasteland when I was a foal, to my cure by Aquila, to Stable 28. I told her about my memory loss, how I had to cope with who I was and where I came from. I told her about how I was treated as a foal by the rest of the stable. I told her about how I found the Mark II and my escape, to meeting Stardust and Aura, later Wind Thrasher and Wingnut. I went on about how we got to New Pegasus, how I made enemies with The Enclave, The Sins, Mom, The Steel Rangers…everything.

It took hours to tell her everything, as I spun out my tale, we had to stop twice to eat, and once to use the restroom. At some point a green filly came down from upstairs forcing Glory to make me stop my story for a bit while she tended to the young mare. I found out her name was Scotch Tape and she’d been affected by Killing Joke as well and was just getting back to normal. She stayed with us, sitting on the other side of the couch listening with Glory about my life. P-21 showed up as well, lurking by the stairs as I went on.

When I finally finished Glory took a few minutes to take it all in then finally spoke. “That’s quite a tale, I’m amazed that you’ve made it so long without losing your mind or your life. I’m also a little worried about this thing inside of your head. Normally I’d say you suffer from multiple personality disorder, or some sort of psychosis, but from how you describe it, I know that’s not the case.”

Scotch Tape shrugged saying, “She sounds nuts to me.”

“There’s no need for name calling Scotch,” Glory said sternly. “Anyway, I say that for two reasons.”

“What’s that?” I asked. “Is it because you think I have something worse or that I’m just fully nuts?”

She shook her head. “No, one reason is because with multiple personality disorder, the two personalities can’t communicate with each other or lock one up in a cage like Aquila did to you. The other is because I’ve read a lot on Grimoire Spell’s work. She’s kind of a legend in The Enclave medical field. She created a lot of new ways for both pegasi and unicorns to help ponies while she worked with the research department in Nimbus. When she ran away with her foal twelve years ago, it created an uproar in all of The Enclave.”

“And here I thought Nimbus and Stratus kept themselves separate from the rest of The Enclave,” I said with a slightly mocking tone.

“You’d be right about that, but the medical departments all keep in contact with each other. We don’t care as much about which city has more power or who’s got better clouds, we care about helping ponies. Dr. Morning Star, the stallion who taught me spoke highly of your mother and what she did.”

That made me laugh. Glory and Scotch tape both looked at me like I lost my mind. It took me a minute but I finally said, “I’m sorry, but did you say Dr. Morning Star?”

“I did yes, he’s a brilliant doctor in Thunderhead,” Glory said.

“I’m sure he is, but I just find it funny because that’s the name mom gave me when we first went into The Wasteland. She changed my name from Star to Morning Star, then later to Shadow Star when my coat turned black,” I said still giggling a little.

“Well it’s not that uncommon to be honest. I used to work with two stallions both named Falling Rain, my own name is Morning Glory and I worked with Morning Star. Enclave ponies aren’t very creative with names,” she said gigging a little too.

“Not like Griffons that’s for sure. Do you know how many griffons I’ve met whose names all start with a G?” I asked.

Scotch Tape looked over at me asking, “How many?”

I took a moment to think about that, then said, “Gillian, Greta, Gail, Gena, Gus, Grant, Gabriel, Gavin and those are just the ones I’ve heard in the past two months. I’m so glad Aura and her sisters all have non-g names.”

“I had no idea there were so many,” Scotch Tape said, her eyes going big.

“What? Griffons or G names?” I asked.

“Both,” she replied.

That made me laugh again, “You should’ve seen Crimson Canyon on their Rebirth Celebration then, I saw over five hundred griffons just for that.”

“Well I’m glad to see you smile about something Shadow,” Glory said.

Scotch at the same time asked, “REALLY!?”

I nodded at the filly then said to Glory, “Yeah, me too, though I’m not sure it’s going to help me feel better.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sure in time, something good will happen,” Glory said.

“I can only hope,” I replied, then yawned.

“Maybe, we should let you get some sleep Shadow, you look really tired,” Glory said.

My eyes went wide waving my forehooves back and forth repeatedly. “No…I don’t want to sleep.”

“You can’t stay awake forever, you need sleep, it will help,” Glory said.

“I…can’t,” I said quietly.

“Why not?” Glory asked looking concerned. “Is Aquila keeping you from sleep or something?

I shook my head. “Every time I sleep even a little, I keep seeing…everything I did in that cage.” Okay to be fair, I only fell asleep once, but that didn’t matter much, even when I was awake I still kept seeing my colt die under a pillow, my daughter being killed by Wind Thrasher, Vervain dying because of me, destroying Cartwheel, and more.

Glory reached out and put a hoof on mine. “Listen, as much as it hurts to relive those moments Shadow, you still need rest and sleep. You’ll go mad if you keep those feelings locked up and if you don’t get the rest you need.”

“I’m scared though,” I said.

To my amazement, Glory smiled, “From what I just learned about you, I find that hard to believe. I don’t think it’s fear that’s keeping you from sleep, it’s the fact that you don’t want to come to terms with that small dark side of yourself. The part of you it took to kill all those ponies.”

She was right and I knew it, I didn’t want to understand that part. Reliving those moments would help me understand that darker side, that same mindset I had when I destroyed Mill City Tower. I felt like it would make me more like her, Aquila. What if I couldn’t come back from that mindset, what if I became more like Wind Thrasher when she was under the bloodlust? I’d be just like my Uncle, I’d find a joy in killing others. It made me sick to think about that, but at the same time, deep down, I knew I liked it too. Maybe that curse that haunted our family and Aura’s was real. What if we were destined to live our lives in misery.

I looked back at my own family, Mom lost her mind for a while and almost lost me. She lost my father and my uncle. Oricalcos lost his body to darkness and became a monster, my grandmother lived in a shack near the wall of death in The Crystal Empire. Her husband was an abusive ass hole that didn’t give two shits about his family, only his own power and status. As far back as I could tell, not a single pony who came from Minuette’s line, had a good life. She even lost her own love, went mad, and died. Dad’s side wasn’t any better. Fighting and killing between siblings, depression, pain, loneliness, anger, all of it and more followed his side of the family right back to Night Stalker himself. Aura’s family had the same kind of problems as my own. It always led to death or pain sometimes both. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t be happy, we couldn’t be normal.

“She’s got a strange look in her eye,” Scotch said, breaking me from my dark thoughts.

“Maybe that’s her attempt at a shooty face,” P-21 said.

“No, she’s just deep in thought I think,” Glory added.

I looked toward the not Rainbow Dash, “Yeah, I was thinking that’s all. Glory can I ask you something?”

She shrugged, “Sure, as long as you promise you’ll at least try to sleep.”

“I don’t want too, but I will,” I said with a deep sigh. “I wanted to know what you knew about Night Stalker.”

She cocked her head at that, “The first High Council Pony? What about him?” Then her eyes went wide. “I should’ve seen it before, your mother was married to Nightshade, his great, great, great, Grandson.”

I waved a hoof. “Yeah, yeah, that’s not what I’m getting at. I wanted to know if you knew what happened to him after he was made a Dashite.”

She leaned back in the chair deep in thought, finally she said, “Not a lot is known about him after he became a Dashite, apart from the fact that he was last seen near the Absent Ruins.”

“I heard they were named after a Dashite who was killed there,” I said.

She laughed, “You could say that, but the Pegasus who they’re named after didn’t die there, he just managed to kill a hundred highly trained pegasi, then he just vanished like smoke. We only heard his name once from a pony who he’d bought weapons from the day before. Absent Moon, a pegasus who took refuge with the griffons until he tried to take on The Enclave. One of Night Stalker’s children, his daughter Nightingale named the ruins after the stallion. She always respected strength and even if he was an enemy, he did manage to kill a lot of her brother’s ponies.”

“I never heard that story before,” I said.

“I’m not surprised, the leaders of The Crystal Empire don’t like it much because one of Night Stalker’s sons were killed there too. Still, Absent Moon doesn’t have anything to do with Night Stalker,” she said as she adjusted herself in the chair. I had to hold back a grin, she had no idea they were the same pony. Once she was comfortable again, she continued, “Some say that Night Stalker was seen near the ruins around the same time, I’m sure he was. The last place he was seen was in The Crystal Empire. To this day, no pony knows why he went there, he fought a lot of ponies to reach The Crystal Palace, but he was wounded during the fight. That was the place where he just disappeared. It’s said that a trail of blood was found leading to a statue of Luna, but nopony could find where he went after that. My father believes that Greta, his most loyal follower, found his body and took him from The Crystal Empire. She attacked an hour after he did, and managed to sneak into the palace while the guards were distracted.”

That made me think more about what I learned over the past two months about Night Stalker and Greta, then I asked, “Was she seen leaving the palace?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean much with Greta, even as an old griffon she was sneaky and strong. The only thing known about them from that point on, is that neither of them have been seen since. It’s one of the biggest mysteries in The Enclave,” she said.

I thought on it more then asked, “Who ordered Night Stalker to be branded?”

She blinked again. “I thought everypony knew that one. Two of his sons brought evidence to Council Pony Thunderlane. Night Stalker was accused of being a traitor and should’ve been executed for his crimes, but Thunderlane took pity on his old friend and had him branded and banished.”

“Thunderlane? He was the one who banished Night Stalker?” I asked, a little surprised and yet not at the same time. I’ve seen how Thunderlane acted in the memory orbs, he seemed to do as he was told when it came to Night Stalker, but at the same time, he always tried to push the line.

She shrugged. “Our history shows that Thunderlane had a good reason to do so.”

“What was the reason?” I asked.

She took another moment to think then finally said, “Honestly I’m not sure, I think Night Stalker was helping some faction that wanted to overthrow The Enclave’s control over the ground cities. Don’t quote me on that, history’s not my best subject. I only know as much as I do about Night Stalker because my dad loves that kind of thing. Also his wife later moved to Thunderhead after he vanished and became a council pony.”

“I wonder if he and Greta ever really left The Crystal Empire,” I thought out loud.

“He, as in Night Stalker, and Greta?” Glory said with a light chuckle. “I’m sure they did, their bodies were never found. The Crystal Empire’s a big place, but it’s still hard to hide a body, let alone two, especially well-known ones like those two.”

“You’re probably right, I’m just thinking out loud is all,” I said laying back on the couch.

“Why does it matter so much, if I may ask?” Glory asked.

“It’s a long story,” I rubbed the back of my head with my hoof. “A…really long one. I just want to know more about my family. I grew up most of my life not knowing anything about either side. Both of my parents don’t talk about it much.” I said.

“With Night Stalkers side I can understand, that family has had nothing but bad luck over the years,” she said.

“Tell me about it, my mom’s side isn’t any better,” I remarked.

“I don’t know much about your mom’s family, just your dad’s,” Glory said.

“My mom’s side of the family is descended from Minuette,” I said simply.

“Minuette huh…I don’t know that name well, just that she was a mare who helped build a lot of things that were used by The Enclave even today. She died not long before Equestria did,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Well, if you don’t have any more questions, then you really should try and get some sleep,” Glory said getting up then forcing Scotch to do the same. “Let’s go Scotch, you need rest too, you’re still healing.”

“Awww, but I’m feeling fine, do I have to?” Scotch Tape complained.

“Yes you do, and if you fight me on it again, I will use a tranquilizer on you,” Glory said forcing the filly to go upstairs.

“Fine,” Scotch said then looked down at me. “Nice to meet you.”

I gave her a little wave then sighed, putting my hooves up onto the couch as well so I could lay down. Still, I didn’t want to sleep, but I knew Glory had a point. I needed it and I couldn’t run away from my nightmares forever. So, doing my best to ignore my terror, I closed my eyes.

***

The Nightmare came again, even more vividly than it did the last time. My foals dying, killing mom, looking into Wingnut’s confused eyes as I slid Misery through his side and into his heart. I heard the screams of the ponies who lived in Cartwheel as Wind Thrasher attacked, watched the megaspell fall and destroy the town I loved so much. Blood, gore, screams, death, pain, terror, confusion, anger. All of it replaying over and over again until…

My eyes snapped open, my body riddled in sweat as I screamed, “WINGNUT I’M SORRY!!!”

I found myself face to face with a mare, one with a pure white coat, mane and milky eyes. She backed away from me as soon as I started screaming. Her proximity to me a moment ago just made me scream again and fall off the couch trying to get away from this strange looking mare. The mare ran and hid behind the chair Glory was sitting in before.

Once my heartrate started to go down, I let out a long breath then asked, “Who are you? I’m sorry if I scared you, I was having a bad dream.”

The mare poked her head out and looked at me shyly or fearfully? I’d never seen a mare that looked like her before. She was very skinny, even more so than Wind Thrasher, which was saying something. Wind Thrasher was a head taller than me and weighed at least fifteen pounds less. I waited a moment then said in a kind tone, “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. Can you speak?”

She let part of her long mane fall over one eye, like she was too shy to say anything, then slowly she trotted toward me. I put a hoof out wondering if something was wrong with her. She came close almost like a scared puppy then gently pressed her forehead up to my hoof. I stroked her mane and couldn’t help but smile at the way her eyes closed halfway, almost like she was enjoying herself.

“My names Shadow, what’s yours?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, but she did pull away from me looking a little happier than she was a moment ago. She trotted over to the kitchen then looked up at one of the cabinets. She then looked back at me then the cabinet again, like she was trying to tell me something. I got to my hooves, shaking my head a little, trying to rid myself of the lingering memories from the last nightmare. I slowly made my way to the strange white mare’s side then opened the cabinet only to find a bunch of wrapped snack cakes.

The mare jumped up and down then pointed at them with a hoof. I smiled and pulled a few out, hoping Glory wouldn’t care if a few of them went missing. I looked at the white mare, asking, “Mind if I have one or two myself?”

In answer she took one out of my magic with her teeth then started to try eating the cake, wrapper and all. I pulled it back, saying, “Let me open it first.”

I made my way over to the kitchen table and set the cakes down then tore one open for her. She sat next to me and ate it quickly, getting filling on her muzzle. While she chewed, she looked like the happiest pony in the world. I opened another for her and watched as she smiled then ate that one as well. Then she pushed one toward me with a hoof watching me intently as she chewed on her second snack cake.

“For me?” I asked.

She nodded, so I opened it then lifted it with my magic and took a bite. It was good, filled with a cherry filling. I felt my eyes roll back as I enjoyed the treat, something I didn’t get to do…well ever. I saw her watching me and I smiled and gave her another, which she ate slower this time, watching me as I ate mine.

“You don’t say much, do you? Oh well, that’s okay, my friends tell me I talk too much. Maybe I can learn a thing or two from a pony like you,” I said finishing my first snack cake then opening a second. Something about her seemed to make me feel better.

“You really shouldn’t let Boo eat so many cakes,” A voice said in my head.

I froze in the middle of a bite, the snack cake falling from my lips and plopping to the table with a small thump. I’d only felt that kind of thing from one pony before, but the voice wasn’t that of the only Alicorn I knew, Violet. I didn’t know much about alicorns, but from what I learned, they were the only creatures that could talk to you via your mind. Also, the rest of the Alicorn’s in Equestria were under the control of a creature called The Goddess. Violet told me that they all were part of Unity and all of them shared a single mind, in a way. I found myself turning toward the front door where a large dark purple Alicorn was standing, watching me eat snack cakes with the white mare.

She could’ve been Luna in the right light, but even from here I could tell that she wasn’t the Goddess of the Night, she was also missing a cutie mark, just like Violet. The mare smiled at me and said in my head, “Do not be scared, I am Lacunae…”

I jumped to my hooves and started to pull on my magic, but before I could I found myself trapped in a small bubble of magic. I tried to fire a spell, then remembered that my horn was still not listening to me. I glared over at the alicorn…Lacunae, saying, “Let me out of this thing.”

“Why? You were about to fire a spell at me and I really don’t want you to make a mess here or scare Boo. Blackjack would be upset if she came home to find her place in tatters and Boo scared out of her wits,” Lacunae said.

“I’ve been told a lot of things about alicorns, one of those is not to trust them,” I said, still glaring at her.

“From what I can tell, I am not the first alicorn you have met,” she said with a small chuckle.

“Yeah, but Violet is normal…well mostly normal. She warned me about the rest of your race,” I said.

“I understand the distrust, but I can assure you that I am not here to hurt you. I am one of Blackjack and Glory’s friends. Now I will let you out of that barrier if you promise not to start throwing spells around,” Lacunae said.

I sighed, “Fine.” Not like I could anyways, but I couldn’t let her know that.

She removed the bubble then walked over to the mare, saying, “Boo, you know that it’s not time for snacks.” Then she picked the rest of the cakes up and put them back, ignoring the Boo’s attempts to grab them.

“So…her name’s Boo?” I asked.

“It is, Blackjack named her when she found her the other day. She doesn’t speak and doesn’t have much intelligence. But she is very kind and likes snack cakes a little too much,” Lacunae said, then looked over at me. “You are the mare who came here from New Pegasus, am I right?”

“Yes…but how’d you know that?” I asked, still a little weary of the alicorn.

“The Goddess has been watching you for some time now Shadow,” Lacunae said.

“How’s that possible? The only slicorns where I live are Violet and a couple of her alicorns. Alicorns she keeps under her control,” I asked.

“The Goddess has her own ways of keeping an eye on ponies with great power. She has more than just her children to watch The Wasteland,” Lacunae said.

“So, you’re one of her spies then? Let me guess you’re here to report to this Goddess about what Security is up to?” I asked.

“I have no choice in the matter, but yes, though Blackjack knows as much. But I am not like other alicorns, I wasn’t just sent here to watch Blackjack, I was sent here to keep the memories The Goddess wants forgotten from ever rejoining Unity. I am a vessel created to hold all of the negative emotions away from the rest,” Lacunae said like it was no big deal.

“So, you’re some kind of trashcan for bad feelings?” I asked. “Or something like that?”

“Something like that,” Lacunae said, turning to make Boo head back to the living room. “I apologize, I did not want to bother you or anything, but The Goddess wanted me to tell you who I am and request a favor from you.”

“I don’t know this so-called Goddess, but I’m not much into granting favors to creatures that have such a bad reputation,” I said.

“We already knew this, but she plans on making you listen whether you want to or not. Be thankful, normally we would just force you into Unity and force you to do as you’re told, but she wants you to work outside of Unity. It’s the only way for her plan to work,” Lacunae said heading to the door. “Follow me please.”

“No way, I’m not in the mood to deal with an alicorn or your Goddess,” I said, turning to go back to the kitchen table so I could clean up the snack cake wrappers.

There was a flash of light and a moment later I was standing outside of Star House, face to face with Lacunae. “I am sorry, but she is not giving you a choice in this matter.”

I was about to protest her teleporting me without asking when I noticed a subtle change come over the alicorn. A moment later she got a cocky grin to her face and her whole demeanor changed, even her voice. “Hello Shadow Star, it’s nice to meet you at last. I am The Great and Powerful Goddess!”

“Yeah…okay, nice entrance and all, but like I said before, I’m not falling for it,” I said going to push past her and get back inside so I could ask Glory about this alicorn.

“If you walk away, I’ll have four wings of my alicorns kill Aura,” she said.

I froze and slowly turned back to the grinning monster, “If you touch her, I’ll find wherever you’re lurking and blow you to the fucking moon.”

“Aw, look at you trying to be so tough when I can see it in your mind that you’re scared to death,” The Goddess said with a giggle. “You have no idea what you’re doing do you? You’ve never had to fight one of my children let alone understand our power.”

“I don’t understand a lot of things, but that’s normal for me and it hasn’t stopped me yet. Also, Aura’s in New Pegasus, if you could do something to her there then you wouldn’t have waited so long to try and talk to me or would’ve sent your alicorns there a long time ago to stop Violet,” I said, feeling anger build up in me.

“Oh yes, Violet, that nasty little traitor. That’s the only reason I’ve bothered to talk to you now Shadow,” she said slowly starting to walk around me.

“My point still stands, you can’t do anything to her right now, so why should I help you?” I asked.

“Simple, The Great and Powerful Goddess has her ways of getting what she wants and knowing what she wants. Even now, I know that Aura is heading east, soon she’ll be in reach of my alicorns,” she said.

“So what, she’s dealt with alicorns before, she can hold her own,” I retorted.

“True, she’s dealt with us before, but that doesn’t mean much. My children learn from every one of their sisters who fall in battle. You can’t kill an alicorn the same way more than once. Now, I just want you to do me one favor and one favor alone. I want you to use the trust…Violet…has in you to steal back that amulet,” she said.

“And why should I do that?” I asked. “Even if she does trust me, she’s not going to just let me take the amulet. If I even get it away from her, she’ll just fall back under your control. I couldn’t do that to my friend.”

The Goddess, speaking through Lacunae’s mouth said, “You don’t have to steal it, all you’ll have to do is ask her for it. This one will make sure of it, when I let her take control again, she’s going to give you something that will convince Violet to do whatever you ask.”

“And why don’t you send some of your own alicorns to get it yourself?” I asked angrily.

“Because, if any of my alicorns get too close to her, I’ll lose my hold on them. I need that amulet, Violet just doesn’t want to be a part of Unity again, that’s the only reason she still wears it,” she said.

“From what I can tell, she needs it more than you do. She wants to keep her mind to herself, not join it with you again. Why do you think you need that thing huh? To make you even more powerful than you already are?” I asked.

“I need the Amulet to make sure my children can procreate. Right now, I can only make female alicorns, I need either the Black Book that Littlepip has, or that amulet to make sure the alicorn race can thrive,” she said.

I was a little shocked by her admission, I thought that maybe she wanted the thing so she could get more powerful. No, she wanted to make her so called children, a real race in Equestria. A race of powerful ponies sure, but still one that could procreate. Alicorn…foals? I’d never heard of such a thing before. Still, I knew her threat about Aura had to be true. I wasn’t going to risk Aura’s life just to defy a self-proclaimed Goddess, but I also wasn’t going to make it easy for her either so I asked, “What do I get out of this if I do get the Amulet?”

“I don’t normally barter with normal ponies,” she replied.

“There’s a first time for everything, now tell me what you’ll do for me if I do this for you. Threatening the Griffon I love isn’t really a good motivator with a pony like me. I kill monsters like you,” I said.

“Fine,” The Goddess said. “I can offer you three things, first is for Violet more than you. I will not pull her back into Unity if she gives you the amulet, I will let her stay as she is as long as she never leaves the New Pegasus area. Second, I know what you are searching for, the towers for the project Night Stalker was working on. I can give you memories that will show you where each tower is and knowledge about what was done to at least one of them to keep the project locked down.”

Both of those things would be perfect, I really didn’t care either way what The Goddess of alicorns did or didn’t do, as long as she left me and my friends alone. I kept my eyes locked on Lacunae’s. “And what’s the third thing?”

“I will let Lacunae grant you knowledge for one spell, giving you everything you’ll need so you can cast it. Any spell that she has stored in her is yours,” The Goddess said, sounding depressed she had to offer me something like that.

“Wait, you can do that?” I asked.

“Only if you let Lacunae into your mind, then yes,” she said.

“My mind’s a little crowded at the moment, but if she’s willing to risk madness from a star demon then fine,” I said.

“So, do we have a deal then Shadow Star?” The Goddess asked, ignoring my statement.

I put a hoof foreword, “The deal is the deal.”

She looked at me a little confused. “What does that mean?”

I smiled. “It’s an old tradition from The Crystal Empire, my father taught it to me. It means that our deal is binding, it’s like giving your word.”

The Goddess through Lacunae smiled and took hold of my hoof with her own, “The deal is the deal then Shadow Star. When you get the amulet, bring it forty kilometers past the dam, my alicorns will meet you there.”

Something came to me then, so I asked, “Can you get me back home?”

The Goddess smiled. “The deal has already been made, you should’ve asked for that before you agreed. We’ll talk again Shadow Star, and don’t you dare defy me.”

The alicorns eyes blinked, then her voice changed back to Lacunae’s. “She is gone now Shadow Star, you have my apologies. I did not mean to ambush you like that, but I had no choice.”

I sighed and slumped. “I’m guessing it’s not your fault, honestly I can understand what it’s like to just be taken over by something like her. Don’t any of you have the ability to defy her at all?”

She shook her head. “No, we do not, though I have greater freedom than most of the rest of my kind do. It hurts The Goddess to be around Hoofington, even to use me to speak. She keeps the rest of Unity away from here. The voices are too much for most of the alicorns.”

“Huh, what is it about this place that affects you so much? Honestly, I think it’s doing something to Aquila too, I can barely feel her anymore,” I said without thinking.

Lacunae seemed to miss what I said, at least part of it as she replied, “I have no idea what is in the core, but whatever it is, it is painful to creatures like me.”

“So, is this what you’re normally like? I mean when you’re not being controlled by the Goddess,” I asked.

“Most of the time yes,” she replied with a small smile.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who were you before you were an alicorn? I know a little about how you’re made, Violet told me once. I know that all of the bodies were once ponies,” I said.

“This body used to belong to a sad mare who did very bad things, but my personality was nopony before. The mix of emotions inside of me, created who I am from nothing. I have no soul, no real mind, I am just Lacunae and that is it,” she said.

“That’s…kinda sad,” I said.

“It is neither sad nor happy, it just is,” she said.

“What would happen if The Goddess decided to take all of those memories back?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you die?”

She raised an eyebrow. “One cannot die if one has never lived. I am not truly a living pony, just a mix of memories that became a personality.”

I sighed and looked back to Star House. “That’s hard to believe, but I don’t know you either so I guess I can’t argue with you on that point.”

Lacunae walked closer to me then sat down, “That is true, still try not to dwell on it. Now are you ready for what The Goddess promised you?”

I shrugged. “Not really, but I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?”

“No you do not, if you decide to go back on the deal you made with the Goddess, she has ordered me to bring you to her and make you part of Unity,” she said.

I laughed. “Now that I’d like to see.”

“I do not believe I have ever heard a pony say something like that when being told they would be forcefully joined with us,” Lacunae said.

“I’m sure you’ve never had a pony with an evil star spirit living inside their head join up either. Though I’m sure Aquila wouldn’t mind it much. Knowing her, she’d find a way within a month or so to take over The Goddess’ place as the ruler of your hive mind,” I said still chuckling.

“I’m sure that wouldn’t be a good thing for the alicorns or The Wasteland,” she said. “I’m guessing you agree with me on that, so first tell me, what spell would you like to learn?”

I thought about it for a moment, as I did, I asked, “Do you know any spells that can replace lost memories?”

“It depends on the memories you want to retrieve. There are many different spells that can help a pony remember. It depends if the memories were blocked by a spell or by illness, or if they were taken away. Was the pony hit on the head, or was the pony poisoned? Also, if you want a spell that helps restore memories, some depend on if the subject is a griffon, a zebra, or a pony. Some spells cover all creatures, while others are slightly different because the minds of each living creature are different,” she said.

“I have one pony that I’d like to restore the memories of. My mom had her later memories of me removed or blocked, I want to help her get them back,” I said.

She sighed, “Your mother was attacked with The Memory Stone, that magic cannot be fixed once the three days goes by.”

That took me by surprise, not her statement, the fact that she knew who I was talking about and what happened to her. So, I asked, “How did you know that. Also how did The Goddess know about Aura? I didn’t say anything to you about any of them.”

The Alicorn blushed, she fucking BLUSHED, as she looked away saying shyly, “My apologies, but your mind is more open than most ponies, it makes it easier to see into your deeper thoughts. I did not mean to intrude, but it is hard to ignore. Think about it like walking into a room and finding an open book on the table in a house that is owned by a pony that you are trying to get secrets from. You cannot help but take a glance at what is on the page shown, because it might be useful to you.”

“Well then…that…was a strange and unique way of saying you can read minds and mine just happens to be easier than most to see into,” I said. I wonder if that has something to do with my closeness with Aquila.

“I guess your way of explaining makes sense too,” she said. “But to answer your question again, no I do not have a spell that can help your mother. I do not know much about that stone or what it can do, but I do know that none of the pony’s memories I have, know a spell to counter the effects.”

“That’s too bad, I was hoping that I’d be able to help her remember me,” I said slumping over.

I felt one of her wings drape over my shoulders, I winced for a second then relaxed. If she wanted to hurt me, she’d have done it already. “I wish I could help, but I cannot.”

“I know, I was just hoping that I could find a quick fix,” I said.

“I can teach you another spell, there has to be something you would like to learn,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you know shadow magic?” I asked, mostly being a bitch, but not caring. As far as I knew, Uncle Ori was the only pony who knew that kind of dark magic. Even if I could learn it, from what I saw with him, I didn’t want to know any of it.

She shrugged. “I do not even know what that is.”

“I figured as much, just forget I said anything about it,” I said, thinking more about what I would like to learn. The first thing that came to mind was combat spells. Thing’s I’ve seen or read about that could help me in the future, but deep down I knew that if I just put my mind to it, I could learn them without much difficulty. It seemed like a waste to use this favor on something I could teach myself, if I tried harder. I’ve seen Violet and Mom both use shield spells before and even though I’ve never attempted them, I know I could do it. Those spells just seemed to make sense to me, almost like seeing them being used once, told me how the spell worked. I could already teleport…most of the time so no use with that, maybe invisibility? No, I read in Mom’s spell book that used to belong to my grandmother that those spells were extremely hard to do and draining. I could use a stealth buck for that if I needed to. Stronger telekinesis was out too, I really didn’t have a use for lifting heavy things. So, what could be helpful to me and something I had a hard time learning?

I could hear Lacunae giggling to herself. Alicorns can giggle? “You have a very complicated mind Shadow.”

Okay that was starting to freak me out a little. I shook my head vigorously and groaned and whined at the same time. “Stop reading my mind.”

“I am sorry, but your thoughts are kind of loud,” Lacunae said suppressing her giggling.

Then it came to me, so quickly in fact that I felt like calling myself an idiot. My first request was the right one to make, but not for a spell to help Mom. That card wasn’t on the table, but I could request to learn a memory spell. Those spells I’ve already tried doing after reading page after page in Mom’s spell book about them. Mom was great at those kinds of spells, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of them. If she had one that I could use, then maybe I could learn the rest once I understood the concept of one spell.

I grinned and looked up at Lacunae. “What about a memory spell? Not one for my mom, but something else?”

“There are a lot of memory spells out there, you’ll have to be more specific,” she said.

“I read in a spell book about a memory spell that was used by the Ministry of Morale to look into a pony’s, griffon’s or zebra’s mind to view a memory or extract it into an orb. Do you have one like that?” I asked.

She thought about it for a moment then nodded. “I do, but are you sure you want that spell? I could teach you teleportation or a good offensive spell.”

“Teleportation I can already do and I’m sure I can learn more offensive spells if I try. Memory spells though have been hard for me to grasp,” I said.

“Okay, I will give you this spell, but first let me warn you about what you are asking. Memories spells are tricky even if you learn how to use the spell properly. I can give you the knowledge on how to use the spell, but you will have to work to master it. Also diving into memories of a living pony is a lot different than going into a memory orb. First you will experience the memory a lot faster than you would through an orb. If you do it too many times at once, it can end up hurting you so be careful with it. Also, the more you dig into the minds of others, the harder it will be for you to know what memories are your own and that of another,” she said.

“If you’re worried, I’ll overuse the spell then don’t. I don’t need it for a lot of things, but I can use it to help me learn things I couldn’t before,” I said.

“Very well then.” She closed her eyes for a second then opened them slowly. “Also, my last warning. This spell is powerful, but still if you try to dig into the memories of a pony who is of sound mind or strong willed, you will find it more difficult to get what you want and take more power from yourself to do so. Lastly, if you push too hard with this spell, you will break the mind of the pony you are trying to extract memories from. A mind is fragile and easy to break if you’re not careful. Remember that before you go diving into the mind of another,” Lacunae said.

I felt like rolling my eyes, but she did have a good point. So, instead I just nodded. “I’ll be careful, you have my word.”

Her horn started to glow. “Good, now hold still while I transfer my knowledge to you, I will also give you the locations of the towers you’ve been looking for.”

The alicorn’s horn came down and touched mine. Magic sparked between us both and I felt as if hundreds of minds were forcing themselves into me at once. The first wave of magical knowledge was quick, as soon as she touched my horn I felt the magic flow into me and the spell was simple to understand now. Once that was finished another wave of information crashed into my head, so hard in fact that I even felt Aquila flinch inside my head. For a moment I thought she’d do something to stop this alicorn from digging into my mind like this, but strangely, she pushed further into my mind. Keeping herself as small and uninteresting as she could. It was almost like she was afraid of the alicorn.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, images started to flow into my head. The first one was simple, I saw the Lucky Horseshoe, then I was moving toward it, into the top level and past a fake wall. I knew that wall, I saw a terminal by it when I was in Mr. Tops’ office last time. Behind it was a small sitting area and another elevator. My vision went down the shaft and into the sub-basement where I saw another huge open space with a large terminal. The chamber itself was mostly a small room where the terminal was, a strange egg looking pod and a glass window that looked out at rows after rows of wires, weapons, armor and Securiponies that seemed to go on forever. Next to the terminal was a small platform, built the same way as the one in the underground power source for Falling Shadows. One last thing I saw before the chamber vanished, was a small pillar with a spot for one small gemstone to be placed into it.

Then my vision was at The Crystal Empire. I flew into the palace itself and into the throne room. Behind the throne, there was a secret chamber much like The Lucky Horseshoe had, only without the pod or the Securiponies or the pillar. Still it had cables coming up from below, that must lead to another power source. There was also another terminal, half the size of the other one that connected to something going straight up into the palace itself. My vision shifted again and I saw a city in the distance, one I’d never seen before. It took but a second for me to know where it was though as a sign flew by my vision that said ‘Welcome to Baltimare’. I saw a building come into view, it was the tallest in the city and as I got close I saw it said on the side ‘Equestrian Records’. At its top there was a large radio antenna, but it looked a lot like the one on The Lucky Horseshoe. I flew into the building and through a secret elevator that took me down to a smaller room with a single terminal in it and once again, more massive wires and cables leading to the terminal.

The last vision I got was me soaring though what looked like a barren wasteland or desert heading for a single tall white spire. A M.A.S.E.B.S. tower, but one that wasn’t quite as tall as the others I’d seen in Equestria. This time I didn’t go inside the tower. The vision stopped there for a moment just looking at the door that led into the tower itself. As I looked at it, I heard Lacunae’s voice say, “This is the last point and the one most ponies don’t know about for that project you seek. Now watch, because this is a memory fragment that will help you understand how Falling Shadows was locked down.”

So, I watched as the pony whose memory this belonged to, waited as a pegasus flew out of the door and straight toward me…or my host I guess. In a flash an orange pegasus with a purple mane and a matte black Pip-Buck landed in front of my host. She was breathing hard, but she had a grin on her face as she said, “I think I got it.”

Then a voice I knew all too well, that of Minuette said, “Good Work Scootaloo, I’m glad that Apple Bloom and you both decided to listen to Sweetie Belle about the dangers of that project.”

Scootaloo, the president of Red Racer and Vice President of Stable-Tec, was helping Minuette? What was this? I didn’t get time to think too hard about it because Scootaloo said, “Yeah, but what I don’t get is why you’re doing this? I thought you were the pony who came up with this whole project.”

“I did, and now I’m making sure nopony ever uses it,” Minuette said. “Check with Apple Bloom in Baltimare to make sure she got in and out, then make sure you two get back to Fillydelphia.”

Scootaloo did something with her Pip-Buck then said, “Apple Bloom’s already on her way out of the city from what I can tell. She should be good, I’ll start flying back now, but first let me ask you this. Why do you trust us with this secret?”

Magic flowed in Min’s horn as she said, “I don’t trust anypony anymore, I’m going to make sure all of you forget what you did today, but leave enough fear about what you did learn intact so you’ll do what you have to with all three of your Mark II’s.” And before Scootaloo could protest, Minuette activated a spell.

Lacunae’s voice came again, “Now do you see what Minuette did to keep that project safe?”

I did, but I didn’t dare say anything or even think it right now. Because if what I just saw was true, that meant everypony was wrong about what was needed for Falling Shadows. I pushed the thought out of my mind as best I could while Lacunae started to pull herself from my mind. She was almost gone when another presence seemed to appear in her mind. As soon as I felt the pony’s mind that was separate from Lacunae’s, I knew who she was. Even before she spoke, I knew her, my great, great, great something grandmother’s mind or soul or at least part of her memories were deep inside this mare. Minuette’s most painful memories and feelings were jammed into Lacunae like it was nothing more than trash. Something about her seemed to know who I was too because she took hold of my mind, saying in a mad pony voice, “You need to understand how it works, you need to see what it does. If not, you’ll never understand!”

“What the hell? What are you talking about!?” I started to ask, then I couldn’t say anything else as magic poured into my mind and a memory was forced into me like hot iron hitting my brain. Before the memory started, all I could feel was pain.

oooOOOooo

Like a memory orb I found myself in another mare’s body. I didn’t even have to guess who it was. She felt a lot like being inside Mom when I viewed her memory orbs, also when she spoke I could tell it was Minuette. She was giggling like a foal as Amethyst Star made faces at her from across a workbench. Still giggling my host said, “Stop making me laugh so much Star, I have too much work to do.”

“But I thought you liked it when I made faces at you while you worked Min,” Amethyst said as she stopped with the weird face she’d been making and sighed. “You’ve been working too much lately. Dwarf Star and I don’t see you hardly at all anymore. I thought you were retiring soon.”

“I am,” Minuette said as she pulled a small pouch toward her. “The Captain or… General now, I guess, asked me to stay on for another month, that’s all. We’re almost finished with Falling Shadows and I’m almost done figuring out this strange crystal thing.”

As she spoke she used her magic to pull a small crystal out of the bag. It was grey and had a crack running down it’s center. In the middle there was a zebra glyph. Amethyst looked at it too saying, “I’ve looked that thing over tons of times Min, and I still can’t find anything strange about it. You know that Night Stalker is just paranoid. I’ve told him numerous times that there’s no such thing as curses. I don’t know why you don’t just throw that thing away.”

Minnuette sighed. “Star, you know as well as I do that they could be real. I thought you’d believe in this kind of thing more after what we’ve seen. And I can understand why he’s so worried about it. Look at what’s happened to the team in the past few years. Phoenix Heart died the day Flash Sentry used this thing on the boss. A year later his adopted parents died during that zebra raid near Hoofington. Greta’s grandmother dies a few weeks later from an illness that hasn’t been seen in Griffonstone in hundreds of years. His sister almost died when a tunnel collapsed a few weeks after that. Thunderlane’s brother was killed while fighting a small group of zebras a few months later. Your mother fell ill and died not long after. Then we lost Comet Tail, and Prickly Petal. Bab’s lost her foreleg and now has to get around on cybernetics which made it so she can’t work for The Children anymore, the list goes on and on.”

“I know, but all of those things are just coincidences, that’s how curses really work. You think you’re cursed, then you start looking at every bad thing going on around you and you start thinking it’s because of that. Did you forget we’re in a war right now? Bad things happen,” Amethyst said with a sigh. “I just want you to stop worrying so much about helping Night Stalker and start being a mother to our son. He’s almost a year old now and he needs both of us.”

Minuette frowned a little then looked at her mare friend. “I know, but I can’t, not yet. I promise that once I’m finished with this mystery, then I’ll be finished with everything. The war, The Children, everything.”

Amethyst sighed then moved around the table to pull Minuette into a tight hug. “Fine, but that’s it, once you figure this out and finish with Night Stalker’s project, then you’re all mine.”

“You have a deal,” Minuette said giggling again.

Amethyst pulled away then looked over at another larger crystal on the table. If I could have jumped, I would’ve, it was the memory crystal I found in her lab back at The Lucky Horseshoe. She nodded her head toward it asking, “So what’s that thing anyway?”

I felt my host’s eyes and mouth widen excitedly, “It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever found. Well I didn’t find it myself, a friend of mine who works for The Ministry of Arcane Sciences found it in some old ruins while he was working on some project for Twilight. He didn’t know what it was, so he sent it to me. It took some digging and a few favors to Rarity to find the books I needed, but it turns out that it’s an old version of a memory orb. They called it a memory crystal.”

“Really? I had no idea that kind of magic was even around before the war. How old is it?” Amethyst asked, her horn glowing to pull it closer.

Minuette stopped her by saying quickly, “Don’t touch it with your magic!”

Amethyst pulled away, asking, “Why?”

“This thing isn’t like your normal memory orb. During my research I’ve come to find that if you don’t activate it the right way, you can be pulled into it and you might never be able to free yourself from the memory. Also, the memory itself is so in-depth that it’s pretty hard to tell if the memory is yours or not. This crystal is at least a thousand years old, if not older, and after many unicorns died because of misuse, they were banned and mostly destroyed,” my host said.

“That’s amazing, if not a little scary,” Amethyst said. “So how do you activate it?”

“It’s simple once you understand it,” Minuette said, activating her magic, she sent a simple spell that even I was able to understand the mechanics of toward the crystal. Once it touched the memory crystal, seven colored lights appeared in the air over the crystal. “The spell to unlock the crystal is simple to do, once you use it, you just need to match the color code to get into it. This one’s code is yellow, red, blue, blue, red, orange, and violet. Once that’s done all you have to do is wrap it in your magic and you’re in. Though you still need to have a lot of power to use it, if not you can still get stuck in it for a while, though not forever. Unlocking it helps with that, and once you’re out, it re-locks itself.”

“Have you viewed it?” Amethyst asked.

“Oh yes. Twice now to be exact. I couldn’t believe who made the crystal,” Minuette started to say when an alarm started to go off in the lab.

“What’s going on?” Amethyst asked when Greta showed up in the small lab.

“You two get your armor and head to the roof,” she said, looking panicked.

“What’s going on?” Amethyst asked again.

The Griffon was turning to run back out the door, but she stopped saying, “Somepony at Halo One stole the range finder and just used it on a refugee camp not far from here.”

“No…” Minuette said, pulling on her magic and teleported before anypony else could say anything. She reappeared on the roof right next to Night Stalker who was looking to the east where I could see a dust cloud around where the blast must’ve hit. It wasn’t far from Spitfire’s Flight Academy.

“How the hell did anypony get the range finder? We had it locked down in Halo One, in a safe that only The Children of the Night and Professor Augustine could get to,” Night Stalker said, angrily.

“Boss, Cloudy Nights and Thunderlane were near there with Noire and Lightning Dust, they were going over the last details of the project and I think Noire was checking on the camp…he may have been in that blast,” Minuette said.

“Or he was the one who did that. You know how he feels about his own race now. What would’ve stopped him from getting the range finder from Halo One and using it?” Night Stalker asked.

“The spells I put on the safe, he wasn’t one of The Children who could get into it,” Minnuette said.

“Are you sure?” Night Stalker asked as Greta and Amethyst finally made it to the roof.

“Yes, I’m sure, he couldn’t have been the one to steal the ranger finder. Honestly, I don’t know why anypony would, Professor Augustine told me in her last report that the weapon didn’t even work yet. She was still testing the programing. The satellite only went up a week ago,” Minuette said.

He sighed then looked at Greta, “Come with me, we need to get there before Morale’s ponies do. We need to see if anypony survived, then figure out who took the range finder. After that we need to see if any of our own were caught in the blast.”

“I’ll teleport there now sir,” Minuette said, starting to pull on her magic.

“No, you have your own job to take care of,” Night Stalker said, opening his wings.

“But sir…” Minuette started.

“That’s an order Minuette. I need you to finish looking into that crystal. I have a feeling this is another problem due to that thing,” he said. “Let’s go Greta.”

He flew off, Greta only taking a second to shrug at both the unicorns, saying quickly, “I’ll message you if we need you.”

Then they were gone, as they flew away Amethyst said, “I’m starting to think he’s right about that curse.”

“Me too, though I wish he would’ve let me go with. I could’ve gone through those ponies’ heads without any problem,” Minuette said.

Amethyst looked over at my host. “I think what you need to do is finish with that crystal like Night Stalker said.”

“Easier said than done,” my host replied.

“I think I may be able to help you with that. I know a zebra who works at The Applewood, she knows a lot about zebra folklore,” Amethyst said.

“How is that going to help me? And how did you meet this Zebra anyway? You never go to The Applewood,” my host asked.

“Met her when I was adding to my gem collection, she’s just as interested in rare gems as I am. We got to talking and I found that she knows a lot about the subject of Gems and how her kind use them for their magic,” Amethyst said.

“I guess it’s worth a try, let me grab a radio and we can head over there. Maybe we’ll learn something interesting,” Minnuette said.

Amethyst looked back at my host again, saying, “If I introduce you to her, you have to do me a favor.”

My host rolled her eyes. “Why? You already told me where she is.”

“Yes, but she won’t just talk to you about that crystal unless I’m there with you. She doesn’t like most ponies to know that she knows so much about her kind,” Amethyst said.

My host smiled a little then gave in. “Fine, what do you want me to do? I warn you though, I’m not doing that thing again with the strap-on and the bowler hats.”

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to go with plan b,” Amethyst said with a wink. “Tomorrow, you and I are going to Canterlot for an entire day to ourselves, no work, no research, no complaints. I want one day where you’re away from this place so we can just be a happy couple and forget about the war for a day.”

My host smiled then laughed. “I think I can manage that…”

The memory faded with the two mares heading back into The Lucky Horseshoe, the world around them seemingly forgotten. Still, I could feel tension in Minuette’s chest as she went back inside. I could tell that she wanted to be with Night Stalker and her team, finding out how one of their weapons fell into the wrong hooves.

oooOOOooo

I jumped as the memory ended, falling back onto my haunches. I looked around for a moment wondering what the hell just happened then caught Lacunae staring off into space. I winced as I got back up, I managed to irritate the spot where I was shot a few hours ago as I stood. I looked at Lacunae, asking, “What the hell just happened?”

She didn’t respond for a few seconds, when she did, she blinked a few times, then said, “I have no idea, one of the memory fragments somehow came forth inside me and connected to your magic. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

“That memory was from my distant grandmother, Minuette. Why is one of her memories inside of you?” I asked, looking at the alicorn with some confusion.

“That is because Minuette was taken into Unity two hundred years ago. She is one of the first who became one of us when the Goddess formed. I have a lot of her memories inside of me. She was in a lot of pain when she came looking for her friend Twilight,” Lacunae said.

“That would explain what happened to her then. Everypony just thought she disappeared one day right before the megaspells blew. I never thought she became an alicorn,” I said.

“She likely never even left the Goddess’ Unity with how much pain she was in. Her body is most likely being used by one of the souls the Goddess trusts and can control easily,” she said, looking a little ashamed.

“I thought this Goddess could control all of the alicorns,” I said.

“Control is a light way to put it. The Goddess and the rest of the souls that are part of Unity all share one mind. This collective, makes it easy for us all to know what’s going on with one another no matter how far we are from the Goddess. Control of Unity all depends on who has the stronger will power, the pony who became what is now the Goddess was once known as Trixie, a mare who was good at deceiving others with her magic and low magical talent. She is a very determined charismatic soul who always thinks she is the greatest and because of that, she was able to take over early. Once she had control of the hive mind, she started pulling away memories of the others who joined with her to keep herself powerful. That’s what makes me special, she puts all of the memories she wants forgotten inside of me.”

“Interesting, still why did that memory attack me like that?” I asked.

“I don’t think of it as an attack, I think a part of that memory felt your magic and knew it was familiar. Because of that familiarity it was drawn to you,” she said with a shrug.

“I wonder why it said I needed to understand,” I said mostly to myself.

“What are you talking about? That was just a memory. There is no soul inside me that could have spoken to you,” Lacunae said.

“Maybe I just imagined it,” I said, knowing I hadn’t, but I really couldn’t trust this alicorn. She was nice and all, but still she worked for this Goddess. The less she knew, the better. So, I continued, “So if you’re done with me, can I go back inside?”

“One more thing Shadow, I need you to take this and give it to Violet,” Lacunae said, her horn flashing. A jolt of pain shot through my head making me wince in pain. A second later the pain was gone.

I looked at her, asking, “What the hell did you just do to me?”

“I placed a memory inside of you, one that only another alicorn can retrieve. The Goddess wants you to tell her about it and have her view it. Once she does, she’ll give you the amulet,” Lacunae said.

I rubbed my head with a hoof, saying, “Fine, but damn that hurt. Can we go back inside now?

“That was all I needed to do, so yes. Just remember to keep your side of the deal,” Lacunae said as she walked past me.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, thinking to myself, ‘As if I’d ever do what you wanted me to.’

We arrived back at Star House a few minutes later to find Glory already up, sitting next to Scotch on the couch. She was fiddling with her Pip-Buck. “I don’t think she’s going to just up and send a signal out through the radio.”

“I know, but I just want to make sure. I don’t want to miss anything just in case,” Glory said, looking up at me and Lacunae as we walked in. “Oh, I see you met Lacunae.”

“Yeah, I…ran into her when I was heading outside, she gave me a bit of a scare,” I said, walking back in to sit on the chair across from Glory and Scotch.

“Lacunae’s a little strange for an alicorn,” Scotch Tape said, still flipping though the channels on the radio. “I still think this is stupid.”

Glory rolled her eyes. “Don’t care, just keep listening.”

“You’ve been having me search for messages from Blackjack for three days now, she’s not going to send something out to us like that. How stupid are you?” Scotch said with a huff.

“Smart enough to save your life!” Glory said, sounding angry.

“Whatever,” Scotch said, going back to her Pip-Buck, then she looked back up at me. “Shadow, why is your Pip-Buck silver and red?”

I’d forgotten that she’d come down last night when my story was almost finished, so she hadn’t heard when I explained what the Mark II was. So, I looked over at the filly, and said, “It’s a prototype model used to test features for the Delta model. This one used to belong to Sweetie Belle. I’m not sure though why it’s the color it is. The other two look different too, though I never found out why.”

“Oh, I thought maybe your stable did that to match your mane and eyes,” Scotch said as she continued to search though the radio stations.

I looked down at the silver Pip-Buck with its red accented lines and cocked my head at it. “Huh, I never thought about that before.”

“Thought about what?” Glory asked.

“How the Mark II matches my mane and eyes, that’s really strange,” I said.

“Or it’s just a coincidence,” Glory remarked.

Before I could think of anything else to say the door opened and Rampage walked in saying, “I’m starting to think finding Blackjack is going to be impossible.”

“Rampage?” I asked looking at the mare as she shook her mane.

She looked over at me then started to laugh. “Wondered how long it would take you to find this place, good to see you again kid.”

Glory got up from the sofa saying, “Rampage, what are you doing back here? I thought you went to look for Blackjack?”

“I did, couldn’t find any trace of her after a while. Figured I’d head back here and see if you have any other clever ideas on how we can find her,” she said, then walked over and plopped down in the chair next to me, squashing me into the seat with her bulk. “Hope you don’t mind if we share.”

“Not at all,” I said in a squeaky voice. I really couldn’t breathe well, but when an immortal death pony like Rampage wants to share a chair with you, you don’t say no.

“What’s all the damn noise down here?” I heard yet another mare say. I looked up and saw a yellow mare with a yellow mane coming down the steps, “Can’t anypony get even a little shut-eye around here?”

Rampage glared at the pegasus, saying, “Shut up Psychoshy, nopony asked you.”

Psychoshy looked over at me next, then tilted her head toward me. “Who’s the kid? Don’t tell me you’re starting a house for lost fillies Rampage.”

“Bite me!” Rampage said.

“Would both of you shut up!” Glory yelled. “Psychoshy, now’s not the time. Rampage, stop fighting with her and tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s like I said, nopony’s seen Blackjack, I can’t follow her trail when there’s no trail to find,” Rampage said, leaning back on the recliner and almost sending both of us flying backwards.

Scotch looked over at Glory. “You know I may have an idea that might help us find Blackjack.”

“What is it?” Glory asked, whipping her head around to look at the filly.

“I don’t know why all of you care about finding that nutcase so much,” Psychoshy said yawning. “I’m going back to bed.”

“No you’re not, you’re staying right down here and helping,” Rampage said with an evil grin.

Scotch Tape seemed to ignore the rest as she looked at Glory, saying, “I can modify your Pip-Buck to search for her Pip-Buck tag. I have it listed on mine. I’ll also rig it so that it will scan for any transmissions she sends out. As soon as she does, we can use Lacunae to teleport us to an area close to where she is. Once that’s done, we’ll be able to use the tag to find where she’s located.”

“You can really do that?” Glory asked. “Hey, why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”

“I just thought about it!” Scotch said in a huff.

“I would be willing to go soak up some radiation for a while, so if we do find out where she is, I’ll have no trouble teleporting as close as possible,” Lacunae said.

Rampage leaned forward again, making the recliner flip back forward, almost throwing me out of it again. “Sounds like a good plan to me, let’s get started.”

***

A few hours later I was sitting outside, right next to the front door to Star House making a connection to Byte’s Pip-Buck again. “Hey Byte, you awake?”

It took a moment for her to respond, “I am now, what’s up?”

“Not much really, I just wanted to see if Aura’s headed out yet?” I said, leaning my head against the wall of the house.

I heard her yawn, then say, “Yeah, she left a few hours ago. I tried to get in contact with you, but the connection was poor. How are things going on your end?”

“Fine I guess, I’m staying at a house near Chapel right now with some weird ponies,” I said.

“Sound’s right up your alley,” she remarked.

I couldn’t help chuckling a little, but the humor didn’t last. “I guess, honestly they’re nice ponies, though with a lot of issues from what I can tell. I’m just happy they decided to help me out. I don’t know what I’d do here if I didn’t have a place to stay. It seems like it rains every five minutes here.”

“What’s wrong Shadow?” Byte asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said automatically.

“Listen, you’re not the type of pony to just call somepony like me up and just talk about the weather. What’s bothering you?” she asked, sounding a little annoyed, well she always sounded annoyed, but this time it was more than normal.

“I…I can’t seem to sleep. Every time I do, I keep having nightmares about what happened to me while I was trapped in my own head,” I replied.

It took a moment for her to respond. When she did, for once she sounded like she cared about what she was saying. “You went through something nopony should have to. I still don’t know everything that happened to you in that world, but Oricalcos explained to us what needed to be done for you to escape.”

“He told you that I had to kill everypony or griffon I cared about to unlock my cage?” I asked.

“More or less. What matters is that we know a little of what you went through. It’s something that’s going to haunt you for a long time, if not the rest of your life. The only way you can get over the pain of what you witnessed and had to do, is to accept that it was necessary. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t kind, it was brutal, and you had to do it. But it was also fake,” she said.

I sighed and closed my eyes trying to breathe normally, holding back the tears I could feel building. “I know it wasn’t real, but that doesn’t seem to matter. It felt real, I thought it was even when I was killing ponies I love.”

Byte sighed then said, “Shadow, sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with what happened to you. Maybe when you get back, you should just take a break. Take some time to rest up here at The Shadow Talon’s base or in The Lucky Horseshoe.”

“Wish I could, but I have things that I need to do first,” I said.

“Why does it have to be you? You have great friends who love you and would do anything to help you. Have them take a little of the weight off your shoulders so you can rest. You need a break, that’s the only way you’re going to heal. Trust me, I’ve had to deal with something like this after my mom died,” Byte said.

“It’s not the same thing Byte,” I said, raising my voice.

“You don’t have to yell at me Shadow,” she rebutted

I sighed and shook my head, “You’re right Byte, sorry”

“You better be,” she teased before sounding serious again. “Anyway, I know it’s not the same thing, but I still have to get over my pain, just like you have to. I don’t need to remind you that I hate your mother and your uncle because of what they did to my mom, but right now, I’m working with them and putting my pain aside so we can do what needs to be done. That’s what I have to do to heal, you need to do your own thing to heal too. You need to take a step back and just be Shadow Star. Let The Courier go for a while and just be who you are,” Byte said.

“The Courier is who I am, and once I’m back, ponies will expect me to keep helping,” I said.

“Right now, all of New Pegasus thinks your dead. Use that to heal, don’t put the duster back on for a while and just rest. Maybe try acting your age for once and stop trying to be an adult so much. Sooner or later you need to realize that you’re still very young, just like me, and you need to just be a filly for a while,” Byte said.

That filly is wise beyond her years sometimes, but I couldn’t help the bitterness that came to my voice as I said, “Byte, I am an adult…”

She cut me off, “In Stable 28 yes, out here no. If you grew up in Trotston, you’d be a filly still. You’d have to wait another two years before you’d be given more responsibilities. Your stable needed ponies that were younger to help keep that place running from what I’ve heard from Milkshake. The age to be considered an adult is younger to help with that. I know you think you can deal with the same things as any grown pony does, but you still haven’t hit that age of maturity yet to understand things that ponies like Stardust or Wind Thrasher would. You still act with more emotion than common sense and because of that, you put your friends and your own life into danger. So please, at least think about what I’m saying. When you get home, rest, stop being The Courier for a while and just have a happy life.”

“Byte, I can’t until I get Aquila out of me,” I said sadly.

“I know that, and don’t worry about her. Grim’s got a plan that we know will work,” she said.

That made me perk up, “You do? What is it?”

“Sorry, can’t tell you, Grim says that if you know what she’s doing, Aquila will too. You’re going to have to trust us okay?” she said.

I sighed again and gave in, “Fine, if you think it’s for the best then I’ll trust you.”

“Good, well if you’re done, I need to get back to sleep,” she said with a yawn.

“Only one more thing then I’ll let you go,” I said.

She sighed, “Make it quick.”

“You said you’ve been talking to Milkshake. I take it she made it to the Shadow Talons’ base?” I asked.

She yawned again, “Her and Balefire yes, the rest of your stable is staying with The Queen. Aura will fill you in when you meet with her.”

“And…how’s Wind Thrasher doing?” I asked.

She sighed again. “That is a discussion for another day.”

“Byte, tell me,” I said.

“Fine, Wind Thrasher’s pissed at you right now. Once we told her that we found you, she almost flew off before Aura could leave just so she could give you a piece of her mind,” Byte said. “Listen, when you get back, you have to talk to her and don’t start it off with ‘I’m sorry’, just listen to her and take whatever anger she’s going to throw at you. Trust me, it will help both of you.”

“She’s that pissed huh?” I said laughing once. “Damn, she’ll be scarier than she is now.”

“Yes she is, Stardust had to step in to stop her from going with Aura. We had to send Solstice with Aura because Wind Thrasher kept trying to say that she needs to go with, to help Aura stay safe. She wouldn’t stop until Aura finally said she’d bring Solstice to watch her back. Even then it took everything Stardust had to keep the bat here,” she said. “Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Yeah…and thank you Byte,” I said, wanting to know more, but I didn’t want to push her.

“Whatever, just don’t get yourself killed, and get some sleep,” she said, then cut the transmission.

I yawned then shook my head as my eyes started to droop, “Sorry Byte, but I can’t sleep…not yet,” and with that I got up and headed back into Star House.

I just got inside the door when Rampage almost bulled me over as she tried to run out the door. “Oh sorry Shadow, but I have to run,” she said looking back over her shoulder. “Hurry up Psychoshy, we don’t have all night!”

“Why do I have to come!?” Psychoshy asked from the kitchen.

“Because I said so, now MOVE!” Rampage said before heading out the door.

“I hate it when she does that,” Psychoshy said, flying past me and almost knocking me down as she followed Rampage.

“What was that all about?” I asked Glory who was sitting at the kitchen table with Scotch.

Scotch was the one who answered, “Glory got a message from Blackjack, it wasn’t long, but it said something about Blackpony Mountain. They’re heading off to find Lacunae so they can teleport there.”

Glory looked like she’d just woken up. She looked over at me, saying, “She sounded like she was in trouble.”

“From what you told me about her, she can take care of herself,” I said.

“Normally yes, but she’s been going through some things. She almost died a few days ago and she hasn’t given herself time to rest since then. She’s not at her best right now, I just know it,” Glory said with a sigh.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay, Rampage will find her, I’m sure of it,” I said, going over to the mare who looked like Rainbow Dash and giving her a hug from behind. “How about we find something to keep your mind off Blackjack for a while.”

She looked up at me and gave me a small smile. “Okay, that’s probably a good idea anyway. Thank you, Shadow.”

I shrugged. “It’s no problem.”

***

A few hours later I found myself sitting with Glory, Scotch, Boo, and P-21 outside of Star House looking through Mom’s notes on the Mark II. Glory thought it would be a good idea after what she learned from me about my quest. I was surprised by how much information I found about the Mark II and the project that Mom made notes about over the years. The sad part was that none of it helped me one bit. I was going to have to head into town soon and see if I could find my uncle’s notes. Maybe Charity would know about him and his notes.

I was just finishing up with a log Mom left about The Forgotten Library when Scotch said, “Hey Glory, I think there’s another transmission coming from Blackjack.”

“REALLY!?” Glory said jumping to her hooves. “Play it!”

“Okay, she just told me to get the others and hasn’t said anything else yet. I was listening on my ear bloom when it came through,” Scotch said, pulling said device from her ear and switching her Pip-Buck to play the station she was listening to.

A moment passed then I heard a mare’s voice coming out of it. From the look on Glory’s face, it had to be Blackjack, “Hey Everypony. It’s me. Blackjack. I hope you’re actually getting this. Knowing my luck, I’m sending it straight to the Seekers. So I’ll be quick.”

She paused then kept going, “I wanted to tell you that you were right, Glory. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have run away. I should have been strong enough to face my fears with you rather than tearing halfway across the valley. I know that letting me go off on my own couldn’t have been easy, but I want you to know that I’m better now. I have friends helping me and... and I’ve started to try and deal with my problems. I know... sounds like an impossible task. Shooting things is easier. Running is easier. But in the end, I hurt people who didn’t deserve it. New things to atone for... like Scoodle. P-21... I want to tell you something. I want to tell you how Goddesses damned brave and awesome you are. You actually had the guts to do something I couldn’t. You’re doing the right thing. And I hope that you get to have something none of the stallions ever got to have... a family. I guess that makes you unique in two ways,” Blackjack said, chuckling a little. “I know you’re hurting right now. But I know... I just know... you’re tough enough to stick it out. Anypony who follows me around for a month without going crazy can do anything.”

She paused again, almost like she was thinking over what she was going to say next, keeping all of us on the edge of our seats. “Scotch Tape, I hope you’re helping Glory and keeping an eye on P-21. I know he’s not the most talkative pony. I know he’s probably frowning right now. But he loves you. I’m sure of it. But please be patient. I know you’ve waited a long time for him... but it’ll still take him a while to open up,” she paused for another second, as she did I looked over to see P-21 was indeed frowning, then she continued, “And yes, Boo. I’m here. I’m fine. You be a good pony too. Don’t make a mess for Glory. I know you’re a real pony, Boo. You’ll show us all sooner or later.”

The White Mare was looking at Scotch’s Pip-Buck like she was trying to figure out why she couldn’t see Blackjack. “Glory... I want you to know that I love you. I don’t care who you look like. I love you. I always will. And I hope when I see you again, I can show you just how much I do.” I saw Glory get teary eyed as she said that.

That expression changed a second later as Blackjack went from being sweet to saying something so stupid, that it made me look smart as hell, at least when it came to how a marefriend talked to another. “I met a guy. He’s pretty quiet, but he’s nice. He helped me get through what happened on the boat. Real champion in bed. Something about fliers... I know you’re not into guys, but I hope the two of you can be friends.”

Glory’s face went blank and she whispered, “Champion in bed? She…didn’t.”

She didn’t get a chance to say more because Blackjack, the mare who just said and did the most stupid thing a mare could then, decided to end her transmission with, “Well, I should probably get going. I’ll talk again soon. Hopefully... everything will work out and I’ll be back right away. Take care.”

I looked down at Scotch Tape’s Pip-Buck in horror after the transmission went out. I was about to say something when P-21 started saying, “Glory, wait!” The door to Star House slammed as Glory walked back inside.

“Fuck…” P-21 said. “Blackjack is going to be in a world of hurt when she gets back.”

“She’s not a very smart pony is she?” I asked. “I mean who does something like that?”

“A mare from Stable 99,” Scotch said with a sigh. “You think you’re stable was messed up Shadow? You have no idea what ours was like.”

“Do I really want to know?” I asked.

P-21 answered, “No, you really don’t. I should go check on Glory, she’s going to need somepony to…hug, I think.”

I could see that he didn’t want to do that, so I said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“No, I really should, I’m from 99 too and I can explain to her why Blackjack thinks the way she does,” he said quickly.

“Maybe, but right now, I think she needs a pony who understands her side of it more than hearing excuses for a mare who doesn’t seem to understand how a true relationship works. If I can’t get her to talk, then you can try,” I said getting up then looking back at P-21. “Let me ask you this first, does Blackjack really love Glory?”

“It’s hard to tell with her, but I think she does,” P-21 said.

“Of course she does, she just doesn’t understand things are different out here,” Scotch said.

“Works for me,” I said, then headed into Star House, Boo following me for some reason.

It only took me a moment to find Glory’s room, I knocked and right away I heard sobs from Glory as she yelled, “Go away!”

“Glory, it’s me Shadow, can I come in?” I asked.

“I just want to be left alone,” she said.

I sighed. “I’m sure you do, but you also need to talk to somepony first. I might be able to help.”

For a long moment she didn’t answer, when she did, she sounded defeated, “Fine.”

I opened the door and walked in, Boo following me. I closed the door once I was in and found Glory laying on the bed, her face in her pillow. I moved over to the side of her bed and sat on it right next to her. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Blackjack wasn’t thinking straight or something stupid like that. I know you don’t want to hear it, so I’m just going to sit here and if you feel like talking then talk. If you need a hug, then I’m here, if you just want to stay quiet then that’s fine too.”

That’s what I did, I sat there for a long time listening to Glory as she sniffed and muttered to herself. After about an hour she finally turned her face toward me, saying quietly, “Why does she have to do stuff like this?”

“I don’t know her so I can’t answer that for you,” I said.

“I know,” she responded, turning onto her back and looking up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. “Blackjack’s stable was a horrible place to ponies like me and maybe you. I don’t know what your stable was like, but for her, it was normal. The mares were the only ones allowed to have jobs and the only ones to have freedom for the most part. The stallions were treated like nothing more than tools. They were used to breed and that was all, kept on drugs to keep them tame and easy to control. They only had twenty unicorn stallions and twenty earth pony stallions on the breeding cue. Once another male was old enough to breed, the rest were bumped up and the last one in line would become the twenty-one of the cue and be put down.”

My jaw dropped open at that. “But…isn’t P-21 from her stable?” Then it hit me, it was in his name. “Oh my Goddesses, so he was meant to die?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Blackjack saved him though…kind of, mostly they escaped together when their stable was attacked. My point to telling you this was that in her stable, sex was just something you did when you wanted to have a little fun or get away from work for a while. Sometimes it was so they could have a foal, but not much else.”

“It sounds to me like she doesn’t really have much of a concept to how relationships work,” I said.

She chuckled then started to cry as she did. “You have no idea. But I thought that after all this time of her being out of Stable 99, that she’d start to understand that you can’t just go have sex with random ponies because you think it will help you feel better.”

I leaned back and laid across her hindlegs looking up at the ceiling too. “I’ve always seen sex as something that would be fun to do, but scary to attempt.”

She looked down her body at me asking. “So you’re a Virgin?”

I laughed. “No, but I only lost mine a few weeks back. Got drunk for the first time and woke up with a strange rock singer in a casino. I don’t even remember much about what we did. What I do remember was fun, though I was ashamed of myself. Later I met Silver Snip and we had fun a couple of times, once with another mare, and then Aura, that’s all though.”

“You sound like Blackjack, you’ve been with…what…four partners in a few weeks?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “The difference is that I wasn’t looking for it. The singer was a one-time thing. Silver was my marefriend…for a couple of days, but she loved me and wanted to show me how much. When the other mare joined in, again I was drunk. Aura was kind of a surprise to be honest.”

“I was going to ask you how that happened, I’ve heard of griffons and ponies together before, but never met anypony who’s in a relationship like that,” she said, sounding a little better. At least my strange sex life was getting her off her own problems.

“I think I liked her not long after she joined us, but I tried putting that off as me being stupid. When Aura first joined us, she wasn’t very nice. She was hostile with Stardust all the time, always had to prove she was stronger than everypony, and never seemed to be happy. I was scared to even think about her in that way,” I said with a sigh, still laying my head on her hindlegs.

“Let me guess, that changed the longer you were around her?” she asked, laying back again.

“In a way yes, she changed some as we traveled. She cheered up more, she started talking to me about her past. Hell, she even told Stardust not long after she started traveling with us that she liked me. She was hinting for a while that she wanted me, or at least wanted to know if I liked her. The problem was that I’d just lost Silver, I was being hunted by The Enclave, I thought I was losing my mind and so much more was going on, that I never stopped to see what I should’ve. It wasn’t until she almost died that I saw how I felt…then I blew up Mill City Tower,” I said.

“For such a young mare, you’ve been through a lot,” Glory said, and I felt her hoof rub against my mane.

“I’ve learned to deal with it,” I said, closing my eyes and enjoying her stroking my mane. I knew this wasn’t her trying to make a pass at me or anything like that. I could tell that Glory loved Blackjack even after what she pulled with that stallion. I loved Aura, and nothing was going to change that either. No, Glory just wanted somepony to understand her feelings, since her own marefriend couldn’t and I think she just liked being able to be herself without worrying if the pony she was talking to wanted more from her.

She laughed. “No you haven’t, but I’m sure you think you have.”

“You caught me, deep down I’m a mess,” I said, trying to make it into a joke, but failing. Glory seemed to have a knack for seeing past bullshit.

“Yes, you are, and you really should start to fix that mess before it becomes impossible for you to do. Doctors’ orders,” she said.

We stayed like that for a while, both of us just trying to ignore our shit for a little while at least. After some time passed, I heard Boo rummaging though Glory’s stuff. A moment later, Glory said, “Boo, put that down.”

I looked up to see the white mare holding a large envelope in her muzzle. She was standing a few inches away from me, I reached out with my magic and took the envelope from her muzzle and saw that it had two words on it, ‘Too Blackjack’ I looked over at Glory who was blushing for some reason and asked, “What’s this?”

“Nothing really, just a…well a love letter…kind of, that I wrote to Blackjack while we were in Manehattan when she almost died. I was going to give it to her when she got better, but decided not to,” she replied.

“Why not? Maybe something like this will help her understand your own feelings more,” I asked.

“No, it’s not really meant for that, it’s more of an ‘open it if something happens to me’ kind of letter. If she reads it now, she’ll just think something’s wrong with me and she’ll never leave me alone,” Glory said, laying back down. “You can just throw it in the garbage, not like it will do much to help me now. Blackjack has a new guy friend…”

“I don’t think you should throw it away, who knows, it might still help,” I said.

“Trust me it won’t, but if you won’t toss it then at least put it back in my bags, please,” she said, closing her eyes.

I sighed again then, got up to do just that. I looked down at the letter again. It was sealed so I couldn’t just open it and see what she had to say to her marefriend, but still I had a feeling that she needed to read this. If not now, then later. Still, she asked me to toss it. So, I’d do what she wanted me to.

I dropped the letter in the trash. I was about to go back to the bed, but Boo went and picked it back up then nudged me with the letter. Sighing, I took it from her and threw it away again. But Boo just picked it up and nudged me again. It was like she was trying to tell me something. I took the letter again and moved it toward the trash, but watched Boo as I did. She frowned as it moved closer to the bin, so I moved the letter toward Glory, who was still laying there with her eyes closed, again Boo frowned. Not knowing what this odd mare wanted, I picked up my saddle bags which I dropped by the door when I came in, then moved the letter toward it. Boo smiled then nodded. Something in the way she looked at me told me that she wasn’t going to leave me alone until I did what she wanted me to. So, I slipped the letter into my bags, I could always toss it later when Boo wasn’t around. That way I wouldn’t feel like I was stealing from Glory.

I moved back to the bed then plopped down hard next to Glory making her yelp. “Hey, what was that for?”

I smiled at her. “Let’s get your mind off Blackjack and her crap for a while.”

“Shadow, I’m sorry, I may be angry at Blackjack for what she did, but I’m not going to sleep with you just to get back at her,” she said, though her cheeks did blush.

I was almost tempted to see how long that would last, I was sure just by the way she was blushing that she’d thought about it. I hadn’t, but I had a fun, awesome, smart, and don’t forget sexy griffon. A griffon I wouldn’t ever cheat on, I loved her too much, even if the mare next to me did look like a mare I thought was the coolest mare from the war. So I pushed the thought of tempting her to the back of my mind, then I placed it in a box, then I buried the box, built a house on top of that box, then threw away the key…in the deepest ocean on Equus.

“That’s not what I meant, I mean let’s get out of this room and find something to do that will keep you distracted for a while,” I said.

She blushed harder, “I mean, I should’ve known that…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, honestly it’s fine,” I said.

“Okay…well let’s head back downstairs,” she said, getting off the bed and heading out of the room…her rear shifting back and forth as she did. Okay, put an angry Aura in front of the house covering the box with the thoughts of tempting this not Rainbow Dash mare. Yep that worked. Angry Aura is just as good if not better than a cold shower.

***

For the rest of the day and night I helped the others with random things around the house. I heard a lot more about P-21 once he got used to me being around and a little about the life he used to live in Stable 99. He was amazed how different my stable was once I told him about it. He even said he wished he could’ve seen the place, until I told him what happened to it. Scotch Tape was almost like a mix of Wingnut and Byte I came to find out. I spent three hours with her that night letting her look at my Mark II, of course that was after she bribed me with some sparkle cola and an old memory orb she found that she was hiding from Blackjack. She said something about Blackjack spending too much time in them.

Scotch was able to show me how to do things with my Mark II that I never even thought about. Faster ways to access my broadcaster, how to boost its signal so I could use the interconnection system easier, ways to make my S.A.T.S. last longer. She even found the spot where I’d access the system to take off the Mark II if I ever needed to…and if I ever got my hooves on a master key. She found notes and recordings I never even saw while I was messing around with it and even a spot on the Mark II where I could find out how many terminals or systems it had locked down.

By the time I was done with her, I had a lot more respect for the cranky filly. Glory though was the most interesting one of them all, at least to me. Scotch kept saying she was boring, which normally ended up in some kind of argument. From what I could tell about Glory, she wasn’t too much older than me, at least with her bouts of immaturity I thought as much. I enjoyed her company because she was an Enclave pony and not one that was trying to kill me or a member of my family. She told me a lot about how the politics worked in the clouds and how the rest of The Enclave saw my home. The Crystal Empire was a jewel of some kind to the rest of The Enclave, if it wasn’t for the alliance of Stratus and Nimbus, The Crystal Empire would be in another cloud city’s control now. She also told me about a city that Thunderhead thought existed, but they’d never been able to prove it. It was called Cirrus, and the rest of The Enclave thought that it was a place where both Stratus and Nimbus kept all their military secrets or firepower. Because of this, none of the other cities dared to attack the west.

I thought this Cirrus city was just a myth that Stratus or Nimbus cooked up to keep themselves safe, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d have to ask my dad about it when I saw him next. After that they all went to bed, but I found myself once again laying awake on the couch downstairs. Glory tried to give me something that should help me sleep and honestly, I tried to, then another nightmare came to me. This time it was Mom’s head rolling off her shoulders as Misery cut through her neck. I woke up screaming and spent the next hour with Glory trying to calm me down as nightmare after nightmare hit me. My dreams had become death, and I wanted to stay as far away from them as I could.

The next day, I found myself back in Chapel at Charity’s shop with Boo and Scotch tape. Boo mostly because she kept following me around, Glory said it might be because she thought I was Blackjack with different colors, since I was the only other unicorn mare Boo had met. Still I didn’t mind, I kind of like the white mare. Scotch was just finished going over some plans for Chapel with Charity when I was finally able to ask her what I needed to.

She looked over at me, saying, “So what do you need today Shadow? If you take too long to answer I’m going to charge you extra for loitering. 10 caps a minute.”

“I just wanted to ask if whomever owned this shop before you took it over ever said anything about a dashite named Striker leaving something here in town,” I asked.

“Depends on how long ago that was, I’ve run this place for a long time,” she said.

“For five years?” I asked, knowing that she couldn’t have because of her age.

“Huh, yeah not that long. Hell, Chapel wasn’t even much of a town back then. But still that name sounds familiar,” Charity said, getting off her counter and going to check a ledger she kept behind the counter. “Ah here it is, he stopped in once a few years back. The shop was nothing more than a wannabe store, but he did keep his shit written down. Says here that he paid a lot of caps to have something kept here until he could come back for it.”

“Is it still here?” I asked.

“Unless it was never written down, then yes. Has been for at least four and a half years…shit, wish I was running this place back then. That’s a lot of caps to pay for storage, though after all this time I guess it makes sense,” Charity said. “So why do you want to know?”

“Because I want those notes, or whatever was in the stuff Striker left here,” I replied.

Charity jumped back onto the counter and glared down at me. “I may not have been the pony to take payment for this, but still it was left here to keep it safe and only to be given to Striker or a family member who he didn’t name. I can’t just give it to you because you want it.”

I laughed a little. “Well good thing Striker’s my uncle, because I’m not leaving without it.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Charity asked.

“Um…because I know he left it here and how would I know where he left it?” I asked, though once the words were out, I felt stupid.

Charity seemed to agree. “Yeah…no, I can’t just go off of that.”

“Well then how can I prove it to you?” I asked.

She jumped down and looked at another ledger, then said, “Says here that if Striker doesn’t come for it then his family member should know the true name of his great grandfather from the war…and don’t try peeking, I’m not going to let you see the answer.

So, Striker did know more than most of The Enclave about Night Stalker then. I smiled and said without hesitation, “Absent Moon.”

Charity blinked back at me then asked, “Did you look?”

“No, he’s distant my grandfather too, though his name isn’t well known to most ponies so I could see why that would be a good passcode,” I responded.

She shrugged. “Fine, at least it’ll free up some space in my vault.”

She went into the back room, when she was gone I looked back at Scotch Tape who was looking over some new tools she’d gotten. “She has a vault?”

“No idea, it’s not like she lets me go back there,” Scotch said, not even looking back at me.

A moment later Charity jumped back on the counter and dropped a large folder in front of me, then a box, saying, “That’s all there was, take it before I make you pay me more for how long it was in there.”

I did, not wanting to mess with this filly. She scared me a little even when she was being nice. “Thanks Charity.”

“Careful with the box, it has like three or four memory orbs in it, don’t think you want to get stuck in those,” she said.

I lifted the box and looked inside and saw that she was right. Four memory orbs were laying on top of old papers to keep the box padded. Two had a dark purple glow to them, one was the normal silver I’d seen in most, and the last was a bright blue. I tucked them away for now, at least they would be nice to have while I was traveling. After another ‘thank you’ to Charity I headed for the door.

I was just about to close it when she said, “Oh, and I forgot, I got word from Bottlecap, Captain Gunny will be here soon to pick you up. He’ll be landing near Star House.”

“Oh good, thanks for letting me know,” I said.

She didn’t respond so I just headed out of the shop, Boo following and Scotch leading the way back to her home. “So I guess you’ll be out of here soon huh?”

“Looks like it,” I said.

“That’s too bad, I’m going to miss having you around. Your way more level-headed than the rest of the group,” Scotch said as she turned toward Star House.

I was about to say something when I heard somepony…no make that someponies landing behind us. I knew that sound all too well, pegasi in power armor. Turning slowly, I saw four of them all with rifles aimed right at us. Slowly I turned my head toward Scotch, saying, “Get Glory or P-21, tell them The Enclave is here.”

“None of you move, we’re here on behalf of Captain Strife of Thunderhead and The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Small mare, are you Shadow Star, also known as The Courier from New Pegasus?” the stallion who looked like he was leading them said.

“If I say yes, are you going to shoot me or threaten me with pain and stuff like that?” I asked.

He either had no sense of humor or he was just ignoring me, because he said, “If you are the mare we’re looking for, then you are under arrest for crimes against The Enclave.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nope, names Silver Snip, I’m visiting from Manehattan.”

A mare next to him moved closer, saying, “She’s lying, Silver Snip was the name of Shadow’s marefriend who’s been dead for weeks now, that’s her.”

Okay, how the hell did they know that? I frowned and took a step back. “Sorry to disappoint you all, but I have a ship to catch and I really don’t feel like playing today.”

The Stallion growled. “You aren’t going anywhere Shadow Star, you’re wanted in Nimbus and Stratus as well as Thunderhead for your crimes. If you come with us, we won’t kill your two friends there.”

“Funny, because last time I checked my dad cleared me of any charges from The Enclave, you might know him, his names High Council Pony Nightshade,” I said, hoping by throwing Dad’s name out there, that they would back off. I also hoped he didn’t kill me himself for doing this.

The mare from before laughed. “Nightshade won’t be leading Stratus or Nimbus for much longer kid, even if you were his kid, you still broke our laws and now you’re being taken in for those crimes. Captain Strife has issued this herself along with her brother Winter Frost. You killed three High Council ponies and you can’t run from that.”

“Hmmmm…yeah, I’m sure I can,” I said pulling my shotgun from it’s holster and firing.

All four ponies dodged the shot and I took that moment to run, yelling, “Scotch, Boo, get back to the house NOW!”

They didn’t have to be told twice, both ponies bolted for the door which wasn’t far now. I ran the other way, away from the house and town. Shots from their battle saddles rang out and I dodged to one side, the lasers just missing me. I wasn’t in good shape right now for a fight, with my lack of sleep and the magic Aquila used still having an effect on me. All I could do was hope that I could get far enough away from them to find help.

That was until two landed in front of me with their battle saddles charged and ready to fire. One was that mare, she grinned, saying, “Unicorns are so stupid, almost as bad as dirt ponies.”

I pointed my Shotgun at them ready to go down fighting. I wasn’t going to let The Enclave get ahold of me, not after I put up with the fucking Sins. Another shot rang out followed by another and another. In a matter of a few breaths, three of the Ponies fell with a bullet flying through the small gaps in their visors. I looked around for the shooter, saying, “What the hell?”

The mare was doing the same. “Who the hell just killed three of my pegasi?”

Then we heard somepony whistling a merry tune from just up the road. I looked toward the sound of it and saw the strangest pony I’ve ever laid eyes on. He was a stallion with a vivid purple coat, his mane was a tangle of ebony locks done up in jagged and spiky dreadlocks, a tricorne hat tucked on his head. He had slow burning match cords shoved into the hat, burning, and also in his tangled uneven beard. His eyes were strange too, one was bright blue the other gold. He was wearing a long coat with boots on his hooves and a special rigged battle saddle with a long rifle on it. His grin told me that either he was crazy or wanted the world to think he was.

He chuckled to himself and spoke in a deep drawing voice, “Ah Capin’ Gunny’s done it again. T’ree fer t’ree and wit only a small tilt too far to the left. Meant to get the last one in the ass. Capin’ Gunny knew Capin’ Gunny shouldn’t have trusted that trader in flank with the sights. I says, that only Capin’ Gunny can fit a sight to his rifle perfectly, but nah, the kid wanted to prove himself. Sad lot that one, sad lot. Now what do we have here?”

“Who the Fuck are you?” the mare yelled turning to point her battle saddle at him.

“Capin’ Gunny at your accountance…no that ain’t right, nah, is it at your service. Can’t be right either Capin’ Gunny isn’t here to service her, though she is a fine-looking mare, even with that armor covering all her tiddly bits and whatnot,” the stallion said…wait this was Captain Gunny?

“I don’t care who you are, you just shot my pegasi, you’re going to pay for that!” she yelled.

“Right, but first can Capin’ Gunny ask you a boon? You by chance aren’t Shadow…somethin’ er ‘rether are ya?” he asked…I think.

“That’s me, she’s an Enclave solider trying to kill me, or take me to The Enclave for the bounty,” I said.

“Ah yes, Bottles said ya was a unicorn,” he said then turned back to the mare. “Sorry love, but Capin’ Gunny has made a deal with this mare to take her to some place far from here.”

“Doesn’t matter she’s mine,” the mare said, then her head whipped back as a bullet flew clean through her skull.

“She talks too much,” Captain Gunny said, pushing a button on his battle saddle, as I watched it retract to his back. “Still a little too much to the left, damn.”

I took a step back, saying, “So you’re the one Bottlecap sent?”

He bowed low, “Capin’ Gunny at your service…Shadow…somethin’. I’ll be taking ya to the Bitter Cob right haste.”

“Don’t you mean right away, or did you mean post haste?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Tis all in the way you look at it…Shadow…somethin’,” he said.

“It’s Shadow Star,” I said getting annoyed already at this nutjob.

“Ah yes, Shadow Star…or somethin’ like that, that was the name Old Capin’ Gunny was told to look fer. We best be going, got a long way ta go, and even more rum to drink,” he said, turning to leave.

Before he could, Glory, P-21, and Scotch all came running, Glory saying, “Shadow, Scotch said you were in trouble…what the hell happened here?”

“It’s okay now,” I said. “This is Captain Gunny, he’s my ride.”

Glory and the others all looked a little confused, but she managed to say, “So wait, you’re leaving now?”

“No time like the time of now,” Captain Gunny said with a chuckle.

He was going to be oh so much fun to travel with. Oh well, at last I have memory orbs. I sighed and looked back at Glory. “Yeah, Aura will be waiting for me and I really do need to get home.”

She smiled a little then pulled me into a hug. “It was nice meeting you Shadow, I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.”

I hugged her back. “Me too, but that’s how life goes. Maybe one day, Blackjack and the rest of you can visit me in New Pegasus.”

“If things calm down here then maybe,” P-21 said, nodding at me. “You have a safe trip Shadow.”

Scotch to my surprise hugged me too. “Don’t go letting evil shit into your head again. I’m glad I got a chance to meet you.”

“Same here Scotch,” I said, then looked back at Glory. “Try to forgive Blackjack and tell her how you feel. I’m sure if you try hard enough, things will work out for the better.”

She blushed a little then nodded. “I’ll think about it, you just get home safe and make sure you try and get some sleep.”

I hugged her again then said my goodbyes. In all honesty, I wasn’t really ready to go just yet. I liked these ponies, they made me feel more grounded than ever and something about this place kept Aquila at bay. If the city wasn’t so dangerous, then I’d just say to hell with New Pegasus and move back here with my friends. Sadly, I knew that I couldn’t do that, I had responsibilities back at home and a heavy leather duster to don again.

I turned back to Captain Gunny and gave him a crazy grin. “Okay you old crazy pony, let’s go back to New Pegasus.”

“Now that’s the spirt Capin’ Gunny likes to see. Follow me, the Bitter Cob’s just on the other side of that hill,” he said, then looked down at the bodies of the Enclave soldiers then back at Glory and her friends. “Don’t worry about the mess, got a clean-up crew comin’.” And with that, the earth pony walked away, laughing like he didn’t have a single care in the world.

I couldn’t help but laugh myself as I followed him. He might be crazy, but he did save my life and maybe he wasn’t that annoying…for a… Pirate? I guess? I really hope that his ship was an airship of some kind, because I really didn’t want it to take weeks to get home…and I couldn’t deal with an earth pony, calling himself a Sky Pirate only to find that he called his carriage a ship. Either way, at least I was one step closer to getting home. I got my uncle’s notes, Mom may have found a way to get Aquila out of me, I was going to see Aura again soon and I made new friends. Maybe going to Hoofington, even for a short time, wasn’t so bad…I had no idea how wrong I was…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Lone Wanderer: You’re getting better at wandering The Wasteland on your own four hooves. As much as you like to travel with your friends, sometimes you just have to go it alone. Gain +1 to Strength and Endurance when you’re traveling on your own.

Chapter 60: The Last of the Real Ones

“Well, well, I was wondering how long it was going to take you to find this place Shadow Star”

When I asked Sun Spot and Captain Gunny to bring me to Canterlot so I could find what was hidden in the old base of The Children of the Night. They both told me the place was deadly, Elliot confirmed that not long after. Still I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I didn’t care, at least that’s what I thought until I saw the mythical place…

We flew closer to the tall mountain where a once beautiful castle sat on the edge of the mountain. I could tell even from here, that the city of Canterlot and the castle itself had once been a wonder to behold. I’d seen pictures of the location in my history books. What was once captured as a true beauty, a staple of high society and ruling over all Equestria, Canterlot, was a shell of its former glory. I saw a small chunk of Canterlot fall into the foggy abyss underneath it. The castle was crumbling and dead looking, the city below had buildings falling down and I could see creatures, probably ghouls roaming around. The air around the place looked sickly and dead in the dim light that poked through the cloud cover. But nothing was as strange as the eerie pink mist that seemed to poor out of the buildings themselves. It washed out of the city like a slow-moving flood, working its way down the mountain side and slowly dissipating as it fell. From where we were now hovering close to the city, but not close enough to the pink mist. I saw bones of ponies fused with the street, carts, other ponies and objects too.

“Quite a nasty sight huh?” Elliot said as he looked down at the former capital of Equestria.

“I had no idea it was this bad. What kind of spell did the zebras use to do that?” I asked.

“No idea,” Elliot replied. “But I do know that whatever it was, it’s still active within the city.”

I looked at him in shock. “How can a spell still be active after two hundred years?”

He shrugged. “Still no idea. Sun Spot and I haven’t been able to look into it yet. You gotta remember that we’re also new to The Wasteland and haven’t had the time to dig into the past as much as we’d like.”

“There be nothin’ in the past that needs bringin’ up and all that,” Gunny said, coming to look down at the city. “Gunny and you all should keep the ship up here and fly down to where all be needn’ to be.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. “I know there’s a large enough platform for The Bitter Cob to land down there.”

“Aye, but that not be the problem, no it be them,” he said, pointing a hoof way down at the streets of Canterlot.

I squinted, but could only make out small black dots. “I don’t see anything.”

“Ya need yer eyes’ checked,” Gunny said, reaching into his overcoat with a hoof and pulling out a spyglass. “Here, be lookin’ through that.”

I took the spyglass with my magic and looked down at the place he’d pointed to before. It took me a moment, but then I saw them. A small grey unicorn with a Pip-Buck on her right foreleg with another unicorn who looked a little older and had similar coloring to my own apart from the gold and red stripe on her mane and tail. There was also a copper colored pegasus who had to be a Dashite from the look of him. They were just making their way past a building, the smaller one seemed to be leading the way into the city.

“Who are they?” I asked.

Elliot answered, “No idea, but it’s a good thing we aren’t heading into the city ourselves or they could be a problem.”

“It be best to have the twins fly you and Gunny to the location,” Gunny said.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Sun Spot said, coming to look down at Canterlot with us. “The Bitter Cob should be fine up here for a little while.”

“I still don’t see why we need to worry about a few ponies in the city,” I said.

“It ain’t about them only, Gunny also sees a couple of Aliwatsits near the castle too,” Gunny said, pointing to a balcony that overlooked Canterlot.

I turned the spyglass toward it and saw he was right. I could just make out a couple of Alicorn’s just inside the broken doors to the castle. I lowered the spyglass, saying, “Okay fine, we’ll do it your way.”

“Good on ya Shadow,” Gunny said with a smile. “Okay then, let’s be headin’ off. No time like the now.”

A few minutes later Sun Spot and Elliot were flying Gunny and myself over the dilapidated city, toward the tallest cliff in the side of the mountain. The Bitter Cob was hovering in the distance, barely noticeable against the gloomy sky. I was riding on Sun Spot’s back, Gunny was being held by Elliot as we made our way closer to our destination. When we were almost there, when a few shots rang out in the city below, but no bullets flew up at us. It must’ve been from the ponies we saw before.

“Sound’s like one mighty powerful revolver to Gunny’s ears,” Gunny said, looking down at the city. “Gunny’d like to get his hooves on a gun like that.”

“You can tell that just by the sound of it?” I asked.

“Sure Gunny can. He be an expert with things that go boom,” the mad captain said with a chuckle.

“We’re almost there,” Sun Spot said as she flapped her wings harder and flew closer to the mountain.

Only a minute later, we were landing on the large platform that overlooked the city. The cliff was about twenty-five meters higher than the tallest tower of the castle. The pink cloud was just rolling off the top of said tower, but it seemed not to be able to reach this high. I was grateful for that, I may not understand what that cloud did, but it had to be bad from the looks of Canterlot. Ignoring the sight of the city, I turned toward the large doors that led into The Children’s old base.

In Lightning Dust’s Memory when she first came to this place, the doors had been gold and beautiful. Over two hundred years later however, the doors were diminished and sad looking. They were still gold, but tarnished over time, with heaven knows how many storms that must’ve raged across here since the last time somepony polished or cleaned them.

Gunny walked over to the door and looked it over. “How’s Gunny to get in, ain’t no knober or anytin’.”

“Just let me show you,” I said as I walked past him. I put a hoof on the door, took in a deep breath and recited the words I heard Night Stalker say in Lightning Dust’s memory. “By the night’s glory, I request passage into the home of these children who look to the night sky for protection.”

“Night’s glory? Children looking for Protection?” Elliot asked, but before I could answer the doors glowed with a bright golden light then slowly opened.

“Gunny needs to get himself sometin’ like that,” Gunny said as he looked at the now beautiful golden doors.

The Spell to open them must’ve cleaned them up again, because now they shined just as bright as they had in Lightning Dust’s memory. I stepped forward and into the old base. I wasn’t sure what I’d find here, all I saw in Lightning’s memory was the main chamber when she first joined The Children. All the other memory orbs of The Children of the Night I found were always in New Pegasus. Well except for the fight against the Pegasus traitor and the Grand Galloping Galla, but those hadn’t been at this base. I’d always assumed they moved to New Pegasus not long after Lightning joined.

From the looks of the main chamber, I was wrong. The furniture had been changed since that last memory I saw, there were more odds and ends lying around and a couple of new terminals were sitting in one corner of the room. If it wasn’t for the dust and the shabby look of the place, I would’ve thought that somepony had been here after Night Stalker last visited. Maybe they used the base whenever a Child of the Night was in Canterlot. I wasn’t sure, it honestly didn’t matter.

“Any of you good with terminals?” I asked, looking back at Sun Spot, Elliot, and Gunny who were looking around the place in awe.

Elliot looked back at me, saying, “I am, what do you need?”

“See if you can get the lights on and check to see if there’s any security footage. I’d like to see when the last time a pony was here was,” I said, turning toward a hallway that led to another room.

“I’m on it,” Elliot said, walking over the terminals in the corner.

“Gunny’s goin’ ta look around this room fer a bit. Sunny, go with Shadow,” Gunny said.

“Aye, aye,” she said, following me down the hallway.

As we walked, I said, “You don’t have to follow me, nopony apart from The Children of the Night know how to get into this place.”

“Maybe, but you should still be on your guard,” she said, looking at the doors on each side of the hallway. “This place is kinda creepy.”

“I don’t think any ponies have been here for at least a hundred and sixty years or so,” I said as I walked up to a door on one side of the hallway and checked it. It was locked. Sighing, I pulled out a bobby pin and the screwdriver I got from Charity and started on the lock.

“What’re you doing?” Sun Spot asked.

“Picking the lock,” I said as I worked the bobby pin around, I felt the pins press into place then twisted the lock with the screwdriver. “There we go, not too bad.”

As I pushed the door open with a hoof, Sun Spot asked, “Where’d you learn to do that?”

I shrugged as I looked around the room. It was only a bedroom with only a single bed and a desk in one corner. No personal effects to be found at all so I turned back into the hall, saying, “Found a book in my old stable that showed the inner workings of most kinds of locks. I used to be a bit of a trouble maker, so I started teaching myself how to pick them. My Overmare used to have security confiscate things from me when I was a filly, so I used to sneak into their area of the stable using the air ducts and steal whatever they took, back.”

“I’m surprised you got away with that,” she said as I moved to another door and picked the next lock.

“She never caught me doing it. I knew where a blind spot was in a hallway on the floor above Security. There was a duct I could use in that blind spot so I used to use that. Security only has cameras where the cells are, so I was able to get away with most things.” The lock clicked and I pushed open the door, finding the same sight as the last room. “Damn, I hope not all the rooms in this place are like this one.”

“What is it you’re hoping to find anyway?” Sun Spot asked.

“Not sure yet, I know that Night Stalker left something here and I need to find it,” I said as I continued down the hall.

“It’d help if you knew what to look for,” she said.

“I know at least one thing is a weapon of some kind, or notes on how to stop something called Project Star Gazer,” I said as we came to the end of the hall where a single large door was set. There wasn’t any kind of doorknob or even a keyhole for me to pick.

“A weapon huh? Also, what is Project Star Gazer?” she asked.

“Project Star Gazer is the name of a project that was meant to pull power from the stars. It’s part of a bigger project, one that I’m trying to stop anypony from using,” I said as I looked around the edge of the door.

“Noble of you then,” she said with a shiver. “If it’s anything like Project Chimera, then I’d want to put a stop to it too.”

“It’s worse than what was done to you, at least I believe it is,” I said as I found what I was looking for finally. “Ah here we go.”

“How do you open doors like that anyway, there’s no keyhole,” she asked.

“Like this,” I said, as I pushed a small button next to the door. A small sapphire popped out of the wall. “It has a genetic scanner on it.”

The gem flashed with a blue light. The light ran over my body quickly then the gem popped back into the wall, a small voice, saying, “Welcome Child of the Night.”

Sun Spot looked confused as the door vanished into the wall as it slid open. “How’d you get that thing to think you were a Child of the Night?”

“I didn’t, I just happened to be related to like Three of the Children of the Night,” I said as I walked into the room. The room wasn’t huge, but it was a lot bigger than the chamber when you first came into this place. It looked like a mix of a library, an armory, a sitting room, a laboratory, and a museum. The library part was harder to make out since there weren’t any books, but large book selves were set into the back wall. In the middle of the room stood at least twenty stands with glass boxes of varying sizes, some with items inside. In the far corner, a small lab was set up with all kinds of stuff I knew nothing about. It just reminded me of mom’s small lab in the bunker when we lived with The Steel Rangers. In the other corner and taking up half of each wall were rows of old prewar weapons. And on the side closest to the door was a huge terminal and a few bean bags set up around it like a sitting area with a couple of tables next to each one.

As soon as I walked into the room, the lights overhead came on, taking away the gloomy look from the emergency security lights that had been the only illumination before. Sun Spot smiled a little, saying, “I guess Elliot got the power back on.”

The terminal booted up with a soft humming and the speakers came to life in the ceiling, playing a soft jazz number. I smiled along with her. “Makes it feel a lot nicer in here, now if the dust was gone and some of the grime cleaned up, it’d be almost homey.”

Sun Spot looked toward the weapons rack, saying, “You think the weapon you’re looking for is over there?”

“No idea, I’m gonna see if I can hack into the terminal and check to see if there’s anything in there that can help,” I said, walking toward the terminal. “You can take whatever you want from the rack though, I don’t think I’ll need any of those.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sun Spot said, heading over to the rack of weapons as I went to the larger terminal.

The terminal reminded me a lot of the one in The Lucky Horseshoe, the same one Mr. Tops used to communicate with ponies…well me at least. It just looked like an older model. I tapped a couple of keys, booting up the terminal. It took a little while for it to switch on and be ready to use. Once it was up it asked for a username and password. Looking around, I found the place I could hook up the Mark II and did so. Like always, the Mark II did it’s work and got me past the normal log in and right into the security bypass logs. As I worked on finding the correct password, I heard Gunny come into the room.

“Ah Gunny likes this room he does. Look at all the gizzmos and whatcha’ macalles it’s,” I heard Gunny say as he walked by me.

Just as he came in, I was able to finally get the right password, it was ‘Advantageous’. The terminal came to a screen with a huge list of items. I smiled, saying, “Awesome, I was hoping I could get in quickly. I think I’m getting better at this hacking stuff.”

Gunny poked his head around me, saying, “Wat’s all this stuff by the by?”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought you were gonna check out the main room while Sun Spot and I checked this one.”

“Gunny did check the other room, didn’t find nothin’, just a bunch of dust and all that. Gunny wanted to be seein’ what was in this room, lots better stuff in here,” he said with a chuckle.

“Can you at least give me a little space?” I asked as I started to look through the list of items and whatever else was on this.

“Gunny be da Captin’ here not you,” he said in a huff.

“We aren’t on your ship anymore Captain Gunny, we’re in the base of The Children of the Night who happen to be my ancestors. So, technically you’re in my place now, so I make the rules,” I said as I brought up the list of items that were inventoried there.

“So that how it be then? Fine, if ya wanna push ol’ Captin’ Gunny away so be it,” he said, moving away muttering to himself. “Not like Gunny cared what was on that anyhow, crazy tiny unicorn.”

I ignored him as I started going through the list again. If I had time to go through everything that was on this terminal I would. Sadly, there was so much here that I’d have to spend a week if not longer reading through every file stored here. What I needed to find was the weapon that could kill Aquila, if that’s what Night Stalker meant when he said destroying Star Gazer. After an undetermined amount of time something caught my eye. It was the second to last item on the list, it said ‘Memory Crystal: Fall of The Queen of the Night’ I clicked on it and watched as another message came up.

Item in box 2-D do you wish to unlock?

Interested even more now, I clicked yes and watched as another message followed that one.

Blue, Violet, Red, Blue, Red, Yellow, Orange, Green,

I was able to read it twice before the message vanished. I was about to see if I could look it over again when a soft light caught my eye where a glass box was. Looking over I saw one of the boxes were lit up and the case’s top was now opened up. Moving over to it I saw what was inside, it was another Memory Crystal, about the same size as the one I found in Minuette’s lab. I was about to pick it up with my magic when I remembered the warning about what could happen with them.

Looking over at Sun Spot who was looking over a large rifle, I asked, “Sun Spot, can you help me out?”

She looked over at me, putting the rifle down. “Sure what do you need?”

I pointed at the crystal. “Need you to grab this for me, I can’t reach it because of my height, and I can’t grab it with my magic because it’s too dangerous.”

She walked over and looked at the crystal. “What is it and how dangerous are we talking?”

“It’s only dangerous for a unicorn to grab with their magic, you’ll be fine. As for what it is, it’s a memory crystal. Think of it as a very old version of a memory orb,” I said.

She shrugged. “Okay, as long as it won’t do anything to me.” She reached into the glass box with her paw and carefully picked it up, saying, “Damn, this thing is heavier than it looks.”

“I know, now put it in my saddle bags,” I said, turning so she could reach.

“Sure thing,” she said, doing as I asked. “Is this the weapon you were looking for?”

“No, but I think it’s the other thing I needed to find, I’m still looking for the weapon,” I said once she was done and heading back to the terminal.

“Sunny, come look at what Captin’ Gunny found,” Gunny said next to the weapons rack.

“Good luck,” Sun Spot said with a small chuckle.

I continued to look through the items, there was a lot of interesting stuff here. Like, Princess Luna’s first crown, a spear that belonged to an original member of The Children from over a thousand year ago. There was a spell book that once was owned by the first leader of The Children of the Night, Starswirl the Bearded’s favorite hat. Stuff like that mostly, but nothing about a weapon that could kill a star creature. Most of the stuff wasn’t anything I needed, but I did open the case for the spell book. I went back to the glass boxes and took the very old book out and placed it in my saddle bags.

Once I was done with that, I went back to the terminal and started checking a list named ‘Specialty Weapons’ and that’s where I saw the other thing that almost made me gasp. There were only two items here, one was listed as ‘The Night’s Slayer’ and the other ‘Demon Slayer’. Demon Slayer was the name of my father’s revolver. I clicked on it and saw a message come up.

Revolver .44 Caliber, black, embedded with four gems and enchanted by Princess Luna herself. When used with Ammunition that has been engraved with her Cutie Mark, it can kill almost any kind of creature with a single shot. If normal ammunition is used, this revolver still has more kick and power than a normal gun of its make. Item can be found on weapons rack, Space L-01.

I looked over at the weapons rack and saw a part of it lit up like the boxes had been. I ran over to it excited to finally get my hooves on what I came here for, only to feel my heart sink as I saw the empty space where the revolver should be. It was gone, which means that either someone stole it a long time ago, or The Guardian came for it. Dad’s gun was also called The Demon Slayer, but that didn’t mean it was the same revolver. It could be a replica, but still I’d have to ask him. It was then that I noticed the other item hanging next to where Demon Slayer should be.

A set of long slender blades that shined like a star was hanging there. They were a lot longer than any sword I’d ever seen, and they had a bend to them that reminded me of the curve of a wing. They also had a few hinges in them so they could fold and move, almost like they were meant for the wings of a pegasus.

Not taking my eyes off the blades, I asked, “Sun Spot, do you know what these are?”

She was only a couple meters away from me, pushing Gunny back from a set of pistols that looked like they were made of gold. She looked over at the blades, saying, “Yeah, those are wing blades, some pegasi used them during the war. They’re hard to learn how to use, but once you do, they’re very effective.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I took them down with my magic. They folded easily enough. “Do you know how to use them?”

“Gunny likes the look of ‘em. Sunny or Elliot would be doing good work for Captin’ Gunny with a set of those,” Gunny said, coming to look at the blades too.

“I’m okay with them, but I could never get some of the flight patterns down that you need to make them work right. You need to be an expert flyer to use them properly,” she said. “Even then, with how I am now, I can’t use them. My wings are too big.”

As she said this, I looked down and saw a box sitting on a small shelf just under where the blades were set, that looked perfect for them to be placed in. Sun Spot may not be able to use the blades, but I knew a Pegasus who most likely could. Stardust likes to style himself as an excellent sniper, but I’ve seen him fight hoof to hoof and he was a great flyer too. So, I opened the box saw that it had a lining in it that was made for the wing blades to go into with a small plaque that read ‘The Night’s Slayer’. I placed the blades into it, then put them in my saddle bags.

“Sorry Shadow, no luck with the terminal in the other room,” Elliot said, coming to join us from the hall. “The hard drive’s fried.”

“It’s fine, I think we found what we needed, you can take anything else here though, but I think we should hurry,” I said, walking back to the larger terminal so I could either lock it down again or open the rest of the boxes.

“There be horde a loot to be findin’,” Gunny said, starting to take down any rifle he could get his hooves on. “Elliot, take as many as ya can carry.”

I went back to the terminal when the screen on it switched from the list of items and other crap to a video feed. I jumped then took a step back as the monitor showed a darkened room with a pony sitting in a huge chair, almost a throne. I couldn’t make out the pony’s face or any details about him apart from slightly yellow eyes that caught the little bit of light in the dark room. A chuckle emanated from the screen followed by a voice that was harsh and sounded almost like a ghoul.

“Well, well, I was wondering how long it was going to take you to find this place Shadow Star,” The figure said. “I’ll say, with how much you like to stick your nose into Enclave business and into the past I thought you’d have come to this old base a long time ago.”

It took me a moment to find my voice, something about this pony scared me, but I couldn’t say what it was. He gave off a powerful presence almost like Night Stalker. When I did find my voice, I asked, “Who are you?”

An almost evil chuckle came from the screen. “You don’t need to know who I am Shadow, you just need to know that I know who you are. I’ve been wanting to talk with you for weeks, ever since I found out that you had that Mark II and Aquila.”

Sun Spot, Elliot, and Captain Gunny came walking over, all looking up at the shadowed pony. Captain Gunny saying, “Gunny be wantin’ to know who this is and why he’s interruptin’ Gunny’s lootin’”

The Stallion on the screen laughed. “Funny seeing an earth pony all the way on the top of Canterlot Mountain. I thought only pegasi could get up there or unicorns, I’m even more surprised that any of you managed to get in.”

“Gunny goes where Gunny feels like,” Gunny said frowning. “What you be wantin’?”

“Nothing from you, dirt pony. I don’t speak to filth like you. Same goes for those two escaped experiments behind you,” the stallion said. “I’m only communicating through this terminal because I saw that Shadow Star was there.”

“I’m guessing you’re part of The Enclave then,” I said.

He laughed again. “More like the pony who runs things behind the scenes. I’m the one who’s kept The Enclave strong for a long time. I’ll admit, you’ve kept my pegasi busy for a while now trying to track you down. You’ve even been able to somehow get a high council pony on your side. Though I shouldn’t be surprised, Nightshade would do anything for his daughter wouldn’t he?”

I felt a shiver run down my spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He slammed a hoof on his chair’s arm, pointing at me, his voice sounding sinister even with that ghoulish tone. “Don’t play that game with me Shadow, I know who you are!” he held a hoof up to where I assumed his muzzle was and coughed into it. “I know who your mother is, I know where she was hiding you for ten years. I know what you’ve been doing, I know that you have my Pip-Buck and I know that you’re keeping Aquila hidden inside your head! I’m not a fool! I know everything that’s going on in The Enclave and in The Wasteland.” He coughed again only more intensely. “I’ve had my pegasi hunting you ever since Nightshade pardoned you. Normally I let the cities run themselves, but when I saw that you’d managed to worm your way out of more trouble, I figured it was time for me to step in.

“Fine, so you know who I am and who my parents are, big deal. What do you want?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m sure you know what I want. I want the project that your distant grandfather tried to keep from me. I want the power of Star Gazer and Falling Shadows. I also want the range finder since that technology rightfully belongs to The Enclave,” he said.

“And what’re, ya gonna do about it?” Gunny asked.

“Yeah, what he said?” Sun Spot added.

“I was talking to Shadow Star, if any of you interrupt our conversation again, I’ll send my pegasi in to get you all,” the stallion said.

I looked at the others. “Just keep quiet for now okay, I’ll deal with him.” Then while my head was turning, I mouthed, “Go get the ship.”

Sun Spot nodded at that and slowly started to back out of the view of the terminal, Elliot with her, but Gunny stayed, though he took a few steps back muttering under his breath, “Lousy stinkin’ peg, don’t like his like none, Gunny don’t one bit.”

Turning back to the stallion, I said, “So that’s all you want huh? Well too bad, because I’m not giving The Enclave anything. And what makes you think the range finder belongs to The Enclave?”

“The project was started by The Children of the Night, that fool Night Stalker was the one who made The Enclave into what it is now. Any project that belonged to The Children belongs to us. It’s simple, you give us what we want, and we’ll let your friends and your parents live. If you don’t, we’ll start with your father, then your mother, followed by that pegasus from 97, and so on,” he said in a low growl. “You should know that we have the power to follow through with our threats.”

“Honestly no I don’t, I haven’t seen much threat from The Enclave since I’ve been out of my stable. The Sins were a problem yes, but by now there’s… what…three left?” I said, rolling my eyes then smiling.

“Four,” he answered. “Envy, Lust, Sloth, and Wrath.”

“Hard for them to come after me since they listen to my mother,” I taunted.

Gunny whispered behind me, “Shadow, Gunny don’t think you should be sayin’ things like that. Gunny’s a good cannoneer and fighter, but he can’t take on The Sinner ponies.”

I ignored him. “So, since you can’t use The Sins, who else do you have? Your military? From what I know about that, it’s weak compared to the east. You don’t have anypony to threaten me with.”

To my amazement, the stallion laughed. “First of all, The Sins now answer to me, they know your part of a family of traitors. As for what I can use against you, that’s easy. I control the ENTIRE Enclave from the shadows. I can send any of my military after you whenever I want. Now stop with the small talk and do as you’re told.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Yeah…no. I don’t think so. I’m not scared of you or The Enclave, I’m not letting any of you get Falling Shadows, Aquila, The Mark II, or the ranger finder. Keep threatening me all you want, come after me if you want, but I’m warning you now. If you try anything, I’ll let Aquila out of her cage again and you just try seeing what’ll happen when she’s at the helm of my body. She’ll find you and rip you to shreds just for threatening her.”

He chuckled again, as if everything I said was funny. “How do you know what she’ll do? What if I’ve already spoken to her while she was using that tiny body of yours? You really should think before you threaten a pony like me Shadow. Aquila isn’t your ally, she wants her own body and yours is a perfect fit. I’ve known about her for a very long time, remember that. Now if you’re not going to do what I tell you to do then I think it’s time for me to turn up the heat and bring you to me.”

“Gunny’s thinkin’ it be time to be leavin’ this place like mold on hooves,” Gunny said, taking a few steps back. “Gunny knows when to be gettin’ gone.”

The ghoul laughed. “Run, run as fast as you can. I’ll catch you no matter how far you’ve run. Hahahaha!”

I felt my heart slide somewhere into my stomach. As he laughed, the lights went out and an alarm started to blare. I turned to Gunny. “We need to get out of here…NOW!”

Gunny seemed to agree, he booked it for the entrance. As we ran down the hall, slots in the ceiling opened and gun turrets dropped. I barely noticed them in the dim lights from the emergency lighting, until one of them turned toward me and opened fire. The first bullet slammed into my combat armor throwing me back as pain ran up my chest. It felt like my chest was ripped open, but I couldn’t just lay there. I rolled back onto my hooves and followed Gunny down the hall. As I ran dodging the shots from the gun turrets, I pulled out the shotgun I got from Bottlecap and entered S.A.T.S., I aimed at the first turret and took two shots at the hinge between the gun and the control arm. There was a flash of light and the shot just bounced off what had to be some kind of shield. The turret opened fire slamming into my barding again, throwing me back into another wall.

“Shadow, they be shielded , there be no use boomin’ at ‘em,” Gunny yelled.

“I figured that out!” I said as I got back to my hooves again, running for it before the turret could hit me again.

We just made it to the end of the hallway that led into the main room when another alarm started going off. My eyes went wide as I looked toward the hallway that led out of the base. A blast door was starting to shut. I picked up the pace, taking hold of Gunny with my telekinesis, throwing him forward and just under the blast door. He went sliding along the stone floor as I followed behind right before the door slammed into the ground.

“Damn dat ghouly pony don’t like visiters does he?” Gunny said as he got back to his hooves, looking back at the closed blast door.

Getting back to my own hooves, I slowly walked past him, my body hurting from all of the bullets that hit my barding. “Yeah, I find that happens a lot.”

He followed me as I made my way to the golden doors, opening them to find the twins standing just on the other side. As soon as Elliot saw us, he came running. “We heard gunshots. Are you two okay?”

“We need to get out of here, I’m sure that asshole is gonna send somepony soon and I want to get as far away from here as we can,” I said, wincing with every step.

“Short one’s be gottin’ a point, Captin’ Gunny’s sayin’ it’s time to cast off!” Gunny said, taking charge.

“I agree, plus this place give me the creeps,” Sun Spot said, looking down at the pink mist covered city far below.

Sun Spot picked me up as Elliot took hold of Gunny. In a few minutes we were back on The Bitter Cob which had been moved closer to the mountain. Sun Spot set me down near the front of the ship, then headed back to get the air ship moving again. Elliot made his way over to the main canon and started watching for Enclave ships or ponies who might be heading our way. Captain Gunny started shouting orders, which really wasn’t needed since Sun Spot and Elliot knew what to do already. It seemed to make the mad pony feel better though. They all left me alone to lay on the deck and think about what I learned in the short time I spent in the old Children of the Night’s base.

I only went there to find a weapon that could destroy Aquila and what did I find? Crap information, a few weapons I didn’t need, and a fucking memory crystal. The Demon Slayer, it sounded like the perfect weapon to kill that bitch in my head. I should’ve known better. Why would the Goddesses let anything be that easy? It dawned on me then, Demon Slayer, Dad’s revolver is called Demon Slayer…no…could it really be that simple? Lifting my left hoof, I brought up the broadcaster on the Mark II. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to find the correct network to connect to Byte. Once I did, I opened-up a line to her.

“Byte are you there?” I said into the Mark II.

A moment later the filly answered, “Yeah, what’s up Shadow? Have you found Aura yet?”

“Not yet, I had to make a small stop, but we should be getting to where she’s waiting for us soon. I’m calling because I want to know if my dad’s still with you all, or did he go back to The Enclave?” I asked.

“He left days ago, he said he can’t be away for too long or ponies will notice. Why?” she asked.

“I figured as much, I wanted to ask him something, but I can’t contact him from way out here,” I said as I got into a sitting position.

“What did you wanna ask? He left us with a communicator that connects directly to him. I can get a message to him now if you need me to,” Byte said.

I took a moment to think about what I heard from that ghoul and what I need to know about the Demon Slayer. If his revolver was the one I needed, then it wouldn’t do me any good until I was back in New Pegasus, but he did need to know that somepony was going after him and that they knew he was my father. So I said, “What I need to ask can wait, but I need you to warn him about something that I overheard.”

I told her about the encounter we had in the base. Once I was finished Byte said, “That doesn’t sound good at all, I’ll get a message to him right away. Also, how long do you think it’s gonna take for you to get home?”

“I’m not sure at this point, maybe a couple days depending on what happens. Once we’re past the town where I’m meeting Aura, The Wasteland will be extremely dangerous to travel through even in an air ship,” I replied.

“Where are you right now? I figured you’d have met up with Aura by now at least,” Byte asked.

“We…kind of just left Canterlot, I needed to make a stop there…” I started to say, but Byte cut me off.

“You went WHERE!?” she yelled, “Canterlot, the city of the pink death? Why would you go anywhere near that place!?”

“I needed to get something that could stop Aquila…” I tried saying again, but again she cut me off.

“Dammit Shadow, I told you we have a plan, you didn’t need to go there for anything! You had one job to do and you failed! That job is to get home as fast as you can so we can take care of that bitch once and for all. But no, once again you think you have to go off on your own and try to deal with her yourself,” Byte scolded.

“Byte would you just listen…” but she didn’t let me finish.

“NO! You have no control over her as much as you want to think you do. Every second you spend wandering around trying to take care of things yourself, is another second that Aquila has to take over again, and we don’t know if you’ll be able to get hold of yourself again after that. For fuck sake Shadow, stop acting like a damned foal and grow up. You like to say how you’re all grown up and know better than ponies like Wingnut and I, but you don’t. You’re being a spoiled brat that wants things to go the way she wants them to,” Byte argued.

That was it, I’ve had enough of her attitude to last me a lifetime, “Shut the fuck up Byte and listen! Goddesses, don’t fucking assume I’m trying to sabotage your well thought out plans! I’m merely trying to give us any advantage we’ll need and it won’t fuck anything up, if anything, it can help I’m sure. Yeah, I’ll admit it was dangerous and I know I probably shortened the time I have control of myself. However, if I didn’t go there you wouldn’t have known to warn my dad. Maybe you should think about what you say before you say it.”

Byte was silent for a moment, maybe thinking about what I said, afterwards she spoke again. “Fine Shadow, we’re just worried about you but, NO MORE DETOURS!” Byte said, then sighing she asked, “Where are you right now?”

“I think we are just going over The Everfree Forest I believe it’s called, not too far from Canterlot still. Why?” I replied.

“Hold on a moment,” she said.

That took me by surprise as her mic went dead and a soft music came out of my Pip-Buck. My eyes went wide as I said, “She put me on HOLD!?”

Elliot who was only a few meters away stopped what he was doing to look over at me, and say, “I didn’t know you could do that on a Pip-Buck.”

“I didn’t either! What a bitch!” I said angrily.

Elliot chuckled. “Comes with age, and to be fair she had a good point, that entire trip was pointless.”

“Says you,” I snapped.

“Don’t get me wrong, you also made a good point, but thinking about it, I mean we didn’t get much loot. The Enclave knows where we are again, and you didn’t find what you were looking for,” he said.

Before I could retort Byte came back on, “I got your location figured out thanks to this Mark II and with Wingnut’s help we know where you’ll be in a couple hours. Aura and Solstice aren’t far away, they’ll meet up with you, she’s going to keep an eye on you for us to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Wait what? That’s not the plan! How did you even get in contact with her this far out? You said to meet you in…” I started to say but she cut me off again.

“Your father had a way for us to communicate this far away. Just keep flying the way you are, and you’ll run into her in a couple hours. Now I have to go, I have a lot to do. See you later,” Byte said before she cut off the communication.

I wanted to reach through the Pip-Buck and slap the shit out of that little brat. She was like a female Wingnut, but I couldn’t do anything about it and as for Aura and Solstice go there’s no way either of them would change the plan again now that they knew how to find me. Whatever happened next, I was just gonna have to go with it, because as much as I hated to admit it, Byte was right. It was stupid of me to go to Canterlot and I knew it. So, with another sigh I got to my hooves and walked toward the upper deck.

“Trouble with the mare friend?” Elliot asked with a chuckle.

“Huh? Mare friend? She’s a filly,” I said confused.

“You’re a filly too, so what?” he asked.

“I’m not a…” I started to say, but cut myself off. “Where I’m from, I’m not a filly. I guess Byte is almost the same age as me though, so I see your point, but no she’s not my mare friend. She likes my friend Wingnut.”

He looked at me with his head tilted to one side, “I thought you had a…what do you ponies call it? Oh yes a special somepony, that’s what Sunny said at least.”

“I do, but it’s a special somegriff. You’ll meet her soon,” I said.

“A griffon huh? Interesting, and what do you mean we’ll be meeting her soon? I thought the griffon picking you up was on the other side of the forest?” Elliot asked.

“From the sound of it, plans changed,” I said, heading up to speak with Captain Gunny.

Elliot followed as I made my way to the back of the airship where Gunny was looking out into the distance. Sun Spot who was at the wheel watched me as I walked closer to the Captain. He was muttering something under his breath, “Dat be right, Gunny’ll show ya Enclave’s who’s boss in da skies. Took away my Sown Seed dey did, will make dem pay for dat, now dey want to be takin’ away Gunny’s passenger, not again Gunny says, not again.”

I cleared my throat, saying, “Captain, do you have a minute?”

He blinked then looked back at me. “A minute is all most ponies have, den the world could end like the booming flash of da plasma canons.”

“Does that mean yes?” I asked.

He shrugged then sighed, saying, “Aye it does, what can Captin’ Gunny do fer ya?”

“I just got word from my friends, looks like Aura and another friend of mine will be meeting us in a couple hours. They know where we’ll be by then, so they want to meet with us early,” I said.

He took a moment to look back into the distance, after about five minutes passed and I was just about to ask if everything was okay he responded, “Dat may be a good idea, Gunny has a feels that dem pegasi will be findin’ us again and more fighters will be a good idea.”

“They said we just need to stay on the course we’re on and they’ll find us,” I said.

“I’ll keep us on track,” Sun Spot said.

I looked back at her, Elliot was standing next to her. Even after spending a little time with them, I still couldn’t tell them apart. The eyes were the only give away and I had to remember which one of them had what eye color on which side. I gave Sun Spot a smile, and said, “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” she said looking back toward the front then said to Elliot, “Keep an eye on the air around us, I agree with the Captain, I think we haven’t seen the last of The Enclave.”

“Aye, aye, I’ll take to the air and watch from up there, our scanners are looking for anything within a mile of us. We should have plenty of warning,” he said as he took to the air.

Turning back to Captain Gunny I saw he was still looking into the distance like he could see The Enclave following us. “Everything okay Captain?”

He shrugged, “Gunny be worried that be all.”

“I thought you weren’t scared of anything?” I asked.

He chuckled a little. “Gunny be scared of a lot of tings miss Shadow. Like so, Gunny hates spiders, not the big ones no they be easy to shoot. The little ones, be walkin’ into yer bed and creeping up yer nose as ya sleep. Den there be Butter, never trust butter. Den der be, losin’ somepony ya love. Nothin’ be scarier dan dat.”

“From what I’ve seen, you don’t ever show a bit of fear,” I said.

“It be all about da way you let other ponies see ya. If ya show dem that you be scared of ‘em, then they have power of ya. So, Gunny never lets ‘em see his fetlocks be wobblin’ or dat he be ready to run like a colt. Nah, Gunny makes sure they be scared of him,” he said, taking a moment from his gazing into the horizon to look at me.

“I guess I can see how that would work,” I said as he went back to looking at the depressing sight of trees and death below. After a few minutes passed I asked, “Who was Sown Seed?”

He snapped his head around to look at me. “Who be tellin’ ya about her?”

“Nopony, I just overheard you a moment ago say something about her. Who was she?” I asked.

“Oh right, Gunny let’s his mouth run away at times, apologies,” Gunny said, “Sown Seed was Gunny’s wife she was. She was da most beautiful mare in da Wasteland, and Gunny were lucky to be meetin’ her let alone being her special somepony. Gunny had four good years wit her, but as it always goes, da Wasteland took her away from Gunny.”

“What happened if I may ask?” I said.

Gunny turned away and took a few steps toward the deck then looked back at me, anger in his eyes. “Da Enclave, that be what happened,” with that he left for his room.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked Sun Spot.

“Nah, he just doesn’t like talking about her that’s all,” Sun Spot said as she kept her eyes forward. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything, I could use some help. Think you can take over on the navigation display and make sure we stay on course?”

I took a moment to watch Captain Gunny as he went to his room then looked back at Sun Spot. “Yeah, I can do that, just don’t hate me if I still suck at it.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, if you need to ask me something to make sure you’re doing alright, then that’s fine.”

I smiled and went to stand next to her, taking over the small terminal that sat a few feet away from the wheel. I felt myself relax as I fell into the simple task. In all honesty, it was one of the easier things to do on this ship and now that I was getting used to it, I kinda liked it.

***

Almost two hours passed as we were getting closer to the other side of the Everfree Forest. While I navigated for Sun Spot I asked her a few things. One was why the ship had a big balloon on it if they used anti-gravity systems to fly the ship. Her answer was simple. She told me that the balloon itself didn’t do much normally, its main purpose was to make sure the ship didn’t fall from the sky if something went wrong with the flight equipment. Made sense I guess, then I asked her about why it was taking so long to get over Everfree. Again, she gave me the simple answer.

“Everfree is a dangerous place to be, everything’s wild around here and to top it off, Red Eye’s ponies have been seen around here too. Going faster might get us through the airspace over the forest faster, but it would also make us more noticeable. The engines on this this thing are powerful and loud when we’re at high speed. When we’re traveling slower like now, most ponies wouldn’t make out the sound from the ground,” Sun Spot explained.

She also went over more about her past and the battles she was in. She told me stories about ponies I’d only ever heard about in my old textbooks. My favorite was one about a mare named Daring Doo, though I couldn’t tell if the mare was real or from some old books. The name sparked something in my mind, like a forgotten memory or something, but I couldn’t place it. Something about Stardust and an old refrigerator. I heard things about the Ministry Mares too, stories that weren’t covered in my books. She even told me about when Nightmare Moon attacked Ponyville when she was a filly. Her family was visiting when that happened and how Twilight Sparkle and her friends saved Princess Luna from herself.

I was starting to really enjoy the stories when Eliot yelled from the bow of the ship, “Sun Spot we’ve got movement ahead, looks like two fliers, can’t tell if they’re Enclave or not.”

Elliot came back from his flight to check the surrounding areas an hour ago and was now watching the systems that looked for ponies getting too close. Sun Spot looked at him, yelling, “Get into the air again and find out!”

“No time ma’am, they’ll be on us in a few seconds!” he said, moving away from the terminals he was on and pulling out a rifle he had holstered on his back.

He turned to aim toward where he must’ve seen the ponies on the radar, as Sun Spot yelled, “How the hell did anypony get this close without us knowing?”

He didn’t have time to answer, somepony in black power armor dove out from the clouds right over us and slammed down on the deck. He turned to aim his rifle at her, yelling, “Identify yourself!”

I saw the wings of the Pegasus whose face was covered by the visor of her helmet, but I knew those wings. Grey with pink tips, a style I’d only seen on two ponies. Stardust’s were grey with blue tips, Solstice’s were grey with Pink, just like this mare. I started to yell down at him, “No don’t shoot…she’s…”

The rest of what I was going to say was cut off as another figure, much bigger, came falling from the sky as well. A green glowing energy spear in her white talons. As she landed next to Elliot, her spear flew down and sliced his rifle in two. She twisted around and kicked him back with her paws, jumping into the air again to land on him as he slammed down on the deck right on his back. Her Energy Spear a few centimeters away from his throat.

Sun Spot was already reaching for her own rifle, but I took hold of it with my magic, saying, “Don’t, she’s a friend,” then yelled down at her, “Hey Aura, thanks a lot for attacking my friends,” she didn’t budge, I guess she didn’t hear me

I noticed then that Solstice had activated her battle saddle and was pointing it at somepony below us. Must be Gunny, coming to find out who was making all the noise. I got my answer a second later. “Ye best be puttin’ down that glowin’ toothpick lass, before Gunny blows off that ugly mug uh yers. There be two things Gunny enjoys most in the world and that be sleepin’ and drinkin’, yer interruptin’ both.”

Aura looked up at me then back at where I could now see Gunny standing on the deck, his odd battle saddle aimed at Solstice, his gaze on Aura. Solstice just chuckled a little. “Two against one, I don’t think we have much to worry about.”

“Good point Solstice, I think he’s bluffing,” Aura said, letting the glowing end of her spear just touch Elliot’s neck. I saw a little smoke puff up from where it connected.

“Ye’d be wrong there lass, Gunny never misses his mark. Now let my pony bird go,” Gunny said.

I was already moving, I dashed down the steps that led to the deck and ran over to Aura using my magic to pull her spear away a little. “Aura, these are the ponies…well pony and whatever the other two are, who are transporting me.”

To my utter shock, Aura pulled her spear from my magical grip and put it back to Elliot’s throat. She didn’t even look at me, she kept her eyes locked on Gunny. It was Solstice who said something next, “I’m sure that’s what they told you Shadow, but I picked up on Enclave communication an hour ago. They said they were going to be meeting with somepony who’s transporting The Courier to make an exchange. They’ve been lying to you.”

My eyes went wide as I turned to look back at Captain Gunny, “You were going to do what!?”

His gaze met mine as he said, “Aye, she be right in a small sense she be, but Gunny never meant to be turning ya into The Enclave. They said they’d be givin’ back Gunny’s wife. Was goin’ to be trickin’ dem Gunny was. Gunny never would break a deal he made with ya.”

Aura’s glare grew worse as she said in a harsh angry voice, “You fucking pile of Wasteland scum. Do you have any idea how many pegasus troops were sent this way? Do you even know who’s hunting her and what they’ll do to get her back? It’s blithering idiots like you that The Enclave preys upon to meet their goals, whatever the means.”

“Gunny can take anypony on he can, ya don’t know nothin’ bout what’s goin’ on birdie,” Gunny replied.

“That’s why you were looking out in the distance, you were waiting for The Enclave to catch up to us,” I said, looking up at Sun Spot. “Did you know about this?”

She shook her head. “Had no idea, The Captain has his own communication equipment in his room. If I would’ve known, I would’ve stoped him.”

Gunny started to laugh. “Ya couldn’t have done nothin’ to Gunny, none of ya can. Like Gunny said, he didn’t mean to be giving ya up to ‘em, only trickin’ them to get Sown Seed back. The Enclave’s had her fer twenty years now. They said they’d give ‘er back if Gunny did this. That icy one said as much a couple hours ago.”

“Sown Seed? That sounds like an Earth Pony name,” Solstice said.

He glared at her, “Don’t be talkin’ to Gunny ya feathered sky cunt.”

“Don’t speak to her that way!” I said as I pulled out my shotgun and pointed it at The Captain. “Looks like your days as Captain are done Gunny. That is if Sun Spot and Elliot agree.”

“I know I do,” Elliot said from under Aura. “We made a deal and we keep our deals that’s why we joined up. We never meant Shadow harm.”

Solstice ignored us as she said to Gunny, “I don’t care if you hate my race or not you old, drunken, dirty, sky pirate. Listen here, I was a Lieutenant in The Grand Pegasus Enclave. In all the time I spent there I’ve never heard of us having any Earth Pony mares.”

Gunny Spat on the deck. “She wasn’t no Earth Pony, Sown Seed was a Pegasus, grew up in Thunderhead, parents were farmers. She was branded she was, when she be a young mare. Found ol’ Captain Gunny she did and feel in taters of love with him. She helped Gunny with his piratin’ for a long time, then one day she gets up to take a leak ya see, and she never comes back. Gunny was attacked not long after by pegasi from Stratus he was. They took Sown Seed and never let ‘er go again.”

Solstice’s eyes went wide. “I heard that story before, you’re talking about the raid in San Flankcisco, right?”

“Aye, yer Enclave killed all Gunny’s ponies and da fiends he was working with. Only one who got away were Gunny and two others,” he said, still glaring at Solstice.

“My father was the one who led that raid, they didn’t kill a single Pegasus, only a few earth ponies. They didn’t take any prisoners either, they meant it as a warning to other ponies not to mess in the skies that belonged to The Enclave. If they found a Dashite, they wouldn’t have bothered with taking her in, they would’ve killed her. I don’t know what happened to your wife, but whatever you were told by The Enclave was a lie to get Shadow,” Solstice said.

“Ye be lyin’ ye be,” Gunny said turning to point his rifle at her.

“Dude, I could kill you right here and now if I wanted to. I don’t care how good you think you are, but trust me, I’m way better. Even if I wasn’t, Aura’s ten times the fighter I am. If we wanted to kill you, we would’ve by now,” Solstice said.

“I still want to cut his head off,” Aura said.

“Captain Gunny, she’s telling you the truth. Why wouldn’t you believe us over The Enclave?” I asked.

“She’s got a point Captain, you’ve always told me that they can’t be trusted, that they’d lie to you more often than not,” Sun Spot said from behind him. She’d flown down to the deck too, leaving the wheel with nopony to steer the ship.

For a long moment, nopony moved or said anything, finally Gunny let out a long sigh, then looked over at Solstice. “Ye be tellin’ Gunny the truth then?”

“As far as I know yeah. I remember the stories about that mission well. My dad retired not long after that mission,” Solstice said.

A change came over Gunny’s face, his anger seemed to melt away to be replaced by his normal mad expression. “Well then, Captin’ Gunny made a mistake he did. Course if The Enclavers didn’t take Gunny’s wife, somepony else must’ve. Don’t be mattering at the moment, now we has to be flyin’ quick like. They’ll be here any minute now,” as he talked he let the rifle on his battle saddle go back and away, then he looked over at Aura. “What are ya doin’ holdin’ down me tech, let ‘em up birdie, or I’ll boil ya like a rabbit.”

Solstice and Aura both looked confused as Gunny laughed like a mad pony and headed up to the wheel. Aura let Elliot up, looking at me, asking, “What the hell just happened?”

I just rolled my eyes, and said, “Enclave doing Enclave things I guess, I don’t really know or care, as long as he’s on my side again and we can get out of here.”

Elliot got to his paws and looked over at Aura too. “Damn that was some quick work there. It’s been years since I’ve met another griffon who’s as fast as you, or as talented. I didn’t even know you were coming until my gun was cut in half.”

Aura looked so confused. “Another Griffon?” she looked him up and down then over at Sun Spot then back to Elliot, “What the hell are you? I don’t know if you’re aware but you and her look the same and she’s no griffon. Did you bathe in some puddles of taint or something…together?”

Elliot brought his right paw up, made a fist with it and touched it to his heart then his head saying, “Elliot Ghostclaw at your service!”

Sun Spot came over as Solstice deactivated her battle saddle, saying, “Sun Spot, former leader of the Dashers at your service. Nice to meet ya. Shadow’s told me a lot about you.”

When I first met Elliot and Sun Spot, all I could think about was what they looked like. Their names didn’t mean much to me, I wasn’t good with history and keeping up with ponies or griffons who died during the war, it wasn’t something I cared about. Aura however seemed to know their names, because her eyes went wide as she said, “No way, Elliot Ghostclaw, one of the top fighters from Griffonstone! The same one who almost won against my distant grandmother in the test of strength, the griffon who helped Equestria bring down not one but two dragons in the war!? And Sun Spot The Flash Wing!? I thought you two died before the war ended! Wait, why do you two look like a weird mix between a griffon and a pony? And if you are who you say you are, then how are you two still alive?”

“I was going to ask the same thing,” Solstice said.

Elliot laughed. “It’s a long story, we can tell you about it later, right now I think Shadow’s been waiting to see you. By the way, who’s your grandmother, you said I almost beat her in the test of strength, but I lost against two griffons during that fight.”

“Oh right, I’m descended From Greta Bloodtalon, though she wasn’t going by that at the time, just Greta. She was banished from Griffonstone a few years before the war ended,” Aura said, then looked at me, her expression changing a little. “Hey Shadow, I got your stuff on my back. If I were you, I’d get back into your barding and duster. I also brought all your weapons.”

“Um…hello to you too?” I said, very confused by her reaction. “Something wrong?”

Aura ignored me to look back at Sun Spot. “I’ll have to hear the rest of your story when we get to a safe place. I’ve heard stories about both of you from our story teller Tonto for years!”

I was about to say something when Solstice came over and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Give it time Shadow, she’s very angry at you right now. She’s here to get you and she’s glad your safe, but don’t expect her to just forget about what you did.”

I pulled my shoulder away from her hoof and looked at Aura who was still ignoring me. “Aura.”

She didn’t even look at me, she just kept on talking to the twins. “The battle of Hey Creek was amazing, at least in our history…”

“Aura!” I said a little louder.

She looked at me for a second. “Shadow, I’m busy, we’ll talk later. Go make sure that weird Captain is getting us to a safe place.” She said before returning to her conversation with the twins.

It was like she just punched me. She was ignoring me because she was angry. I could understand where her anger was coming from, but she needed to realize why I did what I did. She didn’t get to decide that I was the only one who did something wrong, I owned up to that already when I spoke to them a few days ago. I was fucking done with this bullshit. I felt my magic building up for the first time in a week and I took hold of the griffon, lifted her into the air, and slammed her onto the deck.

Her spear flew out of her grip and a look of shock was on her face. With magic still coursing though me I held her down as I yelled, “Don’t you dare give me the cold shoulder just because you’re fucking pissed off! I’m talking to you, you can talk to the twins later! I haven’t seen you in ages and this is how you act when we’re finally together again!?”

I saw a flash of anger in her face as she yelled right back at me, “Let me go Shadow…NOW!”

“Make me!” I said right back, pushing her harder onto the deck.

“Oh, the balls on you. When I get up…” she started to say, but I cut her off.

“You‘ll what!? Hurt me? I’d love to see you try,” I put even more force on her body as I yelled louder, “If your mad about what I did, fine, but I owned up to that already! I told you over the com what I did and why. I told you I was sorry for it and that I’d never try it again even if I COULD. But no, you come all the way out here to finally get me, to save me as you like to put it. When we finally see each other again, you treat me like some random piece of gutter trash who you don’t give two shits about, like I’m nothing to you. Do you really hate me so much for what I HAD to do!?”

“I don’t hate you, but I’m so sick of you doing stuff like this without telling ANYONE!” she yelled.

“I did tell somepony what I might have to do, I would’ve told you too, but I didn’t. Do you want to know why?” I asked. She didn’t answer so I continued. “Because I know you, I know our friends, I know that you all would’ve done whatever you could to stop me. Trust me, I understand that what I did pissed you all off, but I had no other choice. I could feel her taking over, I knew that she was only a day or so away from doing so. I couldn’t wait for all of you to make up your fucking minds on how to save me, or how to fix me. I’m so sick of having to rely on others to help me. I don’t need help, I don’t need to be fixed by anypony. I know Aquila is a danger to me and to The Wasteland, but none of you can fix it. Mom is probably the only one who can and she failed at the time. So yeah, I tried to kill myself because it was the only way I could think of to keep you all safe! I love all of you and I didn’t want her to kill you! I failed, I hated myself for what I tried to do to you okay, but I had to at least try. It was the only thing left at the time. So, if you really want to sit there with your fucking poor me attitude and tell me how much I FUCKED UP, then fine go right ahead, but I’m not going to sit back and let you treat me that way. I know what I did, I know I fucked up, so please don’t rub it in my fucking face. Poor me…pour me a fucking drink bartender, and make it stronger this time.”

“Shadow, we didn’t mean anything by it, we were just scared,” Solstice said.

I ignored her and looked down into those icy blue eyes I loved so much. “Before you start passing judgment on my actions think about this. What would you have done if I told you what I was planning? Think about that and what would’ve happened if you acted on those actions. Then you can tell me I’m a fuck up if you want, I don’t care anymore. I was looking forward to seeing you so badly because I missed you, you have no idea what I had to go through while I was trapped in my own head, you don’t know the pain I felt when I had to kill ponies I loved in that world she made for me,” I said as I could feel tears starting to fall. “You have no idea how bad it’s been for me, you don’t know the nightmares I’ve had, or the sleepless nights, or how much I’ve worried that I’m going to get trapped in that place again. No, all you care about is treating me like a naughty little filly. Well fuck you, because I’ve had to pay for my mistakes already and I don’t need to hear it from the one I need most right now. So, when you’re ready to talk to me, griffon to pony. You can find me in my room.”

I let my magic go and I pushed past Solstice and went into the room I was sharing with Sun Spot. When I reached it and started to walk in I heard Aura say, “Shadow…I…”

I didn’t let her finish, I slammed the door as hard as I could…

***

An hour passed while I was in Sun Spot’s room, laying on her bed looking up at the boards that made up the ceiling. Forehooves behind my head hindhooves crossed over each other, leaving me alone with my thoughts. During that time, I felt the ship come to life and start moving again. I had no idea if Gunny was still captain or if Sun Spot took over since he couldn’t be trusted at the moment. If it wasn’t for Aura pissing me off like she had, I would’ve been more worried about the fact that Gunny betrayed me. As it was, right now I didn’t care much. If The Enclave showed up to attack, then fine, I really didn’t care anymore. That thought led to more negative ones however. Over the past couple of weeks, I’d mostly forgotten about The Enclave with everything else going on. Dad was the leader of Stratus and Nimbus right now, so I chose to believe that meant I didn’t have to worry about them much. I guess it was a foalish thought, because Winter Frost and his bitch sister had it out for me and for what? I still had no idea, though I’m sure I’d find out sooner or later.

That also made me realize something, it always led back to The Grand Pegasus Enclave. My distant grandfather helped build them, my family was part of them, they’d been hunting us for years now, they were the reason Silver was dead, they took my best friend away from me, and they were the ones who kept the rest of The Wasteland hidden under a blanket of clouds. My whole life was fucked because of that one entity. Why couldn’t my father do something about them? Why did they care so much about my fucking family? Why, why, why? That was the problem, I was left with more questions than answers, and the sad part was, The Enclave wasn’t even my biggest problem, just the biggest pain in my ass right now. I still had to deal with Aquila, who still hadn’t spoken a single word to me since I came out of her little funhouse of pain. I still needed to find Wolfsbane and deal with him before he had time to act on whatever plans he had, and to pay him back for killing Box Tap and Cartwheel. I needed to fix mom’s memories… that was going to be hard, but I knew there had to be a way. Now I had to deal with what I saw in that orb.

I had no idea what I was going to do with all that information. How the hell did Night Stalker know about me, two hundred years in the past….well a hundred and sixty or so years, but still. He said I was the one who would break this curse on the family. Right now, I don’t have the means to deal with that, I have way too much to deal with that doesn’t include listening to a stallion who died a long time ago. A stallion who started so much of the pain I was now in. As I sat there thinking to myself I realized there was something more I wanted to do, something that I wished I knew how to fix, but knew I never would be able to. I wanted to find a way to fix my uncle. Out of all the ponies in my family and in my past, he’d always been there for me. He gave up his body to help me and now, he was stuck deep in darkness. He’d done a lot of bad things over the years, but I could see it in his eyes when I talked to him about it. He truly felt remorseful for all the pain he caused. He deserved a normal life, one where he could experiment again, where he could love again, maybe find a mare that made him happy. He’d paid his debt to me a long time ago. Even if he did kill Silver, I didn’t blame him for his moment of weakness against the darkness. Before I went into that crystal to free him, I wouldn’t have had it in me to forgive him for what he did to her. Now, I knew what that darkness was like, and I’d only spent a few seconds in there.

Either way, I wanted to help my uncle, and I vowed that one day I would. I had a mental list and I needed to start checking things off. First order of business, free myself from Aquila. Second, kill Wolfsbane. Third, destroy the Pegasi in Stratus or wherever they were so they’d stop hunting me. Forth, destroy the rest of The Sins. Five, stop or destroy Falling Shadows for good. Easy right?...Yeah I thought so, I’m fucked.

A knock came at the door followed by Aura’s voice, saying, “Shadow…can I come in?”

Her voice sounded light, almost like she was scared of me blowing up again. “I don’t know can you?” Even though most of my anger was gone there was still a little detest in my voice. I turned my back towards the door.

The door opened and Aura walked in closing it behind her. Her eyes were downcast as she said, “I owe you an apology for how I acted before and for attacking your friends like I did.”

I shrugged, back still turned. “I can understand what you were doing when you attacked. You heard something about Captain Gunny betraying us and acted on that. I would’ve done the same thing,” I said, waving my hoof in the air as I spoke

“Still, I’m sorry for what I did,” she said still standing by the door.

I looked over at her and sighed not fully turned around. “Let’s just drop it okay? Yeah you did something stupid and so did I, let’s just move past that. Come over here and lay with me, please?” I said, finally turning over laying on my back again.

She let herself smile then came over to the bed. I scooted over so she could lay next to me. Finally, after what felt like ages, I pressed my face into Aura’s chest and felt her talons wrap around me in a tight embrace. For a little while we just stayed like that, just enjoying the feeling of being with one another again. Finally I heard Aura say, “I…fought Aquila.”

As she said that a flash of memory kicked in. I saw myself, or maybe Aquila facing off against Aura. A flash of green as Aura attacked her, a laugh, shouting, and for a moment, I saw Aura’s face change into that of an older male griffon in armor that I’d never seen before. Then I was back in the small room, the memories slipping away slowly, but the face of that griffon never left. I shook my head, then said, “What happened? How did you survive?”

She let me go and sat up a little as she spoke. “I went off a hunch, I don’t know if I was right or not, but I had a feeling that you were still inside her and that she wouldn’t be able to hurt me because you wouldn’t let her.”

“That was stupid of you. You could’ve been killed,” I said, a little shocked she’d gone against a being like Aquila.

“Maybe, but I was right. I mean she was able to fight me to a point, but she never put as much power into her attacks as I knew she could, and she couldn’t kill me. So, I was right that somewhere deep down you were still keeping her in a little bit of control,” she said.

I shook my head. “That wasn’t me at all, I had no idea what was going on outside of the cage she had me locked up in. It must’ve been something else. Maybe it had something to do with that vision she saw?”

I mostly said the last part as an after thought, the memory was almost gone now, but that griffon’s face was still there, and I know that stopped her from using a powerful spell on Aura. Aura looked at me, asking, “What griffon?”

“I just had a small flash of memories while she was in control, it’s slipping away though, but I do still remember that while she fought you, she saw you change into another griffon. He was older and battle scarred, oh and he said something…but all I got was a name, but even that’s slipping away,” I said.

“That’s kinda fucked up honestly,” she said. “Though she’s probably just crazy. Still, at least you were able to get control again. If it wasn’t for that, she probably would’ve killed your parents and a few more of your friends.”

My eyes went wide. “What happened? Is my mom okay, my dad, no one’s told me anything about what’s going on, or what happened.”

“Everypony’s fine…no casualties of our small group. Can’t say the same about Stable 28 though. She did a lot of damage while she had control over you. You heard about Stable 28 right?” Aura said, looking sad.

“Not a lot, Byte didn’t go into detail,” I said.

“Well we got the story from Milkshake, I ran into her when I was leaving New Pegasus. Apparently, she didn’t come into the stable to kill anypony right away. She attacked two guards that wouldn’t let her pass, then went into the atrium. She talked with Milkshake and told her to let her pass so she could find something she was looking for. Milkshake decided to attack her and that was all it took for Aquila to go postal,” Aura said quietly.

I felt my heart skip a beat as I let that information process, finally I asked, “What else happened?”

Aura sighed again. “We only found out a few things before we had to leave, but for most of the time she was using your body, she kept to herself. At least she did after Stable 28. But we heard that she was sighted meeting with The Romans the next day, she was also spotted talking to a few other ponies and zebras throughout the area. Your mother said that one pony she was spotted with is a Synth from The Ministry, though she’s not sure if it’s one of The Director’s or a rouge. All we know is that she was planning something or setting something up. The last thing she did before she vanished for good, I assume because you were getting control, was to find your mother in Frosty Summit. We still don’t know what she wanted there, but she did attack the place, though thanks to Violet and a few others, she didn’t kill anypony.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“The day before you contacted us, it was around sunset. Not long after I attacked her myself,” she replied.

“So then, right before I got control,” I said. “I think she left because of me, I came to not long after that.”

Aura shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now, all we need to worry about is getting you home,” she paused for a moment then asked, “What’s she doing now? Inside your head I mean.”

“No idea, I know she’s still there because I can feel her, but only if I try really hard. But she hasn’t spoken to me since I woke up again, but my magic’s also been very weak. I can’t even get my teleportation to work right now and normally that’s easier for me to do. I think she was getting really weak while she had control of me, or teleporting all the way across The Wasteland might’ve done it. I’m not sure though, anyway she’s keeping to herself for now,” I said.

“Well that’s a relief, I wasn’t sure if she was going to try and take over again sometime soon,” Aura said, laying back and covering her eyes with a talon. “Listen, next time you feel like you need to do something like shooting yourself to kill Aquila, can you at least give me a heads up.”

I laughed a little. “I’ll do my best, but only if you promise that you won’t freak out. Though I’m sure I won’t be trying that again, the good Aquila told me that it wouldn’t work. Something to do with her being able to sense it and being able to stop me. That’s why she took over in the first place, was to stop me from killing us.”

She looked over at me, her beak open. “The Good Aquila!?”

I waved a hoof. “I’ll explain another time, it’s too much right now.”

I felt Aura pull me closer as she said, “What happened to you, you said something back on the deck about…killing friends. Were you able to see what was going on while Aquila had control?”

As she spoke I had a quick flashback of Mom’s head rolling from her body, blood from Wingnut, Misery slicing though Solstice’s neck like it was paper. I shook myself, saying, “No, I didn’t…what I saw was a lot worse.”

“Oricalcos said something about you being trapped in a dream state, but he didn’t say what happened in there,” Aura said.

“He was pulled out by Aquila before he had to see me do what was required for me to get free.” Again, I saw more of what happened in that cage, Vervain, dead on the cave floor just outside of Stable 28, my colt suffocating under a pillow, my filly’s screams of terror as Wind Thrasher killed her. “I…I don’t want to talk about it right now.” My body shivered intensely, pulling myself tighter against Aura

“That’s fine, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to, it’s the only way you’re going to get past what happened,” she said.

“I know, but right now, I can’t…I just can’t,” I said, doing my best to forget what I saw in that place. “Anyway, what’s the plan now? What happened with Gunny?”

Aura sighed, “That…Sun Spot I think her name was, is going to take over for right now, but the pirate is still the Captain. Solstice is keeping an eye on him. The other whatever they are, Elliot I think, is watching for Enclave ships.”

“That’s one thing I don’t understand, why is The Enclave after me anyway? I thought my dad put a stop to that a couple weeks back?” I asked.

“He did, but he can only control the two cities. Word is that there are other Pegasi who want you dead, they’ve been trying to get help from other cloud cities from the sound of it. All we know is that Winter Frost is the one who’s leading these other Pegasi. From what I can tell, your father’s family isn’t liked much by a couple of factions in the clouds,” Aura said.

“I’m not surprised, from what I’ve learned about my family on my dad’s side. They weren’t well loved after Night Stalker left. I think my dad’s the first one in the family since Night Stalker’s sons to have a role of leadership like he does. Also, he did set it up to kill the other three High Council ponies and let me take the blame for it,” I said with a sigh. “Good parenting there.”

Aura chuckled a little. “Yeah, at least your parents didn’t kill each other.”

“That’s not funny,” I said.

She looked down. “Yeah, I know…I wasn’t even thinking about what happened at Crimson Canyon. Honestly I’ve been doing my best to forget about it.”

“Speaking of The Red Talons and your old home, have you heard anything about what’s being going on with them?” I asked.

She nodded slowly. “Yeah, my dad’s the new leader, he only goes by Archer now and he’s been trying his best to rally any griffons he can to hunt down somepony. Not you though. He’s not after you at all, honestly he’s ignoring most of New Pegasus and letting The Shadow Talons take over a lot of The Red Talon’s old territory.”

“That’s strange, why would he take over The Red Talons and let the territory be taken away by a new talon group?” I asked.

She shrugged. “No idea, could be that a good amount of The Red Talons either died, fled, or joined up with my group. A few joined The Unchained Talons after my mom died, but for the most part they’re all just doing their own contracts and not caring much about where they go. Gina and my dad are after a pony though, Fletch heard about it from a spy we have in The Unchained.”

“You have a spy in their ranks already?” I asked, a little shocked.

“Yeah, Gouger,” she said.

“Gouger? I thought he escaped with us when The Unchained attacked?” I asked, utterly confused.

“He did, but when he heard that I wanted a spy working with them, he volunteered,” she said.

“How the hell did you get that to work? Wouldn’t your father know Gouger was up to something? He has to know that you’d try something like that and to use Gouger,” I said, still shocked.

“It wasn’t that hard to be honest, all he had to do was go to Crimson Canyon and give my dad information on The Shadow Talons. He told him where we were staying and using as a base, told them about me being gone and information that The Unchained think they would need,” Aura said. “They believed him and that he wanted to be with The Unchained. I think he also said something about how Pluck tried to join The Unchained and that Fletch killed him for his betrayal and he wanted revenge for his friends death.”

“You let The Unchained have information on The Shadow Talons? That sounds like a stupid plan,” I said.

She laughed. “You’d think so, but truly it didn’t matter. Sooner or later he would’ve found out all the information we let Gouger give to him. So far, he’s been doing well spying for us. Though it’s only been a week or so but I’m sure he has nothing to worry about, Gina and my dad are too busy to pay Gouger much attention.”

“Still, I’d hate if something happened to him because of this. I thought he wanted to prove himself to Fletch or something. Why would he do something this dangerous?” I asked.

Aura laughed again. “I keep forgetting how much you missed. Fletch and Gouger are together now. He saved my sisters life during the attack and she’s always had a soft spot for him, even if she’d never admit it.”

“She called him Fuck most of the time, Pluck and Fuck, that’s what I always heard from her. How is that having a soft spot for him?” I asked, utterly confused again.

“You’ve seen how my sister treats me and I’m her favorite. Fletch has never been good at emotional stuff.” She paused for a moment. “Well neither have I, but Fletch takes it to a whole new level. When she doesn’t know what to do when she’s feeling a strong emotion, she calls the other names or attacks them, or duels them. It’s how she shows her love.”

Griffons are fucking weird, that’s all I could think as I asked, “Okay, so they’re together now. Are they getting married then?”

Aura laughed again. “Shadow, I’ve told you before we don’t have marriage. Griffons enter a life bond, it’s like marriage, but once you’re in a life bond, you can’t just break it because you’re not getting along or you found something else you like. Griffons take a lot longer to enter one most of the time, because to us, it’s a commitment for life.”

I felt myself blush as she said that, then I asked, “What about us? Is that what we have?”

Aura blushed too as she leaned back in the bed and looked up at the ceiling again. “Well…no not yet at least. I know that there’s something about you Shadow, something deep inside that tells me that you’re the one I’m meant to be with. But you’re a pony, and life bonds with a different species that isn’t a griffon has never happened before…not that I know of at least.”

“Oh…so because I’m a pony…we could never have something like that huh?” I asked.

She punched my foreleg. “I didn’t say that, I said it’s never happened before, not that it can’t happen. The only reason I haven’t asked you to make a life bond with me is simple. Normally griffons have known each other for years before they make the bond, I’ve only known you for almost three months. Now don’t get me wrong, I love you, more than I have compared to others. I want to make the life bond with you, but at the same time, you’re still young. I’m five years older than you are and I’ve had time to grow and mature. I want you to be a little older and know your ready to make this choice. Once I know you are, then I will most likely ask you to become my life partner, but until then, I want to get to know you better and if I was to ask, I want it to be when we aren’t fighting for our lives.”

“What…if something happens to us before then?” I asked, echoing the same thing she asked me back in The Kingdom.

“Then we’ll have had a great time together and our love will never change no matter what we decide to do in the future,” Aura said, leaning down and kissing me.

Her kiss’ effect on me was wonderful. For the first time since I’d taken control of my body again, I finally felt like myself. There was something special about Aura, something I’d known was there for a long time, even before the dance in The Kingdom. I loved her more than I could put into words and if she’d asked me right now, I would make the choice to spend my life with her, no matter how long that might be. I also understood what she meant when she said she wanted to wait. I was a young mare, I hate admitting it due to the circumstances of my life, but she wasn’t wrong. I knew that in a few years I could decide that I didn’t want to spend my life with Aura, it was possible that something would push us apart, or that she found a griffon that she could fall for or in my case, another pony. If in the coming years; if I lived that long; I found that Aura was the one I was meant to be with, then we would take the next step in our relationship. For now, I’d respect her choice and just love her as much as I could.

I pulled away and smiled. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

She laughed. “What else was I going to do? I’m just glad you’re not angry anymore.”

I shrugged. “Well I had my reasons for it, and you know why. I know I messed up and all, but still, next time just yell at me or something, don’t ignore me.”

“Duly noted,” Aura said with a grin. “Next time you decided to lie to me and leave me another note like that, I’m just going to punch you. Maybe with some brass knuckles, make it interesting.”

“I think that’s domestic abuse,” I teased.

She shrugged. “Maybe to a pony, but to a griffon that’s a sign of how much we care about each other. Also, it can’t be domestic if we don’t technically have a home.”

“Oh, is that what it is, then Fletch must REALLY love Gouger and you,” I said with a hearty laugh.

“Yep,” was all Aura said to that then, laid back down. “Y’know sometimes I wish I wasn’t a griffon.”

That caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Being a griffon is awesome and all don’t get me wrong, but there are so many rules and expectations in my race. Ponies have an easier time with most things in life. I mean look at you, you can choose who you want to love and who you want to be with no matter what. I was kicked out of my home for loving a pony, just because it was against a stupid old rule.”

“I wouldn’t say that us ponies have it easy, but I see what you mean. Though not everypony has it as easy as I do. Look at Stardust and Wind Thrasher,” I said with a laugh.

Aura looked back over at me. “What about them?”

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed how they look at each other,” I said, surprised.

“I’ve seen Wind Thrasher flirt with him a lot, I mean she’s not really subtle about it. But Stardust? I don’t know, either he’s playing hard to get, he’s a moron, or he just doesn’t see her the same way she sees him,” Aura said. “There’s also just the random off chance that he’s really shy and has a good way of hiding it when she gets all flirty. This requires extensive study, I should send him Dr. Cottages way. He’s got ways of getting into someone’s head.”

“You may not see it, but I do,” I said. “Stardust’s does look at her, when she’s not paying attention. He steps up to defend her too, even if it’s from herself. I don’t know how deep his feelings go, but I can tell that there’s something there. He’s just really good at hiding it I think. Also, don’t send him to Cottage, you guys pretty much just started getting along. I don’t want him fighting with you again because Cottage got into his head and wanted to be entertained by conflict.”

Aura took a moment to think about it then shrugged. “I guess your right. Could you imagine what their foals would look like!? That is if Wind Thrasher could even have foals.”

“I don’t know, I mean they could be cute. I could see it now, a bunch of little Stardust’s with bat wings and goofy grins flying around,” I said laughing.

The two of us spent the next ten minutes talking about a union between our two friends and the foals they would have. As we talked, I did think about Wind Thrasher and if she really could have foals. Her body had been altered by Dr. Cell, her DNA was mutated and spliced with not one but two creatures. I’d have to ask her sometime; once she was finished biting my head off that is; about if she could bear children or not. Apart from her transformation, I knew she was an older mare too. I didn’t know much about how old you could be and still have foals, but Wind Thrasher was a young filly when her stable was abandoned, she spent twenty years in there before I found her. So, she would have to be in her late twenties maybe early thirty’s now. I’d have to ask her someday about that too. Maybe that was why Stardust hadn’t said anything about how he might feel about Wind Thrasher. He was around Aura’s age, maybe he just thought Wind Thrasher was too old for him. If that’s the case then Stardust really is an idiot, or shallow. Okay it’s settled, I’m going to confront him about it when I get back.

“Thinking hard over there huh?” Aura asked.

I blinked then shook my head, not wanting to bring up my thoughts to Aura, at least not yet. So, I smiled, saying, “A little, so anyway, you were saying something about not wanting to be a griffon.”

Aura waited a moment, just glaring at me, she shrugged. “Yeah, like I said I like being a griffon, but sometimes I do wish I was a pony. Would make life easier I think.”

“If you say so, and I wish I could shoot rainbows from my horn, but it’s not gonna happen,” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, that’d be funny to see. Oh well, wishing aside, I’m just glad you’re safe and that everything is gonna be okay now,” she said as she got off the bed and went over to the door where she’d dropped some saddle bags. “Oh yeah, I got your stuff and brought it along like I said before, I figured you’d like to have your own armor and weapons.”

Just when things were looking better The Wasteland throws another curveball. I was just getting off the bed to put on my barding when something exploded on deck. I fell to the ground as The Bitter Cob lurched to one side. A moment later, I heard gunfire.

Aura picked herself back up, saying, “What the hell was that?”

“I have a feeling The Enclave found us again and this time they mean business,” I said as I too got back to my hooves and ran over to my saddle bags. I quickly removed the combat armor I’d been wearing since I arrived in Hoofington and replaced it with the barding and duster that Wingnut modified for me. Once that was finished, I pulled out my weapons and started to arm myself. It felt wonderful to pull out Mom’s plasma rifle again, followed by Dream Walker and finally the sword I’d been entrusted with by Gigi and Tonto before their deaths. I slipped Misery into a back holster next to Mom’s plasma rifle and smiled, The Courier’s back bitches.

Slipping on my saddle bags as Aura pulled out her energy spear she said, “You ready for this?”

I popped my neck and grinned. “Hell yeah.”

I opened the door and ran out toward the deck, Aura following as we ran into chaos. Smaller pegasus-pulled armored carriages were flying around The Bitter Cob, firing down at the ship. Power armored pegasi were also attacking the ship. Sun Spot was on one of the bigger guns firing up at the smaller moving carriages, Elliot was doing the same, Gunny was nowhere to be seen…oh wait never mind, he was on the biggest gun laughing his ass off.

“Gunny be showin’ ya how it being done! Take dat, and dat, haha!” he yelled as the huge plasma canon fired. I watched as the huge ball of plasma flew into one of the carriages. The entire thing vanished in a flash of green light and goo.

I didn’t have any more time to watch Gunny blow up pegasi, I had my own trouble. Solstice was on the deck fighting with a few pegasi who managed to land on the deck. Three more were a few feet away from us, their laser rifles ready to fire. I drew Dream Walker, aimed, and opened fire. The bark of the Desert Eagle sounded like music to my ears. The bullet tore through the armor of the first pegasus who was only a few feet away. He went down in a spray of blood, Dream Walker barked again as I shot him twice more. Aura flew past me, her energy spear glowing as she attacked the second pegasus. I took aim at the third, squeezing the trigger and smiling as I heard Dream Walker sing.

The third Pegasus however was quick and dodged the shot by jumping into the air, her energy rifles glowing as she fired down at me. I tried to dodge, but was a little too slow. The laser grazed across my flanks, heating up the armor some as it flew past. Clenching my teeth, I took aim again and fired, she dodged again and returned fire. Luckily the shot went wide and only burned a hole on the deck just behind me. I could tell that this pegasus had more skill than the others, I had to be smarter and more cautious with my actions.

I ducked under another shot, took one to my duster then rolled to avoid another. As I rolled, I swapped Dream Walker out for Mom’s plasma rifle, and came out of the roll. I took aim and fired twice. The pegasus wasn’t stupid however, she dodged the first shot then fired her laser rifle at the second, yelling, “Gonna have to do something better than that!”

Her taunt died a moment later however as Misery came flying through the air, spinning end over end. The blast of plasma had only been a distraction, when I’d grabbed hold of the rifle with my magic, I’d also pulled out Misery. The Sword had no problem slicing through her armor and burying itself in her chest. She fell to the ground a second later.

Pulling Misery out of the dead mare I turned to see if any more enemies were coming. At the moment, the rest were locked in battle with Gunny and his crew or Solstice, who still had two of her own enemies to face. Two more pegasi were watching the fight from above, looking utterly confused however. At first, I wondered why they were just watching the three fight then it hit me. Solstice was in the same power armor she’d been wearing when she attacked Frosty Summit. Violet took that armor away from her before she kicked her out of the town. She must’ve taken it back and now she was dressed in Enclave power armor and even more with marks of a lieutenant on her armor, the others had no idea which pegasi were friend or foe.

“Aura take out the two in the air,” I said as I ran passed her. Aura took off as I returned the rifle to my back and let Misery slice through the air. The first pegasus had no idea he was even under attack, not until his wing was cut clean off by my strike. He screamed and fell to the deck, blood pooling under his thrashing body. I twisted Misery around and thrust it into the pegasus’ throat.

Solstice took the advantage of my interruption and managed to duck a shot from her other opponent, backflip using her rear hooves to kick the other under the jaw then while he was falling back, she blasted him with five quick shots from both of her energy rifles. His body glowed crimson for a moment then he was nothing more than ash. Right as the last opponent vaporized, two dead pegasi fell to the ground, holes in their visors. Aura falling to the deck to land on her talons a second later.

I looked up at the sky, watching as more of those smaller armored carriages came down from the clouds. Cursing to myself, I swapped Misery for the plasma rifle. “We’ve got more of them coming!”

Gunny came running toward us right as I spoke. “Gunny be seein’ that, he be thinkin’ it be about time for ye all to be takin’ a dive.”

“Doing a what now?” Solstice asked.

Sun Spot landed a moment later followed by Elliot. “Captain we can’t take them all out, we need to run.”

“Gunny be knowin’ it, but first the extras be needin’ to be hidden down in yonder forest. Gives Gunny and his crew time to be leadin’ ‘em away,” he said with a mad grin.

“How do we know that isn’t some plan to help them capture Shadow?” Aura asked.

“Ya don’t, just goin’ to have to be trustin’ ol’ Gunny on this one. If ya be goin’ now, it be givin’ the crew and Gunny time to get away,” he said, looking back at the twins. “Ya know the drills and plans, get ‘em off Gunny’s ship, then get The Bitter Cob to a safe place, quick like. The sooner ya be loosin’ the pegasi, the sooner ya can come back and get the others.”

“It’s a good idea,” I said as I watched the pegasi coming closer.

“I don’t agree…” Aura started, but I cut her off.

“We need to get away from them, they’re after ME anyway, so splitting up will help. Solstice and Aura, you both can get me down to the surface, and once we’re there, we can hide until they can come back for us,” I said.

“And how do we know they’ll come back?” Solstice asked.

Sun Spot answered, “We WILL come back, even if Captain Gunny was being an idiot before, he’s still a pony that keeps his word. Just get down to the forest, then head for the edge of it. It’s only a mile or two away from where we are. Once you get out of the forest, head west and you’ll find that same town that we were gonna meet you two in before. Wait for us there, should only take a day or so for us to lose The Enclave.”

I’d learned to trust Sun Spot over the past couple days, even if her captain was less trustworthy. “Time for us to be heading out, don’t argue anymore, we don’t have the time.”

The other two looked at me like I was crazy, Aura saying, “Shadow, this isn’t a good plan.”

“They never are, now I’m jumping off this flying boat and if you two don’t want me to go splat, then I guess one of you will just have to catch me,” I said with a laugh then let my gaze fall on Gunny. “Remember Captain Gunny, you made a deal with me to get me back to New Pegasus. If you don’t come back, you’d better hope you died during the fight, if not, I’ll make sure nopony ever works with you again.”

And before any of them could stop me, I climbed onto the rail and jumped off the ship. As I fell, I felt a rush of adrenaline flow through me as I watched the tall trees fast approaching. I started to draw on my magic, hoping that I could stop my fall if my friends didn’t come help me. As the seconds flew by and the trees got closer, I heard massive guns going off from over me and saw flashes of green light. I could also hear the engines coming to life as The Bitter Cob started to fly away. I was starting to feel panic now, as the trees grew closer, then talons took hold of me and brought me to a halt, only a few inches from the tallest tree.

Aura was gasping for air as she said, “Don’t ever do that to me again!”

Solstice was laughing next to her, “That was great, I can’t believe you just jumped off a ship from that height!”

“Yeah, I’m a stupid daredevil, now can you get us down before The Enclave see us?” I said.

“Too late for that, they’re already coming,” Aura said as she dove into the trees and toward the moss-covered forest floor. “We’ll see if we can lose them in the trees though.”

“Not a bad plan, most are scared of this forest,” Solstice said as she followed Aura, winding though the trees.

“That’s for sure, even before the war. The Everfree is named that for a reason. This place has always been dangerous and even I’m not happy with having to go near it. It might be more dangerous than fighting The Enclave,” Aura said.

“I don’t see how that could be possible,” I started to say, then somepony came down on Aura’s back and she was knocked right into one of the trees. When she was hit, she was forced to let go of me and I screamed as I fell toward the ground.

Lucky for me, the ground was soft enough that my fall didn’t do much more than bruise a few places on my body. It still hurt. A second later Solstice was thrown to the ground, a bloody hole in her right wing. Aura hit the ground a moment later, a nasty cut on her head and she was knocked out. Before I could take in what just happened, the frost colored pegasus, Captain Strife loomed over me. She was alone and was only wearing combat armor instead of the power armor I’d seen her in before.

She was grinning at me, like she’d just won some kind of prize. “Well, look at this. We have a runaway pegasus and a traitor of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, a vile griffon, and the little cunt herself, The Courier. I’m so very glad to have finally found you Shadow.”

I spat a little blood at her, saying, “Oh look, the frost queen finally found me, took ya long enough. So, what can I do for you Strife? Want a stick of gum? Oh wait, that’s your brother’s department.”

I wasn’t happy to see her, both of my friends were hurt, Gunny and his crew were flying off to lead The Enclave away, and I wasn’t sure I could fight her. I knew I wouldn’t have much of a choice though, so I put on my best bravado and watched the icy bitch as she aimed her battel saddle at me.

“I’ve been trying to track you down for a while now Courier. You’ve been a pain in my family’s side for a while and it’s time for you to pay the price,” she said, in her icy voice.

“If you say so, but I don’t see how I’ve been a pain for your family. I did kill your dad and all, though to be fair I didn’t know who he was, or even care much,” I said, putting on an attitude that screamed I didn’t give two shits. “I mean his friends and him were plotting against my family and sending The Sins after me just to steal something that was mine, so he kinda got what he deserved.”

“Keep your mouth shut about my father…” Strife started to say, but I kept on going.

“Then there’s Winter Frost,” I said, looking back at her as I paced back and forth a little. “He did attack me twice, both times failing miserably. It’s pathetic if you ask me, you’d think a little package delivery pony like me would be easy to take in. Now he has to rely on his sister for help, just to capture little old me. By the way I have a post card addressed to him from me, it says, and I quote ‘Fuck you, you dickless little pansy. At least TRY to seem like you’re actually trying to capture me rather than waste the valuable lives of your troops’.”

Her icy smile returned as she said, “You can try to antagonize me all you want, but it won’t work.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then there’s you. Really? C’mon, you’re a Captain in The Grand Pegasus Enclave. It’s sad that the only thing you’ve been able to do is put up wanted posters and try to attack a few sky pirates. When I heard you were looking for me, I figured that maybe, just maybe somepony like you would at least be able to seem like a threat, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected so much. I mean you did leave Stratus to join up with Thunderhead. I guess you just couldn’t cut it with better ponies, so you had to resort to working with weaker ones just to get higher up in the ranks, rather than fizzle out on your own turf.”

I saw one of her eyes twitch as I spoke, but still she didn’t let her anger show. “Oh, Shadow Star, you have no idea what I’ve done to earn my place in The Enclave. Do you want to know the reason I went to Thunderhead?”

“Does it really matter what I want? I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway. You’re the bad guy, it’s what you do,” I said with a smile.

She ignored my jab and…told me, “My grandfather needed a spy back east, so he sent me. I think you know my grandfather. Uou did speak to him a little while ago I believe. He has a message for you.”

“Oh, you mean that shadowy pony was your grandfather?” I said with a small chuckle. “You should really tell him to get his throat checked, the poor old stallion sounds like a ghoul. Anyway, what’s this message?”

Her smile got wider as she said, “His message is mostly for Aquila, and it’s this. Long-live The Children, the deal is off.”

My eyes went wide for a split second then I dodged to one side as she fired her battle saddle at me. I was ready for an attack however, my magic was already wrapped around the plasma rifle. I rolled, then took aim and went into S.A.T.S., firing three shots back at the pegasus. She too dodged and returned fire, my barding took the two blasts of magical energy from her rifles, luckily my barding was enough to keep them from doing much more than making my coat hot. I switched the plasma rifle out for Dream Walker, took aim and fired, again using S.A.T.S. but she managed to dodge the shots once more.

She started to laugh. “You’re S.A.T.S. won’t work on me.” She pointed at a small gem on her combat armor. “Little gift from my grandfather. If you want to win, you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way!”

As she was talking, I did as she said and took aim, firing twice. She tried to dodge those two shots too, but I wasn’t aiming for her. I was aiming for the tree branch over her. The first bullet split the bark of the tree, the second glowed with black light and it exploded on impact. The branch snapped and fell right where Strife dodged. She looked up at the last second and tried dodging the large branch too, but wasn’t quite fast enough. It slammed into her wing and one half of her body. She screamed as she was thrown to the ground and the branch nearly pinned her.

Just then, Aura started to get back up, rubbing her bleeding head. “What the hell happened?”

“Can’t talk right no, check on Solstice, she looked hurt,” I said as I aimed Dream Walker at Strife who was pulling herself away from the fallen branch. I noticed that the branch had broken the ground open, almost like there was a cavern under it.

Aura moved over to check on Solstice who was moaning a few meters away. Strife glared at me as I pointed Dream Walker at her, she spat on the ground. “Going to kill me then? I bet you don’t have the…”

I fired a bullet an inch from her head. “It’s my turn to talk Strife.”

“Fuck you…” she said, but I fired again, this time getting closer to her.

“I don’t want to hear another word out of you until you explain who that pony on the monitor was and what you meant with that message earlier,” I said. “And I want to know how you knew about Aquila…”

Something under me seemed to move cutting my speech off. I looked down and saw something was starting to poke out of the forest floor. I took a step back as I watched a vine poke out of the ground. It was an odd plant with green and blue on the vines and small flowers at the ends. The sight of them moving like they were, filled me with fear, though I wasn’t sure why.

Strife saw them too and her cocky demeanor changed to fear. “Fuck…no…I don’t care what you want from me anymore Courier! I’m not sticking around to let those things get near me. Shoot me if you want, but I’m leaving!”

Before I could comprehend what she was saying, she finished freeing herself and took to the air. I pointed Dream Walker up at her, yelling, “Where the hell do you think you’re going!?”

Before I could fire a shot at her, Aura pulled Dream Walker back, saying, “No time for her Shadow, we have to run!”

I looked over at her, seeing that she had a bleeding and moaning Solstice on her back. “What’s going on?”

Aura pushed me back as one of the vines shot toward me just missing my face. She jumped over it, then took my hoof and started to run away from the vines, yelling, “Don’t let those hit you, it’s Killing Joke!”

Killing Joke was something that I did remember hearing about and reading about in The Wasteland Survival Gide. I knew they could do horrible things to you that were almost always permanent or deadly, most of the time both. So, I did what any sane pony would do. I screamed and ran along with Aura. The vines started to pop out of the ground as we ran, each one trying to take hold of us. Aura pulled out her spear as a wall of them tried to block our path. The tip glowed bright green and she slashed at the air cutting them down quickly.

I’d already pulled out Misery and used it to slash at the large vines as we went. It was hard to keep them from touching us though, each time one would fall, another would be right there to attempt to grab hold. Luckily for me, I was quicker than the vines. Aura however was barely able to keep hold of Solstice and fight the vines. At least six times I thought she was going to fall to the killing joke, but she managed to avoid them at the last second. Finally, I could see light ahead as the edge of the forest came into view.

“Aura we’re almost out!” I yelled as I ran for the light.

“I can’t keep holding Solstice!” Aura yelled as she started to fall behind.

“I’ll take her! I can get her that far!” I said as I took hold of the moaning pegasus with my magic and pulled her off Aura’s back. The killing joke seemed to be getting worse and I wasn’t sure how they were following us. They’re plants, how could they be keeping up with us? I saw why a second later as more broke through the ground to my right, a few came out of the trees and one even split through a rock. We were in a large area of the things from what I could tell.

I was almost out of The Everfree Forest when I heard something that made my blood go cold, Aura screamed, “NO!!!”

I threw Solstice just past the edge of the forest then twisted around readying my explosion spell. I stopped as I saw what happened to Aura. She’d been caught by a few of the killing joke and they were wrapping themselves around her. Her beak was open in a scream of pain as they tightened around her torso, her paws, her talons, and her neck. I let my anger fill me as I blasted the vines with every ounce of my power that I could. Most of the vines broke away but the one holding onto her neck held on tighter.

A glow started to show around Aura as she gasped for air, I started to draw on my power again, ready to blast the last vine before it could do anything more to her. But right as I was about to cast the spell, two things happened at the same time. The glow around Aura was almost blinding now and the last killing joke threw her over my head and out of the forest. As Aura was flying over me, another plant came out of nowhere and slapped me so hard in the face that I lost my spell and was thrown out after her.

I felt something hot around my face from where the vine hit me and heard something snap, followed by agony from my horn, almost like something just snapped it off. I rolled across the ground a few times before coming to a halt next to Solstice and a still glowing Aura. My mind went blank from the pain and I slipped into a dreamless sleep. You know how some ponies say, you should watch what you say. Or that the universe has a way of messing with you? Well…

I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to, I found myself looking up at Sun Spot who was shaking me. “Shadow, you need to wake up.”

“What…happened?” I asked as the hybrid helped me sit up.

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Solstice looks like she’s been shot at least twice in the right wing and I can’t find Aura anywhere. Did that pegasus do something to her?” Sun Spot asked.

“Huh?” I asked rubbing my eyes and wondering why I felt so strange. “She flew away, I didn’t see any others once the killing joke attacked.” Then what she said hit me. “What do you mean Aura’s missing? She was with me when we got out of the forest.”

“What do you mean she ran away? A pegasus mare’s with you right now and she’s knocked out cold,” Sun Spot said, pointing a paw at where Elliot was putting restraints on a black mare.

“Wait a second, who’s that?” I asked. “I didn’t see her when we got hit by the killing joke. Oh no, the killing joke got Aura, she was glowing but she was thrown out of the forest! Did it kill her!?”

“We just found the pegasus, apart from her, it’s just Solstice and you,” Sun Spot said. “Don’t worry though, we’ll find her. Once we wake that bitch over there up and find out what she did to Aura.” She paused, then asked, “Wait, did you say the killing joke got you too?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think the one that hit me had enough time to do anything to me. I feel fine apart from a headache and a few tingles.”

She looked me over. “We should still check you out once we get you back to The Bitter Cob. We managed to lose The Enclave, but Gunny wants to get us out of here before they start checking near the forest again.”

I got to my hooves and groaned. “We need to find Aura first.”

Elliot looked over at me. “We will, this mare’s waking up now. Let’s see what she knows before we go back.”

I looked over and took in the mare who I didn’t see before the killing joke attacked. She was tall for a mare, with a pure black coat even darker than my own, with a blood red mane and tail, her wings had a red hue to them and her front and back hooves had white ends on them, there was even a white spot on her nose. Her cutie mark was odd too, it was a heart with a griffon’s talon in the center of it. When the mare started to open her eyes, I saw they were icy blue.

She saw me looking at her and in a lighter voice than I’d expected she said, “Shadow, what happened?”

My jaw dropped as I realized the impossible sight in front of me. “Aura? Is that you?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Last Action Hero: Oh gosh! Are you okay? Never mind, it’s just a flesh wound. You’ve become pretty skilled in the midst of battle and now have the chance to randomly perform unique finishers on whatever foe you encounter. NOTE: The percentage of this chance fluctuates constantly and is not measured by your luck attribute.

Chapter 61: Torches

“It is rude to ignore one such as me, even if I make you want to flee. I have felt dark times fall over your land, what has happened under Celestia’s Command?”

I looked in utter confusion at the pony in front of me. My mind unable to comprehend what’s going on. How the hell was it possible for something like this to happen? I’ve never heard of any kind of magic that was able to change another creature into something else. But standing right in front of me was none other than Aura. She sounded different; she didn’t have that raspy voice I was used to. Instead, her voice was a little higher than normal, but I could still tell it was hers. Her eyes were the most noticeable thing on her, her coloring was almost the same also.

“Of course, it’s me! What the hell’s wrong with you?” she said, then gave off a small groan. “I don’t know what that killing joke did to me, but I can’t feel my talons, did I lose them?”

She started to look down at her hooves and I watched as her annoyed expression went from a little pissed off, to utter panic. I stepped closer to her. “Aura, you’re going to be okay, the killing joke turned you into…well a pony.”

She screamed. “Where the hell are my Talons!? Why am I shorter, what the hell’s going on!?” A hoof went up to her muzzle as she gasped. “My voice sounds….AHHHHHHH….where’s my BEAK!”

“AURA CALM DOWN!” I yelled then slapped her. “Listen to me, the killing joke changed you into a pony. Now stop screaming and calm down!”

Her eyes were wide as she looked down at her hooves again. “I’m a…pony?” Then she started to giggle, sounding a little insane. “I’m…a… fucking…pony,” she giggled a little bit more insanely, “Great…yeah, that makes sense, because why not. I guess that’s just fucking funny to those stupid…plants…yep, because all of this makes sense.”

She looked down at her hooves again, then back at her pegasus wings, giggled one more time, then her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out. Her energy spear falling off her back as she did. I moved closer. “Aura!?”

Sun Spot stopped me. “She just passed out from the shock, it’s probably for the best. We need to get out of here.”

I looked over at her. “Why are you here anyway? I thought you said it would take a long time for you to lose The Enclave.”

“It did, we left you about six hours ago,” she said.

“Six hours? How could that be? We just left the forest a few minutes ago,” I said.

Solstice groaned from a few feet away. “It’s been ages since you and Aura passed out Shadow. I was able to use some meds I have to keep myself alive from the bullet wound, but I’ve been waiting for you two to wake up for a long time. They just showed up a few minutes ago.”

I looked up at the sky and just noticed that it was darker than before and I could barely make out the cloud-cover overhead. “Crap, I had no idea. It felt like I was only out for a moment.”

“Did you get hit by the killing joke?” Sun Spot asked.

I had to think back for a moment then nodded. “Only for a second, one of the vines slapped me in the face.”

Elliot came over and started to look me over. “I can’t see anything different about you, but killing joke can do more than just change something about how you look. We’ll have to check you over once we’re back in the ship, after I get a chance to look over Solstice.”

“Where’s the ship?” I asked.

“Just up the road, Gunny’s hiding it under an overhang with a lot of brush around it. He deflated the balloon and is keeping the power off. We’re gonna stay there for a while until we know The Enclave’s given up the chase for good,” Sun Spot said. “We’re just lucky we found you before one of the patrols did, we’ve seen at least six just while looking for you.”

I moved over to Solstice who looked pale. She had a lot of blood crusted over her armor and her wing looked like it was in bad shape. “How you feeling?” I asked.

She groaned and said, “About as bad as I look. I’m losing feeling in my wing.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve seen a few injuries like that before, I know how to deal with them. You’ll be fine,” Elliot said as he walked over to her. “C’mon, I’ll carry you, Sunny can carry Aura, and Shadow can follow.”

“Sounds fine with me, as long as my wing’s mended,” Solstice said as she tried to get to her hooves and failed.

“Here I’ll help you,” I said, using my magic to slowly lift her off the ground and place her on Elliot’s back.

She gave me a grateful smile, something I hadn’t seen on her face before. I smiled back as she said, “Thanks Shadow.”

As soon as those words left her lips, a flash of memory flew through my mind. I shut my eyes and shook my head, instead of seeing what I expected to see, I watched as Misery sliced open her neck, a look of shock on Solstice’s face as I ended her life. I shook my head again, Another memory of the two of us laying with each other at her place in Cartwheel. Us laughing, kissing, enjoying the time we had together during the time she was in town. Then again, I saw her falling to the floor as the reaper pony claimed her.

“Shadow? Are you okay?” I heard Sun Spot say, her paw shaking my shoulder.

I blinked and the memories faded away. Looking over at her I tried my best to smile, saying, “Yeah, don’t worry about me, I guess I’m just a little dazed after that slap I took from the killing joke.”

Sun Spot shrugged then went off to pick up Aura’s unconscious body. Solstice however was looking at me oddly. It was almost like she knew I was hiding something. She let her eyes glare into mine for a few moments then finally she looked away. “Okay pony…bird…thing, let’s get back to the ship,” she said.

“Best thing I’ve heard all day, but you can just call me Elliot,” Elliot said.

***

It took us about half an hour to get back to The Bitter Cob, which was in fact tucked under a rocky overhang. The large balloon was laying on the deck, fully deflated and the ropes that held it to the ship neatly rolled up next to it. Some brush was placed in spots around the ship as well, making it so that nopony from the sky would notice it. Captain Gunny might be mad, but he wasn’t stupid. Okay, not that stupid, at least when it came to hiding, and being a pirate… I guess.

“Ah, bout’ time ye be gettin’ back here with Gunny’s passenger and the two storage aways,” Gunny said with a mad smile as we climbed the gang plank.

“Stowaways,” Elliot said as he moved toward the cabins with Solstice still on his back. “Call yourself crazy or mad all you want, but even you should know a word like that you moron.”

“Hey now Elliot, Gunny be takin’ affiances ta dat’” Gunny said with a glare at the pony griffon.

Elliot chuckled to himself, then responded, “Well, good thing you aren’t the Captain at the moment.” Then he looked toward Sun Spot who wasn’t far behind me. “Hey Captain, can I call Gunny a moron?”

“I call him one at least ten times a day, so feel free,” Sun Spot said as she went to go put Aura in our room.

“Hey now, Gunny said he were sorry didn’t ‘e? Ya can’t just keep sayin’ dat Sunny be Captain,” he said with a huff.

“Well seeing as how you only have two crew members and three passengers and all of us still don’t want to trust you yet, then I say you don’t have much say in the matter,” Elliot said, then went into his own room with Solstice.

Gunny sighed then looked over at me. “Ya don’t think Ol’ Gunny be a bad pony do ya Shadow?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I don’t trust anypony most of the time.”

“Fine, be dat way, at least Gunny still be havin’ da big cabin,” he said, then stomped off in a huff.

I just shook my head and went to follow Sun Spot. When I got into the room I saw Aura was now laying on the bed in Sun Spot’s cabin. I looked at the pony-griffon, asking, “Is there some way we can wake her up?”

“I was just about to do that, let’s just hope she’s calmer now,” she said, pulling something from her desk. She cracked it open and placed it under Aura’s nose.

A second or two later Aura jerked awake, looking around wildly. “The hell was that?”

“Smelling Salts,” Sun Spot said, tossing the small item into a bin on the other side of the room. I could just make out a slight ammonia smell as it passed by.

“Where are we, and why do I feel so strange?” Aura asked.

“Back on the ship, you passed out just outside of Everfree,” Sun Spot said, sitting on the floor next to the bed.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. I had a weird dream though, about…” she stopped talking looking down at her body. “It…wasn’t a dream?”

I moved over to her before she could start freaking out again. “Aura, you’re okay, the killing joke just pulled a prank on you, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Aura closed her eyes, taking in long, deep breaths. She did this for a couple of minutes. When she opened her eyes, she looked a lot calmer. “No, I won’t. Killing joke has no cure that we know of. Some of the jokes do wear off over time, if the joke isn’t funny anymore, but most of the time, it kills you or your stuck like that.”

“You mean, you’re stuck like this?” I asked in shock.

She nodded. “Most likely, unless somepony’s come up with a cure for it in the past six months, but the last I heard, no one has.”

Sun Spot looked her over, then said, “I don’t see the killing part of this joke.”

Aura lifted her hooves, and raised a brow. “Being a pony means I can’t fight, at least not how I was trained to. My talons are my main way of fighting, by either using my claws to fight, or using my spear, or other weapons that griffons use to fight. Like this, I’m more useless than a foal.”

“I wouldn’t say useless, you just need to learn how to fight with your new body,” I said, as I spoke I couldn’t take my eyes off the strange sight of Aura as a pony. I wasn’t even sure if I missed her griffon form or if I liked this one better. Both were beautiful, but something about her as a pony just felt…normal I guess. I wasn’t going to tell her that though, she’d overreact and think I didn’t like her as a griffon.

She looked back at me and sighed. “I know that, but it’s not something I can pick up on overnight. It’s going to take time and who knows what’ll happen while we’re stuck all the way out here and away from the rest of our friends.”

“The Aura I know wouldn’t give up like that, hell, when I left my stable I didn’t know the first thing about how to fight and look at me now. You’ll be fine, just take as much time as you need to learn how to use your body to its fullest,” I said, moving over to kiss her on the cheek.

She got to her hooves and spread her wings. “You’re right, I can’t let something like this get me down.” She looked over at Sun Spot. “Got any weapons I can use to practice with?”

“I think so,” she replied, looking a little confused.

“Good, I’m going to take the time while we’re waiting around here and get to work,” Aura said, then she tripped on her hooves smacking her face on the floor. “Ow.”

I couldn’t help the small laugh that came out as I said, “Maybe you need to learn to walk first, then work on fighting.”

She glared over at me. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“Even if you didn’t, right now I’m stronger than you,” I said laughing harder. “Anyway, I’m gonna dive into one of those memory crystals, I need to see if there’s anything in them that can help us.”

“You’re going to do what!?” Aura yelled.

“Diving into a memory crystal. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, just come check up on me when you’re finished training,” I said, finding a comfortable spot in Sun Spot’s room.

“But…you said those things are dangerous,” Aura said trying to convince me.

I looked back at her. “They are, but I know what I’m doing, just check up on me when you’re finished. I don’t know how long this’ll take. If I’m still not out of it by the time we’re ready to leave then just get us going.”

Aura tried to argue more, but I shoved her out of Sun Spot’s room. “Go have fun learning about your new temporary body.” I shut the door and dug out the saddle bags I’d gotten from Charity, and moved over to the bed and dumped everything out onto it. I was a little amazed at how much stuff I was able to collect over the past few days. Nothing worth much really, just a few odds and ends, some ammo, a few caps, the letter I meant to throw away. Huh I’d forgotten I kept that, oh well, me having it was almost like throwing it away for Glory. It’s not like I’m ever going to meet Blackjack in the future. I picked up the larger envelope and put it into my other saddle bags.

With that done I looked at the rest of what I’d collected. A few guns, the spellbook from the base, the box with the wing blades in them and at last, the memory crystal. I picked it up with my hooves and pushed the rest of the stuff to the side with my magic, setting it all on the small desk. Setting it back down on the bed, I moved to lay down next to it, wondering what it was going to be like to enter this thing. I took a moment to think back, I remembered Minuette doing a spell to make the crystal she had glow and show the weird colors over it. I could almost remember the spell and how she did it, but not enough to risk trying it yet.

“There has to be a way for me to pull up that memory again,” I said to myself. It was too bad that the memory I needed wasn’t in an orb, it had been transferred to me by a peace of my grandmother’s memories inside Lacunae. Maybe if I used that same memory spell on myself, I’d be able to pull it up. Is it even possible to do a memory spell on yourself? Well, I won’t know until I try. So, I pulled on my magic and cast the spell over my own mind. At first nothing happened then with a snap, the world melted away.

A little while later I gasped as I left the memory. I guess I can make myself remember things with that spell, good to know. Some of what happened in it making me tear up a little. Remembering that this memory took place only a day or two before my grandmother lost her mare friend. I took a moment to settle down then looked at the memory crystal. The spell she used was similar to the one used to trap and release uncle Ori in that crystal. I was sure I knew how to do the spell now. I could feel myself shaking as I readied my magic, then with a flash of my horn I cast the spell over the crystal.

It only took a moment then the crystal started to glow and appearing right in the air over it were eight colored lights. An odd sensation came over me as I held onto the spell, first I noticed that small tendrils of magic were splitting off from my horn reaching for the lights. With just a thought I could make them move forward or back. This must be what I had to do to unlock the crystal. Second was a voice that seemed to echo around the small room. It was rich and powerful with a hint of amusement behind it. It was a mare’s voice, one that sounded ancient and wise.

“You have activated a document of my life; a slice of my history now lays in your hooves. One who dares to dig into the past be warned, only one with great power and a steady heart can enter a memory of mine. I give you this one chance to pull back. If you do not, you might be trapped within my memories for the rest of your life. If you know you can deal with the strain that comes with watching this, then please give me the code and watch one of the worse mistakes I’ve ever made,” the mare’s voice said.

This was unlike anything I’d ever felt before with a normal memory orb. Was I strong enough to deal with this? Could I escape once I was inside it? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing was for sure, Night Stalker wanted me to find something at his base and this might be it. So, with a deep sigh I moved the tendrils of magic forward and entered the code I’d seen written on the terminal.

Blue, Violet, Red, Blue, Red, Yellow, Orange, Green.

As soon as I tapped the last color, the door to the room opened and I saw Aura walking in, saying, “Shadow I really think you should wait to enter that…Shadow…NO!”

I never heard what she was going to say because right then. Everything I was, vanished in a haze of black and gold light. My mind split, my body seemed to disappear, everything about who or what I was erased as I fell into the mind of another. The world didn’t melt away…it shattered.

oooOOOooo

“Moon Light! Moon Light! Wake up, now’s not the time to be passing out, we’re in the middle of a WAR!” I heard a griffon say, his talon’s shaking me awake like our lives depended on it. “Our Queen needs us.”

I shook my head and opened my eyes, looking up at his worried face. Strange, a moment ago I could have sworn I was in a cabin of a strange flying ship. But no, it must’ve just been some kind of strange dream. I’m not sure what it was, but I have to pull myself together. “War? What war? Our Queen?” I said wearily. “What happened? How long was I out? Who are you again?”

“You must have hit your head pretty hard when you passed out. Never mind, it’s me, Geoff. You’ve been out for about five minutes ma’am; we were just discussing our battle plan against Celestia’s forces when you just passed out. I was worried so I brought you back to our tent, Platinum Sky took charge while I looked you over,” Geoff said.

I thought about it for a moment, when something jolted my memory. I hit my hoof with my other, “That’s right, now I remember.” I looked back at Geoff. “Sorry Geoff, I’ve been working myself into the ground,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Damn right you have,” Geoff responded

It was then I noticed that I was in the tent I shared with Geoff. It wasn’t much compared to our room at headquarters, but as long as I was with him, even a blanket on top of the dirt was better than being alone. What am thinking? I don’t have time for this right now, our Queen would be here soon and if we didn’t have a plan ready for our assault on The Castle of the Two Sisters… “Thank you for pulling me away like you did my love, but I’m fine now, we need to get back to what we’re going to do to combat Celestia,” I said, heading toward the tent flaps.

“Moon Light, you just passed out for an unknown reason, you should rest and let the others take care of this,” Geoff said as I made my way back up the small trail leading to the command tent.

“No! What I need to do is make sure everything’s ready for this last attack. You know what’s at stake Geoff,” I said as I pushed though the command tent’s flaps. “Platinum Sky, I need an updated report on the numbers Celestia has at the castle. Moonflower, what’s the status of the batpony guard? Calming Seas…where’s Calming Seas? Cold Front, go find Calming Seas and make sure he didn’t get lost in the forest.”

My team looked at me for a long moment, almost like I’d just walked in on something personal. The tall Pegasus buck with a metallic coat and silver eyes looked over at the rest then back at me. Finally, Platinum Sky spoke, “Moon Light, you just had some kind of episode, you passed out a few minutes ago. You need to rest, let us deal with this. We still have time before the attack.”

Moonflower, the pegasus mare with a flowing lilac mane and a black and white coat looked at me with her aqua blue eyes in concern as she asked, “What happened to you Moon?”

“Yeah you gave us all a scare there for a moment ma’am,” Cold Front said, she was a pegasus mare with a white and reddish orange mane and a navy-blue coat. Her mane was cut short to keep it out of her eyes when she flew. She was one of my strongest fighters and my best friend.

“I’ll be fine, I just didn’t eat enough today. I’ll be sure to get something before our meeting with the Queen is finished. Now, I need my reports and I still want to know where Calming Seas is,” I said, keeping my tone light, but still with a bit of command to it.

“I’m right here ma’am,” I heard Calming Seas say as he walked into the tent. He was a shorter buck with an almond colored coat, his mane the color of the sea with eyes that matched. Cold Front was my best friend, but Calming Seas was my favorite teammate…next to Geoff that is, but that was for other reasons.

I smiled as he walked past me, a scroll under his wing. “What did you learn from the castle?”

“Celestia’s planning something, but I couldn’t find out what. I was able to sneak into the throne room a little while ago and I overheard her saying something about some crystals she can use to defeat the Queen,” he said, laying the scroll down. “I also mapped out where her personal guard is and was able to poison their water, but I only used a small amount of helix leaf so they will only fall asleep. You said you didn’t want me to kill them.”

Platinum sighed, saying, “This matches the numbers I got from our scouts half an hour ago. We also found another fifty unicorns just north of the castle, but I think they’re only a rear guard. Also, one of our scouts who went to follow Celestia’s guard captain didn’t report back in. He’s now classified as M.I.A. with the possibility of being K.I.A.”

“Where was he heading before you lost the scout?” I asked.

“Toward the cave below the castle,” Platinum replied.

“What would he be doing down there?” I asked.

A regal voice flowed through the tent opening just then, Queen Nightmare Moon herself walked in, her mane of darkness flowing around her as she looked down at all of us. “If I know my sister the way I think I do, then she’s most likely hiding The Elements of Harmony down there. She believes that she can keep them from me. As if I needed their pathetic power after what I’ve gained.”

We all made a quick bow to her, then I said, “My Queen, what if Celestia is trying to trick us into thinking that she’s hiding them. What if she’s planning on using them against you?”

“Then my sister’s a bigger fool than I thought. She cannot wield the elements without me, even if she could, it would cost her dearly. I also know that thanks to the power I’ve gained, she’s no match for me now. Once we storm the castle, I will finally take complete control of Equestria,” Nightmare Moon said, cackling.

That sound made me shiver in fear. I was loyal to Luna for all the help she’d given us over the years, and even like this, she was still my queen, my princess, almost like a mother to me. But it was still unsettling, that wasn’t the Luna I knew. I could still remember the days when she used to laugh with her sister, when she would bring the moon to the sky, when she was happy. Over the years though I’ve watched her slowly fall into a deep depression over the ponies in Equestria who couldn’t appreciate her beautiful night sky. Maybe, if she wins this war, she’ll come back to us and stop sinking deeper into that dark place she was currently trapped in. Though I know deep down that she wasn’t going to become our Luna again.

We all bowed again to her crossing our right forelegs over our chests saying as one, “May the Night forever run free!”

Nightmare Moon grinned down at us all. “My children, you have served me well for all these years. Now I’m asking you to help me take back what is rightfully mine. Will you stand with me!?”

“Forever my Queen!” we all replied in unison.

“Good, now go prepare the assault. We strike at the witching hour,” Nightmare Moon said.

With another bow, we all started to head out of the tent, I was leading my unit out when Nightmare Moon said, “Moon Light, I’d like a word before you set out.”

“Yes, my Queen,” I said, stopping next to the tent flap as the rest shuffled out.

Geoff stopped on his way out and leaned down to nuzzle my cheek for a moment. “I’ll see you soon.”

I smiled at his warm affection, watching as he followed Cold Front. For a moment, I remembered the day I first met him. Many years ago, when I was guarding Princess Luna on a trip to the Griffon Empire. Geoff didn’t like me much back then, we both were head strong and believed in our respective leader’s way of seeing the world. I almost blasted his head off that day when he said something derogatory about unicorns. But after that trip I was sent back a few more times on behalf of the Princesses. Well Cold Front and myself anyways. We told the Griffon Empire that we were on a diplomatic mission to set up trade agreements with Griffonstone, in reality, we were hunting down a runaway pony who’d stolen something from Luna.

Geoff was the Captain of the guard back then and assigned to watch over us while we were in their lands. At first, I hated having the griffon follow me around, but over time I came to respect him. He showed me a lot of the beautiful sights around their land. He explained a lot about their culture and their beliefs. I spent six months in the griffon lands hunting down that pony and a few others that followed him and over time I developed feelings for him. On the last night I was there, a few hours before I found and killed the pony I’d been hunting down, Geoff took me a to a place he loved going to when he had free time. A place called, Aurora’s Twin Peaks. It was a sight like none I’ve seen in my life, and that was when he told me he loved me. Since that day my heart was his, I knew it always would be until the day I died or even longer than that. If their belief in reincarnation was true, then I’d find him in every life. He gave me hope that the future was bright and good, even during these terrible times. Even when he was banished from his homeland for sharing so much with me about the griffons, he never blamed me.

“You always get that far away look when you’re around that griffon Moon Light,” Nightmare Moon said.

I jumped then looked back at her terrifying presence. “My heart beats for him my Queen.”

“I know it does and that is why I have let you continue this relationship with him even though I find it strange. I remember what it’s like to fall for another,” Nightmare Moon said.

“I suppose we all do my Queen,” I replied.

“’Tis a story for another time. Maybe once I win I’ll have time to tell you about it. For now, I have a job for you,” she said.

“I live to serve,” I said with another bow.

“I know you do, ever since I took you in when you were a filly, you’ve always been loyal. That is why I am entrusting this to only you,” she said, starting to pace around the tent, her horn just brushing against the top fabric.

“What is it you need of me?” I asked, watching her pace.

“It is two things I need from you. The first is I am sending you into the Castle with Moonflower. Once inside, you two will steal the Elements from my sister. You need to make sure nopony sees you. If Celestia finds any of my Children of the Night near her throne she will kill you herself,” Nightmare Moon said.

My eyes went wide for a moment. “I didn’t think that Celestia was capable of killing anypony.”

“She does not like to, and she will almost always do her best not to end a life. But she knows that my power is greater than hers, she will do what she must to keep the Elements safe,” she said, looking back at me. “I know I said that I do not fear her being able to use them, and I’m sure she can’t. But I will not risk my life on a hunch.”

“And what will we do after we capture the Elements?” I asked.

“You will then kill the traitor within this unit. I believe that it might be Moonflower. She’s been questioning my power since I took this new form and I don’t like it. So, once you are in the castle, I want you to watch for signs that she is a traitor, and if so, I want you to end her life,” Nightmare Moon said.

It felt like my heart stopped as she said those words. I looked up into those turquoise eyes and saw nothing but anger in them. Luna…Nightmare Moon was asking me to kill a member of my unit, somepony I grew up with, she was like a sister to me. Why would she think Moonflower was the pony who betrayed her? Moonflower was kind-hearted, she’d always been loyal to Luna…always. I mean yes, she was worried that Nightmare Moon was acting different than we were used to with Luna, but I can’t see her being the traitor...I know she’s not the traitor.

“I’m waiting for an answer Moon Light,” Nightmare Moon said.

If I say no, she’d kill me here and now, so I did the only thing I could, I bowed my head. “Yes, my Queen, it shall be done.”

“Good, now begone and start heading toward the castle, you have five hours before we start the final assault,” Nightmare Moon said before she walked out of the tent.

It took me a moment to move, it felt like my hooves were made of butter as I finally was able to force myself out of the tent. It only took me a moment to find Moonflower who was going over the battle plan with Geoff. I made my way over to her, saying, “Moonflower, I need your help, we have a mission.”

She looked over at me. “I thought we were setting up for the assault?”

“The rest of our forces and the others can deal with that, we’ve got something more important to do. Our queen wants you to come with me and watch my back,” I said, then looked over at Geoff. “You’re second in command while I’m away. Platinum Sky will lead and I need you to make sure the others listen to him. Can you do that for me?”

“I do as I must, you make sure to stay safe while you’re away. Just make sure you come back to me in once piece,” he said.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll have Moonflower with me,” I said.

“I don’t understand why she’s sending me, Cold Front or one of the others would be better on a mission to watch your back than me,” she said.

“True, but you’re one of the best stealth operatives we have, even better than me and where we’re going, I’ll need stealth. Now get your stuff and let’s go, we don’t have long,” I said.

“Yes ma’am, I’ll be right back,” she said, running to her tent to get her things.

When she was gone Geoff came over to me, asking, “You look scared, what’s going on?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything my love, we are bonded and we keep nothing from each other,” he said, referring to the ceremony griffons had in place of marriage. It was hard to believe that that was six months ago now.

“I know, but this is an order from Queen Nightmare Moon, I can’t talk about it until later. Just please let it go and if I can tell you about it later I will,” I said.

“Moon Light, something’s wrong, I can tell. What did she ask you to do?” he asked.

I looked over at Moonflower who was just coming out of her tent and felt a stabbing in my heart. “I said before, I can’t tell you.”

He followed my gaze and let out a soft sigh. “I understand,” he then pulled me into a hug, whispering, “If what she told you what I’m thinking, then you need to watch your back. She can’t find out the truth…not ever.”

“I know my love, just…keep everything here going smoothly and I’ll see you when this is all over,” I said, doing my best to hold back my pain.

“If you have to…you know…put an end to Moonflower to keep the rest of us safe…than make it quick, she deserves that much at least,” he said before letting me go.

“I’ll….try,” I said, backing away from him and turning to Moonflower who was just getting back.

“Ready to go ma’am,” she said, still looking a little scared.

“Good…let’s go,” I said, heading toward the path that would take us around to the castle in the distance.

She followed. “Where are we going?”

“To the castle, we’re going to steal The Elements of Harmony. Nightmare Moon wants to make sure Celestia can’t use them. Once we’re done with that, we’ll be heading away from here to make sure Celestia can’t get to them. We have five hours before she starts the assault,” I said as I pushed past the guards to our camp and headed into the dark woods of the Everfree.

“But how are we going to be able to do that? Celestia isn’t like most ponies, she’ll know we’re in the castle. Even if we can get around her wards and her magic, how do you plan to steal something we know she will have close to her?” Moonflower asked.

I let my horn glow, my magic a pale white, saying, “I’m one of the most powerful unicorns to ever be born in Equestria since Celestia and Luna themselves. I can get around her magic, so stop asking me stupid questions and let’s get moving, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Moonflower nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

***

It took almost two hours to reach the secret entrance into the castle, thanks to the guards Celestia set up all over the woods and the grounds. I wanted to teleport right to the spot once we were close enough, but Celestia or one of her unicorns put up a ward to block teleportation in and out of the castle. So, instead, we snuck past everypony. It was pretty easy for Moonflower and myself, since we both exceled at stealth. We arrived at the bottom of the castle near the back and sat there for a moment. This was one of the oldest parts of the castle, right outside the foundation there is an entrance that led right into the dungeons.

“How do we know nopony’s there?” Moonflower whispered as I felt along the wall for the groove that would open the door.

“I’ve already cast a few spells around the area to locate anypony. The stone walls don’t block my magic, so I know that nopony is in the dungeons right now,” I said as I found the spot I was looking for and pulled.

With a hiss of air and a small rumble of stone scraping against stone, the wall pulled open. As soon as it was open I cast a spell on myself giving me the ability to see in the dark. I called it my Cateye spell, something I came up with a few years back. Lucky for me too, because the tunnel in front of me was pitch black. But in my sight a blue haze filled my vision and now I could see into the darkness.

“As I thought, I don’t see any traps or guards. Come here,” I said. She did and I cast the Cateye spell on her as well. “That will only last for an hour, let me know if it starts to fade before that.”

“Yes ma’am, but this isn’t the first time you’ve cast this spell on me before,” she said.

“I’m just trying to be careful, also I’m putting up the sound ward,” I said, casting the spell around us both. It would stop any sound from going more than a Meter or so. This way I could still talk to Moonflower without any wandering guards hearing us.

“Ready?” she asked.

I checked the belt with my knives and the leather armor I always wore then nodded. “Yeah, let’s get going. We only have three hours left.”

Slowly we worked our way up the tunnel until it came to another door that would take us into the lower dungeon. Using another one of my spells, I unlocked the door. Still nopony was around that I could tell, well not guards at least. There were a few ponies down here. Mostly ones that broke the law, and I knew a couple of Luna’s fighters were here too. I’d have to hope that they didn’t wake when we passed their cells.

“Moon Light, I think we should take the servant’s stairs on the other side of the dungeons,” Moonflower said.

I winced as she said that. “That way will take us past the stone cell, you know how much I hate going by there.”

“I know, but it’s the safest path and you know it. Just don’t look at the cell when we go by and you’ll be fine,” she said, leading me toward the staircase.

Following I asked, “Are you sure? I mean you know that whatever is in that cell can tell when a unicorn is close. Luna and Celestia both told me to keep as far away from it as I can.”

“I know, but as I said, it’s the safest route. Now hurry up, I don’t want to wake the other prisoners in here,” she said.

As we moved down the hallway, I couldn’t help wondering why Nightmare Moon thought Moonflower was a traitor. She didn’t like what Luna had become, but she wasn’t the one sending information to Celestia. I knew who the true traitor was in our group, and I didn’t have the courage to say anything. If Nightmare Moon found out, everything would be lost. I’d have to do what she told me to, that was the only way to keep myself safe…for now at least.

As we passed by cells with sleeping ponies in them, I started to feel a deep chill come over me. It wasn’t too odd since I was in the deeper and darker part of the castle that the sun hadn’t been seen in a week, but this chill was more than just that. It’s too familiar to be that. It’s the same kind of cold I felt the only other time I came down this way. There was a creature in a special stone cell. One that Celestia and Luna locked away fifty or so years ago.

“We’re almost there,” Moonflower said as she passed by the massive door to the stone cell.

I was shivering now, the cold sinking down into my bones. I was just passing the door when a voice called out to me. It was dark and cold, it was a nightmarish accent resembling the zebras from Rome, “Little ponies in the hall, to what do I owe this late-night call?”

We both froze as the voice rolled over us. Moonflower looked back at me, her eyes wide with fear. “What was that?”

“I don’t…” I started to say, but was interrupted by the voice again.

“It is rude to ignore one such as me, even if I make you want to flee. I have felt dark times fall over your land, what has happened under Celestia’s Command?” the voice said with a dark chuckle.

I looked over at the door where I saw something slowly pushing though a crack in the stone. “I don’t know what you are, but you’ve been imprisoned here for a reason, don’t bother us monster.”

“Moon Light, we should get out of here.” Moonflower said taking a few steps back from the stone prison.

“I find it interesting that you two fear me so much, when you do not even know who or what I am,” the voice said.

“We’re…hey what happened to your rhyming?” I asked.

“It is not as easy as you might think to keep that game going, I tire of it. Now I believe I asked you a question young mare. What has been happening in Equestria over the past week?” it asked.

“Come on Moonflower, let’s go,” I said, turning to leave.

The darkness flowing out of the crack shot out and took hold of my forelegs. “I did not say you could leave yet unicorn, now tell me what has been going on.”

“Let me go!” I said pulling on my magic, then I felt my body freeze up as the darkness took hold of my horn.

“All I am asking is for some information, I have been trapped in here by Luna’s magic for some time now, but as of late I have felt her magic growing weaker around this cage I am in. Either something happened to her magic or she is letting me out finally. Give me what I want and I will let you go,” the voice said.

Moonflower moved closer, saying, “Luna has undergone a change, she’s gained new power and is now going by the name Nightmare Moon. She’s been keeping the moon in the sky and blocking the sun for a week now!”

“Are…you happy…now?” I asked, struggling to get the words out.

“For now…interesting, your power feels…different than other ponies I have met over the years. So much light inside you, yet I can feel a bit of darkness deep down. What is your name young one?” he asked.

“Moon Light…why do you care?” I asked.

“Moon Light…I like that name, and your power is unlike anything I have felt before. If it was not for the power I created, I would have loved to take some of it from you, but sadly…” he said letting me go. “Your power has too much light in it for my liking.”

I backed away from the cell. “Who are you?”

“One day I hope to show you who I am. I am sure that day will come sooner than you think if what I feel in Luna’s magic is true. I will be able to escape this cage soon I think and continue on with my mission. Thank you again for the conversation,” it said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, letting my magic grow again.

“If you really want to find out, then you will need to do the research. I will however give you one hint. Look in your history for the zony who almost destroyed the zebra homelands. When we meet again, you WILL know my name. Now be gone,” he said, and with that, the darkness flowing out of the crack in the stone cell vanished and the presence of that creature went along with it.

Moonflower took in a deep breath. “We need to get as far away from that thing as we can.”

“I agree,” I said, pulling my eyes away from the stone cell and letting them fall on Moonflower. “We’ve lost enough time as it is, we can worry about that thing later. For now, we have a mission to complete.”

As I pushed past her to head up the staircase just beyond the doors to the prison, Moonflower asked, “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing Moon Light?”

I didn’t stop, forcing her to follow as I said, “I’m not sure what’s right or wrong anymore. All I know is that I have my orders and I’ll do as I’m commanded just how you should.”

She followed as we snuck further into the castle’s depths. The prison was the farthest point from the throne room, making it so we’d have to push past guards and servants as we moved. Fortunately, the spell I’d cast over us earlier hadn’t faded yet. It made it easy for us to move fast without our hoofsteps being heard. It also made it easier for Moonflower to talk as we went.

“I’m worried about Luna’s judgement. I know she’s always resented the love Celestia gets from the rest of Equestria, but to keep our lands in an eternal night?” she said as we came to an intersection of hallways.

I peeked around the corner of one and noticed two guards working their way down the hall, luckily their backs were to us. I pulled my head back, saying, “We’ve talked about this already, I’m worried too, but now’s not the time to be talking about this again.”

Before she could say more I moved around the corner and cast a spell on the guards. At once, both of them slumped to the floor, both in a deep sleep. Once they were down, I lifted them both in my magic and pulled them closer. As I did, Moonflower came around, asking, “What are we going to do with them?”

In answer I opened the door to a supply closet where some of the castle’s rations were kept and dropped both guards inside. I closed the door and sealed it with a spell. Once that was done, I said, “They’ll be out for hours and once they’re awake, this will all be over. Now let’s get moving.”

This time Moonflower kept quiet as we worked our way down the halls. For the next hour we slowly made our way closer to the throne room, having to deal with a minimal amount of guards. All of them I put under a sleeping spell before hiding them in a side room or putting them into a chest or whatever else I could find. Normally getting from the prison to the throne room would only take about twenty minutes if you hurried, but since the two of us had to keep ourselves hidden and hide guards, it was slowing our progress down quite a bit.

Finally, I was able to see the corridor that led to Celestia’s throne room, with two guards keeping watch at its end. This wasn’t good, if two guards were at the end of the hall then that meant that Celestia was in the throne room. Thinking about how many guards we ran into just getting here, made more sense. There were guards down the hall as well and more in front of the doors and a few in the room itself. With the battle so close, I figured that Celestia wouldn’t be here. She should be readying her troops for the assault she knew was coming. If Moonflower wasn’t with me, I could’ve gotten in with no problem. I still could, but I still didn’t truly know what side Moonflower was on. Would she stand with me if she knew my true intentions or would she call me a traitor herself and try to kill me?

“We aren’t getting in that way,” Moonflower said from next to me, looking down at the guards.

“No, we aren’t, unless you know another way in.” I said.

“Only the secret entrance that leads to the upper balcony, and even then, we don’t know if guards are posted there. Even if we could get up there, with Celestia here, there’s no way we can get our hooves on the Elements,” Moonflower said quietly.

I racked my brain for a plan, something we could use to get past the guards and to make sure Moonflower didn’t suspect anything. I needed her to keep thinking this was a real mission until the last moment. Then it hit me and I smiled. “I have a plan, but you need to trust me.”

“I’ve always trusted you Moon Light, what’s the plan?” she asked.

I smiled wider. “When I give the signal, I want you to fly to the secret entrance to the balcony that overlooks the throne room. Once you’re there, wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I can’t tell you, now just get going, you’ll only have about five minutes,” I said.

She gave me a scared look for just a moment, then nodded. “Okay, but don’t get yourself killed.”

“I don’t plan to,” I said as she flapped her wings and flew back down to the hall. I knew she’d take the long way around to get to the other side to where the entrance was. If the guards weren’t at the end of the hall, we would’ve been fine, but the entrance we needed was just behind an old statue that faced the corridor that led to where Celestia was. Luckily for me, one of the guards was a stallion I knew well.

I opened my mouth as I dropped the silencing spell yelling, “Gold Plate, since when have they been putting you on guard duty?”

Both stallions looked over at me with wide eyes. The taller one who was Gold Plate said, “Moon Light?”

The other lifted a spear in his magic, yelling, “Intruder!”

I let magic flow through my horn as I said in a sweet voice, “Intruder? Now that just plain hurts, last time I checked I was always allowed in here.”

Gold Plate started walking toward me with the other guard, saying, “Moon Light, you know you can’t just wander into the castle like this.”

“Sir, what are you saying? She’s working with Nightmare Moon!” the other guard said.

“Shut up! Trust me, she’s a friend,” Gold Plate said as he drew closer. “Moon Light, drop the spell and come with me. Princess Celestia will want to hear your report.”

“Sorry Goldie, but I’m kind of on a mission here,” I said, then cast a memory spell over the other stallion followed by a slight sleeping spell. He hit the ground with a loud thump.

Gold Plate took a step back. “What is the meaning of this Moon…”

I interrupted him. “I don’t have time, now listen closely, I have to get into the throne room and I can’t have any of the guards seeing me.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve betrayed us!?”

“No, I haven’t. Now shut up and listen to me. I have a plan, but I need to get into the throne room first, I’m not going to hurt Celestia or anypony else, but if I don’t get in there soon, this war will be lost. Moonflower is already on her way there now and I need to make sure she trusts me,” I said quickly.

“How do I know I can trust you?” he asked.

“You’ve trusted me since this whole thing started and I haven’t let you down yet. All I need you to do is act like nothing happened when I go into the secret passage. When that other guard wakes, make sure he’s back at his post and act like he just fell asleep,” I said.

Gold Plate looked down at the sleeping guards. “He won’t remember seeing you?”

“No, I took that memory away from him. Now can you help me?” I asked in a hurry knowing that any second now, Moonflower would be near the entrance and she’d be able to overhear me.

“Fine, but if you try anything, I will have you killed. Do you understand me?” he replied.

I allowed myself to chuckle. “There isn’t much you could do to me, but nice try. Now get back to your post, I’ll be quick.”

“You’d better be,” he said, turning to start dragging the guard back to his post.

“Thank you,” I said and pushed past him. I checked down the corridor that led to the throne room and saw more guards, but none were looking my way. So, I turned to the left and headed for the statue. I just arrived at it when I saw Moonflower fly down from the dark shadows over it.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I cast a memory spell on the guards, but hurry, they’ll wake soon and we don’t want to be seen,” I said as I pushed a spot on the statue and watched as it slid to one side, revealing a narrow staircase on the other side.

We both started climbing up them, the statue closing behind us. It wasn’t very far to reach the top, that led to a narrow hall that went over where the guards were posted and into the throne room itself. This passage was created just for ponies like myself. It was a way for the assassins to reach the Princesses if we needed to. To make reports or get orders without any other pony seeing us. There was another entrance of course, but it was located in the courtyard where I knew soldiers were posted.

A few minutes later Moonflower and myself found ourselves in a small loft area overlooking the throne room. This place was mostly hidden from the ponies on the ground level. It was only here so certain ponies could listen in on what was going on below or if Celestia or Luna wanted to get a break from the day or night duties they both held in the past. Up here they could rest without being bothered by the castle staff, but still be close by if they were needed. It was the perfect place to hide while we waited for our moment to strike.

Recasting the silencing spell over myself, I moved to stand next to Moonflower so she could hear me. “We’ll wait here until we know we can steal the Elements. The battle should be starting soon and I’m sure Celestia will want to be with her troops when it starts.”

“Not a bad idea, let’s just hope Celestia doesn’t come up here to rest while she waits,” Moonflower said, creeping closer to the edge of the overlook to see who was in the throne room.

She jumped back almost as soon as she reached it as Celestia’s voice echoed up toward them. “General, do we have any more information about when my sister will attack?”

A deep stallions voice responded, saying, “Our scouts say Nightmare Moon is readying her forces as we speak. We saw some of her Children of the Night with the troops. We think they’ll strike within the hour.”

A long sigh came up toward us from Celestia as she said, “I truly hoped that my sister would see reason and stop her eternal night. Sadly, she is too lost in this strange power she’s received.”

Another voice came up toward us, a mare, “Princess Celestia, I’m sure you’ll be able to bring her back to herself. You’re the most powerful pony in all of Equestria.”

“I am powerful yes, but Luna is just as strong, but with her transformation into Nightmare Moon, I don’t think I can best her anymore. She is letting hatred fuel her magic and I cannot fight against that,” she said.

“What about the Elements? I’m sure with their power you can do something against Nightmare Moon,” the mare said.

“Only as a last resort. Even if I could wield them, I would still need my sister to make them work at full power,” Celestia said.

The stallion spoke again, “You’re acting as if there is nothing more you can do Princess. Should we just bow down to this mad pony and let her take over, keeping our lands in eternal darkness?”

“You will watch your tone with me General, that mad pony is my sister. Yes, she may not be in her right mind at the moment, but I know that she is still Luna, no matter what she calls herself now,” Celestia said in a booming voice.

“He didn’t mean anything by it your Highness, it’s just that it sounds like you’ve given up,” the mare said.

“Maybe I have…” Celestia said slowly. “But still, even if I do not see a way to win this, I will still try. I have a plan, but I don’t know if it will work.”

“If you have a plan, then tell us so we can help,” The General said.

“I cannot. I need you all to have faith in me,” Celestia said.

“And what if this plan of your fails?” The General asked, sounding angry.

“Then all is lost, just remember that if I fall, I want all of you to surrender. It is the only way to make sure more lives aren’t lost,” Celestia said, sounding sad.

“I will not surrender, even if it costs me my life!” The General said.

“If The Children of the Night are with her, then you will fall General. They are the best fighters in Equestria,” Celestia responded.

The mare spoke up again, “I don’t believe that, they are just four pegasi, a unicorn, and a griffon. How can they be stronger than your royal army?”

“They have been trained how to fight since they were foals. I do so hate to repeat myself, but seeing as you still don’t understand General, I’ll tell you again. The Children are Equestria’s shadows, the killers in the night, trained to fight the battles for our great land. You two are the only ones who know who they are and if you fight them, they will kill you both. Moon Light, their leader, alone is almost as powerful as I am. So, I ask you to please do as I ask and surrender if I fall to my sister. Do I make myself clear?” Celestia said, her voice filled with power and authority.

It took a moment, then both said, “Yes Princess Celestia.”

“Good, now go make sure we are ready for the fight to come and leave me be so that I might prepare,” Celestia said.

They both responded again with a quick, “As you wish your Highness,” before leaving the throne room.

Moonflower looked back at me and said in a quiet tone, “She is alone, we should act now.”

“No, Celestia is still strong and even I can’t take her by myself,” I said as I watched Moonflower.

Her eyes went wide as she said, “Moon Light, you have me with you. Keep her distracted and I can take her out. Once she’s gone, we won’t have to worry about the coming fight.”

“We aren’t killing Celestia, even if we could. That job is for Luna not for us,” I said getting angry.

“Her name is Nightmare Moon now Moon Light, why do you keep calling her by her old name. She isn’t the same mare anymore, she isn’t the one who raised us anymore, she is a queen now,” Moonflower said angrily.

I felt my own anger reaching a peak as I said louder, “That’s the problem right there Moonflower, one minute your talking about how this whole thing is wrong, the next your back to defending what Luna’s become! Let’s not forget you also called her Luna before we got here, so don’t you dare call me out on it.”

“What we are doing is wrong, but I swore myself to fight and protect Princess Luna, now Nightmare Moon. Just because I don’t agree with what she is doing doesn’t mean I’m going to betray her,” Moonflower said with a hiss of anger.

“You’re contradicting yourself again Moonflower. She isn’t Luna anymore and I swore to protect Equestria and Princess Luna. Nightmare Moon isn’t the same pony. She’s taken over our mother’s mind and body and made us think she is the same pony, but she isn’t!” I yelled, then felt a stab of fear in my chest realizing I said too much.

Moonflower looked at me with shock as she took a step back. “Our Queen was right.”

“What?” I asked, regaining my composure giving her a piercing glare.

“I was hoping it wasn’t true, but she suspected it was you this whole time. That’s why she wanted me to go with you. I’m sure she told you I was a traitor and to kill me right?” Moonflower said.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to mislead me. Maybe you are the traitor,” I said, trying to defend myself.

“I guess we’ll find out. First though our Queen gave me a mission a few hours before she told you to go on this mission. She said that she was going to tell you that I was the traitor and to kill me if I showed signs of betrayal. She said that if you tried to kill me I was to give you this,” she said, pulling a scroll out from her satchel and tossing it to me.

I took it with my magic and opened the scroll reading it quickly…

Moon Light,

If you’re reading this, that means you passed my test and are still loyal to me as you always have been. I do hope that you didn’t kill Moonflower because she is working for me to make sure you are not our mole. If you passed, then I am happy to know that you are still with me.

If you are reading this because you are the one who betrayed me then, what happens to you next is a rightful punishment for what you’ve done. Goodbye Moon Light. Remember that the night will always run free!

I looked up from the scroll just in time to see Moonflower coming at me with a dagger hooked around her hoof. I could see tears in her eyes as she lunged, her dagger going straight for my heart. Foolish Moonflower, she’d known me since we were fillies, she trained with me, she grew up with me, she knew how stupid it was to attack me like this. There’s a reason I’m the leader of The Children of the Night. It wasn’t because of my leadership skills, or for the respect I’d earned from the rest of my small family. It wasn’t even because of how powerful I was as a unicorn. No, it’s because I was the best fighter in Equestria, with or without magic.

I sidestepped her attack, brought a hoof up taking hold of her extended foreleg and twisting her around. Moonflower was pulled out of the air and slammed down on the floor with a loud thump. She gasped as air exploded from her lungs, the dagger that was around her hoof flying off and skidding across the tiled floor. Once she was down I hit her in the face three times, then flipped her around onto her belly pinning her down. I wrapped a spell around her and made sure she couldn’t move.

Once that was done and Moonflower started to breathe in a deep gasp of air I said, “Next time you want to attack me Moonflower, remember that giving me warning about what you’re going to do is the worst mistake you could’ve made.”

She took in a few deep breaths, then said in a hoarse voice, “You betrayed Nightmare Moon.”

“No, I only did as I was trained to do by Luna. I’m protecting Equestria from evil. You betrayed Luna,” I said.

“Let me UP!” she screamed.

There was a flapping of wings followed by Celestia’s voice, “She can’t do that right now Moonflower, once this is all over then maybe we can talk about what’s going on.”

I looked up to see Princess Celestia looking down at me from the edge of the balcony rail. I nodded my head, saying, “Princess Celestia, I’m sorry if this goes against your plan, I had no choice but to bring Moonflower. Nightmare Moon would have known something was wrong if I’d gone alone. She ordered me to watch Moonflower and to kill her if she was a betrayer, but it was all a ruse, to make it so Moonflower could assassinate me.”

“Because you’re betraying all of us!” Moonflower said, tears falling down her face. “We trusted you, we followed you, and you’ve betrayed us to the enemy.”

Celestia moved down and bent her head close to Moonflower. “Moonflower, the pony you follow may pretend that she is Luna with greater power, but she is nothing more than a darkness that’s taken over her mind, turning her into a monster. Nightmare Moon isn’t my sister, she is a demon that’s using her body.”

“She is the Queen of the Night!” Moonflower said looking up at Celestia with hatred.

She laughed gently still showing the kindness she embodied. “Yes, she is, but not in the way you see it. If my words cannot convince you otherwise, sleep and I hope that one day you’ll forgive us for this,” Celestia said, her horn glowing.

A second later, Moonflower as out like a light. I released my spell holding her down and sighed sadly as I took a few steps back. “I had no idea she’d do this. She’s been talking for a while now about how Nightmare Moon’s motives are wrong, I was hoping she’d join our cause.”

Celestia sighed. “The Children of the Night have lived most of their lives learning and following my sister, ever since she took all of you from the orphanages when you were all little. It’s not easy to change one’s loyalties so easily.”

“I still haven’t changed my own Princess Celestia, I’m only helping you bring back Luna,” I said bowing a little.

“I know, but I am afraid that nothing can bring her back. The only thing that might be able to are The Elements of Harmony, and without my sister, I don’t think I’d be able to use them in that way. Even trying could kill me,” she said.

“So even if I didn’t take them from you, like your sister wants, we might still lose?” I asked.

She looked over at me with sad eyes. “It is possible that we might fail, but I have a plan, one that I hope will hold Nightmare Moon off for a long time.”

“But…what about getting Luna back?” I asked, my hopes dying at her words. I had only started helping Celestia because she was the only pony I knew that could bring back the pony I looked up to as a mother. “If we don’t get her back, then what will happen to the others…my family?”

“If I win, but we don’t get Luna back, then I hope that The Children will still help me in the coming years,” she said.

“We don’t serve you Celestia, we serve Luna and only her, that is our reason for living. We protect Equestria for Princess Luna,” I said, feeling anger build within me. “Maybe I should just work with Nightmare Moon, at least she is close to Luna.”

The look she gave me wasn’t one of anger, it was the look a mother gave a foal who was acting like a brat, mixed with pity and sadness. “She is nothing like my Luna. She is filled with rage, hate, and resentment. Those feelings are what my sister was feeling at the time she made that deal with the darkness. The only thing that can bring her back is love. Sadly, right now, there isn’t enough of it to pull her from the brink.”

I felt a tear fall down my face as I said, “I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

I felt a wing from Princess Celestia wipe away the tear before it could fall, followed by her gentle voice, saying, “I know, but at the moment, we have to just see what happens and hope for the best. For now, you have a job to finish.”

“No, I don’t, if I finish my mission for Nightmare Moon, then you may not be able to win. No, I will have to think of something to make sure the rest of my team never finds out what I did. Just in case it turns out for the better,” I said, looking down at Moonlight. “I’m going to have to kill her. She’s seen too much and knows too much…”

I saw a glow form around Moonlights head as Celestia said, “Killing your friend will not help at all. I will remove what she learned today and we’ll hope that she won’t ever find out what happened tonight. We’ll let her rest up here until the battle is over.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I am, now before we continue, do you have anything to report?” she asked, finishing up the spell.

I wiped away the fresh tears then said, “We managed to make it in without killing any guards, though most of them are in a deep sleep throughout the castle. Oh, and when we entered the dungeons to get in, we were spoken to by whatever you have trapped in the stone cell. There’s a crack in it and something spoke to us through a dark smoke that was leaking out.”

To my amazement Celestia’s eyes went wide as she said in a panicked tone, “How long ago!?”

I had to think about it for a moment before replying, “A couple hours now I think. Why?”

“Mezzanotte, I knew I felt something from him down there…but…with Nightmare Moon and what she’s done…” Celestia said then looked back over to me. “I need you to go back down there and seal that crack before it’s too late.”

“What do you mean? What is that thing?” I asked, remembering him saying something about looking into a Zony.

“There’s no time, just know that whatever he is now isn’t anything we can fight. Not with Luna the way she is now, that cell he’s in is the only thing keeping Equestria safe from his terror,” Celestia said, trotting over to a desk in one corner and pulling out a gem. She cast a spell over the gem until it was glowing with a bright white light. When she was done, she walked back over and gave it to me with her magic. “Place this gem near the crack and it will reseal the cell. Once that’s done, I want you to head back to your unit, we need to make sure that Nightmare Moon keeps thinking you’re on her side.”

I took the gem looking up at her with fear, “Princess Celestia, Nightmare Moon thinks I was the pony who betrayed her. That’s why she sent Moonflower with me, she was supposed to test me and kill me if I was the mole. If I don’t go back with Moonflower then she’ll know something’s wrong.”

Her horn started to glow brightly as she said, “You’re a smart pony Moon Light, I know you’ll think of something. Now I need you to get down there and fix that cell before Mezzanotte gets free!”

“But Princess…” I started to say, then the world around me turned into nothing but golden light as Celestia teleported me away from the throne room.

I found myself standing on the steps that led back to the prison. The torches had gone out and a dark mist seemed to fill the room like smoke. To make things worse, there was a bone chilling cold, when the air should’ve been on the warmer side. I took a step down, then another. Each step was like I was stepping into a frozen lake, pins and needles seemed to be flowing though my body as I got closer to the stone cell.

“I was not expecting you to return so soon Moon Light,” the deep voice from before said.

I pulled the gem I’d gotten from Celestia up in front of me, holding it within my magic, saying, “Celestia told me your name, it’s Mezzanotte.”

“Ah, good old Celestia, how is she doing!” Mezzanotte asked his tone sounding light and cheerful.

“I’m not here to talk, I’m here to seal that prison of yours,” I said drawing closer to the cell and the crack that had grown wider since I was down here earlier.

“Foolish pony of little sight, I believe you have underestimated my might. For you do not know the power I wield, for I have the power to make Celestia yield. I am a creature made by the darkest of night, I come from a place that sees no light,” Mezzanotte said, starting up his creepy rhyming again.

I just made it to the crack in the wall as I said, “You can say whatever you want, but the power I have is from Celestia herself. She’s trapped you in here before and she will do so again.”

I pressed the gem up to the cell, as I did a dark scream filled the prison around me. The darkness seemed to start fading as the gem started to glow brighter. The crack in the cell started to vanish slowly, the gem cracked then broke. I looked at the gem in horror for a moment before the stone cell exploded in my face. I was thrown back into the opposite wall as a dark form stepped into the hole left over where the stone cell used to be.

The darkness pulled itself into a pony like shape, I could see lines on it that were a lighter black than the rest of its body, giving the appearance of stripes. Except for the face, the stripes around its face were a glowing red, flowing into shapes and symbols almost like what I read about a tribe of zebras. They were marked for being followers of the moon. Then there were his eyes, they were nothing more than glowing red orbs on the shadowy face. They gave me the impression that they could look right through me and into my very soul. The last thing that formed on the tall ponylike form was a cracked and jagged horn made out of red and black shadow.

I tried getting back to my hooves as I looked up into that fiery gaze, but something was holding me down. It was like gravity itself wasn’t working right. I felt ten times heavier than normal. I saw a crack appear in the shadow form’s face and heard Mezzanotte say, “Celestia may be strong, but her power is wrong. The Princess of the Sun, should learn when to run. For she is not the one who knows how to keep me in my cage, only the younger one understands the power of rage. This is why I showed her how to find her true power, so she could make the ponies of this land cower. Now I am free, so it is time for you to flee.”

“Would you stop…rhyming!?” I yelled, still trying to get to my hooves.

The dark form came closer and said in a lower tone, “Moon Light, I must thank you for this gift. Because without you, I would have never been able to find my way out of that cage.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Remember when you told Luna that she should find a way to make the ponies of Equestria appreciate her night? Well she did as you said and came to me asking how she could get more powerful. So, I told her where to find the old zebra tomes about the stars. She has become Nightmare Moon…because of you. Now her power that was helping keep me closed away in that cell is gone. That is why I was able to break free. Everything that is happening now, is your fault. Now I will go out into Equestria and build my power once again. And someday soon, I will return and make this land mine,” he said with a chuckle.

“I will stop you…Celestia will stop you,” I said, even though I was scared of even looking into those dark red eyes.

“I would love to see you try, I really would,” he said, laughing again, then he cocked his head up toward the castle. “Sounds like my apprentice has started her assault. I don’t think she’ll win though, she has no idea what she has gotten herself into. That is fine with me, because with Celestia in charge, I will be able to hide and grow my power until no pony or zebra or alicorn can stop me. Good luck with your small war Moon Light, I look forward to our next encounter.”

“Mezzanotte!” I yelled as his body started to turn into a dark shadow again.

He stopped and looked back at me his red eyes locked onto my own. As our eyes met, something in the back of my head seemed to snap and I felt pain there. It was like another…something was pushing its way through my mind. As it did, Mezzanotte said, “I can see you in there small one, time means nothing to me and I know you’re in there. I give you a warning now, because when we meet one day, I will destroy you and Altair’s little creation. Get to know my power, learn to fear it, because soon, I will be your death.”

“What are you saying, who are you talking to!?” I yelled.

He started to laugh again as he cast a spell. “I am talking to your soul!” There was a flash of light…and everything went black…

As the darkness pulled at me, I felt my mind split, almost like another version of me was trying to pull away, but I was trapped. There’s not enough power, too much to take in, I...can’t get free! Shadow…Moon Light…Shadow…Moon Light. Courier, leader, friend, sister, follower, hero, demon…who AM I!? Which body is the one that belongs to me? The short mare that’s seen too much death and destruction, or the mare of great power who betrayed her Princess to save her land? I’m…not sure, both paths feel right, yet both feel wrong.

As I think about this problem, my mind seems to fracture and that memory seems to start all over again…

“Moon Light! Moon Light! Wake up, now’s not the time to be passing out, we’re in the middle of a WAR!” I heard a griffon say, his talon’s shaking me awake like our lives depended on it. “Our Queen needs us.”

“LET ME OUT!” I tried to scream, but it was no use. I’m trapped…

“Shadow! Shadow, listen to me, follow my voice,” I heard a zebra mare say from somewhere deep in the darkness. “Listen to my voice Shadow, remember who you are, do not let the dream crystal keep you trapped. You are Shadow Star, you are The Courier, not whatever memory you are stuck in. Let go of the power and come back to the ones who love you!”

“I…can’t…who’s Shadow, GO AWAY MEZZANOTTE!” I yelled into the everlasting darkness of this nightmare.

“Come back to us Shadow, I know you can do it!” I heard her voice say again. This time, I knew who it was, Empress Sheena. No, I don’t know anyone named Sheena, do I? If I did, then she would have to be a Zebra, but Empress, the Zebras don’t have an Empress…but no that’s not right, The Kingdom does.

I took hold of that voice and used it to pull myself slowly out of the nightmare I’d been trapped in for what seemed like years. As I did, my mind seemed to slowly pull itself back together. Now I could see what was me and what wasn’t. I wasn’t Moon Light the leader of the first Children of the Night. I’m Shadow Star, the distant granddaughter of the last leader of The Children. Yes, that’s it, I’m Shadow, my parents are Grimoire Spell and Nightshade. I love Aura Bloodtalon, my best friend is Stardust Night, my other friends are Wingnut and Wind Thrasher. That’s right, now I remember. As I finally pulled the last of who I was back into one whole. The world came back to me…my world…The Wasteland.

oooOOOooo

The fall of Nightmare Moon, what a stupid name, I didn’t even get to see the fight between her and Celestia. It was all about that Moon Light pony who used to lead The Children. It’s like a shitty book that acts as if it’s about somepony famous and their life when all it’s about is someone who interacted with them and changed THEIR life instead of something interesting about the famous pony. I hate the past.

Slowly I opened my eyes. Dim lights nearly blinding me as I woke from that damned memory crystal I’d found in the old bunker. My head felt like it had been split in two. I groaned and put a hoof to my head. “Why do I feel like a hell hound just used my head as a punching bag?”

A moment later Sheena and Aura’s faces came into view, both looking tired and worried. Aura placed a hoof on my face saying in a relieved voice, “I’m glad you finally came out of that thing. I thought you were going to be stuck in it forever.”

“She would have too if you had not gotten her to me Aura,” Sheena said. “Shadow, how are you feeling?”

I groaned. “I just said I feel like a hell hound used my head as a punching bag. Isn’t that a good enough explanation of my pain level?”

“I am not surprised, you used just about all of your magic while trapped inside that crystal. Here, let me get you a brew that will help with the pain,” Sheena said, reaching back toward a table and picking up a bowl with a funny smelling goo inside. Why is it always goo?

“Is that one of those gross kinds of brews that taste like snot, or is it the good kind that makes me want to keep drinking more?” I asked as Aura helped me sit up.

“I will have you know, that I did not brew this myself, one of our zebra doctors did, and the taste is not that of snot…more like burnt socks, but it will help,” she said putting the bowl into my hooves.

I groaned. “Gee when you put it like that, I think I’d rather just deal with the pain.” But I took the brew anyway. She was right, I think. I’ve never tasted a burnt sock, but if I had, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what it tasted like. Luckily for me, it wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever gone into my muzzle. Not, even, close. After I got it down and held back my gag of disgust I managed to ask, “How long was I in that thing?”

“Four days,” Aura said as she stroked my mane. “We arrived here yesterday and good thing too, because I was having a hard time keeping you hydrated and I had no idea what to do. I knew you shouldn’t have gone into that stupid crystal. You’re not powerful enough to use one, you said yourself that only powerful unicorns should enter a memory crystal.”

I frowned. “Ouch, I’ll have you know that I’m no weakling,” I said, my head was already starting to feel a lot better. Yay for nasty, but amazing zebra cures.

“Shadow is right, she is not weak Aura, but Shadow you should also remember that you have gone through a great ordeal over the past week. Your magic is not strong right now, especially after whatever happened while Aquila had your body,” Sheena Said.

I sighed. “You know about that?”

“Yes, Aura told me everything while we were waiting for you to wake. I was able to pull you out of the crystal a few hours ago, thanks to some old books I have found about them. I will say, I did not expect to see Aura again like this though. I thought a new Enclave pegasus was trying to escape to The Kingdom until I saw you on her back,” she said with a laugh.

“Yeah, I’m still getting used to it,” Aura said, running a hoof though her mane. “I miss my talons, but at least this mane is soft. So, there’s perks.”

I leaned up and kissed her lips softly and smiled as I felt her shock, then her body shiver a little. “I still think you look cute, but I’m not saying I didn’t like you as a griffon.”

She smiled a little. “I’ll admit, there are some nice things about this body, though flying is still weird. How do pegasi get around on such small wings?”

“Couldn’t tell you, that’s a Stardust question,” I said, sitting up more. “Damn, so we lost four days because of that memory crystal?”

“Yeah, you’re a big fat idiot and we all know it, but it’s fine now that you’re okay. We had to stop in The Kingdom anyway to drop off two letters from that crap you’re delivering for Bottle Cap. I also took care of three other settlements on our way here for you. So, don’t worry about them,” Aura said.

“So, you just flew down into random settlements and made deliveries for me? I’m surprised you didn’t get shot at, most ponies would’ve thought you were Enclave,” I said.

She shrugged, “I just put on a duster that Captain Gunny had in his ship and hid my wings from them. We landed the ship each time, made the drop off’s, collected the caps, and were off again. Honestly, your job is fucking easy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Being a courier is, but being The Courier isn’t the same.”

“Yeah, yeah, if you say so,” she said waving a hoof. “At least I’m still taller than you.”

Sheena laughed a little. “At least you are taking your new body with a bit of humor Aura.”

“Trust me, I’m still pissed, but I can’t change it, at least not yet. I’m just gonna do my best to live with it,” she said.

“So, while I was out, did anything else happen?” I asked.

“Not really, but we did hear a few rumors that some things have been happening in the clouds. Not sure what yet, but Sheena said that they got reports about most of the troops in the Twin Cities heading back up to Nimbus,” Aura said.

“What do you mean?” I asked sitting straight up this time.

Sheena sighed, saying, “We do not know anything just yet. This all happened a day or so ago. The only thing we have heard is that your father called for all troops to head back to the clouds. If we find out more, we will be sure to get you the information. But I believe that you will be able to find that information out for yourself. At least a lot faster than my husband or I can.”

“We really need to get back home,” I said, getting to my hooves.

“I agree, but I think you should rest for another day or so before we head out. You just came out of a nasty memory crystal. By the way, did you even learn anything useful in there?” Aura asked.

I remembered Mezzanotte speaking to…me through the crystal, but I also didn’t know if that was really part of the memory or my brain melting from the over use of magic. So, I answered, “I’m not sure yet. It’s hard to wrap my head around what happened in there. It was like I was Moon Light, the first leader of
The Children of the Night. I felt everything she did, I could hear her thoughts, feel her emotions, I was her. I’ve never felt anything like that before in my life.”

“Damn, that’s not something I’d want to go through,” Aura said.

“Yeah and neither do I. If I ever have to go into one again, I will make sure my power isn’t feeble. At the end of the memory each time I started to feel like myself, but then it would suck me back in,” I said, stretching my legs a little. “Now, enough about this memory crystal, we should get going. I’ve been away from home for too long.”

Aura sighed. “Sheena is she healthy enough to leave?”

Sheena looked me over for a moment then shrugged. “As long as she does not overdo her magic for a few days then I see no problem with it. Though I do wish you two could stay for a little while. It is nice to see you both again.”

“Yeah, I know, but Grim’s expecting us back soon and with two more deliveries to make for Shadow we don’t have much time to spare anyway. Even though I’d like her to rest more,” Aura said.

“I guess you are right and I do not like Captain Gunny being in The Kingdom for too long. Every time him or his crew come here, there is always at least two fights and something always seems to go missing,” Sheena said.

“Did Gunny hear somepony sayin’ Captain Gunny’s name? Ya wouldn’t be sayin’ nothin’ bad about him would ye?” Gunny said as he came into the room. His eyes fell on me and he beamed. “Ah, look Starshine is back to er’ old wakey up self der isn’t she? Good, cause Gunny need’s to be headin’ off and teachin’ his new crewmate how the Bitter Cob be workin’”

“Oh look, the asshole’s here, yay,” I said with a huge grin.

“Don’t ye be talkin’ bout Gunny’s rear end now Shadow… er something, now get ye tiny butt outta bed. Gunny has a schedule to keep,” he said.

I looked over a Sheena and gave her a thankful smile, “I’m glad you helped me get out of that thing. Thank you.”

“Shadow, you are a friend and you have done a lot of good for The Kingdom. You can always count on our help here whenever you need it,” Sheena said, helping me out of the bed. “By the way, I am giving you tablets with a few herbs in them that will help your magic come back a little faster. With what you have gone though, you will need them.”

I looked over at Aura, then asked Sheena, “Do you know a way we can fix Aura?”

The look she gave me was one of pity as she said, “I am sorry Shadow, but killing joke is a mystery to most ponies and zebras. I have heard of ponies around The Wasteland trying to find a cure for it, but nothing has been found that works. I think the only ponies who would know something would be The Enclave.”

“Shadow, it’s okay. I’ll get used to this in time and honestly, it’s not that bad being a pony. As long as I have you, we’ll be okay,” Aura said, her voice still not what I was used to.

“I’m gonna find a way to fix you Aura,” I said.

“You don’t need to fix me Shadow,” she replied.

“I may not need to, but I want to. You may say you’re fine now, but one day you’re going to start missing your old body. And when that day comes, I’m going to make sure you’ll be able to get it back,” I said.

“I guess I should know better than to try and change your mind,” she said with a chuckle. “Well, if you’re feeling okay, let’s get back to the ship and head home.”

I sighed at that. “Home, home sounds nice right now,” I said, then turned back to Sheena. “I wish we could stay longer.”

She hugged me. “I know, but this is the way it has to be.” She pulled away and gave me a bottle with small tablets in it. “These are the tablets, take one before you go to sleep every night for the next few days. You’ll start to feel your magic getting back to normal soon.”

I took them, smiling. “Thank you, Sheena.”

“Oh, and I gave Aura some notes about what I believe your mother is going through with her memory loss. We had time to talk about her condition while you were still out,” Sheena said with a smile.

“What do you mean? I already know what happened to her memory,” I said.

Aura spoke up this time, saying, “Yeah, you thought you did, but I met with those weird brothers again and they believe that the stone wasn’t used on your mother, or if it was, it didn’t work. The memory problems your mother has doesn’t match up with the stone’s power.”

“What are you saying then? If that wasn’t what happened, then why did mom forget me?” I asked.

Sheena looked at me sadly. “It is because I believe that the kind of magic your mother is using, is damaging her body. I went over everything in my notes, read them for yourself and then show them to your mother when you get back. She will understand them the most I believe. If I am right, she might know a way to fix her own problem.”

“You mean…she might be able to fix herself?” I asked.

“I am not sure, but I believe so,” Sheena said. “Now get going, I hope that everything works out for you Shadow. And please do come visit us again when this is all over.”

“I will, thank you again Sheena…thank you so much,” I said as Aura led me out the door.

“Bout, time ya be gettin’ up. Gunny don’t have all day,” Gunny said as he started down the hall of the medical wing in Sheena’s home.

“Gunny, I thought you weren’t captain right now,” I said as we headed out of the mansion and into the courtyard where I could see The Bitter Cob was waiting with Elliot and Sun Spot on the deck and what looked like two zebras and another unicorn.

“Sunny be givin’ Gunny another chance she did. But ye be right also, Gunny still has to listen to Sunny fer right now. Once he shows he can be trustin’ again, den Gunny will have The Bitter Cob back himself,” he said as he walked up the gang plank.

“Who are those others?” I asked pointing at the unicorn and two zebras.

“Oh, they be the new crew, Gunny needs more help since his last crew only be da twins,” he said.

“And because I said we needed help,” Sun Spot said as she walked over to me. “Don’t let him act like he’s in charge, The Bitter Cob is being run by me still and it will stay that way until I feel like Gunny has earned my trust again. But the new crew was my idea. The unicorn is Isotope, he’s taking over coms and navigation. The two zebras are Zekon and…”

I interrupted her as the second zebra turned around I recognized him. “Khalid! Is that you!?”

He looked at me and the zebra I met in Whinnieapolis trotted over. “Nah, it can’t be the lil shorty from the city? Girl, last time I saw ya, you was goin’ into that big tower, then you went and blew the thing up. I was like DAYUM!”

“I’m glad to see you got out of there. My friend said he was going to help you and your mom, but I never heard anything about if you two made it out for sure,” I said.

“Ah, it’s all cool girl, my momma and I both got to The Kingdom and all that. That creepy dude in the mask said ya’ll told him to come help my momma and me. Ya kept your word and I’m grateful for that,” he said with a huge smile.

“If your mom and you got here safe, then why are you joining Gunny’s crew?” I asked.

“AH shit, well ya see, momma be sayin’ things like,” Khalid said, his voice changing into what I’d expect a normal zebra to sound like. “Khalid, you have to get out of this place and do something with your life. You are driving me crazy.”

I chuckled a little. “She sounds like a fun mom. She just wants you to have your own life.”

His voice changed back over as he said, “Yeah, I know right. She be the coolest momma around y’know what I’m sayin’? I was all worried and shit that she’d need me, but honestly, I just think she wanna spend time with the ol’ zebra who stays next to us. I love my momma and all, but I don’t need to be seein’ her mackin’ on someone who ain’t my pops.”

“So, you decided to join a band of sky pirates?” I asked.

“Word, did ya see that pony-griffon thing? She be one interesting and hot piece of ass, y’know?” he said.

I looked back and saw that Sun Spot had left me with Khalid to talk with the unicorn. So, I turned back to him, saying, “Yeah, I guess she’s cute and all, but don’t you want to find some zebra to settle down with?”

“Nah, got plenty of time for that when I’m older ya hear? For now, I’m goin’ to enjoy life and get with some freaky bitches while I can,” he said.

“Okay, well I’m not gonna get in your way, but I warn you, Sun Spot can probably kick your ass from here to the moon if she wanted,” I said.

“Probably, but that means the chase will be all the sweeter when I get her,” he said, then looked over at Aura who just came onto the ship with Solstice. “Damn! Maybe I need to rethink who I set my sights on, those two might be even better.”

I frowned. “Don’t even think about it, the grey one’s my friend and the other is my…mare friend.”

“Damn girl, I’m impressed. How’d a lil shit like you get such a sexy thing like her?” he asked.

“Long story, maybe I’ll tell you about it later,” I replied.

Right then Sun Spot yelled, “Khalid, get over here so I can teach you what to do when we take off, we’re leaving in a few minutes.

“Gotta go shorty, catch ya on the flip side and all that shit,” Khalid said trotting off.

“See you later Khalid,” I said with a small smile. I was happy to see the zebra made it here and his mother would be okay. When I’d met him, I wasn’t in the best state of mind, but he still helped me.

“Shouldn’t take us long to get to home now,” Aura said as she walked up to me.

“That’s if we don’t run into trouble as we fly,” Solstice said, then looked over at me. “Glad to see you’re up again Shadow, you gave us all a scare.”

“Trust me, I’m happy to be out of that thing too, it wasn’t a pleasant experience,” I said.

“Well, anyway, we’ll be setting off soon and since you don’t have anything to do anymore on the ship, I figured the three of us can settle down in Sun Spot’s room. It’s about time you told us what happened to you while you were away,” Aura said.

“Yeah, and we want the whole story,” Solstice added.

“I…really don’t want to relive what happened to me in that cage,” I said.

“Too bad, because from what Sun Spot told me, you haven’t been sleeping much, or at all. Something’s wrong and you need to talk to us about it. I don’t care how bad it was, you ARE doing this,” Aura said, nudging me toward the cabins.

“But…Aura I don’t want to talk about it!” I complained, but it was no use.

“I don’t care, either you tell me what happened so I can help you, or we’re going to have another conversation, one that you really don’t want to have with me. Trust me on that,” she said, still pushing me toward Sun Spot’s cabin, Solstice not far behind.

I sighed and turned toward the cabin pushing the door open. “Fine, but just let me get through the whole thing at once so I don’t have to go over it twice.” Then I looked at Solstice. “And please don’t hit me when I tell you about the role you played in my fun little cage of horror.”

Solstice looked at me funny. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll understand what I’m talking about soon,” I said as I moved to go sit on the bed. Once they were both settled in on the floor, I took in a deep breath and started. “First, I need to go back to why I tried to kill myself, so both of you understand what was going on in my head…”

***

“That…has to be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Solstice said quietly, her eyes wide in horror as I finished my story about the cage.

“Shadow, I think I understand why you look so crappy right now. No wonder you can’t sleep, with everything you were forced to do, the ponies you had to kill, letting Wind Thrasher kill you…no one would be able to take that easily,” Aura said just as quietly as Solstice.

The airship left The Kingdom hours ago and we were now flying over The Deadlands. It was a large mountain range that separates the Midwest from western Equestria…or The Wasteland I guess. It took me all that time to tell them every nasty thing I had to do to get free. I’d even gone into detail about the other part of Aquila.

“Why would Aquila think you’d become my lover? I mean, yeah you aren’t that bad now that I’ve gotten to know you and all, but I couldn’t see us being a thing. Let’s just say that’s a way my barn door doesn’t swing,” Solstice said.

“With everything you heard in that story, that’s the thing you focus on?” Aura asked.

“Well no, I mean there was a lot of worse things in there, but still, I just thought that was weird,” Solstice stated.

“Honestly it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s said and done, none of it was real. I just need to get my stupid brain to realize that,” I said with another sigh, laying back on the bed.

“Shadow what you really need is to sleep, and not just for a few minutes here or there. You need a good night sleep and some food, you look like a drown rat right now,” Aura said.

“Thanks, love you too,” I said, still not looking at them.

“I’m not trying to insult you or anything, you just need to realize how bad you look. If you showed back up in New Pegasus like that and somepony saw you. They would think The Courier was really dead and you were just some pony we put into your old clothes and said you’re The Courier. You have a reputation to keep and ponies in New Pegasus need to know you’re still you,” Aura said.

“I don’t feel like me though Aura, Aquila took that away from me when she trapped me in my own head,” I said, finally sitting back up. “To make things worse, now I have a lot more crap to deal with, after what I saw in that crystal.”

“What did you see by the way?” Solstice asked.

“It was a memory of The first Children of the Night. Their leader Moon Light, it was the fall of Nightmare Moon. Well that’s what it was labeled as, but I think it was more about this monster that was locked up in the castle at the time,” I said, then told them about what I’d seen in the memory, leaving out a few things.

“It’s a memory from over twelve-hundred years ago, don’t read too much into it. If that thing is still out there, then worry about it when you have to. Right now, let’s just worry about getting you back to your old self,” Aura said, moving to sit on the bed next to me.

“I don’t know if I can,” I said with another sigh.

“I know you can, you just need a little help and we can both do that for you,” Aura said, looking over at Solstice.

“Yeah, count on us Shadow,” Solstice said with a smile.

I couldn’t help smiling too and I nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“That’s what we wanted to hear. So, first things first, you need to get some sleep,” Aura said, digging in a satchel.

“Easier said than done,” I replied.

Aura pulled out a small jar with a red liquid inside. “Nope, easier done than said this time. This is more medicine I got from Sheena. She said it will help you sleep and make sure you have no dreams. We don’t have much, but with a few nights of dreamless sleep, maybe your body will be able to cope with what happened and you’ll start feeling better.”

“Is that safe? I’ve heard REM sleep is when you dream and that it’s the most restful part of the sleeping process,” I asked taking the bottle.

“If it’s from Sheena then I’d say so. Just drink it and rest. And don’t worry about the rest of your deliveries, I’ll take care of them while you’re sleeping,” Aura said, getting to her hooves. “I’m kind of enjoying this whole courier business.”

“What’ll you be doing Solstice?” I asked as Aura kissed me, then headed out the door.

“I’ll keep an eye on you. Sheena said that if you start showing signs of waking early or a dream’s coming through, then I have to wake you up with another potion,” Solstice said.

“I thought this was safe…ish. Wait how are you gonna even know if I’m dreaming anyway?” I asked.

“It is, but she still wants you to be careful,” Solstice said, pushing me onto the bed to lay down. “To your question about how will I know you’re dreaming, it’s easy, your body language will tip me off. Now drink up and go to sleep.”

“Yes mother dearest.” I smiled then drank the potion down. “Oh, that’s…earthy. Why do all these things have to taste bad? It’s like sour candy dissolved in dirty dishwater that somepony spit in.”

She just rolled her eyes. “Oh shut up and…”

I never heard what she was going to say after that, because right then, my eyes closed and sleep finally came. It was just like they said, I didn’t have a single dream, or a nightmare as I slept. For the first time since I broke out of my cage, since I took back my wreck of a body, I got a full night’s sleep. When I woke again, my mind felt clearer than it had in over a week. My body had more energy and I finally felt a little like my old self.

When I woke I found that I was still laying in the bed, Solstice was sleeping on the floor next to the bed snoring as loud as Stardust does and I could feel the airship still moving along at a quick pace. The sounds of the new crew moving around on deck, the shouts of Eliot as he gave orders to them, Captain Gunny’s laughter, and Sun Spot yelling for him to shut up.

I yawned then stretched as I got back to my hooves then poked at Solstice. She groaned then opened her eyes, wiping some drool from her cheek. “Oh, hey Shadow, I guess I must’ve fallen asleep.”

“It’s fine,” I said as I looked at my Pip-Buck to see what time it was. My eyes went wide as I saw that I’d been sleeping for around twelve hours.

“How are you feeling?” Solstice asked, trying to wake up her body.

“Better than I have in a while and I’m hungry,” I said, rubbing my belly as it rumbled.

“Yeah me too, what do they have on this thing for food besides alcohol?” she asked, walking over to her set of power armor that was sitting in one corner.

“Biscuits mostly and some random Wasteland food,” I said as I watched her get into the bug like armor. “I was gonna ask you before Solstice, where did you get that armor? Did Violet give your old armor back?”

She nodded, lifting the visor so I could see her face, “Yeah, after I helped them with a fight while you were off being crazy, she let me have it again.”

Once she was in the armor we left the cabin and slowly walked toward the main deck. As we did, I asked, “Do you ever miss being back at home?”

She looked over at me. “All the time, Stratus is a beautiful place and I miss my friends…well my one friend, but still yeah I miss it. What I miss the most is my parents though. I’m sure my mom’s worried sick about me right now.”

I smiled at that. “Moms are good at that.”

“My mom brings it to a whole new level. She acts like she’s going to lose me one day. She’s always going on about some curse on the family and how she can’t stand to lose another foal,” she said with a sigh.

“Another foal? You mean you had a sibling at one point?” I asked as we made our way over to the ship’s galley with no one attending to it, not that I was surprised or anything, there aren’t enough crew members.

“Not that I know of no, when I asked her about it she just tells me to leave things be. Either she lost a foal right after birth or had a stillborn. I’m not sure, but if I try to bring it up, she’ll change the subject and make herself a cocktail,” Solstice said, taking a couple biscuits.

“So, your mom believes there’s a curse on the family? That’s funny because Aura’s family and mine are the same way,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not surprised, all of the descendants of The Children are like that. Well, all but one that is.”

“Wait you know that you’re a descendant of The Children of the Night?” I asked.

She shrugged, “I’ve known my whole life. It’s no big secret in my family. We have old pictures in our house of my distant grandmother Cloudy Nights in our home. She was one of the biggest believers in the curse next to Night Stalker himself.”

“Odd, because I thought she lived to be really old,” I said as I took some biscuits and a dried apple.

“She did, but she also suffered a lot until her final days. She went a little nut at the end I believe. She was in pain for most of her older life from some strange illness. She lost two of her children to sickness, lost her first husband to an attack in The Wasteland, her second husband died from assassination, and her last one, the one who she had my family’s line with killed himself. Mom says that one day she was found in her room dead, she’d put a bullet through the back of her head. She was almost ninety years old and she still managed to kill herself in the end,” Solstice said sadly.

“I…didn’t know she killed herself,” I said.

“Most ponies don’t, my family’s kept it secret for a long time. She was very depressed for most of her life,” she said as she sat down on the deck to eat.

“Does your family know a lot about The Children of the Night?” I asked, sitting next to her.

“Not about Night Stalker or Greta, but my mom knows a lot about our family and Thunderlane’s too, surprisingly, maybe a little about Lightning Dust after Night Stalker was banished,” she said.

“What happened to Thunderlane?” I asked. “I heard something in one of my mom’s memories that Greta killed him?”

“She might as well have, she found him a couple of months after Night Stalker was banished. She attacked him while he was on patrol and killed his entire squad. Then she threw him into a vat of something, not sure if it was taint or radioactive waste, either way, he managed to make it back to Stratus with the help of another Enclave patrol who found him. He told them what happened while he was being taken to a hospital. Later he died from the damage done to him from the stuff he was thrown into. His oldest son took over after that and tried to start a small war against Greta’s Talon company, but it didn’t go far. He was pulled from power after the first attack and almost branded himself for going against the rest of The Council,” she explained.

“Damn, so Thunderlane didn’t hold power for long after Night Stalker left,” I said.

“No, he didn’t. After Night Stalker’s betrayal and after how Thunderlane’s son acted. The Enclave as a whole passed a law that made it so that Night Stalker’s family and Thunderlane’s wouldn’t be allowed to hold power in the Enclave for at least a hundred years after that. Lightning Dust herself helped pass the law while she was in Thunderhead and she would’ve lost her power too if she hadn’t divorced and renounced Night Stalker beforehoof,” Solstice said.

“You sure know a lot about what happened back then,” I said, eating another biscuit.

Solstice shrugged. “My mom’s worked in intelligence for a long time, she’s also a historian. I grew up with her talking about things from the past.”

“Your mom’s name is Fairy Glitter, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but how did you know that?” she asked.

“Doorstop told me, he had me send a letter to her a couple weeks back,” I said.

She rolled her eyes, then cursed, “Dammit, I guess you know then.”

“What that Doorstop’s your uncle? Yeah, I found that out the day before Aquila took over. I take it you knew too,” I said.

“Yeah, I knew since I first met him, well kind of. I knew mom’s brother was named Doorstop. When I met him, he reminded me a lot of my grandpa, so I thought he must be the same pony. I wasn’t sure though at first, not fully. I finally asked him about it while we were helping the cadets in The Kingdom,” she said with a little smile.

“You two are a lot alike, I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner,” I said.

“We’re not that much alike. I don’t practically scream at everypony,” she said, giving me an offended look.

I laughed. “You are to, you’re both brash, tough, and thick-headed. Though I’ll admit you’re not as loud.”

“I guess you’re right, but still, I don’t like being compared to him. Honestly, I don’t like being compared to anyone in my family. Mom likes to say I’m a mix of her brother and her. Quick to anger, tough, but also with a soft side too,” she said with a sigh.

“Your mom must be kind,” I said.

“She is, like you have no idea. Even though she’s just as strong, tough and thick-headed as Doorstop, she always tries to find the best solution to a problem. She doesn’t like to yell, she would rather talk it out with somepony than get into a fight. But if she does get mad, damn she’s scary. She can even make my father cower in fear and he’s the bravest pony I know,” Solstice said.

I looked down at my hooves. “Wish I could’ve grown up with a family like that. My whole life has been about me being sick or having Aquila inside of me. I don’t know what a normal life is like, never really have.”

She nudged me with a hoof. “Hey don’t get down on yourself. You can’t change your past even if you want to. You need to just look forward and try to make sure that your future is happy. Anyway, why did you ask about my mom?”

“Oh right,” I said, shaking my head. “I asked because I met a stallion in New Pegasus who said his dad knows your mom. Said something about her helping his father out at the hospital. I didn’t understand why she would be there if she is a historian and works for intelligence,” I said.

Solstice rolled her eyes. “You have to be talking about Kittersfly then. What he means is that my mom helps out there sometimes as a nurse. She trained to be one when she was young then changed her career to what she does now a little before I was born. She still helps out at the hospital from time to time and has a few friends there too. Kittersfly’s father knows my mom more than most. She was in charge of finding intel on the whereabouts of his wife Fusillade when she went missing twelve years ago. I don’t know all the details, but I do know that Fusillade’s squad was attacked or something and she went down in an explosion. For months they tried to find her, since no body was recovered, later she was pronounced dead, but my mom became friends with her family. I’ve known Kitters since I was a filly.”

“He’s a strange pony,” I said, remembering the stallion who ran the small skyport in New Pegasus.

“He’s very strange, but he’s a nice buck. Has a weird fetish with robots, and bat ponies, but apart from that he’s not bad,” she said.

“Sounds like you like him,” I teased.

“Eww no, he’s more like a good friend and he’s like twelve years older than me so eww,” she said.

“So, no buckfriend for you?” I said, still teasing.

“What is it with you trying to set up your friends with ponies, huh?” she asked, glaring over at me.

“Oh, so we’re friends now huh? I thought you hated me,” I teased more, this time letting a smile come to my face.

“I mean…I guess I haven’t really thought about it. I mean yeah, I did hate you at first. I just thought after the stuff I’ve helped you with, we were just friends already,” she said shyly.

“I guess you’re right, I mean you really didn’t have to help me get back to The Kingdom or help us with Stardust, or help when my mom attacked,” I said with a bigger smile. “Yeah, I’d like it if you were one of my friends Solstice.”

“Good, because I don’t make friends often,” she said with a huff.

“That’s because you come off as a cutthroat bitch,” I teased.

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it,” she said, then started to laugh. It was a nice sound, light and full of joy. I realized then, that I really hadn’t ever heard Solstice truly laugh before. It was... nice.

“You know, when this is all over, I’d like to meet your parents,” I said.

“I think they’d like you honestly. Dad’s always liked your father as a council pony and respected him for his rank in the military. And you have this whole, I’m a poor abandoned filly sob story that would make my mother fawn all over you,” she said giving me a smile.

I leaned back into the railing. “Yep, it’s what got me though my teen years in the stable.”

“You’re still in your teen years you weirdo,” she said with another laugh.

“Not for much longer!” I said.

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that kid,” she said, poking me.

“You’re so mean,” I said pouting.

“Yes I am,” she said, getting back to her hooves and stretching out then adjusting the helmet of her power armor and pulling the visor back down. “Enough talk, I think it’s time we did something fun.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“We have too much time to just lay around this ship, I think we should get some training in. Aura’s still having a hard time with her new body and I’m sure you wouldn’t be against some extra training,” Solstice said, nodding her head toward Aura who was talking with Elliot.

“You know what, that’s a good idea,” I said, getting up and following her.

***

For the next few hours, Solstice helped Aura and I with some Enclave training techniques. I honestly didn’t do that well since most of it had to do with flying and stuff like that. Though I did learn better ways to take on a pegasus. One good lesson was one I should have figured out by now. A pegasus’ wings were their strongest and weakest point. They could do a lot because of their wings, a lot like a unicorn with magic. They could even use them to hold weapons that earth ponies couldn’t, but if you took out a wing during a fight or injured it in any way. Most pegasi would be helpless. Just as if you broke or damaged a unicorn’s horn, we would be helpless…most of the time.

The reason for this is because most of The Enclave learn how to fight from the air. They don’t normally teach their pegasi how to fight on the ground because most Enclave don’t go to the surface. It reminded me of lessons I had with Yaksha and mom, even Vervain about how I had to learn to fight without my magic, just in case I found myself without it someday. I enjoyed watching Aura learn how to fight though. She did good with a lot of the stuff Solstice was teaching her, but she still had a problem with weapons. She was born with talons and was used to having her digits to use the weapons she was trained on. Hoof to hoof she excelled at for the most part, but put a rifle in her muzzle and she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. I could see the killing part of the joke now, if we were attacked, Aura wouldn’t be much help. Not until she learned how to fight all over again.

When we finished Aura went back to exploring, Solstice took to the air to scout with Sun Spot, Captain Gunny was passed out drunk on the quarter deck and Elliot was flying the ship. The rest of the crew members were busy with their new duties, so I went over to a quiet spot on the aft of the ship and decided that it was about time I listened to the recording Laser Light gave me. I’d remembered that I had it when Solstice was talking about her family and of Kittersfly. She told me she made a few of them and this was one of the first ones she’d made twelve or more years ago when she first escaped The Enclave. So, I popped it into my Mark II and started to listen.

The recording was about an hour long and went over how Laser started her life in The Wasteland. It didn’t tell me much on how she ended up here, but did give me a good insight into the way she had to adjust to her new life. From learning to fight the strange monsters she ran into to a fight she saw between what had to be Red Talons and some Fiends. At the end of the Recording she talked about how she first met Yaksha, when she found Coven, the same small town my friends and I went to after the Red Talons fell. Strange to think that just over a decade ago, Laser met Yaksha, and in a similar way to how I met Laser Light.

I rather enjoyed listening to her story and how she found herself in this new lonely life in The Wasteland. When it ended, I decided I’d ask to hear the rest of them when I saw her again. Slipping the recording back into my saddle bags, I stretched. When that was done I pulled the bottle of tablets I’d gotten from Sheena and took one. So far, my magic wasn’t feeling any different, but I was sure in time it would get better.

I pulled out the notebook Sheena gave me and started to go through her findings. It didn’t take long to read, but what she’d come up with for a theory made my hooves shake. From what Sheena wrote, the way my mom used magic was doing something to her body. From all that Aura must’ve told Sheena about Mom’s problems over the years, she was able to figure this out. Mom having problems with having a foal, to the way her mane was turning gray at a young age, then to her memory loss. Mom’s body couldn’t take the strain from the unnatural flow of magic that was passing though her. Sheena believes that if mom kept it up, her body would eventually deteriorate enough and fail, and she’d die because of it.

The thought of that scared me. I’d just gotten my mother to start trusting me again, now I could lose her forever. All over the strange magic she used to fuel her spells. I was gonna have to show this to her when we got back to New Pegasus. For now, I’d have to hope everything would work out for the better. So, after putting the notebook away, I got to my hooves and went over to get more food and some water. The cloudy sky was getting dark and as I walked closer to the food barrels, I noticed a light to the southwest. Ignoring my stomach, I went up to where Eliot was steering the ship, asking, “What’s that light in the distance?”

The Pony-griffon looked down at me with a smile. “Have you been away from home for so long that you don’t recognize New Pegasus?”

My eyes widened as I realized that I did know where I was. In the distance standing tall and proud was The Lucky Horseshoe. It’s like a lighthouse beacon to The Wasteland, my Wasteland telling it that New Pegasus was still there, still strong, still beautiful. I never once thought I would be excited to see that shithole of a city again. I looked back at Elliot, asking, “How long until we’re there?”

“About twenty minutes or so, Aura should be back soon, she flew down to an NLR camp we’ll be flying over soon to make your second to last delivery then we head to Freedom to get The Queen her delivery and that will be that. Your trip and your payment to Bottle Cap will be finished,” he said with another smile. “Sad too because Sun Spot and I are gonna miss you.”

For a long moment I just watched as the city grew closer, the rest of The Strip coming into view as it did. It was amazing to see it again, I couldn’t wait to see how the rest of my friends were doing. I wanted to see The Queen again and Sugarbuck, check up on The Shadow Talons, see my uncle again, talk to mom now that she knew I was her daughter. I wanted to hug Stardust and Wingnut, give Byte a hard time, but most of all, I wanted to apologize to Wind Thrasher and hope that she forgives me for the wrongs I’ve committed.

All of those feelings died when Aura landed hard on the deck, panting hard with wide blue eyes. I ran down to the main deck, asking, “Aura what’s wrong?”

“The NLR’s Camp Gama is gone…everypony there’s either dead or fled. Steel Rangers attacked only a few hours ago from what I can tell. And Shadow…Sapphire’s there right now, with at least fifty or so of her Steel Rangers,” Aura said. “I only got away because I caught them by surprise, but they thought I was Enclave and opened fire.”

I ran to the railing and sure enough, not far ahead of us, I could see the smoking remains of the camp and Steel Rangers roaming all over the area. A few of them pointed up at the ship high above, one even tried to shoot a rocket at us, but it missed, we were out of its range. Either that or his missile launcher was crap. I looked back at Aura, asking, “How do you know Sapphire’s down there?”

“I saw her, she had her helmet off, she changed her mane color again and stuff, but I know it was her,” Aura said. “I need to contact The Shadow Talons. The Steel Rangers are too close to our new territory and we haven’t made a treaty with them yet.”

“Fuck this,” I said lifting my Mark II and switching to the intercommunication system. This time I didn’t contact Byte, no I picked the other channel on it, ‘Pip Buck 3000 Mark II SL’ I brought it to my lips once the connection was made and said in an angry voice, “Elder Sapphire, I hope you’re getting this. This is Shadow Star and I think it’s about time you explained to me what the fuck happened to Elder Appleslice!”

A second later Sapphire’s voice echoed out of my Mark II, “Shadow Star? I could’ve sworn you died over a week ago. I guess Mr. New Pegasus isn’t always right about what he reports.”

“Cut the crap Sapphire, tell me what you did to Appleslice and why did you’re Steel Rangers attack that NLR Camp?” I asked angrily.

“Oh, I’m guessing your close. Are you in the crappy looking airship overhead? I’d say I’m surprised you’d take a ride with a nutcase like Gunny, but we ARE talking about you. You really aren’t in the best mindset after the crap you’ve pulled since I saw you last Shadow,” she said, her voice also filled with a bitter anger.

“You don’t have the right to call me out for my wrongs Sapphire, you’re the one who killed your last Elder. And for what? Power?” I yelled.

“Don’t talk about things that you don’t understand child. I had good reasons for killing Appleslice. Trust me if you knew what she was really like, you’d have done it too. As for me taking power, that was more Star Paladin Noodle Cup’s idea not my own. At least I haven’t been going around destroying towns and buildings because I’m angry at the world,” she said.

“Fuck you Sapphire, I don’t need a pony like you telling me off for that shit, I live with enough guilt over both times I used that weapon,” I said.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, still, it sounds like we need to talk. How about you come down here and we can talk this out like adults. One on one,” she said.

“I’d rather blow you up with the plasma canons on this ship,” I said, growling with each word.

“Shadow, if you don’t talk to me now, I’ll have my rangers blow that thing out of the sky, then if you survive the crash, we can talk then. Or you can make this easier on yourself and meet with me. I want to know what you did to Box Tape, what happened to Cartwheel, why you stole that super weapon, and when we are done talking about that. I want to know where the filly from Trotston is, because she has something that belongs to me,” she said, her voice full of anger.

“The Mark II’s don’t belong to The Steel Rangers. You’re lucky you have the one you do, now answer me or I’ll just let my new friends kill all of you and then I’ll take back the Mark II I gave your elder in the first place!” I yelled.

A deep menacing voice came back this time as Sapphire said, “Meet with me on neutral ground, or I’ll have The Steel Rangers I have stationed in Freedom destroy the new Shadow Talon’s base, and make sure they kill every griffon that tries to escape. I know how much you care for the run-away Red Talons, and The Queens. I’ll go after them next and so on until Freedom is run by The Steel Rangers. I may even go pay a visit to that Alicorn colony in Frosty Summit. I’ll admit I’ve always wanted to kill one of those things before. Now what do you say Courier? Do you want to dance? Or do you want to talk?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Explorer: From your many travels, you’ve sure got a lot of locations marked on your map. You’re love of travel has caused you to also miss a few things along the way. So, Stable-Tec has taken the liberty of adding all undiscovered unique locations to your map.

Chapter 62: Burn It Down

“Forever and always my love, in this life and the next. I will always find you, I will always be with you, I will always be yours, and you mine.”

“Shadow don’t let her get to you, we can just fly to Freedom before she has time to get her Steel Rangers to do anything. Also, The Shadow Talons know how to fight them. You don’t have to talk to her, we can just leave,” Aura said, as I huffed, trying my best to hold back my anger at the threat Sapphire made toward my friends…my family.

The Broadcaster was still connected to Sapphire and she laughed though it, “That thing can’t get to Freedom before I send word to my Rangers, trust me on that. Even if you could stop them, many will die before you can.”

“Give me five minutes,” I said, then disconnected the call before she could answer.

“Shadow what are you doing?” Aura asked, putting a hoof on my shoulder.

“I’m not running away, I’m so damn sick of running away from things. I’m going down there, and I’m finishing this bullshit with Sapphire. I don’t know what’s happened with her or why she’s doing what she’s doing, but she threatened our friends, our FAMILY. Nopony get’s away with that shit, not anymore,” I said as I pulled on my duster which I’d taken off during the flight.

“She has too many troops down there Shadow, you can’t beat her,” Solstice said.

“I don’t need to beat her, I need to outsmart her,” I said as I readied my magic. It was feeling a little stronger with the help of those pills I’d gotten from Sheena.

“Shadow…” Sun Spot tried saying, but I cut her and the others off.

“Don’t say anything, I’m doing this, now either come help me or don’t bother following,” I said, before teleporting down to the surface.

In a flash of red light, I was standing a few feet away from the death and destruction of the NLR Camp. Sapphire was standing in the middle of it, her power armor gleaming in the dull light. Her helmet was off and she looked different, which wasn’t too strange for Sapphire. Since I’d met her, I’d seen her have three different looks. The first time as a raider with a dull brown mane and a coat color I couldn’t make out under grime. The second time she had a green mane and a purplish coat with eyes that looked black. The last time she was dressed like a raider again only with a pink mane and red coat.

She was a master of disguising herself, now I think I was seeing the true Sapphire. With her helmet off I could now see what I guess is her. Her mane was a bright blue that matched her sapphire blue eyes, her coat was a cream color with a few dark freckles around her nose. She also looked younger than the other times I’d seen her, maybe around Wind Thrasher’s age whereas before she looked a few years younger than Mom. But more than anything I noticed about this mare was that she gave off an essence of power. She looked like what an Elder of the Steel Rangers should. She reminded me of Box Tape in that way. He was kind yes, but he had the look and feel of a leader. I could see now why they chose her to be Elder.

“That was fast, I’m glad you chose to come talk to me, it’s the first smart thing I think you’ve done so far Shadow,” Sapphire said, as she started walking toward me, the hooves of her Power Armor clunking with each step.

“If you want to talk then get the hell out of that Power Armor,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm.

She cocked her head at me. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you said you wanted to talk like adults, well then act like one and don’t hide behind your tech,” I replied.

She let out an annoyed sigh then the power armor opened and she stepped out. She only wore a vest showing her rank as an Elder. This was the first time I’d seen her cutie mark. It was five sapphires in a circle, each a different color, one blue, then pink, yellow, black and light green. She looked at her cutie mark where I was staring then snickered, saying, “Like my cutie mark? It’s very fitting to my special talent you know. Did you know that a Sapphire can come in many different colors? Just like me.”

“I’ve seen how well you can disguise yourself so I get it, but I’m not here to talk about your cutie mark. I’m here to find out what the hell happened to make you do what you’ve been doing. Why the hell did you kill Elder Appleslice? Why are you hunting the Mark II’s, and why the hell do you think I killed Box Tape?” I yelled, my magic sparking at the tip of my horn.

“Temper Shadow, we don’t want that thing getting out of you again. The reports I have about the last time she was free were frightening to say the least. Poor Stable 28, what a shame,” she said with a small chuckle.

“DON’T…talk about my HOME!” I yelled, another spark of magic coming off my horn.

“Fine, but still, watch the temper or I’ll have one of my Rangers kill you. I don’t have all day to listen to your whining,” she said, then came closer, “To answer your last question, I don’t think you killed Box Tape yourself, no, but I do believe that you’re the reason he’s dead. You were working with Elder Wolfsbane, that’s why he was in Cartwheel.”

“I had nothing to do with that, yes I met with him two days after my stable was attacked and I was going to work with him so I could get something from him, but instead I worked against him and made sure he couldn’t get into Stable 97 back in The Mill City Wasteland,” I said.

“Oh, I know that too, and that’s why he went to Cartwheel like I said. He was hunting you after you betrayed him. Because of that, Box Tape was forced to help you when you were caught, because that’s the kind of Stallion he was. He helped ponies who needed him and because of that he’s dead and you’re still alive,” Sapphire said. I could see the rage being held back in her eyes.

“Yeah, he did save me, he did it because he cared about me like a granddaughter. Because his daughter raised me! Don’t take that away from him,” I said.

“He saved a monster, he died for a fucking MONSTER!” she yelled, her anger slipping its leash a little.

I let a little grin came to my face as I said, “Yeah he did, a monster who is the only pony who can stop what’s coming. A monster who’s doing her best to save ponies around here unlike you.”

A cold rage came to those deep sapphire eyes as she said, “You’re not the only pony who knows how to stop that creature inside of you Shadow. Elder Apple Jam did too.”

That took me by surprise. “What’re you talking about? Elder Apple Jam didn’t know anything about what’s inside me, he died not long after my mom took us to Stable 28.”

Her cocky grin came back. “Yeah, for almost a year he still ran The Steel Rangers, that’s until he was killed by Crackerjack. Do you know what he was doing for the entire year your mother and you were in that stable?”

“How would I know? I didn’t even know who I was back then,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“He was keeping in direct communication with Grim, he was looking into the other Mark II’s and all the files your mother left with him when she went to go fix you. Files that he hid away before his death, leaving them in a place where only Grim could find them when she escaped. He knew about what Stargazer was, what it was meant to do, and what it would power someday. He also had notes on that thing inside of you and how to kill her if she ever found a body,” Sapphire said.

“If that’s true then how do you know any of this?” I asked.

“He left notes on his old terminal, he tried to hide that too, knowing his daughter would want them if he passed away. He didn’t want her to have power you see, he knew where Appleslice’s allegiances lied. I found them with some of my grandfather’s old things not long after you left the bunker and I learned a lot. For example, all it’ll take to kill that thing inside of you is to kill you, or if her power gets too strong then a revolver known as Demon Slayer can be used. A revolver enchanted by Luna herself,” she said, as she took another step closer.

I just rolled my eyes. “Old news, so what, you know how to kill Aquila, big whoop. Guess what, it doesn’t matter, because a pony like you doesn’t have what it takes to kill her. She destroyed a stable in the better part of an hour. You’re Rangers might be strong, but you can’t stop her, only I can.”

To my surprise, Sapphire smiled. “You have a point there, I know I can’t kill her, not yet, but it’s not just because she’s strong. It’s because she’s still able to pull power from one of the projects. That’s why I’m hunting for the Mark II’s, because once I get them I can unlock the project and make it self destruct. What ever project was made after her, is slowly pulling small trickles of power through it to feed into her.”

That…couldn’t be true, Falling Shadows was locked down fully, it hadn’t ever been activated. Hell, it hadn’t even been turned on even once…I think. But if it was true, that would explain why Aquila was getting stronger, it couldn’t be just from her feeding off MY power. If that was true, then I had no choice, I had to find a way to destroy it. I sighed then looked back at Sapphire. “What does any of this have to do with me? Also, why would you even tell me this, you know that she can hear everything I can right?”

Her eyes had a hint of fear in them for a moment, before she hid the emotion again. “I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. Once I destroy Falling Shadows, Aquila will have her power stopped and the backlash of power will make her powerless, for just long enough to be killed. That’s why I’m doing this Shadow, I’m doing it to stop YOU.”

“You mean to stop her, not me. She might live in my body but Aquila isn’t me. And as for the Mark II’s, good luck getting mine or the other. Because I’m not going down without a fight, and you might have fifty or so Steel Rangers with you even now, but my friends can still kill all of them before you have a chance to take me down,” I said, pointing a hoof up at the airship, where even from way down on the ground, Sapphire could see the massive plasma cannons pointing down at them all.

She growled a little. “I may not be able to take it now, but I will soon. You can’t always hide behind your friends Shadow.”

I interrupted her. “Listen Sapphire, before you killed The Elder, I thought of you as a friend. You saved my life when I first escaped my stable, when you could’ve just let me die and taken the Mark II for yourself, but you didn’t. That’s the mare I called a friend, even now, even after you killed a good pony like Appleslice. Yeah you think she wasn’t a trustworthy pony and I get that, she did some stupid things to get the Mark II you now have, but she just did what a leader has to do. Make hard choices. The mare you used to be is the only reason I came down here to talk, instead of killing you with those cannons. It’s also my repayment for the life debt I owe you.”

She sneered, making her normally pretty face go ugly. “You talk like you’re a fucking griffon.”

I smiled at that. “Maybe deep down I am, who knows, but I’d rather live by the code of the Griffons rather than the fucked-up ideals of The Steel Rangers.”

Another flash of anger emerged from her. “You have no idea what the true cause of The Steel Rangers is! As for Elder Appleslice, do you really want to know why she’s dead? Why I carved traitor into her flesh? I’ll tell you, it’s because she was the one who told Elder Wolfsbane to have her father killed, even worse she was the one who killed Elder Tap, my grandfather. She’s been working with Wolfsbane since he was still a Knight. She’s also the one who told him where to find your old stable, who told him you have the Mark II, and the one who hired griffons to go after that batpony friend of yours. So, you can thank me, because I’m the one who put a stop to her bullshit. I was the one who saved you and your friends from her madness.” She took a breath then continued. “When I did all of that, I still didn’t understand what you were or what was inside you. When I killed Appleslice, I did it to protect the filly I had faith in. Even after you destroyed a city, I still had faith in you. The great Courier, the one who came to save New Pegasus from the darkness. I did it for you…now I wish I would’ve just let you die, in that fucking raider camp.”

“Sometimes I wish you would’ve too, maybe then I wouldn’t have to deal with Aquila. But the past can’t be changed, I am what I am and nopony but me can change that,” I said, then something she said hit me. “What do you mean Appleslice was working for Wolfsbane?”

She ginned. “That’s right, those two were partners, that’s why your mother left the Steel Rangers years ago. She found out and made sure she got as far away from The Elder as she could. That’s why Appleslice let you into the bunker and why she did what she could to earn your trust. She wanted you to find the rest of your mother’s research so she could get it for Wolfsbane. She was using you from the beginning.”

“I don’t believe that. She was good, I know it,” I said, pulling on my magic again.

“She was a traitor, she was a liar, and even more, she was a pathetic excuse for a leader,” she said

“And you’re so much better? From what I can tell you’re worse!” I yelled.

“Why? Because I’m taking back the territory we used to hold before my grandfather died? Or because I’m defending my soldiers from the NLR, who shoot on site when they see a Steel Ranger? Tell me Shadow, what do you really know about the NLR or the other ponies who’ve taken over around New Pegasus since The Steel Rangers fell from power?” she asked, starting to walk around me. “You can’t, because as much as you want to preach about how noble and great you are, you don’t know New Pegasus like I do. When my grandfather ran things around here, this land was a lot nicer. Ponies weren’t scared of the raiders, or Fiends, they didn’t worry about making a trip through a place like Cartwheel or Appleton.”

“Shut…up!” I said as I shook with rage. “I know more about the ponies around here than you think. I wasn’t the one who hid in a bunker for years, it wasn’t my fault this area went to shit. No, that was The Steel Rangers, but you go around talking about The NLR or the other ponies who are trying to make a difference around here. They’re at least trying to do SOMETHING, like fighting the Romans.”

“Funny you bring up The Romans, because if you think the NLR are here to fight them, you’d be wrong,” Sapphire said with a laugh, still slowly walking a circle around me. “They’re trying to turn the Wasteland back into what it was when Luna was still alive. Their leader wants to make this into a new Equestria, forming it to fit with what they think Luna wanted. So, they go around taking land and territory from other ponies and set up their own laws and rules. The only reason they’re at war with the Romans is because they’re interfering with that dream. If it wasn’t for that Zebra who runs the Romans, The NLR would’ve taken over more than they already have.”

“At least they’re helping ponies!” I yelled. “They don’t go around killing innocent ponies like The Steel Rangers!”

She froze at that. “I haven’t hurt a single innocent pony in my life Shadow. I follow the old ways of The Steel Rangers. We’re here to protect the ponies of this land, even if it’s from themselves.”

“Like taking their tech? How does that help them?” I asked.

“We take it to keep them from hurting others or themselves. Most of the tech from the war was created because of The Ministry of War Time Technologies. Applejack was the one who created The Steel Rangers, she was the one who ran The M.W.T., and for her dream we do what we must,” Sapphire said.

“From what I’ve seen, a good amount of the tech in The Wasteland was made by Stable-Tec, not The MWT. Like the Mark II’s for example, they don’t belong to you or any of The Steel Rangers,” I said.

“Applebloom was Applejack’s younger sister, so anything she created is also ours. Even if you don’t see it that way, it’s still our job to protect the ponies of The Wasteland from themselves, and from ponies like Appleslice. So why don’t you get off your high horse and see things for how they are. Grow the fuck up,” she said, turning to face me.

“How’s this for growing up then, get the fuck out of this area, go back to your bunker, and never bother us again. If you don’t like that, then I’ll make it my life’s mission to destroy all of you,” I said.

Sapphire sighed, then said, “I really didn’t want to do this Shadow, but you leave me no choice. You’re becoming a pain in my ass and I’m done trying to keep you out of danger.” She looked back at her Rangers. “I’m sorry I’ve been keeping this from you all, but I saw Shadow as a friend that we could help and save. But sadly, I can’t anymore, she’s too far gone.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, as I did, I wondered where Aura or Solstice were. I thought they would’ve followed me down here.

“Shadow Star is from The Enclave, a runaway child of The High Council pony Nightshade, and Grim, the mare who betrayed us years ago. What do we do to those who are of The Enclave or traitors?” she asked.

All at once they responded. “We end them!”

I felt my leg’s go weak as a mare I once thought of as a friend, just sentenced me to execution. I pulled on what magic I’d been able to build back up over the past day, readying my expulsion spell. “I haven’t been in The Enclave for twelve years!”

She turned her head back toward me. “Once a cloud dweller, always a cloud dweller!”

Her Rangers started to ready their weapons, but I didn’t give them a chance to attack. I looked right into Sapphire’s eyes, saying, “It’s time for you to pay for what you’ve been doing,” And I cast my expulsion spell.

A look of shock came to Sapphires face as the magic blasted out of me, for only a second that is. Right as I fired the spell, I felt a small flutter in my horn followed by a strange laughing in my head as the spell failed…kind of. Instead of an intense blast of magic blasting into Sapphire, I shot a Rainbow into her face…a fucking…rainbow. A rainbow made of only light, nothing more than that. It was like I was a child using a flashlight to play a game with a friend. The killing joke had done something to me, a deadly joke. They took my only offensive spell and made it into a fucking cliché.

Sapphire started to laugh, saying, “Okay now that was a good one. What are you going to try next? Going to hug me to death? Pathetic unicorn, you can’t even get you’re spells to work. I might as well be eating birthday cake while you’re trying to kill me.”

I couldn’t let this get me down, I wasn’t going to die here because of a stupid plant. I used my magic to pull my plasma rifle off my back and I aimed it right at Sapphire. “If my light display won’t work, how about this baby?”

Her eyes went dead at the sight of the weapon. They went wider as I cranked the charge up to full. I smiled as I took aim and fired. She tried to dart for her armor, but she wasn’t going to be fast enough. But apparently one of her rangers was. A Power armored body jumped in front of the blast of green goo and took the blast right to his chest. He screamed as the plasma blasted into him throwing him back as his armor started to dissolve. I checked the charge on the small meter on the back of the rifle. That fully powered blast took almost half of the magical gem cartridge. I didn’t have a lot of ammo for this weapon right now, so I couldn’t use a full blast every time. I cursed and turned the charge down to fifty percent and started to fire. Right as the rest fo the rangers took aim at me.

I felt a small tug on my mind, the first time since I woke up that I’d felt Aquila’s presence. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her trying to force me to cast a spell. She shoved the knowledge into my head, giving me no choice but to accept it. She was still powerful enough to take that much control, and for once, I didn’t mind. Because it was a barrier spell, I pulled on my magic again, hoping to The Goddesses that the killing joke hadn’t messed with all of my magic and cast it. I was just in time, bullet’s and magical energy slammed into the barrier. Each hit pulled at my mind, forcing more of my small amount of magic from me to keep the spell going. Small cracks started to form, but I didn’t need it to last long.

I dodged and rolled, letting the barrier fall as I entered S.A.T.S. and took aim again. One of The Steel Rangers went down as the still powerful rifle burned a hole through the small visor. He screamed for only a moment before he died. More shots came at me, so I teleported out of the way, knowing the tax on my magic would be a lot, but it was better than being shot. I appeared on the side of a small group of Rangers and opened fire. Two went down after two shots, a third tried to duck out of the way only to find my other surprise waiting for her.

Misery held in my magical grip, came stabbing up as she rolled, right into her visor. It sank down to the hilt, the last third of the blade sticking up out of the back of her helmet, blood dripping off it like rain. I ripped Misery out and swung it around, slicing off the head of another Ranger as my plasma rifle came around and dissolved a fleeing scribe. A shot rang out, but I already put the barrier spell back up as I turned toward more Rangers coming at me. I swapped The Plasma rifle out for my favorite gun. Dream Walker flowed out of the holster just under my duster and gleamed in the dim light coming down from The Bitter Cob far above.

Once again, I took aim, dropping the spell as I moved to one side and fired. The bark of Dream Walker was like music to my ears as the fifty caliber AP round ripped through the Rangers like they were wrapped in tinfoil. I dodged another Steel Ranger who tried to take my head off with a large canon like gun mounted on his back, then twisted around and fired Dream Walker. He went down as I reloaded, then switched back to Misery as another Ranger came at me. This one was faster than the rest of his companions I’d killed so far. He ducked under Misery, then brought a foreleg up and slammed it into my chest.

I flew back, almost losing hold on Misery and Dream Walker. I landed in the dirt, thanking Wingnut for making my barding so strong. There was a small dent in the metal chest plate, and I could tell I was gonna have a nasty bruise tomorrow, but I was alive, for now. I took in a few deep breaths then aimed with Dream Walker as the huge power-armored pony charged at me, a gatling gun starting to open fire.

I brought up the spell again just managing to hold off his attack as I took a few steps back, hoping he’d run out of bullets before I ran out of magic. Where the hell was Solstice or Aura, or the rest of the Bitter Cob for that matter? There’s no way they’d just let me take on this many Steel Rangers at once. Even worse where did Sapphire go? I got an answer to both questions a moment later. Sapphire was back in her power armor and aiming her rifle up at something in the distance. At the same moment I noticed that an explosion of plasma vaporized the Ranger trying to take me out with his cannons. I looked up just in time to see none other than Captain Gunny laughing his ass off while taking aim with that huge plasma cannon mounted on his ship.

Then another sound broke into the night, the battle cries of Griffons as they came out of the dark sky, Vi and Fletch leading them. Twenty Griffons behind them and two pegasi I knew all too well. Stardust and Wind Thrasher, my friends coming to help…but how did they know I was in trouble? Nevermind that, what mattered was that they were here, more Steel Rangers seemed to materialize out of nowhere, their large guns taking aim at the Griffons and my friends.

For a moment, I thought I’d have to watch as my friends, fall from the sky. Luckily I didn’t, as the Rangers opened fire, Vi gave off a command and they all scattered into groups of two and started going right for the Steel Rangers. Stardust Flew down toward me, a huge rifle taking aim at some Rangers that were heading my way. There was a boom that made the night sky echo as his rifle hurled a bullet though the Power Armor like it was sheets of paper. The sound of the rifle was familiar. Like Stardust had fixed Wrath’s AMR.

Wind Thrasher landed next to me and turned toward more Steel Rangers and screamed. Her voice was powerful, but the Power Armor protected the Rangers somewhat from her deadly voice. However, it did make them slow down and groan in pain, giving Aura enough of a window to land and open fire with a battle saddle. The rifles on the battle saddle weren’t too powerful, but it was enough for them to step back, right where Fletch was waiting with a pulse grenade. The flash of blue stopped them in their tracks, trapping them inside the dead armor.

I swapped Dream Walker out for the Plasma Rifle again yelling, “Try not to kill them all, we need to take down Sapphire, she’s the one leading this whole operation!”

Wind Thrasher nodded, taking off to join Stardust who was heading toward another group of rangers. Fletch gave me a salute then took off after them. Aura flew over to me, saying, “Clever idea keeping them distracted long enough for Solstice to get ahold of the Shadow Talons.”

“I…wasn’t really thinking about that, but at least it worked out in the end. How many are left? Also, have you seen Sapphire?” I asked.

“She’s fighting closer to the camp with a few of her higher ranked Paladins,” Aura said, pointing in her direction with a hoof.

I could just make out Solstice and the twins fighting ten power armored ponies. I looked back at Aura, saying, “Let’s go help them, we can’t stand here and talk forever.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said, and flew off.

I pulled on my magic again as I ran toward them. Right now would’ve been a great time to use my expulsion spell, but I think another rainbow show wouldn’t do me much good. So, I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out a spark grenade. I watched as Solstice dove down, blasting her energy weapons rapidly at a Ranger. Right as she landed, she swung around and bucked him in the chest. I could hear the crunch of something breaking as the stallion was launched back a couple meters. Pegasus power armor might not be as strong as Steel Ranger armor, but it still packed a powerful punch.

Aura got to the others before I did and started opening fire on two knights who came to help their Elder. I aimed for Sapphire, who’s armor was easy to make out compared to the rest. I pulled the pin on the spark grenade and yelled, “Time to finish this Sapphire!”

I threw the grenade with all of the force I could with the limited amount of magic I still had. It was right then that I saw the mistake I’d just made, by warning Sapphire. Her armor opened just in time as the spark grenade went off. The armor died, but it was most of the way open and Sapphire was able to back out of it.

“You’re gonna need to find a better trick than that if you wanna stop me Shadow!” she hissed.

It was then I saw that five others managed to escape their armor before the spark grenade went off. An older mare came to stand next to her elder, saying, “The Griffons are too prepared, we can’t fight them for much longer.”

“Yes, I know that Noodle Cup, let’s deal with Shadow first then be gone from this place,” Sapphire said, pulling a plasma rifle out of a holster on her back. I had no idea how she kept that on her when she was in her armor. She pointed it at me, saying around the bit, “I’m done with this game Shadow, surrender now or all of your friends will die, and so will you.”

I already had my rifle held in my magical grip as I said, “No chance Sapphire, you’re gonna pay for everything you did!”

To my shock, Noodle Cup spoke. “Sapphire didn’t kill Elder Appleslice, I did.”

I almost lost the grip I had on my rifle as I said, “What…but…”

“Quiet Noodle!” Sapphire ordered.

“No, I’m not going to keep hiding the truth so you can protect me Elder. This was my fault, and as I said, we can’t hold out forever. Get the rest out of here and get back to the bunker!” she said.

“I give the orders around here Noodle!” Sapphire said, but her face didn’t look angry, it looked scared. “Don’t…”

Noodle Cup, a plain looking mare with a milky tan coat and a dull orange mane shook her head, ignored the rifle I had pointed right at them and said to Sapphire, “If you fall, the quest to finish off that project dies with you. Get back to the bunker and lay low for now. I’ll get you the time you need.”

“I’m not letting any of you leave,” I said, ready to fire as soon as either of them tried to attack.

Noodle Cup looked at the other Rangers, saying, “Get our elder out of here and back to base, that’s an order!”

The other four nodded saying in unison, “Ad Victorium!”

Sapphire was pulled away, a look of anger and shock on her face. But she let the others lead her away as Noodle Cup stepped in the way of my shot, saying, “Courier, I understand your anger toward Sapphire for what you think she did. I’m here to fix that mistake. Like I said before, I was the one who killed our last Elder, and for good reason.”

I was stunned for a moment, watching as Sapphire started to struggle to get away, until one of her own Rangers knocked her out and put her on their back. Aura made a move to go after them, but as quick as a snake, Noodle Cup pulled out a simple looking pistol and fired at Aura. Missing her by a hair.

“I’m not letting any of you get away,” I said again.

“You’re here for revenge on a mare you cared for, that I know,” Noodle Cup said, planting her hooves as she holstered the pistol again. “Call off your friends and the Griffons and we can finish this here and now. If you’re fast enough to kill me, then you might be able to catch the rest of the Rangers who escaped. If not, then we will fight until none of us are left. We can’t win right now, but we can take a lot of you down before we take our last breath. So, what will it be? A one on one with me, or a chance at watching as those you care about die.”

“Shadow…” I heard Wind Thrasher say.

I turned toward her and said, “Don’t try to stop me, I can take her.”

Wind Thrasher walked closer and stared at Noodle Cup as she said, “I have a question for her first.” Then she focused her attention to Noodle Cup. “Who called for the attack on this NLR Camp? Whose idea was it to threaten Trotston?”

Noodle Cup looked back at Wind Thrasher, then answered, “Sapphire made the call, but the idea for both was mine. Why do you care anyway? The NLR Rangers here weren’t much of a loss, as for Trotston, they are hoarding tech that belongs to us. When we’re finished taking back that Mark II from the filly we know has it, we plan on taking down Trotston too. That city should have never been able to carry on the way it has.”

I felt a stabbing pain in my heart as Wind Thrasher said, “There was an older pony who was just transferred here named Sergeant Quick Draw. He was my friend, he helped me when most ponies wouldn’t.”

“And now he’s dead, none of the ponies here survived. Now step away before I kill you. I have business with The Courier,” Noodle Cup said, her eyes going back to mine. “As I was saying…”

I knew as soon as Wind Thrasher said something about Quick Draw dying and the way Noodle Cup brushed it off like it was no big deal, that she was dead. I liked Quick Draw when I met him, he helped me too and was the reason Wind Thrasher was here. His death was like hearing about Stable 28 all over again. Even worse, Noodle Cup threatened Trotston, Wind Thrasher’s home…in a way. The ponies who once were part of Stable 9 meant a great deal to her. If I didn’t kill Noodle Cup and the other Steel Rangers, I knew SHE would.

All of this went through my head in a second as Wind Thrasher interrupted Noodle Cup, saying, “Everyone, stand down. I’m taking this one myself, let the others run away like a bunch of cowards.”

Noodle Cup smiled then said, “I’m not here to fight a freak like you.”

“Wind Thrasher…calm down,” I said as everyone pulled back, letting the ten or so Rangers left alive run.

I could see her eyes turning red as she, hissed, “You lost the right to tell me what to do Shadow, when you lied to me. Now back off and let me deal with her!”

Stardust came over to stand next to me, saying, “Wind Thrasher please, you know you can’t do this. Doctor Gauze said you can’t let your anger get the best of you, not until he’s finished with the serum!”

Wind Thrasher flipped her head toward me and I saw her eyes flash gold for a moment as she let out a scream so high pitched that my ears couldn’t pick it up. The effect it had however was noticeable right away. Both my body and Stardust’s fell to the ground along with a few others who were within its range. I couldn’t do anything but watch as Wind Thrasher turned her glowing red eyes back toward Noodle Cup.

“You killed my friend, you threatened my old home, you Steel Rangers took something that belonged to Stable 9 which my mother gave her life to protect. You’ve been going around attacking ponies and taking what’s theirs all because you think you have the right to do so. Well, I’m here to tell you differently,” she said as she bore her fangs.

Noodle Cup to her credit didn’t even bat an eye as she said, “Who are you anyway? Why should you care so much about Stable 9 or Trotston? From the intel we have on you, you’re just a killing joke victim gone wrong.”

A low growl came out of Wind Thrasher as she said, “I am the daughter of the last overmare of Stable 9. My name is Wind Thrasher, and I’m not a mistake or a victim of a stupid plant. I’m a monster created for one purpose.”

Noodle Cup just rolled her eyes, “And what’s that?”

“Slaughter!” she said, and in a flash, Wind Thrasher attacked.

Before Noodle Cup could react, Wind Thrasher was sinking her fangs into the mare’s shoulder. However, she was able to keep her head and slam a hoof into Wind Thrasher’s face, knocking her off. Wind Thrasher flipped around and attacked again, an insane scream coming out of her muzzle. I saw Noodle Cup wince in pain as the powerful voice hit her, but she still managed to limp out of the way and pull her pistol from the holster.

“Stupid monster!” Noodle Cup said as she took aim with her pistol and fired three shots.

Wind Thrasher took the blows right to her chest and didn’t go down. They just bounced right off her scales, ricocheting to each side of her. Wind Thrasher then dodged a fourth shot and landed a solid blow against Noodle Cup’s face, throwing her back. She grinned, her bloody fangs gleaming as she said, “You’ll need something stronger that that to pierce my hide!”

“Those were AP rounds!” Noodle Cup said a hint of fear showing in her voice and on her face as she tried to fire again.

Wind Thrasher walked slowly toward her, saying, “My chest and stomach are covered in Dragon scales. No bullet can break them, most spells bounce off, and they can take a hit from most energy weapons.” Wind Thrasher got right in Noodle Cup’s face. “If you want me dead, you’re gonna need to go for a head shot.”

I could see the pistol in Noodle Cup’s muzzle shaking as her wide eyes took in the monstrous pony. Her whole body shivering from the fear pulsing through her. The pistol fell from her lips as she tried to say, “I…I…I…don’t….under…”

“You don’t understand? What don’t you understand?” Wind Thrasher taunted.

“How…can something…like you…exist?” Noodle Cup asked.

Wind Thrasher opened her muzzle, blood dripping from her fangs as she said, “Easy, through a lot of pain, knowledge, and science. I am the product of the technology and magic ponies like you created. I have to fight every moment of my pathetic life to keep myself from feeding on my friends, on the ponies I meet, on anything with a pulse. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch, a chill that I can’t warm, a river of pain I can’t dam up. I hate every moment of it! Yet at the same time…I LOVE IT!”

Stardust struggled to get back to his hooves, his muzzle pulling a strange looking gun out of a side holster. It was silver with an overly large barrel with only a small handle and trigger just large enough to be held in a pony’s muzzle. As he got up slowly, fighting the effects of Wind Thrasher’s strange new ability, he said, “Wind Thrasher, stop! Please!”

She opened her muzzle wider and started to move her head down toward Noodle Cup’s exposed throat. I did my best to fight the effects too, my body feeling like I was trying to trot though a marsh. “Wind Thrasher! Stop!”

She ignored us, her eyes glowing brighter as she brought her muzzle down. Right before her muzzle closed around Noodle Cup’s throat, a small silver dart sank into her flank, right in the middle of her cutie mark. Her head shot up and she whipped around to look at Stardust. For a moment she looked ready to kill him, then the red glow left her eyes, returning to their normal yellow hue. She smiled a little, saying, “Thanks…Stardu…” Then she fell to the ground.

As soon as she was down, the power holding me back seemed to break and I was able to move again. Stardust ran over to her, ignoring the scared looking Steel Ranger who still looked confused on what just happened. He pulled her into his forelegs and hugged her tight. “I thought I lost you for a second there. Don’t scare me like that again.”

I was too busy looking at Stardust holding Wind Thrasher like she was his. I’d never seen a reaction like that from my friend before. I was so fixated on them, that I didn’t see Noodle Cup get back to her hooves, pick up the pistol and say, “Thank you Pegasus, you made this a lot easier.”

Stardust looked back at her right as Noodle Cup pointed the pistol at Wind Thrasher’s head. She looked like she’d just won some kind of prize as she started to pull on the trigger. That was until Dream Walker sung and a hole appeared in her chest, just missing her heart. She looked up at me, shock on her face at the sight of me, smoke coming out of the barrel of Dream Walker. She once again dropped the pistol from her muzzle, her eyes locked onto mine. Then as if in slow motion Noodle Cup fell to her side.

Stardust watched Noodle Cup fall and said, “Shadow? You saved us.”

I walked over toward him, keeping my eyes on Noodle Cup who was still breathing. Her breaths were shallow and pained, but still there. As I passed by Wind Thrasher and Stardust, I said, “Get her away from here. I’ll finish this. It’s about time I helped you guys, instead of you helping me.”

“Shadow, she’s down. You don’t need to…” Stardust said.

I interrupted, “Get back Stardust…” Then I looked at the couple of Steel Rangers who hadn’t fled yet, and said, “I have a message for every Steel Ranger who tries to come into the New Pegasus territory.” I pointed Dream Walker at a still gasping Noodle Cup. “This will be the result of any of you who think you can pillage and take whatever you want from whoever you want all because it happens to be technology. I’m The Courier, and I will protect this land with not just my allies, but also my life.”

“Please…Shadow Star, you need to know the truth about everything…please….Sapphire…she’s…not,” Noodle Cup said between breaths.

I didn’t let her finish, I was sick of the bullshit, the lies, sick of everything. I fired a single shot between Noodle Cup’s eyes. Blood sprayed over my face, over my armor, my chest, onto my hooves, and my Mark II. It’s as if I’d written a declaration of war with the blood of my enemy.

I slowly reloaded Dream Walker then holstered it and pulled out Misery. Then I started to advance toward the two stallions that were left, still in their power armor. As I walked I held Misery out at my side within my magical grip. “I am Shadow Star The Courier of the Marejave. This is my territory now and Steel Rangers are no longer welcome. If I find any of your kind within my borders again, I’ll make sure that you all die. Trust me, with the help of the allies I’ve made, we can take you all on. I am a friend of the NLR, The Strip, Freedom, The Annihilators, and more. I’m the daughter of the leader of Stratus and Nimbus, my partner leads the Shadow Talons, Frosty Summit run by Alicorns are also allies of mine. So, don’t fuck with me or anypony that calls me friend ever again. Do you understand me!?”

For a full minute they just stared at me, then the one on my left started to laugh. He just kept on laughing almost bent over as if what I said was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Then he said, “It’s so funny that you think you have the power to take on the Steel Rangers! You’re nothing but a stupid, weak, pathetic filly! Goddesses it’s even better that you think because you’re Enclave that we should fear you! Guess what Courier…FUCK…YOU!.........”

By the time he said the last two words, I was only a couple meters away. Those were the last words he said as Misery swung though the air. The enchanted blade once again didn’t disappoint me as the stallion’s head separated from his body. His helmet with his head still in it arced through the air and thumped on the ground next to his friend. A spray of blood followed the body before it slowly fell to the ground. His final words and laugh still echoing off the stone around us. The blood covered me as I turned my eyes toward the other one who’d taken a few steps back.

He started stuttering, “What…the hell are you?”

“I’m just your average everyday package courier,” I said, slowly walking toward him, the blood of his friend dripping off Misery. The glow of its edge emitted some light casting a dark silhouette over my face. I came face to face with his visor and gave my best Aquila grin. “Run away and tell Sapphire, she’s next.”

I didn’t have to say anything else, the stallion turned tail and ran. Following the trail left behind by Sapphire and the rest of her Rangers who got away before. Once he was gone I turned back toward The Shadow Talons, my friends, and The Bitter Cob which was already landing. All of them were looking at me like I was Aquila. Like I wasn’t the friend they thought they lost last week. They were right to think that too, because I knew deep down that I wasn’t the same pony I was before. I fell into that dark place deep in my own mind. I could even go after them all, maybe even kill Sapphire. But I knew I couldn’t, not right now. They’d stay away for now, they might try and get help from other Steel Rangers, but luckily for me, that wouldn’t be a problem for a while. The only other Rangers around here are in Los Alicorn and Sapphire didn’t trust them. San Flankcisco was too far away and any others would spend weeks of travel before getting here. Sapphire was alone for the time being.

“Shadow, are you okay?” Stardust asked as I walked past Noodle Cup’s bloody remains.

He’d gotten Wind Thrasher a little-ways from where I’d killed Noodle Cup. I only had him move her just in case Dream Walker decided to use its little trick and blow up the last bullet. I just wanted my friend to be safe. From what I saw, she wasn’t getting any better with her fight against the blood lust. Right now, it was a race to who would lose themselves first. Wind Thrasher to the blood lust, or me to Aquila. So, I took in a deep breath and did my best to put on a calm face.

“I’ll be fine Stardust, I had to make sure they didn’t come back. How’s Wind Thrasher? Is she gonna be okay?” I asked as I trotted over to them.

He looked down at her, looking worried. “She has good days and bad. Dr. Gauze is close to what she needs, but he needs a few more days. She’s holding out the best that she can, but she’s slowly losing herself.”

I reached out to hug him, then stopped at the sight of my bloody hoof and pulled it back. “We’ll help her, don’t worry Stardust.”

I saw something strange in his eyes as he looked down at her. He sniffed, then said quietly, “I can’t lose anypony else I care about.”

“I know, and we’ll get her the help she needs. Come on let’s get you both out of here,” I said, then looked at the Shadow Talons, Aura, Solstice and Captain Gunny, and his crew. “I think it’s time we said goodbye Gunny…thank you for getting me home.”

Sun Spot came closer, saying, “Shadow, we promised to get you all the way to New Pegasus. We haven’t done that yet, you’re still not even in Freedom yet. We have to complete our job and we can’t do that yet, not until you’re at least in Freedom.”

“Sunny be rightin’ and all Shadow…ye be still under contract with The Bitter Cob till Gunny be gettin’ ya home,” Gunny said with a wicked smile.

“I’m close enough, it’ll only take us a couple hours on hoof Gunny,” I said.

Vi cleared her throat. “Shadow, you’ve been gone for a while now. There’s more than The Steel Rangers to worry about right now. Ponies think you’re dead, the roads aren’t safe right now for you. Night’s even worse, I’ll send The Shadow Talons to escort you to the base, then you can send your ship friends off,” she said, then she looked around. “By the way, where’s Aura?”

“I’m…right here Sis,” Aura said, giving a half-hearted smile as Vi and Fletch both looked at her confused.

“Um…yeah that’s funny whoever you are, but my sister is a griffon,” Fletch said.

“Shut up Fletch, before I crack your beak…again,” Aura said, rolling her eyes.

Vi on the other hoof looked shocked. “That can’t be you. What happened?”

Elliot answered, “Killing Joke, when we were in the Everfree. We can fill you in on the way back to Freedom.”

Aura stood as tall as her pony body would allow then looked at The Shadow Talons. “Pony or griffon, I’m still the leader of this talon company and right now we’re exposed, and some of us are injured. I want half of you to go scout the area and make sure The Unchained Talons aren’t around or The Romans. The rest of you will keep The Bitter Cob protected as we make our way to Freedom.”

They all looked at her for a long moment, as if they couldn’t understand what this pony was saying or doing. Then Vi stomped her talon on the ground, yelling, “You heard our leader…MOVE OUT!”

They were in the air in seconds. Half of them flew off in all directions the rest made a large circle over where The Bitter Cob would be when it took off again. Once that was done, Stardust put Wind Thrasher on his back and carried her onto the ship. Fletch, Vi, Aura, and the crew followed. I hadn’t moved yet.

Solstice came over to me and gently put a hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, let’s get you onto the ship and get you cleaned up.”

I just kept looking down at my bloody hooves, at the gore around me, the dead Rangers, what was left of Noodle Cup, and sighed. “Is this all my life’s going to be from now on? Death, destruction, anger, and pain?”

Ignoring my blood covered body, Solstice hugged me, saying quietly, “Only if you let yourself keep thinking like that. Now, stop worrying about what you did in the past and start looking forward. If you want a better future you need to start changing things. There will be more death, more pain, and more anger in the future, but sooner or later things will look better.”

“I’m not sure anymore, but I’ll try,” I said.

“Good, now come on, let’s go home,” Solstice said, and with that said I let her lead me up onto the ship.

As The Bitter Cob took off and headed toward Freedom, Aura started to tell her sisters about what happened while we were back east. Solstice took me to the cabin and slowly peeled off my bloody clothes. Sun Spot brought in some slightly dirty water and a rag, then took my barding to clean them on the deck as Solstice started to clean me off. She was gentle as she used the rag to get the blood off my face, my neck, my hooves, and even my horn. As she worked she started to hum a little tune to herself, letting me just process everything that happened in the past hour…in the past week…more.

As she hummed, I realized I knew the tune she was humming, the same song mom told me about from The Crystal Empire. The words came back to me and as she worked. I started to recite the rhyme as I heard mom do while we were in San Palomino Gorge.

‘My love, my love’

‘Remember the cries’

‘When winter died for spring skies’

‘They roared and roared’

‘But we grabbed our seed’

‘And sowed a song, against their greed’

Solstice noticed what I was doing and looked into my eyes and gave me a small smile, then matched her humming to the words as I continued.

‘And down in the vale’

‘Hear the reaper pony swing, the reaper pony swing’

‘Down in the vale, hear the reaper pony sing, a tale of winter done.’

‘My foal, my filly’

‘Remember our chains’

‘When King Sombra ruled with iron reins.’

‘We roared and roared, and twisted and screamed’

‘For ours, a vale of better dreams.”

I stopped there, not knowing the whole rhyme or song or whatever it was, but to my surprise, Solstice took over,

‘My Colt, my Foal’

‘Remember our Chains’

‘When Enclave ruled with Iron Reins’

‘We Roared and Roared’

‘And Twisted and Screamed’

‘For ours, a Vale of Bitter Dreams’

‘And Down in the vale’

‘Hear the Reaper pony Swing, The Reaper Pony Swing’

‘The Reaper Pony Swing, Down in the Vale’

‘Hear the Reaper Pony Sing’

‘A Tale of Winter Done’

She stopped with a little smile, looking a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t know you knew that rhyme.”

“My…mom told it to me when we were stuck down in the gorge. I really don’t understand it at all. She said it was outlawed by The Enclave years ago,” I said.

“Yeah, but do you know why?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, she didn’t tell me.”

“It’s because fifty years ago, The Crystal Empire rebelled against The Enclave. The Crystal Empire wanted to be a free nation again, they wanted a better world for unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi. That was the song they would sing when they would gather. It’s all about the oppression The Crystal Empire has seen over the years, between King Sombra and The Enclave. When the Rebels lost, the song was outlawed, but now and then you catch a few ponies still saying it when they think no Enclave ponies are around,” she said, continuing to clean me off.

“How do you know it then?” I asked.

She shrugged, “I don’t know the whole thing. There are three verses before where you started. I’ve only heard parts of it and only because my mom taught it to me.”

“How did she know it?” I asked.

“My grandmother was a spy for the Rebels during those times. She worked close with the rebel leader. Her name was Fallen Star, your grandmother I believe,” Solstice said with a small smile. “I guess our families were always meant to keep finding each other huh.”

“I’m surprised you’re here then if your grandmother was part of the rebels,” I said.

“She wouldn’t have been if she hadn’t covered her tracks when the rebellion started to fall. In the end…she betrayed them to keep her family safe. At least that’s what my mom says. Fallen Star was almost executed too, but thanks to my Grandmother, she was given a deal to save her skin,” Solstice said.

“What deal was that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, my mom knows more than me. All I DO know is that it had something to do with turning in some rebels or something like that,” she said as she finished with my horn then threw the filthy rag into the bucket of red and brown water.

“I wonder if that’s why my grandmother looked so wretched in those memories of my mom’s,” I said. “She looked like a pony who’d lost everything.”

“Yeah, probably, but you shouldn’t care too much about what Fallen Star did during that time. Last I heard she was an angry old mare living in a hut. Some ponies even say she’s mad,” Solstice said. “Now come on, lay down for a bit until we’re ready to land okay.”

I just nodded and let Solstice lay me down. She then gave me the pill to help my magic then put the vile of sleep potion down next to me. I looked at it, confused at why she’d put it there. “We’ll be home soon, why do you want me to sleep?”

She just smiled and said, “Because you need it. Don’t worry, when we wake up, you’ll be in a bed in the Shadow Talon’s base. Aura will wake you. Only drink a quarter of the potion, you only need a couple of hours.”

For a moment I didn’t want to sleep, but I knew she was right and I trusted her. So, I took a sip then gave the rest of the potion back to her, “Thank you.”

“No problem Shadow, now rest up and I’ll see you in a bit,” she said, walking out of the room.

***

I woke to find myself in a large slightly moldy smelling bed in a dark room. At first, I wasn’t sure what woke me, I felt around in the bed I was in, but felt no pony. Then I heard voices coming from just outside my door. The one who was speaking sounded like Aura’s, even with the change it took being a pony, I knew it was her.

“Like I said, I don’t understand why we need to rush this Grim. She’s been through hell and back in the past week. She needs time to rest, she needs to get her strength back. You said yourself that when you checked her, Aquila felt weak inside,” she said, sounding upset.

Then I heard mom. “I agree that she does need to rest and Aquila is in fact weak inside of her, but still, we have no idea if it’s a ruse or not. Aquila is old and crafty. She could be trying to make us think she’s weak until we let our guard down. Also, the plan’s ready and set, we can’t wait too much longer. If we do, everything will be ruined.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re trusting her still. She says she believes Shadow now, but she could be just tricking us,” I heard Stardust say.

“You don’t have much of a choice anymore Stardust,” Mom said. “I’m the only pony left that can do anything to help her. That’s what you both told me after Shadow was taken over. I’m on your side now, you need to trust me, please.”

I heard Aura sigh, “I have no choice but to trust you, I just don’t like this plan of yours. Why can’t we do this here? Why do you need her to go all the way to Los Alicorn?”

“She needs to go to the lab in The Ministry, it’s the only way I can do this. My friend there can help make sure the spell goes right, she’s the only one who knows how my magic works and understands Zebra spells as much as I do,” Mom said.

“Let’s continue this conversation in the council room, I don’t want to wake Shadow,” Aura said.

“Good idea,” Stardust replied with a sigh. “I’ll meet you down there. I’m gonna check on Wind Thrasher first.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long. Sun Spot and her crew will be leaving soon and we’ll have company soon. We need to get this plan ready before Shadow gets up,” Aura said.

“Guess some things never change, do they Star?” a voice in the darkness said behind me, almost making me jump until I realized it was my uncle’s.

I turned to see his purple eyes glowing a little in the darkness. I smiled a little, saying quietly, “Hey Uncle Ori, it’s so good to see you again.”

He came closer and his shadowy form changed into the golden pony I was used too. He sat next to the bed and leaned down to hug me. “I’m so happy you made it back here safe and sound.”

“Safe maybe, sound not so much,” I said as I returned his embrace.

“You’re here and alive, you know who you are, and your power is mostly intact. I couldn’t ask for more after what I saw you going though in that cage,” he said, still holding me close. I could feel a slight warmth coming off of him. It was odd because normally Oricalcos gave off a cold aura, a side effect of his shadow magic.

“You feel…different Uncle Ori,” I said, once he finally pulled away.

He smiled a little. “Ever since I was forced out of your mind by Aquila, I’ve felt different. It’s like a bit of my old self is trying to make its way through the darkness around my soul. Though my shadow magic has been a little weaker because of it.”

I smiled at that. “That’s not a bad thing, maybe that spark of light inside you is getting brighter. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be able to get your old body back.”

“Let’s not get our hopes up, but your mother thinks it’s possible. She’s been doing a lot better ever since she watched those orbs you gave her. I think she’s finally starting to believe us about the memory problems and what she thinks is real,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, then looked down at the blanket covering me. “Has she remembered anything yet?”

He shook his head, “No, and she does have moments where she starts getting angry and reverting back to her old self. The Cloak part of her I mean, but she’s trying her best. She’ll be happy to see you up though, she’s been wanting to talk to you ever since she left that last memory. Aura also showed her other memories you had in your saddle bags while you were gone from what I was told.”

“At least she’s not trying to kill me anymore,” I said, then looked back at him. “Oh yeah, what about The Sins? Have we heard anything about them yet?”

“Not much, Thundercracker came back yesterday and told us he last spotted them heading toward a settlement near Los Alicorn, but he lost track of them,” Oricalcos said.

“Figures, well at least he’s okay,” I said.

“He almost died twice because of that new Wrath. That stallion is sneaky and a good shot,” he said with a sigh. “Wish I found him years ago.”

I just rolled my eyes. “Please don’t bring your old team up.”

“Sorry, sorry, I know, but hell he’s a good sniper. Even if I wasn’t what I am now and still helped the military in Nimbus, I’d still want him. Wish I knew who he was, it’d help me understand why he’s such a good shot,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyway, do you think you’re up for going downstairs?”

“Yeah, my body is a little tired and sore, but I can manage it,” I said, slowly getting out of the bed. “Hey, why do we have to go to Los Alicorn?”

He laughed. “I knew you were listening to them. Well, whatever your mother has planned to get Aquila out…it needs to be done there. I can’t say more though.”

“Yeah, I know, miss bitch in my head will try and stop it,” I said, rolling my eyes again. “I’ll just have to trust her.”

“Not an easy thing to do I’m sure,” he said as he followed me to the door.

“I had to trust her not to kill me when we were stuck in the gorge. This isn’t much different,” I said.

“I guess you’re right,” Oricalcos replied as he pushed the door open and started to lead me down a dim hallway.

“So, what’s been going on with Wind Thrasher? She kinda lost it when we fought The Steel Rangers.”

“She’s having a harder and harder time keeping the blood lust away,” he said as he walked down the hall.

“I thought Dr. Gauze would’ve found how to fix her by now,” I said.

“He thinks he knows what to do. He’s found what the problem is and why it’s getting harder for her to control, but still hasn’t yet been able to synthesize a cure. Though he says he’s close,” Oricalcos said as we reached a large set of stairs.

“What’s causing her to act like this?” I asked.

My uncle used to be a scientist and I could tell now as his eyes lit up as he started to explain. “Well, Wind Thrasher’s DNA is mixed with two very powerful creatures. Both of them have strong instincts to feed and both are hard to control. When she was still in Stable 9, she was given a shot every month by Dr. Cell to keep those urges back. It was a temporary suppressant, keeping her DNA bonded properly and keeping her pony mind in control of the temptations. If he hadn’t done this, even the collar he had on her would’ve failed. From what she said, he never found a way to fix the problem for good. Either because he didn’t want to, or because he didn’t have what he needed in The Stable. It’s been weeks since she got her last shot and even she doesn’t know what was in it to keep her mind from going feral. So, her body is slowly turning into the monster she fears. When she’s angry or very hungry or even upset. It gets harder for her to control herself.”

“So, she needs this suppressant to be her normal self. One that sticks for the rest of her life, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I just hope that during this time we’re awaiting a cure, her DNA doesn’t get too unstable. If the ionic bonds holding the three types together gets unstable, she could literally just melt into a puddle or pile of some sort.”

“Dr. Gauze hasn’t found a way to make that happen yet?” I asked.

We’d just reached the bottom of the stairs, they led into a large reception hall, large glass doors and windows showing us a dark night in The Wasteland and the lights of Freedom and the Strip not far off. Standing there, looking up at me, was a tired looking Wind Thrasher. I stopped at the bottom of the steps as she glared at me with her slightly glowing yellow eyes.

For a moment I thought she was going to yell at me, or maybe kill me like she had in that other world. But after a moment she just blinked and smiled a little. Then she said, “Dr. Gauze did find one way to fix me for good, but I told him no.”

That caught me off guard, both her answer and the fact that she wasn’t trying to bite my head off. “Why would you do that?”

I noticed then that Stardust was standing next to the desk a few feet back watching us with just as tired of eyes as Wind Thrasher. Then my gaze was pulled back to her as she said, “Because the cure he found first would most likely destroy my ability to reproduce.” she blushed a little and I noticed her gaze move toward Stardust. “I won’t let that happen unless it’s the only way.”

I tilted my head to one side, “Wait, you can have foals? Even at your age? Also, do you lay eggs because of the dragon part of you?”

I knew I said something extremely stupid when her eyes flickered red then back to yellow. She growled a little, then said through gritted teeth, “How old do you think I am Shadow?”

I tried to do some math in my head, then realized I really had no idea. All she ever told me about herself before she was a bat pony was that she was young when she was hurt. So, I lowered my ears as I said, “Um…thirty-three…or two…I dunno.”

Stardust to my surprise answered, saying, “If you’d taken the time to ask her more about herself, you’d know that she was barley eight when she was turned into what she is now. Do the math and you’ll get it.”

I facehoofed. “Sorry, I didn’t even think about asking you about your age or anything like that Wind Thrasher. Still, it’s not like I know much about foals and how old you can be before you can’t have them anymore.”

My uncle laughed a little. “Didn’t they have a health class in your Stable?”

“If you mean the one where they put a condom over a vegetable, then yes. Then I decided that the teacher was creepy, and old, and smelled like mothballs. So, I took a nap in the back of the room,” I said with a huff. “It’s not like they had any good stuff to look at anyway.”

Wind Thrasher started to laugh. “That explains so much.”

“What? You had to be too young to get that class before Stable 9 was sealed. What do you know about it?” I asked.

“I read every single book I could get my hooves on in that stable at least six times. I didn’t need the class,” she said with a laugh then finally she came over to me and pulled me into a tight hug. For a moment I thought she’d forgiven me for what I did, the lies I told and everything. Then her muzzle came close to my ears as she said, “If you ever lie to me like that again or try to kill yourself, or keep any secrets like you did. I will make you hurt in more ways than one. You have no idea how painful it was for me or the rest of us when we heard that shot go off. We are a family and we stick together; do you understand me Shadow?”

I did my best to hold back tears as I said, “Yeah, I understand.”

“Good,” she said then pulled away giving me a smile. “Anyway, back to what I was saying. Yes, I can have foals even at my AGE, and with the body I’m in now. Dr. Cell wanted to make sure that I could breed one day. He wanted to keep some of the others alive in the stable so he could test that out, but his plan didn’t work. Also, no, I don’t lay eggs. Do I look like a bird to you? I’m only asking because you seem to think I look like an old lady.”

“You mean, he would have forced you to do that? That’s disgusting! Oh, and about the OLD thing. How many times do I have to apologize?” I said.

“Tell me about it, I was lucky he didn’t try anything with me the whole time we were stuck in that stable,” she said with a shiver, ignoring my question. “I don’t think I could’ve recovered from that.”

“Yeah I agree, good thing he’s dead huh,” I said.

“Yeah, a very good thing,” Wind Thrasher said, then looked over at my uncle. “Grim said she needs you to get things ready. We’ll be leaving in a couple hours.”

“So soon?” Oricalcos asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, Grim says she’s ready and we can’t waste any more time.” Then she looked at Stardust. “Can you make sure everythings ready with the Skycarriage?”

He yawned then nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Are you gonna be okay while I’m gone?”

Wind Thrasher nodded. “I will be, I took more of that potion Dr. Gauze gave me and I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Okay,” he said, then came over to me and pulled me into a hug. “I’m so happy you’re alive Shadow, you have no idea how hard it’s been without you.”

I hugged him back feeling a couple tears fall from my eyes, “I missed you too Stardust, I’m happy to be back. Also, you could really use a shower.”

He pulled away and smiled down at me, “Y’know, so could you. You smell like stagnant water and a musty rag. Anyway, we’ll talk tonight once we head out, I wanna know everything that happened okay?”

I nodded. “No problem,” I said, trying not to say anything upsetting.

With that he flew down another hallway that led deeper into the building. Once he was gone, my uncle said, “I’ll go get things set up too, I’ll see you in a couple hours Star.”

“Okay Uncle Ori,” I said as he shifted into shadows.

Now it was just me and Wind Thrasher. She gave me her creepy smile, showing all her fangs as she said, “Let’s go see if Grim’s ready for you.”

“Lead the way,” I said as I started to follow her down the farthest hallway from the reception desk. As we walked I started seeing griffons going from room to room, some passing us in the halls, others teaching younger griffons in what looked like a makeshift classroom. Every single one wore an armband or bandana with a symbol I hadn’t seen before. But I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. The new mark of the Shadow Talons. While I was away, either Aura, her sisters, or one of the other griffons must’ve designed it.

I didn’t know if I should feel honored or horrified at the mark. Because it was my cutie mark…mostly. My purple and black eight-pointed star was in the middle of extended bright red and black griffon wings. On the star itself where the two crossed skeleton keys would be, there was instead two curved swords in its place. One was black, the other white. Joy and Misery, crossed over my star of power, encircled by Wings like Auras. It was a symbol that said her and I were one, one family, and nothing could change that. The fabric the new symbol was on was an icy blue mixed with red, just like our eyes.

I decided that I’d take it as an honor that these griffons wore it with pride, as much as they had with that of The Red Talons. Just like her distant grandmother before her. Aura had created something wonderful, something good, something powerful. The Shadow Talons would live on in history as one of the best talon companies to ever exist in The Wasteland.

After a few minutes of passing by griffons, we reached our destination. The large double doors opened to a massive conference room, with an old oak table in the middle, reminding me a lot of the room where my father met with the former high council ponies in Whinnieapolis. More windows looked out toward The Strip and Freedom. The walls had an old weathered look to them, but apart from that, it was a nice place. On the furthest wall back, an old company name had been carved beautifully into the wood. It said, ‘F&F Tools’ and under that in smaller letters it said ‘Corporate Headquarters’. So that’s what this place was, Flapjack and Falafel’s company headquarters. I thought the place I first met Watts would’ve been the place, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe Falafel just liked to use the older building to get away from the stress of a building like this one, or to have his free time with Lilly.

Sitting at the table just under the ‘F&F Tool’s’ Emblem sat my mother. To her right Aura was there, still stuck as a pony, but in a deep conversation with her. To my mother’s left, none other than Violet sat there, her large body making the seat look small. On each side of Violet and Aura I saw Vi and Syn. They all looked up as soon as the doors opened. Aura beamed at me as soon as she saw me, “Good to see you’re up, I was just filling them in on everything that happened.”

“Yes, I’m quite surprised that you two survived your encounter with killing joke,” Mom said. “It’s good to have you back here Shadow.”

Vi looked tired as she said, “It took Aura an hour to explain that she was our sister. I’m still finding it hard to believe.”

I walked in, Wind Thrasher following me. “She wasn’t the only one to get affected by the killing joke.”

Mom looked worried as she asked, “What happened to you? I know Solstice is fine and all, but Aura didn’t say anything about you.”

I sighed. “I’ll show you.” I faced toward the windows, pulled on my magic and blasted it right at the window. Just like when I fought Sapphire, it came out as a rainbow blast of light…that didn’t do anything but look pretty. “I can’t use my most powerful spell.”

I thought I’d get looks of worry, or at least a sympathetic word to two. Nope, Vi started laughing along with Aura, Syn looked away trying to hide her own amusement, Violet gave a small smile, and Wind Thrasher was howling with utter glee behind me. Mom was the only one who didn’t look amused. In fact, she looked worried. “You may all think this is funny, but I assure you it’s not. killing joke is a deadly plant for a reason. Shadow only knows three spells from what I’ve learned and that is her only offensive one. She might need it in the future.”

Aura was laughing so hard she fell out of her seat, Violet just smiled wider as she said, “I agree with you Grim, but it is a little funny. I’m sure the joke will wear off after a while.”

“Maybe, but if it doesn’t by the time we get to Los Alicorn, it could throw off our plans,” Mom said.

“Wait, what do you mean wear off? I thought killing joke magic lasted forever?” I asked.

Mom just sighed. “It does in most cases or it just kills you, but every now and then the spell they put on you can go away. Most of the time it happens when the joke isn’t funny anymore or deadly. Yours is funny, even I can admit that, but it’s not deadly to you. I’ve seen you fight, hell I’ve fought you, and you don’t need that one spell as much as that plant might’ve thought. Try using it to blind an enemy or something like that and I’m sure the spell will go away. The joke not being funny anymore, you see?”

“I guess I do, but what about Aura?” I asked.

Aura gave me a wink. “What? Don’t you like me like this?”

“I love you how I met you, I mean yes if you were stuck like that, I’d be okay with it because it’s still you. It’s just that, you deserve to be what you were born as. That’s what you are, it’s who you are, and I’m sure you can’t run The Shadow Talons as a pony,” I said.

Aura sighed. “That’s true, but there isn’t much I can do about it yet.”

“That is right,” Violet said. “But I have heard rumors that some ponies are looking into a cure. Laser Light and Yaksha are looking into it. They left a couple hours ago. If anyone can figure it out, it’s those two.”

“Wait, Yaksha is with Laser Light now? So, I take it they found each other again huh? What about Striker?” I asked.

Mom’s face went dark as she said, “He’s gone, he ran off once he heard Aquila was free. He’s back on the path to kill you again, even after I’ve sent him word that you’re back to your old self and that I had a plan to help you.”

“Let me guess, he doesn’t trust you?” I asked.

She nodded. “He hasn’t trusted me for years now I guess. I don’t know what happened when we last met, that memory wasn’t with the orbs you gave me, but he hates me as much as he hates The Enclave.”

“I think that’s all Striker has left in him, hate, he’s lost everything in his life because of it,” I said with a sigh.

“That he has,” Mom said, she looked a little sad as she said this. “And most of it is because of me.”

I looked at her in shock. “What he did wasn’t your fault mom.”

She gave me a small smile. Everyone was quiet, letting us talk, something I hadn’t been able to do with her for eight years. She took a moment, as if she was deep in thought then finally said, “When I first met Striker all those years ago, I only started dating him because I was already looking into old projects from the war. I wanted to find them, to see if any of them could be used to help The Crystal Empire free itself from The Enclave. You see Shadow, I’ve never been loyal to them, even when I went back to them and became Cloak. I spent most of my adult life, trying to destroy them and free my home…our home I guess, from their power.”

“You wanted to start another rebellion?” I heard Syn say.

“You know about the last one?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, heard about it from Tonto when I was little. He said a few of the rebels managed to escape and he met them when he was younger,” Syn replied.

Mom smiled a little. “Well yes, I did, and still do what to start a rebellion.” She turned her focus back to me. “You see, my mother was one of the leaders of the last one fifty years ago. She lost against The Enclave, but she did tell us stories about it when I was little. Whenever my father wasn’t around that is.”

“I thought your parents were monsters,” I said with a frown.

“My father was yes, he was an evil pony with too much rage and a drinking problem, among other things. My mother wasn’t much better, but she had her good days. I can’t say that I ever liked my mother, but I still loved her, still do. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. She was part of the reason I wanted to start my own. I knew that she was right to try and free us from The Enclave so I started looking into what I could do to give The Crystal Empire a boost in power. So that’s why I started seeing Striker,” Mom said, looking sad. “I didn’t intend to fall in love with him, I only wanted to use him to find what I knew his family had to be hiding.”

“So, you’ve been looking for Falling Shadows since before I was born?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, not at all, I didn’t even know about it…apart from a few things mentioned about the project I found in my grandmother’s notes in The Forgotten Library. I was looking for other projects that Striker’s Family helped develop during the war. I found things about The Children of the Night because of my research. Later I started asking Striker about them and getting intel every time. Then I found intel on Solar Flare, and I went looking for it.”

“Wait…what?” I asked, shocked at that.

She smiled again. “Yes, the same weapon you used to destroy Appleton, is the one I was trying to find. I looked for a year, trying to find the range finder, the object I knew I needed to make it work. Sadly, during that time, I fell for Striker and my search started to slow. I started to see what it was like to be a pony in the upper echelon of The Enclave. My thoughts of starting a rebellion almost died there and then. Then Striker left me, he broke my heart and I think he figured out some time later after I started seeing Nightshade, that I was using him. That’s why he hates me I think, though he thinks it was because I was looking for Falling Shadows.”

“I saw in one of your memories that you hid the range finder. It wasn’t long after you met with Elder Wolfsbane,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s because I found it sometime later while I was trying to heal you.” She paused for a moment then shook her head, “Sorry, I’m still finding it hard to keep it in mind that you’re who you say you are. Every now and then my mind seems to go blank and the memories I’ve picked up about you as of late keep trying to pull away from me.”

I looked over at Aura. “Did you show her those notes Sheena gave us?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that, I’ve been busy ever since we got back,” she said, pulling the notebook Sheena gave us out of her new looking set of saddle bags. Huh, I wonder where she got those at? She then gave them to my mom. “Empress Sheena started looking into your memory problem while Shadow was stuck in a Memory Crystal. I told her about what Squirrel and Moose discovered about that rock, and she agrees with them that it might not have been the thing that messed with your head.”

She took the notebook and started flipping though it with her magic. We all waited while she read through the notes, her face looking more and more concerned. After a little while, she finally looked up, saying, “It makes a lot of sense, I’ve known…for some time now that my use of Zebra spells mixed with my own magic was doing something to my body.”

She indicated her grey mane with one silver streak still in it. As she talked I remembered another thing I heard Aquila say to her in one of her memory orbs. “Aquila told you in the stable that your body was weak, or dying, or something like that because of the magic you used.”

She furrowed her brow. “I have no memories left of the stable apart from that one you made me remember somehow. But I can’t disagree with the statement that monster said,” she said. “In the past memories that I’m sure are true and not the ones my mind tried to replace, I could tell that my body was aging faster than it should, or parts of my body were having problems. The first sign of this I believe was my problems having a foal. Later, my mane turning grey after using more powerful spells. Then, there were times where I felt like an old pony and couldn’t get myself out of bed. I never thought that it was messing with my memories.”

“Do you remember what happened on the day you fought Hex?” I asked.

“Not a lot, but I do remember something going wrong with a spell. It was right as he pulled out that stone. Something…snapped inside of me…I can’t say what it was, but I felt it in my mind. Something exploded and the rest is just…gone. After I woke some time later, I couldn’t remember most of what happened to me over the past ten years. I had bits and pieces of it, but not everything,” she said.

“Is that when you started thinking I was dead and you saw me die?” I asked.

“No, for a couple days I didn’t even know what year it was. Not until I found Oricalcos again. He told me the lies I told him I guess, and my mind filled in the rest,” she said looking sad. “Looking back at how I acted, I turned into quite a horrible pony.”

“It’s not your fault, you didn’t know,” I said.

“I may not have known, but from what I’m reading now, I can see that it’s quite possible that the memory loss was my own fault. My quest to become more powerful is the reason my body and mind are failing. I saw the signs years ago, but I didn’t do anything about it. I just kept on going, ignoring what I was doing to myself, ignoring the evidence I had in front of me about you and more,” she said.

“The important thing is, you’re here now, helping us,” I heard a voice say from the doorway.

Turning around I saw Vervain standing there, with a newer suit of power armor, the helmet off. She looked a little older since the last time I saw her. Which I realized was only a couple weeks ago. A little Grey was starting to show in her mane and her eyes looked tired, a few more lines showing around her muzzle and neck. But she still gave me a bright smile as our eyes met and I ran over to her hugging her tight, ignoring the metal shell she was in.

“I’m so glad to see you Auntie Vervain,” I said.

“So am I sweetie,” she replied, looking up toward my mother. “Grim, our guests need to get going soon, before Enclave patrol or somepony else notices their ship. Their weird captain wanted to say goodbye to Shadow before they left. Something about drunking themselves stupor.”

Looking back at my mother, I could’ve sworn I saw a sad look in her eyes as she took me in, hugging Vervain. In a second it passed as she got to her hooves, saying, “Yes, I think it’s a good idea that they head out too. We’ll be on our way shortly as well. How about you go check on Wingnut and Cookie Byte and let them know it’s time. Also, if you can get word to The Queen too, that would be a lot of help.”

Vervain nodded. “I can take care of it.” She turned her attention to Aura, and said, “I’ve let the other Shadow Talons know about the threat to Cookie Byte and the rest of this base. They’re scouting the area to make sure no Steel Ranges are around the area.”

“Good, I’ll have a few wings go out to assist The Queens in making sure those bastards stay away from Freedom,” Aura said, getting to her hooves. “Vi, I’m gonna be heading out again. I’ll need you to keep an eye on the talon company for me like before.”

Vi looked a little shocked. “But you just got back! You can’t just keep leaving like this, you have responsibilities.”

Aura walked over and reached up to put a hoof on her Sisters shoulder. “I know I do, but right now, I’m not much use to The Shadow Talons as I am. They need a griffon to run things not a pony. Until I get my old body back, you’re going to have to take over for a while. As for me, I need to make sure that Shadow’s safe and I have my own role to play in this plan. So, can I trust you and the others to help?”

She sighed the nodded. “Yes, always. Still I’d rather you be the one to keep things going, the former Red Talons followed you when Crimson Canyon fell, not me, not Syn, not even Fletch. Even as a pony, they know it’s you. They respect you, they follow you. Just don’t forget that. What will you do if you never get your old body back? What if you’re stuck like this for the rest of your life?”

Aura smiled. “Then, I’ll leave the Shadow Talons in your claws. I have faith in you and I know you have what it takes to run this talon company to make it even better than The Red Talons were.”

Vi looked down at her talons looking a little shy as she said, “I may be older than you, but I’m not the leader you are.”

Aura laughed. “You’re twice the leader I am Vi. You’re strong, your smart, and I know for a fact that mom was honing you to be her replacement when she retired. Everygriff thought it was me because of my strength and my fighting ability, but I was never meant to be a leader, you were and still are.”

Vi smiled then nodded. “Thank you for that. I’ll do my best, but I’m not taking over fully unless I have to. Deal?”

“Deal,” Aura said, hugging her sister before pulling away and looking at me. “Let’s go say goodbye to Gunny and his weird crew. Then I think it’ll be time for us to leave.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said with a smile.

Mom spoke up before we left, “You two meet us in the back when you’re finished okay?”

“Can do,” Aura said.

“See you soon mom,” I said, then said my goodbyes to the others before following Aura out of the room.

***

A few minutes later we were a couple blocks down from the F&F Tools building and standing in an area of Freedom just outside the walls where most of the buildings had been destroyed during the war. The Bitter Cob was there, looking like it was ready to take off at any moment. The crew were running all over it preparing for the launch.

Captain Gunny, Sun Spot, and Elliot however saw us coming and met us at the bottom of the gangplank. Gunny of course was the first one to open his trap, “Ah ye be finishin’ with yer ride on da bitter cob I be seein’. Good on ya lass, good on ya. Had Gunny worried about ya fer a bit der, wit all of da boomin’ from Enclave and what not.”

“Hey at least it was a good time Gunny,” I said with a chuckle.

“Hey dat be CAPTAIN Gunny to ya,” he said angrily.

“But is it really?” I asked with a laugh.

Sun Spot rolled her eyes then nodded. “I let him have his title back this morning. It’s not much use to me now honestly, and he’s proven himself over the past few days.”

“He really has, and I don’t know what we’d do anyway with that ship now that we’re retiring from being sky pirates,” Elliot said.

“Wait…what!?” I asked in shock. “What do you mean?”

“Ah dey both were quite salty with old Gunny after his mishap with da Enclave and whatnot. So dey both decided they’d leave Gunny’s crew. Sad lot, but it bein’ okay, that be the life of a pirate! Savvy?” Gunny said with a laugh.

“So, you two are staying around here then? What are you gonna do?” I asked.

Sun Spot grinned. “Well, we talked with Aura while you were out and she’s letting us join The Shadow Talons.”

“That’s right, I’ve seen them fight and I’m very impressed. They’re both from the war too, so I know they can handle most situations, and with our numbers depleted after the fall of Crimson Canyon I need creatures like them,” Aura said.

“But I thought only Griffons could join talon groups,” I said.

Aura shrugged. “Normally yeah, but technically they’re both half griffon, so it’s good enough for me. Also, my sisters like them so I couldn’t really say no. It was Vi’s idea in the first place.”

Elliot laughed. “We also wanted to get away from the pirating stuff too and do something with our lives. Also, way out here we don’t have to worry about that ghoul pony finding us. That’s one reason we joined up with the crazy pony anyway.”

“Oye, how many times does Capn’ Gunny need to be tellin’ ya. Gunny’s not crazy, he’s MAD…er’s a difference!” Gunny said from the Gangplank.

“Yeah I know Gunny,” Elliot said, throwing me a wink before turning to face the old captain. “Just be careful out there okay. You might drive us nuts and all, but you’re the first pony who treated us like we weren’t monsters or tools. I’d hate to hear that The Enclave caught up to you or something else like that.”

I could’ve sworn I saw a tear in the old pony’s eye before he turned his face away saying, “Ya best be gettin’ outta here nows. Gunny be needin’ to get ready to be leavin’ and such.”

Sun Spot moved closer to him and kissed the top of his tricorn hat. “Keep safe you old mad captain.”

“Yeah boss, we’re gonna miss you,” Elliot said before they both picked up a set of satchels and headed back toward F&F Tools. Once they were gone Gunny turned back to look at me. He let out a heavy sigh as he said, “Be listenin’ close now Shadow, ya got a long hard road ahead of ya, be sure to be washin’ yer back.”

“You mean watching right?” I asked.

“Yah, dat be a good idear too. Just don’t be strainin’ yer neck,” he said with a small smile. “Gunny’s bein’ serious like though, make sure ya watch out. Ya got a lot of enemies and all dat, and Captin’ Gunny would be right upset if ya got yerself killed out der.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise,” I said.

“Good…good, oh and if ya be runnin’ into any trouble or ya need a ride, just send word to Ol’ Captin’ Gunny,” he said with a mad smile.

“How would I do that when you spend most of your time on the other side of Equestria?” I asked.

He came closer and took my foreleg with my Pip-Buck on it then did something before letting me go. “Der be a channel that’s secret like out der. Captin’ Gunny just added it to yer leg terminal. Send Gunny word if ya be needin’ a mad pirate! Just don’t be askin’ ta go gamblin’, Gunny’ll be stealin’ all yer booty ha-ha. Gunny’s just messin’ with ya, pirates don’t actually be sayin’ booty.”

I looked down at my Mark II and saw the channel he was talking about, marked as ‘Bitter Cob’ on my broadcaster. I smiled, saying, “Thanks Captain and also make sure you get those caps back to Battle Cap. I don’t want her roasting your ass because you stole from her.”

“Ah don’t be worryin’ about Captin’ Gunny, he wouldn’t dare mess with that crazy crook. No, he would not. Now be off with ya. Ya got some other places ta be,” he said before walking back up the gangplank and yelling at his new crew. “Get a move on ya lazy cunts, Captin’ Gunny’s got sum lootin’ and other mad like stuffs do be doin’!”

A moment later the gangplank was pulled up and as Aura and I backed away from the airship, then the engines came to life. With a boom that echoed off the buildings behind us, The Bitter Cob was off, heading east back toward home. I watched it climb higher and higher until it was nothing more than a spec in the cloud-covered sky.

When they were finally gone I turned back toward Aura, “I’m gonna miss him.”

She rolled her eyes. “He was gonna trade you for his wife who went missing twenty years ago.”

“Yeah, maybe, but he said he wasn’t really gonna do it,” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, sure, and I’m a dragon,” she said with a small laugh.

“You look pretty cute for a dragon,” I teased as we turned to head back toward F&F Tools.

Aura laughed, “Damn right I do. It’s the slightly radioactive air from the Everfree, it does a many number of wonderful things to one’s complexion. You should’ve seen me before.”

As we walked, we kept teasing each other about this and that, laughing the entire time. It wasn’t until we were almost back to the new Shadow Talons base when I realized that this was the first time in a while that I’d laughed this much or felt this good. Either those sleeping potions were helping, or maybe just being around family and friends was doing it. Either way, for once, I felt like just a normal pony. Even if it wouldn’t last long, I’d take what I could get. Right before we were about to head around the building to the back area to meet with my mom. I pushed Aura against the wall and before she could ask me what I was doing. I pressed my lips to hers and took that last moment to just enjoy her.

When we finally pulled apart, a little breathless, she said, “What was that for?”

I kissed her quickly one more time before I answered, “I just want you to know that I love you Aura, no matter if you’re a pony, a griffon, or a dragon. I don’t care what you look like, you’re mine, and I’m yours. I…just don’t want you to ever forget that okay.”

She set her forehead against mine, saying, “Forever and always, in this life and the next. I will always find you, I will always be with you, I will always be yours, and you mine.”

As those words floated over me, I felt a stab of pain in my head and for a moment the world around me seemed to melt away. Almost like entering a memory orb, only this lasted for just a moment. I saw rain falling all around me, lightning flashing in the distance. I was laying over the body of a griffon, his body broken and bloody. I felt my face move down to his, my horn glowing as the last of whatever spell I was casting finished, my lips saying to the griffon, “Forever and always my love, in this life and the next. I will always find you, I will always be with you, I will always be yours, and you mine. For all time, let our souls be bound as one, and let our love live on throughout time.”

I blinked and the vision or, whatever that was, vanished and I found myself on the ground looking up into Aura’s eyes. She looked worried as she said, “Shadow? Are you okay?”

I shook my head, the memory fading from my mind like water in a stream. The only thing I could recall after a moment was that the voice I heard sounded a lot like Moon Light. I shook my head again, then said, “Sorry, I think I just need some water. I still haven’t gotten my energy back fully yet and it’s getting hot out.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry, this isn’t Aquila trying to take over or anything,” I said, getting back to my hooves.

She let out a sigh of relief. “Good, I’m just worried about you that’s all.”

“I know, but don’t be, I’ll let you know if Aquila starts to show her ugly head again,” I said with a smile.

“Okay, well let’s get to your mom. I’m sure she’s dying to get going,” Aura said, leading me on.

I followed and a moment later found myself in a large courtyard like space just behind the F&F Tools company building. A few griffons were around, along with Solstice, Stardust, Wind Thrasher, Wingnut, Cookie Byte, Violet, Oricalcos, Vervain, and my mom. They all looked happy when I came around the corner, none as much as Wingnut though.

As soon as he saw me, he ran over and nearly knocked me down, tears flowing as he hugged me tight. “Shadow I’m so happy your back! I’ve wanted to come see you ever since you arrived, but Vervain said I had to let you get your sleep and then you had to meet with Grim and more. But now you’re here! I’m so happy your alive!”

I returned his embrace with a smile. “I’m happy to be back, and I’m glad I’m alive too.” I paused as I realized that I was almost able to look him in the eye without having to look down. “Hey kiddo, did you grow?”

Stardust laughed. “Kid’s going through a growth spurt I think.”

Wingnut smiled wide. “Yeah, I’m almost as tall as you now!”

“That’s not saying much,” Aura teased as she ruffled his mane with her hoof.

“Ow Aura! That hurts!” he said pushing her hoof away.

“Sorry Boss, I keep forgetting,” she said, then she went to stand in front of my friends with Wingnut and I behind her. She cleared her throat then said to the rest gathered, “Okay, so all of you know the plan going forward, all except for Shadow here and for good reason. In a few minutes we’ll be leaving and while we’re gone you all need to make sure to stick to the plan.”

“That’s right,” Vervain said. “As far as most of the area knows, Shadow’s dead, The Courier vanished in a blast of magic over a week ago. The Steel Rangers know Shadow’s alive due to what happened yesterday, but as far as the rest of the groups go around New Pegasus, they believe the lie. Because of this, we’ve seen more activity from some of the other factions around the area, the Unchained Talons may try to start coming after The Shadow Talons, or the NLR might try to retaliate against The Steel Rangers. It’s up to you to make sure that we keep Freedom and The Strip. We’ve worked out a deal with Mr. Tops to help protect this area from what may come.”

“Exactly,” Aura continued. “We will only take contracts right now that help locals unless you’re one of my griffons working on keeping an eye on The Unchained and The Steel Rangers. You know who you are and what to do. We need to keep up the ruse that Shadow’s gone, this will buy us time to do what we need to for her. Once she’s better we’ll be able to bring her back and The Courier can live up to her name once again. Mr. New Pegasus is also helping us with this by broadcasting that there hasn’t been any sightings of Shadow.”

“How long will we be gone?” I asked.

Mom spoke up next looking over at me, “We can’t tell you anything Shadow, everyone here knows the plan or at least their own part in it. You need to stay in the dark.”

“Fine,” I said with a bit of a huff.

Stardust spoke next, “Violet will be sending two of her Alicorns down soon to help protect us. Doorstop and a few other dashites are also going to be coming to help. Remember to stick to the plan and if anything happens you bring it up to Vi, she’s the one who will be able to get into contact with whoever needs to be called in.”

Aura spoke up again, “Now I want all of you to fly off, everything starts in five minutes and I want you all in place. Fly fast, fly safe, and stay strong!”

The griffons around us cheered then in a flash of multi colored wings, they were gone, flying off in all directions. Once they were gone I was just left with my friends and my family. Byte came over to me while I saw Stardust go over to hook up to our skycarriage. “You have a minute?”

I nodded. “I think I have five, what’s up?”

She looked a little shy as she said, “I heard what you did with The Steel Rangers. I just wanted to say thank you for not telling them where I was.”

“I promised Rusty I’d protect you and even though I’ve done a crappy job of it so far, I’m still gonna try my best,” I said.

She smiled a little, something I didn’t see much on Byte’s face. “You’re doing okay, for a stupid bug.”

“Hey, I thought that was what you called Wingnut?” I teased, then I got more serious. “Thanks again for helping me while I was stuck back east. I couldn’t have made it back if I didn’t have you get Aura and Solstice to me.”

She shrugged. “It was the least I could do.”

“So, are you going to be staying here while I’m gone?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I can’t, with The Steel Rangers looking for me, Vervain thinks it’d be safer for me to go with you than to be here. Also, you might need Wingnut and I for part of the plan. You’ll understand when this is all over.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to be around my uncle or my mom,” I said.

“I didn’t and I still find it hard to be around them, but thanks to Wingnut and Wind Thrasher, I’ve realized that I can’t hold a grudge forever. Sooner or later it’ll just eat away at me until I’m as mean and angry as my mother. Also, I’ve gotten to know them a little while you were missing and honestly, they aren’t so bad. I haven’t forgiven them yet, I might never be able to, but I’m trying,” she said.

I smiled as Wingnut said, “Yeah, Byte’s been doing a lot better ever since Vervain’s been around. I think she looks up to her.”

Bytes eyes went wide. “I do, she’s amazing! She’s so smart and knows so much about tech!”

Vervain chuckled as she came up behind the filly. “I know that and more Cookie Byte.” Then she shifted her gaze to me. “You need to get into the skycarriage now, you’ll be leaving soon.”

“Wait, aren’t you coming with?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m needed here right now, also there isn’t enough room with the rest of the party who’s going with you.”

I looked at her sadly. “I wanted you to be with me Auntie Vervain, I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

She pulled me into a hug, saying softly, “You’ve done a lot of amazing things without me Shadow, you don’t need me for this. Just remember to stay strong and stay safe.” Her voice got quieter. “I know your mother has a plan, but I still don’t fully trust her, so if she does something she shouldn’t, make sure you get as far away from them as you can, do you hear me?”

“But she’s trying to…” I started to say but she interrupted me.

“Do you understand?” she asked again.

I nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“Good, now get going. I love you and I hope to see you soon,” she said, letting me go.

“I love you too Auntie Vervain,” I said, before leading the filly and colt toward the skycarriage.

When I got to the skycarriage, Aura was just saying to my mother, “We need to be off in two, are you sure you have everything you need? Did you make sure to let her know we’re coming?”

“Everything’s ready, now get inside so Stardust can take off,” Mom said.

Aura sighed then nodded and got into the skycarriage, Solstice joined her, giving me a wink as she passed me. Then Wingnut and Byte followed, a shadowy form of my uncle following. Before I could get in however, Violet came over to me, saying, “Shadow, before you go I needed to ask you a question.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.

“You met with The Goddess while you were in Hoofington didn’t you?” she asked.

I nodded. “Well kind of, she spoke though another alicorn, but yeah I did.”

“Let me guess, she wants you to take my amulet and give it to her, that was a price she demanded. Am I right?” she asked.

I sighed. “Yeah, in exchanged for some knowledge and not killing Aura while she was flying back east. But, I don’t see myself trying to take that from you, even if she did say she’d let you keep your own mind and all that. I don’t trust her, but I trust you. So, don’t worry about it.”

She smiled, then said, “I will not worry for now, but you should know that breaking a deal with her is a death sentence. We will talk about this more when you return.”

“I look forward to it,” I said with a smile.

“Me too, now be gone, I have my own part to play in all of this. Safe travels Shadow,” she said, before vanishing in a flash of light.

Wind Thrasher came up to me and put a hoof around my shoulder. “Hey, ready to go?”

I looked back at her then nodded. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

She led me into the skycarriage right after my mom. It was a little cramped with so many inside, but it wasn’t too bad. I nestled up to Aura as I felt Stardust take off, pulling the skycarriage high into the air. I was just about to start asking some questions when there was a flash of blue light from outside of the carriage and a moment later, we were nowhere near New Pegasus.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked as I looked out the windows and saw we were now over the mountains far west of New Pegasus.

Mom chuckled. “Part one of the plan was done perfectly.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, still wondering what happened.

Aura answered. “Violet’s been soaking up a lot of radiation so she could transport us this far. It’s to keep anypony who might’ve been watching us from following or telling any others which direction we’re heading.”

“Oh, I guess that’s a good idea…but you could’ve warned me,” I said.

“Where’s the fun in that, also you don’t get to know anything that’s going on from here on out. You don’t even really know where we’re going,” Mom said.

“I thought we were going to Los Alicorn.” I said.

“Maybe we are, maybe we’re not. All you need to know is that we’re doing this to end her. Now take that sleeping potion you got from Sheena, the rest of this trip you get to be in a nice dreamless sleep,” Mom said.

“Do I really have to do that?” I asked, thinking this plan of hers sounded stupid.

“Yes, now drink up and take that pill for your magic, when you wake up, we’ll be at our destination for the most part,” she said.

Aura pulled the small pill and bottle of potion out at once. “She’s right, now take your meds and we’ll see you in a few hours.”

I rolled my eyes and did as she asked. “Fine, but I hope you all give me a proper explanation for this when it’s all over…” I barely finished before I fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

I awoke with my body on fire, or at least it felt like that. I felt a lot like I had when the skycarriage crashed back near The Kingdom. I also knew something wasn’t right, first-off my face was laying on a hot sandy surface, second it was too quiet out, and third I knew that something must’ve gone wrong, because nopony seemed to be around me. I lifted my head when I finally heard something not far off. It sounded like a great body of water sloshing up onto a beach. Then my nose started to work and I could smell salt and fish.

Cracking my eyes open slowly, I found I was laying on a beach a few inches away from a vast body of water. I slowly got to my hooves and looked around, my body screaming in pain as I tried to move. I could see what looked like a huge old dock in the distance with a rusty roller-coaster and ferris wheel on it, to my other side I just saw more of the beach, bones of ponies scattered all over the place almost like this was an old graveyard. On the shore and slightly in the water, old zebra war machines were rusting away. Then I turned my head, finding the quiet of this place to be eerie.

It was then that I knew where I had to be as I took in the large dead city behind me. A tower I knew from one of Night Stalkers orbs sat at the city center, sitting higher than any other skyscraper around it. That was the Equestria Bank building. The city around it was dead, not a sign of life from where I stood, and only the wind and sea to push away the quiet. Then I saw in the distance what looked like a pony made of plastic or something like it was walking toward me slowly, yellow-black eyes shining.

It said in a monotone voice. “You are trespassing, you must be destroyed.”

I pulled Dream Walker out and took the creature out with a single shot. I then winced as I started to head toward the fallen body then stopped. It was a robot, what could it have on it that I could use? I didn’t need to worry about it right now, what I really needed was to know where my friends were, why I’d woken up here, and why in the Goddess’ name I was standing alone on a beach in Los Alicorn…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Local Hero Rank 1: As a heroic icon in the Marejave, you’ve made quite the impression among factions in the area. Some factions (if inspired) will fight along with you, without the need to join any specific faction.

Chapter 63: Ghost Beach

“Whatever happened to the city we knew?”

Well this is just fantastic, I’m at the most famous beach in Equestria, alone. No friends, no other beach patrons, and roboponies that tell me I’m trespassing. I wonder if this is what it was like for normal high school ponies during or even before the war. Sneaking out to the secluded beach to meet friends in the middle of the night and hang around for no other reason than being at the beach and that’s somehow cool. Then there’s the added fact that I awoke somewhere else without my friends again, I’m getting really sick of that. Where are they anyway? I didn’t see any remains of a skycarriage, just dead war-machines.

Behind me was the Luna Ocean, sloshing waves up onto the blackened sand of what I’m guessing is Faust Beach. In front of me sat the huge, silent, desolate city known as Los Alicorn. To my left was that long peculiar dock with what looked like a carnival on it, and to my right in the distance there looked to be an abandoned Skyport. The Skyport seems like a place where the Steel Rangers would be held up so I probably shouldn’t go there just yet given my current condition. Although my pain was subsiding, it’s still incredibly stupid to go there alone, even if I am still pretty formidable.

I sighed to myself in angst, “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” I looked at the dock, “I guess I should start there, maybe there’s something I could use or eat there. Why am I talking to myself? Right, because I’m alone and that’s what I do when I’m kinda freaking out. Ugh, if I keep doing it, whoever finds me will think I’m crazy and probably try to kill me. Why am I still doing it!?” That’s it, sealing my mouth with wonder glue if I find some. Talking to myself in a place like this isn’t the smartest thing considering the dangers.

I checked around the area where I’d woken up to see if there was anything that might’ve been dropped that could prove useful and saw nothing, so I started walking to the dock. Each step sounded like I was walking on broken glass as my hooves sank into the black sand. The scattered skeletons everywhere really brought up the creep factor too, like walking in some really screwed up Nightmare Night attraction. I wish I knew what happened on the day when these war-machines came onto the shore while ponies were trying to enjoy their day in the sun, then I stepped on a skeleton and looked at it’s shattered skull that wasn’t caused by me stepping on it. On second thought, maybe it’s better left in the past.

As I walked, I didn’t see anymore robots telling me I was trespassing, not live ones anyway. Along the beach area there were a few dead ones in front of the various vacant homes and shops. As I got closer to them I decided to take a closer look at the body. Behind it’s plastic coverings I saw what looked like organs, not real ones, but mechanical. The face reminded me of Lonely Hearts if he weren’t so beaten up from all his travels. On the shoulder, engraved into the plastic read ‘Property of The Ministry’. So these are the synths everyone is so afraid of. Why though? They don’t look like they’d be able to replace anyone, unless their coverings are some sort of shapeshifting material that can change what they look like, but that seems doubtful. At least they seem easy enough to kill.

I continued toward the giant dock and looked around at the shops as I passed them by. This place must’ve been bustling back before the war with some of the weird stuff they had for sale at these places. One shop had goofy masks in it, another had the typical ‘I Love Los Alicorn’ t-shirts, and one even had strange looking vases with a convenient little watering stem toward the bottom. Unfortunately, with that last one, all the plants in the shop had died and became part of the land once more, so I couldn’t see why they’d be kept in such colorful vases. On the way by yet another shop I snagged some sunglasses for Stardust, I figured he’d like how the blue lenses of the aviators went with his mane.

I’d finally gotten to the beginning of the dock and looked up at the bannered sign above it that read ‘Welcome to Del Pietro Pier’. Great, now I feel stupid for calling it a dock. What else is new? As I walked up the creaky stairs of the pier, I got a little paranoid that my hooves would break through, or possibly my whole body. Falling through a floor would reinforce Stardust’s quips about me being heavy, and if he found out about it, I’d never live it down. At the top of the steps was a parking lot with some carriages; time had taken its toll on them. The old, dry, cracked wood was pealing apart and some had already collapsed. Next to the parking lot there were more shops that held some memorabilia of the pier and boarded up restaurants. Walking through the parking lot I also noticed quite a bit of burnt trash scattered around among the dropped remains of tourist belongings. There was a sign next to the welcoming banner overhead the entrance to the carnival area with a picture of Pinkie Pie. On it read, ‘I may be watching you forever, but at least I’m watching you have fun-a-fun fuuun!’ at the bottom in fine print it added, ‘This message is brought to by The Equestrian Ministry of Morale and The City of Los Alicorn Chamber of Commerce’. This was one of few times I’ve actually seen Ministry propaganda, but this particular sign was in considerably good condition. For once, the feeling of being watched didn’t seem as awful as before when I’ve been told by Pinkie Pie that she was watching me forever.

Crossing the threshold into the park, I had my magic ready to pull out Dream Walker. Through the dead silence I could only hear the waves crashing upon the support beams of the boardwalk and a faint static coming from a nearby stand around the corner past the Ferris Wheel. I pulled out Dream Walker and had it at the ready as I walked under the rusty tracks of the roller coaster overhead, the cars stopped as if suddenly seized. Remains of the dead were still held inside the carriages as they hung over the side; the same fate befell the Ferris Wheel as well, with some of the individual cabins fallen off and broken. In front of the Ferris Wheel was a busted-up information stand one of the cabins had fallen upon. Maps were scattered everywhere, many of which were burned, except for a few. I picked one up and opened it, examining the vastness of the city.

It’s been said that Los Alicorn is one of the largest cities in Equestria, now I was seeing why, this place was huge. From where I was on the beach all the way to the rest of the city, thousands of square kilometers were covered with buildings and neighborhoods. If I was going to find my friends, it was going to be a long and treacherous task in itself. Not only would I have to worry about synths sent out to patrol the city by The Ministry, but I’d also most likely have to deal with Steel Rangers doing the same and/or fighting said synths. Not to mention the fact that The Ministry might have more than just these sorry excuses for androids to worry about. There could also be some stragglers out there too like raiders and possibly wildlife waiting to attack from the shadows. Sure, the city was forcefully evacuated quite a while ago, but it isn’t safe to say that The Steel Rangers got everyone out. If I could be out in the open like this and not be running into any of them, there’s no telling what or who else could be out there waiting for their moment to strike.

I noticed highlighted attractions on the map that caught my eye. The first being the closest to me was The University and the conservatory, then The Playpony Mansion which sounded like a stop I might have to make out of pure curiosity, an art museum, The Far-Eastern Theatre, The Griffon Observatory, The Applewood Sign and a few others not really worth mentioning besides maybe the dam and reservoir. There was also a river going through the city, The Los Alicorn river. From the look of it, it’s not much of a river, it’s more of a canal now. The rest of the city was pretty basic, closer to The Applewood Sign were some neighborhoods in the hills which I could only guess was where celebrities and whatnot lived because of the nearby country clubs. More south was Downtown Los Alicorn with tons of businesses and municipal buildings such as police stations, fire departments, hospitals, and city hall. To the east were more neighborhoods, and more south from Downtown was a place marked as ‘South Central Los Alicorn. From there on the city consisted of more neighborhoods and then an industrial district. Just west of the industrial district was the Los Alicorn Skyport and just south of it The Port of Los Alicorn.

If I don’t want to run into any Steel Rangers, I should avoid larger areas such as the Skyport and The Port of Los Alicorn. I doubt the others would be in either of those places anyway. The only question now is where to go next from here, to the northeast, or to the southeast. I guess I could also head straight east into downtown toward The Equestria Bank building to get more of a birds-eye view of the city. However, it might be a hassle to get to the top considering the elevators are most likely out of order. For now I should check out the rest of the pier and make sure none of the others are hiding out here.

I began walking again and noticed the sound of the static getting closer as I approached the corner. I took cover against the wall and shimmied along it with Dream Walker at the ready in my magical grip. I peered around the corner and saw that one of the outlet shacks had lights on. Continuing around the corner, still against the wall, I came closer to the outlet. Taking a deep breath, I pushed away from the wall and pointed my gun at the source of the static. To my surprise, I didn’t get the reaction I was expecting.

“Hello, welcome to Down N’ Out Burger! How may I prepare your hayburger today?” a protect-a-pony robot said from behind the counter.

“Uh, I dunno,” I said awkwardly.

“That is quite alright. Please take a few moments to move aside and make your selection while other patrons are helped. I suggest the Mythical Beast Style Hayfries with a double hayburger as it is our most popular combination, and do not forget the addition of an ice cold Sparkle-Cola,” the robot said, then turned as if it was awaiting new customers whilst waiting for me to choose what I wanted.

To be honest, the Mythical Beast Style hayfries sounded weird, but very interesting at the same time, and it’s not like I’d be eating any other food for the time being.

“Hey robot, I’ll take just the Mythical Beast Style hayfries for now, with a large Sparkle-Cola,” I said.

“Coming right up,” the robot responded. It turned around and scooped some moldy hayfries onto a tray. From how much time has passed, there shouldn’t be anything here unless this restaurant was functional before The Steel Rangers ousted the city inhabitants. The robot picked up the tray and put it on the counter in front of me and opened up its arm to reveal a nozzle, then proceeded to squirt a thick black liquid I could only assume was the Mythical Beast sauce all over the pile of fries.

I gagged a bit at the sight and said, “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, have a wonderful rest of your night and thank you for choosing Down N’ Out Burger today,” the robot replied.

Then I remembered something. “What about the large Sparkle-Cola?”

“Unfortunately, we are currently out of stock of that particular product, as well as the rest of our soft drinks. Down N’ Out Burger sincerely apologizes for this inconvenience and hopes you will not hold this indiscretion against us in the future. Thank you again and have a wonderful day,” the robot responded.

Great, not only are these fries absolutely disgusting and inedible, I don’t even get a Sparkle-Cola at the very least. This day sucks ass and I just wanna find my friends and go home. Los Alicorn can go fuck itself; I’ve only seen one percent of the city and I already knew it was a lost cause from the beginning. On the other hoof, I could just be hangry. I picked up the tray of moldy fries and sludge and tossed it in an overflowing wastebasket as I went around the next corner. There was a faint glow coming from a nearby vending machine, so I approached; maybe I’ll get that soda after all. I stepped in front of the machine and tried to open one of the doors that held a refrigerated bottle of cola, but it was locked.

I sighed and said to myself, “Don’t tell me I actually gotta put money in this stupid thing.”

I dug around in the pockets of my duster and found some pre-war bits, then put them into the machine. I pressed the corresponding buttons for my selection and tried to open the door once more, but it was still locked.

“Dammit!” I yelled and then proceeded to hit the glass with Dream Walker. The glass shattered and I grasped the bottle in my magic, pulling out the beverage from the machine. “Take that you thieving piece of shit! This is MY cola now! Bitch!” then I realized how much noise I’d just made and quickly covered my mouth with both hooves. I took a look around and it didn’t seem like anypony heard me. I guess even in a city only populated by synths and Steel Rangers, not everywhere is completely covered by each group enough to hear every single sound or see every single thing.

I continued walking down the rest of the pier toward the end to see if there was anypony there, so far there hadn’t been anypony but that synth and the robot at Down N’ Out Burger. I didn’t even think about checking my E.F.S., I’m such a moron sometimes, “Not even a random stranger or enemy down there at the end of this stupid pier?” then I heard something coming from the end, it sounded like a radio.

I stopped and looked at the radio broadcast list on my Pip-Buck and saw four broadcasts.

-Steel Rangers Radio Broadcast

-Classical Radio

-Los Alicorn Rock Radio

-Outsiders Radio

The first one I tuned into was the Steel Rangers Radio Broadcast.

“This is your Elder. Are there any signs of the invading force yet? I need to know if it was The Courier or some idiotic NLR scum trying to take back their city,” Wolfsbane’s voice said through the speaker. So I didn’t attract any attention, I inserted my earpiece and kept an eye on my E.F.S. while I listened.

Then more voices came through, “No sign of them in Sector Twelve sir. Sector Eight is clear also. So are Sectors Two, Three, and Four. Sectors Five, Seven, and Nine are also clear Elder Wolfsbane. Elder, Sector Six is still searching to no avail, and Sectors Ten and Eleven are pretty much clear but also still searching.”

For a moment there was an eerie silence in the channel, then I almost had to rip out my earpiece when Wolfsbane finally responded, “HOW THE HELL HAVEN’T YOU FOUND THEM YET!? Twelve sectors and NOTHING!? At this rate The Ministry could’ve found them first!”

“Sir, we’re searching as best we can. Sector Six hasn’t finished searching yet, they could be there. It is our largest sector, they could be hiding anywhere,” one of the voices said through the radio.

I heard a sound as if Wolfsbane had ponded his hoof upon something in the background, “I don’t care if it’s the largest district! Search harder or I will do it myself and you won’t like it! Any invaders in this city must be exterminated at all costs!”

“Yes sir!” the voices said in unison through the radio, then the broadcast went silent.

I switched to the classical radio station and it was all crappy elevator music with no lyrics, just music. There was a strange crackle in the background as if the signal wasn’t that strong or something. I switched to Los Alicorn Rock Radio expecting to hear at least something, but there was only silence.

I switched to the last one, Outsiders Radio, and finally heard something normal. It was the end of a song, I couldn’t put my hoof on the artist though. I began to walk back toward the road that leads onto the pier as I listened, then a mare’s voice echoed into my earbud, “That was End of the World by Last Fates and this is your host DJ 33 1/3 LP coming to you live from the outskirts of Los Alicorn. It’s been quite a few months since the complete occupation of the city by The Steel Rangers and no pony has been able to enter the city limits since. Although, it seems somepony has sent those metal-headed morons on a wild goose chase all over the city. As you all know, a skycarriage flew over a few hours ago and was immediately intercepted by Steel Ranger border patrol. Chatter on the wavelengths said that after crusin’ over Faust Beach, it suddenly disappeared without a trace. Those steel-clad douche-nozzles have been searching every so-called sector of the city ever since. Word from an inside source says that they’re looking for The Courier of New Pegasus, but last I heard, she’s dead. So, it’s probably just a few lucky bastards evading the Rangers as best they can, or unlucky, depends on how ya look at it. Personally, I’d say unlucky considering what the Steel Rangers will do once they finally do catch them.” She took a breath then continued, “So, if anyone who’s brave enough to go into that dump of a city happens to see ponies who aren’t part of The Steel Rangers, then I’d say give them a helping hoof. This might be a wasteland filled with death at every turn, but we’re all still ponies, and we should help each other when we can. Unless you’re a stupid ass bucket-head like The Steel Rangers. If so, then you should pull your gun out and put a bullet into your brain. In other news, we’ve been seeing strange activity from a group of fiends or raiders, not sure what the difference is, building up some new compound on the southeast side of the city just past the Steel Rangers boarder. So, if you happen to live near there, stay away. Raiders or fiends, it doesn’t matter, they’ll turn you into jelly and most likely spread you on their morning toast. Also, for those who live on the northeast side of the city near Dragon Bridge, Mrs. Maple Tree is having a BOGO sale on her goods all day today and tomorrow. The sweet old mare wanted me to let you all know to come on in and spend some caps. If you stop by today, you’ll have a chance to meet me while I’m in town visiting the lovely mare and her family. Last but not least I have one more bit of news for you all, so pay attention.”

I stopped when I got to the road, looked around to make sure no pony was coming then sat and listened to what this mare had to say, “For those of you who live in Dashite Cove, I know you’re listening, keep an eye out for Enclave activity. I’ve picked up reports from Mr. New Pegasus all the way out here about something going on in Stratus. From what he sent me; it looks like a Coup d’état has happened with the rulers of the city. Last reports show that just a few hours ago the former leader, a Pegasus named Nightshade, was last seen fleeing the city being chased by their air support. A few more Pegasi have been said to have either fled or died during the attack. From what we know, the pegasus who took over the city and its sister city of Nimbus, is putting a bounty out on all Dashites. So, if you have families, hide them. If you don’t have one then make sure to hide yourselves, or at least keep an eye on the skies. I have a few friends there that I’d hate to see die because of some power-hungry pegasus. If you need help, contact The Red from Stratus. You all know you can trust him and his family to help you. That’s all I have for now, stay safe my friends, stay smart, and remember to never let the Ministry, The Rangers, or The Enclave win. This is DJ 33 1/3 LP, thanks for listening. I’ll leave you again with another song I just got in from Applewood Undead.”

With those last words, she was gone, leaving me with a pounding heart. My mind was ready to break at the news she just sent. My father, he’s been taken out of office by another. He was last seen fleeing the Enclave. Is he alive? I flipped through my broadcaster and opened the secret channels like Mom showed me and looked for the one he used to contact me before. It wasn’t showing up, this can’t be right, was he just too far away or did something happen? I can’t have my father die, not after I finally found him again. Not when I was so close to getting myself free from Aquila and being able to start a more normal life.

Why does bullshit like this all have to go down at one time? First, I’m stuck here alone, I have to deal with Steel Rangers and synths, I don’t know where my friends are, and now this crap with my father. When does it all end? When will all the fighting stop in this world? Will we ever know peace again like back in the time of Princess Celestia’s rule? The war ended, but the conflict grew. Everypony in the land fought tooth and hoof not for their country anymore, but for survival; creating a new war that’s been raging for two-hundred years. It seems that war itself doesn’t change; enemies do. Before the land was baked with fire and magical radiation, it was ponies against zebras. Now, it’s just everypony against everypony until the last one is left standing.

It sounded like the vocalist in the song felt the same way as I heard the lyric, “What ever happened to the city we knew?”

War has overtaken this former paradise, pony against machine in this case. Unless you consider it still pony against pony. Somepony has to build the synths right? The Ministry seems like this big bad evil thing that everyone is terrified of, but all I’ve seen are some klunky robots with cheap plastic guns. Something’s gotta give in this conflict between The Ministry and The Steel Rangers. You’d think The Steel Rangers would’ve easily wiped out The Ministry synths if they’re all like the one I saw on the beach. They must have something else up their sleeves other than cheap Sweetie-Bot rip-offs.

From what I could see at the beginning of the pier, there were some Steel Rangers heading down a staircase onto the beach. “I suppose those jackasses are looking for me,” I said quietly to myself.

I kept an eye on my E.F.S. and made sure that all of them went down there before I continued walking up the pier. As the last one reached the bottom of the staircase, I saw a sudden flash, like a miniature bolt of lightning.

“COURSER!” one of them yelled as he started to shoot in the general direction of the flash. I didn’t hear the lasers from his rifle connect with anything, I only saw bolts of energy fly in every direction from all of their weapons. Some of their weapons stopped firing as sounds of a different energy weapon filled the air along with pulsations that sounded like spark grenades going off.

Instead of interfering with the fight, I decided to run to the beginning of the pier as fast as my hooves could carry me and disappeared into the giant metropolis.

***

I was starting to get tired as I dragged my hooves down the abandoned boulevard lined with long dead palm trees. I was in what looked like an outdoor shopping mall of sorts. Although the tastes were rather expensive because most of the stores were dealers of luxury designer brands of whatever the hell they used to sell. A few looked like clothing stores, others were carriage dealers, and jewelry shops. One stuck out in particular, The Carrot Store. The outside of the store stuck out quite a bit from the architecture of the rest. Instead of the sandy-colored formal Equestrian style, it was sleek and modern, and VERY orange. On the window there was a worn poster of an orange mare with a curly orange mane with some words that read ‘The next generation in communications technology that’ll sweep the other big brands off their hooves’.

Okay, I had to see this for myself, so I walked inside through a shattered glass door. Inside was just as modern styled as the outside, except the shades of orange were different and mixed. There were tables and chairs all over the place with strange looking devices on each one with stickers that faintly read ‘Try Me!’ on them. I walked over to one that looked like a normal terminal had been flattened by a steam roller and started to look it over, when a hologram projected itself onto the table saying, “Hello there valued customer!” making me damn near jump out of my skin.

I took a second to control my breathing again and said, “Uh, hi.”

The hologram was of the mare on the poster, but she was of a much smaller scale. After a quick second of me speaking it, said, “I see you’re gazing into the future of terminal technology with one of our new revolutionary home computers. This particular model is equipped with a drive that operates on a solid state, so you won’t have to wait for anything to load like with anything made by Stable-Tec or Robronco. Our new state of the art iCarrot laptop is designed to be portable and comfortable to use during everyday life in your home. From musical media to work, it does it all.”

After it was done, it just stared at me like it was waiting for a response. So, in angst, I replied, “That’s pretty cool. How’d you make it?”

After a split second it began to ramble again, “You see, with the carrot family assisting in feeding the troops during the war effort, the Equestrian Government paid us lots of money that we invested not only in our technology, but into the families of the engineers and scientists that helped create it. Carrot wants to make the world a better, easier, place to live in by providing everypony with fast, easy to use, technology that will change the world forever. Please consider taking a look at our new communication device also. Set to release this Hearth’s Warming season, it’s a great way to keep in touch with family and friends without having to dust off your stationary and write a letter to them. Soon, letters and stationary will be a thing of the past. If you need assistance with a pre-order or have any questions about any of our other products, just say ‘I need help’ or ‘I have a question’ and I will be right there to assist you.”

With a small flash, the mare disappeared, leaving me both curious and confused. There’s also the fact that all this crap is still here in the store instead of the hooflocker of a Steel Ranger. Maybe they haven’t been in here to raid it yet, or it could be that this stuff isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be. Although I’ll go with the former, the idea of what these terminals and whatnot were supposed to be able to do sounded pretty cool compared to the other shit we’re stuck with.

I walked out of the Carrot Store and continued through the city. It was sort of eerie how I wasn’t running into anything dangerous, including either The Steel Rangers or The Ministry synths. Every once in a while, I’d hear gunfire in the distance, but it was never nearby. Lucky me, I guess. I thought there’d be at least some raiders that managed to get into the city, or some mutated creatures to slay, but nothing but silence attacked me in the desolate metropolis.

I came to what looked like a former high-end neighborhood. There were broken, battered, and worn mansions everywhere. Los Alicorn struck me as a place where no one liked having neighbors, because every single house was surrounded with some sort of wall or fence with a gate and intercom. Some of them where just really high hedges with fences behind them. Maybe this is where celebrities lived, the walls and such would make sense then, keeps the riff raff out. I wish I could’ve seen some of these places back before the war, I bet they were really beautiful before being ravaged by war and time.

Walking through the neighborhood, one of the signs on a mansion gate caught my eye ‘Playpony Mansion’. “Hmm, so this is the Playpony Mansion on the map, that sounds like it could be fun,” I said to myself as I approached the gate. I cocked my head at the intercom on the wall and pressed the call button out of curiosity to see if somepony would answer. However, like I expected, no one answered. “Great, how am I supposed to get into this stupid place?” I said as I kicked the gate with a hoof. To my surprise, the gate creaked open. “Oh…I guess it wasn’t locked.”

I proceeded through the gate and walked along the path through what used to be a garden as it started to rain a little. Probably a good thing I found some shelter at the right time. Luckily the front doors to the mansion were also unlocked, leading into a beautiful entryway. It was so spacious and elegantly crafted. The walls and the ceiling both had carved wood panels and there was a pair of staircases straddling a doorway under them. When I saw that it was the Playpony Mansion, I immediately thought it was going to be some sort of perverted sex den, but I guess who ever lived here before the war was probably just the very rich owner of the magazine company.

The rest of the house was just as elegant as the entryway, even the broom closets were fancy. I half expected to find dead bodies and trash in them with all the cleaning stuff you usually find. The living room was huge and had a fireplace that I could easily stuff like three Stardusts in comfortably without any complaints from them, four might be pushing it though.

I looked around the living room again then noticed a portrait over the large fireplace. It was a very old stallion with a handsome face for a pony his age wearing a captain’s hat, a red robe, and was smoking a pipe. On the bottom of the portrait the name Hugh G. Ponyus was inscribed on a plaque. What a stupid name. Well maybe that’s what rich ponies were like back then, big house, big stuff, stupid names. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been rich, or lived before the war. Sighing, I checked my broadcaster, but only found two signals both having to do with the Steel Rangers. I checked one, but it was nothing but dead static, the second one however did have somepony talking.

“What I said before team three, the cameras picked up a small pony in a duster two hours ago near the Carrot store, again an hour ago heading toward district five, why haven’t you spotted her yet?” A mare said. It seems I’d caught her in mid-conversation.

“Team leader,” a stallion replied, “We’re almost to the mansion district, but still no sign of the target. She might know we’re looking for her, don’t you have a better way for us to track her?”

“Negative, her Pip-Buck is special and can’t be tracked even with its broadcaster. We’ve been trying, but no luck. You’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way,” the mare said, sounding irritated.

“Team Leader, are you sure the four of us can deal with her? Reports from New Pegasus say she killed a lot of Rangers there just a day or so ago,” the Stallion said.

“Aww they’re scared of me,” I said to myself as I smiled.

“Don’t let those reports scare you, she’s on her own. She had help during that fight just like she always does. By herself The Courier is helpless. She’s nothing more than a filly with a big ego. Now find her and make sure you bring her in alive,” the mare said.

“Yes, ma’am, we’ll do our best. Team three will switch to secondary coms until we find her,” he said.

“Copy that team three, send a signal if you find something and I’ll check with you then,” the mare said, “Team leader out.”

Secondary coms? I wonder if that’s the other signal I found. I switched to it and heard the stallion’s voice again, relaying orders to his team, “Team Leader says they want us to check every house and every hiding place The Courier can use around here, she was spotted not long ago.”

Another stallion replied, “Paladin Slosh, are you sure this is really her? I thought she died.”

“No, she’s alive, we’ve heard from our source in New Pegasus that she came back just the other day. She’s out here now and I’m sure she’s looking for help from The Ministry. If she gets to them, we’re fucked. The Director’s been wanting that Mark II for years. We need to get it before they do. Now, where are you and Knight Gypsy?” The first stallion Paladin Slosh said.

“Two houses down from The Playpony Mansion, about a block from you,” he said.

I almost jumped, then ran over to the windows looking out toward the gate. It was closed, odd because I don’t remember shutting it. Then Paladin Slosh replied, “Check the mansion, but remember to stay out of the Playpony one, the traps in that place still give me nightmares.”

“You sure Sir? Maybe she’s hiding in there, from what I heard she’s a pervert, she’d love that place,” the second stallion said with a laugh.

“I will put a bullet through you’re visor. I swear to Celestia,” I muttered to myself.

“If she even tried to get through the gate, she would’ve been shot by the guns on the roof. Look through the gate, but don’t open them, if you see a dead body then we’ll find a way to extract it. If not, then move on,” Paladin Slosh said.

“Yes sir.”

The communication went out right when I saw two steel rangers walk up to the gate, their helmet lamps illuminating the pathway through the rusty iron gate. They looked around the yard then moved on. I let out a sigh of relief as they went across the street to another huge house and pushed the gate open to start searching for me inside. I pulled the curtains shut then took a few steps back. Strange that they think this place is booby trapped, I’ve had no issues getting in or walking around. So, I just shrugged and move back toward the main entry way, intending to head up stairs to have a look around.

I almost screamed when I heard hoofsteps walking down the main stairway. With my heart pounding I ducked down and slowly pulled Dream Walker out of my holster readying myself for an attack. I peeked around the corner and saw a short pony slowly walking down the steps. In the darkness of the entry I couldn’t make out his face, but he was wearing the same robe and Captain’s hat I saw in the portrait of Hugh G. Ponyus, only it looked too big for him. When he was on the last step, I came around the corner and pointed Dream Walker right at his head, yelling, “Don’t move or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

The pony froze then turned his yellow eyes toward me and said, “Shadow! You found us, I was wondering how long you were gonna take.”

I turned on my Pip-Light to illuminate the face of Wingnut. He was smiling at me from under the hat. I lowered Dream Walker breathing hard, “Dammit kid, you almost gave me a heart attack. Why the fuck are you here?”

He just laughed, “Aura dropped us here when we picked up the signal of the Rangers coming for us. She said she was gonna drop you in another location and tell you where we were so we could meet up while the rest tried to lead them away.”

“Us? Who else is here with you?” I asked.

“Byte, she’s up in one of the rooms getting fussed over by some Ms. Nanny bots. This place is amazing! You should see all the stuff this old pony had lying around,” he said pulling out an old Playpony magazine from under his robe.

I snatched it from his muzzle, “Wingnut this kind of stuff isn’t for a colt,” I put it into my saddle bags for later. Hey, I may not like it, but the Rangers weren’t wrong. It’s not easy finding good smut like this in The Wasteland. Normally it’s Wingboner magazine, good pics, but a little too dirty and all Pegasi. I like to see a good unicorn or earth pony now and again.

Wingnut pouted, “Hey, I found that first!”

“Yeah, and I took it away, whatcha gonna do about it?” I said with a grin, “Anyway, how’d you get in here? I just heard some Rangers talking about this place and they said it was booby trapped.”

He shrugged, “I just walked up to the gate while we were trying to hide from some Steel Rangers. Something on the gate popped out, flashed in my face, then the gate opened. Something from a speaker tried saying something but I couldn’t make it out. Weird huh?”

I nodded, “Yeah, well at least the Rangers won’t come looking in here, we should be safe until they go looking elsewhere for us, or me I guess.”

“We could stay here for months and have no problems, this place is stocked with food that’s been well preserved, they have a lot of fresh water in a panic room and a lot of ammo. Found a shit ton for Ol’ Festus. Byte also found a lot of good stuff to work on her Gravity Gun,” Wingnut said, leading me up the stairs to where I could now hear Byte yelling.

“Would you get off me you stupid bucket of bolts! Ouch! Don’t touch me! STOP!” she screamed from a door just down the hall at the top of the stairs.

“Is she okay?” I asked as we got closer to the door.

He just shrugged, “She was fine when I left her a minute ago. Sounds like she might need help now.”

I pointed Dream Walker toward the door then kicked it in to find, two Ms. Nanny bots painted white with wigs plastered onto their round domes, one red and curly the other blonde and wavy, both poking and prodding at Byte who looked pissed as all hell. As the door burst open, the two bots turned toward us. The one with a red wig dropped it’s curling iron and started speaking as if I was the best thing in the world that had ever happened to it.

“Oh, my dear, it’s so wonderful to have another Kitten after so many years. I thought we were lucky when this one came in, but now we have TWO! Barbie look at how cute she is!” The red headed Nanny bot said.

The blond one’s three eyecam’s roved over me and when she spoke it was in a lazy bored voice, “Ginger darling, I think you need your cameras checked, this one looks like something the dog dragged in. She looks like she was chewed up and spit out by something ghastly. I bet she smells like it too.”

I took a second to smell myself, unfortunately for me she wasn’t completely wrong. It’s not my fault it’s hot outside. Snooty bitch.

The redheaded one, Ginger, gasped, “Barbie, like she’s totally beautiful, just needs to be cleaned up a bit, give her a little makeup and she’ll be perfect. Just look at those eyes, never seen anything like them before.”

The blonde bot, Barbie, moved closer to me, “I guess I see what you mean, we did a good job with the other one, even with her making such a fuss. Excuse me darling, what’s your name and clothing size, we need to get you fitted for your uniform.”

“Who? Me?” I asked, lowering Dream Walker.

“Well of course darling, do you think I’m talking to the boss there?” she asked, looking toward Wingnut.

“Wait, you think Wingnut’s your Boss?” I asked.

“Well of course he is, I mean like he has the hat on and everything and the gate let him in, so of course he’s the boss. Handsome little devil too,” Ginger said.

I looked at Wingnut then back at the bots, “Can I shoot them?”

“Nah, they’re funny,” Wingnut said looking at them, “Ladies that’s enough for now, Shadow’s a friend and not here to be a Kitten.”

“What the fuck is a Kitten?” I asked, “And before you give me some shitheaded remark about me being stupid, I know it’s a young cat. What do they mean with me? Y’know a pony, not anything of the feline variety.”

He pointed a hoof at Byte as Ginger said, “Oh sorry sir, we’ll just wait in the corner until we’re needed again. Come along Barbie, before you make the master cross with us.”

“Fine, but I want my bonus, it’s two hundred years late,” Barbie said, floating away.

I then got a better look at Byte who was dressed in a skin-tight unitard that didn’t really hide anything, just made other parts more noticeable. Her mane had been pulled out of it’s ponytails and brushed out then curled a little to give it a wavy look. Now it flowed down her back and shoulders making her look a lot older. Her tail was braided tight and on top of her head she had large cat ears just in front of her normal ones with whiskers painted onto her muzzle. On her hooves they put shoes of some kind making them look like paws. Then around her neck was a white collar with a bell hanging from the center. Now I see what they mean by Kitten.

“If you laugh at me even a little, I’m going to use my gravity gun, as soon as I find it, and blow you out the window with it!” Byte said.

“I wasn’t going to laugh Byte, honestly, you look really good and a few years older too.” I said walking closer, “Now I kinda want them to do this to me.”

“Don’t say that!” Byte said, looking back at Ginger and Barbie, “They asked me if I wanted to be a Kitten, I said, ‘Sure, but what is it?’, then they did this to me! I look stupid, you don’t have to hide it, I know it’s true.”

“I do mean it, you look good, though the unitard is a little much.”

She sighed, “Really? You think I look good?”

I moved my head closer to hers glancing back at Wingnut, “The way Wingnut is staring, I’d say you look really good. He’s a pervert, but at least he’s a tasteful one.”

She blushed bright red. “Okay fine, I believe you.”

“Good, now can the two of you please tell me what happened?” I asked, “And Wingnut why are you wearing that stuff?”

He pulled his eyes away from Byte, looking over at me, “Oh, well I found this on some skeleton just down the hall, thought it looked cool, so I put it on. Not much to it really, but once I did all the robots around here started asking me if I needed anything. So, I’m keeping it on until we leave. I might even keep it forever, it’s freakin’ comfortable.”

“Yeah I tried it on too, but they still don’t listen to me, only Wingnut,” Byte said, coming closer.

“Okay fine, but tell me why we got kicked out of the sky carriage.” I said.

“Now that we have time, I can tell you everything. Steel Rangers have scouts and heavy guns on most of the tall buildings around the city. We were just going over one of them when they opened fire,” Wingnut said, “We tried to escape but everywhere we went the gunfire kept up, then we saw The Palisade in the distance over near the Applewood sign flying toward us. So, Aura and your mom decided it’d be better if we got out. Then, they dropped us near this place like I said before and said they’d meet us later after she dropped you in a safe place. That’s all we know.”

“No,” Byte added, “Grim said if a day goes by and they haven’t shown up that we should head to the Equestrian Bank building and look for that Synth she told us about, he can get us to The Ministry where they’ll be waiting.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Wingnut added with a chuckle rubbing the back of his neck, “So anyway, we decided to wait here, but still we haven’t heard from them. Glad you found us though.”

“That was by luck. Well I guess we should wait here for a while and see what happens, but if the Steel Rangers decide to come in here, we need to be ready to run,” I said, looking around the small makeup room more.

“We understand,” Byte said, “What should we do for now?”

I shrugged. “Guess we could look around, maybe stock up on ammo and food, maybe see what else we can find around this place. I heard the Rangers talking and it sounds like they haven’t been able to get in. We may find a few things of worth in here.”

“Good idea! I’ll go look in the basement,” Wingnut said, turning back toward the stairs, “Coming with Byte?”

“Nah, I don’t feel like going down into a stuffy old basement,” she said with a shiver, “I’ll stick with Shadow.”

“Okay fine, but if I find any cool stuff down there it’s mine,” he said, running down the stairs, his overly large robe fluttering behind him.

“He finds himself in a mansion for a smut king and he turns into a ten-year-old,” Byte said, shaking her head.

“Hell, if I didn’t find you two in here, I’d be just as crazy as him, and I’m two years older,” I said, turning to head down the hall.

“Yeah, but you’re a perve,” Byte replied, catching up with me, the kitten ears on her head bouncing a little.

“Why does everyone keep saying that today?” I asked more to myself than anypony else.

“Because it’s true, but it’s cool, we don’t mind it so much. Though I’d make sure not to do it around your mom. I mean that’s just creepy for a mother to be seeing,” she said as we pushed open a door to a large office.

Walking inside I notice there wasn’t much in there apart from a large desk, a huge window overlooking the large backyard, a few books on a shelf, the latest terminal from Stable-Tec, and a dead pony in the office chair. On the name Plaque it read Little E. Ponyus. I walked in with Byte right behind me, “I wonder who this pony was?”

“Same last name as the guy on the picture downstairs, maybe it’s his son.”

“Maybe,” I said moving closer and looking at the dead pony, he was mostly bones now, but the way his skin looked and what was left on his coat, he looked more like a dead ghoul. If he’d died when Equestria did, he’d be nothing but dust and bones, “I think he was a ghoul and died a while later.”

“Can you move him?” Byte asked.

“Sure, I guess,” I said, lifting the body with my magic and moving him over to a corner. The bones and what was left of his skin nearly falling apart.

“Thank you,” she said, dusting off the chair and jumping into it, “Now let’s see if this place has cameras.”

“What’re you looking for anyway?” I asked, walking over to the window to look at the large backyard. My eyes went wide as I took in the large pool, the party deck, a maze…a fucking hedge maze. There was a lot more to see but I was already annoyed at how much crap this one pony had for his house.

“What a tool,” I said.

Byte started typing on the terminal as she said, “Jealous are we? No matter, we have time to kill, might as well see what this dude’s life was like. You never know what you’ll find on these things,” she paused, “Dammit, it’s got some nasty anti-hacking software. Well luckily for me, I’ve got better software.” She then hooked up her own Mark II and started it’s hacking software.

“You’re really good at that,” I said, watching her work. She got the password in two tries.

“Been hacking into terminals since I was six, Rusty used to bring me to the labs when I was little, and I’d get bored. One of the scientists started showing me how terminals work and more. I was a natural, and in a few months, I was able to hack into most of the terminals in the labs. Rusty used to challenge me once he found out, saying it was a good skill to have. He’d update the security on the terminals at the labs and at our house until I could break through. Got my Cutie Mark doing that funny enough,” she said as she started searching though the files.

“I’ve been wondering about that. I was curious about the whole cookie with a chunk missing and wires coming out,” I said.

She laughed a little at that. “Fits my name I guess, but it really just means my special talent is computers.”

“And here I thought it was that you were an inventor,” I said with a smile.

“I am, but that’s not my special talent. By the way, what’s yours?” she asked.

“No idea, or rather I don’t fully understand it,” I replied.

She stopped typing to look at me, “Really?”

“Yeah, got it when I snuck into the Overmare’s office, had to teleport out when she almost caught me. No idea what it means or what my talent is. My uncle says it means I’m a powerful magic user, but he’s also a little crazy so I’m not sure,” I explained.

“Hmmm, interesting. I mean I’ve seen you cast some powerful spells, he could be right,” she said, going back to looking through the files.

“Maybe, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it, I mean I can understand the Star and how our family always has one and all that, but what do the keys mean?” I asked.

“Could just mean you’re good at unlocking stuff. They’re skeleton keys,” she said.

I took a moment to think about that, “I guess, but still it just doesn’t feel right. Close, but not right.”

Byte just kept on typing away, “Whatever, anyway, all I’m finding on this thing is mostly stuff about the business, some personal correspondents, a few financial files, and properties this guy owned, or his dad.”

“Well, I wasn’t too hopeful that we’d find much, at least you tried,” I said, turning to head back out of the office.

“It just doesn’t make sense though, all of this stuff is important to a point, but not enough for the level of security that was on here. There has to be…” she said before pausing, “Ah hah, there we go, found a hidden file.”

“Really? What’s on it?” I asked turning back.

“Just some security feeds I think, maybe he was hiding something from his dad. I can play them if you want. There’s a larger monitor over there,” Byte said, pointing a hoof at the far wall, “Could be something naughty.”

“Yeah let’s see what it is, might be interesting,” I said, walking closer to the larger screen as she worked.

“Okay they’re all labeled by date. I’ll start with the oldest one and work our way down the list,” Byte said.

A moment later the screen came to life, followed by an overhead view of the office. Sitting at the desk was a handsome stallion who looked a lot like the older pony from the portrait in the living room only with a sandy colored mane and what looked like silver eyes. Unlike the older pony he wasn’t wearing a robe or a captain’s hat, but a sleek three-piece suit. He looked like he was in his late thirty’s maybe early forties. He was just working away on the terminal with stacks of paper in front of him, looking bored.

A moment after the video started though, a young mare in one of those kitten outfits came into the room, “Excuse me sir, but you have a visitor. She said she doesn’t have an appointment but needs to see you right away.”

“Who is it? I’m behind enough as it is and my father would kill me if he thought I was messing around with some random mare,” the stallion said.

“She said her name is Babs, she’s with The Ministry of Awesome,” the mare said.

His entire expression changed from irritated to joy, “Oh of course, let her in right away please, thank you Fog.”

“Always a pleasure sir,” she said before leaving. Not thirty seconds later, Babs walked in. Babs Seed, the only earth pony mare in The Children of the Night. As soon as she came in, I knew that this had to have taken place after the battle of Las Pegasus. Her face was riddled with small scars, the most noticeable thing was that her right foreleg was missing, replaced by some high-tech prosthetic. Her mane was now cut into a Mohawk and she looked pissed.

“Babs, it’s wonderful to see you again, I see you were able to get a new leg. I heard how bad it was and I thought you might not make it, you had me worried sick darling,” the stallion started to say before she reached the desk. Before he could continue, she lifted her left foreleg and slapped him as hard as she could.

He went flying out of his chair from the blow, a look of shock on his face as Babs moved to stand over him. “I told you before Little, not to call me Dahlin’, or honey, or love err any of that pathetic mushy shit. We had one night together and ya think ya own me. Well guess what asshat, ya don’t. I’m not here because I wanna be, and you should know that ya fuckin’ mook.”

He was shaking a little, but managed to get back to his hooves, “My apologies Babs, but you know how I feel about you. I take it you got my letter.”

“Yeah, all ten of em’ over the past two weeks, I told you before to leave me alone. That’s the only reason I’m here to give ya this,” she said, tossing an envelope by his hooves.

“What’s this?” he asked, lifting the envelope in his muzzle and setting it on the desk to open it.

“A restrainin’ ordah, you’ve been harassin’ me even after ya said you’d leave me the fuck alone. It’s been signed and sealed by a judge and as of tomorrow it goes into effect. You ain’t allowed within a mile of me, ya can’t talk to me, ya can’t even have a friend come bother me for ya. See I made sure of that last part because you’re a dickhead and would try somethin’ dickheaded like that. Don’t even think about payin’ someone off to bothuh me neither,” she said in a pissed off voice.

He didn’t even bother trying to finish opening the letter, “Babs, I know I told you I’d leave you alone and I meant it, but that was before I heard the news. I’ll fight this in court if I have to. You won’t keep me from my child.”

Her eyes blazed with anger at that. “How do you even know that I’m pregnant? You already got someone spyin’ on me ya fuckin’ stalker? Cause I swear tuh Luna that I’ll feed ya your fuckin’ teeth aftuh cuttin’ off ya bawls and shovin’ em’ up your ass.”

From the look Babs was giving him and the way she looked physically, I actually believed she could do what she was threatening. If I ever go to Manehattan, I should remember not to piss off any locals. Wait, who am I kidding? I piss off at least on pony no matter where I go.

His cowering demeanor changed as a cocky smile came to his face. “I have friends in high places too you know. A friend at the Ministry of Peace told me the news.”

She rolled her eyes. “What makes you think it’s yours?”

“Timing fits, and from what I remember from our drunken night at the Lucky Horseshoe, you admitted that you haven’t been with another stallion before me in a long time. The battle of Las Pegasus happened the very next day and after that you’ve been in the hospital, then two different Ministry labs, getting that leg of yours. So, I know it’s mine and I want to know my child,” he said, his voice sounding angrier each second.

“Yeah well too bad, cause I don’t want any foal of mine bein’ raised around all this fuckin’ smut like you were!” she exclaimed.

“What kind of life will you give them huh? You don’t have the kind of money I do. You’re always off fighting with your so-called team. You’re too busy to take care of a foal, and what child would want to grow up in Las Pegasus. I want to give my foal the life they deserve,” Little E. Ponyus said, “A life where they won’t have to want for anything and will have at least some sort of parental figure around to teach them right.”

She moved closer again then punched him in the face knocking him down again. “Listen to me and listen good Little, my foal will NOT EVUH know you. They won’t evuh see you. As far as they’ll know, one of my team is their father, or some random stranger I fucked when I was drunk, cause that’s at least close to the truth. I have a lot of money too, I’ve been savin’ for years to open my own business in Los Alicorn, and I’ll give em’ a good life. You’ll stay away if ya know what’s good for ya, and if you don’t, I’ll make sure you do by breakin’ every bone in ya body. Make it so ya have to pay one of your kitten sluts to wipe your ass for ya.”

He started to laugh. “How do you plan on making me do anything Babs? I’m not afraid of a few broken bones.”

She pulled a beautiful gun from the holster under her jacket and pointed it right at his head. I gasped as I saw the weapon, it was Dream Walker. There was no doubt about it. “Listen to me Little E. Ponyus, if you try to make my life hell, I’ll return the favor in ten...no one-hundred fold.”

She then holstered Dream Walker and walked out of the room slamming the office door behind her. The video stopped there. I looked at Byte and said, “Damn, he was kind of a dick huh?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, I’d say they both were kinda dickish. That Babs was having his foal and just threatened him to make sure he never met it. Kinda cruel if you ask me, though I can see why she wouldn’t want him to meet her foal too, because of the lifestyle he lived. Lavish and sleazy.”

“I knew Babs Seed had a foal, but I had no idea who the father was. Never heard anything about her getting married or having a special somepony,” I said, looking back at the screen.

“Who was she anyway?” Byte asked as she started to bring up the next video.

“She was the heavy infantry pony in The Children of the Night. She was a good friend of Night Stalker’s, a pony who he picked to join his team from the very beginning. She was hurt during the battle of Las Pegasus, but until now I didn’t know how badly,” I said as the video started.

Again, it was in this office, I’m guessing all of them were. From the time stamp this took place a year or so after Babs visited, and to my utter shock, Lonely Hearts was standing in the office talking to Little E. Ponyus. No way, that synth can’t be that old…can he?

Lonely Hearts was looking about the office as he said, “Nice digs you got here kiddo, makes me think that I’ve been in the wrong business for the past twenty years.”

Little looked irritated as he spoke. “Lonely Hearts, I didn’t hire you to tell me about how nice my office looks or comment on what you like about the place. I paid you to find information out on where that bitch is keeping my son.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a wad, I got as much as I could. You have no idea how much security is around your ex-lover’s kid,” Lonely Hearts said, tossing an envelope onto the desk, “From what I can tell, she’s living in the apartment over her new dance studio. She’s fully retired from whatever she was doing for The Ministry of Awesome. She used the money she earned to build and start her dance school. Nice place too and good music, you’d like the place. It was hard not to be noticed too. Had to enroll in some classes so I wouldn’t stand out. Course at my age, I’d stand out in a place like that anyway, but more as a creepy middle-aged guy rather than a private eye investigating the instructor and her kid.”

Little started going through the folder like his life depended on it. “Yeah I know about the stupid dancehall she built. Stupid place based off the Queen of Rock or whatever. What a stupid name, The Queen’s School of interpretive dance, give me a break. I don’t care, what about my son!?”

“I’m getting to it,” Lonely Hearts said, “The kid’s doing good, he’s walked and followed his mother around everywhere. Has playdates with another foal once a week. Kid’s name is Appleseed, his little friend is a pegasus named Nightblade, cute colt too.”

“Wait she named my son APPLESEED!?” Little yelled, throwing the folder across the room, “Appleseed, like he’s some back-water, inbred, bumpkin!?”

“Well Mr. Ponyus, Babs Seed is from the Apple Family, the biggest and richest family in Equestria. One of her cousins runs The Ministry of Wartime Technology her other cousin owns and runs Stable-Tec. She’s proud of her family name,” Lonely Hearts said, yawning a little, “Ya mind if I smoke in here kid?”

“Yes, I mind if you smoke in my office!” he yelled, before taking a deep breath then continuing, “Fine, whatever, did you find anything I can use against her to get custody of MY son?”

“Can’t say that I have. She keeps all her weapons locked up where he can’t get to them. If she has to leave for business of any kind, Appleseed stays with one of her friends. A cute unicorn couple she used to work with I believe or with her other friend Lightning Dust. She’s even had a griffon watch him sometimes. But that’s it, he’s healthy, happy, and free from harm. Not much else I can tell ya,” Lonely Hearts said, pulling a cigarette out and lighting it even after he was told he couldn’t smoke in the office.

“So, you’re telling me that you found nothing. Great, so I guess you really aren’t worth the money I paid you. I know that she was working on something big with that Pegasus boss of hers, Night Stalker. I thought if anypony could find what I needed, it would be YOU!” Little yelled.

“Well, funny you should bring that up. I didn’t say I didn’t find anything, just nothing about your son that you can use. But for the rest of the information I found, well let’s just say that another client of mine paid me to make sure that information never got out,” Lonely Hearts said, blowing smoke right into Little’s face, “Ya see I’m a freelancer P.I. and my other client has been working with me for a couple years now. Seniority and all that jazz.”

“Are you telling me that you took a damn bribe!” Little yelled.

“It’s not a bribe when you’re paid ahead of time by a previous client kid. Ever heard of a confidentiality agreement? I believe you signed one upon hiring me, agreeing to my terms of service. It’s how this business works. Anyhow, I should be going, I gave you what you asked for within my limits. I’ll expect the rest of my payment by the weeks end, have a good day Mr. Ponyus,” Lonely Hearts said, with a tip of his hat and started to walk out of the office.

“Where are you GOING? Also, I believe I said you CAN’T SMOKE IN HERE!” Little screamed, but it was too late, Lonely Hearts was gone.

The video ended then another started showing the time was only an hour after Lonely Hearts visited. The office was a mess and Little E. Ponyus was standing in the middle of his office looking furious. “Take my son away from me huh, bribe my P.I. huh? We’ll see how you like it when I hire a griffon to go to your damned dance studio and slit your throat in your sleep, you fucking cunt!”

Before he could do or say anything else, the lights went out in his office, bathing the large room in darkness with only a faint glow coming from the moon through the windows. Reminds me of a scene from a horror film I saw with Auntie back in the stable. Little twisted around from what I could make out, looking scared. Lightning flashed from a storm outside, illuminating the room for a few seconds. I saw a dark figure standing next to his desk followed by the voice of Noire, saying, “Rich ponies such as yourself should not curse or act the way you do Little E. Ponyus.”

“Who’s that!?” Little said in a scared voice, flipping around but seeing no one.

“No one but a ghost, or I guess it would be better to call me a shadow,” Noire said, his voice echoing around the room.

“You’re a zebra!? I can tell from your accent, what do you want? Money? I have plenty of money,” Little said, backing up toward his desk.

“What does an Assassin need with your filthy bits?” Noire asked.

“Assassin!?” Little Squeaked.

“Well most of the time I am, other times I am nothing more than an assistant to a great pony,” Noire said, lighting flashed again, and I caught sight of him behind the desk now sitting in Little’s chair. He was wearing the black suit Amethyst Star made for him with Minuette.

“Tell me who you are before I call security,” Little said, flipping around, but not seeing him. He’d vanished again.

“I have gone by many names in my life, the one I was given on the day of my rebirth is not one I will share with you. You may however know me by another name, some call me The Ghost of the Night,” he said with a small chuckle.

“No…that’s just a story the soldiers tell to scare the citizens when they’re on leave,” Little said, still trying to figure out where Noire was.

“A story, a myth, a devil, pick whatever title you want, but I am real, and I am here to give you a warning, one that you must heed,” Noire said, reappearing a few inches away from Little, then vanishing again. How the hell was he doing that?

“What’s that?” Little asked, twisting around.

Noire appeared from the darkness right behind Little E. Ponyus. He swept Little’s hooves out from under him, flipped him around and slammed him onto the ground, pinning him there. The rich pony’s face smashed to the floor. “That is an easy one, you will stop looking into Night Stalker and The Children. You will forget about the mare you filled with your seed and the spawn of that union. The foal is not yours no matter what you want to tell yourself. If you do not stop what you have been doing, I will pay you another visit. When I do, I will make sure you never see another sunrise. Do I make myself clear?”

Little was crying on the floor, his body shaking as Noire held him down, but he managed to nod his head a little, saying, “Fine…I’ll do it, I’ll stop. I just wanted to at least see my son, get to know him and help him grow to be a good pony like me.”

Noire lowered his helmeted head, and said, “You are not a good pony Little E. Ponyus, you in fact are a very bad pony. My employer has found all of your secret sex dens, your clubs you hide from the government, and so much more. You are lucky that rumor about you running a sex slave trading operation has not panned out, or you would be dead already. You will stop all of your business that does not have anything to do with your father’s company. You have three months to do that or once again I will return, and you will die.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll do it now just please get off me!” Little yelled.

Noire did, then slowly stepped back into the shadows. “Remember what I said Mr. Ponyus, if you do not do as you are told, I will return.”

For a long moment, Little didn’t get back to his hooves, he just lied there shaking in fear of the zebra. Even I felt a little fear, even though this happened over two hundred years ago; that buck was scary when he wanted to be. Finally, Little got back to his hooves, wiped his eyes, then said quietly, “I’ll have my own mercs find you and hunt you down you little shit. I’m not scared…”

His sentence was cut short as Noire appeared in front of him making the other pony back up screaming. However, he wasn’t fast enough to stop the small blade that slid out of Noire’s outfit and jammed into his left eye. Not enough to kill the pony, but enough to blind that one eye. Little screamed in pain as the small blade was pulled out, blood and fluid running down his face as he fell back.

Noire raised his voice just loud enough for the pony to hear over his screams, and said, “That was the one and only warning you will get. Be happy I only took your eye,” then as if by magic, he disappeared again, leaving the rich pony to scream and wail as the lights came back on and security burst into the room. No one ever saw the Zebra come or go. Just like a ghost, he was gone.

“Holy shit, that was messed up,” Byte said from the desk, “Was that a zebra?”

“Yeah, another one of Night Stalker’s Children. I don’t know much about him, only that he was a prisoner at first, the third son of the Caesar at the time. He later joined Night Stalker after his father disowned him and helped them with Falling Shadows, but that’s all I know about him. I guess he ended up being an assassin for Night Stalker,” I said, still looking up at the screen.

“That’s still messed up, but I guess that asshole kinda brought it on himself,” Byte said, starting to type again, “There’s only two more videos, both dated years after this took place.”

“You mean after the megaspells?” I asked.

“Yeah, one is a few years after this one and the last video is from about twenty years ago,” she replied.

“Let’s watch them,” I said, looking back at the screen.

She started the next one which was dated about ten years after the megaspells. Before it played, Wingnut walked back into the room, saying, “Hey, what are you two doing?”

“Got bored, so we’re watching old security footage from Little E. Ponyus, the son of the guy who owned this place,” I said.

“Oh cool, can I watch too?” he asked, coming to stand next to me.

“Sure, I don’t see why not. It’s not like we can do anything right now,” I said as Byte hit play.

The office was a wreck, you could tell that the radiation was still thick in the air back then, only ten years had passed so I guess that made sense. A ghoul walked into the shot; it could only be Little. So, he did survive the megaspells, just not the effects. He went to go sit at his desk saying, “Damn crazed ponies not respecting my land. Good thing dad upgraded the security on this place before he died.”

His voice sounded like most ghouls, but I could still tell it was Little E. Ponyus. He coughed then started messing with his terminal when a knock came at his office door. He looked up, “Huh? You stupid robots, I’ve told you already that I don’t want you to bother me.”

The door opened and it wasn’t a robot that came into the office, it was a stallion followed closely by a colt. The stallion was well built and wore faded military fatigues with a captain’s emblem on the arms and the neck of the uniform. His coat was a dark lavender, his mane gone grey. The colt was a muddy brown with a vibrant dark red mane and light green eyes. When they walked in the stallion spoke in a rich voice that sounded a lot like what I’d expect of a southern pony.

“Howdy Mr. Ponyus, my apologies for botherin’ ya sir, I’m Apple Core and I’ve come seekin’ your help with somethin’,” he said, bowing his head a little.

“How the hell did you get into my house? Only a Ponyus can get past the gate without being blown to hell!” Little yelled, his raspy voice breaking a little as he stood.

The colt, who could only be around eleven or twelve spoke next, “Sorry sir, but it wasn’t hard for me to get past the gate. You see, I’m your son, names Appleseed. My mother told me about you a few months ago and said if I ever needed help, I could come to you. She told me you were a ghoul, but that you’d still be willing to help me.”

“That’s right sir, this here is my young second cousin twice removed or something like that. Knew his ma very well durin’ the war and even after. Young Appleseed here’s lost his mother and well, I right can’t take care of him on my own and was hopin’ you could offer us a little help and maybe a place to stay while the colt grows a little more,” Apple Core said politely.

Little looked at Appleseed for a long moment almost like he couldn’t believe that after all this time, he was finally meeting his son. Then his remaining eye went cold and the angry ghoul picked up a paper weight and threw it at Appleseed…missing his head by an inch as he screamed, “I have no son! That bitch who opened her legs for me made sure of THAT! Get out of my house before I have my robots kill the both of you!”

Apple Core had drawn a revolver from his side holster, but didn’t aim it at Little, just kept it in his muzzle as he spoke, “Mr. Ponyus this ain’t necessary, from what Babs told me, you wanted to know your son and after the war ended she regretted not lettin’ you meet him. We’ve traveled a long way for him to meet you.”

Appleseed looked more angry than scared of the ghoul as he said, “Yeah, and from what I know, this place is as much mine as it is yours…SIR.”

Little started to laugh. “Oh, I see. So that’s what’s going on. You want my bits! You want my house, let me guess your whore of a mother can’t stand living in that shithole Las Pegasus anymore so she wants you to take my place huh? I bet she’s not even dead, bet that bitch is hiding in the hallway isn’t she!?” he started yelling again, “Come and face me Babs Seed! Now you stupid cunt, don’t send this brat in to do your dirty work!”

“I will not let you stand there and insult my cousin’s memory sir, she’s dead, has been for a few weeks now. You shouldn’t be actin’ like this in front of your son,” Apple Core said angrily.

“I have NO SON, that colt might have my genes but he’s nothing more than a witless Apple, just like the rest of your stupid family. Now, I won’t say this again, get the fuck out of my house before I pump your gut full of lead!” he screamed throwing another item at them.

“I see you’re goin’ into full ghoul mode soon, maybe I should just put you out of your misery. Better than lettin’ ya go feral on us,” Apple Core said.

Appleseed put a hoof on his shoulder, “He’s not worth it, Mom was right, he’s nothing more than a sad old fool with anger problems. Let’s just go and we’ll find another place to hold up for a while.”

Apple Core let out a long sigh then holstered his weapon, saying, “Fine, you’re right, this ghoul ain’t worth the rottin’ skin he lives in.”

They turned to leave, but Little’s eye went a little soft as he said, “I have a question first.”

Appleseed looked back sighing. “What is it?”

“How…how did she die?” Little asked.

Appleseed glared at him, saying, “She was killed by an old friend of hers, the griffon who started that new Red Talons group in Las Pegasus. Would’ve killed me too, but I got away,” he turned to leave then stopped and looked back again, “And by the way…Father…I’m not stupid. Mom said I’m one of the brightest minds she’s ever met, maybe smarter than her cousin Apple Bloom. If anyone here is an idiot, it’s you.”

“And why can’t that stallion take care of you anymore? He said something about that before,” Little asked.

Apple Core spoke up, “I’m dyin’ slowly from radiation sickness. Not much that can be done anymore. Got maybe a month could be two before I kick the bucket. That’s why I was tryin’ to find him a good place to grow. But I can see that it ain’t here. Good day.”

Before they left the room, Little started laughing again. “Guess not all of us can turn into ghouls huh? Well good thing, soon another Apple will be gone. Oh, I hope you both die horrible deaths just like I hope Babs did!”

Before they left and fully closed the door, Appleseed looked back at his father, saying, “Trust me, I’ll survive, and one day, either myself or one of my descendants will be back and we’ll make you pay for that comment and for throwing me out. Enjoy your rotten afterlife.”

The video ended and the three of us looked in utter shock at what happened between them. Finally, Wingnut said, “Wow, that’s just insane.”

We all looked over at the dead ghoul rotting in the corner. He’d been stabbed in the chest from what we could tell. Either some pony else found a way to get in here and killed him a while back, or one of Appleseed’s children or grandchildren did. I looked back at the foals, “I’m not sure I wanna see the last video. That was nuts.”

“Well we can’t just leave the story half finished,” Byte said, pulling up the last video, “Let’s see what this one holds.”

I sighed. “Okay then, but I’m sure it’s just gonna be more angry, rich, ghoul perve, and his problems.”

The video came up, dated twenty years ago. Little E. Ponyus was walking around his office muttering to himself, twitching every now and then. From the looks of it, he was sinking deep into becoming a feral ghoul. As he walked around, the door to his office opened and a mare walked in. She was taller, with an aquamarine mane that was cut short, a light yellow coat, and dark blue eyes. She had a Cutie Mark of a Toolbox on her flank and wore light leather armor with a one-sided battle saddle. She couldn’t have been any older than me, maybe a year or so older, it was hard to tell. She walked into the office with utter confidence as Little E. Ponyus twisted around, his dead eye glaring at her.

“Who the hell are you…this is my land, my house, get out!” he yelled, his voice more rasp than anything now.

When the mare spoke, her voice was just as beautiful as she was, “Hello, Little E. Ponyus, my name is Crescent Wrench and I’m here to fulfill a promise made to you a long time ago by my great-great grandfather.”

The Ghoul looked over at her, drool falling from his muzzle in a long stream, “Promise? What promise? I haven’t talked to anypony in over a century! How’d you get in here, are you with those Steel Ranger shits? I told them to stay out! Leave, leave, LEAVE!”

The battle saddle clicked as she moved something on it, chambering a round. She smiled as Little moved toward her slowly, one of his legs dragging from some injury he must’ve taken over the years. “I don’t think so, you see, this house belongs to the Ponyus family. That means me, I don’t really want the place, but I do want to make sure my distant grandfathers wish comes true.”

Little started to rage as he tried to charge her. “If you’re talking about that little brat of BABS’ then you can die like he SHOULD HAVE!”

She twisted around and bucked him away, sending his body flying over the desk to land in the chair behind it. “I was going to just shoot you in the head to put you down quickly, but I see that you’re gonna be a pain, so we’ll have to do this slow.” She moved behind the desk and the chair then twisted it around and started to tie the ghoul down. When she was done, she pulled a long knife out of a holster on her side and slowly moved it closer to his chest. “If you say sorry, I’ll make this less painful.”

“Get out, get out, get out, get OUT!” he screamed, his head whipping back and forth as foam formed at his lips.

“Oh well, it was worth a try,” she said, and she started pushing the knife into his chest. The ghoul screamed as every centimeter of the blade dug into him taking close to a minute. He pulled at his bindings screaming louder, begging for his robots to save him, for somepony to help him. Then when the knife was half way in, his body jerked and he stopped screaming, his head tilted forward and he said something so quiet I barley heard it. Most of it was just noise.

Crescent stopped and said, “What did you just say?”

This time he spoke just a little louder, “I’m sorry son, I’m sorry Babs, I’m sorry father, I wasn’t…a good pony…I was just mad that you…didn’t love me Babs, that’s all I wanted…somepony…to…love me.”

“Little E. Ponyus? Are you still in there somewhere?” she asked, holding the knife in his chest.

He looked up at her, his eyes looking more alive than they did a moment ago. To my shock, he smiled a little, “Are you my son’s daughter?”

“No, I’m his distant Granddaughter, yours too,” she said, looking a little shocked.

“He was a handsome colt, looked like his mom a little. I remember when I first met him. I couldn’t tell him that I was happy to meet him. Had to tell him to go away, had to or else…the zebra would have, came back for me. Knew he would be safer…out there, than…in here. I did that to…protect him. He hates me you know,” Little said, his eye distant, “He hates me for what I am, I wish I could tell him I’m sorry, tell her too.”

“I…I’m not going to let you live just because you got a little of your sanity back,” she said.

“You shouldn’t…I should’ve died a long time ago,” he said, his gaze looking so sad as he continued, “Did my son live to be an old pony?”

I could see tears in Crescent’s eyes now as she shook her head, “No, he died when he was forty-three, ran into some taint, he didn’t last long.”

“I…should’ve protected him,” he said, then looked back into her eyes, “A parent’s duty to their child is to protect them, even if it cost them their own life. Remember that when you have a little one. Don’t let them hate you, make sure they know they’re loved. Make sure you never let anything bad happen to them. Even…if it…cost you your own life. Foals are a gift, one that should never be taken for granted,” before he could say anything else, he jerked his chest forward into her knife and the light in his eyes went out as his body slumped.

She pulled the knife out, looking at the dead ghoul ignoring the goo on her blade. “I can’t believe you did that, what was your life like if you really gave up so much to keep your son safe? To think I came here to get revenge for him, just like my own father tried years ago and his mother before him. Maybe you were a good pony deep down Little E. Ponyus, may the goddesses watch over you in the next life,” she then moved to his terminal and started looking through it right as the video went out.

Byte and I both looked at the screen in awe, I couldn’t believe what I just saw. So Little E. Ponyus did take Noire’s threat to heart and made sure his son never knew him. Kept him away, just in case the zebra ever came back. He regretted it in the end, knowing that he should’ve ignored the threat if only so his son could have been safe after Babs died.

“That was strange, I wonder who that mare is. What do you think Wingnut? Wingnut?” Byte said, looking over to the colt who was frozen looking up at the now blank screen.

I walked over to him and put a hoof on his shoulder, asking, “Hey kid, you okay?”

He had tears in his eyes I saw, at my touch he said quietly, “I’d almost forgotten what she looked like.”

“What’s that? Did you know that mare?” I asked.

The tears started to flow as he looked up at me nodding slowly. “I knew her very well. Crescent Wrench, one of the best fixers in all of The Wasteland. Wife of Long Dagger, strong headed, a little perverted at times, loved to laugh at any joke she made, and loved to make her husband blush. She also was my mother.”

Byte and I both looked at Wingnut for a long moment, the realization of his statement hitting us both like a sledgehammer. I felt my own tears falling as I realized that mare in the video would die in a few years-time, leaving her only son to fend for himself in The Wasteland. She’d die alongside her husband doing exactly what Little E. Ponyus said, protecting her foal. It was only a few moments later that I realized the other revelation from watching these videos, well two of them in fact. One was the reason Wingnut was able to get into the mansion without dying leaving it open for my entry later. He was the distant grandson of the Ponyus family. That explained a lot about his Pervy side. But that was nothing on top of the fact that he was also a descendent of one of the Children of the Night, just like me. His distant grandmother was Babs Seed, he wasn’t just a descendent of a Child of the Night, he was also an Apple. One of the biggest families in old Equestria. Owners of Stable-Tec, one led the MWT, and another ran one of the biggest weapons manufacturers in Equestria.

The family must’ve dropped the Apple name sometime in the past, but that didn’t change the fact that he was one of them. It also explained his brain too, why he was so smart. Applebloom was said to be the smartest and brightest inventor of her time. She built Stable-Tec from scratch, kept it mostly free of The Ministries, created the Stables giving ponies a chance to survive, she made the Pip-Buck, built robots, and even designed a school for Princess Luna from what I’ve heard. So much history around a wonderful, brilliant, and hurting colt. All of that ran though my head in a matter of a few seconds. Then I let it all fade away, none of it mattered right now. Who cares who Wingnut’s family was, who cares what they did in the past, who cares what they started. All that mattered right now was that my friend was in tears after seeing his mother for the first time in many years.

I leaned down and pulled him into a tight hug letting my own tears fall onto his head as he started breaking down. I rubbed a hoof over his mane saying quietly, “It’s okay kid, let it out.”

A moment later I felt Byte join us and to my shock she started crying too. No idea why, but I just pulled her in close and sat on the floor of the dusty, dirty office as the two foals finally let all the pain, all the suffering, all the sorrow out for the first time in years. We sat there as the lights outside dimmed further as night fell on Los Alicorn. The distant sounds of gunfire echoing across the dead city. Like ghosts in the night.

***

It took an hour or more for the two to calm down and pull away from me at last. When they did, they left my duster wet, but I didn’t mind at all. Auntie Vervain always told me that tears can heal a lot of things. It was holding them back that caused more pain. When they finally pulled away, I asked, “You two gonna be okay?”

Byte answered first, her voice soft, “I think so, sorry I broke down like that. I just saw Wingnut lose it over seeing his mom and it made me remember my own, and the way she died.”

“At least you didn’t have to hear it,” Wingnut said looking over at her, “But I’m still sorry that you had to lose your mom too. I’m sure you loved her as much as I did mine.”

“I don’t remember her much honestly,” Byte said sniffing again, “I was really young when she died, but now and then I remember things like, something cooking in the kitchen of our small house, the scent of her leather armor next to the door, her smile. Silly things like that”

“My mom could make anything out of random stuff she found in The Wasteland. She was a good cook, but not as good as my dad,” Wingnut said, then looked over at me, “What about you Shadow?”

I tilted my head to one side. “What about me? My mom’s still alive.”

“Yeah, but you lost her when you were young and just found her again. You know more than anypony else how we feel,” Wingnut said with a smile.

“Well,” I said, leaning back a little, “I remember when we still lived in The Crystal Empire, she used to come home from work and come find me right away, not to check on my health or anything like that, but just to sit and hold me. Even up to the day we left she’d do that. I remember asking her once why she would come home and tell me things about her day at work or whatever she was really up to and she’d just say, ‘Sweetie, you’re the only pony in all of the world that won’t judge me and just love me for who I am’. That was something I looked forward to, seeing her and just listening to her as she talked. It helped the pain go away a little and cleared my head. It was wonderful.”

“She had a lot to deal with and yet she still took time to be with you huh?” Wingnut asked.

“Yeah, she was a good mom for the most part. I saw my dad more than her before we left, but he was always worrying about me, she was too, but she didn’t show it as much,” I said, “What about you Wingnut? You don’t talk about them much, I’m sure you have a lot of happy memories.”

“More than I do bad, I think the only bad thing in our lives was when they died. My parents didn’t fight much, they just loved to travel and trade. My mom loved to make things and fix stuff, my dad used to be a merc before he met my mom and would get into scraps now and then with other ponies, but he was good in the end. We never needed food, we always had caps, and a place to sleep. It was a good life,” he said.

“Byte?” I asked looking over at her.

“Like I said I can’t remember much about her, but Rusty was always around even before she died. He’s my family now and we’ve had a lot of good and bad memories, but mostly good,” she said with a smile.

Wingnut’s eyes went wide and he looked back at me, “I just realized Shadow! My mom, she said in that video that she was descended from Appleseed! I remember her saying something about it now, you know what that means!?”

“I realized it before you started crying kiddo, I just didn’t want to bring it up yet. You’re the same as me, descended from The Children of the Night,” my eyes went wide again, “Night Stalker said something like this would happen one day, that zebra told him about it.”

The two foals looked at me like I was nuts, Byte saying, “Did you hit your head or something? What are you talking about?”

“In a memory orb I watched when I was on The Bitter Cob, Night Stalker told my distant grandfather Dwarf Star about something he was told by an old Zebra, a way to break the curse on our families! It had something to do with one of the descendants bringing the rest of the descendants of the Children together and taking down the betrayer. Not sure how, but I mean there has to be something to it right?” I said, realizing right after I spoke how stupid it all sounded.

Byte and Wingnut both looked at me like I’d lost it, Wingnut saying, “You saw your great grandfather talking about a curse and how to break it? I don’t know Shadow, it’s probably just a coincidence. I mean there has to be a few of us out there and how would you know you had all of them together?”

“I agree with Wingnut, and curses aren’t real. I’ve read plenty of books about them by famed unicorns who all say the same thing. There’s dark and light magic, but a curse, especially one that goes on for generations is just a bunch of crap made up by zebras to scare ponies. It’s as simple as that,” Byte added.

“I don’t know guys, I mean if you look at the history of the families, a lot of bad stuff happened to them, mine included,” I said, trying to defend my own thoughts.

“Yeah, because we live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland Shadow,” Wingnut said, “I just can’t see it, not unless I had proof.”

My ears drooped followed by a sigh. “Fine, but I still think I’m right. I know my uncle and mom will agree with me too.”

“You do whatever you want, but do you think we can get to sleep? We can’t hold up here forever and a good night’s rest will make going through the city tomorrow a lot easier,” Byte said, yawning in the middle of what she was saying.

“Okay, I’ll drop it for now, let’s go see if we can find a room that’s dust and bone free,” I said, heading toward the door.

“Oh, I know how we can find a room,” Wingnut said, then opened the door and yelled, “GINGER, BARBIE, GET IN HERE!”

Within seconds the two Ms. Nannys were flying down the hall.

Ginger bobbed up and down, saying excitedly, “Yes sir, what can I do for you today, do you need a makeover too or maybe a hot bath!?”

“Bitch the master doesn’t need a makeover, I mean like, look at him, he’s already adorable and it works for him. Reminds me of master Little when he was a colt, before he turned into a dick,” Barbie said.

A gasping sound came from Ginger before she smacked the other bot with her claw arm, saying, “I say, you shouldn’t talk about master Little like that. The poor dear went through so much and he was always kind to us.”

“He like totally made us go look for mares for him even after he turned into a ghoul, he was a dick,” Barbie said, drifting closer to Wingnut, “Sorry sir, Ginger doesn’t understand how the real-world works, how can I help you.”

“We need a room to stay in for the night,” Wingnut said as Byte rolled around on the floor laughing at the insane robots.

“OH! I know the perfect place!” Ginger said before zooming away, not even waiting for us.

Luckily Barbie seemed to have a more intact mind…for a robot, she just sighed and said, “The Master Hugh G. Ponyus’s room is still clean and has a big bed that should like totally work for you and your friends. His son left it alone after his father died during the big blasts.”

“That should work,” Wingnut said, “Lead the way.”

She did, going slower than Ginger who we could hear making conversation with no pony down the halls. As we walked, I noticed how empty this house felt. Then I remembered the security systems. “Hey Wingnut, I know you were able to get in here with Byte, but why didn’t I get blasted when I came in?”

He looked like he was about to say something but Barbie beat him to it, “When Master Wingnut was let in at the gate he was registered as the new owner of the property since he is of the Ponyus bloodline and no other registered members of the family are alive in the mansion itself. When he was registered, he was asked if the security should stay on to protect him.”

Wingnut interrupted, “Yeah, though they didn’t tell me I was a Ponyus, but the gate asked me that question and I said sure, but if a short pony with a duster came in to let her.”

“Yes, the gate has a sophisticated security system made by Carrot Inc. It can see details of ponies coming and going. You showed up on the system and matched what Master Wingnut described and you were let in,” Barbie said, stopping next to a big set of double doors, “So, like we’re here, you may all stay in this room tonight and if you need something to eat, there might be food that’s still good in the pantry.”

Ginger was floating up and down next to the door. “And you have no idea what it’s been like stuck in this house with just Barbie, she’s such a bitch, she needs to be reprogrammed I swear.”

“Who’s she talking to?” I asked.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for like a long time, her mind is going the poor girl,” Barbie said, then she smacked Ginger in the back of the orb like body, “Let’s go back to our room and get you shut down for a bit.”

Ginger stopped bobbing then her cameras turned toward Barbie. “Sounds like a great idea!” and with that she was gone again followed by Barbie.

“Those two are so weird,” I said before pushing the door to the large room open, my eyes going wide, “Oh yeah, this’ll do just fine.”

The room was huge with a king sized four poster bed, large windows to each side, silk sheets that I couldn’t believe were still there, a large dresser, and much more. The other two and I walked into the room closing the door behind us. All of us in awe of the bedroom.

“Okay, this dude knew how to live,” Byte said, running to jump onto the bed, her small body bouncing a few times as she giggled happily, her kitty ears flying off her head.

“Yeah, I agree. Well, should we eat, then get some rest?” Wingnut asked as he walked over to the bed.

“Sounds like a plan to me. I think I have some food in my saddle bags, and I can see if there’s any food around here,” I said, setting my bags down.

“Sounds great,” Wingnut said before jumping onto the bed with Byte.

I just smiled and let them be foals, for all we knew this was the only time they’d be able to act this way ever again. So, I started my search. It didn’t take me long to find a few snack cakes, some beans in a can, some cram which I put away in my bags for Aura, and a few other things that we could use for food. We sat on the floor eating till we couldn’t anymore, talking about the past, and for once enjoying ourselves. An hour or so later we were all passed out on the large bed, Wingnut and Byte both sleeping on either side of me. I had my shotgun propped next to the bed and Dream Walker under the pillow just in case somepony got in. For the first time in a long time, I fell asleep without the help of a potion and barely had any nightmares.

***

The next day we packed up our stuff, roamed around the house more to see if we could find anything we could use or sell, said goodbye to the two odd robots and headed out the front door. I looked out at the city which stretched out in front of us and wondered how we’d ever make it to The Ministry. I knew two ways I could go, either we could try to get to the University that Mr. Tops told me about and use the device he gave me to get in, if he was right about the location. Otherwise, I could use mom’s way in, go to The Bank of Equestria Tower and get to the top of the building and find a Synth that looked like one of my uncles. They were the ones who were told to let me in, somehow.

The question was which uncle was I looking for and even more, why would The Ministry make a synth of either of my uncles. It was a lot to think about so I looked down at Wingnut and Byte, asking, “So, where should we go? From what I know we can either go to the University and try to get into The Ministry from there like Mr. Tops told me, or we go to The Bank of Equestria Tower and find the synth waiting there for us.”

“I think we need to go to whichever is closer,” Byte said, pulling a large map out of her saddle bags and setting it down on the ground, “Found this on some dead pony not far from here.”

I looked down at it as she ran her hoof over the map, when finally, Wingnut said, “Well there’s the University of Los Alicorn, it’s only a few blocks away from us.”

Byte spoke up next, “And the Tower is a bit farther and right in the middle of downtown. So, I think we should try Mr. Tops’ way in. It’s probably the smartest idea, plus we have no guarantee that synth will even be there.”

“You’ve got a point and with The Steel Rangers roaming around looking for the downed sky carriage, there’s a good chance we’ll have problems with them if we head into the city. Speaking of The Steel Rangers, where are they located anyway?” I asked.

“Not too sure really,” Wingnut said as he helped Byte roll up the map again, “If I were to guess I’d say they’re either north of us or west. If anything, I’d say they’re where The Palisade is hovering. So, near the Applewood Sign.”

“That would make sense,” I said, looking out and just seeing the airship in the distance hovering over the Applewood Sign, “I couldn’t see Wolfsbane leaving his ship too far out of sight.”

“So are we heading to U.E.L.A. then?” Byte asked.

“Yeah, I think it’s the best idea, I just hope this thing Mr. Tops gave me will work,” I said, using the Mark II to take out what was labeled as ‘Teleporter Ministry Transport Chip’ on the screen, “He said I put this in my Pip-Buck then I have no idea what to do. But as long as you two are next to me it’ll bring you into The Ministry with me.”

“I hope that thing works, I’ve never heard of tech that can teleport before,” Wingnut said, though his eyes were big looking at the small chip held in my magical grasp.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out, and are you sure the others will be waiting for us there?” I asked.

“As long as they got away from the Steel Rangers then yeah,” Byte said, “Aura said she’d come look for us if it took longer than a day or two, but your mom said The Ministry wouldn’t let them leave as soon as they entered for a while so we’ll see I guess.”

“Great, I don’t know why she had to push me off that sky carriage,” I said with a sigh, “Well, both of you keep your weapons ready and let’s get going.”

They both grinned up at me and we were off, heading past the gates which shut on their own when we left the property. Something made a clicking sound when they did, giving me the impression that the security system was back up and running once again, protecting the old mansion from this dead city. With that we headed toward where the U.E.L.A. Should still be. As we walked the sound of gunfire still echoed in the distance, but apart from that, it was quiet. It took us about a half-hour to make our way out of the super wealthy neighborhood and start going toward the northern part of the city where the university was located. In the distance I could just make out the old beach where I’d first woken up yesterday. I saw that the whole beach looked just as dead as where I’d been. The sand was black, the rundown war machines sitting off the coast and on the beach itself, skeletons all over the place. It was a ghost beach now, a place where only the dead should wonder.

I looked away and sighed at the nasty sight of the place. It was a shame this city couldn’t be held together after the war. But, that’s just the way things go, especially when you have groups like The Steel Rangers and The Enclave keeping ponies from rebuilding. One day maybe this city could be rebuilt, once a pony or more takes care of the infestation of Steel Rangers. A pony like me. Though that was wishful thinking, I’ve done some amazing things I know, but I couldn’t stop all of them, not on my own. I was gonna need help and maybe, just maybe, if I played my cards right, I could find that help from groups like The Ministry, The N.L.R. and if I could fix The Enclave a little, maybe even them too. From what I could see, The Enclave itself wasn’t that bad, it was the leaders who were the problem. Ponies like my father were the ones who were trying to make things better and if they had the help they needed, maybe they could and in turn they can help me get rid of a monster that wore steel armor.

“Shadow, I think we’re almost there,” Byte said, pulling me from my thoughts.

I looked up and saw that we were standing in front of a large, rusty, iron archway that led to a mostly overgrown path that wound around a large yard with dead trees and stone benches and tables all around, standing in the background was a building made of stone with ‘University of Equestria: Los Alicorn Campus’ over the main doors. There were a few skeletons around and even more dead synths from what I could tell, even the helmet of an older set of power armor laying not far past the gate that led into the school. Down the way I could see more buildings, most of them either collapsed in on themselves or were in such disrepair, I knew it would be stupid to try and enter them. To my left I could see what looked like a hoofball court, a running track, and a dried-up pool. There was a sign that was mostly worn down, but I could still read a few of the words on it. dorms, science and biology labs, auditorium, student center, and the rest were so worn out I couldn’t read them.

“So, what do we do now?” Wingnut asked quietly as we looked at the once massive school.

“I’m not sure, Mr. Tops never told me what to do once I got here,” I said as he pulled out the chip again, “I don’t even know where this goes.”

“You’re hopeless,” Byte said, coming over and pulling my Mark II closer to her. She pushed on something near the bottom of it and a little slot opened up. She then took the chip from my magic and popped it into the slot. It then closed and my Pip-Buck started doing something, words flashing in my vision, “I have no idea why your mother let you have that Mark II, you’re hopeless with tech.”

I would’ve responded, but I was too distracted by the crap running through my vision to think straight. After a minute, it stopped, and a message popped up on my Mark II.

Connection to Courser T.R.D. Chip complete, signal found. Status: weak. Please move closer to signal for full connection to be made.

“Damn, what the hell does T.R.D. mean?” I asked, right as a 1.8% signal showed up in the left-hoof corner of my vision.

“Not sure, could mean something like Teleportation Relay Detection or something like that,” Wingnut said, “So is it working?”

“Said the signal is to weak and we need to get closer,” I said, slowly walking into the yard and seeing the number go up to 3.5%.

“Guess we’ll just have to wander around until we get the right signal,” Byte said, “Let’s get this over with, we have no idea how long it will be until The Steel Rangers find us.”

“Good point,” I said, walking toward the school’s main building.

We kept going, and I kept my eye on the signal as we did. Once we reached the front doors, it was at only at 22.9%. So, we pushed slowly on the door and walked into the school, I made sure to keep Misery out while Byte pulled out her Gravity Gun and Wingnut took out Ol’ Festus. The entryway was mostly just dusty with a moldy smell to it. Not a single dead pony or synth in sight of the front desk or near the office doors. The place was grand though, with marble gargoyles looking down at us from the second-floor balcony, beautiful paintings on the walls and of course a shit-ton of Ministry posters lining any free space they could find. I saw some with Fluttershy on them, a bunny on her head with words like, ‘Help keep our soldiers safe, join the Ministry of Peace’ another with Twilight Sparkle her mane done up in a tight bun holding some chemicals with her magic saying, ‘Join the Ministry of Arcane Sciences today, help us find a way to fight back.’ Another with Rainbow Dash flying though the air in a ShadowBolts outfit saying ‘The leaders in the sky and protesters of the air, Join the Ministry of Awesome, because that’s what we are, awesome.’ I noticed more but stopped reading after seeing Rainbow Dash’s, knowing what kind of stuff her Ministry really did behind the scenes. Then something caught my eye or rather the lack of something did.

“I see five of the six ministries here, why isn’t there any for The Ministry of Image?” I asked.

Wingnut shrugged, “From what I heard there isn’t much for them. Rarity was the one who made all the posters for the other Ministries and was in charge of confiscation of dangerous reading material during the war. She had probably the smallest Ministry out of them all and trusted very few with the work she was doing. So, when she recruited, it was normally from the other five not from the public. Because of that, no spy ever made it into her ministry which is a good thing most think. Some of the books she banned and took would’ve had a lot of information that would’ve helped the zebras.”

“You know I heard she had something to do with making those statuette thing’s Shadow keeps finding,” Byte said.

“I’ve heard that too, but never seen any proof,” Wingnut said as we pushed past the desks and headed toward the hallways that would take us toward the back area of the first level.

“I guess, Image had a lot of things going on though,” I said as I saw the signal reach 69%. Nice. Wait, dammit, now it’s 71.6%, that joke was too fast.

“Not that I know of, just had her hooves full with helping her friends and the country. She still found time to see them when she could though,” Wingnut said, “My mom used to love talking about the Ministry Mares, she idolized Applejack, said she was a strong and brave pony.”

“She had to be running the M.W.T.,” Byte said, “I mean hell, The Steel Rangers were started by her.”

“Wait, what? She started The Steel Rangers?” I said in shock.

“No, not the way you’re thinking at least. They were a different group back then, part of the army but also part of the M.W.T., kinda like the Children of the Night, only the public knew about them. She started the Steel Armor project to protect ponies from being killed like her brother Big Mac was. It was a turning point in the war too,” Byte said, right as we reached the back of the building looking at a door that led into large office with the word ‘Dean Woodstock’ on it. The signal was only at 75.2%.

The memory of Big Mac’s death in Night Stalkers memory orb hit me then. Big Mac had died trying to protect the princess. A Sniper shot from the cliffs, a zebra taking down a kind soul without even caring about the pony. I remembered Night Stalker flying up to those cliffs, but he never found the zebra in question, just a mare in a dark uniform taking out zebra after zebra with deadly skill. I wonder how a zebra was able to get a shot like that off with such a skilled sniper so close by. Strange.

“I guess I can understand why she’d do that, it had to be hard to lose her older brother,” I said, walking into the office a few feet then stopping as the signal dropped to 68.9%, “Huh? What the hell?” I turned and walked back out watching the signal go back up to 75.2%.

“What’s wrong?” Wingnut asked.

“The signal went down when I walked into the office,” I said, turning down the hall and heading another way, but the signal dropped again, 65.2% then to 55.9%. I walked back to them. “Something has to be wrong with this thing, the signal only goes up to 75.2%.”

Wingnut looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe we’re in the right spot but not on the right floor.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“The question is, do we go up or down?” Byte said, “Is there a basement here?”

I shrugged, “Do I look like the University type?”

“No not really,” she said then started looking around, “I don’t see any stairs around here, let’s go back to the front and use those and head up, if the signal goes down again once we reach this point we’ll know we need to look for a basement.”

“Works for me,” I said, following her as she led us back down the hall toward the entrance. It didn’t take much time, this building was utterly abandoned. I expected to at least run into ghouls in here or something, but nothing was here. Oddly enough apart from The Steel Rangers and a coupe of synths, I haven’t seen any ghouls, raiders, fiends, bandits, or just troublesome ponies at all.

We reached the stairs in the front and took them to the second floor and started back toward the area we’d been in before. But when we got closer the single only reached 45.6%. We headed back again and Byte wanted to check one more level just to be sure but again the signal just kept going down it only reached 37.0% this time. I cursed as we turned again and started heading back.

“While were up here can we at least do some looting? Who knows when we’ll get the chance again and we need to start doing it more,” Wingnut said.

“You know, that’s a good point. I’m always so busy either running away from monsters or going crazy that I don’t really look around much when I’m in places,” I said, turning toward one of the office doors and opening it, “We should be quick though, we still need to find the others.”

Byte rolled her eyes, “Wasteland ponies are weird.”

“Says the pony who doesn’t carry a real gun,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her.

“It is to a real gun, and it’s better than that Dream Walker one you have!” she yelled as I walked into the room.

“Sure it is,” I teased as I started looking around the room.

We spent the next twenty minutes or so going through the top two floors, mostly finding junk but we did find a little ammo, some caps weirdly enough in a safe that I had to unlock for Wingnut, TEN sparkle colas, a bag of pre-war bits, a love letter to some pony named Bon Bon from a Lyra, and a memory orb. I took that right away, hoping it would be a normal memory and not a Child of the Night memory for once. We finished in the Dean’s office, his safe was a little harder to crack, but my hacking and lockpicking skills were very good by now, and I had to do both to get in. The safe was a safe within a safe. The first one opened from his terminal the second needed a key. When I opened it however I only found two things. A note and a bag of…caps?

“Why would a pony from before the war hide caps in his office safe?” I asked, looking over at the skeleton missing a chunk of the top of its skull, a revolver laying next to his hoof on the desk, and a nasty stain on the wall. Must have blown his brains out when the megaspells went off.

“Maybe he was just crazy?” Byte said, looking inside the bag as I read the note.

To anypony who finds this treasure,

I have spent the past five years hunting down these special bottle caps. I wanted to be the one who found them all and won the prize, sadly I’m short a few still and the war has turned. Los Alicorn will not last long with the invasion force the zebras have put together. So, I sadly leave my hunt to whoever survives this and wants to see what that factory in Las Pegasus is hiding. Good luck to you and may your hunt go better than my own.

Dean Woodstock

“No way, it can’t be,” I said, right as Byte squeaked in excitement.

“Shadow you won’t believe this!” she said showing me the bag, “Look!”

I looked down and saw it was full of Blue Star Bottle Caps from Sunrise Sarsaparilla. I took the bag and almost screamed in delight, Aura was going to lose her mind at this. I placed them into my bag, saying, “I can’t wait to show Aura, she’s gonna love this.”

“How many are there?” Wingnut asked as I placed them in the bags.

I looked down at my Mark II and my eyes went wide. “There’s forty-four! With Aura’s Six we have all fifty we need to see what’s in the factory!”

“Well, that’ll give us something else to look forward to when we see our friends again,” Byte said with a grin, “I just hope it’s not some crap like jackets and stuff with Sunrise Sarsaparilla logos on it.”

“Even if it is, at least it’ll be something no pony else has ever done,” I said with a smile going from ear to ear. Aura was gonna be so excited when I showed her this. Now I just had to survive The Ministry, Los Alicorn, maybe The Steel Rangers, and getting Aquila out of my body.

“Well this room’s done. Should we see if we can find the stairs that go down to the basement?” Wingnut asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I think we’ve spent enough time here and honestly I want to get this over with. I think Aquila senses something’s going on, I can feel her waking up slowly in my mind,” I said. Which was true, for the past few hours it felt like she was starting to come closer to my mind, getting back into the place she normally sat. Since I woke up in Hoofington, I barely felt her, like she’d been hurt before I took over. It was kinda nice for a change, but now her strength was growing again, and I knew that soon she’d be back to her old self.

“How long do you think it’ll take before she’s back to her old strength?” Byte asked, her eyes showing a little fear.

“Maybe a few hours, a day at most. It’s hard to tell with her, she’s good at hiding herself from me when she wants to. I know she’s been waking for a while now, she did fire a new spell into my brain when we fought The Steel Rangers, but not much more than that,” I said as we headed out of the office, “For now let’s not worry about her, we’ll keep all talk about Aquila to ourselves, it’s the best way of hiding what’s going on. I still don’t know what the plan is.”

“And it’s staying that way, for all you know this whole waking up in Los Alicorn is a trick,” Byte said as she turned down the hall to check for stairs.

“Hmmm, that’s true, I really don’t know anything for once. I kinda like it, now that I think about it,” I said before Wingnut went to check the other hall before we left the area.

It only took a minute for Wingnut to yell, “Found it!”

I waited for Byte to catch up then we both headed toward the colt who was standing next to a plain looking door with ‘Basement Storage’ on it. I turned the knob, but of course, it was locked. “Would it kill The Goddesses to give me one unlocked door!?”

“Hard to do since they’re already dead,” Byte teased.

“Haha, you’re so funny Cookie Byte,” I mocked as I pulled out my bobby pins and trusty screwdriver. The lock was pathetic, it took me less that three seconds to get the lock turned and to push open the door. “Well that was just sad.”

“Hey at least it’s less time spent on a good lock,” Byte said as she tried to go down first.

“No I don’t think so, I’m the adult here, I’ll go first,” I said, pushing her back with my magic and pulling out Misery again.

“Since when?” Byte asked, but she let me go anyway.

“Hey, I got a year on you, so I’m the oldest. So bite me Byte,” I said, but smiled right after.

Wingnut just laughed as we headed down the dark stairs. Byte and I turned on our Pip-Lights, letting the soft glow cut through the darkness. It wasn’t a long walk down the stairs and only another minute or so to find that we were in a large storage area. There were rows of science stuff, beakers and gems. and a few other odds and ends. There were also lots of old books, some hoofball equipment, a cot…why a cot? Anyway, a cot and not much else. But the Signal was now sitting at 92.5%.

“Looks like we’re almost there, let’s move further into this room,” I said, leading the foals down one of the rows. I was watching the signal go up and in at the end of the row I could see a larger open area. 98.7%, 99.1%, 99.9%. Almost there, then something flew down the hall at me screaming, a feral growl. It was a fucking Ghoul! I screamed and brought Misery up and the damn thing’s head met my sword with a squelching crunch, blackish blood spraying onto the blade and my face.

“What the fuck!” I yelled, pulling Misery out of the now dead ghoul, the blood dripping off the sword like nothing, my face on the other hoof, yeah fuck ghouls.

“That thing scared the shit out of me,” Byte said, “You okay Shadow?”

“Apart from now smelling like a dead body, I’m fine. Either of you have a rag?” I reipied.

“I do,” Wingnut said, giving me one from his saddle bags.

“Why the hell was he down here?” I asked.

“Probably locked himself inside then turned into a ghoul when the radiation was still high in Los Alicorn, stayed down here and went feral,” Byte said as I cleaned my face off…or tried to at least. I need a bath…I needed one like three days ago.

“Well now that we have our jump scare out of the way, let’s be on the look out for more, but I think we’re almost there,” I said stepping over the ghoul but looking down at his name tag on the jumpsuit he was wearing, “And as for you Mop Bucket, fuck you.”

Wingnut and Byte wisely decided not to make fun of the moment of me almost having a heart attack and we moved on. Luckily, he seemed to be the only one here. That was until I turned my Pip-Light to see another ghoul standing casually next to me.

Right as I brought up my sword he said, “Wait,” and put a hoof up.

What? Did he seriously just say ‘wait’ that casually? I stopped my attack and said, “Who the hell are you?”

He sniffed and scratched his mustachioed face with a hoof, “Scruffy, the custodian.”

“Wait a sec, you know this place is pretty much destroyed by the event of the war right?” Byte asked.

“Yup,” he replied.

“And you’re still here?” Wingnut asked.

“Mhm,” he replied again.

“Why haven’t you left?” I asked.

He cleared his throat and said, “Well, I reckon there’s nothin’ better to do. Been down here for quite a few years now, keepin’ the books and whatnot tidy. Mop Bucket started slackin’ off a couple years back, poor bastard didn’t even see your sword comin’.”

“I’m sorry I killed your friend,” I said.

“It’s alright, he was gettin’ on Scruffy’s nerves anyway. Figure I’ll clean him up in a bit,” he said, still sounding casual like it’s any other work day at the University.

“Why not just clean it up now?” Byte asked.

He lifted his hoof and looked at a broken watch, then cleared his throat, and said, “Scruffy’s on break.”

“Oh, alright then. Enjoy the rest of your break then,” Byte said.

He smiled, “Scruffy’s gonna enjoy every last minute. Anyway, ya’ll come back again sometime, Scruffy’s good at poker.”

“Uh, can do,” I said as I continued on.

A moment later we reached the large open space and the signal reached 100%. So, I stopped right in the middle of the spot.

“Okay so now what do we do?” Byte asked.

I looked at my Pip-Buck and saw an icon had come up saying ‘Enter Ministry?’ I grinned, “Both of you get next to me, this thing only goes out about a meter or two, I don’t want you two left behind,” once they did as I asked, I clicked ‘Yes’ On my Mark II. Something started to come out of my Pip-Buck, like small electrical sparks that moved out in a dome around us. Wingnut and Byte both looked at it with wide eyes in awe as the white energy started to swirl around us. Then I felt something happening. It was like small needles were being pushed into my skin. A lot like when a limb is just waking up after falling asleep. But only it hurt a lot more than that.

“Shadow, I don’t like this! It Hurts!” Wingnut yelled.

Before I could say anything however, the energy shot back toward us and the room we were in vanished in a flash of pain and bright white light. It only lasted about five seconds before all three of us were slammed into the ground on a dark grey metal floor. I winced then got back to my hooves looking around, trying to ignore the pain. My eyes went wide as I saw we were in a small domed area with huge electrical pillars around us and a single open space that led toward a desk with a terminal on it and a glass shaft going from floor to ceiling.

“I never want to do that again,” Byte said, getting up, her main standing up a little.

“I agree,” I said, then started heading toward the terminal. I remembered another thing I was told to do by Mr. Tops when I got here and I knew that once The Ministry found we were here, they wouldn’t give me another chance. So, knowing the two foals would catch up, I ran over to it. I was just about to start logging into the terminal when a feminine voice echoed around the room. It was light yet sounded older, but also rich and powerful like you’d expect from somepony who held a lot of power and knew it.

“Hello Shadow Star, Wingnut, and Cookie Byte. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I’m glad you’ve made it here safe, even if you did come through our emergency exit,” The mare said over some hidden speaker system.

“Who are you?” I asked, looking around.

“You’ll find out in due time Shadow Star, for now, Welcome to The Ministry and for now you may call me Director.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Shadow Walker: You’ve proven quite the little sneak around the city avoiding enemies. The shadows being your friend throughout. While sneaking, you are 20% less likely to be detected while in the cover of shadows.

Chapter 64: Uninvited Guest

“What about after this is all over? What are you going to do with us? With Aquila?”

The Director of the Ministry, the mare who’s been pulling my mothers leash for most of my life. The one who started Mom on this quest to find Aquila and a cure for me. The figure no pony knew anything about apart from my mother and the ponies who lived in this strange place. Even after my mother promised she could help get Aquila out of me in this place, I still didn’t trust The Director. I didn’t know what her end goals were or what she wanted with a power like Falling Shadows or Aquila. Was she a friend or a foe, did she really want to help stop Falling Shadows, or use it to take over The Wasteland? From what I’ve heard about The Ministry and their synths replacing ponies, I was sure it was the latter.

“Director huh?” I said up toward the ceiling, “So, you’re the infamous pony who talked my mom into coming out west to find Falling Shadows and Aquila.”

“Yes I am, and more, please don’t stand around that small escape room, head toward the tube and push the call button. An elevator will take you down to the main level where Grim and your friends are waiting for you,” The Director said.

“So, I take it your keeping an eye on me until then?” I asked.

“No, I only know you’re there because we got a signal that three ponies entered the escape room. That area of The Ministry is older and doesn’t have a camera system. Normally the only ponies that can enter that area are our coursers or the lead engineers. I’d love to find out how you were able to get in that way, since your mother told you to find our Synth at The Equestrian Bank Tower,” she said.

“Long story, maybe I’ll tell you once I know I can trust you,” I said heading for the terminal.

“I assure you Shadow that I or my team have no intention of hurting you. We’ll see you soon,” The Director said before cutting off the mic with an audible hissing crackle.

“What now?” Byte asked, looking around the smaller room, “This place really isn’t what I expected from the stories I’ve heard.”

“I’m sure it’s different once we go down,” Wingnut said, looking over at me messing with the terminal, “What are you doing Shadow?”

“Don’t worry about it, I just need a minute,” I said as I booted up the old terminal then plugged in the other device Mr. Tops gave me.

“That phrase is reserved for geniuses only. You know next to nothing about computers,” Wingnut quipped.

“Ppfftt, whatever, just shut up and let me do my thing for a sec,” I said with a wave of my hoof.

It took a moment, but then I saw a loading bar starting up across the screen followed by a voice echoing out of the terminal. “Good job Shadow, I was wondering how much longer you were going to take to reach The Ministry,” Mr. Tops’s voice said.

“Careful, I’m sure they’re listing to us right now,” I said.

He chuckled, “No, I’ve already cut off all communications to this room as soon as you plugged in my chip. Now just wait a moment while the information I need loads.”

“I don’t have a lot of time so please make it snappy,” I said as the loading bar worked its way across the screen.

“Almost done…there we go, now once I’m finished talking pull the chip out and hide it in your saddle bags, all the information I’ll need is on there. I can’t afford to lose that intel,” he said.

I thought about it for a moment then said, “I might have a better idea, can you put the intel on my Pip-Buck instead? It’ll be a lot safer there than on something that can be taken from me.”

“Not a bad idea, quick, plug in your Pip-Buck and I’ll get it started,” he said.

I did as Wingnut came over, asking, “Mr. Tops, why can’t you just upload the information right to you?”

“It would take too much time, and it’s taking all of my concentration doing what I’m doing now with that chip in place. It’s a small bypass program that let’s me control their systems without them finding me. Also if I pull the intel to myself and managed to get it all without losing any of it, there’s a good chance they’ll be able to follow the code back and reverse hack my systems and those of The Lucky Horseshoe.”

“Makes sense I guess, but why did you need Shadow to get you in here?” Byte asked.

“That’s my business child,” he said then relaxed, “Okay Shadow it’s all uploaded to your Pip-Buck on a file named TLH, you can give me the file when you come back to New Pegasus,” he said, “Now pull the chip out and destroy it, good luck and thank you again.”

“No problem Mr. Tops, see you later,” I said, then pulled the chip out and the connection to my Pip-Buck. I dropped the chip on the ground and stomped on it until it was nothing more than powdered splinters, “Okay, now that mission is done, let’s go see our friends.”

“You sure that was a good idea? How do you know Mr. Tops can be trusted?” Wingnut asked.

“I don’t trust him, but he’s also been a decent pony or whatever he is, since I met him. He also paid me for this job, so I’m gonna go though with it. Now let’s go you two,” I said, walking over to the lift and hitting the button.

A moment later, a metal disk hovered up to the platform and a glass door opened into a tube. The three of us stepped on it and without any of us doing anything else, the lift started to go down slowly. For a long moment we were plunged into darkness as the lift went through the thick floor we’d just been on, then bright light almost blinded us as we entered a new world. My eyes went wide along with Byte’s and Wingnut’s as we slowly descend on The Ministry.

Below us was a large circular courtyard with a large fountain right below the lift platform. Ponies were everywhere either sitting on the benches below, walking across the yard, or talking at a dinner table. Past the large open area there were large open archways, six in total with different symbols above each, by each arch there were ponies in either lab coats, jumpsuits of some kind, or military looking outfits. I saw newer looking Synths waiting on ponies to order food or to buy something at small shops. There were ponies in dark trench coats with sunglasses on all over the place near one of the archways. I saw what looked like dogs…normal dogs, playing with foals, nice clothes being sold, and up the walls were balconies with older ponies relaxing in the artificial sunlight streaming down from overhead. To top it all off, everypony was clean and happy and well fed. If there was something like paradise still in Equestria, it was here.

The lift was reaching the bottom when I finally saw them. Aura, Mom, Wind Thrasher, Stardust, Solstice, and Oricalcos, all waiting for us at the bottom of the ramp. As soon as the door to the glass elevator opened, Aura and Stardust both ran toward me pulling me into a three-way hug. I gasped for air saying in a squeaky voice, “Too tight, too tight.”

“We’re so glad you made it here finally, we were worried sick about you,” Stardust said, still not letting me go.

“I’m glad the plan worked and you found these two, it was a risk leaving them behind but it worked,” Aura said from the other side of me.

“Okay you two, don’t suffocate her,” I heard Mom say, a moment later they both let me go. Mom smiled as she looked at me, saying, “Good to see you made it here in one piece, though I’m surprised you came through this way.”

“We found our own way here,” Byte said as she pushed past me, her eyes taking in everything around us, “This place can’t be real. Did we die when we tried to use that teleporter thingy?”

“It’s like we walked into the past, I’ve never seen anything this clean before,” Wingnut added as he also pushed past me to stand next to Byte.

“I assure you it’s quite real, we are very-far underground right now. This is The Ministry and The Director wants to meet you three before we continue on with our little project,” Mom said.

“Hold up a sec,” I said as I followed her down the ramp, kissing Aura quickly before I did so, “First of all, why in the Goddess’ name was I left on a beach of death? Second, why the hell did you leave two foals in that city?”

“That was my idea Shrimp, plus they’re hardly foals anymore,” Aura said sheepishly, “We were attacked by Steel Rangers, they have guns on most of the tall buildings all over Los Alicorn. We couldn’t risk having you die while you were sleeping so we needed to put you down in a safe place. I then had the kids dropped in another safe place so they could go find you while we tried to draw their attention away.”

“That has to be the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” I said looking at her in shock.

“Well it worked didn’t it?” Solstice asked, “And she’s not telling you the whole truth. We were going to send one of us to wait for you, but didn’t have time. She didn’t drop you off, she kicked you out the door when we flew low over the sand. I’m surprised you didn’t break anything. I said a few minutes later that we should send someone back to get you once you woke up.”

Well that explained the pain I was in when I woke up, “So you sent the kids?”

“Not exactly,” Byte said, “At first they were going to send Oricalcos, but Grim said it would be a bad idea. I guess they have ponies who know how to stop him in this city. Then they were going to send Solstice, but since she’s Enclave technically, she risked being killed slowly if they caught her. They kept on arguing over and over about who should go once we reached a safe spot. So, Wingnut and I just got out of the Sky carriage after hearing Aura’s plan and ran.”

“Wait, you told me Aura sent you,” I yelled.

“She did, just not of her own free will,” Wingnut said.

“I did manage to get a message to them a few minutes later using Grim’s Pip-Buck to broadcast to Byte’s. I would’ve gone after them, but we fell under attack again,” Aura said.

“And you just decided to come wait here for me?” I asked, looking at them dumbfounded.

Oricalcos finally spoke up, saying, “It was the only safe place after the Sky Carriage blew up.”

“Oh, yeah, kinda forgot that part,” Stardust said, scratching the back of his head and looking sheepish.

“You…blew up…our…sky carriage!?” I yelled.

“No,” Mom said, “The Rangers clipped the magical generator and it started going unstable. It would’ve blown with us in it or out of it. So, we flew as close to a Ministry entry point as we could and well…jumped out. Aura took me to the ground, Oricalcos doesn’t need help since he has no body, and the rest are fliers.”

Wind Thrasher, who looked sicker than she did when I saw her last added, “Then we landed by some building, your mom did something with the wall and there was a flash of light and we were here. End of story, now can we get on with all of this? I’m not feeling well, and I wanna lie down.”

“Fine, but how are we going to get back home?” I asked, “It’s not like Sky Carriages are easy to find.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Aura said, “For now, I’m just glad you’re safe. This place is pretty cool once you get use to it. They have this food printer thingy that’ll make anything. It’s like that one space show ponies watched a long time ago.”

I hung my head and looked at all of them, “Fine, let’s get this meeting over with and finish up with the bitch in my head once and for all.”

Aura smiled, it was still strange to see her as a pony, but I managed to smile back as she pulled me close and hugged me. “Just wait till you see what Grim’s put together, I think we have a fighting chance now. Oh, and you’ll like The Director, she’s interesting.”

“Yes she is, and very smart,” Mom said as she started to lead us away from the onlooking ponies of The Ministry, “First though, my friend is going to have a look at you three to make sure you’re okay and free of any radiation. That’s one thing The Ministry does whatever it can to keep out of this place. Oh, and you’ll also get a shower and I’ll have one of the synths look after your armor and barding.”

“No way, no pony is touching Shadow’s armor but me. I’ve done a lot of modifications to that armor and I’m not letting some robot mess it all up,” Wingnut said, stomping his hoof as he followed.

“Fine, then I’ll have some tools brought over to the suite we’ll be staying in while were here. Even if Beta is a master of all tools,” Mom said, “Now where the hell did she get off to, I told her I wanted her close in case you showed up.”

“Who are you talking about Mom?” I asked, looking around as we passed by the overly clean ponies of The Ministry and their synths, “Is it the Director?”

“No dear, it’s my best…” Mom started but was interrupted by a voice from my past, a voice that shouldn’t even be able to speak, because I’d cut her throat in the tower in Whinnieapolis.

“Grimoire, there you are, I’ve been looking all over for you and you know how annoyed I get when I have to walk around searching somepony down. I’m a very busy pony and don’t have time to babysit your brain damaged ass,” the voice of Dr. Stormy said from down the ramp just in front of us.

I looked up in shock and a moment later pulled Dream Walker out of its holster and pointed it up and the older look-a-like of myself. Only with a grayer mane and dark orange eyes. I stopped where I was as I sighted on her head, “How the hell are you still alive!?”

She looked down at me confused, her eyes meeting mine before she said in that same board voice I remembered when I said I would blow her brains out with a pistol, “Why does everypony from The Wasteland have to be such a drama queen? Who are you anyway? You’re annoying and if you don’t have to be here don’t be.”

“Shadow, put that down!” Stardust said, trying to take Dream Walker.

“No Stardust! That bitch should be dead, I cut her throat in Mill City Tower before I blew it up. She’s the mare who started the Devil’s Children Program. She’s the one who made you what you are!” I yelled.

“I know, she told me all about it…wait what do you mean you killed her? I knew about the whole program, which if you listen to her you’ll understand how far that went from her original plan, but she can’t be the mare you killed,” he said.

Stormy interrupted us. “So, you’re the little twerp who broke my body double huh? I was wondering about that. I couldn’t get the data back from that day because of what you did to the tower. That was very rude of you I hope you know. Do you know how much time goes into making a synth of her caliber?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “So, you expect me to believe that thing I killed wasn’t you, but a robot?”

Stormy rolled her eyes. “I do so hate it when ponies call them robots. The generation three synths are far more sophisticated than a normal robot. They are a 99.5% percent match to a real pony. Everything within them is organic tech down to the very blood they have running through their bodies. Apart from a small chip in their heads and some very small details, you can’t tell the difference between a real pony and a synthetic one.”

My eyes went wide at that. “You mean, you’re making robotic clones?”

“If you want to put it in idiot terms, then yes, I’m making roboclones. It’s a lot faster and much cheaper way of cloning,” Stormy said, looking over at Grim, “I thought you said The Courier was smart?”

“Ppfftt, no one says that,” I heard Byte snicker behind me.

“She is smart Stormy, but not with stuff like this,” Mom said looking annoyed.

Stormy looked back at me, “And you say she’s your daughter too, the one you told me died?”

“I am her daughter, she’s just got brain damage from overuse of her zebra spells,” I said in a huff.

Aura snickered at that as Mom face-hoofed. Stormy just shrugged, “I told her before that overusing those spells would be a bad idea, but she never listens to me. If she had, she wouldn’t have married Nightshade. Still, I guess you do look like the filly I met many years ago, just a different mane and coat, but those eyes are hard to mistake for another’s. Interesting, I guess you get your smarts from your fathers side, all guns, bombs, and glory! No care in the world for books and proper learning. Live fast, die young. Go out with a bang.”

“Hey don’t talk to her like that!” Aura yelled, “She’s plenty book smart.”

I face-hooved in my mind. Thanks Aura, but I know I’m not. Oh well, at least she’s defending me. Stormy looked at her then laughed. “Well at least she has good taste in mares, too bad I didn’t meet you a few years ago. You would’ve been such a fun toy.”

Aura visibly shivered. “Hey, I’m not a pony, I’m a griffon. I’ve told you that like three times now!”

Stormy grinned, “You look like a mare right now and that’s all I care about. Plus, you came from The Wasteland so chances are your just crazy. I met a stallion once who thought he was a ghoul. Can you imagine that?” she then turned back to face the rest of us, “Well anyway, welcome to The Ministry, my name is Doctor Stormy, head researcher and third seat on the council. You three need to come with me so I can have our doctor get you cleaned up and make sure you’re not bringing in anything we don’t want in The Ministry. Once that is over you’ll be coming to the council chambers to meet with The Director herself. Be mindful of the delousing powder, it stings like a bitch.”

Yeah this was definitely the same Stormy I’d seen in Mom’s memory orbs. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I killed a synth in that tower and not the real one. She seemed so real when I cut her throat. I could see now why The Steel Rangers and the ponies who knew about The Ministry were so scared of them. They could replace ponies in The Wasteland with perfect copies. Well, I was here now, and I can’t do much until Mom is finished getting rid of Aquila. So, I started to follow along with my friends.

As we walked toward the arch with a large red cross on it, Wingnut asked, “So if you want to keep this place clean, then why are you having us follow you through the main chamber?”

Stormy laughed. “Smart colt. Well, to answer your question, it’s because I have a spell over you three keeping anything around you from escaping within a few centimeters of your body. It’s like being in a plastic bubble you won’t horribly suffocate in.”

“You cast a spell on us?” Byte asked, looking at her hooves like she would see a shimmering aura around herself.

“Of course I did, as soon as you arrived upstairs,” Stormy said as she led us up the steps.

“You cast a spell from that far away?” I asked in awe.

“I’ve been doing that kind of long-distance spell work for most of my life, it’s not that hard anymore,” Stormy said.

Oricalcos came up next to me, saying, “Stormy was one of the top unicorns in her class in The Crystal Empire, she was a grade above your mother. She also finished her secondary schooling in one year, something that normally takes three, she’s got four doctorates in microbiology, robotic engineering, magical manipulation, and cyber hacking and programming. She has an IQ of 210, she’s one of the smartest mares in all of The Enclave and even here at The Ministry I’d bet.”

“Awww Ori, you flatter me as always, but I still won’t sleep with you, so stop trying dear,” Stormy said, followed by a loud laugh.

“She’s also a pervert,” Mom said with a smile.

“I heard that Grim, don’t make me tie you to my bed later,” Stormy replied as we reached the doors.

“You just proved my point,” Mom said rolling her eyes.

“And I thought I was bad,” I said as my friends came close looking at the large doors.

“Okay Shadow, this isn’t so bad, the doctor’s a good dude but he likes to play pranks so don’t let him get to you okay,” Stardust said with a kind smile.

“Are we getting shots?” Byte asked, looking scared.

“Well yes, of course you are,” A slim older stallion said as he came out of the door. He had a honey colored coat with pale blue eyes and mane. He smiled at the foals, “But not too many, normally it only takes me six maybe seven to get your system flushed.”

Byte’s eyes went wide, “I…I’ll go wait outside, I don’t want a shot.”

“Sorry dear, but you can’t leave. No pony can without The Director saying so. So, buck up and get over yourself,” Stormy said with a large smile, “Dr. Elm, this is Grim’s daughter Shadow and her two wards, Um…Whiner and Light.”

“It’s Wingnut and Byte,” Wingnut said as Byte shook like a leaf, her voice seeming to escape her.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Stormy asked, looking back at me, “Whatever, anyway they need to be cleared of everything toxic, and The Director wants it done Yesterday. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“No problem Stormy, I’m ready for them and we’ve cleared the clinic for a couple of hours,” he said looking over at us, “Okay jokes aside, this will take a little bit of time, but there will only be one shot I promise, and you won’t feel it much, so you can calm down little filly. Now if you’d all follow me, we can get this started.”

I looked over at Mom, then Aura, “This is all happening so fast.”

Aura kissed me, ignoring the giggles from Stormy, then said, “You’ll be fine, we’ll be waiting for you out here. Just relax a little and try not to shoot anypony.”

“They’re letting me keep my weapons?” I asked, just noticing then that I was still holding Dream Walker and hosteled it.

Stormy shrugged, “You can keep them as long as you don’t go around trying to shoot up anypony. If you try that, the coursers will turn you into dust faster than you can blink. Now let’s go.”

I took in a deep breath and walked into the clinic. My eyes fell on a shocking room of white walls, white chairs, silver tables and tools, and a black desk in the corner. It was like color was a sin here. It was so shocking to my eyes that I had to squint as I walked in, Byte and Wingnut close behind. Dr. Elm closed the door behind us and walked over to the desk.

“Each one of you pick a clinic bed and wait for me there, I just need to enter your information into the computer, and we can begin,” he said, typing something up on his terminal. It was an odd-looking terminal with a flat screen and a cord going to a small box about the size of my hoof.

“What’s that? I’ve never seen a terminal like it before,” I asked.

“Oh, I guess you wouldn’t have seen a newer model computer in The Wasteland huh. This is the latest of The Ministry’s design, based off some of the Carrot Company designs. They are a lot faster than terminals and have a lot more power than what you’re used to. They’re also hack proof. We’ve just modified them over the years to be even better,” he said as he finished.

“Nothing’s hack proof,” I said with a grin.

“This terminal is,” he said, stepping away from his desk, “Some of our best hackers have tried and still nopony has gotten into it,” he said with a chuckle.

“Bet you a hundred caps that I can, maybe with the help of Byte,” I said with a bigger grin.

“Ha, if you can break into this terminal, I’d give you more than those bottle caps you call currency. I’d let you have my prized weapon, it’s the prize I’ve offered anypony here that thinks they can crack this computer,” he said.

Byte smiled before looking over at me then back to the Doctor, “Do you Ministry ponies have high yield magical energy crystals here?”

The question took him by surprise. “Yes, of course we do, it’s something we need for our work with the synths.”

“Throw in five of those, the weapon, and five hundred caps and I’ll do it,” she said.

“Don’t you want my help?” I asked wiggling my Mark II at her.

She rolled her eyes and wiggled hers right back at me. “Trust me Shadow, mines got better software than yours, mine belonged to Applebloom herself. Mines the first Mark II, you stupid bug.”

I almost Called her out for using that bug word again but thought better of it. She was a capable filly and loved to show off and one-up others, so what’s the harm in trying. The Doctor looked between the two of us then shrugged. “Fine, deal, but after we’re finished.”

“Awesome!” Byte said, “Now I have something to look forward to.”

Dr. Elm just shook his head and pulled over a tray with three needles on it, “You’ll fail just like the rest, but have fun trying. Now let’s get started.”

***

Two painful hours later we were finished, Dr. Elm was right about the shots they didn’t hurt much at all. The cleansing as he called it was a different story. Apparently, our bodies had undergone a lot of damage from radiation over the time we’ve spent in The Wasteland, causing small problems in our systems that he needed to fix. How did he fix this you ask? By making us drink a potion, putting us into our own private restrooms and letting our bodies flush it out…yeah….that was not fun, the gut pains from it still made my stomach twitch in irritation. This was followed by running a small laser over our bodies that removed any kind of small defects in our DNA and fixed it. Once this was done and I felt like I’d just ran through a fire, he proceeded to push us into an extremely cold shower and forced us to wash every…single… reachable inch of our bodies. I felt more violated when that was done than I had when I was in the bathroom. At least Stormy was lying about the powder. He also took our armor and barding and had them cleaned. But he made sure not to mess with it at all just like Wingnut had asked. But all in all, when it was all over, I felt better than I had in a while, sore, but better.

“Okay, Byte, I’ll have to say that your body is quite remarkable for a mare who has lived in The Wasteland her entire life. You had the least amount of damage,” Dr. Elm said.

“I lived in a place a lot like this called Trotston my whole life, I didn’t get out much. Spent most of my time around sterile environments,” she said with a shrug.

“Yes, that would make sense. I’ve heard that Trotston is quite a remarkable place,” he said, then looked at Wingnut, “You my lad were a lot worse, though still well for the life I’ve heard you lived.”

He shrugged. “What can I say, Shadow makes me take a lot of baths.”

“I do not!” I said, “Though it’s a good idea.”

He laughed. “Okay fine, my mom used to when I was young, and I just kept up the habit.”

“A bath three times a day wouldn’t make you healthier Wingnut, what I think it is, is that you have a natural resistance to magical radiation. It happens from time to time. As for you Shadow,” he said looking at me.

“Yeah I’m sure it’s the worst, I’ve been around a lot of radiation and more over the past few weeks,” I said rolling my eyes.

“Actually, no, you had no signs of any radiation sickness in your system. Your DNA is the same as it would’ve been when you were born. Your body shows no signs of ever being sick or having any issues. I did everything I would for most ponies who come here just to be safe, but still it’s like you never stepped a hoof outside of a clean space. It’s quite odd if I do say so myself. Tell me have you ever had a cold, or the flu, or anything like that?” he asked.

“I had a bad heart when I was young due to a dark spell, but that’s all I can think of,” I said, wondering where he was going with this.

“Ah, yes, your scans show that, but you are better now. What I mean however is that you show no signs of ever getting truly sick. A natural virus like everypony gets,” he said.

“Wait Shadow, you’ve never had a cold?” Wingnut asked.

“No, not that I can think of. I’ve seen Auntie get them now and then and I used to have to take care of her when they got really bad, but I’ve never gotten it. I thought I was just lucky,” I replied.

“I wonder if it’s because of Aquila,” Byte said.

“No, I don’t think so. From what Grim has said, Aquila was joined with Shadow when she was six years old. She should’ve gotten sick a few times before then. That is very odd, I’ll have to ask Grim about it later,” he said.

“How strange is it that a pony never gets sick?” I asked.

“I’ve never heard of it before in my life. That is why I find it so strange, very strange indeed,” he said.

“So you’re saying that for some strange reason that you can’t explain I’m a perfectly healthy pony?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said, still looking over at me.

“Okay then, can we finish this up?” I asked.

It took him a moment to answer. As he sat there thinking to himself I saw Byte go over to his terminal and start doing something with her Mark II. As she worked Dr. Elm finally said, “I guess so, The Director mostly wanted you three cleared of any toxins that could damage our home. You’re all as clean as can be so I guess we’re finished here.”

“Not just yet,” Byte said as she lowered her hoof and started typing on his terminal.

Dr. Elm turned around, seeing her there and his eyes went wide. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“You said I could try to break into your terminal, so I am. I’ll admit the security on this thing is amazing, but still I’ve seen better…well truthfully I’ve made better,” she said as she stared at the screen, her tongue sticking out as she worked, “Hmmm let’s see, level ten firewall surrounding the main section of your interface, very nice, but sloppy. Just need to make a path around the firewall and keep it intact.”

“That firewall is not the only thing you have to worry about young filly,” Dr. Elm said, looking smug.

She went back to do something with her Mark II, I guess she was using the broadcasting system to keep her hacking software working on his terminal. Then she went back to it. “Oh I know, I saw your little reverse virus attack nodes, I’ve already taken them out, they don’t work on my Pip-Buck and were a little pathetic. Hmmm, let’s see, okay so there’s a second firewall behind the first and two more traps with a fake file system to throw me off…too bad my program makes it light up like a beacon or that might’ve worked. You’ve got another dummy program and two fake firewalls, and more pathways followed by self-destruct programs in case I get too deep,” she said as she kept working, mumbling to herself.

“I’ll give her this, she is a determined little filly. I’ve had my smartest techs try the same thing and none of them could get…” he started to say but Byte threw up her hooves with a triumphant look to her eyes.

“Winner! I’ve managed to get into the main program, without changing anything in your systems, and hid myself so that when I pull out, you’d never know I was in here. So boom, I win, you’re a stupid doctor bug. Give me free shit,” she said, leaning back in his chair.

“What…that’s impossible!” he said running over to look at the screen behind her, his jaw dropping, “H…how did you…how is it even…possible, you’re just a filly!?”

“A filly with an IQ of 217, I’ve been building and programming terminals better than even this one since I could walk, like I said. So now you owe me stuff, and I want said stuff. So cough it up broski,” she said.

“H…how are you this smart!?” he asked, looking ready to pass out.

“I just am, Wingnut is almost as smart as I am, only with structures and other engineering things. But to be fair, my Pip-Buck has some of the best hacking software around which helped a lot. I’ll admit you made a good security system, but not good enough,” she said, getting off his seat and walking toward me, “Can you believe this buck, he thought I couldn’t do it?”

I just smiled. “What can I say, ponies have a tendency to underestimate you.”

Dr. Elm slammed his hoof on the table. “It’s not fair, you must’ve cheated.”

“Nah, I was a good little filly. By the way Doc, where’s my lollipop? By lollipop I mean my prize, none of that sugar-free crap like a t-shirt and my name on the wall,” Byte said smugly.

The door to the clinic opened and the voice I overheard said, “Dr. Elm, why is it taking so long for you to finish up in here and why are you attacking your desk?”

It was the voice of The Director. Dr. Elm’s eyes went wide and he said, “Madam Director, my apologies, but this mare managed to hack into my terminal.”

I turned to get my first look at this mysterious Director of The Ministry and instantly had the feeling that she looked familiar. She was taller with a bright white coat, a mane the color of falling leaves in Autumn, her eyes the color of the setting sun, on her flank I saw a tree in full bloom and she reminded me a lot of Vervain in the way her body was built, even a little in her voice. She smiled and started to laugh, “Dr. Elm I thought you said nopony could hack into your terminal?”

“Miss Director ma’am, he said if I could do it, he’d give me stuff. Now he’s saying I cheated and I didn’t,” Byte said looking angry.

“Because you did, that’s the only explanation,” he said.

She ignored him looking over at Byte with a kind smile. “You’re Cookie Byte if I remember right. Well tell me, what did he promise you?”

“Five high-yield magical energy crystals, five hundred caps, and a weapon of his,” she said, “Right Wingnut?”

“Yeah that’s what he agreed to,” Wingnut said grinning over at the panicking Doctor.

“Well then, if he’s not upholding his side of the deal then I’ll do it for him. Later today, I’ll make sure to get you what you asked for and I’ll throw in one of my own weapons instead. Seeing how he bragged to everypony here that no one could get past his security, I think you’ve earned it for knocking him down a peg or two. Although, I do have to ask why you want something as dangerous as those crystals?” The Director asked.

“It’s for a project I’m working on, I need them to power it properly without losing the kick it needs to have,” she replied.

“Hmmm interesting, how long did it take you to get into his computer?” The Director asked.

“I don’t know, five minutes, maybe less. I wasn’t really counting,” Byte answered, sounding like it was easier than getting dressed in the morning.

“Grim said you were smart. After we finish helping Shadow, we’ll talk. Okay? Same with you Wingnut, I’d love to hear about your talents too,” she said, giving them both a smile.

“Thank you ma’am,” they both said.

“Oh and so polite,” she said, looking back at me as Dr. Elm walked away, going to his private office, “Hello Shadow Star, I’m glad to be able to finally meet you after so many years, I’m…”

Before she could finish, the way she looked finally clicked and I knew her name before she could say it. “You’re White Oak…Box Tapes wife that died years ago, Auntie Vervain’s mother! What’s going on here, you should be twenty years older…and DEAD!? Are you a synth? You have to be a synth, that’s the only explanation.”

Her eyes went wide as I said that. “You know my daughter? You know my husband? Grim didn’t update me on any of that. How are they doing? Is Box Tape still giving his customers a hard time? Has Vervain left that stable yet? Oh I’ve missed so much over the years,” she stopped to take a breath then calmed herself, “I’m sorry, let me answer your questions first. No, I’m not a Synth, and don’t let the way I look fool you about my age, I’m a lot older than you’d think.”

“But…I don’t understand…wait, you didn’t hear about Box Tape?” I said already feeling the tears well up as I remembered his death. I could see it now, Box Tape flying off The Palisade, pulling his pistol to shoot Wolfsbane, him falling to his death with a smile on his face.

White Oak’s eyes went wide as she said, “I heard something happened to Cartwheel, but lately it’s been hard to get updates on everything going on in New Pegasus. Tell me that Box Tape is okay.”

A single tear fell as I shook my head slowly. “No, he’s not. Wolfsbane destroyed Cartwheel, he took my friends and I prisoner, and Box Tape came to rescue us when we were fighting to get away. Wolfsbane took me hostage and forced Box Tape to get out of his armor, then…another fight broke out and Box Tape protected me from an attack by Wolfsbane and was kicked off The Palisade, falling to his death.”

Her eyes were watery as she asked quietly, “My son killed Box Tape? He killed his father?”

“Yeah, it happened a few weeks back,” I replied.

She took a long moment to get her emotions under control before finally saying, “I want you to tell me everything that happened while we head to the conference room. Once you’re done, I’ll tell you my story.”

I nodded. “Alright.”

Byte, Wingnut and I followed White Oak out of the doctor’s clinic to where Aura and Solstice were waiting with Stardust and Wind Thrasher. Mom and Oricalcos weren’t there, I guess they had other places to be right now. My friends didn’t say anything as we walked by, just followed as I started to tell White Oak what happened to her husband. It didn’t take to long to go over what happened when The Los Alicorn Steel Rangers attacked, but by the time I finished, we’d walked past two other areas of The Ministry and up an elevator that led to the Conference room where three other ponies were waiting. They greeted White Oak, but she ignored them, letting me finish my story.

When I finally did, she sat at the head of the large table, gesturing for me to sit in the seat next to hers. Then she looked at me, saying, “The unicorn you said threw you off the Palisade must’ve been Hacker, my son’s wife and head of the Scribes. She’s a cruel pony who’s specialty in magic revolves around torture. You’re lucky she just threw you off the top of that airship. But still, I’m sad to hear that Box Tape died the way he did, though knowing him, it’s the way he would’ve wanted to go out. I just wish my daughter didn’t have to see it happen.”

Aura spoke up, saying, “So let me get this straight, the whole time we’ve been trapped here waiting for Shadow and the tiny ones to show up, you never told us you’re Vervain’s mother?”

“I had no reason to, my old life is something I don’t bring up to many ponies. It was part of the deal I made with The Ministry when I came to live here,” White Oak said.

“I’d like to know how that happened, because from what I’ve been told, you died like twenty years ago. Vervain has no idea you’re still alive, same goes for Wolfsbane,” I said.

White Oak took in a deep breath, then looked at the other leaders of The Ministry then back to us. “A long time ago, I was looking into the same project that Grim has been. At the time all I knew about it was that it was called Project Star Gazer, AKA Project Aquila, from the bits of information I found. I had no idea what it could do, but I had a feeling it was something that could be used to fix what’s happened to Equestria since the war. It was later that I found out about Falling Shadows thanks to Grim,” she said, tilting her head toward Mom. Where did she come from? I must have not noticed her while I was talking to White Oak

Mom shrugged. “I mostly found out because of the files on the Mark II and information I got from one of Night Stalker’s old safehouses, along with tales I heard from Griffons who heard about it from ponies they worked for in the past.”

White Oak sighed then continued, “Yes, well about twenty years ago, I thought I found what I needed to finally unlock the secrets of this project, so I went on what I hoped would be my last mission for The Steel Rangers. Box Tape wanted to come with me, but I told him to stay behind and be there for our children. I was on the outskirts of Los Alicorn when I found another safehouse of The Children of the Night. It took me a few days to find a way to get into it, but I had no idea the place was a decoy and trapped. The should-be safehouse, exploded and I was as gravely injured. In the explosion I lost all of my notes and journals when my saddle bags were blown off me. If it wasn’t for The Ministry, I would’ve died there and then, like most thought I had.”

An old unicorn stallion with a bald head said, “Yes, White Oak happened to come across a damaged synth. She’d managed to drag herself quite a ways from the site of the explosion. This synth had enough program left working to send a distress signal to a team of coursers. They picked her up and brought here back here, where we used our technology to heal her and replace the parts of her that were damaged.”

White Oak spoke again, “Thank you Dr. Sails. Well he’s right, I was almost dead when I got here and after two months of healing and many surgeries, I was finally able to leave the clinic.”

“What did he mean by replace?” Aura asked.

“Yeah sounds like you had parts of your body swapped out for something else,” Solstice added.

“I did,” she said, lifting one of her forelegs, “Back then, our generation three synths weren’t complete yet, but we could make nearly identical body parts. I lost two of my legs, an eye, half the skin and coat on the left side of my body, one lung wasn’t working properly anymore, and same for my heart, it was damaged. I lost most of my teeth and most of my ribs were broken along with my pelvis. Everything was either repaired or replaced with synthetic parts. My heart and one lung, my left foreleg and hindleg, my left eye, and the skin and coat. It’s all not real and thanks to that, my body is more than half synthetic. My whole face had to be redone too when they started the process.”

My muzzle dropped open. “Is that why you look so young?”

“It is, most of my body doesn’t age so I appear much younger than I am. Technically I am a bit younger considering I got new parts. It probably added quite a few years to my lifespan,” she said.

“What I don’t get is why didn’t you go back home or let your family know you were okay?” Solstice asked, “Family is everything, why would you let them worry about you or think you were dead?”

A mare in a military looking outfit spoke next, saying, “She didn’t have much of a choice. Ministry Rules state that no pony once they enter this place, can leave again. Or it used to be.”

“Commander Emerald is right, back then I couldn’t leave once I was in this place. It’s to keep The Ministry safe and hidden. I wanted more than anything to let my family know I was okay, I even tried to escape a few times at the beginning, and I would’ve kept trying if it wasn’t for the former Director. He was a kind old buck who took me under his wing and showed me footage from how my family was doing after my death. I saw that Box Tape was sad but doing well and running his shop the same way he always wanted to. I saw that he left The Steel Rangers for good, my daughter was training to be a knight and my son was on his way to making Paladin. They moved on without me and didn’t need me anymore. So, I started helping this place and putting my knowledge into making it better. Almost thirteen years ago, The Former Director passed away and I was named the new Director. Once I was the one leading this place, I started making changes.”

Emerald made an annoyed sound, then said, “Yeah, she changed a lot of how we operate, not for the better if you ask me.”

White Oak glared at her. “I know your position on the changes I’ve made Commander, but in my leadership, we’ve made huge leaps in synth development thanks to me bringing in Dr. Stormy, Grimoire, and others. We are closer to finding the project that can fix Equestria and doing what the first founders of The Ministry wanted when they formed this place.”

“I always wanted to know, why do you all call this place, The Ministry?” I asked.

The last stallion who hadn’t spoken yet answered, “When Los Alicorn was attacked, the six Ministry hubs that were located just down the road from The UELA campus joined together and escaped to this underground shelter made by The Ministry of Arcane Science. Well, most of them did at least. We didn’t have many members from Image or Awesome, but the rest banded together and started calling this place, The Ministry, since every ministry was represented here.”

“So, you all just banded together and started making robots huh? Cool, like a high school science club. Did ya make ‘em fight each other too?” Stardust asked.

“Not at first,” The stallion said, “That came later, at first we started by helping ponies escape the fallout from the megaspells and balefire. Later when The Ministry was fully hidden and the ponies who went missing were forgotten, former members of the MWT and MAS started working on making synths. They were first created to keep an eye on what was going on in the world above, but the project had a lot of problems over the years. The first Synths were easy to spot as not being ponies and we couldn’t get them to act like normal ones either. So yes, they did fight, but not because we made them.”

White Oak spoke up next, saying, “He’s right, a little over one hundred years ago, a stallion finally broke one of the problems we had with synths and was able to give them a personality. They had two prototypes they tried out, one with memories of a pony from before the war, the second with some memories of a pony from before the war and fake ones mixed in. The former was a failure and was scrapped, the second one led us to the Gen two synth. Well I should say Gen Two and a half really. We had a working synth way back then, but they broke down fast, their minds not able to comprehend the reason for life. The 2.5 models however did a lot better.”

“Wait a sec,” I said looking at White Oak, “Was one of the synths with memories of the past called Lonely Hearts?”

“You mean X-001? Yes, he was implanted with the memories of a police detective from those times. I think his name was Lonely Hearts, why do you ask?” she said.”

“Because…I’ve met him. I also saw a Lonely Hearts in an old security video at the Playpony Mansion, I knew it couldn’t be the one I knew since synths weren’t around back then,” I said.

“Ah yes, I forget sometimes that Lonely Heats lives in the New Pegasus area,” she said.

Commander Emerald spoke up, and said, “He should’ve been put down years ago if you ask me.”

“Why? He’s a good pony…well synth, but he’s helped us in the past and I like the guy,” Aura said.

“Because, he’s a failed experiment that shouldn’t have ever gotten out of this facility in the first place. He was scrapped, but somepony a long time ago saved the body and switched him back on tossing him into the world above. It took us years to even find him again and when we did, he was protected by New Pegasus,” she said, sounding angry.

I frowned, “I agree with Aura, he’s not hurting anypony, he should be left alone.”

“He’s the property of The Ministry,” Emerald said, getting to her hooves, “Got a problem with that little filly?”

I got back to my hooves and pulled Dream Walker out. “Yeah, because he’s not just some robot, he’s my friend and helps ponies. Nopony should ever be called anyone else’s property. Who cares if he’s a robot or not?”

“Both of you calm down please,” White Oak said, glaring at both of us in turn.

Emerald sat back down a moment before I did. “She sounds like those goody-two-shoe railroad ponies. I bet she’d fit in with them.”

“And you sound like a Roman, bitch,” I said, muttering the last word.

“Who are the Railroad Ponies?” Wingnut asked.

“A long story for another time Wingnut,” White Oak said with a heavy sigh.

Mom sighed, “Can we please get back to the topic at hoof? We don’t have much longer before we’re ready and we still need to explain a few things.”

“Good point,” White Oak said, looking back at us, “Putting everything else aside, you know why I’m here now and you should understand that I’ve done a lot to start helping ponies in The Wasteland, unlike any other Director before me. This is where you come in Shadow, over the past twelve years I’ve been trying to help your mother cure you. We did so ten years ago, but that led to our current problem, Aquila.”

‘About time,’ I thought to myself. “Yeah, about that, how do you plan on getting her out of me? From what I’ve learned, she’s bonded to my very soul now, removing her would kill me right?”

“Yes and no,” Mom said, “I can’t go over everything, but I can tell you that I have a way to get her out of you without hurting you in the process. This plan is why you needed to come out here.”

I took a moment to think about it, then something came to mind. “You’re putting her into…”

Mom stopped me, “Don’t even think about what I’m doing, this is already dangerous because Aquila could take that knowledge for herself at any time. The less you know the less she knows. When I’m ready to start this process, then you’ll know because she won’t have time to stop me. If everything goes the way it should, you’ll be free of her and more.”

I huffed. “I hate not knowing what’s going on and even more so because I still have a problem trusting you.”

“Duly noted Shadow, and I understand why, but your friends all know the plan and they know what I’m doing will work,” she said.

I looked over at Aura and Solstice who both nodded, Aura saying, “It’s crazy, but it should work.”

“I agree, I mean I don’t know how all of this works, but the plan itself is sound,” Solstice added.

I sighed again and leaned back. “Okay then, so when do we start?”

“Very soon, I wanted you to have time to look around The Ministry and learn more about us before we undergo this procedure. As much as we’ve planned this out, it’s still possible something can go wrong,” White Oak said.

“What about after this is all over? What are you going to do with us? With Aquila?” I asked.

White Oak’s left ear twitched and she took a moment to answer, and when she did, I knew she was telling me a lie. “We’ll keep her locked away in a special chamber that can hold her until she fades again.”

“You’re going to kill her,” I said.

“I didn’t say…” she started to say, but I cut her off.

“No, don’t lie to me, you’re going to kill her. I can see it in your eyes,” I said.

“What if we did? She’s a star spawn, a monster,” White Oak said.

I shook my head. “She’s done monstrous things, but she’s only like that because of what she had to endure over the past two hundred years. She has goodness inside her. It’s small, but it’s there.”

Mom looked shocked. “Are you defending her Shadow?”

I shrugged. “Maybe a little. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the bitch for everything she’s put me through, but I also know her better than any of you do. She’s a lying, manipulative, dangerous, and powerful creature, but she’s not as evil as you all think. She was created to do good in this world, but she was forced to do bad things once her mind was twisted by pain and suffering. If somepony just tries, they can get though to her and maybe instead of killing her, we can use her to do some good in Equestria.”

The entire room looked at me like I’d just said we should let The Enclave take over. For a long moment, no one said anything until Wind Thrasher said, “I think I see what she’s talking about, if I wasn’t given the chance to better myself, I’d be dead right now. My mind was twisted and controlled for many years and most ponies would’ve just put me down, but Shadow didn’t, she saved me,” she looked over at me, “You have a talent for finding the good in ponies Shadow, and maybe Aquila has something in her that’s good, and maybe if she was able to change she could help The Wasteland.”

I smiled a little. “Thanks Wind Thrasher.”

“But even with that said, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let her live,” Wind Thrasher continued, throwing my hopes that she’d side with me right down the toilet, “One of the problems with how you view others, is that you don’t let yourself see them for what they are all the time. Most ponies can be saved I agree, and you know I hate killing creatures. However, Aquila is too powerful and dangerous for any of us to risk letting her live. She might’ve been created to save this world like you said, but she’s not that creature anymore. As soon as she gets the chance, she’ll kill you, me, and the rest of our friends.”

Everypony around the table nodded their heads slowly, even my uncle who was as dark as they come yet was managing to change himself. I frowned and looked at every single one of them before saying, “I know deep down that if we keep her contained and try to work with her, she will come around. Why can’t the rest of you see that?”

Mom sighed and said, “Because ponies like myself have looked into the research that went into creating her. She’s a force of nature that is an abomination, she has to be killed and that’s final Shadow.”

“She wasn’t created!” I yelled, “She was born somewhere else and pulled down here by Star Gazer. She’s a living creature just like the rest of us, I don’t like the idea of just saying she’s pure evil and killing her.”

Aura who was sitting to my left put a hoof on mine. “Shadow, we don’t have a choice, she has to die. I know you don’t like it, but that’s the way it has to be.”

“Also, how do you know where she was born or created?” White Oak asked.

“I saw one of her memories,” I replied.

Mom sighed and started to rub her temples. “Shadow, for all you know, that memory could’ve been fake. She’s already manipulated your mind in the past and it’s not hard for her to do it again. The longer she’s awake and the longer she’s left to merge herself with you, the better control she has over what you do, how you feel, and what you see.”

I knew I wasn’t going to win this. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to, I do hate Aquila, I know she’s a danger to myself and my friends, but something deep down was telling me that killing her was wrong. As I thought about it, my mind flashed with the sight of that monster zony from Moon Light’s memory crystal. Aquila was made of pure light magic, even if she was on the evil side, her magic was the opposite of his dark magic. What if we killed her and that monster got free from whatever prison he was trapped in. What if Falling Shadows was activated and it was the key to letting him go?

I looked back at White Oak, “Fine, if that’s your plan then so be it, but I have one stipulation. You let me find Falling Shadows and let me destroy it for good so nopony can use it.”

Her face fell. “Shadow, that program could be the key to fixing Equestria.”

“I don’t think it is. I’ve seen a lot of memory orbs from The Children of the Night and one thing Night Stalker himself was worried about was that that project could actually let something worse than Aquila out. A creature that’s been locked away for twelve hundred years. I can’t risk letting it out, and I know that there are other ways to help The Wasteland, it doesn’t have to be a project made by any Ministry or The Children of the Night. At least let me find it and see what it really does before we just blindly activate something that could kill us all,” I said.

“No deal,” Emerald said with a frown.

White Oak however, put up a hoof. “No, she makes a valid point,”

“But Director!” Emerald and the other two said at once.

“Quiet!” White Oak said before looking back to me, “I’ll make this deal with you, I’ll let you find Falling Shadows. I’ll even give you all the things I’ve learned about it over the years and same for what Dr. Stormy and your mother have on it too. If you find that this project can help us, then I want you to let me know and we’ll activate it. If it’s what you think it is, then I’ll let you destroy the program for good or at least lock it down again. I think that’s a fair enough deal.”

I nodded. “It’s a deal then Director.”

She smiled and shook my hoof. “Good, now I think it’s about time to get everything started. Shadow, your friends have a room that will fit all of you. I want you to rest up for an hour or so while we finish up the preparations, go with them and we’ll see you soon.”

I got to my hooves. “Okay, sounds good to me.”

Solstice, Stardust, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, Aura, and Byte all got up too, but Mom and Oricalcos stayed seated. I looked over at them, but my uncle just smiled. “We’ll see you in the lab soon, your mother and I want to make sure it’s ready.”

“Okay, I’ll…see you soon then,” I said, then followed my friends out of the meeting room.

The room was only a floor down from the meeting room and was as White Oak said, big enough for us all. There were three bedrooms with a couple beds in each, a nice sized living room with an offset kitchenette next to that. I made my way over to the couch and collapsed onto it. “Finally, a moment to relax.”

A moment later I felt Aura sit next to me and pull me close, letting me lay my head on her lap as the others took seats around us. She smiled down at me, then looked at the others. “So, since we have a little time, why don’t you three tell us what happened while we were stuck in here?”

I closed my eyes and smiled. “I woke up on a beach full of black sand and bones and ran from some Steel Rangers. Well, actually I hid, but it’s the same thing and found those two in a porn magazine house.”

Wind Thrasher blushed when I said the last part, but the others laughed. The sound made me feel like everything was going to be fine in the world. It was wonderful to be around my friends again. Once the laughter stopped, I let Wingnut and Byte tell the story about what happened when I finally found them again. I almost fell a sleep, but something was still making it hard for me to do so. So, I just relaxed and enjoyed my friend’s company. Half an hour later, food was brought to us by a synth and we all sat around the large dining room table and ate while Solstice told us stories about her time growing up in The Enclave.

“So, let me get this straight,” I said, looking over at Solstice who was sitting across from me, “You grew up in one of the richest neighborhoods in Stratus and yet you still joined the military?”

“Yeah, it’s tradition on my dad’s side of the family and most of my mothers too,” she said, eating some fancy looking salad, “And I’ve always been more of a violent kind of pony, so it was the right place for me. I graduated schooling when I was fourteen, joined the officer’s corps at sixteen and was in active duty a year after that. Spent the past year or so leading teams to the surface and was ready to rank up again when all of this crap happened.”

“I’ve always wanted to know why you really helped us Solstice, you started out as our enemy,” Stardust said.

She shrugged. “Seemed like the right thing to do once I had a talk with my mom. She told me to run after she heard that I was going to be marked as a possible traitor, this was before Nightshade took over though. I probably could go home now, but I’ve had a lot of fun being down here. Plus, I like you guys. You don’t get on my nerves like I thought you would. You still do, but not in the same way.”

The radio message I heard before came back to me and I felt my eyes going a little wide as I asked, “Solstice, your mother works in intelligence, right?”

“Yeah, Why?” she asked.

“Do you have a way to get ahold of her? The reason is because I heard something disturbing on the radio yesterday that made it sound like my father might’ve been attacked or some other faction of The Enclave is trying to take over Stratus,” I said finishing my small meal.

She went pale. “Was it Neighvaro?”

“I think so, but I can’t remember everything,” I said.

“I have a communication device, but it was taken when I got here. I’ll have to see if the Director will let me use it. I need to make sure my mom is okay,” she said, getting to her hooves.

Wind Thrasher stopped her. “It won’t do any good right now; The Director is in the lab with Grim and they’re getting this thing ready for Shadow. You might have to wait till after it’s done. I know it’s hard, but there isn’t much we can do while we’re here.”

“But, if Stratus was attacked, and Nightshade was hurt or taken out of power, my parents might be at risk,” she said, looking scared and frantic.

“Why would your parents be at risk if my dad’s in trouble?” I asked.

“Because my parents have been working with your father for years now to take over Stratus and Nimbus. I only know this because my father told me as much a week or so ago when I talked to them last. I need to make sure they’re okay,” she said, heading to the door.

I got up too. “I’ll go with you,”

“No, you’ll stay here,” Aura said, “You’ve got to be ready for this,” she looked at the others, “Wind Thrasher, why don’t you and Stardust go with her to see if you can find out about contacting her parents. Byte and Wingnut, it’s time that you start doing what you have to for your side of the plan, we don’t have much time before they come for Shadow.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Wingnut said, getting to his hooves and heading for the door, “C’mon Byte, let’s go do our part.”

She followed as Stardust said, “Sounds good Aura, are you sure you won’t need us?”

“We’ll be fine, Oricalcos changed a few things up a few hours ago,” she said.

“Wait what’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Aura said before walking over to her bags and putting them on, “I’m sure it’s about time to finish things with your little passenger. I’ll tell you the rest after that.”

The others walked out, leaving Aura alone with me. She waited for the door to fully close before she dropped her bags again and grinned. Confused I asked, “Aren’t we heading out?”

“We’ve got at least twenty more minutes before they come for you, maybe a little longer,” she said, moving closer, “I want to try something with this new body of mine and you’re the perfect test subject.”

I couldn’t help the stupid grin that came to my face as one of Aura’s wings wrapped around me while she led me to one of the rooms…

***

About twenty minutes later, I was scrambling to get my barding and duster back on, while at the same time trying to finish drying my mane after a frantic shower. Aura’s test as she called it proved to be something I desperately needed and was quite a lot of fun, at least for the small amount of time we had. We had just finished up what could’ve been a much longer bit of fun, when my mother’s voice along with Stormy’s came from the front door. The two of us scrambled to shower off the evidence of what we’d been doing, Aura giggling like a filly the whole time while my mother, Goddesses above, my fucking mother, knocked over and over asking if everything was okay and that she’d be coming in if we didn’t answer. I felt like a young foal trying to push her buckfriend out the window in the middle of the night after he snuck in for…well I’m sure anyone’s imagination could go on from there.

“I’ll be out in a minute!” I yelled, then slipped on the floor, got up again then bumped into Aura who also fell down while she tried to dry her mane.

Sadly, mom and Stormy had enough of waiting for us and they both came into the main room where Aura and I were both laying, tangled up in each other’s legs, wings, and towels. The two older mares looked at us both, then Stormy’s grin grew from ear to ear as she said, “So this is how silly I looked when I was a teenager. No wonder my mother was laughing so hard.”

Mom just rolled her eyes. “Really, you’d think the two of you would have more to worry about. Now get up and hurry up, we’re ready to start and we don’t have time for either of your foolishness.”

Blushing hard I finally managed to figure out which hooves were mine and which were Aura’s and got up. “Okay, and sorry about that.”

Mom just shook her head and turned away. “You’re too much like your father, I swear to the Goddesses.”

Aura laughed. “Now that’s a story I have to hear when I see Nightshade again.”

“Oh, Nightshade was quite a playpony when he was young, that’s why Grim didn’t like him much back in the day,” Stormy Said, then she winked at me saying quieter, “So was I, personally I say good job. If I was just a few years younger…but sadly there’s no time to reverse my aging right now.”

Ignoring Stormy mom said, “Aura, I need you to go to the lab and help Oricalcos with the last task. Shadow, get that barding off please, it will make what I have to do harder.”

“But…I just got it ON!” I complained but did as she asked.

“I still say you should bring a weapon or two though,” Aura said, “Never know what might happen.”

Mom just sighed. “We don’t have time to argue, so you carry her weapons, or bags, or both for her please.”

“No Problem,” she said, picking up my saddle bags then placing my barding and weapons that had been out into them, “I’ll see you in a few.”

Mom turned to look at me again, some of her frustration gone now. “Okay, first I want you to put this on,” she said giving me a horn ring that reminded me a lot of the one Squirrel and Moose had given me a few weeks back. “Once that’s on, I can tell you more about what we’re doing.”

I did and felt a stabbing pain in my horn, I winced and almost fell down. Then I noticed the feeling of Aquila’s presence vanish from my mind. “What the hell was that?”

“It’s a high ward mind blocker, it’ll keep what we’re saying away from Aquila for a few minutes. Just enough time for us to tell you what to expect,” she said, then looked over at Stormy, “She’ll explain.”

Stormy cleared her throat then said, “About a week ago, Aquila attacked your mother and friends at Frosty Summit. During this time, she had full use of your body. She came up with a plan herself to get full control of her own body. She gave Grim a set of instructions to follow and said if she didn’t do what she said, she’d kill everyone and make sure your life was nothing but pain and misery. She then gave her a rag with your blood on it.”

“Wait, you mean this whole plan isn’t yours but Aquila’s!?” I yelled.

Mom cleared her throat. “Most of it yes, but that’s the problem with creatures like Aquila. They think if they threaten, then they’ll get what they want, not knowing that a pony like me is smarter than she is. I changed her plan a great deal and that’s why I haven’t been able to say much to you about what we’re doing. All of your friends know what happened and what I’ve done.”

“So, you’re gonna betray Aquila and risk her wrath!? And why did she give you my blood?” I asked, feeling anger build up inside of me.

Stormy answered, “First of all, yes and no. We’re doing what she wanted us to, just with a twist at the end that will make sure she can’t hurt anyone ever again. As for the second part, you’ll understand that when we get to the lab. For now, let’s just say that your DNA was needed to make some of this work. Now come along, it’s time to get this started.”

She turned to leave, but I didn’t move, instead I growled. “I don’t trust either of you, how do I know this isn’t just some bigger plan to get what you want from Falling Shadows? How do I know that you haven’t been lying to me this whole time about this?”

Mom sighed, then pulled me into a hug, not letting me get another word out. “Because, Aura and Vervain have made sure that if I lie to you or them, that my life will end. Their plan which I’m not allowed to know anything about, will make sure that nothing bad will happen to you. If you can’t fully trust me Shadow, then please trust them and your uncle.”

It took me a moment, but finally I said, “Fine, but please tell me this’ll work. If it doesn’t, she’ll kill all of us for doing this to her.”

Mom pulled away, then said, “Even if we do everything she asked, Aquila would still kill us. She’s evil and that’s what creatures like her do, they kill. Now are you ready to start this?”

I sighed again then nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Stormy started walking again and we followed. It took us a few minutes to go down the stairs across the main chamber of The Ministry and to the labs where they made synths. From there we found ourselves in a large lab and my eyes widened at what my mom and uncle, and possibly more had set up. The entire large room had been cleared out of any equipment that would’ve normally been in this place. Painted in expertly drawn red paint were magic circles, zebra glyphs, and other things I didn’t even know. The two biggest circles with the most complicated designs on them were right next to each other, and one of them had something standing in the middle of it, covered with a white sheet.

“Shadow go stand in the middle of the empty circle,” Mom said, walking over to the other one.

I did but watched her, asking, “What’s under there?”

In answer mom pulled the sheet off and I almost fell from shock as I laid eyes on…myself…kind of. The blank faced mare was the same height as me, only with a silvery white coat and a jet-black mane, her half open eyes were the same shade of red as my own and her horn was sharper than most unicorns just like mine. Though she had no cutie mark and looked like a corpse standing up.

I gasped asking, “Is that…a clone?”

Stormy looked offended. “Heavens no! It’s the best gen three synth I’ve ever created. That’s why you’re DNA was needed, that way we could create a body as close to yours as possible. The only difference between this and you is the chip in its head. Right now, it’s not activated because the brain inside of it has no programming.”

“But the Synth looks so lifelike, and why is it opposite of my own coloring?” I asked.

To my surprise a shadow pulled away from the far wall and my uncle materialized at the edge of the magic circles. “That is how the DNA programming decided to make this synth. I’m guessing it’s because that is your normal coloring.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I saw him. “Hey Uncle Ori.”

He smiled back before mom said, “He’s right, though I’m not sure why your coloring changed since you were young. I’m guessing it’s in the memories of stuff I’ve forgotten.”

I remembered however, I’d seen the change from my own memories and from one of Mom’s orbs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of the ones I’d given to her when I left the underground bunker she’d set up her memories in. I nodded to her. “I’d forgotten, back when Aquila purified my body of that dark magic, it exploded out of me and my colors were changed. Though when Aquila takes over, my body reverts to looking like that.” I said, pointing at the synth me, which was still creepy to be honest.

“I figured as much,” Mom said before looking back at her brother, “Ori, when this process starts, you’re going to have to be in the observation room. The spell I’m going to cast is on the darker side of magic as you know. I’m not sure what’ll happen if you’re close.”

He nodded. “I figured that might be a problem.”

“Wait, why would it matter if Uncle Ori is in the room or not?” I asked.

Stormy answered, “Your uncle is made up of shadow magic, which is a branch of dark magic. From what he’s told me, it takes a lot of his will power to keep his mind clear and in control of his power. With a spell as powerful as the one we’re about to use, there’s a good chance he’ll lose control and try to take the power for himself.”

Oricalcos cleared his throat, saying, “Also the black book that you had was written by the witchdoctor who trained the creature I pull my power from. He was a powerful and evil zony. With the close relationship I have to this darkness, it will be even harder for me to hold back my power from trying to take what I can.”

I felt a twinge of sadness hearing that. I knew that Oricalcos had a hard time keeping the speck of light he still had inside of him from going out for good. He’s been working hard to do better since he found out who I was, but still he had moments I’d seen myself where his wanting to help me conflicted with his dark side. Like when he tried to kill Stardust in Stable 97 even after he’d gotten his mind and memories back. He didn’t trust my friend and figured that killing him was safer than risking him attacking me. He’d done a lot of evil things himself over the years, and that was why I wanted to help him find the light again. So he could make up for what he’d done, like I knew he wanted to.

“I understand,” I said, “Just…be close enough that you can help if it’s needed okay?”

He smiled back at me again then nodded. “I’ve sworn to protect you Star and you have my word that I won’t let anything happen to you.” He hugged Mom, then melted into shadows again and vanished.

Mom had a sad look on her face before she took in a deep breath then looked over at me. “Okay Shadow, are you ready for this?”

“Wait where’s Aura? I thought she was going to be in here with me,” I asked, feeling my heart start to beat a little faster.

A hiss came over an intercom and I heard Aura’s voice, say, “I’m here watching from the observation room with White Oak and your uncle. I’m here for you, I just can’t be down there.”

That made me feel a little better, so I looked back to Mom then said, “Okay, I’m ready.”

Mom took in another deep breath, then said, “Okay, I want you to look right into the eyes of the synth. Once you have, and I start the spell, you can’t look away no matter what you feel or hear. Not until I say otherwise. This spell might and probably will hurt. I’m going to be ripping another creature’s soul out of you and placing it into the synth. Just be brave and this will be over as quickly as I can make it.”

I nodded then did as she said. Once I had, she walked over to the synth and placed a necklace around it, the necklace had a pendant with a zebra glyph on it. She then put something like it on the horn of the synth, then four bands around it’s legs. The last thing she did was connect them all with a glowing chain that she made with her horn. As she did this, I kept my eyes on the red ones across from me, taking in deep, easy, breaths, preparing for what would happen next.

Mom came over to me and placed a single choker around my neck, then cast a small spell on me that connected the horn ring to the choker. Once that was finished, she went back to the edge of the circle. I could just make her out as she pulled out the old leather-bound black book and opened it on the floor. She turned the pages until she was almost half-way through it, then said, “Okay Stormy, it’s time for you to leave too.”

“Are you sure that can hold her once she’s in the synth?” Stormy asked, sounding worried for the first time I’d ever heard from the short mare.

“The Spells on those are the strongest any zebra has ever made to hold a star spawn. It will work, trust me,” Mom said.

“Okay, Grim, I’ll be in the other room if you need anything,” she said, then I heard the door to the lab open, and then close.

Mom took in another deep breath, then said, “I’m starting now Shadow, prepare yourself.”

I took in another few breaths, then I heard her start to chant in a deep tone. The words had to be in ancient zebra from what I could tell. I’d heard Yaksha and Sheena speak Zebra before, and it was nothing like this. As she chanted, the lights in the room grew dim, and a slight breeze started to flow throughout the room. Then the magic circles around the lab started to glow with a sickly purple light. They all came to life one by one until the two glyphs the synth and I were standing on finally lit up. As soon as they did, pain like I’d never felt before in my life exploded into my body. It was like somepony was trying to pour molten lead into my very soul. To make matters worse, I heard her for the first time in weeks. The evil chuckling laugh of Aquila.

“Hahahahaha! It’s about time she did what I told her to. Oh Shadow Star, I can’t wait for you to see what I have planned for you now!” Aquila said as I felt every part of her presence flow into me.

I wanted to scream, but something about the spell was making it impossible for me to do. I couldn’t even move my eyes as I felt the power she really had all flow into every part of me. I’d known that Aquila was powerful and dangerous, but I had no idea how much, not until I felt everything. Her energy was flowing out of me and toward the body across from me.

“That’s right, you can feel what I’ve had all this time can’t you? I’ve never let you see or feel everything I have inside of me before. I’ve only let you have a taste, about thirty percent of it in the past. Now, watch as I show everypony how foolish they are for thinking they can beat me,” she said, laughing again.

My vision was starting to go black as she laughed then I felt my mind sink into a place I’d never been to before. In a matter of seconds the pain was gone and I was in a black void deep inside my mind, looking at a white filly with kind pinkish red eyes smiling up at me. In the distance I could just make out Aquila laughing still and taunting me, but it was like she couldn’t tell what happened.

I looked down at the filly, asking, “Who are you?”

The filly smiled. “It hasn’t been that long since we met Shadow. I’m the light side of Aquila.”

My eyes went wide as I looked at her. “I don’t understand, the last time I saw you, you were more my size. What happened?”

Her smile fell a little. “My darker half has been getting stronger over the past couple of weeks. She thinks I’m fully gone now, but I’ve been keeping myself hidden. My form you see now, is the small amount of light that’s left within us.”

“She’s killing you slowly isn’t she?” I asked, feeling sorry for this better half of my inner demon.

“She’s tried to yes, but you can never fully destroy the light within anypony. My other half thinks she can, but still I remain, and I will forever. No matter how evil she tries to be, we are still a product of light and goodness,” she said before sitting and saying, “I don’t have much time, your mothers spell will pull me out of you with my other half and I need to let you know a few things before I’m gone.”

I wasn’t sure if I could trust the small filly or not, but something deep inside me told me I should. So I sat too. “Okay, what do I need to know?”

She smiled again. “I want you to know that my other half knows what your mother is planning. You need to expect it not to work, there is more to us than you think, same for what your mother thinks she knows about what we are. So, when we are pulled into the new body, be prepared for anything.”

I nodded. “I had a feeling something like that would happen.”

“Also, in a moment your going to get every memory back of what happened with your body while she was controlling it. When you do, you’ll understand more about what she’s been planning and who she’s been working with. She wanted to keep the memories from you forever, but I’m going to make sure you know everything. It’s the only way you’ll be able to save this land Shadow,” she said.

“Wait, she’s been working with somepony?” I asked.

She nodded. “A stallion from The Enclave, a pony who should’ve died a long time ago. He’s been controlling The Enclave for two hundred years from the shadows.”

“Is it Night Stalker?” I asked.

“No, Absent Moon, who you all know as Night Stalker, is still trapped in The Crystal Empire. Well his body is, his soul I believe moved on many years ago, same for the griffon he loved,” she replied.

“So, their bodies are still in The Crystal Empire? How do you even know that?” I asked.

She sighed sadly. “We knew because Absent Moon and Greta were powerful souls within this land. They shined bright and we could feel them even in our isolation. It’s probably because of the bond their two souls have, they’re eternally bound to each other and have been for twelve-hundred years.”

“Wait…What?” I asked, “You mean like that story I keep hearing about the two griffons or the pony and griffon who loved each other so much that they were bound to find each other in every new life?”

“The very same, Absent Moon’s soul was once the soul of Moon Light, the mare you saw in that memory crystal. Greta’s was the soul of Geoff her griffon life bond partner. I would tell you the story if I had the time, but sadly I can’t. The mare who knew the whole story was your distant grandmother Minuette. If you want the full story, you need to find her,” she said.

“She’s still alive?” I asked.

“In a way yes. We can still feel her lifeforce on this world, but it’s scattered and broken. We believe she is an Alicorn, but has no idea who she is, that was going to be the next thing I told you to do. You need to find Minuette, help her get her full memory back, and then she can help you take down Falling Shadows. She knows the project better than anypony,” she said.

I took in a deep breath, then said, “That’s a lot to take on, but I’ll try. So, if this other pony isn’t Night Stalker, then who is he?”

Her face went dark as she said, “Thunderlane.”

I felt my stomach turn as I heard that name. “That can’t be right, he was killed by Greta.”

“That’s the story yes, but he’s still alive and a ghoul. I don’t know how he survived, but he’s the one pulling the strings to what’s going on in The Enclave. You’ll need to take care of him to start taking down Falling Shadows and if you want to break the curse on your family. Do you understand me?” she asked.

I nodded. “I do, but I still don’t know what I can do. I’m not that strong.”

She got back to her hooves, and said, “You’re stronger than you think, let me show you.”

Confused I got up as well as she started walking deeper into the darkness. After a moment we came to a shimmering wall with bright white light behind it mixed with speckles of black flowing through the light. My jaw dropped open as I saw the ocean of what looked like power flowing behind the glittering wall. I looked down at her, asking, “What is that?”

“That Shadow, is the magical power I’ve been pulling away from you over the years and hiding from my darker half. She feeds off power like this and has been trying to keep you weak as she grows strong. Over the past three months, you’ve been tapping into this power as you’ve grown in your magical ability, but I’ve been trying to keep you from using too much so that my other half doesn’t find it. Once I’m gone, all of this will start flowing all at once into you. When it does, you’re going to start feeling a change in yourself. It’s my last parting gift to you.”

I looked at the sea of raw magic for a moment, then asked, “How much is that?”

She smiled a little. “More than your distant grandfather Dwarf Star or Minuette had combined.”

“No, that can’t be right, Twilight Sparkle and the Princesses were the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, and this looks like more power than what they would’ve had. Well maybe not the Princesses,” I said.

“The Princesses are a different case, they were Alicorns, Twilight on the other hoof was a gifted magic user and worked hard to get to where she was when she grew older. You were born with this magic, just like Moon Light was. Just be prepared for when it hits, you will have a hard time using magic for a while, while your body gets used to this power, but you’ll need it if you want to beat us,” she said, turning to look at me again.

“Is that enough to win?” I asked.

“Sadly no, but I have faith that you’ll find a way to bring the light back to us. It is your special talent,” she said with a chuckle, then her body started to fade slowly.

“Wait, what did you meant my special talent? I don’t understand!?” I yelled.

With her last words she said, “You have to figure the rest out on your own, I can no longer help you. One’s true talent needs to be found by the self and not the rest. Be strong Shadow Star, and always remember to shine brighter than anypony has before!”

With that, she was gone and before I could even think about what she just told me, a flood of memories from when Aquila was using my body, slammed into me like a megaspell explosion. A moment after that, I was ripped away from the now cracking wall of power and thrust back into myself as Mom finished up her spell.

***

I started to scream as I fell back into my body and pain flowed through me. A white light was flowing from my body into the synth I was still staring at. I noticed that the dead look in its eyes were now starting to fill with the light of life. The body started to breath slowly and a Cutie Mark was starting to show up on it’s formerly blank flank. As the last of the light that was Aquila flew out of my body, a boom that shook the room echoed out of the body and Aquila took in her first breath of life.

For a moment I thought she was going to attack us all, but she didn’t. The rings mom put around her glowed brighter and she was stuck in place. Her eyes still locked on mine as the spell made sure she couldn’t do anything to me or the rest of us. Mom stopped chanting and said weakly, “You can move now…Shadow.”

I finally pulled my eyes away from Aquila’s and took in her Cutie Mark. I figured that since she wasn’t a real pony, that she wouldn’t have one, but I was wrong. Stamped on her flanks, I saw a Red flying Eagle circling around a crown of thorns. The eagle’s tail was longer than normal, almost like flames flowing behind it. The beak nearly touching the tip of the tail. The crown was a mix of black and red with a few drops of what looked like blood on the tips. I had no idea what it meant, but it couldn’t be good.

“Release me from this binding spell Grim, we had a deal!” Aquila said, her muzzle barely opening, but her eyes were looking at my mother.

I turned my head weakly and saw Mom was breathing hard and laying on the ground, her grey eyes looking over at us both. She looked like she aged ten years in the past few minutes. Her mane was completely grey now, whereas before she still had a few streaks of silver in it. She looked weak, like most of the life had been stolen from her with one spell. Even with all of that she still managed to smile.

“Aquila, I learned a long time ago, never to make a deal with a devil,” she said as she slowly got to her hooves, “I wasn’t going to let a star spawn like yourself free in Equestria, even the weaker versions of your kind cause enough havoc as it is. You’ll be trapped like that, until we can finally kill you.”

I tried to walk toward my mother, but as soon as my hoof left the floor I collapsed. My body felt weak and shaky, I tried to get back up, but I couldn’t. I looked over at Mom, saying weakly, “My body’s weak.”

She looked over at me and I saw something in her eyes for just a moment, almost like she had no idea who I was. The moment passed and she shook her head, saying, “That will pass Morning St…I mean Shadow, just give it a moment.”

I just laid there looking over at Aquila in her own body, then said, “How do you like being tricked for a change?”

Her eyes looked down at me, but instead of getting angry she smiled. “Feeling weak are you Shadow?”

“Oh bite me, you lost, get over it,” I said, starting to feel some energy coming back to me.

The door to the lab opened before Aquila could say more and Oricalcos, White Oak, Stormy, and Aura came running in. Aura came right over to me and helped me stand up. “You okay Shadow.”

“I’ll live, just help me get over to my mom and somepony please do something with Aquila. I think she’s still trying to pull one over on us,” I said as I got up.

My uncle started walking toward Aquila who just stood there with that smile planted on her face. “She can’t break free of those traps Star, it’s the strongest trap for a star spawn,” Oricalcos said as he walked by.

“I made it myself using stones that have been specially enchanted for creatures like her. Those can keep her held like that for years. Once we move her to the prison we made, she’ll have even more enchantments to keep her held down,” Mom said as she leaned against Stormy for support.

Aura just got me to the edge of the magic circles when an explosion of pain hit me, first in my head as that barrier the other Aquila told me about cracked and shattered flooding my mind and body with way too much power. Second, something was very wrong in my chest, it felt like somepony was jamming a dagger into my heart. My heart rate went up and every thump felt like it was trying to escape my chest. Just like it did in my memories of when I was a foal. My legs went out as I screamed, my vision going red. Every sound went silent apart from the ear-splitting sound coming from my muzzle. I tasted blood and smelled copper. I felt Aura trying to hold on to me as my legs kicked, as my world became nothing but pure agony.

Then, just as fast as it hit me, the pain was gone leaving me shivering and weak laying next to Aura and my uncle, the rest looking over at me with concern. Aura was stroking my mane with a hoof, saying, “Shadow, what’s wrong, talk to me.”

I said weakly, “My…head…hurts, my chest hurts.”

Mom walked toward me slowly and cast that spell I remembered from when I was young. A white light flowed over my body, then she said, “I don’t understand…her heart should’ve been fine after Aquila took away the darkness.”

Oricalcos whipped his head around to glare at Aquila who started laughing. “What did you do to her!?”

Aquila looked his way and winked. “Who me? Nothing at all, her heart is just damaged from years of being attacked by that spell you cast on her Oricalcos. Don’t go blaming me for what you did to her when she was little. When I was in her body, I used my power to keep her heart strong, but now that I’m no longer in her pathetic mind anymore, her heart can’t take the strain for much longer.”

“You’re lying!” Oricalcos said as he started to walk toward her.

“Oh, I’m not lying at all, I never lie. I might bend the truth now and then, but I’m always honest,” she said as her eyes locked onto mine, “You’ll be dead in a few days Shadow, let’s call it a parting gift from me to you.”

Stormy spoke up with a light chuckle to her voice. “A damaged heart is something that we can easily fix here, you’d be surprised how far our synth technology has grown over the past few decades.”

Aura and I both looked over at the small mare as Aura asked, “You can fix her?”

She smiled wider then nodded. “Easily.”

My uncle started to laugh as the look on Aquila’s face went from pleased to angry. “Looks like you’re all out of tricks now star spawn.”

Mom weakly came over to me and started casting spells over me. I was going to ask what she was doing then I felt some energy coming back to my body. My head kept on throbbing from the power I could still feel flowing into me from the vast pool the good half of Aquila had hidden away for so long, but I could deal with that.

When she was done Mom said, “Let’s get her moved to the prison, this monster can live out what’s left of her life chained up like a dog.”

“Come on Shadow, let’s go get you into bed so you can rest up. We have a few more things to take care of, then we can start figuring out how we’re getting home,” Aura said as she helped me up.

“Okay, I think I need a nap anyway, and I have some things to tell you and Oricalcos,” I said.

My uncle looked back at me smiling. “I’ll come help you then, unless I’m still needed by my sister.”

She waved him off. “You go, we’ll deal with her on our own. This binding spell is too powerful even for her.”

“Yes, and I’d like to have a few words with you as well Shadow,” White Oak said.

Whatever I was about to say was cut of by the insane evil laugh of Aquila. We all looked at her and a moment later she said, “I still find it funny that you all think this binding spell can hold something like me.”

“You can’t talk your way out of that Aquila, you’re trapped, now get used to it,” Mom said.

“Oh poor, poor, Grim. You’re still under the impression that I’m a star spawn aren’t you?” Aquila said. As she spoke, a large crack appeared in the middle of the talisman around her horn. “Let me educate you on what I really am. You see, the zebras like to classify all creatures created by the stars as star spawn.”

“That’s because that’s what they are,” Mom said, sounding bored, “I’ve studied your kind for many years.”

The grin on Aquila’s face got bigger as she said, “Sadly, the zebras never looked into the difference between what I am and a mostly mindless star spawn. All star spawns are just creatures created by dark stars to cause problems for the ponies and zebras here on Equus. Now a star born or also a child of the stars which is created by light magic stars like my creators were, are something else entirely.”

A surge of power exploded out of Aquila and the talismans around her body crumbled away into dust. She moved her new body’s neck, popping the joints as she made a sound of utter delight. Mom and the rest of us took a step back as what was happening hit home. Aquila opened her eyes and started to cast a spell on her own body.

“I thank you Grim for making this body for me, with some help of course. It will do perfectly for what I need it for, now I just need to make a few alterations. And before our very eyes, Aquila’s new body was enveloped in bright white and pink light. Her body started to grow, getting another head higher, her mane grew longer and started to flow behind her like it was caught in a gentle wind. Dots of twinkling white lights danced in her mane like stars. Her horn grew longer and curved a little. Her eyes became slitted like a dragon’s, and a small black ten-pointed start appeared just over her collar bone. When the light of the spell pulled away, she looked nothing like me anymore. Her coat was even whiter than what mine used to look like, lacking the silvery shine, and when she spoke her voice was richer.

“It feels wonderful to be myself for the first time in my life. Now it’s time for me to pay you all back for the misery you and your families have put me through,” she said with a regal smile on her face, “I am Aquila, daughter of the stars, and it’s time for me to cleanse this world of the stain of ponykind for good. I’m starting with you…Shadow.”

Mom and Stormy both tried to cast a spell at her, but she just blocked it with ease. Then she surrounded us all in a pink glow and in a flash of light, we were all teleported out of The Ministry…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Mage Rank 1: Congrats on getting all that stored magic of yours back! Good for you! Upon attaining said magic, you’ve gained the ability to learn more spells and now you’ll be able to learn them with more ease than before, without supernatural entities getting in your way. Just be careful, and have fun!

Chapter 65: One More Light

“As we come to the end of this stage of our life, we find ourselves trying to remember the good times, and trying to forget the bad times.”

The dry wind of The Wasteland blew over my face digging into my lungs with each breath as we all appeared in a spot at least two kilometers away from Los Alicorn. The distance from where The Ministry was located and how deep it had to be under the dead city was proof of how powerful Aquila was in her new body. Though I should’ve known that from getting the memories from when she had control of my body. She’d managed to use a massive teleportation spell to bring my body from one side of Equestria to the other. Though the magical drain had almost been too much for her. This time however, she’d managed to bring not only my uncle, mom, Stormy, Aura, White Oak, and myself this far. She’d also got two scientists who must’ve been in the observation room. To make matters worse, she looked like the cost of the magic hadn’t even bothered her.

She was grinning from ear to ear as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s wonderful to feel fresh air, going into lungs that belong to me and not you Shadow.”

I tried to respond, but I was racked with another bout of pain as more of the magic flowing into me surged again. I winced and fell out of Aura’s grip. She however looked at Aquila, yelling, “What the hell did you just do? Where are we?”

Aquila just popped her neck, then said, “Oh about two kilos north of that university where Shadow and the foals found their way into The Ministry. I really didn’t want to be down in that hole when I can get a taste of fresh…okay well kind of fresh air. You have no idea what it’s like spending the majority of your life in a glass bubble and the last ten years trapped inside that weakling’s mind.”

Mom looked as angry as I felt. She started to power a spell as she growled. “You haven’t won yet Aquila, I can still stop you.”

Aquila slowly looked over at my mother and grinned. “Sit down and shut up Grim, I’ll deal with you soon.” As she spoke a flash of light escaped Aquila’s horn and my mother’s muzzle was forcefully shut, then a moment later she was forced to sit.

“Much better,” Aquila said as she slowly started to walk around the group of us, “Do you know how annoying your voice is Grimoire? No? Well it’s like hooves on a chalk board, mixed with the cries of foals. I don’t know how your husband put up with it for so long.”

Mom just glared at Aquila, her horn glowing as magic symbols started to glow around her. At the same time, Stormy started to cast a spell and so did my uncle. All three of them blasted Aquila with a mix of their power. Aquila managed to dodge Mom’s weak blast, but got hit by Stormy’s. It didn’t look like it did much damage but it did manage to throw her back right into my uncles power. That did something. She screamed in rage and pain as the black shadowy magic slammed into her side. She hissed and rolled away from the blast. Oricalcos followed that up with turning his body into his shadow form and growing, still casting bolts of shadow at her.

Aura tried to move to help but I put a hoof on hers making her stay. She couldn’t fight Aquila, let alone deal with the magic my uncle was casting toward her. My uncle started to laugh in that dark way he used to when he was Pride, saying, “Hahaha, you think you’re strong do you Aquila? Have you forgotten that your power is nothing compared to my own?”

Aquila dodged another blast of my uncle’s, a white light forming around her, “And have you forgotten that my magic is what negates yours!?” she blasted a beam of pure light at my uncle. The spell missed as Oricalcos faded into the shadows around him.

A moment later he reappeared on the other side of her, a ball of black energy growing around his horn. He chuckled again as he blasted the spell at her. The blast of blackness looked a lot like the same spell he’d used on me when I was a foal. I could see now how lucky I was that it hadn’t killed me. The blast of energy exploded when it hit her, destroying everything within five meters of the dome it created, followed by a scream of pain from Aquila. I was shocked to see the power my uncle had even in his weakened state. It made me wonder if my own fight against him was really as bad as I’d thought. If this was what he could really do, then he went easy on me.

Sadly the spell didn’t destroy Aquila. She was hurt though, I could see it in her face when she emerged from the black spell with a few cuts and bruises on her body. Oricalcos grinned that creepy grin of his when he was in his shadow form, and said, “My body is weak against your light, but you are also weak to my darkness. We counter-balance each other Aquila. You might be powerful, but you’ve never had to fight somepony with just as much magic as you have.”

Aura spoke up, saying in my ear, “I noticed when Aquila had your body that she really didn’t know how to fight. It’s one of the abilities she never learned from you. She relies on pure magic and overwhelming her foe with massive power. If she’s faced with an opponent who knows how to fight, she has a hard time keeping up. Oricalcos is our secret weapon against her.”

“Wait, you knew this might happen?” I asked, looking up at her as the pain from the magic started to fade again.

“We always knew it was a possibility. We had Oricalcos in place just in case. After I told him what I observed when I fought her when she was in your body, he came up with a plan. He’s been a solider for a long time, he’s way more experienced than she is,” Aura said.

As she spoke, my mom was able to break away from the spell holding her along with Stormy, they both attacked Aquila while her back was turned. Aquila took the hits hard, but wasn’t affected by it much. She still growled in anger and tried to attack Mom again. This time, Mom teleported away with Stormy. Then Aquila was hit yet again by another one of my uncle’s dark magic spells. Tendrils of shadows flowed up from the ground and trapped her within them. They didn’t last long though. Before Oricalcos could get another hit in, Aquila’s body flashed with blinding light and the shadows, vanished.

“Nice try Oricalcos, but I can get out of simple tricks like…what the hell?” She said as her body locked up.

Confused for a moment I couldn’t see what was wrong, then I saw a line of shadow flowing from under my uncle’s growing body and extending to Aquila’s shadow. Oricalcos grinned, saying, “Shadow Possession rank one, first spell I mastered when I became what I am now. Even your light spells can’t get you out of this, and if you think that’s impressive, wait till you see what rank two can do.”

His horn flashed again and the shadows under her started to creep up her legs until they were wrapped around her torso and neck. They started to squeeze slowly cutting off Aquila’s air. She gagged and tried to cast another spell, but my uncle had her. Her eyes went wide as she tried to pull away from the force being put upon her throat and body, but from what I could see, she couldn’t move. Just like that, my uncle was able to stop the monster I’d been fearing for so long now.

Oricalcos slowly moved himself closer to her. “Tell me Aquila, how does it feel be to be helpless? How does it feel to be under somepony else’s control?”

He let up on the pressure just a little so she could speak. She gasped and took in a few deep breaths, then said, “You haven’t won yet Oricalcos. I still have the power to destroy you.”

“Oh really? Is that a fact?” Oricalcos’s shadowy horn flashed with purple light and Aquila started screaming. From what it looked like; her energy was being drained out of her by his spell. Small motes of light started flowing from Aquila to Oricalcos. As each mote of light flowed into his horn, Oricalcos grew and Aquila looked weaker.

Stormy helped my mom get back to her hooves as the two scientists moved closer to White Oak, all of us watching as my uncle drained Aquila of her magic. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought that no one could take her down and not this easily. Why was I so scared of her all this time? Was it because of the control she had over my mind or was she really this weak all along? Either way, it looked like my uncle’s shadow magic was more powerful than whatever kind of magic she has.

“You see Aquila, your power might be great, but it’s no match for what I have. My power comes from a being who created something that could kill magic like yours,” he moved his shadowy head down and continued, “And now that you’re in your own mortal body, I can kill you.”

There was a flash of something in Aquila’s eyes as the spell Oricalcos was using started to fade. My mother must’ve seen something in that because she yelled, “Oricalcos! Get away from her!”

“Quiet sis, I’ve got this. She’s too weak to take me down. She hasn’t had time to adjust to her new body. This is the only time we’re going to have to kill her,” Oricalcos said as he started to cast another spell.

Aquila coughed, then said weakly, “If you kill me Oricalcos…you’ll never be able to help your sister activate Falling Shadows. I am the key for its power after all. If I die, you’ll be failing to help your sister get what she’s wanted for so many years.”

He growled deeply and yelled in her face, “I don’t give two shits about Falling Shadows, I don’t care about you or what my sister wants. I love her, but that project is her problem not mine. I only care about keeping my niece safe and the best way to do that is to kill you,” he looked back at Mom and said in a calmer voice, “I’m sorry sis, but I can’t help you anymore with your revenge or your quest to find this project. I know I promised I would, but not anymore. I’m finished being the bad pony, I want to be good again, and it starts with not helping you anymore. I’ll only help Star because I owe her so much for what I’ve put her through.”

I saw him look at me and smile, then it was followed by Mom saying, “Ori…you can’t say that!”

He cut her off, saying, “I’m finished sis, I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to go,” he looked at me again, “I can never repay the pain I’ve put you through Star, but I can at least do my best to be a better pony. One that deserves your forgiveness. I love you Star, and I always will…”

“Should’ve listened to your sister Oricalcos,” Aquila said, starting to laugh as the shadows around her neck and body started to melt away, like steam from a hot kettle.

“What’s…happening!?” Oricalcos said as his body started to shrink and his hold on Aquila vanished.

Aura pulled me back as an explosion of light came from Aquila followed by that laugh I was really starting to hate. When it faded, she looked as strong as she had before my uncle attacked her. She popped her neck and grinned at Oricalcos. “Oh Oricalcos, you really fucked up this time, didn’t you? Did you forget after all these years that the whole reason you have all that shadow magic and that body is because of a deal you made with Mezzanotte?”

My uncle’s body was still shrinking, and his eyes were starting to look normal again. They went wide as he realized what he just did, a moment later so did I. The conversation he had with me about how he became immortal came back to me like a flood. I remembered him saying that if he ever broke the deal he made, he’d lose the shadow body he had, and his mind and soul would be placed back into his old one. A body that hadn’t been seen for sixteen years. He’d die.

Mom started to cast a spell, at the same time I tried to pull away from Aura, but Aquila cast a spell and everypony was knocked to the ground and held there by some invisible force. Right then, something ripped open behind my uncle. It was like a black steel door just appeared out of nowhere. It was covered in runes and had chains over the door that hung loosely around the handles. As Aquila giggled in glee, my uncle slowly turned and looked at the door right as it split in two, opening just the slightest amount.

Everypony just watched with our mouths open as a single blood red eye appeared in the crack and out came the voice I heard in Moon Light’s memory crystal. The voice of that zony Mezzanotte, saying, “Oricalcos the shadow heart, you have failed me!”

As he spoke it was like all the light around the door and my uncles shadow form started to fade. My uncle stood as tall as he could as he responded, “I’ve done everything I promised all those years ago. I’m done being a lackey for everypony else, I’m sick of this evil power that’s eating away at my soul. If you want your power back after one time of me saying I’m finished helping my sister, then fine take it back.”

The voice got louder as it screamed, “I gave you a sliver of my power and told you to do one thing, just one, and that was to help her find this project and to activate it! When I make a deal, there is no going back! You’ll do as you promised or pay the consequences!”

“Ori don’t do it! You’ll never survive!” Mom yelled.

I watched as my uncle looked back at her, then at me with a smile on his face. “You were right Star, there is still a little bit of light still deep within my rotten soul. Thank you for believing in me,” then he looked back at the door ignoring the laughter coming from Aquila as he said, “I’ll use what power I have left Mezzanotte and destroy her before anypony else can unlock that project. If you want to kill me for that, then have at it, I’m finished.”

He whipped around and started to cast a massive spell. The purple glow around his horn getting brighter and brighter. The laughter from Aquila died as she saw what my uncle was doing. She took a step back, fear building in her eyes. Then a tendril of Shadow flew out of the door. It slammed into my uncle’s back right when he cast his spell. Everything went quiet as I watched my uncle scream in pain at the same time Aquila tried to block whatever he’d just cast. She wasn’t fast enough. The blast of energy slammed into her, throwing her body back a good twenty meters until it slammed into a rock.

“If you want to pull back on our deal Oricalcos then fine, I’ll take back that immortal body I gave to you and let you go back to the weak, pathetic body you had before. Trust me, it’s not in good shape after all those years of neglect from being in my domain. Enjoy your mortal death, Oricalcos,” the voice said. As we watched, there was a flash of dark energy and my uncle screamed louder as the shadows that made up his body were pulled back through the door leaving only a small mote of light. The light flashed then whizzed toward a dull gold body that had appeared right in front of the door. It was emaciated and lifeless, until the mote of light slammed into it and the body gasped then screamed weakly.

“Ori! NO!” Mom yelled, trying to get up. I noticed just then that the spell holding us down was gone. Mom and I both pulled away from Stormy and Aura and ran toward the thin body of my uncle.

Before we made it to him, the voice said, “Shadow Star, I’ll be seeing you soon,” then the door slammed shut and vanished with the sound of thunder as it went.

We both ignored the voice as Mom and I skidded to a halt next to my uncle. Ignoring the pain in my body I pulled my uncle close as he stopped his weak scream and just lied there breathing slowly. Mom was trying to cast a spell over him, I just held his head and looked at the skeleton of a body he now had. He looked like he didn’t have any meat left on him, just sharp edges where most of his bones pushed against his skin.

“Don’t worry Ori, I can help you, you can’t die on me!” Mom said as she started casting a complicated healing spell.

Stormy, White Oak, and Aura came up to us too, but they stayed back as Mom started doing what she could to heal him. I just started to cry, I know it sounds pathetic, but I didn’t know what to do. I just placed my head down against his boney one, saying, “Why did you have to do that?”

He weakly opened his eyes, looking up at me with his beautiful purple ones and to my amazement he smiled, saying weakly, “Don’t cry Star, it’s okay, I’m…free of that evil now.”

“Don’t talk,” Mom said, tears running down her face as she kept casting her spell.

“Star…are you proud of me?” he asked, sounding delirious, almost like he was dreaming, “Did I do the right thing Star?” his eyes went glassy as he faded into some memory of his, “You’re going to be powerful one day Little Star, so powerful and beautiful. I…can’t wait to see who you become.”

“Uncle Ori…I’m all grown up now. I’m still here and I’m safe, thanks to you,” I said.

His eyes focused again, and he smiled once more. “There she is, my Little Star, did…did I stop her?”

“You did,” I said looking over and seeing Aquila was lying in a heap right where she’d landed after his attack.

“Good…that’s good,” he looked around, “Sis? Why are you crying?”

“Because your body is shutting down you stupid jerk. I don’t even know how your body is still working. I’m trying to fix the damage I can find, but there’s just too much,” she said.

“Sis…Grimoire, it’s okay…it’s time. I should’ve died a long time ago,” his eyes went back to mine, “I should’ve died when I hurt you…I’m just glad that you’re okay Star, do your uncle a favor…get strong, get powerful, don’t let anypony ever tell you you’re weak,” his voice was starting to get weaker, “Shine bright Little Star. Shine…brighter, than anypony else ever…has.”

“Oh move over Grim, you’re not helping,” I heard Stormy say as she pushed Mom away from my uncle and started to cast her own spell over his body, “His body is in shock, he needs water in his system and a lot of other things, but I can keep him stable until we get him back to The Ministry.”

“You can save him?” Mom asked.

I looked up at this too. “She can?”

Stormy sighed then looked at White Oak, “I’ll need your transmitter, it’s the only way I’m going to get him back to The Ministry before he dies, my spell will keep him in stable condition for only a small amount of time. Can you deal with everything here?”

White Oak hesitated for a moment then nodded. “No problem, I understand. When you get back, make sure you send a synth to get the coursers, tell them where we are and to get an extraction team before Aquila wakes up again. We need to contain her.”

White Oak pulled something out of her lab coat and gave it to Stormy. Stormy took it, saying, “I’ll do what I can, but I’m more worried about Oricalcos. I agree with Grim, I have no idea how he’s still alive.”

She started to do something with the small device as my uncle looked at me again. “Star…tell Vervain…that I’m…”

He never finished what he was going to say. Her spell took hold and he fell asleep with an orange glow around his body. A moment later Stormy pushed me back and they both vanished in a flash of bluish-white light. I was taken aback by her quick and sudden exit. Looking over at White Oak, I asked, “Why couldn’t she take us all back?”

“My emergency transporter only works for two ponies. If she could’ve used it to get us all back, then I would’ve suggested that. Now we need to worry about getting Aquila back before she wakes up from whatever spell Oricalcos used on her,” White Oak said, turning toward the smoking body of my evil half.

We all turned to look at her, the two other ponies who got pulled along with us when Aquila took us away from The Ministry looked scared as they moved to stand behind their Director. One I noticed was a mare around my age. The earth pony looked like she was about to shake right out of her lab coat and for good reason. I know that fear all too well of the overpowering presence of Aquila.

“Madam Director how are we going to get that thing back to The Ministry?” the younger mare asked.

“I was going to ask that too,” The Director said, looking over at my mom.

Mom slowly started to walk toward where Aquila was lying. “All I have is my Chains of Celestia spell that might hold her for an hour or so. I can’t say, because she’s made up of light magic unlike my brother’s darkness. She’s also in a body now and my spell isn’t as strong against a normal body.”

“Grim I think we should just leave and deal with her later, Shadow needs help more than we need to capture Aquila,” Aura said as she came over to help me again. I was still feeling weak and my head was starting to pound again, the magic flowing through my head like a flood.

“We can’t wait. If we don’t deal with her now, we’ll never be able to again,” Mom said starting to cast another spell.

Before she even got one of her magic circles fully created, an explosion of pink light came from Aquila’s body, almost knocking us down again. Then Aquila got back to her hooves, anger written all over her face. “I’m finished with all of you!”

In a flash of light, she vanished with a loud crack. A moment later she repapered behind the two scientists. Before either of them could run, Aquila cast a spell over the stallion, shortly followed by his scream of pain. We all whipped around just as the stallion’s body started to bleed from every orifice, his eyes, nose mouth, and other places started to leak boiling blood. It landed on the hard ground with a hiss, followed another moment later with his body falling to the ground dead. She then turned her attention on the other one, the young mare screamed and tried to run.

I started to draw on Dream Walker, pulling it up quickly and entering S.A.T.S., but I wasn’t fast enough. Before the spell fully kicked in, a blade of light flew out of Aquila’s horn and cut the poor mare in two. Her body fell into pieces right after, her blood and guts mixing into the dry soil in a matter of seconds. Then S.A.T.S. kicked in and I took aim with Dream Walker. I fired three shots right into her chest screaming in anger and defiance at the mare who made my life hell. To my utter shock, every bullet slammed into her, throwing her back again.

I disengaged the spell and started firing shot after shot toward Aquila. “How do you like me now bitch!? You like to make others suffer, like to make them feel like nothing compared to you? Well guess what. All you are is an abomination, an abhorrence of nature, and you don’t scare me anymore.”

I tried to fire more, but with a click, Dream Walker was out of ammunition. I went to reload but was hit with more pain as my heart throbbed in time with my head feeling like it was being split open again and I fell to the ground screaming in pain. Aura rushed over to help me, but mom started casting again, yelling, “I have to take her down before it’s too late!”

“It’s too late GRIM!” Aquila yelled as she got back to her hooves. Through my pain I saw every bullet I’d shot at her slide off a barrier she’d erected around her body, so close to her coat that it was barely visible. She grinned madly and cast a counter spell. The pain I felt before was nothing compared to this. It was like every cell in my body was trying to pull themselves in ten different directions at once. From the look on Aura, Mom, and White Oak’s faces, I wasn’t the only one who was going through this.

Once again, I fell to the ground, this time Aura falling with me as a blood curdling scream fell from my lips. Between what Aquila was doing to me, the magical overflow and my heart, I wanted nothing more than to just die, then and there. Just like every time I tried to face off against Aquila even when she was in my mind, I was losing. I mean what could I do against a creature like her? She’s made of pure light magic, she’s born from the stars themselves, she knows more spells than I do.

To make matters worse, she was going to kill all of us, my mom, the mare I spent the past few weeks trying to find and later convinced that I was her daughter. The mother I thought I lost when I was still a filly. I was going to lose her again. Aura, the creature I loved more than life itself, griffon or pony it didn’t matter. I knew deep down that I loved her more than anything. Now she would die because of Aquila’s hatred of me. Lastly White Oak, Vervain’s mom, who she thought was killed years ago. I’d never be able to tell her that she was alive, that she could see her again. Aquila was destroying so much and all because I couldn’t get over this stupid pain.

Why did she have to draw it out like this? Either kill us and get it over with, or just leave us alone. Also, why did the light side of Aquila have to shove all this magic into my damned body at once!? Why couldn’t she have tried to warn me and prepare me for this? I had no idea what to do with the power flowing into me right now, no idea how I could use it to fight back. It was right then that it hit me, and as it did, the pain from Aquila’s spell vanished like it never existed in the first place.

I was wrong, she’d been preparing me for this magic. What have I been hearing for weeks now from my uncle, my mom, Aura, Stardust, Wind Thrasher, Wingnut, and others? I wasn’t the same mare who left Stable 28 all those weeks ago. I wasn’t the weak filly who ran away from her stable to escape her Overmare with the Mark II. I wasn’t the mare who had a hard time casting spells, or the mare who feared her own shadow. I’d faced down Pride when he tried to kill me in Appleton, I made The Enclave see me as a threat, I’d beaten Wrath and Gluttony, I was able to face off against Envy and live, and I’d managed to survive Hoofington and a fight with elite Enclave soldiers. I took down Gators camp, beat Discord at his own game, beat Winter Frost, not once but twice in a fight, managed to trick the so-called Goddess, and so much more. I’m not a scared filly anymore, I’m the Goddesses damned Courier of New Pegasus for fuck sake, and I’d managed to take control of my body from Aquila more than once. If today is going to be my last day on Equus, then I’m going to take this bitch down with me.

This power flowing through me right now was my own magic, magic that’s been held back to keep it away from Aquila so I could have a chance at taking her down. I can’t let it overpower me anymore, it’s time I took control for myself, just like when Aquila tried to control my body. I’m the master, not this power, and I’m going to use it to rip Aquila’s new body apart. So, closing my eyes, I drew on that vast power deep inside and changed the flow of where it was going. I let it flow from the deepest darkest part of my very soul and let it go to my horn. I started to get to my hooves, growling in anger as I looked at Aquila. As I did, a red aura started to flow over my horn as I poured more and more power into it.

Aquila looked over at me in shock, saying, “How are you able to rise?”

“I know your magic as well as I know my own,” I said as a secondary aura manifested over the first, “Your power has no hold over me anymore Aquila, you can’t overpower me,” a third aura followed shortly after the first two, lighting up the dim land around us in a bloody haze, “I’m through letting you think you’re the most powerful one here. You chose to make sure you got your own body, just so you could get away from me. Well, congratulations, now you have your own body and all of the flaws that go along with it.”

“How do you have that much magic inside of you? I took most of your power over the years, you shouldn’t be able to do anything with magic after what I left you with,” she said, her eyes going wide as she let off her spell on the others and started building up another.

“Welcome to the life of a mortal Aquila! NOW DIE!” I screamed and let all my rage and pain flow out of me and into my concentrated expulsion blast. A blast of blood-red power blew out of my horn and slammed into Aquila.

She was caught completely off-guard and went flying back, stuck in the blast of my pure anger. That is until a pink light came from the large blast of magic and started pushing back against what I was channeling all my power into. Then I saw my mistake, I shouldn’t have said anything to her, it gave her enough time to pull on her own power and start building up a defense. She landed on her hooves and started blasting her power right back at me, pushing the red beam of power back. I might know her power well, but that also went for her with me. She knew how I thought and just how to protect herself from my magic.

“Nice try…Shadow, but you still aren’t more powerful than I am!” she screamed as she pushed more power into her spell, pushing mine back farther until we were almost even.

I felt the strain this spell was causing my mind, body, and horn. I ignored it all and screamed myself as I pulled on more of my power and let it flow into my spell, forcing her own to start pushing back little by little. Through the extreme light that was emanating off our spells, I could just make out a bit of strain on her face as she matched then surpassed me on what she was pushing into this one attack. The strain grew and I felt my body starting to shake with fatigue as I tried to match her, but the sad part was, I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t understand this raw magic flowing inside of me. To make it worse, casting this spell that I’d cast dozens of times now, felt different. It was like with Aquila out of me, my magic didn’t work the same as it did before. It was harder for me to pull on and control.

As her spell started to inch toward me little by little, I knew the truth. Aquila was more powerful and had a better understanding of her power than I did. If I had time to practice with my new power or understand how my spells worked now, I might have a fighting chance, but I’d acted on rage and attacked instead of getting everypony out of here. Live to fight another day and all that crap. I can’t win in a fight, magic to magic, against Aquila, not yet. However, I do have another way to fight, one in which Aquila was lacking. So, when her spell was within a few inches of slamming into me and the light from our spells was almost blinding, I stopped casting my spell, ducked and rolled, letting her spell miss me by a hair or three.

As I rolled, the strain of that spell hit me, but I did my best to ignore the massive headache that came with letting so much power out at once and used my telekinesis to draw Mom’s plasma rifle and Misery at the same time. When I came out of the roll, I took aim and fired at Aquila. With her concentrating on trying to kill me, she didn’t see the simple move and my shot was true. It slammed into her side, breaking through whatever barrier she’d erected around herself and threw her back with a scream of pain. I didn’t let up, I fired shot after shot at her as I drew on another spell getting Misery ready. All I had to do was teleport to the other side of her, bring Misery down on her damn neck, and decapitate her. Easy as pie, just know my location, draw the power into myself, use that power to draw my body from the place I’m at to the place I want to go. I’ve done this spell hundreds of times. As I fired blast after blast of burning plasma at Aquila, I cast the spell.

Then…nothing happened, my horn just sputtered and sparked. I still had hold of my weapons, my magic wasn’t that weak, so why didn’t I teleport? At the same time, the plasma rifle clicked, and I was out of shots. Looking over at Aquila I saw that even though I’d been firing round after round of deadly plasma into her, it hadn’t done much damage. She was getting back to her hooves with that maddening grin on her face.

“Shadow, let me guess. you wanted to use that attack to keep me distracted while you teleported to the other side of me so you could cut my head off?” she said with a light chuckle, “Too bad that the knowledge to cast a teleportation spell isn’t just about knowing you can do it. No, you need to have a slight understanding of the structure of that spell. Something that you’ve been lacking for years. The only reason you’d been able to teleport in the past is because of me.”

I searched in my memory of teleporting and realized that she was right. I knew how to cast the spell itself, but not how the spell worked. I never have, I’d just been able to do it one day, when I needed to escape The Overmare’s office. From every book I read and from what I’d heard from others, casting teleportation was an advanced spell that a unicorn needed to learn. They didn’t just have the ability one day, they had to work hard to learn it. I just thought I was the exception to the rule. I was wrong.

It didn’t matter though, I could still win, I just needed to change my game plan. So, I changed out the magical energy cartridge on the plasma rifle and took aim and started to fire as I ran toward Aquila yelling, “I don’t need my teleportation to beat you.”

Aquila ducked under the first few shots and teleported herself, reappearing to my left. I was ready for her though, and Misery flew through the air as I twisted around. She ducked the first swing only to find the barrel of the plasma rifle in her face. With a grin I pulled the trigger, she dodged but still took a slight burn to her left ear. She howled in pain and cast another blast of magic at me. I grinned and brought up a barrier, that spell I did have the knowledge for thanks to Aquila and the fight against The Steel Rangers. Her spell slammed into it and blasted to each side. The barrier cracked but held long enough for the spell to pass by without harming me.

Before she could attack again, I looked back and saw Mom and the others were getting back to their hooves finally. As they did, I yelled, “I could use a little help here!”

Aura was the first to react, she took to the air, yelling, “I’m gonna need a weapon Shrimp!”

I let the barrier fall and drew Dream Walker with some ammo and threw it up to her. At the same time, Mom was starting to cast her own branch of spells and White Oak…well I don’t know what she was doing. It looked like she was trying to use something to call for back up. Magic and bullets started to fire down at Aquila who dodged them and started casting again. I took the chance to move The Plasma Rifle to my back and attack with Misery. Aquila tried to throw up a barrier, but it was no use against the magical blade. It cut through the spell like it wasn’t even there. Aquila managed to jump back, but not before Misery sliced a line down her cheek.

Blood flew, followed a moment later by more as a bullet from Dream Walker hit her in the flank, making her fall to the ground with a scream and right onto a magical trap Mom had cast. The ground around us exploded, sending Aquila and me both flying back. I was lucky, I was just outside of the main part of the blast. Aquila however, wasn’t so lucky. She was as naked as a newborn foal. By the time she landed again, blood was flowing from multiple points on her body.

She was gasping for air as she tried to get to her hooves. I started walking toward her, limping slightly as I lifted Misery high. “Time to say goodnight Aquila.”

“I don’t think so,” she said as Misery fell toward her face. It was stopped a second later as she took hold of the blade with her own magic, holding it at the same point I was. Our telekinetic hold on the weapon fought for dominance as the blade moved closer to her face little by little. Then again, Aquila smiled wide. “Do you really think you can kill me so easily Shadow?”

Mom was running toward me, casting more spells around us, and Aura was diving with Dream Walker in her muzzle. I had my eyes on Aquila and they went wide as I realized what was wrong. The cut I’d made only a moment ago was already gone. Like it had never existed in the first place. In the moment of shock, I lost my hold on Misery as it was ripped away from me and I was blasted back a second later by another of Aquila’s spells.

She started laughing as she cast another barrier around herself, the spells and bullets coming at her missing or bouncing away. She smiled. “Yes, you see now Shadow? You can hurt me all you want, but my wounds will heal a lot faster than a normal pony. I…can’t…DIE!”

“Aquila!” Mom yelled as magical circles started to surround her.

Aquila ignored her and brought Misery down and let it slide into my gut. My heart nearly stopped as pain once again took dominance over all other senses. I tried to scream, but her hoof came around and hit me hard in the jaw almost knocking me out. She then looked over at my friends, and yelled, “Come any closer and the next time I’ll drive the blade into her eye!”

Both Aura and Mom stopped where they were, Aura saying, “Aquila, please, just let her go. You got what you wanted, you don’t need to hurt her anymore.”

“Oh Aura, Aura, Aura, you don’t understand, do you? It’s not about needing to hurt or kill Shadow. I’m doing this because I want to. I want the body I was trapped in for ten years to be nothing more than a rotting corpse. I want my revenge on all of the ponies or their descendants for what I went through for my entire existence on Equus. But don’t worry, you and Grim will be next, followed by everypony else who’s related to The Children of the Night. After that, then the rest of ponykind will PAY!” she said.

As she spoke, she twisted Misery a little, making me almost pass out from the pain. Mom took a step closer, but Aquila shot a spell at her, making her take a step back instead. With a frown of anger on her face, Mom started whispering something to Aura who’d just landed next to her. Aura nodded and kept on listening. While they talked, Aquila looked back at me. “So, should I kill you quickly or slowly? I’m thinking slowly, make you feel the torment I had to live through for years. What do you say?”

“Bite me,” I said weakly as I tried to think of something I could do to stop her.

“Slowly it is then,” she said, ripping Misery out of me then using her telekinesis, she flipped me around and slammed me down on the ground. I was about to scream at her again then searing pain came from my right foreleg followed by the loss of feeling in that same leg. Looking over I saw that my right foreleg was missing from just above the mid-joint. It was now lying a few feet away twitching as blood flowed from where it had once been attached to my body. I started to scream but my air was cut off as she started to choke me with her magic. Tears fell from my eyes as I struggled to get the small bit of air I could into my lungs.

“I’ll KILL YOU AQUILA!” I heard Aura yell, but she was ignored.

“Don’t worry Shadow, I won’t let that kill you too quickly. Here, let me cauterize that for you. We don’t want you bleeding out too fast now do we?” she said, followed by even more pain as she burned my flesh with another spell, stopping most of the bleeding from my lost foreleg.

A shot rang out from Dream Walker, but the shot missed when Aquila cast another spell to protect herself from the weapon. With tears in my eyes I looked up at her, saying weakly, “You’re…pathetic.”

Her hoof came down and slammed into my jaw, knocking a tooth free. She lifted Misery again and brought it down in an arch, slicing off my left ear. I whimpered in pain as she said, “I’m going to cut you into tiny little pieces. I’m going to make sure you suffer for as long as your mind can take it. Then I’m going to break your mind right before I cut your head off. Then I’m going to do the same to your mother and your lover, then your friends.”

I could just make out a bright light from behind me but couldn’t see what was going on between the pain and the tears. Misery came down again and sliced a bit of flesh off my back, then again to stab me in the flank, followed by Aquila turning me onto my back again. She then brought Misery down and slowly cut a line down the scar left over from the surgery I had when I was in the Steel Ranger bunker after the first fight where I’d let Aquila control me. The pain was almost too much for me to take. Black was already starting to work its way into my vision as the sounds of Aura’s screaming cries echoed in the distance.

Again, I heard Aquila’s voice, this time close to my good ear. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you die yet. Here, let me heal you just enough to keep you alive and awake.”

Then I felt the flesh knit together slowly, not fully healing me of my wounds, but enough to keep me from bleeding out. With a weak moan of pain, I said, “Just…end it…”

“You want this to be over?” she asked, “Ask nicely and I just might put you out of your misery. Haha, misery, isn’t that the name of this wonderful sword you found?”

“Please…I’m begging you Aquila…just get it over with. Let this be over between us…you win okay…just fucking…end it,” I begged, hating myself for every word, but I was finished and I knew it. Game over, time to finish playing.

“Well since you asked so nicely, fine with me, goodbye…” she started to say, then her body went ridged as a magical circle appeared on her chest.

She was forced off me slightly and the glow of the circle grew. Looking down I saw there was another one on my chest, one that matched the one on Aquila’s. It was then that I heard my Mom’s voice chanting. With the slight bit of strength I had left, I managed to turn my head to see her.

She was standing a few meters back from Aura who looked scared at the sight of my mangled body. Mom’s body was glowing with a brilliant blue light as her chanting grew deeper and a wind started to pick up around us. White Oak moved further away from Mom at the same time as Aura. Another magic circle with more detail than any I’d seen before from my mother appeared under her, followed by six more around her body. They all pulsed once, and more magic circles started to appear around myself and Aquila.

“What are you doing Grim!? You can’t kill me, even with your vast power!” Aquila yelled, “And why can’t I move!?”

I felt something deep inside of me pulse and a speck of light shot out of my muzzle and into Aquila’s. At the same time the same happened with her to me. As the light entered me, I felt as if I could just make out the slightest bit of Aquila’s own pain. It was like her body was struggling to handle the amount of energy it was being forced to contain. I couldn’t think on it much because right then Mom’s chanting grew louder. The clouds above started to flash with lightning, the rocks around us started to float into the air and the sound of electricity flowing seemed to fill the air around us with the smell of ozone.

The wind picked up the dust on the ground and it started to turn into a small tornado around the three of us, Mom, Aquila, and me. I couldn’t see Aura or White Oak anymore, only the power coming off my mother. A purple energy seemed to come from the ground itself and spark and crack around us. Mom’s eyes were glowing with purple and blue light as she continued to cast whatever spell she was working on. As the spell hit, its peak, Mom stood tall and proud, her gaze falling on mine. In that moment I saw her for the pony she’s always been and always would be. A pony who wouldn’t let anypony tell her she couldn’t do something. She’d prove them wrong every time.

Then she stopped her chanting, and everything exploded in purple, blue, and white light. When it passed Mom gave me a soft smile then fell to the ground with a loud thump. Her eyes half open as she struggled to breathe. Whatever she tried to do, it looked like it had almost killed her. Ignoring every pain in my body, I started to drag myself closer to her with my remaining foreleg. I only got a meter when Aquila struck.

She flipped me over again and started to squeeze her magic around my throat once more. This time I couldn’t breathe at all and my eyes bulged as I tried to gasp for air. She looked like hell, her mane was messed up, she had more cuts along her body, and pure madness gleamed in her red eyes. “I don’t care about hurting you anymore, I’m just going to kill you here and now,” she looked over at Mom, “You’re pathetic spell didn’t work Grim….gah!”

I was confused for a moment at what happened, until I saw Aquila gasping for air. She let her hold on my throat go as she took a step back. As soon as the spell was stopped, I gasped for air and so did she. She looked confused, then she hit me as hard as she could with a hoof. I let out a weak scream, but nothing like Aquila who flew back with a bruise on her white face. She looked even more confused and that only grew when Mom’s laughter came from just a few feet away.

“What Aquila? Don’t like the pain you dish out?” Mom said weakly.

“What did you do!?” she yelled, looking at Mom.

“I bonded your life to Shadow’s,” Mom said with a cough, “If you kill Shadow, and only you, then you’ll die along with her. Even if you send somepony after her, you’ll still die as well, because this spell will know that you were the one to try and end her life. I’ve made it impossible for you to kill my daughter. So, do what you want to me, but you’ll never be able to do the one thing you’ve wanted to for years, kill you’re host.”

“You bitch!” Aquila yelled, lifting up Misery, “I’ll make you pay for this. You might think you’ve stopped me from killing Shadow, but every spell can be broken.”

“True, it can be broken, but it’ll take you years to figure it out, and in that time, Shadow will be able to grow and find her own way to destroy you for good,” she said, her voice sounding even weaker.

“If I can’t kill Shadow, then I’ll kill you!” she yelled.

Aura flew over again, and yelled, “You won’t kill anypony with the sword of my ancestors. I am Aura Bloodtalon and Misery belongs to ME!”

With those words, Misery flashed and shot out of Aquila’s magic and flew to land in the hard ground right in front of Aura. All of us were shocked at that, but Mom seemed to understand. She laughed again. “Misery was bonded to Aura’s family a long time ago; you can’t use it to hurt her or anyone she doesn’t want you to hurt. That sword is alive in its own way and it will always do as its true master wants. Now if I were you Aquila, I’d get out of here, before something happens to Shadow, and she dies from the injuries you caused her.”

Aquila glared at us all, her horn glowing as she thought about what she’d do to us if she only could. Then she cursed, and said, “I have other plans I need to take care of anyway, but don’t worry Grim, I’ll find you again and the rest of them and I will kill you all. Even if it takes me years, mark my words, this isn’t the last you’ve heard of me.”

“I look forward to it, Aquila,” Mom said, and with that, Aquila took one more look at me and growled.

“I’ll see you sooner than you think Shadow, this isn’t over yet,” she said, then in a flash of pink light, she was gone.

As soon as she was gone, I let my head fall back the hard ground, breathing in heavily as the pain of everything Aquila did to me hit me all at once. Aura was there a second later. “Shadow just hold on; I think you’re going into shock.” I felt her lift my stump of a leg sending more pain flowing through my body. She reached for something in the satchel she always carried and pulled out a strip of leather. A moment after that, she started wrapping the strip of leather around my stump, pulling it as tight as she could with her teeth and hooves. “Dammit, if I only had my talons, this would be so much easier.”

The pain grew and I almost passed out again, but I held on. “Aura…I don’t feel so good.”

Aura looked over at White Oak and Mom, yelling, “We need help, where’s your backup White Oak!?”

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” White Oak said.

“Grim, you have to do something to heal her the best you can, her wounds are worse than they look. She’s bleeding internally and her stump is leaking again,” Aura yelled toward them as tears started to flow down her face. I needed to calm her down, so I did my best to dig through the pain.

“Hey Aura,” I said, doing my best to smile.

“Shadow, don’t talk, you need to save your strength,” she said, running a hoof down my face slowly. “You hear me, don’t go making things worse than they already are.”

“Aura, it’s okay, I’m sure…I’ll be okay. I’m lucky like that right?” I said, doing my best to make a joke out of it, “Did you see me Aura, I did it, I cast my expulsion spell and no rainbows, the killing joke stopped working. Isn’t that great? I’m not a cliché anymore.”

“It’s wonderful, now please stop talking, help will be here soon,” she said, the worry on her face plain as day.

“It’s…already here,” Mom said, slumping down next to me. She reached into the small bag she had around her neck, something I hadn’t noticed before, and pulled out a small bottle of a bright purplish-pink liquid. “This is a healing potion I made myself. It’ll help keep her stable for a while, long enough for the surgeons in The Ministry to help her.”

Looking up at Mom, all my worries about what was wrong with my body faded away. Just a moment ago, she’d looked as she did before she cast that last spell. Older, but not that old, more wrinkles and grey to her mane, but now she looked like a grandmother. As I watched, I saw that more lines were showing up on her face and her mane was starting to thin. Almost like she was aging rapidly in front of my very eyes.

“Mom…what’s happening to you?” I asked, but she just pushed the bottle into my muzzle and forced me to drink down the potion. I gagged then swallowed the liquid. Moments later I felt as if most of the pain was gone and my body felt a little stronger. The spot where my leg had been cut off and my missing ear still hurt like hell, but I could tell that the blood was slowing down.

“There you go, and don’t worry about me Shadow. I knew what I was doing when I cast that spell, don’t worry about me,” she said, then she fell back with a nasty cough.

White Oak ran over and helped my mom sit up as I tried to drag myself to her, but Aura was holding me too tight and I was too weak to do much more than move my left foreleg around. Weakly I said, “Mom…what’s happening? Tell me please.”

“Shadow it’s okay,” she said, smiling up at me weakly. Then she turned to White Oak. “Help me get closer to my daughter please, old friend.”

I saw tears in White Oak’s eyes doing what she was asked and dragged my mom close so that she was lying next to me. Aura set me down so my head was right next to Mom’s and they both took a step back, letting us have a moment. Mom smiled even with her face aging in front of me. I reached my remaining foreleg closer and set it on her face. “Mom, what did you do?”

She smiled wider and slowly put her hoof on my own, she took in a deep breath, then said, “I’m making up for my past mistakes Shadow,” then she looked up toward the sky and I saw tears flow as she continued, “I thought I’d never see the stars again.”

Confused I slowly turned my head up and saw something beautiful. I don’t know how, even to this day, which of our spells did it, but somehow the cloud cover that blocked the sky from the ponies in The Wasteland had been pushed back. Now I could see the night sky and one of the most beautiful things I’d ever witnessed in my short life. I saw the moon, it was full and shining its pale light down on us both. Around it, millions of stars twinkled in the distance. This wasn’t the first time I’d busted a hole in the clouds, but it was the first time I’d had a moment to see what beauty the night held.

Mom spoke again, her voice weaker, but she did her best to keep her words easy to understand. “When you were born, I named you after those beautiful dots in the sky. Everypony thought it was because it was the family name, my brother was called Star before he was Oricalcos, my mother held the name and her father before her and his father, then his mother, and so on. To me, I didn’t care at all about my family or their traditions. No, I named you Star because I’ve always been fascinated by them. I always wanted to know more about them and what made them so mesmerizing. So, you may carry the same name as our family, but not because you are like them, but because I knew that one day, you’d shine as bright as the heavens themselves.”

Tears were flowing faster now as I pulled Mom’s head closer to mine, hugging her to me as I said, “There has to be a way I can help you…”

She cut me off, “Shhhh, sweetheart that’s enough. Now listen to me because I don’t have long, I can tell. I won’t spend my last few moments in this life arguing with you. We did enough of that and more while I still didn’t know you were my Star.”

I nodded. “Alright Mom.”

“Good girl,” she said as she reached her head up and kissed my horn like she used to when I was still young, “You are more than just my daughter, you are more than just a random mare who was unlucky as a foal. You are the pony who was meant to go through all this pain and loss so you could change this world and make it better. I have faith in you my sweet brave filly. I know who you are meant to become, and I know you’ll fix everything, even my own mistakes.”

“I don’t think I can do that Mom, I’m not strong enough,” I said.

In response, she slowly lifted her Pip-Buck and connected it to mine, sending me files as she said, “You are stronger than you know sweetie, so stop telling yourself otherwise. I need you to learn to control that power inside of you, because you’re going to need it soon, and I want to make sure you have a head start so listen close,” she took in a deep breathe, her face looking like she was in a great deal of pain before she continued, “Aquila isn’t as powerful as you think. When Stargazer was used, it was also stopped before all of Aquila’s power could be pulled down from wherever she came from. She’ll need to first unlock the project and to do that, she’ll need all three Mark II’s. They were once used on three of the four points in Equestria where the project was located. I just gave you a map and information on how to find those locations. Ones in Baltimare, the next is in The Badlands, the third is in The Crystal Empire, and the last in in New Pegasus.”

“Wait, you knew all this time where to find the project?” I asked.

She shrugged the best she could. “I’ve known for many years now, forgot some of it due to my own stupidity with my magic, but yes I knew. I needed the Mark II’s though,” she said, chuckling, “I’ll tell you a secret, I never really wanted to turn on Falling Shadows, I wanted to destroy it.”

“You did? What about all that bluster when you were still nuts about becoming all powerful and shit?” I asked.

“It was a lie. I was in pain and still upset that I lost you. I was always a good liar. It comes from growing up in the kind of home I did. Anyway, I have everything you need on the files I sent you, and the rest of the things I’m missing are already on your Mark II. I remember putting them there before you…well before I thought you died. With both of the files together, you will be able to put the puzzle together. But remember this, before you can do anything, you need to first find out what Night Stalker did to the tower in The Crystal Empire and fix it,” she said.

“Wait, you want me to go home, and do what? Find the entrance to the project and fix the project? Wouldn’t that mean that Aquila would be one step closer to getting what she wants?” I asked.

“It does, but at the same time, you can’t do what you need to until you fix that tower. They all work as one and none of them can be taken down unless they’re all working. Only then can the project either be activated or destroyed. It was a little trick our Grandmother Minuette put into the program. Her…insurance policy of sorts. Trust me, if you work fast and keep Aquila from figuring out what you’re doing, you can do it,” she said.

“What about the promise I made to White Oak?” I asked, looking over toward The Director who was a good distance away, still letting us have our moment.

Mom’s smile returned and she said quietly, “White Oak and Stormy are my friends yes, but…fuck ‘em. I know what that project can do and the danger it might bring. If your uncle lives, he can tell you more. Trust me, it has to be destroyed.”

“But how will I even find the location in The Crystal Empire? It’s not a small place,” I asked.

“Go to The Forgotten Library, I’m sure you know where that is if you saw my memories. Once you’re there, find the section in the library that you know Minuette wouldn’t have ever had in her collection. Behind that bookcase, you’ll find the door to the project,” she said, followed by a cough.

I waited for her to start breathing again before I asked, “If you know where its location is, then why haven’t you fixed it yourself?”

“I can’t get in, there’s only three ponies and a few griffons who can enter that room,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “Night Stalker’s descendants and Greta’s. I could’ve had your father, or your Uncle Striker get into the room, but I never trusted them enough to show them the location. So now I leave it up to you, my last chance to fix what wrongs our families have brought over the centuries.”

Her Pip-Buck beeped, and she disconnected it. As she did, I asked, “I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

“You can, just have faith. You’ve done so much without me for so long. Now, enough about all of this crap,” she said before looking up at Aura yelling, “Aura please come here.”

She came and sat next to me, looking down at my mother. “What can I do to help?”

In response Mom reached up and took Aura’s hoof, moving it to rest on mine. “I know how much you care about my daughter, so before I go, I want to ask you one simple thing. Can you make sure you watch over her, keep her safe, be there for her when I no longer can? Make sure her life is long and full of happiness. Make sure you love her and care for her until your last day in this life. Be her rock, be her companion, be her one and only love. Can you do that for me?”

Aura was crying as she nodded. “I can, and I will, you have my word.”

“Good,” Mom said, laying on her back and looking up at the stars, “I’m glad you two have each other. I just wish Nightshade was here so I could tell him how sorry I am, tell him how much I miss and love him.”

“Aura, turn on the recorder on my Pip-Buck…please,” I said, sniffing slowly.

She did, then when Mom saw what we were doing, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Tell him…”I said holding back more tears, “Tell him how much you love him, he needs to hear it from you. I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

“Grim, there has to be some way we can help you,” Aura said before turning the recording on.

“I wish you could too…but you can’t,” she said slowly, “Now, let me leave my message for my husband…please.”

We both nodded then, Aura clicked it on then said, “Okay it’s ready.”

More tears started to flow from Mom’s eyes as she said, “Nightshade, it’s me…I know the past few years have been hard on you…I know I’ve been anything but a good wife or a good friend. I just want you to know, that even with my lost memory, or the pain I put you and our daughter through, that I never stopped loving you, even when I tried to tell myself I didn’t. When I came back to The Enclave, I had to harden my heart so you wouldn’t see how much it hurt me to treat you the way I did. But now, I’m dying, and I can’t do anything to stop it. So, I want you to do me one last favor, even though I know I don’t deserve to ask anything of you. Please, don’t keep dwelling on the past, move on once I’m gone and be happy. You’ve done so much to try and help The Enclave, to help your family, and to help others you didn’t even know. You are a wonderful and brave stallion, a stallion I’m proud of, and you need to start seeing that. It’s time for us to move on and let the next generation finish what we started nearly eighteen years ago. I love you Nightshade, and I’ll wait for you on the other side…”

Aura stopped the recording and I couldn’t hold back my tears as I saw the light in my Mom’s eyes starting to go dim. I reached over to her again and rested my head on her chest, unable to hold back the sobs anymore. Her breaths were coming in slower now and I could hear her heart slow as the toll of that spell she cast finally started to finish its devilish work. I sobbed harder, saying, “Mom please don’t go, please. I still need you here. I’ve spent most of my life wanting to find you again.”

She didn’t argue with me, or try to make me be quiet, she just rested a hoof on my head and kept looking up at the stars as she slowly ran her hoof through my filthy mane. For a long moment I just let my pain and sorrow out until I couldn’t get another tear out. Finally, I looked away from Mom’s chest and up at the stars with her, my breath still heavying, but I just took this last moment I knew I had with her and watched the night sky. In the distance I heard ponies coming, but White Oak held them back. She knew as well as the rest of us, that we couldn’t save my mom. She made her choice and cast the spell that would end her life, and she was going to die as she lived… on her own terms… No pony could change who she was or make her do anything, because my mother, Grimoire Spell, was a strong and powerful pony.

Finally, Mom spoke, and I knew deep down that this would be her final words, her own eulogy. So, I listened closely as she said something I would never forget, “As we come to the end of this stage of our life, we find ourselves trying to remember the good times, and trying to forget the bad times. We find ourselves thinking about the future, and start to worry thinking, ‘What am I going to do? Where am I going to be in ten years?’ but I say to you My Little Star. Hey, look at me, please, don’t worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very much time on Equus. Life…is…fleeting, and if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky, and the stars that are strung across the velvety night, and when a shooting star streaks across the blackness turning night, that day, make a wish. Think of me, make your life…spectacular, I…know…I………did….”

After that last word, Mom’s hoof fell from my head and landed in the dirt with a soft ‘thump’. I looked up at her and saw her eyes looking sightlessly up at the stars. Her face was so wrinkled, and her mane was nearly gone. She looked like a mare who reached the age of one-hundred-and-fifty. It wasn’t the face of my mother anymore, but that of a long dead pony. Aura reached out and pulled me to her as I started to sob harder again. I held onto her tight, my eyes stuck on my mother’s dead body. So ends the story of Grimoire Spell, a mare who risked everything to do one simple thing, to save her daughter and The Wasteland, a mare who gave up her memory, her life, her husband, and her happiness to try and reach that goal. With her last act, she managed to do at least one of them. She left the rest up to my friends and I.

“We need to bury her,” I said as the tears kept on falling.

“We will, but first we need to get you looked at,” Aura said as White Oak finally let her medics rush over to me.

Before they even reached me however, something strange happened to Mom’s body. Her coat and skin turned pale, then started to crack. Her eyes dried up, her body started to slowly turning into what looked like stone. Then with a loud crack that made me jump, her body started glowing with a bright golden light. As we all watched, Mom’s body started to slowly flake away, golden dust pulling away from where it lied and started floating toward the open sky above. Little by little, Mom’s body turned into that golden dust until the last of it was gone, leaving only a small beautiful light glowing and hovering in the air. My eyes went wide as the mote of light moved forward, then hovered a few centimeters away from my face.

“M…mom?” I asked, but the light just pulled back a little then moved up and touched my horn. There was the slightest spark as we touched, then the light zipped away and followed the dust until it was all nothing more than a memory, leaving this world behind, for the next.

One of the medics who was close, asked, “What was that?”

Aura held me closer as she said, “A soul finding its way to a better place. She did enough in this world and it’s time she joined those who’ve earned a place in the next life.”

Before more could be said, I moaned in pain and sorrow as every injury in my body started to throb at once. My heart started slamming into my chest and my head felt as if somepony was hammering my brain. I slumped forward and the medics rushed closer, the mare who seemed to be in charge told Aura, “Set her down on the ground so I can get an assessment of her injuries.”

Slowly she set me down next to the spot where Mom’s body was only a moment ago. One of the medics started looking over what was left of my stump, another was looking over the stab and cuts on my belly and chest. The mare who spoke to Aura started casting a spell over me, a green light bathed over my body and she closed her eyes. The last medic moved over to pick up my foreleg which was sitting a few meters away.

White Oak came over and started speaking to the mare in charge, saying, “Dr. Cyto, is she going to be okay?”

The mare looked back at her, finishing her spell. “Really Director? Are you serious? She’s missing a limb and an ear, she’s lost a good amount of blood, has at least four broken bones, shows signs of internal bleeding, her heart looks ready to fail, and to top it all off her brain is swelling. I don’t even know if she can survive the teleportation back to The Ministry. Even if she does, I can’t save the leg. I may not even be able to save the heart. I’m baffled at how she’s still alive.”

Aura didn’t like that one bit. She pushed White Oak out of the way and got right in the other mare’s face. “You listen to me; you will do everything you can to fix her. I don’t care what you must do, you’re going to keep her alive. You’ll fix her leg, her ear, and her heart. I’m not gonna watch the mare I love die because of the injuries that bitch Aquila caused!”

Dr. Cyto took a step back, “Ms….”

“Aura,” I said weakly.

“Yes, Ms. Aura, you don’t understand the amount of damage her body has undergone. She has less than a ten percent chance of surviving the amount of surgery it would take to fix her body, and that’s if she’s lucky,” Dr. Cyto explained.

White Oak cleared her throat. “I was in a similar state when I came to the Ministry Doctor, and your father saved my life. You can do the same, work with Stormy, she’s been working on some new prototypes that might be able to get her up and healthy again.”

The face Dr. Cyto gave White Oak was priceless. It was like she just ate a lemon mixed with something nasty. “You want me to work with…Stormy? You know I don’t like her. She’s so full of herself and she’s always looking at my ass!”

“You will do as I say Cyto, or I’ll find another doctor to overtake your department,” White Oak said, “She’s Grim’s daughter and we owe it to her memory to try our best to save Shadow.”

Cyto’s face fell and she nodded slowly. “Fine, but I’m not making any promises. If she dies, it won’t be because of me. I’ll do everything I can, even work with Stormy if I have to.”

“Just do everything you can, please,” Aura said.

“Fine, but I’ll need to get her back to The Ministry right now. I don’t know how long she’s going to survive just lying out here like this,” she said with a huff, pulling out a small device, “The risk of infection is tremendously high right now.”

“We’ll meet you back at The Ministry then, just get her right into the O.R.,” White Oak said as she turned toward more ponies who were showing up in little flashes of bluish-white light. She looked at one who was wearing a black leather overcoat and sunglasses, “X-598, I need a report right away.”

The strange looking stallion spoke to White Oak in a monotone voice, “We’ve picked up on communications from The Steel Rangers. They are sending a team out this way to check out what all the disturbance was. I sent a team out to cause some havoc on the other side of the city to try and stall them ma’am, but I’m afraid that Elder Wolfsbane himself is coming this way no matter what. We have five, maybe ten minutes.”

“Damn that fool, he’s always sticking his muzzle where it doesn’t belong,” she said, then looked at Dr. Cyto, “Take Aura with you, I’ll send a message to Stormy and let her know what’s going on. Now get going,”

“Yes ma’am,” Cyto said, clicking a button on the device she was holding in her magic. “I can only take five with me, so we should be able to get the whole team back in one go. Everypony prepare for transportation, in three, two, one…”

***

Over the next few hours, maybe days, I can’t be sure, my life became nothing but pain. We arrived right in the medical wing of The Ministry and were met there not long after by Dr. Stormy who looked haggard, tired, and sad all at once. After a quick update about what happened once she left, and the news of Mom’s death, she took a few moments to compose herself. It was then that I could see the outstanding control over her emotions. I didn’t know Stormy like Mom did, but I’d had a couple of glimpses of her in Mom’s memories. She’d always seemed like a scatter-brained goof, with a lustful and fun nature, but I had a feeling when I’d seen her in the memories that it was more of an act. Dr. Stormy was rude most of the time, playful some of the time, and always willing to speak her mind, but behind all of it she was an extremely intelligent pony who was in love with another mare she knew she could never have. So, she did her best to hide how she felt, Mom knew of course, but Stormy never pushed. It was what made their friendship work so well. Stormy had gotten so good over the years at hiding how she felt about Mom and other ponies. I’m sure that now, faced with the loss of the mare she cared for so deeply, she was able to keep her emotions from overtaking her.

She took in a few deep breaths, closed her eyes, and stayed like that for a full minute. When she opened them again, she said quietly, “I’ll have to deal with that later, right now professional me is needed. Dr. Cyto, prep the O.R. and get started on what you need to keep Shadow alive. I’ll get what I need so we can replace what’s damaged,” she then turned and said more to herself than anyone else, “I will not lose my best friend’s daughter on the same day I lost her. Goddesses help me, I refuse to let this day get worse.”

Once she was gone, everything changed. I was rushed into an operating room within moments of Stormy leaving. More doctors joined us along with nurses, and even synths. Aura followed them in, getting washed up and ready to do…something. I wasn’t sure what at the time what. I was put under, and they started fixing the damage to my body. The first surgery went on for twelve hours from what I was told later. I awoke with Aura and Stardust sitting next to my bed. They both informed me on what was going on and what to expect next. I didn’t stay awake long, due to the trauma my body had gone though. I was in and out for at least another day, until the next surgery started. This one I had to be awake for, they numbed my body, but because they were fitting me for a new leg, they needed me awake to make sure everything worked right for when the final limb was completed.

The ear wasn’t that painful, but I was told during the process by Dr. Stormy that it was because the ears didn’t have a lot of nerve endings in them. When she got to my foreleg however, even with my stump numbed, I still felt every shock and connection she sent up the limb to check the signal the nerves were giving off. That was after they cut away another couple centimeters of my leg to get the flesh ‘tidy’ as Stormy called it. I was then fit with a temporary attachment that would keep me from bleeding out while they ‘grew’ or ‘built’ the new foreleg. After that she had to do more and more tests on my heart. Thank the goddesses that she didn’t have to crack my chest open for that. But the equipment and spells she was using along with Dr. Cyto and her medical team, was still painful and almost every test made my chest feel as if some pony had just stabbed my heart or made the thing stop entirely.

This went on for a few more hours. After the last test however, my heart did stop…while I was still awake! That was an experience that I never wanted to re-live, EVER, because it was extremely painful right before my brain started being starved for oxygen. As I started to pass out, I knew that there was a good chance I wouldn’t ever wake up again. So, it was quite a shock to me when I did, three days later, hooked up to machines that were pumping my blood for me. I also had a hose going down my throat to help me breath. I was told once I was fully awake by Aura that my lungs had been damaged slightly and mixing that with the old injury I took to it a while back, they needed to be repaired properly. For The Ministry, repaired meant replacing.

I spent the next day like this, unable to talk, only able to listen as each one of my friends came to visit me while I was being kept alive by machines. That day was the lowest moment in my life. I felt more helpless than… than I ever have in my entire life. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t hug my friends, or even cry. My body barely moved due to the mix of pain and damage it had undergone from the years of dealing with that dark curse, Aquila living inside of me, battles, mistakes, and my own fight against Aquila. Then to top it all off, I had a small injury to my brain. The magical surge of power being freed inside of me had nearly made my brain swell to the point of death. They had to release pressure in my skull while I was in surgery and they had to do it four more times over the past few days.

The magic my body was trying to absorb was the entire cause of this though, and it was slowing down now. Stormy hoped that by the time I went under again, they would be able to stop draining the pressure in my skull and repair the spots they drilled into. The part I hated was they had to cut my mane until it was almost non-existent. Though Stormy said not to worry because she had a special spell that would make it so it looked like normal when I was better. I hoped so, because right now I looked really fucking strange with no mane. The bald look wasn’t for me.

As the day went on while I waited for the next surgery, I heard different news updates from my friends. Starting with Stardust, who said, “So, they say it should only be a few more days, maybe less before you’ll be able to start getting around again. Also, they’re gonna be holding a memorial for your mother when you’re out of here.”

He went on for a bit longer about the plans they were still putting together. I still didn’t know why, since it looked like The Ministry was helping us; but maybe they knew something I didn’t. In any case, I didn’t listen to him much after he talked about Mom. Aura visited a little while later with Solstice.

“You look like crap.” Solstice said with a small smile. I glared at her, but she just laughed, “You can’t complain yet Shadow, ya got a tube stuck down your throat.”

“Solstice, now’s not the time to be teasing her,” Aura said.

Her face fell. “Sorry, I know, it’s just that laughter always helps me feel better about a bad situation.”

Aura sighed. “Yeah, normally I’m like that too, same for Stardust, but still, she’s going through enough. Let’s not make things worse for her by making her feel bad okay?”

Solstice nodded. “Yeah, okay,” then she looked back at me. “So, I wanted to fill you in on some news I got from my mom yesterday. She was finally able to get back to me after I heard the news from you about the attack on Stratus, but I can wait to tell you if you want.”

Since I couldn’t speak, I was forced to look into her eyes and nod my head a little. Aura frowned, then asked, “Does that mean you want to hear what happened?”

I nodded again, so Solstice took a deep breath and let it out slowly before saying, “There’s been problems all over The Enclave. One of the military leaders from Neighvarro is doing something back east, they think he’s trying to work with The Goddess on something or Red Eye, but my mother couldn’t get the full details. A couple of mares from back east have been making a lot of trouble for them. This Stable Dweller, whoever she is, has been one of the biggest problems they’re having. Still, with that said, Neighvarro sent one of their few Thunderheads, that’s a large military warship, and sent it to Stratus. The mare leading the group is Captain Strife. I guess since her team was still mostly alive and closer to the west, she was told to meet up with the Thunderhead and lead the attack. She met her brother Winter Frost when they got close and they went after the new High Council.”

“I thought Nightshade was the only High Council pony right now,” Aura said.

“He was, but he brought on two others from his military connections a couple weeks back, I guess. They’ve been seeing to the day to day stuff in Nimbus and Stratus for him while he disappears from time to time. That’s what my mom said at least, though she has no idea he’s The Stranger so that’s not surprising. Anyway, Stratus was put under siege for three days. In the end, Nightshade knew that he couldn’t protect the city against a Thunderhead. Most of his forces had gone to protect Nimbus and The Crystal Empire from an attack they thought was coming. It was a trick to get Stratus to let its guard down, so Nightshade was going to set up a trap of his own to take hold of the Thunderhead with a small force,” she said.

“Is he crazy?” Aura asked, I was thinking the same thing, but I couldn’t say it.

“Not really, Nightshade is one of the best stealth fighters in The Enclave. He probably would’ve been able to take out Strife and Winter Frost easily, but…” Solstice said, but stopped, looking pained.

“But what?” Aura asked, her eyes wide.

“But, the other two High Council Ponies betrayed him. They knew about the attack and also,” she stopped again for a moment, then continued, “This is just speculation on my mom’s part. She hasn’t gotten full evidence, so I can’t be sure but, she also believes they found out something about what happened to the last High Council ponies. Mom was able to intersect a letter coming from the Thunderhead, to the other two High Council ponies saying that Nightshade’s daughter was The Courier, the same pony who killed two of the High Council ponies and her protector, The Wrapped Reaper.”

Aura and I both gave her a confused look, and Aura asked, “The Wrapped Reaper? Who the fuck is that?”

Solstice looked embarrassed as she clarified, saying, “Oh I keep forgetting that neither of you know things from The Enclave. That’s what the higher-ups named The Stranger a few years ago. He’s one of the most wanted ponies in The Enclave. The bounty on his head in caps would be around four-hundred-thousand caps.”

“Holy shit!” Aura said. I tried saying the same but almost gagged on the tube.

After a few moments of hacking and gagging I finally stopped, and after another moment of Aura making sure I was okay, Solstice continued, “Anyway, the other two High Council ponies set Nightshade up and he was captured while he was inside the Thunderhead. He’s being held captive in Stratus now with Winter Frost being put in Nightshades old place. He’s running Stratus now with his sister and the other two traitors to Stratus. The ponies who resisted have fled to Nimbus and The Crystal Empire which are both resisting any more push from Neighvarro. The only reason they can do that is because things back east are getting worse.”

“What about your parents? Are they okay?” Aura asked.

“They are, at the moment. They’re acting like they’re okay with the changes, but there’s another problem,” she said, looking sad, “Winter Frost has decided to bring back The Sins and has tasked them with finding Shadow and the rest of us. Also, they’re sending teams of Enclave special forces down to New Pegasus and the surrounding areas to hunt down Dashites. Soon it will be dangerous for any pegasus who’s been branded to go anywhere without being attacked by Enclave.”

“But New Pegasus is safe for Dashites isn’t it?” Aura asked.

“For now, yes, but if they keep pushing they might be able to overwhelm even Mr. Tops’ defenses. It was Nightshade who started the treaty with New Pegasus a few years back in the first place. With him in prison, Winter Frost might just withdraw the treaty unless Mr. Tops gives up the Dashites who call New Pegasus home,” she said sadly.

I tried to move my only foreleg to try to get something of what I was thinking across to Solstice, but once again, Aura was reading my mind. “Then there’s only one thing we can do. We have to somehow help Nightshade and Stratus. If we don’t, many Dashites, including you and Stardust won’t be safe.”

Solstice looked even sadder as she said, “Even though the two of us aren’t technically Dashites because we aren’t marked, we’re still looked at like we are. Though we have a little time before it becomes a big problem. My mother said that as of right now, Nightshade’s trial still hasn’t started. We have a week or so before that. Although, if he’s found guilty, he’ll be executed.”

Those words were like a stab to my heart. I’d just lost my mother and I wasn’t going to lose my father so soon afterward. I couldn’t stop myself anymore, the tears fell like rivers. It was like everything in my life was falling apart all at once. Mom’s gone, I’ll most likely never see Dad again, my body was mostly destroyed, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll fully recover. Aura was still stuck as a pony, cute or not, she wasn’t herself like this. We were trapped hundreds of miles away from our home, New Pegasus was most likely going to be attacked either by The Enclave, Steel Rangers, or The Romans. The Sins were still out there and for all I knew they were getting more powerful. Uncle Ori was on death’s door himself and I still hadn’t gotten any more news about how his condition was progressing. I still needed to do something about Wolfsbane and so much more. Why does it have to be me? Why can’t some other pony take care of all this bullshit? I’m not a real hero, I’m just a pony who got lucky more than once. New Pegasus doesn’t need me, they need a real hero, like Blackjack, or that Stable Dweller I’ve been hearing about. They at least know what they’re doing. Okay, from what I heard about Blackjack, she sounded more like a lucky drunk, but even Glory said that she was a scary pony when she wanted to be. What am I? I’m just a filly who doesn’t know when to say no. I’m just a fool who keeps putting her nose into everypony else’s business.

I just wanted to find my mom, I just wanted to stay safe in my stable and grow old, hitting on my best friend, and knowing I’d never have her. Maybe I would’ve found a nice stallion some day in there and had my own foals. Why couldn’t I have just had that life? Why couldn’t I have just walked away from the Mark II when I found it? Yeah, I know, Wildfire was a crazy bitch who deserved what she got, but if I never found the Mark II, I wouldn’t have known any different. I knew she was a bitch, and a bad Overmare, but I could’ve lived with that. Just Balefire, Milkshake, Auntie Vervain, and myself. Yeah, if I hadn’t left, then Wingnut would be dead, Aura would still be alone, Mom would’ve still been crazy, and Stardust would’ve most likely been caught by The Enclave. A lot of bad things would’ve happened, but I wouldn’t have known any different. I would’ve been happy, and Mom would still be alive.

That single thought at the end is what made my sobs grow worse and I started choking on the tube again. As Aura and Solstice started to panic again and one ran to get a nurse, I just kept on crying because I knew deep down that Mom was only dead because once again, she did everything she could to keep me alive. She used too much of her strange magic to tie my life to Aquila’s, so that she couldn’t kill me. The price she paid was her life. It was even worse because she died knowing I was her daughter, but still had no memory of me after Aquila was thrown into my body. She would’ve been better off never knowing that her daughter was alive still. Same goes for Dad, he came down to the surface to help me more and more. He wasn’t doing his job and because of that, he’s going to die. Uncle Ori is in the same boat because of me. It’s all my fault, I should’ve been the one to die, not them.

I started to thrash and pull at tubes and wires all over my body. My sobs grew as I tried to use my magic to just get myself free of everything. Ponies ran into the room right as I was using what power I could to try and rip the ventilator tube out of my throat. I got a quick flash of Dr. Cyro with a syringe in her magical hold, then a prick of pain in my neck, and the world faded into black.

***

I awoke a few hours later feeling a little better. I was still hooked up to way too many machines, but they must’ve given me something because I didn’t feel as horrible as I had when I was trying to pull my life support crap out of myself. I looked around and saw Byte sitting next to my bed looking through something on her Pip-Buck. She saw I was awake and did her best to give me a kind smile, but it didn’t last. After a moment passed, she looked into my eyes, saying, “I know you’re upset about your mom. I know it’s hard and you feel like it’s all your fault, but you have to remember, it’s not.”

I felt fresh tears and I tried my best to shake my head. She reached a hoof out and placed it on mine. Our two Mark II’s resting over each other. After I calmed down a little, she continued, “There’s a lot going on, you have a lot of stress in your life, and I understand that. You need to remember that not everything that goes wrong in life is your fault Shadow. Trust me, I know what it’s like to lose a parent at a young age. It sucks, that’s all there is to it. At least your mother was able to sacrifice her own life for yours. My mom didn’t get that chance, she was killed by your uncle, on orders from Grim.”

I felt a spark of anger rise up and if I could speak, I would’ve yelled, “Don’t talk about my mom. You have no idea what she had to go through in her life and your mom was a bitch anyway. She could’ve lived if she would’ve just backed down and not sent anypony after my mom.”

But a moment after the anger entered my head, Byte let her own tears fall as she said, “But that’s not fair, because I know my mom did it to herself. She was rash, angry, rude, and thought she was a badass. Truth is, all she had to do was just let her Mark II go and focus on raising me. Her death is as much her fault as it is Grim’s. That’s why I finally forgave your uncle and your mom in the end, because life in The Wasteland is just messed up and there’s not much you can do to change that. So, as much as it sucks, and as bad as it hurts, don’t blame yourself or anypony else for what happened to your mom. Don’t let her sacrifice go to waste. Get stronger, get healthy, and stop worrying so much. You can’t change the past, all you can do is do better. Now, get some rest and get well soon because we all need you Shadow. I can’t lose you too. I’ve lost so much in my life and you’ve become like a big sister to me. So don’t you go dying when you’re getting your operations okay, because if you do, I’ll find your ghost and kill you all over again with those idiot hunters.”

She left the room after that little talk. I started to feel a little better. At least for the rest of the time I was awake. I was able to keep calm as I was visited by Wind Thrasher, saw Wingnut, and listened to Stormy and Cyto arguing about what the next steps would be. I heard Stormy mention my uncle at one point but didn’t catch everything she said. So, as the rest of the day passed, slowly, I started to put myself back together again. I started to look deep into myself, using a form of meditation I learned from Yaksha to start and get my magic under control. It wasn’t easy, but in the end, I was starting to understand the power that was now mine. I could understand why it kept getting out of control inside my body and why I couldn’t use one of my spells. As night came, I managed to get Stormy to get me a pad of paper to write on. I then used my magic to write down a request.

She gave me a sad smile, saying, “I’ll get it right away, and if you want, I’ll sit with you and explain some things. Maybe I can teach you a few things that Gri…your mother never could.”

True to her word, Dr. Stormy, the mare I thought in the past was my enemy even though the one I met was a synth, came back with my mom’s spell book. The one that I’d gotten a few weeks back. The same one that used to belong to Minuette herself. She sat me up, then using her magic, she cracked open the very old book and started teaching me the fundamentals of spells. A few hours passed and I found out very quickly that most of the spells in this book were way beyond me. Not because I didn’t have the power to cast them, because I know I do, but because with the lack of understanding that comes from learning weaker or lesser spells, I could end up hurting myself or others if I cast the spells in this book.

Stormy took it in stride though and put Mom’s grimoire down and pulled out a spell book for beginners. She didn’t want me using any of the spells, not with the condition my body was in. However, she was able to explain a lot to me. She figured out that one of the problems I had from when I was younger was that I had a hard time learning the few spells that were in the spell book mom gave me. It wasn’t because I was stupid or not powerful, I just needed a demonstration to grasp the idea of how the spell was formed. She was more than happy to ‘demonstrate’ different ones throughout the night. As we worked, well she worked, and I watched, she started to tell me stories. Stories about her and Mom when they were young.

I heard about that filly Scarlett who used to make Mom’s life hell. She told me about the time Mom showed her up in an advanced magic theory class. I heard about the colts Mom had crushes on over the years when she was a teenager. She told me about how her and my dad didn’t like each other at all when they were still in school. I heard more about the feud between my parents’ families over the centuries. She told me stories about the stuff they used to get in trouble for back in the day, or about when they both worked at the lab. I heard about Mom’s life when she was married to my father and the troubles they both went through in The Enclave. Story after story I got to hear and by the time it was time for me to get more rest, I think both Stormy and I felt just a little bit better.

That’s how the rest of my time went that day, talking to a pony that I thought I’d once killed. Well she talked, I listened, but I wasn’t going to complain. I was just glad that even though I’d lost Mom, I still a had somepony who knew her so well and could tell me more about who she was. When I first met Stormy, well the synth version of her, I’d thought she was kind of a bitch with a superiority complex opinion of herself, and that she’d been the one to start the program that Stardust grew up in. In reality, she was still the same pony who started the Devil’s Children Program, but she wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I could see the similarities between her and her synth, but she wasn’t the same pony. One day, I’d ask her about the program, but right now, I’ll just enjoy her company.

Finally, our time came to an end when one of the nurses came in and told Dr. Stormy that she was needed to finish up on one of the synth parts she was making for me. She was also told that I needed my rest before tomorrow’s procedure. She told the nurse she’d leave in a few moments and again we were left alone. Stormy got to her hooves but didn’t leave right away. Instead, she took a long look at me. It was almost like she was trying to see the similarities between myself and Mom.

After a moment she smiled, an expression I knew from Mom’s memories that Stormy didn’t pull off very often. She then moved close and ran a hoof over my dirty mane, she leaned down and kissed the tip of my horn, then whispered, “It’s amazing how much you look like both of your parents. You have a strong will and an even stronger resilience. I can’t wait to see the mare you’ll grow up to be. Now get some rest, and tomorrow we’ll make you whole again. Goodnight, Little Star.”

Without another word, Dr. Stormy left the room. I watched her go, a bit confused by her motherly gesture. Then I just let it go and did my best to get some sleep. It didn’t take long, even though I’d spent most of the day in bed, hooked up to Goddesses knows how many things, I was still exhausted. Soon I found myself in another dreamless sleep. One good thing I could say about being this tired and mentally drained is that it was a lot easier to sleep. I had no nightmares of what happened to me in the cage.

***

The next day came quicker than I would’ve liked. I was woken by the medical team, Dr. Stormy’s team, and a few of the synth development team. They explained a few things to me, letting me know what would be happening and how long the mix of surgeries was going to take. My eyes went wide when I heard the amount of time I was going to be under. The surgeries would take at least twenty three to twenty seven hours. During that time, I would be put under a mix of a magical and chemical sleep. Stormy explained that my body had a high resistance to magical mind manipulation magic due to the time I spent with Aquila in my head. They would take me on and off the chemical one as they worked, only using it when needed to make sure I didn’t wake during a delicate part of the procedures.

With everything said and done, my friends were let in for only a few minutes to give me their get well wishes. They knew as well as I did by now that my odds of surviving this experimental bullshit was about fifty-fifty. Either way, if I didn’t get this done, I’d die no matter what. The machines I was hooked up to were keeping me alive for now, but they couldn’t forever. So, with that all known, everypony that came to Los Alicorn with me apart from Mom was let in. To my shock, even Uncle Ori’s bed was pushed into the room. He was awake and smiling weakly at me as his bed was brought up next to mine.

He looked a lot better than the last time I’d seen him when he was almost dead on the ground after he was shoved back into his own body. My other friends waited as he reached a hoof out to place it on my own and he said weakly, “I…love you Star, and…I’ll be here when you wake. Be strong, be brave…and shine bright.”

His smile gave me hope that when this was all over, everything would be okay. Aura came up to me next while Oricalcos rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. It looked like the energy to just talk to me was too much for him. C’mon guys, give the dude a magical protein bar or something that can make him better again, because I’m sure if they put their minds to it The Ministry could create such a thing. He was out in a matter of seconds. Aura smiled toward him, saying, “I’ve been helping the other doctors look after him. He’s weak still, but thanks to whatever they’re giving him, he’s putting on weight and he’s getting healthier. He’ll be getting a couple things replaced too after you do, but things are looking up for him.”

“Yeah, he’s a tough old buck,” Stardust said as he came over and gave me the best hug he could, “Good luck, and remember we’ll be here when you wake up. Unless one of us in in the bathroom, then they won’t be here, but that’s one of those situations that…ugh. Y’know what? Never mind, I’ll see ya when ya wake up.”

Wind Thrasher was next, she was looking sick again, but she managed to smile as she hugged me too. “Come back to us okay.”

Wingnut and Byte were next, Wingnut saying, “I…I hope…you’ll be…” he didn’t finish, instead he sniffed and ran from the room.

Byte sighed at my curious look, saying, “He’s been having a hard time ever since you’ve been in here. Just keep fighting and we’ll see you soon.”

I nodded as Aura came close, she leaned down and kissed my cheek then ran a hoof through my mane. Her eyes full of love as she said, “See ya on the other side Shrimp, love ya.”

With those last words said, I was wheeled out of the room and down the bright-white halls, heading toward one of the operating rooms. Dr. Stormy and Dr. Cyto, both kept up a steady stream of conversation with their respective teams. Going over what they’ll be doing next and what to do if something goes wrong. Not long after I’d left my friends, I was pushed into the operating room and everypony started to get scrubbed up and ready for the first stage of my, uh, let’s just call it an event. Cause, that’s what it’s turning out to be. Regular surgeries take maybe two to four hours depending on what it is, this is an entire day plus. Yeah, fucking event.

Dr. Stormy came over, her face covered with a medical mask. She moved closer, saying, “It’s time for you to go to sleep for a while Shadow, when you wake up, hopefully you’ll be back to your old self, or better if I can help it. Don’t freak out if I did something cool and you’re not comfortable with it right away. Like having your new leg turn into a blaster, that’d be really cool,” she paused for a second, then said, “Relax, I’m only kidding. If I could do that kind of stuff to you, you’d get a lot more than a blaster leg.”

Dr. Cyto put a needle into the IV going into my remaining foreleg and as soon as I felt it enter my blood, I felt my eyes starting to droop and the room slowly going black around me. Dr. Stormy’s horn started to glow as she readied her knock out spell. Right before I lost consciousness, I felt something deep inside my mind open-up, followed by a tug as another’s consciousness connected to mine. I’m not sure how, but I knew, somewhere deep inside that this was due to the last spell Mom used before she died. It was the tether connecting my life to Aquila. The world went black.

***

Aquila

I felt the strange connections for only a second, like a quick jab into the back of my mind. Before I could figure out what it was, the feeling went away. I cursed then kept working my way toward my new destination. Over the past two days I’d been traveling toward New Pegasus, with one thought on my mind. I have a debt to collect from that traitorous asshat Thunderlane. The fool thinks he can try and kill my old vessel and break our deal and there’d be no consequences? What a fool, though I guess he’s always been one. A pony who wants more and more power but lacks the brain and sack to take it.

My whole plan backfired on me which just pisses me off more. All I wanted to do was get Shadow out of my way once and for all. Thanks to fucking Grimoire though, that didn’t happen. At least she died when she used that spell to bind me to her stupid brat’s life. I’ll take any win I can. Anyways, I’ll deal with my plans for the future and deal with that moron later.

I’d just made it into Freedom and was on my way toward The Strip when a stab of pain ran up my chest followed by my foreleg. I gasped and almost screamed into the morning air but managed to hold it back. The pain took a good five minutes to pass, but in that time, I knew that something was happening to Shadow. Probably getting her damned leg fixed, or her heart, or both. Oh well, I don’t care. The spell placed on us only works to kill me if I have something to do with her death. Yeah, I caused the leg injury but the scaring to her lungs and heart was all because of Oricalcos. If she died that way, then all the better. It wouldn’t harm me in any way apart from a little pain which I can ignore after a fashion.

I shook off the after-feelings of whatever was being done to Shadow and continued toward The Strip. I wish I still had the passport to get into the place, but since I no longer had Shadow’s body I didn’t have her shit like the last time I was here. So, I’ll just have to do this the magical way. As soon as I saw the gates, protected by robots, I activated the sea of power within myself and teleported. In a flash I was past the gate and a block or so past The Lucky Horseshoe. No pony seemed to notice me flashing into existence, so I kept on walking. I made my way to the ramshackle building where that weird Pegasus Kittersfly lived and worked. I went up to the door and tried to go inside, but the door was locked.

“Fucking lazy-ass pegasus!” I said, then knocked on the door, no one answered. Growling in anger I used my magic to blast the door open. It went flying across the empty room. I walked in and looked around, the pegasus wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Damn, I guess he was back up in Stratus, probably because of all the crap I heard that was going on up there. Oh well, I knew how to work the terminal and communication stuff anyway. I was here for a short time when I was in control of Shadow’s body. I watched Kittersfly enter the codes and everything else, so I knew what to do.

With a few keystrokes on the pegasus’ terminal, which he left unlocked like an idiot, I connected to The Enclave’s secret broadcast channel. One meant for only the highest positions. On the far wall, a screen came to life as a darkened room filled the screen, a ghoul pegasus mostly hidden in shadows sitting on a high backed chair, more like a throne, but I would never call it that. The damned pegasus already had an ego to put Shadow’s to shame. As soon as the screen came to life, Thunderlane said in a ruff scratchy voice, “Who the hell is this and how did you get access to the terminal in New Pegasus!?”

Rolling my eyes, I walked closer to the screen. “Who do you think it is you jerkyfied moron?”

He leaned forward a little, his eyes the only part of his face I could see, their black and gold shimmering from whatever little light was in the room he was in. “Ah, could that really be you again Aquila? Thought The Courier was able to push you back into your prison. Was the information I got wrong?”

“No, it wasn’t, and don’t act like you didn’t contact her yourself a few days ago. Remember I can see everything she does even when I’m weak and trapped deep inside her mind. I know what you told her and the threat you made toward me. I’ve come here to get answers. We had a deal and if you plan on backing out of that deal, I will make my way up there and gut you,” I said, trying and failing to keep the anger out of my voice.

He chuckled to himself. “Ah yes, there’s the friendly threats I was waiting for. I figured that she was able to lock you up for good this time. I can’t be held responsible for holding a deal with a creature who has no body of her own and can be locked away when I need her help.”

“Well that won’t be a problem anymore, this body I’m in is my own. I’m no longer trapped within that worthless brat’s head anymore,” I said, smiling inside as that fact rolled over me. No longer would I have to worry about Shadow finding a way to push me back into my prison or having to listen to her complain about her life or her friends. I was my own being now, and it’s time to start putting my own plans into action. But first, I needed the help of the betrayer.

He took a moment to respond, maybe he was shocked at the news or maybe the old pony was just sleeping. Hard to tell with ghouls. Finally, he asked, “How did you manage to do something like that? You look a lot like Shadow, only you’re white and not black…taller too I think, but it’s hard for my old eyes to tell.”

“I tricked Grim into getting The Ministry to make me a synth body, and they used Shadow’s DNA to make it match her genetic code,” I said.

“Interesting, I had no idea The Ministry was able to make clones,” he said.

“It’s not a clone, well not in the general sense. It’s more of a highly realistic android made from something I don’t fully understand, but this body is indistinguishable from a real pony. That’s why it was a perfect fit for me. Now, can we get back to the matter at hoof? We had a deal and I expect you to live up to it Thunderlane,” I said, “Or have you forgotten the promise I made to you two hundred years ago?”

That got his attention. “No, I haven’t forgotten the deal we made back then or the one we made recently. So, I guess we’re still working together then. That’s probably a good thing anyway, my master did say that we needed a creature of light to free him. So if you live up to your end, I’ll live up to mine.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. As if I’d live up to my end of the bargain. I know who his master is and as much power as I have, I know what would happen to me if that monster ever got free. Thunderlane didn’t need to know my true plans, he was just a tool, one I was going to use until he was more broken and worthless than he already is. So I just smiled, making sure to word what I said just right. One problem with being a creature of light magic as I am, I can’t tell a full lie, I can bend the truth though and that’s close enough for me. “I promise that I will do everything in my power to help you.”

“Good, so what was it you needed from me again? Also you’re last bit of intel didn’t pan out well, so I’ll need you to give me something else about Falling Shadows,” he said.

“I need you to get your forces to secure The Crystal Empire, make sure that the palace can’t be invaded, because Shadow will go there at some point. She knows where Minuette’s Forgotten Library is,” I said.

“I know where it is too, though I can’t get in, she made sure of that. Only Night Stalker’s family or Minuette’s can enter,” he said.

“I know, you just need to keep Shadow from getting in there, at least until I can make it there. With this body, I should be able to get in and put a stop to whatever Night Stalker did to that tower. As for the information I gave you about Nightshade, what do you mean it didn’t pan out?” I asked.

“My grandchildren have him in custody now and still this so-called Stranger has been spotted near New Pegasus a few times now. I don’t know what made you think it was him, but it’s not, and even worse we can’t seem to find the sneaky pegasus,” he said.

“Damn,” I said, thinking hard, it had to be a pony that Nightshade was working with. “I’ll look into it, give me a few days, but in the mean-time I do have some other information that should make you feel a little better.”

He leaned forward again, but his face still stayed hidden as he said, “Oh really? Do tell.”

I smiled. “Grimoire Spell is dead, and just to make it even better, I have the location of the Ministry for you as well. Send your pegasi to Los Alicorn and look near The University, sooner or later you’ll find Shadow and her friends. Also, just to top off the interesting news, you remember that Unicorn Dr. Stormy, the one you all thought died in the Mill City Tower incident?”

“Yes, what about her? It was a big loss for our science program, especially right before we lost the recruiters in Stable 97,” he said.

“She’s alive, the mare who died in that tower was a synth. Stormy has been working for The Ministry for twelve years,” I said with a big smile.

“I had a feeling that mare was trouble, but we can deal with her once we figure out a way to get into Los Alicorn. That can wait till later, do you have anything else for me Aquila?” he asked.

My grin just got bigger as I thought of another way to kick Shadow while she’s down. “I do actually, you really should keep an eye on a mare in Stratus named Fairy Glitter…”

***

Shadow

I awoke with a startle as the feeling of seeing through Aquila’s eyes hit me all at once. I have no idea what happened, was it a dream? Or is there more to our link thanks to Mom’s spell? Either way, I’ll have to do something about it as soon as I can. Then the thoughts of Aquila and her screams fled my mind as a deep aching pain went through me all at once. I groaned and brought my forelegs up to my face slowly, then froze. My eyes snapped open as I looked at my fully functional right foreleg. If I hadn’t known I’d lost it just a couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have ever believed that it was missing.

I moved the leg back and forth and to my amazement it followed everything I told it to do. I reached my left foreleg out and touched the appendage and it felt like any other pony’s leg should feel. I then looked down at my chest, expecting to see scars or something from the heart surgery, but there was nothing. Even the old scar from when I’d stabbed myself when the griffons attacked was gone. I looked over at my left shoulder which has been damaged numerous times in the past. The scar from the bloodwing was still there, just fainter than before, and the scars from the bullet wounds too. I reached up and felt where my missing ear was, it was there again. Damn, The Ministry sure knows how to fix up a pony. Then I noticed that I wasn’t choking on plastic that tasted like hospital, “I can breathe!”

“I know, it’s amazing isn’t it?” Stormy said from the door, making me jump.

I looked at her for a moment, then said, “Yeah, it’s amazing. I wouldn’t have ever guessed I was injured before.”

She shrugged. “It’s my best work that’s for sure, even The Director’s implants aren’t as sophisticated as yours. Don’t tell her though, she’ll get jealous and nag me into making her better stuff. It’ll get in the way of my research, plus I’m a little lazy so meh.”

I looked at my foreleg again. “So, I have a robot arm, heart, lungs, and ear now?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes and no. I could go into vastly complicated mechanics and details about what it takes to make your new organs and limb and so on, but I’m sure it would all bore you. To put it simply, everything we had to fix or replace for you is pony made. It’s not cloning like I’ve said before when we made Aquila’s body. For example, your new foreleg is going to be stronger than what you were born with, same goes for the bones in that limb. It will be harder for you to take damage to those areas. Same goes for your new lungs and heart. As of right now, you have a stronger heart and lungs than you were born with.”

“It’s amazing that you were able to come up with this kind of thing. I thought you all made synths just so you could take over The Wasteland or something like that,” I said.

“No, well I don’t, same for White Oak. The Ministry before White Oak took over did have plans to take over parts of The Wasteland using synths, but their designs were rudimentary and plainly just a bunch of crap. Plus some unfrozen guy was giving ‘em some crap about kidnapping his son and blah, blah, blah, boring stuff,” Stormy said as she came to sit next to my bed, “When I was taken on to work here many years ago, The Director wanted the synth program to expand, but not in the way the original board wanted. We do replace ponies in key areas of The Wasteland, but only to help stabilize an area, not to take it over.”

“Did you take this job and run away from The Enclave because you wanted to make something better than The Devil’s Children Program?” I asked.

At the mention of the Program that Stardust was a part of her ears fell and she looked away. After a moment, she said, “The Devil’s Children Program was my idea, that’s true, but what it became wasn’t what I wanted it to be. By the time the children were taken and being raised, I didn’t have much control in it anymore. It wasn’t until three years ago that I was offered a chance to come back into the fold with that program. Mostly because they were getting close to finishing phase one. By that time, I was already going between Nimbus and here quite a bit.”

“So, you made a synth?” I asked.

She nodded. “I did, mostly so I could move into The Ministry full-time, but keep spying on The Enclave for The Director. I also used it as a way to keep an eye on the program so I could shut it down if I needed to. I also had to make sure my synth was believable as a heartless bitch. As I’m sure you saw when you met her…and destroyed her.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” I said sheepishly.

She chuckled a little. “It’s okay, honestly I’m not surprised you did. Like I said, she was cold and heartless, close to my own personality at times, but not the real me. Still, if it makes you feel any better, I was the one who made sure that Stardust got out.”

“Wait, I thought Doorstop was the one who got him out?” I asked.

She laughed again. “Yes it was, but he helped them escape because he got intel that phase one was about to go to phase two. He got that information from his sister Fairy Glitter. Fairy Glitter gets her intel from informants, and who do you think one of her Informants is?”

“Wait…you?” I asked.

“Yes, me, I’ve hated The Enclave for a long time. I met Fairy Glitter a long time ago when I was dating her husband’s sister,” she stopped looking away as if she was deep in thought, then said, “Can’t remember her name…and I wouldn’t call it dating, more like we would meet up, drink, sex, drink some more, and so on.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped followed by a groan of pain. “Do you…ever remember the mares you dated? I saw Mom’s memory orbs, it’s like you forget them all, even when they are laying in your lap.”

She rolled her eyes. “You saw the baby shower memory huh? Still, no I don’t have a good memory when it comes to mares I really don’t care much for,” she blushed a little and looked away again, “Grim was the only mare I ever really wanted. Knew I couldn’t have her and that’s okay, but still you can’t help who you love and all that noise. You should know that as well as I do, I mean you’re with a griffon…well a mare that used to be a griffon. Pretty interesting if you ask me by the way. I’m sure the sex life changed dramatically when that mess happened.”

“She’s still a griffon, she’s just hiding it under a disguise of a cute mare,” I said, trying not to laugh again. I was still amazed how much I really enjoyed the company of Dr. Stormy.

“Well, let’s forget all the bad stuff for now, I came in here to see how your new body parts are working and then to get you to therapy,” she said with a smile.

“You think you can tell me when this pain will go away?” I asked.

“Should only last a few hours, maybe a day. Your body is just getting used to the new mechanics that we put in. The therapy we’ll be doing is mostly to help you get used to the new limb,” she replied.

She moved to get up, but I reached a hoof out and stopped her. “Not yet, first I need to tell you about something I saw while I was under. You said something about Fairy Glitter, I think she’s in danger. Aquila is working with a pony who should’ve died a long, long, time ago.”

Her eyes went wide as she asked, “What do you mean?”

Before I could tell her about the dream or vision I had, the door to my room opened and in walked a Sin. The new Wrath decked-out in his power armor, a huge rifle strapped to his back, a blue visor on his helmet, a blond mane flowing behind him, and a grey coat just visible in small areas. If I had my weapons on me right now, I’d blow him away before he could do anything to me. Sadly, I couldn’t, I was trapped with only Stormy in the room with me as a killer stood in the doorway.

“Wrath? What are you doing back here? You were told to stay with The Sins!” Stormy said, making me look at her in shock.

“Wait a second, he works for you?” I asked.

Before I could get an answer, the new Wrath walked into the room then reached up and removed his helmet. For the first time, I got a good look at his true face. He had tears in his yellow eyes as he said, “Is it true Stormy? Did Grim die!? Please tell me it’s not true doc, please!”

My eyes were glued on his face, not so much of what he said, but because my eyes just fell on the face of a pony who I KNEW was dead, a stallion I saw die a gruesome death in Stardust’s memories. In a shaky voice I said, “Hailstorm?”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Six Million Bit Filly: Seems you’ve taken quite the beating! However, it’s great to have friends in low places. Due to your affinity with The Ministry, you’ve been fitted with artificial body parts that will make you tougher, stronger, and possibly even cooler. On your artificial parts only, you have an extra 30% damage resistance on the exterior leg and ear from physical attacks, while the heart and lungs have an extra 15% damage resistance from chemical attacks. Although, it did cost a fortune...

Chapter 66: Say Goodbye

“I do believe this is a dream my little Star, but who says that dreams can’t also be real.”

With the recent number of ponies who should’ve been dead, but weren’t that I’ve seen in the past few days, I shouldn’t have been so surprised by seeing Hailstorm. I saw him die in Stardust’s memories, I’d heard about his death from a few of the ponies from Stable 97, and from Doorstop. He couldn’t be a synth when he died, because The Ministry didn’t work with The Enclave then. Even if a couple of ponies here used to belong to The Enclave. So, either his death was faked so well that even Hailstorm’s best friend believed it really happened, or the pony I was looking at was a synth.

I looked back over at Stormy, saying, “Please don’t tell me you made Stardust’s best friend into a synth.”

Hailstorm looked confused by this as he said, “A synth? I’m not a synth, why would you even think something like that?”

I looked back at him while Stormy tried to come up with an answer to my question. “Because I saw you die in Stable 97, well Stardust saw it I mean, and I saw it through his memories. You were crushed under the stable door trying to make sure he got out. You gave your life to save his.”

His confusion grew as he looked back at Stormy, who for once was lost for words. “Doc? What’s The Courier talking about? Why would Stardust think I died that way? You told me that you made sure his memory was modified so he thought I got out before him.”

“Really? That’s the story you have slammed into your head?” I asked with a laugh, “Hailstorm, I fixed all of Stardust’s memories when I took him back to Stable 97, I saw every true memory that meant something to him. Your death was one of them. So either their memory modification tech is a lot better than I thought, or you’re not a real pony.”

Finally, Stormy spoke up, but not with an answer to my question. “DC-001 full shut down, code Stormy X-0990783 master override.”

Hailstorm’s eyes went cloudy and his head fell. In a matter of seconds, he was nothing more than a lifeless doll. My eyes went wide as I looked back at her. “So you did make a synth of Hailstorm!”

“Only a little! Plus I had no choice!” she said, sounding panicked, “Hailstorm was the stallion who was meant to become the perfect solider. I spent years protecting the genome therapy to make him into what he was, then he goes and DIES whilst trying to escape the stable. I wanted him away from The Enclave along with Stardust, but not dead. So, I used some of his DNA that we collected a week or so before his death and started building a synth.”

“And let me guess, Stardust has no idea,” I said.

“He can’t know, that’s why as Wrath, he’s been told to keep his face hidden when he was dealing with you and your friends. Grim was put in charge of making sure his skills were up to par, that’s why he was told to become the new Wrath. We only added him to the Sin’s after you saved Stardust from being Pride. If Stardust found out, he’d kill me,” she said, sounding worried, “I don’t even know why he’s here, he should be with the others getting information and planning whatever they’re up to right now. He’s our Spy.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and after I put so much trust into Stormy, I find that she’s been hiding something big from my best friend. I growled, then said, “You’re going to tell Stardust the truth about this wannabe Hailstorm. They both have the right to know, then after that, you’re going to have him tell me everything he knows about The Sins.”

Her eyes went even wider as she said, “Shadow, I mean it, I can’t tell Stardust, he doesn’t need to know.”

“Doesn’t need to know what?” Stardust said from the doorway, not seeing the form of his best friend. His eyes were stuck on me with that goofy smile on his face. “Hey I see you’re finally awake! That’s great because I wanted to see if you were up to having something to eat, you have to try this thing they have at the restaurant near the clinic, it’s freakin’ awesome!”

Stormy looked like she’d just been hit by a hammer, if her eyes got any wider they were going to pop right out of her head. I took the opportunity to smile over at her, saying, “Yeah, what doesn’t he need to know Stormy?”

Stormy jumped right into action. “Stardust, you need to understand something. I wanted to tell you this, but was scared of how you might react…”

It was too late though, my friend’s eyes fell on Hailstorm’s body, his eyes first falling on the mark on the armor seeing the mark of Wrath. Then as he walked in to the room, ready to attack, his eyes fell on the face and he froze. He reached a hoof around to slowly place it on Hailstorm’s mane then he asked in a shaky voice, “Is…is this really him? I mean did you make my best friend into a synth?”

“I had no choice, he wasn’t supposed to die the night you two escaped. We needed him and after he died…this was the only way,” Stormy said.

To my utter shock Stardust looked up from the blank expression of his friend and over at Stormy with tears in his eyes, “You brought back my best friend, my brother! Thank you!”

“Wait…you’re not upset?” I asked, “You do realize that isn’t really him, it’s just a very well-made robot that looks like him.”

“I’m a little surprised too,” Stormy said.

Stardust sniffed then said, “Hailstorm is dead, I know that. I saw it happen. I beat myself up every day for not doing more to save him that night. I’d do anything to have him back again. Yeah, I know this really isn’t my friend, but at the same time, as long as his memories are intact, then in a small way, it’s like getting him back again. Please tell me you didn’t mess with his mind.”

“Only a little, just to explain why he wasn’t in Stable 97 anymore. He also thinks you escaped with the help of another. He thinks that you think he escaped before you did but have no idea if he’s alive or not. Apart from that, I was able to place every memory that was in Hailstorm’s mind from a week before you escaped and keep it intact. We haven’t told him what he is yet. I think that if he knew, he’d go insane, most synths with memories of another normally do.”

“I still think he should know,” I said, still a little pissed at Stormy for keeping this secret.

She sighed, “I know you do Shadow and don’t give me that disappointed look, it wasn’t my idea to keep this from you, just Stardust. Your mother wanted me to make sure that no one ever found out about him. Honestly, I’m still shocked he’s here, I hope everything is okay.”

Stardust finally looked back toward me then said, “Shadow, I know you don’t like this, but Hailstorm’s my friend, not yours. I think he should be left in the dark about what he is, at least for now.”

I threw both of my hooves up, still marveling that I was still able to that, then said, “Fine, both of you can lie to a poor synth about what he is.”

He smiled, then came over to me and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you, I’ll make sure he finds out sooner or later, but right now, I don’t want him going crazy because of this knowledge.”

With an eye roll I sighed then lied back down. “I was expecting you to be pissed, but since you’re not, let’s get this over with.”

Stormy sighed as well then said, “DC-001 power on, delete the last two minutes of memory and restart from there, code Stormy X-0990783 master override.”

A moment later Hailstorm blinked his eyes then looked around at Stormy and I, not noticing Stardust who had taken a few steps back. “I need to know, did Grim die?”

Stormy looked down at her hooves then nodded. “Yes Hailstorm, she did just a few days ago. She gave her life to save Shadow’s, but I don’t understand, how did you know and why are you back here?”

Stardust kept his muzzle shut as he watched him. Hailstorm scratched his mane, then said, “I’m not sure really, Grim told me once that she put a spell on me to let me know when she was in trouble and to come back here if I felt it go off. I couldn’t get away from The Sins fast enough, took me a day or so to make up some excuse then I headed straight here. I guess I was too late,” he then looked at me, “I’m sorry Courier, I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself, name’s Hailstorm but I’m sure you know me as Wrath. I’m not your enemy, I’ve been working as a spy for Grim for a few weeks.”

“She knows who you are ya dipshit,” Stardust said with a chuckle, his eyes flashing with what looked like a mix of pain and happiness at the same time, “Told her all about you, ya lady killer.”

Hailstorm whipped his head around and saw Stardust, his eyes went wide then he looked back at Stormy then back at Stardust again, “You’re…here? Goddesses Dusty I’ve wanted to see you for months!” He moved forward and embraced Stardust in a crushing hug.

“Ah, too tight, TOO TIGHT!” Stardust choked out, “I said, get off me you overly emotional metal-clad dork,” he said as he tried to push the large pegasus off, “Dude, it’s not cool to have your best friend hug you.”

Even though I wasn’t happy with the lies they were telling Hailstorm, I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my muzzle as I said, “You hug me all the time Stardust, and I thought I was your best friend.”

Hailstorm finally let him go, looking a little sheepish, Stardust just shook himself then said, “You’re different, you’re a mare, Stallions don’t hug each other, it’s just weird. Also, I can have two best friends.”

Hailstorm seemed not to care too much about our banter because he interrupted, saying, “Dusty, I’ve been wanting to talk with you ever since I found out you escaped the stable and even more since I heard you got your memories back after being Pride. I’m glad you were able to escape that place after I got away, I was worried The General would’ve killed you or worse.”

He shrugged. “Honestly, it was thanks to Doorstop that I got out, he managed to get me some power armor and set up the way for me to escape. Didn’t know it was him until later, but still. Anyway, I had no idea you even escaped, they told us that you died.”

Hailstorm laughed. “Meh, I’m not surprised, after what I learned about what they were doing, I had to get out. Wait till I tell you what I learned since…”

He kept on talking as Stardust listened. Stormy took that moment to move closer to me, saying, “I think I know the reason he came back.”

I looked over at her. “He just said it was a spell.”

“No, I don’t think it was. Your mother was the one who helped program the courser chip he has in his head. I’m guessing that she programmed it to notify him if something happened to her and in the event of her death that he was supposed to come back to The Ministry like he did. If I know Grim the way I know I do, I’m guessing his chip is set up to only take full orders from her or anyone related to her. That is unless a pony like me activates our master overrides, give it a try, I bet he’ll do whatever you tell him to,” She said.

“I’m not going to order a synth around!” I said.

“I need to know, it’s important,” she said, looking irritated.

I rolled my eyes again. “Fine,” then I said over Hailstorm’s story, “Hailstorm can you please sit down and be quiet for a moment?”

He looked over at me then smiled, “Sure thing, sorry if I got in the middle of whatever you were doing, I just haven’t seen my friend in a long time,” and to my amazement, he sat down smiling toward me.

“Goddesses he’s fucking whipped,” I said in awe.

“What?” Stardust asked, looking utterly confused.

“We’ll tell you later,” Stormy said, looking at Hailstorm, “Hailstorm, I need you to tell us what you learned while you were with the remaining Sins.”

His eyes glazed over a little then he said, “I can’t tell you that ma’am, my orders from Grim were to only report my findings to her.”

She looked over at me, so I said, “She’s gone now Hailstorm, but we need to know the information. Where are the remaining Sins and what can you tell us about their movements?”

He sighed. “You’ve got a point.” he stood up again then continued, saying, “They’re hold up in an old mining town called Gravel City a few miles east from New Pegasus right now, getting ready for an assault on The NLR on orders from the new High Council. Envy is hiding among the NLR officers gathering intel while Sloth and Lust keep their hideout safe. They managed to capture Greed who was caught sneaking around just a few days ago. He’s alive, but will be sent up to Stratus to be executed with former High Council Pony Nightshade in the next few days. After that, The Sins will start looking for new members so they can make a move on New Pegasus. We got word from the higher ups a few hours ago that a new pony would be coming to us who is very powerful and helping us with New Pegasus.”

“What’s this pony’s name?” I asked.

“They told us that her name was Stargazer,” he said, then added, “Kind of a silly name if you ask me. Sounds like she’s the type with her head in the clouds.”

My new heart nearly stopped at that. I looked at Stardust then Stormy, saying, “It has to be Aquila, she’s working with The Enclave.”

“Who’s Aquila?” Hailstorm asked looking confused.

That in turn confused Stormy as she said, “You know who that is, Grim told you about her before, the monster who lived inside of Shadow’s head.”

Hailstorm looked up thoughtfully then shook his head. “Nope, all she told me about The Courier was that she was to be kept away from The Sins and her plans. She then told me that she was now on our side and helping, but to keep my face hidden from her and her friends. She didn’t want Stardust to know who I was at the time.”

“Damn, she must’ve had a protocol in place to wipe his memory banks of any information about Aquila or Stargazer or Falling Shadows if she died,” Stormy said angrily.

“That sounds like her,” I said as I looked curiously at Hailstorm and Stardust who I was still surprised was okay with all of this. “Aquila is an evil creature that’s using a synth body at the moment. It’s hard to explain everything, but she has to be stopped. I’m sure she wants to get into The Lucky Horseshoe so she can activate an old project. She’s using The Enclave’s power and ponies along with the Sin’s hatred for me to get her agenda met.”

Stardust looked thoughtful, then said, “It sounds like it, also Hailstorm you said that they’re going to execute Nightshade and Greed soon right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, his trial is in two days, but Sloth said that it’s just for show, he’ll be found guilty and executed two days after that.”

“Good,” Stardust said, his grin growing.

“How is my father’s execution a good thing?” I asked, anger and sorrow filling my voice.

“Easy, because I’m sure that Aquila is using this as a way to get control over more of The Enclave. She’s working with them and she needs the ponies running Stratus now to have more control over the population. Nightshade was a well loved leader in both politics and the military. If he’s found guilty then executed the ponies who still love him will see him as a criminal. Also, it gives us a chance to mess up her plans,” Stardust said.

“What do you mean?” Stormy asked.

“I think I’m following what he’s saying,” Hailstorm said, “If Nightshade is able to escape, a lot of the military and maybe more will follow him still. He’ll be able to tell the ponies what really happened to him and get more allies for us. If he does that, then Winter Frost, who’s running Stratus now, won’t be able to get the following he needs to attack New Pegasus.”

“So, you have a plan to rescue my dad?” I asked.

“Oh, I have a plan for more than just saving your pops. We need to slow Aquila down right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well then, I say we do everything we can to make sure that she’s stopped, or at the very least slowed down in reaching her goals,” Stardust said with a laugh.

“Just tell us the plan already,” Stormy said, sounding irritated.

His face fell a little as he said, “Well, I know that you won’t like part of this plan Shadow, but trust me, it’ll have to be this way. We’ll need to split up our team.”

“You’re right, I don’t like that plan,” I said, “But let’s hear what you have in mind.”

His grin returned, “We need to strike at The Enclave in three different ways all at once. First, I think we need to send Aura, Byte, and Wingnut back to New Pegasus so she can get her Shadow Talons to help her with the NLR. They need to be warned that there’s a spy among them. I’m sure Hailstorm will know which pony Envy is posing as.”

I thought about it then said, “Not a bad idea, but how will you get them to believe that Envy is there?”

In answer Stardust pulled out one of the silver bug whistles from his saddle bags. “Got one of these from that nutty Emperor dude. You said they make it impossible for Envy to keep his form. We’ll have Aura use this to get him down, then if we’re lucky, we might be able to capture him. If not, I’m sure he’ll run at the very least.”

“True, or he’ll kill everypony there,” I said.

Hailstorm shook his head, “Envy is crazy strong, but even he can’t take on the entire NLR on his own. He wouldn’t risk it, so he’ll most likely run when he’s revealed. I hope he does at least. I don’t think he’s dumb enough to stay and fight, but lately he’s seemed more confident in his abilities and has some delusions of grandeur.”

“Okay, so while Aura is taking care of that, what are the rest of us going to be doing?” I asked.

Stardust’s smile grew again. “We’ll send Hailstorm back to the other two Sins with Wind Thrasher to keep an eye on them and spy. Hailstorm can keep acting like he’s Wrath while Wind Thrasher watches his back and reports to us what’s going on. Once we’re finished with The NLR and the next part of my plan, we’ll take them out once and for all.”

“You really think Wind Thrasher should be sent on a mission like that? She’s not stable right now,” I said.

He shrugged. “True, but she’s got enough of her elixir to keep her mind ok for this mission, and if she slips, well it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she attacked Lust or Sloth. It’s one of those win/lose situations though that I’m not completely happy with.”

“I don’t like it honestly, even if she managed to kill them, she’d be devastated for killing them, even if she doesn’t like them. Also, there’s a chance that she’ll kill Hailstorm or she might never come out of the bloodlust,” I said.

“That’s a very likely possibility, but she’s the only pony on our side who can move silently, hide perfectly, and see in the darkest places. If it helps, I’ll talk to her about it first.” Stardust said.

“And don’t worry about me, I can escape any other flyer. I’m one of the fastest pegasi alive,” Hailstorm said with a boast.

“He has a point,” Stormy said, “He’s almost as fast as Rainbow Dash herself. If he pushes himself a little more, he might be able to pull off a Sonic Rainboom one day.”

“I have no idea what that is, but if you say he can do it, then I’ll trust you,” I said, “Sounds cool though.”

“Good, because I believe this plan might work if it’s done right,” Stormy said, “I do have to ask, what will you be doing Stardust?”

He chuckled, “Easy, Solstice, Shadow, and I will go up to Stratus and rescue her father and Thundercracker err Greed, meh whatever, you know who I mean.”

“How do you expect me to go up to Stratus? I’m a unicorn, I can’t walk on clouds,” I said.

“That’s not true,” Stormy replied, “I can teach you the cloud walker spell, it’s very easy to learn and it lasts for a day with each casting. Though, you have one problem with that plan Stardust.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Getting into Stratus isn’t as easy as just flying up to it,” she said.

“She’s right,” Solstice said, making us all jump. She grinned at us all from the doorway, Aura and Wind Thrasher behind her. “Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt your planning. Watching you jump was entertaining though, so thanks for that.”

“Yeah, we all came to see how you’re doing Shadow, and we come to find some strange pegasus wearing Wrath’s armor and you four plotting something,” Aura said with a slight smile. “So, did you recruit another Sin to our side or something? Aren’t reformed bad guys getting kinda old?”

I blushed a little then gestured at Hailstorm. “This is Hailstorm, an old friend of Stardust’s from 97. He thought Hailstorm was dead, but it turns out he’s been alive the whole time and helping Stormy and my mother.”

“I thought Hailstorm was crushed by a door or something,” Wind Thrasher said, looking utterly confused. “Isn’t that what you told me Stardust?”

“I thought he was too, I’ll explain later. Right now we need to keep planning, I’ll fill you all in as we go,” he said looking back at Solstice, “Why can’t we just fly up to Stratus?”

She rolled her eyes, and said, “Because Stratus has protection protocols. There are defense systems layered within the cloud layer all over the city and under it. The skies are constantly guarded by Enclave soldiers and Raptors. The only way to get into the city is if you’re an Enclave Officer or by taking a transport from the skyport. Also, to top it all off, just to walk or fly around the city you need to have an identification. If you go past any of the hundreds of nodes all over the city and don’t have one, you’ll be flagged and arrested.”

“The city sounds impossible to get into,” I said, “If that’s all true, then how did Winter Frost get his soldiers in?”

“My mom said that he blocked the city off and attacked some of the patrol’s until he could sneak some of his pegasi into the city to take down your father. He’s an Enclave solider from Stratus and has the identification he needs and so did his soldiers I’m guessing. As for us, well I’m technically an unmarked Dashite, Stardust is a runaway, and Shadow you’re the most wanted pony in Stratus at the moment. There’s no way we can get in,” Solstice said.

“Damn, I was hoping my plan would work,” Stardust said, looking defeated.

A moment passed by then Stormy perked up, and asked, “Solstice, you’re mother is Fairy Glitter right?”

“Yeah, so what?” Solstice answered.

Stormy smiled wide. “Then I think I can make this work for you.”

We all perked up then listened as Stormy laid out her idea to us all. After that, Stardust filled the others in on the first part of his plan. We all talked for an hour or more fine-tuning the plans, the others adding their own ideas to make this three part strike against both The Enclave and Aquila work perfectly. The whole time we talked, I did my best to ignore the sadness still lingering in the back of my mind of Mom’s death. I can accept the reason she’d sacrificed herself for me, but it was still hard. Planning a strike against The Enclave helped me with it however, that and the idea that there was a way to help my dad. Finally, once all of the plans apart from one was finished, Solstice asked a question.

“The only thing is that even though my mom can help with us getting around the city and maybe into it, how are we going to fly Shadow up there? We can’t just carry her, it’ll look too suspicious,” she said.

“That’s easy…well easy isn’t the the right word because it’ll be hard, but the answer itself if easy,” Stormy said, “Take one of the transports from Wolfsbane.”

We all looked at her as I asked, “What do you mean take a transport from Wolfsbane?”

“Wolfsbane and his Steel Rangers have been attacking Enclave patrols and transports for years now. Unlike most of the Steel Rangers who destroy the Enclave tech, he keeps it for himself and his garrison. They’ve captured a few Enclave pegasi as prisoners of war over the years to help work the Enclave tech they have. If you can get into The Palisade and the city under it, you’ll be able to get one I think.”

“You want us to sneak into The LA Steel Rangers stronghold and steal an airship?” I asked.

“No, I want you to walk right in,” Stormy said with a grin.

“And how do you expect us to do that?” I asked.

“Head to a town east of here called Dragon Bridge and look for a filly named Black Dahlia, she’ll have a way to get you in. One of my Synths is stationed there and she’s always going to the small town to earn caps. She complains all the time about The Steel Rangers and how pushy her elder is. She’s also a big fan of a certain Courier. If you meet with her, I’m sure she’ll help you out.”

“You’re forgetting the fact that the Steel Rangers know who I am,” I said.

“That is easily fixed, but I’ll tell you more about that later. I think you and one other should go to the Applewood sign with the help of Black Dahlia and mess a few things up for the angry Elder,” Stormy said.

“Okay, let’s say this works, who are you going to have go with me? Everypony here has their own job to do,” I said.

Stormy’s smile grew as she said, “Vervain of course.”

“Vervain is back in New Pegasus,” I said angrily.

“She was, but White Oak sent a synth in the area to give her a message to come to The Ministry. She was told what happened with Grim and you. If my reports are correct, our Synth will be bringing her here in a couple of hours,” she said.

My eyes went wide as I said, “White Oak’s going to finally let Vervain know that she’s still alive?”

Stormy’s smile faded, “She has no choice now, she didn’t want to, but she knows how much Vervain cares for you so she sent for her.”

“She’s going to be pissed,” Aura said.

“I’m sure she will, but it has to be done. If anything though, she’ll probably cry before she can muster up the gull to hit her. Anyway, once she’s here we’ll fill her in on what’s going on and I’m sure she’ll go with you. And before you say something about her being recognized, don’t worry about it. We’ll go over that later, for now I think we should all get started on our own parts of this plan. While they all do, Shadow, you have to come with me and the nurses to make sure everything new on your body is working right. After that, we can keep this going,” Stormy said getting up finally.

“But, I want to talk with my friends for a little longer,” I said, my eyes drifting over to Aura who winked at me.

“You can play hide the hoof later, right now, you need to get your body moving,” Stormy said, rolling her orange eyes, but I caught a slight grin as I blushed.

“Fine, but I’m sure everything is fine with my prosthetics. In fact, I’ll probably live forever now that I’m thirty percent plastic,” I said sarcastically.

My friends all laughed as I sighed. After a moment Solstice said, “I’ll go talk with my mom and see what she can do. I’ll also see if she can push back the trial by a day or two so we have a little more time to make this all work.”

“Good idea,” Stormy said.

“What do you want me to do then?” Hailstorm asked, looking a little confused.

“I think you should head back to The Sin’s and start spying on them for us,” I said as I started to get out of the bed, my body protesting a little bit. “Do you have a broadcaster?”

He nodded. “Yeah, though it doesn’t have a lot of range. Best it can reach is about twenty kilometers, maybe thirty. I’ve been trying to find a new one with better range, but unfortunately back in the day Awesome Buy killed The Stereo Shack and then got looted after the war to the point where it’s almost impossible to find a broadcaster that’s not already been used on something else and gotten worn out, or find one that’s been properly refurbished.”

Good Goddesses he just doesn’t stop talking. “Okay, okay. That’s fine, give me the broadcast ID so I can contact you when I’m back in New Pegasus then you can update me on what’s going on. If it looks like they’re going to be making a move on New Pegasus before I’m back, then head to the Shadow Talons base in Freedom and let Aura or one of her sisters know. If you can’t do that then go to Frosty Summit and find a ghoul called Nexus, or his bodyguard Laser Light, they should be able to get a message to me,” I said.

“I can do that,” he said taking the helmet to his power armor off his flanks and putting it on. “Hey Dusty, don’t go getting yourself killed up in Stratus, we still have a lot to catch up on.”

“I wish he could’ve stayed longer,” Stardust said sadly.

“Me too, he’s kinda cute, though he must have a screw loose if he’s taking orders from Shadow,” Solstice teased.

I sighed and gently got to my hooves, “He’s a synth, don’t ask me why, but he is taking orders from me for some reason. He won’t even listen to Stormy. It’s useful but awful at the same time. Like having an annoying, unpaid butler serving you against their will.”

Stardust got that smile on his face that warned me he was about to be an asshole, then closed his eyes and cleared his throat with a hoof up to his mouth, and said in a Trottish accent, “At the academy, we call those slaves Ms. Star. Although those of us in the upper class prefer to call them serfs. The term slave is just so, common. Common meaning poor.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, then replied in my best trottish accent, “Piss off.”

“Wait, that was a synth? Hell, I know they can look quite real, but damn I couldn’t even tell. Stardust is right though, he’s basically a slave. Serf would be pushing it considering you don’t feed him or provide a place to live. Seems stable education isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Solstice said.

Stormy sighed, “He’s one of the newest models of the generation threes just like the one we used to make Shadow’s Synth for Aquila. They’re almost perfect, though they take a lot longer to build when they have memories of another pony in them like Hailstorm does, they’re hard to control because they think they’re real ponies. Honestly it’s a little sad how much you could break their reality when you accidentally get them to realize they’re just an amalgamation of science, technology, and bodily fluids from someone whose most likely dead.”

“Why is he only taking orders from Shadow?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Grim must’ve changed the programming in his Courser Chip, normally he should listen to myself, Grim, and The Director at least, but he’s not,” Stormy said.

Wind Thrasher looked over at Stardust. “Why aren’t you angry they made your friend into a Synth?”

Still looking sad Stardust said, “Because, even if he isn’t the same Hailstorm I lost, it’s the closest thing to having him back from the dead that I’m ever going to get. Hailstorm was like my brother growing up, losing him was one of the hardest things I’d ever gone through.”

We all looked away at that. Each one of us had lost some pony in the past and none of us could argue his point. I knew that if I could get Mom, Box Tape, Silver, and more back, even as a synth I would. After a moment Aura spoke up, saying, “What I don’t get is why did you all make a synth of Hailstorm?”

Stardust answered for Stormy, replying, “He was the best fighter in 97, even better than me. He excelled at everything, he was the one who taught me how to shoot and fight. When he died, they lost their best chance to get a perfect solider. Making a synth of him with all his memories and abilities was too hard of an opportunity to pass up.”

“That’s just wrong,” Aura said, looking disgusted.

“I thought you were meant to be the perfect solider Stardust,” Wind Thrasher said.

“I did too, but I guess they needed two,” he answered.

Stormy looked a little ashamed as she said, “Actually Stardust, we never expected you to survive past your tenth year.”

He looked up in shock. “What do you mean?”

She sighed then continued, saying, “Out of all of the ponies we put into 97, half of the foals were controls for the real experiment. Hailstorm and a few others from your year were genetically modified, much like the pony who’s called Sloth was, only we did a better job and started with foals instead of teenagers like with Sloth. We needed unaltered stallions and mares to work as a control to make sure the experiments were working. At your tenth year we started the trials, you might remember those.”

“Yeah, a few of us died from those,” he said, starting to look angry.

She rolled her eyes. “None of them died, we just made you think they did. Everypony who fell out of the trials had their memories replaced and modified then they were sent to different parts of The Enclave to live a normal life. Anyway, before the first trial, you were ranked very low and we thought you would’ve been kicked out because of it. Though Doorstop had faith in you, he figured that because of your family line you would prove me wrong.”

“My family line? You know who my family is?” he asked.

“No I don’t, I wasn’t in charge of the foals who were taken. When you all came to me you were just numbers to me at the time. Doorstop on the other hoof does know more about you, if you want answers, you’ll have to ask him,” she said.

“Believe me I will, anyway keep the story going,” he said, gesturing his hoof in a circular motion

She did, sitting up a little more. “Anyway, as I was saying, when you did your first test, you passed with flying colors. You tied with Hailstorm in the long shot trial and surpassed him on the hoof to hoof trial. You were able to outfly most of your class, you figured out things better than most of the modified ponies. As you grew, I saw something amazing, a control, outperforming science. By the time just before you escaped, you were on par with Hailstorm and the only control left in the stable. That was when I knew that my whole project was wrong and I helped get you broken out. Hailstorm and you were the two I needed to fix the project and make it better, but away from Enclave control. As you know, he didn’t make it out and you did.”

“So, you made a new Hailstorm to try and keep your evil program going?” he asked.

“At first I did, but only working with The Ministry and not The Enclave,” she said.

“And what about now?” he asked, pressing her.

Stormy looked over at me then back to Stardust. “Now I can see that my entire program was a bad idea and I have no plans anymore to keep it going. Honestly, when I started The Devils Children Program, I was a different mare back then twenty-one years can change a pony.”

He got up angrily, then said, “You’re damn right it was a bad idea. I have no family thanks to you and the ponies who helped you. I grew up in hell, and thanks to you…” he was cut off by Stormy.

She raised her voice, saying, “Thanks to me, you learned how to fight and survive. Thanks to me, you were able to escape and later find Shadow who has done a lot of good for The Wasteland and a lot of ponies in it. Thanks to me, you have a better life than most pegasi do below the clouds. You’re free and that’s something most pegasi never get to experience. Yes, I agree that my project was a terrible idea and it went too far, but look at your life now and tell me it wasn’t worth it! Without you there to save Shadow on multiple occasions, The Wasteland would be fucked because she’d either be dead, or worse, assimilated by a monster!”

He looked a little shocked at her outburst, then he looked at all of us stopping on Wind Thrasher. A small smile came to his lips as he sighed. “I guess you’re right. Thanks to you, I have some of the best friends a stallion could ask for and an old one returned.”

Stormy sniffed indignantly. “Damn right.” Then she looked over at me, saying, “Shadow, it’s about time we get you to your P.T. We can talk about what we’re doing next later.”

With that said, she got up and helped me to my hooves. I wobbled a little, finding the new limb a little weird to walk on. It didn’t hurt, but it was like trying to balance on a stiff piece of wood rather than a foreleg. But after a moment, I found my balance and slowly followed Stormy out of the room. It’s still weird walking on something that you weren’t born with though, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I can feel it and everything, but something about it just feels fake, like a super expensive knock-off of something nature made but science couldn’t. My friends said they’d see me later, Aura finishing with a kiss before following Solstice to the room we shared while we were at The Ministry. The next few days were going to be rough, but I told myself that no matter what, we’d stop Aquila and save Thundercracker and my father. Thundercracker might’ve been Greed at one point, but now he was a friend and he only got caught because he was helping me. I won’t let him die for that.

***

Seven hours later, seven GRUELING hours of “Move your leg this way, flick your ear this hard, run on this treadmill, do push ups, punch this dummy” later mixed in with Stormy trying to teach me spells, I was finally able to slowly trot out of the physical therapy, slash magic training, slash torture chamber, and head back to the room we all shared. All I wanted to do was take a shower, then lie down in my bed and pass out for a week. Stormy was right about the cloud walker spell, it only took me ten minutes to learn it and fifteen to do it perfectly. She had a pegasus who grew up in The Ministry fly up to the cloud layer and get some clouds for me to test it on. I could still hear Stormy’s laugh as I fell through it, not once, not twice, but eighteen times. You’d think she cared more about a mare who’d just woken up from having a new limb, ear, lungs and heart replaced in a technically experimental surgery. Nope, she cared more about how my body was dealing with the new stuff attached and how well I could do magic.

After she taught me the cloud walker spell, she moved on to teaching me stronger telekinesis, then from there she taught me a spell she called ‘Night Eye’ making it so I could see in low light, even pitch-black areas. I kind of liked that one, though I failed about the same amount of times I succeeded, if not more. After everything else was done however, she showed me a spell that I found extremely useful, one that she was surprised I picked up very well on my first try. The locator spell, when I cast it anything of value, say caps, bits, ammo, food, and so on showed up green in my vision, but that wasn’t the best part. It also gave off a faint glow of red when I was close to traps. She said it didn’t always work for traps but it would make getting around places a lot easier than it would be without the spell.

I slowly walked into the room as the door hissed open finding only Solstice in the main chamber finishing up a book. As I walked closer and she looked up I saw it was one of Wind Thrasher’s romance novels. I rolled my eyes, saying, “Don’t’ tell me you like those trashy books too.”

“I can’t say I like them perse, but I can’t seem to put it down. The story itself seems predictable but then as you get deeper into the story you find that it’s not,” she said as she folded a corner of the page down to mark her place.

“Is there sex in it?” I asked.

“Well yeah, quite a bit at first but the story is good too,” she said.

“Then it’s a trash book,” I said walking past her toward one of the bedrooms looking forward to a shower.

“It’s not Trash!” I heard Wind Thrasher say.

I almost jumped then looking up toward the ceiling I saw she was laying on a beam reading her own book. She glared down at me, saying, “Knight Everhoof, is a noble stallion who can’t decide between the princess he’s supposed to marry or the beautiful thief he meets in the first book. At first, he hates the mare seeing her as only a common thief who needs to be put into prison, but then they are forced to go on an adventure together and he starts to find her to be an amazing and powerful mare, who has a side that most ponies don’t know about. In book three she finally tells him how she feels…”

Solstice covered her ears, yelling, “Don’t tell me! I still want to see if Light Step is going to betray Knight Everhoof in book two! STOP SPOILING IT DAMMIT!”

“I hate you two,” I said, walking past them with a sigh of irritation. “Give me a book about adventure and magic any day, leave out the sex in every chapter or the way-to-long make out scenes. I mean who needs to explain kissing for four pages. For fuck sake, it’s a kiss, not a damned explanation of the universe. Hell, yes I kiss Aura, whenever I can, I like it, I love it, but I don’t need to go into detail about how long it went on, the amount of passion I felt as our tongues met or the noises we…fuck it, no I’m not doing this. I’m taking a fucking shower!”

They both laughed as I left Wind Thrasher yelling after me, “You do make a really interesting squeaking sound when Aura kisses you!”

“BITE MY SOON TO BE PLASTIC ASS!” I yelled and slammed the door.

Their laughter at my expense went on the entire time I was cleaning myself off. When I was done and my mane mostly dry, I went back out to the living room to find Aura and Vervain waiting for me with Wind Thrasher and Solstice. Byte and Wingnut were also there, looking as if they’d just walked in a moment before, dragging a broken robot behind them. I wasn’t even going to ask, instead I ran over to Vervain and hugged her as tight as I could.

She hugged me back and I felt tears falling onto my mane as she broke down. I’m guessing Aura filled her in on what happened with Mom and I because a moment later, she said, “I’m so happy that you’re okay, and if I didn’t see it I wouldn’t believe you were whole after what I was told. When I meet this Director, I’m going to thank her till I’m an old mare.”

“You heard about Mom I’m guessing?” I asked.

She pulled away nodding. “The Synth told me something happened to her and Aura just finished filling me in a little bit ago while she showed me around The Ministry. I can’t believe this place has been here for so long and The Steel Rangers never found it.”

“From what I’ve gathered about this place, it’s deep underground,” I said as I dried my eyes, “But I need to tell you something about The Director.”

Vervain lifted an eyebrow. “What about her?”

“She’s…” I started to say, but right then the door to the room opened and White Oak herself walked into the room.

She took one look at Vervain, pain written on her face as she completed what I was going to say, “…you’re mother.”

Vervain’s eyes were as big as saucers as she looked at the mother she thought she’d lost twenty years ago. Her hooves wobbled a little as she said, “How can this be? My mom’s been dead for a long time and you look the same age as she did when I last saw her.”

“I should’ve died yes, but thanks to The Ministry, I was saved and their technology has slowed my aging down quite a bit. Vervain my sweet filly, I’ve missed you so much,” White Oak said slowly taking a few steps forward.

Vervain looked at me then back at her mom, saying, “This can’t be true, she’s a Synth isn’t she? If my mom was alive, she would’ve found a way to let me know.”

“I tried, but back when I was first brought into The Ministry, I wasn’t allowed to send messages to you. Between the months it took for them to fix me after the attack and the time it took for them to trust me, it was too late. When I was able to finally get a message to you, I saw that you and your father had both moved on. Later I tried to get a hold of your brother, but by then he was already too far gone to make contact,” she said, looking nervous.”

Vervain’s face went from confusion to utter anger. Her limbs stopped shaking and rage filled her voice as she said, “Do you have any idea what it was like for the rest of us when you died? Dad went into a deep depression, he barely was able to run his business. He left the Steel Rangers, ignored me, grew even more distant with Wolfsbane, he got addicted to Rage and Dash again like when we were foals. It took him two years to get back to his old self and by then Wolfsbane wanted him dead. I became a Knight and stopped speaking with him by then. Our family fell apart because of your so-called death mother! It got so bad that my own depression caused me to leave the only buck I ever cared about. And this whole time, while all of this was going on, you were here working with one of the biggest enemies of The Steel Rangers!”

“I had no choice in the matter Vervain!” White Oak yelled, “But I did everything I could to help whenever I could once I became The Director here. I stopped a lot of what The Ministry was doing, I started looking for ways to help The Wasteland. Hell, why do you think Grim ever met you? It’s because I made sure she worked with the right stallion at the right time to make sure she met you, because I knew you were the one mare on Equus that Grim could trust with our mission. I hated every day that I had to watch you and your brother and your father go through your life missing me, but I couldn’t do anything about it and when I could it was too late. Ask yourself this, if you’d gotten a random message from The Ministry or just some mare saying she was me before you saw me would you even have believed it?”

Vervain’s face fell a little, but the anger never left her eyes. “Probably not, but even if you couldn’t let me know in the normal ways, I know you well enough to know that you could’ve found a way.”

White Oak sighed, then said, “I did find another way, you were the one who didn’t want to listen.”

“What do you mean?” Vervain asked.

“Fourteen years ago, do you remember when your patrol was attacked by raiders? One of them was a former Steel Ranger who joined up with them. He attacked you but never tried to kill you,” White Oak said.

“Yeah, he kept yelling things about he has something to show me. I killed the asshole,” Vervain said.

“He wasn’t a real pony, he was one of our first generation three synths. We replaced him a few days before that attack. His synth chip went bad or he would have been able to tell you that he had a message in his pocket from White Oak. I saw the fight from another Synth we had watching. You killed all the raiders, took the small amount of tech you could find then left without looking for anything else on them,” White Oak said, “Just like most Steel Rangers, you only cared about the tech and not what else their body could have on it. So, I tried again, two years later by sending a real pony who was working with us to try and join The Steel Rangers. She was let in and was given a chance to join, she tried to befriend you. Her name was Chipper.”

Vervain looked a little less angry now. “I remember her, she was annoying and always trying to ask me about tech and asking me about my mom. I got so annoyed with her that I told her I didn’t want her following me around or talking to me anymore. She wouldn’t stop so…” she stopped talking looking ashamed of herself.

“Yes, you had her sent to Halo One to work with the other scribes, where she was killed by another Steel Ranger who thought she was a spy for The Enclave,” White Oak said, “Do you even know why she was suspected of that?”

“Sandstorm said she was sending messages to a mare from The Enclave,” Vervain said.

“Yeah, a known Enclave unicorn who was really working with us, that was Grim when she just left The Crystal Empire. After that, I knew I’d have to send Grim herself to you, but after a while I knew I couldn’t have her telling you who I was anymore, because you wouldn’t have believed her. So once Grim got a few things I needed her too. I made sure she worked with your brother to get into the Steel Rangers in New Pegasus and befriend you,” White Oak said, “So you can hate me for not being around, but don’t blame me for not trying.”

“So…Grim was only my friend to help you?” Vervain asked.

I cut in, saying, “No, she did care about you Auntie Vervain. She lied yes, but she did count you as her friend.”

More tears were in her eyes as she said, “How can I know that’s true?”

“Because she wouldn’t have left me in Stable 28 unless she trusted the pony she was leaving me with. She trusted you more than even her best friend Stormy to watch over me and to raise me. No matter what her mission with The Ministry was, her friendship with you was real,” I said with a small smile.

Vervain sniffed then took a moment to compose herself, finally she looked at me with a smile. “You’re right, Grim had her demons, but she loved you more than her own life. Something she proved when she gave it up to keep you alive. I just wish she could’ve trusted me a little more than she did.” She then looked at White Oak. “One day, I want the full story about what happened to your mom, but for right now, I don’t want to talk about the past. Trust me, deep down I’m happy that you’re still alive, but I can’t push back the anger I feel toward The Ministry for taking you away or you for not finding a better way to get back to me. I’m here for Shadow.”

I could see sadness in White Oak’s face as she replied, “That’s perfectly understandable Vervain.”

“I do need to know something, does Wolfsbane know you’re alive?” Vervain asked.

White Oak slowly shook her head. “No, I did try to get in touch with him once like I said before, but he killed my messenger for even daring to suggest I was alive still. Even if I tried sending a synth that looked like me to see how he’d react, I know he would have just destroyed it. He’s always been a hot-headed stallion, he’s also more stubborn than your father ever was. Now that I think about it, he’d probably kill me after suspecting I was a synth. You’ve already suspected as much because of my appearance.”

“He’s lost to us,” Vervain said, “Wolfsbane was lost to us ever since you vanished. He’s one reason I left Los Alicorn, he did everything he could to make my life hell before he was Elder. So, a few months after I thought you died, I went back to New Pegasus to be around Dad.”

Aura spoke up, asking, “You know he has to die right?”

“Aura!” I said, “Not now.”

Vervain shook her head. “No, she’s right, my brother is evil. His wife is just as bad. He needs to die and I think we should try to take care of him as soon as we can.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, “I know he killed Box Tape, but he’s still your family.”

“He is my family, but that doesn’t mean I can’t kill him,” she said.

White Oak sniffed then turned around. “I understand what has to be done, but I won’t help you with this. He may be a lost cause, but he’s still my son. If he must die, I don’t want it to be by my hooves or plans. So, if you’re going to go after him while you’re sneaking around The Steel Rangers compound, then I won’t help you.”

“Mom, he’s not worth saving,” Vervain said.

“I understand that Vervain, but no matter what, no mother should ever harm her children, even if they’re as bad as Wolfsbane has become. So, if you want my help getting into Stratus, then you have to promise me that you won’t go after him. If something happens while you’re in the ship then I can’t do anything about that, but I don’t want you actively trying to kill him,” White Oak said.

Vervain looked like she was getting ready to argue, but I cut in, saying, “I’m making no promises that I won’t try to take his life if I can. If it helps, I won’t go looking for him either. Is that good enough for you Director?”

I could see the pain in her face still as she nodded slowly. “It’s all I can hope for.”

“Good,” I said, then looked back to Vervain, “Did Aura tell you why we had you come here?”

“She said something about sneaking into The Steel Ranger compound under the Applewood sign, not much else. Why?” Vervain asked.

I grinned. “I’ll tell you all about our plan and what we’ll be doing next.” With that, White Oak, Vervain, Aura, Wind Thrasher, and I all sat down and started going over our plan to sneak into The Steel Rangers compound and steal ourselves one of The Enclave’s airships that The Steel Rangers took. Stormy joined us an hour into our planning then later Stardust and the rest of my friends did as well. A few hours after that, not only had we planned our mission for getting onto the Palisade, but added more to Stardust’s plans too.

***

A little while later, just before I was planning on getting ready to set out for a place called Miss Maple Tree’s Café on the other side of what was called Dragon Bridge, I found myself in Oricaclos’s room. I was finally told that I could see him and not a moment too soon. Vervain was with me and I was happy for her support. From what the doctors told me, he was extremely lucky to be alive at all. Like me he’s had parts of his body replaced with synthetics. However, unlike me, all of his were inside his body. Most of his internal organs had been replaced, same for a few of his bones. When I first walked in, I expected to find the skeletal corpse looking body I’d seen when he got his body back, but I was surprised to see a mostly whole looking Oricalcos.

He was looking over at me with a small smile on his face as I walked in. He was still very skinny, but he had to have put on a few pounds since I saw him last and his face didn’t look like a skull with flesh over it anymore. His purple eyes were more vibrant than before, and he looked healthy for the most part. As soon as I drew close, he lifted his forelegs to me, saying, “It’s good to see you whole again Star.”

With more tears falling down my face, I ran over to him and hugged him tight, he winced but let me hug him. As I did, I said into his neck, “I’ve never been able to hug the real you.”

He laughed a little. “I used to hug you all the time before your accident. Now can you let me go, I’m doing a lot better, but I’m still very weak, and apparently you’re very strong because this hurts a bit.”

I backed up drying my eyes. “When I heard you were awake, I had to come see you before I headed out.”

He frowned. “Where are you going?”

“You know, doing what I do best, saving ponies and causing trouble, the normal stuff,” I said with a laugh.

He didn’t laugh in return, he looked over at Vervain, saying, “What is she planning Vervain, and why are you here? I thought we left you in New Pegasus.”

“It’s a long story Oricalcos, but we’re heading to Dragon Bridge to meet a contact that can help us get onto the Palisade,” Vervain replied.

His eyes went big. “You can’t, if Wolfsbane finds you, he’ll kill you on sight,”

“I know, but we have to go. I’m not going there to fight him or anything like that, even though I’d like nothing more than to watch him take his last breath as I squeeze it from him. We need to get our hooves on one of The Enclave airships they’ve taken over the years,” I said.

“And what in the Goddesses names do you need an Enclave ship for? I know your Skycarriage was destroyed, but we can find another way to get home,” he said, looking worried.

“I’m not going back to New Pegasus yet Uncle Ori, I’m going to Stratus. My dad’s going to be executed in a few days. I need to save him and Thundercracker, he’s been caught and will be killed along with dad.”

“So, you’re going to risk the life your mother gave her life to save, just to get two stallions out of prison? Are you crazy? I know you love your father and Greed’s been a lot of help to you, but you can’t risk it. Stratus is a big cloud city, and you’re the most infamous unicorn there. You’ll never even make it past the docks,” he said.

“We have a plan Uncle Ori, I’ll have Stardust and Solstice with me and Stormy has a way to help us disguise ourselves,” I said.

He took a moment to calm down then finally laid back into his pillows. “I don’t like this, even with all the planning on Equus, you are still risking a lot. I guess you’re a lot like your father in some ways, you’ll risk everything to save somepony you care about.”

“Mom would’ve too,” I said.

“She did. That’s why if I can’t stop you, then I’m going too,” he said, trying and failing to get up.

Before I could say anything, Vervain walked over to him and pushed him back onto the bed. “You’ll do no such thing Oricalcos. Shadow told me what happened to you and it’s a miracle that you’re even alive. You’re too weak to do much more than sit up right now. She’ll be fine, have faith in your niece, she’s proven herself time and time again.”

He was breathing heavily from just trying to get up. Finally, he gave in and sank back down. “Are you at least going with her Vervain?”

She shook her head. “I’m helping her with The Steel Rangers then coming back here. I’m an Earth Pony, there’s no way I could pass for a citizen of The Enclave. Stardust and Solstice will be there to help her, also Solstice’s mother is Fairy Glitter, from what I’ve learned about her, she’s a good pony to have on your side and she’s helping.”

“True, Fairy Glitter comes from a long line of strong and smart ponies. When I was still Pride, we used to try and keep an eye on her, but she’s never shown outward signs of betrayal. If anypony can get you all in and out it’s her,” he said finally.

“I was wondering about that, why would a pony as well off as her betray her own kind?” I asked, “Is it just because of Solstice being made a Dashite?”

He chuckled. “First of all Solstice isn’t a Dashite, not without the mark on her flank, she’s a runaway until she’s branded. As for Fairy Glitter, well, The Enclave higher-ups started getting suspicious of her about eighteen to twenty years ago, before I was Pride. She lost a foal to a sickness that hit a few families back then. As you know, this sickness wasn’t real, it was how they got the foals for The Devils Children Program. A couple of years after her foal died, or so she thought, she started showing signs of treason. At first, she was quite open about it, but after she was almost brought in on charges, all of her activity seemed to stop, and she went back to being a loyal servant of The Enclave. Over the years, information and secret plans started getting stolen from Enclave databases, all looking into the same thing, The Devils Children Program.”

“So, she wants to find her lost filly or colt? That’s why she’s against The Enclave?” I asked.

“I believe so, though the odds of her ever finding him or her are slim to none. Most of the ponies from that first class didn’t make it. They had their memories wiped and new lives implanted into them. No records of them exist to follow so she’d have a hard time following anything, but still, she’s always been on the High Council’s radar, mine too,” he said.

“Why would she help me find my dad then?” I asked.

He laughed again. “Because Fairy Glitter and your father go back many years, they’ve been friends since they were foals themselves. They were one of the only families left from The Children of the Night who still kept in contact with Night Stalker’s dependents. If Night Shade died, it would be like her losing her own brother. She thinks of him like family and the ties between those two families is deep. I’m not surprised she’s helping you or him at all.”

“I didn’t know that the families of The Children still kept in contact all these years later,” I said.

“Mostly just those two, Thunderlane’s decedents haven’t gotten along with any of us in years. My own family fell from grace when my mother was young, nopony knows what happened to Babs’ kid, Greta’s became The Red Talons, that’s about it. The only other member of The Children who I know are around is a nut case,” he said.

“Wait who’s that? Is there another descendant I haven’t met yet?” I asked.

“Oh, you met him alright, at least from what I remember when I was still hiding in your shadow,” he said, “The Caesar of the Romans is the only living descendant of the zebra who helped Night Stalker during the war.”

“Wait, so you mean that The Caesar is related to the old one from before the war? So, he’s not just full of bullshit?” I asked.

“Nope, he’s the real deal, and from what I’ve learned of the buck, he’s nothing like his distant grandfather. He has unrealistic and overly radical goals that defy the original beliefs,” Oricalcos said.

“I had no idea. Damn, that means I might have to go talk to him again,” I said.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“I have to agree, talking to any of The Romans is a bad idea Shadow,” Vervain added.

“He’s one of the decedents of The Children of the Night, our families go back for two centuries. It’s possible he could be part of this curse bullshit, he might even know more about the past with our family and what happened with Noire. Also, at the very least I may be able to work something out with them since Mom died. The Caesar asked me to kill her if I ever found her to pay her back for betraying him a few years back. I could use this to my advantage,” I said, starting to pace back and forth.

“I don’t know, I don’t like the idea of you going to The Romans, they’re dangerous, even more than The Steel Rangers are I think,” Oricalcos said.

“So is everything else I do, if I don’t take the risks then I’ll never get anything done. Also, I have a strange feeling that Aquila will try and work something out with them. I’ve gotten most of the memories back from when she was using my body, but some of it’s still fuzzy. If I can turn them against her before she has the chance to get them on her side, then that could help us out a great deal,” I said, looking at Vervain and Oricalcos.

“I don’t see why the Romans would work with her. She’s of the stars and they have some sort of religious thing with the stars that would cause them not to trust her,” Vervain said.

Oricalcos on the other hoof looked like he was thinking about the idea, “Vervain, she might be on to something with this.”

Vervain looked over at him like he was nuts. “Why in the Goddesses names would you think the zebras would work with a monster like Aquila?”

“Because one fact about their race is that they both revere and fear the stars. Aquila is a true child of the stars and if she’s right, she’s from one of the oldest known constellations. If she can prove that to Raton, then she could get them to follow her almost like a Goddess. If that happened, she would have a powerful army at her back,” he said, sitting up a little.

“And you could also be crazy Oricalcos. The Romans are zebras who follow the old ways, at least according to what I’ve been told. They wouldn’t follow anypony who claimed to be a child of the stars, if I remember right, there was an old prophecy about this very thing being the Caesars downfall,” Vervain said.

“I don’t care Vervain, I’m not going to risk it either way. At least if I’m wrong then nothing bad will happen because of it. However, if I’m right, I’d rather get ahead of it now rather than deal with the consequences later,” I said.

“I keep forgetting that you’re not a foal anymore,” Vervain said, sighing deeply before continuing, “I can’t stop you, but at the very least have a plan before you go walking into a Roman Camp okay.”

“Auntie Vervain please, I’m not focusing on that right now. I have to worry about how I’m going to get onto The Palisade,” I said, slowly getting back to my hooves, still amazed at how real my new limb felt yet foreign at the same time.

“I still don’t like this, but I guess I can’t stop you either, so at least do your best to get in and out. Don’t go hunting for Wolfsbane, you’ll be in his domain and that’s not the right place to take him on,” Oricalcos said.

“I know and I don’t plan to, unless I get extremely lucky. Y’know, like slicing his throat in his sleep or trapping his toilet with a high voltage cable somehow,” I said.

“Which means you’ll look for every opportunity to kill the prick,” Oricalcos said with a sigh.

I couldn’t hold back the smile. “Ah, you know me so well Uncle Ori. Anyhow, get better soon okay? I want to get you back home as soon as I can.”

“Star, I mean it, be careful,” he said as I hugged him again.

“She will be, she’ll have me with her,” Vervain said with a smile, “And when I get back from helping her, I’ll be heading back here to see what I can do to help you get back on your hooves.”

I saw a strange smile pass between the two of them, one that made me turn away and just shut my brain down. Yep, don’t have time to deal with that mess. So, I headed out of my uncle’s room, Vervain not far behind as we walked back toward where I was going to be meeting with one of the synths who would take me to where Dragon Bridge was. I looked to Vervain and asked, “Do you think we can really make this work?”

“I think that nopony can tell you what you can and can’t do. You’ve beaten every odd thrown at you and survived. Just have faith that the Goddesses are watching out for you and you’ll be fine,” Vervain said, turning her head toward the large area where most of The Ministry ate. “One last thing before we head out Shadow.”

I watched as she turned toward the eating hall, my ears drooping a little, “I’m…not going, I have too much to finish up before we head out in a couple of hours. I’ll just wait for you by the teleporter thingy.”

She reached a hoof out toward me. “Shadow, this is the last chance you’ll have to say goodbye…”

I slapped her hoof away visions flowing through my mind as she spoke. Again, the nightmares were back, watching Vervain die by my hoof, Mom’s head falling from her body as Misery sliced through her neck, Mom saying her last goodbye to me as her body turned into dust. I was shaking as I took a step back. “I’m not going…I…I can’t go. Her body isn’t even in that room. She’s gone, what good is it for me to go say goodbye to the empty air?”

“Shadow, yes she’s gone, but this is a way to show her soul that you cared, that you miss her. If you don’t go to this, you’ll regret it one day, trust me on that,” she said.

I backed away again, still trying to get the images from what I saw in the cage world, out of my head. “I said I’m NOT GOING!”

A sad look came over her face as she looked down at her hooves. “Okay sweetie, just…think about it. I do hope you change your mind.”

She continued on, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I took a seat on a bench next to the fountain in the middle of the main chamber, watching as the ponies and synths passed me by. All of them going on with their own business, not a care in Equus about what’s going on in the world above. I’m not sure how long I sat there doing everything but think about Mom’s death, something I’d been trying to forget since it happened, but sometime later somepony came and sat next to me. I just ignored them, looking down at my hooves until they spoke.

“I remember the first time I came here,” I heard the voice of my mother say.

My head snapped up and there she was, only she looked more ghostly than real. I noticed another thing too; no other pony was around. For the first time since I’d come here, nopony was in the main chamber and it was dark, I could barely make out the other side of the room. I looked back at her, asking, “Is this real?”

She looked around then shrugged, she looked like she had when I was still a filly. Her face young, her mane silver, and her eyes bright shiny gray. She smiled at me, saying, “I’m not sure honestly, you could be dreaming.”

“Either that or I really am crazy,” I said.

“That’s possible too, we do have a bit of a mental problem in our family. Let’s just say it’s a dream, you should know that dreams carry more in them than most ponies know. I did a whole study on it when I was in school, fascinating stuff,” she said, leaning back on the bench.

I could feel tears falling as I said, “Real or not, it’s good to see you again, even if you never will remember who I am, not fully at least.”

“Shadow, what happened in my life is no longer a concern. Memories are more than just connections in one’s brain. Memories are carried through our very souls. In life I may have forgotten much but in the life after, I could never forget you, not my Little Star,” she said, putting a shadowy hoof on my shoulder.

“So, you’re a ghost? Or something like that? Phantom? No, that’s the same thing,” I asked, noticing that I couldn’t feel her touch.

“Something like that,” she said with a chuckle, “Enough about me, what’s wrong sweetheart?”

“Everything…I still can’t get what happened to me in the cage out of my head. I thought I did for a while, but now…it just keeps coming back to me and you’re…you’re gone. I was looking for you for so long, went through so much just to find you then to save you from yourself, then you just…died…to save me. I’m so…angry and thankful at the same time for what you did. I can’t get my head straight,” I said.

“Shadow, I know everything you did to find and save me, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be around for more of your life. The truth is, I never wanted to die, but I wouldn’t have ever let you die so I could live. No parent would ever do that, no matter how messed up I was. You need to stop dwelling on the past and start thinking about the future,” she said.

“But HOW!?” I asked through a sob.

“By taking each step at a time, things won’t get better overnight, but sooner or later, you’ll start to feel a little bit better and then you’ll get back to your old self. You’ll look back at the time we had no matter how short it was and you’ll cherish that time,” she said.

“I…I don’t know if I can. I know I have to work through it, I know I have to be there to help the other ponies in The Wasteland, but it’s just all so hard. I’m just a filly!” I said.

She shook her head slowly. “You stopped being a filly the day you stepped out into The Wasteland. You can’t change that, not anymore, you had your chance to step away from all of this and to go to Manehattan, you’ve had even more opportunities to turn away, but that’s not the mare you are.”

“I just wish…it could be somepony else,” I said.

She smiled. “I’m sure that’s what that marefriend of Glory thinks too, same for the Stable Dweller I’ve heard about and for every important pony in history. Your distant grandfather Nightstalker hated his role in history, he wanted nothing more than to just disappear and let everypony else deal with the war. I’m sure some of his team or the Princesses did too. Some of The Children did as a matter of fact. Minuette and Amethyst Star both did what they could to get out of the war, same for Babs, but ponies like you, like Blackjack and The Stable Dweller or Nightstalker, they can’t do that. All of you have one thing in common, none of you will ever let anypony else fight your battles for you. Also, neither them nor you would ever put ponies you love in danger to keep yourself safe, just like me. Now I want you to get up, and I want you to do two things. First talk to Stormy about your bad dreams, she can help, then talk to your friends. You’ll need them in the coming days and it’s about time you stopped ignoring them to wallow in your own pity.”

I couldn’t help a small chuckle followed by another sob. “I’m going to really miss you Mom. I’ve always missed you, but now, it’s…final. I know you’re not coming back.”

She smiled again. “Just know that I’m always watching you. I may be gone from this world, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still with you,” she said, then poked my chest, right over my heart. “I’ll be right here. Also remember that you still have your father, so go find him, save him, and remember…always Shine Brighter than anypony ever has before.”

“You always say that…what does it mean?” I asked.

“If you want to find out, then you’ll have to go figure it out on your own,” she said, her form starting to fade.

“Mom…you never answered me…is this a dream…or real?” I asked.

She laughed, a pure sound that I haven’t heard…ever from her. “I do believe this is a dream my Little Star, but who says that dreams can’t also be real…”

I jerked awake right before my head fell back onto the back of the bench. I looked around in a panic, almost knocking over a mare who was walking by me with mounds of paper in her magic. The main chamber was full of ponies again, so I had been asleep. I shook my head getting back to my hooves, but as soon as I did, I felt a tingle of warmth in my chest. With a smile I touched the spot where Mom poked me, right over my new heart I looked up at the darkness hiding the ceiling far above saying quietly, “Real or not, thank you Mom.”

I took in a deep breath then headed toward where my friends and family were all saying goodbye to my mom. I knew it was going to be hard, I was probably going to cry again and miss her all over again, but I knew that deep down, I needed this. It was the only way I was going to be able to move on, to get past the shit I’ve been dealing with. So, I went to Mom’s funeral, I sat with Aura and my friends and listened to the ponies who knew her tell stories about Grimoire’s life. When it was all done, oddly I felt a little better knowing that I had this small piece of her to take with me, no matter how long I lived. I’m still not sure if my dream was just that…a dream or Mom speaking to me when I needed her most, but either way I took her advice and I went to find Stormy bringing my friends with me. It was time to explain everything.

***

“Are you sure you’re ready for this Shadow?” Vervain asked as we headed up to meet with the synth who’d be helping us.

“I’m not sure about anything anymore Auntie Vervain, but I don’t have the luxury to wait,” I said as I looked at myself in the reflective windows we passed by. I was still finding it strange to see myself looking so oddly. After I spoke to Stormy about my problem, she told me I had something called post traumatic stress disorder from the experience I had in the cage. There wasn’t a lot she could do medically at the moment for me, it took time and a few other things to help with the symptoms, but she told me a few things I could do that would help until I could come back, and she could treat me. After that she took Vervain and me and used some machine of hers to change what we looked like. I don’t understand a single thing about what it did, but now my coat was a light blue, my eyes an uninteresting brown and my mane a honey gold. Vervain looked different too with a brown coat, a green mane, and matching eyes. She’d also covered our cutie marks, mine was a simple book, I don’t know why, and Vervain’s was a stream of code. Why did she get to have the cool one?

My friends listen to my story as Stormy worked on me and all understood what was going on with me now. The one thing I love about them is they didn’t question me about my ability to do this mission. They knew me well enough to understand that I could handle myself. So now Vervain and I were about to go back into Los Alicorn, well east of it, and meet this contact and start on the next leg of my quest.

“I just hope you’re right about all of this,” she said.

“I’m not sure I’m right about anything anymore, but it’s too late to turn back now,” I said.

“True, so how are you doing on your spell work?” she asked.

“It’s getting better,” I said as we finally reached one of the transporter rooms. “The question is are you ready?”

She sighed as a synth…wait a courser, that’s what White Oak called them, came up to us. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

The Courser looked at us both with his eyes covered by sunglasses. “Hello, I am X-532, are the two of you ready to be transported to sector 13?”

“Yeah, let’s get this over with,” I said.

“Very good ma’am, if you two would follow me into the transporter, we will be on our way,” he said, turning and walking into a small pod.

We both followed and I asked, “So, are you coming with us or just getting us there?”

“I will be accompanying you to the location but no further. Once you are in Dragon Bridge, I will be heading back,” he said, closing a door behind us.

“Damn, it’d be nice to have a courser on a mission like this,” I said.

“Coursers are only meant to hunt down escaped synths, now be prepared, this will sting,” he said in his monotone voice.

That was all I heard before there was a flash of light, the feel of a bee stinging me…a lot, then another flash and we were no longer in The Ministry. It was dark out, and all I could see was Los Alicorn in the distance and just across from where we were standing there was a settlement with makeshift walls of scrap metal around it. Within the open gate just past the first few shacks I could see a large bridge going over a gap in the earth that separated one half of the town from the other. The bridge was green and black and had to have been built before the war from the look of it. Over the gate that led into town I saw a sign over it that said, Dragon Bridge.

Vervain and I looked in awe at the settlement as we saw dashites, earth ponies, and even unicorns walking through the streets like they didn’t have a single care in the world. Then before I could even ask a single question, X-532 said, “This is were I leave you, The Director says good luck,” And in another flash of light, he was gone.

“Well, that was rude,” I said, looking at the spot where the courser had vanished.

Vervain shrugged. “He’s a robot, who cares, now let’s get into town and see if we can find the place where this Black Dahlia is. We don’t have a lot of time to sightsee, even though this settlement looks interesting.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many pegasi in once place before that weren’t trying to kill me,” I said as we both started walking closer to town.

“This settlement wasn’t here when I was a Steel Ranger in Los Alicorn, but I’ve seen the bridge before, it used to be a way for ponies to move goods easily over the river that used to be here, built a few years before the war even started. It was named Dragon Bridge because a Dragon named Spike did something to help with its construction, I don’t know what though. I never thought a town would show up here either,” Vervain said.

“Do you think the pegasi here are all Dashites?” I asked as we drew closer to the gate.

“Have to be, or runaway Enclave. I’m not surprised to see a lot of them in once place however. Stratus out of all the cloud cities has the highest number of Dashites per year. Los Alicorn isn’t too far from it and a perfect location for a Dashite to flee,” she said.

“I figured they’d go more inland than west, Los Alicorn is a dead city, why come this far west instead of settling near New Pegasus?” I asked.

“Some do, but not everypony likes to be around that city. Too many drunks and problems with the factions there. Going inland just means they risk running into more Enclave. Dashites fear running into their old faction because a lot of the time they are treated like dirt, or worse, other times they are out right killed. Coming west is the best thing for them because Stratus is the furthest west Enclave controlled city in The Wasteland. They don’t dare go too close to Los Alicorn, because The Steel Rangers here are experts at killing them,” Vervain said.

“So, they come out here and stay away from the city itself, but use their closeness to it to keep The Enclave from bothering them?” I asked.

“That’s what I’d guess, though being this close to my brother’s branch is also dangerous. I wonder if the city has some deal with them so they don’t have to worry,” she said as we finally made it to the gate where two guards were standing.

“Guess I’ll just have to ask somepony inside,” I said as a pegasus mare who’s armor had the Dashite mark on it, guessing she was proud of her banishment, came over to me.

“Welcome to Dragon Bridge. Before you enter, we need to know, do you work with The Steel Rangers or are you here on behalf of The Enclave or The rumored Ministry?” she asked.

“Neither, my mother and I are here to see about trading and getting some intel about somepony,” I said.

Vervain came up next to me nodding her head. “Yes, an old Dashite friend of mine sent me a letter not long ago saying he had taken ill, I’ve come to check up on him and to say my goodbyes if he’s taken a turn for the worse.”

She looked suspiciously at the two of us. “You expect me to believe the two of you are related?”

Vervain, who was an expert liar after her years of doing so in Stable 28 chuckled saying. “You mean because I’m an earth pony and my daughter is a unicorn? Yes, we get that a lot,” she put on an ashamed face, “She’s a blessing to me by the Goddesses I like to say. I used to work for one of the smaller casinos in New Pegasus you see, one of my erm…clients…I had was a unicorn and took a liking to me, that was until I got knocked up. Lost my job after I said I was going to keep my foal then took up a life as a trader.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need your whole sob story. Okay so you’re just an old whore I get it, fine, well who’s the pegasus you’re looking for? I can at least point you toward where he lives, I know everypony in this town.”

For a moment I thought we were done for, but to my amazement Vervain answered without missing a beat. “Ruffle Wing, and I do hope the old bat is feeling better.”

Her face changed in an instant from suspicious to happy. “You know that old buck? I didn’t think he had many friends left in this world. Didn’t know he took ill though, just saw him two nights ago yelling at some of the younger ones who were fighting near his bar.”

“Maybe he was exaggerating again, he’s done it before just to drag me away from my work. And yes, I do know him, he’s an old friend of my dad’s,” Vervain responded.

She laughed. “That sounds like him, well I’m not sure if you’ve been here before, but you can find his bar just over the bridge. It’s the second building on your right, just across from Ms. Maple Tree’s Café. When you see him tell him Soul Wind says ‘hey’.”

“I will, and thank you for the help,” Vervain said as we walked past her and into Dragon Bridge.

Once we were past the guards and working our way toward the large bridge, I asked, “How in the Goddesses name did you know about that Dashite you asked about?”

She chuckled. “I may not have ever seen this town itself, but Ruffle Wing was an old friend of my fathers as I said. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s still alive, he’s older than my dad, but I did know that he settled here a few years back when the town was first constructed.”

“Box Tape knew pegasi?” I asked, “Oh wait, I think I remember him telling me that he knew a few of them over the years.”

She laughed again. “My father wasn’t like most Steel Rangers as you know. He got along fine with most pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns, even zebras. Hell, he was closest to the griffons more than even his own race. That’s how he was able to set up Equestrian Express. He had concats all over The Wasteland back in his heyday.”

“So, you know this Ruffle Wing too?” I asked.

“Not that well, I haven’t seen him in over twelve years, but I did keep in contact with him until I went into Stable 28. We’ll head to his place first and say hi before we head over to the café, we still have a couple of hours before we need to meet our contact,” she said as we stepped onto the old bridge and headed over the gap that ran through the settlement.

“I’ve always wondered why he didn’t have any other couriers apart from me when I met him. From what I’ve learned, he didn’t seem to lose any of his contacts over the years. Most ponies still knew and kept in contact with him,” I said.

“I wondered the same thing when I got out of Stable 28, so I asked him about it. When I went into the Stable, Equestrian Express was running as smoothly as it ever had,” she said, stopping just before the bridge ended and looking out over the deep gap. “My father told me that a year or so back he started having issues with Couriers going missing. Everypony he sent out rarely came back, one after another they just kept disappearing, until he only had one left.”

“He said something when I first met him that his last courier hadn’t come back from his last job. I always just thought that something happened to his only employee or he was just as bad at his job as I am,” I said.

“No, out of all of his couriers, his last one before you never had issues, he always returned even when my father would send him out to find the packages his missing couriers lost. Even after he met you, he still figured this stallion would show up again as he always did. But he never did, my dad wasn’t sure if his luck had just run out or if something else was going on. He meant to have you go look for him one day, but life has a funny way of laughing in your face when you think you can control how the world works, especially The Wasteland.”

“No pony knows what happened to him?” I asked.

“After I talked to my dad about this last courier, I started looking into it myself,” Vervain said with a sigh, “I heard about a few rumors of an Equestrian Express courier who took over in a placed called Division. The rumors made it sound like it was ‘The Courier’, meaning you, but I knew it wasn’t since you were in The Kingdom at the time.”

“You think this courier is still alive then?” I asked.

“I think he is, and whatever he’s up to, he’s doing something in Division, something he’s putting my fathers company name to. Even after Equestrian Express was destroyed, I still was able to get more and more rumors and stories from Division about a tribal stallion with an Equestrian Express duster starting an army or something like that,” she said, “Honestly, I think that the fall of my father’s business over the last year was because of him, but I can’t prove anything.”

I sighed. “Sounds like more trouble I might have to deal with one day. What was this pony’s name?”

“Dad never knew his real name, he only went by the name of his old tribe, Tangled Mane. Though I don’t think you should worry about him, from what I’ve learned, Division is halfway between New Pegasus and The Kingdom, too far for us to worry much about him,” she said with a smile.

I thought about what she said for a moment then my eyes went wide. “Is it an abandoned city that’s mostly destroyed?”

She shrugged. “Sounds about right. It’s not like I’ve seen the place myself, but the ponies who told me about it said something around the same lines of what you said.”

“I think we stopped there, on top of an old skyscraper on our way to the Kingdom,” I said, remembering the place well now.

“Well, like I said, it doesn’t matter. No matter what he does or doesn’t do, he can’t ruin my father’s company anymore than it already has been. Even if you were able to get it going again, you’re too famous for anypony to believe anything they hear about Division, or Tangled Mane,” she said with another smile. “Now how about we go see my dad’s old friend then get our meeting with this Black Dahlia finished.

“Sounds like a good idea,” I said as I followed Vervain off the Bridge and toward a small bar just beyond. As we walked, in the back of my mind something about her story about this Tangled Mane tugged at my thoughts, as if no matter what I wanted, one day I’d meet this stallion, for good or ill. With my mind filled with what this other courier and the plans we were putting together, I didn’t notice the small ‘PING’ that my Pip-Buck gave off, indicating that somepony, had sent me a broadcasted message.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Flatline: Your heart has been replaced with some robo-plastic-dohickey by The Ministry as you already know. What you don’t know is now that it has synchronized completely with your body, it has become fully functional. Now that all systems are a-go, you cannot be poisoned and special filters regulate bleeding more efficiently and allow all healing items and chems to function at a higher level, therefore lasting longer and healing more effectively. As an added bonus, robots and synths are confused by your upgrades and are 50% less likely to score a critical hit. You should probably also know that you don’t technically have a heartbeat…just a heads up.

Author's Note

Stardust Night: A: No, this is not a last chapter, it's just a name. you'll understand when you read it. B: Since I didn't technically clear the chapter name with Drako it is subject to possible change. C: I apologize for chapters taking so long to get out, our last three chapters we wrote in a row and after release while writing this one and the next one, I got COVID-19 and was out of commission and Drako got attacked by a dog at work. He suffered an injury to his hand and is unable to type so I will most likely take over. Not to worry, he's fine except for the hand and as for me so far there haven't been complications and I have officially tested negative for the virus. Thank you all for reading and putting up with our weirdness over these past few years. Enjoy!

Chapter 67: This Means War

“Black Dahlia, that’s a flower from before the war, right?”

It was still dark out when we first walked into the little bar just over Dragon Bridge itself. The bar had a sign over it shaped like a small rocket ship with the words, ‘Red Rocket Public House’ written on it. Vervain pushed the door open, and we walked into the dim building, finding a few dirty looking tables and about ten ponies sitting at different ones. The bar at the back of the building was being managed by an old pegasus stallion. His mane and beard were as white as snow. His red coat made the white of his mane and face hair look like it was glistening, or it could have just been greasy, it was hard to tell in the low light. Two younger mares were wandering around the room, one was a unicorn holding a tray with drinks on it in her magical grip, the other a pegasus who had a tray balanced on her wings.

As soon as the two of us walked in, most of the room stopped talking and looked over at us. The look they gave us made it seem like we’d just intruded on a secret meeting of some sort. Vervain looked around the room for a long moment then said, “Oh piss off ya drunkards,” then pushed further into the room. To my amazement, the ponies looked away, going back to whatever they were doing before.

I followed her as she went right up to the bartender. The Pegasus looked up at us with a grumpy look to him, “Yeah? What do ya want? And if ya ask for something stupid like water I’ll kick ya outta here quicker than ya can blink.”

Vervain smiled, saying, “Ruffle, it’s been too long, glad to see you’re still a grumpy old goat.”

He eyed her suspiciously, “I know that voice but ya don’t look like the pony it should belong to. What did ya do to yerself Vervain? Find yerself on the wrong end of some Killin’ Joke er somethin’?”

“It’s a long story, let’s just say I’m trying to keep myself from being noticed. You know how it is with my brother and all,” she said, “Glad to see you still remember me though.”

“Known ya fer forty-two years, most of that time watching ya make a fool of yerself in Cartwheel when ya were nothin’ but a wee thing. I may be old, but I ain’t senile yet. How’s yer father, haven’t heard from him in a few months, gettin’ worried he’s back on the hard stuff again,” he said, his voice was ruff, like somepony scraping rocks against each other, but through his gruff tone I can hear a bit of kindness from him. That was until he turned his head toward me and a frown fell within his beard.

“And who in the Goddess rotten underpants are you?” he asked.

“I’m, nopony, just…” I started to say but Vervain cut me off.

“She’s my daughter, her names Sparkle, and while I’m in town don’t call me by my name, call me Holly Petal,” she said.

“Last I heard ya didn’t and couldn’t have children…Holly,” he said.

“Adopted,” I said, “She saved me ten years ago from some slavers, she’s raised me ever since.”

He looked at the two of us then shrugged, “Any family of Box Tape er his kin are friends to this old drunk. Anyway, what are ya doin’ in a place like this? Don’t tell me…Holly…stupid name by the way…don’t tell me you came all the way out here to see me. Because if ya did, I’m goin’ to call ya a rotten little liar.”

“It’s been a long time since I saw you last, why can’t I come visit an old friend?” she asked.

“Because ya never come to see me just to catch up. Ya either want somethin’ er somethin’ bad’s happened, I’m guessin’ the latter. Did Box Tape finally kick it?” he asked, the tone to his voice didn’t change a bit even as he asked if an old friend of his died.

Vervain on the other hoof, looked like Ruffle just kicked her in the gut. She lowered her gaze then said, “A few weeks back yeah, he fell when Cartwheel did. But you’re right, I didn’t come here just to see you or tell you about my father.”

“Figured as much, also thought he must’ve passed after Cartwheel fell. That stubborn old bastard wouldn’t have let his town die unless he went with it. You have my condolences though, he was a good friend over the years. It’s sad to hear he’s gone. So out with it, I’m busy and I’d rather spend my time workin’ rather than shootin’ the breeze,” Ruffle said.

“Do you still keep in contact with the ponies in Stratus?” she asked.

“Not officially, but if yer askin’ if I still help the dashites find a new home like I used to when I was in Cartwheel, then yes. Are ya lookin’ for somepony?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, only to get a message to one. Think you can help me with that?”

“Do I look like The Courier to you?” he asked, making me jump as he said that.

“No, but I know that you’re a pony who can get things done when asked,” she replied.

“True,” he said with a smile, “Fine, yes I might be able to get a message out for ya, depends on who ya need to contact.”

“A source told me that you know a pony called The Red,” Vervain said.

Ruffle scratched his beard for a moment, then said, “That may be true, what do ya need him for?”

“Tell him the message is from me, and that we need the distraction from Fairy tomorrow night,” she said.

“Ya know I don’t much like coded messages, dontcha trust me,” he asked.

“It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s the message somehow finding its way into the hooves of Winter Frost or his sister,” Vervain said.

Ruffle made a farting sound with his mouth, followed by, “Can’t believe that hoof rotted shite swizzler managed to take power, but I get whatcha mean. Fine, I’ll get the message to him. Now do ya need anythin’ else or are ya goin’ to order a drink?”

“Don’t have time to drink sorry my friend, but maybe when I have more time in the future I’ll stop by and we can catch up,” Vervain said.

He let out a hefty laugh, “If I’m still kickin’ that is, sure, we’ll get proper pissed. Anyhow be safe out there…Holly…still hate that name.”

Vervain pulled out a few hundred caps and set it on the bar. “For the information and the trouble.”

He took them, another grin on his face as he went back to tending his bar. We turned to leave but Ruffle said, “Oh yeah, also, watch out for rangers, they’ve been wandering closer to Dragon Bridge as of late. Don’t think ya want to be walking into one of their patrols.”

“Thank you Ruffle,” Vervain said, then we headed out. Once we were back on the broken-up road, we started heading across toward a much nicer looking building with the words ‘Ms. Maple Tree’s Café’. Compared to The Red Rocket Public House, this place was at least twice the size, the building looked in a lot better condition, and it had a large radio antenna sticking up from its roof.

As we headed toward the door, I finally asked Vervain, “Why did you need to get the message to this Red dude, and how does he know Fairy Glitter?”

She chuckled a little. “The Red is Fairy Glitter’s husband, so Solstice’s father. When you were getting ready to leave, I used Solstice’s communication device to talk to her mother. She told me that if we needed to change anything in the plans to let certain ponies in Dragon Bridge know and to send a message to The Red. Solstice didn’t know her father helped Dashites until a few days ago funny enough. Anyway, one of the ponies I was told to look out for just happened to be Ruffle. Fairy Glitter thought we might be able to get in and out of the Palisade quickly, so she set the distraction to help us escape for tomorrow morning, I thought it would be better to give us a little more time.”

“So that’s another reason you wanted to go see him then?” I asked.

“Part of the reason, anyway I think we should head inside. It’s getting close to when we’re meeting our contact,” she said.

“Good idea,” I said, “Why does this building have a radio antenna on it?”

Vervain was already opening the door but at my question she looked back at me then said, “Because this is one of the locations that DJ 33 1/3 LP does her broadcast from.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because unlike you, I keep my radio on a lot when I’m traveling and I heard a few of her broadcasts while I was coming here. From what I heard, she has four locations she changes between, no idea why though,” Vervain said as we headed into the door and nearly slammed face first into another mare.

Vervain managed to turn aside missing the mare by inches, I however was still a little slow with my reflexes on my new leg and I ended up tripping, rolling, and slamming right into her, knocking her down. I shook myself then got up quickly putting a hoof out to help the mare up, saying, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to run into you.”

The mare had a light green coat, a black and white mane, and dark grey eyes. She started laughing from where she was lying on her back. She took my hoof as she kept on giggling saying in a voice I recognized from the radio, “It’s okay I’m fine, honestly I wasn’t watching where I was going myself.”

“Hey are you…” I started to ask, but she cut me off.

“The Radio host you and your friend were just talking about? Yes, names Alto, but everyone seems to like calling me by my radio name,” she said, using her magic to pick up a few papers she’d dropped.

“Did you just finish doing a broadcast? I asked, finding myself a little excited at meeting a pony from the radio.

“Nah, I’ll be doing one in a few minutes though, just needed to run over to Red Rocket and ask Ruffle something quick. Sorry I didn’t catch your name,” Alto said with a kind smile.

“Sha…Sparkle, my mother and I were just coming over to meet a friend. Though we didn’t know we’d run into you here,” I said, looking over at Vervain who gave me a look that told me ‘hurry up or shut up.’

Alto looked over at Vervain then back at me, “Sparkle huh? Hmmmm, I don’t know, you don’t look like a sparkle. Not very shiny, or sparkly if you will.”

“Well…it’s my name,” I said, worried that she picked up on my almost slip of the tongue.

“Ah well, it’s not my place to judge what ponies want to be called now is it? You’ll have to excuse me, I like to consider myself a journalist and knowing things is kind of my thing. I’ve gotten very good at seeing through lies over the years and I can tell that whatever your name is, it isn’t Sparkle, although I’m not going to push. Anyway, it was nice to meet you Sparkle, if you hang out for a bit be sure to catch my next broadcast, got some fun news about The Courier, you might like it,” Alto said, then with a wave she went to head over to Red Rocket.

I waved a hoof back. She turned for a second as I said, “Nice to meet you too.”

Her eyes looked at my left forehoof for a moment, then she turned and went on. After the strange encounter I looked back at Vervain who shrugged at me, saying, “I think we should hope this meeting is quick, I really don’t want to know what will happen if she figures out who you are.”

I shrugged back. “This disguise should keep anypony from knowing who I am, also even if I wasn’t disguised I don’t know how she’d figure it out. Most ponies don’t even know who I am even when I’m wearing my duster.”

We headed toward an empty table in the back corner of the Café, passing a few ponies who were eating prewar food, or freshly made dishes and drinking Sparkle-Cola or some strange black liquid I’d never seen before. As we sat Vervain said, “A pony like her who loves to know things and report on them picks up on a few things that most ponies don’t. She’s also probably studied mentalist techniques to sharpen her perceptive skills. Didn’t you see her glance at your Pip-Buck?”

“Yeah, but so what? It’s not like I’m the only one in The Wasteland who has one,” I said.

A mare who looked to be around my age came over wearing an apron and a notepad held in her magic. She gave me a very pretty smile then asked, “Can I get you two anything?”

Vervain looked over at her, saying, “Two Sparkle-Cola’s and that’s it for now, thank you.”

“Yes, Ma’am and while you’re here can I interest you in Ms. Maple Tree’s famous Wasteland Waffles?” the mare asked.

“No, now please leave us alone,” Vervain replied, giving the young mare a glare that could melt ice.

She backed up, her smile all but forgotten, “Yes ma’am, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

Once she was gone I looked back at Vervain saying, “That was rude. You really shouldn’t piss off the ponies who handle food for you. Stardust says there’s a good chance they’ll spit in it.”

“I don’t feel like dealing with anypony right now apart from the mare we came to meet. Plus Sparkle-Cola is a sealed bottle,” she said with a sigh, “Anyway as I was saying before, yes a few ponies in The Wasteland have Pip-Bucks, but they are very rare. Your Pip-Buck is even rarer seeing as there are only three of them and each one looks different from the others. If this Alto is smart enough to pick up on every broadcast DJ Pon3 or Mr. New Pegasus or just intel and rumor that gets around, she might know that you have a Silver Pip-Buck with red accents.”

I looked down at my Mark II then sighed, “I guess you have a point, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. I can’t just hide it under my barding, I tried that once, it didn’t work out so well.”

“I know,” Vervain said, “That’s why I think when we get to where we’re headed, you’re going to have to take it off.”

“You’re joking right? You have to be because the last time I checked, my Mark II is the key to unlocking a very dangerous prewar project. Keeping it on my foreleg is the only way to keep it safe,” I said.

“It’s not the only way, remember I studied that thing for a long time while I was in Stable 28 with Grim,” she paused with a look of pain coming over her for a moment before she took in a deep breath then continued, “There is another way to remove it, but at the same time making sure that no other pony can use it.”

“Okay that’s news to me,” I said.

“Of course it is, I never told anypony apart from Grim about this feature. Honestly, I’m surprised I even found it. It was so well hidden that I’m sure most ponies would’ve missed it. Anyway, the Mark II has another feature in it that can lock it down even if it’s removed from the pony it belongs to,” she said.

“So you mean there’s a way that I can remove this thing?” I asked, shaking the Mark II back and forth, “And keep other ponies from getting to the intel inside of it?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Okay, so what happens if we get captured and Wolfsbane or another steals it anyway? I’m sure they’d find a way to get past this protection,” I said.

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but The Pip-Bucks and by extension, the Mark II’s, are connected to you in more than one way. It can access your health, the inventory in your saddle bags, put the E.F.S. and notifications into your vision, and more right?” Vervain asked.

“Well yeah, but it’s an extremely advanced piece of tech. So what?” I replied.

She sighed. “That’s because the Pip-Buck’s imprint a piece of your DNA into itself so it can access different parts of your body. In essence it’s almost like a mechanical piece of your body while you’re wearing it, but unlike a normal Pip-Buck, the Mark II doesn’t erase that DNA data until it’s told to. When you remove it, it still remembers who it belongs to. Now normally if you just take it off the way you’re supposed to, the Mark II will know it still belongs to you, but it also remains open to another user,” she said.

“Okay, I think I’m following you so far,” I said.

She smiled at me then kept on going. “I think Applebloom set it up this way just in case one of her friends needed to use the other Mark II’s, or maybe she was just testing some new experiment out. The Mark II itself was created to test out new features she wanted to put into the delta model. Anyway, she must’ve also known that She or one of her friends might need to remove their own Mark II but keep the entire thing locked down so that another pony couldn’t just take it for themselves. So, she hid a feature inside the same system that keeps the data on it hidden when it’s set up for a new user, like it was when you got it. If you turn this on before you take it off, then the Mark II will remember it’s only meant to be used on its last user. If another steals it from you, it will be just as hard to get into as it would be to hack into a system a Mark II has locked down, like Falling Shadows.”

My eyes lit up at that. “So, in two hundred years, nopony has been able to figure out how to unlock the system?”

“That’s right, I even tested it out with Grim when we were still in the stable and it works. I couldn’t even hack into it and I know more about that thing than most, apart from maybe Nexus,” she said with a small chuckle.

I looked down at my Mark II again, saying, “I’m still worried that removing it will be a bad idea.”

“It’s a risk we’re going to have to take, because if you go into Steel Ranger territory with that on, it won’t matter how much you change your look, ponies will still know it’s you,” she said.

“I know, I know, but there’s still a problem. I may know how to remove it now, but I still need a master key,” I said.

She grinned the pulled a Pip-Buck master key out of her bags. “I know, so that’s why I made sure to get this from Grim’s things before we left.”

I felt my heart start to pound faster as I looked at the master key, then I looked down at my Mark II. For over three months now, I’d never been able to take it off. It felt like a part of me now, something I’d come to rely on. When I first put it on, only because I wanted to see what one was like, I would’ve done anything to take it off again. Back then it was just an odd-looking Pip-Buck, something my overmare wanted and I would’ve let her have. I didn’t know then, that I had just changed the course of my life forever, just because I’d let my curiosity get the better of me. Now though, now that I knew what I had, I knew the danger this thing on my foreleg could pose to The Wasteland. It was the key to Falling Shadows, and I was about to remove it, making it easier for Wolfsbane or Aquila to get their Hooves on it. No matter what Vervain said, I know deep down that somepony would figure out a way to make it work for them, but I also know that no matter how hard I try, I can’t do my mission with it on. So, with a heavy heart, I held my foreleg out for Vervain.

“Let’s just get this over with and quickly,” I said.

“I can’t do it for you, I’ll talk you through the process of locking it down,” Vervain said.

The mare came back with the Sparkle-Cola’s, making a quick retreat when Vervain gave her another fiery stare. Then she started to walk me through the process of securing the Mark II. It only took a few minutes, but by the time I was done my brain hurt. I wasn’t cut out to mess with this kind of stuff. Sure I could hack into a terminal, but not like Vervain or Byte could. Tech wasn’t my thing, but I managed to get it done. Once that was done, I went into the hidden area of the Mark II, the one I’d learned about a few weeks back and prompted the unlocking sequence. A new screen came up on the Pip-Buck, then it asked for a master key. I took the key from Vervain and pressed it to the back of the Mark II. With that done another prompt came up.

Master Key has been accepted for Pip-Buck 3000 Mk. II SB, User: Shadow Star. Please speak your passcode to finish removal of Pip-Buck.

I took in a deep breath then whispered to the Mark II, “Morning Star.”

The screen vanished and the Mark II for the first time since I first put it on, went blank. My EFS vanished followed by a small click. I flipped the Mark II over and saw the latch that disappeared on me so long ago. With a flick of my magic, I unlatched the Mark II and removed it from my forehoof. It fell to the table with a small thud, looking like nothing more than trash. I suddenly noticed how itchy my foreleg was and started to scratch it until my discomfort was satisfied. Vervain smiled, then took the master key back and used it to remove her own Stable 28 issued Pip-Buck, “Good now that we’re finished with that, we need to take another step to make sure it’s not taken from us.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She smiled wider. “With a trick as old as time itself, the old fake out trick.” She pulled another Pip-Buck from her Saddle Bags and showed it to me. It looked exactly like mine.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Little Project I was working on, figured that there might be a time where you have to give up your Mark II, so I took a normal 3000 and made it look like the Mark II you have. What you’re going to do is take this one and I’ll take the real one. If something happens to us while we’re in The Steel Ranger’s territory, they’d never think you’d give it to me, so if they try and take it, put up a fight but in the end give them the fake,” she said, reaching over and taking my Pip-Buck then giving me the fake.

I watched it vanish into her saddle bags with a slight worry, then I took the one she’d given me and put it into my bags. “I just hope this works.”

“Me too, but if everything goes the way it should, we’ll be fine,” Vervain said.

Before I could ask her anything else, I heard the doors to the Café open followed by a filly’s voice arguing with a stallion, “I don’t care what you say about it Crimson Lance and who said you could follow me all over the town? I’m fine and I’ve been here tons of times.”

I looked back and saw a dark red unicorn with eyes almost as red as my own, black freckles on his nose, an eclectic blue striped mane and tail looking down at a filly who was as tall as me. The Filly had a dark purple coat, yellow eyes and a darker blue mane. As they walked in, he spoke in a kind yet stern voice, saying, “Miss Dahlia, you know that I’m supposed to keep you safe at all times and your father would have me skinned alive if he knew I left your side. It’s bad enough you keep running off to this place as it is.”

“I really don’t care what my dad wants, he’s too busy being a dick and telling everypony what to do to notice me wandering off. Plus, I like this town, the ponies here are nice and Miss Maple makes the best food ever,” she said as she started looking about the Café, “Plus I came here to meet some friends and you’re gonna scare them away.”

“This place is full of former Enclave, if they knew who you were, they’d kill you,” he said.

She started to giggle. “The Ponies here don’t give two shits about who I am Crimson, usually there’s a reason they’re FORMER Enclave. So go away please so I can talk to my friends,” as she said this, she spotted Vervain and I in the back and her eyes went wide.

“I can’t leave you here,” he said.

She growled. “Fine. Can you at least wait outside for me? Oh and you’re from here on out sworn to secrecy. If you tell anyone back at home what I’m doing, I’ll make you regret it.”

He sighed. “I’ll already be in trouble as it is for letting you go out…again, so fine if it keeps you happy, I swear to not say a word about what you do here today.”

She grinned. “Good, you’re probably going to regret that later though.”

“I already am,” Crimson Lance said, turning and heading back out the door.

As soon as he was gone the filly headed straight for our table, she stopped at the end and grinned, saying, “How’s it going you two, are you the ponies I was told to meet here?”

Vervain spoke up, and said, “Could be, depends on who you are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Names Black Dahlia, and I hope that one of you is Shadow.”

I looked back at Vervain, then again to Black Dahlia, “Um…that’s me,” how did she know my real name? I thought we were keeping our identities a secret from this contact, just in case.

She tilted her head at me then started giggling as she pushed me further on the bench taking a seat next to me, “Cool, nice to meet you Shadow, nice job on the disguise by the way, top notch job to whoever did it for you. Though I’m a little surprised, I always figured The Courier was a little older, you can’t be any older than me.”

Vervain spoked up, “Call her Sparkle if you could please, and you may call me Holly Petal.”

“You know that Holly doesn’t have petals right? Whatever fine, I’ll call you Holly then, but who are you anyway? I was told by that Synth pretending to be a real pony that I’d only be meeting with Sparkle pants here,” Black Dahlia said pointing a hoof at me, damn near poking me in the eye.

“She’s a second mother to me, she used to be a Steel Ranger. She’s coming with me so I have backup if I need it,” I said.

“Why do you need backup? You have me and a couple of other rangers who want to see Mr. Elderpants taken down a peg or twenty. It’s gonna be hard enough getting one of you into The Palisade, let alone two,” she said.

Vervain rolled her eyes. “The city itself is huge, Elder Wolfsbane has at least five hundred Steel Rangers if not more, he won’t notice one extra.”

“Black Dahlia, I’m not going without her,” I said.

“Oh please, call me Dahlia,” she said, waving a hoof around, then she got closer to me, saying quietly, “I’m your biggest fan by the way…wait a sec, where’s that silver Pip-Buck you always have on?”

“Safe,” I said.

“I thought you couldn’t take it off?” she replied.

“I have my ways, now how do we know we can trust you? We were told that you’d help us get into The Palisade, but why would one of Wolfsbane’s Rangers help me?” I asked.

Dahlia looked a little shy as she looked down at her hooves, then she finally spoke, saying, “The Elder’s lost his mind with hatred over everything that’s happened over the past few months. He lost the Mark II, he lost the tech from Stable 97, he lost his eye to his father, and to top it all off, you keep surviving everything he’s thrown at you. He’s not a good leader, but everypony is too scared to do anything to stop him. I need somepony like you to help us.”

“I thought everypony in your branch of The Steel Rangers loved Wolfsbane,” I said.

She looked sad as she said, “Most of us are scared of him and Hacker, everypony who’s tried to stand up to either of them ended up dead or worse. I’ve spent the past few months looking at every report the Steel Rangers have on you, listened to every broadcast the radio ponies have said about you. I know that you can do something to help us, or at the very least help me escape The Rangers.”

“Escape? Why do you need help with that? I mean you’re Here in Dragon Bridge right now, what’s stopping you from just running off or staying here? Being a Steel Ranger doesn’t mean you can’t just leave it. It’s happened quite a lot over the years,” Vervain said.

“Elder Wolfsbane would hunt me down and drag me back by my ears if I ran away. I can get away with sneaking out every few days to come to Dragon Bridge, but it’s easy to get here from The Applewood sign, only takes a half hour or so. Running however would be a betrayal to the Elder if I was to try it, the only way I can manage it is if I was abducted or if he thought I was dead,” she said.

Vervain looked a little confused by that but she let it go, saying, “We can’t promise anything Dahlia, but we’ll try. I know Wolfsbane well, and unless we make it look like you’re dead, nothing will stop him from coming after you if you’re that important to him.”

“I’m not sure about Holly but I’ll do anything within my power to get you out if you want. I’ve lived a life similar to your own. Living in fear of your leader is no life for a young mare,” I said smiling at her.

She looked more relaxed. “Thank you, I have family in New Pegasus that I’m sure I could trust to take me in. So, if you can get me back there, then I’ll do whatever you need of me. So, what are you planning?”

“We need to get our hooves on one of The Enclave Airships or transports that I know Wolfsbane has,” I said.

“Oh…” Dahlia said, looking a little disappointed, “That might be harder than you think. The Elder keeps those within The Palisade. He only has two transports, four smaller ships called Turtles, and some kind of war-like ship. To get you into The Palisade I’m going to have to really put on a good act to get past security.”

“I was wondering about that, how can a young mare like yourself get us into The Applewood Sign compound let alone The Palisade?” Vervain asked.

Dahlia looked Sheepish as she said, “Well, let’s just say that my father’s high up in the ranks of the Steel Rangers of Los Alicorn. I’m also a junior Knight as well. My plan is simple really. I have documentation from a trusted friend of mine who has you listed as working on the far side of the Compound who are helping me with something.”

“Seems like it could work, but would Wolfsbane know who’s who in the compound?” I asked.

She laughed a little. “Not a chance, it’s Hacker that you have to worry about. Wolfsbane leaves most of the management of The Steel Rangers to her while he plans out his war.”

“Wait a moment, back up a bit,” I said, shaking my hooves at her, “What war?”

Her eyes went big as if she’d just let something slip. “Oh right, I’m guessing you didn’t know about that. You see, he’s planning on using The Palisade to take out The Steel Rangers from Hidden Sands then New Pegasus right after. He wants to take the entire region for himself putting the Steel Rangers over all the other factions there.”

“He’s going after Hidden Sands?” I asked in shock, “I thought he was allied with them?”

“I was under the same impression,” Vervain said.

“I can’t believe you two don’t know this already. From what I heard about you Shadow, you’re close to the new Elder of Hidden Sands,” she said.

“I wouldn’t say that, she tried to kill me a week or so back. I used to be friends with Sapphire but ever since she’s taken over the Rangers there, she’s kinda lost it,” I said.

Dahlia looked thoughtful, then said, “Wolfsbane is under the impression that you’re working with them, but even if you’re not, it doesn’t matter, he wants Sapphire dead.”

“So do I,” I said looking angry, “She’s not the pony I thought she was.”

“Well, Wolfsbane cut all ties with them ever since Appleslice died. He blames you for her death,” she said.

“I had nothing to do with it!” I nearly yelled, I took in a breath then said quieter, “I had a lot of respect for Elder Appleslice, she helped me when I first came to The Wasteland and because of her, I was able to set out on the path I’m on now.”

Dahlia looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “She wasn’t anything close to good Shadow. She was Wolfsbane’s puppet for years. She was the one who helped Crackerjack kill the last Elder before her, her own father. She took power after he died and did everything she was told by Wolfsbane. Who do you think told him where to find your old stable? She also sent a message to him as soon as you left for Stable 9, told him you had one of the Mark II’s and was saving the one you got from Stable 9 for him and she was getting ready to take the one from Trotston. She was planning on killing you as soon as she was told she could so she could take your Mark II. Sapphire killed her before she could do most of that, she was put into power by the rest. I’m not sure why Sapphire wants you dead, but a few weeks back she saved your life by killing her former Elder.”

Just then a lightbulb lit up, the things Sapphire said to me when I ran into her near New Pegasus, before our fight and during, ‘I did everything to help you, I wanted to help but you’ve lost your mind.’. She put herself into danger again, to save me, once she heard about what happened to me when I lost control of Aquila, any respect for me when news got out that I destroyed Appleton and Mill City Tower, was lost. From her point of view, I’d gone crazy and was using tech that Steel Rangers normally would take from other ponies, to kill and destroy. I was doing the exact same thing The Steel Rangers sought to stop. Using technology to be a monster.

I looked over at Vervain. “Sapphire thinks I’m the bad pony here. She attacked me to save The New Pegasus area.”

“It still doesn’t explain why she’s militarizing the Hidden Sands Rangers,” Vervain responded.

“It does though, she believes in me or used to, as a savior of sorts, or at least somepony that could help New Pegasus. She thinks I’m crazy now or power hungry, so she’s trying to use what she has to help The Wasteland so that once she kills me, she won’t have to watch the land she loves, die,” I said.

Dahlia spoke up, saying, “Makes sense, Sapphire has always been outspoken against the older ways of The Steel Rangers. She’s always been part of that faction that wants to use the Tech we take to help the ponies of The Wasteland, not keep them hidden away.”

“How do you know so much about all of this if I may ask?” Vervain asked.

“That’s my secret, if you help me get away then I might tell you,” Dahlia replied.

“And you said you had family in New Pegasus huh? Who are they?” Vervain asked.

“Just one, an aunt who I thought was dead. When I get to New Pegasus, I was going to hire a griffon to help me find her. I’m sure she doesn’t know anything about me, but I’m hoping she’ll take me in,” Dahlia answered.

I glared over at Vervain thinking ‘she has to talk about this right now’. Shaking my head, I looked back over to Dahlia and smiled. “As luck would have it, my Griffon friend leads the Shadow Talons, when we get back, I’ll have her find a good griffon for you to help, but right now we need to get into The Palisade.”

“You mean Aura Bloodtalon right? Isn’t she the griffon you’re sleeping with?” she asked.

I face hoofed. “How does a filly from way out here know about that?”

She shrugged. “Word gets around, and like I said, I know a lot thanks to my dad.”

“Anyway, putting that aside for now too. I can have her help you out with finding your aunt,” I said.

She beamed. “Awesome! Well then, should we head back to the Rangers?”

“Um…what about that buck who came here with you?” Vervain asked.

“You mean Crimson Lance? He’s one of the ponies who’s on my side, the buck hates our Elder almost as much as I do, maybe more. He’s a Knight that’s in charge of keeping an eye on me. He doesn’t know who you are or everything that I’m doing, but I know he’ll be on board, that also includes a scribe friend of mine back at The Palisade,” she said getting out of her seat, finally giving me some room.

“Awww, I wanted to hear DJ 33 1/3 LP do her broadcast,” I complained.

“Well, you can listen to it on the way then,” Vervain, said getting up.

“That’s not as cool as watching her do the broadcast,” I said as I got up and followed her and Black Dahlia toward the door. Vervain went over to the small counter and dropped a few caps in front of the waitress.

We walked out the door and almost bumped right into Crimson Lance who was pacing the deck. He looked up at Dahlia and then us, before saying, “Ms. Dahlia, are you finished with whatever you were doing?”

“Yep, I’m ready to head back, also I want you to meet Sparkle and Holly, they’ll be heading back with us,” Dahlia said with a big smile.

“You realize that you can’t just take two tramps back with you right? Your father will be pissed if he finds out you invited outsiders into the camp,” he said.

As he spoke, he kept looking at Vervain his eyes narrowing as if he could see through her disguise. Vervain narrowed her eyes back, then said, “I’ll have you know that I’m a paladin buddy, so I’d watch your tone with me.”

Black Dahlia looked back at Vervain, saying, “You’re a Paladin? My contact didn’t say anything about either of you being Steel Rangers. I mean I know you’re not,” she looked at me with that last comment, “What gives? Why doesn’t anypony give me all the information.”

“Ver…” he started saying, his eyes going wide, but Vervain cut him off.

“You won’t speak my real name here Crimson Lance or I’ll feed you your teeth, you follow?” she said.

“But I was told you died! How do you expect anypony to not see through that disguise of yours?” he asked.

“Crimson Lance? How do you know her?” Dahlia asked, now looking between Vervain and Crimson.

“It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh, “I think I have an idea what’s going on, let’s get out of this turd of a town and we can talk on the way back to The Compound.”

“Sounds good to me,” Vervain said, rolling her eyes.

So, we headed out of town as quick as we could, heading north west toward the Applewood sign. As we took the broken-up road that headed that way and were a good distance from the town, Crimson finally started to talk, “Black Dahlia, you’re going to tell me what you’re planning right now, or I’m bringing this to Elder Wolfsbane.”

“You’ll do no such thing Crimson Lance!” she yelled, “IF you do, I’ll let it slip what Brotatous, you, and the rest of your friends have been planning!”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “You’ve been listening in on our conversations again! I told you to stop doing that, we could be killed if he found out, I’d hate to see what he’d do to you if he knew you had any part of our plans!”

Vervain broke into the conversation. “I’m guessing that this group of friends and you are planning on overthrowing Wolfsbane. Am I right?”

He glared over at her. “You know what Holly, or whatever fake name you’re trying to pass off, why should I tell you anything? You’re closer to Wolfsbane than anypony here apart from Black Dahlia. So I’m sorry, but I can’t trust you or this filly you have with you.”

Black Dahlia looked confused at that, then said, “Keep your big trap shut about my connections to the Elder Crimson,” then she looked at Vervain, “How are you close to The Elder?”

“None of your business Dahlia, that’s between Wolfsbane and I. I want to know what your own connections are to him. The more you talk, the more I’m getting worried that I’m walking into a trap and I don’t like that kind of feeling,” Vervain said.

“Wait a moment, you don’t know who Black Dahlia is? How could you not?” Crimson asked.

I trailed behind the three of them feeling a little bit of anger building up as Vervain said, “How could I know anything about her when I just met her an hour ago?”

Dahlia looked ready to explode again so finally I got between all of them, yelling, “Enough!” they all stopped their fighting and looked at me. I didn’t care, none of them could understand my hatred for Wolfsbane. I immediately looked at Crimson Lance. “First of all, I don’t know you or what your plans are for The Steel Rangers of Los Alicorn, but what I do know is that Wolfsbane is evil and deserves to be thrown off the top of The Palisade just like he did to his father! As for you Black Dahlia, you better start talking and explaining more about your idea on how to get us into the Palisade before I decide to kill you both and find my own way in.”

Crimson Lance looked at me like I’d just danced on his mother’s grave. “How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are?”

I didn’t want to do this, but I knew I had to. I wasn’t able to bring all of my weapons or my duster with me on this mission, but I did keep one, my favorite gun. I pulled Dream Walker out of my saddle bags, pointing it at him. “I’m Shadow Star, The Courier, and if you talk to me like that again, I’m gonna blow a new hole in your head to get skull-fucked in.”

Vervain sighed. “Now you’ve done it, now he’s going to try and attack us, and then we’ll have to clean up the following mess.”

However, Crimson Lance didn’t do a thing, instead he looked at Black Dahlia, asking, “Dahlia, you really managed to find The Courier? How’d you manage to do something the rest of us couldn’t over the past week?”

She just shrugged. “Wasn’t me really, just some synth finding me and telling me she wanted a way into The Palisade.”

He began to laugh. “Oh my Goddesses, and here I thought you picked up some random filly being protected by an old Ranger. Good job kid.”

Utterly confused I was lost for words as Dahlia shrugged. “I heard Brotatous and you saying something once about how much good she could do if she was able to at least get into The Palisade and take down Wolfsbane. So, when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the chance.”

“What’s…going on?” I asked, putting Dream Walker away.

“I’d like to know that too,” Vervain added.

He shook his head, then said, “You have my apologies. If you’re here to take that dictator down for good, then I’ll do whatever I can to help. You see I’m part of a group of Rangers who’ve been planning for years now to overthrow him. The problem is that Wolfsbane has too much sway over a good number of the Steel Rangers. So much so, that we’ve never been able to go after him, but from what we’ve heard about you, Courier, I know that you can be the tool we need to finish him off for good. That’s if…Holly is truly against him now.”

I put up a hoof. “Alright listen dude, I’m not going to The Palisade to take down Wolfsbane. I’d love to, trust me on that, but I have a different mission. One that’s more important than revenge.”

“I wasn’t there when The Palisade destroyed Cartwheel or when you almost killed The Elder, but I heard what happened. Why wouldn’t you want him dead?” Crimson asked.

“She just said she would love to kill him, but we have a more important mission,” Vervain said, “We need to get our hooves on an Enclave Transport, and from the intel we have, Wolfsbane has one.”

“Why do you need an Enclave Transport? It’s not like either of you can fly them. Also, wouldn’t it be killing two birds with one stone going after him?” Crimson asked.

As we talked, I could see a sadness coming over Black Dahlia, but I answered Crimson, saying, “If I get the chance, I’ll kill him, but I’d rather not risk it. My father needs me to get to Stratus, that’s why we need the transport. Don’t worry about how we’re gonna fly it, I have that covered.”

“I thought you were all about taking down ponies like Wolfsbane though? You do know that he’s planning on taking over The Marejave right?” Crimson asked.

“I do, but I’ll find a way of stopping him. Right now my family comes first,” I said.

Before we could say more, Vervain asked, “Are you alright Dahlia?”

“I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be?” she said, wiping away a tear and turning away, “I just don’t like all the talk about killing The Elder. I hate the guy, but I’m not sure I want him dead, just not in power anymore.”

Something must’ve clicked in Vervain’s head, because she sighed, saying, “Oh please don’t tell me what I’m thinking is true.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Black Dahlia, that’s a flower from before the war, right?” she asked the filly.

“Yeah, but how did you know that?” she asked.

She sighed again, then said, “Because Wolfsbane and me are both named after prewar flowers just how our mother has the name of a prewar tree. You’re his daughter, aren’t you?”

My jaw dropped open as I looked at the filly. It was then that I could see some of Vervain in her, a little of her Grandmother, and Wolfsbane. “If this is a trap, then I swear I don’t care if you’re a filly or not, I’ll vaporize you. Unless you prefer to be turned into a puddle of glowing green snot, then I got that scenario covered too.”

“It’s not a trap, and what do you mean you and my dad? Are you…Vervain?” she asked.

“I’m surprised you know my name, figured my brother wouldn’t have told you anything about me,” Vervain said with a sigh, “I’m guessing I’m the family you said you had in New Pegasus.”

She nodded. “I know about you because my dad used to talk about you a lot when he thought you were dead. Said you two used to fight a lot, but that you were one of the best Rangers he’d ever met. Said you were a lot like my Grandmother before she died.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m like White Oak, and she’s not dead, but that’s a topic for another time. What I want to know is how I don’t know anything about you. What are you, like fourteen? Fifteen maybe? I only left the Los Alicorn branch a little over twelve years ago and I don’t remember my brother having a foal. He didn’t even marry Hacker until ten or so years ago,” Vervain said.

The scowl that came over Black Dahlia’s face was priceless. I had to hold back a sudden snicker at the offended look she gave Vervain. Then she said, “Hacker’s not my mom, I was born almost sixteen years ago, and my mom was a paladin, her name was Ruby.”

Vervain looked at Dahlia with shock. “Star Paladin Ruby? The same Steel Ranger who helped fight off the invasion of The Enclave twenty years ago? Who on her own took down one of their raptors?”

Crimson Lance spoke up for Dahlia, saying, “The very same, she was my cousin and a good friend. That’s why I keep a close eye on Ms. Dahlia. After her death, I took it upon myself to make sure nothing bad would ever happen to her daughter.”

“My dad took me when my mom died, had a unicorn check to make sure I was his daughter at first, but once he found out that I was, he made sure to keep me around him at all times,” Dahlia said sadly, “I’ve been trying to get away from him for the past few years.

“Who is Star Paladin Ruby?” I asked.

Vervain looked over at me sadly. “Sapphire’s older sister, she left for Los Alicorn when Sapphire was still very young and worked her way up the ranks. She was the next in line to take over as Elder, until her death twelve years ago. My brother was only a paladin himself back then, but one of the strongest. With Ruby’s death, there were no Star Paladins to take over as Elder when the other one was brought up on charges. So, Wolfsbane took power for himself and became the new Elder.”

“Wait a minute,” I put Dream Walker away again, sat down on my haunches, tapping a hoof on my head trying to processing everything, “So you mean that not only is Dahlia related to your family who’s held a lot of power in both New Pegasus and Los Alicorn, but also she’s the niece of the new Elder of New Pegasus and the great granddaughter of one of the best known Elders from New Pegasus too?” I asked in shock.

“That about sums it up. I’m guessing that’s why Wolfsbane wants you around,” Vervain said.

“In a way yeah, but really I just think he wants to try and build me up to be like him. He’s always going on about how he’s going to be a better father than his was. He lets me get away with a lot, but at the same time, he won’t really let me do what I want with my life,” she said.

“And what is it you wanna do?” I asked, feeling sorry for her.

“I’m not sure yet, but I know I don’t want to be a Steel Ranger. I don’t agree with their way of life. They don’t do anything to help The Wasteland or the ponies who live in it. They hate pegasi too which I don’t get because I’ve met a lot who are really nice,” she said sadly, “I want to see more of The Wasteland, maybe help other ponies y’know?”

I smiled. “I understand.”

“I knew you would,” Dahlia said with a huge smile, “You’ve done a lot of good since you came out of your stable, I want to do stuff like you.”

That made me frown. “A lot of what you’ve heard about me is mostly hype, I’ve done a lot of bad things too. I’m trying to fix a lot of things that either I’ve messed up or my distant relations have. You should try to find your own path in life and not try to follow in my horseshoes.”

“She has a point Dahlia,” Crimson said, “You can’t keep idolizing somepony like The Courier, you need to find your own path.”

“I know I know, you might’ve done a lot of bad things, but you can’t push aside the good you’ve done either. If I can learn from the mistakes you’ve made in the past, then maybe I can do better myself one day,” she said with a smile.

Vervain smiled at that, saying, “She’s also got a point Shadow.”

I smiled then rolled my eyes. “Fine, but enough of all of that. Now that we know who you are, why don’t you tell us more about your plan to get us inside and show us that we can trust you.”

She just grinned and winked. “You can trust me. I know my plan will go beautifully because part of my special talent is helping myself or others blend in,” she said as we started walking again, telling us her plan.

***

Ugh…it’s so fucking hot here. How the hell is it hotter here than in New Pegasus? Maybe it has something to do with the cloud cover trapping in the leftover radiation from the bombs like a blanket. Not many bombs hit New Pegasus during the war, so…meh fuck it, I’m sweaty and don’t wanna be here.

“Name!” A stallion in power armor asked as we were entering the gates that led into The Compound. As we’d traveled here with Black Dahlia and Crimson Lance, she’d given us both uniforms so we could pose as scribes.

“Sparkle, Junior Scribe,” I said, just like Dahlia told me to.

“Holly Petal, Scribe,” Vervain answered.

Vervain and I were alone now, Dahlia and Crimson Lance were both heading to another entrance to keep the guards from noticing that Dahlia had left. Dahlia gave us instructions on how to enter and what to say when we got questioned. Now it was up to us to get passed the first obstacle. The Knight looked at us both, his visor glinting from the light orbs just over the entrance. After a moment passed, he checked something on a strange looking terminal next to the gate.

Finally, he said, “Ah, I see you here now, looks like you two were out collecting samples from the city. You’ll have to excuse me, I just didn’t know your names, but I guess I can’t know everypony who lives in this place.”

“Yeah, we were, unfortunately we didn’t collect much,” Vervain said, “I do hope Crimson Lance won’t be too upset with us when we make our report.”

The Knight Chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, though I’m sure you know him better than I do. Head on inside, I’m not sure where The Senior Scribe is right now, but if he’s like the rest of you eggheads, he’ll be in the main lab.”

“Thank you Knight, I hope the rest of your shift goes well,” Vervain said as he moved aside to let us pass.

We’d almost gotten away when the Knight stopped us by saying, “Hold up a sec please.”

We both froze, Vervain muttering under her breath, “Be prepared to use magic.”

I did my best to calm my racing heart so I could pull on my magic, something that was still difficult without losing control of the massive sea inside of me, but better than it had been when the rest of my power first awakened. To my relief, it wasn’t necessary. The Stallion walked up to Vervain saying a little shyly, “Um…Scribe Holly Petal, if you’re free this evening, how about you stop by The Laser’s Target and we can get a drink. On me of course.”

I almost burst out laughing at the look that came over Vervain’s face. She looked shocked that this knight had just asked her to get drinks. The feeling grew as I saw a small blush come over her face. It only lasted a moment before she smiled, hiding her embarrassment, and saying, “That’s very kind of you, but I’m already taken.”

“Oh, my apologies, it’s just that we don’t see many mares as beautiful as you. Thought I’d at least try, whoever the buck is who caught your eye is a lucky fella. Good evening you two,” he said, before walking back to his post.

As we turned to leave, Vervain glared at me as a small snicker escaped my lips, “Not a word,” she said through gritted teeth. It’s not every day you get to see somepony you’ve looked up to your whole life get flustered.

“About what? That you got hit on by a buck in power armor who’s technically a rank under you, or the fact that you had to lie to him so he wouldn’t feel bad about asking?” I teased.

She stuck her nose up in the air. “First of all, even if I was interested, I’d never say yes to a drink with a knight who’s probably ten or more years younger than me and who didn’t have the decency to take his helmet off first. Secondly, who said I was lying about having somepony?”

That made me stop dead in my tracks. “Wait, you’re pulling my leg right? Who are you with? You’ve only been out of Stable 28 for a month or so, and most of that time you spent helping Cartwheel or The Shadow Talons.”

She smirked and said, “You’re in a relationship with a griffon who used to be your bodyguard. Who says I can’t find somepony while at the same time working?” she asked, but I could see the blush on her face.

“OH my Goddesses, I know the buck don’t I? Who is it? Tell me please!” I asked as we started walking about. I was getting strange looks from some of the other ponies around us as I jumped up and down, but I didn’t care.

“I never said you knew him! Plus, even if you did, I’m not telling you. We have a mission to take care of and this isn’t the right time to be talking about my love life or lack thereof,” she said.

“It’s the pony who used to run the weapons shop isn’t it? I saw him looking at you when we were in Crimson Canyon,” I said with another laugh.

“Ew no, he’s into stallions first of all and smells like onions. I told you I’m not talking about this right now,” she said, pushing past a group of Junior Scribes who were looking over some papers just outside a huge building that was sitting right under The Palisade which hovered high in the sky over us.

“Fine, I’ll drop it, but when this is all over, I wanna meet the buck. Gotta make sure he’s a good match for you,” I said.

Vervain looked at me, a little offended. “I think I can decide who is or isn’t a good match for me. Plus, you never got my approval when you started seeing Aura.”

“In my defense you were deep underground pretending to be a stable dweller,” I said, “Plus you like Aura, so don’t pull that on me. If I don’t like this guy, I honestly don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Personally, I don’t much care for most of The Bloodtalons unlike my father, but I’ll admit that Aura is a good one. Though she needs a little work on her temper,” Vervain said.

“Wait, you don’t like Aura’s family?” I asked, a little shocked.

“It’s not that I don’t like them, its more that they’ve always come off as…temperamental jackasses. They give off this feeling that you have to do what they say or they’ll rip your face off,” Vervain said, “When Gigi and I were younger we used to fight a lot too, that could be another reason I don’t see her family as much more than bullies.”

“Well, if you’re going off how Gigi acted, then yeah I could see that. I liked her, but that took a while. When I first met her she accused me of sleeping with her daughter, which I wasn’t doing...yet…then told me to leave her canyon,” I said with a laugh.

“Good point,” she said, “Still, even if I didn’t like them much, I still considered Gigi a friend. It’s sad what happened to her.”

“I agree, I hope that one day I can repay Apollo for what he did. Same for Gina too. Business before pleasure I suppose,” I said with a sigh as we drew closer to a smaller building where I could see Crimson Lance and Dahlia waiting for us.

“About time you two got here,” Dahlia said, her expression looking agitated, “We don’t have much time before the last transport up to The Palisade leaves.”

“We got here as fast as we could,” Vervain said, glaring down at Dahlia, “Are you sure we’ll be able to get around The Palisade without anypony noticing us?”

Crimson Lance answered this time, saying, “You’ll be coming aboard as two scribes that I requested help for on a project Dr. Brotatous and myself have been working on. That should keep you two safe for a couple hours. You’re lucky that this project happens to be right next to the transport bay where the Enclave airships are kept.”

“That should give us enough time to get to one that we need, but it doesn’t help us with the other part of our plan,” I said.

“What other part is there?” Dahlia asked.

“We need to shut down the sensors on The Palisade so my pegasus friends can fly in and hook up to the transport. I’ll also need to shut down the weapons so that we can make our escape,” I said.

Crimson’s eyes went wide as he said, “To do that you’d have to get to the bridge, that’s the only place where you can access that stuff.”

Dahlia on the other hoof said, “No that’s not true, my father’s chambers have access to those areas of the ship too. Hacker and him both use the chambers as a secondary control room.”

“That used to be true until the terminal there was locked down by her,” Crimson Lance said, pointing a hoof at me, “And from the look of her, she doesn’t have the Pip-Buck with her that she used to lock it in the first place.”

Dahlia rolled her eyes. “Dad’s terminal was locked down, not Hackers, that’s the one that we need and at this time of night they’re both away from their room,” she then looked at me, “I’m guessing you know where the room is right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t see another terminal there when I was last on that ship,” I said, looking up at the massive floating monster of technology.

“It’s hidden behind the Steel Ranger flag,” she said, starting to walk away but kept talking, forcing the rest of us to follow, “We’ll have to split up, I say that Sha…I mean Sparkle should come with me so we can get to my dad’s room and shut down the stuff we need to. In the mean-time, Holly and Crimson should head to the hanger and get a ship ready. Find one that’s big enough to fit Dr. Brotatous, Crimson Lance, and me.”

“I don’t like the idea of us splitting up,” Vervain said, “But if we want to get this done fast, then it’s what we’ll have to do.”

“Good. Okay, so we’ll get onto The Palisade first, then go to where we need to,” she said as we walked over to a strange looking…ship thing… it had three large blades on each side of stumpy wings, sitting atop a bulbous body, with a small nose in the front of it, and a long tail in the back with another three small blades sitting sideways.

“What is that?” I asked.

Vervain answered, saying, “It’s a Vertibuck, I’m not surprised you haven’t seen one before, they’re pretty rare. The Ministry of Wartime Technology didn’t make many of them before the Megaspells. They were meant to be transport ships much like The Palisade only a lot smaller. That can be operated by earth ponies or unicorns so pegasi weren’t always needed for air support.”

“And it’s safe?” I asked as Crimson Lance walked up to one of the Rangers who seemed to be the one in charge of the craft.

Dahlia laughed. “Of course it’s safe, probably safer than a pegasus drawn ship or carriage is. Now get on before they decide to leave us behind.”

I didn’t mind heights much anymore. Not after spending the past few months being flown around by Aura or Stardust, but this was different. I had to put my trust into a machine, one that couldn’t just quickly swoop down to catch me if I fell. Still, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. If I wanted to get this mission done so I could save my father, I’d have to get over my fear. So once Crimson Lance gestured for us to climb aboard, I followed Black Dahlia and Vervain. The Ranger followed us into the craft and made his way to the front, flipping a few switches with a hoof, then strapping into the seat.

“Fasten your safety belts, we’ll be off in a few seconds,” the stallion said.

I quickly used my magic to pull the two straps next to me up and put them across my lap. They clicked into place, then I found the spot I could use to tighten them. I did so and closed my eyes as the blades overhead and the one behind started to spin. The large doors on each side weren’t even doors, just holes in the ship, let the building wind blast into the back of the Vertibuck, tossing my mane around. Then with a loud rumble and a shudder, the ship rose into the air. Thank Luna, the noise of the ship was so loud, no pony…I hope…heard my small squeak of fear as we headed toward the sky. The flight took less than a minute, since The Palisade was so close, but it was long enough for me to know that I never, EVER, wanted to get into one of these things again. The Vertibuck flew up to a lower walkway under The Palisade and something on the large ship came out and latched itself to the top of the Vertibuck with a loud rumble.

The ranger flying us up shut down the Vertibuck, waited a moment for the blades overhead to stop spinning, then did something with his controls. The ship shook as the arm overhead pulled us a little higher then moved us closer to one of the jutting out walkways, finally stopping with a shaky jerk. As soon as we stopped, I unbuckled and dove for the walkway gasping as the other three laughed.

“She gonna be okay?” I heard the pilot ask.

“First time on the Vertibuck,” Vervain said, still laughing, “Thank you for the ride up.”

“Not a problem,” the pilot said, then he looked over at Black Dahlia, “Ms. Dahlia, Elder Wolfsbane was looking for you a little while ago. I just took him back up here and he said if I saw you to have you meet him in the overlook.”

“Oh…okay, sure. I’ll head over there right now,” Dahlia said, her face looking a little frightened, “Thanks for letting me know.”

“My pleasure,” he said, then walked away.

Once he was gone Dahlia cursed, followed by looking over at us, saying, “I can’t ignore this, Crimson and Holly, you two should head to the hanger and get started.”

“What about me?” I asked.

“There’s nothing we can do right now, you’ll have to come with me to meet with my dad. Let’s hope he doesn’t see through that disguise,” she said.

“I’m not really sure I want to test that out, too much is riding on me getting this mission completed,” I said.

“Don’t worry, your rank is showing you as a junior scribe, he won’t even notice you,” she said.

“Fine,” I said, then looked at Vervain, saying, “Get going and keep it safe,” the last part I said with a small wink toward her satchel.

“Don’t worry I will,” Vervain said, “You just be careful. Don’t let him notice you. Remember, we aren’t here to deal with him, your father is the only reason we came here.”

“I know, now go,” I said.

She gave me a worried smile then followed Crimson toward the only door that led into the large airship. Once she was gone Dahlia said, “I’m sure he’s just going to yell at me about being out so late, but I’m going to tell him that I’m working on something with the scribes. I might need you to back me up, can you do a voice impression?”

“A little, though I wouldn’t want to hold a conversation if I can help it,” I said, forgetting that I’d been able to pose as Stormy when I was in Mill City Tower.

“Keep anything you say short and to the point, I mostly just want to get this over with so we can get out of here. The longer you’re on this ship, the worse off we are,” Dahlia said, turning to head up the steps toward the door.

I followed her up and through the thick steel door that led into the lowest levels of The Palisade. I was going to ask how far the overlook was, but to my surprise, once we were inside, the overlook was just around the same set of stairs I’d used not long ago to climb to the top of the ship when I was escaping with my friends. I hadn’t even noticed it when I’d been running for my life. The room looked big enough to hold a meeting with a few ponies and had large clear windows that gave a beautiful view of the hills and city in the distance. Standing at the windows looking out at the view was Wolfsbane. For a moment I felt my magic surge as anger filled me at the sight of him.

I managed to push it back down and keep a calm expression on my face as Dahlia walked into the overlook, saying, “You wanted to see me?”

Wolfsbane turned and I got a good look at the damage Box Tape had done to his face. He was wearing an eye patch over the spot where his right eye used to be, but it couldn’t cover the nasty scar that ran down his cheek, accenting the scar on his left. A little part of his eye socket was exposed with more scaring around that, the coat missing and a dip on the skin where the bone had been obliterated by the bullet passing through it. A bit of his mane was gone now too, but none of this took away the feeling of danger that surrounded him. If anything, it made him ten times scarier than he had been before.

He let his single eye fall on Black Dahlia before he said, “I got another report today that you wandered out of The Compound again. I thought I made myself clear the last time I caught you wandering toward that Enclave riddled town.”

Dahlia’s normally bubbly and carefree personality vanished under the glare of her father. I could see her legs shaking a bit as she responded to him quietly, saying, “I didn’t go to Dragon Bridge tonight, I just wanted to get some air after my fight with Hacker.”

“I’ve told you before to call her mother, she’s the closest thing to one you have. Also, it doesn’t matter if you went to that festering hellhole of a town or not, you were told to stay in The Compound. Do I need to confine you to The Palisade again?” he said, his voice stern and cold.

“No sir, but I took Crimson Lance with me, he kept me safe,” Dahlia said, her voice still quiet and submissive.

For a moment, his eye softened and Wolfsbane said, “I’m only worried about you Black Dahlia. There have been sightings of ponies who are out to kill me and anywhere outside the Steel Rangers compound is dangerous. If any of the ponies who want me dead knew who you were they’d take you just to get to me.”

I saw a spark of anger come to Dahlia’s face as she responded, saying, “It’s not like it would work if they did.”

The hardness came back to his face, but instead of saying something about her comment, Wolfsbane’s eye fell on me, “And who are you? I didn’t ask for a Junior Scribe!”

Before I could answer, Dahlia spoke up, “This is Junior Scribe Sparkle, she works in the stable intelligence building.”

“Why is she up here on my ship and not doing her job?” he asked looking back at her.

“She agreed to tutor me on stable layouts and a few other things. She’s quite knowledgeable with a few things, and since she’s a junior scribe I figured she has less to do at night. So, I thought she could stay with me for a few days,” Dahlia said, lying through her teeth.

Wolfsbane glared at me again, holding the stare for a long moment before asking, “Is this true?”

“Yes, Elder Wolfsbane,” I said, giving a higher tone to my voice, hoping it would be enough so he wouldn’t figure out who I was.

His gaze went down to my foreleg for a moment then he shook his head then turned back to Dahlia, “Fine, but keep her away from the work the rest of the scribes are doing up here. Also, for right now, I don’t want you leaving The Palisade. Before you throw a tantrum, I’m doing this for your own good. I believe there are traitors in The Compound and I want you kept safe. Now get to your room before I decide to punish you for disobeying me again.

“Yes sir,” she said, turning to leave.

“Oh and Black Dahlia,” Wolfsbane said after turning to look back out the window again, “Don’t ever question me again about what I would or wouldn’t do if somepony took you from me. You may not like what I may or may not do if that day ever comes. You may not like it here most of the time, but trust me, you don’t want to know what The Courier’s friends will do to you if they discovered who you were and took you captive. Especially that batpony monster, I’ve heard she likes to eat young fillies. Now get out of here.”

Dahlia gave me a frightened look before she headed for the stairs that led to the higher levels of The Palisade. I followed close behind her, shaking as I escaped the notice of the stallion who made my body go cold with fear. We just made it to the next level when Dahlia said, “That was close.”

“I can see why you want to get out of here now,” I said as we started going up another set of short stairs. Following a sign that read ‘Elder’s Quarters’. I was starting to recognize the area now that we were on the levels I’d already seen before.

“That wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I’m lucky I got off with a talking to. He’s hit me in the past or locked me in my room for days with hardly anything to eat or drink when he’s caught me before,” she said.

I looked at her, not even realizing my hatred for him can get more intense at her father for doing such horrible things to his only foal. We got off on the next landing and I remembered the hallway. At the end of it, where it ended in a T, if I went right I’d be in Wolfsbane’s room, the left would take me to the barracks. As we headed toward our destination, I said, “No father should ever treat their child that way.”

“That’s what Crimson and his friend say too,” Dahlia said as she came to the end of the hall and checked to make sure nopony was coming. Once she saw it was clear, she continued on, saying quietly, “I think it’s one reason Crimson and the rest have started their little rebellion, they all like me a lot.”

I smiled a little as we reached the door that led to The Elder’s room. “You seem like a kind-hearted filly to me.”

She snickered a little. “I wouldn’t say that, but I do care about the ponies here and the rest in The Wasteland who The Steel Rangers could help quite a bit. It’s another reason I want to escape. I know deep down that I might be able to find help from not only my Aunt but from The Steel Rangers in Hidden Sands. If I can just get Sapphire to listen to me, tell her who I am, maybe she’ll go against the normal code of The Steel Rangers and go against my father. If she does that, maybe this branch can find the right path and stray from Hacker and my father’s path.”

“I believe that if you put enough faith in yourself and your dreams, anything is possible,” I said as I tried and failed to open the door, “Damn, I was hoping it was unlocked again.”

Dahlia smiled a little, then said, “Thank you for that, and no, my dad learned a lot from the last time you were on the ship. Not to worry though, I have my own way in.”

I watched as she went to the door controls, pulled out a small gem and put it against the door. It beeped then opened with a hiss. When she put the gem away, I asked, “How’d you get that?”

She shrugged. “I stole it from Hacker earlier today. She won’t notice it’s gone until tomorrow. She’s down in The Compound working on a new project, she won’t be back until she’s finished yelling at everypony down there about how shitty they are at their jobs and so on. If you haven’t figured it out by now, she’s a raging cunt.”

We walked into the room, shutting the door behind us. As I looked around the room, I said, “I’ve only met her once, and only for a moment as she threw my friends and me off the top of this thing. Is she really as bad as you make her sound?”

Dahlia was walking over to the Steel Rangers flag that hung on the wall opposite of the other terminal I used before when it was in this room. She paused and looked over at me, her eyes deadly serious, “She’s pure evil. There’s this darkness about her, like she’s got a demon living inside of her. She can use magic I’ve only ever heard of and she worships some dark God or something like that. She loves causing others pain and having control over anypony she can.”

“A dark God? Never heard of anything like that before. Although, what kind of magic are you talking about?” I asked.

“She calls it shadow magic,” Dahlia said as she pulled the flag aside to reveal a hidden terminal behind it.

My eyes went wide as she said that and I asked, “Shadow Magic? Are you sure about that? Does this God she worship have a name?”

“Yes, shadow magic, when she uses it all the spells have a darkness around them. It also seems to suck all of the light in the room into its depths. She doesn’t use it often, but when she does, everything about her changes and she gets even worse with her personality and love of violence. I also don’t know if this God has a name. I really try my best to stay away from her beliefs,” Dahlia said as she sat down by the terminal and started logging into it.

I was starting to shake as I listened to her talk. As she logged into the terminal, I said, “My uncle used to have shadow magic, and from what he told me, the only creature who can gift it to another pony is named Mezzanotte. He’s an evil creature from thousands of years ago. The creator of dark magic and shadow magic. If she worships him and has his power, then Hacker is more dangerous than even your father.”

She stopped typing, and looked back at me. “I know she is. Who do you think has been putting all of this bullshit into my dad’s head? It’s been her for many years. The longer he’s with her, the darker he becomes. Not that he was the sweetest of peaches in the first place, but he wasn’t always this bad.”

“So, you mean that if it wasn’t for Hacker, your father wouldn’t be doing all of this evil stuff?” I asked.

She finished logging-in, then moved out of the way, saying, “No, he still would be, but not as quickly or as brutally. Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s a bad guy, he just gets worse with her around.”

I walked over to the terminal and started looking for the systems we needed to get into. “Well then, if that’s the case then we need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

“I agree, now do you know what to do? I’ve never messed with this terminal before, I only know how to log-in because I watched Hacker do it a few times,” Dahlia said as she watched me work.

I smiled. “Nope, but it’s not the first time I’ve messed around in strange terminals. I’ve learned that I have a knack for it.”

She nodded and watched me as I searched through the data files and programs on the terminal. It didn’t take me long to find the one I needed. With a triumphant grin I started shutting down the weapons and security systems on The Palisade. Once that was done, I took a moment to look through the rest of the programs the terminal could access. Something caught my eye and I stopped looking over the program. A crazy idea coming to me quick as lightning. My eyes stayed glued on the words on the screen, not being able to believe what I was seeing.

“You okay?” Dahlia asked from the doorway. She was keeping watch for anypony that might sneak up on the room.

“Yeah, I just got the security and weapons shut down,” I replied, backing out of the program for a moment and searching for a broadcaster. I knew that Elder Wolfsbane’s terminal had one. I’d used it to contact my father before, so I was hoping that Hacker’s terminal had one too. Sure enough, I found what I was looking for. I opened it up and started searching for the signal I needed. “Just need to send a message to my friends. Once that’s done, we can go to them and get out of here.”

“Okay good, we’ll just need to let the others know and we should be able to get out of here in a half hour or so,” Dahlia said, looking relieved.

I stopped, looked back at her, and said, “I thought you were having Crimson get your other friend?”

She shook her head. “No, I was going to do that with you once we finished up here.”

My new plan wasn’t going to go over well if I had to wait that long. So, I took a moment to think, then looked back at her again. “We won’t have that kind of time once I’m finished here. Go get your doctor friend and anything you want to bring with and head to the hanger. I’ll catch up to you.”

“How do you expect to find the hanger once you’re done here?” she asked.

“I know a few places on this ship from when I was here before. If we don’t have time, just tell me where the hanger is and I’ll be down there soon,” I said.

She looked ready to argue but I kept my eyes locked on hers showing her that I wasn’t going to back down. Black Dahlia looked defeated and sighed. “I understand. The hanger is on the other side of the hall from the brig.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The brig, y’know the jail. If you go all the way down to the other end of the hall from that point, you’ll find the hanger,” she said.

“Oh okay, yeah I know where that is. Get going and make sure you hurry,” I said.

“I’ll do my best, but are you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?” Dahlia asked.

“I’ll be fine, now go,” I said. She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded and headed out the door. When the door closed, I went back to work. I found the channel that I needed, opened it up, and said, “Solstice, I hope you’re reading me because if you’re not I’m going to find you and duct-tape you to another stallion.”

A moment passed then I heard Solstice and imagined her huffing at that. “Rude.” I heard her sarcastically laugh under her tone, “You think you’re so funny don’t you Shadow? Yeah, I’m here, are you ready for us?”

“Yeah, do you remember how to find the hanger from the outside of the ship?” I asked.

“Yeah, kinda hard to miss. Big flat door on the ass-end of The Palisade. Stardust and I are both on the other side of the Applewood sign and we have eyes on it. How long until you need us in there?” Solstice asked.

“Hey, let me talk to Shadow,” I heard Stardust say in the distance.

“No, you can talk to her when this is finished dumbass,” Solstice replied.

“But, I need to ask her something!” Stardust complained.

“FINE, just make it quick,” Solstice said irritably.

I heard shuffling sounds for a moment then Stardust’s voice got louder, as he said, “Hey Shadow, how are things going up there?”

“Um…I’m in the middle of sneaking into Wolfsbane’s bedroom right now, using his crazy wife’s terminal to shut down the defense systems here. How do you think things are going?” I replied, almost as irritated with my best friend as Solstice was.

“OH yeah, well I’ll make this quick. I’ve just been meaning to ask you for your help with something for a while now and with everything going on or you running off to the other side of The Wasteland and all that, I haven’t been able to. It’s about Wind Thrasher,” he said, his voice going quiet, almost like he was hoping Solstice wouldn’t overhear him.

“Is now really the right time to be talking about her?” I asked.

“Well probably not, but I’m nervous about bringing this up to your face and normally she’s with you or me and I can’t ask this without her overhearing me,” he said.

I sighed. “Stardust, this can wait until I’m not behind enemy lines!”

“C’mon, it’ll only take me a minute. See the thing is, I really like her, and I think it’s more than just like, but…” he started to go on but I cut him off.

“Stardust, I’ll talk to you about this later, but for right now I’ll just say this. If you want to know if Wind Thrasher likes you, then just fucking ask her or tell her how you feel. That’s all you’re getting out of me right now. If you want to talk at length then wait or quit being a pussy and ask her how she feels yourself,” I said.

“But…I mean…how…” he started up again.

“Put Solstice back on now, before I find a way to blast a spell at you through this damned thing,” I said.

“Ok, fine, damn,” he said, then I heard him give the broadcaster back to Solstice.

“Was he really asking you what I think he was?” I heard her say with a snicker in her voice.

“Later Solstice. Missions to complete, remember? I need you two to fly toward The Palisade as soon as you see the doors open. Get in quickly and get set up, we’ll be having a few extra passengers it looks like so I might need both of you to fly whatever we take,” I said.

I could still hear a lot of laughter in her voice as she said, “Can do, and I’m not going to ask why more ponies are coming with you two, but if you expect to have more, then you’ll need to make sure you get a bigger transport. Have Vervain get a TX-152 ready if they have one, if not look for an X-582, their models are marked on the front. We’ll need either one of those ships to get into Stratus and to carry a few ponies.”

“I’ll let her know, just be ready to get hooked up and fly as soon as I get to the hanger. We’re gonna want to leave in a hurry, trust me,” I said.

“Do I want to know why?” she asked.

“Probably not, let’s just say I’m going to give Wolfsbane another reason to hate me,” I said, then cut off the connection before she could ask me anything else. Once that was done, I found the intercommunication device and connected to the hanger bay. “Scribe Holly or Crimson Lance, are you there?”

A moment passed, then I heard Vervains voice, say, “Yes this is Scribe Holly.”

“It’s me Sparkle, can we talk freely?” I asked.

“It’s just Crimson Lance and me here, you’re good to talk,” she replied.

“Okay good, I shut down the systems so you should be safe to open the doors for Solstice and Stardust. Solstice said to look for an X-582 or a TX-152 since we are going to have a few more ponies than planned. Are either one of those down there?” I asked.

“Yes there’s an X-582 here and a TX-152, but the TX-152 has a hole in the back and more damage in the front, so we’ll have to get the former ready. How long until Dahlia and you are down here?” she asked.

“Dahlia is on her way, she’s getting a few things and the doctor guy. I’m finishing up stuff on my end then, I’m gonna rush down there and we’ll have to leave ASAP,” I said.

“What are you planning?” she asked, knowing me all too well.

I couldn’t help the large smile that came to my face even though Vervain couldn’t see it. “Something big, but don’t worry. I’m not going to get anypony hurt…I hope.”

“YOU HOPE!? Young lady, whatever your planning, just stop and get down here. You know we’re here for the ship and that’s it. If you have some half-baked scheme to take down Wolfsbane then just forget it,” Vervain said angrily.

I rolled my eyes. “Auntie Vervain, I’m not doing that. Though if I could kill him I would. No, I’m just making sure that while we’re up in Stratus, New Pegasus will be safe from The Steel Rangers. Just trust me, I’ll be down there soon.”

There was a long pause before Vervain finally said, “Fine, I trust you, but please be careful.”

“I’m always careful, I’m just not always lucky. So, wish me more luck than normal and everything should be fine. See you soon,” I said, and cut off the connection.

Once I was done with that, I went back into the other systems and started setting up my plan. I was amazed at what I was seeing on this terminal, it was hard to believe that Elder Wolfsbane or his nutcase wife could be so stupid to leave what they did on this thing and to have it only routed through their terminals. Shaking my head, I was just about to finish up when the door to Wolfsbane’s Room opened.

I twisted around and watched a tall rail-thin unicorn with a slate grey coat, a short pink mane, and bright blue eyes walk in, her gaze falling on me. A frown came to her lips, and she said, “What are you doing in my room scribe?”

“Um…I was told to come up here and…” I started to say but she cut me off.

“I never gave any orders for a filly to come up to mine and my husbands room and touch our terminal. Who are you and how did you get into The Palisade?” she asked demandingly. As she spoke, I remembered her now, the mare who threw us off this very ship when Box Tape died. This had to be Hacker, Wolfsbane’s wife and head scribe of the Los Alicorn Steel Rangers.

I knew our time was up and I was utterly screwed…or was I? An idea came to me and I smiled, standing as tall as my short stature would allow. Still my horn didn’t even come up to her chin. “Guess I look a little different from the last time you saw me…Hacker is it? Sorry, when you threw my friends and I off this junky ship, we didn’t get a moment to make introductions. So, I’ll start. Hello, my name is Shadow Star, also known as The Courier. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you but I’m afraid that would be too much of a lie, even for me.”

Her eyes widened a little as she looked me over. “Interesting, I’d love to find out what kind of tech you used to make yourself look so different. I can tell that your coat and mane aren’t just dyed, and you don’t seem to have contacts in your eyes. I’ve never heard of anything like it before. Still, I want to know how you got onto this ship?”

“I’m The Courier, I’m good at finding myself in places I shouldn’t be,” I said.

“Indeed,” Hacker said, still not moving toward me or sounding any alarms. However I did see a bit of shadows starting to flow out of her horn. So, it was true, she could use magic like my uncle. “I see you don’t have your Mark II on you, good idea taking it off, makes it a lot easier to blend in I take it. Where is it?”

I grinned. “Up a dead mule’s ass, wanna go looking for it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Children annoy me, you think you know everything but you’re wrong. Shadow, right? Yes, that’s right, Shadow. I’ll only give you one chance to tell me where the Mark II is, and I’ll even let you sneak out of here alive. If you don’t, or you make another wisecrack, I’ll slice you into a billion little pieces.”

I saw the shadows around her horn thicken and I knew I couldn’t piss her off anymore. So, I sighed, then reached into my saddle bags and pulled out the Silver and Red Pip-Buck. “It’s right here.”

“Good, now give it to me and you can walk away,” she said.

“I thought Wolfsbane wanted me dead,” I said.

“He does, but I’m not my husband. You chose a good time to sneak in you know, he just left The Palisade with most of his Steel Rangers a few minutes ago. He’s going down to plan his attack on New Pegasus in a few days. He’ll never know you were here. As for me, I don’t see any reason to bother with you. You’re not a treat to me or my master. We just want that Pip-Buck, we don’t need you,” she said.

“I don’t trust you,” I said.

“Too bad, because…you know what I don’t know why I’m bothering,” her horn glowed as more shadows formed around it.

I grinned then threw the Pip-Buck past her and out the door where it rolled down the hall. “You want it? Go fetch.”

She gave me one last glare, then ran for it. I turned back toward the terminal again and entered the last key stroke I needed to activate my plan. Then I pulled a revolver out of my saddle bags and blasted the terminal. The screen burst right as an alarm started to blare across the entire ship. I saw Hacker turn toward me, the Pip-Buck in her magical grip, her eyes narrowing as a robotic voice said over the loud speaker.

‘Warning…warning, self-destruct sequence has been initiated. All Rangers should evacuate immediately. You have ten minutes before self-destruct.’

“You little bitch!” Hacker said, starting to walk toward me.

I pulled on my own magic, letting light shine on my horn. “Good note for you, never turn your back on The Courier, and fuck you very much,” then I blasted her with my expulsion spell. Her eyes went wide for a moment before the blast slammed into her, throwing her down the hall and into the barracks. She still held onto the Pip-Buck, but I didn’t have time to get it. I ran for it, heading down the hall, then back toward the stairs that would lead me down to the hanger. A laugh escaping my lips as I heard the raging scream of Hacker.

“I’ll get you back for this Courier, mark my WORDS!” I heard her scream, then I was too far way to hear anything at all.

Laughing more, I kept on running, dodging panicking Rangers who were trying to make it to the Vertibucks to escape the now doomed airship. The weapon of war that Wolfsbane wanted to use to destroy another one of my homes. When I’d seen the self-destruct option on the terminal, I was shocked they’d leave something like that as an option on this thing. Oh well, their stupidity is my opportunity.

I didn’t have any trouble with any of the Rangers as I ran. I looked like a different mare right now and I was in a scribe’s uniform, it was perfect. It only took me a few minutes to reach the hanger. When I did, I was shocked at the ponies I found who were starting to enter the larger Enclave transport ship. At least ten others were getting aboard and that wasn’t counting my friends. It only took me a moment to see Stardust hooking up the front of the airship while Solstice helped him. Vervain was next to them talking with Crimson Lance and Dahlia along with a stallion in a white lab coat.

Running over to them, I said, “Are we ready to go?”

Vervain’s angry face fell on mine. “We will be in a minute. Now tell me what the hell you just did!”

I shrugged. “Took care of a problem, don’t bother yelling at me now, we only have…”

I was cut off as the voice came over the intercom again, “Three minutes until self-destruct.”

“Good point,” Vervain said with a huff, then she yelled, “Everypony get into the ship and strap in. We don’t have time to dick around, this place is gonna blow.”

“Shadow, are you sure this is a good idea? You know Wolfsbane is gonna come after you harder now that you’ve broken his favorite toy,” Solstice said once she finished with helping Stardust.

“He’ll be distracted for a while thanks to the toy I left with his wife,” I said with a laugh as Dahlia and Crimson Lance walked past me quickly to get into the airship.

Stardust looked over at me as Solstice started to hook herself up to the ship, “What did you do? I mean apart from destroying this thing.”

“Gave Hacker a fake Mark II. She’s gonna be so pissed when she finds out what she has is nothing but a Stable 28 Pip-Buck with some paint on it,” I said with a laugh, “Now let’s get out of here, we can talk once we’re on the ground.”

“Sounds good,” he said, then turned toward the open hanger door, “Ready to go Solstice?”

“Yeah, now Shadow and Vervain, hurry up and get in!” Solstice said as she finished clipping herself to the airship.

“Right,” I said, then went to the back and pushed my way past Steel Rangers who were against Wolfsbane, the dude in the lab coat, Crimson Lance, and finally sat next to Dahlia with Vervain following. Once we were in, one of the Rangers shut the door and I yelled, “Okay you two, let’s get the hell off of this thing. Getting blown up isn’t on my bucket list. Well, not yet anyway.”

With a blast of air, their wings came down and the air ship lifted into the air with a slight hum coming from the flight generators in the ship. With another flap we were heading out of The Palisade and into the open air. There was a window next to where I sat and from it, I could see the large airship as we pulled away. Vertibucks were flying away from it and to the other side of the large compound. Ponies on the ground were screaming and running away from under the hovering ship as the clock slowly ran down.

“Why did you set off the self-destruct?” Vervain asked as we got further and further away.

I didn’t answer. I was watching, knowing that once again, I might’ve put more innocent ponies in danger all so I could save the ponies I cared about. I know that not all Steel Rangers are bad, but they worked with that idiot Wolfsbane and his wife. I’d do it all over again, just to slow those two down. Even with that, I wouldn’t look away from the things I’ve done. It only took another moment then with a flash of light and a following boom. The Palisade exploded. My eyes widened as I saw how powerful the blast ended up being. The blast took out part of the Applewood sign, three Vertibucks, and part of the building under the large ship. Then the ship came crashing down destroying more and more as it exploded again once it hit the ground. Fires started to spread across the city-like compound, ponies died, others screamed, and with a single key stroke on a terminal. The Los Alicorn Steel Rangers were dealt a critical hit.

I looked back finally and let my eyes fall on Vervain, then Dahlia who looked scared as explosions echoed through the windows of our ship, then to Crimson Lance who looked angry, then said, “I did it to protect my home. If you don’t like it, then I don’t really care. You can get off my airship when we land and if you want to deal with me then, feel free, but I’m not gonna say I’m sorry for putting a stop to the monsters who wanted to kill my family and friends, or my home.”

Then I turned and ignored them all as we flew on and back toward Los Alicorn. I watched the destruction I’d wrought; it was becoming a standard for me I realized. When something was too big to deal with, destroy it all. Unlike Appleton or Mill City Tower, this time I didn’t feel a shred of guilt for my actions. True, some of the Steel Rangers down there weren’t bad, some of them might even have helped us take down Wolfsbane, but they were few, and honestly, they didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I’m done letting the ones I care for be in danger just because I was worried about hurting a few innocents.

Nopony said anything as we flew on, heading toward the meeting point where we’d drop off the passengers and Vervain with Dahlia and Crimson Lance. It wasn’t far from the place where Mom died, close to a Ministry entry point. I could just make the spot out as we flew on, then I felt Vervain touch my shoulder. I turned to ask her what she wanted only to find her holding my Mark II. She had a sad smile on her face as she said, “You’re going to need this again.”

Slowly I took it with my magic then slipped it onto my foreleg. I clicked the latch closed and watched as it vanished, melding with my foreleg once again. I watched as the activation screen went through its system checks, saying, “Thank you Auntie Vervain.”

“I may not agree with what you did, but I know what you were thinking. I’m not going to judge you for it, but I do want you to at least try to stop yourself from going further into that dark place your stuck in,” she said.

I ignored her watching as the screen came up on the Mark II,

Welcome Shadow Star, your Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II SB is now reactivated to your original settings. Due to removal your passcode has been reset to Guardian. Please remember this passcode as it is the only way to remove your Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II. If you have any troubles with your Mark II or need help with removal, please speak with a certified Stable-Tec technician. Thank you!

I looked over at Vervain, asking, “The passcode was changed, why’s that?”

She shrugged. “I know a lot about the Mark IIs, but that part not so much. It could be that it’s a safety feature or it’s just setting itself up to fit your new personality.”

“My old one was Morning Star, and that’s back before I knew my old name,” I said.

“Yes, but the Mark II was around you back when you were still Morning Star. I can’t say why it chooses the codes it does. The only pony who can answer that, has been dead for a long time,” she said, running a hoof over my foreleg, “Now do you understand what I was saying before?”

I slowly let my foreleg fall away from her, saying, “I understand, and honestly Auntie Vervain, I don’t really care. You don’t know what I’ve been through in the past few months, you don’t understand what I have to go through every day just to keep my mind in control. I’m so tired of being the one who has to watch as the ponies I care about die. I’m done being weak, I’m done caring about anypony but the ones I can protect. That’s what I did back there and as I said before, I don’t care what any of you think. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, I just wish I could’ve taken Wolfsbane and his cut-throat bitch of a wife down with that ship.”

She tried to say something to me but right then the transport landed. I got to my hooves and walked out before she could tell me what I’m sure I needed to hear. I wasn’t going to turn back, right now I have a mission to do and that’s to save my dad, then it was off to a new mission. One I haven’t yet told my friends about, but I would once we were on our way to Stratus. When I left the transport, I was met by ten coursers and White Oak.

She looked behind me and frowned. “You took a few ponies with you I see. I also saw the destruction of The Palisade, you told me you wouldn’t go after Wolfsbane. What’s going on here Shadow?”

Her voice was calm, but I could see the anger in her eyes. I didn’t care one bit, I just walked right up to her and said, “Don’t worry, your son’s still alive. They were going to attack New Pegasus soon, so I took care of the problem. I really don’t have the time to deal with you or the rest of the bullshit you want to tell me about how foolish I was, because I don’t care. Now as for the ponies with me, they are Steel Rangers who wanted to get away from Wolfsbane. This one right here,” I said, pointing a hoof at Black Dahlia who was coming out of the transport with Crimson Lance and Vervain, “Is Black Dahlia, your contact, oh and Wolfsbane’s daughter. Not sure if you knew that or not.” I then turned toward Black Dahlia and the rest, saying loudly, “Hey everypony, first of all I’d like to thank you for the help you gave me and hopefully will still give me in the future. Let me introduce you to my ally, her name’s Director White Oak of The Ministry and also former senior scribe of The Hidden Sands Steel Rangers, and current senior citizen. Believe me, she’s a lot older than she looks. She’s also Wolfsbane’s thought to be dead mother and Dahlia’s grandmother. So, if you all want to help fix what’s wrong with your mostly destroyed branch of Steel Rangers, you’ll have to deal with her. If not, then go back to Wolfsbane for all I care and go fuck yourselves. I say this because of two reasons. One, if this gives you a bone to pick with me, I’ll destroy you, I promise you that. Two, I just don’t have the time to deal with your shit, I got things to do and ponies to kill.”

Everypony looked shocked by what I just said. Most of all White Oak who hissed into my ear, “What are you doing!? My identity…”

“Yeah, that was supposed to stay a secret, I know. Well guess what White Oak, I’m tired of secrets. Everypony I know has secrets, my mom had them, Vervain had them, my father, you, everypony has them. I’m tired of the lies, of the secrets, and most of all dealing with all of this. So, if you want to get things fixed, and if you want my help in the future then you need to stop hiding and do something. Stop acting like the Steel Rangers and help ponies. Here’s your chance, help them, get to know your granddaughter who risked her life to save me and help us. Right now, I’m leaving. I have my own family to help,” I said, then I walked over to Dahlia, the anger on my face fading as I came up to her.

“Is…she really…White Oak?” she asked.

“Yup, she is, and even though I’m a little angry with her and a few others, she’s not bad. She’ll help you, same for Vervain. You’re family. I think it’s time that your family starts to heal itself. I want to thank you again for what you risked to help me. Also…I’m sorry I destroyed your home, but I hope you understand why I had to do it. If not, and you wanna get revenge on me for it, then at least wait until I help my dad, then we can deal with what I did. Kay?” I said, keeping my voice low as the Rangers around us talked to each other about the fact that Wolfsbane’s mother was still alive.

I could just make out a small tear in one of her eyes, then she nodded, saying, “I’m sure a lot of the Ponies who lived there will be fine. I’m not okay with what you did, but I do understand why you did it. Now you go and save your dad, I’ll see you when you get back, right?”

I shook my head slowly. “Unless you go to New Pegasus with Vervain, you won’t see me again, at least not for a long time. When I’m done up in Stratus, I’ll be heading back home. I have things that I’ve been putting off for too long and I need to deal with them.”

She smiled, then said, “Then I probably will head back with my aunt. I’d like to get to know her better and I want to help you as much as I can.”

“The same goes for me,” Crimson Lance said, “I know there’s problems with the Steel Rangers in Hidden Sands too. Maybe we can do something to help you with that, I have a few contacts there. We’ll stand with you Courier.”

I felt a small smile pull at my lips as I said, “I’d be glad to have it. It’d be good to get some intel from inside the Hidden Sands Rangers. Try to get into contact with a Scribe called Hazel. She’s a friend and I believe she can be trusted. Also, if you head to The Shadow Talon’s base in Freedom, you can find former Star Paladin Sandstorm. He’s another trusted friend, let him know that there’s something else going on with Sapphire, I believe she might not have been wrong killing the former Elder.”

“I’ll make sure your message gets to him,” Crimson said with an even bigger smile, “Safe travels Courier, and good luck.”

“Crimson, call me Shadow,” I said and he nodded so I turned away from them and went back over to White Oak who looked livid pissed.

“Got any more secrets you want to blurt out to the world Shadow?” she asked, her tone angry.

“Loads of them, but I don’t have the time, but I do have the interest. Listen, I’m sorry for saying what I did, but you can’t hide anymore. Anyhow, is everything ready?” I asked.

She took a moment to compose herself, then said, “Aura left with Wind Thrasher and the foals a few hours ago. Stormy was able to get a message to Hailstorm about the updates to the plan and he’ll meet Wind Thrasher near Gravel City. Aura’s going home and setting up the rest of the plan from her end. Also, Stormy told me right before I left that she’s heading to New Pegasus too. Said something about doing her part to help. Didn’t even give me a moment to argue with her about it.”

“That sounds like Stormy, I don’t think anypony can get her to listen. If she has a plan, she’ll see it through till the end if she can,” I said.

“That’s not really true, I think Grim and maybe you, are the only two she’ll listen to. She told me flat-out that she only cares about helping you and The Wasteland now and if I didn’t like it then she’d never come back,” White Oak said with a sigh, “It’s like I’ve lost all control over everypony, but interestingly enough, Wingnut and Byte gave me some very interesting intel before they left.”

One of my eyebrows went up as I said, “What kind of intel?”

“Apparently your friends have been snooping about The Ministry collecting data and intel ever since they arrived. I guess I can’t blame them, it’s hard to trust ponies you don’t know, but the foals came across some information that a few of the ponies under me are planning something. Something that could be bad for you and me,” she said.

“Bad for the both of us…how?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet, all Wingnut would say is that they didn’t have enough time to get everything. Although, he did leave me with enough information to learn the rest on my own. I’ll keep you updated and send you a broadcast when I get back so you have my personal ID, the same secure channel your mother used to use. That way you can get into contact with me at any time if you need,” she said.

“Well, just be safe okay? I know I kind of left you out to dry with the Rangers here, but trust me, it’ll be a good thing in the end,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “I knew one day I’d have to come back from the dead, I just never thought it would be so sudden, but you’re right, it’s time The Ministry stepped up and did something for The Wasteland. Now, get out of here, I’ll be fine.”

I smiled, then walked away heading to Vervain who was talking with a couple of the ponies who came with us. “I have to leave.”

She turned toward me with a sad look on her face. “I wish I could come with you.”

“I know, but trust me I’ll be fine. When you get back to The Ministry, can you make sure Uncle Ori gets well and is able to get back home?” I asked.

A funny look came over her face as she said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him, two if I’m able. He’ll be fine, he’s tough.”

“What he is, is skinny and almost helpless. He’ll try to overexert himself to try to help and I don’t want him doing that,” I said, then hugged her, “I love you Auntie Vervain.”

“I love you too sweetie. Now get going, I’ll see you in New Pegasus,” she said, then let me go, turning toward Dahlia and Crimson Lance.

I took a moment to watch as the Steel Rangers who escaped with us, Dahlia, Crimson, and Vervain went toward White Oak who started giving directions to the group. Then I turned toward Stardust and Solstice who were standing side by side. I always found it funny how similar they looked, and it brought a smile to my face again then I walked over, asking, “So are we ready?”

Stardust hadn’t been disguised like Vervain and I were, but he was in a set of dark black power armor and so was Solstice. Most of his mane was hidden under the helmet. He laughed, saying, “Just waiting on one thing from the clouds then we’re ready.”

“What are we waiting for…” I started to ask. Then out of nowhere, a metal cylinder slammed into the ground a few meters away from us, making me jerk and scream, “What the fuck was that!?”

“Just what we’ve been waiting for,” Solstice said, unhooking herself from the transport and going over to it. She picked it up then pushed a hidden button on the side, which made the strange thing open. From inside she pulled out a strange outfit and three small ruby gems. “An outfit for you Shadow. To fit in with the unicorns in Stratus and the ID tags so we can get around the city with no problems. About time she sent this, I was starting to think she forgot.”

“Your mom did this?” I asked.

“Yep, but now that it’s here, we have to move. A capsule like this being sent down to The Wasteland may cause some of the ponies top-side to get very nervous,” she said, passing me the outfit and the ID.

“But we’re nowhere near Stratus, how’d she get it here?” I asked.

Solstice eyed me with a funny look. “ My mom’s got her ways. Also, The Enclave might not have a city close to here, but they always have patrols. That’s one reason we’re going to have to have the IDs now and a good story when we go up there.”

“What I don’t get is how you two are going to get around without being disguised like me,” I said.

“Oh, trust me, we will be just after we get going. Stormy gave us something that will help keep us hidden, but for now, the armor will do. Now get back into the transport, we have a Council pony to save,” Solstice said, running back to Stardust.

I waited a moment as Solstice talked with him, then he also unhooked from the transport, then came over toward me. When he was close, I asked, “What’s going on? I thought you both were pulling the transport?”

He laughed, lifting the visor of his power armor so I could see his bright pink eyes, “With less ponies in the transport, it only takes one pegasus to pull it. So, I’m gonna ride with you. The story is that you’re a researcher for a company called Cloud Rider Industries that was down on the surface collecting data. I’m going to be your guard. Pretty cool right?”

I just shrugged and started heading back into the transport. “If Solstice says that will work then fine with me,” I climbed into the back followed by Stardust who closed the door behind himself, “So once we get above the clouds, am I going to have to remove my Mark II again?”

He shook his head. “No, Stormy didn’t have this little trick ready yet when you left, but now it’s good to go. Let me see your foreleg.”

I held out my foreleg with the Mark II. “What are you talking about?”

He grinned, then stuck a small disk on the underside of my Mark II. It was the size of a bottlecap with a speck of green that looked like a small gem in the center. The thing flashed green then vanished as the color of my Mark II changed. It went from a silvery white with red accents on it to looking like a worn-out, normal Pip-Buck.

“Cool huh?” Stardust said with a laugh, “Stormy said that a few unicorns and pegasi up in Stratus have Pip-Bucks, so it’s not too uncommon. With this little doohickey, it’ll mask the strange look of your Mark II and make it look like an old normal one.”

I pulled my hoof back, looking at it in amazement. “Is there anything Stormy can’t invent?”

“We’re taking off, so buckle up!” Solstice shouted.

We both did, then a moment later the transport blasted into the sky. Solstice turned us around and we started heading back east, toward New Pegasus. Only now we were climbing slowly higher toward the grey cloud-cover. Once we were stable in the air, Stardust said, “I asked Stormy the same thing, and she told me, ‘The only thing I can’t invent is true friendship.’ Then she walked away. Weird if you ask me.”

I felt a stab in my new heart at that, but I smiled. “Yeah she is, but at least she’s on our side.”

“Yeah,” Stardust said, sitting back, looking a little uncomfortable, “Damn I forgot how much I hate power armor.”

“Where did you get that anyway?” I asked.

“White Oak had a set laying around in storage. No idea where she got it, but it fits nice enough. It’s an old model but still should pass for a good set to any in The Enclave. I just hate it because it slows me down and it’s like being trapped in a tin can.”

“I’m jealous, I’ve always kinda wanted to see what it was like to wear a set of power armor. From what I’ve learned, there isn’t power armor for unicorns,” I said.

“You know I heard something once about The Ministry of Arcane Sciences working on some for the unicorns, but I’m not sure if they ever completed it. Something about power armor messes with unicorn spells or something. Why would you need it anyway? You’re amazing without being trapped in a suit of metal and computer chips,” Stardust said.

“I’ve been hurt so many times since I left Stable 28 that it would be nice to have something more than my normal armor to protect me,” I said with a sigh, “Well, everypony has to have a dream I guess. Even if there was a set of armor out there a unicorn could use, I wouldn’t even know how to operate it.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as the clouds started to surround us with Solstice climbing higher. Then Stardust said, “If you ever want to learn how to use it, I can teach you. I mean you won’t be able to use the helmet, but it still works well enough without it, especially if you have a Pip-Buck.”

“Wait…really?” I asked.

“Yeah, so if you really want to learn how it works, I’ll teach you. Just say the word,” he said.

I smiled at him. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“A deal? Wait, you mean I could’ve asked for something in return!? Dammit!” he said in a joking manner.

I laughed then moved to sit next to him laying my head on his shoulder as we slowly got even higher and my ears started to pop. “Yeah, but it’s too late now, the deal has been struck. You’ll teach me how to use power armor for nothing more than being a nice friend.”

I felt him pull me closer to give me a hug. I smiled as I looked out the windows across from us. Then I said quietly, “I love you Stardust, I hope you know that. You’re my best friend and the first one I made when I escaped my stable. We’ve been through a lot together, and I couldn’t have made it this far without you. So, thank you, for being there no matter what.”

“I wasn’t always there, I did try to kill you a few times, and almost did kill Aura,” he said, sounding sad.

“I forgive you for that, I know it wasn’t you and we got you back. Now, let’s watch what happens next and see if we can keep this crazy adventure going,” I said.

I felt his foreleg tighten around me as he said, “I love you too Shadow, and even with Hailstorm kind of back, you’re still my best friend. Through thick and thin, we can do anything we set out minds to.”

“If you two are done being weirdos back there, you should watch the sky. If I’m not mistaken, this will be the first time either of you have truly seen a Sunrise,” Solstice said.

The two of us looked back out the windows right as the transport lifted above the cloud layer. Our eyes were met with one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life. An orange, brilliant orb, was just coming over the horizon. It painted the clouds purple and pink with other similar colors mixed in as it slowly took its place in the heavens. The warmth of it was unlike anything I could remember feeling in my life. As I took in a deep breath of wonder and shock, it felt like life itself was being pushed into my body. I felt a tear fall down my face as I witnessed the utter beauty of the moment.

“It’s…breathtaking,” I said.

“Yeah…it sure is, makes me feel like something’s been missing from my life and now I finally found it,” Stardust said.

I smiled and took in another deep breath of air, again it felt like life itself flowed into my body. I let it out slowly then said, “Let’s go save Stratus…and The Wasteland.”

“Sounds good to me,” Solstice said, and she pumped her wings hard, and we shot forward, toward what could end up being our deaths.

FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!

NEW PERK ADDED!

Tactician: You’re clearly quick on your hooves to come up with a solution when under pressure! With the tactician perk you gain +2 to intelligence while wearing faction clothing behind enemy lines and while in [caution].

Chapter 68: On Top of the World

“What’s your name again? Cause I’m pretty sure right now it’s Smartmouth.”

The trip above the clouds was one of the most breathtaking things I’ve ever experienced during my time in The Wasteland up to this point of my life. True, I’d seen the sun in memory orbs and had a couple of glimpses of it when I was young and still lived in The Crystal Empire. However, in my old home, the Equus-bound ponies weren’t allowed more than that. This was the first time I’d gotten more than just a taste of the sun. Even hours later when we were growing closer to our destination, I still kept looking out the window and marveling at the beauty the sun left upon the clouds below. Even better was the beautiful warmth it gave off. I was used to heat living the past few weeks in New Pegasus, but it was just that, heat. What I was feeling now was pleasant warmth from the heavenly body. It brought joy and peace for the small time we had flying toward Stratus.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to enjoy the whole trip just watching the sun and the clouds. We had planning to do. Solstice, Stardust, and I all went over every part of what we’d be doing when we got into Stratus. We went over everything we could think of that could go wrong and how to either avoid those things from happening, or how to escape them if they did. The most important thing right now was getting into the city and making it to Solstice’s home. Luckily for us, her parents’ house was located about a kilometer from one of the smaller skyports. Even better that port was on the northwest side of Stratus. It was mostly used for rich ponies, like Solstice’s parents, or private transports to dock on. Apparently, Stratus and Nimbus were one of the few cities in the Enclave that had free travel between them so both cities had multiple docks all over their borders. With our fake ID’s and the fake log updates Fairy Glitter had added to the roster for the dock we were going to, we should be able to at least get into the city.

Seven hours after we left Los Alicorn, I finally got my first ever glimpse of my father’s city. Solstice started to slow us down, banking slightly north as she said, “Okay you two be ready for anything. If you both look out the window you should be able to see Stratus now. Soon we might have to have our stories ready for Enclave patrols. I’m sure there’s a lot of them right now with the sudden takeover by Winter Frost.”

Neither Stardust nor I answered Solstice, the two of us had our eyes glued on one of the biggest Enclave cities ever to be built. It was hard to believe what my eyes were seeing, how in the Goddesses name did the Pegasi build anything this massive…on clouds? In the distance I saw tall buildings jutting up out of the clouds reaching higher than anything should be able to on such a fluffy surface. I’d call the tall buildings skyscrapers if they weren’t already high in the sky as it was. Truthfully they weren’t quite as tall as the buildings in Los Alicorn or Whinnieapolis, the tallest one which sat directly in the center of the massive city was probably only fifteen maybe twenty stories tall. Most of the buildings around that one were a few stories shorter. But in a good five kilometer or so ring at the city’s center, sat at least fifty tall buildings. We were coming in from the west and just past the tall buildings which I’d learned from Solstice later was called the City Center. There were large homes, each one looking like it cost millions of ‘Bits’ as Solstice called the Enclaves currency.

They all were on a set of clouds lifted higher than the rest, giving the residents of those homes a beautiful view of the city. Some homes had little waterfalls flowing down them, others had huge yards or small landing pads on them. The one thing they all had in common was that each one had a large fence with a gate around each property. On the south side of the city the houses got smaller and dirtier from what I could make out of them. Going around to the east, where I could barely make them out, I saw workshops and factories, three of which were pouring out clouds that teams of Pegasi were moving away from the city toward warehouses. To the north just past the rich homes I saw a huge military base that rivaled the size of Spitfire’s Flight Academy. On the largest runway I saw a monster of an airship.

“Solstice, what is that thing?” I asked.

She looked toward the overly huge airship. The thing was so big The Palisade could’ve probably fit inside it. She took a long moment before she said, “That’s a Thunderhead. They’re the biggest and most powerful Enclave airships, and before you ask, the smaller yet also still dangerous looking ones around it are Raptors. You might remember those from when Captain Strife came after us.”

“How many of those ships do that Enclave have?” Stardust asked, sounding just as amazed as I was.

“Not many, I’m surprised Neighvarro let that one out of their sight. That’s none other than The New Moon. It’s one of the oldest and most well equipped for war airships they have,” she said as she started to turn us toward where a few other transports were heading.

“The New Moon? That’s an odd name for a ship,” I said.

“Not when it used to belong to General Night Stalker, before he was an Enclave leader. Before you ask me about the thing, please don’t, I don’t know much more than that, my mom can tell you more,” she said as we flew in behind a smaller transport flying into a small landing bay.

I looked back to where the Thunderhead was and felt a strange connection to the large airship. Strange, still it didn’t matter much, right now I needed to ready myself for what would come next. I was right too, because as soon as we landed on an available platform, three Enclave guards in pitch black power armor approached our transport.

The lead stallion went over to Solstice first, asking, “What brings you to Stratus?”

“We’re just returning from a ground mission, my employer sent one of her younger scientist unicorns down to the surface to gather research materials,” Solstice said, keeping her helmet on with the visor down.

“Shadow, I mean Sparkle, make sure you have your cloud walking spell active. Remember, Solstice told us that everything built up here is made from clouds even if it doesn’t look like it,” Stardust hissed.

He was right, so I pulled on my magic and cast the cloud walker spell as the Stallion continued saying to Solstice, “I wasn’t told that anypony was sent down to the surface recently. The city is under martial law right now miss…”

“Cotton Sky, I’m a guard working with Skyway Industries,” Solstice said.

“Ah, Miss Sky, like I said we weren’t told any ponies were sent down to the surface recently. Do you have anything showing that you are from Stratus and have permission to enter the city?” he asked.

Solstice pulled out her ID and showed it to the guard who scanned it with something on his power armor. As he did, she said, “You can contact Supple Wind if you want. She’s my direct supervisor, she’ll confirm we were on a week-long mission and not here before the martial law was implemented. She was able to let me know what’s changed while we were gone and said we should return.”

He looked toward one of the others with him then said, “Check with Supple Wind while I check on what’s inside the transport.”

“Yes sir,” Another stallion said, taking to the air and flying toward what could only be a small guard shack just off the main platforms.

Looking back at Solstice the first stallion said, “We’ll verify your story. In the meantime, I’ll need to check the identifications of every pony in the transport and any materials you brought back with you.”

“No materials sadly, we got attacked by some Fiends a day or so ago and lost everything including two of our unicorns and one pegasus. We barely made it out,” Solstice said.

The Stallion cursed, but it sounded sad more than angry. “Damned Wastelanders, can’t even send a peaceful team down there anymore without them attacking, and for what? It’s not like we use the same form of currency as they do and nine times out of ten, we kill all of them. You’d think they’d know not to mess with The Grand Pegasus Enclave. What a waste of perfectly good citizens.”

“I agree,” Solstice said, also putting a sad note to her voice, “If you want, you can check on the transport.”

“Yes, I’ll get right on that,” he said then looked at the other stallion with him, “Did you check the ID number on this transport?”

The last stallion had a high young sounding voice that was slightly irritating to listen to as he responded, saying, “Yes sir, it checks out, shows that it belongs to an Intel officer named Fairy Glitter. She has it listed as being loaned to Skyway Industries at the moment.”

“Well at least that checks out. Hmm Fairy Glitter, isn’t that Commander Cascade’s wife?” The first stallion said.

“I believe so,” the whiny stallion said.

I was worried that something was about to happen, the way he said it made it seem as if either one of Solstice’s parents being the owners of this airship could blow our cover. My worry was short-lived as the first guard said, “Ah yes, he was my instructor in boot camp back in the day,” he then looked over at Solstice, “You ever met the Commander before Miss Sky?”

“Can’t say that I have, I’m just a poor mare trying to make a living,” she responded.

“Ah yes, should’ve realized that, well let me get this check finished then you should be free to head into the city,” he said, heading to the back of the transport. As he did, Stardust opened the ramp that led out then slowly stepped onto the platform.

“Good day sir, I hope your morning’s going well,” Stardust said with a friendly smile on this face. He too was still wearing his helmet with the visor down as he greeted the guard.

I followed, my first step on to the tarmac looking surface was scary, until I felt the magic around my body take hold and my hoof landed on the cloud that looked too much like solid ground as if it was exactly what it looked like. I let out a soft breath, then went to stand by Stardust as the guard looked us both over. Finally, he asked, “Can I get your ID’s and names please?”

I held mine out, saying, “Sparkle’s my name, I’m a researcher for Skyway Industries, this is my bodyguard.”

“Names Ace, nice to meet you,” Stardust said in a cheerful tone.

He scanned the ID’s, then said, “Yes, yes it’s nice to meet you two as well, and I can’t complain about my day too much. Been slow for the most part with the lockdown and all. I’m sorry to hear that you all lost ponies while you were down with the dirt ponies. Bunch of savages.”

Throwing a tone of anger to his voice Stardust replied, “Damn right, we lost good ponies to those savages. Good to be home though, I think I’ll take a good long break before going out on a mission like that again.”

“I don’t see why any pegasus in his right mind would ever go down to that disgusting wasteland. Much safer and cleaner up here I say, you three are brave for doing such a job,” he said.

“Gotta pay the bills somehow, work is work right?” Stardust said.

“Too true,” the guard replied before walking past us and into the transport. He took a few minutes to check it for anything that could be dangerous then returned, “Everything looks good here, once I hear back from Desert Wind, then you can all be on your way. Although you’ll need to leave your transport here, new rules state that no transportation craft can be flying over the skies of Stratus at this time, not until the execution.”

I felt my heat nearly stop at those words and I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What…what execution?”

“Sad story that, the first pony is a Stallion who was part of The Seven Sins of Equinity at one point, but was found working with an Enclave enemy. The second one is none other than our former High Council Pony Nightshade. They just finished the trial this morning and his execution is set for noon in two days. The new council just told the public an hour or so before you got back,” he said.

“What did he do that was so bad that it warrants execution?” Stardust asked.

“They wouldn’t say, only that he is a traitor to The Enclave and all pegasi. It’s too bad, he was well loved by the ponies of Stratus as I’m sure you three know,” the guard said.

I had to work hard to hold back the mixture of rage and sadness I was feeling. After a moment I was able to say, “Yes, he was, it’s too bad we’ll all lose such a capable leader.”

Before he could respond, the pegasus who’d flown off to the guard shack returned, “Sergeant Everwind, I heard back from Supple Wind, she says that she’s been waiting for them to get back and to let them into the city.”

The first guard nodded, then said, “Thank you Desert Wind, you may get back to duty.”

“Yes Sargent,” Desert Wind said, then flew off.

Everwind waited a moment then looked back at the three of us, his body seeming to relax a little as he moved closer to Solstice, Stardust, and I, “Now that they’re gone listen closely Solstice, your father is waiting for you at Heaven’s Portal, he’ll escort the three of you to your house. Make sure you two get your disguises on before you take off your power armor. You have an hour to get to Heaven’s Portal before your father comes looking for you. He said he’ll put a hoof in all of your asses if he has to do that.”

Stardust’s eyes and mine went wide as he started to call Solstice by her name. That was until I saw Solstice’s face relax, then smile. After he finished, she said quietly, “Thank you Everwind, I’m glad you were on duty today and not your brother. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it was him. You both know me too well.”

He chuckled. “Your mother made sure I was on duty today just for that reason, but remember, others in town will know it’s you even with the power armor, so be quick. You can get whatever you’re using to hide who you are on in the restrooms just off the platforms. Now get going, before the others start to wonder why I’m taking so long talking to three citizens.”

Solstice moved close and kissed his cheek saying, “Thank you again and tell your wife I said hello and same to your filly. I miss foalsitting her.”

He chuckled. “She misses you too, now go,” And with that he took off to start checking in with another transport ship coming in to land.

Solstice led us off the platform and toward a small building. As she waked, I asked, “You know that buck?”

“Yes, now be quiet, don’t say anything else until we get inside,” she said then looked at Stardust, “You got what you need right?”

“Sure do,” he said, then he turned and headed into the ‘Stallions’ side of the small building which I saw now was a public restroom.

I followed Solstice until I saw the bathrooms were single occupant only, “I guess I’ll wait out here.”

“Don’t worry about it, I might need your help with this anyway just don’t let anypony see you follow me in,” she said, pushing the door open.

Shrugging I went in too and Solstice shut the door behind us then locked it. I was expecting the bathroom to be nasty seeing how it was a public bathroom, but I was surprised at how clean it was. Say what you want about The Enclave, they were a clean race of ponies. Solstice opened her power armor after pulling off her helmet then stepped out of it with a sigh. I took the Helmet from her as she stepped out asking, “So what do you need help with?”

“Damn I hate being in my armor for that long,” she said, shaking her head back and forth to get her mane to fluff out a little after being stuck up under her helmet for so long, “As for the help, I just need you to help me do up my mane in a different kind of style. I’m assuming you know how to work on manes. I hope so because I have no clue how. I’ve always been more into keeping it short and out of the way for work.”

“Yeah, I know how to do that, Milkshake and I used to do each other’s manes all the time as foals,” I said, “Do you have a brush?”

She looked sheepish as she looked away, “No, never really thought about getting one.”

I looked at her pink mane and chuckled a little to myself. I remembered when I first met Solstice, her mane had been shorter almost like mine is now. I guess it made it easier to have a mane like that when you were in the military, but in the past few weeks since she’d been kicked out of her home and been on the run with first my dad, then me, she hadn’t had time to cut it again. It was longer now and looking past the sweat and grime from it being tucked away for hours in a helmet, I could see she had a slight wave to it now that it was growing out. Her tail was the same, it was longer now and also had a wave to it. I’d never really taken the time to really look at Solstice. I mean yeah, I’ll admit I’d check out her ass once or twenty times, but that’s different. When she looked up at me as I pulled out one of my brushes and her dark blue eyes met mine, I could see now that she’s a very pretty mare. The pink of her mane and the blue of her eyes mixed with the light grey of her coat all went very well together.

Smiling more, I started to brush out her mane, as I did, I said, “You know, you really are a beautiful mare when you let your mane grow like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not hitting on me are you? I mean I’m flattered and all but come on, I don’t…”

“Shut up,” I said, “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. It’s just that, you always seem ready to jump into a fight all the time. I’ve never really seen you just let yourself be a mare before. Honestly I’m surprised you don’t have stallions hitting on you all the time.”

She let out a long sigh, then said, “I was raised to be a fighter, that’s really all I know how to do. I’ve never let myself just be as you said ‘a mare’ before. I don’t really think about relationships or anything like that because I am always worried about the next fight or battle. Honestly, I’m a little scared of letting myself fall for somepony. I wouldn’t know the first thing of what to do.”

I kept brushing out her mane as I said, “You think I do? Hell, I was too scared to admit I liked Aura until it was almost too late. I spent three years in my stable with feelings for Milkshake and couldn’t tell her because I was scared, that’s just the way life is sometimes. You can’t let fear control you like that, if you like somepony then tell them, or if not, then at least try and let yourself be yourself. Don’t always hide behind your warrior mask and just let Solstice out for a while.”

She chuckled at that. “Well, I haven’t really found a stallion I’ve liked in a while.”

“What about that stallion I taped you to back at Halo One?” I asked.

She growled a little at the memory of that night. It was the last time I’d seen her before she was banished from Stratus and started helping my dad. After a moment passed, she said, “First of all, that was still a dick move. You have no idea what it was like for me when I was found with an underling in that position. Second, I didn’t like him at all, I just wanted to get laid. He’s a weak, pathetic, buck that would do what I told him to and wouldn’t tell anypony, that’s it.”

I chuckled then put my brush down and started to pull out my old mane ties and started to do a complex braid to her mane. “It wasn’t nice I know, but you also would’ve killed me if I didn’t do it. We weren’t friends yet back then and, in all honesty, it was hilarious.”

“Maybe to you it was!” she said with a huff, then she started laughing, “Though I guess if it was me who was doing to another pony who hated me, I’d have done the same thing.”

I finished up with her mane then smiled at my work. “Well, I’m done with your mane, now what are you going to do to hide who you are?”

She took a moment and looked at herself in the mirror, I could tell that she was about to say something condescending about my work. Mostly because I know Solstice well enough by now to understand that she loves to rip on ponies just for the fun of it. That was until she caught a full view of herself in the mirror. Her eyes went wide as she took in the simple mane-style I had given her. I won’t go into full detail about what I did, but it was a style I’d seen in an old book of a mare who modeled before the war in Prance. Before I had started Solstice’s mane went down to just past her shoulders and was a mess. Now it was simple yet elegant at the same time. It made her look her own age for once and captured her natural beauty. For a split second I saw a tear form in her eyes then she blinked them away and took in a few deep breaths.

“Thank you, Shadow, I can’t believe how good this looks,” then she smiled, looking back at me over her shoulder. Then her eyes went up to my mane, even with the color change due to my disguise, it was still on the shorter side and more or less looked like a rat’s nest. “If you’re this good with manes, then why does yours look so crappy?”

I rolled my eyes. “Hey, I’m good at fixing other ponies’ manes, but when it comes to my own, I never was really good with it. That’s another reason I kept it in my braid all the time.”

As I spoke, I used the brush to at least get my mane under some control, so the ponies in Stratus wouldn’t think I was some nut job. As I did that, Solstice said, “That’s weird, but oh well, anyway this is what I’m using to fix what I look like, it won’t last as long as what Stormy did with you and Vervain, but it can be reused.”

As she said this, she pulled out a large ruby that had a deep glow inside of it. She brought it up to her mane and in a quick flash, her mane changed from pink to a reddish brown, she then touched her chest with it and her coat changed to a light greenish blue. Next, she did her eyes which turned silver, last was her cutie mark which became a few falling leaves, the same color as her mane.

“Damn, that’s cool, how did Stormy come up with that?” I asked.

“She said it’s a spell she invented a few years back, she put it in a gem and the spell is set to change different parts of my body to look different. It lasts for a few hours at a time and like I said can be reused,” she said, putting the gem back into her bag.

“That’s very useful,” I said as I put my brush away now that my mane was more or less tamed.

“It can be, but she also said that the spell can be broken if I overwork my body. So, if we get into a fight or anything that overtaxes my body, the spell will fail,” Solstice said.

“Well now that you’re done, should we go check on Stardust?” I asked.

“Yeah, hopefully he didn’t mess up using his gem. When Stormy tried to teach him how to use it he kept on doing it wrong. It has to be done in order, mane, coat, eyes, then cutie mark,” she said as she headed toward the door.

Right before she opened it, somepony knocked on it hard and a mare’s voice called out with authority, saying, “This is the Stratus Guard, only one pony at a time is allowed in the bathrooms. Come out now!”

“Shit,” Solstice said, then looked at me, “Follow my lead.”

I nodded as Solstice opened the door and gave the other mare a sheepish grin, “I’m sorry ma’am, my mare friend and I just wanted a private place to be alone.”

The guard looked at Solstice, then me, and said, “I need you two to turn out your saddle bags now. I don’t believe you for one second that you two were…having alone time. I mean who does that in a bathroom?”

“What do you think we have?” I asked.

“Angel Dust! Now turn out your bags!” she ordered.

I knew that I couldn’t do that, if she saw any of the weapons, I had with me hidden in my bags, there’d be a bigger problem. Thankfully, Solstice knew more than I did about how things worked in Stratus, “What reason do you have to force us to turn out our bags?”

“I’m a Stratus MP, I have the authority to have anypony who I think is suspicious turn out their bags or pockets,” she said.

“Under section eight, article two of the civil protection law, you need probable cause to ask anypony to do what you’re asking, you also need some kind of proof of wrongdoing before you can do that. What reason have she or myself have given you for thinking we’re doing something wrong? Apart from being in the bathroom at the same time,” Solstice said.

“Two mares in the same bathroom is reason enough, if you two were really together you wouldn’t need to hide away like that. I believe one of you is a dealer of Angel Dust, maybe something else, and the other is a buyer. I have enough reason to have you turn out your bags,” she argued.

Solstice’s eyes went wide, and she said in a pouty voice, “You don’t believe this is my marefriend? Why wouldn’t you believe me? We’ve been together for a year! That’s like super long! She’s like, my true love and this isn’t fair!” she ended with an offended tone.

If we weren’t in such a serious situation at the moment, I probably would’ve laughed at the way Solstice was acting. The guard backed up a little then shuddered, “I…I don’t see any reason to believe you.”

A moment later another MP flew over, this one was a stallion and looked a few years older than the mare. He looked at us then the mare asking, “Shale Mist, what’s going on here?”

“I caught these two in the public restrooms Captain, I think they’re holding. They tried to give me some story about them wanting alone time, but I know it’s bullshit,” she practically spat the last part at us.

The Captain looked at us asking, “Is private Mist correct?”

I wanted so badly to roll my eyes…or just shoot the annoying mare, but instead I said, “About what? Cotton and I have the day off, we didn’t want ponies watching us while we…you know…made out, so we went into the bathroom. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Yeah, what Sparkle said, also I have family who work around here, and they don’t know about Sparkle yet,” Solstice said.

“If you two had been together for a year like you said, then why wouldn’t you tell your family?” Shale Mist asked.

“Bite me, it’s none of your business,” I spat at her.

She growled, but the Captain put a hoof up. “Okay fine. First of all, you two don’t look like you’re the type to use Angle Dust or any other kind of controlled substance, but my private has a good point, it’s a little weird for you two to be in the bathroom at the same time. Unless you two are doing something wrong or something else I really don’t need to know about, give me a good reason not to have you brought in? Right now, all I see is two young mares telling me a story that’s not easy to swallow. It’s not often that unicorns and pegasi mix.”

Before I could say anything Solstice said, “You don’t believe me? Really? Just because you’re too much of a pegasus-first asshole, doesn’t mean we all are, but if you want to ignore the love I have for this unicorn, then fine, I’ll show you.”

A second later Solstice took my face and pulled it to hers. My eyes went wide as she pressed her lips to mine and kissed me as deeply as I normally kissed Aura. The shock lasted for maybe two milliseconds, then thank the Goddesses my body took over and I kissed her back. First thing that I have to note about this experience…Solstice isn’t a bad kisser, second was that there wasn’t even a bit of feeling there. Yeah, she was pretty n’ all, and before Aura this would’ve been a big turn on to me. Now though, all I could think about was using this as a way to get us out of trouble. However, I still did really enjoy the kiss.

It lasted for a bit longer than I think was necessary, the hoof Solstice slid to my ass and left there was going a bit far. If the two guards weren’t watching us, I probably would’ve hit her. Finally, we broke apart for a second then she give me a peck on the lips again then finished with her little show. With a slightly dazed look to her face and a slight blush she said, “Happy now?”

“She’s faking!” Shale Mist said.

The Captain on the other hoof just shook his head, saying, “Get out of here Private Mist, these two are just trying to find a place to be alone.”

“But sir!” she complained.

“NOW! Do I make myself clear!?” he yelled, making her cower.

She then shot us both a look of utter hatred, then flew away as I said in a mocking tone, “Hater!”

“Thank you sir and I’m sorry if we caused you any trouble,” Solstice said.

The Captain looked at us both, then said, “Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again. As you know, things are changing in Stratus right now and it would be a bad idea if you let yourselves get on the wrong side of the law. I suggest the two of you find your way home or to your jobs whichever you need to be at right now. Also, count yourself lucky that I was in the area, you might not get so lucky next time.”

I nodded. “We’ll head home sir.”

He nodded back, then took off flying up toward a few more MPs who were flying overhead. When he was gone Solstice glared at me, saying quietly, “If you tell anypony I kissed you, I’ll break your horn off.”

I wanted to make a joke about how serious she’d gotten all of a sudden then remembered that Solstice could probably do what she threatened. So instead, I said, “Don’t worry I won’t,” then couldn’t help adding, “Plus if Aura found out, she’d probably rip your wings off…then break your nose…then probably cut out your tongue and shove it up your ass.”

Solstice smiled then started to laugh, “If she was still a griffon maybe, but right now, she’s nowhere near as good of a fighter. I’m sure I’d be fine.”

“We could test that theory,” I teased.

One of her eyes twitched and I saw a bit of worry come to her face. “Nah, I don’t think I really wanna go there. Anyway, where’s Stardust?”

I let her change the subject and looked toward the stallion side of the public restroom. “Probably trying to figure out how to use the stuff Stormy gave him.”

She just sighed. “Let me get my power armor back on then we’ll go check on him.”

“Check on who? Me?” Stardust said from above.

We both jumped then looked up seeing him hovering just over the roof of the restrooms. He gave us both a cocky grin, saying, “So, how do I look?”

His coat was still grey, his mane and eyes however were electric green and the color on the end of his wings which were normally the same color of as his mane now matched his coat. He hadn’t put his power armor back on yet and his Cutie Mark was visible, but that was also different. Now it showed two pegasus wings with a green gem in the middle of them. All in all, he didn’t look half bad, at the same time he also made me think of some kind of punk-rock band member. So, I decided to tell him as much. “You look like a teenager trying to rebel against his parents. I imagine you cry yourself to sleep with the deafening screams coming through your headphones, and wear nothing but black clothes and chains.”

I thought the insult would wipe the smug smile off his face. I was wrong, his goofy smile got ten-times wider as he said, “Awesome! Now let’s DO THIS…LET’S ROCK!” he finished his statement by pumping his hoof into the air.

“Don’t ever do that again, you look like a creepy scene kid trying to overstate whatever situation you’re in,” Solstice said, going back into the restroom and getting into her power armor.

“Awww, I thought it was cool. What’s wrong with scene kids?” Stardust pouted.

“Whatever you say Ace,” I said chuckling to myself as he landed and went to get his own armor.

“I never get to do anything fun. You also didn’t answer my question,” he complained.

Shaking my head, I just checked the time and waited for my friends. It didn’t take long for them both to be ready to go and soon we were off, heading toward Heavens Portal. According to Solstice it was a short trip from where we were. As we walked toward the city and slightly toward the higher end of Stratus, I got to see more and more pegasi. Apart from Dragon Bridge and a few exceptions in Freedom Town, and maybe growing up in The Crystal Empire, I’d never been around so many pegasi in my life. Even growing up in Enclave territory I’d never been up in the clouds before. In my hometown unicorns outnumbered pegasi. Mostly because most Enclave pegasi didn’t want to be on the surface. Even back when I was a filly, I only knew ponies from Nimbus and those pegasi were a little different from the rest of the Enclave. They got along better with unicorns and surface dwellers like my family had been.

To me, Stratus had always sounded like a military base with a city attached. A place where ponies trained to fight and protect. A place where powerful pegasi plotted against the enemies of The Enclave and more. Now that I was finally here, I saw how wrong I was. If I didn’t know that the land below me had been hit by magical radiation two hundred years ago, I wouldn’t have even known how hard life was down there. Mostly because Stratus was the closest thing to a prewar city I’d ever seen. Ponies were dressed in new clothes, they were clean, a lot of them were shopping at stores we passed by or going to a bar. Some pegasi flew by with small carriages brining pegasi around like it was a taxi. There was a park across an intact street, a street that if I hadn’t known better looked like it was really pavement. A freakin’ park, with foals playing on a playground and parents watching them as they enjoyed the sunshine as it came down on their happy faces.

While ponies struggled to survive The Wasteland below the clouds, the ponies up here acted like nothing was wrong. They lived life like it was still prewar Equestria. It made me sick to even think about all of the horrors I’d seen while these pegasi and unicorns lived comfortable lives. For a moment I just stood in one spot looking over at the foals playing in the park. One flew over to a young mare who looked like the filly’s mother and hugged her tight laughing with pure joy. The young mare held her daughter tight to her showing her little filly how much she loved her. As I saw this, I felt the anger melt away. It wasn’t the fault of these ponies that they lived so well. It was the fault of the government itself that kept these ponies in the dark of what was really going on in The Wasteland.

“You okay Sparkle?” I heard Stardust say as he put a hoof on my shoulder.

“Yeah, just got lost in thought that’s all,” I said, turning to look at him and Solstice who were waiting for me to continue on. I gave them both a sad smile. “Let’s get going.”

Solstice started walking again and I followed with Stardust taking up the rear. As we walked, I saw some of the other pegasi giving my two friends strange looks now and then, but nopony said anything so I did my best to ignore them. After five minutes passed and less ponies were around, Solstice finally said, “If you’re wondering why some of the ponies are looking at us strangely, it’s because you don’t see power armored pegasi walking like this. When they do, it’s normally because they’re guarding a high ranked unicorn and you really don’t look the part. Just keep ignoring them, we’re almost there.”

I didn’t respond to her because a crowd of stallions and mares came piling out of a small bar just then laughing as they stumbled. One of the stallions who was wearing a uniform of some kind drunkenly yelled back at the door, “Oh yeah! Well (Belch) we don’t want to drinks at your, stupid…something anyway!” Then he swayed a bit and started to walk off with his friends almost bumping into Solstice.

An older stallion stepped out of the bar just then. He had dark red coat with a silvery grey mane, apart from the top of his head which was bald. His eyes were the color of a setting sun and his cutie mark was six falling missiles. He spat a wad onto the ground which sank through the clouds itself to fall down to Equus then yelled, “OH is that so, you’re lucky I’m waiting for company or I’d kick your ass from here to Nimbus for drinking in your uniform. You’re a disgrace to The Enclave!”

The stallion in the uniform stopped and spun around, then almost fell over as he lost his balance, “Listen here old timer, I’m a corporal in the true Enclave army, I work for Winter Frost and Neighvarro. You’d better show me the proper…”

As the stallion talked, he walked back over to the older bald buck and lifted his hoof like he was going to strike him. I was about to try and help when Solstice stopped me by lifting a wing to block me. Looking up at her, I saw a grin on her face as she said, “Just watch.”

The old buck twisted his head out of the way, ducked under the other stallion’s blow, brought one hoof up to strike the younger one in the gut, then he twisted again and flipped the younger one around to slam him down on his back. However, he wasn’t done, he then flipped his body around wrapping his rear legs around the younger buck’s neck, still holding the hoof he used to flip the young stallion over and stretched it hard. The younger stallion started to gag as his neck was nearly crushed under the pressure the older buck was placing there. Then there was a sickening sound, like a hoof being pulled out of mud before a small ‘Pop’ and the stallion tried to scream in pain. With that, the older buck let the younger one go and got to his hooves as the younger one started to roll around screaming in pain, his one foreleg not moving at all.

“Let that be a lesson to you. Don’t mess with bucks you don’t know, especially when said buck used to be a commander in the Stratus Military,” the old buck said, then he looked over at the young bucks’ friends saying, “Get your friend out of here before I decide to do the same thing to you.”

“My foreleg! What the hell did you do to my foreleg!!!???” the young buck screamed.

“Dislocated it, go see your Sergeant and he’ll help you set it correctly. Now quit whining like a little filly and get the hell out of my sight before I stick my hoof so far up your ass you taste dirty cloud!” the old buck yelled. The others helped their friend up and quickly got away from the angry old buck. Once they were gone the old buck spit again, saying, “Dumbass.”

Once that was all done, the old buck looked over at us. His eyes narrowed a little, that was until Solstice said, “Hey pops, I see you’re having a fun day.”

The grumpy old buck’s face went from slightly annoyed and angry to happy in a split second, “About time you got here, had me worried sick. Now the three of you hurry up and get inside before anypony notices.”

That last part was a little strange. Now at least twenty pegasi were looking toward the bar now due to all of the commotion. Still, I just headed toward the door, following Solstice. Once again Stardust took up the rear. As I walked in, I saw that on the door it said, ‘Heavens Portal’. A second after I walked into the building, what Solstice said hit me. That old buck was her dad!? Shit, now I could see where she got her attack first, ask questions later attitude from.

As soon as the door was shut, the old buck looked back at the three of us, saying, “First of all, you two,” he pointed at Stardust and I, “If you haven’t figured it out by Solstice calling me Pops, I’m her father. My name’s Cascade. Former commander in the Stratus Military. I’m not a nice buck, so don’t start whining about how unfair shit is with this fool hardy mission you’re up here to complete. Second of all,” he looked at Solstice, “Why the hell did you risk your life to come up here just to save the life of one buck? Y’know I love you, but you can be such a dumbass.”

“Two bucks,” I said, not letting his gruff attitude get to me, “One’s your true high council pony, the other risked his life to help me. So, let me say this…” I was unfortunately cut off by Cascade.

“Yeah, Yeah, Nightshade got himself caught finally. Told him he would one day, the idiot. I’m guessing you’re his foal. I take it the apple doesn’t fall far does it? Listen to me filly, you’re planning on breaking into one of the highest-level security buildings in Stratus. Breaking out not just Nightshade, but also a former Sin. I get that you love your dad and all that mushy hippy crap, but I ain’t gonna let you risk my daughter’s life to do it. If you wanna save him, then do it yourself,” Cascade said, his frown deepening.

“Dad, you can’t tell me…” Solstice said, but was also cut off by Cascade.

“Don’t backtalk me Sol, you’re my daughter and you’ll do as I say. Your mother can’t go through loosing another foal again and neither can I. I know you’re headstrong and don’t much like to listen to us, but this one time, don’t be a dumbass and do as your told. Get out of Stratus and go back into hiding. If Winter Frost knows you’re here, you know what he’ll do to you,” his voice shook a little and I could tell that he was holding back a massive amount of emotions.

“Listen here Cascade,” Stardust said, pulling his helmet off and glaring at the old buck, “Fairy Glitter promised us safe passage here and her help with saving our friends. Also, Solstice is a grown mare, and I don’t care who you are, you can’t tell her what to do.”

He glared over at Stardust then something came over Cascade and he looked closer at my friend, “What’s your name again? Cause I’m pretty sure right now it’s Smartmouth.”

Taken aback, he answered, “Stardust, why?”

His eyes widened a little then in a voice I could barely hear Cascade said, “It can’t be…” then in a louder voice he said, “I don’t appreciate being talked back to by a child. As for you, I think you should stay out of this. From what I know, this is her problem, not either of yours,” he finished by pointing a hoof at me.

It wasn’t very often that I saw the soldier side of my friend come out. Normally Stardust was a fun-loving kind of pony, loved to joke around and tease me or others when he could. Although, when he needed to, he could be scary. Right now, was one of those times. His face grew serious, and he took a few steps forward until he was close to Cascade, he was a few centimeters taller than the older buck. Then he growled down at the older buck, “Don’t call me a child, don’t call any of us children. You have no idea what Shadow, Solstice, or I have gone through over the past few weeks, you have no right to tell us what to do. Now I suggest you start helping us figure out a plan on how we’re going to save Thundercracker and Nightshade, or I’m gonna show you why I was the top ranked member of my old stable.”

Cascade didn’t back down, the tough old buck stood a little taller than Stardust and growled back, “Don’t make me kick your ass colt. You might think you’re tough, but you have nothin’ on me. Take that thorny rosebush out of your ass right now, or I will.”

Solstice and I were both frozen in place, not sure what to do to stop this clash of testosterone. Then the door to the back room opened and a mare around Solstice’s height walked out. She had a light grey coat with bright emerald eyes, a matching mane and tail and just like Solstice and oddly enough Stardust, she also had emerald-green wing tips. On her flanks there was a set of translucent wings with sparkly stuff coming off of them for a Cutie Mark. Her eyes were so friendly it almost made me want to hug her for some reason. When she spoke even her voice made it seem like she didn’t have a care in the world. “What’s all the commotion out here Cascade? OH Solstice you’re BACK!”

The mare flew over to Solstice and pulled her into a tight hug. Solstice almost fell over, but managed to keep her balance, as she said, “Hi mom, and as for the noise, well that’s just dad being himself. Y’know, trying to pick fights with everypony in the room.”

The mare who I guessed was Fairy Glitter looked over at Cascade saying, “Cascade, why are you bothering our guests?”

“He’s trying to tell me that saving my dad is hopeless,” I said angrily.

Fairy Glitter let her daughter go as she stomped over to Cascade who now looked a little scared, “Cascade we already went over this, we are helping them save Nightshade and that Sin Greed. Even if Star wasn’t here to save her dad, you should be helping to get him out of that place anyway. He was one of your best friends when you were in the military.”

“I know sweetheart, but Solstice and this moron over here are going to get themselves killed trying to help this filly get her dad back. I can’t allow it,” he said.

“Oh, I see how it is now,” Stardust said, his voice still laced with anger, “You don’t care if our unicorn friend gets killed, just us pegasi. I thought Solstice’s parents wouldn’t be like that, but I guess I was wrong.”

I saw a strange look come over Fairy Glitter’s face when Stardust talked, but she hid it a moment later as she put a hoof up to touch Stardust’s face, before saying, “We are going to help, and no, we aren’t like that Stardust. My husband has his reasons for acting that way and I can explain more later once we get you three back to the house,” then she looked over at Cascade, “I don’t want to hear another word about not helping them Cascade. We’re doing our part and that’s final.”

Cascade’s face fell as he said, “Fine, but I’m making it known now that I’m not in favor of this plan.”

Solstice looked between her parents nervously. “So, why did you want us to meet you at the bar and not at home?”

Fairy Glitter looked over at Solstice, then said, “It’s because we couldn’t risk three strangers showing up at our door. Winter Frost has let most of the normal day to day things stay normal for now, but he’s keeping an eye on known friends or allies of Nightshade. I’ve been friends with Nightshade since we were foals, so our place is being watched all the time.”

“How do you plan on getting us there then?” I asked.

“Easy, we’re just taking a carriage home. Normally I fly wherever I need to go, but last week I got a rumor started that I’d taken ill, and flying has been hard for me. So, I’ve been taking a carriage around Stratus when I need to leave my house,” Fairy Glitter said.

“Is our sky carriage big enough to fit all of us?” Solstice asked, “Last time I was in that thing it was almost too small for the three of us.”

“We aren’t using our carriage, we’re taking a sky taxi,” Cascade said with a huff, “And before you ask, don’t worry about the driver, we always get the same one and he’s a friend.”

“What I want to know is when I can take off this damn power armor,” Stardust complained.

“Aww, is it a little too toasty in there for your candied ass?” Cascade said, “That’s a fine set of armor you have on and you should be proud to have it. That’s genuine Enclave power armor that hasn’t been plundered and tampered with by Wastelanders.”

“Says you, this thing itches and it slows me down,” Stardust said.

“Then I guess whoever trained you did a shitty job. Goddesses forbid an advanced piece of technology is too damn itchy for the pansy using it who was slow to begin with,” Cascade said.

“It was Doorstop who trained him,” I said, irritated, “Y’know, your brother-in-law.”

The look on Cascade’s face was priceless, his eyes went big, and his jaw dropped open before he looked at first me, then his wife, then Stardust. After a moment he went back to looking at his wife as he said, “You told me your brother died. Don’t tell me you knew about this too!”

“Honey, now isn’t not the time, but yes I did knew he was alive. I’ll tell you everything when we’re home. It’s not safe here,” Fairy Glitter said.

“What a load, I wanna know how many more secrets you’ve been hiding from me!” he started to yell.

The two of them started to bicker back and forth. As they did, I walked over to Solstice, asking, “You did know Doorstop was your uncle, right?”

She just shrugged. “Yeah, I knew as soon as I met him. My mom has a picture of him in her room and told me stories about him. We talked about it when we were in The Kingdom after you left.”

“Did he ever explain why he was in Stable 97? The excuse he gave me didn’t make sense,” I asked as Fairy Glitter and Cascade’s argument grew more heated.

Stardust came over too as Solstice said, “He just told me that my mom wanted him to keep somepony safe, but he never said who.”

“You talkin’ about Doorstop?” Stardust asked.

“Yeah, why?” I asked.

“Just wondering, I tried talking to him about why he was in Stable 97 working for his sister for so long, but all he told me was to shut my mouth and get back to work,” Stardust said, then he looked off into the distance, “Which I didn’t understand because at the time I wasn’t doing anything.”

“I think your mother has more secrets than we thought Solstice,” I said.

“That’s my mom for you, she’s always been full of secrets,” Solstice said with a sigh, “Come on, let’s break them up and get back to the house before somepony calls the guards…wouldn’t be the first time.”

With that said, we proceeded to get them to stop their fighting. After tempers were cooled and promises made to explain more later, Cascade went off to call for their taxi friend. It didn’t take long before all of us were shoved into a dark Sky Carriage and we were flying off toward the richest sector of Stratus.

***

The trip only took about ten minutes before we landed on a private landing platform behind the huge house. I was shocked at the size of the place, it had to be nearly as big as The Playpony Mansion was, just less perverted. Hell, this place had its own landing platform that wasn’t even on the outside of the house. The carriage had to fly into a large open door that closed behind him as he landed. How much money did Solstice’s parents have?

I got the answer to my question about two minutes after the sky carriage left. Fairy Glitter saw me looking around the large hanger-like landing platform and toward the open hallway that led into the home itself, and said, “Before you start asking about how rich we are I’ll just say this, very.”

“Shit,” Stardust said, looking around just as amazed as I was, “Being a whatever you are must pay well.”

Fairy Glitter started to laugh, her laugh was…annoying…for lack of a better word even her face screwed up weirdly, almost like she was forcing it out. Still, it worked for her, I guess. Then she said, “I’m the head…well, WAS, the head of The Enclave’s Secret Intelligence Unit also known as the E.S.I.U., and it does pay well. The same goes for the businesses Cascade runs, but most of our money is old family money on my side.”

Cascade cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, she comes from a long line of near nobility in The Enclave much like Shadow does. This house was first built by her distant grandmother, Cloudy Nights.”

Stardust laughed and elbowed the older buck with a wink. “Married into money, good for you old buck.”

Cascade’s eyes went wide with anger, “What’re you on? Dope? Don’t make me kick your ass! I love my wife and didn’t marry her for money or anything like that.”

“I was just having a little fun dude, calm down,” Stardust said, taking a few steps back.

Fairy Glitter just laughed again…okay…yeah, it’s annoying. “Come on inside please and we can talk. I’m sure you want to start working on a plan to save Nightshade and if we can, kill Winter Frost and his sister.”

“I’d like nothing better,” I said, and we followed them into the house. As we walked in, I got to see more of the place. I did my best to hide my awe at the large rooms and the expensive looking furniture and art, but it was a hard thing to do.

Fairy Glitter noticed, then said, “You act like you’ve never seen a mansion before.”

“I have, I was in one only a few days ago, but it’s just weird to be in one that ponies live in is all,” I said.

She tilted her head a little. “Your family has a big house too though, just as old as this one is and funny enough only two doors down from here. Your family is richer than even mine.”

It was my turn to go bug eyed at hearing that. “Wait a sec, really? I thought my dad’s family was poor, I mean the place I grew up in before I left The Crystal Empire was small…and cheep.”

“No, your family has money, it’s just that on your father’s side of the family, you have to earn it. When your grandparents died by the hooves of your uncle Striker eighteen years ago, Nightshade took ownership of everything. If he hadn’t married your mother, he probably would’ve stayed living in Stratus or at your home in Nimbus,” she said.

“Wait we have a house in Nimbus too? What the hell?” I asked.

“You father has property in Stratus, Nimbus, The Crystal Empire, and an apartment in Cirrus if rumors are to be believed. When you were born, Nightshade wanted you to grow up on the ground, so he stayed in The Crystal Empire until your mother took you. After that, he moved back here, then moved between here and Nimbus while he worked his way up the ranks,” she replied.

“You sure know a lot about Shadow’s family,” Stardust said.

“Well I should, he’s like another brother to me, though I never got along well with Grimoire. I visited once or twice after Shadow got sick though, back when she was still called Star,” Fairy Glitter said, “You even met Solstice once, though you were only about one at the time.

“Why don’t I remember that?” Solstice asked.

“You were only three sweetheart,” Fairy Glitter said.

“Is that why you called me Star when we first met? Normally only my uncle calls me that,” I asked as we finally made it to a large sitting room.

“Yes, that’s what your dad called you all the time, even after you went missing. The name kind of sticks with you after a while,” Fairy Glitter said, sitting down on a sofa with Cascade next to her.

“I see,” I said, looking between her and Cascade, “Well, enough small-talk, we need to start planning how we’re going to get my dad out of prison.”

“You’ll never break him out of prison Shadow, it’s too well guarded as my husband said before. It would be a suicide mission, what you need to do is save him when he’s about to be executed,” Fairy Glitter said.

“Are you nuts?” I asked, “You think breaking into the prison is a suicide mission? Trying to save him while he’s about to be executed is even worse. Also, wouldn’t that be the time Winter Frost would think somepony might try to save him?”

“It is, but he’s expecting myself or other citizens who love Nightshade to do something about it. The thing is, he won’t be expecting you. You see the reason I needed you to come all the way up to Stratus is because you’re the only pony who can do what’s needed to stop the execution,” Fairy Glitter said.

“How’s that? I’m not all-powerful y’know,” I said.

Fairy Glitter smiled, then said, “You may not know this, but even though a lot of the Enclave hates you, that was because of what you did to the cloud layer a few months back and again when you used that super weapon. Since then, your father has done everything within his power to paint The Courier in a better light. Before the invasion, more and more ponies were starting to talk about the change you would bring to Stratus.”

“Change?” I asked, “What change do they need me to make? From what I can see Stratus is a great place to live.”

Cascade spoke up. “Stratus is a nice place to live that’s true, but just about every single family in this city has lived under the fear of the eastern cities taking over our city, and to top it off, they’ve also all lost a family member or friend to the Dashite Program. Your father was putting an end to it before he was arrested. Right now, the citizens of our city live in ever greater fear because of the take over. Winter Frost and his eastern allies have killed a few ponies already or made others into Dashites. With the right push and the right pony, we can turn the citizens against the new leaders.”

“So, you think that pony is me? You think The Courier can get all of Stratus on our side and maybe save my dad and Thundercracker in the process? I don’t see that working,” I said.

“Maybe not just The Courier. We need the daughter of Nightshade to let herself be known to all of Stratus and the Enclave. You are not just The Courier, you’re the descendent of Night Stalker, Lightning Dust, and Minuette,” Fairy Glitter said.

“I don’t see how that helps,” Stardust added, “From what we’ve learned, Night Stalker didn’t leave the Enclave on good terms.”

“That’s true he didn’t, but he was the one who helped build it. Even if that wasn’t a reason for the ponies to trust you, then the fact that you come from Nightingale’s line will and Lightning Dust was well loved. The same goes for your distant grandfather Dwarf Star, you have a lot of history in your blood and most of Stratus and Nimbus remembers it,” Fairy Glitter said.

“Alright, say this works. How does getting the citizens on our side save my dad?” I asked.

“It’ll work because once you get as many as you can to follow you, the citizens will work as a distraction on the day of the execution so we can do what we need to. Save Greed and your father, then kill Winter Frost and drive the rest of the eastern Enclave out of our city,” Fairy Glitter said.

“Fine, let’s say you’re right. How do you expect me to convince all the ponies I need to before the execution? We only have two days…or less,” I said.

“We have till tomorrow afternoon,” Cascade said.

“Then we don’t have the time to convince them all!” I said.

“OH, but you do,” Fairy Glitter said, her smile growing, “You see Shadow, we’re going to broadcast a message to the entire city tonight. A message that everypony will hear and see so you can tell them your story and who you are.”

“That’s insane! If you do something like that, Winter Frost will know I’m in the city, he’ll find us,” I practically yelled.

“No he won’t, because with the tech I have in my house, I can make sure it only goes to the homes where it will matter. Winter Frost and all of his allies won’t even know about the message until it’s too late,” she said.

Solstice sighed, rubbing her forehead with a hoof. “What if it doesn’t work? What happens if he does find out and decides to kill Nightshade in his cell?”

“I have that covered, don’t worry. No matter what happens, Nightshade and Greed will make it to the gallows tomorrow at noon. You have to put a little bit of trust in me, this plan will work,” she replied.

“What do we do on the day of the execution then?” I asked.

“You’ll walk up and save them both, after Stardust kills Winter Frost while he’s on the stage,” Fairy Glitter said as she turned her head to Stardust.

Our eyes went wide, then we listened as Fairy Glitter went over ever single part of her master plan to take back Stratus and save my father. It took us a few hours to go over everything, most of the time was spent with Fairy Glitter and Cascade showing me maps of Stratus so I knew my way around. I didn’t like the sound of this plan at all at first, but the more the couple talked, the more I started to see how brilliant the plan was. Fairy Glitter was amazing and had access to just about every scrap of intel in The Enclave, even with her losing her job as the head of the department.

We took a break for lunch, then got back into it. It wasn’t until nearly dinner time that everything was worked out and we finally finished planning. By the time we finished up for the day, I was starting to have a good feeling about the plan. It was insane, but just insane enough to probably work. If it didn’t end well, at least I wouldn’t be alive afterword to feel guilty for failing my father. I got to my hooves and stretched as Fairy Glitter and Cascade went toward a large kitchen to start preparing a meal for us.

“What should we do while we wait for dinner?” I asked.

“Not much to do around here unless you want to train in fighting,” Solstice said.

“Honestly, I feel like walking around and clearing my head, it’s been a stressful day,” I said stretching some more, “Think it would be okay if I wondered around the house?”

Fairy Glitter must’ve heard me because she yelled from the kitchen, “Feel free to look around Shadow, just stay inside and away from the west facing windows.”

“There’s your answer,” Solstice said.

“There’s a place to train in this house?” Stardust asked.

“Yeah, want me to show you?” Solstice asked.

“Yeah, I could use a good workout before we eat,” he said, then followed Solstice.

I did the same, going down a different hallway from Stardust and Solstice. I really didn’t know what to do with myself and thinking about everything going on and what happened over the past week was too much for me at the moment. So, I took to looking at the pictures and odd items Fairy Glitter and Cascade had hanging on the walls of the hallway. There were a lot of pictures of Solstice, some from when she was a foal, a few of her as a filly, the ones where she was a little older were kind of funny. When she was a young teenager, she must’ve gone through a rebellious phase, her mane was nearly chopped off in some of them and she had a look of pure teenage dislike for anything on her face. There were also pictures of their relatives over the long years. I could always tell who in the pictures were related to Fairy Glitter even when they were taken with multiple ponies in them. They all had the same odd coloring to their wings. The same as Solstice and Fairy Glitter had.

After I got all the way to finding Cloudy Nights, something started to nag at the back of my mind. I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it, but something about the generations of Solstices family was just strange to me. As I tried to figure out what was bothering me so much, I found myself in front of a door. Looking up at it I saw it had a small sign on it that said ‘Office’ and another one under it that said, ‘Solstice keep out’. I looked at the signs, then was about to pass by it when something deep down inside me that hadn’t reared its ugly head in a long time started to force me to turn back toward the door. My curiosity was strong at times, it was the whole reason I’d found the Mark II in the first place. For better or worse, my life had changed forever because of that feeling. Since I left my stable, I’d rarely felt it this strong. Something important that I needed to know was inside of that room.

I went up to the door and tried to open it, the door was locked. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my bobby pin and trusty screwdriver and tried to pick the lock. To my utter shock, the lock turned into puffy white clouds. I pulled back and they reformed into a lock and doorknob again. Tilting my head a bit, I frowned, then tried again. Once again, the lock turned into clouds, then back when I pulled away. I tried touching the lock with my hooves and nothing happened. I was about to try again when I nearly jumped out of my skin as I heard Fairy Glitter speak from behind me.

“You really are a curious one, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to go in there. I just couldn’t help myself,” I said as my new heart tried beating out of my chest.

She laughed that weird laugh of hers then said, “Don’t worry about it, but you should’ve realized that everything in an Enclave city is made with clouds. Only pegasi and griffons can open a lock like that. Even with your cloud walking spell, it won’t work for you. You’d need specially enchanted picks to get passed that lock.”

I looked down at my hooves. “Still, I shouldn’t have tried to go in. I saw the sign, but still couldn’t help myself.”

“That sign is to keep Solstice out, I have a few secrets that I really don’t want her to know about. Not yet at least. Although, if you can keep a secret, you can go in,” she said.

“Wait, you’d trust me with your secrets?” I asked, a little taken aback.

She sighed, then moved forward and pulled out a key. She Unlocked the door, then said, “The only secret in there is one that I’m surprised you haven’t figured out already.”

Without another word, she walked into the office. I followed, asking, “According to Vervain I have something called A.D.D., she tried to explain what it was, but I wasn’t paying attention. So, what do you mean?” I stopped as I saw that an entire wall of the room was covered, and I mean completely covered with pictures of Stardust. Stardust as a foal in Stable 97, pictures of him with Hailstorm practicing fighting, more of Stardust learning to shoot, others of him with his friends in the stable. There were even a few of Stardust since he left the stable for The Wasteland. They all looked like they’d been taken from high up and far away. All of these pictures were amazing and would’ve been a little creepy if I didn’t see the only picture on the desk that was in a beautiful silver frame. It was a younger Fairy Glitter and Cascade in what looked like a hospital. In her hooves there was a tiny light grey colt, newly born and swaddled in blankets. His eyes were open a little and I could see pink, he had a little tuft of a mane on his head, and it was as blue as a sapphire, and one wing poked out of the blanket where I could see the blue tips.

I looked over at Fairy Glitter and saw tears on her face as she looked up at the pictures of Stardust, “Stardust’s your…son?”

She was holding back sobs I could tell by the shaking of her shoulders, but she managed to nod, before saying, “Yes, and he’s the whole reason I started rebelling against my government. He’s the reason I sent my brother to Stable 97 once I found out what really happened to him when I was told he died,” she sniffed, then pointed at the picture of the newborn Stardust, “I was told he got sick an hour after that picture was taken, the next day I was told that him and a few other foals died. The news crushed me and nearly drove me insane.”

“Does Solstice know?” I asked.

“Heavens no,” she said, “She knows that she had a brother and that he died, but not the whole story. I never thought Stardust would ever make it through the program, but when he did, and he escaped. I knew that he had to make his own way in life. So, I never told my daughter about her brother, same for Cascade, until today that is. We’re the ones who named him Stardust. I’m surprised they kept it.”

“You’ve been using your influence in the Enclave to keep him safe,” I said, “How did you get all of these pictures? A lot of them are from when he was still in the stable, the rest are all far away shots.”

“I was able to hack into the security systems for Stable 97 a few times and I used their surveillance systems to capture still shots of Stardust. The others are taken from the different M.A.S.E.B.S. towers all over Equestria. They have cameras high up and can be used to spy on ponies from time to time. That’s how DJ Pon3 and a few other radio ponies know so much about what’s going on in The Wasteland, I think. As for pegasi like myself, it’s easy to access them when needed,” Fairy Glitter said.

That was information that could be useful in the future, but as of right now it didn’t matter as much as the fact that Stardust was home. I finally looked back at Fairy Glitter, saying, “You have to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” she asked, “Tell Stardust who his family is? No, he doesn’t need to know. He’s happy and has his own life. He doesn’t need the knowledge that his mother knew where he was for the past twenty years and never tried to save him. I’d rather him never find out who we are and just keep thinking that we’re just the old rich couple who’s helping you all out with overthrowing Winter Frost. The knowledge will hurt him, he’ll hate us.”

“I don’t agree,” I said, feeling the normal anger building inside me as I looked at the older mare, “He’s strong, he’ll be fine. Honestly, he’d be happy to know, because I know for a fact that one thing he wants to do once everything is over is find his parents. He wants them to know that he’s alive and to meet them. He deserves to know that he has a mother and father, an uncle, and a sister. Especially the sister part. He’ll probably tease the crap out of Solstice if he gets the chance, and Goddesses knows she deserves it sometimes.”

She snickered a little at the last part, then sighed. “It’s not your place to decide that Shadow, that’s between myself and my husband who I’ll talk to about this when I can,” she said.

I glared at her, “I don’t like secrets being kept from my friends, actually I fucking hate them. If we didn’t have a mission to complete tomorrow, I’d march right to Stardust and Solstice and tell them the truth. They need to know.”

“There’s no way I can change your mind?” Fairy Glitter asked.

“Nope, so either you tell them the truth, or I’ll do it,” I said, turning back toward the door.

“Shadow, wait,” Fairy Glitter said, coming to block the door. I waited as she looked at me nervously, “Let me talk with Cascade tonight about everything and I’ll try to bring this up to them tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I said, then walked out, slamming the door behind me as I headed back toward the living room, thinking to myself, ‘Unless I tell them first because I don’t believe you.’

***

The rest of the day and into the evening we didn’t do much more than go over the plan some more, tease Stardust a bit, and I found time to use the training room to fine-tune my expanding magic. We had dinner, which was very good. Apparently, Fairy Glitter wasn’t just an intelligence officer, a master of espionage, and an interesting mom, she was also a very good cook. She also had a love for a drink she called a Manehattan. Apparently, it was both a city and a housewife’s best friend, her words not mine. It smelt like cherries and booze, and when I tasted it, it tasted NOTHING like it smelled. The faces I made when I tried it, made Cascade fall off his chair laughing.

Now it was an hour to midnight, Fairy Glitter decided to do my so called message to the citizens the next morning. Fairy Glitter and Cascade had gone to bed after a long, and loud, talk in the living room. From what I could hear from the hiding spot I’d found in the deepest shadows of their hallway; Cascade hadn’t been too happy with his wife and her lies over the years. While they had talked, I took the time to sneak into their room and grab something. Something I was now wondering if I wanted to use. I’d made a promise not to tell Stardust and Solstice, but from how the conversation had gone with their parents, it sounded like Cascade agreed with Fairy Glitter. They didn’t plan on telling Stardust or Solstice, not for a long time if at all. They were both too scared to find out how he’d react, and they wanted to tempt fate and hope my threat was an empty one. I guess Fairy Glitter really didn’t know much about me. I don’t make empty threats.

So, once Fairy Glitter shut off the living room lights and headed toward their room, I went to Stardust’s. I made my way into his room and quietly snuck up to his bed. He was snoring lightly on a guest bed that looked a little small for him. I reached out and tried to shake him awake, but his hoof shot out and stopped mine as he flipped his head around, a glare of danger in his pink eyes. It took a moment for him to recognize me, when he did, he dropped his hoof with a sigh as he sat up in bed, “Dammit Shadow, you shouldn’t sneak up on me while I’m sleeping.”

In a whisper I said, “Stardust, I was trying to do this quietly, I don’t want to wake up everypony in the house.”

His tired and confused look changed to one of apprehension as he said carefully, “Listen Shadow, I know it’s been a while since you’ve been with a Stallion and all and I know I’m a just that sexy, but I like somepony else. Plus, I see you like a little sister, that’d be a little creepy. Also, I don’t want to be castrated by Aura,” his voice grew even quieter as he continued, “She’s fucking scary!”

“Goddesses eww,” I said, trying not to gag at the thought of doing…anything sexual with Stardust, then continued with, “First of all, you’re not as sexy as you think you are. You’re too tall, your opinion of yourself is big turn off, and you act like a colt most of the time. Aura is way sexier than your goofy ass, even as a pony. Now can you get your head out of the gutter so I can show you something please?”

“Didn’t we just go over this?” he asked with his goofy grin.

“Keep this up and I’ll tell Wind Thrasher you were hitting on me.” I said, giving him my own evil grin.

He sat up all serious-like, saying in a much more mature tone, “What did you need to show me?”

Rolling my eyes, I headed toward the door. “It’s down this way, so turn on those weak sneaking skills and follow me.”

“No problem shorty,” he said, following me out the door.

“That threat about me telling Wind Thrasher still stands, and if you get us caught, I won’t help you with telling her how you feel,” I said quietly as I walked down the hall.

He quieted down his voice a little as he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You like her, and you want to know what she thinks about you,” I said just as quietly as we headed toward the hallway with the door to Fairy Glitter’s office.

“I guess you picked up on that huh?” he asked.

“You did try to ask me about it while I was sneaking around The Palisade, so yeah, and don’t worry about Wind Thrasher,” I said.

“I mean she’s always been nice to me and she does seem to follow me around like a puppy when we’re working together, but I can’t tell if she just thinks of me as a friend or if she wants something else from me y’know?” he said.

I stopped before the hallway and turned to look up at him. “Let me put it this way. You’re one of the first stallions she’s met since she was locked in Stable 9 with that psychopath doctor. You were the one who said we should let her live when I broke that collar off of her, you’ve also never showed that you cared one bit about her form. So yeah, she’s grown to like you ever since we saved you from yourself. I’d say more but this is a conversation you need to have with her not me. Just sit down with her and tell her how you feel, trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”

A sad look came to his face as he said, “I already tried once, while you were recovering in The Ministry. She stopped me though and said I shouldn’t keep talking because whatever I was thinking or about to say, wouldn’t matter soon. Then she walked away, and I tried to stop her, asking what she meant, but all she’d say was, ‘The Monster is winning, and I don’t want you to see me when it does.’ That was it, and since then she’s barely spoken to me. Back when you were on The Palisade, I didn’t want to talk to you because I wanted to admit that I had feelings for Wind Thrasher, it was because I know I have them and I’m scared that she’s hiding how sick she really is from the rest of us. I want to find a way to save her before she goes completely insane.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, “She’s seemed moody lately, but nothing like how she was when we were in Mill City.”

He sighed, “You haven’t seen how bad she’s getting because she’s trying to hide it from you. She knows that if you find out that she’s turning feral, you’ll drop everything you’re doing to try and save her. If it wasn’t for the meds the doctor has been giving her that keep her from losing it, she would’ve become a monster a couple weeks ago, but I don’t know how much longer she can hold out. I don’t want to see her become the Wind Thrasher you saw in your nightmare, the one you told us about.”

I sighed as I took that in before looking back up at him, and saying, “I haven’t told anyone else the rest of my plan yet, and I still can’t, but when this is over, I’m going to be going to Spitfire’s Flight Academy for something, and while I’m there I’ll make sure we find her that cure. Don’t lose hope in her and remember that she does care for you. You might be the only pony who can save her from herself. She’s pushing you away right now because she doesn’t want to hurt you, you need to push back and make sure that no matter what happens, we’ll be there for her, okay?”

He nodded. “Okay and thank you.”

I smiled and hugged him. “I’ll always be here for you Dusty.”

He hugged me back. “And the same goes for me. Now what do you want to show me?”

“It’s right down this way,” I said as I led him to the office.

“It’s an office that has a sign to tell Solstice to stay out, so what?” he said, not looking impressed.

“Oh shut up and follow me,” I said, but before I could do anything, Solstice’s voice echoed from down the hall.

“What are you two idiots doing by my mom’s office?” she asked, looking pissed.

I knew she’d been following us ever since I went to Stardust’s room to get him, but I hadn’t expected her to yell down the hall. I put up a hoof saying quietly, “Solstice please be quiet, I really don’t want your mom or dad waking up.”

She walked closer looking pissed, but she did lower the volume of her voice, saying, “My mom’s office is off-limits even to my dad, she keeps secrets from the Enclave in there. You need to go back to bed, we have an important mission in the morning.”

“I know, and I’ve already been in there, your mother showed me the room. She also told me something important and she’s hiding it from both of you, a secret that you both deserve to know,” I said as I turned toward the door again, pulling out a key.

“I told you, you can’t go in there and where did you get her KEY!?” she asked.

“Took it from her room while she was fighting with Cascade. Now shut up and just trust me. You’ll want to see this too. If what I have to show you doesn’t convince you that I’m in the right, then you can go tell your mom I was a bad little filly okay,” I said as I opened the door. Once that was done, I lifted them both with my magic and pushed them inside before following and shutting the door behind us.

“Dammit Shadow, you’re going to get me into so…much…what the fuck?” she started yelling until her eyes fell on the pictures all over the walls.

I ignored her, my attention was on Stardust who was looking up at the pictures with utter fear in his eyes. He took a single step back as he let his gaze fall over them. After a moment he looked back at Solstice and me saying, “Fairy Glitter…she’s…she’s…!”

“It’s okay, you can say it Stardust, you’re right, she’s…” I started saying.

“She fucking stalking me! Okay I mean yeah, I know I’m handsome and all and a good guy that any mare would be happy to be with, but this is just plain creepy. Yet also a little flattering that I can catch the eye of a lovely older mare like her, but still I’m not sure I can get back to sleep now that I know a stalker is sleeping a few rooms away from…” he started saying but I cut him off.

“You idiot, she’s not a stalker,” Again I was cut off but this time by Solstice.

She was looking at the picture of Stardust when he was first born. “You’re my brother, the one we were told that died a little after you were born. Mom’s been keeping an eye on you, same for Doorstop.”

This time Stardust’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “No way, how can we be related!? We don’t even look alike.”

I gave him a flat stare, “Are you fucking kidding me? I should have seen it a long time ago, but I’m not a smart pony. Now that I know you two look almost like twins only with different coloring. Hell, the two of you even have a similar personality. Ppfftt, don’t even look alike my ass. What’re you color blind?”

“But, when I asked Doorstop if he knew who my family was, he said he couldn’t say,” Stardust said.

“Yeah, because Fairy Glitter didn’t want you finding her or Cascade. She figured that you didn’t need them now, or that you’d be pissed that she knew where you were the whole time and she never tried to get you out, until you were older,” I said.

Honestly, I thought he’d be pissed too, but I wanted him to know. As I’ve said before, I was done with hiding things from ponies I cared about. To my shock, tears welled up in Stardust’s eyes as he looked over at Solstice who had a similar expression on her face. Quietly he said, “I have a family, a mom and a dad and…a sister. I’m not alone.”

“I always thought you died, Mom never told me what she named her colt, she only said he was killed when a sickness ran through the Cloud Cities,” Solstice said, and even more shocking the two of them hugged each other. Stardust and Solstice, the two pegasus friends I had who bickered all the time were hugging. Yep, and I thought Stardust and Aura becoming friends was impossible, now this. I’ve seen everything now.

“Who the hell is breaking into my wife’s office!?” Cascade yelled as he barged into the room with a battle saddle ready to fire at all three of us, Fairy Glitter right behind him.

He stopped when he saw us, his mouth dropping open. Fairy Glitter face-hoofed, saying, “You couldn’t give me time to do this myself could you?”

“I was listening in on your conversation, so no I couldn’t, you weren’t going to tell them, so I did it for you,” I said as I walked past them, “You’re welcome, now go hug your son and get to know him. I’m going back to Solstice’s room to get to sleep.”

“You expect me to help you with Nightshade, yet you do this to me,” Fairy Glitter said angrily, but she was cut off by Stardust who grabbed both her and Cascade in a tight embrace.

I looked back at them and smiled at their looks of shock as he said through his tears, “All I’ve ever wanted since I could remember was to meet my parents. Back in the stable we were told we could when we were finished with our training. When I found out it was all a lie, I feared that you were dead or you didn’t want anything to do with me, or maybe that you wouldn’t believe who I was if I found you. I got better than I could have expected, you knew I was alive, and you sent my uncle to keep an eye on me. He screams y’know, a lot.”

Fairy Glitter was crying too, same for Cascade who I thought didn’t have the ability to cry as she said, “You’re not angry that I knew where you were and didn’t try to recuse you?”

“Why would I be mad about that? If you tried you two would’ve died, you made the best of a bad situation, and I’m just happy I finally found you,” he said, pulling back and smiling wide, his face wet yet happy, “Let me reintroduce myself, I’m Stardust and I’m your son!”

“Damn right you are!” Cascade said as he patted Stardust on the back, “It’s good to have you home finally. It’s good to know that you’re alive and well.”

“Mom you have to tell me the whole story. How did you know about this, is this why you put Uncle Doorstop in the stable? Is that Why Dr. Limbus was there? I have to know and why didn’t you tell me I was traveling with my BROTHER? He may be happy to meet you but I’m a little pissed,” Solstice said.

With another smile I turned away from the family reunion, glad that I could do something good for my best friend…both of them. I found my way to Solstice’s Room which I was sharing with her at the moment, even though this place probably had ten more rooms I could’ve used, but I felt better sleeping near a friend and Fairy Glitter wouldn’t let me sleep in Stardust’s room. She said it was improper, though I didn’t mind too much. Stardust could snore loud enough to wake the dead.

As I found the right door and went inside and laid down on the other bed in the room, I noticed something glowing from my saddle bags. Picking them up with my magic I pulled them close then reached inside and pulled out a small crystal. It was the one The Strange…my dad had made sure I got a while back. At the time I had no idea what it was or why I was given it, but now as I looked closer and saw the faint glowing pulse of green light it was emitting, I recognized it. It was the crystal that Flash Sentry had used to Curse the Children of the Night. There was still a zebra glyph in the middle of it and a crack ran down the center like in the memory orb I’d first saw it in. Only now it was glowing, but why?

Before I could get up to ask someone another crack appeared in the crystal and a deep voice echoed through the room, “All is one and one is all, as goes those words for pony kind, the same goes for magic and the power around us all. This curse upon your family has been long and hard. You, Shadow Star, have started down the right path to break my curse over the families of the Children of the Night. You have brought together the descendants of your ancestors and their team and fixed the bonds that were long ago broken by them. Aura Bloodtalon and her sisters, Wingnut, Stardust, Solstice, and of course you are all the youngest generation of the first ponies and griffon to be cursed. The lines of Greta, Babseed, Cloudy Nights, Lightning Dust, Minuette, and Absent Moon A.K.A. Night Stalker have lived hard lives. Destroy the betrayer of their past and his line to fully break my curse!”

The voice vanished at the same time the light in the crystal went out, leaving it dull and lifeless again. I was shaking as what just happened fully hit me. The curse, the one the families of the Children of the Night have always said hovered over us like a sickness wasn’t superstition, it was real. Even more I knew who had to be the great betrayer of Night Stalker. It had to be Thunderlane.

I was about to go tell my friends when a zebra’s voice echoed out of the crystal next. It was old and feminine, “Days of old and days of new, when the child of the New Moon finds her true family, only then can the Star’s aline, and the power of the sight points be freed. The Red eyed child will bring together the families of old and destroy the ones who started this curse. But this mare must be carful on her journey, because only the power of the stars and the soul of the New Moon destroy the evil who rules the sky.”

I wanted to throw the crystal away, but it had one more surprise for me. It flashed like a memory orb and to my utter shock, my magic connected to it and the world around me, melted away…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing Rank 3: While wearing faction-based armor or a disguise of any kind, you temporarily gain +1 to Intelligence and +2 to Charisma. You will also sometimes come across unique dialogue opportunities while in disguise.

Chapter 69: Sirens

“Sure, I’ve done my fair share of killing in The Wasteland, but every unnecessary loss hurts not only me. It hurts every loved one of the one lost.”

Absent Moon A.K.A. Night Stalker…

The days I’d spent over the past few years fighting for my country took a toll on me. The days since my homeland died in the fires of magical radiation has taken an even bigger toll. In the past forty years since I helped start this government that’s been dubbed The Grand Pegasus Enclave, I’ve had time to see the error of my ways. I’ve watched every single pony and griffon die; or go through more in their lives than anypony should have to deal with. My own family was no exception to that. With the death of my oldest son at the hooves of his two younger brothers, I’ve lost any respect I had left for The Enclave. Thunderlane is taking everything from me. He’d taken my two younger sons, brainwashed them into following his rule and used them to silence my oldest for good. If it wasn’t for Nightingale, my youngest and only filly, and Lightning Dust, I would’ve flown to Thunderlane’s fortress and annihilated him and his entire family. Though my body probably wouldn’t have been able to make it through the fight. If I still had the power armor Minuette made for me, then I might stand a chance, but that was still locked up in The Lucky Horseshoe.

My wife and my daughter are the ones who convinced me that I had to leave, they’re the ones who told me what I’d need to do if I wanted to fix everything I destroyed over the past fifty years. Ever since the day I formed the Children of the Night. Ever since the day I took on my new name, Night Stalker. Greta was right, and I was a fool for letting my pride take control of me for so long. I let my mind be manipulated by darkness, and because of that if I don’t set things right, The Wasteland below and the Enclave above would be utterly destroyed by that darkness. If my plans work, I’ll be able to set in motion the events that should fix everything and save my family. The question is, will my body last long enough to do what I needed to do?

I opened my eyes and groaned in pain as I felt the scabs over my flanks where my cutie mark used to be, crack and bleed. Right now, my body wasn’t even able to get off this cot Greta’s Doctor put me on when she saved me from that fall. My wings hurt too, but not as bad. I still can’t believe my two younger sons attacked me like that, broke my wings, burned away my cutie mark, and branded me as a Dashite. A program I foolishly started when Scootaloo had that fight with me so many years ago. I could still remember her screams of pain when I made her the first Dashite. Branding on the mark of her mentor and my former friend as a so-called punishment for her defying me. She’d just wanted to have us use the power we had to help the ponies in The Wasteland, and I’d called her foolish for wanting to help dirt ponies. If Greta hadn’t just left the Enclave, if she hadn’t left me, just a few days before, maybe I would have been in a better mindset to hear Scootaloo out.

I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself, I did my best to ignore the pain in my body as I got to my hooves, stumbling a little. I tried to take a step toward the mouth of the cave, but stumbled and nearly fell over, before a figure rushed in and caught me. The talons holding me up tightened then forced me to lay back down on the cot and I heard my old friend’s voice, say, “Dammit Moony, are you trying to kill yourself? You’re not a young buck anymore you know.”

I looked up into Greta’s face and couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at my lips. “When have you ever known me to just lay around when there’s work to be done?”

She rolled her eyes at me and sighed. “You used to be a lot younger and with a lot less injuries back then. You’re lucky I heard about the overthrow of your government when I did and was able to save your worthless ass.”

“I’m still surprised you did. I thought you would’ve let me fall to my death. The last time I saw you it seemed like you’d rather see me dead. What changed?” I asked as I looked back up at her.

“Lapse in judgment. Anyway, what happened up in the clouds that would make your near worshipers kick you out like that and brand you?” she asked stepping away.

As she did, I noticed that she looked a lot different than she had when she’d stormed out of my office all those years ago. The feathers over her chest and head were mostly gray, the same for some of her fur. She had scars covering a good amount of her body and she looked like life hadn’t been easy for her. I did notice however that she still had Joy and Misery strapped to sheathes on her chest.

“I see you still have the swords I gave you,” I said with a light chuckle.

“I see you’re still good at changing the subject,” she said, pinching the bridge of her beak, “You might’ve given them to me, but Joy and Misery were both made by Minuette. She was a close friend and I miss her quite a lot, same for the rest of the Children.”

“Could’ve fooled me. Last I heard, you’ve been hunting them down,” I said.

She sighed and sat down next to me, she looked like it wasn’t easy for her either. Age was claiming both of us it seemed. “I was angry back then, and yes, I was trying to kill anyone who knew about Falling Shadows. I managed to kill Babs at that dance studio she ran,” she looked sad as she continued, “Didn’t know her son was in the room when I’d done it. I tried finding the others but didn’t have much luck. Now I really wish I would’ve thought things through more.”

“Yeah, I got intel about her dying by your talons too, but what happened to her son? Was he still alive?” I asked.

“He’s alive, I left after I killed her. I thought she knew more about what happened with Falling Shadows, because she was great at keeping secrets. Her son wasn’t my target, and I don’t kill kids,” she replied.

“We all were,” I said, “Me more than any other I think.”

A small smile came to Greta’s beak as she said, “Your entire life was a big secret Moony…Night Stalker…sorry I sometimes forget that you don’t like your old nickname.”

“I think using Night Stalker would be a bad idea now that I’m a Dashite. Unless somepony saw you catch me, I’m guessing that Thunderlane and my sons think I’m dead. I’ll need to find a way to let Nightingale and Lightning know I’m alive and still able to carry out my plans,” I said as I tried to steady myself again.

“Plans?” Greta asked looking confused and a little scared.

I couldn’t help a smirk as I said, “I learned some stuff about what Falling Shadows really is. I don’t know how, but Minuette found a way to get a message to me. It had all of her research into the project in it and intel I wasn’t told about while we were working on it.”

“How will Falling Shadows be any use to anypony with Luna dead and the Mark II’s lost?” Greta asked.

“The system wasn’t ever meant to be used on just Luna. That was what Project Stargazer was for and that failed. Minuette used the plans and ideas from that project and the help of our zebra friend to make Falling Shadows. If somepony finds Aquila in that old lab and she takes over their body, she can become the most powerful magic user in all Equestria and after so many years trapped down there, I’m sure she wouldn’t be friendly toward our kind. At the same time, Minuette speculated that the power that would be unlocked when Falling Shadows is activated, would most likely open the deepest darkest levels of Tartarus,” I said wincing as my wings flared with pain.

“Wait back up a bit, how did she tell you any of this? She’s dead,” Greta said.

“I thought so too and maybe she is, but the intel was sent to an old terminal I still had, the intel was sent two weeks ago. Somepony sent it to me and Minuette was the only one who knew the broadcast ID for that terminal. She might still be alive out there, if she is though, I don’t know where she is,” I said.

“What do you have planned then?” Greta asked.

Pain ran through my chest making me nearly cry out, but I managed to hold it back. I couldn’t tell her…not yet. If she knew, she’d never let me do what I need to. Greta might’ve been angry with me for many years, but from what I could tell, she still cared about me, and those kinds of feelings would only make what I had to do harder. I managed to smile again as I said, “I can’t go over everything yet, I’ll need to heal first and make sure the ponies I need to talk with are still alive. Once I’m healed, I’ll be out of your feathers.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’re going to leave again?”

“If I remember right, you did the leaving last time,” I Joked, “But seeing how you’re talking to me now, I’m guessing you finally found out what happened at Griffonstone.”

She nodded slowly. “Two years ago, my griffons and I took down a group of your Enclave near the Ruins of Las Pegasus. One of them was on Thunderlane’s team that day. After some time, I questioned him, and learned the truth. You had nothing to do with the death of our homeland.”

“I never had my own proof, but I had a feeling he had something to do with it. I think he’s been working against us for some time, maybe even before the bombs fell. I didn’t have time to learn more before I was branded, but if it helps, I’m just as angry as you are for the loss of your old home and the friends we had there,” I said sadly.

“I tried to go back a few years ago, but the place is still too deadly. Although, I was able to visit our old hang out. I wasn’t able to watch the sun set like in the old days, but it was the first time in years I thought about you and I back when we were kids still,” she said sitting down and looking sad.

“Aurora’s Twin Peaks…you know…the last time we both went there together was both the happiest and saddest day of my life,” I said, feeling my heart race a little as I remembered the words I wanted to say to her so badly, but was too scared to utter.

She smiled, “We were both about eighteen I think back then. I wanted to tell you a secret that day, but we both just ended up watching the sunset. It was the day before you joined the military.”

“Yeah, I was going to say something too, but I wimped out,” I said with a laugh.

She shared the laugh, “Well what I wanted to say to you Moony was probably way more embarrassing and taboo than what you had to say I’m sure.”

“Oh really? And what was that?” I teased.

“Ha! I’m not going to tell you now, I’m an old griffon and the leader of a growing talon company. I’m not a teenager anymore,” she said.

I leaned against the wall to look up at that face I grew up with. What would she have said if I told her how much I’d loved her over the years, how scared I was to let anypony find out that I loved a griffon? True, I fell for Lightning Dust later and I still loved her, but she never made my heart beg for her like Greta did. Maybe it was the fact that we grew up together, or maybe I was just attracted to Griffons being as I grew up around them. Either way, even now, with what was happening to me, I still couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her that she was the only creature I ever wanted in my life and how I wanted to make the Life Bond with her back when we were still young and before I was Night Stalker.

“Greta,” I said.

“Yeah?” she responded.

“From now on call me Absent or Absent Moon…Moony is not well known but some know you used to call me that. Night Stalker is dead and needs to stay that way,” I said.

“Understood Boss,” she teased.

I smiled again. “If we get a chance, let’s go to Aurora’s Twin Peaks again…I’ll find a way to watch the sunset with you, cross my heart.”

oooOOOooo

Shadow Star…

I jerked awake looking around in utter confusion as the crystal fell from my chest and onto the cloudy floor. It didn’t fall through the clouds thank the Goddesses, but still I was in a bit of shock and confusion at what just happened. My head pounded as memories not my own flooded into my brain, most of them too confusing for me to even understand. One stuck, the one where I felt as if I was Absent Moon…Night Stalker. It was unlike any memory I’d experienced in a memory orb before. I felt everything, knew everything Night Stalker did during that time in his life, or at least what he was thinking about. I knew a great deal of what happened to him by now when he was branded and thrown out of The Enclave, but I hadn’t known that Greta was the one who saved him. I knew he ended up with her at some point, but she was the one who snatched him from the sky.

The memory was fading now, but that place they talked about, Aurora’s Twin Peaks stuck. Something about it was important, but what? Then it came to me and using my Mark II I searched through my inventory until I found the letter I’d found in the Absent Ruins and pulled it out reading it again…

G.

Sorry I couldn’t stick around here, I have too much work that I need to finish. I’m grateful that you helped me, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have survived that fall. You’ve always been there for me even after so much time and what I did. I’m not sure if you’ve forgiven me or not, either way it was good to see you again my friend. I wouldn’t have left without talking to you first, but time is short and what I have to do can’t wait. I have to correct the sins of my past if ponykind is going to survive. You were right, I was a fool, for so many years I was such a damned fool. Don’t worry though, soon everything will be better. Go back to your family, they need you more than I do. Life is crazy as hell. Don’t let my past destroy what you’ve done over the years.

I left you the sword you gave me, where I’m going I won’t need it, my power armor will serve me just fine just like it always has. I’m also leaving you this memory orb, it’s one of the only ones I was able to get back. I figured you’d enjoy watching it if you ever find a recollector. It’s the one of that night, you know which one I’m talking about. It’s one of my happiest memories, next to the day I met you. If you wish to view it, the password is easy, at least for you. It’s the name of the place where we watched the sunset when we were young.

I have to go, I’m sure The Enclave will be coming for me soon. Don’t worry though, if they find me I’ll make them pay for branding me. I’ll miss you my friend, please live a happy life and forget about me, my world is coming to an end, don’t let yours.

A.M.

I finished reading and it finally clicked, Greta had given Misery to Night Stalker at some point, that’s why it was in the ruins. He left her one of the memory orbs he had Dwarf Star make for him to give to the only creature in his life he truly loved. He put a passcode on it that only Greta would understand. A memory orb I still hadn’t viewed because I never knew what that passcode was. Now I did, Aurora’s Twin Peaks. It had to be. G…Greta from A.M. Absent Moon. He loved her so much that he wanted her to go back to Crimson Canyon and forget about him, but she never found his letter, she never found the orb or the twin to her sword. I could still see both blades in that memory even as it faded away. Misery I knew all too well because I’d been using the black blade for a while now. I still had it with me, Aura had given it back to me before I left for this mission, she said she couldn’t use Misery right now because she was still a pony. I saw Joy in that memory too. Its blade had been as white as snow, its handle red like blood and it had the same faint blue glow around its edge…Star Metal. It was a set of weapons, Joy and Misery, heads or tails, good and evil, life and death. Whatever happened to Joy? Was it still with Greta’s body, or was it lost somewhere? Maybe The Enclave took it when she died.

Either way, I couldn’t do much about finding it now, I was tempted to go into the memory orb, but I had work to do and from the light coming in slightly through the windows, morning was approaching. Still, I pulled Misery from my Saddle bags where I’d been keeping it and said softly, “I wish I had both of you. I’m sure you’d love to be reunited with your twin.” I felt silly talking to a sword, but ever since the weapon stopped itself from hurting Aura or me and ripped itself away from Aquila, I’ve felt like the weapon had a bit of its own kind of special magic.

“Too bad you can’t help find Joy,” I said, then almost jumped back as Misery glowed with a black light and I felt it pull to one direction in my magic, “What the fuck?”

I held onto the blade as it pulled me around until it was pointing northeast. When it stopped the black light around the blade flashed white then black then blue and back to black. It did this several times before it finally stopped and went back to looking completely normal. Narrowing my eyes, I pulled up my Pip-Buck and looked at my map. I zoomed out further and further until I had everywhere I’d been in the past few weeks. Following the direction I was facing and going in a straight line I saw that I was facing toward the Twin Cities, no, north of them. I looked back at Misery, “Is Joy in The Crystal Empire?”

The blade hummed in my magical grip flaring white slightly before it went lifeless again. If that wasn’t a hint then I was crazier than I thought, I smiled and closed out of my map then said to Misery, “When this is all over, I’ll have to go there anyway, I’ll see if I can find Joy when we get there.”

Misery Flashed again and I smiled as I put it into its sheath across my back. I stretched and threw my duster on over Misery and started heading into the living room. It was time to save my dad, New Pegasus, then kill myself a Child of the Stars. I was all ready to burst down the halls of this large house to take on all of Stratus when I nearly slammed right into Fairy Glitter. Well, there goes my hero’s entrance.

“Shadow, you’re up early. Good, we have some work to get done before we get started on the rest of the plan,” she said. She looked tired but happy.

“Um…where’s Solstice and Stardust?” I asked.

“Eating breakfast and still talking, none of us slept much last night, but we’ll be ready for tonight,” she said with a smile, “Follow me to my recording room, we need to get that message out before everypony is up and heading off to work.”

“So…you’re not mad about what I did last night?” I asked as I followed her.

“Oh, I’m furious,” she said, but she really didn’t sound like it, “But it all worked out in the end. Stardust has so many stories from his time in the Stable and it’s wonderful to hear about his life and adventures. You know the stuff I didn’t see or hear while I was keeping an eye on him. Did you know he has a crush on that mutant friend of yours?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know, we talked about it a few times and she’s not a mutant, she’s just different.”

“She’s psychotic and dangerous if you ask me, but it’s not my place to tell him who he falls in love with,” Fairy Glitter said.

“She’s having a hard time with her mixed DNA, she’s not psychotic…well not normally,” I said.

“I know all about it, I’ve already hacked into that Doctor Gauze’s terminal and pulled up all the data he’s managed to collect on her blood work. I’m no doctor, so I can’t tell you myself what’s making her go crazy, but I sent the intel to Stormy. She thinks she can fix her easily enough,” she said like hacking into a wastelander’s terminal and taking valuable data from it was no big deal.

“Wait a second…you did? Why would you do that?” I asked.

She looked back at me confused. “Solstice told me what was going on with her a couple weeks back and wanted to know if I could help. So, I did what I do best and got all the intel I could on her and sent it to the right pony to take a look at it. Stormy is a thousand times smarter than that wasteland doctor, I’m sure she’ll figure it out. Speaking of hacking into stuff, I also got some intel not long ago that a doctor in Thunderhead found a cure for Killing joke. I guess it’s a slightly modified treatment from back before the war. So, I have a list of what you’ll need if you want to get Aura back to normal too.”

I almost tripped over myself as she said this. “You can fix Aura?”

She looked back at me. “Of course, I thought you might like that.”

“Well yeah, of course I would, I was kind of hoping it would wear off after some time just like what happened with me, but this would make it a lot easier,” I said happily.

“I can send the recipe to the Shadow Talons if you like? I’m sure Aura is back there by now. If you’re all expecting to go into a fight soon, she may want her normal body back,” she said as we reached a door.

“That would be amazing!” I said, then looked at the door, “So where are we?”

“The bathroom, Stormy told me that if you need to remove your disguise, that you’d need a shower.”

“Oh yeah,” I said reaching into my saddle bags and pulling out a bottle with a potion Stormy made just for this. “Just need to use this then remove the fake cutie mark and contacts and I’m all good. I thought I needed to stay looking like this until we saved my dad though?”

She chuckled. “I can’t convince ponies to trust you if you don’t look the part dear, now go get washed up. I’m sure you’d love a warm shower after everything you’ve been through. I’ll check on you in a little while. Also let me have your barding and duster, I’ll get them cleaned up for you and fix what I can while you wash up.”

I removed my clothes and gave them to her. She wrinkled her nose a bit as I gave the items to her, making sure to pull Misery out of its sheath before I did. “Ewww, you really need to clean your barding more Shadow.”

I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, I’ve smelled worse,” I shivered, remembering the Dumpster of Death, “Way worse.”

“I’m sure you have,” she said, with one of those assuring smiles you only see on an adult that’s just humoring a young pony’s delusion of grandeur, “I should tell you that even though it’s gross and dangerous down there, there’s always at least a little time to bathe. Us filly’s have to look and smell our best to keep our title of the fairer sex.”

“I don’t know about that. The wasteland doesn’t have as nice of facilities as this. Plus, I think I still have a lingering odor from this one time I had to hide in a dumpster full of rotting corpses,” I replied.

Her face went slightly green and twisted into a look of disgust as, she said, “Use the magnolia body wash on the shelf, that should take care of it. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go get this soaking in something.”

“Okay, thank you,” I said.

With that I went into the bathroom and got into the shower. It took me a while to get cleaned up. First of all, the potion I had to apply took a while to wash away the special dyes that Stormy used to make me look how I did, second, I had a hard time removing the contacts. The Fake Cutie Mark was easy, it just fell off once I applied the potion. Once that was done, I had to really clean myself, even with the dye gone, I was fucking dirty. It hadn’t been that long since I was in the Ministry, but with everything I’d done in the past day or so, I was surprised I wasn’t gaging at my own smell.

Finishing, I stepped out and noticed I was starting to sink into the floor a bit. I would have panicked but then I realized that the spell was starting to wear off. With a sigh I recast the cloud walker spell and I popped back up onto the seemingly real floor. I thought it would’ve lasted longer, Stormy said it was a twenty-four-to-thirty-hour spell. Maybe, the spell didn’t work as well on me just like the anesthesia spell the doctors at Hidden Sands tried to use on me. Either way I’d have to keep an eye on it. I then took a moment to look in the mirror on the wall as I replayed what happened last night and the flood of information that crystal had put into my head. I wish I had time to go over what was dumped into my brain.

I concentrated a little trying to see if I could pull up anything from that memory dump. I gasped as a quick flash flew through my brain. For a second, I was Night Stalker again, he…I…him…I can’t tell was rutting against Greta on a dark moonless night. Then it was gone and I stepped away from the mirror, “Okay, maybe I don’t want to know everything about him. I don’t need to witness my distant grandfather screwing Aura’s distant grandmother. That’s too messed up even for me.”

Somepony knocked on the door making me jump then it was followed by Fairy Glitter, saying, “Shadow are you done? I have your barding and duster clean, and I patched a couple of holes for you.”

“Yeah,” I said, going over and opening the door. She was on the other side with my stuff neatly folded and laying on her back. Smiling I took them and once again donned my barding and duster. I picked up Misery and sheathed it once again then took in a deep breath and frowned as a strange scent I’d never smelled before hit my nose, “What is that?”

“What, the scent?” she asked, “Lavender.”

She started heading down the hall again. “What’s…Lavender?”

In answer she just chuckled and showed me to another room a few doors down, “I hope you’re ready for this, you’re going to be speaking to most of the population in a few moments.”

I followed her into the room and gasped at the amount of tech that was shoved inside of it. I’d love to name every single thing I saw, but I didn’t know what most of it was. What I did see that I understood was a few terminals, microphones, and a few chairs. The rest were a bunch of blinking lights, dials, switches, what looked like security cameras and a bunch of wires on the floor around the equipment.

“What is all of this?” I asked.

“It’s a radio station mostly, but I also have cameras so I can record you while you tell the Enclave what you need to,” she said as she made her way over to a terminal and started entering something, “Sit in the red chair and I’ll tell you what you need to say, I’m just setting this up to broadcast live and record at the same time.”

“So…you want me to sit in this chair?” I asked, indicating it as I walked over, “And talk to hundreds of ponies?”

“That’s the general idea, yes,” Fairy Glitter said, as she finished what she was doing and moved the large camera to face me then walked over and moved a microphone close, “And it’ll be more like Thousands. This will be going out to Nimbus, Stratus, The Twin Cities, and the Crystal Empire…might even get some ponies in The Kingdom. I’m mostly blocking out the Enclave officer channels, but I know a few soldiers who will be willing to listen.”

“I…I’ve never talked in front of so many ponies before though,” I said, feeling a nervous flutter in my stomach.

“Don’t think of it like that. Just think about talking into a camera, only you and I are here. That should help, now I’ve prepared a speech for you to say. Keep to it and we should all be fine,” she said, holding out a stack of cards.

I took them in my magic. “You realize that I’ll sound like a robot if I read something like this, right?”

She shrugged. “The goal here is to get as many of the citizens to listen to you as we can get. Now, I’m going live in, 3…2…”

“Wait, I’m not ready!” I started to say, but Fairy Glitter didn’t stop.

“1…and go!” Fairy Glitter said as a red light appeared on the camera.

I took in a deep breath as I looked into the camera then started to read from the cards, “Citizens of The Grand Pegasus Enclave…” I stopped and looked down at the cards again sighed then kept going, “Many of you might know my face, you might know the Duster I wear, some may even know who I am or at least my name. I’m The Courier…”

I stopped again, and Fairy Glitter, hissed, “You need to keep reading!”

I didn’t listen, I was too busy looking down at the well-prepared speech she wanted me to give to the pegasi. She said the goal was to get as many on my side as I could, but how was I going to do that? With the words another mare wrote for me? I’m not Fairy Glitter or part of her family, I’m Shadow Star, I’m the Courier. I’m my father’s daughter, my mothers filly, the Granddaughter of Night Stalker himself. If I want them to follow me, to help me, I have to do what I’ve always done. I have to be myself.

With another deep breath I lifted the cards in my magic and looked right into the Camera, feeling the fear and nerves flow away like water as I hardened myself to what had to be done. “I’m sorry about that, but the ponies who want me to get this message out to you all want me to keep my words to a script. If any of you know me even a little, even if you’ve only heard stories about me, then you should know that I play by my own rules.”

“Shadow what are you doing?” Fairy Glitter asked.

“Trust me,” I whispered, then went back to looking at the camera, “Yes I am Shadow Star The Courier, for the past few months you’ve heard the stories about me and sadly a lot of them are probably true. I’ve fought your soldiers, I’ve blown a hole in your clouds not once, not twice, but three times. Twice with a super weapon and once with my own magic,” I forgot that I’d just done it again a week or so ago, but too late to correct myself now.

I kept going. “I’ve destroyed Mill City Tower, took down a few of The Sins, been your enemy for a while now. What most of you may not know is that I didn’t start this fight. Until a few weeks ago when I destroyed Stable 9, I’d never met another pegasus apart from my best friend Stardust. I had no problem with The Enclave or the cloud cover. That was until Winter Frost came down with a group of soldiers and attacked me saying he was looking for my friend. I protected myself and managed to get away from him, but with the help of a mare named Cloak and The Sins, they kept coming after me on orders from your former high council ponies. Back then, I had no memory of who I was or where I’d come from apart from my stable. I’m sure most of you think that’s all there is about me. To most of you, I’m just a stable mare who’s gotten lucky a few too many times. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s wrong.”

I looked over at Fairy Glitter but she was just watching me with something almost like awe on her face so I kept going. “As I said, my name is Shadow Star, but I’m not from Stable 28 or even the New Pegasus area. I’m from The Crystal Empire. I’m the daughter of Grimoire Spell and Nightshade. I’m also the distant granddaughter to Minuette, Lightning Dust, and Night Stalker himself. My line came from Nightingale on my father’s side and Dwarf Star on my mother’s. I got my memories back a few weeks back and I now know who I am. I am not your enemy, I’m one of you, a fellow Enclave citizen who was lost and abandoned when I was young. Thought to be dead to most but in reality, being hidden away to keep me safe from the leaders in the Enclave who wanted to use a power I held for themselves. I am Enclave just like all of you, only I’ve seen the truth about what’s going on in our cities, what they’re hiding from you in The Wasteland and I’ve been fighting to fix the mistakes of my family. I’m here today to tell you that I have come to Stratus, in the city of my father to do what I’ve always done. Fight for the betterment of society.”

I took a moment to let that sink in then kept it up. “A few days ago, Nightshade, my father, was arrested by Strife and Winter Frost and now is scheduled to be executed tomorrow along with an ally of mine who you all know as Greed. Not only did I come home to find that my father is going to be killed for the service he’s provided to better not only The Enclave, but the ponies in The Wasteland. I also come to find Stratus, a jewel in the sky, letting eastern pegasi tell them what to do! Nimbus, Stratus, The Crystal Empire, and The Twin Cities have lasted for two hundred years without their help and now one of our own betrays us all to them? You all are okay with just sitting around and letting them take over? I thought Stratus stood for more than that. I thought Stratus was better than the rest of The Enclave. Where the other cities fight each other and try to rule over one another, Stratus, Nimbus, The Crystal Empire, and The Twin Cities have all worked together. We may not have always gotten along that’s true, but when it comes to protecting our way of life, we’ve always banded together. It’s time to do so again. Pegasi and unicorns of the Western Enclave, let’s show Neighvarro why you aren’t to be fucked with. Tomorrow at the execution, I’m going to go in and save Greed and my father. I only have a couple of ponies helping me right now and we can’t do it alone. Let’s save Nightshade, let’s save Greed, and let’s kick Neighvarro out of our home!”

I was letting all the emotions I’ve had to push down over the past few weeks out. My anger, loss, sorrow, pain, and more filled every word as I gave the speech I didn’t even know I had in me, “I am Shadow Star, I am also The Courier. I’ve put everything I have into protecting those who I love ever since I escaped my stable, but even I’m not strong enough to stop the invasion of Stratus. I know this because I wasn’t strong enough to stop a monster who tried to kill me just last week. My mother, Grimoire Spell is dead. She gave her life to save mine from that monster. So, even if some of you are too scared to fight for somepony you don’t know, or don’t trust, then fight for my father. Somepony who has dedicated his life to protecting you,” I said as I started to feel myself tremble a bit, tears were welling up as I said one last thing. The sadness coming through in my words, as I said, “I can’t lose another parent so soon. Please Stratus, rise-up, and help me save them. Take back our skies and take back our home. If you’re with me, be at the execution tomorrow. When you see me, be ready for a fight. Those who aren’t willing, stay inside. I don’t want any of you to get hurt when the fighting starts. Sure, I’ve done my fair share of killing in The Wasteland, but every unnecessary loss hurts not only me. It hurts every loved one of the ones lost.”

I turned my tear-stained face away from the camera and walked out of the room. I ignored Fairy Glitter trying to say something to me. I ignored the anger still bubbling inside. I ignored everything as I made my way to the kitchen where Stardust and Solstice were eating breakfast laughing at some joke Cascade was telling them. They looked at me as I approached, Solstice looking ready to ask me what was wrong, but I spoke before she could, saying, “I need both of you to come to the training room with me.”

Stardust looked confused as, he said, “But, I thought we had to get stuff set up for the plan.”

“Don’t worry about that, after the speech I just gave, I can’t do more at the moment. Everything else will depend on tonight and tomorrow. We have today to get my magic honed so I can survive what we’re doing tomorrow,” I said as I turned away to head to the training room. Then I stopped and turned back to Solstice. “Get me a set of power armor.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “What for?”

I grinned. “You two are going to teach me how to use it because I’m gonna make sure I can get my dad’s armor to him tomorrow. Also, Stardust, get your best rifle. I need you to shoot at me…a lot.”

If I could’ve gotten a picture of Cascade, Stardust, and Solstice’s faces at the time, it would’ve been priceless. I started toward the training room again and my friends followed me.

***

The next day…11:30 AM

“Okay Dusty, I agree this thing is…restrictive,” I said into a headset Cascade loaned me for today’s breakout.

“Yeah, I know, but your dad is gonna need that if things go south,” Stardust said through the earpiece.

I was in my father’s power armor, the set he kept at home normally. Last night Stardust snuck over to the house and taken it. Without even setting off a single alarm or alerting the spies watching the manner. Luckily, it wasn’t seized. I was impressed, since I didn’t think Stardust even knew what the word stealth meant. I was afraid the armor wouldn’t fit me since my dad was nearly twice my size. Solstice showed me a little trick armor like my dad’s had. It was self-adjusting. Solstice was amazed that I picked up on how to use it so quickly. She said it took weeks if not months to learn how to use power armor correctly. I hadn’t told her that I kept digging into Night Stalker’s memories to help me. I still found that strange. When I needed to, I could normally pull up some random memory from my grandfather. It didn’t always work, and most of the time the memory would fade after a few seconds, but it was useful. Also, anything that I learned from it that had to do with a skill seemed to stick with me to a point.

I was still a little unsteady in this pegasus armor, seeing how the wings had to be locked into place since I didn’t have wings and they kept on throwing off my equilibrium. The helmet was secured to the flanks of the suit, and I was wearing my normal barding and duster under it. If it wasn’t for my Pip-Buck, I would’ve had a hard time using this at all. Thanks to the interface system on my Mark II, I was still able to use the weapons if I needed to. Seeing how I’m a unicorn, I couldn’t wear the helmet, also my disguise was gone, so I had to do something to help hide who and what I was. Unicorns don’t normally wear power armor. Fairy Glitter simply put a captain’s cap over my horn and mane…okay she tried three times. My horn was sharper than most and it tore three hats before she got one that had a more durable fabric. It didn’t help much to hide my identity, but anything that can somewhat hide my face and horn helped.

I was now making my way toward the edge of the inner circle; right were the larger buildings started in Stratus. The gallows were already set up and ponies from all over the city were starting to form a large crowd. I grinned as I saw this because most ponies I passed, didn’t look excited to watch an execution, they looked ready to murder every single Enclave soldier they saw. Muttering between most of them gave me hope that my message was received positively by the population. That helped a great deal because as I made my way closer to where the execution would take place, I was all on my own. If everything went perfectly, I wouldn’t even have to show myself until after my father was released. It wouldn’t happen in a million years with my luck, but if it did, it’d be totally sweet.

“How much longer until they bring my father out?” I asked as I made my way through the crowd, doing my best not to be noticed by the dozens of Enclave Soldiers who were watching the growing crowd.

“Half an hour I think, just try and keep an eye on everything going on. Cascade is ready on his end and Solstice is getting set up now. I’m in position and I have eyes on you,” Stardust replied.

I looked up toward one of the four-story buildings just across the street from the execution platform but couldn’t make out my friend who I knew was ready with his Sniper Rifle. “I can’t even see you, are you using a Stealth Buck?”

“Nah, I have my own ways of hiding when I need to. Move a few paces to your right and get closer, keep yourself close to the building there,” he said.

I did as he said, saying quietly, “You’re sure that rifle will be okay in a setting like this?”

“I wasn’t sure myself at first, but yeah. I may have killed Wrath and taken this rifle from him, but maybe I can put it to better use. Something like this isn’t very practical for this setting, but you work with the tools you have,” Stardust said, sounding a little upset as he brought up Wrath.

“Phantom Shot,” I said.

“Huh?” he replied.

“His name was Phantom Shot, and I think he’d like to see his rifle being used to do something good for a change. He never wanted to be a Sin in the first place,” I said, as I got into a position that gave me a good view of the stage but kept me out of sight.

“I read his file when I was Pride, didn’t care much about his past when I was out of my mind, but now…” he said, “Now I’m sorry I killed him. When this is all over, I’m going to find his daughter and apologize for taking him away from her.”

I blinked at that. “Dusty, his daughter was killed by my uncle years ago.”

“Yeah, his youngest daughter was. His other daughter who’s about your age is still around. She wasn’t home when Cal killed his family. She was at a friend’s house. After Phantom Shot was arrested, she was put into a foster home and raised by them. She lives in Nimbus from what I’ve learned,” he said.

“Wait, you mean his daughter is still around? Does she know about her father? Also, Cal?” I asked.

“Cal is a new nickname I’ve thought up for Oricalcos because his name is long and I’m a little lazy. Kinda hopin’ it sticks. Anyway I’m not sure, from the reports about Phantom Shot, he wasn’t allowed to contact her. Since The Sins are essentially Dashites who work for special forces in The Enclave, they’re ghosts to most Enclave citizens. She might’ve been told her father was executed or forced to leave The Enclave. Knowing Phantom Shot, he probably found a way to get in contact with her over the years,” Stardust said.

“Do you know her name?” I asked.

“Her name is Light Heart, she’s a unicorn and attending the magic school in Nimbus,” he said.

I looked back at the stage and took in a deep breath before, saying, “We’ll find her when we can and tell her what happened to her father. Even if she hates us for it, she deserves to know the truth.”

“Yes, she does,” he said, then his voice got firmer as he said, “They’re coming, be ready.”

I looked up and sure enough, a small black transport pulled by a single pegasus was being flown down toward the stage. Following close behind was none other than Winter Frost. He was in a set of pure white power armor with gold trim, his head exposed and a grin like he owned the entire world plastered on his smug face. My horn sparked with red magic for a moment as the anger at him filled me.

“Be ready,” I said to Stardust.

“I’ll let Solstice and Cascade know too. Also, check the anger. I saw that flash of red from up here,” Stardust said.

“I’ll do my best, let’s just hope that everything works out the way we planned,” I responded.

“That’d be nice for a change. Being the underdog good guys sucks,” he joked before he switched channels so he could update the others.

I readied the weapons on dad’s power armor, using my E.F.S. Systems to set up a targeting system in my sight. As soon as I did, a trigger bit came out of the armor ready for me to aim and fire. Keeping to the shadows I watched as the transport landed with Winter Frost.

The smarmy phlegm-wad slowly walked up to a microphone that had been ready for him at the edge of the stage. He looked out at the still growing crowd, and said, “Welcome citizens of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, I as you all know by now I am High Council Pony Winter Frost.”

“You’re full of shit!” Somepony yelled from deep in the crowd, making him pause for a moment.

Another voice shouted, “Eat a dick poser!”

He took a moment to look for the one who spoke, but then shrugged it off, continuing saying, “I know the changes to Stratus have been hard for you all to take, but I promise you that life in this great city will be getting better soon. With the help of our friends in Neighvarro, we’ve been doing everything we can to fix what our last High Council Pony broke.”

As he spoke, the door to the transport was opened and Thundercracker and my father were both escorted out. Greed had some kind of collar around his neck that was emitting a blue glow. For a moment I was wondering what it was for, then I realized it had to be blocking his ability to use his ultimate shield. Still, Thundercracker grinned as he was led toward the gallows and he even winked at a young mare. At least he looked like he was okay, apart from the fact that he was about to be killed. As he was led to the noose, I realized that this was the first time I’d seen Thundercracker out of his combat armor. He looked how I expected him to, blue coat like his face and the ivory mane, tail, and goatee which was new. Where his cutie mark should be, there was a branded Lightning bolt and a cloud. The mark of a Dashite. The scar was old, but it looked like it had to have been painful when it was done.

Dad on the other hoof was beaten so badly it was hard to tell it was him. His face was swollen and full of cuts. Various other lacerations covered his neck, torso, and flanks. In all the time I spent with my father, even when I was a foal, I’d never seen his cutie mark. At least I couldn’t remember seeing it. Now it was on display for all to see and I could see why he was a descendant of Night Stalker. His cutie mark was a full moon, bright against his black coat, with a single grey cloud crossing over the moon. He was also led to the noose to stand next to Thundercracker. It looked like Thundercracker said, “First time?” to my dad but I could barely read his lips from my position.

“Both of these ponies are being executed today for being found guilty of high treason against the Grand Pegasus Enclave,” Winter Frost said, sounding smug.

“Nightshade is a hero! He’d never betray us!” another pony yelled from the crowd.

“Yeah, what proof do you have that he did anything to betray the Enclave!?” a stallion yelled.

“Apart from working with his ex-wife to take over…” Winter Frost started to say, but my father’s voice echoed weakly as he interrupted him.

“My wife. We never got divorced, her name is Grimoire Spell…” he said.

“Shut up Nightshade,” Winter Frost said, before looking back at the growing crowd, “Apart from working with Grimoire who took control of The Sins…”

He was interrupted again by a stallion. “Who are The Sins? We were always told they weren’t real!”

“Quiet all of you, the next pony to interrupt me will be brought in on charges,” Winter Frost Growled, “Nightshade worked with Grim to try and take down The Enclave as a whole. He killed the last High Council Ponies to put himself in that position.”

“Hey, I thought The Courier and that Stranger killed them,” Thundercracker said, “Yes, that’s right, I remember because we got a full report on it.”

Winter Frost ignored him, saying, “The Stranger that was spoken of, the pony who hides his identity and has killed Enclave Ponies for many years now is none other than Nightshade!”

That quieted them all down. Luckily for me, Fairy Glitter knew that was the biggest part of his charges. Everything that had been brought up on my father had to do with the deaths of The High Council Ponies and his role as The Stranger. I smiled as I watched our plan fall into place. Before Winter Frost could keep speaking, a blur of brown and white landed on the stage with a loud boom. The Stranger stood there with his bandages wrapped around his face and his signature hat shading his bright green eyes. He also bore the black combat armor around his body and the trench coat. Well not he…it was Solstice using the outfit my father had her wear when she was pretending to be him when I came out of the memory orb back in Saints Parish. Thanks to the voice modulator, she was able to use the same voice as my father.

“Are you talking about me Winter Frost, or did the attack back at F&F Tools rattle your brain?” The Stranger asked.

Winter Frost looked stunned to see the stallion who he thought he’d captured standing in front of him. He looked at his guards then back at The Stranger, “This is a trick!”

“Oh really? As you can see, I’m standing right here and the pony you’re trying to charge with my crimes isn’t. He seems rather too indisposed. If you want to punish someone for taking down the High Council, then I’m your culprit. I worked with The Courier to kill the former High Council,” The Stranger said.

“Capture HIM!” Winter Frost yelled, “I want him taken in alive!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” The Stranger said, chuckling, “If any of your soldiers move, let’s just say my sniper will open your third eye.”

A red dot appeared on the ground then moved up to Winter Frost’s head. He froze and growled. “Even if Nightshade isn’t you, he’s still a traitor. He was working with you. He wanted power for himself.”

“Let Nightshade GO!” a stallion screamed from the growing crowd.

“NEVER!” Winter Frost growled, then he smiled a little, saying, “I rule the western cities now, even if you want to say Nightshade had nothing to do with their deaths, I won’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me, the citizens of The Enclave do,” The Stranger said as she turned to look at the crowd, “I killed the last High Council because they were plotting against the ponies I work with. I admit that I have killed numerous Enclave ponies before, but I did so to protect you all from the dark dealings going on.” She pointed at Nightshade. “I made sure Nightshade became your new High Council pony because I knew he could lead Stratus, Nimbus, and the ground cities to a better future!” Solstice could really get dramatic when she wanted.

Winter Frost started to laugh, making Solstice stop her fake speech to look at him as he said, “I think it’s about time we end this little charade. Nightshade will die today and so will Greed and The Courier who I know is in the city right now.”

“Shadow look…” Stardust tried to say, but he was cut-off. I tried to look up at what happened but right as I turned a hoof slammed into to the back of my head sending me flying into the wall next to me.

“I wasn’t expecting to find you in power armor Courier,” the voice of Captain Strife said with her icy tone, “I’ll admit it took me longer to figure out where you were. I’m glad to see you could make it to the party.”

I twisted around and blasted a spell at her, but she dodged it and fired a blast of magical energy from her battle saddle. It hit my dad’s armor and sent a jolt through me, but didn’t do much damage. At the same time she attacked, Winter Frost attacked Solstice who managed to duck his blow and take to the air. I saw what was going on now, we’d been caught or set up. I dodged another attack from Strife and ran out of the alley right as the crowd erupted into an angry riot.

Strife tried to chase after me, but I used a barrier spell to block her attack as I yelled at the crowd, “If you want to see Nightshade back in power, now is the time to fight!”

“IF any of you even try to free him, you’ll all be killed!” Winter Frost yelled, then a book hit him in the face. I almost laughed at the shocked look on his face as blood ran out of his nose from the random object being thrown by a random citizen. He growled then shouted, “Soldiers of Neighvarro, kill anypony who resisted!”

As he spoke at least a hundred power armored pegasi flew into sight and opened fire on the enraged crowd. My eyes went wide as I watched ponies die, screams erupted from the crowd as blood flew, parents died protecting their foals, and body parts fell through the clouds. I started to pull on my magic then Strife came in and kicked me in the horn, sending utter agony through my head as my spell backfired. I screamed but managed to keep from passing out from the pain as I rounded on her, took aim with my E.F.S., and bit down on the triggers of my battle saddle to open fire on her. Bright green balls of plasma exploded out of the two mounted guns on the armor and flew toward the power armored mare.

She managed to dodge two of them, but a third clipped her wing. She managed to keep to the skies, but the ability to maintain her altitude looked slightly labored. Then I heard Thundercracker yell, “Look out!”

I ducked as a bullet few past my head, it was so close that a few strands of my mane fell to the clouds. I twisted to see four pegasi in power armor taking aim and behind them Winter Frost was holding my father’s revolver to his head. I felt my heart stop as he smiled around the bit and got ready to fire. Right then, the four pegasi opened fire on me, but I’d already pulled up another barrier and started running toward them with a new spell I’d learned ready to go. I knew I couldn’t get to my dad in time, but somepony else could. I fired the spell not at Winter Frost who looked like he was getting ready to gloat, but at Thundercracker’s collar. The spell wasn’t much, it wouldn’t hurt anypony, but it was like a focused spark grenade. It did what I hoped and shorted out the collar that was blocking the gem imbedded in Greed’s chest from doing its job.

He started to cackle like a mad pony as his body turned into that dense gray material. He launched himself at Winter Frost and just managed to push my father out of the way as the trigger was pulled. I opened fire on the pegasi trying to kill me. Two flew off to take cover, the other two died as their bodies turned into green goo. I watched the bullet fired from Demon Slayer hit Greed’s flank and to my surprise, it sank into him followed by a spray of blood.

“Well damn! That must be some powerful enchantment on that revolver,” Thundercracker said as a mad grin pulled at his hardened face, “I can’t wait till it’s mine!”

Winter Frost took a step back aiming to fire again at Thundercracker, but the cunning pegasus avoided the attack and dove at him. As they fought, I entered S.A.T.S. and took aim at both pegasi who’d taken cover. Right as their heads came up to check on my position, my blast of green energy took them out. I took the chance to run for my father who’d fallen to the ground just off the stage. Another guard landed next to him taking aim with his battle saddle. Before he could fire, a bullet tore half his head and face off followed by a massive ‘BOOM’ from above.

I skidded to a halt, looking up to see Stardust taking aim with a massive rifle. My earpiece beeped, followed by Stardust, saying, “Geeze this thing really kicks, but damn does it do some damage!”

“You okay Dusty? Now I’m really glad you decided to bring Wrath’s AMR.” I said.

“Pfft, with all the work I had to do to fix it, no, it’s mine now. Also, yes, I’m fine. It took me a minute or three to take care of the assholes who attacked me. I’ve got this for now, go help your father and get Thundercracker away from Winter Frost so I can put an end to this,” Stardust said as he took aim at more Enclave soldiers who were flying in to help Winter Frost and took them out with two shots.

“Sure-thing Dusty,” I said, and finally made my way over to my father. I knelt next to him, saying, “Dad, are you okay?”

His face was still swollen, and he looked weak. “I’ll be fine sweetheart, but what in the hell are you doing up here? Who taught you to use power armor?”

“Long story, and this is your armor. I figured you’d want it to help us take back Stratus,” I replied.

“It would definitely help a lot and so would a healing potion if you have one,” he said.

As he spoke, Solstice still dressed as The Stranger landed next to us. “Got them right here for you Nightshade.”

She held out three vials in her muzzle, dad looked her over, then took one, before saying, “Who the hell are you and how did you get that outfit?”

“It’s Solstice, now drink the rest and get into your power armor. I still have a bigger part to play in this plan,” I said as I used my Mark II to open the armor.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, rolling his eyes as he drank another potion, “She’s so bossy, isn’t she?”

Solstice chuckled to herself, saying, “Yeah, but you learn to live with it.”

I rolled my eyes then stepped out of the armor. I quickly hugged my father and kissed his cheek, before saying, “Stay alive, stay safe, and follow Solstice’s lead.”

“What’re you going to do?” he asked.

“What I have to,” I replied, before nodding at Solstice and running toward the stage. There was a camera set up to broadcast the execution to the entire western Enclave. I turned it on as Thundercracker and Winter Frost fought on the other side of the stage.

A moment passed, then my image showed up on the large screen I could just make out in the distance. By way of the fuck it adjustment, I put on my best smile and started phase two of my plan, “Citizens of The Grand Pegasus Enclave, for those of you who didn’t get the privilege of seeing my first broadcast, hi I’m Shadow Star, but you all may know me by another name. I’m The Courier of New Pegasus. Yes, I’m here in Stratus where I just saved the lives of your High Councilor Nightshade who is my father and Greed, who is a former Sin. You’ve all been living your lives under a lie brought on by ponies like Winter Frost and his sister Captain Strife. You’ve been told that my father has betrayed you, that he’s been plotting to have your cities taken over by wastelanders. Sure, it might be true that my father wants to reunite The Wasteland and The Enclave, but not to have your cities taken over. He wants to help fix the wrongs my distant grandfather committed when he had the cloud cover put up and broke away the pegasi and some unicorns from the rest of Equestria. After forty years of ruling you all, Night Stalker wanted to fix what he broke, but some ponies like Winter Frost’s family, didn’t want to lose the control they had over ponies like you. So, they cast him out, branded him a Dashite, and took over for themselves. It’s taken another hundred and sixty years to finally come to this point. It’s time to stop hiding up here in the clouds and ignoring what’s going on below. The leaders of your cities know that there is great evil brewing on the surface, and it’ll come to your cities too if you don’t rise up. It’s time to bring our two lands together, it’s time to fight for what’s right. It’s time to bring Equestria back from the dust and help this land become whole again. So, citizens and soldiers alike, take back your cities, break free of your chains of servitude to The Enclave, and become something better. Fight for Stratus, Fight for Nimbus, fight for the Twin Cities, Fight for The Crystal Empire, and help me fight to protect New Pegasus. If you don’t, then soon Captain Strife and the remaining Seven Sins of Equinity will use your forces to attack a city that has taken in your brothers, your sisters, your colts, and fillies who’ve been branded over the years and protected them. They want to kill those who don’t follow them. So, let’s give them a fight to remember!”

With that all said, I blasted the camera to oblivion and turned toward Winter Frost who was still fighting with Thundercracker, who said, “You know, you sound pretty sexy when you’re all serious like that.”

“I’m flattered Thundercracker, but I think it’s time Winter Frost gets what’s coming to him,” I responded.

“I don’t know Shadow, I’m kind of liking the fight with this one. He’s full of piss and vinegar!” Thundercracker said.

“Thundercracker, we don’t have time to play with him. If you’re up for it, I need you to head to the New Moon and take it back before Strife gets her hooves on it. If we get a Thunderhead on our side, we’ll have the fire power to hold Stratus. Think you can do that?” I asked.

His grin was from ear to ear. “Do I get to keep it if I take it?”

“No, but I’ll let you pick three things inside it to take for yourself. How’s that sound?” I asked.

My father landed next to me looking a lot better and in his power armor. Solstice was with him and out of the Stranger’s outfit. “Thundercracker, if you help me take the New Moon, I’ll make you it’s commander if I have to. I’ll even reinstate you as a citizen of the Enclave. Either way, I’ll need your help.”

Winter Frost took a step back, growling in anger as he looked at the four of us. “You’ll never take the New Moon back, or this city. I have Neighvarro on my side!”

“You three get out of here, I’ll take care of him,” I said, pulling out my mother’s Plasma Rifle.

“Shadow, you’ll need our help,” Solstice said.

“I have Stardust,” I said, then popped my neck and took aim with the plasma rifle as Thundercracker flew to my father and Solstice, “Winter Frost, it’s time for your family to die, this is my father’s city, not yours or your twisted leader’s. You’ll serve as a message to him not to fuck with my family!”

I fired a fully charged blast of dark green plasma at the bastard who tried to kill my father. At the same time, my father, Solstice, and Thundercracker flew away. I also heard Stardust fire his AMR at Winter Frost at the same time I fired my plasma rifle. Finally, we were going to end him.

‘CRACK….BOOM’

There was a flash of pink nearly blinding light right as my plasma and Stardust’s bullet hit something that appeared right in front of Winter Frost. I had to squint for a moment because the light was so intense. When I could see again, I felt my legs go weak. Standing just in front of Winter Frost with a translucent pink barrier was Aquila.

Winter Frost glared at her, “It’s about damn time you showed up! That deranged psychopath was about to kill me!”

“Aquila? What are you doing here?” I asked as rage filled my very soul.

Aquila barely glanced at me before, saying, “I’ll be with you in a moment Shadow, I’m only here to give a message to this moron.”

“Are you working with Winter Frost!?” I yelled.

Stardust fired another round, but the round just broke apart on the barrier she’d erected. Winter Frost looked into Aquila’s Pink eyes, “What message do you have for me? You work for me and my family monster. Kill The Courier and her friends!”

“I don’t work for you or your grandfather. I work with him and only to reach my goal of unlocking my full power,” she said smugly, “I didn’t come here to save you, I only wanted to make sure you heard your grandfather’s message before you died.”

I blasted a spell at Aquila, but it didn’t do any more damage than Stardust’s rifle had. Aquila pulled out a broadcaster and the voice of that ghoul who I now knew was Thunderlane echoed out of the device. “Winter Frost, this is the third time now that you’ve failed me. I’ve been watching everything from Cirrus, and I can no longer have a failure like you in this family.”

I stopped my attack and watched along with a few other pegasi who started showing up since Aquila appeared. Stardust landed next to me as Winter Frost’s normally smug expression changed to fear. “Grandfather, we haven’t failed, The Courier is right in front of me, with Aquila’s help I can kill her!”

“No Winter, you can’t. Right now we need her alive. If she dies by your hooves, it could kill our ally and we need her to get Falling Shadows working. It’s time for you to suffer the same punishment your father did, so your sister can take over from here on out. Aquila, make sure everypony knows why you don’t mess with the true leaders of The Enclave,” Thunderlane said before cutting off the communicator.

The grin that pulled at Aquilla’s lips twisted her features to match the monster she really was as she started to chuckle within her magical protection, “Oh I’ll do more than that,” she said as she connected to somepony else on her communicator, “Captain Strife, this is an order from The Enclave leader, wipe out any ponies who even dare to defy us. If Stratus must fall to prove our point, so be it.”

The ice bitch’s voice echoed back with only two words that sent a shiver down my spine. “Roger that!”

Aquila looked back at Stardust and I, then said, “Enclave soldiers, you are not to hurt The Courier, but her friend the runaway is fair game. Anypony who takes him out will get a handsome reward from the supreme leader. Same goes for any of the citizens who thought they could take sides with her. I don’t care if you have to burn this entire cloud city.”

Dozens of ponies around us all said at once, “Yes MA’AM!”

I flipped around right as the screaming started. The power armored pegasi around us who had only a few moments ago, been trying to kill Stardust and I, turned their battle saddles on the citizens who had been only watching what was going on. In only a few seconds I watched them open fire on everypony who was still in the clearing. Stallions were turned to dust as they tried to protect their families, mares died pushing their foals toward safety, and even the foals were gunned down as they ran screaming from the orders given by Aquila and Thunderlane.

In less than a minute, the clouds around me were covered in blood and bodies and yet more were still dying, trying to escape the soldiers who were supposed to protect the pegasi of Stratus. Through it all, Aquila laughed, and said, “You see Shadow, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much faith you put into the ponies around you, they will always die.”

I slowly turned my head back to look at the monster who looked so much like my old self, “How…could you do this?”

That mad smile of hers never faltered as more and more died around us. I heard Stardust opening fire on the soldiers next to me as he tried to say something to me, but I’d gone numb to it all. The only thing I could concentrate on was her as she used her magic to take hold of Winter Frost who tried to yell something, but Aquila made sure not a sound could escape his lips.

“I can do this, because I…am…power. That is something that you need to come to terms with because once I get this spell your mother placed over me removed, I’m going to make sure you suffer and then die. Just like…this,” Aquila said, then she turned her head toward Winter Frost, and said sweetly, “Let’s make you match your namesake.”

Her horn flashed and for a moment she let Winter Frost scream in agony, right before his body turned into ice. It started at his hooves and worked its way up his body slowly freezing him until only his eyes were left unfrozen. The look of pain and anger in them found me and I knew right then before his sight was gone forever, that he was blaming me once again for his failure. Then his eyes became cloudy right before they too became nothing but frozen orbs like the rest of his body. Then with a sigh of boredom, Aquila dropped the frozen Winter Frost and he vanished through the clouds.

She looked back at me and winked. “I need to be going, but do enjoy the show. Don’t worry, no pony who works for us will try to hurt you. Wouldn’t want to suffer the same fate as you just yet. Until next time, my annoying little vessel.”

With that she vanished in a flash of pink light. I was left in shock as my father’s city started to die around me. That was until a hoof smacked me in the face followed by Stardust, yelling, “Shadow snap out of it!”

I blinked. “She…she killed him…”

“Yeah, I saw, who cares? He was supposed to die anyway, we can’t worry about her, we need to save the city! Now get over yourself, forget about that bitch for once and help me!” he yelled before pulling his large sniper rifle up again and firing at an Enclave solider who was trying to attack two fillies running for a house.

I shook my head then pulled out Dream Walker and mom’s Plasma rifle. “You’re right, let’s see what we can do.”

“Good, we need to take out any pegasi in power armor who’re attacking the citizens. Try to aim for their visor’s, that’s the best way to take them down. Pegasus power armor isn’t as tough as Steel Ranger armor,” Stardust said.

“I think I can do that,” I said as I entered S.A.T.S. and targeted two headshots at an Enclave solider and opened fire. One hit the second blew through one of the guns on her battle saddle. The plasma rifle on that side exploded at the same time as her head whipped back and her body fell to the clouds. I flipped around and fired at another pegasus who opened fire at me, hitting my armored barding with magical laser blasts until one of my plasma blasts slammed into her wing and she fell to the ground screaming. I was about to take her out when Cascade landed next to her, pointed a beautiful looking pistol that looked a lot like Dream Walker at her head, and put her out of her misery.

“What’re you dimwits doing standing around here like a bunch of dumbass kids at the zoo? We’ve got bigger problems than a few Neighvarro rats,” Cascade said before twisting around to dodge an attack from a stallion. He rolled, popping back up and blasting the pegasus right in the visor.

“What could be worse than soldiers killing any Stratus citizen they can?” Stardust asked, blasting two shots at a pair of pegasi who tried to take out an elderly couple trying to get into a door down the street.

“The New Moon’s taken flight and it’s heading for the inner city, that thing has powerful enough guns that could take out every building there in a matter of minutes,” Cascade yelled before dodging another attack, this time from a pegasus who wasn’t in power armor, but was wearing a military outfit that didn’t match up with what I’d seen in Stratus before. Cascade shocked Stardust and I by doing a backflip. He came down on the other solider, slamming him to the ground, then snapping his neck before looking back at us, “Dumbass.”

“I thought my father and Thundercracker were heading there to take The New Moon back from Captain Strife?” I asked.

“Last I heard they were, but you sent a small force to go after a flying death machine, they’re gonna need help. Also, where’s Solstice? She isn’t answering her com,” he said.

“She went with Thundercracker and my dad,” I replied.

“She…WHAT!?” Cascade yelled, “Why the hell did you let my daughter go toward that monster of a ship!?”

“Like we could stop her,” Stardust said, “Plus, she can take care of herself dad and you know it.”

“I don’t give a damn smartmouth,” he raged before taking in a deep breath, “Can’t fix it now, but I swear if she dies, I’m going to stick my hoof so far up both of your asses that you’ll be smelling the ozone from the bottom of my hooves for weeks.”

I was about to say something about how she would be just fine with Greed by her side, but just then a shadow blocked out the sun overhead. The New Moon flew over us, heading toward the large buildings in the middle of the city. The three of us looked up right as a blast of green energy exploded out of one of the massive canons at the front and vanished from view. A moment later screams and the sounds a breaking glass and the rumble of something falling echoed around us.

It only took a moment for the large Thunderhead to pass us as it started opening fire on Stratus. I was in shock at the massive power of that ship, and I took a step back as, I said, “We need to take that thing down, I really wish I had Solar Flare right now.”

“If you did, you still wouldn’t use it,” Stardust said as he strapped his rifle to his back, “Thundercracker, my sister, and your dad are in there. If you used it, they’d die too.”

“I know, but I don’t know what else can take that thing down,” I said.

“We can do it,” Cascade said as he looked away from the ship, “Don’t worry about the citizens here, I already called in every favor I have with the Stratus Guard. They’ll take down the rest of the hopeful wiseasses who think they can destroy this city.”

I took in a deep breath, then said, “Okay, let’s get up to that thing then and stop Strife once and for all, it’s time to end this.”

“Shadow you fly with me,” Stardust said crouching down so I could climb on to his back, “Dad, cover us and see if you can get any available guards or soldiers to come help us. We’ll need numbers if we want to take down that ship.”

“Already done son, now let’s go,” he said as he took to the air.

I got onto Stardust right before he took off, following his father. As we flew toward the monster ship, I took another look at the large pistol now holstered on Cascade’s Barding, “Is that a Luna Edition Desert Eagle?”

He smiled. “Sure is, it was awarded to me not long after I retired, it’s named Reaper. I see you have Dream Walker, thought that one was lost.”

“Nah, it was just in a display case at a dance studio for two hundred years,” I said as I holstered Dream Walker and the plasma rifle.

Cascade nodded to me as we flew closer to The New Moon, as we did a few more Pegasi joined us, all in power armor. At first, I thought we were going to be attacked again, until I saw one nod to Cascade. I couldn’t help the small smile pull at my lips, a feeling that grew into a full-on grin as I looked down at the citizens of Stratus below. Some were still running from the attacking Neighvarro soldiers, but most were using their own weapons or magic in the case of a few unicorns I saw, to fight back and/or protect. Then from in the city itself sirens started to go off. A blaring loud high pitch whine that was piercing to my ears. That was soon followed by another blast from The New Moon, but the siren kept on going on, and on, and on. As the sounds grew louder, that place deep in my soul where the memories of Night Stalker seemed to reside pulsed, and my vision started to go dark.

“NO…”I yelled before I felt my body lose hold of Stardust. He yelled something but I never heard it as I felt my mind slipping into the past, the last thing I felt was my body falling through the Stratus sky.

oooOOOooo

Night Stalker…

I flew through the sky over Los Pegasus and rage was the only thing I could feel as the flashes of Petal’s death replayed repeatedly in my head. The Damned zebras took her away from me. I’d done everything I could to keep her as far away from the war as I could. I helped her get a job at Stable-Tec. I made sure she was always away from any battle that came near one of their projects. I killed, and fought, and bled to keep my last bit of family safe. I know she wasn’t my blood, her parents weren’t really my own either, but neither was Granny in Griffonstone. Yet when she finally passed, it hurt just as bad as when my parents froze to death in the mountains, using their own bodies to keep the small cave we sheltered in blocked from the storm that eventually killed them. When my adoptive father died last year in that bombing and earlier this year when my adoptive mother died from a strange illness, I vowed I’d do everything to make sure that Petal wouldn’t leave this world until long after I did.

Why do I keep on living when I throw myself into some of the most dangerous situations imaginable and good loving ponies like my sister die? It isn’t fair, I should be the one dead on that battlefield, not her. She was trying to save ponies, she never hurt anyone, she was good. I’m the monster, I’m the darkness, I’m The Night Stalker. I should be the one to die, then maybe everything would get better, or at the very least it’d put an end to all the pain and loss. It’s not like I’m suicidal or anything like that, but I just wish one time, my luck would just run out in a fight and I’d finally find the peace I’ve been looking for. At least in death, I wouldn’t have to worry about The Children, the princesses, the war, or…my feelings for her. At the thought of the only real thing in my life I truly cared about, it came to light that I knew right then that this is what I was fighting for. It didn’t matter that I was with somepony or not, my feelings for Greta never changed, no matter how much I tried to tell myself it was just because I grew up around her and that was all. I’d never tell her that, she’d kill me, same for Lightning who I also did care about very much, but my love for her wasn’t the same as the deep longing I had for that one Griffon.

“If I have to keep on fighting then I’ll fight to make sure this world is a better place, for her…and for Lightning,” I said, before spotting the zebras we’d captured and the small force still trying to fight my troops. They couldn’t win now, they had too few, but leading them was a zebra that I knew thanks to Noire. I growled in anger as the overly large and muscular zebra prince charged the line, killing three ponies before I could do anything to stop him.

I dove for the ground spotting Babs toward the back of my troops missing a foreleg, but still yelling curses at the zebras as medical unicorns tried to pull her away from the fight and get her out of her power armor. I activated my com as the ground came rushing up at me. “Amethyst Star, I need to talk to Noire.”

“Sorry captain, but he…kind of escaped,” she said.

“What? How?” I asked, baffled at how he could do anything with that collar around his neck.

“I’ll explain later, but I kind of gave him permission to go. He said he knows how to stop the attack,” she said.

“Damn it all,” I yelled cutting off the com, “Fine, I guess we’ll see if he can be trusted or not then.”

I slammed into the ground right in front of the attacking Prince and yelled, “Hey motherfucker, I’m going to tear your head off with my bare hooves!”

The bastard started to laugh as the sirens around the city continued to blare and the fire kept on burning away the prosperity…

oooOOOooo

Night Stalker, Ten Months Later…

I walked into the hospital room putting a fake smile on my face. That was what most days were like for me now days, fake smiles, and fake confidence in the war. Sitting on the hospital bed holding a small bundle was Minuette with Amethyst Star in a seat next to her bed. Thunderlane, Noire, and my wife Lightning Dust were already there. I came to the end of the bed, saying, “Well now don’t keep me in suspense, did you have a colt or a filly?”

Minuette gave me that dazzling smile that was one of the few things in this world that could truly make me feel a bit of happiness as she said, “A colt, we decided to name him Dwarf Star.”

“Stupid name if you ask me,” Thunderlane said, in a grouchy mood as ever.

“Not today please Thunderlane,” Lightning said as she sat on the other side of Minuette’s bed, a hoof resting protectively over a bump on her own stomach, “Today’s a happy day, something we don’t get very often.”

“I just think it’s wrong for a same sex couple to be having foals at all, I mean who’s going to teach the kid how to be strong with two mothers anyway?” he said.

I rolled my eyes, doing my best not to hit the asshole. “Well, I think it’s great and with two powerful unicorns like yourself, I believe he’s going to be a strong stallion someday.”

Minuette smiled again. “Thunderlane, I don’t care what you think. I’m just happy that I’m finally done with caring this little colt around. The last three months he just kept on kicking me over and over again in the ribs.”

“I just can’t believe I didn’t see that you two were…you know…doing whatever you lesbians do for so long,” Thunderlane said, but he followed it up with a small smile, so I refrained from hitting him…again.

“What we lesbians do? We spend time together, a lot, and have sex,” Minuette said jokingly.

Thunderlane snorted. “I know how babies are made; you don’t need to explain it to me.”

“We got a sperm donor you idiot. Clearly you don’t know how it works,” Minuette said.

“But…but, unicorn magic,” Thunderlane stuttered out.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Minuette said with a smile.

“Still though, I wish I would’ve known about you two,” Thunderlane said.

“We…just didn’t want anypony to think we were getting distracted while we were working. You know there are rules about couples working together and all that,” Amethyst said shyly.

Minuette started to laugh. “I’m sure The Captain…oh I’m sorry I mean General here knew way before we finally told him.”

I rolled my eyes at the stupid new rank I’d been given after I killed that damned Prince and saved what was left of Las Pegasus, but then smiled again. This time for real. “Yeah, I knew since day one, but I really didn’t care. You two never let it stop you from working hard, and for that it wasn’t worth fussing over. Even with the rules in place, I still started dating Lightning and now we’re married.”

“Yeah, I still don’t see how you get away with that boss,” Babs said as she walked into the room behind me, her metallic leg making a small ‘ping’ with every step.

“BABS!” Minuette said with unwavering joy, “We haven’t seen you since a few weeks after the battle. Where have you been?”

“Long story, I had to…well…just trust me it’s a long story,” she said looking over at me with a pleading look.

I knew what the story was. She found out on the day she was getting that cybernetic leg that she was also pregnant. She stayed away to hide the pregnancy for as long as she could and now her son was only a month old. Only Lightning and I knew about it and the fact that she was retiring from The Children of the Night. I promised her that I wouldn’t tell the others, not until she was ready.

Lightning changed the subject by asking me, “So dear, where’s Greta and Cloudy Nights?”

“Cloudy said she had something to deal with back home. She’s using her leave time, I think her mother passed away. Greta is overseeing the final touches on the chamber under the base,” I said.

“Oh no, I hope Cloudy is okay. I know she said her father was a dick, but she said her mom was always very sweet,” Amethyst said.

“I have no idea, but if she doesn’t check in by tomorrow, I’ll go check on her. She grew up not too far from here,” I said before going over to my wife and giving her a kiss before moving down to look at Dwarf Star, “Well he’s defiantly a strong looking colt, kind of small though huh, who’s his father?”

Amethyst is the one who answered, “No idea, Min and I didn’t want to know, that’s why we used that doner bank that Fluttershy set up. Min decided she wanted to be the one to carry our foal.”

Minuette yawned. “Yeah, and it was a mistake, you can have the next one.”

We all laughed, and I looked into the eyes of the little colt. “One day little colt, you’re going to be something special, I just know it.”

“I’m sure he will, he is a descendent of a Child of the Night after all,” Lightning said with a chuckle.

“That he is,” I said as I ran a hoof over my wife’s belly, “And soon we’ll have one of our own.”

Lightning was about to say something when the communicator I always had with me now days went off. I sighed as Lightning said, “Go do your job, we all understand.”

Everypony nodded at me, and I sighed even louder as I headed out of the room. On the way out, I put at hoof on Babs’ large shoulder. “While I’m gone, you should tell them, they deserve to know.”

“I know sir, I know,” she said before I left the room.

I ducked into an empty room and answered the communicator. “This is General Night Stalker.”

To my surprise Greta’s voice echoed out of the communicator. “Night Stalker, we’ve got a problem.”

I sighed. “What now? Did one of the workers try to sneak away again with photos? I’ve told you before, if you capture them, destroy the photos and have one of the unicorns wipe their memory.”

“I wish,” she said, “I’m not even at the worksite right now.”

“What? I told you I needed one of us there at all times while we finish up this last part of the project,” I said.

“I know and I wouldn’t have left but I got a communication from one of my contacts. You need to get back to The Lucky Horseshoe right now,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Princess Luna and Golden Blood are heading there right now. From what I heard, Golden Blood found out about Falling Shadows, and he’s trying to get Luna to shut it down,” she said.

“Dammit, that snake!” I yelled before taking in a deep breath, “Fine, I’m on my way. Can you meet me on the roof?”

“I’ll be there in five, see you soon sir,” she said before cutting off communication.

“Boss? Is there anything I can do to help?” I heard Noire say from the door making me nearly jump out of my skin.

“Dammit, I hate when you do that,” I said.

“My apologies Night Stalker, but you know us zebras are naturally silent trotters,” he said with a small grin.

“Yeah, I know, but still, I hate it when you do that. Anyway yes, I was just about to come get you. I need you to go to The Lucky Horseshoe and get to the subbasement. Make sure nopony can find that part of the project while I find out what the hell Golden Blood is up to,” I said as I headed past him and out the door.

“You think he has an alternative plan sir?” the zebra said, following behind me.

“It’s Golden Blood, if he’s going to The Lucky Horseshoe with Luna, then I can guarantee you that he has one of his O.I.A. lackies trying to sneak into the lower floors to see just what we’re up to,” I said.

“What do you want me to do if I find said lacky?” he asked.

I looked over my shoulder at him. “Kill them, why else would I be sending you instead of somepony else on the team.”

He grinned. “Sometimes I think you only think of me as your personal assassin.”

“No, I see you as one of the few zebras I can trust, one that can get things done. If I needed an assassin, I’d go myself,” I said.

“You do have a point,” he said with a laugh, “I will keep you updated on what I find.”

oooOOOooo

Shadow…

I felt a hoof slap me, followed by Stardust saying quietly, “Shadow dammit, wake up. Now isn’t the time for you to be going into lala land.”

I jerked my head up looking around. We were in a small space with metal walls and what looked like mops and cleaning supplies. It took a minute, but Stardust’s face came into view. “What the fuck happened?” I asked, rubbing my sore head, “I feel like a stallion used my head for a bucking bag.”

He cursed. “I have no fucking idea. Once minute you were riding on my back as we were flying toward The New Moon, then the next minute you passed out and fell off my back. You’re lucky I was able to catch you.”

I remembered the memories from Night Stalker hitting me like a lead balloon. It wasn’t the first time, but unlike the others, the memories I saw weren’t fading away. That was odd, I was able to use his memories to train myself with the power armor just fine and nothing happened when I did that. The memories themselves faded but the skills stayed. The only other time I passed out like that was right after the crystal spoke to me. Except the memory I saw then also vanished. What was going on?

“Shadow, we don’t have time for you to stare off into space like that, what the fuck happened?” Stardust asked, shaking me a little.

“It’s nothing. Where are we?” I asked getting to my hooves.

“Shadow that wasn’t nothing, you’re fucking eyes were glowing green when I caught you. You were mumbling about foals and assassins. What did you do? Is it Aquila? Are you messing with magic you can’t control?” he asked, looking more pissed the longer I avoided his question.

“Dusty, I can’t even begin to tell you what’s going on. I don’t even understand it all, just please, let it go and tell me where we are,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice low and calm.

He cursed under his breath then sighed. “Fine, but you will explain this to me when we’re safe and so is Stratus. We made it to The New Moon, my dad is up ahead hiding with some of the soldiers who followed us.”

“How many pegasi are guarding the ship?” I asked as I pulled out Dream Walker just in case we were attacked.

“That’s the weird thing, we haven’t seen a single guard yet. My dad wanted us to keep hidden just in case it’s a trap. We also needed you awake, I couldn’t just leave you passed out in a closet with glowing green eyes,” he said with a cocky grin, “Would’ve been kind of a dick move ya know. Could’ve been fun to prop you up in a mop bucket though.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I’m up now and ready to fight. Let’s get this ship taken offline and see if we can find my father, Thundercracker, and Solstice. Now let’s get out of the closet.”

His grin only got wider. “Thought you came out of the closet a long time ago.”

“Oh, ha-ha. It’s your turn this time, I’m just here for moral support,” I said as I opened the door slowly, looking out for any guards.

“You’re mean, I’m telling Aura you were making assumptions about my sexuality,” he teased as he followed me out.

“Go ahead, she’s worse,” I replied as we made our way down a hallway that looked like it was just off a of a large hanger.

“I’m only teasing, damn,” he said.

“I have no idea why Stormy thought you would’ve been the perfect solider, you talk too much,” I said as I saw Cascade and a few soldiers up a head.

“That right, this is why I’m NOT perfect, just awesome, and good looking,” he said, then waved at his father, “Hey Pops, what’s the hold up?”

I decided to ignore my friend as Cascade turned toward us. I noticed his weapons weren’t even activated. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There’s no pony here,” Cascade said looking over at me, “Had the guards go check out the area while you were napping, and they couldn’t find a single pony anywhere on the ship.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, “Who’s attacking the city if no pony is in here?”

“Gotta be somepony in the bridge, at least two. It takes that many to fly one of these things, but more likely three or more,” Cascade said, “Something’s fishy.”

“I agree,” Stardust said, “Shadow stay behind me and my dad. The rest of you go check out the ship again and make sure there really isn’t anypony onboard, we can’t afford to be ambushed.”

“We don’t take orders from you!” a young stallion said.

“You’ll do as you’re told Private, this is my colt and he’s got more fighting experience than the lot of you. Now move before I give you an ass whoppin’ ya candyass,” Cascade said.

It took a moment but then they all nodded then started spreading out across The New Moon. Once they were gone, Cascade looked at me, and said, “I haven’t seen my daughter or your dad yet. I’m hoping they’re at the bridge trying to stop this thing from destroying all of Stratus.”

“Let’s go find out,” I said and followed them as they made their way to the front of the ship.

It was kind of creepy to be on a ship this large and not have any other pony in sight. The New Moon was many times larger than The Palisade had been and that ship had dozens of ponies running it. How could this thing be flying and shooting and not have a single pony abord? Although, with no pony around, it also made it a lot quicker to reach the large blast doors that had the words ‘Bridge’ over it. We all readied our weapons and prepared to attack anypony who came for us when the speakers on the walls crackled nearly making me shoot them. Then the ghoulish voice of Thunderlane echoed out of them.

“Ah it’s about time you made it here, come on in you three, we’ve been waiting. Oh, and you can put your weapons away, no pony is going to attack you,” he said, followed by the large doors opening to reveal a large flight deck or something with at least two dozen seats around it with monitors and terminals all over.

My jaw dropped open when I saw the sight that really captured my attention. At the front of the bridge just in front of the large windows that showed the devastation The New Moon was unleashing upon Stratus, was a pink barrier with a terminal screen showing the dark outline of who had to be Thunderlane and standing next to it was Captain Strife with a smug grin on her face. Below her, just outside the barrier was my dad, Solstice, and Greed who were all looking up at her.

A deep chuckle emanated from the speakers again at the same time as the doors slammed shut behind us, and Thunderlane said, “Welcome Courier, or do you prefer Shadow Star? We haven’t had much time to talk in the past so I figured that we could all meet up here and have a little chat.”

“Grandfather please just let me kill her,” Strife said in her icy voice.

“In time my princess, in time. Now be a good filly and let grandpa talk to the little pony,” he said in a creepy voice.

“Yes sir,” Strife said, before she glared at me then sat down next to the large monitor.

“Who are you!?” Cascade yelled.

“I’d like to know that too,” my dad said.

“Cascade, do be quiet or I’ll make you be quiet. I only want to speak to Shadow,” Thunderlane said.

“I’ll make YOU be quiet when I find where you’re hiding you coward and shove my hoof so far up your ass…” Cascade started to yell then a blast of electricity shot out of the darkness in one corner hitting Cascade right in the face. He made an odd squeaking sound before he fell over, his eyes only half open.

“DAD!” Both Solstice and Stardust yelled at the same time.

“Don’t worry, he’s not dead, but he will be out for a little while. Now the next pony who speaks that isn’t our guest of honor will die,” Thunderlane said, chuckling again, “Now Shadow, do come closer to the barrier, I want to get a good look at you.

“Stop firing on Stratus and then we can talk,” I said, not moving an inch, “I won’t have more ponies dying just so you can pretend like you have more power than you do.”

“Fine, fine, I do know how much you like to pretend like you’re the hero. So, I’ll comply, for now,” he said then turned to Strife, “Go on standby princess.”

“Yes grandfather,” she said, before pushing a button on the terminal next to her.

The ship came to a stop and so did the cannons. Once they were done, Thunderlane said, “There now, please come closer.”

“Don’t Shadow, it’s a trick,” Stardust said.

“I know, but I don’t have much of a choice,” I said, before walking past my father, Greed, and Solstice to stand right in front of the pink barrier, “Okay, what do you want and why did you attack Stratus?”

“Right to business I see, I like that about you Shadow, I really do,” he said.

“Shut up and get to the point you sorry excuse for a rotting corpse,” I said.

“Now that’s just rude, you don’t know a thing about me Shadow,” Thunderlane said.

“I know who you are, Thunderlane, and the only way you can still be alive after two hundred years is that you’re a ghoul. Which I find a little funny since The Enclave has a shoot on sight order for all ghouls,” I said.

“We do, though that was Night Stalkers doing, not my own. Honestly, I never had a problem with ghouls when he was still running things. Yeah, some of them were true monsters but a lot of them were just ponies who found a way to immortality, kind of. However, I’m no ghoul, at least not in the same way that you know them,” he said.

“You sound like a ghoul to me Thunderlane, and why else would you be hiding your face in shadows? You don’t want too many ponies in The Enclave to know what you are, that’s why,” I said.

He chuckled louder than to my surprise a light started to slowly illuminate his figure and what I was looking at made no sense to me. What sat on the throne was a Stallion in his fifties, with a dark grey coat, a slightly shaggy icy blue and white mane with yellowish eyes. He looked just like The Thunderlane I saw in Greta’s memory, but where his eyes should’ve been white, they were black, and his coat had a waxy completion to it. It was like he was part ghoul but also a normal pony who just looked sick.

“What are you?” I asked.

When he spoke his voice still sounded like a ghoul’s but not as raspy as others. “I am one of the very few ponies to survive exposure to the pink cloud. Unlike most ponies who were stuck in Canterlot or went there in later years to explore the old ruins, I didn’t become a full Canterlot ghoul, thanks to a friend of mine who saved me when Greta left me for dead.”

“So, you are a ghoul?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he said, getting off his throne and turning a little so I could see that one of his wings was fused to his side while the other was able to lift away from his body. Near the back side of his body, his coat was more patchy and dead looking. “You see, when I was attacked by Greta, she tried to kill me for what I did to her lover Night Stalker. She would’ve finished the job too if I hadn’t told her that I set a trap for my old friend in The Crystal Empire. She knocked me out and threw me toward the castle in Canterlot and left me for dead. My exposure to the pink cloud nearly killed me, but instead I started to change into a ghoul. I was saved by my friend and taken back to The Enclave in secret. For many years I stayed hidden, letting everypony think I died, and I ran The Enclave from the shadows. The doctors figured I would die someday due to the toxic nature of the pink cloud, but instead I just stopped ageing and I kept on living. I’m maimed to be sure, but my mind is still clear, and my power is absolute. I’ve spent the past one hundred and sixty years making sure my family stayed strong and Night Stalkers stayed weak while I worked toward finally activating Falling Shadows. A goal that is finally close at hoof, thanks to your mother and you.”

“You’re crazy Thunderlane!” my father yelled.

“Shut up Nightshade, you’re lucky I haven’t killed you already for all the crap you’ve put me through over the past ten years,” Thunderlane yelled, before looking back at me, “I’ve been waiting for you Shadow, for a pony like you to finally be born, one that could help me finish my lifelong quest.”

“I’m not helping you with anything dick-breath,” I said.

“Watch your mouth!” Strife hissed.

“Quiet down princess, I can deal with a little name calling,” he said sweetly to her before saying to me, “Shadow, I know that you aren’t ready to help me. I didn’t expect you to. In time however, you will. I know nothing I can say now will convince you of that. That’s because you don’t know the whole truth yet. Once you find it and see what Night Stalker was really up to, along with Minuette, you’ll see that I’m not the bad pony here. I’m the one who will finally bring true peace to this land.”

“With Falling Shadows? You don’t even know what you’ll unleash on Equus when you activate it,” I said.

“Oh, I know more than any of you, trust me on that. It’s you that doesn’t understand what my master can truly do for this world. As I said, you won’t understand until you learn everything. So, under the circumstances, I’m going to make a deal with you,” he said.

“A deal?” I asked, “Why would I make any deals with you?”

“It’s in both of our best interests,” Thunderlane said with a smile.

“He’s full of shit,” my father growled.

“I assure you I’m not,” he said, “Now Shadow, you’ve already helped me in more ways than one, even though you may not have seen it yet. For that, I’ve decided to let you live and your friends and family…well what’s left that is.”

“I’ve never done anything for you,” I said, doing my best to hold back the anger.

“Oh, but you have. You see, thanks to you and your mother keeping Aquila locked up inside your head for so long, she’s no longer a threat to my master. The more she lets anger fuel her, the further from the light she gets. When my master finally escapes his cage, she won’t be able to do what she was sent here to do,” he said.

“If she was a threat to your so-called master who I’m guessing is Mezzanotte, then why did The Children of the Night bring her down in the first place?” I asked.

“Oh, you won’t get all of the secrets to why she was created just yet, but I’ll give you a hint. We needed light magic to help unlock the cage, but that’s all I’m saying. Now let’s get back to this deal,” he said in a happy tone, “I’ll pull all of Neighvarro’s soldiers back, give up Stratus, Nimbus, The Crystal Empire and The Twin Cities for now. I’ll even call off the attack on New Pegasus, if you do two things for me. Sorry, make that three things.”

I rolled my eyes. “What’s that?”

“First of all, I want you to just keep doing what you’ve been doing. Keep trying to find a way to unlock Falling Shadows. I know you’ll need to if you want to put a stop to it. Leave the rest of The Enclave alone for a while so I can deal with the shit going on back east and last of all, show me you really are the descendant of three of my friends,” he said.

Okay now I was even more confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Which part?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.

“All of it, but let’s start with the second thing. Why do you care if I do anything with The Enclave? Honestly, I never really gave a shit about any of it until your grandson started trying to kill me,” I said.

“Yes, that was a mistake on my part and a few other ponies. You see, we didn’t know who you were back then, only that you had what we needed. I give you my word that you won’t have any problems with The Enclave for a few months at least if you just step back, I’m even giving you a few of my cities. Oh, and this part of the deal goes for any Enclave member who runs the cities from here on out. The reason I’m doing this is because I have two other pain in the ass stable dwellers to deal with back east right now. Unlike you, they have no idea who really runs The Enclave. If I don’t start putting my effort into stopping them, then it will set my plans back years. So, this treaty is both good for you and for me and I’m giving up a lot to do this,” he said, looking a little more pissed as he said it.

“Fine and the first part? Why do you want me to keep trying to stop Falling Shadows?” I asked.

“That’s my secret and I’m not telling you. If you think you can outsmart me and really stop the project, then fine. Go ahead and try, we’ll just have to see who wins in the end. My biggest reason is more to keep Aquila distracted,” Thunderlane said.

“I thought you two were partners,” Stardust said, stepping to my right side.

“She’s just a tool like she’s always been. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t like her. She thinks I’m working with her because she wants to use me to get her full power from Falling Shadows. That body Grim helped her get won’t be able to deal with it though. The only way she could’ve harnessed her full power is if she was still within your body. I just need her to get the project going, then I’ll let her destroy herself as she tries to get more power and watch as she dies a painful death,” he said, a slight chuckle escaping his lips.

“So, you’re just going to kill her in the end, which will kill me too?” I asked.

“Maybe, maybe not, if I understand the spell correctly. If either of you kill yourselves, it won’t affect the other. I can’t be sure, so if you want to survive, then you should probably find a way to break the spell your mother put on the two of you,” he said.

“What if I just tell her what you’re planning?” I asked.

“She wouldn’t believe you anyway. She doesn’t trust anypony, not even me, but when it comes to you everything you say is just a lie to her. Now do we have a deal, or do you want to see how many of you I can kill before I ask again?” he said.

I sighed. “What about the last part? I thought you already knew who I was?”

“I’ve heard too many lies about your death over the years and with your mother working with The Ministry, I can’t be sure she didn’t just make a new version of her daughter. Aquila could’ve still connected with a synth for all I know. I need proof that you are the real Star,” he said, “Walk through the barrier in front of you and use the biometric scanner just below me and The New Moon will stop it’s attack on Stratus.”

“I’m pretty sure a barrier with a bypass spell on it can be tricked by a synth. They’re powerful but not perfect,” I said.

“That’s true, but the bypass spell on this shield is just to prove that you share a genetic code with Minuette. The biometric scanner however is a lot more advanced than the bypass spell is. Synths share 99.9% of the DNA of the pony they were copied from, however there is a small chip within their heads that make sure the body works properly. They may look, feel, and bleed like a normal pony, but they’re still artificial. The scanner knows the slight difference and will know you are a true born pony. It’s coded to only work for the descendants of Night Stalker so your father or your uncle could shut down this Thunderhead, but they can’t pass through the barrier. If you can do both, then I’ll trust that you’re really the daughter of Nightshade and Grimoire,” Thunderlane said.

I glared up at Thunderlane then over at Strife before taking a few steps up to the pink barrier to step through it. When I was on the other side, I put myself close to a small blue gem just under the monitor and let it scan over me. It took a moment then a mares voice said, “DNA genetic match found, General Night Stalker many generations descended. Name match to Enclave database found, last known name ‘Star’ only child of High Councilor Nightshade forty-one years old, status, alive. Also, only daughter of Grimoire Spell, forty years old, status, deceased. Only known relatives still known to be alive, Cloud Striker, forty-seven years old, uncle on father’s side. Fallen Star, sixty-four years old, grandmother on mother’s side. Oricalcos, forty-four years old, uncle on mothers side. Welcome Star, your information has not been updated in twelve years, three months, and seventeen days. Please provide any changes to name if it has been changed and state what you would like to do with The New Moon Thunderhead.”

I was a little baffled at all the information the computer on this thing seemed to know about me and my family, but then I grinned up at Thunderlane as I said, “New Name Shadow Star, my first order is to stop all aggression on Stratus, bring down the barrier around the controls here, and kill Captain Strife,” my smile got wider as the barrier around us went down and the large guns in the room pointed at Strife, “I’ll agree to your deal Thunderlane, but I’m afraid that you won’t’ be getting your great, great whatever granddaughter back. The bitch is going to die.”

Strife looked a little scared as the guns started to hum as the energy in them started to warm up, “Grandpa? What do I do?”

Thunderlane rolled his eyes, saying, “If you kill my granddaughter, there will be no deal, and I will make sure to kill everyone you love. Starting with your griffon lover.”

My eyes went wide, and I said, “Computer or whatever you are, hold up on killing Strife.”

The guns stopped humming, and Thunderlane said, “Good, now let her leave.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill her or at least take her as a prisoner to make sure you hold up your end of the deal?” I asked.

“Kill her, if you don’t I will,” I heard Solstice say.

I looked back at her, saying, “Solstice not now.”

She huffed but kept her mouth shut as Thunderlane said, “I am a pony who keeps my word, but as an incentive to let my granddaughter live, I’ll give you one more thing. A scientist in Thunderhead back east found a cure for killing joke. Let her leave and I’ll transmit the recipe to your Mark II. I also won’t launch one of my few megaspells at freedom.”

“You’re full of shit,” I said.

“I agree,” my father said.

Finally, I saw true impatience on Thunderlane’s face as he said, “Test me then, kill her and see if I’m really bluffing. Even if I am lying about the megaspell, which I’m not, would you really let the griffon you love stay as a pony? You know that body will only get her killed one day.”

“Grandfather! Are you really going to let her get away with one of our most powerful ship and kill me!?” Captain Strife yelled.

“Shut UP!” Thunderlane yelled.

I knew he was right, I just hated to admit it. I truly didn’t care if Aura stayed a pony or not. I loved her no matter what, but Aura wasn’t trained to fight like she was. She would never truly be happy as a pony, even if she was really cute the way she was right now. I knew that we would have to fight more sooner than later, and she wasn’t the kind of griffon to just stay out of a fight, even if it did get her killed. Fairy Glitter told me about the cure too and said she could get it, but there was also a possibility that she wouldn’t be able to get the cure either. When it came to Aura, I couldn’t risk a maybe. So, I sighed again, then said, “She can go, but you better keep your end of the deal.”

“I will,” Thunderlane said before saying to Strife, “Strife, meet me back here as soon as you can, also pull all of our troops out of all of the western cities.”

“But Grandfather!” she started to complain.

“Do as your told before I decide to do to you what I did to your brother!” Thunderlane yelled.

She let her head hang before shooting me a nasty glare, then walking past me to head down the steps toward a door she could exit through. As she passed, she stopped for a second whispering to me, “You may have made a deal with my grandfather, but mark my words, you’ll still die. I don’t care what he wants with you or that demon bitch, Aquila. The Sins will still find you, and they will kill you, trust me on that,” then she kept on going.

When she was close to a door, I said, “Computer, get Strife off my ship.”

“Yes, Shadow Star,” the computer’s voice said before the door next to her opened and one of the guns fired near her hooves, blasting Strife out of The New Moon.

Thunderlane growled and yelled, “I told you NOT TO ATTACK…”

I interrupted him. “I didn’t kill her, just wanted to put her in her place. She’s fine, you only said not to kill her, and I didn’t. Now give me what you promised and get your ugly face off my screen.”

The glare he gave me could’ve melted steel, but he just looked away and hit a few buttons on his terminal. A moment later my Pip-Buck dinged, showing a message was sent to it. Once that was done, he said, “There you go, now keep to your end of the deal and we won’t have problems for a while. Trust me, in time we will talk again, and you will help me. Goodbye Shadow Star and let the best Child of The Night win,” then his image was gone.

I let out a sigh of relief then ran down to my father and hugged him tight, then reached over pulling Stardust into the hug too. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

Dad and Stardust hugged me back before my dad pulled away, saying, “It’s not over yet, but at least we’ll have time to fix and rebuild. I’ll have a lot of work ahead of me if I’m to help stop him. I just can’t believe that Thunderlane is really still alive and running The Enclave.”

“I can’t believe he made that crazy deal and let us keep The New Moon,” Solstice said, “This is like one of the best ships they have.”

My dad laughed. “It is one of the best but it’s also nearly impossible for any of The Enclave to use fully.”

I looked over to my dad, asking, “What do you mean? They were using it to destroy the city.”

“Yes, but they hacked into the system and ran it remotely. It’s something that can’t be done easily, and it would’ve only lasted for an hour or so before The New Moon would’ve updated its security system and kicked them out. Though in an hour this thing can do a lot of damage. The only Ponies who can truly control The New Moon is my family,” my dad said.

“So, this was Night Stalker’s ship then?” I asked.

“It was toward the end of the war, then it became his flag ship when he was taking over all of the cloud cities while he was the pony running The Enclave. When he left, his sons took it over, and later it was docked in Neighvarro for a long time and kept out of our family’s reach to make sure none of us could take power again,” my dad said, then he looked over at the large window at the destruction of Stratus.

I followed his gaze and saw that a lot of the power armored ponies were leaving the city, or what was left of it. Stratus was no longer a beautiful city. It almost looked like most cities in The Wasteland now. I sighed and pulled dad close again. “The Wasteland finds its way into every part of Equus, even up here. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to stop this from happening.”

“No,” my dad said, and I saw tears starting to fill his eyes, “I wish I would’ve put a stop to everything before I let myself get captured.”

“It’s not your fault my old friend,” I heard Cascade say from the spot where he’d been knocked out. I looked over seeing that he was getting back to his hooves with the help of Solstice, “If I’d listened to you a few months back, maybe we could’ve done more, but I didn’t want to get involved. That was my mistake.”

Dad smiled a little, then as soon as it appeared, he was frowning again. “It’s not your fault Cascade. From what I can tell, Thunderlane’s been planning something for a long time.”

“Dad…Mom…” I said trying to bring up the hard subject of her death, because I just now realized that he didn’t know yet.

Dad looked back at me and stopped me. “I know. Winter Frost told me.”

“How did he find out?” I asked.

“The Enclave has access to all of the M.A.S.E.B.S. towers all over The Wasteland. They saw the fight with you and Aquila and recorded it. He showed me your mother’s death and taunted me about it while he was letting me rot in that cell,” he said as fresh tears fell down his face, “I just wish I could’ve spoken with her one more time before she left this world.”

“She left you a message, I recorded it on my Mark II,” I said, feeling my own tears starting to fall, “Let’s go somewhere private and we can talk, and I’ll play it for you.”

Dad looked around, then shook his head, “Another time. Right now, there’s a lot to do, and if I know you and your friends, I’m sure there’s a lot you need to do too. I need time to prosses her death…and mourn in my own way. Once everything settles down, I’ll come to you, and we can spend some time talking about her and you can play me her final words.”

“Okay Dad,” I said with a sigh, then checked the message on my Mark II. I could see that it was a recipe of some kind. I’d have to show it to Aura, or a doctor, or zebra to figure out what it was. If it worked, then Aura could get back to being her amazing self again. The day hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped…honestly it was a complete nightmare, but at least my dad was alive and maybe, just maybe, I really could outsmart Thunderlane and Aquila. I’d noticed it for a little while now, but I wasn’t the same mare I was when Aquila was trapped inside of me. I was finding out that I was a lot stronger, and harder than the scared filly who lived in Stable 28. The longer I was free of Aquila, the more I noticed that I was turning into Night Stalker in a way. I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. So, I just sighed and continued, saying, “We have a lot of work to do.”

“Damn right we do!” Cascade said, “I’ll get that jackass back for knocking me out.”

“Good to see you’re worked up like always Cascade, because as my first act being reinstated as the leader of Stratus, is to promote you to General. I’m going to need your help and Fairy Glitter’s if we’re going to defend ourselves from The Enclave,” Dad said as he walked up to the biometric scanner, “Sorry Shadow, but I’ll have to take control of The New Moon and get her ready to protect this city. I have a lot more work to do.”

“Wait a sec, I’m retired! I don’t wanna be a damned General!” Cascade said.

“Too late, I don’t trust may ponies General Cascade, but I do trust you and your family. Now stop complaining and get back into the city and start organizing our soldiers to help the citizens,” Dad said.

Cascade looked ready to explode with rage for a moment, then he let out a long sigh, and said, “Fine, but what do you mean The Enclave? I know that Neighvarro pulled away from us, but The Enclave started here in Stratus! We are The Enclave.”

Dad looked back at Cascade, and said, “No it didn’t, that’s always been a lie to make Stratus feel good about itself. Honestly all Stratus is, is the cloud section of former Los Pegasus. It was nicknamed Stratus before the war and was the home of Night Stalker when he was a colt. When he declared The Enclave as being a new nation, he was in Neighvarro, that’s why they’ve always held so much power. From here on out Stratus, Nimbus, The Twin Cities, and The Crystal Empire will no longer be The Grand Pegasus Enclave. We will be known as New Equestria. If any citizen isn’t happy with that and wants to stay part of The Enclave, then they are banished from our lands and everything they own is to be left behind to aid in the repairs of Stratus. Now go my friend, and make sure everypony knows what my first two orders are. I’ll check in with you tonight.”

Cascade grumbled. “Fine, but you owe me some Wild Pegasus.”

Dad smiled. “I’ll bring the good stuff.”

“You better,” he said, then he looked at Stardust and Solstice, “You two should come with me. I’m gonna need a lot of help and my two children are perfect.”

“Sorry dad, but I’m going back to The Wasteland with Shadow,” Solstice said.

“Yeah, me too. Also, I’ve never lived above the clouds like this and it’s just a little too much. I have a mare I need to make sure I help too,” Stardust said.

“Awww, does my big bro have a little crush on the bat pony?” Solstice teased.

Stardust blushed for a moment, then said, “So what if I do, she’s awesome and cute.”

Cascade looked ready to argue then he sighed again. “You two are too much like your mother. Fine, but you better be safe down there.”

“We will be,” Solstice said, walking over to hug her father, “Tell Mom I love her.”

“Same for me,” Stardust said, also hugging his dad. It was nice to see that he was already getting close to them, even though he only found out about them last night.

“Yeah, yeah, I will,” Cascade said, then glared at me, “Keep my kids out of trouble or I’ll kick your ass,” With that, he flew out of the open door and down toward Stratus.

Dad came over to me, and asked, “So where are you off to next?”

Before I wouldn’t have told them because I knew that they might try and stop me. Stardust’s plan was still in motion and everypony had to do their part, even me. I just couldn’t let my own plans be stopped, but after today, I saw that I had to start putting more faith in my friends and my family. “I’m going to Spitfire’s Flight Academy.”

“Wait a minute, that wasn’t part of the plan,” Stardust said.

“I know, but I have to get there before Aquila moves the thing she hid there while she was controlling my body,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Dad asked, “The only thing there is the power source for Falling Shadows.”

I grinned. “Yeah, and she also hid a small gem that has a part of her power inside it. You see, she’s not really the key to Falling Shadows, Minuette stored a part of the light magic that made her in a gem. That is the true key that Thunderlane and Aquila need. If I take it, then we can really put a wrench in their plans.”

“Are you sure?” Dad asked.

I smiled. “I’m positive.”

Stardust sighed, then said, “Okay, then we’ll head there first before heading back to Freedom. We should have just enough time to stop there before we have to put a stop to the Sins and everything else going on there.”

“No, Solstice can drop me off but then she needs to go to New Pegasus and so do you Dusty. We can’t waste any more time than we have to. I’ll be fine at Spitfire’s Flight Academy. I’ll get what I need and make my way to New Pegasus to meet you. I’m also going to get the cure for Wind Thrasher while I’m there too. I’m sure Dr. Gauze is finished with it by now, and even if he hasn’t I’m sure what he has can help Stormy figure something out. Fairy Glitter said something about that last night.” I said.

“I don’t really like the idea of you being left alone,” Stardust said.

“Bro, she’ll be fine. Shadow’s one of the strongest ponies I’ve ever met. She’ll be okay,” Solstice said before giving me a hoof bump.

“I agree,” Dad said smiling, “I have faith in you all. Now you should get going, we’ll catch up later. Also, thank you for saving me.”

“Hey what about me? What am I gonna do?” Thundercracker said.

I’d almost forgotten he was around; he hadn’t said a word the whole time. “Oh, sorry Thundercracker. Kind of forgot you were here.”

“I wasn’t, I went looking around the ship while you all were talking with nasty face. What do you need old Greed to do?” he asked with a huge smile.

“Help my dad with Stratus,” I said.

“Hey, that’s not fun. I wanna go back to the surface and do something more. Maybe steal some shit, or find myself a nice hot mare, or kill The Sins. You know, fun shit,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for Greed to stay in Stratus right now. Later I’m going to try and get Dashites brought back into the fold. For right now, it’s not a good time,” Dad said.

I sighed, then said, “I guess you can come with me then. That way, Solstice and Stardust can get back to Freedom quicker.”

He smiled wider. “Awesome, a quest for just you and me. This is going to be fun!”

I was already regretting this, but if you’re going to take an overly egocentric pegasus with you, might as well be one that also worked like a flying personal shield. So, I just laughed and said, “Yeah, let’s go fuck some shit up…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Overpowering Will: Most Ponies in The Wasteland lack this perk. Where most ponies would fall or submit to the harsh reality of The Wasteland, you have more Willpower than most. Due to this perk, you will no longer be intimidated by overpowering odds or more powerful ponies. When situations look tough, you won’t run, you’ll kick your enemy in the balls and laugh.

Chapter 70: The Departure

“I love you too my Angel of the Night.”

Leaving Stratus in the state it was in after the attack, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. As I climbed onto Thundercracker’s back and we flew out of The New Moon, leaving it under my father’s control, I looked out at the mostly destroyed city. In the short time it took us to stop the large Thunderhead from firing on the inner city, it had managed to destroy quite a bit. I could already hear the screams, the sirens and the pain flowing up from the once magnificent cloud city. I wanted to take a longer look before we left, I wanted to go down and help the hurt and dying pegasi and unicorns. Sadly, that wasn’t my role in this fight, it wasn’t my role to be a normal citizen of The Enclave, it wasn’t my role to help. As we flew down toward the cloud cover, I knew deep down that my only role on Equus was to either destroy and kill, or to die.

So, I looked away from the city, away from the pain, away from the hell I’d caused all to save my father and a dashite. If I’d known then as I do now that it would be the last time I’d see the city before my life changed forever, before the wasteland was thrown into a new kind of chaos, I would have taken one last look, because in only another few days, everything would change forever. Maybe I was like Night Stalker, all that mattered was making sure I fulfilled my own goals, for the greater good…the was the problem, I thought everything I was doing was for the greater good. I was trying to do better, but in reality, I might have been making things worse.

I let out a long sigh as we flew past the dark grey clouds that still blocked the sun from reaching the ponies of The Wasteland and entered the dim light of what was my home. As we flew down Thundercracker looked back at me, his signature smile no longer present on his face, as he asked, “So what’s the plan?”

“Yeah, I’d like to know that too Shadow,” Stardust said as he looked over at me, Solstice not far behind him as we headed toward the ground.

“The plans haven’t changed much, I have to go get something first, something important to Aquila and to Falling Shadows. I can’t say more, not until I know it’s safe. You two head to The Shadow Talons base and update Aura and her sisters on what happened in Stratus,” I said.

“Okay I figured as much,” Solstice said, flying a little closer to us, “Did you get what you needed to cure Aura? My mom hasn’t contacted me yet about it.”

“I believe so,” I said, pulling up the file on the Mark II, “I’ll contact Byte and sent the file to her Mark II. When Aura gets back home, I hope she can cure herself, if she wants to that is.”

“What happened to her?” Thundercracker asked.

“Long story, let’s just say she ran into Killing Joke, was turned into a pony, and we need to cure her,” I said.

“I still don’t see where the joke is with that or the killing part,” Stardust said.

Solstice rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot Dusty.”

“Am not!,” he whined. Then looking sheepish he added, “I still don’t understand.”

I was about to say something when Thundercracker chuckled, and said, “It’s easy Blue. She’s a badass griffon, they tend to fight with their talons and weapons made for griffons. With hooves, everything she knows about fighting is null and void. She can’t fight, she can’t survive, that’s the killing part. I’m guessing the joke was that she was turned into a pony at all, she must’ve thought about it at one point or said something about it. Killing Joke tends to flow around things like that. I met this one mare once who was turned into some kind of fish pony back east a couple years back. She said her sister and her were the same.”

“Fish…pony? That’s kind of weird,” Stardust said, looking a little creeped out.

“Nah they were kinda hot, and deadly as shit too if you didn’t watch out,” he said with a grin.

“Wait…they, you said you met a mare not more than one,” Stardust said.

“Well, I did meet one, then I met her sister when she tried to stab me in the back while I was in the water. Too bad too, was kinda wondering what it would be like to play with her until that happened,” he said with a laugh.

“You’re a strange and kind of creepy dude,” Solstice said.

He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “I’m also a great kisser. Ask Shadow.”

I shrugged, mostly ignoring them. “Meh, I’ve kissed better.”

“Now I know that’s a lie, no one can steal a kiss better than Greed,” he boasted.

“I’d say Solstice is better than you and Aura is even better,” I said with a small laugh.

“Wait a sec…did you KISS…” Stardust started to say as Solstice looked at me with murder in her eyes.

“Oh, look at that, it’s time to split up. You two get back to The Shadow Talons safe and I’ll see you in a while. BYE!” I waved as Thundercracker took my hint and banked off toward Spitfire’s Flight Academy that was just visible in the distance.

I could hear Solstice’s curses following me as I laughed. Thankfully they didn’t follow and continued toward Freedom. As the two of us flew toward the military base I said, “I’m going to contact Byte, make sure you land a small distance from the gate to the base, so they don’t blow us up.”

“I’m still trying to figure out how you’re going to get us in,” he said, sounding a little nervous, “I mean I’ve tested my armor against bombs before but not the large kind that I’ve heard they have.”

“Hey, you wanted an adventure, now stop being a baby and do as you’re told,” I said in a sweet voice.

He laughed. “I like a mare who knows how to boss a guy around.”

“I bet you do, now shush,” I said as I used the broadcaster that linked all three Mark II’s together to call Byte, “Byte, you there…Cookie Byte!? It’s Shadow!”

“I’ve told you not to call me that! What do you want Shadow!?” she replied, sounding annoyed.

“Where are you all at?” I asked, ignoring the annoyed Filly.

“Back at The Shadow Talons’ base. Where are you? Did you save your dad?” she asked.

“Yeah, and Greed, how’d you all get back so fast?” I asked.

“White Oak had some kind of transporter that got us close to New Pegasus, didn’t take us long after that. Now tell us where you are…” she said, before I heard a scuffling and then Aura said.

“Shadow, are you okay? We saw what looked like explosions from the direction of Stratus,” Aura practically yelled.

“I’m fine Aura, but since you’re there too, I have an update for you and some good news,” I said.

“Tell me when you get back here, we’re a little busy at the moment,” she said, sounding a little panicked.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Steel Rangers put up a blockade around Freedom, and they hired The Unchained Talons too. They want to take over The Strip, Freedom, and take down my talon company.”

“Goddesses dammit,” I said, pressing a hoof to my forehead, “Why did they have to do this now? We have enough problems with Aquila.”

“It gets worse,” I heard Byte say followed by, “Can I have my hoof back please…thank you,” she cleared her throat, then said, “We also lost contact with Wind Thrasher last night. She was watching for The Sins like we asked her to, and The New Wrath made it back with no problems from what we heard, but then she just stopped sending us updates. We were going to send a griffon out to check on her, but then this blockade happened. We’re getting worried that The Sins did something to her.”

“Double dammit!” I yelled, “Is it possible that the broadcaster she was using just stopped working?”

Aura replied, “Not sure, but right before the blockade came up, we got a request to check out something that might have attacked a small settlement a couple of kilometers from the ruins of Gravel City. The report said that the twenty ponies who lived there were all found dead.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with Wind Thrasher?” I asked.

Aura sighed and I heard utter sadness in her voice as she replied, “The report said that every single pony was drained of blood. Either bloodwings attacked the city, which would be odd since we don’t see them this far west very often, or Wind Thrasher finally lost herself to the bloodlust.”

I felt as if my heart was breaking as I heard that. “I can’t believe she’d lose herself that bad. She’s been holding out this long, she’d never let herself go that far even if she slipped.”

“Shadow, you’ve been gone for a while, she’s been slipping more and more over the past couple of weeks. She almost killed three of my griffons a couple days before you got home and only Stardust was able to pull her back from her madness. I fear with him gone and her being isolated to watch The Sins, she might’ve lost herself finally,” Aura said.

“I…I can’t believe she’d do that. When I’m done with my small side mission, I’ll head to the old ruins and see if I can find her,” I said.

“Shadow? What side mission? You were supposed to come back to Freedom when you were done with your dad,” Aura said.

“That’s part of the reason I called, I have to make a small pitstop, I’m with Thundercracker. It won’t take long, but this is important,” I said.

“What’s more important than checking on a friend or helping us push back the Unchained Talons and The Steel Rangers?” Byte asked.

“I have to get something to make sure Aquila can’t activate Falling Shadows,” I said.

“What? She needs your Pip-Buck for that,” Aura said.

“Yes, but she also needs something else, something that no pony apart from I think Minuette knew about. I can’t say more, but as soon as I’m done getting it, I’ll go check on Wind Thrasher. Make sure you tell Solstice and Stardust if they make it home. Or if you can get a message to them before they run into The Unchained, do so,” I said as we came closer to Trotston.

“Fine, but make sure you hurry,” Aura said, through Byte’s Mark II.

“Um…Shadow…are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Thundercracker said, pointing a hoof down at Trotston’s high walls, and the fifty or so Steel Ranges who were blocking its mighty gate.

“Oh shit,” I said, with my Mark II still up to my muzzle, “Um…Aura or Byte, how many Steel Rangers are blocking Freedom?”

Byte Answered, “I’m not sure, twenty maybe twenty-five. Why?”

“Is Sapphire with them?” I asked.

Aura answered this time, saying, “I haven’t seen her, The Queens have been keeping them out and they’ve been talking with Hazel I believe.”

“And no pony has attacked right?” I asked.

“No pony or griffon, my dad’s with the Unchained but I haven’t seen Gina. They only have probably forty griffons and they’re just making sure my griffons aren’t leaving town…why?” Aura asked.

I looked toward the mountain side of Trotston and saw thirty or so Griffons flying near the nearly invisible barrier. “I think they’re making sure that The Shadow Talons can’t help Trotston…”

“Wait, what’s going on with Trotston?” Byte asked, sounding scared.

“I think Gina and Sapphire are trying to get the Mark II, the Mark II that you have Byte, they must think that your uncle still has it. Either that or they want all the tech from Trotston and are finally going to try taking down the city,” I said.

“We have to do something!” Byte said.

“Don’t worry, Trotston can hold its own against them for now, but I think it’s time somepony had a talk with The Steel Rangers and put a stop to whatever Sapphire is doing. Aura, see if you can talk with Hazel, she’s got a good head on her shoulders. See if you can find anything out and maybe try to make her see that their new Elder is losing her mind…or something. I’ll see what I can do once I finish my quest and check on Wind Thrasher,” I said.

“But Shadow…what if they find a way to break down the defenses to Trotston?” Byte asked, sounding even more scared than before.

“Byte I need you to calm down, you know as well as I do that Trotston has been able to hold them back before. Help Aura and The Shadow Talons for now, I’ll find a way to make them leave your town alone,” I said.

“But how are you going to be able to do that?” she asked.

“I have an idea, but for right now, I want you to stay inside The Shadow Talons’ base, don’t leave at all,” I said.

“But…” she started to say before I cut her off.

“Byte, I was put in charge of you, your uncle told you to do what I said and I’m saying don’t leave the base! You’re going to be in danger soon and so will your Mark II. Do as I say!”

She sniffed. “Okay, but please make sure my town stays safe.”

“I will,” I said, then I continued saying to Aura, “Aura, I’m going to be sending a possible cure to your Killing Joke to Byte’s Pip-Buck. I want you to use it as soon as you can.”

There was a long pause before Aura said, “I don’t think there’s going to be time for me to do that Shadow, my Talon company needs my help…”

I cut her off too, “Aura,” I paused, “Aura, if things were different, I’d tell you to take as much time as you need to decide if you want to take the cure or not. I know it hasn’t been easy adjusting to your new body, but I also know that it’s something you’ve kind of wanted in the past. Sadly, we don’t have that kind of life, you’re right The Shadow Talons need their leader, they need Aura Bloodtalon. They can’t be led by a pony, especially a pony who can’t fight like she normally does.”

There was another long pause before Aura said, “If I stay like this, it will make things so much easier for you…and for me…for us.”

I felt my heart rate speed up at her words as a fluttering of love for my strong griffon ran through me. Then I said, “I love you Aura, no matter what you look like. But I can’t lose you just because you decided to stay a pony for me. Yeah, it might make being with each other easier, but fuck that, easy is boring. I love my griffon, I love you, the real you. Now give your orders to your sisters, and make sure you take this cure. When I see you again…I want to see the true Aura…okay.”

I heard a small sniff then a chuckle. “I guess I’ve been kind of useless lately. Fine, but you owe me…I hate staying out of a fight.”

I chuckled. “If everything works out, there won’t be a fight.”

“We’ll see,” she said, “Well you stay safe and make sure Wind Thrasher’s okay, I’ll send a scout griffon out through another exit and have them get a message to Solstice and Stardust.”

“Sounds good…I love you…both of you,” I said with a smile.

I heard Byte start to make some comment, but I cut the connection as we flew past Trotston and toward the Academy. As we flew over the Steel Rangers, I saw one look up at me, the Elder armor easy to spot even from up here. A moment later the connection to Sapphire I knew was coming finally pinned my Mark II.

“Hello, Equestrian Express, Shadow Star speaking,” I said, as kindly as I could manage.

“You look like you’re in a hurry up there Shadow, and who’s the buck you’re riding? I didn’t know you’d made friends with The Sins, last I heard they wanted you dead,” Sapphire said over the connection.

“OH you know me, I’m good at making friends. Well, it’s not surprising with the Pegasi seeing as how I am Enclave…or was, did you know that? I had no idea until recently, wild huh?” I said with mocking cheer.

Thundercracker was covering his muzzle with a hoof trying to hide his laughter as Sapphire responded, “I shouldn’t be surprised, it would explain the crazy shit you’ve been pulling off since we last talked. You’re just another disgusting freak like the rest of The Enclave. Hey, I have an idea why don’t you come down here and we can have a better chat, face to face. I promise we won’t fire on you or that featherbrain.”

“Nah, I have places to be, more wild shit to pull off you know how it is, Rain Check?” I asked.

“Sadly, I won’t be here long, I’m just here to get what belongs to the Steel Rangers and then I have to get back to the Hidden Sands. Funny I got an odd report that a short mare destroyed The Palisade just the other day, wouldn’t know anything about that would you? If you had something to do with it, I think I may have to just give you a small prize for taking such a powerful weapon away from that mad stallion,” she said.

“I have no idea what you mean, oh and if you’re looking for The Mark II that was in Trotston, I’m afraid you’re a little too late. I thought you would have heard by now that it was sent away a few weeks back,” I said.

“Yes, but the trails went cold when we found the ponies Rusty sent out to hide the Mark II from us, after we killed both of those ponies. I know he’s keeping it here, he wouldn’t let it out of his sight,” she said.

“Huh funny, last time I saw their Mark II it was on the foreleg of a filly, you know Rusty’s niece, right?” I mocked.

For a moment there wasn’t anything from the other side then I heard Sapphire say, “That’s impossible, Rusty wouldn’t have given something like that to a filly.”

“I don’t know, my mom left me her Mark II and I’m only a year older than Byte is,” I teased.

“Why would you tell me this? Unless you’re lying to help Trotston,” she said.

“Maybe I am maybe I’m not, or maybe I helped Byte get away and took her to her grandmother to keep her and the Mark II she has safe and away from you. I’m heading there now to see the old mare to see how things are, you can meet us there if you want. I’m sure the Annihilators would love your band of Unchained Talons and Steel Rangers near their base. I’ll be sure to tell them you might stop by,” I said.

I heard a low growl from the other end. “You’re lying.”

“Maybe I am, but if you ask Rusty, I’m sure he’ll tell you he doesn’t have the Mark II anymore and if you ask about his Niece, he’ll also tell you she’s not in the town anymore. Anyway, it was wonderful to talk to you Sapphire I can’t wait till the next time we see each other. Do have fun with you little stand off and all that jazz, I’m going to go get something important from Spitfires Flight Academy,” I said laughing as I did.

She was yelling as she replied, “I’ll find that little filly and take back what is rightfully mine! Even if I have to kill the little bitch to get it and as for you Shadow when we see each other again, I will kill you and I’ll take your Mark II as well. It’s the only way to stop what’s coming!”

“So angry Sapphire, you know what, I kind of miss the old you. The one I met at the raider camp; power turned you into such a bitch. Stress will do that to you, careful you keep an eye on that blood pressure. Anyway, I must go, see ya!” I said and closed off the connection.

“She’s not nice,” Thundercracker said.

“She used to be, but I think something happened to her. She’s lost her mind and I don’t think there’s any way to fix her sadly,” I said as I readied to send the messages to Byte.

“What are you going to do? She’ll figure out sooner or later that Byte is in Freedom,” he said.

“I know, but there is something I know well about the Steel Rangers,” I said as I sent the two messages, one was the cure for Aura, the other the conversation I’d just had with Sapphire.

“That they like shiny old tech?” he asked.

I chuckled sadly. “No, it’s that an Elder must always be a levelheaded leader, and that they never hurt foals, no matter who they are. It’s deep in their Creed if you look hard enough. I learned that from an old elder who looked after me when I was young. If Byte is smart, and I know she is, then she’ll use what I just sent her to show Hazel that Sapphire is not fit to lead.”

He sighed. “I just hope it works.”

“Me too, if not, at least it will buy us some time to do what we need to,” I said, with a deep sigh.

He was silent for a while as we flew farther away from Trotston and closer to Spitfire’s Flight Academy. The journey to it before hadn’t taken all that long apart from running into Stardust who was brainwashed, and my mom with the Sin’s, still it was long enough that I was still surprised when Greed flew us over a rise, the same one where Aura, Wind Thrasher and I watched Wingnut first go down to the gate. The memory of the way he jumped and the look of utter panic on his face when Aura scared him, still brought at smile to my face. It was amazing how fast we’d arrived at the old base. The Annihilators had a scary reputation, but in reality, they weren’t half bad ponies. They were just Xenophobic, like most Stable ponies were. I’d seen how some of the Stable 28 survivors acted at times while they tried to settle in Sandstone. They were doing well, but at the same time, they did anything they could to avoid contact with anyone they could, if they could help it.

Javelin was trying to fix that for her ponies, she’d opened trade and communication with Trotston, and she was trying to lead them into mixing more with outsiders. I hoped the old mare could pull it off, because no matter how much The Annihilators wanted to keep separated from The Wasteland, it would someday find its way in. Stratus just learned that lesson in a devastating way, it was a lesson I’d learned myself when my home was destroyed. Even if they could keep the outside world out, they still didn’t have enough ponies to keep inbreeding from happening. In a generation or two, they wouldn’t be able to keep their community going.

“You okay up there?” Greed asked, looking back up at me.

“Yeah,” I said as we flew down toward the blown apart town just outside the gate, “Just thinking to much. Anyway, let’s go say hello.”

His armor activated as he landed a few meters away from the gate. “I’ll do my best to shield you if they try anything, but I can’t promise my armor will do much.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said as I walked past him and toward the gate where six stallions stood, all of them aiming rocket launchers at me.

“Don’t take another step closer or you’ll be turned into nothing more than meat,” one said.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. “Tell Javelin that Shadow Star The Courier is at the gate. I have free passage to enter Spitfire’s Flight Academy.”

“Nice try kid, but we all know the Courier Mare is dead, has been for weeks now. Might wanna try listening to the news now and then, you can’t just put on some random duster and go around calling yourself The Courier!” the same guard yelled, sounding pissed that I’d have the nerve to pretend to be The Courier.

“Yeah!” another stallion yelled anger filling his eyes and voice, “She was starting to bring some hope back to the area, and you have the balls to go around acting like you’re her! Get out before we all blow you to The Goddesses!”

I didn’t have time for this, “Listen here you stupid excuses for guards!” using my magic I wrapped my telekinesis around all six of their weapons and ripped them away, lifting them over the gate and aiming all six at them. I was a little surprised at first, I’d been practicing my magical hold, but this was a lot to take at once. “Go get Javelin before I blow all of you to the goddesses! NOW!”

“Holy shit,” the first guard said as the other five backed up, “She just…how’d she do that?”

Greed chuckled and walked up next to me, saying, “I’d do what she said, and quickly to, The Courier’s had a long day, and she doesn’t have much time.”

“Yes…yes sir,” the second guard said then looked at me, “I mean yes ma’am we’ll go get Javelin right away!” and with that he bolted for her office.

The rest of them all waited, watching me with fear on their faces as I held their weapons up in my magic, still pointing them at the guards. It didn’t take long for the old mare to make her way over to the gate an amused smile on her face, the guard that ran off close behind. “See I told you Ms. Javelin, she’s saying she’s The Courier.”

Javelin ignored him and laughed. “Shadow Star, if I hadn’t seen you with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it was true. Last I heard you’d died.”

“I thought my friends would have gotten word to you that the story of my death was wrong,” I said.

“Honestly, I’m not too surprised. Yes, I heard you’d been spotted a couple of times lately and I did hear something from one of your friends, but I don’t believe everything I hear. But seeing you, I guess I shouldn’t have mistrusted the rumors so much. Come in, come in and please do give my guards back their weapons,” Javelin said as one of the guards moved to open the gate.

“Wait a moment, so this small fry is really her?” the first guard asked.

“Of course she is, and I wouldn’t go around talking about her size to much young buck. This mare has seen and done more in her small time in the Wasteland than you’ll ever do or see in your life. Now get back to patrol,” she said.

“Yes ma’am!” he said then started yelling out orders as I put their weapons down on the ground for them before walking past the gate with Thundercracker following close behind, his shield vanishing.

“So, tell me Shadow, what brings you by our community? Knowing you, there’s more to your visit than just to catch up with an old mare or to make her guards look incompetent,” Javelin said with a smile, “Also I must hear the story about how you came to befriend a member of the Sins.”

Thundercracker nodded his head, for once his face didn’t have its wide smile. “I owe her my life and she’s proved to be a good friend. I’m no longer a member of The Sins.”

“Ah, but from what I’ve heard of your former group of killers, there is no leaving them, unless you’re killed,” Javelin said as we walked toward the cracked and broken-down runway.

“Well seeing how their former Leader Pride who happens to be my uncle Oricalcos is no longer a Sin, I’m sure some rules can be broken,” I said with a chuckle.

“Your uncle?” she asked looking a little shocked, “You mean Pride the shadow monster you destroyed a few weeks back?”

“It’s a long story, but he wasn’t destroyed, only hurt. He’s switched sides and was helping me on my mission,” I said.

“I really need to have you catch me up on what’s been going on, we don’t get much news way out here as you know. Do you have time to sit and catch up?” she asked.

“Sadly no, I need to grab something from the place where The Stranger took me before. I don’t have much more time than that,” I said.

“I had a feeling you’d say that, oh well it can’t be helped, but remember you owe me a good story when you visit next okay?” she said with a smile as she turned and started leading me toward the Arrays.

“If I get time then I will. Anyway, any news around here? Has Dr. Gauze made any more progress with the cure for Wind Thrasher yet?” I asked as we got closer to the Shack where the hidden lift was that would bring me down to the power supply for Falling Shadows.

“Oh, with the help he’s been getting through the strange communications device Aura dropped off a few weeks back, from that Unicorn, yes he think’s he’s found something. He left a few hours ago to head to Freedom with three of my guards to go talk to The Shadow Talons. We tried to get them to come to us, but I guess something’s going on there, so I gave him permission to leave and get what he found to your bat pony friend,” Javelin said with a smile.

“Wait…He found a cure? He knows why she’s losing herself to the blood lust?” I asked, stopping to look back at the old mare.

“He didn’t tell me much, not that I’d understand half of his blabbering, but he was excited,” she said.

“Stardust will be happy to hear that,” Greed said, “Though it’s too bad Wind Thrasher’s not with him.”

“She’ll be fine, I’m sure of it, after this we’ll go find her and tell her she might finally be able to be her normal self again,” I said.

Javelin smiled, “She was a sweet thing when I met her, but from what I do understand from what the Doctor told me, she’s slowly losing her ability to tell the difference between what’s a pony and what’s food. I will pray that you are able to help her in time.”

“Well, this just means I need to get to Wind Thrasher sooner rather than later,” I said as we reached the shack. Then I turned to face Javelin, “I know that your settlement and Trotston are still trying to work things out to bring yourself to find a lasting peace, but I was hoping there was something you could do to help them.”

Javelin lifted an eyebrow. “We haven’t had communication with them for a few days. What’s going on?”

“Elder Sapphire of the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers is getting ready to attack them. I’m sure they can keep them out and fight them off if they have too, but if you could find a way to help them, I’d be grateful. It might help your two settlements find a lasting peace and maybe help both of your groups out in the future,” I said.

Javelin looked toward the hills that blocked her view of the city. “Trotston is under attack from Steel Rangers huh. My granddaughter is there, and I do like Rusty, he’s a good stallion,” she looked back at me anger on her face, “I’ll do what I can to help them, we’ve just gotten a new kind of long range missel up and running the other day. I’ll personally make sure those Steel Rangers never bother Trotston again and show them why you never mess with The Annihilators.”

“Thank you, Javelin,” I said, “But try not to kill to many of them if you can, just scare them away. Not all of the Rangers are bad, they are just following a crazy elder. Have a little mercy if you can.”

“I’ll try my best,” she said, then looked at Greed, “If you want me to help quickly though I might have to borrow your handsome friend though. We could use a flyer.”

Greed looked at me. “You going to need me down there?”

“No, I’ll be fine, if you can help them with Trotston then please do, I’ll be back soon,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll try to make this quick,” he said blowing me a kiss then saying, “So where to wrinkles?”

I thought Javelin was going to yell at him for calling out her age, but she just laughed richly and started leading him toward her office. I turned away after a moment then went up to the shack. With a sigh I did what my father had to open the door, and went in.

It only took me a few minutes to bypass the terminal inside and get into the elevator. The trip down to the deep underground cavern was also quicker than I remembered, and soon I was walking down the long hallway that led to the barrier that blocked the way to the final large door to the huge cavern. Just like Aquila had when she was controlling me, I walked right past the pink magic and headed toward the chamber and soon had the large door open and was heading down the slow lift, my eyes still gazing all around the amazing place. As the platform moved down there was a spike of pain in my head and once again, I was pulled into Night Stalkers memories.

oooOOOooo

Night Stalker…

I rode the large lift down to the last level with Greta on one side of me, in her griffon power armor and surprisingly an old zebra I hadn’t seen in forty years on the other. My body still hurt after the beating and branding I’d taken from my sons, but at least Greta’s medic was well trained and was able to help make a potion that healed my wings. Though they still hurt, but more from my age rather than what had been done to them a couple weeks back.

I was still surprised that after so long, Zephan A.K.A. Noire when he was still a Child of the Night, was still loyal to me. When we’d found his tribe, I expected him to be angry after so many years of no contact while I set up the Enclave. He hadn’t been angry though, he’d been overjoyed to see me again, Greta on the other hoof took a little bit of time to get Noire to calm down. Apparently, after he heard what Greta did to Bab’s, he’d been wanting Greta dead for some time.

“I still do not understand why you would trust this griffon Night Stalker,” he said glaring over at her with his red and orange eyes.

“I told you to call me Absent Moon now Noire, and I trust Greta with my life,” I said as the old lift rattled its way down.

“I don’t know Moony, I’m not sure I trust him after so many years, why do we need Noire anyway?” Greta asked.

“I need anypony or griffon I can get on myside to help me put a stop to what we started so many years ago,” I said as we reached the end of the lift and I headed toward the overlook.

“You talk about trust Absent Moon, yet you let this traitor into your confidence. She spent the past few decades trying to kill anyone who helped with Falling Shadows.”

“Oh yeah and you spent the past forty years doing what zebra? Oh, right, you started your own tribe, a tribe of zebra’s who hate everything but themselves!” Greta yelled.

“Would both of you both shut up!” I said as I stopped before the steps that led up to the control room, “We have a mission to complete, and I don’t want to be down here long.”

Noire looked around, his eyes scanning the massive amount of power running up the walls of the large cavern. “I do not see why we needed to come down here Absent Moon. This chamber is only the power supply. Yes, the Mega spells stored here are a small part of the project, but the real power is under the tower.”

I winced as one of my injuries flared up again, followed closely by my real problem, the whole reason I was risking so much to get as much done as I could before the end. “I just need to leave a message for the mare who will finish what we started.”

“You’re going to leave a message down here? In a place where no pony but us can get into?” Greta asked, I could see the concern in her eyes when I looked back at her. I wasn’t sure yet, but I had a feeling her medic had figured out what was wrong with me and told her. She hadn’t left my side for long ever since I get out of bed.

I ignored her and looked at Noire. “Do you remember that old Zebra I ran into at your camp?”

Noire tilted his head to one side as, he replied, “I do, Xio is a wise old mare, but also a little mad, some say that she is star struck in the mind.”

“She’s not crazy,” I said as I remembered the old zebra mare, and her prediction, both of them.

“I am not so sure about that my friend; she is good with the foals or else I wouldn’t let her stay in my tribe. I also enjoy her stories,” he said with a slight chuckle, “But I can tell you that she is quite mad.”

I smiled as I looked back at him. “Let me ask you this old friend, when did you start letting Starkatteri into your tribe? From what I remember, your kind shunned them.”

The look that came to both Greta’s and Noire’s eyes was priceless as Noire said, “Xio is not Starkatteri, I would know, she is not marked as they are.”

“Oh, she is and I’m only telling you this so you’ll understand what I’m about to say next, also you will not take any action against her when you get back, if she is still there,” I said and before they could say anything I continued, “I’ve met her twice now, once forty years ago right before the mega spells fell, the second just yesterday. She hasn’t aged a day since, so I know that something is keeping her around. I don’t know why, but I do know that her predictions come true.”

“Don’t start telling me you believe in that shit,” Greta said, looking disgusted.

“I hate to agree with Greta, but she is right, if she is what you say she is, you cannot trust her. I also do not believe she can be the same mare you speak of if she has not aged. You must be going mad yourself Absent Moon,” Noire added.

I just shook my head. “Forty years ago, she told me a few things. I didn’t believe her then, but I do now. She told me that one day I would regret making Falling Shadows, that I would lose everything I built if I stayed on my path back then, and that no matter how hard I tried, I’d fall from the empire I would help to build only to be saved by a creature I had no right to be saved by.”

Greta’s eyes went wide as she looked at me. She remembered that day well, the day I’d almost fell to my death after my branding, the day she saved my life. “I still don’t want to believe that anypony can tell us what our future holds, but I can tell that you do, so I’ll still follow you. Why do we need to leave a message for this Mare? Who I she?”

I sighed deeply as I walked past the steps that led up to the control room and went to the other side. It only took me a moment to find a large crack in the side of the rock wall next to the control room’s supports. I pulled out two things, one was a recording I’d made just a few days ago while I was getting ready to start this mission, the second was something I didn’t understand but Xio had said it was important, I was honestly surprised it was still at the old house. It was a simple photo. A photo I couldn’t stand to look at because it broke my heart when I thought about the fate those two befell. Keeping the frame down, I placed it and the recording in the crack and turned away from them both. She said they would stay hidden until she found them. I wasn’t sure how this mare, so far in the future would know where to look, but I’d given everything to do better, I’d given everything to make sure I stopped the evil that would one day, fall onto what was left of Equestria.

Once I was done, I finally answered my oldest friend, “I don’t know who she is, all I know is that someday, Falling Shadows will be activated, someday it will release something evil into our world.”

“What evil do you speak of? Falling Shadows was built to do one thing, give the power of the stars to Luna. No pony can handle that power but her,” Noire said.

“Falling Shadows will give the power of the stars to a pony, but it was never meant for Luna. We thought it was, but we had been tricked from the beginning. I’ll tell you all I’ve learned as we head to Los Pegasus,” I said as I slowly pushed past them.

“Wait as sec Moony, I helped with the project, I may not have known everything about it like Min or Amethyst Star, but when it was finished, it was meant to only work for Luna,” Greta said.

I shook my head slowly. “It was meant for Luna, but it will also work on anypony who has even the smallest hint of Star Magic in their body. Like Luna did when she was Nightmare Moon. When she was brought back to herself, she still had that spark inside her.”

“Yeah, so what? No pony has ever had power like that apart from Luna,” Greta said.

“True, but that will change in a century or two, but also you have to remember that there is still a creature on Equus who is made of pure starlight,” I said.

Noire started to shiver as he said, “I thought Minuette destroyed her? The lab was sealed away, that thing cannot survive long on Equus.”

“She will survive and she’s the key to making sure the Mare I spoke of has the power to stop the darkness Falling Shadows will unleash when it’s activated,” I said starting off again.

“But what evil? You didn’t tell us what you’re blabbering on about!?” Greta said to me following.

“I’ll tell you in time, but right now, I need to get something from The Lucky Horseshoe, then we need to make a trip to see Dwarf Star…” I said as my two allies followed…

***

Night Stalker…

Drip…Drip…Drip…

The sound of my blood hitting the stone floor of Minuette’s hidden library was like a constant reminder that my life was coming to an end. I’d fought hard to make it this far, only to end up killing one of my own colts and his team in the very place that would soon become my own tomb. If it wasn’t for my power armor, I’m not sure I’d had made it this far. I felt a tear fall down my face as I looked down at my youngest son. His face was half melted by Plasma, his own power armor smoking and ruined by my hooves. I winced at the blood falling out of the few bullet holes that managed to make it through my armor. The injuries themselves weren’t too bad. Nothing vital had been hit, but with my illness as bad as it was now and with the blood I was losing I knew I didn’t have long. Slowly I took another step past the body of my son and the five pegasi he’d taken with him to try and kill me and looked up at the last living pony in the large library with me.

She was blocking my way, tears running down her face as she said, “Father, why did you have to do that? I know he betrayed you, but he was your son.”

Nightingale had always been a beautiful mare, strong, kind and fearless, just like her mother. I took another slow step closer and said in a weak voice, “I didn’t want this to happen my angel, but I couldn’t let him kill me, not yet.”

She looked past me at her brothers ruined body and held back another sob, “You said he wouldn’t be here?”

“He wasn’t supposed to be, I tried to make sure he was far away, but he was smarter than I gave him credit for,” I said wincing, “Your other brother is still safe, at least he should be if he stayed in Stratus. Is your mother still in Thunderhead?”

Nightingale nodded as she tried to come to terms with the new reality of her life. “She has no idea you’re here, honestly she tries not to talk about you if she can.”

I nodded slowly trying to ignore the pain in my body and the pain of my illness trying to stop my heart with every beat. “When I’m gone, it will be your job to take over for Noire and myself. Dwarf Star knows about this place too, but he won’t tell anypony. After tonight, the three of you, and Greta will be the only ones to know about this. I’m sorry I have to ask so much of you my angel, but somepony needs to protect the secrets here and everything else I told you about. Do better than you’re old father my love.”

“I’m not sure I can do this father. I’m not as strong as you, I don’t even understand everything that you’re trying to protect. I still don’t see why you think you’re going to die,” she said, a sob escaping her mouth before she could stop it.

“You’ll understand in time, Noire will teach you everything you need to know. You can trust him,” I said.

In a flash she ran over and hugged me tight, I winced and held back a scream of pain as best as I could as she said, “I love you daddy.”

When she pulled back, I moaned in pain but said, “I love you too my Angel of the Night. Now, I have a couple of things left to give you before I finish what I came here to do.” I exited my armor and nearly fell over until she caught me helping me stay up right, “Thank you love. First, I want you to take my Power Armor, keep it safe but make sure you do what I said you should with it.”

“Dad, why do you need me to alter it? I don’t understand,” she asked.

“You don’t need to know, just do it and make sure it’s hidden where I said to hide it,” I said getting my hooves steady again then pulling my last healing potion out of my satchel I drank it down quickly, nearly sighing as I felt the healing magic slowly close some of the wounds, “Second gift I have for you is this,” I lifted the small broken crystal that was around my neck, “Make sure you and whomever you pass your legacy down too keeps this safe. One day there will be a mare who needs it.”

As I gave it to her, a quick flash of green light shot out of it and into my eyes. I had no idea what it meant but I didn’t really care. Nightingale looked at it then nodded and put it around her own neck, “I’ll keep it safe father.”

“I know you will now when I go into the chamber make sure you close the door behind me. The lock will only open for my line and Greta’s so you shouldn’t have to worry about anyone bothering my body,” I said as I headed to the bookcase. As I approached something popped out of the one of the books and flashed over me. By now I was used to this, over the years of helping with building this mighty weapon of war and death, I’d visited this site the most. If everything went to plan, then soon no pony would be able to use the project. I looked back at my young daughter and gave her the best smile I could. “Be strong, stay headstrong, protect pony kind. As of this day, I pass on the leadership of The Children of the Night to you Nightingale. You will always be My Angel of the Night.”

“Father…” she started to say, but I just shook my head and turned away from the future of my blood line.

I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that I’d ordered Noire to take out my other son before the night was finished. By the time morning came, three of my four children would be dead. The first my oldest, died to protect me from the accusations of Thunderlane and my two other sons. My third born just died at my own hooves trying to stop me from locking down the Project his new master wanted for himself. My second born would die tonight, by the hooves of a former enemy turned ally. The last and brightest of my children was all that was left. A mare barely into her twenties and being put into a situations that was bigger than her or anything in the rotten Enclave.

As I walked father into the room, I heard the door behind me hiss shut and the bolts lock into place leaving me in a small dark hallway leading to the last door. The door that would take me to the place where I’d die. As I took that first step toward my end, part of the words that old Zebra told me came back to me in a flash. “When father sees the oldest son fall by traitorous hooves, the prophecy shall be known to be true. Father will slay the third no matter how hard he fights, by the father’s lips, he will end the second born’s life. Only the youngest shall live, a filly of great strength, she shall keep the line of the Night Stalker safe. For the tree to grow strong to save this great land, the weakness must be trimmed away for the leaves to expand. The one to stop the Zony of black, will one day be born to a family of ash. When you see the signs of this great fate Soul of Moonlight, you must do what is right, to bring forth the agent of light.”

I chuckled at the words I remembered. “And here I thought all zebras could rhyme, oh well.”

I pushed the last door open and even after seeing it a thousand times, my eyes went wide at the chamber beyond. It was blinding for the first few moments, a pulse like a slow heartbeat flowed softly throughout the chamber almost like it was alive. Most ponies would think it was just coming from the Mega spell chambers in the chamber above, or maybe from the massive amounts of power flowing up to this place from below. I knew better, the heartbeat was real, and it was coming from the massive spell that was still active to this day. It was two hearts in sync, and it was from the two brave souls who gave up their own lives to protect the Crystal Empire from the narcotic necromancy Megaspell that was set off right as the rest of the Mega Spells destroyed my home. Prince Shining Armor and his wife Princess Cadence had no idea what I’d created under their city, but Cadence could feel part of the magic stored down here. She had pulled on that magic with her Alicorn strength and used it to fuel a protective spell to save her city. When she nearly failed her husband joined her, the two were turned to crystal and their souls were trapped to keep the black smoke of death from ever penetrating their city. Their bodies were still frozen in place in the throne room above. The mega spell chamber they pulled from was still running at nearly 99%, it would still be nearly full when this damned project was stopped for good.

I looked around the chamber taking in the pure white walls that went up high to meet fifty feet above at a single pillar coming down to the white metal floor. This chamber was more of a dome than a chamber really. At the top of the pillar were ten large cables snaking off into the ceiling to connect them to the ten Mega spells over this point. At the bottom of the pillar were only three things. One was a large display screen three quarters of the way down, a terminal near the bottom, and a single stasis chamber. It was the stasis chamber I needed. Thanks to Sweetie Belle and her friends tower one at the Lucky Horseshoe, tower three in the Badlands, and tower four in Baltimare, were all locked down. Tower two, was the only one that was still working. Without the other towers, Falling Shadows could not be activated. The bad part was that this location was almost a pure copy of Stargazer, just a lot more powerful and better built. No pony can use Falling Shadows with the other three locked down true, but if the wrong pony found a way to get in here and if they knew what they were doing, they could recreate a creature like the one that was made in Stargazer. I didn’t have a Pip-Buck Mark II, so I couldn’t do what Sweetie Belle had, but I could do something to make sure this location stayed locked down until they day she came to finish my last mission.

I slowly made my way over to the stasis chamber and it opened with a hiss. I ignored the voice of Minuette telling me about the risks of entering the control pod and climbed in anyway. I laid back into the gel like padding and rested my head into the mind scanner. The glass door closed, and prompts started showing up on the display inside the glass over my face. I barely had to think as I did what I needed too to end my life and save my home. One last warning prompt came to my view…

Warning…Warning…Warning!

General Night Stalker, you are trying to activate the mind melding feature of Falling Shadows Tower 2 Crystal Palace. Access to Tower 1, 3, and 4 is locked down by unknown software. You will not be able to use the full power of this Project.

By entering this Control Pod, you are going to be put into a stasis like sleep. Your body however is showing signs of major damage.

Multiple Injuries from bullets

Radiation has damaged some of your DNA

You have a cold

Lack of sleep is affecting your mental state

Taint exposure detected, body suffering from elevated heart rate, damage to three ventricles of your heart making it have to work harder to pump blood to your brain. Damage to the lungs, damage to your muscles, eyesight declining, liver failing, kidney’s about to fail, spinal cord decay detected, brain slowly decaying.

You are dying General Night Stalker; you have an estimated 1 to 2 weeks to live. Stasis can extend your life for up to twenty years. If you enter a state of stasis, this Control pod can not be used until you leave, or your heart stops. This site will be completely locked down until that day or until are pulled out by a member of your family.

You have chosen to put most of the power for this stasis chamber, that being 90% to your heart, if you do this your brain and other organs will slowly die over time, there is no knowing how long this will keep your mind alive. Are you sure you want to activate this Pod and Lock down Tower 2?

Yes/No

Before I made my final choice, I looked at the slight reflection in the glass over my face and praying that the old zebra wasn’t crazy, I sent my message the mare who would hopefully see this memory. “Listen up kid, I don’t know if any of this is real or if I’m losing my mind because of the taint, probably both. By the time you see this I’m sure you’ll have gone through a lot of shit in your young life. The zebra told me you’d face trials like no other before you and at a very young age. I know that the path that’s been set in front of you sucks. Take it from an old buck like me, I understand. I watched my parents die to a massive snowstorm in the mountains outside of the Griffonlands, I was only four years old when that happened. They gave their lives to protect me from the cold and the storm, using their own bodies to keep me safe. I was trapped for two days until a small patrol along with a young griffon who was with them found me. I was lucky, always had been from the day I lost my parents. I could have died, but I didn’t, I didn’t understand it back then what my parents did for me, but as I grew, I started to understand it. I’m only alive today, because of ponies and griffons and even zebras like my parents. I’ve watched my parents die, I sat that the death bed of the old griffon who raised me while I was being shunned by the same community that once called me brother, I saw my adopted sister die because of a stupid war, I heard about the deaths of the ponies who took me in when I was a teenager by the hooves of zebra sympathizers.”

I took a breath trying to hold back the utter despair trying to work it’s way past the mental block I’ve held it behind for so long as I continued, “I saw my team slowly be torn apart by magic I didn’t understand, I had to watch one of my closest friends go mad at the loss of her mare friend, I was once again saved by the princess I looked up to with near worship as the first bombs started to hit Canterlot. I saw my country destroyed by magical bombs of utter hate and evil. I watched the Wasteland be born. I’ve seen more than most ponies could ever deal with and yet I made it to this point, all because of the strength of the ones who helped me get here. All because of the sacrifices those before me made so I could live.”

I paused for a moment letting my message sink in, hoping that one day she would see it, hoping she would understand what I needed her to understand. “There are things from my life you can learn from, but if you’re seeing this then you don’t have time to watch every part of my life, so I’ll give you the quick version of what you need to learn. First of all, this world sucks and I’m sure you know that by now, but what I mean by it is simple, you’re going to lose ponies or creatures you love. Don’t let it rip you apart, I know it’s hard to let the anger go away, honestly it never does, it never will, but you can learn to channel that anger to help save others. Remember the ones you love if you lose them, but don’t lose yourself because of things you can’t change, learn from your own mistakes, and keep moving forward. Second, curse or no curse, don’t let it stop you from finishing my mission. The crystal you have will give you what you need to destroy it’s curse once and for all so what’s left of the descendants of The Children can live on in pease. Follow what it’s trying to tell you and things will work out, ignore it and you’ll watch it eat away at everypony you love until you’re almost the last one left. Our line isn’t meant to die quickly, we’re meant to suffer until we take our last breaths.”

I let that sink in too before going on again, “Third, you need to put an end to Falling Shadows. I’m sure you know that by now, but I’m sure you don’t know how yet. It won’t be easy; you’ll need to find all three Pip-Buck Mark II’s to make this work. I hope the zebra was right that you’d be able to do this, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about then find a ghoul who used to go by the name of Button Mash, he can tell you about them and probably where to find them. If you can’t find him then I’m not sure how you can do it, but they need to be found. Applebloom’s Mark II will unlock Tower 4, Scootaloo’s will unlock Tower 3, and last but not least, Sweetie Belle’s will unlock Tower 1. If you want to destroy Falling Shadows, you’ll need to unlock Tower 3 and 4, then you’ll need to come here to Tower 2 and make sure the system is up and running again. I don’t know how long what I’m about to do will last, but it should buy you enough time. Once they are all unlocked and ready to use again, you’ll have to go to Tower 1 and get into the Lucky Horseshoe. Go to sub basement three, and make sure you set all four towers to terminate themselves. Don’t worry about anything happening to any ponies around the towers, the system will just wipe all of the data and destroy the power sores for each mega spell letting them slowly fade away.”

I paused again as pain from my heart raced through my body. “Fuck that hurts…where was I? Oh right, once this is done Falling Shadows will no longer be a threat. Be warned, if Aquila is free of her host or in control of it by that point, then you’ll most likely not be able to stop it in time. I hope this doesn’t come to pass, but if it does then your only hope of saving Equus from eternal darkness and pain is to work with Aquila. I don’t know what she’ll be like when she’s free of her cage, but from what I was told by the Zebra, she’ll most likely think that Falling Shadows will make her powerful so she can stop the pain of our world. You might even think she’s evil. I can tell you this, she’s not what you think she is. Aquila is pure light made to protect and guard our world from darkness. Her mind might be tainted by the darkness, but she can never truly fall to it fully. If you help her find the light again, you may be able to save everypony. She is called the Key to Falling Shadows, not only because her power is the literal key to powering the full spell, but also because she is the key to stopping what might come forth from the darkness. Remember this, Love is stronger than any other force in the universe. It took me most of my life to realize that. Don’t let it take so long for you to find this truth for yourself kid. Be better, do better and always stay strong. Hate only poisons your soul. Trust me on that one.”

With that last part said I clicked ‘yes’ and the pod started rising so my body was facing the door that led into this chamber. The mind mapping system started scanning my inner thoughts and my site started to fade as I slowly fell into the deep sleep of stasis. As I slowly faded away Greta’s face came to my mind, and I smiled. “One last thing kid, if you find the one you love and are meant to spend your life with. Don’t push them away like I did…kiss them…hold them…cherish them…you never…know how long…you have with them…and always…ALWAYS…tell them…you love them… This is Absent Moon, A.K.A. General Night Stalker, former leader of the Enclave, former Soldier of Equestria, Former assassin for Luna, Former Husband of Lightning Dust, Father of four…I lived a long…hard life…and now its time to go. General…Night Stalker…Signing off, Good Luck to those who come after.” As single tear fell from my eye as my mind finally was pulled into the black, four words left to the empty room for none to hear, “I love you, Greta.”

oooOOOooo

Shadow Star…

I groaned as I came out of the two memories of my distant grandfather, the last one still fresh in my mind as I saw the last moments of the once great leader of The Enclave. No wonder no pony ever found out what happened to him after The Absent Ruins. From what I could tell, he’d killed everypony that got in his way except for his daughter Nightingale. She had been the second Guardian after Zaphan, when he’d been a member of Night Stalkers group he’d taken on a new name as Noire, Nightingale it sounded like had been named Angel of the Night by her father. It was just like my own father who had been called many things over the years as Guardian but most of all he’d been called The Masked One, by most and The Stranger by me. Every member of her family who’d protected this secret had a code name. It must be how they kept Falling Shadows secret for so long.

It was also hard to take in the message he’d left for me, some how a Zebra knew about me and what I needed to do to stop this project from starting up again. Night Stalker had been sick, he was dying and knew he couldn’t finish his mission, so he did what he had to, making sure one day, a young mare he’d been told about could finish his quest. Still no matter what he said, I couldn’t believe him about Aquila. He didn’t know her like I did, I’d spent the last few months getting to know the evil child of the stars and even longer with her stuck in my body.

This Zebra might think she was the key to saving Equus, but she was also a nut case. I’d stop Falling Shadows with out her, and once I did, I’d find a way to kill the bitch for good. That was the only way to keep the Wasteland safe. I’d find a way to fix my family’s curse and spend the rest of my life with Aura by my side. All I needed to do was get the gem with Aquila’s power inside and she’d be helpless with starting Falling Shadows. It was then that I remembered the other memory and the two items Night Stalker had left in the crack. He had said to follow what the crystal told me to do. So, just like in the memory I walked past the steps leading up to the control room and went to the other side. The floor and walls around here were a lot dustier than when Night Stalker had come here himself, but it only took a moment to find what I was looking for.

Reaching into the crack I pulled out the two items. The recording wasn’t in great shape but looked like it would still work. The framed photo was still in great shape though. I slowly turned the frame over and my eyes went wide at the beautiful yet simple photo within my magical hold. It was two mares, one was Amethyst Star the other, the beaming smile of Minuette, in the background I could see a view overlooking a beautiful view of the ocean. The two had a hoof around the other as they both smiled for the photo, cheeks pressed together. They looked so happy in the picture, like the war didn’t exist and the two of them were excited to be taking a day off work.

I smiled as I looked at her happy face. “You look so happy grandma, but I wonder why I need this.”

Shrugging I put the photo into my saddle bag then placed the recorder into my Mark II and played it. A second later Absent Moon’s voice came out of it, “This message is for Min to hear. Young mare if you found this, only keep playing it if Minuette is still alive and in front of you, if she’s not, then stop the recording until you find her…”

I shut it off cocking an eyebrow. “Minuette’s still alive? I mean Aquila said she was, but I can’t figure out how unless she’s a ghoul. If she is, then she has to be utterly feral by now. But I’ll follow your wishes grandfather, even if I never find her.”

I kept the recording in my Mark II for now then went back to the control room. I went up the steps, deactivated the security gun with the phrase I heard my father give it, then went into the room. As I walked into the mostly destroyed room, I could feel the pure light magic. It almost called to me like a drug of some kind. Not sure what was going on, I walked closer to the destroyed monitor where Aquila had hidden her gem and the feeling got stronger. I looked into it and saw the small diamond shining with inner light. I reached a hoof out and slowly lifted it out of its shitty hiding place. I could feel it now, Aquila’s light magic was pulsing from the gem, giving me an odd feeling of satisfaction and peace. I shook my head then placed it into my saddle bags as well. As soon as it was inside the feeling vanished.

“I was expecting this to be a lot harder,” I said before looking around quickly then with a shrug I headed back out of the control room and back toward the lift. I knew that there was a small chance that Aquila would figure out what I’d done, but so far, she hadn’t tried to stop me. Either she couldn’t see into my thoughts like I could to hers sometimes, or she was using me in someway I couldn’t see yet. Either way, I had to make sure she didn’t have this small part of her power. If she wanted to start Falling Shadows, she’d have to use the power she had now and not the pure light magic from the day she was pulled to Equus. Every little bit helped me.

I activated the lift and smiled as I watched the Mega Spell chambers, the platform and the control room slowly sink away from me as I left. As it slowly faded away from sight I whispered, “You’re going to lose.”

I was almost past the huge blast doors when something strange rippled through the cavern. It wasn’t a physical thing, more of an odd feeling rolling over the magical field all unicorns could tap into. It almost felt like something that had been long held back had been finally released back into the Wasteland. At first, I had no idea what it was, but the part of my magic that had once touched that strange Alicorn back in Hoofington seemed to shiver and snap. It was like she had left a piece of herself on my magic and that piece was suddenly gone. I hadn’t known it was even there until the spark of her strange magic just vanished with a feeling of utter sadness left in its absence. I wasn’t sure how, but at that moment I knew that Lacunae was gone and so was the so-called Goddess she was controlled by.

“What the fuck?” I said as I closed the doors to the chamber and started heading back down the hall. A moment passed as I worked my way toward the exit when there was a flash of red light just past the Shield Spell and Violet was standing there looking through the pink energy her eyes wide and twitching.

“Violet? How the hell did you get down here?” I asked, taking a step back.

“Vio…let? I’m not her, no she’s not me, no yes I am, no that name is fake, I am a follower of The Night, Captain? General, where are you?” she looked utterly mad as she shook her large head, then her bloodshot eyes gazed at me again. “Who…are…YOU!?” she paused again, “Shadow how did I get here?” her eyes went bloodshot once more and a mad chuckle escaped her lips, “Hehehehehe, Star in the Dark, Shadow of the Stalker of Night, tee hee, the little filly with to much light!” again her eyes changed and rage filled them, “Where is my LOVE, are you the one who killed her? WHY DO YOU HAVE HER NAME, WHERE IS MY STAR!”

With out warning and to my utter shock, she jumped through the barrier and blasted a bolt of pure rage filled magic at me. The red beam nearly took my head off, but I was able to put up a barrier spell and dodge to the right. Her spell destroyed my weak shield like it was nothing more than weak glass, but my dodge kept the worse part of the spell away from me. Unfortunately, I still got caught by the edge off the spell and I felt pain roll through my body as I was thrown back.

I rolled then tried to back up toward the larger room where the door control was, so I had more space, as I said, “Violet, it’s me Shadow Star, what’s wrong?”

“Stop…Calling yourself Star! You’re the one who killed her, she was my love, she was my WORLD, Filthy zebra sympathizing scum! I thought I killed you already, no matter I’ll kill you again and again and again until you PAY!” Violet screamed trying to fire another shot of magic at me, but this time I was ready, and I blasted her first.

I knew I couldn’t do much to hurt an Alicorn, especially one powered by the Alicorn amulet, but my magical blast might knock some sense back into the crazed mare. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I had a feeling the death of the Goddess even with Violet blocked from her control had knocked a screw lose. She wasn’t making any sense, why did she keep saying her Star was dead and why did she think I had something to do with it.

“Violet stop attacking me and tell me what’s wrong, I’m Shadow, I’m your friend!” I yelled as she got back to her hooves after my magical attack.

She started shaking her head again moaning in pain as she brought a hoof to her head, “Too much, too many memories, please take the pain away, take away the pain! I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to be her anymore, please Trixie take away the despair! I can’t Live without her!”

It was like she had no idea who I was, but whoever this Trixie was I’d use it to keep myself alive. I really didn’t want to hurt Violet, but I would if I had to. “I’ll fix it, but you need to tell me what’s wrong Violet.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked then her eyes glazed, and she said again, “Violet, it’s a pretty name, better than who you used to be, must embrace this, keep the memory of your Star at bay. It’s too much, too much, too…much,”

I took a slow step forward slowly drawing Misery, “Tell me what hurts, and I’ll help.”

Desperate hope filled the crazed Alicorn’s eyes as she said quietly, “Make the memories go away again. There’s too many,” her eyes cleared and for a moment the Violet I knew showed herself, “Shadow…”

“Yes, it’s me what’s happening to you?” I asked quickly taking another slow step toward her.

“The filter is gone, The Goddess is dead, my Alicorns are dead, memories…I’m not sure if they are mine, or this bodies, or if we are one and the same. I can’t fix it; I can’t stop them. The memories can’t be mine, there’s so much pain there, a fractured mind bent on hate and despair and wanting revenge. Also, feelings of wanting to fix what she created, pain for what she must do to stop the dark General. She…I…we? I don’t know, they went to Trixie…the Goddess looking for somepony, we were promised power and release from the pain. She was trapped, she was made to forget, or was I? Shadow…help me please!” Violet begged.

“I might have a spell that could help, but I’m not sure, can you hold on to who you are for just a moment, and I’ll try it?” I asked.

“I…I’m not sure,” Violet said, but she moved closer.

Remembering the memory spell I’d learned in Hoofington, I pulled deep into my magic, feeling as if I was ripping a small piece of my own soul to cast it. Then with a horn glowing red and layer upon layer of magic overlapping, I touched my horn to Violet’s shaking head and was ripped into a dark void of pain, sadness, madness, and memory.

This wasn’t like a memory orb where I could watch the memory stored from the point of view of another. No this was almost like living through Night Stalkers memories from the crystal, but I knew who I was as the memories flew by, I couldn’t make sense of them all, but three were strong and if I could have gasped at what I saw and who this was, I would have.

oooOOOooo

Soul Memory...

I watched as a much younger Minuette sat at a cluttered desk in non other than Stable Tech R&D department, Manehattan branch. I knew this because every feeling, thought and idea she was having was filling my head. She was tinkering with what looked like a crystal inside an older style Pip-Buck. She glanced over at the new Unicorn that joined last week. She was cute but so annoying, Amethyst Star had only gotten the job here because she was friends with Sweetie Belle. She wasn’t bad with magic and had good ideas sure, but she was so out of her element in this office. She also acted like she was smarter than everypony here. Well, maybe she hadn’t acted like that with Minuette, but she had made sure to glance over at her a few times and gave her a look, a look that said, ‘Yeah you think you’re the best unicorn here, but you got nothing on me bitch.’

Minuette sighed and kept working on her newest spell for the Pip-Buck. She knew she didn’t have to worry, if it wasn’t for her, Stable Tech wouldn’t have the Eyes Forward Sparkle spell or the Stable Tech Automatic Targeting Spell either. She’d invented them and many more for the company and even though Applebloom hadn’t given her much praise for suck a remarkable bit of magic, she was proud of herself. Though the day in and day out of stupidity and worthlessness she felt now days just kept Minuette in a glum mood every day. Honestly, she’d had times where she’d thought about quitting or maybe even just going home and just giving up on this hell of a life she was stuck in.

What was the point anyway? The war was getting worse, Equestria was losing, and she was helping this stupid company make experiments. She looked over at the new unicorn and saw she was talking with a very tall grey Pegasus with a nasty scar over his stunning green eyes. She rolled her eyes, “Must be her buck friend or something. Stupid bitch should know that if Applebloom or Button saw her letting random bucks into this department she’d be in a lot of trouble. What was it with most mares and their attractions to tall handsome muscle heads like him?”

She watched them for another few moments until Amethyst started nodding her head quickly before trotting over to her desk. Minuette sighed and made a mental note to tell her supervisor about this later and went back to work. Not two minutes passed before she heard a low voice say, “Pardon me, but are you Minuette?”

Minuette looked up, it was the pegasus. “Yeah, and before you start hitting on me, let me say this. First, I don’t do the whole tall dark and handsome thing, I think nerds with brains are more attractive and even if I was interested you don’t have the right equipment to please me. Second, you shouldn’t go around hitting on other mares when your mare friend is only a few desks away. Now go away before I teleport you out of this office and into the river.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Could you really do that? I heard that teleporting other ponies away from you is very hard magic.”

Minuette rolled her eyes and sighed. “I can do that and more, I don’t know who you are or what you know about me, but trust me when I say that magic like that is easy for a unicorn like me.”

He smiled. “Good to know.”

She let a bit of magic flow over her horn. “I will give you a demonstration if you really want to keep bothering me.”

His smile never left his face. “You should learn to smile more Min, do you mind if I call you Min? Anyway, first of all before you go around making accusations about stallions you don’t know, you should ask them who they are first and what they want. I don’t have a mare friend; I was only here to recruit two of Stable-Tec’s best unicorns. Second, you may be cute, but I am not here to hit on you, I’m not into unicorns, though I do find your kind useful and delightful company. My names Captain Night Stalker with the Ministry of Awesome and the new personal guard to Princess Luna. I was sent here by Twilight Sparkle to see if a Miss Minuette would be interested in getting out of this boring job and doing something that makes better use of her magic and mind.”

Minuette was shocked as she muttered, “Wait a moment, you were sent here by, Twilight? Why would she send you to find me? Why would you even need a unicorn in the M.O.A.?”

“Can’t tell you all of the details yet, but I have a place in Canterlot where I’m bringing a few ponies to see if they would be interested in joining a new squad. I needed a couple of gifted unicorns, and I was told to see if Twilight knew anyone that would fit the bill. The first name she came up with was you, she said you two were friends and she hated that your abilities were being wasted here. But from what I can see, you really don’t want to be bothered so I guess she was wrong. I’m sorry I bothered you Min, I’ll let you get back to work. I need to see if Amethyst is ready to go,” Night Stalker said, before turning to head toward the fucking new mare.

“Wait a moment,” Minuette said, “Don’t tell me you’re recruiting that new empty headed dits over me?”

He slowly turned to look at her, the look on his face wasn’t so friendly as it had been a moment ago, as he said quietly, “First of all, I did my research before I came here, Miss Star is a very intelligent and powerful Unicorn who’s had a lot of bad luck in the past but is quite shy and kind. She is perfect for the job we have open in Canterlot. Now, I would like a second even more powerful and intelligent unicorn, but I am building a team and I won’t put up with mares who judge others when they don’t even know them. To top that all off when I was talking with Amethyst Star a moment ago, she told me she was to shy to talk with you because she’d heard you were the best spell inventor in this dump.”

Minuette blushed at that. “She said that?”

“She did, now get back to your boring job working for this place and stop judging others,” he said before turning again.

“Wait…I’m sorry I…I just don’t know how to act sometimes. Honestly, I hate my job here,” she said as Night Stalker turned and walked closer. As he did, she whispered so only he could hear, “They use my inventions to put into their stupid tech and the credit goes to others. I have so many ideas in my head that I don’t know what to do with them, hell I don’t even have the equipment to build what I want or research what I feel like. I’m stuck behind this desk or workspace most of the day and some days I wish that I just won’t wake up the next day, because what’s the point anymore. I’m not helping anypony at this job.”

The sly smile came back to Night Stalkers lips. “Tell me Min, what if I told you that I could let you do all of that and more, help Equestria, help Luna, save lives, and research anything you wanted if you were to join us? Would you smile more and be a kinder pony if I could get you out of this dump?”

A small smile came to her lips as she nodded. “I’ll even try to learn more about her,” she said, nodding toward Amethyst Star who was a few rows back packing from the look of it, “Honestly when I was younger, I was a much friendlier pony. If you can get me out of here and let me do what I’m good at, I’ll smile as often and as much as I can, every single day.”

He stuck a hoof out and when she took it, he pulled her close and whispered, “Stable-Tec has no idea a ministry agent is stealing away two of it’s best. Thanks to my sister who works here I was able to get in and find you two. If you can help me win this war and save our land, then I’ll do everything I can to make sure that smile never leaves your face Minuette. Welcome to The Children of the Night.”

***

I was ripped out of that memory quickly and I saw a small mote of light floating near me as I flew into the next memory, this one feeling dark and foreboding.

Soul Memory…

Minuette and Amethyst were strolling down a side street in Canterlot enjoying a rare day of piece. It was the first time in a month that the two were able to get away from their new foal and just enjoy themselves for a change. It had been Minuette’s idea to teleport to Canterlot for the day while Amethyst’s cousin watched over Dwarf Star for the night.

“I still can’t believe that when you first saw me you thought I was judging you,” Amethyst said, laughing as they held a few things in their magic from a shopping spree. The war was getting bad again, so not all of the shops were open, but they still managed to have a good time.

Minuette beamed. “What can I say, most of the ponies hated me at Stable-Tec, they just didn’t understand my genius, and they were jealous. Though I did think you were cute even back then, even if I thought you might be a snob.”

Amethyst kissed her for a long moment, before saying, “I was so scared to talk to you, do you remember when we first joined with The General? I could barely talk to you for the first month or two.”

Minuette laughed. “You didn’t say much even then, not until Lightning Joined us. Ah I miss those days, things were so much simpler when we were still in Canterlot,”

Amethyst looked up toward the tall peak where their old base was still hidden, “Me too,” then she got a sly look to her eyes, “Wanna go up to the old base and screw in the squad room?”

“Oh somepony has a dirty mind today, I thought that was my job,” Minuette teased.

“Oh come on, it’s been forever and you had Dwarf Star a month ago, you should be dying to do something fun and dirty. Plus, today is about Celebrating your full retirement from The Children of the Night,” Amethyst said happily, “I say we take the night, have as much fun as we can. Then tomorrow we start looking for a nice place to settle down. Someplace away from Las Pegasus.”

“You know what, you’re right, I think it would do us some good to get some us time and then maybe we can talk about moving away from the city. You know Greta’s going to kill us if we move to far away from her though. She adores Dwarf Star and I swear she thinks she’s our son’s third mom most days,” Minuette said turning to look back at her beautiful mare friend.

The sky was starting to get dark, the small road they were on was even darker, so she hadn’t seen the stallion until it was to late. A shadowy figure came out of nowhere and hit Amethyst over the head with a piece of metal. Minuette screamed but her training kicked in and she readied a spell then her world turned into nothing but pain as another stallion hit her over the back of the head too.

She fell and for a moment all she could see was white light as pain ran through her head. Then she saw Amethyst looking at her from the ground only a few inches away her eyes glazed a little. A hoof pressed down on her head as the other stallion did the same to the love of her life. It was then that she heard his oily voice close to her ear, the voice of the stallion she’d hate for all time, but in her dazed state she could never place it. But I knew it all to well, it was Thunderlane, she never saw his face, and what happened next would destroy her mind over time, making it impossible for her to think straight ever again.

“This is payback for Night Stalker always thinking he can get what he wants. Say bye bye to your little lover you disgusting piece of shit unicorn!” he said with a hint of utter hatred.

“N..no. who…are you? Get…OFF!” Minuette said as she tried and failed to pull on her magic.

She couldn’t do anything, the blow to the head had been enough to make it impossible to cast a spell for a while. The stallion on her, Thunderlane I was sure of it, pinned Minuette down as the other stallion used magic to bring a knife down and use it to slowly cut Amethyst’s throat. Her eyes widened in pain, but they also cleared enough for her to lock eyes on Minuette’s. As the Stallion kept cutting, she managed to mouth one last message to Minuette, “I love you…”

Rage filled Minuette as she watched the shadowy unicorn cut her lovers throat until her blood pooled out and ran over the street until it was running around Minuette’s face. He didn’t stop there however, he kept cutting and sawing then cutting again, until he ripped the head free then slowly brought it over to Minuette’s face and gently set the severed head of Amethyst Star down an inch in front of her nose. The mare’s dead eyes locked in sadness and pain.

Minuette tried to scream but a hoof came down, once, twice, three times on her horn making her nearly black out. Before she got her senses back even a small bit, she heard somepony’s screaming for help, a quick word from the oily voice she never remembered, then the feeling of having her own lovers broken off horn shoved up her ass before the attackers vanished into the night.

I watched all of this and felt the utter agony and rage that came from Minuette as she was hurt in the worst way imaginable. Minuette never found out who the second pony was who hit her from behind. But the unicorn who had killed her Amethyst was tracked down. Unfortunately, they never got any information out of him, because he’d been found in his apartment, dead from a knife being stabbed right into his left eye. Minuette took two days to recover from the head trauma, but the deeper wounds never left her. Her mind had broken from the loss of Amethyst, and she swore that she’d find the other killer one day.

When she figured out that she’d never track him down with how bad the war was getting. She snapped more and she made sure to give her son to relatives of Amethyst’s. She wasn’t able to hold onto sanity often, but she knew she had to keep him safe. She told them to move away, and to never tell her where they took her son. She went back to work with the Children, saying she needed it to keep her mind busy. She worked hard to keep her madness from showing to her friends, but she could tell that Night Stalker knew something was wrong. It was during this time that she finally figured out what Falling Shadows would really do if it was activated. She tried to tell Night Stalker, she tried to tell Lightning, she even tried to warn Greta, but no pony believed her.

They said she was still distraught over Amethyst, and they knew what they were doing. She knew better, she’d put more work into the Project than any of the others. She knew she couldn’t stop it on her own, so she did the next best thing. She made sure Night Stalker and the rest of the Children of the Night could never use the project again. It was her that told her old bosses at Stable-Tec, she told them how to lock the programs down with their Mark II’s. She was the one who convinced Sweetie Belle to get the other two to hide the information of the Project on the Mark II’s and to hide them in a stable. She helped them step by step and when Night Stalker found out what happened, it was to late for him to find the Mark II’s or what happened to his life’s work, her life’s work more like. During her time teleporting all over Equestria, her mind a hairs breadth from fully fracturing, that she found out about the attack. She went to the badlands, she hid away in a safe place and laughed as the world burned.

When she fully broke, she didn’t even have a thought for the safety of her only foal. All she cared about was watching every pony burn, watching the war end in radioactive magical flames. It was a few weeks, maybe a few months later than she came back to herself and the pain of losing Amethyst hit her again. She cast a powerful spell looking for the one mare who might still be alive after the fallout that might be able to help her fix herself. It took some time, but she found the life force of her old friend Twilight and that’s where she met, The Goddess.

***

Soul Memory…

The next memory was quick but helped tie together what happened all those years ago to her distant grandmother. She’d made her way to an old testing sight. One she knew Twilight was trying to hide from the rest of the Ministry Mares, but The Children of the Night knew about. She could barely keep her mind together as she wandered into the building where she felt four life forces. They were strange and three were weak, but she knew Twilight had to be there. What she saw was not her old friend.

I can’t even explain to this day what Minuette saw that day. The creature was horrible, and with her mind so messed up, Minuette couldn’t really understand it. What she did know was that one of the forms inside the gob of monster that was settled inside the center of the building was a mare she really didn’t like, “Trixie? What happened to you? Where’s Twilight?”

A voice entered her head, one I knew as the goddess, “Trixie is no more, we no longer go by that name! You shall call us Goddess, we are all powerful!”

“I…need twilight…please where is she?” Minuette moaned as her head felt like it would split open, and her mind would fragment again.

“Child, you look as if you are in great pain. The Goddess can help you; we can take away those feelings of pain and anger,” The Goddess said.

A tear fell from her eyes. “I want to stop seeing her face, I miss her so much, but all I can see is her head laying in front of me.”

“Join us and you’ll never feel this loss again. Join us Minuette and be reborn as something powerful and clean of those bad memories of your lost love, we can even take away the memory of what you did in service to this Night Stalker,” The Goddess said.

“You…you can?” Minuette asked, a small smile coming to her face for the first time in what felt like forever.

“We can.”

“Please…make the pain stop…I’ll do anything, I’ll join you and do whatever you want, but please just make the pain…stop,” she begged.

There was a flash of something grabbing Minuette as she started to laugh as her mind started breaking again. Then everything else about what happened next just vanished. There was only one thing I knew for certain. Minuette’s body had been turned into a blue Alicorn and set aside for use if it was needed in the future. For the next few decades, her soul was moved from body to body all of her sense of self removed as she obediently served her Goddess. That was until the day a few years back when she was placed in the very body that once was her own. She had no memory of who she was or the pain she had carried for so long. But something about having her own soul in her own body changed her in a small way, enough for her to make a vital decision that would change her forever. So, when she took the Alicorn Amulet she was able to break free of her Goddesses control and some of who she was came back, but not all. That was the day Violet was born.

As all of this came to me, I once again found myself in an empty space, but three bright motes of light floated around me. More memories of my grandmother’s life started being pulled to the three lights. The three points that were key memories to who Minuette was and how she got to this place. As the memories started to repair themselves, I could tell that her mind was also fixing itself as well. What ever this spell was, it’s powerful and I could also tell that it was doing something to my own soul. I had to end it soon or I might hurt my very being if I didn’t. I looked around and, in the distance, I saw an orb of white and black light. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was Minuette’s soul. It was still bright with mostly blue and white light, but I could see the mix of black in it too from the pain she felt over what she did and what happened to Amethyst. With a smile I sent the memories back to where they should be, as a part of her soul and I pulled my mind back hoping that this would fix her.

***

Violet was laying on her side as I came out of the spell my body weak from the massive amount of energy I’d to put into it. Something deep down felt off and almost like something had been taken from me when I’d cast that spell. I’d have to worry about it later though, right now I had to make sure Violet or Minuette was okay. My mind was reeling from the idea that this whole time, my grandmother had been the very Alicorn that had been helping me for so long now. Also, the memories I’d just seen gave me a new understanding of the mare who had built the massive project that could destroy our world.

I wasn’t even sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that she had left her dead-end job at Stable-Tec to work for The Children or not. I mean if she hadn’t there was a good chance she’d never have ended up with Amethyst and later used a sperm doner to have Dwarf Star so they could have their own family and I wouldn’t have ever been born. But on the other hoof, neither would Aquila. My head was also starting to throb from so many memories being pushed into my mind.

“I really hope this is the last memory from strange places for a while. I’ll take a memory orb any day,” I said as I got to my hooves slowly.

As I did Violet opened her eyes and they locked on me with suspicion and a bit of anger. I backed up as she slowly got back to her hooves, towering over me with her wings flared and her horn glowing with red energy. When she spoke, her voice had changed and now she sounded like Minuette but lacking the joy I was used to hearing in it from Memory Orbs, “If you hadn’t helped me Star Cursed, I would have already destroyed you.”

“Wow, is that anyway to thank the pony who just helped fix your broken ass brain?” I said, realizing after I spoke that taunting a powerful Alicorn wasn’t a very smart idea.

Her wings fell a little but the look she gave me didn’t fall away. “I know you from the memories of this body before you fixed my mind. I know you are Shadow Star; I know you were trying to save your mother and that you are respected by some in this broken land. I also know that you are the one who carries Aquila,” then her head tilted to one side looking confused, “At least you did, what happened to her?”

“She decided to trick everypony into getting her own body, fun little bit of science in fact. I’d say I had fun and all but since her getting free led to my mother dying and even more shit to happen, I’m going to say it wasn’t so great. Now are you going to try and attack me or are you going to calm down and talk with me?” I said, really not needing this shit right now.

“Something about you seems…familiar,” she said.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” I said, rolling my eyes but making sure to slowly pull Misery out of its sheath. If she attacked, I was going to be ready.

Her eyes flashed over to it and a look of shock came over her face. “Is that Misery? How on Equus did you acquire that blade?”

I looked over at the blade then back at her. “Found it in some ruins, Night Stalker left it for Greta when they parted. I guess she was letting him use it for a while, but I can’t be sure. I don’t know everything about my distant Grandfather.

“Wait a moment…you’re descended from The General?” she said.

I could have sworn Violet knew that already, but then I realized that I really hadn’t seen her often since we stayed at Frosty Summit. Maybe once or twice and we hadn’t talked much during those times. Some friend I was. So, I looked up at the mare and nodded. “I’m descended from three Children of the Night in fact. Not hard to guess two of them for you, I’m sure.”

“After what happened to me, I lost touch on what was going on in The Wasteland as I’m sure you know after putting my memories back together. I’m guessing that Night Stalker and Lightning Dust had a foal or two after the war,” she said.

“They did, four in fact, but only one lived long enough to have more children. The other part of the Children I’m related to is you Minuette,” I said.

I thought this would calm her down, I was so wrong as she glared at me her eyes started to glow with the red light of the Alicorn Amulet. “You’re telling me that my descendance bred with the filthy decedents of Night Stalker!?”

“Seeing as how it’s been two hundred years since you went insane, also seeing as how you abandoned your SON, I don’t think you get a say in what happened to your line. Though if you can’t tell from my name, my family kept passing on the Star name over the years. So instead of being a bitch, why don’t you calm down and stop with the magical threats, because even though I know you’re powerful Minuette, I will take you down if I must,” I said, with anger filing my voice.

Her glare didn’t go away as she said, “I used to trust Night Stalker, but I learned the truth after my Amethyst died. He knew what Falling Shadows was, he knew it would bring a greater evil down onto Equus, but he didn’t care. As always, the great Night Stalker would kill anypony in his way to get what he wants. And from the memories of Violet, I know you’re just like him.”

“I’m nothing like Night Stalker!” I yelled my own magic flaring.

“Oh really, then when you used another invention of mine to destroy a town and later a tower filled with Pegasi, you were doing it to help ponies?” she said.

That hit me like a punch to the gut, I even took a step back as I said quietly, “What I did to Appleton was a mistake but unforgivable I know, and what happened to The Mill City Tower was worse. It still hurts when I think about what I did back then, but I’m trying to make up for the evil I did back then. If you think that makes me like Night Stalker then fine, but you also don’t know what he went through either, you have no idea what he did to help finish what you started when you ran away!”

“He did NOTHING but segregate his entire race and a few unicorns from the Wasteland, he was the one who ran, who hid, who helped destroy our LAND!” she screamed.

I shook my head slowly. “You all did.”

That simple statement caused Minuette to take a step back and her magic to fade slowly. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen a lot of memories from the past, I’ve also learned a lot of truths. Night Stalker was the one who led you and I know it’s easy to blame him for everything that happened. The truth is, you all are the reason Aquila was created, you were the ones who worked against The Ministries and any pony who got in your way. You may have done it in Luna or Night Stalkers name, but you still did it. You built most of Falling Shadows, you could have figured out what it really did way before it was finished, but you didn’t,” I said calmly.

“I only figured it out after the project was complete and I looked over all the notes between everypony who worked on parts of the project. If I oversaw everything then maybe I would have seen it sooner, but I wasn’t. I may be part of the blame, but Night Stalker knew everything,” she said.

“No, he didn’t,” I said, still staying calm.

“He had to, he was the captain and later our general,” she said.

“Night Stalker…” I paused for a moment, “Absent Moon I should say, was always hiding his true self behind the mask of Night Stalker. He was nothing more than a scared colt when he took on his role of Captain. He put on a brave face for all of you, he did that because in his heart he didn’t want you all to be too scared of the war, or what you had to do to help Equestria. He was in love with someone he couldn’t be with, so he hid his feelings and put them toward another, he was scared every day, so he acted like nothing bothered him, he was scared of being seen as weak, so he acted like an uncaring buck, so no pony saw the true pony behind his mask. He also put some of his responsibilities into others in your group and one of them broke that trust you all had for each other and used it I believe to make sure Falling Shadows would do what it does.”

“How…do you know all of this?” she asked.

“Because I’ve learned a lot about the past. I think I was meant to so I can be prepared to stop Falling Shadows or what comes out of it for good,” I said.

“I still don’t know if I trust Night Stalker, he was a master at manipulating others,” she said.

I remembered then the recording, and said, “He left a recording for you, somehow, he knew you were still alive out there, even forty years after you went missing. Let me play it for you then you can judge him, okay?”

She watched me for a long moment then nodded. “Fine, but after this is done, you have to tell me why Aquila is free or even alive.”

“Fine with me Minuette.” I said, then pulled out the recording I had just gotten and slipped it into my Mark II. It started as it had before, saying the recording was for Minuette then the pause, after it was done Absent Moon’s voice came out of my Mark II with a message for his old friend.

It started out sad and you could hear the age and sickness in his voice, as he said, “Hey Min, if you’re hearing this then I guess Xio that old Zebra wasn’t lying about all this future stuff. I still can’t believe I’m trusting in futures and all that shit, well maybe it’s my age catching up to me. Anyway, I was told that something bad happened to you, but at the same time wonderful. I was told that you would live to see my distant Granddaughter and yours. Weird how so many years in the future our two lines would mix, though I’m sure you hate the idea.”

He paused for a moment, and I could hear a distant hacking sound. “First of all Min, I owe you an apologies, one that I won’t live long enough to give you face to face. I know I have broken the trust you placed in me so many years ago, for that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to you when you came to me about your concerns about Falling Shadows, I’m sorry I pushed you away and didn’t see the signs of the broken state of your mind back then. Truth is I didn’t want to believe that the project we spent so many years building was so evil. I had no idea that a pony I trusted myself had been using all of us to help a master he was serving. I didn’t know how much hate he had in his heart for all of us, well for me more than any other. Amethyst saw it though, I’m not sure if she ever told you but she tried to tell me Thunderlane couldn’t be trusted, that he was angry at me for taking the mare he loved. Like always I just ignored the warnings and kept on pushing ahead with my plans and my schemes.”

He started coughing again before he wheezed, then said, “Sorry about that, I’m not well. Anyway, where was I, oh yes, if I had done something earlier then maybe I could have stopped Thunderlane before he betrayed us all, stopped him before he made sure Falling Shadows wouldn’t be a way to save us, but to let his master out of his cage. I blame myself for everything that happened to The Children, I blame myself for what my family and yours and so many others will have to suffer because of my inaction and my Pride. I’m not asking you to forgive me, I don’t deserve it, all I’m asking is that you do everything to help our Granddaughter. She is the key to saving The Wasteland, her, and Aquila, she won’t trust Aquila at first and she shouldn’t, but in time they will need each other if the darkness is to be stopped. Xio couldn’t tell me much, she said the future wasn’t perfectly clear, but she did say that if Aquila dies or our Descendant, Equus will fall to Thunderlane and his master. I don’t know how the old buck will still be alive that far in the future, but knowing him, he’ll find a way. I will do everything I can now to make this easier for my Granddaughter, but I only have a couple months at best left to live. I can’t do it all, but I know that with your help, she can. Also, don’t try and take on Aquila Min, you might be powerful, but I was told that if you fight her on your own, you’ll die and so will our hope. I hope you find the light again my old friend. I miss your smile and your brightness. Remember what I told you when we met, never stop Smiling.”

The recording ended and I looked at Minuette who had tears in her eyes. “He figured it out in the end, didn’t he?”

“I think he did,” I said, “I had a few of his memories jammed into my head and the last one showed him going into some chamber in the Crystal Empire, he left me a message there as if he knew I’d see it one day before he put his body, well mostly his heart, into stasis, though I don’t understand all of it,” I said.

Her eyes went wide at that. “He went into Tower 2 and locked it down.”

“That’s what it sounded like when I saw the memory,” I said, “What does him going into that chamber have to do with anything though.”

Minuette looked back at me and for the first time since she came back to herself, I saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “When I had the Cutie Mark Crusaders lock down the Falling Shadows…”

I interrupted her. “The who?”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders is just a silly name Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo named themselves when they were still fillies. It was a kind of club, but away back to what I was saying,” Minuette said.

“Okay sorry, it just a strange name that’s all,” I said, but let her continue.

“Anyway, when I had them lock down Falling Shadows, I was only able to get three towers locked down. The first one was was Tower 1 which is in the sub basements of The Lucky Horseshoe. Sweetie Belle was doing a performance that night and I used that opportunity to help her get into the Sub Basement so she could use her Mark II to lock down the systems,” she said as she started to pace back and forth a little.

“Yeah, I gathered that from what I’ve heard, though I thought you were nearly crazy during that time and also how did you get them to help you?” I asked.

She smiled a little, showing a little more of her old self. “I knew them all well from my time at Stable-Tec. The only reason I wasn’t father up in the company when Night Stalker came was because I didn’t get alone well with Applebloom. To be honest it was more her older sister that I didn’t like much after Applejack became a Ministry Mare. It’s a long story but Applebloom was the head of Stable-Tec and she was a very smart engineer and more, but she also didn’t like ponies talking about her family. Anyway, when I went to Sweetie Belle about what I found out about Falling Shadows, she got the other two to meet with me.”

“I’m guessing you told them everything and they decided to help you?” I asked.

She laughed a little. “No, at first Applebloom thought I was nuts…which I was to a point, but my mind wasn’t fully fractured yet. Stopping Falling Shadows was the only way I could hold onto reality back then. It took me a couple of hours to convince all three of them and I believe if it wasn’t for Sweetie Belle and later Scootaloo, Applebloom wouldn’t have believed me. The first thing they wanted to do was destroy it or tell the Ministries.”

“That might have been a good idea now that I think about it. I’m sure the Ministry Mares would have done something to stop it,” I said.

“You only know what you learned in school about the Ministries,” Minuette said.

I shrugged. “They were the symbol of friendship and all that I know, they also started the Ministries to help the war effort and save pony kind.”

“Have you ever found memory orbs that dealt with any of the Ministry Mares?” she asked, looking at me side eyed.

I had to think about that for a moment. “Well, I saw Rainbow Dash in a couple, one time I saw a memory where all of them were in it but mostly it just seemed to be about a couple of secrets between Rainbow Dash, Luna, and Night Stalker…oh and I think he slept with Luna, the memory ended after they kissed.”

Minuette started to laugh. I was taken aback for a moment then she said through her chuckles, “The night of the Grand Galloping Gala yes I remember that night. I also know that The Captain didn’t sleep with Luna that night.”

I cocked my head to one side giving her a face that said I really didn’t believe that. “I don’t know, it sure seemed like Luna wanted him.”

“Most mares did back then, Night Stalker had a charm to him that I don’t think he even knew he had. To be sure he was gloomy and dark at times, and he could kill most ponies quicker than the blink of an eyes, but he was handsome, funny when he wanted to be, and that scar gave him a sense of danger. Princess Luna, you have to understand was a very lonely mare. She had been ever since she was cured of being Nightmare Moon. She made friends to a point, but she never really recovered from her time as Nightmare Moon. Which isn’t hard to believe because you can never really cure the mental scaring of having the influence of dark star magic inside of you,” Minuette said with a sigh.

“Okay…but what does this have to do with my grandfather?” I asked.

“Well, to put it simply, Night Stalker had his own inner demons from his early life. He’d lost his parents, was raised around griffons who are a bit on the greedy side and love to fight, even before the war and he always felt like an outside being the only pony in a land of griffons. He was fourteen or so when he went to live with his adoptive parents. Anyway, Luna and him, were a lot alike and she saw that in him and well she fell for him,” she said.

I made a grossed-out face, I mean I know what she was saying was true, but still we were talking about my distant grandfather. “So, she used her power to…you know.”

“Make him do her?” she said with a slight smile at the grossed-out look on my face, “No, Night Stalker told Greta about this the next day and Greta and I used to be close, and she told me on a drunken night once. Night Stalker ended up leaving that night and had Babs take over guard duty for him. He wasn’t one to sleep around even with a beautiful mare like Princess Luna,” she said with a sigh of sadness for her old boss.

“So, you’re saying you’d have taken the chance if you’d had it?” I asked mostly teasing, that was until I remembered that this was my distant Grandmother, and I felt a bit of bile come up my throat.

“At that point I was still single so hell yeah, but I’m not Night Stalker. I didn’t mind having my fun until Amethyst and I got together. No, he was in love with only one creature, and nothing could have changed that. It was almost like his very soul was pulled to her. He fought his feelings for most of his life, but in the end, he still found himself drawn to her and her to him from the sound of it,” she said with another smile, this one a bit wider than before.

“I guess you knew he loved Greta too huh?” I asked.

“Well Amethyst noticed it first, but she was always good at picking up on signals like that. She also knew that Prickly Petal had feelings for her adoptive brother and that Thunderlane was deeply in love with Lightning Dust. She even figured out that Babs had a crush on our zebra friend Noire,” she said with a chuckle.

“Whoa, wait a sec really?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, but Babs never pushed it, out of all of us apart from maybe Greta, Babs Seed was truly Loyal to Night Stalker. She would’ve died for him, and I have a feeling she did. I never found out what happened to her or her foal after I went mad,” she said, sounding ashamed.

“When we have more time, I’ll tell you what I know, but I can tell you that her son lived and had foals of his own,” I said.

“That’s good to know, she had a hard life that got even worse when she had a falling out with the rest of the Apple Family,” she said with a single tear falling from her eyes.

“We’ve gotten off track Minuette, let’s get back to the Ministries and me not knowing anything about them,” I said.

“Oh right,” she said shaking her head, “The Ministries never worked together well. Over time the Ministry Mares slowly pulled away from each other. They hid secrets, their own projects and more over time. The M.O.A. was probably the only one that really could hide what they were doing.”

“Because everypony thought they didn’t do anything right?” I asked.

She nodded. “That’s exactly right, Rainbow Dash was in charge of the flyers and the entire air force for Equestria, she was also in charge of the only M.O.A. project that anypony knew about which led up to the M.A.S.E.B.S. Towers going up as part of the Single Pony Project. It was all a cover though, what they really did was run the spy network for Luna and the pony who was really in charge of that was none other than Night Stalker. He wasn’t only in charge of the Children but most of the Spy’s that worked for the M.O.A.”

“Okay so Rainbow and good old Gramps ran a spy network I kind of figured that one out so what?” I said.

“My point is that we knew more about the rest of the ministries than the rest did, and Night Stalker had spies in every single one. We couldn’t go to any of the ministries and the Ministry Mares were to busy with their own crap and in fighting to care about what I had to say. Also, Stable-Tec wasn’t trusted by most of them by that point. That’s why I had to have them use their Mark II’s to lock down what they could,” she said.

“I think I see what you’re getting at, still I don’t understand why Night Stalker had to put himself into that chamber,” I said with a sigh realizing this was eating into the time I needed to get my mission done, but still this was also important, and I knew it.

She sighed too, before saying, “There’s a few reasons, I had to move fast I had Sweetie Belle lock down Tower 1. With that tower down I knew that at least part of the project could be held off for a time, but with the other three towers working any of the Children could have forced the project to work from any of the other sites. It would have been hard but doable with enough time. So, I helped them lock down tower 3 and 4. With three out of the four down it would be nearly impossible to get the project up and running again.”

“But not impossible just close to it huh?” I asked.

“Right,” she said, “Two things were needed once that was done if Night Stalker or the Children wanted to make the Project work again. One they would need to use the Tower in the Crystal Empire which wasn’t easy to get into or to run unless you have a vast understanding of tech and magic. Something Night Stalker didn’t have when he was younger. He would have also needed the power crystal from Aquila which I locked down at Project Stargazer.”

“Yeah, I saw that memory from Aquila, you didn’t look good,” I said.

“I did that right before I went to the Badlands and let my mind finally fully break,” she said.

“Why didn’t you use one of the Mark II’s to lock down the Tower in the Crystal Empire?” I asked, “It’s not like you can only lock down one thing with them.”

“True, but like I said, it’s not easy to get to that control room. I meant to get one of them to the control room for Tower 2, but Night Stalker figured out that Tower 1 was locked and who did it before I could get them to it. He also found out about the other two towers too. He went to The Crystal Empire and had Noire who’s almost as skilled with tech as I am, lock down the room to the controls to only work for himself or Greta,” she said.

“How did you know that? From what I saw of that last memory, you never tried to go there,” I asked.

“I had my own version of a Pip-Buck back then, it wasn’t as nice as a real one, but I was able to know when something that I had set up had been changed. As soon as the control room’s access was changed, I knew about it. So, I did the same thing to Night Stalker and made it so that only I and my descendants could get into Aquila’s chamber. If I had been in a better state of mind, I would’ve made sure that no pony could have gotten into that room, but you can’t change the past and all that,” she said with another sigh.

“So back to Night Stalker, what does him going into the pod have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Right,” she said, looking at me again, “The Stasis pod was a last resort for Falling Shadows. It could be used to keep a pony alive for centuries and have their mind hooked up the the entire project. The thing with that control system that make’s it so special is that if there’s a pony in the chamber, the other towers can’t be controlled until that pony leaves it or they die. With Night Stalker going into that pod, even if his mind and the rest of his body stops working, as long as his heart is still pumping, that tower is as impossible to use as the rest of them that were locked down by the Mark IIs.”

I finally understood what she was getting at. “That’s why he made sure to put most of the power to his heart. He made sure that even if the wrong ponies got their hooves on The Mark II’s and unlocked the other towers, Falling Shadows could still be kept out of their control until his heart stopped beating.”

“Yes, funny enough that whole idea was Noire’s. He felt like we needed a back up location in case something bad happened to Las Pegasus. It ended up being a great tool to keep Falling Shadows dead.” She said, “Maybe the Captain learned something after all,” she said again with a smile.

“I wonder if his body is still in that pod,” I said mostly to myself.

“I have a feeling it is,” she said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because if Night Stalker’s heart stopped and Tower 2 came online again, The Lucky Horseshoe would have gotten a notification about it,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean much, no pony has been able to get into that old place apart from me and my friends since Mr. Tops took it over,” I said.

She started to laugh. “Shadow, you know how there are four points that jut out on the top of the building?”

I had to think about the design of the Lucky Horseshoe. At the top of the tall spire there were four pillars that did jut out from the dome at the top where the Children’s levels had been, so I nodded. “Yeah, so what?”

She laughed again. “Every point had a light at the end of it. Those lights indicate if a tower is online. It’s a failsafe systems if something happens to one of the locations. It’s how Night Stalker knew which towers were down so quickly. He didn’t even have to check the terminals, all he had to do was fly up to the top and see a light was out to know something was wrong. If Tower 2 was back up and running the light that points north would have turned on.”

My eyes went wide. “I’ve never seen those lights on before, so he could still be alive?”

“His heart might be, but I’m quite sure that his mind and soul are gone. Even if he was somehow still fully alive, from the sounds of his message he was dying anyway and wouldn’t last long if taken out of the Stasis Pod,” she said.

“I guess you’re right, still it would be nice to get some answers for once,” I said with a sigh, “Oh well, at least I know that we have time.”

“Not much I’m sure,” she said, and her eyes went sad again, “I wish Amethyst was here, she’d be so much better and dealing with all of this. Even after your spell helped put my mind back together again, I’m still not sure what to do. I still feel like I’m two ponies, Minuette and Violet.”

“Violet and Minuette are the same pony, just because you didn’t remember yourself doesn’t change who you are. Take it from a mare that’s lived through not knowing herself for a long time,” I said.

She smiled weakly at me. “Thank you Shadow, though it’s hard to keep telling myself I’m Minuette when this body is so different than it used to be.”

I used my magic to pull out the picture of her and Amethyst and gave it to her. As she took it, I said, “Then use this to remember who you are. When you’re feeling confused or lost, remember that even though you lost the mare you loved, she would’ve wanted you to keep moving forward, to keep living, and to help your family no matter what.”

She took it and I saw the joy and sadness as she looked at the old photo. “I remember this day, and you’re right, if Amethyst saw me or how I acted back then she would have scolded me for weeks,” she looked over at me again, “You’re a lot like her you know that? I can see her kindness inside of you and her courage.”

I chuckled. “Funny thing to say when I’m descended from you not her.”

She shrugged. “True but also not fully the truth. Dwarf Star’s father, well sperm donor I should say, was Amethysts cousin the same one who took him in when I lost my mind. So, in a way, you do share genes with her as well. It makes me happy that after so many years and generations, some of what made her special passed on to you as well.”

“You going to be okay Minuette?” I asked.

She nodded. “It will take time, but thanks to you and after hearing what Night Stalker said, I think I’ll heal. But for now, I think you should stick to my other name. Keep calling me Violet, Minuette is too risky to be said out loud and if Thunderlane is really the one behind all of this and he’s still alive, then I can’t have him knowing about me.”

“Oh, he’s alive, I had a nice little chat with him no more than a few hours ago when I was in Stratus,” I said.

Anger pulsed from her as I said that, “That little worm will pay for what he did to me and my Star.”

“Yes, he will, but right now, we need to deal with other problems. I don’t even know where he’s hiding,” I said.

“Oh, I have a few ideas,” she said taking in a few breaths before calming down, “But you’re right, we can deal with him later. Right now, we need to start working on stopping Falling Shadows for good. I also need you to catch me up on a lot of things.”

“That’s a great idea, but first I need to get out of here and check on Wind Thrasher, everyone’s worried about her. I just wish I could teleport like I used to. It would make getting to where she is a lot easier,” I said.

She looked at me with one eye. “Why can’t you teleport? I’ve seen you do it before.”

I sighed. “When Aquila was ripped out of me, I wasn’t able to do it anymore. She said it was something to do with not understanding the way the spell and magic worked. She was the one who made it possible for me to do it so easily.”

“Hmmm, I can see why you are having problems then. How about this I’ll teach you how to do it right while you tell me what I need to know. It shouldn’t take me long to teach you while we head back up to the surface,” she said, turning to leave.

“Wait a second, you think you can teach me how to use an advanced spell like that in a few minutes? My uncle couldn’t even teach me it that fast, he told me so himself,” I said, which was true, Uncle Ori had told me before I left the Ministry that he could teach me, but it would take a while for me to understand the fundamentals to the spell and a bunch of other boring sounding shit.

“I’m sure your uncle thinks like most unicorns do. Most of us have to have a vast understanding of a spell before we can cast it properly. The thing is that you have two points that will help you relearn it easily. One, you’ve done it before and more than once, so you know how it works for the most part, second, your probably more like me and pick up on how magic works more by sight and feel more than mathematical crap,” she said.

“My mom said something like that to me once,” I said as I followed her.

She smiled and kept walking. “She was a smart mare your mother, I’m sorry that she’s gone Shadow.”

“So am I,” I said as I followed her.

As we headed back out of the chamber, I went over the plans my friends and I had set up, what was going on and everything I could. As we did, she did her best to explain to me about what I was missing from my knowledge of teleportations. I didn’t pick up on it all the way out of the chamber, but I was starting to get a little bit of what she was trying to teach me. By the time we finally made it back out of the underground power source, I was feeling a little bit better about being able to finish my task.

“From what you’ve said Shadow, I think the first thing I should do is head to New Pegasus and see about getting into The Lucky Horseshoe. I need to make sure Aquila or somepony else hasn’t tapered with anything in there. I also want to figure out who this Mr. Tops really is. No pony apart form a few from the past should have had that much access to the tower. As for the crystal you have,” she said, I’d told her about the Diamond Aquila had tired to hide down there, “You need to hide it again, with out that, Aquila won’t be able to use the project no matter what she does unless she gives over more of her own power to it.”

“I had the same thought,” I said as I looked up to see Greed flying toward us, “I’ll make sure she never finds it.”

Thundercracker landed, looking at Minuette a little concerned. “Now Shadow baby, don’t tell me you went down into wherever you were to find yourself an Alicorn, I could have told you that this beautiful mare was up on Frosty Summit.”

“Haha Thundercracker, I just ran into Violet a moment ago. She had some news for me,” I said rolling my eyes, but smiling all the same, “I have another job for you.”

He grinned. “Keeping me busy I see. You might be worse than having a wife with all these honey doo lists of yours.”

Minuette had changed her speech pattern to more match what she’d sounded like when she was just Violet as she said, “Shadow Star is right Greed, this mission she has for you is no joke and could be the single most important thing you do.”

A more serious look came to his face. “Okay, I see that whatever this is, it’s no joke. What do you need me to do Shadow?”

I pulled the diamond out and showed it to him. “I can’t tell you what this does but understand this when i say that Thunderlane will do everything within his power and so will Aquila to get their hooves on it. You need to hide it somewhere safe where no pony will ever find it. Also, you can’t even tell me or any of my friends where it is unless I say otherwise.”

“How will I know you’re the one asking and not that weird filly Aquila you told me about? Can’t she trick ponies into thinking she’s you?” he asked.

I shrugged. “No idea, but you have a good point. Tell you what, I’ll give you a passcode that only I’ll know.”

“Doesn’t Aquila have every memory of yours?” Minuette asked.

“Fuck,” I said.

Thundrcracker grinned and moved closer. “Banana.”

“Huh?” I said cocking my head.

He took the diamond from me and just kept on smiling. “Didn’t say anything beautiful, don’t worry I’ll find a good place to keep this. We’ll figure out the details later, you sure you’re going to be okay without me?”

“I’ll be fine, but what did you mean by…” I started asking but his eyes locked onto mine.

“I didn’t say anything,” then he winked, “I’ll catch ya on the flip side shorty,” then he blew me a kiss and flew away.

“He’s a strange pony,” Minuette said.

“He’s a creep, but a good buck oddly enough,” I said.

“Are you sure you can trust him?” Minuette asked.

“I trust him more than most ponies. At the very least, if he just sells it to somepony it will be even harder to find right?” I asked.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t do that, but you have a point. Now Shadow, you need to get going to find your friend and you have a mission to compleat. I’ll catch up with you in New Pegasus as The Shadow Talons’ base okay,” she said.

“Wait a moment, you didn’t finish teaching me how to teleport,” I said as her horn powered up.

“Shadow, I thought you would have picked up on it by now,” she teleported to the other side of me, “Stop thinking so hard about how hard it is,” she teleported again to only end up behind me, “You just need to know where your going,” she vanished again and appeared to the side of me, “And make make your magic take you there,” she did it again, starting to really irritate me, “There’s no special trick to it, all you really need to do is use your spell as a door to get to the place you need to be, the farther away it is the more power it takes. If you were a new student, then yes. You’d need a lot of work to learn the spell. But you’ve done it before. Now stop complaining, stop relying on the spell Aquila let you use and just…” she teleported one more time, “Go there.”

“I’m not sure I can do it.” I said, looking at her again.

“Well, I hope you figure it out soon, because I need to take care of my own mission. Good luck.” and with that my irritating grandmother was gone.

I sighed and shook my head. “She’s just as mean as mom with teaching, oh well, I’ll go say my goodbyes to Javelin, and make sure she was able to help Trotston.”

I started walking and started thinking about what Minuette said. As I walked, I thought more about what Minuette was trying to get across. “Visualize where I need to be,” I did and in reality, even with everything going on, I really needed to be closer to Gravel City where my friend was supposed to be. I’d seen it only once while Stardust, Aura and I flew by it what seemed like ages ago. I remembered a cliff that overlooked where the town used to be. “Tell my magic what I want it to do,” I said pulling on my magic. It wasn’t like I was expecting it to work, even if I could teleport again, I’d need to finish up here first but still I wanted to understand what Minuette was saying, “Use my magic like a doorway and just step through.” To my utter shock I felt more and more magic pulse into my horn and as I took my next step, there was a flash of light, and I was standing next to the cliff just outside the old mines near Gravel City.

I felt my body sway as the magical tax took its toll and as my vision swam, I muttered, “Fuck…my…life.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Fractured Soul: You’ve used a dark spell that has slightly damaged your soul. Sure, it sounds bad, and the mental scars will itch a little, but it’s not the end of the world. You might be though. With your disfigured soul, it’s now 15% easier to learn dark magic, and 10% easier to cast.

Chapter 71: Broken

“Who said I needed to be fixed? This is what I am, who Cell wanted me to be, it just took a while for me to overcome my weakness,”

Aquila…

12 Hours Earlier…

I looked back at Shadow Star and winked. “I need to be going but do enjoy the show. Don’t worry, no pony who works for us will try to hurt you. Wouldn’t want to suffer the same fate as you just yet. Until next time, my annoying little vessel.”

I teleported away from the destruction of the fake city, reappearing a moment later back in the wasteland many kilometers away from the death that was occurring up in the clouds. For a moment, a wave of pain hit me, and I had to close my eyes as I did my best to ignore the pain of the ponies dying above. Even after two hundred years I still couldn’t ignore the suffering of the ponies when the death toll was so high. At least it wasn’t as bad as it had been when I’d first found myself on this world, a fresh soul in a world at war. Back then I was so pure, so innocent, so…ignorant. This was why I needed to use Falling Shadows, with it I could pull down the rest of the power that was rightfully mine. With it, I could save this world, I could bring true peace to it and stop all the pain, death, and hate. Back then, I thought that if I’d just tried to work with The Children of the Night, I could help. I could fix their problems, bring peace, but The Dark Princess feared me, they all did. All they wanted was my power and to put it into that stupid, dark, tainted, Princess Luna.

They had no idea that if they’d tried to put my pure light into Luna, she would’ve died. Her body had already been tainted by a darkness that made her body weak to my kind of magic. Honestly, any normal pony wouldn’t have been able to take my power and live. It was a one in a trillion chance for a pony to be born who could. But with all the odds, after so many years, after so much pain and death, my perfect vessel had been born. Too bad for her that it was two hundred years too late. If she had existed back when I was first pulled down from my home, we would’ve been a perfect match, but now it was too late. She couldn’t see the bigger picture that I could see. She had no idea what had to be done to fix this world. I watched and felt all the pain and it showed me the true path. I would have to suffer through the next few weeks and do what was needed. I’ll keep playing the bad pony if it means saving this world.

‘You keep saying that, but you know that it’s wrong. We need to merge again, you’re following the path of darkness.’ That speck of the old me said deep within the cage I’d had her locked in for decades.

“Go back to sleep and just fade away…you’re too weak and your way of doing things won’t work,” I said to the empty air and used my power to silence her once again.

I took a moment to let the sickness I felt at so much death happening miles away wash over me, then pushed it back. I must complete my mission, I need to get my full power, and to do that I have to work with Thunderlane. Once he played his part, I’ll kill him too. As I started to feel like myself again, I trotted over to a small, abandoned house that I’d been using for the past couple of days. I may be an all-powerful entity from the stars, but a girl needs her rest. Especially one who’s stuck in an almost fake body made from the DNA of her perfect vessel.

Opening the door, I headed inside and took a bit of time to eat some of the rations that the former owner had left behind, cleaned up a bit and clicked on the radio to see if there was any news. Oddly, DJ Pon3 was quiet and old music was playing on repeat. I flipped the station and found that Mr. New Pegasus’ station was nothing but static.

“Strange,” I said to myself before flipping off the radio and walked over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the small bedroom. I removed the illusion I’d placed over my new body when I was still in the ministry. My illusion’s were nearly perfect, but took a lot of my power to maintain. Shadow’s face looked back at me, only with a silvery white coat, pink eyes, and a jet-black mane. Apart from the eyes this is what Shadow would have looked like if it hadn’t been for that darkness I’d expelled when I first met her. Still the body was short, and I really didn’t like looking like her inverted twin.

Luckily for me, I had the power to change this body. I pulled on my magic, feeling the massive amount of power inside, and let it flow over me. This was going to hurt and probably drain a good amount of my power for while, but it was going to be worth it. I wanted my own body, and I didn’t want to be her. I got to work and over the course of couple hours, I screamed as bones broke, my body expanded, my facial structure changed, my horn extended, and my mane grew. When I was done, I opened my eyes to look at the new me and grinned.

I wasn’t the tallest pony, but that was okay, at least I didn’t look like a filly anymore. My horn was at least a quarter size longer. I was thinner than Shadow’s body was, not that Shadow is fat…far from it, but this gave me an elegant look which I liked. My face was a little longer now and my cheek bones more pronounced. My eyes were more angled, my hooves a little sharper, my muscles more flexible and stronger. My mane was still a deep black but with specks of silver in it like stars in a night sky. It flowed behind me, never falling past my shoulders almost like it was caught in an ever-present wind. I smiled at the now beautiful mare that looked back at me. The only thing I couldn’t change about myself was of course my cutie mark. The magic of a pony’s body couldn’t be changed, not even by me. The red flaming bird flying around a crown made of thorns would always be there.

“A queen and a Goddess of the heavens. My cutie mark knows what I am and soon the Wasteland will know me as well,” I said as I turned toward the door and prepared myself for the next step in taking over this world.

When I was outside, I pulled on my power again and teleported to where I knew the Romans were getting ready to fight against the NLR. Step one, find yourself an army, and send them to do your bidding. In a flash of pink, I was standing on a rise overlooking a standoff. To my left the NLR, to my right the Romans. Honestly, if I could convince the NLR to work for me then I would side with them. They did have better weapons, better fighters, and more ponies, but too much politicizing for me. Maybe in time I will bring them to my side, but I didn’t have the time today. Zebras on the other hoof have been both worshiping and fearing my kind for millennia. Way easier to control.

I took a moment to find the zebra I needed, and it honestly didn’t take long. Nice thing about The Romans, the bigger the head gear, the higher in rank. I could see the pumped-up Zebra readying his troops to take on the NLR. I teleported again and an instant later appeared right next to him.

The older zebra nearly jumped out of his armor and cursed in the zebra’s native tongue. “By the stars above who are you and how did you get here?”

I looked up at him keeping my face calm and replied in their language, “My name is Aquila, and I am of the stars, are you the zebra in charge?”

He raised his hoof which had a long spike attached to it and yelled, “Be gone you, filthy pony, how dare you speak of such blasphemy in our own tongue!”

I sighed and with a flick of my magic, turned him into a pile of dust. Every single zebra looked at me in utter fear. I turned my head looking at them before saying again, “I am Aquila, a child of the Stars, who is in charge now that this moron is a worthless pile of ash. I don’t have all day and I need to speak with someone.”

“That would be me,” a younger Zebra said, pushing past the others. He wore no helmet, but by the way he walked I could tell that this was the Zebra who was truly in charge.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I am Zabba, I am the first son of the Caesar. You say that you were given the name of one of the oldest star forms in the sky. Let me ask you, if you are really a child of the stars as you say and bare the name of Aquila, tell me what it means in our oldest tongue?” Zabba asked.

“Eagle, I believe most of your kind call it. Truly though Aquila is a word older than even your tribes and to the tribe of the moon, it also means Fire Bird, Flaming Eagle or even Phoenix,” I said, truly hating having to answer to this welp, but I need the muscle.

“You are a pony that knows her lore, I will give you that. Why have you come into our camp right before we are about to fight against the ponies who call this land theirs?” Zabba asked.

“I’ve come to ask for your help, one day soon I’ll need an army and I can’t think of anyone better than the tribes who have worshiped my kind for as long as the sun has risen over the land,” I said.

Zabba started to chuckle. “A young mare comes into our camp and demands to use my father’s army for her own. Why should we trust you or even believe you?”

“All I want is to meet with your Cesar, I’ll let him make up his mind on if he wants to help me or not. Trust me, without my help, you won’t win against the ponies. I’m a being of untold power, and I can prove it to you. Also, if what I am about to do doesn’t convince you then I think your father will want to meet with me anyway, because I’m the mare who killed Grimoire Spell,” I said with a small grin.

“My father does not like to take an audience with any female. Your gender is only good for cooking or breeding. I am also not sure I believe you are what you say you are, but you have shown bravery by coming into this camp and power by killing one of my father’s generals. I can see about getting you an audience with him. Though what are you going to do to convince us you are telling the truth?” he asked again, looking more amused than scared of me.

I let my smile grow. “I’ll show you right now and once I’m done, I’ll leave. I’ll check back with you in three days to see if your father is willing to speak with me or not.”

With that I turned and started walking down the hill and toward the nopony’s land between the two forces. It only took a few minutes for me to get most of the way across when four ponies came running. Three were stallions the last a mare. The mare came to a halt with the other three a few feet behind as she said, “Civilian, why are you in the middle of a soon to be battlefield and how did you escape the zebras?”

“Are you the mare in charge here?” I asked, keeping my voice innocent.

“Yes, I’m Major Stone Hoof. Now tell me, how did you escape the zebras and are you okay?” she asked.

“Oh me? I’m fine, I was just having a little chat with them,” I said sweetly, “You see they need me to show them I am who I say I am, so I decided to give them a little gift. There’s no need to worry, since you seem to be a kind pony by worrying about me and all that, I’ll make sure you survive this. I mean I do need somepony to tell the leaders of the NLR what happened here today.”

She looked confused and said, “Miss…I don’t understand, what in the Goddesses name are you talking about?”

“Oh, my apologies, I’m Aquila…” My horn started to glow as I continued, “And I’m the one who’s going to take out over half of your army!”

She didn’t have any time to scream or react before I unleashed utter hell on the camp behind her. I teleported right into the middle of the camp and started blasting, cutting, ripping apart, and just using my imagination to devastate every pony that got in my way. To their credit they did try to fight back. Sadly, none of them had the right kind of magic or weapons to break through the shield spell I’d placed around my body. The slaughter only took me about twenty minutes and by the time I was done most of the camp was destroyed and the ponies who’d survived ran. All but Major Stone Hoof who looked at me with wide disbelieving eyes.

“What…are you?” she asked as she shook.

I walked closer to her and said quietly, “I am Aquila, make sure to tell your boss,” and with that I teleported her away. I looked back at the Roman’s camp and smiled before teleporting away once again. I knew they would tell their leader about me, about what I did, and what a good asset I could be to them. I would’ve gone to see the Cesar then, but I had one more thing to do before I went to see Thunderlane who I knew would already be in an uproar that I hadn’t come back to his side after killing his grandson. Right now, I needed to pay a little visit to one of Shadow’s friends. I may not be able to kill Shadow right now, but I didn’t need to. Sometimes bringing an enemy’s worst nightmare to life was the best way to make them beg for death, “Oh Wind Thrasher, let’s see how your broken little brain is doing…”

***

Wind Thrasher…

It was a constant pain now, the need to feed was getting almost impossible to ignore. It’d never been this bad, not even when Dr. Cell would keep me locked up for weeks because I’d done something to piss him off. He used to use his monthly shot as a way to keep me in his control, a way to make sure I was slightly less of a monster compared to his other creations. It had been months now since the last shot, and every day was harder for me to keep the blood lust under control.

“Just keep thinking about Stardust and what he said to you that night. Remember if you keep thinking about him you can keep your mind intact,” I said to myself as I looked down at The Sins’ hideout.

Hailstorm had gone in a few hours ago and would probably be in there for a while. If I just had a way to keep my mind occupied, then I knew I’d be okay. I just needed to hold out a little longer. Dr. Gauze would find a way to fix me…he had to. I looked down at my hooves seeing the place where bone could still be seen just above each hoof where my claws used to be. Looking at them made me smile, not because I liked the way it looked or because I missed them. No, it was the memory of that night, the night Stardust made me feel beautiful for the first time in my life.

“I wish I looked like a normal pony,” I’d said a few weeks ago the same day after Shadow disappeared.

“Why would you want to be normal?” Stardust asked, “Normal is boring and what’s wrong with the way you look? I kinda dig the whole bat pony wings ya got goin’ on.”

I blushed at that, still shy around him. I had been ever since I first got control of myself in Stable 9. He’d been so handsome, so brave, and I loved his devil may care attitude. When he said that to me, I just responded with, “You’re just saying that because we’re friends. You can be honest with me, I’m creepy.”

He’d looked over at me then, I could see the worry he had for Shadow deep in his eyes. He blamed himself for Aquila taking over, so did Aura and Grim. I know they’d been friends for a long time now and the way he was with Shadow missing was almost like his little sister had died. When he looked at me again after a moment, I saw something else in his eyes, it wasn’t worry for Shadow, but pity, for whom I have no idea, but it was there.

“He really did a number on your self-worth didn’t he?” Stardust asked.

I cocked my head to the side, asking, “Who and what do you mean?”

“Dr. Cell, he really did a number on how you look at yourself. I can see it in the way you look at yourself, or how you act around others you don’t know,” he said, taking a step closer.

I shrugged. “I did my best to stay away from him when I could. He wasn’t wrong though, I’m just an ugly creature he created to take over our stable. When it didn’t work, I was just the thing he used to keep working on his experiments. That’s why I lost myself in books so much. I liked reading about beautiful mares running off with some prince or knight to find a better life. It was better than reality.”

“Wind Thrasher,” Stardust said, taking one of my hooves in his own, “Never let anypony tell you that you’re not beautiful, because you are. Who cares if you have dragon scales, or bat wings, or even fangs. I think they actually make you look pretty cool,” he ran his hoof over the spot where my claws used to be, “You’re different yes, but that doesn’t make you any less beautiful than anypony else. I love the mare you are not the one you think you need to be.”

I smiled at that memory and blushed as I remembered what happened later. With Shadow missing and the Wasteland going to hell around us, we decided to keep our feelings secret for now. We planned to talk to Shadow about it when we heard she was okay and in Hoofington. We said, ‘it can wait till she’s back,’ but then the bloodlust got worse. At first I thought it was because of how angry I was at Shadow for trying to kill herself and not talking to any pony else about it. She made me hide what I’d seen in her mother’s memory orbs, and when she pulled that I was pissed. Though now, I realized I wasn’t as mad at Shadow as I thought something else was making my body react the way it was. The blood lust kicked into high gear overnight and if it wasn’t for Stardust, I would’ve lost myself by now.

I wrapped a hoof around my stomach and fear raced through me as I thought about the other thing that I needed to keep safe. Safe from the world and from me, “How am I going to tell him?”

There was a flash of pink light from behind me followed by the voice of Aquila, “Tell who what?”

I turned; my long fur tipped ears falling back as I looked on Aquila. She was different from when I’d seen her with Shadows body. She was utterly beautiful and at the same time, scarier too. I bore my fangs, saying in a hiss, “What are you doing here!?”

She smiled and started slowly walking around me. “Oh nothing, I just wanted to see what Shadow’s friends were up to while she’s up in the clouds trying to save the day and all that mushy hero crap.”

“If you’re here to kill me then just try it, I won’t go down as easily as you think,” I said, feeling the bloodlust pulse deep inside me. I wanted to rip her apart. I wanted to drink every last drop of her blood until she was nothing more than a husk, but I knew I couldn’t. If I did, Shadow would die too. Shadow was my first friend and the one who saved me from Stable 9.

Aquila looked me over then her horn flashed, and her smile grew, “Oh dear, I’m not here to kill you. A little bird told me you’re having trouble controlling yourself. I must say, I bet just having me around you is making you want my blood.”

“Come closer and find out bitch,” I said, doing my best to keep down the need to feed.

“You know when I heard you were having problems keeping the bloodlust down, I was shocked. I mean when I was still inside Shadow, I swore you had the kind of will power to keep that other side of you in check. So, I asked myself what could’ve changed to have forced you to start losing control. Tell me, do you know why it’s getting harder to control?” Aquila asked.

“Why do you care?” I spat at her.

“I don’t care in the slightest, not about you at least. Really all I care about is getting my full power and seeing Shadow suffer. I mean I could kill you and that would most definitely piss her off, but it’s just too easy. No, the reason I asked is because I’m curious how a mare like you who has so much self-control could fall off the rails so quickly,” Aquila said, smiling wider.

I had no idea what she wanted, but I decided to humor her. “Dr. Cell used to give me a shot every month to keep the other side of me under control. It’s been too long and now it’s harder to keep my urges back. That’s why.”

“No, it’s not that. I mean, yes, in time you would’ve gotten to this point, but not for a few more months. Mind over body and all that. No, something else changed that’s making your body react the way it is. You may not know what it is, but I’m sure I do.” she said sweetly.

“You don’t know anything!” I yelled, fighting my need to kill her. If I attacked her, it wouldn’t end well for Shadow or me, probably both.

“Tell me, how far along are you?” she asked.

I nearly fell over as she said that. “How…How did you…?”

“How did I know you’re pregnant?” she asked, tilting her head, “Sweetie, I can sense it inside of you. You’re not far enough along yet to tell if it’s a colt or a filly, but I have a feeling it will be a colt. Tell me does Stardust know yet? How will he feel when he finds out he’s going to be the father of a mutant?”

“He…he loves me, he will love our foal too. He doesn’t care if the foal is like me or not,” I said, but fear was in every word I spoke. It was the reason I was too scared to say anything to him.

She laughed. “The sad part is I believe you, he probably will love the little freak,” she started walking around me, her horn glowing a soft pink as she looked over my body, “It’s too bad that he’s going to have to watch his sweet little psycho lose her mind and die along with his unborn foal. Because in a moment you’re going to become the thing that Shadow saw in the nightmare world I trapped her in when I was borrowing her body. I’m sure this time she will stop you from killing too many ponies. I’m sure she’ll put you down herself and when she does, oh the pain that will come to her best friend Stardust. I wonder how he’ll take it…I can’t wait to watch it all unfold.”

“I’ll hold on, I promised him I would hold on until the cure was found,” I said, though deep down I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it.

Aquila started laughing. “Oh sweet stupid Wind Thrasher, you really have no choice in the matter.”

I winced as her horn flashed and something deep inside me, something that felt like a thin sheet of glass shattered. As soon as it happened, I felt the pain of holding back the blood lust vanish. For a second, maybe two I thought that maybe she’d cured me of the need to feed on blood. Then a flood of desire and need slammed into my mind, overflowing my senses, and taking away the hesitation I’d held onto ever since I first left Stable 9.

The edges of my vision started to turn red, and as the feeling started to seep deeper into me, I felt my body relax. Aquila smiled, asking, “How do you feel now?”

I could hear the blood pumping though her veins, her heart beating in her chest, and a smile slowly appeared on my face, “I feel wonderful.”

“I can see the way you’re looking at me Wind Thrasher, but trust me you don’t want my blood, it’s not real. Well, not technically. I’m sure what you really want is something less artificial.” Aquila said, tilting her head and using her horn to point toward a caravan in the distance, just down the road from a small settlement, “Now go Hunting.”

My vision sharpened and a rush ran through me as I saw the caravan and the four guards with it. A low growl came from me and without another word, I opened my wings and blasted toward the caravan. As I drew closer, one of the guards spotted me and shouted a warning to the others. They were too slow; I opened my maw and unleashed my most powerful scream. Everypony went down writhing in agony, the scent of blood filling the air as their ear drums ruptured, blood flowing from the damage. I landed next to one of the guards who looked up at me, fear overpowering the pain in his head as I smiled down at him. His scream was the first of many as I began to feed…

Shadow Star…
Hours Later…

“Fuck…my…life,” I muttered as I gave my body a moment to adjust to the teleportation. In all honesty it didn’t take too much for me to cast the spell, hell it felt like it had taken less power to cast than it had when I could do it before. It was more that my body wasn’t used to this new way of using this spell. When I’d teleported before, it felt different. Maybe the way I used the spell with Aquila inside my mind was different. Didn’t matter either way, I wasn’t quite ready to be here yet, and I still really hadn’t taken the time to come to the reality that my distant great grandmother Minuette was still alive. Hell she was an alicorn, and the very alicorn I’d befriended months ago, still I was here, and I need to figure out what happened to Wind Thrasher.

This cliff was supposed to be where she was going to be watching for movements from the remaining Sins, but she was nowhere to be found. I took a quick look toward the entrance to the old mine, but from what I could tell nopony was down there. Hopefully Hailstorm could keep Lust, Sloth, and Envy distracted while I found out what happened to her. I turned away from the cave and stared to look around the area. It didn’t take long to find a few hoof prints that had to be Wind Thrasher’s.

I’m not Detective Lonely Hearts, I can’t tell whose prints are who’s with probably any pony apart from Wind Thrashers. Even though I’d blow her bone claws off months ago, she still had small bits of bone that poked out just past her hoof and left a small indent above any of her front hoofprints. I looked around more and tilted my head when I saw another set of prints a few meters away. They just started from the middle of a small clearing and moved around a little before vanishing again. In the place where they started and where they stopped the dirt was disturbed, almost like a rush of air moved the dust and dirt around. It was almost like a pony had Teleported here then left by the same means. My eyes narrowed as I wondered if Aquila had something to do with Wind Thrasher going missing.

I couldn’t be sure, but it was all I could think of. If Aquila found her, she would’ve killed her…right? I couldn’t see a body or blood, or even the signs of a fight. Not sure what else to do I looked back at Wind Thrasher’s tracks and saw that they too vanished, only I could see what looked like small sweeps of dirt as if somepony had flown away and flown away fast. I followed the way it looked like she’d been going and saw a road a little way down the hill, and I felt my blood go cold.

I started heading down the hill toward what looked like a caravan and bodies lying around it. As I got closer, a breeze started to blow, and the stench of iron hit my nose. It was the smell of blood in the air. I knew what I was going to find even before I reached the road and saw the destroyed bodies of four stallions in old combat armor. Their throats had been ripped out and their bodies had been partly drained. Slowly, I walked closer, pulling Dream Walker from its holster as I looked over the first dead guard. His face was frozen in fear, his ears had dried blood coating the fur around them. It was as if he’d been attacked by a high pitch sound, just like Wind Thrasher’s scream.

I held back a sob as I checked the other guards and found the same. Each of them looked scared, their ears had been bleeding and their throats were ripped out by something with large fangs. They also had a slightly drained look but not as much as other ponies I’d seen Wind Thrasher kill before. The one in Mill City looked like a dried-up husk. If she’d been fully lost to her bloodlust, why would she not have drained them?

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Same here,” A voice said from above, I swiveled and pointed Dream Walker up and nearly shot Stardust.

“Dammit Dusty, I almost shot you,” I said, lowering Dream Walker.

He landed and took a moment to hug me before, saying, “I got the news about the caravan from one of the scouts Syn and Aura have still outside of Freedom. I’m sorry that I scared you by the way. I wasn’t expecting to see you here so soon. Last I heard, you were still at Spitfire’s Flight Academy.”

“Teleported, I’ll tell you how I got that little trick back later. Right now, I’m trying to figure out what happened here, and why Wind Thrasher would’ve done this or if it was really her,” I said, looking back at the bodies.

I saw a tear run down his face. “It was her. This shows all the signs of what a bloodwing can do, only smaller. I was so sure she could keep fighting it. All she had to do was wait a few more hours.”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”

He sighed and used his muzzle to reach into a small pouch at his side. “Dr. Gauze was almost to Freedom when I got word from the scout. I got lucky that I ran into him when I did, and he gave me this,” he showed me a syringe with a red liquid inside.

“Is that something new to help her control her blood lust?” I asked.

“He says it’s a catalyst of some kind,” he said, putting the vile away, “He said that while he was looking through her blood trying to find a way to keep her other side from taking over, he found traces of something in her bloodwork. It was faint and it took him time to figure out what it was. At first, he thought it was nothing important and he kept trying new ways to cure her of what she is. He wanted to make her into a normal pony again.”

“I thought it wasn’t possible to make her into a normal pegasus,” I said.

He sighed, “It’s not. Dr. Gauze realized that a week or so ago. I guess he’d gotten a little help from Dr. Stormy, though I don’t know what she did or how she got in contact with him. Either way they figured out that if he tried to separate the dragon and vampire bat DNA from her system, she would die. Hell, she shouldn’t have survived the splicing. Since she was only about eight when this was done to her, that was probably the reason she was able to survive, her body hadn’t fully developed yet. The problem now is that her body grew and adjusted to her new form. If he removed the other DNA inside her, her body wouldn’t know what to do without it and she’d die.”

“So, the catalyst thing will do what then?” I asked.

“I don’t understand everything he told me, but to put it simply, the other thing he found in her blood was a weaker version of this,” he pointed at the pouch where he’d kept the vile, “When he looked it over he realized that it was something that Dr. Cell must have been giving to Wind Thrasher for years. Probably every two weeks to a month to keep her bloodlust down so he could keep her under his control. Dr. Gauze was able to replicate it and strengthen it so that one dose will permanently keep Wind Thrasher’s instincts under her own control. It’s not a cure per-say, but it’s a way for her to live a normal life. A life where she can get married and maybe start a family and be happy.”

I smiled a little, ignoring the death around me for a moment as I saw the longing in my friend’s eyes, “A life with you?” I asked.

“Yes…I told her that I was falling for her a few weeks ago, when you were back East,” he tried to smile but it was forced, “We…well you know.”

“You finally slept with her?” I said poking him with a hoof, “It’s about time. Though if you two were together why did you keep wanting to talk to me about your feelings with her and what you should do while we were in Los Alicorn?”

His blush was almost cute. “Well yeah, we were going to tell you once she was better, but things keep going from bad to worse, and well…now she’s…gone or lost her mind. I don’t know. The reason I was asking you those things was because I wanted to see what you thought about it and I wasn’t ready to bring it up to you yet.”

I put a hoof on his shoulder. “Dusty, we’ll get her back, let’s check the rest of the area and maybe we can figure out what happened to her. Also, I’ve been trying to get you to together for a while, you didn’t need to hide anything from me.”

“Ok…that’s a good idea, and I’m sorry I was keeping it secret.” he said, before heading toward the run-down wagon.

I followed my friend, feeling a deep ache in my chest at what I knew had to have happened to Wind Thrasher. As Stardust started to search through the wrecked wagon, I looked out into the distance. Something about this road seemed familiar to me, though at first, I couldn’t figure it out. I hadn’t been to Gravel City before, not that I know of at least. From what I could tell, the so-called city was nothing more than ruined buildings. Then my eyes moved Northwest and, in the distance, I could see what looked like the remains of a cliff or small mountain. The top looked like it had been blown off. My eyes went wide as I looked toward where the town of Gravel City ruins were and saw in the distance an old Factory that had to be F&F Tools. We weren’t far from Stable 9 then, well what was left of it and the encampment that was destroyed when I blew the stable sky high.

“We’re so close to her old home,” I said as Stardust jumped out of the wagon.

“I didn’t find much, only another body. Looks like a young mare, she’s almost completely drained,” he said before looking toward the destroyed wreck of Wind Thrasher’s old home in the distance, “Yeah, I know where we are. I’ve flown past that place a few times now. Did you know the area around it is highly irradiated? No pony can get within a kilometer of it anymore.”

“I had no idea I’d caused so much damage when I blew it up,” I said looking away from the sight.

He put a hoof on my shoulder. “You did what you thought you had to do to keep the creatures inside from hurting anypony else.”

“I know, but there had to of been another way. Dr. Cell was crazy, sure, but we could’ve just locked the door again. Sooner or later, he would’ve died, same for his monsters. Why do I always go to destruction over trying to save lives?” I asked.

“Shadow…” he started to say but he was interrupted as a beautiful musical note floated toward us. Stardust looked around his eyes glazing over a little as he said in a slightly dreamy voice, “Did you hears something…?”

“Is somepony signing?” I asked, starting to turn around when everything around me seemed to shift. One moment I was standing in the middle of the broken road near Gravel City, the next I found myself in the ball room of The Kingdom. Standing alone a few meters away was Aura, dressed in her best outfit smiling at me with love in her eyes.

“Shadow, aren’t you going to dance with me?” she asked, slowly taking a few steps forward, her talons clicking on the smooth wood floor, “You did promise me a dance tonight remember? We’re the only ones here, we can do anything you want.”

“What’s…going on?” I asked, looking around for…who was I looking for? Wasn’t I just…wait, no, I was always here. I’d been waiting for Aura to dance, that’s right…no that isn’t right. I looked back at her again, but this time it was Solstice?…no another Pegasus, a beautiful mare with a maroon coat and long black mane with a red streak going down one side. She was in a beautiful black dress that nearly touched the floor as it flowed off her perfect flanks.

“Why can’t I remember your name? Where did…where did…a…the griffon go?” I asked, my mind feeling foggy, almost like I’d drank too much or something.

“I’m Lavender, don’t you remember Shadow? We met at the party, you were telling me all about your adventures in the Wasteland,” she said as she walked closer, a scent flowing off of her that matched her name.

“I…I think I drank too much,” I said, giggling like a filly as she drew closer to me.

“You did have a lot, what a naughty mare you are drinking so much when you promised me stories and a dance,” she teased, coming right up to me, slowly running a hoof down my face, making my fetlocks wobble.

“You’re so pretty, why would you want to dance with me? I’m no pony,” I said, blushing bright red.

For a moment I swore I could hear a song echoing in the distance, but it vanished as Lavender tilted my head up bringing her lips close to mine, her breath rolling over my lips as she said, “You’re the most interesting and beautiful mare I’ve met in a long time Shadow.”

As she kissed me, I felt my body melt into her. Our tongues dancing with each other as she forced her muzzle harder against my own. My mind was trying to tell me something was wrong, but it was only a small annoying nat at the back of my mind. This mare was the one for me, the mare I was meant…no…no…NO!!! Something inside of me, deeper than even my magic seemed to flare to life and for only a moment. I knew deep down that this mare was not my true love, she was not my soulmate. That place in my soul had been taken before I had even been born. Sadly, it was to late for me to do anything, because right as my mind started to clear, a sharp pain exploded through my side as something cold and sharp slipped between my armor and I felt blood flow.

My eyes snapped open as Lavender…NO…Lust pulled her smiling muzzle away from my lips. The world around me snapped back into focus and I took a step back, a long black metal cylinder of some kind slowly pulling out of my side, blood dripping from the tip. My legs gave out as I fell over, looking in horror at the mare who had used her strange gifts to make me forget about everything important to me, all so she could get close.

Lust started to laugh as she flapped her wings, twirling around in mid air before looking toward Sloth who was a few meters away standing over Stardust, who was either knocked out or dead. She giggled, saying, “See, what did I tell you Sloth? It was so easy to get to her. All we had to do is wait for that traitor Wrath to lead her here and we could finally kill her! I even got a little kiss from the famous Courier!”

Sloth sighed, “I told you before Lust, I don’t care. We don’t even have orders to kill her anymore. We were disbanded, even Envy left. What’s the point?”

She growled at him. “We don’t answer to that Night Shade, we answer to The Master!”

“We haven’t gotten orders in a long time from even him, I say we just go back to Stratus and maybe Night Shade will pardon us,” Sloth said, his eyes looking haunted and tired, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I gasped in pain trying to use my Pip-Buck to bring up a healing potion from my saddle bags, but the pain was making it hard to do. I looked back at them and said in a weak voice, “Sloth, Lust, the Sins don’t exist anymore. Your former leader works with me now, so does Greed. Hell, my mom was the one who used to give you commands and she’s…she’s not here anymore.”

Lust rounded on me, growling with anger, “The Sins are all I have left! You don’t have the right to tell US what to do you filthy little cunt!”

I found the healing potion and pulled it out quickly, pouring a little over my wound. I tried to drink the rest, but Lust’s spear extended and shattered the glass, sending a spray of potion over the ground. I sighed and laid back down. The potion might’ve only been partly used, but it did stop the bleeding. As I felt my wound starting to close, I said slowly, “What’s the matter Lust? Got tired of being a whore in Stratus? You like killing more?”

“You don’t know anything about me Shadow!” she said, slowly walking toward me, “I’m a survivor, always have been, always will be. You may see a beautiful face and body and maybe a stupid mare, but I’ll have you know that before I was a Sin, I was one of the most respected mares in Nimbus. I don’t care if Pride decided he wanted to play uncle again. I don’t care if Greed wants the easy life, I don’t give two fucks that you killed the old Wrath or Gluttony. I don’t care that Envy decided to be a coward and run away, leaving us behind with a fake pony. All I care about is killing you for the pony who really runs The Enclave, he is the only pony I care to keep happy do you hear me? He wants you dead and out of the way, so I’m doing this for him and having fun in the meantime. Now you’re going to watch as I kill your friend. Stardust was a crappy Pride and an even worse failure than even Sloth was to The Enclave. Then after he’s dead, I’m going to put you back under my siren song and you’ll smile as I kill you.”

I stared to chuckle as she got a few centimeters closer to me, “Funny you say that, I’m guessing that gem around your throat is your source of power,” I tapped on the gem with Dream Walker, which was held just under he chin, “Goodbye Lust…”

I tried to fire, but in a blink the world around me shifted again. She’d somehow activated her power without even signing. It must not have been as powerful like that, because a moment later, my mind was my own again, and Dream Walker was sitting far away from me. Lust smiled. “The Gem only helps me control my gifts Shadow, I have Siren blood in my family.”

Sloth rolled his eyes and yawned. “Either kill her or shut up. This game has gone on long enough and now I’m bored.”

“You’re not in charge here Sloth!” Lust yelled, turning toward him, “I’m tired of your attitude.”

“Sloth, do you really want to keep doing this?” I asked.

He sighed again. “Don’t have much of a choice Shadow, sorry. I’m not much use doing anything else apart from killing ponies. Even then as you probably know by now, not for very long. I’m sure Pride told you about how my power works by now.”

“Fifteen minutes at full power then you’re out. Yeah, I know,” I said, “But what if there was a way to fix you?”

“He doesn’t need fixing, he’s perfect the way he is,” Lust said, turning on me again, “Now shut up!”

Sloth didn’t seem to care what Lust was telling him to do, he stepped around Stardust and trotted toward me, his powerful body intimidating this close up. “Only pony who could help me is Dr. Stormy, she’s the one who made me into what I am. The problem is you killed her before you blew up Mill City Tower. Cloak was the only other pony who might’ve been able to help and she’s dead too. So, sorry, I can’t do much now. Honestly, I don’t really care. Sloth or Swift Wing, either way, I’m stuck like this.”

“You see, now stop trying to get out of this, you’re both dying,” Lust said, starting to head toward Stardust.

“Sloth! Dr. Stormy’s alive!” I said quickly.

Sloth put a hoof out and stopped Lust. Ignoring her protests, he glared at me, saying slowly, “You killed her! Then you destroyed the building afterword.”

“That was a synth, Dr. Stormy has been working with The Ministry for years. She made a synth of herself to keep up with The Enclave while she worked with The Ministry. She not dead, she’s probably in New Pegasus by now with Oricalcos…I mean Pride. You don’t have to stay a Sin, you can be normal again!” I said frantically.

For a long moment Sloth looked into my eyes then with a sigh he looked back at Lust, “She’s telling the truth, I can see it.”

“So, what!? You really want to go back to the nutcase who did this to you? Isn’t it better to stay here with me? I love you!” she said, and as she did I could tell that something inside her thought she meant what she was saying, but it was still a lie.

“You don’t love anything or anypony but yourself Lust,” he said.

Anger filled her eyes as her gem started to glow. “You’re going to leave me? You’re going to betray me like everypony else!”

“Lust…Lavender, we don’t have to do this anymore. You know I care about you but that thing around your neck has gotten to you. We can be normal again, we can stop all this killing,” Sloth said.

As he said this, her eyes went from utter fury to dead, in a dead pan voice, she said, “Fine…be like the rest of them…” a song seemed to flow from her gem followed by a command, “Sleep!”

To my utter shock, Sloth’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he slammed into the ground fast asleep. Power seemed to flow off of her as she looked at me. I slowly got to my hooves pulling on my magic as I said, “I’m not going down easily Lust.”

Her voice stayed flat and utterly dead as she replied, “Nothing’s changed, Stardust will die, then you’ll die, and Sloth will die. Then I’ll go back to where we left Hailstorm or Wrath and kill him too, then I will finally get what I deserve,” her hoof came up the black extendable spear pointing it toward Stardust, “I can’t wait to see his blood flowing all over the ground. Maybe that bat pony freak will cry over his corpse when she finds out. It’ll be wonderful to see that abomination go completely insane!”

Her mad smile was still on her face as she activated her spear. It launched toward Stardust, I tried to fire off a spell, but it didn’t matter…the spear never found its mark. It’s black metal end scraped off maroon scales as Wind Thrasher landed in front of Stardust, protecting him from getting impaled.

Lust took a step back at the terrifying sight of the dragon bat pony. Neither Lust nor I heard even a whisper of her wings as she’d come to join the fight. She barely looked like the shy, loving, friend I’d come to know over the past couple of months. Her yellow slitted eyes were glowing a yellow orange color now, her scales seemed to have grown up her chest more and even over part of her legs. Her fangs were longer, her tufted ears were longer than I remembered, her mane was wild, and her wings seemed to be longer and darker than before. Blood was coated over her muzzle and when she opened her mouth, I could see even more sharp teeth.

She hissed at Lust, her ragged tail lashing as she said in a hissing voice, “No pony hurts my MATE, he belongs to me!” she then looked at me and I couldn’t see even a shred of care in those eyes, “You can kill her, she’s not worth my protection anymore, but you won’t lay a hoof on what is mine Pegasus!”

Lust retracted her spear and started to giggle. “Well look at that, the bat has gone batty!” she started to laugh harder, “This is just too perfect! Maybe I’ll get an even bigger reward from The Master when I take you out too FREAK!”

Lust started to sing, since she was facing away from me it didn’t hit me like before, but I still found it hard to move as the mind-numbing power washed around me. Wind Thrasher on the other hoof, just flattened her ears a little, tilting her head to one side as she hissed, “What is that supposed to do? Stop making that hideous noise!”

Lust gasped and stopped using her power as she asked, “How are you able to resist my siren call?”

Wind Thrasher grinned showing her very sharp teeth as she said, “I hear on a much higher frequency than the average pony. Your sound spells have no effect on me. Let me show you how a real voice power works!”

“I’ll still kill you and Stardust!” she screamed.

“No…you won’t, I wonder what Pegasus taste like!” Wind Thrasher said, her eyes starting to glow brighter.

I knew what was about to happen and ignoring the pain in my side, I jumped out of the way right as she opened her maw and a sound wave exploded right at Lust. My ears still rang as the sound that was even too high for me to hear blasted past me, but Lust took most of the damage. I saw as the gem on her neck exploded, blood ran down from her ears and one of her eyes exploded in its socket. A moment later, the scream stopped, and Lust fell to the ground in a bloody heap, twitching and moaning in utter agony.

I took a few steps back as I watched my friend calmly walk over to the nearly dead pegasus, and saying over her, “No pony hurts Stardust,” then she took hold of Lust’s neck and in a matter of a few seconds, drained her of her blood. She was nothing more than a dried-out husk. Wind Thrasher licked her bloody lips then looked over at me, “So Shadow, I think we need to talk.”

“I think you’re right, it’s time we fixed you,” I said, slowly walking toward Stardust who was still knocked out a couple meters behind Wind Thrasher.

A low growl stopped me. “Who said I needed to be fixed? This is what I am, who Cell wanted me to be, it just took a while for me to overcome my weakness,” she took in a deep breath and shuddered in what looked like pleasure, “I feel so much more alive than I have in months, my body feels right finally!” as she spoke, I saw that more scales were starting to grow up her body. It was like the blood she drank was changing her little by little.

“That’s just the bloodlust talking,” I said.

She shook her head slowly. “You act like I’ve lost my mind Shadow, I haven’t. I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a long time. You see, before I was too timid and a little scared to tell you how I really felt. I was so desperate for friends that I kept on letting you get away with more and more evil acts. You see the difference between you, and I is, I know I’m a monster. I feed on what I want to keep myself alive and strong. You on the other hoof refuse to see that you’re just as much of a monster as I am, but you kill because it’s easier than finding another way. Maybe I’m not the one who needs fixing Shadow, maybe it’s you.”

“Wind Thrasher, I’m not the one who killed a caravan of ponies just so I could feed,” I said, pointing back at the dead ponies behind me.

“OH them? I’ll admit that was mostly because I was starving,” she said, rolling her eyes, “Shadow, I’ve killed yes, and I honestly don’t feel bad about it. I do need to stay alive. Shadow, you’re lying to yourself if you think I’m worse than you though, who was it that used this!” she pulled out Solar Flare, “To destroy a town then later a load of pegasi and unicorns in Mill City Tower. Appleton I can understand, you didn’t know what this thing did, I’ll give you that. However, with the tower, you did that because you were angry. You were upset at your so-called best friend who you thought killed the griffon you love. You’re controlled by your anger Shadow, and honestly, I think that power you have flowing through you is a big reason why you lash out at the world. I just follow my instincts; you murder because you…like…it.”

I took a step back. “You’re wrong, I wasn’t in my right mind and Aquila…”

She interrupted me. “Oh, stop blaming everything bad you’ve ever done on Aquila! I’ll admit she’s not a good pony, though no pony is in this fucked up world. At least Aquila admits what she is and like me she is just doing what she feels is right. You on the other hoof, are a danger to everything around you, you are the one who lashed out and destroyed a town, you are the one who killed hundreds of ponies in that tower. You’re the one who got Cartwheel destroyed because you pissed off the wrong stallion. You’re the one who got Aura hurt in the first place because she was trying to save your sorry ass. You’re the filly who got BOX TAPE KILLED. If he didn’t have to go save you, he would’ve lived and most of Cartwheel would have too. If you hadn’t ever left your fucking, stable then I’m sure the ponies from there would still be living their happy lives safe in their shelter, ignoring the world. Everything you touch ends up getting destroyed and ponies die. The Steel Rangers, Appleton, The Red Talons, Aura, Stardust. Hell, even Wingnut might’ve had a better life if you never found him. Your mother would still be alive if you’d never even been born. Oricalcos would still probably be a normal pony and not the husk he is now. Your father would be much happier, you’re the problem Shadow, not AQUILA!”

I was shaking as everything she said hit me like a ton of bricks. “I…I did my best to help ponies…”

“You have no idea what you really did to the Wasteland when you crawled out of your hole,” she said, before throwing Solar Flare at me. The small gun hit my armor and clattered to the dusty ground with a small clatter, “I’ll give you a choice Shadow, if you think you’re so good, so perfect, so RIGHT about yourself, then use that thing to kill me. If what I am now is so bad then kill me, kill Stardust, and our child, because you know that I’ll just pass this curse on to my offspring. If what I am is so bad, stop the infestation before it starts! if you don’t, I’m killing you next before I take Stardust to a safe place where we can live our lives in peace!” she screamed.

I looked down at the weapon that was so powerful, that it should’ve never been allowed to have been made. Slowly I picked it up with my magic, a memory from the dream world Aquila trapped me in coming back to me. I looked back at Wind Thrasher and could see tears in her eyes. It was then that I knew, deep inside her, she didn’t want to be this way. Just like the dream world, she wanted to die. She didn’t want to be a monster, but I couldn’t do it. Just like in the dream world, I’d rather die, than kill my friend. I put Solar Flare into my saddle bag, picked up Dream Walker, and holstered it.

As I did, I saw Stardust move just a little and I smiled as I looked up into the deadly eyes of Wind Thrasher. “I know I’m a monster, I know that deep down something’s wrong with me,” I felt tears run down my face as I continued, “I don’t think I’m as bad as you seem to think I am Wind Thrasher, but I do know that there’s still a darkness inside of me that’s eating away at my soul. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this world, maybe I am too young to be trying to help ponies. Maybe I really am just crazy, but, no matter what, I refuse to kill a friend. Even if doing so will save my own life. The last time I tried doing that, it was the worst thing I’d ever done, and because of it, I almost lost Aura, Wingnut, and you. So, all I’ll say is this, I hope one day you’ll forgive me for what I have to do to protect the Wasteland from you and myself.”

She looked like she was about to yell at me again, but right then Stardust jumped on top of her. She hissed and tried to buck him off. As he held on, he tossed the vile at me, yelling, “Shadow quick, inject it into her neck!”

I caught the vile that was connected to an odd looking syringe in my magic, moved it around and pressed it to her neck right as Stardust used his forelegs to hold her still. I pulled the trigger on the injector and the red liquid drained away with a hiss. Wind Thrasher hissed in pain then started to gag as her eyes went back to their normal soft yellow color. Stardust jumped off her and we both stood back as we watched her hiss then gag, starting to make hacking motions as she doubled over. As she did, she vomited buckets of blood, splashing it all over the corpse of Lust, the rest flowing over the dried and cracked road. She stopped for a moment breathing then gagging again followed by more blood flying out of her.

The scales that started to grow up her sides fell away, leaving only dark grey fur, her fangs shrank a little, and slowly she started to look more like the Wind Thrasher we knew. She coughed then spat more blood out before taking a few steps back, swaying on her hooves. Stardust sprang toward her and caught her as she fell. Slowly lifting her he asked, “Wind Thrasher, are you okay?”

I walked close right as she whispered, “It’s…gone, finally…gone,” then she closed her eyes and went limp.

“Wind…WIND THRASHER!?” Stardust started to yell pulling her closer to him, “Please be okay, Dr. Gauze said you’d be fine!”

I move a hoof up to feel her neck then sighed as I felt a slow but steady pulse. “Dusty, she’s alive, I think she just passed out.”

He seemed to sigh in relief. “I’m so glad that’s over.”

“I am too, but maybe you should get her to a safe place and have someone take a look at her,” I said.

“I can’t get her back to the Shadow Talons right now, its almost impossible to get into the town with the Unchained and Steel Rangers around Freedom,” he said.

“Then get her back to Frosty Summit. Violet or Dr. Cottage should be able to help her. I’d say get her to Dr. Gauze, but he probably won’t be back at the base till later if at all with what’s going on in Freedom and you said he was close to it when you found him. Get her to safety and keep an eye on her,” I said.

“But what about you?” he asked.

“I need to put an end to this bullshit with The Steel Rangers, as long as Byte did what I told her to, and with a little luck, maybe we can put an end to this crap too. I’ll find you when it’s all settled down. Now, just get Wind Thrasher to safety,” I said, then looked her over, “By the way…is she pregnant?”

He smiled down at her. “Just found out myself a few days ago. I overheard her talking with Aura about it while you were recovering. She was scared to tell me, so I was giving her time.”

“Congratulations Dusty, you’ll be a great father, now get her and your unborn foal to safety,” I said again.

Stardust lifted her up, and with a little help, got her onto his back where he used a hoof to hold both of hers around his neck, before he took off he said, “Love you Shadow, be safe.”

“Love you too Dusty,” I said before he flew off toward Frosty Summit. I knew that Violet wasn’t there, but Dr. Cottage should be, and as crazy as that weirdo was, he was still a good doctor.

Right then I saw that Sloth was coming to as he said, “Dammit, this day is turning out to be such a drag.”

I lifted Dream Walker a little but didn’t quite point it at him. When he looked over at me, I asked, “You gonna try and finish what she started?”

He shook his head slowly before getting to his hooves, saying, “No I’m not, I’ve been wanting to be done with this whole Sins thing ever since Pride…I mean Oricalcos, disappeared. I never wanted to be what I am, I was forced into it just like the old Wrath had been. Lavender was the only reason I stayed.”

I looked over at the dried-up husk that used to be Lust, then back at Sloth, “You two were together?”

He shrugged, like the relationship they had at one point didn’t matter to him anymore. “Back when I was still Swift Wing, Lavender was my best friend, we both grew up in the same neighborhood in Nimbus. Back when I was younger, I was just a small stick of a stallion, and I never got much attention from mares. Lavender always was cool though and even though back then she didn’t have any feelings for me, I did for her.”

“You two both became Sins? How’d that happen? I mean I know you were an experiment of Dr. Stormy, but why did she become Lust?” I asked.

He sighed and stretched his powerfully built body. “I became a Sin first. Many years ago, there was a call for ponies from the poorer areas of Stratus and Nimbus to volunteer for a chance to better themselves. All I understood about the offer was that it would make weak ponies like I was back then into Super Soldiers. I wanted to be better, to fight for my land, to be strong for Lavender. Also, any pony who joined the program would have their families taken care of and moved to a better part of The Enclave. I have a mother who I love dearly and a younger sister who is so smart and deserved a better life,” he seemed to smile at an old memory, “She’s training under one of the best doctors in Nimbus now, and both her and my mom have better lives, though they have no idea I’m still alive.”

“I think I can see where this is going, you joined up and you were the only one who survived the experiment,” I said.

He shook his head. “I was the only pony who the experiment worked on, the rest had no reactions to the spells and meds we were given. Nopony died, Dr. Stormy wouldn’t have allowed it. She wiped their memories when everything was done and I’m sure they have nice, comfortable lives now. With me, the experiment seemed to be a full success, until they realized that the enhanced strength and speed ate away at my energy so fast that I was useless in combat.”

“They made you a Sin because you weren’t good enough?” I asked.

He chuckled at that. “No, they made me a Sin because when I was told that I couldn’t be a solider and that I was a failure and I couldn’t go home to my family or to my only friend, I lost control and killed all of Stormy’s staff. She was away at the time and by the time she returned, I’d already been branded and if it wasn’t for your uncle stepping in to have me join his new group, I would’ve been sent down here.”

“That’s all kinds of messed up,” I said, thinking about the Stormy I knew and starting to wonder if this was her or her Synth that had done this do Sloth. Knowing the only way to find out was to ask her, I looked back at Sloth, “And what happened with Lavender?”

He looked over at her body and sighed again. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’s always been able to get ponies to do what she wants them to. She used to use her gift to get high end stallions and even some mares to buy her things or whatever came to mind at the time. Unfortunately for her, she used her gifts to piss off the wrong pony. A high-ranking stallion in the Nimbus military was her newest…friend…” he said this with utter disgust in his voice, “anyway, to put it kindly she used to get paid for the time she spent with these stallions. This one refused to keep buying her nice things, so she threatened to go to this stallion’s wife. He beat her so bad that she ended up in the hospital for weeks. When she came to, again, your uncle somehow heard about her talents. Apparently, the stallion was going to have her banished for extortion or something. Pride got to her first, offered her the necklace of the Siren Song which amplified the siren gift she had. All he said she had to do to earn a spot as a Sin was to use it to kill the stallion who attacked her. He was a target for the Sins to take out, you see.”

“I’m guessing she did it?” I asked.

“The next day. Took her only ten minutes to get into his house, where she didn’t only kill him, she killed his wife, his son, and his guards,” he said sadly, “When she joined us, I’d already been a Sin for a long time. When we reunited, she barely recognized me and only knew me as Sloth. It took her a week to realized I was her old friend. After that, well, we started doing jobs together and we got closer.”

“What changed? You don’t seem to have feelings for her anymore,” I pointed out.

“The Lavender I used to love, died a long time ago. Over the past five years she got colder, crueler, and more insane,” he said, “Look I understand that what we did to you over the past few months was messed up, but we were doing what we were told. If you need to take out your revenge on me, fine, but I’m done fighting. I’m done killing, I just want to go home and see my mom and my sister. I want to let them know that I’m still alive.”

I lowered Dream Walker and holstered it. I’m not sure what it was, but I knew he was telling me the truth, “Listen, I’m not sure if Dr. Stormy or her Synth is what did this to you, but if you come with me and help me with my problem in Freedom, I’ll see if I can help you some help with Dr. Stormy. If she can fix you, I’m sure you can go back to your family. Even if she can’t, with my dad running things now for Stratus and I’m guessing Nimbus, he won’t mind you going home. First I need to know what happened to Wrath and Envy.”

“I know that Wrath is called Hailstorm, we thought he was a runaway from Stable 97, but Envy realized he was a spy for The Ministry a week or so ago. We only left him alone because we didn’t want to tip off anypony that we were on to them. He’s fine, just knocked out in the mine, I’m sure he’ll be up soon. As for Envy, well, he left us three days ago,” Sloth said.

“Wait? Envy, the pony…changeling I mean, who has been hell-bent on killing me and my friends for as long as I’ve known about The Sins, just up and left?” I asked, not believing it even though somehow, I could still tell he was telling me the truth.

Sloth shrugged again. “He’s been going a little crazy ever since Pride disappeared. After the fight he had with your uncle, he’s been getting more and more distant from the rest of us. When Cloak was taken, then later joined up with you, I think he finally couldn’t take it anymore and he refused to leave the Mine for a long time. Three days ago, we got word about Cloak’s death. As soon as we heard that, Envy just got up walked to the entrance of the mine, looked back at us and said he was leaving, and he hoped we all died like the rest. He said he was going to find his own place in The Wasteland. We haven’t heard from him since and not even The Master knows where he went, he just vanished.”

“I have a feeling I know who this master is, but we don’t have time for it right now. So, he’s gone for good then?” I asked.

He shrugged again. “No idea, Envy’s entire life was being a Sin, he’s very young but he’s been one longer than all of us. Your uncle raised him and with him and Cloak gone, he’s lost his purpose in life. I’m sure you won’t hear from him again, or if you do, it won’t be for a long time.”

I was about to ask more, but right then, a power armored Pegasus slammed down about a meter away from me, saying, “Sloth, I won’t let you hurt Shadow!”

“Oh, give it a rest Hailstorm, Shadow and I aren’t enemies anymore,” Sloth said.

Hailstorm looked over at me, pulled off his helmet, and asked, “Is this true Shadow? You know that they knocked me out right?”

“It’s a long story, but it’s okay now. Lust is dead and I really need to get going to Freedom. I have a feeling things are about to get bad there soon,” I said, “Feel like doing something good for a change Hailstorm and Sloth?”

Sloth was looking at Lust’s body. “Yeah, some good would be nice, but I’ll catch up to you. I need to bury her.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t the mare you knew anymore,” I said.

“She wasn’t,” he said, looking back at me with fire in his eyes, “But she was my friend, and someone I loved before she lost her mind. I’ll give her the rest she deserves. The one the old Lavender does at least. I’ll fly to Freedom when I’m done.”

Hailstorm looked between us then, looked at me, and said, “If you trust him then fine, but I’m going with you. Since I don’t have to pretend to be a Sin anymore, my job is to keep you safe.”

I smiled at that. “Good to know, I’ll need your rifle on my side for this anyway. Dusty is sitting this fight out.”

“Is he okay?” Hailstorm asked, looking worried.

“He’s fine, he just has more important things to do,” I said with a smile.

“Okay then,” Hailstorm said, grinning at me, “What’s the plan then? Who are we fighting?”

“I have a plan, and if it works, we shouldn’t have to fight more than just one or two ponies from the Steel Rangers, but I’m sure there will be a few griffons who try and step in from The Unchained Talons to deal with. You’re going to watch my back Hailstorm,” I said, starting to power up my teleportation spell.

“Cool, so are we flying to Freedom and forcing those tin can ponies to surrender?” he asked, then he noticed my horn glowing and looked worried as my magic started to envelop him.

“Nope, we’re going to get more firepower to force them to listen first,” I said.

“And how are we going to do that?” Hailstorm asked.

Before I answered I looked at Sloth. “Be sure to get to Freedom in a couple of hours, don’t want you to miss the show,” after he nodded, I looked back to Hailstorm, “I’m going to finish a delivery to Mr. Tops, that’s how,” and before he could say another word, I teleported the both of us away from Gravel City.

A moment later we appeared right outside The Lucky Horseshoe and without waiting for Hailstorm and ignoring the oddly quiet street of The Strip, I walked up to the Securipony at the door, and said, “Shadow Star from Equestria Express with a delivery for Mr. Tops.”

“You have been expected. Please head up to the top floor, Mr. Tops is Expecting you,” It said, and the door opened. I strolled in, Hailstorm following, but getting stopped by the robot, “Only Ms. Shadow Star and her list of friends are allowed into The Lucky Horseshoe.”

“He’s with me,” I said.

“Mr. Tops said that only you may go in at this time, this one can wait here until you get back,” the robot said.

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes, “Hailstorm, can you see about going into Freedom from this side and either find Aura or my friends or find The Queen and tell them I’ll be there soon.”

“Sure, that shouldn’t be too hard. I know where the Shadow Talon headquarters are, same for the Queens,” as he said this, we both heard a scream from high above. Looking up, we both saw a few griffons flying high over Freedom.

“Make sure you don’t piss off the griffons,” I said.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Hailstorm replied, then trotted off toward the gate that led into the south side of Freedom.

With that done, I headed into the dusty casino and went right for the elevator, but I didn’t head right up to the top floor. No, I went right to the one just under it, where The Children of the Night used to live. This hadn’t been part of my plan, but as soon as I entered the casino, the memories from Night Stalker stored in the crystal started nudging me to change up my plan just a little. So, I headed right up to the former Children of the Night headquarters. When the door opened, I ran right into Minuette…Violet…it was confusing with her being an alicorn. The bright smile helped a little though.

“I had a feeling I’d run into you here,” Violet said, “You look like you’ve been in a fight? I just saw you an hour ago. What happened?”

I rolled my eyes and walked past her into the living room area, “Long story, let’s just say The Sins are no longer a problem. Sloth joined up with us, Lust is dead, and Envy is gone…somewhere.”

“O…Okay, well why are you here? I mean I had a feeling I’d run into you Shadow, but that doesn’t mean I know why,” she asked, as she followed me.

“I was here to give Mr. Tops the data I have stored on the Mark II to help him make himself a Synth Body, but something in this damned crystal from Night Stalker told me I needed to be here first.” I said pulling the cracked crystal out from under my barding and showing it to her.

She recoiled when she saw it. “You have the Cursed Crystal?”

I looked down at the crystal and shrugged. “Yeah, my father gave it to me. He said it’s been passed down in the family for generations. It looked like it stored a lot of Night Stalker’s memories inside it. I keep getting flashes from the past or other things imprinted into my mind. It’s the reason I decided to come here first.”

The crystal was glowing slightly again, but I could tell that it was much less than it had been when it first activated a few days ago. Violet looked like it was going to bite her as she said, “Please put that thing away, it’s brought nothing but pain to all of the Children of the Night.”

I rolled my eyes. “You act like it’s evil or something.”

“It’s a fetish holding old magic created by a powerful zebra. Noire and I studied it for years before the fall and he was only able to slightly alter it. Even then, the curse on it could not be broken until an unknown factor was reached. I had no idea Night Stalker kept it or passed it to his children,” she said.

“I don’t know everything, but I know he had it with him right up until he went into The Crystal Empire then passed it on to his daughter Nightingale. Even after he gave it to her, it still somehow recorded his last memories before he put himself into some sort of pod. He left a message for me too, almost like he knew I was going to be born someday,” I said, looking up at her.

Violet’s eyes looked scared as she looked at the small crystal before she sighed and looked out toward the strip. “Before I lost my mind, I remember Night Stalker telling me about a strange old zebra mare named Xio he’d met in the city. She told him a few things that at the time he thought was crazy, but at the same time he couldn’t see madness or lies in her words. I told him to ignore what she told him because we ponies don’t believe in seeing the future. I thought he let it go, but maybe he didn’t.”

“I remember he said something in a memory I saw about a zebra mare who hadn’t aged over the decades since the war ended. Maybe it was the same mare. Who knows what’s possible? I mean hell, you helped pull a child of the stars from the heavens and now she’s the most powerful thing on Equus. Maybe there are zebra’s who can see the possible futures,” I said, following her to look out at New Pegasus.

“Maybe you’re right, but still, I’m surprised he wanted you to end up with that crystal. It’s not like you can use it to fix the curse on us,” she said.

“I still don’t know if I believe in curses or not, but I do know that once I found out that Stardust was a descendent of one of the Children, the Crystal came alive and it kind of spoke to me. It told me what I needed to do to fix what was wrong with our families,” I said, tucking the crystal away.

She looked down at me. “I’m surprised by that, but not as much as I would have been back then. I’ve seen a lot while in this body as Violet. I’ve seen a lot even when I was a young fool. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, what is the reason you decided to come here before seeing this Mr. Tops?”

I looked toward the hallway that led toward where I knew her old lab was. “Something’s pulling me toward your old lab, but I can’t think of what could be in there. I looted it weeks ago and the only thing of interest I found was a memory orb and a memory Crystal.”

Her eyes went wide again. “You took the Memory Crystal I left in the lab?”

I nodded. “Yeah, and I think I relived it. Either that or the one from the old base in Canterlot, I can’t really remember now.”

“Let me see them,” Violet said, I used my Mark II to bring them both up in my saddle bags and pulled both out. She took them and took a moment to examine them both. “You watched the one from the old base, I can tell because the magic within it is more active than the other. I’m surprised you were able to do so and not get lost in the memory. Moon Light’s memory of her betrayal of Nightmare Moon was a deep memory.”

“If it wasn’t for a couple of friends, I’m sure I would’ve been stuck in it. Even then it took me a couple days to free myself from the memory, it took even longer to recover from the after effects. That’s why I haven’t watched the other one,” I said, shivering from the memory.

“So, you have no idea what the other one contains?” she asked.

“No idea, even in your memory orb, you didn’t say much about what it was about,” I said.

She looked down at the shimmery black memory crystal. “It’s Celestia’s, it’s about the death of the last of the original Children of the Night and when Mezzanotte was banished and locked in the deepest parts of Tartarus. Moon Light was the one who locked him away, right before she died.”

“She…had enough power to do something like that?” I asked.

“Moon Light was probably one of the most powerful unicorns to ever live. She could’ve even matched Celestia in power. For a unicorn to have that much power is almost unheard of. Normally when ponies with that kind of power are born into the world, they’re born as alicorns. True alicorns I mean, like Princess Luna and Celestia,” Violet said, “Though every once in a while, powerful Unicorns are born and can hold great power to rival even an alicorn. The problem is that most of the time they don’t live a long life. A unicorn’s body can handle a lot of power, but nothing like what an alicorn’s can. They burn out when they push their power past what their body can deal with, and that’s what happened to Moon Light.”

“I could tell she was powerful in the other crystal, but I had no idea she was that powerful.” I said, “I kind of wish I could see what her final moments were like, but I don’t think I can watch that even now,” I said.

She smiled. “It’s not so much about your power and more about the control over your power. You might not be ready to use one of these yet, but give it time. If you keep working on your magic, you’ll be able to use the memory crystal. I think it’s important that you do before Falling Shadows is activated.”

I looked back at her. “Why do you think Falling Shadows will be activated?”

She looked out at The Strip again sighing. “Because I can’t see any way to stop it from happening. You might have the Mark II, well at least one of them, but that doesn’t mean Equus is safe. Aquila or somepony else will find a way to take it from you and unlock the project. I hope it doesn’t happen and I’m not giving up on destroying the project, but it’s better to be prepared for the worst,” she looked back over to me, “You need to be ready to fight the evils that will be forced onto our world Shadow. I’d rather you be prepared and have nothing bad happen rather than be unprepared and the worst happens.”

I felt angry as she said these words and I kicked the thick window that overlooked the city below. “Why is it always me? I’m practically a filly, I’m not that powerful. I’m not as important as everypony seems to think I am. Hell, I’m not anywhere near as powerful as you or even Aquila, what can I do to stop whatever Mezzanotte is?”

I felt a wing settle on my shoulder, looking up into Violet’s eyes, I saw sadness and kindness there, as she said, “Shadow, I am powerful true, Aquila is too, but my power is not enough to stop the darkness. Aquila might be powerful enough if she was fully complete, but we both lack the thing that makes you special,” she pointed a wing at my cutie mark.

I looked back at the purple and black eight-pointed star with its crossed gold skeleton keys inside it. “What does my cutie mark have to do with me stopping Falling Shadows or even Mezzanotte? I know my family thinks the eight-pointed star means I’ll be a powerful unicorn but I’m not.”

“You still don’t fully understand your true special talent, do you?” she asked.

“All I understand is that I’m supposed to be powerful, but my cutie mark’s a big lie,” I said, shaking my head.

She made me look up at her. “Shadow, a cutie mark never lies, and they don’t always mean what we think they do. You are a lot more powerful than you realize, but your power alone isn’t what will save everypony.” she pointed a hoof into my chest. “It’s what’s in here that will matter in the end, I think. Your true talent is still hidden from you, but in time I’m sure you’ll figure out what it is.”

“How am I supposed to figure that out?” I asked still feeling useless.

“Only you can figure that out, I’d say the first thing you need to do is find your virtue. That thing deep down that makes you, you. Some pony’s virtue isn’t always good or bad, but it’s what makes everypony who they are. Take your friend Stardust, if you could pick one virtue about him, something that describes him in one word what would it be?” she asked.

I took a moment, thinking about Stardust, he was brave, kind, a good fighter, but that didn’t make Stardust who he was. It took longer than I thought it would, but Violet let me think and finally something clicked, and I said, “Stardust is a lot of things, but more than anything he’s loyal. Not loyal to a system like The Enclave or his old stable. No, he’s loyal to the ponies he loves, his friends or the ones he sees like family. He’ll do anything to protect them and help them.”

She smiled at that. “Loyal would be a great way of describing Stardust, Loyalty is what Rainbow Dash was known for, it was her Virtue. What about Wingnut?”

“He’s Brave,” I said, not even needing to think about it, I’d seen that colt put himself into situations most grown ponies wouldn’t even dare to get near. He was loyal too, but that wasn’t what made him what he is.

“Very good, and I’m sure you could think of more for all of your friends. They’ve known who they are and what makes them do what they do. The question is. What makes Shadow Star, Shadow Star? You’ll need to search for that missing link and find out who you are without the baggage of being a descendent of The Children, or Grim’s daughter, or an Enclave runaway, or even The Courier. You’ve hidden your true self behind more and more titles, you need to start stripping away the things you hide behind and start being you.”

“You mean I should just throw away my duster and stop being The Courier? I’d like nothing more than to just have everypony think I’m gone, it would make life easier,” I said with a laugh.

She shook her head. “You don’t need a title like The Courier to still protect others Shadow. With or without the duster and the title, you’ll always be one to step in and try and help. Let others call you want they want, but don’t see yourself as The Courier, you’re just Shadow Star, a young mare with a lot of baggage and a big heart.”

“Is it really so easy to just start seeing myself as something else?” I asked.

“No, it’s not easy, in fact taking off the things you’re using to hide who you really are will be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, but I know you can do it. I’m not saying to stop being The Courier, I’m saying you need to start making The Courier be Shadow Star. Make the role you were pushed into become you not the other way around. If you do that and find yourself, you’ll find your virtue and the meaning behind your Cutie Mark,” she said, smiling down at me.

“I think I understand,” I said before turning back to look at the dusty remains of the headquarters, “I’m glad I took a moment to come up here one last time and I’m glad you were here to talk with me,” as I said this, I thought about something, “How the hell did you get in here anyway?”

She laughed. “I helped design this place, not even the lockdown can keep a true Child of the Night out.”

I looked back at the elevator. “What I don’t understand about this place is how the hell somepony took over the building when everything started to go nuts. How did Mr. Tops take control of this tower when the Children of the Night were so careful about keeping their stuff locked down.”

“Do you know who Mr. Tops really is?” she asked.

“He said he was Flapjack, one of the brothers who owned F&F Tool’s, but I don’t get how he could have taken over, he wasn’t a member of the Children,” I said, starting to head toward the elevator.

“That is strange, Flapjack didn’t have access to the upper floors, but his brother did, he was a member of the Ministry of Awesome. Night Stalker had full control over him and through him, the entire casino,” Violet said, following me.

“So, either Flapjack found a way to get up here, or…he’s really Falafel,” I said, opening the elevator with Violet and heading to the top floor, “I think it’s time Mr. Tops started answering some of my questions for a change.”

“I agree,” Violet said as we took the short trip to the upper floor.

I stepped off and two securiponies blocked the path of the elevator. I cursed, saying, “I’m here to see Mr. Tops, get out of my way you bucket of bolts.”

One answered me. “Mr. Tops is ready to see you, but this abomination is not allowed in The Lucky Horseshoe.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Shut down protocol, authorization Minuette 003, passcode, silent night.”

To my shock, both securiponies moved back, then shut down. I looked at her, asking, “How’d you do that?”

She just smiled and winked. “I am a founding member of The Children of the Night. Mr. Tops might have control of the system, but he can’t override the ponies who own the place.”

“Well that’s nifty,” I said as I headed toward the large screen on the lower level where Mr. Tops’ face was looking at the two of us.

“I find it strange that you’d let an alicorn so close to you Shadow. I’m also surprised she was able to shut down my robots,” he said.

Violet smiled up at him. “Hello Falafel, I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. First of all, you can’t fully control robots that aren’t truly yours. You can use them as guards maybe, but they can’t do much against a member of The Children. Hell, Shadow has more authority over this building than you do.”

“Strange, I don’t remember knowing any alicorns back in the day. Though you do seem familiar. Also I am not Falafel, I’ve already told this to Shadow and I am the owner of The Lucky Horseshoe. None of the Children of the Night are alive anymore and their children are either gone or dead,” he said.

“Oh, shut it, first of all, Flapjack was never part of the owners list for this building. Falafel on the other hoof was listed as the last pony to take over the building to protect it if something happened to The Children of the Night or their descendants. What I don’t understand is why you are pretending to be your bother?” she asked.

Mr. Tops took a long time to answer, it was like he was shocked by the amount of information Violet knew about the building and him. “Who are you alicorn?”

She smiled wider. “Minuette was the name I used to go by before I was put into this body.”

A shocked expression came to his face. “Minuette died, that is what Night Stalker said when he visited this place right before he went missing.”

“No, I just got stuck in a very strange place and had my mind wiped for a while, but I’m still me, and my memories have been fixed. Now start talking Falafel, before I use more of my override codes to have your mind purged from the pod I know your keeping yourself alive in,” she said.

A strange sounding sigh came from the speakers before he finally said, “Fine, yes, I am Falafel. I was hiding my identity because I didn’t want anypony to know I was still alive after the bombs fell. When I took this place over, I was the only pony left in the building when the sirens started going off. Flapjack was visiting Hoofington at the time and I’m sure he died when the megaspells hit. I was told about the pod by Night Stalker and when I heard that the entire country was falling, I ran for the pod and used it to activate the security systems for New Pegasus. I didn’t know that I’d get trapped inside the damn thing. Hell, when I activated the security systems, keeping the megaspells from hitting anywhere near New Pegasus my mind was nearly ripped apart. It took me almost forty years to wake up again. That was when Night Stalker came back to the tower, I hid myself from him, but just in case he found out I was now in control of The Lucky Horseshoe and still alive. I decided to use a new name and if anyone saw the face that shows on the monitor, they would think it was my brother. Ponies liked him a lot more than me and I figured I’d be safe that way.”

“If you’re just trapped in a stasis pod then why did you want me to get you the plans for a synth body? Wouldn’t that pod thing keep your body ageless?” I asked.

Minuette answered for me. “The pods we used for this location and the one in the Crystal Empire aren’t as good as the ones used by the Ministry of Peace. They will slow aging, but they won’t stop it. The body will slowly start to fail but the Mind can last a lot longer even in a husk of a body. I’m guessing he needs the Synth body so he can get free from his useless husk.”

“You’re right, my body won’t last much longer and soon I’ll die. I want a new chance at living again,” he said with a sigh.

“How did you get trapped anyway? If you wanted to live, why didn’t you just leave the pod when you woke up again? You could’ve lived an easy life in this tower,” I asked.

“I didn’t because using that pod is one of the parts of the Project. Since it’s locked down, once he entered the pod, he can’t get free of it until the system is unlocked again,” Violet said.

“She’s right, I didn’t know that whatever project was being made here was locked down by those Mark II Pip-Bucks. I can’t get free unless I have a new body to have my mind and soul transferred into,” he said.

I glared at the screen. “How do you plan on doing that? Hell, how do you plan on building this new body? You have no idea the equipment that was being used by The Ministry to make a synth.”

“That is my problem, not yours Shadow. We had a deal, and once you give me the information I asked for, you won’t have to worry about if my plans work or not. Once I’m in a new body, I won’t even stay here. I don’t want to be the pony in charge of The Strip anymore, I want to go out into The Wasteland and do something that isn’t being stuck in the same place for two hundred years,” he said.

I looked at Violet. “I’m not sure what I should do, I mean I did promise him I’d get the info, but at the same time, I still don’t really trust him.”

“Falafel, if Shadow gives you the information, will you keep protecting this building and The Strip until you get your body made?” she asked.

“Why do you care Minuette?” He asked.

“That’s not your problem, I just need to know this building will stay safe until Shadow can finish her own mission. If you keep playing the part of Mr. Tops and keep The Lucky Horseshoe safe, I’ll help transfer your body and soul,” she said.

“I know that the magic required to do such magic is not something unicorns or even alicorns normally know how to do. That kind of Magic is zebra magic,” he said.

“I’ve read a black book and one that had the spells you speak of, I’ll help you if you help us,” she said.

He took a long moment to answer but finally he gave in. “Fine, I can go back to being your lap dog for a little while longer.”

“Good,” Violet said, before looking at me, “Give him the information,” she watched as I sighed and went to his computer and hooked my Mark II up to the system, then continuing, “Falafel, it’s about time you started helping the ponies of Freedom. The NLR, The Steel Rangers, The Unchained Talons, and the Shadow Talons along with The Queens and other small gangs are about to go into an all out war just past the walls of The Strip. I want you to do something to help stop this from happening. Figure something out. If you don’t help, I’ll come back here and kill you myself.”

“Fine,” he sighed, “I got the information from The Ministry, now if that’s all, I’m going to start looking through this.”

Violet turned to me, and said, “Come on, I think it’s about time we both put a stop to the violence that’s about to hit Freedom.”

I smiled. “Yeah I agree, let’s go have a word with The Steel Rangers and The Unchained Talons.”

Violet’s horn glowed bright. “I’m kind of looking forward to how this will all play out…” and with a flash of blue light, we both left The Lucky Horseshoe…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Crystal Cursed: You’ve been exposed to the Cursed Xio Crystal for an extended period of time. After unlocking the memories of your grandfather, Absent Moon, you can now pick up on certain traits from his life. Be wary, not all traits are always a good thing.

Chapter 72: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“Goodbye…Aura.”

Aura…
A Few Hours Earlier…

The two files Shadow sent to Byte ended up being the same, which made me feel a little better about trying this so-called cure for killing joke. Who would’ve thought a simple bath with a few herbs mixed in just right could cure something as deadly and honestly annoying as killing joke? Now all I had to do was get into the bath and if it worked, I’d have my old body back. Therein lied the problem…I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to get my old body back. I looked over at the mirror in my room that sat in one corner and again reached up with my hoof and ran it over my red mane down over my soft face and was again amazed at the magic that had turned me into this beautiful Pegasus. I’d always loved ponies. I’d been fascinated with them since I was a chick. To a young griffon who was raised in a family who lived off fighting, ponies always seemed like they had such easy lives. They could grow up to be a trader, a shop owner, a guard, or just a lazy bum on the streets of New Pegasus.

When I grew older, I started realizing that I liked them more than I’d thought. It was when I was around twelve that I knew I was different than the rest of my kind. It was then that I started wishing I could be one of them, because if I was, I wouldn’t have to live the life that most griffons did. I could be free to make my own decisions and be with a pony, no more contracts, no more rules, just pure freedom. I’d lived twenty-one years as a griffon and only a few weeks now as a pony. I’d gotten the one thing that I wanted, and now I had to go back to my old body, the one I loved and hated at the same time. The one thing I could say that I learned in the past few weeks about being a pony though, was that their lives weren’t as easy or free as I had thought. Deep down I knew what I was and that if I didn’t do this, I’d die because of this form. I’d been training with Solstice and Stardust to learn how to fight better as a pony and I knew I was getting better, but I’d never be as strong or as good as I was when I was a griffon.

Luckily for me, things have changed since I was a little kid. The Red Talons were gone, the rules of my old talon group were gone. I was now the leader of my own group and with my own rules. To top it off, I’d found my soul mate, she didn’t care that I was a griffon and her a pony, she loved me for me, she saw past my bullshit and found the real me and loved every part of who I was. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t see being a griffon as a curse but as a blessing. Before I decided to step into the bath and change back into what I truly was, I walked over to the nightstand next to my new bed and picked up a small band with one of my black feathers on it. I’d made it a while ago, all griffons did when they came of age. It was meant to be given to the griffon who we decided to make a life bond with. For weeks I’d been thinking more and more about Shadow and I, the life I knew I wanted to have with her and how I knew deep in my soul that she was mine. When this battle with The Steel Rangers was over and I finally told her the truth about what happened with Trip Wire, I was going to ask her to perform the Life Bond with me. I’d told her before that normally it took years for griffons to make such a big decision like this, but nothing about our relationship was normal.

“I was wondering when you were going to finally pull that out,” I heard Fletch say from the door.

Turning, I saw my sister smiling at the black feather. “I think it’s time I finally give this to her.”

Fletch walked in, she was taller than me, which was still strange since I was normally the same hight as her, but hopefully soon that would change. She put a talon on my head and said softly, “As long as your sure she is your true soul mate, then I agree with you.” As she spoke, she ran a talon over the brown feather she had on her left upper foreleg. The one she’d gotten from Gouger before they made their life bond just a couple of weeks ago.

“She’s the one, and I know I may be rushing it, but I feel that it’s time for me to do this,” I said, looking up at Fletch.

“I’m happy for you Aura, I really am,” she said.

“Thank’s, but I’m guessing you didn’t come here to talk to me about Shadow. What’s up? Are the Steel Rangers or the Unchained Talon’s attacking?” I asked.

“No, not yet at least. I came to ask you something before the battle starts, if there is one that is,” she said, looking a little scared.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?” I asked.

“Get into the tub first, from what the directions said about that cure, it will take a little bit to take effect and we can’t waste more time waiting for you to go back to your real body,” Fletch said with a smirk.

Rolling my eyes, I turned and only hesitated for a moment before I stepped into the tub that was on the other side of my room. Almost right away I started feeling small tingles running up my body, I dunked my head under the water for a moment then let myself float on the surface looking over at Fletch, “Okay, I’m in the tub, the cure is starting, at least I think it is, now what’s wrong?”

Fletch was normally a lot like me, when she was around others, she put on a bitchy attitude and acted like nothing bothered her, but when she was alone with me or one of our sisters she was more on the shy side. It took her a moment to look me in the eyes and say quietly, “I’m going to lay my first egg soon, and I want you to be my chick’s Godmother.”

I almost jumped out of the tub as I said, “You’re going to have a CHICK!? I’m so happy to hear that sis, how long have you known?”

She shrugged. “Syn just finished the tests and told me I’ll most likely lay it with in the next two weeks.”

“When Gouger gets back, he’ll be so excited, I think it’s time we pulled him from his spy mission anyway,” I said as I floated in the tingly water.

She blushed a little and smiled. “I can’t wait to tell him. He’s always wanted to be a father, but what I wanted to know is if you’ll take on the responsibility of raising my child if something ever happens to Gouger or me.”

This wasn’t abnormal for Griffons, we lived dangerous lives, but I wasn’t sure why she was asking me. Out of all my sisters I was most likely to die in a fight than any of them. With Shadow’s lifestyle, it would take a lot of luck for me to make it to my thirties, let alone old enough to fully raise a chick. So, I looked at her again and asked, “Are you sure you want me to take on the role? You know the kind of life I live.”

“I trust you more than almost anyone else Aura. I’m going to ask Vi and Syn to be in place in case something happens to you too, but you’re my first choice,” she said.

“Are you going to feel the same once I make my life bond with a pony?” I asked.

She nodded, “I’ve gotten to know Shadow a little over the past months and if you feel that she is your soul mate and you two form the life bond, then to me she’s just another griffon. I know the two of you will raise my child to be strong and good. So will you do it?”

I gave her another smile, “I’d be honored Fletch.”

“Good, now let’s get you fixed and back to leading The Shadow Talons as a proper griffon,” she said before I nodded and dunked my head back into the water, feeling something inside me starting to warm up. Deep down, I could tell that the cure was working, killing joke could be beat…

Shadow Star…

Violet and I appeared next to the gate that led into Freedom from The Strip but before we went through, I decided to check my ammo for Dream Walker and the plasma rifle. I’d been fighting a lot and honestly, I hadn’t restocked on ammo in a long time. Normally Stardust or Aura bought the ammo we needed, but at the moment I didn’t have them with me, and well, I hadn’t spent my own caps in a while. I saw that I was very low on all my ammo and going into a fight like this wasn’t going to be a good thing.

Looking over at Violet I asked, “Where…can I get more ammo for my weapons? I honestly haven’t done any trading since I’ve come to The Strip.”

“I’m not quite sure, things have changed since my time and well…before I got my memories back, I’d never come to The Strip before. Alicorns as you know aren’t trusted in most places. Not to mention the restrictions on anything mutated on The Strip.”

As she said this, I looked around and noticed that most of the ponies who were out on the streets were staying as far away from Violet as they could get, “I see what you mean,” so I walked toward an NLR buck who was chatting with a couple of mares next to one of the casinos. “Pardon me, do you know where I can get some energy weapon ammo and larger caliber ammo?”

The Buck looked over at me with a look of annoyance on his face until he saw my duster. “Holy shit, you’re The Courier!”

“That’s me, and I don’t have a lot of time. I’m not sure if you’ve realized this or not, but Freedom and the Strip are about to fall under attack and I’m running low on .50 caliber ammo and magical energy cells,” I said.

He looked behind me and his eyes went wide, “Is that…an Alicorn?”

I rolled my eyes, “Yes, she’s the leader of Frosty Summit, now stop staring like an idiot and buck up solider! I need ammo!”

He stood up straighter and said, “Sorry ma’am! There are a few places in The Strip you can get what you need, but if I were you I’d head to our embassy deeper in The Strip and buy them from our stock. I’m sure The NLR would be happy to sell you what you need for a discount.”

“Why’s that? Honestly, I haven’t done much with the NLR,” I said.

“Courier…” he started to say, but I cut him off.

“Call me Shadow please,” I said with a sigh.

“Sorry,” he said, “Shadow, you’ve done more for us than you know, because of you the Queens and the NLR have been on better terms. You put a stop to The Bramble which was becoming a problem for us. You got a bit of revenge for us against The Steel Rangers after they took out one of our camps a couple weeks ago. You’ve also brought back hope to this area, making our jobs a lot easier. Morale has increased everywhere in the NLR, we actually feel like we can hope for a better future again.”

I really wanted to tell him how wrong he was and how much I really didn’t care about the NLR, but…he did say discount, and even if I did have more caps than I’d realized, ammo for my guns wasn’t cheap. I’d found by looking at my Pip-Buck that I had about 5000 caps, but that could go away fast. So, I just nodded and said, “Thank you, I’ll run to the base quick before I head to Freedom. Also, if I were you, I’d get as many of your friends as you can and head there too. The more help we can get to stop The Steel Rangers and The Unchained Talons, the better.”

“I’ll do that, good luck…Shadow,” he said nervously.

I pulled on my magic looking at Violet. “Quick Pitstop, then we can go.”

She laughed and nodded. “Let’s get this done fast then, I’ll follow.”

The both of us teleported to the other side of The Strip, finding ourselves right outside the small base at the back of The Strip. I shouldn’t say base, it’s really an embassy, but meh. I’d only been here once, but there hadn’t been many ponies inside. The NLR seemed to mostly use this location as a place for the commanders to work, some soldiers were always around the embassy on guard, but now there were loads of them moving back and further between the few buildings that were in the small compound. Others heading toward the rail system they used to connect The Jet Blue Skyport and The Strip. I walked into the front gate and was stopped by a guard almost immediately.

“Hold up ma’am, the embassy is locked down to ponies who aren’t New Lunar Republic citizens,” he looked over at Violet, “Alicorns aren’t allowed in either. I’m sure you understand why.”

“I really don’t have time for this, I’m Shadow Star The Courier. I was told I could come by and buy some ammo from you at a discount. I want to see what I can do to get The Steel Rangers to back down and in case I run into trouble I really need more ammo. Also, Violet is with me and she’s a friend. Now back down and let me in to see your Commander before I make you. I blew up a whole town once, it was all over the news,” I said glaring at the guard.

“No need for that Ms. Star. Despite the lack of motivation from some of our soldiers, we do enjoy not being vaporized.” I heard a stallion say, looking over I saw a pony I hadn’t seen in a while.

“Major Mud, is that you?” I asked.

He smiled at me then looked over at the guard. “The Courier is always welcome.”

“Yes Sir!” he said, then looked at Violet, “What about the Alicorn?”

“Oh, and her guests too. Assuming they’re also not going to vaporize us,” Major Mud said.

Violet snorted out a laugh, “Of course not! I only vaporize ponies on Tuesdays. T.G.I.F. am I right?”

“Uh, very well then, I guess. Anyway, sorry about that Shadow. It’s good to see you again, I’m glad to see that the rumors about your death were exaggerated. Mr. New Pegasus just started reporting that you were alive yesterday, but we weren’t too sure if it was true or not. So, I overheard that you need ammunition? What kind are you looking for, I can see if our quartermaster has what you need in stock,” he said, then looked over at Violet, “You must be Violet, I’ve heard good things about you, please come in.”

Violet smiled and bowed her head slightly, “It’s nice to see that some ponies in the wasteland still have proper manners.”

We followed him past the gates as I said, “I need .50 caliber rounds for my Luna Edition Dessert Eagle, armor piercing would be best. I also need higher output magical energy cells for my plasma rifle. I’m running low on both.”

“I see, well the energy cells should be no problem, we have quite a stockpile of them. We don’t use those kinds of weapons often so the ammunition for them is always available, as for .50 caliber, I’m not sure how much of that we have. It’s a hard ammunition to find in the wasteland, though we don’t use those often, we also don’t find them often either. Anything else you need?” he asked as we went toward a small building that had ‘Armory’ over the door.

I looked through my Pip-Buck, I had a couple other weapons I really didn’t use much but had plenty of ammo for. Then I saw the combat shotgun I’d gotten in Hoofington. I’d forgotten about it ever since Aura found me on the Bitter Cob. It wasn’t too surprising; Dream Walker and Mom’s Plasma Rifle were powerful weapons and Misery topped them all. Though that shotgun was a powerful weapon, and it could be useful. So, I looked at him, saying, “Got any 10 Gage shells?”

He laughed. “I’m sure we have plenty of those,” he led us into the armory and over to a young buck working a small counter, “Sargent, I need to know what we have in stock for magical energy cells, high powered if possible, .50 caliber normal and armor pricing, and 10 gage shells.”

The Sargent looked over a list then said, “Major Mud, we have about 250 rounds of AP .50 caliber, 150 normal. 500 magical energy high powered cells and 800 10 gage.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Um…if we were to sell them to a non NLR Pony then it would run around 12,487 Caps,” he said, “But we might need them if the fighting outside the walls comes into The Strip, we can’t sell them all if any and if we did it would only be half of what I said before and they would run you 10,430 caps.”

“You have to be joking, I know the ammo I need isn’t cheap but that’s robbery!” I said.

“Now now Shadow, we can sell you all of them and at a discount,” Major Mud said, “Let’s say…20% discount. That should only be…hmmm let me think.”

Violet said, “9989 caps if your round down, how much did you have Shadow?”

“Not that much,” I grumbled, then sighed, “How much can I get for 5129 caps?”

“Sir, we might need these for a fight,” The Sargent said.

“Shadow is The Courier, and she has helped us in the past. She’ll need it more than we do,” Major Mud said in a stern voice before looking back at me, “I wish I could lower the price more Shadow, but we do need to make a little off the ammunition if we want to be able to resupply from traders and the like.”

“Fuck,” I said, “Well give me what you can for what I have.”

“It’s no problem, I will pay 7000 caps myself and shadow can cover the rest,” Violet said.

I looked back at her, “You have Caps?” Then I looked over her nude body, “Where are you keeping them? Wait I don’t don’t think I wanna know.”

She rolled her eyes and used her magic to pull a few bags of Caps out of what looked like nowhere. “I have my own ways of keeping things safe from others. Maybe one day I can teach you the spell, and of course I have caps, even us Alicorns need them sometimes, running Frosty Summit isn’t free.”

She put the caps down and I grabbed the rest putting down 2989 caps on the table, “Here, will this work?”

The Sargent grumbled, but took the caps, “I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you,” Violet said with a sweet smile.

Major Mud laughed. “Sometimes it’s fun to be in charge.”

I looked over to the Major, asking, “Why are so many of your ponies here at the embassy and not out in Freedom helping the ponies?”

He sighed. “The Steel Rangers and NLR don’t see eye to eye and as much as it pains us to admit it, we don’t have the power to take them on. Our higher ups want us to try and make peace with them and fighting them right now won’t help with that. From what we’ve been told, Elder Sapphire is power hungry and doesn’t like The New Lunar Republic.”

“If I get my way, Sapphire won’t be in charge of The Steel Rangers from Hidden Sands for much longer. I still think you should at least help protect the ponies in Freedom though. It’s part of your job, you want ponies here to join up to become part of your Republic, but if you abandon them when they need you most, you’ll be chased out of here faster than you can blink. Your higher ups might want to stay out of this fight, but I say fuck ‘em. Stand up for something and maybe, just maybe if things work out with The Steel Rangers and me, you’ll be able to start talks with whoever takes over as the new Elder.”

He took a moment to think, then finally said, “You’re right, I’ll have a talk with the rest of Command and see if we can at least offer aid to the ponies in Freedom.”

“Thank you Major,” I said, right as the Sargent came back with loads of ammunition boxes.

I used my magic to sweep them all into my bags and nodded to him before giving one last look at The Major. Then I left the armory followed by Violet. I took-in a deep breath as the light started to fade in the cloudy skies and hoped that Byte was able to get my message to Hazel.

Cookie Byte…

I was shaking as I stood at the north entrance of Freedom looking at the twenty or so Steel Rangers and one mare in a red robe. She was the only one in the group who didn’t look ready to shoot me for my Mark II. I was starting to understand why Shadow got so worked up all the time about hers. It wasn’t fun when everypony wanted your Pip-Buck. At least I had Vi with me and six other griffons from The Shadow Talons. I like Vi, she’s tough, but kind. Honestly, I liked all of The Shadow Talons. Over the past few weeks, I’d gotten to know most of them as I helped set up their terminals and fix up some of the stuff in the old F&F Tools headquarters The Shadow Talons were now using for their base. None of them treated me bad. They all kinda looked at me like one of them, which was kinda cool.

Hazel walked closer to me, giving me a kind smile. “So, you are the filly who has had my Elder running all over the wasteland. I say it’s kind of impressive that you’ve been able to stay under her radar for so long.”

A Mr. Gutsy was floating next to her. “Ah yes Ms. Hazel, this filly must be quite a smart pony to escape the clutches of The Steel Rangers for so long now.”

“Quiet down Watts, we’re here to talk to this filly because she requested it. We will not harm her while under parlay,” she said before looking back at me, “So Cookie Byte I think I was told that’s what your name is, you said Shadow wanted you to meet with me. Why would you risk your Pip-Buck Mark II like this?”

“She said that you wouldn’t harm a filly, that it goes against your creed or something like that. She told me that you needed to hear a couple of messages she sent me regarding your Elder,” I said with a shaky voice.

“We came here to talk and that’s it, Hazel, if any of your rangers attack, we will kill all of them. Your twenty rangers can’t take on all of The Shadow Talons,” Vi said.

“Vi, you should know by now that I wouldn’t break my word,” she said, then looked back at me, “You’re right Cookie Byte, The Rangers do not hurt fillies or colts. Though we still would want to find some way of convincing you to give us that Mark II.”

“I can’t do that, Shadow said it’s important for stopping something bigger than The Steel Rangers, honestly, we need the Mark II you have more than your Elder needs it, but we aren’t here to talk about the Mark II’s. You need to know the truth about Sapphire,” I said, my voice still shaky, but getting steadier.

“Well let’s hear this message then maybe we can put an end to these rumors,” she said, “Shall we go to a private spot?”

“No,” I said, starting to activate the two transmissions I’d gotten from Shadow, “All of your rangers need to hear this.”

“If you feel that way then fine,” Hazel said, tilting her head to one side.

I started to play the first message; it was a conversation Shadow had with Elder Sapphire earlier. As it went on, I could see a shocked look coming over Hazel’s face followed by anger as she heard her Elder threaten to kill me just for my Pip-Buck. When it ended, I started the next one. This one was different, it was a message for Hazel from Shadow, something she must’ve recorded when she was up in Stratus.

“Hazel,” Shadow’s voice came out of my Pip-Buck, “I know lately The Steel Rangers and I have had our differences, I’m sorry that things came down to this. As you know, from when we last spoke, I’m the same filly who you used to watch over when my mom was on missions for The Steel Rangers. I remember you always having a kind heart, just like Elder Apple Jam did. From what I can tell you haven’t changed much over the years, you’re still a gifted unicorn and kind. I know that The Steel Rangers aren’t all bad, but they aren’t all good either. The same goes for me, I’ve done bad things in the past and probably will again in the future, it comes with what I do.” She paused for a moment, taking-in a deep breath. “Hazel, Sapphire has no idea what those Mark II’s can do, they locked down a program a long time ago that powerful ponies will do anything to get their hooves on. If The Steel Rangers keep doing what they’re doing and do get their hooves on all three Mark II’s, I can guarantee that your entire branch will be wiped out either by Elder Wolfsbane, or a creature called Aquila. I know The Steel Rangers are powerful, but your branch hasn’t had time to build up your strength again after so long hiding away from the world. You can’t stand up to Wolfsbane, The Enclave, or Aquila and one, if not all of them will come after the Mark II’s. I’ve wanted to explain this to Sapphire, but she has some kind of vendetta against me. I can understand a bit of it, I did do a lot of things that I’m sure most of The Steel Rangers see as evil. I made bad mistakes in The Twin Cities and more, but I’m trying to make up for those mistakes. I can stop the project that those Pip-Buck’s locked down and probably even keep them away from the ponies who want them.” She paused again letting her next words come out slowly, “The Steel Rangers used to protect Equestria, I know this because Elder Apple Jam used to tell me stories about them from before the war. I also learned the creed you all live by. I’ve told you before that Sapphire killed Apple Slice who I thought was a good mare. I’ve learned that she was really working with Wolfsbane and had a hoof in killing her own father. So, I don’t blame Sapphire or Noodle Cup, whoever killed Apple Slice, for doing what they thought was right. What I can’t stand for though is the way The Steel Rangers have acted since Sapphire took over. I used to respect her until I heard she was hunting down a filly to get her Pip-Buck, something I know the Steel Ranges don’t stand up for. Something’s wrong with Sapphire, I don’t know what it is, but she isn’t fit to be Elder. I’m asking that you all take her actions into account and realize that what you are all doing goes against what The Rangers are supposed to be. I hope you will replace Sapphire and get her help. She can hate me all she wants for the rest of her life, but she used to be a friend and I’d like to see her go back to the mare who took a risk to save a young mare’s life like she did with me back in Cartwheel. If what I have to say isn’t enough or if you all agree with what Sapphire is doing then fine, but I warn you Hazel and the rest, if you hurt my family, I’ll use Solar Flare on all of you and your base. I don’t want to hurt any of The Steel Rangers if I don’t have to, but I will do anything to protect my friends, my allies, and my family. Before you start saying I’m using a threat to get you to listen to me, I’m not, it’s just a promise of what will happen if you hurt one of mine.”

With that the recording ended and I looked back up into Hazel’s face. She looked pale as she said slowly, “She…she really means it doesn’t she?”

Vi was the one who answered, I was too shocked by the message to say anything. “I know Shadow quite well, if she says that Sapphire is losing her mind, then I believe the same goes for the weapons. Shadow isn’t one to try and kill so many ponies, but as we all know, when the ones she loves are hurt, she will go all out.”

“She used to be such a sweet foal, it’s hard to believe she’s gotten so hard over the years,” Hazel said.

“The wasteland will do that to you,” a mare’s voice said.

Turning, I saw Milkshake walking out with her husband Balefire. The Stable 28 ponies had started staying with The Shadow Talons after the stable was destroyed, same for the rest of Cartwheel. Hazel looked over at Milkshake asking, “Who are you?”

“Former Overmare of Stable 28, I’m Milkshake,” she said, standing tall and proud, “From what I heard, I can tell you that at least part of what Shadow said was true. Aquila was the one who attacked and destroyed our home, she was the one who killed most of my stable all by herself. I’ve also known Shadow for ten years and I think you should listen to her. She may not always be an honest pony, but I can tell when she’s lying, and she wasn’t lying in that massage.”

One of the taller Steel Rangers came over to Hazel, saying quietly, “Ma’am, I think they’re right, we all know that Sapphire hasn’t been herself since Apple Slice died. She’s been even worse since Noodle Cup died.”

Hazel sighed, then said, “I agree, but the problem is we don’t have any more Star Paladins to take over as Elder. Also, I’m not sure how many Hidden Sands Steel Rangers would back another Elder.”

To my surprise, every single one of the rangers stomped their steel covered hooves and one said, “We will stand with you Hazel.”

She looked a little shocked, “With me? Why?”

Watts answered, “Ms. Hazel, a Star Paladin isn’t the only one who can take over as Elder!”

“The Robot is right,” Yet another mare’s voice said from the gate, this time I knew it right away, it was Vervain.

Ever single Ranger went dead quiet as Vervain stepped out of the gate in her set of Steel Ranger armor, minus the helmet. I heard the ranger next to Hazel whisper, “Sentinel Box Tape’s Daughter.”

Hazel said, “Vervain, you don’t have a place in this conversation, you’re no longer a Steel Ranger.”

Vervain smiled. “Technically I am still a Paladin. I never left the Hidden Sands Rangers. I was just thought to be dead as you know, but I will say that even if I could come back I wouldn’t. I’m not here as a Steel Ranger but as a pony who knows the rules of The Steel Rangers better than most. A Senior Scribe or a Star Paladin can take over as Elder. If none are in the ranks anymore, then a vote can be held to replace an Elder by the rest. Hazel, you are the only Senior Scribe in Hidden Sands if I remember right. You can take over as Elder, especially if you have the backing of most of the Steel Rangers of your branch, or you can reinstate Sandstrom who is here with The Shadow Talons, and he can also become an Elder. Either way, I think it’s time that Sapphire was removed as the current Elder of The Steel Rangers.

Hazel looked around, looking a little scared as she saw her rangers starting to stomp their hooves in approval. After a moment she sighed and said, “I think I agree,” then she turned toward the southeast, “Elder Sapphire will be here soon, I think it’s time we tell her that she is no longer fit to be Elder.”

I smiled then looked back at Vi, “Can…can we go back to the base?”

The griffon smiled down at me. “Great Idea, now we just need to take care of The Unchained and maybe, just maybe, we can keep Freedom safe.”

Shadow Star…

I was just trotting into Freedom when I saw Vi, Byte, Milkshake, and Balefire coming down the road followed by a few griffons and Vervain and Hazel. I was a little shocked to see them all together like that. I trotted toward them right as Vi was saying to her griffons, “Get back to patrol, make sure the Unchained don’t set a talon into Freedom. If we’re lucky, they’ll leave if their contract with The Steel Rangers is canceled.”

The rest of the griffons flew away, so I walked over to the odd group. “Well, I didn’t think I’d see all of you in one place like this,” then I looked over to Milkshake and Balefire and hugged them tight, “I’m so glad you’re alive and I’m sorry about what happened to Stable 28.”

They both hugged me back as Balefire said, “It was terrible, but the ones who survived are doing well for the most part.”

Milkshake didn’t let me go for a moment as she said quietly, “I’m just happy that you’re back to your old self. Bale and I are the only ones who know that Aquila was in your body.”

She pulled away, then and I sighed, saying, “I sorry that happened while she was using my body.”

“Hey, we understand that it wasn’t you Shadow,” Balefire said, giving me a smile.

They then looked over at Violet looking curiously at her. I smiled, “This is Violet, she’s an Alicorn. She runs Frosty Summit and is a friend of mine.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said before looking at Hazel, “I take it that The Steel Rangers are going to back down?”

Hazel blushed, “The ones with me are, I have Watts sending the message we got from Byte here to the rest of the Rangers who’re traveling with Sapphire right now. They’ll be here soon, I also put out word that I’m taking over if the rest of the Rangers support me.”

“Really? You’re going to try and become the new elder?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t be my first choice for a job, but I’m the only pony who can for now. I hope this will work out though, my main goal is to get Sapphire some help and maybe try and fix things with the ponies of New Pegasus. I do agree with Sapphire that we can’t hide anymore in our bunker, but at the same time, we can’t take over the area like we once did either. I sent word to Archer that we will be breaking out of the contract with them once we get this mess with Sapphire settled,” Hazel said, looking up at the Griffons who were now starting to head toward the ground outside of freedom.

“I really wish I could kill Archer right now, but he’s not my biggest concern,” I said.

“He shouldn’t be either, The Unchained Talons are our problem to deal with Shadow. You have enough to deal with,” Vi said.

“Works for me,” I replied, giving Aura’s older sister a smile, “So, where’s Aura?”

“Oh, she’s finishing up taking the cure,” Vi said with an even bigger smile.

I felt my heart speed up a little. “Did it work? Can I go see her?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t visited with her since I had to help keep an eye on Byte, but you should let her be for now. Fletch is with her and she has something important to talk to Aura about,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked, a little curious.

Vi smiled again. “Fletch is going to have her first egg. She’s asking Aura to be the chick’s Godparent. It’s a tradition for griffons to have a guardian for Their young in case something happens with the parents. Out of all of us, Fletch and Gouger have the most dangerous jobs. She wants to make sure her child will grow up healthy and strong, Aura is the perfect choice for that.”

Vervain asked, “Isn’t that a big responsibility for Aura to take on? She does tend to leave the Talon company in your talons a lot because she’s normally with Shadow. Raising a child is a big responsibility and if she takes on the role as guardian, won’t she have to be around this child a lot, so it gets to know her in case something happens to your sister or her bonded? I know I gave up everything in my life to watch over Shadow when Grim left her in the stable.”

Vi looked a little sheepish as she said, “Well, Aura will need to start taking on her role as the leader of our group more now that’s she’s back. It’s her responsibility as the head of The Shadow Talons to lead us and yes to be around the youth of our company to be an example for them. Just like my mother was.”

“But…what about me? What if I need to go somewhere away from New Pegasus? Aura’s always been there with me when she can,” I asked.

Vi sighed. “Shadow, you know I like you and I have a lot of trust in you. I also know that you make my sister happy, but right now, you’re just a pony, you aren’t part of our family or The Shadow Talons. Aura has to start growing up and taking on her role. There will be times when she might be able to go out with you and help with your mission, but she has to be our leader. She also needs to be here for Fletch’s chick if something happens. It’s part of being a griffon.”

I felt anger starting to pulse inside me as I asked, “So because I’m not a griffon it doesn’t matter what I say? Aura’s a griffon and I’m just her plaything to the rest of you?”

“No that’s not what I’m saying Shadow,” she said, “I mean that until Aura asked you to make the Life Bond with her, you’re an outsider and can’t have a say in what happens with The Shadow Talons. That could take years to happen. We griffons don’t jump into a life bond quickly and truthfully Aura has only known you for few months. You need to do what’s best for her and her talons, I’m not saying you two need to break up or anything like that. I know Aura loves you and you her, but you need to let her do her job even if that means you go out on your own to complete your mission,” Vi said.

“That’s kinda dumb,” Byte said, “Is that more bullshit from your old Red Talon day’s Vi?”

She shook her head. “That’s a rule all Talon companies live by. We aren’t ponies; we have different traditions than you.”

“You know what, it’s fine,” I said “Aura and I will talk about it when I see her. Right now, I wanna make sure Freedom will be safe. Hazel, can you try and see what you can do to get Sapphire removed as Elder, then see about getting The Unchained to leave?”

She nodded. “The Rangers and I will head to both gates and head Sapphire off.”

“Thanks,” I said, then looked at Violet, “Can you go with them and make sure nopony tries to kill each other?”

“I can do that as long as Hazel doesn’t mind an Alicorn being around her,” Violet said.

“I don’t mind, but I think it would be best if you stay hidden just in case the others react bad to you,” Hazel said.

“That’s no problem,” Violet said, casting her spell that made her go invisible.

“Huh, that’s a neat trick. Okay, I’ll head off. I’ll get word to The Shadow Talons when this is over,” Hazel said, giving me a smile before walking back toward the gates.

“What do we do now?” Byte asked.

“We plan for when shit hits the fan,” I said, turning to follow Vi back to the Shadow Talons base, the rest following me.

“You really think things will go poorly?” Vervain asked.

“Everything always does, also why are you here Auntie Vervain, I thought you were staying in The Ministry with Uncle Ori,” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you should know by now that Oricalcos is stubborn, as soon as he could get around well enough, he demanded to leave and come back here, so Stormy and I came as well.”

“Stormy is here too?” I asked.

“Well, she’s helping Dr. Gauze get back to the base, but she’ll be back soon I’m sure. Oricalcos on the other hoof should be napping in his room but knowing him…” Vervain started to say as we walked into the front of The Shadow Talons building, but we could see that my uncle was in fact not napping, he was trying to order The Shadow Talons around.

“We need to get more griffons into the skies, show the Unchained Talon’s whose airspace this is,” he was saying, then he looked at another young griffon who was trying to stand up straight, “You! Yes, you with the skinny beak! Hold your weapons like you’re a real griffon, not like a child with a toy! That’s better, you’re a griffon, act like one! Now who’s the sorry excuse for a griffon who’s supposed to be in charge of this unit!”

A female griffon lifted a talon, saying quietly, “Um…Captain Arys Greenhaven.”

“Where is Captain Greenhaven? You all should have been in the air ten minutes ago! The Steel Rangers and The Unchained could attack at any moment!” Oricalcos yelled.

Vi shook her head as a couple of the unit looked over at her pleading for help before she said, “Oricalcos, you can stand down. We got things figured out for now with The Steel Rangers and from the look of it The Unchained are backing off.”

My uncle looked over at her ready to argue before seeing me. Ignoring Vi completely he slowly made his way over, saying, “Star, it’s good that you’re back, I hope you’re doing okay.”

“I’m fine, but you look ready to fall over, why aren’t you resting?” I asked, watching as the young griffons took the distraction to scatter like radroaches.

Oricalcos chuckled. “Still trying to get used to real legs again but I’m fine.”

Vervain however, poked his chest with a hoof. “Oricalcos, I told you to get more rest. Yes, you’re doing better, but you still need to get your strength back. Have you eaten yet?”

“Um…I was going to, but I kind of forgot…” he started to say, but Vervain wasn’t having it.

“You…forgot!? How do you forget about food? You’re not a walking shadow anymore Oricalcos! You get back to bed and eat something then take a two-hour nap. If you don’t, you’ll regret it I swear to the Goddesses!” Vervain said, turning my skinny uncle around and pushing him toward the hall.

I guess no matter what, Vervain still has the instincts of a mother. I’m glad I never got sick in the past, it was bad enough when I got into fights. As Uncle Ori was pushed away, he chuckled then looked back at me, “I guess I’m off to rest Star, come see me in two hours!”

“Well, that was interesting…I’m going to go check on Aura,” I said to the others.

“We’ll let you know if anything happens while you’re gone,” Milkshake said.

I gave her and Bale a hug then headed down toward Aura’s room. As I walked down the hall then up the stairs to the second floor, I saw Fletch coming toward me. She paused at the top of the stairs and smiled at me. “Hey Shadow, it’s good to see you, you on your way up to see my sister?”

I nodded. “I think we need to talk before anything else happens. Is she…you know, back to normal?”

“The cure worked, she’s back to being the Aura we all love and hate,” Fletch said with a chuckle.

“I heard the good news, congratulations,” I said, doing my best to hide the pain I felt at what this might mean for my future with Aura.

“Thank you, Shadow. I wanted to talk to you about it actually,” she said.

“Maybe after I talk with Aura if that’s okay,” I said, then noticed something different about Fletch, she had a band around her left foreleg with a single brown feather on it, “What’s that?”

She looked at it and laughed. “Hasn’t Aura explained how our life bonds work?”

“Only that it normally takes years to form one,” I replied.

She smiled again then nodded her head to a door down the hall. “Come with me Shadow, I think I should explain how things work with us griffons.”

“But I wanted to talk to Aura,” I said.

“She’s not going anywhere, come on, you need to understand this part of our culture, it’s very important,” she said, wrapping a wing around me and guiding me toward her room. I just sighed and followed her, she was right, I did need to understand more about how the Griffon world worked.

‘Former’ Elder Sapphire Stone…

I winced as my power armor once again injected more chem’s into my flanks and my neck, shooting a little more strength into my body. If it wasn’t for my armor, I wouldn’t be able to stand easily anymore. If the rest of my Rangers knew how sick I was, they would’ve taken my role as Elder away from me sooner. Even now deep down I knew what Hazel was doing was the right move, but logic was harder for me to find the longer this illness was part of me.

Noodle was the only pony who knew I was suffering; it was her idea for me to keep most of my power armor on so the auto injector system could keep the debilitating pain at bay. She did her best to help me bring the Rangers back to the glory they had when my grandfather was the elder. She was a good pony, the only pony I truly loved, until she sacrificed herself to keep me safe. I knew it was all because of Shadow Star, she had something to do with my illness she had to be. I was fine until a few weeks after she came into my life. Now I couldn’t even think straight, I barely ate, and I couldn’t control my anger anymore. I knew deep down that I was dying, but if I was going down, I was going to take Shadow with me. At least that was my plan, I was so close, but now Hazel had turned my Rangers against me.

“Sapphire, are you listening to me?” Hazel said, pulling me away from my inner thoughts.

Looking back at her, I said quietly, “Oh I heard you. I broke our creed, I’m not fit to be elder. Yes, I know. Let me guess, you’re taking over as the new Elder?”

She nodded. “I’m going to need you to remove your armor and remove the Mark II from your foreleg. You’re being taken off duty so we can have the scribes try and help you. I’m not doing this out of malice, I’m doing this because all of us know something is wrong with you, and we want to help you.”

I felt a bubbling laughter coming up my throat and I released it, laughing loudly as I said, “Help me!? There’s no help for me Hazel…sorry ELDER Hazel. You can have your armor back, but if you want the Mark II, you’ll have to pry it off my cold dead hoof.”

I used the armor to give myself another injection of med-x, healing potion, buck, and a bit of rage. I nearly moaned as it entered my system then I opened my armor and unsteadily stepped out of it. I took a couple of frag grenades from the side of the armor, connecting them to my jumpsuit. Then started working my way toward the gates of freedom. The Steel Rangers watched me, even Hazel didn’t try to step in my way, but she did say, “Sapphire, let us help you.”

I ignored her as I slowly walked to the gate. As I did, I noticed a unicorn that looked a lot like shadow, only with orange eyes, walking toward The Steel Rangers from the east. She looked at me then back at Hazel saying, “What’s going on, is the road into Freedom still blocked?”

Hazel looked over at her, saying, “Sorry ma’am, we are pulling back our forces and heading back to our bunker.”

The mare looked at me, then asked, “What’s wrong with her? She looks ill.”

I started to laugh hysterically. “Yes, I’m very ill. So, you better STAY AWAY…” Then as I looked at her, I growled, saying, “Shadow Star…why do you look older?” I shook my head. “No…you’re not her. Stay away from me Courier look alike.”

The mare’s eyes went a little wide as Hazel said, “That’s our former Elder, I think she’s sick. She’s not listening to us, but all we want to do is help her,” Hazel looked at one of the Rangers. “Knock her out and we’ll get her back to base.”

“Don’t!” the mare said as she started casting a spell around me.

I moved back. “Keep your filthy magic off me!”

The mare looked at Hazel. “She’s very ill, none of you should go near her, she might be contagious. Let her go, I’ll see what I can do. If this is what I think it is, it’s deadly. I don’t even know how she’s able to walk still.”

“Who are you?” Hazel asked.

“I’m Dr. Stormy, a friend of Shadow’s,” the mare said.

Hearing that I turned and pushed my way through the gate. I wanted nothing to do with anypony who was a friend of The Courier. I could feel my heart racing as the drugs flew through my body, my head was pounding, my chest tight. I was dying, I knew that, soon I’d be back with Noodle, but first I was going to make sure Shadow Star saw what she’d done to me. I want to take her with me and if I couldn’t do that, I wanted her to see me die, knowing it was all her fault.

Aura…

I felt amazing after the cure finally changed my body back into my former self. Now that I had my talons back, my wings were large, and my beak was back, I felt more like myself. Shadow was right, this was who I was always meant to be. I’d heard from one of my griffons that she was back in Freedom, and I was hoping she’d come see me soon, but I heard that Fletch had whisked her away to have a talk in Fetch’s room. So, while I waited, I had Arys come to my room to go over the reports from what was happening in Freedom.

“I don’t know how she did it,” Arys said, “But between Shadow, Vi and Byte, the Steel Rangers stood down and they’re leaving Freedom. The Unchained also seem to be heading back toward Crimson Canyon.”

I smiled. “That’s Shadow for you, always finding way around things. At least this time her plans kept us from having to fight. So, is our plan for Crimson Canyon still going well?”

She checked a report, then said, “From the intel we’ve gotten from Gouger and Toby, we should be able to strike in the next month or so. The Unchained have a lot of griffons, but most of them don’t have the kind of training we do. Only about fifty or so are former Red Talons and with Gina and Apollo being gone most of the time, there isn’t much discipline at the Canyon. If we take a good number of their better fighters down in one swift attack, we should be able to break the rest of them. If Gina and Apollo don’t have the support of the rest of the griffons, they won’t be able to keep us away from our home.”

“That’s good, I’m glad my sisters and you have been doing so much while I’ve been away,” I said.

She smiled and patted my talon. “Aura you’re my best friend and I understand why you’ve needed to be away. You have someone you love, and you want to be there for her to help her finish her mission and make sure she’s safe. Any griffon who finds their soul mate would do the same. So, how much longer are you going to keep that mare waiting? Even I can tell that she’s your soul mate and you should make it official.”

There was a sound near my door, I looked over to the open crack but didn’t’ see anyone, so I turned back to Arys with a sigh, “I need to tell her the truth first. I’ve been lying to her about something important and she needs to hear the truth from me first.”

“Is this about Trip Wire? You told me what happened in Hoofington, but you haven’t told Shadow?” she asked.

I felt my heart flutter as she said that. “I told you most of it, but not everything. I told Shadow when we didn’t know each other well yet that Trip Wire was raped and killed by raiders. Back then she was so new to the wasteland, and I was already starting to like her. I didn’t want her to see me in a bad light, so I lied about Trip.”

“You said she got sick and died because of it,” Arys said.

For a moment, that memory came back to me. I could see Trip Wire coming out of our tent just down the way from Mega Mart, up on that cliff. I remembered when she came at me with hunger and insanity in her eyes, one leg chewed up, blood on her muzzle. I could still remember her attacking me, trying to bite through my neck, my talons, or whatever she could reach.

I looked back at Arys trying not to let the memories of what I did show, as I said, “I killed Trip Wire, she got the same thing that the Raiders in Hoofington had and tried to kill me. To protect myself I stabbed her with the energy spear she made for me. Then I buried her and left Hoofington right after, leaving nearly everything at the camp.”

“You should’ve said something about this Aura. You had to kill your last marefriend and you’ve been keeping that inside for this long. Why didn’t you tell me everything? I could’ve helped you, even when you were banished. I can understand why you hadn’t told her yet. But she should know, she really should.” She said reaching out to pull me into a hug.

I held onto my friend for a moment before pulling away then pulling out the band that I’ve been meaning to give to Shadow and holding it in my talons. I looked at it for a long moment, then said, “I made this four years ago, and I always looked forward to the day when I could finally give this to the one who holds the other half of my soul.”

She smiled, looking at it, before saying, “I used to hope that one day you’d see me like that.”

I smiled remembering our time back when we were younger. “For a little while I thought that was going to happen, but things changed. Sometimes I still think that I’m not meant to be able to make the life bond with anyone…”I paused as I thought of Shadow, the mare who stole my heart, who meant the world to me, who I’d give my life for. I was about to look back up and finish my statement to Arys, to tell her that Shadow changed that, and she showed me how my life was meant to be hers. A smile pulled at my beak, then something flashed outside my door, and it flew open. I looked over to see a silver tail vanishing down the hallway as my door crumbled into ashes from the magic she’d just used. My eyes went wide, and I yelled, “Shadow! Wait!”

I went to run after her, then something else exploded, only this time it was right outside The Shadow Talon’s base. That was soon followed by screams from ponies outside. I felt my heart tearing apart as I saw Shadow running away, thinking the worst about what she overheard. Not knowing what I was going to say at the end, how I was about to confess my love for her. Something was happening outside, my Talons might be under attack, but I didn’t give a shit. Shadow was the only thing on my mind. I went to follow her when I felt Arys hold me back.

I looked back at her, going into shock as she said, “You need to wait, let me go find her, I’ll explain that she didn’t hear everything. I’m assuming that you wanted to say more, about how much you love her and want to make the bond with her. Right?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Go check on your griffons, I’ll get Shadow to understand,” Arys said before running down the hall after the love of my life. I took a deep breath, then reached over to where my energy spear has been sitting for weeks now. I picked it up then headed down the hallway to find out who the hell was attacking my home.

Shadow Star…

I felt rage, utter rage as I ran down the hall away from Aura’s room. I’d learned about the meaning of the bonds and how a life bond worked. I learned that for griffons the band with a feather that was made when a griffon came of age was given to the griffon who held the other half of their soul. To griffons normally the female would offer their band to a male they feel is their soulmate or in same sex relationships then it didn’t matter. Fletch and I talked for a while, then I decided to go see Aura. I was feeling better after she explained more about how the Godmother role worked and how she didn’t expect Aura to stay around all the time. She wanted Aura and I to be happy, so I went to see my loving griffon. When I got to her room, I saw it was open and she was talking with Arys. I wanted to go in, but then she started talking about Trip Wire. I could’ve just walked in, but I held back, listening in. I heard everything and it was hard to hear that she killed Trip, but I had a feeling that’s what happened after I heard the recording.

I wanted to talk to her about it and get her side about what happened. I just wanted the full story so we could work past it and move on with our lives. Then she said something that broke my heart. I’d always thought she wanted to make the life bond with me, but I was wrong. She couldn’t see herself making the life bond with anyone. I was just another distraction, another mare for her to have fun with. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I gave my heart to her, I gave my love to her. I know I’m not perfect and I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I tried my best to be a better pony for her. You can’t trust in love; I should’ve known that by now.

Mom loved me, but she left me in Stable 28, never telling me the truth about who I was or what was inside me. She gave me no warning about Aquila, she didn’t make sure I was prepared for what would happen next. My father said he cared, said he loved me, but he could’ve done more to help find me. He just let mom leave with me. Silver said she loved me then she died, leaving me alone. I put my love into Aura, and she didn’t care like I thought she did. Fuck this, I’m done caring.

I heard a griffon coming after me, so I teleported to The Shadow Talons front lobby area. Right as an explosion went off just outside. It took moment for me to figure out what happened, then I saw a mare just outside the doors glaring at me. It was Sapphire and she looked like hell. I was still pissed at Aura and just fucking finished with everything. I let magic build up on my horn as I walked past the griffons and ponies in the lobby and walked toward Sapphire.

“Shadow Star…you’re going to answer for what you’ve done,” she said before hacking and nearly falling over.

“I’m not in the mood for you right now Sapphire, so go the fuck back to your Steel Rangers before I blast you into DUST!” I said, the magic over my horn glowing brighter as another aura of power overlapped the first. I let her see the rage in my eyes.

She tried to reach for another set of grenades on her side but missed and nearly fell over. Something was definitely wrong with her, but I couldn’t tell what it was. For a moment the anger faded as she slipped and started to groan as if her body was in extreme pain. She started gasping for air and I took a step back before moving forward again, “Sapphire…what’s wrong with you?”

“Y…your fault,” she said, starting to tear up, “Sick…you…got me…sick. You…killed me…you’re…evil. Should have…killed you…at…beginning. Wanted you to…die with…me, but you’ll watch…me…die…know…knowing…it’s your…fault.”

“Shadow step away from her,” I heard Stormy yell as she ran around the gasping Sapphire.

“Stormy? What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?” I asked as she came up next to me.

“I’m not perfectly sure but I think she has an infectious diseases called Kuru, it’s very rare and normally only found in the Zebra lands. It is normally transmitted via Cannibalism, transmitted by another infected pony, or sometimes having long exposure to rotting corpses with the diseases,” she said as Sapphire started to giggle then gasp.

“Like being in a raider camp for months?” I asked.

“That would be a possibility. If she has it and has any open wounds, you could end up with it as well and it’s incurable,” she said sadly as Sapphire started to laugh louder.

“I’ll…be with…you soon…Noodle…” Sapphire said before she started gasp louder then her body started to spasms as a seizure hit her. Foam started to come out of her muzzle and gurgling nosies. After a moment she went still, and her eyes were locked on me.

I wasn’t sure what to think as I looked at the first mare who showed me kindness in the wasteland. I had mixed feelings about Sapphire, she’d been a friend, she’d saved my life, she’d helped me start my journey in finding my mom by letting me keep my first memory orb to watch. She’d helped me learn how to fight, she stood up for me when I went to the Rangers. She put her position on the line with Elder Apple Slice, but she’d also tired to kill me and my friends, she hated me in the end. She died an enemy but maybe that hadn’t been her fault, she’d died because of me. I don’t know how she’d gotten this sickness, but I had a feeling it was all my fault.

I was about to go get the Mark II I knew would be unlocked now that she was dead, but Stormy stopped me. “Don’t go near her body! I’ll get the Mark II, sanitize it, then take care of her body.”

“Just get me the Mark II, then I don’t care what you do with her body,” I said coldly.

Stormy looked over at me for a moment then without another word she used her magic to unhook the Mark II, holding it in a barrier like she’d used when we first went to the ministry. There was a flash of light then she hovered it over to me. I took the matte black Pip-Buck and put it into my saddle bags. I took one last look at Sapphire before turning away and heading toward The Strip.

“Shadow wait,” I heard Arys say from behind me.

I only stopped for a moment, saying, “Go away Arys, I’m not talking to you.”

“You don’t understand, you didn’t…” she started to say, but I turned on her as she landed not far from Stormy.

“Go the fuck away. If Aura wants to explain herself then she can do it, but I’m tired of her lies. I’m not going to let my heart break more. You go back to Aura and tell her to fuck off,” I yelled as I once again let my overpowering magic flow into my horn.

“She…” Arys started to say but I blasted my magic close to her talons making her jump back.

“Come any closer to me, if you even try and talk to me or explain Aura’s actions, this is what I’ll do to you,” I said coldly before I turned my magic over to Sapphire’s body and blasted it with as much power as I could. It only took a few moments before her body was nothing but ash. Both Stormy and Arys gave me wide eyed looks before I turned back toward The Strip.

‘I can’t let them close to me, I’m too angry, I don’t want to hurt them…’ I thought to myself as I started heading toward the only place I might be able to calm down. I needed to calm down before anypony came near me, I could feel my magic starting to slip my control.

As I started going toward the gate that would bring me back to The Strip, I started to see ponies from Freedom coming out of the alleys and whispers started to make their way toward my ears. “Is that the Courier?” a mare said.

A stallion next to her, saying, “She’s wearing the duster of Equestrian Express, but she’s so young.”

A filly pointed at me as she hid behind a stallion. “Daddy why does she look so scary?”

“I heard she destroyed Appleton and a building in The Twin Cities,” somepony said.

“Stay away from her sweetie, she won’t spare you even if you are a colt,” a mare said to her son.

I looked over toward the mare, my red eyes locking onto hers. “I don’t know who told you I’d hurt foals, but you’re sorely mistaken. I don’t hurt foals.”

“You’re a liar!” a stallion yelled, “My son was in Appleton when you destroyed it you monster!”

“You’re not a savior, you’re a just as bad as The Steel Rangers or the Raiders!” another pony yelled.

I looked around, noticing more and more ponies starting to come down the alleyways and the street almost blocking my way into The Strip. “Who are all you ponies?”

A middle-aged stallion came to the front of the growing mob. “We are the ponies who made it out of Appleton before you destroyed it. It’s time you answered for what you did to our town Shadow Star.”

I glared at him. “What happened to Appleton was an accident, but I’m guessing you won’t take my word for that. How did you all know I was here anyway?”

“Accident you say? How could you be carrying around a weapon like that and not know what it would do?” he asked, “As to how we knew you were here, well we have our ways. A mare who knows just about everything about you told us you’d be here.”

My heart was starting to race, not out of fear but out of pure anger. How many more ponies were going to come after me today? I felt bad for what I did to Appleton, I knew I couldn’t do anything to make up for what I took away from the ponies there, but now they wanted to come here and try and attack me for what I did out of pure desperation? Fuck them. “Fuck all of you! You know what, I don’t care what any of you think. I can’t fix the mistake I made, I can’t bring your friends and family back, but if you want to try and take me on then fine. Go right ahead and try, but I’ll say this, when I kill the rest of you at least I won’t feel guilty this time.”

“Oh Shadow, Courier, they aren’t going to do anything to you. The only reason they haven’t tried going after you before is because they were scared of you, but now they have me to protect them. They have me to get vengeance for them,” I heard Aquila say as she slowly pushed her way to stand next to the stallion.

The flame of rage that has been burning through my body since I left The Shadow Talons went ice cold as I saw Aquila. In a cold anger filled voice, I said, “I don’t know what you think you can do to me Aquila, but as you know the spell between us won’t let either of us hurt each other.”

She walked closer to me and in a quieter voice Aquila said, “Shadow, the spell won’t let us kill each other. Hurting you though, making you wish you were dead, that I can do as long as it’s not fatal. Here, let me SHOW YOU!”

In a moment she blasted a spell right into my chest throwing me back and into the gate. It hurt, but it was nowhere near the power she could’ve put into it. Gasping for air I looked over at Aquila who was smiling at me. The spell didn’t hurt her at all. Slowly getting back to my hooves I pulled on my anger filled power and blasted her with my own spell. At this point, I didn’t care if we both died, as long as I could take that smug look off her face. She teleported out of the way and a moment later the stallion who used to be the mayor of Appleton was in the way of the spell, his body bubbled and burned as he screamed.

In a matter of a few seconds, I’d killed another pony from Appleton. Aquila laughed. “You see ponies of Appleton, she isn’t the savior of New Pegasus. She’s just a rotten child who has too much power.”

“Shadow! What’re ya doin’?” I heard the Queen say from down the road.

“Stay out of this Queen!” I yelled as I pulled Misery out of its sheath and teleported behind Aquila. I slashed down at her, but she ducked out of the way then blasted another spell at me. I used my sword to block the spell, but I was still thrown back, giving her time to pull back and fire another spell at me. This one slammed into my duster and ripped it off my body as I was thrown through the air, nearly losing my hold on Misery.

I breathed hard, feeling pain running down my body as I looked around for Aquila, only to find her just to my left. I tried to swing Misery at her, but she teleported again, then I felt a hoof kick into my other side, again knocking the wind out of me. Trying to breathe through the pain I pulled on my magic and tried to teleport again, but Aquila must’ve been preparing herself for this fight. She smiled, and her horn flashed as she said, “It’s about time everypony saw how pathetic you really are,” then a moment later I was on the other side of the gate to The Strip.

I reached into my saddle bags and drank down a healing potion and I put Misery away and pulled out Dream Walker. That was all the time I had before Aquila was on the same side of the gate as I was, her grin wider than ever. I could feel my wounds starting to heal up a little as I said, “What do you want Aquila? You can’t kill me so why fight me?”

“Oh Shadow, poor, poor Shadow, I don’t want to kill you anymore. I don’t need to. What I really want is to watch you become the most hated pony in the wasteland. You know it’s funny how many ponies really don’t like you. Over the past couple of weeks, more and more stories have been spreading around New Pegasus about how much you really don’t care about the ponies here. How you’re just a filly who just wants attention and how you’re just as crazy as how they all see most Stable Ponies. By the time the day is over, no pony will want you anywhere near New Pegasus. I don’t want to kill Shadow Star, I want to kill The Courier,” she said, laughing as she pulled on her magic.

I started to pull on my own magic at the same time, aiming Dream Walker, “I’m going to destroy you!”

“I’d love to see you try,” she laughed.

I started to empty Dream Walker, but she brought up a magical barrier. I screamed then holstered Dream Walker and put more and more power into my explosion spell. As I did, I started to modify it, adding more and more destructive power to the spell as I growled out. “I’d like to see you block this…BITCH.”

More and more power came over my horn until it was glowing so bright that I saw Aquila’s smile slip as she said, “How are you this strong?”

I smiled. “Thank your other half for hiding most of my power from you. NOW DIE!” I let the spell explode out of my horn and right into Aquila’s barrier.

I poured more and more power into this one spell, hoping that it would put an end to her, put an end to the pain, the anger, the hate, the betrayals. I may not want to die, but if I died killing her, then all the better. I couldn’t see her through the brightness coming off my spell, but I could feel through my magic that I was doing damage to her barrier. First there was a small crack, then another and another. Aquila was pouring more and more power into her spell, but for once, she wasn’t able to keep up with the power my anger was giving to my magic. I started to scream as I felt the drain on my body, but finally, I felt something give and the world went white.

An instant later I was thrown back by a force of energy. I went flying and rolled a few times before finally coming to a stop. It was like everything in the wasteland had gone silent as it held its breath to watch this battle between creatures of hate and magic. It only lasted a moment as I felt a burning sensation flowing over my body as mom’s spell finally did something and damaged my body to match Aquila’s.

I wanted to scream in pain, but I clenched my teeth and slowly got to my hooves, pulling out another healing potion. I downed it quickly as I looked around for Aquila. That’s when my eyes fell on the damage my anger filled spell had done, not to Aquila, but to the wall that separated The Strip and Freedom. The gate was gone, the wall on each side for a least ten meters was bent and destroyed, but that wasn’t even the worst thing. No, it was the fifty or so mares, stallions, colts, and fillies who were all laying around in a half circle with bloody and crippled bodies. The explosion hadn’t just taken out the wall, it had killed more ponies, most of them the ponies who had come from New Appleton, but others had to be citizens of Freedom. Laying in the middle of the blast zone was Aquila who was just starting to get back to her hooves.

Weakly, she stood and said in a straining voice, but I could tell it was an act. There was no way that would’ve hurt her too bad, “This is the proof that The Courier Shadow Star is noting but a mad mare who shouldn’t be let anywhere near New Pegasus.”

“S…Shadow, what did you do?” I heard a stallion say.

I looked back and saw Major Mud and a load of NLR not far away from where I was standing. Breathing hard, I said, “I was trying to stop her, she’s evil.”

“I’m not the one who just killed more ponies from Appleton, Shadow. I was trying to protect them,” she said, still acting as if she was weak from the fight.

Major Mud looked at me again and the kindness I’d seen in those eyes before were gone. When he spoke, his voice was hard, “I didn’t want to believe the rumors that you were going down a dark path Shadow. But from what I can see, you aren’t a pony to be trusted. You’ve pulled the wool over my eyes one too many times,” he then said to his troops, “Take Shadow Star into custody and if she tries to run, kill her.”

“Major Mud, I’m not bad. Aquila is the pony who set this whole thing up!” I said as I took a step back.

“SHUT UP!” he yelled, “If you want to explain yourself, you can do that from a cell with a magic dampening ring on your horn. You’ve killed too many innocent ponies, the NLR can no longer let you walk free. It’s our job to protect this area from ponies like you.”

I glared at him. “You have no idea what she is, if you let her get away with this, she’ll destroy us all.”

“If she speaks one more time, kill her!” Major Mud yelled.

I looked back at Aquila who only smiled at me before backing away, saying, “Major Mud, I’m going to check to see if any other ponies got hurt down the way. If you need my help with her later though, just let me know,”

“Don’t go too far, what is your name by the way young mare?” he asked.

“You can call me Stargazer or Aquila,” and before I could do anything else she teleported away.

I turned to go after her, but a bullet slammed into the ground next to my hoof. I looked back at Major Mud, who said, “That’s the last warning Shadow.”

I cast a spell, putting a barrier around myself as I said with ice in my voice, “You know what? Fine, fuck you. Fuck the NLR. Fuck The Strip and FUCK New Pegasus. I’ve put my life on the line plenty of times to protect the ponies here from creatures like her,” as I spoke, a few stallions tried to shoot me, but their weapons weren’t powerful enough to make it through my shield, “If you want to take the word of a monster like Aquila, then whatever. I’m done with all of you. I hope this whole city burns,” and with that, I turned and started to walk away, keeping the barrier up.

Major Mud and his soldiers tried to follow, but I turned and shot a blast of magic at them. Most ran from the attack, so I turned again and started heading toward the exit to Freedom. I was done, it’s time to get out of this area. Let Aquila have it for now. I’d put off my mission to stop Falling Shadows so I could protect Freedom. I should’ve just let Sapphire get her way; I really did hope it all burned.

As I made my way out of town heading toward the east entrance, ponies from Freedom who had either saw the fight, or heard about it already started yelling insults at me or throwing rocks. I just kept my barrier up and ignored them. When I made it through the gate, I took a moment to take in a deep breath before looking through my Pip-Buck, “One tower in Baltimare, one in The Badlands, one in The Crystal Empire, the last in The Lucky Horseshoe. Guess I’m going to The Badlands first. I’ll need to get a message to Byte because I’ll need her Pip-Buck to unlock the Tower in Baltimare. Maybe I’ll have her meet me someplace after things settle down here, she’ll be fine with The Shadow Talons for now.”

“Star…what happened?” I heard my uncle say from the gate into Freedom.

I looked back and saw him with Vervain and Solstice. I shook my head and said, “I don’t feel like talking about it right now. I’m leaving…I need to get away from here for a while.”

“And where do you think you’re gonna go?” Vervain asked.

“The Badlands, I have a mission to complete, and if I stay here, I don’t know what I’ll do to Freedom or The Shadow Talons. I’m too angry to even think about being around Aura or her family or the ponies in that fucked up town who don’t seem to care about what I’ve done for them. So, I’m going to The Badlands,” I said getting to my hooves and slowly starting to walk down the road.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave, you should talk with Aura…” Ori started to say but Solstice cut him off.

“Oricalcos, maybe now isn’t a good time. She needs space,” Solstice said, before looking back at me, asking, “Need help?”

At first, I wanted to tell them all to go away, but I knew even through my anger that I did in fact need help. Solstice had become a close friend oddly enough. I trusted Oricalcos, even after my meltdown earlier, and Vervain had always treated me like her own foal. So, I finally let the tears I’d been holding back fall as I said, “I’d love to have you three come with me. I don’t think I should be alone right now.”

Vervain rushed over to me, holding me tight as I let my emotions go. It was at that moment, as I let myself feel like a filly for a few moments that I knew. Grim had been the mother who gave birth to me and who tried to protect me like any mother would, but Vervain was my real mom, she raised me, she loved me, and she would always be there for me. She patted my mane saying, “We’re here for you Sweetie, if you need to go to that desecrated land, we’ll come with you.”

“That’s right,” Oricalcos said, “I’ve been to The Badlands before so I could be a big help, I think. Also, when you’re up to it, I could help you get better control over your magic.”

I wanted to say something, but then Solstice said, “I can’t let my only friend go off into danger by herself.”

The emotions were getting to me, and I was starting to feel a little better when I heard griffons landing near me. Looking up from Vervain’s shoulder I saw Aura and a few of her griffons. She lifted a talon, saying, “Shadow, I need to talk to you. Please give me a moment to explain what you overheard.”

Slowly I pulled my head away from Vervain and looked back at Aura, “Explain what? Explain how you lied to me about what you did to Trip Wire? You know, I could’ve talked that out with you over time,” I pulled out the recordings I found at the camp and threw them at her, “But I heard part of it already when I found your old camp in Hoofington. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I was waiting until things settled down. The lie I could’ve gotten over, maybe even have understood, but you were clear about how you feel. You aren’t sure about us I know it.”

“That’s not true, I love you Shadow,” Aura said, I could see she was holding onto her band.

“If you try to give that to me right now Aura, I’ll destroy it,” I said as I glared at her, doing my best to ignore the pain I felt deep down, “If you really love me then you’ll give me the space I need. Right now, I’m so angry at you and feel so betrayed that I don’t know what I’ll do. So go back to your talon company, go back to doing what griffons do best. Take time to think about how you really feel and then maybe, maybe if I decide to come back to this shithole, then we can talk. For right now, we’re over. Just looking at you right now pisses me off.”

I tried to turn to leave but Aura was a stubborn griffon. “You will take a moment to listen to me, I was going to say more before you ran off like a stupid foal!”

I froze and was about to scream back at her, but Vervain put a hoof on my shoulder then said to Aura, “Give her the space she needs Aura, trust me if you two argue right now, you’ll just make things worse. Don’t worry we’ll look after her.”

Aura was speechless, so I sighed then said one last thing to the Griffon who still held my heart, even now as it’s breaking into more and more pieces, “Stardust is at Frosty Summit with Wind Thrasher, she’s fine now. You should send some griffons up there to let him know what happened. Also keep an eye on the kids. I can’t take them to where I’m going.”

“Where…” she started to say, but I cast a spell that made her voice go quiet.

I started to slowly walk away from New Pegasus, holding onto the spell that kept Aura from saying anything to me. The sky was getting darker, and I embraced the darkness leaving behind the place I had called home for a the past few months, leaving behind my duster that was probably still laying in the dirt near the now destroyed wall, leaving behind the griffon who I thought loved me. I’m Shadow Star, I’m no longer The Courier of New Pegasus. I’m just a mare from The Enclave, the distant granddaughter of monsters. More tears fell from my face as my family and friends followed me east, then southeast, heading toward The Badlands. Aquila got what she wanted in the end, she had indeed killed The Courier. She won this battle, but I’d win the war, and when I destroyed Falling Shadows, I’d find a way to kill her too, even if I went down too. I never looked back, but as my tears fell I whispered, “Goodbye…Aura.”

Aquila…
One Week Later…

“Best plan I could’ve ever come up with! Shadow’s finally gone and out of my mane,” I said as I teleported down in the the hall that led to the first tower’s power supply. There were protections to keep unicorns from doing this, but they weren’t powerful enough to keep me out of this hallway, and with my body I could make it down to where I hid my gem. I was going to have to move it to a safer location. There was a small chance Shadow knew where I put it because I had been in her body when I hid it before. She might be out of my mane for now, but I wasn’t going to chance her coming back for it. Also, Minuette was back, I could tell, and I had a feeling she was that Alicorn Violet. She was my biggest problem, even if she had disappeared a few days ago, trying to help Shadow’s remaining friends find out where she’d run off to.

As I went past the barrier and made my way to the lift, I thought about what I’d been able to accomplish over the past week. New Pegasus now saw me as the new hero of this part of the wasteland. Well, all but Mr. New Pegasus, he was still trying to get other ponies to listen to him about how he knew Shadow wasn’t a bad pony, blah, blah, blah. It didn’t matter, the NLR was on my side now. They had no idea I was the mare who attacked their camp last week. The Romans were helping me too, some of them even starting to call me some kind of Goddess. The ponies around New Pegasus were all starting to see me as something more than just a powerful unicorn who showed them the truth about Shadow. I’d taken the time to take out a few raiders, helped a couple of caravans, saved a few foals near Little Hoof, even chased the rest of The Steel Rangers back into their holes in the ground. Who knew that to get ponies to follow you, all you had to do was act like you cared about them. Fools, but useful fools I was finding out. Shadows approach to ponykind was a little useful.

I sighed as I thought about how all my plans were coming together nicely. Smiling happily, I finished going down the lift then walked up to the overlook, gave the passphrase to get by the guns and went over to the broken terminal I’d hidden my gem inside. Reaching a hoof in I felt around for the box it had been inside, then I felt an icy chill run down my spine. I pulled my hoof out and used my magic to rip away the terminal and pulled it apart looking for the gem. It wasn’t here…I checked the other terminals, then around the area and I felt my heart beating harder as I whispered, “She couldn’t have come here and gotten the gem…when did she even have time?”

I screamed and blasted a few terminals before I stormed out of the overlook. “I’ll find out where the hell you put my gem Shadow, I know you didn’t have it on you, or I would’ve felt it. You still haven’t won!”

I brooded in anger as I started to leave the underground power source, and once I was past the pink barrier, I teleported away from Spitfire’s Flight Academy. I wanted to destroy something, but instead I took a deep breath and calmed myself. I’d find the gem, if I was within a couple of kilometers of it, I would feel its magic. I had time, and honestly with Shadow hiding it, it would make her think she’d won a small battle against me. I was about to teleport to meet up with Strife, when I felt a massive amount of power flow over the wasteland. I looked east toward where I’d felt the power originate. “What the hell was that?”

I tried to figure out what just happened that I would feel it all the way on this side of Equestria. At first, I thought maybe Shadow had done something to the tower in Baltimare, but no…it hadn’t come from there, but a little north of there. As I was trying to figure out what had just happened, I felt something warm fall over my back. That was followed soon by light coming down on my face. Squinting up I gasped as I watched the cloud cover slowly starting to pull back and for the first time in two hundred years, the sun started to fall on the wasteland. I started to laugh as I watched the clouds slowly fading away. Somepony had just helped destroy one of Night Stalkers plans to keep the pegasi hidden. As more and more of the sun’s light fell on me, I said, “Oh Thunderlane is going to be pissed.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Demolition Expert: The bigger the boom, the better! Your explosives do 25% more damage and you can craft explosives at any Chemistry Station. This goes for you destructive magic as well. Go Big or Go Home!

Chapter 73: Anywhere Away From Here

“To those who trade in pony flesh, remember that hell follows on the hooves of the ones you’ve wronged.”

Ponies from The Wasteland have no idea what’s in The Badlands, it’s never been a hospitable land. Most would think that almost no one lives here, but they would be wrong. The area was large, dry, and dead, but ponies and more called this harsh environment home. The main reason most ponies didn’t meet ponies from The Badlands, was because the lands between most of Equestria and The Badlands were so dangerous to cross that you’d have to be insane to even try. Well, insane, or desperate. Deep in the dry land, there’s a small mostly intact town that goes by the name of Armadillo. This town didn’t care if you were a pony, zebra, griffon, or any other creature, as long as you didn’t create problems you were allowed in Armadillo. However, in this small town recently, there’s been rumors going around about a demon who wanders the lands around Armadillo. The ponies who traveled through the town thought of the new rumors about this so-called Demon as being nothing more than just made-up stories, but the locals knew the truth. She was real, and everyone in town knew not to cross her. No one knew her name, they just called her The Silver Demon.

One Month after Leaving New Pegasus…
Somewhere Deep in The Badlands…
Shadow Star…

One month, it took one month for Solstice, Oricalcos, Vervain, and I to reach this part of The Badlands. It probably wouldn’t have taken so long if a few things hadn’t slowed us down. Oricalcos was getting a lot better, but his body was still not fully recovered from the damage it had taken. Though he started to get more energy a little over a week after we left. He said he was just finally getting his old energy back, but I think it had something to do with the Sun coming down from the heavens for the first time in two hundred years. I still remember that day, when the cloud cover over The Wasteland started to slowly peel away and was bathed in sunlight. For a while I thought it was some mistake by The Enclave or maybe my father had something to with it.

Later we ran into a small group of ponies who managed to get some news from back east. Apparently that stable pony I’d heard about a couple of times had something to do with it and The Enclave wasn’t doing so well there. Vervain and Oricalcos seemed to be quite excited by the news. I, however, really didn’t give a shit. Sunlight or clouds, I’d given up caring about anything like that ever since I’d left New Pegasus. I’d left my duster behind; it’d been blown off of me by Aquila during our fight. It was funny how quickly she was able to get the ponies of New Pegasus and Freedom to hate me. Equestrian Express was dead, it died with Box Tape, that duster was just the last shred of what he’d created. Aquila had killed The Courier and ponies cheered for her doing it.

When the news came about The Stable Dweller, I just pushed past the group and kept on walking. Solstice stayed with me and not long after Oricalcos and Vervain caught up. They tried to get me to talk about what had me in such a bad mood, but just like I’d done the whole trip, I ignored them. Solstice knew, she was the only pony I would talk to after we left. I mean Oricalcos and Vervain knew that I’d had a fight with Aura, but not the whole story. It took me three days to finally tell Solstice after she woke me up from a nightmare I was having. To this day I’m still not sure what it was about Solstice, but I found it easy to confide in her. She didn’t say anything negative toward me when I started to cry, she didn’t tell me that I should go back and talk with Aura. No, she just held me and let me cry away the pain and anger.

The other part of our trip that had slowed us down was mostly problems with Raiders and a couple of tribes we’d ran into as we traveled. One larger tribe that lived not far from the borders to The Badlands had been the biggest pain in the ass. I nearly used Solar Flare on the ponies and their shitty huts, but Solstice pointed out that if I wanted to stay hidden from Aura or the other ponies who were probably hunting me, I shouldn’t use that weapon. So instead, I met with their leader who was a nasty stallion who wanted Solstice and me for his newest wives, then I cut his head off with Misery. The look on the rest of the tribe’s faces was almost funny enough to make me crack a smile…almost. Instead, they decided to leave us alone.

But after so long and many kilometers under our hooves. We’d finally made it to The Badlands. I came to find that the small villages we found as we traveled weren’t too bad, not much different that the rest of The Wasteland. Well, there was more radiation than I was used to since The New Pegasus area had very little. My Mark II seemed to click slowly at me every few minutes. But the ponies we found in the villages were helpful to a point and I’d started asking around looking for rumors about a strange looking M.A.S.E.B.S. tower. Most ponies didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, or they would point us toward other M.A.S.E.B.S. towers. So, we kept moving deeper into this dry, deadly land, that was until we made it to a small town called Armadillo. The trail went cold here and according to my uncle there wasn’t another town close for a least another weeks-worth of walking, at least not that he knew of. I wanted to keep going, to keep searching for Tower 2, but we were all tired and it was decided that we’d stay in this town for a week or so to rest up. So, one month after I left New Pegasus, I started what would be my new life for a long time, in Armadillo.

“Well at least the ponies here don’t look too bad,” Vervain said as she followed me toward the gate that led past the wall around the town, Solstice and Oricalcos right behind us.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re the first ponies in The Wasteland who won’t try and kill or rob us. Maybe we found the only safe place left on this rotting planet,” I said, in a mocking tone before going up to one of the guards who was blocking the way into town.

The mare looked my friends and I over before asking, “What’s your business in Armadillo?”

I was about to give a snide reply, but Solstice spoke first. “My family and I are traveling, no real destination in mind. We just need a safe place to stay for a while so we can rest up and recover from a long journey.”

She looked over Solstice then at me, followed by Oricalcos and Vervain. “Well, I’m guessing you aren’t all related, but it’s not my place to judge. Armadillo doesn’t much care what your background is, as long as you don’t cause trouble. Don’t try and rob anypony or zebra or griffon in town and be respectful to the deputies and Sheriff.”

I rolled my eyes. “So, you’ll just let any zebra, pony, or griffon into your town?”

She glared at me. “Listen here missy, Armadillo is place for anypony that’s had a rough life to get away and feel safe. If you have a problem with that or with the other races who live here, you’ll be kicked out of here faster than you can blink.”

“Whatever,” I said with a sigh, “I don’t care about what race someone is, I was just asking. You don’t hear about ponies being so nice to griffons and zebra’s often that’s all.”

“Seeing how a zebra and a griffon started Armadillo fifty or so years ago, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Now, if ya’ll are staying then I’d suggest ya’ll head over to Drifters Inn. The owners are decent folk, and they should have a couple of rooms, good food, and plenty of liquor,” she said with a smile, “Also if ya’ll are lookin’ for work, check-in with the Major, his name is Zalden or Sheriff Spurs. I know the Sheriff’s been looking for somepony to take on a couple of bounties that’ve stacked up and the Major’s always looking for a little help around town.”

Vervain answered this time. “Thank you for the information and we’ll behave while we’re in town.”

“Thank you Ms.?” The guard asked.

“Oh I’m…” Vervain started to say but was interrupted.

“She’s Valentine, the skinny unicorn is Cracked Horn, The Pegasus is Light Fall,” I said.

“Um…okay and what’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m nopony,” I said as I pushed past her and headed toward the Inn. I wasn’t in the mood to talk with some worthless guard.

But as I walked off I heard her say to Vervain, “She’s a feisty one,” her tone didn’t sound angry, but interested.

“You have no idea, sorry about that, and thank you again,” Vervain said before they followed me. When Vervain caught up she asked, “Why did you give us those stupid names?”

“I don’t know, I kind of liked mine,” Solstices said.

“I know we’re far from home, but with my luck something will happen while we’re here and I really don’t want to leave any clues for Aura or her fucking talon company to find us, same goes for Aquila, your brother, or anypony else who knows me,” I said.

“Shadow, sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with this,” she said.

“Oh, I’m planning on dealing with it in just a few moments,” I said pushing through the door to Drifters Inn. The place had a few ponies either eating or drinking, music was playing, and nopony really seemed to care that four strangers just walked into the joint. So, I headed right toward the bar, saying, “Barkeep, I’ll take a shot of your best Wild Pegasus.”

The mare behind the bar looked over at me in my worn-out barding and faded traveling cloak. I’d switched to the combat armor barding I’d gotten in Hoofington while we travelled, and the cloak had come off some dead trader before we entered The Badlands. The older mare lifted an eyebrow, saying, “Not sure ya have the caps for that.”

I let my red eyes fix on her dull green ones. I let my horn glow just a little and a small smile pull on my lips as I said in a darker tone, “Wild Pegasus, NOW!”

“Fifty caps a shot,” she said, her face not changing even a little apart from a crooked grin. Her own horn glowed as she pulled a bottle from under the counter and filled a shot glass, “At least you’ve got some fightin’ spirit in that small body of yours. Names Shot Glass, oh at least it is nowadays. What brings ya’ll to Armadillo?”

Vervain sighed as she came over to the bar as I picked up the small drink and threw it back before slamming it down on the bar for another, passing over more caps. Vervain looked at me, then back at the rest of our group before saying to Shot Glass, “Traveling mostly. Might settle down here for a little while to recuperate.”

“Ya’ll family?” she asked, giving a warm smile to Vervain as she filled another drink for me.

I belched, then answered, “Kinda, why do you care?”

Oricalcos sat at the bar with me, saying, “This rude unicorn is my niece, My wife here is like a second mother to her, same goes for the pegasus.”

“Well, it’s mighty fine to meet ya, I hope ya’ll find your time in Armadillo pleasant. Most folk around here have hard pasts, but they’re all good folk. Did ya’ll need a place to stay while ya get settled in?” she asked.

I just drank another shot, feeling the liquor starting to hit me. Solstice answered instead, “We’ll need a couple of rooms yes. Not sure if we’ll be settling in, might only be here for a couple of weeks.”

“I’ve got two rooms I can spare; two weeks will cost ya around a thousand caps, but if ya’ll wanna help around the Inn I’ll let ya stay in the rooms for free,” Shot Glass said, then looked over at me as I threw back a fourth drink, “Though I can’t be havin’ my employee’s drunk.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t feel like working for you anyway. I’m better…” I burped loudly, “Killing things than I am cleaning rooms and serving food.”

Vervain glared at me. “You don’t have to be so rude!”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “What? It’s true. If you wanna help out around here then fine, I’m not doing it. I’ll go see if this sheriff has anything for me to shoot or cut up into tiny little pieces.”

“You know what, I’ve had it up to here with your attitude as of late,” Vervain started saying as she lifted a hoof over hear head.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m such a disappointing little filly,” I commented, “Bite me Valentine, or is it MOM today or Auntie? You can all go fuck yourselves for all I care. I’m gonna go kill something,” I said, taking the bottle of Wild Pegasus from Shot Glass, tossing down a bag of caps on the bar before walking out of the Drifters Inn. As I did I heard Vervain sigh again and start talking with Shot Glass.

I took a long pull from the bottle before putting the cap back on and storing it in my saddle bags, slowly making my way toward a larger building to the west. It had a large sign over it that said, ‘Sheriff and Jail’. I took a moment for my vision to stop swimming before I pushed the door open. Inside three ponies were around a desk to one side, two stallions standing, the last a mare who was seated behind the desk.

“Deputy Zapper, I need more information on those bandits from the north. Deputy Fang, any word from the bounty hunters we sent after those gang ponies?” the mare said as she looked over paperwork on her desk.

A younger stallion who had to be Zapper said, “I’ll get right on that ma’am, should have the information on your desk by tomorrow morning,” he then headed to the back of the building, taking another door to a back room.

An older buck who I’m guessing was Deputy Fang gave out a soft sigh. “No luck, one of them made it back and said the rest of his party died trying to get into their complex, the leader of The Demons let this one live, giving him a message saying that if we keep sending ponies after him, he’ll sick his ponies on the town.”

She slammed her hoof on the desk. “I won’t let a thug like him threaten our town. I want you to find another group of ponies to take him out. This time find somepony who has some power behind them or see if one of the griffons in town will be willing to help.”

“I’ll see what I can do Sheriff Spur,” he said before heading toward the door. As he passed, he tilted his cowpony hat at me, saying, “Pardon me little miss,” then he was gone.

The Sheriff sighed and leaned back in her seat. She was a middle-aged mare with a cinnamon-colored coat, blue eyes, and a striped gold and pink main. As I walked further into the office, she glanced over at me. “Can I help you miss?”

“I’m hoping I can help you,” I said carefully, my words were a little heavy on my tongue due to the Wild Pegasus, but I managed okay I thought, “I heard you had a couple of bounties that you needed help with.”

She gave me a once-over then leaned forward. She then took another longer look at me, eyeing Dream Walker in my front holster, the plasma rifle on my back and Misery sheathed just under that. “You’re packing a lot of heat for a young mare. How’d you get your hooves on such fine weaponry? Hope you didn’t go stealing it off some poor trader.”

I just shrugged, pointing at Dream Walker first. “Found this one in a locked weapons display at an old studio, the plasma rifle is a family heirloom, the sword was in an old ruin up north. I don’t go around killing ponies for their shit unless they’re raiders and/or dickheads.”

She chuckled. “I’m Spur, Sheriff of Armadillo. So, tell me, do you think you can really take on a bounty or are you just blowing smoke up my ass?”

As she was leaning forward I saw she was also a unicorn. I found it kind of refreshing to be around more unicorns that weren’t my family. I did my best to give her a smile, which wasn’t easy. “Depends on the ponies you want brought in or killed. I can hold my own against a lot of ponies, I might be small and young, but I’ve spent a lot of time fighting to survive.”

“Know any spells or are you like most unicorns in the Wasteland who can only lift shit with their magic?” she asked.

“I know a few spells. My uncle is a master spellcaster and he’s been trying to broaden my magic and the spells I know. I’m best with teleportation, great control over telekinesis, I also have a spell I made myself that I call an expulsion spell. It’s a powerful blast of magic that I can use to either kill or immobilize a target,” I said, and what I said wasn’t a lie, not really. Uncle Ori was trying to teach me more magic, on the rare occasions when I felt like saying more than two words to him.

One of her eyes twitched. “You can teleport?”

I activated my magic and teleported to the other side of her office, then back again, “Been able to do it for years.”

She looked down at my foreleg. I was still using Dr. Stormy’s gem to disguise the Mark II to look like any old Pip-Buck, “You from a stable?”

I nodded. “I was from a Stable, grew up in one till a few years ago when the stable was destroyed. Been in the Wasteland ever since.”

She chuckled. “Well, normally I wouldn’t want to give a bounty to a young mare like yourself, but I can see in your eyes that you don’t fuck around. Tell ya what. When I get a decent bounty in I’ll send word to you. If you’re just getting into town I’m guessing you’re staying at Drifters Inn.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “What about that shit I heard about that gang? I think your Deputy called them The Demons?”

She sat back again, her face going serious. “That’s a job for a group of ponies, griffons, or zebras.”

“Sounds like that hasn’t been going well. How tough are these so-called Demons?” I asked, not backing down.

“Their leader used to be part of The Enclave from what I’ve heard. He always has his power armor on when he’s around other ponies. He used to live here in Armadillo until he was kicked out a year or so back for causing too many problems for the old sheriff. He started up a small group of zebras, ponies, and a griffon and started calling them his Demons. He’s got about thirty in his gang, they’re held-up in an old factory a mile outside town. They have a lot of firepower, and no pony has been able to get rid of them,” she said.

“Former Enclave huh? Is he a Dashite?” I asked.

“From what I remember yes he is. Though I have no idea how he got his hooves on Enclave Power armor,” The Sheriff said.

“Enclave power armor isn’t as strong as Steel Ranger armor, I’ve killed ponies from both factions in the past so he shouldn’t be too hard to take down,” I said.

She started to laugh. “Kid, you’d have to get past his entire gang to even get close to him.”

“So what? From what I can tell you need him, and his crew taken out. That’s what I do. What’s the worst that can happen if I go in there alone?” I asked.

“You could die,” she replied.

“And? I can die just traveling the Wasteland,” I said with a shrug.

She sighed and ran a hoof over her face. “You know what, fine, I don’t much like sending a young thing like you after that maniac, but who knows, maybe one pony can do more than a bunch of hunters. The reward if you kill him is either ten thousand caps or a small home we have available down the road from here near the edge of town. If you can get the rest of his crew to either run or find a way to kill them too, then I’ll give you both.”

I smiled. “So, no dead or alive bs? You really want this pony dead huh?”

A dark look came to her eyes as she said, “That monster kidnapped a few ponies from around here and sold them into slavery. He also killed my daughter, so no. I don’t want him brought in alive, I want him dead and if you are able to do this, make sure he suffers.”

A dark grin came to my face as I nodded. “What’s this buck look like?”

She pulled a wanted poster out and gave it to me. I looked it over and saw it had information about the buck and his crew. Toward the top was a crude drawing of a young pegasus, I couldn’t tell what his colors were, but they were described in the rest of the poster. Silver coat, yellow eyes, mane a mix of black and gold, scar over his muzzle, he had a Dashite Mark and was called Slip Shot. I put the wanted poster into my saddle bags with a smile. “I’ll see you later Sheriff, make sure you have my caps and the rest of the reward ready. I’ll be back tomorrow to collect.”

“Make sure you get me proof that he’s dead,” she said as I walked out of the office.

I made my way toward the gate that led in and out of town, nodded at the guard mare who’d talked with us on our way in and gave her a wink before heading to the location described on the wanted poster. I started to whistle a little tune to myself as I checked my weapons and started to let my magic flow around my horn. “This might be fun.”

***

It didn’t take me long to find the old run-down factory. It was the only building around apart from the town of Armadillo which I could just make out in the distance. I’d taken a little bit of time to use my binoculars to watch the Factory. They had two guards near the door, one was a zebra mare, the other an earth pony stallion. Their armor was utter crap, but their weapons looked well maintained. During the time I’d been watching the place, I’d seen only one other sign of life. A large male griffon in spiked armor had come out of the main doors to the factory to yell at the guards before heading back inside. I wasn’t gonna find much out about what kind of strength they had while sitting around here, so I checked my weapons again then pulled Misery out of its sheath. I took a moment to pull on my magic and teleported. In a second I was standing behind the two guards.

The zebra mare must’ve noticed the flash of my magic because she turned around, ready to yell something as she lifted her hooves. She had spiked horse shoes on her front hooves, and she was already prepared to attack. That was until Misery sliced her throat open spraying blood over my chest as she gagged and fell to the ground. The stallion was way too slow, and Misery took his head before he even had time to notice his partner fall to the ground. I flicked the blood off Misery before looking down at the dying zebra. Her dark eyes looked up into my dead ones as she tried to stop her neck from spraying blood all over the ground. I watched her for a long moment then lifted my hoof, her eyes went wide right before I stomped down on her face. She twitched and flailed, so I stomped again, and again, and again. After the fourth stomp, her body jerked as the bones in her face and part of her skull shattered, and she stopped moving.

“Two down, about twenty or so to go,” I said to myself, checking over their bodies, but not finding anything of note apart from a few caps and some useless junk. I turned toward the door and slowly opened it. There was a unicorn mare on the other side of the door. She looked at me in surprise as I said in a quiet voice, “Why hello there.”

“Who the fuck are you?” she said, using her magic to lift a rifle.

“Who…me?” I asked, pointing at my face, “I’m the reaper pony and I’m here for the harvest of souls.” Before she could do anything else, Misery flew forward and went right through her left eye. She twitched and fell to the ground in a heap. I heard another set of hooves coming from down the dim hallway. Some pony must have heard the mare or something because a moment later two large stallions came running with battle saddles.

I erected a barrier as they opened fire and started walking further into the hallway, letting them waste their ammo. As I walked I started to chuckle, the sound echoing down the hallway. I put Misery away and pulled out Dream Walker. When their bullets stopped I saw shock on their faces when they saw I was still standing, the simmering red magical bubble protecting me and a shit-ton of spent rounds on the floor. I lifted Dream Walker in my magic, took aim and entered S.A.T.S. Time slowed as it normally did, and I targeted their heads. With two shots, I took both down. Then I started slowly walking down the hall again making my way toward a set of double doors on the other end. I heard more ponies scrabbling to find out what was happening at the entrance to the factory.

I pulled on my magic and blasted my expulsion spell at the double doors. They exploded inward and caught a zebra who was just on the other side. He screamed as my power slammed into him. I kept slowly walking into the factory, my hooves going through the pooling blood under the two ponies who I’d killed with Dream Walker. I took a moment to check on my magic, but it was still doing fine. I was still a little shocked at times when I felt the massive amount of power contained in my small body. Over the past month I’d gotten a better hold on my power, though I still didn’t have the control that my uncle did over it. Oh well, unless one of these ponies was a powerful spell caster, which I doubted very much, they wouldn’t be able to do much to me. Okay maybe I’m being a little over confident, I’m not that powerful, I just have a lot of magic to use, and I really didn’t give two fucks about my own safety. Also, I fucking hated slavers.

The zebra I’d hit with my spell was moaning in pain from the other side of the door. I ignored him and checked the area. I couldn’t see anypony else yet, but I could hear them moving upstairs. They knew somepony was here, but either they wanted to wait for me to come up to them or they were getting their gang together to make an all-out assault on what I’m assuming they thought was a few bounty hunters. It was probably the former because they’re idiots.

The zebra moaned again and tried mumbling something. I just pointed Dream Walker at him saying, “Oh shut up.” And blew his brains out.

Right after I did, a voice echoed down to me from an upper catwalk from the other side of the door, “Well look at this, I guess Sheriff Spur was sick of sending professionals so now she’s resorted to sending foals. Tell me kid, did she think I’d go easy on a young piece of ass like you?”

I looked past the door, which led into the assembly lines of whatever this factory used to make, then looked up at a Pegasus in old beaten-up Enclave power armor. I smiled up at him. “Big talk coming from a cloud kisser with old shitty power armor. Where’d you steal that from? I thought most of the Enclave stopped using that model fifty years ago.”

“I see we have a mare who knows a couple things about the Enclave. Tell me sweetheart, what makes you think you can barge into my place, attack my guards, and blow holes through my doors?” He asked.

I shrugged. “I was bored mostly. Heard you had a nice price on your head. Also, I didn’t attack your guards, I killed them…easily. Can you do me a favor and just stay right there? It’ll make killing you a lot easier.” I lifted Dream Walker and switched out the mag for the one I had with AP rounds.

He smiled; his muzzle was visible just under the bug like helmet. “Nice toy you have there, what makes you think you can shoot though my armor with…”

He started to go off on some monologue, but I fired Dream Walker. The bullet slammed into his left shoulder and punched through, then exited the other side. He screamed and fell back. I started to laugh. “It is a nice toy isn’t it.”

“You bitch!” he exclaimed before flapping his wings and flying toward another door at the other end of the catwalk, “Get this tiny bitch! I want her brought to me alive!”

I let him go, I could’ve hit him with S.A.T.S., but Sheriff Spur did say she wanted him to suffer. So, I just turned down another hallway that I heard ponies starting to make their way toward me from and pulled out the plasma rifle and started shooting right as a pony rounded a corner. His head exploded and painted the walls and floor red. Another pony ran in, dodging my first three shots. I brought up my barrier, blocking his bullets before my fourth shot melted his chest. I kept on walking.

“All I want to do is torture your boss and collect his bounty. Is that too much to ask? He can’t be paying you enough to die for him,” I kept on going as a zebra fired around the corner at me. I blocked the shot and blasted the wall next to him with my magic. He yelled as hot debris blasted his face. I approached him as he writhed in agony and caved in his skull with my hind leg before continuing on.

I headed up the stairs and saw two more ponies ready to fire at me, I rolled my eyes and took them both out using S.A.T.S. Their bodies rolled past me as I went up to the second floor, “You have realized by now that there’s no winning this fight, right? I’ve killed almost all your buddies, at least I think I have. I’m sure there’s at least a couple that’ve said, ‘fuck it’ and run off.”

“DIE!” a stallion yelled as he blasted through a side door.

He slammed to the floor a second later with a melted hole in his chest. Three more ponies and two zebras followed as I slowly worked my way down the hallway, looking for where the pegasus had gotten to, “You know this would be a lot easier for both of us if you just give up. Repainting the walls with the blood and entrails of your grunts is fun and all, but I bore easily.”

By now I’d killed nearly twenty-four of the Demon gang. I’d started going room to room, killing anypony who aimed a weapon at me. As I went around the factory, I started seeing signs of what this gang had been up to. There were a few dead bodies in cages. They looked old or sick when they’d died, and their necks had marks from where bomb collars had been. I was already starting to get angry from the sight, then I got to a room that had two filly bodies in it. One was chained to a bed, and she looked like she died only an hour or so prior to my arrival. She had to be about Wingnut’s age. Blood was around her legs and on the bed, dried tears stained her young face, her dead eyes locked onto the door. She had been raped to death. The other was on the floor, her head and been caved in by something and she too showed signs of abuse. My magic flickered as rage filled my body. Slowly I closed the eyes on the one on the bed before going on to the next room. In it I found a stallion shivering on the floor wearing the same clothes as the rest of the gang.

“Please! I don’t wanna die, I’m sorry. I won’t put up a fight, bring me to jail or something, but please don’t kill me!” he begged.

I looked him over and saw a little blood on his lower half. “Where did that blood come from?”

He looked down at his crotch and shivered. “I can explain…”

He didn’t get another word out as I lifted him by his neck with my magic. “You like hurting foals? You think it’s okay to rape them to death!?” I yelled as I pulled him into the other room and made him look at the bodies, “You see that!”

“I…I….” he tried to say but I tightened the hold on his neck.

I slammed his face into the wall, “You,” I slammed his face into the wall again, “Are a sick,” [Slam], “Fucking,” [Slam], “Bastard,” I kept slamming him into the wall as blood started to stain the spot he was hitting. “Did they beg for their lives,” [SLAM], “Did you let them get a chance to leave or live!?” [SLAM], “No, you raped them and killed them. The last thing they saw before they died was your,” [SLAM], “Pitiful,” [SLAM], “Little,” [SLAM], “Cock!” [CRACK]

I released his lifeless body from my magic and his head hit the ground with a particular sound that months ago would make me dry heave, now it’s become music to my ears. It was as if I’d dropped a sealed bag of thick liquid onto the tile kitchen floors of the old world like a clumsy housewife. I pulled his lifeless body into the hall where I saw another pony looking at me from down the way. He had a weapon, but he didn’t have it raised toward me. I showed him the bloody corpse in my magic. “Let me guess, you’re okay with raping foals too.”

The buck shook his head and tried to back away. That was until I blasted the body of the dead stallion into him. The force caused his water balloon-like head to burst and splatter gore upon him like a paint can accidentally kicked over from atop scaffolding. He fell over with a scream of either pain or disgust. It didn’t last long as I emptied my plasma rifle into his body until he melted into a pile of green glowing goo. I pressed on, by now my body was covered in blood and gore from the ponies I’d been killing. A rage filled glint was in my eyes as I headed toward a new set of stairs. It only took me a moment to make it to the small hallway that led to an office. Outside it, stood the large griffon.

“Gotta say, I’m impressed,” the griffon said.

“Contract or member of this fucked up gang?” I asked, not slowing down as I pulled out Misery.

The griffon grinned. “Under Contract, nice sword by the way.”

“You have two choices, let me pass or fuck around and find out what exactly I did to the rest of the assholes who I’ve already killed on the way up here,” I said, readying Misery for a strike.

“Slow you’re roll, let’s have a conversation before you go all psycho killer,” he said, looking past me at the last two I’d just killed, “Well I guess you already started that, but hey I’m just paid to keep the boss here safe from bounty hunters, that’s all he pays me for.”

I stopped, glaring up into his eyes. “What’s the stipulation of your contract?”

His smile never left his beak. “Not often a pony cares much about the contract a griffon holds.”

“I’m not most ponies. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll kill you if I have to, but I don’t want to if you’re just working a job,” I said. I wasn’t lying either, Aura might be a bitch for what she did, but I still respected the life of a griffon. I also knew how griffons fought, magic or no magic I wasn’t sure I could take him.

“Well since you asked me so nicely,” He said, “I was hired three weeks ago. This pegasus was having trouble with bounty hunters and wanted somegrif like myself to be a deterrent against more coming after him.”

“A deterrent? So, he didn’t hire you to guard him or fight off bounty hunters?” I asked a little confused.

He laughed. “All that he stated in the contract was, ‘Deter ponies from getting close to me’. Pegasi aren’t very smart with how things work with griffons. You need to be literal. Oh, he also stated that I couldn’t attack him or try to turn him in for the bounty.”

“So, if I just walk past you without perceiving you as a threat, you’ll just do nothing?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Did my job, as far as I can tell you don’t seem very intimidated by me or deterred.”

“A little intimidated, but that wouldn’t stop me from using my sword to gut you like a fish,” I said with a growing smile.

A moment passed while he looked down at my small frame, covered in gore, a griffon blade almost as large as my body hovering in my magic, and a blood thirsty grin on my face. He lifted a talon, extending one digit, “I have one rule kid, don’t fuck with crazy, and you give off that crazy vibe. Hell, go kill the fucker for all I care, if I would’ve known how fucked up his gang was I would’ve taken him out myself if I wasn’t under contract.”

I lowered Misery. “I kinda like you, when I take this asshole in, do you want a new contract?”

“Depends on what your definition of contract is,” he replied.

“I need someone to help me learn how to fight better. I’ve had a little training from a zebra and a little from a couple griffons. I think I might take this bounty hunting thing on as a possible job opportunity. Just need someone to help me learn and maybe show me the ropes. I know griffons are good bounty hunters so might as well learn from the best,” I explained.

His beak pulled back into another smile. “Beats working for this guy, my rates run at 1500 caps a week. If you can keep the caps flowing then I’ll take your contract. Well, that and you’ll need to take care of my current contractor.”

“Get it written up, this won’t take long,” I said as I pushed by him.

He chuckled and leaned against the wall watching me pass him, “The name’s Gaston, but you can call me Gast, what’s do they call you?”

“I’ll tell you my name if you write up in your contract that you won’t tell anyone who I am,” I said as I went toward the double-doors that led to an office.

“Sure-thing boss,” he said with another chuckle and the click of a pen.

I tried to open the doors, but they were locked. I could’ve just picked the lock, it would be easy on an old shitty door like this, but where’s the fun in that? I pulled on my magic again and blasted the door apart. I was in luck, the moron was out of his power armor trying to use a weak, and nearly magically depleted healing potion to fix the wound I’d given him before. He dropped the bottle when the doors were blown into splinters.

For a long moment I stood there, looking into his eyes as the sound of thick, sticky, blood dripping from my mane filled the silence. He finally broke the calm by yelling, “Gaston! Why the fuck did you let her pass!”

The large griffon just chuckled from a few meters away. “Didn’t pay me to protect you, just to scare ponies away. She doesn’t look very scared of me, so I did my best. Good luck, she’s a crazy little psycho. If you manage to kill her though, balls to you sir, but I don’t see that happening considering what I’ve witnessed.”

I took a couple of steps into the office. “So, tell me, why did you decide to call your little gang The Demons?” I asked as I made my way toward the coward. “Is it because you think that ponies down here fear you because you’re from The Enclave? Is it because your gang strikes fear into the ponies of Armadillo?” I kept walking slowly lifting Misery. “Maybe you think that if you go around calling yourself a demon, ponies will just cower and give you their shit. Maybe you just know that you and the ponies you took on as your gang were a bunch of rapist fuckwits that feel that it’s okay to kill foals and do to them as they want?” I slashed out and Misery sliced his desk in two.

He took a few steps back, winching as he put pressure on his wounded shoulder. “Those fools know to fear me, with my power armor and my training no pony down here can challenge me, at least not all the way down here.” he started to smile, “No Steel Rangers, no Dashites, no so-called heroes trying to save ponies. My gang is strong, and we take what we want.”

I flicked my mane sending the bloody remains of his gang onto his face. “You mean the gang I killed so effortlessly? You know, I’m just a young mare and I killed all of them, every single pony and zebra you had working for you. I think you should’ve thought over your life choices a little better.”

“You’re some kind of freak…” he started to say.

My horn flashed and his muzzle was forced closed. “No, I’m talking now,” I said before continuing, “So you call yourselves Demons, but I’ve seen real demons. I know the fear a real demon can inflict on ponies. I guess if you want to call yourselves demons, then that’s your choice. It’s stupid, but if you think it makes you seem scary and tough, then fine. Though I do have a question for you, it’s a very simple one.”

I let the spell keeping him quiet go and he growled in anger as he said, “What’s that…you little skank?”

“Tell me…do you so-called Demons…bleed?” I asked and as a confused look came over his face. Misery slashed out, removing one of his legs. He screamed and blood sprayed from his removed limb. I ignored it and lifted him with my magic, “Well look at that, I guess you do bleed, and you feel pain too. Perfect, this will make things so much more fun.”

He whimpered in my magical hold, before I thew him against a wall then stabbed Misery through his other foreleg. He screamed in pain again, ignoring it I pulled Dream Walker and shot him in his left hindleg. The bullet left such a big hole in his leg that it was mostly just holding on by a few scraps of skin. He wasn’t screaming anymore; his eyes were rolling back, and his body was shaking.

“Huh, you know sometimes I forget how much damage a bullet from this gun can do at close range. Oh well, got nothing with less power at the moment,” I said even though I was sure he couldn’t hear me through the torturous pain he had to be feeling, “Well, Sheriff Spur did say that she wanted you to suffer before I killed you. You look like you’re suffering to me, maybe not quite enough though.”

I pulled Misery out of his shoulder letting his body fall to the ground. He let out a small pathetic squawk of pain and his leg fully came free of his body. Blood was everywhere and I could tell he’d be dead in a minute or less. I flipped Misery around, moved closer to him and said close to his ear, “Now you know what a real demon is, think about that in your next life Dashite scum. Misery came down and stabbed right through his buck-hood. He started to shake and if he could scream, I’m sure he would have. I twisted the large blade and looked into his eyes as the light started to fade from them. I wanted the last thing he saw before he left this world to be my red eyes. Right before he took his last breath, and the light left his eyes, I pulled Misery out of his crotch then brought it down and sliced his body open from cock to kisser. His internal organs dumped on the ground with a sickening splatter and a fresh spray of blood covered me before I took a step back. I lifted the dead pony’s head in my magic, lobbed it off with a swipe, and sheathed Misery and started to head out of the office. I stopped after a moment then went back into the office and looted it for anything I could find.

It only took me a few minutes, but I managed to find myself 2452 Caps, a few bullets, healing potions that weren’t worth taking, and a few pre-war bits. Once I was done, I walked back to Gaston, and asked, “Got that contract finished up?”

He didn’t smile when he looked at me this time. The Griffon who was probably three times my size shook a little before he nodded and gave me a scroll. I took it and used my magic to open it and read it over. It was well detailed, much like Aura’s had been. I saw that he added in the parts about keeping my identity to himself unless I told him otherwise and the rest of what I’d asked of him. He had rules I had to honor, like he wouldn’t attack kids, he wouldn’t hurt an innocent, he wouldn’t kidnap anyone, and stuff along those lines. I took a pen he had in his talon with my magic and signed it.

Once I was done, he rolled it up then took out a copy and gave it to me. I tucked it into my saddle bags and said, “I’m Shadow Star, used to be known as The Courier in New Pegasus. That’s all you need to know for now, if we’re in public just call me boss or something. I have ponies looking for me and I don’t want them finding me. Also, when we get back to my friend and family, be nice to them, they have enough to deal with when it comes to me.”

“Sure thing,” he said.

“Come on, let’s go get those two foal bodies and bring them back to town. Hopefully they can give them a proper burial,” I said as I pushed by him. I felt empty as I walked past the dead bodies of the ponies I’d killed. When I’d heard about this bounty, I honestly didn’t really care about helping the town. I just wanted to kill somepony, I needed to vent my anger before it exploded on someone I cared about. I was hoping that killing these sad excuses for ponies would make me feel…something, but I still felt empty. Mostly empty I guess; the rage and pain were still close at hoof.

Gaston was the one who picked up the two dead fillies and he was the one who gently caried them out of that old factory. He bore them on his back as we made our way back to Armadillo. He didn’t say anything the entire way back to the gate into town. The guard who’d been on duty before was still there, but her face wasn’t full of cheer and humor like before. She saw the head of the pegasus and just stepped aside.

As I passed her, I asked, “What’s your name by the way?”

She gulped, “I’m…Sherbet.”

“I just want you to know that the folks around here won’t have to worry about The Demons anymore. Also, if you know of anypony in town who lost two fillies to them,” I paused and for the first time in a while I let a little of the anger and sadness show, “Tell them we brought them home…they didn’t make it, but I couldn’t leave them in that place. If they don’t have family make sure somepony gives them a proper burial…please,” I then looked back and Gaston, “Leave them with Sherbet please.”

“Yes Boss,” Gaston said.

When he was done, my new Griffon companion and I headed off to see the sheriff. The townsfolk were silent as they watched me walking down the dusty road, the head of the Demon leader hovering in my magic. As I walked, rain had started to fall. I hadn’t known then how rare it was for rain to fall in The Badlands, but that night it down poured, washing most of the grime from my main and tail. As I passed by the lights of the shops and homes of Armadillo, my silvery mane and red eyes seemed to glow. That was the night that the citizens of Armadillo gave me my new name…Silver…Demon.

Two Months after Leaving New Pegasus…

I groaned as my body started to finally wake, my head was pounding, most likely from a hangover. It took me a little while to get my eyes to cooperate and open for me. I winched at the light coming in through my small bedroom window. When I’d turned in the head of the Demon Leader to Sheriff Spur, she’d kept her word and paid me the 10,000 Caps and gave me the small house on the edge of town. The conversation later that night with Vervain, Oricalcos, and Solstice wasn’t fun. They were pissed when they found out I’d gone out on my own and taken on a gang. Though they got over their anger quickly after they met Gaston, and he explained some things to them. I also think the small house we’d gotten helped too. It had three bedrooms in it, a small kitchenette, and an okay-sized living room. Solstice had her own room; I had my own, and to my shock at the time Uncle Ori and Vervain shared the larger one. I’d been so stuck in my own head during the time we’d been traveling that I hadn’t even picked up on the fact that my uncle was in a relationship with my old caretaker. I didn’t really mind though, my life might suck, but they seemed to make each other happy, and they both deserved that.

Oricalcos was doing much better now that we’d found a place to stay for a while. He was nearly back to his old self, well, his old self before he was a shadow creature. He’d been taking time to teach me more about magic and even though I wasn’t the best at getting to his lessons when he wanted me to. Though I did try my best, I didn’t want them to keep worrying about me all the time. So, I put on a mask, making it look like I was getting better. Vervain had taken the job at Drifter’s Inn, Solstice was helping the guards in town, and Oricalcos mostly just looked into rumors for me about M.A.S.E.B.S. towers in the area. He was a master at digging up information on things and I hoped he could find the tower I needed. Tower 2 for Falling Shadows from what I’d seen in Minuette’s memory looked a lot like a M.A.S.E.B.S. tower, but it was shorter and had a grey color, not white like the rest. So, Ori was trying to find information from traders that came through Armadillo.

Gaston mostly slept on the couch in the living area. Over the past month he’d been working with me, he’d taught me a lot about fighting and how to be a proper bounty hunter. That was the roll I’d taken up in Armadillo. The town wasn’t large in comparison to others I’d been in, but it was a main trading hub for the area and bounties were brought in all the time. I found I really liked the work. Most of them weren’t too hard to complete and they had to be taken in alive. I hadn’t had a hard case since The Demons had been taken down, but I’d found I liked the work.

The bad part about staying here was that my relationship with Vervain had suffered. I knew I was having problems; I was drinking more often than not, I was grumpy most of the time, snapped at ponies a lot, and I wasn’t really taking care of myself. On top of that I was spending most of my free time either at the bar at the Drifters Inn or in the company of one of the ponies or zebras at the local brothel called Tails Up. She wanted to help me, I knew that and deep down I wanted her to help me get over Aura, over New Pegasus, but it was easier to drown myself in drink or sex, most of the time both.

I groaned again, looking over at the mare who was still sleeping in my bed. Sherbert was passed out still, the blankets of the bed covering part of her body and hiding a little of the activities from last night. It couldn’t however hide the stench of sweat, stale booze, and sex. I wrinkled my nose and shook her. “Wake the fuck up, you stink, and I’m hungover. Bad combo.”

She mumbled something and rolled over. I rolled my tired eyes and used my magic to push her off the bed. She jerked awake looking over at me with blurry eyes. “The fuck you do that for Demon?”

“You smell like week old unwashed taint, go wash up and go home. Actually, scratch that, go home and wash up there, you have work in a few hours, and I have to check to see if there’s a new bounty for me,” I said, rolling out of bed.

“Fuck you, I don’t smell as bad as you,” she said, getting to her hooves.

I turned on her, using my magic to pull on her mane, tilting her head back hard. “What was that?”

She smiled and moaned a little. “I said you stink to Silver Demon.”

I brought my muzzle close to hers, my red eyes digging into hers. “At least I don’t smell like a cheap whore who washed up in this shitty town.”

“I’m only a whore when it comes to you,” she purred.

I pulled back on her mane more, then kissed her for a long moment before throwing her back to the ground and heading toward the wardrobe. “Don’t you forget it Sherbet, now get out of my sight. If you stink this bad when I see you next, I won’t let you back into my bed for a week.”

She used her magic to slap my ass, before saying, “Yes Demon.”

“You have two seconds to get the fuck out of my house,” I growled.

She ran off, still giggling. I ignored her and her stupid kinks. She was fun now and then, but I’ve had better at Tails Up. I took out my barding from the wardrobe then headed toward the bathroom to wash up. After I was done I came out to find my uncle waiting for me. “Shadow we need to talk.”

“No, you need to talk, I need to get some work done,” I said as I pushed passed him to head out of my room.

He sighed, then wrapped his magic around me, lifting me off the floor. “You’re not going to go running off until we have a conversation.”

I could use my own magic to overpower his, but Uncle Ori wasn’t weak, and I didn’t feel like tiring myself out before I left for the day. So, I looked back at him while I hung in the air. “Fine but make it quick. I promised Gaston I’d meet him at The Sheriff’s Office.”

He levitated me over to the bed and sat me down on it, then shut the door. “It’s been two months since we left New Pegasus, we haven’t heard from anypony from back home and you still haven’t said anything of what happened between you and Aura. Vervain and I both know something happened, but every time we try to bring it up, you clam up or you walk out. You’re drinking and sleeping around with just about any pony you can. This isn’t you and we’re worried about you.”

“I talk to Solstice,” I said.

“I know, but from what we can tell, she’s not doing much to help you. Why not sit down with Vervain or me and unload a little. You know we care about you,” he said, coming over to sit on the bed next to me.

“It’s not as easy to talk to you or Vervain. Solstice is at least close to my age and she’s one of my best friends. She listens and just lets me get things off my chest. Vervain and you are, well older and don’t get it,” I said.

He sighed and put a hoof on my head. “Shadow, I grew up in a nasty house. I had to grow up fast and look after your mother to make sure she survived that place. I was Pride for many years, and I was practically owned by a dark monster. I’ve seen some shit; I’ve been through a lot of shit too. If anypony can understand what you’re growing through, it’s me. Even if I can’t fully understand it then at the very least I can try to help. If you keep going down this path you’re going to get yourself killed.”

I looked over at him. “Yeah, I know.”

“Do you? Do you really know what you’re doing to yourself? Or is that just what you want? Do you think that if you kill yourself, you’ll somehow take Aquila down with you?” he asked, “Because if that’s what you think I can tell you that it won’t work.”

I glared at him. “And how do you know? I mean, no I don’t want to die, I’m not going out there looking to die, but how do you know that if I do die it won’t take that bitch out with me?”

“If anyone understood your mother’s brand of magic, it was me. I was there the entire time she was developing her magic and the spell she used was one she’d shown me before. She created it many years ago as a way to bind the life of two ponies together,” he replied.

“Yeah and if I die then she’ll die too,” I retorted.

“No, the original reason your mother made that spell was to save your life or mine if something bad happened. For me it was if she ever found a way to fix what I’d done to myself and getting my old body back nearly killed me, which happened as you may remember. Honestly if it wasn’t for Dr. Stormy I would’ve died. The spell however was originally made for you as a last resort if you were on death’s doorstep. She wanted to tie your life to hers or somepony else’s that she knew could help keep you alive,” he said, rubbing a hoof through his black mane, I noticed as he talked that a bit of grey had started to show, “The drawback to the spell was that if either pony hurt each other or had somepony do it for them, the spell would make sure both ponies suffered the same way. But if one pony died due to natural causes or forces that had nothing to do with the other, then nothing would happen.”

“If that’s true then how was I able to fight Aquila in New Pegasus?” I asked.

He shrugged. “She must’ve been able to modify the spell, but I can tell just by looking at you that the other part of it is still there.”

“I wish I could do something to remove it, then maybe I could kill the bitch,” I said.

“You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to think that Aquila shouldn’t die,” he said.

“Oh, so you’re on her side now?” I asked.

“I’m not saying that,” he said, letting out a long breath, “I learned a lot from Grim about Star Gazer and even more from you and by looking at the notes on that Mark II when you let me look them over. I think that you might need Aquila’s power to fully stop my old master. I know you hate Aquila for what she’s done, but you have to remember that it isn’t all her fault. You told me yourself that in the memories you saw from her, she wasn’t always like this. If she’s suffered for so long with first the war and later the creation of The Wasteland, it’s no wonder she’s lost her mind so much.”

“I know deep down that she isn’t all bad, but at the same time, I can’t see myself ever working with her. I’d rather stop this stupid project before it can do anything over working with Aquila,” I said.

“I never said you had to work with her,” Oricalcos said and as I looked over at him in confusion he continued, “You need her power, not her. Maybe what you really need to do is find a way to take back her magic and let her soul stay in her body. With little to no magic, she’s nothing.”

I took a moment to think about that then sighed. “I’m not sure that’s possible, but I’ll think it over. Speaking of Falling Shadows, any luck finding anything out on Tower 2?”

He knew by my change of topic that I wasn’t going to keep talking about Aquila, so he just sighed again and said, “Not much, but from the description you gave me from that memory of Minuette’s, I think we’re in the right area. I’m going to check out a lead I got from a trader about rumors he heard about an odd looking M.A.S.E.B.S. tower southeast of here. I’ll let you know if I find something.”

“Good,” I said, getting back to my hooves, “How long are you going to be gone?”

“No longer than two days I think,” he replied.

“Who are you taking with you?” I asked.

“Star, I may not be the overpowered shadow-pony I used to be, but I’m still a powerful unicorn. I’ll be fine,” he said getting up, “And, I know you’re having a hard time, but you need to talk to Vervain. She practically raised you and she sees you like her daughter. Don’t keep pushing her away.”

I looked down at the floor. “We’ll see.”

He lifted my chin. “I mean it, she loves you dearly. She deserves a little more respect than you’re showing her. She took you in when Grim left, she cared for you, raised you, and taught you to be a good pony. Give her the respect she earned.”

“Fine,” I said, pulling my face away from his hoof and heading for my door. Before I left I looked back at him. “I know you two are trying to keep it from me because you’re worried about me and all, but I know you two are together…I’m happy for you two…I really mean that,” with that said I left.

***

“There she is!” I heard the booming voice of Gaston say as I walked into the Sheriff’s office. “You do know it’s almost noon right Boss?”

“Fuck off Gaston,” I said with a smile before walking up to him and bumping my hoof to his talon, “I’m guessing you were up early again making trouble for the female griffons in town?”

“What can I say? When you’re this handsome you’ve got to show off a little,” he said this he flexed a powerful foreleg. He was kind of a meathead, but for a griffon with fire red feathers and lighter red fur he wasn’t bad looking. A few of the female griffons seemed to agree because he’d taken advantage of his good looks more than once already in Armadillo.

I just rolled my eyes looking over at Sheriff Spur. “Any new bounties for us Sheriff?”

“Nothing that’s come in. Only been hearing a few rumors. I think your new reputation has been scaring some of the local shitheads to seek their fortune in other areas,” she said as she leaned back in her chair with a book held in her magic.

“Really? I’ve only been here for a month or so, how could I have drove away so much crime that quickly?” I asked.

“You’ve collected twenty-three bounties in less than a month kid. That’s a lot in any settlement, even here in The Badlands. Sure, we still have a few stupid criminals here and there, but nothing too big. My two deputies and I can take care of them easily,” she said, glancing over at me.

“What about those slavers you were talking about last night Sheriff?” Gaston asked.

She just shrugged. “Slavery isn’t allowed in Armadillo, but we also haven’t seen this so-called group of Slavers near our territory. Last we heard they’re operating to the east about fifty kilometers. That’s pretty far from here and as long as they stay away, then I got no need to be sending bounty hunters to take them down.”

I looked over to Gaston. “What do you know about them?”

“Not too much boss, one of the local traders who comes through said he ran into them a week or so back when he was heading here from Deep Trench. They didn’t give him much trouble and even bought a couple of things from him. He said for slavers they weren’t too bad when it came to manners. The part that disturbed him was the fact that they mostly just had young ponies, zebras, and a young zony. They even offered to sell him a slave for trade, but he refused,” Gaston said.

“I really hate slavers, there has to be somepony who’s put a bounty on them,” I said.

“We haven’t, but I can’t say the same for other towns, you could go to Deep Trench and see if they have had any problems with them, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Spur said as she continued to read her book.

“What if I go check them out? Maybe put a stop to their slave trade?” I asked.

Spur just shrugged. “As long as it’s not in Armadillo then I don’t give two shits what you do Demon. Though if I were you I’d be careful, you don’t know which settlements might deal with this team of slavers. Take them out and you might just piss off the wrong town and they might put a bounty on your head. We may not like slavery here, but there are plenty of towns in The Badlands who buy and sell slaves all the time.”

I just shook my head. “Slavery is wrong and should be stopped whenever it can be.”

“I do agree, but if we go after them and there’s no bounty then how are we going to make any caps?” Gaston asked.

I grinned. “I’m sure ponies like them would have a lot of caps on hoof. I’d say if we go after them and stop them, then they wouldn’t be needing those caps anymore.”

Gaston laughed. “This is why I like you boss.”

“Demon, if you bring trouble back to my town I will make sure you pay for it, ya hear me?” Spur said, glaring over at me.

“Don’t worry Sheriff, I’ll make sure no pony knows I came from Armadillo,” I said as I started heading to the door, “Oh and Sheriff, make sure you have something for me to hunt down when I get back. I’m getting bored sitting around this town.”

Spur started to laugh as I headed out her door. “If what you do in your free time is boring, I’d hate to see what you think a good time is kid. Be safe out there.”

When we were outside I started heading to the small guard house near the gate. As we walked Gaston asked, “So do you have a plan this time or are we just going to go in there and start shooting up the camp?”

“Nah, this isn’t like hunting down some pony who ran off with someone’s shit or murdered a local. Hell, this isn’t even like taking on The Demons. Gangs and desperate ponies or zebras aren’t that hard and gangs that are unorganized like the Demons are easy caps. A group that sells other ponies won’t be push overs I’m sure. You need a lot of guards to keep slaves, you need discipline, you need order. This won’t be easy, and we’ll need to scout the place and see what they have for protection. They might use slave collars to control their slaves which is good and bad for us. Good because they wouldn’t need as many guards, bad because we’ll have to secure the remote or key for the collars so they can’t just kill the salves,” I said.

“So…how are we going to get this information?” he asked.

“Easy, we bring another pony with us and pretend like we’re interested in buying a slave or more for ourselves. We put on a good fake back story, flash around a few caps, maybe even buy a couple of slaves so we can free them later,” I said.

“Ah, then we might be able to get inside and see what they have for defenses,” he said.

“You got it. I’m going to start by sending you ahead with a letter I’ll write up in a few moments here. It will have a bunch of shit about how I’m a land owner in some town far enough away from the slavers and looking for more workers. You’ll deliver it to this camp of Slavers and get me an audience with their leader. We’ll go from there,” I said.

“Not a bad start to a plan, if this camp is organized enough,” he said, “So who will you take with you?”

I got to the guard shack then smiling as I said, “One of the only ponies I truly trust.” I knocked and a moment later Solstice answered the door, when she did I said in as cheery of a voice as I could, “Hey Solstice, wanna go hunt down some Slavers with Gaston and me?”

Gaston and Solstice looked at each other and both sighed as Solstice said, “This job better pay well if I have to work with that bird brain.”

Gaston smiled at that. “Ah Solstice are you still mad about what happened two weeks ago? I told you it was an accident.”

“Yeah sure it was, just like the time before that and the time before that. Every time I go on a job with you two, I end up covered in something nasty. So, if I’m going I get half of whatever the bounty is, you two can split up the other half,” she said.

I shrugged. “Fine with me though there is no bounty on this, only loot. I heard about them from Gaston who heard about it from a trader. I’m doing this because I hate slavers.”

“No, you’re doing this Because your bored and you wanna kill somepony,” she said before sighing again, “But whatever, can I bring my Power Armor at least?”

“Not a good idea, we need to act like we’re rich land owners from some town far from their camp. I want to get as much information on them as I can,” I said.

“We? What kind of story are you going to feed to these slavers?” she asked as she left the hut to follow me back toward our house.

I smiled again. “Hey this won’t be the first time we had to act like we were lovers.”

“Wait a moment,” Gaston said looking between the two of us, “You two pretended to be lovers at one point?”

“It was to keep the Enclave guards from arresting us!” Solstice said, “I told you already Shadow that I don’t swing that way.”

“And I’m not saying you do, but I need somepony I can trust. I trust you so I need you to be my mare friend or at least a business partner. We’ll figure it out when we get there,” I said.

“Fine, but you are going to owe me big time for this,” she said gritting her teeth.

“Okay, just name your price after we’re done,” I said then went into our house so I could write the letter and get ready for the mission.

It took me only a few minutes to get the letter written and to have Gaston heading off east with my message. He’d helped me figure out a town to the south west that would work perfectly as a cover. Once he was done Solstice grabbed a couple of smaller weapons and I found myself having to do the same. I normally only carried around three weapons, Misery, Dream Walker, and mom’s Plasma Rifle. I had a few other weapons as well, but they didn’t get used much. For this I was going to have to leave most of them behind. My magical saddle bags could hold a lot, but I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. So even though it hurt to do, I ended up leaving Misery and Mom’s plasma rifle with Oricalcos. He wasn’t happy that I was going to be heading out for a few days, but since Solstice was going with me, he gave in. After that I only needed one more thing, to go see Madam at Tails Up for an outfit that could be used to make me look richer than I really was. I had made a lot of caps by hunting down ponies for Armadillo, but I wasn’t even close to being rich.

“You know I always feel weird going into Tails Up,” Solstice said as we headed to the three-story tall building. The building used to be an old hotel with a western theme to it. The old name of the hotel was lost to time, but the owner of the hotel-turned-brothel had gotten a couple of ponies to make a beautiful sign that showed the back end of a mare with its tail held up high…well you couldn’t tell if it was mare or a stallion, the picture didn’t have THAT much detail to it, but Madam said it was a mare. Under the picture on the sign was the words ‘Tails Up’ written in bright welcoming colors. I had been skeptical when I first came here too, but now I loved the place. The bar was almost better than Drifters Inn, the company was always pleasant even if you weren’t there to pay for their other services, oh yeah and every pony, zebra, and griffon there was scared of me. No pony at Tails Up ever gave me any shit. I was The Silver Demon to them, and they knew what I could do. Well apart from Madam, that mare could probably kick a hellhound out of her establishment.

“I know, but Madam is always nice to you, and she doesn’t always try to get you to buy one of her mares or stallions for a night of fun,” I teased.

“No, she just hints at it every time I go in there,” Solstice said with a huff.

I just chuckled and pushed the main door open. The noise in the main room died within seconds of me walking in. Tails Up always had a lot of customers. Most of them were ponies or zebras who used Armadillo as a place to rest up as they traveled back and forth through this area of The Badlands, the rest were locals. But just about every pony here knew me and I was starting to get used to this reaction. So, I gave a friendly smile and said, “Not here for business, just getting a drink.”

That was all it took, the folks in the room went back to whatever they were doing. A moment later a mare in her later middle years came trotting toward me. Her main as always was done up in a tight bob that looked elegant and strict at the same time. Her mane was black with silvery grey streaks in it, her coat was a rich apple red, and she had beautiful purple blue eyes. She was one of the few earth ponies in Armadillo. Armadillo had mostly Unicorns, followed closely by zebras, then griffons, then earth ponies. Pegasi were the only race you didn’t see around here much. Solstice was one of three in the whole town. Madam Amour, or Madam as she preferred to be called also loved to dress up in expensive looking outfits, and she loved dressing up other mares and stallions when she could get away with it.

She smiled when she came over to me and gave me a little head bow. “Ah, if it isn’t my favorite customer, what brings you in so early Silver Demon?” She winked at me and said in a quieter voice, “Zixas has been bothering me nonstop after your last visit, if I didn’t know any better, I would think that you have stolen the heart of one of my best Zebra’s. I warn you now Demon, he’ll cost you a lot if you want to take him away from me.”

“Zixas is a kind soul for a zebra, but he’s also young and his heart doesn’t know what it wants yet,” I said thinking of the cute young zebra who has captured my attention the last three times I’d come here, “Anyway I’m not here for anything like that, I needed to know if you had anything I could borrow to make myself look like a rich landowner, same for Solstice.”

She looked us both up and down. “Should have something that may work, but alas, I do not know how dressing up will impress anyone from Armadillo.”

“I need it for a job,” I said, “Slavers to the east I want to check out and maybe put a stop too. I need to check the place out first and the best way in is to make it seem like I’m interested in buying a slave from them.”

She got an upset look to her face. “Bah, slavers are nothing but disgusting creatures, praying on weaker ponies or any creature they can get their dirty hooves on.”

Solstice rolled her eyes. “This coming from a mare who is nearly a slaver herself.”

The look Madam gave Solstice could have melted stone. “Solstice, I know you do not like the way I run my business, but none of my employees are slaves. They are contracted and paid for their work.”

“Yeah, a contract they have to buy themselves out of if they want to leave. Close enough to slavery for me,” she said.

Madam looked ready to start fighting with Solstice, so I stepped in. “Hey, no need for this right now. You two can hash it out later, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Madam stuck her nose up in the air. “Fine, but I still do not like her attitude toward what I do here.”

I gave Solstice a look and she sighed. “Fine, I’m sorry.”

Madam sniffed in displeasure. “I’m sure you are. Well follow me you two, let’s get you both something you can use.”

As she started to lead us toward one of her back rooms I heard Solstice mutter, “Stuck up old hag.”

I chuckled and just kept following Madam. It took her only half an hour to find us both something nice to wear that could make the two of us look like more respectable ponies. I was just going to borrow them, but thanks to Solstice pissing Madam off, she charged me fifteen hundred caps. That hurt a little, but in the long run, it shouldn’t matter, if the slavers did have caps I could steal once I took them all down, it would more than cover the cost. After we were done, I said my good byes to Madam and the two of us were on our way toward the gate out of town.

“So, are we flying there or walking?” Solstice asked as she checked over a couple things on her weapons.

“I’d prefer if we flew for a little bit to save some time,” I said as we passed the gate and started heading for the road that would take us east.

“I guess I could carry you for a while, but if you want us to look the part, I can’t get there and be sweaty and tired,” Solstice said as she put the last of her weapons away.

“I figured as much and that’s fine, you can fly us until we are a couple miles out, then we can rest for the night and get a fresh start in the morning,” I said.

“I guess I can live with that,” she replied as we continued on. Before I could ask her when we would take to the air she asks, “Shadow, how long are we going to stay away from home?”

I looked over at her. “This shouldn’t take us more than a few days. Why do you ask?”

She sighed. “You know what I mean Shadow.”

I glared at her. “Don’t call me that.”

She glared right back. “First of all, no ponies around, second, no pony knows who you are even if they hear me call you Shadow. The only reason you don’t want anypony here to know who we are is because you’re afraid that somehow Aura will find you.”

“I’m not scared of Aura; she can piss off for all I care. I just don’t want the ponies who want me dead finding me,” I said walking faster.

She had no problem keeping up with me. “Shadow, you can act like you don’t care about her anymore, but I know that’s a lie. I hear you on those rare nights when you don’t have somepony in your bed. Every night you call out to her in your sleep, you beg her to forgive you for goddesses know what and you want her to take you back. You love her Shadow, and she loves you. I know you told me what you overheard and yeah, I know how it sounded but I think you missed something.”

I had to work hard not to let the emotions I was feeling right then show. It was bad enough that I knew she was right. I had been dreaming about Aura a lot, I had been begging her to take me back. I also knew that deep down, no matter what, I still loved her, and I probably always would, but I knew she didn’t love me as much as she said she did. So, I replied, “I heard what I needed to, yeah, I still have feelings for Aura, but that will go away in time. Now drop it.”

She put a hoof on my shoulder and turned me around. “Shadow, all your doing is running away from your problems…again. If you keep this up you’re no better than your mom. You know the mare who left your father, left you in a stable for eight years and lied to the world and herself that she was fine. If you keep this up, you’re going to end up just like her, alone and dead at a young age.”

I pulled back and whipped Dream Walker out of its holster pointing it right at Solstices face. “Shut the fuck up about my mom, she did all of that to save me and Equus. She DIED protecting me, I’m not running away, I’m protecting the ones I LOVE from the same FATE. I know I’m going to die young; I probably won’t make it to my next birthday. If I didn’t need a little help with this part of taking down Falling Shadows I wouldn’t even have you, Vervain or Uncle Ori with me.”

She walked right up to me and let Dream Walker press right into her chest. Looking down at me she said, “You can keep hiding behind that anger if you want, you can keep pretending that you’re fated to die, you can even try and lie to yourself that you know what you’re doing. The sad truth is Shadow, you have no real plan, you’re just playing Bounty Hunter when you’re not drunk or sleeping around with anything you can. You’re only doing this because you’re drowning the pain in whatever you can that helps you forget about what happened in New Pegasus. Vervain, Oricalcos and I all know that the real reason you’re out here isn’t to find Tower 2, it’s so you can pretend that everything is okay. Though I could be wrong, maybe you are the Silver Demon you keep trying to get everypony to think you are. You want to be a heartless bounty hunter? You want to act like you don’t really need help? Fine then pull that trigger and prove me wrong.”

I felt my magic shaking as I looked up at her. Her dark sapphire blue eyes boring down into my red ones. I almost pulled the trigger, I almost shot the one friend I really had, only so I could prove more to myself than to her, that I didn’t care and that I was this new pony. Instead, I let Dream Walker fall and I slowly holstered it and said quietly, “I just wish life could go back to the way it was before I found anything about Falling Shadows, I wish I could go back to that time in The Kingdom when for once, things were good.”

She pulled me into a tight hug and said, “Life isn’t fair, and we can’t go back in time no matter how much we want to.”

“We’re here to find the Tower, once we do and it’s unlocked…maybe then we can talk about what happened. I just need time…I need to be Silver Demon for a while longer…I can’t let Shadow back in…not yet,” I said as the emotions finally got the better of me.

Solstice hugged me tighter, in the middle of the dusty road just outside Armadillo, under the light of the setting sun. “I know, but you also need to start fixing yourself too, if not, you’re going to become something you hate. I don’t want to see you do that to yourself. When we get back, you need to talk with Vervain…she might be able to help you find your way back to finding the real Shadow Star.”

I nodded my head and for the first time in two months, I let the tears fall and for that short time I cried for the life I lost. I cried for mom, for dad, for Wingnut and Byte, I cried for Stardust and Wind Thrasher but most of all, I cried because I missed Aura…

***

In the end it ended up taking us two days to finally reach our destination. We got close to the camp in a day yeah but resting up then getting things set up for our meeting with the leader of this group took another day. Gaston found us a mile or so away from the encampment with a reply from the leader. She was happy to meet with us and show us around her place while we discussed getting a couple of slaves. The meeting was set up and now Solstice and I, with Gaston following in the rear were approaching a massive encampment.

As we drew closer to the camp, it almost brought back memories of when I first found the Raider Encampment outside of Cartwheel. I mean, this camp was a lot cleaner, but still, there were makeshift buildings that went at least three stories tall, scaffolding around the buildings, ponies with weapons in magical fields or on battle saddles on their sides. Unlike the raiders, these ponies had low grade combat armor, and their weapons weren’t half bad. I had to take a moment to rethink my assessment of their armor and weapons though. I had been extremely lucky with my own armor and weapons ever since I entered the Wasteland. Their arms and armor might look low grade compared to my own, but to most Wastelanders, this was expensive stuff.

“You ready for this?” Solstice asked.

I nodded and made my way toward the two guards who blocked the makeshift gate. The encampment was surrounded by a large wall made from scrap metal topped with razor wire. As I approached a thick muscled mare said to me, “What brings you to Cottonville?”

‘Cottonville?’ I thought to myself but ignoring the ridiculous name I answered, “I’m Silver and this is my partner Lights Fall and my guard Gaston, I was invited to meet with somepony named Vanguard.”

“Ah so you’re the rich pony from the west looking for a couple of servants then. Yes, she said you’d be arriving soon. Give me a moment to have one of the slaves fetch her,” The massive mare said turning toward a thin looking colt who had a collar with a blinking red light on it, “Go tell Miss Vanguard her guests have arrived, do it quickly or you’ll regret it!”

The colt took off in a panic, leaving behind whatever work he had been doing laying on the ground just past the gate. I watched the poor colt go and felt a surge of anger. I had to tell myself that I couldn’t do anything for him…not yet at least. The old Shadow would have spoken up, she would have probably attacked this place without caring about a plan or anything. I wasn’t her anymore, I was here for one purpose and if I wanted to do anything to help, I had to stay quiet and act like I didn’t care one bit about the ponies here.

“You have to make sure you put the fear of the Goddesses into them, or they’ll take any advantage they can over you. Remember that Ms. Silver,” The Mare said.

“I know how to keep ponies in line, trust me on that,” I said coldly.

“Oh, a little mare like you knows how to keep bigger stronger ponies in line do you? I’d love to see that. Listen little rich mare, you can tell yourself that your tough, but you need the muscle to back it up. If you get a strong slave, they’ll do anything to free themselves or take you down if they know they’re going to die. I hope you have some ponies in your lands who can keep them in line, because I know just by looking at you that they won’t respect a tiny thing like you,” she said with obvious dislike.

I looked the larger mare in the eye with a dead stare letting her see the deep rage settled inside my red eyes. I held that look for a long moment before I slowly smiled. “Don’t worry about me, and trust me when I say that you’re not the first nor the last to underestimate me.”

For a moment she kept her eyes locked with mine until I saw it. It was only a moment, but I saw her eyes shift from uninterested to unsure. Before she could answer though another pony guard came over, saying, “Ms. Silver, Miss Vanguard is ready to meet with you. If you’d follow me, please.”

I gave one last look at the large mare then grinned and followed the stallion, Solstice and Gaston following behind. The camp itself was large, and the sight of the slaves made me sick. Mares, Stallions, Colts, Fillies, and not all were even ponies. I could see thin zebras alongside the ponies. I could feel my horn starting to spark the farther I went into the camp. I had to take a few deep breaths to keep my magic under control. Honestly, I needed a drink, something to keep my nerves from fraying.

The ponies themselves were dirty and looked pathetic, but not underfed which I found odd. The zebras on the other hoof looked like they had to fight for any scrap of food they could get. All of them wore what had to be Bomb Collars. They looked formular at least from what Wingnut had said about them. I looked around as I worked my past the other guards and over a small hill that looked down onto the…camp? As soon as I saw what I’d just walked into I knew this wasn’t an ordinary slaver camp, this was a town, a small town to be sure, but not a camp. There was a sign that had been mostly destroyed either by age or the war, but I could still just make out the words written on the old metal. ‘Cottonville’

The small hill, more of a rise in the land looked down toward buildings made of wood with tin roofs. Three were long almost like what I’d read about in my school books of military barracks, there was one that was smaller but only by a little that looked more like an old office and two more even smaller ones that were probably meant for supplies or large sheds. Down the road there was a larger structure. This building was made of concrete, part of it was two stories the rest only a single story. Attached to one side of it were four sets of smaller cages with an open top and a few more slaves sitting around inside it, guards blocking every side. on the other side of the town, I saw a few caged carriages and a few more slaves’ pens with a peltry amount of shelter within them to protect the ponies and zebras from the sun or rain. And at the end of the town hugging the western edge was a small river with a single dock, a couple of rusting boats and a chain-link fence keeping anyone from getting in or out of the camp on that side.

On each side of the town the cliffs rose high, and I could see a couple of structures on each side, probably a sniper’s nest. I gritted my teeth as I looked around and noticed even more guards or citizens that acted like extra guards, it was hard to tell, roaming the free areas or pushing collared ponies and zebras around yelling orders at them. I noticed as we walked down the main street that we were heading toward the larger concrete building, I was guessing that was where this Vanguard mare had her office or her home.

As we walked I moved closer to Gaston, whispering, “Think you can slip away when we meet with this mare and check out those sniper nests?”

He didn’t look at me, but I saw his head nod slightly. He took a moment to make sure the guard leading us wasn’t listening before he said as quietly as he could out of the side of his beak, “What do you want me to do with the guards there?”

“You know what to do, make it quick and quiet, like always please,” I said before moving away from my huge partner, putting a grin on my face, and saying loudly to the guard, “You sure do have a lot of ponies in stock here I see, even a few zebras.”

The stallion nodded, saying, “Yeah, a little more than we normally do honestly. Got lucky a few weeks back, took down a huge caravan of refugees that were heading south to skirt around the Midwest of Equestria. Quite a few were running from all the chaos that happened up by Manehattan and even a few came from Hoofington I was told. Some of the ponies we caught won’t sell well sadly.”

“Why’s that?” Solstice asked, “Are some of the stock sick? Because if they are, we don’t want to risk putting good caps into slaves that might die on us in a couple weeks.”

The stallion chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, no, the ones we’ll have a hard time getting rid of are a few uptight ponies that ran from some upscale settlement near the Hoof. No idea what made them run, but they brought a few of their serfs with them who are now out property. The uptight formally rich ponies haven’t done anything for themselves most of their lives. We’ve been trying to build up their strength a little by putting them to work, but all they do is bitch and moan about how the work is for lesser ponies, not them. If they don’t start working harder, we’ll have to dispose of them.”

“Maybe I can make a good deal with your leader, they may be no good at manual labor, but I could use a few scullery mares,” I said as we reached the two-story building. Over the door in extremely faded letters, I could just make out ‘Equestrian One Bank.’

Solstice must have seen it too because she said, “So you use an old bank for an office?”

“This is where Viola Vanguard our leader has her office. Safe place to keep everything or so she says. She’s waiting for you inside; I’ll have to ask you to leave your weapons out here with your body guard. No pony sees Miss Vanguard with loaded weapons,” he said.

I almost laughed, it’s almost like he’d forgotten I was a unicorn, I was a walking, talking weapon. Then I thought more about it and guessed not a lot of unicorns in the wasteland knew many spells. Most that I’d run into only knew levitation and weren’t very good at it. So, with a shrug I pulled normal gun out and passed it over to Gaston. “Don’t lose that, if you do you’ll regret it.”

He nodded as he took the gun then he took a revolver I’d given to Solstice for show. “No problem boss, I’ll keep them safe,” he then looked at the guard and grinned, “Tell me pal, got any good booze around this place? Been ages since I’ve had a good drink and new folk to tell my many stories to.”

The guard nodded. “Third building up the hill to your left, a few of the folk who live here should be there now and would probably love to hear some new stories.”

The two walked off leaving Solstice and myself alone in front of the door to the old bank. Solstice looked over at me, asking quietly, “Did he really just leave us here? I mean what if we were here to kill their leader?”

“Well, we kind of are at least that’s one reason I’m here. Still, he had us give our weapons to Gaston and I’m sure he thinks we’re no threat to this Viola pony. She probably has more guards inside,” I said as I walked up to the door and used my magic to turn the nob and open it.

I was greeted by a well-lit interior; the floors were made of well-preserved lacquered wood same for the walls. Long red and gold drapes hung off an open interior, rugs and old fancy couches were spread out along the floor, soft music was playing from an old radio sitting on a delicate table at the center of the open chamber. Next to it was a large fainting couch with a beautiful mare laid across it. She wore a blood red flowing dress that hugged her body showing off every curve. Her coat was a rich aqua blue her black mane was long and elegant. She had jewels in her mane and on her neck, and her eyes were a deep purple that seemed to look deep into the soul of whom ever she cast her gaze on. As the two of us slowly walked into the building she gave us both a wickedly playful smile.

“I say, when I was told two mares were coming to pay me a visit looking for a couple of servants, I was expecting a couple of old fussy mares, not two young beauties like yourself. Welcome to Cottonville I’m Viola Vanguard, the leader of this town and owner of all the slaves you saw on your way in,” as she spoke she sat up and waved a hoof at a puffy couch that faced her own, “Please do take a seat, I’m sure you’re both tired after such a long journey. I’d love to get down to business and see what little old me has in stalk for you. That is unless you’d rather relax first and conduct business later?”

It took me a full minute to speak. I wasn’t expecting this, I was expecting a hag who ran her camp like an old dictator who wanted nothing more than to show the world that she was more powerful than every pony else. This mare was, well beautiful and had an elegant way of speaking. I felt like a disgusting bug compared to her. Luckily, the sight of the slaves on my way in quickly pulled my mind away from what I’d like to do with her…to what I was going to do to her. It also didn’t help that as soon as my mind tried to go into the gutter for a split second I’d seen Aura sitting there looking at me with lustful eyes.

Solstice and I walked over to the couches as I said, “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice Miss Vanguard, I’m Silver this is my partner Lights Fall.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Solstice said as we both sat.

“Partner you say, not often I see two mares in business together. Also please call me Viola, we’re all friends here or at least about to conduct business and only my citizens and guards call me Miss Vanguard,” Viola said as she sat up more. As she did I saw a horn peeking out from her thick mane.

‘So that’s why the guards weren’t worried, she’s a unicorn too’ I thought to myself, before saying, “Viola then, and Lights Fall and I are romantic partners, and we share a large plot of land I just inherited from my father who passed away a couple months back.”

Viola winked. “I see and pardon me for asking but if you inherited land and I’m guessing a nice sum of caps along with a nice sized home, why wouldn’t you have servants or slaves that your father would have left behind when he died?”

Solstice was the one to reply, “Mr. Silt was against slavery, but Silver and I aren’t. He did have a few workers on his land but most of them were killed when bandits attacked the family home.”

I put on a fake look of sadness as I added, “Father and his wife didn’t make it, same for my siblings. I’d been staying in town with Lights Fall when the attack happened. All that’s left is a couple of ponies, my old zebra maid, and the land.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss. I do think I heard something about a roaming band of filthy stallions making trouble out west. Well either way, I can understand why you need more help. Though I also need to know if you’ll have the ponies who will be able to keep your slaves in line?” Viola asked.

“Lights Fall has two brothers who are strong if not the smartest stallions around. They’ll be able to keep things in line until I can hire more hooves and guards,” I said giving her a small smile.

“Very good, well then your griffon body guard I’m sure can also help keep things in line that is if you have a long contract with the brute. He said you were only looking for a couple however when he came with your first letter. It sounds to me like you might need more than that,” she said as she used her magic to lift a delicate looking glass from the table with what I guessed was wine in it bringing it to her lips.

“I thought we’d only need a couple at first, but I was informed before I left that I’d need at least eight maybe twelve if we could get a good price,” I said.

Viola looked down at her glass and sighed. Looking toward a darker corner of the large room she said, “Harmony dear, I told you to get me the Canterlot Royal, not the cheap swill. Get over here girl!”

Solstice and I watched as a timid mare slowly walked out of the shadowed recesses of the room. She wasn’t much taller than me, her coat was a light lilac in color with darker purple stripes on different parts of her body. A few were on her legs, a large, long one over her chest a few on her back legs. The end of her muzzle was dark purple as well with three small strips on the bottom of her jaw and one on each side of her head almost like they were pupping out from her mane. Her eyes were purple as well and her mane was a lighter shade of lilac with slightly darker lilac stripes. She was also a pegasus and I also noticed that she wore a bandage along her right hindleg with a purple ribbon tied at the top. Her mane and tail were both cut short, and her wings were a little longer than any other pegasus I’d ever seen. She wasn’t just a pegasus I could tell, she was like Prince Fruit Strip, she was a Zony. She also wasn’t wearing a bomb collar, but she acted timid as she approached almost as if she expected to be yelled at or attacked at any moment.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet but cute. “My apologies miss Vanguard, that was the only bottle I could get. The guard to the vault wouldn’t let me go past the entrance to look.”

Viola rolled her eyes. “Did you tell him the wine was for me?”

Harmony nodded shyly, her eyes locked on the floor. “Yes ma’am, he didn’t believe me, I can try and go back and insist, but…”

“Oh, never mind, that buffoon probably forgot again that you’re my new room slave. This will do for now, but I want you to sit here in case I need anything or my guests,” she said before looking back at the two of us, “I’m sorry, Harmony here is new here and shy as a newborn foal. I haven’t fully broken her in yet and gotten her used to how things work here.”

“Is she a former Enclave mare or something?” Solstice asked a hint of something like anger in her voice.

“Oh no she was with some rich ponies we captured a couple weeks ago. Most of the ponies we captured have been useless, but this one used to serve some old mare like a maid or something, so I decided she would be better with me than being put out with the rougher ponies,” Viola said, “She is a gem.”

I looked Harmony over again keeping my face flat with a lack of emotion showing. When I’d decided to take this job I really hadn’t cared much about the slaves themselves, it was more that I hate the practice of slavery itself. Though I was starting to feel an old twinge of sympathy for the slaves here as I’d been marched past them earlier and this mare wasn’t helping. After a moment I turned my gaze back to Viola. “How much for this one?”

Viola blinked for a moment then said, “For Harmony? I really hadn’t been planning on selling her, she’s useful and listens well, not easy to find honestly.”

“5,000 caps,” I said not breaking my eye contact with her.

I saw her eyes widen. “I’m sorry, but I’m serious, I’m not selling…”

I rolled my eyes. “10,000 Caps then, I need a pony like her at my estate,”

Viola coughed. “Are you serious?”

Keeping my expression emotionless I said, “Deadly.”

“I mean I wasn’t planning on selling her but that’s quiet the offer, but I doubt you have enough funds to cover that let alone the other slaves you came to buy,” Viola said.

I reached into my saddle bags and tossed a large pack of caps on the table. “That’s 10,000 caps right there and I have more with me and more with my partner here. I’m sure you don’t normally charge so much for just one slave. This is me showing you how serious I am in buying.”

Solstice looked over at me lifting an eyebrow, but she kept her muzzle shut. Viola took a moment to pull the bag closer and look into it before she finally said, “I’m sorry I doubted you Ms. Silver, Harmony is yours,” she then looked over at the zony, “Today’s your lucky day, your new owner is Ms. Silver here.”

Harmony looked over at me timidly then shuffled over to sit next to me, she kept her head down saying quietly, “I understand.”

I so badly wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, but I had to keep up the ruse. I looked back at Viola, saying, “I didn’t come here to sit and drink with you Ms. Vanguard, I came to buy a few slaves for my estate and maybe set up some kind of arrangement for more later. The list of what I wanted should have been sent with my letter Gaston brought to you. Do you have what I want and are you a mare I can work with or is all of this just some kind of ruse to make me think you are more well off than you really are?”

Viola smiled. “I assure you I have what you requested and more. I apologize if I came off as a showoff, but I wanted you to know that we can make a deal work.”

Solstice spoke up this time, saying, “I’m not sure I believe her, I mean if she was really as good of a salver as she states then I think she’d have more to show for it, apart from this room the rest of her camp looks run down and some of the slaves are underfed. I’m sure this large sum of caps is the most she’s seen in years.”

Finally, I saw a twitch of anger show in Viola’s eyes as Solstice spoke. To her credit though, she kept it out of her voice as she said, “I will admit the price you paid for Harmony was higher than normal, but most of the slaves I sell go from 1,000 to 3,000 caps. I’ve been a slaver for over a decade, and it’s been very good to me and my crew.”

I smiled. “So you’re telling me you’re a well-off mare then?”

Viola started to laugh. “Dear I’m more than well off, not to brag but I’m one of the richer mares around here.”

I looked over at Solstice. “She might be telling the truth, I mean did you see how many guards she had when we came in, I’ll admit I was quite impressed.”

Solstice smiled. “I sure did I counted…oh I don’t know, maybe thirty.”

“Thirty-two, don’t forget about the two guards she has on the upper balcony just up there,” I said, pointing a hoof up at the place where I could just make out two stallions with rifles.

Solstice squinted up at them and smiled. “You’re right Silver, I hadn’t noticed them, good eye.”

Viola wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked a little annoyed. “Why does how many guards I have matter?”

I ignored her question and yelled up at the two guards. “Hey you two come on down here and join us, I already know you’re there so there’s no reason to keep skulking around like that, come have a drink on me.”

“My bodyguards won’t be joining us; they are here to keep me protected just in case something doesn’t go well when I’m conducting business,” Viola said, anger lacing her voice now.

“Nonsenses,” I said with a huge smile as my horn started to glow. A moment later I pulled both guards off the balcony and held them in my magical grip until they were both hovering just over the couch Viola was sitting on. She looked up with anger on her face right before I dropped them both onto the couch then bound them with a spell so they couldn’t move. “Much better don’t you think?”

“No, it’s not, what do you think you’re doing?” she yelled. Her guards looked scared as their bodies were held in place with my magic.

I leaned back on the couch and smiled. “Let me ask you something Viola. Does it get you off or something when you capture other ponies and force them into slavery? I’ve always wondered what it is that makes ponies like yourself go down a path like this.”

“What on Equus are you talking about? This is how things work in the world. If you don’t have the power to protect yourself, you end up being forced to do the will of ponies who are stronger than you are,” Viola said.

I looked over at Harmony who was shaking a little as she looked at me then her former owner. “Tell me Harmony, do you think it’s right for others control weaker ponies?”

“I…I have no opinion on the matter miss,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sure you do but you’re just too scared to say so, it’s okay, you’ll learn. As of this moment you’re a free mare, you shouldn’t have to be controlled just because somepony says their more powerful than you,” I said, looking back at Viola, “Like Viola Vanguard here, she says that she’s a slaver and because she has caps to pay for guards and other brutes like that, she can tell you and others what to do, but she’s wrong.”

“What the fuck is this!?” Viola yelled, starting to get to her hooves.

I slammed her down on the couch again with my magic. “I didn’t say you could get up now did I Ms. Vanguard.”

She glared at me. “Who the fuck are you?”

I grinned. “Tell me, have you heard about a pony called The Silver Demon from Armadillo?” I saw her eyes go wide, “Oh good, you have! Well, that would be me, I heard about your operation out here and it just irritated me. Slavers are filth and I really don’t like your kind. So, I thought I’d come pay you a little visit.”

“But…you’re a bounty hunter, why would you care about me? I know for a fact that no pony has a bounty out on me. I’m worthless for a mare like you,” she said.

I slowly pulled Dream Walker from a hidden holster and smiled. “You’re right about a couple of things, I am a bounty hunter, there isn’t a bounty out on you, and you are worthless.” I pointed Dream Walker at one of her guards and shot him in the head. “So are your ponies.” I shot the other guard then let their bodies fall to the ground.

Harmony squeaked then backed up a little before saying, “Why did you kill them?”

Solstice answered for me, “Because they’re nothing but garbage, all slavers are.”

“Please…please don’t kill me, I’m sorry okay,” Viola begged as she tried her best to move as far away from the two corpses.

“No, you’re not,” I said as I got to my hooves and slowly lifted Dream Walker up to point at the mare, “Even if I let you live, you’d just go back to doing the same thing as soon as I left and I’m sure you’d even put a bounty out on me too. No there’s only one way to deal with your kind.”

“I can pay you!” she screamed, “Take back the caps you paid for Harmony, and you can take another 10,000 from my stash it’s up in my room!”

I lowered the gun. “Wow that was fast, I thought she’d start with a lower number, and she even told us where to find her caps.”

“She’s not the smartest pony is she?” Solstice asked.

“No, she’s not,” I replied then looked back at Viola, “Yeah, so I really don’t care what you offer me, I was going to take everything you had anyway. It’s kind of the reason I came all the way out here and put on this little show for you in the first place. I did want to free your slaves, but I wanted the caps more and to rid this area of slavers.”

“Have a heart! Please I’ll do anything just don’t kill me! I have a SON, he needs me!” she begged.

I glared at her with my dead eyes. “A son huh? What’s his name?”

“Gold Bit!” she said quickly.

“Nice name, how creative. Is Gold Bit a colt? I mean you’re an older mare I’m guessing either you had a late pregnancy or he’s at least my age or older. Is he just like you? A pony who takes other ponies from their homes and makes them slaves?” I asked.

“He’s a teenager! Yes he’s learned the trade, but he can change, if you let me go we’ll both go far away and find a new way to make Caps you have my word!” she said, starting to cry.

I looked over at Solstice. “Stay with her.” then I looked over at Harmony. “I’m sorry for what you’ve had to see today, but things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, you have a choice, I can help you get away from here now and you can go out on your own and find your own way in this world, or you can wait here with my friend and go back to Armadillo with us and we might be able to help you get a home and work there as a free mare. The choice is yours but either way, the next hour of your life is going to be scary.”

Harmony looked at Viola then back at me and I saw deep down in her eyes that even though she was scared and not sure what to do, she had a small fire in her. She took a moment then said, “I’ll stay here.”

“Okay, but remember, no matter what happens next, you made your choice,” I said before turning and heading toward the door, “If she tries to run, shoot her in the leg.”

“Can do,” Solstice said, pulling her own hidden weapon out.

I ignored it all and walked out of the building and back to where the camp was. As I did I saw that the other part of my plan had been going over well. Most of the guards were sitting around with Gast and laughing at some story the large griffon was telling them a little way away from the building. As I walked up Gaston lifted a beer and said loudly, “Boss! Tell me did the negotiations go well?”

“Better than I could have hoped,” I said as I came up to him and a few of the guards. One of them I saw was the large mare from the gate. “So, which one of you has the key for the collars, I made a deal with Viola, and I’ll be taking all of the slaves off your hooves.”

Gaston laughed loudly. “This might one has it, was bragging to me about it just a moment ago, though she could have been lying” he was pointing a digit at the large mare.

She didn’t look happy. “If you cut a deal and even had that many caps to buy all of our stock, why isn’t Viola out here with you?”

“You know I didn’t catch your name earlier,” I said ignoring what she’d said, “You do look like a mare I could have sworn I saw on a poster a week or so ago. Gaston doesn’t she look like that Clacker mare we saw on the poster? What was her reward again?”

“A thousand caps I believe and yes she does look like that mare, wanted dead or alive for killing some pony I think,” Gaston said.

Her eyes went wide. “What are you? Some kind of wanna be bounty hunter too?”

Ignoring her again I said to Gaston, “Did you do as I asked?”

“Oh yeah, but sadly only a couple were willing to drink my wonderfully gift, I guess beer isn’t popular here. Though the ten who did take me up on my offer should start feeling it right about…” as he spoke ten guards started to choke and fell to the ground, “Well…now.”

The rest of the guards started getting up, there were only about seven left including the mare who I knew was Clacker. Gaston had told me he’d found her when he’d gotten back from delivering my letter. This wasn’t just a day to take down a slaving operation, I was going to get paid for taking down a nasty bitch of a bounty too. She was already getting to her hooves when I lifted Dream Walker and said, “I do love dead or alive bounties,” I fired, and she was dead before she’d even gotten a chance to defend herself.

Gaston was already moving and before any other pony could react to the sudden death of Clacker or the gagging guards around them, he’d already killed another guard and was moving to take down a second. I pulled on my magic and flexed my power. Four stallions screamed as I ripped them off their hooves and shot them skyward before letting them go. By then the last guard had his rifle ready and took a shot at me. I felt it slam into my flank making me wince in pain before I twisted around and put two bullets into his chest.

“Damn Silver, you okay?” Gaston asked as he broke the neck of his guard.

Cursing I used my magic to pull the bullet out then pulled a healing potion from my bag. “I’ll be fine, looks like the rest are coming, I thought I told you to start taking them out while I was dealing with the leader.”

“I was, I figured poison would be safer than just attacking them out right,” he said as he stretched the pulled his large rifle off his back. As he did the four ponies I’d tossed up into the air finally came back down. Their bodies exploding as they hit the hard packed ground, “Well shall we finish the rest of them off?”

“Yeah but see if you can find a pony named Gold Bit, he should be a teenager, I want him left alive,” I said.

“Oh, I met him before I started drinking with the dumb asses here, he’s in the trailer just over there,” he said, pointing at one a few meters away, “Want me to take care of the rest?”

I sighed. “I guess.”

“Sweet, then I’m going to ask for a bonus if I can take them all out without help,” he said.

“If you can then you can take the full bounty for Cracker there,” I said pointing at the dead large mare.

“Works for me,” he said before launching himself into the air his rifle already firing at the others who were rushing to find out what was going on.

Taking a moment to watch Gaston laughing as he killed the other slavers, I smiled before finally turning toward the trailer he’d pointed too. I wasn’t feeling too keen on the fight anymore. I hated Slavers, but they were all to weak and stupid. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was me, I’d given up caring about much of anything lately including my own safety, mix that with my growing magic, it was just no longer much of a challenge taking on simple ponies like these anymore. Oh well, at least the caps I’d get from this job would be good. Madam would be quite a happy mare when I took the next two weeks staying at her brothel spending a good chunk of them.

Making it to the trailer I didn’t bother knocking, I blew the door open with my magic, Dream Walker at the ready only to find the small living space inside, empty. Confused I poked my head in right as I heard a mare scream from the back end of the trailer. “Please STOP, you do not need to do this!” more was said but it was in what could only be Zebra. The accent told me that as soon as she spoke in pony. I stepped into the trailer feeling a familiar anger deep inside myself.

“You’re property now you fucking Stripe, get used to this because this is what your life is going to be from now on!” I heard a young buck say right before I ripped the door off its hinges to find a golden stallion with a silver and black mane on top of a young zebra mare who was tied down on his bed.

He twisted his head toward me, yelling, “Who the fuck are you?”

I almost blew his head off right there, but I had another point to make so instead I used my magic to rip him off the mare and slammed his face into the floor. He started to scream in pain before I lifted him again and pulled him close to my muzzle. “You’re disgusting…not only are you a slaver piece of trash, but a rapist too.”

“You’ll…pay for this, do you know who my mother is?” he said through his bleeding muzzle.

“Yeah and I don’t give a shit,” I said before slamming him down onto the ground again then wrapping my magic around his balls, “Where’s the key to the collars?”

“Fuck you!” he yelled.

I pulled hard making him scream in pain. “No thank you, now where’s the keys?”

Tears were in his eyes as he whimpered in pain as I let up on the pressure. “Its…in the night…stand…drawer.”

Keeping him held down with my magic I checked and found a gem key. Once I found that I moved over to the crying Zebra mare doing my best to keep calm. “It’ll be okay, I’m here to help, let me get that slave collar off you.” I pressed the key to her collar, it deactivated and clicked open.

Once that was done I slowly removed it then slowly untied her hooves from the bed frame. She curled up in a ball sobbing for a few moments before saying, “Why…why would you help a zebra?”

“I don’t care if you’re a zebra, griffon or pony, no one should be treated like that. Do you think you can walk?” I asked.

“I…I think so, I am Saffron,” the zebra mare said as she slowly got to her hooves.

“Call me Silver,” I said as I took a moment to make sure she was in one piece then gave her a healing potion, “Here, you look okay, but I’m sure after the way he was treating you that you’re hurting in a few places.”

“Thank you Ms. Silver, I am hurting a lot this was his third time today,” she said with a haunted look to her.

I looked at the moaning buck on the floor, he was not much older than me but already more of a monster than most I’d met in the wasteland. “I hope this fucker didn’t get you pregnant or pass any nasty disease to you.”

“I…I don’t think so, Gold Bit said I was his first. As for pregnancy I will make sure to take something to fix that,” she said still shaking a little before she started slowly drinking the healing potion.

“I can’t stay here long; I still need to finish up with this dick head’s mother. Once my friends and I are done with this place we’ll be freeing the rest of the salves then heading back. Do you have a place to go, if not you’re free to join with us until we’re back in our own town,” I said.

“I was on my way to see my grandfather in Armadillo he is the major there and a founder of the town,” she said slowly.

“You’re related to Xilon?” I asked.

“Yes, I normally stay with him for a few weeks at a time helping him out around his house. I was on my way there when I was captured a couple weeks back by these ponies,” she said.

“I had no idea he was expecting his granddaughter to show up or that you were even missing. Well join us on the way back I’ll make sure to get you back safely,” I said before walking back to Gold Bit.

“I will do that,” she said, “What are you going to do to him?”

“She’s…going to die,” he said in a low threatening voice.

I moved over him my magic taking hold of his balls again. “Tell me something Gold Bit, have you ever heard about a mare from Armadillo, one that’s called The Silver Demon?”

“Yeah? So what?” he asked.

My grin grew as I said in a dark voice, “Nice to meet you, I’m The Silver Demon and you know what?”

His eyes had gone wide as I said this, but he still answered, “What?”

“I fucking hate ponies like you and you won’t need these anymore,” as I said this, I put as much pressure on his balls as I could until each one popped. He screamed in a high pitch tone until his eyes rolled back before passing out. Once he was out I put the slave collar around his neck. “Much better.”

Saffron looked a little ill at what I’d just done, but she didn’t comment on it, all she did was say, “I will wait here until you are ready to leave.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea. If you see a large griffon named Gaston then don’t worry he’s with me, he’ll keep you safe,” I said before using my magic to pick up Gold Bit and carrying him out of the trailer.

I started making my way back up to the building where I’d left Viola with Solstice and Harmony. I could still hear a little bit of gun fire in the distance, but I could still see Gaston swooping around in the air, so I just let him be. On my way back I made sure to grab the control gem for the slave collars. It only took a few minutes before I was standing in front of the leader of these Slavers. Viola saw her son hovering in my magic right before I slammed his body down onto the table between the two couches.

He moaned in pain his eye lids fluttering open slightly as a high squeaking groan passed his lips. Viola tried to move toward him, but I pointed Dream Walker at her. “No…you don’t get to get close to him until I say otherwise.”

I could see tears in the mare’s face as she looked down at her son. His face was swollen, and one eyes nearly closed shut from me slamming his face on the floor. Blood was flowing from his nose and his lower area was bruised and showed signs of what I’d done to him only a few moments ago. Viola turned her tear-filled eyes up to me, saying, “What…did you do to my son!?”

“Gave him a lesson on what happens when you think you can lord your power over others. Oh, I hope you weren’t hoping for grandkids, because that’s not happening anymore,” I said coldly.

Solstice looked over at me and for the first time since I’d met the snarky mare, I saw a mix of fear and disgust on her face. “Sha…Silver…what did you do to him?”

Harmony was looking at the bloody stallion. “Is…is he going to die?”

I answered Harmony first, “He may, but not from what I did to him,” I then looked at Solstice, “He was raping a young zebra mare, he got off lucky so far,” I then turned to Viola, “He won’t die from this, though he’ll wish he had. His life is now in your hooves, if you answer my questions honestly and do as I say, I’ll let him live, if not, I’ll let you watch him die the same way as the slaves who try to escape do.”

I moved the control gem close to his new collar and synced the two. In the past month Gaston had shown me how to work these gems and collars. It wasn’t the first time I’d ran into slavers in the Badlands, this was just the biggest settlement of them so far.

Viola looked at her son then back at me. “He’s just a colt…he’s only seventeen. How can you do this to anypony?”

I let my cold eyes bore into hers. “He’s a disgusting piece of shit, now are you going to do what I say or are we going to watch Gold Bit’s head go pop!?”

“What…what do you want to know?” she asked, looking down at her son again, but staying away as I’d instructed.

“Are there more of your ponies around the area?” I asked.

She nodded. “My husband runs the town just up the road, most of the time that is where we would conduct our business.”

“How many ponies in this town work with you and your husband?” I asked.

She looked up at me and I saw the fear I so badly wanted to see in her eyes. “The entire town.”

Solstice looked disgusted at Viola now. “You are a monster.”

Harmony kept quiet as I said in a low voice to the cowering mare, “How many colts and fillies are in your town and how many slaves?”

“Only a few colts and fillies and three slaves,” she said.

“Do you have a way to get in contact with your husband?” I asked.

“We have a broadcaster yes,” she said, pointing over at a side table next to the couch.

“Okay, one last question then one thing I’ll need you to do before this will all be over,” I said waiting for her to nod before I continued, “Are the parents of the colts and fillies just like you or are they just living there and surviving off what the town does for trade?”

“Two of the mares are only stay at home mares, their husbands work here, the last filly’s father lost his wife a few months ago and he watches over her, he has not worked with us in some time. My husband believes he wants to leave to find a new home and work, but we haven’t given him the option to do so,” she said.

“Good, I want you to contact your husband, tell him nothing about what’s going on here and tell him a lie that will convince him to send the fillies, colts, and their caretakers out of town with the three slaves. Have them head toward Armadillo or another town until it’s safe,” I said.

Her eyes went wide. “What…what are you going to do?”

I used Dream Walker to pistol whip her before saying, “I didn’t tell you to ask questions, now do what I say, or Gold Bit’s head goes boom!”

She sobbed a little then nodded and moved to the broadcaster. I watched her and listened in as she contacted her husband. It took her a little while to convince him of some made up story about a Talon group coming for them and a few other crap lies before he said he’d do what she’d asked. He also said he’d pull all his able ponies to get ready for an attack, but I didn’t care one bit about that. When she was done I took the broadcaster from her and slipped it into my saddle bags.

“What are we going to do now Silver?” Solstice asked.

I looked back at her, tossing her the Key Gem for the slave collars. “I want you to take Harmony here and meet up with Gaston, lead the salves back to our camp a few miles away. I’ll finish up here and meet you back at camp tonight. Take this key gem it can be used to unlock the bomb collars.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do?”

I kept my eyes locked on hers as I answered, “Don’t make me lie to you.”

The two of us held the stare for a few moments before I saw a small tear fall from one eye. Looking away she said, “You don’t need to keep going down this path.”

“Just get out of here, I’ll see you in a few hours,” I said as I turned away from her, “And it’s already too late…I started down this path and I’ll see it to the end.”

I heard Solstice moving away from me saying quietly to Harmony, “Follow me and stay close.”

I waited for a few minutes for Solstice to leave with the young zony. When I finally heard the last of the gunshots, I finally turned back to Viola, saying, “Is there anything of value in your town?”

The once proud mare was crying softly as she looked at her son who was just starting to wake and was moaning in pain. She shook her head slowly. “We keep all the caps here, safer that way.”

“Everything’s up in your room I’m guessing?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’m guessing you’re going to take everything we have.”

I didn’t answer her, instead I nudged her with Dream Walker. “Get on your hooves, we’re going to pay a visit to your little town.”

She didn’t try to fight me she just got to her hooves and moved away from the couch and table. Once she was a few meters away, she said quietly, “What about my son?”

“He can walk,” I said looking at the stallion who looked in so much pain that walking was probably not going to be easy if even possible, “Well, I guess he should get some meds, I don’t want this to take all night.”

“We have chems in the hooflocker just behind my couch, med-x, and a few other drugs. Something there should help him get to his hooves,” she said.

Keeping one eye on her, I moved behind the couch and opened the small hooflocker. Inside I found a few syringes of Med-x, a couple of healing potions, a restoration potion, buck, dash, and a white powder I’d never seen before. Looking back at her I asked, “What’s this?”

Her eyes went wide. “That’s Moon Dust, it’s a hallucinogenic drug, very powerful and addictive. It can go for a lot of caps if sold to the right buyer.”

I’d heard of the drug before, but I’d never seen it. I lifted the small bag then put the rest of the meds and chems into my saddle bags. “Perfect this should make Gold Bit forget all about his pain.”

“You’re not going to give that to my SON!” she yelled.

I fired a bullet an inch from her hoof. “It’s this or he can walk with no help, in the shape he’s in he’d be lucky to make it out of the camp before passing out again. Now, do you want to risk him getting a nasty addiction and living? Or dying in the dirt?”

She shook, then said in a defeated voice, “What does it matter, you’re going to kill me no matter what anyway.”

A small smile came to my lips. “Viola! I give you my word that I have no intention of killing you. What would be the point of teaching you a lesson if I was just going to blow your brains out after?”

She didn’t look like she’d believed me, but she said, “I’ll give him the drugs.” after I gave them to her she moved over to her son and said quietly, “Sweetie, it’s mommy.”

“M…mommy…that…unicorn…she hurt me…bad…I can’t take it please…make it stop,” he said weakly.

“Take this and you’ll feel better okay,” she said and after a few moments of running a hoof over his mane, he finally took the Moon Dust. It didn’t take long after that for his eyes to go half lidded and for his moans of pain to stop.

“Make sure he follows us,” I said as I poked Dream Walker against her side, “We don’t have all night, now let’s get going.”

She nodded and coxed her son to stand on shaking legs and unsteadily start leading us out of the building then past another gate to the camp. Bodies littered the ground all around as we walked. Gaston had done a great job killing the slavers here. Not a single Slave was left apart from a couple that had tried to run and their collars and gone off. I ignored it all and we kept moving away from the camp and toward where this town was supposed to be.

As we walked, Gold Bit kept giggling quietly to himself and looking around muttering about stars or the moon and once I even heard him say something about The Goddess Luna. The drug had taken hold fast, but I ignored him for the most part. It only took us half an hour to reach the town which sat at the bottom of a hill down a single small dirt road. The houses were mostly all made out of scrap, but even from here I could see a least fifty or a bit more ponies gathered around near the center of town. They looked ready to attack a raid that was never going to come.

I looked down at them for a long moment, then asked, “Is that everypony in the town?”

“As far as I can tell,” Viola said.

“LUNA IS GOING TO COME FOR US ALL!” Gold Bit giggled to himself.

I pulled out the broadcaster I’d taken from Viola earlier and activated it saying into the device, “Is the leader of your town hearing this?”

In the far distance I saw a stallion pull a device out and a moment later I heard a deep voice respond, “Yeah, who’s this and how did you get this broadcast channel?”

“I’m the mare who just took all your slaves, took your wife and son hostage and is now standing at the top of the small hill overlooking your shit hole town. You can call me Silver Demon; I had your wife call earlier to make sure you got any innocent ponies out of the town before I finished what I came here to do,” I said.

It took a moment before I got a reply, “If you hurt my family…”

I interrupted him, saying, “Shut it, you’re in no position to talk. Did you do as your wife asked, yes or no?”

I heard a growling response, “I did, now what do you want?”

“Easy, I want to put an end to what you and your towns ponies have been doing. Slavery is disgusting and ponies like you who live off of selling others should be whipped off the face of Equus. I’m only one mare however so I came to make a deal with you. If you put an end to the slave trade and start living like honest and good ponies I’ll let your family go, if not…well let’s just say I’ll make your town a symbol of what happens to Slavers in my territory,” I said.

“You expect me to believe that? You’re the one who made a big mistake. If you kill my family you’ll have nothing to protect you from any of us. Here’s my counteroffer!” he started yelling into the broadcaster.

I just sighed and turned the device off. I could see in the distance that he was still yelling into his, but I just dropped the device and used my magic to force Viola down. “We’ll your husband doesn’t seem to understand the situation he’s in. Oh well, this will be a lot easier.”

She tried to look up at me as she said, “What do you think you can do against the entire town? You might have taken down my camp, but you can’t take them all on by yourself. You should just let me go and get out of here, you got my slaves and I’ve learned a lesson, I’ll find a way to stop him and the town from trading slaves, I promise! Just let my son and I go!”

“Sorry, but I can’t do that. You might think you’ve learned a lesson, but you haven’t, not really. You see I’ve learned during my travels that the only way to really learn, is to suffer a pain so great that it rips your soul into shreds,” I said as I used the Mark II to select a weapon I hadn’t even dared to use since I was in Whinnieapolis.

Solar Flare’s Range Finder slipped out of my saddle bags slowly and for a moment I looked over the toy like weapon of mass destruction. As I looked at it I saw a confused look on Viola’s face. “What is that thing?”

“The hoof of the Goddesses,” I said, but I was mostly ignoring her. The Range Finder was shaking in my magical grip. Memories I had been trying to push down for months started flowing back into me. I saw Appleton vanish along with Pride when I had no idea what this weapon did, I saw Mill City Tower go down in a flash of light. Most of all, the memory of what I did in my nightmare cage was still fresh in my mind. I knew when I’d destroyed Cartwheel in that hell world, it hadn’t been real, but even now, I still couldn’t get rid of that one nightmare. The sight of killing all of the Red Talons and Cartwheel itself, was never going to go away.

I lifted the Range Finder at the same time that I saw some of the ponies in the town start to move slowly toward the edge of the town. The stallion who I’d been talking to leading them. I pointed it right at him, but it kept on shaking and I almost dropped it. My vision was going blurry as tears started to form. I blinked them away saying to myself, “I’m not her anymore, I am The Silver Demon, I’m nothing more than a monster in the Wasteland…I’m a killer…I can do this…I…I can…I…”

“Shadow…you can’t do this,” I heard Solstice say.

I turned my head quickly and saw my friend a few inches away from me, but she wasn’t looking at me, but Solar Flare. I shook more as I said, “I’m not her anymore, I have to do this…they have to die!”

She looked at me for a moment then said softly, “I know they do, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

“I am alone!” I yelled, ignoring the yelling ponies who were now starting to get organized as they tried to head out of the town and up toward us.

I saw tears in her eyes too as she moved closer her muzzle an inch away from my own. “You have me. I’m always here for you Shadow, I always will be…let me shoulder a little of the pain, let me help you, you’re not alone.”

My heart was racing, and I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to say no and to just fire the damned weapon and say fuck it to everypony in the fucking wasteland. I couldn’t though. Solstice had shown time and time again that she was on my side. she’d come with me to the Badlands, she saved my life more than once in the past, she’d been the only one here who hadn’t judged me for how I was acting after I broke things off with Aura. She had been my enemy at once point, but over the past few months, Solstice had become something more than just a mare who followed me around, she was even more than just a friend now. Her sapphire blue eyes were beautiful and full of an emotion I couldn’t quite make out. Those eyes told me that I could trust her and share my pain and burden. I let Solar Flare fall from my magical grip.

Solstice caught it and slowly turned toward the town and its ponies who were just making it to the edge of town. The Range Finder in her muzzle she pointed it toward the lead pony and said, “To those who trade in pony flesh, remember that hell follows on the hooves of the ones you’ve wronged.”

“What do you two think you’re going to do with that?” Viola asked still looking confused.

Solstice ignored her and tongued the small trigger. The screen on the weapon came to life and words quickly flashed over it.

Checking Genetic Marking of User…

Match found, C.O.T.N. Sky 004 Descendent Found…

Megaspell Fully Charged…

Target Found…

Satellite in range…

Solar Flare engaging…

Like before the small beam flew out of the Range Finder and a symbol appeared on the chest of the lead pony who had been coming toward us in front of what had to be the entire town of Slavers. He stopped confused for a moment the towns ponies stopping as well wondering what had just been fired at their leader. That only lasted for about five seconds, then utter panic came over the towns ponies as four beams of light fell from the darkening sky. Like always, the beams stretched and encircled half a kilometer, covering most of the shitty town and slicing through buildings as it cut any form of escape off for the ponies trapped inside. I heard Viola gasp in shock as her friends and husband ran and started hammering on the barrier.

“What did you do! What the fuck is that thing? Make it stop please I’ll do anything!” she screamed. As she did her son just looked up at the sky giggling in his drug addled state.

“There’s no stopping this,” I said as I watched the last ten seconds of the trapped towns life.

I’d never seen Solar Flare fired without clouds covering the sky. Normally the spell would open up the cloud layer to make sure the mega spell had full access to bring down massive destruction, but it was still normally hard to see much else when it fired. With the cloud cover gone, I could see the barrier go all the way into space. There was a flash form something far in the distance and for a split second I could almost make out the mega spell satellite. That was before the beam crashed down to Equus right in the center of the encirclement and as always, it expanded. The spell only lasted ten seconds once that beam touched down and grew, but in that small time, you could hear the screams of terror and pain.

I could see the true horror of this weapon. If you were in the center when it went off, you’d die instantly, that was the mercy of the weapon. If you tried to run to the edge like most of the ponies now were doing. You’d cook to death before the spell fully reached you and turned you and everything in the spells range into ash. Ten seconds wasn’t a long time when you were watching, but it was an eternity to the ponies who screamed as their bodies burned, bubbled, blackened then fell. The light hit the barrier then in a flash of blinding light, it shattered, and the spell was finished. The town was nothing more than a deep crater of glass and ash.

Solstice slowly lowered the Range Finder, her eyes locked on the destruction she’d done. I knew what she was feeling, I’d felt it to when I’d first used the weapon. She had heard of the power of this mega spell, but she’d never witnessed it for herself. I watched as she put the Range Finder into her saddle bags and sat, tears in her eyes.

Viola had fallen to the ground crying in utter pain as she looked at what had been done to her town, to her friends, to her husband and livelihood. I gave both mares a moment to prosses, before walking over to Gold Bit who was still muttering to himself. I pulled out the Control Gem and said, “Do you believe in Luna?”

His dilated eyes met mine. “She can make the pain go away, she is our Goddess,” he looked up at the sky and giggled, “Luna wants us to come to her, to go to the moon and the heavens above. It’s the only way to fix the pain!”

“If you want to meet Luna and take away the pain then use this,” I said putting the Gem into his hoof, “If you want to stay with your mom and atone for what you did then that’s fine with me too.”

He looked at the gem his eyes wide. “LUNA…this can take me to Luna!”

“Only one way to find out,” I said before turning to Viola who hadn’t seen or heard a word of what had just transpired between her son and me, “Maybe this lesson will sink in deep enough for you to change Viola Vanguard.”

Her blank eyes turned toward me. “You…are a demon.”

“I am…remember that next time you want to do what you’ve been doing,” I said before heading to Solstice.

Viola got to her hooves and started to head toward her son. “You will pay one day for the evil you…”

She started to say right before Gold Bit yelled, “LUNA GODDESS OF THE NIGHT I’M COMING!” right before he activated the Gem and his head popped like a soap bubble. Brains, blood, and small chunks of bone splattered across Viola’s face; she Screamed as she watched her son take his own life. His body falling to the ground twitching in its last death throws. She kept on screaming as I took hold of Solstice.

“It’s time for us to go Solstice,” I said, she just nodded silently. I heard Viola crying and screaming in utter disperse right before I Teleported Solstice and myself away from the small hill that overlooked a valley, where a town of true monsters used to lay.

I ended up taking us back to the camp. I left Solstice just outside the building I’d first met Viola in while I went in and took everything that looked valuable. It didn’t take too long and in the end I up getting around twenty thousand caps and a few other odds and ends that I could sell back in Armadillo for a small profit. By the time I came back to where Solstice was she was looking a little better, but she was still quiet as we slowly walked away from the dead camp of slavers.

We didn’t talk the entire trip back to our camp where Gaston and a few of the slaves were waiting. He told me that he’d seen the bright light from here and asked me about what happened, but I just played it off as a mystery that I didn’t understand. He let it go and I took a little time to take to a few Slaves and promise them that I’d help them get to Armadillo where they could find a new life. I talked with Saffron for a bit longer before helping her set up a bed roll next to the fire so she could rest. Last was the zony Harmony who found me when I was heading to a small tent I’d set up for myself.

“Miss Silver…what am I going to do once I’m in Armadillo?” she asked me.

I was tired and really wanted to get some sleep, but she was so innocent looking and scared that I couldn’t just turn her away. So, with a sigh I said, “What ever you want Harmony.”

“I’ve never been able to do what I wanted before…well not since I was very young,” she said.

“I didn’t know what I wanted either before I left my home and life a few months ago. Part of life is finding what makes you happy and trying to push for that dream. Honestly I’m a shit pony to get advice on what to do with your life, because I just keep destroying my own. I’m a bounty hunter that doesn’t care much about anypony,” I said.

“You saved all the slaves,” she said sounding confused.

“No, I killed Slavers and got a nice profit by doing so,” I lied as I tried to turn to leave.

“Silver, you may be telling yourself that, but I can tell that you’re just lying to yourself. Deep down you’re trying to hide the fact that you wanted to save the slaves and put a stop to the slavers. You’re a good mare,” she said.

I stopped and turned slowly to look at her, giving her my best dark glare, “I’m not a good mare, there’s a reason I’m called The Silver Demon Harmony. I wanted profit and I got it, I don’t give a fuck about any of you, more than doing anything I can to fuck over the ass holes that tried to sell you all. If helping you all get free can do that then that’s what I’ll do, don’t try to read into it more than that. Now go to sleep, we leave at dawn.”

“If that was true you wouldn’t have paid what you did for me even if you were planning on taking it back or not. My father taught me how to see into the truth of what others try to hide. You’re in pain yes, you hate yourself yes, but deep down you do care. I hope that you can see that someday,” she said and with that she trotted away before I could yell a nasty retort at her.

I just kicked at a rock then turned to head into my tent. I pulled off my combat armor, placed my saddle bags next to me, then laid down on the bed roll. I spent the next few minutes trying to forget what Harmony said to me, but I couldn’t, and I drifted to sleep angry at the world.

I awoke two hours later in a sweat and my heart pounding as the dream I just had about Aura slowly faded. I slammed my hoof on the ground in anger as I did everything I could to try and make the memories of her die. I needed a drink, but I hadn’t brought anything with me. Like always when I went to long on a job sober the dreams started getting worse and the memories of times we spend with each other flooded back in. The more they did, the more a deep burn seemed to ignite in my chest as if something was telling me I needed to go back to her. I wasn’t going to listen to it, Aura could fuck off for all I cared. She didn’t want me, she made that clear when she was talking with Aris, she was also a liar.

I was about to try and find a way to get back to sleep when Solstice poked her head into the flap of my tent. “You still up?”

I looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, can’t sleep.”

“Same here,” she said coming in and sitting next to me, looking down at her hooves, “I had no idea that weapon was so…bad. I heard stories and saw the places you used it on but…seeing it was…a lot.”

“Yeah I know, but the memory of it does slowly fade, it won’t go away fully, but in time you’ll feel better,” I said as I fiddled with my Saddle Bags.

“I don’t know how you deal with it. I mean I’ve killed before we both know that, but, never on such a large scale. How do you do it?” she asked.

“I don’t deal with it, I keep busy and ignore what I’ve done and when that gets too hard, I drink the memory of it away,” I said with a sigh, “I know it was hard, but…thank you for doing that back there. Now that I’m not so mad, I have a feeling that if I had been the one to fire Solar Flare again, I might have completely lost my mind.”

She shrugged. “You would have done the same for me.”

“Maybe a couple months ago, but now…I’m not so sure,” I said sadly, “Solstice can I ask you something?”

She nodded. “Anything, you know that.”

“Did I make a mistake…leaving New Pegasus I mean?” I asked.

She took a moment before she responded, “I think you needed to get away from there. If you stayed, Aquila would have found a way to turn even more ponies against you and I’m sure you would have died without the spell linking you two killing her too. So, no I don’t think you made a mistake leaving for now.”

“I meant did I make a mistake leaving…the rest behind like I did…leaving…her,” I said quietly as tears fell from my eyes.

I felt her pull me into a hug. “I think, you’re a very young mare who had hear heartbroken one to many times. I can’t tell you if you made a mistake or not Shadow. I do know that you loved her deeply and I’m sure she feels the same for you, but she was the one who said what she did and lied to you about Trip Wire. I can’t say I agree with everything you’ve been doing recently or how you’ve been treating your uncle or Vervain, but leaving might be what you need to figure yourself out, without Aura, my brother, the kids, Wind Thrasher and all the crap being The Courier has brought down on you. You need to find out who Shadow Star is, maybe that will lead you back home and back to Aura and our friends, or maybe you’ll find a new life and let somepony else finish what you started. You won’t know until you figure yourself out first.”

I sniffed. “I’m glad you came with me Solstice, I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to keep me sane,” I then pulled out Scootaloo’s Mark II from my bags, “If…if you still want to help me carry some of the load of my shitty life…then I want you to take this Mark II.”

She looked down at it for a long moment, before asking, “What does this Mark II have to do with helping you?”

I sighed. “All three Mark II’s were used to lock Falling Shadows. All three will be needed to unlock it before we can destroy it. I can’t use two at once and I only trust you to take this one. When we find the tower down here…I’ll need your help to fix what The Children created…that’s if you want to.”

In response she took the mat black Pip-Buck from me and slowly put it over her left foreleg. She latched it on, and I watched as the Mark II became hers. The set-up screen did its thing and just like that, Solstice was now part of a small group of ponies who had to carry an enormous weight on her shoulders. She slowly lowered it then looked into my eyes with tears running down her own. “Thank you for putting so much trust into me Shadow.”

A memory flashed in my head again…well two…one was of Aura and me when I’d left New Pegasus the other was from my time in the nightmare world. The memory from then however wasn’t the many I’d had of the time I’d spent killing my friends to get free, no it was of Solstice on the night we spent together. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from hers and I could tell she was having the same problem. More memories tried to push into me of Aura and I at the Kingdom, again in the sky carriage before Aquila took over, of the night I watched her sing with her sisters at the Rebirth Celebration. I wanted her back and deep down I knew that to be true. But I couldn’t trust her, she didn’t want me like I wanted her so why should I keep crying over a griffon who didn’t want me, who lied to me, who couldn’t see me as her life partner. I needed to leave her in the past, if she really had loved me, she would have tried to find me by now. She could have if she wanted to, I knew that. If Aura truly cared about me, she would have tracked me down before I even made it to Armadillo in the Badlands. I knew one day I’d have to go back to New Pegasus, I had to if I wanted to stop Falling Shadows. But if I did, it wasn’t going to be for her. Fuck Aura, fuck her Shadow Talons, Fuck Freedom, Fuck Aquila, Fuck the ponies around that area. I’ll finish my mission to stop Falling Shadows, then I’d start my new life, with somepony else.

“Shadow…I…” Solstice said, “I know I told you once that I don’t like…” she started to say, but she never got finish her sentence. I reached a hoof up to her cheek and pulled her down to me. Our lips met and unlike the time in Stratus when we’d been trying to keep from being discovered by the guard, this time I kissed her with feeling. She did the same and for the first time in almost two months, and even after spending time with the brothel Zony and the guard in Armadillo, I felt better, and Aura’s presence seemed to finally…leave me alone. True I didn’t feel the same kind of thing for Solstice as I had when Aura and I first kissed, but there was something there and it was better than the pain I’d been feeling since I heard Aura say she couldn’t see me as someone to make the Life bond with. Fuck griffons too…this was right, I was going to keep telling myself that, until I made it true. I kept on kissing her until finally Solstice pulled me onto her as she laid back, our bodies begging for more.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!
Bounty Hunter: You’ve spent your time hunting down the most deplorable of reprobates in The Badlands who’ve committed some heinous crimes. When around individuals with a criminal background, you will have an easier time catching their tells to see if they are lying to you or whoever they’re talking to.

Chapter 74: Silhouette

“Much worse than that. Nightmare Moon was nothing compared to the dark zony who almost destroyed Equus not once, not twice, but three times.”

Three and a half Months after Leaving New Pegasus…

*BOOOM*

The door to the Drifter’s Inn flew off its hinges as I tossed a stallion out onto his face. A tired sigh coming from Shot Glass as I stomped out after the dick. “Demon, if you’re going to break my shit, you’d better be able to pay for it at least,” she said as I walked out.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the damages,” I said as I lifted the stallion in my magic and slammed him down again, “So you wanna say that to me again dickweed!?”

The stallion whimpered in pain, saying weakly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were The Silver Demon.”

“What does that have to do with anything!?” I yelled, “You don’t go into a bar and start talking shit about a mare’s height or how you’d like to plow her at the brothel! What’s your name anyway?”

He lifted his face from the dirt, and muttered, “C..Cracked Crate.”

I turned my head toward Gaston who was still sitting at the bar, “Yo Gast, we got any bounties on this shit stain?”

He took another swig from his beer before belching, and saying, “Nope, though he looks like one of those traders who comes up from the south.”

“I…I am,” he said weakly, “I’m sorry if I insulted you miss, I just had too much to drink. I let my mouth get away from me.”

I growled down at him and slowly pulled Misery from its sheath. “You like eyeing young mares when you get drunk, is that what I’m hearing? What’re you like fifty?”

He looked at my black and silver sword and shivered in fear. “No, not normally, please I’ll be more respectful in the future!”

I lowered Misery to just under his left eye and made a small cut, just enough to leave a small scar. “Find mares your own age you fucking dust-pile and try talking like a gentlecolt next time. Now you better get your shit and get out of my sight. Let that scar be a reminder to you that I let you live.”

The Stallion ran as soon as I let him out of my magical hold. I started laughing as I watched him trip over his own hooves before getting back and running on. A moment later Solstice landed next to me in her town guards’ outfit, “What did he do?”

I shrugged and giggled. “He was rude and he’s a creep, so I told him to get out of town.”

She moved her head down and kissed me before pulling her muzzle back wrinkling her nose, “Are you drunk already? It’s not even noon yet.”

I swayed on my hooves and smirked up at her. “New drink from Shot Glass, she calls it Unicorn’s Bliss, no fucking idea what’s in it, but fuck does it make things so much nicer, and I feel like I’m floating on air.”

She sighed then walked into the Inn. “Shot, how many has she had and what the fuck are you giving her?”

Shot Glass answered in her normal bored tone. “Ain’t my new recipe it’s the new girls, Rosy said it’s great for making caps and she isn’t wrong. Demon only had two and that’s the limit on this drink. I’m afraid if I give her more she’ll destroy my bar.”

“Don’t worry I’ve had it a couple times now. I’ll be good in a couple hours,” I said with a little bit of a slur.

“Should’ve been here last night Lights Fall, she was signing up a storm and dancing like a mad mare. Was the funniest thing I’d ever seen,” Gaston said, walking up to Solstice.

“Gaston, I don’t need your input, I thought you were lining up a new bounty to go after?” Solstice retorted.

He shrugged. “Already did, the pony will probably stroll through Armadillo today or tomorrow. We’ll take care of him then, get paid quick for once, then enjoy another night of drinking and partying.”

“PARTY!” I yelled as I put Misery back into its sheath.

Solstice sighed then checked something on her Mark II before saying, “Shadow you need to sober up, your uncle is waiting for you at home for more magic lessons. You know what he’ll do if you try to skip out on them again and if you show up like this he’ll kill both of us,” she then looked over at Gaston, “If your bounty shows up tonight then you take the whole thing Gaston, she’s got enough caps for now.”

“Lights Fall…” I said, then hiccupped, giggled, then continued, “Why do you have to be such a party pooper!?”

She glared at me. “If you piss off your uncle again or show up drunk, I’m sleeping in the other room for a week.”

I sighed. “Fine, but if he scolds me again about how I cast my spells I’m going to leave and go find some shit to shoot,” I then got louder, yelling, “And I’ll do it with my best GRIFFON FRIEND!”

“Cheers!” Gaston said before going back to his beer.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” Solstice said with a sigh before reaching into her bags and pulling out a yellow-green potion, “Here, this will help sober you up. I got it from the doctor in town. I had a feeling you’d be drinking again.”

I took it and downed the small potion and a moment later started feeling more like myself. “I don’t know why it matters so much if I’m drinking or not, Ori knows what I do when I have down time. It’s not like it’s a big surprise or anything.”

“You’re practically a borderline alcoholic. I don’t know how you still find ways to fight when you have to,” she said as we made our way to the small house.

“It’s a special skill of mine I guess,” I said with a grin as I looked up at her.

“It’s not funny,” she said irritated, “You really need to stop drinking and partying so much and start looking for Tower 2. I thought that was the whole reason we were down here.”

I shrugged. “It is, but Ori’s had no luck finding any rumors about the location.

“Then maybe we should head south and see if it’s down that way,” she said, her voice getting more frustrated.

“You’re cute when you’re mad,” I teased, then I saw her glare at me and knowing I was pushing my luck I stopped joking around, “There’s one area about fifty kilometers southwest of here that might be where it’s located. From what Ori’s been hearing from the traders, it’s an area everypony stays away from.”

She cocked an eyebrow up at me. “Seems like a good place for it to be then. Why does everypony avoid the area?”

We’d just gotten to the front door when Oricalcos opened the door, saying, “I’m surprised you’re here so early and aren’t you on duty right now Solstice?”

For a moment I was going to say something to my uncle about using Solstice’s real name then just kept my muzzle shut. Our house was far from the others, and no one ever came close to it when I was around, so who’d overhear it? So instead, I said, “Good-day uncle! How are you today?”

He looked over at Solstice. “Is she drunk again?”

“Not anymore, “Solstice said, “I’m still on duty but took a break to make sure our little Demon here got to her lesson on time.”

“What were you two talking about a moment ago?” he asked, looking between the two of us.

I shrugged. “I was telling her about the location you haven’t been able to check on for Tower 2.”

“She said everypony avoids the area, why is that?” Solstice asked as we walked into the living room.

Oricalcos closed the door, then followed us. “Apparently it’s hellhound territory.”

“Seriously?” Solstice said, her eyes going wide.

“Yep,” I said as I sat on the old couch that Gaston normally slept on, “From what we’ve heard so far, there could be between twenty to fifty of them and there’s a rumor that they have a new pack leader who’s some kind of giant hellhound.”

“I was going to have Shadow send Gaston to check it out today after our lesson, need to see if this is true or if something else is going on,” Oricalcos said as he went over to the coffee table and pulled out Minuette’s spell book.

“Shadow, have you ever heard of a giant Hellhound, because I haven’t,” she asked.

“Sure you have, I told you about Rawr remember. He was the hellhound that called himself a Death Dog back in The Bramble. I’m guessing this new leader of theirs is one too,” I said as I moved closer to my uncle to look down at the spell book. He was going over spell preparation today and I could tell he wasn’t in a great mood, so I was going to try my best to be good today.

Solstice took a moment to think about it, then said, “Oh yeah, I do remember that story. Do you think it could be the same hellhound?”

I shrugged. “Possibly, but if so he’s very far from his old territory.”

Oricalcos looked up at me. “There are only three Death Dogs that the Enclave has ever heard of. One is a female named Digger who was last reported to be living up near Vanhoover, the second named Alister hasn’t been seen in at least fifty years, the last is Rawr who’s the oldest of them. If this leader is a Death Dog then it’s a good chance it’s Rawr.”

I looked over at him. “How do you know that’s the only Death Dogs around?”

“Death Dogs are Hellhounds that were created after the war by a former leader of Neighvarro. Only three survived the project and all three escaped about a hundred years ago. The Enclave kept tabs on them when they could but never tried to recover or kill them since they escaped,” he said with a shrug.

“How could they be the same ones if this was so long ago?” Solstice asked.

“Hellhounds have very long lives as it is, we don’t know their normal lifespans, but I’ve heard about a couple that were still Diamond Dogs during the war who are still alive today. Death Dogs are even stronger, smarter, and probably could live longer than a normal hellhound,” he said.

“Well, if Rawr is this giant hellhound, maybe it won’t be so bad to go check the place out,” I said.

“What makes you say that?” Solstice asked.

“I did help him escape The Bramble and I think he likes me. Maybe he can help us find Tower 2,” I said.

“The problem will be getting close enough to talk with him,” Solstice said with a sigh, “I think the only way we’re gonna be able to make this work is if I fly Shadow out to the location and maybe we can see if we can find the tower itself. If we have to land and there are hellhounds around then we try and see if one of them is Rawr. It would be the safest option.”

“I honestly think it would be best to do a fly over first and come back here so we can plan. If there are hellhounds around I’d rather us all be safe,” Oricalcos said as he sat next to me.

I sighed. “I think you’re right. Like I said before, I’ll send Gaston. He should be able to tell us what he finds,” I said.

“No,” Solstice said, “I’ll go.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you need to go? Gaston is a contracted griffon; this is the kind of work I pay him for.”

“This is about Falling Shadows, the less that know about that project the better. I’ll go and we aren’t going to fight about it. I’ve made up my mind and that’s final,” Solstice said.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, do what you want, just don’t do something stupid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Solstice said, “That’s your area of expertise. I’ll go tell the head of the guard that I have to leave early then go see what I can find out about the tower. I’ll send you a message on the Mark II when I’m finished.”

“Okay, I’ll do my best to listen for it, that is if Uncle Ori’s lesson doesn’t make me pass out from boredom,” I said with a snicker.

Oricalcos just frowned, unamused by my immaturity. “You can act like these magic lessons are boring, but I know you enjoy them. It’s the only time you don’t start drinking when you’re around us.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” I said as I went back to looking at the spell book. I don’t know why I kept trying to lie to him. I did like the lessons, they made me feel normal and helped distract me from the pain of not being around Aura. When I wasn’t in my lessons or training or hunting down a bounty, drinking was the only thing that made the pain go away.

Oricalcos pointed at the page we’d left off on yesterday. “Okay Star, let’s get back to where we left off. Do you remember the last lesson?”

Unlike the other times we’d started a lesson, I didn’t give him a snarky remark. I nodded, saying, “We were going over how the magic that flows in the natural world around us flows into a unicorn’s body throughout the day and how that power is absorbed by the unicorn and stored for use in spells. We also went over how spells are structured and cast, taking what we want to happen and making it a reality.”

Oricalcos blinked then nodded. “Very good, so you have been paying attention,” he said with a smile “Okay, let’s see if we can finish this book today and then we can move on to magical theory and advanced transfiguration.”

When he wasn’t looking, I let a small smile pull at my lips as I listened and watched my uncle. I’d failed at a lot in my life, but I was glad that one hope I’d had months ago had come to pass. My uncle was happy, he found a mare that loved him, he had his old…well kind of his old body back and he was able to sit down and teach his niece about magic. Seeing Oricalcos and Vervain happy with one another was still strange, but amazing at the same time. They both deserved to be happy, they deserved to settle down and ignore the shit going on in The Wasteland. They’d both given up so many years for either my mom or me.

***

A few hours later I yawned and stretched as I made my way out of our small home and headed toward town. It was dark but the lights from Tails Up were bright. Ever since I’d started seeing Solstice, I hadn’t slept with any of the ponies or zebras at the brothel, but I did stop in now and then to see how Madam was doing and also to pick up Harmony. She wasn’t one of the prostitutes at Tails Up, she just helped clean up the rooms and kept Madam Company while I was off with Gaston bringing in bounties or getting drunk. Over the past month and a half, I’d come to like the zony. She was extremely green to how life worked in The Wasteland, but her upbeat attitude and always looking at the world like a glass half full was nice to be around. She stayed with us and was one of the only ponies apart from my family and Gaston who knew my real name.

I pushed the door open to an oddly quiet lounge, lifting an eyebrow I looked around wondering where the normal crowd of customers were. The lounge was completely empty, even the bartender was missing. I’d never seen this place so quiet before. Pulling on my magic I cast a spell my uncle had taught me only a week ago. It was technically a shadow magic spell, but not one that was part of the same branch of magic he’d had his soul connected to for years. All this spell did was pull shadows and darkness around me making it harder to see my form in a darker environment. The lounge was always dim, so this spell was perfect. I moved to the edges of the room and started moving my way toward the back room, hoping I’d find Madam holding some kind of meeting or something.

It only took me a moment to reach the door to the back room. I used my magic to turn the knob, but found the door was locked. Cursing, I pulled out a bobby-pin and my screwdriver and picked the lock. The lock clicked in a few seconds followed a moment later by the door slowly opening. As soon as it did, I heard a stallion’s voice, saying, “I don’t like asking more than once Madam, where is this Silver Demon? I’ve searched all over this town and I haven’t seen anypony that matches the stories I’ve heard about her. The only thing I’ve heard repeatedly about her is that she comes to this establishment every night.”

“She hasn’t visited tonight I swear to you sir. She normally comes by to pick up Harmony, but she’s late tonight,” I heard Madam say, her voice sounding defiant and oddly a little scared.

“What is the relationship between this filthy zony and Silver Demon?” I heard the stallion ask as I moved slowly down the dim hallway.

“She’s my friend,” I heard Harmony say, her voice light as ever but I didn’t hear any fear in it which surprised me.

“A mare with her reputation couldn’t have friends, tell me the truth before I start beating them out of you,” I heard the stallion say, his voice getting harsh.

I growled as I came up to the door to Madam’s office pulling Misery from its sheath. The door was cracked open, and a dim light flowed into the darker hallway. Using my magic, I pushed the door open softly as I said, “I’d suggest you stop threatening them.”

Madam and Harmony were both on one side of the desk and they looked over at me as I came in. Sitting in a plush chair on the other side of the desk was a middle-aged unicorn stallion. He had a light green coat and a silver and blue mane, his eyes a light red, bordering on pink. He was dressed in a light-weight duster with a vest and colored shirt under it, giving him a strange mix of gentlecolt and scavenger vibe. He also had two revolvers holstered on a bandoleer over his chest, one had black metal with a pearl mouth grip and gold engravings, the other was gold with a black onyx mouth grip and black engravings.

He gave me an annoyed look, ignoring Misery in my magical hold. “Kid, this ain’t the time to be making empty threats. I’m also not the pony to making them to,” he said then looked at Madam, “I thought I told you to keep your staff in their rooms.”

My horn flashed as I took hold of him with my telekinesis and threw him out of the chair and against the far wall. “I’m not the type of pony who likes to be looked down on by cocky morons like you. Now let me ask you something, why are you looking for me?”

His own horn flashed and a moment later, he’d teleported out of my magical grip and reappeared a few feet from where I’d been holding him. His eyes didn’t look as annoyed anymore, and he seemed more interested. “And whom might you be miss?”

“I’m the mare you were asking my friends about, they call me Silver Demon around these parts. You’d better start talking before I start repainting Madam’s office in chunky red,” I growled as I kept my magic ready for an attack. This stallion wasn’t a normal unicorn, I could tell from how easily he’d been able to just teleport out of my magical grip.

He used a hoof to dust off his duster. “Name’s Quick Draw, fastest gun in The Badlands. I’m also one of the best bounty hunters down here. I’ll admit I had no idea the so-called Silver Demon would be so young. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but from the look on your face, I’d say you’d disagree with me.”

“Quick Draw, there’s no way that’s your real name? Okay, I’ve never heard of you, but that doesn’t mean much. I don’t keep up with the other bounty hunters in The Badlands unless they get in my way. What do you want with me? I doubt there’s any bounties out for me,” I said.

He grinned and I saw the leg of his duster go up a little. The glint of a Pip-Buck poking out just a little. “You’d be wrong there, there are two bounties out for you at the moment. One’s from some nasty gang that you went after a couple weeks back. They said you took their leader when he was sleeping. That bounty isn’t large, only 5000 caps. I personally don’t take contracts from ponies like them.”

That didn’t surprise me much, I knew the gang he was talking about. I’d used one of my stealth spells Uncle Ori taught me to sneak in and grab their leader. I’d gotten a few thousand caps for that one and it was only two hours of work and half a day’s travel. Though from the sound of it I’d have to go back soon and take the rest of them out. I looked back up at Quick Draw’s face. “Even if you did, you’d be out of luck even if you could take me to them. I know for a fact that they don’t have the caps to pay you. Who’s the other bounty from? More useless thugs putting out bounties they can’t afford?”

“Ah, now that’s the interesting one,” he said as he started to pace, still ignoring my drawn sword, “Until you came into the room, I didn’t know the second bounty was for The Silver Demon. It came from north west, from some cult that started up a couple months back. Seems this colt is willing to pay 50,000 caps for a mare called Shadow Star. I guess this mare pissed off their leader or goddess or whatever she is, and she wants her brought in alive. Funny thing is the drawing looks a lot like you Silver Demon.”

My eyes went wide as I asked, “What cult?”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been away from The Badlands for a while. It’s called the Cult of the Eagle, their leader is a powerful unicorn called Aquila. They’ve been growing quite a lot near New Pegasus,” he said eyeing me as he paced.

“Well, I may look like this Shadow Star but I’m not her,” I said as I did my best to hide the panic starting to race through me, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here looking for me.”

He looked at me for a long moment before he stopped his pacing. “Honestly, I’m not here for any bounty, though the one from the northwest is tempting. No, I’m here because you’ve been making waves. You’ve been taking a lot of bounties away from the rest of us within a hundred kilometers and caps are starting to get slim for the rest of us. We bounty hunters don’t all get along or work well with each other, but we do make sure not to take every single bounty for ourselves. I’ve come to put you in your place.”

I started to laugh. “Put me in my place? If you only knew the ponies, zebras, griffons, and more I’ve killed, you wouldn’t be saying something like that,” I lifted Misery, “Now get out of this brothel and leave Armadillo before you say something you’ll regret. I don’t care if you or the rest of the bounty hunters can’t seem to keep up with me, it’s not my problem if you suck at your job.”

He didn’t move a muscle, he just looked at Misery with a hint a boredom on his face. “I could leave as you ask, but more will keep coming until you’re dealt with. If you wanna keep waves of bounty hunters from flooding into Armadillo, then you’ll have to best me in a duel.”

I cocked my head to one side. “A duel? What, you want to have us both go to the center of town and see who can draw the fastest or something?”

He chuckled. “Normally it’d be something that simple. We’ll have a quick draw duel yes, but rules will be put into place to make sure the duel is fair. Us both being unicorns makes it very easy to cheat.”

“I could just kill you here and now and pay Madan for the mess,” I said with a grin, “I’ve got the caps for that.”

“I won’t go down as easily as you might think Demon. Even if you were able to beat me, I’d be sure to kill both of your friends here before I died. Now do you accept my duel, or do you want to chance one of your friends dying?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, sliding Misery back into its sheath across my back, “What are the rules and when are we doing this?”

He seemed to relax a little as I put away my sword. “It’s quite simple, no magic is to be used apart from telekinesis. That can only be used to hold your weapon and fire. One bullet will be used, and it can’t be an automatic. Revolvers are the only weapon I’ll allow in a duel with me. As for when we will do this I say we mosey on just outside this fine establishment in fifteen minutes or so.”

“Fine with me, but I’m going to send Harmony home, she doesn’t need to see this,” I said, looking over at the zony who was watching the two of us. she didn’t look scared, more curious.

He sighed. “Fine, but the old one stays here.”

“Who are you calling old!?” Madam exclaimed, a bit of her normal fire coming back.

“Shut up Madam,” I said, glaring at her before turning back to Quick Draw, “Fine, I’ll meet you out there in fifteen minutes.”

He turned to leave then stopped and said, “Oh yeah, also no using your S.A.T.S. neither. I’ll make sure to not use my own as well. I have a spell that will keep the spell from working.”

“I don’t need it,” I said.

He smiled and with a flash of his horn, he teleported away. When he was gone, Harmony ran over to me and hugged me. “He wasn’t a nice buck.”

I hugged her back. “No, he’s not, but soon he won’t be a problem anymore. He really picked the wrong pony to screw with.”

“Demon,” Madam said, coming around her desk, “Quick Draw is one of the best bounty hunters in the area, at least before you came along. He’s also one of the best duelists around here. I know you’re good, but you have no idea how fast he can shoot. He’s called Quick Draw for a reason.”

“I’m not stupid, I figured that out as soon as he brought up a duel. If he knows my reputation as much as he says he does, and he still wants to fight, that means he planned for this,” I said as I let Harmony go.

The zony wasn’t much taller than me and she was around my age, maybe a little older, but she always made me feel like she was younger. She looked up to me most of the time. At first it was extremely irritating because she tended to follow me all over the place asking me questions nonstop, but now I liked having her around…most of the time. She looked at me now and I could tell that she was going to ask to stay to watch the fight, or to talk me out of it.

“Do you have to fight him? Can’t you work something out? Not everything has to be dealt with like this. Maybe if you agree to let some of the bounties go to the others he’ll back down,” she said, in her innocent way.

I sighed. “Harmony, the world doesn’t work like that. Ponies like him only understand one thing, and that’s violence. Okay, two things if you count caps. I wish the world was kinder, I wish it was more like it was back before the war, but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. This is The Wasteland and the only thing it understands is pain, suffering, blood, and death. Terrible, disgusting, and gruesome death. Now, I want you to go home, tell Ori what’s going on, then stay at home.”

I saw a tear in one of her eyes. “I don’t want you to do this, there has to be another way.”

“There isn’t, now go,” I said in a firmer tone.

For a moment she just looked into my eyes then she looked down nodding. “Yes ma’am.”

“Harmony don’t call me ma’am. I’m not your owner, I’m your friend. I’m just trying to keep you safe,” I said.

She walked past me, saying, “If I was your friend you wouldn’t order me around like I’m just your serf,” she took a moment to look back at me as she continued, “There’s more to life than fighting and killing. I can tell deep down that you’re a good pony, but she’s stuck deep inside you. Buried under a lot of hurt. You can keep killing, fighting, and drinking to try and mask it, but I can still see that good pony trying to find a way to get free. I’m gonna help you find her again.”

Before I could say another word, she dashed for the back exit and was gone. I sighed and turned to make sure Madam was okay when I heard Quick Draw yelling from the street in front of Tails Up, “Townsfolk of Armadillo, I am Quick Draw and I’ve come to your lovely town this evening to challenge your so-called Demon to a duel. In ten minutes, the duel will start. If you want to witness the fall of this Silver Demon, then make sure you come and watch. We will be commencing the duel in front of Tails Up!”

“Well, he’s full of himself isn’t he?” I said as I listened to him yell again, his voice sounding magically enhanced. He must’ve been using a spell to make sure the whole town could hear.

“I’ve seen him fight in Armadillo seven times now and he always pulls in a crowd to watch,” Madam said sadly, “If you’re going to do this then you’d better make sure you have a revolver, and I’ll pray to the goddesses that you win.”

“I have an old one in my saddle bags; it should be good enough. It’s not the fanciest of weapons, but it’s kept me alive in the past,” I said, pulling out the old revolver.

She looked like she was going to say something else when another voice echoed in from the street and I felt my heart nearly stop as I heard Vervain yell, “If you think you can beat her, then you’ll have to go through me!”

“Who the hell are you?” I heard Quick Draw say, his voice still enhanced.

“Oh, hell no,” I said as I ran for the front of Tails Up.

“I am a former Paladin of The Steel Rangers, my name doesn’t matter, but if you want to take on Silver Demon then you’ll have to prove you’re good enough. I’m the one who trained her, so prove yourself to me!” I heard her say as I ran through the still empty lobby and burst through the front doors.

I saw them, standing in the middle of the road. Quick Draw looked over Vervain, not looking impressed. “I’m a unicorn, what do you think you can do to beat me in a duel earth pony?”

“Ver…I mean Mother, what do you think you’re doing? Go home, this is my fight!” I yelled.

She glared at me and for the first time in a long time, I saw the fire and anger in her eyes. She held my gaze for a long moment before she said, “Back down, I’m not a weakling so stop treating me like one,” she then looked back at Quick Draw, “I’ve killed my fair share of unicorns with big egos like yours. If you think you have what it takes to win against me, then prove it to me. One bullet, one shot, best shot wins.”

“I shoot to kill, I only need one shot, are you willing to risk your life for this brat?” he asked, nodding his head toward me.

“I’d give my life any day of the week for her,” Vervain said and as she talked I noticed a holster with a revolver on her chest. I had no idea she had a weapon like that.

“Fine, if I win I’ll take on Silver Demon next, once your corpse has been removed of course,” he said, taking a few steps back.

“When I win, you’ll leave Armadillo and never come back,” Vervain said, taking a few steps back as well.

“Oh, so you think you’ll win without killing me do you? Okay, well then you have a deal,” he said. As they talked, more and more townsfolk started to show up, watching as Vervain and Quick Draw stood across from each other.

Quick Draw’s magic glowed, and I saw him getting ready for his pull. Vervain’s muzzle twitched as her eyes watched the stallion a few paces away from her. Everypony watched and waited for the moment when the action would start. I wanted to do something, but I knew Vervain would rip me a new one if I tried to step in. I could feel my heart pound against my chest as the seconds ticked by, then it jolted right as Quick Draw suddenly yelled, “DRAW!”

He was halfway through saying the word, his magic glowing brighter to pull out his revolver when Vervain stared moving. Her head shot down, pulled her revolver out of its holster, the hammer already cocked. Quick Draw’s revolver flew out of its holster and was on its way up to point and fire. Vervain however was a former paladin; she was one of the smartest and toughest ponies I’d ever met. Her revolver was up and her tongue pulling at the trigger before Quick Draw could get his revolver aimed. There was a loud crack and Quick Draws revolver flew out of his magic, falling to the ground a few meters away. I could tell even from where I stood that it was broken from the bullet slamming into it.

Quick Draws eyes went wide as his brain tried to comprehend what had just happened. “How…How did you do that?”

Vervain smiled as she holstered her revolver. “I raised a powerful unicorn; I know what to look for with magic. I started moving as soon as your horn started glowing brighter. Unicorns like you think that they’re the only ones with power because they can cast spells. You’re wrong and you should never underestimate the internal magic of an earth pony. We never miss. Now get out of Armadillo and never bother my daughter or this town again.”

I wanted to run over to Vervain and hug her. The sight on Quick Draw’s face was priceless. I was just about to do that when I saw Quick Draws horn glow brightly right as he said, “I tried doing this like a gentlecolt, but I’m done playing games.”

A blast of magic flew out of his horn and slammed into Vervain so quickly that I didn’t even have time to put up a shield to protect her. In what seemed like slow motion, I saw the blast hit her, her eyes going wide and a look of shock coming to her face. That moment lasted for only a moment before she was thrown back and through the front window of Drifters Inn. His horn glowed again, and another blast hit the building and it started to burn. I screamed in rage and tried to run for the now burning bar, but before I could take a single step, I felt my body lock up as a spell wrapped itself around me, holding me in place.

“Not so fast Demon, or Shadow? I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting your Steel Ranger friend to step in like that or for her to pull a fast one on me, but she won’t be a problem anymore,” Quick Draw said while the towns ponies rushed to the burning bar hopefully to try and save Vervain.

I felt anger like I haven’t since the day I left New Pegasus building inside of me as I said in a deadly tone, “You better hope that you didn’t kill her with that blast, because if you did, I’m going to make sure your death is as painful as possible.”

He sighed and walked closer. “You still seem to think that you can do anything. The sad truth is you can’t. I’m a much more powerful unicorn than you think. You’re nothing but a filly who knows a few spells and can’t really do anything when stronger ponies come along.”

“I’ll show you how much power I really have,” I said.

He laughed. “Shadow Star, I know who you really are. I looked into it when I heard about the bounty. You may find this hard to believe but some of us down here have heard of The Courier. I did some digging and came to find out that most of what you’ve been able to pull off out west was because you had the help of your friends. Let’s see, you had a Dashite who is a great shot and a good fighter, a colt with a lot of tech knowledge, a bat-pony who I’ve heard saved your life a few times, oh and let’s not forget about that griffon, the one who leads the Shadow Talons in New Pegasus. She was the reason you’ve survived for so long, that and a little luck. So, stop portending like your something, when you’re nothing but a pathetic foal. You’re the fool who left your friends behind and came out to my turf with two older ponies and a pegasus.”

I started to run through spells that my uncle had taught me to help me out of binding spells like this. I tried my best not to look at the building that was starting to get consumed by the flames. I saw the sheriff run into the building, I hoped she was able to get Vervain and Shot Glass out. I looked at Quick Draw. “You’ve been planning for this, you’re here for the bounty on me.”

“Of course I am, but not the one out west. I don’t feel like making that trip, but there is one a few miles from here that is worth a good amount. You pissed off a pony who used to trade with those slavers you killed, oh wait your griffon friend did that didn’t he. Still, the bounty is for you, and I could use ten thousand caps. Nice thing is he doesn’t care if your dead or alive. Don’t you worry though, once I bring you in, I’ll be sure to get word back to this Aquilla who’s looking for you out west and tell her right where the rest of your small family is. I have a feeling she’ll take her anger out on them since you’ll be dead and gone,” he said with a chuckle.

I felt something deep inside me start to bubble its way up my body and into my horn. I could tell that it wasn’t my normal light magic, this was dark, and it felt amazing as it fueled the spell I needed to break free of his binding spell. It also enhanced the rage I felt from him threatening to tell Aquila where my family was. In a flash of almost blood red magic, I broke the binding spell and turned toward Quick Draw who’s face had gone pale. I took a single step toward him and said in a voice filled with power and darkness. “You won’t threaten the ponies I love EVER again!”

“How did you…” he started to say before I picked him up in my magic and threw him across the street, his body slamming into a wall and crashing right through the flimsy boards. He yelped in pain, but I didn’t care. I turned my head and saw Sheriff Spur and another pony pulling Vervain and Shot Glass from Drifters Inn right before the roof collapsed.

“Are they still alive?” I asked doing my best to keep the anger out of my voice.

Sheriff Spur nodded. “They’re both breathing but Vervain needs to see a doctor for some deep cuts, and she might have a broken rib or two, but she’ll live. You should come check on her, I’ll take Quick Draw into custody for what he did to the Inn.”

“No,” I said and turned back toward the building where I could see Quick Draw slowly crawling out of the hole I’d made with his body.

“Demon, he committed a crime in my town. It’s my job to take him in and pass judgment, not yours. You aren’t above the law,” she said as she walked toward me.

I used a bit of my magic to slam her down to the ground, holding her in place with my own binding spell. “Sorry Sheriff, this Stallion is going to die tonight and by my hooves.”

“STAR NO!” I heard Oricalcos yell from down the road, I saw him running toward me.

When he was close enough I used a spell to make him trip over his own hooves then picked him up in my magic and put him over by Vervain, “Auntie Vervain needs your help right now. Stay out of this!”

“Star, I can feel the darkness in you, something’s wrong. You need to stop before you do something you’re going to regret,” he yelled.

I ignored him and teleported to Quick Draw’s side. He saw me and tried to hit me with a hoof, cursing, “Stay away from me you fucking monster!”

I dodged the hoof-strike, using some of the moves Vervain had been teaching me. I flipped around and bucked upward, my rear hooves slamming under his jaw and throwing him back. He cried out and when I turned toward him again, I saw blood drooling out of his muzzle. He spat on the ground right before I slammed a hoof into his left eye making his head fly down into the dirt. He moaned in pain but tried to get back up again. I used my telekinesis to lift his head by his mane, making sure he looked into my eyes, “You made a big mistake coming here and an even bigger one by hurting Vervain.”

I used two blasts of air to strike him in the gut twice then I lifted him off the ground by his mane and slammed him back into the dirt. He rolled over and moaned in pain again, but managed to say, “I’ll…kill you…Demon,” his horn started to glow and quicker than I could counter he tried to blast me with a spell. I managed to move to the side, but part of the spell hit my side making me fly against another building.

The blow hurt, but not as much as it could have. He was fast, but his energy was nearly gone, or the pain was making it hard to put power into his attacks. I felt more of the darkness flow into me as I got back to my hooves, my magic lifting him again. I pulled him closer and right as I saw his horn start to glow again I said, “No more of that,” I pulled Misery out of its sheath and used it to cut off his horn.

I’d never done anything like this before and if I was a little smarter I would’ve remembered a lesson my uncle taught me a few weeks ago. Cutting off an enemy unicorn’s horn is the best way to make sure you’ll win in a fight, but never do it when they’re casting a spell. Our horns are the focal point for our magic. The magic itself is in our bodies and our horns are where we cast our spells and put the magic into the world. If you cut off a unicorn’s horn in the middle of a spell. It’s like setting fire to a fireworks stand, things tend to go boom. That is just what happened. As soon as his horn was sliced off, the magic he was putting into whatever spell he was about to cast, blasted out in a wave throwing us back as the wave of magic flew out in a dome of power destroying another home and knocking over a few citizens who weren’t smart enough to run.

I was dazed for a moment from the blast, but it didn’t seem to do much damage, though I’d probably have a few bruised ribs to deal with tomorrow. I slowly got back to my hooves and started walking toward Quick Draw who was moaning in pain a few meters away. He saw me coming and cowered in fear, “Please…show mercy, I’m done. You cut off my horn, my body is beaten to shit. Just let me go…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry!”

I picked Misery up from where it fell when the blast went off and pointed it right at Quick Draw’s eye. “You threatened my family, you know who I really am. How am I supposed to know you won’t still tell others where I am?”

“I…won’t, I won’t, it was only a bluff. I just wanted you to stop taking away my work. I have a foal and a wife to feed. They need me…please show mercy to a desperate father. I was only looking…out for my own family,” he said, starting to shake either from being in so much pain or fear.

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

I heard Oricalcos yell over at me, “Star, you won, let him go! You don’t need to kill him.”

“My foal is only eight, she’s my world…I shouldn’t have been so harsh, I was just trying to do my job,” he pleaded.

“Demon, don’t you dare kill him!” I heard Spur say from where she was still stuck.

“Shadow…you don’t need to do this,” I heard Vervain say weakly.

I turned and saw her looking up at me while Oricalcos held her head in his hooves. For a moment, I wanted to do as they asked, for a single second I almost stepped away. Then I remembered what happened the last time I’d let somepony go who was a threat to my friends. I remembered what happened the last time I’d been too weak. I turned back toward Quick Draw. “Sorry, but you’re the one who decided to fight a demon, now you can suffer with knowing your foal will grow up without her father, just like I did.”

“Wait…NO!” he screamed right as I cast my spell.

“Now Burn,” I said coldly as he was enveloped in a split-second flash.

At first it seemed as if nothing happened, then the spell took effect. Small embers started to appear at the ends of each hair across his body, “What!? What’s happening!? Ah! Ahhhh!” he screamed as the embers grew into black flames and he collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony.

“You wanted a Demon right? Well, here I am! That flame is inextinguishable and only goes out if I tell it to or if the target dies!” I yelled through his screams as he rolled back and forth trying to put the fire out.

As quickly as they started, his screams stopped. The flames danced into the air above and disappeared, only leaving behind a charred husk and a pair of melted pistols. As I started to walk back down the road toward the town, the anger started to fade, and the darkness receded. It was only then that I saw what I couldn’t before. Everypony apart from Vervain and Oricalcos looked at me with overwhelming fear. They backed away from me as I made my way closer, some of the mares crying as they looked at my bloody form, covered in wounds. Oricalcos and Vervain however looked at me in sorrow and disappointment. As the dark feeling finally went away my mind cleared, and I realized what I’d just done. I didn’t need to kill Quick Draw; I didn’t even need to cut off his horn like I had.

I stumbled and looked toward a window where I could see a reflection of myself. I didn’t see Shadow Star, I didn’t see the former Courier, I didn’t even see Silver Demon. I saw a bloody monster, a monster who was worse than even Aquila. I started to think about the other ponies I’d killed, the mare from the slaver camp, what I’d made her son do right in front of her, the others I’ve killed or beaten to an inch of their lives while drunk off my ass. As I looked at my reflection, rain started to fall, and I started to cry. I hadn’t cried once since I got to Armadillo, not truly. I heard the towns ponies start to leave as they whispered about what I’d just done to Quick Draw. I heard Oricalcos saying something to the Sheriff about me, but I ignored it all as I looked at the disgusting creature in the window, the creature that had my face.

I felt a hoof wrap around my shoulder and Vervain pulled me close turning me away from the sight reflecting back at me as she said, “Are you ready to finally talk?”

My whole body shook as I said in a horrified voice, “What’s wrong with me? I burned him to death like it was nothing. What am I becoming?”

She lifted my head to look into her bruised face. “You’re a very sad, very hurt filly with too much power. I’ve been telling you for months now that you need to talk to me. Your uncle and I were scared something like this would happen, but we couldn’t stop you from going down a dark path, we still can’t. It’s up to you to find your way back to the light.”

“I…I don’t know how, I…I just killed a stallion that had a foal, a wife, his daughter will grow up without a father because I was too angry,” I started to cry harder, “I should’ve let him kill me!”

I felt my magic starting to stir again as my emotions overwhelmed me. I started to hyperventilate, until Uncle Ori came over and his magic flowed over me. “Shush now Star, sleep and we can talk in the morning.”

It was like he snuffed out my magic, I felt it fade into the back of my mind right as my eyes started to close. As I fell into Vervain the last thing I heard was Sheriff Spur, saying, “You better keep her in that house of yours until I talk with the leaders of Armadillo, but if I were you, I’d prepare to leave. We don’t need ponies like her in our town. We hang monsters in these parts.”

***

I awoke the next morning with a pounding headache. I moaned and sat up in my bed, reaching over to the nightstand to pick up the bottle of Wild Pegasus I kept there, only to find it was gone. I moaned in pain and sat up more, running a hoof over my face. My blurry eyes looked around the small room for my Wild Pegasus or any drink. I shook my head trying to remember what happened last night. For a few minutes I couldn’t remember much, then like lightning a flash of memory hit me. I saw and heard Quick Draw screaming as he burned, I could remember the remaining husk that still held the expression of pain on its face. I felt tears starting to fall again and I laid back down in my bed, covering my head with the thin blanket, doing my best to force the memories to go away. I needed to force them down, just like I’d done with Aura and the rest of the ponies I’d left behind in New Pegasus. Slowly I started to drift back to sleep, tears staining the pillow.

As I drifted off I could’ve sworn I saw a flash of green light through my eyelids, but I ignored it. The pain deep in my soul was almost too much for me to take. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what I’d done to Quick Draw, or the Slavers, or most of the ponies who’d gotten in my way over the past three months, or if it was just that deep down I knew I was a fraud. Just like being The Courier. In New Pegasus I tried to live up to the image DJ Pon3 and Mr. New Pegasus had painted of me. I’d lived day in and day out not only trying to find my mom, or keep myself alive, I’d tried to do good and help when I could. In the end, I’d failed and when the ponies of New Pegasus needed me most. I left because I was so furious at Aura. The thought of her brought up small memories, memories I’ve been drinking myself into oblivion every night to try and forget. I remembered the first time I’d met her on the cliff outside that old shack, I remembered giving her the healing potion that saved her after Stardust almost killed her. I remembered how I felt when I thought she’d died, or how I felt when she first kissed me. We’d been through so much over the past few months and I’d overreacted without giving her a chance to explain herself.

As I slowly drifted further into my slumber, a voice echoed through the dark thoughts and darker dreams that were trying to force themselves on me. It was a stallion’s voice, one that sounded familiar, “It’s about time you stopped acting like a foal, you’ve been quite pathetic as of late Shadow.”

At first I thought it was a dream, but something deep down told me that I wasn’t dreaming. I tried to open my eyes, my real eyes, but I couldn’t. Everything around me stayed black, apart from two glowing green eyes. If I could’ve moved, I would’ve. Whatever was going on, I couldn’t do anything to stop it, so I did the only thing I could, I asked, “Who are you?”

“You should know me quite well by now Granddaughter, you have seen much of my life due to the memory orbs I made sure were left in the right places for you to find,” the voice of Night Stalker said.

A moment later, the rest of his body appeared, looking just as old as he had when he’d been banished from The Enclave. His mane was a mix of grey and silver, his goatee was grey with a bit of black still in it and his eyes looked haunted, tired, and sad. As I looked him over, the blackness around us started to change and soon I felt as if I was awake and in my own body as we sat overlooking a deep gorge with gray cliffs surrounding us. I found I was able to look around, but I couldn’t see much because a light fog was around the two of us.

I looked back at the old buck and asked, “How are you here? Did I finally lose my mind or something, or does this have something to do with that crystal?”

Night Stalker or Absent Moon smiled and moved closer to sit next to me. I knew he’d been a big pony when he was alive, but as I sat next to him I finally realized just how big he’d been. Sitting, my head wasn’t even as high as his shoulder. It made me feel even younger, like I was a foal. He looked down at me and said in a gentle voice, “You haven’t lost your mind yet Shadow Star, this is partly the crystal and a bit of your soul reaching out to try and help you fix what you’ve broken.”

“I thought that crystal was the thing that cursed The Children of the Night,” I said looking up at him.

He nodded slowly as he looked out toward the horizon. “The crystal was a one-time use thing. It did cast the curse, but after that it was nothing more than a cracked crystal with a little power still remaining inside. The magic inside it now was placed there by an old witchdoctor zebra and a bit of Min’s. I wore the crystal almost every day since my sister passed away. I met the old zebra a few days after Petal’s death. She told me a lot of things that at the time I didn’t want to listen to or believe, but she did place spells on this crystal and told me to keep it on me. I was in so much pain over the loss of my sister that I didn’t even think about the possibility that she could’ve been trying to hurt us. It was one of the few smart things I did when I was young.”

“I don’t understand,” I said honestly.

I saw a small smile pulled at his lips as he said, “This zebra mare knew what it would take to break the curse and how to help Equus. She also knew that my generation wouldn’t be the ones to fix it. She made sure that every member of The Children who had the crystal on them for even a little bit would have their memories placed inside it. Memories that would help make sure that a future descendant of ours would know what to do to fix the sins of our past.”

“Is her spell the reason I’m talking to you now? Are you just a mix of memoires and magic?” I asked.

“An…imprint of my soul lingers in the crystal, mixing that with my memories and you get what you see now,” he answered still looking out at the horizon.

I turned my head to see what he was looking at and my eyes went wide. In the distance, the sun was setting between the peaks of two mountains. As the sun fell, the light hit the snow topped peaks and cast thousands of rainbow shimmers across the peaks, almost like they were covered in diamonds instead of snow. With the beautiful colors of the darkening sky behind them, it was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Greta and I used to come here almost every night when we were young and watch the sun set. It’s one of the best memories of my childhood,” he said, “Aurora’s Twin Peaks they’re called.”

I looked back at him. “Did you love Greta? I mean when you were younger, before the war.”

He looked back at me, and I saw tears running down the old stallion’s face. “I don’t remember when it first happened, when I knew for sure that I was indeed in love with her, but I think I fell for her on the day I woke up after she saved me from the snow. I’d never met a griffon like her, she was head strong yes, but she was also caring, and could be sweet when there was no one else around. Her grandmother and her could’ve sent me back to Equestria to live in an orphanage after I recovered, but they took me in, and Gran raised me as if I was just another griffon. Gran and Greta never treated me like a pony living among them, I was just a part of the family.”

I felt a deep ache in my chest as he talked about Greta, it made me miss Aura all the more. Trying to get my mind off of her I sniffed then asked, “Why are you here?”

He took a moment to dry his eyes before he responded, saying, “You’ve hit a low point in your young life Shadow. The crystal finally reacted and stepped in like this because if you keep going down this dark path, you’re going to die. If you die, Equus will fall into a deeper darkness than it ever has in over twelve hundred years.”

I frowned at that. “You mean when Nightmare Moon took away the sun?”

He shook his head. “Much worse than that. Nightmare Moon was nothing compared to the dark zony who almost destroyed Equus not once, not twice, but three times.”

“You’re talking about that monster Mezzanotte aren’t you?” I asked, remembering the dark creature I’d seen in Moon Light’s memory crystal.

He nodded. “Two or maybe closer to two and a half thousand years ago, he was the first zony. He was born to the Starkatteri Tribe, back then they weren’t as feared as they were in later years, though they were still shunned by the rest of the tribes. Not much is known about his life before he found his dark magic, but we do know that he did use it to make shadow magic and tied the magic itself to his very soul. He nearly destroyed all the tribes when he was a young stallion and if it hadn’t been for the other twelve tribes stepping up and trapping him in some kind of stone prison, he would’ve taken over all of Equus even back then. He was trapped for centuries until one day followers of his cult found a way to free him.”

I interrupted. “How could he have lived that long?”

Absent Moon smiled. “He was immortal, his soul being tied to dark magic or something like that. I’m sure Oricalcos knows more than even I do, but anyway. He needed to build up his power again after his escape and he headed to a young Equestria. He built up a following in our homeland and tried to take over again, but he rushed it and Celestia and Luna put a stop to him, trapping him in another stone prison and Luna herself sealed it with her magic.”

I remembered the memory with Moon Light. “He said something to Moon Light about tricking Luna and because of her becoming Nightmare Moon, he was able to escape.”

He nodded. “That he did and once again, he waited a few years to build up his power before trying once again to take over Equus. He was very strong when he did this and with Nightmare Moon banished to the moon, Celestia wasn’t powerful enough to stop him. It took Celestia and the rest of the first Children of the Night to even stand up to him. In the end, all but one of The Children died fighting him. Celestia couldn’t use the Elements of Harmony after what she’d done to her sister, so Mezzanotte almost won. Moon Light and Celestia combined their magic and opened a rift to the lowest levels of Tartarus. The spell was so powerful that in the end it took the life of Moon Light. At least that’s the story I was able to find.”

I felt a small pain in my chest again, but I ignored it and asked, “What does any of this have to do with me?”

He sighed, looking sad. “It has everything to do with you, you see, you’re the only pony who can stop Mezzanotte.”

I started to laugh. “Yeah, sure I’m powerful enough to put an end to something like that.”

He didn’t smile as he said, “I don’t know everything about what you’ll need to do to stop him if he escapes Tartarus. I only got small bits and pieces from the old zebra, but she said that once you accepted both the light and the dark parts of your soul, that you’d be able to do it. She also said that it will take the power of the stars to put an end to this darkness.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You mean Aquilla’s power? I kind of don’t have her inside of me anymore. She’s sort of running around in her own body now, one made by The Ministry and almost a clone of me. She’s also evil!”

“She’s not evil, she’s just been living with so much pain that her mind split. I would know because it’s my fault all of this is happening. If we hadn’t created Stargazer, Aquilla would’ve been left to grow the way she was meant to. Who knows, maybe she would’ve never needed to come down to Equus to help? Sadly, we ripped her away from her home and trapped her in a lab for two hundred years and because of that we used what we learned from Stargazer to make Falling Shadows; a project that won’t only make a pony even more powerful but will also open the gates to Tartarus,” Absent Moon said and then sighed, “If the Project isn’t destroyed and somepony uses it, the rest of the light magic that does belong to Aquilla will come down and be placed in the pony who is using the project. That power coming down will also destroy the chains to Tartarus and Mezzanotte and many more will escape that prison. Falling Shadows will literally bring darkness down on Equus.

“Why…would you make anything like that?” I asked feeling, disgusted by what I was hearing, “I know you wanted to win the war, but at what cost?”

He looked back at me sadly. “We didn’t know what would happen until it was too late. Minuette tried to warn me, but I was too arrogant to listen, so she made sure the project was locked down until somepony could destroy it. It took me forty years to realize she’d been telling me the truth. I did what I could to help, even giving up my life to hold back the project just in case anypony found The Mark II’s.”

“So, I have to clean up your mess?” I asked feeling angry.

He sighed. “Sadly yes. I’m not proud of what I did, and I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. I’m sorry that you’re the one who has to do this, but you don’t have to do it alone. You have friends and loved ones who will do anything they can to help you. You shouldn’t run away from that; you should embrace it.”

I looked down at my hooves and the land around us seemed to change. When I looked up, I saw we were no longer on the cliff looking out at Aurora’s Twin Peaks, we’d moved to a dirt road that led between two straw huts. Griffons were walking around, and I saw one small skinny pegasus colt talking happily with a young griffon. They had to be Absent Moon and Greta. I looked over and saw the old Absent Moon was still sitting with me watching the two.

“I’m not as strong as you were, I’m nowhere near as strong as Moon Light was either. How can I do anything to stop any of this when I can’t even keep my friends safe?” I asked.

He chuckled a little. “Nopony is ever born strong, and they aren’t always as brave as most think,” he pointed a hoof at his younger self, “I was skinny, scared, and in love with a griffon. I didn’t feel brave, I wasn’t strong and yet when a friend was threatened, I didn’t back down once from a fight as long as I could keep the ones I loved safe.”

As I watched I saw three older griffon children come up to Greta and Absent Moon right as Absent was giving a beautiful white and blue flower to Greta, a small blush on his young innocent face. It was odd seeing a young Night Stalker, with no scar over his eye and a shy smile on his face. I couldn’t hear anything, but I watched as the three older kids pushed Absent to the ground laughing as he landed in a mud puddle. Greta stepped in trying to defend her friend, but the biggest one punched her hard in the face making her fall to the ground where she started sniffing and tearing up, trying to hold back her tears. Before they could do anything else, Absent Moon jumped into the air and round house kicked the biggest griffon right in the side of his head. He was dazed but it only took a moment for him to shake it off. Absent Moon was yelling at the three as he stood guard over Greta, but I could see his legs were shaking. The griffons and Absent kept on yelling at one another until the one that he’d kicked slashed one of his razor-sharp talons down Absent Moon’s left eye. Blood sprayed and I saw him fall to the ground screaming.

Two of them looked at their bigger friend in horror before running off. The one that slashed Absent was looking at his bloody talons, looking just as scared as his friends. Greta had gotten up and was trying to help Absent, but she looked back at the larger griffon yelling at him. It only lasted a moment before he flew away in a hurry. Greta cried as she started yelling something down the small roadway, getting the attention of a few adult griffons who ran over to help.

“I couldn’t see out of that eye for a few weeks, and it took months before I got all of my vision back,” the older Absent Moon said, running a hoof over his scar, “I was so scared when they came after us like that, but something inside me made me jump in to protect Greta. My father was the same way, he’d always jump in to protect my mom. Nightingale was like that too; my daughter was so much like me it was scary. What I’m getting at is that something in our family makes us want to help others, even if we’re scared, even if we know deep down that we aren’t strong enough, we’ll still do our best to help.”

I was still watching the scene as the griffons picked up Absent to rush him off to get medical aid. I saw a flash of light over his flanks before he was whisked away. My eyes went wide. “Did you get your Cutie Mark that same day?”

He nodded. “My special talent was being a protector of the weak and being sneaky.”

I sighed and turned away from the memory. “I don’t know what to do Absent Moon. I feel so lost, I can’t seem to get the painful memories to go away, I can’t think straight. It’s…easier to just drink, collect bounties, and sleep around. It dulls the pain.”

I felt his hoof rest on my shoulders and slowly he turned me back to look at the memory, only it had changed again. This time I saw something else. It was a smaller M.A.S.E.B.S. tower surrounded by black rocks. My eyes went wide as I knew deep down this had to be the tower I’d been looking for. Absent Moon confirmed that a moment later. “This is the tower you need. It’s not far from here,” he sighed then continued, “We don’t have much time, but you need to hear this. Dulling your pain won’t help, it will only make it worse. You need to face that pain, then forgive yourself before you can move on. If you go into that tower the way you are right now, you’ll die.”

I looked at him, confused. “Why would I die? All I have to do is unlock the system inside, what could be so dangerous about that?”

He sighed again. “Each tower was constructed with different megaspells inside of them. The megaspells work together to power that tower’s purpose for Falling Shadows. Minuette put spells in place to test anypony who wanted to get past the main chamber to reach the control panel. This tower is one of the hardest ones to pass and I can’t tell you what to expect when you go inside with Solstice. Just remember to be careful and to trust in each other if you want to pass and unlock the tower.”

“Can’t you give me a least a hint?” I asked, getting sick of all this shit I had to do just to fix this mess.

He shook his head a little. “All I can do is tell you that this tower will test your courage in some way. Tower three will make you face your greatest nightmares, tower four will test your mind, and tower one, well I can’t honestly remember if Minuette put a spell in place there, she didn’t always tell me everything.”

“Why didn’t I see you get tested when you went into tower four? You just walked in and got into that pod,” I asked.

“I was tested in a way, but you didn’t see that part. The entrance to the tower changes inside Minuette’s library. When you go there, it won’t be in the same place as it was for me. You’ll have to find it by following whatever clues the library itself will give you,” he said.

As he spoke everything started to go dark apart from him. “I’m guessing our time is up?”

He nodded. “Just about, but before I go, I’m going to pass on some wisdom. First of all, don’t keep holding onto your anger over Aura. No matter what you try to tell yourself and who you sleep around with, she is your true soulmate just like Greta was mine. Don’t be a fool like your great grandfather. Go back to her, talk with her, and find a way to fix the rift. If you don’t, you’ll live the rest of your life feeling like you have a hole in you. If Greta and I can fix our own rift then so can you two. Second, don’t trust that griffon friend of yours so much. You’re a smart pony Shadow, but you’ve been in such a deep depression and drunk most of the time that you’re missing things when it comes to him.”

“Gaston? What do you mean?” I asked as his body started to melt into the black.

His voice started to fade as he said, “You’ll have to figure that out on your own, but think about this, it was mighty convenient for you to find such a helpful griffon when you first came to town. Lastly, remember to keep moving forward, stop looking back and always shine bright, brighter than any pony has before…”

My eyes went wide as he said that. The words my mother always said to me. A phrase I’d never fully understood. I wanted to ask him more, but he was gone. Before I could even think about trying to follow him, I jerked awake, falling out of my bed, my heart racing as the spell finished. I put a hoof to my chest as I looked on the bed where the crystal’s light started to slowly fade away. “What the fuck?”

***

Four and a half Months after leaving New Pegasus…

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Solstice asked as we stood a mile away from the land the Hellhounds claimed for their own.

I didn’t answer right away as I thought carefully, going over the plan we’d spent the last month coming up with. After I’d killed Quick Draw, I’d spent two days in bed, a good part of that being stuck in the spell the crystal had cast over me. I’m still not sure if that was really a part of Night Stalker I’d been talking to or just the magic, but I’d done my best to try and fix the shit I’d pulled over the months since we’d left New Pegasus. Sadly, I’d relapsed a couple of times during the last month. Apparently it’s not as easy as I’d thought to give up drinking and keeping my anger down was still a struggle, but I’d worked at it slowly with the help of my uncle, Vervain, Solstice, and most of all Harmony.

Harmony had wormed her way into my life more and more over the last month. She never left me alone for long, always giving her two bits when I was reverting back into Silver Demon again. I considered the normally quiet zony a friend now, and as I got better I’d gotten to know more about her. She told me a lot about her life before and after her time as a serf in Hoofington. She’d been raised by her father who was a zebra, he taught her a lot of things about their culture, but he died when she was six and she was taken to The Society where she was made into a serf. Well, that’s what she called it, she was a slave with no collar if you ask me. Her former owner had apparently been a nice older mare who Harmony was some kind of maid and caregiver for. When she died a year or so ago, she was given to her grandson who soon sold her to another mare who later was captured by slavers after some Society ponies ran from some attack in Hoofington. From what I could tell, she was sheltered from a lot of things in The Wasteland. I was slowly trying to help her learn what it was like to live outside the protection of her old home. She never told me about her mother, all I could get out of her was that her mother was a pegasus, and she was killed by The Enclave.

I’d also started to pay attention more to Gaston like Absent Moon said, but so far I wasn’t seeing anything suspicious about the large griffon. He was the same old Gast I’d grown to like, though I had noticed that he tended to disappear now and then for a day or two, but every time he came back he had news about bounties or things going on outside The Badlands. I was still watching him, but I wasn’t going to send him away until I had proof he was up to something. I’d also spent the last month fixing my relationship with Vervain and the two of us were doing a lot better. I’d finally told her what happened in New Pegasus with Aura, and she did what any good mother would do. She held me close and told me she understood my anger and then told me I needed to start finding a way of fixing things with Aura. I wasn’t quite ready for that yet; I mean I’d treated her like shit and…I’d been sleeping with Solstice. I was also sure that Aura wanted nothing to do with me after what I’d said and how long I’d been gone.

Solstice and I both knew that what we had wasn’t love, it wasn’t anything more than a way to help each other get over our own problems, and to scratch a certain itch every now and then. We did care about each other, we were still friends and she’d even told me that if I ever wanted to go back to Aura that she’d understand, and it wouldn’t destroy our friendship. Last week, I’d finally decided to end our strange relationship and oddly we were getting along even better than before. I was in a lot better mindset than I’d been a month ago, but I was still having bad dreams about what I’d done to Quick Draw. Sometimes I’d wake up and swear I was the one burning because I was so hot and sweaty.

Armadillo let us stay after what happened, mostly thanks to Oricalcos, but Sheriff Spur and most of the town now stayed far away from me when I walked through town. I’d also been banned from Tails Up. Madam was so terrified of me that she wanted me as far away from her establishment as possible. That still upset me a little after I’d saved her ass, but I also could understand. We couldn’t stay in Armadillo for much longer, sooner or later somepony is going to try and kill me again or the town was going to find their courage and chase us out of town. We had to get this job with the tower done soon. When it was all done, I was gonna go back to New Pegasus and fix the relationships I’d broken. For better or worse, I had to grow up and ask for forgiveness for how I’d acted.

I finally looked back at Solstice. “If it doesn’t then we’re going to end up as puppy chow.”

Solstice ran a hoof through her mane, slowly looking out toward the spikey black rocks that sprang out of the flat dryland in the distance, a white spire just visible in the middle of them, “When I flew over the area I did see a very large Hellhound who matched the description you gave me of Rawr, but I still can’t be sure since I never met him. Are you sure he won’t just kill us when we try to get close?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I’m hoping he’ll remember that I freed him and he’ll let us go into the tower.”

“And this tower matches the one you saw in the dream?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“I’m not close enough to tell for sure, but the black spikey rocks match and for as long as we’ve been out in The Badlands, I’ve never seen anything like these before,” I said, pointing at one of the closest rocks.

“They look like crystal more than rock,” Harmony said from my other side.

I’d tried to get her to stay behind with Oricalcos and Vervain, but she refused to leave my side for more than a few moments for the past month. She said she was worried about me and wanted to be close in case I went nuts again. I’m not sure what she would do if I did lose my temper again, but I didn’t have it in me to yell at her or force her to stay behind.

“Yeah they do, the strange thing is, I don’t remember seeing these in the memory of Minuette’s when she brought Scootaloo here to lock down the tower,” I said.

“Maybe they grew since then,” Solstice said, “Crystal can grow at insane rates with the right circumstances.”

I lifted an eyebrow, looking at her. “Since when are you a geologist?”

She just shrugged. “I’m not really an expert or anything, but The Enclave uses crystals for power sources since gems are hard to come by in the clouds. Stratus had a large crystal farm and I’ve seen how fast they can grow.”

“Normally natural crystal growth isn’t very fast, a lab can make them grow faster, but you wouldn’t see it in nature unless there was something else helping them,” Harmony said.

“Oh, so you’re an expert now too huh?” I asked, looking at the zony pegasus.

She smiled. “My dad was, and I had a few of his books and journals when he died. I know a lot about the natural world, be that herbology, petrology, mineralogy, and so on. I’m about as close to an expert as you’ll probably find in The Wasteland.”

“Huh,” I said with a small smile, “Well miss smarty pants, do you know what kind of crystals those are and how they could’ve gotten so large in two hundred years?”

“Magic had to be involved. From what you told me about what’s hidden inside that tower I wouldn’t be surprised if the megaspells are having an effect on the environment. Normally crystals like those don’t just grow in the middle of a dry deadland like this. Typically, they can be found in caves or when magma is involved and many other ways, but them being here is just strange. As for what they are, I can’t be sure until we get closer, but it looks like a large deposit of hematite. Hematite is normally used by zebras and some unicorns for holding dark magic spells.”

“So, if the megaspells had something to do with them growing here, I wonder if they’re some kind of defense system or if the megaspell chambers are leaking,” I said.

“Does it really matter?” Solstice asked.

“It might, but either way we have to get through them and up to the tower,” I said with a heavy sigh.

“Don’t forget we have to make it past a lot of hellhounds,” Harmony added.

“There is that and a death dog,” I said with a sigh before moving forward, “Solstice, if we start feeling anything under the ground shake or if you even hear something that sounds off coming from under our hooves, you get Harmony into the air.”

“No problem, but what about you?” she asked, looking over at me with a bit of worry in her eyes.

“I can teleport out of the way or put a barrier under me if needed,” I replied.

She sighed. “Okay but be careful.”

“I always am,” I said with a chuckle.

Harmony cocked an eyebrow at me. “When have you ever been careful?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

It didn’t take us long to reach the beginning of the black crystal. Before we went further, Harmony took a few moments to get closer to one and examine it, before saying, “Definitely Hematite which is just plain odd since they don’t normally grow like this or this large and I doubt there’s any magma around here.”

“It has to be the tower then,” I said with a sigh as I slowly drew out Misery, “Okay, from here on out we need to be careful. A hellhound could attack at any…”

Before I could even finish there was a loud boom followed by an explosion of dirt and dust as six hellhounds exploded out of the ground a couple meters in front of us. I lifted Misery and coughed, taking a few steps back as the dust filled the air. I was ready for one to attack us, but nothing happened. When the dust settled I saw the six just standing there glaring at us from just beyond the crystals. They all had weird-looking rifles in their filthy paws and crude armor. The leader was larger than the rest, but not as large as Rawr.

The leader took a step forward aiming a rifle that was longer than my body at me and said in what could only be a female voice, “You ponies are not wanted here, this be hellhound land. Leave before pony becomes dinner.”

The three of us looked at each other before I slowly lowered Misery, still keeping it ready in case they decided to attack. “My name is Shadow Star…”

“Marie does not care what small pony’s name is, Marie wants ponies to leave. This be small pony’s only warning,” she said with a loud growl.

“I can’t do that; I need to get to the tower that’s in the middle of your home’s territory. I’m guessing since you aren’t attacking me that you don’t care to kill ponies, am I right?” I said.

Marie growled louder. “Marie’s mate told all hellhounds to not bother ponies from the towns unless they come into hellhound land. If ponies do not leave, ponies will die.”

“Is your mate named Rawr?” I asked hoping I was right.

She cocked an eyebrow, slightly lowering her rifle. “Is pony from clouds?”

“You mean The Enclave? No, I’m not with them,” I answered.

“Then why is pony with two winged ponies and looking for Marie’s mate? How does pony know Rawr’s name?” Marie asked, looking angrier than before.

“I saved him back in New Pegasus when he’d been collared and forced to fight in The Bramble. We didn’t come here to hurt any of your…hellhounds, just to get to the tower and maybe to talk with Rawr. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I never got a chance to properly thank him for his help back then,” I said, not showing this creature any fear, even if I was feeling a good deal of it, “He said I was his friend when he left to go find his mate and daughter.”

Her eyes went wide. “You are the small weak pony that helped my Rawr get free?”

“I am,” I said, ignoring the weak part. I mean what good would it do me to get angry at that? To a hellhound and with no magic, I was weak.

She looked at the others, saying, “Get Rawr, tell him that pony that helped him is here,” they looked a little confused but in a flash they put away their weapons then dove into the ground. When they were gone, Marie looked back at me and smiled, showing rows of very sharp teeth, “Ponies can wait here until Marie’s mate comes, he will say if it is okay for ponies to enter.”

“Y…you said Rawr was the biggest hellhound you’d ever heard of right?” Solstice asked, sounding scared.

“Yeah, he’s a lot bigger than Marie is,” I replied, looking over at the large female.

Marie scowled. “Rawr is not normal hellhound, he is death dog. Other not as small ponies will give Rawr respect.”

“Y…yes…ma’am,” Solstice said, her legs shaking.

Marie started to chuckle, a very scary sound with a creature like her. “Pony has not met hellhound before, pony shaking like leaf.”

Harmony tilted her head as she looked up at Marie. “I think you’re fascinating.”

Marie moved closer and lifted one of her very long and sharp claws until it was an inch away from her nose. “Does half-breed think Marie’s claws are fascinating as well?”

She didn’t even look scared as she nodded her head. “I read that hellhounds were originally called diamond dogs. They used to work for The Ministries to help dig tunnels and build some of the structures back during the war. I also read that they were used to help mine gems from deep in Equus for Equestria to use for the war effort.”

Before Marie could answer, a large form walked out from behind one of the large spikes of jet-black crystal. As soon as I saw his mangy reddish-brown fur, deep yellow eyes, and enormous size, I knew it was Rawr. The same death dog I’d helped in The Bramble so many months ago. As he drew closer, he said, “Striped pony is right and wrong. Diamond dogs were forced to help, their lands were stolen by the ministry mares, and they were forced to do as they were told. Diamond dogs had to work, had to dig, had to find gems for war, or else diamond dog’s family would suffer.”

Harmony hadn’t looked scared when she was talking with Marie, but she took a step back and her fetlocks started to shake at the sight of the death dog. He was a full head taller than his mate and his claws were even longer and sharper. His eyes glowed in the dim light and his fangs poked out of his jaw and were like daggers. He looked around at the three of us before his muzzle lifted into a small smile when he caught sight of me.

I smiled back, saying, “It’s good to see you’re doing well Rawr, it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other.”

“Rawr is surprised that Small Pony is this far from her home. Small Pony does not look as good as she did last time Rawr saw her. Life has not been kind since the last time Rawr and Small Pony saw each other,” Rawr replied as he moved up to stand next to his mate, who nuzzled under his jaw for a moment.

Gee thanks for outright saying I look like crap after not seeing me for months. I thought we were friends, and he’s acting like an opinionated relative at a reunion. I suppose he’s right though; I could use a bath and a manecut.

Solstice looked ready to bolt at the sight of Rawr, so I put a comforting hoof on her shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry, Rawr is a friend. He won’t hurt us unless we give him a reason to.”

She just nodded as Rawr chuckled. “Small Pony is correct, Rawr is in her debt for saving Rawr’s life and giving him freedom to come back home and find Rawr’s mate and pup.”

“So…you won’t kill us? I was always taught that…hellhounds kill ponies on sight,” Solstice said, doing her best to keep her voice even.

“That is true of most hellhounds, Rawr’s pack lives out here away from ponykind to keep away from judgment and hunters. Rawr’s pack does not bother ponies if they do not bother them,” he said before looking back at me, “Rawr is happy to see Small Pony again, but must ask, why are you here?”

I sighed, then pointed a hoof at the tower just in the distance. “I need to get inside there.”

His eyes widened a little. “Small Pony wants to try to get into the base?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Base? I thought it was just a strange M.A.S.E.B.S. tower?”

He looked down at my Pip-Buck then at the Mark II on Solstice’s foreleg. “Rawr knows more about the project than Small Pony might think,” he took a moment to think before he turned and said, “You may enter Rawr’s lands and Rawr will meet with you three in his den.”

“Really? You’ll let us into the tower then?” I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “That depends on what Small Pony tells Rawr once they are in private,” he said before looking at his mate, “Go back to patrols, no one will bother Rawr or his guests.”

She nodded, then after licking his nose, she tore into the ground, vanishing. Rawr waited a moment, then indicated for them to follow him. Solstice still looked scared, and Harmony more curious, but we followed the huge death dog past the black crystals and up toward the tower. It only took a few minutes to reach and now and then I saw a hellhound or two watching us from dark crevasses, but they didn’t come any closer with Rawr so close. He didn’t speak the entire time we were making our way up the small hill. At first I thought he was going to lead us right to the entrance, but he didn’t. He led us to a metal door that seemed to be built right into the black crystal growing everywhere around us. He carefully entered a code into a pad next to the door and it opened with a hiss.

He walked in and we followed, the door shutting as soon as all of us were inside. I was expecting to walk into an old mostly rusty tunnel or room, but I found myself in a small library. The walls and floor were a soft brown wood with bookshelves surrounding the large space filling every wall. There were a few sofas, a large desk, some reading tables, and a few terminals around the room. A door on the other side was open and seemed to lead into another room that had what looked like a large bed in it. The room was well lit and there was even soft, pleasant music playing from a beautiful radio in one corner of the room.

All of us looked around in awe before an even bigger shock came as Rawr spoke, but he didn’t speak in the normal voice I’d come to expect of all hellhounds, he sounded more like a dignified pony, “I do have to apologize for the rough way I’ve had to speak and act when we were out there and before Shadow Star. Most of my race is not as well educated as I am, and they tend to get irritated or even hostile when they think one of their own is acting like what they would call weak ponies.”

My eyes went wide as the still very scary hellhound…death dog, turned to look at me with kind looking eyes and a smile on his lips. I looked him over and asked, “Who and what are you…really?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Solstice said.

Harmony just looked at the books as if she wanted to run over and start reading them. Rawr chuckled. “I have not lied to you about what I am Shadow, I am a death dog or hellhound I guess, but one that has been experimented on to make me and the others like me, smarter, stronger, faster, and deadlier than the rest of my race. The death dog project was started by the grandson of Nightingale to protect two of the towers that control Falling Shadows when he was the guardian over a hundred years ago.”

If my eyes got any wider, they were going to pop right out of my head. “You know about the project, and the guardians?”

He nodded then motioned for us all to take a seat on one of the sofas. When we did, he sat in a large chair, and said, “That is correct, and I knew that you were a descendent of the guardians when I first met you.”

“If that’s true, then why did you try to kill me before I got the collar off?” I asked.

He shrugged. “To be honest, it would be better to say that I wasn’t sure if you were related to them until after you got that collar off me. You see, the experiments they did to the others, and I made sure that we could sense the blood ties to a guardian so we would know who we could trust. That gift of mine was dulled when I was under the control of that unpleasant pony Poison Oak. After I was free I knew who you were, but I could also tell that you had no idea who you were related to or the true importance of that Mark II you have.”

Solstice seemed to be coming out of her fear as she glared at Rawr. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you tell her about who she was back then?”

He looked at my friend with a frown. “It’s not my job to tell a guardian who they are or what they have to do. There’s also the fact that Shadow would not have believed me if I’d told her too much back then. I could sense that she had spells keeping her memories at bay and I couldn’t do anything to help her remember herself or her family.”

“Then what’s your job and why are you even here?” I asked, before Solstice could argue more.

“My job for the past century has been to keep this tower safe in case anypony that wasn’t one of the guardians came to unlock Falling Shadows,” he said simply.

“Why would you spend so much time and give so much of your life to doing that?” Solstice asked.

He smiled. “I knew what this project was meant to do and the danger of letting the wrong pony get their hooves on it. I was told a lot, same for my brother and sister about what the project was and what it could do to The Wasteland.”

“So, you know why I’m here then?” I asked.

He sighed. “I wasn’t told everything about what you or whoever was part of your family would need to do when you came here, but I do know that it has something with shutting down the project. I will admit though, until I met you a few months back, I thought the last guardian had died with no one to take their place. I have not met with a guardian in almost twenty years.”

I took a moment and did some quick thinking and mental math. Twenty years ago would’ve been around the time my uncle Striker left The Enclave and left my father in charge of being the new guardian. Mom had already destroyed or stolen most of Striker’s notes and intel on Falling Shadows and Project Star Gazer before my father could get them. Finally, I asked Rawr, “Was Striker the last guardian you knew?”

He nodded. “He was, Striker wasn’t as bad as his father I’ll admit, but he wasn’t a great guardian. Now his grandmother was amazing, she used to visit me once a month just to see how I was doing, or to come and read one of my books or bring me new ones,” he looked off into the distance as a memory overtook him before looking back at me, “I’m guessing Striker is your father then? Wait no that can’t be, you’re too young to be his foal if he passed away twenty years ago.”

I shook my head. “No Striker’s my uncle and he’s not dead, at least he wasn’t when I saw him last a few months back.”

“Ah, so you’re not Striker’s daughter but Night Shade’s then. Did he take up the mantle of guardian then?” Rawr asked.

“He did, but my mother stole or destroyed a lot of Striker’s notes he left for his brother. He had to leave Nimbus quickly after he killed his father. My dad only knew a little about his role and only knew about the power source for Falling Shadows in New Pegasus and not much else,” I said with a sigh.

His eyes narrowed. “More than just your family knows about The Projects of The Children of the Night?” he sighed and sat back rubbing his eyes, “Night Fury was foolish for not telling both his sons about the projects and their roll. I shouldn’t be surprised though; he was power hungry and an angry fool of a pony. I bet he passed his role of guardian over to Striker as soon as he was old enough to do his part so he could focus on getting more power in The Enclave.”

“My mother is a descendent of Minuette, she knew a little of their projects and was looking into more when she started to date Striker back in the day,” I said, doing my best not to let my emotions get out of control as memories of my mom flowed through my mind.

Rawr took a while to think before he looked at my friends then back to me. “Tell me everything that you know, I’ve been out of the loop for to long,” he then looked at Harmony who was still looking at the books and smiled, “Little Hybrid, if you want to read one of my books, you may. Just make sure to put them back when you are finished.”

Harmony looked like she’d just been given one of the best gifts in all of Equus. She ran over to the shelves and started looking at the spines of the books while I looked back at Rawr. “I hope you have a time, because my story is a long one.”

He tapped his foot on the floor. “I’d like you to start from the beginning honestly, but I can’t stay here forever. How about this, your friends and you can stay here while you go over everything you know. My pack will keep you fed and safe and I promise that no harm will come to any of you while you’re here.”

“I’d love to tell you what I can, but honestly, I don’t have a lot of time to do so. I really need to get into the tower and unlock Tower 2,” I said.

Rawr was drawn with melancholy as he said, “Even though I am the protector of this location, that doesn’t mean I know how to open the door that will get you into the chamber. The door is locked and protected by magic.”

My eyes went wide as I asked. “You mean to tell me that I’m this close to finally getting what I want, and I can’t even get through the door!?”

“Sadly yes, I think the only way into the room is to have the key to the door. It’s possible it’s around here. I haven’t looked too hard for it, but if it’s not, then you’ll have to find another way to find your way into the room beyond,” Rawr Said.

“Fuck,” I said with a growl then sighed and asked, “Can a few more of my friends and family join us here then? My uncle Oricalcos could help me tell you more about what happened twenty years ago and honestly we do need to leave Armadillo soon. Unfortunately, I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

He smiled and nodded. “As long as they keep the secret of who and what I am and my full intelligence from my pack and follow the rules, then you are all free to stay.”

I got back to my hooves. “Okay, I’ll teleport back to Armadillo and get them.”

Solstice got up too. “I’ll go get them; you still need to rest Shadow.”

I sighed. “I know, but I need to talk with Gast, it’s time I let him out of his contract. I love the big guy, but he doesn’t know everything about me or the project and the less he knows the better.”

“Are you sure? I can always tell him you’re ending your contract if you want,” she said.

I shook my head. “I need to do it myself; you stay here with Harmony; you’ll be safe as long as you stay here with Rawr.”

“Fine, but if you’re not back in a few hours I’m flying back to find you,” she said with a smile.

I gave her a hug then headed out with Rawr. I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation I was going to have to have with Gaston, but I knew it was time to let my griffon friend go. He was fun, he was strong, and so far he’d been loyal. Even though he’d been nothing but helpful, I still couldn’t get the memory of what Absent Moon said out of my head. The crystal’s magic hadn’t lied to me yet and I knew all too well that not everyone could be trusted, even if they did act like a friend.

***

Five months after leaving New Pegasus…

Oddly when I’d gone back to Armadillo to get Oricalcos and Vervain, Gaston hadn’t been there. He’d left a note though, saying that he had to head back to his home and that he was ending our agreement on his own. I found it strange that he’d left on the same day I’d found the tower, but it made things easier for me. Oricalcos hadn’t been too happy about us all going to Rawr’s home, but I talked him into it in the end. It hadn’t been too hard once I told him about the small book collection Rawr had.

It took most of the past two weeks to explain to Rawr what happened to my family and everything after Striker left The Enclave. Oricalcos was a big help with a lot of the earlier stuff. He’d been part of the military science team back then and knew Striker well since he’d been dating my mom. Honestly, the part that took the longest to explain was my own story. I had to tell him about how I’d been hurt, my illness, what mom had to do to fix me, the whole getting Aquila stuck inside my body, my time in the stable, my memory loss, and everything since I’d found The Mark II.

During our time at Rawr’s den we spent most of our time in the bunker that was Rawr’s second home. He’d explained that this was where he’d lived until he started forming a pack and when he met his mate a couple decades ago. No one in his pack, not even his mate was allowed in this place. It was still weird to talk to him here, where he talked like most ponies. When he would go back around his pack, he’d revert to the normal hellhound way of speaking.

When I wasn’t talking with Rawr I spent most of my time at the end of a dim hallway just past the few bedrooms in the bunker looking at a large metal door. This wasn’t a normal stable door like I was used to. This door was twice the size and there was some kind of puzzle ring in the middle of the door. Uncle Ori said it was a kind of rotating dial pictograph puzzle. Accounting to him the seven rings around the door had to be twisted around to make one picture to solve the puzzle and hopefully unlock the door. To make matters worse, right in the center of the puzzle a small circle that indicated that a piece was missing, either a gem or part of the picture. That was the place that Rawr was talking about when he said the key was missing for the door. Ori thought it was a gem to power the puzzle, because no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get the rings to move an inch.

If we could find the gem key for the door, the rest shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. I could already tell that the picture was supposed to be the symbol for The Children of the Night. I could see the two black outstretched wings, the crescent moon, and the sword. I’d only seen it once at the power source under Spitfire’s Flight Academy. It was Night Stalker’s cutie mark encircled by Princess Luna’s wings.

“Looking over the door again I see,” Oricalcos said as he came up behind me, sitting to look up at the door with me.

“I’ve looked all around this bunker, and I haven’t found anything that could be the key. Maybe Minuette or Scootaloo took it when they left here. Maybe there’s no way for anypony to get into the room to unlock the project,” I said with a sigh.

“That’s possible, but I’m sure we’re just missing something,” he said “Even if we can’t find the key, there has to be another way to get passed this lock. Minuette wouldn’t have made it impossible to get back into the tower. She wanted this place destroyed more than anything and I think that locking down Project Falling Shadows was all she could do at the time.”

“Maybe, but she was also out of her mind back then. Who knows what she was thinking when she had Scootaloo lock down this tower?” I said.

He looked over at me. “Maybe she remembers where it is.”

I cocked an eyebrow, looking over at him. “Even if that’s true, how do you expect me to ask her? She’s hundreds of miles away.”

He pointed a hoof at my Mark II. “Contact Byte, she could ask her for you.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to bother her or any of them.”

He put a hoof on my shoulder. “Star, you know you can’t keep hiding from them forever. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to go back to New Pegasus. The longer you put off asking for forgiveness, the harder it’s going to be.”

I felt tears falling as I said, “It’s been five months, I’ve been away longer than I was with most of them. How can they forgive me after I abandoned them for so long?”

“Byte, Stardust, Wind Thrasher, Wingnut, and Aura all love you. Yes they may be upset and rightly so after what happened, but I think after all this time, they may have forgiven you for what you said and how you acted. You were in a bad situation and dealing with a lot of stress. I’m sure they understand that and most likely don’t blame you,” he said and pulled me into a tight hug.

I buried my face into his golden chest feeling like a foal again as I let my emotions get the best of me. As I did I said, “I keep dreaming about her…Aura, the look on her face when I yelled at her, the hurt in her eyes and I keep waking up in cold sweats. The dreams keep getting stranger too, I keep seeing her dying while trying to protect New Pegasus and our friends while I’m not there to have her back, or I see the city fall under dark shadows and red eyed monsters. The longer I’m gone the worse I feel, but I can’t seem to get myself to just leave and go back to her. I don’t know if it’s because I’m scared of what she’ll say or if it’s because I don’t deserve her.”

A moment passed then I heard Vervain say from behind me. “Sweetie, you do deserve Aura and she deserves you. The two of you both did wrong, the only way to fix things is to take the first step and ask for forgiveness.”

I pulled my face slowly out of my uncle’s chest to look back at Vervain. She was sitting a couple meters away looking at me with her deep purple eyes. “What if she hates me for leaving?”

Vervain smiled. “I don’t think Aura could hate you for anything Sweetie. She might be angary, she might be hurt, but the two of you share a bond I’ve never seen before. She may even feel the same way as you do, she probably feels like she betrayed you in some way or that she could’ve done more to understand your emotional state. My point is that you won’t know until you face your fears.”

I sniffed then used a hoof to wipe my eyes. “I know you’re right, it’s just hard to bring myself to do it,” I sighed, sniffed again, then pulled out of my uncle’s embrace, “No matter what I decide to do, I can’t do anything until we figure out how to get past this door and into the tower itself.”

“I’ve looked though all the books here and I can’t find anything that points toward where the key to the door would be hidden.” Harmony said as she walked down the hallway toward us with Solstice a few steps behind her.

“I’ve looked under every bed, blanket, in every chest, hooflocker, you name it, and I haven’t found anything that looks like it belongs in that door,” Solstice said as her and Harmony joined us.

“Trashcans!” a slightly disembodied voice said from somewhere near my uncle’s satchel.

Harmony jumped, saying, “Who said that?”

Oricalcos rolled his eyes and using his magic he pulled out the shrunken version of the Discord lamp. The lamp that was apparently a soul jar and had a piece of the lord of chaos’ soul inside it. I hadn’t seen the small Discord lamp since the night he’d trapped my friends and I in a place he called ‘TV Land’. I’d almost forgotten about it.

“You still have Discord?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I figured it was better to keep him with me instead of just letting him lay around where random ponies could find him. He may not be a full version of Discord, but he has enough power to cause problems. He’s also interesting to talk to when he’s able. Plus, he’s not boring and keeps me entertained.”

“Ah thank you Oricalcos! I’d say that you’re a joy to talk to as well, but then I’d be lying, you’re honestly quite boring most of the time!” Discord said. Every time he talked the very small light bulb in his paw lit up.

“Is that really Discord? The one from the old stories?” Harmony asked, her eyes wide.

“He is and he isn’t, he’s an intelligent Soul Jar to be honest. He’s a fragment of Discord’s soul with a bit of the original’s power,” Oricalcos replied.

Harmony took a step back and said something to herself in zebra, which I found interesting. I didn’t know she knew zebra. After a moment she said, “Who would use such dark and forbidden magic?”

“Oh, that is quite simple,” Discord said, “Rarity the head of The Ministry of Image did this with the help of two other unicorns. She got her hooves on a black book and learned how to first attach a soul to an object then she used me to experiment with splitting small parts off a soul.”

“My father always said that kind of cursed magic was dark and evil,” Harmony said, looking sick.

“It is dark, but I can’t say evil. No magic is good or evil, the ones who use it for such things are the problem, not the spells themselves. Though taking a soul and putting it into an object I think is as close as you can get,” Oricalcos said.

“I can say that I am not evil, but I have been called that quite a lot over the years. Most ponies find my pranks to be evil, but in reality they just couldn’t understand my passion for making life more interesting,” Discord said.

Harmony shivered a little but came closer again. “Well, if Oricalcos trusts you then I guess I will…for now.”

“I wouldn’t say I trust him, its more that I’m not worried about him being able to hurt any of us,” Oricalcos said.

Before the conversation could keep going down this seemingly never-ending rabbit hole, I said, “Discord, what did you mean when you said 'trashcans’?”

“Oh, I thought it was obvious,” he said with a chuckle to his voice, “Why would you hide something valuable in places most ponies would look!? If Minuette knew nopony was going to be coming here anymore unless they wanted to get into the tower for the wrong reasons, why hide it where it’s easy to find? If I were her, I would’ve hidden it in a trashcan, or the back of a toilet. Oh, or even better yet, inside a fuse box! There are so many great hiding places that ponies never look unless they’re very intelligent or desperate.”

All of us looked at the small lamp with confusion, all but Vervain. She looked like she’d been slapped. “Of course, it’s just like when ponies scavenge in The Wasteland.”

I looked back at her with an eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?”

She looked just as confused as I did as she asked. “You have scavenged before haven’t you Shadow?”

I shrugged. “Here and there, but honestly Wingnut did most of that when we were traveling. Stardust too, but normally it was a quick check of the places we were at. We never spent much time looking around in trash bins or in the back of toilets, what’s the point of that?”

She sighed. “I forget sometimes that you’re not a wasteland born pony like I am. Yes I grew up as a Steel Ranger, but we have to scavenge almost as much as normal Wastelanders. Most ponies in The Wasteland have learned that some of the best or coolest loot is nearly always in strange places. I’ve found powerful weapons under floorboards, ammo in toilets, caps in trashcans. Hell, I once found a pony’s skull right behind an air vent with a note stuck in its teeth that said, ‘I’m just chilling here with my treasure, take what you want, I don’t need it anymore’ and found a bag of caps next to it. No idea how it got there or why anypony would leave caps in a place like that, but that’s just how The Wasteland is. Chaotic things happen at the strangest times.”

I took a moment to think about what she said then looked at my family and friends. “I guess it’s better than nothing, let’s go see if the crazy lamp is right.”

“Always glad to help, I do so love being out and about,” Discord said as the five of us dashed off to other rooms.

For the next three hours we looked everywhere with no luck. I was pacing around in one of the bedrooms doing my best to keep my anger in check. I looked over at the trashcan that was sitting next to the bed and wanted to curse it. I’d checked this same bin six times even though I knew it was as empty as the rest of them. I was starting to think that somepony, maybe even a former guardian had found the key and trying to keep the Tower safe, took it with them back to The Enclave. Finally, I snapped and kicked the trash can as hard as I could. It flew across the room making a loud racket as it slammed against the far wall. Fuming I sat down where the can had been a moment before and nearly screamed as something jabbed me right on my right butt cheek.

I jumped up and looked down, ready to blast whatever had just poked me, then my eyes went wide as I saw a glowing gem sitting inside a wire frame. I used a hoof to pick it up as tears of joy fell down my cheeks, “I…I FOUND IT!”

My uncle ran in a moment later. “You did?”

I showed it to him, and he smiled happily, taking it from me with his magic. As he did I said, “We can finally finish our mission here.”

He nodded. “We can and maybe we can finally finish our distant grandmother’s mission to stop Falling Shadows.”

I went to the hallway, then down to the door as the rest joined us. He lifted the gem and placed it in the slot in the middle of the door then took a few steps back. As he did I walked closer to the door with Solstice next to me. We watched as green magical energy flowed through the puzzle lock. I was so excited that I didn’t hear the warning my uncle yelled at Solstice and I until it was too late, “Don’t get to close! It might be trapped!”

A hidden glass wall fell behind Solstice and I, blocking us from getting back to the rest. The voice of Minuette echoed in the small space we were trapped in, “Welcome to the second base of Project Falling Shadows. This tower is restricted and only members of The Children of the Night may pass through the chamber beyond safely. Be warned, the chamber has the most unstable megaspells I’ve ever created. This tower like the others contain specific magic to make the project work properly. Every tower has different types of megaspells. This tower contains spells that deal with time and space. If you’re not with a powerful enough unicorn the room beyond can be deadly in the unstable state it’s in at this moment. The terminal in the chamber is also locked down and cannot be unlocked without the proper device. This is your one and only warning, if you go into the chamber beyond, you will most likely die. If a powerful enough unicorn is with, they will need to use their magic to pull the power leaking around the chamber to themselves and hold it in place for any other pony to reach the terminal. As I’m sure no other unicorn but myself or Twilight Sparkle is powerful enough to handle that much magic, you should turn back. If this is General Night Stalker and you are trying to unlock the Project to use it, then I hope you ignore my advice, it would be better for Equestria if you died trying to bring your pet project back online. Either way, the way beyond is a test of sorts, do you have the power and courage to pass through safely and protect a friend?”

I looked at Solstice who asked, “Do you think you can deal with the magic the voice was talking about?”

“I’m not sure, I mean I am powerful, but I’m not sure if I’m as powerful as Minuette was. Also, I don’t know if that was a recording or some kind of AI she set up when she was trying to lock down the project. Either way, we have to try,” I said as I walked toward the door.

I heard a slight banging from the glass behind me, looking back I saw Uncle Ori trying to talk but I couldn’t hear him. I frowned when he saw I didn’t understand what he was saying then he mouthed slowly, “Don’t, go, inside, without, us.”

I looked around the small enclosure and shrugged, saying, “We’ve got no choice. I’ll be careful.”

He looked sadly at me, then closed his eyes for a moment before nodding slowly and putting a hoof on the glass he mouthed, “Be Careful.”

“I will,” I said before turning back to the door. Solstice and I worked together to turn the picture puzzle discs around until they were in place. A moment later there was a loud ‘BOOM’ of large metal bars sliding out of the frame and the door slowly opened.

I looked at Solstice again, then back at the dark chamber beyond. I could feel energy humming just beyond the threshold and at the far side of the chamber, a glowing green screen of a terminal. I took in a deep breath then let it out slowly, saying, “Since you have Scootaloo’s Mark II, you’ll have to get over to that terminal as fast as you can and use it to unlock the tower. Once you do that, do everything you can to get back out of the chamber. I’ll do anything I can to hold back the magic, but if I can’t move, please try to pull me out too.”

Solstice readied herself to dash across the dark chamber, saying, “I’ll do my part as long as you do yours.”

I smiled. “Be safe.”

“You too Shadow,” she replied.

I pulled on my magic, then stepped through the open door. As soon as Solstice and I were passed the threshold, the door slammed shut and bright white lights nearly blinded us. I winced and I’m sure Solstice did too. After a moment I opened my eyes and gasped at what I saw. We were in a hollow tube that got smaller as it went up with at least sixty megaspell pods wrapping around the walls going all the way up to what I assumed was the top of Tower 2. In the center of the room was a spire with wires wrapped around it like a beautiful and deadly braid. Wires poked out at each level going to each pod. At the bottom of the spire connecting it to the ground was a stasis pod much like the one Absent Moon had used when he was dying and used his body to keep tower 4 in the Crystal Empire locked down. This pod was empty though, or at least it looked like it was, there was a layer of dust over the glass dome so I could be wrong.

At the far end of the larger room, I saw the terminal and it’s blinking green screen. At first it looked easy to reach. A quick flight for Solstice, the problem was, that magical energy was crackling around the room. Bolts of massive power slamming into the ground and walls around us and all of it coming from the spire above, making it nearly impossible to reach the far side. That had to be the unstable magic the voice had talked about. I wondered if this was a defense of the tower or was this because the tower had been locked down for so many years that the magic had nowhere to escape.

Either way, I had to do something to make sure Solstice could do her job, so we could both get out of here alive. I looked at her and said, “Remember what I showed you with the Mark II and how to unlock a program it locked down. Be as fast as you can, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to block that magic.”

She looked worried but nodded. “Be careful.”

“You too,” I said, then I ran forward at the same time, letting my magic flow over my horn. I wasn’t sure how to use my magic to draw the blasts of magic toward me, but I had to hope that this would work. If not, then I was about to be a very dead pony…or close to it. I got a few meters before the first of the blast of lightning like magic changed cores and slammed into my horn. My body locked up and I skidded to a stop as a scream of pain escaped my lips. It wasn’t what I thought it was. I was expecting electrical energy to flow through me and yes be painful, but this was something different. It was like somepony was pushing magic directly into my soul. It wasn’t just painful; it was torture. I felt as if my brain was about to explode, or melt, or turn to dust.

I barley heard Solstice yell. “Shadow are you okay!?”

I stopped screaming long enough to yell. “GO…QUICKLY!” and even though it was the last thing I wanted to do; I took another step toward the spire where three more arcs of power slammed into my horn. My entire world went white and the only thing I could feel was pain. After that I have no idea how many more arcs of power hit me. It didn’t matter at that point, I didn’t even know how long I was stuck there, because time became irrelevant. That wasn’t because of the pain, it was because in that moment, my mind and my magic were no longer tied to the normal flow of time and space. I’m not even sure I was Shadow Star anymore.

After an unknown amount of time passed, the pain in my body vanished. To this day I’m not sure if my mind was no longer part of my body, if I was dreaming, or if I died for a bit. What happened to me during that moment of eternity was the strangest thing in my life. My mind flew across time and space, across The Wasteland, and into ponies, zebras, and griffons. For the moments I was part of these others, I became them. I felt what they did, knew their thoughts, I was them. Most of what I saw didn’t stay with me, not right away, it wasn’t until much later that I realized that what I’d seen at that moment was something in the future that might happen, and if it did, I would remember the moment. The things I did see and remember however, happened in the past, and what I saw were the lives of ponies and griffons I knew well. I saw moments of my friend’s lives that should’ve been private, knew what they knew at those moments, felt what they felt. I saw as Wind Thrasher fought with her bloodlust until Aquila forced her over the edge. I saw Sapphire right before she went into Freedom to die. I saw Aquila while she went around The Wasteland making her plans to take over. I saw more and more things I had no idea had been happening to my friends and enemies while I was off doing something stupid. The one thing I saw that nearly ripped my heart out was Aura. I was her as she spoke about how she felt, her fears of us becoming bonded. I felt her emotions and knew that I’d made a terrible mistake by leaving. She does love me, she wanted me to be part of her life forever and she was just scared she’d ruin things with me. I even saw what she’d had to deal with since I left. I also saw to my shock that Stardust, Wingnut, and Byte had left to head to Baltimare to use Byte’s Mark II to unlock Tower 3. So much information was pounding into my head that soon I couldn’t keep up with all the information.

‘Thump…thump………. thump……………..thump.’

I heard something like a heartbeat, a heartbeat slowing down as the experiences flew into my brain. The cascade of information started to slow as the beat did and black started to appear at the edges of what I was seeing. Deep down I knew that I was dying.

‘Thump…………………………. thump…………………………………..’

I felt my mind slammed back into my own body as Solstice ripped me away from the magic. I barley felt her fly me back through the now open door or heard the ponies around me screaming for me to wake up. That last thump echoed in my ears as my artificial heart stopped beating and everything went black as I died.

***

When I was young…I learned that death was a part of life. Being a sick filly that faced death every day of my short life, I grew to accept that one day it would come for me. Because of that, even when I lost my memories, I’d never been afraid of dying. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t scared of it either. Every day of my life that I was still breathing was a gift from the Goddesses. The part of death I was afraid of was what came after. To this day I still don’t know even though I have died. For what I experienced wasn’t the afterlife, more of an in-between world, or it could have been my fried brain seeing things. I still don’t know, but I like to think that what I did see, was real.

I was floating in darkness for an unknown amount of time until one by one, small white dots of light started to appear around me. Soon it seemed like I was swimming in a sea of starlight. I’m not sure if I had a body or not for the longest time. I did however feel at peace for the first time that I could remember, true peace, no more responsibilities, no more worrying about what could happen, or what I’d done. My joy spilled out of what I assume is my soul as I flew around in the sea of stars. Every so often, I saw one of the small balls of starlight zip away as if it was heading back the way I’d come from, one or two flew off in the other direction. I had no idea why, nor did I care that much. I just enjoyed the feeling of peace and joy in my soul.

After a while, I felt my…body…stop, confused I tried to go back to flying around and enjoying myself more, but I couldn’t move. Unsure what was happening I looked around and saw that most of the stars around me slowly moved away except for a few that drew closer. They started to change from small dots of light and into ghostly forms of ponies. I looked down at my own glowing soul and saw I too was turning into a pony, but unlike the mostly white forms walking toward me, I saw that my coat was black, and a bit of silver mane hung over one of my eyes. A moment later I started to remember who I was…what I was…my name…my role…my death, and the ponies coming toward me were ponies and griffons I knew. The two closest to me were Mom and Box Tape. If I had a real body I would’ve started to cry as two of the ponies I missed more than anything drew closer, with bright smiles on their faces.

Box Tape and my mom both looked younger which was not as strange for my mom, but seeing Box Tape as he was in his old photos was strange. He was buff and strong looking, with happy eyes and a glint of humor in them. Mom spoke first and her voice echoed as if she was at the end of a tunnel, saying, “My daughter, my sweet Shadow Star, it’s wonderful to see you again and know you for who you are.”

“M…Mom? You remember me? Truly remember?” I asked.

She nodded. “My body was damaged by my magic, my memories more than anything, but no magic on Equus can make a soul forget. I know you; I remember you, and I am so glad that I was able to trust you when my mind was still mixed up.”

I wanted to cry so badly as I said, “I’m sorry you had to die to protect me…I wish you found a different way to keep me alive…I wasn’t ready to lose you,” I looked over at Box Tape and more pain and sadness entered my being as I said, “You also gave up your life to save me…”

Box Tape laughed, his voice was just as echoey, but it was also rich and boomed. “Girl, I was old, and my time was well past overdue. Ya made this old buck happy and I was happy to save the life of my adopted granddaughter. I just wish I woulda taken my son with me. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with him more since my passin’.”

It took me a moment to speak again and when I did, my voice was thick with emotion. “I guess it doesn’t matter much now, I’m guessing I’m dead too.”

Another form came close, and I saw it was Gillian, Aura’s mom. “Shadow, you’re on the brink of true death, but you still haven’t crossed over,” she smiled. “You have good friends still on Equus that are doing everything they can to save you. One of which loves you with all her heart.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, another form came close and I almost choked as Silver Snip said, “I’m proud of the pony you’ve become Shadow, you’ve had your ups and downs since I died, but you’ve become strong because of what you’ve overcome.”

Yet another pony from my past appeared and I saw it was Wrath. “You’re doing good down there kid. You’ve just gotta keep fighting and doing what you’re doing. Follow your heart and stop getting down on yourself for the mistakes you’ve made. Take it from a pony who died regretting his decisions. You’re stronger than you think.”

“We all came here to tell you that you’ve reached a crossroads on your path,” Mom said with a small smile, “You’ve started to take the right steps toward being a better pony, but you’re still at the beginning of your new path. If you don’t watch where you’re going, you can easily step back onto the path of destruction you were heading down before.”

Gigi poked my chest with a transparent talon. “You need to find your virtue and your special talent. That is the only way to assure that you stay on the path of good.”

“Gillian’s right,” said Box Tape, “You might have your cutie mark, but that doesn’t mean you fully understand who you are. The cutie mark is a representation of your special talent, something you may have figured out about yourself but might not have fully understood at the time. Your special talent isn’t who you are. What I mean is that it doesn’t define you, but it does help guide you on finding your true path in life.”

Silver Snip smiled and kissed my cheek, I didn’t feel it, but I smiled all the same as she said, “I’m sorry my death was so hard on you Shadow. I miss you and I wish we had more time to get to know each other, but I’m glad you were able to find happiness and real love. Remember that all of us will be watching you and we’ll always live on in your heart.”

“Silver is right, no matter how hard the road ahead becomes, remember that we’re here for you, and we love you,” Mom said.

I gasped again as I said, “I miss all of you…even you Wrath. All of you died when you shouldn’t have,” I took in a deep breath…at least it felt like I had. “Do I have to go back? This place is so peaceful, I feel good here and I don’t want to lose you all again.”

“The choice is up to you Shadow. You’re on the brink of death right now. If you chose to step past this threshold and pass on, then your body will never recover from the trauma of the megaspells, but if you choose to go back, you will wake and in a few days you’ll start to feel like your normal self again. We can’t make this choice for you,” Mom said sadly, “But I hope that you choose to live. Not because you have some mission to complete or because you have to finish shutting down Falling Shadows, but because you’re still very young, and we all want to see you live a long life.”

“What’s…what’s on the other side?” I asked.

“We can’t tell you that, the path to either reincarnation or an afterlife is knowledge that only those who have truly died get to know. It’s something that only the soul can understand fully, and you’re still a soul with a mind and body. You can’t know until it’s your time,” Gigi said.

Before I could say more, my eyes went wide, and one more glowing orb came close and turned into a grey pegasus mare with a lavender mane. She looked young and a little sad. She stopped an inch away from me and said in a quiet voice. “If you go back, I wanted to ask you to give something to Blackjack for me.”

It took me a moment to recognize the voice as Morning Glory. I had only met her for a short time in Hoofington and she’d looked like Rainbow Dash then. I gasped and said, “Glory? Is that you? How…how did you die?”

“We don’t have time for that Shadow,” she said, “I know that Boo made you take that letter for Blackjack. If you still have it and when everything is done with your mission…can you find her and give her that letter? There was a lot I never got to say to her before I died. Things I should’ve said, but I let my anger get the better of me, and in the end, I died before patching things up. So please, if you go back, make sure she reads it.”

Before I could say anything else she stepped back and nodded to the others then vanished into a ball of light and flew past me, back toward the direction I’d first come. My mind was going in a million different directions. Here I felt at peace, my loved ones were here, I was happy, but back on Equus even with all its pain and horror, I had ponies, zebras, zonies, and griffons I loved. I wasn’t sure what I should do. Go back and deal with the pain and anger or stay here and let The Wasteland fend for itself. I wasn’t a hero; I was just a filly who had the worst luck. Did I let it all end, did I let Aquila and the rest win so I could pass on? It seemed to take forever before I made up my mind, but when I did, I looked up at the ones I lost; smiled and lifted a single hoof. “I know what I want to do and what I need to do…”

***

Solstice…

I’d moved as fast as I could to reach the terminal as Shadow screamed in pain. As soon as she’d drawn the magic toward her, the path was clear, and I flew to the terminal and pulled the connection wire from the back of the matte black Mark II. I connected it to the terminal as a message blinked across the screen saying, ‘Warning, Falling Shadows tower two has been locked by unknown program.

As soon as I connected the wire the Mark II blinked, and a message came up on the screen of my Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II…

Connecting to Crusader Mainframe Gen. 7…

Connection Complete…

This terminal has been locked down by Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II SL for 200 years, 8 months, 4 days, 17 hours, 28 minutes. Only this Mark II can unlock the level 10 inscription lockdown protocol. Do you wish to remove the protocol from project Falling Shadows tower two, a.k.a. Time Warp Tower?

Yes/No

I clicked yes as quick as I could and watched as the screen on the terminal went blank for a full ten seconds, then a loud flash of green light it came back on with a welcome screen. A moment later, a few messages ran over the screen, saying something about purging the excess energy that was trapped in the tower and using some kind of repair program to fix the damages to the megaspell pods. I didn’t care about that at all. I turned around and saw that Shadow was now on the ground, her body jerking as she seized. I flew toward her and picked her up without stopping. The door to the chamber was open again and the glass wall was gone. I flew out and set her down in front of Oricalcos and Vervain, yelling, “Do something!”

Right then Shadow went still, and a slight exhale of air flowed from her lips as she looked up at the ceiling with a blank look. Oricalcos pushed me away as he checked her vitals. “Shit she has no pulse,” he looked at Vervain, “Go see if there’s any meds I can use to help her,” he then turned her so that she was fully on her back and started doing chest compressions, fast and hard as he said quietly, “Come on Star, don’t give up on me now.”

I felt tears fall from my eyes as I watched him keep pumping her chest. As he worked I heard Rawr yelling at the entrance to the den, “How did you get into Rawr’s Den? Get out!...” his voice was cut off as a blast of green energy glowed down the hall right after Rawr flew into one of the bedrooms with a loud bang.

Harmony turned at the sound and backed up to get behind me, at the same time Vervain ran back into the hallway from the next room with a medical kit on her back as she said, “What was that?”

“No idea, Solstice, go check it out. Vervain, I need your help!” Oricalcos yelled.

“I’ll make sure whoever this is won’t get near the rest of you,” I said. Things might not have worked out between Shadow and me and honestly that was probably a good thing, but she was still my friend and I loved her as my best friend and honestly probably only friend. I’d do anything to give them time to bring her back.

I took a few steps down the hall, readying the magical laser rifles on my power armor to attack whoever had just broken into the den. I heard Rawr growl in pain as I got closer than a voice I hadn’t heard in a while say, “Back off pup, before I decide to just kill you!”

Before I could do anything else, Aura Bloodtalon walked into the hallway, a crackling red and green energy spear in her talon. It wasn’t her normal weapon; she had changed in the past five months. Her feathers and fur were ruffled, and a haggard look was in her ice blue eyes, a scar was visible going from the top of her left eye, between her eyes and down past the right side of her beak. She was wearing a red bandana with the symbol of the Shadow Talons stitched on it. She had a few more scars on her chest, flanks, and it looked like a half digit on her left talon was missing. When she saw us her eyes went wide, and she flew down the hallway landing next to Shadow and Oricalcos.

Without explanation she asked, “What happened?”

“Magical energy of some kind, I don’t really know apart that her heart stopped,” I said, doing my best to push my questions aside.

She looked at Oricalcos. “How long?”

“A least a minute,” Ori said as he still pumped his hooves into her chest.

Aura pulled the medical kit away from Vervain and dug around looking for something, then she cursed, “Fuck, I need real meds, not fucking buck or rage,” she then turned her head back toward the hallway, “Violet! Get in here, ignore the hellhound and help me! You’re granddaughter’s dying!”

To my utter shock, the alicorn Violet flew down the hall, Rawr wrapped up in her magical grip. She set the death dog down and used another spell to bind him to the ground as he growled. When she was done, she asked, “What do you need?”

“I need a way to restart her heart. If she stays like this much longer, she’ll be brain dead, even if we can get her heart to start again,” Aura said.

“Let me see what I can do with magic,” Violet said, “She must’ve done something stupid in the megaspell chamber.”

Before anyone else could do anything, Shadow’s horn glowed a bright red and a pulse of magic threw us all back a few meters. Shadow shot up screaming, then breathing deep and hard, her eyes looking around in terror. She looked around wildly, her eyes locking on Harmony, then my own, followed by Oricalcos, Vervain, then she turned and saw Aura and Violet. A small smile came to her lips, then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she passed out.

Aura ran to her and checked her over before sighing, “She only passed out, but she’s breathing. Let’s get her to a bed so she can rest, and I can keep an eye on her.”

“Aura…how did you get here?” I asked.

She looked over at me. “Long story, I’ll tell you about it later, right now I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“That’s a good idea, here I’ll help you,” Oricalcos said, and he lifted his niece up and I watched as Shadow was taken to a room.

“Would someone please tell me why these two are in my DEN!?” Rawr yelled from the ground. All I could do at that point was laugh…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Light Step: Your experiences as a bounty hunter have enlightened you to the tricky ways of the world and its various methods of hidden death. You no longer trigger ground-based traps, tripwires, and landmines while sneaking.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Gutsy: You have a courageous heart! When others are in trouble, you’re the first to step in and help. Gain +20% damage threshold while defending other beings for a short time.

DARK PERK ADDED!

Furious Flame: You’re quick to anger but not to all out fury. When it comes however, Goddesses help anyone in your path. When pushed far enough with your anger, you will become furious enough to cast the schwarz inferno spell. The black flames produced by this spell burn their target to death and cannot be extinguished by anything or anyone but the spellcaster. The downside of this spell is that it can be seldom used and only when certain circumstances are met.

Chapter 75: Coming For Blood

“You make it sound like Shadow has to choose to pick life or death.”

Everypony has a point in their lives when they need to make a major life choice. A path to choose that will either lead them toward salvation, or destruction. Sometimes those choices come more than once, more often than not in The Wasteland those choices are made nearly every day. I would know, I’ve been lucky enough to live longer than I should’ve. Not because I made the right choice every time, but because at the crucial point in my life, I chose to live and step off the path I was on and forge a new and better path.

I’ve been telling you the story about how I ended up in this place, how I came to be at this moment, at this time, and why. Some of my story though, might’ve been hard to understand because part of it involves the point of view of others. The reason for that isn’t simple to explain, the best way to put it is this. On the day I walked into the chamber inside Tower 2, I took on too much magic from the leaking mega spells. When that happened, time was warped, my mind wasn’t my own for…I don’t know how long. My point is, that during the time I was trapped outside of myself, I lived the lives of other ponies and griffons in The Wasteland. I’ve done my best to tell you the points of view I saw and experienced as those ponies and griffons so far and tried to keep them as in-line with my timeline as I could. Although, this next part of my story I had to split into two parts. Because during the five months I was away from my friends and my home in New Pegasus, I wasn’t the only one suffering. Aura, and the rest of my friends were suffering as much if not more than I was, but unlike me, it wasn’t only because I was gone. I left New Pegasus at the worst time. A lot happened, a lot of ponies and griffons died, a new faction formed, and Aquila was behind most of it. If I hadn’t relived these moments, I probably would’ve never changed, even if at the time I didn’t remember any of the points in time I saw. My mind had been shattered by the magic and it took a long time for me to remember everything, but deep down the experience changed me for the better and because of that, I’m here today, to tell you the story of my life…and how I started to shine brighter than anypony has before…

Aura…

Two weeks after Shadow left...

I opened my eyes slowly wincing as I tried once again to get used to the bright light shining in through the window of my room at the top of the Shadow Talon’s base in Freedom. Just like every morning, I reached toward the other side of my bed and yet again found it cold and empty. I felt a shuttering breath run through me as once again I heard Shadow rip my heart in two.

“If you really love me then you’ll give me the space I need. Right now, I’m so angry at you and feel so betrayed that I don’t know what I’ll do. So go back to your talon company, go back to doing what griffons do best. Take time to think about how you really feel and then maybe, maybe if I decide to come back to this shithole, then we can talk. For right now, we’re over. Just looking at you right now pisses me off.”

She wasn’t wrong either, I’d lied to her about Tripwire. At the time I told her about Trip’s death, I was still trying to get over it myself. I was already starting to feel something for Shadow back then and I was afraid she’d be scared of me if she knew what I’d done to my former lover. I should’ve been honest from the start or at least told her later what really happened. I killed Trip when she attacked me. She’d been exposed to an illness, one that I didn’t understand but knew was making ponies go nuts in Hoofington. I hadn’t tried to kill her, but she attacked, and my training kicked in faster than my mind could process what was happening. Before I knew it, she was dead. I’d buried her on that lonely cliff, took my spear and some supplies and flew away.

Shadow asked me a couple times why Tariff hated me so much, why he blamed me for Trip’s death. It’s because once I’d come back from Hoofington I’d told him what happened to his sister. I almost had to kill him too after he tried to attack me once I broke the news to him. His little sister was his whole world, and I was the one who’d taken her away, I was the one who killed her.

I sighed and did my best to keep from crying again as I got to my talons then stretched. I’m Aura Bloodtalon, leader of the Shadow Talons, I can’t let my griffons see weakness. So, I walked over to where my energy spear was resting and picked it up. I twirled it around a few times then checked to make sure the gem that powered it was still working properly before putting on the sling holster I used to keep the spear held to my back and holstered the weapon. I took the next hour to wash and eat a small breakfast of Cram. After I was finished with that, I left my room and headed toward my office on the main level. It was just another day leading the Shadow Talons…another day without Shadow.

It didn’t take long for one of my sisters to find me, right when I was getting to the door to my office, it was Vi. “Aura, we’ve got six more requests from ponies for contracts, three of them are from Freedom, the other three are from the surrounding area. Also, we got another report in from Gouger and Toby about movements with the Unchained Talons. I left them on your desk, you really should take a look at them before your meeting with the younglings. We also had a securipony drop by with paperwork from Mr. Tops so we can reopen the former Red Talon branch for the Shadow Talons on The Strip.”

I blinked and shook my head as I felt a twinge of pain behind my eyes. “Vi, calm down for a moment and take a breath!” I watched as she shut her beak then ran a black talon over her White and Grey feathers. “That’s better, now can we at least step into my office before you start blurting out the mornings reports?”

She nodded, then sighed, saying, “Sorry sis, there’s just a lot going on over the past few days. Syn and I are both a little overwhelmed and Fletch isn’t much help. She’s still worrying about Gouger working as a spy with the Unchained and I think her hormones are a little out of whack.”

“She’s expecting to lay soon so I’m not surprised, and she’s always been a little nutty. So, what do you expect?” I asked as I opened the door to my office. It wasn’t much, just a small desk overloaded with paperwork, a sofa in one corner, and a couple chairs, but it helped keep my work as the leader of The Shadow Talons separate from my personal life.

Once I sat down and Vi shut the door behind her, she asked, “Are you doing okay today?”

“I’m….” I started to say but Vi cut me off.

“If you say you’re fine, I’ll punch you,” Vi said with a glare.

I sighed then pinched the bridge of my beak. “I’m not fine, honestly I’m miserable, but there’s not much I can do to fix that. She’s…gone and she made damn sure I couldn’t find her.”

Vi sat down across from me at the small paper covered desk, folding her wings over the back of the chair. “I’m guessing that you’ve tried to find her.”

I looked into my sister’s eyes. “An hour after she left, I sent two griffons to follow her and make sure she was ok and to let me know where she was heading. They were able to keep up with Vervain, Solstice, Oricalcos, and Shadow for a little over a day. The problem was that on the second day Oricalcos noticed that they were being followed and cast some kind of spell on the griffons I sent to follow them. They woke up from whatever he did two days later, by then they were long gone.”

“I’m surprised that any of your griffons would’ve been noticed by anypony. Did you send rookies or something?” Vi asked.

I shook my head. “Nathan and Gabriel are two of our best with stealth. The problem was that I forgot that I’d sent them to follow not only Shadow but a former Sin. Oricalcos is strong and clever, I’m honestly not surprised he realized he’d been followed.”

“I guess you have a point. Do you know where they were heading?” Vi asked.

I shook my head. “All I have is that they headed southeast, not much more than that. If I were to guess, I’d say she’s heading for The Badlands.”

Vi’s eyes went wide. “Why would anypony in their right mind go there?”

I sighed again. “Shadow told me that one of the towers for the project she’s trying to stop is down there. The problem is that The Badlands are huge and even though most ponies and griffons don’t know this, there are a lot of ponies, griffons, and zebras living down there. Even if I know what area she’s heading to, that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to find her.”

“Do…do you really want to find her? She was terrible to you before she left. I mean don’t get me wrong, I like Shadow, but is she really worth tracking down? Is she really worth your love after the disrespect and the pain she’s put you through?” Vi asked.

I nodded. “Shadow’s young, she angry, hurt, and has a very hard time trusting others. Hell, I don’t blame her, she’s been through a lot in her short life. It takes a lot for her to fully trust someone. She had every right to be angry with me, not because of what she overheard when I was talking about our future, that she did misunderstand, but I did lie to her about what really happened to Tripwire. I could’ve told her the truth a long time ago, but I hid it because I was ashamed of what I did. You ask me if she’s worth it? Yes, she is, because I know from the bottom of my heart and deep in my soul that the two of us are soulmates. I was meant to find her, to love her, and to be with her. No matter what happens between the two of us from here on out, I won’t be able to love another like I do her.”

Vi rolled her eyes. She’d never been a big believer in the whole soulmate thing. Honestly neither had I, at least not until I first met Shadow. Vi looked at me, saying, “You don’t honestly believe in that whole soulmate thing, do you? Yes, I agree with our traditions of only forming a life bond with one griffon with a small exception with situations like mom with our…father,” she stopped talking for a moment as she let the anger flow out of her before she continued, “Mom’s life partner died when Syn was still very young, so she married our dad in the way ponies do and had the rest of us. I don’t believe that we are meant to find one soul that is the other half to our own.”

“I didn’t used to believe in it, not until I met Shadow,” I said as I looked at her, “You can’t understand the feeling until you’ve lived it for yourself. It doesn’t matter if I have to wait ten, twenty, or even fifty years. I will wait for her to come back to me.”

“What if she never does? You’ll truly spend your entire life waiting for a pony who might not even love you anymore?” Vi asked.

“I will,” I said before leaning back in my seat, my wings flowing over the side of the chair.

“Well, I hope that she sees sense then. I don’t want to watch you be miserable for the rest of your life sis,” Vi said.

“I’ll be fine Viridiana; I just need a little time, that’s all,” I said before going through some of the papers on my desk, “Enough about my love life or lack thereof, I need to know what’s going on with the Unchained. From what I’m seeing here in the reports, they’re setting up for something big, do we know what?”

Vi took a moment to think before she sat down. “Toby believes they’re setting up for an attack against us, Gouger seems to agree.”

“How do they expect to attack us? We have around two hundred griffons, and last I checked, they still only have around fifty or so,” I said.

“True, but over half our griffons are still too young or too old to fight. Out of our ready fighters, only a few of them are as well trained as us. The Unchained Talons are almost all of fighting age and Apollo or Archer as he’s being called now, and Gina have been spending most of their time training them to be the best. If they all come at us at once, I’m not sure we’ll be able to win,” she said.

I sighed as I went back to looking over the documents from our spies and scouts. “The biggest problem we have with the Unchained Talons is Apollo and Gina. They’re the ones who started the group so they could take down the Red Talons. They succeeded in that and took over Crimson Canyon, I don’t understand why they’re still trying to fight us. All the former Red Talons who joined The Shadow Talons aren’t a threat anymore, we don’t even have the same rules that became a problem for the Red Talons. It doesn’t make sense, why does our father and our Aunt want us dead so badly?”

Vi looked downcast for a moment before she pulled another file out of the satchel she always had on her nowadays. “I think our father has been planning something big for a long time,” she opened the folder and set it in front of me, as I pulled it closer looking over the reports, she continued, “I hired Lonely Hearts to look into his past. Apollo’s been working against The Red Talons for years.”

I saw photos and documentations going back up to twelve years, one of the photos showed a younger Apollo talking with a unicorn I’d only seen once but knew a lot about thanks to Shadow’s run-in with her on The Palisade. It was Hacker, the wife of Wolfsbane. I looked back at my sister. “He’s been working with The Steel Rangers in Los Alicorn?”

“That’s the weird thing, from everything Lonely Hearts was able to dig up, it doesn’t look like it. He was working for this mare named Hacker and only her. If you keep reading you’ll see that Apollo was the one who started a lot of the crap we’re dealing with today. Twelve years ago, he even went after Grimoire before she went into Stable 28 with Shadow. He was trying to kill her to take her Mark II for Hacker, a few years later reports say that a griffon in power armor tried to attack Rusty Shackles in Trotston to get his Mark II. When he wasn’t able to get them for Hacker he started causing issues with the different factions all over New Pegasus for years. He was the reason the Romans got bigger a few years ago, he was the one who killed some top NLR ponies to weaken them, he was the griffon who brought intel to Hacker from The Hidden Sands Rangers. Lonely Hearts also thinks that Apollo was the one who killed Elder Apple Jam and helped Crackerjack find ponies to join his raider band to block off Cartwheel,” she said.

I looked at all the documentation that Lonely Hearts was able to dig up on our father. “I can’t believe that synth was able to find out so much. How did he get all of this?”

She shrugged, “Lonely Hearts has his ways, well he had a little help from Stormy I guess. The Ministry has been spying on The Wasteland for years and Stormy’s been a top member of their leadership for over a decade.”

“So, our father’s been a traitor longer than we thought, but if this is all true then why did we only start hearing about Archer a few months ago?” I asked looking up at Vi.

“Apollo was using different names and disguises to get what he wants. Archer was just his latest so he could build up The Unchained Talons. I honestly think The Unchained is just another step in whatever plan he’s been working on with Hacker. I even think that Gina was just another pawn in his schemes.”

I pinched the bridge of my beak again. “It’s like he was never the griffon we thought he was. As for Gina, I think you’re right about that. Ever since she came back into my life, she’s been trying to get me to understand that she wasn’t as bad as we thought she was.”

“Do you think she can be turned against Apollo? If so she might be a big help in taking back Crimson Canyon,” Vi said.

“I’m not sure, I’d have to find a way to talk with her on her own without getting attacked,” I said, “I hate to admit it, but I do miss her. She’s a good fighter and before she was banished she was always a good Aunt.”

Vi sat back in the chair for a long moment, thinking, before she said, “I’ll see if I can find a way to make that work. Either way, are you sure you still want to go ahead with trying to take back our old home? I mean we have a good thing going here and we’re taking over most of the territory that The Red Talons used to hold.”

I smiled a little at that. “We’re doing okay for ourselves, but right now most of our griffons are sharing space or having to find other places around the area to live. We’re down quite a lot of griffons after the attack on Crimson Canyon but there are still a lot of us. Freedom can’t handle so many griffons all in one spot. Also, even if the Red Talons are no longer around, Crimson Canyon is still our home and I want to take it back.”

“And you still want to try to do that in the next month?” she asked.

“If we can get enough support then yes. As for this upcoming attack, if it is an attack, I think we can hold them back if they come after us here in Freedom. The Queens will stand with us, and Mr. Tops already said that if The Unchained come into Freedom or The Strip he’ll have his robots attack them,” I said as I got to my talons.

“I’ll see what I can do to make this work then,” Vi said.

“Thanks sis, now I need to go talk with Byte about a few things, check up on the training of our younger griffons, see how Wind Thrashers doing, and so much more,” I said as I hugged my sister before heading out of my office.

“Remember to take a break!” Vi yelled after me as I left.

I chuckled to myself as I left to go find my friends. It didn’t take long because as soon as I got a little way down the hallway from my office I ran into Stardust. “Hey Aura, I’m glad to see you up and about.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like I’ve been holed up in my room every day since Shadow left. You make it sound like I was sick on my deathbed.”

He smiled. “No, just every other day.”

“Yeah, yeah, now what do you want? I was just on my way to check on Wind Thrasher then talk with Byte,” I said.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said, “I also just came from The Lucky Horseshoe, Byte’s with Wind Thrasher right now, same for Wingnut and Stormy.”

I kept on walking toward the entryway of our new base, Stardust falling in beside me. “How’s she been doing? Did the cure for her bloodlust have any side effects or has she started showing any signs of going back to her old temptations?”

He shook his head. “Apart from getting a little sick now and then she’s been great. I’m pretty sure the sickness is from her pregnancy more than the cure Dr. Gauze made for her.”

“I heard Syn was able to figure out that she’s about five weeks along now,” I said cracking a smile at the goofy pegasus. “So, you two did have a little fun while Shadow was out in Hoofington.”

He seemed a little flustered at that. “Does the timing really matter?”

“No, but as your friend, I do have to poke fun at you. Honestly I didn’t know you liked her so much until the two of you told me she was pregnant when you two got back from Frosty Summit,” I said as I bumped him with a wing.

He smiled slightly. “I honestly kind of liked her when I first met her back at Stable 9.”

I eyed him. “You were hitting on her when she was still being controlled by Dr. Cell? Come on Dusty, she was trying to kill us.”

“I don’t mean like that, I felt bad for her after Shadow broke that collar around her neck. She seemed so sad and kind which was kinda weird after she’d just been trying to rip our throats out and well, I kind of have a thing for weird mares. I didn’t start feeling things for her until the rebirth celebrations. We talked a lot during those three days, and I really got to know the real Wind Thrasher,” he said as we walked out of The Shadow Talons base and headed toward The Strip.

“At least you two didn’t just jump into bed then and there like Shadow and Silver did,” I said.

He looked up and away from me as he said, “Yeah…we sure didn’t do anything sudden like that.”

I eyed him again. “Are you kidding me Dusty? I thought you got her pregnant a few weeks ago and that was the first time you two did anything.”

“It wasn’t the first time…” he said sounding a little sheepish, “She happened to tell me that she had a crush on me when she was drunk at the rebirth celebrations, and no I didn’t do anything with her that night. I waited till the next morning, and she was the one who kissed me first okay.”

I cocked an eyebrow up at him as we got to the gate to The Strip. After the two of us showed our passports to the robots we went inside as I said, “None of us had any idea that you two were a thing. How’d you hide it from the rest of us?”

He rolled his eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, all of you, well all of us in the group I guess you could say, have been too worried about Shadow to pay attention to Wind Thrasher or myself.”

“I guess you have a point, but it makes sense. All of us were brought together because of Shadow and her mission. Not to mention she’s probably the most messed up one of our friends,” I said, doing my best to ignore the pain of loss still heavy in my soul.

“That filly’s been through hell and worse in her life, I’m not surprised she finally snapped to be honest,” he said.

We reached the entrance to The Lucky Horseshoe and headed inside to go up to the Royal Suite which Mr. Tops let us use. Well, ‘let’ was putting it mildly, Violet a.k.a. Minuette made sure to keep Mr. Tops in-line. She had more control over The Lucky Horseshoe than anypony since she was a founding member of The Children of the Night. We now had access to the Royal Suite and the former floors The Children of the Night had access to. In the past two weeks we’d learned a lot about the tower and the pony who ran it and New Pegasus thanks to our alicorn ally.

“She’s not a filly Dusty, you know that and please don’t call her that it makes me feel weird,” I said.

He sighed. “I know, in her stable she’s grown up even if she isn’t to most places in The Wasteland. Either way, she’s normally more mature, but after how she left it’s hard not to see her as a filly. I mean did she have to really run off…again and not to mention she took my sister with her and made sure no one knew where she was going.”

“At least she has ponies that love her with her. Vervain, Oricalcos, and Solstice will keep an eye on her. She needs this time away from us to figure out her shit and hopefully she’ll come back when she’s better,” I said, doing my best to tell myself that it was true.

We got into the elevator and took it up to the Royal Suite. The ride only took a couple minutes and when we arrived and walked out into the living space I heard a mare that had to be Wind Thrasher gag and throw up in the bathroom just down the hall followed by Byte, saying, “I guess that didn’t settle well for you either. I’m sorry Wind Thrasher, I was hoping you’d be able to keep this meal down better.”

I looked at Dusty. “We can talk about Shadow and her shit later okay. Go check on your marefriend and when you’re done I need to go over the upcoming raid on Crimson Canyon.”

“Okay, I’ll talk with you in a bit then,” he said as he flew off to relieve Byte of watching over the sick bat-dragon pony.

A few moments later, Cookie Byte walked down the hall. Her mane was down for probably the first time I’d ever seen, and it made her look a little older which was nice. When she saw me she groaned. “Let me guess, you want me to check again if Shadow’s turned on her tracker on her Mark II?”

“No, I know that if something changes you’ll let me know. I came to see if you could help me with a small problem,” I said as I headed to one of the couches that sat overlooking New Pegasus.

She shrugged and followed to sit next to me. “What kind of problem?”

I leaned back, looking up at the blue sky, still amazed that most of the cloud cover was gone. After a moment I finally spoke, saying, “The Shadow Talons are going to take back Crimson Canyon in a month, and I was hoping that you’d be able to help me get some help from Trotston.”

She frowned. “What do you need the ponies from Trotston for? My home is filled with mostly scientists, not warriors. We have guards and all that, but not the kind of ponies that can take on griffons like The Unchained Talons.”

“I know that, but you said yourself that they do specialize in making weaponry and stuff like that. I was hoping Rusty could help arm my griffons or at least make better armor or something that could help us with fighting back against The Unchained,” I said.

She took a moment to think before saying, “The ponies there might be able to come up with something, but I’ll have to talk with my uncle first and see what he says. Either way you know he’s gonna want something in return.”

“I’ll pay his price as long as it’s within reason,” I said.

“Then I’ll get in contact with him later today when I know he’ll be taking a break from his duties. I need to check-in anyway, he likes to make sure I’m safe even with The Steel Rangers no longer looking for my Mark II,” she said.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to make you go home now that the danger has passed,” I said, looking down at her. It was strange thinking of Byte as a filly, she was only a year or two younger than Shadow, but she always seemed more like a kid as where Shadow only acted like one when she was being a brat or upset.

“He practically demanded it the last time we spoke, but I told him I’m staying with all of you. I like being in The Wasteland, I like having real friends who like how smart I am and don’t mind me tinkering with tech,” she said.

I nudged her. “And you can be close to Wingnut.”

She looked around for a moment making sure no other pony was around before she smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s a plus too. Though I still think he’s an annoying bug sometimes, and he still doesn’t seem to realize I like him.”

I laughed. “Bucks are stupid. Give him time and he’ll come around, I know he likes you too, but he’s young and immature sometimes. Course that never seems to change with the males of any species. They get older, but they never grow up.”

She blushed a little. “Do you think he’ll ever like me the same way Wind Thrasher and Stardust like each other or how you and Shadow feel?”

“I wouldn’t use Shadow and my relationship as a basis for your own,” I said with a sigh, “To answer your question, I’m not sure if you two will end up being together or not. The two of you are still very young and just starting to understand the world of adulthood. You two could get closer or drift apart, just remember that if it doesn’t happen or if it just doesn’t work out for you two, there are other bucks out there.”

“None as smart as Wingnut though. If I end up with a buck I want him to be at least as smart as I am. I want a partner who will help me build something great in The Wasteland,” she said with a smile.

“I’d say you don’t need anypony to help you do that, but I understand what you mean. Having someone by your side does make the journey better and more meaningful than doing it alone,” I said.

“I don’t know,” I heard the voice of Stormy say as she came into the living room, “I spent my life building my own reputation on my own and I’m doing just fine.”

The two of us looked back at the short, dark gray, unicorn as I said, “Yeah, you may think that, but aren’t you the mare that spent over twenty years in love with you best friend…a best friend who was straight. You also built a Synth of yourself to run your projects in The Enclave so you could stay deep underground with The Ministry, also to help your friend.”

Stormy huffed and trotted over to sit on the couch next to us. “You take all the fun out of what I’ve done Aura.”

“Someone needs to keep you in your place now that Grim’s gone and so is Shadow,” I said with a smile.

“Speaking of my little turd of a Goddaughter, I think I know where she ran off to,” Stormy said.

Byte and I both cocked our heads to one side as I asked, “You’re her Godmother?”

“Of course, I am. Who else would Grim trust with Star if something happened to her or Night Shade?” she said sounding offended.

“I mean I guess I get that, but if you’re her Godmother who’s her Godfather?” Byte asked.

Stormy started to laugh. “Nopony, Grim and Night Shade both trusted me to take care of their daughter and honestly they didn’t have many they could trust especially with how sick she was back then. Honestly if Grim didn’t entrust her to Vervain, she would’ve ended up in The Ministry with me if Grim could’ve gotten her away from The Stable with no pony knowing.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way or anything Stormy, but I’m kinda glad she was raised by Vervain over you. You’re, um. How should I say this? Sadistic,” I said.

She chuckled. “Secretly so am I, I mean I would’ve done my best to raise her to be a good pony, but the time I would’ve spent doing so would’ve been so boring.”

“Anyway, you said you think you know where Shadow is or is heading. Why do you think that?” I asked.

She looked over at me, her orange eyes going serious. “She’s angry yes, but she’s also determined to finish her mother’s work in destroying Falling Shadows. She’ll need to unlock Tower 2 and Tower 3 before going to The Crystal Empire to find out what Night Stalker did to Tower 4. Reports I got from friends who still live above the clouds tell me that a raider camp near the border of Equestria and The Badlands was attacked by a small group of ponies, two of which sounded a lot like Solstice and Shadow. If that’s true then she’s heading to The Badlands to find and unlock Tower 2.”

“That’s a long way to go,” I said, “Either way how does that help us?”

She smiled and looked over at Byte. “Two reasons, one we know where she is and what she’s trying to do. Second is that she’ll have to come back here at some point to either get Byte to give her, her Mark II or go with her to Baltimare.”

Byte looked thoughtful as I said, “What if she just sends Oricalcos, Vervain or Solstice to get Byte?”

Stormy laughed. “One of Shadows biggest flaws, just like Grim’s is that she’ll want to come herself to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“She’s got a point. I mean look at how Shadow’s acted in the past,” I heard Stardust say as he and Wind Thrasher came back into the living room, “She’s always put herself on the frontlines of every fright or problem we’ve run into, even when we’ve told her to stay back or not get in the way. It’s just in her personality to help or do it herself.”

Wind Thrasher still looked a little ill but better then she had yesterday when I’d come to check on her. Syn said her morning sickness should be passing soon which I was grateful for. She still needed to heal from her last battle with her bloodlust and getting the cure. I took a moment to give my friend a smile before looking at Stardust. “I guess you’re right, I just hope when she comes back here, her mind is in a better place, and we can talk.”

“The question is will we have time to be ready for her to show back up here?” Wind Thrasher asked, “Just look around New Pegasus and Freedom, The Courier is almost hated as much as the Romans are now thanks to Aquila, The NLR, and New Appleton.”

Violet walked in as Wind Thrasher was talking. She came over to sit next to the couch, her much larger frame too much for the sofa. “We will know when my granddaughter has unlocked Tower 2.”

Stardust looked over at her. “How would we know that Minuette?”

Violet winced a little. She wasn’t a fan of being called Minuette or Min but Stardust got a slight thrill out of irritating the ultra powerful Alicorn, who just so happened to be one of the most powerful unicorns from the war, a founding member of The Children of the Night, knew my distant grandmother, Shadow’s grandfather, and other grandmother, and built, programed, and led Project Star Gazer, Project Solar Flare, and Project Falling Shadows. Not to mention she was the pony who came up with the spell S.A.T.S. uses to slow time, the E.F.S., and apparently all the megaspells used in Falling Shadows and Stargazer. She could turn all of us into dust with a flick of her horn and of course, Dusty had to keep picking on her.

“You’re lucky your distant grandmother was a close friend Stardust, or I’d make you pay for using my old name like that,” she said, glaring over at him, “Especially Min, that was the name The Children used to call me, and I don’t deserve to be called by that name anymore…I betrayed them and my country.”

His ears drooped back. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that it was touchy for you, I just like your real name over your Alicorn name. With your full memories and soul back in your body, it just seems fitting. Also, you can’t blame yourself for what happened. Anypony would’ve broken down after what happened to your wife.”

Violet sighed. “I know, but it’s still a struggle every day to keep my mind intact and not to fall back into my madness. Just for now, please stop using my old name until I’m ready.”

“I’ll do my best,” Stardust said, “Just don’t bite my head off if I slip now and then. Anyway, you said we’d know if Tower 2 was unlocked. How?”

Violet looked back at the rest of us, saying, “The four points of The Lucky Horseshoe are indicators of the towers working at full capacity. When I locked them down with the help of Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom, three lights went dark for forty years. Once Night Stalker did whatever he did to Tower 4, the north pointing light went dark too. When those lights come back on, we’ll know that Shadow unlocked a tower. The thing I’m worried about is Shadow getting into Tower 2.”

I cocked my head to one side. “Why’s that? I thought finding it was going to be the problem. It’s the only one that no one knows the location of apart from you.”

“After so long I don’t really know exactly where it is either, though I could figure it out with a map and a couple hours of quick math,” Violet said, “The real problem is that each tower has a unique magic to it. Tower 2 revolves around time and space. The megaspells there are so unstable that with the tower locked down, the megaspell room that just so happens to be the same room the lockdown is in, will have powerful magic flowing around it. Magic like that is extremely unpredictable. She could die just trying to get into the room to reach the terminal.”

I almost jumped to my talons at that. “We have to go help her then!”

Violet shook her head. “That’s not wise Aura, you need to trust that she has the power and ability to survive.”

“What if she gets hurt in that chamber?” I asked.

Violet smiled. “We will not bother her right now and let her do what she thinks she needs to, but as soon as I feel the seal on the door go down, I will get you and I over to the tower.”

“How can you do that?” Byte asked, before I could.

“It’s not that hard for me to teleport that far if I have enough radiation beforehoof. Also, I placed a protective spell over the door that leads into the megaspell chamber. Once Shadow or the others unlock that room, I’ll feel it and I’ll know exactly where to go,” she said with a smug smile.

“Can you get all of us there?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“I could, but the time it would take to get enough power from radiation would take too long. The best I can do is get one maybe two of you there with me when the time comes,” she said.

“It’ll have to do,” I said with a sigh, “And before any of you protest, I’m going for sure and if another pony is coming with…well I’ll see who will be best at the time. We still have no idea how long it could take her to calm down and find the tower, let alone get into this chamber.”

“I agree, let’s just hope that we can help her when the time is right,” Stardust said.

“That’s a good plan for now,” Violet said, “Now Aura, I heard you’re looking for help with the fight against The Unchained. Would you be okay with a slightly mentally unstable Alicorn joining in the fight? I could use a good fight to get my mind off my past.”

I smiled. “I think we can work something out.” I then looked at Stardust. “Dusty, see if you can get Doorstop and the members of Stable 97 who came with him out here to help. Also, I was hoping you could go see Elder Hazel with the Hidden Sands Rangers to see if they’re willing to help us too.”

“You want me to go to Hidden Sands and try to get Steel Rangers to join us in fighting the Unchained Talons? You do know that most of them hate pegasi right?” he asked.

“I know, but you know Hazel and a lot of the rangers there know you and like you from our time there with Shadow. I’m also hoping that Hazel is trying to change her branch of the Steel Rangers to be more accepting of other races, she said she was when I last spoke to her,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll try, but if I see any signs of that growing cult of bitch, I’m turning back for home,” he said with a huff, “I don’t have the means to deal with shit like that right now, let alone need to.”

“I agree,” I said as I shivered at the thought of the Star Cult. Aquila surprisingly wasn’t leading them or even the one who started them. The leaders of New Appleton were the ones who started the new cult. From what my spies said, it sounded like she didn’t like them one bit, but she did use them to help her with whatever goal she was reaching for. Sadly, the cult had a hitlist of creatures to kill so their new Goddess would help them get into some kind of paradise. Again, not something Aquila started; the cult leader was insane. The list was, myself, Stardust, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, The Queens, Squirrel and Moose for some reason, Byte, Vervain, Oricalcos, Solstice, and a few more. Shadow was the only one not on their list, that was because of Aquila. What I heard was that she ordered them to leave her alone and anyone who even tried to kill Shadow would die in the worst possible way. I understood that she was still scared that if they killed Shadow in her name, she’d die with her.

I looked at all my friends. “Okay, let’s get to planning an assault on Crimson Canyon, oh and Dusty one more task that only you can do.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“Go see Tariff and see if he has any ties with Gina or my father. The last time I saw them, I swore their weapons and armor looked like his making or Match’s,” I said.

He sighed. “I’ll see what I can find out I guess. Those two just get on my nerves. There’s salesponyship and then there’s blatant backhoofed thievery.”

Stardust…

One month and a weeks after Shadow Left...

It was still so strange to be flying around in The Wasteland with the sun or moon overhead. For a stallion like me who grew up in a stable, I never thought I’d see either of them. When I escaped, I wasn’t surprised to be in a land covered by clouds. Now I was flying under a full moon, it’s light helping illuminate the dead land under me. I had a new rifle on my back and Wrath’s AMR broken down in four pieces in my enchanted saddle bags. A gift from Stormy. I still found it hard to be around the pony who’d created the program that led to me being taken as a newborn foal and raised in Stable 97, but I was doing my best, and most days we got along well enough for it not to be awkward.

Ever since Shadow left with my sister, Vervain, and Oricalcos, I’d taken every moment I could that I wasn’t spending helping Aura and the Shadow Talons to contact my parents in Stratus. I’d learned a lot about my family which was awesome and after the fight with The Unchained Talons was finished, Mom said she was going to come down to The Lucky Horseshoe to meet Wind Thrasher. Tonight, I was hoping to do something amazing so my mom could have even more to be proud of me for. I needed to find two things tonight, one to help Aura in her battle…and myself if I’m being honest, the second thing was for Wind Thrasher. By the end of tomorrow night, she wasn’t just going to be my special somepony, she’d be my fiancé.

“Yo Dusty! Slowdown will ya, I’m not as fast as you are, and you know it!” I heard Hailstorm, or rather his synth replacement say from a few meters back. I couldn’t help the small smile that came to my face as he said that. I knew he wasn’t the real Hailstorm, but he was close and real or not, he had become a close friend. That was also thanks to Stormy. It had taken her a week of keeping him shut down to finally fix the drive to protect Shadow from his programing that Grim installed. If she hadn’t done this he would’ve already flown off toward The Badlands to try and find Shadow so he could protect her. In her state of mind when she left, I wasn’t sure if she would’ve killed him, or been grateful for his help.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll slow down for you!” I yelled back as I adjusted my wings and let him catch up, “Damn dude, when did you get so slow?”

He panted a little when he caught up, which I still found weird for a robot…even an almost perfect fake pony robot. When he caught his breath, he said, “I haven’t been flying all over The Wasteland like you for the past few months. You got a good heads up on me with keeping in shape.”

I smiled. “Then tonight will be good for you.”

“Where are we going anyway?” he asked as he looked down at the land below us.

“I have two things to do before we finalize our plan for the attack on Crimson Canyon,” I said as I spotted an old diner that was built out of a large skycarriage under a big billboard of Pinkie Pie and The Ministry of Morale, “And we’re finally here for the first stop.”

“You wanted to go to an old, closed, diner?” he asked as we dove for the ground.

“It’s the place where I hid my power armor when I left Stable 97,” I said as we landed in front of the rundown building.

“I remember you told me before you had to hide it just in case there was a tracker on it, but why all the way down here and in an old diner?” Hailstorm asked as he looked at the old diner.

“This is where I stayed for the first couple of weeks when I first came to New Pegasus. Later I found Freedom and met The Queens. When I needed to hide it, I figured why not hide it here where I was staying before anyway. So, if anypony came looking for me they’d only find the armor,” I said as I walked up to the door and pushed it open.

The old brass bell over the door dinged as I walked in, Hailstorm close behind. The two of us instinctually let our eyes sweep over the interior, checking for anything that might mean us harm. The interior of the diner wasn’t large, only a few rotting tables and booths stat around the windows. The bar area was mostly destroyed by now, either from time or other ponies that had either lived or fought here in the past. Honestly, it didn’t look any different than it had months ago when I’d first found it. As we moved further in, I pressed a button on my chest and moved my wings a little as the new battle-saddle Wingnut and Byte made for me activated. The twin rifles under my wings were switched off safety and a muzzle shooter and targeting system came up.

“I always thought you didn’t like battle-saddles Dusty,” Halestorm whispered as we moved further into the diner.

“I’ve learned over time that sometimes you need something easier to use than a rifle. Like now when we’re in a tight space,” I whispered back, making my way toward the kitchen.

I’d just gotten past the bar when something in the back knocked over a metal pan, making the diner echo with the sound of it hitting the floor. I lifted a hoof indicating for Hailstorm to stop. I waited then heard a small growl from a ghoul just beyond the broken door. Moving forward I peeked inside and saw the rotting pony blindly searching for the noise. I took aim as I came fully around the opening and right as the ghoul turned toward me and let out a hissing scream, it’s coat starting to glow as magical radiation started to flow out of it.

“Fuck! A glowing one,” I said, then bit down on the firing system right as the ghoul lunged at me, it’s face exploding into gore as its body slid to a stop a few feet in front of me.

“Good thing we have radaway with us,” Hailstorm said as he came to stand next to me, using a hoof to push the still glowing ghoul away.

“Yeah, normally we don’t really need it since Shadow always seems to get lucky and keep us away from radioactive areas,” I said as I moved into the kitchen, on alert now for more ghouls. In my experience when there’s one, there’s two or twenty more.

“Where’s the armor?” Hailstorm asked.

“Just in the freezer. As long as nopony’s gone looking in there it should still be there. Even if they found it I don’t think they’d be able to use it or even move it,” I said as I worked my way back toward the closed freezer door. As I approached, I heard Hailstorm twist around and fire two blasts from the energy pistol he’d bought from one of the Queens before we left.

I twisted around too, just in time to see two more ghouls fall to the ground dead. In the diner area I saw more starting to get up and move toward the door as Hailstorm said, “Might wanna make grabbing that armor a little faster Dusty.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said as I ran over to the freezer and pulled the pin locking the door shut from the outside and pulling it open. I smiled as I saw my old power armor from Stable 97 still standing in the same place I’d left it. I quickly ran in and checked it to make sure it still had power and when I saw it was still in full working order I turned back to Hailstorm right as he shot another ghoul, slowly moving back toward me. “Hailstorm, we’re good, take my battle-saddle and use it to keep the ghouls back. I won’t be able to wear it while I’m in the armor.”

“Ewww, but your spit’s all over it,” he said with a cocky laugh.

I ignored him and deactivated the battle-saddle before removing it and tossing it to him. Like the trained solider he was, he holstered the pistol, grabbed the saddle out of the air and had it on and ready in less than five seconds. As he did this I moved to the back of the armor, pressed the gem on the back to open it. The power armor glowed, then opened, making it easy for me to step in. It still fit me perfectly as I was incased in the light armor. A moment later the visor came to life bringing an orange tint to the world around me. An E.F.S. hud came up in my bottom vison and a targeting system came online along with the charge of my S.A.T.S. in the bottom right corner.

I’d told my friends in the past that I wasn’t a fan of power armor and for the most part it was true. It wasn’t because I thought it was hard to use or slowed me down or anything like that. No, my reason for not liking power armor was simple and a bit stupid. It took the challenge out of a fight. If I didn’t need this for the battle, then I’d have left it here, but Wind Thrasher told me that if I wanted to help Aura in her battle against The Unchained, especially after almost getting my head blown off two weeks ago when they tried to attack the base in Freedom, then I had to wear my power armor or stay home. Aura was my friend and I’d come to really like The Shadow Talons, so here I am getting my old set of power armor and honestly now that I had it on again, I kinda missed it.

I looked over at Hailstorm, then yelled, “Hailstorm, maneuver delta 6 echo!” right as twenty ghouls tried to push into the kitchen all at once.

He didn’t ask questions, just like in the stable where I’d normally taken command during battle simulations, he knew what to do when I gave a command. He ducked right as I took aim with the twin plasma rifles on the suit and fired twice. Once at a ghoul diving for Hailstorm and the second at one trying to come at him from the right. As the shots flew over his head, missing him by centimeters, he fired two shots from the battle saddle taking out two more. He rolled and took aim and fired on another ghoul as I ran forward taking down three more before slamming my body into a fourth sending him right toward Hailstorm who’d already jumped back to his hooves. He slammed his hoof into the flying ghoul killing it with one blow. He then opened fire on the rest at the same time I did. Within thirty seconds of giving the command, all of the ghouls were dead.

We both waited for a few moments before relaxing. As we did, Hailstorm grinned. “Damn we still got it bro!”

“Yeah we do, but still we should’ve done a better search before heading for the armor. Doorstop would’ve killed us for rushing in like we did,” I said as I stepped over the bodies.

“True, but he’s not here to yell at us so it’s not a big deal,” Hailstorm said as he followed me out of the diner.

“It’s still sloppy,” I said as I looked around to make sure no more were wandering around the area, “Using what I learned from our time in Stable 97 is what kept me alive in The Wasteland for so long.”

“If that’s true, then how did you get stuck in that stable where you met Wind Thrasher?” he asked.

I sighed. “That was a mix of stupidity on my part for letting Shadow lead us into that mess and Dr. Cell trapping us inside. Honestly, even though I miss the short little shit, she was a walking bad luck charm. Her luck stat would be zero if she was a character in one of Nexus’ games.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Hailstorm said, “If it wasn’t for her leading you into that stable, you never would’ve met Wind Thrasher and she’s also the reason we found each other again. Isn’t she also the one who helped you get your memory back when The Sins found you and turned you into the new Pride?”

I chuckled a little as I looked back at him. “That’s true I guess. So, maybe not zero. I really should look at the bad that happened while we were on our adventures and look at the good that came out of it. I guess I can see why she became my best friend.”

He smiled. “Dude, that hurts. I thought I was your best friend.”

I felt my heat skip a beat for a moment as once again I had to remind myself not to say anything to him about being only a synth of Hailstorm. So, I said instead, “You’re my brother dude, that’s on the same level as a best friend for some things and more important in others. We grew up together so we’re family.”

He chuckled. “I guess I can live with that,” he said as he deactivated the battle-saddle, “So when you marry Wind Thrasher, are you going to ask Shadow to be your best mare?”

I looked back at him. “Not sure how I can do that, she’s not even here and I don’t know when or even if she’ll come back.”

He trotted over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “I have faith that she’ll be back and hopefully she’ll have grown up a little during the time she’s been gone. Remember when we were her age, everything pissed us off, but we always got over it and learned from our mistakes. Give her time and when she comes back, you should make her your best mare.”

I smiled a little, even if he couldn’t see it with my helmet and rebreather covering my muzzle. “Thanks dude, but I’ll only ask her if Wind Thrasher doesn’t ask her to be her mare of honor. My special somepony gets first dibs. She’s just as close to Shadow as I am. So, if she does that, then will you be my best stallion?”

He chuckled again. “Dude I’d be honored. So where are we going from here?”

“I need you to go back to Freedom and help Aura or Stormy with final plans. My next stop is more personal,” I said as I opened my wings.

“You sure you’ll be okay without me?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine, let Wind Thrasher know I’m okay and I’ll be back tomorrow. If she needs to contact me, give her my power armor’s broadcaster frequency,” I said as I took to the air.

Hailstorm followed me for a moment as he said, “Okay, but if she asks were you went, what should I tell her? You know she’s gonna worry.”

I smiled again. “Just tell her I’ll be fine and not to worry.”

“Okay, but if she rips my face off, I’m going to shoot you in the ass,” he said before chuckling and turning toward New Pegasus as I turned northeast toward Trotston.

The trip only took an hour and I soon found myself in front of the large gate that led into the impressive town. I’d taken my helmet off and hooked it to my flanks so the guards wouldn’t think I was a pegasus from the now debunked Enclave. They still didn’t seem comfortable when I’d asked to speak to Rusty even though I’d been here three times in the past two weeks helping Aura with getting armor and weapons from Trotston.

“Stardust, I didn’t think I’d see you for a couple more days,” Rusty said as the large gate opened again.

I smiled at the older buck. “I’m not planning on staying long, but I’m here for personal reasons, not business today. Can we head to your house to talk?”

“I see no problem with it, though make sure you keep the helmet off. Some of the ponies here are still pissed about what happened a few months back when Shadow and Wind Thrasher were here,” he said as he led me inside.

It didn’t take long to get to his house where he had me sit in the small living room. As I sat I looked around the place remembering the time we spent there. “It’s gotta be quiet with Byte gone.”

He looked sad as he said, “It is, I’ve gotten so used to her working on something up in her room that with her gone I find it hard to sleep most nights. I really wish she’d come home, but I can’t force her and trust me I’ve tried.”

I gave him a smile. “If it helps, she’s doing well with the Shadow Talons. Honestly she’s become like an honorary griffon to most of them. I think she’s found her calling in life and she feels she’s doing something good for them.”

He smiled back. “It does help. I’m sorry I forgot you came here to talk to me about something personal. What can I help you with?”

I felt my gut twist for a moment, feeling like I was a teenager about to ask a mare’s father for permission to take his little filly to the school dance. “You said once that you had been close to Wind Thrasher’s mom and the two of you were getting close to marrying right?”

He sighed then nodded. “We’d talked about it, but sadly we didn’t get that far because of what happened. I would’ve been proud to call Wind Thrasher my daughter.”

I tapped my hooves against themselves as I said quietly, “Since her mother and father are both dead and you’re the closest thing she has to family, I wanted to ask you something.”

He looked at me curiously. “What would that be?”

“I’d like to have your blessing to marry Wind Thrasher. I was also hoping that you’d still have something of her mother’s that I could give her when I propose,” I said, feeling my heart start to pound.

Rusty looked at me for a long moment before getting up and walking into his office where the Overmare’s desk was, the one he’d taken out of Stable 34. I wanted to hit myself, I must’ve done this wrong. Mom told me that if I wanted to ask Wind Thrasher to be my wife I needed to do it properly and get permission from her father or someone close to that. I hadn’t thought this out right and now I’d said something stupid, and Rusty was pissed. He has to be, why else would he have left the room like he did? I’m such a dickhead!

A few moments passed and I looked down at my hooves, getting up the nerve to say I was sorry and show myself out when Rusty came back into the living room with a small box in his muzzle. He came over to me and set it next to me before saying with tears in his eyes, “After I saw Wind Thrasher again, still alive and with full control of her body again, I was so happy, but also sad because I thought no stallion would see past what she’d become. After I had to tell her to stay out of Trotston, I thought she’d spend her life alone. Then I heard that she’d been cured of her bloodlust from Byte and that she was expecting a foal. Not just a foal that she got from making a mistake with some stallion but with a stallion she loved, I was even happier. Stardust, I may not be her father, but I’m as close as she has. I’d be proud to have you marry my stepdaughter as long as you promise me that you’ll always love her and treat her well.”

I felt tears in my eyes as I choked out, “I’m lucky to have a mare as wonderful as her in my life. I will stay by her side until I take my last breath sir.”

He smiled. “Good, then you have my blessing and,” he opened the box where I saw a necklace made out of gold with a heart pendant on it, “Make sure you give this to her. It was her mother’s. She gave it to me the same day she gave me her Mark II. She said that if her daughter ever found a stallion who loved her as much as she did him, that she wanted her to have it. As I’m sure you know, I didn’t understand at the time, but I kept it with me just in case.”

I took the box and closed it, holding it close as I said in a choked voice, “I’ll make sure she gets it.”

He hugged my power armored body, saying, “Good, now go back home and I wish you luck Stardust.”

I hugged Rusty back before pulling away and leaving his home. I put the box in a special place in my armor, before leaving Trotston and flying toward home and the mare I was about to wake up and ask to be my wife. As I flew toward The Strip, I had a hard time staying happy. Signs of the damage Aquila had brought to the area were getting worse. From where I was flying I could see that the Romans had pushed closer to the dam, The NLR were starting to lose ground, and worst of all, camps had started to show up all around the area. They flew a flag of a flaming eagle coming out of a gold crown. Aquila’s Cult was growing and if they kept getting bigger, they’d soon be stronger than both The Romans and The NLR. As I flew home I said to air, “Shadow, I hope you come home soon, New Pegasus and your friends need you.”

***

Stardust…

Two months after Shadow Left...

Slowly I moved myself closer to the edge of the cliff I was currently crouched on, the slight grind of the red sandstone dust barely making a noise as I drew closer to the edge. Tonight was the night Aura and her Shadow Talons have been planning for two months now. We’d meant to attack two weeks ago but it had taken longer than we thought it would to get to this point. My power armor wasn’t helping much while I was trying to stay as quiet as possible while I slowly moved closer to the edge of the tall cliff that would give me a perfect view into Crimson Canyon. As I was getting into position for my part in the raid to reclaim this canyon, the rest were also getting into their positions.

In the past few weeks Aura and her sisters, along with help from The Queen, Violet, Doorstop, Nightshade, and myself, have been able to get a lot of ponies to join the cause. The Unchained Talons already had a bad rep and they’d only been in this canyon for a few months. Aura had said it best a couple weeks ago, ‘The Rules of the Red Talons may have been outdated, but a good talon company needed some kind of stability to govern them. Without proper laws, chaos was the only outcome and chaos wasn’t what the ponies of New Pegasus needed.’

As I slowly moved the last couple of meters to reach my spot, I felt somepony in a zebra stealth cloak move in next to me. I didn’t flinch as Yaksha whispered in my ear, “I took out the two guards on this end. I will stay close and watch your back. Laser Light is doing the same for Hailstorm at the east entrance to the canyon.”

I nodded and whispered back to her, “Thank you Yaksha, let me know if anyone is coming and keep an eye on my smaller rifle if you can. Use it if you think you’ll need it.”

“I have my own sniper rifle as you know Stardust, but thank you all the same,” Yaksha said before moving away, her body invisible and nearly silent in her zebra stealth cloak. I knew Laser Light would be doing the same on the other end of the canyon. She had her own cloak she’d been given by Yaksha years ago.

I was honestly surprised when Yaksha showed up with Laser Light last week asking if she could help us with our fight against The Unchained. From the story we’d gotten, she’d left working with Striker a few weeks ago for reasons she refused to give us. Honestly if it wasn’t for Laser, none of us would’ve trusted her after she’d set up Shadow with Striker, but Laser said we could trust her, so we were doing our best. I honestly wasn’t too worried, I was good at reading ponies, zebras too I guess, and I could tell she was on our side…at least for now.

I just reached the end of the cliff and pulled the large gun case I’d been dragging with me closer and slowly unlatched it. Once it was open I slowly pulled out Wrath’s A.M.R. and moved it closer, setting it up on its bipod before loading the huge .50 BMG Rounds into it. Once that was done I readied myself and before pulling up the visor on my Armor and sighting down the scope. This was going to be the hardest part of my role on this mission. A sniper set up like this worked better if we had a spotter to call out the small details we’d need to know to set up our shots. Sadly, Hailstorm and I were the only ones who worked well enough together to do that. The others from Stable 97 who came to New Pegasus with Doorstop and Solstice weren’t on the same level as us.

As I looked through my scope, I started to count targets at the bottom of Crimson Canyon. I opened up a broadcast to Aura who was at the west entrance close to me with a few members of The Queens, The Queen herself included, half of her Shadow Talons, Wind Thrasher, Doorstop, and four of the ponies from Stable 97. “In position, I don’t see either alpha target yet.”

“I’m guessing one if not both of them are in The Den,” Aura said.

“I can confirm, I saw Apollo and Gina head in just a moment ago,” Hailstorm said from the other side of the Canyon.

“Good, now everyone remember, we’re here to drive away The Unchained Talons. If any surrender, then you’re to take them captive unless it’s Archer or Gina, they’re our alpha targets. If you find yourself getting into a fight with them, you call one of the alpha teams in asap,” Aura said into the broadcaster.

“ROGER!” voices said in unison into the coms.

“Remember Aura, keep my fiancé safe down there,” I said with a grin.

“I’m not made of glass Dusty,” I heard Wind Thrasher say into her com.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry about you,” I said in a teasing voice.

“I love you too,” she replied.

“Enough you two,” Aura said before continuing, “We’re still looking good for plan a, but that can change in a moment. I’ll be heading in first with alpha team using our stealth bucks. Bravo team, you move in only when Stardust or Hailstorm say so or one of my sisters. Remember everyone, we have a couple griffons in there that are on our side, don’t kill at random.”

She got another confirmation from the others before she said, “Dusty switch to the private channel quick.”

I did so as I kept my scope moving around the canyon. “What’s up Aura?”

“Remember that if you see Apollo or Gina, you take the shot but only if you know you have it. That rifle you have is very loud and once you fire, you’ll only have time to make a couple more shots before you’ll have to move,” Aura said.

“I know how this kind of mission works Aura; it was my idea if you remember,” I said.

“I know, but I have to make sure you stay safe, this is the only chance we’re gonna get,” she replied.

I sighed. “I know, you be careful too.”

She sighed herself, then said, “Love ya Dusty,”

“Love you too bird brain,” I replied before switching back to the general channel. I steadied my breathing, getting ready to fire when the chance came. As I did, I thought to myself, ‘I’m doing this for my unborn foal, for my friends, for my love, for New Pegasus. When this is done, and The Unchained are gone, then I’m going to do my best to help fix my family. It’s time to get Shadow, Oricalcos, Solstice, and Vervain back…”

Aura…

Two months after Shadow Left...

I looked back at alpha team. Vi, Wind Thrasher, and Nightshade in his Stranger outfit were part of my team. So were the two newest members of the Shadow Talons, Sunspot and Elliot, the mutant griffon ponies err hippogriffs I guess is what they call themselves, decided to stay in New Pegasus after leaving Captain Gunny’s ship and finally became Shadow Talons after weeks of Vi begging them to join. This was the team we put together to take down my father and my aunt. “Remember we use the stealth bucks to get to The Den, once we’re inside we only move on the targets if they’re in there and on my signal.”

“We know Aura,” Wind Thrasher said, her eyes glowing a little as the night grew darker.

As the Moon started to show itself, a red glow seemed to fill the air and I looked up at the half moon seeing it was almost blood red. Nightshade looked up at it too and said in a quiet voice, “A blood moon.”

I looked back at him, asking, “What’s that mean and why is the moon red?”

He looked back at me, his bright green eyes still a little creepy. “It’s rare to see a blood moon, though I don’t know what makes it that color. Some in the former Enclave think it’s an omen of great death. Usually it’s full though.”

I smiled a little. “Let’s hope it’s the death of our enemies and not of us.”

He looked down the west entrance of Crimson Canyon before responding, “Let’s hope so. Remember to be careful Aura, I’m only here helping you with this to make sure you survive. When my daughter gets back I want to make sure she has you to come back to.”

I felt my heart jump as he brought up Shadow. I wanted so bad to say something to him about how I doubted she would come back to me, but we had a mission. I nodded at the buck before turning toward The Queen and Arys. “You two are in charge of this half of bravo team, Syn and Sugar Buck are in charge of the other half. Be ready to attack and make sure you all stay out of sight for as long as possible. Our scout team is watching the tops of the canyon for any griffons that aren’t with us and they’ll take them out as quietly as possible if they can but be ready for anything.”

They nodded so I turned back to my team and pulled out one of the few stealth bucks we had. I watched as the rest took out their own apart from Nightshade who had a gem that would work just as well as a stealth buck, at least for a couple of uses before he’d have to use his own. The plan was simple, take out the two leaders and hope the rest of the griffons would either fly away or not know what to do when the rest of my allies came in. I gave a quick nod to the team and all at once we activated the stealth bucks.

As soon as they were active I started to move. Nightshade was probably already next to The Den with his strange time stopping gem which was where he should be, getting ready for the rest of the team and I to reach the large tent. I’d grown up in the canyon, so I knew how quickly it would take for me, sneaking through the canyon with a stealth buck to reach it. It only took a minute to get to the opening to the larger part of Crimson Canyon where I could see a few griffons lazing around not doing much of anything as the night went on. I had to force myself not to growl in disgust when I saw the large amount of trash and other nasty shit that had taken over my former home.

As I made my way closer to The Den I saw things that nearly made me sick. Two griffons were literally screwing next to the rubble where the old laws of The Red Talons used to be, another was throwing a severed pony skull back and forth with another and three were fighting each other near some of the huts. This was probably the first time I was glad my mother was dead. If she’d been here to see what happened to her home, she’d have already left stealth and attacked the disgusting so-called griffons. I just forced myself to look away as I made my way up to the raised platform, then behind The Den. Right as I got to the back of it my stealth buck stopped working. Thankfully no one was on this side of The Den, not even on the cliff over it.

Wind Thrasher showed up a moment later, followed by Vi, and the twins. Nightshade was already waiting for us, his green eyes almost seeming to glow in the dark shadow of the tent. He moved closer, then tapped a gem on his coat before saying quietly, “This will keep us from being overheard for a short time.”

“Good,” I said just as quietly, “Have you confirmed the targets are inside?”

He nodded. “From what I’ve been able to tell, Gina and Apollo are both inside.”

“Are there any other ponies or griffons in there with them?” I asked as I moved closer to the tent.

“No, but they’re arguing about something. I think we should listen in before we make our attack,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“They might have information we could use,” he replied.

I glared, then sighed. “Fine,” I looked back at the rest of the team, “Set up a perimeter and keep an eye out. Be ready to attack as soon as I give the signal,” I then activated my communicator, “Dusty, be ready to fire, both targets are in The Den.”

“Will do, I’ll contact Hailstorm and let him know,” he replied.

I switched to the main channel, “Team, start moving toward the entrances, we’re going to attack in a few moments.”

With that done I moved closer to the tent right as Nightshade pulled out a gem and placed it on the tent. Right as he did, I heard my aunt’s voice echo out of the gem. It wasn’t very loud, but I could make out the words as she said, “I don’t agree Archer!”

“I don’t care if you agree or not!” I heard my father say, sounding angry, “We’re serving a greater purpose doing this. Now have you found where Shadow went? Did Gaston find her?”

I lifted an eyebrow, asking myself, “Who’s Gaston?”

I heard hesitation in Gina’s voice as she said, “He…made contact with Shadow Star.”

I heard a growl from my father as he said, “And where is she?”

“In The Badlands…” Gina said, sounding hesitant again.

My father sounded a little more pleased as he said in a calmer tone, “Good, have him keep an eye on her for a little longer. Then, once he finds out where the tower is, make sure he kills her and gets her Mark II.”

“Do we have to kill her? You do know that Aura is in love with her, they share a soul bond. I’ve seen it myself,” Gina said.

My father laughed. “I don’t care about that; my children chose their side. The new world I’m creating with my benefactor has no room for children like them. Besides, we can have more children one day.”

“I’m a little old to start having children Apollo,” Gina said, sounding angry.

I heard a slap followed by a body hitting the ground. “You will call me Archer! I’ve told you this before. Now get up, you look pathetic, and you’re supposed to be my second. If I say we will have more children, then we will. The new world I’m helping to create will be perfect and my benefactor will make sure we live in it for a long time.”

“I think our father is going a little crazy,” Vi said from next to me.

I nodded. “Why is Gina acting like she is?”

“No idea, but I think we should start the attack. They don’t know we’re here and surprise will be the only way we take them both down,” Vi said.

“I agree with your sister,” Nightshade said.

“Agreed,” I said before I heard my father continue.

“I’m heading out, I have a meeting with some ponies out west. Make sure you keep to the plan with Crimson Canyon. We can’t lose this place,” he said before I heard him heading toward the tent flap.

A moment later Stardust said in my com, “I see Apollo, I’m taking the shot.”

I was about to say something to him when I heard my father say, “Aura, next time you want to sneak into my lands, you should remember who taught you how to set up a mission like this. Nice try, but sadly you’re a little too late…” right then a loud boom echoed from Dusty’s rifle, and I heard something splatter against the other side of the tent and a body hitting the ground.

I almost was ready to jump with joy then Dusty said in the com, “Fuck, Apollo moved at the last second and pulled another griffon in the way, he’s escaping!”

“GO AFTER HIM!” I yelled as I pulled my energy spear off my back and slashed the back end of the tent open, “Shadow Talons ATTACK!”

I dove through the back of the tent to see Gina looking a little shocked at the sudden intrusion and the now dead griffon at the entrance of The Den. She looked at me, her eyes wide as she pulled her red energy spear off her back. “Aura wait!”

I wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say, I slashed my spear sending a blast of green energy at her. It slammed into her chest sending her flying out of the tent flap. I heard her scream in pain, but the slash didn’t hurt her as much as it should have. I looked at the rest, saying, “Make sure no Unchained Talons get away!” I then flew out of The Den right as all hell broke loose in Crimson Canyon.

Gina was ready for me, and she blocked my next attack, parrying my spear to the side then bringing up the other side of her spear to swipe under my beak. I felt hot pain as my beak was slammed together and I was thrown to the side. I recovered quickly and dodged another attack before countering with my own. As we fought, ponies and griffons flooded into the canyon taking a good amount of The Unchained Talons by surprise.

“Aura,” Gina said as she dodged another attack then slashed at me with her spear nearly cutting an eye out, “We don’t need to fight! You don’t understand what’s truly going on!”

“You’re a traitor to your family just like my father!” I yelled as I ducked a slash from her then flipped around and kicked her under her beak, sending her flying off the platform The Den was set on.

She landed hard but managed to get back to her talons as she growled, “I’m not a traitor! I never have been! If you’d just let me explain!”

“I’m done listening to your LIES!” I yelled as I slashed, then blocked her counter attack.

“Fine, if you don’t want to listen, then I’ll make you!” Gina said, then she attacked faster than she had before.

I barely had time to dodge before she flipped her spear around and slashed again, and again, and again. I realized then that before she’d been holding back, now she was fighting with everything she had, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to win. Gina had always been better than me with a spear. I always used a spear because that was what I was trained with, but I was always better with two Ghurkas. Swords just like Misery and Joy. I ducked then tried to counter but Gina was too fast. She flipped her spear around, blocked my attack, then kicked me with a hind-leg, throwing me back against the platform.

Her energy spear crackled with red energy as she glared at me. “Aura, you know I’m the better fighter. I always have been and that energy spear of yours is only a prototype, unlike my own. You can’t win against me with that toy.”

I glared at her then slashed my spear at her, but it was a faint, I used it to roll then tackler her. She didn’t fall for it though; she slammed the flat of her blade against my face and threw me back again. She then put her spear on her back, came over to me, and picked me up before flying into the air and throwing me toward the fighting pit. I slammed into the ground near the entrance to the pit, moaning in pain, but luckily still holding onto my spear. She landed a couple meters away, saying, “Are you going to listen to me now, or are you going to keep acting like a child!?”

I spat on the ground then got back to talons before lifting my green energy spear up to point at Gina. “My weapon is stronger than you think, the pony who made it was one of the best weapon designers in The Wasteland. Prototype or no, it’s still stronger than your weak imitation.”

She pulled her spear off her back and pointed it at me. “This isn’t an imitation you stupid fool. You’re old lover’s brother had the schematics for the energy spear, the next version Tripwire was going to make. When she died, he built this one and gave it to me, asking me to do one thing with it, use it to kill you.”

“You’re lying!” I said, but I saw with my own eyes, that the spear was very similar to my own, but it looked a little different and better reinforced and the red energy it gave off seemed more powerful than mine.

“I’m not,” she said, “Now please let me explain myself to you before we continue this stupid fight! You need to hear what I have to say! I don’t want to kill you Aura!”

I lowered my spear just a little. “If Tariff made that spear for you to kill me and you took it, then why should I listen to you?”

“I never said I WOULD kill you; I just knocked him out and took the spear to make sure he didn’t hire another griffon to do the job and use this spear. I’ve been keeping it safe for you!” she said, her eyes looking desperate.

I was about to ask her more and maybe give her a moment to explain, when a loud yell came from above, followed by Gouger’s voice yelling, “Aura, I’ll help!”

I saw the training that was deeply ingrained in Gina kick in. We were much alike in that way, when our lives were in danger, we reacted before our minds could stop us. Gina dodged to one side as Gouger opened fire on her, she rolled then came back up, her spear already glowing bright red. She pointed it up at Gouger and fired a quick beam at him. As if in slow motion, I saw the small blast of energy slam into his chest, then through his chest, blasting out the other side leaving a smoking hole right through his heart. He had a look of shock on his face before he fell to the ground. He was dead before his body even hit the soft sand of the fighting pit.

I saw my sister’s life partner die by the talons of our aunt. Anger built up inside me and I attacked. Gina’s eyes were wide with shock as if she was surprised herself at what she’d done, but her body was still in fight and protraction mode and she dodged my attack, flipped around countered my next strike, then she kicked me hard, throwing me back against the rack of weapons that were normally on display. I looked up and lifted my spear at the last moment as her next strike came down toward my face. Her spear glowed a bright red again and to my horror and shock, it sliced right through the middle of my energy spear and the tip of her spear sliced a hot line between my eyes.

I felt my weapon split in two right as blinding pain flew through my head and face. I fell, dropping my now useless weapon to the dirt, expecting Gina to finish me off, but she didn’t. Instead, she dropped her energy spear, saying in a shaky voice, “Aura…I didn’t mean to…”

I was so enraged that I fought through the pain and grabbed the first thing I could find. My talons wrapped around one of the fallen weapons…a Ghurka, I picked it up and lunged, burying it deep in Gina’s stomach. I felt her hot blood splash over my talons as she leaned into me, shock, and pain in her eyes as my beak came a few centimeters from hers. I twisted the blade and watched as pain showed on my aunt's face.

She reached up and put a talon behind my neck and pulled me closer and said in a weak voice, “I’m…sorry…I had to do this…I had to protect…Shadow.”

I was so shocked that I let go of both the blade and Gina. She fell back and winced in pain as blood slowly seeped from where the blade was sticking out of her stomach. If she hadn’t just said that last thing to me, I would’ve finished her off, but I could see in her eyes that she was telling me the truth.

I ignored the sounds of battle going on around me, ignored my teams yelling orders and asking for aid in my ear, ignored the body of Gouger who was only a few meters away as I knelt down next to Gina, the griffon who had been a nightmare to me for months now and asked, “What do you mean?”

She coughed up a little blood then said weakly, “I was never your enemy. I’ve been trying…to protect you, and Shadow for months…”

“You’re lying, you tried to kill us a few times. Hell, you tried to kill my mom and you took over The Red Talons!” I yelled.

She panted and groaned in pain before she said, “Aura…I never wanted to kill my sister…Gigi was a good leader…not the best but good. I was angry that I was kicked out…I never got to tell her why I had…to do what I did…or explain my true mission…I knew about…Shadow…and the important roll she had…before she even…left her stable.”

“What…how?” I asked.

“Tonto knew Grim and…he knew about…a prophecy that Night Stalker was told many years ago. Shadow’s birth and role was foreseen many years ago…a zebra came to The Red Talons and talked to Greta, told her…that Night Stalker would need her…and that he was on a mission to…do something to ready his distant granddaughter to fix his sins…our family’s sins. Every story teller was given the story about what to expect…the signs to look for. This zebra talked with the first storyteller of The Red Talons after Greta saved her old friend from falling to his death. They knew what to look for and Tonto was ready when…he was sent to the Enclave to help…grim and her daughter,” she said weakly.

“If that’s true then how do you know about it?” I asked.

“He told me when I was young…this was before my father started training me to fight. Before…I was banished…he told me about Grim…and her daughter. This was before Tobias was old enough to start training with him. He asked for my help…to protect this filly. When I was banished, he came to me, and we started working to make sure things would be ready for her…then Apollo came to me and told me about his new talon group and his plans. He always thought I was his soulmate, but he wasn’t. I never loved him, but Tonto thought it would be a good idea to use Apollo to get information on his treason against The Red Talons.”

“If you knew all this and were on our side then why didn’t you tell my mom or one of us? Why did you keep acting like you were our enemy?” I asked, confused by what she was saying.

“I had to,” she said, looking up into my eyes, “Tonto was dying, that’s why I let Apollo kill him. He wanted to die like a griffon and not in his bed, too weak to even feed himself. Before he died, he made me swear I’d keep playing the roll of the bad griffon, the traitor, the evil sister, but to keep protecting Shadow and you. He said…you two were special…I wanted to tell you so much ever since I saw you….at The Bramble, but things happened too fast…and you never trusted me. Every time we fought, I made sure that…you two survived. I tried to make sure Gigi survived my attack…I had to take over…The Red Talons…it was the only way to…find out what your father was truly planning…but he killed her. I wanted my sister to go with you…to live, but I failed her again, just like I did with Gail.”

“If that’s true then why did you tell Apollo where Shadow was? Who is this Gaston I heard you talking about?” I asked.

She smiled a little and lifted a talon to run over the side of my face, “He’s…my son. I had him in secret a couple of years before you were born. His father was a freelancer I used to have fun with…he raised him for me…but he knows me very well…he’s keeping Shadow safe. He’s taking my place and he’s on your side…I only told Apollo what I did…so he wouldn’t think I was turning on him…he already thought I was getting weak.”

“You…have a son?” I asked, shocked by the news, “I…can’t believe you’ve been doing this all by yourself for so long…I thought…”

“You were supposed to think I was your enemy…I just wish I could’ve told you before…you stabbed me,” she said as she put a talon on her stomach.

I don’t know why, but I believed her, something in her eyes told me she wasn’t lying. “Aunt Gina, maybe we can still save you.”

She shook her head, and I could see now that the light was starting to go dim in her eyes. “It’s too late for me…before I go, do me a couple favors, even if I don’t deserve it.”

I took one of her talons and asked, “What is it?”

She smiled. “First of all, make sure you kill Apollo, he’s working with a…pony called…Hacker. Also make sure you tell…Gaston…his mother loves him…and that she’s proud of him…” she looked back into my eyes, “I’m proud of you…too, my little Aura.”

I felt tears in my eyes as I said, “I will, but before you go…can you tell me where Shadow is? I need to find her.”

“No…you are…where you’re supposed to be…” she said, her voice getting weak, “She…needs to fix her soul…Gast…will help…her…he’s…a good…son,” her eyes started to close and her talon started going limp as she said, “When…you get the signal that Tower 2…is active again…make sure…you get to her fast…….she’ll need you. Save…The Courier…save Equus.”

I was about to ask her more, when I saw that the light went out of her eyes and her talon fell to the ground. Tears fell from my eyes, and I used my talons to close hers. She’d been on my side from the start and in a rage I’d killed her. Yes she killed Gouger, but I would’ve done the same if I was in her place. We were fighters and when our lives were in danger, we reacted. She hadn’t wanted to kill him, it just happened. Just like when I’d killed Tripwire.

“Aura…Aura, The Unchained Talons are dead or captured, but Apollo managed to get away,” I heard Stardust say over my com.

I took a moment to fold Gina’s talons over her chest then I got back to my talons, picked up my broken energy spear, then I took Gina’s before responding to my talon group, saying, “Shadow Talons and allies, meet me in the middle of the canyon. Gina’s dead…and I found something out that will surprise you all.”

I took one last look at my Aunt’s body. “I’ll be sure that you get a proper funeral, you deserve that much Gina,” with that, I went over to Gougers body, closed his eyes then continued on, out of the fighting pit and toward my talons and our home. Gina was right, I had to let Shadow figure her own shit out for now, I was needed here. Where the blood of my enemies ran crimson with the canyon soil, and cold with the demise of the innocent.

***

Cookie Byte…

Three and a half months after Shadow Left...

“Dammit!” I yelled as once again the new terminal I’d been working on fizzled out with a spark and fizzle, the screen going dark.

“We almost had it that time,” the ghoul bug who called himself Nexus said from the other side of the desk. He’d come to the Shadow Talon’s base in Freedom a couple weeks ago to help me with my new project. At first I hadn’t liked having him around. It wasn’t that I had a problem with ghouls, but Nexus was very immature. I’d gotten over his quirks though after a couple of days when I saw how good he was with technology. I’d also learned from Aura that he’d once worked for Stable-Tec and helped make the Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II with Apple Bloom.

I was trying to set up a relay system to use the M.A.S.E.B.S. towers for communication, the same way the Mark II’s used them to talk to each other. Sadly, we hadn’t made much progress, the system that the Mark II used to communicate the way it did was a secret even to Nexus. He’d said the only way he could figure out how it worked was for me to remove the Mark II and he’d have to disassemble it, which wasn’t going to happen. Today was the closest we’d come but the power output was too much for the terminals.

“I know we almost had it, but the hardware on these old terminals can’t take it. I need something with a stronger possessor and power compatibility,” I said with a sigh.

The old ghoul sat back in his chair. “I heard about a company that was developing better computer systems than the terminals, but the megaspells fell a week or so before they were going to be released.”

“You’re talking about the Carrot company,” I said, “We saw their store in Los Alicorn, though I’m not sure if they had any of their products in the store or not. I know The Ministry has a few but I don’t think they’d be willing to part with one so I could use it.”

“You could always ask Dr. Stormy,” Nexus suggested.

I shrugged. “Maybe, but she’s too busy helping Aura and the Shadow Talons fix and move things back to Crimson Canyon.”

He sat back again, tapping his rotten hoof on the desk. After a bit he asked, “Why do you want to set this up so fast anyway? I’m sure that over time you could build something better than even the Carrot systems.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples with a hoof. “I could come up with the designs and all that, but I’d need somepony like you or Wingnut to build it.”

“Still, what’s the big hurry?” he asked.

“I want to try and get a hold of Shadow or any of our friends that left a few months back. I want to make sure she’s okay and find out if she needs me yet to unlock Tower 3. She can’t do it without my Mark II,” I said with another sigh.

“Why do you need Shadow for that? From what I learned about her departure; she wasn’t in a good place. Everypony keeps saying that we should all leave her be and wait till she comes back here,” Nexus said.

“I know, but it’s been over three months and we still haven’t heard from her. The only clue we’ve had that she’s alive is that rumor about Solar Flare being used in The Badlands and still it’s not much to go on,” I said.

“Have you tried using your Mark II to get in contact with her?” he asked.

“I’ve tried twice, but both times the signal was weak or there was no signal,” I said.

Before he could say anything else Wind Thrasher came into the room. When she saw me she gave me a kind look, saying, “Good afternoon Byte and to you too Nexus.”

I couldn’t help smiling back. Ever since Wind Thrasher had gotten the cure for her bloodlust, she’d been probably the nicest pony I’d ever met. I mean she’d always been a kind pony, but she’d always had this feeling of danger around her, and she would snap at others for almost no reason. Now she always had a smile on her face and could always find a kind thing to say to anypony or griffon in the Shadow Talons.

“You’re looking good,” I said as she came in to sit next to us.

She laughed. “I feel like a fat lazy mare honestly.”

I looked down at her belly which was showing more than it had even a month ago. On Wind Thrasher who was skinny enough to be in old mags, her showing her pregnancy made her look more like a normal mare. I smiled, saying, “You’re not fat and even if you were it’s okay when you’re pregnant. Speaking of which, what did Stormy say about the foal? I would’ve come down when you had your appointment with her, but I got distracted.”

“She said the foal is further along than she would’ve expected, but as far as she can tell it’s a healthy foal, thought she thinks my mutation may end up passing along to my foal,” she said, sounding a little sad at that.

“Are you worried it will be like you?” I asked.

She nodded slightly. “I don’t mind if they end up with some of my bat or dragon DNA, but I worry they’ll have the bloodlust too. Though Stormy said she’s sure the cure I took should pass to my foal too.”

“That Dr. Stormy’s a smart pony, I’m sure you’ll be fine Wind Thrasher,” Nexus said.

“Thank you Nexus,” Wind Thrasher replied.

“I heard you and Stardust are engaged, congratulations. When will you two get married?” the ghoul asked.

She looked away, looking a little sad. “We…we aren’t sure just yet,” she then looked over at me, “I overheard what you were saying about Tower 3 and I was thinking that maybe we should take care of it on our own. Shadow’s been away for a long time now and we can’t just keep waiting around here for her to get back. With how Aquila’s cult is growing, the Roman’s taking over more and more land, and with rumors of Los Alicorn’s Steel Rangers building up their power again. We might not have the time to take Falling Shadows down if we wait for Shadow to pull her head out of her ass.”

“I was thinking that too, but I have no idea where the tower is, only Shadow did and even if I did know, how can I get to it?” I asked.

She smiled. “Shadow told Aura, who told me. It’s in the Equestrian Records building in Baltimare.”

My eyes went wide. “In Baltimare? How on Equus are any of us supposed to get to Baltimare?”

“Well, that depends. Are you willing to risk an adventure with two hippogriffs, a weird sky pirate and Dusty?” she asked.

“You want me to use that ship Sunspot and Eliot used to work on?” I asked, “I heard that Gunny dude is a freak and even if I was willing to go, how do you expect me to be able to leave? Aura won’t let me go further than The Queen’s School, let alone go back east.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I have a plan for that. Aura won’t even know you’re gone until you’re too far away,” she said.

I took a moment to think about it. If I did this, it would be dangerous, very dangerous. Not only were the central lands of Equestria a very bad place to end up if something went wrong, but there were also the factions of the broken Enclave to worry about. From the stories we’d gotten from the east, things weren’t safe. Pegasi may have lost their cloud cover, but Enclave Loyalists still did their best to kill ponies they found in their skies. I could always give my Mark II to Stardust, but I’d promised Rusty I’d keep it safe. Even with The Hidden Sands Steel Rangers now under Elder Hazel and working with Freedom and The Shadow Talons, I didn’t want to give up my Mark II. So, I looked at the work I’d been doing on the terminal, and around my workshop and realized that I was honestly bored. Ever since I’d set up with the Shadow Talons and started my small projects, I’d just been hiding from The Wasteland. Yeah I’d gone to The Ministry with Shadow and the rest, but apart from that I was still doing the same old thing I’d done in Trotston. I was hiding and if I wanted to grow up in this world, I needed to stop hiding and start living.

Turning back to Wind Thrasher I asked, “So what’s your plan and when can I leave?”

***

Stardust…

Four months and Three Weeks after Shadow Left...

I still can’t believe I let Wind Thrasher talk me into this stupid plan. I knew she had her reasons for sending me to watch over the kids. Though I’m not sure if I should still call Byte or Wingnut kids anymore. Byte just celebrated her birthday a few days ago while we were heading toward this city. She was the same age as Shadow now and even though that still made her a filly to most, she was more mature than Shadow most of the time. Wingnut’s birthday was only a month away and the kid had grown a lot in the past four months, in both mind and body. He was now taller than Shadow, the top of his head was now level with my eyes.

I looked back from the railing of The Bitter Cob at the two who were talking with Elliot and Sunspot on the other side of the strange flying ship. No, they weren’t kids anymore, but they were still like a younger brother and sister to me, and I’d make sure this mission would go well. I sighed and looked back out at the dark landscape below the flying ship, ignoring Captain Gunny who was yet again yelling nonsense to his small crew of ponies and zebras. Just in the distance I could see the city of Baltimare. I didn’t know much about the city apart from the fact that it had a large population of steel rangers, a lot of raiders and a branch-off group of former steel rangers that Gunny called Applejack’s Rangers. One of Gunny’s crew ponies told me a few days ago that the rangers had broken apart in the east, but they didn’t know much more than that. All I know is that we needed to get into the city, find the Equestrian Records building, reactivate Tower 3 and get the fuck back to New Pegasus.

I didn’t like being away from Wind Thrasher for this long, especially with the cult growing like it was. As we flew closer to the city, Wingnut came over to stand next to me, looking out passed the railing. “I didn’t know the city would be so dark,” he said.

I nodded, then replied, “I heard the ponies who live around here stay out of the inner city as much as possible.”

“Xatar told me she grew up south of Baltimare. She said that the steel rangers and the raiders are too dangerous for most to deal with,” Wingnut said.

Xatar was Gunny’s new second in command now that Sunspot and Elliot had left his crew. They were only with us now to make sure we were safe during our journey and I’m sure because Aura wanted to have them keep an eye on Gunny. She still didn’t trust the mad stallion ever since he’d tried to use Shadow as bait to get his long-lost wife back from The Enclave. Xatar was a very pleasant zebra who loved to tell stories and I’d enjoyed her company while we flew toward Baltimare.

“If she grew up around here maybe she can tell us where this building is we need to find,” I said as The Bitter Cob turned a little and started to lower in altitude. Looking down, I saw we were flying over a bay like river.

A moment later I hard Xatar’s voice say, “We are close now, we will fly up the Palomino River and land The Bitter Cob in the river near the old historical building.”

I looked down at the zebra. She had bright blue eyes and a mane done up in dreadlocks. As I looked at her I asked, “Won’t The Bitter Cob be spotted if we land in the water?”

She shook her head. “No, it will not. The historical building has old ships in the river. Once we land and take down the balloon, most ponies will not notice the extra old ship.”

“Will we be close to where we need to go?” I asked, “Wingnut said you grew up around here.”

“Indeed, I did,” she said with a slight smile, “I was one of the few zebras who dared to venture into the city itself when I was younger. As for how close you will be to your destination, that depends on where you need to go.”

“Ever heard of Equestrian Records?” I asked.

She took a moment to think, then nodded. “Yes, the building itself is not far from the place we will land, maybe two or three blocks.”

Byte came over, bringing up the map on her Mark II. “I have a full map of Baltimare, I guess Apple Bloom came here before. Can you show me the location on my map?”

Xatar took a moment to bend down, then look over the map on the small screen on Byte’s Mark II before saying, “Ah yes, it is right here on the corner of Light Street and East Redwood Street,” she made a mark on the map then continued, “Though I must warn you, if you are heading to that building you must be extremely careful.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Are there rangers around there?”

Xatar shook her head, “No, the rangers are holed up near Oldtown and raiders stay clear of that area, most do.”

“If steel rangers and raiders stay clear of this area, I’m guessing something very bad lives near there,” Wingnut said.

“You would be right; all I know is that the rumors say that a very old, very large, hellhound lives in the building and kills any who dare come too close to its home,” Xatar said.

I sighed. “Of course, there’s a damn hellhound there, it couldn’t just be an easy in and out mission,” I then looked at Byte, “Do you know where the terminal is we need to get to?”

She nodded. “Violet told me we’d have to go in the main entrance to the building, head to the left and find a staircase that leads down to a lower level. In there, we’ll find storage rooms behind a security door. We’ll have to get into it, then find a storage room with the number 76 on the door. Once we’re there either you or Wingnut will have to be scanned by the biometric system to get in. She said that there’s a hidden elevator in the room that will take us down to the megaspell chamber, the terminal is on the other side of that room.”

“What I’m curious about is how in the Goddesses names did Apple Bloom get into the area to lock the tower down in the first place?” Wingnut asked.

“Violet said that since Apple Bloom was first cousins with Babs, she was able to get past the biometric scanner,” Byte said, “According to her, Tower 3 was one of the first sites they finished, since it was the easiest to hide what they were doing, and they didn’t set up as much security there as they did with the other three towers. Apparently Tower 4 in The Cristal Empire is the hardest to get into.”

“Either way we’ll need to get into the building and avoid the locals on our way there. Also, we’ll have to make sure we don’t get killed by a huge hellhound,” I said as I looked back past the railing of the ship and saw we were about to land in the river.

“Can’t you just fly us there?” Byte asked.

“I could, but it would be hard with the two of you,” I said thinking it over, “With my power armor I could do it, but I’ll have to leave my rifles behind. That means I’ll only have my plasma rifles that are part of my suit if we get into trouble, and hellhounds aren’t easy to kill with plasma, bullet’s work better.”

“I think we should risk it,” Byte said, “I have my gravity gun and plenty of ammo for it. With the modifications Wingnut and I made to it, it should be able to throw a hellhound back.”

“I also have Ol’ Festus and it should be good enough to blow a hole in a hellhound, as long as all three of us work together,” Wingnut added.

“Okay, fine, but if we can’t get past it, then I’m picking you both up and we’re out of there,” I said, “If that happens Byte, we’re going with plan b.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “What’s plan b?”

“You will give me your Mark II and I’ll go back in alone. I’m not going to let the two of you get killed if I can help it,” I said.

She huffed, then nodded. “I can live with that. I just hope we won’t need to go with plan b.”

“Me too kid…me too,” I said as Gunny started yelling orders to his crew.

Two Hours Later…

We landed just outside the old prewar building, Byte and Wingnut both jumping off my back right as the sun started to rise in the east. I kept an eye on the E.F.S. on my power armor, watching for red as I scanned the road. When I saw that nopony was around, I looked up at the tall building. It was made of whitish-tan stone with brick higher up the building. The building looked elegant if a bit grimy and at the top of it I could just make out the spire sticking out of the top of it.

“Okay, keep your guns at the ready and be on the lookout for anything,” I said quietly as I moved toward the broken glass door to the building.

They nodded and followed close behind as I walked slowly through the broken glass, looking around the entryway to the Equestrian Records building. My first impression was that this building had to have been used for more than just the record company because there were signs for exercise equipment and clothing throughout the entryway and a few for the record company. Old gym equipment was set up and mostly rotting away on both sides of the hallway along with ministry posters scattered around. Most of them were for The Ministry of Wartime Technologies, a few of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences and a lot of Pinkie Pie saying things like ‘I’m always watching you!’ or ‘Always have fun, fun, fun’ and one that said ‘Keeping Equestria safe by watching all’.

My hooves clacked on the stone floor as I made my way further in, watching for the staircase Byte told me about and listening for any movement. Honestly I wished that Xatar hadn’t told me about the hellhound. I’d rather have been surprised by it rather than worrying about it. She hadn’t even been sure if it was real or not which only made my nerves worse. We’d gotten half-way in when I saw the stairs we needed. Nodding toward them I led the others toward it right as a white line appeared on my E.F.S. followed by a deep guttural growl.

We froze as something large with glowing red eyes slowly stepped down the stairs coming from the upper levels followed by a deep guttural growling voice, “Ponies are either stupid or brave to wander into Alister’s domain.”

I heard Byte squeak in fright as all three of us took a step back. I would’ve started firing at the creature, but it was showing up as white on my E.F.S. not red, which confused me. So, taking a chance I asked, “Who are you?”

“Stupid Pony, Alister has already told pony his name. Why are you in Alister’s building? Ponies know better than to come here,” it said as it slowly stepped closer to us. This had to be the hellhound and it was as big if not bigger than that hellhound Shadow helped in The Bramble.

“Are…are you the hellhound who guards this place?” I asked, still wanting to fire at it, but the white line on my E.F.S. made me hold back.

It growled again then stepped into the light of the sun just shining in through the windows. Its fur was pitch-black with blood-red eyes, its fur was long and matted, it’s claws longer than the kid’s bodies, and unlike the hellhound from The Bramble, this one had sharp bone jutting out from its elbows that looked as sharp as its claws and curling horns coming out of its forehead.

It spoke again, saying, “Ponies are stupid, do I look like a normal stupid hellhound?”

Wingnut answered, not sounding as scared as he should, “No, you look like that death dog Rawr that our friend Shadow helped once.”

To my shock, the hellhound smiled. “You are a smart colt, Alister can see this. Colt said he has met or seen Alister’s brother Rawr? Colt must be lucky to have met Rawr and lived.”

“Our friend Shadow helped him get free from a place that was using him like a slave, they had a bomb collar on him I think,” I said quickly wondering if we could get lucky and not have to fight this death dog.

Alister laughed. “Dog never thought he would hear about Rawr getting captured. Well, if ponies are friends of a pony that helped Alister’s brother, then dog will not kill and eat ponies…yet. Why have you come here?”

Byte stepped closer, her fetlocks shaking a little as she said, “I’m here to undo an evil, there is an old project locked in the basement of this building. I’m here to unlock it so our friend Shadow can destroy it.”

His eyes brightened at that and his speech which a moment ago sounded like most hellhounds got a little more elegant as he looked around, then said, “My apologies for speaking like most of my kind, I see you have one of the Mark II’s young one. Let me start over, I’m Alister and if you’re here with one of the Mark II’s I’m guessing The Guardian sent you to finally finish their work to stop and destroy Falling Shadows.”

I had no idea what was going on here but if he wasn’t going to kill us I’d go with it. “We know the current guardian, though he didn’t tell us about you. How do you know him?”

He sighed then beckoned us to follow him. “I will explain on the way down to the chamber,” he then led us down the stairs and started telling us a story about Rawr, another death dog female, and himself that he believed had been recaptured by Neighvarro some years back, being experimented on by The Guardian’s family, then sent to the towers to guard them. The story didn’t take long and the more he talked, the less I was scared of the large death dog. When he finished we’d entered the storage area, which was just a long gray hallway with black doors on each side.

When we reached it, he said, “I got communication from Rawr just last week that two mares with the other Mark II’s had joined him in The Badlands, though he did not say anything about expecting you to show up here.”

“Wait a minute,” I said in shock, “You mean Shadow and our friends are with Rawr in The Badlands right now?”

He turned back to look at us. “Yes, he told me about what happened with the last guardian, Striker and his brother taking over and not knowing about us. He told me about the small mare Shadow and another that looks a little like you with a pink mane and blue eyes, she has the Mark II that is needed for Tower 2.”

“Are they safe?” Wingnut asked, “We haven’t had any news of them in months!”

Alister nodded. “From what Rawr has told me yes, though he said the small pony, Shadow, is suffering deeply from something. He told me they’re searching for a key to enter the tower there and while they do he has seen her sneak off many times to drink or take some kind of strange drug. My brother worries for the mare, I wasn’t sure why, since our kind doesn’t like most ponies, but I understand now after hearing that he was saved by her in the past.”

I felt my heart almost break at hearing about Shadow. From the sound of it, she was even worse than she had been when she’d left. I looked back at Alister asking, “Did he tell you anything else about our friends?”

“Not much, he mostly talks about Shadow and how he worries for her. He said there is a madness in her eyes and a deep sorrow in her soul,” Alister said before stopping in front of a door with the number 76 plastered on it.

“How are you able to communicate with him so far away?” Byte asked.

He reached into a small satchel on his side then pulled out a portable broadcaster. “This was given to us by the guardian many years ago so that we could keep in contact if needed. A few months ago, Rawr stopped communicating for a while. I’m guessing it’s because he was in New Pegasus which isn’t that strange for him, he does like to travel when he gets bored, but when he left last time he was in a rage because his former mate and his pup had been killed by ponies. I think that is why he went to New Pegasus and I’m guessing that is how he was captured. Anyway, we use these to stay in contact so that we know what is going on at the towers and so a dog like me doesn’t go crazy with no one of high intelligence to talk to.”

“Can we…use it to talk with our friends?” I asked.

He smiled and nodded. “That would be fine but after you finish what you came here to do and only if you promise that you will let me come with you and escape this city once you’re done.”

“Don’t you need to stay here to protect the tower?” Byte asked.

He shook his head. “My job is partly to protect the tower yes, but really I’m here to keep ponies who want to use Falling Shadows for ill from getting in. Rawr trusts Shadow and her friends and with that Mark II I know that you can be trusted to do what is needed. Once the tower is unlocked my job here will be done and I’d like to go west and escape this city. Dealing with the ponies here is not something I like, and I’ve heard that New Pegasus might be a better place for me to settle down and maybe if I’m lucky, start a pack of my own.”

Byte and Wingnut looked up at me so I shrugged and said, “I don’t mind, but I warn you, the ship we took here may freak out a little when they see you.”

He laughed. “I’m sure we can smooth out the details later. Now let me tell you what you’ll face once you’re down in the chamber.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, “We were told that all we’d have to do is go down there and unlock the system.”

Alister looked back at me, saying, “Dwarf Star himself came out here and added something to the security system in the Chamber many years ago. It was the only tower that was mostly unprotected. Since the megaspells here are based around emotion and illusion he made a test that you’ll all three have to pass to reach the terminal on the other side.”

“What kind of test?” Wingnut asked.

“You’ll have to face your worst fears. If you do, the spell will let you pass to the terminal, if not, you’ll be teleported back outside of this building and locked out for a year,” he said.

I felt my heart sink as he said that before I shook myself and said, “We have no choice,” then I looked back at the kids, “Listen, this may be too much for you two. If you want Byte, I can take your Mark II and go in there myself.”

For a long moment she looked at the door, fear on her face before she finally said, “I…I can do it, but only…only if you both come with me.”

“Byte…you shouldn’t do this,” I said with a sigh.

I saw her face go from afraid to determined, before she looked back at me and said, “I can do it, now let’s get this over with.”

“Okay,” I said before moving forward and pushing the button for the biometric scanner. A blue gem popped out and scanned me quickly followed by a ding and a voice, saying, “Welcome, Child of the Night.”

The door opened and after looking back at Alister who waited in the hall, the three of us went into the room which was nothing more than a large elevator. We didn’t have to do anything after that, soon the door closed, and we were on our way down to the deep depths of Tower 3…

***

Wingnut…

I have no idea what happened, one moment we were flying down in the elevator, then next the door opened, and everything went black. I looked around wondering how I’d gotten in a cave. Then I knew where I was a moment later and I felt my hooves start to shake and tears coming to my eyes. This was a memory, a memory I’d done all I could to forget. A dark deep howling scream of anger and pain blasted out from deeper in the cave. A sound that would haunt my dreams for four years. I took a step back as sounds of fighting and screams echoed through the cave, screams of a mare and a stallion.

“Crescent! Get Wingnut out of here, I can hold it off!” I heard the voice of my father say.

“NO….no…. dad please no, just run,” I said quietly as I tried and failed to move further away from the sounds of battle. A moment later I saw a younger me running out of the cave, fear on my young face with tears and blood soaking my coat.

Then, everything went still, and an older stallion’s voice seemed to echo around me, saying, “Everypony has something deep down that they’re most afraid of. If you want to continue on, you must face this fear, for only those with courage in their heart can face what is to come if the project is restarted and the monster from the dark gets free. If you cannot battle your own inner demons, you are not ready to face what may come next. You have one chance to go into the darkness and face this fear of yours. If you cannot, then you will be banished from this place. You may turn back now and try another time, be that a day, or a week or more, but if you chose to try and face this fear and run instead, the banishment will be for a year. Make your choice now, do you face this fear, or do you want to retreat and try again later?”

I wanted so badly to turn back, to go home and forget this night like I’d been doing for the past four years, ever since they died. I almost did, I almost told the voice that I wanted to go back and not face it yet, then I remembered that I wasn’t the same colt I was when Shadow found me. I’d watched my friends battle a lot of scary things over the past few months. I’d faced steel rangers, monsters, raiders, and more while traveling The Wasteland with my friends…my new family. If I ran now, I’d never be able to get past this night, also the filly I was in love with needed me. If I ever wanted Byte to respect me and to see me more than a creepy colt that was only good at helping her with tech stuff, then I needed to grow up, I needed to face this fear.

“I’ll face it,” I said and with that the memory started over again and I walked deeper into the cave.

I started hearing the cries, the growls, the screams again, but I kept pushing forward, until I reached the small campfire my parents had set up deep in the cave to keep its light from attracting raiders. The cave was deep, even deeper than we’d gone in. I remembered that dad said it was safe, but we had to be careful incase monsters were lurking deeper. We’d camped here before and never had any problems. Just before the attack, we’d been eating around the fire, dad had given me his revolver to tinker with while he listened to stories my mom was telling of her younger days before they met. It had been a good night, until the darkness around us seemed to move and the growl echoed through the cave.

I almost stopped as that same growl came again, my mom screamed when she heard it, so had I. I was young and in my fear I hadn’t really paid attention to what came out of the darkness. My father however, pulled on his battle-saddle and started firing into the dark yelling for mom to take me and run. I watched as that played out again right before a scorpion stinger flew out of the dark and stabbed my father. Mom screamed again, then ran for me and pushed me down and away.

“Wingnut! Run! Get away now!...” she said as she turned and faced the creature that slowly stepped out of the darkness.

My hooves shook more as I watched my younger self watch, my mind at the time not able to comprehend what was happening. Now I knew what I was seeing. I watched as the manticore used its tail to pull my dying father toward itself. Mom pulled out her battle-saddle and started firing at the creature, but the ammo was too low of a caliber. It roared but managed to pull my father closer and bit his head off. Mom screamed again and I was crying in silence as I watched my younger self get up and run. Right before mom started firing again. I’d never seen what happened to my mom next, but I knew she died. I’d come back a few days later to find their bodies ripped to shreds.

In this memory or spell I was in, mom just vanished for a moment only to show up again in pieces, but the Manticore took a step toward me and the darkness around it seemed to surround it more, making it almost impossible to see. In a gruff voice it said, “I am the darkness you fear Wingnut, I kill ponies who least expect it, taking parents and colts in the night! Fear me, for I will one day find you and do to you as I did to your mother and father! Now run away, run just like you did so many years ago!”

I could feel the fear deep down inside, but something stronger was raging inside me. It wasn’t anger like I’d expected from seeing the thing that killed mom and dad. No, it was a warm feeling, almost like something inside me was finally able to accept what happened to my parents. In this dream-spell things had gone faster than in reality. Mom told me to run, she also told me to get to Appleton and find a safe place to hide. She fought the dark creature after dad died but managed to tell me something else. “I love you my little colt, go now and stay safe, I will try and find you, you need to save yourself.”

I begged her to come with me, but she only smiled while she fought and said, “A parent’s job is to protect their children. Now go my love and live.”

I looked up at the Manticore and said in a strong voice, “I do not fear you.”

It lunged and its fangs snapped right in front of my face. “Run or I’ll kill you here and now!”

I didn’t move. “I’m stronger than I was before and even if I’m still a colt and still young, I no longer fear you. You aren’t real and the real you if it’s still alive will pay one day for what it did to my parents. I will no longer fear the dark from where that monster came. The creatures in the dark will learn to fear me and my friends.”

The manticore smiled then bowed its head before melting away, a moment later a very short unicorn stallion with a six-pointed star on his flanks came out of the darkness. He looked like a ghost or hologram. He stopped in front of me and said in a distant voice, “Fear weakens us, but bravery can make us stronger, though be careful of doing too much on your own. Your parents died so you can live, don’t let revenge control you either. Friends are a gift in this dead land, and they can help you when you need it. Always remember to love those who are close to you, be they alive or dead, because love can conquer anything, even fear.”

Before I could say anything else, the world went black, and I found myself in a large room with massive megaspell chambers all around the room and a single terminal at the end. I smiled and almost cheered in happiness as I realized that I’d passed my test. The darkness would no longer stop me.

I also noticed that I was the only one here. “First! Hell yeah!”

Stardust…

I found myself in a room with the megaspell chambers, Wingnut and Byte both there too. Wingnut was smiling, same for Byte as if something had changed them for the better. I knew the feeling all too well, though I couldn’t find it in me to smile. The spell had shown me a fear I hadn’t even realized I’d had. I feared being alone again, like I had been when I left my stable. That strange small unicorn with the six-pointed star had shown up and I felt like I was an old buck. He sat with me and told me that I was in a future where all of my friends died, even Wind Thrasher and my unborn foal. He sat with me on a cliff and told me that my fear wasn’t one his spell could make right or that I could face within the parameters of the spell. So, his test was a simple one, all I had to do was make a promise, one that he said would be bound to me through the megaspells of this chamber.

“Most ponies fear being alone but normally it isn’t their greatest fear. You’re special in that way because you grew up around friends and a kind of family. You were raised to not fear death, or the dark, or enemies, and so on. So, your fear is ending up alone at the end of your days. If you promise me that you’ll do everything you can to never let the loss of your friends keep you from moving on and that you will do everything within your power to always protect your friends and family, then I will pass you on this test. Be warned, if you go against this promise, the spell I will lay over you will end your life and trap your soul on Equus for many years, watching as the rest of your friends live their lives without you. Can you do this? If not, I will send you back up to the surface and you will be barred from ever coming back here. I will not let a coward into this tower,” he said.

I was surprised how long it had taken me to finally agree. In the end, I knew that I would always protect my friends and family. I loved them so much that it hurt sometimes. The old pony smiled, and I felt a spark of pain in my chest before I was thrown out of the spell and back here.

“You okay Dusty?” I heard Wingnut ask.

I pulled my thoughts together and gave him a small smile, “I will be…how about the two of you?”

“I think I’m better now than I was before we entered that spell,” Wingnut said, “I had to face my fear of the darkness. I had to relive the night my parents died and because of it, I finally know what happened to them and I think it helped in a weird way.”

“I feel good too, but when I was in the grips of that spell I met an old short unicorn and he told me once I passed my test that I can’t talk about it with anypony, not until I find it in myself to forgive a pony,” Byte said, her eyes looking both happy and sad at the same time.

Wingnut cocked his head to one side. “What do you mean? Why can’t you tell anypony?”

I looked at her too, curious as she answered, saying, “He said that what I have to do, I have to do on my own and I can’t have my friends push me to do what I need to. If I fail, I could die.”

Wingnut’s eyes went wide. “What the hell? You mean that spell will kill you just because of a stupid test?”

Byte looked at Wingnut, a smile on her face. “I had a choice Wingnut; I could’ve backed down and left the test. I chose to accept what I needed to do to get past my own fears. I will do what I need to, and I’ll be fine.”

“But…why would you risk your life just to get past the spell?” he asked.

I answered this time, saying, “Wingnut, it’s not about the spell itself or passing it. All three of us have had hard lives and our fears were getting heavy on our souls. If we kept hiding from them, they would’ve eventually destroyed us. My own test was close to what Byte had to do and I accept it happily.”

Wingnut looked over at Byte again looking worried. “I guess I understand, but…are you gonna be okay?”

To my surprise, Byte trotted closer to Wingnut and brought her lips up and kissed him softly before she said quietly, “I’ll be fine, there’s not a time limit on what I need to do, not really.”

Wingnut looked shocked at the kiss but before he could let it get to his head, I cleared my throat, saying, “So, should we get on with this?”

Byte smiled. “Yeah I think that’s a good idea,” she lifted her Mark II and looked over something on it, her face going pale, “This can’t be right.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“The chronometer on my Pip-Buck is either off which I can’t believe, or we were stuck in that spell for more than a couple hours,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “It says we’ve been in that spell for eight days!”

My eyes went wide, same for Wingnut’s as I said, “That can’t be possible!” then something else hit me, “Fuck, I hope the twins didn’t come searching through the city trying to find us!”

“I’ll contact them, they have a radio on the ship,” Byte said, pulling up something on her Mark II after a moment she said, “Sunspot or anypony aboard The Bitter Cob, do you read? This is Cookie Byte.”

A moment passed, then a relieved sounding Sunspot’s voice came out of the pip-buck, “Oh thank goodness, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days! Where are you and are you three okay?”

“We’re fine,” Byte said in relief, “It’s a long story, we got a little trapped, but we’re in the tower now and we shouldn’t be too much longer. I’ll contact you when we’re on our way out. Is everything okay with you and the ship?”

“For the most part yeah. We did have to move the ship when steel rangers got too close, but we kept it in the water. We’re a few kilometers out from the city at the moment, but we’ll move back into the dock when you’re ready,” Sunspot said.

I got closer as I remembered something we’d promised Alister the death dog, saying into the Mark II, “Sunspot, I should warn you that we’ll be coming back with a new companion. He’s…kinda scary, so just make sure nopony shoots at him when we get back.”

“I almost forgot about that,” Wingnut said, “I hope Alister’s okay up there all alone.”

Sunspot sounded a little weary, “What kind of…companion are we talking about?”

Byte answered, saying, “He’s kind of a large well-spoken hellhound, but don’t worry, he’s nice enough as long as nopony tries to kill him.”

A moment passed then none other than Gunny said, “Y’all better be a jokin’. Captain Gunny ain’t letting no big deathy claws onto his ship.”

“You will if you want to get paid and if you want to keep your ship. Now get ready to head back to shore, we’ll be out of here shortly,” Byte said, then she cut the communication, “Let’s get this over with, I wanna get home.”

Byte started heading toward the terminal in the distance, as she did Wingnut bumped me with a hoof. “Um…did she really kiss me or was that just a weird effect from the spell?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Looked to me like a kiss. Does it bother you or something?”

He smiled a little. “Nope, just wish I would’ve made the first move, she’ll never let me live this down. Like ever. Till the end of time.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

He looked up at me. “She told me a month or more ago that she liked me and that if I liked her back I’d have to show her. She said that if she did it first she’d tease me about it forever.”

I laughed again then started following Byte, Wingnut following close behind. “Well bro, sorry to say this, but you’re screwed. Royally.”

“Oh well, I honestly don’t really mind that much,” he said.

I just kept chuckling as I watched Byte go up to the terminal and hook up her Mark II. It took her a while to do whatever she was doing. Wingnut and I watched as she worked on her Mark II then finally she sighed and clicked one more icon on her Pip-Buck. When she did the lights in the room brightened and the megaspells in the large room came to life with a gentle hum. I looked around and wondered if anypony outside the tower would know that this place had been activated as the humming got a bit louder.

“We should head out,” Byte said, “The lockdown has been lifted and I’m getting a little homesick.”

“What will happen with this place when we leave?” Wingnut asked, “I mean if Alister is coming with us, who will keep this location safe?”

Byte looked back at us. “Once we leave, this chamber will be locked down again, only one of the descendants of The Children of The Night will be able to get in. It’ll be safe long enough for Project Falling Shadows to be shut down for good.”

“I still don’t understand why the project has to be active for it to be shut down,” Wingnut said.

Byte sighed. “I wondered that too, but Violet said that it had something to do with how the system was built. I don’t understand it all, but she said it had to be done. Now let’s just hope that Shadow has pulled her head out of her ass and took care of Tower 2.”

“Yeah, I hope she did and that she’s okay,” I said as I started leading them back out of the underground chamber.

“It’s been…what…five months now?” Byte said as we reached the elevator and started heading back up to the storage hall, “If she still has her head stuck up her ass, then we may have to go find her and slap some sense back into her.”

I was about to say something about that when Byte’s Mark II started beeping softly. Wingnut looked down at it, his eyes going wide. “Hey, isn’t that the sound your Mark II makes when Shadow’s trying to get in contact with you?”

“Yeah,” Byte said, lifting her Mark II before her eyes went wide, “It’s not a transmission from Shadow’s Mark II it’s from the other one!” she answered it saying, “Hello?”

“Byte? Oh, thank The Goddesses. I figured out how to make this thing work,” I heard my sister Solstice say from Byte’s Mark II.

“Solstice? How the hell did you get your hooves on Scootaloo’s Mark II?” Byte asked, “I thought Shadow had it.”

“She did, long story,” Solstice said, she sounded tired, “Listen, there’s a lot to go over and not much time. First of all, have you three completed your mission to unlock Tower 3?”

All three of us gasped when she said that as I said, “Sis? How did you know about that?”

“Aura’s here with us in The Badlands, it’s a long story and I honestly still haven’t really gotten all the information yet. I just need to know if you’ve unlocked the tower.” Solstice said.

“Yeah, just a minute ago,” Byte said.

“Is Shadow okay?” I asked quickly, worried sick about my friend.

There was a long pause then Solstice said, “I’ll go over that with you in a bit,” she sounded stressed, “With Tower 2 and 3 unlocked that means things are about to change. Violet just told me some things and you three will need to head back to New Pegasus as quick as you can. Aura said to make that Captain Gunny dude fly his ship as fast as possible, she’ll pay him triple if she has to.”

“Why?” I asked, “What does unlocking these two towers have to do with anything in New Pegasus and if Aura’s there why isn’t she telling us this?”

“Listen big bro, I don’t have time to go over everything. Just put it this way, something happened here, and Violet and Aura are afraid that Aquila and Thunderlane might try and take over New Pegasus. You need to get back to the Shadow Talons and keep the city safe. I’ll update you more when I get more information, just get to the ship if you’re not already back on it and fly home as fast as possible. We’ll meet you all there when we can,” Solstice said.

The elevator dinged and we were back in the storage hall, Alister looking happy to see us. We ignored him as I said, “Fine, we’ll get back home as soon as possible, but please, I need to know, is Shadow okay?”

The death dog watched us as we stood there in the elevator, crowding around Byte’s pip-buck. Another long moment passed before Solstice said in a choked voice, “We…don’t know. She got hurt trying to keep me safe when we activated Tower 2. There was a megaspell leak, and she used her power to pull the magic away from the room so I could undo the lockdown. She’s barely breathing, and Violet said she’s on the verge of death. We…we don’t know yet if she’ll pull through.”

“There has to be something that can help her,” I yelled, “Can you get her to Stormy? I’m sure she can think of something to fix whatever’s wrong with her.”

I heard my sister sniff hard as if she was holding back sobs. Then the calm voice of Minuette…I mean Violet came over the line, saying, “Stardust, I know many healing spells and am probably a better medic than Stormy. I’ve done all I can to help Shadow, but her mind is fractured and right now, it’s up to her to find her way back to us.”

“What the fuck does that mean!?” I yelled louder, “You make it sound like Shadow has to choose to pick life or death?”

“She does Stardust, whatever happened to her has broken her very soul. No magic I know or anypony alive can fix that. Only she can pull herself back together and only then can she come back to us. From what she’s been going through over the past few months, she might just choose to end her pain and move on to the next life. No matter what we want, it will be her choice in the end if she lives…or dies,” Violet said, sounding sad.

A few moments passed as we all took that in, then I heard Aura say in a weak voice, “I’ll have Solstice update you three as soon as we know more. Please Dusty, you need to get home. From what Violet said, she thinks at the very least Aquila might make her move on New Pegasus. My Shadow Talons need to be warned and Violet can’t get us back for at least a few more days.”

I sniffed, then said, “Can do…you…” I stopped and sucked in a shuddering breath, “You, keep an eye on her okay? If…if something happens, please tell me…for better or worse.”

I heard her sniff before she said, “I will Dusty…I will,” then the connection was cut.

I felt tears falling down my face as I looked at Wingnut and Byte then back at Alister. I took in a deep breath and using what I’d learned in my training, I pushed the emotions down for now, then said, “Let’s get back to New Pegasus. Alister, make sure you are good on our ship. I really don’t want to deal with fighting.”

“Do not worry pony, I will be a good death dog. Just as long as am able to get away from this stupid city,” the death dog said. With that, we started heading out of Equestrian Records. As we left I heard Byte calling for The Bitter Cob to take to the air and to meet us outside the building. She said we had to get going as fast as possible. As she did I worked hard to keep my emotions down and not to think too hard on how the fuck Aura and Violet had found and gotten to Shadow and my sister so fast. I’d find out later, right now, I needed to be the leader of our small family, because there was a good chance I’d have to take over for my best friend as The Courier of New Pegasus. I knew Shadow all too well and with how much she’s suffered over the past few months to a year, I wouldn’t blame her for letting go of her pain and passing the baton to the rest of us. She knew that we’d complete her mission for her, she knew we loved her and no matter what, this time if she chose to die, we’d respect her wishes. She deserved a rest, more than anypony. As we got outside and I looked up at the dark night sky, I whispered a prayer to the stars, or Goddesses, or whomever would listen, “Please…watch over my friends’ soul and make sure she finds peace if she chooses to move on, but make sure she knows how much we all love her and that we miss her…so…so much.”

***

Aquila Starborn…

Five Months after Shadow Left...

I looked out at the ponies that roamed around the large camp that was slowly becoming a city in a way. That fool that now called himself the high priest of newly dubbed Starborn Cult had brought a lot of ponies to worship me along with the Romans. If I didn’t need the buffoons I would’ve killed all of them by now. I honestly hated all of them…well all but maybe a few zebras. The Caesar wasn’t too bad once I’d gotten him to get over his sexist thinking. He didn’t see me as a Goddess but more as a powerful Starchild, which I was.

I sighed then winced in pain as I felt another twinge of pian shoot down my spine. It had been happening more and more over the past couple of weeks and I was getting worried the more it happened. Turning away from the camp I headed back into the cave that was serving as my home right now while I waited for the rest of my plans to be completed. Soon I’d be able to kill Thunderlane and his granddaughter and the fucking cult that kept worshiping me like a Goddess. Oh how I hate them!

I gasped and fell to the floor as another spike of pain ran through my body and I felt my synth body flutter and stretch for a moment before the pain finally passed. At least this didn’t happen around the ponies outside, I may hate them, but I needed them…for now. After a moment I got slowly back to my hooves and walked over to the bed I used when I was here. On the table next to the bed, I picked up the small mirror and looked at myself. Cracks of white light were showing along my neck, cheeks, and forehead. I concentrated my magic and used an illusion to hide the cracks, just like I’d been doing for a week now. The pain I kept feeling wasn’t new and I knew what was happening, and I couldn’t do anything about it, not yet.

My being, my soul, and magic couldn’t stay in this fake body forever like I’d thought when I had Grim make it for me. I figured that having an exact copy of Shadow’s body would be enough to handle my power, but I’d been wrong. Slowly this body was breaking apart. The sad part was I couldn’t stop it or fix the damage, all I could do was hide it. The only way I could survive was to go back to Shadow’s mind and hope I could take her over for good. If not, then…I don’t know, I could always do what Altair wanted me to do…my so-called father wanted me to merge with Shadow and the two of us would become something new. Well fuck him and his plans for Equus, this was my world now and he was nothing more than a nearly dead star. I’m not going to lose myself, not for anyone.

With the pain starting to fade, at least for now, I was about to head back out of my cave and see if I could get a report from my scouts when a different pain slammed into my chest, and I fell to the ground screaming. I rolled around in agony as a magic circle pulled away from my chest. If I wasn’t in so much pain I would’ve gasped as I saw the spell that Grim had placed on Shadow and me to keep our lives bonded to one another. All I could do right now was watch as pian rolled through my very soul as the spell circle fully formed in front of me then it cracked in half and as it did the pain slowly faded. The magic faded with the pain and when it was gone and I could finally stand again I knew deep down that the spell was gone, but how? Did something happen to Shadow? My eyes went wide as for the first time ever I worried about my former vessel. Was she dead? I fucking hope not. If she was, then how was I ever going to survive what was happening to my body?

I had to know, so I pulled myself up off the ground then went back to my mirror. I cast a spell over it and soon I saw Shadow in the mirror. I watched for a long time as I saw others pick her up and put her into a bed. I couldn’t make out who they were, the spell was only showing me Shadow and a bit of detail around her. I felt my heart race as I wondered if she was dead or alive. Then I saw a slight rise and fall of her chest. I sighed in relief and let the spell go. I’m not sure what happened to her, but so far she was alive. I’m not sure why the spell broke, but at least I had a body to go back to if I needed to. I let the spell go and smiled as I headed back out of my cave. I was about to call for one of my cultists but then I noticed something strange in the distance where The Lucky Horseshoe was just visible.

“What’s that?” I asked as I used a spell to make the tower seem to come closer to me. I smiled as I saw something that just made my day. One of the four points at the top of the tower had lit up. The one facing south. “I don’t know what you did to yourself Shadow, but at least you’re doing what I needed you to. Now just three more to go and the power of Falling Shadows will be all mine.”

I sighed then went to look for one of my cultists. Things were moving fast now, and I needed to figure out one last thing. Where the hell Shadow had hidden my diamond. I knew by now that she’d given it to that Sin Greed, thanks to intel I’d gathered from a mare that used to live at the old base, but for the life of me, nopony, not even I could seem to find the damned pegasus. I hoped that I’d get more intel on him soon, I needed that diamond if I ever wanted to activate Falling Shadows without risking more of my power to do so. “I’ll find you Greed, and when I do, I’ll make you tell me where that diamond is.”

[FOOTNOTE: Error Found…Error…Error…]

[Mind Fragmentation found, attempting to correct Error…]

[Rebooting…attempting to correct…Reboot Failed…Attempting Reboot again…]

[Reboot Successful…Welcome Back Shadow Star do you wish to continue?]

[Yes/No]

[………Yes!]

Bonus Addon!

Shadow Star…

My mind was going in a million different directions. Here I felt at peace, my loved ones were here, I was happy, but back on Equus even with all its pain and horror, I had ponies, zebras, zonies and griffons I loved. I wasn’t sure what I should do. Go back and deal with the pain and anger or stay here and let The Wasteland fend for itself. I wasn’t a hero; I was just a filly who had the worst luck. Did I let it all end, did I let Aquila and the rest win so I could pass on? It seemed to take forever before I made up my mind, but when I did, I looked up at the ones I lost, smiled, and lifted a single hoof up. “I know what I want to do and what I need to do. I need to go back to my friends; I need to go back to the griffon I love and finish what I started. If I’m going to die, then I’d rather it happen while I protect them rather than giving up.”

I’ve been a fool for the past five months, I knew that now and no matter what, I needed to make up for it. It was time to grow up and stop feeling sorry for myself. As I made up my mind, I heard my mom say, “You have come close to death and when you go back I can’t say that the spell I placed on you to keep you safe from Aquila will hold. You shouldn’t worry though my little star, you have the power now to keep her at bay.”

I smiled and nodded. I took one last look at my friends and my family who’d already moved on. It was time I did the same. “I love you all and I hope you can all rest in peace. I’ll make sure never to go down such a dark path ever again,” I turned away from them and I let my soul fly back toward Equus, it was time for this little filly to go back to the land of the living, “I’m coming guys…I’ll never leave you again…The Courier’s back…” I said as I fell, but something about that felt wrong, “No, Shadow Star’s back, I will always have the title of The Courier, but I’ll no longer let that be who I am. I am Shadow Star, that is who The Courier is, and I protect the ones I love,” I felt myself smile…truly smile for the first time in what felt like forever, I was going home…

Chapter 76: Reflection

“I still love you Shadow and I will for the rest of my days,”

Shadow Star…

My body felt like shit, that was the first thing I’d noticed when my mind finally felt like it’d pulled itself back together. I still had no idea how long I’d been out of it, or even what day, month, or even year it was. My head swam with left over magical energy, either from holding the magic of the Megaspells or from whatever happened to me after I’d blacked out.

‘What the hell happened to me?’ I thought to myself as I did my best to pull myself back to the waking world. A spike of pain ran through my brain as a few flashes of memory flowed through my head. I couldn’t make sense of it all, so I did my best to push through the pain. Finally, my head started to feel better, and I was able to slowly open my eyes.

The room I was in was dim, only a small light came from a nightstand. For a long moment I just looked at the side of the bed trying to pull my scattered memories together. It was no use, the last thing I remembered was going into the Megaspell Chamber and pulling that massive amount of magic toward me so Solstice could get to the terminal. A quick flash of memory hit me right then of Solstice slamming into me and flying me out of the chamber. I smiled, happy to know that she’d made it out of there alive.

I turned my head to see if I could figure out where I was then froze as my eyes fell on Aura. She was sitting next to the bed, her head and one talon laying on the side of the bed. How’d she gotten here? Where was here? Was I still in The Badlands or did my friends take me back to New Pegasus? Honestly it didn’t matter at the moment. I’d find out sooner or later, I took the time to just look at Aura sleeping next to me. I saw a scar going across her face and she was missing half a digit on her talon, but she was still beautiful. After doing everything I could to forget about her, to drink away her memory, to pretend like my love for her was gone, the sight of her still made my heart skip a beat and a deep longing filled my soul. Five months had passed since I’d seen her and so much had happened, and I still knew that I loved her. The question was, did she still love me? I felt tears come to my eyes as I slowly reached a hoof out to rest on her talon. She stirred a little in her sleep mumbling under her breath before settling back down.

‘Remember to find your virtue and the meaning of who you are,’ I heard run through my head as a slight echoing memory floated through my mind.

I pulled my hoof away from Aura and frowned wondering where that thought came from. I closed my eyes and tried to pull the memory forward, but it kept slipping away. I sighed and opened my eyes again. I might not be able to remember where that memory came from, but I knew that it was right. I’d been going against who I was over the past few months, acting like an angry foal. As I thought about my actions a slight need came over me. I needed a drink, something strong to push back the anger and the pain I’d been doing my best to hide. I hadn’t stopped drinking even after I told Oricalcos and the rest I would try and change. I tried to stop…well I told myself I was trying, but all I did was go from openly being a drunk bitch to secretly drinking when no one was watching. I looked toward the nightstand, recognizing it after a moment as the one next to the bed I normally slept in while we’d been at Rawr’s den. I had a flask that was still halfway full of Unicorn’s Bliss. I felt the need to drink more, take a swig or two to fill me. I looked back at Aura who was still sleeping then turned my attention back to the nightstand. Using my magic, I slowly pulled open the drawer and retrieved the small flask.

I unscrewed the top and brought the flask up to my muzzle, the aroma filling my nose with a strong yet wonderful scent. I’d fallen in love with the drink a couple months back. I had no idea what was in it, I never asked, but with only a sip or two, everything that was weighing down on my mind vanished, and I would feel peaceful for a little while. Even better I got a very nice buzz from the sparkly clear drink and no hangover. I needed my mind to calm down, I needed the feelings welling up inside of me at seeing Aura again to go away. I NEEDED to get my head back on track so I could be the mare I’d chosen to become. Right now, my feelings for Aura were overwhelming me and The Silver Demon had no place in her heart for emotions like that. The Silver Demon only felt hate, rage, lust, pride, envy, greed, and at times gluttony, though not for food but for power and respect. I couldn’t go back on this new me, she was required to kill Aquila, to stop Falling Shadows, to save Equus. Shadow’s dead…Star’s dead…The Courier’s dead, only The Demon is left. I needed to be like Night Stalker, he killed off his past as Absent Moon and dominated Equestria from the shadows. He was feared, respected, and powerful. If he would’ve stayed that ruthless monster he became then, Thunderlane would’ve never been able to trick him into falling from the Enclave, he would’ve stopped Falling Shadows. He hadn’t though, he’d let his old self show and because of that, he died, most of his children died and his family…my family fell from grace for nearly two hundred years.

Stealing myself, I brought the opening to my lips and was about to take a swallow of the addicting bliss of the Liquor. I was stopped by a voice in my head, that of my grandmother Minuette who was now the Alicorn Violet, “Are you really this weak now Shadow? So weak that you’ve turned to drink to help you hide your problems?”

I looked toward the door and saw her standing in the dark entrance, her blue eyes glaring at me, the Alicorn Amulet glowing around her neck. I opened my muzzle to speak, but she cut me off by using her mind-to-mind trick, “Do not speak, I don’t want to wake Aura. She’s been up for three days keeping you alive and she needs her rest. Now follow me quietly, I wish to have a word with you.”

I was about to tell her where she could shove it, but to my shock and outrage, she used her magic to rip the flask away from me and another spell to cover my muzzle so I couldn’t yell out. She followed that up by using her magic to lift me from the bed and pull me close to her. Her angry stare boring into me. Then she teleported us out of the room in a flash of red and blue light.

I knew she was pissed as soon as we teleported, she wasn’t gentle about it. When we reappeared a few moments later, I knew we were far from Rawr’s home. The air was thicker, and rain was pounding down from the dark sky above. She dropped me into a mud puddle then cast a spell over us that blocked the rain and wind. I groaned as I pulled myself out of the stinky mud and glared up at her, “What the fuck is your…”

Her hoof slapped me so hard that I was thrown face first into the force field and then back into the mud. I cursed and got back to my hooves only to have her slap me again as she said with her muzzle this time, “You don’t get to take that tone with me young filly! Now stay down for a minute, I’ll tell you when you can speak and when you do it better be with more respect!”

I glared up at her and yelled, “Oh fuck you,” and blasted a powerful spell at her, only to have it blocked with a simple flick of her horn. My eyes went wide as her horn flashed and I was picked up and once again, dropped into the smelly mud.

She ignored my angry glare and cast a few spells over the flask. A moment later her eyes widened, and she looked at me again, “Do you know what’s in this flask?”

“Unicorn’s Bliss, now give it back to me before I…” I started to say before she cut me off with a spell, making it so I couldn’t move my muzzle.

“This Shadow is a mix of a couple of liquors and a very powerful drug known as Moon Dust. It’s highly addictive and it dulls the senses. I’ve also heard of it being used to make different kinds of drinks, Unicorn’s Bliss, Horned Pleasure, Angel Tears, it has many names, but it all does the same thing. It gets ponies addicted to it and unicorns especially have a hard time controlling their magic when they are drinking this swill. Whoever got you to start drinking this was trying to weaken you and from what I can see, they were doing a good job,” she said, anger in her voice.

Anger rushed through me as I pulled on my magic, “I’ll show you who’s weak, you science experiment gone wrong!” I blasted a dark magic spell at her that my uncle had taught me. It wasn’t meant to hurt, but to mess with a target’s mind to make them re-live one of the worst memories they had. For Violet who was Minuette that would be the day she’d lost Amethyst. I grinned as I watched the spell slam into her head and her face grew slack for a moment. That’ll show her who’s the weak one.

It only lasted a moment though. Her amulet flashed red then she shook her head and glared at me, “I see your uncle’s been teaching you some dark magic. I admit, if you’d been as strong as you’re supposed to be then that might’ve worked, maybe for a few moments but I know how to protect my mind from that kind of thing. Now stop acting like a filly. I brought you out here to have a conversation with you and to find out why you’ve been acting like an idiot for the past five months.”

“I don’t need to hear anything from you Grandma,” I said with utter hatred, “You have no idea what I had to do to survive, what I needed to become to fix the FUCK UP you and the rest of the Children brought down on this world!”

She walked closer to me, her anger plain on her face. “You think I don’t know what you’re going through? Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do to keep you alive over the past five months? Do you know the lies I had to tell your friends so they wouldn’t come looking for you? Do you even understand the shit I have to deal with in my own head to keep from going mad again like I did two hundred years ago? I know more than you might think about you, about your so-called mission and more about the Project I helped build!”

She was screaming at the end, making my anger go down a bit as I took a step back. I looked into those eyes, deep down I saw her, the mare who’d lost everything. She’d lost her lover, her family, the friends she had in The Children, her foal, her respect, her hyper intelligent mind, and her own will for most of her life. Minuette was right, I knew nothing about loss or pain, not like she did, and I definitely didn’t know even half about Falling Shadows. This was a mare who had become one of the first Children of The Night, she’d fought beside the monster who had been my grandfather Night Stalker. She loved her comrades, seeing them as a new family, only to watch them die or betray each other. This was the mare who built powerful superweapons, who made powerful armor for her friends, the mare who did her best every day to smile so she could bring a little brightness to the dark life that was war. She was the one who fought her demons and her madness so she could give somepony in the future a glimpse of hope by locking down her greatest creation so it could be destroyed in the future.

“I’m…sorry Minuette,” I said softly as lightning flashed in the distance.

Her face calmed a little and she took a step back, she looked at the flask and before I could even try and stop her, she poured it out onto the ground before chucking the flask away. I wanted to yell again, but I held my tongue. She looked back at me, saying, “Shadow, I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to get better. You need to fix yourself, because if you don’t, you’re going to die and Equus will be doomed. We all need Shadow Star back, not The Silver Demon, not even The Courier, we need you.”

The emotions were building up again inside me and I wanted more than anything for them to just go away, but deep down I knew she was right and once again I heard the echo of that strange memory, ‘You need to find your virtue.’ So, I choked down my anger and the sadness and looked up at my great, great, and so-on grandmother, “I…I don’t know if I can go back to being Shadow…she’s weak…I need to be The Silver Demon…I need to be strong, that’s the only way I can kill Aquila and stop Mezzanotte.”

She sighed. “I’m not sure if you heard me or not earlier, but I’ve done a lot to keep you safe over the past five months, do you know how?”

I frowned. “I don’t see how that could be possible, no pony knew where I was and if you’d been around, I would’ve known. Alicorns aren’t common in the Badlands, somepony would’ve said something if they’d seen you.”

She smiled a little then turned invisible for a moment. “I can go many places without being seen Shadow and as for knowing where you were, that was easy. I found your trail a week after you left. You are of my blood, and I can find you anywhere on Equus.”

I frowned again. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you force me to go back to New Pegasus?”

“You needed to go away for a while. If you would’ve stayed, then your anger would have killed you. Before the attack by Aquilla, I was going to suggest you head to The Badlands anyway to come to the tower so you could take it down and maybe stay away for a little while so you could heal and get your emotions under control. When you left and started heading to The Badlands, I hoped you would do what you needed to do and maybe find yourself while you took that journey,” she said.

“Instead, I became The Silver Demon…but what did you mean by you protected me?” I asked.

She looked a little sheepish as she said, “When Aura or the others didn’t need me, I teleported out to you and kept an eye on you. I was going to talk with you, but I ran into Oricalcos and Vervain. They told me that you needed to be left alone and asked that I’d let you do what you needed to and that they would keep an eye on you to make sure you didn’t get too far out of hoof. I of course didn’t fully believe them so I followed you when I could and watched as your darkness grew. I was worried at first, but I decided that it was up to you to find your way back to the light. There were times however when you went too far and angered the wrong ponies. I had to step in to keep them from hunting you down and killing you. A couple months ago I almost showed myself when you and Solstice destroyed that town with Solar Flare.”

“They were slavers! They had to die!” I said angrily.

The look of utter disgust she gave me at those words chilled me to the core. “Some if not most of them were slavers yes, yes some of them did deserve to die for what they did to the ponies and zebras they enslaved. The problem with what you did was you didn’t take the time to find out who was a slaver because they liked it or who was only living there and doing what they had to do to survive. You also didn’t kill just slaver ponies, you killed wives who had nothing to do with the business, husbands who were just trade ponies, and you’re lucky that you didn’t kill any fillies or colts.”

I felt sick as she said that. I knew I’d let my hatred go wild that day, but at least I had made sure to have some of the ponies from that town get the foals out of there. I felt tears start to fall as the realization of what I’d been doing finally hit me like a rock. I looked up at her. “What have I become!? I said I’d never use that weapon like that again, I wouldn’t let another Appleton happen, but…I was so angry…so very angry and full of hate. I didn’t care who got hurt, not at that moment.”

Violet moved close and put a hoof on my shoulder. “You also did a good thing that day. You rescued the slaves and made sure they got to a safe place, you even let a young zony join you. You may have done an evil act, but there is still good deep down in you Shadow. You just need to find yourself and start fixing the cracks in your soul.”

I started to cry as I said, “I want to, but I don’t know how! Even if I could, what good would it do for me to go back to being a weak mare? I hate what I am, but it’s necessary to fix things, to make Equus better.”

She frowned, then picked me up in her magic and shook me a little before getting her muzzle close to mine, before saying, “Shadow, you aren’t weak!”

I sniffed as snot ran down my nose. “But I am!”

“No, you’re not, The Silver Demon is weak. She may seem powerful and able to take on the world, but all I see in her, is a reflection of the same pony who ran The Children of the Night who thought he needed to be a monster to fix Equestria. I watched once as somepony I cared about went down a dark path and lost himself to the mask he was trying to make everypony think he was all while hiding his true self behind death, murder, anger, and more. I won’t watch my own flesh and blood go down that path. You have the good and the bad of your distant Grandfather in you,” she said.

I sniffed again. “Absent Moon…Night Stalker was strong though.”

She smiled sadly, “Absent Moon was strong, Night Stalker however was a coward, and he knew it deep down. He was so scared of ponies knowing his true nature that he became a monster so no one would get close to him. He failed in the end, but he still tried as hard as he could to keep the mask of The Night Stalker in place. I knew him before the killing and the war did it’s best to stomp the light out of a gentle soul. When I lost my mind, I stopped seeing the captain who brought me into his small family, the stallion who told me that he wanted me to smile every day, the pony who introduced me to the mare I fell in love with. I stopped seeing the buck who loved a griffon he grew up with so much that he couldn’t even tell her how he felt, not because he was scared of what others would think of him, but because he wanted to make sure no one would ever treat her different. I only saw the mask of Night Stalker and because of that, the world almost died.”

“What…do you mean by the world almost died?” I asked, seeing tears in her eyes.

“I…I got intel while I was locking down Falling Shadows, intel that warned about the possible megaspell attack that was going to hit Equestria. I was so crazed with loss that I just didn’t care, and I went to find my friend Twilight so she could take away memories, instead of warning one of my truest friends about the attack. If I would’ve gone back, I could’ve made Night Stalker see what Falling Shadows really was, I could’ve stopped millions of ponies from dying, I could’ve worked with my old team again to save my home. Instead, I just laughed at the dying world and let The Goddess take me and I laughed as the world burned,” she said doing her best not to cry.

“That’s not your fault though Min, you were suffering, also you don’t know if you could have stopped the attack or not. You could’ve ended up dying in the blasts and where would we all be now?” I said.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes as she set me down. “I know, but the point is, I gave up and because of that Equestria paid the price. Night Stalker gave up for many years and lots of ponies died. I know it’s not fair for the sins of my past to be put on your shoulders, but sadly, the wasteland isn’t fair. You’re the only pony who can finish what the rest of us started.”

“But…how can I do that? I don’t even know who I am deep down, I don’t know if I have a virtue or if I do what it is. Hell, I don’t even understand my own special talent,” I said sadly.

“Everypony has a virtue, some good, some bad, but it’s there. You need to take a good look at who you are deep down and figure out what your soul truth is. When you do that, you’ll also understand who you are and what your special talent is,” she said with a slight smile.

“But how do I do that?” I asked.

She looked around, her eyes seeming to explore the dark rainy landscape around us. “By going on a walk, clearing your mind of all the pain and hurt inside of you and finding the truth of who you really are.”

I looked around too. “Go on a…walk? Here?” I asked.

She nodded. “We are a long way from the Badlands. If you keep heading north, you’ll find an M.A.S.E.B.S. tower. If you make it there, you’ll find a door on its west side. Go inside and you should find what you’re looking for. The code to enter is the date Equestria truly died.”

My eyes went wide. “Wait, if I make it? Aren’t you coming with me?”

She shook her head. “This is a journey you must take alone. I’m taking a major gamble here. You are important Shadow, but if you can’t fix yourself, then it won’t matter if you live to try and stop Falling Shadows or not,” And before I could even protest her words, she cast a spell, and the world went black.

***

Minuette AKA Violet…

I looked down at the small body of my distant Granddaughter and felt a pain of guilt for doing this to her. She’d been through so much since she’d left her Stable nearly nine months ago. Even though our blood-ties were generations apart and that of my old friend and leader, I still saw so much of Night Stalker’s fire and pain in her. I also saw my own stubbornness. I was also amazed by how much raw power she held inside her small body. If she hadn’t been drinking so much of that blasted Unicorn’s Bliss over the past couple of months her power would’ve been greater than my own. I’d once known Princess Luna and Celestia and their own power was barely above what Shadow had inside her. Not only was she more powerful than she thought. She also had a balance of both dark and light magic inside her, something I’d never seen in my life, though I’d heard stories about unicorns like that from long ago. The first leader of the original Children of The Night, Moon Light was one such mare. A mare who gave her life to lock away the very creature that Falling Shadows could set loose from Tartarus.

I sighed as memories of the night I’d found out what the project I’d put so much of my life into came to light. It was only by chance that I’d found the old journal that Celestia herself had written after the battle that had destroyed the original Children, Luna’s adopted children and personal guards. I knew from the start that once Falling Shadows was finished, the power it would produce could open up a door into the depths of Tartarus. I thought nothing of it, Celestia and Luna both said that no prisoners were in the lower depths of the other worldly prison. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they’d lied. Maybe if I’d told them why I wanted to know, they would’ve told me the truth, but by then Night Stalker had lost faith in Celestia and Luna, I did as well, we all did.

We were all loyal to the Princesses, especially Luna, but as the war dragged on and the Ministries started to make things in Equestria worse for ponies and zebras, we all started to hate the way the government was acting. Luna was miserable. The longer she ran the country, the deeper her misery became. Truly ever since the night that Night Stalker lost his adopted sister he’d stopped caring what the Princesses wanted or the rest of the Ministries.

I did my best to pull myself away from my dark memories, they would do me no good and only lead back to the madness I barely kept at bay. I used my magic to pull the small satchel I had on my back open, pulling out Misery. I took a moment to look over one of the twin swords I’d help create for one of my closest friends. I was surprised to find that they were still around and even more so that the magic I’d enchanted them with had grown a kind of sentience. It wasn’t intelligent in the same way a pony, griffon or zebra was, but the sword, both of them I’m sure, knew where each other were at all times and they could even refuse to work properly for anypony but the ones they chose to be their wielder. I hadn’t put any spells like that on them when I’d helped make them.

“Hello old friend, I’m glad that you’ve found a new home with Shadow, keep her safe out here,” I said to the blade and smiled as it glowed a little brighter than normal before it pulled itself from my magical hold and spun around, sinking itself in the muddy ground next to Shadow.

I smiled again before taking a few steps back. “I hope you make it through this trial granddaughter. If so, I will see you back at Tower 2 and I hope you’ve found your true self by then,” with that said, I teleported away, hoping I hadn’t just sent Shadow to die for a second time. Either way, I had more work to do tonight.

***

Shadow…

I jolted awake as thunder cracked. I jumped to my hooves looking around for Violet then cursed as I saw that she’d left me here, alone. I was even angrier that not only had she left me here, but she’d also left me with no armor, no food, and no weapons. I had no fucking idea where I even was. To make things even worse, the rain was coming down in sheets now and the darkness around me was utterly black. I turned to try and get an idea, ANY IDEA, of where I was when my hoof ran into something hard. I jumped then looked down and saw a slight silvery blue glow. Looking closer my eyes went wide as I saw Misery stuck into the mud next to me.

I used my magic to pull it from the ground, watching as the mud and rain slid off the blade as if it couldn’t stand anything marking its beautiful black and blue surface. I sighed and turned until my E.F.S. faced north, then flipped on my Pip-Light. Holding Misery in my magical grip I pulled my hoof from the mud and slowly started heading that way. I wasn’t sure how long this was going to take or what the point of going to this M.A.S.E.B.S. tower was, but if Violet said I had to go there, then I didn’t have much of a choice. She could’ve picked a better time though; fuck the rain.

As I trudged through the mud doing my best not to trip over my own hooves, I started thinking more about what she’d said to me. ‘I need to find who I am deep down, find my inner truth, and my special talent,’ I thought to myself. I growled in frustration as the rain fell even harder and lightning flashed in the distance followed by thunder. My body was shivering from the chilly temperature, but I did my best to ignore that, and the mild headache I could feel just behind my eyes.

“Who am I really?” I said to the empty space around me, before looking back at my cutie mark. I’d never understood the eight-pointed star with the crossed gold skeleton keys before. So, I did my best to remember the day I’d gotten it. It was nearly six years ago now, not long before my birthday and as always, I’d been causing trouble for Overmare Wildfire.

I kept my eyes forward, watching my E.F.S. to make sure I kept going straight north, but also making sure no red lines showed up indicating an enemy. As I did, I let my mind wander back to that day. The Overmare’s security team caught me sneaking food the night before from Level 9. It was one of the first times I’d been in so much trouble that I’d been sent to the cells in security. The Overmare came down to see me herself and she’d given me quite a lecture on how stealing food, even a small amount, could mess up a delicate balance in The Stable. She’d let me out after the talking-to, but not before she’d taken something from me that really pissed me off. At the time I had a small spell book that mom left me.

The spell book was more of a journal with a few spells in it and a few notes of Mom’s that talked about some of the research she’d worked on with magical theory. I’d found most of it boring when I was that age, probably still would now. That wasn’t why I kept it on me back then. I kept it on me because it had a photo of Mom and I in it. At the time I had no idea where the picture was taken, I was only about four in the photo, with light gray walls and a small desk in the background. Now I know that picture was taken a little before we left The Crystal Empire. Back then it was one of the only things I had of my mom’s. The Overmare took it saying that she believed that she left encoded messages in it about Stable 28.

The next day I waited close to her office, until she’d left to go check on something going on in one of the research labs. Back then I wasn’t as good with lockpicking as I am now, but her office wasn’t too hard to break into, so I managed it quickly. I snuck through her office looking in every drawer and box I could find but had no luck for at least an hour. I was about to give up when I’d heard soft crying coming from The Overmare’s personal quarters. When I checked on who was in her room, I saw Balefire. Back then we weren’t close, but he was always nice to me, so risking getting into even more trouble I’d gone in and asked him what was wrong. At first he was surprised to find me coming in from his mother’s office, but he got over it quickly and broke down, telling me about problems he was having with some of the other colts in his class.

I sat with him for a little while and even though I was scared of getting caught by his mother, I stayed and listened and even gave him a little advice on what he could do to get the others to treat him better. At first he got an uptight attitude with me, which was common with him back then, being The Overmare’s son, even if he’d never be Overmare himself seeing how it was a mare-only job. Back then he used to act like he was important and above most of the stable because of his mother. Even with his bad attitude I saw a kind soul inside him and a want to be a better pony. So, I told him that one of his biggest problems with most of the other colts and fillies was his attitude and that he needed to remember that no matter who his mother was, he was still a normal citizen of the stable. No matter how high up any pony was in Stable 28, we all had to work together to make sure the stable ran properly and kept us safe from the deadly wasteland. He thought about that for a while and I’m sure he would’ve talked with me more if I hadn’t heard a security pony talking outside the office saying something about the Overmare coming back soon.

I had nowhere to go, so I told Balefire why I came and to my surprise he told me to go hide under his mother’s desk and he’d do his best to distract her so I could escape, and he’d also look for my mother’s journal for me. I had no choice but to run and hide. I only just made it under the desk when she came into her office followed by our head of security at the time and two other ponies. She’d been in such a foul mood that she was already yelling about something when she came into her office. I cowered deep in the shadows under the desk and listened as she yelled and even threw something at a wall that shattered. I could hear Balefire trying to talk with her to calm her down, but she wasn’t having it. I had no idea how I was going to get out.

My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to escape before the pissed off bitch of an Overmare found me in her office. Then I saw her legs show up near the desk and in a panic I pulled on my magic and wished for only one thing. I wanted to be outside the office so I could run back to my room and hide. To my shock, my magic seemed to listen to me and in a flash of red light I was outside the office a little way down from the door where I could hear The Overmare still yelling at her underlings. At the time I was so scared that I just ran for it. It wasn’t till later that night when Milkshake was staying over for a slumber party with me that I even knew that I’d gotten my cutie mark.

Later when I’d tell the story to others, I always told them I snuck into the Overmare’s office on a dare. I was too embarrassed to say that I’d gone in there to get something of mine back. Balefire found the journal the next day and brought it to me and I gave it to Auntie to keep it safe. I’d always thought I’d gotten my cutie mark that day because of how I broke into her office and escaped with magic. Looking back on it now, I wasn’t so sure if that was the case, well not all of it. After that night Balefire changed and became a much better colt and a closer friend. I’d seen something in him and brought it out making him a better pony. There was something about my train of thought that tugged on my mind, but I couldn’t quite get a grasp on it.

I once again looked back at my cutie mark and once again looked at the eight-pointed star, “What did Uncle Ori call you again?” I said to myself thinking back to the day he’d first showed himself once again after I’d thought I’d killed Pride. He’d used one of his shadow powers to hide in my shadow and used that same power to talk to me in a dream like state.

Then I remembered Uncle Ori’s words from the day when I blew up Mill City Tower. “No, your cutie mark is a sign of your power. You have what’s known as the octogram or the points of balance. Each point of the star represents a quality that’s important in balance when it comes to magic. Beauty, strength, power, compassion, honor, humility, mirth, and reverence. Each of these are what’s needed for perfect balance, in either magic, or a pony. Each one is a quality I’m sure you possess.”

I stopped and reaching back with my hoof I pointed at the top of the octogram or the top of my star, “Beauty,” I moved to the right to the next point, “Strength, power, compassion, honor, humility, mirth and reverence,” I said finishing on the last point to the left of the top, “How are these qualities he would think I have. I’m not beautiful, I mean I’m not bad looking, but I’ll never be as cute as Wind Thrasher or beautiful like The Queen. I know now that I’m strong in more than one way and powerful, but I don’t think that’s really a quality, more of what I’ve had to become to survive. I guess I had compassion in the past, but not as much recently. The rest I don’t see in me, but maybe honor, humility, and reverence are something others see in me that I can’t. Mirth? Well, that depends on the day I guess.”

I sighed and turned back to the north, trying to use what happened to me on the day I got my cutie mark, mixed with what my uncle said to me, and what others have said to me during my journey. I was still deep in thought when a red line showed up on my E.F.S., I was so lost in my own head that I didn’t notice it at first, nor the six others that showed up, not until the first ghoul came screaming at me from out of the downpour. Honestly, I might’ve been hurt badly if it wasn’t for Misery. The sword tugged on my magic at the last second and brought me out of my own head just in time to slash the pegasus ghoul right before it hit me, cutting it in half. Shaking from the sudden dump of adrenalin I looked around and saw more and more red lines appearing.

“Well, this isn’t good,” I said to myself as another ghoul, a unicorn this time ran toward me with feral eyes. I dodged the monster and slashed at its hide making it scream in pain as I opened its side with Misery’s tip. I ducked another charging ghoul and blasted it with a spell before teleporting out of the way of four more, making their heads slam into each other with a sickening crunch when I reappeared a few feet away.

I looked around and felt my legs go weak as more and more red lines appeared on my E.F.S. At first dozens, then hundreds. It got to the point where my E.F.S. was filled with red. I was surrounded by feral ghouls, and powerful deadly bounty hunter unicorn or not, there was no way I could fight all of them and live. I faced north and did the only thing I could, I ran like a scared filly, slashing Misery at every ghoul that got in my way and blasted the rest when I had to. The only way I was going to survive was to make it to the M.A.S.E.B.S. tower that I hoped wasn’t too far away.

***

Oricalcos…

I awoke to the scream of a pissed off griffon in the next room followed by said griffon yelling at somepony. I yawned and hoped that this was Aura and Star figuring their shit out and not the start of a fight. I’d let it go unless I started feeling magic get involved. I felt the mare in my bed stretch and sit up and I looked at her with a smile, “Good morning Vervain.”

“Is it even morning yet?” she asked, looking around the dark room sleepily, “Is that Aura yelling at somepony?”

“Sounds like it, though I can’t make out what she’s saying,” I admitted moving in and kissing her softly, “It’s probably just her and Star working things out. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

She sat up even straighter. “Shadow’s awake!?”

“I’m not sure, but when we went to bed last night, she was doing a lot better and sleeping normally. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d woken up by now,” I said doing my best to keep her calm. I knew how she felt, I was very protective of my niece just like Vervain was, but I had a better understanding of Star’s abilities than she did. I knew that magic wouldn’t keep her down once she stabilized. I’d been worried when her heart stopped, but thanks to a bit of magic and quick thinking, we got it going again quickly. After Aura showed up and put her medical talents to work, she started doing a lot better.

“We should go check on them just in case,” Vervain said, getting out of bed slowly.

“I guess you’re right, but I’m afraid we might just get in the way,” I said following her lead and getting up as well.

“LISTEN TO ME YOU BIG BLUE WINGED BITCH,” I clearly heard Aura scream, “If you don’t tell me where you took her RIGHT NOW, I’ll run this spear so far up your ass, you’ll never be able to shit right again!”

My eyes went wide at that, not so much about what Aura said about threatening to put her spear up an Alicorn’s ass, but at the fact that Star was gone. I looked at Vervain, “This isn’t good,” and she nodded and followed me as we ran out of our room and to the one next to us where I saw Violet facing down a very pissed off Aura.

I saw Violet’s horn flash and Aura’s voice was cut off by a silencing spell. Then my distant grandmother turned Alicorn said calmly, “If you’d let me speak for a few moments, Aura, I can tell you where I sent her and why. Now calm down before I really get upset and start showing you what I’m capable of.”

“What does she mean that Star’s gone?” I asked when I could.

Aura glared at Violet but nodded and I saw Violet remove her spell. Once she was done with that she looked at me saying in her controlled voice, “I discovered something about Shadow when I came to check on her a couple hours ago. She’s been drinking a dangerous liquor called Unicorn’s Bliss. I realized that she’s been getting weaker since I saw her last and her deep anger and depression was killing her. So, I decided that the only way to fix the problem was to take her far away from here to go on a small journey to find herself.”

“No, that can’t be right, Shadow stopped drinking a few weeks ago after we had to flee Armadillo after she killed the bounty hunter. She swore to me that she was trying to get better,” Vervain said.

“I noticed she was getting weaker, but I figured that was from her depression,” I added.

“What the fuck is Unicorn’s Bliss?” Aura asked, doing her best to stay calm.

Vervain looked at all three of us then rolled her eyes. “I understand a filly like Shadow not understanding what that drink is, but I figured the rest of you would know what it is,” she sighed again before continuing, “It’s also been called Horned Pleasure, Angel Tears, Luna’s Nectar, Moon’s Love, Drink of the Goddess, Death’s Embrace, and many more, but the main thing is that these drinks have a good amount of Moon Dust in them.”

I felt my body go cold as she said those names. I knew of a couple of them but never heard of it being called Unicorn’s Bliss. One thing is for sure, every drink that has Moon Dust in it is deadly to Unicorns. It saps our magic slowly when it’s in a drink form like that, but it’s almost as addictive as pure Moon Dust. I’d seen a few Unicorns slowly get weaker and die from it.

I looked at Vervain then Aura. “If Star’s been drinking that for too long, then it may be almost impossible for her to get over the addiction that comes with it.”

Aura looked a little scared too. “I’ve heard of Luna’s Nectar before, I’ve seen it kill unicorns, who would give that shit to her?”

Vervain was shaking with rage as she said, “That bitch bartender at Tails Up back in Armadillo. She’s been scared of Shadow ever since she started going to that damned brothel. I bet she knew it would weaken Shadow or The Silver Demon. I’ll kill the bitch!”

Violet looked at Vervain. “I’ve already killed her and a couple other ponies in that town. I went there right after I left Shadow near a place where I know she can get the help she needs to find her true self. There was a plot in the town to kill her for a couple of months now. I really hope you all don’t need to go back to that town, because you’re going to find that you’re even more unwelcome there than you had been before.”

“We left that place behind after what happened and I’m glad that you took care of the ones who wanted to kill her, but how did you know all of this?” I asked.

“Gaston told her,” Aura said, surprising myself and Vervain.

“How do either of you know about Shadow’s body guard?” Vervain asked.

Aura shrugged. “He’s my cousin, I found out about him a month or so ago after I killed his mother and my aunt. I guess in the end she was trying to help us in her own way, but I wounded her badly when we fought to take back Crimson Canyon and she didn’t make it. However, I was able to find a long-range broadcaster she had on her that let me contact him. I didn’t know until a couple weeks ago that he’d been working with Shadow.”

“If that’s so, then why didn’t you come sooner?” I asked, “I mean I know that Violet knew where we were for months, but if you finally found her then why didn’t you come get her until last night?”

“I couldn’t leave New Pegasus until recently for one, also it took Gaston a while to start trusting me once I told him I killed his mom. He also was under contract with Shadow so he couldn’t tell me much till she let him out of his contract. Still, I didn’t know where any of you were until Violet told me two days ago once she felt something change in the magic around this place,” Aura said then glared back at Violet, “Speaking of which, you’re going to tell me why you’ve been hiding information from me for months Min! Also, tell me where Shadow is, she needs help if she’s alone in The Wasteland!”

“I’ll tell you all I know in a moment Aura, but as to where I put Shadow, it won’t matter. By the time you could fly to her, she will either be finished with her task, or she’ll be dead,” The Alicorn said calmly.

“Dead!?” Aura yelled.

“Yes,” Violet said before Aura could start yelling again, “I hate it as much as you do, but Shadow is in a dark place right now and the only way she can fix herself is to do this on her own,” she turned to look at me, “Oricalcos, you should understand what I’m having her do. That is if my descendants still do the path of the soul ceremony.”

My eyes went wide. “We haven’t in a couple of generations, I think the last member of the family to do one was my grandmother. I was going to have Grim go on one, but she found her magic and cutie mark, so I didn’t need to.”

“I’m lost. What is a Path of the Soul Ceremony?” Vervain asked.

“I’d like to know that too,” Aura added.

I looked at them. “It’s a journey of sorts. A young colt or filly who either can’t find their cutie mark or if they’re having trouble understanding themselves and their special talent goes on a walk of sorts, with only one way to protect themselves. It forces them to stay in a constant state of stress and most of the time it helps them understand who they are deep down, but it’s dangerous and not done lightly. If Violet is making Star go on one, then it means she’s scared of how far Star has fallen.”

“Fuck that, your family is already fucked up enough for my liking. I’m contacting Nightshade and we’re going to go find her,” Aura said, picking up her double ended spear, “I’ll wake Solstice and have her use her Mark II to contact Shadow. I finally found her again and I’m not going to lose her before I get a chance to tell her how I feel.”

Violet used her magic to make Aura freeze in place then in a calm voice she said, “I warded Shadow so no matter what you try, you won’t find her. Now sit down and listen. Shadow is a lot stronger than you give her credit for and trust me, I do understand how hard it is for you to not rush out and try and save her. What you need to understand is that if you interfere, Shadow will never be who she needs to be. She’s been hiding behind the mask of a stable pony, then The Courier and now this Silver Demon bullshit for too long.”

I sighed. “She’s right Aura, the only way she’s going to get better is if she finds her true self. It’s time she starts to shine like the star she is.”

Vervain muttered quietly, “Shine bright, brighter than anypony has before…”

I looked at her. “Where did you hear that?”

She looked up at me. “Grim used to say it to her a lot when we were in the bunker and the stable. What you said just reminded me of it.”

Aura looked over at us. “I’ve heard it too. What does it mean?”

Violet looked at me then at the others and said, “It’s from an old story, a story told by a mare called Moon Light, a story about a mare that would come in the future to save Equus from darkness. The story’s called, The Child of the Stars and The Fallen Mare.”

“A story…more like a prophecy…one that some believe is about Shadow!” I heard the voice of Discord say and to my amazement the small lamp turned keychain walked down the hallway on his tiny legs, “If you all get into one place, I can tell you all about it! Oh, it’ll be ever so much fun!”

My eyes went wide as I yelled, “How the fuck are you able to walk around!”

The fragmented soul jar of the Lord of Chaos just laughed and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know…”

***

Shadow…

My face slammed down into the mud as one of the feral pegasus ghouls slammed into my back, I screamed as pain ran up my back, feeling the thing bite into my flesh. I rolled, knocking the thing off me before swinging Misery around, slicing half it’s head off, ichor flying into my face. I felt my guts churn, not in disgust, but from the rush of rads that hit me from the glowing liquid that sprayed out of the undead pony. My Pip-Buck clicked wildly, letting me know once again that I’d taken a massive dose of magical radiation.

I wasn’t used to this, not even close. New Pegasus was almost rad free. On occasion I’d run into it, my pip-buck would click a few times, but I wouldn’t notice much from it. I’d never had to worry about using rad-away or anything like that before either. It was like my body naturally flushed the poison out of me. The only time I’d ever been over irradiated was when I’d walked for hours through Green Mist Valley just outside Stable 28. Even then I hadn’t noticed the effects much until I’d gotten to Cartwheel and Dr. Purpleheart told me that I had a lot in my system, and he had to flush my system out.

Back then I hadn’t felt too bad, maybe a little tired and my magic felt weak. Though back then I’d thought it was weak, so I hadn’t really noticed. Now, I felt like I hadn’t slept in a week, my legs felt like rubber, and my magic was flickering as I felt it slowly fading. I couldn’t blast magic at the ghouls anymore, teleporting was out of the question, and I could only bring up my barrier spell for a second or two before it would shatter. Oddly, I could still use Misery with little to no effort. It was like the large black sword wanted to protect me and helped me keep hold of its hilt. I knew by now that Misery wasn’t a normal weapon and even had special magic in it that almost made it feel alive at times, but this was just weird.

Another ghoul followed by two more attacked. I managed to kill two, but the third bit me before Misery came down, cutting it in half. I was breathing hard, and my body felt like it was on fire even with the heavy rain falling down in cold sheets. As I gasped for air, holding Misery in front of me I looked around and still only saw red lines all over my E.F.S. There was no way I was going to survive if I didn’t get to that damned tower. I could just make it out in the distance as lightning lit up the sky. I was close, but a horde of feral ghouls surrounded me. It was less than a kilometer away. If I didn’t feel so sick I could easily teleport to it and hopefully find safety inside, but with how I felt, I knew it wouldn’t be possible. Even if I could somehow pull off one teleportation spell, I’d most likely pass out right after, that would do me no good.

I took another step closer then ducked a pegasus ghoul, slashed at a unicorn, then kicked another pegasus before slipping on the wet ground and slamming hard into a pile of mud. I rolled over and slashed Misery at a fourth ghoul who tried to jump on me after I fell, killing it quickly. I pushed myself back up onto my hooves, feeling my legs wabble as I did so. My lungs felt like they were on fire as I struggled to take in each breath. I slashed at another ghoul who charged me, but only managed to slice a little of its side before it slammed into me. As we fell, Misery seemed to come alive in my magic, flipping around and ramming up into the creature’s brain. I just laid there gasping for each breath as the glowing ghoul laid dead next to me, my Mark II clicking slowly. I tried to push it away, but my body was done.

I wasn’t dead yet, but I would be soon, I could tell. If the ghouls didn’t come kill me, then the radiation would. I probably would’ve been dead already if it wasn’t for the fact that my lungs and heart were synthetic. I remembered Stormy telling me that my new heart and lungs could help me push through high radiation for longer than most ponies, but here I’d met my limits. Even if I had rad-away, I wouldn’t be able to move again for a while. I was so close, but not close enough. Why had Violet sent me out here? She wanted me to find myself and understand who I really was, but this was just fucking insane.

‘Note to self, never trust an Alicorn in your next life,’ I thought to myself as I laid there looking up at the stormy clouds. How was I supposed to understand my special talent and find my virtue like this? Did she think that I was powerful enough to push through a large horde of ghouls on my own? I don’t give a shit how powerful anypony is. No pony can kill thousands of ghouls by themselves.

I saw a flash of blue light, looking to my right I saw Misery laying in the mud next to me. It was glowing brightly as if the weapon was trying to tell me to get up and keep fighting. I just shook my head. “Sorry, but I’m too weak, I should just give up.”

The weapon flashed brighter, and I felt something flash into my head, almost like when Violet spoke to me through my mind, only I didn’t get any words, only impressions and ideas. The first impression was almost like the sword was trying to say something like, ‘I chose you; I will only work for a strong wielder. You are not weak.’

“Weak or not, I’m too sick to do anything now,” I said, not even caring that I was talking to a fucking sword.

It flashed again and I got more impressions. I saw flashes of memory from my past, I saw myself defending others with Misery, using the sword to kill ponies that harmed others, using the weapon to take down monsters, and ponies too. I then saw a memory of when I was in Stratus and I’d told Misery I’d help it find its twin one day. I also saw myself pushing through in the past, even if I would likely die in the end. ‘You are strong, you are powerful, you never give up.’

As I saw that I felt something deep inside myself flare to life, it wasn’t much, but it was still a spark. For a moment I felt magic flow into me from deep down, pushing a little of the sickness from the radiation away. As this happened, the words my mother used to say to me all the time came back to me, words I’d never understood, but always made me feel like I was special, “Shine bright my little star, brighter than anypony ever has before!”

More memories came to me in a flash. “You are Shadow Star and The Courier, stop hiding behind the mask of The Courier and be Shadow. There’s nothing wrong with being The Courier, but you can’t let yourself become that mask.” I barely remembered the conversation with Solstice back when we’d been arguing a couple months ago when I’d been sober for a brief moment. Back then I hadn’t wanted to even hear the word courier, it was the role I’d been pushed into by others. A role that would first make me feel like a hero then later a title that would come with way too much responsibility. I couldn’t see what her and others had been trying to say back then. I’d been using my role as The Courier to hide my true self, I was The Courier, that was true, but I was Shadow Star first. The role, the title, the responsibility, wasn’t part of The Courier, it was part of me. I chose to take that on, I chose to let others say what I had to do, I chose to try and save everypony. I was The Courier, but I was also a young filly named Shadow Star that used the courier role to give hope to others. Why did I do that? I did it because I hated seeing others suffer.

I felt more magic, and strength come back to me as I slowly got back to my hooves. I wasn’t even close to being back to my full strength, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to die in the mud. The Courier would go down fighting or survive even if it nearly killed her. That was the mare I wanted to be when I took on that responsibility, it was the mare I’d become before I’d let others push me into a dark place. I’d started believing that what was said about me was true. I needed help to fight, I only lived as long as I did because I’d surrounded myself with stronger ponies and griffons, or because I had Aquila inside me. That was true to a point, I would be dead if I hadn’t found Stardust, Aura, Wingnut, Wind Thrasher, and more. Also, Aquila had kept me alive on more than one occasion. However, I’d also done a lot on my own, I was the reason all my friends found me and each other, I was the reason they were alive today. I also survived more things and places than most ponies could even dream of. I wasn’t weak, not then and not now. I’m a fucking badass!

“Let’s do this!” I said as I used my magic to pull Misery out of the mud. It glowed happily as more ghouls attacked. Before they could get too close, Misery blazed brightly with black and blue light and all of the ghouls hissed or growled, backing away. For a moment I was surprised, then I felt it. There was a feeling of despair and danger flowing from the large griffon sword. I moved Misery back and forth slowly seeing the ghouls shrink away in fear of the weapon, I looked at it, saying, “Why couldn’t you do that earlier?”

I got a faint impression of the Sword calling me a dipshit. No idea why, but I’d roll with it for now. I wasn’t even close to one hundred percent, and I could feel that this trick of Misery was draining what was left of my magic quickly, so I moved toward the M.A.S.E.B.S. tower as quickly as I could, using Misery to keep the rotting ponies back. I could feel my body already starting to weaken again, the uptick of power wasn’t much, but I wasn’t going to let myself die, not yet. It only took a few minutes but finally I reached the tower right as my magic started to flicker and fade.

The ghouls were staying far back now. I was starting to gasp for air again, so I let the strange magic around Misery go before turning toward the small door on the tower. In the distance I heard the ghouls starting to growl in anger as the magic faded. Using my pip-light, I looked around the door and quickly found a keypad. I moved closer to it, saying quietly, “The code to enter is the day Equestria died,” that was easy, everypony in my stable knew the date the megaspells fell. I entered the date only to get a red cross on the small screen. “You’ve gotta be shitting me!”

I entered the code again and again and the same thing happened. I knew I wasn’t wrong. I heard the horde start to move again and I cursed as I tried to think of what date Violet could mean. If the day Equestria died wasn’t when the megaspells fell, then what was it? My brain felt like mush as I did my best to think of what date Violet meant. No, what day did Minuette consider the day Equestria died? I tried the date Luna’s school was attacked, that was the moment that led Equestria to go to war. Once again, I got a red cross. I cursed again as I heard the ghouls getting closer. Then something hit me, an idea that I could see being the day that Minuette would consider the death of Equestria. It wasn’t the war, it wasn’t when the bombs fell, it wasn’t even when Celestia gave full control of the country to Luna. It was the day that Luna announced the beginning of The Ministries run by Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. Six friends that once represented The Elements of Harmony. That was the beginning of the end for Equestria, the day that six friends would go down a path of war and destruction. The Ministries didn’t help Equestria, no, they built massive projects, secret programs, rounded up ponies and zebras, put out propaganda about the zebras, built weapons, enslaved others, and so much more. The friends grew apart and stopped working together, they were the reason Equestria lost the war, they were the reason Equestria died.

I dialed in the date of the speech Luna gave so many years ago in Canterlot and this time the light turned green, and the door opened. I pushed on it, pulling Misery with me then slammed it shut right before a glowing ghoul slammed into the door. Panting hard I dropped Misery to the ground and passed out, my body felling like it had been chewed up by a hellhound and lit on fire.

***

I awoke sometime later feeling a bit better than I had when I’d made it into the base of the M.A.S.E.B.S. tower. I was surprised to find that I was dry and warm laying on a soft bed. For a moment I thought I’d just been dreaming, then I felt some of the pain come back to me and winced. I opened my eyes and saw I was in a dimly lit room. The space was large and mostly made up of metal and wires. I moaned as I turned my head and saw on a far wall that there was a large monitor and terminal with a couple of chairs. Next me was a bedroll with some leftovers of food stuffs laying next to it. Sitting on a small nightstand next to the bed was what could only be zebra food. My eyes went wide as the aroma filled my nose making me drool. I didn’t pick it up however, I didn’t expect to find anypony, or a zebra I’m guessing, inside the tower. I wasn’t going to just up and eat their food.

“That is for you Shadow, I made it myself just an hour ago. You should eat it; it will help you recover much faster than normal,” I heard a familiar zebra’s voice say from the other side of the room.

“Y…Yaksha? Is that you?” I asked in a weak voice as I sat up slowly.

“I am glad to hear that you have not forgotten me. It has been quite a while,” Yaksha said as she walked closer, her familiar zebra cloak flowing around her with the hood pulled back.

“Why are you here?” I asked, surprised to see her, “If you’re here does that mean Striker is too?”

She sighed softly and shook her head. “Striker and I are no longer working together. Your uncle is not a good pony, which I knew for a long time, but he has gotten worse since he met you. When you left New Pegasus five months ago, leaving Aquilla to take over, he vowed to kill you for freeing her. I tried to convince him that killing you would not stop Aquilla, but he refused to listen.”

“So, now I have to worry about Striker as well as the other assholes trying to kill me,” I said as I reached out with my magic and picked up some of the food. I started to eat it slowly. As always Yaksha’s cooking was amazing, and a bit spicy, like holy shit this is HOT.

“True, you may have to deal with him, but it is possible that he will not be a problem for you. I spoke to your father Nightshade about what Striker was planning and I believe that he will try and stop his brother,” she said, coming over with a small bag of what looked like rad-away.

“Hopefully he can do something about Striker then. Honestly, I don’t like the idea of having to fight him. I don’t know him well, but from the brief time I spent with him, I picked up on the fact that he’s a tricky pony to kill,” I said.

“He does share qualities of a radroach, yes,” she said putting the rad-away on the bed next to me, “He has many ways of stopping unicorns and he is a very strong fighter. Now, you should drink this, I have given you two already while you slept, but I fear that your Radiation levels are still high. I am amazed that you survived the amount you were exposed to.”

I took the bag of orange potion and drank a little. It honestly tasted like stale orange juice with a bitter aftertaste, but I knew that it would help with whatever levels of radiation I had. When I was done, I asked, “Well, I’m glad you were here and all, but why are you here?”

“Violet told me about what you’d been going through while she was keeping an eye on you over the past few months. She is very worried about you and your mental state. I told her that I may be able to help you, but only if you were able to prove that you wanted to survive and get better. She made sure I was here for you if you made it here. If you did not survive, then I was to inform her,” she said calmly.

I felt a bit of rage at that, but did my best to tone it down as I said, “So you two decided that dropping me in the middle of a storm, miles away from safety, with only Misery and no armor was a good way to help me find my special talent and my virtue? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No,” Yaksha said, still calm, “The point behind what you just went through was to make sure you have not given up on life and to see if you wanted to get better. You would have died if Violet and I did not do something drastic like this. You have been borderline suicidal for months. You have been acting like a stupid foal and it is time that you stopped, but the only way to fix you is for you to want to be fixed.”

I sank back into the bed looking up at the darkness above, then said quietly, “Do you want to know why I decided to embrace being The Silver Demon?”

“It does not matter if you tell me why you did, it matters that you understand the reason yourself. I am not here to tell you what you need to know or find, I am only a guide,” she said.

I looked over at her, letting tears flow as I said quietly, “Being The Silver Demon was the only way I found while I was away to quiet the hurt at leaving Aura,” I let my eyes glaze over as I started telling Yaksha the real reason I’d let myself become a monster.

“The first night after I left New Pegasus, I knew that I may have misunderstood Aura when she was talking to Arys. I also understood that her lies about Trip Wire were understandable. I hadn’t known Aura very long when she told me about Trip and how she died. I know that if she told me what really happened back then, I would’ve been scared she’d do the same to me. I’d most likely have kicked her out of my party and cut ties with her just to keep my friends and I safe. I knew that I was an idiot for leaving and that night I almost went back,” tears started to fall faster as I remembered those first few nights away from everypony.

“If that is true, then why didn’t you go back and talk with your friends and Aura?” Yaksha asked.

I focused on her again. “Because no matter how hard I tried to tell myself that I was being a fool, my anger kept getting worse. Every time I thought about the lies and the hurt of what I did hear from her, I got angrier. I didn’t notice at first, but ever since Aquilla was pulled out of me, a darkness deep inside started to make itself known. I got angry faster than before, my emotions started to spiral, I started not caring about those I killed. At first, I thought I was just angry about my mom dying. That wasn’t the whole problem though. Even when I left New Pegasus, I still didn’t fully understand what was wrong with me, but a week after I left, Uncle Ori figured part of it out. With Aquilla out of my body, her overpowering light magic no longer pushed back the dark magic I naturally have. I lived for ten years with her inside me, pushing back a vast amount of darkness inside my soul, a darkness that kept growing the longer I lived. I have no idea how to balance out the power it has because I never grew up with it like my uncle. Uncle Ori said that before I got sick, he detected that I had a balance of light and dark magic inside me and that was most likely why I was so powerful even as a foal. When his shadow magic hit me as a foal it fed off the dark magic inside me causing an imbalance in my system. When Aquilla became part of me, she brought back the balance and my body got used to her magic being there. As time went on, her light magic forced more and more of my dark side to fade. He’s been teaching me to control my dark half and also bring more of my own light magic forth so I can find my balance again. I had to stay away from everypony because, if I didn’t, I would’ve killed somepony I cared for just because I was angry.”

“An imbalance of two magics I can understand, but what I do not understand is why you fed your darkness by killing so many ponies and zebras by being a bounty hunter and what this has to do with Aura,” Yaksha said.

I sighed and did my best to hold back the flood of emotions I’d been suppressing for months. “I told myself that I didn’t love Aura anymore. I had to, because that love wanted to force me to go home where I was afraid that I’d hurt her or kill her if I let my rage take me. I needed to feed my anger and the darkness while I learned to control it, the best way to do that was to hunt down ponies and zebras that needed to die. My first day in Armadillo I heard about a gang calling themselves, The Demons, and decided to just kill them, not to help Armadillo or anything, but just because I wanted to kill something that day. It just so happened that what I did, got me the name Silver Demon. I also discovered that day that killing helped me control my darkness, so I kept on killing.”

“Feeding a beast may calm it, but it will never tame it,” Yaksha said.

“I know,” I said softly, “But I didn’t care at the time. I also kept dreaming of Aura and how much I missed her. So, I started drinking, because that was the only thing that helped push the memories away. When that didn’t work, I fucked around, when that didn’t help I hunted. As time went on, I couldn’t stop thinking of Aura…not until I was given my first drink of Unicorns Bliss. That was the only thing that made everything easier. I had no idea what it was really doing to me until Violet told me.”

“You are lucky that you have not been drinking that for very long. The food I made for you should help the addiction to it. Now tell me Shadow, why are you here?” Yaksha asked.

“To figure out who I am I guess,” I responded as I ate more of the delicious zebra food.

She waited for me to finish, before saying, “Good, then let me see if I can guide you into finding what you need to find. I am sure that you remember how to meditate the way I showed you.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I mean I haven’t done it in a while, but I remember.”

She smiled, saying, “Good, then I want you to do so and once you have let your mind relax, I want you to remember the day you got your cutie mark. Think about what you did before you noticed it, then match those memories up with other parts of your life and see what similarities you can find in your past.”

I winced as I moved off the bed then sat on the floor, using the pose Yaksha had taught me so many months ago. I slowed my breathing and let my body relax, ignoring the lingering pain from my fight and calming my wandering mind. Then Yaksha started to speak slowly, “Find your center, follow the memories, look for the path that connects that day when you were young. If you find the connection, you will find your special talent and maybe even your virtue.”

I did as she said, which wasn’t easy at first. I learned control over my darkness over the past few months, but it wasn’t perfect. I had to let my anger go, I had to forget the pain of betrayal and pain. I needed to find a calm I haven’t felt since I was a filly. Finally, I felt my mind calm, and I went back to the day I escaped the Overmare’s office. I watched my own memory as best I could, but it was fuzzy. I remembered the day, but not as well as I’d like. I felt frustration trying to make its way through my calm mind, but I pushed it away. I needed help and thankfully, Oricalcos had helped me learn more spells, one of which was one that was normally used to pull memories from ponies and put them into a memory orb. That however wasn’t the full power of the spell. A unicorn could also use it on themselves to help them fully remember something from their past. I slowly pulled on my magic and cast the spell focusing on the day I’d gotten my cutie mark.

This time, everything came clearly to me. I watched myself sneak into Wildfire’s office. I relived my talk with Balefire and watched as if I was another pony viewing an orb. I let the spell keep going until I’d gotten out of her office and my cutie mark was on my flanks. I stopped the spell there and thought about what happened and understood a little, but not everything. My cutie mark was strange, not so much the eight-pointed star, I understand that part of my special talent. It represented part of my talent, I was a very powerful Unicorn, one that was supposed to have balance between light and dark. If my life had been normal, I would’ve gone far in The Enclave. I would’ve been one of their most valued unicorns and probably even have worked with ponies like Stormy or my mom. That however wasn’t all of who I was. I grew up not knowing my power, it had been suppressed for so long that I didn’t know how powerful I was until I got into The Wasteland. No, the hard part about my cutie mark was the two crossed gold skeleton keys. A skeleton key represented unlocking any door, but that couldn’t be because of my lockpicking. I was good at that, but I knew I wasn’t the best and honestly, I didn’t do it all the time, only when it was needed.

I knew that the keys had to represent something in my nature that had to do with unlocking something. So, I went back and watched the memory again, staying in my meditation while I did. I had a feeling that Balefire had something to do with my special talent. Balefire before that night had been kind of a jerk, he was the overmare’s son and liked to throw his power around acting like he was next in line to run the stable, even though he couldn’t because only a mare could run Stable 28. After that night, something changed in him. It wasn’t right away, but after that night, he started being nicer to some ponies, he even came to hang out with Milkshake and me. It took a few weeks but the longer he was around me and with me calling out his bullshit now and then when he’d go back to his old ways of acting, he slowly became a much better stallion.

“He became a better stallion,” I said slowly.

“What was that?” I heard Yaksha say.

I ignored her because something clicked in my mind, and I could almost see a blue string of magic flow away from that memory and toward another. I followed the string to another pony in my memories, Stardust. I saw a few flashes of him. When I first met him, he was arrogant and kind of full of himself. He liked to help ponies when he could, but he was a drifter, trying to keep ahead of ponies hunting him. At first, I hadn’t liked him, but after a bit, I saw something in him, he had a bright light of good in him that he was trying to hide so he could keep ponies away. He was a good pony, but he acted like he didn’t care. The longer we traveled together, the more he became the stallion he was now. One that would always be there for his friends and risk his own life to save innocent ponies.

I was starting to understand as another friend came to mind, Aura, she’d been mistrusting and cold to almost everyone she met. The day I met her she was trying to take me in for a bounty so she could use the bounty to get back into her talon company. She was trying to hide her feelings for mares and her true self just so she could be normal. I didn’t know that back then, but when I met her, I saw sadness in her eyes and a need to be understood, even if I didn’t understand that at the time. So, I saved her and later took her on as my bodyguard. The longer she was around me, the more I pulled her out of her shell until she finally let herself be her own griffon. She told the world she was a griffon who was in love with a pony and didn’t care who knew anymore. Because of this, she now used her talon company not only to take contracts like most griffons do, but to also protect others even if she never got a cap for it.

I then saw others, like Greed who went from being a selfish member of the Seven Sins of Equinity, to a pony who was starting to help others. I brought out the good in him even if he was still a greedy buck, he used his greed in his own way to help instead of hurt. It was the same for Sloth, who refused to keep killing for The Enclave. More and more I saw ponies I met since I left my stable who were now doing something to help. My heart started to race as I realized that over the past few months and even before I entered Stable 28 as a foal, I had a major impact on a lot of ponies and zebras. Mom always said that I saw the good in others when I was younger. When I became The Courier, that ability grew stronger because I became a symbol of hope and a beacon for those who wanted to fix the wasteland and make it better. Yeah I fucked up a lot too and caused a lot of pain and suffering, but I’d also changed the lives of a lot of ponies. What I started to understand amazed me. It wasn’t like I was magically making ponies better, sometimes I made things worse too. I did however see what I’d been missing for so long now, the two things about me that made me special in the wasteland, my magic which was still growing but also an ability to see the good in others and unlock that seed of light within them. The thing was that just like the skeleton key, I can unlock other parts of ponies too, not always for good. I can see the good and maybe change their path toward being better, but I could also push those with evil in their hearts further down a dark path.

Wolfsbane was a good example of this, I mistrusted him from the start because of what others told me about him. When I first met him, he’d been nice to me and even if he’d been using me to help his own goals, I still saw a glint of a buck who wanted to make the lives of ponykind better, even if he was going about it the wrong way. I didn’t want to trust him however, and because of that, I never even tried to understand him, so now he was going down an even darker path that he was already on. The same goes for a few others in the past and the worst one of all was Aquilla.

I hadn’t trusted her since the first time she took me over. If I’d taken the time to get to know her better and maybe given her the ability to show me who she was deep down, under the anger and pain of what she’d delt with for two hundred years, maybe she wouldn’t be doing what she was now. I’d seen her memories; I knew that when she was young. She’d been pulled away from her home and even when she’d been trapped in a lab, she still was a sweet innocent creature who loved one mare almost like a mother. She made a connection with Minuette and saw her as the only pony on Equus who she could trust; the pony who would help her realize her role on our world. Then Minuette went insane and left Aquilla to die. She was left in her lab with little understanding of her own power to feel every single bit of pain and suffering on Equus. When she ended up with me, I had made her a promise to give her a body and just like my distant grandmother, I went back on our deal. She went crazy over the years and split herself in two, burying her good side deep so she could survive the pain she felt every day.

It was then that I realized that I was just like her. I became a monster to hide from my own pain and suffering. I used killing to feed a part of myself that was easier than facing what I had to do, because there was one thing we both had deep inside us that we tried hard to ignore. We gave our love and hope easily and when that love was ripped away from us or betrayed, we felt it deeply. At that moment I realized another thing about myself, something that may be my virtue even if I tried to hide it even from myself, just like Aquilla. My virtue was love, because love can be the most powerful and the most painful thing in the universe.

I felt more tears start to fall as I came to this realization. My special talent was my magic and the ability to see and unlock the good or evil in others and if I was right about myself, my virtue was love. The understanding was huge for me at the time because it also made me realize why I’d stepped into the role of The Courier that DJ Pon3 gave me. I wanted to help ponies so they could live and love, I wanted the wasteland to be a good place even if I had to suffer to help. Not because I was forced to help, but because everyone deserved to be loved and happy.

As I realized this I felt something inside me shift and for the first time in over five months, the dark magic that had been pushing against my mind and emotions slowly pulled back. My light magic flared and joined with my darker side and a balance was there once again. My horn exploded with bright red light as I opened my eyes, and a smile came to my face as I looked over at a squinting Yaksha. “I know who I am!”

She closed her eyes, saying, “Then tell me who you are, also please tone down the magic, it is quite blinding.”

I laughed. “I am Shadow Star, I am also The Courier. I am the mare who was born to bring light and darkness into balance and to help the wasteland be a better place for everyone.”

I let my magic fade as Yaksha smiled and hugged me. “Good, now I think it is time for you to go back to the ones you love and start building a better world.”

Smiling like I haven’t in a long time, I asked, “Are you coming with me?”

“I will in time young one, but I have my own mission to deal with once you head back with Violet. I have a feeling that I will see you soon though, when you go back to The Kingdom I will be there,” she said as she pulled out a long-range broadcaster, “Violet, it is time, come get The Courier.”

There was no response, but a moment later Violet teleported to us. She looked me over, her face neutral like those plastic statues they put clothes on in stores. After a moment, her horn started to glow along with the Alicorn Amulet around her neck. Deep inside me I felt my magic pulse, reacting to whatever Violet was doing. For a moment I was worried she was going to attack me, then my magic calmed, and I knew that Violet’s spell meant me no harm. The alicorn scanned me with her magic, then after a moment her magic faded, and she smiled. “I think this is the first time since we met, that your mind is calm and at peace.”

“I…feel different, as if something inside me changed, but at the same time, I’m still the same. Just a better version of myself,” I responded.

She smiled. “In my old life, I was a lot like you. I didn’t understand who I was deep down, and because of that I followed a dangerous path. This led me to follow Night Stalker and help him build the Children of the Night into something deadly. It wasn’t until Amethyst helped me understand myself that I saw the terrible things I helped create. I was trying to fix it; I was slowly working to get Night Stalker and the rest of my friends to understand what we created needed to be stopped. I was making progress and I think if I only had a little more time they would’ve listened to me. Sadly, we were betrayed by one of our own and I lost Amethyst and my mind broke. I wanted to make sure you didn’t suffer the same fate as I did, that’s why I forced you to do this. Your mind needed to be settled and your magic balanced to face what you’ll have to do soon.”

I looked up at her. “I’m gonna have to rejoin with Aquilla aren’t I?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You figured that out already? I’m surprised.”

“I’ve known for a while I think maybe even before I separated from her that the two of us needed to be together, but back then I was too scared of her to let her stay in my head. I understand now that she isn’t evil, even if she does evil things. I’ve done evil things myself lately. Aquila suffered for many years trapped in the lab you locked her in. She doesn’t need to be killed or stopped; she needs help to fix her damaged mind,” I said.

Violet nodded. “Aquila’s mind has split into two parts. I think she did this to herself many years ago, maybe when her body was forced to solidify into a crystal to survive longer. She let a part of her take in all the pain she was feeling from the world while sheltering her good half where she could hide from it. The odd thing is that now she’s in a body of her own. I think her two halves are starting to merge again. I’ve been watching her, and the longer she’s in that body of hers, the more I’m seeing sadness and confusion showing. Either way, when you face her, I don’t think you’ll be able to count on her goodness helping you. You’re going to have to find a way to make her see that working together is the only way to stop Falling Shadows and save Equus.”

I sighed. “I know. I don’t know what to do now, but I’ll think of something. First I have to deal with a few other things before I confront Aquila.”

“What can be more important than stopping Aquila?” Yaksha asked.

I looked at her and smiled. “First, I need to go see the griffon I love and hope she’ll forgive me for being an idiot. Then, I’ll need to go to The Crystal Empire and unlock Tower 3. After that, I’ll need to find Greed and get the item I had him hold on to for me. I need to unlock Falling Shadows before I let Aquila back into my head.”

“You’ll need to do more than that,” Violet said, “You need to stop Hacker, Wolfsbane, Apollo, and Thunderlane. They’re all working toward the same goal, to awaken their master.”

“Wait…they all are followers of Mezzanotte?” I asked.

Violet shrugged. “I’m not sure if all of them are. I can’t find Thunderlane and knowing him, he’s probably just using Falling Shadows to try and find a way to make himself stronger. As for Apollo, I know that he’s been working with Hacker for three decades so he’s a follower just like her. Wolfsbane, I’m not sure, but he’s been helping his wife with her own goals for many years now.”

I groaned before finally getting to my hooves. “Well, it’s a good thing I have friends to help me. I think the best thing to do after I’m finished with The Crystal Empire is to see about getting New Pegasus back on my side and doing away with this cult I heard about. I’ll deal with that after I’m done with fixing my relationships with my friends.”

She smiled. “From now on, I will follow your lead granddaughter.”

“Hey now, don’t start throwing that word around or I’m going to start calling you Min. I know how much you hate that. Stardust had to learn the reason why the hard way,” I said with a laugh.

Violet didn’t smile or laugh however, she looked confused. “How do you know that?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Know what?”

“How did you know that I had to tell Stardust that I didn’t like being called Min? You weren’t there when that happened, and I know for a fact that you didn’t have time to talk to anypony when you woke up from you near death,” she said.

I thought about it for a minute, then frowned as a slight memory hit me. For a moment it felt like I’d lived the experience, but in the memory I wasn’t myself, but Aura. I looked back at Violet, “I’m…not sure, I just remember it…only…not as myself.”

“That magic you held back was made up of time and space magic. I wonder if it affected you in some way, showing you things that were happening in other places and times. I’ll have to investigate this more when we get a chance,” she said thoughtfully.

“Wait a sec, are you saying that I have other pony’s memories jammed in my head?” I asked.

“I have no idea, but it’s a possibility. For now, you seem fine, but if you start feeling more memories hit you that aren’t your own, let me know right away,” she said.

“Well, this is fucking great,” I groaned, “I have other ponies brains jammed into my head. I’m brain soup!”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” she said, smiling like she used to when she was still a normal pony, “Trust me, I’ve lived through that kind of thing for years and I’m mostly sane.”

“Yeah, that helps me feel so much better,” I responded sarcastically.

She ignored me looking over at Yaksha. “I will stop by in a few days to get you to The Kingdom, thank you again for helping me with this.”

Yaksha smiled. “I do not mind helping when it comes to Shadow. As for help with The Kingdom, I will be okay on my own. I will head there soon; I will not need help.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Violet said, then she looked at me, “Are you ready to head back?”

I took a moment before I nodded. “I can’t put this off any longer,” I then looked at Yaksha, saying, “Be safe and thank you again.”

“Take care young one,” she said before I was enveloped in Violet’s magic and was teleported back to my friends and family.

***

I found myself in a room by myself moments after we’d arrived back at the bunker under Tower 2. Violet said she was heading to see Vervain before going out to soak up a massive amount of radiation so she could power a spell to get us back to New Pegasus quickly. I was nervous because I knew, any moment now, Aura was coming, and I’d have to ask her to forgive me for everything I’ve done. I was also going to have to tell her about Solstice and me. I just hoped that she didn’t attack my friend…or me. I was trying to ready myself for the upcoming conversation when I jumped from a light knock at the door to my room.

Aura’s voice said quietly, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah…sure,” I said, my voice cracking a little.

She opened the door before stepping in and closing it behind her. For a few moments we both just looked at each other, taking in the changes the last few months had done to us. I knew that my mane had grown longer, my body had a few more scars and I still looked a little unhealthy from how I’ve been living for the past five months. I took in Aura and saw the long scar over her face and the missing digit on her left talon, and most notably the double ended green and red energy spear.

A small smile came to Aura’s face, before she said quietly, “You look like crap.”

“I’m not the only one,” I said.

She nodded then ran a talon over her scar, “Touché, gift from Gina when we took back Crimson Canyon,” I saw a small tear fall from her eye as she continued, “I mortally wounded her before I found out that she’d been on our side since the beginning. She even sent my cousin out here to help you and keep you safe while you were away.”

My eyes went wide. “Wait, are you talking about Gaston? He’s related to you?”

“I heard a lot about him from Vervain and Solstice over the past few hours. He sounds a lot like Gina when she was younger, and yeah, I only found out a few weeks ago that he existed, but I can tell you more about that later. Do you mind if I sit?” she asked indicating the bed next to me.

“Sure…” I said, watching as she moved to the bed, “Why are you acting so calm? I thought by now you’d be yelling at me for leaving.”

She sighed as she sat down. “I don’t need to yell at you, there’s no reason to. You did something stupid by coming out here like you did, but at the same time I understand why you did it. It’s me who should be getting yelled at, I was the one who’s been lying to you for so long about what really happened with Trip Wire, though I am a little pissed that you never let me explain what I meant when I was talking to Arys.”

I moved closer and sat on the bed next to her. “First you don’t have to apologize for not telling me the truth about Trip. Yeah, I was pissed at first but when I had time to think about it, I realize that if you’d have told me the truth back then, I would’ve told you to leave, or I wouldn’t have trusted you. If it wasn’t for that lie, I never would’ve fallen in love with you, and I’d probably be dead by now. It sucks that you had to lie, but in the long run it was a good thing.”

“It also led to you leaving which was very hard on me and the rest of us,” she said sadly.

“I know, but the thing you don’t understand is that I was in a bad place when all that happened. Fuck, I was still in that bad place even a few weeks ago. When Aquila was pulled out of me, an imbalance happened with my light and dark magic and my emotions were going crazy the longer we were apart. If I would’ve stayed, I would’ve ended up killing one or more of you. Hell, I almost killed Solstice a few times while we were in Armadillo,” I said, looking down at my hooves.

“Are you…doing better now?” she asked.

“A little,” I said with a sigh, “My mind is in a better place thanks to Violet, and I understand more about myself now. For now, I should be okay and only time will tell if I’ll get back to my old self.

“I’m sorry for what you overheard,” Aura said, pulling the band with her black and red feather on it out of a pocket and looking at it in her talons, “I was trying to say back then that I was scared of us making the life bond, not because you weren’t good enough for me, but because I was scared that I wasn’t good enough for you. I know that you’re young and impulsive, but I love you anyway. I know now that you’re my soulmate and that no matter what, I’ll never be able to be with another until the day I die. I think what scared me the most is that the longer we’ve been together and after how many times I’ve watched you almost die or disappear from my life, I felt like no matter what happened we’d always find each other again, in this life or the next. A soul bond like that is something you only hear about in stories and that scared me.”

I looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes. So, I reached a hoof out and placed it on her talon. “The entire time I was out here…” I stopped and took in a deep breath, “and even with how many I slept with, it never felt right…I felt empty and the only thing I could think about was you. I was so angry, sad, and lonely that I did everything I could to ignore the feelings I have for you Aura. I drank, I killed, I fucked, and more and none of it worked.”

A small smile came to her face as she said, “Usually doesn’t, but even when you were with Solstice?”

My eyes went wide. “How’d you know about that?”

She shrugged. “She told me not long after Violet took you. I’ll admit I was a little pissed, but then again, it’s not like we were together so I can’t really be mad. Plus, I’ve seen her too; she’s hot. The question is, do you feel anything for her or the others you messed around with?”

I shook my head. “No, I mean Solstice has become one of my best friends, but that’s as far as my feelings go. We talked about it a couple weeks ago. She’s not really into mares normally anyway so I was more of a distraction for her just like she was for me.”

Aura got back to her talons. “Well, you both gave it the old college try, but I still love you Shadow, and I will for the rest of my days,” she looked back at me and to my surprise she sat in front of me and bowed her head holding out the band that represented a griffon wanting to make a life bond, “The question I have for you is this. Are you willing to take this token of my love, made from my own feather, bound by my talons, and agree to bond this mortal life of mine with yours? Will you, Shadow Star, daughter of Nightshade and Grimoire Spell make the life bond with me when we get back to Crimson Canyon and tie our two families together?”

Tears started to follow as I looked at the token of Aura’s love. She still loved me, and she wanted me to bond with her. I knew how much this meant to a griffon and what she was saying by offering me this band. I’d talked with Gaston a lot about what it meant and how griffons normally did this. I knew that both parties would exchange a band that was made with a piece of themselves to signify the bond, but that was later during a ceremony. The only thing that was required for the griffon’s version of an engagement was for one side to accept the others token.

I reached a hoof out and took the band, I then slid it up my left foreleg saying in a shaky voice, “I Shadow Star accept your token Aura Bloodtalon, daughter of Gillian Bloodtalon. I will make the life bond with you when we get back to Crimson Canyon and join our two families into one.”

She laughed a little and looked up at me. “I didn’t know you knew the words to say back.”

I laughed too, feeling the joy at having Aura back fill me. “I learned a few things from that big idiot Gaston. I wasn’t always drunk you know.”

She reached up and pulled me close, kissing me deeply. She pulled away for only a moment to let her icy blue eyes meet my red ones before saying, “I love you Shadow.”

“I love you too Aura,” I responded before using my magic to pull her on top of me, kissing her deeply. She squeaked for a moment as I pulled her forward, but she sank into me as our kiss grew deeper. I flipped her onto her back on the bed, being careful not to fuck up her wings. I moved a hoof down her body, still kissing her as I let her know how much I’d missed her.

The two of us didn’t let up for hours…

***

Three days later…

“I still can’t believe so much happened while I was away,” I said to Aura as she finished telling me about her time in New Pegasus.

“I wanna know where you got that kick ass spear,” Solstice said.

Aura looked down at it and frowned. “Guess I forgot to bring that up. Well, after my spear got destroyed, I needed a new weapon. I learned that the red spear Gina had been using was made by Trip’s brother using her designs. He thought it was the finished version and better than my spear. He was right in a way, but funny enough when Shadow left, she left a few things behind one of which was schematics she must’ve found in Hoofington at the old camp where I’d buried Trip. Byte and Wingnut found them and used them to merge my old spear and the red one together and also made them both better.”

“I’ll admit it’s a cool looking weapon, but Misery is still better,” I said pulling out the sword which glowed brightly for a second seeming to agree with me.

Aura laughed. “Well, I’ll agree with that, but Misery likes you more than me, so I’ll stick with my double ended spear for now.”

“Who knows, maybe Joy will like you better when we find it,” I said.

Oricalcos laughed. “It’s amazing as it is that you found Misery. Shadow and I will admit that it does seem to have a strange magic that makes it almost feel alive, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find Joy. You can’t be that lucky.”

“I agree, I don’t see us finding both of Greta’s blades,” Aura said.

I smiled. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll find it. Misery knows where it’s twin is at all times. With a little travel, and maybe a little luck, I just have to follow Misery to Joy.”

“Shadow’s right, that sword has a tracking spell on it, I can tell,” Rawr said from a chair he was sitting in.

“I agree with the big guy,” Discord said, his small form sitting on an armrest, “I can feel the connection from here.”

I still wasn’t used to the tiny lamp Discord being able to move around, but I was getting there. Sitting next to him was Harmony who the small creature had taken a liking to recently. She looked between Aura and I asking, “What’s a Joy?”

“It’s a white version of Misery,” Aura said, “Minuette made it back during the war for my distant grandmother.”

I was going to say something when Violet walked in. Her already tall body was now twice it’s normal size and she oozed power. She looked at us all then said, “I didn’t make them FOR Greta, I made them for Night Stalker to give to her as a gift. Now are all of you ready to head back to New Pegasus?”

We all nodded, then I looked at Harmony. “Are you sure you want to come with us? It’ll be dangerous in New Pegasus and Rawr did offer to let you stay here. You’d be safe and you could read as much as you want.”

She smiled and nodded. “I’ll be fine Shadow. I’d rather stay with you and see more of the world. Sure, staying here would be safe, but I spent the past few years of my life trapped in a compound. My father would’ve wanted me to explore and see the world. Plus, I want to meet your other friends.”

“If she’s going, I’m going too,” Discord said, jumping to his small feet.

“What is it with you and following her around like you do?” Solstice asked, “It’s getting a little weird and creepy.”

“I am weird! But not creepy!” he said in mock offence, “I just happen to find her interesting and she treats me like a normal being and not just a broken piece of a soul stuck in a lamp like the rest of you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine with him coming, he’s kinda fun sometimes.”

“You WOULD say that,” Vervain said with a laugh, then she looked over at Aura, “What’re your plans when we get back to Crimson Canyon?”

Aura looked at me with a smile which I returned before she said, “We have a celebration to set up. No matter what’s going on when we get back to New Pegasus, my first priority is to bind my life with Shadow’s. We can figure out the rest after that.”

Vervain was overjoyed when she heard the news a couple days ago, Oricalcos not so much, but he was getting over it. He thought I was too young to be getting married, even if the life bond was different. Vervain looked at us both, then said to Aura, “Okay, but when we get there, I want to go over some things with you beforehoof Aura.”

“Okay, just as long as Ori and you don’t try and stop us. I’ve already told you that no matter what, the two of us are bonding. We don’t want to wait longer, not with everything going on,” Aura said.

Oricalcos sighed. “We know, but as her family we want to add a few things to this Life Bond thing, same for Nightshade I’m sure. I do hope you talked with him about this before you asked Shadow to bond.”

“We talked about it weeks ago, but I’ll still talk with him too before everything starts,” Aura said with a laugh.

Violet sighed. “You all do realize that the longer you sit and talk, the more radiation I’m leaking into this room right? I need to use it soon so I can get us all back.”

“She’s right, I think it’s way past time to head home,” I said.

“I will miss you little pony,” Rawr said, “When this is all over, I will bring my pack to New Pegasus to see you. Once this place is no longer needing protection there will be no reason for us to stay.”

I went over to the huge death dog and hugged him. “I’ll miss you too Rawr, stay safe, and I look forward to our next meeting.”

He smiled before moving to head out of his den. As he left Violet had everypony get close to her as her horn started to glow. As she powered up her spell, Aura reached into her satchel and pulled out my former barding and duster, “Wingnut fixed it up again for you. If you’re ready to go home, I think it’s time that you embrace who you are. I also have this for you, it’s a sign that you’re also a member of The Shadow Talons.”

She gave me a red bandana with the symbol of The Shadow Talons on it. I marveled at my fixed and upgraded barding and duster. Like before the duster had the E.E. for Equestrian Express on the left shoulder and my cutie mark on the right, but on the back where Equestrian Express used to be stitched it now read ‘Courier of the Marejave’ I smiled and took off my old combat armor and replaced it with my barding and duster. I followed that up by bringing the red bandana up and tying it around my neck, displaying the symbol of The Shadow Talons just over my chest. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was whole. I sheathed Misery on my back and holstered Dream Walker.

I turned back toward my friends and family and smiled, moving closer to Violet, “Let’s go home.”

In a flash of blue light, I left the Badlands behind, leaving behind the anger, pain, and The Silver Demon. The Courier was going home, and I was getting ready to show the wasteland who I really was…

***

Greed Aka Thundercracker…

I flew high in the sky, higher than most pegasi would dare to, but I’ve gotten used to the flight over the past few months as I did my job for Nightshade. He forced me to do something I thought I never would do willingly; I was working for the government by my own will. That old buck had a way of getting others to like him, so I’m not too surprised that he was able to twist me into working with him. This mission was much like the last few had been. Go up to Cirrus, the hidden base that most pegasi thought was a legend. The cloud fortress was located far north of Los Alicorn, close to San Flankcisco or what was left of the city. It was the base Thunderlane had taken over a long time ago.

Like always, I stayed clear of the base until nightfall before sneaking closer, keeping an eye on what the old ghoul was up to. Unfortunately, I couldn’t break into the place. I’m a great thief, but even with my talents, I wouldn’t be able to break into it easily. Like before, I took out a recording device and set it up on a cloud to watch the base before moving on toward the top end of an M.A.S.E.B.S. tower near Cirrus. I checked the bugs I’d planted to pick up any communications in and out of the base then started taking notes of the movements of the guards around the place.

It was just another night spying on the old fortress like always. Boring yes, but it did help Nightshade and the new place he was setting up for the former Enclave. As I watched the guards I patted the hidden pocket on my armor, feeling the glowing diamond Shadow had given to me so long ago to keep safe from that freak Aquila. It was still there and safe, but the longer I held onto it, the more I wanted to get rid of it. Normally I loved having shiny things for myself, but this thing gave me the creeps and the sooner I could give it back the better.

I was getting ready to do another round before heading back, when for the first time something changed. A rebuilt palisade flew up through the clouds, the Steel Ranger emblem on its side. At first, I thought that Wolfsbane was going to attack Cirrus, which would make Nightshade’s life easier, but it didn’t. It moved to a landing platform toward the top of the base.

“I need to tell Nightshade and Aura about this,” I said to myself. I was about to fly to get the recorder when something happened near the top of the Palisade. I saw a unicorn step out and look right over at me.

I frowned when I saw her, then jumped when a moment later she was in front of me. She had large black wings that looked as if they were made out of shadows and her body was covered in the same thing, only showing her eyes which glowed with power. When she spoke, I felt fear flow through me. “My master does not like spies. Who do you work for? If you tell me quick, your death will be painless.”

“Yeah, fuck you, and fuck whoever you serve,” I said before activating my ultimate shield and flying away.

With a quick flap of her shadow wings, she flew after me, saying, “A former Sin I see, good to know.”

I felt a spell slam into me almost breaking through my shield, I cursed and dove for the ground, the bitch hot on my tail. “You know, I normally like when a mare chases after me, but you’re a little too…creepy for my taste.”

She flew next to me, firing another spell of darkness at me, this time I felt it go through my shield, burning my flesh. I cursed again and tried to avoid her next attack by rolling in the air, then changed direction, and dove again. She laughed as she followed. “You must be Greed; I remember hearing about you from the traitor. It looks like you’re a little weak against my kind of magic. I wonder how long that Shield of yours can hold up before I put a hole through you.”

I growled and knew there was only one way I was getting out of this. I pulled an item I’d stolen years ago out. It was a single use item, and I honestly wasn’t even sure it would work, but I needed to get back to Nightshade. I looked over at the flying unicorn and said with a grin even if she couldn’t see it behind my mask. “Nice dancing with you, but I’m more of a lover than a fighter, so I gotta run,” before she could say anything else, I dropped a flash grenade then dove a different direction right when it went off, smiling as I heard her curse. I then put a green gem close to my muzzle and said quietly, “Stratus” then activated the gem.

Light enveloped me and a moment later I felt pain as the spell teleported me far away from the scary unicorn. The gem was a teleportation gem I’d stolen the same day I’d gotten my ultimate shield. It would only work once, and it was painful to use from what I’ve been told. Looks like that was correct. I arrived in Stratus a moment later just outside Nightshade’s office. My body hurt and I could feel blood dripping down my side.

Nightshade’s assistant screamed when I appeared, and I gave her a smile. “Hey doll, mind telling the big guy that Greed’s here to see him. Tell him I got some shitty news,” and with a bloody smile still on my muzzle, I passed out…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Synchronicity: You’ve done it! You’ve achieved balance within your soul and your heart. Experiencing and being able to see the reason in both sides between light and dark, you now have an easier time convincing or coercing others of high standing among factions while in dialogue.

Chapter 77: Trustfall

“I love you with all my heart and I give my love and my soul to you.”

I looked out across the open expanse of Crimson Canyon, not far from The Den, marveling at the griffons who were still cleaning up after booting the Unchained Talons out. We’d only gotten back a few minutes ago and Violet went to rest in one of the larger caves up the cliffs near The Den, Harmony followed her so she could talk with Violet while she rested. I was shocked she was able to teleport all of us so far. She’d explained to me before she went to rest that alicorns could build up power by soaking up magical radiation. That was a surprise to me, I didn’t even know alicorns were immune to radiation, let alone used it to get stronger for a short amount of time. To be fair, I didn’t know much about alicorns, well not the kind my many greats grandmother was now at least.

I was taking in the sight of Crimson Canyon now. I haven’t been back here since the day it fell. There was still a massive area that was blackened and flattened in a circle where I’d lost control of my magic that day. If it hadn’t been for Wind Thrasher, I might’ve killed myself and done a lot more damage. The sight was a reminder of the power inside me even without Aquila. I knew that I had to get better control of it, even now. I then looked over at the rubble that was left of the ten rules of The Red Talons and the statue of Greta. I was glad to see those rules gone, but I was sad to see the statue destroyed. Thanks to the memories I’d gotten of Absent Moon, I knew what kind of griffon she’d been. She’d been Loyal, strong, funny, and brave. She built The Red Talons to give her people a place to belong and to grow and survive. Her son built the statue to honor her, and now it was gone.

I didn’t get any more time to look around the canyon before I heard a loud yell of happiness as a large silhouette flew down from high above and tackled me to the ground, hugging me tight. I found myself hugging him back nearly in tears as I felt Stardust holding onto me, saying, “I missed you so much.”

I pressed my face into the crook of his neck, saying softly, “I missed you too, I’m so sorry for being away for so long.”

He pulled away letting me up as he wiped tears away, saying, “I’m sure you were expecting me to yell at you for leaving like you did, but honestly, I’m just glad you’re alive and back.”

I looked up at the descending Bitter Cob as it started landing in the center of Crimson Canyon. “I’m guessing you’re just getting back from Baltimare.”

He nodded. “Yeah, we just got in a few minutes ago and Solstice already sent a message to Byte telling us you’d all arrived back safely.”

I looked over at Solstice who was already moving over to us before she pulled her brother into a hug. “Missed you, big bro, glad to see you made it back safe.”

Aura, Oricalcos, and Vervain came over as Aura wrapped a wing around me and pulled me close. She looked over at Stardust, saying, “I’m still not happy with you three for running off like you did to Baltimare, but I’m glad you finished the mission out there and got back safe.”

He smiled, then looked at Aura’s wing wrapped around me, then at the band around my right foreleg with a black and red feather on it. “I see you two patched things up. So does that mean you two are getting hitched too?”

Aura rolled her eyes. “It’s called a life bond you uncultured dickwhad, and yes, Shadow and I had time to talk and figure things out. We’re hoping to set up the ceremony to be in a couple days.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “So quickly?”

I interrupted before they could start arguing about the upcoming bonding. “What do you mean by getting hitched too? What did I miss?”

Stardust blushed as he said sheepishly, “Well, I asked Wind Thrasher a couple months back if she’d marry me and she said yes.”

I grinned. “You have no idea how happy that makes me Dusty,” I hugged him again, “Where is Wind Thrasher anyway?”

He looked around then shrugged. “Not sure honestly, she said she’d be in Crimson Canyon when I got back with the kids, maybe she’s taking a nap. The foal tires her out quickly nowadays. She’s been spending a lot of time with Fletch in her cave, keeping her company.”

I looked over at Aura. “I’m guessing she laid her egg?”

Aura nodded with a sad smile. “Yes, she’s been having a hard time over the past couple months. Her egg should hatch in the next few days, but after what happened with Gouger she’s been depressed. So, Wind Thrasher spends a lot of time with her.”

“Wh…what happened to Gouger?” I asked feeling my heart ache as I thought of the big goofy griffon who’d been in love with Fletch for years.

“He was killed when we took back Crimson Canyon. Gina did it, but it was an accident, kind of,” Aura said sadly.

“How do you accidentally kill someone?” I asked.

“I can explain that later, for now just trust me on this. We all have a lot to catch you up on, but I see the kids coming and I’m sure they want to say hi. I think they took you leaving even harder than I did,” Aura said as she looked over toward the Bitter Cob as I saw Byte and Wingnut run down the gangplank.

My eyes went wide as I saw them both. Byte didn’t look too different, maybe a little taller and her mane was down, but Wingnut had grown a lot. I looked at Aura and Stardust, asking, “Is that really Wingnut?”

Stardust smiled happily as he said with a laugh, “Yeah, the kid grew a lot over the past few months.”

Wingnut finally made it over to me and before I used to have to look down at him, but now he was taller than me. For a moment he looked down at me then I saw his lip quiver and he started crying as he hugged me tight. He couldn’t even talk as he sank down to the ground crying into my shoulder. I found myself tearing up as I hugged him back, patting his back slowly. Taller or not he was still Wingnut. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Byte smile before going over to Solstice, Vervain, and Oricalcos to talk with them while Wingnut just kept trying to speak through his tears.

It took a while for him to calm down before he was finally able to say, “Please…don’t leave me alone again. You’ve become like a big sister to me, and I can’t lose any more of my family.”

I pulled away slowly and said, “I don’t plan on leaving you like that again. I can’t promise that I won’t have to leave again in the future, but I can promise that I will talk to you first and say goodbye before I do. Okay?”

He nodded before getting up and wiping his eyes. “I can live with that.”

“Such a crybaby,” Byte teased.

I was surprised when Wingnut didn’t snap at her for the remark, he just smiled and laughed. “Yeah, but I can’t help myself sometimes.”

Aura cleared her throat, then said, “How about we all head into The Den and we can all catch up on what’s been going on with all of us. I’ll have someone bring us something to eat, then I need to meet with a few griffons to start setting up the ceremony.”

Right as she stopped talking, Vi landed next to us and said, “No you don’t Aura, Syn and I will be dealing with most of that for you with a little help from Vervain and Oricalcos if they don’t mind helping. We had an idea we’d like to run by them before Nightshade makes his way down here from Stratus.”

“My dad’s coming?” I asked feeling another smile pull at my lips. I’d missed him more than I was willing to admit to myself.

Vi smiled at me then moved close to hug me. “Glad to see you back here Shadow, and yes, he just contacted us a few minutes ago. He’s finishing with something going on in Stratus, then he’ll be heading down.”

Aura rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I still wanna have a little say in what’ll happen during the ceremony.”

“I know and Syn and I will check in with you later tonight,” she said before looking back at me, “When you have time tonight would you go see Fletch? She knows your back and she really wants to see you. I think it will do her good.”

I lifted an eyebrow at that. Fletch and I weren’t that close, even if she was a lot nicer to me than she had been. “Why do you think seeing me would be a good thing?”

Aura interrupted, saying, “Fletch does like you Shadow and being the sister that’s closest to me she probably wants to talk with you about what to expect when we bond. It’s kinda her job.”

I was confused, but I decided to just go with it and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go see her when things settle down.”

Vi smiled. “Good, now I need to start getting things set up before Aura starts thinking she has to do everything herself.”

When Vi flew off we all headed toward The Den. I was still a little shellshocked at my friends not being angry with me after how I acted. Though it was possible that they were just holding back their anger until we were in private. Either way I’d take whatever they had to say. I was just glad to be home.

***

It took us a few hours to catch up on everything that had been going on while I was away. An hour into our talk, we were interrupted when Wind Thrasher came into The Den, and I went through another round of hugs as the batpony hugged the four of us who’d been gone for so long. Then I had to comment on how good she looked even though she was around six months pregnant now which she took as me calling her fat. Once that settled down, I listened to everypony tell me all that had been going on around New Pegasus while I was away. The news wasn’t good, and I understood now why we’d teleported right to Crimson Canyon instead of Freedom or The Strip. I was still one of the most wanted ponies in the area. I was surprised to hear that over the past couple of weeks, nopony had seen Aquila. It was like she’d vanished into thin air, but intel said she was held up in a tent at the middle of a large camp of her cultists, but she hadn’t left for a while. I was told about how the NLR was losing ground to The Romans and how the Steel Rangers were being forced to go back into hiding at Hidden Sands because the NLR, Romans, and a few gangs along with The Star Cult were all on the warpath to kill every single Steel Ranger in the area.

I also heard news that more and more ponies were being forced to either join one of the strong factions or die. The ones who could get away had all went to Freedom or The Strip to get away. The NLR had also been kicked out of The Strip and Freedom by Mr. Tops after they started attacking The Queens again or Rangers who were near the area. Also, it seemed like a branch of The NLR broke away from the rest, most of them NLR Rangers and NLR Veteran Rangers who didn’t agree with the way things were going. A civil war was about to break out between the two sides all while The Romans moved closer to the dam and New Pegasus.

Even worse was that Mr. New Pegasus had up and vanished, leaving his radio station quiet for the past month. Nopony knew where he’d gone, only that the last broadcast had been a plea for the ponies of New Pegasus to put their trust in me. He’d been on my side even after what happened with Aquila and I right before I left. Right after that, NLR soldiers went into his station to pull him out so he’d stop trying to stand up for The Courier, but they never found him. Lonely Hearts had also gone into hiding when cultists tried to kill him in his own office just last month. His secretary hadn’t made it out alive sadly, but the old synth was now in Crimson Canyon staying out of sight. The news just kept getting worse, The Queens were constantly having to patrol Freedom with the help of Mr. Tops’ robots to keep NLR, cultists, and Romans out of Freedom and The Strip. Crimson Canyon was also always on guard to make sure no one got in and The Shadow Talons were not taking any contracts right now because they didn’t know who could be trusted. Luckily the casinos and Mr. Tops were paying any available griffon to help The Strip, Freedom, and the surrounding areas.

The last bit of hard news to hear was the new faction that had been showing up around the area. Well faction was a strong word for them, but they had been troublesome for a few ponies. The former Enclave Pegasi who refused to follow the new laws my father had set up were kicked out of Stratus and they now formed up into a large group down here in the wasteland calling themselves The Fallen. Luckily, they weren’t too bad to deal with since none of them were able to leave Stratus with anything like power armor.

“I can’t believe so much happened just because I was gone,” I said.

“It’s not all because you left Shadow,” Aura said, “A lot of this would’ve still happened even if you’d still been around. The biggest problem with you being gone was mostly the rise in crime and Aquila’s cult getting so big. If they had it their way, there’d be a big bounty on you just like there is for us from them, but Aquila’s been telling them they can’t put one on you.”

I laughed and shook my head, “Well she’s doing a shitty job because according to Quick Draw, a bounty hunter who came after me a while ago said they had a 50,000-cap bounty on me, dead or alive.”

“If that’s true, then Aquila doesn’t know about it, but I bet that their leader has something to do with it. The dude’s a nutjob,” Stardust said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he set it up thinking that Aquila will be pleased with him if they captured you or took you to her dead. She has said that she wants you to be left alone, but they don’t always do what she wants. They have this whole thing about taking what she says and thinking it’s a test of some kind,” Aura said.

Wingnut looked over at me and asked, “So, are you going to tell us what happened with you while you were gone?”

I winced, then said, “I can tell you a lot of what happened, but I warn you now…my story is dark and please let me get through it all before you ask me anything,” they all nodded, and I started telling them about what I’d been doing while I was in the badlands.

I did my best to tell my story to my friends as they all sat around The Den. I watched as their faces went from shocked, to scared, to sad as I explained my mindset, my actions, and the dark depths I fell into while I was in Armadillo. I held nothing back, even my slight relationship with Solstice, which Aura already knew about, but Stardust looked a little pissed when I told them that part. I then explained what happened to me when I was hit by the megaspells, at least to the best of my knowledge at the time. I even went over my journey to find my true self and ended on part of the conversation I had with Aura when I got back. By the time I was done, the sun had set, and moonlight was drifting in through the tent flap.

“You…were going through a lot while you were away,” Wind Thrasher said softly.

I nodded. “I was going through a lot, but I was also being selfish. I had no right to act the way I did toward any of you, but when I left, my mindset was so dark I couldn’t think straight. I’ll understand if none of you forgive me for leaving like I did and for how I acted.”

My friends all looked at each other before Stardust looked into my eyes and said, “Shadow, I will admit that the way you acted was immature.”

I looked down, saying quietly, “I’ll do anything I can to make it up to you all…”

Stardust interrupted me, saying, “I wasn’t done,” I looked back up at him as he continued, “You did act immature yes, but none of us blame you for what happened or for you acting the way you did.”

I was confused at that. This wasn’t the first time I’d acted out or left without talking to anypony. Normally I’d get at least a stern talking to by them or yelled at or something. I wasn’t expecting this.

Wind Thrasher looked at me next, saying, “Shadow, in the past we’ve always either yelled at you or blamed you for acting out or doing something stupid. After you left this time, we all got together once we got over the shock of finding that you’d left and talked. We realized that we’d been putting a lot of pressure on you which isn’t fair for such a young mare like yourself. You’ve carried a lot on your shoulders ever since you left Stable 28, and the weight has only gotten worse as time went on.”

Stardust put a hoof on Wind Thrasher before continuing, “I’m not sure if you’ve put it together or not yet Shadow, but a lot of shit happened to you over the week before you left. For fuck’s sake, you had a monster pulled out of you, then right after that your mom died. You almost died along with your uncle after Aquila got her own body. You barely had time to process your mother's loss and the trauma your body went through. You then went into the Los Alicorn Steel Ranger’s stronghold, took down The Palisade, almost died again doing that, then went up to Stratus and had to once again risk your life just to save your father and Stratus. Right after you did that, you got attacked by the last of The Sins, then had to deal with the Hidden Sands Steel Rangers, hearing the griffon you love say something that sounded like she didn’t love you, watched a mare you used to care for as a friend die hating you, got attacked by Aquila again and framed for killing more New Appleton ponies and became the most hated pony in the area all in an hour. No pony could’ve dealt with all that and not broken.”

“What they’re trying to say,” Aura said sounding sad, “Was that you didn’t let us down or betray our trust or anything like that. We were the ones who didn’t see all the shit that was happening around you. We didn’t take the time to make sure you were okay. You might’ve done some bad things while you were away and leaving like you did may not have been the smartest move on your part, but that’s not all your fault.”

“I’ve been trying to get her to talk to me for months now to try and get her to understand that.” Vervain said with a slight smile, “But we all know she’s not the best at listening when she’s angry…or drunk.”

That made me laugh a little, then cry, then laugh again. When I finally calmed down, I said with a smile on my face, “I’m lucky to have such an amazing family.”

“Now that we got all the mushy stuff out of the way and we all know now that no one is mad at each other,” Stardust said glaring at me, “Why in the Goddess’s name did you think it was okay to seduce my sister!?”

I looked over at Solstice who grinned at me, saying, “Yeah Shadow, why did you seduce little old me?”

Stardust looked at Aura next. “And how are you okay with this?”

Aura looked at Solstice, then at me, then winked at Stardust. “Hey, we were technically not together at the time and your sisters fuckin’ hot.”

“Awww thank you Aura,” Solstice teased.

I just smiled as Stardust got even more flustered. “I…I thought you didn’t like mares!”

“Normally I don’t, but it’s not uncommon for same sex relations to happen sometimes in the Enclave and I may like stallions, but Shadow and I just needed something to get our minds off the shit going on at the time,” Solstice teased, “Plus, we both have needs that must be satisfied to keep us sane.”

I laughed. “The question is Dusty, why do you care so much about your sisters sex life?”

“I…I don’t!” he said.

We all started laughing and the teasing kept going on. Later that night my dad showed up and again I was lost in hugs and stories as I was reunited with more of my family. I could tell that he had news, but seeing me back I could tell he was going to wait to tell me or Aura about it. Later, Harmony finally came down from visiting with Violet and she got to meet everypony. It didn’t take long for her to get into a deep conversation with Wind Thrasher. She was fascinated by the bat-dragon pony.

I smiled as I watched my family all sitting around The Den, talking, and telling stories all of us catching up after five long months apart. I watched as Vervain leaned her head on my uncle’s shoulder, her eyes half open. I saw Wind Thrasher run a hoof over her growing belly as Stardust pulled her close. Wingnut and Cookie Byte were even sitting close and not fighting for a change. Harmony was talking enthusiastically with my father now. Solstice was talking with Aura about Gaston of all griffons telling her about what he was like and how he’d been a big help over the time he’d spent with us. I leaned into Aura, feeling her talons wrap around me as she listened to Solstice. Aura told me a little about what she’d learned about Gast from her aunt, but she wanted to know more about her cousin it seemed. I just smiled wider and closed my eyes, letting this small moment of peace flow over me. Things were going to get chaotic again soon enough, so I was going to take this moment to relax and hopefully things would stay this way long enough for Aura and I to preform our bonding.

After it was late into the night, Syn came into The Den and came right over to me, saying softly, “Shadow, do you have time to meet with Fletch? She’d really like to speak with you before she goes to bed.”

I looked up at Aura first. “Think you’ll be okay with out me for a bit?”

She smiled. “I think we’ll be okay, but I can come with you if you’d like.”

Syn looked over to her little sister, and said, “Fletch wants to talk with her alone.”

Aura sighed before saying, “Fine, just don’t let my sister keep her too long okay.”

I got to my hooves. “If she does, I’ll be sure to wake you when I get back. Are you still in your old cave?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s just two caves down from where Fletch is staying. If I don’t see you back here before I head up, I’ll pop in and check on you before heading to bed. I need to talk with your dad and Syn anyway.”

I kissed her. “Okay, I’ll see you later then.”

“You know where to go then?” Syn asked.

“I do, you can stay here and talk with your sister,” I said before saying goodnight to the rest and heading out of The Den.

A moment later my dad followed me out, saying, “Wait up Shadow, can we talk on your way up to see Fletch?”

As he came over toward me, I saw four pegasi in power armor move closer, then stop as my dad put a hoof up and shook his head at them. They stopped and went back to their posts a little way away, keeping an eye on everyone around them. I lifted an eyebrow. “I never thought I’d see the day that you’d be down in The Wasteland without your stranger garb on and with guards.”

He smiled sadly. “Comes with the job sadly, I can’t go anywhere without a guard it seems nowadays. I’m the sole leader of The Western Cloud Alliance and I’ve made a lot of enemies over the past few months. The heads of the military and the city councils insist on me having protection.”

I started heading to the incline behind The Den that would lead up to the caves where Fletch should be. As we walked, I asked, “Western Cloud Alliance?”

He rolled his bright green eyes. “Not my idea, trust me on that, but with the fall of most of The Enclave back east and with Stratus and Nimbus pulling away from The Enclave before that we needed a better name. Nimbus joined up with us four months ago after an old enemy now turned ally went out there and took out the old city council and put a mare in charge who has been a good leader for the city ever since.”

“Who’s this enemy turned ally?” I asked.

“Sloth,” My dad said with a smile, “He’s been a big help in getting Nimbus and the Twin Cities on our side and helping defend that area now that Stormy was able to help him with his energy drain problem.”

I lifted an eyebrow at that. “Sloth was cured or whatever from his problem?”

My father nodded then said, “Kind of. What was done to him ended up being not Dr. Stormy’s work but that of her Synth. Stormy did come up with the research many years ago before the whole Stable 97 stuff, but she decided to never go that far, fearing it was a bad idea. Her Synth however wasn’t fully under Stormy’s control as she thought it was and she was the one who made Sloth. Stormy was able to fix some of his problems with burning through his energy so fast, but it came at the cost of him losing about forty percent of his strength. Though he’s okay with that. He’s still very strong and fast for a pegasus his size and still tires out quickly, though it takes him around an hour or two to hit that point now.”

I smiled at that. “I’m glad to hear that he’s doing okay. Was he able to reunite with his family?”

Dad nodded. “His mother is the new head of state for Nimbus and The Twin Cities. He’s also been working with The Kingdom to help reunite Dashites with their families.”

“Sounds like things are going better up in the clouds,” I said.

“For the most part, though we’re having problems with The Crystal Empire,” he said sadly, “Them and Cirrus.”

I looked over at him. “I thought Cirrus was just a legend and what kinds of problems are you having with our old home? I thought The Crystal Empire was fully controlled by Nimbus.”

My father sighed, then said, “The Crystal Empire was controlled by Nimbus, but when I banished the pegasi and unicorns who were loyal to the old way of The Enclave, a good number of them went to The Crystal Empire and took over. It’s a very easy city to defend from outside forces. With The Black Wall of Death blocking most ways into the territory, that only leaves one way in for most and that’s through the small bit of sky over the city. As for Cirrus, well I’ve known it existed for some time now, but only recently found its location. I believe it’s where Thunderlane has been hiding for all these years. I’ve been having Thundercracker, or Greed I guess, keeping an eye on it for me and just a few days ago he ran into a problem.”

My eyes went wide. “Is he okay?”

He nodded. “He’s fine, mostly thanks to his ultimate shield. The problem was that he saw a newly repaired Palisade docking at the fortress there and soon after he was attacked by a unicorn going by the name of Hacker. Apparently, she was able to use some kind of dark magic to give herself wings made of shadows and she attacked him. He barely got away with his life.”

“So, she’s working with Thunderlane?” I asked as I paused outside of Fletch’s cave, then looked over at my dad, “It’s not good news, but at least I know more now about what to expect when I go after Thunderlane. As for The Crystal Empire problem, I think I’m going to have to talk with Violet and see if she has any ideas on how we can get into the city.”

His eyes went wide. “You’re still planning on going there?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, it’s the last tower I need to activate before I can unlock the systems in New Pegasus and finally put an end to Falling Shadows. To do that I need to get into The Forgotten Library which is under the castle,” I said.

He sighed again. “The city is occupied by a large force of former Enclave, I’m not sure how you can get close to the castle.”

I smiled a little. “I’ll think of something, that’s why I need to talk with Violet about it.”

“I’d love to help you,” he said.

“But you can’t…” I said, then stopped and thought of something, “Well, maybe you can, it depends on what I can find out about the black wall of death.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Not much to find out about that spell. It’s a large spell that makes a dense black fog that rolls continuously toward The Crystal Empire. Anypony that goes into it dies within a minute of walking into it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know the stories. Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadence sacrificed themselves to power a massive spell that put up the barrier that protects the city. Nopony really knows how they did it or why the barrier is still protecting the city even with the former rulers dead.”

“Yes, that’s the story I was told too. What you don’t know is that their bodies were crystalized when they performed the spell, and they’re still in the throne room to this day. The beam of power coming from the castle starts right from their connected horns. I’ve seen them myself. That’s why the castle is off limits to most of the citizens. No one knows what would happen if their bodies were tampered with,” he said.

I thought it over for a moment then shrugged. “That’s not important right now. The problem is figuring out why the black wall of death is still active. Spells like that should’ve faded away many years ago.”

He laughed. “You’ve heard about the Pink Cloud that was in Canterlot before it fell right?”

“I’ve seen it and what do you mean Canterlot fell?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you probably didn’t hear about that. The Enclave back east destroyed the city not long before The Stable Dweller took over the S.P.P. The entire city is gone,” he said, “My point is that the pink cloud there was still active for two hundred years, so there are spells that can last that long.”

I wanted to ask him what the hell the S.P.P. was, but I didn’t have time. “That spell is a mystery too, but my point is that the only way for a spell to keep running for so long is for it to be feeding off some kind of power source. Something is keeping the black wall from fading and I’m sure Violet might know what it is.”

“Maybe that’s true, but even if it is, how do you plan on stopping it? The spell will kill you too,” he said, looking worried.

I smiled. “Every spell has a counter, that’s why I need Violet. For now, we shouldn’t worry about it. Right now, I want to go see my soon-to-be sister-in-law, then get some sleep before planning my big day with Aura. I’m going to take life one day at a time for now.”

He smiled. “That might be a good idea for right now. I guess I’ll go see what Aura needed with me before I head back up to Stratus. You get a good night sleep though my Little Star.”

“You’ll be here for the Bonding, right?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Sweetie, you’re my only child, and I wouldn’t miss your wedding day for anything.”

I laughed. “First of all, it’s a Life Bond ceremony. Second, it’ll be at night according to Aura.”

He pulled me into a hug. “Either way, I will be here in three days to give you away to Aura. Life Bond or wedding, a father has the right to do that one thing for their daughter.”

I hugged him back. “I love you dad.”

“Love you too Little Star,” he said before flying back down to The Den.

I waited for a few moments then turned to head into Fletch’s Cave…

***

I’ll say this, I wasn’t expecting the conversation I’d have with Fletch. Turns out that she’d wanted to speak with me for a few reasons. The most important of all was that she wanted me to name her chick when he hatched. I knew the honor she’d offered me after seeing Aura do a similar thing for an old friend of hers after her life partner died. I was nervous because I didn’t know the first thing about naming a griffon. They tended to have strange names compared to ponies and I also came from a place where ponies normally changed their names when they came of age. Fletch told me to talk with Aura and her sisters along with Toby the grandson of Tonto and new story keeper of the Shadow Talons to find the right name for her son. She also told me she knew the gender because Stormy had told her. I don’t exactly know how, but I guess it was with science. Maybe there was a flashlight involved.

We spent more time catching up and hearing about how she’d been doing since Gouger died. They’d only been bonded for a short time and their own bonding had been quick due to the nature of the fighting going on at the time between The Unchained Talons and The Shadow Talons. She might not have had her soulmate for long as a bonded partner, but she’d grown up with Gouger and his loss has been hard on her. In just a few short months, she’d lost both griffons from her wing. Pluck died saving Gouger when Crimson Canyon fell to The Unchained. Gouger fell when they took it back and only because he’d tried to help his leader and friend fight against who he thought was an enemy.

One thing was clear when I talked with Fletch, she wasn’t the same griffon I’d met so many months ago when I was flying toward Hidden Sands. I’m sure if it wasn’t for her soon to hatch chick and her loyalty to her sisters, she would’ve let herself die by now. On a happier note, we did spend a while talking about what to expect for the Life Bond Ceremony. Later Arys came to find us, and she joined in the conversation going over a few things I’d need to do and what else to expect and what would be expected of me. There were two things however that worried me. One was that I needed to make something like the band Aura had given me to indicate our bond to other griffons, that was something Arys said she’d help me with which was nice of her. The second thing was a bit scarier, part of the ceremony involved something they called a trust fall. It was at the start of the ceremony, and it wasn’t simple.

When I heard it at first, I thought it was no big deal. We’d done trust fall exercises when I was in Stable 28. Not hard really, just fall back into the hooves of your partner. It showed trust in the one you fell toward and helped young stable ponies trust each other so they could perform their jobs in the stable better. Then they told me what this trust fall was really about. As the one who was asked to make a life bond by Aura, I had to do the fall and Aura had to catch me. It wasn’t a fall from a desk or anything like that. Normally a griffon had their wings tied and they fell from a great distance, trusting their partner and soon to be bonded to catch them. The trust part for the one catching the falling griffon was to trust that their soon to be partner would take the leap. If this wasn’t done, then the griffons couldn’t be bonded. You can’t start a life bond without full and open trust in your partner. I wasn’t scared that Aura wouldn’t catch me or anything like that…I just didn’t look forward to closing my eyes and willingly jumping toward the ground, but I would do it…for Aura.

After we talked, I headed out right as Aura was just about to pop in to check on us. I followed her out of Fletch’s cave, and we went to our room and soon fell asleep. Over the next couple days, Crimson Canyon was full of activity as The Shadow Talons got the large open area in the middle of the canyon ready for the upcoming celebration. I was kept busy as I worked with Arys and Syn and sometimes Fletch when she could get out of her cave for a bit. They all helped me make my own band for Aura which was easier than I’d thought it would be. Turned out that the band needed to have something of mine on it to show that Aura was mine just as my band that I had wrapped around my right upper foreleg was the sign of me being Aura’s.

What we ended up doing was using some of my longer silver hair to make a braid that with the help of Uncle Ori I cast a spell on that would keep it held together for decades without falling apart or fraying. I also put a small ruby on it that held a small bit of my magic in it making it glow just a little. It was simple but beautiful at the same time and I’d give it to Aura on the day we were bonded.

On the second day, ponies started showing up at Crimson Canyon and I soon found myself in the company of The Queen and her brother Sugar Buck with a few more of The Queens as guards to the leader of the gang. They’d been told by some of the Shadow Talons that I was back and what was going to be happening soon. The Queen and Sugar Buck both wanted to be here for the ceremony which I was happy to hear. Sugar Buck also told me that he’d be doing my mane and tail for the celebration which was great to hear since I hadn’t taken the time to fix it up since I’d been back.

The ponies that were left of Stable 28 and Cartwheel had gone back to Sandstone, the small mostly destroyed town outside Crimson Canyon when The Shadow Talons took the canyon back. They were now living there with new homes they built while I was away and most of them were coming too. I wanted Milkshake to be part of the ceremony since she was my oldest friend. She couldn’t however, since she’d just given birth to twins only a week before I’d gotten back, but she’d be there with Balefire while one of the former Stable 28 mares watched their twins for the night. She was still too tired from giving birth to be part of the ceremony. Wind Thrasher and Solstice were going to be part of it and Solstice was going to be my mare of honor, something griffons didn’t do for a Life Bond, but I found out that this Life Bond celebration was going to be different than most. According to Vervain and Oricalcos, they, along with my father had insisted that some of the pony culture should be part of it too. I heard it had been an amazing argument between Vi and dad when it was brought up while I’d been talking with Fletch.

In the end they came to an agreement with the help of Vervain and Oricalcos. As the days went by, more and more ponies I knew started showing up which surprised me since we were trying to keep the fact that I’d returned to the New Pegasus area secret, but when you have so many griffons flying in and out of the canyon all the time, I shouldn’t have been surprised word had gotten out. Luckily, so far, no one had come looking for me. Well, not anypony who meant me harm at least.

Nexus showed up on the second day with Laser Light, who hugged me tight when she saw me. Nexus apparently doesn’t do the hugging thing. That same day, Rusty from Trotston showed up with Javelin from Spitfire’s Flight Academy. Later in the day a few pegasi from Stratus showed up. Well, it was mostly just Fairy Glitter and her husband Cascade and a few guards to keep an eye on the new General of The Western Cloud Alliance. I was happy to see them both, even if they’d only taken a moment to say hi to me before they went right over to Solstice to first hug their daughter before they started laying into her for disappearing for five months.

Probably the best or at least funniest guest to show up came that second night. Greed flew down and nearly squeezed me to death when he landed and hugged me tight.

“Damn Shadow you have no idea how good it is to see you!” he said as he finally let me go, “I hear you’re getting hitched, too bad you’re settling down, guess I missed my chance to sweep you off your hooves.”

Harmony was with me when the large blue pegasus had shown up. She tilted her head at him, asking, “Who’s this weirdo?”

Thundercracker looked over at my zony friend and a huge smile came to his face as he took one of her hooves into his own and kissed it, “Names Thundercracker, but my most fearsome enemies call me Greed a former member of The Seven Sins of Equinity. Who by chance would you be?”

She pulled her hoof away before taking a step back. “I’m Harmony, a friend of Shadow’s. Why do they call you Greed? That’s kind of a stupid nickname.”

It was at that moment, Thundercracker’s ego was shattered by the most innocent of souls. I almost burst out laughing at the dumbstruck look on Greed’s face. I turned toward Harmony, saying, “Greed was his codename, just like Oricalcos used to be called Pride when he was the leader of their group. It’s the name they’re given to represent the crime that got them in trouble with the Enclave.”

Greed smiled again, mentally super gluing his ego back together. “That’s right, they call me Greed still because I get whatever I want. Be it caps, items, mares, or status,” he finished with a wink.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Whatever you want huh? Yeah, I doubt you can get whatever you want, and only a creep would go around saying he can get things like mares like we’re some kind of treasure to be horded by a stallion.”

His grin fell a little as he looked at me, ego once again shattered. “I’m confused, is she making fun of me?”

“No, I’m not,” Harmony said, “I’m just saying that the way you’re acting and how you’re describing yourself isn’t the best impression the first time meeting a mare or anypony for that matter,” she then looked at me, “Is he a friend of yours or what?”

I chuckled, then nodded. “He’s not that bad. He’s honestly been a big help in the past and he’s mostly harmless, he just has a big ego. Well, ‘had’ I should say. I believe it’s lying there in a decimated pile on the floor.”

“Hey not cool Shadow, you shouldn’t be talking about a stallion’s ego in front of a young mare like Harmony here,” Greed teased, trying to get back to his normal attitude.

Harmony laughed. “Wow, you really are full of yourself, aren’t you? First, I’m older than Shadow by about two years. Second, I’ve heard and seen things that most mares would find disturbing when I was a slave in Hoofington.”

His grin never faded as he said, “I do like mares with a spicy side to them. How about the two of us get a drink sometime miss Harmony, and I can show you that I’m not as bad as you seem to think I am,” he finished with another wink.

“Does this crap really work on mares? I’d rather fall into a vat of taint,” Harmony said after rolling her eyes, “Listen dude, I don’t like stallions who think like you. You’re rude and creepy, if you want to catch the interest of a mare like me, then you’d have to act like a gentlecolt and act like I’m more than just some mare you want to stick it to. I’m not a whore, I’m not a slave, and I have more respect for myself than to do anything with a buck like you,” she then turned to me, “Shadow I’ll be with Wind Thrasher if you need me. Scrubbing the residue of ‘loser’ out of my ears.”

I nodded at her, still chuckling as she walked away. Greed looked at me looking utterly confused. “Um…what did I say to piss her off?”

“I think you remind her too much of her old life and the way stallions looked at her when she was a serf. If you show her some respect like you have me over the past few months, she might not hate you outright,” I said.

Greed watched her walking away for a while before he said softly, “She’s beautiful,” he then shook his head then looked back at me, “Wind Thrasher’s up in the higher caves, right? Why isn’t Harmony flying up to them?”

“She told me that she never learned how to fly. Her former owner never allowed her to learn and since she grew up away from pegasi she wouldn’t have had anyone to teach her anyway. She said she knows how to glide if she needs to get down from high places and she’s very dexterous with her wings,” I said.

He looked toward where Harmony had gone. “Poor thing, I wonder if she’d let me teach her how?”

“Solstice said she’d be willing to teach her. So, if I were you, I’d check with her first. I’d also suggest that you try and be a little nicer to her,” I said, reaching up and patting him on the shoulder.

“But, I’m a nice stallion,” he said winking at me.

I chuckled. “Yeah, you are, but you’re also greedy and only think about yourself most of the time. Just start thinking of others more and you might find that you’ll get more out of the exchange than just thinking about yourself. Also, lose the twitch you got going on there, it’s weird.”

He chuckled before shaking his head slowly. “We’ll see shorty. Well, I’m gonna go check in with the others. Oh yeah, before I forget,” he leaned closer and whispered to me, “When you need that freaky looking glowing diamond back, let me know or if something happens to me, ask your pops. I needed to hide it because that Aquila chick’s been sending her goons out to find me to get it back.”

“How did she even know you had it?” I asked.

He shook his head, then shrugged. “No idea, my best guess is that somepony from Spitfire’s Flight Academy told one of her cultists that they saw me flying away just after talking with you. I can’t be sure though, but because I knew she was looking for it, I hid it in a place where only myself and Nightshade know where to find it. It was the best I could do.”

I took a moment to take that in, before saying, “At least it’s safe for now. Keep the location secret from everypony but my dad for now. I’ll ask for it once the time is right, if I need it that is.”

He smiled softly. “I’ll do that,” he smiled wider then bumped me with his hoof, “By the way, I’m looking forward to the ceremony tomorrow. Make sure you make it a night to remember for everypony and griffon there.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said with another laugh before hugging him and heading off to finish up with a few more tasks.

Around 1am I was suddenly whisked away by Solstice, Vervain, The Queen, Stormy, and Sunspot the pony-griffon hybrid. At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on because I wasn’t taken to the cave I was sharing with Aura, I was taken to Violet’s cave where Wind Thrasher and the alicorn were waiting with Toby. I was confused at first until the young griffon spoke.

He was a couple of years older than me but still looked like a young griffon. He’s mostly grey with a hint of light green around his eyes and on his tail with a black beak and talons. When he spoke, he said in a soft kind voice, “Shadow Star, I’m glad your friends and family were able to find you. I hope they did not pull you away from anything important.”

“Not really, I was just finishing up with a few things to get ready for tonight,” I said.

“You look tired Shadow,” Violet said as she looked me over.

“I am, but I’ll be sure to get a nap in before everything starts tonight,” I said before yawning.

Toby chuckled to himself and in that chuckle, I heard a younger version of Tonto in him. When he was done, he said, “You will have plenty of time to rest now Shadow. I am the one who will be preforming the Life Bond for Aura and you and I know that some parts of how this Life Bond will be different than is normal for us griffons, some of our traditions need to be met. For the rest of the night and into the morning and afternoon you will stay in this cave with your closest female friends and family. You will take this time to rest, relax, and reflect on the step you are about to take.”

“But…I thought I had to finish a few more tasks? I also told Fletch I’d come check on her before I took my nap, she said her chick will hatch soon and she wanted me there to name him,” I said starting to feel my heart race a little, “I also wanted to see Aura before everything got going.”

“I know you want to be there when the chick hatches and I also know about what Fletch wants you to do and the honor she’s passed to you,” he said kindly, “I promise that if her egg starts hatching before the ceremony, I will have a griffon come get you and take you to her. I do believe however that her egg has a couple more days before that happens, so you should be fine.”

“But what about seeing Aura?” I asked.

“Aura knows about the time apart and the reflection stage. As of right now, this is the beginning of the Life Bond. Aura is also in another location with her female friends and family for the next few hours. Three hours past noon Male family members will be allowed to visit but it’s rare that happens before you two will meet at the site of bonding,” he said.

I looked down at my hooves, saying quietly, “So, I’m just supposed to sit here doing nothing for the next few hours?”

He laughed softly. “You’ll be resting and reflecting, but I’m also sure your friends and family will keep you entertained. At 3pm you’ll start getting ready for when you go down to meet Aura. She’ll leave her cave an hour before you since she’s the one who asked to make the bond. Do you think you can respect this part of our traditions Shadow?”

“It’ll be hard, but yeah I can do that,” I said, even if I felt bad that I could see Aura before everything got started.

Solstice looked over at Toby, asking, “Will Sugar Buck be able to visit a bit earlier? He’s the one who’s doing her mane.”

“Ah yes, I almost forgot about that,” Toby said, “He can come by as early as 2pm if he needs to, but if he doesn’t need that much time then I’d prefer if he only stopped by after 3pm. The start of the full Life Bond ceremony will be at 8pm so he should have plenty of time.”

“I’ll be sure to let my brother know,” The Queen said as she looked over at me and winked, “I’m sure he can do it in the time given, though I’m sure he’ll make a mighty fuss about it.”

“I am glad, now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see Aura once more before I take my rest. Have a pleasant night Shadow and the rest of you,” Toby said before bowing a little and heading out of the cave.

“Okay, well I wasn’t expecting to be pulled away like that and told to say in one place for the next few hours,” I said with a laugh.

“We were only told about this an hour ago,” Wind Thrasher said.

I smiled, “So what’s with only females being allowed around me right now?”

Violet was the one who answered. “Griffons have an odd way of looking at marriage or bonding in their case. For between twelve to fourteen hours before a life bond, they believe that it’s only proper for the griffon or pony in your case, to have only the same gender around them so that griffon can concentrate on what they need to and reflect on the choice they are making. It’s an outdated way of thinking if you ask me, but griffons are big on tradition, even The Shadow Talons.”

I looked around the spacious cave. “Well, if I’m stuck here for a while, what should we do? Charades?”

“You’re going to go to sleep young mare,” Vervain said with a chuckle.

I yawned again. “I could use a good night’s sleep, but what will the rest of you do while I’m sleeping?”

“I plan on getting a nap in myself,” Stormy said, and a few of the others nodded as well.

“I have to go see Oricalcos before I get to bed, but I’ll be back before you’re up,” Vervain said.

“Well, I’m glad that on this last night of me being an unbonded mare, I have you all here with me, though I wish Byte was here. Why didn’t she come too?”

“She has to finish up with something special she’s working on with Nexus and Wingnut for tonight, you’ll probably see her when you wake up,” Wind Thrasher said, “I’ll be staying with you, the foal in me hasn’t been making sleep easy for the past few days and I’m going to try and get as much rest as I can.”

I smiled at them all, saying, “I’m kinda nervous, I hope I can get to sleep.”

Violet smiled. “I can help you if you need, I remember my own wedding and how nervous I was. Come, let’s get you settled in the nice bed The Shadow Talons loaned me while I’ve been staying here.”

And with that, most of us headed further back into the back of the cave…

***

One Hour Before The Ceremony…

I slept for hours, thanks mostly to Violet helping me with a powerful sleep spell. Normally those didn’t last long on me, but my grandmother isn’t a normal pony or even alicorn. I’d awoken just past noon and for the next few hours I’d started reflecting on what was about to happen in the next few hours. I’d been told what I needed to know about how this was going to happen, but I was still nervous and every few minutes I felt like was going to puke. Oddly enough that’s normal according to Violet and Vervain. For the first three hours since I woke, I did my best to keep myself calm as I thought about the life changing event that was going to be happening soon. It came down to a few facts I had to run through my head to finally calm down. I knew deep down that Aura, and I were meant to find each other and to always be together until the end of our lives. I loved her and my time apart from her only made that clearer. I couldn’t be apart from her ever again for that long, and because of that, I knew that the choice I made by taking the band with Aura’s black and red feather on it was the right one.

When three-o-clock rolled around two stallions showed up at the cave. One was Sugar Buck, and he was in fact very flustered that he wouldn’t have enough time to fix my mane and tail perfectly. I thought five hours to get ready was plenty of time…yeah that shows how much I know about shit like this. The other stallion was my dad. He’d come over and hugged me tight and soon I felt tears fall onto the top of my head as he cried silently. At first, I was worried until he started saying quietly, “I’m so proud of you my little star, I just wish Grim could be here to see this.”

I hugged him back tighter, replying just as quietly, “She’s keeping an eye on both of us Dad, and I know she’s happy just like you are.”

He pulled back, and it was strange to see the stallion with tears running down his face. Nightshade was a strong pony but seeing him cry didn’t make me think of him as weak or anything like that. My dad was the kind of stallion who showed his emotions when he could, and I loved that about him. I could still remember him on top of the sky carriage when I still thought he was only The Stranger, crying over the stuffed bird his daughter had given him. He’d been crying then too. It made him a strong buck in my eyes. Yeah, there are times as a soldier where he had to hide his emotions, but he never did when it came to those he loved.

“You ready for this Little Star?” he asked as he wiped his eyes.

“I think so,” I said.

“Good, well I’m gonna let you get ready. I’ll be down there waiting to walk you down to the platform,” he turned his gaze to Vervain, “You ready?”

“I am,” Vervain said before coming to hug me tight, “See you in a few hours, okay?”

“Okay,” I said before she headed out with my dad. I was then pulled away by Sugar Buck.

“Shadow honey, we don’t got much time, and there’s so much to be done,” the eccentric buck said as he pulled me further into the cave, “We gotta get ya washed up. Then I gotta get that mane and tail trimmed up nice, then ya gotta get into your dress and then I’ll have to fix up your mane even more. So much to do!”

I didn’t have time to argue before I was tossed into a bath that Violet prepared. I learned a new lesson that day, never try and fight against a buck whose special talent is doing manes and tails, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, on your wedding day you’re never clean enough. Four hours…four fucking hours I spent getting scrubbed, brushed, washed, trimmed, washed again, measured, trimmed again, washed again, and more as the mares and one Sugar Buck did everything, they could to make me not look like a dirty dishrag. A dirty dishrag that spent five months in The Badlands, getting covered in blood, guts, dirt, grime, and so many other nasty things that I’m sure most wouldn’t want to try to even guess at. A mare that spent little time caring for herself and it showed when they started to clean me. Yes, I said ‘they’, because I also had no control over the fact that Violet, Stormy, and Solstice thought it was their jobs to clean my entire body. Yeah, I’m glad life bonds can only be a one-time thing, because I never want anypony cleaning me like that ever again…unless I’d been knocked out first. You have no idea how embarrassing it is when a mare like Stormy comments on parts of your body that normally only a few ponies get to see up close, well griffon soon…only one griffon…forever.

One hour left before I’m allowed to leave my cave and head down to stand with Aura. Sugar Buck was clipping back my mane, muttering something about stupid traditions making it harder for him to make my mane look perfect. I was dressed up in the silver dress Empress Sheena gave me back at The Kingdom, only somepony altered it. It now had red trim running around the neck and down the back meeting at the end and giving a beautiful contrast to my mane and eyes. I didn’t have a vale or anything like that, it’s not something that’s easy to find in The Wasteland. I was lucky to even have a dress. Either way, this isn’t a pony wedding, it’s a griffon life bond and griffons don’t hide their faces for something like this.

My heart was racing as I paced back and forth trying my best to keep my nerves down. After Sugar Buck left, the only ponies left in the cave with me were Harmony and Vervain. After a few minutes, Harmony said, “Shadow, you gotta relax, you’re acting like you’re about to get into a fight or something.”

I did my best to take a deep breath before I responded, saying, “I feel like I’m about to head into a fight.”

“Why are you so worried?” Harmony asked.

“I’m not…worried, per-say, I’m just…nervous. I’m not even sure why,” I said before finally stopping and running a hoof over my face slowly.

“I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” Vervain said with a kind smile, “Most stallions or mares are nervous on their wedding day, and this isn’t a normal wedding for a pony. I’m sure even Aura is nervous, it’s normal. You just need to remember to take a deep breath and remember that everything’s going to be fine.”

I looked over at her and did my best to keep tears out of my eyes as I said quietly, “What if I mess something up, or I say the wrong thing?”

“If you keep acting like that then you will. You need to stop thinking so much and just let your body relax. Trust me, when you go out there, you’re going to see Aura and forget about all your nerves. You look beautiful sweetie and for the first time in a long time you look happy. If you mess up a little or say something silly that’s okay, because it doesn’t matter what anypony or griffon thinks. You’re bonding with the griffon you love and who loves you just as deeply. That’s all that matters,” she said before coming over and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe my eyes.

“Vervain’s right Shadow, just remember to keep watching Aura and you’ll be okay,” Harmony said with a smile.

I sniffed, then smiled back before taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, then saying quietly, “I wish my mom was here.”

Vervain looked sad for a moment before she hugged me again, saying, “So do I sweetie.”

“At least I have my other mom here though. I know my mom’s watching me even now, but I’m glad you’re here for me,” I said.

Vervain pulled back, saying softly, “You’re the daughter I always wanted, even if you can be a pain in the ass now and then.”

I chuckled, then checked the time on my Mark II. “It’s almost time, you two should head down and get ready. I think I need a few minutes to myself before my dad comes to get me.”

“Damn, do we have to? I was hoping to stay in here as long as I could,” Harmony complained.

I wasn’t surprised, she’d been told that she was supposed to be seated right next to Greed. She was avoiding him as much as possible. I have no idea how that happened, but I was getting a little amusement out of it, so I said, “Avoiding Greed will only make him try harder to get to know you. I say give him another chance to show you he’s not so bad. If he does do something that pisses you off though, just keep the anger down until this is all over, then tell Oricalcos. He’ll make sure Greed leaves you alone.”

She sighed. “I guess he’s been trying hard to get me to at least talk to him, so I’ll give him that chance. Still, my first impression of him isn’t good. I just feel like he’s trying to get me to like him so he can add me to his tally of mares he’s claimed as his playthings.”

To my surprise Oricalcos showed up right then, saying, “Thundercracker’s more talk than anything else. In the few years I worked with him, he’s only been with two mares, both of whom he was dating. He talks a big game when it comes to mares, but really, he’s a romantic at heart. One who’s more honest with mares he likes than most stallions.”

Harmony lifted an eyebrow. “So you’re saying that he has a crush on me now or something?”

Oricalcos shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not, but he finds you interesting. It’s probably because you’re a zony, and not just any normal zony, but a pegasus. His codename of Greed didn’t come from the fact that he’s a good thief, which he is, but because he finds rare things to be interesting and he wants to either have them for himself or to understand them better than most.”

Harmony sighed, then said, “Fine I’ll go sit next to him, but I’m not going to be happy about it!”

“Just don’t make a scene until after everything’s finished, please,” I said before hugging her.

“I’ll do my best,” she said in a teasing tone before walking out of the cave.

Vervain followed, hugging me again, saying, “I’ll see you soon and good luck sweetie,” she then moved over to my uncle and kissed him quickly before heading out of the cave after Harmony.

When they were both gone, Oricalcos looked over at me and smiled, “You’re beautiful Star.”

“Thank you, Uncle Ori,” I said blushing slightly.

He moved closer, then used a bit of magic to fix a stray lock of my mane, before saying, “I wanted to give you something before you headed out there. Well, your father wanted to give you this too, but since he gets to walk you down to Aura, he let me do this small part.”

I cocked my head. “A present? I thought those were given afterward.”

He chuckled to himself. “Normally yes, but this is different,” he pulled out a beautiful statuette.

My eyes went wide as he held it in his magic. It was just like the other four I found. It was perfect, as if it had just been made yesterday. It was an earth pony mare with a straw yellow mane and a cowpony hat bucking at the air. An inscription was on its base saying ‘Be Strong’. It was Applejack. I took it slowly with my magic and just like with the others I felt something slightly change within me. I felt…stronger, not only in body but in spirit. I looked back at my uncle, saying, “Thank you…but where did he get this?”

“Your mom gave it to him on their wedding day, she found it when she was up in Nimbus back when she was still dating Striker. She said it was in an old lab she was told to use when she started working up in Nimbus. It was just sitting on a desk with a few notes left over that Grim said used to belong to Rainbow Dash. From what I’ve learned over the years, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were very competitive with each other, but they were also the closest of the six ministry mares. Grim thinks it was left there by mistake when Rainbow Dash had to leave Nimbus. No idea why she’d been there in the first place or why she was in a lab of all places, but that’s what your mother thinks,” he said.

“This makes five that I have so far, the only one I haven’t found is Pinkie Pie,” I said happily as I looked down at the former leader of The Steel Rangers and the Ministry of Wartime Technology.

“We both wanted you to have it. I know you’ve been collecting them, and your dad wanted you to have something that used to belong to Grim. Something happy at least,” he said with a chuckle.

I went over to my saddle bags and placed Applejack inside right next to Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity. When I was done, I went back over to Oricalcos and hugged him. “I’ll treasure it for all time.”

He hugged me back. “I know you will. Now I need to head back out, your dad is going to be waiting for you just outside the cave. He said to head out when it’s time.”

“Isn’t he coming in here to get me?” I asked.

Oricalcos shook his head. “He said you need to take those first few steps alone. He also said that you’ll know the right moment to come out.”

He hugged me again, then started to leave, but I stopped him. “Uncle Ori, before you go, can I ask you something?”

He looked back at me. “Sure thing Star.”

“I’ve wondered this for the longest time, and I know it’s in the past now and really doesn’t matter, but why did The Enclave name you Pride and give you and the others the name of The Seven Sins of Equinity? I’ve never really understood what The Sins really are. I understand not being too prideful or lustful and all that crap, but it’s not like those are part of any known religion I’ve ever heard of or even part of Enclave law or belief,” I said as I looked at him.

He laughed for a moment, then said, “The Enclave didn’t give us the name…I did. They did give me the codename Pride because of what I did, but that was also partly because of things I said during my trial. However, The Seven Sins of Equinity are from an old rhyme I read in a book once. It goes like this.”

He cleared his throat, then recited, “Listen my foal, for now you shall hear of the only seven slayers a pony must fear. First beware Pride, lest belief in one’s might has you discount the foe who is braving your sight. Never Envy other ponies their wealth, power, or home for dark plots and plans will bring death to your own. Your Wrath shouldn’t win, when spears strike your hide, anger kills cunning, which you will need to survive. A pony must rest, but Sloth you should dread else long hours napping may lead death to your bed. ‘Greed is good’ or so foolish ponies will say, until piles of treasure bring killing thieves where you lay. Hunger is your body, and at times you must eat, but Gluttony makes fat ponies who can’t fly at their need. Lust for glory, gold, or mares leads reckless young colts to the deadliest of snares. So, take heed of this wisdom, precious foal of mine, and the long years of life are sure to be thine.”

“Sounds a bit strange as a rhyme for ponies,” I said.

“I thought so too and it’s possible that was copied for ponies many years ago from dragons or the zebras or even griffons, I’m not sure. The thing is I always found it to be words of wisdom, because there may be many things in life that can kill you, but those seven are the deadliest. They’re sins in the eyes of some and even though we all find ourselves falling into one or more of those sins, we should still try to pull away from them,” he said.

I smiled. “Maybe you’re right,”

He shrugged, then said softly, “Good luck Star.”

“Thank you, Uncle Ori,” I said before he left the cave.

I took a moment to look myself over in the mirror one last time while I waited for the so-called sign to leave. I felt a small smile pull at my lips as I took myself in one last time. It was hard to believe that not long ago, I was dressed in damaged and dirty combat armor, my mane messed up most of the time and hunting down ponies. The mare I was looking at in the mirror didn’t look how I saw myself most of the time. She was beautiful. I was beautiful. I reached a hoof up and brushed it over the feather that hung off the band around my foreleg. Finally, I turned away from the image and headed toward the mouth of the cave. I wasn’t going to waste even a second once it was time for me to go down. Right before I reached the cave entrance, I saw red and blue lights come to life just outside, illuminating the interior of the cave. At the same moment, music started to play slowly at first, large drums gave off deep notes.

Thump…thump…thump…thump, Thump…thump…thump…thump…thump, thump.

The notes were soon followed by other instruments. I took in a deep breath. Then, holding my head high, I stepped out of the cave. I forgot that I was in one of the highest caves of Crimson Canyon. One where the landing moved out over the central area. My eyes went wide as I saw what everyone had been preparing while I’d been in the cave. The full moon was high in the sky, shining down its beautiful pale blue light. Along the highest edges of the canyon, lighting had been placed all around it mixing reds, blues, greens, pinks, and so much more to make a beautiful display as they wrapped around the canyon moving down the pathways that led down to the central area. High in the sky, griffons and pegasi were flying in tight formations with streamers on their talons or hooves, doing tricks in the air. All around I saw more ponies and griffons all looking up at me as I made my way to the edge of the platform. As soon as I reached the edge and looked down, I saw my father waiting for me at the end of an isle that had been set up at the other end of the canyon. I knew he was going to walk me down to Aura, but I thought he’d be waiting for me up here. It was then that I remembered what I’d have to do. I’d have to take a last step, a leap of faith in my soon to be bonded partner, a trust fall. I had to show the griffons of The Shadow Talons that I trusted Aura with my life and Aura had to show that she would always be there to catch me. Her trust part of this was trusting me to take the leap and to put all my faith into her.

It was just then that I heard her voice echoing across all of Crimson Canyon and my eyes fell on the stage. She was dressed in her own dress. It was a deep blue with silver threading running across it. A simple yet beautiful addition to her and she looked great in it. I took this all in, in a matter of seconds before Aura’s words finally reached my ears and they weren’t just words. She was singing, her pure beautiful voice flowing out into the world. A song just for me, but one everyone was present for. I wish I could remember the words to the song, but at the moment the words didn’t matter to me, only the meaning behind them. I knew she was telling me to put my life and my trust into her talons. I smiled and closed my eyes right as the words of her song told me to…I think…like I said, I can’t quite remember the words. I then took that last step and fell toward the ground level of Crimson Canyon.

As I fell, I twisted in the air, spreading my hooves wide for a moment before I tilted my body down and crossed them, diving straight down. Normally something like this would have terrified me. I was still scared of heights even if I spent the past few months flying around with griffons or pegasi, but I trusted Aura to catch me. I knew the music and Aura’s song was still going, but for that short moment in time that I fell toward what could be my death, everything was quiet. I could feel the air rushing past me, almost pulling my mane out of its styling, but Sugar Buck’s work was perfect. I smiled and I felt Aura coming toward me a moment before her talons wrapped around me, pulling me close to her. Then the world came back as I was lifted once again into the sky, Aura finishing her song right as we swooped over the griffons and ponies. Cheers erupted from them all and only then did I finally open my eyes and look up at the griffon I loved.

She smiled down at me and winked. “Good job Shadow and thank you for putting your trust in me.”

I kept my words quiet as I replied, “I will always trust you Aura, I just hope I don’t need to do that again,” I blushed as I said that, hoping she couldn’t feel my body shaking a little. I mean sure I trusted her to catch me, but my body didn’t seem to know that.

She smiled again as the crowd cheered for us. Aura flew me down and set me next to my father. Without another word she flew back into the air and landed on the stage where Toby was waiting for us along with Wind Thrasher and Solstice on one, and Viridiana and Syn on the other. I also saw Vervain up on the stage too, though I wasn’t quite sure why she was up there.

My dad smiled at me, then hugged me softly, “I’m so proud of you my little star.”

“Thank you, dad,” I replied.

“You ready?” he asked, holding one foreleg out.

I nodded. “I am, but why is Vervain up there in the spot you’re supposed to be at?”

I knew how the griffons did this ceremony now and the spot was where Dad should be as my parent. When griffons did a life bond like this, one older family member, normally a parent, had a part to play before the two can be bonded. My dad just smiled as I asked him this, before replying, “I am your father, but Vervain was the one who raised you. I’m letting her take my place because she knows you better than either Grim or I. I gave her my blessing to take my place as your mother for this. I love you so much my little Star, but I can’t do what Vervain can for that part of this,” I saw tears in his eyes even though he was smiling, “That’s why I wanted to give you away like this. This part is a father’s duty to his daughter and the small part I can play in your next step in life.”

I teared up too but did everything I could to hold them back. I hugged him again, saying, “I love you dad.”

He sniffed, then I took his hoof right as the band changed to play the music that was at every wedding for ponies. This was some of the few changes that were made for the life bond to honor my race. I walked next to my dad slowly, my eyes fixed on Aura’s as I made my way closer to her. I heard a few cheers from ponies and griffons I knew, but my attention was only on her.

Soon I was at the stage, my father stopping at the bottom of four steps that led up. He pulled his hoof back, then leaned in and kissed my cheek before looking up at Toby. The griffon smiled down at the two of us and said with his voice echoing across Crimson Canyon just like Aura’s had, “Stallion, state your name and your relationship to the mare that will join her soul with this griffon.”

When my father spoke, his voice was also projected, I was guessing that a unicorn, probably Stormy, was casting a spell to make sure everyone could hear, “I come to you today as a father, my name is Nightshade. I am the leader of the Western Cloud Alliance, but today I am only the father to Shadow Star.”

Toby lifted his beak a little higher as he asked, “And Nightshade, Father of Shadow Star, why do you come before me today?”

“I come to perform the duties of a father and give away my daughter, letting her join our family with that of the Bloodtalon line,” he said.

“Very good Nightshade. One last question, will you be speaking on behalf of your child tonight?” Toby asked.

“I may be Shadow Star’s Father, but I was not the one who was blessed enough to raise her. That honor goes to my good friend Vervain. She has been watching over my daughter since she was four years old, when she first went to the Steel Rangers with my wife Grimoire Spell. She looked after Shadow Star while her mother had to work, she taught her how to be a good pony. When my wife had to leave Stable 28, Vervain gave up many years of her life to raise Shadow Star as if she was her own. I love my daughter very much, but she is not the pony she is today because of me, but because of Vervain,” my dad said, his chin shaking a little as he spoke.

A softness came to Toby’s face as he said, “It takes a strong father to admit something like that. You are a brave stallion and a good parent to give your place as the one to speak for your daughter to another who knows her better. With that said, please let Shadow Star come forth to start her new life with the one she is meant to bond with.”

My dad bowed, then moved to hug me once more before he went over to the seats not far off the stage. It was only when he took his seat next to Oricalcos that I heard him let out a small sob, but when I looked over at him, I only saw pride in his eyes. I then turned back toward Toby and Aura and took the next four steps up to join them. Once I was next to Aura, I gave her a small smile then faced Toby right as Aura did.

The Young Griffon stood up on his hind legs and lifted his talons to the air, saying, “Everyone, today we have gathered here in Crimson Canyon, the home of our former talon company The Red Talons, now the home of your new talon company, The Shadow Talons, to join the lives of Shadow Star and Aura Bloodtalon. I know that to the griffons here who know our old ways find a little of this life bond ceremony to be a bit strange, while the ponies here most likely find a lot of this to be strange as well. Before we begin, I want to explain so that everyone here understands. This is the first time a griffon and a pony have been bonded like this in many centuries, but it has happened before. In the old texts that have been passed down to the keeper of the ways, I was able to find how it was done in the past. The best way to explain is to say that we have mixed what a normal pony’s wedding is with that of the griffon life bond. This is to honor both the pony and the griffon who are to join together on this night. As many of the griffons know, but I’m sure some if not most of the ponies may not, a griffon can only be bonded on the night of a full moon. In the past two hundred years we haven’t been able to know for sure if a bond was taking place on the right night, but now with the sky free of the clouds we are making sure to follow this tradition. For the rest of the night, I ask that everyone stays quiet so that we may proceed properly and respect this ceremony. If anyone has a problem with a griffon and pony joining like this, they may leave now. If you stay and try and stop anything from here on out, you will be escorted out of Crimson Canyon.”

He waited for a few moments then with a smile he went back down to all fours looking a little relieved. He then looked at Syn, then Vervain. “Syndy Bloodtalon, Vervain, please stand next to your family member,” when Vervain came to stand next to me, I looked at her and saw she was smiling. When they were both ready, Toby continued, “You two are here to represent the family member for Shadow or Aura. Do both of you swear to speak truthfully and with the best interests of your charges in mind?”

Vervain bowed her head a little, saying, “As the pony who raised Shadow Star as a second mother, I do so swear to speak truthfully and with Shadow’s best interests in mind.”

Syn spoke next, saying, “As the griffon who watched Aura grow up and took care of her when our mother was busy with her work as the leader of the former Red Talons. With our mother no longer with us and as the oldest of her sisters I do so swear to speak truthfully and with Aura’s best interests in mind.”

This was the part of the whole thing I found a bit weird but Fletch and Aura had both done their best to explain it. For the griffons, they couldn’t form a true-life bond without having a member of their family or someone close to them speak on their behalf to show all that this wasn’t something that was being forced or hurried into by young griffons. A life bond is truly till one of the bonded dies. There’s no divorce for griffons. The family member is the one who speaks for the two bonding to show that this is what’s best for both parties. If the two family members can’t agree on the bond, it could all stop here.

“Very good,” Toby said, “Vervain, to the best of your knowledge, is the life bond that is about to take place something that you agree with? Was Shadow Star forced to make this pact with Aura Bloodtalon either through promises of riches, power, or force? Also, is Shadow Star going into this life bond with full knowledge of what will be expected of her and the permanence of this bond? Lastly do you see any problems with your family joining with that of the Bloodtalons?”

Vervain stood straight as she responded, saying, “My foster daughter Shadow Star is only joining into this pact with love in her heart. She understands that this life bond is for life and cannot be broken,” she then looked over at me and smiled, “I have no problem with our families becoming one. I see the love between these two and know that they have always been meant to be together. They have faced good times and even more hard ones and always find a way back to each other. I trust Shadow’s life in the talons of Aura Bloodtalon.”

“I am happy to hear that,” Toby said before he looked over at Syn, “Syndy Bloodtalon, to the best of your knowledge, is the life bond that is about to take place something that you agree with? Was Aura Bloodtalon forced to make this pact with Shadow Star either through promises of riches, power, or force? Also is Aura Bloodtalon going into this life bond with full knowledge of what will be expected of her and the permanence of this bond? Lastly do you see any problems with your family joining with that of Shadow Star’s?”

Syn smiled and bowed her head, saying, “My sister has had a hard life and gone through many trials. I have watched her sink slowly into depression over the years as she did her best to hide who she truly is from the rest of our family. It wasn’t until she met Shadow that I saw a change come over my sister and watched as she found joy in her connection with this pony. My sister understands what is expected of her with this life bond and is only entering into it with love in her soul. I also believe that Aura and Shadow are meant to be together and that they are true soul mates. My family and I are happy to see our family join with Shadow Star’s.”

Toby smiled wider then bowed to them both. “With that said, both of you please shake hoof and talon. When that is finished, Vervain please present Shadow’s symbol of love and the life bond to Syndy. Syndy, since your sister is the one who gave her own symbol to Shadow, please present the band to Aura.”

Vervain turned to me and with a shaky hoof I took out the band I had made for Aura. It was made from my own mane clippings, wrapped into a few tight braids then joined together into one large braid held together with magic. On one side I’d placed a ruby that held a bit of my magic which made it glow softly. I gave it to Vervain who took it gently before bringing it over to Syn. She took it and brought it over to Aura and for the first time since Toby started speaking, we both faced each other. I saw wonder in her eyes as she saw what I’d made for her. A tear fell from her eye as she held up her left talon for her sister to place the band high on her foreleg. When that was finished, Syndy gave her blessing to Vervain for me.

“Now that the bands have been given you two may step back or take a seat,” Toby said, then he looked at Wind Thrasher and Solstice, “The two of you are the representatives for Shadow am I right?”

“We are,” Solstice said, “I am her mare of honor and Wind Thrasher is her bride’s mare. This is a normal role for close friends or family in a pony wedding.”

Toby smiled. “I respect Shadow’s race’s way of bonding, and you are free to stay up here and stand witness to the bond just as Viridiana and Syndy will do for Aura.”

They both smiled before Wind Thrasher said, “We’re happy to be here with our friend and sister.”

Toby then looked at Aura and I. “You two I understand have something to say to each other before we proceed, am I correct?”

We both nodded and when Toby didn’t say anything else, Aura spoke, “Shadow, when I first met you, I was only looking to collect a bounty so I could find a way to rejoin my family and my former talon group. Back then, all I cared about was forgetting about the death of the mare I loved…the mare I had to kill because she’d gotten sick and lost her mind. That night, I almost died because I underestimated a small unicorn and her goofy pegasus friend,” Aura looked toward Stardust who was sitting in the front row and winked at him, “You showed me kindness that night and saved my life. What you don’t know is that you did more than just give me a potion to make sure I’d heal from my injuries, you started me on a new path to find who I truly am. I am a griffon who never quite fit in with my own kind. I am a griffon who was scared to admit who I was. I was a griffon who hid from the world. You changed that, and even though we have had our ups and downs over the past few months. I’m happy that I decided to steal a bounty from my sister Fletch that night and go after a scared stable dweller. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you, the mare that I know is my true soul mate. I love you with all my heart and even when you’re being a stubborn fool, I will always be there for you and love you. Today I give you not just my heart, but my very soul. I love you Shadow Star of the Crystal Empire, Courier of the Marejave.”

I was crying now but my smile was wide as I took in a few deep breaths and responded, saying, “Almost ten months ago, I left my Stable not knowing anything about myself apart from the life I had in Stable 28. I was foolish, angry, stubborn, and scared. In all this time I’m still foolish, angry, stubborn, and scared, but thanks to you being by my side, I’ve learned that I can trust others to help me see when I’m being a fool, or to calm me when I’m angry, and to force me to see another way when I’m being stubborn, and to hold me when I’m scared. When I first met you, I was scared. When you followed me to pay back a debt, I was annoyed mostly that I had to deal with a random freelancer griffon who I didn’t know. Back then I had no idea where my life would lead me next, and thanks to you, I found my way. That griffon who followed me around first to pay back a life debt then as my bodyguard and later as my friend, helped me become a better pony, even if I didn’t always listen to her advice. I am thankful every day that I met you and that you forced me to tell you how I felt. I’m happy that on that morning when I first came to you after I made a big mistake at The Applewood that you didn’t judge me for what I did, but instead held me and made me feel better. You have done so much for me Aura that I sometimes wonder if I’m stuck in some kind of dream. I don’t deserve a griffon as wonderful as you, but I’m happy that you are mine. I love you with all my heart and I give my love and my soul to you.”

Toby smiled when we finished then pulled a beautiful gold silk ribbon out from a pouch at his side. “Beautiful words from you both. Now please face me and Shadow lift your right foreleg and Aura your Left.”

We both turned toward him and did as he asked, our forelegs touching as we did. He took the gold silk ribbon and wrapped it around our forelegs in a looping pattern, binding us together before finishing with a single knot. When he was finished, he took a step back and once again stood on his hindlegs as he lifted his talons to the sky, “On this night, under the full moon and under the watchful eyes of our ancestors who have yet to be reborn, I hereby bind these two as one.”

Before he could say more the moon overhead seemed to get brighter and as Aura and I looked at each other time seemed to stop. As it did it felt like only Aura, and I could move in that moment of timelessness. Then a speck of light shot out of my horn and from Aura’s chest and met across the gold silk. Both of our eyes went wide as a whisper flew over us on the wind. Two voices speaking as one, one sounded like a mare, the other a male griffon, “Through time and space, through life and death, two souls will always be one. The bond has been made once again, treasure it and the one you love for all time as we did long ago Aura and Shadow. In this life and the next, you two will always be one.”

Before I could ask what the hell that was, time started again, and Toby was back down on all fours. He smiled at us both as if he had no idea what had just happened. He bowed to us both, saying, “The life bond is made, now seal your bond with a kiss and show your love for all to see.”

Aura looked just as confused as I was, but she smiled and moved close, saying quickly, “We can ignore whatever that was for now,” then she kissed me.

I kissed her back right as everyone started cheering. As we kissed Toby said loudly, “I give you all Aura and Shadow Bloodtalon, the two leaders of The Shadow Talons!”

I smiled as I pulled back from Aura, saying softly, “I love you Aura, but there’s no way I’m letting anyone call me Bloodtalon.”

She laughed and kissed me again…

***

Two Hours Later…

“Now this is what I call a PARTY!” Solstice yelled as she downed another Sparkle Cola Black.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself sis,” Stardust said loudly over the roaring music that was filling Crimson Canyon.

Aura and I were sitting together at a long table right in front of The Den, Wind Thrasher was next to me, and Syn was sitting next to Aura. We were the only four sitting down for now, taking a break from the celebration and dancing going on around us. Wind Thrasher was in her later stage of her pregnancy so she really couldn’t do much, though she’d slow danced with Stardust for a little while before everything started getting wild. I knew griffons could party, I’d seen it at the rebirth celebration, but holy shit a life bond celebration seemed to top even that.

I laughed at my two friends watching the hundreds of griffons and ponies drink and enjoying life for the moment. Fletch had been here a while ago but she needed to get back to her egg and I was planning on seeing her before Aura and I retired for the night. I felt kind of bad for her being alone while the rest of us were having fun. I smiled again as I watched Wingnut dancing like a fool with Byte not far off, both laughing at each other. Vi was also having a good time dancing with a large griffon male. It was good to see her enjoying herself too.

“Are you sure you don’t want to have something to drink Shadow?” Syn asked, looking around Aura.

I smiled and shook my head. “Trust me, I’d love to have a sip of Wild Pegasus, but I made a promise that I wouldn’t drink anymore.”

Aura smiled at that. “Yeah, sadly she has a bit of an addiction problem to the stuff or at least that’s what Vervain said. I just want her to go a few months without drinking any booze. We’ll see how she deals with it later, but even before she went to The Badlands, she drank to deal with her pain, so no drinking for a while.”

“I think it’s a good thing to stay sober,” Wind Thrasher said.

I laughed. “Of course you do, you have one drink, and you turn into a bumbling fool.”

She glared at me. “That happened once.”

“Yeah, and it was fucking hilarious. Just remember Wind Thrasher, it’s all about the pink bombs and weasels,” I said, laughing harder.

She looked at me confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have no idea Wind Thrasher, you’re the one who said it to me when you were nearly passed out drunk during the rebirth celebration,” I said, now laughing so hard I was in tears.

She growled at me. “I did not say that!”

“Oh, you did, just ask Dusty…no better yet, ask Vervain. She’ll tell you the truth, Dusty might lie just to keep you happy,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

“You’re so mean,” Wind Thrasher said, then she started to giggle, “Okay, if I did say that then I can see why it would be funny. I mean what the fuck does that even mean!?”

We all started laughing then and I kept watching the party go on. After a little while of small-talk I finally got to my hooves, then said to Aura, “Come on love, let’s go show the rest of these drunken fools how to really dance.”

She grinned. “What kind of dance did you have in mind shrimp?”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Oh, now you did it, calling me a shrimp comes with consequences. You see I learned how to do some very interesting ballroom dances from Elder Applejam.”

“Oh, I’m scared now.” she teased back.

I waved goodbye to Syn and Wind Thrasher before trotting over to the band that was playing not far off and made a quick request. The griffon I talked to grinned then nodded signaling to the rest of his band mates as I made my way back to Aura. “Let’s see if you can impress this shrimp Aura Bloodtalon,” I teased as I pulled her with my magic toward the center of the dancers, who all moved out of our way until an open small circle formed around us.

She cocked an eyebrow at me, but still smiled as she watched me, move a couple meters away from her, then stand on my back hooves. Honestly what I was about to do was something I’d learned from Applejam, but I never mastered it when I was young. It was too fast paced for my sick body to handle and even when I was older and better, it would’ve been hard. That was until I’d started training with Gaston on how to fight and learning balance and form. As I balanced on my rear hooves, I moved one hoof forward and the other back and up over my head then cocked my head to one side and gave Aura a grin right as the band started to play a quick fast-paced tune.

“Let’s see if Aura Bloodtalon knows how to tango,” I said.

She grinned, then moved into position showing me that she at least knew the first steps. “I’ll take the lead.”

That was good, because it wasn’t easy to take the lead when you were the smaller partner. As the music started up again and exploded around us, Aura moved. She moved up to me taking my hoof into a talon and pulled me close, her other talon moving behind my back right before she pulled me close, her face nearly touching mine. At the same moment we moved. I followed her lead, my hooves keeping balance as we circled around the small opening. I kept my eyes locked on hers as we pulled away from each other for only a moment, then Aura pulled me back in sharply and we danced.

The night went on and I held onto Aura, and she held onto me as we tangoed then moved from that into another dance and another, the griffons and ponies around us joining in after a quick round of cheers and applause. I think this was the first time since that night we stayed at the Applewood that life felt normal and free. When we finished our sixth dance, a slow number that I utterly enjoyed, I reached a hoof up and pulled Aura to me, kissing her deeply as the song ended. If I could’ve chosen a perfect night in my life, this would be the night.

When we finished, we started moving around the crowd, talking with griffons and ponies, some I knew, others I didn’t. Most gave congratulations, others offered gifts, more just talked with us and asked us questions about how we met and all that noise. At some point in the night, I saw Vervain and Oricalcos slow dancing near the edge of the crowd. I smiled as I saw the love they had in their eyes which made me happy. Then they kissed and I turned away gagging. I mean yeah, I was happy for them and all, but still…no pony wants to watch ponies they see as almost parents kissing.

Later when Aura was talking with the leader of one of the smaller talon groups from the area, I walked around just saying hi to ponies and griffons when I found Wingnut and Byte both passed out next to one of the huts. Smiling I took a moment away from the fun to pick them both up in my magic and take them to bed. Byte might be only a few months younger than me, but she was still a filly and the two of them did have a lot of fun tonight. I did however put them in separate huts. We had enough pregnant ponies and soon to hatch griffon chicks as it was. See…I can be responsible sometimes!

It was when I was on my way back that I ran into a pony I never thought I’d meet, honestly, I kind of dreaded meeting him. The stallion was older, with a brown coat, a silver-grey mane and a grey fu manchu mustache. He was wearing a black and gold fedora and a blue suit and tie. When he trotted up to me, he smiled and held out a hoof which I shook, not knowing who I was about to get into a conversation with…not until he said, “It’s nice to meet you at last Courier, I’m Mr. New Pegasus.”

My smile fell faster than a falling star, “Oh…” that’s all I could get out.

He lifted one silver eyebrow, “Oh? I thought I’d get more than just an ‘Oh’ from you Shadow.”

I dropped his hoof. “Sorry, it’s nice to meet you Mr. New Pegasus.”

He chuckled. “From the sound of it, I’m guessing that’s just you trying to be polite. You can also just call me Mic or Audio Mic if you prefer my full name, but Mic is what I prefer when I’m not on the radio.”

I sighed but did my best to smile. “I don’t mean to come off as rude, but I wasn’t expecting to find you here. I heard you’d gone into hiding after some shit went down in New Pegasus with the NLR. I didn’t think you’d come here though.”

Mic laughed. “Well, it wasn’t my first choice I tell ya, but the Shadow Talons offered me a place to stay for a while until I can get back to my studio in New Pegasus.”

“Yeah, now that I think about it, I believe I remember hearing something about that from Vi,” I said.

“She’s a sweetheart that Vi, scary but also sweet when she wants to be,” he said before moving closer to a table that had refreshments on it.

I followed and picked up a Sunrise Sarsaparilla. After I took a sip I asked, “So I’m guessing that you’re going to do a report about me being back and what happened here tonight.”

He looked over at me, sipping on a glass of wild Pegasus. “Normally I would yes, but I also understand that the Shadow Talons want to keep the fact that you’re back in New Pegasus a secret, at least for now. I can respect that, though for how long I’m not sure. I pride myself on being a reporter that tells the truth.”

I looked down at my drink then took another sip. “You won’t have to wait for too long, I just need time to recover from what I went through over the past few months. It’s been a hard road and tonight is the start to something better. I know I’ll have to deal with the NLR, The Romans, and The Starlight Cult soon, but right now I just want to be a normal pony, at least for a few days.”

He smiled. “I watched the ceremony. It was beautiful and so are you. I expected a bit more ruggedness of a Courier such as yourself.”

I smiled a little then looked over toward Aura who was laughing with her sisters and our friends. “Thank you.”

He tilted his glass toward me, before saying, “Listen Shadow, believe it or not I do know that you don’t like all the fuss that DJ and I say about you. What you need to understand is that like it or not, The Courier gives hope to a lot of ponies. That’s why we tell so many about you and the things you’ve done, the good and the bad. You see it’s not hard to tell the wasteland about a hero going around fixing the wasteland one enemy at a time, ponies eat that up like you wouldn’t believe. Sadly, after a while the stories of all the good they are doing start to feel like a lie, because no pony is perfect, and wastelanders know that. That’s why we tell them the whole truth about you, just like DJ did for Littlepip the Stable Dweller and Blackjack The Security Mare. Ponies need to see that their heroes aren’t just perfect stories, but real ponies going out and making mistakes just like the rest of us.”

I looked up at him. “I do understand, I mean I did catch a few broadcasts about The Stable Dweller and Security, but unlike most ponies I did my best to ignore the radio. It was hard to hear about those mares dealing with their own shit just like me. I know how shitty the wasteland is and I just hate hearing about the mistakes I’ve made. I’m nothing like Security or The Stable Dweller. I mean, hell, Littlepip brought the sun back to Equestria. I’m not sure what Blackjack has been doing since I haven’t been near either of your stations for the past few months, but I’m sure it was awesome. I’m just a mare from The Enclave who’s doing her best to fix what her ancestors broke.”

He looked sad for a moment, then said, “Last I heard, Security’s missing, she stopped some massive rock from destroying us all or so I’m told, but she disappeared after that and most believe she died. I have a feeling she’s still around, maybe doing her best to be normal for a bit, much like you’re trying to do right now. She finally beat the dealer and wants to mosey outside of the casino for a bit and relish in the peace of victory.”

I smiled. “From the stories I heard about her from her friends when I was out in Hoofington, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

He chuckled. “Now that’s a story I’d love to hear sometime. I had no idea you’d gone to Hoofington, but I’m guessing that must have been during the last time you disappeared for a while.”

“Yeah, it was and maybe when everything is over, I can tell you about it.” I said with a smile, “I think that ponies like P-21, Scotch Tape, and Morning Glory deserve to have their own stories told as well. There are a lot of strong ponies on Equus, it’s not just the nut cases like me.”

He put a hoof on my shoulder then said, “Shadow, I want you to know that you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You look at Security and The Stable Dweller and see amazing ponies who did what most would think is impossible, but so have you. DJ Pon3 might hype you up a lot, but I make sure that everypony sees the real you, good and bad so they can make their own choices about you, but I myself, believe you are a true hero, even if you can’t see it yourself.”

I laughed. “We’ll see about that, but you might be right. At the very least I need to finish what I started, and Aquila is one of the first ponies I need to take care of.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I didn’t know you knew Aquila. That mare came out of nowhere and started her little cult and started acting like she was the real savior of New Pegasus, but I can see the truth. She’s a scared pony who’s hiding who she is behind a mask of power.”

“I know her better than anypony can, but that’s a story for another time,” I said, “But you’re right, she is a scared mare who doesn’t know how to stop doing what she’s doing. She has good reasons for the way that she is. I’m hoping that I can make her see things clearly soon, but I will say that she isn’t a good pony, but she’s also not a bad one either.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. If I ever get back to my studio, I might just have to do a story about her, once I can get more intel on her that is,” he said as he rubbed his chin, “Say, would you by chance have an hour free tomorrow or the next day?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, I mean my friends and I have to get things ready for a trip we need to take, but I might be able to spare a little time in a couple days. Why do you ask?”

“I’d love to sit down with you and do an interview. You’ve been gone a long time and with all the crap that happened right when you left, the Courier’s name isn’t doing well nowadays. I want to give you a chance to give everypony your side of the story. Tell them who you really are and why you fight the way you do. Tell them what really happened on the night you left New Pegasus. It may not change the minds of everypony, but it will help bring a lot of ponies back to your side. That’s something that I think you’ll need soon.”

I took a moment to think it over before I smiled and said, “Sure, I can meet with you at noon in two days. I warn you though, I’m going to be as honest as I can about where I came from. I’m not sure how many ponies will still like me once they find out I’m a former Enclave pony from The Crystal Empire.”

He just grinned. “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem at all Shadow. Las Pegasus was a city built by ponies from across Equestria and New Pegasus is no different. It was wonderful meeting you and once again, congratulations on your life bond.”

He shook my hoof again then trotted off to go talk with more partygoers. When he was gone, Aura made her way over to me. “Was that Mr. New Pegasus?”

“Yep, he wanted to talk with me and set up a time for an interview,” I said smiling up at her, “You were right, he did come find me.”

She smiled back. “Yeah, looks like Vi owes me five hundred caps. I knew he’d want to meet with you and get your side of things. Now all I have to do is get some griffons together and help him get back into The Strip. If we want to start getting ponies to trust The Courier again, we’ll need Mr. New Pegasus on your side.”

“I love you Aura,” I said kissing her.

She laughed. “You just love that I have a knack for planning things out better than you.”

“That’s true,” I said before looking around, “So where’d my dad get off to?”

“He retired for the night,” she said, “I gave him the recording you made of your mom’s final words, and he said he wanted to take time to listen to them. He said he’ll see you tomorrow.”

I frowned for a moment, then sighed. “I hope he’ll be okay.”

She hugged me. “He’ll be sad, but he also needs to hear those last words. He’s been suffering a lot over the past five months. With you leaving and Grim dead right after he escaped execution and fixing up the Western Cloud Alliance, he needs this. This will help him heal.”

“I hope so,” I said before looking up at her, “So, how much longer do you think we have to be grateful hosts?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Maybe an hour or so more, why do you ask?”

I grinned then whispered in her ear. “Because I’m not sure how much longer I can last when I can’t keep my eyes off that sexy ass of yours.”

She grinned back. “You know…we are the leaders of The Shadow Talons. We make the rules right? I think it would only be right for us to…retire for the night and let everyone else have fun.”

I giggled. “I hope that they aren’t the only ones having fun tonight.”

She laughed then picked me up and placed me on her back. “I hope you aren’t tired yet Shadow, because I’m not letting you get any sleep for a long time.”

And with that, we flew off toward our new cave. A cave that thank The Goddesses was far from anyone else’s…and it had a door…and thick walls…and another door into our new bedroom. Oddly enough, I’m still not sure no pony heard the two of us. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have cared. This was Aura’s and my night to be together. Griffon or pony, wedding or life bond, the ceremony still needed to be consummated…right? Who cares, I normally try to keep my story as tame as I can, but fuck it. I was going to fuck Aura’s brains out and she was going to do the same for me and in the words of Rainbow Dash…it was awesome…and perfect…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Till Death Do Us Part: Do I hear wedding bells? It seems you’ve tied the knot, fastened the ol’ ball and chain, gotten hitched, taken the plunge, etc. When traveling with your romantic partner you now gain +15% accuracy in S.A.T.S., and as an added bonus as they say, after intimate relations, you gain +30% accuracy in S.A.T.S. for eight hours thereafter. Congratulations!

Chapter 1: Locked Up

War… War never changes. A long time ago in the magical land of Equestria there was a great war between the ponies and the zebras that ravaged and destroyed the world, leaving nothing but death and ruins of a once magnificent land. A while before the megaspells were detonated, Stable-Tec was founded and built underground shelters known as Stables for ponies to take refuge from the destruction. When word of megaspell detonations in Equestria spread, ponies went to the Stables and sealed the doors. Life in the Stable is about to change.

“Damn it all and my stupid curiosity”

When I look back now, I'll always wonder what I could've done differently. Could I change what happened, would it have changed who I am now, would I want to change? I’m still not sure, some days I wish I’d never left my home. Wish I'd stayed the boring mare I was, and other days I look back at that old me and hate her. Would I go back? I doubt it, but having the choice would be nice, then I'd know. Sadly I can’t go back, I can’t change what I’ve done or who I've become. I can’t change where I ended up or the things I know now. In the beginning I was clueless, brash, and honestly pretty unsavory. Now, after everything I've done since leaving home, I don't know what I am. My name is Shadow Star, and this is my story.

The first things I remember aren’t memories of being a filly and playing with friends. Not a birthday with friends or family, or playing with siblings. My first memory that I can remember is two days after my mother and I came to Stable 28. Anything before that is blank, almost like I was born a young filly. I remember waking up in a clinic, two mares and a stallion looking at me. The stallion was a doctor and he was the first pony I ever remembered speaking to me.

“Well would you look at that, she’s finally waking up,” he said with a smile on his face.

“Thank the Goddesses,” the mare on my right said. I remember thinking she was so familiar, yet I couldn’t recall at the time who she was. I loved her beautiful icy blue coat, her short-cut grey mane, and her dark grey eyes. She was my mother Grimoire Spell I'd come to find out.

That was it, my first memory. The sight of a doctor, and two mares I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about myself, who I was, where I’d come from, nothing. It was also a dream I’d have at least once a week if not more. For some reason that first memory was important. I’m not sure why, but it was, it had to be if I kept dreaming about it.

“Wake up Shadow,” a voice said in my ear.

I rolled over and pulled my covers over my head saying, “Leave me alone, I wanna sleep,” I mumbled into my pillow.

“You can sleep later, plus you already slept through the morning. We have to be in the atrium in five minutes,” said one of the only real friends I had in this stuffy Stable. Her name is Strawberry Milkshake, she’s a cute mare with a cream colored coat and a pink mane, and yes, a strawberry milkshake for a cutie mark.

“Why!?” I yelled poking one of my ruby red eyes out from under my blanket.

“Oh stop being so melodramatic and get up,” she said pulling the blankets off of me, exposing my warm body to the cold air of my bedroom.

“But the atrium is so boring, I don’t wanna get up. It’s not like I have anything to do today,” I retorted.

“We have to see Auntie about tomorrow’s ceremony, as you know we’re getting our Pip-Buck’s. Not to mention we’ll be assigned our full-time jobs in the stable," she said.

I looked up at her and said with a sigh, “Well that’s an easy one for you, everypony knows you’ll end up in the kitchen doing what you love.”

“And you’ll end up getting an awesome job too, I just know it,” she said poking my nose with a hoof.

“What use am I to this stable? No one understands my cutie mark, even I don’t really get it and it’s my special talent. Also what good am I in here as a unicorn, the stable is made to run off of the talents of earth ponies,” I said, trying to get my point across to her so I could return to my slumber.

She laughed a little saying, “I’m sure magic could always be helpful somehow.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that and say, “Fine, I’ll go with you, but I’m telling you they’re gonna say I’m only good for cleaning or something stupid like that.”

She turned around, giving me a wink, and said, “Hey somepony’s gotta keep this place looking nice,” and with that she walked out the door.

“You could at least shut the door!” I yelled as her tail vanished into the hall, “Well fuck, now I’ll HAVE to get up.”

I walked over to the old mirror and looked myself over. Now I’m not gonna lie, I’m not a tall mare…I’m just a little taller than your average filly. Most days it didn’t bother me though, it kept me from getting noticed most of the time. The rest of me however did. My coat is a greyish black, my mane is shiny silver, and my eyes are ruby red. Oh yeah, and I'm the only unicorn in the stable, so I stick out like a sore hoof amongst everypony else.

When the stable was first occupied, it was set up to be a stable for earth ponies only. After the war ended in a fiery death for the ponies on the surface, this stable started to develop new ways of living in a world that was destroyed by magical radiation. From what our history said, the stable would only be opened when the ponies of Stable 28 found a way to make this work. After 200 years nopony's been able to do that.

The stable however, came up with a lot of other amazing things. One of which was the ability to grow a large variety of plants in the lower levels of the stable. This meant we were able to have a nice kitchen and dining hall. The ponies in Stable 28 lived an easy life for the most part.

I yawned wide, looked myself over once more, used my magic to fix my mane, pulling it into a loose braid that went over my shoulder. I took a look at my cutie mark, it was an eight pointed purple and black star with two crossed gold skeleton keys inside it.

“Hurry up Shadow Star! I really don’t feel like getting in trouble because of your lazy butt,” Milkshake said from my door.

I almost jumped out of my skin, and exclaimed, “Dammit, are you trying to give me a heart attack!?”

“If it gives me a good reason for being late, then maybe. Come on already,” she said walking away.

So I followed. Hell, I couldn’t help myself. I was awake now, and I could never say no to her. I sighed and said, “Yeah, I’m coming.”

The atrium was the largest area in the stable, only a short walk away from the large gear-shaped stable door. We made our way up to the second level where a long table was set up. Two young stallions sat on one end and on the other was Auntie. She was a tall older mare with a yellow coat, a violet mane, dark purple eyes, and a cutie mark of some kind of purple flower I didn’t recognize.

“Late as ever I see Shadow Star,” Auntie said as we made our way to sit next to the two stallions, “And good afternoon to you too Strawberry Milkshake. I take it you’re the reason she was able to make it here at all.”

“You know Shadow, the stable could be on fire and she’d sleep through it,” Milkshake said with a giggle.

“That’s because unicorns are too lazy to do any real work. Isn’t that right Shadow?” said one of the stallions.

“Ah, shut your hole Tumble Weed,” I replied glaring at him.

“That’s enough you two, we aren’t here for immature name calling,” Auntie said. She was the other mare who’d been in the room when I’d first woken up ten years ago. She was my mother’s best friend in the stable before she vanished eight years ago, or left…depends on what story you chose to believe. No one ever called her by anything but Auntie, either it was really her name, which I doubt, or what she chose to be called for one reason or another. Maybe she just didn't like her real name.

“Sorry Auntie,” the two of us said.

She shook her head saying, “Never mind that. Now, do you all understand why you're here today?”

“Duh, we get our Pip-Bucks and assigned our new job’s today,” said the other stallion.

“Close. Today I’ll be telling you where you’ll be reporting to for your job in Stable 28, your trainer will be the one to issue you a Pip-Buck. That'll be tomorrow in front of the rest of the population at the ceremony. Today I’ll be going over who you’ll be meeting with and your future job,” she said putting a hoof down on a small stack of folders that were laid out in front of her.

"Where am I gonna be assigned then?" he asked.

“Tumble Weed, yours will be easy. You’ll be reporting to your father in sanitation,” she said, pushing a folder toward him, “Give this to him when you get there.”

“What? Why sanitation? Can’t the unicorn do that? I wanted to help out in the kitchen,” he said with a moan.

“I’ve tasted your cooking before and I'd hate to have to do so again, so no, you get assigned to where The Overmare and your test results say you belong. Now be on your way,” she said with a wave of her hoof.

He got up and went to do what he was told, then Auntie sent the other stallion to his job helping in the clinic with the stable physician. She looked at Milkshake and said, “Now Strawberry Milkshake I’m sure you know where you’re going. Cream Puff said she can’t wait to work with you in the kitchen.”

“This is so great, I was hoping I’d get that job. My mom said she figured it’d be that or helping in the clinic,” she said excitedly.

“Your tests were promising in both fields, but The Overmare wanted you to be where you’d be happier, and Cream Puff is getting close to retirement,” Auntie said.

“Tell her I said ‘thank you very much when you see her next please,” Milkshake said with a smile taking her folder. Then she looked at me and smiled, “I’ll see you tonight Shadow, good luck!”

I watched her leave and noticed that she had more pep in her step than she ever had before. When she was gone I looked back at Auntie and let my body slump, my head resting on the table as I said, “Let me guess, I get to be part of sanitation too right?”

“Why do you always look at the world like a glass half empty Shadow?” she asked, the expression on her face softening some.

“Not like there’s much I can do around here, plus it’s not like my life’s been full of good things so far,” I replied.

“I think you’re going a little overboard there. From what I’ve seen, you’ve had a nice life so far, and starting tomorrow you’ll be all grown up,” she said, trying to make me feel better.

“Oh yeah, the tiny mare missing the first few years of her life, her mother gone Goddesses know where, and the only unicorn who gets called names on a daily basis. I have so much to look forward to in my life,” I said with a sigh and a roll of my eyes.

She knocked my horn with her hoof, saying, “I didn’t raise you to think like that little miss gloom. What I see is a beautiful young mare who's going to find her way soon, meet a stallion one day and have a family, and not to mention a gifted unicorn who could show up anypony in the stable if she put her mind to it.”

“Gifted Unicorn? How would you know anything about magic or what a gifted unicorn looks like?” I asked disrespectfully.

“Your mother was my best friend and a gifted unicorn in her own way. I may not know magic the same way as you or her, but she taught me a thing or two about it,” she retorted.

“I only know three spells, one of which is normal for any unicorn,” I said.

“And you taught yourself the other two just from reading a book you found in the library. From what I know thanks to your mother, that’s not an easy thing to do. One day you’ll see that you’re special and you’ll thank me for having so much faith in you,” she said with a smile.

I couldn’t help myself, I smiled back, saying, “I miss her.”

“I do too sweetheart. Your mother was a special pony and had a kind heart, I still remember when she first forced her way in here with you on her back. I thought the stable was being taken over by some crazed ponies from the outside,” Auntie said.

“I thought Mom talked her way into the stable begging for help,” I said lifting my head off the table, a look of confusion on my face.

“Well when I say forced, I’m referring to the way she talked The Overmare into letting her in. She had a way with words, she could talk her way into or out of anything, kind of like yourself,” she said quickly, though her eyes wandered away, almost as if she was hiding something.

I just let it go, if Auntie didn’t want to say something, she wouldn’t. I decided to just get it over with, and asked, “Well apart from all that, what job did The Overmare give me then? I’d like to try and be on time meeting with my trainer, I don’t want to be the only mare here who doesn’t get her Pip-Buck tomorrow.”

“Well…Shadow, the problem is The Overmare can’t seem to find a good job for you yet,” she said with a hint of sorrow to her voice

“Great. So I’m even more useless than I thought,” I groaned.

“No, it’s the other way around, there are a few jobs you could be put on. The thing is that The Overmare doesn’t want to put you on any of them. She still has trouble with letting an outsider run anything in the stable, even if she only knows life as a stable pony,” she said, sounding a bit angry.

“That’s bullshit, not that I mind getting to laze around all day or anything. I’d still like to have something to do; it’d get boring otherwise,” I said, losing my temper a bit.

“I’m trying to talk with her to find something that you can do, but so far she hasn’t made up her mind,” Auntie said.

“When will she know?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet, but if I don’t get an answer by tomorrow morning then you won’t be getting your Pip-Buck tomorrow,” she replied.

For a full minute all I could do is sit there, a stunned look on my face, my mouth slightly open in a state of shock. When I was finally able to get my brain to take control of my body again, I said, “That’s bullshit too, everypony gets a Pip-Buck when they’re of age. For me that was over a week ago. She can’t say I can’t have one when it’s the right of every grown pony in this dump.”

“The bylaws say ‘Pip-Bucks are only for ponies born in the stable. She's saying, that as an outsider, she can deny you one until you're assigned a job, and maybe even after that if she chose. She's The Overmare and her word is law here, you know this,” she said firmly.

“Oh I see, so because I was brought here as a filly, and even though I have no memory of who I was before coming to this stable, I can’t be trusted with anything. I’d say I’m surprised, but I’m not. The Overmare has always had it out for me, ever since Mom vanished,” I said as I got to my hooves and stomped once out of anger.

“Calm down Shadow Star, right now!” Auntie demanded.

“Why should I huh!? It’s not fair,” I asked, showing some immaturity.

Her hoof came up and struck me on the horn, then she replied, “Because I said so. Now listen to me for once. I'm going to talk to her and she'll give you a job and a Pip-Buck, I’ll make sure of it. For now, can you stay calm and go on like it’s just another normal day. Maybe go see Balefire and see if he can show you something cool in security. It was one of the jobs you showed promise in.”

I was so stunned for a moment I just stood there and took it. Auntie only ever hit me like that when I was acting like a bitch. When she was done talking I just nodded my head and said, “Fine…but don’t expect me back until late tonight.”

“Why not? Did I make you that angry that you have to stay out all night?” she asked in a stern tone.

“Yes and no,” I said slowly, “It’s not really about you. I just need to be away for a while. Also Milkshake wanted to take me out to celebrate and we might be out for awhile. I might not have much to celebrate yet, but she's my friend and I’ll be there for her.”

“Okay then, I understand. Just try not to wake me up when you get back. I’d like to be able to have a full nights rest for once,” Auntie said turning around, “Oh and remember tomorrow to be here at eleven in the morning, DO NOT sleep in.”

“Even if I’m not getting anything?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll have everything fixed by then,” she said, before she walked away, leaving me standing next to the table in the atrium.

***

At this time of day it was rare to see many ponies around. Most were busy working on one of the ten levels the stable had. The top two levels of the stable were mostly the atrium and some of the private domiciles, like the one I lived in with Auntie. When I was officially an adult mare I’d be moved to the third floor where they shared rooms for mares or stallions who haven’t had a foal yet. I’d more than likely be with Milkshake, she was my only female friend and close to the same age as I am.

The fourth level was security and medical, my other friend Balefire, who is a year older than me worked in security on that level. Level five, six and seven, were dedicated to the research and development department. Level eight was the main dining hall and kitchen. Level nine was a much larger space where we grew vegetables and fruits thanks to talismans and a lot of hard work from the ponies who work down there. Most of the plants didn’t look like they did in books, they had a sickly look to them, but they did taste good, and that’s all that matters.

Level Ten, that's the scary one. It housed all of the things that keep the stable running, there are a few talismans for water and power down there and loads of other things that I knew nothing about. The place is dark, musty, and full of strange noises. I’ve been a little scared of it since my mother vanished. Some ponies said she’d killed herself down there by throwing herself into the incinerator or was thrown into it by somepony else. I was one of the few who thought she left the stable. Goddesses know why she would just up and leave like that, but that’s what I chose to believe. I knew my mother though. She was kind and cared about the ponies who loved her, and I knew that she was most likely dead, but I couldn’t ever tell myself that. Maybe it was just a filly’s dream, but that’s all I had.

“Well what should I do now?” I asked aloud. There wasn’t much to do in the stable when you had no work and your friends were off learning their own jobs. Then I sighed and said to myself again, “Guess I’ll go see if Balefire can teach me a few things in security.”

I walked toward the stairs and went up to the second level of the atrium. I didn’t get far however, a large stallion walked right in front of me, saying, “Halt Unicorn,” making sure to keep my path blocked.

“Hey Tender Whip, what is it this time?” I asked rolling my eyes.

“Overmare wants you in her office,” he said keeping his voice calm, but also making sure his eyes looked over me and not right down at me.

“Why? I didn’t do anything wrong today. I only woke up a half hour ago. I’m sure even I can’t get into trouble that quickly,” I responded defensively.

Tender Whip was one of our security ponies, he took his job very seriously. We were supposed to respect security and take anything they said as if The Overmare herself ordered it. However, I always thought that was a load of horse apples. Plus he was total dick.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t told why, just to make sure you came up as soon as you were done with Auntie.”

“Little late then, Auntie left a few minutes ago. If you were sent to fetch me so quickly then I think you’re getting lazy,” I said smiling up at him arrogantly.

I saw a vein pulse in his neck making my smile widen. His voice got a hint of anger to it when he spoke next, “I don’t have time to be playing silly games with fillies like yourself, let alone filthy unicorns. Now come with me to see The Overmare or I’ll drag you by your tail.”

“Awww no first date? Right to the rough stuff I see, I didn’t think you'd be so forward,” I said sarcastically, trying to poke fun and piss him off a little more at the same time.

And there it goes once again, I opened my mouth, stupid sarcasm came out, and I get to pay the price for it, though it’s usually worth it. Tender Whip lost all control of his professional demeanor and got right in my face and said, “Fine you want to play it that way I see. The Overmare never said how I had to get you there.”

'Oh shit,' I thought to myself as his nightstick cracked me in the face knocking me down hard. Yep I finally pushed him over the edge. Oh well, at least I’ll have a good story for later when I’m talking with Milkshake.

My head was swimming and the left side of it felt like I’d just been hit with a rock…or a long metal stick. I felt my tail getting pulled up and the rest of my body lifted into the air. I would've yelped at the pain, but my head hurt too much to do anything. I should be used to this by now, it isn’t like it’s the first time security’s wacked me because of my attitude, just not this hard.

After only a few moments I was dropped on the floor and I heard Tender Whip say, “Overmare, I've found the unicorn as you asked.”

“What did you do to her?” said The Overmare.

“She refused to come with me and was talking back, so I reminded her why you don’t cross security,” he said proudly.

“She’s half your size you idiot, you didn’t need to hit her in the head. Is she even conscious?” she said coming over toward me.

“She’s fine, she’ll just have a wicked headache later,” he replied smugly.

She pounded a hoof on her desk. “Dammit Tender Whip! I didn’t want her injured, she’s still a child. You’re lucky I don’t have your badge taken for hitting a filly.”

“I…I’m not a filly, I’m an adult as of last week,” I said looking up as if in a drunken stupor.

“See she’s fine Madame Overmare. Now can I get back to work?” he said acting like he’d done nothing wrong.

“No, I want you to report to the head of security, Captain Sticks. Tell him I’ve taken you off duty until I can have a word with him and decide a good punishment for your actions,” she said in a harsh tone.

“But Madame Overmare…” he stammered.

The Overmare stopped him with only five words, “Do I make myself clear!?”

“This isn’t fair, she’s just a filthy unicorn,” he argued.

“She's also a citizen of Stable 28 and we don’t hurt our citizens unless they commit a crime, now go before I decide to have you retired,” she said angrily.

His face went green. “No Overmare, I understand, I’ll go report to the boss,” he said before walking out without another word. I could understand his fear, retirement in Stable 28 was a kinder way of saying death. Most ponies when they got too old to perform their jobs, were transferred to a private area in the family quarters and prepared for retirement. They would stay there for a few years before being taken to medical or until they died of natural causes. If you couldn’t work in the stable then you were of no use. They inject you with something that stops your heart and then your body is put into the incinerator.

“Are you okay Shadow Star?” The Overmare asked.

I was a little confused, The Overmare hated me, or at least disliked me a great deal. She wasn’t the type to do something like that over a little hit to the head from one of her officers. She must have some reason for being so nice so I took the bait. I got to my hooves and replied, “I think so, my head hurts a lot though.”

“Do you need to see the doctor before we talk?” she asked.

“Nah I’m cool. I’m a unicorn, using too much magic can make my head hurt worse than this, so I can manage,” I replied.

“Good, sorry about all this, I needed to speak with you before the ceremony tomorrow. I didn’t know he'd take my words so seriously that he thought he had to grab you like he did. Anyway, I have things to take care of tonight and only have a little time to talk,” she said walking back behind her desk.

“Well it’s not like I can just run off or anything, so what’s up?” I asked as nicely as I could muster with my head throbbing like it was.

She looked into my eyes then sighed, looking away before asking, “Do you remember the day your mother vanished?”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. “W…why?”

“Just answer please. I don't have all day,” she said.

“Of course I do, I can’t really ever forget it,” I replied.

“Do you remember what she was doing or how she was acting the last couple hours before?” The Overmare asked.

I did, she was doing something with her Pip-Buck, and she kept running back and forth between the terminal in our room and to her sleeping area to work on something with her Pip-Buck again. The last ten minutes or so that I ever saw her I’ll never forget. I could’ve sworn she was talking to somepony in her room, but nopony ever came into our quarters. The only thing I heard though, never made sense to me. She said, “I understand, but I have other responsibilities…no she still doesn’t. Yes…right away,” after that I couldn’t make out the rest of what she was saying. She walked out a little later, gave me a kiss, and said goodnight. The next morning I was woken up by Auntie. I could tell she’d been crying, and she told me that my mother was gone.

I looked back at The Overmare, those details I always left out. That wouldn’t change today, so I looked up and said, “I remember her saying goodnight, then she left to go do some late night work. It was normal for her since she helped during the night shift in the development department.”

“I have reason to believe that you know more about her disappearance,” The Overmare said sternly.

“I was only a little filly at the time and don’t remember much about it like I said. She only said goodnight and I went to sleep. Plus everypony tells me she was killed. Yes I’ve always had my hopes that she left the stable somehow. Sadly I have to grow up and realize that she’s dead and gone. Why can’t you or anypony else leave me alone about it?” I said as I felt tears starting to well up in my eyes.

The Overmare put a hoof to her head, closing her eyes as if the entire conversation was giving her a headache. “Shadow Star, I can tell this is upsetting for you. For now we can drop the subject, but I want you to try and think back on that night and see if anything comes to you. This is very important.”

“Can you tell me why you want to know all this? It’s been eight years since she disappeared, it doesn’t make sense after all this time for anypony to care,” I asked.

“I’m just trying to get some information is all, I’d just like to find out what happened and put it all behind us, that’s all Shadow Star,” as she said this however, her eyes didn’t meet mine.

I found it all a little odd, I remember the day after her disappearance. The Overmare was still new to her position, still taking over the role after her mother’s untimely death. She was so angry that she threatened to throw me out of the stable if I didn’t tell her where my mother went. Auntie was the one who stepped in then and calmed her down. I decided not to bring all this up as I replied, “Fine whatever, can I go now?”

“No not yet. I didn’t bring you in only to talk about your mother. Earlier when you spoke to Auntie about your job she told you that I held off in giving you a position,” she said before I could turn to walk out.

“Yeah, I wasn’t too happy about it either, I’ll be the only pony with nothing to do. The only ponies who don’t work are the children and retired ponies. It’s not a comforting thought either way,” I explained.

She smiled a little, and said, “Well you don’t have to worry about that. I wouldn’t send a young mare like yourself to retirement. The reason I held back on giving you a job wasn’t really because of you, more about how you’ll interact with the rest of the ponies in the stable who you’ll be working with. As you know most of the stable doesn’t like magic users. My job is to keep the stable safe, which goes for you, and the rest of the ponies in my care. When I got your results back you fit into five areas. Security, maintenance, development, coordination, and foal care. Two of them I can’t have you in because of problems you’ll have with others in those areas.”

“Which ones where they?” I asked taken aback by her still being so nice to me.

“Foal care and maintenance, don’t worry about the reasons why. I thought to maybe stick you in security, but I'd rather not place you there. That leaves us with coordination and development,” she answered.

Of course she didn’t want me in security, she knew her son Balefire had a major crush on me. Even though I didn’t want anything to do with him, at least romantically. Ever since we first became friends she tried to keep us apart. I also knew why the other two wouldn’t work, the supervisors for both of those were parents of ponies I’d gotten into fights with a few times and generally didn't like anyway.

I looked back at her and asked, “So are you going to let me chose?”

She looked down at her desk saying, “I was thinking about it, but I have to check with both departments and make sure they can take you. Coordination is normally a one or two pony job and Auntie is the only one who does that now. I know she’ll take you under her hoof, but I still need to check with her first. Personally I’d like you to take the one in development. It was where your mother was placed when she became a citizen of the stable and I think having another unicorn to help would be a good idea.”

“So you want me to take over where my mother left off?” I asked a little shocked, “I’m not even close to being as good at magic as her. I only know a few spells and I’m not very good at them. My mother was a master of different kinds of magic, she was just starting to teach me before she went poof and disappeared without a trace. I don’t think I’d be a good pony to take her place.”

“Well we won’t know until we try. Who knows? You might surprise yourself,” she said with a smile, “However, it might take a few days to get everything worked out, I’ll be sure to let you know when I have everything set up.”

“What about tomorrow?” I asked.

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes a little. “What about it?”

“Will I still get my Pip-Buck tomorrow with the others?” I asked again.

“Unfortunately for you, no. I can’t let you have that until you’ve been placed in a job. Tomorrow you'll be sitting with the rest of the fillies and colts. When I find out where you’ll be placed, I’ll give one to you, but until then I can’t let you go through the ceremony,” she said, her smile gone now.

I felt a surge of anger and I couldn’t hold back anymore. I stomped my hoof. “You bitch! All this just to tell me that I have to be treated like a filly!? Come on, you’re The Overmare, you can let me have my Pip-Buck anytime you want! Why hold me back!? Are you really that scared of me growing up!? You act like I’m some kind of outsider, but I’m not. I grew up here just like everypony else!”

She sat there and took it, then spoke slowly at first, “I AM The Overmare, I HAVE decided to hold back. YES! I do look at you like an outsider at times, it’s just who I am. This stable was never opened before you showed up here with your mother. I want you to understand though, that I am trying to get over that. I am holding back because it’s the rules of the stable, the same thing happened to another pony when I was young, but she let it happen and later the right job was given to her and she did a great job. I have to follow the rules laid down by former Overmare’s of our stable, I can’t ignore them for you or anypony else. Now check that anger, and accept what’s happening. Go out and spend time with your friend, talk to Auntie, and wait to hear from me. Put a little trust in me for once.”

I wanted to yell at her again, but I took it. I was an adult and I needed to act like one. I was about to ask her if I could leave when I heard another pony say from the entrance to the office, “Madame Overmare, you’re needed for a moment.”

“I’m in the middle of something. Can it wait?” she replied looking over me.

“No Madame Overmare, it can’t wait. It’s the matter we spoke about before. It’ll only take a few minutes,” he insisted.

The Overmare sighed, “Okay fine,” she looked at me, “Wait here for a bit Shadow Star, this shouldn't take very long, I need to speak to you about another thing before you go.”

“Yes ma'am,” I replied.

She followed the other pony out leaving me in the office alone. I was still angry at her, but I was working to keep it in check. I also wondered why she wanted to know so much about my mother. It’s been years since they closed the investigation, ruling it as an accidental death. Nothing made sense at all. I looked over at her desk and noticed the green glow from her terminal. One thing I have a hard time controlling about myself, apart from my anger, is my curiosity. It’s one reason I got my cutie mark after all. Not knowing why it would matter I got up and walked around the desk. Her terminal was left on, good thing too because hacking terminals wasn't my strong suit. There were three files listed on the screen…

[Overmare’s private notes]

[Security Reports]

[Investigation Files]

I wondered what she could have in those files and the last one really caught my interest, so I clicked on it…

Investigation file for missing mare…

Madam Overmare, as you requested we’ve looked deeper into the original file of the death or disappearance of Grimoire, A.K.A Grim, unicorn, mare.

The original report said she was killed either by suicide or murder, by being tossed into the incinerator. As you know this was not true, but we have found that Grim was in that area the night she disappeared, we believe that she might’ve hidden something down there. So far we haven’t found anything. We’ll continue to search after the ceremony.

More reports that you asked for will be sent to you later. Thank you for waiting and I hope to hear back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Glimmer Shot

What the hell? This file alone had my mother’s name in it. It also said something about the report on her death not being true. What did this all mean, and what could she have hidden down in there? I wanted to read more of the files, but I heard The Overmare’s voice coming down the hall. I rushed to shut the file I was reading and trotted back to the chair.

I just made it back to where I was when she walked around the corner. She trotted in, her face looked angry as if she’d just been arguing with somepony. After reading what I did, I wondered if she was talking to the pony who sent the message to her.

She sat back down at her desk and looked at me, saying, “You can go for now Shadow Star, I have something else I need to deal with and I’ve kept you for too long as is.”

“Didn’t you want to talk to me about something else?” I asked.

“Shadow Star I said leave! We can talk later, but for now just go,” she said harshly, sounding more like the Overmare I was used to.

“Yes Overmare,” I said and I got out as quickly as I could.

***

My mind was still racing as I walked down the hall and back toward the Atrium. For the first time in eight years I’d seen something that showed that my mother might still be alive. I always had my suspicions, but now I knew. I'd have to talk with Auntie about this later.

“Hey Shadow, where you heading off to?” a familiar stallion's voice said.

I looked up at the pony speaking to me and saw my only other friend Balefire. He’s a tall earth pony, with a light grey coat with a golden mane and tail. He had green flames for a cutie mark. I smiled at him, saying teasingly, “Hello Officer Balefire.”

He blushed a little and said, “You know I hate it when you call me that. Just call me Balefire please, plus I’m not on duty at the moment. Also you didn’t answer me, where are you going?”

I laughed feeling some of the tension fading away, then replied, “I just came from your mom’s office, she was going over some of my job opportunities.”

He could hear the tiny bit of anger in my voice. He moved closer and rubbed his hoof on my head ruffling my mane. “Let me guess, she isn’t letting you join in on the ceremony tomorrow.”

“That’s right, and she’s making me sit with the fillies and colts, like I’m a foal or something. It just isn’t fair Bale,” I complained.

“Hey now, don’t let it getcha down, sooner or later you’ll get assigned a job,” he said ruffling my mane more, laughing as he did, “My mom might be The Overmare, but she can’t hold off letting you work for too long, have faith.”

“Could you not do that please? I don’t feel like fixing my mane,” I said trying not to laugh myself. He had a way of getting me to cheer up.

“Fine I’ll stop, but on one condition,” he said with a wink.

“No, I won’t go on a date with you. Don’t ask me again,” I said giving him a look.

He blushed harder, saying, “No…it wasn’t that. I wanted you to come with me. I have a surprise for you.”

“This isn’t a surprise like last year on your birthday is it?” I asked taking a step away.

“No…no way, I told you I wouldn’t ever try that again. You also gave me a good memento so I wouldn’t forget,” he said laughing, “Just come with me. Trust me, you’ll like your surprise.”

“I don’t think I can right now Bale, Milkshake and I are going to be doing something tonight to celebrate us…I mean her getting her job. She should be done soon,” I responded.

“This won’t take long I promise,” he insisted.

I rolled my eyes and huffed, “Fine.”

"Cool, follow me,” he said turning and heading toward the elevator.

I followed and watched as he hit the button to bring us down to level ten. I wasn’t fond of going down there, but I felt safe with Balefire by my side. He might be shy, but he was strong. He didn’t speak at all as the elevator slowly made its way down to the lowest level of the stable.

***

When the door squeaked open we walked down one of the long narrow hallways that was just outside the door. Finally he stopped next to one of the storage rooms, he reached up and pressed the button to open the door. The next thing I knew I almost jumped out of my skin as another pony on the inside yelled, “SURPRISE!”

After a few minutes of trying to breathe right, and waiting for my heart rate to go down, I was able to see Milkshake standing there laughing along with Balefire.

“Are you two trying to kill me?” I asked slowly standing back up.

Milkshake helped me up, saying, “No, but it was way worth it. You should’ve seen the look on your face.”

“Yeah, I won’t forget that one for a while,” Balefire said trying to catch his breath.

“What are you doing down here?” I asked.

Balefire pushed me into the room shutting the door behind us, saying, “This is your surprise. Milkshake told me about what happened earlier and we knew you’d be down in the dumps. So we thought, how about all of us just sit down here and have some sort of private party where no one will bug us.”

“A party in a storage room?” I asked in confusion.

Milkshake smiled, and said, “Best we can do in this rust bucket, there are too many ponies up in the dining hall, and our room isn’t ready yet, so Balefire figured this would work. We can stay down here most of the night and just talk, eat, and be happy.” Her smile was huge, and I could tell she really wanted to do this. Although, my mind was still on what I read earlier, but I couldn’t let her down, either of them for that matter.

“I think this is a great surprise…thank you,” I said, trying not to think about what I saw in The Overmare's office earlier.

“That’s the spirit, now let’s eat,” Balefire said.

***

For the next few hours, we ate, drank, and told stories of when we were little. As always, whenever I was around Milkshake for a long period of time, I would find myself staring at her. I’ve had a crush on my best friend for a long time now. I'd never tell her about it though, in stable 28 same-sex relationships are forbidden. Also I knew that she had a crush on Balefire, it was a weird twisted kind of love triangle. Even though I knew it wasn’t right, I couldn’t help myself at times, especially when my emotions were all twisted up like they were today. So I did as I always did and smiled, talked, and laughed with my two friends. My life might be hard, but thank the Goddesses that I have my friends. We did this long into the night and eventually one by one, we all fell asleep…

oooOOOooo

Like I said before, dreams are strange, sometimes they even feel real. Almost like your reliving a memory, only this dream didn’t seem to be my own, it was more like someone else was leading. I saw myself walking down a long hall deep in the depths of level ten, the area also called the catacombs. It was a part of the stable that only had a few doors for holding backup spark batteries for emergencies and a few other things. I found myself walking toward one door almost hidden in the darkness behind one of the large old generators. It’s been broken down for a long time, and nopony ever went near it, or this area for that matter. The door was drawing me closer, it was like something was there that I had to get my hooves on.

I had to go in, but as I started to move toward it, a loud snore tore me out of my dream and back into reality. I jumped up ready to scream, but I saw Balefire just rolled on his back snoring. I tried to lay back down and sleep, but the dream of that door was still fresh in my mind.

“Damn it all and my stupid curiosity,” I said quietly getting to my hooves.

I know how stupid this is, but I have to know. So I snuck out of the room where my two friends were sleeping, and started to head down toward the catacombs. It wasn’t a long way off, the lower level wasn’t very large, but it still took me about fifteen minutes to get to where I was going. When I reached the entrance to the Catacombs, the opening between the main area of level ten and the generators, I saw the sign.

'Authorized Ponies Only'

It was strange because the couple times I’ve been down in this area, I’d never seen a sign here before. I wanted to use this as a reason to turn back, but I couldn’t help myself. I walked right past the sign and deeper into the bowels of Stable 28. I slowly walked past the first few generators, and past some of the fallen rocks that came down from the roof of the old cave the stable was built into.

Now I was in the area from my dream, it creeped me out a little. I’ve never been down this far, so how would I know what it looked like down here. Pushing that to the back of my mind I kept on. Soon I found myself next to the generator I saw before. It looked old and worn out, and behind it in the dark corner I saw the door. Unlike my dream where I could see the door, it was covered with roots and it was very dirty. If I hadn’t known where to look I’d never have seen it.

I walked up to it and took a good look at it. It wasn't and automated door like the rest of the Stable, it was just a regular door. I turned the knob with my magic, but it was locked. "That's a little odd. I thought nothing down here was locked up,” I said to myself. Good thing I hadn’t met a locked door I couldn’t pick.

This is kinda how I got my cutie mark. Using my magic I pulled a bobby pin and screwdriver out of my barding and got to work. Bending back the bobby pin, I placed it in the lock and twisted a little, holding that and the screwdriver with my magic I started to twist. The lock twisted a little, but stopped half way and started to bend the bobby pin. I twisted the pin more and worked with the lock for a few minutes. It was harder than I thought it would be, but finally I heard the beautiful sound of the tumblers clicking home.

I turned the knob again and pushed hard, the roots held it in place, but after a few good hits, the door finally opened. When I walked in I saw a mostly empty room, and it was a little small, but in the back I saw a box. Walking over I slowly pulled it open. What I found shocked me.

In the small wooden box was a Pip-Buck, but it wasn’t like the other ones I’ve seen in the stable before, it looked a little different. In the corner it said, 'Pip-Buck 3000 Mk II'. I lifted it slowly out of the box looking closer at it. It looked as if it’s been sitting here for years. Under all the dust I could see a soft glow from something on the screen. It must’ve come up when I lifted it with my magic.

I wiped away the dust on the screen and read the message on the screen, "Morning Star?"

As those words came out of my lips, flashes of images started to come forth from somewhere in the back of my mind. A mare jumping in the way of some kind of magical blast, awakening and looking up at that same mare kissing my forehead and saying, “Good morning,” then somepony calling out for her mother. Pain started to erupt throughout my body as the images flashed before my eyes.

Then when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, I heard somepony say, “I can make it go away…all you have to do is nod your head.”

I opened my muzzle and said quietly, “Who…who’s there?”

“Nopony, nopony at all, just tell me you want the pain to stop, and I’ll make sure it does. Do you want my help?” the voice asked.

The pain was too much, the visions too confusing. I nodded my head and started to scream. I heard an odd sound filling my ears. Then as quickly as it started, I felt nothing at all. I opened my eyes and looked around the room. Nopony was there, and my body felt as if nothing happened at all.

“I guess I passed out,” I said quietly then I remembered the Pip-Buck. I moved over and picked it up and looked at the screen again. I was expecting the same message I saw before, but it was blank.

This was weird, maybe I did just pass out and started to have a nightmare of some kind. After a moment I sat up and leaned against the wall lifting the Pip-Buck in front of my face. I wonder why somepony would’ve hidden it down here. Apart from some buttons and switches being in different places it looked like any other Pip-Buck.

“I wonder what it feels like to have one on. I have no idea how long it'll be before I get my own from The Overmare,” I said with a small smile to myself, “It can’t hurt to at least try it on, can it?”

So I slipped it over my left foreleg and clasped it on. For a moment nothing happened, I was a little disappointed hoping that just putting it on would at least do something. Maybe it’s been down here too long and was out of power. As that thought crossed my mind, the screen started to glow a soft green.

Thank you for activating Stable-Tec Pip-Buck 3000 Mark II

Starting initial diagnostic...............

Diagnostic complete, all operation’s running properly.

Starting physical diagnostic of host............

Diagnostic Complete.

Welcome to your new Pip-Buck, Shadow Star. Your vital signs are stable, all systems are ready to go, please enjoy your new Pip-Buck 3000 MK II. If you have any problems with your new Pip-Buck please make sure to speak with a Stable-Tec representative for removal.

I looked at the screen again and watched as the words went away and were replaced with a green picture of a pony. It was smiling and walking on the screen. I’ve seen the other ponies in the stable use theirs, so using my magic, I flipped the switch to one side and the screen changed. Now it was showing me an inventory screen.

“Damn, this thing knows everything,” I said as it listed the contents of my saddle bags.

I remembered then, what the last part of the message said on it, something about needing a Stable-Tec representative to get it removed. It couldn’t be that hard to take off, it only had a latch holding it on. I turned it over to look and froze. The latch was gone, leaving only a small line where it’d been only a few seconds ago. “Oh shit,” I said quietly.

I was about to see if I could find out what happened, when I heard voices coming from down the hall…

“We already checked this area, I think The Overmare misread the transmission. If those griffons really think there’s something worth finding down here, why would we care? It’s not like they can get in,” a familiar voice said from down the hall. It sounded like Tender Whip.

“I don’t know why The Overmare cares about a transmission from the outside, but if she says that there’s something down here, then we have to try and find it,” came a mare’s voice in response.

“Why would anypony leave something down here anyway? It’s creepy as hell down here," the other voice said.

“Let’s just do another sweep and if we don’t find anything then we’ll tell The Overmare, and maybe she’ll tell those griffons it’s not here and they’ll leave us alone,” the first pony said.

"Shit," I whispered quietly to myself. Peeking out the door, I could see two security ponies. I went back into the room so I could close the door when my horn caught on one of the roots. I pulled back and my horn pulled the roots down making dirt fall from the ceiling.

“What was that?” one of them asked.

“Double shit,” I said pulling again.

They both came running and stopped when they saw me stuck in the doorway, the roots tangled in my mane and on my horn. The mare walked forward, her name was Glimmer Shot. She looked at me and said, “Shadow Star is that you? What in the Goddess' names are you doing down here? This area is restricted.”

I smiled weakly, asking, “Would you believe me if I said I was sleep walking?”

“Nice try Shadow, you’ll have to come with us. The Overmare made this area off limits. She won’t be happy when she finds out you were snooping around,” Glimmer Shot said. She’s always been nice, even to me.

“Glimmer, look at her foreleg. Where did she get that?” Tender Whip said, I knew it was his voice that I heard. I thought he was supposed to be off duty. He gave me an accusing look, continuing, “I know you didn’t have a Pip-Buck earlier, where did you steal that from?”

“Weren't you taken off duty?” I asked giving him a snide attitude.

He smacked me with his baton, not hard, but it still hurt. “I asked you a question.”

“Tender Whip, there’s no need to hit her,” Glimmer said stepping in his way.

He pushed her aside, saying, “Don’t talk back to me Glimmer, I outrank you and this unicorn is nothing but trouble. Did you see the Pip-Buck? It matches the description we got from The Overmare. We’ve been looking all over for that damn thing, how did she get her hooves on it?”

“We can figure that all out later, you don’t have any right to strike her,” Glimmer said.

“One more word Glimmer and I’ll sight you for insubordination,” he said angrily. She looked away and backed off. I couldn’t do anything as he walked closer to me with an evil grin on his face, saying, “I’ve been waiting a long time to catch you doing something stupid like this. So tell me how you got your hooves on that Pip-Buck.”

“I’ll talk to The Overmare, not you,” I said glaring back at him.

“Fine, you don’t wanna talk? Then I guess I’ll just have to beat it out of you,” he said evilly.

Glimmer gasped in horror as he took his baton and cracked it over my face. I screamed feeling as if my skull was split like a melon. Blood leaked down my face, some going into my eye. I looked up and over to Glimmer, she had tears in her eyes. I knew she wanted to stop this, but was too scared. Another blow landed, hitting my horn. Stars erupted and my vision grew a little dark. My horn felt as if it was about to explode.

I could feel a buildup of magic as rage filled me, all I wanted was for this to stop, so I could go back to my friends and forget this ever happened. Another blow landed hitting me in the side and dislodging me from the roots. I flew back hitting the side of the door. I looked up at Tender Whip and saw the pleasure in his eyes. He loved being able to hurt somepony, loved having power over another. Like a high school bully with nothing better to do than beat on others.

I felt my magic building again, and I knew I had to do something to stop him. One spell I knew would be able to knock him back, maybe enough that Glimmer could help me. I drew on the magic and stared to unleash the spell, the magic however was too strong.

I looked up at him saying quickly, “Stay back!”

“Shut the fuck up, unless you’re gonna tell me what I wanna hear!” he shouted.

“Please before I--” before I could finish, the spell cast. A powerful blast of red light flew outward from my body. So much magic came out with the spell that it didn’t only throw Tender Whip back, it also hit Glimmer. Tender flew up and smacked his head on a low part of the ceiling. Glimmer slid across the ground, and I screamed, until finally I passed out…

***

“Wake up,” a voice said through the fog and pain filling my mind, "Wake up Shadow Star, right now!”

I opened my eyes, it felt like somepony was jabbing them with glass. I closed them again and moaned. I waited for a moment, then tried to open them again, but only a little. I saw The Overmare looking down at me through a set of bars. “Mmmm, what happened?” I asked.

“I’d like to know that too. Do you know what you did last night?” she said sternly, she sounded royally pissed.

I opened my eyes more trying to ignore the pain in my head. My right eye was almost swollen shut, my jaw and side felt like shit. When my good eye finally focused on her I said, “Yeah, is Glimmer okay?”

“She has a few scrapes and bruises from your spell, Tender Whip however is lucky to still be alive. He’ll be in the clinic for a couple months at least,” she replied.

“I’m glad Glimmer's okay,” I said, sort of hoping the worst for Tender Whip.

“You should be glad they’re not both dead. What in the Goddess' names made you think you could use a spell like that down there? You almost killed both of them and yourself,” The Overmare said furiously.

“Didn’t mean to. I was scared when Tender Whip started hitting me, he had no right. I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I said standing on my hooves and looking around some.

I was in the security area on level four. This was the small room where they kept ponies who broke some kind of law. I was a little confused at why I was in here.

“From what I understand, you were in possession of stolen property. You refused to go with the two security ponies and he had to fight back,” she explained, “Now tell me how you got that Pip-Buck.”

I looked down and saw it was still on my foreleg, saying, “I found it, honest.”

“Really? Are you sure about that?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied.

“Even if you did, it’s still property of Stable 28. I’ve also been looking for that particular Pip-Buck for a couple of weeks,” she said walking over to the door.

“I just found it while I was down there, it's not my fault somepony left it there,” I said in defense.

She shook her head a little and said, “I’m sorry Shadow Star, but I can’t take your word on that. That Pip-Buck was something that a few friends of mine have been looking for, I’m going to need to get it back from you. I don’t care if you found it or stole it, you have it and I need it.”

“But I can’t get it off, I don’t know how,” I responded, remembering how the latch disappeared.

“Likely story. However, since you won’t take it off willingly, I guess I’ll have to call the technician to get it off,” she said threateningly.

“What're you deaf AND stupid!? I just told you I didn’t know how to take it off!” I exclaimed.

“How dare you speak to me that way! I am this stable’s Overmare and should be treated with respect!” she shouted.

“Well if you’d get your head out of your ass and listen for once, then maybe I wouldn’t be so bitchy. Plus your security officer Tender Whip gave me this awesome headache when he struck me over the face for no apparent reason. So I’m sorry if I’m not in the respecting mood right now,” I said, getting more pissed.

“Well aren’t you rambunctious today. I still don’t appreciate your tone, however there’s something we need to discuss about your alleged findings,” she said, sounding annoyed.

“Alleged? I did find it! One, two, three, open ass, insert head,” I remarked.

“AAAHHH! I shall return later after you’ve learned your place and the technician’s gotten that Pip-Buck off of your foreleg!" she said angrily as she stormed out.

***

Later came and the technician Tinker was trying to remove the Pip-Buck I found. I think he was having some trouble because I kept hearing muffled fucks and damns. Finally I asked, “What’s the problem?”

Tinker rubbed his head, saying, “You’ve really done it this time kid, I'll tell ya. I don’t think I have the tools to take this off for some reason. I should be able to unlock it with my master key, but I can’t even find a key slot. Do you happen to know what model it is by any chance?”

“When I put it on it said it was a Pip-Buck 3000 mark II,” I replied.

“Alright let me take a look at my registration list and see if I can’t figure this thing out,” he said a little puzzled, bringing up his own Pip-Buck and looking over his list.

As he was checking the registration I thought to myself that I didn’t really want it off, but if it got me out of trouble I'd have to get it removed.

“Hey Shadow. You said it was a Pip-Buck 3000 mark II, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why?” I answered.

“Well there doesn’t seem to be any Pip-Buck 3000 mark II in the registry, so I don’t think there’s anything I can do. It’s stuck on your foreleg like mold on a sandwich,” he said a bit confused.

“Gross! There goes breakfast for me,” I said with a gag.

He laughed, and said, “Sorry about the analogy, it just slipped passed the filter.”

I sighed, “That’s alright. I guess the Overmare’s gonna be pissed.”

“Yeah, I know, but she needs to realize she isn’t a princess and can’t get everything she wants. Anyway I’ve gotta get going, I’ll have a chat with The Overmare and see if I can make things easier on you,” he said in a melancholy tone.

“Thanks for being so nice Tinker. I don’t usually get treated very well by everypony else,” I said, knowing that it probably wouldn't help.

“It’s just the way I am. Can’t have angry clients, otherwise I could get a new cutie mark on my face if you catch my drift. Alright then, good luck with The Overmare. I’m going to be late for another appointment, but I’ll make sure to speak to her before I go,” he said as he started to walk out the door.

***

A few minutes passed and The Overmare came into the room looking a little steamed. Following close behind was Balefire in his security barding. She looked at me angrily and said, “I heard Tinker failed in his task of removing the Pip-Buck from your foreleg, so it looks like we’re going to have to amputate it...”

I interrupted, “What the FUCK!? Amputate!? You’ve really lost it haven’t you!? Fuckin crazy hag!”

Ignoring my outburst she quickly said, “Balefire transport the prisoner to the clinic.”

“I can’t bring her to be mutilated!” Balefire said alarmed at what he’d just heard.

“My son or not, I will have you punished for insubordination if you don’t obey the orders of your Overmare,” she barked.

“But…” he started, before The Overmare interrupted.

“No buts. Put her in restraints and get her to the clinic,” she said.

“Sorry Shadow Star, but we have to go,” Balefire said sadly as he walked over to me.

“What are you doing? Are you really going to listen to her?” I asked, dumbfounded that he didn't put up more of a fight.

He whispered to me under his breath, “Calm down, I’ll get you out of this. Just play along.”

He opened the door and placed hoofcuffs on my forelegs. He then led me out of the holding cells and toward the clinic.

***

We arrived at the clinic and I was taken from Balefire’s custody and strapped to an operating table in one of the few operating rooms in the clinic. Balefire was standing guard outside the door. Dr. Cotton Swab, the stable physician was getting a few things ready on a table next to me when I heard voices outside just before the door opened and Auntie walked in. She looked at the doctor and said in a creepily pleasant tone, “Could I have a minute before she’s put under?”

“Of course, I need to grab a few extra tools anyway,” he said walking out as if he wasn’t about to saw somepony’s foreleg off, but as if he was going to a jolly fucking tea party.

After the door shut Auntie spoke, “We don’t have much time so listen closely. You need to figure a way out of here.”

“How? I’m strapped to a steel death slab, and I’m sure everypony would notice me walking out of here,” I asked.

“I don’t know, I wish there was some way I could help, but it’s too risky. The Overmare’s been watching me for some time now because of my friendship with your mother and has started losing trust in me,” Auntie whispered as if the room was bugged or something.

“Losing trust? Why?” I asked.

“Because your mother rubbed her the wrong way. I think she thought we were plotting something and she thinks that I’m starting again with you,” she whispered, “Listen, when you get out of here, go northeast from the stable. You’ll find a town called Cartwheel. There you’ll find a pony named Box Tape, tell him I sent you and what happened, he’ll be able to help you.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” I asked again, trying to understand how she knew all this.

"Listen Shadow, eight years ago, your mother didn’t die, she left the stable. I wish I could tell you all the reasons why she had to leave, but I don’t have enough time to tell you everything. Just know this, Grim loved you very much and leaving you behind was one of the hardest things she ever had to do. When you find Box Tape, he should be able to help you find her. Your mother can explain more when you eventually meet up with her,” Auntie whispered, her eyes still darting around the room.

Even though I read the report from The Overmare about my mother leaving the stable, hearing it from Auntie hit me like a ton of bricks. She knew the whole time and never told me the truth. I looked angrily into her eyes as I spoke, “You mean this whole time you knew and you never told me the truth, how dare you!”

“I wanted to, but I promised your mother that I wouldn’t say anything unless I had to. I wanted to tell you so many times. When I saw you having nightmares and calling out for her in the middle of the night, when ponies teased you, and more. I’m sorry things happened this way. I just hope that one day you can forgive me,” she said, kissing my cheek. Then she connected a wire from her Pip-Buck to mine, and did something quickly. My Pip-Buck Beeped, then she disconnected them.

(KNOCK)……(KNOCK)

“Please be safe, when you find her, tell her I did my best,” she whispered again.

Before I could say anything else the door opened and the doctor returned, saying, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to leave. I must start the procedure.”

“I understand,” Auntie said as she started to walk to the door.

The door closed and I could hear the conversation outside continue again as Doctor Take-Your-Hoof started to put his tools in order and get ready for the operation. “Oh it’s been too long since I’ve gotten to do some real surgery. Who knows how long it’ll be before my next. You know what? I think I’m going to treat myself and forget about putting you out, oh it’ll be ever so much fun,” he said sounding more insane than usual. Funny I remember him having a lot better bedside manner than this.

“You’re fuckin nuts!” I exclaimed.

“Ooh you’re a bit fussy, no matter. Shall we get started?” he said menacingly. He turned on his power bone saw and ignored my protests as he got closer, “Stop fidgeting, you’re only going to make the pain worse on yourself and I don’t want to have to explain to The Overmare about how I shredded your foreleg,”

(BEEP) “Doc we need you in Tender Whip’s room, he’s crashing!" (CRACK)

He dropped the saw on the cart next to the table. “Dammit, always when I’m having fun. You stay there, I’ll be right back,” he said as he rushed out.

***

About thirty seconds passed and the door opened again. I thought my chance to try and escape was gone as soon as it came, but then I realized it wasn’t the doctor coming in the room.

“Shadow, I grabbed some supplies for you. I’m getting you out of here,” Balefire said urgently. He unstrapped me from the table and handed me armored stable barding and my saddle bags.

“What are you doing? What if The Overmare finds out you broke me out?” I asked frantically.

“It’s alright, I’ve already cooked up a cover story. Do you know about The Overmare’s emergency escape tunnel? he asked.

“Yeah everypony knows about that in case the stable needs to be evacuated,” I replied as I slipped on the barding and saddle bags.

“Get to the tunnel and take it to the stable door. If you stay here after they found out you escaped, The Overmare WILL kill you. All of this will give her a good reason to,” he said.

“What if her terminal is locked?” I asked.

“Try guessing the password or something, but we’re wasting time, you have to go, now!” Balefire urged.

Balefire stayed in the room as I ran out and toward The Overmare’s office.

***

I was able to make it to the entrance of the office without running into security ponies, somehow I think Balefire had something to do with that. I froze outside the door when I heard the voice of The Overmare getting closer to the door. I hid under a desk next to the door as she walked out of her office. “I want her found by any means necessary,” she barked into her radio as she stormed off not noticing the frightened little pony under the desk.

I practically scrambled into the office and over to the terminal. It was locked. A shroud of doom fell over me as the fear of being discovered creeped up my spine. I tried hacking the terminal and came up empty hoofed. I tried four of the probable passwords and got locked out. Now there was no way to unlock the terminal without a password and time was running out. I scrambled through all the desk drawers hoping to find the password. Once again empty hoofed, I fell to my haunches and started to sob. I hit the inner side of the desk in anger.

When my hoof struck the desk I didn’t feel the cheap wood paneling I should’ve, it felt like paper. I looked up and noticed a tiny envelope under the desk. The top of the envelope was ripped off as if to make a pocket. I saw written on the top of the paper that was slipped inside 'Passwords, in case I forget'. I grabbed the paper almost tearing it and scrambled to my hooves. I entered the password into the terminal [FAMILY]. The terminal unlocked and as fast as my hooves could type I activated the stable’s emergency evacuation sequence.

The desk and the floor shifted and opened up the passageway. I ran as fast as my hooves could take me ignoring the alarm sounding throughout the tunnel. When I got to the end I opened the door to two security ponies.

“Halt, you are under arrest!” they barked in unison.

For a split second I panicked, then I remembered I was a unicorn. "Really? I don't feel under arrest," I said arrogantly. Then, with my magic I pulled their batons from their utility barding without them noticing and quickly struck them both over the head on opposite sides. As they were struck, their heads collided comically and they fell to the ground.

I rushed to the stable door control pad and terminal, then entered another one of the passwords written on the paper into the terminal. [Balefire] The switch cover flipped open and I immediately pulled it and the stable door started to hiss and screech.

I’ve done it. The door was open. I was almost too excited to remember to run out. I broke the lever off the control pad to make sure they couldn’t follow me and I ran toward the door, but when I got to the threshold, fear surged once again up my spine. What if the outside was still deadly? What if I died as soon as I walked out? I couldn’t think about those things now, if I stayed I'd most likely die anyway, I needed to get out. Putting fear aside I ran across the threshold and hit the switch on the other side to close the stable door.

(HISSSS) (SCREEEEEECCCHHH)

The door was closed. I was out.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Toughness: If nothing else, you can take a beating! Instantly gain +2 damage resistance.

Author's Note

"Life in the Stable is about to change." is based on a quote from Ron Pearlman when he did the intro to 'Fallout: A Post Niclear Role Playing Game'.

Chapter 4: Another One Bites The Dust

“If they’re just ponies that hide in the sky then why are they so bad?”

We made our way back to Equestrian Express and Box Tape looked worried when he said, “If you’re gonna go up against the raiders and their boss you’re gonna need somethin’ a little tougher than that stable barding ya’ll been wearin’ round.”

“What do you mean by stronger? Silver Snip added some extra armor to my barding,” I asked. The day before she'd taken my barding and added plates of metal under the fabric, and boiled leather over the shoulders and chest to help protect me better.

To that he replied, “I’ve been around the bush a few times and I know how to make somethin’ strong.”

He opened a wardrobe and took out a pretty average looking duster and tossed it to me. Just looking at it you'd think it’s just a normal duster, but as I felt it with my hooves I could feel metal under, no, in between the fabric. I was amazed at the way it was designed, not only did it have metal in between the fabric, it had pads where the metal was too. Not to mention how comfortable it was.

"This is really nice," I said, moving around to get a better feeling for it.

“You’re gonna need that fightin' those raiders, but havin’ fancy armor ain’t gonna save your ass. Ya’ll need some firepower you can trust, take ma old repeater, it’ll have more power than that crappy rifle you took off that raider,” Box Tape said.

I took the rifle and looked it over and saw a small plaque screwed into the stock it had 'Ol' Festus' engraved on it. “Thanks, but what kind of ammo does it use?” I asked.

“Good old .357 magnum. It’ll put a hole in a pony faster than taint mutates a bloatsprite. Here, take these boxes of ammo before ya go chargin’ in empty,” he replied.

I fiddled with it a little and asked, “How do I load this thing?”

“Ya see that hole on the side? Put the ammo in there and crank that there lever and you’re all set. Now you gotta get goin’ it ain't gonna take them long to drag those ponies over to the slavers,” Box Tape explained.

“I thought they said we had three days?” I asked, looking up from the rifle.

“The day ya’ll start trustin’ a raider is the day you die,” he said with a smirk.

I nodded and said, “Gotcha, I’ll get going now. Thanks again for the gear, I’m gonna need it.”

I opened the door and started to make my way out of town to the raider’s camp trying to make up a plan as I went, but everything I came up with sounded like suicide. Of course any plan that involved sneaking into a camp inhabited by cannibalistic psychos was suicide however you put it. It seemed like I’d only been walking for a few minutes, but in my scheming I must’ve lost track of time, I could see the camp in the distance swarming with ponies ready to tear me to shreds and use what they didn't eat as decorations. Fear started to take hold and I stopped dead in my tracks unable to move. What if I fail and get sold to slavers with the rest of them or even worse, what if I die? I couldn’t think about these things right now. I needed to be brave and save those ponies. I started to walk again and broke into a gallop.

***

I was almost to the camp in full gallop ready to destroy any raider that got in my way. Suddenly somepony stepped out from behind a rock and I slammed into her. “What the hell are you doing!? You’ve gotta be nuts if you think you can take all them on alone!” she exclaimed. It was the pony I’d met when I was in the camp before.

“I need to get them out of there! It’s my fault they even came and took those foals away and Silver Snip,” I replied.

“Calm down. I know about your friends and I can help you, but you can’t just go charging in there. If you just run in there you’ll be gunned down, but if you’re so determined to get yourself killed, I think I might have an idea to get you in. Come with me,” she said.

“Before I just go into a camp full of murdering psychopaths with somepony I don’t know anything about. I need to know what this supposed plan is. Also who the hell are you anyway?” I said.

She sighed rubbing a hoof over her head, saying, “I’m Star Paladin Sapphire Stone, I’m with The Steel Rangers. I was sent here to find out why these raiders have congregated here and if they’re onto something, to find out what it is. Their leader is a former Steel Ranger from Manehattan, who was exiled after committing crimes against The Steel Rangers. That suit of armor that he wears is standard issue for a Steel Ranger Paladin, he stole it when he was exiled. One of my objectives is to take the armor back and another is to recover a ledger that he keeps in his quarters under lock and key. I recently learned where he keeps the key, unfortunately he keeps it on him at all times so we have to catch him off guard and make him give it to us. The only other option is to kill him, but he always wears the armor unless he’s sitting on that shitty throne of his inside of his quarters.”

“Ok that’s a lot to take in. How are we supposed to get to him? How are we supposed to get into the camp? I can’t just walk in with you wearing a duster and carrying a rifle on my back. And how will any of this help me get my friend and those foals back?” I asked.

“If you want to get them back, the best way to take down a monster is to cut off its head. Basically if we take down The Boss, his followers will fall into anarchy and kill each other in a fight for power. As for how I’ll get you in there, I’m going to take you prisoner,” Sapphire said before I could continue ranting.

“What!?” I asked, backing away a little.

“If I take you prisoner and you play along The Boss is gonna want to see the pony who killed his raiders. I’m his right-hoof pony so he won’t have anypony else in the room, since he trusts me, so he’ll let me in with you. When we get in there I’ll twitch my left ear if I decide we’re gonna jump him and knock him out. I’ll twitch my right ear if we’re going to kill him, but that most likely won’t be the case,” she explained.

“That sounds freakin crazy. Are you sure that’s gonna work?” I replied, trying to go through the plan again in my head.

“It has to. Otherwise we might as well put a bullet in our heads right now. We’ve wasted enough time already, we have to go,” she replied.

“What about your mission you told me about?” I asked.

“I’ve already spent more time here than I was supposed to, I was planning on doing this soon, and you just gave me a good excuse to,” she said with a cocky grin.

“Wait. What about my friends?” I asked again.

“They’re being held in cages on the east side of the camp near the ah...meat…pit. We can get them out after we take care of The Boss,” Sapphire said with a little bit of a gag.

“Alright let’s go. But tell me, does this Boss have a name?” I asked.

"Yeah but he only goes by The Boss now. Probably just to quench the thirst of his ego," she replied.

***

We walked toward the entrance to the camp, Sapphire took my gun and had it slung over her back. To keep up the act she had her shotgun pointed at me. I felt a little uncomfortable at the thought that she might accidentally shoot me. We walked through the entrance to the camp and were stopped by one of the guards posted there. “Who’s this prisoner you’ve brought with you?” the foul smelling stallion asked.

“A gift for The Boss,” Sapphire said smugly around the grip her shotgun. For a shotgun it was relatively small like the barrel was cut in half.

“Well I hope he likes it. She’s a little too small to ride that ride. I'd ask for first dibs, but I like having my head. I know what The Boss does when he gets sloppy seconds. Bring her to him and let Scythe know when he’s done so he can clean up, you know likes his quarters nice and neat,” the guard said.

We made our way to the center of the camp where there was this large corrugated metal shack, “He’s in there. Are you ready?” Sapphire whispered.

“I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied quietly.

The door opened and Sapphire shoved me in and followed as I stumbled almost tripping over my hooves.

“What's this?” The Boss asked.

“Boss, this is the little bitch that slaughtered our comrades. She tried to kill me when I was out looking for Razor,” Sapphire said almost convincing me that it really happened.

“Close the door,” he said in an eerily calm tone.

Sapphire closed the door behind us and without The Boss noticing, she locked it. The lead raider looked even more menacing out of his armor than he did when he was wearing it. He got up off of a makeshift throne made out of pieces of other benches and chairs, then took three steps toward us. “Boss she was carrying this too,” Sapphire said, taking my rifle off her back and dropping it in front of him as she stepped in front of me.

“I have to say. This is a beautiful firearm, but the thing that gets me is where she got it, because the only settlement close to camp is Cartwheel. If she was able to kill our comrades on the northeast side of the camp. How was she able to get another gun that looks freshly maintained? The only town close to the camp that she could’ve possibly got a new weapon from is Cartwheel and that means she got passed our camp somehow. Didn’t she? I know she stole armor from Blade along with his rifle, and snuck through the camp. She even evaded my eyes when she was here, but how did she make it to town so easily without anypony noticing?” The Boss said threateningly.

“Boss are you sayin’ we got a mole in our midst?” Sapphire asked.

“That is exactly what I said Nail, or dare I say Paladin,” The Boss said angrily.

“What are you sayin’ Boss? I’m not the mole. Are you losin’ it or somethin’?” Sapphire said defensively.

He gave an evil smile and said slowly, “You know for a Steel Ranger you sure are stupid. I'd think the Rangers would’ve taught you to be more perceptive, I’ve had my real right-hoof follow you since you joined up. Do you think for a moment I really trusted you? I would’ve killed you a lot earlier, but I was interested to see what you were up to.”

(Flick)

Sapphire’s left ear twitched and I jumped on The Boss. With his focus aimed at Sapphire I was able to at least get the element of surprise and bring him to the ground. Finally realizing what happened he started to fight back. He was able to turn the tables and get on top of me, he brought his hoof up to strike me when Sapphire jumped on his back and got him in a choke hold. He rolled off of me and started slamming himself against the wall trying to get sapphire off his back. As quick as I could I scanned the room for Ol’ Festus, it was still on the floor where Sapphire dropped it. The Boss slammed Sapphire as hard as he could against the wall and I could hear the wind get knocked out of her as she released her grip. I started to scramble toward the rifle on the ground as he came toward me, the rifle was so close I could almost feel it in my hooves when it was suddenly kicked and slid across the floor to the other side of the room. Once again the large stallion was on top of me and he was relentlessly bludgeoning me with his hooves.

This was it, I was going to die, beaten to death by this monster of the Wasteland. Suddenly the constant pounding disappeared and I noticed that he was now on top of Sapphire trying to strangle her against the ground with his hooves. I have to do something, I have to get him off of her. I looked around the room and noticed that his throne had been knocked forward during the struggle.

On the throne I saw that there where jagged metal spikes tied to the back of it, like some sort of sick and twisted decoration. I tried to get up, but started to get light headed, I couldn’t stand. If I succeeded in getting to my hooves I'd probably pass out.

As best as I could, I focused my magic on the throne and turned it so it was facing The Boss and then grasped the largest spike in the center and started to pull it out with my magic. I could see the life fading from Sapphire’s eyes, I had to try harder. Focusing I pulled and I saw the spear like spike start to slip from its holding and finally with one last ounce of my mental strength I pulled on it as hard as I could.

The spike released from its hold and hurled toward The Boss. With a sickening sound, it impaled him through his shoulder throwing him back into the wall with the tip of the spike pinning him to the wall. “Take that you psychotic bastard,” I managed to get out.

“Sapphire? Are you alright? Sapphire?” I asked, shaking her.

“She’s probably dead already and when I get free of this you’re next,” The Boss said in pain.

“Hey kid. Thanks. I really owe you one,” Sapphire said with a hacking cough sounding horse as she spoke.

“You okay?” I asked laying there on the floor looking over at her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said getting to her hooves.

I heard a disgusting sound. It was like somepony was pulling their hoof out of a vat of slime. “AAAHHH!!!” The Boss exclaimed.

“Looks like she gotcha just right. There’s no way you’re getting free of that without help,” Sapphire said to The Boss. She got up and walked over to him and pushed on the rod that was sticking out of his shoulder. He screamed in pain, as Sapphire said, “That’ll make sure you stay put.”

(KNOCK…KNOCK)

“What’s goin’ on in there?” a raider stallion asked from outside the door.

“Everything’s fine, the bitch just fought back a little and managed to lay one on The Boss,” Sapphire said as she put her hoof on The Boss’ mouth.

“Why is there a spike in the wall?” the raider asked again.

“He restrained her so he could finish,” she replied quickly.

I could hear the stallion walk away and Sapphire took her hoof off The Boss’ mouth, “I swear, I’ll tear your head off with my bare hooves when I get a hold of you,” he said with absolution in his eyes.

Sapphire smirked. “I’d like to see you try with that severed tendon in your shoulder.”

My vision was starting to return to normal and I could see that he was bleeding badly from his wound. I still couldn’t stand. Sapphire came over to me with a bottle of healing potion and put the opening to my mouth. “Drink this, it’ll heal your wounds,” she said, slowly pouring it in my mouth.

I drank the strange tasting purple liquid and I could feel the pain in my face fade. After a minute I felt almost like I’d never been beaten. I was able to get to my hooves still feeling some soreness, but the light headedness was gone.

Sapphire walked back over to The Boss and asked, “Where’s the key?”

“What key?” he responded.

“The key to your hooflocker,” Sapphire clarified.

“You’re after my ledger eh? Well that’s just too fuckin bad isn’t it? Cause I’m not telling you where it is,” The Boss said confidently.

“Fine I’ll just search for it. I know you keep it with you,” Sapphire said as she started to pat him down.

She checked every inch of him and couldn’t find the key.

“AAAHHH!” he exclaimed as she pushed on the rod in his shoulder again.

“Where is it!?" she asked again.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. You’re digging for gold in a mine full of ordinary dirt. You’ll never find it,” The Boss said laughing.

“Hey kid. Can you use your magic?” Sapphire asked.

“Yeah. Why?” I replied.

“Let’s just say the key isn’t in the passenger wagon itself, it’s in the trunk,” she said disgusted.

“Oh Godesses. You can’t be serious. Even if I’m not touching it physically it’s still...you know…icky,” I said, grossed out by just the aspect of doing what was suggested.

“I know, but it’s the only sanitary way we’re going to get it out of there,” she said.

“Are you sure he’s keeping it...you know…there?” I asked.

“Only other place on him he could keep it, and I know he wouldn’t keep it anywhere else,” she replied.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” I said trying not to gag too much at the thought.

“Why don’t you do a little something extra while you’re at it,” The Boss said smugly.

“Why don’t you just take a little NAP!” Sapphire said as she hit him in the face with the stock of Ol’ Festus, knocking him out.

I walked over to him and after a couple minutes of choking, gaging, and focus, I retrieved the key. “Alright let’s get the ledger. It’s in the room behind that door over there,” Sapphire said as she pointed to the door to The Boss’ quarters.

I opened the door and went into the room. I saw the hooflocker under his bed and pulled it out with my hooves while floating the key with my magic. I unlocked it with the stinky key and saw a little book inside. I picked it up and put it in my saddle bag and went back in the other room leaving the key and the hooflocker.

As I came back into the room, loud gunshots erupted outside, followed quickly by a loud knock on the door. “Boss you gotta get out here, we're under attack!” a raider mare yelled outside the door.

“What are we going to do? He’s out cold,” I asked Sapphire.

“This,” she said as she grabbed Ol’ Festus and opened the door. The next thing I knew the raider’s head exploded as the bullet from Ol’ Festus pierced her skull.

There were three more raiders outside the door, she killed each one swiftly with headshots. She took out a strange looking gun that almost looked like it was made out of plastic. “What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a magical energy pistol. Here take your rifle, kill any raiders coming at you,” she said as she tossed me my gun.

“What about whoever’s attacking the camp, did you call in for help?” I asked.

She looked back at me and said, “I have no way of getting a message out to The Rangers that fast. Whoever they are, we can use the distraction to get out of here.”

“We have to get to my friends. They could be hurt, or worse,” I said.

“Alright. Did you get everything in the hooflocker?” she asked.

“Yeah I think so,” I replied.

“Good. Now follow me,” she said as we walked out the door.

I was expecting there to be complete carnage outside for how much gunfire I heard, but what I saw was strange. All the raiders where firing wildly into the air and at the top of the nearby cliff. “What are they shooting at?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but we should get to your friends and get out before we find out the hard way. You see that pit over there? They’re in cages right next to it. We have to make it over there and let them out. We also have to get them to safety, luckily where they’re being held is close to the town side of the camp so it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to get them out of the camp,” Sapphire said sounding a bit worried.

“Okay let’s go. The sooner the better,” I said, getting ready to run out the door.

***

We started making our way to the cages and it seemed like the raiders were too distracted shooting at whoever was attacking the camp. We finally made it to the pit by the cages and there were more raiders guarding them. We stopped and took cover behind a hay cart. “We need to get them away from those cages,” Sapphire said.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea follow my lead,” I said feeling highly self-confident.

I came out from cover and took aim at the raiders and started shooting. I was only able to take out one of six raiders and needed to reload. While I was reloading I noticed a message on my Pip-Buck.

[Combat initiated S.A.T.S. suggested]

I almost forgot about my Pip-Buck’s targeting system. Once again I came out of cover and slipped into S.A.T.S. and time seemed to slow down as the spell activated. Different body parts where highlighted on different ponies and I could see a percentage bar which I guessed told me the probability of a successful shot. I took four shots, two in one raider’s torso, and one in two other raider’s heads. All of my shots where hits. There were only two raiders remaining, I came out of cover to shoot again and I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my right hind leg. I dropped back behind the cart in pain dropping my gun. As I grabbed at my hind leg where I’d been shot I heard a strange zapping sound. Sapphire started shooting at the raiders with her magical energy pistol and got one in the foreleg incapacitating him. She hit the other with three shots to the torso and suddenly his body started to glow red and turned into a pile of ash.

“Alright they’re taken care of, let’s go let them out and get the hell out of here,” Sapphire said sounding proud of herself.

“What about my leg? I’ve been shot,” I asked in pain.

“Take this,” she tossed me another healing potion and I sucked it down.

With my leg for the most part healed we went over to the cages and what I saw was horrible. Some of the foals had been beaten and others looked like they’d been raped. I saw Silver Snip in the cage on the end. She looked like hell, her mane was tangled and dirty and she looked like she’d been beaten too. She was passed out in her cage bruised and battered. I unlocked the cage and started to shake her and get her conscious. “Silver. Wake up, we’re getting you out of here.”

“Sh-Shadow? How did you get here?” she murmured.

“I had help, but there’s no time to explain we have to go,” I replied.

Sapphire and I unlocked the rest of the cages and freed everypony, but they all looked like they could barely stand, “They aren’t going to make it out alive in this condition,” Sapphire said urgently.

“Can you pull a cart?” I asked.

“Do I really look that scrawny to you? Yes I can pull a cart, but not for very long on my own I’ll need help,” she replied.

“I should be able to help, my leg feels better than it did and I shouldn’t have a problem pulling that much weight,” I said.

“Good, then let’s get them loaded onto the cart,” sapphire said.

We both carried foals to the hay cart and I had to go back and help Silver Snip walk to it, but eventually they were all loaded up and it was time to go.

“Everypony is on the cart, let’s hook up and get out of here,” I said as I ushered the last foal onto the cart.

“Let me see the ledger and the orb,” Sapphire said.

“Orb? What orb? The only thing you mentioned was the ledger,” I asked.

“Crap! I forgot to tell you about the orb. I’ll hook up to the cart and get a head start to Cartwheel you go back and get it,” Sapphire said frantically, rubbing her face with a hoof.

“I can’t go alone,” I said starting to panic a little.

“Yes you can. Just be careful. I need to get these ponies to a doctor and you can’t pull this on your own, you need to hurry and get it, it’s important. I’m gonna get them out of here. Now go,” she said quickly.

“Fine, I’ll get it. I’ll meet you on the way to town,” I replied.

“Alright, good luck. I’ll see you soon,” she said as she started to pull the cart away.

***

I started to make my way back to The Boss’ quarters, hiding along the way so I wasn’t seen by any of the raiders who weren’t shooting at the camps attackers. I was able to get back to the shack without getting seen and slip inside. I went into the bedroom where the hooflocker was and noticed that it was moved. It looked like it’d been kicked across the floor, everything inside scattered everywhere. I saw the shimmer of the orb, it must’ve rolled out when the hooflocker was sent flying. I walked over to it and my heart almost jumped out of my chest when I saw the huge suit of armor standing next to me. After realizing it was empty I grabbed the orb and stuffed it in my saddle bag and started to make my way to the door when I remembered that Sapphire needed the suit back.

I went back over to the suit and tried to figure out how to put it on, but I couldn’t even find an opening or anything, so instead I just left it there. It wasn’t like it was my mission to get it back somewhere, I didn’t even know how to use it. I went back into the other room to make my way out when I noticed The Boss was no longer pinned against the wall. He was gone.

As fast, and as sneaky as I could, I made my way out the door. I got outside and looked for what the raiders where shooting at out of curiosity. A shadow flew over the camp. It looked like a pony with wings, it was a Pegasus. Knowing a pony in the sky with a gun couldn’t be a good thing I headed toward the town-side gate when I was suddenly tackled.

“I got you now, bitch,” The Boss said as he held me down on the ground. He put his hooves on my neck and started to choke me like he had Sapphire. My vision was starting to fade and everything was starting to go black. “I’ll make you pay for this hole in my shoulder.”

There was a loud bang and something wet and chunky splatted over my face. Suddenly everything was getting clearer, I could breathe. My vision was tinted red and there was this chunky grey stuff wetly stuck to my face. When my vision cleared to a degree to where I could see clearly through the redness I saw what happened. The Boss’ head was blown to bits, and even worse, it was all over me. I couldn’t help but vomit all over the headless husk that lay on top of me twitching.

“Gross! If I had my life saved by a complete stranger I wouldn’t barf on the body before they can drag it off of me. C’mon that’s just rude,” the strange pegasus stallion said.

He was light gray with a blue mane and his wings faded from light grey at the base to blue at the tip to match his mane. I couldn’t see what color his eyes where behind his sunglasses and he had a strange cutie mark, it was just a circle with intersecting lines meeting in the center. He dragged the headless corpse off of me and helped me to my hooves. “Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“That’s not important right now. There’s a raider with a cart full of prisoners, we gotta get to those ponies and rescue them,” he replied.

“She’s not a raider, she’s my friend. She’s bringing them back to a town called Cartwheel to get medical treatment, they’ve been hurt pretty bad by these monsters,” I explained.

Suddenly he pulled out a pistol and pointed it at me, then fired. After a second I realized I hadn’t been shot, and I looked behind me just in time to watch a raider mare drop to the ground. “We gotta go. Now!” he said as he picked me up and took to the air.

“AAAHHH! Put me down right now!” I screamed as we flew into the air higher and higher.

“If I did that, you’d fall and I don’t think you want that,” he retorted.

“Where are we going!?” I asked, trying not to look down.

“You don’t like to listen do ya? I told you where we’re going, but I guess the plan’s changed. We’re gonna meet your friend and make sure those ponies get safely to that town you were talking about,” he replied.

“Can’t we walk instead?” I asked trying not to look down again.

“No. Flying’s faster. I promise I won’t drop you as long as you don’t squirm,” he said arrogantly.

“You’re an ass," I scoffed.

“Hey at least I promised NOT to drop you,” he said with a smirk.

We’d only been flying for a couple minutes when he suddenly decided to break into a nose-dive. “What are you doing!?” I exclaimed, feeling my stomach jump somewhere into my throat.

“Calm down. Don’t you see the cart? It’s right down there, we’re not gonna crash,” he said nonchalantly as we dove toward the ground.

“Okay. Just don’t scare me like that, I’m not used to being flown around by a crazy pony with wings,” I said.

We descended down to the cart and he finally put me down. Sapphire was hiding with the other ponies in the cart. I walked closer to the cart to talk to her. She jumped out and pointed her pistol at the Pegasus. “Stop! He’s not going to hurt us, he was the one that was attacking the raider camp. I don’t know why, but he was,” I said.

“She’s right. All I want is to see these ponies safely returned to their homes,” he said in his own defense.

“Horse apples, he’s Enclave. Look at his cutie mark. He’s a pegasus under the clouds. If he wasn’t Enclave it would be branded off,” she yelled.

“What’s an Enclave?” I asked ignorantly.

“They’re called The Grand Pegasus Enclave, and they’re the ones who keep this eerie cloud cover over the sky with their weather machines. They’ve been hiding up there since the first bomb went off 200 years ago. Those cowards think that they can shut themselves away from The Wasteland and act like there’s nothing down here but dust, collapsed buildings, and dead trees,” Sapphire said angrily.

“If they’re just ponies that hide in the sky then why are they so bad?” I asked, really confused by her sudden anger.

“The Enclave themselves are the government up there and the only time they come under the clouds is to cause more death and destruction. Then they say that the ponies on the ground aren’t worth saving yet and run back home to safety," Sapphire explained, 'Wait a sec. You, pegasus. Where’s your armor?”

“Armor? The only armor I had was what I brought from my stable and I had to ditch that a while ago,” he replied.

“Stable? What do you mean stable? I’ve never heard of a pegasus stable,” she said sounding confused at the fact that he was a pegasus and apparently from a stable.

“Yeah, it’s north of here Stable 97. It’s a couple days flight from here non-stop. It’s run by some questionable ponies, but they wouldn’t go and rampage in The Wasteland. They’re too scared to leave because it’s like instant death or something,” he explained.

“Can’t we discuss this later!? We’ve gotta go and there are sick ponies that I think take precedence!” I interrupted.

“Fine. But I’m keeping my eye on him. If he does anything out of the ordinary there’s going to be a hole in his head,” Sapphire said, holstering her gun.

“Woah, harsh. What did I ever do to you?” he asked.

“Just shut up and let’s go,” Sapphire said angrily.

Sapphire and I hooked up to the hay cart and began pulling it to Cartwheel. The Pegasus was up in the sky keeping lookout for any danger coming our way. I could see the town in the distance, this cart was so freakin’ heavy. I didn’t know if I could go on for much longer. How did Sapphire pull this thing by herself and get so far from the camp? I guess she’s stronger than she looks.

***

We got into town and made our way straight to the clinic so the ponies in the cart could get treated for their injuries. I helped the Pegasus and Sapphire unload the ponies from the cart and carry them to beds in the clinic. Sapphire kept staring at the pegasus like he was going to fly away with one of the fillies or something. From what I could tell he wasn’t bad, he was just an ass. After we made sure the ponies from the camp were getting the help they needed, I had all three of us go to Equestrian Express so we had somewhere to talk things out, and hopefully find out who the hell the pegasus was.

We walked into Equestrian Express and were instantly greeted by Box Tape. “Well flatten a snake and call it jerky! Ya actually made it out alive. How the hell did ya pull that off?" Box Tape said excitedly.

“Well I…” I started to say.

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to lend a hoof, and blow the head of the big raider pony choking her on the ground,” the pegasus interrupted.

“Thanks for taking all the credit jackass,” I snapped.

“I didn’t take all the credit, you and grumpy hooves there, took down a lot of the raiders on the ground that I couldn’t see through my scope,” he retorted.

“Scope? You got a rifle stashed somewhere?” Sapphire asked.

“Correction. I had a rifle, I flew down to get the big raider’s body off of uh…uh. Hey what’s your name again?” the pegasus asked.

“I never told you my name. It’s Shadow Star, what’s yours?” I replied.

“I’m Stardust. Anyway, so I flew down to get the body off of Shadow Star and put my gun on the ground. When we flew away I forgot to pick it up,” he continued to explain.

“I don’t know whether to laugh at your name or the fact that you forgot your gun,” I said while trying to keep from laughing.

“What’s wrong with my name?” he asked.

“Oh it’s nothing it just sounds like a mare’s name,” I said still trying not to laugh.

“Oh yeah, well so does yours,” he said trying to sound defensive.

“That’s because I am a mare, nice comeback genius,” I replied through my snickering.

“Why were you attacking the camp in the first place?” Sapphire asked before Stardust and I could continue bickering.

“I was just flying by the camp and I saw the mare and those foals in cages, so I just landed on a cliff and started taking out the raiders so I could rescue them,” Stardust replied.

“So you just happened to fly over the camp, notice that there were prisoners, and decided to save them out of the kindness in your heart. I don’t buy it, especially when you said you’re from a Stable. Not only have I not heard of Stable 97, I’ve never heard of a Stable that had pegasi in it. Even if you were in a Stable. How did you get out? From what I know about Stables that are still operational, they don’t usually let ponies just leave,” Sapphire said accusingly.

“Yeah, I did just happen to fly over and wanna help, and yes I am from a Stable. They didn’t just let me waltz out either, I had to escape, and in turn do some things that I didn’t want to do. I don’t really care if you believe me or not, but I’m telling the truth. I know you think I’m one of those Enclave ponies, I’ve known who the Enclave are since I was a colt and until two weeks ago I didn’t even know what they really do. My whole life in the Stable I was raised to believe that The Grand Pegasus Enclave was pony kind's best hope of rebuilding Equestria. Before I left the stable I found out that the Pegasi in the Stable weren’t the original occupants, The Enclave invaded the Stable a couple generations ago and killed them all so they could use it to brainwash us into joining their garrison of soldiers,” Stardust explained.

“Well, I apologize for accusing you, but I still am a little suspicious," Sapphire said.

“I guess I can’t blame you for being suspicious,” he said.

"Hey Sapphire what did you mean earlier when you said that his cutie mark would be branded off? I asked.

“They’re called Dashites. When pegasi betray the Enclave and leave the sky, they’re hunted down and branded with the cutie mark of the first Dashite to permanently mark them as contaminated. Once branded as a Dashite, I’ve heard that you can’t return to the clouds. If you do then you’ll be shot on sight,” Sapphire explained.

“That’s horrible. How could somepony do that to another pony?” I asked again.

“If you ever meet an Enclave soldier you’ll find out pretty quickly what they’re capable of,” Sapphire said.

“If ya’ll are done arguin’ I’d like to say somethin’. Who’s this mare that’s with ya’ll?” Box Tape interrupted.

“Oh, please forgive me for being so rude. I’m Steel Ranger Star Paladin Sapphire Stone, it’s nice to meet you sir,” she replied.

“A pleasure Ms. Sapphire. When ya see Star Paladin Sandstorm tell him that Box Tape said howdy,” he said with a wink.

“You know Star Paladin Sandstorm?” she asked.

“Sure do. The little guy used to be my bodyguard in my courier days when he was just a young fella, barely an adult. He joined up with ya’ll just before I retired from bein’ a courier and became the postmaster of this here town,” Box Tape explained.

“Okay, I’ll tell him for you,” I said.

“Hey Sapphire. I almost forgot to ask you. Didn’t you say you needed to get The Boss’ armor back to the Steel Rangers?” I asked.

“The only raiders who knew I wasn’t one of them are dead. I should be able to go back to camp, take the armor, and finish off the rest of the raiders in the camp,” she replied.

“What about The Boss’ right-hoof that he said was watching you?” I asked.

“I’m pretty sure he’s already dead. Razor was his right-hoof before I was until I planted something that I stole from The Boss in his hooflocker and he was punished for it by being dethroned as his right-hoof. I should leave now so they don’t get suspicious of my absence. Do you still have the ledger and the orb?” Sapphire said.

“Yeah, I still have them. Here. What’s the orb for anyway?” I asked giving her the items.

“It’s a memory orb, it contains a memory of a pony who was recording that moment with a recollector or if a unicorn takes the memory out of their mind. I was told that this memory orb contains a memory of a mare that came from a nearby stable who had some valuable information. My elder think’s it might have some information that could help us. I’m not sure with what, but she still wanted it. I’m still not sure how The Boss got his hooves on it,” she explained.

“Is there any way I could look at it before you go?” I asked.

“Why?” she asked giving me a quizzical look.

“My mother left my Stable about eight years ago and I want to find out what happened to her. I think she might’ve been the one whose memory is in that orb. The Overmare of my stable was looking for something she left in the Stable when she decided to leave, it sounded like what she was looking for was important. The reason I left was because whatever she was looking for I think is on this Pip-Buck’s memory or something because she was willing to cut off my leg to get it from me,” I answered.

“Interesting. I’ll tell you what, keep the orb for now and bring it to these coordinates when you’re finished with it. To watch it, all you need to do is touch it with your magic since you’re a unicorn. Also since memory orbs take just as long to watch as the memory took to experience, there’s no telling how long it'll take for you to watch and I need to get back to the camp,” Sapphire said as she took my left foreleg and added a marker to my Pip-Buck’s map.

“Where will the coordinates take me? Also, don’t you need the orb to bring back to The Steel Rangers?” I asked.

“I can work something out. The coordinates will take you to an underground bunker. The bunker is where my Steel Rangers chapter is, I’ll meet you there when you find your way. When you get there tell the guard at the intercom that you’re there to speak with Star Paladin Sapphire Stone. If they ask why, just tell them to shut it and to find me. They'll give you some crap I’m sure, but it'll get you in,” she replied.

“Alright, thank you for all your help. I couldn’t have gotten those ponies out of there on my own,” I said.

“You’re welcome. I’ll be leaving now, I can’t waste any more time. It was nice to meet you Box Tape, and Stardust thanks for the help, sorry we got off on the wrong hoof,” with that, she walked out the door after giving me the memory orb and saying goodbye. I slipped the memory orb back into my saddle bag deciding to watch it later.

“So what happened at that camp anyhow? Everything I’m hearin’ just ain’t addin’ up in my head,” Box Tape asked.

“Well, when I was on my way into the camp. Sapphire saw me and was able to get to me before I was discovered by the guards. She was the one that helped me get passed the camp when I was on my way to Cartwheel in the first place. I told her why I was there and she was able to get me into the camp by pretending to take me prisoner and that got me to The Boss’ quarters so we could get what she needed to get from his room, and take him down in the process. When we were in his quarters he told her that he knew who she really was and she gave me a signal that we needed to jump him. We both wrestled with him and were both almost killed, but when I was on the ground half beaten to death, I was able to pin him against the wall using my magic to stab him through the shoulder with one of the metal spikes he had attached to his throne.” This next part I decided to bend the truth a little “He had a key to his hooflocker in one of his saddle bags, which we retrieved and were able to get his ledger. After that we heard gunshots outside and made our way to the cages while the raiders where distracted. Later I found out that it was Stardust that they were shooting at,” I explained.

“Yep! Sure was. Those drugged out idiots thought I was a monster,” Stardust interrupted.

I gritted my teeth. “Anyway, we had to kill the raiders guarding the cages and then we were able to let them out and get them onto the hay cart. When we were leaving Sapphire remembered that she forgot to tell me to grab the orb too. She pulled the cart by herself out of the camp as far as she could and I went back and got the orb. When I was on my way out of The Boss’ quarters I noticed that he got unpinned from the wall somehow and I ran out the door and got tackled by him. He started to choke me and…”

“I blew his head off and flew her ass out of there,” Stardust interrupted again.

“Uuuggghhh. Yes he saved my life and brought me to where Sapphire was after I told him she wasn’t a raider trying to take them somewhere else,” I said annoyed.

“Wow! What a tale, and even better, we don’t gotta worry about those raiders comin’ to terrorize the town again. I gotta say, I didn’t think ya’ll could pull it off. That was a damn suicide mission and ya made it out alive,” Box Tape said.

“She sure did thanks to me, and for a little pony she really can eat a lot of food,” Stardust said.

“Oh really. How do you know that?” I asked Stardust in an obviously pissy tone.

“Cause you totally blew chunks all over that Boss pony’s body after I took him out,” Stardust said embarrassing me beyond all belief.

“HA! I don’t care who you are. That’s funny as all hell,” Box Tape laughed.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Action Filly! Level 1: You know your Targeting Spell like the back of your hoof, making you about 20% cooler in combat. For each level of this perk, you gain +15 action points in S.A.T.S.

Chapter 21 Part 1: Where'd You Go

“I take it you must be Shadow Star the Courier Mare, I’ve been dying to meet you.”

If anypony ever asked me what it was like to find yourself in a situation between saving another, or saving yourself, what would you do? I wouldn’t know what to say, not until I met the Enclave that is. Those damned pegasi who thought they could control whatever they wanted above and below the clouds. I found myself in a situation like that now. One where I’d either have to risk death to save others, or run away and let the ones who live in Frosty Summit die at the hooves of this small army and one mysterious unicorn. What’s up with her anyway? It’s bad enough I had a fucked-up thing living inside me, a pony who hid his face that saved me and didn’t tell me who he was, and the Sins. Now I have to deal with a unicorn who hid herself from everypony and to top it off, knew some strong magic.

Wingnut stood at my side, his revolver ready. Silver was on the other side of me pulling out a pistol. Then she pulled out a box of ammo and passed it to me, “Here, take these. I’m sure you’re still out, I had some .50 Cal. that would work for Dream Walker.”

I smiled and loaded my gun as I watched Solstice walk slowly toward me placing her helmet on her head, “You should tell your friends to put those toys away. They won’t help you.”

“I swear you Enclave pricks just love to talk, that’s all you do before you fight, you talk and you talk with all your empty fucking threats,” I said, taunting her.

“You have a point,” she said, and a second later her twin energy rifles on her battle saddle fired crimson death toward me.

I dodge to one side and slipped into S.A.T.S. aiming three shots at her torso. I fired, and to my amazement she dodged two of them. The last one just grazed her armor as she took to the air and fired down at me again. Okay note to self, she’s fast, even in power armor.

I drew on my magic and fired a blast of energy at her, but she dodged that too then fired down at me. I wasn’t as lucky this time, one of her beams hit me, throwing me back. Pain racked my side, but luckily the armor Silver made for me kept me from being turned into a pile of ash. I looked at my armor and noticed it was singed, but the beam didn’t damage it. Silver sure knew how to make a good set of armor.

Solstice laughed hovering in the air looking down at me, “Damn, that armor of yours must be made of serious stuff. Most ponies would’ve bit the dust from a hit like that.”

“Shadow, we can’t just concentrate on one pony, her friends are attacking the townsfolk,” Aura said pulling her spear out looking ready to jump into the air.

“Don’t go after her Aura, this is my fight. You need to go help get the others away from here, same goes for the rest of you. This fight isn’t just about us, it involves all the ponies and Alicorns who call this place home,” I shouted, reloading Dream Walker and slipping into S.A.T.S. again. I aimed one shot toward her head, but again she was able to dodge it, “Oh come on, nopony is that quick.”

“Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that if you wanna take down somepony like me. I’m not like those soldiers you fought back at F&F Tools, I’m elite.”

“Elite my ass. Take off that power armor and we’ll see how elite you really are,” I scoffed as she flew down at me, her energy rifles blazing.

I cast my teleportation spell, my horn however decided it didn’t want to do that particular spell. My horn popped and sizzled, so I jumped to the side doing my best to dodge her shots. She laughed and banked to the side as I fired another round at her, this one glowing like the others did when Dream Walkers special ability took effect, but the bitch dodged that one too.

“It’s like I said before, you’ve gotta do better than that…” she started to taunt, then Stardust came flying out of seemingly nowhere and kicked her in the side, sending her slamming into the ground.

He landed next to me looking at Solstice, “You call yourself an elite soldier? Let’s see how you do against a REAL elite solider. I trained every day in my stable my whole life.”

“Stardust, I can take care of this,” I said watching Solstice as she got back to her hooves.

He looked at me with a look in his eye that I hadn’t seen before, “Shadow, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, let me handle her. Remember I was trained to fight ponies like her.”

Solstice spat a little blood on the ground, “Oh look, if it isn’t the runway. I’ll deal with you later right after I’m done with the Courier Mare. Step aside you sheltered wannabe.”

“You’re nothing but a child compared to me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell them to fall back,” he said, then looked back at me, “You have another pony to take care of Shadow, that hooded bitch is powerful from what I can tell. You’re the only other unicorn here who might stand a chance to take her down.”

I looked toward the entrance to the Summit and saw her standing there watching as the rest of the enclave ponies flew in to attack the ponies around Frosty Summit. In the glare of the energy rifles going off, the sound of battle, and magic flying from the Alicorns, she was looking only at me, “Okay Stardust, do your best not to get hurt.”

He laughed, “Come on Shadow, this is me we’re talking about.” And with that he flew toward Solstice.

“Who are you and why do you want my Pip-Buck?” I yelled at the hooded mare as I ran toward her, Dream Walker at the ready.

“It’s worthless telling a dirt pony like yourself what I’m after. Your feeble little mind wouldn’t understand,” she said as a magical blast shot out from her horn toward me.

In a panic, I cast my teleportation spell, luckily this time it worked. I reappeared behind her and fired. She tried to use another spell, but I was too quick, I fired off three shots at her almost point blank. Each one hit, two in her torso, another hitting a leg. She screamed then vanished in a flash of blue light.

I took a step back looking around for where she could’ve gone. I couldn’t use my E.F.S. because of all the red bars flying around me at the moment. I turned my head slowly then I heard something behind me, using the same technique I saw the Enclave mare use back at F&F Tools, I ducked down and rolled to the side, coming back up to face the hooded mare right as a stream of magic flew over me.

“I’ll admit, you’re resourceful for a stable pony,” I could see the holes in her barding and cloak from my shots, but she must’ve taken a healing potion or something stronger, because she didn’t even look hurt.

“You pick up a thing or two when you’re traveling The Wasteland,” I went to fire Dream Walker again, I pulled the trigger, (Click) I looked down at my weapon and saw the magazine was laying on the ground with the round that I had chambered, “What the fuck did you do?”

She chuckled a little as she started to step slowly toward me, “I’ve also learned a thing or two while traveling The Wasteland child. First thing I learned was how to quickly disarm a weapon. The Enclave perfected the art of close quarters combat.”

I went to reload Dream Walker, but her horn glowed from under her hood and it was wrenched out of my Magical grip and tossed away. Whoever this mare was, she was strong. She just overtook my telekinesis like it was nothing, “How did you do that?”

“It’s easy with someone as weak as you are. I’ve had years to hone my magical skills and learn many spells. From what I can see, you only know basic telekinesis and how to teleport…slightly. Whoever taught you magic should be ashamed, you shouldn’t even call yourself a unicorn. You’re a disgrace to your race.”

I smiled and shot a blast of energy at her, “I have one more trick up my sleeve.”

For a second I thought it would work, then she teleported again at the last second. She reappeared a moment later on the other side of me, it was right then that the toll for using that spell hit me and my legs started to shake as the energy left my body. She laughed again, “I’ll give you a little credit; I wasn’t expecting that. It’s been many years since I’ve seen a unicorn who can take a basic expulsion spell and modify it so it becomes a powerful blast of energy. Too bad it takes so much energy out of you, or that would’ve been a good spell to use.”

Breathing a little heavy I asked, “Who are you? Why do you keep hiding you’re face from me?”

She cocked her head to one side, “Hiding my face from you? I don’t even know you apart from the fact that you came from the Stable where that Pip-Buck was hidden. No, I keep my face hidden because it makes it a lot easier to keep my true identity hidden from everypony. If nopony knows my face then I can go wherever I want in The Wasteland without anypony knowing who I really am.”

“So, I take it you’re one of the higher ups in the Enclave?” I said doing my best to keep my body from shaking. I shouldn’t have tried a spell like that.

She started to laugh, “A higher up? I guess you could say that. I’m the top unicorn researcher that they have, nopony alive knows as much about the Arcane Sciences as I do.”

I smiled and started to chuckle a little as well, “So, if you were to die then I take it The Enclave would be pissed.”

“You could say that, but from where I’m standing I don’t see that happening. You can barely stand. If you had a few years to hone your magic and control, then maybe you’d have to chance to take me on, but I have decades more experience than you do.”

“You’re forgetting one thing.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” she mocked.

“I’ve made a few friends while I’ve been out here, and I can always count on them to help me out when I’m in a bind,” I said pointing at the pony who was right behind her with a magical energy rifle pointed at the back of the hooded mare’s head.

Laser Light grinned at me saying, “Aw, you went and spoiled the surprise.”

The hooded mare didn’t move, she only laughed again, “What makes you think I’m scared of one pony and a rifle?”

The hooded mare’s horn started to glow from under her hood, Laser Light pressed the barrel of her rifle harder against the back of the mare’s head, “Don’t even think about trying to use a spell. I know for a fact that I can blast your head off before you can cast anything that would save you.”

“You’ll pay for this!” The hooded mare said, but her horn went dark and she didn’t move.

“Good job Laser, keep her there while I help Stardust,” I said, using my magic I picked up Dream Walker and my clip and reloaded it, looking toward the sky where my friend was fighting hoof to hoof with Solstice. I have to admit, watching Stardust fight another pegasus was strange, but I could see how dangerous he could be as an enemy. Solstice was doing everything she could to keep him off of her, but with every kick and hit she tried to land on him he blocked and struck hard. Even with her power armor I could tell she was no match for him.

She banked to one side flipping around in midair then fired her twin energy rifles at him. Stardust back flipped in the air dodging the attack with ease, then he twisted, pulled his rifle off his back and fired. This time she wasn’t able to move quick enough and the round bit into her shoulder. She screamed and fell toward the ground. She flapped her wings hard and was able to keep herself from landing too hard. She looked up at Stardust with hatred written on her face.

“Where the fuck did you learn to fight like that?”

Stardust stayed in the air, his rifle trained on her, “Stable 97, you should know that since you were sent here to kill me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was sent down here from Stratus to kill a runaway who stole precious property that belonged to the council.”

Stardust started to laugh, “Is that what they told you? Damn kid, I feel bad for you for falling for something that idiotic. I AM the property they sent you to kill, I never took anything when I left. I was the thing that they lost. I’m the future solider of The Enclave, a perfect fighter. When I ran away they wanted me taken down so Neighvarro wouldn’t find out what Stratus and Nimbus are up to. The sad thing is they sent a child to kill me, one that has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.”

“Fuck you, I was the top of my class at the academy and the youngest pony ever to reach an officer rank. I’m more than qualified to take you down.”

He smiled down at her returning his rifle to his back, “You aren’t even qualified to take down Shadow Star, let alone me. Go back home and take your army of bitches with you before you end up as a casualty.”

I wanted to say something, but right then a scream erupted from back toward the Lodge. I looked toward it and saw a young pegasus running away from three Enclave soldiers, one of which was Winter Frost. She had Lavender Coat with a long black mane with one red streak in it. Winter Frost flew down at her his rifles charging up to fire.

“Somepony help me!” The mare shouted.

Stardust twisted around in mid-air pulling his rifle off his back again, he sighted down the scope and fired three shots. The first shot took down one of the pegasi with a bullet through the back of his head, the next ripped through the others neck, and his third shot sank into Winter Frosts wing. He screamed and fell to the ground. Stardust flew over to the trembling mare to make sure she was okay.

As I watched what happened somepony slammed into me, throwing me to the ground, I felt metal hooves slam down on the back of my helmet as we went down. I kicked back and threw them off me and turned to see Solstice. She’d removed her helmet but she was still wearing the black power armor. I picked myself up and drew Dream Walker, “What, you couldn’t take down Stardust so you thought you’d try fighting me?”

“Fuck you, I have my orders and I plan on seeing them through. When I’m done with you I’ll take down the Dashite!” she exclaimed, her magical energy rifles starting to hum.

“Do you even see what you’re doing here? There are ponies who live here that haven’t done anything wrong and you’re just killing them.”

“Dirt ponies need to learn their place, and most of the ponies here are Dashites, they’re nothing but a disgrace to Pegasus kind. Traitors, all of them,” she fired her magical energy rifles.

I dodged to one side and fired back at her, she in turn dodged my shot firing back at me in quick succession. One of her shots hit me as I was trying to avoid another, the shot heated up my barding. I was lucky Silver put so much time into this new armor of mine or else that shot could’ve done major damage. Still I hit the ground and rolled.

I rolled back to my hooves and jumped back avoiding another of her wild shots. I lifted Dream Walker, it clicked on an empty chamber, “Fuck!” I yelled as I checked for a fresh clip, only one and it would take more than what I had left to take her down. Sadly, Silver didn’t have much when she gave me the extra rounds and it wasn’t like there was any traders in Frosty Summit. I really need to start stocking up on weapons that didn’t have such rare ammo.

Solstice started to laugh, “Time to give up, you’re nearly out of ammo and out of options.”

“Maybe you’re right, it’d be the smart thing to do…” I responded smiling back at her, “…but I’ve never been good at doing the smart thing.”

I might not have much ammo left, but I did still have my machete. I pulled it from my saddle bags and jumped toward the pink maned bitch. One thing I’d noticed about her, is that she reacted without thinking when somepony charged her. She did just that, she started to fire…but not as wildly as I’d hoped she would. I tried to dodge her first shot, only to end up jumping right in front of her next. The magical energy blasted into me and threw me back again, burning through my new barding and into my coat.

“Did you think you could just rush me with a big knife? You’re right, you’re really not good with the whole smart thing,” the rifles on her battle saddle started charging up again.

I held a hoof to my burning chest and looked up at her through the goggles in my helmet, “Maybe, but another thing you should know about me is that I hate giving up.”

I jumped toward her entering S.A.T.S. in the split-second surprise I got I was able to close the small gap between us, and target two hits with the spell. They were a little wild, my first scraped off her armor, but my second slashed across her exposed neck, but it was shallow. As the targeting spell ended she fell back with a quick yelp of pain. Blood splattered on the ground, but she was still standing.

“You bitch, you’ll pay for that!” she yelled holding a hoof to her bleeding neck, “Good thing this was shallow.”

I saw her heading to fire again, then something came rolling across the ground. I looked down just in time to see a shiny metal apple with a light blue band on it. It flashed and emitted an electrical pulse, it didn’t seem to do much to me apart from frizzling my mane, I couldn’t say the same for Solstice. When the flash of light went away she was just standing there, her energy rifles were dead and so was her power armor.

She growled at me, “What the fuck did you just do?”

“She didn’t do anything,” Wingnut said running over to me, he looked like he’d been in a fight himself, but he didn’t look hurt, “That was a spark grenade, great thing to keep around when you’re fighting ponies in power armor. Right now, your power armor’s spell matrix is down, you can’t move anything.”

“Good work Wingnut, how are the others doing?”

“Violet is kinda goin’ on a rampage right now. She’s beaten back most of the ground force that tried to get in, Aura and that Dashite pony have been showing the other pegasi why you don’t mess with them, and Stardust is over there fighting with that other power armored pegasus,” he said pointing a hoof to where I could see Stardust in a hoof to hoof fight with Winter Frost. It looked like Winter Frost was able to fix his wing somehow, because he didn’t look hurt at all.

I looked back toward Solstice, “You’ve been beaten apart for maybe one or two, so I think it’s time you start telling me what you really want with us.”

She just started to laugh, “You think we’re beaten? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe it’s just me, but you look like the one who can’t move right now, you’re finished,” Wingnut said, “Even that unicorn mare you brought with you is being held at gunpoint by Laser Light.”

I looked over to where the hooded mare still stood quietly watching us, at least I think she was, it was hard to tell when you couldn’t even see her eyes, “Wingnut, do you have any ammo for Dream Walker or a gun I can use?”

“I don’t have any .50 Cal. ammunition, all I have is my revolver and a crappy energy pistol that one of the Enclave ponies dropped.”

“It’ll have to do,” I said taking the pistol…how did you even fire this thing it didn’t even look like a normal gun…it’s made of plastic…oh wait there it is. I pointed it at Solstice, “Okay, how about we try this again, tell me why you’re here.”

“This fight isn’t over yet,” she turned her head and yelled, “How long are you going to just stand there?”

The hooded mare chuckled a little, “I was just waiting to see what you’d do, but if you really want me to do something I guess I could.”

Laser Light pressed her rifle against her head again, “You aren’t doing anything.”

“No pony was talking to you Lieutenant Colonel…,” The Hooded mare said, whispering something at the end, but I wasn’t able to catch the last word.

Laser Light pulled back a little a look of shock on her face, “How’d you…”

The Hooded Mare took advantage of the momentary distraction, ducked down, and bucked Laser Light before she could get a shot off. Her horn glowed from under her hood as she twisted around and fired a blast of energy at Laser. Laser screamed as it hit, she rolled along the ground, her laser rifle sliding away. Laser didn’t get back up once her body came to a stop, she just laid there unresponsive.

The Hooded Mare’s horn glowed again and she teleported next to me her hoof coming around to strike me. I jumped back and lifted the pistol and tried to fire, the gun fired a crimson beam at the mare who was only a couple feet in front of me, only she put up a shield deflecting the shot. I could see her horn glowing again, something started to glow under me. I looked down just in time to see another magic circle. A second later a blast of magic and earth exploded under me throwing me up into the air.

I screamed as I hit the ground feeling something crack in my chest. Wingnut came running pulling out a healing potion, “Shadow, here take this,” he said pressing the bottle to my lips.

I drank it down quick, as the magic did its job I jumped back to my hooves and pushed him back as another blast of magic exploded under me, this time throwing me back into the wall that protected Frosty Summit. How the hell did she keep doing that? I’ve never seen a unicorn who could do anything like what I was seeing.

I looked up, my vision tinted red from the blood flowing down from a cut on my forehead. Wingnut was trying to run over to me again, another healing potion in his muzzle. The mare however wasn’t having it, she teleported in front of me with an odd-looking weapon in her magical grasp. It kind of looked like a magical energy rifle, but it had a long narrow barrel and wires running along its base connecting to odd projections on the sides.

She pointed the rifle down at me and sighed, “It’s too bad you didn’t just give me the Pip-Buck, you could’ve lived, for a little while at least.”

“Just get it over with, I’m sick of listening to you.”

“Have it your way then,” she said pulling back on the trigger.

Before she could get a shot off, Wingnut jumped in the way holding his hooves up. He looked up at the hooded mare, “You’ll have to kill me too if you want to get to Shadow.”

“Wingnut what the fuck are you doing!?” I yelled.

“I’m not letting her kill you Shadow, if she’s really cold hearted enough to kill me then oh well. I won’t stand back and just watch you die,” He said, still blocking the mare’s shot.

It was then that I noticed the rifle shaking in her magic, “Move out of my way child.”

“No, fuck you,” he replied.

“MOVE NOW!” she screamed as her hold on the rifle grew weaker, starting to shake more.

I reached out with my own magic and took hold of her own weapon ripping it away from her, flipping it around and firing. A blast of green…stuff…flew out of the end of the rifle and blasted into her. She flew back as the green goo stuff stuck to her sizzling a little.

I got to my shaking hooves then took the healing potion Wingnut dropped a few feet away and drank it down quickly. I looked back at the mare who was just getting back to her hooves, “You should’ve taken the shot when you had the chance, now you’re dead.”

I didn’t give her a chance to say anything, I didn’t want to hear anything else from her. I aimed the rifle and fired…then something landed in front of her letting the shot hit it instead. However, the green goo just slid off its hide like it was nothing more than swamp water.

Greed smiled at me, his body covered again in the shiny black armor like when I first met him, “Sorry Shadow, but I can’t let you kill her.”

“Greed? Are you following me or something?”

“Not today, I’m keeping an eye on The Boss.”

“Wait, I thought Pride was your leader?”

“He is, he leads the Seven Sins of Equinity. She’s HIS boss, which makes her OUR boss.”

The Hooded Mare got up, “Greed, your timing is as perfect as ever. Where are the others?”

“They’ll be here in a minute, well a couple of them at least,” he replied.

I lifted the rifle again, “Greed, I can’t let her live, she’s nothing but trouble.”

“And I can’t let you kill her, Pride would kill me if I let anything happen to her.”

“Kill her Greed, I’m tired of dealing with her.” The Hooded Mare yelled.

He looked at me then back at her and sighed, “I really don’t want to do that. Couldn’t we just take her captive? I don’t like fighting ponies of the female variety. You dig?”

“No, she has a tenacity to get herself out of situations like that. If she’s dead then there’s no more problems for us, now do as you’re told.”

He sighed again, “Yes ma’am,” then he looked my way, “Sorry beautiful, but my hooves are tied.”

He rushed me, but I was expecting it, I jumped aside as he flew by then entered S.A.T.S. and targeted three shots at the hooded mare. I was about to activate the spell when something punched into my side making my shots go wild, only one looked like it would hit, but something pulled away from the shadows and pushed the mare out of the line of fire.

When everything went back to normal I saw the shadows around us pulling itself together and Pride was standing where the mare had been a moment ago. He looked as angry as Wrath did when I first hit him with a rock. It was then that I noticed it was getting hard to breath. I looked down at my left side and noticed blood slowly flowing from a gunshot wound. Fuck, Wrath must be here somewhere too. She has three Sins with her, what the fuck am I gonna do now?

Pride walked slowly toward me, his horn glowed as he pulled my helmet off. He tossed it up in the air, a shadow flew up from his horn and sliced the helmet in two. I watched as the gift from Silver landed on the ground, cut smoothly down the center. I wanted to say something, but the only thing that I got out was a bloody cough.

His horn glowed again and he used his magic to pull my Duster and barding off throwing it aside, then he pulled Dream Walker away unloaded it and tossed it aside alone with the other two weapons I had, leaving me exposed and unarmored, “You have been the biggest pain in my ass.”

Wingnut tried to run over to me, but without even looking at the colt, his horn flashed and Wingnut was pinned to the ground. The Hooded Mare walked over next to Pride, “Don’t toy with her brother, we need to kill her before her friends try and save her again.”

Pride looked over at the hooded mare who just called him brother, “Sis, she killed Gluttony, I want her to suffer for killing one of my Sins.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Why’s that? Do you think anypony here can do anything to me? Do you really think anypony here could even kill me? If so, let them try. I’m not letting her get away with a quick death,” Pride replied.

She sighed, “Pride I gave you an order, I expect you to follow it without question, or do you want The Council to hear about this?”

“But sis…”

“No but’s. I gave you an order, don’t push your luck with me. Remember, you owe me everything after what you did.”

He shut his muzzle then sighed as shadows started to flow around his horn, “Fine have it your way.”

I looked up at the face of death, then the loud commanding voice of none other than Doorstop yelled, “Hey Pride, say cheese and smile like a jackass!” I saw something fly over me and a second later something exploded into a blinding light. I wish I could have screamed “MY EYES!” but I wasn’t able to say much due to the blood slowly seeping into my lung.

As the Flash grenade went off a horrible in-equine scream filled the air. A moment later as the light faded away I felt Doorstop pressing a restoration potion to my lips. I drank it down eagerly and felt my breathing start to get a lot better. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than drowning in my own blood. I rubbed my eyes and squinted at where Pride had been, but he wasn’t there, only the hooded mare who was rubbing her eyes under her hood.

Doorstop took hold of Wingnut and me taking to the air, “We have to get you out of here before that little mutant recovers.”

“What the fuck did you just do? Where did Pride go?”

Doorstop was looking around as he flew me back toward the resort, “Pride has one big weakness, sudden bursts of light makes his body melt away. It doesn’t keep him down for long, but it’ll buy us some time.”

Wingnut was rubbing his head a little, “You could’ve warned us y’know.”

“Wasn’t enough time maggot. Where did Greed go and how did you get shot?”

“I think Wrath is around here somewhere, but how did you know anything about The Sins or their weaknesses?” I asked as he landed next to the entrance to the resort looking back at where the Hooded Mare was shaking her head looking around for us.

“Because I’m not like The Cadet. I know about most of the things that are going on around Stratus. I’ve met The Sins a few times before and I’ve learned a thing or two. Now where did The Cadet get to anyhow? I should wup his ass for not staying with his subordinates.”

Wingnut spoke up, “He was fighting that other power armored pegasus when I last saw him.”

I looked around and saw my friend high in the air still trying to take down Winter Frost, “He’s up there,” I said pointing a hoof toward him.

Right then Aura landed next to me, she had a few burned spots on her hide, but didn’t look too bad, “Shadow there you are, what happened?”

“The Sins are here, at least Pride, Wrath, and Greed are. Laser Light is down, I’m not sure if she’s even alive, and that mare is gonna kill us if we don’t do something about her right now.”

“The rest of their forces fled, they can’t take all of us,” Aura said readying her spear.

There was a flash of blue in the distance, the Hooded Mare was in front of us, a spell ready on her horn. The attacks she took had done something to her, and I could now see her dark grey eyes looking at me with hatred. The rest of her face was still hidden, but I could see the eyes and the promise of death they held. She cast her spell, seven magical circles forming around her horn as she did.

I closed my eyes not wanting to watch as the spell came to incinerate us all. I’d lost and I’d rather not watch as my friends die around me before I went. I prayed to the goddesses for my final moment, then realized nothing happened. I opened my eyes again to find Violet blocking the way, her shield up and protecting us from the blast of blue energy that was flowing around us. When the spell ended the Hooded Mare swayed for a moment, then she looked up at the Alicorn.

I noticed that Violet didn’t look like her normal self, her eyes were glowing a bloody red and her mane was flowing behind her, just like the mane of the Goddesses in the old stories of when they still lived among us. The Amulet around her neck was glowing just as brightly seeming to fill her with power.

“I forgot about you, abomination,” The hooded mare said breathing heavily.

“You killed two of my children, brought an onslaught of ponies here to kill the ponies who call this place home, attacked a mare who has been trying to make The Wasteland a better place, and you destroyed our home. For that I sentence you to DEATH.” Violet said in a booming voice.

To my amazement, the hooded mare just laughed, “Yeah and I’d do it again, nothing stands in my way.”

“BE GONE!” Violet exclaimed firing a red magical blast of energy at the mare.

She was able to cast a quick shield spell right before the Alicorn’s spell hit. The spell however didn’t stand a chance against Violet’s fury, the red light enveloped the mare crushing the shield in the blink of an eye and threw her across the clearing and into the far wall.

“Holy shit!” Was all I could say as the spell ended and smoke filled the air from where I guessed the charred body of the mare must surely be.

Violet shook her head and sighed, her features going back to normal as she said, “She’s not dead, but she’s badly hurt I’m sure.”

“Wait a sec, are you telling me that even after THAT, she isn’t dead?” Aura said looking back toward the smoky wall.

“No and I’m afraid we aren’t out of the woods yet either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I too looked back to where I could see a pony shape getting back to her hooves…it looked like that blast destroyed her cloak and barding, but she was still outlined in dark smoke so I couldn’t tell what she looked like. Then there was a flash of blue light and she was gone.

“How was she able to survive that attack?” I asked.

“She’s very powerful. She uses a mix of zebra magic and unicorn magic. That attack of mine would’ve killed most ponies, but her shield was able to take the deadlier part of my spell, leaving only her body to deal with more destructive part. She took a lot of damage, but it didn’t kill her.”

A second after I saw Winter Frost slam into the ground, Stardust on top of him, “And stay down muthafuckaaaa...”

“Stardust are you okay?” I asked walking over to him and looking down at a knocked-out Winter Frost.

“Of course I am, what do you take me for? A little bitch like him? No way kemosabe. This guy was only hard to take down because of his power armor, but I still showed him why you don’t mess with me,” he said spitting on the other Pegasus. “I win! That’s right biach! Woo!”

The mare from before that Stardust flew off to save from Winter Frost flew over to him and hugged him tight, “You saved my life thank you so much.”

He blushed bright red, “Oh…no problem. Always happy to help a mare in need.”

“I feel like we’re forgetting something,” I said looking around at the destruction around us. I could see Solstice still standing where I’d left her, trapped in her power armor. Winter Frost was unconscious…where were The Sins?

A rifle cracked from somewhere in the darkness and a bullet pierced into my foreleg just above my Pip-Buck. I screamed and fell as another crack filled the air, Stardust pulled himself away from the mare who was still hugging him, “Fuck, I know the sound of that rifle anywhere. Wrath’s here somewhere.”

Aura grabbed me and pulled me behind Violet, she took a moment to look over my leg as the Alicorn brought up her shield spell to protect us from Wrath’s shots, “You’re lucky he didn’t hit higher. This could’ve been a kill shot.”

I winced in pain then responded, “I’ve seen what Wrath can do. If he wanted to take me out he could’ve. Right now, he’s toying with us, I’m sure he’s waiting for Pride to show back up or Greed.”

Aura pulled out a healing potion and dribbled a little on my wound to help concentrate the healing I guess, then had me drink the rest, “We need something to take down that sniper, we’re wide open out here.”

“No matter how much he tries, his ammo can’t get through my shield,” Violet said as she kept her shield up showing how much it could take, “I can have one of my Alicorns find him and take him out if he’s staying in the same position, he won’t be able to hide for long.”

Stardust spoke up, “Wrath’s not a normal sniper, he won’t just sit in one location. When I’m sniping, I’m normally in the air moving from place to place to make sure to keep my location hard to predict.”

“There aren’t many places he can hide around here, my Alicorns can take care of him,” Violet said.

As we sat there trying to think of what to do next Wraths voice echoed around us, he must’ve been using a spell to project his voice, “Alicorn, do you really think that shield of yours can protect you from my shots forever?”

“Your puny bullets can’t get through my shield,” Violet said projecting her own voice.

I could hear Wrath laugh, “You think so do you?”

Another shot rang out and an instant later Violet’s shield popped and a look of shock came to her face, as a bullet punctured through her chest. She fell as blood started to flow from her wound. I ran over and tried pulling out a healing potion but Aura put a talon on me, “That won’t do much for her, she needs radiation.”

“Where are we gonna find that for her? She’s not gonna be easy to move,” I yelled looking down at the bleeding Alicorn.

Violet groaned, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine in a little bit. My body can take more than this, also Dr. Cottage will be able to help.”

Wrath’s voice echoed again, “You’re lucky, it’s not often I miss my mark, I was aiming for your heart.”

“How did he get through the shield?” I asked still looking around trying to figure out where Wrath was hiding. He must be just outside the range of my E.F.S. because I wasn’t seeing anything hostile.

“Knowing Wrath, he was probably using some kind ammo that bypasses magical shields,” Stardust said pulling his own rifle off his back and checking his mag, “Fuck I’m out,”

“We really need to stock up, we were lucky that Silver had a little extra for us, but we still don’t have enough to take them on,” I said looking around for anything we could use to help us. Then I noticed the rifle that the hooded mare used was still laying where I’d dropped it when the flash grenade went off, it was sitting next to my barding, “Stardust, can you make some kind of distraction to keep Wrath off me?”

“Shadow, what are you planning?” Aura asked.

“That rifle over there, if I can get my hooves on it and my barding, at least we won’t be defenseless,” I said looking around still hoping that something would show up on my E.F.S. it was one thing to have a sniper around that you couldn’t see. It was even worse when you know two more deadly ponies were out there too. Well at least Pride was, where the hell did Greed go? He tried to attack me, but since then he just completely disappeared.

Stardust grinned, “I owe that fucker for the last time we met. I’ll be able to distract him.”

“Just don’t get shot,” I said readying myself for a rush toward the weapon and my barding.

“Don’t worry Shadow, he may be a good sniper, but he can’t hit me if I don’t give him the opening,” He said taking off and yelling, “Hey Wrath, time to come out and play. I dare you to try and hit me, though I doubt you could even hit the broad side of a barn with that shitty toy you call a rifle.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll show you pegasus,” Wrath’s enchanted voice echoed out, another shot filled the air as Stardust zoomed around.

He laughed, “I thought you were trying to kill me. What’s wrong, do you need a few pointers from a real sniper.”

More shots rang out as Wrath tried to shoot him. Doorstop chuckled as he watched Stardust zig-zag through the air, “Hehe, nice to see him put that smart mouth of his to good use for once.”

I couldn’t help a small laugh of my own, he did have a point. I guess Stardust’s annoying attitude had to come in handy for something. I looked at Aura and said, “Grab Laser and get her to the doctor right away, I’m going to get that rifle.”

“Shadow I can’t protect you if I’m helping everypony else all the time,” she protested.

I smiled, “I know, but I can’t have you or Stardust protecting me all the time. I can handle myself, Laser needs you right now. The faster you get her to Dr. Cottage or 21, the faster you can get back out here and help me, also Violet needs him too.”

“Do not worry child, I will be fine. Have your griffon friend save Laser, she’s important,” Violet said slowly getting to her hooves. It looked like the bleeding in her chest had already stopped.

“Okay good, Wingnut you get inside with Doorstop,” I said, Wingnut opened his muzzle to argue but I cut him off, “Don’t start, you just went through something dangerous and I need to know you’ll be safe.”

He took a moment then finally said, “Fine.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the little runt, just go take care of those assholes,” Doorstop said, nudging Wingnut along toward the door to the Lodge.

“Okay Aura let’s get this over with.”

Aura cursed under her breath then flapped her wings, “Fine, but be careful, this won’t take me long,” she flew off toward where Laser was still lying.

I took my chance as well and bolted for the rifle and my barding. It wasn’t far and I reached it quickly, I grabbed my barding and slipped it on. Sadly the helmet was destroyed, but the face mask and goggles were still okay, so I left helmet on the ground and tucked the others two away. Using my magic, I lifted the rifle and checked the ammo it used. It was some kind of weird looking thing that connected to the bottom of it. I didn’t even know how many shots it had left, but it was better than nothing. What I really needed was to find where Dream Walker landed. If I found that and the mag for it, I’d be in a lot better shape. Looking around I saw the glint of the blue pistol only a few feet away from where my mag and extra round had fallen. I also noticed the energy pistol that Wingnut had given me and took it as well.

“Nice,” I said as I started to make my way toward it. I picked it up with my magic and reloaded it. Now with three weapons I should be able to do something about Wrath. That was if I could find him…was it me or was it getting darker than before.

A shadow blew out from under me and tossed me to the side knocking both weapons out of my magic. I looked up and saw the face of…of course…Pride. He was smiling down at me as shadows flowed off him like water, “Finally, nopony around to get in the way Courier,” the shadows around him thickened and formed into two blades, “I really wish I could kill you slowly, it would be a nice payment for killing Gluttony.”

“That’s what he gets for being such an idiot,” I said trying to reach for the rifle.

His horn flashed, a moment later I was being pinned against the ground as one of his shadows came down to press against my forehead, “Don’t waste your time trying to shoot me, it would be a waste of ammo anyway.”

I smiled back up at him, my horn still glowing, “Maybe, but I wasn’t going for the rifle,” Dream Walker pressed against his head and fired. The round glowed as it entered his skull and in a flash of black light, Pride’s head exploded throwing his body back and making his shadows vanish.

I got to my hooves and backed away from the body. I took a moment to holster Dream Walker, then I took hold of the rifle and started to make my way back to the lodge where I could see Aura flying back from. She landed next to me then looked over at the body of the Leader of the Sins, “Okay, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, why does interesting things happen to you when I fly off?”

“Who cares, let’s find Wrath and take care of him too so we can get this over with.”

“What about Greed?”

“I’m not worried about him, for some reason he has a crush on me and it doesn’t seem like he really wants to hurt me.”

Aura sighed, “Maybe, but we should still be careful, he’s still a Sin.”

“And where do you think you’re going Courier Mare? We aren’t finished yet,” the voice of Pride said from behind me.

Aura and I froze. I looked back to where Pride’s body was starting to get back up, I noticed then that there wasn’t any blood from his head getting blasted off. Shadows seemed to be pouring out of his neck and they were forming into a pony head. A moment later Pride was looking at us with his smug smile planted on his reformed face.

“What the fuck are you?” I asked pointing the rifle at him again.

He popped his neck then replied, “There’s a reason the rest of the Sins do what I tell them to, and why I never worry about anypony pointing a gun at me. You see Courier Mare, nopony can kill me. My body isn’t normal, if you put a hole in me it’ll just vanish, if you take off my head, it will just reform. Now how about you be a good filly and die.”

I fired the rifle at him, but just like he said, his body just poofed into shadows and reformed an instant later. He just started to walk toward me slowly as more shadows formed around him making themselves into blades. Aura took hold of her spear and slashed at him, but she had no better luck than I did. She dodged one of the shadows that slashed back at her then she flew back to my side.

“Shadow, I think this is a good time to make a tactical retreat.”

“I agree,” I said turning to run from whatever Pride was.

“You aren’t going anywhere. I told you already, you’re going to pay for killing Gluttony,” he ran at me, his shadow magic slashing toward me.

I didn’t know what I could do, I hated to admit it, but now would be a great time for Morning Star to tag in. Oh yeah, she was being blocked by the talisman. Before I could think of anything else, Aura took hold of me and took off. One of Pride’s blades shot up and turned into a club. It slammed into her throwing us both to the ground.

I winced in pain as we hit, Aura was grunting in pain as well. I looked back at Pride as he slowly walked toward us, the shadows around him growing as a grin pulled at his lips, “Goodbye Courier Mare.”

The shadows around him shot out toward Aura and me, sharp edges forming along them. I watched as the dark magic came, before Pride could land his killing blow, a pony landed in front of me. Something flashed almost as bright as the flash grenade had. The shadows that were closest vanished, the rest arching around us as if the light served as a kind of shield.

When the light around us faded away, I saw the pony I’d met back at F&F Tools. He was still wearing his black desperado hat and the brown trenchcoat, his features still wrapped in bandages. He looked back at me and unlike before I could see his emerald green eyes peering out from under the desperado hat, “Are you okay Shadow Star?”

“Does it look like I’m okay?” I asked.

Pride looked at the new comer like he should know who he was but couldn’t place him, “Who are you?”

The Mysterious Pony shook his head and said in his altered voice, “No pony at all, just a wandering stallion who saw a young mare in distress.”

“Yeah, sure you are,” Pride said reforming his shadows.

The Mysterious Pony put a hoof to his muzzle as if he was thinking, “Hmmm and here I thought you were Pride the Arrogant, leader of the Seven Sins of Equinity? That IS why you have the mark of the Lion on your flanks isn’t it?”

Pride smiled again then bowed, “Always nice to meet a fan,” he said, though I couldn’t tell what The Mysterious Pony was talking about, I couldn’t even see Prides cutie mark…now that I think about it, that part of him has always been cast in some kind of shadow.

“I’m no fan, trust me on that. If I had it my way I’d see all of you dead. The Sins are a disgrace compared to the originals that went by a different name.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pride growled.

“I know more than you know Oricalcos,”

Pride froze, his eyes going wide, “What did you just call me?”

“I’m sure you heard me just fine.”

“That’s not my name anymore, I gave it up when I became Pride! No pony should know that name…NO PONY!” Pride yelled shadows erupting from his body.

The Mysterious Pony held up a gem that emitted the same light as before, blocking the shadows from reaching us, “That trick of yours won’t work, this ward protects me from dark magic like yours,” he pulled out his revolver and fired. It worked as well as my own gun had, “Hmmm so it’s true, guns don’t work on you, good to know. Even more interesting is that THIS gun doesn’t work on you.”

Pride tried to attack again, and once again his shadows couldn’t get past The Mysterious Pony, “Who the fuck are you and how do you know so much about me?”

“I told you, I’m no pony.”

Pride smiled again, “Well then No Pony, if I can’t use my magic on you, let’s see how you do against him. GREED, KILL HIM!”

A second later Greed landed next to pride, his body covered in his armor, “You called Pride?”

“That pony who’s covering his face, kill him, now.”

“Sure thing Pride, I want that kick-ass hat,” Greed said smiling and looking back toward The Mysterious Pony.

“Shadow, I can hold them off for a little while, get your friends and get out of here,” he said, his eyes not leaving Greed’s.

“No way, I’m not leaving. I’m sick of dealing with them, I’m going to help you take them down,” I rebutted.

I felt a talon take hold of my shoulder, looking back I saw Aura, “He’s right Shadow, we can’t take them, not like this. He’s giving us a chance to get away, we need to take it.”

“But…I can’t just run away.”

“Sometimes you have to Shadow, this isn’t a fight we can win right now. I hate running away too, but we have to,” Aura said.

“Fine,” I responded, finally giving in. I looked back at The Mysterious Pony, “You better survive this. I still wanna know who you are and why you’re helping me.”

The bandages around his muzzle rose as he smiled, “Count on it Shadow.”

I turned and ran off following Aura as she led me back toward the Lodge, as I did I heard Greed say, “Now that she’s out of the way, how about you show me what you can really do.”

“Trust me Greed, you’ll find out very soon,” The Mysterious Pony responded, followed by the bark of his long-barreled revolver.

I was surprised that Pride didn’t follow us as we reached the door that lead into the Lodge. I looked back as we reached it searching for Stardust. It only took a moment for me to notice him still flying around dodging the shots coming from Wrath, “Stardust, stop playing with Wrath and take him out.”

“I would Shadow but I’m still low on ammo, I could really use a little help.”

“Aura do you think you could figure out where Wrath is and take him down?” I asked.

“With how quickly he’s firing off shots I think I can. Problem is I don’t know if I can get close to him before he’ll turn his gunfire on me.”

An idea hit me and I grinned, “I have a plan, let me go with you. I can help distract him, he can’t take us all on at once. With Greed and Pride distracted we might be able to take care of him without much trouble.”

She grinned at me, “Hey I like that plan, let’s go Boss,” she knelt down and I pulled myself onto her back holding on around her neck, “Make sure you hold on tight, this’ll be quick.”

“Don’t worry about me Aura just make sure you don’t get shot,” I said as she took off.

She flew past Stardust and toward where the gunfire was coming from, she kept weaving through the air, making herself a harder target to hit, “Shadow, let me know when you see him on your E.F.S.”

I was already doing that, it only took a second for the red bar to show up, just a little to the left. I pointed my hoof in that direction, “He’s that way.”

She banked hard to the left and darted right for him. She took us over the wall of Frosty Summit and toward one of the cliffs that overlooked the small town. A few seconds later I saw him, the red unicorn was sighting down his rifle, sending off steady shots toward Stardust.

I readied the Rifle that The Hooded Mare had dropped as Aura dove right for him. When she got close to the ground with her spear ready I jumped off her back and toward Wrath. He must’ve noticed something at the last second, because he twisted his rifle around with a grin on his face, “Nice try.”

He started to fire as we dove toward him, aiming for Aura first. She banked to his left and I landed on his right, I activated S.A.T.S. and fired. The green goo slammed into his side and burned right through his reinforced combat armor. He howled in pain and twisted around bucking me in the face. I flew back and into Stardust who caught me before I could go over the edge. In quick succession he set me down and dove for Wrath just as he was turning to take on Aura who was bringing her Spear around to strike.

Wrath ducked under the slash then brought his rifle up toward her head. She brought the bottom of her spear around and batted it aside as it went off. She saw an opening and kicked him in the side where I’d shot him. He howled in pain again and before he could do anything else, Stardust tackled him from behind, slamming him into the side of the cliff. Wrath’s rifle went flying as Stardust pinned him to the wall.

He tried to kick Stardust off, but Stardust hit Wrath’s wounded side, “One more wrong move out of you Wrath and you’ll be the next casualty of the Sins. I’ll stain the side of the cliff with your blood.”

Wrath stopped moving and glared up into Stardust’s eyes, “You’d better kill me then, because Pride won’t let you get away with taking me hostage.”

“Pride’s running out of options now Wrath,” Stardust said.

Wrath smiled as his horn started to glow, “Pride never runs out of options, and neither do I.”

Aura picked up Wraths rifle and used the butt of the gun to bash him in the side of the head before he could cast the spell. Wrath crumpled the blow knocking him out, his horn going dark. Aura smiled as Stardust dropped him, “He was getting annoying anyway. Looks like we have our very own Sin now.”

Stardust laughed a little, “Just what I always wanted, and it’s not even my birthday.”

“We should tie him up and get him back to the Lodge, we also need to see what happened with Pride and Greed and The Mysterious Pony,” I said looking back out where I could still see fighting between two ponies going on.

“Good idea, I’ll take care of Wrath. Aura and you should go help him. What we really need to do is figure out how to get Pride out of here. I don’t think we can kill him,” Stardust said going back over to the unconscious Wrath.

“Okay, we’ll see you back at the lodge. You should also try and get Winter Frost and Solstice too, they might know something that we can use to take care of the Sins,” I said

“Works for me, don’t go getting yourself killed.”

Aura laughed, “Don’t worry we’ll be fine,” she took off with me on her back

We flew toward the fight between Greed and The Mysterious Pony I couldn’t help but notice how evenly they were matched. If it wasn’t for Greed’s armor, I think he wouldn’t be able to stop the other pegasus. With each attack Greed tried to land on the bandaged stallion, he was able to either duck or dodge the strike or use his revolver to block each hit. Whoever this pony was he was specially trained to fight ponies like them.

“Aura, do you know any way we can get through Greed’s armor?”

“No, I’ve never faced an enemy like him. Even if I did we’d still have to deal with Pride. He’s our bigger concern at the moment,” she replied.

She had a point, even if we took both down, Pride would still be able to take us all on. He may not be able to hurt The Mysterious Pony, but he couldn’t protect us forever from Prides attacks. From what I’d seen, his only weakness seemed to be intense bursts of light. If only I knew a spell like that, but maybe I did have something that could work. As we drew closer I checked my inventory, but sadly I didn’t have what I needed.

“Fuck I really need a pony who has a flash grenade, or a really Powerful Light spell.”

At that moment I heard the voice of Violet in my head, “A light spell I can do, but why do you need it?”

“Wait Violet? Where are you?”

The Alicorn materialized next to Aura and me as we drew closer to the fight, “I decided to go help you when you went after Wrath. I thought keeping myself hidden would help, but when you took him down I decided to follow you. Why do you need a light Spell?”

“Doorstop said Pride was weak against light, and I thought you were hurt?”

She smiled, “I was, but a quick dose of radiation and I was as good as new. So we can get rid of Pride with a large blast of light? Okay then, I will fly down and take care of him, you take care of the armored one.”

“We can do that, just be careful. We don’t know what else that bastard has up his sleeve,” Aura said.

“I will,” her horn glowed bright red as she blasted toward Pride.

He watched as she landed in front of him, a board expression on his face, “And what do you think you are going to do, monster?”

“This,” Violet said and a bright light erupted from her horn.

“What the fuck!” Pride screamed. I was able to shield my eyes this time and I saw what happened. As the spell cast, Prides body literally vaporized into blackness.

A moment later he was gone just like before. I knew it wouldn’t keep him down for long, but with two ponies that could stop him now, we may just stand a chance. Aura landed a moment later next to The Mysterious Pony as he blocked another attack from Greed. I jumped off her back and pointed my rifle at the armored pegasus.

“Greed stop!”

To my surprise, he looked over at me and stopped his attack, “Shadow? I thought you ran off.”

“Pride’s gone again and we have Wrath, you’re the only pony left. You can’t take us all, you should give up while you can.”

“Really, you think I can’t take you or your friends? Shadow, if I didn’t fancy you, I’d have killed you already. The only pony that can hurt me kid, is Pride, but seeing how he’s well…been shown who’s boss in this fight, I don’t have any reason to fight anymore.”

“I don’t understand you Greed, you don’t seem to care one bit about taking me out. Why do you keep helping them?”

He chuckled, “I’m in this for me kid. The only thing I care about more than money, fame, and power, is my own life. Even now I should keep fighting you, but I don’t see any gain in it for me. Pride’s been turned to shadow twice now, he’ll take a while to pull himself back together and with how much magic he’s been using he won’t be in any shape to keep going.”

“Why don’t you help us? Maybe we can protect you from Pride and the rest of The Enclave.” Violet said walking toward us.

“Sorry doll, but nopony can protect me from him. I’m shocked that Shadow and the rest of you are still alive. Luckily for you though, we were only supposed to protect the Boss during this fight. She ran off and got away, by now I’m sure she’s back at our base licking her wounds. So I’ll let you be for now, but sadly after this I’m sure she won’t let me do this again.”

He flapped his wings taking to the air, he hovered there for a moment then looked back at me, “Shadow, watch who you make friends with, remember that you never know who might turn on you.”

“What does that mean?” I asked as he started to fly away.

“Sorry kid. That’s all I can tell ya. Take my advice and get as far away from here as you can, next time we meet, I’ll have to kill you. I’d really hate to have to mess up that cute face of yours,” With that he was gone.

“Are you really gonna let him go?” The Mysterious Pony asked.

I nodded, “I owed him that much, he helped me back at The Bramble. Now we are truly even, also do you really think you could kill him?”

He shook his head, “Greed’s power has always been a mystery to me, there has to be a way around his armor, but I’m not sure what it is.”

“I’m surprised you know as much as you do. Who are you anyway?” I asked

“I keep telling you and every pony else, I’m no Pony.”

“A name would be nice or do you want me to start calling you No Pony?”

He sighed, “I wish I could tell you who I was, but if I did it could ruin everything. Just know that I’m a friend and I only want what’s best for you Shadow Star.”

“That’s not good enough Stranger. Do you know how hard it is going around not knowing anything? It’s bad enough I don’t remember anything before I entered my Stable, now I have all this mystery going on around me, my Pip-Buck, my mother, that hooded mare, why The Enclave wants me dead, and you. I need a break,” I said throwing my hooves into the air.

“Yeah spill it, who are you really? Why do you keep coming in to save Shadow like you do? I’ve heard stories about you before, but you always just pop in, kill the ponies who are hurting others, then you’re gone. From what I heard about the first time you met Shadow, you stuck around longer and helped in the fight. Now today you did the same thing. Why does she matter so much to you?” Aura asked, moving over to stand next to me.

He looked taken aback for a moment, “Well, let’s just say I used to know her mother. I know how important she was to Grim and that Pip-Buck too. I owe my life to her and this is my small way of paying her back. I wish I could tell you more, but unfortunately I can’t. I have to get going now, if I’m gone much longer ponies will start to wonder where I am.”

“Can you at least give me a name?” I asked as he started to fly into the air.

“If you need something to call me then call me Stranger like you just did, it doesn’t matter to me. Now go check on the rest of your friends and the ponies you were able to capture. One of them might have the information you’ll need to understand more,” he said, a gem on the inner lining of his coat flashed. An instant later he was gone.

I sighed and turned to head back toward the lodge, “We should go check on the other’s Aura.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, though that Stranger guy bugs me. I’m sure we can trust him, but he knows too much for a random Pegasus.”

“What do you mean?”

“He knows some of the Sins weaknesses and he also seems to know when they are about to attack you. If you ask me, he’s part of The Enclave, but not like the ones we’ve met before. I’m sure he keeps who he is secret because if they found out he was the one going around killing fellow Enclave, they’d brand him in a second or worse kill him,” she said following beside me as we made our way toward the power armor that still had Solstice trapped inside it.

“Hmmmm, Enclave would make sense. I guess they can’t all be bad, but we should keep an eye on him when we see him again,” I said walking over to Solstice who was glaring right back at me, “So what should we do with you?”

She spat in my face…really…what’s the point of that? She laughed, “I don’t care what you do. I should be ashamed that a colt was able to stop me.”

I smiled bringing a hoof up to wipe her spit from my forehead, “Don’t feel bad, Wingnut’s a smart kid. How about this, if you tell me the real reason you came here I might let you go.”

She tried to spit on me again, but Aura brought her spear up to her neck, “Try that one more time and I’ll make sure you never see home again.”

Solstice looked ready to ignore Aura, but then she looked away, “Whatever, it’s not like I’ll be able to leave anyway. I’ve been down here too long, I’m contaminated.”

I looked at her a little confused, “What do you mean you’re contaminated?”

“You wouldn’t understand dirt pony. The surface is polluted, the pegasus race doesn’t spend much time down here because we don’t want to take any of the filth and rot back up to our home. I’ve been down here too long, sooner or later they’ll put me down as K.I.A. It’d be better for you to kill me.”

“Yeah, we aren’t doing that. If you really don’t think you can go home then I guess you’re stuck here with us. You should make yourself useful and tell us everything you know.”

Violet walked over right then and said, “You can put her in our prison, maybe after she cools off you’ll be able to get more out of her.”

“You have a prison here?” Aura asked.

The alicorn smiled, “We needed somewhere to keep ponies who commit a crime. At the moment we have a few cells free.”

“Good idea, do you mind helping us get her down there?” I asked.

“No problem at all,” using her telekinesis she lifted Solstice up and started walking toward the lodge, “I’ll also make sure to get the other Pegasus as well.”

As she was lifted in the air and carried away Solstice started to scream at Violet, “Put me down you disgusting freak of nature! You have no idea who you’re messing with!”

Aura and I both started to laugh, watching her get so angry over something as stupid as that was just too much. When our laughter finally died down I asked, “So how is Laser Light?”

“She woke up when I got her to the Doctor, she’s a little banged up but she’ll be fine. The same can’t be said for a few of the residents that live here. The medical team will be busy for a few days.”

I lowered my head, “I wish we could’ve done more,” looking around I could see small lumps scattered around the courtyard from ponies who hadn’t been fast enough to escape the Enclave’s assault, “How many innocent ponies died today because of me?”

Aura rested a talon on my shoulder, “Don’t go blaming yourself Shadow. There’s no telling what would’ve happened even if you did turn yourself over to them. You did what you had to and you fought hard to help protect this place even when the odds were against you. Try not to look on the bad side of things so much, you need to look at the good things. Because of you more ponies will live to see another day.”

I smiled at her, “You’re right, but it’s still hard. We have to do something to stop them, if this keeps up they’re going to keep coming after us. Sooner or later more ponies are going to die, and I don’t think I can keep letting ponies die around me.”

“I know, maybe when we’re done here we can start looking into a way to take care of the Sins, or get The Enclave off your back.”

“Maybe, but we still need to get to Crimson Canyon before we do anything else, I still have a mission to complete for the Queen.”

“Dammit, I was hoping you forgot about that,” Aura said.

“No way Aura, you aren’t getting out of this that easily,” I teased.

“Yeah I know, but you’ll owe me for making me go back there.”

“Technically you don’t have a choice, but if it makes you feel better maybe one day you’ll get to see my home,” I said, though I really hope I never have to go back to Stable 28. As much as I missed Auntie and my friends, I didn’t want to see what the Overmare would try to do if I ever returned.

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah like that’s ever gonna happen. You told me you’d never go back to your Stable.”

“Pfft, yeah with my luck I’m sure something will force me back there.”

“Maybe, but still I’m not that interested in seeing where you came from. You were a different pony in your Stable, I don’t need to see where you grew up,” Aura said walking past me and back toward the Lodge.

I smiled and followed, “I hope Wingnut’s okay.”

“Knowing that little shit, he’s probably annoying the crap out of the Dashite.”

We entered the Lodge to find the two purple Alicorns guarding the door. They both looked down at us silently, then after a moment they moved aside to let us by. I barely made it inside when I was tackled by Wingnut, “You’re okay! Did you win?”

I pushed him off, “I’m fine and we were able to chase them off, though from the looks of it quite a few ponies died.”

Wingnut’s smile left his face, “Yeah, we saw the last of the ponies that were brought in, they didn’t look too good. Doorstop went with Stardust when he brought that red unicorn in to throw him into one of the holding cells I guess they have here.”

“Good, I’m glad he was able to get Wrath back here safely. I’m hoping we can find a few things out from him, maybe from the other too.”

Aura spoke up, “If you think everything is gonna be okay in here Shadow, do you mind if I go see if I can help the Doctors. I’m sure they could use it.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m gonna go check on Silver then see if our guests have anything to say. Just come find me when you’re finished.”

“Can do boss, I’ll see you soon,” she said walking over to the double doors that lead to the small clinic.

“So kiddo, feel like joining me while I go check on how things are going?”

“Yeah, I’d rather go watch you and Silver make googly eyes at each other than hang around here.”

“Oh shut up,” I walked past him already regretting what I said.

We reached the staircase that lead to the room Silver and I had been sharing. “Are you sure Silver’s even up here? I didn’t see her come in,” Wingnut said as we approached the door.

“I didn’t see her outside or in the entryway, this is the only place I could see her going to.”

When I got to the door I heard somepony talking inside, “This place is a mess.”

Odd, that didn’t sound like Silver, I pushed the door open and saw the mare from before that Stardust saved. She was standing in my room with Silver who was picking through one of her bags on the bed…the mostly destroyed bed, “What the fuck happened in here?”

Silver looked up at me and smiled, “Hi Shadow, good to see you’re okay. Sorry the room is a little messed up, one of The Enclave ponies got in here and destroyed the place.”

I was taken aback for a moment, “Only our room?”

“I think so.”

“Why would they come in here when they knew I was outside, and why is she in here?” I asked pointing a hoof at the other mare.

“Oh this is Lavender Sky, she’s new around here I guess,” Silver said.

“Okay, why is she in our room?”

The young pegasus blushed a little, “I was scared when that nice pegasus flew off. I’m not a fighter, Silver Snip here was nice enough to get me to safety. She’s been talking with me a little to help calm me down. I was just made a Dashite a few days ago and only found this place the night before. I thought it would be safe here, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Where did you come from?” I asked still a little suspicious of why she was in the room…alone…with my mare friend.

“Oh, well I’m originally from Nimbus, I was studying to become a teacher in Stratus,”

“How did you become a Dashite if you were studying to become a teacher?”

“Shadow Stop pestering the poor girl,” Silver said giving me another smile.

I sighed then looked around the destroyed room, “Fine, I was just wondering why you two were alone in here is all.”

Silver laughed, “We were only talking, don’t worry so much. What’s going on out there? I take it you were able to get away from Pride and the others.”

“Yeah, it’s a long story, we’ll talk later. Now that I know you’re okay I’m going to head down and talk to Wrath. We were able to capture him and I wanna see if he has any useful information about The Sins.”

“And if he doesn’t then I’m sure Shadow will let Aura or Stardust mess him up good,” Wingnut added.

For a moment the two mares in front of me looked a little shocked, finally Silver said, “You…managed to capture a Sin?”

“Yeah, it took Stardust, Aura, and me to do it, but we managed in the end.”

“Do you know where Stardust went to…I think that was what you called him before?” Lavender asked.

“Uh…yeah, he’s down near the cells or he might be heading back to the foyer. Why?”

“I wanted to thank him again for saving me,” she said trotting past me then looking back at Silver she added, “Thanks again for talking with me.

“No problem, if you need to chat again just come find me,” Silver said as the mare flew off.

“So what was that all about?”

“Lavender already told you Shadow, besides, shouldn’t we be going down and checking on our new guests?” she said pushing past me and down the hall.

Wingnut and I both watched her walking away, “You okay Silver?”

She looked back at me, “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, you just seem…different is all.”

She laughed a little, “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s been a long day and a lot going on, I’m just a little stressed.”

“Why don’t you lie down then? I can take care of talking to the Pegasi, I’ll have Stardust with me so everything will be fine,” I said as we came to the stairway.

“Are you sure about that?” she asked pointing down at the main hall where Stardust was talking with Lavender. He was blushing and laughing as she talked with him, “It looks to me like he’s a little preoccupied.”

“You do have a point,” I said looking down at the two of them, he really seemed to be enjoying his chat, “I guess I’ll just let him be, he’s been doing a lot to help me the past couple weeks and he could really use a nice mare to hang around that isn’t me.”

Silver smiled and nodded, “You have to remember, not everything’s about you Shadow. Let’s let Stardust get to know Lavender a little more. Who knows? They could hit it off, she’s a very nice mare from what I saw when she was talking with me. She’s also quite taken with him, the whole time she was asking me things about him, as if I’ve known him my whole life or something.”

“I agree with Silver Snip, let’s let Stardust have a break. It’s not like the prisoners can do anything to us now, also I think Violet is still down there with them,” Wingnut said.

“Okay let’s go have a chat with them then,” I said walking down the stairs and down the same hall that Nexus’s room was in. As I turned I almost ran straight into the Ghoul, “Oh, sorry Nexus I didn’t see you.”

He smiled at me, “Oh Shadow I was wondering where you’d gone off to after the fight. I was wondering if you could answer something for me.”

“Sure, I guess, but I was just on my way down to see if I could get any information out of the three ponies we were able to capture.”

“This won’t take long. I wanted to ask you something about that Pony you called Auntie,” he said.

“What about her?”

“Do you know how she was able to set up the kind of protection that she did on that Pip-Buck, it’s been bugging me ever since her program destroyed my terminals. That level of expertise takes years of training and I’ve only ever seen it from senior scribes in the Steel Rangers or Stable-Tec ponies. Where did she learn to do something like that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I mean she was the coordinator for our Stable, everything that was going on she knew about and reported back to the Overmare. She had her hooves in everything going on there, maybe she learned it from one of the Ponies in the Research and Development department.”

He put a hoof to his chin thinking for a moment then finally he said, “That’s the part I don’t understand, her role in your Stable doesn’t make sense. Stable 28 wasn’t ever designed to need a position like that, the Overmare herself can keep an eye on everything going on in the stable right from her office. She wouldn’t need a pony like Auntie at all. Also, the Stable wasn’t ever meant to research things like that, unless the plans got changed. I wasn’t involved with the setup for Stable 28 so I could be wrong, but something about it doesn’t feel right.”

“You didn’t know my Overmare, she was lazy, same for her mother and so on. I could see them setting up a position like that just to make their own jobs easier. I can’t say for sure though, what are you trying to get at Nexus?”

“I’m not sure, I just have a feeling that something is off in your Stable, if I didn’t have to fix things here I’d head that way and check it out myself,” he said still looking like he was deep in thought.

I chuckled a little, “They’d kill you on sight, they don’t even know what a ghoul is.”

“Yeah they do, remember you told me they used to send ponies into The Wasteland until a few years ago,” Wingnut said.

“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about that, but still I don’t think the Overmare would just up and let a random pony into her Stable. They always kept the location secret even when they went into The Wasteland.”

“I’m asking because I wanted to know what you know about Auntie. Who was she before your mother and you entered the Stable?” he asked.

I took a moment to think, “I know that she used to be married, but her husband passed away from a sickness that went through the Stable a couple years before we got there. He was the head of security at the time and she still did the same thing she does today. She wanted to have a foal, but she couldn’t. I never got the details on why though. She was the one who opened the door for mom when we arrived and she became friends with her right away. That’s all I really know.”

“Why do you call her Auntie?” He asked, still fishing for something.

“It’s what everypony calls her. She told me that’s her name and always has been, and she’s also kind of like everypony’s aunt in a way. When something needs to be fixed or if they have a problem, everypony goes to her for help. She thinks of everypony in Stable 28 as family.”

“Hmmm, I may have to send Laser Light there to check things out. I find it all a little too weird. If I did that would you be willing to go with her and help her?” he asked.

“Help Laser break into my Stable? No fucking way. I don’t want to ever go back there if I don’t have to.”

“I figured you’d say that, oh well. I’ll have to think of something else. Can you do me a favor though?”

“Maybe, depends on what it is.”

“If you for some reason ever change your mind, let me know. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

“Fine, but don’t hold your breath…wait do Ghouls even breath?”

He gave me a flat look, “No, we don’t have to at least, and thank you,” he walked past me and toward the clinic, “Oh and Shadow, you might not want to go back there, but if you ever want to find out what’s left on that Pip-Buck, you’ll need Auntie to unlock them. I hate to admit it, but I can’t do it.”

I watched him go, “Fuck, now I’m going to be thinking about that for the next few days.”

“What do you mean?” Wingnut asked me.

“I want to know what’s left on this stupid Pip-Buck, now he’s telling me that to get them I’ll have to find Auntie. I don’t want to go back to my Stable, but at the same time I might have to,”

“It can’t really be that bad, now can it?” Silver asked, “I mean you are a lot stronger than when you left. I’m sure your Overmare can’t be as scary as the things you’ve run into out here.”

“Yeah but still, it’s hard to not fear her. I’ve lived most of my life scared of that bitch. It’s not something that just goes away by being away for a couple weeks.”

Wingnut smiled and poked my side, “It’s not like you have to head there now, you have plenty of time to think about it and make up your mind. Remember we have things to finish for the Queen, and I’m sure by the time we finish that, we’ll have to check and see what Lonely Hearts has found.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right kiddo.”

Silver hugged me, “You could also head to Trotston, that place is a wonder. Maybe Nexus can’t get into that thing, but maybe one of the ponies there can.”

“What do you mean, I thought Trotston was just a town that the survivors of Stable 9 set up.”

“It is, but it’s also probably the most technologically advanced city in The Wasteland. The ponies from Stable 9 used what they knew from living in a Stable and used it to build a massive town. Everything there is ran by Tech that they either brought with them, or found in abandoned Stables. They’re smart ponies and they may know how to break past whatever protection is on that thing,” Silver said pointing at my Pip-Buck.

“Good idea, maybe when we finish up with all of this, we’ll head that way. I mean this Pip-Buck did come from there, they probably know more than even Nexus does,” I said with a smile, “Let’s go finish this up, then we can talk to the others about this.”

“Good idea, c’mon,” Silver said walking past me and down the hall.

***

At first it took us a little bit to figure out where the Cells were, but after Silver talked with a couple of the ponies that lived at Frosty Summit, we found our way to the basement. Down there we found a large dark room with four rows of cells in them. Violet was sitting next to the one on the far right where Solstice was laying. Somehow the Alicorn had been able to get her out of her Power Armor and into the cell. Now she was sitting there talking with the grey and pink pegasus.

“I told you already freak, I’m not telling you anything else,” Solstice said, she was curled into a ball and not looking at Violet.

Violet sighed, “I understand that you’re full of anger right now Solstice, but what I don’t understand is why. From what I’ve been able to get from your mind, you don’t seem like a bad pony. Why would you give orders to kill everypony here, what did they ever do to you?”

“If you wanna know so bad then why don’t you just read my mind, that’s what you Alicorns are good at isn’t it?”

“It is more complicated than that. I can’t just up and read your thoughts. I need to have a physical connection with you and even then, it’s not like reading a book. Also, I think it’s rude to do something like that to another,” Violet said, I noticed that she wasn’t using her Alicorn mind speak, she was talking like a normal pony.

“Good to know, I still ain’t telling you shit.”

I walked over and put a hoof on the bars, “Solstice, are you always this bitchy or do you just hate everypony that isn’t from the clouds?”

“Fuck you Courier Bitch. I’m not talking to you either.”

I sighed, “My name’s Shadow Star. Can you at least call me that? I’m sick of everypony calling me Courier all the time.”

“Shadow Star, Courier Mare, who fucking cares? I still don’t want to talk to you or freak show either.”

“Tell you what, if you talk with me then I’ll let you leave.”

My friends all looked over at me like I was nuts, Violet even said, “You can’t do that, she’s a danger to the rest of my town.”

“She’s one pony who’s scared and alone. If we learn what we need to then who cares if she leaves? It’s not like she’s going to up and attack everypony here just because I let her out,” I said then turned to face Solstice again, “So how about it? If I let you go, will you tell me what I need to know?”

She finally looked over at me, “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I keep my word. Honestly I don’t have anything against you apart from the fact that you attacked this place with a hooded mare with way too much power and that asshole Winter Frost.”

“Fuck you Bitch!” Winter Frost yelled from the next cell down, “You keep your mouth shut Solstice.”

Solstice growled and yelled back, “Shut up, you don’t tell me what to do Sergeant!”

“Down here I do, you’ll be lucky if they even let you back up into the clouds Rookie.”

“Same goes for you,” I said walking over to Winter Frost’s Cell, “Now shut up, I’ll get to you next.”

He spat at me, “Like I’m scared of you…”

I pulled out Dream Walker and pointed it at him, “One more word and I’ll shoot. I still owe you for what you did back at F&F Tools. Trust me it’s taking all I have not to pull the trigger.”

For a moment he looked ready to say something, debating if I would really do it, then he just turned and laid down on the cot in his cell. When he was done I went back to Solstice who was actually smiling, “I have to say, you can be a little cold blooded when you need to be. I may not like you Shadow Star, but I can say I do Respect you, not many ponies would talk to Winter Frost that way.”

“Fuck him, he’s lucky I didn’t shoot him when Stardust knocked him out.”

She chuckled a little, “Okay fine, I’ll tell you what I know, but you have to promise to let me go when you do…and you have to kill Winter Frost too.”

“Why would you want her to kill your own comrade?” Wingnut asked

“I too find it hard to believe you’d want him killed even if he is an ass,” I said.

“The problem is once I’m done telling you what I know he’ll know what I did, and if he ever gets away he’ll be able to tell The Enclave what I did. I could end up as a Dashite myself just for that. I can’t let that happen, it would doom my family,” she responded.

“How about this?” Violet said, walking over to Winter Frosts Cell her horn glowing. Winter Frost jumped to his hooves and started to yell, but then Violet’s magic connected with him and he passed out, “There, now he won’t overhear us. I blocked the memory of the last few minutes so he won’t remember you saying that you’d help us.”

“Hmmm, I guess that could work too, but I still think he should die. He’s nothing but a monster,” Solstice said then shrugged, “Oh well, so what do you wanna know?”

“Wait, what about Wrath?” I asked looking at Violet.

“He’s still out from the fight, he won’t hear us,” Violet said.

“Okay, why did you attack this place? Was it all just to get me?”

Solstice laughed, “Do you really think The Enclave would put so much at stake just for you? Get real, The Sins are hunting you down that’s all we need when it comes to you. No, we were after Stardust the whole time and former Staff Sargent Doorstop. Stardust has been able to avoid The Sins for months now and the higher ups finally figured we needed a new tactic to get him.”

“So you attacked a town of innocent ponies just for him?”

She looked away for a moment, “Yeah, that was the orders given to us. I was told that everypony had to die apart from the target and if possible you too. Our main mission wasn’t to take you in, but if the opportunity presented itself we were to take it, or kill you.”

“Why would you listen to an order like that?”

“You don’t know what life is really like for an Enclave solider. If we do anything to defy the higher ups, they don’t take it out on you, they go after your family. I’m all my parents have and I had to think about them, if I refused then I’d be no better than the other Dashites or a few others that betrayed us over the years. It’s simple, you don’t try and take on the higher ups, you do as you’re told and forget the rest.”

“So, you’d kill everypony here just to keep your parents safe?”

“Yes I would, and more if I had to. It doesn’t mean I like it, but I have to do it,” she said looking sad now.

I sighed, “Why were three of The Sins with you, and who is that hooded unicorn?”

“Simple, we knew you’d be with Stardust. Pride heard what was going on and he told me that he’d be joining us along with his Sister, the pony you call the Hooded Mare. Pride may be a Sin, but he’s also the leader of their group. He has almost as much power as one of the High Council.”

“And who is that pony, Pride’s sister?”

Solstice shrugged, “I don’t know her myself, she’s always kept her face hidden, I’m not sure why. All I know about Pride and his family is that they’re Unicorns that grew up in the Crystal Empire. It’s a large city way up north just outside of Nimbus, we’ve controlled the city since the end of the war. Sixteen years ago when I was still a small filly, Pride became a Sin. I don’t know what he did, but I do know he requested to be one. From then on, he’s always lead them and he is the only pony who decides who becomes one of them. His sister showed up a couple years ago. Not many ponies know anything about her, they only call her Cloak.”

Violet perked up at that, “I had no idea the Crystal Empire was still around. I thought it was destroyed with the rest of Equestria.”

“Most ponies don’t know it’s still there, some kind of shield was set off when the bombs fell. Ever since then it’s held off all the poison and radiation that has tried to push its way into the city, over time it turned everything around it into a large black cloud of death. The only way to get to it is by flight or if you can Teleport a long way like the unicorns that live there do. That’s all I know though, I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve seen it from the could city Nimbus,” she said. Damn, once you got her talking she was like an open book.

“That’s all well and good, but who are they?”

“No idea, when a pony becomes a Sin, they destroy every part of their past life. They never talk about it and they act like nopony matters to them. Pride is just like that, the only time he breaks that rule is when Cloak shows up. She has something on him, I know because he’ll do whatever she tells him to. I think that’s why she was put in charge of The Seven Sins of Equinity. I can’t tell you more though,” she said.

Of course she couldn’t…oh well time to move on and see what else she knew, “So then, if you were all set up to come take us down, they why did you’re team leave you like they did?”

“Because once the Sins showed up, it meant our time was done. They were given orders to flee once Pride started his own attack. We were meant to try and get Stardust and to act as a distraction.”

My blood turned to ice when she said this, “A distraction for what?”

She smiled again, “I’m not sure really, but if you ask me they wanted the Alicorns distracted so they could slip one of the Sins into Frosty Summit.”

“You mean so that Pride and Greed could get closer?”

“Remember your deal Shadow Star, if I tell you what I know you let me go.”

“Yes I remember now spill.”

“We didn’t come here with just Pride, Greed, and Wrath. The entire team was sent out to join the battle, if you only saw those three that means you missed the other three, for all you know they’re still here.”

I looked back at Violet, “Can you have you’re Alicorns start looking around the Lodge to make sure none of them are here?”

“I could, but I don’t even know what they look like.” Violet said.

“I know what Sloth looks like same for Wingnut, does that help?”

She looked over at the colt, “Maybe. Child could I take a quick look inside your mind?”

“That sounds weird, but if it’ll help sure,” he replied.

Violet touched her horn to Wingnuts head, a moment later she pulled away, “I got it, I’ll have my children start searching the area, in the meantime, let’s see what else she knows.”

“That’s all I know, now are you gonna let me go?”

“Yeah, I guess. Violet can you take care of her?”

“I don’t like it, but you did give your word. I can teleport her as far as the end of the trail back toward New Pegasus, as long as she doesn’t decide to turn back to attack us that is.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be anywhere near this place. I want to get home and make sure my parents are doing okay. Now let me out of here.”

“Fine, but you’re not getting your power armor back,” Violet said, Solstice started to yell something, but the Alicorn’s horn flashed and Solstice was gone, “There. What do we need to do next?”

A deep laugh came from the cell farthest away from us and Wrath said, “Too late now, my friends will be here soon to get me out of here, then once I’m free I’m gonna kill all of you.”

I walked over to his cell, I noticed that he had a ring over his horn a lot like I did, only his seemed to be pony made. It must have been something to keep him from using his magic while he was locked up, “What do you mean Wrath?”

“Damn kid, I thought you figured it all out by now. You lose, I bet even now Stardust is either dead, or being hauled away by Sloth.”

I pointed Dream Walker at him, “Tell me what you know or I swear to Luna, I’ll blow your head clean off.”

Wraths glee turned to range in an instant, “Oh yeah? Go right ahead, you’d be doing me a favor.”

“What do you mean?” Wingnut asked walking closer to the bars.

“I’d rather die than have to go back myself, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. Yes I’m a Sin, Wrath the Furious. Fitting name I guess after everything that’s happened to me, but I don’t serve them because I want to. I do it because I have to. Pride made sure of that years ago, I’m stuck doing whatever he wants until the day I’m taken out by one of my enemies.”

I lowered Dream Walker, “I don’t understand?”

“I know you don’t and that’s the shitty part. I don’t feel like telling you my life story though, either kill me or don’t. No matter what, you won’t be able to save your friend,” Wrath said, the smile returning to his face, “Oh I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you can’t save one of your friends.”

“I have to go find Stardust and Lavender, they’re in danger.”

“I’m with you Shadow, let’s go,” Wingnut said, but Violet stopped us.

“What do you mean Lavender, we don’t have a pony here named Lavender?”

“She’s a young pegasus mare with a Lavender coat, she’s really cute and kinda shy. Stardust saved her from Winter Frost earlier today.”

“I don’t know of any new pegasi that looks like that,” she said, her eyes going wide, “Shadow, somepony just knocked one of my children out, I was sending her up to check on Stardust. You need to get up there right now, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the prisoners.”

I ran past her ignoring Wraths insane laughter as we left, Silver and Wingnut followed not far behind. When we reached the main entryway Silver said, “Are you sure you can do anything to stop them? We don’t know anything about the other two Sins or what they can do.”

“I don’t know, but I have to try. Silver go get Aura. Wingnut find Laser and see if she’s well enough to help, we don’t have much time,” I said turning and running up the stairs.

They both agreed and took off Wingnut saying, “Be careful, don’t get yourself killed, we won’t be long.”

I blasted down the hall to Stardust’s room which was right next to mine. Slowing down I walked up to the door that was just cracked open and peaked in. Lavender was laying on top of Stardust kissing his neck as he talked to her softly. For the moment it didn’t look like anything was wrong. Knowing that help was on its way I decided to wait and see what would happen next. But I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, only soft whispers echoed my way. I looked around his room and saw a set of saddle bags thrown on the floor next to the bed. They weren’t Stardust’s so I guessed they belonged to her.

The top of the bag was open and I saw a set of black combat armor poking out. I wonder what that was all about, using my magic I pulled on the combat armor until it was just out of the bags. I dropped it when I saw a tribal marking on the flank of the armor of a Goat. Drawing Dream Walker I kicked the door open and pointed it at her. “Get the fuck off him.”

“Shadow, what the fuck! Don’t you know how to knock!?” Stardust yelled from the bed.

“Get away from her Stardust, she’s a Sin.”

“What are you talking about? She’s not a Sin she’s just a nice mare who happens to like me. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Look on the floor!” I yelled back as Lavender looked back at me, a large grin on her face.

Stardust looked down and saw the armor I’d pulled out of her saddle bags, she sighed, “Damn, I thought I’d get to have a little fun before I had to show you who I really was. Oh well I guess we’ll have to do this now.”

Stardust tried to kick her off him, but she flapped her wings and moved away landing on the far side of the room. I kept my gun trained on her as I asked, “Who are you?”

“Who, me? I’m Lust The Voluptuous, Fourth member of The Seven Sins of Equinity. I take it you must be Shadow Star the Courier Mare, I’ve been dying to meet you,” she said, she flapped her wings and dove for her saddle bags. I fired, but missed, she got them and landed on the other side of the room again. She pulled out some kind of strange looking short spear and smiled again.

“You’re out numbered, put that down before I have to kill you. You can’t take Stardust and me at the same time.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You should put down your own weapon, because trust me, neither of you have what it takes to take me on,” she said giving us both an evil smile.

What should I do? I only had maybe five shots left with Dream Walker, I had no idea how to use my newly acquired rifle, and Stardust didn’t have his own weapon. Lust was in the perfect place right now, whatever kind of weapon she had it didn’t require ammo and with how quick she could move, I wasn’t sure we could win this.

“Shadow don’t let her get into your head. If she really is Lust then that’s how she works. She charms her prey into a false sense of security, at least that’s what I’ve heard from ponies that know more about The Sins,” Stardust said keeping his eyes on the lavender mare.

“I’m more worried about you than myself, it didn’t take her long to talk you into bed.”

“This really isn’t the time Shadow.”

“Yes, he’s right. How about you both come with me quietly. I don’t really feel like making a scene right now,” Lust said pointing the short spear at me.

“I don’t care what you think you can do Lust, that toothpick won’t work when I have a gun.”

“If you think so then try it, but remember I warned you,” she said, then she lunged and the spear she held extended, it’s razor sharp edge flying at me faster than she was.

I ducked down but not quick enough, the blade at the end of the extending rod sliced along my back leaving a deep cut. As I fell, Lust arched her hoof and slashed at me, unable to move out of the way, the blade left a deep cut in my chest. Stardust rushed toward her, but she drew the weapon back and attacked him next. With no room to move, the spear sank deep into his stomach, He looked shocked for a moment, then he took hold of the spear with both his hooves.

“Shoot her Shadow!” he yelled as she tried to pull her extending spear out of Stardust.

I rose and was about to enter S.A.T.S. when something grabbed me from behind. An instant later I was thrown back into the hall and through the door on the far side. I cursed as I tried to rise, my back screaming in protest from the fresh bruises. I looked up and saw Sloth, he was walking toward me slowly, that same board expression on his face.

“How troublesome, Lust stop playing with the runaway. We don’t have time right now,” he said stopping in the doorway watching me.

“Sloth baby, you know how much fun it is to toy with them.”

“Just get it over with. Like I said, we don’t have time to be playing games,” Sloth said then he looked back at me, “Now you just stay right there so I don’t have to deal with you too.”

I looked over at Lust, she pulled something out of her saddle bags as she held onto the spear that was still stuck in Stardust. He tried to get free, but she just twisted the spear making him curl in pain. When he did she jammed a needle into his neck. An instant later Stardust was out.

“Let him go!” I yelled finally getting back to my hooves and pointing my gun at Sloth.

“Don’t even try it, you don’t stand a chance,” he said.

I fired my weapon, Sloth shimmered and moved so quickly my eyes could barely keep up with him. The bullet missed and he rushed at me, he brought one of his hooves up and made a heavy strike to the wound on my chest, my body flew back and through the far window. I landed on the ground outside on the cold hard ground, something snapped and I screamed as I felt my left foreleg go limp.

I looked back up through the tears in my eyes and saw Sloth looking down at me, he had Stardust on his back still knocked out. He just shook his head and flew away, Lust not far behind, “No! Come back!”

I tried to stand but my leg wouldn’t hold my weight. I collapsed, my body screaming at me in protest. A moment later Aura came running up to me, “Shadow, what happened?”

I looked up at the griffon, “Aura you have to go after them, they took Stardust.”

“Slow down, what are you talking about? Who took Stardust?”

“That mare, the lavender one. That was Lust. She knocked Stardust out then Sloth showed up and he attacked me and threw me out that window. Then they just flew off with Stardust, we have to get him back, they’re going to kill him.”

Aura looked up in the sky, “They couldn’t have gotten far, but we have to get you to the clinic.”

“Aura no, please we have to go after him.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I have to help you first, you’re badly hurt,” Aura argued.

“I think she needs a nap,” Doctor Cottage said walking up from behind Aura, “Yep she’s going to hurt herself more if she keeps that up.”

“Leave me alone! I need to help Stardust, I don’t matter right now!” I kept yelling, but Doctor cottage moved forward and stuck a needle into my neck, “Ow, what the fuck did you do that for? I’m…gonna…kick…” the ground came rushing up at me as I fell forward and everything went black…but not before I heard the last thing Aura had to say.

“You rest up, don’t worry I’ll find him…”

[FOOTNOTE: 45% To Level… Please Stand By...]

Chapter 36: Lost In Darkness

I’ve reached a point in my story where a single choice could send me spiraling down into a darkness so black there’s no coming back from it. Or I could turn away from the path I’ve chosen to follow and try to find my way back to the light. Both would have devastating consequences not just for me, but for the ponies I love. Darkness is the easy choice, when you sink so far into darkness you don’t care about anypony anymore, not even yourself. Therein lies the problem, going down that path would be easy for me, but my friends, my family, they’d suffer. They’d lose the pony they cared about, the one they wanted to help save from her deadly path she made for herself. They would have to watch as I became more like the ponies I hated, they’d watch as I became an animal, a beast, a monster unlike anything The Wasteland had ever seen. Light was the harder choice to make, because for a pony who has committed an unthinkable act like I did to pull herself back into the light, would take a lot of will power and forgiveness. I’d have to accept what I did, overcome the darkness eating away at my very soul, I’d have to do better, and show The Wasteland that I was not the monster, but the pony who could overcome it all. I’d have to shine brighter than anypony before ever has. To reach that point, I would have to forgive myself and forgive the ponies I saw as evil. It was the only way. A seemingly impossible task, but one I could do if only I could find the speck of light somewhere deep inside. Darkness or Light, The Star spawn or The Courier, Aquila or Shadow Star. One way or another, it was time for me to choose who I will become…

“Who am I!?”

***

“Remember, if you try to run, you won’t get far.”

What I hate about being a unicorn is moments like this. When a pony like The Stranger knows that all they have to do to stop us, is to jam a FUCKING memory orb to our horns and off to la-la land we go. When this memory is over I’m gonna make him pay for this. At least he was too slow to stop me from destroying Mill City Tower. There’s always a silver lining as Vervain liked to say. With some luck maybe, I was able to kill Stardust with that blast. If not then I’d still find a way, he’s the evil one here not me.

Now that I think about it, what’s taking so long for this memory orb to start? Why is everything so black? Normally when I enter a memory orb there’s a moment where the world I know melts away, then I slip into the body of whomever I’m reliving the memory of. The world melted away like it always did, but now I’m just stuck in some kind of limbo. The stranger thing is I feel like I’m still in my own body, only I knew I wasn’t still in the present.

A dark voice echoed around me, “Open your eyes Star, we don’t have much time to talk.”

Open my eyes? What the fuck is going on and my eyes are open…or are they? I’m so confused right now. I tried to open my eyes like the voice said, and what do you know, they were closed. When my eyelids parted I saw that I was standing in a room, one I’ve seen before in a memory of Pride’s, back when he was still Oricalcos. It was the place where he almost killed me with his dark magic, “I thought I was in a memory orb, if so this is the strangest memory I’ve ever seen.”

The voice spoke again, “You did enter a memory orb Star, but I’m using what little strength I have to hold it back so we can talk.”

As he spoke again I realized I knew that voice. My knees went weak and I almost fell to the ground as I said, “Is that you Pride?”

“Yes and no, the pony you knew as Pride isn’t around anymore, or should I say the pony I used to be isn’t around anymore Star. When you used that super weapon on my shadow form, it stripped me of almost all my dark power. If I hadn’t been as fast as I was, you would’ve killed me altogether.”

“Okay I know I’ve been losing it for a while, but there’s no way you survived that blast. You’re totally dead dude,” I said looking around, but there he was, the golden unicorn standing next to an open door watching me with sorrowful eyes.

“I should’ve died, but because of my ‘Gift’ I was able to keep a small part of myself alive, by attaching a piece of myself to you Star.”

“So you’re keeping yourself alive inside my head too? Great, like I didn’t have enough problems with Aquila. Now I have to deal with my immortal uncle, perfect.”

He smiled a little when I said that, “No, I’m not in your head or your mind. When you activated that weapon, I tried to break through the barrier. It was too strong for even me, but I was able to crack it just a little and slip a small piece of shadow to you. I told you Star, I have no true body I’m a living shadow nothing more. The body you saw before was a thin shell I could use to keep my power contained. All I had to do to survive was become part of your shadow. I’m a lot weaker than I was, but if I stayed like this, I could regain what I lost.”

I took a step back, “If that’s true and I’m not going crazy, then why haven’t you tried to kill me? And why do you keep calling me Star? My names Shadow Star or Shadow, I’m not Star anymore.”

The room around us shifted and once again, I found myself back on that day when I destroyed Appleton with one stupid pull of the trigger. Only now I was watching things from Pride’s point of view. He was looking down at me as I tried to find a way to stop the blast. He looked up at the sky as the clouds started to vanish and past that a speck of bright light. He looked back at me and pulling at all the power he could, slammed himself into the thin yellow barrier. A piece of himself broke off and pushed itself through a tiny crack. The point of view changed again as the small speck of darkness that was Pride fell and latched itself onto the shadow under me. I watched as the larger part of Pride smiled down at me and spoke his last words.

Before I could watch the blast destroy the town again, I was back in the room, “What the fuck was that?”

“That was the moment when I left most of my power behind so I could survive. As to why I haven’t tried to kill you, that’s easy. Do you remember that moment when our magic was connected?”

I shrugged, “Yeah, so what?”

“It took a while, but when you saw those memories of mine, I saw some of yours. Memories you’ve forgotten, but they showed me who you really are,” I watched as a single tear ran down his face, “You’re my niece, you’re Star the filly I cursed with dark magic, so many years ago.”

I looked away, “Yeah and because of you, everything in my life has been very difficult.”

“I know. I wish I would’ve known who you were from the beginning. Things would’ve been so different if only I knew.”

I rounded on him, “Oh really? You mean that if you knew who I was you wouldn’t have tried to kill me? I don’t buy that for a second PRIDE!”

“Pride…yes the name I took when I became a Sin. I was dubbed Pride because of how much I loved my power; my pride is the reason you were hurt. Do you know why I did this to myself and took on the moniker of Pride?”

“Because you feared death?”

He started to laugh, “Hahahah, no I wasn’t afraid of death. In all honesty I wanted to die after I hurt you. I almost killed myself only a few hours later before the guard came for me. Then I heard that Grim found a spell to keep you alive, it wasn’t a cure, but it was something. I swore then that I wouldn’t let anypony stop me from finding a way to fix what I did. So, I went to my notes and found the spell that even King Sombra wouldn’t use and I gave up my body to become what you know me as. I dedicated my life to helping my sister find the cure for the darkness I placed on you. When the council couldn’t kill me, I swore myself to The Enclave to serve as Pride The Arrogant. I told them I would recreate a group like The Children of the Night only more powerful and more feared.”

“So you became a killer?”

He chuckled again, “Not at first. It was all a cover so I could go out into The Wasteland and help Grim. For the first couple of years she stayed at The Crystal Empire keeping you alive and doing her own research. When she left, I followed her, keeping her safe and alive when I could. I also kept on trying to find a spell or item that could banish dark magic. I wasn’t as good at it as my sister, but I still tried. When Grim went into Stable 28, I lost all contact with her and I started to take on my role as Pride. When Grim finally came back out and she told me that you didn’t survive, I lost the only thing I cared about. I became a monster to save you. With you gone, I let the monster take over.”

“And now you magically want to be a good pony again? Bullshit!”

“I’ll never be a good pony again, but I’ve done what I can, when I can, to keep you alive. Like when you were in your stable.”

I remembered when I found those slaughtered bodies in the halls and the pony who died in the armory, “That was you?”

“The ponies you found in the hallway were mostly security ponies who found out where you were. They were about to storm the room and kill you. I was able to use the shadows in the vault and use it to kill them without you even knowing. It was the same with that stallion when you were fighting him in the armory. I also was the one who kept you alive when you fought Wrath. I was the one who guided your magic so you could cast that memory recovery spell on him too.”

I gave him a quizzical look, “Why though? Why do any of this?”

His purple eyes met mine, “Because, it’s the only way I can help you. When I figured out who you were I knew that I had to do something to make up for what I did for all those years.”

Growing angry again I yelled, “Why bother? Even if any of that’s true, why show yourself now?”

“Because I’m trying to stop you from going down the same path I did!” he retorted. The room around us shifted, everything changed and we now stood in a dark cave, “I won’t watch you make the same mistakes I did or your mother. Our entire family has always had something bad happen to us, ever since the war. You Star, are the one pony in our family that I think can break the curse on our house. I showed myself to you so I can show you what we did wrong so you won’t go down that same path of darkness.”

“Darkness is all I have LEFT!”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is! Why should I care what path I’m on right now when no matter what I do, friends of mine die, or get hurt, or are taken away and turned into monsters. Even if somehow I could avoid all that from happening, sooner or later I’ll be the new monster in The Wasteland. When Aquila breaks down the cage mom trapped her in again, I’ll be evil. Might as well skip right to it and let her take over now. At least this way, I can make sure my friends aren’t around when I do!”

He frowned and walked closer to me, then he turned and showed me his flank pointing at his Cutie Mark. At first it was the same as the mark on Stardust’s armor, a tribal lion’s head, then it changed. First two circles showed up one right inside the other, within the circles Zebra Glyphs appeared. Then a line started to form from the top of the inner circle, it zipped around making one continuous line to form a six-pointed star, the points on the top and bottom are larger triangles the four on the sides are smaller. The color was the same as his eyes, a brilliant purple.

“This is my cutie mark Star, the one I had before it was destroyed when I became Pride.”

I looked at it for another minute then turned away, “So what, you have a Six-Pointed star on your ass, big deal.”

He shook his head, “Grim really did lack in your educating if you just see this symbol as a six-pointed star. This is a unicursal hexagram, when the hexagram is formed with one single line, it forms a knot. Magic users like me or Grim, use symbols like this to enhance our magical ability. The same for some more powerful and wise zebras. There is always one pony in our family who has had some kind of star for a cutie mark. I was the first pony to possess the hexagram, it meant I would be more powerful than any of our family has ever been. When the hexagram is inside the circles like this it is called the Symbol of Oricalcos. On the day I got my cutie mark I took on that name.”

“Nice and what does any of this have to do with me or why I should stop what I’m doing?” I asked.

He walked around me slowly, “I’m getting to that, now shut up and listen, you might learn something for a change. Before you were born I was the most powerful unicorn to ever be born in The Enclave, before me no pony in our family had anything more than a four-pointed star. Magic for me was easy, all I had to do to learn a spell was to see it used or read about it in old spell books. I could take spells that were weak and change them to make them more powerful. I learned spells that most unicorns thought were hard or extremely advanced before I was even ten. Because of this I was put into a special school to hone my skills so I could become more powerful. My parents adored me, they doted on me, they always wanted to tell every pony they could how great I was. They always wanted to use me to get themselves a higher position in The Enclave.”

As he spoke everything around us changed again and another memory started to form. Once again I was watching the world through the eyes of Pride…no not Pride, Oricalcos. He was a little younger than Wingnut, but I could feel the power he had as he moved eight massive objects in the air while at the same time writing something down with perfect pensponyship. He was being watched by two other unicorns, one was a short light silver mare who had a dull blue mane, the other a yellow stallion with a jet black mane much like Oricalcos.

The Stallion was saying something as Oricalcos strained to hold the spells, “Oricalcos, you need to do more, we know you can do it. You have to show everypony how great our family really is.”

“That’s right Ori, if you keep this up maybe one day everypony in Equestria will know your name, and ours too.”

My host dropped the objects, “I’ve been doing this for hours dad, can I take a break please?”

“You’re almost finished son, just a little longer,” the stallion said.

“But I promised Spell that I’d help her with her magic today. If I keep this up I’ll be too tired,” my host said.

Before either of the older ponies could answer a small pale blue filly with a long silver mane walked in, “Ori? Are you finished yet? I found a new book that I want help reading…” she froze when she saw her parents glaring at her.

“Spell, you know not to disturb your brother when he’s training!” the stallion yelled.

The mare stuck her nose in the air and huffed, “Don’t bother dear, she’ll never understand how important this kind of training is for a unicorn such as Oricalcos, she can’t even lift a pencil let alone use the spells her brother can.”

“Mom, Dad, don’t be so hard on her, she’s still a foal. All your cruelty is going to do is make her hate you,” Oricalcos said walking past them and over to the small filly, “I can help you with whatever you need Spell, I’m almost finished.”

The filly was crying as she looked up into her brother’s eyes, “I…I don’t want to get in your way Ori.”

The mare pushed past my host and shoved the filly back, “That’s right, you know better Spell, now get out of here and go to your room!”

The filly ran from the room crying and dropping the small book she had been carrying. When she was gone the Stallion said, “She’s such a cry baby, she’s lucky we haven’t disowned her by now. To think that one of our children can’t even use magic, how pitiful.”

My host rounded on them, “Why can’t you two give her a break? She can use magic, I’ve seen her. If you two would just let up on her even a little she’d be able to do better. So what if she’s not as gifted as I am? She can still learn. If you spent half the time teaching her as you do treating her like garbage, she’d be just as powerful as I am, but you’re too busy polishing you favorite s…”

The mare slapped him, “Don’t talk back to us Ori, your sister is worthless to us and The Enclave if she can’t use magic. You know how low our family has fallen over the years, we can’t let a weakling like her bring us down more than we already are.”

Oricalcos was shaking with rage now, he backed away from both of his parents his horn glowing, “I’m sick of doing what you think is right just so The Enclave will see us in a better light! You will leave her alone and let me help her with her spells, if not, I’m not going to do anything to help you!”

His father laughed, “We’re your parents and you will treat us with the respect we are owed. If it wasn’t for us pushing you so much, you wouldn’t have ever become as powerful as you are now. Now get back to your training!”

Oricalcos didn’t move, but his horn glowed brighter. He cast a spell, knocking both of his parents onto their backs, then he used his telekinesis to grasp both of their throats. He tightened his hold and said slowly, “You will do as I say or I’ll show you just how powerful I am and how broad my imagination for torture has grown over the years of you treating us like tools for your own gain. After I’ve had my fun with you they’ll never find the bodies because there will be nothing left to find.”

He let up on their throats just a little so they could respond. It was his mother who did first, “You can’t do this to us Ori, why do you care so much about that weak unicorn?”

He glared at her, “Because she’s my sister! Now I’m going to her room to help her with her magic use, both of you will leave us alone for the rest of the night so she can get some peace. Starting tomorrow you will both stop calling her names, you will let her have more time with me so I can help her, and you will treat her as if she is my equal. Do you understand me!? If you want I can carve it into your legs as a reminder.”

His father responded this time, “Fine, just let us go!”

He did, “Now get out of here.”

They both got up and trotted out of the room. When they were gone Oricalcos took hold of the book his sister dropped and teleported, he reappeared in a small dark room. In one corner the filly was sitting there crying to herself and pulling pages out of a spell book, “Stupid Mom and Dad, what do they know? I can be just as great as he is if only I could figure out how to make this stupid horn work.”

My host smiled and walked closer, “Spell, you shouldn’t do that, you know how hard it is to find fully intact spell books.”

She turned to look at him, her grey eyes shining with tears, “I don’t care, I’ve read a lot of these stupid spell books and not a single one helps.”

Oricalcos pulled out the book she left behind when she ran out, “Not this one, maybe it’ll have just the thing you need,” then he looked down at the title. When he did I saw it was the same book mom gave to me when we were in the stable. She said it was the first spell book she ever read that helped her became who she was. It was the book that was written by Twilight Sparkle, “Spell where did you get this? I thought no copies of this book were left.”

She frowned, “I found it in a library, one that I don’t think anypony ever found before. What do you care? It’s not like that thing can help me either, I’m useless just like Mom said.”

He moved closer and pulled the little filly into a hug, “No you’re not, you just haven’t figured out the way your horn uses magic.”

She looked up at him again, “Are you sure Ori?”

“I am, now dry those tears and let’s read this book together, then maybe you can tell me about this library you found.”

She giggled a little drying her eyes, “Okay fine, but I want to read it to you first. Maybe if I do, I’ll understand it better.”

“Whatever you think will help Spell.”

The memory faded and again I was back in the room with Oricalcos looking down at me. I sighed and asked, “Was that my mother?”

He nodded, “Yes, as you can see our parents didn’t treat her very well. I was a prodigy, every spell I tried came to me easily. Grim struggled with everything. It still took her another six months after that memory to finally learn how to even use telekinesis. It happened when she found that Statuette of Twilight.”

“Were you two always that close?”

“Yes we were. I never liked how my parents treated her, so I took it upon myself to help her prove them wrong. Magic for me was easy, I hated it too. Seeing Grim struggle so much with her own gave me a challenge. I liked that, it was great to find something in my life that was finally a challenge,” he said with a small smile, “Still I wasn’t the one who helped her become strong, she did that on her own.”

“What does this have to do with your cutie mark?”

He sighed looking at her “Star when will you realize there’s a reason for everything, maybe you should listen instead of interrupting. The point was, my power was great at a young age and it frustrated me to no end. That’s why I challenged myself whenever I could. In the end it was that flaw in my character that lead to what happened to you. I was trying to learn to use shadow magic, something I couldn’t just learn easily, and it was forbidden. I found old journals and spell books in the library your mother found, we called it The Forgotten Library. Those spells took me years to learn and still I couldn’t control them properly. That’s why you ended up sick, I lost control of my power for just a second, and that second was all it took.”

“I saw the memory of that day, what I don’t understand is why that ball of darkness went after me. I wasn’t anywhere near it, and you didn’t try to cast the spell on me,” I said, now getting interested in the story.

“It’s because of that,” he said with a sigh pointing at my cutie mark.

I looked down at it then asked, “What does my cutie mark have to do with what happened?”

He smiled again, “Because since the day you were born Star, everypony knew that you would be more powerful than even I was. You used to cast spells when you got upset or if you were hungry, it got so bad that at times Grim had to place wards on you to stop you from casting spells that might hurt you. You were a powerful spell caster ever since you came into this world. It was that power that drew the dark energy I created toward you. Shadow magic is unlike any other kind there is, it’s drawn to light and power. It will snuff it out if it can just to stop something as powerful as you from changing the world.”

It was my turn to laugh, “Me, a powerful spell caster? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“I’m not kidding. Think about it, how long have you been able to use teleportation?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe for five or six years now, why?”

“That spell is something that most unicorns can’t do, and even if they can, they can’t do it more than once a day maybe twice. I’ve seen you do other spells that are hard to do, you can even handle multiple things at one time with your telekinesis.”

I laughed again, “I only know three spells.”

“That’s because you haven’t had anypony to teach you more, and I’m sure there aren’t many spell books in your old stable.”

I raised an eyebrow, “And this is because of my cutie mark?”

“No, your cutie mark is a sign of your power. You have what’s known as the Octagram or the points of balance. Each point of the Star represents a quality that’s important in balance when it comes to magic,” he pointed at the top point of my star, “Beauty, Strength, Power, Compassion, Honor, Humility, Mirth, and Reverence. Each of these are what’s needed for perfect balance, in either magic, or a pony. Each one is a quality I’m sure you possess.”

I looked at him with a bored expression, “As educational as this all is, why should I care about any of this?”

He sighed again, “Because you need to understand who you are and where you come from. Only then can you understand why you need to turn away from this dark path you’re on.”

“Great, can I go now? I’m really sick of dealing with you. I don’t care about you, my mom, or our family,” I turned and tried to find a way I could get out of this…whatever I was trapped in, “Where’s the exit?”

“YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!” he yelled. I turned back to look at him and saw his body had become that dark shadow monster I fought in Appleton, “You can’t keep this up Star! If you do you’ll end up just like Grim and Me!”

“So what?” I said quietly, “It seems like it runs in the family so why should you or I care? I’m going to make everypony in The Enclave pay for killing Aura.”

“Then what? Once you’ve killed the ponies that wronged you, what will you do then?” he asked.

“Then either I’ll let Aquila finally have what she wants, or I’ll kill myself, if I can.”

He hit me, throwing me into one of the walls. If this was real, it would’ve either killed me or at least hurt like hell. I got up and laughed, “What was that for? It’s not like you can kill me in here Oricalcos.”

“That may be, but I can still knock some sense into you.”

I just shook my head, “All you are is what’s left of an evil pony that doesn’t know how to die. Go away and let me get back to what I was doing before you decided to interrupt my life. You’ve done enough harm Oricalcos, I don’t need you or your help. You don’t care about me! You only care about yourself, that’s all!”

“I care more than you know Star.”

“STOP CALLING ME STAR! My name is Shadow, that’s all I am,” I shouted, “Maybe I am like you, I’m just a Shadow that’s only good at killing.”

He took a step back and sighed again, “One day Shadow, you’ll see that I’m right. I can’t hold this spell any longer, so I’ll let you go. I just hope that you find your way back to the light, because I know what really lies in the darkness. It’s pain, loneliness, and hardship.”

“I never want to see your face again, do you understand me? If you really are living inside my shadow, then either stay that and never show yourself again, or find some other pony to bother, like Grim. She might need your help soon, because once I’m finished killing Nightshade and Stardust, she’s next!” I said powering up my horn.

“If that’s what you think you need to do then fine, but I warn you, she won’t be as easy to kill as you think the same goes for Nightshade. Remember, Revenge is never the answer, take it from somepony who knows.”

His body was starting to fade away along with the rest of my surroundings. I smiled with the same evil grin I’d seen Pride use before, “Vanish from the world Oricalcos, and never return!” I shot a blast of energy at him. He just smiled and the world around me shattered, my body felt as if I was falling, then everything melted away.

oooOOOooo

This time the memory started as I expected it to, though the meeting with Oricalcos was still fresh in my mind. What did he really want anyway? He had to be planning something, it didn’t matter what or who he was. He was still a Sin, one that was more dangerous than the rest of them apart from maybe Envy. Either way I was gonna have to find a way to get him out of my shadow or head or whatever. Right now, I was once again stuck in a memory orb, one The Stranger put me into. Either he just found some random orb and wanted to use it to keep me knocked out, or he wanted me to see this.

The world around my host came into focus and as soon as it did, I knew something was different from the other ponies I’ve watched memories of before. At first, I thought it was an Earth Pony, he didn’t have a horn or wings so it was a good guess. Then I noticed that my host didn’t feel like a pony, sure he had hooves like a pony and the shape felt the same, but still I just didn’t feel like this was a pony. Then my host turned his head and I saw in a small mirror that he was a zebra. Not only was he a zebra, he was the same zebra who attacked Night Stalker and his team when they went after that pegasus who betrayed Equestria. In the last memory I hadn’t gotten a good look at him apart from his short cut mane and the pattern of his stripes. His black stripes were thicker, his white thinner. His eyes I knew I didn’t see properly during the last memory orb; if I had I wouldn’t have forgotten them. They were orange toward the pupil, almost like hot iron, the color changed as it got closer to the sclera, it went from the deep orange to a redder orange then right at the edge the color became a brilliant red. With the almond shape of his eyes and the changing color, I couldn’t help admire how beautiful they looked. All in all, he was a very handsome zebra, even if his mane had gotten long and unruly since the last time I saw him.

My host started to turn around slowly looking around what had to be a cell of some kind, only instead of bars and a small cot to sleep on like the cells in Stable 28. This was a nice sized room with a large glass window looking out into a hallway. It had a thick steel door with another small window looking out into the same hall. The cell had a bed, a desk, and bookshelf with a few books on it. On one end was a private bathroom that even had a shower in it. If I was locked away in this cell, I’d be fine with it. It looked more comfortable than my own room back in the stable.

The door opened and a light brown mare with a magenta colored mane with light pink stripes running through it, her eyes were a bright peridot. She had a couple of freckles, and her cutie mark was a pair of scissors with apples for the handles. She had a tray of food in her muzzle that she set down on the desk. When she was finished she looked back toward my host, “Zaphan, what’re you doing up so damn early? I thought you’d be sleepin’ still.”

My host frowned and sighed, “I am always up at an early hour Babs, you should know that by now.”

She shrugged, “You’ve only been here for a week, I wasn’t at the last location very much.”

He laughed a little, “But you have been bringing me my breakfast every day all week.”

“Yeah, but never this early.”

“I will admit, it is strange to see you around so early, is something wrong?”

“Nah, I just couldn’t sleep last night so’s I figured I’d get your breakfast done earlier. That and because The Captain wants to have a word with ya’s soon. I figured you’d like to have somethin’ to eat before he does,” she replied.

My host frowned, “I can guess what he wants,” my host walked over to the desk and started to eat the nicely prepared salad.

“Yea, the last bit of information ya gave us didn’t pan out. He’s not in the best of moods right now.”

My host rolled his eyes, “Is Night Stalker ever in a good mood? He always seems so angry.”

“I don’t have time for that kind of shit Zaphan,” Night Stalker said from the doorway. They both turned to look at the grey pegasus, he wasn’t wearing any armor. Without it he didn’t look as menacing, apart from the stern look on his face, “I see Babs took care of your breakfast.”

My host nodded his head, “She is a kind mare.”

“I think country hospitality runs in her family, even if she’s from the city,” Night Stalker said, “We should get started if you’re ready.”

“I do not have much of a choice now do I?”

Night Stalker smiled, “We always have a choice Zaphan.”

My host chuckled, “Yes, but with you it is either do as you say, or die. To me I see no other choices available.”

“Be it bad or good, a choice is still a choice,” Night Stalker looked over his shoulder and yelled, “Amethyst Star would you come in here please!”

A pale purple unicorn with a dark purple mane with a lighter purple highlights walked in. She had three diamonds for a cutie mark, “Yes Captain?”

“Do you have the device you and Minuette designed?”

“Of course I do Sir,” she said pulling out a small black collar, “I have it right here. Min said she worked out the last of the bugs last night.”

“Good,” Night Stalker said taking the collar and holding it out to my host, “Put this on.”

My host looked at it like it was a radroach, “What is that thing?”

“Security, now put it on.”

My host took the collar and put it on. When the collar clicked shut, a small shock went through my host. He jumped, “What was that?”

Amethyst Star blushed a little then said, “It’s an electric shock, the collar does that because the spell matrix we built into it needs to connect with your nervous system. It shouldn’t do it again though.”

My host pulled on the collar a little, “I feel like a pet.”

“Prisoner, Pet, not much of a difference,” Night Stalker said with a small chuckle.

“It is bad enough that you have kept me as a prisoner for little over a year, now you have me walking around in a collar. I am the third son of the Caesar,” my host complained.

Night Stalker looked at my host with a confused expression, then he looked over at Babs, “Didn’t you tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

Babs’ eyes went wide, “I didn’t have a chance to yet Captain, I was about to then ya’s walked in and it slipped my mind.”

Night Stalker sighed, “We’ll chalk that up to bad timing then.”

“What are you talking about Night Stalker?” my host asked, his voice getting louder.

“I’ll tell you in a moment, first we should get out of this stuffy room. We have a lot to talk about.”

“NO, WE WILL TALK NOW! Tell me what you meant!” as my host started to yell, the collar around his neck let out an electric shock. My host gagged and fell to the ground, he tried to scream (I know I was) but the electric shock was so powerful it didn’t let him. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to keep the zebra down.

Night Stalker just watched as my host twitched, when the pain finally started to recede he said, “I should’ve explained what that collar does beforehoof. You see if you threaten any of The Children of the Night, yell at us, make demands, or try to leave, that collar will shock you.”

Zaphan took a deep breath before he responded, “You are a monster.”

“I’m not, trust me. You see Zaphan, even with all the information you’ve provided, I can’t trust you. Though because you’ve been so helpful I wanted to give you a little more freedom. So, this is my compromise. You will be allowed to go just about anywhere on this floor, but you’ll still be locked in this room at night. As long as you stay civil you won’t have any problems with that collar.”

My host got back to his hooves and glared at Night Stalker, “Have I not shown you by now that you can trust me?”

Night Stalker smiled again, “I don’t trust anyone Zaphan, you should know that by now. But if you do prove to be an asset then I may have the collar taken off.”

My host sighed then shrugged, “It is better than being stuck in a cell all the time. Anyway, where are we going and why?”

Night Stalker looked back at the other two of his team, “You two go check on the reports we got in from Thunder Lane.”

They both saluted, but before Amethyst Star could run off, she moved closer to Night Stalker and said quietly, “Can we talk later?”

Night Stalker nodded. When she was gone, following Babs out of the room, Night Stalker looked back at my host, “We’re going to the main room, I need to go over a few things with you.”

My host followed Night Stalker as he walked out of the room, “Is this about the zebra commander you have been looking for?” the hall past the room wasn’t very long, it only had one other room with a steel door like the one my host was staying in. It led out to a large open space that looked like it was perfect for ponies to relax in. The walls were floor to ceiling windows that overlooked…New Pegasus? No, it was still intact, as my host got closer to the windows I could see that there were many more casinos than there are now. I could also see another part of the city visible up in the clouds. Ponies of all kinds were taking balloons and elevators up to the cloud part. The sun was still coming up and it made for a beautiful view of Las Pegasus. A city in its hayday.

“Where are we? It looks like Las Pegasus, but I do not remember such a tall building in the city,” My host asked.

“This is Las Pegasus, we’re in a new casino called the Lucky Horseshoe, it just opened two weeks ago. We moved you from our old base to here once we had this section of the tower set up. This is the new base for The Children of the Night,” Night Stalker replied walking up to the window to look down at the ponies on the strip so far below.

“That is rather clever, hiding the base in a casino I mean,” my host said, “It would also provide a lot of safety for your team.”

“That it will,” Night Stalker stopped as another pony walked in. My host looked over also as Lightning Dust walked in the room, “Ah Lightning, I didn’t know you were back yet.”

I saw Night Stalker’s face light up as she came in. She smiled and trotted over and kissed him for a moment. Woah, what the hell was that? Did Night Stalker just mess around with every mare, or did something happen between the memory with him and Luna? Zaphan said he was in their custody for a year, the memory I saw of Luna wasn’t long after the fight with Zaphan. So, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

“I just got back, I heard you were going to be talking with Zaphan,” Lightning said, then she looked past Night Stalker and smiled at my host, “Hello Zaphan, it’s nice to see you out and about.”

“It is nice to be out,” my host said, “I did not know you two were together.” (Yeah same here!)

“We haven’t told anypony apart from the rest of the team,” Night Stalker said scratching the back of his head, “It’s still new.”

“You two make a good couple,” my host said with a small smile.

Lightning blushed, “Thank you Zaphan. Anyway, why is he out here and not in his cell?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” my host said.

Night Stalker sighed, “I was going to have this conversation alone, but I guess it can’t hurt if you’re here too. Zaphan first I needed to let you know that we’re still having trouble finding the zebras we were told about. We’ve checked into every location you’ve provided and each one has had signs that ponies or zebras where there not long before we got there. I have a feeling that somepony is feeding them information about my team and their movements.”

“I hope you do not think it is me, I have no way of communicating with any of my father’s forces.”

“No, we don’t think it’s you or anypony on my team. Minuette and Amethyst Star have both been busy checking the memories of the team and nothing was found. The only other ponies that know about my team are a couple of ponies in the M.O.A. Do you think anypony would be giving the zebras the info, or do your kind have a way of knowing what we’re up to?”

My host took a minute to respond, “Both are possible, getting a spy into the M.O.A. is hard, but not impossible. Though for them to reach the level of clearance to find out that kind of information would be very difficult and risky to the pony we sent in. I believe it’s more likely that the zebras you are looking for have found a new way of watching for when your ponies or griffon are searching.”

Lightning spoke up, “Wouldn’t it be impossible to move a large number of zebras without anypony seeing?”

“Once again, it is difficult, but not impossible. We zebras are very good at moving stealthily with enough mist walker cloaks and a small force they could pull it off.”

“I was thinking the same thing, but I wanted to make sure,” Night Stalker said, “If you were the one leading them, where would you go next?”

“What makes you think that a new location would turn out any differently than they have before?”

“I don’t, but I didn’t ask if you knew where they would go next. I asked where you would go if you were the one we were looking for.”

“I see,” my host said sounding a bit puzzled, “Well, I would want to stay someplace close to Las Pegasus, if that was the place they wanted to strike. If I knew that your team was looking for me I would…”

My host paused and after a second Night Stalker asked, “You’d what?”

“Shit, why did I not think of this sooner,” my host said anxiously, “Think about it, you’ve been out there for the past year trying to find a moving band of zebras. They keep eluding you, but always leaving behind something that you’d find so you keep searching.”

“Yeah and?”

“Think about it Night Stalker, to attack Las Pegasus or the airbase near it, they would need a large force to take it down. It would take time to get that many zebras this far into Equestria and no matter what they did somepony would notice something like you have. So to keep your main force from being discovered, what do you do?”

Night Stalker’s eyes went wide, “You use a decoy!”

“Exactly, the smartest thing to do is have a few of your zebras go out and keep moving locations making sure to keep the ponies hunting them on their trail. If I am right, they will have a large force hiding somewhere near here that can remain unnoticed.”

“Where in Las Pegasus could that many zebras hold up?” Lightning asked.

“The only place I could think of is Crimson Canyon, it has a lot of caves and other places near it that could hold hundreds of zebras,” my host replied.

Lightning laughed, “That can’t be it, that was the first place we checked.”

Night Stalker spoke up, “It was, but that was back when we first started looking and before Zaphan started helping us. They wouldn’t have had many zebras yet, they could’ve hidden without much effort. Once we started hunting them in other area’s they knew we wouldn’t go back to the Canyon.”

“That’s right, if you send in a scout with a Stealth Buck, then you may be able to catch them.”

“Not a bad idea Zaphan thank you,” Night Stalker said, (He knows how to say thank you? Who is this pegasus!)

Zaphan looked back out the window, “I do not like the thought of your ponies going in to attack or kill my fellow zebras.”

“I don’t plan on killing them all. If any of them surrender, I’ll make sure they are given to the M.O.M.,” Night Stalker said.

“I know, it is still hard for me to betray my homeland like I have.”

“You told me yourself that you wanted to help end the war, I think you also told me that you didn’t like your father that much and you wanted to get back at him for sending you on that mission where we captured you. It’s the only reason I’ve kept you with me instead of giving you to Pinkie.”

My host sighed, “I know what I said, I was angry and I also felt bad for killing one of your ponies.”

Lightning cocked her head, “Why would you feel bad for that? Sure we weren’t happy about it, but that’s what happens in war. You lose friends and family.”

“I was angry at the time and when I attacked I did not intend to kill her, I am sorry that I did.”

“At least you feel that way, though I’d rather not have lost her. Phoenix Heart was a good soldier and a good friend,” Night Stalker said solemnly.

“I know, you have told me this before. Anyway, apart from this problem with finding the zebras, why else did you need to talk to me?”

Night Stalker sighed then turned to look at my host, “I might as well get the bad news out of the way. Since we captured you, we’ve been trying to set up another meeting with your people. We planned on using you as a bargaining chip to get your father to stand down or at least talk to us about peace again.”

“Yes, I think you told me that before. Did he refuse or make demands that you cannot meet?”

“Worse, last night we got a message from him. The Caesar said that no son of his would ever be so weak as to get captured and stay in captivity. He announced to the rest of your kind that you’re dead, at least as far as he’s concerned. As of right now, you’re just a random zebra who’s had his title stripped and your name taken away. He told us that we could throw you in a pit to rot and that Zaphan is no longer the name of the zebra we have as our prisoner.”

My host stood there shocked for a long moment looking at both Night Stalker and Lightning Dust. When he could finally speak he sounded like he was ready to kill his father, “How dare he! What does he know about fighting when all he does is sit around making his subjects fight for him. He sent me in to Equestria on what he knew would end up being a suicide mission or at least one I would get captured doing. Now he has the balls to disown me, the only son he has that is of any real use to him!”

“Zaphan calm down please,” Night Stalker said.

“No, do not call me that anymore. My name has been taken from me.”

Lightning Dust looked at Night Stalker then back at my host, “Then what should we call you?”

“I do not know Lightning Dust, but if my father…no the Caesar took away my title and name then I have no family, no name, no ties to my kind. I am a dead zebra now. I am an outcast, the nameless one.” My host said his voice shaking with rage and sadness.

Night Stalker smiled, “I know a thing or two about taking on a new name and I may have a solution. First I want to know something.”

My host glared at Night Stalker, “What is that Captain?”

“You’ve been a big help to us over the last year, even though you knew it could lead to your own death. Even though you’ve killed one of my teammates, I’ve kept you alive and you’ve shown me the respect I am due. Since you’re nameless now and without a tie to your tribe and family, will you serve me as one of my Children of the Night. Now if you say yes, you will not be a fully trusted member of my team, not until you prove yourself, but I can give you a name and a purpose.”

My host frowned, taking a moment to think, “You want me to change my loyalties, to work for you who serves Nightmare Moon?”

“No I want you to help me save my nation. With the knowledge you have as a prince…sorry former prince, you can help me in many ways. Princess Luna is not Nightmare Moon anymore, she hasn’t been for a long time. She is the Princess of the Night, and a good mare,” Night Stalker replied.

My host smiled a little, “If I do this, can you promise me that one say I will be free to do as I wish?”

He nodded, “Once we win this war or find a path that leads us to peace with Rome, then yes, I will make sure you are freed. I will even make sure you have a good life here in Equestria.”

My host chuckled to himself then walked closer to Night Stalker, “May I borrow a blade?”

Night Stalker hesitated for a moment then he looked at Lightning dust and nodded, “Just remember what that collar will do to you if you try attacking me.”

“I have not forgotten,” my host said as he took the small dagger from Lightning. My host made a small cut on his foreleg then let three drops of his blood fall to the floor. He bowed his head taking his forehoof drawing a symbol on the ground I could only imagine to be a zebra glyph. The glyph had a plus and cross overlapping each other “By my blood I swear myself to you Captain Night Stalker, leader of the Children of the Night. I will serve you and whomever succeeds you as the leader. I swear this oath and will hold it till my dying day or until I am released from my services.”

“You understand that a blood oath is a serious thing even here in Equestria, right?” Night Stalker said.

“I do and I will still make it. My father has gone too far and is blinded by his power. I cannot serve someone like him anymore, I would rather help Equestria win this war.”

“Then rise and be forever known not as Zaphan, but as Noire the newest member of The Children of the Night.”

My host rose with a smile, I could feel his body relax as if his new name freed him of the stress he was holding on to all this time, “Noire…I like it, thank you Captain, now how can I help serve you?”

Night Stalker walked over to an intercom that was in the wall and spoke into it, “Minuette, would you please bring in the new outfit you made?”

“YES SIR!” the mare said excitedly.

There was a bright blue flash of light and Minuette was standing next to them all, her smile as big as ever. Night Stalker chuckled, “Do you always have to make a flashy entrance?”

She looked at him confused, “What do you mean? I was just getting here as fast as possible.”

“Never mind, how about you show our newest member what you have,” Night Stalker said pointing a hoof at the bag she had on her back.

She pulled it off and pulled out some kind of suit. It was all black and looked thin and light, there was also a helmet with a full mask that only had the eyes open and a pair of orange goggles, “This is a modification I made on a sneaking suit we’ve found on some zebras. I’ve imbued a few gems into it, it will mask any sound that you make while it’s on, the helmet will make it so you can listen in on conversations and last it will deflect small caliber ammo and some laser weaponry too.”

My host looked at it and ran his hoof over the thin silky fabric, “It is wonderful, is it for me?”

“Yes it is Silly! The Captain wanted it ready to go just in case something like this happened,” Minuette replied.

My host looked over at Night Stalker, “You planned this?”

Night Stalker smiled a little, “Not everything, when I got the information about what your father planned on doing, I had a feeling you’d want to strike back at him. I didn’t know if you’d except my offer or not but in case you did I wanted to have everything ready.”

My host took the outfit, “That was a good plan, I do have one favor to ask of you though.”

“What’s that?”

“In the year I have been here I have watched you train a few times. You are a mighty warrior, but you are not a good hoof to hoof fighter.”

A little anger came to Night Stalkers eyes, “I’d watch what you say, I was the top in my class when it came to hoof to hoof combat.”

My host chuckled, “With a pony yes, but if you ever want to hold your own against a zebra like one of my brothers or my father’s personal guards or generals, you’ll need more training. I would like to help with that, if you’d let me that is.”

Lightning Dust giggled, “He has a point Night Stalker.”

Finally Night Stalker relented, “Fine, if you think I need more training then we will test your theory out. If you can win in a fight against me, then I will let you train me.”

My host’s smile widened, “Then what are we waiting for, let’s get started.”

“I like his enthusiasm, but I think we should let him see Babs first.” Lightning said.

Night Stalker laughed, “I think you’re right, he does need a mane cut.”

My host ran a hoof through his long mane, “I think you are right. A mane cut first, then we fight.”

oooOOOooo

I woke up with a jolt, looking around wondering where the fuck the Stranger was. I took a quick look around the place I was in, it was just a small room with a table in the middle of it, three microphones and some recording equipment next to the table. There was a terminal sitting in one corner and a door that led to another room. I tried to get up but I couldn’t, my hooves were tied up, the knots looked simple enough to undo though. I tried to use my magic to undo them then I ended up screaming as something stabbed into my horn. The pain went away as soon I stopped pulling on my magic.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the voice of The Stranger said.

Looking up I saw him standing next to the door, I yanked on my bindings, “Let me out of here!”

“I can’t do that, not until you calm down,” he said.

“FUCK YOU! What the hell did you do to me anyway?”

“I tied you up and took you to a safe place in Saints Parish. We need to lie low for a while.”

“I meant with the fucking MEMORY ORB!”

He shrugged, “It made it easier to get you here. Are you going to calm down and listen to me or are you going to keep acting like an abhorrent little snot?”

“I’m not going to do anything you…wait a what?” I asked confused. Did he just call me a Snot?

“I’m not going to repeat myself. Do you know what the fuck you just did?”

I grinned a little at his question, “Yeah, took out a shit load of Enclave pricks and their giant building.”

“No, you killed at least ten Enclave soldiers, the high council, fifteen pegasi who ran the tower itself, and thirty normal citizens. Not to mention the guards who were trapped inside that thing when your weapon went off.”

“They deserved what they got!”

“Oh did they? So every pony there deserved to die? Did they have anything to do with what happened to your friend?” he asked angrily.

“They were Enclave, what does it matter?”

He walked over to me and slapped me, “They were innocent you immature fool. You killed ponies that had nothing to do with what happened to you or your friends. They had families, children that won’t ever see them again because of you!”

A female voice came from the doorway, looking up I saw a pinkish-purple griffon with dark blue along her wings and at the edge of her head feathers, “There’s no need to hit her you know.”

The Stranger looked back at her, “Stay out of this.”

She frowned, “I’m letting you hide here, the least you can do is keep yourself from abusing her.”

The stranger sighed and looked back at the griffon, “I know that Kitty, but she still needs to check that attitude.”

Kitty looked at me, “She’s the one that blew up Mill City Tower isn’t she?”

The Stranger growled a little, “Yes she did,” he lifted the Range Finder and showed it to the griffon.

“That stupid looking gun took out the tower?” Kitty asked, giving the Ranger Finder a quizzical look.

“This stupid looking gun is more powerful than you think. Did you see the tower fall?”

“Give that back to me!” I yelled.

He turned around, “You aren’t getting this back, you’ve proven to be too childish and irrational to have a weapon like this.”

“It’s mine! I gave my word to a zebra colt that I’d keep it safe!”

“I’m sure you did, but I’m sure he didn’t know what it was and even if he did, he wouldn’t want you to use it the way you have!” he shouted.

Kitty walked over to me, looking me over, “Why are you so angry?”

I glared at her, “It’s none of your business.”

“You’re in my home, in here everything is my business,” she said her face softening a little, “I can see that you’re in a lot of pain right now.”

“Of course I am, I have something on my head blocking my magic and I’m tied up!”

“Just leave her be Kitty,” The Stranger said.

The griffon ignored him, “What’s your name again?”

I didn’t feel like talking to her, but I might be able to get her to help me out of this, “Shadow.”

“Shadow when I said you’re in a lot of pain, I didn’t mean physically, I meant emotionally.”

I looked away from her, “You wouldn’t understand.”

Her smile never left her face, “Maybe not, but we won’t know unless you try explaining it to me.”

“She’s losing her mind that’s what’s wrong,” The Stranger said.

Kitty looked back at him, “You’re not helping,”

The Stranger sighed, “Fine whatever.”

I looked at the Stranger for a moment, that wasn’t the type of reaction I’d expect him to have. Kitty looked back at me, “Why did you attack the tower and what was the reason you thought destroying it was a good idea?”

I could feel tears in my eyes as I said, “I lost someone.”

“We’ve all lost someone Shadow, but you don’t see us going and killing so many ponies like that.”

“You’re all too weak or scared to go after The Enclave, I’m not. I’m going to destroy them, even if I die in the process,” I said furiously.

Kitty looked sad for a minute, then she reached out and put a talon on my shoulder, I tried to pull away but she held on tight, “If you died what good would that do for the ponies, zebra’s and griffons that look up to you?”

“I don’t care about them, I never asked to be The Courier! I just wanted to escape my stable, I just wanted to save my friends. I never wanted to be the mare others looked up to. If I die they’ll find other ponies to see as some kind of FUCKING hero.”

“Boo hoo get over yourself,” The Stranger said mockingly.

That took me by surprise, looking over at him I asked, “Who are you?”

“You know who I am dumbass,” The Stranger replied.

“No I don’t think I do, who the hell are you!?” I yelled.

Kitty looked at The Stranger then back at me, “He said he knew you, he’s the one who brought you here.”

“Really? Did he leave at any point while I was in the memory orb?”

“Yeah once to check on what the patrol was doing but he was only gone for ten minutes or so,” Kitty responded.

“What does this have to do with anything? Stop getting so agitated.” He said.

I gave him the hardest of glares, “You said you were bringing me back to The Kingdom. If so, then why am I here?”

“Because Enclave patrols were swarming the skies, I had to take you to a safe place until things died down, which they haven’t.”

I looked back at Kitty, “That’s not the pony I know, he’s an imposter!”

Kitty looked at me for a moment then said, “Are you sure?”

Moving closer to her I said, “Ask him what I call him.”

Kitty looked back at him and asked, “What does Shadow call you?”

He paused and that was all I needed, “You don’t know do you?”

He sighed, “Fine I’m sick of this game anyway, I don’t even know why I decided to do this. It’s a fuckin’ pain in my ass.”

“You need to get this magical blocking thing off my horn Kitty, he might be Envy!”

“No you don’t Kitty,” The Stranger said walking over toward us, “I’m not Envy, but I am a pony she knows.”

“I don’t know who you are, but if you’re not the masked pony then who are you? Because he’s the one we work with and if you did something to him, you’re in deep shit buddy,” Kitty said.

He sighed then pulled off his hat, his eyes changed as soon as the hat was off from green to brilliant blue. A pink mane was just visible under the bandages under the hat. He pulled down the bandages to reveal…her face? She then pulled off a voice modulator and smiled, “He was right, you did see through the disguise.”

My eyes went wide, “Solstice? Why the hell are you here!?”

The griffon looked between the two of us, “I wasn’t expecting a mare, who is she Shadow?”

“Solstice, she’s an Enclave solider err officer, I don’t know, she’s just bad!”

“Former,” Solstice said flatly.

“What do you mean and where’s The Stranger?”

She looked over at Kitty then back at me, “He’s the one who first brought you here, he’s been friends with the radio ponies for a long time. He needed to hide you here so he could head back to Nimbus to see if there was a way he could get you out of here safely. He knew that you’d wake up before he could get back so he called me in, gave me a spare outfit, and this hat that he said would make my eyes look like his. He wanted me to watch you until he got back. He wanted me to keep you as calm as I could while we waited.”

“That doesn’t answer my other question, why did you say former?”

I saw a flash of anger in her eyes then it faded and she sighed, “After I was found in Halo One, the Enclave decided I was too much of a liability and not ready for my job. I was to ‘young’ to handle my job as an officer they said. I was demoted and sent to work as a guard. I tried to beg my commanding officers to give me another chance, but they told me that if I kept it up they’d brand me. They thought I was getting soft, they said I let you escape at Halo One.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here and not back in Stratus!”

“I had to run away! Are you happy now? I refused to work as a guard just because I had a couple bad missions, they threatened my parents if I didn’t do my job along with branding me. So, I did the only thing I could, I ran.”

I may’ve been angry at the situation I was in, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Solstice right then, “What about your parents?”

She rolled her eyes, “They’ll be fine, Dad’s a former officer and retried with high honors, mom still works with our intel department. They’re both highly respected and not ponies they’d hurt or brand just because their daughter went rogue. They might’ve told me they’d do something to them if I didn’t do what I was told, but I found out that they were only bluffing. A friend of mine who’s a captain told me as much before I left.”

Kitty finally spoke up, “But if they catch you, they’ll brand you.”

Solstice huffed, “Yeah I know, actually I was trying to escape a wing of pegasi when I ran into the stallion in the hat, what did you call him, Stranger?”

I nodded, “He’s never told me his real name and he said I could call him Stranger so I do.”

Kitty chuckled, “Sounds better than what Bitmap named him, we call him The Masked Pony, it’s kind of a mouthful.”

I couldn’t help smiling as she said that, then I looked back at Solstice, “So you met the Stranger and then what?”

“After he took out the ponies that were following me he said he saw me at the fight against Frosty Summit. He asked me what I did to earn the wrath of The Enclave and I told him my story. He said he was heading to Nimbus and the Twin Cities and asked if I’d be willing to travel with him and help him with something. He said if I did, he’d help me get into The Kingdom. I heard they take in ponies like me who ran away from The Enclave.”

I sighed, “So you agreed to help him so you could get in?”

She nodded, “He told me before he left that something bad happened to you and you needed help. I wanted to use this as a way to repay you for letting me live both times we met. I was kind of a bitch to you.”

“Yeah, and I don’t see you being much nicer to me now. I’m fucking hog tied!”

Kitty looked over at me and frowned, “The Stranger is the one who tied you up, he said not to let you out of your bonds until he got back.”

“It’s not like I can do anything if I’m untied, I don’t have my stuff and my magic is useless at the moment. It’s getting really uncomfortable laying like this.”

Solstice sighed, “Sorry Shadow, but I can’t let you loose. I would if I could but I have my orders and I won’t betray the trust The Stranger put in me.”

Fuck, well it was worth a try, “Fine, do either of you know when he’ll be back?”

“No, we don’t, but I hope it’s soon. Poker Chip and Bitmap will be back soon, we have a show to record. We still haven’t reported about what happened to Mill City Tower. Ponies are freaking out right now,” Kitty answered.

“Where are they anyway?” I asked.

“Getting supplies and talking to some of the locals,” Solstice replied.

“Correction we WERE talking to locals, now we’re back,” the voice of Poker Chip said a moment before he walked into the room. He was a reddish orange unicorn with light blue and silver stripped mane. He had a poker chip that had a spade on it. Similar to the chips I saw at The Applewood.

Following behind him was a taller purple earth pony stallion with a dark red mane, his cutie mark was a terminal. He looked at us and gave me a nice kind smile, “Look at that Poker Chip, The Masked Pony is a mare and our guest is awake.”

Poker Chip laughed, “Well look at that. Good morning Courier I’m Poker Chip, this is Bitmap, and I see you’ve already met Kitty.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you. Can any pony please tell me WHY I’M REALLY HERE!?” I yelled.

Bitmap chuckled nervously, “She’s kind of an angry little mare isn’t she?”

“What do you expect from a mare with a reputation like hers!?” Poker Chip asked, “To answer your question Courier, we have no idea. The Masked Pony asked us to watch over you and he left, but it looks like he is a she since I see the outfit laying on the floor there.”

Solstice sighed “I’m not the Stranger or Masked Pony, I just work for him. I owed him a favor so I dressed up like him so when Shadow woke up she wouldn’t freak out, at least as much as she would have if it was just Kitty here.”

“A lot of good that did her too, Shadow saw through it rather quickly,” Kitty said, “What took you two so long?”

“Damn I was hoping I’d get to find out who he really was,” Poker Chip said then he looked at the griffon, “Enclave patrol is everywhere, they’re stopping everypony they see in both cities trying to find out if they know who shot down Mill City Tower. It took a lot of bribes and lies to get back here in one piece.”

“Yeah, they’re setting up checkpoints on most of the streets too. If it wasn’t for Poker Chip I wouldn’t have made it back.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help asking.

Poker Chip answered, “Since I’m sure this is your first time in Saint’s Parish, I’ll explain. The Enclave have a kind of hierarchy, Pegasi are at the top, they are the only ponies who can hold any kind of power. They are first class citizens, Unicorns like myself are more like a second class though we can get high in the Enclave ranks if we try hard enough. Earth Ponies are seen as third class or dirt to the Pegasi, they don’t like them at all. There are very few in the Enclave and most of them live around here. When something bad happens like what you did to the tower, they always blame the Earth Ponies first.”

I frowned, “That’s all kinds of fucked up, I grew up in a stable of earth ponies and apart from them treating me like shit most of the time, they were good ponies. Well most of them at least.”

Poker Chip looked over at Kitty, “Kitty, if I were you I’d stay indoors for a while at least until things outside calm down some.”

“I was planning on it anyway, I don’t feel like being thrown in jail again because some guard doesn’t like what I am.”

“Let me guess Griffons are hated more than the rest?” I asked.

Solstice was the one to answer, “The Enclave don’t hate griffons, but they don’t trust them either. Their entire culture revolves around mercenary work, it makes them unpredictable.”

Bitmap nodded, “Yeah, Kitty is the only griffon who lives in Enclave territory right now and that’s because she was orphaned here and grew up on the streets. She doesn’t live her life like most griffons.”

Kitty laughed, “That’s true, I’m more of a pony than a griffon. I don’t understand the whole contract thing nor do I care about it. That’s the only reason they let me live here. If I was to take up with a talon company though they’d change their minds about me rather quickly.”

Figuring since I couldn’t do anything to get free right now, I thought I’d at least learn more about the three, “How’d you end up here?”

Kitty shrugged, “My parents were working for an Enclave officer when I was really young, they were both freelancers back then and didn’t care who they worked for as long as they got caps. When they would go off on a job for this officer, I’d stay at his home in Nimbus. One day they went off on a job and never came back. Since I was too young to be of any use to the officer, he took me to Whinnieapolis and left me there to fend for myself.”

“That’s wrong in so many ways,” I said.

“True, but I ended up doing okay for myself. A nice stallion took me in a couple years later and raised me. It was because of him that I met Bitmap and later Poker Chip.”

“Really?”

Bitmap smiled wide, “Yeah, my older brother was the one who took her in. I’m from here originally and I would come home now and then to see how he was doing. I met Kitty when she was little.”

“Is that why you two came back here?”

Poker Chip gave me a funny look, “What do you mean?”

“I was told you two used to be the radio hosts in New Pegasus, then one day you decided to go to Saint’s Parish.”

“Oh yeah, well if you mean did we come back here because we’re from this area, no. Bitmap’s brother died about a year ago, he was running the radio program here before we were. Kitty got a message to us about his passing and asked if we’d come out here and help her start up the show again. So we decided it was a good idea to stick a thorn in the ass of The Enclave and we moved.”

“That and because we pissed off Mr. Tops. He was gonna send some of his robots after us to kill us,” Bitmap said.

Poker Chip laughed again, “That might’ve played a small part in it. That shut in needs to learn to take a joke now and then. Anyway, I set up most of the equipment you see here with Bitmap’s help and we made this show go from something a few ponies in the area listened to, to a huge hit with most ponies in The Twin Cities and The Kingdom.”

Kitty and Bitmap both sighed, Bitmap saying, “Yeah and thanks to that the Enclave would love to shut us down.”

“I’m sure they would, but they don’t know what we look like, apart from Kitty, and they can’t find our location. So right now, we’re safe enough.”

“No one is safe in this city, you three should know that by now,” The Stranger said from the doorway.

“Oh, look who decided to show up finally that’s if it’s really you this time,” I said with a glare.

He looked over at me with his piercing green eyes, “It would be in your best interest to keep quiet Shadow, you’re lucky I didn’t gag you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?” he asked pushing past the others and putting his bandaged face within inches of mine, “Really? Is that the best you can come up with? You’re lucky I’m still trying to help you after the shit you pulled.”

“That’s because you swore to protect me,” I mocked

He slammed me against the wall, “I’m this close to throwing you out and letting The Enclave have you Shadow! I didn’t swear to do shit, I’m helping a friend that’s all.”

I smiled at him, “Yeah, Nightshade I know all about that.”

“Oh do you now? Then tell me, what do you know about Nightshade and me?”

“I know that Nightshade is a snake that my mother warned me about, he promised her he’d protect me or he’d have a friend do it if he couldn’t. I’m assuming that friend is you Stranger. He lied to her though, he just wants her dead and me brought back to The Enclave so I can be a good lap dog like the rest of those feather brained idiots. He’s the one controlling Stardust, he’s the reason everything’s going to shit. If he was on my side he would’ve already changed Stardust back,” I shouted.

He threw me on the ground and yelled, “Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe he’s trying to do that? If you didn’t go to Mill City Tower to try killing Stardust and Nightshade he would’ve been able to fix everything, but no, you just had to get your FUCKING REVENGE!”

“You don’t need to yell at her,” Kitty interrupted.

“Stay out of this Kitty, she needs a lesson on what it means to grow up!” he said then looked back at me, “You’re going back to The Kingdom. I will deal with Stardust, not you. Do you want to know what I’ve been doing while you were out?”

I looked away, “Yes.”

“I went back to The Kingdom and told your friends what’s been going on along with The Empress and Emperor. You will stay there until you calm down and grow the fuck up. When we fix Stardust, you will be there for him, he isn’t in his right mind just like you Shadow. Your friends have given you multiple chances for the shit you’ve pulled since you left your stable. You owe Stardust the same respect, because when he’s better he’s still going to have to live with what he did while he was Pride.”

“I can’t do that he killed…”

“You will Shadow, stop acting like a child. Yes, he may’ve shot Aura and he’ll have to deal with that for the rest of his life. Just like you’re going to have to deal with the ponies you killed in Appleton and Mill City Tower. I won’t let you act like this anymore. You’re not a foal, or a lost filly anymore, you’re the FUCKING COURIER. Now start acting like it.”

I knew he was right, but I didn’t wanna hear it. I wanted to be justified in my actions, but he was right. Compared to me Stardust hasn’t done anything that bad. He’s following orders and a program that was put in his head. I was the one who acted and let my anger overtake me. Not everypony in The Enclave was bad, some of them that seemed bad were in fact good ponies deep down. Phantom Shot became Wrath because of what happened to him thanks to my uncle, but he still died protecting me. Solstice seemed like a bitch at first, but deep down she was just a scared daughter who didn’t want something bad to happen to her parents. Mom was a good pony before she was forced to leave home so she could save me. Maybe…just maybe I was looking at this all wrong, what if I was the bad pony?

Finally I looked up at the Stranger and said, “I can’t change how angry I am, but I know you’re right. I’ll go back to The Kingdom, I don’t know what I’ll do when I see Stardust again, but I’ll try to calm down.”

“You need to start thinking like that before you act Shadow. You have a bad anger problem, with most ponies that isn’t a dangerous thing because they lack the power to do much. You’ve proven to be deadly when you lose someone close to you. That needs to change, because I promise you it will happen again, you can’t start killing everypony you think is evil when bad things happen. That doesn’t make you right, it makes you a monster. Just like the Monster you told me Aquila is, if you really want to be like her then keep going down the path you’re on, but if you want to do better, then show us you mean it,” he said before taking a step back.

Everyone was quiet for a long time, finally Solstice broke the silence, “Is everything ready to go?”

He sighed, “Yes, I only need you to bring Shadow back to The Kingdom for me, once you have then our deal will be finished.”

“I can do that.”

He turned to look at the two stallions and Kitty, “Do you three think you can leave out what you know about who took down the Tower?”

Poker Chip winked, “Well it would make a great story for the late show tonight, but I think we can leave out the details about who did it.”

“I’m sure somepony will connect the dots since everypony knows who took down Appleton with the same weapon,” Bitmap said.

“As long as we can keep it hidden away for a while that will help,” The Stranger said.

“If Solstice is taking me back then where are you going to be?” I asked The Stranger.

“I have to fix a lot of things in Nimbus. I’d bring you myself, but I’ve been away for too long as it is. I also have to do something to hide Solstice’s trail.”

“I understand, but how long are you going to leave me tied up and keep this magic ring on my head?”

“You’ll be untied when we leave, the magic canceling ring stays until one of your friends decides to take it off. You have to prove that you’re in a better state of mind.”

I was about to say something, but realized it wouldn’t do me any good, so I sighed, “Okay, I can deal with that for now. Can I ask you something though?”

“What is it?”

I did my best to hold back tears, with my anger mostly gone, the emotions of losing Aura were starting to well up again, “Did my friends bury her yet, because if they haven’t I’d like to do that when I get back. I owe her that much.”

His eyes fell for a moment, “I don’t know, but Laser Light will. She’s meeting you two half way to help get you back. She’ll explain more.”

I gave him a quizzical look, “Why is Laser meeting us half way?”

“She wants to talk to you I think, she’s also going to help Solstice guard you once I’m gone. The Enclave is after both of you and I’d like to make sure you both make it back to The Kingdom safely.”

“You said something before about taking care of Stardust. What did you mean? I take it he survived the blast?”

He sighed again, “I don’t know for sure, but I believe he did. Reports say they saw a pegasus matching his description getting away in the nick of time. I’m going off to find him and with Nightshade’s help, we plan on fixing his memories.”

“What about the other ponies in Stable 97?” I asked.

Solstice spoke up, “From what I know, Nightshade’s been planning on ending that program for a while.”

The Stranger nodded, “He’s going to as soon as we fix the wrongs committed there then he’s shutting down the program and sealing off the stable.”

Sealing off the Stable? I know one pony that wouldn’t be happy about that, but with it empty I’m sure Elder Wolfsbane will have an easier time getting what he wants out of there, “What about the ponies that live there? I heard they’re all around my age and don’t know anything about the outside world?”

The Stranger looked down at his hooves, “We haven’t decided what to do with them yet.”

“I think you should send them to The Kingdom, Sheena said she wanted to help them find their families again and get used to life out here.”

The Stranger chuckled, “That Sheena has always been a do gooder, it’s nice to see in this world. I’ll talk to Nightshade about it when I get back.”

“I was wondering, why do you help Nightshade? From what I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t seem like a good pony, but you talk about him like he’s a hero.”

“He’s my friend, he’s always put on a hard exterior. He figures that if ponies are scared of him they won’t see who he really is. He’s a good pony at heart and he wants to fix the wrongs The Enclave has committed over the years. When I became the new Guardian, I offered to help him in any way I could. It’s funny, because I was helping him, I found you Shadow.”

“You mean when you found me in F&F Tools?” I asked.

His eyes went wide, “No, I’ve been following you since you first arrived in Cartwheel. I flew over the cliffs when you were shot. I was heading toward Green Mist Valley at the time looking into an alarm that went off in the clouds from that area. I heard the shot and saw you go down. I was going to come help but I saw that unicorn rush over and help you, so I stayed back. When I reported what I saw to Nightshade and I told him it was a stable mare with a silver Pip-Buck, he knew it had to be you.”

I remembered that day when I started to pass out after the Cartwheel guard shot me. Right before I blacked out a pegasus flew over me, “Wait that was you? I always thought it was Stardust since I met him a couple days later.”

He laughed, “No, Stardust was still south of Cartwheel at the time. I think he was heading north on the day he saw you fighting the raiders. I saw him attacking the camp at least and watched him kill their boss.”

I thought about the other times I was attacked before F&F Tools, “Why didn’t you show yourself sooner?”

He shrugged, “You seemed to be doing okay on your own. I figured I’d only show up to help when you really needed me. When word went out that Winter Frost was gonna go find you to use you to find Stardust, I went in because I knew you couldn’t handle it. I was wrong though, you were doing a great job until they blocked the back door.”

“I was sick and scared out of my mind!” I said angrily.

“And I came in and helped, your welcome,” he said in a mocking tone.

Poker Chip came closer looked between the two of us then asked, “Before you go, is there any way we could get a quick interview with The Courier?”

“No!” was all The Stranger said.

“Come on, we let you stay here and hide, the least you can do to thank us is let us get an interview with her,” he protested.

He glared at Poker Chip, “I’ve done a lot for you three over the years, let’s call this payback. She seems calm right now, but that can change fast, trust me. She needs to get back to her friends.”

I couldn’t help chuckling at the sad look on Poker Chips face, “Tell you what Poker Chip, when I’m finished with finding my mom and the crap with the Enclave, I’ll make a trip up here and give you an exclusive.”

His face brightened, “Really?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cup cake in my eye,” I said with a small smile.

“I like her, she’s cute, like a bunny rabbit,” Poker Chip said, “It’s a deal.”

The Stranger just rolled his eyes, “If we’re all done with the talk, we should get going.”

Solstice laughed, “I agree, the sooner I’m out of Enclave territory the better.”

The Stranger walked over to me and cut the ropes that were tied around my hooves. Once I was free he said, “Remember, if you try to run, you won’t get far.”

“I know, can I at least get my barding and weapons back?”

“You can, but Solstice is going to be keeping the Range Finder for now. She’s giving it to one of your friends when you get back to The Kingdom, I think you understand why,” he said moving to one side of the room then tossing me my saddle bags and Barding, “The ring you have on your horn will let you use telekinesis at least enough to use your guns. You won’t be able to teleport or use the rest of your spells until it’s removed. I’m leaving that up to Laser or Sheena. When they feel you’re ready they will take it off.”

I frowned, “Do you really distrust me so much?”

“Yes,” he said turning back to Solstice, “Remember if she tries to run, use the dart gun I gave you.”

“Yeah I know, don’t be such a nag dude,” Solstice said moving over to a set of saddle bags and pulling out a set or leather armor, “I’m ready to go.”

It took me a little longer to get my own barding and Duster on, The Stranger was right about me being able to use my telekinesis, but I felt like I was a filly using it for the first time. My magic felt clunky and slow, but I had a feeling I’d get used to it quickly. When I finally got my forehooves through the sleeves of the Duster I said, “Ready to go too.”

“Alright, Shadow I’ll carry you out and over the wall. Once we’re out of sight of the cities then you two will walk,” he said.

Kitty came over to me and said, “I hope things go better for you Shadow, it was nice to meet you even if the circumstances were what they were.”

“Yeah me too, I’ll keep my ears open for your next broadcast,” I said to the three before following The Stranger out of the small room.

***

We made our way back out into the quiet streets of Saint’s Parish. The entrance to the so called secret location was literally behind a dumpster that worked like a door in an old alley. The Stranger didn’t waste any time, he took hold of me then put a hoof on Solstice. Before I could ask what he was doing, he tapped a gem on the inner lining of his coat and everything around us seemed to slow down. It was almost like entering S.A.T.S. as soon as it was done, he took to the air with Solstice following close behind. It didn’t take long for that spell he used to end, but when it did we were already beyond the wall and flying south.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“It’s an old spell that slows time, or it seems to at least. What it really does is change your perception of time, making it so one can move faster. It’s the original spell that was used to make the spell that went into S.A.T.S. created by Minuette herself back when she was a Stable-Tec employee. This gem was made by her and every guardian has owned it to help us with our task,” he replied as he flew faster.

“Is that how you were able to attack those ponies at F&F Tools when I was in S.A.T.S.?”

“It is, it’s also how I’m able to vanish as quick as I do, though I can only use the spell a couple times a day before it needs to recharge.”

Solstice snickered, “That’d be useful in a fight, wish I had one.”

“It is, too bad there’s only one in Equestria. Minuette didn’t like her spell craft to get out. She invented a lot of very useful spells in her day, but she only passed a few of them down to friends or family. The rest she kept in her spell book, which was lost for a long time.”

“I bet a spell book like that would be a great treasure if anypony ever found it,” I said as we started to head toward the ground.

“It would be, though as far as I know, nopony has ever found the book. I know Grim was looking for it before you were born though.”

I laughed, “I’m not surprised, mom always liked to learn new spells.”

“That’s very true,” The Stranger said, but his voice was quiet and I barely made out what he said.

Before I could ask him more, we landed in a dead looking field, “This is as far as I go, Laser should be here soon.”

I looked around, it was hard to see for how dark it was, “I didn’t realize I was out for so long.”

“Yeah, you were out of it for longer than The Stranger said you’d be,” Solstice said.

“How long was she out for?” The Stranger asked.

“She just woke up not long before you got back. She saw though my disguise like you said she would too.”

“That’s strange, that memory orb should’ve only lasted an hour or so,” The Stranger said looking at me, “Did something happen before the memory started or maybe after?”

I shrugged, “Nothing happened that I know of, the memory took a while to start up, but all I saw was blackness and that was it. Maybe somethings wrong with the memory orb,” he may want to help me, but I wasn’t going to tell him about Oricalcos. I had a feeling he’d never leave if he knew my shadowy uncle was still alive. Unless that was all a dream or something Aquila was doing to mess with my head, again. Though I don’t think it was, I couldn’t feel her still apart from the small well of power that wasn’t quite my own magic.

“Hmmm, I’ll have to view it when I have free time,” he said looking up at the sky for a long moment, “Well, I can’t do anything about it now. You two Stay safe, just keep heading south from here and you’ll see The Kingdom in a couple hours.”

Solstice gave him a funny look, “I thought you were going to wait here until her friend showed up?”

“I am,” he said pointing his hoof up at a grey and pink blotch flying toward us from the south, “She’s here. Remember Shadow, you better keep your nose clean, if not, you’ll have to deal with me.”

I was about to respond with a witty retort when the gem on his coat flashed, and he was gone, “I hate it when he does that, he’s almost as bad as Watcher.”

“Who’s Watcher?” Solstice asked.

“Long story, not as dirty as it sounds either,” I said looking toward Laser who was diving for the ground.

She landed quickly breathing a little heavily from what must’ve been a long flight. She tucked her wings back once again hiding them under her black flight jacket, “I thought I wasn’t going to make it in time.”

I looked down at the ground as she walked over toward us. Solstice chuckled, “I remember you, you were the mare who held Cloak at gunpoint at Frosty Summit. Then got knocked out.”

Laser looked at Solstice for a moment then laughed, “Yes I was, and I remember you too you’re the mare who was outwitted by a colt using a spark grenade.”

Solstice was taken aback by her remark but sighed “You know what, whatever, I don’t care.”

Laser laughed again “I’ll admit though I’m still a little peeved that I let her knock me out like she did. I’m Laser Light, you must be Solstice. Sheena told me you’d be with Shadow.”

I took this moment to pull out my goggles and mask so I could see better in the dark. When they were on I looked over at Solstice, this was the first time I’d been able to get a good look at her cutie mark. It was a snowflake, a budding flower, a green leaf, then a brown leaf, all forming a circle. It was like her cutie mark was the seasons changing. Winter at the tip, then Spring, followed by Summer, then autumn. Solstice was a fitting name for her.

Right as I figured that out, I felt Laser take hold of me and pull me into a tight hug, “Do you have any idea how worried we all were for you!?”

I let my face sink into her chest as she held me, “I’m sorry, also you’re very sweaty.”

She didn’t let me go and I felt a tear all on my head, “Don’t ever run away like that again do you hear me? It was bad enough after that scare with Aura then you went and vanished on us. We wanted to go out looking for you, but we couldn’t leave. I thought Wingnut was going to destroy the mansion when we saw the blast of light in the distance. We knew right away what it was, The Radio hosts said later that Mill City Tower was destroyed, but nothing after that.”

I didn’t know what to say so I just kept my face in her chest as I repeated, “I’m sorry.”

She finally let me go and she pulled my chin up making me look her in the eye, “What made you do something like that? We all thought you ran off because of what you promised Stardust. We never thought you’d go and destroy that tower.”

I tried to look away, but Laser didn’t let me, “When Aura died, something broke inside of me and I lost myself for a little while. I’m still not sure if I’ve fixed myself yet or if I’m still in shock. I wanted so badly to kill Stardust after what he did to her. That’s why I left.”

She looked utterly confused and started to say, “What are you talking about…” then something behind me made a cheerful sounding bleeping noise.

I jumped and screamed trying to hide behind Laser as a strange looking Sprite Bot floated toward us, still making those strange sounding bleeps, “What the fuck is that!?”

She looked at the Sprite Bot and sighed, “Vin-A I told you to wait until I talked to her.”

The Robot bobbed up and down and made an assortment of bleeps and chirps. I took a moment to examine what it looked like. The sprite bot had a chrome body looking almost new but still worn so it’s seen a lot of action. It has an appendage coming out of it at the bottom of its spherical body, at the top were two antennae with two solid metal spheres at the tips. It’s grating looked like any other sprite bot I have seen watcher communicate with but it’s eyes weren’t the normal green I was used to seeing, these eyes were a bright and warm red and it’s wings were transparent green instead of transparent blue. When it finished I asked, “Is this a Sprite Bot that’s only around the Twin Cities or is Watcher making his own now?”

The Sprite Bot made an angry sounding beep and it shot a spark of electricity at me. I yipped and hid behind Laser again. She laughed, “This is Vin-A, my son made him for me a long time ago. He’s always with me, but normally I tell him to keep himself hidden when I’m around other ponies that I don’t know well. He has his own special kind of personality and doesn’t like to be compared to normal Sprite Bots. Vin-A this is Shadow, be nice.”

“Vin-A? I didn’t even know you had a Sprite-Bot. Is he broken, because he isn’t saying anything but strange bleeping noises.”

It shot a spark at me again then moved over to chirp at Laser again. She sighed, “I mean it, be nice to her. Shadow say hello and say you’re sorry for saying he’s broken.”

“No way, he’s a fucking robot, he can’t even talk. At least Watts can talk,” I said sticking my tongue out at the floating robot.

Solstice just laughed watching us, “That looks like a Sprite Bot a pegasus in Stratus always has with him.”

Laser looked over at Solstice coldly, “I’d keep that information to yourself child!”

She put up her hooves, “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. I was just making an observation”

Laser sighed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it either, I just get protective of Vin-A. It’s the last thing my son gave to me before I left.”

I sighed, “As fun as it is to sit here in the middle of nowhere, can we get going?”

“Oh yes, we should start heading back,” as she said that she scanned the sky like she was waiting for somepony to show up.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

Laser looked back at me, “Oh nothing, just making sure no Enclave patrol is around that’s all.”

“My E.F.S. isn’t showing any hostiles, I think we’re good,” I said.

We started to walk south before Laser spoke up again, the robot floating along happily next to her, “Shadow after everything that happened over the last couple of days and what you did, I was wondering if there’s anything I can do to help. I can tell by looking at you that something’s wrong.”

I sighed and looked at Solstice, “Yeah, but I don’t know if I can say it right now.”

Laser looked at Solstice too and seeming to understand what I was thinking she said, “Solstice would you mind flying a little ahead of us so Shadow and I can talk in private? You too Vin-A.”

Solstice shrugged, “I don’t care either way. Just make sure you two don’t fall behind, I’m not stopping again. I need to get to The Kingdom, the sooner the better.”

She flew off, the robot following. When they were far enough ahead of us I finally started to talk, “I feel like what happened to Aura is my fault.”

“Why do you say that Shadow? You couldn’t have known that she’d be shot by Stardust.”

“I know, but if I didn’t leave that night because I was too scared to talk to her about how I felt, she’d still be here. She only had to go off to save me because I wandered off again. If I would’ve just stayed at the mansion both her and Phantom Shot would be alive still.”

She looked at me confused again, “Who’s Phantom Shot?”

“Oh yeah, Phantom Shot was Wrath’s real name.”

“Oh. Well from what I’m gathering, even if he did die he did so protecting you. He did that because you helped him remember who he was. You also can’t blame yourself for Aura getting shot, that could’ve happened at any time. We live in a dangerous world.”

“I know, I just feel like it’s my fault because it was me who she had to go find. It was stupid on my part to leave, alone, and with no weapons.”

She chuckled, “No matter how safe you think it might be, you’re still in The Wasteland. Even if you’re in a city like The Kingdom or Frosty Summit or even New Pegasus. The only stupid thing you did was getting careless, but you’re also still a young mare. Mistakes like that are normal for a pony your age.”

“I don’t feel like a young mare anymore,” I said

She reached out and rubbed my mane much like I did with Wingnut, “Maybe not, but you still are no matter what you think. There are times when I can’t tell who’s the more immature one, you or Wingnut.”

“Hey, I’m not as bad as that little twerp.”

She smiled again, “Yes you are. You may not like to hear it because you’re a couple years older than him, but there are a lot of times when he makes better decisions that you do. He’s lived in The Wasteland his entire life whereas you grew up most of your life in a stable. He may act like a perverted letch now and then, but that’s just because he’s a colt going through that time in his life where his hormones are taking over a lot. Most of the time, he can be a charming young stallion though.”

“Maybe you’re right, I know I haven’t been acting like an adult as of late.”

“You also have a lot going on in your life, your mother is trying to kill you, you’re trying to fight The Enclave, you have to protect the Mark II, you have so much going on. On top of that, you’re also going through a change as well, that has your mind and body confused. I remember what it was like at your age when I started feeling differently toward some ponies, well in your case a griffon.”

I sighed, “You noticed it too huh?”

“That you liked Aura? Shadow I’m not blind, and I’m a mother. I saw it when I first met you back when you were with Silver. The night we did…things, to be honest that wasn’t one of my best moments.” She laughed nervously rubbing the back of her head, “I noticed that you mostly played around with her because you thought it was fun. You liked her, that was easy to tell and she made your life exciting because you were able to be yourself without having to worry about an Overmare saying you can’t do that. But even then, I saw how you looked at Aura, you two have chemistry, that’s rare now days. You tease each other like its second nature, you never shy away from her touch, you smile when she says something about you, be it an insult or a compliment. I also happened to hear you yell at the top of your lungs your true feelings when you were on that balcony with Sheena, I knew it was you by your voice, I just happened to be on the ground at that moment looking up at the sky where my home use to be. The first step is acceptance after all.”

I started to cry, I couldn’t hold it back anymore the emotions were overwhelming me, “I wish I would’ve known how I felt before Stardust killed her.”

“Oh Shadow don’t cry please. I know life can be hard and confusing, especially for someone like you. You have a lot of new feelings rolling around inside of you and mixing that with the trauma you’ve had to go through it’s understandable,” then she stopped, “That’s why you went off because you thought he killed her. Shit, no wonder, you must have left before…”

A bullet ripped into my barding slamming me to the ground. I was lucky it hit the shoulder area and didn’t go through, but it still felt like somepony just kicked me there. I cursed and twisted around looking up at the lone pegasus who was pulling back on the bolt of a sniper rifle. He took aim and fired, Laser was quicker though, she took hold of me and pulled me out of the way just in time. Once that was finished she twisted around, pulled her energy rifle off her back and fired up at him.

I took a moment to pull the flattened bullet out of my shoulder before looking up to watch as Stardust avoided the next shot Laser aimed up at him. As she did she yelled, “It’s time Solstice, protect Shadow. Vin-A, send the signal!”

“Shadow Star, I don’t care what Nightshade wants or anypony else. You’ve attacked The Enclave for the last time! It’s time to DIE!” he yelled down at me trying to get off another shot.

I tried to draw Dream Walker, but Solstice took hold of me and flew me away from Laser and Stardust. As she did what Laser said finally registered, “What did she mean ‘it’s time’”

“We knew Stardust would come after you, this was the plan from the beginning. Now keep quiet, the others should be here in a minute.”

“Wait what?” I said then Stardust slammed into Solstice knocking me out of her grip and sending me rolling across the field.

She landed not far away, Stardust slammed into me knocking the wind out of my lungs and leaving me gasping. He slammed a hoof into my face then pulled out a sidearm, “DIE BITCH!”

An ear splitting scream rolled over us both sending Stardust flying back and me screaming from the pain in my head. Then Wind Thrasher landed, standing over me and looking at Stardust who aimed his sidearm at the batpony. She growled yelling, “I won’t let you hurt any more of my friends,” then she opened her muzzle and screamed again.

Then another pony came out of nowhere and slammed into Stardust throwing him to the side. It was Cutter, flying in from behind him to deal another blow to Stardust was Doorstop yelling, “Time to teach you a lesson Cadet!”

Solstice moved in to help the old drill sergeant as Cutter came up to try and attack him from behind. Laser fired her rifle to keep him from getting off his own shot. As I watched I looked up at Wind Thrasher and asked, “What’s going on?”

She stepped aside then pulled me into a tight hug, “I’ll explain later, let’s just say that we set up a trap to finally capture Stardust.”

I kept watching for a moment then said, “What kind of Trap?”

She smiled with her toothy grin, “A good one, you feel like helping us get him back for good or are you still lost in dark thoughts?”

“I didn’t know what else to do, but I think I’m good now at least enough to help,” I said.

She laughed, “Good, now let’s get our friend back.”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Seeds of the Past: After seeing how certain past events have unfolded. You now have a different grasp on the reality of your situation and may make more positive choices in the future. (Note: This perk does not negate any Dark Perks you have attained or may attain in the future.) It is easier for you to take the civil rout rather than the violent with certain characters form your past.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

Mysterious Stranger Rank 3: You have reached a new understanding of the pony you call The Stranger. You know more about his past and why he’s helping you and have a better bond with him. The Mysterious Stranger will now show up more often in S.A.T.S. to help you out when you’re in a bind. Keep it up and you may find out who he really is, that is if he doesn’t kill you first.

Chapter 38: Sleepwalking

“I know, I never expected to get out of here alive Dusty. I did this for you my friend.”

As always, the inside of the stable was different than most, the entrance looked like no other stable that I’ve seen before. Why couldn’t Stable-Tec make all these places the same? In all reality it would’ve made things easier because they wouldn’t have had to spend so much time on design having one blueprint to go off of for all the stables. Also, if anything it would’ve saved them a lot of money in the long run. Stable-Tec was stupid…

Solstice hit Doorstop in the shoulder, “So, where the fuck are we supposed to go from here? You’re the expert on this place right now.”

“Quit yappin’ so loud, you’ll alert somepony,” he snapped.

“I thought your friend here was supposed to get us in here easily?” she retorted nodding her head toward Dr. Limbis.

She gave Solstice a look, “I was able to get you in here, but that doesn’t mean that it’s safe. I’ve done my best to keep security away from this area, but in this stable it’s never a guarantee that somepony won’t find us.”

Doorstop grinned, “Yeah, what she said.”

I took in my surroundings and asked, “Where do we go from here?”

“Well, from here we should be entering into security. It used to be something else before the stable was invaded, but The Enclave thought it’d be safer to have it next to the entrance. The original security location is also still active in the restricted upper level, but the subjected inhabitants are unaware of its existence. Through there is the only way into the stable from here unless the emergency escape tunnel is open, so it looks like we have no choice but to go through,” Doorstop paused, “Listen, the stable inhabitants here are my problem to deal with, not yours. If anything happens through those doors, and I know something will, let me handle it.”

“What do you mean by let you handle it?” I asked.

“I’d rather have something happen to me rather than the rest of ya. I’m getting old and all of you have your whole lives ahead of you, I can’t let you sacrifice yourself when I can do something instead,” he answered.

Solstice scoffed, “You’re not gonna go get yourself killed as some kind of bs penance are you gramps? Cause if you are that’s extremely stupid; you’re the only one who knows how to get around this damned place.”

“I said I was GETTING old, I ain’t no gramps yet,” Doorstop snapped, “And no, I’m not gonna get myself killed on purpose. I’m just sayin’ if it comes down to it that I’d rather be the one that goes down. Plus, that talk about penance is nonsense, I have very few regrets.”

Wind Thrasher cocked her head, “What do you regret?”

“Nothin’,” he replied.

She looked confused, “But you said…”

“Nothin’, I said nothin’,” he interrupted.

For how long we’ve been standing here, we could’ve been at least a quarter way to where we need to be by now, “Can we just go? I don’t feel like fighting anypony right now. We have to go through that door if we want to get Stardust into that machine before he wakes up and causes a ruckus.”

“Fine,” they all said in unison.

I set Stardust down next to the door and pulled out my sword as I activated the panel to open the door. As the door slid into the pocket I prepared for ponies with guns to freak out on the other side, but there was no one. I put away my sword and was about to pick up Stardust again when I noticed he was gone and on Wind Thrasher’s back, “Why are you carrying him?”

She smiled and blushed a little, “Your magic could use a rest, and I have no problem carrying him. He’s not as heavy as he looks when he’s standing next to you.”

“Alright, just let one of us know if it becomes too much for you to handle,” I said as I started to proceed through the door.

The silence was so disturbing that it was making me paranoid. Out in The Wasteland there’s always some sort of noise to be heard both near you and off in the distance. Whether it be gunfire or just the wind blowing pebbles across the dry cracked ground, there’s always noise, but here it was so quiet that my ears were ringing. I was tempted to ask Doorstop if we should be worried about the silence but instead I chose to ignore my paranoia and just follow him through the stable.

As we went, I started noticing posters on the walls depicting pegasi either in fighting with Zebra’s or other ponies. A couple even had griffons on them, with words like, ‘Just because they have wings doesn’t make them allies.’ written on them. As we walked and I saw more posters I realized that every one of them was meant to give the impression that Pegasi were the one race that could protect and bring back Equestria.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking shrimp,” Doorstop said, “It’s all kinds of wrong.”

“Do they really teach the ponies here this kind of shit?” I whispered.

Dr. Limbis answered, “That and more.”

Looking over at her I asked, “If you think it’s so bad here then why do you work here?”

She sighed, “I had no idea what I would be doing when I signed up for this program. Back then I was brought in to help with the mental stability of the trainees. I thought that meant I would be helping ponies going through stress or mental break downs. I was sent here and forced to repurpose the memory modification machine with my team.”

“If you didn’t want to do it then why did you stay?”

She laughed, “I didn’t have a choice. Once I was part of this program I couldn’t back out. If I did I would’ve risked death or banishment.”

“With how much she knows about the memory manipulation and how the entire system works she would’ve been killed,” Doorstop said quietly, “I was lucky, because I’m just a normal solider to them who didn’t know more than what we did for training.”

“It seems like you know more about what’s going on here than that,” I remarked.

He grinned a little, “I do, but they didn’t need to know that.”

“I just wish you could’ve gotten away with your cutie mark intact,” Dr. Limbis said sadly.

“Ah, it was just a picture on my flanks. It doesn’t change who I am, but damn it hurt like a bitch.”

I saw Solstice shiver a little, “I’ve never seen it done, but I’ve heard stories from older officers. It sounds horrendous.”

“It ain’t no picnic that’s for sure,” Doorstop said.

***

We’ve been walking down a long hall that sloped downward for the past ten minutes now. I was starting to wonder when we were going to reach our destination when we finally rounded a bend in the hall and came to a door. Instead of it saying ‘Atrium’ over the door it read ‘Living Quarters’ and when Dr. Limbis opened the door all I saw was a wall in front of me just past the door. When we walked through the door I saw that two hallways split off, one to our right with a sign over it that read ‘Female Living Quarters’, and the one on the left that read ‘Male Living Quarters.’

“Where’s the Atrium?” Wind Thrasher and I asked at the same time.

“Just on the other side of that wall. The living quarters wrap around it. This is the level where the cadets sleep, train and eat. The seven…well six instructors sleep on the upper level, along with eleven scientists, ten guards, and the General who the cadets think is the Overmare,” Doorstop said as he headed down the left hallway along with Dr. Limbis.

We followed, as we did Dr. Limbis whispered, “Keep quiet as we head down the halls. The cadets here will notice any strange sounds.”

I noticed Wind Thrasher had her ears perked as we quietly walked down the hall, “As far as I can tell most of the ponies in here are sleeping, I think I hear one talking though.”

Dr. Limbis looked amazed as she looked back at Wind Thrasher, “That is an amazing gift, can you tell which room it’s coming from?”

Wind Thrasher took a moment, concentrating on the sounds around her before she finally said, “The last room or the one before it, the walls here are thick so I may be off by a little.”

As they talked I looked to our right and noticed the hall had windows that overlooked the Atrium. It was huge, at least twice the size of the one in my stable, both in height and width. The pegasi had a lot of room to fly from the look of it. It wasn’t set up like my own stable either, it looked more like a game room and obstacle course.

“We’ll have to be careful when we go by that room then,” Doorstop said.

“I’m surprised anypony is up right now, it’s past lights out,” Dr. Limbis said.

I looked over at them and did my best not to laugh, “You said most of the cadets here are my age or a bit older, young ponies aren’t much for rules.”

“They are here runt,” Doorstop said, “When it’s lights out everypony goes to bed, they follow the rules because if they don’t they have to deal with The General, and she’s not a fun pony to piss off.”

Solstice rolled her eyes, “How about we just sneak on by and get this over with, who cares who’s awake?”

“I do, because if somepony’s still up right now, that means one of the instructors may be down here talking with one of the cadets,” Doorstop replied.

“I do hear two voices,” Wind Thrasher said.

“Fuck,” Doorstop said starting to sneak down the hall toward the last door. When he reached it he started to listen.

I moved close too, pulling out my sword in case something happened. Then Dr. Limbis moved pasted us waving a hoof for us to back up. We both did as she knocked on the door. It opened a moment later and I heard a young stallion say, “What…oh sorry Dr. Limbis what can I help you with ma’am?”

“I would like to know why you are still up Falling Leaf, I was walking past your room and I heard voices. Who do you have in your room?” she asked sternly.

An older stallion’s voice replied, “It’s my fault Doctor, I was going over his test results that’s all.”

“Instructor Swift, I had no idea you were still down here. I’m surprised you are bothering one of the Cadets so late just for test results.”

“I didn’t have time earlier, but we were just finishing up, I should be heading back up to my room,” the older stallion said, “Falling Leaf you get back to bed and remember to work on your timing.”

“Yes SIR!” the younger stallion said.

I saw a tall buck walk out of the room, he walked right in front of Dr. Limbis saying, “Why are you walking the halls of the living quarters? Shouldn’t you be in medical?”

“I had to check on one of the Cadets, he was injured today.”

Before the stallion could say anything back I heard Doorstop say, “Bastard is still pulling the same bullshit.”

The instructor heard Doorstop and turned toward the big stallion, “Doorstop?”

Doorstop moved, he wrapped his forelegs around the other stallion putting him in a headlock and cutting off his air way. Doorstop twisted the ponies head in a hard jerk, snapping his neck. Once that was done he let the body fall to the ground. The door to the Cadet’s room opened again and a colt around my age looked at the dead instructor, then at all of us.

“What the fuck!? Sergeant Doorstop, I thought you died,” he said.

“Sorry kid,” he replied.

“Huh!?” The cadet started to say, then Doorstop knocked him out with a quick hit to his head.

“Damn I didn’t want to hurt any of the kids,” Doorstop said looking down sadly at the young stallion.

“Why did you kill him?” Dr. Limbis asked quietly, but I could hear her anger.

“I’ve caught that sick fuck twice trying to do things with the Cadets, once with a filly a couple years back, and another time with one of the colts. I reported him a few times, but he had connections and they didn’t listen to me.”

“Even so, what are we going to do now if one of the guards comes down to do their rounds and finds him?” she asked.

Solstice sighed and walked over to the dead stallion, “We’ll hide him in the room and take the kid with us, or tie him up and gag him so he doesn’t call for help when he wakes up.”

“Not a bad idea, we have a few hours until everypony gets up. They won’t be checking the rooms. Shadow put the dead piece of shit in the room and close the door then grab Falling Leaf and bring him with us. We can’t waste any more time,” Doorstop said.

I did as he asked, when that was done I took hold of the young stallion and we started on our way again. When we reached the end of the hallway where it met up with the one from the female living quarters and became one hallway again, “How much farther are we?”

Doorstop whispered, “Down there is one set of stairs that only lead down to the lower level, past that is the room where the flight simulator is, past them is the locker rooms, then we’ll reach the stairs that go up to the upper level. We need to get to that set of stairs next.”

“He’s right, we’ll have to be extra careful once we reach it as well. The upper level is the restricted area. At this time of night, we shouldn’t run into anypony but a security pony or two may be wondering the halls,” Dr. Limbis said.

“I hate sneaking around like this,” Solstice said.

“Feel free to alert the ponies here, but you can deal with them on your own,” Dr. Limbis said.

I walked past them and up to Doorstop, “We can’t waste any more time, we don’t know how much longer Stardust is gonna stay unconscious.”

“Yeah, I know Runt,” he said walking down the hall.

The rest of the way down the hall to the second set of stairs was uneventful. Dr. Limbis led us up the stairs to a door, she pulled out a card with a small ruby set into it. She pressed it to a pad near the door where it flashed then the door opened. We all slowly moved into the hall on the upper level, all of us trying to our best to stay as quiet as we could. As we walked down the halls I saw that like the main level, the living quarters for the males and females were separated. The Stallions on the left, the Mares on the right. Just down from them was the staff mess hall and the bathrooms. Finally, we turned a corner and reached Medical.

“This is where we need to be, the memory machine is on the other end of Medical. I’m the only doctor on staff at the moment, we should have plenty of time,” Dr. Limbis said as she used her card again to open the door to medical.

She ushered us in quickly shutting the door behind us, Doorstop moved over to me and took the young cadet out of my magic and brought him over to a medical table where he strapped him in so he wouldn’t run off, “Let’s get Stardust into that damned machine now.”

We walked over to another smaller door at the other end of the room. When Dr. Limbis opened it, I saw the room with the memory machine was very small. The machine itself was two pods connected back to back, wires came out from where they met and ran over to a terminal sitting on a small desk in the far corner of the room. There were also a few thick cords wrapped together going into the ceiling; must be for power or something.

“Wait that’s all it is?” I asked.

“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s powerful, look what we did to Stardust,” Dr. Limbis said walking over to the terminal and starting to type something into it, “Wind Thrasher would you please put Stardust into the pod on the right side?”

“No problem,” she said walking over to it. The glass covering the pod opened and she set Stardust into it.

“Good, now take the helmet and place it on his head.” Dr. Limbis said.

She did then took a step back as the glass over the pod closed, “Now what do we do?”

“We should be good now, as long as he doesn’t fight the machine I’ll be able to bring back his own memories by removing the fake ones we placed.”

I walked over to the pod looking down at Stardust’s face, “What if he does fight the machine?”

“Then one of us will have to go into the other pod and enter his subconscious mind to help guide the memory replacement and reordering process. I could force the process with just the machine, but it’s extremely dangerous. It requires a lot of energy and could also end up resetting his brain to the point where he’ll need to relearn everything from walking and talking to shooting a gun and eating,” she said hitting one more button, “Though it shouldn’t come to that, nopony has ever been able to fight the machine.”

Solstice laughed, “Maybe not, but he’s stubborn, I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke it.”

“So far it’s working, I don’t think it will be a problem,” she said watching the terminal as a loading screen started to fill up, “When we did the first memory wipe he tried everything he could to stop it, but we were able to finish.”

As she said that the bar stopped filling then it started to go down. I sighed as I watched, “Should’ve knocked on wood.”

“What the hell? I’ve never seen this before!” she said going back to typing on the machine. As she did I saw that Stardust was starting to wake up inside the pod.

“Doc, I think you should hurry, he’s waking up!” I said.

“Dammit!” she clicked a button on one side of the terminal. Stardust’s eyes snapped open and he opened his mouth in a silent scream, before passing out again, “Shit, the program stopped at thirty two percent.”

“Let me guess, now one of us has to go in there?” Solstice said sarcastically.

“Yes, but it can’t just be anypony, it needs to be a pony the real Stardust trusts.”

“Well that means I’m out,” Solstice said.

“Same for me, he hasn’t seen me since the stable. He was nice to me but I’m not sure if he trusts me,” Wind Thrasher said.

“I’d go, but the cadet still holds a small bit of resentment toward me for what happened here,” Doorstop added.

They all turned to look at me. I took a step back, “No way! First of all, Stardust wants me dead more than any of you, it won’t work. Also, I don’t wanna get anywhere near that thing, I have enough problems with mom blocking my earlier memories, I don’t need to make it worse.”

“The machine is set to restore memories Shadow,” Dr. Limbis said, “I won’t be able to do anything to remove any memories from you unless I reset the machine with both you and Stardust out of the pods. If Stardust trusted you before his memories were wiped away then you might be the only pony here who can help him.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you go into Stardust’s mind and memories, you’ll have to find Stardust in them. His mind will try to stop you in any way it can, the pony he thinks he is right now won’t want you to find his true self. You’ll have to go through the world his mind created, find the pony his mind sees him as and help him remember who he is. When you do, I’ll be able to finish from this end.”

I looked over at the other pod, “What if I can’t? What can happen to me in there if his mind tries to stop me?”

She looked worried, “A few things can happen, first of all you risk death. If you die while you’re in there, your own body will think whatever injury you took is real.”

Doorstop interrupted, “Basically if you die in his head, you die for real.”

Dr. Limbis nodded, “Precisely, also you said something about your mother blocking your early memories. If you’re not careful, his mind can throw you into one of your own memories. This can also happen if you wander too far away from the world his mind has created. To put it simply, it’s possible for you to wander into your own head and memories.”

“Wait a minute, you mean it’s possible that this thing can help me remember?”

She nodded again, “It can, though it depends on how strong or damaged the spell your mother put on you is. You may remember everything or just a few things, it’s hard to say.”

I looked back at Stardust then the others and sighed, “If it’s the only way I can fix my friend, then let’s do it.”

“Okay, get into the other pod and secure the helmet to your head,” she said going back to the terminal.

I did then I watched as the glass encase me in the pod like Stardust, “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

“Okay, everything is ready on my end, are you sure you’re ready for this Shadow?” Dr. Limbis asked.

I took in a deep breath then slowly let it out, “Let’s do this.”

She pressed a few buttons on the terminal and flipped a switch on the wall next to it, and the world didn’t really melt away so much as it just flashed out of sight…

Suddenly everything went from darkness to me standing in the same room of the stable the machine was in, but there was one key difference, the machine wasn’t there, “Well I guess it worked, now all I gotta do is figure out how to fix him from in here. There’s gotta be a something around here that can point me in the right direction.”

I started to walk out of the room, past medical and into the vast empty hallways of Stable 97. It was quiet like earlier, but for some reason it didn’t make me feel as paranoid as before. Probably because I knew it was only me and Stardust in here, at least I hope it’s just us in here. For all I know there could be something in his head to keep him from getting messed with by this machine again, unless the same pony who did this to him made adjustments or corrupted him even further.

Everything about the stable was the same except that there were some areas where the walls had cracks and chips in them like there’d been a fight here at one time or another. As I wandered I kept hearing a slight sound of wingbeats, but not the kind that come from pegasus wings. I tried following the sound but no matter which way I went it kept fading. Something wasn’t right in this place, that’s for sure.

Right now, I couldn’t worry about anything but finding Stardust, the real Stardust. Dr. Limbis said his mind would make him look different, however he saw himself or however he thought he saw himself. I wonder what she meant when she said that. Was Stardust going to look like another pony, or would his colors be swapped? Whatever it was, I have to find him and get him to trust me, then to remember me and the rest of us. Right then I walked by a room with an open door, inside there was a mirror. When I passed by I stopped and looked at myself in it.

What I saw in the mirror wasn’t me, I was taller, my coat was white, my mane jet black. My mane was flowing behind me like it was caught in a slight wind, my eyes were still red, but they were a deeper red that seemed to glow just a little, and the whites of my eyes weren’t white at all, they were jet black, giving me a ghoulish look. Worst of all, my cutie mark had been replaced by the constellation of Aquila, just how I saw it back in the Star Tower with Sheena. Is this how I saw myself? I looked just like her, just like the monster trapped in my head, the cutie mark was different, but it implied that I was her. I almost panicked right then, a tightness in my chest almost made me scream as pain ran up my chest. I turned away from the mirror took a few breaths and let my heart rate slow.

“I’m not her and she’s not me, I’m Shadow Star the courier, nothing more and nothing less,” I said to myself.

When my panic faded away I looked back into the mirror, I looked like myself again…mostly. My eyes looked the same as they had and my coat wasn’t as dark as it normally was, but I could deal with that. I just had to remember that I’m not Aquila. I sighed and took in another deep breath then continued down the hall. The lack of anypony being around made the place feel dead, more lifeless than a stable normally did. Most ponies from the wasteland didn’t like going into old abandoned stables because they said they felt like going into a haunted house, it was like the souls of the ponies who lived in them were haunting them. I never understood that feeling considering I grew up in a stable.

Yeah, they were boring and you didn’t have many places to go, but the ponies there made the best of it. We always found a way to entertain ourselves and at times the stable could be a lot of fun. I remember one of the better memories from Stable 28. Strawberry Milkshake and I both got our cutie marks around the same time. Auntie threw us both a big Cute-ceañera in the Atrium where most of the Stable came to celebrate. Foals were the future of the stable and no matter what you thought of the filly or colt who got their cutie mark, you still celebrated with them. It was a step toward adulthood and who you’d become in the stable. It was one of the days where the adults were nice to me, even The Overmare. I could’ve enjoyed it more than I did though, most of the time all I could think about was how much I wish mom was there to see it. My two friends pulled me out of my funk later that night however. They always know how to do that. It was a fun night all in all, until one of the older colts started to pick on Milkshake and I made him swallow his teeth. The Overmare wasn’t very happy with me after that and I spent the next week helping sanitation clean the entire stable.

Now as I’m walking around this dream version of Stable 97 I could understand a little of what Wastelanders saw when they went into a place like this. With nopony around, the life of the place was gone. It was creepy, a little scary and lonely. The sooner I found Stardust the better, with all that I did over the past few days, I just wanted my friend back. I wanted to get back to The Kingdom and see Aura, I want to go home. As I thought about that I realized that I didn’t have a real home to go back to anymore. I was a traveling postal mare, my stable kicked me out, I didn’t have a place with the Steel Rangers, Box Tape didn’t have room for me in his shop or apartment over it. Where could I go that I could call my home. Maybe I could move into Silver’s old house, with her dead nopony was living there now and it was right down the road from Box Tape. Cartwheel’s a nice town, the ponies were friendly and they seemed to like me. Maybe when this was all done I could go back there. Maybe Aura and I could start a life in the small trading town and I could become a real courier, not the hero everypony wanted me to be, just a normal package delivery pony. Aura could keep being a bodyguard or maybe if she could get over the whole contract thing, she could do something less dangerous. Wingnut could move in with us too and put that brain of his to good use building up Cartwheel. Wind Thrasher would be able to settle down too and make a quiet happy life for herself. Stardust could help me with my work for Box Tape, hell he could take over for the old buck so he could retire and spend his last few years with his daughter. Come to think of it, a Pegasus would be way more efficient as a courier than a pony stuck on the ground like Box Tape.

It was a dream, a nice dream, but one I was sure wouldn’t ever come to pass. I’d be lucky to last another month in The Wasteland, I’d be lucky to keep Aquila held back for another two weeks. That was all my life has been as of late, I’ve been skating by on sheer luck. How long would my luck hold out though? How much longer could I tempt fate before it came calling? I knew the answer and it wasn’t one I liked. If I wanted to make my dream come true, I had to get stronger, wiser, smarter. I’d have to find a way to rid myself of Aquila, take care of mom, and get The Enclave off my back. If I could do that, then maybe, just maybe I’d be able to have the happy life I wanted, with the griffon I loved, with the ponies I loved.

I was lost in my thoughts as I rounded another corner and almost missed a small noise coming from one of the rooms to my left. I froze and listened, the sound came again. It sounded like a hoof tapping on a metal bar. The room to my left said it was the male holding cells. Carefully I moved closer to it then opened the door ready for anything…or so I thought. What I saw when I walked in was three cells on the far wall, a desk with a terminal on it and a single colt sitting in the center cell slowly tapping his hoof against the bars.

He jumped and looked up at me when the door opened, he backed up against the wall, his bright pink eyes looking scared. Pink eyes, a sapphire blue mane and wing tips, a light grey coat, he was a colt version of Stardust. He pointed a hoof at me and asked in a shaky voice, “Who…who are you and why are you here?”

“Stardust is that you?” I asked walking over to the bars.

“That’s my name, but who are you and how do you know me? How did you get in here and why do you have a horn?” he asked still staying as far away from me as he could.

“Stardust it’s me Shadow Star,” I replied confused, “You know me, I’m your friend.”

“I don’t have any friends, I’m not allowed to.”

I sighed, I guess even here he still didn’t know me, at least he wasn’t trying to kill me like he was in the real world, “I’m Shadow Star and I’m a unicorn. Don’t you know what a unicorn is?”

He scowled, “I’m not stupid, I know what a unicorn is I just never met one before. My teachers said they all died in the war.”

“Well they lied to you, I came into this stable to help you.”

“Help me with what? I’m not in danger. As long as I do what Pride says he leaves me alone.”

Pride? What did Pride have to do with Stardust, or did he mean the other version of himself? Was there more than one version of Stardust in here? I smiled trying to put on a brave face for him, “You are in danger, something bad happened to you and I’m here to help you get better. Don’t you remember me at all?”

“No he doesn’t,” a deeper voice said from behind me.

Turning around quickly I saw another Stardust, only it didn’t look like the Stardust I knew. His coat was darker, his mane cropped short and mangy, his eyes looked like mine did right now, a glowing red and black where the white should be. His pupils were slits like Wind Thrasher, he had longer fangs than even she did, he was taller than normal and his wings were bigger than they should be and they were leathery like a bat or dragon’s wings. I took a step back pressing myself against the bars of the colt’s cell, “What are you?”

He laughed, “I’m the real Stardust, but you can call me Pride the name I took on as the leader of The Sins. The question I want answered Shadow, is why are you in my HEAD!?”

“I’m here to save you, the real you not this monster you’ve become!”

He looked past me at the colt version of Stardust, “You mean him? That little weakling is nothing, I only keep him around because I have to. He’s nothing but garbage, a pathetic excuse for a colt that doesn’t know what it means to be strong!”

I could hear the colt whimpering from behind me, “I’m sorry Pride, she just came in here, I don’t know who she is.”

“Shut up!” Pride yelled before looking back at me, “I’m giving you one chance Shadow, step away from the colt before I make you.”

“Never, I’m not going to let you hurt him or me. I’m not scared of you, now go away before I’m forced to destroy you!”

He took a step closer then stopped. When his hoof entered the room it started to vanish into smoke, he growled and jumped back into the hall, “Come out of that room now!”

I watched as his hoof reappeared when he jumped back out of the room and smiled, “What’s the matter Pride, I thought you were gonna come make me leave?”

I heard Stardust come closer to the bars saying quietly, “He can’t come into this room, that’s why I’m here. it’s one of the only safe places in the stable.”

“Really? So Pride can’t come in here huh?”

Pride glared at me, “You can’t stay in there forever Shadow, sooner or later you’ll have to come out of there if you ever want to leave. When you do, I’ll be waiting!”

He flew down the hall. When he was gone I looked back at Stardust, “Thanks kid.”

He shrugged, “You seem nicer than he is.”

“Why are you hiding in here anyway apart from trying to stay away from Pride. I don’t think he can kill you, at least not if he wants to stay alive himself.”

“He won’t kill me, but he likes to hurt me when he can. I do most of what he tells me to, but I try to stay in here when he’s angry like he is right now,” Stardust said.

It was so strange to hear him speak in such a young voice, it almost reminded me of Wingnut, “Why don’t you fight him or kill him? You’re a strong stallion and I know that if you try, you could kill him.”

He blushed, “I’m not brave or strong, he’s a lot more powerful than you know. He killed the entire stable and forced me to hide in here. I can’t win against a pony like him. He’s a monster.”

“He is a monster, but he’s also part of you. Don’t you realize that this entire place is a dream? We’re inside your head trying to stop that version of you from killing us all. That’s why I’m here, I came to help you remember who you are Stardust.”

“What do you mean this place is a dream? This is real.”

“No it’s not, we’re both hooked up to a machine in stable 97’s medical wing. I had to come in here to help you remember who you are.”

He looked me up and down with a frown, “Why you, you don’t look that tough?”

“Because our friends thought I was the one pony you could trust, we’ve been friends for a long time now, you saved my life on more than one occasion. You have to believe me Stardust, if you don’t you’ll be trapped in here forever and the Stardust we all know and love will be lost to us.”

“You gotta be totally whacked or something,” he said bluntly.

“I’m not…well not right now, I’m telling you the truth.”

“Prove it then, tell me something that only somepony I’m best friends with would know,” he said smugly.

“Like what?”

He thought for a moment then blushing he said, “If you know me as well as you think you do then tell me who my parents are, that’s information that I’d only tell my best friend.”

“That’s a trick question.”

“No it’s not!”

“Yes, it is, because you don’t know who your parents are. You were told that they died when you were still a newborn,” I replied.

He looked down at the floor, “Damn, you’re good. Fine then tell me who I have a crush on!”

I almost laughed, “Shortcake, you said she really liked to cook and she got her cutie mark on the day Hailstorm, her, and you wanted to make a treat for Sargent Doorstop.”

He looked like I just slapped him, “How’d you know…”

“I know because you told me,” I interrupted, “I’m not lying to you Stardust, somepony messed with your memories so they could turn you into Pride and send you after my friends and I.”

“Shit, I didn’t think you’d know that, but if you do then you’re right, something more is going on here,” he walked back over to the cell door and pushed it open, it hadn’t even been locked.

“You really weren’t locked in there?”

He rolled his eyes, “No, I just stay in there to hide from Pride, like I said before. Anyway, if your right and I forgot something about myself, then how are we going to get my memories back?”

“I’m not sure, we might have to kill Pride, or find your memories in your head.”

“Some help you are. You know that if we leave, Pride will come after us,” He said.

“He can try, but remember this is your mind not his. You control what goes on in here, if you want to keep him from getting to us, I’m sure you can.”

“I don’t know, but I guess we have no choice, though I don’t think I can kill Pride. Let’s go see if we can find my memories first,” he said walking to the door then checking down the hall before gesturing for me to follow, “Let’s check some of the rooms and see what we find.”

“Okay, but keep an eye out for Pride,” I said following him out into the hallway, only as soon as I joined him, the hallway vanished and the two of us were now standing in The Wasteland looking up at a tall white spire that went up into the clouds. It was one of the M.A.S.E.B.S. towers.

Stardust looked up at it, “What the hell is that thing? Wait, are we outside!?”

I started to answer, but then everything around us changed again and our view was pulled away from ourselves and into the body of another pony. No not another pony, into Stardust, one of his memories…

oooOOOooo

I was in the body of a young Stardust standing in a line of five other pegasi. Walking in front of us all was a younger Doorstop. He was wearing a prim looking black uniform and a soldier’s cap, “Alright maggots, ya’ll know what today is dontcha?”

All four stallions and one mare responded at the same time, “Sir, yes sir!”

“That’s right, today we find out who the best shot with long range weapons is! You five have been ranked as our top fighters from the last three tests. Whoever gets the best score today will be ranked top of the class and have major bragging rights!”

Not a single one of them moved, but I could feel Stardust’s muzzle curve into a smile. His eyes moved to look at the stallion on his right. He was almost as tall as Stardust, with a blond mane, yellow eyes and an icy grey coat. His cutie mark was storm cloud with hail falling from it. That must’ve been Hailstorm, he was a very handsome stallion.

“CADET!!! AM I BORING YOU!?” Doorstop yelled making my host jump, his eyes snapping back to the older stallion.

“No sir!”

He looked between Stardust and Hailstorm, “Good, then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind being the first one to show the rest of us your skills with a rifle?”

Stardust gulped then stood taller, “I can do it SIR!”

“That’s what I want to hear! Now step to it!”

Stardust started to walk toward a shooting range where five sniper rifles were waiting ready next to each stall. As he walked a couple of the stallions started to laugh with each other, “This’ll be good.”

“Yeah, maybe if he’s lucky he’ll hit one of the targets.”

Stardust cursed under his breath, “I’ll show you little bitches how good I am.”

He moved over to the rifles and looked them over, he picked up the third one on the right. He looked it over for a long moment, ignoring the others who were laughing lightly, all except for his friend Hailstorm. When Stardust glanced over at him he grinned at Stardust then mouthed, “You can do it bro.”

Stardust smiled and turned back toward the range. He lifted the rifle with his forehooves, balanced on his rear hooves, using his wings for balance and pointed the rifle down the range. He moved his eye up to the scope, his right cheek resting on the stock, his muzzle taking hold of the bit. As he did Doorstop came closer and said, “You’ll have twenty targets and one minute to hit as many as you can, as accurate as you can. The first test is stationary, the next will be moving targets, that one you’ll have to take down ten targets in the same amount of time.”

Stardust nodded but kept his eye on the targets that were far down the range. Each one was shaped like a pony standing sideways, small targets on the head, chest and rear. As he sighted the targets a quick bell went off somewhere behind him. As soon as the sound went off, Stardust opened fire. His first shot slammed right into the head of the farthest target down the range. He brought a hoof up and pulled back on the bolt reloading a fresh round and then he fired again. Each shot he took hit it’s mark, the bullet flying though the head of each target, almost in the center each time. Finally, he took the last target out, ejected the last round then set the rifle down, turned and stood at attention.

Three of the ponies that had been teasing Stardust were looking at him in awe, so was Doorstop. Hailstorm was beaming happily for his friend. Doorstop shook his head then asked, “The hell’d you learn to shoot like that Cadet!?”

“Sir, Hailstorm and I have both been taking our free time to practice!” Stardust said in a loud voice.

“Really? I’ll have to say that was a lot better than I thought you’d do. But you only had to take out stationary targets. Let’s see how you do with a moving target!”

Stardust turned, picked up the rifle again, reloaded a new mag and took aim. Farther down the range the pony targets started moving back and forth. Again, he started to fire at each target and like before he took down each target. He turned again and stood at attention, “All targets are down SIR!”

“I can see that Cadet, now get back in line!” Doorstop boomed.

Stardust walked over to the line and stood next to Hailstorm as Doorstop went to go inspect how well Stardust did. As he did Hailstorm turned saying, “I knew you could do it Dusty, I told you all that practice would pay off in the end!”

Stardust closed his eyes and beamed arrogantly, “I wasn’t sure at first that I’d be able to get all the targets, but I just cleared my mind like you said and it worked! With skills like this, Shortcake won’t be able to resist me.”

As Stardust spoke there was a flash of light from behind him. Hailstorm’s eyes went wide as he pointed a hoof at Stardust’s flanks, “Dude, no way!”

Stardust looked back at his flanks, on his flanks was the cutie mark I recognized immediately. The crosshairs of a Sniper Scope. He jumped into the air cheering, “Yes! That’s right, muthafuckaaas. Finally, I got my Cutie Mark!”

The other three cadets crowded around him all looking at his new mark. It looked like they’d forgotten their teasing from before. I could feel how much joy Stardust felt as the other pegasi congratulated him, patted him on the back, and the mare who was with them kissed his cheek. It was like it was the best day of his life. He was a lot happier than I was when I got mine. His cutie mark made sense, he knew what it meant and it changed the way the others saw him.

The memory started to fade away as he hoofbumped Hailstorm…

oooOOOooo

I tripped and fell as the memory ended and I was suddenly back in my own body. The Colt Stardust looked just as dazed as I did, he looked over at me asking, “Did you see that too?”

Getting back to my hooves I shook my head for a moment responding, “Yeah, what the hell happened?”

“I’m not sure, but I didn’t remember that day until I saw the memory,” he replied.

“Something must’ve triggered the memory, like I said we’re in your head right now. Nothing around us is real, I’m not surprised it just started up like that.”

“I don’t know, that was really strange. It was like a whole bunch of things slammed into my head at once.”

“Did you remember anything else? Like me or when you left the stable?”

He shook his head, “No, but I remembered things from before that.”

“I was wondering, why were the others teasing you about being able to hit your targets? As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been an excellent shot.”

He blushed a little, “I didn’t used to be, my friend Hailstorm was better than I was. I told him I wanted to be the best sniper in the stable, so he started training me in our free time. He realized my problem, I kept aiming right at my target and not taking into account how the bullet was going to fall, or where it would land if my target was moving. Once I realized that, using a sniper rifle became as easy as breathing.”

“So that’s how you got your cutie mark then? With how good you are with a sniper rifle I’m surprised you aren’t as good with weapons like pistols.”

He sighed, “The problem I have with them isn’t that I have a problem using them, it’s that I prefer to shoot ponies at a distance. I’m fine with hoof to hoof combat, an expert at it honestly. I don’t like using automatic rifles, but I I’m fine with them. It’s just pistols require a pony like me to get in too close. When that happens my adrenalin goes up and my aim gets really bad.”

We started slowly moving down the hall of the stable listening for the other Stardust as I continued saying, “I’m surprised you’d be afraid of something like that. I mean you’re a kick ass fighter, you shouldn’t let things like close range weapons freak you out so much.”

“Yeah I know, but for some reason it always does. Drill Sargent Doorstop said he was going to start working with me to help fix it, but he never got around to it,” he said as we rounded a corner, as we did a large butterfly flew in front of us. It had a black body, silvery wings, and red markings on the wings. As it flew by us Colt Stardust yelled, “Steve! Shadow you have to help me catch it!”

“Wait a minute Steve’s not even real,” I said as the colt took off down the hall.

“Yes he is, can’t you see him? We need to catch him!” he said.

Running after him I cursed to myself, “Yes I can see it, but it’s still not real. It’s probably Pride fucking with us!”

“He is real! Please we have to catch him, it’s important trust me!” he said as we came to a large door at the end of a hall.

The butterfly was looping around near the door. Stardust slowly walked toward it trying to make sure it didn’t fly by us. I moved closer to Stardust, putting a hoof on his shoulder, “Fine if catching him will help, then I’ll take care of it,” I wrapped the fucking butterfly in my magic ready to pull it closer to myself, but as soon as my magic touched the butterfly everything around us changed and instead of standing in Stable 97, we were in Stable 28’s atrium.

Stardust looked around saying, “Where the fuck are we!?”

I started to respond when I noticed Steve start to glow a bright white, as it did the stable melted away and now we were standing in a dark space, looking at a shimmering wall of light. There were cracks all along the wall shimmering brighter than the wall itself was, “The better question is what that is?”

“I’m starting to believe you about this all not being real,” he said as he looked up at the wall of light.

I walked up to the shimmering wall and slowly put a hoof on it. As soon as I did, I knew what this was. It was the block mom put on my memories, we weren’t inside Stardust’s mind anymore, somehow when I took hold of that butterfly we were transported to mine. It was just like Dr. Limbis said, the question was what would happen if I took down the block, “Stardust I think somehow we got transported into my mind.”

“You’re mind? I thought you said we were in mine.”

“We were, but somehow we ended up getting sent over to mine. This wall you see is a block that my mother put on my memories. Like you I don’t remember a lot about myself, the first few years of my life are blank.”

He looked up at the wall, “It looks damaged.”

“It is, I think that if we break it, I may be able to remember my past.”

He looked at me confused, “Aren’t you here to help me not yourself?”

“I am, but right now I don’t know how to get us back to your mind. Maybe if we destroy this, we can get back to where we were before.”

He shrugged, “As long as Pride isn’t here then I don’t care what we do.”

I sighed, “He might be, if we got pulled into my mind, then he might’ve been too.”

“Great, now I’ll be worried that he’ll be trying to attack us.”

I grinned, “Then I guess we should try to destroy this thing as quick as we can!”

“I don’t know how you’re going to take this thing down when you have no weapons.”

My horn started to glow, “Who needs weapons when you’ve got magic!?” I shot a blast at the wall, where the cracks seemed to be the weakest. As I did Stardust flew up to the place right next to where I blasted the wall and kicked it as hard as he could. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then the cracks spread and a part of the wall burst into bright light and vanished, “Let’s hit it again, this time you kick it first then I’ll blast the same spot. We’ll keep that up until the wall shatters!”

He gave me his signature goofy grin, it looked kind of cute on his young face. He turned and flew to another spot on the wall where the cracks were weak again. He slammed his hooves into it then flew out of the way as I shot another blast of magic at the spot he kicked. Again, the wall shimmered into light as it vanished making an even bigger gap than before. I whooped and we kept at it, a few minutes later the wall was filled with holes.

“I think one more good shot of your magic will take it all down,” Stardust said as he landed next to me.

“I agree,” I concentrated, then blasted the wall one more time with a blast even bigger than I had before. I ran the beam across the entire length of the wall. When the blast ended, the wall shone brightly then shattered with the sound of breaking glass before it vanished. I jumped for joy yelling, “Yes! We did it!”

“Awesome, now what?” Stardust started to say, he stopped talking though when a deep rumbling sound filled the space around us. It got louder then another bright white light filled the darkness around us and everything melted away…

oooOOOooo

I was sitting in an old shack reading one of the books that mom gave me. She said it was to help keep me distracted while mom worked. I really didn’t care for the book though, it was mostly about how magic worked in a pony and how a unicorn uses their own strength to fuel their spells. Why couldn’t I read something like an adventure book like dad used to read to me when I was still at home. Thinking of dad made me sad, it’d been a long time since I saw him last. Mom said that when I was better we’d be able to go back home and I’d be able to see him all I wanted. At first that wasn’t so bad, but now it felt like I’d never get to see him again.

As I sat there thinking about my dad and home, I heard mom talking to Vervain just outside the shack. She wouldn’t like me listening in on her conversation, but I was bored. So, I moved closer to the door, trying to stay as quiet as I could, pressing my ear to the door.

“Grim, you have got to be kidding me! You really want to go into an old prewar project that you don’t know anything about!? WHY!?” Vervain yelled.

“Keep your voice down! I don’t want Morning Star to hear us,” Mom said, “I never said I don’t know anything about this project, I said I don’t know everything about it.”

“How is that any better? You don’t know what this thing can even do, if you use it to fix Morning, it might kill her.”

“It won’t, from all the notes and memory orbs I’ve found from Minuette and the other Children this was the project that led to Falling Shadows. It’s where the original idea came from and with all the tech they needed to make this project work, it can be used to fix her,” Mom said.

“From what you told me about Falling Shadows, it’s a super weapon. How can something that was used to start a project that became a super weapon be used to fix what happened to Morning?”

“Because they were trying to take power from a star. According to zebra lore, stars are light magic, even if they think that most of the stars are evil. shadow magic was used to hurt Morning, the spell I use to keep her alive is the same kind of magic. It’s enough to keep the darkness back and stop it from killing her, but I can’t make it powerful enough to stop it. If I used the power that was stored in that lab, I can banish the shadow magic for good.”

“But how do you know it‘ll work!?”

Mom finally lost it, “I DON’T, but it’s all I have left. Everything else I’ve looked into won’t work! The Darkness is eating away at her life little by little even with my spell, from what I can tell I won’t be able to keep her alive for another week. I’m losing this battle and I’m desperate OKAY! I don’t want to risk my daughter’s life, but I’m doing that either way. If I have to gamble with her life, then I’m going to do it with the best odds I can. I’m not going to lose her because I was too scared to do something about it.”

There was silence for a little while then finally Vervain said, “You know I care about her too, I don’t want to see that little filly die. If you know that this will work and you know you can do it, then I’m with you. But if you even think for a moment that it won’t work then call it off. If she’s going to die, then it would be better if she was with you and not hooked up to some old machines.”

I heard mom sniff, “I know this will work, I just know it.”

“Grim what if something goes wrong?”

It took a long moment for mom to answer back when she did her voice came out hollow, “I don’t know. I can’t go back home not after how long I’ve been gone, not after joining the Steel Rangers and the ponies I’ve made enemies with. No matter what happens, there’s no going back.”

“What about Morning? You told her that once you were done and she was cured, you’d bring her back to see her father. He’s been hunting you I know, but what will you do if you fix everything and you still don’t bring her back to The Crystal Empire? You know he won’t give up on finding her no matter what. I mean look at what he’s doing now even though he knows you’re trying to help her.”

Mom sniffed again, it sounded like she was keeping back tears, “He wants her to know peace, he wants her to have as normal of a life as she can before she dies. He doesn’t believe I can cure her, so he wants to take her home so she can enjoy what time she has left.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It isn’t, I almost agree with him. I want nothing more than for Morning Star to know what it’s like to be normal. I wish I could give her that right now, but I can’t. She’s a sweet child with too much power and an evil magic eating away at her body. Even if she could have a small amount of time to be a normal filly, I wouldn’t want her to die the horrible death she would if I let the curse on her finish its job,” Mom said.

“I understand, but still no matter what happens what are you going to do?”

“When this is finished we’ll go to Stable 28 like Elder Apple Jam told us, I’ll help you as much as I can. Maybe if I can stay for a while, Morning Star will get to have that normal life I’ve always wanted her to have. As for what to do about her father, well I’ll have to tell her that he died. It’s the only way I can be sure she never sees him again.”

Vervain gasped, “You’d take her away from a father that loves her so much?”

“I have no other choice, she can’t return home no matter what he thinks. I wish he would just leave The Enclave like I have and join me out here in The Wasteland. I love him so much and I miss him every day, but he won’t do that. He won’t leave The Enclave behind, not after what happened to his brother. When Striker killed their parents and fled becoming a dashite, he left their family name in ruin and he’s worked his ass off over the years to fix what his father and brother ruined,” Mom said.

I wanted to run out there and say something to her, to beg her to change her mind about dad. He’s a great pony, a strong pony, he was full of honor and loyalty to our home. But I didn’t I just kept on listening to Vervain and Mom talk. Vervain sighed again then asked, “You know I never heard the story about how you two met. All I know is that you used to be with Striker.”

“I used to yes, Striker and I were very close and he trusted me more than any other pony. I loved him so much, but I was also young and naive, it was because of me that he fought with his father over the secrets of their family. That fight led to Striker killing both his mom and dad. He came to me afterwards and broke it off with me, told me he was leaving but he didn’t tell me why. I didn’t find out what happened for a couple more days, when two officers came to ask me questions about Striker and if I knew where he would have run off to.”

“What does this have to do with how you ended up with his younger brother?” Vervain asked.

Mom laughed a little, “I was getting to that. When I didn’t give the officers the information on where Striker could have gone, they sent in his brother to question me. He was supposed to force me to talk, but he didn’t. He knew where Striker went and why he had to leave, he knew everything.”

“Then why did he come talk to you if he already knew?”

“Because he knew how close I was to Striker, he also knew, I knew their family’s secret. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to share the information with the rest of The Enclave. After that he started coming by to check up on me every day, making sure I was doing okay and to see if I needed help with anything. As time passed I saw something in him, it was different from the colt I used to know him as when we were both in school. Deep down he was a kind and caring pony that hid behind a mask. He came off as hard and mean but that wasn’t who he really was.”

“So, you two fell in love?” Vervain asked.

“We did, but it wasn’t until I was invited up to Nimbus for a festival that I said anything. He took me to an open area in the clouds where we watched some of the pegasi show off their aerial acrobatics. As the show went on and the stars shined brightly in the beautiful night sky, he looked toward me, wrapped a wing around my shoulders and pulled me close. He kissed me for the first time that night, under the blanket of stars and the moon. It was the most romantic thing anypony has ever done for me, even more than Striker ever did.”

“And you want to leave that all behind, even though you love him so much?”

I could hear that mom was holding back tears again, “I don’t want to, but I have to. I don’t want Morning to forget her father, far from it, but it has to be done.”

Vervain sighed, “Are you going to use one of your memory spells on her again?”

“No, I’m going to try to give her the news gently, maybe before we go into the lab.”

“She’s not going to react well to that news, you know that. What if she has another episode?”

“Then I’ll use my spell on her one last time, then I’ll fix her and we can start our new life.”

“I hope you’re right Grim, but I still think you should rethink this.”

“Vervain, you’re the best friend a pony could ask for, loyal to a tee. I know you’re worried about Morning and myself, but can you please put those worries aside and trust me?”

There was another long pause then Vervain said, “I always have my friend and I always will.”

“Thank you, we should go check on Morning Star so I can give her the bad news.”

I jumped back onto the couch I’d been reading on and acted like I was sleeping. A moment later mom walked in with Vervain not far behind. Mom walked up to me and said, “Morning Star, I need to talk to you.”

I put on a fake yawn and smiled up at her, “Yes?”

“I need to talk to you about your father.”

I knew what she was going to say, it was going to be a lie. She didn’t know I was listening to her talking with Vervain. I didn’t want her to know I was listening in so I put on a cute frown and asked, “What about him?”

“I just got a report from a friend of mine, he…” she stopped for a moment letting a few tears come to her eyes, “He died last week, he was with a raiding party and they got attacked by some faction. His entire unit was wiped out. I’m so sorry sweetie.”

At first, I was going to go along with it, but something inside my small frame stopped me. I looked away from her saying, “Liar!”

“What did you just call me?” she asked, sounding confused and a little angry.

“You’re a liar! I’m not a stupid little filly anymore, I know what you said to Auntie Vervain. You said we can’t go home anymore and Daddy can’t join us because of his work. You can tell me the truth you know!” I yelled, I could feel the tell tail signs of my heart acting up, but I didn’t care, “You can’t keep the spell working for much longer, but you think you can fix me. If you can you want us never to go home again, never to see Daddy again. Just tell me the truth, don’t try to lie to me, you said you never would!”

“Morning Star calm down please, you’re too young to understand this kind of thing.”

“I might be young, but I’m not stupid!” I yelled louder.

Vervain stepped in, “Morning, you need to calm down before you bring on another attack.”

I looked over at her, “No! I want her to tell me the truth for once, I want to see my Daddy, I want to get better and go HOME!”

Mom sighed and I saw her horn glow and magical runes appear in the air in front of her. I knew the spell she was getting ready, I’d seen her do it a lot over the years, “I’m sorry Morning Star, but we can’t go home, you can’t see your father anymore. This is our life now, but don’t worry you won’t remember what I said to Vervain and everything will be okay.”

I took a step back, “Mommy please don’t do that.”

Vervain was watching her too, “Grim, that’s a little far, you said you weren’t going to do that.”

“I know what I said, and I’m sorry, but neither of you can remember this,” she said, before either of us could say anything else, mom cast her spell. The world went white, then black…

oooOOOooo

The memory ended just as suddenly as it had when we went into Stardust’s memory. The two of us fell to the ground again a little dazed. When I opened my eyes, I saw we were back in Stable 97, next to the door where Steve had flown to. The butterfly flew over me and back down the hall, vanishing around the corner. As it flew off Stardust got back to his hooves, “Damn, that was trippy. Was that a memory of yours?”

I tried to answer, but images started to rush into my head. Thousands of memories I’d forgotten over the years, no longer blocked by mom’s spell, they came rushing back like a flood. I couldn’t sort them all, not right now. Most of them were just blurry images and sounds. Faces and places I’d long forgotten, my home, the journey with mom to New Pegasus, our meeting with the Steel Rangers, The pain I had to deal with every day because of my illness. All of it came rushing back, finally I knew who I was, where I came from, but still it wasn’t all clear, not yet.

When the pain passed I finally looked back at the small version of my friend and smiled, “It was.”

He frowned, “Your own mother took away your memories, just to keep you away from your dad?”

I nodded, “I guess so.”

“Now that you remember can’t you go find him? Once you’re out of here I mean.”

It just dawned on me then, he was still alive, or at least he was before I went into the stable. If he was still alive now then I only knew one pony who would know, Nightshade, he was dad’s best friend according to Vervain. Or I could just ask The Stranger about him, I’d just have to tell him who he was. Then I realized something, it was true that the memories came back, most of them. But when I tried to remember who my father was, I couldn’t. I thought back on a memory I just got of him, he was rocking me in a rocking chair that used to belong to his grandmother signing me a song to help me sleep. The memory itself was fuzzy and his figure was just a dark outline. It was just like that first time I remembered him back at The Bramble. His name, his face everything apart from his voice I couldn’t remember and even that was hard to make out.

I almost felt like crying as I realized that, “I’m not sure if I can, it’s been ten years since that memory took place and so much has happened. I may have remembered things, but for some reason I can’t remember what he looks like or even his name.”

He walked over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

I smiled and hugged him, “It’s not your fault, but thank you all the same. Let’s see about helping you get the rest of your memories back.”

He smiled up at me, “Great idea.”

“I disagree,” Pride said walking around the corner and grinning at us. He looked even more sinister than he had when I first found the colt, “Kid, come with me now, before that bitch messes with your head any more than she already has!”

We both looked at him and backed away, Stardust saying, “I’m not going anywhere with you Pride! You’re not the real Stardust, I am!”

“And how do you know that huh? Is it because Shadow told you? Don’t you know who she is kid? She’s a fucking liar, this is how she gets others to follow her. She goes around messing with the minds of ponies so they trust her. That’s how she killed Hailstorm, she made him think she was trying to help ponies then she killed him!” he yelled.

The Colt Stardust looked back at me, “Is that true?”

“No, it’s not, he died trying to help you escape Stable 97. You told me he was shot as he tried to get through the closing stable door and he was crushed by it,” I said glaring over at The Pride Stardust.

“LIES!” Pride yelled pulling out a long rifle and taking aim, “I’ll fucking kill you and put an end to this once and for ALL!”

I didn’t even hesitate, I took hold of Stardust with my magic and teleported us out of the hall and to the Atrium. I wasn’t sure at first if it would work, but luckily it did. This world may’ve been in Stardust’s head, but it still worked like the real one. The only difference was that the spell didn’t drain me like it would in reality. That was good to know, if I could keep teleporting to get away from Pride, this would be a lot easier.

Stardust threw up a little then said, “Don’t do that again!”

“Sorry, I know it’s not easy to go through that the first time.”

He spat on the ground then sighed, “He’s going to find us again, the only place in here he can’t get to is in the cells.”

“I know, but this may buy us a little more time.”

He frowned, “Time for what?”

“To trigger another memory, you need to remember who I am and how you left your stable, that’s the only way to stop Pride.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m as sure as I’m going to get, it’s the only thing that makes sense. He was created when your memories were manipulated. He’s the Stardust who has fake memories in place of the real ones, you’re the Stardust who has the real memories, but can’t remember them. It has to work if we get you to remember.”

As we spoke Pride’s voice echoed out of the PA system, “You can run but you can’t hide Courier BITCH. You think you can win against me by making that runt remember false memories? Well you’re wrong, I’m stronger than you think and that piece of shit is just a tiny part of me, he’s my weakness nothing more. If you want to win against me you’ll have to fight me and kill me, something I know you can’t do without help from your friends who aren’t here this time to save you. I’m coming for you and I’m going to rip you to shreds, I’m going to watch you drift in and out of consciousness as you’re slowly disemboweled. I’m going to make you suffer for what you did and make you wish you were never born. I’m going to show you pain like you never imagined.”

I ignored him and said to Stardust, “Try hard to remember what happened on the night you left Stable 97.”

“How though?”

“Just try, think of Hailstorm, maybe that will help,” I said as I put a hoof on his shoulder.

He closed his eyes, “I think I understand…wait, I have something. I was where I am now, he came to me after flight practice right here in the Atrium. He said the stable was planning on doing something to us…”

My eyes went wide at the same time Stardust opened his own and once again we were dragged into a memory…

oooOOOooo

“Hailstorm I thought you were meeting with Sargent Doorstop, going over your scores?” Stardust asked his friend who had just flown in panting hard.

“Dude, there isn’t much time you need to come with me right now!” he said as he took hold of Stardust’s hoof pulling him toward the door.

“Are you nuts? I have to head to the range! Shortcake wanted me to help her work on her target practice. I’m not going to pass this up, you know how I feel about her. This’ll inch me out of the friendzone bro.”

“Dusty, she doesn’t matter right now. Our lives are in danger! This entire stable is one big LIE!”

“Are you high? Shortcake told you not to suck the aerosol out of the whipped cream containers.”

He cursed and looked around then took hold of Stardust’s uniform pulling him closer, “I’m serious, you know I wouldn’t lie about this, and I’m not high! You know that last time was an accident.”

Stardust rolled his eyes, “Fine, but if this is one big prank I’m gonna do something WAY worse! So be careful what you touch in your room the next day.”

“I’ll explain as we go, let’s head to my room, we need to pack.”

They flew down the ground and started heading up the stairs that lead back to the living quarters as they walked Stardust said, “Pack? Why do we need to pack? The stable can’t be opened, the world outside is death, you know that.”

They walked into Hailstorm’s room, he shut the door behind them before saying, “No it’s not. I was just up in the upper levels. I found something that we weren’t supposed to ever know.”

“You can’t go up there! That area is off-limits until we pass our tests,” Stardust protested, “That’s where everypony’s parents live.”

“No it’s not, all they have up there are the Trainers, The General, a few guards and some scientists. I found some old stable records while I was up there and I found that we aren’t even the first residents of this stable, none of us are.”

“You lost it, where did we come from if not from the stable?”

“I found records for all of us, we were all foals that were taken away from our parents at birth. I’m from a cloud city called Nimbus, you’re from one called Stratus, Shortcake is from a ground city called Saint’s Parish. All of us were taken here as foals to be part of something called The Devil’s Children Program. They’re making us into some kind of super soldiers to use against some war they want to start. Everything here’s a lie!” he said walking over and starting to pack some stuff into saddle bags.

Stardust pointed a hoof at his friend, as he did I noticed he had a Pip-Buck on. I forgot he used to have one, I wonder who he got to take it off for him. As he pointed he said, “That sounds crazy, you know that right?”

“It’s not crazy, I saw what I saw and it all makes sense once you put everything together. You’ll see I’m right when we get out of here.”

“And where are we going to go once we’re out of the stable huh?” Stardust sounded scared.

Hailstorm looked back at his friend, “From what I read in the files I found, most of us came from Stratus, the city is in the clouds over a place called New Pegasus. We’ll head to New Pegasus first and see what we can learn from the ponies there. Maybe we can find a way to let the rest of the Pegasi know what’s going on. There’s The Enclave, if they know what’s going on here they might put an end to it.”

“What if they’re the ones who started this so called program?” Stardust asked.

“If so then we find some other pony who can put an end to this place. We can’t do it alone we need help, but first we need to escape…” Hailstorm was cut off by the door to his room opening and ten power armored soldiers stepping in along with a fierce looking mare.

The mare looked at both of them then said, “Cadet Hailstorm, Cadet Stardust, I’m glad I found you together.”

Hailstorm backed away but Stardust looked over at the mare and saluted, “General, what’s going on?”

She ignored him and looked over at Hailstorm, “Cadet Hailstorm, we have reason to believe that you broke into the Restricted Area of Stable 97 and stole documents.”

“I did, and I know what you’re doing here you fucking ugly cow!” he said looking over at Stardust, “We have to run!”

“You’re not going anywhere, you found things you weren’t allowed to see and put our stable at risk, even worse you are filling a good Cadet like Stardust who is the top of your class with information that isn’t real,” the mare said.

“Wait a minute, Hailstorm is a good cadet too and he’ll never lie to me!” Stardust said glaring over at the mare then her guards.

She rolled her eyes, “Take them both to the holding cells and have Dr. Limbis get the memory pods ready. They both need reeducation!”

Stardust and Hailstorm both tried to fight back, but the other pegasi were in power armor. They didn’t stand a chance when they didn’t have their own power armor or weapons to fight them with. Soon they were both put in hoofcuffs and led away by the guards.

The memory shifted and time flew by as Stardust and Hailstorm were put into their cell, questioned by The General who I guess was this stable’s version of an Overmare, and left there to wait for the next morning where they were going to be reeducated. Time went back to normal as Stardust paced back and forth, “You have to be fucking kidding me Hailstorm, thanks to you both of us are going to have our minds fucked with just because you had to sneak up here. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

“It’s not like I was trying to get us caught, I wanted to save us.”

“Save us from what!?” Stardust shot back at him.

“From what they’re turning us into! I’ve known something else was going on for years now, but I didn’t know what until last week when I overheard the General talking about the program. In two more weeks, they were planning on doing another test like when we were younger. You remember that day, don’t you?” Hailstorm said.

Stardust looked away from his friend, “Yeah, only five of us passed, the rest of our class disappeared after they failed.”

“That’s right, do you know what happened to the others who failed during the first major exam? They had their memories wiped with the same machine The General is going to use on us. They were sent to go work as guards or soldiers with no idea who they are or where they came from. The exam they were going use to sort out who’s the best two or three cadets then use us to start what they call phase two. When I saw that I knew I couldn’t just let them do that to us.”

“What made you even start looking into this? Apart from overhearing The General?”

“I had help okay, one of the instructors let it slip that something was going to happen. He also let it slip that I could find out the information I needed by going up to the upper level.”

Stardust frowned at him, “Who told you that?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I’m your best friend, you tell me everything!”

Hailstorm frowned, “I gave my word that I wouldn’t say anything. When we’re out of the Stable I can, but not now, if I do while we’re still here The General will find out. Dusty you need to trust me.”

“I do trust you and look where it got us!”

Hailstorm grinned, “Don’t worry we’ll get out of here, remember they trained us to get out of situations just like this.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it will be as simple as you think. We’re stuck in a holding cell on the upper level. We’re just two pegasi, what can we do against the guards and other ponies who run this place?” Stardust asked.

“Remember the first rule of espionage, always have an inside pony.”

Stardust looked at him curiously, “You have another pony helping you?”

His smug grin got bigger, “I knew they’d come for us, so I had a plan in case I was right.”

As he said that, a light that was on the cell door changed from red to green. Then it slid open all on its own. Stardust looked over at it his mouth open wide, “How the fuck?”

Hailstorm didn’t hesitate, he pushed Stardust out of the cell saying, “We only have a few minutes. Once we’re out of here head right and go to the end of the hall. We’ll need to get power armor from the staff’s power armor storage before we leave.”

They both made their way down the hall checking for guards as they went. Stardust asked, “Why do we need power armor and why can’t we get it from our own storage?”

Hailstorm waited for a moment, checking the window that looked into an armory where two guard ponies were changing out weapons on their battle saddles. He waited for them to turn away from the window before sneaking past it, only then did he respond, “It’ll help us survive in The Wasteland and we can’t go get our own for two reasons. One, it’s on the bottom level and too far for us to go if we want to make it out of here alive. Two, cadet power armor suits have trackers on them, we’ll have a hard-enough time with our Pip-Bucks we don’t need to make it worse.”

“This is all kinds of fucked up Hailstorm, what if your wrong about everything? What if the land outside is deadly like they told us? Also, what the fuck is The Wasteland?”

They reached the end of the hall, they both checked around the corner but no pony was there, “The wasteland is what the ponies outside call Equestria now, or at least that’s what I read in the notes. I downloaded a few files on my Pip-Buck to help us learn how the economy works and where we can go once we’re out.”

They went up to the door and pushed a button to open it, “It’s going to be locked you know that right?” Stardust said then the door opened, “Or not.”

“Like I said I had help, now hurry up, we don’t have much time.”

When they walked in I saw rows of the black pegasus power armor that I’d seen some Enclave soldiers had. They walked up to a set that was set aside, both pushed the gem on the back that opened the armor. Once it was done they both stepped in and the armor closed around them. Just like when I saw the memory of Night Stalker when he met with his sister in the Everfree Forest, the armor was snug but not uncomfortable.

Stardust tested how the power armor moved then said, “I hate power armor, it’s not as easy to move and it slows me down.”

“Bitch later, we’ve got maybe five minutes before they realized we escaped.”

As they headed back out of the room Stardust asked, “How do you know?”

“I don’t have time to explain, but before we go on come here,” he said. Stardust did, Hailstorm pulled a panel away that covered his left foreleg giving him access to his Pip-Buck. He had Stardust do the same, then he connected the two and transferred a few files. When he was finished he continued, “Those are the files I found that will help us when we get out.”

“Why are you giving them to me?” Stardust asked as they continued on down the hall and to a staircase that led down to the main level.

“In case we get separated, you need to know what to expect out there and the information on the Pip-Buck will help. Just make sure you learn as much as you can from those files, once you do you’ll need to get rid of your Pip-Buck.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll be able to track you with it, damn you’re not this stupid. Think for once in your life and stop asking me questions.”

Stardust shut his muzzle and followed Hailstorm as they went to the end of the staircase. Hailstorm typed a few numbers into the door control pad. When it opened and they walked into the hall they almost tripped over two guard ponies. Both were dead, somepony had slashed open their throats and left them to bleed out by the door.

“Fuck, I didn’t think he was going to kill anypony, oh well it can’t be helped now,” Hailstorm said stepping over the bodies and continuing to sneak down the hall, his armor covered hooves making small ticks with each step.

When they both came to where the hall split, one leading to the female living quarters the other to the male, Stardust put a hoof up, “We should get Shortcake.”

“No time, plus she’ll just slow us down.”

“Hailstorm she’s our friend, if things are as bad as you say in here, then we can’t just leave her behind.”

Hailstorm looked over at Stardust, his visor reflecting Stardust’s image back at him, “I know what I said, but she’s from the younger group of ponies. She’s still years away from having to worry about having her mind messed with like us. I want to get her too, but we don’t have the time to wake her up, explain what’s going on, get her to believe us and make it out of here.”

“Maybe we can just knock her out and take her with us then, we’ll explain everything to her later, once we’re free. Sure it’ll freak her out but I’ll be her hero.”

“Oh yeah because that’ll work out perfectly. She’s a good fighter and fast, she won’t go down easy, even if she did how do you think she’ll react to being ponynapped by us? She thinks everything she’s been told her entire life is true, she’ll think we’re cracked. I know how you feel, but we can’t take her with us. If we can find somepony to help us take this place down once we’re out, then we can free her, but for now she has to stay behind.”

Stardust took one long look down the left hallway then sighed, “You’re right, but I still don’t like it.”

“I know bro, but it has to be this way, at least for now. Now let’s hurry…” Hailstorm started to say, but right then an alarm went off, “Shit, time’s up, we have to fly!”

One thing about being raised in a stable like this, Stardust didn’t hesitate. He took to the air flying as quickly as he could down the hallway, zooming past the living quarters, then up the long sloping hall that led to the stable door. It didn’t take them long to reach the top and they both stopped in the entryway that held the large gear shaped door. Hailstorm took off his armor and moved over to the terminal and switch to open the door and started working on the terminal.

Stardust watched down the hall they just came down, his ears perked listening for guards. It didn’t take long for seven of them to show up. They were flying fast up the hall two at a time, their battle saddles charged and ready to fire, “Hailstorm we have company, hurry it up!”

“Got it!” he said as he pulled on the lever, the stable door started to pull away, “Dusty use the battle saddle on the power armor and shoot them!”

Stardust didn’t need to be told twice, he opened fire, the two energy rifles at his sides fired crimson death down at the guards who were flying up to try to stop the two from making it out of the stable. The ones in the front screamed as they both started to glow and turned to ash. The hot ash flew back into the next two ponies faces, blinding them and forcing them to slam into the walls and crash into the ponies behind them.

It wouldn’t stop them for long, but it gave Stardust and Hailstrom the time they needed to make their escape. Hailstorm yelled, “Get through the door now!”

Stardust turned and flew through the door, but Hailstorm didn’t follow. Stardust stopped just past the threshold looking back at his friend, “What the fuck are you doing!?”

Hailstorm was still at the panel, “I have to keep them from following us, I changed the passcodes I just need to shut the door from in here and get out there before the door closes! I’ll forget about the armor.”

“Fuck Hailstorm, just hurry! We can’t get caught, remember we’re in this together.”

Hailstorm typed a few more things into the terminal then threw the switch again. The large gear started to move and he flew for the door. As he did the mare from before came blasting through the door with an energy rifle in her muzzle, she saw Hailstorm flying for the closing door and yelled, “You’re not getting away that easy!”

“Hailstorm look out!” Stardust yelled as he opened fire on The General. He wasn’t fast enough, Hailstorm took a nasty hit to his wing and he slammed to the ground rolling until he sat just inside the stable door. Stardust ran up to him, “Hailstorm come on get up!”

The General looked down at him grinning, “I said you two aren’t getting away!”

Stardust blasted her with three quick shots. She went flying back down the hallway with a scream. The door was still rolling shut, as it did Stardust tried to pull his injured friend out of its way, but he couldn’t move him. Hailstorm moaned then said, “Leave me.”

“No way, if you don’t move now, you’ll die!”

“I know, I never expected to get out of here alive Dusty. I did this for you my friend.”

“That’s horseshit and you know it, now move Soldier!” Stardust screamed at Hailstorm.

The door was almost in place, Hailstorm looked up at his friend and smiled. Then he slammed a hoof into Stardust’s face, throwing him back and away from the closing door. Then he laughed and said, “You’re the only pony they needed from our class Dusty, the rest of us would’ve been killed once you passed the tests and came out as the best. I did this for you, to get you out before they could turn you into a monster. Be free Dusty, find a new life for yourself, and maybe one day you can save the rest of the poor souls who are trapped in here.”

The door finally reached its final resting place, one of the gears slowly pushing down on Hailstorm’s body. He screamed as more and more pressure compressed his body, shattered his spine and crushed his organs. Hailstorm looked at his friend one last time, and even though he was feeling the worst pain a pony could, he smiled one last time. Then the door pushed forward and Hailstorm’s scream turned into a gargle, then a wet sounding cry as what was left of his insides were forced up and out of his mouth. Blood exploded out of his muzzle, his eyes and his ears as the door was pushed into place. Like Doorstop said, it was similar to somepony stomping down on a tube of toothpaste. Everything squished out of the pony for a long moment until gore piled itself just in front of his body. When the door finally finished pushing itself into place, Hailstorms head exploded like a zit, brains and blood flew all over almost like somepony had planted a bomb into his skull. Nothing was left of Stardust’s best friend, but a bloody pile of goo and meat.

Stardust screamed, “Hailstorm noooooo!”

There was nothing he could do, he was gone. Stardust looked at the mess in horror for a long moment, then he started to shake as he said, “I’ll make them pay for this, I promise that your death won’t be in vain my friend. Thank you for everything you did for me.”

He turned away from the stable that he used to call home and looked up at the long staircase that would lead him to freedom. Unlike when I left my stable, Stardust wasn’t scared anymore of what the outside world held. He was just angry, he wasn’t going to let anypony ever get away with this kind of shit again. Before he left, he checked his Pip-Buck looking at the notes left for him by his friend. One of them said something about somepony in a place called New Pegasus that would be able to help. An old contact of The Enclave that was working on some research in that area. The notes said they were from The General’s terminal. It said that The Enclave were the ones who started this program he was a part of and that this mare was trying to shut it down. They wanted to kill her to keep the secrets of Stable 97 out of enemy hooves.

Stardust realized then that Hailstorm had been wrong about The Enclave helping stop the program, it was another faction he needed to find. One that The Enclave hated and who hated them in turn. “New Pegasus huh? Looks like I have a long way to go according to the map on this thing. Maybe this mare will know how to get this off when I find her, maybe she can help me put an end to what’s been going on here.”

He shut down the files, covered his Pip-buck and started up the stairs, “First thing’s first, I need to find myself a good rifle…”

oooOOOooo

This time when the memory ended I didn’t feel disorientated like before, it was like with every memory the smaller Stardust remembered, the easier it was for us to come out of the memories. I looked over to where I figured Stardust should be, but what I saw I wasn’t expecting. He wasn’t a colt anymore, he looked like the same Stardust I knew, the one I loved and missed. He saw me looking at him with shock. He sighed and said, “I remember that night, I wish I could’ve done something to save him.”

“It looked like all he wanted to do was get you out.”

Stardust smiled a little, “He was a good friend, he was always looking out for me, almost like a brother.”

“You look different,” I said trying to change the subject.

He looked himself over then chuckled, “I guess remembering things is helping me grow up a little. Though I still can’t seem to remember you.”

“You will, it was only a few months after that when you met me.”

He closed his eyes again, “I remember something, it had something to do with a…Raider Camp?”

“Yes! You killed the boss there and saved my life.”

His scrunched his eyes, “It’s so close I can almost feel it, but somethings stopping me from pulling the memory closer. The only thing I can remember about it is somepony blowing chunks.”

Ugh, of all the things about that time, THAT’S what he remembers? The door behind us blasted open and Pride came flying in. He changed too, he barely looked like the other Stardust anymore. He was like a flying demon of darkness, “THAT’S THE LAST THING I’LL LET YOU REMEMBER!”

He slammed into me then took hold of my head and started to twist my head around, he was trying to break my neck. Luckily for me, my Stardust wasn’t going to let that happen. He flew in and kicked the monster version of himself hard. Throwing the dark version of himself off me and into a far wall. Pride screamed in pain and when I looked over I saw why. Where Stardust’s hooves had hit him, it was like his body was vanishing in the one spot.

“Stay away from her Pride, I’m not letting you hurt her or me ever again!”

The part of Pride that had been fading away came back and he laughed, “Oh look who finally grew a spine! What happened to the scared little colt that I had locked up in a cell?”

“I’m not scared of you anymore, you’re not real. And I wasn’t locked anywhere dumbass, I just had the door shut! You’re just a nightmare version of me, nothing but a black stain on my mind and soul. I remember what happened to Hailstorm now, you lied to me. Shadow had nothing to do with it!”

I got back to my hooves and readied myself to cast a teleportation spell, “You should give up now Pride, soon he’ll remember who he is and you’ll be banished from this world for good.”

“Over my dead body, this is my mind, my world, my memories. He’s the fake one here, you’re the one who’s filling his head with false memories,” he snapped.

“She’s my friend, she’s trying to help me!”

“She’s a liar!”

“YOU’RE A LIAR!” Stardust yelled back taking a step toward Pride.

As they argued I saw it again, the black and white butterfly, it was flying in small circles just behind Stardust. Something was drawing it closer to him, but at the same time something was keeping it back, “Stardust you have to grab Steve!”

He looked back at me then up at the butterfly, “Right now!?”

“Yes, I think it’s important, trust me!” I yelled.

Pride pulled out a rifle yelling, “I’ll kill that fucking thing before either of you can grab it!”

Not knowing what else to do, I took hold of the butterfly Steve with my magic, as soon as I touched it I could feel another memory coming on. Before it could start, I took hold of Stardust with my magic and teleported us back to the level of the living quarters. We just reappeared in the hallway and Stardust reached out and touched Steve right before the world around us melted away…

oooOOOooo

I knew something was strange about Steve, I knew ever since I first touched it. Before we were stopped by a barrier in my own mind, and we had to break that down to see the memory I had to remember. This time, nothing was there to stop us from going into the memory that my own mind knew I needed to see. I knew what memory it was and knowing that I didn’t want to see it, but I had to. This memory would help me understand why I was the way I am now. It would show me what happened ten years ago, the day my life changed forever.

Mom, Vervain, and I just entered a small door in the side of the M.A.S.E.B.S. tower a little outside of Cartwheel. The pain in my chest was worse than ever, but I didn’t tell mom. She was already stressed for some reason and I didn’t want to make it worse for her. I did however ride on Auntie Vervain’s back as we made our way passed the terminals that were set in the middle of the inner tower.

“How do we find the entrance to the lab?” Vervain asked.

“It’s not that hard to find. They hid it behind a fake wall and put a metal shelf in front of it,” Mom said as she made her way to one and pulled on it hard with her magic. With a loud squeal it pulled open a hidden door revealing a staircase that led down into darkness.

“Remind me to thank you again for looking through so many memory orbs Grim,” Vervain said.

“It looks scary down there,” I said pressing my face into Vervain’s mane.

Mom walked over and rubbed my back, “Don’t worry My Little Star, you have Vervain and I here to protect you, you’ll be just fine.”

“Okay, but can I stay on Vervain’s back?”

She nodded, “That would be a good idea, now let’s get going.”

We all started down the dark staircase following it as it went deep into the ground. The farther we went, the colder it seemed to get, it was almost like walking outside on a cool autumn night back in The Crystal Empire. I would enjoy it if it wasn’t for the darkness pressing down on me from all sides. I wanted to run away, but I took in a deep breath and reminded myself that Vervain and Mom wouldn’t let anything harm me.

The staircase was long and it took us a little while to reach a door with a terminal to one side. Mom walked up to it and hooked her silver Pip-Buck to the terminal, “This should lead us to the lab.”

“Didn’t you say the lab was sealed? I know the Mark II can do a lot of amazing things, but can it get you passed the protections Minuette placed on this place?”

“No, it can’t. All I’ll be able to do is unlock the security system. The next lock is the one I’m taking more of a gamble on.”

Vervain looked at mom perplexed, “What do you mean?”

Mom grinned back at us, “The seal on the door is a biometric scanner, they work a lot like a bypass shield. The genetic codes of certain ponies are entered into it, only those ponies and their decedents are allowed to open the door.”

The terminal beeped then mom did something with the terminal as Vervain asked, “You said in the memory you saw that Minuette set it up so that only Night Stalker, herself, Princess Luna and a couple others could enter the lab, if that’s true then how do you think you can get in?”

Mom finished doing what she was doing on the terminal then stepped back as a metal arm popped out of a panel over the terminal with a blue sapphire on the end. As it did mom said, “I’ll explain in a minute, first let’s see if this works.”

The gem lit up, then a small beam ran over mom’s body going down then back up, when it finished a cheery mares voice came out of the terminal, “Genetic marker confirmed, security systems are shut down. Welcome to Stargazer Lab, be warned this lab is on lockdown by order of Captain Night Stalker and Princess Luna. Taking down the lockdown is prohibited unless the order was given by either the Captain or Princess. Were you given permission from either to shut down the lockdown?”

“I was,” Mom said.

The terminal answered back, “Good, please present the pass phrase to enter.”

“Into the shadows of night, we serve and obey,” Mom replied.

“Pass phrase accepted, welcome to Project Aquila A.K.A. Stargazer,” The Terminal said then the screen went blank. The door made a small hiss and slid open revealing a dark room illuminated by a single light.

Vervain looked in awe at mom as she slowly walked closer, “How the hell did you get that thing to think you were related to one of the Children of the Night?”

Mom sighed, “I didn’t, I didn’t have to.”

“Wait a second, you mean you’re a descendent of theirs, I didn’t think anypony from the children had foals?” Vervain said.

I just kept quiet, my body was weak right now and I didn’t feel like talking, but my ears perked up as Auntie Vervain and Mom talked. Mom smiled a little as if she was embarrassed, “There’s not much information as it is about that group or the ponies who were part of it. A few of the members did have children of their own. Night Stalker for one, he married one of his underlings Lightning Dust, they had four Foals, three were colts the last was a filly. Cloudy Nights married after The Enclave was established and had two fillies. I heard rumors that Babs Seed had a colt, but most of her history after the Megaspells is hard to find. All I know about her is that she was killed by Greta. Thunder Lane had three colts, and then you have Minuette and Amethyst Star. Records show that one of them had a colt, but most weren’t sure which one. There was some speculation that they were a couple, but I’ve never found proof. They did live together though for a year or so before the end of the war. When Amethyst Star died and Minuette vanished the colt was given over to a family friend of Minuette’s in The Crystal Empire. Also Greta had children as well albeit one son who she gave control of The Red Talons to when she was too old to lead anymore.”

Vervain shook her head after that, “You really did your research, so you’re descended from one of them?”

Mom shrugged, “My parents always speculated that we were descended from Amethyst Star, my brother thought it was Minuette, but we do know that we can trace our family line back to Dwarf Star, the colt who was sent to live in The Crystal Empire. Now I have my answer, Minuette only set this place up to let in Night Stalker, Luna, herself, Lightning Dust, and a zebra named Noire.”

I finally spoke up, “Mommy you said that The Children of the Night did bad things during the war. Did we come from bad ponies?”

Mom looked at me with a sad smile, “They did do some bad things, but they also did a lot of good too. If there’s anypony in The Children I’d like to be descended from it would be Minuette, she was a powerful spellcaster.”

“Just like you mommy!” I said happily.

She smiled again, this time with real joy, “Yes, just like me.”

Vervain walked past mom saying, “We should get this started, who knows how long it’ll take.”

“You’re right, we shouldn’t waste any more time,” Mom said following Vervain as she walked deeper into the dark lab with me on her back looking around.

Vervain found a switch on the wall, when she flipped it a few more lights came on revealing an old laboratory. The walls around us were pitted with small holes, like somepony had been using them for target practice, Tables and desks were upturned and destroyed along with some old terminals. Papers were everywhere, lab coats and star charts were scattered on the ground. In the center, a large rod with wires wrapped around it came down from the ceiling and into the ground. A round desk with half a dozen terminals on it was wrapped around it. A large tube lead from it to a big glass dome that was resting in a metal platform. The glass was shattered and in the center was a small silver rock that gave off a slight blue glow.

“Isn’t much to look at is it?” Vervain said, “This place looks like it wasn’t even meant to run ever again. Are you sure this is the right place?”

Mom slowly walked closer to the broken glass dome, “This is the place, Minuette did a lot of this to make sure nopony could start up Stargazer again, but we don’t need to turn it back on, what they did in the past is all we need.”

Vervain followed close to mom as they came closer to the glowing rock, “Is that Star Metal? I thought all the Star Metal in Equestria was in Hoofington?”

“Correction, most of it is in Hoofington and no that’s not Star Metal, it just looks like it. That is the essence of Aquila or at least I hope it is. This chamber was meant to contain it until it either burned itself out or until they could control it. From the look of it, the creature they created and later Minuette named Aquila died.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, because that stone you see is pure light magic. It will be more than enough to save Morning Star.”

I looked up with a smile, “You mean that glowing rock can fix me?”

Mom had tears in her eyes as she nodded, “Yes sweetie, yes it can.”

Mom was about to step over the broken glass and into the dome to grab the glowing rock when out of nowhere a voice filled the chamber, “Who are you?”

Vervain jumped and pulled a pistol from the holster at her side, Mom jumped back and looked around, readying a spell, “I’m Grimoire Spell, who are you?”

“Grim, what’s going on?” Vervain asked looking around for the speaker.

The voice echoed throughout the laboratory again, “I do not know you, where is the blue unicorn who named me, she said she’d be back one day. Did the blue unicorn send you to set me free?”

Mom looked toward the glowing rock and took another step back, every time the voice spoke the rock pulsed, “Do you mean Minuette? She died two hundred years ago!”

“She’s not dead, if she was I would’ve known. She was the first pony to treat me kindly, I could feel her life force from the first day I saw her. The day I was trapped in this place. I feel a part of her inside of you and the little one, but I can also still feel a speck of the blue unicorn somewhere in this land. Now tell me, if the blue unicorn you called Minuette didn’t send you, then why have you come here?”

“Are you the creature they created here, the one Minuette named Aquila?” Mom asked.

“Aquila? I am not sure. I’ve spent centuries trapped in this place without a body to call my own, no means to leave or cast my power across the world. Aquila is the name I think the blue unicorn called me, though I’m not sure if that is who I really am, or if it’s just a name,” the voice said, as it spoke the glowing rock started to float into the air.

“Grim we should get out of here!” Vervain said, her eyes never leaving the rock.

Ignoring Vervain, mom said, “I’m here to save my daughter, she had a darkness cast over her heart. She’s dying and your power is the only thing that can save her.”

“Why should I help you? Why should I help any of the ponies in the land when all they do is kill each other and spread chaos across the land? What does this child mean to me, when one day she will most likely do the same as everypony else?” the voice asked.

“Because she’s a child and she means everything to me.”

As she spoke Vervain moved over to a small closet and forced me to get off her back. I was petrified at what was going on. She pushed me in saying quickly, “Stay in here until we’re finished, don’t come out until I say so okay?”

I nodded quickly, “Yes, Auntie Vervain.”

She closed the door, but the bottom of the door had small slits that I could look through. As I did the voice said, “I won’t help you unless you help me. I want a body so that I can finally escape this prison. Offer me a body that I can live in and control and I will grant you your request. What is more important, your mind and body or your daughter!”

I noticed that mom’s horn was glowing still as she spoke, “I can’t do that, I did all of this over the past few years to save my daughter, not to let myself be taken over by some creature created two hundred years ago. All I need is your power, and I’m taking it for myself! Vervain destroy the rock!”

Vervain didn’t hesitate, she opened fire and a moment later mom cast a spell. Light flashed and almost blinded me as both hit the floating glowing rock. For a moment a scream filled the air around us, then everything went dark. Vervain was the first one to speak, “Did we destroy it.”

I looked through the slits again and saw mom was holding a small white ball of light in her magic, “Yes, but I got its power before you destroyed the container. Good job, that was easier than I thought.”

Vervain was about to say something when the ball of light exploded in mom’s magic throwing both ponies back. Mom slammed into the wall next to the closet, Vervain slammed into an overturned desk. Where the ball of light had been now there was a shimmering bird made out of pure light. The same voice as before echoed around the lab, “You are both fools, you think my power can be controlled by a weak unicorn like you!”

I saw mom get back to her hooves, her horn glowing and glyphs appearing in the air around her, “I’m not out of this yet monster, I’m taking your power!”

She was slammed down again as the small bird pulsed with power, then it’s appearance changed, it took the shape of a pony, a pony made of light, “You have no idea what you’re messing with, my power isn’t even close to what it should be and you still don’t have what it takes to win. Not even your weak Princess could control me and she once held the power of the stars.”

Mom was choking, so was Vervain on the other side of the room. I couldn’t watch this happen, I jumped out from the closet and yelled, “Leave my mommy alone!”

The light pony looked at me, “What are you going to do if I don’t?”

Mom told me not to use too much of my magic, she said it could kill me because of my bad heart. I knew this wasn’t a good idea, but I was tired of mom always trying to protect me, I wanted to show her that I was just as powerful as she was. I built up a spell I’d seen mom use a few times before, it was a blast of energy that could hurt or destroy a pony if you put enough energy into it. As I let the power build my heart started to race but I ignored it and kept going. When I couldn’t take the pain anymore I yelled, “Leave my mommy ALONE!”

I shot everything I had at the creature of light. It laughed and shot a beam of its light to meet my own magic. As my magic connected with the light, I heard mom yell, “Morning Star DON’T!”

It was too late, my magic connected to the light pony and the two of us screamed as pain racked our bodies…well my body. Time seemed to stop and the pony of light changed again, now it took the form of a small filly with a white coat and black mane, it looked just like me. I noticed then that the pain was gone and the other pony looked at me confused, “What are you?”

“My names Morning Star, I’m not going to let you hurt my mom or Auntie Vervain.”

She walked closer to me, “You’re not a normal pony I can feel it, deep down you have power, a lot of power, but it’s being blocked by darkness.”

I looked away, “I had an accident when I was a foal, mommy said my heart is bad and I’m dying.”

“You are, I can see it inside you. It’s a sickness that should’ve killed you a long time ago, but somepony has kept the sickness back. I find that interesting.”

I was a little confused, “What do you mean? What does that have to do with you hurting my mommy?”

“I was hurting her because she wants to take away who I am so she can have my power. She says she wants to use it to cure you and I’m sure she does, but I can see what is in pony’s hearts, she wants my power for more than just saving you. I won’t let anypony take away who or what I am just so they can gain power.”

“So what? She’s not bad.”

The pony laughed, “She’s not good either, trust me, but you are. I can see it deep down inside of you. You want to be powerful too, but not for selfish reasons, you want to help ponies.”

I puffed out my little chest, “I’m going to help ponies like The Steel Rangers do, once I’m better.”

The other pony smiled wickedly, “Do you want to live Morning Star?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“To make mommy happy and so I can be normal for once and play with the other colts and fillies my own age.”

“I’ll make you a deal then, that is if you think you’re mature enough.”

“I’m a big girl, mommy said so, even if I am small. I’ve had to suffer with more pain than any pony she knows.”

“Good, then here’s my deal. I’ll fix you and let you and your family live so you can do the things you want. In exchange I want you to give me something, something only a pony like you can.”

I looked around the frozen room feeling a little scared, “What do you want?”

It moved closer, putting its nose an inch away from my own, “One day when your grown and mature, I want you to give me your body.”

“My body? Why do you want my body?”

“I’ve been trapped down here for more years than you can imagine, I want out, I want freedom. Think about it, if you take my deal you’ll get a good five to ten years to enjoy with your Mother and Aunt. If you don’t that sickness inside of you will kill you within a week or less, even if your mother keeps trying to heal you. Would you rather die a horrible death from a curse in a week, or get five to ten more years of life, and when your time is finally up, you’ll just feel like you fell into a deep sleep. It’ll be peaceful,” she said, her voice sweet as honey.

I looked back at mom then over at Vervain, then I thought about my dad who died not that long ago trying to protect me like mom said. Even if I said no and mom was able to get us out of here, she’d be sad if I died just after losing dad. She lived for her family and she gave up so much to fix me. It was better to live a few more years than die and leave mom alone and sad. I looked back at the pony and said, “It’s a deal, but you have to promise that you won’t do anything that will hurt mommy and you’ll fix me.”

Her grin grew wider, “It’s a deal.”

“Before you fix me, can I ask what you’re called?”

“The blue unicorn named me Aquila, now Morning Star prepare yourself because once I merge with you and start to fix you, it will hurt a lot more than anything that weak black sickness has ever done to you!

Her body turned back into light, it moved toward me and wrapped around my horn. Then the light went into me and I felt my mind break, pain ran through my body, my heart rate increased and I screamed. I tried to run away from the pain, but I couldn’t even move. It was like every nerve in my body was on fire, my horn felt as if somepony had ripped it off, and my belly was full of hot lead. My heart stopped for a good five seconds. Then my body flew up into the air and I screamed as dark light blasted out of me, my heart started to beat again, the pain vanished and I fell to the ground as time resumed.

I looked up at the ceiling of the lab as mom came running over yelling, “MORNING STAR!”

Vervain wasn’t far behind, when they both made it over to me they both stopped as Vervain said, “What happened to her? She looks different?”

Mom ignored her pulling me into her arms, “Morning Star speak to me please!”

“Mommy it’s okay don’t cry, I’m better now,” I said weakly, it wasn’t a lie, for the first time in my life I couldn’t feel the pain in my chest, it was easy to breathe, I felt…normal. Apart from the small tingling in my hooves and horn from the darkness being blasted out of me.

As mom set me down and started to use her magic to look me over I noticed something, a small presence in the back of my mind. It had to be Aquila, she felt weak and as I noticed her presence I heard her say to herself, “What kind of curse was that? My power is almost gone…how could anything do this to me?” then she was gone.

As she vanished from my mind I felt myself losing my hold on consciousness, before I passed out I looked at my hoof. My eyes went wide for a moment as I saw it. My coat was no longer a beautiful shinning silver, it was black…

oooOOOooo

As I came out of the memory I knew something was different about me. I could remember every detail of that fateful night, the night when I first met Aquila. I was still very young but mature for my age, I thought I was clever and smart compared to the other colts and fillies from The Steel Rangers. Not surprising since Mom spent most of her free time teaching me everything she could about magic, history, reading, writing, control on magic, and so much more. She always told me how smart and mature I was for a young filly. That ignorance she planted in my head was the reason I thought I could make a deal with a monster. The deal was five to ten years before she could take over my body. I was a young fool that day, I wanted mom not to be lonely. I wanted her to stop crying at night, I wanted us to be happy. So, I made a deal with a demon, a deal that instead of making mom and me happy, it destroyed our lives.

“Shadow are you okay?” Stardust asked, he was standing over me looking down with concern.

I groaned and got up, “I think so, damn those memories jumping into my head fucking hurt.”

“Yeah tell me about it,” he said.

“Did you see that memory too?”

He nodded, “Yeah, I don’t think I understood everything that happened, but something about the older unicorn seemed familiar. She looks like the mare who’s been giving me orders.”

“Yes, that’s my mom, you call her Cloak, at least while you’ve been Pride. Wait a sec how did you remember that? I thought Pride had all the memories from the past few weeks?”

“I don’t know. When I touched him, it was like I just remembered some of the things I did recently, though there’s a big blank in the middle,” he replied.

I looked around as he talked keeping an eye out for Pride in case he tried to attack us again, “Wait, where did Steve go?”

Stardust lifted a hoof showing me the black and white butterfly who was standing there, it’s wings slowly moving up and down, “When I touched him it was strange, it’s like he’s trying to tell me something but can’t.”

I looked closer at the butterfly, there was something strange about its wings. Each side had a pattern that looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it, “Stardust why did you name the butterfly Steve?”

He shrugged, “Honestly I don’t even remember where I got him. One day he just showed up.”

“When was that?”

“Around the time I started hiding in the cells. One day a caterpillar showed up, it always stayed around the edge of the room not doing much of anything. I was trapped and had nopony to talk to so I started talking to him. I called him Steve just so I had a name for him. I also had a feeling I had him for a while, like he was a long-lost friend.”

“And when did Steve turn into a butterfly?”

“A few hours ago right around the time you tried asking me where I got the Pistol!” Pride’s voice rang out from down the hall.

I looked back and moved to block Stardust from the demon looking pony. He looked even worse now, the new memories Stardust got back seemed to be changing Pride. Something foul was dripping off his body, his face looked gaunt, his shape was twisted and demonic. He had long horns curling back from his head and around his ears, and as he spoke, hot steam blew out of his muzzle.

“Stay away from us Pride!”

He ignored me, still moving slowly toward Stardust and myself, “Shadow Star The Courier, the mare who always finds a way out. The mare who can’t protect her friends from ponies like me, but always escapes harm. The mare who kills whoever she feels like because she can. The mare who…”

I blasted him back with a spell, throwing him sliding a few feet away, “I said stay away from us!”

He just started to chuckle, he sounded insane, “Why are you so scared of me Shadow? You should know by now that you’ll be fine, you always are. What can a pegasus like me do to hurt you? Oh, wait I know, Kill your LOVE!”

“You can’t even do that, you missed your chance when you missed that shot to Aura’s heart,” I said.

Stardust came to stand next to me saying, “He didn’t miss because he’s not good enough to make a shot like that, he missed because I made him miss.”

My jaw fell open as I looked back at Stardust, “Wait, how’d you do that, I thought you were trapped in that cell in your own mind? You don’t even know who Aura is.”

He smiled a little, “Even in that cell I could see some of what Pride was. It got hard to tell the difference most of the time. When I saw the griffon, you’re right I didn’t know her, but I knew she was a friend. I don’t know how I did it, but I wanted to stop myself from killing her. Whatever happened, it made Pride miss the kill shot.”

Pride chuckled and laughed again, “Had a feeling something felt wrong with that last shot.”

My eyes once again fell on the butterfly, then something hit me, the pattern on its wings were shaped like the two keys in the star on my cutie mark. The black body, the silver wings, the red markings and eyes, it all made sense. Steve wasn’t a him, it was a her. Steve is an echo of me in Stardust’s mind. Something always there but never physically. Why it made me look like a butterfly I have no idea, but I know I’m right. The problem is though, if I’m right then why can’t Stardust remember me yet?

As I thought that, the tiny head and antenna of Steve…me…whatever, looked toward me and I heard my own voice echo in my head, “Because he’s not complete. This Stardust is the light, the good that lies in Stardust’s mind. Pride is his darkness and corruption, it’s the part of Stardust that pulled away so The Enclave could make him Pride. In everypony there is good and bad, one cannot exist without the other. That is why Pride never killed Stardust in here, instead he made him feel like a child, scared and alone, until he hid away in those cells. I’ve been trying to call out to him, but he couldn’t hear my voice. They both need to believe that you aren’t who Pride thinks you are, only then can they become one and their minds can be whole again.”

The butterfly looked away, as it did I found myself looking at Pride who was still laying there chuckling to himself, “Stardust I need you to listen to me.”

Stardust looked over asking, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean you, I’m talking to him,” I said pointing at the demonic looking version of my friend.

He spat a black slime at me giggling like a mad pony as he did, “I’m Pride not Stardust, Stardust’s dead! Dead, Dead, Dead!”

Even like this I know that he could kill me, easily, but I ignored what I knew about my friend’s abilities and walked closer, “No it’s not, you’re Stardust and I need you to listen to me for a moment. I want to try and prove to you that you’re wrong about me, if you do that and you still think I’m the monster who killed your friend then I’ll let you kill me.”

The good Stardust tried to say something but the demonic one stopped his giggling and looked over at me, “How can I trust you?”

“I’ll make you a Pinkie Pie Promise, in case you forgot what that is, it’s a promise that can’t be broken no matter what.”

The demonic Stardust got to his hooves, his eyes a little unfocused as if something was coming back to him, “I know I’ve heard that somewhere,” then his gaze fell on me again, “Fine, I’ll give you one chance but that’s it.”

“Do you remember the colt Wingnut?” I asked.

Demonic Stardust nodded saying, “The kid who kept making my head hurt when he tried to talk to me.”

Stardust nodded as well, “He’s the kid I saved from bugs.”

Of course, he remembers that but not me. I put it out of my mind for now saying, “He showed us how to do a Pinkie Pie Promise, he said if we did it he’d show us where his home was, it went like this,” I started to do the silly dance as I continued, “Cross my heart and hope to fly…”

Demonic Stardust’s eyes went wide as he finished the rest, “Stick a cupcake in my eye…” his eyes went hazy again and I saw a single tear run down his disgusting face, “Wingnut showed us that stupid dance and Aura almost wet herself laughing on the ground. When he took us back to his town for colts and fillies, I felt so bad for him when I realized he was just as alone as I was when I had to leave my home. I took him under my wing so he had a role model, somepony to look up to. He’s a good kid, smart as hell, and a great little brother figure. Oh Celestia, what did I do to him!”

“You remember him?” I asked quickly before I lost him again to rage.

He nodded, “Yeah, you were there that night too, we all saved him,” his eyes snapped back to looking at me, “Somethings wrong with me, right?”

I saw that the other Stardust was watching us together waiting to see what would happen, “Yes, I’m here to fix it.”

Demonic Stardust’s eyes started to harden and I could tell I was losing him again. His face became strained almost like he was doing all he could to keep hold on that memory of Wingnut, “What do I have to do! Tell me quickly before I lose hold on myself!”

I had no idea if what I was about to say was right or not, but I was out of ideas, “Both of you need to touch the butterfly at the same time, do it quickly!”

Stardust put his hoof close to the other Stardust who was still trying to hold back losing himself. Then demonic Stardust reached out a hoof and touched the wings of the butterfly. Light exploded from where Steve was resting on his hoof, it engulfed us all and everything vanished…

oooOOOooo

What ever happened I knew I did something right, what that something was I have no idea. I thought at first a new memory was going to play like before, but instead loads of memories passed in front of me from Stardust’s past ever since he left the stable. I watched as he flew away from the Twin Cities, following the instructions from Hailstorm. Over the next couple weeks, he fought off Raiders, Steel Rangers, crazed ponies, Ghouls, and more. He started looking for a rifle that would work for him as a flyer and a sniper. He ended up making his own out of parts from many different rifles.

His journey west eventually brought him to New Pegasus where he met The Queen and started doing odd jobs for her and helping out Freedom. He wasn’t there long when he had his first interaction with The Enclave. Two soldiers found him because of his Pip-Buck tag. He was able to kill them, but he needed to get rid of anything that would tie him to his old home. Even though Hailstorm thought the power armor wouldn’t be traceable because it wasn’t the Cadet’s set of armor, Stardust still stored it away in a place where he’d be able to find it again in case he ever needed it. I didn’t catch where though, the memory moved by too quickly. He then asked The Queen where he could get his Pip-Buck removed.

She told him about a mare who had a master key that lived in a small shack near Trotston. He went off to find her and it didn’t take him long. The shack looked ready to fall over with a strong breeze, but there she was. A mare I knew all too well, it was mom. At this point the memory slowed enough for me to catch some of what transpired between the two.

“The Queen said you could remove a Pip-Buck,” Stardust said.

Mom smiled up at him sweetly, “I can, though most ponies don’t normally want to have theirs taken. A Pip-Buck is a tool that can be very useful in a world like this.”

“It can also be a danger to a pony who’s being hunted.”

She laughed, “That it can, I take it you’re a runaway from The Enclave am I right?”

“In a way yes.”

“Well, I’m not a fan of theirs to be honest. So I can remove your Pip-Buck if you so wish it.”

“I do, thank you um…”

“Just call me Spell, everypony around here does,” Mom said as she used her magic to lift a Pip-Buck Master key from a bag next to her shack.

“Thank you Spell,” his eyes fell on her own Pip-Buck, the same one I now had in my saddle bags, “Are you from a Stable too?”

She stopped what she was doing looking down at her Stable 28 Issued Pip-Buck, “Sort of, I’m kind of a runaway like yourself you could say. My Stable wasn’t a good place for a mare like me, I had to run as fast as I could, leaving my daughter behind to be raised by my best friend.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How long ago was that?”

Mom’s eyes went glassy with tears for a moment, “Almost eight years, she’s almost a grown mare now. Though if I know my daughter I’m sure one day she’ll find her way out of there too and come looking for me. She’s a stubborn filly, just like her mother.”

Stardust smiled a little, “Sometimes that’s the kind of thing that keeps us alive.”

Mom went back to what she was doing as she spoke, “I don’t disagree with you about that. I just hope that when she does get out that she’ll be safe.”

“You make it sound like you know for a fact that she’ll leave.”

“That’s because I am…” Mom finally finished what she was doing and the Pip-Buck fell off Stardust’s foreleg, “There you go, one Pip-Buck removed. If you want I can dispose of it for you, that way whoever’s out there looking for you will have a harder time looking in the wrong place.”

“That would be wonderful. How many caps do I owe you?”

Mom just waved a hoof, “I don’t need caps, I’ve got plenty. Don’t let my old shack fool you, it’s more than meets the eye.”

“I feel like I owe you for the help, I mean nothing’s really free in The Wasteland is it?”

There was a sparkle in mom’s eyes, “That’s true, then how about this? How good are you with that rifle you have on your back?”

“Best sharp shooter around,” Stardust said with pride.

“Then do me a favor and keep your eye out for a raider who goes by the name of Crackerjack. He runs a large group of raiders that roam up and down the road between Appleton and Cartwheel. They even have a camp outside Cartwheel. If you ever see a large pony with twin scars over his eyes out of his power armor, blow his head off.”

“You want me to assassinate a pony? I mean even if he is a raider, I’m not an assassin.”

“Your right, I shouldn’t have asked such a thing from a nice young pegasus like yourself, forgive me. Though just keep it in mind, he’s the worst of the worst, used to be a Steel Ranger until he turned Raider. At least promise me that if you see a pony like him and he’s hurting anypony don’t hesitate.”

Stardust sighed, “I guess I can at least do that, though I make no promises I’ll see this Crackerjack guy. I don’t head toward Cartwheel often, but I’ll keep it in mind and I’ll keep an eye out. I hate Raiders.”

“That’s all I can ever ask and thank you.”

Stardust flapped his wings and took off yelling back down to Mom as he flew away, “No Thank you Spell!”

The memories started to fly by again at dizzying speeds. I watched as Stardust traveled around the New Pegasus area still doing odd jobs for The Queen. Then he started getting hunted again this time by a griffon team from The Red Talons. He fought them off a couple of times, but he wasn’t able to kill the three who hunted him. Finally, he ended up paying them off to drop the contract with some help from The Queen.

He had a couple weeks of peace until The Sins started hunting him. The Queen told him he had to run away from Freedom until they lost interest in him. Stardust started to fly around the south east and south west regions of the Marejave, helping ponies who needed a Pegasus like him, protecting towns from Ghouls, training another town so they could keep themselves safe. He did everything he could to use his abilities to help ponies. He never picked up the popularity from the radio ponies like I did, but he also kept a low key. The locals knew who he was, but they never talked about the pegasus who helped them, only thanked him when he came by. He would stay in those towns now and then when he needed a place to sleep or a bite to eat. Sometimes he would stop by just to chat with whoever was up for it.

It was during one of those stays in a town just south of Cartwheel called Pins, that he heard a story about ponies from Cartwheel being taken by the raiders that lived just outside of town. There was a slaver sitting at the bar in the saloon in Pins bragging that his team got a call from The Boss as he was called, about seven foals and a mare they took. Stardust didn’t waste any time, he killed the slaver before he could finish his next drink, flew north of Pins and took out the rest of the slavers then flew to Cartwheel. It was there that I watched him start to attack the camp all on his own. He laughed as they all ran around trying to shoot at the fast flying pony, screaming their heads off like foals. He was about to finish off one of the last raiders who hadn’t run away yet when he saw the huge pony trying to strangle a filly near the edge of the camp.

When he saw the face and the twin scars he remembered what Spell told him about Crackerjack. He didn’t waste a second, his rifle came up, he trained the sights on his target and fired. The pony’s skull blew apart and the body fell on top of the filly. He flew down to help her out, as he did he saw another mare raider running off with a hey cart filled with prisoners. He’d have to deal with her second, first he needed to make sure the filly was alive. When he landed and pulled the body off he noticed it wasn’t a filly, just a small black and silver mare wearing an old duster and barding under it.

She threw up all over the place. He gagged, “Ew, Gross…”

The memories sped up as I saw Stardust while he helped me on my adventure to find my mom, never knowing I was the same daughter of the mare who took off his Pip-Buck for him. The creepy thing was even though I could tell in his memories that he didn’t like me in the way I liked Aura, he still stole glances at my ass now and then, (Perv! Well I guess I can’t blame him, I never noticed how cute my own flanks were…damn that sounds weird now that I think about it, but damn I’m hot.)

Everything flew by quickly until his abduction. This was the worst part for me to watch. When he woke not long after being taken by The Sins, he was soon chained up and beaten by an Enclave soldier who came to take him back to Stable 97. He tried to fight back and tried to escape. He managed to pull free of his bonds once and almost got away, but his wings had been chained too and he couldn’t just fly away. He ran for it but didn’t get far, by now he had five soldiers from The Enclave keeping an eye on him. Two recaptured him before he got more than a mile away. He never gave up on trying to escape, he fought back every time he could, until he finally was taken back to his old home.

He was placed in a cell on the upper level, there he waited for days being questioned by The General who was now missing an eye thanks to his escape seven months ago. Then she showed up, Cloak along with Dr. Stormy. Pride had been killed by Shadow they said. Stardust wanted to cheer for his friend for pulling off something that was said to be impossible, that was until he heard Dr. Stormy say those fateful words.

“No worries, I know Pride was your brother Cloak but even if he can’t be replaced in your heart he can be replaced in The Sins,” her goggle covered eyes fell on Stardust, “He’s the Perfect solder, he’ll make for a new, better, Pride I think.”

Cloak looked at him with her face hidden in shadow under her hood, “I thought you said he was too unpredictable?”

“He was, but no more. Thanks to Dr. Limbis, the machine we have can wipe away all of the memories he has of that brat you called The Courier,” Dr. Stormy said.

“That’s not a bad idea, though I don’t put much faith in tech over magic when it comes to the mind and memories. I know how good Dr. Limbis is at her work. Go ahead and make him my new Pride, but make sure everything is taken away from him, The Courier, that Griffon, his escape from this place. Take it all away and replace it with something that will make him hate The Courier with all his heart,” Cloak said.

Dr. Stormy beamed with pleasure, “Oh, that we can do!”

He was taken away strapped into the pods that we were in now. He wanted to fight, wanted to do anything that would stop him from losing the memory of his best friend. He knew it was no use, but as they turned on the machine he yelled, “No matter what you do, you can’t take away the ponies who made me who I am, the ponies I LOVE!”

oooOOOooo

I expected to come out of that memory and find the two Stardust’s still in the hallway in Stable 97, but no. I felt my body rising up slowly as if I was being pulled out of a deep dark hole. Light was shining over me and as I went to look up toward it I saw Stardust floating a few inches away from me. His pink eyes fell on me as my red ones fell on him. He gave me that signature Stardust cocky grin, “Sup Shadow, ‘bout time you came to find me, what took you so damn long?”

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, “Is that really you?”

“It sure feels like me, hold on...yup pretty sure that’s mine, and that too; oh can’t forget that. Thank you for risking yourself in my twisted mind to help me. I knew you’d find a way, even after all the things I did as Pride, you still saved me.”

Yeah his mind is twisted alright. My face fell for a moment, “I almost killed you after…”

He reached over and pulled me into a tight hug, “I know and I understand. We both did some horrible things over the past few days, I’m sorry that my stupid mistake in getting captured hurt you so badly. I don’t know how I can make it up to you but I’ll do my best.”

I sank my face into his chest letting my tears fall freely, “Having you back to normal is all I want. I just want to go back to The Kingdom and see Aura, I want to see Wingnut, I want us all to go home!”

He started to rub my mane slowly doing his best to comfort me, even though we were still in his or my mind, it was just as good as the real thing. As he did he said, “So it’s true that Aura survived?”

“As far as I know. Wind Thrasher told me as much and she’s not the type of pony to lie to me.”

“That’s a relief, though I’m sure she’s going to castrate me for trying to kill her,” he said with a shiver.

I laughed a little, “Nah, but I’m sure she’ll act like she’s going to just to scare you as much as she can.”

He finally pulled away saying, “So you finally realized how you felt about her I take it?”

“I did, but how did you know?”

“When I was Pride I saw how you reacted when she was shot, you love her don’t you?”

I blushed and nodded, “I do and I think she loves me too, but I’m not sure. I’m afraid that when I tell her, she’ll reject me. I may just be misreading the signals, I’m no good at this kind of thing.”

“Shadow before we leave this machine I want you to see something,” he said turning a little so we were both looking toward a part of his mind where a small mote of light was shining.

“What is that?” I asked as the mote of light grew bigger and images started to form around it, almost like watching something on a terminal screen only in color.

“Something you need to see and hear,” he said

I noticed that the images were Aura, I was seeing her from Stardust’s point of view just like a memory orb only instead of reliving it, I was just watching it in front of me. She was standing in one of the pipelines in the lower area of The Bramble with tears in her eyes.

Stardust spoke to her quietly, “I know we don’t get along well, but you need to get this off your chest. Even if I think you’re a horribly mutated bird thing, I can’t stand seeing a girl cry. I already think I know what’s bothering you.”

“Then you can keep your muzzle shut and leave me alone cloud breath, you make me sick,” Aura retorted angrily.

“Just because I think I know what’s bothering you doesn’t mean anything, you still need to say it.”

She took a long moment to answer, when she did I could hear pain in her voice, “It’s just so stupid that’s all, Shadow doesn’t even know Silver Snip that well. Yeah I get it, Silver saved her when she first got to Cartwheel and all, but so what. Silver wasn’t there when we saved Wingnut, she didn’t help her with Stable 9, she wasn’t the one who had to make an anti-venom before Shadow died. Silver didn’t have to fly away leaving her behind in that town because you were near to death. Shadow is kind and confused about where she stands in the world. She so badly wants to find her mom and get answers. The problem is she also wants to be loved so badly that she latched on to the first ponies to lay down and give her what she THINKS love is.”

“You think Shadow doesn’t understand love? I find that hard to believe.”

“No she doesn’t, not when it comes to what she’s trying to get from Silver. Silver might’ve known her before she lost her memories, but Shadow’s not that same filly anymore. She’s strong, beautiful, and caring. She deserves better than some nice piece of ass who wiggles itself in front of her nose! She needs someone who understands her, who cares about her for who she is now, someone who wants Shadow to understand her as much as she understands Shadow!” Aura yelled.

Stardust chuckled a little and put a hoof on Aura’s shoulder, “So you love her huh?”

“Shut up, and take it off or I’ll break it off,” Aura said trying to push his hoof away.

Stardust tensed up a little but didn’t move his hoof either, “No way, you need to tell somepony Aura. I promise I won’t tell her, not until you’re ready for her to know.”

Aura sighed deeply then looked at him, “Why would you do that for me?”

He shrugged, “Let’s just say that after you defended me back there with your crazy aunt, I realized you’re not that bad.”

She smiled a little, “Fine, I don’t know if I love her, not yet. I’m still trying to get over losing…”

“Let me guess, that friend of yours Trip Wire.”

Her eyes went wide, “You know about that!?”

“Duh, I’m friends with Tariff, I knew his little sister too. I also knew she was in a relationship with a Red Talon Griffon. I just put two and two together and it equaled feather pony pie. Wait that doesn’t sound right…”

“You’re an ass.”

“Yep, now continue.”

“Fine, I still haven’t fully gotten over losing Trip Wire, but Shadow’s making me feel the same as I did when I first started to like her, and maybe more. I’m not sure if it’s love yet, but I know I like her more than I would with most ponies or griffons.”

Stardust patted her shoulder, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself.”

She frowned and looked away then said in a soft voice, “Thanks…Cloud Breath.”

“Tch I have a name you know? Try to use it”

Aura punched Stardust in the jaw, he just turned his head and laughed “Fuck you Stardust.” But she smiled.

Stardust laughed again “Now was that so hard?”

They both shared a laugh as the memory turned back into light and flew off into the darkness of Stardust’s mind. As it did I looked over at him again, “So you knew all this time?”

“Yep, but I said I’d keep it to myself until the time was right. So how about we get out of my head and yours so we can go home? It smells like brain matter in here.”

“That’s the best thing you’ve said all day,”

I slowly came back to myself as the glass lid opened up and somepony pulled the helmet off my head slowly. As they did my vision was blurry at first but went back to normal and I found myself looking up into Dr. Limbis’s smiling face, “What took you so long in there?”

As she said that I noticed that Doorstop was standing next to the door shouting orders at Solstice, “They’re going to break that door down any second now, be ready for anything. We don’t know if The General called in reinforcements from The Enclave or not.”

“I’m not a child Doorstop I know what I’m doing,” Solstice yelled then she looked over at me, “Fuck Shadow get off your ass we have enough shit to deal with and we don’t have time for you to be laying around!”

I jumped out of the pod feeling a little woozy after the strange experience. I went over to Stardust’s pod and shook him, “Wake up dammit!”

He opened his eyes with a weird look on his face and threw his hooves to the side, “The clown has NO penis!” trying not to roll on the floor laughing I slapped him in the face as hard as I could, “Ow, my head feels like it was stepped on and you had to go and do that? What about you, how do you feel? Also, what’ the fuck’s going on and why do my wings hurt?”

“I’m fine apart from waking up to this carnage. As for what’s going on, I’ll let Doorstop explain.”

Doorstop looked over at Stardust for a second then over at Limbis who was trying to hide behind one of the pods, “When she turned on the machine The General knew right away. She sent her guards into medical to try and find out what was going on. Solstice shot them and now we’ve been locked in here waiting for them to break down the door so they can try to kill us. We’ve got a fight on our hooves and not with just the guards and maybe Enclave Soldiers that might be helping them. The whole damned stable is awake by now and that means the other Cadets are going to try to kill us too.”

“Well…fuck,” It’s all I could say, “What do we do now?”

Stardust grinned, “I say we take this place down once and for all!”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Hive Mind: You’ve gotten pretty close to your companions, haven’t you? So close that they practically know what you’re thinking in the midst of battle. Now while fighting with a companion in your party, you will have an easier time coordinating a combination attack with them.

QUEST PERK ADDED!

STARDUST AFFINITY LEVEL AT 100%

Sharpshooter’s Apprentice: You’ve achieved full affinity with Stardust and he’s shared some of his secret skills with you. While using a sniper rifle or sighted semi-automatic rifle, you will experience decreased weapon spread, increased range, and have a better time keeping a steady aim on your target.

Chapter 47: Dark Places

“Fletch you know that I’m the better fighter, always have been, always will be.”

I love this place, it’s peaceful, beautiful, calm. The lights of all the stars around me, casting their light as I rest and grow stronger. They told me that one day I was going to do something amazing, something great. When I was strong enough they would send me down to a new world so that I could help save it. But first I’d have to get stronger, I’d have to bathe in the light of the stars, letting their power help me grow. I can’t wait for that day to come, when I can use my power to help this new world they told me about, but at the same time I’m scared that I’ll never see this place again.

A deep voice fills my mind as I rest, one that I know so well. He is the one who first created me, I do not know his name, only that he is far away but his light shines the brightest of all, “My child, remember that your trials will be great. We have given you the knowledge you need to survive, the power to win, and our faith that you will always hold on to your light. Never let the darkness take hold of you, if you do, it will mean the end of everything we are trying to protect.”

I wanted to tell him that I’ll do whatever I can to make him proud of me, but I have no voice, not yet. I do know that he can feel the emotions bellowing out of my being. His light and power seem to brighten and grow stronger filling me with what I can only imagine is approval. I take it in happily, but something’s wrong. What is this new feeling flowing through me? It’s not an emotion from the other lights around me, or from my creator, no it feels…hot? The lights around me start to dim and I can hear anger coming from my creator, “No, not yet, she’s not ready. NO!”

I’m afraid as I feel my being get pulled away from the peaceful place that I love. A new feeling flows through me, a feeling that I’ve only been told about but never felt before, Pain. The world around me goes dark and I feel myself being pulled through something. I get a quick glimpse of a world I’ve never seen before, one that is full of magic, but also pain and suffering. Now I find myself in what I can only say is a room of some sort, I’m trapped inside a glass dome looking out at…ponies…the word just popped into my mind. A couple of them had white coats, another was colored a dark grey and stood very tall with a scar over his left eye. There was an even taller pony who had wings and a horn. She was dark blue with a mane that looked like it was filled with stars. Last was a blue mare who was smiling at me through the glass dome.

“Captain, it worked! We were able to capture a true child of the stars!” the blue mare said.

The scarred pony looked at her, “Are you sure? All I see is a ball of light.”

The mare with the flowing mane backed up a little, “She’s right Night Stalker, I’ve felt this kind of magic before. This creature is a child of the stars, it’s different than I’ve felt before, but similar at the same time. Are you sure this will work for your experiments Minuette?”

“I’m quite sure Princess Luna, if my calculations are correct, we can use her power to make you into Nightmare Moon again, only this time with more control,” the blue mare said.

The mare with the flowing mane looked closer at me in my dome, “I do hope you’re right. Because if you’re not, then bringing back Nightmare Moon could be worse than what we’re already facing. What will happen to this child of the stars if you are successful?”

The scarred stallion spoke next, “From what Minuette told me, it will die. You need all of its power to make this work. Minuette which constellation did you find this thing in?”

“I’m not sure Captain, but from the readings I think it came from the Aquila constellation. They were the brightest in that region when we turned on the machine,” the blue mare replied.

I’d die? What does that mean? Whatever it is I don’t like the sound of it, where am I? Why can I feel so much pain and despair around me? It was like this entire world was suffering from so many emotions. Most of them were pain, hatred, anger, greed, and so much more. I had to know more, I need to make them understand that they need to let me go, I have something I need to do.

Using the power that made up my body I made my thoughts known to the ponies outside of my dome, “Who are you? Why am I here?”

They all looked at me in amazement. One of the mares in the white coats asked, “Did that thing just speak?”

The blue mare responded, “I believe it did, I didn’t think they could do that. Isn’t it just a mass of light magic?”

“Let me out of here, I am not supposed to be here,” I said.

The scarred stallion grinned a little, “You’re where you are supposed to be monster. You’re here in this lab so that your power can be used to help us win this war our land is stuck in.”

“But my creator said that I was meant to save a new world.”

“You will, by giving up your power to our princess,” he said.

“That is not what I am meant for,” I said as new ideas started to come into my mind, “I need a body, one that can handle my power so that I can save this new world, one that I can control. If you take my power I will not be able to do that,” I said feeling a strange feeling building inside of me.

He rolled his eyes turning toward the Blue Mare, “Make it stop talking, we should extract it’s power as soon as possible.”

“Night Stalker, I’m not sure it’ll be as easy as you think. This child of the stars is more powerful than we anticipated,” the mare with the flowing mane said.

“She’s right sir,” a mare in a white coat said, “I think we need to shut it down before it overloads the system. This dome can barely hold the power as it is and we’re still pulling in more.”

“Minuette made most of the equipment here, everything will be fine. Kill that thing and take its power,” the scarred stallion said.

That feeling I know now had to be rage, I let it fill me as I used my mind to yell at them, “I will not let you take what is mine!” I let the power inside me flow out.

The blue unicorn backed away yelling, “Shut it down now!”

Before the ponies could do anything, the dome around me cracked and my power flowed out making one of their silly machines explode, killing the two mares that were closest to my dome. The room started to shake and more machines started to spark and smoke. I felt myself starting to laugh as I said, “You are all fools to try and contain me. You will pay for what you’ve done!”

The mare with the flowing main jumped in front of the other two yelling, “Get behind me both of you, I know how to stop her.”

I started to let my power build again, “You think you have the power to stop me! I’ll show you how wrong you are!”

A look of sadness came over the mare’s face as the horn on her head started to glow, “I am sorry child, but you have too much anger inside of you. Sleep and find peace in the land of dreams.”

I was about to show her how wrong she was when her horn flashed and I felt my power push back into my being. Then the sights around me started to fade, it was like my mind was being pushed into a place similar to the one I had come from. Only the pain and hurt around me never went away. I could still hear what was going on around me, could still feel the fear the ponies felt as seeing how powerful I was, still feel the pain of so many creatures and the land.

Before my mind fully slipped away I heard the mare with the flowing mane say, “Night Stalker, I want this place sealed. That spell will only keep her down for a little while, once we are out of here I’ll show Minuette how to seal this room to keep her contained. I told you this was a bad idea, I want you to make sure nopony ever finds her.”

The scarred pony started to say, “But Princess Luna, I know that with a little more study we can make this work.”

“I said SEAL IT!”

“Yes Princess Luna.”

I swore right then and there, “I’m going to make them pay for trapping me here and taking me away from my home.”

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I woke looking around wondering where I was. My heart was racing from that strange dream, or was it a dream? It took me a moment before I realized I was still laying in the bed at The Lucky Horseshoe. I brought a hoof up to rub my temples slowly as a headache started to build in the back of my skull. Then I felt a talon on my shoulder. Looking over I saw Aura looking up at me, “You okay Shadow? You kicked me in your sleep.”

“Oh, sorry about that. I think so, I just had a really strange dream,” I said laying back down and letting Aura pull me close to her.

“What kind of dream?” she asked as she started to run her talons through my mane.

“I really have no idea, it was like I was reliving the moment when Aquila first was pulled down to Equus.”

“Maybe with you pulling in her power like you did, you’re starting to see some of her own memories, just like she can with yours.”

I shrugged, “I guess It’s possible, though I hope I don’t see any more. It’s really hard to hate her when I see stuff like that. It was like torture and losing my mind at the same time.”

“That sounds awful, but I think even though something like that can make you feel sorry for her, Aquila still shouldn’t be allowed to get out. There’s no telling what she’d do if she did. I also don’t want to lose you to something like that,” Aura said solemnly.

I sighed, “I guess you’re right. She spent centuries in the laboratory alone, something like that would drive most ponies insane. There’s something about her though that confuses me; she doesn’t seem insane. There’s been different times that I’ve interacted with her and she’s seemed like an insane monster and others where she seems like a manipulative villain with some ulterior motive.”

“Really? How so?” Aura asked.

“Well there’s the time when she first emerged during that fight with your father and The Steel Rangers when she was like a mad force of evil, then there was when we met those brothers Squirrel and Moose where she acted like an insane version of me, then there was the time I was in that town outside of Crimson Canyon where she was appearing as a hallucination and acting like somewhat of a normal pony but stranger in a sense,” I explained.

Aura looked lost in thought for a moment, “I don’t think she’s insane, she just wants us to think she is. I don’t know why though. When I was doing medical training, I read a book about psychology and what she shows matches a mix of a psychopath and a sociopath. The psychopath part is basically that she doesn’t really care about the feelings of others, but puts up a false façade to protect herself, and the sociopath part is that she really doesn’t care about any kind of rules and will do whatever she wants to get what she wants no matter what consequences befall anyone else who gets in her way. The best way to describe it is that she neither has true feelings or a conscience. Well, she has feelings but not really any for others, just herself.”

“The weirdest part of all that is that I actually understood it all.”

She laughed a little, “You’re not stupid…at least not THAT stupid. Anyhow I think we should get up.”

“But why? I’m comfortable.”

“Yeah I’m sure you are, but you’re lying against me and I really gotta pee,” she replied.

“Oh, go ahead and get up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Aura got out of bed and headed toward the bathroom as I stretched and tried my best to get up the motivation to leave the comfortable confines of bed and all its benefits. Warmth, the soft gentleness of the sheets that held me like a warm embrace, the squishiness of the mattress, and the plushiness of the fluffy pillow I laid my head upon. I decided to turn back on my side and lay in bed for a few more minutes to rest my eyes some more, until my face rolled onto a cold spot on the pillow. I quickly jumped back to almost the other side of the bed and grabbed my cheek with a hoof. There was a wet spot on the pillow where my face was, I didn’t cry like the sissy I know I am in my sleep did I? I reached out and touched the spot with my hoof and quickly retracted, “Eeww, I drooled! Gross!”

***

I went out to the living room where everyone else was eating breakfast. Actually no one was eating breakfast, Aura was trying to break up Wingnut and Byte as they fought over a box of Sugar Apple Bombs, and Wind Thrasher was staring at Stardust as he was being indecisive about what he wanted to eat out of the pantry. I walked to the couch, plopped down, and thought about what the hell I should eat. As I thought, a forgotten memory came somewhat back to me from a dream I think I had a while ago but can’t quite remember, “What’re you doing Shadow?” Stardust asked as he sat down next to me, munching on something crunchy, talking with his mouth full; Gross

“I want some fuckin’ waffles,” I replied plainly.

“What?”

“I said, I want waffles. Everypony in The Wasteland eats either two-hundred-year-old packaged pre-made food or something mutated that they killed or grew. I want something fresh and uncompromised by radiation, but I also want something from a happier time,” I replied.

He looked at me quizzically for a second, “Um, okay then, waffles sound good. I think I saw some waffle mix in the pantry. Sure, it’s still packaged and two-hundred years old but it’s the closest you’re gonna get to the real thing.”

“I guess so, but how are we supposed to get the mix into that waffle shape?”

He smirked and rolled his eyes, “Duh, we add what it says to in the directions on the back of the box and put it in a waffle iron…which we don’t have. Oh, shit…”

“Yup, mornings suck. I think I’ll just have cereal.”

I looked over at Wingnut and Byte as they stared each other down while scarfing on their bowls of cereal in front of them. Are they racing to see who finishes first? If that’s another one of their smartness tests, it’s not really gonna say who’s smarter, just who’s fatter in the sense that they eat a lot. I got up and walked over to them, “If you two puke all over the place because you ate too fast I’m gonna make you clean up each other’s mess. However, if just one of you does, the one who doesn’t can’t make fun of the other,” I said as I levitated the almost empty box of Sugar Apple Bombs.

“Says the one whose stomach is weaker than BOTH of us,” Wingnut teased as Byte snickered.

Ever since Byte joined us they’ve both been pissing me off more and more. Mornings aren’t my happy time and they were about to learn that first hoof. While still levitating the box of cereal, I balanced on my hind legs, raised my fore-hooves, and slammed them down on the front of both of their bowls. They both stared at me in awe as soggy cereal stuck to their faces and brahmin milk dripped from their chins, “Happy now?” I said as I turned and went to go sit back on the couch.

“Geez Shadow, did you really have to do that?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“No, but maybe it’ll make both of them think before they open their mouths and piss me off when I haven’t even been up for more than half an hour.”

“You’re not a morning pony are you?” she asked.

“Not in the slightest.”

***

Later on, we all went down to The Strip which in the morning was a little bit of a weird sight every time I saw it. There were no neon lights lit up or anything, just ponies everywhere drunk, hookers offering their services, and securiponies rolling around patrolling. Now that I was fed and completely woken up I’d calmed down a lot. Stardust said I was something called ‘hangry’ which meant I was irritable because I was hungry, but I think that goes for anypony who hasn’t had food for an extended period of time.

We were going to JetBlue Skyport, but first needed to get a pass to get in from the NLR embassy. However, before we could get out of the casino area of The Strip, one of the hookers approached us and went up to Stardust. She looked a little strange for a mare and I soon found out why, with a somewhat deep voice she said, “Hey baby, you lookin’ for a good time? Cause I got a nice big surprise for you if you want it like I want yours.”

“Um, what?” Stardust said like he wasn’t sure if he should’ve said something or just walked away.

“If you show me yours I’ll show you mine and we can play a game for who gets to be bottom, but I might cheat,” the hooker replied.

Stardust gagged, “Fuck no!” he started to comically dry-heave.

Without missing a beat Wingnut blurted out, “Haha, tool time!”

Then Byte said, “Yeah, you’ll love it. It’s all in good fun.”

When Stardust recovered from his gagging fit he replied to the hooker, “Get away from me before I do something that’ll get me vaporized by the securiponies. But if you’re looking for some action there’s a stallion that’s right up your alley in Freedom, and if you meet him I mean literally. Oh, and one more thing, looking like a mare doesn’t make you a mare, it makes you a liar.”

The hooker took his hoof and slapped Stardust across the face, “You could’ve just said no asshole!”

“No, what I could’ve said was eat a dick, but that’s pretty much your job description and I thought you might get the wrong idea,” Stardust retorted.

As the hooker stormed off he said, “It’s called tolerance motherfucker! Learn how to use it!”

“Stardust, he…she…it is right, you could’ve been nicer. What’s the big deal if he likes to cross-dress?” I said.

He sighed, “It doesn’t bother me that he’s a crossdressing gay hooker. I say do and like whatever you like, just don’t offer sex to somepony in front of younger ponies like these two. I know they’re not that young but it’s still immoral.”

Aura burst out laughing, “You’re seriously concerned about morality HERE of all places!? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while,” she wiped a tear from her eye, “That’s almost as funny as that pony who thought he was a ghoul.”

“You still could’ve been nicer,” Wind Thrasher said shyly.

“I guess you’re right, but on The Strip some of the prostitutes try a little too hard to get work and don’t leave you alone. I figured if I could offend him, he’d leave me alone for good,” Stardust replied.

Byte smiled, “Yeah, or come back with all his gender-bent friends and fuck you up in more ways than one. Wastelanders are spiteful in that way, I kinda love it.”

Stardust gave her a slightly horrified look, “Remind me never to make you angry, you’re a creepy little shit.”

She huffed, “Hey, that’s what the other ponies used to say about me in Trotston. I’m not creepy, YOU’RE creepy you big STINKY bug!”

“I’ll have you know, I showered in the other bathroom this morning. Last time I checked, YOU were the one who still has grease marks on her because she hasn’t bathed yet. Who stinks now? I bet you don’t even need those ties in your mane to keep it in pigtails,” Stardust said defending his cleanliness.

She turned to Wingnut, “Hey dummy bug, do I stink?” he leaned forward to sniff her when she pushed his head away, “I didn’t say smell me freak!”

Wingnut looked confused, “But I uh, what? I dunno what to say! Someone help me!”

Aura snickered, “Somethin’ tells me you’ve never had a marefriend before squirt. Just say she doesn’t stink to make her happy and she’ll continue liking you for now until you fail one of her next tests of loyalty and she moves on.”

Byte scoffed, “I DON’T LIKE HIM!”

Aura put on her sinister face, “Denying it doesn’t prove anything, all it does is prove the opposite. I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“Oh yeah? At least I’m not as primitive as you and cock-a-doodle-doo at sunrise!” Byte retorted.

“Why you little sh…” Aura said right before I grabbed her to stop her from strangling Cookie Byte.

“Can we please just get to the embassy so we can get the pass to go into Jetblue Skyport?” I asked still trying to hold back Aura as Byte hid behind Wingnut and stuck her tongue out at her.

Stardust gave me a funny look, “Pass?”

“Yeah, don’t we need a pass or something to go in there? It’s all guarded and stuff like The Strip,” I replied.

“We don’t need anything like that, we don’t even need to go through Freedom to get to the Skyport. There’s a monorail that goes directly there near the embassy. JetBlue Skyport is like any other NLR encampment, you can just go right in and as long as you don’t cause any trouble you won’t get shot,” Stardust explained.

“Oh,” I said surprised, “Isn’t that kinda stupid?”

“Well yeah, but not having a piece of paper isn’t gonna stop somepony from going in there to cause mischief. Plus, it’s filled with NLR ponies of almost every rank,” Stardust replied.

“Okay then, I guess we’re going to the monorail station,” I said as I let go of Aura.

We started on our way to the station and I noticed Wingnut looking a little nervous, “What are you looking at?” he asked.

“Me? Oh nothing, you’re just shaking like a leaf,” I replied.

“Am not,” he retorted as he walked closer to me and said quieter, “I don’t really wanna go on the monorail.”

Wow, is Wingnut actually afraid of something that isn’t the dark? I thought I’d never see the day that he wouldn’t want to ride in a strange machine, “Why don’t you want to ride the monorail? It’s just a train…”

“That runs on electricity and nothing else. It’s a two-hundred year old computer regulating the power in that thing and I don’t trust it,” he interrupted.

I REALLY thought I’d never see the day the Wingnut wouldn’t trust a computer, “It’ll be fine, I’m sure the NLR maintains it well enough.”

“You don’t’ get it,” he sighed, “The monorail runs on an electric motor controlled by an old computer. Electric motors work different than regular steam, combustion, or gem-powered motors. With those other motors they have to work up to their maximum power to get up to speed. With an electric motor, all that power is available right away. If the computer malfunctions or something else happens to it we could be shot down the track at breakneck speed and cause the rusted mounts of the track to collapse and send the train careening into the ground, KILLING us all.”

“Oh well,” I said trying to keep my cool as I started to internally freak out, “At least the first part will be fun, like those roller coasters they used to have here before the war.”

“I see how it is, you’re scared too,” he said.

“Nuh-uh!” I quickly retorted.

“Are too! Maybe you’re right though, I shouldn’t be worried if I’m with you. You’re somehow unrealistically lucky sometimes and this is one of those times where you’re gonna do something potentially dangerous, then come out of it without a scratch,” Wingnut said in a snarky tone.

As I started walking up the steps that lead into the station I thought about what he just said. When have I ever done something stupidly dangerous and come out without at least a gunshot wound? Then right as I went through the door at the top of the stairs, I was met with a face full of water.

I wiped off my face with a hoof and thought back to the last time I experienced this wonderous phenomenon. When I looked in front of myself after getting the water out of my eyes I saw the two ponies I expected, Squirrel and Moose, “Do you guys do that to everypony or just me?”

Moose smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, it’s just a precaution. We saw you coming up the stairs and you weren’t wearing the ward we gave you and figured you might’ve somehow gotten possessed.”

“Nice to see you too, I’ll bring my own religion water next time and we can have a splash fight,” I replied.

“You’re damn right it’s nice to see us. We heard about your little incident in Appleton. What the hell happened? We gave you that horn-ring specifically to stop something like that from happening,” Squirrel said sounding a bit irritated.

Before I could answer Byte asked excitedly, “Who are you?

It was at that point Squirrel went from tough guy to butter in Byte’s hooves, “Oh, well you see sweetie, my brother and I hunt monsters.”

Byte smiled and closed her eyes cutely, “Oh I get it! You’re idiots.”

Squirrel froze and the look on his face was priceless, like someone just punched him in the stomach, “I…we…uh.”

Moose spoke up before his brother sounded more like a hopeless moron in front of the genius, “Not typical monsters. We hunt cryptids, monsters that show up in folklore and sometimes also in The Wasteland. The supernatural kind of monsters like demons, ghosts, vampires, wraiths, homunculi, etcetera.”

She smiled again, “So you’re not just idiots, you’re nutjobs. Those things don’t exist, they’re all just things made up by ponies to scare wussies like Wingnut into being afraid of the dark.”

With a flick of my hoof I gave her what Vervain used to call a brain-duster, “Byte, shut up. There’s a very good reason he’s afraid of the dark, there’s no need to be a brat,” I looked back at Squirrel who was still frozen in disbelief that something so adorable could be so mean, “Appleton was destroyed by a laser shot from a satellite not by Aquila.”

He snapped out of his confusion, “That’s funny because I’m pretty sure eyewitness reports from multiple witnesses don’t lie. I was told that you and Pride were both using powerful magic to fight each other, and the kind of magic you were using was anything but normal for a unicorn. So, tell us this, when did you start helping that thing?”

“Okay fine, I used Aquila’s power, but we came to a mutual understanding that both of us wanted to keep on living,” I said defending myself while at the same time putting my own hoof in my mouth.

“You do realize that letting yourself give in to Aquila could make her stronger right? Plus, I’m sure there was another way you could’ve gotten rid of Pride,” Moose said.

“Actually, that whole thing was a giant misunderstanding, and I didn’t actually kill Pride,” I replied.

Squirrel looked immediately shocked, “So you’re saying that homicidal freak is still out there somewhere?”

“Yeah, but as it turns out he’s Oricalcos; my uncle. A little piece of him survived and hid in my shadow for a while so he could heal himself. After a while he became our ally, well my ally. Not too long ago he was taken captive by my mother who’s also a bad pony,” I replied with a sheepish smile.

Moose looked intrigued, “Oricalcos? Interesting. Do you know how he manipulates the shadows like he does? Squirrel and I have been trying to figure out what he is and learning now that he used to be a pony originally will help narrow it down.”

Well this is craptastic, I don’t know if I should tell them how he uses his magic or how he got his abilities. I know I can trust them, but what I don’t know is what they’d do to him. Either they’ll be interested like total geeks and try to figure out a way to fix him and make him normal, or they’ll try to figure out a way to kill him because they’re hunters and that’s what they do. Ugh, I guess it’s a fifty-fifty shot, “He doesn’t manipulate the shadows, he IS the shadows. He gained his abilities after studying the works of King Sombra.”

“The former ruler of The Crystal Empire? I knew he was a powerful sorcerer, but I didn’t know he was that well in-depth with arcane science,” Moose said scratching the back of his head as if he was trying to think harder about it, “I wonder if there’s any way we could get the texts he studied, it would help us immensely in our work.”

“There’s still a crazy murderer on the loose and you’re worried about books?” Squirrel asked angrily, “We gotta forget about that thing at Jetblue Skyport and kill this dick.”

“Okay first of all, he’s my uncle. Second of all, WHAT thing at the skyport?” I said getting a little irritated at Squirrels disregard for my feelings.

Moose looked at his brother and then at me, “We were on our way to JetBlue Skyport to take care of something. There’s been reports of NLR trainees and soldiers going missing recently after they cleared debris from the entrances to the basement. Squirrel and I think there’s something down there taking them.”

“Cool,” Stardust blurted out then looked around nervously, “I mean, not cool. Ponies dying is bad and all n’ yeah.”

“Have there been any confirmed deaths?” Wind Thrasher asked.

It was just then that they both realized that she wasn’t normal and Squirrel pulled out his gun, “Hey, you’re that thing that was flying around all those places making ponies uneasy,” then he started to lower his gun, “And you talk like a normal pony, and haven’t tried to kill us yet,” as he reholstered his gun he said, “I think this is actually the first time we haven’t been attacked after seeing something uh…unique like you in The Wasteland.”

“Um…I’m glad I could be your first?” Wind Thrasher said right before turning bright red, “I didn’t mean first like first-first, I meant…”

“Yeah we get it, keep your fur, scales err whatever you’re covered in on. Y’know it’s cute that you get embarrassed like that,” Squirrel said interrupting.

“Anyway, we should get to Jetblue Skyport and take care of whatever monster is there,” Moose said as the monorail arrived at the station.

Whatever monster is ailing the skyport could interfere with what I need to do there. I quickly went over some options and scenarios in my head and said, “I could help you guys if you want. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two and be prepared if I see something like this so-called monster in The Wasteland and need to kill it.”

They looked at each other and then back at me and Squirrel said, “An extra hoof couldn’t hurt, but not all of you can come with us, it’s dangerous enough as it is.”

“Stardust and I fought off a horde of ghouls once so it could just be me and him going down there with you,” I said volunteering one of my friends once again to do something that’s probably stupid and more than likely deadly.

Stardust crossed his hooves, “No way kemosabe! I’m not going into a dark dank basement with a possibly bloodthirsty monster on the loose! I still have flashbacks from Stable 9, no offense Wind Thrasher,” Stardust said.

“None taken,” Wind Thrasher said quietly.

“Aura, you wanna go with me?” I asked.

She shook her head, “I’m in the same boat as Stardust shrimp, too many bad memories of being in a dark confined space with hungry beasts. Also I’m a little pissed you didn’t volunteer me before Stardust, but I guess it’s okay, I’ll just hound you for it later.”

I wasn’t even going to ask but Byte said something anyway, “Don’t look at me mopey bug. I’m not an idiot like you.”

“I’ll go,” Wingnut said out of the blue.

Before I could say okay Squirrel raised his hoof, “Absolutely not. No offense kid, but you’re a kid and I like sleeping at night knowing I didn’t willingly let a kid get mauled by a vicious, bloodthirsty, pony eating monster that lives in the bone-covered basement of a Skyport.”

“He’s not that much younger than I am and he’s been in some pretty tough fights with me in the past. I know he can hold his own,” I argued.

Squirrel smirked like an arrogant jackass, “That’s nice n’ all that you wanna be nice and talk him up, but there’s a good chance he could die and I don’t want that on my conscience. If the scary bird wants to come with us or if your other friend grows a pair that’s fine, but I can’t in good conscience let a kid go in there with us.”

I walked closer to him and whispered in his ear, “Listen, he’s almost as good as I am in a fight and I know he’ll be fine. I think him volunteering is his way of impressing that mean little brat standing next to him. If you let him go with us I can probably figure out a way to get him out of there before we even really get in there.”

After I backed away from his ear he stood there and thought for a minute as he looked at Wingnut and Byte, “Fine, the kid can come. Gotta train the next generation of hunters someday.”

Aura shook her head next, “Sorry, but I have to step in on this one. I’m not going to let Wingnut go down there. I’m his bodyguard and I can’t let him go into a place where he’ll get hurt.”

Wingnut looked back at her, “I don’t need you to go with me, I’m ordering you to stay here with Byte, Wind Thrasher, and Stardust.”

“You can’t order me to stay behind when you’re going into a dangerous place. I have to go with you and since I’m not going to go down there, I’m not letting you go either. It’s part of the contract.” She said.

“I think you forgot something in your contract Aura,” he said pulling it out from his saddle bags, unrolling it and pointing to a spot on it, “It says and I quote, if the contract holder finds themselves in a situation that I cannot follow or help, then as long as the contract holder is with another griffon or pony that can help keep them safe, said griffon or pony will act as temporary body guard in my place.”

“Damn, I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass one day. Fine, since Shadow is with you then she will serve in my place, because I’m not going down there.”

***

We all rode the monorail to JetBlue Skyport and thankfully it didn’t explode or come derailed and crash like Wingnut thought it would, but I had a feeling he was worried about something else now. Since we got off the train he’s been a little jumpy with sudden sounds. When we arrived at the skyport the others asked why we needed to go there in the first place and I remembered that I didn’t tell them I needed to talk to the Captain I met in Crossroads Trading Post. It was just Wingnut and I now, the others went to go find other things to occupy their time. Stardust was showing trainees how to properly shoot, Aura was watching ponies spar, and Cookie Byte was sitting in a cell after hacking an officer’s terminal and making a pornographic picture spam the screen. I didn’t know where the hell Squirrel and Moose went, something about there being pie and beer somewhere.

Looking back to Wingnut I asked “So, Wingnut, why’d you volunteer to come with me down there with Squirrel and Moose? Trying to impress Cookie Byte?”

“Eww. Gross. No, nothing like that. When she teased me for being afraid of the dark, it seriously pissed me off so I figure if I face my fear head-on with some extra danger, I can get over my fear of the dark. I know it’s dangerous and all and you’re probably gonna find a way to leave me behind, but I have to do this. If I don’t, I’ll feel useless like I did when my parents died. I couldn’t help them at all when it happened; all I could do was hide and try to cover my ears so I didn’t have to listen to their torment.”

“Sounds like as excuse to impress cookie byte to me.” I laughed

“Shadow I’m serious about this. No more jokes.”

I put my hoof on his head and ruffled up his mane, “I know how serious you are about this.”

“Then why are you teasing me?”

“Because it’s easy to.”

He looked away and pouted “That’s not funny Shadow.”

I sighed “Listen kiddo, I understand, when I was a filly I was afraid of a lot of things. I was still afraid of those same things when I grew up, and going out into The Wasteland was terrifying. There are things I’m still scared to death of out here. So listen, I don’t know what we’re gonna be up against down there. I want you to listen to Squirrel and Moose’s, every word, and no running off to explore. If there’s anything I’ve learned out here, it’s that to face your fears, you can’t just be strong, you have to be smart too.”

“Did you get that off of a box of Sugar Apple Bombs or something?”

I blinked dumfounded by his response. I shook my head and laughed “Hah hah, what? No you silly colt. It’s just something I’ve learned over time.” I slugged his shoulder playfully.

“That’s fair, I do tend to disappear in dire situations. It’s just sometimes my overwhelming curiosity takes over. There’s times when I see something and need to inspect it closer to see how it’s put together and how it works, but I think I can overcome that too. However, if I die down there, don’t tell any of the others if you go back to the town I used to live in,” he said solemnly.

“Why not?”

He gave a small smile, “I always told Honeysuckle and some of the others that I wouldn’t let any monsters get me. Honestly it really freaked me out that time I got attacked by that plant thing in the mountains, I thought I was gonna die. Thank the Goddesses that Dr. Cottage and the other doctors were able to help me. Especially 21, she was really nice, and hot.”

There it goes. The conversation turned from mature to immature at the turn of a cap, I blame Stardust for that. I muttered under my breath “Dammit Stardust.” I sighed again and shrugged “At least you said she was nice first, your improving. If only a little.”

“Ppfftt, you thought she was hot too, don’t say you didn’t,” he retorted.

I stammered a bit and looked around quick to make sure Aura wasn’t close by, “Yeah I did, but I think the zebra was better looking between you and me.”

“I liked Dr. Cottage too,” Wingnut said, throwing my brain into an alternate tangent.

He’s not saying what I think he is, is he? I didn’t turn him off to mares by accident did I? “Wingnut, you SAW Dr. Cottage right?”

“Seriously Shadow? You’re dumber than you seem sometimes, that’s not what I meant. What I meant was that he’s like me, he sees things in the medical field like I see things in machines. There’s also the fact that he’s hilarious when he tells ponies the cold hard truth,” he replied.

I’d get offended about him calling me dumb, but he had a point, plus I think a little bit of Byte is rubbing off on him too “I can’t see where you’re coming from with that. I just think he’s an ass and a little creepy.”

“Who’s an ass and a little creepy? I hope you’re not talking about me,” Squirrel said from behind us.

“No, some genius doctor we know,” I replied.

He gave a look like he didn’t expect my answer. A lot of mares must call him creepy or something, “Oh, well uh anyway, let’s get going. The longer that thing is on the loose, the more ponies will go missing.”

Moose was standing behind him holding a small beat up journal in his magic, “I actually think I know what it is. From what I was told by Commander Redwood, they moved into the skyport fairly recently and sealed off the basement on the inside of the building. Since the rate of missing soldiers and whatnot is slowly rising day-to-day I assume it’s a creature that grows in hunger when there’s food readily available. There’s also the fact that it only strikes at night which gives us two things to think about which is either it’s nocturnal or it just likes the dark. Either way I don’t think conventional weapons are gonna work on this thing, there’s a good possibility it could be a wendigo.”

“Aren’t windigos those cloud spirits that create super cold weather? I read a book in my stable about the founding of Equestria and Hearths Warming Eve.”

Moose stopped me when I said Hearths Warming Eve, “Not windigo, wendigo, with an ‘e’ not an ‘i.’A wendigo is a creature created when an evil spirit that prays on the weak-minded targets a pony suffering from hunger. What the spirit does is possess the pony and subconsciously cause them to turn cannibal. When said pony feeds on the flesh of another they start to lose their mind and eventually undergo a transformation into a monster that walks on blade like legs, has grey skin with no fur, and a big mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.”

Squirrel gave Wingnut and I strange looking guns and some flares, “Take these, it’s the only way we’ll be able to kill that thing.”

“Why can’t we use regular guns?” Wingnut asked.

“Because fire is the only way to kill a wendigo. Even if you blow it’s head off with a shotgun it’ll eventually grow back and come alive again,” Squirrel answered then explained, “Those are modified flare guns, they’re attached to small, highly-compressed liquid fuel tanks that’ll spray fuel out at whatever you’re aiming at so when you shoot the flare it’ll burst into flames.”

“That’s so fucking cool,” I said without thinking.

Moose sighed, “Sure it’s ‘cool,’ but you both gotta be careful down there. Wendigos are extremely dangerous, they can hide and watch you without making a sound. They can also decapitate you as quickly as you see them. There was a case we worked in the northwest near an old sanitorium in the woods. Eight ponies were taking shelter in an old cabin when they were hunted one by one by two wendigos. A few of them survived but they were left traumatized by the experience. It’s imperative that we stick together and don’t get separated; wendigos tend to pick off ponies one-by-one and keep them where they nest until they’re ready to eat them or until they starve to death.”

“I didn’t expect a simple monster to be so elaborate. It’s pretty terrifying that it can hunt you like that.” I said surprised.

“Oh, not us, we’re badass. You two on the other hoof are untrained amateurs and are more likely to be mauled and/or dismembered,” Squirrel said confidently, “Alright then now that we all know what to most likely expect. Shall we go?”

***

As we approached the entrance to the basement I got close to Squirrel and whispered, “I had a talk with Wingnut, I think we should let him go with us instead of making an excuse to leave him behind.”

He sighed, “Well, at least that’ll be on your conscience not mine. If he dies, save the tears for when we’re safe and that thing is dead.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“Also there’s another thing I forgot to bring up earlier,” he continued, “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you’re changing colors. How long has Aquila been getting stronger?”

“Not too long, this color thing happened after I started doing this thing with a zebra named Yaksha so I could take some of her power,” I replied.

“Dammit, that was probably the stupidest thing you could’ve done. A being like her IS her power and from what I’ve deduced…well from what Moose has deduced, she’s a bit of a trickster. If I were you, I’d stay away from her power as much as possible, she could be tricking you into slowly letting her take control,” Squirrel said.

“What’re you guys talking about?” Wingnut asked.

“Oh, nothing, just some stuff about Aquila is all. Catching them up with what’s been going on,” I replied.

We came to a hole in the wall that’d either been blown open or just eroded over the years on the side of the main terminal. Looking down the hole was immediately creepy, it just went from daytime light to absolute darkness, “How the hell are we supposed to see down there without lights? Can’t we see about turning on the lights down here first before going in?”

Moose gave me a sorrowful look, “Sorry, but no we can’t. If we were to turn on lights down here the wendigo might dash out from where we came in and attack everypony in sight out of fear. Sure, it’s a monster, but its more or less like an animal with basic instincts. Unfortunately, it’s better for us to hunt it in the dark. Just thank the Goddesses it’s daytime so there’s a good chance it might be asleep, otherwise it already knows we’re here.”

“Do you at least have a flashlight?” Wingnut asked.

“No kid, all we got is our weapons,” Squirrel replied quietly, “Having a flashlight around one of these things is like painting a giant red target of your face. That’s why I brought glowsticks.”

“Glowsticks?” I asked.

“Yeah, we crack them and scatter them around to make some light for ourselves, but not enough to irritate the wendigo,” Moose explained. He seemed like the older and smarter one out of the two. Squirrel just seems more brash and reckless, like he runs into danger without fear of the consequences.

I had to ask, “Which of you is the older brother?”

Squirrel cracked a glowstick and tossed it on the ground, “That’d be yours truly. Moose just drank his milk when he was younger and I didn’t, it’s his secret to being huge.”

“I’m not huge Squirrel, and it’s genes not milk,” Moose argued.

“Nah, you’re huge. Remember Dad always used to poke fun at you when we were growing up?”

“Dad was also an ass, and he always obsessed over that stupid bat that Mom gave him. Remember when we were little and he used to leave us in all kinds of fucked up places while he’d go on hunts? He could’ve stopped hunting and spent some quality time with us like we were a real family,” Moose said angrily.

I noticed their voices were starting to get louder so I stepped in before they got us killed, “I get this is a touchy subject, but I really like living.”

“Right,” they said in unison.

Then I thought about what Moose said, “What were you saying about a bat?”

“Oh, our father had this barbed-wire covered bat he used to use whenever he could while hunting. Our mother gave it to him when she introduced him to hunting and it was the first thing he killed a monster with,” he answered.

I thought back to when I was wandering the Midwest, I remembered a pony out there also with a barbed wire bat, I wonder if that was the same pony. “Is his name Hex?”

“You know our dad?” Squirrel asked.

I stammered a bit out of shock at how small the world really is, “Uh, yeah, sort of. I killed some ghouls with him once wandering the Twin Cities area.”

Squirrel sighed as he cracked another glowstick and threw it, “At least we know he’s alive out there somewhere. We’ve been looking for him for a while. He said he was going on a special hunt for something a while back and that was the last we heard from him.”

“I just MET my father and he’s got…”

“What?” Moose asked.

Shit I didn’t think about the secret I’m supposed to be keeping. Fast, think fast, “A mustache. A giant curly mustache, yeah that’s what he’s got.”

“You feeling okay Shadow?” Wingnut asked sounding concerned, “Cause I’m pretty sure Nightshade doesn’t have a mustache.”

Dammit, Wingnut and his big mouth, “Okay maybe not all the time but when he puts it… oh nevermind he doesn’t have facial hair. He’s just really important to ponies in The Enclave that’s all and I thought you guys might hold it against me or something.”

“Ppfftt no, you’ve apparently met OUR father. Who do you think is worse, an Enclave officer or an angry drunk with a monster killing fetish?” Squirrel replied with a wave of his hoof.

That went better than expected. I can’t believe I almost blabbed the secret that my father is The Stranger. I know Squirrel and Moose wouldn’t do anything to him if I asked them not to, but I just don’t think Dad would appreciate me spreading around that information. At least my excuse was just stupid this time and not totally weird or disgusting, looks like I’m finally growing a mind/mouth filter, “You’re probably right, he’s not that bad.”

“Didn’t you try to kill him in Whinnieapolis?” Moose asked.

Have they been following me? Wait no, of course they haven’t, the stupid radio ponies have, “No, my friend Stardust when he was under Enclave control. It’s a long story that I’d rather not get into.”

It felt like we were down here for hours already and haven’t heard or seen a thing, but I guess that’s kind of the thing with these creatures, “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“I told you earlier what it looked like,” Moose answered.

“I think she means, what signs of nesting are we looking for err whatever,” Wingnut clarified.

“Bones. Definitely bones. A wendigo will discard bodies closer to where it lives in its habitat, it’s somewhat of a nesting thing,” Squirrel said.

“Well not exactly, it happens more with female wendigos. Male wendigos will scatter discarded corpses around the area to confuse prey,” Moose explained further.

Wingnut looked puzzled, “Male and female wendigos? Can they mate and make baby wendigos?”

Squirrel smirked and chuckled a bit, “Thank the Goddesses no. If they could do that we’d have a much bigger problem on our hooves. Wendigos don’t even like living with one another unless they were siblings before they turned or a couple of some sort. That was the case with the ones we hunted down before.”

“Why’s that?” Wingnut asked “I mean, I think I understand. It seems pretty simple. You wouldn’t eat your best friend, but you’d help them kill to survive with you?” Wingnut asked.

“Exactly, most of the time it’s more of a previous bonding with wendigos that inhabit the same space. I say most of the time because there’s the small percentage of ponies who hate each other getting trapped somewhere without food, but still not eating the other no matter how insanely hungry they are. Morals can still play a big role in the turning process of a wendigo, no matter how strong the spirit manipulating them is,” Moose replied.

(crunch)

“Shadow…” Wingnut said.

“I know. What was that?” I asked.

“I-I-I think it was a bunch of ribs,” he said sounding a little shaken already.

Suddenly a screech filled the air around us, Squirrel and Moose jumped into action with their weapons ready, “Shadow you and the kid should ready yourselves,” Squirrel said quickly.

We both got our flare gun things out as the screeching stopped. I looked around frantically, trying to figure out where the sound had come from, “Do you guys see anything?”

“No, but I’m sure it’s here. Don’t make any movements that are too sudden, it’ll see that as you trying to escape, stand your ground. If it feels threatened it’ll hesitate to attack right away and give us a chance to locate it,” Moose said, no longer talking quietly.

I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye and tackled Wingnut to the ground as the hideous monster charged at him. As if in slow motion, I aimed the flare gun at it as it jumped over us and pulled the trigger. A spray of liquid came out all over the beast that splashed all around as it rolled along the ground and jumped out of sight again, “Fuck! Where did it go? Wingnut are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks Shadow,” he replied quickly as he got back to his hooves and readied aim with the flare gun.

“C’mon out motherfucker!” Squirrel shouted, “We’re primed and ready for an extra crispy monster roast!”

I didn’t see movement from anywhere around us, it was like it vanished out of thin air. Then I let my eyes wander upward and saw the wendigo crawling on the ceiling above the brothers, “Guys, above you!” I yelled as I pointed the flare gun and fired.

I was expecting a bright flash, but all that escaped the gun was a short combustive sound and the unlit flare. I watched in internal horror as it bounced off its body and fell to the ground. The next thing I knew the creature was atop me with its maw open wide in a screech. I froze and when I got the sense to move, realized that I hadn’t had the chance to reload another flare. It closed its mouth and brought its ugly face within an inch of mine and took in a deep breath as if it was smelling me; in a very creepy way. It took its mighty claw and cut a gash into my cheek like it was marking me for death before taking me away to its lair.

Before I could even think ‘why hasn’t anypony shot this thing yet?’ Wingnut blasted it with more accelerant and shot a flare its way and coincidentally MY way which didn’t make me feel all too comfortable. However, this time the wendigo’s back burst into flames, it jumped off of me and started to roll and writhe in pain.

“GOT IT!” Wingnut exclaimed.

Right as Squirrel was about to give it another dose of liquid-hot justice, it’d rolled just enough to put the fire out. Before he could shoot it, it lunged at him and slammed him against a support beam, knocking him unconscious.

“Shit Squirrel!” Moose yelled.

The monster looked back at Moose who was taking aim and then turned back to Squirrel, grabbing his barding with its mouth and jumping back into the darkness.

“Dammit!” Wingnut yelled, “Why didn’t it die? I thought fire was supposed to kill it.”

Moose looked a little panicked as he started to pace and take deep breaths, “It does kill wendigos, we just underestimated the intelligence of this one. It knew how to put out the fire, and now it’s got Squirrel. We’re just a nuisance to it now that it’s got food to play with.”

“Great, so what now?” I asked, starting to panic myself.

Wingnut spoke before Moose had a chance to answer, “Easy, we track it.”

“How are we supposed to track something we can’t see and can’t hear?” I asked.

“Hey Moose, toss me one of those glowsticks,” Wingnut said surprisingly calmly. Moose grabbed one out of his saddle bag and threw one to him, “I have some radioactive material in my saddle bags with some other stuff I was gonna use to mod some weapons. If I’m right the chemicals in this glowstick should react to it and try to excrete the radiation through the light. All I gotta do is open the top of the glowstick after I pop it and pour out some of the liquid and add some of this stuff,” He started to shake the glowstick up and down after he covered it again. The sickly green turned to a weird blueish purple, “There, now we have some temporary ultraviolet light. If that thing doesn’t heal SUPER fast we might be able to track it with this, using droplets of blood to trace its movements.”

“Wow, that’s incredible, I didn’t know you could do that with a glowstick,” Moose said surprised at what he just saw Wingnut do.

“I bet you’re glad you brought me along now huh?” Wingnut said snarkily.

“Nice one Wingnut, though,” I thought for a moment, “remember it was set on fire, If it bled at all it’s most likely been sealed by the fire,” I pointed out, trying my hardest NOT to crush him.

However, he wasn’t fazed by what I said, “When it was rolling I guarantee it got stabbed or scraped by something,” he pointed a hoof and shined the light on the ground, “See right there? There’s blood on that broken bottle; it looks like it went in pretty deep.”

“I stand corrected,” I said as I looked at the brightly glowing blood.

He walked over to where Squirrel got taken from and shined the light, finding a trail of blood, “Gotcha bitch.”

***

We followed the blood trail for a while until it eventually went dry. We hadn’t found Squirrel yet and were almost out of glowsticks to drop. What possessed ponies to build such enormous buildings with no fucking windows in the basement? Houses have windows in the basement, I think. I wasn’t really upset about the windows, it was just really dark down here and it was starting to get to me. Being in the dark with a pony-eating monster around was more unsettling than being hunted by The Sins in the light of day. To my surprise though, Wingnut was unfazed by the darkness. Usually by now he’s more paranoid than I was. Not to mention, coming up with that idea of making a UV light out of a glowstick was genius. How did he even know how to do that in the first place? He must’ve done it another time before somewhere.

“What are we gonna do when we run out of glowsticks?” I asked.

Moose sighed, “I don’t know, we don’t have any flashlights. We’ll probably have to feel our way around or start using our flares.”

It just hit me, I facehooved “Of course!” I exclaimed, “what about my Pip-Buck? We could use the light on it to see. I know it’s dangerous because it’ll make me more of a target, but we can’t aimlessly wander around in the dark.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s moronic however, we don’t really have much of a choice do we? It’ll have to work,” Moose spoke in a disapproving tone.

I turned on my Pip-Light and almost couldn’t hold back a scream as I saw a hanging corpse in front of me. It was old, the skin was tight and blackened like an old scab. It also stunk pretty bad, not enough to make me gag anymore. It seems The Wasteland has conditioned me into being resistant to disgusting things, “Does this mean we’re close to it’s nest?” I asked, disgusted.

“Hopefully,” Moose answered.

I shined my Pip-Light around and saw dozens of bodies hanging upside down from the ceiling, “The NLR really DID invade its territory, there has to be at least eighty to ninety bodies here. That’s not counting the bones everywhere that we keep stepping on. How long do these things live for?”

“Nopony really knows, could be longer than a pony’s natural lifespan,” Moose answered.

“Why are some of these bodies untouched? I thought they were pony-eaters,” Wingnut asked.

“They are, this is strange. To see a corpse this decomposed is unusual with a wendigo. Usually they eat their prey within a day or two after either natural or inflicted death. There’s been something bugging me about this one since we started this hunt, it’s in a desert. Wendigos usually stick to mountainous areas and woods,” Moose said, looking around at the scattered bodies.

“What could be different about this one?” I asked.

“I have no idea. It could be any number of things, the origin of where it turned, the radiation, contact with taint, but it’s most likely its place of origin. The appearance of wendigos in unusual places is a small percentage, but it DOES happen. I just can’t figure out its eating habits; wendigos never leave a body untouched,” Moose repeated as he pulled out a shotgun.

“I thought regular weapons didn’t work on wendigos,” Wingnut said.

Moose loaded the shotgun, “They don’t, these rounds are incendiary shells.”

“Why didn’t you use those in the first place!?” I asked angrily.

(click-click)

“Expensive shells. Squirrel doesn’t like spending as much as he did on these, but he’s not here right now,” Moose answered as he cocked the shotgun.

Wingnut smirked, “He’s gonna be pissed.”

“I’ll get him a piece of pie and a beer and he’ll be fine. He can’t stay mad when he’s got pie,” Moose said.

“I think I know how we can find Squirrel and the monster,” Wingnut said, looking at me in a way that told me I’ve been an idiot, “Shadow, you have a Pip-Buck. Couldn’t you just use your E.F.S.?”

Of course he said that, I’ve been an idiot. All this time down here searching for that fucking thing and I didn’t even think to check my readily available E.F.S. at all. I looked away sheepishly, “I honestly forgot about it, I haven’t needed it that often. There might be a problem though, there are ponies upstairs that could throw it off, it can’t determine elevation.”

“You could still look for a red line stupid,” Wingnut said condescendingly.

Wow is he a ball of fire, today just wasn’t my day. I woke up with a spitty face, I had a crankier than usual morning, I didn’t get my fucking WAFFLES, and I got dragged into this when I was supposed to be talking to the NLR Captain here. At least I wasn’t getting shot at, “Keep heading straight, the red line is that way.”

“Are you sure? They might have a raider in holding cells here or something upstairs,” Wingnut said.

Right after he said it, the wendigo jumped out of the shadows and on top of Moose, “I think she’s sure!!!”

I heard the blast from his shotgun and saw the monster weakly crawl off of him and slowly start to burn and flail. It jumped onto the ceiling and crawled away before I could spray it with accelerant, “Dammit!” it seems I’d spoken too soon. I was suddenly once again on my back using my magic to keep the monster from stabbing me through the face with one of its legs. This time I wasn’t gonna let it make me its bitch. I took the flare gun with more of my magic and shot it off in the wendigo’s eye.

It dropped off of me and writhed on the ground, doing its best to grab its head as the flare burned inside. I took the gun and sprayed the accelerant, causing its whole body to burst into flames. It screamed and flailed on the ground trying to put it out like it did before, until finally it stopped. Either the flare cooked its brain enough to temporarily disable it and let the flames do their work, or it succumbed to the flames themselves, either way it was dead.

“Is it dead?” Wingnut asked as he stared at the burning corpse with a hoof over his nose.

I was about to answer with an ‘I’m pretty sure’, but Moose beat me to the punch, “Yeah, it’s dead. It’ll burn until the whole body is just ash. You did good Shadow, you both did. Hey, kid, that trick with the glowstick was absolutely genius, and I’m glad you were able to hold your own and not panic.”

I expected Wingnut to light up and get excited like he always did with praise, but he just said, “Thanks n’ all, but Shadow did most of the work between the two of us.”

Modesty? What’s going on with this kid today? I checked my E.F.S. again for signs of life to see if we could find Squirrel. Unfortunately there were too many lines to determine if he was anywhere around, or even alive, “We should go deeper into the nest area and see if we can find Squirrel, I’m not picking up anything clear on my E.F.S. right now,” then I saw a red line show up and disappear within a few seconds, “Huh, weird…”

“What’s weird?” Moose asked.

“Oh, nothing. I think it was just a minor glitch. Picked up a red line for a second on my E.F.S., but it’s gone now.”

Moose still looked worried, “Are you absolutely sure there’s no way to hide from that thing?”

“Pretty sure. I’ve never had a problem in the past with it not detecting ponies or Wasteland creatures,” I replied trying to reassure him.

“Listen, no offense to you or anything, but I’m gonna stay prepared. There’s still a chance that there’s at least one more down here with us. If we get caught off guard we’ll most definitely die because of it,” Moose said, starting to get me to feel paranoid.

I sighed, “Lead the way. Squirrel isn’t going to find himself.” I think I could’ve worded that a bit differently.

I shined my Pip-Light in front of me again and began to walk closer to where I thought the epicenter of the bodies were. As I walked I looked around a little with my light, I could see that the basement area used to be where all the luggage was sorted. There were broken conveyors in a few places hanging from small entry holes in the wall, “Do you guys think those conveyors lead upstairs?”

“Of course they lead upstairs, this is a skyport. The basement is where all the luggage was sorted for passengers. Those holes in the wall probably go out to the ticket counters up there,” Moose answered.

I thought about his answer for a minute and how close the nest was to that area, “I don’t think the wendigo was going out through the way we came in to hunt for victims. I think it was climbing up there and going through the conveyor entrances and bringing them down that way.”

“So? Why does it matter?” Wingnut asked.

“It doesn’t, I just thought…” then I was interrupted by Moose.

“What if it does? There are small gaps between the input area at the ticket counters and the exit we can see down here, enough for large suitcases to fit in. You said earlier that your E.F.S. picked up an enemy and then it disappeared right?”

“Yeah, but that never happens. Which is why I’m pretty sure it was just a glitch,” I replied.

“You’re not getting it, there could be more wendigos down here.”

I scoffed, “YOU said they rarely associate with each other unless they turned together. I doubt there would be more than one down here.”

“He also said they were strange because of the location and the rotting corpses,” Wingnut said.

Maybe I should just let Wingnut lead our friends instead of me, I’ve never seen this side of him before, why did it start coming out now? I guess some of Mature Stardust also rubbed off on him. He was right, Moose DID say something about them being weird somehow. Why couldn’t these things just be textbook monsters with a weakness to regular bullets? Fire is such a complex thing to kill something when there are so many better options, like guns, “If there were more, we would’ve been attacked by now because of my Pip-Light creating a beacon that attracts death.”

“Not necessarily,” Moose said. Goddesses Moose is starting to get a little annoying, I’m beginning to see why he’s the younger brother now. “If this is a pack, which is, by far, a strange phenomenon, we signed our death warrants when we came down here. Since they haven’t attacked yet, that means they’re biding their time.”

This paranoia bullshit is getting to be too much, “For what? For us to start screaming out ‘Come eat us’ because we’re too lost in the dark? They’re monsters with only one thing on their minds, if there were more we would’ve seen them by now or would’ve been attacked. Just because I saw a red mark on my E.F.S. doesn’t mean there was an enemy down here, it could’ve been something up there out in The Wasteland. Maybe it was a Wasteland creature that one of the NLR snipers took out right when I saw it pop up.”

Then suddenly I heard from behind me, “Maybe it was a hanging dead guy.”

“AAAHHHH! Dammit Squirrel! You fucking jackass!” I yelled before taking a breath to calm down.

“Thanks.”

“Least you’re okay Squirrel” I said after recovering from the heart attack he gave me

“I’ll be better when the blood isn’t rushing to my head hanging upside down like this,” he said as he tried to wiggle loose.

“You didn’t see any other wendigos besides the one that put you here did you?” Moose asked.

“Oh, sure, be a dick. No, I didn’t see any more of those mangle-faced freaks besides the one,” Squirrel replied sarcastically, “Would you please cut me down?”

Moose grabbed a knife and cut Squirrel down from where he was hanging and said, “How in the hell did you let yourself get captured by that thing? You’re losing your touch, last time it was that siphon and now this?”

Squirrel turned on his brother, “Hey she was hot, how was I supposed to know she was crazy?”

“How crazy?” I asked out of random curiosity.

“Not the fun kind,” Squirrel said with a shake of his head, “She was the fucked up twisted kind of crazy, y’know like the boiling rabbits kind.”

Boiling rabbits? That’s a new one, “Either you’re a male whore, or you’re just a regular moron.”

“I’m proud to say that I’m both,” he replied.

“What about the missing soldiers?” Wingnut asked.

“Oh they’re long gone,” Squirrel replied quickly and awkwardly.

“What happened?” I asked, hoping it was something like they ran away or just died peacefully.

Squirrel was about to speak but Moose stopped him, “You probably don’t want to know. Most of the time wendigos will eat their prey alive if they haven’t died beforehoof. I think its best we just get out of here.”

“What if there really are more of them?” I asked.

Moose sighed and ran his hoof through his mane, “I really don’t know. We’re not equipped to deal with more than one of those things. Usually the flare ignition guns are enough to use against wendigos, but when there’s a few of them to deal with, things get tough in the reloading department.”

Some hunter HE is, “We can’t leave the basement flooded with things that take ponies in the middle of the night to eat them. We have to do something to finish the job and make sure everypony here is safe.”

“Listen short-stack, I like living, like REALLY like it. Staying down here with improper weapons to use against supernatural creatures makes it kinda hard to live because of the whole…I dunno…BEING DEAD thing,” Squirrel said anxiously.

“I’ve survived worse than a stupid monster like these things,” I retorted.

I could hear Wingnut snort out a tiny snicker revealing his immature side again, I can never figure that colt out “That’s just because you’re lucky and don’t forget all the times you’ve almost died from certain situations but had the gracious help of friends to save you.”

“Ass,” I said, getting annoyed.

He sat and put his hooves up in defense, “Hey, I’m just saying that statistically, you’re luckier than others.”

“Shadow, what do you expect us to do without the proper equipment?” Moose asked.

“I dunno, I’m not a professional weird-stuff hunter like you guys. All I do is fight the forces of evil with my mighty horn and many guns. It’s also not in my nature to leave something unfinished. Y’know, unless it’s a really crappy book or a bad meal,” I replied.

“What if we blow up the basement?” Wingnut asked.

Both brothers looked surprised by his suggestion, as if they suddenly realized that they brought a young pony with them who has simple thoughts of how to get rid of something that can only be killed by fire. Although, blowing up the basement would require us having the means to do so at the moment, which we don’t, “Wingnut, we don’t have explosives.”

“I didn’t mean actually blow it up; more like set the entire basement on fire. We could spray the accelerant in the guns everywhere behind us as we head back toward the exit and light it when we go out,” Wingnut clarified.

“Have you seen the size of these guns kid?” Squirrel asked arrogantly, “The liquid in these things is compressed, but not enough to cover the entire surface area of this place. There’s also the added fact that there’s high ceilings in here because of the basements former purpose. The flames wouldn’t reach high enough to get to the wendigos if they crawl up to the ceiling.”

“That’s true and all, but what if we used gas?” Wingnut replied.

“What kind of gas? If this turns out to be a fart joke I’m gonna kick your ass,” I said, trying to make sure Wingnut was serious about what he was saying.

Wingnut looked lost in thought for a moment, “This is a basement, where there’s a basement, there’s a furnace to heat the whole place. If it heats through natural gas we could just break the valve and let it leak down here for about an hour and have some idiot come down here and light a match.”

This is one of the few reasons I didn’t like him hanging around with Byte; he comes up with demented plans to take care of something with the added factor of highly potential death to a stranger of whom he assumes is stupid, “That’s a half-good idea, but why does somepony have to come down here to light a match? Couldn’t we just as easily shoot a flare in here to ignite it? Also wouldn’t a large amount of a flammable gas in an enclosed space like this one cause a massive explosion?”

“Oh, right,” he replied as he scratched his head, “I forgot about it possibly exploding. Course that’s what flammable gasses usually do instead of igniting like a liquid would.”

He’s a genius, but right now he’s making himself look like a total moron, “Hey Moose, is there any way to scan for or lure wendigos?”

“Not really no. Your Pip-Buck is our best bet right now of detecting them, and it looks like they can hide from it.”

It was still nagging at me that we haven’t been attacked yet. Even if there more wendigos, us sitting here like this would still warrant an attack. I don’t think mostly mindless monsters bide their time for that long before pouncing on their prey, “Fine then, we’ll leave, but we need to tell the NLR that they need to seal off the basement. If we can get them to do that, maybe you guys can come back here with flamethrowers and finish the job.”

Squirrel looked at me like I was still just that naïve filly that ran out of her stable looking for answers to her multiple-choice question life, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a flamethrower in The Wasteland in just not so crappy condition?”

“No.”

“It’s basically like trying to rip that Pip-Buck off of your leg without any bone saws or magic keys. If you CAN find one, it’s usually a piece of shit and will burn you more than the thing you’re trying to kill. There’s a group of ponies out there with a horde of flamethrowers, but they fixed and maintain theirs. So I say we just get steppin’ and say fuck this place after we get them to seal it off. Maybe wendigos can starve to death too and we just never knew it,” he continued.

“Fine, but I just want it noted that I’m not happy about this. If any more ponies die, then it’s your fault,” I said.

We all started heading back toward the hole in the wall we entered through, following the fading glow sticks. As we walked Squirrel said, “I’m starting to agree with Shadow. I feel like we’re failing if we don’t try to find out if there’s more Wendigo’s down here.”

Moose rolled his eyes, “I know, but we can’t risk it. There’ something strange about these Wendigos. The one we killed was smarter than others we’ve ran into in the past and they’re living in a different climate too. I want to look through my books to see if there’s anything in the lore about this.”

“I’ll be glad to finally be out of this basement,” I said nonchalantly, “I don’t like wandering around in the dark.”

We were almost to the exit when something screamed behind us in the darkest part of the basement. We all turned quickly, Squirrel saying, “Perfect, now it’s on our trail.”

“We’re almost out of here, maybe we should run for it,” Wingnut said backing up slowly.

“No chance, those things are fast. If we run it’ll get at least one of us before we make it back to the surface,” Moose replied.

“If we could just see it then maybe we’d be able to take care of it,” Squirrel said, looking around as if he could see it creeping though the darkness.

“See in the dark…fuck I’m a dumb ass,” I said to myself.

“What do you mean?” Moose asked.

Digging in my saddle bags I pulled out the goggles and mask Silver gave me, “I have goggles that make it so I can see in the dark. How could I forget about it!?”

Slipping the goggles and mask on I activated the gem on the side and right away the dark areas of the room came into a hazy focus. It only took me a second to see the Wendigo slowly stalking closer to us. It was only a few feet away.

“Shadow do you see it?” Moose asked.

“We have to run!” I said backing up more.

“That won’t help, it’s too fast…” Squirrel started to say.

“I’ll keep it back, you all just need to run, I can teleport out when you’re far enough away! Now RUN!” I said pulling out my shotgun and firing it toward the Wendigo right as it tried to jump on Wingnut.

I blasted the nasty thing right out of the air, sending it flying back into the darkness. Squirrel, Moose, and Wingnut all jumped back as I fired, Squirrel saying, “Holy shit, that was close. Shadow we can’t just leave you down here we can torch that thing while it’s down!”

I watched as the Wendigo jumped back up and ran for the wall and started to run toward the ceiling, “It’s too fast and it’s hunting us, just run! I’ll be fine!”

“She’s right, let’s go,” Moose said, picking up Wingnut in his magic and running down the hall, Squirrel not far behind. As they ran I fired at it again as it tried to grab Squirrel on his way out.

The Wendigo flipped around in midair and dodged the shot. When it landed it ran toward me. I fired again jumping to one side as it barreled passed me. It twisted around and rushed me again, screeching it’s ear piercing scream. I winced at the loud noise, but didn’t let it distract me. I fired another shot at it dodging another attack, but managing to hit it in the side as it passed by. The shot threw the creature back into the darkness again. It got up and hissed at me slowly stalking around me as if it thought I couldn’t see it in the dark. Maybe this thing wasn’t as smart as Moose thought, or maybe it was just trying to trick me.

I pulled out the flare gun again and waited for it to get closer. The fuel was low, but if I got a lucky shot I might be able to either hurt it or distract it long enough for me to teleport out of this place. It took a few more steps closer then crouched, readying itself for a leap. This was my chance, I lifted the flare gun ready to fire, when the damned thing ran behind a pillar. I started to hear it climbing so it could get to the ceiling. It knew I couldn’t fire the flare gun up unless I wanted to risk getting burned along with the monster. So it was smart, I took my chance to summon my magic and start to ready my teleportation spell.

Right when I saw it come around the pillar and make its way over me, I tried to activate the spell. At the same time the Wendigo screeched again, I winced and lost my hold on the spell. I swore then tried again, but the Wendigo jumped down toward me screeching again, making me lose hold on my magic yet again. I jumped back just in time to keep from losing my head. The second it hit the ground it lunged at me, bulling me over. Again I tried to call on my teleportation spell, but the nasty thing put its face close to mine and screamed. Its nasty breath blew its pungent scent into my nostrils, once again making me lose hold on the spell. Luckily, I didn’t lose hold of my flare gun or my shotgun. I brought both up to fire, but the thing jumped off me again hissing and backing into the shadows.

“Well if I can’t teleport out of here, then let’s try something different,” I ran for the exit, the Wendigo screaming again and following. As I got closer to the hole in the wall I aimed the flare gun at the ground and used the last of the fuel to cover the floor. Jumping over it and twisting around in the air I fired the flare at the spot I covered igniting the liquid in a second, right as I reached the other side. The Wendigo screeched and stopped on the other side of the flames.

It looked at me through the fire and hissed. I snickered and stuck my tongue out at it, “I’d like to see you catch me now bitch.”

Still laughing as the wendigo screeched again and backed away, I started to walk back toward the stairs that led up to the skyport. I was half-way down the hallway when I saw my friends waiting for me at the end. They looked relieved to see me. Moose looked at me especially relieved and said, “Thank the Goddesses, I thought it got to you before you could get out.”

“It almost did,” I said as I got closer to them, “Good thing I had a backup plan when I couldn’t get out.”

I heard a screech from the wendigo again, but ignored it. Then I saw my friends’ eyes go wide as Wingnut yelled, “Shadow!”

I turned just in time to see the Wendigo jumping though the flames, screaming as its body was singed by the heat, but the fire wasn’t big enough to kill it. It landed then charged at me. I lifted my shotgun again, but the wendigo smacked it to one side then slammed into me. I heard my friends running up to try to help me, but what could they do? They couldn’t use the flare gun to stop it, not unless they wanted to risk killing me too.

The Wendigo lifted one of its blade arms readying itself to impale me. Before it could, a raging inferno slammed into the creature. It screamed in pain as the fire covered its body and it jumped off me. It tried to run away, but an older unicorn in a leather jacket jumped over me with a large weapon aimed at it and fired. A jet of fire blasted into the Wendigo again, it fell to the ground whimpering in pain for a moment before finally letting out a last gasp and dying.

The unicorn turned around then and chuckled to himself before saying, “Well shit, what the fuck was so hard about that, that you two numb nuts couldn’t do it? I thought I showed both of you two dipshits how to take down a Wendigo when you were still colts. You goin’ rusty on me or just tryin’ to get killed on purpose. I mean DAMN, what’s so hard about bringing a fucking flamethrower or learning a fire spell?”

Hex looked even more smug than he had when I helped him fight the ghouls back near the Twin Cities. I got back to my hooves and shivered a little after the attack, “Damn Hex, talk about good timing.”

He looked at me for a moment like he was confused, then he grinned with his jackass smile, “Shadow Star…right? Didn’t think I’d find you down here with my sons, thought you were helping out The Kingdom or something.”

Squirrel and Moose both came up next to me, Wingnut staying behind as Squirrel said, “Dad? Where the hell have you been? We haven’t seen you in a year. We thought you died.”

“I’ve been hunting for the Demon Slayer like I told you two tit-suckers I was. What else would I be doing? Tracked it all the way to Whinnieapolis, but it slipped away again. That damned Mysterious Pony is a fuckin’ nightmare to track down!” Hex said.

Moose looked irritated with the older unicorn, “Then why are you back here? Did you finally give up on trying to find it?”

He looked over at me and grinned, “Nah, I heard something about him being spotted around New Pegasus and figured I’d also see if you two asshats were still hanging around this dump.”

“Well I’m glad you came by when you did,” I said.

“I heard from the Commander here that my shithead sons were taking care of some creature for the NLR down here so thought I’d make sure they weren’t fucking it up, and guess what…they were. It’s just so hard to create competent offspring in these times we live in.”

Moose walked back up the hallway, “Whatever, I’m gonna go let the Commander know we took care of the Wendigo’s.”

I watched him go then asked, “What’s his problem?”

“He doesn’t care to be around our dad,” Squirrel said, “Hey Pops, what’re you gonna do now that you’re back?”

“From the looks of it I’ll have to help you two learn how to hunt again, I can’t believe that you two left this little gal back there to fend for herself.”

“It was her idea not ours,” he argued.

Wingnut walked closer to Hex, “Hey that’s a cool jacket, where’d you get it?”

Hex looked down at him, “Took it off somepony who pissed me off at a bar in Manehattan.”

“Cool!” Wingnut said, his eyes going big, “So you taught Squirrel and Moose how to be hunters? Can you teach me!?”

His grin got even bigger, “I’m sure I could, I always say there needs to be more hunters in The Wasteland.”

Picking Wingnut up in my magic I pulled him away from Hex, “No way, becoming a hunter is the last thing you need to do.”

“Awww but Shadow, he’s so cool, just look at him,” Wingnut complained.

“He’s also a dick,” Squirrel said looking at his father.

Hex just laughed, “Yup it’s true I am a dick and proud of it. Anyway, I have a question now that I’ve run into you again Shadow.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“When I met you before something seemed off about you, now that I’m seeing you again I’m sure I’m right. You got something living inside you, dontcha?” he asked.

“Oh, what gave it away? Do I give off an evil presence or was it my stunning new look?” I mocked. Honestly, I was a little worried he was able to pick up on that so easily.

“Both, I live to kill things that go bump in the night, or the day, doesn’t matter,” he replied with a grin, “My dear you definitely aren’t normal, the question is what are you?”

Squirrel put a hoof on Hex’s shoulder, “Dad, back off. She’s cool, Shadow’s been making a name for herself around here as of late. She’s not a danger to anypony.”

He started to laugh again, “Oh she’s dangerous that’s for sure, but how dangerous?”

I rolled my eyes, “Thanks again for the quick save Hex, but I’m not here to be interrogated by you. Come on Wingnut, let’s go.”

“Um…okay Shadow, but are you sure you’re okay? You did just almost get killed by that Wendigo,” he asked as we walked past Hex and Squirrel.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I replied.

Hex chuckled again, “You remind me of another pony I met a few months back. She had quite the attitude like you do.”

Something mom said to me yesterday came back to me. She said something about a pony named Hex being the one who messed with her memories. Turing back toward him I asked, “What was her name?”

He smiled wider, “Spell or something like that, she lived in some run-down shack near that town with the big ass wall. Why? Do you know her?”

“So what if I do, what I want to know is what you did to her?” I asked, as I slowly drew Dream Walker.

“Woah there Shadow, calm down,” Squirrel said putting a hoof up, “You really don’t want to be drawing a weapon around my Pop’s.”

“Quiet, I believe the young lady wants an answer to her question,” Hex said tossing the flamethrower aside and pulling his bat off his back, “I’m gonna warn you now kid. If you want answers, you shouldn’t start by pulling out your weapon. All that does is tell me that you want a fight and that piss me the FUCK off.”

“I want to know what you did to my mom. She’s forgotten almost everything about her past and had those memories replaced with false ones. The only thing she remembers is running into you.”

“Ah yes, well you see I ran into her because I heard a rumor that she knew where I could find the Mysterious Pony. All I wanted to know is where he was and how I could get his gun. Funny thing is that when I started to question her about him, she got very defensive. So I did what anypony would do in that situation, I threatened her. She didn’t like that one bit and she attacked me. We got into a fight, one that I must say, almost led to her killing me. I was able to fend her off in the end though. I told her that I wanted to know everything she knew about that pony and the Demon Slayer. Do you know what she tried to do to me?” Hex said slowly walking closer to me, his bat swinging back and forth slowly.

“I’m sure she tried to attack you again, that sounds like something she’d do,” I said taking a few steps back.

“Oh she did more than that, she tried to cast a powerful memory spell on me. I think she wanted to try to make me forget everything I knew about the Mysterious Pony and his gun. Luckily for me, I have wards around myself to stop spells like that from working. When that failed I knew I wasn’t gonna get what I wanted out of her and since I had a small bit of respect for how good of a fight she put up I didn’t wanna kill her, so I used this,” he pulled out a small stone from his saddle bags. It was shaped like an egg with a green glow around it, part of the glow looked like an eye, with three triangles over it and a couple swirls under that.

“What the hell is that thing,” Squirrel asked.

Still looking at me Hex said, “This is a very old relic that took me a few years to find. It’s called The Memory Stone, it used to belong to a unicorn called Clover The Clever. I figured that pony meant a lot to her so I wanted to take away the memories of that pony as a way to punish her for her bad attitude. I’ll admit that I acted quickly so the spell this stone cast wasn’t up to par to what it can normally do. Who would’ve thought that the thing she cared about most was her daughter?”

My eyes went wide and I pointed Dream Walker right at his head, “Give me the stone.”

“Why should I do that huh?” Hex asked.

“Because of what you did, my mom has gone crazy. She thinks I’m dead and she’s doing a lot of bad things because of it. I need to fix her memory, if that thing broke her memory, then I’m sure it can fix it,” I yelled.

“Shadow calm down,” Wingnut said trying to pull me back.

Hex however just laughed, “Sorry kid, it doesn’t work like that. True, The Memory Stone is the only thing that could fix her memory…if you’d have run into me a few days after I used it, but sadly it’s too late.”

I lowered Dream Walker a little, my eyes going wide, “What do you mean?”

He put the stone back into his Saddle Bags, “I mean that after three days, the memory loss can’t be fixed, not even with this. No matter what you do, she’ll never get back the memories she lost. As for the ones that replaced the old ones, that wasn’t from the stone. Either her mind filled in the blanks with things she did remember, or a spell of hers did it.”

“What the fuck dad? You took away somepony’s memories just because she pissed you off?” Squirrel asked, sounding disgusted with Hex.

Hex just shrugged, “Hey at least I didn’t kill her.”

“You…motherfucker!” I yelled lifting Dream Walker again, “I’ll kill you!”

Before I could fire, Hex flipped his bat around and slammed Dream Walker out of my magic hold, then kicked me in the chest, knocking me to the ground, then pointed end of his bat at my face. His grin was gone and he looked almost angry, “Listen here kid, I did what I did a while ago and I’m sorry that your mom forgot you, but if she would’ve just told me what I wanted to know instead of attacking me, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Leave her alone!” Wingnut yelled.

Without even looking at the colt Hex said, “Stay out of this kid,” then he continued, “Trying to kill me will only lead to you dying. Now I suggest you forget all about what happened to you mom. If she’s fucked up because of losing the memories of you then that has nothing to do with me. It just means she’s always been like this and you were the only thing she was living for. I know that the spell didn’t take everything away from her so if you really want to save her, then the only thing you can do is make her believe that you’re her daughter. Find a way to show her that you are who you say you are and if that doesn’t work then kill her. Because no matter what you do, she won’t get back the memories she lost. It’s better to put her out of her misery. When you try to fix something that’s broken with glue, there’s always little cracks left over.”

“She was waiting for me to get out of my stable so I could help her with her mission. She waited for eight years and only a few months before I was finally old enough to leave, you fucked it all up. For what, so you could get some stupid revolver? You’re a fucking monster!” I yelled. I was so angry, so hurt by what he said. I could feel the power of Aquila building inside me, wanting nothing more than to turn this grinning asshole into a burnt husk. I didn’t let it out though, I had no idea what would happen if I did. Then I remembered that while I was using Aquila’s power before I was able to force a memory of mom’s back and that made me have a little hope as I said, “You’re wrong.”

“Wrong about what?” he asked.

“I ran into her yesterday and I was able to cast a memory recovery spell on her for just a moment and she did remember one thing that happened in our stable. Either that rock you have isn’t the real thing…or you’re lying.”

“That’s not possible, no power on Equis can bring back memories taken by The Memory Stone,” he said sounding more irritated than before, “You can try fooling yourself if you want, either way I’m finished here.”

He put the bat away then picked up his flamethrower, as he did Squirrel asked, “Where do you think you’re going dad?”

“Heading to Crossroads Trading Post, I still have a gun to fi…” Hex stopped and looked back at me, “Wait a minute, a second ago you said something about me trying to get a revolver…how did you know the Demon Slayer’s a revolver?”

Getting back to my hooves I looked at him with anger written on my face, “Get out of here Hex, because if you don’t I swear to Luna that I’ll bake you like a rotting corpse on the desert floor.”

He pulled the bat off his back again, “Damn, here I thought I was finished, but I guess I was wrong. Should’ve known that if your little mommy dearest knew about that gun and the stallion who has it, that you would too. Tell me what you know before I’m forced to show you what I did to her after I took her memory away.”

“Dad, you should go, trust me. Now’s not a good time to be pissing her off,” Squirrel said pulling out his own pistol, “I don’t want to do this, but I’m not gonna watch as you try to hurt a friend of mine.”

“Shut up Squirrel, you know you can’t do anything to stop me. Now tell me Shadow…Star, where’s that gun?” he said walking back toward me again, “If you know about it, and your mother, I’m sure your daddy isn’t far behind. Huh, assuming you weren’t immaculately conceived because that would be a load of mule shit. I’m sure good old Pops knows about it doesn’t he?”

I could feel her power building again and it was getting harder to push it down, “If you couldn’t get the information about it out of my mom, then you won’t get it out of me either!”

He stopped, “Oh, now what’s this I see? Ah there is something lurking deep inside you, I can see it in your eyes. Something angry lives inside you doesn’t it? Something that wants control. Let me see it Shadow Star, let me see that darkness that wants to rip me apart so that I can do my job and kill it! Then once that’s done I’ll get the information I need from you!”

Wingnut was pulling on one of my forelegs saying, “Shadow calm down, if you don’t you’re going to do something bad again. You don’t want that do you?”

“I…want him dead Wingnut! Everything that’s happened to my mom is because of him. All over that stupid gun!”

Hex was laughing now, “Yeah, tell me how much you hate me Shadow, because I really want to see that thing that’s living inside of you. Show me what you really are, hahahaha.”

If he wanted to see what Aquila really was, then fine. He was about to be in for a big fucking surprise. Right as Hex lifted his bat higher and I was about to let the power inside me out, a shot rang out from Ol’ Festus. A bullet flew through one of Hex’s legs making him lose his magical hold on his bat. He fell to the floor looking shocked for a moment.

“The fuck!? You little shit stain!” Hex said as he looked down at his bleeding leg.

Wingnut put a hoof on my head and made me look down at him pressing his forehead against mine, ignoring Hex, “Shadow, calm down and listen to me. Killing him wont fix what happened to her. He’s trying to get into your head so you’ll let Aquila out, don’t give that to him. You don’t want another incident like Mill City Tower do you?”

I felt my heart rate drop, the power and anger inside of me fading away, “No…I don’t want that to happen to me again.”

Squirrel moved over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder, “The kid’s right, my dad’s not worth it. He’s just a has-been.”

“I’ll show you a has-been,” Hex said getting back up and picking up his bat, “I want to know where I can find that gun and what’s inside of her…”

He didn’t get a chance to say anymore, because a moment later Moose grabbed Hex and slammed him into the wall of the tunnel. Using his own magic he ripped the Bat away from his father and tossed it down the tunnel, “Get out of here! We don’t need you here and as for this…” he ripped Hex’s saddle bags away then pulled out The Memory Stone, “I think something like this shouldn’t be in the hooves of a pony like you. Get out of here before I tell the NLR what you just tried to do to a pony they have a lot of respect for.”

To my shock, Hex just laughed, “Fine have it your way, I always knew you two didn’t have the balls to be real hunters. If you did, you’d have killed that mare when you first met her. She’s a demon, and a nasty one at that.”

Moose picked his father up and threw him down the tunnel after his bat, “The only demon here is you. You have no idea what you’re talking about or what’s inside Shadow. Not every supernatural thing in The Wasteland is evil, if you took the time to learn more about what you hunted instead of killing them first, you’d know that.”

Hex picked himself up then picked up the bat and put it back on his back. He held his wounded leg off the floor then sighed, “Or maybe I just know more than you, but that’s fine. If you wanna learn the hard way, I won’t stop ya. I can still get what I want in other ways.”

“I’m sure you can,” Squirrel said walking over to stand next to his brother, “But I suggest you stay away from us and our friends. If we see you again, you won’t get off so lucky.”

Hex looked over at me and grinned, “Should’ve let the Wendigo eat you I guess. Oh well, at least this was an interesting day. I’ll see you again SSShadow SSStar, oh and thank you kid for that name you said to Shadow. Aquila huh, now I wonder what on Equis Aquila is?” and before any of us could do anything, Hex vanished with a flash of light.

The brothers looked back at me and Moose asked, “You okay Shadow?”

“I am now,” I said then pointed at the saddle bags that Moose was still holding, “That stone he had, was he telling the truth about what it can do?”

Moose looked down at the memory stone, “I’m not sure, but I do have a few books that were written by Clover the Clever, I’ll see what I can learn about this thing. I know I’ve seen a drawing of it in at least in one of the books or scroll, Clover The Clever is pretty ancient.”

“Leave it up to my brother, he’ll figure out something,” Squirrel said walking over and patting the top of my head, “Sorry our dad is such a dick.”

“It’s fine, at least I had Wingnut here to keep me calm.”

“I’m sorry I said Aquila’s name though, now Hex is gonna try to figure out what she is,” Wingnut said looking ashamed.

I ruffled his mane, “He can look all he wants, but I don’t think he’s gonna find much. Even if he does, he can’t do anything about her.”

He smiled a little, “Okay, can we get out of here now? That thing stinks.”

Squirrel, Moose, and myself all laughed as I said, “Yeah, good idea. Let’s go.”

As we walked out of the tunnel I thought to myself that there had to still be a way to fix Mom. I was able to make her remember one thing. That was because I was using Aquila’s power at the time. Hex said no power on Equis could make her remember. It’s a good thing that I had a power that wasn’t of our world, Aquila’s power was something more. If I worked at it, I’m sure I can make her remember me. If not, then the only thing left was to convince her that I was her Little Star…

***

“So, let me get this straight, that unicorn we saw in the Midwest was Squirrel and Moose’s dad? He was also the one who made your mom forget about you?” Wind Thrasher asked.

I’d just gotten done explaining what happened with the rest of my friends as we waited in the NLR Commander’s office. He was still talking to Squirrel and Moose just outside about the Wendigos. Aura was sitting in one corner telling Wingnut how angry she was that he’d gotten into a situation like he did. Stardust was still in shock that an old stone could screw with a mare’s head so much, and Wind Thrasher was asking me all the questions.

“Yeah, Moose thinks there might be more to the stone than Hex said. He’s gonna look into it more and let me know if the effects can be reversed,” I replied.

“Talking about your family gives me a headache,” Stardust said, “Next thing you know, we’re gonna find out that you have a sibling that rules The Crystal Empire and wants you dead. Fuck your family and everything they stand for.”

“If I didn’t have to go to Los Alicorn to help Mr. Tops, I’d just say forget about my whole family, but I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with her no matter what,” I said.

Aura looked over at us, “For right now this is what we’re gonna do. The Celebration at Crimson Canyon starts tomorrow and that’s all that matters right now. When it comes to Mr. Tops I say we just do the job and hope we don’t run into your mom, The Sins, or the damned Enclave while we’re there. Hell, I hope we don’t see The Steel Rangers there either, because fuck all of it.”

I smiled a little, “Yeah, I agree. Let’s finish up here then get going.”

“Damn, that didn’t take much convincing,” Aura said.

“Because, you’re right Aura,” I said smiling.

Wind Thrasher yawned a little, “I just hope this doesn’t take too long.”

Stardust yawned too, “I agree.”

The door to the office opened and an earth pony stallion walked in, “Thank you for waiting, I’m Commander Redwood and I lead the New Pegasus branch of the New Luna Republic. How can I help you all today?”

I shrugged, “Honestly I’m not sure, your captain at Crossroads Trading Post said I should stop by and talk to you. I’m Shadow Star, The Courier. I’m sure you’ve heard about me on the radio.”

He walked around to sit at his desk, “Oh that’s right, she sent me a report about what happened yesterday, and said you might be stopping by. I believe she wanted me to see about you joining us. Although from other reports I’ve gotten about you I’m sure I won’t be able to convince you, even though I’m sure you’d make a good addition to the ranks.”

“Yeah, you’ve got that right, so if that’s all that she wanted me to meet you for then I should get going. We need to get to Crimson Canyon,” I said getting up.

“Crimson Canyon huh, well I might not be able to convince you to join the NLR, but there could be something you might be able to help me with if you’re heading to Crimson Canyon,” he said as if he didn’t want me to leave yet, “Do you know a griffon named Apollo?”

Aura looked at Commander Redwood, “Sure we do, he’s my father. Why?”

The Commander looked back at her, “Ah, well you see he’s been working with us as of late to help gather intel on The Romans, but lately we haven’t gotten any reports from him. If you’re heading that way would you be able to get a message to him letting him know we need the latest intel he’s been able to gather?”

Aura snickered a little, “He’s probably been busy helping set up for the Rebirth Celebration. I’m sure when it’s all over with he’ll be able to help you out.”

“I thought as much too, we know all about the Celebration, but the problem is it’s been three weeks since we last heard from him. Even stranger is that griffons that I know don’t work for The Red Talons have been dropping in and leaving messages for him with one of my Lieutenants. I don’t like it so I want him to come here and explain what’s going on. We have a contract with The Red Talons, not other groups,” Commander Redwood said.

“What other groups?” I asked.

“I’m not sure who they work for, but they aren’t a Talon group I know, so can you talk to him for me?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” I said confused, “Was there anything else or was that all?”

Byte looked over at us saying, “This is all fun and all, but can we go, I don’t like being here.”

The Commander chuckled a little, “No, not today at least, maybe one day soon I’ll have something for you soon though Shadow. I’ve been hearing things about a pony that says he used to work for Equestrian Express who’s been making trouble north of here. I don’t have a lot of intel yet, but seeing how you are The Equestrian Express now, I might have you look into it. Even though you don’t work for us, that doesn’t mean I can’t hire you for a job right?”

“I know Box Tape said he had a courier that hadn’t returned from a job when I first started working for him. Maybe this is the same pony, if you get more information just let me know or let Squirrel and Moose know, they’ll get the message to me. At the very least I’d like to meet this pony so I can tell him what happened with Box Tape, even if somepony is saying he’s causing trouble. Hell, there are ponies around here who think that I make trouble,” I replied.

Wingnut started to laugh, “That’s because you do Shadow.”

“Shut up,” I said doing my best to ignore him.

Commander Redwood smiled, “I’ll see what I can dig up. Thanks again for meeting with me, also thank you and your colt friend for helping with those monsters.”

We left not long after that, we didn’t see Squirrel or Moose on our way out, but I’m sure they were either looking into what happened in the basement to make those Wendigos show up, or finding something to eat. We made our way out of JetBlue Skyport and started to head toward Crimson Canyon. We avoided getting close to Stable 14 when we left. Since it was being used by the survivors of Appleton, we figured it was best not to be seen by them right now.

***

The trip to Crimson Canyon from the Skyport wasn’t that long, so we decided a walk would do us some good, and it kept Stardust from complaining about having to carry one of us, specifically me. As we walked I noticed that Aura was muttering something to herself, “You okay Aura?”

“Oh, yeah why?” she replied as if I distracted her from a daydream.

“You keep muttering something under your breath,” Byte said who was walking just on the other side of the griffon.

“So what?” she asked.

“Are you angry about something?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes, “No I’m not, I’m just going over something I have in my head that I might do during the celebration.”

I cocked my head to one side, “Like what? We aren’t going to start any fights while we’re there are we?”

She laughed, “No, well not unless one of the griffons wants to that is. It’s just something I want to do for the performance part of the celebration that’s all.”

“What kind of Performance?” Stardust asked curiously.

“None of your business, you’ll just have to wait and see,” she said with a cocky grin.

“I’ve been wondering about what’s going to happen during this,” Wingnut said.

“I’d like to know that too,” Wind Thrasher added.

Aura looked thoughtful for a moment, “The Celebration itself goes on for three days. The first day we have the opening ceremony where there will be singing, dancing and a lot of drinking. The first day and night is when we remember the birth of The Red Talons and dedicate the night part of it in remembrance of Greta and our family who’ve led The Red Talons since it started. The second day is when we have sparring matches. Those are so younger griffons can prove themselves, disputes can be settled, even griffons from other talon groups can use this as a chance to prove they’re worthy to join The Red Talons. That night I’m sure we’ll see a few griffons decide to form a life bond, those are always a lot of fun to watch. On the last day we take time to remember those who we lost over the year, also Tonto will tell a story from out past and talk about Rebirth and all that. It’s also the only time that another can challenge the leader of The Red Talons to take over as the new leader.”

“You mean that it’s possible for another griffon to take over The Red Talons?” Wind Thrasher asked.

“Oh yeah, but I’m not too worried. My family has always proven to be the strongest griffons around. In the twelve years my mom’s led The Red Talons, only two griffons have tried to fight her and both times she won,” Aura answered.

“I’m guessing one of those was Gina?” I asked.

“Nope, one was some young griffon the year after mom took over, the second was my uncle, Apollo’s brother,” Aura answered again.

“Damn, I had no idea Apollo had a brother,” I said.

“He did,” Aura said.

Wingnut gave her a sorrowful look, “He did? What happened to your uncle?”

“He paid the price for trying to take over as leader…he died. The battle for leadership is a fight to the death. Mercy can be given if a griffon loses and the winner doesn’t think they’ll be a threat, but Mom doesn’t ever like looking weak. She never shows mercy. I’m just hoping this year she doesn’t get another challenger.”

“If she’s only had two griffons challenge her, I’m sure the odds are low,” Wind Thrasher said.

“Most years yes, but with what’s been going on with the Unchained Talons, the battles breaking out, and Mom sending griffons to help ponies without payment, she might have a few angry griffons that want to take over this year.”

“Well let’s just hope that doesn’t happen,” I said giving her a smile.

She smiled back and we continued on. We all walked in silence for a while, when I could make out the town just outside of Crimson Canyon I walked closer to Aura and asked, “Remember when you father did that speech for Box Tape and he said something about his four children. You said that Syn isn’t his daughter and that you’d tell me about that later. So, is Syn not your sister or adopted or what?”

Aura smiled sadly, “She’s my half-sister, Apollo wasn’t my mom’s first partner. I’m not sure if I told you this or not, but griffons are different from ponies when it comes to who we spend our lives with. We don’t do weddings or have what you call marriage. We believe that there is only one soul that we’re meant to spend our mortal lives with. When we find that griffon we form a life bond and that griffon is the only one we’ll be with for the rest of our lives. Before my mom was with my dad she was in a life bond with another griffon named Grant. Sadly, he was killed not long after my mom had Syn.”

“If that’s true, then why is she with Apollo?” I asked.

“Normally when the griffon you have a life bond with dies, you never look for another griffon. Mom would’ve been just fine with that because from what I knew about Grant, she loved him with all her heart. The problem is that the leader of The Red Talons is expected to have a partner and to have more than one child to keep the bloodline of the Bloodtalon’s alive. With Gina gone and Gail dead she was the last one, so she ended up with my dad. Since my mom can no longer be in a life bond they decided to get married in the pony way for political reasons,” Aura explained.

“So Apollo and Gigi don’t love each other?” I asked.

Aura smiled again, “They do, but not in the same way as most griffons would if they were together like my parents are. They both lost the griffon they felt that way for and made this new union work.”

“So Apollo lost his soulmate too?” I asked.

“Yeah, he was about to form a life bond with my Aunt Gail before Gina killed her.”

“Damn, and I thought my family was messed up,” I said.

“It is, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have our own problems too. Apollo’s good and he does make my mom happy and they may not share the same feelings as they did with their old partners, but it works.”

“So why does Syn call him dad if he’s not her father?” I asked.

“Because to Syn, Apollo is her father. She was raised by him just like the rest of us. He loves her like the rest of us.”

We were just getting into town when I started to see some of the ponies from Cartwheel coming toward us. Following them was a few of the griffons from The Red Talons. I saw Vervain not far behind some of them, giving me a big smile as she started to trot toward me. I smiled back at her, happy to be seeing her again, even if we only parted ways a few days ago. With everything that’s been going on as of late, I had so much to talk to her about.

“Well be that as it may, it looks like we have a welcoming party, how about we all go say hi,” I said.

“Sounds like plan,” Stardust said, “I’m glad to see that the Cartwheel survivors made it here okay.”

I was about to say something when Fletch landed in front of us, her two lackies, Pluck and Gouger, not far behind. She pulled her spear off her back, pointed it at Aura and said, “Hey sis, glad you could make it here on The Eve of The Rebirth Celebration.”

“Put that thing away Fletch, you know that I was invited and even if I wasn’t I have every right to be here during this time. This is the one time of the year that banished griffons can go back to Crimson Canyon,” Aura said, ruffling her feathers a little.

Syn, Arys, and Gigi all landed, Gigi looking at her second youngest daughter saying, “Fletch put down the spear and let your sister in. I invited her and you know the rules.”

Fletch didn’t move, she just smiled saying, “Mom, today is The Eve of Rebirth. As you said I know the rules, that goes for the one that says that on The Eve of Rebirth I have every right to request a duel with some griff I don’t think is worthy of being part of tomorrow’s celebration. Seeing how Aura has always tried to say she’s stronger than me and seeing how she dishonored the name Bloodtalon, I challenge her to a one-on-one fight in the arena. If she wins then I’ll let her pass and forget what she did, if I win Aura has to admit I’m the stronger fighter and promise never to step talon back into our lands ever again and to give up her rights as a freelance griffon.”

“Fuck that Fletch, I don’t need to prove myself to you,” Aura said angrily.

“Oh yes you do little sis, if you turn down this request everypony in the area will know you’re a coward,” Fletch said still grinning.

Gigi pushed the spear down, “I’m not going to watch my daughters fight in the arena over your pride Fletch.”

Fletch ripped the spear back and glared at her mother, “It’s not about pride mother, this is about our family’s honor. Also, it doesn’t matter what you say, you can’t stop a duel today. This is an old tradition that goes back all the way to the beginning of our talon company. Now I’m asking you Aura,” she said turning back to look into her sister’s eyes, “Do you accept, or are you going to run away again and prove that you really are a coward?

“Fletch you know that I’m the better fighter, always have been, always will be,” Aura said.

Gigi sighed and looked at Aura too, “I’m sorry Aura, but Fletch has a point I can’t stop her from doing this.”

“That’s crap,” I said, “You’re the leader here not Fletch.”

“Be quiet Shadow, let me deal with this,” Aura said getting closer to Fletch, “Fine if you want to do this then let’s do this, and when I win, I want you to leave The Red Talons yourself and try living your life as a freelancer.”

Fletch’s smile just got bigger as she moved even closer to her sister, then said in a voice so quiet I could barely hear her, “And when I win, I’m going to show you how weak a pony-lover really is. You have no idea how much stronger I’ve gotten since we last fought little sister,” she got even quieter, “Also when I win, I’m going to make sure you never seen that mare-slut of yours ever again…”

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Supernatural: For all the things that go bump in the night, and sometimes the day, the supernatural perk is unique. You may not regularly run into these monsters in The Wasteland, but you’ve gained the ability to sense the presence of a nearby supernatural creature. Although this perk excludes, Demons, Ghosts, Ghouls born of radiation, and some Star Spirits.

Chapter 59: You Are A Pirate

“Give Capin’ Gunny a proper Aye, Aye.”

I followed Captain Gunny as he led me down the path and up the hill not far from Star House. I’d only been gone from my new friends for fifteen minutes and I already missed them. I kind of wished I could stay for a few more days even though I’m needed back in New Pegasus. At least long enough to meet Blackjack. From the stories I was told, she seemed like an interesting pony to know. Maybe she could teach me a thing or two…though maybe not.

I was just starting to wonder what the trip back to New Pegasus was going to be like and what to expect when I got back, when Captain Gunny said from up the path, “Ah Ol’ Capin’ Gunny has no ider where he left that blasted air-ship. Was it the left fork or da right. Hmmm, dat’s a quagmire of a problem der.”

I walked up next to the older buck seeing two paths that forked to either side, asking, “You can’t remember where you left your ship? Didn’t you just leave it a half hour ago?”

He looked over at me, the slow match cords in his hat glowing a dull red, making his face look like it was slightly demonic. He smiled, saying, “Course Capin’ Gunny remembers where he left his ship. Just can’t quite remember which path were taken.” He studied the paths, saying, “Course he could’ve come from the right path, but Gunny likes to throw off his chasers he does. Maybe it was the left, and he just wanted to make sure even Gunny couldn’t follow hisself back.”

I studied the old dirt path as well, then noticed the paths myself. It only took a moment to see the slight hoof prints on the left path. Smiling to myself I pointed to them. “Looks like you came from the left path.”

He looked down at them, then frowned, followed a moment later by a smile and a chuckle. “Course he did, ah course,” he rubbed his chin, “was testing the young Star, see if she’s payin’ attentions.”

“Why would you care if I was paying attention? Aren’t you the captain?” I asked.

He started down the left path. “Course Gunny’s the Capin’, he ain’t da navigator, no, that job will fall on you.”

“Me? I don’t know the first thing about navigation, hell I don’t even know the area. Don’t you have a Navigator already?” I asked in shock.

“That Gunny did, sadly like, he came down with a nasty case of nappin’, right on Gunny’s bed. Drooled all over Gunny’s pillows more dan once, three times he did. Had tah toss him overboard,” Gunny said with a chuckle.

“So, you killed him for drooling on your pillows?” I asked.

“Nah, Gunny didn’t kill him, no all he did was throw him off the ship. Was only a ten-meter drop. Broke his legs the fool, started screaming like somepony popped his bum cherry wit’ a metal poker stick, or somefin’ like dat. Would’ve been fine apart from his broken hoovesies and some pain, but no the fool had to scream. Right in the middle of hell hound territory too,” Gunny said with a chuckle.

“So, you threw him off your ship, he broke his legs, and was killed by hell hounds?” I asked, very confused by his strange way of talking.

“Nope, he would have, but da nasty pups didn’t make it to im’ in times. Nope radscorpion popped outta nowhere and got hims first. Sad lot to watch, least the angry pups would’ve killed im’ quick like. Radscorpions like to take der time,” he said, then stopped and shivered. “Lot like spiders, never liked spiders, to many legs and all dat, like straight outta Capin’ Gunny’s nightmares”

Deciding that continuing this particular conversation wasn’t getting us anywhere I changed the subject…mostly. “I still don’t know how I’m going to navigate for you.”

He laughed again. “Don’t be worryin’ bout’ dat, Gunny never lets his crew go wit’out help. Can’t be havin’ a rook doin’ things all wishy sideways now can he? Sun Spot can teach ya, she was gonna be Gunny’s new navigator but she’s moved up to first mate. Good girl if a little strange.”

“How many do you have on your crew?” I asked.

“Countin’ you? Three. Da twins do a good job with the plunderin’ and lootin’. Sun Spot though is da, smarter one of dem,” he said.

“Twins?” I asked.

“Gunny doesn’t feel like explainin’ you’ll understand,” he said.

We reached the top of the small hill looking out over a meadow and my eyes went wide. Sitting in the middle of the meadow was a ship like nothing I’d ever seen before…which I guess wasn’t saying much. I hadn’t seen many air-ships in my life, even when I was a foal and still living in Enclave territory. This ship was made of wood, with metal armor placed on its outer hull, in the front there was a long ram covered in thick steel plating. At the back of the ship there were two huge machines that looked a little like rockets, though I couldn’t be sure. Hovering over the ship was what could only be called a balloon or something that looked like one. Whatever it was, it looked like what helped keep the ship in the air. On the deck I could see six energy weapons so massive that I knew they had to be powerful. Three on each side of the ship made it so they could fire on oncoming enemies. At the front deck another massive energy weapon was mounted on a swivel. Last at the back, two more energy weapons were poking out. As we started walking closer to the…ship? Flying boat? No idea what to call it, I saw that ‘Bitter Cob’ was written on two gold-encrusted plates in green paint on the front mirroring each other.

“Ain’t she a beaut?” Gunny asked, sounding a like a father talking about his filly who just won some kind of prize.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said captivated by this machine.

Gunny turned around so fast I almost fell over in surprise, “The Bitter Cob ain’t an…‘it’…she’s a ‘she’. Don’t ya ponies from the west flanks of this butthole wasteland know that much? Learn yer pronuns.”

“I’m sorry Captain Gunny, I had no idea. I’ve never been around a ship before,” I said. “Also don’t you mean pronouns?”

He glared at me for a long moment then Finally sighed then said, “Course not, Gunny shoulda known, dessert folk ya be. And that’s what Gunny said, pronouns, get a hearin’ spade.”

“You mean Desert.” I said automatically.

“Tis weren’t Gunny said init?” He asked.

“You said dessert, y’know like a cake or something like it,” I said.

“Ah that be true, good lass you be Star Shine,” he said with a chuckle.

“Shadow Star sir,” I said as he started leading me back to The Bitter Cob.

“Ah that’s right, Shadow Shine, forgot already, never been good with names Gunny hasn’t,” he said.

I was about to correct him again then just shook my head, “Just call me Shadow, will that work?”

“Guess so, though if ya want, Gunny could give you a proper pirate name. Something good like Swill, or Rum Runner. You know what Gunny means, something to strike fear into dem souls of ponies,” he said with a laugh.

Both names were nowhere near good, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead I replied, “I think Shadow would be fine, lot of ponies are scared of the dark or shadowy places.”

He laughed, “Aye, you be right there, guess you get to keep yer prissy pony name then. Gunny still thinks Rum Runner is perfect.

“No” I said sternly

“Arr you be no fun Shadow” He laughed heartily “Ah look, Gunny’s crew be waitin’ for him at the top of the gang plank.”

I looked up the ramp that lead up to the deck of the ship and stopped. Standing there were two identical creatures. Creatures I’d never seen or heard of in my life, though they looked so close to ponies I may have been imagining it. They also didn’t look like ponies at the same time. It was almost like somepony had taken a griffon and a pony and smashed them into one. They both had the head and mane of a pony. One looked more feminine than the other, but not by much. Their bodies had an off-white color to it with a lighter maroon color to their manes, both of them had two different colored eyes. One was green the other blue. But oddly the only thing different about them was that the one that looked more feminine’s green eye was on its right, the blue on its left. The other had its blue eye on the right and the green on its left.

Their ears had tufts on the ends, that would make Wind Thrasher or Laser Light jealous. Each white ear ended in a maroon tuft that matched the mane. Now as I looked down I saw that they had…paws…not hoofs on their forelegs, in the back they had normal pony hooves. Going down their backs was a dark redwood color that followed all the way up their…lions tail…the puffy end was also maroon matching their mane. Last was their wings’ they weren’t as big as Aura’s but a lot bigger than a Pegasus would have. The wings matched their coat perfectly.

I took a step back, unsure what was going on. The one on the right of me, spoke in a normal pony’s speech, an accent that reminded me a lot of the ponies who grew up in New Pegasus or around it, “Captain Gunny, I’m glad you’re back. We heard gunfire and thought something might’ve happened to you,” it sounded like a female.

“Nothin’ Capin’ Gunny can’t deal with, few Enclave feather brains thought they’d take a pop or two at the young unicorn. Showed em’ why you don’t mess with Gunny,” he said with a laugh then turned to me as the two…whatever they were came down the plank, “Shadow, this be, Sun Spot and…uh…oh right Elmer…”

The other creature who sounded male replied, “Elliot, Captain. We’ve been over this. Just because you’re crazy, doesn’t mean you can call me whatever you want.”

Gunny laughed, “Best be watchin’ yer tone with your Capin’ now Elmer…Elliot, you knows what ol’ Gunny means. Also, Capin’ Gunny ain’t crazy, he’s MAD, ere’s a difference.”

The male creature rolled his eyes, “Sure there is, anyway, I take it this is Shadow Star, our passenger?”

“Yeah that’s me. What are you two by the way? You look like a weird cross between a griffon and a pony,” I asked a little confused by their appearance.

The female…Sun Spot looked like she was going to answer when Gunny cut in, “Der’ be time for talkin’ and such when we cast off.” He looked back at the twins saying, “You two, there’s four Pegasi up da road with holes in their noggins. Go collect em’, promised the ponies dere dat, Capin’ Gunny would send a clean up.”

They both saluted, saying, “Yes sir!”

“Sir!? SIR!? What kind of pirates are ya!? Give Capin’ Gunny a proper Aye, Aye,” Gunny said.

“Aye, aye Captain!” They said in unison, then opening their wings, they were off.

“So, ya met the twins, least you didn’t scream when ya met dem. Gunny sure did, creepy looking folk dey be,” he said, heading up the plank and onto his ship before looking back at me. “Don’t just stand there like a poxy bum boy, got ta show ya ‘round The Bitter Cob.”

Sighing again, I followed the ‘not crazy…but mad’ pony onto his ship. Once I was on the deck he took me on a tour. As he walked around he said, “The Bitter Cob’s a beauty and one of a kind nowadays. Gunny will show ya how things work on Gunny’s ship and where you’d be sleepin’. Normally Gunny would keep ya in the cargo hold, but der be a lot of things Bottle wants taken to here or there.”

I did my best to follow his speech while he showed me around. As we walked, I learned more about ships than I ever thought I would. I learned that you didn’t say left or right on a ship, it was port or starboard. Gunny explained…in his own way…that they were a fixed position on the ship no matter which way somepony was facing. If you were at the back…or stern I guess, of the ship and facing what Gunny called forward, the port was on the left, the starboard on the right. If you were on the Bow or front of the ship and looking toward at…the back also, the starboard was now on your left and the port on your right. He explained that it kept the crew knowing where an enemy was. He told me that even an airship, be it The Enclave’s form of airship, or this one, that was the way the crew learned how to navigate. He said that it was what sailors used to use a long time ago, before airships were around. I got to see the forecastle as well, which is where the crew slept. This ship only had three rooms. One was Captain Gunny’s room, which was the biggest. Then one on each side for the Twins. I guess they didn’t sleep in the same room.

I found it odd, because from what I heard about twins, they always liked to be together. Maybe it was because of gender. If I had a brother at my age, I wouldn’t want him sleeping in my room anymore, even if we were close. Gunny pointed a hoof at the room on the port side saying, “Dere be your room Shadow, you’ll be bunkin’ with Sun Spot.”

I heard two sets of wings a second later followed by two bodies landing on the deck just outside the small hallway that led to the rooms, followed by Sun Spot saying, “Captain, we’ve disposed of the bodies and took their gear.”

“Ah good, it’s time be castin’ off den,” Gunny said with a rye chuckle. “Sun Spot, Shadow will be bunkin’ with ya. Ye can show her da ropes with navigation and all that.”

“Aye Captain,” Sun Spot said then looked over at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, I have enough space for the two of us in there.”

Elliot chuckled. “Careful she snores.”

“Do not!” Sun Spot said, looking offended.

“Ya snore, now get da ship ready for castin’ Gunny’s got a schedule to be keeping and whatnot.”

“Aye, Aye!” They both said moving to other parts of the ship.

Sun Spot looked back at me since I hadn’t moved from where I was standing a moment ago and gave me another smile. “Hey kid, come with me, you’re gonna love this.”

I followed her, asking, “What’s going to happen?”

“Oh, you’ll see. This ship is quite the experience. There’s none like it anymore,” she said as she moved to go stand next to the wheel. I noticed that apart from the wheel, there were a few levers and a panel on her right, and a terminal on her left. She fiddled with something on the terminal, then yelled, “Captain Gunny, ready to fire rear thrusters.”

“First mate, did ya check da gem’s connecting?” Gunny asked. He was standing a few feet away watching as Elliot messed with something at the front of the ship.

“Full power to the thrusters, same for the anti-grav engines. The support ballon is stable and ready to lift, our guns are running at ninety seven percent though,” Sun Spot said as she checked the terminal.

“Raider and E.F.S. scrambler is powered and running perfectly!” Elliot said from the front.

“Ah, Captin’ Gunny loves how good his crew be, good job, now Let’s take to da sky!” he said with a barking laugh.

Sun Spot grinned like a mad…whatever she was, then looked at me. “You might want to hold onto something.”

Unsure what she meant by that, I dove for a rope that was connected to the big balloon like device over us and held on tight with my forelegs right as Sun Spot took hold of a lever and rammed it forward. For a second nothing happened, all I could hear was a small humming coming from under us. Also it felt like the ship was slowly lifting into the air. I looked around and saw that we were slowly lifting off the ground. Then three things happened at the same time, first my E.F.S. started to go haywire in my vision, then the ship tilted it’s nose upward, and with a loud ‘BOOM’ The Bitter Cob exploded into the sky.

I screamed as I felt my hooves slipping slowly from the rope as the force of the jump almost tore me from the line. It only lasted a moment though, soon the ship leveled off and the force on my body eased a little. I waited a moment until I was sure nothing was going to force me off the ship before I let the rope go and got back to my hooves looking around.

Sun Spot looked over to see me looking around and she smiled again, “Sorry for the quick jump like that, but it’s the best way to keep The Enclave from noticing us.”

I shook my head, then brought the Mark II up and turned off my E.F.S. All it as doing right now is making my head hurt as lines of red and white mixed with zigzags ran across my vision. I looked over at her, asking, “What was that all about? And what did you do to my E.F.S.?”

Elliot came up to us, saying, “We have tech on here that keeps us from being noticed by The Enclave’s Radar and it can scramble the E.F.S. in their power-armor too. Sorry, but while we’re in the air, you won’t be able to use yours, same for S.A.T.S., both spells won’t work right up here.”

“Makes sense, but next time can you warn me? Also, what do you do if a passing airship sees you?” I asked.

Captain Gunny laughed, “Dat’s what da cannons are for, though Captain Gunny don’t see many Enclave ships below the clouds.”

“What about Pegasi?” I asked.

“Them too,” he said with a mad grin. “Sun Spot, let ol’ Gunny take da wheel for a bit, why don’t you go get Shadow up to quick now.”

“You mean up to speed?” she asked.

“We are up to speed, now be gone with ya,” Gunny said, shooing her away from the wheel.

“Aye sir,” she said, rolling her eyes then giggling. She looked over at me and nodded her head down toward the main deck. “Follow me Kid.”

I did as I was asked as she led me down to the main deck. We walked for a minute or two before I asked again, “So can you explain to me what you are?”

She looked down at me, her smile fading a little, saying, “That’s a hard question to answer Shadow. The better question would be what did I used to be, because now, I have no idea what I am. There’s no known word for the creatures Elliot and I are now.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her, asking, “What you used to be? You mean you weren’t born like this?”

She shook her head saying, “Haven’t you noticed yet, that I have a pony’s name and Elliot has a griffon name?”

“I did notice that, but I just figured your parents had some weird sense of humor,” I said.

She laughed a little. “Well not in the sense you’re thinking. Elliot and I aren’t really twins, not in the normal way at least. During the war, I was wing commander first class of the Dashers, a small group that was part of the Shadowbolts. Elliot was a contracted griffon who worked with the Dashers on most of our big missions. We became best friends over time and still are.”

I stopped in my tracks, saying, “Whoa, hold up a second. You’re telling me you were around since the war? There’s no way that’s possible, you’d be over two hundred years old.”

She looked back at me then smiled again. “I am, though it’s not because I’m special or anything like that. Until a couple months ago, Elliot and I were in stasis pods. We were placed in there as a part of a project called Chimera.”

That name sparked something in my memories from the last few days when I was talking to Scotch. “I’ve heard about that project before, a filly I met in Chapel said some ghoul…can’t remember his name, but some ghoul let a lot of monsters out of their pods. So you’re one of them?”

She nodded again. “I am, so is Elliot, we were one of the first he let out who were part of Project Chimera, we were also one of the first mostly successful subjects from that project. You see, during a battle near Hoofington we encountered a dragon, a massive old dragon. I was badly hurt during that fight and almost died. Elliot wasn’t much better. We were both pronounced as dead in the line of duty, but what really happened is, we were both taken to a secret location. Our wounds were mostly healed by the doctors there. Once we were healthy enough, they placed us into pods. Turns out they wanted to use us to make one mixed creature, but something went wrong. When they activated the megaspell, only half of our DNA was pulled away. The ponies tried to shut down the experiment and realign our DNA, but what happened was that our DNA went to the other. It turned us into what you see now. We are technically Identical Twins now apart from our gender.”

“I’m surprised either of you survived that,” I said.

“So were the doctors. At first, they thought it would be good for Equestria, they thought they could use us to fight the zebras, but things didn’t go according to plan. When we first woke up a couple days later, neither of us could deal with what happened to us, and we both attacked our caretakers. We both tried to escape and killed a few ponies in the attempt, but sadly we didn’t make it out. We were placed into cells for study for a couple of months and once it was determined that we wouldn’t do what they wanted us to do, they placed us into the pods. We woke up over two hundred years later to find our home destroyed and a nutcase ghoul who wanted us to work for him,” Sun Spot said.

“Let me guess, both of you didn’t want anything to do with that,” I said.

“Got that right, Elliot and I managed to escape, at least for a little while. The other ponies he let out did track us down a week or so later and tried to force us to go back, but luckily for us, Captain Gunny showed up and helped us escape. We’ve been working with him ever since,” she said.

“So, you became sky pirates,” I said, “I guess there’s worse career choices.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Gunny does do a lot of things a pirate would, but he only goes after The Enclave, or Slavers, and ponies like that. He’s a few bullets short of a clip, but deep down he’s a good pony,” Sun Spot said, leading me back toward the front of the ship.

“So, if you were around during the war, did you ever meet a pony named Night Stalker?” I asked.

She looked back at me, “I’ve heard of him, but I can’t say much about who he was. All I know is he was one of Princess Luna’s personal guards. I saw him once at the Grand Galloping Gala. I heard rumors about him then too, but like I said, he wasn’t well known when I was still fighting.”

“When did your accident happen?” I asked.

“About three weeks after the Gala,” she replied. “If I read when the bombs fell, that would be about five years before the end.”

“Oh, that’s why then. He wasn’t a well-known pony yet,” I said.

“Only other time I heard anything about him apart from rumors was when my friend Cloudy Nights said something about joining Night Stalker’s new Guard unit,” she said with a shrug.

“Wait you knew Cloudy Nights?” I asked, a little surprised.

She nodded, “Yeah, she was my trainer during boot camp. She used to date my older brother Silver Hooves. Back then she went by a different name, until he died during the burning of Hoofington.”

I sat down and leaned against the wall, “So you knew her when she was still going by Pink Rose.”

She sat down next to me and gave me a curious look, “Most ponies don’t know that name. She changed it when she was still a young mare.”

“When I first left my stable, I hid in a bunker under an old shack and found her diary and a recording. I’ve also seen her in a memory orb or two, she worked with Night Stalker’s team during the war and I’ve wanted to know more about her ever since I first read what happened to her,” I said.

Sun Spot laid her head against the railing and sighed. “She used to be full of fire and happy as hell when she was still with my brother. After he died though, she got hard and distrustful of most ponies. When she was our instructor in boot camp, she wasn’t anything like the mare I knew when I was still a filly.”

“I’m not surprised honestly, losing somepony you love is hard,” I said looking up at the clouds that were only a few meters over us. “What was boot camp like for you? If you don’t mind me asking.”

She shrugged. “Hard, but also fun. We only had about eight in our group, a mix of pegasi and earth ponies. Well myself and one other pegasus I should say, the rest were earth ponies.”

“Was this the Shadowbolts training?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No that was later, I wanted to learn how to fight like the earth ponies did before I did flight training. Cloudy Nights was our trainer for both, but she worked with Big Mac on the earth pony training.”

“Big Mac?” I asked. “I saw him in a memory orb once too.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, he was a kind stallion, but also tough as nails. He took a great interest in the other pegasus in our group and helped toughen him up a lot, but he always had time for all of us if we needed him.” She looked down at her paws and I could see sadness in her eyes. “It was a sad day when he died.”

“Who was the other pegasus?” I asked, mostly because I just wanted something to talk about.

She scratched her chin for a moment thinking back. “You know I can’t remember his name, but he was kind of a coward at first, took a while for him to catch up to the rest of us, but he pushed through. I think his Griffon friend who kept visiting from another group helped a little with that. I remember her more, it wasn’t every day you saw a griffon fighting for Equestria and not as a merc.”

An idea came to me so I looked back at her, asking, “Hey, Sun Spot, would it be weird if I asked you if I could look at one of your memories?”

She blinked then gave me a funny look. “That’s a strange request, why do you want to look into my memories?”

“Mostly because I want to try out a new spell I learned, but also I want to see if this other pegasus is the same one I’m thinking of,” I replied.

She took a moment to think about it then shrugged. “Captain won’t be needing us for a little while, so I guess it’s okay. Wait, if you just learned this spell, how dangerous is it if it’s your first time?”

“I’ll be gentle and I know I can do the spell without hurting you, as long as you’re letting me view the memory. If you try and fight me while I’m in there, then we might have problems,” I said.

She took another moment to think, then said, “Fine, but let’s go to my room first, I don’t want Elliot or Gunny to do something to us that they think is funny while you’re doing the spell.”

“It shouldn’t take long, but that’s fine with me,” I said getting up.

She led me back to the room we’ll be sharing over this voyage and shut the door. She laid down on her bed, and said, “Okay, I’m ready I guess. What do I need to do?”

“Just think about boot camp then relax and don’t fight my spell,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll try my best,” she said, closing her eyes. “Okay, ready.”

I took in a deep breath then called on my magic, once I had hold of the magic, I wrapped it around Sun Spot’s head. Once that was done, I activated the spell. I gasped as my own mind seemed to flow into Sun Spot’s, a bright light came forth and I was swallowed by the memory.

oooOOOooo

I was in a strong pegasus as she faced off against an earth pony mare. It was raining and mud covered the ground. My host was slowly walking around her opponent, grinning as she said, “Come on Duster, is that all you’ve got!?”

“You wish Sun Spot!” the earth pony said as she attacked.

Sun Spot jumped over Duster then landed on her back, knocking her to the ground. She twisted around then pinned her down, holding her face into the mud and keeping her in a strange hold so the other mare couldn’t move. She held her like that for a few seconds until another mare’s voice said, “Match! Sun Spot wins this round too.”

My host got back to her hooves then helped Duster up. “Good try Duster, but you need to stop charging me and try to trick me.”

Duster smiled. “I did, you’re just too fast.”

“LINE UP!” the other mare who stopped the match yelled.

My host stood at attention and faced the other mare. When my host’s eyes fell on her I saw it was Cloudy Nights. She was younger than when I saw her in Greta’s memory orb, and she was still beautiful, even in military fatigues with a short wet mane and mud on her hooves. She waited for my host and Duster to line up with the rest of their group before she started to pace and talk. “That was well done Cadet Sun Spot, though you need to watch your opponent when you do a trick like that. If you were even a little slower, Duster would’ve had the hold on you, not the other way around.”

“Yes ma’am!” my host said.

Another Stallion came up to stand next to Cloudy Nights, it was Big Mac. “Howdy Cloudy Nights. Mighty good team you got goin’”

She looked at him and nodded. “Most of them anyway, can’t say much for the other pegasus.”

My host and the rest of the ponies in line all looked toward the end of the line and a tall scrawny looking pegasus. I couldn’t make him out well from where Sun Spot was standing, but I could see a grey coat and a short black mane. Big Mac looked over at him too then said to Cloudy Nights. “Sure he’s skinny and all, but he hasn’t had time to bulk up yet. I’m sure with some hard work, we can make something out of him.”

“He can barely fly Big Mac,” she said, then looked at the skinny pegasus. “Cadet Moon, come forward!”

The pegasus took a second as he looked at the others, now I could see his face better. Shocking green eyes and a nasty scar over his left one, it was Night Stalker, or Absent Moon right now. I could barely believe it, he didn’t look like the stallion who led The Children of the Night. No, Absent Moon looked scared, weak, and shy. It was like he didn’t want any of the ponies here to look at him or to even speak to him, it was like he wasn’t one of them, or they frightened him somehow.

“You were given an order Cadet,” Big Mac said, his voice stern, but not unkind.

Absent Moon winced then looked at Big Mac and Cloudy Nights and walked forward until he was face to face with them. He saluted then said in his normal deep voice, though sounding scared to speak, “Sorry…sir,”

“Ain’t no need to be sorry, just follow orders as soon as you hear them and you’ll have no problems,” Big Mac said.

“Yes…sir,” Absent Moon said, standing straighter.

“Now, Cloudy Nights says you have a problem flyin’. Is that true?” he asked.

“No sir, I just haven’t had much time to do it since I joined up,” Absent Moon said.

Cloudy Nights made an irritated noise. “You failed your flight evaluation Moon, you’re lucky that you were given a chance to join this group.”

“I only failed ma’am because the test was unfair,” Absent Moon said shyly.

“Unfair how?” she asked, sounding angry.

“They set that test up to show off how well pegasi can deal with flight combat, I was never trained to do that where I came from. Even though most of the creatures I grew up with do fight in the air for a living, my…gran, taught me different ways of flying and fighting. My instructor at the flight camp didn’t want to listen and he sent me here,” Absent Moon said.

“You’re that pegasus who grew up in Griffonstone right?” Big Mac asked.

“Yes sir,” Absent Moon replied.

“I was just talking to that griffon friend of yours before I headed over here, she said something about how you weren’t given a chance to show off your skills,” Big Mac said with a chuckle.

“If he can’t do what’s needed to fight a war in the skies then he’s useless up there. He’s lucky I haven’t kicked him out of my group too,” Cloudy Nights said.

“I don’t know, maybe he just needs somepony to give him a chance to shine. Not everypony can be expected to do the same thing as everypony else. Hell, if that were the case, the marauders wouldn’t be here,” Big Mac said.

“Maybe you’re right, but if he doesn’t do something to shine soon, he’ll be on his ass on the other side of the gate in a month,” Cloudy Nights said.

Big Mac looked back to Absent Moon, “Tell me…Moon was it?”

“Yes sir, Moon…just Moon,” he said.

“Right, well Moon, tell me what kind of skills do you have, either on the ground or in the air,” Big Mac said.

“Stealth mostly, Gran always said that I could fly or trot so quietly that even she couldn’t hear me, and Gran had great hearing for an old griffon,” he said.

“Is that so?” Big Mac asked, then looked at my host. “Sun Spot, come forward please.”

“Yes Sir,” Sun Spot said, trotting to stand next to Absent Moon.

“Sun Spot, from what I know about you, you’re one of the top flyers from the flight school. You joined this group to get more ground experience, but you’re one of the best flyers in the last group. Do you think you could take Moon down in an air fight?” Big Mac said.

“Easily sir, wouldn’t take more than a minute,” my host said with a grin.

“Good,” Big Mac said, turning to Absent Moon again. “How bad do you want to be a solider Moon?”

“More than anything sir,” Absent Moon said.

“Then I’ll make a deal with you. If you can take Sun Spot down in the air, then I’ll train you myself and the rest of this group alongside Cloudy Nights. If you can’t take her down, then you’ll have to leave the military for a year and train on your own until you can come back stronger,” Big Mac said.

“I can do it sir,” Absent Moon said with a shy smile.

“Please, I’ve seen you fly Moon, you don’t have what it takes to take me on,” my host said, rolling her eyes.

“If you really think so then try me,” he said, glaring at her. When he did, it was like the shyness vanished and was replaced with a deep pain and anger. Those were the eyes I was used to seeing on Night Stalker. A deep hatred that was buried deep inside him.

Cloudy Nights sighed, then said, “Fine, but lets make it quick, I have more to teach you all today and I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“Same for me,” Big Mac said. “Well if you two think you have what it takes, then get to it!”

“I’m going to take you down Moon,” my host said.

Absent Moon didn’t take time to respond, he shot into the air, faster than I thought those scrawny wings could fly. My host was shocked too, but she recovered quickly and she was off. She shot like a bullet toward Absent Moon. He was still climbing toward the clouds. My host flapped harder and started to gain ground…uh air? On him. As they flew, Absent Moon yelled down at my host, “If you want to win, you’ll need to keep your eyes on me!”

“That’s easy with how slow you are,” my host taunted.

Absent Moon looked back then flipped in the air and shot toward her. My host was ready and she twisted around in the air, aiming a kick at his face as he fell. At the last second however, Absent Moon moved to my host’s right and shot past her, his wing slapping her in the eyes on the way down. My host cursed and shook her head as spots swam in her vision. She stopped herself in the air and looked down at where Absent Moon had dove, but he was gone. She looked around, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. It was like he vanished into thin air.

“Where’d you go!?” she yelled as she tried to listen for the flapping of his wings. She started to look around, but still there was no sight of him anywhere. Then a sharp pain shot up my host’s back as somepony kicked her. She swore and twisted around to counter, but again, nopony was there. Another kick to her face as a quick flash of a shadow flew by. My host fell for a moment before she caught herself and she swung around, screaming into the air, “Stop Hiding you coward!”

Lightning flashed in the distance, lighting up the darkness for a moment. When the light of the flash vanished and my host was squinting from the burst of light, a hoof slammed into her face. She was twisted around and put into a head lock. She tried to break his hold, but Absent Moon had her, he then whispered in her ear, “I told you to keep your eyes on me, now you’re done!”

“Let me go you fucker!” my host yelled.

“You want me to let you go? Okay then, but remember when you wake up, that you asked for it,” he responded.

“What?” my host asked before Absent Moon flipped around with her, twisted one of her wings painfully then threw her toward the ground. She tried to fly, but her left wing was numb from whatever he’d done to her and the ground came flying up at her. She landed with a thump, in a soft spot in the mud, then everything went black.

oooOOOooo

I jumped as I pulled away from the memory, my head throbbing from the force of the memory jumping into my head. Sun Spot did the same thing saying, “Shit that hurt. What the hell?”

“Sorry, I didn’t know it was going to feel like that,” I said as I rubbed my temples. I looked over at her once the pounding started to go away, asking, “What happened when you woke up from that fight?”

She looked over at me confused. “Huh?”

“The fight with that Pegasus, the grey one with the green eyes,” I said.

It took her a moment to catch on. When she did, she said, “Oh the memory? I didn’t realize you saw it already. That spell only lasted a few seconds.”

“Really?” I asked, huh I guess Lacunae was right, that spell made watching a memory a lot faster compared to a memory orb.

“Yeah, I just felt a pressure for a few seconds then that sharp pain, like somepony stabbed a needle into my brain,” Sun Spot said, shaking her head again.

“Yeah, I did see the memory, that spell makes them go by faster, that might be why it hurt a little,” I said. “Anyway, what happened when you woke up?”

She shrugged. “Spent a day in the infirmary with a sprained wing joint and a broken rib. Took a little bit for the Ministry of Peace rep to heal.”

“What about that pegasus…Moon I think his name was?” I asked.

“Oh Moony? That’s what we called him after that day,” she said with a chuckle. “Big Mac took him on and trained him along side the rest of us. He ended up being the top of our class along side me. We both had good scores and talent by the end of it all.”

“Whatever happened to him?” I asked, wondering how much more I could learn about my distant grandfather from her. I mean hell, she was alive during that time.

She took a moment to think back. “Well, I know he ended up on a scouting team at one point. Like I said, I didn’t know him well. Once training was over, I didn’t see him again. Still I know that after training he worked with the scouts for the royal army for a bit. I heard later that he was kicked out for disobeying orders, he was moved to a fighting unit near the badlands, but again disobeyed orders, don’t know how though. Later he was put into another scouting party under a pegasus called Thunderlane, on his second mission they ran into a camp of zebras getting close to a town called Saddleton, and he died in that raid.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, wondering how a story like that could have come about. I mean I knew he lived through that mission, because I saw the memory of when Celestia recruited him for The Children.

“Yeah, he was the only pony to die during that raid. He went in with that pony you asked about before, Night Stalker, and died helping him escape after killing three legionnaires. It was all over the news, though I still can’t remember his full name, it was always Moony to everypony,” she said.

My own brain was going crazy as I started wondering what could’ve made the ponies of Equestria think that he died and nopony asked who this Night Stalker was. Did the Princesses do something to make everypony forget Absent Moon? They had to have done something like that. Then I remembered Night Stalker always saying that Absent Moon AKA Moony was dead. Is that what he meant by that? There had to be ponies that knew him before he was Night Stalker, like Big Mac, he called him Night Stalker in that memory before he died and Thunderlane knew him beforehoof too, but still he always called him by his new name or Captain. Lightning Dust too, same for a few other ponies who he knew before he was Night Stalker. This was all getting a little strange…well stranger than what was normal for Night Stalker.

“You okay?” Sun Spot asked.

I looked back to her and nodded. “Yeah, just thinking is all.”

“You look like somepony just told you that Celestia herself was about to pay you a visit. You’re a little pale,” she said.

“It’s just that I know that pony in your memory, I’ve seen him a few times in memory orbs,” I said.

“Strange, though it’s too bad that he died. He was a nice stallion when you got to know him, well as much as he’d let anypony get to know him. I think that griffon friend of his was the only one who was able to bring the real side of him out,” she said.

“Yeah, though he didn’t die like you thought,” I said, watching her as she moved to a small desk and picked up an old photo.

She looked back at me, “How would you know that?”

“It’s a long story, let’s just say that he changed his name and somehow got the rest of Equestria to forget about his old life,” I said getting back to my hooves.

“I find that hard to believe, the reports said that he died,” she said.

I looked back at her again, then waved a hoof back and further indicating her strange appearance. “Yeah, and what did they say about you and Elliot? I’ve come to learn that when the ministries stepped in and wanted something done, they could make anypony believe what they wanted them to.”

She tapped at her muzzle with one of her paws. “You’ve got me there, from what I learned about what happened to us, we were pronounced dead. I guess I see what you mean.”

“It seems like there were a lot of secrets back in those days,” I said with a sigh.

Before Sun Spot could say any more the door to her room opened and Elliot was standing there. He looked between the two of us then said, “I’ve been looking for you Sun Spot, we’ve got trouble, Captain Gunny needs you up top.”

Sun Spot put the photo down asking quickly. “What’s going on?”

“No sure how, but an Enclave ship’s detected us, they’re looking for Shadow. There’s some scary bitch on deck with five pegasi behind her and a raptor aiming guns at our ship,” Elliot said turning to head back out of the room.

“What?” I asked heading to follow him.

He put a paw on my head, stopping me from following. “Captain says you need to stay here; if they come looking for you then hide. There’s a small area under Sun Spot’s bed, it’s a hidden spot we use for smuggling. Don’t come out for anything.”

“But…”I started to say, but Sun Spot cut me off.

“He’s right, stay here until we can get them to leave,” she said and followed Elliot out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

I wanted to follow anyway, but I knew better than that. If The Enclave were here looking for me, I needed to stay hidden. I still wasn’t at my best right now and I was getting closer to Aura, I couldn’t mess this up. I sighed and walked over to the desk Sun Spot was at a moment ago and looked at the old photo she’d been holding. It was a picture of a mare that reminded me a lot of Sun Spot, she was standing in front of six other pegasi, all wearing flight jackets with a big D on the left breast with a rainbow lightning bolt going through the D. This must’ve been her team when she was with the Dashers.

They all looked so happy in this picture, like nothing in the world could stand in their way. I flipped the picture over and saw a note had been written on the back, it said.

Sun,

Got the photo developed for you finally, you look amazing in that new uniform. Stay safe out there and remember that I’m always here for you when you get home. Stay strong, stay smart, and fly fast.

Love,

Feather Weight

“I wonder who Feather Weight was?” I asked myself when a cracking laugh echoed through the door from the deck.

“Hahaha, Ye be messin’ with Capin’ Gunny ain’t ya? What was yer name again?” I heard Gunny say.

Moving to the door I cracked it open just a little and peeked out. I could just make out a mare in power armor, her helmet off, standing a few feet away from Gunny. Elliot was next to him…I think and Sun Spot was just past the hall that led onto the deck. Behind the mare five more pegasi in power armor were standing close to the mare, their energy weapons ready to fire if anypony moved too quickly.

The mare had an icy blue coat, her mane was the color of freshly fallen snow, and her eyes were an icy electric blue. It was like somepony just pulled her out of a freezer. Honestly, she reminded me a lot of Winter Frost. When she spoke, her voice was cold and thin almost like it was made of ice water. “I’ve told you twice now dirty pony, I’m Captain Strife of The Grand Pegasus Enclave out of Thunderhead. What I want to know is why you think you have the right to fly this monstrosity in our skies?”

She didn’t yell or even raise her voice, but the way she spoke made me want to hide under the covers of Sun Spot’s bed like a foal. I’m not sure what it was, but this pony’s presence alone scared me. Either that or the fact that she was the same pony who put the wanted posters up of me, Winter Frost’s sister Captain Strife. None of that seemed to bother Gunny though, because he just chuckled again, saying, “Mighty rude of ya, to be goin’ round callin’ ponies things like dirt. Hurts the feelers and all that…”

“Feelings Captain,” Elliot corrected.

Gunny looked over at Elliot saying quickly, “Is what Gunny said! Wasn’t it? No Problems.” He looked back to the ice queen. “As Captain Gunny was sayin’, how’d ya feel if Gunny went around hurting yer feelers?”

Elliot slapped a paw against his face. “You’re impossible Captain.”

“Ah right, feelings, pardon Captain Gunny’s words, he’s a little mad, or so he’s told from place to time,” Gunny said. “Gunny may go round, sayin’ things like cloud muncher and all dat but he wouldn’t say to your face now would he? Come on speak up,” he stopped then looked at Elliot. “Gunny be thinkin’ this cloud muncher’s got an ice thingy in her minge.”

I was starting to think Captain Gunny had a death wish, or he was just really fucking stupid. But to my amazement, Captain Strife chuckled, then started to laugh. For a long moment the crew and myself watched as this pegasus just…laughed, finally she looked at Captain Gunny and said, “Now that’s a new one.” She looked back at her pegasi, and asked, “Did you hear that? An ice thingy in her minge. I have to admit…Gunny right. Yes, I admit that it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anypony speak to me in that way. You must have some big ass balls on you to speak to a mare like me.” The laughter died in a split second and her voice turned back into that same icy chill that made my legs shake. “You know what I mean, a mare who has two massive plasma cannon’s pointed right at this piece of shit glorified balloon right now. Oh, and don’t forget the fifty pegasi I have on my raptor, ten in the air, and five behind me.”

“Captin’ Gunny’s got no ider what you be talkin’ bout’ Strife, Gunny didn’t say nothin’,” Gunny said.

“One more word out of your mouth and I’ll have my pegasi rip you apart!” Strife said, Gunny moved to say something anyway but she cut him off. “I’m serious dirt pony, one more word. Now if you don’t want to be shot out of the sky that belongs to The Grand Pegasus Enclave then I’d suggest that you listen up.”

Gunny tapped a hoof on Elliot’s paw then nodded toward Strife. The male twin cleared his throat, saying, “We’re listening Captain Strife, and let me apologize about Captain Gunny, he has a hard time keeping his trap shut.”

She looked him over like he was a side show at a circus, saying, “I can’t help but say that for a mutated freak, you and your sister amaze me. If I wasn’t hunting prey right now, I’d love to sit down and find out what you are or how you were made.”

“Bad case of killing joke that’s all Ma’am, nothing more. My sister and I had a run-in with it a couple years back,” he said politely.

“Hmmmm…I don’t see the humor but I’ve never been good with jokes,” Strife said.

“Can’t say that I understand it myself,” Elliot said. “Now how can we be of service today?”

“Simple, you can tell me where the unicorn calling herself Shadow Star is. Before you start telling me that she’s not on this sorry excuse for an airship, let me tell you first that we know she booked passage with you. A pegasus who gives us intel in Hoofington told us she was going to be on this boat…or airship err whatever you want to call it,” Strife said, sounding like she’d just stepped in a pile of hell hound droppings.

“It’s a sky carrier, also known as a sky ship, they were used in a country far south of Equestria a long time ago. Captain Gunny salvaged it and got it working again. We use it for transporting goods from one side of The Wasteland to the other. As for this pony, I’d have to say that we don’t know what you’re talking about. Our ship is too small to have passengers, the cargo hold is too full to keep a pony in it, and she wouldn’t be able to hide up here on deck. You can check if you want, but sadly all you’ll find is a few goods, some caps, and meds.”

Strife smiled. “Funny, because I find that hard to believe, you see we picked up on a distress signal from one of our sets of power armor. A set that belonged to one of four pegasi who vanished a couple hours ago when they went to Chapel to pick up this pony.”

Gunny started to laugh as he said, “Funny cause Gunny’s crew’s been wonderin’ how ye found The Bitter Cob.”

Strife whipped her head toward him. “I told you not to…”

“Yes, Gunny knows what ye told him, but what seems to be escapin’ dat head of snowy locks on yer noggin is dat this be Capin’ Gunny’s ship and there only be roomin’ for one Capin’ and dat be this ugly mug,” Gunny said, cutting her off, it was then that I realized that Sun Spot wasn’t in my view anymore.

Right when Strife looked ready to give the command to shoot Gunny, a loud ‘thwomp’ filled the air as something exploded from the raptor. That was followed a moment later by Gunny tossing something into the air with a mad laugh, I could tell right away that it was a pulse grenade. Strife was a quick pony though, her and her pegasi took to the air and managed to just get out of the way of the blast. She rounded on Captain Gunny, yelling, “Kill that filthy dirt pony!”

“Sorry to be the news of bad tidings Sniffles, but yer ship be goin’ down,” Gunny said, pointing his hoof at the raptor which in fact was falling from the sky slowly, two of the cloud engines on one side were gone. The ship was slowly sinking to one side as it lost half of its flying power.

“I’ll make you pay for that…” Strife started to yell, sounding more like her brother in her anger, sadly the rest of what she said was lost as Elliot moved over to one of the massive plasma canons on the back of The Bitter Cob and fired it right at the falling raptor.

The bolt of huge plasma exploded into green goo as it slammed into the side of the already dying raptor. It sizzled and started to burn away the hull, the ship giving off an eerie groan as it fell from sight. Gunny took the moment of hesitation from the pegasi to bolt for his battle saddle which was laying next to the hall that led to the rooms. He quickly had it on and ready, the long rifle popping out of its housing on his back. He aimed it up at the pegasi, saying, “Now let’s show ye scallawags what a dirt pony can be doin’.”

He fired, one pegasus falling with a bullet flying though his wing. He screamed as he fell, at least until his chin slapped into the railing on his way down. A spray of blood and a few teeth hitting the deck before his body vanished. I moved to get my own weapons to help fight The Enclave off. I should only need the shotgun I got from Bottlecap, so I picked that up in my magic and ran down the short hall. Gunny blocked my way, his gaze up at the fight unfolding over us.

As he fired again, he said, “Shadow, ya don’t be wantin’ to be seen. Don’t be worryin’ Captin’ Gunny will keep ya safe.”

“But I can help,” I said, trying to push past him, but my small stature was making it easy for him to push me back.

“Gunny knows ya can help, but we don’t be needin’ ya. Right now, The Bitter Cob be just a rogue bunch of strange ponies using an ol’ flyin’ ship. They be forgetting about Gunny and his crew after today. If they know you be on The Bitter Cob, they’ll keep coming after the crew and you,” he said firing again.

I could see his point, but I didn’t like it. I was tired of everypony else protecting me all the damn time. I could stand up for myself and a small part of me didn’t give two shits if this bitch came after me again. I’d put her down like the nut job she was, her brother soon after. But still, I backed up and said quietly, “Fine, but if you need me, just let me know.”

“Gunny don’t think he’ll be needin’ ya, but he knows where to find ya.” And with that he jumped back into the fight along side his crew.

Twenty minutes later, I saw Gunny was right. He didn’t need me, not at all. With at least two dozen pegasi dead and their raptor nothing more than flames and twisted metal on the ground, Captain Strife was forced to retreat with what was left of her pegasi following. She threw out a few curse words and a promise to find Gunny again when she had time, and then she was gone. The Twins landed on the deck panting hard, blood covering parts of them and their weapons. Elliot looked down at his bloody paw, saying, “Damn, I miss my talons.”

“Hey, at least you still have digits,” Sun Spot said. “I’m still not used to them.”

Gunny took a moment to look around, then said, “Looks like they be gone, Elmer…Elliot, whatever, go down to da Raptor and see what ya can find. Sunny be sure to find those trackers in da suits you took so they can’t be a followin’.”

“Aye aye!” They both said and were off again.

Gunny moved over to the side of his ship and spit over the side cursing under his breath, “Fukin’ Wasteland, thinkin’ ya can have ol’ Capin’ Gunny do ya? But ya can’t, he ain’t done yet, not by a long shot. So, ya can go fuck yerself.”

Great, not only was he crazy or mad, he talked to The Wasteland too, like it was a living thing. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers and this weirdo was my only hope to get back to my friends. I waited a moment for him to finish his cursing to The Wasteland before walking over to stand next to him, asking, “Are we going to be safe?”

“Aye, once Sunny takes care of da trackers, den…aye. Luck be with The Bitter Cob and her crew tonight, though it was a close call that was,” he said looking at me. “Gunny be apologized they tacked ya down. Won’t be happenin’ again.”

“You can’t promise that,” I said.

He shrugged, “Gunny can promise whatever he wants, don’t mean he’ll be able to keep said promise. Well almost anythin’, he can’t promise on findin’ good cheese, Gunny loves cheese, though not the blue stuff, smells like a rat’s arse. Tastes like whale bile.”

“O…kay… well then, what now?” I asked, not even wanting to jump down that rabbit hole.

“Be headin’ out again in a flicker. Need to make sure everythin’s sharp-shape. Go back to yer room and do somethin’. Gunny be callin’ you when he needs’ ya,” he said, and with that he headed back to the wheel of the ship yelling, “Make it snappy ye two, Gunny don’t got all day. Gunny be havin’ a love date with bottle later and things could get freakin’!”

I just shook my head and went back into Sun Spot’s room. Once there I took in a deep breath and laid down on her bed. Glory told me I needed to try to get some sleep. I tried over the past couple of days, but it was the same thing every time I tried. Nightmares followed by more, and more, and more. Ever since I left that dream world of Aquila’s, I’d seen the same thing, at least until last night. Last night I dreamt about Silver dying, I saw Tonto go down in a spray of blood, I watched Gigi get stabbed by Archer…Apollo…Aura’s father. As I closed my eyes this time, I knew I was going to see another one…and once I fell into a light slumber, my assumptions were correct.

***

I woke up three hours later, after pulling myself out of yet another nightmare. This time I got to relive Box Tape falling to his death, over and over again. I sighed and groaned as I dragged myself out of Sun Spot’s bed. I yawned and made my way over to her mirror that was propped up on top of her dresser. I took one look at myself and almost looked away instantly. I’d avoided looking at myself over the past few days because I was worried what I’d see. I wish I would’ve stuck to that now that I was seeing myself.

I looked like shit, there was no better way to put it, I looked like…shit. My eyes had sunken in since Aquila had taken over, my mane wasn’t anywhere close to being beautiful, it was flat and lifeless. The red in my eyes weren’t as bright as they’d been before and I’d lost weight. I know I always make a big deal to Stardust about him calling me fat, but that was mostly just me joking. All in all, I was a skinny mare by most accounts, excluding Wind Thrasher, she could pass for a super model in one of those old magazines for how skinny she was. Still, I wasn’t a big mare, even if it as a normal sized pony, add that to my shortness and I looked like a slightly underfed filly. That was before Aquila took over, now I could see my cheeks had sunken in along with my eyes.

I looked like I’d been starved for a couple of weeks, it wasn’t a good look on me. I needed some cookies with a chocolate shake on the side and something greasy to go with it. Shit, I think this is the first time I’ve truly missed Stable 28 and its food. Damn that stable had good food, and great cookies…I love cookies, not cake, I’m not a cake pony, just not my thing, but Cookies…yes please.

“Why am I sitting here thinking about sweets?” I asked my reflection.

“You know that most ponies would say that talking to your own reflection is the first step to going crazy,” Sun Spot said from the doorway, making me jump.

I gasped then frowned at her. “Dammit Sun Spot, are you trying to kill me?”

She giggled. “Nah, if I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have said anything. I would’ve just shot you and walked out of the room. Then I probably would’ve used my seniority against Elliot and made him clean up your corpse.”

I couldn’t help smiling a little. “I don’t think you’d do that, you’d get blood all over your room. Trust me I bleed a lot.”

“Duely noted, anyway, how’d you sleep?” she asked.

“How does it look like I slept?” I asked in return.

She shrugged. “Looks like you didn’t sleep at all, truth be told.”

“You’ve got that right,” I replied, going back to looking at my reflection, then trying to fix my mane as best I could.

“Anyway, Captain Gunny wanted me to let you know that we’re just arriving at New Appaloosa,” she said.

I looked back at her, “Are we going to be landing then?”

“No, the pony we’re meeting will come to us. She runs the shop in town and normally likes to come get her goods directly. Since you’re the pony who’s technically The Courier for the supplies, you’ll have to deal with her,” Sun Spot said. “I’ll warn you though, she’s a Ghoul, but a nice one. Oh, and she can’t talk, heard something a few weeks back that she had her tongue cut out by slavers or something like that.”

“I don’t mind Ghouls, as long as they aren’t trying to rip me to shreds. What’s her name?” I asked.

“Ditzy Doo, Funny because I’ve met her a couple of times before I was…” she gestured to her strange body. “Well, this.”

“Ditzy Doo? That’s the pony who wrote The Wasteland Survival Guide,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to meet her.”

I got up and started to head out of the room, all thoughts of fixing my mane forgotten. I was just going past Sun Spot when she stopped me, by saying, “By the way, when you talk to her, don’t call me Sun Spot okay. I go by Sunny when I’m around ghouls.”

I stopped and asked, “Why?”

“To put it simply, I was declared dead a long time ago. Ghouls were ponies who lived back then and a few of them remember me. Either for good reasons or bad. I don’t like dealing with ponies from my past, so please just keep it to yourself about who I used to be,” she said.

“Alright, no problem,” I said, as I pressed the rest of the way past her.

On the deck itself I saw a small wagon had landed right in the middle, a ghoul pegasus was just unhooking from it. I’d seen a lot of ghouls since I’d entered The Wasteland and still seeing a pegasus one still made me shiver. Their wings were almost skeletal with only a few feathers still hanging on, wings that they could still fly with somehow. This ghoul was the same, but apart from that, she was a lot different than others I’ve met in the past. Most of her coat was gone, the skin that showed looked rotten and sickly. She had a little bit of a glow to her and her mane was nothing more than a few stray straw colored locks holding on for dear life. When she turned to look at me I almost jumped with surprise. One of her eyes was…wrong, that’s the only way I could explain it, her eyes weren’t set the same. One seemed to be looking at me, the other was drifting off skyward…slightly.

She was very creepy looking even for a ghoul, at least she was until she gave me a gap-toothed smile and waved at me. She lifted a chalkboard that was hanging around her neck and wrote something on it quickly with her muzzle then turned it so I could see what she wanted to say, “Hi, I’m Ditzy, it’s nice to meet you.”

Her smile for some reason seemed to take away the creepy side of her appearance and replace it with something, friendlier. I moved closer, ignoring the slight odor that came off her like with most ghouls, and said, “It’s nice to meet you too, I’m Shadow Star.”

She wiped away the last message and wrote again, “That’s a nice name.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She wrote again, “No problem, now, I was told you had the supplies I ordered from Hoofington.”

“I do,” I said, looking around for Elliot or Gunny, spotting the hybrid, I said, “Elliot, do you have the manifest?”

He walked over to me and gave me what I asked for, “Yeah, Bottlecap always trusts me with it, since The Captain has a bad habit of spilling rum on them.”

Gunny laughed from the wheel of his ship. “Aye, but they be makin’ a good coaster. Captin’ Gunny don’t want to be goin’ ‘round and gettin’ rings on his nice desk. Things like that cost a lot of caps they do.”

“Didn’t you steal that desk from an Enclave raptor three weeks back?” Elliot asked with a knowing smile.

“Dat ain’t the point, also, ya can’t prove Gunny stolen anything,” he said with a smug grin.

“It’s stole, not stolen,” Elliot said with a sigh.

“Tis what Captin’ Gunny said, stop yer yammerin’ and let’s get this over with,” Gunny said.

“Aye sir,” Elliot said. “Anyway Shadow, all the information is in here and you’ll find the boxes or crates numbered in the storage area. Captain Gunny may not know a single thing about organization, but I’ve been able to fix that since I came aboard.”

I took the manifest in my magic and looked it over. “Thanks Elliot.” Then saw what Ditzy had ordered. “Let’s see, two boxes of ammo, one with energy cells, three with food stuff, and one with…note paper?”

She nodded her head then wrote, “That sounds right, apart from one box. There should be one with armor too.”

I looked over the manifest again. “Not seeing it, either Bottlecap forgot to load it or she couldn’t get it in time.”

She just smiled again, and wrote, “That’s okay, armor is hard to find. Not many ponies make it anymore.”

I felt a small pain in my chest as she wrote that. Silver was a mare who loved to make that kind of thing. One more pony with great talent who was gone now. I shook it off then said, “I know that all too well, though luckily for me I have a colt that travels with me who’s great at fixing up old armor and making it new again. He’s also great at upgrading it.”

She looked at my combat armor and frowned, then wrote, “I can’t see what’s different about that armor.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little. “No, not this, I’m using this until I get my own back when I find my friends again. I’m very far from home right now and my stuff was left behind. Long story, don’t ask.”

“Where are you from?” she asked…well she wrote it I guess.

“New Pegasus, I’m a courier with Equestrian Express,” I said.

“Oh, really? That’s amazing, I heard you died,” she wrote.

“Nope, I’m still here, just got taken to Hoofington of all places,” I said with a small laugh.

“Silver Belle the filly I watch over will like to hear that. She likes to keep up with DJ Pon3,” she wrote, then wiped it away and continued, “Do you have a copy of my book?”

“I do with my old stuff, though it’s not great for where I live and it’s missing pages,” I said, with a shrug.

She gasped then wrote, “I’ll be right back.”

She dashed to her wagon and came back a moment later with a book. She gave it to me happily. I looked down and saw that it said ‘Wasteland Survival Guide: New Pegasus Edition.’ She beamed as I took it, “Thank you, but I don’t have a lot of caps right now.”

She waved a wing at me, then wrote, “First copy is always free, I don’t need the caps.” She wiped that away after a moment then wrote more, “I didn’t write that book for profit, but to save ponies.”

I smiled then tucked the book in my saddle bags. “Thank you again then. Well let me get your stuff.”

I helped her load the boxes she ordered then took a huge bag of caps from her after. Elliot took the bag from my magic, saying, “I’ll put this in the safe, we’ll be sure to get it back to Bottlecap when we return.”

I thanked him then turned back to Ditzy, her wagon had caught my eye, it said on the side ‘Absolutely Everything’ so I had to ask, “So I’m guessing you have just about everything a pony would need huh?”

She wrote, “Most of the time yes, though the sign is a little misleading.”

“Would you happen to have a Pip-Buck master key?” I asked.

She took a moment to answer. When she did she looked sad. “I’m sorry, but finding those are next to impossible. I haven’t seen one in years.”

“Figured it would be too easy to just buy one I guess. Oh well, thank you though,” I said.

She smiled, then wrote, “Sorry, I can’t help with that, but if you really need one, try looking in stables that’re no longer active.”

“I might have to do that, thanks again Ditzy and it was nice to meet you,” I said as she went to hook herself up to her Wagon.

She wrote back, “Anytime, and next time I make a trip to New Pegasus, I’ll look you up. I like making new friends.”

She smiled again then took off. I watched her go until she was out of sight. Once she was, Sun Spot came out from her room and stood next to me. I took a moment to speak as the ship started to move again and asked, “Why didn’t we just go into town?”

“New Apploosa doesn’t like outsiders coming in lately. Something to do with a mare calling herself The Stable Dweller messing up some trade they had with Slavers,” she replied.

“Slavers? That town is part of the slave trade?” I asked.

She nodded. “Well it used to be, not anymore though. It was how a lot of ponies made their living there. Though I think the mayor in town doesn’t mind it being gone, he’s just trying to save face. It’s a nice town most of the time,” she said with a grin.

“Sure, if a town full of ponies willing to sell their own is nice,” I responded sadly. That was another thing in The Wasteland I wish I could put an end to. The truth was, I had no idea how. New Pegasus didn’t have many slaves around it, but if you got past the city itself and talked to normal everyday ponies, slavery was a worry they all shared. With The Romans around I could understand why.

Sun Spot nudged me, saying, “Don’t dwell on it much okay. Now come with me and I’ll show you how the navigation works, even if you don’t take to it well. It’s okay, as long as Gunny thinks you’re working then we’ll be fine.”

“Okay, but when that’s done, I’m going to jump into a memory orb. Our next destination isn’t for a while yet and I’d like to kill time. Time away from Captain Gunny and his strange ways if I can,” I said with a laugh.

At that moment Gunny poked his head down to look at us, “Captin’ Gunny’s ears be flamin’. What are ya talkin’ about?”

“Nothing,” we both said in unison, then we started to laugh.

***

A few hours later I’d learned a lot about how navigation worked on a ship like this. Though learning and understanding weren’t the same thing. By the time I finished trying to help Sun Spot and Elliot with the ship and navigation, they both wanted to throw me over the side of the ship. Thank the Goddesses Sun Spot and Elliot were both too kind to do it. I was now back in Sun Spot’s room with her. She was settling down to sleep as I pulled one of the memory orbs from my uncle’s box out. This one I knew had to belong to Night Stalker, I could tell now by the slight green or grey glow they had to them.

This one caught my eye almost at once when I saw a note under it that said…

Former headquarters of The Children; still can’t find a way to open the door. This memory orb is a bust, unless I can find the passcode I need. Keeping this one just incase I need it later.

I found myself looking at the shimmering orb, trying to work up the courage to go into it. As I looked down I asked Sun Spot, “So why does Captain Gunny call himself a sky pirate? From what I can tell, all you three do is trade with other ponies.”

“We do most of the time, but when we get a chance now and then, we do go after Enclave ponies or raiders and take them for everything we can. That’s how Gunny makes most of his caps. Like that power armor we stole from the dead pegasi and a few other things inside that downed raptor from earlier. You’d be surprised how much you can make with Enclave stuff being sold to the right buyer. Gunny has a contact in most major settlements across The Wasteland,” she said, laying down and looking at me from her pillow.

“Why do you do it? The Enclave is a big enemy to make isn’t it?” I asked.

“Sure is, but I’m sure you can tell by now that Gunny isn’t scared of anything, I don’t think he’s capable of it. As far as why we do it, well, Gunny hates The Enclave more than most ponies. Something to do with his dead wife I think. He’s never told me the whole story, but I do know that she was a rogue pegasus from a small settlement near Thunderhead,” she said.

“Oh, so his wife was killed by them I guess,” I said.

“He thinks so, but nopony knows really. He says that she was taken away one night when they were near San Flankcisco, he hasn’t seen her since. Far as he knows, she’s dead and he’s been going after The Enclave ever since. He thinks they found her one night and took her,” Sun Spot said rolling onto her back and looking up at the ceiling.

“No wonder he’s lost his marbles, he must’ve loved her a lot,” I said frowning.

She just shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, he’s always been like that, though I’ve only known him for a few months. He takes some getting used to, but all in all he’s a good pony.”

I smiled at that. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“So, are you going to stare into that orb all night?” she asked.

“I think so, I’m just worried something’s going to happen while I’m in the orb,” I replied.

“Don’t worry, I’m here and I’ll keep an eye on you, and if something does happen, I’m not going to leave you behind,” she said with a smile.

“Okay, but you can try and sleep while I’m in it, I don’t know how long it’ll take,” I said.

“No problem with me,” she said, rolling over again.

I took in a deep breath and concentrated my magic on the orb. Like one of the other orbs I’d found of Night Stalker’s, this one was protected. His voice echoed into my head when the connection was made, “Who is the only one I ever trusted?”

As soon as the question was out, I felt something cut off my airway. I gaged as I felt my throat close-up. Only a little air was able to make it out as the orb started to kill me slowly. I almost panicked, but something inside refused to let me. Concentrating with all my power, I said in my head, “Greta Bloodtalon!”

The pressure got worse and I started to gag more, Sun Spot was on her paws, coming over to me to see what was wrong. My eyes bulged and my tongue stuck out as I tried desperately to pull air into my lungs. How could that answer be wrong? Night Stalker never trusted anyone apart from Greta. That’s why he was surprised when she left him. Who else could he have trusted apart from…

“Shadow what’s wrong?” Sun Spot said, but I ignored her as the answer hit me.

I thought desperately, “No pony but yourself!”

The pressure vanished in an instant as Night Stalkers voice echoed in my head, “The only pony who can be trusted with everything you hold dear is yourself.”

The world melted away…

oooOOOooo

What the hell kind of lock was that for a memory orb? I knew Night Stalker was paranoid but holy shit, that was crazy. How the hell had he even done that? He was a fucking pegasus not a unicorn. To be honest I was starting to wonder why I kept finding so many of his orbs. It was like they were drawn to me somehow either that or I was the luckiest pony in The Wasteland, or the unluckiest depending on how you looked at it. Either way, I found myself now in the body of none other than Night Stalker himself and he was in The Crystal Empire.

This had to be many years after the megaspells, because in the distance I could see the shimmering barrier and the black wall of smokey death. Night Stalkers body felt like crap too. Every joint seemed to be on fire, his vision was fading a little and I could feel a stinging pain on his flanks right where his cutie mark should be. Still even with the pain in his limbs and on his flanks, he moved like he didn’t even feel it. He was wearing a cloak of some kind and I could feel through him that something was pulsing on his chest where the cloak clasped together.

The old Pegasus moved down the streets of The Crystal Empire, doing his best to move around the small crowd of ponies. The odd thing was that nopony seemed to look at him, as if he was invisible. Maybe he was using a stealth buck or something like it. I couldn’t tell, but still he moved down the road, heading for a small building not far from the palace.

Instead of walking in through the front door, he made his way around to the back, passing though a small alleyway. Once he was there he moved to the back door and pulled out a small green gem and pressed it to the lock. The gem looked like it was hovering in mid air as he used it. The gem flashed and a moment later I could hear the lock click. After putting the gem back into his pocket he slowly opened the door. My host took a moment to look around inside before slipping through. He quietly shut the door behind him and locked it again.

He moved through the dimly lit room, which looked like some kind of lab and made his way to another door. This door was open slightly and voices could be heard coming from the crack in the door. Night Stalker moved an eye up to the crack and looked out at the two stallions who were talking. One was a very short unicorn stallion who could barely see over the counter he was standing behind. He had a bright blue mane with a violet coat and bright grey eyes. His cutie mark was just visible under his lab coat, a six pointed blue and white star with a zebra glyph in its center.

He was talking with a Pegasus who was just as tall and big as Night Stalker, his eyes were a bright green, his mane a mix of gold and black, and his coat a grayish blue color. He had a nasty scar right across his muzzle, I couldn’t make out his cutie mark because he was in a military uniform. He looked like the conversation he was having with the short unicorn was making him angry.

“Listen to me Dwarf Star, I know you have your mother’s notes and her old spell book. The Enclave needs them, before my father decides to pay The Crystal Empire a visit and takes them for himself,” the tall pegasus said in a deep growling voice.

Dwarf Star, that short unicorn was my distant grandfather. I guess the short stature did run in the family, he was close to the same height as me. Poor buck, at least me being a mare it wasn’t so bad being so short, but for a stallion it had to be a hard life when he was young. My grandfather cleared his throat and spoke in a kind and gentle voice, “I’ve told you before Night Rain, that I don’t have access to them, I never have. Minuette and Amethyst Star hid those things in the old library, a library that nopony knows where it is. I don’t know if Night Stalker knows where that is, but I was only a foal when my parents died and they didn’t leave me with anything to find the location.”

Night Rain slammed is hoof down on the counter, shouting, “I don’t believe you Dwarf Star, I know that you have information on Falling Shadows! You’ve been looking into that old project for twenty years now and you mean to tell me that you still haven’t found where your disgrace of a mother left her fucking notes!”

I saw a flash of grey light around Dwarf Star’s horn for a moment as his eyes flared with anger, then he calmed himself down, saying, “I have looked into that project because High Council Pony Thunderlane asked me to many years ago, wanting to know why the project was locked down. With the loss of so much intel when the megaspells hit, it’s been a hard journey. I told the same to your little sister Nightingale just last week.”

“Thunderlane wants that info and he knows you have it,” Night Rain said.

“Then he’s wrong, if the High Council Pony wants to find the information on the project he helped make then he should look into it himself. He worked with both of my mothers, he should know more than I do,” Dwarf Star said, sounding bored. “Now if that’s all you came here for then please leave my lab.”

Night Rain pointed a hoof into Dwarf Star’s face. “I am a Captain in The Grand Pegasus Enclave special military force, you can’t kick me out.”

“And I am the most powerful unicorn in The Enclave and the head of the city council, also the head of the science department, and a well respected citizen of The Crystal Empire. You have no power over me here Night Rain, now get out of my shop and if any of your family wants to come back here then it had better be your mother or your sister, because I don’t feel like talking to either you or your brother anymore. You disgust me, to think you two had the balls to kill your eldest brother only because he defended your father,” Dwarf Star said.

“Watch your tone with me Dwarf Star!” Night Rain shouted.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Dwarf Star said, his horn flashing. A moment later Night Rain was lifted in the air. “Don’t come back to my lab again, if you do, our conversation will end with you as a pile of ash.” and with that, he blasted Night Rain right out of the front door.

Night Rain slammed into the road and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. He picked himself up looking like he wanted to go back in and kill the small unicorn. But he must’ve thought better of it, because he opened his wings and flew away. Night Stalker waited a moment, making sure Night Rain was gone before opening the door from the back room and walking into the front.

Dwarf Star looked over at the door and a small smile came to his lips as Night Stalker pulled down his hood and his body came into view. I guess the cloak he had on was what was making him invisible. Dwarf Star looked my host up and down, saying, “Were’d you get a zebra stealth cloak Night…”

Night Stalker cut him off. “Don’t use my name here Dwarf Star, there’s no telling if my son left a bug behind.”

Dwarf Star’s horn flashed, and a gray light flew all over the room. He shrugged, saying, “Nothing that I can find.”

I felt Night Stalkers body relax a little as he said, “Good, but still I’m not going by that name anymore.”

“Then what should I call you?” Dwarf Star asked as he walked over to the door to his lab and closed it.

“Absent Moon will do, I haven’t used that name in over forty-five years. The ponies who knew me by that name are all dead now, so I’m not worried about using it. As for the stealth cloak, well let’s just say an old zebra friend of mine gave it to me a couple weeks back,” Night Stalker said as he looked around the small laboratory.

“I’ll just believe that you killed a zebra to get it,” Dwarf Star said.

“Either you’re testing me or you really haven’t kept up with your mother’s research over the years like I’ve heard. Because if you try to steal a cloak like this from a zebra even by killing them, the cloak turns into black mist,” Night Stalker said as he went over to a small picture standing behind the counter. It was a picture of Amethyst Star and Minuette, Min was holding a bundle in her hooves laying on a hospital bed, both looking happy.

“I was testing you,” Dwarf Star said, walking over to stand next to my host.

“I remember this day well, Min wanted so bad to be a mother, the day she decided to get pregnant was the happiest day of her life. Strange though that you’d have this picture of your moms and not others. I know they took a lot with you before…well you know,” Night Stalker said.

“It was the only one the ponies who raised me had. I’ve found a few of Minuette and Amethyst either together or separate but none with me in them. When my mother gave me to the ponies who raised me, I don’t think she was thinking much about me remembering her, honestly I don’t think she cared,” he said.

My host looked over and down at the small stallion. “She cared, she cared a lot. But losing your other mom broke something inside her, she didn’t know what to do with herself once Amethyst died. She started working against The Children and The Ministries toward the end, she even tried to get me killed before she up and vanished. Giving you up I think was her way of making sure you didn’t fall into her madness.”

He sighed and turned away from the picture. “So tell me Absent, what are you doing here?”

My host took another minute to look at the picture of his old friend before saying, “I know what you told my son about not knowing where Min’s notes and research was, but I know that’s a lie.”

“Even if it was, that doesn’t mean I’m going to give it to you Absent. The only reason I said you could meet with me today is because you said you had information for me about my mom and that’s all,” he said.

Night Stalker laughed. “I don’t need her notes or anything like that. I know everything about Falling Shadows. I even know where the notes are kept and everything of Min’s, even her grimoire. If I needed them, I would’ve just gone to her old library and taken them.”

“Then why bring them up and why are you even here?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

“I want you to do everything you can to hide those notes and her grimoire. Make sure there are more spells around the entrance to the library and start spreading rumors about the notes being lost. Anything you can to make ponies forget about the project and who started it,” my host said.

Dwarf Star looked at my host curiously. “Out of all ponies I thought you’d be the first to want to know more about what happened to the project. From what I’ve learned over the years, you’ve been trying to find a way to unlock your own project so you can use it.”

“That was true, until a few months ago,” Night Stalker said with a deep sigh. “I’ve learned something about what my project was truly meant to do and because of that, I can’t let anypony ever use it. So, I’ve decided to make sure nopony ever can. I’ve set things up and I’m getting close to finishing what I have to do, but before I can, I need a pony like you to help me.”

“I’ve always figured Falling Shadows was some kind of weapon, what’s new about that?” he said.

My host sighed again then looked toward the door to his lab. “Let’s go into your lab before I explain what I can.”

“Sure,” Dwarf Star said, leading the way.

Once they were in the small lab, and Dwarf Star turned on the lights, Night Stalker said, “It was never meant to be a weapon itself, it’s true purpose was to turn Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon again, only with full control of her mind.”

“If that’s true, then how can anypony else use it? Princess Luna died forty years ago,” Dwarf Star asked.

“Minuette said that the same thing can be done to another pony who’s powerful enough to survive the transfer of power. It’d be hard because they would have to let something very powerful into their mind and body to do it and activate the project. If they can win the fight against this being they would be the most powerful pony in history. But if they lose the battle against this being, then that creature would take that power for itself. But that’s not what makes the project scary,” Night Stalker said.

“From what I can tell, that’s plenty scary,” Dwarf Star replied.

“True enough, but it’s nothing compared to what truly will happen if the project is used. You see, the power it would take to make a pony into a powerhouse like Nightmare Moon could and will open a rift into places like Tartarus. If that happens, then something dark and powerful will get free and our world will be doomed, more than it already has been. His power would make the war look like a fight in a bar,” he said.

Dwarf Star paled at that. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am, that’s why I want to make sure nopony can ever use it,” Night Stalker said.

“What could be that powerful?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you everything about him, honestly I don’t know much myself. But an old zebra that lives with my friend told me about him, if you want to know more then you’ll have to research him yourself, his name is Mezzanotte,” Night Stalker said.

Dwarf Star started to tap as his lower jaw as he thought. “Sounds zebra like to me, or old Zebra, I think it mean’s midnight. Well if you think he’s that scary then I guess I have no choice but to help you Absent, but I’m not sure what I can do apart from hide some notes and cast a few spells.”

“First you won’t be helping me as much as my daughter, her name is Nightingale. She’s going to be coming to The Crystal Empire soon with her foal. She’s taking on my zebra friend’s old role as guardian. She’ll tell you what she’ll need help with. As for me, all I need you to do is help me make some memory orbs,” Night Stalker said.

“Why memory Orbs? Also, what kind of spell do you want me to use if I do? Some will just copy the memory, others will remove the memory from your head and some can only block the memory,” he said.

“I need you to make the orbs because one day, a descendent of mine will need them. Don’t ask me how I know this, but trust me, she’s going to need all the help she can get and I have to make sure she gets it,” my host said.

“So, you can see into the future now is that it?” Dwarf Star asked, sounding like he thought Night Stalker had lost his mind.

“No, but something else can, he was the one who told me what would happen and what I needed to do to stop it. Even everything we’re doing today will only slow-down the events until she is born,” Night Stalker said, then in a quieter voice he said, “She will also end the curse.”

Dwarf Star rolled his eyes. “That stupid curse? I can’t believe you of all ponies believe in that kind of thing.”

“Trust me, one day you will too Dwarf Star,” my host said, sounding sad and angry at the same time.

“I don’t think I will, but let’s say I did believe you, how do you know this ‘her’ can stop Falling Shadows or this curse?” Dwarf Star asked.

“For Falling Shadows, I don’t know, even the…thing…that told me what I needed to do wasn’t entirely sure it would go the way he hoped, but it’s the best chance,” Night Stalker said.

Dwarf Star rolled his eyes again. “Okay fine, and the curse?”

Night Stalker took in a deep breath then recited. “Hooves of fate, tales of woe. The sights of your future are full of a dangerous foe. When the ponies of night fall at last, the mare who will rise off a deadly cast. Her power will be great, but her path will be cold. When the pony of shadows and light falls to the might, she will rise again with the purest of light. She will find the decedents of the night’s past and bring them to be one at last. She will defeat the last of the betrayer’s seed, and break the curse out of great need. Once this is done the curse will be gone, and the family of night can continue to live on.”

Dwarf Star blinked a few times. “So, you’re writing songs now Absent? How does any of that make sense? Did you visit some crazed zebra or something?”

“I didn’t write anything Dwarf Star. I heard that many years ago when I was in Las Pegasus, I heard it again from the same old zebra a few weeks ago. She hadn’t aged a day in all that time. She told me about a descendent of mine and yours that will one day break this curse. She will find the descendant of the one who betrayed The Children of the Night and kill them. But only after she brings the descendants of The Children of the Night together again. That is to say, the descendants of the ones of who were true to Luna and Equestria that is,” Night Stalker said. “And it has to happen after all of us are already dead.”

“This rhyme, or song or whatever it is, is just that, a bunch of words that sound pretty when recited, besides you don’t have proof that it’s even real. I think this zebra of yours is crazy or you are,” Dwarf Star said. “But I do know that my mother believed in this same curse, so I guess I can see where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna like it but, I’ll help you.”

“Good, I’d like to start now if that’s alright. All of the memories I tell you to copy I want you to, but leave them intact in my head. All but one,” Night Stalker said.

Dwarf Star shrugged. “I can do that. Which memory is it you need removed?”

Night Stalker stiffened a little as he said, “On the day the megaspells came, I was at The Children of the Night’s old base. I had two items I was hiding there from Minuette just in case she showed up again. We weren’t using the base anymore so I knew she wouldn’t look there for it. One was a memory crystal that belonged to a member of Luna’s old guards, the first Children of the Night. It has information on it that could be useful in understanding what Falling Shadows can truly do. The other item is something I can’t tell even you about, but it will be needed to stop Star Gazer, it’s deadly to the creature who is part of that project but only if a unicorn of great power uses it.”

“I’m guessing you’ll want me to take the memory of coming here out too then huh?” Dwarf Star said.

“You’ll need to copy this one too, but block part of this memory from me, just in case I run into a unicorn who can find the memory of today. I’ll need you to also lock the memory orbs with different questions to make sure they’re safe,” Night Stalker said.

Dwarf Star sighed. “Okay, but this is going to take a long time. I hope you’re ready.”

“I am,” Night Stalker said.

“Okay then, let’s start with that memory of when Equestria died,” Dwarf Star said, his horn glowing…

oooOOOooo

I came out of the memory orb slowly. When I did I looked down at the shining glass ball. My brain couldn’t even comprehend what was said in that orb. Somehow, someway, my great, great something great grandfather knew what was going to happen. He knew about me and what I was going to need so I could stop Falling Shadows. He also had something that could stop Star Gazer, something that was deadly to Aquila. He also said something about somepony called Mezzanotte. I know I’ve heard that name somewhere before, but I couldn’t put my hoof on it. Whoever or whatever he was, he was powerful and part of Falling Shadows. And just to top it all off, he thought I was the mare who could stop this curse on our family.

How was I going to find the descendants of The Children of the Night? As far as I knew the only ones I knew about were well me, Mom, Uncle Ori, Striker, Dad, Aura and her sisters. Also, Winter Frost and his Sister. Not only did I have to find the rest of the descendants if there were any more, I’d also have to kill one or more of them if they were the ones who betrayed The Children of the Night. What if it was one of my friends? How could I even think about doing something like that?

Right now, the only thing I can do is worry about getting back to my friends. Once I was with them, I could talk it all over with them. Then something else came to me. I needed to get to the old base in Canterlot. Whatever was left there was something I needed. So, I got up and shook Sun Spot who fell asleep while I was in my orb.

She rolled over and looked up into my face. “What’s wrong Shadow?”

“We need to go to Canterlot,” I said.

“WHAT!?” she said jumping out of her bed. “Are you nuts? Do you know what that city is like?”

“No, I’ve never read much about it since I left my stable. Why?” I asked.

“Canterlot is deadly to go into, it’s covered in a pink cloud that will either turn you into a ghoul unlike any you’ve seen before, or it will fuse you with the ground or buildings around you,” she replied. “Gunny showed it to us a month or so back, there’s no way you can go there.”

“It doesn’t matter, I have to go there. If I don’t, it might spell doom for The Wasteland,” I said.

“Doomin’ and gloomin’ be Capin’ Gunny’s Middle name!” Gunny said, as he opened the door to our room. “Be sorry ladies, err, whatever, but Gunny couldn’t help over hearin’ ya from the room yonder.”

“Captain, she’s crazy if she thinks she can go to Canterlot,” Sun Spot said.

“Maybe she be, or maybe she don’t be. Be depending on da place in the pointy pinky cloudy city she be needin’ to go,” Gunny said with a laugh.

“The Entrance to the old base of The Children of the Night, its located on the tallest cliff overlooking the city,” I said, wondering how bad this so called pink cloud could really be.

“Wait, you just need to get to the top of the tallest cliff, not into the city itself?” Sun Spot asked, sounding less scared.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Aye, then Capin’ Gunny may be able to help ya. As long as ya don’t need to be goin’ into the old pinky cloud of creepness, then ya should be okay. Though ya can’t stay too long, Capin’ Gunny heard alicorns be spotted there not long ago,” Gunny said.

“I’ll be in and out,” I said.

Gunny took a moment to think, it looked hard, then he finally said with a mighty laugh, “An adventure be waitin’ that it be. Maybe Gunny and his crew be findin’ some good lootin’ while we be there.”

“Captain, I still think it’s a bad idea. You know how dangerous the area even around Canterlot is,” Sun Spot said.

“Aye, but Gunny also likes an adventure and caps,” Gunny said with a mad smile. “First mate, head topside, and be changin’ our course fer Canterlot.”

“Sir…” Sun Spot said.

“All Capin’ Gunny want to be hearin’ is a proper ‘aye aye’.” Gunny said.

She sighed, and said, “Aye, aye Captain.”

“Dat be da spirit lass, now be off with ya,” he said.

“Thanks Captain Gunny, this means a lot to me,” I said as Sun Spot headed out of the room.

He waited a moment for her to get to the upper deck before he turned back to me, all his humor gone. “Listen to Ol’ Capin’ Gunny Shadow. If anythin’ be happen to Gunny’s crew or ship, he’ll hunt ya down till ya be dead or Gunny be. He only be doin’ this because Bottlecap said Gunny had to go wherever ya said he did.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, then said slowly, “We’ll be in and out, you can take whatever you want as long as it’s not the items I need. I know The Children of the Night had a lot of priceless things. You can make a lot of caps with this.”

“As long as Gunny be alive, den he don’t care much. Now head up to the deck too, time for ya to be earnin’ yer keep. Gunny might have to go wherever ya want him to go, but dat don’t mean ya can be lazy,” he said.

“Yes sir,” I said.

He smiled a little. “How many times does Gunny have to say it, I want a proper ‘aye, aye’?”

I smiled back. “Aye, aye Captain Gunny.”

And with that, I followed the captain up to the deck. Soon we’d be heading to Canterlot then to Aura. That’s if I lived through what I was about to do. “Aura, I hope you’ll forgive me for making you wait just a little longer. I’ll see you soon my love,” I said to the night air, then headed up to help Elliot and Sun Spot as we turned the ship toward a small dot in the distance.

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Idiot Savant: Duuuhhhh…. You’ve spent so much time with Captain Gunny, that every once in a while, you’ll have some moments where you’re not the smartest, but you are the luckiest. With a +1 addition to luck you also have a chance to bank a critical hit in S.A.T.S.